by our prudence and observation and taking those occasions which are offered us and Gods grace assisting of us It is not in our power alwayes to be in health or to be rich c. but when sickness or poverty comes we can make a good use of it and turn it into health and riches otherwayes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Plutarch de tranquill The life of man saith Plato is like to a game at Tables wherein two things are considerable the one within our power and the other without The chance is not in us but to play it well is When we cannot have a good cast it remains that by our skill and art we make a bad one good Si illud quod est maxime opus jactu non cadit illud quod cecidit fortè id arte ut corrigas Terent. What shall fall out is not within us to chuse but to mannage and improve that which happens and turn it to our advantage by the goodness and the grace of God is within our selves and nothing that is without us can intermeddle or be an impediment to us in it Zeno I remember having lost all his goods by shipwrack sought for no Port but Athens and betook himself from merchandize to the study of Philosophie and so he revenged himself on Fortune as he called it by becoming a Scholar and an honest man crying out Jam benè navigavi cùm naufragium feci Now I made a good voyage when I lost all Such a story Nicephorus tells us of one Cyrus a Courtier in the time of Theodosius the younger who through the envious accusations of some favourites being spoiled of his goods of a Pagan he became a Christian and of a Christian a Priest of God and at last attained the degree of a Bishop So true is that which a holy Father said Those things are good Bona sunt ista unde facias benè non quae te faciunt bonum c. August Conc. 236. not which can make thee good but by which thou maist do good not which can do good but by which good may be done i. e. all things are as we use them and even prosperity cannot do us good of it self but we may use it to our good Just so I may be bold to say of adversity it can do us no harm but we make it do us harm it is not an evil that can make us evil but by which we may do evil There is reason then we should be of good cheer since things are as we please We need not be troubled since what befals us to our cross may serve a better end then that which we pursued If we be made better men more holy and severe in our lives more certain of heaven and more desirous to be there if we learn to know the world better to place less confidence in it and to expect nothing from it then there is no reason that we should accuse our Fortune For who is a loser that parts with a friend and gets God for his Father and commits himself to his providence That loses a Husband or a Wife and dwels for ever after in the arms of God and is enflamed with a greater love of heavenly things The world perhaps doth not love us have we not reason to thank it if it make us to place our comfort and contentment in God and a pure conscience They are unkind whom we have most obliged but we repent not that we have done such ungrateful persons good we still love them and lay up hereafter our hopes and expectation above and then when we cast up our accounts we find that we are gainers by them Thus in all cases we may say as he did O happy Providence my good Master 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that teaches me better then I could do my self who not only invites me but compels me unto vertue Now I am well because I was ill I have lost one thing and gained many God vertue and my self I have not what I desired but I have what I ought to have desired Another hath done for me that which I should have done my self Trouble makes every sad accident a double evil and contentedness makes it none at all If we will it can do us no harm if we give way to it we also wound our selves and joyn with it to make our selves miserable There is a perfect Embleme of our folly in the story of a simple rustick who going home out of the field laid the plough upon the Asses back and then got up himself also and observing the poor beast to be oppressed could find no better way to ease her but by laying the plough upon his own shoulder so loading himself and not at all alleviating her of her burden Our bodies are compared by the Ancients to the beast 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the mind they call the man the Soul is our self When the body is oppressed with many miseries by cares and grief we think to ease it when as alas we take not the loads off from it but only lay them upon our selves The same burden remains upon the poor beast and the man also bears it upon his back Like a Bird in the lime-twigs the more we flutter the more we are entangled and that which was but a single mischief before by our own follies becomes two or a great many But if we stir not at all but be quiet and still then we are what we were before this evill came only our souls have the addition of the greatest joy and pleasure by the victory we have obtained For it hath no small effect upon our souls that we can be joyful when there is matter of sorrow and that we can overcome the world and depend upon nothing for our happiness but God and our own souls Let us not sin then against reason as well as God Providence and Religion nor make our selves more miserable then we need be When we lose our estates let us not lose our constancy and our cheerfulness too if thou hast lost thy health do not lose thy patience also if thou must die a little sooner then thou thoughtest do not die unwillingly if thou hast no friend be not also thine own enemy if others vex thee do not also vex thy self if thou be ill to day be not also solicitous for to morrow Mat. 6. ult sufficient for the day is the evil thereof which are almost the very words of Ben Syra who gives this reason against such vexatious thoughts Perhaps to morrow shall not be and so thou afflictest thy self for that which nothing belongs to thee We multiply our evils by our trouble and bring those upon our selves which perhaps were never intended for our portion But our quietness disappoints the enemy and will weary him in his assaults when he sees that we do but grow better by what befalls us and turn it into victory and triumph So a wise man
how hard it is to love those who bring us the tidings of the death of them that we love would never send such a message but by the hand of some condemned man whom they were never like to see again I am ready here to interrupt my discourse and in the very beginning to fall into a passion with my self when I think how patiently we can suffer our souls to be divided from God whom we pretend to love O love how great things should we do if we did but love how angry should we be at the temptation which would draw him from us whom our souls love Antonius Guevara had a Neece who was so passionately in love with a little Bitch that at the death of it she fell into a Feaver Epist ad samil pars 2a and was fain to keep her bed The good man did well rather to chide then to comfort her and to write a Satyr rather then a consolatory letter to her but yet in that strange passion of hers we may clearly see how incident it is unto us to take heavily the loss of what we love Now there is no greater love then that which is between near kindred and friends no man that knows the pleasure of it would disswade any from such love and yet it is necessary that we should not mourn for it as if we loved nothing else which will render it perhaps an acceptable piece of service unto some if I endeavour to ease them of this kind of sorrow and though I have touched but lightly upon other maladies in the foregoing Treatise yet I apply some particular plaisters to this great and general sore You must not think that it is in my design to take away your trouble §. 2. We may mourn moderately by taking you off from all love and friendship for that would be as ridiculous as his device to cure drunkenness by cutting up all the Vines I would not have a man to love none but himself out of a fear that he shall be troubled at the loss of them as much as at the loss of himself This would be to cure one evil by a greater and to ease men of a short trouble by letting them want the constant easement and sweetest comfort of our lives which is our friends Neither do I intend to write like a Stoick and stupifie all your passions so that you should not mourn at all for that is an impossible thing if we have any love Grace doth not root out nature nor quite dry up all our tears but it rather makes our hearts more moist and tender and causes it to express it self in a becoming affection unto others as David and that Lady may teach us They are sturdy not generous that are void of all grief they are rather hard then constant rather unexperienced then reasonable that forbid all sadness But it is my design to bring you to a moderation both in love and in sorrow that you may do as much as becomes good friends but no more then becomes good men Not to be sensible of evils is not to be men not to bear them patiently is not to be Christians It is neither to be hoped nor to be desired that we should shed no tears at all but it is both necessary and attainable that we should let them flow in measure Lacrymandum est Seneca Epist 63. sed non plorandum We may weep but we must not wail We must be natural but we must be also reasonable We must approve our selves both to men and unto God that they may see we are loving friends and that he may see we are his dutiful children Est enim quaedam dolendi modestia For there is a certain modesty even in mourning and it is unseemly to weep immoderately as it is not to weep at all And let none think that by this concession unto nature and decency the wound will be made incurable and that it is easier not to mourn at all then to mourn moderately These are but the dreams of heavy souls that think that none can stand still but they that are resolved never to stir It is said indeed that we may more easily abstain from a thing of which we never tasted then refrain from it after a little acquaintance But this must be understood of pleasure and not of grief When we have mourned a little we shal soon see that there is neither pleasure nor profit in our mourning Or if any one shall think it to be some pleasure yet it will notwithstanding be easily moderated because it is only the pleasure of being eased of our loads that oppressed us not of being satisfied with the pressure of any delightful object It is but the letting out of sadness not the bringing in of any pleasure and therefore when the heart is once eased of its burden it will soon be perswaded to mourn no more for that will be the bringing upon us a new burden But then on the other side as we may grant something unto nature so we must be sure not to let it work alone That we may weep moderately it will be necessary to make resistance to our sorrows and muster up all the consolatory arguments that are reposited in our minds Nature will do its part without our help We need not study how to weep enough nor use any arguments to perswade our selves into tears It is a superfluous imployment to strive to magnifie our loss for Fancy is apt to make it bigger then it is It is a foolish trouble to be careful how to mourn for tears will flow from us without any bidding All our work must be to stop their passage as fast as we can and to make them flow leisurely not gush forth with too great a violence Our Reason and Religion must be called up in all haste to make as strong a dam as we are able to our sorrow or else if it have its course it may overflow us He is a base Pilot that leaves his tackling in a storm and suffers his ship to run along with the tempest and no less ignoble and abject is his spirit that permits himself to the gusts and Haericans of his own passions and lets them drive him whether they and not whether he himself pleases But it is a degree of madness to use reason it self to make the blasts more terrible and when the storm is too furious by art and skill to conjure up more boisterous passions Who would pitty him that sets his reason against himself and studies how to be as miserable as his mind can make him We need not be so in love with grief as to create it to our selves Nature as I said knows how to mourn without our teaching We had need think rather how to bear our natural troubles then how to lay more upon our shoulders But if we will make any opposition we must begin before our passions are too strong They are too powerful of
exemplified the same truth that he had taught For when by the Embassadors of Baeotia he askt the Oracle What was the very best thing that could befal men The answer was V. etiam Suidam in voc 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that Pindar knew well enough if he did not lie when he wrote the story of Agamedes but if he doubted he should shortly know what it was This he interpreted to signifie his death which within a few dayes after hapned But perhaps we are not of this mind and I need not go to an Oracle to know the reason which is plainly this We are acquainted with no other life but this If the world had not so much of our hearts we shoul not find any fault with the necessity of death because it would become desirable We should not then be so sorry for our friends departure as for our own stay We should be glad that neither they nor we were necessitated to dwell there alwayes where there are so many troubles that he is happiest who is soonest freed from them But there were many that thought not much of the goodness of death who yet were comforted with the bare thoughts of necessity How many Heathens might I tell you of who fled to this one truth for refuge and found protection under it against the assaults of sorrow Nothing is hapned to me but what hapneth to all The first minute that we began to live we began to dye This is not the first but the last moment of death It is now finished but it was born when we were born When one came and told Anaxagoras in the midst of a lecture that his child was dead Hold thy peace said he I knew that I begate a son that was mortal and so proceeded in his Discourse without any accents of grief or a mournful tone And so another said to his friend when he saw him weeping for his wife I thought you had known that you married a woman and not a Goddess Do but remember then what the thing is that thou lovest and thou must be willing either to leave or not to love it As they used to stand behind them that triumphed and to admonish them You are but mortal men so let us say to our selves when Love is in its greatest flames Arrian l. 3. cap. 24. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I love a dying person What hurt is there while we embrace and kiss a child to say 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to morrow it may dye and so to discourse with our friends To think of their death doth not make our lives uncomfortable To morrow either you or I may go away and never thus embrace any more Doth it make it our love the less doth it make us avoid their presence No therefore we are so greedy of our friends society because we know not how long we may enjoy them It makes love more fervently desirous to have all of them now because it knows that it may have none of them ere it be long It teaches us to use their friendship to the best advantages we can because we are not like to have the use of it as long as we please The knowledge of our departure doth not part friends now but makes them cleave the closer until they depart Let us be willing they should die and that will not abate of our love for we cannot be willing until we have loved them as much as we can We shall be loth they should go without the best testimonies of our love and that will make us only improve our time to have the benefit of them and they of us Epist 63. Seneca tells in one of his Letters that he who gave a great deal of good counsel to others not to grieve was himself almost made an example of one overcome with grief But the truth of it is saith he there was no other cause of that mourning which I must now condemn but only this I did not use to think that my friend might die before me I only had in my mind that he was younger much younger then my self whereas I ought to have added What is this to the purpose Though he ought I imagine to die after me yet he may die before me Because I did not thus meditate I received a stroak when I was unarmed which went to my heart But now I think both that all things are mortal and that their is no certain order of mortality That which may be at all may be to day And if you think that your friend may die to day then why do you not begin to mourn since his death is so near unless you mean to take it patiently when it comes If you will lament the death of your friends so sadly why do you not prepare your lamentations seeing death may be so near If you think it is not so near then it is likely your sorrow will be violent when it comes because sudden If you think it is and yet do not mourn then why should you lament that so sadly at night which you did not weep for at all at noon Plutarch There were some creatures they say in Pontus whose life lasted but one day They were born in the morning and came to their full growth at noon and grew old in the evening and at night dyed If these animals had been masters of the reason that we have would they have lamented after our fashion would they have mourned for one that chanced to die at noon when as it could not live longer then night No that which is necessary it is no matter when it comes And because we are of a longer life our trouble at death is not to be the greater but the less For it is a greater wonder that we did not die many dayes agone then that we die to day But some will say The kind of death is not so considerable as death it self that it is not death it self but the kind of death that so troubles them They could have been contented if he had gone out of the world another way But I beseech you do you know what will please your selves Can you tell what sort of death it is that would content you are there any that do not blame their hard fortune and wail and mourn as if none were so miserable are not men equally troubled if one dye of a Feavour and another of a Consumption if their love be equal It is very plain that he that perswades himself to part with his friends will not grieve for the manner of the parting He that can overcome himself in the greater cause of grief will not suffer the less so easily to overcome him And therefore you see that men have alwayes something to find fault withall If a friend die in a far Countrey then they say Alas that we should not see him before he dyed how sad is it that we should not take our leave If he dye at home
I where the head of us all is and where we enjoy the light of his most blessed face I would not live if I might again no not for the love of thee I have no such affection to thy society once most dear unto me that I would exchange my present company to hold commerce with thee But do thou rather come hither as soon as thou canst And bid thy friends that they mourn not for thee when thou dyest unless they would wish thee to be miserable again If we should have such a short converse with one of our acquaintance what should we think what should we say Should we fall a mourning and crying again would it open a new sluce for our tears to flow out would we pray him to go to heaven no more but stay with us would we entreate him to beg of God that he might come and comfort us If not then let us be well content unless we can give a better reason for our tears then our love to him Holcoth reports of a learned man In 4. sap v. 7. that was found dead in his Study with a Book before him A friend of his was exceedingly amazed at this sight when he first came into the room But when he looked a little further he found his fore-finger pointing at this place in the book of Wisdom c. 4. v. 7. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Though the just be prevented with death yet shall he be in rest And when he observed this he was as much comforted as he was before dejected We have no reason to lament them who are made immortal and that live with God If we respect them only we should carry them forth as the Aegyptians did the great Prophet of Isis when he dyed Heliod l. 7. Aethiop not with howlings and sorrow but with hymns and joy as being made an heir 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with our Betters and gone to possess most glorious things The truth of it is if it were rational love to him that expresseth these tears then we should not begin them so soon nor make such a noise and cry when men are a dying For the sad countenances and the miserable lamentations wherewith we encompass sick mens beds make death seem more frightful to them then it is in it self What misery am I falling into may a man think that causes them to make such a moan What is this death that makes even them look so ghastly who are not like to die What a mischief is it to leave so many sad hearts behind me and to go my self it should seem by them to some sad and dismal place also I tell you a dying man had need have a double courage to look both death and them in the faces or else their indiscreet shrikes and lamentations will make a poor soul fall into such dark and cloudy thoughts Nor for our own sakes that are alive Men are fain therefore to say that it is indeed love to themselves that forces them thus to bemoan the death of their friends But what are you that cannot be contented one should be made much better by making of you a little worse Is this the great love you pretend to your friend that you are sorry he is gone to heaven are you a friend that look more at your own small benefit then at his great gain Was he not much beholden to you for your love that would have had him lived till you were dead that he might have been as miserable in mourning for you as you think now your selves to be But what is it I beseech you that you thus bemoan your selves for because that you are now miserable No it seems that you are not miserable enough and that makes you weep so much If you had some greater trouble befaln you that would put all your friends out of your mind If you were sick or in pains or had lost all your goods these things could take your mind off from this loss why then cannot the enjoyment of them When Joab did but threaten David that they all would leave him 2 Sam. 19.7 unless he would be comforted then he could wipe his face and appear in publick as a man well pleased Fear of losing his Kingdom put away the grief for the loss of his son And therefore let us not speak of our being miserable by this loss for at last we find it is not so Yea I must tell you that it is not meer self-love that begets these tears For suppose this person to have been at a great distance from us for some years Did we weep and mourn because he was not with us did not the meer thoughts that he lived comfort us was he not as good as dead when we neither saw nor felt nor heard him What help could he afford us at that distance and did we account our selves miserable all that time we are now as we were then in all things the same but only in the knowledge that he is dead But was he not dead as to us before did he do any thing for us at that time that he doth not now Let us be quiet then for the truth is it is not love to him nor love to our selves that makes us sometimes weep but a meer natural affection that stirs within us i. e. Men mourn oft-times they know not why but only it is natural so to do They think they are not as they were before They feel that there is something wanting as they imagine It is a thing of long acquaintance perhaps and so nature is loth to part with it Get a new nature then and that will mend all And yet it is not meer natural affection neither that makes us sad For we our selves shall soon forget it but the freshness and the presence of the object of our sadness Time will make us forget it or if our parents had dyed a little after we were born we should never have wept when we came of age to think that they were departed It is no hard matter then for a considerate person to cease his grief seeing it depends upon such small causes And if any one shall say that it is love to the good of the world that makes him mourn for the loss of an useful person He hath reason to rejoyce that he loves the good of men so much For then he will labour to do much good in the world himself and he will perswade all the friends he hath remaining that they would do all the good they can and repair that loss II. But let me further ask you Was thy friend Gods friend also Our friends if Good are not lost or was he not If he was the friend of God as well as a friend of thine why should not he have his company rather then thou If he was not Gods friend then he could not be thine neither No man can love us aright that doth not love God and if he do love God
Every wise man intends some good to himself in what he doth and therefore unless sorrow will do us some good it is a foolish thing to indulge unto it But can any man that hath had his fill of it tell us what satisfaction it hath given him May we not put all our gains in our eyes as the Proverb is after they have wept so immoderately Doth any man say he is glad that he mourned so much Then he had best mourn again if there be so much gladness and profit in it Had we not better say with David concerning his child when it was dead I shall go to him but he shall not return to me I may bring my self in sorrow to my grave but I cannot bring him up from the dead I cannot water him with my tears as we do a dry plant that he may spring up again but I may easily drown my self and learn others by my example not to weep for me What I would not have them do for me why should I do it for another Why should I make my self miserable and make no body else the better The truth is if there were only no good in it it were the less matter but it doth us likewise not a little harm Though it will end of it self yet it may breed us no small trouble before it end This is all the comfort that such a man hath and it is a very poor one that if his grief do not kill him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Phot. Epist 234. it will kill it self But many an one hath grief destroyed many a body hath it distempered and given most mortal wounds also to the soul it self Many affections move the soul most vehemently but none more then grief which hath been the cause of madness in some as Plutarch hath observed and in others hath bred incurable diseases and made others to destroy themselves And this it may do either naturally for nothing eats the heart so much as grief nothing casts such a damp on the vital spirits as immoderate sorrows or else providentially by Gods anger who is displeased to see us so angry and repining and often inflicts worse things upon us then those which we causlesly make the matter of so doleful complaints Let us therefore cease that which brings such troubles before it cease it self and when it is ceased gives us a new sorrow to think that we should be so unreasonably sorrowfull We must write upon this as well as upon inordinate joyes Vanity of vanities all is vanity and vexation of Spirit And therefore let us not be troubled now lest we be troubled more afterward to consider how foolishly we were troubled The Fable of Niobe which tells how she turned her self with sorrow into a stone doth but signifie the stupidity and dulness that waits upon grief and the excessive melancholy into which it sometimes casts us which renders us as insensible as a stone Take heed how you grow in love with sadness for it hath no profit wherewithall to recompence your affection to it but pays your folly only with it self and such diseases as ordinarily use to accompany it And we should be the less in love with it because there are so many occasions of it in our lives We need not weep so much for the loss of one thing for we must expect continual losses The world is not such a place that we should take care to spend all our tears on one thing we shall have occasion enough for them if we have any mind to weeping Let us bestow therefore the less upon one because there are so many to sollicite our sorrows And if our souls be tender and apt to receive the impressions of dolefull things we have the more need to comfort our selves for every grief will but make us still more apt to grieve And besides what a folly is it thus to die with continual grief for him who if he did grieve to die his grief continued but a little while He died but once why should we die alwayes with grief He dyed that he might live why should we live only for to die It is certain we must die but of all deaths let us not die with grief and much less for grief about that which we see we cannot avoid our selves But let us be furthest of all from making our life a perpetual death and grieving for that which by grief we may so soon run our selves into IX Ask thy self again Weep no more for thy friend then thou wouldst have had him weep for thee Whether two friends do not think that one of them must die first Do we not see that in the common course of things one man goes before another to his grave Who then if it had been permitted to thy choice wouldst thou have appointed to be the leader unto the other Wouldst thou have given thy self the preheminence and resolved to have shewn him the way Then Death it seems is a good thing for if it were evil we can scarce believe thy self-self-love is so little as to wish it might be thy portion before another And if it be good then thou mayest soon satisfie the pretence of loving them better then thy self by being glad that they enjoy it before thy self Or wouldst thou have had both gone together and been enclosed in the same Coffin and interred in the same grave Then it seems it is no such great mattter to die as thou makest it seeing thou art so willing to die also And if it be no great matter for thee to live then no more was it unto him If the sorrow of living without him be greater then the sorrow of dying with him why then was not he desirous that thou shouldst die and why did he pray for thy life and health when he dyed And if he would not have thee to die also when he dyed why dost thou then live in a kind of death and enjoyest not thy self nor the pleasures of life Either resolve to die also or else to live as a man should do X. If his death be so sad thou wilt not be able to bear thy own Ask thy self How can I take my own death Certain it is that thou must die also but if thou canst not part with a friend how canst thou part with thy self How wilt thou endure that soul and body should be separated if thou canst not shake hands with another body distinct from thy self Are not they the most antient friends is not their union most strict and close Can two men cleave so together as thy soul embraces its companion What then wilt thou do then when their bonds shall be untied if thou canst not bear the rupture of lesser cords of love What wilt thou think when thy soul sits on thy lips and gives thy body a farewell kiss if thou canst not close the eyes of thy friend without so many tears Will thy soul mourn after thy body is dead as
THE HEARTS EASE OR A Remedy against all Troubles To which is added a Consolatory Discourse against the loss of our Friends and those that are dear unto us By Symon Patrick B. D. Minister of Gods Word at Batersea in Surrey PSALM 94.19 In the multitude of my thoughts within me thy comforts delight my soul M. Antoninus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Happiness lyes in a very few things LONDON Printed by R. W. for Francis Tyton at the three Daggers in Fleetstreet neer the Inner Temple-gate 1660. To the Honourable Sr. Walter St. John Baronet and the Lady Johanna St. John his Wife The Author wisheth all the blessings of this life and that which is to come THE first occasion of these meditations upon these words of our Saviour to his Disciples John 14.1 is known only to my self and another person whose contentment I exceedingly desired But the occasion of their publication is known to more then your selves for whose use they were first transcribed a good while ago which I will not trouble the world so much as to take an account of For it will believe its like that it comes from my own proper motion and inclination to send them abroad and the ordinary reason from the importunity of friends can be understood by none but those who know that a friend can do more with us then we our selves But the reason why they address themselves to you is known best to my self For though you might know it if you pleased yet your goodness teaches you to forget the many obligations you laid upon me which I ought alwayes to remember So many they are that when I think how to discharge them it puts me in mind that there is one sort of trouble which I have made no provision against in this Treatise which is for want of ability both to pay what we owe to those that love us and also to express the sense which we have of their goodness But I consider that this is such a pleasing sort of trouble that one would not be willing that it should be cured We have no reason to find fault that our friends will do us more good then we deserve nor to complain that their goodness is greater then we can speak of And that ought not I know to be the occasion of my trouble which is your singular pleasure aad contentment And if this kind of acknowledgement will acquit me in any sort of ingratitude I am but beginning to discharge and exonerate my self For I had designed before the publishing of this was thought of to put a Treatise of another nature into your hands But I am well secured that I shall not trouble you by beginning my addresses to you with a discourse of troubles as if I did bode some evil to you because I believe that you desire rather to be prepared against any crosses then to have none befall you I confess I discern some defects in the first part of this Treatise which if I had penned with an intention to have sent abroad I think that I should have taken some care to have seen supplied But it will not be the less aceptable to you who are able I know out of the general truths here propounded to raise such principles as will be able to give you satisfaction in particular cases not here named Yet presuming that you will not be weary of reading any thing that comes from the hand of one whom you love so well I shall here take the liberty to instance in some things which would have deserved some particular consideration There is no greater trouble to some ingenuous souls then to be requited with injuries for the kindnesses they have done to others But they may soon consider that this befell our Master Jesus Christ himself And though it be in their power to do good to others yet it belongs not to them to make them good And if there be any way to beget love in them it is by love and there is no small contentment in loving those who have no love for us For this is the very height of love and love it self is a thing so sweet that it is its own reward But some perhaps have this addition of trouble that their own friends do not love them and those whom God and nature do command to be kind are ill affected towards them The same remedy will cure this disease And let them turn their love into pitty that any should be so unhappy as to be strangers to the rarest pleasures in the world which arise from loving of others And you may see from hence the necessity of one Rule which I have commended which is not to hope for any thing here below And particularly remember this that you may be disappointed if you look for any more satisfaction from your children then the pleasure of doing good to them and seeing them do good to themselves For the old saying hath had but few hitherto to cross it That love like your inheritances doth descend but useth not to ascend But there are others that may say they could easily brook any sufferings from others but that commonly it is the lot of those that suffer to be thought guilty of those crimes for which they innocently suffer Quae perferunt meruisse creduntur The world is so sottish that they commonly think men deserve that which they indure and we are deprived many times not only of our enjoyments but likewise of our fame and we are denyed not only our security but likewise all apology for our selves But who can keep the world from thinking what they please Who knows not that it sees but with half an eye if it be not stark blind And what shall we be the better if they think well of us seeing what they think either one way or other is with so little reason If we deserve not well their thoughts and speeches can do us no good and if we do God will take care that they shall do us no harm But there is a little number of good souls perhaps who are troubled for what others suffer and are afflicted with the misery of their neighbours There are so few that complain of this grief and it is a malady that men are so seldom sick of that I should scarce have thought it needfull to have prescribed any Physick for such a rare disease If the hurt do not touch us in our own bodies relations or friends we shall soon find comfort enough without any direction to alleviate the grief which we sustain for others how heavy soever it may happen to be But if any be oppressed with this sort of trouble Let them consider what is said in the ensuing Treatise that they do others no good but themselves harm by being troubled And therefore let-them be sensible of their miseries so far only as to pray for them and relieve them if they can and to make their hearts sensible of Gods mercies to them that by that joy
they may cure the other trouble But men are troubled perhaps that Religion is like to suffer I am very glad of it if they be for then I suppose such persons are so much in love with Religion that they will not let their trouble hinder any part of their duty And if they do their duty they may leave it to God to have a care of the interest of Religion for he loves it far better then we can do But some are troubed that they are no more troubled A sad thing that we should be discontented at that for which we should be thankfull For by this trouble they moan nothing else but a confusedness of spirit which never did any body any good The rubbing of the eyes doth not fetch out the moat but makes them more red and angry no more doth this distraction and fretting of the mind discharge it of any ill humours but rather makes them more abound to vex us But some are yet troubled because they fall from the height of their resolution and are more troubled now then once they were at what befalls them Whereas they once observed these rules well and kept themselves in peace they fall now into some discontent again Whereas they did pray with some fervour they now abate of the height of their Zeal Truly we must not expect while we are here below in this Cave or Dungeon to be quite free from all such damps And it may be some degree of pride not to be able to endure some dulness and coldness of spirit Be not troubled if at all times you cannot do as well as you would but labour to do as well as you can And especially take heed that the not doing of what you did do not breed in you a fearfulness that you shall never do as you was wont again This dispirits the soul and so disheartens it that it runs it self into that very thing which it is taking a course for to avoid Remember well that rule which is the first that you meet-withall in the the following book Know your duty thoroughly and then do it If you think it to be less then it is you will not do what you ought and if you think it to be more then it is you cannot do what you think you ought and if you think that anxiety of mind for what is not in your present power is any part of your duty you do not think as you ought There was a great Master among the Jews who bid his Schollars consider and tell him what was the best way wherein a man should alwayes keep R. Jochonan in Pirke Xivoth L. 2. One came and said that there was nothing better then a good eye which is in their language a liberal and contented disposition Another said A good companion is the best thing in the world A third said A good neighbour was the best thing he could desire and a fourth preferred a man that could foresee things to come i. e. a wise person But at last came in one Eleazar and he said A good heart was better then them all True said the Master thou hast comprehended in two words all that the rest have said For he that hath a good heart will be both contented and a good companion and a good neighbour and easily see what is fit to be done by him Let every man then seriously labour to find in himself a sincerity and uprightness of heart at all times and that will save him abundance of other labour But let me take upon me to be so far a Master as to tell you that next to this man the second said right that a good friend is the greatest easement in the world in this sort of troubles If a man therefore cannot quiet himself let him get a good friend to whom he may unbosome his heart for two saith Solomon are better then one because if they fall the one will lift up his fellow Two small streams united in one channell may be able to bear a vessel of some burden and so may the counsels and comforts of two friends meeting together be able to support the weight of many troubles But if one will resolve to be troubled I see there is no end of it for a man may be disquieted in his thoughts about the choice of such a friend Let such consider this that perhaps God hath given them one already and the person that lies in their arms may give the best advice unto them Or their spiritual Guide may be the most excellent friend Or howsoever they may know who will make one by their love to piety by the simplicity of their manners the innocency and modesty of their converse their wise discourse their freedom from pride and captiousness and such like things This likewise I may add that though there be an inequality between that person and you which is a necessary thing to friendship yet if other things be not wanting love and friendship will make you equal But how if this friend should die will some say how much then shall I be troubled and what remedy shall I use to give me comfort when I have lost him that should comfort me I told you there was no end of Questions But yet the resolution of this Question will satisfie all for he that can bear this trouble will be able to support himself under all other And therefore since I resolved to let these meditations go further then your selves I have composed a little Tract to wait upon them which administers comforts against the loss of friends It hath indeed contrary to my first design out-grown that in bigness which was born above two years before it But yet the reason may be because there is much of the other in it For as it is in the Calculations of our Almanacks which are referred exactly to some certain place but fit without sensible error the whole Nation So I observe it is in this discourse which though it doth most properly belong to those who have lost their friends yet hath many things in it which may indifferently serve all other persons who are troubled about worldly matters And let me intreat you and all others that read me to remember alwayes thaâ— God rules the world and that those things which are Accidents to us arâ— Providences with him and it wilâ— give you much satisfaction in your hearts He hath made all these things mutable and therefore it is a madness to think that they alwayes stand as we would have them and yet he is so good that he hath made something good for us in every mutation so that it is a Folly to be discontented that they continue not as we would have them Who would go and seek for Violets and Primroses in the Wood in the Winter season But then we may go and gather sticks to keep us warm And in the Spring who looks for Grapes and Plums and such ripe fruit But yet we may prune the Vines
and lopp the Trees and wait a while and have what we desire Assure your selves it is forgetfulness of God that makes us troubled yea forgetfulness of our selves also who think we have lost our proper good when we are well enough And I think it will not unbecome me to speak to you in the words of a Heathen and bid you Be confident Arrian Epict. l. 2. cap. 16. L. 4. cap. 7. and looking up to Heaven say Hereafter I will use my self to what thou wilt I conform my thoughts wholly unto thee I refuse nothing that seems good in thine eyes Lead me whether thou wilt give me what garments thou pleasest chuse my food and provision for me c. I had alwayes rather have that to be which already is then any thing else For I think that is better which God wills then that which I. And yet upon a review of what I have writ concerning our friends death I think that there is one sort of persons that would have deserved a more particular consideration then I have given them in that discourse Widdows I mean who esteem themselves so desolate that I ought to have pittied them so much as to have addressed a few lines on purpose unto their comfort Though I do not know how to excuse my self if here I should enter upon that subject Yet there is a great person who hath spoken words of consolation to them so excellently sweet that it cannot displease you if I give you the sense of what He saith I have lost saith some sad soul not only my companion S. Chrysost upon 1 Thes Hom. 6. but my guide my stay my shield my second self I doubt not of the resurrection which Saint Paul discourses of but what shall I do in the mean time Much business I have to do but I am a fit prey for every Cormorant who hath a mind to be unjust The Servants who reverenced me before will now despise a silly woman If my husband have obliged any alas it will be soon forgotten now that he can do them no more kindness but if he did them any wrong they will be sure to take all the revenge upon me that they are able This is the thing that breeds me all my anguish and set this aside his death would not so much trouble me What shall we answer saith Saint Chrysostome unto this Truly I could easily convince them that not what they pretend but an unreasonable passion is the cause of words so sad and dolefull If this were the cause of their lamentation then they must never cease thus to bewail themselves But if after a years time all these tears are dried up then the want of their defence and comfort which will be then most sensible is not the only cause of them But let it be supposed that this is the fountain of all their sorrow and consider how much infidelity there is in it that we should think it is They that take care of us and not God It cannot chuse but provoke him to anger to see that a creature of his is more beloved then himself and therefore it is likely he took away thy husband because he was more to thee then thy God himself The holy one of Israel is very jealous and cannot endure to be so slighted that other things should have as much of our affections as his excellent goodness which is therefore to be beloved by us above all others because it expresses a love to us above all other creatures What was the reason I beseech you that Widdowhood and Orphanage were so rare in the Ancient times among good people Why did Abraham and his Sarah and Isaac live till a great old age Truly I think it was because Abraham loved God more then either of them and when God did but say unto him Kill thy Son he was as willing to do it as to offer the Sacrifice of a Lamb. But we are heavy and dull we are carried so headlong into the embraces of creatures that God is fain even against our wills to draw our affections to himself by drawing them away from us Do but love God more then thy husband and I will undertake that thou shalt not fall into Widdowhood or thou shalt not feel it when thou fallest into it And I have a good ground for what I avouch For thou hast him for thy Husband and thy defence that never dies and that loves thee infinitely more then any man can do And if this reason be not sufficient to convince thee I have a comparison that will win thy assent Tell me if thou hadst a husband who loved thee so much as if he had no soul but thine one that was as much beloved of others as he loved thee one so wise and discreet that he was as much admired as loved one so gentle and complyant as if he was but wax to thy impressions one by whom thou didst shine as the Moon doth with the rayes of the Sun and suppose thou hadst a child by this dear person who dies before he comes to his full age Wouldst thou be considerately grieved and touched with sorrow for its death while thou didst enjoy such a better love No in no wise He that is so fair and beautifull in thy eyes would supply the want of it as the Sun doth the absence of the Stars He that is more loved and esteemed would obscure and quite hide all the excellencies of the other If therefore thou lovest God more then that husband if his glory put out the lustre of all other things in thine eyes thou wilt be as little troubled at his death as before then wast for the death of thy child Yea far less one would think should thy trouble be in as much as God is infinitely more above that Husband then he above thy child And beside what is that thou receivest from thy Husband that is comparable to what the love of God gives thee Are they not pangs and labours unkind words perhaps and angry chideings Or if thou canst tell me of any goods what are they What are fine cloaths and Jewels and honours and such like things to the Son of God to the Brotherhood and Adoption to the Kingdom and eternal glory to the life of God and Coheirship with the only begotten wilt thou after all this tell me thou canst not but be passionate for the loss of thy Husband If thou wantest him thou hast God If thou wantest thy menial servants and attendants thou hast the guard of spiritual powers the dominions and principalities of heaven are thy Ministers If thou sayest thy children want a Father that cannot be seeing God is the Father of the Fatherless If thou fearest they shall want tell thy self who gave them to thee and whether the life be not more then meat and the body then rayment Or if thou fearest they shall not be so well provided as otherwise they would have been How many could I tell thee of
then they say who could endure to hear his groans how sad was it to see him in the agonies of death If he die and speak nothing then they say O if he might but have told us his mind if he had left us any remembrances it would have been some comfort If he did speak then they tell his speeches to every one and say O my sweet child or friend I shall never forget thy words Would you have me put out of my mind his dying speeches and so those sayings are a perpetual nourishment and food to their grief If he die on a sudden then they lament because he was snatch rather then went away If he dye of a lingring sickness then they say he was nothing but skin and bone a meer Anatomy never any creature endured so much as he did and so they are sad they know not for what for they would not have had him gone away so fast And indeed men never want some causes or pretences for their grief but the true reason is that they would not have had them to have dyed at all Let us therefore digest these considerations well and so proceed to the next which shall be this Let us consider well who it is for whom we make our lamentations Who is it I say §. 5. II. We must consider who the persons are that die that death hath taken away from us Perhaps it is an Infant a poor little weakling newly crept into the light And this hath the least of wonder in it of all other things that such a little spark of life should be blown out Comforts against the loss of children A greater wonder it is that it was not strangled in the gate of the womb A little while ago it had no life and it is now but as it then was We were once content without it why cannot we be content without it now It never loved us nor was capable to shew any affection to us and therefore we may the better part with it It was scarce tyed to our heart and therefore it need not make the strings crack It was not unwilling to go out of the world and if it had lived longer death would have been more against its will It hath lost no great matter for it knew not the benefits of life It hath cost us nothing and we have been at a small charge about it and therefore we have lost nothing neither but only it a coffin and a winding sheet If it could have known the miseries of living and it had been put to its choise very likely it would not have chosen for to live but to be what now it is It hath not blotted its soul by any sin nor deflowred the Virgin purity wherein it was born If it have any thing to complain of it is only this that it was born And therefore let us be content for it is better perhaps for it and not much the worse for us If we weep so much for an Infant what shall we do for a man either let us now let down the sluce or else expect that we shall then be drowned If he had lived to be a man it might have done as we do miserably bewail the death of its children And therefore either let us not bewail it or else think that it is happy that it lived not to be so miserable as we think our selves and both ways our grief will be cured But suppose it be a child of a larger growth Unreasonable to mourn for one when we have more whose death extorts these tears from us Yet it is but one and we may have many more remaining Shall we lose all the content of a great many because we suffer the wants of one If the life of this one would have pleased us so much then how joyful should we be in the life of four or five If it be such a grief to lose a child then let us be thankful that we lie not under the miserable grief of losing them all But if we cannot take this patiently then I doubt we shall run mad with impatience if God should take them all away We must learn to part with more by parting willingly with this one for all must die too Can he bear a stone weight who cannot endure the load of one pound and yet how justly may we fear that all the rest should shortly follow seeing we fret so much at Gods hand in this Suppose that this was the most goodly child yet not fairer sure then all the rest put together Or if he was most beautiful yet some of the others may be more wise If this had all our love then we may learn now how to divide our love equally and take pleasure in loving more If he loved us most then he would have wisht us if he had thought of it not to make our selves miserable by mourning for him Dion Chryst Orat. 30. So Charidemus said to his friends when he was a dying It is Gods will that I should die and there can nothing that is hurtful come from him I am very willing to die and I beseech you believe me in what I say for I have a greater care to speak truth now then any of you can have Grieve not for me for I grieve not do not make your selves miserable for I think not my self to be so 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 As much as ever you are able refrain from all sadness for no sad thing hath befaln me Thus we should say to our friends if we love them and therefore their love to us should not make us sad because they would have all they love to be chearful If they could tell us their mind they would certainly bid us cease our mourning and therefore let us do that our selves which they would have us for to do But let it be supposed that it is an only child Or when we may have more yet are there not many hopes that you may have more who gave you this cannot he give you another hath not he that hath the keyes of the grave the keyes of the womb also If one die then as long as the world lasts another shall be born And if we desire children for the good of the world then so they be born it is no matter by whom But if for our own sake then we may have them as well as others but grief I will assure you is not the way to get them Or if God will give us none then we may adopt one Any child will love us as if it was our own if it know not that it is any bodies else Nay any one will love and serve us for what we have and in stead of one we shall have many that will thank us more then he perhaps to be our heirs but if we have nothing then why should we desire children for to leave them miserable But as I said why should we not hope for more and those better
all agree to put all the troubles and calamities of men into one heap on this De Consol ad Apollon condition that after every man had brought his and thrown them there then they should all come again and take every man an equal portion of them there would be a great many that now complain who would rather take up what they brought and go their ways contented with them And so Antimachus an Ancient Poet when his wife dyed whom he loved exceedingly he went and writ a Poem bearing her name wherein he reckoned up all the calamities that he could remember had befaln any in the world By this means he did deter himself from grief for how can one suffer the miseries which others endure if he cannot bear this light one of his own Fifthly It is better with us then with those of former times Let us compare our selves with the Ancient Christians Their children were snatcht out of their arms by the hands of tyrants They see their brains dasht out against the stones their friends were buried in fires or banished into strange places and they had no comforters left but God and themselves and their chiefest comfort was that they must shortly die the same death But notwithstanding all this and much more they did not take it heavily but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Photius speaks They bare it all thankefully Epist 234. and blessed God who could tell how to govern the world beyond all the thoughts of men Let not us who suffer but common things weep with an extraordinary sorrow when they who suffered most unnatural deaths did bear it with more then natural courage They might have been allowed to have wept blood rather then we to shed tears And yet they rejoyced as if their friends had been offered in Sacrifice to God and we weep as if they had been put to some shameful torments for their crimes Shall we mourn more for the death of a friend then they for a butchery What arguments had they to comfort them which we have not What Scripture had they before their eyes to stay their tears which we read not If either of us have more to comfort us then the other it is we for we have their most excellent example And when I think of the Mother of the seven Brethren mentioned in the Macabees Mac. 2.7 she calls my thoughts back a little further then the times of Christ Did she wring her hands when she saw the skin of her son stead off from his head Did she cast any tears into the fire wherein another of them was fryed No she speaks as chearfully as if they were not stripping them of their skins but cloathing them with a royal robe She looks upon them not as if they lay upon a pan of coals but in a bridal bed She exhorted them being filled with a couragious spirit saying V. 21 22. I cannot tell how you came into my womb for I neither gave you breath nor life neither was it I that formed the members of every one of you But doubtless the Creator of the world who formed the generation of man and found out the beginning of all things will also of his own mercy give you breath and life again as you now regard not your own selves for his sake This marvellous woman as she is called v. 20. knew very well that she did not give them life and therefore why should she take so heavily their death She considered they were none of hers and why should not the owner take them She knew that she did not lose them but only restore them That life sometimes is not worth the having That unless God will have us live no wise man would desire to live That none gives any thing unto God though it be his own but he gives them something better And therefore she said Die my sons for that 's the way to live What poorness of spirit then is it that we cannot see a soul put off her cloaths without so much ado That a Jewish woman could see seven souls torn out of their body with more courage then a Christian man can see one soul quietly to depart and leave its lodging I would wish every one to save his tears till some other time when he may have some greater occasion for them If he will weep let it be when he sees the bodies of his children or friends so mangled as theirs were But if he would not weep out his eyes then let him weep soberly and not as if he were drunk with sorrow now After we have taken this course with our selves §. 7. IV. We must think with what reason we weep we shall be the more prepared to hearken unto reason And let us proceed from making comparisons to ask our selves some Questions and stay till they give a good answer Let us know of our selves why we are so sad and heavy Let us speak to our souls and say Tell me what is the matter what is the cause of all this grief thou art a rational creature what reason hast thou for all this sorrow Thou art not to be pittyed meerly for thy tears if thou canst cry without any cause Hideous things appear sometimes before us to affright us but they are the Chimera's of a childish imagination and not things really existent Let us bid fancy then to stand aside a while and let reason speak what it is that so troubles us Children cry who cannot speak and we are not much troubled at it because they cry for they know not what Unless we therefore can tell why we weep no body will pitty us because it is not weeping that we are to mind but the cause of mens weeping Let me then propose these questions to be answered some of which will discover that there is no cause of lamentation when our friends die And if there be no cause that the fountain of tears should run that is cause enough to stop it up I. For whose sake dost thou weep For the sake of him that 's dead or for thy own No cause of mourning for their sakes who are dead Not for him that is dead sure for we suppose him to be happy Is it reasonable to say Ah me what shall I do I have lost a dear friend that shall eat and drink no more Alas he shall never hunger again never be sick again never be vexed and troubled and which is more he shall never die again Yet this is the frantick language of our tears if we weep for the sake of him that is gone Suppose thy friend should come to thee and shake thee by the hand and say My good friend why dost thou lament and afflict thy soul I am gone to the Paradise of God a sight most beautiful to be beheld and more rare to be enjoyed To that Paradise am I flown where there is nothing but joy and triumph nothing but friendship and endless love There am
will breath into our dust and make it stand upon its feet And then in the mean time if our condition be never so sad and we be left all alone why do we not solace our selves in the great compassion of our High Priest who hath a feeling of all our miseries which we endure Can we expect that ever he should love us more then when we are like unto him in sufferings We should be so far from being sad at what befalls us that we should think if our condition was a little worse we should be more dear unto him then now it is when nothing extraordinary is hapned to us No man can be alone as long as he lives who hath said I will not leave you comfortless like fatherless children I will come to you Did not he bid his Disciples to be well content when he himself dyed Did he not leave his peace with them and bid them that their hearts should not be troubled And what is the death of one of our friends to the departure of the best friend to the world that ever was from his little flock of friends Did not Christ know what he said when he was going to die Did he advise them not to be troubled when it was impossible that they should be otherwise And if they were not to be troubled then I am sure we have less reason to be troubled now both because we have a less loss to bewail and we have a stronger and more excellent comfort against our loss Our friends are as much below him as his state in the grave was beneath that to which he is now advanced in the Heavens Their hearts were not to be troubled when He that is the Lover of the world was held in the chains of death because they knew that he would loose them Why then should we be disturbed for the death of one that loves us only when we know that Christ is risen and that he is in the Heavens Angels Authorities and Powers being made subject to him If an Angel was necessary for our comfort we should not want his Ministry He is so full of love and compassion towards us that if he did not think he had left Cordials enough to support us he would come himself to chear us and raise our friend as he did Lazarus from the dead But now we may well live in hope and he hath given us strong consolation and good hope through grace Let us have patience but a little and we shall not be capable of mourning any more All tears shall be wiped off from our eyes sighing and sorrow shall fly away Remember then I beseech you §. 9. Let no man therefore be in love with tears whosoever you are that cast your eyes on these lines what I said at the beginning Take heed you do not indulge your selves in your tears Est enim dolendi quaedam ambitio for there is a certain ambition even in mourning and men think that they shall be the better thought of for their grief But assure your selves that if we study to exceed one another in grief it is but just with God that we should never want misery enough seeing we are so ambitious of it If we will mourn immoderately when he would have us to be patient we shall not keep our selves patient when perhaps there is little or no cause to mourn When the air is disposed to rain it is a long time before we can recover fair weather and every little cloud will fall a weeping which at another time would have been dry and barren And just so it is with those that strive to gather as many clouds as they can to overcast them and make them sad It is so long before they can disperse them all that every little thing renews their grief as if a chearful day should never shine upon them more It was a very handsome device that one of the Ancient Philosophers used to comfort Arsinoe when he observed her to weep immoderately for her sons death Let me intreat you said he to lend me your patience till I tell you this story On a time Jupiter conferred honour upon all the lesser Gods or divine Powers and there was none of them wanting but only Sorrow When all the rest were gone away rejoycing she came and begged some honour also with many tears and intreaties Jupiter having conferred all honours that were worth any thing upon the other Heavenly Powers He granted to her all that which men bestow upon their dead friends viz. grief and tears as best befitting her quality Now all these little Deities said this wise man do love those most that love and honour them and so doth Sorrow also They bestow most of their gifts on their Votaries and those that pay them constant services and they care not for those that observe none of their ceremonies If you therefore bestow no honour upon Sorrow then she will not love you nor come to you But if you studiously seek how to please her and honor her by tears and lamentations and all such sad things that are the offices wherein she delights she will be in love with you you shall never want her company nor be without occasions of doing continual honour to her She will be continually supplying thee with tears to pour upon her Altar and filling thee with sighs which are the incense which she loves thou shouldst evaporate toward Heaven By this Art the wise man staid her tears for she knew that he meant that if we give way to grief we shall never want it and much more if we seek for arguments to aggravate it it will stick so fast unto us that it will never forsake us Though love and respect to our friends and the natural affection which distinguisheth us from beasts do allow and require a moderate sorrow and contristation of our spirit yet an intemperate grief and afflicting of our souls is unreasonable for it doth them no good and it is unnatural for it doth both our body and mind abundance of harm and let me add likewise that it is unchristian and argues that we have little hope in God either for our selves or others God hath done us the honour to make us Priests unto himself and you know it was the law for the Priests Lâ—v. 21. that none of them should mourn for a dead friend unless he was of their nearest kindred And therefore let us take heed how we make our selves unclean for the dead by weeping so that we should unfit our selves for any Christian service which God hath appointed us for our constant imployment Can you mourn and praise God too Can you pour out your souls to God while you pour out these tears of grief Can you pray in faith for other things and not be able to believe that you can live without a friend Can you read seriously when your eyes are sore with the sharpness of your sorrow Can you meditate of heavenly
of great wisdom to wonder at nothing 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and this is the way to it which thing alone the Poet thought was almost enough to make one happy and keep him so Nil admirari propè res est una Horat. Numici Solaque quae possit facere servare beatum But he will not cease to admire that knows not the nature of things and he knows nothing that doth not see they are constant only in inconstancy CAP. X. VVHat is without thee keep it without thee Let it not come in unto thee nor do thou go out to it i. e. Let it not into thy heart by love and let not thy heart go out to it by desire Make nothing to become a piece of thy self which is without thy self For if thou lovest any thing of which as I said before thou canst not be certain thou wilt be troubled at its loss or at its danger This rule may serve also to fortifie you against the same kinde of trouble among others for the relief of which I prescribed the former Keep but every thing there where it is and all is safe If the world change and alter that is nothing unto us if it be not within us If it have no hold of our hearts how are we concerned in its various mutations We shall never suffer together with the world if it be not a part of us But if we set open the door and entertain it if we embrace it and let it dwell in us by our love cleaving to it then we shall be as it is and nothing can give us a remedy but the casting of it out again and setting it where it was quite out of our selves It is a true rule that no good can bring us any pleasure but that against whose loss we are prepared He that is in fear doth not sincerely enjoy and it is as true that we shall have no mind to lose that which we love dearly Now what a miserable case is this to be troubled with fear while we have a thing least we lose it and to be troubled with grief when it is gone because we have lost it But I have taught you how to provide against both these and against all sudden accidents and changes that are in the world Keep thy self as thou art Let nothing in which is without Do not promise thy self that which God never promised thee This heals all the evils which arise from vain hopes and cools the anger of those sores which are caused by frustration of our expectations It is lawful to desire several things which are uncertain if God see them good for us but let us not promise to our selves any of them Do not entertain thy thoughts with promises of contentment in such a relation and such a condition nor of success in such an enterprise no though thou goest about it wisely But promise to thy self pardon of sin and eternal life if thou dost thy duty and the grace of God to help thee for to do it if thou pray for it and wilt use it for all these things God hath promised to give us Solomon saith Eccles 9.11 that the race is not to the swift c. but time and chance happeneth to them all Now because men know not the time when things will alter and which is worse promise to themselves those things as if there were no time nor chance but what they fancie therefore he saith ver 12. that evil falleth suddenly and therefore sadly upon them Hope and fear are two great instruments of our trouble and we must cure them both as I have directed in this and the former rule And if we will hope for any thing let it be as I said before in the days of our sorrow and adversity to support our heaviness not in the dayes of prosperity to please our fancy We have good things enough then to comfort us and if we will spend our thoughts in airy hopes we make our selves miserable two ways We lose the pleasure of what we have and never enjoy what we look for And therefore I think he made a good answer who being asked which mans grief never ceased said Cujus cor non acquiescit in praesentibus Habitum nihil sperandi cui adipiscendo 15. perpetuis annis maximo labore incubui obtinui Cardan whose heart is not contented with what he hath at present And he likewise was well imployed who for fifteen years together with great pains endeavoured to get the habit of Hoping for nothing especially since as he saith he did obtain it for no question he found a great ease to his spirit by it Think that thou art most angry at thy self when thou dost amend Many create themselves no small trouble by being troubled at the disorder and disquiet of their spirit in cross accidents And I give this rule to take off all that trouble which proceeds from displeasure against our selves for our unquietness under Gods hand or that trouble for the sins we have admitted if it hinder our duty And this indeed is oft-times the greatest inquietude and trouble of all other Men roll their souls in very vexatious and impatient thoughts because they were vexed and impatient and so they commit that again which they should cure and unless they will cease it the disease will grow more desperate For they are impatient if their trouble be not cured and their disease instantly healed But alas this which they take for the medicine is the very disease Trouble doth but make the sore rancle and fester the more and inflame the Feavour to a greater heat Therefore coolly and mildly seek to amend thy trouble by some of the former rules that I have proposed Remember the more thou vexest thy self the further thou art from being healed and like a bird that is restless in a net thou art more intangled and perplexed Go therefore seriously alwayes and considerately about the cure when thou art troubled at any accident and think that this is a signification of the greatest trouble when thou art amended and thy mind is again in peace You may see how calmly David argues himself into a stilness Psal 42.11 Psal 43.5 Why art thou cast down O my soul c. If he had fretted at this disquiet which was in him and raised storms against himself the commotion would but have been like a new boisterous wind upon the face of the Sea already troubled which would but make it more rough and restless Let the Sun shine rather then the wind blow I mean with a clear understanding labour placidly to compose and appease thy heart and not by fresh gusts of black passion bluster and rage against thy self CAP. XI THere are three or four Rules that are more General and Universal which perhaps may serve in stead of all the rest for to heal that trouble from without which because they are so large I will superadde Have a little esteem of thy self Superbus
to please divers men Content thy self therefore with this God is sooner pleased then men resolve upon his will to let that be thine and keep to it Chuse that which no body can hinder no accident can forbid if thou can not do Gods will thou canst suffer it why then shouldst thou be troubled when thy own choice remains intire and thou hast what thou wouldest CAP. XII TO prevent all misunderstanding I must desire you to consider that all these rules are such as suppose the use of some other that have an universal influence upon all Christian practice and these must be joyned with them not severed from them As first Prayer Secondly See Phil. 4.6 7. Rom. 2.4 17 18. Giving thanks in every thing Thirdly Meditation of heaven and eternal blessedness Fourthly Consider of Gods fulness Psal 31.19.42.11 Heb. 2 17 18. Heb. 4.15 16. and the glories of his attributes 5. Of Christs death and Intercession with such like to all which religious exercises if we add those rational and natural considerations we may be well eased What remains then but our hearty endeavour thus to settle and compose our selves I told you at the entrance That these Rules are not like to Physick that will cure us without our thoughts and consideration So now I must further remember you that we must not think to take this course as some men likewise do Physick just when the distemper is upon us but when we are well and in quiet When the trouble once is begun and the disease hath seised upon our spirits it is not so easily cured and we cannot so well consider nor apply these lessons to our minds therefore we must use them as we do Food which we take every day to keep us in health and not as Physick which we take but at certain times when we find the humor stirring i.e. We must work our souls to such kind of reasonings and discourses as these are we must bring our minds to such a way of thinking as I have described and make these rules so familiar to our minds that they may be a part of our understanding and a piece of our reason not some forreign things to which we run for relief upon occasion of need We must strip out souls of their former conceits and cloath them with these notions We must root out these weeds of bitterness High esteem of our selves and of worldly things earthly love unreasonable desire fond hopes and expectations rashness and inconsideration and plant in their stead such good principles as now have been commended to you and take care that they grow up there The government of the soul must be altered from the rule of popular opinions and the tyranny of fancies and imaginations to the sole command of Christian reason In this great alteration let us engage all our forces Think how shameful it is to get all knowledge and not to know our selves nor how to enjoy our selves and how miserable he is that incompasses all the world and searches into all things only neglects his own peace or seeks it among the occasions of his trouble Discharge thy self therefore with all speed of thy passions of rashness and hasty thoughts Learn thy duty do it know God and thy self and the world and when thou art once humble prudent thankeful and heavenly minded thou wilt not be displeased at what God or men do nothing will trouble thee or if any thing do it will be this that thou dost these things no better and art no more perfect in thy Art But this is the happiness of such a mans condition that those who mourn shall be comforted and it is a pleasure to be so troubled an ease to the mind to be so aggrieved No joys here like those of an ingenuous sorrow no cup of blessing so sweet as that which is mingled with tears of true contrition for our ingratitude With a good saying therefore of a wise Doctor among the Jews I will conclude who seeing a man very sad and sorrowful thus addressed his speech to him If thy grief be for the things of this world I pray God diminish it But if it be for the things of the world to come I pray God increase it A Consolatory DISCOURSE To Prevent Immoderate GRIEF For the Death of our FRIENDS LONDON Printed by R. W. for Francis Tyton at the three Daggers in Fleetstreet neer the Inner Temple-gate 1660. A Consolatory Discourse to prevent Immoderate Grief for the Death of our Friends §. 1. The need of this discourse IT is left upon record by St. Hierom concerning Paulina that though she was a Lady whose passions were under admirable government in other things yet when any of her children dyed she was oppressed with so great a sorrow that he had much ado to save her from being drowned in the floods of it But it is not so great a wonder that a person of the tenderer sex should feel such a tempest as that David a man of war who had overcome so many enemies should himself be overcome with grief for a disobedient obedient son It is said that a Lacedaemonian woman having sent five sons to a battle stood at the Gates of Sparta to expect the event and when she met one coming from the Camp she askt him what was done All thy five sons said the man are slain Away thou fool answered she again I enquired not of this but of the issue of the fight When he told her that her Countreymen had got the better then farewel my sons said she and let us rejoyce that Sparta is saved But David it seems had not attained to this faeminine courage 2 Sam. 18 24. for he sate between the gates waiting for news of the success and when he heard of the loss but of one son and he a Traitor to his Countrey he could not contain himself till he came into the house but went up to the chamber over the gate to lament his son V 33. as though he had lost the day by losing him Nay he could not refrain so long till he came into the chamber but he watered the staiâ—â— with his tears and wept as he went up saying O my son Absalom my son my son Absalom would God I had dyed for thee O Absalom my son my son This lamentation of his cannot but call to mind the tears which Achilles another great warriour shed over the grave of his friend Patroclus where 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Homer speaks he wept most horribly as if he would have killed himself This love is such a powerful thing that if it have placed any object in our heart we can scarce suffer it to be taken from us without rending and tearing our hearts in pieces Such a strange union doth it make between two persons that we can scarce give that man any welcome that brings us the news of a separation And therefore some of the ancient Carthaginians as I remember knowing
themselves and we must not let them gather more strength by our negligence If we do not at the very first set our selves in a posture of defence against them they will seize upon our whole soul and get every thing into their possession As soon therefore as our grief stirs we must strive to comfort our selves and not either help forward or suffer our grief If we go and bewail our friends as much as we can and think to chear our souls afterward we shall soon find that our souls are drowned with a flood and that it will be a long time before it be soaked up When we give the least leave to these passions they will ask no leave of us afterward but the soul will mourn like Rachel and refuse to be comforted As soon therefore as thou hearest of the death of thy friends do not say Alas what a friend have I lost did ever any man part with such a friend where shall I find one comparable to him in wisdom in love in faithfulness in all manner of sufficiencies to make a friend Do not I say after this sort aggravate thy grief but instantly say Why should I grieve and torment my self why should I trouble my self with my own thoughts why should wind and tide run together how many reasons have I to be contented and spread them all before thine eyes that they may dry up thy tears and cease thy sorrow And so doing thou wilt weep as much as is fit but no more then thou oughtst Nature will be satisfied and thou thy self not ashamed None will think that thou art not grieved and thou wilt feel that thy heart is comforted But what comfort are these may some say which you bring us §. 3. The best and wisest persons have not mourned much with what reasons will you assist us I suppose it will be of no great effect to answer that the wisest persons have alwayes made their mourning short because I have already named two both good and wise that were excessive And therefore I must endeavour to make men wise and furnish you with such reasons as will not suffer them to be oppressed with their sorrows Yet me thinks it is observable that the Aegyptians mourned ten times as long as the children of Israel Seven dayes ordinarily contented the people of God for their grief as you may see Eccles 22.12 Job 2.13 whereas they that were strangers to the God of Israel extended their mourning seventy dayes as you may read Gen. 50.3 yea the greatest mourning that the Israelites used for their two famous leaders Numb 20.29 Deut. 34.8 Moses and Aaron was prolonged but to thirty dayes which is not half the time that those Heathens allowed I think not fit neither to pass by the shortness of Abrahams grief for his dearest wife Sarah who dyed as some of the Jews conjecture for very grief when he was at Mount Moriah thinking that her son was offered This they gather from that expression Gen. 23.2 Abraham came to mourn for Sarah and to weep for her From whence it was that he came I have nothing to affirm yet this note of theirs is considerable that in the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to weep for her there is a small Caph in the middle of great letters 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which may very well show that his weeping was little and moderate and not of the greatest size That expression is likewise taken notice of by some which follows in the next verse He stood up from before his dead as if it signified that he turned his eyes from her that so he might not be overcome with grief We must not love to look on our losses nor think that it becomes us to weep as long as we can But we should learn by the manners of Gods people to do all we can to make our mourning short Yea I might teach you from Heathens themselves if examples would do us any good Plutarch in Lycurg Lycurgus ordained that none should weep above eleven dayes and that they should make no Funeral solemnities Solon likewise took them away 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Plut. in Solone that so he might ease men of those howlings and lamentations which they use to make at their friends Interment Augustus as Seneca observes though he lost all his children and Nephews and was fain to adopt an heir yet he was so little moved at their death that he constantly went to the Senate and neglected no Publike affairs Pericles likewise having lost two sons of great hope within the compass of eight dayes put on notwithstanding a white garment and with a great constancy of mind went to deliberate about the necessities of the Common-wealth All stories are full of such great souls that after they had conquered others at last conquered themselves also I know it will cure no man to tell him that his neighbour was cured yet these examples do commend to us the remedies which they used and give us hopes that our griefs are not incurable The cure of this distemper doth he chiefly in a fulness of consideraâ—ions §. 4. What it is that must ease us wherewithal our minds must be stored Nothing can resist grief but a great mind no mind can be great that is not big with truth nothing can impregnate us with truth but serious advice and consideration in our selves and therefore we must provide our selves with sufficient Antidotes that may be ready at hand when we have need of them Our sou's must be as an Apothecary and our heart must be the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or shop where all medicines are in a readiness against any grief or malady that shall invade us If we have our remedies to gather and to compound when our sickness comes the mind will be so weak that it will not be able to make them We have least power to consider when we are full of sorrow our affections are ready to overlay our reasons and therefore we must have our medicines made before that then we may have nothing else to do but only to take them And we shall find that to have so much labour in it our stomacks being squeamish and nauseateing that we shall clearly see we need have nothing else to do First then I. The first means is to consider what it is that we lament Let us seriously consider What is it that we grieve for It is soon answered that we mourn for the Death of those that we love For their Death What is that I beseech you Is death such a strange and unusual thing that we should take it heavily are your friends the first that ever dyed are you the only persons that God hath singled out to be left alone Death is an usual thing Do you not see that every thing in the world can cause death The wind the lightning the fire the smoak the dust of the earth the water our meat and drink our own
troubled But secondly We may be worse compare thy present condition with what thou mayst be This is not the worst that may befall thee in such a world of miseries Suppose then that thou shouldst lose all thy children as Job did and then lose thy whole estate that the Sea should swallow one part and the fire burn another and theeves rob thee of a third and bad debtors quite undo thee Suppose after all this that a fire should begin to burn in thy own bones and that should break into boils and they should break into scabs and thou shouldst be poor even to a Proverb as that holy man was Must thou not be contented then But how is that possible seeing thou canst not be contented now If such a showr of tears fall from thine eyes for this little loss then sure thou wilt make a flood or a deluge But what wilt thou do at last after all thy lamentations wilt thou kill thy self Then it seems thou takest death to be the end of all troubles and I wonder thou shouldst be troubled at that which hath cased thy friend of all troubles Or what else wilt thou do comfort thy self Try how thou canst do that now for if thy stomack resuse cordials in this distemper never expect that it will digest them when thou wilt be far more sick and apt to vomit them up again If Job had cursed the day wherein he was born at the first breach that God made upon his estate what expressions of grief below a great sin had he left for himself when he sate upon the dunghil The good man took the first losses so patiently that all the rest which befell him could not move him to greater impatience Do thou remember him and say to thy soul Come be quiet this is not the worst that may betide us we have no such cause to cry as we may have Let us learn patience against a time when we may have more need of it And then if we should be brought to the very dust and fall as low as the dung of the earth yet there is another way of considering what may be besides this We may be better We may be as happy again as now we account our selves miserable Our sorrow may be turned into joy as our joy hath been turned into sorrow Weeping may endure for a night but joy may come in the morning according as I have said in the former discourse Job 42.12 And so it was with Job whom God blessed in his latter end more then in his beginning We have seen the end of the Lord saith the Apostle James that the Lord is very pitiful Jam. 5.11 and of tender mercy But then this pitty of his is to be obtained only by patience If we cannot be contented it is needful we may think that he should teach us it still by greater losses Thirdly We have more then we want Compare what thou hast lost with what thou hast not lost God leaves commonly more then he takes He takes away thy children perhaps but thou hast thy husband and he is better then ten sons Or if thou hast lost thy husband also yet thou hast thy self and why should a living man complain and thou hast God himself whom nothing can take away from thee Or if thou hast him not yet thou mayst have him and who knows but that therefore thou hast lost thy friends because thou hast not him God hath taken them away that thou maist seek after him Wouldst thou have been willing that all thou hast should have been lost rather then this one friend Shall God raise him from the dead and all the rest go into his tomb Wilt thou have all or else take comfort in none Then God may well take away all and let thee have something to cry for Yea who is there destitute of all friends and comforters Job himself was not so spoiled that they had robbed him of his friends Though they did add indeed to his grief yet it was their mistake and not their want of love And if we should have no better then we may give God thanks that he lets us see more then all our friends Yea it is a great mercy that God gives us time to cease our grief and trouble And perhaps we have riches and a pleasant dwelling delightful walks c. or if we have not and can bear that patiently Barthol cent 4. Hist An. cap. 16. then we may soon learn how to bear this Do the poor people of Norway weep when they eat because their bread is made of the barks of trees and sometimes of chaff not of corn as ours is If there were no trees nor chasse nor no such thing to fill their mouths they might well cry but as long as we have what is needful we should be content for nothing is so needful as that Let us not then weep because we have not so many friends as we had for we have more then we deserve Let us not mourn as though we were desolate when we want but one no more then we do complain of hunger when we have all variety of chear except one dish that we love most But Fourthly We have more then many others Let us compare our selves if you please with others In other cases this is a thing we love to do though there be so much danger in it that it may undo us If we be guilty of any fault then we comfort our selves in comparisons and think that we are not so bad as others Now that which we are apt to do when we do ill we ought to do when we think we suffer ill Is God more unkind to us then to any of our neighbours Do not we see that many of our neighbours children are dead as well as ours Many of them have lost four or five and we have lost but one Nay many of them never had any and yet they do not therefore mourn and besmear their faces with tears and break their hearts with sighs Our case is the very same now that we have none but only that it is a little better because we had once some And how thankful should we be that we had them so long if it be desirable to have them at all But then we may say further to our selves How many of them have lost their friends in the late wars How many hath the sword made Widdows and the blood of how many of their children hath it drunk Ours were taken away by the hand of God but theirs were taken away by the hands of men Our friends dyed in their beds and theirs dyed in the field Ours went and theirs were driven out of the world Come let us go comfort our neighbours that have lost more then we for they stand more in need of comfort If they stand in need of none then no more do we It was very handsomely discoursed by Socrates as Plutarch relates That if we could
could that one have mourned more for you all then every one of you do for him If you will weep weep only your part and do not weep as if there was none else to weep but your selves If a man that was not acquainted with the world should see ten or twenty or perhaps a greater number sitting in a room and miserably bemoaning of themselves would he not ask what Town was burnt or what family was dead that caused so many mourners How much then would he be astonished when he heard the Answer that you had lost a friend a child or some one of your other relations What are there so many tears due would he think from every one of these for one must so many be ready to die for the death of one can there be no comfort found among so many of you against the death of one single person Me thinks you should all of you together weep no more for the death of one then that one would have wept for you if you had been dead altogether Look therefore upon one another and say You are still left behind and I am left and here are twenty more of our friends alive how is it then that we are discontented as if we had not lost one but every one of us had lost one If there had been but one of us left what could he have done more then what every one of us doth could he shed more tears for the loss of us all could he make himself more sad then we now are Either let us say that one and ten are equal or let us not shed as many tears for one as we would for ten much less ten times as many tears as there would be for ten For but one would weep for ten and here ten that weep for one Divide your grief then and let every one bear a part but not the whole for that is as if you had none to bear it with you V. Ask thy self Or if we have not God is still ours who rules the world and not we Who is it that governs the world Is it the will of God or thy will that thou prayest may be done Shall not he that made a thing have leave to dispose of it as he thinks good By what law is it that he shall not do what he pleases with his own Must we have our wills in all things and must not he have his will also must not he be pleased as well as we If we think it so reasonable to have what we will then it is more reasonable that he should have what he wills Now if our will and his will cannot stand together which shall bend and submit themselves to the other Is not his will most wise If he had considered better would he have done otherwise could we have told him what would be most fit for us If we had been of his Counsel should not this friend have been taken away Doth he will things because he will Perhaps there is no reason at all for our wills and we are in love with a thing we know not why shall we think that he is so in like manner Or if we have any reasons are not his better We would have the life of a child that he may be a comfort unto us God will have us to part with him that he may be our only comfort We should chuse his life that he might enjoy the things that we have got But God thinks fit that he should die that we may put our estates to better uses whereby we are assured he may be more glorified Or perhaps we desire our children may live for Gods glory sake that they may honour and serve him in the world but cannot he tell what is best for his own glory is he so careless of that as to take away the things without which he cannot be served Let us then cease our complaints unless we would have him to let us govern the World But he was taken away will some say before his time else I should be content I shall answer this as Photius doth Epist 234. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Let me hear no such word I beseech you a word too bold to be spoken and more bold to be thought Before the time do you say Then why was he not thought to come before the time when he came out of his mothers womb There is no reason for it but this that it was the will and pleasure of God that he should be born at such a time And must God appoint the time of his birth and we set the time of his death Did the Workman give him a being in good time and take him to himself not knowing the fittest time From a drop he made him to become a lump of flesh He formed the flesh into parts he brought him into the light and he kept him in his infancy and childhood Was any of these out of due time why then only should it be out of season when he translated him to another life Let us do therefore as David did who prayed and wept as long as he could hope the decree of God was not absolute concerning his childs death but when he saw that it was irreversible he comforted himself Let us alway say as Job doth The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away and blessed be the Name of the Lord. And let this be further considered to the enforcing of this truth that if the will of the Lord must be born then it must be done And his will is that we should take all things patiently yea cheerfully from his hands And therefore if we mourn immoderately what do we but only add sin unto our pain As there is a time to laugh so there is a time to weep but there is no more time to weep superfluously then there is to laugh idly and profusely Both in the one and in the other we must be wholly subject to the will of God But that will of God as I said is very wise in every thing and therefore he intends to make us laugh by this mourning and by every sad thing that doth befall us to make our hearts glad He alwayes gives something better then he takes away if we would but seek after it and oft-times he takes one thing away that we may seek after the better But alas our blindness is so great that we value not that which brings us profit unless it be sweet to our tast We let our passion judge and not our reason and therefore we think there is no good in a bitter cup and no danger in a pleasant draught We lament and mourn when we ought to think our selves great gainers and we rejoyce and leap when perhaps a cross of the greatest burden hath befaln us Let us stay a while therefore and expect the end of things before we mourn And let us but desire to be cured rather then pleased to have our souls amended rather then our fancy