N00802:994
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 owe your Childhood and Youth to God. He deserves of you that you seek him now. Sin and Satan can lay no just claim to this age of yours, but God can and doth: He requires your youth to be devoted to him: the God that made you challengeth it, and can you deny him? Shall the Devil and your lusts have your prime and strength, and only the decays of your lives left for God to be put off withal? He hath laid you under innumerable obligations to consecrate your young time to him; He kept you in your Mothers belly, and made the knees to prevent you: He hath preserved your lives, and provided for you ever since. And may not heaven be astonished to hear him complain, I have nourished and brought up Children, and they have rebelled against me, Isa. 1.2, 3. He hath ordered you to be born where his Gospel is dispensed, in which he pleads with you to take him to be your God now, and will you deny him? Yea, your Baptism declares you to be devoted to him; it saith that you were dedicated to him from your Infancy; and every day wherein you neglect to inquire after him, you do violence to that Covenant, whereof this is a Seal.
2 This is your proper season to seek God in; and whether you shall ever have another you know not. You have all advantages now, but how long you shall have them, God only can tell. You are now alive, but you know not how soon you shall go to the Grave. Do you not see that young ones die as well as the old? Go to the Sepulchres, measure the monuments, ask who lies here, and you shall find ⟨p. 345⟩a multitude who lived not to so many years as you have: and now reflect and ask, Have I found God? Is my peace made? If I should now die, have I made sure of a Jesus to receive my Soul? Now Gods word is Preached to you, now Godly Parents and Friends call upon and counsel you: God knows how long it will be so. You are not now encumbered with the troublesome cares of this world: you are now in your strength, and do not know what the Evil days mean, of which you must say, you have no pleasure in them. Oh! that you knew your time, if you let it slip, you will not find it again.