N02384:204
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 4 (Question 2)
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.) LOOK upon him in his Primitive Perfection, standing in his Integrity; and here he could never reach his End without a Rule. The following Conclusions will evidence the Truth of this Assertion.
1. MAN was not made happy. That Man was (strictly speaking) neither happy nor miserable in his first state, is a Truth undeniable, if we do but acknowledge his happiness to consist in his attaining his chief End, and his misery in his missing of falling short of it. He was fitted for happiness, inasmuch as he had all the stock of Grace put into his hands, which was sufficient by improvement to make him happy. There was nothing wanting in that Image of God, which he had stamped upon him: And yet he was capable of losing his felicity, and becoming unhappy; being made mutable, and capable of losing that […] the Event unhappy proved. Man was therefore at first made a Probationer for happiness: and that by the law of special Government.
1. MAN was not made happy. That Man was (strictly speaking) neither happy nor miserable in his first state, is a Truth undeniable, if we do but acknowledge his happiness to consist in his attaining his chief End, and his misery in his missing of falling short of it. He was fitted for happiness, inasmuch as he had all the stock of Grace put into his hands, which was sufficient by improvement to make him happy. There was nothing wanting in that Image of God, which he had stamped upon him: And yet he was capable of losing his felicity, and becoming unhappy; being made mutable, and capable of losing that 〈…〉 the Event unhappy proved. Man was therefore at first made a Pobationer for happiness: and that by the law of special Government.
2 HAPPINESS was proposed to Man first in a Covenant-Way. That there was a Covenant between God & […], the Scripture sures us and gives us an account of the Nature and Terms of it. Now in a Covenant there are always those two things, Something promised upon condition on one part, and the conditions required on the other part, in order to the obtaining it. The Thing proposed to Man in the first Covenant was Happiness. The manner of proposing it, was by telling him how he was to come by it if ever he expected to become the owner of it. The Terms therefore so run, Do & Live,