N00941:157
Meat out of the eater. Or, Funeral-discourses occasioned by the death of several relatives.…
Meat out of the eater. Or, Funeral-discourses occasioned by the death of several relatives. Work accommodated unto the service of all that are in any affliction; but very particularly such as are afflicted with the loss of their consorts or children. / By Cotton Mather. ; [Four lines from I Corinthians]
Boston: printed by B. Green & J. Allen for Benjamin Eliot, 1703
Title page typeset from the transcription.
Good news FROM A Far Country: For the Solace of them, whose Friends… › APPLICATION.
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.
Think thus, O my Distressed Hearers, concerning your Dead Relatives; yea, tho' it were a Son of thy Love, or tho' it were a Lamb that was a Daughter unto thee! When the Great Luther saw, his Little Daughter Magdalene, whom he dearly Loved, lying at the point of Death, he Read unto her, some clauses in the Twenty Sixth Chapter of Isaiah, and at length concluded thus; Well, my Daughter, Enter thou into thy Chamber with Peace, I shall ere long be with thee there. On, this, he wept plentifully; but in the Public attended the Hearse without a Tear. Truly, It won't be long before we are with our Desirable Relatives in the Heavenly Chambers of Eternal Peace and Life. How can we Weep, any otherwise than for Joy, when we consider it?
Think thus, O my Distressed Hearers, concerning your Dead Relatives; yea, tho' it were a Son of thy Love, or tho' it were a Lamb that was a Daughter unto thee! When the Great Luther saw, his Little Daughter Magdalene, whom he dearly Loved, lying at the point of Death, he Read unto her, some clauses in the Twenty Sixth Chapter of Isaiah, and at length concluded thus; Well, my Daughter, Enter thou into thy Chamber with Peace, I shall ere long be with thee there. On, this, he wept plentifully; but in the Publick attended the Herse without a Tear. Truly, It won't be long before we are with our Desireable Relatives in the Heavenly Chambers of Eternal Peace and Life. How can we Weep, any otherwise than for Joy, when we consider it?
But may this Consolation be applied unto ⟨p. 97⟩the Death of our Infants? Yes. Why not? The Lord said of old in His Gracious Covenant; I will be a God unto thee, and unto thy Children. The Infants of the Faithful, were in the Days of the Old Testament, the Heirs of the Promise; Hence the Seal of that promise was then by the Divine Appointment used upon Infants, a Seal that God Accepted them as Righteous through' the Messiah which their Parents believed on. But I argue; If the Infant. of the Faithful, were in the Covenant of Grace under the Old Testament, they are so still under the New. For, where, or when, are they Cut off? Or, have we lost the privileges of the New Covenant, by being under the New Testament It cannot be imagined. Well then; If God be a God unto our Infant Children, What will fold low? I tell you, O my Brethren in Adversity, Nothing less than a Glorious Heaven will follow. Wonder, Oh, wonder at the Grace of God, Ensured unto them, in those words of His Apostle;