A39690:445
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.
1. Answer.
There is no man so throughly sanctified, as not to fail and come short in many things pertaining to his relative duties. And to speak as the thing is, the corruptions of the holiest persons are as much discovered in this, as in any other thing whatsoever. And it's a very common thing for Conscience, not only to charge these failures upon us, but to aggravate them to the uttermost when God hath made the separation. So that this is no more than what is usual and very common with persons in your case.
2. Answer.
Admit that which the Objection supposes, that God hath afflicted you for your sin, and removed that comfort from you which you Idolized and too much ⟨p. 142⟩doted on; yet there is no reason you should be so cast down under your affliction; for all this may be, and probably is the fruit of his love to, and care over your soul. Rev. 3. 19. He tells the afflicted for their comfort, Whom I love, I rebuke and chasten. How much better is it to have an Idolized enjoyment taken from you in mercy, than if God should say concerning you as he did of Ephraim,