N00129:348
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.
7. When we enquire, but we are not willing the Cause should be in our selves, but in others: and hence though we enquire with some earnestness, yet if the Answer (though true) touch us, and our Corruptions, we cannot bear it; this shows that we enquire with a censorious (which is an hypocritical) spirit: we regard not how much blame be laid upon others, but are willing to take none of the blame and shame of the sin to our selves; and therefore come not up to this, which is the only sincere first Enquiry, What have I done?
7. When we enquire, but we are not willing the Cause should be in our selves, but in others: and hence though we enquire with some earnestness, yet if the Answer (though true) touch us, and our Corruptions, we cannot bear it; this shews that we enquire with a censorious (which is an hypocritical) spirit: we regard not how much blame be laid upon others, but are willing to take none of the blame and shame of the sin to our selves; and therefore come not up to this, which is the onely sincere first Enquiry, What have I done?
Use II. To humble us for our hypocrisy upon this account: and how much cause the best of us may have to take the shame of this sin upon us before God this day, if we did seriously enquire, we might in some measure discover: let us then bewail it seriously. For Motive: Consider,
Use II. To humble us for our hypocrisie upon this account: and how much cause the best of us may have to take the shame of this sin upon us before God this day, if we did seriously enquire, we might in some measure discover: let us then bewail it seriously. For Motive: Consider,
1. It is no light matter to mock God; […] we do in every act […] hypocrisy: God is not mocked, saith the Apostle, i. e. he will not be put off with, nor will he put up our mockeries.