N00800:172
The peril of the times displayed. Or The danger of mens taking up with…
The peril of the times displayed. Or The danger of mens taking up with a form of godliness, but denying the power of it. Being the substance of several sermons preached: / by Samuel Willard, teacher of a church in Boston. N.E. ; [One line from Augustine in Latin]
Boston: printed by B. Green, 1700
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. Set your selves ever in the presence of God, as of one who seeth and hateth Hypocrisy. We are indeed forbidden to do eye-service to men, as of a thing which proceeds from a false heart; but eye-service to God is every where approved; and there is nothing that can be a more powerful and awful consideration on our minds, to make us afraid of doing any thing in hypocrisy, than to think of those two things, and always carry the deep impression of them upon our hearts, viz. that God stands by, and looks on, and that he cannot abide dissimulation; for he is our Law giver, and our Judge, who will call us to an account, and he will judge righteous Judgment, and cannot be mistaken in it. Hence holy men on Scripture Record, have always been wary of this, when they were in a right frame, and made use of it as a caution to excite them to sincerity; thus did Job, Chap. 31.4. Doth not he see my ways, and count all ⟨p. 163⟩my steps; and David saith, Psal. 16.8 I have set the Lord always before me. It is therefore the character of wicked men, that they think not of God, Psal. 10.4. God is not in all his thoughts; and they suppose him to be unconcerned about the affairs of the children of men, and so not to be feared, Ezek. 8.12. They say, the Lord seeth us not, the Lord hath forsaken the Earth.
3. Maintain and strengthen your love to God, and his ways. See that you have this principle in you: where this love is not, the best that you do will be but formality; and you had need to be always nourishing this principle in you, and getting of it corroborated: you will meet with many things that will offer to damp it. If you can but attain to do every thing in true love to God, delighting in his ways, and desiring his glory above all things, this will be the best help to do all things uprightly; this will make you see to the matter, and manner, and principle, and end, that all be accommodated to Evangelical directions and designs; and according to the strength and activity of this love in you, such will be the power of