N00129:24
Useful instructions for a professing people in times of great security and degeneracy
Useful instructions for a professing people in times of great security and degeneracy: delivered in several sermons on solemn occasions: / by Mr. Samuel Willard Pastor of the Church of Christ at Groton. ; [Eight lines of Scripture texts]
printed by Samuel Green, 1673
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.
Doct. 2. True Repentance is the best and only way for the settlement of true peace: this the Lord propounds to them as the way and means to settlement, that they may dwell in that place for ever: and to that end he call• them up, not to a feigned, but a true repentance; if they had a desire to prosper. Jer 4. 1. if you will return, return to me. i. e. be sure to repent aright, do not turn from one sin to another, do not wander from that mountain to this hill, change one Idol for another; but go back again to your God: hence the Lord shows that to be the reason of the continuance of their sorrows. Isa. 58 2, 3, 4. and Zech 7. 5, 6. they had pretended services, fastings, &c. but they did it not to God, it was not in a right manner.
Doct. 2. True Repentance is the best and only way for the settlement of true peace: this the Lord propounds to them as the way and means to settlement, that they may dwell in that place for ever: and to that end he call• them up, not to a feigned, but a true repentance; if they had a desire to prosper. Ier 4. 1. if you will return, return to me. i. e. be sure to repent aright, do not turn from one sin to another, do not wander from that mountain to this hill, change one Idol for another; but go back again to your God: hence the Lord shews that to be the reason of the continuance of their sorrows. Isa. 58 2, 3, 4. and Zech 7. 5, 6. they had pretended services, fastings, &c. but they did it not to God, it was not in a right manner.
Reas. 1. From the difference between true and feigned repentance, in the one there is a free and hearty renouncing of all sin: a sight of it, a sorrow for it, and a forsaking it; this the Lord himself hath constituted as the way to enjoy mercy. Prov. 28. 13. this hath a firm promise made to it.