N02384:787
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.
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, 1 Chron. 28.6, 7. And he said unto me, Solomon thy son, he shall build my house, and my courts: for I have chosen him to be my son, and I will be his father. Moreover, I will establish his kingdom for ever, if he be constant to do my commandments, and my judgments, as to this day. And so God himself tells us he would have the Threatening to be interpreted, Jer. 18.7, 8. At what instant I shall speak concerning a nation, and concerning a kingdom, to pluck up, and to pull […], and to destroy it: If that nation against whom I have pronounced, turn from their evil, I will repent of the evil that I thought to […] unto them.
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 Threatnings 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 Threatnings: 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,