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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 12 (Question 4)
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.
(3.) IF man tarry at home, and but look into himself, he shall there find enough to tell him there is a God: God hath his witness in every man, and he must shut his eyes if he doth not discern it: and there are two things which bear testimony hereto
1. THE Composition of his Being. If we consider his constituting parts severally, they bespeak it. Look upon his Body, it's structure, form, symmetry, and harmonious disposure of every part and particle of it; it is enough to raise us to take notice of a most noble Artificer, whom none of the Creatures are able to imitate. Galen after he had made an Anatomy of an Humane Body, and seen the curiosity of all the parts of it, was so ravished at the contemplation of it, that he made an Hymn to God his Maker. And we may see into what a rapture or transport of wonder and praise this Observation put the Psalmist, Psal. 139.14, &c. I will praise thee, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; marvellous are thy works, and that my soul knoweth right well. My substance was not bid from thee, when I was made in secret; and curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the earth. Thine eyes did see my substance yet being unperfect,—. Or, If we consider the Soul, how much more will it raise our thoughts? whose frame is such, as it claims kindred with heaven: the vast reach, and large comprehension of it declares from what stock it is derived. Acts 17.28. For in him •e live and move, and have our being; as certain also of your own poets have said, For we are also his offspring. Its great knowledge saith, that he who made it is of Infinite understanding: Its Immortality proclaims, that it derives only from him who hath alone Immortality.—Or, if we consider these two in Conjunction, and Operation, we are here also led into Admiration! when we here take as full an account of man as we can, and enquire, Who it was that made such a Being? We must say, he is a Creature, he did it not, could not make himself; no wisdom or power, that is less than Divine could do it.