Forty Sermons, Sermon 6
SERMON VI. Of the Blessedness of Mourners.
Matt. 5. 4.
Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted.
THE foreign shecina, say the Jewish Doctors, will not rest upon a sad person, that is, God will not be especially with him, nor will his holy Spirit keep him company, that is, a solitary Mourner: and indeed we often find in Scripture, that when the Prophets would invite Gods Spirit down upon they did heighten themselves with mirth; but now, saith Elisha, bring me a Minstrel, and it came to pass while the Minstrel plai'd, the hand of the Lord came upon him. And he said, thus saith the Lord, 2 Kings 3. 15. as if the Music had inspir'd him, and his soul was tun'd into Enthusiasme; and so also 1 Sam. 10. 5. thou shalt meet a company of Prophets coming down from the high place, with a Psaltery, and a Tabret, and a Pipe, and a Harp before them, and they shall prophecy: and the Spirit of the Lord will come upon thee. Yea and as God would not dwell with them, so neither would he let them keep him company, they were not to appear before him sad Deut. 12. 7. And there ye shall eat before the Lord your God, and ye shall rejoyce: and therefore God hath no worse expressions for unclean Sacrifices, than the bread of Mourners, Hos. 9. 4. They shall not be pleasing unto him, but their Sacrifices shall be as the bread of Mourners, and as the foreign those Sacrifices, for their carcases shall not come into the house of the Lord. Yea he would not let those Melancholly people keep others company in his service, but there was porta lugentium, a gate for Mourners to enter by themselves into the Temple-service, as if the mirth were among their precepts, and to be sad were to be defil'd and unclean. But it is not so with us in the Gospel, where the onelyonly Sacrifice of God is a troubled spirit, a broken and contrite heart he will not despise; but the bread of Mourners shall be the foreign, from which he will never turn away his face, and a few penitent tears are the scope and the fulfilling of all the Jewish purifyings, and the Spirit of the Lord moveth upon the face of these waters; foreign he flutters and hovers over them, and as he did out of the first waters, so out of those tears he hatches a new creation, they being the very first effects and signs of life in the new creature and the new birth also, natural to both; Infants and the Child of God also are born weeping and crying, this being the very first throw in regeneration. Yea so far is this sorrow from displeasing God, that it is the great engagement to him to give us comfort both here and hereafter, and it is put amongst Christs first beatitudes here, Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted.
The words present either a bare description of persons, or withall involve a duty, the being Mourners. Secondly import a designation of their condition, that they are Blessed. Thirdly they give the reason and the manner of that condition, For they shall be comforted; so that mourning may be doubly understood, either as a duty, or as an aphorisme: in the later case mourning is taken not to be prescrib'd at all, but onelyonly Christ looking upon his Disciples who were in the worlds esteem in a sad low condition, he does encourage them, that notwithstanding their unequal estimate, yet they are in a blessed condition, for they shall be sure to be comforted. And thus first it may be as an appendage to the former aphorisme, in that he had by the assurance of a reward encourag'd them in the entertainment of poverty and calamities, had advanc't the lowly into heaven, and enrich't the patient poor with the inheritance of a Kingdom, those that were poor in Spirit, content with their condition; and then this follows, blessed are those that mourn, for they shall be comforted; as if it were after this manner: but what if our calamities do grow upon us, and we are not able to bear them with an even mind and a serene countenance, but they cast us down, we greive and mourn under them and cannot be comforted? yet even for this condition there is promise, Christ is so far from breaking this bruised reed, that he confirms and strengthens it; the greivousness of our calamities shall not exclude all hope of ease, neither shall our weakness and infirmity exclude us from the number of the blessed: he will neither impute our want of courage, that groans and faints under the burthen, provided that we be not heated by it into impatience at his dispensations, nor chaft into wrath against them that lay it on us, tho we do mourn, if we do not vexe, we are blessed; neither will he suffer our calamities, when he hath tried and purg'd us by them, quite to oppress us, but how greivous soever they be, they shall find multitudes of comfort, even the comfort of mitigation, for to that Gods faithfulness is engag'd 1 Cor. 10. 13. God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be temted above that ye are able; but will with the temtation make a way also to escape, that ye may be able to bear it. Secondly the internal comforts of Gods grace 2 Cor. 1. 3, 4. God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies, and the God of all comfort, who comforteth us in all our tribulations. Thirdly the comfort of a joyful recompence, even here for the most part, John 16. 20, 21. I say unto you ye shall weep and lament, but the world shall rejoyce; and ye shall be sorrowful, but your sorrow shall be turned into joy. A woman when she is in travail, hath sorrow, because her hour is come: but as soon as she is deliver'd of the child, she remembreth no more the anguish for joy that a man is born into the world. Our afflictions may be throws, but they shall end in birth, and have the ease and joy of a delivery; and therefore our Savior said of himself foreign Luke 12. 50. how am I straitned? as a woman in child to accomplish his Baptism, that Baptism of agony, sweat and bloud; or certainly however an eternal recompence of joy hereafter, everlasting consolations, as St Paul saith 2 Thess. 2. 16. When instead of this hunger and thirst and tears the Lamb which is in the midst of the throne, shall feed them, and shall lead them unto living fountains of waters; and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes, and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: Rev. 7. 17. and 21. 4.
And first we learn hence the compassion of our Savior, who hath indulg'd us the infirmities of our nature: he hath not made our weak affections to be sins, but hath shew'd us a way to make them advantages towards blessedness; God that was made flesh remembers that we are but flesh, and does not require of us to be insensible, it is not a vice not to be a stock, such as the Stoicks requir'd their wise man should be, foreign, no greif, nor no sense of any external calamity; tho you thrust his hand into the fire, it must be no more to him, than if you burn his staff; for his body is but his organ, his instrument, no part at all of him: but Christ requires no such hard tasks of us. Had he deni'd us our tears, and forbid us the ease of mourning in afflictions, and made weeping to be cowardise and sin, it had bin a hard saying, we had had reason to have thought ourselves severely dealt withal: but he gives us leave as it were to love the dear things of this world, a little to weep when they leave us, if we do not love them so as not to love our brother and our God, leaving them if the world leave us, and when by calamities our comforts are taken from us, by frettings and vexations throwing off our God from us, repining at him, and casting his commands away, of not envying, not returning, provided in our tears we have humble perfect submissions and resignations of our selves, throwing our selves down at his feet, and from our very souls saying,a1 Sam. 3. 18. it is the Lord, let him do what seemeth him good: then Christ he yeilds to the tenderness of our nature, and provided we mixe no gall with our tears, no bitterness with our weepings, no murmurs nor no grumblings with our groans, he pardons all our weaknesses, and makes our mourning to be but as a call and invitation to him to come to comfort us.
Secondly from the diversity of comforts that belong to every great greiving calamity here, we learn the munificence of our Savior, who does with such infinite advantage return our afflictions; he did himself suffer so many sorrows, and found they were so hard to bear, that for every greif we patiently endure he renders a fourfold comfort, and of those some Divine, the last Eternal. Thus does he reward not our virtues onelyonly (for it is no command of ours to be greiv'd,) but our mischances, our inflictions: he recompences thy enimie's malice to thee with multiplied and eternal consolations, yea he does thus reward thy ease; for such it is to mourn in crosses, our greifs boil out at our eies, and ease their swellings by those eruptions of tears, yet this very ease does he comfort us for, and makes those tears, which for the present do refresh, to be the rivers of Paradise, the fountains of the waters of life; teaches us the constant vicissitudes of greif and joy; sorrow and gladness so receive one another constantly, that in this life they that mourn shall be comforted, they thatbLuke 6. 25. laugh shall weep. Laughter hath in it self more than the tears of sadness, foreign saith Aristotle, the hurries of delight even in the very wicked weary themselves into a dulness, and die into a sadness; the intemperances rejolt in bitter risings, and the more forc't and violent the delight is, it is but like the raising the pendant weight, which by how much you lift it up one way, it drives it self so much on the other side; yea in the better sort of Christians the frollicks of these pleasures here below, tho not sinful, do for the most part end in thoughtful sadnesses, careful regrets, not onelyonly in that such persons, when they come to themselves, find themselves estrang'd from God, and from devouter duty; a deadness is upon them, and they must take pains to wind themselves up again: but if with any conscionable care they look into themselves, they shall discern that little loosnesses and vanities and prides and such other companions have insinuated themselves, and crept in with the frollicks; matter for humiliation and sorrow, if they mean to recover the true inward Religious content which never springs with such a stream, as from these serious and retir'd reflections; they that so mourn shall find comfort. Thus the Aphorism also hath much truth in order to the two lives, that here and that hereafter.
2. This Aphorism also thus taken bears the full sense of that frequent saying, wherewith people us'd to comfort one another concerning these crosses, you are happy you have your sufferings in this life; which sentence, tho it be not true in the full latitude, as thoevery man that suffer'd here had a crown therefore laid up for him; for afflictions may be vengeance for sins, which if they do not reduce us, as many are not better'd by their sufferings, why then they do encrease their score, enhance their reckoning, and tho they be the very beginning of Hell here, yet they do also heat Hell seven times more for them, and their very sufferings make them suffer more hereafter, than if they had not suffer'd here: because such sin against Gods last method of reducing them. Tho this be too frequent truth, yet also there seeming some sufferings allotted to every man, as he that hath had no cross here, needs to look well to his tenure by which he holds his inheritance, since God hath said,cHebr. 12. 6, 8. he chastens every son whom he receiveth; and if ye be without chastening, whereof all are partakers, then are ye bastards and not sons. So also he that runs on in the race of Piety that is set before him, if he do meet with sharp stakes and stumbling blocks that hurt and gall him, yet if he starts up and goes on, he may look upon these as good evidences of his sonship, and security that he hath drunk his cup, and the dregs are not reserv'd for him; and thus both from this text, blessed are they that mourn, especially in St Lukes expressing it, blessed are ye that weep now, for ye shall laugh; and wo unto you that laugh now, for ye shall mourn and weep, Luke 6. 21, 25. and most clearly from Abraham to the rich man Luke 16. 25. Son, remember that thou in thy life-time receivedst thy good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things; but now he is comforted, and thou art tormented, or asdSee Cypr. l. 3. Test. ad Quirinum c. 61. foreign may signify rogatur, now thou Dives art the beggar, Lazarus is begg'd of; where you see clearly a portion of good and evil things seeming appropriate to every man on earth, each hath his good and evil things, and he that hath receiv'd the one may well look for the other: this clearly points out a vicissitude of good and evil, of comfort and of torment.
Wee learn hence the unequitable mistake of those men, who expect and gape for all good things in both lives, quadrigis caelum petimus, they would go to heaven in triumphal chariots, and in smooth and broad ways sleep themselves into bliss, have two Paradises, all ease here and heaven hereafter: and even just such is that also of them, that make a calm prosperity here, to be a sign and seal to them that they are in the right way to heaven; thus Turcism shall commence the onelyonly true Religion, and Mahomet shall dethrone Christ from his own purchas'd right hand of God, for he hath the more purple sword; thus succesful iniquity shall advance into piety, and sin by growing predominant, by becoming powerfully and exceeding sinful, accumulate into virtue. No, my Brethren, the comfort is promis'd not to them that have it here, but to the Mourners, take heed least the Blessings you receive in this life be call'd your good things, or your consolations, as Luke 6. 24.
I shall give you one sign whereby men may be able in some measure to discern, whether they do esteem, and make them to themselves such; God gives the good things of this world for uses, not to terminate our desires, as things of themselves good: onelyonly He himself, who is the supreme, the last good, can be so; all other are design'd for ends, that do at last look up to him, and are and ought to be subordinate to that last highest end. Health is given to enable us to employ our selves in the actions of some honest calling, for our own maintenance, for the good of others, and for the service of God, and carrying on the works and ends of Providence: so wealth or the provisions we acquire and enjoy, and every other good thing of this life. Now he that thwarts this order or subordination, that lays out his desires on the things themselves, that minds them for their own sake onelyonly, and the satisfaction he himself receives from them without looking further, these are his ends apparently, and so his good things which he rests in; which if God permit him to enjoy, he therefore hath his good things, and hath no great reason to expect and look for other. Now how miserably does this man delude himself? for this is to preferr the present moment before the following eternity: it is as if the Embryo should wish for a fair spacious womb, and chuse to spring and leap there for its nine months, rather than to live a pleasant age in a variety of full delights, and so it may but dance in the womb not care to be deliver'd into a dungeon, and born a fetter'd slave: it is to chuse the riot of one meal, one good feast, and to starve the whole remainder of a mans life; yea it is worse, it is to love a pleasant moment more, than he fears eternal Hell, or loves as eternal Heaven. And this will be discern'd, (and is by most of them that live in jollity) when they come to die; when they must bethink themselves of going hence, and have not consider'd to provide a place, nay have all reason to beleive they have no place provided, but that which GodeMatt. 25. 41. prepared for the Devil and his Angels; when they shall think in sad earnest, I have liv'd a pleasant life, and never have deni'd my self an appetite nor thwarted a design, nor yet hath God deni'd me any thing, but Providence hath suffer'd every thing to serve my inclinations, and to gorge my appetites; but I am going now where these unruly appetites, that I have so indulg'd, will infinitely grow, and where all satisfaction will be impossible, and my desires will be my endless torment.
3. This Aphorisme also by pronouncing a present blessedness to the Mourners, lets us see the advantages they have above other men in their journey to Heaven. Delights for the most part they are but the baits and the sawces of sin: by these the Devil and the World and our own Flesh temts us to iniquities, and keeps us fast glew'd in them; this is every mans experience, yea the most innocent delights they are at the best avocations from Heaven, and from better things; they entertain and hold our thoughts upon fading objects, that will never profit us, if it happen that they do not utterly ruin us: whereas the causes of mourning, calamities, yea and the passion it self they beget virtues in us, a whole chain of them; for tribulation worketh patience, patience experience, experience hope, Rom. 5. 3, 4. yea indeed they make us perfect and entire lacking nothing, Jam. 1. 4. as if to be rob'd and spoil'd of all things were the sure way of wanting nothing, not a vertue certainly, these deep waters of affliction and these tears of ours, that raise the stream, they drive and waft us to our God,fPsal. 78. 34. when he smote them, then they sought him and enquir'd after God early; a storm will make a Mariner pray, and when the tempest beats him down upon his knees he will lift up his hands to Heaven; the Heathen Seamen fled to the true Jehovah, when they were ready to suffer shipwrack Jonah 1. 14, 16. yea they do not onelyonly drive but wooe us to God, they are temtations in the sense of bait also, I will allure her and bring her into the wilderness, saith God Hos. 2. 14. when I have made her solitary, put her as in the desert, brought her into the very place of dragons, this shall be my allurements, my inticing wooings of her: and not to loose the experience of this, St Chrysostom hath given it in the frequent example of men of most effeminate, loose, dissolute lives, yet by a cause of mourning, by the loss of a bosom wife, of a dear onelyonly heir they become (at least for that time of greif) strict and severe; how do they banish all soft delights, no curious provision for the flesh, but more than Philosophical abstinence almost to the pining of themselves, watches and silence, quiet and humble prostrations of themselves, unspeakable meekness, huge commiseration of all that are afflicted, these are their passions and their exercises; for a while they so contemn the world, think it so little worth their moiling for, that now it is not worth a wish; in that time should a fire seize on all they had, or a spoiler run away with all, it would scarce divert a thought or eye to it from their sad melancholly object, they look upon all guilded pomps and soft pleasures as cloath'd with the same dark sable that themselves have on, they are almost ready to betake themselves to the wives sepulchre, running to inhabit that chamber of death, and again to marry themselves in that cold bed the grave; so easily will mourning wean us. In this dimness of anguish, and darkness as of the shadow of death, we should not run to hugg and embrace gloworms, but prostrate our selves in this dust and ashes, and with sad serious repentance set on mourning, which shall bring me to the consideration of the words as of a duty.
And first of the duty in general: now the mourning here being oppos'd to them that laugh in St Luke, the thing forbidden in the duty may be all foolish lightness in conversation and manners, all vanity, loosness and wantoness, all uncomly behaviors or jestings, all freer recreations that beget or are accompani'd with any of these; and the duty be in part the same with that in the Phil. 4. 8. foreign, if any things be grave, think on these things, saith he there, gravity being the very garb of a Mourner. Not that I would have this duty to exclude all recreation, which also according to the persons with whom it is, may be innocently light; as with children serious toys are no sport for them. But
1. Recreation must be such as may cherish health and strength, and unbend the mind by diverting it; for to weary my self by my refreshment is to contradict the very aim of it, to make my recreation need another sport to refresh me after the toil of my laborious idleness: and therefore also
2. It must be moderate; otherwise it does exchange with my calling, and my refreshment becomes my emploiment: and
3. It must be innocent; I must not make it my sport to offend God; it is too dangerous a recreation to jest with and provoke the Almighty, to play with sin, and to sport away a virtue is of too ill consequence: and the duty of the text saith also it should be.
4. According to the condition of my person, somwhat grave, not so extremely light and vain; and if you would by these examin the usual delights, first all freer revelling, which if they be in pleasures of the tast, end frequently in intemperance, are accompanied with foolish discourses, very oft prophane; and with swearings, idle and bitter jestings at those which are present, and detractions of those that are absent, whence proceed quarrels and the like: they are also full of apishness in the process of them below the gravity of common sense, much more of a Christian, a member of the Son of God: we should find these, I say, to jarr with more than one of the former requisites of recreation. Some other sorts are oft the instruments of infinite vanity, the great engines of lasciviousness and lust. Wanton Songs and unchast books, these very things they put a fucus upon sin, and they dress iniquity with all the adulteries of possible art, that they may the more enticingly prostitute her: here are young souls ensnar'd by these, to whom the very description of sin is invitation and conquest. Do not sit by a woman that is a Singer, saith the wise Son of Syrach; and if innocent beauty be irresistible temtation, if it do at once assault both at the eyes and ears, charge the soul with charms at both those ports, how then shall the very pleasure of that temtation, the wantoness it self be resistible, when it comes drest with harmony, when it do's melt the imagination into the soft looseness of its own smooth airs and gentle warblings? How shall they escape when they see sin cloath'd in all the flowers of Rhetorick as books present, when they see the example of men temting to it and learn the method, when they see it acted, and the delight of it exprest with all the advantages of sinful art, with very prurient words, and committing language. Some others, as great gamings, (not that I condemn the thing in general) when they are us'd with much appetite, either of the sport it self or of the price, they become immoderate, too much time is spent upon them. And Causinus saith, did a man commit no other sin, but conversing a good part of his life with kings and knaves of cards, being invited to the conversation of Angels, yet were it no small offence. But besides that they are the nurses of anger, they dictate ill language, and they are the apprentiship of cursings, oaths, and blasphemy: so that if you put all these together, you shall find that by all these recreations we do but bait and temt our sins, we do the Devils work against our selves; and we that know our strength is not miraculous, that find how oft and easily we fall, are bound in conscience to avoid those things which we find are occasions to us of sin: and if you would instead of those impressions, which the vain pleasures of those recreations do leave upon your desires, entertain and heighten these few considerations to your selves, it might a little bridle.
1. A Christian is a mourner, my blacks, my dark sad veils are are spread over me; and should I see a woman in that habit, and, while it was new, go to revels, sing obscene catches, and spend much of her time in gamings, what would I think of that woman? Why even the same strumpet, lewd thing is my soul, that in the days of her mourning does thus luxuriate. And is it not a sad thing that a Christian, (a very serious name, that) a man, that hath the delights of heaven to refresh himself with, that hath God to converse with, should not yet know how to pass his time without these lighter vain follies, which yet he would be loath to do before a man of quality and discretion; yea that he cannot refresh himself without sinful delights, that he must go take a walk in Hell to divert himself for fear he nauseate upon Heaven?
2. All the holy Angels, that so great cloud of witnesses, they look upon me acting these my impertinent ridiculous follies, and it do's break off their melody; they mourn to see me, a Christian, a man that should be one of them, thus foolishly passing my irrevocable time, idly spending my hours of repentance, and vainly throwing away my possibilities of Heaven, and doing this so unseemly, destroying my self with lightness and to no purpose.
3. How many now do mourn in their state and expectation of miseries, and with sad yellings bewail their lost hours, and the sins which their lightnesses and recreations drew upon them, the curses and ill language of their gaming, the fornications of the lusts which their songs and dances did provoke them to, and the intemperance of their revels, and the idle words of all of them in general, of which yet our Savior saith we must give an account? and have I not reason to fear the same expectations and woes? and then had I not better be a little more serious and grave, put on the strictness and severity of a Christian here, unless I can resolve, so I may but sing wantonly here, not to care tho I howl in hell eternally, so I may but revel and drink here, let the never-dying worm for ever gnaw upon the very marrow of my soul, and Gods fury drink up my spirits, and my self for ever suffer the perpetual thirst of feavor, dwell with everlasting burnings, and rather than I will put on black and be a mourner here, I will be thrust into the land ofgMatt. 8. 12. utter darkness, where there is weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth?
But I will now descend to the particular exercises of this duty, of which I will name but two: the first is to bewail and mourn for the calamities that befal or are impendent on a Church and State, or any member of it, either others or our selves, without considering whether this be like to be our case or no; I onelyonly put it in the general as a duty, and a particular exercise of this in the text: whensoever any judgment do befal a Land, to be truly humbled and sadded by it, and to compassionate any one that is afflicted by it, and as St Paul bid us Rom. 12. 15. to weep with them that weep. Now to move us to this, he that is not affected, he declares plainly, that he is no fellow-member of him whose sufferings he does not partake in, nor a part of that Church in whose judgment he is not humbled; for saith St Paul h1 Cor. 12. 26.if one member be afflicted, all the rest suffer with it: and experience saith it too, and then shall the body of our Head Christ, a whole Church be wounded and maim'd, have its last deathpangs upon it, lie strugling and gasping, and we unmov'd at this, have the same full delights, and tast them too, feel no gripes, no sympathy of convulsions, and shall we yet think our selves members of that body of Christ? Oh no, we hold not of the Head our Savior, we have no communion with him; for if we had, we should have communion of sufferings, a fellow-sense. There is no such convincing sign as this in the world, this flowing from the very nature of greif; for greif cannot properly be but for an evil that is some way annext and proper to our selves, de malo conjuncto; for as appetite is implanted for the use of him in whom it is implanted, so it is not proper to it to have any aversation to evil, except it be some way evil to him whose appetite hath that aversation, and to greive at misery I must some way conceive it to concern my self. Now then as he that does not conceive himself a member of a Church, nor a fellow member, nor any way relating to it, he cannot truly greive; so he that does not greive, declares no communion with it, he is another thing, a member quite cut off or dead, and so stupid and insensible. Such a judgment doest thou pass upon thy self whoever doest not mourn, outlawest and excommunicatest thy self, neither belongst to Church nor State, nor yet to Christ.
2. As thou hast no charity to thy Brother, nor to thy afflicted Mother; so neither hast thou any love to God, whose glory tho it be asserted by the punishment of a sinful Land or Church, he is also still dishonor'd by the sins which do then reign, and to which he does permit for the most part the punishment of sin, and that power and authority or discipline which divisions in the Church cut short, hath for its consequent all unbridled looseness and profaness, Blasphemy and Atheisme; the calamities of a State are embitter'd by all sorts of licences that grow when Government is weakn'd: to see a whole Land mourn with the dark purple of its bloud, all which bloud as it is the punishment of that Nation, so it is the guilt also to see the wickedness of a Kingdom plagu'd with the ruin of many thousands of men's lives and thousands of souls too that fell in actual iniquity, and yet to think that this plague is the greatest wickedness of all, arm'd with the most crying sins that are, that the very punishment must call for punishment and revenge of it self, and help to make up the measure of judgment, that the sentence of desolation may be irreversible and utter, to see two inundations overflow the Land, two abysses of bloud and guilt, and one deep calling upon another to meet and swallow us and bury us in their graves of sin and deep ruin; yea to see iniquity become impudent and sin triumphant, which is the great sign of utter ruin as it was to the Jews, an omen worse than Comets or Blazing-stars, & the dismal voice of foreign, yea and in this ruin too I do not see how any will well free themselves from guilt; for if they be the ruiners they are the great spoilers, the sinners if the ruined; they have contributed to make those others the sinful inflicters: and if in all this there be not matter for a little mourning, if God dishonor'd, souls destroi'd, lives perishing, Church ruining, and nothing but sin flourishing, and ourselves not unguilty, and if this be not an object for our tears, we are the most uncharitable, most obdurate creatures in the world, Niobe's stone is not fit to be our embleme, for that stone could sweat tears; we are more rock than that which Moses struck, whom the rod of God cannot make weep, we are next degree to Lucifer himself, for onelyonly Hell is sure at ease to see its company increase.
3. Lastly this not mourning in the judgment of a Nation is a sin which God does most heavily characterize and threaten, Amos 6. 1, 6, 7, 8. Isaiah 22. when the Prophet had describ'd how it should be in the day of desolation v. 4, 5. then because they did not do it, see the judgment v. 12, 13, 14. yea this very thing, that men are insensible, is as it were the very last judgment on a Nation, and the sign of utter rejection, Jer. 16. 5, 6, 7.
But how can this duty of mourning consist with those so frequent Gospel-Commands to rejoyce in utmost afflictions? James 1. 2, 3. Count it all joy when ye fall into diverse temtations, knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience: and St Paul most often. 'Tis true indeed we are to rejoyce in them, because they are Gods methods of bettering us; by them he does purge ad cleanse us, Isaiah 4. 4, 5. and c. 1. 25, 27. Redeem'd with judgment, even with the judgment that I shall execute upon them. But then
1. What reason have we to mourn also that we are such foul sinners as to need such ways of purging, that Christs death should not have motive enough in it to turn us from iniquity, that his bloud should not be sufficient laver enough to wash us but our own must be pour'd out also, that our air should be so infected that nothing but an universal conflagration can purify, that we should be such refractory stubborn persons, whom nothing but wounding will do good upon, nothing but ruin will reduce? But then
2. How are we more to mourn that this very method should not be able to reduce us, that we will run upon lashes, swords and deaths to sin, that in the midst of judgments and against them too we commit iniquity, that every stripe does encrease our reckoning, add to our iniquities, & no possible method left to reduce them whom correction will not make sensible; but our villanies grow up with our sufferings, and our sins are fatned by our bloud, as the land is.
Yea lastly how are we to mourn that to the rest of our sins this also is added by us, of not mourning at our judgments, but using all possible means to prevent it, to lay a sleep the sense of any judgment that is upon the Nation, to be so far from bestowing one hour of sadness upon those so grand motives to it, that they do all they can to keep it from them; and if those judgments happen to some, they look upon it carelesly, as a thing that does not concern, rather as a matter onelyonly of rejoycing; if to others whom they wish well to, they search out wine and vice to quench and to divert the memory and thought of it, to drown sad news in sadder sin; this is to labor hard lest sadness and a virtue should creep upon me, to search out means to assist me to keep Gods last method from doing any good upon me: this is one cause of greatest judgment Isaiah 5. 11, 12, 13, 14.
The second and indeed the great exercise of this duty in the text, is to mourn for our sins; and
First for the infirmities of our nature, that stain that we were born with, that engagement to death that we brought into the world with us, and which is a clog and weight upon us throughout the whole course of our lives to disable us from doing our duty as we ought.
Secondly for the sins of our habits, whereby we have advanc't those infirmities into customs, made a covenant with that death to which we were born engag'd, and our whole practice is the exercise of those things whose wages is death eternal; or if we are not gon so far in vicious customes, yet for the gross foul acts which men sometimes commit, those unkind stabs and wounds to our own souls, those cruel self-murders, these all are to be daily mourn'd for. Now I shall onelyonly name a few reasons why we should mourn, and so stir us up to it.
1. Because onelyonly in this and in relation to this is greif of any use at all: God and Nature, they say, made nothing in vain; now if it were not for our sins greif would be almost in vain, a certain sign that this passion must be emploi'd upon our sins, ut propter hujus tantum sublationem sit concessa, saith St Chrysostom. For does any man loose a child? why if he greive to death will his mourning raise him? Is thy Estate taken from thee? why thou art sad upon it, but will thy tears recover it? But hast thou sin'd, and dost thou truly mourn and greive for it? why thy tears do wash away thy sin and blot out thine offence. So that mourning being every where else preposterous and unprofitable, was clearly intended to be spent upon our sins.
2. What ingratitude is it to thy Savior not to find in thine heart to mourn for those sins for which he did die; the Son of God did sweat, and pray, and cry, and shed a torrent of bloud and water, and suffer death for those very sins of thine and mine which we think so slightly of, that we will not shed a tear for them? O my Brethren, if there is in us any love of that our Jesus, or indeed of our selves, we would now transplant the Agonies, and make them ours, and sweat out a few drops of sorrow to cure us of those feavors of our sins.
3. Yea it is a very trouble to our God that we do not greive, he mourns to see that we will not mourn, Hosea 13. 14. when God had complain'd before of Ephraim, what a foolish child it was that it did not repent; he tells them there, that if they had don so, I would have ransom'd them from the power of the grave, (not I will, for the very next verse contradicts that) I would have redeem'd them from death, O death, I had bin thy grave, O grave I had bin thy destruction; but comfort is hid from mine eies: (repentance we read, but the word bears and the sense requires comfort,) as if the eies of the Lord were therefore full of tears, because Ephraim's were not, and he could not receive comfort, if Ephraim did not mourn: and if we do not mourn, God will comfort himself some other way concerning us to our greif, Isaiah 1. 24. Therefore thus saith the Lord, the Lord of Hosts, the Mighty one of Israel, ah! I will ease me of mine adversaries, foreign the very word before I will be comforted by reason of mine adversaries; how? why I will avenge me of mine enimies. Ah my Brethren when God is to be comforted by his vengeance upon us, when he can find no ease but in our ruin and destruction, and that he calls his comfort in relation to the non-mourning impenitent, where shall we find ease and comfort then?
And then methinks this should scare us into the use of this, fright us out of that stupid lethargy in sinning, which does so dull us in it, makes us so senseless of it and the danger we are in by reason of it, that we cannot bestow one day in weeping, mourning, and fasting, no nor indeed an hour of serious sadness upon an age of sin, a whole life of iniquity: the very next step of this into which we shall be sure to fall, is the greatest sin and judgment in the world, it is that spoken of as a character of the foulest Heathens, Ephes. 4. 18. 19. Having their understandings darkned, being alienated from the life of God thro the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness that is in their heart; who being past feeling have given themselves over to lasciviousness, to work all uncleaness with greediness: rather because of the brawny hardness of their hearts, which are become callous, insensible of any admonitions, stings and greif, but dead to all sense of sin, and having put off all fear of it; and who these are he tells you in the next words foreign, such as when they do the foulest acts, are not toucht with any greif for having don them, but like dead members of the body that are forsaken by the vital spirits, if you lash or prick or lance them, they feel no pain: even so these whose consciences are retir'd & a sleep, they do not mourn for any of their foulest actions, which is the very height of impiety; for such do strait give themselves over to all filthiness to work all uncleaness with greediness. This is the effect of not mourning, and then how do they deserve and provoke this judgment, who if at any time their conscience begin to twinge them for any of their sins, they presently divert their thoughts, lest the mourning in the text should creep upon them, and they should grow sad? These men dread their virtue, they are afraid of becoming pious, and to avoid the way to heaven is their design and contrivance; they come not so near duty as the wicked in hell, have not so much repentance as the damned have; for there is sorrow for their sins, weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth.
I should 2dly encourage those that do thus mourn, but the text does that sufficiently, they are blessed, and they shall be comforted.
First they are blest for this mourning, it is the great effect and sign of this Spiritual life; that man's sickness hath not yet kill'd him, who is sensible of it, who greives by reason of the anguish of it, and he is not dead who feels the weight of it and mourns for it.
Secondly if it be true, it draws such a train of virtues after it, as it made St Paul rejoyce that he had made the Corinthians sad, 2 Cor. 9, 10, 11. and then this very same verse will assure them of the comfort hereafter; for all the Gospel-promises are assur'd upon the terms of repentance, which this Godly sorrow is the first link of, and does draw after it: & then if there be any comfort in the company of myriads of Saints and Angels, if we dare take Christ's judgment, if he had any tast who suffer'd so many mourning fits, that liv'd a life of tears here, that often wept but never laught, yea a life of horrid suffering, and yet thought those comforts a full glorious recompence to him for all those sufferings, and therefore may well be to us for a few tears; if there be any joy in the beatifical vision and in heaven, they shall be comforted that mourn, when as I told you out of Revelations, all tears shall be wip'd from their eyes, there shall be no more trouble, nor sorrow, nor crying, nor pain. And yet this is but the Negative part of their eternity of bliss, which to conceive is to be as God, and to enjoy is to be one with him.
And O thou Blessed Jesu, the eternal Lord of all those comforts, be favourable unto us thy servants, that turn to thee with weeping and with mourning, that do with hearty bewailing for our hardness desire thee to teach our souls with some compunction for those iniquities that did put thee to death and would ruin us, to break our rocky hearts, that they may stream out tears for those our sins which shed thy bloud, and would cast us into eternal wailings; and as thou hast humbled us into the dust, and prostrated our very souls unto the ground, to grant unto us to sit down in that dust and to bewail our own demerits, which our very ruin can neither equal nor amend. O suffer us not to be so obdurate, as to prove unmoveable by all thy pressures, insensible of our own miseries and sufferings, and such as amidst the pains of sin do still retain the malice and the obstinacy, and then at last by these thy methods and our greifs recover us from the follies of our lives, close our eyes and withdraw our affections from the temting lightnesses and vanities of our conversations; and fix our thoughts and appetites upon thy serious comforts, those heavenly refreshments after so much sadness, that we being reckon'd amongst them whom thou dost chasten, put into the number of thy mourners, whose share of sorrows are dispenc't in this life, may have title to the inheritance of Sons, the joys of blessedness, and the portion of eternal consolations in the land of everlasting pleasures with thee the Lamb that wert slain, and art therefore worthy to receive all honor, power, praise, might, majesty, and dominion with the Father and the Holy Ghost, now and for evermore.