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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 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.
2. GOD deals with man in a way that is suited to his Nature. He treats him as a Reasonable Creature. He suits his state to his Constitution, accommodates it to such a sort of Being. Inferior Beings have a Rule, as well as Man: But God guides them only by Instinct They cannot know their Rule. It is sufficient for ⟨p. 12⟩them, that He knows it, and hath imprinted it upon their Natures. But God deals with Man in a way of Precepts, Promises, & Threatenings, which is a Moral Way. The whole Scripture gives us account of this manner of God's treating Man.
2. GOD deals with man in a way that is suited to his Nature. He treats him as a Reasonable Creature. He sutes his state to his Constitution, accommodates it to such a sort of Being. Inferior Beings have a Rule, as well as Man: But God guides them only by Instinct They cannot know their Rule. It is sufficient for ⟨p. 12⟩them, that He knows it, and hath imprinted it upon their Natures. But God deals with Man in a way of Precepts, Promises, & Threatnings, which is a Moral Way. The whole Scripture gives us account of this manner of God's treating Man.
3. HENCE Man can never attain his End, without he knows his Rule. The Service God expects of Man is a reasonable Service, (Rom. 12, 1.) He must be voluntary in his Obedience: God requires the Heart. He must choose the ways of God: And how can he do so, except he knows them? For this reason it is said, that without knowledge the mind of Man cannot be good, and that a people are destroyed for lack of Knowledge. There is no such thing as blind Obedience in Religion.