[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.

Table of Contents:

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The Order in the Decree of Predestination

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I. One Simple and Immutable Act

Predestination in God is one simple and immutable act. It is not various or successive; God did not purpose one thing before another, but all at once, in the same instant of eternity. And this will be made evident if we consider:

(I.) His Simplicity

Intimated in that, Exodus 3:14: “I AM THAT I AM.” There is in him nothing past or to come, but all is present: whatsoever he decreeth, he always did and will do it; all immanent acts in God are God himself, only distinguished in our conception: God is always the same without any change.

(II.) His Eternity

His Decrees, being himself, are eternal. They are his everlasting purposes: God comprehends all things and events touching the creature together and at once in the moment of eternity, in which there is no succession, and therefore there can be no priority or posteriority in the act of decreeing.

II. Order in the Things Decreed

Though there be no order of succession in the act, yet in respect of the things decreed and in our conception, there is such an order.

(I.) In the Things Decreed

This is very observable in the connections of those things mentioned in Romans 8:30: “Moreover, whom he did predestinate, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified; and whom he justified, them he also glorified.” A man upon a high tower sees an army of men passing by at one cast of his eye; but yet there is a succession in the army, and they follow one another: God sees all things at once in the Decree in the infinite understanding of his, but the things decreed by him are put into their several ranks and orders of being: the decree is in this respect compared to writing in a book, where things are written in order (Psalm 139:16).

i. Various Objects of the Decree

There are various objects of the Decree. There were divers members to be fashioned (Psalm 139:16). There are innumerable things about which the decree is concerned, all of which it looketh upon; for whatsoever divine efficiency brings forth in time was the object of the decree in eternity, and that not only as to beings or creatures but as to all the disposures and changes that they are concerned in; every one of these had a place in this purpose.

ii. Order and Subordination