N02384:1120
A complete body of divinity in two hundred and fifty expository lectures on the…A compleat body of divinity in two hundred and fifty expository lectures on the…
A complete body of divinity in two hundred and fifty expository lectures on the Assembly's Shorter catechism wherein the doctrines of the Christian religion are unfolded, their truth confirmed, their excellence displayed, their usefulness improved; contrary errors & vices refuted & exposed, objections answered, controversies settled, cases of conscience resolved; and a great light thereby reflected on the present age. / By the Reverend & learned Samuel Willard, M.A. late Pastor of the South Church in Boston, and vice-president of Harvard College in Cambridge, in New-England. ; Prefaced by the pastors of the same church. ; [Six lines of Scripture texts]A compleat body of divinity in two hundred and fifty expository lectures on the Assembly's Shorter catechism wherein the doctrines of the Christian religion are unfolded, their truth confirm'd, their excellence display'd, their usefulness improv'd; contrary errors & vices refuted & expos'd, objections answer'd, controversies settled, cases of conscience resolv'd; and a great light thereby reflected on the present age. / By the Reverend & learned Samuel Willard, M.A. late Pastor of the South Church in Boston, and vice-president of Harvard College in Cambridge, in New-England. ; Prefac'd by the pastors of the same church. ; [Six lines of Scripture texts]
printed by B. Green and S. Kneeland for B. Eliot and D. Henchman, 1726
AN EXPOSITION OF THE ASSEMBLY's SHORTER CATECHISM: IN Two Hundred a… › Sermon 40 (Question 10 cont.)
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. IT is Man's Rectitude, or his Moral Goodness. For the Goodness of a thing is its Perfection, by which it is rendered capable of serving to the End and Use for which it was made. Every Creature was made Good, Gen. 1.31. Man was made a Moral Agent, a Cause by Counsel, and therefore must have a Moral Goodness in him: And it is contrary to the Wisdom of God, to make a Creature for an End, and not to fit it to Serve thereunto. 2. IT was an Imprinted Goodness or Rectitude. For the Image of God was not properly Man's Nature, or the Faculties of his Rational Soul, as some have thought; because those remain not only in Fallen Man, but even in the Damned themselves; whereas the Image is lost in Adam's Posterity, and is therefore restored and renewed again by the Grace of God in Regeneration: It was then a Stamp and Character of Divine Goodness left upon the Nature of Man, making him able to perform the Service that was required of him: and it was not implanted by the Rule of Nature, but by the Rule of Divinity; neither was it from the Principles of Nature, for then it was inseparable: Hence it may in some sense be called Natural, in other Supernatural; Natural, as it is due to the Nature of Man made for such an End, without ⟨p. 126⟩which he could never have attained it; and Supernatural, being a more Glorious Excellency than the hate Principles of Nature can exert. 3. THIS Rectitude was imprinted upon the Whole Nature. All his Faculties and Powers both of Soul and Body, received the stamp of it: Man therefore, and not this or that part of him is said to be in the Image of God, Gen. 1.16. Nor indeed would it else have been sufficient for the Design of it; for tho' the Soul and Powers are mainly concerned in Serving of God, yet the Body was to be the Soul's Instrument in the Performance of it; and therefore God requires Service from the Whole Man: 1 Cor. 6.20. Glorify God with your Bodies & Spirits. And the Body in particular; Rom 12.1. — Present your Bodies a Living Sacrifice, &c. The Whole then must be furnished and fitted for it. 4. IT was that, whereby Men was fitted is resemble, and enabled to serve God in his Manner and Measure. He could imitate God in his Glorious Moral Perfections; he could take him as his Pattern and Work after Him; and for this Reason are the People of God bidden to imitate the Divine Perfections;