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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.
WE must also here observe, that tho' the 220th Lecture was the last the Author delivered in Public, yet in the midst of many Avocations both from his numerous Flock & the College, the weighty Care of Both together lying on him for several Years before his Death, he had most diligently redeemed his time and prepared about 26 others, even to the end of the 100th Question, which contains the Explication of the Preface of the Lord's Prayer; when at the Entrance of the Petitions he was taken up to turn them to Praises. Upon which account we have been obliged to supply the reft with his shorter Exercises in his former Expositions: where we therefore have a Spoci••• of them, and may plainly see that even they themselves, tho' so brief and so long since made, yet were worthy of the Light, •if these larger ones had not more agreeably superseded them. We should have been glad indeed if the Reverend Author, who improved every thing he took in hand, had finished the larger Lectures on the Lord's Prayer, and so gone through' the Seven remaining Questions, and perfected the whole in a similar manner: But as he himself observed when under apprehensions of being prevented from proceeding farther, there is the less need of an Exposition on this part of the Catechism, since there's scarce any Subject of Divinity that has been more frequently considered by learned Men: and we should therefore rather adore the Kindness of Providence in bringing on our Author to so happy a Period, than disesteem it as a defective Labour.
WE must also here observe, that tho' the 220th Lecture was the last the Author deliver'd in Publick, yet in the midst of many Avocations both from his numerous Flock & the College, the weighty Care of Both together lying on him for several Years before his Death, he had most diligently redeem'd his time and prepared about 26 others, even to the end of the 100th Question, which contains the Explication of the Preface of the Lord's Prayer; when at the Entrance of the Potitions he was taken up to turn them to Praises. Upon which account we have been obliged to supply the reft with his shorter Exercises in his former Expositions: where we therefore have a Spoci••• of them, and may plainly see that even they themselves, tho' so brief and so long fince made, yet were worthy of the Light, •if these larger ones had not more agreably superceeded them. We should have been glad indeed if the Reverend Author, who improved every thing he took in hand, had finished the larger Lectures on the Lord's Prayer, and so gone thro' the Seven remaining Questions, and perfected the whole in a similar manner: But as he himself observ'd when under apprehensions of being prevented from proceeding farther, there is the less need of an Exposition on this part of the Catechism, since there's scarce any Subject of Divinity that has been more frequently considered by learned Men: and we shou'd therefore rather adore the Kindness of Providence in bringing on our Author to so happy a Period, than disesteem it as a defective Labour.