N02384:593
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 21 (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.
THUS we have considered the Object of this Wisdom. But besides that, we have in the Description, a farther account of it, in respect of the Act, viz. That he doth all this by one Simple & Eternal Act. He doth it not successively as Men do, not by multiplied Acts, but all at once: nor is this one a compound Act, consisting of many parts, as the actions of Creatures are; but wholly uncompounded. The things seen and contrived are many, but the contrivance is individual; and all this from Eternity, as in the forecited, Acts 15.18. And there needs no more be said for the evidencing this Assertion, but the consideration, that all God's Attributes are himself: if therefore he be a Simple & Eternal Being, his Wisdom must be so too; and because he is Infinite, therefore must his Wisdom be of so vast a comprehension, as to be able to grasp in all this at once and together. And if we are not able to discern or give an account how these things can be, it is not to be wondered at, if we consider the narrowness of our understanding, and the shallowness of our wisdom; it may suffuse to satisfy us, that it is so with him, because he is God, and not Man.
THUS we have considered the Object of this Wisdom. But besides that, we have in the Description, a farther account of it, in respect of the Act, viz. That he doth all this by one Simple & Eternal Act. He doth it not successively as Men do, not by multiplied Acts, but all at once: nor is this one a compound Act, consisting of many parts, as the actions of Creatures are; but wholly uncompounded. The things seen and contrived are many, but the contrivance is individual; and all this from Eternity, as in the forecited, Acts 15.18. And there needs no more be said for the evidencing this Assertion, but the consideration, that all God's Attributes are himself: if therefore he be a Simple & Eternal Being, his Wisdom must be so too; and because he is Insinite, therefore must his Wisdom be of so vast a comprehension, as to be able to grasp in all this at once and together. And if we are not able to discern or give an account how these things can be, it is not to be woudred at, if we consider the narrowness of our understanding, and the shallowness of our wisdom; it may suffuse to satisfy us, that it is so with him, because he is God, and not Man.