N00460:199
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.
8. Some there be who have spent their days in wickedness, and have given no Testimony at all either at or before their death of their Repentance, either God hath taken them away by some sudden stroke, in a speedy and violent death, they have gone in a moment to the grave; or they have ⟨p. 113⟩fallen into some violent sickness, which hath at once bereaved them of the use of their understanding, and they have died distracted without any the least capacity either of receiving counsel, or of giving glory to God by a free and humble confession of their sins: or, with Nabal, they have lain like a stone, and had no sense at all of any spiritual thing upon them. Such instances also there are not a few; and the Friends of such may well enquire, what Hope can we have?
8. Some there be who have spent their days in wickedness, and have given no Testimony at all either at or before their death of their Repentance, either God hath taken them away by some sudden stroak, in a speedy and violent death, they have gone in a moment to the grave; or they have ⟨p. 113⟩fallen into some violent sickness, which hath at once bereaved them of the use of their understanding, and they have died distracted without any the least capacity either of receiving counsel, or of giving glory to God by a free and humble confession of their sins: or, with Nabal, they have lain like a stone, and had no sense at all of any spiritual thing upon them. Such instances also there are not a few; and the Friends of such may well enquire, what Hope can we have?
Concerning such as these it must needs be confessed, that their fears are very great and amazing, and their hopes can be but very small: but yet give me leave to offer these rules to be considered.