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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 21 (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 ascribe to God a Theoretical Wisdom, which is by Divines called, Scientia si•• pli•• ••••lligentia; and to this there are two things •••ributed in the Description.
1. THAT he hath a thorough & perfect Knowledge of himself, or his own Being, and glorious Perfections. It is one thing which belongs to Wisdom, that it is of a very large reach, or vast comprehension. Wise Men do know more than others do; now there is nothing that sets forth God's Understanding more largely, than that he knows himself, grasps in his intuition the whole latitude of his own Infinite and Incomprehensible Being; for this reason it is said to be Infinite, Psal. 147.5. God only knows himself as he is: It is but a little portion that Men or Angels do know of him. He knows his own thoughts, and his ⟨p. 66⟩thoughts are himself; yea, He is Understanding. Prov. 8.14. If this Wisdom then be God, then it must be of an equal extension with God, else it could not be himself.
1. THAT he hath a thorough & perfect Knowledge of himself, or his own Being, and glorious Perfections. It is one thing which belongs to Wisdom, that it is of a very large reach, or vast comprehension. Wise Men do know more than others do; now there is nothing that sets forth God's Understanding more largely, than that he knows himself, grasps in his intuition the whole latitude of his own Infinite and Incomprehensible Being; for this reason it is said to be Infinlte, Psal. 147.5. God only knows himself as he is: It is but a little portion that Men or Angels do know of him. He knows his own thoughts, and his