A39690:53
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.
But to die, and then return again from the dead, hath less of privilege, than to return only from the brink of the grave; for the sick hath not yet felt the agonies and last struggles or pangs of death: but such have felt them once, and must feel them again; they must die twice, before they can be happy once: and besides, during the little time they spend on earth betwixt the first and second dissolution, there is a perfect [Greek or Hebrew] forgetfulness and insensibleness of all that which they saw or enjoyed in their state of separation: It being necessary, both for them, and others that it should be so; for themselves its necessary, that they may be content to live, and endure the time of separation from that 1blessed and ineffable state, quietly and patiently; and for others, that they may live by faith, and not by sense, and build upon divine and not humane authority and report.
But to die, and then return again from the dead, hath less of priviledge, than to return only from the brink of the grave; for the sick hath not yet felt the agonies and last struggles or pangs ofdeath: but such have felt them once, and must feel them again; they must die twice, before they can be happy once: and besides, during the little time they spend on earth betwixt the first and second dissolution, there is a perfect 〈non-Latin alphabet〉 forgetfulness and insensibleness of all that which they saw or enjoyed in their state of separation: It being necessary, both for them, and others that it should be so; for themselves its necessary, that they may be content to live, and endure the time of separation from that 1blessed and ineffable state, quietly and patiently; and for others, that they may live by faith, and not by sense, and build upon divine and not humane authority and report.
- 1Victurosque dii celant, ut vivere durent.