N00460:239
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.
4. Be not ignorant. Our Apostle ascribes the immoderate sorrow of Christians to this. Text. where under Ignorance is comprehended, a not knowing, a not believing, and a not considering: for that which we do not give credit to, or do not apply our thoughts unto, we may be said practically not to know; and for help against this in particular;
1. Do not fix their happiness, or your comfort in them to life and time; what the Apostle saith, 1 Cor. 25.19. If our hope in Christ were for this life only, we were of all men most miserable, is applicable not with respect to our selves only, but to ours too. If all the comfort, and joy, and hope which we have in our relations, be only temporal; if we look no farther than the present, their Death will cut all off at one stroke. This was one great reason why the Heathen sorrowed so hopelessly; because they knew so little about the after-state of men: but God hath given his People full assurance in his Word about these things: believe then firmly, and meditate frequently in the Doctrine of the Resurrection; think of the state of men after time, and draw what you may from thence. Hence,
1. Do not fix their happiness, or your comfort in them to life and time; what the Apostle saith, 1 Cor. 25.19. If our hope in Christ were for this life only, we were of all men most miserable, is applicable not with respect to our selves only, but to ours too. If all the comfort, and ioy, and hope which we have in our relations, be only temporal; if we look no farther than the present, their Death will cut all off at one stroak. This was one great reason why the Heathen sorrowed so hopelesly; because they knew so little about the after-state of men: but God hath given his People full assurance in his Word about these things: believe then firmly, and meditate frequently in the Doctrine of the Resurrection; think of the state of men after time, and draw what you may from thence. Hence,