Part

Luke 7:13: And when the Lord saw her, he had compassion on her, and said to her, Weep not.

To be above the stroke of passions, 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 that is without natural affections, is deservedly ranked among the worst of heathens; and he that 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.

While we are within the reach of troubles, we cannot be without the danger, nor ought to be without the fear of sin; and it is as hard for us to escape sin, being in adversity, as 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 to her, Weep not.

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

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

First, 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 verse 12, where it is said, Now when they came near 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.

First, 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 which continues the name, and supports the family; this was ever accounted a very great affliction.

Secondly, This Son was not carried from the cradle to the coffin, nor stripped out of his swaddling clothes, to be wrapped in his winding clothes: Had he died in infancy, before he had engaged affection, or raised expectation, the affliction had not been so pungent and cutting, as now it was. Death smote this Son in the flower and prime of his time. He was a man (says the Evangelist) verse 12, a young man (as Christ calls him) verse 14, 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: I once had a Son who was a young man, my only successor, the solace of my age, the glory of his kind, the prop of my family, arrived to the endearing age: then was he snatched from me by death, whose lovely voice but a little before I heard, who lately was a pleasant spectacle to his parent. Reader, if this has been your own condition, as it has been his that writes it; I need say no more to convince you, that it was a sorrowful state indeed Christ met this tender Mother in.

Thirdly, And which is yet more, he was not only a Son, but an only Son: so you find in verse 12. He was the only Son of his Mother: one in whom all her hopes and comforts of that kind were bound up.

All her affections were contracted into this one object. If we have never so many children, we know not which of them to spare. If they stand like olive plants about our table, it would grieve us to see the least twig among them broken down. But surely the death of one out of many, is much more tolerable than of all in one.

Hence it is noted in Scripture as the greatest of earthly sorrows (Jeremiah 6:26), O daughter of my people gird yourself with sackcloth, and wallow yourself in ashes. Make mourning as for an only Son, most bitter lamentation. Indeed, so deep and penetrating is this grief that the Holy Spirit borrows it to express the deepest spiritual troubles by it (Zechariah 12:10), They shall mourn for him, namely Christ whom they pierced, as one mourns for an only Son.

Fourthly, And yet to heighten the affliction it is added, verse 12, And she was a widow. So that the staff of her age, on whom she leaned was broken: she had now none left to comfort or assist her in her helpless comfortless state of widowhood; which is a condition not only void of comfort, but exposed to oppression and contempt.

Indeed, and being a widow, the whole burden lay upon her alone; she had not a husband to comfort her, as Elkanah did Hannah in 1 Samuel 1:8, Why do you weep? and why is your heart grieved? Am I not more to you than ten Sons? This would have been a great relief; but her husband was dead as well as her Son: both gone, and she only surviving, to lament the loss of those comforts that once she had. Her calamities came not single, but one after another, and this reviving and aggravating the former. This was her case and condition when the Lord met her.

Secondly, Let us consider the counsel which Christ gives her, with respect to this her sad and sorrowful case. And when the Lord saw her, he had compassion on her, and said to her, Weep not: relieving and supporting words, wherein we shall consider,

Occasion. Motive. Counsel itself.

First, The occasion of it, and that was his seeing of her. This meeting at the Gate of the City, how accidental and occasional soever it seems, yet without doubt it was providentially suited to the work intended to be wrought: the eye of his omniscience foresaw her, and this meeting was by him designed, as an occasion of that famous miracle which he wrought upon the young man. Christ has a quick eye to discern poor mourning and disconsolate creatures: and though he be now in heaven, and stands out of our sight, so that we see him not; yet he sees us; and his eye, which is upon all our troubles, still affects his heart, and moves his compassion for us.

Secondly, The motive stirring him up to give this relieving and comfortable counsel to her, was his own compassion. She neither expected, nor desired it from him; but so full of tender pity was the Lord towards her, that he prevents her with unexpected consolation: her heart was nothing so full of compassion for her Son, as Christ was for her. He bore our infirmities, even natural as well as moral ones, in the days of his flesh; and though he be now exalted to the highest glory, yet still he continues as merciful as ever, and as apt to be touched with the sense of our miseries (Hebrews 4:15).

Lastly, The counsel itself, Weep not, herein fulfilling the office of a comforter to them that mourn, to which he was anointed (Isaiah 61:1-3). Yet the words are not an absolute prohibition of tears and sorrow; he does not condemn all mourning as sinful, or all expressions of grief for dead relations as uncomely: no, Christ would not have his people stupid and insensate; he only prohibits the excesses and extravagances of our sorrows for the dead, that it should not be such a mourning for the dead as is found among the heathens, who sorrow without measure, because without hope, being ignorant of that grand relief by the resurrection which the Gospel reveals.

The resurrection of her Son from the dead, is the ground upon which Christ builds her consolation and relief. Well might he say, Weep not, when he intended quickly to remove the cause of her tears by restoring him again to life.

Now though there be somewhat in this case extraordinary and peculiar; for few or none that carry their dear children to the grave, may expect to receive them again from the dead immediately by a special resurrection, as she did: I say this is not to be expected by any that now lose their relations; the occasion and reasons of such miraculous special resurrections being removed, by a sufficient and full evidence and confirmation of Christ's divine power and Godhead. Yet those that now bury their relations, if they be such as die in Christ, have as good and sufficient reason to moderate their passions, as this mourner had, and do as truly come within the reach and compass of this Christ's comfortable and supporting counsel, Weep not, as she did. For do but consider, what of support or comfort, can a particular and present resurrection from the dead give us, more than that it is, and as it is a specimen, first-fruits, or pledge of the general resurrection? It is not the returning of the soul to its body, to live an animal life again in this world of sin and sorrow, and shortly after to undergo the agonies and pains of death again, that is in itself any such privilege, as may afford much comfort to the person raised, or his relations. It is no privilege to the person raised; for it returns him from rest to trouble, from the harbor back again into the ocean. It is matter of trouble to many dying saints, to hear of the likelihood of their returning again, when they are got so near to heaven.

It was once the case of a godly minister of this nation, who was much troubled at his return, and said, I am like a sheep driven out of the storm almost to the fold, and then driven back into the storm again: or a weary traveler that is come near his home, and then must go back to fetch something he had forgotten: or an apprentice, whose time is almost expired, and then must begin a new term.

But to die, and then return again from the dead, has less of privilege, than to return only from the brink of the grave; for the sick has not yet felt the agonies and last struggles or pangs of death: but such have felt them once, and must feel them again; they must die twice, before they can be happy once. And besides, during the little time they spend on earth between the first and second dissolution, there is a perfect forgetfulness and insensibility of all that which they saw or enjoyed in their state of separation. It being necessary, both for them, and others that it should be so; for themselves it is necessary, that they may be content to live, and endure the time of separation from that blessed and ineffable state, quietly and patiently; and for others, that they may live by faith, and not by sense, and build upon divine and not human authority and report.

So that here you see, their agonies and pangs are doubled, and yet their life not sweetened by any sense of their happiness which returns and remains with them, and therefore it can be no such privilege to them.

And for their relations, though it be some comfort to receive them again from the dead; yet the consideration, that they are returned to them into the stormy sea, to partake of new sorrows and troubles, from which they were lately free; and in a short time they must part with them again, and feel the double sorrows of a parting pull, which others feel but once: surely such a particular resurrection considered in itself, is no such ground of comfort as at first we might imagine it to be.

It remains then, that the ground of all solid comfort and relief against the death of our relations, lies in the general and last resurrection, and what is in a particular one, is but as it is a specimen, and evidence of the general: and there the Apostle places our relief (1 Thessalonians 4:17), that we shall see and enjoy them again at the Lord's coming. And surely this is more, than if with this mother in the text we should presently receive them from the dead, as she did her Son. And if we judge not so, it is because our hearts are carnal, and measure things rather by time, and sense, than by faith and eternity.

Thus you see the counsel, with its ground, which for the most part is common to other Christian mourners with her; the difference being but inconsiderable, and of little advantage.

Here then you find many aggravations of sorrow meeting together; a Son, an only Son, is carrying to the grave, yet Christ commands the pensive Mother, not to mourn.

Hence we note,

Doctrine: That Christians ought to moderate their sorrows for their dead relations, however many afflicting circumstances and aggravations soever do meet together in their death.

It is as common with men, indeed, with good men, to exceed in their sorrows for dead relations, as it is to exceed in their loves and delights to living relations; and both of the one and other, we may say as they say of waters, it is hard to confine them within their bounds. It is therefore grave advice which the Apostle delivers in this case (1 Corinthians 7:29-30), But this I say brethren, the time is short, it remains, that both they that have wives, be as though they had none, and they that weep, as though they wept not, and those that rejoice, as though they rejoiced not. As if he had said, the floating world is near its port: God has contracted the sails of man's life: it is but a point of time we have to live, and shortly it will not be a point to choose, whether we had wives or not, children or not: all these are time-eaten things, and before the expected fruit of these comforts be ripe, we ourselves may be rotten. It is therefore a high point of wisdom, to look upon things which shortly will not be, as if already they were not, and to behave ourselves in the loss of these carnal enjoyments, as the natural man behaves himself in the use of spiritual ordinances. He hears as if he heard not, and we should weep as if we wept not; their affections are a little moved sometimes by spiritual things, but they never lay them so to heart, as to be broken-hearted for the sin they hear of, or deeply affected with the glory revealed. We also ought to be sensible of the stroke God puts upon our dear relations: but yet still we must weep, as if we wept not; that is, we must keep due bounds and moderation in our sorrows, and not be too deeply concerned for these dying short-lived things.

To this purpose the Apostle exhorts (Hebrews 12:5), My Son despise not the chastening of the Lord; neither faint when you are rebuked of him. These are two extremes, despising, and fainting: when God is correcting, to say, I do not regard it, let God take all if he will; if my estate must go, let it go; if my children die, let them die: this is to despise the Lord's chastening: and God cannot bear it, that we should bear it thus lightly.

There is also another extreme, and that is fainting: if when goods are taken away, the heart be taken away, and when children die, then the spirit of the parent dies also; this is fainting under the rod. You lament (says Seneca) your deceased friend, but I would not have you grieve beyond what is meet: that you should not grieve at all, I dare not require you; tears may be excused, if they do not exceed: let your eyes therefore be neither wholly dry, nor yet let them overflow; weep you may, but wail you must not.

Happy the man that still keeps the golden bridle of moderation upon his passions and affections, and still keeps the possession of himself, whatever he loses the possession of.

Now the method in which I purpose to proceed shall be: 1. To discover the signs of immoderate sorrow. 2. To dissuade from the sin of immoderate sorrow. 3. To remove the pleas of immoderate sorrow. 4. To propose the cure of immoderate sorrow.