N00461:34
Promise-keeping a great duty. As it was delivered in a sermon / by Samuel…
Promise-keeping a great duty. As it was delivered in a sermon / by Samuel Willard, teacher of a church in Boston. ; [Three lines from Proverbs]
Boston: printed by Benjamin Harris, 1691
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.
Here then these Rules are to be minded.
1. That if God by some unforeseen Providence, disable a person from doing according to his Word, it is not to be imputed to him for a sin, if he do come short of performing: it doth not make the man guilty of an untruth, tho he should fall behind in the thing: always provided that his intentions were honest, and there were no fallaciousness in the management▪ and for men to asperse him with knavery or cheating on this account, it is to throw dirt in the face of Gods Providence; it is the duty of all men to accept of another's word, under such a proviso, and not to think that any can forestall him, Who doth his pleasure in the world, or to think any Christian so mad as to intend, I will do so, ⟨p. 12⟩whether God will or no; if it be labour, and God lays the man up sick: if it be money, and God takes all from him, he is to be pitied and not reproached: Paul for this Reason, counts it hard Measure for him to be Consumed in this regard, when unfore-suspected Troubles in Asia had prevented his truly intended Journey.
1. That if God by some unforeseen Providence, disable a person from doing according to his Word, it is not to be imputed to him for a sin, if he do come short of performing: it doth not make the man guilty of an untruth, tho he should fall behind in the thing: always provided that his intentions were honest, and there were no fallaciousness in the management▪ and for men to asperse him with knavery or cheating on this account, it is to throw dirt in the face of Gods Providence; it is the duty of all men to accept of anothers word, under such a proviso, and not to think that any can forestal him, Who doth his pleasure in the world, or to think any Christian so mad as to intend, I will do so, ⟨p. 12⟩whether God will or no; if it be labour, and God lays the man up sick: if it be money, and God takes all from him, he is to be pitied and not reproached: Paul for this Reason, counts it hard Measure for him to be Consumed in this regard, when unfore-suspected Troubles in Asia had prevented his truly intended Journey.