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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 11 (Question 3)
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.
SERMON XI.
QUESTION III. WHAT do the Scriptures principally teach? ANSWER. The Scriptures principally teach, what Man is to believe concerning God, and what Duty God requires of Man.
THE Scriptures being fallen man's Rule, to direct him how he may attain his Chief End, hence the sum and substance of them must needs be suited hereunto; they must therefore comprise all Divinity in them, viz. to guide a man right in his way; for a Rule is always of the means to an end: so that •he parts of Divinity, and the sum of the Scriptures must be one and the same. Now the parts of our Religion are properly Faith and Observance; these therefore are the things which the Scriptures must direct unto, and instruct us in. We have already been assured that God is man's last end; to glorify and enjoy him, is the Reasonable Creature's Felicity, and there are two things very requisite in order to this, viz. That we know him, and ⟨p. 34⟩that we serve him; and under these two is […] man• Religion summed up: these two do therefore carry in them, the substance, scope and end of the Scriptures. The great design of the word of God, is to lead us to him. He is the great end of it, so far as he may be served & enjoyed by man: some other things by the by, may be learnt from thence; but this is the direct aim. Knowledge and Practice make a man happy. Joh. 13.17. If ye know these things, happy are ye, if ye do them. Faith then and Obedience are the two Channels in which all the Scriptures do run. Solomon will inform us in the sum of all that is said there,