N00460:241
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.
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.
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.
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 Joyes for evermore, which shall entertain them after they are here no more.
3. Think your selves now with them in that happy state. The Apostle gives that enco•ium of faith, He•. 1.11. it is the substance (or present subsistence) of things H•ped for. Pass then over this little spot of time, which must soon flee away; and say to your self, why should I mourn for their Departure, who am looking in a very few days to be called away hence to be with them? Suppose your self now to be out of this Tabernacle gotten to the Kingdom, and solacing your self in their company, in the Bosom and Embraces of C•••st; and would you mourn if it were indeed so? think it so already, because you hope it will be so shortly.