N02384:651
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 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, Isa. 10.1, 2. Woe unto them that decree unrighteous decrees, and that write grievousness, which they have prescribed —. And indeed, here lies the greatest injustice of all; for if the Rule be c••oked, they that must use it, cannot do right.
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 lawfull 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, Isa. 10.1, 2. Wo unto them that decree unrighteous decrees, and that write grievousness, which they have prescribed —. And indeed, here lies the greatest injustice of all; for if the Rule be c••oked, they that must use it, cannot do right.
3. THAT the Judge in all his dispensations, keep close to this Law: that he make use of it, as his proper directory, in examining of all Cases, and final determining of every matter that comes under his Cognizance. The Judge, as such, hath nothing else to do with the Person under Trial, then just as the Law prescribes; and all his Justification is in keeping exactly to it: if any thing be, it is the Law that is offended; if that be not broken, the Man is no Criminal: if then the Law be just, it is that which must prove the Judge to be so too; it is not what be saith, but what that saith, and that in the true genuine sense & intention of it: to vary from this, is in Scripture called perverting of Justice,