N30070:91
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.
It is a Sin springing from Ignorance. Did we know the Desert of our Sin, we would rather wonder to see one Mercy left, than that twenty are cut off. They that know they have forfeited every Mercy, should be thankful that they enjoy any, and patient when they lose any of their Comfort.
Did we know God, even that Sovereign Lord, at whose Dispose our Comforts come and go, who can the next Moment blast all that remain, and turn you into Hell, afterwards you would prize the Mercies he yet indulges to you at an higher Value. Did you understand the fickle vanishing Nature of the Creature, what a Flower, what a Bubble it is; Oh how thankful would you be to find so many yet left in your Possession!
Did you know the Case of Thousands as good, yea, better than you, whose whole Harvest of Comfort in this World, is but an Handful to the Gleanings of the Comforts you still enjoy, who in all their Lives never were Owners of such comfortable Enjoyments as you now overlook, surely you would not act as you do.
Beside, what vile Ingratitude is in this? What, are all your remaining Mercies worth ⟨p. 23⟩