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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 › Doctrine 3: God to be sought in a finding time. DOCTRINE. III.
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.
1. That God hath purposed the glory of his Grace in the Salvation of Sinners. Hence some are said to be, Chosen in Christ to this very end, Eph. 1.3.6. The foundation of all this is laid in his good will: it was because he had a mind that this letter in his name should be made legible, and celebrated throughout Eternal Ages.
2. That mans happiness consists in his seeing and enjoying of God. There is no other object is adequate for him: should he enjoy all the goodness of the whole Creation, separate from the favour and love of God, it would not make him better than miserable, Psal. 73.27. He only is a portion that can satisfy the cravings of an immortal Soul; and if the man be happy, he must know him, Joh. 17.3. and he must have him to be his portion, Lam. 3.24.
3. That man by Sin hath lost God. This is the unhappy effect of the Apostasy, and is the fruit ⟨p. 306⟩of sin, Isa. 59.2. Man was at first made near to God, but as soon as sin came in, it set him at a vast distance; so that now he knows him not, but is a stranger to him; hath lost all title to him as his God, and is become his enemy, and so is made miserable.