N02384:721
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 27 (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.
SERMON XXVII.
2. THE Benignity of God, is God willing bountifully to best to the good things of this life upon Sinners, contrary to their deserts. In the former he restrained their deserve: execution; in this he pours out his undeserved bounty upon them. For the illustration of this precious Attribute, let us observe, (1.) THE subject of it, Sinners. It is true, this bounty is universal, the whole Creation are shearers in it, Psa. 37.5. & 1459. all Mankind in particular, good & and bad partake of it, (Matth. 5.45.) but it is more peculiarly observable that Sinners, God's Enemies, Rebels that are up in Arms against him, have such deep draughts of it: He hath better things for his Children, (as we shall hear afterwards;) but he is willing that for the present, the worst of Men should be made to know by their own experience that he is Good. (2.) THE matter of it, the good things of this life. Or all those things which are suitable for the maintenance, and comfort of their outward Man: whatsoever affords them present benefit or relief belong to this head, of which we may take a brief general survey; hitherto then do these things belong, 1. THE Care which God hath of the Sinner in his Conception and Birth. He is made out of the corrupt mass, he is conceived in Iniquity; he is a Sinner in the womb; and yet the hand of God's Providence extends kindness to him; he keeps him in his Mother's belly, preserves him from all those Casualties which might prevent him from ever seeing the light of the Sun; makes the knees to prevent him: puts into him a reasonable Soul, with all its faculties & powers; gives him an understanding, will & affections; making him a Cause by counsel, and giving him ability to exercise them, that he is not born a natural; gives him also the true shape and bodily perfection belonging to his kind, writes down all his Members in his Books, that there is none of them wanting, none superfluous, and every one in their right shape and place, and they are fitted for their several uses to which they were designed; he gives them a seeing eye, and an hearing ear; it might have been otherwise, and God sometimes orders it so to be, to let sinful Man know how much he is indebted to Divine Goodness for such favours;