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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 26 (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.
1. HE waits, and is not speedy in coming out against the Sinner. Eccl. 8.11. — Sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily—. He did not fall upon Adam immediately, but tarried till the cool of the day. Some he delays Ten, Twenty, Forty, an Hundred Years before he brings them to the Hell where they deserved to be the first moment of their being: Gen. 6.3. We read of a Sinner of an Hundred Years old.
2. GOD often first debates the case with Sinners before be destroys them. He falls not upon them, till he hath reasoned it out, and offered them matter of Conviction; he reasons with them, Isa. 1.18. Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord—. Gives them leave if they can, to find any fault with him, or bring any thing to justify their own Courses; Jer 2.5. Thus saith the Lord, What iniquity have your fathers found in me, that they are gone far from me, and have walked after vanity, and are become vain?
3. AFTER Conviction he waits again, to see if they will hearken unto him. Whether there may be any sense or remorse in them, that if Conviction would do, he might proceed no farther against them; and as long as there is any hope, he continues debating: thus he did by his Prophets of old with a degenerate People, Jer 8.6. I hearkened and heard, but they spake not aright: no man repented of his wickedness, saying, What have I done? every one turned to his course, as the horse rusheth into the battle.