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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 53 (Question 13 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.
5. THAT hence the Serpent was no blameable cause of the Apostasy. The Devil in it was to blame, and the more for abusing any one of God's creatures, to subserve to the greatest piece of mischief that ever was done in the world; but the Serpent itself was not at all to be blamed. Blame is only merited by a fault that is committed; and every fault is a voluntary transgression of a moral law prohibiting it, and such a law can be […] to none but causes by counsel; and he••• no unreasonable creature can be blame-worthy by any of its actions: inasmuch as it always acts the nature that was put into it, unless it be acted by some other besides its nature, and beyond its apprehension, where it is purely passive.
5. THAT hence the Serpent was no blameable cause of the Apostacy. The Devil in it was to blame, and the more for abusing any one of God's creatures, to subserve to the greatest piece of mischief that ever was done in the world; but the Serpent itself was not at all to be blamed. Blame is only merited by a fault that is committed; and every fault is a voluntary trangression of a moral law prohibiting it, and such a law can be 〈…〉 to none but causes by counsel; and he••• no unreasonable creature can be blame-worthy by any of its actions: inasmuch as it always acts the nature that was put into it, unless it be acted by some other besides its nature, and beyond its apprehension, where it is purely passive.
6. HENCE the curse which fell upon the Serpent was an act of Sovereignty. That which belongs to the Serpent, in Gen. 3.14, 15. was not a punishment of its Sin, (for it had none,) but a righteous instance to the world of God's hatred of Sin, in putting a special remark on an instrument in it, though but passive. And truly what is the curse, which is come upon the whole Creation, but a witness against man's Sin, who abused the creature?