N02384:917
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 33 (Question 8)
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.
1. THAT all Beings or Things are l•e••• optical, they can do nothing without the concourse of His Power & Efficiency. If we speak of them, as Not being; (and once they were not) what can, what could the thing. (having no Existence, not any remote principle of Essence,) contribute to its own Being, then it never thought of it self, not was any thing; not having so much as a Material Cause, out of which it might be made? Or if we speak: of the Creatures […] ready Made, being now is Act; there is a first Mover and Cause of their Actions and Operations about themselves without which they can do nothing: All Creatures are dead Cyphers, of no signification, except the Influence of God adds a Figure to them; if He mov•s them not, they lie dead, and cannot stir; they are as Pictures and Idols, that can let out no Efficacy, except he acts upon them. Sometimes the Sea flows not, and Sun shines not, the Fire doth not burn: and the Reason is because he withdraws His Efficacy from them; they are all nothing and vanity; Isa. 40.17. All nations before him are us nothing, and they are courted to him seft than nothing, and vanity.
1. THAT all Beings or Things are l•e••• ••tical, they can do nothing without the conco••se of His Power & Efficiency. If we speak of them, as Not being; (and once they were not) what can, what could the thing. (having no Existence, not any remote principle of Essence,) contribute to its own Being, then it never thought of it self, not was any thing; not having so much as a Material Cause, out of which it might be made? Or if we speal: of the Creatures 〈…〉 ready Made, being now is Act; there is a first Mover and Cause of their Actions and Operations about themselves without which they can do nothing: All Creatures are dead Cyphers, of no signification, except the Influence of God adds a Figure to them; if He mov•s them not, they ly dead, and cannot stir; they are as Pictures and Idols, that can let out no Efficacy, except he acts upon them. Sometimes the Sea flows not, and Sun shines not, the Fire doth not burn: and the Reason is because he withdraws His Efficacy from them; they are all nothing and vanity;