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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.
There needs not only the Counsel of God's Decree, but of his Law too, to guide them aright; for if their missing of their Duty, be chargeable upon them for Sin, they must needs be advantaged to the knowing of it; so that if they are also ignorant, that also must be their own blame. Hence that, Mic. 6.8. He hath showed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God? 3. THAT this Rule, for the Substance of it, was at the first written in Tables of flesh: When God made man, he engraved upon his heart the Rule of his serving him; he wrote it upon his practical Understanding or Conscience, where he was able by reflecting upon himself, and looking upon those registers, to take right measures in all his •pans• the Renovation of man •• God ma••es such a Promise, Jer. 31.33. But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel, After those days, saith the Lord, I will put my law in their •nward parts, and write it in their hearts, and will be their God, and they shall be my people. 4. THAT a great part of this Rule is obliterated by the fall of man. This is no little part of the mischief which befell man by his Apostasy, that he brake those fair Tables of the Law, and defaced that inscription; so as that there are but a few broken fragments that remain: and his understanding also being darkened, and his heart blinded, (Eph. 4.18.) there is scarce one full Sentence, that he can truly spell out of all: So that though this Ignorance is befallen him by his own fault; yet it is certain, that if ever he be restored to a capacity of serving God aright, he must be new informed in what is his duty, or else he will lie under endless mistakes; and must be taught by God, for none can teach as he doth. 5. THERE are additional duties lying upon man under the Gospel, which were not expressed in the law of the first Covenant. It is true, that the Law carried in it an Obligation to all that God should positively command; but yet positives are not to be picked out of the law, but depend altogether upon Revelation: such were those about the first Sacraments given to Adam, and such is every duty that is purely Evangelical; such therefore must be otherwise declared to him. 6. THERE are other Considerations put upon Moral Obedience in the New-Covenant, which were not in the first.