A65285:38
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.
1. That we should be grounded in the Knowledge of Fundamentals: The Apostle speaks of the first Principles of the Oracles of God, Heb. 5.12. In all Arts and Sciences, Logic, Physic, Mathematics, there are some Praecognita, some Rules and Principles that must necessarily be known to the Practise of those Arts. So in Divinity there must be the first Principles laid down. The Knowledge of the Grounds and Principles of Religion is exceeding useful:
1. That we should be grounded in the Knowledge of Fundamentals: The Apostle speaks of the first Principles of the Oracles of God, Heb. 5.12. In all Arts and Sciences, Logick, Physick, Mathematicks, there are some Praecognita, some Rules and Principles that must necessarily be known to the Practise of those Arts. So in Divinity there must be the first Principles laid down. The Knowledge of the Grounds and Principles of Religion is exceeding useful:
1. Else we cannot serve God aright; we can never worship God acceptably unless we worship him regularly: And how can we do that, if we are ignorant of the Rules and Elements of Religion? We are bid to give God a reasonable Service, Rom. 12.1. If we understand not the Grounds of Religion, how can it be a reasonable Service.
2. Knowledge of the Grounds of Religion much enricheth the Mind: It is a Lamp to our Feet, it directs us in the whole Course of Christianity, as the Eye directs the Body. Knowledge of Fundamentals is the Golden Key that opens the chief Mysteries of Religion; it gives us a whole System and Body of Divinity exactly drawn in all its Lineaments and lively Colours, it helps us to understand many of those [Greek or Hebrew], those difficult things which do occur in the reading of the Word; it helps to untie many Scripture-Knots.