speedily, and labour to recover thyself out of this temper quickly; lest sad experience shortly tell thee, that what thou now mournest for, is but a trifle to what thou shalt mourn for hereafter. To lose the heavenly warmth and spiritual liveliness of thy affections, is undoubtedly a far more considerable loss, than to lose the wife of thy bosom, or the sweetest child that ever a tender parent laid in the grave. Reader, if this be thy case, thou hast reason to It is challenge the first place among the mourners. better for thee to bury ten sons, than to remit one degree of love or delight in God. The end of God in smiting, was to win thy heart nearer to him, by removing that which estranged it: how then dost thou cross the very design of God in this dispensation? Must God then lose his delight in thy fellowship, because thou hast lost thine in the creature? Surely, when thy troubles thus accompany thee to thy closet, they are sinful and extravagant troubles. 4. Then you may also conclude your sorrows to be excessive and sinful, when they so overload and oppress your bodies, as to endanger your lives, or render them useless and unfit for service. Worldly sorrow works death; that is, sorrow after the manner of worldly men, sorrow in a mere carnal natural way, which is not relieved by any spiritual reasonings and considerations. This falls so heavy sometimes upon the body, that it sinks under the weight, and is cast into such diseases as are never more wrought off, or healed in this world. Heaviness in the heart of a man makes it stoop, saith Solomon. The stoutest body must stoop under heart pressures. It is with the mind of man (saith one) as with the stone tyrhenus; as long as it is whole, it swimmeth, but once broken, it sinks presently. Grief is a moth, which getting into the mind, will, in a short time, make the body, be it ever so strong and well wrought a piece, like an old seary garment. Philosophers and physicians generally reckon sorrow among the chief causes of shortening life. Christ was a man of sorrows, and acquainted with griefs: and this, some think, was the reason that he appeared as a man of fifty, when he was little more than thirty years old. But his sorrows were of another kind. Many a man's soul is to his body as a sharp knife to a thin sheath, which easily cuts it through: and what do we, by poring and pondering upon our troubles, but cut the deeper and quicker? Of all the creatures that ever God made (devils only excepted) man is the most able and apt to be his own tormentor. How unmercifully do we load them in times of affliction! How do we not only waste their strength by sorrow, but deny relief and necessary refreshment? They must carry the load, but be allowed no refreshment: if they can eat the bread of affliction, and drink tears, they may feed at full; but no pleasant bread, no quiet sleep, is permitted them. Surely you would not burden a beast, as you do your own bodies; you would pity and relieve a brute beast groaning and sinking under a heavy burden, but you will not pity nor relieve your own bodies. Some men's souls have given such deep wounds to their bodies, that they are never like to enjoy many easy or comfortable days more, whilst they dwell in them. Now, this is very sinful, and displeasing to God; for if he have such a tender care for our bodies, that he would not have us swallowed up of overmuch grief, no, though it be for sin" Ye ought rather to forgive him, and comfort him, lest perhaps such a one should be swallowed up of overmuch sorrow," -but even to that sorrow set bounds; how much less with outward sorrow for temporal loss? May not your stock of natural strength be employed to better purposes think you than these? Time may come, that you may earnestly wish you had that health and strength again to spend for God, which you now so lavishly waste, and prodigally cast away upon your troubles to no purpose, or advantage. It was therefore a high point of wisdom in David, and recorded no doubt for our imitation, who, when the child was dead, ceased to mourn, but arose, and washed himself, and eat bread. 5. When affliction sours the spirit with discontent, and makes it inwardly grudge against the hand of God, then our trouble is full of sin, and we ought to be humbled for it before the Lord. Whatever God doth with us or ours, still we should maintain good thoughts of him. A gracious heart cleaves nearer and nearer to God in affliction, and can justify God in his severest strokes, acknowledging them to be all just and holy: "I know also that thy judgments are right, and that thou in faithfulness hast afflicted me." And hereby the soul may comfortably evidence to itself its own uprightness, and sincere love to God. Yea, it hath been of singular use to some souls, to take right measures of their love to God in such trials: to have lovely and well pleased thoughts of God, even when he smites us in our nearest and dearest comforts, argues plainly, that we love him for himself, and not for his gifts only; and that his interest in the heart is deeper than any creature-interest is. And such is the comfort that hath resulted to some, from such discoveries of their own hearts, by close smarting afflictions, that they would not part with it, to have their comforts (whose removal occasioned them) given back in lieu of it. But to swell with secret discontent, and have hard thoughts of God, as if he had done us wrong, or dealt more severely with us than any; O this is a vile temper, cursed fruit springing from an evil root; a very carnal, ignorant, proud heart; or at least from a very distempered, if renewed heart. So it was with Jonah, when God smote his gourd-" Yea," saith he, "I do well to be angry, even unto death." Poor man, he was highly distempered at this time, and out of frame: this was not his true temper, or ordinary frame, but a surprise; the effect of a paroxysm of temptation, in which his passions had been overheated. Few dare to vent it in such language. But how many have their hearts imbittered by discontent, and secret risings against the Lord! Which, if ever the Lord open their eyes to see, will cost them more trouble than ever that of affliction did, which gave the occasion of it. I deny not, but the best heart may be tempted to think and speak frowardly concerning these works of the Lord: that envious adversary, the devil, will blow the coals, and labour to blow up our spirits at such a time into high discontent. The temptation was strong even upon David himself, to take up hard thoughts of God, and to conclude, Verily I have cleansed my heart in vain. As if he had said, How little privilege from the worst of evils hath a man by his godliness? But he soon suppressed such motions: "If I should say thus, I should offend against the generation of thy children:" meaning, that he would condemn the whole race of godly men through the whole world; for who is there among them all, but is, or hath been, or may be, afflicted as severely as myself? "Surely it is meet to be said unto God, I have borne chastisement, I will not offend any more." Whatever God doth with you, speak well, and think well of him, and his works. 6. Our sorrows exceed due bounds, when we continually excite and provoke them by willing irritations. Grief, like a lion, loves to play with us before it. destroys us. And strange it is, that we should find some kind of pleasure in rousing our sorrows. It is Seneca's observation, and experimentally true, "That even sorrow itself hath a certain kind of delight attending it." The Jews that were with Mary in the house to |