Right Thoughts in Sad Hours, Title page – Dedication
Right Thoughts in Sad Hours, Representing the COMFORTS and the DUTIES OF Good …en under all their AFFLICTIONS; And Particularly, That one, the Untimely Death of CHILDREN IN A SERMON DELIVERED At Charls-town, New-England; under a fresh Experience of that Calamity.
Unto the Upright there ariseth LIGHT in Darkness.
Mercatur a est Pauca amittere, ut majora Lucreris. Tertul.
LONDON, Printed by Iames Astwood. 1689.
TO My very Worthy Friend, Mr. S. S.
Ever Honoured Sir,
THE Ensuing Sermon, delivered in a Neighbour-Congregation, under Afflicting impressions from the sudden Death of an only Child, with a bestowal of some Correction and Enlargement since upon it; I know no fitter Person than Your self, to Present unto; Your Self, I say, Who have had several Infants carried hence unto the Father of Spirits, in the Chariot of the same Distemper that fetched mine away. Books or Thoughts on such a Subject as that which is handled here, have been often offered by me unto others, that were Mourners; and being made a Mourner my self, I thought it a fit occasion for me, to Write as well as Think more particularly, the things that may be serviceable to the sorrowful. Nor have I many Friends in this Evil World, whose Edification I can pursue with more Alacrity and Activity, by such pains as these, than Yours. I have often felt the Power, and almost as often the Sweetness of that perswasion, My God will never hurt me. VntoUnto Your self, that I may recommend the entertainment of that Comfort and Co…dial, under the Death of so many dear Children as you have been call'd unto the Resignation of, is the end of my putting these Meditations into your Hands. I cannot without some Affection read Gregory Nazianzen, in his Funeral Oration on the Death of his Brother, giving this account of his Aged and then Living Parents; My Father and Mother, (says he) who are both Lovers of their Children, but more Lovers of their Saviour, after they had in spite of all the Moths, and all the Thieves, and all the Devils too in this World, laid up in a better World, a Rich Inheritance for their Children, they have now sent one of their Sons before, to take Possession of it. If your Modesty and Humility will not permit me to recite this as a Charecter of, let me however propound it as an Employment for Your self, and your Virtuous Consort. You cannot use too much care to secure unto your Children an Inheritance among the Saints in Light; and for those which are departed, you may be joyfully assured, That they are made partakers of that Inheritance. What further possession of this Waste Wild America, the Lord Iesus may take yet before the Time of the Restitution of all things, we cannot Positively say; only we may probably hope, that he has a Glorious Interest shortly to be erected and maintained in these utmost parts of the Earth. But this I am sure of, There are some rich plots of Ground in this Continent, which in the Approaching Day of God will yield no small Sheaves of pure Grain unto the Almighty Raiser of the Dead. This last Age has produced in these Western Indies, those Dormitories, which are fill'd with precious Dust, united unto the Son of God. Part of that Honour able Dust hath proceeded from your happy Loins; Your deceased Children are part of the Turf, with which the Lord Iesus, as it were, takes a Livery and Seisin of this New World for himself. Sir, Be encouraged to go on, abounding in the Work of the Lord; and go on, to believe it your Felicity, That you shall go to your glorifi'd Infants, and they shall not Return unto you.
With these Testimonies of Respct, I am, Sir, Your Affectionate Friend and Servant, C. M.
Right THOUGHTS IN Sad Hours,
Gen. XLII. 36.
Me have ye bereaved of my CHILDREN; Joseph is not, and Simeon is not—all these things are AGAINST me.
THE common, but causeless mistake of Pious Men, under and about Afflictions, is represented in these Words; of which words the venerable Chrysostom in his Ancient Commentary on them, speaks truly, They are fit words to express the Relenting Bowels of a Parent; and yet we may without ill manners venture to add, The words do not altogether so well become the Grace, the Faith, the Patience of a Christian.
In this Book of the Worlds Beginning, which contains an admirable Narrative of Transactions for above Three and twenty Hundred Years from the first Dawn of Time; the Revolutions which went over the Patriarch Iacob, are not the least spoken of by Moses, the Inspired Historian; and there are especially Three Travels of that renowned Man, which the History of his Life and Death is Elegantly woven into: The last of those Journies was of near Two hundred Miles, namely from Canaan unto Goshen, occasioned by his Son Ioseph's Advancement to be Vice-Roy of Egypt, and the Relief which that Honourable ViceRoy had provided against the sore Famine then raging in the Countries round about.
This Chapter entertains us with a very affecting story of some accidents preparatory thereunto; a story, How the Ten Brethren of Ioseph, by whose Villany he had been Spirited away into Egypt, made their Humble Address unto him for Corn, while his Grandure and his Policy concealed him from their knowledge: How by a contrivance he made one of them, Simeon by name, a Prisoner; in the mean time obliging the rest to return with another Brother of his, by name Benjamin, who was by them left behind as the chief solace of their Aged Father, and the only remaining Child of his deceased Mother. Old Iacob was made acquainted with the true state of the Case, and in this Verse we have his grievous Resentment of it. In this Querimonious Lamentation of the good old Saint there are especially Two things intimated:
First, Here seems to be a Suspecting of his Childrens Wickedness; his words are, Me have ye bereaved of my Children, Joseph is not, Simeon is not, and ye will take Benjamin away. Methinks the sorrow of his oppressed Heart seems thus to vent it self, q. d.
This is a strange, and a very sad thing; I cannot trust you all together, but one or other of you, that you think I have a particular kindness for, must come short home. I am now confirmed in my doubts, that you were the Wildbeasts, the unnatural Tygres who tore my Ioseph to pieces. I am not without my Fears, that you are the Iaylors, Shall I say? or the Hangmen who have got my Simeon out of the way. And I am jealous that you have some ill design upon my best Darling Benjamin too. Never had any man such mishaps in his Children, as your miserable Father has.
Next, Here seems to be a Bewailing of his Makers providence: His words are, All these things are against me. Some render them, All these things are UPON me, q. d. As for you, you make light of these matters, as if they were no concernment of yours: For my part, I feel them, they go very near to me. But our Translation of it, seems more worthy of Approbation and Acceptation; All these things are AGAINST me: And then this Paraphrase will carry the sence of it, q. d.
The things which have been my Trouble, will be my Ruine; they are a sort of things which I cannot conceive any advantage to my self consulted in, or accruing by. When I look upon the dealings of the Lord, I cannot but be full of awful Apprehensions that I am utterly banished from the mercies of the Lord; these things render me an undone Man.
Now, remember that the happy event proved him egregiously mistaken here; Ioseph is not, said he; yet, he was, and his Father had no cause to be sorry that he was what he was: Simeon is not, said he; yet he was, and his Father might have been starved, if he had not been where he was. Those things which he so fondly counted against him, were the very things that not only try'd his Grace, but also sav'd his Life. Let us admit the deplored Child himself, to correct the sad mistake; he said afterwards in Gen. 50. 20. God meant it unto Good.
The Truth which from this Mistake we may raise for a Doctrine to be now insisted on, is therefore this: