[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. (Boston in New-England: :: Printed by B. Green and S. Kneeland for B. Eliot and D. Henchman, and sold at their shops: 1726)]
The Reverend Samuel Willard (1640–1707), born the thirty-first of January, 1640, at Concord in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, was the sixth son of Major Simon Willard, a godly founder of that settlement, and Mary Sharpe, his pious consort, both of English extraction. Educated at Harvard College, where he attained his degree of Master of Arts in the year of our Lord 1659, Willard was from his youth inclined to the study of Divinity, esteeming the knowledge of Christ and the service of His Church above all earthly honors. Ordained to the sacred ministry at Groton in 1664, he did faithfully labor among that frontier people until, in God’s providence, the devastations of King Philip’s War compelled his removal. Thereafter, in 1678, he was called by the Third Church in Boston to be their teaching elder, where, upon the decease of Rev. Thomas Thacher, he became sole pastor and a light to many eminent families of the colony. In all things, Willard was a zealous defender of Reformed orthodoxy, steadfast in the covenantal theology of the Puritans, yet prudent and discerning, as notably manifested in his charitable skepticism during the lamentable witchcraft delusions of 1692. His labors extended to the academy, for from 1701 until his death in 1707, he served as acting President of Harvard College, laboring to preserve sound doctrine in the instruction of youth. His chief literary legacy, A Compleat Body of Divinity (1726), remains a monument of New England scholasticism, wherein the truths of Scripture are methodically set forth. Samuel Willard, thrice a husband and always a faithful shepherd, entered into his eternal rest in Cambridge, leaving a legacy of piety, prudence, and learned zeal for the cause of Christ in the wilderness.
Table of Contents:
<aside>
</aside>
Take this description: Predestination is the Decree of God for the manifestation of his special glory in the eternal state of men. That this may be distinctly elucidated, let us observe:
We have this word used in Romans 8:30: “Moreover, whom he did predestinate, them he also called.” And in Ephesians 1:5,11: “Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will. In whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will.”
The word signifies to define, determine, or appoint a thing beforehand; and it compriseth in it the bounds set to it, the end it is designed for, and the means by which it is to attain it: hence it is translated “foredetermined” in Acts 4:28.
Predestination is a certain designation of a thing in respect both to the end and means, which, because it was with God before the existence of things, is called Predestination.
It is true the word in the places cited is applied to Election; but it is as a genus predicated of one species, and there are words of a like import applied to the other, as in Jude 4: “For there are certain men crept in unawares, who were before of old ordained to this condemnation.” Greek: προγεγραμμένοι (progegrammenoi), meaning “before written,” a metaphor from records.
That there is such a Predestination as is here described may be inferred from the wisdom of God, which would not make a creature but for an end; so it could not but assign to each an end according to its make, as will be further made to appear in the sequel.
It is the Decree of God, and so it agrees with his other Decrees. It is true, if we speak of God decreeing, the decree is but one; but on account of the things decreed, it is manifold; for in it is the whole contrivance of all the works of creation and providence, referring to all kinds and individuals; and since the executions are various, there must needs be the same variety in the contrivance, since all things are done according to that exemplar, Ephesians 1:11: “Who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will.”
Whatsoever then hath been already mentioned formerly referring to the Decree in general is here applicable. All the attributes which shine forth in the Decree are here most illustrious: infinite wisdom in the contrivance (Romans 11:33), sovereign freedom of will in the determination (Romans 9:18), immutability in the ratification (2 Timothy 2:19).
For explication whereof, observe: