N02384:1307
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 48 (Question 12)
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. THE Reasonable Creature comes under a double Consideration; either as it hath something in common with other Natural Agents, or as it hath a special Nature distinct from them: And hence it is a Subject both of common and special Government. So far as all Creatures hold any thing in a Community, so they come under God's common Governing Providence. For this special doth not include those common considerations respecting this Subject. The general Laws of the Realm include under them all privileged Places, or Corporations considered as Subjects of the Kingdom; but their Charter-Privileges have something in peculiar. Consider Man in the natural respects wherein he agrees with other Beings, as Vegetable, Motive, Animal, and so all his natural Actions respect the former hibernation▪ but look upon him as a Reasonable Creature; and thus he is a Subject of special Government.
1. THE Reasonable Creature comes under a double Consideration; either as it hath something in common with other Natural Agents, or as it hath a special Nature distinct from them: And hence it is a Subject both of common and special Government. So far as all Creatures hold any thing in a Community, so they come under God's common Governing Providence. For this special doth not include those common considerations respecting this Subject. The general Laws of the Realm include under them all priviledged Places, or Corporations considered as Subjects of the Kingdom; but their Charter-Privileges have something in peculiar. Consider Man in the natural respects wherein he agrees with other Beings, as Vegetable, Motive, Animal, and so all his natural Actions respect the former ••bernation▪ but look upon him as a Reasonable Creature; and thus he is a Subject of special Government.
2. THE proper Subject of special Government is the Reasonable Creature: Such as being Causes by Counsel, are capable of choosing their own Actions; that can act upon Deliberation, and either Elect or Reject. These being the noblest Kinds of God's Creature, and made after God Image, were appointed to serve to their End, after another manner. For, being capable of the Active Act of the Rule, and not only a bar passive impression of it, they must therefore have another and an Higher Rule, and be governed after a singular and special manner; for God Rules His Creatures according to their Nature: Now only these Being are capable of this Government, or suited […] to it, both because they only are capable of the Rule, other Beings are not so: These only can know God, and choose Him and love Him, &c which the Rule points to; and also because these only are capable of the consequent Rewards of Eternal Happiness and Misery; other Creatures cannot be Happy, because it is a thing above their Constitution, and they cannot be forever, because they Perish; but these may be happy, and they abide to Eternity.