N00802:367
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.
1. They are all this while under Guilt. Their state is not better for their pleasancy: they are prisoners of Justice, under a Sentence of Death, and in danger of being turned into Hell the next moment. It is therefore a Spiritual frenzy that is on them, that makes them regardless of their danger.
2. They have a Conscience in them, though they stifle it. A natural Conscience is inseparable from a Reasonable Creature; and though it be asleep for ⟨p. 140⟩the present, it may be roused, and when it is, it will do its work to purpose, and the more terribly, by how much more it hath been imposed upon: nor is it so asleep but that it keeps true records. When Guilt and Conscience meet together, there will be •earful work: and, unless men could extinguish Conscience, which they never can, they will not always keep them from so meeting.
2. They have a Conscience in them, though they stiffle it. A natural Conscience is inseparable from a Reasonable Creature; and though it be asleep for ⟨p. 140⟩the present, it may be roused, and when it is, it will do its work to purpose, and the more terribly, by how much more it hath been imposed upon: nor is it so asleep but that it keeps true records. When Guilt and Conscience meet together, there will be •earful work: and, unless men could extinguish Conscience, which they never can, they will not always keep them from so meeting.