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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 11 (Question 3)
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.
7. THE matter of this Faith is, what is to be Believed concerning God. For if God be the only Object of our Faith, then all the matters, or the truths to be believed must centre in him: Humane Faith extends to other matters; but Divine Faith is restrained hither. It is true, there are a great many Articles in Christian Religion, many of which do nextly concern the Creature, as mans integrity, apostasy, and recovery, &c. but all are reducible to God, and are to be referred to him, as belonging unto his Government: So that all matters of Faith are to be brought hither, and lead us to this Object, viz. the Being of God, his Sufficiency, his Attributes, his Subsistences, his Efficiency, his Decree, and Works of Creation and Providence, his Preserving, and Governing the World, disposing all the affairs of man in particular, so that we are to come to the knowledge of ourselves in the knowing of God; which things will follow afterwards to be looked into.
7. THE matter of this Faith is, what is to be Believed concerning God. For if God be the only Object of our Faith, then all the matters, or the truths to be believed must center in him: Humane Faith extends to other matters; but Divine Faith is restrained hither. It is true, there are a great many Articles in Christian Religion, many of which do nextly concern the Creature, as mans integrity, apostasy, and recovery, &c. but all are reducible to God, and are to be referred to him, as belonging unto his Government: So that all matters of Faith are to be brought hither, and lead us to this Object, viz. the Being of God, his Sufficiency, his Attributes, his Subsistences, his Efficiency, his Decree, and Works of Creation and Providence, his Preserving, and Governing the World, disposing all the affairs of man in particular, so that we are to come to the knowledge of ourselves in the knowing of God; which things will follow afterwards to be look't into.
II. THE Scriptures do also teach us what Duty God requires of Man. Observance or Obedience to God, is the second part of the Christian Religion: God is the first cause and the last end of all things; all things therefore that are from him, are also for him, and every sort of being is to be so for him, as the nature that he put into it, is capable. Here then for the opening of this, take these Conclusions: 1. THAT man was made for the active serving of God. He was a Reasonable Creature, and was therefore to pay to God a reasonable Service; a moral Creature and therefore he owed to him a moral Obedience: he was to show forth God's praise; and this duty being moral, was therefore perpetual: though his fall disenabled him from doing; yet it did not lose or dissolve his Obligation, but it still abides; yea tho' the New-Covenant hath taken off the Curse of disobedience from the Believer, and laid it upon Christ; and hence he is not now as before, under a sentence of Death for the least defect in this Duty, yet moral Duty continues to lie upon men as […] debt which they owe to God; and indeed, it was so accommodated to his nature, that his formal happiness consists in it: