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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.
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,
2. Believe and much meditate upon the ⟨p. 136⟩future happy condition of the People of God. It is not enough to believe that there is an after-state, but our hope lies in thinking what that shall be: The Word of God hath told us as much of it, as is meet for us to know in this life; and let us be pondering often upon it: think what great glories they must be, of which Paul tells us, that it is not lawful to utter them; what it is to dwell with God and Christ for ever; what is that Eternal Life and those Joys for evermore, which shall entertain them after they are here no more.