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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 31 (Question 6)
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.
I. THAT in the Divine Essence, there are certain Divine Subsistences. The word Subsistence is used, Heb. 1.3. translated Person: It signifies a standing under. Though there be but One God, yet that One God subsists in a diverse Manner; or the Essence stands under a different respect to it self: Though God be but One, yet He is more than One, he is Three; not Three Gods, but Three Manners of Being are in this One God. This Unity of Being and Plurality of Persons, are plainly asserted in, 1 Joh. 5.7. For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one. That this is so, we are therefore to believe; How it is, though many have essayed to shadow it to us by earthly Similitudes, yet none have reached it: Humane Reason must be here silent and wonder: But,
II. THESE Subsistences are distinguished from the Essence, as a relation in a being is from the being it self: Joh. 1.1. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. A Relation is less than an Essence, and yet it is more than a thing merely Rational: It is True, though it be not essential: Things differ really when there are Two Essences, Rationally, when the Difference is only in our Conception: Modally or Relatively, when the Being it self differs from the several respects that it bears: Thus a Man differs modally from himself considered as a Man, and as a Master, and as a Servant; which though it be but a dark resemblance of this great Truth, yet it is such as God accommodates us with: Thus then, tho' God the Father be God, yet He is not Father as he is God, but as he begets the Son: Hence these Relations are assigned to Him in the Concrete, and not in the Abstract: He is called Father, not Fatherhood; Eph. 1.3. Blessed be the God & Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.