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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 32 (Question 7)
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 Influence which this Decree hath upon the Subject; it Fore-ordains Them; it Pre-determines Them. There are a vast Company of Possible Beings in the Knowledge or Understanding of God; the Decree appoints which of them shall be; and therefore by it they pass from Possibility to Futurition: And it appoints, not only their Being, but the Manner of their Production, the Time, the Means; and all this Before-hand: Hence that Acts 2.23. and Chap. 4.27, 28. For of a truth against thy holy child Jesus, whom thou hast anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles and the people of Israel were gathered together, For to do whatsoever thy hand and thy counsel determined before to be done. And this Ordination is a Firm and Immutable Determination; and therefore in the Execution of them God's Constancy discovers it self: In all that He doth, he stands by his Decree: What He hath once purposed he never alters, or goes from in the least, Numb. 23.19. God is not a man, that he should lie, neither the son of man that he should repent: hath he said, and shall he not do it? or hath he spoken and shall he not make it good? (Rom. 11.29. Psal. 102.27.) Prov. 19.21. There are many devices in a man's heart; nevertheless the counsel of the Lord, that shall stand. And the Reason of it will anon appear.
(3.) THE Freedom or Liberty which God used in making this Decree; He did it according to the Counsel of his Will, Eph. 1.11. And here are Two Perfections or Attributes of God, which eminently appear in this Decree: