N00460:112
The mourners cordial against excessive sorrow discovering what grounds of hope Gods people have…
The mourners cordial against excessive sorrow discovering what grounds of hope Gods people have concerning their dead friends / by Samuel Willard, teacher of a church in Boston. ; [Five lines from II Corinthians]
Boston: printed by Benjamin Harris, 1691
Title page typeset from the transcription.
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
2. What Ground of Hope GODS people have concerning their Dead, more than others,
1. What influence Hope hath upon sorrow for the moderating of it.
A. It hath already been observed that sorrow is an affection which sinks the Spirits under the pressure of a present evil that is felt: and hereupon the greater the evil […] the more sinking it must needs be. The Spirits of men have some portion of strength in them, so that they are able to bear a considerable burden, and to stand upright under it without sinking; but sometimes they meet with a burden which is too heavy, and then they stoop, & are overwhelmed. Now though aff••ctions themselves, are not alike heavy, yet there is nothing that puts a greater weight into any trouble that befalls […] than to look upon it as a Suffering that is irreparable; for this adds despair unto sorrow ⟨p. 51⟩& that is a breaking b•llow indeed; and the more our closing affections are engaged and united to a thing the more terrible a thought it is, to consider that we have not only lost it, but that we can never enjoy it any more and that the thing it self is also lost irremediably. That therefore which will ease us in this circumstance, will greatly abate from our present distress▪ and make it to be nothing near so molestful to us; and this is done by Hope.
A. It hath already been observed that sorrow is an affection which sinks the Spirits under the pressure of a present evil that is felt: and hereupon the greater the evil the more sinking it must needs be. The Spirits of men have some portion of strength in them, so that they are able to bear a considerable burden, and to stand upright under it without sinking; but sometimes they meet with a burdrn which is too heavy, and then they stoop, & are overwhelmed. Now though affctions themselves, are not alike heavy, yet there is nothing that puts a greater weight into any trouble that befals than to look upon it as a Suffering that is irreparable; for this adds despair unto sorrow