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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 › 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.
2. A natural Conscience checks men for sin. It is its Office, according to its light, to call on men to do their duty, and reflect on and reprove them when they fail in it, and there is more or less of this activity in all that are not seared, Rom. 2.15. And here Conscience doth two things, it tells them ⟨p. 164⟩that they have done amiss, and puts them in fear by threatening them for that they have so done.
2. A natural Conscience checks men for sin. It is its Office, according to its light, to call on men to do their duty, and reflect on and reprove them when they fail in it, and there is more or less of this activity in all that are not seared, Rom. 2.15. And here Conscience doth two things, it tells them ⟨p. 164⟩that they have done amiss, and puts them in fear by threatning them for that they have so done.
3. Hence there is a natural shame in men, that puts them upon hiding their sin. This shame is a proper result from the act of Conscience, telling them they have done things which ought not to have been done, and so have acted unbecomingly. It is natural for men to be ashamed of what they think to be unworthy of them, and to carry matter of reproach in it; so our first Parents, Gen 3.7, 9 And the operation of shame is to put men upon absconding. Impudence therefore is an high degree of wickedness, and therefore greatly aggravateth the sin, Jer. 6.15.