N02384:1159
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 42 (Question 11)
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.
(5.) THE Little Objections that […] Me• •••ke against it, and Scruples that Good Men have sometimes made •bout it, are the issue of brutal Folly. Those that Men call dark Providences are so, not in regard of themselves, but out Eye-fight: one Drop of Spiritual Eye-salve, will Clear them up to us: There is no Flaw in them, but a Crack in our Understandings. The Psalmist that was a while exercised with the Frenzy, when he came to himself, confesseth himself to have been a Beast, Psal. 73.21. Some say if there be a Providence, how doth the Scripture refer all to Time & Chance; Eccl. 9.11. Time and Chance happeneth to them •ll. Luk. 10.•1. By Chance there came, &c. But this is easily Answered: The Word of •od intends by it nothing else, but an Event falling out unexpectedly in respect to Men. tho' not besides the Intention of God. The Wise Man's Scope is to show by an Enumeration of Instances, that the Issue of Human Affairs, is to Man, Casual or Contingent, by God's Wisely putting in un• seen Occurrences, to disappoint their most Rational Hopes: A Man is furnished, and what shall hinder him? Prepared for the Battle, and why should he not get the Victory? Why God puts in something which they dreamt not of; and this Co•••rms, and doth no way Confute the Doctrine of Providence. The Word in Luke is of the same Import; and only signifies, That the Man came not Designedly, but Providentially: In respect of Second C••ses, some things are Necessary, some Contingent; but this makes nothing against the Wise Determining all by the First Cause. Some there be who suspect Providence, because Wicked Men, and the Haters of God enjoy so much Prosperity, and Godly Men suffer so much Adversity, The Observation of the Wise Man, (Eccl. 8.14.) hath made some to stumble, others to break their Necks: The Psalmist himself was almost at that unhappy Conclusion.