N00802:340
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
Sermon › Doctrine 1: The distress of a Conscience burdened with Sin. DOCTRINE. I.
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.
A. We may take a short account of this in three particulars.
1. Distress is properly a sinking or over bearing perplexity on the mind. There is indeed a distress that mere Animals may be in, arising from an impression made in their sensitive Spirits: but we are speaking of man, who is a rational being, and acts according to the principles of reason. It is true, that which gives occasion for it, may be outward and bodily, but the distress it self hath it• great influence on the mind or soul: and it is by ⟨p. 132⟩reason of perplexity that is in it. For, let a man meet with what he may, yet so long as the mind is quiet, he is not distressed; and it must be something that over bears, or is too hard for him, for whiles he can stand steadily under it, and sinks not nor is staggered by it; it doth not amount to a distress: Hence this condition is set forth by such expressions, Psal. 31 9, 10.38.8, 10.142 3. When a man is in trouble, and his Spirits give in and fail him, then he is distressed.
1. Distress is properly a sinking or over bearing perplexity on the mind. There is indeed a distress that meer Animals may be in, arising from an impression made in their sensitive Spirits: but we are speaking of man, who is a rational being, and acts according to the principles of reason. It is true, that which gives occasion for it, may be outward and bodily, but the distress it self hath it• great influence on the mind or soul: and it is by ⟨p. 132⟩reason of perplexity that is in it. For, let a man meet with what he may, yet so long as the mind is quiet, he is not distrest; and it must be something that over bears, or is too hard for him, for whiles he can stand steadily under it, and sinks not nor is staggered by it; it doth not amount to a distress: Hence this condition is set forth by such expressions,