Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER II. FBIENPS TAKEN PROM US BY DEATH. Sect. I. The disciples forsook their Lord for want of self-denial. Sect. II. The great evil of selfishness. Sect. Ill—VIII. 1. Consolations for such as mourn the death of their friends. Sect. IX—XI. and 2. For such as doubt whether heaven itself will renew the friendship they have lost. Sect. XII, XIII. or 3. Doubt whether the friendship that is renewed in heaven will be so much the more endearing. Sect. I. We are next to consider, why the disciples forsook their Lord, and what they had recourse to when they left him. The text says, " ye shall be scattered every man to his own." Self-denial was not perfect inthem, and therefore selfishness prevailed in the hour of temptation. They had therefore forsaken all for Christ. They had left parents and families, estates and trades, to be his disciples. But though they believed him to be the Christ, yet they dreamed of a visible kingdom, and were animated by carnal expectations of being great men upon earth, under Christ as a temporal prince. And therefore when they saw him in the hands of his enemies, under the most ignominious treatment, they concluded that their hopes were now disappointed and in their sudden fright seemed to repent their having followed him. They now begun to think that they have lives of their own to save, andfamilies of their own to mind, and business of their own to do. They that had forsook their private interest and affairs, and were gathered together for the sake of living in communion with Jesus Christ and one another now return to their particular callings and are " scattered every man to his own." Sect. II. Selfishness is the great enemy of all societies, of all fidelity and friendship. There is no trusting any person in whom self is predominant. And wher...