N00802:434
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 › The danger and mischief of Sinful silence and evasions. DOCTRINE.
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. By presumption that God doth not see or mind it. And indeed this lies at the bottom of all these tricks and devices; for if men were throughly convinced that God both seeth and discovereth all; it would convince them of their stupendous ⟨p. 163⟩folly in all their subterfuges; but thus men quiet their Consciences, if God sees not nor regards, why then should they be troubled? Psal. 94.4.
4 They keep silence to God: i. e. They do not come before him, and make an ingenious confession of their sin, but rather fly from him, abscond, and when their Consciences smite them, they hide from him, as our First Parents did: and either through impenitence or unbelief▪ they either harden themselves in their sin, or else discourage themselves by entertaining thoughts of despair.
2. Whence this cometh to pass?