N00129:435
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.
3. Thou it may be art a private person, and therefore canst do but little upon a public account but by thy prayers; labour therefore to do the more with thine own heart. God hath not set every man in such a place, wherein he is called to busy himself in matters of public concernment, these belong to persons in public employment, whom we can only, assist by our prayers, or a detection and discovery of such particular enormities as we are privy to, that they may receive their due reward, and sin may be taken out of Israel: but we have the more scope and opportunity to be searching our own hearts, and if we neglect that work, we do little or nothing.
3. Thou it may be art a private person, and therefore canst do but little upon a publick account but by thy prayers; labour therefore to do the more with thine own heart. God hath not set every man in such a place, wherein he is called to busie himself in matters of publick concernment, these belong to persons in publick employment, whom we can onely, assist by our prayers, or a detection and discovery of such particular enormities as we are privy to, that they may receive their due reward, and sin may be taken out of Israel: but we have the more scope and opportunity to be searching our own hearts, and if we neglect that work, we do little or nothing.
4. Thou art not fitted to look abroad, till thou hast first made a thorough work at home, Mat. 7.1—Thou art like to make but poor work in public matters, whiles thou harbourest sin in thin own heart; if therefore thou hast a desire to do God service upon that account, thou hadst need to be more then ordinarily careful to clear thy own accounts with God, lest thou be found guilty of hypocrisy. It will be found the ready way to bring thy self under inexcusable Condemnation before God, to search after and condemn those sins in others, which thou thy self livest in the daily practice of, Rom. 2.1. thou must therefore prepare thy self to this work by a thorough search of thy own heart.