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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.
5. THAT the light of Nature makes no discovery to man of any other may to attain his end and be happy, besides what was exhibited in the Covenant of works. And here let it be observed, — 1. THAT man by the light of Nature could never have known, that there was any other possible way for God to be glorified in man's salvation. Fallen Adam knew himself to be miserable, cursed, under a sentence of Condemnation; that Justice was engaged against him; ⟨p. 16⟩but how Justice could be satisfied, Holiness be maintained, and yet Mercy be magnified, was beyond his reach. How God should punish sin, and yet love the sinner; take vengeance on men's Inventions, and yet extend grace to their Persons, was above the discoveries of Nature, a Riddle beyond all it's Rules & Principles to expound. It had it's notions about happiness, but none about salvation. Hence that is asserted concerning all natural men, Rom. 3.17. The way of peace have they not known. 2. THAT much less are there any footsteps of the Way it self, to be found in the hearts of men: there are no umbrages of any such Discovery to be found there. If we should follow the whole method of it, step by step, and ask nature what it can say to it, it must be altogether silent. I shall instance only in three things that are most comprehensive.
5. THAT the light of Nature makes no discovery to man of any other may to attain his end and be happy, besides what was exhibited in the Covenant of works. And here let it be observed, — 1. THAT man by the light of Nature could never have known, that there was any other possible way for God to be glorified in man's salvation. Fallen Adam knew himself to be miserable, cursed, under a sentence of Condemnation; that Justice was engaged against him; ⟨p. 16⟩but how Justice could be satisfyed, Holiness be maintained, and yet Mercy be magnified, was beyond his reach. How God should punish sin, and yet love the sinner; take vengeance on men's Inventions, and yet extend grace to their Persons, was above the discoveries of Nature, a Riddle beyond all it's Rules & Principles to expound. It had it's notions about happiness, but none about salvation. Hence that is asserted concerning all natural men,