N02384:1373
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 50 (Question 13)
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.
He is not properly an out-law, or put out of the reach of it, but a Rebel, one whom the Law hath an eye and aim at, and will take hold of; it will Censure and Judge him according to Rule. The Heathen themselves, who are without the written Law, are a Law to themselves, Rom. 2.14. And they shall one Day be Tried by, and Sentenced to an Everlasting State, according to the Relation they bear to this Law: Hence, every Sin exposeth him. (4.) MAN's proper Fall was from this Rule of Government, as it was a Rule of Life. He is fallen from his Eu•roxy, and so from his Happiness; and he is fallen under Ataxy, and so into Misery. Here observe, 1. THAT by the Rule of special Government, Life was to be the Reward of Obedience, and Death the Recompense of Disobedience. These we have observed to be the Terms of the First Covenant, and Man was to be Happy or Miserable upon these Conditions: for the Law is not to be considered barely as a Directory, but as it stood with it's Sanctions, which were the Rule of Relative Justice in it's Proceedings with Mankind, and the distribution of Recompenses to them; according to which he was to Live or Dy. 2. THAT as Man by his power to Obey, stood fair for Life, so by his actual Obedience he should have been confirmed in it. All the Created Holiness and Righteousness in Man, did not put him into Possession of Happiness, but it disposed ⟨p. 158⟩him into a […] capacity for it; he might be happy is it were not his […] fault, he was told […] it was to be attained, and he had power to comply with the condition, and if he had but so done it had been put past danger, for the promise positively said. Do and […]: And it he had been faithful in his Duty, God would have been true to His Word. 3. HENCE Man's Actual coming s•ert of his Obedience, was properly his Fall. Herein his Apostasy truly and essentially con•••ed, in his falling from his Ru•e, in disobeying of it; and all •he consequent Misery which he fell into, was but the fruit and effect of this. If he had not sinned he had not died; nothing else but sin could have •umbled him down from that excellent state, and laid him in the p•t of misery,