N02384:1810
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 68 (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.
6. THEY shall there l•se all their Hope. I confess, the hope which ungodly men in this life do build upon, is a poor, sorry, cheating thing, it is no better than a spiders web: however it gives them a great deal of present ease, and seeming refreshment, they lean upon it, and seem to be gainers by it; and when they lose it they will then know themselves to be miserable to purpose: but besides this, there is a real hope that is set before them, and offers of it are made to them, which if they did accept of would certainly make them happy. Sinners here, have not only a day of patience, but a day of grace, in which they are called to repentance, and there is a door of salvation stands open, and they please themselves with it, though they put off and neglect the improvement of it: but when once the sinner comes to hell, all this hope is lost, and swallowed up at once: their false hopes are all gone, and found to be a very cheat; the broken reed they leaned upon, runs into them, and wounds them, and breaks under them, and lets them fall: and the good hope that was offered to them is taken away, and all the grounds of it totally removed. Job 27.9. Will God hear his cry when trouble cometh upon him? For there shall never be an offer of grace made them any more.
2. POSITIVE: referring to the punishment of sense. And this consists in their suffering the perfection of all these actual miseries, to which they were subjected by the curse. This is called a being turned into hell, Psal. 9.16. because that is the place in which all these sufferings are to be undergone. But what these sufferings are, is beyond our present discovery: the joys of heaven, and the torments of hell, will never be throughly understood, till experienced: only the Scripture sets them forth so as is best suited to our present capacity, for the stirring of our affections, to engage us to be earnest in seeking to obtain the one, and escape the other. These punishments are therefore called everlasting fire,