N02384:1502
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.
2. ADAM was under no compelling necessity to comply with this Temptation. We before took notice, that in it he abused the liberty of his will: he could have abstained; God herein required no more of him, then He enabled him to do: his tenure of life and happiness were upon most easy terms: the Tempter had no power over him, he could only offer his deceits. Adam knew on what terms he stood; he might have read his obligation to this duty in the law of nature, or the Second Command; he might have employed his understanding in reflecting upon the indubitable Supremacy of God. His great Goodness, His truth, the certainty of his own ruin in case of disobedience; as well as on such things as he was deceived by; and that he did not was his own fault. That therefore he did this deliberately, and upon choice without compulsion, greatly aggravated hi• crime.
3. THE lusts that gut into his heart, •nd prevailed ever •im ••eat this fruit, rendered the Sin very great. We must not only consider, that he did transgress the command, and do the thing forbidden, but what made him to do so. Now Divines observe three lusts more peculiarly gotten into him, and hurrying of him to the perpetration of this Sin, (1.) INTOLERABLE Pride. And that wrought in discontent at his own station, and aspiring after an higher: and what higher could that be, but the Throne of GOd•? Mark, what was the great motive that clenched the Temptation; […] shall be as Gods, Gen. 3.5. God had set him as high as a creature could well be; •e stood next to God, subordinated to no other order; all visible creatures were put under him, and the Angels themselves, though in divers respects more noble beings, yet were made to minister for him; there was none above him but God; nor any Being equal to him, but the Holy Angels; and yet he aspired to be climbing higher, accounting his own place too low for Him. And what fearful ambition was this? (2.) HORRIBLE Ingratitude. God, to oblige him to Obedience, had given all things to him, a World, and the Creatures in it, for his use and benefit; planted him a garden with his own hand, for his delight; and made the several creatures come and y their homage to him, as their Lord. And what could he rationally have desired more? And what did he require of him for all this, but to love Him, and in testimony of that love, to abstain from this one thing? When he had enough and more besides? And yet like an unthankful wretch, he abused his makers love, and takes this too. (3.) MOST grievous Infidelity: And that both respecting the promise and the threatening. God had past his word, that if he would herein obey Him, he should be happy for ever; but he believed Him not, discredited His word, and thought that God envied him happiness. God had also denounced Death, positively, and unavoidably, if he should dare to meddle with this fruit, and […] of it. But the Devil tells him there is no such danger, and he adventures on his cit; to make God a liar, as far as was in Him. And was that a little Sin which was thus introduced?