N00802:311
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. Were you ever convinced of your natural Guileful Spirit? We all bring such an one with us into the World, Psal. 58.4. And the Spirit of God, in the work of Conversion, makes men to see and confess it. The Conviction of Sin that is his work, Joh. 16 8. Carries this in it. The Deceitfulness of mens Hearts is one of the Great discoveries tha• God makes to them, when he comes to do the• good, Jer. 17.9, 10. And indeed, men would never seek to be delivered from it, till they wer• ⟨p. 125⟩made to apprehend it in themselves; and how few are so persuaded? how many plead for themselves, that they always scorned Hypocrisy, Cheating hath ever been odious to them, and they love plain dealing, and such men never knew their own hearts: for, though there be such a moral principle in some natural men, with respect to their words and carriages to others, yet towards God and their own Souls, every unconverted man, is a great cheat: and he that hath not found himself so, is yet under the Cheat.
1. Were you ever convinced of your natural Guileful Spirit? We all bring such an one with us into the World, Psal. 58.4. And the Spirit of God, in the work of Conversion, makes men to see and confess it. The Conviction of Sin that is his work, Joh. 16 8. Carries this in it. The Deceitfulness of mens Hearts is one of the Great discoveries tha• God makes to them, when he comes to do the• good, Jer. 17.9, 10. And indeed, men would never seek to be delivered from it, till they wer•