N30070:52
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.
Lastly, The Counsel it self, Weep not; herein fulfilling the Office of a Comforter to them that Mourn, whereunto he was anointed, Isa. 16.1, 2, 3. Yet the Words ⟨p. 8⟩are not an absolute Prohibition of Tears and Sorrows, he doth not condemn all Mourning as sinful, or all Expressions of Grief for dead Relations as uncomely: No, Christ would not have his People stupid and insensate; he only prohibits the Excesses & Extravagances of our Sorrows for the Dead, that it should not be such a Mourning for the Dead as is found among the Heathen, who Sorrow without Measure, because without Hope, being ignorant of that Grand Relief by the Resurrection which the Gospel reveals.
Lastly, The Counsel it self, Weep not; herein fulfilling the Office of a Comforter to them that Mourn, whereunto he was anointed, Isa. 16.1, 2, 3. Yet the Words ⟨p. 8⟩are not an absolute Prohibition of Tears and Sorrows, he doth not condemn all Mourning as sinful, or all Expressions of Grief for dead Relations as uncomely: No, Christ would not have his People stupid and insensate; he only prohibits the Excesses & Extravagancies of our Sorrows for the Dead, that it should not be such a Mourning for the Dead as is found among the Heathen, who Sorrow without Measure, because without Hope, being ignorant of that Grand Relief by the Resurrection which the Gospel reveals.
The Resurrection of her Son from the Dead, is the Ground upon which Christ builds her Consolation & Relief. Well might he say, Weep not, when he intended quickly to remove the Cause of her Tears by restoring him again to Life.