N02384:115
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
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.
NOW among all these T••ds that a Man propounds to himself, there is and m•st be One that is Chief; One that is presentable to all the rest, and bears the bell away from them: and the Reason is, because there is something that he was specially and ultimately made for: & will farther appear, if we consider what are the NOTES, by which our Chief End is ••be judged of, which are more principally these Three: 1. THAT, in the Attainment whereof, a Man's Best and highest Good doth consist. It is a Rule in Logic F•uit et B••um conver•••••r; the End & Goodness of a thing are the same. If then these be Degrees of Goodness in the things aimed at, there must be Degrees in the Ends: If one thing •e Better than another, & consequently if there he a Best, Good, there is a Chief End. For that which is Best, can be but One• and that there is so, is intimated in that of Christ, Mat. 19.17. There is none good but one, i. e. eminently, superlatively good; Goodness it self, compared to whom the Goodness of all other things disappears. 2. THAT to which all other Ends ought to serve, as so many Means: For that which is subordinate, always looks forward, and points to that which is supreme. That End, to which every other End pays contribution, and no farther truly benefits the Man, than as it helps him to the Enjoyment of that, is the Chief; and that there is such an one is certain. It is a received Maxim, that all Arts are Handmaids to Divinity; and what are they but Rules to direct Man how to attain his subordinate Ends? Man labours that he may eat. he eats that he may live: and if that be all his Happiness, merely to live, what is he better than a Beast? The Apostle plainly assures us, that there is One Point in which all Human Actions centre, and that must needs be Man's Chief End, 1 Cor. 10.31. Whether therefore ye eat or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God. 3. THAT which is only an End, and not a Mean. All subordinate Ends are also Means respectively: as they look backward, they are Ends; but as they look forward they are Means: but that which is the Chief serves to no other. It is that in which Man ought to rest, and in the Fruition of it to count himself as happy, as he is capable of being made; he is to take it for his full Portion. So he,