A token for mourners, or, The advice of Christ to a distressed mother, bewailing…

First, It was the Death of a Son. To bury a Child, any Child must needs rend the Heart of a tender Parent; for what are Children but the Parent multiplied? A Child is a part of the Parent made up in another Skin. But to lay a Son in the Grave, a Son which continues the Name, and supports the Family; this was ever accounted a very great Affliction.

Secondly, This Son was not carried from the Cradle to the Coffin, nor stripped out of its Swathing, to be wrapped in it's Winding-Cloth: Had he died in Infancy, before he had engaged Affection, or raised Expectation, the Affliction had not been so punge•• and cutting, as now it was; Death smote this Son in the Flower and Prime of his Time. He was a Man, saith the Evangelist, ver. 12. a young Man, as Christ calls him, ver. 14. he was now arrived^* at that Age which made him capable of yielding his Mother all that Comfort which had been the Expectation and Hope of many Years, and the Reward and Fruit of many Cares and Labours: Yet then when the endearments ⟨p. 4⟩were greatest, and her Hopes highest, even in the Flower of his Age, he is cut off.

Secondly, This Son was not carried from the Cradle to the Coffin, nor stript out of its Swathing, to be wrapt in it's Winding-Cloth: Had he died in Infancy, before he had engaged Affection, or raised Expectation, the Affliction had not been so punge•• and cutting, as now it was; Death smote this Son in the Flower and Prime of his Time. He was a Man, saith the Evangelist, ver. 12. a young Man, as Christ calls him, ver. 14. he was now arrived^* at that Age which made him capable of yielding his Mother all that Comfort which had been the Expectation and Hope of many Years, and the Reward and Fruit of many Cares and Labours: Yet then when the endearments ⟨p. 4⟩