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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 10 (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.] WE must distinguish between those things which are necessary to Salvation, and such matters which are of lesser concernment. It is certain that all theological truths are not equally necessary, though all have their excellent usefulness. There are diverse prophetical Scripturee, which contain in them predictions of things to come, which are dark, as to the assigning of the persons and times of their Accomplishment. But yet there is the matter of Instruction, either for awakening or encouragement easily to be gathered from them. And there is much of God's Wisdom appears in their obscurity, both respecting his children, and his enemies: But the teachings of them are plain; and to this head may that be referred, 2 Pet. 3.16 — In which are some things he•• to be understood —.
[3.] WE must distinguish between the nature of the things asserted, and the manner of the asserting of them. There are many things spoken of in Scripture, which are altogether above the comprehension of a created understanding to grasp them in: and therefore no wonder if after all our enquiry into the Word of God, we are forced to confess ourselves to be at a loss about them: and yet these things are so laid down as plainly to intimate what is intended, & that without any Obscurity. Nothing more plain than that the Scripture asserts, that there is one God in three Persons; that the second Person in the Trinity should assume the nature of man, and of two natures constitute but one person. That believers are by faith united to Christ, and by him to God. And a great many more like things are fully and clearly there laid down: but how these things are, is beyond our reach to know, as exceeding the reach of a created capacity and is therefore no argument that it is dark and obscure; it is not the words that are ambiguous, but the things are too big for us to imbibe: Hence that, Exod. 34.18.