N02384:1851
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 70 (Question 20)
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. THAT there is a restitution provided by God for fallen Man. It is vain for us to enquire what it is, till we are assured that it is. Now the evidence of this is a matter of mere revelation. The light of nature cannot discover the least tracts or prints of it, in all its reasonings. It hath indeed some footsteps by which to discover that man is miserable; reason will say that he could not be made such as he is now become, consistent with the wisdom and goodness of his maker. But on the supposition of his fall, and present state, by virtue of the sanctions of the first covenant; it could neither tell that such a thing should be (it having it's absolute dependence on the free will of the lawgiver, into whose hands the sinner was fallen, and against whom justice was arr•ed with revenge; nor could any of his attributes of goodness mercy, or the like, infer it; the works of creation and common providence had not any Gospel written on them, holiness and justice stood in the way; nor yet if it had been assured that such a thing should be, could it tell how it could possibly be brought about, so as that mercy and truth righteousness and peace, might entirely meet in one; that God might be both just and yet justify a sinner, an ungodly man. This therefore is purely a matter of faith but is so fully and clearly his down in the word of God, that there is as doubt left to be made about it. And truly, the main drive or design of the whole book of God, in the old and new Testament, is […] give us an account of this affair. The history of man's fall is set down for an introduction unto this, and immediately upon it, this happy news is published, Gen. 3.15. And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed: it shall […] thy bead; and thou shalt braise his heel. And God is throughout showing us the way how to obtain it; there is in it the hope of eternal life, and that not a vain one, but that which is built on a promise of it. Tit. 1.2. In hope of eternal life, which God that cannot lie, as missed before the world began. Likewise that, 2 Tim. 1.10. But is now made manifest by the appearing of our Saviour Jesus Christ, who b•• abolished death, and hath brought life and immortality to light, through the Gospel.