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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. You lose a finding time. It is a day of grace that you squander; a precious opportunity to be getting acquainted with God, and laying up for eternity. If it were a time in which you had nothing else to do, it were more excusable; but it is a season of doing the greatest and most important business that lieth on the children of men. Vain men think, it is nothing but a little time they throw away, and that is no great matter: but time is a pearl of more worth then, and that cannot be purchased with a whole world.
2. That which you lay out your time for, will not profit. Possibly you count your selves the best Husbands: and think them mad who spend so much time in Religious duties: whiles this man was praying, you made such a gainful bargain; whiles he was hearing a Sermon, you earned so much of the world, and bless your selves in your discretions▪ but you will sooner or later find your miserable error: ⟨p. 319⟩the best title that God hath to put on you, is Fool, Luk. 12.20. And see, Isa. 55.2. Eccles. 5.16. Compare but what you lose mean while with our saviours Rule; Mat. 16 26. What is a man profited, &c.
2. That which you lay out your time for, will not profit. Possibly you count your selves the best Husbands: and think them mad who spend so much time in Religious duties: whiles this man was praying, you made such a gainful bargain; whiles he was hearing a Sermon, you earned so much of the world, and bless your selves in your discretions▪ but you will sooner or later find your miserable errour: