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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.) THAT no other Being is before him, or Co-•val with him: but that he is before all other Beings. It he be the first, then there is no other that can anticipate his being: He acknowledgeth none elder than himself. Isai. •3.10. Ye are my witnesses, saith the Lord, and my servant whom I have ••sen: that ye may know & believe me, and understand that I am •e: before me there was no God formed, neither shall there be after me. Nay there was none with him, or his Contemporary; for then he could not be the first. He that is first, goes before all other. When no other thing had any existence, when there was none but he, then he was. Psal. 90.2. Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever thou hadst formed the earth & the world,—Thou art God. (2) THAT all other Beings are derived from him. He is therefore called the Alpha, the beginning; (Rev. 1.8.) He is the Father of all Creatures; all other beings have their being in him; they derive from him by participation, and without his influence their being would vanish into nothing. Act. 17.•5. He giveth to all life, and breath, and all things: v 28. For in him we live, and move, and have our being. They are vain & empty, yea mere Cyphers without him, less than nothing. See, Isai. 40.15, 17. His word is the spring of their being, & for that reason is he called JEHOVAH, because he gives being to his word, he speaks not words but things. Rom. 4.17. God who quickeneth the dead, and calleth th•se things which be not, as though they were. All the great & wondrous beings that are in the world, came out of his mouth. Psal. 33.9. For he spake, and it was done; he commanded, and it stood fast.