N00802:1697
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
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. The miserable Creature receives inexpressible kindness by these benefits. His misery is relieved in it, yea and remedied, and finally removed by it. Common favours give a present relief, but these make him of miserable to become happy: they take off the guilt, and so remove the Curse that was lying upon him, and confer on him that which fills him with satisfaction, and crowns him with endless felicity: hence blessedness is pronounced on all believers, Psal 2.12.
3. And all these flow from the fountain of his free benignity. There is no merit of the Creature in it: the best of men is less than the least of all mercies, Gen. ⟨p. 559⟩32.10. They deserve the quite contrary, Dan 9.8, 9. They do nothing for them, have nothing to procure them withal; are no better than those that go without them: God bestows them on them for his own name sake. And when these things meet together, what is done for them must needs be called mercy.
2. Wherein it appears that all the rewards of Obedience are fruits of this mercy?