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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 23 (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.
3. GOD is holy Originally, the Creatures are so but by derivation. His Holiness is the Prototype, theirs but the Copy; his the substance, theirs but the image or shadow; his the fountain, theirs but some few drops, or small springs that issue from it: all the Holiness that is in all the Creatures is borrowed of him; he hath his in and of himself, and they have theirs of and from him. Man became holy by God's putting his Image upon him; Gen. 1.26. And God said, Let us make man in our image, and after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. He is beholden to God for it, whereas God owes his to none; hence that, Rom. 11.35. Or who hath first given to him, and it shall be recompensed unto him again?
3. GOD is holy Originally, the Creatures are so but by derivation. His Holiness is the Prototype, theirs but the Copy; his the substance, theirs but the image or shadow; his the fountain, theirs but some few drops, or small springs that issue from it: all the Holiness that is in all the Creatures is borrowed of him; he hath his in and of himself, and they have theirs of and from him. Man became holy by God's putting his Image upon him; Gen. 1.26. And God said, Let us make man in our image, and after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattel, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. He is beholden to God for it, whereas God owes his to none; hence that, Rom. 11.35. Or who hath first given to him, and it shall be recompensed unto him again?
4. HENCE God's Holiness is above all degrees, whereas that of the Creature is gradual. God is full, perfect, can receive no addition or increase, it is impossible that he should be more holy than he is; but second beings are capable of more, at least they are contained in bounds and gradations. Put all the Holiness together, that is in all Angels, Saints, the third Heaven, and all will not make up such an one as is in God, they are none of them pure in his sight. Tho' Angelical Holiness be sinless, yet I know not why it may not be growing; if they increase in knowledge, they may in love.