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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 55 (Question 15)
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.
Here consider, (1.) THAT God is the absolute Lord and sovereign Owner of all his Creatures. He hath a just challenge to dispose of them according to his pleasure; because he both made them, and made them for this end. Rev. 4. ult. He never intended to make a World, and then put the government of it out of his own hands, nor yet to lose the liberty of governing of it as he sees meet: He will maintain his authority. (2.) HENCE God may, if he will, by a positive precept lay […] restrain: upon the natural liberty of men. He did not so give the dominion of these things to man as to leave Himself no liberty. That therefore which is lawful, according to the light of nature, may be unlawful, by a positive prohibition given about it. And there is a rule in the law of nature for this, in the Second Commandment, which tells us we owe God obedience in whatsoever he shall discover to us to be his will. (3.) GOD saw meet to give man a trial of his obedience to Him. He would see whether he would be faithful to him or no. There must therefore be a proof made of it. Man was holy, but mutable, God therefore would that this mutability of his should have an experiment, to see if he would maintain his fidelity notwithstanding. Angels and men being causes by counsel, God saw meet to offer them a probation; what that of Angels was, we have before considered, we are now in quest of that which was offered to man. (4.) THE law of nature could be no such Test or Trial, but it must be some positive precept. It is a true rule, that man's will always follows the last dictate of the practical understanding: the greatest objection against it, is fetched from the fall of Angels and Men, but 'tis through a mistake. Man had entire sanctification on all his faculties; he not only knew his rule, but the excellency of it, and had an entire love to it, could not be mistaken in it, nor prejudiced at it: so that there was no hold for a Temptation to fasten, which would draw him from his respect to it, or alienate his heart from it. It had been vain therefore for Satan to have attempted it. In must then be in a positive command, wherein ⟨p. 192⟩God asserts his and late sovereignty: Nor could it be in any other way. (5.) GOD s••e meet to make choice of this Tree for the […] and ••••rdingly forbade him to out the fruit of it.