N00461:52
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.
2. You will have a great deal of peace in thus doing, whereas otherwise you will create for yourselves a great deal of trouble. Every man, next to God, hath most of all to do with his own Conscience, and it is his greatest wisdom carefully to provide for the quiet of that: it is his best friend, if he do ⟨p. 24⟩maintain the peace of it, and it is his worst foe, if he will be so foolish as to set it against him: and whatsoever Evasions men may use to baffle their Consciences withal for the present, yet they keep a true Register, and will have a time to call men to a severe Reckoning; then it will be an unspeakable comfort, to be able to say of our selves, as Paul doth, Acts 20.16. if we maintain Truth in the inward parts, that will be matter of solid consolation, in the darkest hours of Temptation: but it will be a terrible thing, when our thoughts shall be made to reflect inward, then to have such accusations as these are; I have been false to men, how can it be then that I should be true to God? I have had little or no regard to my word; I made nothing of promising, and as little of breaking promise: all that you can gain by your falsehood or save by cunning tricks to put off your engagements, will never compensate this mischief: all that you can suffer by being honest and true, though you should lose considerably in your outward concerns will not make you […], or hinder your inward quiet: this will be a solid comfort to you at all times.
2. You will have a great deal of peace in thus doing, whereas otherwise you will create for yourselves a great deal of trouble. Every man, next to God, hath most of all to do with his own Conscience, and it is his greatest wisdom carefully to provide for the quiet of that: it is his best friend, if he do ⟨p. 24⟩maintain the peace of it, and it is his worst foe, if he will be so foolish as to set it against him: and whatsoever Evasions men may use to baffle their Consciences withall for the present, yet they keep a true Register, and will have a time to call men to a severe Reckoning; then it will be an unspeakable comfort, to be able to say of our selves, as Paul doth, Acts 20.16