N02384:573
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 20 (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. NOT instability in himself. That which makes men to be off and on, now for a thing, and presently against it, is a fluctuating, unstable mind, and proceeds partly from a great deal of ignorance of the mind, partly from the mobility of the Affections, neither of which can be imputed to him: the irresolute man doth not know his own mind, but God doth his, Jer. 29.11. I know the thoughts that I think towards you—.
2. NOT conviction of any thing not foreseen, which should give him reason to alter his mind: for God had at one sight the intuition of all that col concern the matter; his ends were the most eligible, the means the most wise; there was no precipitancy, no oversight or error in any of them; there is no intervening accident that can alter these reasons, which he did not understand and caution against, when he thus determined.
2. NOT conviction of any thing not foreseen, which should give him reason to alter his mind: for God had at one sight the intuition of all that coul concern the matter; his ends were the most eligible, the means the most wise; there was no precipitancy, no oversight or error in any of them; there is no intervening accident that can alter these reasons, which he did not understand and caution against, when he thus determined.
3. NOT Compulsion. His hand can never be so weak, as not to be able to bring about what his Will hath decreed: he can never be put upon it to take new measures for want of ability to carry any thing through, which suited his pleasure; for he can do any manner of thing, and doth always what pleaseth him,