[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; (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.

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.

<aside>

The Efficient Cause: Good Pleasure of God

</aside>

The only efficient cause of this Predestination is the good pleasure of God. This we have already observed in the first cause of man’s restitution, and that both as to the thing itself and the proper subjects of it. It must needs then be so in the designation of it: the moving cause of divine Predestination is not to be found anywhere out of God (Exodus 33:19). The holy Scripture resolves it all into his sole will. There are two expressions in Ephesians 1:5,11 which assure us that this Predestination is founded in the good pleasure of God:

(1) It is called the good pleasure of his will, v. 5, by virtue of which he disposeth all things arbitrarily; so Christ acknowledgeth in Matthew 11:25.

(2) The counsel of his will, v. 11, whereby though he doth things arbitrarily, yet not unadvisedly; there was a counsel about it, and therefore it is devised beforehand.

And hence, though it be an immanent act, yet it is not a necessary act, but properly voluntary: there are acts that we ascribe to God which are natural and so necessary, such as active generation or the eternal begetting of the Son, and the procession of the Holy Spirit: but God might from eternity have willed otherwise than he did in this Decree. He was under no obligation to this more than to that, antecedently to his purpose: hence also his Decree doth not presume any quality foreseen in the creature for which it so determineth concerning it; because it is eternal; for if it should presume any such qualities and proceed according to them, their futurition should be before the Decree itself, and so we must seek a higher reason for them, which is impossible to find.