N00802:396
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 2: Guilt apprehended, Distressing to Gods Children. DOCTRINE II.
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 God doth not ordinarily suffer his own to lie long under the insensibleness of such sins. How long he may, is not for us to tell, yet he is wont in due time to awaken their Consciences, and give them the feeling of them. He sends some Messenger or other to rouse them; some Prophet, as he did to David. Either he meets them in an Ordinance, and causeth some word to fasten on them, or in a Providence, as Josephs Brethren; and thus God doth in faithfulness, because whiles ⟨p. 152⟩Conscience is thus wasted and stunned, it can do its Office aright in nothing, and so the mans graces are not exercised in vigour, but miss their end, which he will not suffer ever to be in such whom he hath planted his fear in.
2. That God doth not ordinarily suffer his own to ly long under the insensibleness of such sins. How long he may, is not for us to tell, yet he is wont in due time to awaken their Consciences, and give them the feeling of them. He sends some Messenger or other to rouse them; some Prophet, as he did to David. Either he meets them in an Ordinance, and causeth some word to fasten on them, or in a Providence, as Josephs Brethren; and thus God doth in faithfulness, because whiles ⟨p. 152⟩Conscience is thus wasted and stunned, it can do its Office aright in nothing, and so the mans graces are not exercised in vigour, but miss their end, which he will not suffer ever to be in such whom he hath planted his fear in.
3. Such a sin, of its own nature, darkens the mans evidence to his good estate, or state of pardon. One main evidence, we observed, is our being without Guile; it is by the […] the Spirit of the exercise of his graces that we are to prove our selves; and the more life and activity there is of them, the clearer evidence do they give; that therefore which obstructs their activity must needs darken them: what then must that do which binds them all up, as such a sin doth? when a man looks upon himself in this pickle, he looketh to himself like a wicked man. Conscience tells him, thou hast despised me, and put the fear of God from before thee? and how shall he now discover that in him, that may witness him to be a pardoned man?