N00348:153
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. That we are exceeding dull and hard of hearing and learning these things: there may be not only a capacity in a man, but a great deal of promptness to imbibe other Doctrines; a commendable docility, apt to take in the notions of the precepts of them, and make them ours as fast as they are told us: but as for the things of God, and the everlasting concerns of our immortal Souls, the case is far otherwise with us there: the Ox and the Ass are in their kind more docile than we are, Isai. 1. 3. The Ox knows knows his owner, and the Ass his Masters crib, but Israel doth not know. When a great deal of time, and pains, and patience hath been bestowed upon us, and all condescension to treat us in our own language, and help us by little and little, yet it is but a poor pittance that we arrive unto: what a blockhead did our Saviour Christ find Nicodemus to be in those things, though he was a Master in Israel, and one who by his Office ought himself ⟨p. 127⟩to have instructed others in the knowledge of them? Joh. 3. beginning: and how doth he up-braid Philip after he had been so many years in his School? Joh. 14. 8, 9. Have I been so long time with you: and hast thou not known me, Philip? and the Apostle his Hebrews, Chap. 5. 11, 12. Ye are dull of hearing: for when for the time ye ought to be Teachers, ye have need that one teach you again what be the first Principles of the Oracles of God. Nay,
2. That we are exceeding dull and hard of hearing and learning these things: there may be not only a capacity in a man, but a great deal of promptness to imbibe other Doctrines; a commendable docility, apt to take in the notions of the precepts of them, and make them ours as fast as they are told us: but as for the things of God, and the everlasting concerns of our immortal Souls, the case is far otherwise with us there: the Ox and the Asse are in their kind more docile than we are, Isai. 1. 3. The Ox knows knows his owner, and the Asse his Masters crib, but Israel doth not know. When a great deal of time, and pains, and patience hath been bestowed upon us, and all condescention to treat us in our own language, and help us by little and little, yet it is but a poor pittance that we arrive unto: what a blockhead did our Saviour Christ find Nicodemus to be in those things, though he was a Master in Israel, and one who by his Office ought himself