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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.
4. This Reprobate sense is a fearful Judgment of God on profligate Sinners. Suppose they are brawned and have out grown the sense of reflections; this is no privilege, but indeed one of the awfulest witnesses of Gods fearful anger, Rom. 1.18. Eph. 4 19. Nor is there any thing that carrieth in it a greater symptom of Reprobation.
4. This Reprobate sense is a fearful Judgment of God on profligate Sinners. Suppose they are brawned and have out grown the sense of reflexions; this is no priviledge, but indeed one of the awfulest witnesses of Gods fearful anger, Rom. 1.18. Eph. 4 19. Nor is there any thing that carryeth in it a greater symptom of Reprobation.
USE II. See here one reason why Conversion is called a Strait Gate. It is so, Mat. 7.14. The word implieth that which distresseth a man, by straitening and putting him to pain, and hence the Verb of it signifieth, To Groan ▪ The work of Conviction is the first work of the Spirit, Joh. 16.8. Now the Conscience is the Subject of this Conviction, ⟨p. 141⟩and the matter of it is the Guilt arising from sin, or Sin and Guilt which are inseparable, according to the tenor of the First Covenant; and though the way of the Spirit of God with Infants be to us a secret, yet in grown persons, who are Converted by the Word and Ordinances, God leaves this Conviction upon them, in order to his drawing of them to Christ, and they are distressed by it; the next Invitation therefore is to such as are weary and heavy laden,