N02384:570
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 20 (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.) IN his Understanding. This is said to be Infinite, (Psal. 147.5.) and if so it must needs be Unchangeable: there are no degrees in that which is infinite, more it cannot be, for nothing can be greater; nor less, for then it should not be infinite: Infiniteness is an absolute perfection, beyond which there are none. If God's Understanding were changeable, it must be either by increase or loss; but by neither, not by loss for what can possibly impair that glorious faculty of his, or blot out, and make him to forget those eternal Ideas! not by increase, for that must be either by a knowledge of more things, or a better knowledge of the same things; but neither; for this must be either referring to himself and his own Nature & Perfections, or to other things relating to the Creature; both of which are impossible: For, 1. IN respect of himself, there have no Changes past upon his Essence, but it is the same it was: and how should not he who hath known himself from all Eternity, be throughly acquainted with all his Perfections: and if his knowledge be himself, as hath been evidenced, how could it ever grasp in any thing less than the whole latitude of his Infinite Being? 2. IN respect of other things. The Scripture scribes to him a foreknowledge, Rom. 8.29. —Whom he did foreknow.—Acts 2 23. This is, in our Conception, that Idea which God had in his vast Understanding from Eternity of all second beings, and all that did concern them, or of the whole Affair of Creation and Providence, to the very death of a poor Sparrow, and numbering of the hairs of our heads, according to which, without the least variation, all things do come to pass in their appointed time and manner, so that there is nothing new or casual to him; all things must be as he will: His Science comprehends all possibilities, and as well what are not, nor ever shall be, as what have a being in their Season: his Prescience understands his own Purposes which cut the hair between mere possibilities & futurities, for he doth all things, and that according to the Counsel of his Will, Eph. 1.11. So that either he must alter his intentions, or some things must fall out otherwise than ever he thought of, or his knowledge of them must be sixth and full: for he is no stranger to his own thoughts (