1. Rule.

If you would not mourn excessively for the loss of creature-comforts, then beware that you set not your delight and love excessively or inordinately upon them whilst you enjoy them.

Strong affections make strong afflictions, the higher the Tyde, the lower the Ebb. According to the measure of our delight in the enjoyment, is our grief in the loss of these things. The Apostle knits these two graces Temperance and Patience to∣gether in the Precept, 2 Pet. 1. 16. And it's very observable how Intemperance and Impatience are inseparably linked in ex∣perience, yea, the experience of the best men. You read Gen. 37. 3. How Israel loved Joseph more than all his children, be∣cause he was the son of his old age; and he made him a coat of many colours.

This was the darling, Jacobs heart was exceedingly set upon him, his very life was bound up in the life of the Lad. Page  151 Now when the supposed death of this child was brought to him; How did he carry it? See Ver. 34, 35. And Jacob rent his cloaths, and put sackcloth upon his loins, and mourned for his Son many days: And all his sons and all his daugh∣ters rose up to comfort him, but he refused to be comforted; and he said, for I will go down into the grave to my Son mourning: Thus his Father wept for him.

Here as in a glass, the effects of ex∣cessive love to a child are represented. Here you may see what work immoderate love will make, even in a sanctified heart.

O therefore let your moderation be known to all men, in your delights and sorrows about earthly things; for or∣dinarily the proportion of the one is answerable to the other.