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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.
2. That which giveth being to this distress, is some evil either felt or feared The cause of it is always something that is really evil, or apprehended to be so. It either shuts up the Spirits, that they cannot get out, or it breaks them in pieces, that they cannot be gathered up: and that must needs be some evil; that which is good, and so apprehended, dilates them, and makes the man ready cheerfully to entertain it. Man hath in him a natural averseness to evil, which makes him afraid of it, when he sees it coming, and burdened with it when it is upon him▪ hence he would willingly fly from it, and if he cannot, it troubleth him; he counts it to be hurtful to him, and from the apprehension of this ariseth his distress: hence evil and bitter are put together, Jer. 2.19.
2. That which giveth being to this distress, is some ev•l either felt or feared The cause of it is always something that is really evil, or apprehended to be so. It either shuts up the Spirits, that they cannot get out, or it breaks them in pieces, that they cannot be gathered up: and that must needs be some evil; that which is good, and so apprehended, dilates them, and makes the man ready chearfully to entertain it. Man hath in him a natural averseness to evil, which makes him afraid of it, when he sees it coming, and burdened with it when it is upon him▪ hence he would willingly fly from it, and if he cannot, it t•o•bleth him; he counts it to be hurtful to him, and from the apprehension of this ariseth his distress: hence evil and bitter are put together, Jer. 2.19.
3. That this distress is greater or less from the considerations of the evil that gives being to it. And this hath a respect either to the evil it self, or the apprehension that the man hath of it in his mind.