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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. THAT there is but one Way, in one Covenant, according to which God hath engaged to make Man happy. It is true, there are two Covenants, in which God hath been concerned with Man; the Covenant of Works, and the Covenant of Grace: and these have their several ways and rules. In the first, Man was to be made happy by Works: in the second, by Grace. The former depended upon man's personal Obedience: the latter upon Christ's. The former called for doing, the other for believing. But each of them have their limited way. And man being fallen from the first Covenant-Condition, and set it against him, and having lost his strength, it can no more be a Rule of Happiness to him. It is now only by the New Covenant, that he can ever hope to obtain Life & Salvation: and the Way to it, according to this Covenant, is determined; and therefore the Rule can be but one. For, 1. THERE is no Salvation without Reconciliation to God. As long as God and He are Enemies, He is unhappy. God only can save him; and he will save him only in the way of Reconciliation. Nay, he cannot be happy but in the Enjoyment of God; which how can he come at, till reconciled? Till then, he is without God, Eph. 2.12. 2. THERE is but one Mediator of reconci••i•n, and that is Jesus Christ, as the Apostle tells us expressly, 1 Tim. 2.4. There is no coming to God but by him: out of him God is a Consuming Fire. He only hath satisfied provoked Justice, and pulled down the wall of partition. Through' him then, and in no other way must we obtain Reconciliation. 3. THERE is but one way to become interested in the Satisfaction of (brist, and partake in reconciliation by him; and that is by believing in him. Joh. 3 36. He that believeth on the Son, hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son, shall not see life; but the wr•th of God abideth on him. Christ is not actually a Saviour to all men indiscriminatively, but only to Believers. He therefore had his Disciples to preach That, as the Sum of the Gospel. Mark 16.15, 16. Preach the gospel to every creature. He that believeth and is baptized, shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be […]. 4. THERE is but one way of serving God in new & evangelical Obedience, and that is by living to the will of God. (