[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; (Boston in New-England: :: Printed by B. Green and S. Kneeland for B. Eliot and D. Henchman, and sold at their shops: 1726)]


The Reverend Samuel Willard (1640–1707), born the thirty-first of January, 1640, at Concord in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, was the sixth son of Major Simon Willard, a godly founder of that settlement, and Mary Sharpe, his pious consort, both of English extraction. Educated at Harvard College, where he attained his degree of Master of Arts in the year of our Lord 1659, Willard was from his youth inclined to the study of Divinity, esteeming the knowledge of Christ and the service of His Church above all earthly honors. Ordained to the sacred ministry at Groton in 1664, he did faithfully labor among that frontier people until, in God’s providence, the devastations of King Philip’s War compelled his removal. Thereafter, in 1678, he was called by the Third Church in Boston to be their teaching elder, where, upon the decease of Rev. Thomas Thacher, he became sole pastor and a light to many eminent families of the colony. In all things, Willard was a zealous defender of Reformed orthodoxy, steadfast in the covenantal theology of the Puritans, yet prudent and discerning, as notably manifested in his charitable skepticism during the lamentable witchcraft delusions of 1692. His labors extended to the academy, for from 1701 until his death in 1707, he served as acting President of Harvard College, laboring to preserve sound doctrine in the instruction of youth. His chief literary legacy, A Compleat Body of Divinity (1726), remains a monument of New England scholasticism, wherein the truths of Scripture are methodically set forth. Samuel Willard, thrice a husband and always a faithful shepherd, entered into his eternal rest in Cambridge, leaving a legacy of piety, prudence, and learned zeal for the cause of Christ in the wilderness.

The Reverend Samuel Willard (1640–1707), born the thirty-first of January, 1640, at Concord in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, was the sixth son of Major Simon Willard, a godly founder of that settlement, and Mary Sharpe, his pious consort, both of English extraction. Educated at Harvard College, where he attained his degree of Master of Arts in the year of our Lord 1659, Willard was from his youth inclined to the study of Divinity, esteeming the knowledge of Christ and the service of His Church above all earthly honors. Ordained to the sacred ministry at Groton in 1664, he did faithfully labor among that frontier people until, in God’s providence, the devastations of King Philip’s War compelled his removal. Thereafter, in 1678, he was called by the Third Church in Boston to be their teaching elder, where, upon the decease of Rev. Thomas Thacher, he became sole pastor and a light to many eminent families of the colony. In all things, Willard was a zealous defender of Reformed orthodoxy, steadfast in the covenantal theology of the Puritans, yet prudent and discerning, as notably manifested in his charitable skepticism during the lamentable witchcraft delusions of 1692. His labors extended to the academy, for from 1701 until his death in 1707, he served as acting President of Harvard College, laboring to preserve sound doctrine in the instruction of youth. His chief literary legacy, A Compleat Body of Divinity (1726), remains a monument of New England scholasticism, wherein the truths of Scripture are methodically set forth. Samuel Willard, thrice a husband and always a faithful shepherd, entered into his eternal rest in Cambridge, leaving a legacy of piety, prudence, and learned zeal for the cause of Christ in the wilderness.


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USES OR APPLICATIONS OF THIS DOCTRINE

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Use I: God’s Purpose for Man

Is all the world of men under a Decree of Predestination? Know it then, whosoever you are, that God will get something by you. He will gain his glory either from you or upon you. Here you may be assured that God did not make you for nothing; and this consideration, if rightly pondered on, will be so far from producing that diabolical neglect of all means of grace, and adventuring the hazard of our eternal state upon the Decree, that it will teach the miserable creature, as long as it is in a state of uncertainty, to be going trembling every day under the impression of such considerations: I was not made for nothing; God made me for his own glory, and his glory he will get out of me; if then I do not serve and glorify him in my life and conversation, and study to live so as to praise him in my turn, I shall be a monument of his wrath in everlasting misery. And this will teach you of what infinite concernment it is, and how it stands you in hand, to lay about you in this the day of grace, to make sure of his love and favour, and to make sure to prevent the woeful hazard that you are otherwise running into.

Use II: Caution in Application

Let it counsel us by way of caution to make improvement of this doctrine in the order that God hath revealed it, i.e., remember that as God hath predestinated all to the end, so to the means: and therefore to take heed of separating between these: beware of the desperate conclusion of some, “If I am elected, etc.” This is to pervert this doctrine to the hazard of our undoing: remember Predestination is a secret with God, and we can know it only by the event, and so, as it doth not discourage from using means, so will it not excuse our neglect: if we do so finally neglect, it will prove our reprobation; but not hinder our just condemnation. And till we have made sure of converting grace, we can have no comfortable assurance of our election; think it then your interest to make your calling sure by a careful waiting upon God in all the ways of his appointment for his grace, and by this way you may come to know the good thoughts of love that God had for you from eternity; and so be able to adore and worship him with thankful praise for it: assuring yourselves that the Gospel invitations are proposed unto you, and if you do heartily accept of and comply with them, you shall be sure of eternal life; but if you do reject them, it is your own wilfulness, and will make you more guilty before God.