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whilft they were with you, will prove an excellent allay to your forrows for them when they are no longer yours. It is not fo much the fingle affliction, as the guilt charged upon us in times of affliction, that makes our load to heavy.

O what a terrible thing is it to look upon our dead friends, whilft confcience is accufing and upbraiding us for our duties neglected, and fuch or fuch fins committed? O you little think how dreadful a fpectacle this will make the dead body of thy friend to thee!

Confcience, if not quite ftupid or dead, will speak at fuch a time. O therefore, as ever you would provide for a comfortable parting at death, or meet again at judgment; be exact, punctual, and circumfpect, in all your relative duties.

Rule 3. If you would not be overwhelmed by trouble for the lefs of dear relations, then turn to God under your trouble, and pour out your forrows, by prayer, into his bosom..

This will eafe and allay your troubles. Bleffed be God for the ordinance of prayer; how much are all the faints beholden to it, at all times, but especially in heart-finking and distressful times? It is fome relief, when in diftrefs, we can pour out our trouble into the bosom of a wife, or faithful friend; how much more when we leave our complaint before the gracious, wife, and faithful God? I told you before of that holy man, who having loft his dear and only fou, got to his clofet, there poured out his foul freely to the Lord, and when he came down to his friends, that were waiting below to comfort him, and fearing how he would bear that ftroke, he came from his duty with a chearful countenance, telling them he would be content to bury a fon, if it were poffible, every day, provided he might enjoy fuch comfort as his foul had found in that private hour.

Go thy way, Chriftian, to thy God, get thee to thy knces in the cloudy and dark day; retire from all creatures, that thou mayest have thy full liberty with thy God, and there pour out thy heart before him, in free, full, and broken-hearted confeffions of fin: Judge thyself worthy of hell, as well as of this trouble: juftify God in all his finarteft ftrokes; beg him, in this diftrefs, to put under thee everlating arms; intreat one fmile, one gracious look, to enlighten thy darknefs, and chear thy drooping fpirit. Say, with the prophet, Jer. xvii. 17. "Be thou not a terror to me; thou art my hope in the day of "evil." And try what relief fuch a courte will afford thee. Surely, if thy heart be fincere in this courfe, thou shalt be able to fay with that holy man, Plaim xciv. 29. "In the multitude

"of my thoughts which I had within me, thy comforts have "delighted my foul."

Rule 4. If you would bear the lofs of your dear relations with moderation, eye God in the whole process of the affliction more, and fecondary causes and circumstances of the matter less

"I was dumb, I opened not my mouth, because thou didst "it," Pfal. xxxix. 9. Confider the hand of the Lord in the whole matter: And that,

Firft, As a fovereign hand, which hath right to difpofe of thee, and all thy comforts, without thy leave or confent, Job xxxiii. 13.

Secondly, As a father's hand correcting thee in love and faithfulness. Prov. iii. 11. "Whom the Lord loveth he cor"recteth, as a father the fon in whom he delighteth." O if once you could but fee affliction as a rod in a father's hand, proceeding from his love, and intended for your eternal good; how quiet would you then be?

And furely if it draws your heart nearer to God, and mortifies it more to this vain world, it is a rod in the hand of special love: If it end in your love to God, doubt not but it comes from God's love to you.

Thirdly, As a juft and righteous hand. Haft not thou pro cured this to thyfelf by thy own folly? Yea, the Lord is juft in all that is come upon thee; whatever he hath done, yet he hath done thee no wrong.

Fourthly, Laftly, As a moderate and merciful hand that hath punished thee lefs than thine iniquities deferve: He that hath caft thee into affliction, might juftly have caft thee into hell. It is of the Lord's mercy that thou art not confumed. Why doth the living man complain?

Rule 5. If you would bear your affliction with moderation, compare it with the afflictions of other men, and that will great. ly quiet your fpirits.

You have no cause to say God hath dealt bitterly with you, and that there is no forrow like your forrow: Look round about you, and impartially confider the condition that others are in; and they nothing inferior to you in any respect. You had one dead child, Aaron had two at a stroke, Job all at one stroke; and both these by an immediate ftroke from the hand of God. Some godly parents have lived to fee their children die in their fin by the hand of justice; others have seen them live to the dishonour of God, and breaking of their own fpirits, and would have esteemed it a mercy if they had died from the womb, and

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given up the ghost when they came out of the belly, as Job fpeaks.

In what mifery have fome parents feen their children die! God holding them as fo many terrible spectacles of misery before their eyes; fo that they have begged the Lord, with importunity, to let loose his hands, and cut them off; death being, in their efteem, nothing to thofe continual agonies in which they have seen them lie weltering from day to day. O you little know what a bitter cup others have had given them to drink? Surely, if you compare, you must fay, the Lord hath dealt gently and graciously with me.

Rule 6. Carefully foun, and avoid whatfoever may renew your forrow, or prevoke you to impatience.

Increase not your forrow by the fight of, or difcourfes about fad objects; and labour to avoid them, as occafions presented by the enemy of your fouls, to draw forth the corruptions of your heart.

I told you before, why Jacob would not have the child of which Rachel died, called after the name his wife had given, Benoni, the fon of my forrow; left it should prove a daily occafion of renewing his trouble for the lofs of his dear wife; but he called his name Benjamin.

Your impatience is like tinder, or gun powder, fo long as you can prevent the sparks from falling on it, there is no great danger; but you that carry fuch dangerous prepared matter in your own hearts, cannot be too careful to prevent them. Do by murmuring, as you do by blafphemous thoughts; think quite another way, and give no occafion.

Rule 7. In the day of your mourning for the death of your friends, feriously confider your own death as approaching, and that you, and your dead friend are diftinguifbed by a small interval and point of time. 2 Sam. xi. 13. I fhall go to him. Surely the thoughts of your own death, as approaching alfo, will greatly allay your forrows for the dead that are gone before

you.

We are apt to fancy a long life in the world, and then the lofs of thofe comforts which we promised ourselves so much of the fweetness and comforts of our lives from, feems an intolerable thing.

But would you realize your own deaths more, you would not be fo deeply concerned for their deaths as you are. Could you but look into your own graves more seriously, you would be able to look into your friend's grave more compofedly.

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And thus I have finished what I defigned from this fcripture. The Father of mercies, and God of all comforts, whofe fole prerogative it is to comfort them that are caft down, write all his truths upon your hearts, that they may abide there, and reduce your difordered affections to that frame which best faits the will of God, and the profeffion you make of fubjection and refignation thereunto.

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Wherein the Neceffity, Excellency, and Means of our readi nefs for Sufferings are evinced and prefcribed; our Call to Suffering cleared, and the great unreadiness of many Profes fors bewailed.

THE EPISTLE TO THE READER.

T was the obfervation of the learned Gerfon (when the world

IT

was not fo old, by many years, as now it is) that mundus Jenefcens patitur phantafias: The aged world, like aged per foas, dotes, and grows whim fical, in its old age; the truth of which obfervation is confirmed by no one thing more, than the 'fond and groundless dreams, and phantafms of tranquillity, and continuing profperity, wherewith the multitude pleafe themfelves, even whilst the fins of the times are fo great, and the figns of the times fo fad and lowring as they are.

It is not the defign of this Manual to fcare, and affright any man, with imaginary dangers, much lefs to fow jealoufies, and foment the discontents of the times; it being a just matter of lamentation, that all the tokens of God's anger produce with many of us no better fruit but bold cenfures, and loud cla mours, instead of humiliation for our own fins, and due pre

paration to take up our own cross, and follow Chrift in a fuffering path, which is the only mark and aim of this tract.

We read the hiftories of the primitive fufferers, but not with a fpirit prepared to follow them. Some cenfure them as too prodigal of their blood, and others commend their courage, and conftancy; but where are they that fincerely refolve, and prepare to be followers of them, who through faith and pa tience inherit the promises? Heb. vi. 12. or take them for an "example of fuffering, affliction, and of patience," Jam. v.

10.

It is as much our intereft, as it is our duty, to be feasonably awakened out of our pleasant, but most pernicious drowziness. Troubles will be fo much the more finking, and intolerable, by how much they fteal upon us by way of furprizal. For look, as expectation deflowers any temporal comfort, by fucking out much of the sweetness thereof before-hand, and fo we find the less in it when we come to the actual enjoyment: So the expectation of evils abates much of the dread and terror, by accuftoming our thoughts before-hand to them, and making preparation for them: So that we find them not so grievous, amazing, and intolerable, when they are come indeed.

This was exemplified to us very lively by holy Mr. Bradford the martyr, when the keeper's wife came running into his chamber, faying, 'O, Mr Bradford, I bring you heavy tidings, ' for to-morrow you must be burned, your chain is now buying, ⚫ and presently you must go to Newgate.' He put off his hat, and looking up to heaven, faid, O Lord, I thank thee for it; I have looked for this a long time: It comes not fuddenly to me, the Lord make me worthy of it. See in this example the fingular advantage of a prepared and ready foul.

Reader, The cup of fufferings is a very bitter cup, and it is but needful that we provide fomewhat to fweeten it, that we may be able to receive it with thanksgiving; and what those fweetening ingredients are, and how to prepare them, you will have some direction and help in the following discourse; which hath once already been prefented to the public view; and that it may at this time alfo (wherein nothing can be more feasonable) become farther useful, and affifting, to the people of God in their present duties, is the hearty defire of

Thine,

and the church's

fervant in Chrift,

JOHN FLAVEL

PP

VOL. VII.

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