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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
AN EXPOSITION OF THE ASSEMBLY's SHORTER CATECHISM: IN Two Hundred a… › Sermon 15 (Question 4 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.
There is one glory & perfection in the Sun, another in the Moon; but there are others, which they can lay no claim to Whereas in this most noble First Being, there is a concourse or confluence of all these Perfections. 1 Chron. 29.11, 12. Thine, O LORD, is the greatness, and the power, and the glory, and the victory, and the majesty: for all that is in the heaven and in the earth, is thine; thine is the kingdom, O LORD, and thou art exalted as head over all. Both riches and honour come of thee, and thou reignest over all, and in thine •ind is power & might, and in thine hand it is to make great, and to give strength unto all. Every several Creature is, as it were, a small spring or rivulet of goodness; but he is the vast and boundless Ocean of universal Perfection. 3. GOD compriseth in him such Perfections; as there are no footsteps of them in the Creature. He hath all that second Beings have, and such also as they have not. There are that are called his Incommunicable Perfections; which are ascribed to him negatively, because they are not in the Creature, but the contrary: on which account we call him Infinite, Immutable, Incomprehensible, &c. 4. GOD comprehends all these Perfections within himself, without any defect: He is wholly void of imperfection: He is incapable not only of privative, but also negative imperfection. He is light and there is no darkness at all in him. There is no Creature, not so much as a Seraphim, but hath some negative defect attending it; i. e. the perfection of the highest Creature is contained within some degrees & limits. The Sun hath light, but it is not light it self, as God is. He is Light without Darkness, Power without Weakness, Knowledge without Ignorance, Beauty without Deformity. 5. GOD containeth perfections in Him, without any capacity of imperfection, or possibility of defect. His fullness can admit of no diminution. A Creature, which is perfect (in its kind and degree) actually, is capable of losing it. He that sees, may be blind, &c. It is not so with him: for he hath all his fullness of and from himself; and depends not for it, or its continuance, on any other being, as all second beings do on him. All theirs is borrowed; but his is his own. Rom. 11.35, 36. Or who hath first given to him, and it shall be recompensed unto him again? For of him, and through him, and to him, are all things: to whom be glory for ever.