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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 6 (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.
2. THE Foretelling of future Events, which here certainly come to pass according as predicted. It is the prerogative fo the true God thus to do. Hence that challenge, Isa. 41.21, 22, 23. Produce your cause, saith the LORD; bring forth year strong reasons, saith the King if Jacob. Let them bring them forth, and show us what shall happen: let them show the former things […] they be, that we may consider them, and know the latter end of them; or declare us things for to come. Show the things that are to come hereafter, that we may knew that ye are gods: yea, do good, or do evil, that we may be dismayed, and behold it together. It is true, there are some Events, which arise out of natural causes, if not impeded. Hence there are fair probabilities. Hence Satan, who is a great Naturalist, foretells many things that do even: Astrologers have their Predictions, that do sometimes fall out right. But let […] observe, that the Scriptures have things forehead in them, which had no natural cause to in-digitate them, being arbitrary, pr•ter & supernatural, & contrary to the tendency of second causes. It must needs therefore be a Divine Foresight, that could acquaint the Children of men with them so long before hand, and declare the time, means & ways of them, & call out Instruments by Name, and that so long too before hand. There are too many of these upon Scripture-record to be here instanced: and several being super-natural effects, could not be read in natural Causes. To be sure, what concerns the coming of Christ, which takes up great part of the Old Testament, must undeniably be such. Hence the Apostle (Gal. 3.8.) ascribes to the Scripture a Foresight, metonymically, because the Author of it hath one. Now because the futurition of contingent things depends upon his Will, who only can bring them to pass, he only can assure us they shall be: and hence the fulfilling of Scripture-Oracles is a witness of their Divine Authority.
2. THE Foretelling of future Events, which here certainly come to pass according as predicted. It is the prerogative fo the true God thus to do. Hence that challenge, Isa. 41.21, 22, 23. Produce your cause, saith the LORD; bring forth year strong reasons, saith the King if Jacob. Let them bring them forth, and shew us what shall happen: let them shew the former things they be, that we may consider them, and know the latter end of them; or declare us things for to come. Shew the things that are to come hereafter, that we may knew that ye are gods: yea, do good, or do evil, that we may be dismayed, and behold it together. It is true, there are some Events, which arise out of natural causes, if not impeded. Hence there are fair probabilities. Hence Satan, who is a great Naturallist, foretels many things that do evene: Astrologers have their Predictions, that do sometimes fall out right. But let observe, that the Scriptures have things fored in them, which had no natural cause to in-digitate them, being arbitrary, prter & supernatural, & contrary to the tendency of second causes. It must needs therefore be a Divine Foresight, that could acquaint the Children of men with them so long before hand, and declare the time, means & ways of them, & call out Instruments by Name, and that so long too before hand. There are too many of these upon Scripture-record to be here instanced: and several being super-natural effects, could not be read in natural Causes. To be sure, what concerns the coming of Christ, which takes up great part of the Old Testament, must undeniably be such. Hence the Apostle (