N02384:798
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 30 (Question 5)
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.
And therefore the wisest of Heathen Parts and Philosophers have believed this Assertion, and spoken it as far as they durst to avoid the Severity of their Laws, whilst they have taught that all things must needs proceed from One First Cause, who is the Efficient, and prime Mover of them: Yea, Socrates spake i• so plain that he died for it: and Plato hardly escaped the Ostracism. Among many Evidences, convictive of this, let a few suffice.
1. THE First Being can be but One. Reason saith, that if there be a Second, there must be a First; for all Number begins in an Unity, and to say there are two firsts, is a Contradiction in the Nature of things▪ Equality and Priority are inconsistent to the same Subject: Now it is one of the Divine Properties to be First: And from thence God Himself argues […] being alone; Isa. 44.6. Thus saith the Lord the king of Israel, and his redeemer the Lord of hosts, I am the first, and I am the last, and besides […] there is no God.
1. THE First Being can be but One. Reason saith, that if there be a Second, there must be a First; for all Number begins in an Unity, and to say there are two firsts, is a Contradiction in the Nature of things▪ Equality and Priority are inconsistent to the same Subject: Now it is one of the Divine Properties to be First: And from thence God Himself argues 〈…〉 being alone; Isa. 44.6. Thus saith the Lord the king of Israel, and his redeemer the Lord of hosts, I am the first, and I am the last, and besides 〈…〉 there is no God.