hearts? Methinks there have been so much of support and comfort already discovered to you in this blessed covenant, that could your faith but once fi fix upon it, and realize and apply it, I might lay down my pen at this period, and say, The work is done, there needs no more; but knowing how obstinate deep sorrows are, and how difficult a task the comforting of an afflicted mind is, I will, for a close, superadd a few considerations more, to all that has been urged and argued before.

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1. Consider how small and trivial the comforts, whose loss you bewail, are in comparison with Jesus Christ, who is still your own, under the bond of a sure covenant. son, an only and promising son, is a great thing, when he stands in comparison with other creature-comforts, but surely he will seem a small thing and next to nothing, when set by or compared with Jesus Christ. Behold, the Father, Son, and Spirit, pardon and eternal salvation, are this day presented in the covenant of grace before your souls, as your own. "God, even our own God, shall bless," Psal. Ixvii. 6. When you feel your hearts wounded with such a thought as this, I cannot embrace my children in my arms, they are now out of my reach then bless and admire God, that the arms of your faith can embrace so great, so glorious a Saviour, and that you can say, "My beloved is mine, and I am his."

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2. Consider what evil days are coming on, and what a mercy it is to your dead, that God has taken them away from the evil to come. There are two sorts of evils to come, evils of sin and evils of sufferings; and it is no small favor to be set out of the way of both. The grave is the hiding-place where God secures some from the dangers of both.

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We are apt to promise ourselves times of tranquillity, and then it cuts us to think that our dear ones shall not partake with us in that felicity; but if we wisely consider the sins or the signs of the times, we have more cause to rejoice that God has set them out of harm's way. things seem to conspire and work towards a day of great temptation and tribulation. Now as Christ told his disciples, who were so dejected, because he was to leave them, "If ye loved me, ye would rejoice, because

I said, I go to the Father;" so truly you would much better express and manifest your love to your children, in your satisfaction in the will and appointment of God in taking them into rest and safety, than in your dejection and sorrow for their removal. Surely they are better where they are, than where they were, whom God hath housed in heaven out of the storm and tempest. And could your dear friends that are with Christ, have any more intercourse with this world, and see your tears and hear your sighs for them, they would say to you, as Christ did to those that followed him wailing and ing, Weep not for us, but for yourselves, and such as remain in the world with you, to see and feel the calamities that are coming on it,

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3. Consider how near you are to that blessed state yourselves, where God shall be all in all, and you shall feel no want of any creature-comfort. 1 Cor. xv. 28. Creature-comforts are accommodated only to this animal life we now live, but shortly there will be no need of them; for "God will be all in all;" that is, all the saints shall be abundantly satisfied in and with God alone. As there is water enough in one sea to fill all the rivers, lakes, and springs in the world; and light enough in one sun to enlighten all the inhabitants of the world; so there is enough in one God eternally to fill and satisfy all the blessed souls in heaven, without the addition of any creature-comfort. God is complete satisfaction to all the saints in the absence (I cannot say the want) of wives and children, meats and drinks, estates and sensitive pleasures. There will be no more need of these things, than of candles at noon-day. You shall be as the angels of God, who have no concernment for relations.

4. To conclude; whatsoever your troubles, wants, fears, or dangers are or may be in your passage to this blessed state, the covenant of grace is your security, and by virtue thereof your troubles shall open and divide, as Jordan did, to give you a safe passage into your eternal

rest.

Look, as when the Israelites came near the land of promise, there was a swelling Jordan betwixt it and them, which seemed to forbid their farther passage and pro

gress; but it is said in Josh. iii. 17. "The priests that bore the ark of the covenant of the Lord, stood firm on the ground in the midst of Jordan; and all the Israelites passed over on dry ground, until all the people were passed clean over Jordan;" just so it is here. The covenant of grace stands on firm ground, in the midst of all the deep waters of tribulation you are to pass through, to secure to you a safe passage through them all. Rejoice therefore and triumph in the fulness and firmness of this blessed covenant, and whatsoever affliction your God shall please to lay upon you, or whatsoever comfort he shall please to remove from you, still comfort and encourage yourselves, as David here does, "Yet hath he made with me an everlasting covenant, ordered in all things, and sure; for this is all my salvation, and all my desire; although he make it not to grow."

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TOKEN FOR MOURNERS.

BY THE REV. JOHN FLAVEL.

LUKE vii. 13.

And when the Lord saw her, he had compassion on her, and said unto her, Weep not.

To be above the stroke of passion, is a condition equal to angels to be in a state of sorrow without the sense of sorrow, is a disposition beneath beasts; but duly to regulate our sorrows, and bound our passions under the rod, is the wisdom, duty, and excellency of a Christian. He who is without natural affection, is deservedly ranked amongst the worst of heathens: and he who is able rightly to manage them, deserves to be numbered with the best of Christians. Though when we are sanctified we put on the divine nature, yet, till we are glorified, we put not off the infirmities of our human nature.

Whilst we are within the reach of troubles, we cannot be without the danger, and ought not to be without the fear of sin; and it is as hard for us to escape sin, being in adversity, as it is to escape becalming in prosperity. How apt we are to transgress the bounds, both of reason and religion, under a sharp affliction, appears, as in most men's experience, so in this woman's example, to whose excessive sorrow Christ puts a stop in the text. "He

saw her, and had compassion on her, and said unto her, Weep not."

The lamentations and wailings of this distressed mother, moved the tender compassions of the Lord in beholding them, and stirred up more pity in his heart for her, than could be in her heart for her dear and only

son.

In these words we are to consider both the condition of the woman, and the counsel of Christ with respect to it.

1. Consider the condition of this woman, which appears to be very dolorous and distressed. Her groans and tears moved and melted the very heart of Christ to hear and behold them; "When he saw her, he had compassion on her." How sad an hour it was with her, when Christ met her, appears by what is so distinctly remarked by the evangelist in ver. 12. where it is said, "Now when they came nigh to the gate of the city, behold, there was a dead man carried out, the only son of his mother, and she was a widow, and much people of the city was with her."

In this one verse, divers heart-piercing circumstances of this affliction are noted.

It was the death of a son. To bury a child, any child, must needs rend the heart of a tender parent; for what are children but the parent multiplied? A child is a part of the parent made up in another skin. But to lay a son in the grave, a son who continues the name and supports the family-this was ever accounted a very great affliction.

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This son was not carried from the cradle to the coffin, nor stripped out of his swathing, to be wrapped in his winding-cloth. Had he died in his infancy, before he had engaged affection or raised expectation, the affliction had not been so pungent, and cutting as now it was. Death smote the son in the flower and prime of his time. He was a man," says the evangelist; a young man," as Christ calls him. He was now arrived at that age which made him capable of yielding his mother all that comfort which had been the expectation and hope of many. years, and the reward and fruit of many cares and labors: yet then, when the endearments were greatest and her hopes highest, even in the flower of his age, he is cut off. Thus Basil bewailed the death of his son;