N00129:446
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.
6. Let thy further enquiry be accompanied with amendment of what is at the present discovered, that is the way to know more; to be faithful ⟨p. 75⟩[…] have now my finger upon the right Sore. […] say indeed this is New Englands great disease; God hath begun in his Judgements to visit us, and there is a great deal of enquiry after the Cause: Gods Ministers endeavour faithfully to discover it, and yet still we are querists, Divine Providence speaks, and points at many things evidently, and still we are where we were; we acknowledge many things, and grant them to be amiss, and yet still the cry is, What's the reason? God is pleased to hide the reason: and why? why, men cannot see wood for trees: if we wait for immediate Revelations, we may wait long enough, there is no expecting of one to come from the dead to tell us. Indeed we can hardly look any where, but we may see causes apparent.
6. Let thy further enquiry be accompanied with amendment of what is at the present discovered, that is the way to know more; to be faithfull ⟨p. 75⟩〈…〉 have now my finger upon the right Sore. 〈…〉 say indeed this is New Englands great disease; God hath begun in his Judgements to visit us, and there is a great deal of enquiry after the Cause: Gods Ministers endeavour faithfully to discover it, and yet still we are querists, Divine Providence speaks, and points at many things evidently, and still we are where we were; we acknowledge many things, and grant them to be amiss, and yet still the cry is, What's the reason? God is pleased to hide the reason: and why? why, men cannot see wood for trees: if we wait for immediate Revelations, we may wait long enough, there is no expecting of one to come from the dead to tell us. Indeed we can hardly look any where, but we may see causes apparent.
1. Let every private person look at home, take an account with his own heart, and he shall see enough to mend there. Out of doubt, if we deal here ingenuously, we shall find that which may teach us to justify God, and declare him righteous in what concerns us.