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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.
2. IT gives no direction about Gospel-Faith. Faith in God is a great Duty of the first Commandment, and was clearly written in the law of nature; and fallen man hath natural Convictions of it as a Duty: But to believe in Christ, to rest in God for life and salvation upon the score of Christ's Righteousness, under a deep sense that we have none of our own, and to depend upon a Promise in so doing, it is so far from bearing any witness to it, that it looks upon it with greatest contempt: and for this very reason it is, that men who make highest pretences to Reason, speak most contemptuously of it, as is obvious in Socinians, Pelagians, Arminians, and such like men. And hence such endeavours to confound the Doctrines of Justification & Sanctification in one: because nature's light hath notions of a Personal Righteousness, but knows nothing of a Relative one.
2. IT gives no direction about Gospel-Faith. Faith in God is a great Duty of the first Commandment, and was clearly written in the law of nature; and fallen man hath natural Convictions of it as a Duty: But to believe in Christ, to rest in God for life and salvation upon the score of Christ's Righteousness, under a deep sense that we have none of our own, and to depend upon a Promise in so doing, it is so far from bearing any witness to it, that it looks upon it with greatest contempt: and for this very reason it is, that men who make highest pretences to Reason, speak most contemptuously of it, as is obvious in Socinians, P•lagians, Arminians, and such like men. And hence such endeavours to confound the Doctrines of Justification & Sanctification in one: because nature's light hath notions of a Personal Righteousness, but knows nothing of a Relative one.
3. IT is altogether a stranger to […] Obedience. If it could afford any thing to ••••s information, it is here; but it is as much at a loss in this, as any thing. For, tho' it […] something of moral Duty (and that is ••t a little) yet it gives fallen man no information how to please God by his Obedience, and when he hath followed it to the highest, it leaves him unprofitable, (Lak. 17.10.) and his Duties are but pointed Abominations. It may convince man of woeful flaws in his Obedience, but how to mend them it tells them not. Moral Obedience and Deeds of Sanctification, are vastly different things. Now, it tells not man where he may get a new Principle of spiritual Life, to enable him to live to and please God. It sets not open before him the Fountain, in which his Uncleanness may be washed away: where he may be furnished with grace to serve God, and live to his glory: nor how his imperfect Duties may find acceptance with an holy God, and receive his approbation, or where he may fetch those continual supplies of renewed strength to conquer his Corruptions, to deny Ungodliness, &c.