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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.
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. *And as he judged the aforesaid Catechism to be one of the most useful Systems of Divinity extant, as it is commonly learnt & known among our People; He applied himself to Explain it fully & clearly to them, and to consider what was most material in the whole Circle of Religion, in it's proper place: and not only lead them into the right Discernment of the Doctrines of it, and confirm their Faith therein both from Scripture and Reason; but also in the close of his several Lectures to show the farther beauty use and excellence of the Truths explained, by reducing them to a suitable Practice and applying them to the Hearts and Lives of his Hearers. And as the former Expositions were more adapted to the Young and weaker ones; so these were raised to exercise and entertain the Riper and stronger Minds, of more enlarged Capacities and more advanced Knowledge.