Rule 3

Rule 3. If you would not be overwhelmed by trouble for the loss of your relations, then turn to God under your trouble and pour out your sorrows by prayer into his bosom.

This will ease and allay your troubles. Blessed be God for the ordinance of prayer. How much are all the saints beholden to it at all times, but especially in heart-sinking and distressing times! It is some relief, when in distress, to be able to pour out our trouble into the bosom of a wife or faithful friend. How much more when we leave our complaint before the gracious, wise, and faithful God. I told you before of that holy man who, having lost his dear and only son, retired to his closet; there poured out his soul freely to the Lord; and when he came down to his friends waiting below to comfort him — fearing how he would bear that stroke — he came from his time with God with a cheerful face, telling them he would be content to bury a son, if it were possible, every day, provided he might enjoy such comfort as his soul had found in that private hour.

Go your way, Christian, to your God. Get to your knees in the cloudy and dark day. Retire from all creatures that you may have your full liberty with your God. There pour out your heart before him in free, full, and broken-hearted confession of sin. Judge yourself worthy of hell as well as of this trouble. Justify God in all his sharpest strokes. Beg him in this distress to put the everlasting arms beneath you. Entreat one smile, one gracious look to lighten your darkness and cheer your drooping spirit. Say with the prophet in Jeremiah 17:17: Be not a terror to me; you are my hope in the day of evil. And try what relief such a course will afford you. Surely if your heart is sincere in this, you shall be able to say with that holy man in Psalm 94:19: In the multitude of my thoughts within me, your comforts delight my soul.