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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. IN his Assigning of all things to their several ends. A Wise Agent always propounds to himself some end for which he works; he doth nothing in vain: and then discovers his Wisdom in his orderly allotting of the means with respect hereto. There is one common end to which all things have an ultimate respect, and that is the Glory of God. Prov. 16.4. The Lord hath made allthings for himself. And in order to this, are many subordinate ends to which these & those are appointed. Now the setting of these in order, the connecting of their subordination, and the setting them so as to have their due respect to the last; is an eminent discovery of this Wisdom; we read of such a Connection, Hos. 2.21, 22. — I will hear, saith the Lord, I will hear the beavens, and they shall hear the earth. And the earth shall bear the own, and the •ine, and the oil, and they shall bear Jezreel. 2. IN the suiting of an Idea in his mind, ca•lly b•rm••ous to the best advancing of these ••ds. A Wise workman forecasts his work, and draws out the whole ph•t in his mind, in which every piece & part in his work is con•ired, and designed where it is to be, how it is to be framed to fall in with the other; and the more harmonious and regular this imaginary mould or frame is the more is the wisdom of the Agent: Contrivance therefore belongs to the Ma••et workman, as having the greatest enriofity in it. Such a frame had God in his mind from all Eternity, laid in his own head, with best counsel; and therefore we r•od is Acts 15.18. K••n unto God are all his w••is from the beginning of the world. And we are given to understand, that all things are does according to this Contrivance,