N00747:259
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. He that is once a Child of God is ever so. Adoption is one of the unrepentable gifts of God. Effectual Vocation flows from his everlasting love, Jer. 31.3. and therefore it will certainly abide in its efficacy to everlasting: if then you once truly knew your selves to be the Children of God; the thing is certain and unchangeable. Why then should you change your thoughts, although there be changes in Providence, which are to be expected, and therefore can be no contradiction to the truth on which your hope is built.
1. He that is once a Child of God is ever so. Adoption is one of the unrepentable gifts of God. Effectual Vocation flows from his everlasting love, Jer. 31.3. and therefore it will certainly abide in its efficacy to everlasting: if then you once truly knew your selves to be the Children of God; the thing is certain and unchangeable. Why then should you change your thoughts, a•though there be changes in Providence, which are to be expected, and therefore can be no contradiction to the truth on which your hope is built.
2. If your evidence were once true, it is so still and this follows from the former: a believers evidence is from the things that accompany salvation; and that concomitancy is inseparable; […] ever you had real communion with God, and participated in his Grace, it was a witness of your good estate: and tho' the scene be now turned, yet it will be a truth for ever, that God came ⟨p. 137⟩and sealed the Covenant with your souls: and though he doth not do it now afresh, y•t he did it then; and if he loved you then, he loveth you still, John 13.1. Having loved his omn which were in the world, he loved them to the end: And this will prove it.