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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 25 (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.
4. THAT he put the Creation into such an Order or harmony; whereby every Creature is made nextly capable of serving to its end in its place. Without this, the habitual goodness of the Creature could not have suitably exerted it self; some Creatures are to serve God in serving their fellow-Creatures, others are to serve him in improving of these for his Glory; hence every thing was set in its place: there is a Concatenation, Hos. 2.21, 22. I will hear, saith the Lord, I will hear the heavens, and they shall hear the earth, &c. And thus did the Goodness of God impart it self to the whole, in its several parts.
4. THAT he put the Creation into such an Order or harmony; whereby every Creature is made nextly capable of serving to its end in its place. Without this, the habitual goodness of the Creature could not have sutably exerted it self; some Creatures are to serve God in serving their fellow-Creatures, others are to serve him in improving of these for his Glory; hence every thing was set in its place: there is a Concatenation, Hos. 2.21, 22. I will hear, saith the Lord, I will hear the heavens, and they shall hear the earth, &c. And thus did the Goodness of God impart it self to the whole, in its several parts.
5. THIS Goodness hath express it: self more to some Creatures, than it hath done to others. Though God's Goodness as it is in him is infinite, yet in the Effect of it, it is dispensed variously to the Creature; hence some are more indebted ⟨p. 80⟩to him than others, because he hath imparted more to them. For, 1. SOME Creatures have a more noble and excellent Nature than others. As there are orders of Being, so there are degrees of excellency. A plant is more excellent than a stone, a sensible Creature hath greater perfections than a vegetative, and a reasonable Creature is more noble than all these,