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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.
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, Job 35.11. 2. HENCE some are capable of a more noble kind of Service than others. Some Beings were made to serve God in serving of Man. But Man was made more directly & immediately for the service of God. Some Beings were to serve God passively, not being capable of actually designing his Glory; whereas Man was to serve him all nelly, being made a Cause by counsel of all his Actions. 3. SOME Creatures were made to be only temporary, and then to have an end forever, as to the individual Being which they had, others were made for Eternity, and consequently capable of serving God world without end: Such were Angels and Men in particular. 4. SOME were made capable of happiness in their attaining of their End, which others are altogether incapable of enjoying, it being a state incompatible to their natures. A Beast cannot be happy, nor a Star, but a Men may. These therefore had more of Divine Goodness imparted to them, and are therefore under the stronger Obligations.
2 IN the works of Providence. Herein the Goodness of God makes eminent displays of it self, and that both to the Creation universally, and to Man particularly.