N00802:645
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 6: PROPOSITION VI.
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.
4 We do not forsake the sins we confess. Right Confession is always accompanied with a setting our selves against the Sin we confess, and an utter renouncing of it: it is to make it bitter to us, and fortify us against it: if therefore we confess, and return to our folly, and then confess again, and so go in a round, this is nothing but trifling, and will find no acceptance. Or,
5. Though we do confess, yet we do not submit our selves to Sovereign Grace, and resolve our hopes into the mere mercy of God. Confession is the way to find mercy, but if we think to earn forgiveness by it, hoping thus to expiate the Guilt of our sin, we are acted by a legal spirit, and put our selves farther away from forgiveness. In a right Confession there is alway a resignation, Luk. 15.18, 19. And he that hath had a true sight of his sin, and acknowledged it accordingly, must needs see that Sovereign Mercy only can help him, and accordingly cast himself down there, and yield it to be just with God to condemn him, and that it is free grace if he will pardon him; and hence all his hope is in Gospel Grace, by Jesus Christ; till then we come hither, no wonder if all our Confessions afford us no relief. Are we then under distress on our Consciences by reason of our sins? let us bring our selves on these trials, that we may know whence it proceeds: And to move us,
5. Though we do confess, yet we do not submit our selves to Soveraign Grace, and resolve our hopes into the meer mercy of God. Confession is the way to find mercy, but if we think to earn forgiveness by it, hoping thus to expiate the Guilt of our sin, we are acted by a legal spirit, and put our selves farther away from forgiveness. In a right Confession there is alway a resignation, Luk. 15.18, 19. And he that hath had a true sight of his sin, and acknowledged it accordingly, must needs see that Soveraign Mercy only can help him, and accordingly cast himself down there, and yield it to be just with God to condemn him, and that it is free grace if he will pardon him; and hence all his hope is in Gospel Grace, by Jesus Christ; till then we come hither, no wonder if all our Confessions afford us no relief. Are we then under distress on our Consciences by reason of our sins? let us bring our selves on these trials, that we may know whence it proceeds: And to move us,