N00802:1809
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.
1. What is the Uprightness of heart here intended?
A. We observed, that it points to Sincerity as opposed to Hypocrisy: and it refers to the new nature which is put into us in Regeneration, by which our whole Soul is wrought to a conformity to the will of God; called truth in the inward parts, Psal. 51.6. It is indeed consistent with much frailty and folly remaining in the man, and too often discovering it self in his actions, and sometimes grossly too, as is exemplified in the best that have been honoured with the title of Righteous: but it hath these things mainly in it.
A. We observed, that it points to Sincerity as opposed to Hypocrisy: and it refers to the new nature which is put into us in Regeneration, by which our whole Soul is wrought to a conformity to the will of God; called truth in the inward parts, Psal. 51.6. It is indeed consistent with much •railty and folly remaining in the man, and too often discovering it self in his actions, and sometimes grosly too, as is exemplified in the best that have been honoured with the title of Righteous: but it hath these things mainly in it.
1. A spiritual discerning of the excellency of the ways of God. The Image of God is renewed in knowledge, Col. 3.10. The understanding hath not only a literal notion of Truths, but a gracious Illumination by which it seeth the beauty of these things: for this David prayed,