N00802:539
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 › Right Confession, its nature and usefulness. DOCTRINE. › Proposition 1: PROPOSITION I.
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. In the principle from whence the action floweth, or the heart that is in it. Let the matter be never so right, yet if it be done with a false heart, it is sinful; this is remarked, 2 Chron. 25.2. He did ⟨p. 194⟩that which was right, but not with a perfect heart; and Psal 78.38 Their heart was not right with him. Thus are Hypocrites condemned on account of their Prayers and Alms givings, Math. 6. begin. And for this reason all the actions of Unregenerate men are obliquities, Prov 21.4.28 9.
4 In the many Circumstances of the Action. Hereby the Sin is reputed either greater or less: and here a great many things might come under consideration; but this would make too great a digression: only let us remember that all these things have their weight and consideration in a right Confession of Sin: and hence to a right Confession, four things are requisite.
1. An Acknowledgement of the Fact. For if we deny the thing it self, we by consequence deny the Sin. He that saith, I have not done this, […] omitted that, doth wholly justify himself in th•• regard: for if there be not the act, there cannot be the obliquity of it, which is a Law respect adhering to it. When Gebezi said, Thy Servant went no whither, 2 King. 5.28. He sought so to acqu•• himself from blame.