N00460:116
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.
Now these grounds of expectation are fetched from three Topics, in which also there is a gradation, or so many degrees of settlement.
Now these grounds of expectation are fetched from three Topicks, in which also there is a gradation, or so many degrees of settlement.
There is Possibility: this is the lowest, and yet it hath its support; for Hope is willing to live, though it have the meanest and thinnest maintenance to live upon; if it can but have a few crumbs, it will not starve: it will keep it self up upon no more than a who knows? Jon. 3.9. if it doth not see the matter to be clogged with an utter impossibility, it will not give up: Though the man ha•h a great deal of fear upon him, and a great many improbabilities are in his view, making him to question, that he is willing to hope too Then there is Probability, and this hath a great deal more ⟨p. 53⟩of life and nourishment in it; Hope can quarter it self pretty comfortably upon this, though there is also a gradation in this, and the more likelihoods there are of the things obtaining; the better Table Hope is able to keep: and with these discoveries it is able to suppress those fears which may make any motion in him by reflecting upon the possibility that the thing may miscarry; especially if things be not near an equipoise, but every thing bids fair for a good Issue likely to ensue.
There is Possibility: this is the lowest, and yet it hath its support; for Hope is willing to live, though it have the meanest and thinnest maintainance to live upon; if it can but have a few crumbs, it will not starve: it will keep it self up upon no more than a who knows? Jon. 3.9. if it doth not see the matter to be clogged with an utter impossib•lity, it will not give up: Though the man hah a great deal of fear upon him, and a great many improbabilities are in his view, making him to question, that he is willing to hope too Then there is Probability, and this hath a great deal more