N00802:1061
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.
1. Let it not make you to call your state of forgiveness in doubt. Such Providences indeed call us to try our selves, but not to entertain sinful doubts: say not that your persons are not Justified, you ⟨p. 369⟩will so condemn David, and other of Gods precious Saints. Your state may be good, and yet God angry at you, and there may be sins not actually forgiven: Justified persons may be under Gods displeasure, and need new forgiveness: if once you were Justified, that remains: you can never fall out of the Grace of God.
2. Neither let it make you to conclude that this very Sin is not forgiven. You are ready to say, surely God is angry, else he would not follow me with such afflictions, & if he had forgiven me, this anger had been turned away, and he pacified to me; herein you argue on a mistaken principle. God doth not always afflict in anger: he is angry at his own, so long as they lie under sin unrepented of; but he can administer correction in love, Heb. 12.6. And though there be an anger of love in some Corrections, yet there is a Chastisement which is without anger at us, in mere pity, wisdom, and tenderness toward his Children.
2. Neither let it make you to conclude that this very Sin is not forgiven. You are ready to say, surely God is angry, else he would not follow me with such afflictions, & if he had forgiven me, this anger had been turned away, and he pacified to me; herein you argue on a mistaken principle. God doth not always afflict in anger: he is angry at his own, so long as they ly under sin unrepented of; but he can administer correction in love, Heb. 12.6. And though there be an anger of love in some Corrections, yet there is a Chastisement which is without anger at us, in meer pitty, wisdom, and tenderness toward his Children.