N02384:505
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.
IN a word, God and Angels are expressed by one and the same general Name, viz. Spirits, only to help us with something which may guide our Conceptions, in the notion which we take up of him; but when we have said all that we can about it, we must remember that he is a thousand times more glorious than all Spirits, or second Beings tho' never so excellent, that can be named: but because Rational Beings are more noble than Irrational, and because Spiritual Beings have a peculiar excellency above Corporeal, and the highest created perfections are to be found in the Heavenly Angels, and we are to give the best of our thoughts and conceptions to God, we are pointed, by such a comparison, to see something of his praise worthy excellence, but still remembering that he is above all glory & praise.
IN a word, God and Angels are expressed by one and the same general Name, viz. Spirits, only to help us with something which may guide our Conceptions, in the notion which we take up of him; but when we have said all that we can about it, we must remember that he is a thousand times more glorious than all Spirits, or second Beings tho' never so excellent, that can be named: but because Rational Beings are more noble than Irrational, and because Spiritual Beings have a peculiar excellency above Corporeal, and the highest created perfections are to be found in the Heavenly Angels, and we are to give the best of our thoughts and conceptions to God, we are pointed, by such a comparison, to see something of his praise worthy excellence, but still remembring that he is above all glory & praise.
USE 1. THIS tells us ho• suitable an Object God is for our Spirits to close withal. It is requisite for joy & delight, that the Object and Faculty be suitable one to the other, for without an adequate or suiting Object, there can be no satisfaction; but such is God; being a Spirit, although' infinitely above us, yet suitable for these Souls of ours to close withal. And herein the happiness of Believers above other men appears, because their Spirits have communion with this uncreated Spirit; his better part therefore is fully provided for, & there is no other man that enjoys this advantage. All other things are in Scripture, by way of opposition, called Flesh, and for that very reason are they incapable of affording Felicity to such as rely upon them;