N00347:85
A brief discourse of justification. Wherein this doctrine is plainly laid down according to…
A brief discourse of justification. Wherein this doctrine is plainly laid down according to the Scriptures. : As it was delivered in several sermons on this subject. / By Samuel Willard, teacher of a church in Boston. ; [Ten lines of quotations]
Boston: printed by S for Samuel Phillips, 1686
Title page typeset from the transcription.
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. If Christ's had been a mere man, or only an humane person, he had owed all his active Obedience to the Law for himself, or upon his own account. The law of nature obliged every mere Son of Adam to full, perfect constant obedience to all the commands of God and when he had done all, he had done but his duty, and could have challenged the Covenant reward for none but himself: It is but a just debt which every man owes to God, to love him with all his heart, Soul, strength and might, and his neighbour as himself, Mat. 22, 37, 38. and if Christs humane nature had been a person by it self, this had been his case, he would have had so much work to do upon his own score, that he would have had no room to have done any thing for any else besides himself.
1. If Chirsts had been a meer man, or onely an humane person, he had owed all his active Obedience to the Law for himself, or upon his own account. The law of nature obliged every meer Son of Adam to full, perfect constant obedience to all the commands of God and when he had done all, he had done but his duty, and could have challenged the Covenant reward for none but himself: It is but a just debt which every man ows to God, to love him with all his heart, Soul, strength and might, and his neighbour as himself, Mat. 22, 37, 38. and if Christs humane nature had been a person by it self, this had been his case, he would have had so much work to do upon his own score, that he would have had no room to have done any thing for any else besides himself.
2. Neither could the passive obedience of a mere man be of virtue sufficient to satisfy for the offences of many. The eternity of sinners sufferings is a full proof for this, for eternal death is not a distinct sort of death contained in the curse, but only an accidental continuance of the other; for if Justice could take satisfaction of a mere creature in any measure of time, there would be good ground of hope that the damned might a• length have a Jail. Delivery; for Justice requires no more then satisfaction, though it will have that to the utmost,