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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.
AND as for Strangers that may come to the sight of the present Work, we need only refer them to the Extract out of the Funeral Sermon annexed, wherein the Author's Superior Character is very justly drawn; in order to their entertaining such an Apprehension of Him, as will be enough to induce them to look into the succeeding Lectures, and discover more than has even yet been said of his great and excellent Abilities in searching out Explaining and Applying the important Truths of Revealed Religion.
AND as for Strangers that may come to the sight of the present Work, we need only refer them to the Extract out of the Funeral Sermon annexed, wherein the Author's Superiour Character is very justly drawn; in order to their entertaining such an Apprehension of Him, as will be enough to induce them to look into the succeeding Lectures, and discover more than has even yet been said of his great and excellent Abilities in searching out Explaining and Applying the important Truths of Reveal'd Religion.
ALL we conceive we have to do in this Preface is,—To give some Account of the framing and publishing of the following Work, for the Information of all that see it; To remove the Prejudice of many from the Largeness of it, which might otherwise discourage them from attempting to peruse it; To prevent those undue Conceptions both of it and the Author, which may be apt to rise in their minds from those Imperfections that are only owing to the Disadvantages of the posthumous Publication; To recommend it to all sorts of Readers, especially to Students of Divinity; and then Commend it to the necessary and effectual Blessing of Almighty GOD, to whose Glory and Service it is most humbly devoted.
LET the Reader then be pleased to know, that the Reverend Author having gone thre' the Explication of the Assembly's Shorter Catechism in a more compendious manner among the Children of his People, and having therein little more than Methodized the Subject and laid out the several Heads to be more largely treated of; He did accordingly on Jan. 31. 1687 8. enter on these more elaborate Discourses upon them. This he performed Monthly on the Tuesdays in the Afternoon, in his Public Congregation; and so continued till April 1.1707. soon after which he was prevented from proceeding by a Fit of Sickness, out of which he was scarce well recovered before he suddenly Died.