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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. Do it perseveringly; though you should meet with a great many lets and discouragements lying in your way, yet resolve to break through them all: though you can see no present good coming of all your pains and endeavours, though they should slight and despise, and grow more vain and obstinate under and after all; yet do you commend your endeavours to God, and set to it afresh▪ think with your selves, if at the last you may but obtain what you long for, your labour will be satisfactorily recompensed: we are bidden not to be weary of well doing, and in the morning to sow our seed, &c.
3. Take all the encouragements that God hath given you to strengthen your Hope by▪ God hath seen meet to afford his people a great deal, to establish their hope withal; and if we would have it in exercise we must make use of it accordingly: In particular▪
1. Live upon the New Covenant promises. Though God hath not given us any particular absolute promise, that this or that relation of ours shall be made happy in the everlasting enjoyment of himself when they die, yet he hath afforded to us many encouraging promises concerning them, as hath been exemplified in the explication. He hath promised that our labour shall not be in ⟨p. 134⟩vain; he hath promised to be a God to our Children; he hath promised, that if they seek him he will be found of them; and now there is occasion for our making use of these and the like promises; and though they will not amount to full assurance, yet they will give strength to Hope.