N00801:91
A remedy against despair. Or Brief discourse wherein great sinners are encouraged, and directed…
A remedy against despair. Or Brief discourse wherein great sinners are encouraged, and directed how to improve the consideration of the greatness of their sins in praying to God for pardon. Being the substance of two sermons preached at the lecture in Boston, 1699. / By Samuel Willard, teacher of a church there. ; [Four lines of Scripture texts]
Boston: printed by B. Green and J. Allen. Sold by S. Phillips, 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.
3. It will make us to walk the more humbly afterwards. There is nothing which more helpeth the Grace of Humility, to its perfect working in a Child of God, ⟨p. 67⟩than the remembrance of what horrible and deep died sins he hath been guilty of, and that yet God should forgive them. He is ever reflecting on these two together; what his Sins have been, and what a pardon is bestowed upon him: he will be on all occasions turning his eye this way; and indeed the greatness of Sin will never work to a kindly Humiliation, till it be joined with the apprehension of a pardon.
3. It will make us to walk the more humbly •fterwards. There is nothing which more helpeth the Grace of Humility, to its perfect working in a Child of God, ⟨p. 67⟩than the remembrance of what horrible and deep died sins he hath been guilty of, and that yet God should forgive them. He is ever reflecting on these two together; what his Sins have been, and what a pardon is bestowed upon him: he will be on all occasions turning his eye this way; and indeed the greatness of Sin will never work to a kindly Humiliation, till it be joyned with the apprehension of a pardon.
4. It will help us the more cheerfully and steadfastly to Serve God for the future. Such an experience as this, when it works kindly on the Soul, will mightily strengthen Obedience; and this is a fruit of that love which it doth produce and excite in the heart: it will, as often as he turns his eye that way, make him to say as he, Psal. 116.12. What shall I render to the Lord for all his benefits to me? and now he thinks that he can never do or suffer too much for the honour of that God who hath so appeared to him.