N00460:152
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.
From hence therefore I shall endeavour to draw those Rules upon which our hope is to Proceed in the Present case. And here also there are two sorts about whom we are wont to be concerned and very thoughtful, viz. such as die in their infancy, and such as dye adult, or after they are come to years of understanding: I shall speak of each distinctly.
From hence therefore I shall endeavour to draw those Rules upon which our hope is to Proceed in the Present case. And here also there are two sorts about whom we are wont to be concerned and very thoughtful, viz. such as dy in their infancy, and such as dye adult, or after they are come to years of understanding: I shall speak of each distinctly.
1. Concerning Children that dye in their infancy. I understand all that age wherein they are not grown up to these years of knowledge, wherein they are able to improve the word of God, and the ordinances of the Gospel, for the good of their own Souls, in the ordinary course of Gods providence; for some extraordinary instances are not here to be drawn into a general Rule. There is great reason why we should not mourn for these as that have no Hope; for there is a great deal to be pleaded, and that which is abundantly satisfying, upon their score. And we may take a brief discovery of it in these particulars.
1. Concerning Children that dye in their infancy. I understand all that age wherein they are not grown up to these years of knowledge, wherein they are able to improve the word of God, and the ordinances of the Gospel, for the good of their own Souls, in the ordinary course of Gods providence; for some extraordiaary instances are not here to be drawn into a general Rule. There is great reason why we should not mourn for these as that have no Hope; for there is a great deal to be pleaded, and that which is abundantly satisfying, upon their score. And we may take a brief discovery of it in these particulars.