N02384:1771
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 66 (Question 19 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.
The soul being a principle of life to it, it can live no longer than it enjoys this union: the Souls departing therefore, and dying are used synonymically, Gen. 35.18. As her soul was departing, for she died. How this separation is made, is rather a philosophical than theological enquiry; only let us observe, that as mans body was made of dissoluble principles, being elementary; so the bond of union by which that, and the Soul were conjoined was dissoluble; this bond was the vital spirits, which were the Souls vehicle, and tied it to the body, and therefore by the extinction of those spirits, the separation comes to be made: when they faint and fail, the Soul quits its lodging. Psal. 146.4. His breath goeth forth. Hebr. merit. See also, Isai. 57.16. and this is either by force, or disease. 5. BY this separation the body becomes a carcass, being deprived if all vital actions. The separation is not only the curse of death, but death itself, it being a privation; and this is the proper effect in and by which it is discerned. The scull being a constant nature, remains entire and active, and no whit impaired in it's natural powers by being separate; but the body is lifeless, senseless, begins to putrefy, rot, and resolve into it's elementary principles. Eccl. 12.7. Then shall the dust return to the earth at it was. All the powers of self-motion, vegetation, sensation, and reasoning leave it at once; they are not only impeded, or suspended; but altogether cut off; it stirs neither hand nor foot; the nutritive power is gone, and so it corrupts, sight forsakes the eyes, and hearing the ears, and there is no more knowledge in it. Eccl. 9.5. But the dead know not any thing. This is a bodily Death.
The soul being a principle of life to it, it can live no longer than it enjoys this union: the Souls departing therefore, and dying are used synonymically, Gen. 35.18. As her soul was departing, for she died. How this separation is made, is rather a philosophical than theological enquiry; only let us observe, that as mans body was made of dissoluble principles, being elementary; so the bond of union by which that, and the Soul were conjoyned was dissoluble; this bond was the vital spirits, which were the Souls vehicle, and tied it to the body, and therefore by the extinction of those spirits, the separation comes to be made: when they faint and fail, the Soul quits its lodging.