N00802:450
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.
7. And now all these cunning tricks and covers will add to the stings of Conscience. Doubtless, they are great aggravations of the sin, both in that they discover abundance of the malignity of the heart, and because there are so many more sins added to the first, by seeking to hide it; and the wound also must needs fester, and grow more hard to cure, by all the hardness of heart that is hereby contracted. So that it must needs be a bitter reflection, to remember, I not only fell into such a Sin, but lived in it, I hid it, I was loth to let it go, I neglected the means of recovery, I hardened mine heart, I thought to abscond from an all seeing eye, I used Guile, &c. All of which giveth Conscience advantage to reflect the more furiously.
7. And now all these cunning tricks and covers will add to the stings of Conscience. Doubtless, they are great aggravations of the sin, both in that they discover abundance of the malignity of the heart, and because there are so many more sins added to the first, by seeking to hide it; and the wound also must needs fester, and grow more hard to cure, by all the hardness of heart that is hereby contracted. So that it must needs be a bitter reflection, to remember, I not only fell into such a Sin, but lived in it, I hid it, I was loth to let it go, I neglected the means of ••covery, I hardened mine heart, I thought to abscond from an all seeing eye, I used Guile, &c. All of which giveth Conscience advantage to reflect the more furiously.
USE. Let this then be a solemn word of warning to all that use this course, and please themselves in it. And let me address this word both to the Regenerate and the Unregenerate. Are there any that have been drawn, through Temptation, into sins, which your own Consciences say ought not to be done? and hath this been the course that you have taken to ease your selves of the trouble of them, by hiding, dissembling, excusing, denying, or putting the•• from your thoughts? and have you present quietness upon your so doing? and it may be it hath been some years since, and you still find no molestation; and now you hope all