A25294:290
The substance of Christian religion, or, A plain and easy draught of the Christian…The substance of Christian religion, or, A plain and easie draught of the Christian…
The substance of Christian religion, or, A plain and easy draught of the Christian catechism in LII lectures on chosen texts of Scripture, for each Lords-day of the year, learnedly and perspicuously illustrated with doctrines, reasons, and uses / by that reverend and worthy labourer in the Lord's vineyard, William Ames ...The substance of Christian religion, or, A plain and easie draught of the Christian catechisme in LII lectures on chosen texts of Scripture, for each Lords-day of the year, learnedly and perspicuously illustrated with doctrines, reasons, and uses / by that reverend and worthy laborer in the Lord's vineyard, William Ames ...
London: printed by T. Mabb for Thomas Davies, 1659
Title page typeset from the transcription.
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.
Doct. 3. By the same efficiency whereby God created all things, he sustains also, and preserves all things in being.
From these words in the Text; and for thy pleasure, or by thy will they are. Heb. 1. 3. Acts 17. 28. In him we are or have our being. For as in the beginning, when God cherished the world of waters, or the waters, the spirit moved upon them, and so did sustain, conserve and cherish them; even so also perpetually the same spirit sustains, governs, and cherisheth all created things. Now God is said to sustain and conserve created things, not only indirectly, as he removes and hinders from them causes that would corrupt or destroy them; but also directly, as he gives a conserving power for continuance of their existence. Neither doth he this alone by means, as he sustains an infant by its nurse; and a building by its pillars; but also immediately, in as much as being most inwardly present to all things, he furnisheth the means themselves with all their efficacy, when at his will they concur, and doth also many ⟨p. 69⟩things himself for their conservation, for the doing whereof there is found no virtue at all in any means. This sustaining of all things is rightly by some called maintenance, because thereby God •olds as it were in his hand the creature, that it fall not back to that nothing from which it was at first brought by that same hand. For as if one with his hand lift up something from the ground, unless he hold it also, after it is lifted up in his hand, of its own accord, it will fall again to the ground: so also after that God by his omnipotent hand, lifted up the creature from nothing, with the same hand he upheld it also, otherwise it would fall back and return to nothing again.
From these words in the Text; and for thy pleasure, or by thy will they are.