N00263:279
Covenant-keeping the way to blessedness, or, A brief discourse wherein is shown the connection…Covenant-keeping the way to blessedness, or, A brief discourse wherein is shewn the connexion…
Covenant-keeping the way to blessedness, or, A brief discourse wherein is shown the connection which there is between the promise, on God's part; and duty, on our part, in the covenant of grace: as it was delivered in several sermons, preached in order to solemn renewing of covenant. / By Samuel Willard teacher of a church in Boston in New-England. ; [Seven lines from Deuteronomy]Covenant-keeping the way to blessedness, or, A brief discourse wherein is shewn the connexion which there is between the promise, on God's part; and duty, on our part, in the covenant of grace: as it was delivered in several sermons, preached in order to solemn renewing of covenant. / By Samuel Willard teacher of a church in Boston in New-England. ; [Seven lines from Deuteronomy]
printed by James Glen, 1682
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.
1. Be sure all your Reproofs proceed from Love, and not from bitterness: Labour therefore after a •eek, a gentle, and a bearing frame of spirit; you must not always expect to meet with Grace, but often to encounter with Corruption; and beware that you do not set your Corruption against it. A Reprover undertakes the Place of a Spiritual Physician, & must deal with the malady according to the state of the Patient, aiming at the recovery and gaining of a Soul. Hence, that direction, Gal. 6.1. You must mix meekness with, & add Patience to all your rebukes, as those that desire to cover, rather than discover another's frailties.
1. Be sure all your Reproofes proceed from Love, and not from bitterness: Labour therefore after a •eek, a gentle, and a bearing frame of spirit; you must not alwayes expect to meet with Grace, but often to encounter with Corruption; and beware that you do not set your Corruption against it. A Reprover undertakes the Place of a Spiritual Physitian, & must deal with the malady according to the state of the Patient, aiming at the recovery and gaining of a Soul. Hence, that direction, Gal. 6.1. You must mix meekness with, & add Patience to all your rebukes, as those that desire to cover, rather than discover anothers frailties.
*2. Let your lives as well as your words be a conviction of Sin in your Brother: Loose and scandalous Professors are very unfit for this service. Noah's Life as well as his Preaching condemned the Old World, he that carries his Beam with him, is not fit to pluck away a Mote, Mat. 7. begin. It greatly weakens a reproof when it is applied to a Sin we daily live in commission of, and are known too much to allow in our selves. That which we not only speak against, but live contrary to, will help our reproofs to carry evidence along with them; will give them credit of our sincerity and care, with a great deal of authority.