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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 19 (Question 4 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.
AND from hence it follows further, 1 THAT there is nothing in him, that is past, present, or to come. For these are only the Aspects of time upon the subjects of it; all things are therefore said to be present before him. Eternity admits of no divisions; it is a standing thing: things fleet in respect of themselves, but in respect to him, he sees them in the same Everlasting Instant; he looks neither backward nor forward; things past are present with him, and so are things to come; and therefore, as the notion of present hath regard to Succession, it is not compatible to him 2. THAT he is before, after, and in all time. I confess these notions are improper, but they serve to hint something of his Eternity to us: he is before time, for he made it; hence he is called the King of Ages, 1 Tim. 1.17. He is in all time; not as a subject of it, because he co-exists with it; tho' it makes no Parenthesis in his Eternity; his being having no dependence upon it. Hence those things are improperly ascribed to him, Rev. 1.4. Which is, which •eas, and which is to come. And is after it, Isai. 44.6. Thus saith the Lord,—I am the LAST. 3. THAT he cannot wax old. For what is it that denominates a thing old, but that it hath continued for a great tract of time? But God is never more ancient than himself, nor is he otherwise, than he was when he made the world; for he had then been from Eternity. The Scripture indeed sometimes calls him the ancient of Days, and saith, there is no end of his years; but it is to suit our Conceptions, which are incapable of thinking of Eternity, but only under the notion of an Infinite Time; but he who is not a subject of time cannot be old, because age is measured by time.
AND from hence it follows further, 1 THAT there is nothing in him, that is past, present, or to come. For these are only the Aspects of time upon the subjects of it; all things are therefore said to be present before him. Eternity admits of no divisions; it is a standing thing: things fleet in respect of themselves, but in respect to him, he sees them in the same Everlasting Instant; he looks neither backward nor forward; things past are present with him, and so are things to come; and therefore, as the notion of present hath regard to Succession, it is not compatible to him 2. THAT he is before, after, and in all time. I confess these notions are improper, but they serve to hint something of his Eternity to us: he is before time, for he made it; hence he is called the King of Ages,