N02384:380
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.
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: Isa. 56.2. Blessed is the man that doeth this, and the son of man that layeth hold on it: that keepeth the sabbath from polluting it, and keepeth his hand […] in doing any evil. The Obedience of Christ […] not given his people a discharge from their personal Obedience; but hath made way that their sincere, though imperfect Obedience, may find acceptance with God; for which reason the Gospel lays the strongest ties upon men to serve God. 1 Cor. 6.20. For ye are bought with a pri•e: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, wh••• are God's. 2. THAT man must have, a Rule made known to him, whereby he may be directed to serve God. We have already heard, that the Creature cannot attain it's end, without a Rule to guide it. The reasonable Creature being to perform a reasonable Service to God, must not ⟨p. 36⟩only have a Rule, but be acquainted with it. It is enough for such beings as are to be guided to their end by instinct, that he who so guides them, do know the Rule according to which they are to be led: but such as are to save God voluntarily, must know they Rule, it must therefore be some way or other published, or declared to them: