N00747:151
Spiritual desertions discovered and remedied. Being the substance of divers sermons preached for the…
Spiritual desertions discovered and remedied. Being the substance of divers sermons preached for the help of dark souls, labouring under divine withdrawings. / By Samuel Willard, teacher of a church in Boston. ; [Four lines from Isaiah]
printed by B. Green for Michael Perry and Benjamin Eliot, 1699
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. That man is naturally insatiably desirous of happiness, and averse to misery. This is a congenerate principal of Humane nature, and can be no more separate from it than Humanity; the very Elective power in man involves it in it. They were the cries o• nature, as well as of Grace which he tittered in that request, 1 Chron. 4.10. Oh that thou wouldest bless me indeed, and that thou ⟨p. 70⟩wouldest keep me from evil, that it may not grieve me.
1. That man is naturally insatiably desirous of happiness, and averse to misery. This is a congenerate principal of Humane nature, and can be no more separate from it than Humanity; the very Elective power in man involves it in it. They were the crys o• nature, as well as of Grace which he tittered in that request, 1 Chron. 4.10. Oh that thou wouldest bless me indeed, and that thou ⟨p. 70⟩wouldest keep me from evil, that it may not grieve me.
2. That man is a dependent Creature, and must have an object of trust, for happiness, and freedom from evil and misery. He hath not his felicity, nor his security in himself, but must have it from abroad; and if he have it, he must have an object that is able to derive it to him, on whom he may rely; else his trust will be vain, and his expectation frustrate: hence their complaint on this account, Lam. 4.17. As for us, our eyes yet failed for our vain help: in our watching we have watched for a nation that could not save us.