N00802:306
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.
USE II. Let it then be for EXAMINATION and this is the very design of the Text, it being laid down to give the Character of a pardoned man. Let us then prove our state by this; are we such in whose Spirit is no Guile? To excite us to this, Consider;
1. It it of unspeakable moment for us to know whether we are Pardoned or no. This discovery will give us light to know whether we are happy or miserable: If our Sins are pardoned, then are we Delivered from our Judge, then are we At Peace with God, then our own Consciences have the foundation of Peace in them: If forgiven then Justified, then are we found Righteous, and shall be adjudged to Eternal Life, then out of danger of all our Accusers, and we shall be able to stand in the Judgment; and what a Blessedness is this. But if we are not forgiven, then we are Condemned ⟨p. 123⟩already, and the wrath of God abides on us; we have him for our Enemy, and all the Curses in his book are out against us, and pursuing of us to Everlasting Destruction, and is not this a Misery ind•ed? What case then can there be, that calls more loudly for a through resolution of it? You know that in your natural state you are Guilty and Condemned, and till you are pardoned, your own Consciences must say that you abide under the Sentence; and what quiet or comfort can you have whiles it is so? Can you but go in a fearful Expectation of the wrath of God to fall upon and devour you?
2. This is a thing that may be known: it is a case whereof a resolution is to be obtained. God hath not left us necessarily in the dark upon this account, but, as he hath given us Directions in his word how to come by a pardon, so he hath there afforded us Rules by which we may prove our Title to it. And, though our comfortable persuasion of it, depends on the witness of his Spirit with ours, yet the evidence of it is to be sought for and found in our selves. There are those things which accompany it, that are distinguishable from all other things, and unto which the promise is firmly made, which when the Spirit hath wrought in us, he thereby leaves a pledge of his Everlasting Love, from whence we may argue safely that we are pardoned, and shall be Saved. God therefore bids us to Try our selves,