N02384:489
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.
3. THEY are chiefly in God, and but scantily in the Creature. We indeed translate them from the Creature to him, when we see a perfection in that, we ascribe it to him in an eminent manner; we discover the footsteps of Wisdom, Holiness, &c. in men; and because they are noble perfections, we acknowledge them to God: but they are indeed primarily in him; for the Creature derived them from the Creator. He therefore had them, else he could not have imparted them. They were first in him, else they had not been in us. Creature-perfection is but a draught, or imperfect copy of His which is the Prototype or Pattern: His is the Original, theirs is but a translation, Mat. 5. ult.
4. THESE Perfections are in God, void of all that imperfection, which accompanies them in the Creature. There is no good quality in the Creature, but it is there in a limited manner; it is restrained to its de•re•s, because it is a created goodness; and therefore it must have ⟨p. 52⟩its measure. Hence there is none so wise, but hath some ignorance; none so holy, but hath something of impurity, if not positive, yet comparative. Job 4.18. Behold, he puts no trust in his servants; and his angels he charged with folly: So Chap. 15.15. Behold, he putteth no trust in his saints; yea, the heavens are not clean in his sight. But there is no gradation in the Divine Attributes; they are superlative; and hence there can be no imperfection. So that we must remove all this from his perfection 1 Joh. 1.5. This then is the message which we have heard of him, and declare unto you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. His Attributes do not only contain all the degrees to which they arrive in Creatures, but they infinitely transcend them. Hence we add a name to them.