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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 17 (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.
6. SPIRITS are Rational substances, endowed with the noblest faculties of understanding and will: For this reason Philosophe•• call them Intelligences, because they have clear knowledge, and a noble liberty which they do enjoy; they would not else be capable of those Offices and Services, which they are employed in, which is to be Ministers attending upon God, and ready to do his will be the managing of the great Affairs of the World; for which they must have a ready understanding, not liable to mistakes, and a prompt will hastening them to their work. But God is the most Reasonable Being; He hath an Understanding, that is Infinite, and a Will which is Irresistible.
6. SPIRITS are Rational substances, endowed with the noblest faculties of understanding and will: For this reason Philosophe•• call them Intelligences, because they have clear knowlege, and a noble liberty which they do enjoy; they would not else be capable of those Offices and Services, which they are employed in, which is to be Ministers attending upon God, and ready to do his will be the managing of the great Affairs of the World; for which they must have a ready understanding, not lyable to mistakes, and a prompt will hastening them to their work. But God is the most Reasonable Being; He hath an Understanding, that is Infinite, and a Will which is Irresistible.
THESE are some of the shades, which we draw of him, from the Attribute of a Spirit▪ but every like is also unlike; and though God resembleth himself to those choice b•ings or natures, yet we must conceive him to be Infinitely more Glorious then they, and transcendently to exceed them. We may look on the most noble Perfections of the most noble Beings, and say them of God, but when we have so said, we must remember that his Glory Incomparably exceeds them. Psal. 148.13. Let them praise the name of the Lord: for his name alone is excellent, his glory is above the earth and heaven. And respecting the present Attribute, let these things be observed,