N02384:684
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.
2. THIS more peculiarly discovers it self in the Providence which be exerciseth towards Man in particular. And I shall only point at two or three passages which concerned Man before his fearful Apostasy; for what refers to fallen Man, will tall under the next head of evidence. Hen then God commended his Goodness to Man specially in three things: 1. IN that he gave […] a Command over his fellow-Creatures, and a liberty to make use of them for his good. Man's Dominion was at first founded in God's Goodness; that excellent Charter which God granted to him at first, recorded in, Gen. 1.28, 29. —Have dominion over the fist of the sea, and ever the soul of the air, end over every living thing that ••veth upon the earth. And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed—, was a token of his kindness: Man's right properly derived from this donation, these Creatures were God's property originally, and not Man's till he gave them to him; and how much of benignity there was in it, and how much Man was brought under obligation to God by it, the Psalmist takes notice of with admiration, Psal. 8. Hereby he had both an honourable, and a liberal maintenance bestowed upon him, and as much of good as there was in the things, so much did God's Goodness express it self to him. 2. IN that he gave him a Law to direct him in his reasonable serving of him. Other Creatures were to be governed by instinct, but Man was a Cause by counsel, and must have a Rule to conform himself to, else he must have lived in vain: God gave him a Law in his good Will, and accommodated it every way suitable to his nature, and there was nothing in it, but what was holy, just & good, Rom. 9.14. Now the Goodness of the Law given, must needs result from, and give evidence to the Goodness of the Lawgiver; Neh. 9.13. Thou—gavest them —good statutes —. 3. IN that he promised them glorious Rewards of their Obedience. The first Covenant is said to be of Works, because the Promise was annexed to the condition of Man's personal Obedience, not because that Obedience had a valuable proportion to the recompense. It was free Goodness, that secured to Man in the Covenant, a constant life of Happiness, on the supposal of a faithful discharge of the Duty required of him. Man owed himself to God, but God owed