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tions, as every aflfection is perfected from the goodness of the object about which he works.
(3.) Thirdly, The sorrow of the righteous is better than the sorrow of the wicked in regard of the manner of their mourning. For the mourning of the righteous is a composed kind of sorrow. He mourns in silence ; he weeps to the Lord ; he carries it with judgment and discretion. His sorrow is a moderated sorrow ; he holds it within banks and bounds. Whereas the sorrow of the wicked is a tempestuous, a boisterous, a furious kind of mourninc and lamenting. He knows no mean. It is without hope. He observes no decorum. He forgets himself what he is, what he saith, what he doth almost. His mourning is little better than frenzy or madness.
(4.) Last of all, they differ much'tu the end and upshot of their mourning. Godly sorrow, it doth a man good. It humbles him, as we said. It drives him from all purpose, from all practice of sin ; it makes him resolute against sin. On the other side, it di-aws him into the presence of God ; it brings him before the Lord in the ordinance of prayer, in the ordinance of fasting and humiliation. This is his sorrow, and therefore it shall end well ; whereas, on the other side, the sorrow of the wicked, it is a kind of vexing, tormenting sorrow, a painful sorrow, a despairing sorrow ; a sorrow that drives a man from God, and is mingled many times with much murmuring, sometimes with cursing, sometimes with oaths and blasphemies. This sorrow of the wicked, it hath not so good an issue. There is great differ- ence when a woman breeds a disease, and when she breeds a child. When a woman breeds a disease, there is no good comes of that : there is much pain, and no ease^foUows ; there is much sickness, and no comfort in the close. But when she breeds a child, though there be much pain, yet it quits the cost when the child is born : ' She forgets her pain, because a child is born into the world,' John xvi. 21, So it is in the state of the godly and the wicked. The wicked are ever in travail, as we read in Job, viii. 22 ; he is always travailing with fear and with grief, with passion, discontent, and horror, &c., but then he never brings forth any fruit ; and this travail, it never ends in comfortable birth. But it is contrary with the godly. He travails with pain, and with sorrow, and with fears ; and some tears, and sighs, and groans he hath for the present ; but in the end there is a dehverance. He is delivered of his fears, and of his pain, and his sorrows ; and then comes joy and peace, and all his tears are wiped away ; and then his sorrows are forgotten, and joy comes, and takes possession. So that the joy of the godly it is far better than the wicked's joy ; and the sorrow that falls upon the good and the bad is far different. Both must needs sorrow in this vale of misery. But the sorrow of the godly, it is an hopeful sorrow, it is an healing sorrow, it is a comfortable sorrow, it is a fruitful sorrow ; whereas the sorrow of the wicked is full of despair and vexation, and the further he wades in, the more danger he is in of drowning. Still, the righteous begins in the night, but ends in the day : saith David, ' Heaviness may continue for a night, but joy cometh in the morning,' Ps. XXX. 5. The wicked sets forth in the morning, but then there comes dark- ness at night ; he begins merrily and happily, but then the issue is most miserable.
Well then, to shut up this first reason, for information —upon which we have stood the longer, because carnal judgment will not credit this point, — • it is clear, the righteous man in prosperity is better than the wicked, and in adversity better. Whence he hath occasion to rejoice.
A surgeon doth not lance and sear men because he would put them to
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pain, but because ho would give them ease. The Lord of heaven delights not in wounding and grieving of his children ; but therefore he calls them to sorrow, that so they might come to comfort. Sorrow, then, never comes to its full end that it was made for ; it obtains not its perfection, till such time as it convey a man to joy. And therefore, since it is appointed and ordained to this end by God, it is certain it shall arrive at joy, and obtain it in the end ; for God doth nothing in vain, he will bring all to perfection.
2. The second reason may be drawn from the nature of this spiritual comfort and joi/ that ice speak of. For spiritual joy is very strong : ' The joy of the Lord is your strength,' as he saith, Neh. viii. 10. A strong thing is spiritual joy, and therefore it will overmatch, and overcome, and drink up, as it were, all our sorrows and fears in due time, as the sun overcomes the darkness of the night, and the foggincss of the mist in the morning. Indeed, natural joy may be overmatched with natural grief, at the least with some grief, because we are more sensible of grief than we are of those comforts : they more infect the sense. And because natural grief weakens nature, therefore it is not able to make resistance ; and therefore we say many times, natural grief overmatcheth natural comforts ; much more will carnal grief, and other grief, overcome carnal joy, because these are weaker than natural, having less root in nature, and less subsistence in that way. But it is not so with spiritual joy and comfort, for these now have their root in God, and come from his strength ; and therefore these will bear down before them all sorrow, all heart-breaking, all grievance whatsoever in due time. This is a joy that cannot be taken from us. It is a joy invincible, it is a joy impregnable. No sorrow, no affliction on the outside, no grief on the inside, can strip a man of spiritual joy and comfort, if it be in any strength. So then there be two reasons why we should think that all our spiritual mourning will end in joy and comfort : for joy will swallow it up at the last, it will be too hard for it ; and because, again, mourning is made but for joy. Therefore, when joy comes in place, that must give place.