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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 5 (Question 2 cont.)
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.
3. THAT hence, if ever the undone Creature be restored to happiness, by attaining his end, there must be another way found our for it. If blessedness can be no longer by the law, then either man must never be blessed; Or, there must be a new law of blessedness provided for him; Or he must be made blessed without any, which cannot be; for, if he could not be happy when he was innocent, but by closing with his Rule, and reaching his End, much less can he be so now he is miserable, unless there be a way to rid him of his misery, and bring him back to felicity. If therefore the law of works cannot, something else must, or otherwise he must needs perish. And if there be another way, there must of necessity be another Rule; This being a directory suited to the way, and therefore cannot but vary accordingly. Hence that, Heb. 7 12. For the priesthood being changed, there is made of necessity a change also of the law.
4. THAT the Recovery of fallen man from this Misery, is an act of God's sovereign Pleasure. It derives from hence, and hath its dependence here. If, when man had come short of his end, and lost his happiness, he had left him there without hopes forever, he could not have done him any injury; it had been but an Hell of his own procuring. Hence the Original of man's Recovery is referred to God's Will. Eph. 1.5. Having predestinated us to the a•••tion of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will. God had once brought himself under an Obligation to give him life in case of Obedience; but he had not obliged himself to deliver him, if he should cast himself away.
4. THAT the Recovery of fallen man from this Misery, is an act of God's sovereign Pleasure. It derives from hence, and hath its dependance here. If, when man had come short of his end, and lost his happiness, he had left him there without hopes forever, he could not have done him any injury; it had been but an Hell of his own procuring. Hence the Original of man's Recovery is referred to God's Wil.