The mourner directory, guiding him to the middle way betwixt the two extreams, defect, excess of sorrow for his dead to which is added, The mourners soliloquy / by Thomas Doolittle ...

CHAP. XVIII. Additional Questions propounded to Mourn∣ers, for the Moderating of Excessive Sorrow.

BUT if your Sorrow be Excessive after all these Remedies alleadged, made known to us by Divine Revelation, doth it not ar∣gue

Want or Weakness of Faith, and slowness of Heart to Believe? If you do not believe, will you reason the Case with your self, that we may bring it to this Issue, that your Im∣moderate Sorrow is irrational, contrary both to Faith and Reason: Which will appear by that time you consider the Matter well, and give in a deliberate Answer to these following Questions briefly offered to you.

1 Quest. If a particular Resurrection now could be, as formerly hath been, would you desire that your Relations that died in the Lord, might now be raised from the dead, to live and dwell with you in your House upon Earth again? If it were possible, would you have your holy Father, or Mother, Husband or Wife raised as Jairus his Daughter, Lazarus, Tabitha, and others were; and come and sit at your Table, and live with you in the same Circumstances as they did be∣fore? If you would not, how unreasonable is all your excessive Sorrow, because they are dead, and yet would not have them live with you again, thô you may? What! will nothing content you? Is their restoration to Life now, no matter of your desire, and yet is their death such matter of so great abundant Sorrow? Will you be pleased neither way, concerning them dead or alive again? If you would desire this, do you consider what it is you do desire, and how injurious you would be to them, that you may have your will, and

as you say the comfort that before you had in them? Tell me

(1.) Would you indeed have them from the glorious presence of God and Christ, and the eter∣nal Spirit to live with you? Could they have that Delight and Joy in your Company, as now they are filled with in the presence of their glorious God and Redeemer?

(2.) Would you have them leave the Society of Angels and saved Souls above, to come and dwell among sinfull men again?

(3.) Would you indeed have them return from Rest to Trouble? from Joy to Sorrow? from Praising to Mourning?

(4.) Now they have got out of the reach of Satans Temptations, would you have them live here again, to be buffeted again, and tempted and assaulted by that roaring Lion? And af∣ter they have got the Victory, and won and wore the Crown, would you have them to come into the Field again, and conflict with the Powers of Darkness again?

(5.) Were you grieved for them on their dying Beds, to see what they endured, and what cold Sweats the Pangs of Death did put them to? and yet would you have them live again, that they may die again? Do you sor∣row that they have died once, and will you sorrow on, except you could have them live again, that they may die twice? would you have them have two deaths for one? Is this your Love to them?

(6.) Is once mourning for them so grievous, and would you have them live again, and so die again, and you Mourn again for their Se∣cond dying, if you should out live them, or leave them behind you, for them to Mourn for you; whereas where they are now, they have done Mourning, and are strangers to it?

(7.) Would not you be more Kind to your self and them, to prepare and desire to go to them, than to have them return to you, if such a thing could be? Do not you know which to choose, and yet sorrow in this manner?

2 Q. If you would have them Live again, can your sorrow multiplyed ten times more, help you to your Will? May you not by this sorrow bring your self to the Grave, sooner than fetch them out? Say what good this excessive sorrow doth, or else moderate it.

3 Q. Who hath done this, that you mourn so much for? Was it not by the Providence of God? And will you quarrel with him, or call him to an account, why he hath done so? Or should not his Hand quiet your Heart? Read Job 33.13. 1 Sam. 3.18. Psal. 39.9.

4 Q. Do not you hereby contradict your Pray∣ers? Do not you pray his Will might be done, and submitted to when it's done? Do not you see it was his Will to have your Re∣lation from you, and is this your submission to it? Is it so done in Heaven, as you do it upon Earth?

5 Q. Hath God herein taken any from you, but what he first gave unto you? Who gave you your Children, or Husband, or Wife? were they not the Gifts of God? Did not this quiet Job? Chap. 1.21.

6 Q. Whose was He or She that is dead, that you so Immoderately do Mourn for? Do you say, it was my Child, my Father, or my Mother, my Husband or my Wife? If it had not been mine, I should not thus have mourn∣ed. But were they not Gods own, more than your own? When God gave them you, did he give away his own right? Might not God do what he will with his own, but you must take on, as if he had taken something he had no right unto? What had you to do to keep his Own from him, when he would have them with him?

7 Q. Is not God Soveraign Lord, and abso∣lute Disposer of all in the World? Are not Kingdoms and Nations, Princes, Lords and Nobles at his disposal? And what are you above all others in the World, that you and yours should be exempted from the disposing Hand of God?

8 Q. Did your Happiness lie in the Enjoyment of the Creatures you have lost? In them or in God? If in them, you are miserable; if in God, tho they are dead, yet he doth Live: Why then do you thus mourn, so long as your Happiness remains?

9 Q. Tho your Relations are cut down and withered like Grass, yet doth not the Word of the Lord stand and continue for your Support? Isa. 40.6, 7, 8. And cannot you find as much Comfort in all the standing Promises of God, as you did in a withering Creature? Go and try, by reading, believing, applying of them as your Case requires, and by turning Pro∣mises into Prayers.

10 Q. Did not your Relation live out the Time appointed by God? Job 14.5. Or did he not die, when God did foreknow he would die? And do you thus take on because Gods Pur∣pose is performed? Would you have a Child tarry in the Womb beyond its appointed time, or in the World beyond what God in∣tended it should?

11 Q. Did not you know your Relations were mortal, or do you sorrow because they were so? Is not that to sorrow because they were Men, or Women, or Children? Would you have had them to have been here Immortal, that they might not have been subject to Death? Did you ever see any Men, Women or Chil∣dren that were not mortal?

12 Q. If so, did not you know a parting time would come? Was there not some Intimation and mention of Deaths separating you in your conjugal Covenant? And do you now mourn as if something had befallen you, that you never knew or heard of? Is it so intole∣rable

to you to see a dying Creature, dead?

13 Q. When would you have been willing to have parted with them? If God had continued your Child ten years longer, would not you have been more unwilling, and so more sor∣rowful than now you are? After Forty years would you be willing?

14 Q. Hath any thing befallen you, that hath not been the common Case of all the Generations before you, will shortly be of all this Age, and of following, except those that shall be found alive at the Coming of Christ? And would you have your State to be singular? Or if it be not, will you be sullen?

15 Q. Could your Relations Souls have gone to Heaven, if their Bodies had not died? Or would you have had them never lodged there, except as Enoch and Elias, without seeing Death? If the Soul could not have been hap∣py above, except the Body dyed, and took the Grave in its way to Glory, are you ex∣cessively troubled for a dead Body, which must be, for the greater advantage of the Immor∣tal Soul?

16 Q. Would not you have been as loth to leave them behind you, as now you are sorrowful they are gone before you? And will you be plea∣sed neither way? Would you have died all together? You are sorrowing now for Wise and Children, because removed by Death; and if God had laid you upon a dying Bed,

then your trouble would be for them, if alive, because you are like to be taken from them, and say, What will my small Children do if I die? And what will their Mother d•• when their Father leaves the one •• Widow, and the other Fatherless? I could have been glad if God would have spared my Life, to have seen them well brought up. It is hard for you to say which would be less trouble to you, to leave them behind you, or have them go be∣fore you. But if you have that which you had rather have, why do you so sorrow, when you have that which is best for the rest of your Family.

17 Q. Do not you know that all your Family have sinned; and that therefore they have all deserved to die? Why then do you sorrow so much for one captivated by Death, when you should be admiring the Patience of God, and praising him for his Mercy that so many are continued in Life?

18 Q. Is not this Ingratitude to God, that the loss of one should make you unsensible of the many Mercies of your own Life? Is all gone in one? Look about you, and you will see the abun∣dant goodness of God to you, in your out∣ward. Accommodations in this World, many spiritual Blessings, as Pledges of Eternal Glo∣ry, and will you bury your Thankfulness for these in the Grave of your dead?

19 Q. Do not you provoke God hy your sinful

excessive Sorrow to go on to make more Breaches by Death, that you might have something more to sorrow for? Do you sorrow thus for one? Might not God say, There is another Child, Death, lay it dead, and bring it out, and lodge it by the other. There is an Husband, or a Father yet left, Death go and seize him, and have him away, and if they are delighted in such discontented Sorrow, let them hav•• more to sorrow for.

20 Q. Have not they lived a long life before they die, they enter into Eternal glorious life when they die? Do you sit and sorrow, and say, if he had not died so soon, if he had not died so young. How soon? if he lived to be Con∣verted, to be sanctified and prepared for Heaven, did he not live longer than a Man at Sixty, and then dies in Sin, and is Damned at last? Do you reckon length of Life by multitude of years, or ripeness and fitness for Heaven? When you Sorrow he died so soon, Bless God he lived so long as to be saved when he died.

21 Q. Will you compare with God in point of Wisdom in governing and disposing of his Crea∣tures, with all the circumstances of Life and Death? Are you wiser than he? dare you entertain such a Thought? would you not resist it with abhorrence? why then do you think it would have been better for you that your Relation should have lived longer? Is not this to set

your Folly against Gods Wisdom? Doth not he best know what is the most fitting time for any to be born, how long to live, and when to die? If so, why do you oversorrow for that which is done with highest Wisdom?

22 Q. Why hath God implanted such Graces in your Heart as are suitable for a time of Affli∣ction, but that you should exercise them in their season? As Faith, and Patience, and Submis∣siveness of will to his holy Will and Pleasure: Are not Habits given for Act? and when will you act your Patience and Submission, but when Tryals are upon you? but doth your excessive Sorrow look like Patience under, or fretting against the hand of God?

23 Q. Do you say you did exceedingly desire their Eternal Good in Gods accepted time, and excessively sorrow for their Death, and can you re∣concile those Desires with this Sorrow? If you did desire it, when God should please to be∣stow it, why do you so sorrow now (by death the way of all Believers to it) they have obtain∣ed what you did desire? when without the one they were not to have the other.

24 Q. Are not you your self being made men for Heaven, near unto that Place and State where you shall sorrow no more; neither for any thing concerning your self, nor any other? while you mourn, and say, This Husband, or Wife, Father or Mother that was mine, now is no longer mine: Seriously meditate, and deeply

consider, and say, Yet God is mine, and Christ is mine, and the Spirit is mine, the Promises and Pri∣viledges are mine, and Heaven is mine, and there I shall shortly be with God, and Christ, and the Eternal Spirit, with Angels, and saved Souls above, where I shall love God with perfect Love, and praise him, and my Redeemer and Sanctifier with Eternal Praises; and see and know, and delight in the Company of those that are gone before, for whom I am mourn∣ing upon Earth, and joy and joyn with them in ho∣ly Hallelujahs, and triumphant Songs of Praise, where all sorrow shall be taken from my Heart, and all tears wiped from mine Eyes, and I and they shall know sorrow and grief, and groans and sighs no no more; I stand at the door of Eternity every day, waiting, looking, hoping for Eternal Joys: Therefore blessed Lord, to all these reasonings of thy Ministers, add the effectual working of thy Spirit, that I might not sorrow as those that have no Hope. Amen.