N00802:1496
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 › Doctrine 3: To go no further in Gods Service than forced is an ill sign. DOCTRINE III.
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. If it be so always; that they never keep to their work, but when they are under the •od• if they be not always held in with bit and bridle, they will revolt, and as soon as ever they feel the reign• in their neck, they run away. There are the ⟨p. 488⟩obligations of mercy, and kindness, which will leave impressions on gracious Souls, and be influential to animate them to Obedience, as, Psal. 116.12. And if nothing will do but affliction, it is a sign of a slavish heart.
1. If it be so alwayes; that they never keep to their work, but when they are under the •od• if they be not always held in with bit and bridle, they will revolt, and as soon as ever they feel the reign• in their neck, they run away. There are the ⟨p. 488⟩obligations of mercy, and kindness, which will leave impressions on gracious Souls, and be influential to animate them to Obedience, as, Psal. 116.12. And if nothing will do but affliction, it is a sign of a slavish heart.
2. If it be to a course of presumptuous sins. The best have their infirmities, but if they be scandalous breaches of the Command, that we had before lived in, and been by affliction for a while restrained from, but now return to with as much eagerness as ever, it bespeaks us altogether flesh. Suppose a man hath lived in the neglect of Gods Worship, or been addicted to Drunkenness; but affliction hath convinced him, and he hath begun to reform these things; if upon deliverance he returns to these things again and grows as bad as ever, it awfully bespeaks such an one to be in the gall of bitterness.