N00747:177
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.
3. Know therefore that if we lose the exercise of our faith, in the darkest times. We shall dishonour God, and obstruct our own obedience; if when Gods face is hidden, we also remit the exercising of our faith in him, and sink into despondency, wherein do we glorify God as we ought to do? it is a duty lying on all the people of God, to trust in him at all times, Psal. 62.8. but there are times wherein God is withdrawn: and it may possibly so be, that the greatest part of our time shall be spent under these withdrawings; but we have still a work of our generation to do, and this will not excuse us from it; and there is no other living at such a time, but by the vigorous exercise of our faith, as Heb. 10.38. but the just shall live by faith, if that fails, our whole work will be suspended together with it: Nay, the times of desertion are peculiarly to try our faith, and not to kill it; and if we do not so improve it, then we lose a fair opportunity: If the Spouse finds that ⟨p. 86⟩her beloved is withdrawn, her business is not to lie still, and give him up, and say, I shall never see him more; but to get up and follow him with resolution never to rest till she hath him again, Cant. 5. and they were the wings of faith that carried her: she therefore calls him her beloved, and argues to it, because she finds her self sick of love for him, verse 8.
3. Know therefore that if we lose the exercise of our faith, in the darkest times. We shall dishonour God, and obstruct our own obedience; if when Gods face is hidden, we also remit the exercising of our faith in him, and sink into despondency, wherein do we glorify God as we ought to do? it is a duty lying on all the people of God, to trust in him at all times, Psal. 62.8. but there are times wherein God is withdrawn: and it may possibly so be, that the greatest part of our time shall be spent under these withdrawings; but we have still a work of our generation to do, and this will not excuse us from it; and there is no other living at such a time, but by the vigorous exercise of our faith, as