N00348:25
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.
1. Buying of any thing intimates that a man hath it not of his own; what a man hath already at home in his proper possession, he needs not go to the market to buy it; and thus it is with fallen man, in his Natural Estate: Truth doth not fall to him by inheritance, but he is born a mere stranger to it; see Psal. 58. 3. They go astray as soon as they be born, speaking lies. It is not to be denied, that there are some broken fragments of the ancient inscriptions of the Law, which was fairly engraven upon Adams heart, to be found in the consciences of his Posterity; and these are called Truth, Rom. 1. 18. Who hold the Truth in Unrighteousness. But they are but like to so many shattered pieces of a broken vessel, that cannot be put together again, and do serve only to witness unto the woefulness of his fall: But the Truth which contains in it the saving knowledge of God in Christ, is a thing which the world is a stranger to, and no natural man hath it, Rom. 3. 17. The way of peace they have not known; and he must go wholly out of himself ⟨p. 12⟩for it, if ever he hopes to get it into his possession.
1. Buying of any thing intimates that a man hath it not of his own; what a man hath already at home in his proper possession, he needs not go to the market to buy it; and thus it is with fallen man, in his Natural Estate: Truth doth not fall to him by inheritance, but he is born a meer stranger to it; see Psal. 58. 3. They go astray as soon as they be born, speaking lies. It is not to be denied, that there are some broken fragments of the ancient inscriptions of the Law, which was fairly engraven upon Adams heart, to be found in the consciences of his Posterity; and these are called Truth, Rom. 1. 18. Who hold the Truth in Unrighteousness. But they are but like to so many shattered pieces of a broken vessel, that cannot be put together again, and do serve only to witness unto the wofulness of his fall: But the Truth which contains in it the saving knowledge of God in Christ, is a thing which the world is a stranger to, and no natural man hath it,