N02384:406
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 13 (Question 4 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.
II. THAT God as he is in himself, is not to be comprehended by the Creature. After we have been assured, That there is a God, our next inquiry would have been, Who he is. But behold, the very entrance into such a Contemplation, the very first glan•• upon the Deity, amazeth the Understanding and it must either reflect or break. Though nothing be more knowable than that there is a God, yet nothing harder to know than what •e is. The Heathen Simonides acknowledged, that the longer he studied on the question, the harder he found the resolution. Here then we are taken up, and called to the Contemplation of one of his glorious Attributes, viz. his Incomprehensibility: which tho' it be as a veil ⟨p. 41⟩drawn between his face & our eyes, yet it discovers to us, that he is therefore most excellent, because we cannot comprehend him. And the consideration of this comes in properly here, to check our Curiosity, and confine our Contemplations to sobriety, in our searching after God. That this is an Attribute of God, or one of his relative Perfections the Scripture assures us. See, Exod. 33.20. And he said, Thou canst not see my face: for there shall no man see me, and live. Job 26.14. Lo, these are parts of his ways, but how little a portion is heard of him? but the thunder of his power who can understand? But for a more full and clear discovery of this point. I shall first lay down a few general Rules introductory, and then proceed to the Confirmation of the Proposition. In general take these Rules.
II. THAT God as he is in himself, is not to be comprehended by the Creature. After we have been assured, That there is a God, our next inquiry would have been, Who he is. But behold, the very entrance into such a Contemplation, the very first glan•• upon the Deity, amazeth the Understanding and it must either reflect or break. Though nothing be more knowable than that there is a God, yet nothing harder to know than what •e is. The Heathen Simonides acknowledged, that the longer he studied on the question, the harder he found the resolution. Here then we are taken up, and called to the Contemplation of one of his glorious Attributes, viz. his Incomprehensibility: which tho' it be as a veil