N02384:435
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.
1. WE cannot know more of God, and live. It is impossible that the created faculty should receive more into it. It was in kindness to Moses, that God refused to gratify him in his request; and he gives this reason for it, Exod. 33.20. And he said, Thou canst not see my face: for there shall no man see me, and live. If Moses had seen […] face, it must have been with the eye of his Understanding; but that being finite, and God infinite, it must have been extended beyond its capacity, and so have been broken and ⟨p. 45⟩destroyed, and so the Object would have been so far from being an Happifying Object, that it would have been altogether Destructive to him. It is true, there are different Degrees of the Knowledge of God, that Men attain unto in this life. Some know but a little: others a great deal comparatively: and there is a growth in Knowledge as well as in Grace incumbent on us as a Duty. 2 Pet. 3.18. But grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. And those that have the highest attainments in this Life, do know but in part; have but Childish apprehensions, and do see but through a glass darkly (1 Cor. 13.9, &c) There is therefore a more full & perfect knowledge that we shall have in Heaven, when we shall be grown Men, and see without a glass, know as we are known; and in his light shall see light: but still all this is limited and circumscribed to the manner and measure of a created understanding. It differs not from the other in nature, but in degree: it is God in his Backparts still; God as revealed in the face of Christ.
1. WE cannot know more of God, and live. It is impossible that the created faculty should receive more into it. It was in kindness to Moses, that God refused to gratify him in his request; and he gives this reason for it, Exod. 33.20. And he said, Thou canst not see my face: for there shall no man see me, and live. If Moses had seen 〈…〉 face, it must have been with the eye of his Understanding; but that being finite, and God infinite, it must have been extended beyond its capacity, and so have been broken and