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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
AN EXPOSITION OF THE ASSEMBLY's SHORTER CATECHISM: IN Two Hundred a… › Sermon 5 (Question 2 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.
7. THAT except God had revealed this Way and Rule, it could never have been known in the World. Men nor Angels could not have so much as published that good news, that there is such a thing, unless he and first declared it: much less could they have given a draught of it. Hence it is, that where there is none of this Revelation, a People are in a state of Perdition, Prov. 29.18. Where there is no vision, the people perish: but be that keepeth the law, happy is be. Rom. 10.14. How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? and how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher? For who should be able to know the mind of God, or enter into the secrets of the decree, till God was pleased to break them open? Hence when Peter confessed Christ, he tells him, as Matth. 16.17. Blessed art thou Simon Barjona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my father which is in heaven.
8. THAT in what way soever God reveals this will of his, that is to be accounted his Word. For Gods word is nothing else but his making his mind known to his Creature. Now there have been divers ways, that God hath taken thus to inform his people of their duty; sometimes ⟨p. 15⟩by Oracles, giving vocal Commands to them; sometimes by Urim & Thum••••; partly by Angels appearing in humane Shape, […] by the Son of God before his Incarnation, who often came to his Servants of Old: partly by Visions and Dreams, appearing to them in sleep, in raptures, and trances: and partly by Prophets and extraordinary men sent and spirited by him: and partly by appointing such men to write down his Will for the use of his People: of all which ways we have an account given unto us in the holy Scriptures.