N02384:1215
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 44 (Question 11 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.
4. THE Law of Nature, or those Rules imprinted on the Natures of things, was most Harmonious & Agreeable to their Natures. Herein the Wisdom of God Displays it self, in that He put a fitness into every Creature to Serve to it's Ends, and consequently useth it in his Providence according to that Fitness; so that he follows this Course in His Ordinary Providence to Guide and Order all Creatures according to the Inclination & Capacity of their Natures: things merely Natural according to Instinct, and R••ional Beings by Direction of their Reason.
4. THE Law of Nature, or those Rules imprinted on the Natures of things, was most Harmonious & Agreeable to their Natures. Herein the Wisdom of God Displays it self, in that He put a fitness into every Creature to Serve to it's Ends, and consequently useth it in his Providence according to that Fitness; so that he follows this Course in His Ordinary Providence to Guide and Order all Creatures according to the Inclination & Capacity of their Natures: things meerly Natural according to Instinct, and R••ional Beings by Direction of their Reason.
5. THESE Rules, by which God carries on the Affairs of the World in the Course of His Ordinary Providence, are Unchangeable. They are settled invariable Rules: God may go from or beside these Rules if He will; but that is Extraordinary Providence, as we shall hear; but the Rules themselves alter not; they are Ordinances made for Perpetuity: Hence such Expressions about them; Jer. 31.35, 36. Thus saith the Lord, which giveth the sun for a light by day, and the ordinances of the […] and of the stars for a light by night, which divideth the sea when the waves thereof •ore; the Lord of hosts is his name. If those ordinances depart from before me, saith the Lord, then the seed of Israel also shall ••ase from being a nation before me for ever. Chap. 33.20. Thus saith the Lord, If you can break my covenant of the day, and my covenant of the night, and that there should not be day & night in their season: Then may also my covenant be broken with David my servant, &c. The Rule of the Creature is always one, in the same Case and Respect; that […] Obligation Natural to go in the same Pain, and cannot go out of it by it self: God gave it a […] at First, and it abides under it as long as — Sun and Moon endure; and hence it comes to pass that we are ordinarily able to Judge of Effects in their Causes; only remembering that God Rules all.