N00460:148
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. There are greater hopes concerning some than others, of some there are such probabilities as give us a great deal of settled satisfaction concerning them▪ their lives are so holy, their ⟨p. 72⟩Testimonies are so clear, their conversation so shining, that we hope without any doubt concerning them, having as much to set us down; as can rationally be expected for our satisfaction in their good state, others give only slight and more weak encouragements to our hope, and mix it with many occasions of fear and jealousy concerning them: and yet hope hath at least so much to say, that there is some probability, at least a possibility that they may be well, and this gives some relief, though not so much as the other.
2. There are greater hopes concerning some than others, of some there are such probabilities as give us a great deal of settled satisfaction concerning them▪ their lives are so holy, their ⟨p. 72⟩Testimonies are so clear, their conversation so shining, that we hope without any doubt concerning them, having as much to set us down; as can rationally be expected for our satisfaction in their good state, others give only slight and more weak encouragements to our hope, and mix it with many occasions of fear and jealousie concerning them: and yet hope hath at least so much to say, that there is some probability, at least a possibility that they may be well, and this gives some relief, though not so much as the other.
5. This Hope is only given us for our present support in this life. The truth is there will be no occasion for it afterwards: The Children of God are while they live here very anxious and solicitous about the everlasting estate of their friends and relations▪ they know a great deal more then others do, concerning the terrors of the Lord, and the affairs of another world, and their natural affection put them upon much inquisitiveness about them; the present thoughts which they have of their being under the impression of those doleful miseries that are denounced in the curse, are killing thoughts, and they cannot tell how to support their spirits under them, but they are ready to sink, God is therefore pleased to afford them this Hope for their present relief. When a Child of God is made perfect, as he shall then