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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 distress of Conscience from Gods heavy hand. 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. This sort of affliction is a very heavy hand of God upon a man. One way to judge of the anger, is by the distress which the effect of it puts us to; if God lay the weight on a man, till it sinks and overwhelms him, that hand lieth heavy: and so it is when Conscience is let loose upon him, and chargeth him with Guilt, and threatens him with destruction, this is for the kind, the most insupportable burden that a man can fall under in this life, Prov. 18.14. And when this lasteth long, and hath no intermission, that addeth to the intolerableness of it: when the Arrow sticks fast, and cannot be plucked out.
3. This sort of affliction is a very heavy hand of God upon a man. One way to judge of the anger, is by the distress which the effect of it puts us to; if God lay the weight on a man, till it sinks and overwhelms him, that hand lieth heavy: and so it is when Conscience is let loose upon him, and chargeth him with Guilt, and threatens him with destruction, this is for the kind, the most insupportable burden that a man can fall under in this life, Prov. 18.14. And when this lasteth long, and hath no intermission, that addeth to the intollerableness of it: when the Arrow sticks fast, and cannot be plucked out.
2. How or after what manner God doth this?
A. This may be considered either in respect of the thing it self, or of the way in which God brings it about.