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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 14 (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.
SERMON XIV.
III. THIS Incomprehensible Being hath made such discoveries▪ of himself in his Back-Parts, as present him a suitable Object for Faith to rest upon. There are some precious rays of the Divinity, that irradiate us by way of reflection; by which we may so far acquaint our selves with God, as may make us happy. God is called a Sun, (Psal. 84.11.) Now if we fix our eyes directly on the body of the Sun, it will wholly dazzle us; but if we look on the reflected light or beams of it, we are safe, and it is comfortable; and so it is here. The Divine perfections are irradiated upon our Understanding through a dark glass; they are held forth Enigmatically: which displays of himself to his Creatures, God is pleased to call his back parts, which he promised he would eminently make known to Moses, Exod. 33. ult. Now they are so called, 1. BECAUSE they fall short of the plenary discovery of his Native Excellency, in the immediate unreflected manifestations of it. As when we see only the backparts of a man, we see but very little of his beauty, and comeliness, whereof his face is the principal seat. They are but part of his ways, yea, a very little portion of him, that is thus understood by us. (Job 26.14.) His knowledge of himself, and that knowledge of him which […] imparts to us, are infinitely disproportionable. ⟨p. 44⟩2. BECAUSE they are but dark representations of him, in comparison with the glory which he possesseth in the light unapproachable. They are but as the refracted or broken rays of the bright Sun, or like the ruddiness which its beams leave behind it, when the Body of it is gone below our Horizon; but as the sparks of a great fire; glimpses, and glimmerings in respect of that transcendent glory, which he enjoys in himself everlastingly. 3. BECAUSE they are, as it were Garments, which cloud, hide, or obscure his Oriental Brightness. They are as a veil, which the great God puts upon him, thereby to discover himself in a more obscure way; that so these manifestations do not over-power the faculties of our Nature: as a man's backparts are clothed, and we know him by and through his garment, which hath not that clearness in it, which may be discerned in his face.