N02384:988
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 36 (Question 9 cont.)
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] CONCERNING the Material. Principle, ca••ed […] 1. Waters & Deep, […]. 2. Take these Conclusions. (1). THERE was a P••••xisting Matter of Inconstant Natures. I mean a Matter which was first made, in ••mmon, for them all, before they had any particular Forms: so that they were not made Perfect at first, nor yet Individuated; which is the Foundation of all the Differences between Constant & Inconstant Natures: These are therefore compared to a Garment, Psal. 102.26. which is first in the Wool, &c. Hence Gen 1. we have this Matter described, v. 1, 2. God created the Earth; and the Earth was without Form & Word: And the several things that were made out of it, in the sequel. That there is such a common Matter is evident, by the Transmutation of things, as Elements, and Nutriments, which could not be if they had not one common Subject: so that the Foundation of all the Changes, and Turnings, Generations and Corruptions Beginnings & Perishings of all the Creatures in the lower World, is said in their very Creation (2.) THIS Matter was made together with the Third Heaven and Angels in the first Moment of Time. Gen. 1.1. In the Beginning God created the Heaven & the Earth, &c. because else there had been a Vacuity, an empty Place in the World, without something to fill it up; which is a Contradiction; Place being nothing but a Relation to the second Being, having but a Modal Existence, as the thing is conceived to be in it: as also because the Material Principle is durable, and remains for ever, whatever Changes the Creature goes through in its Forms. (3.) THIS Matter was at first without Form, and Void, and covered with Darkness, Gen. 1.2. And in these things it differed from the Heavens, or Constant Natures. 1. WITHOUT Form: Not that it had no Form at all; but it had no complete Act of those Potential Forms which were afterwards either educed out of it, or introduced into it: It had no F•rm, because there were no Kinds of Things Created out of it, out all lay in it, as a Mass or Lump without distinction. 2. VOID; i. e. of Inhabitants: And this follows from the former; for being without Form; it was not Habitable: There could be no Birds in the Aks, &c before there was any Air, &c. A thing must stand out of all second Causes, before it can be a Subject for another thing; but here were only two, Efficient and Matter. The two words used in the d. v.