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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.
3. From the impression which this lively sense maketh upon the Conscience. The matter of this distress lies in the Guilt it self; and the Conscience is a subject fit to afflict the man with it; but the application of it ariseth from this sense: so that though the man were quiet before, though his condition were the same, yet now he cannot be so. It is impossible but the man should be horribly distressed.
3. From the impression which this lively sence maketh upon the Conscience. The matter of this distress lies in the Guilt it self; and the Conscience is a subject fit to afflict the man with it; but the application of it ariseth from this sense: so that though the man were quiet before, though his condition were the same, yet now he cannot be so. It is impossible but the man should be horribly distrest.
For,
1. It fills him with astonishing Fear; and that is a perplexing thing. Fear, when it only awakens man to duty, and makes him cautiously seek to secure himself from danger, is good and profitable: but when it over-bears, and puts the man beyond the use of means, it is terrible, and yet such a fear is a natural issue of this sense, Isa. 33.14. Heb. 10 27.