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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
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.] WHAT is meant by Glorifying God?
A. WE ought carefully to beware of being mistaken in this Point; it being that in which our whole Life is to be employed, and upon which our whole Happiness hath it's absolute Dependence: so that an Error here spoils all, & necessitates us to live in vain. Here therefore,
A. WE ought carefully to beware of being mistaken in this Point; it being that in which our whole Life is to be emploved, and upon which our whole Happiness hath it's absolute Dependence: so that an Error here spoils all, & necessitates us to live in vain. Here therefore,
1. Negatively. IT intends not that we are able to make any Addition to God's immediate & essential Glory; as though we shoulder could make him more glorious in Himself than he is, and hath been from all Eternity. So to do is out of the Reach, and above the Capacity, either of Angels or Men: and that appears for these Two Reasons. 1. FROM the Infinite Perfection of God's innate Glory, rendering in incapable of any Access or Increase. To that which is absolutely perfect, nothing can be added: such is God's Being and Glory: could it receive any thing, it were not infinite: were it capable of increase, it were imperfect in Degrees: Goodness it self cannot be made better; Happiness it self can never be happier. Concretes may receive Magis et Minus, but Abstracts are Superlatives. God therefore makes that challenge of all his Creatures, Rom. 11.35. Who hath first given to him — intimating that there are no Such. 2. BECAUSE all that any have, they received it of him. And that is the Argument used, Ver. 36. For of him, and through him, and to him, are all things: to whom be glory for ever. Amen. All that Men can offer up to God, is nothing but what they were first beholden to him for; so that they can give him nothing back but his own: For this we have David's full Acknowledgement,