N02384:477
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 16 (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.
NOW the reason, why this pure act must be diversly apprehended by us, is, because tho' God be to be seen by an eye of Faith, yet he must be seen by an eye of Reason too: for tho' Faith sees things above Reason, yet it sees nothing but in a way of Reason, which discerns all things by Arguments, which are conceived as distinct from the thing, and among themselves. Attributes are the arguments of a thing. Now an argument is that whereby a thing is asserted to evidence another thing, either as Cause or Effect, Subject or Adjunct, &c. E. Gr. When we say, God is Great, Wise, &c. our reason looks upon God as the subject, and his greatness as one Adjunct, &c. and so we join these two together: and our manner of conception and expression, makes a distinction between his Being, and his Holiness, Wisdom, &c. Yea, and it conceives a difference among the Attributes themselves: it distinguisheth between his Wisdom, and his Holiness, between his Justice and his Mercy. So that the Essence comes into our Understanding, under a various representation; through which, as through so many several glasses, we have so many discoveries made to us, of this glorious Essence; and therefore this discovery is called the manifold wisdom of God, Eph. 3.10.
NOW the reason, why this pure act must be diversly apprehended by us, is, because tho' God be to be seen by an eye of Faith, yet he must be seen by an eye of Reason too: for tho' Faith sees things above Reason, yet it sees nothing but in a way of Reason, which discerns all things by Arguments, which are conceived as distinct from the thing, and among themselves. Attributes are the arguments of a thing. Now an argument is that whereby a thing is asserted to evidence another thing, either as Cause or Effect, Subject or Adjunct, &c. E. Gr. When we say, God is Great, Wise, &c. our reason looks upon God as the subject, and his greatness as one Adjunct, &c. and so we joyn these two together: and our manner of conception and expression, makes a distinction between his Being, and his Holiness, Wisdom, &c. Yea, and it conceives a difference among the Attributes themselves: it distinguisheth between his Wisdom, and his Holiness, between his Justice and his Mercy. So that the Essence comes into our Understanding, under a various representation; through which, as through so many several glasses, we have so many discoveries made to us, of this glorious Essence; and therefore this discovery is called the manifold wisdom of God,