N00348:61
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. The gross ignorance of such great numbers, even in the main and principal points of Religion? those very staple truths of it; the most main and necessary things of all? that of the Apostle is too true of them Heb. 5. 12. When for the time ye ought to be Teachers, ye have need that one teach you again, which be the first principles of the Oracles of God, and if in a place where there hath so much of light shone, and the Truth hath been so easy to come by, men have all this while gotten so little of it into their hands, what shall we then think they have in their ⟨p. 38⟩hearts? if they had any heart to it, it could not possibly be so.
2. The vain and foolish conversation of multitudes: We may say of the Truth, when men have indeed bought it, as Solomon speaks of Wisdom, which is the same thing, Prov. 2. 10, 11, 12. When Wisdom entereth into thy heart, and knowledge is pleasant unto thy Soul, discretion shall preserve thee, &c. and therefore wickedness is in Scripture called folly, and ungodly men fools; so that when we see sin daily abounding among us, and men living without any care or regard to their lives and ways, walking in the paths of death, and going in the road-way to destruction, it is a clear witness against them, that they have rejected the Truth; and our Saviour tells us, This is the Gospel Condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men choose darkness rather than light, because their works are evil, John 3. 19.
2. The vain and foolish conversation of multitudes: We may say of the Truth, when men have indeed bought it, as Solomon speaks of Wisdom, which is the same thing, Prov. 2. 10, 11, 12