[ 1283] Not to mourn excessively for the losse of any worldly enjoyment whatsoever; And why so?
IT is related of a Minister of Gods word,* 1.1 that visiting a Neighbour (whose child lay a dying) he endeavoured to comfort her; but she being much grieved and dejected with sorrow, would by no means be comforted; The Minister said unto her, Woman, Why do you sorrow so much, pacifie your selfe▪ If your Child should live, it may be so, that God might make it a scourge and vexation to you, by taking wicked and sinful courses: She answered, that she did not care, if her Child did recover, though he were hanged afterward. This Son of hers did recover, and was afterward executed for some villany co••mitted: Now let any one judge, whether it had not been a greater mercy, and a thousand times better for her, to have seen him buryed before her, then that he should have come to such an unhappy end: Thus it is, that that comfort,* 1.2 which any of us all shall so excessively mourn for the want of it, may be would have proved a greater cross and trouble, should but God have continued it still unto us; whether it be the l••sse of life or estate, of a lo••ing Wife, or an onely Son,* 1.3 as it was in Rachels case, Gen. 30. 5. and in Davids, that if God had given him the life of his Child, it would have been but a living Monument of his shame, and all that knew the Child, might have said, Yonder goes Davids Bastard: The con∣sideration whereof should allay and take off the edge of all excesse of sorrow, for the losse of any temporall comfort, any worldly enjoyment whatsoever.