N00800:52
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. When men make a great stir about ⟨p. 26⟩Godliness, and yet there is very little of the life of it appeareth in their Conversation. These do not proceed so far as the other in discovering themselves; they do something in prosecution of their profession, and Godly men have charitable hopes concerning them; but yet they are rather Negative than Positive, because they act so faintly and irresolutely in all they do. If there be the root of the matter in them, yet the activity of it is very little: a small temptation allureth them, a little opposition dishearteneth them; they give too much scope to themselves in things which they plead a liberty for; and every trial is ready to lay them open, and discover their irresolution: whereas, if Piety were powerful in them, it would not be so. Now it is the former of these which our Text more immediately and directly aimeth at, however we need not to exclude the latter; and here we may take a more distinct account of those things wherein this ill state or frame of Professors doth appear, for our help to judge of our selves, and of the times we live in.
2. When men make a great stir about ⟨p. 26⟩Godliness, and yet there is very little of the life of it appeareth in their Conversation. These do not proceed so far as the other in discovering themselves; they do something in prosecution of their profession, and Godly men have charitable hopes concerning them; but yet they are rather Negative than Positive, because they act so faintly and irresoultely in all they do. If there be the root of the matter in them, yet the activity of it is very little: a small temptation allureth them, a little opposition dishearteneth them; they give too much scope to themselves in things which they plead a liberty for; and every trial is ready to lay them open, and discover their irresolution: whereas, if Piety were powerful in them, it would not be so. Now it is the former of these which our Text more immediately and directly aimeth at, however we need not to exclude the latter; and here we may take a more distinct account of those things wherein this ill state or frame of Professors doth appear, for our help to judge of our selves, and of the times we live in.