N02384:786
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 29 (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. WANT of Ability, which they before suspected not. And there are many things which do casually intervene, unforeseen; for which reason Men are always to resolve with that Clause, If God ••ll: But God cannot be obstructed; His Power is as large as his Will, so that he could never be impeded: If he hath a Mind to do any thing, he is able to accomplish it; Job 23.13. But he is in one mind, and why […] turn him? and what his soul desireth, even that he dieth. There was no great work ever yet put Him to a stand; there is no Mountain too high for Him to skip over.
1. WANT of Ability, which they before suspected not. And there are many things which do casually intervene, unforeseen; for which reason Men are always to resolve with that Clause, If God ••ll: But God cannot be obstructed; His Power is as large as his Will, so that he could never be impeded: If he hath a Mind to do any thing, he is able to accomplish it; Job 23.13. But he is in one mind, and why 〈…〉 turn him? and what his soul desireth, even that he dieth. There was no great work ever yet put Him to a stand; there is no Mountain too high for Him to skip over.
2. SOME new Discovery which makes them to see reason to alter their Thoughts. Men sometimes say, before they have seen the thing through, and their after Thoughts are wiser: There are many Inconveniences that discover themselves upon Deliberation, which at first view lay out of their sight: But God is incapable of this also; for he sees all things in their Causes, and Effects, and all their Circumstances and Consequences, at one view; so that it is impossible that he should even have any occasion to repent of his Word. When therefore Repentance is ascribed to Him in Scripture, it is an Humane Expression; the Change is neither is his Purpose, nor in his Word, but in his Providence, or Works, and that according to his Word: And if it be said, that we find both Promises and Threatenings in the Word of God, which never were accomplished, but God did otherwise; the Answer is ready, viz. That God often reveals Himself to Men in conditional Promises and Threatenings: If therefore the Condition cease, the Truth of the Word doth stand, though the Thing it self be not done: So David understood the Promise,