N00460:17
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.
3. The subject matter about which the advice is given, viz. Sorrow: It refers to the Affection of grief, which is apt to break forth into, and vent it self in bitter mourning upon such sad and solemn occasions as these.
4. The advice it self which he gives in this case, wherein he doth not forbid all sorrow, but only regulates it. The Apostle Paul was no Stoic; the Spirit of God never advised men to Apathy: there is danger in despising as well as in fainting under affliction, and therefore they are both cautioned against Heb. 12.9 and there is a double limitation here set to it; or rather a limitation with an explication.
4. The advice it self which he gives in this case, wherein he doth not forbid all sorrow, but only regulates it. The Apostle Paul was no Stoick; the Spirit of God never advised men to Apathy: there is danger in despising as well as in fainting under affliction, and therefore they are both cautioned against Heb. 12.9 and there is a double limitation here set to it; or rather a limitation with an explication.
1. The limitation it self is, as do others: Gr. as the rest, or residue; i. e. of mankind: by these he intends such as are not Christians, nor have been instructed in the Doctrines of the true Religion: and the comparison may be referred either to the Heathenish ⟨p. 5⟩modes used by them in their mourning, or else to the degrees of sorrow which they were wont to express in it.