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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.
Answ. TO bring this Case to be Promises, I'll lay down these few following Conclusions; 1. THAT, if there be but one Rule guiding to blessedness, and Man must know that Rule, or he cannot be blessed, then no Religion can save a Man, but that only in which this Rule is made known. Hence therefore the Word of God discovers the misery of men who are Strangers to this Rule. The Apostle argues, Rom. 10.14. How shall they believe in him of whom they have not board? How shall man guide his steps to Life, if he have not a discovery of the Way? Or guide them right, if he have not the true Way? The Wise Man tells us, Where there is no Vision, the people perish, Prov. 29.18. 2. THAT there may be different S•••s in Religion, and yet men may be saved in them. We are to distinguish between diverse Religions, and Diversity in Religion. Through out knowing but in part, it is come to pass, that Professors of Christianity have been of diverse Opinions in many things; and their difference hath occasioned several Denominations; but while they agree in the Foundation, they may be saved. So Paul assures us, 1 Cor. 3.11, 12, &c. 3. THAT there are Religions in the World, that not only have no discoveries of this one Rule, but prescribe to men Rules contradictory thereunto. The Truth of this Assertion cannot be suspected, by him that hath but a little Acquaintance ⟨p. 13⟩with the several Religions, which the Children of Men have taken up, and followed. If we look upon all the Sects of the Gentile Religion, we shall not find in them any the least footsteps of man's Salvation by Christ, and faith in him. They have set up […] Worship, and served gods of their own making, bo•ed down to stocks and stones: among Twenty Thousand gods, have mist of the true One; have betook themselves to moral Virtues, as the way to felicity; and though they had Sacrifices, yet they neither used them as typical shadows of Christ, nor did they offer them to GOD, but to Devils. If we look upon the M•••••t•n; though they do in word acknowledge God and Christ, yet they neither acknowledge Christ as a Redeemer, nor do they prescribe faith in him as necessary, nor yet do they acknowledge his Laws: but set up their […] in Opposition to his. If we consider the Anti-Christian; whatever pretence they make, yet they have subverted this Rule, in the foundations of it;