N02384:35
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.
SURE I am, on this present Melancholy Occasion, the just sense I have of my own peculiar Share in this Loss, makes it more eligible to take my place in the Silent Train of Mourners, that nothing might interrupt the Sighs & Tears of a wounded Spirit; than to appear in this Desk. But the Duties of my Station require, that at present I chain up my Passions, suppress my own Sorrows, and bank up the swelling tide of Grief; that it may not disturb me, while I am paying to the Memory of my Translated Father, that Just Tribute, which all, but the Ignorant & Envious, will acknowledge due by all the Laws of Justice & Gratitude.
SURE I am, on this present Melancholly Occasion, the just sense I have of my own peculiar Share in this Loss, makes it more eligible to take my place in the Silent Train of Mourners, that nothing might interrupt the Sighs & Tears of a wounded Spirit; than to appear in this Desk. But the Duties of my Station require, that at present I chain up my Passions, suppress my own Sorrows, and bank up the swelling tide of Grief; that it may not disturb me, while I am paying to the Memory of my Translated Father, that Just Tribute, which all, but the Ignorant & Envious, will acknowledge due by all the Laws of Justice & Gratitude.
I am deeply sensible how every way Unequal I am to my present Province, to do his Memory Justice; and what danger I am in of slurring his Character by my unskilful hand. I have neither Art to draw his Picture, nor yet to set it when drawn, in a true Light, that it may be seen to advantage. What Livy says of the Roman Orator, discourages me: That to give Cicero his just Encomium, Cicerone Laudatore opus est. To give a Great Man his just Praises, requires the Skill of One as Great. However, Duty to Christ, whose Servant he was, and with whose Gifts & Graces he was conspicuously adorned; a just Honour for the Memory of a Prophet of no common Figure, a Pastor, Father and Friend, do constrain me to rise up and Call him Blessed, and command me to Essay his CHARACTER.