N30070:143
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 God's afflicted ones prescribed. / By John Flavel, Preacher of the Gospel of Christ at Dartmouth in Devon. ; [Two lines of Latin text]
Boston: printed by S. Kneeland, 1730
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.
If this therefore be thy Case, who readest these Lines; afflicted and unsanctified, mourning bitterly for thy dead Friends, hast more cause to mourn for thy dead Soul, Christless and Graceless, as well as Childless or Friendless: No comfort in hand, nor yet in Hope, full of Trouble, and no vent by Prayer or Faith to ease thy Heart.
Poor Creature, thy Case is sad, but yet do not wholly sink, and suffer thy self to be swallowed up of Grief; thou hast laid thy dear one in the Grave, yet throw not thy self headlong into the Grave, after him; that will not be the way to remedy thy Misery: But sit down a while and ponder these three things.
First, That of all Persons in the World thou hast most Reason to be tender over thy Life and Health, and careful to preserve it; for if thy Troubles destroy thee, thou art eternally lost, undone for ever. Worldly Sorrow, saith the Apostle, worketh Death, And it it works thy Death, it works thy Damnation ⟨p. 41⟩also; for Hell follows that pale Horse, Rev. 6.8. If a Believer dies, there's no Danger of Hell to him, the Second Death hath no Power over him; but woe to thee if it overtake thee in thy Sin; beware therefore what thou dost do against thy Health and Life. Do not put the Candle of Sorrow too near that Thread, by which thou hangest over the Mouth of Hell.
First, That of all Persons in the World thou hast most Reason to be tender over thy Life and Health, and careful to preserve it; for if thy Troubles destr•y thee, thou art eternally lost, undone for ever. Worldly Sorr•w, saith the Apostle, worketh Death, And it it works thy Death, it works thy Damnation