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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. Are there not those that will not seek God? Nay they bid him depart from them; if not in words yet their carriages speak their minds. How many are there that despise all the counsels that are given them, who will not pray to God; nor read his word, nor enquire after him? they are angry at those that give them good counsel? this is the very character of them, Psal. 10.4. The wicked will not seek after God; and if at any time they are startled with terrors, they do all they can to stifle them, which is a plain discovery of their wilfulness.
1. Are there not those that will not seek God? Nay they bid him depart from them; if not in words yet their carriages speak their minds. How many are there that despise all the counsels that are given them, who will not pray to God; nor read his word, nor enquire after him? they are angry at those that give them good counsel? this is the very character of them, Psal. 10.4. The wicked will not seek after God; and if at any time they are startled with terrours, they do all they can to stifle them, which is a plain discovery of their wilfulness.
2. And how many are there who are so taken up with other things, that they can find no time to seek ⟨p. 318⟩him? Their hearts are ensnared with these thin•• and they cannot get from them; the profits, ple• sures, and preferments of this world, things law••• in themselves, have stolen their hearts from them; and though Christ calls, and invites them, they hearken not. One hath a Farm to look after, another is over head and ears in Trading, another is taken up with his new married wife, and so the time slides away, wherein he should be seeking an interest in Christ, and he continues estranged from him; and how contentedly do men spend their time at this rate?