N00941:330
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.
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.
And it is especially thus in the Conjugal Relation. The God of Love sometimes Disposes them, whom He has made Consorts in the Conjugal Relation, greatly to love and prize one another. The Consorts are to each other, the Desire of their Eyes; & they so Love each other, that they Love to be as much as may be in the Sight of each other. About the one of these Relatives, tis said, Prov. 18. 22. He that findeth it, findeth a Good Thing, and obtaineth Favour of the Lord. And that is the opinion which both of them have of each other: This is a Good and a Great Gift of God unto me! Highly favoured of God was I, in His Giving of it. It may be, before they were first Acquainted, they humbly Cried unto God, that He would Choose for them, what […] ⟨p. 198⟩they should Live withal; and God so answers those prayers and cries, that every Day afterwards, as long as they Live together, they give Thanks unto God for giving them to Live together. They Live together, like Abraham and Sarah; Like Isaac and Rebeckah; like Jacob and […] They Live together in […] Happiness, that they could freely Die for one another; and when either of them does Die, it gives a thousand Deaths to the Survivor. They set a mighty value upon one another; the Satisfaction which they take in one another is inexpressible. The Husband is of great Esteem in the Eyes of his Wife. She loves to See him, and much more, loves to please him. Such a Covering of the Eyes he is unto her, that all the men upon Earth, are nothing in her Eyes, in comparison of him. And she will no more look upon another, than the Wise of Tigranes, who after the Wedding of Cyrus, whom every one did commer•d as the rarest person in the Company, being asked by her Husband, What she thought of him! answered, In truth, I looked at no body there, but you, my Husband. But her Esteem for him, is like that in the Wife of Phocion. ⟨p. 199⟩who, when a Lady had shown her Treasures and Jewels unto her, by way of Requital only showed her Phocion, saying, All my Treasures and Jewels are in him! The Wife is of as great Esteem in the Eyes of her Husband. He Loves her, & her Love; and rejoices in his Loving Hind and his pleasant Roe He had rather lose all his Possessions, than suffer the loss of One whom God had thus Enriched him withal. He can scarce relish any thing, if his Eyes have not her also before him.