N02384:1127
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 41 (Question 10 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.
SERMON XLI.
V. THE Prerogative which God bestowed upon Man in his Creation; He gave him Dominion over his Creatures. Some make this to be part of the Image of God, and therefore they distinguish it into Internal and External; and reckon the Power given to Man over the other Creatures to be the External: but we hall find in the History, that there was something distinct from, and coming in upon the Image; Gen. 1.26, 28. Here take these Conclusions: 1. GOD both absolute Lordship over all Creatures. He Made them, and he may Order or Dispose of them according to His Discretion, appoint them to what Service He sees meet: The Right of Creation is such as makes them wholly Subject: He that gives a thing its Being, may allot its Service too: Psal. 1•0.2, 3. Serve ye the Lord: Know that he hath made us. If it be of Him, it is for Him. 2. GOD made Man nextly and Immediately it Serve Him Actively. Man was made for Moral Obedience, to Glorify God by a Rath•nal Conformity to his Commands: and for that Reason be gave him a Principle of Reason, and Adorned it with His own Image, that he might be completely fitted for that Service, as we heard in the Former. 3. GOD to Encourage him in his Obedience, made the other things nextly for Man. This especially respects the Visible Creation, or Creatures in the Lower World, enumerated, Psal. […]. 1. &c. Beside the Last End of things, here are S•••rdin•te Ends: All was for God ultimately; but there is an Order of Beings, in which one is for another, and so they come to be for the Last: And here God would have other things to Serve Him in Serving Man. 4. HENCE GOD gave to Man the free Liberty of Using those things for his Comfort: And this is one part of his Dominion over them. They are for his Use, and were therefore at his Dispose: God bestowed them as a Gift upon Him,