N02384:432
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.
2. HE doth it also according to our measure of receiving it i. e. according to the latitude of our Understanding it. As our apprehension hath its proper way, so it hath its circumscribed limits: it is a finite thing: ours are created faculties, and they are narrow & shallow, and can take in but a little. They are but a few drops of this great Ocean, that our little vessels can take into them. God's discoveries of himself to us are therefore some small part of his great excellencies, and when we have said all that we can to set him forth, how little will it be in comparison of himself! It will not bear the proportion that one drop doth to the Sea. And the reason of it is, because our limited knowledge, the straitened faculty of our Understanding, can entertain no more. It may be swallowed up in the glory of God: it may swim in the Ocean of Everlasting bliss: it may be contained, but it can contain no more than its own measure. A vessel that is full, cannot be more full. The great things of God are able to swallow up the Understandings of men & Angels: but God is so condescending to us, as to accommodate his revelations to our Capacities.
2. HE doth it also according to our measure of receiving it i. e. according to the latitude of our Understanding it. As our apprehension hath its proper way, so it hath its circumscribed limits: it is a finite thing: ours are created faculties, and they are narrow & shallow, and can take in but a little. They are but a few drops of this great Ocean, that our little vessels can take into them. God's discoveries of himself to us are therefore some small part of his great excellencies, and when we have said all that we can to set him forth, how little will it be in comparison of himself! It will not bear the proportion that one drop doth to the Sea. And the reason of it is, because our limited knowledge, the straitned faculty of our Understanding, can entertain no more. It may be swallowed up in the glory of God: it may swim in the Ocean of Everlasting bliss: it may be contained, but it can contain no more than its own measure. A vessel that is full, cannot be more full. The great things of God are able to swallow up the Understandings of men & Angels: but God is so condescending to us, as to accommodate his revelations to our Capacities.