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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.
10. AND there is one amazing step more, and that is, when there is no remedy, all means fail, all courses have no Effect, but they continue obstinate, he is now at a stand, and doth not know how to do this strange work, yea oftentimes takes up a resolution, that he will not do it, Hos. 11.8, 9. How shall I give thee up Ephraim? how shall I deliver thee Israel? how shall I make thee as Almah? how shall I set thee as Zeb•im? mine heart is turned within me, my repentings are kindled together. I will not execute the fierceness of mine anger, I will not return to destroy Ephraim; for I am God and not man, the holy One in the midst of thee, and I will not enter into the city. (Isa. 57.19.)
USE 1. LET no bold & daring Sinners take encouragement from hence to persist in sinning. Know it, God can be patient and long-suffering too, and yet come soon enough to your cost, to fall upon you and destroy you forever, and he will too, if you repent not; and then abused Patience, and neglected Long-sufferance, will rise up against you, and make your woes the more intolerable. Think not God is reconciled, forbearance is no payment; Psal. 50.21, 22. These things hast thou done, and I kept silence: thou thoughtest that I was altogether such a one as thy self: but I will reprove thee, and set them in order before thine eyes. Now consider this, ye that forget God, lest I tear you in pieces, and there be none to deliver.
USE. 2. LET it call upon Sinners to bless God for a Day of forbearance, and to make the right use of it. There is not the least Child, but hath occasion to take notice of it, but for which you had been now as long roaring in Hell as you have been; and Oh consider what unspeakable Mercy there is in it! The damned are gone to their own place, and there is no Redemption; these are the Attributes that give a space and opportunity to repent in, and encouragement to repent. And Oh! think with yourselves, it God be thus loth to destroy me a wretched, unprofitable, provoking Sinner, how ready then will he be to receive me a repenting, mourning, returning Sinner, betaking my self to JESUS CHRIST. And let this quicken and encourage you to fly speedily unto his Everlasting Arms of Mercy.