N00941:50
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.
1. Enjoy all as from God and for God, and then you will be ready to part with all your Enjoyments at the Cal• of God. It was said, Matth. 20. 5. May not I do what I will with my own? Whatever we have, write upon it, This is the Lords own! Oh that we could say of every thing, This is Gods! And use it as His alone.
2. Delight not overmuch in what you enjoy, and then you will be ready to part with what you enjoy. We read Jon 4. 6, 7. Jonah was Exceeding glad of the Gourd; [the Palma Christi:] but God prepared a worm and it smote the gourd that it withered, and Jonah was Angry for the gourd. Thus it is with our Comforts; when they are Dead, the gourd is withered; but Jonah was angry for the gourd; It was a Disturbance unto him to loose a Gourd; why, because he was exceeding glad of the gourd. When the thing of this World make us, Exceeding glad tis well if we be not Exceeding mad when those things are taken from us. Let us then he taken up with better ⟨p. 26⟩things, Particularly, instead of delighting in our Children, let us be delighting in the Son of God as infinitely better than Ten Sons.
3. Be mindful; that you your selves are shortly Dye, and be always ready to Dye. 'Tis said, I Cor. 7. 29. The Time is short, therefore let those that have this and that he as though they had it not. The Time is short! Think, It will be but a little while that I shall have anything. That will make us willing to part with it, when God will have it parted withal. A Dying man is a man Crucified unto the World. Oh, place your selves in the circumstances of a Dying man, and the world will then be no more to you than to a Dying man It will produce a moderation both to our value and sorrow for these things, when we Remember, The Lord is at hand! Oh, look at all evil things then but as the Inconveniences of our Inn. Suppose our Children Dye, and they Get home before us, it is the same home we are our selves going to. Let us with the Disposition of Strangers, and of Sojourners, and of Travellers here, keep going on to the Rest that remains for the People of God.