N00460:175
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.
4. The reality of this work is a secret which no other can infallibly discern: The Saving change in a man is something inward: the sincerity of it lies in the heart; and that must be much out of our knowledge; It is Gods alone prerogative to Search and judge of that. All that l•ves within our compass to do about […], is at most but conjectural, and the best conclusion that we can draw, is no more than that it is strongly probable that it m•y be so: though saving grace hath its marks or characters, yet because they are spiritual, there is none that can certainly know them, but he that gives them, and he ⟨p. 93⟩that hath received them: But as to what is visible to us. Grace hath its counterfeit; and there are those that can ape it so handsomely, that a discerning Christian, with all his observation cannot see into the imposture: & by reason of this, there is many a false Hypocrite that passeth with him for a sincere Christian, and many an upright soul, because of his great infirmities is suspected by him, he doubts of him whether he be right or no.
4. The reality of this work is a secret which no other can infallibly discern: The Saving change in a man is somthing inward: the sincerity of it lies in the heart; and that must be much out of our knowledge; It is Gods alone prerogative to Search and judge of that. All that l•ves within our compass to do about 〈…〉, is at most but conjectural, and the best conclusion that we can draw, is no more than that it is strongly p•obable that it m•y be so: though saving grace hath its marks or characters, yet because they are spiritual, there is none that can certainly know them, but he that gives them, and he ⟨p. 93⟩that hath received them: But as to what is visible to us. Grace hath its counterfeit; and there are those that can ape it so handsomly, that a discerning Christian, with all his observation cannot see into the imposture: & by reason of this, there is many a false Hypocrite that passeth with him for a sincere Christian, and many an upright soul, because of his great infirmities is suspected by him, he doubts of him whether he be right or no.