A39690:320
A token for mourners, or, The advice of Christ to a distressed mother bewailing…
A token for mourners, or, The advice of Christ to a distressed mother bewailing the death of her dear and only son wherein the boundaries of sorrow are duly fixed, excesses restrained, the common pleas answered, and divers rules for the support of Gods afflicted ones prescribed / by J.F.
London: printed for Robert Boulter, 1674
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
O beware what you do before the world; they have eyes to see what you can do, as well as ears to hear what you can say. And as long as your carriage under troubles is so much like their own, they will never think your principles are better than theirs. Carnal worldlings will be drawn to think that whatever fine talk you might have about God and heaven, your hearts were most upon the same things that theirs were, since your grief for their removal is as great as theirs.
They know by experience, what a stay it is to the heart to have an able, faithful friend to depend upon, or to have hopes of a great Estate shortly to fall to them; and they'll never be persuaded you have any such ground of comfort; if they see you as much cast down, as they that pretend to no such matter.
They know by experience, what a stay it is to the heart to have an able, faithful friend to depend upon, or to have hopes of a great Estate shortly to fall to them; and they'le never be perswaded you have any such ground of comfort; if they see you as much cast down, as they that pretend to no such matter.
By this means the precepts of Christ to constancy and contentment in all Estates, ⟨p. 106⟩will come to be looked upon (like those of the Stoics) only as magnifica verba, brave words, but such as are impossible to be practised; and the whole of the Gospel will be taken for an airy notion, since they that profess greatest regard to it, are no more helped thereby.
By this means the precepts of Christ to constancy and contentment in all Estates, ⟨p. 106⟩