N02384:407
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.
1. THAT the knowledge of a thing is by bringing the Object & Faculty together. A thing is so far known, as it is irradiated upon the understanding of the person knowing. As there is no sight actual, but by bringing of the thing seen, to the thing seeing; for which reason, the Object is said to be in the eye: so it is in respect of the Understanding, which is the eye of the mind. The Object must be, in a sense, in the Faculty, or else it is not known by it.
2. THAT the Object known, is in the Faculty not according to its real Essence, but according to its Rational & imaginary Being, i. e. by the reflection of the rays and beams of it upon the faculty; or conveying the similitude of it into the Understanding. The Understanding doth not understand without the Image of the Object refracted upon it: for to know a thing, is to conceive of the Image of it. Knowledge is made by an assimilation between the Knower, and the thing known. He conceives an Idea of it in his mind. In all our understanding of things, we represent and act upon our minds the Effigies of that which we conceive of, and see it there before us. Hence the Understanding makes use of the Imagination in this affair.
3. THE thing known is in the knower, according to the manner, & measure of him that knows, and therefore the knowledge of every one is accommodated to the manner of his own Nature, & not according to the manner of the Nature of the thing known. Quicquid recipitur, recipitur ad modum Recipientis. The Understanding can receive nothing but in its own way, according to the manner of its being and operation. It is like an Artificer; take him out of his way, and he knows not what he doth. If you go about to carry any thing into the Understanding of Man any other way, it will be at a loss & confounded. It is also after its own measure. The created Understanding is finite; it hath its Ultimum Conamen, its bounds beyond which it cannot pass; and if you go about to put more into it, it will break it. There is a knowledge that is too high, too hard for it.