N00802:1048
The truly blessed man
The truly blessed man: or, The way to be happy here, and for ever: being the substance of divers sermons preached on, Psalm XXXII. / By Samuel Willard, teacher of a church in Boston. N.E. ; [Five lines from Isaiah]
printed by B. Green for Michael Perry, 1700
Sermon › The safety of pardoned ones in worst times. DOCTRINE.
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. They may not only see the common calamity, ⟨p. 365⟩but smart by it, and that righteously: and there are two reasons for this.
1. They are members of that body against which God hath a Controversy. That there is an external Dispensation of Gods Covenant, in treating with the body of a professing people collectively, is a great truth: on which account the whole are considered as one, and Gods Temporary Providences are accommodated to them as so: thus sometimes the sin of one may bring Gods Judgments on the whole Congregation, Josh. 22.20. especially when that one mans sins are influential to debauch a whole people, as 2 King. 23.26, 27. compare, Chap. 21.11. And when good men suffer on this account, it is their infelicity in some regard, but there is no unrighteousness with God, nor may they charge iniquity on him.
2. Their very sins which they have repented of, and have obtained forgiveness for, may have given occasion for those public calamities. Such was Davids numbering of the people, 2 Sam. 24. begin. Israel indeed had provoked Gods anger; however this act of Davids was introductory to the fearful Plague that followed; and yet he repented before the plague came, verse 10. Nay, the Sins of Gods Children may defile a Land, and though they repent personally, yet public Guilt remains, as in the forecited Case: David therefore takes it to himself, and deprecates it from the people, in verse 17.