N02384:591
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.
A poor […], yea a Mite is a subject of unaccountable Problems, that will not only puzzle, but set down the most curious Naturalist to be able to tell how the Organs of life, sense, untriment and motion are contrived in so small a Characters but if we look upon Man, the master-piece of the visible Creation, and what is he else but an heap of Riddles? his very Body is strangely made; Psal 139.14. — I am fearfully & ••• •erfully made—. The Heathen Anatomist read a God in it, and was transported to sing his praise. And if we consider the setting together of this great Machine, the harmonious placing of every piece of it, and that among so many uncountable parts, there is none displaced or useless. The truth is, here is matter for ends less contemplation, and we must needs say that he was infinitely Wise who did all this. 4. IN the Providential management of the World, and all the Affairs of it; the keeping of all things in order; conducting of them to their ends, so as to bring them to attain them actually; the keeping of so many wheels, which are in motion, to go regularly, and none of them to miss, is a curious piece of infinite Wisdom. It would have declared him to be God, if all had been right as it was when he made it; but it more admirably appears since the fall of Man; the Apostasy of one of the principal pieces of this frame, by which he hath so far put himself out. It is the Wisdom ⟨p. 67⟩of God […] •••ulars it self, in that the Sa• knows his ••ing & going down: the uncountable S•••s attend their several motions: that the see w••e and s••••ess Creatures, know their times, and observe them accurately: but that when man revolted from his Rule, and sought to bring confusion upon the whole, turned himself from Designing his great end, and abused the Creatures that were under him to strengths him in his Revolt: God for all this teacheth, and misseth not of his own glorious ends, but makes them serviceable thereto, is glorified upon them, and recovers the glory of his abused mercies: something of this is now and then seen at present, which extorts confessions from his very Enemies; but the full of it shall be made known in the day of revelation, when that Scripture shall have full accomplishment,