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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 16 (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.
1. BECAUSE Being is better than not being, we hence ascribe Being to God; as if he had something in common with other Beings, or as tho' there were a general Nature, in which there were an agreement or participation between him, and the Creature; and it is a notion, without which we can entertain no Conceptions of God at all. God himself therefore tells us his Name is, I AM: and the Apostle tells us, that here is the foundation of our Faith, Heb 11.6. He that cometh to God, must believe that He is.
2. THAT in the order of Beings, God is the First. This therefore is a distinguishing Epithet we put upon him, and by it we know him from the Creature. All other Beings are secondary, derived, originated: He is before them all; He therefore assumes this title, Isai. 44.6. Thus saith the Lord the King of Israel, and his redeemer the Lord of hosts, I am the First. And on this account, He is called, The Ancient of Days, Dan. 7.9. Here observe two things.
1. THAT there is a First Being. This is necessary, for it is impossible, that all things should succeed & follow one after another. Where there is a succession, there must be a beginning; where there is a second & third, there was a first, from which, they are so denominated. All Beings cannot be originated, and therefore there must be an Original. We must firmly believe this Principle, as the bottom of our Faith; for faith runs up to the highest, and resolves it self there. Faith can never trade for life, with th•se that have borrowed their own being & life from another; ⟨p. 50⟩