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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 25 (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.
4. ALL this results from a natural inclination in God thus to do. In Men we observe Actions, and that Observation leads us to take notice of some Virtues which are Principles from whence such Actions flow, which by the frequency of such Actions, we account to be habitually seated in them; after such a manner we conceive of God. We may therefore by the consideration of what highly commends Men for goodness, conceive something of that which is surpassingly and incomparably in God: The Apostle seems to give preference to a good Man, above a righteous Man, Rom. 5.7. For scarcely for a righteous man will one die: yet peradventure for a good man some would even dare to die. Now the principal Characters of one eminently Good, are such as follow, which we may see how they transcend in God.
4. ALL this results from a natural inclination in God thus to do. In Men we observe Actions, and that Observation leads us to take notice of some Vertues which are Principles from whence such Actions flow, which by the frequency of such Actions, we account to be habitually seated in them; after such a manner we conceive of God. We may therefore by the consideration of what highly commends Men for goodness, conceive something of that which is surpassingly and incomparably in God: The Apostle seems to give preference to a good Man, above a righteous Man, Rom. 5.7. For scarcely for a righteous man will one die: yet peradventure for a good man some would even dare to die. Now the principal Characters of one eminently Good, are such as follow, which we may see how they transcend in God.
1. HE is ready to do good to all that ask it. It is so natural to him, that it flows out spontaneously; it is but ask and have; there have been some Men commended for this; but God is such an one, hence that encouragement of Christ, Matth. […]. 7. Ask, & it shall be given you.— And that declaration of the Psalmist,