N02384:1219
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 44 (Question 11 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.
[2.] THE Extraordinary Providence of God is that whereby He Provides for His Creatures, by skipping over, or inverting the Order of the Natural Course of things. And this Providence is that which we call Miraculous. Not to insist upon this, Let us take up the opening of it in a few particulars.
1. A Miracle is a Work that is above the Power of Second Causes to produce. It exceeds the force of the Operation of the Second Being; and it is therefore called a Wonder in Scripture; for tho' there be some Wonders that be not properly Miracles, since there may be a secret Natural Influence, the Cause whereof we cannot discern, which is the ground of our Admiration, yet there is no Miracle but what is Wonderful: Such therefore is a True Miracle, as no Second Being can Effect by it's own Virtue; such as for the Sun to stand still, and go back; a Man born Blind, to have his Sight restored; a Virgin to Conceive; a Dead Body to be restored; and Diseases healed with a Word, and many the like: In which though God may use Men in the Operation, yet they do nothing at all to the Production of them, but the whole Efficiency is of God.
1. A Miracle is a Work that is above the Power of Second Causes to produce. It exceeds the force of the Operation of the Second Being; and it is therefore called a Wonder in Scripture; for tho' there be some Wonders that be not properly Miracles, since there may be a secret Natural Influence, the Cause whereof we cannot discern, which is the ground of our Admiration, yet there is no Miracle but what is Wonderful: Such therefore is a True Miracle, as no Second Being can Effect by it's own Vertue; such as for the Sun to stand still, and go back; a Man born Blind, to have his Sight restored; a Virgin to Conceive; a Dead Body to be restored; and Diseases healed with a Word, and many the like: In which though God may use Men in the Operation, yet they do nothing at all to the Production of them, but the whole Efficiency is of God.