N00460:149
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.
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 ⟨p. 73⟩be fully informed and assured about these things, so he shall be completely satisfied in them; there shall be no unruly unmortified affections then to be wrested withal, but an entire acquiescence in the Justice and Righteousness of God: and as there will be no more room for hope, either for one or for another, because every ones state shall be put beyond it, so there will be no occasion for it: but whilst we are here in this life, there is no doing without it, God hath therefore set it before us, together with the grounds of it, and they that make a right improvement, shall never be ashamed of it: the use of our hope, is not to do them any good, for they are gotten past the advantage of receiving any benefit by us; but it is to do our selves good, and it serves suitably to that end, when it is helpful to put us into a quiet and submissive frame to the hand of God upon us.
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 sollicicions 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