N00460:142
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. 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, ⟨p. 69⟩Faith could give unto Hope no evidence at all; •ut these things are unquestionably true, being confirmed by the Testimony of him who cannot […]; so that the Doctrines forementioned are not things that may come under dispute, but are confidently to be believed by all that will not deny their Religion: and these are they which hope makes use of,
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• meer 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, ⟨p. 69⟩Faith could give unto Hope no evidence at all; ut these things are unquestionably true, being confirmed by the Testimony of him who cannot ; so that the Doctrines forementioned are not things that may come under dispue, but are confidently to be belieed by all that will not deny their Religion: and these are they which hope makes use of,