N02384:800
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.
2. THE very Order of things […] the World, proves that there can be but ONE God. There is a Plurality of second Beings, therefore there must be but One first Being. As the First can be but One, so there must be a First; for ⟨p. 95⟩where is no First, there is no Order; and where there is no Order, there can be no Goodness; for what Goodness can there be in Confusion' and where there is no Goodness there is Nothing; […].
2. THE very Order of things 〈…〉 the World, proves that there can be but ONE God. There is a Plurality of second Beings, therefore there must be but One first Being. As the First can be but One, so there must be a First; for ⟨p. 95⟩where is no First, there is no Order; and where there is no Order, there can be no Goodness; for what Goodness can there be in Confusion' and where there is no Goodness there is Nothing; 〈…〉.
3. IF there be more Gods than One, either they must be all Equal one to another, or else there must be Superiority & Inferiority between them: […] neither • these can possibly […] with right Reason […] of. If we conceive them Equal, there can be no Chief Good; we cannot call one of them so, because there is another as Good as he: and then the Attribute of the most High must •ease; for among Comparatives, there is no Superlative: If we conceive an Inequality, we cannot […] them both to be God: If there be another above Him, then He is not over all God blessed forever: He must Himself be a dependent being, and so, not an adequate Object for our Faith to rely upon: If he be acknowledged Superior to the other, then that other is a Subject weak, imperfect, and cannot be God; Supremacy being a Prerogative of the Deity. It is Fly to count Him our God, that cannot do what he will without Control, that cannot save us in despite of all Opposition.