N00802:277
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. In the Repentance which it brings the man to afterwards. Sometimes the Law of the Members is too subtle and strong, and leads the man Captive, and he is drawn into Dissimulation, as Peter and Barnabas were, Gal. 2.12. &c. The deceitfulness of his worser part imposeth upon him, and he plays the Fool; but as his Grace had no hand in it, but was merely overborne; so it recruits again, and what it could not prevent by withstanding, it clears it self of, by Repentance. The Godly sorrow, bitter mourning, self-abhorrence and mortification he applies to it, witnesseth for him, 2 Cor. 7.11. And this belongs to that Spiritual warfare, with which the Gospel acquaints us.
2. In the Repentance which it brings the man to afterwards. Sometimes the Law of the Members is too subtile and strong, and leads the man Captive, and he is drawn into Dissimulation, as Peter and Barnabas were, Gal. 2.12. &c. The deceitfulness of his worser part imposeth upon him, and he plays the Fool; but as his Grace had no hand in it, but was meerly overborn; so it recruits again, and what it could not prevent by withstanding, it clears it self of, by Repentance. The Godly sorrow, bitter mourning, self-abhorrence and mortification he applies to it, witnesseth for him, 2 Cor. 7.11. And this belongs to that Spiritual warfare, with which the Gospel acquaints us.
7. That God, in the New-Covenant, values […] according to this New Nature. It is true, the Corruption within us, is Originally our own, and we have reason to bewail it as long as we Live; and it gives the Believer a world of grief and molestation. And when we neglect our Graces, and allow or nourish our Corruptions, God, as a Father, is angry, and Corrects us for it: but however, God looks upon his People according to their Grace. This is the New-Creature, and they are judged such who have it in them. And where there […] this warfare against Corruption, and Grace exercised in Resistance and Repentance, God is please to accept of us; and though he Charge the other upon our Concupiscence, and will Mortify it […] us, yet he Chargeth it not so upon the person, […] to put him out of his Favour for it. And on this account it is, that Paul dares to put it off from himself to his Sin,