We think many times carnal sorrow, which in truth is but poison, will do us good, a great deal of ease ; and when men have crossed us, and dis- appointed us, or dealt unkindly with us, we think we will go and weep it out ; and when we have cried and blubbered a while, we think that we give ease to our souls, and content to our hearts. But when we come to spiritual mourning, which only is comfortable mourning, we think that undoes us. Many a man thinks he forfeits all his joy, all his peace, all his liberty, all his happiness, and he shall never see a merry day again in this world if he gives way to mourning for sin, to sound repentance, to works of humiliation, and examination of his own heart and ways. And hence it is that we do what we can to hold possession against the Spirit in sorrow and mourning. Oh misery ! Oh unhappiness of ours ! When we take things in this manner, when we take poison for cordial, and cordials to be no better than poison, no marvel though we have no more comfort of our tears and of our mourning ; for certainly our mourning for the most part is not a blessed mourning. We mourn not for sin, but for sorrow ; we mourn not for corruption, but for crosses : not because we have dealt unkindly with God, but because men deal unkindly with us. This is not a blessed mourning, and therefore it is that we find no comfort in it.
Use 2. Well, in the next place, we have another use, to take Christ's direction for comfort. Who would, who can be without it? Life is death without comfort. Every man's aim is to lead a comfortable life. Mark the way that Christ chalks out : ' Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted.' Do you beheve Christ's word ? Do you believe that he knows what he saith ? Can you rest in Christ's testimony and in his pro-
VOL. VI. s
274 SPIRITUAL MOURNING.
mise ? Then, if ever you will have comfort in your hearts, or in your lives, or in your ends, begin here, begin with spiritual mourning. Now that this you may do, we must,
1. First shew you how spiritual mourning differs, and is discerned from other mourning.
2. How it is gotten.
3. How it is exercised.
1. For the first of this : Spiritual mourning is known by the objects. Such as the object is, such is the faculty. Spiritual mourning hath spiritual objects, either materially or formally, as they speak in schools. This spiritual mourning is busied about spiritual goods and spiritual ills. Spi- ritual good, either the chief or universal good, which is God ; or subordi- nately good, as grace and comfort, the ordinance and worship of God. Spiritual ills, whether they be simply ill, as sin and impiety ; or painfully ill, yet with relation to sin, as a fruit of sin, and as a pledge of God's wrath and displeasure against it. We will instance in this first.
For, first, if a man would know whether his sorrow be spiritual sorrow or no, let him see how he mourns for the absence of spiritual good things, how he mourns for the absence of God, the chief good. That is spiritual sorrow, when a man mourns because he hath lost God in his graces, in his communion, and in his comforts. This was a proof of David's sorrow that it was spiritual, because, as the Scripture speaks elsewhere, he lamented after the Lord, and mourned after God. ' My soul,' saith he, ' thirsteth after the living God,' Ps. xlii. 2. He hungered after God, he was pained, and pinched at his soul when he could not see God, and enjoy God as for- merly he did. This was the reason of that idolater, Judges xviii. 24, seq., when his idols were taken from him, he cried after them : when a rude fel- low asked him what lie ailed, ' What ail I ? ' saith he ; ' you have stolen away my gods, and taken away my ephod, and do you ask what I ail? what more have you left me ?' What he speaks of his false gods, a true Christian heart may conclude much more of the true God. If the true God bo departed from him, — stolen he cannot be; — but if he be departed from him, that ho have driven away God in Christ by his sinful and rude behaviour, that God hides his face, that he communicates not himself in his comforts and graces as formerly he hath done, this goes to his heart, this punisheth him, and grieves him more than any thing in the world. And so for inferior goods, a man that mourns spiritually, he mourns because he sees the w-ant of good things, the want of faith, the want of grace, ho finds a spiritual want, the absence of things spiritually good. A man that mourns spiritually, he mourns because the means of grace is taken from him, because he sees not his teachers, as the prophet saith, because there is no vision ; there is none to say. How long ? as it is in Haggai i. 4 : ' How long shall the house of God lie waste ? the ways of Zion are unfrequented : the Sabbaths of the Lord are despised.' He mourns because he is kept away from the house of God, where he used to taste of the fat things of God's house, and where he used to see him in his beauty and in his glory.