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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 29 (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. THAT this Decree is an Act of his Will. I• God we conceive some Acts to be Immanent, others Transient; to the former belongs his Decree, which is nothing else but his Will as it respects the Works of Efficiency; and this is an Eternal Act, in which he hath resolved with Himself what to do, and there is nothing comes to pass, which was not first in this Purpose; Hence that, Eph. 1.11. In whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will. i. e. He took counsel of no other but his own Will.
2. THAT this Decree is an Act of his Will. I• God we conceive some Acts to be Immanent, others Transcient; to the former belongs his Decree, which is nothing else but his Will as it respects the Works of Efficiency; and this is an Eternal Act, in which he hath resolved with Himself what to do, and there is nothing comes to pass, which was not first in this Purpose; Hence that, Eph. 1.11. In whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will. i. e. He took counsel of no other but his own Will.
3. THAT this Will of his is determinate, fixed, immutable: the Decree is sometimes called his Word• for what he hath, as it were said in himself, that he will do; and herein is the Truth of this Word, that he stands to his own Purposes, and never alters them, Job 23.13. But it is in […] mind, and […] can turn him? and what his […] desireth, ever that he doeth. God's Decrees are not Conditional but Absolute: He hath indeed Decreed Conditions or Connections between things; but he hath not Connected any dependent undetermined Conditions between things, but he hath fixed them: the Conditions of things are but Mee in his Decrees, and only intend, that he will bring about such Ends, by such Means; and having once purposed, he never varies: He engageth to himself, that thus he will do, and he stands to his Word: But of this more in the Doctrine of the Decree.