A token for mourners, or, The advice of Christ to a distressed mother bewailing…

So would your departed friend say to you: you have professed much love ⟨p. 88⟩all along to me, my happiness seemed to be very dear to you; How comes it to pass then, that you mourn so exceedingly now? This is rather the effect of a fond and fleshly, than of rational and spiritual love: If ye loved me with a pure spiritual love, ye would rejoice that I am gone to my Father. It's infinitely better for me to be here, than with you on earth, under sin and sorrow. Weep not for me, but for your selves.

So would your departed friend say to you: you have professed much love ⟨p. 88⟩all along to me, my happiness seemed to be very dear to you; How comes it to pass then, that you mourn so exceedingly now? This is rather the effect of a fond and fleshly, than of rational and spiritual love: If ye loved me with a pure spiritual love, ye would rejoyce that I am gone to my Father. It's infinitely better for me to be here, than with you on earth, under sin and sorrow. Weep not for me, but for your selves.

Alas, though you want your friends company, he wants not yours: Your care was to provide for this child, but Jesus Christ hath provided infinitely better for it than you could; you intended an Estate, but he a Kingdom for it: you thought upon such or such a match, but Christ hath forbid all others, and married your child to himself. Would you imagine an higher preferment for the fruit of your bodies?

A King from heaven hath sent for your friend, and do you grudge at the journey? O think, and think again, what an honour it is to you, that Christ hath taken them out of your bosom, and laid them in his own: stripped them out of those garments you provided, and clothed