A65285:22
A Body of Practical Divinity
A body of practical divinity consisting of above one hundred seventy six sermons on the lesser catechism composed by the reverend assembly of divines at Westminster : with a supplement of some sermons on several texts of Scripture / by Thomas Watson ...
London: printed for Thomas Parkurst, 1692
Title page typeset from the transcription.
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.
Intending the next Lord's Day to enter upon the Work of Catechising, it will not be amiss to give you this Preliminary Discourse as preparative to it; showing you how needful it is for Christians to be well instructed in the Grounds of Religion: If ye continue in the faith grounded and settled—Two Propositions, First, It is the Duty of Christians to be settled in the Doctrine of Faith. Second, The best way for Christians to be settled, is to be well grounded.
INtending the next Lord's Day to enter upon the Work of Catechising, it will not be amiss to give you this Preliminary Discourse as preparative to it; shewing you how needful it is for Christians to be well instructed in the Grounds of Religion: If ye continue in the faith grounded and setled—Two Propositions, First, It is the Duty of Christians to be setled in the Doctrine of Faith. Second, The best way for Christians to be setled, is to be well grounded.
Doct. 1. That it is the Duty of Christians to be settled in the Doctrine of Faith: It is the Apostle's Prayer, 1 Pet. 5.10. The God of all grace stablish, strengthen, settle you. That they might not be Meteors in the Air, but fixed Stars. The Apostle Jude speaks of wandering Stars, Verse 13. They are called wandering Stars, because as Aristotle saith, they do saltare, leap up and down and wander into several parts of the Heaven; and being but dry Exhalations, not made of that pure Celestial Matter as the fixed Stars are, they often fall to the Earth. Now such as are not settled in Religion will at one time or other prove wandering Stars, they will lose their former Strictness, and wander from one Opinion to another. Such as are unsettled are of the Tribe of Reuben, Unstable as water, Gen. 49.4. Like a Ship without a Ballast, overturned with every Wind of Doctrine. Beza writes of one Bolsectius, whose Religion changed as the Moon. The Arians had Annuam Fidem, every Year a new Faith. These are not Pillars in the Temple of God, but Reeds shaken every way. The Apostle calls them damnable Heresies,