Direct. XXII. Turn your fear of the instruments of the devil into pity and compassion to men in such lamentable misery; and pray for them as Christ and Stephen did: foresee now the misery that is near them. When you begin to be afraid of them, suppose that just now were the day of judgment, and you saw how they will then tremble at the bar of God (as conscience sometimes makes some of them do, at the hearing or remembering of it; as Felix before Paul): see them as ready to be sentenced to the fire prepared for the devil and his angels, as Matt. xxv. Can you fear him that is near such endless misery, whom you should condole and pity (as the ancient martyrs used to do)? 1 Pet. iv. 17, "What shall the end" of the persecutors "be, and where shall the ungodly sinners appear, if judgment begin at the house of God, and the righteous be saved with so much ado?"
About the fear of death, I have written largely already in my "Treatise of Self-denial," and in the "Saints' Rest," and in "The Last Enemy Death," &c. and in "The Believer's Last Work." Therefore, I shall here pass it by.[357]
Tit. 9. Directions against sinful Grief and Trouble.
Sorrow is planted in nature to make man a subject capable of government, by making him capable of punishment, that he might be kept from sin by the fear or sense of that which nature hath made its punishment: and that the beginnings of pain might help to prevent the sin that would bring more; and might drive the wounded soul to its remedy; or by sympathy might condole the misery of others.
Sorrow or grief, in itself considered, is neither morally good nor evil; but it is a natural passion; and evil, that is, hurtful, to him that hath it; but good, that is, an apt, conducible means to the universal or higher ends of government to which the Creator and Universal King hath planted it in man: the same may be said of all capacity of pain and natural misery.
Mere sorrow, in itself considered, is a thing that God commandeth not, nor taketh pleasure in. Sorrow for our natural or penal hurt, is in itself no duty, but a necessary thing. God doth not command it, but threatens it; therefore there is no moral good in it. God will not command or entreat men to feel when they are hurt, or mourn under their torment; but will make them do it whether they will or no: therefore humble souls must take heed of thinking they merit or please God merely by sorrowing for their sufferings. But yet sorrow for misery may accidentally become a duty and a moral good. 1. Ratione principii, by respect to the principle it proceedeth from. As when it is, (1.) The belief of God's threatenings which causeth the sorrow. (2.) When it cometh from a love to God. 2. Ratione materiæ, for the matter's sake, when it is the absence of God, and his favour, and his Spirit, and image, which is the misery that we lament (which therefore savoureth of some love to God); and not mere fleshly, sensitive suffering. 3. Ratione finis, in respect of the end; when we sorrow with intent to drive our hearts to Christ our Saviour, and to value mercy and grace, and to recover us to God. 4. Ratione effecti, in respect of the effect, when these forementioned ends become the fruits of it.[358]
Sorrow for sin is a duty and moral good. 1. Formally in itself considered: for to be sorrowful for offending God, and violating his law, essentially containeth a will to please God and obey his law. 2. It must be also made good, by a good principle; that is, by faith and love. 3. By a right end; that it be to carry us from the sin to God. 4. And by a right guide and matter; that it be sin indeed, and not a mistaken, seeming sin, that is it we sorrow for. But sorrow for sin (materially) may be made sinful, 1. By an ill end and formal reason; when we mourn not for sin as sin, but as one sin hindereth another, or as it marred some ill design. 2. And by the effect; when it doth but sink men in despair, or torment them, and not at all separate them from the sin. 3. When it cometh not at all from any love to God, or care to please him, but only an unwillingness to be damned, and so it is lamented only as a means of damnation; which, though it be a sorrow, positively neither good nor evil, yet it is evil privatively.
But it is the passion of grief as in its excess that I am now to speak against. And it is in excess, 1. When we grieve for that which we ought not at all to grieve for; that is, either for some good, or for a thing indifferent that is neither good nor bad; both which come from the error of the mind. 2. When we grieve too much for that which we may grieve for lawfully in some measure; that is, for our own afflictions or penal suffering. 3. When we grieve too much for that which we are bound to grieve for in some measure: as (1.) For our sin. (2.) For our loss of the favour of God, or of his grace and Spirit. (3.) For other men's sin and suffering. (4.) For the sufferings of the church, and calamities of the world. (5.) For God's dishonour.[359]
Though it is not easy to have too much sorrow for sin, considering it estimatively; that is, we can hardly take sin for a worse evil than it is, and accordingly grieve for it; yet it is oft too easy to have too much sorrow for sin, or any other evil intensively as to the greatness of the passion. And thus sorrow for sin is too great, 1. When it distracteth the mind, and overturneth reason, and it is made unfit for the ends of sorrow. 2. When it so cloudeth and clotheth the soul in grief, that it maketh us unfit to see and consider of the promise, to relish mercy, or believe it; to acknowledge benefits, or own grace received, or be thankful for it; to feel the love of God, or love him for it, to praise him, or to mind him, or to call upon him; when it driveth the soul from God, and weakeneth it to duty, and teacheth it to deny mercy, and sinketh it towards despair; all this is too much and sinful sorrow: and so is all that doth the soul more hurt than good; for sorrow is not good of itself, but as it doth good, or showeth good.
Direct. I. Keep your hearts as true and close to God as possible, and make sure of his love, that you may know you have not an unregenerate, miserable soul to mourn for, and then all other grief is the more curable and more tolerable. Be once able to say that God is on your side, that Christ, and the Spirit, and heaven are yours, and then you have the greatest cordial against excessive grief that this world affords. If you say, How should this be done? I answer, that it is opened in its proper place. No marvel if sorrow overwhelm that soul, that is in the chains of sin, under the curse of God, as soon as awakened conscience comes to feel it. And it is most miserable when it hath the smallest sorrow; there being some hope that sorrow may drive it home to Christ. Therefore if thou have been a secure, unhumbled, carnal wretch, and God be now beginning to humble thee, by showing thee thy sin and misery, take heed, as thou lovest thy soul, that thou drive not away necessary, healing sorrow and repentance, under pretence of driving away melancholy or over-much sorrow; thy smart tendeth to thy hopes of cure.