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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.
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.
1. HIS Goodness is great towards the Creation universally. All Creatures partake in his Providential Goodness, all kinds of Creatures, and that individually too; and there are two things especially in which it appears: 1. IN the Sustentation which he affords unto them. The whole Creation is a dependent thing; the Creature now made cannot stand alone, but must be held up: as it had its Being of nothing, so that Being would retire into nothing again, if he did not uphold it by the right hand of his Power; the Divine manutenency is a continued Creation, it is that which keeps things in their Existence, and conserves their Essence: should God for one moment withdraw this hand of his, or pluck it from underneath the second Being, it would in that very moment sink into the abyss of non-entity, and suffer an entire Annihilation; Heb. 1.3.— Upholding all things by the word of his power—. If therefore it be a fruit of Goodness to be, it must needs be Goodness that affords continuation to that Being. 2. IN the Care which he useth to provide for his Creatures preservation. Both the supplies themselves, and the influence by which they are efficacious to the attaining this end, flow from this Goodness of God. The Creature is a shiftless thing, nor is its good in its own hands; without supply it would soon perish. The very instinct by which irrational things purvey for themselves, is of him; but that is not all; it is he that keeps the wheels of second Causes on going, so that provision is continually made for the maintenance of the Creatures; and he it is that brings it to them when thus provided. He is the Father of this great Family, and that he sees not only to the supply of some more excellent members of it, but of the least and most despicable, so that no one is forgotten, commends his universal Goodness to us; Psal. 104.27, 28. These wait all upon thee: that thou may•• give there their next in due season. That thou givest them, they gather: that openest thine bund, they are filled with good. Even the ravens, yea, the young ravens are thus looked after by him,