N00460:225
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.
Sermon › Proposition 6 › Application 3: USE III.Sermon › Proposition 6 › Application 3: VSE III.
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. Hence your Affections will now have special need for something to moderate them. When such Providences have set them on working, and given vent to them, yea opened a great Flood-gate for them to run out at, you will now be sure to find great occasion for something to give check to the exorbitancy of them; they will else be very unruly, and bear down your Reason and Religion too before them, so as to precipitate you into strange exorbitancies. Now there is nothing more proper or suitable for this purpose, than to have this hope by you, ready to clap in and stop the breach: if any thing will do, this will. If you can swim ashoar upon this plank, you will not need to fear drowning in the torrent of sorrow: the People of God never made use of this really, but they found it profitable for their help at such a time.
3. Hence your Affections will now have special need for something to moderate them. When such Providences have set them on working, and given vent to them, yea opened a great Flood-gate for them to run out at, you will now be sure to find great occasion for something to give check to the exorbitancy of them; they will else be very unruly, and bear down your Reason and Religion too before them, so as to precipitate you into strange exorbitancies. Now there is nothing more proper or suitable for this purpose, than to have this hope by you, ready to clap in and stop the breach: if any thing will do, this will. If yoa can swim ashoar upon this plank, you will not need to fear drowning in the torrent of sorrow: the People of God never made use of this really, but they found it profitable for their help at such a time.
2. It is not the portion of all that live under the Gospel to enjoy this Hope. There are indeed the offers of it made to all that sit under the Ordinances, and a way is pointed out unto them how they might come by it, but it is not every one that hath obtained a title to it so as to ⟨image ?⟩be owner of it. It hath been before shown, that it is the portion of none but such as have truly believed in Christ, but all men have not faith; no not all that are visible believers, they have not that faith which is here requisite: It is proper to Gods Elect; it belongs to Gods Israel, but all are not Israel that are of Israel: and it is a foolish thing to presume of it, except you have made it yours by coming under the Covenant promise: and it will be a woeful unhappiness now to arrogate it, and when you come to have urgent occasion to make use of it, then to find that it doth not belong to you.