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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 28 (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.
WE have been considering of God's Goodness, as it doth in particular discover it self to fallen Man, in those displays of it which are common to all, both good and bad; under the title of Mercy. It follows to look on it,
Secondly, AS it is special to some. Though all have more than they deserve, yet all are not alike favoured by God: nor is this difference only in the degree, but also in the kind of the Dispensation. Common Mercy is not in like proportions distributed to Sinners; but there is another Attribute of Goodness whose effects are essentially diverse from those, even the highest of them; which there are but some, and those comparatively but a few do taste of, and that is Grace, in which the highest manifestations of Divine Goodness are made; and we may observe something of it in the opening of this Description;
Secondly, AS it is special to some. Though all have more than they deserve, yet all are not alike favoured by God: nor is this difference only in the degree, but also in the kind of the Dispensation. Common Mercy is not in like proportions distributed to Sinners; but there is another Attribute of Goodness whose effects are essentially diverse from those, even the highest of them; which there are but some, and those comparatively but a few do tast of, and that is Grace, in which the highest manifestations of Divine Goodness are made; and we may observe something of it in the opening of this Description;
GRACE is God willing to exalt a residue of fallen Men to a stare of Eternal Life & Glory, for his own name sake. Here we may observe, 1. THE word Grace signifies something that is Free. It is sometimes applied to a Prison, and then it deciphers a disposition in him to bestow undeserved kindness upon another; sometimes to a Thing, and is as much as a free-gift: and in this sense, all the common Mercy that Sinners enjoy, may be called Grace, because God bestows it liberally, without their Merit, for Grace and Merit are opposed. But the Gospel also is pleased to use the word in a restrained sense, and then the Grace of God, is specifically distinguished from his Mercy; the principal differences between which are contained, and may be taken notice of in the remaining particulars of the Description. 2. THE Subject upon whom this Attribute falls, a residue of fallen Men. It is Man for whom this Perfection of God is displayed, no other Creatures except Angels are capable of it; and Devils are denied it; and it is fallen Men, for all are so; the Apostasy hath included in at the whole race; but that which makes it peculiar