N00348:131
Heavenly merchandiseHeavenly merchandize
Heavenly merchandise; or The purchasing of truth recommended and the selling of it dissuaded; as it was delivered in several sermons upon Prov. 23. 23. / By Samuel Willard, teacher of a church in Boston. ; [Three lines of Scripture text]Heavenly merchandize; or The purchasing of truth recommended and the selling of it disswaded; as it was delivered in several sermons upon Prov. 23. 23. / By Samuel Willard, teacher of a church in Boston. ; [Three lines of Scripture text]
printed by Samuel Green, 1686
Title page typeset from the transcription.
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.
2. There are others who think to find out Truth by the fewness of its followers, and that which is consequent thereupon, the ill entertainment which it finds with the greatest number of men: and though these may possibly come nearer to it ordinarily then the others, by reason of the natural pravity of Man kind; yet neither is this a sufficient Criterion to judge of it by. There have been those happy times, wherein whole Councils have condemned the Heresies of a few; when the Synod at Jerusalem could unanimously bear witness against the Judaizing Christians, who would have subjected the connected Gentiles to the law of Moses, Act. 15. ⟨p. 104⟩When the Nicene Council bare a plump Testimony against the Blasphemy which Arrius vented to the dishonour of the Son of God, and many the like. God sometimes gives Truth a signal victory over falsehood, and it triumphs: and it is certain that Heresies, at their first rise, have met with but a few defenders or abettors, though afterward they have gathered by rolling, like a Snowball; pride and ambition giving a lift to promote them, till such time as the light and heat of Truth hath melted them again.
2. There are others who think to find out Truth by the fewness of its followers, and that which is consequent thereupon, the ill entertainment which it finds with the greatest number of men: and though these may possibly come nearer to it ordinarily then the others, by reason of the natural pravity of Man kind; yet neither is this a sufficient Criterion to judge of it by. There have been those happy times, wherein whole Councils have condemned the Heresies of a few; when the Synod at Jerusalem could unanimously bear witness against the Judaizing Christians, who would have subjected the connected Gentiles to the law of Moses, Act. 15. ⟨p. 104⟩When the Nicene Council bare a plump Testimony against the Blasphemy which Arrius vented to the dishonour of the Son of God, and many the like. God sometimes gives Truth a signal victory over falshood, and it triumphs: and it is certain that Heresies, at their first rise, have met with but a few defenders or abettors, though afterward they have gathered by rolling, like a Snowball; pride and ambition giving a lift to promote them, till such time as the light and heat of Truth hath melted them again.