N00799:38
Morality not to be relied on for life. Or, A brief discourse, discovering the…
Morality not to be relied on for life. Or, A brief discourse, discovering the one thing wanting, which leaves the legalist short of life eternal. Delivered in a sermon on the lecture in Boston, May, 23d. 1700. / By Samuel Willard, teacher of a church in Boston. ; [Four lines from Titus]
printed by B. Green for Benjamin Eliot, 1700
Title page typeset from the transcription.
Morality Not to be Relied on for Life. › Application 2: USE II.
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.
USE II.
Let it be a Solemn word of Caution to all Sober and Moral men, to beware that you trust not in this for Eternal Life. The pride that is in your corrupt nature, will prompt you exceedingly hereunto, for the natural man would fain be seen and have something to boast of, that he may ascribe to himself; and the flesh pleasing Doctrines that are at this day vended on this account, will be very grateful to that pride, and nourish it in them. But take heed, there is one thing which, if when you have ⟨p. 28⟩done all, is wanting, you will be undone, and found to have laid out your Money for that which is not bread: What availed it this man in our Text, that he had kept all the Commands from his youth upwards? he still wanted that, the want whereof was his undoing. You live among men very Soberly & Abstemiously, you are no Drunkards, Gluttons, Gamesters Fornicators, &c. You do no man any wrong in your commerce, you are diligent in your Callings, honest and conscientious in your traffic, zealous in the Religious observance of the duties of worship private and public, and have the good word, and applause of your neighbours for these things: and if this be all that you can pretend unto, you have your reward; If you have not a better claim to Eternal Life than all this amounts to, you will not be able to stand in the Judgment; the righteous Judge will declare that he knows you not: your morality will be found no better than iniquity, and you must depart with the Workers of it. See then that now you get that one thing, else all will be lost, and your Souls perish for ever.
Let it be a Solemn word of Caution to all Sober and Moral men, to beware that you trust not in this for Eternal Life. The pride that is in your corrupt nature, will prompt you exceedingly hereunto, for the natural man would fain be seen and have something to boast of, that he may ascribe to himself; and the flesh pleasing Doctrines that are at this day vended on this account, will be very grateful to that pride, and nourish it in them. But take heed, there is one thing which, if when you have