N00747:95
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.
6. And they may be utterly at a loss about their spiritual state. There doth seem to be a greater latitude in those desertions which refer to Comfort, than such as relate to assistance: Gods faithfulness will not suffer him so to withdraw ⟨p. 48⟩from their graces, as to suffer them to be extinguished in them; but it is possible, and consistent with his Covenant fidelity, that sometimes they lose the comfort of their good estate. Not only may the Spirit of God withdraw his Testimony, and refuse to bear his witness to their Sonship; and when he so doth, all the witness of their own Spirits will not satisfy them in the conclusion; but leave them in sad doubts and fears whether there be any thing of truth and sincerity in them; […] a misgiving heart, and tempting Devil setting in, put them upon drawing of sad conclusions against themselves, whilst their own evidences are beclouded, so as they cannot read them, nor produce any argument for themselves which they dare to place confidence in, and so they are enveloped in dismal darkness; and such a condition as this is that supposed in Isa. 50.10.
6. And they may be utterly at a loss about their spiritual state. There doth seem to be a greater latitude in those desertions which refer to Comfort, than such as relate to assistance: Gods faithfulness will not suffer him so to withdraw ⟨p. 48⟩from their graces, as to suffer them to be extinguished in them; but it is possible, and consistent with his Covenant fidelity, that sometimes they lose the comfort of their good estate. Not only may the Spirit of God withdraw his Testimony, and refuse to bear his witness to their Sonship; and when he so doth, all the witness of their own Spirits will not satisfy them in the conclusion; but leave them in sad doubts and fears whether there be any thing of truth and sincerity in them; 〈…〉 a misgiving heart, and tempting Devil setting in, put them upon drawing of sad conclusions against themselves, whilst their own evidences are beclouded, so as they cannot read them, nor produce any argument for themselves which they dare to place confidence in, and so they are enveloped in dismal darkness; and such a condition as this is that supposed in