N02384:1137
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.
1. MAN was the Head of this Lower World. He was the Chiefest of all Visible Creatures; There were none above him, but God gave him a Lordship and Dominion over them; and this plainly saith, That he could not be for them as his End. The End is Superior to the thing which serves to it; it must not look beneath but above itself for its End: If these were made for Man then he could not be made for them. 2. HENCE, Man was made immediately for God. All things by the Law of Nature are to serve for some End, else they should have their Being in vain: for of that which hath no End, there is no Use. Now the End of the Creature must be something without it self: herein it differs from God; as he is from no other, so He can be for no other, but must be his own last End; He depends upon no other, and therefore can serve no other: but every Creature is from another, and must therefore be for another; it depends elsewhere, and for that Reason must pay its Service elsewhere: Man therefore because he is a Creature cannot be his own last End. Again the End of a Creature is something better than it se•f••e End is more Noble than the Means: it canon then be any thing beneath it: and upon this score Man may not look downward on other Creatures as his End, because they are beneath him. And upon the whole he can have no other Immediate End but God: not the things of the World, because they are put under him; not himself, because he is a Creature; not the Angels, because tho' he was made a little below them in dignity of Nature, yet he was not subjected to them in the order of Gubernation, yea they were to be ministering Spirits for him: God alone is his Sovereign & above him, he is therefore for Him and for no other. 3. GOD's End and Design in the Creation is His own Glory. Prov. 16.4. The Lord hath made all things for Himself. i. e. The Declaration and Manifestation of His great Name; that He might be known in the World as such a God, and reverenced accordingly; and but for this no Creature had ever been made, Rev. 4.11. For thy pleasure they are and were Created. 4. HENCE, Man's next End & Work was is Direct himself Immediately to the Advancement and Declaration of this Glory of God. This was to be his proper Work & Employment; it was the Business he was to be constantly occupied about: That which is the End of Mans Renovation, was certainly the End of his Creation;