N02384:649
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 24 (Question 4 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. THAT Justice may be accordingly dispensed, there are three things requisite.
1. THAT he who makes & […], the I […], have a rigiter lawful Authority so to do. It […] not belong to every one, either to make Laws, or to put them in Execution; and tho' the […] it self were never so just, yet it were injustice in such to take it upon them: giving and pursuing of Laws, are acts of Government, and they that take it upon them, must have the power on them, either in themselves Originally, or by a rightful Delegation: for a Judge to Sentence a convicted Murderer to Death is Justice, for a private Man to do it is Murder and all acts of Usurpers, have been wont to be rescinded, tho' possibly some of them have been for the matter just.
1. THAT he who makes & 〈…〉, the I 〈…〉, have a rigiter lawful Authority so to do. It 〈…〉 not belong to every one, either to make Laws, or to put them in Execution; and tho' the 〈…〉 it self were never so just, yet it were injustice in such to take it upon them: giving and pursuing of Laws, are acts of Government, and they that take it upon them, must have the power on them, either in themselves Originally, or by a rightfull Delegation: for a Judge to Sentence a convicted Murderer to Death is Justice, for a private Man to do it is Murder and all acts of Usurpers, have been wont to be rescinded, tho' possibly some of them have been for the matter just.
2. THAT the Law, which is to be Rule by which this is to proceed, be it self just. For tho' there must be a Law upon which the Distributive Justice is built, yet there is a Justice which is antecedent rationally to that Law, according to which it ought to be enacted; and all lawgivers ought to have an eye to that as the Rule by which they make their Statutes: nor can all the lawful Authority in the World make a thing to be just, by giving it the sanction of a law, which in it self or its own nature is unjust; for the nature of the thing continues the same after, that it was before; hence that Woe,