THE SPIRITUAL MAN's AIM. 47
bond of Christ is eternal. Every bond must serve the main bond ; and therefore we must not pretend this and that to wrong Christ and rcHgion, which is the main bond. We must so labour to please others, that we dis- please not our chief husband. For the time will be, when we shall neither marry, nor be given in marriage, but we shall be as the angels, Mat. xxii. 30 ; and that time shall be without bounds and limits, for eternity ; and we must look to that. And therefore those that marry, ' let them be as if they were not married.' You know how it fared with them in the gospel, that pretended this, for his not coming to Christ ; he that was married saith, * I cannot come.' His excuse was more peremptory than the rest, * he could not.' Could not this excuse him ?- And will pretending this excuse men when they are called to duties ? There is that dispro- portion so much between Christ, our chief husband, and any other, though it be the wife of our bosom, or the children of our loins (the one having redeemed us, and is our best husband, a husband for eternity in heaven), that no excuse will serve the turn for a man to wrong the bond of religion for any bond whatsoever. And therefore you know the peremptory answer to him that pretended that excuse, * You shall never taste of my feast,' Luke xiv. 24.
* And those that weep, as though they wept not.'
2. It is lawful to xvecp, not only for sin — that should be the main — but likewise to weep for the miseries of the time and state we live in. There is a liberty here, ' Oh that my head were a fountain of tears,' saitn Jere- miah, ix. 1. He thought he could not weep enough ; and therefore he wished that his head were ' a fountain.' He thought his tears would soon be dry. * Oh that my head were a fountain,' so that there is a liberty to weep. Nay, men are bound to weep. There are tears of sympathy for the misery of the state and time we live in. And so for family losses and crosses. We are flesh, and not spirit ; and God hath made us men, and hath given us sensible apprehensions of grief ; and it is a cursed temper to be without natural aflection. We may weep, and we may grieve ; nay, we ought to grieve.
Now grief is as it were a cloud from whence the shower of tears comes, and weeping is but a distillation of that vapour.
If we may grieve and ought to grieve for the times ; and it is a stupid temper not to apprehend the miseries of the state and times we live in ; if we may grieve, we may weep. That is put for the spring whence weepinf^ comes. For grief itself, there is a liberty, no question of that ; we may weep, but we must weep as if we wept not : for there is a danger in weep- ing over-much for any crosses. Here is a danger, for we may flatter our grief too much for wives and children. God takes it ill ; he takes it unkindly ; that when Christ himself is a perpetual husband, and God is an everlasting Father, that we should weep and grieve too much for the loss of father, or of wife, or of child. For is not God worth all ? So there is a danger that natm-ally we are prone to over-grieve, when we do grieve, as we are to over-joy when we do joy. For our nature can hardly keep bounds ; and God takes it unkindly when we do so, when we over-grieve ; ^for it is a sign we fetch not that comfort from him that is the spring and fountain, that we should do. And therefore let those that weep be as if they wept not. That is, not over-much. ' For the time is short.' Dost thou lose any friend, or any thing ? ' The time is short,' we shall meet again. There is but little time between this and the latter judgment, ' and the fashion of * Qu. ' This could not excuse him ' ? — G
48 THE SPIRITUAL MAn's AIM.
this world passetli away.' There will be a new world, a new heaven, and a new earth. And then we shall ' live for ever with the Lord.'
And then, my ' brethren.' Why ? * Brethren' should not be without hope of the resurrection, as the Gentiles are. They may weep that never think to see one another again. But a Christian, a brother, that hath hope of meeting again, let not him weep as without hope ; ' so let us weep, as if we wept not.' So he lays a restraint upon that ; nay, though our weeping be for sin, there must bo a moderation in that, for we may over-grieve. We are bound to joy in the Lord, and alway to rejoice. And therefore wo must weep for sin, so as we must remember to joy. We must with one eye look upon our sins to humble us, and to look upon our hearts to grieve ; but with the other eye we must look upon God's mercy in Christ to comfort us again. The best grief of all, that must be moderate ; much more, grief for any earthly thing.