The mourners cordial against excessive sorrow discovering what grounds of hope Gods people have…

PROPOSITION I. That Gods People have consolations which others are strangers unto.

God hath provided those comforts for his Children, which he hath not made common to the World: they have their Joys which a stranger may not meddle with without presumption, because he hath nothing to do with them. The Apostle, applying of himself to his Thessalonians, makes a plain difference between them, and others who did not believe: he leaves wicked men to sorrow without hope if they will, yea and he reckons that they have reason enough so to do; but he wholly disallows it in the Children of God, as a thing that is altogether unreasonable, and that must be because they have something peculiar to support their spirits withal, or else what should make the difference? The world indeed make high pretences to their comforts, but they are of another stamp and character than those that belong to the people of God, and no way comparable with them: and we may observe these four differences between them.

1. Those are but seeming comforts, whereas ⟨p. 7⟩these are real. They are but the shadow▪ these are the substance of Consolation. Of the worlds comforts, we have the Wis•mans observation upon them, Prov. 13.14. E•en in Laughter the heart is sorrowful; they think they have some refreshments, but indeed they have none. But the comforts of Gods Children are realities: they are therefore said to inherit substance: there are true settled refreshments in the Joys of the Holy Ghost, which these partake in: there is neither delusion nor deceit in them.