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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.
III. THESE Subsistences are significantly called Persons: So the word Subsistence is translated, Heb. 1.3. and that word, 2 Cor. 4.6. Face, is used in that Language for a Person; and it is very Analogous. A Person in our account, is an individual Subsistence of a Rational Being: That thing which is endowed with Reason, and is an Individual, is a Person: A Beast is an Individual, but without Reason: The Soul hath Reason, but it is not an Individual: Now every manner of Being makes a distinct Person in God, because his Essence being indivisible, must be in every Manner of Being.
IV. A Divine Person may be thus Described: It is the Divine Essence subsisting under an Individual Relative Property.
Here three Things. 1. THAT the Essence & Subsistence go together to constitute a Divine Person. Subsistence adds to Substance its Individuation, or its distinct Manner of Being, and consequently it giveth Personality to Rational Substances: And we look upon God under the Notion of a Reasonable or Intellectual Being, which is the highest we can ascribe to Him. 2. THE Subsistences are so many several Relations of the God-head to it self: Our Conception of them comes under the rational Head of Relation; and therefore the Names which are given to these Persons in Scripture, are Names of Relation, and do directly point us to such a Conception of them; and tho' a Relation in the Creature do not constitute a Person, yet such Relations do hold forth such Persons in the Deity. 3. NOT a Relation alone, but a Relative Property denominates a Divine Person. It must be a particular individuating Relation; It must be proper to this Person, and distinguish Him from the other Persons; and therefore it must not be that which is common to more than One: Hence tho' there be Four Relative Affections, yet not Four Persons, because One of them is common to Two of them, viz. to Breath: And tho' there be more Properties, yet they are not Relative, and so don't Denominate a Person: Thus, not to be Begotten is a Property of the Father, but it is no Relation, and so no Person. Now a Divine Person differs from one Created in three respects, 1. EVERY Created Person hath a distinct Essence by it self; But all the Divine Persons have one and the same Essence;