Weeping and Rejoicing Mixed (1)

We are told to weep and mourn always and to rejoice and be thankful always, how can these agree? To this I answer that the state of a Christian in this life is a mixed state. The outward state and the inward disposition of the soul are mixed. As we have always cause of mourning and rejoicing both from that in us and from without us, therefore a Christian ought to rejoice always and in some measure to mourn always. For example, a Christian has cause of mourning within himself when he looks upon his sinful nature and the sins which he does daily commit, at the same time, there is cause of joy when he considers that God has pardoned his sins in Christ. It is what Paul did in Romans 7 when he looked upon himself and his own vileness, he cried out, 'O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from this body of death!' yet at the same time he rejoiced and blessed God; 'I thank God through Jesus Christ my Lord, who has freed me from the law of sin and of death.' We have always from within ourselves both cause of joy and mourning. So from without.
You see the rare mixture of joy and sorrow in a Christian, whereby he is made capable of this great privilege, as neither to be swallowed up in grief because his sorrow proceeds from a heart where there is cause of joy, nor to lose himself in excessive joy because he always sees in himself cause of sorrow. Now, as it is seen in other mixtures that there is not at all times an equal quantity or portion of each particular thing to be mingled, so is it in this mixture of joy and sorrow for ourselves. Sometimes joy must abound with the causes of it, and sometimes sorrow when its causes do super-abound. We will know when to joy most, and when to weep most by God's call and by the Spirit of discretion within us, which will guide us.

Devotional Readings taken from Puritan Richard Sibbes 'Refreshment for the Soul.'
Josiah's Reformation, pp. 109-12 [85-86]
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