N00747:152
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.
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.
3. If therefore his object fail him, and he have no other to rely upon, he must needs be perplexed. It is a killing thing to be disappointed in ones expectation, in which his all is concerned: and if the deferring of hope makes the heart to faint, the defeating of it must needs make it to die in the man; especially when he sees no other course to be taken, or any other re••ge where he may repair this loss: it will make him to say as he, Judg 18.24. Ye have taken […] my Gods, and what have • more?
3. If there•ore his object fail him, and he have no other to rely upon, he must needs be perplexed. It is a killing thing to be disappointed in ones expectation, in which his all is concerned: and if the deferring of hope makes the heart to faint, the defeating of it must needs make it to dy in the man; especially when he sees no other course to be taken, or any other re••ge where he may repair this loss: it will make him to say as he, Judg 18.24. Ye have taken 〈…〉 my Gods, and what have • more?