N00348:177
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.
Give all diligence to make your calling and election sure, and if once you can say securely with Paul, You know whom you have trusted, you may well build that upon it which he doth, For this cause I also suffer these things, nevertheless I am not ashamed, 2 Tim. 1. 12. if you are but well satisfied in that, that you do not labour at uncertainties, that the Truth is really yours, and shall without sail recompense you all your cost, with infinite interest; let the expense in maintaining of it be never so much, this will certainly put life into your resolutions, and make you stand your ground ⟨p. 154⟩without flinching, entertaining with an holy scorn all the essays or offers which can be made, either to cog or wrest the Truth out of your hands:
Give all diligence to make your calling and election sure, and if once you can say securely with Paul, You know whom you have trusted, you may well build that upon it which he doth, For this cause I also suffer these things, nevertheless I am not ashamed, 2 Tim. 1. 12. if you are but well satisfied in that, that you do not labour at uncertainties, that the Truth is really yours, and shall without sail recompence you all your cost, with infinite interest; let the expense in maintaining of it be never so much, this will certainly put life into your resolutions, and make you stand your ground ⟨p. 154⟩without flinching, entertaining with an holy scorn all the essayes or offers which can be made, either to cog or wrest the Truth out of your hands:
2. Beware of being ashamed to own, or persuaded through fear to suppress the profession of the Truth. It is none of the least of the devices of Satan: and lessons which he hath throughly instructed his instruments in, to cast an odium and obloquy upon the Truth, and the serious professors of it; and it is grounded upon this presumption, that if they can once obtain to make it infamous, they shall then with little difficulty draw men away from it, merely to avoid that scandal which they shall otherwise expose themselves unto, by the open profession of it. It is not seldom that the Truth comes to be quite out of credit among the generality of men, when the Prophets complaint is verified,