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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 18 (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. THERE is Divine Immensity; which is God, without all Dimensions, or not to be measured by the conceived measures, by which other beings may, such as Length, Breadth, Height, Depth. This is excellently expressed by Z•phar, in Job 11.7, 8, 9. Canst th•u by searching find out God? can•t thou find out the Almighty unto perfection? It is as high as heaven, what can•t thou do? deeper than hell, what canst thou know? The measure thereof is longer than the earth, broader than the sea. Because God's Essence & Perfection is unlimited, therefore he hath no proper quantity, nor is he the subject of any Mathematical notion: and this Attribute farther appears to belong to him, (1) BECAUSE he is without any matter or parts, and so he must be without any extension. Hence when the Scripture assigns to him, Eyes, Ears, Hands, Feet, &c. they are not proper, but metaphorical expressions, to signify those eminent virtues in him, which are shadowed by such things in the Creature. And being without matter, he is also without jo•m; which belongs to matter, and sets bounds to it, and spins it out into length, breadth, and thickness. These things he is a stranger to. (2) BECAUSE God is not a Being by Participation, but Being in the Abstract. Concrete beings have dimensions, but those that are Abstract exceed all. Sweet things have their degrees, but sweetness it self is above all degrees; and hence this Consectary ariseth, viz. That God's perfections can neither increase, nor be diminished; they can be neither greater nor less, but are the same ⟨p. 57⟩everlastingly; and what he hath ever been to […] is so still. Augmentation, and D•mu••tion, are notions proper to quantity; and therefore inconsistent with the Being of God. He is as great, and as good now, as he was of old; and his people may confidently conclude from what he hath in times past discovered of himself to his Church, that he is accordingly to be trusted in now.
1. THERE is Divine Immensity; which is God, without all Dimensions, or not to be mensured by the conceived measures, by which other beings may, such as Length, Breadth, Heighth, Depth. This is excellently express'd by Zphar, in