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

Secondly, The Motive stirring him up to give this relieving and comfortable Counsel to her, was his own Compassion. She neither expected, nor desired it from him; but so full of tender pity was the Lord towards her, that he prevents her with unexpected consolation: Her heart was nothing so full of compassion for her Son, as Christ was for her: He bore our infirmities, even natural as well as moral ones, in the days of his flesh; and though he be now exalted to the highest glory, yet still he continues as merciful as ever, and as apt to be touched with the sense of our miseries, Heb. 4. 15.

Secondly, The Motive stirring him up to give this relieving and comfortable Councel to her, was his own Compassion. She neither expected, nor desired it from him; but so full of tender pittty was the Lord towards her, that he prevents her with unexpected consolation: Her heart was nothing so full of compassion for her Son, as Christ was for her: He bore our infirmities, even natural as well as moral ones, in the dayes of his flesh; and though he be now exalted to the highest glory, yet still he continues as merciful as ever, and as apt to be touched with the sense of our miseries, Heb. 4. 15.

Lastly, The Counsel it self, Weep not, herein fulfilling the office of a Comforter to them that mourn, whereunto he was anointed, Isa. 61. 1, 2, 3. Yet the words are not an absolute prohibition of tears and sorrow; he doth not Condemn •ll mourning as sinful, or all expressions of grief for dead Relations as uncomely: no, Christ would not have his people stupid and insensate; he only prohibits the excesses and extravagances of our sorrows ⟨p. 9⟩for the dead, that it should not be such a mourning for the dead as is found among the Heathens, who sorrow without measure, because without hope, being ignorant of that grand relief by the Resurrection which the Gospel reveals.