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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.
2. Sometimes God cometh to them in a word, and knocks them down with it at once. One end of the Scriptures and Preaching of it, is for Conviction; 2 Tim. 3.16. And when the Spirit of God, whose instrument it is, pleaseth to set in with it, it shall so do to purpose. The man before sat regardless under it, and though it as much concerned him, it touched him not, he slept under, wandered from it, or inwardly scoffed at it; but now it enters not his ear only, but ransacketh his heart, divides between joints and marrow, searcheth him to the bottom: Conscience is startled, and wounds his very Soul, the man quaketh as Faelix, Acts 24.25. And cries out as Peters Hearers, Chap. 2.37.
2. Sometimes God cometh to them in a word, and knocks them down with it at once. One end of the Scriptures and Preaching of it, is for Conviction; 2 Tim. 3.16. And when the Spirit of God, whose instrument it is, pleaseth to set in with it, it shall so do to purpose. The man before sat regardless under it, and though it as much concerned him, it touched him not, he slept under, wandred from it, or inwardly scoffed at it; but now it enters not his ear only, but ransacketh his heart, divides between joynts and marrow, searcheth him to the bottom: Conscience is startled, and wounds his very Soul, the man quaketh as Faelix, Acts 24.25. And cries out as Peters Hearers, Chap. 2.37.
3. God now lets Satan loose upon them. He indeed is ready enough for this work on his own accord: for though he will keep men secure as long as he can, yet if God disquiet them, and he cannot wheedle them into rest, he now seeks to hurry them over the precipice of despair: but God governs this affair too. He must have leave, especially in regard of Gods own,