N00460:141
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.
1. That Christian Hope is a Grace which is exercised by the influence of Faith. Faith ⟨p. 68⟩is the leading Grace of all those that are wrought in Sanctification, and a Child of God lives by it, Hebr. 10.38. the Just shall live by his Faith i. e. it is to influence the hope of a Christians conversation: it is that whereby he depends upon Christ, and by the promise, derives from him all that which enableth him to serve God in the improvement of every virtue that is in him: and this is that which principally makes Christianity to differ from mere morality: Hope must have its grounds, and Gods people must have the help of Faith to establish them on these grounds.
1. That Christian Hope is a Grace which is exercised by the influence of Faith. Faith ⟨p. 68⟩is the leading Grace of all those that are wrought in Sanctification, and a Child of God lives by it, Hebr. 10.38. the Just shall live by his Faith i. e. it is to influence the hope of a Christians conversation: it is that whereby he depends upon Christ, and by the promise, derives from him all that which enableth him to serve God in the improvement of every vertue that is in him: and this is that which principally makes Christianity to differ from meer morality: Hope must have its grounds, and Gods people must have the help of Faith to establish them on these grounds.
2. Hence we infer, that a Believers hope hath a good foundation to build upon, which it is fully assured of. For if it be built upon Faith, it hath the same foundation in the bottom with Faith, and that must needs have its Evidence in it, which supposeth assurance: for that cannot be called Evidence or Demonstration, which is no• sure; hence we have that Encomium given to Faith, Heb 11.1. it is the Evidence of things not seen; i. e. it gives a full discovery that the things hoped for, though they lie out of our present sight, are no mere suppositions, but realities. If there were not a certain future happy estate of the People of God, if this proposition were not infallibly true, both with respect to the thing, and also to the subjects for whom it is provided,