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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 34 (Question 9)
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.
4. THE Newness of the Invention of Arts, •u•• further evince this. It is certain that the Arts are all of them imprinted in the Book of the Creature; and from thence it is that Men's Reasoning Power Collects them, by Observation and Experience, the Foundation of them is laid in the Nature of things, and is gathered from thence by curious inquiry: And such is the necessary use of them in the Management of Human Affairs, that Mankind could not have lived without them for an Infinite space of Time. Now it is manifest in History, who were the Inventors of these Arts. The Scripture gives us an Account of the Fathers of many of them: And it is apparent that many of them were but of Yesterday, in comparison, and have not at this Day arrived at Perfection, but have new Experiments added to them continually.
4. THE Newness of the Invention of Arts, •u•• further evince this. It is certain that the Arts are all of them imprinted in the Book of the Creature; and from thence it is that Men's Reasoning Power Collects them, by Observation and Experience, the Foundation of them is laid in the Nature of things, and is gathered from thence by curious inquiry: And such is the necessary use of them in the Management of Human Affairs, that Mankind could not have lived without them for an Infinite space of Time. Now it is manifest in History, who were the Inventors of these Arts. The Scripture gives us an Account of the Fathers of many of them: And it is apparent that many of them were but of Yesterday, in comparison, and have not at this Day arrived at Perfection, but have new Expriments added to them continually.
5. THE Succession of things will also pr••• it. We read, Eccl 1.4. One Generation pa••••• away, and another cometh—. And our constant Observation confirms it to us. Now, not only doth one Generation follow another, but one proceeds from another successively, and it is our possible that the total Collection of Generations should proceed from another by Generation, but it must needs he by Creation. There is a Succession of Hours, Days, Years, Ages; and where there is a Succession, there is no Eternity, but a Beginning: In the same Horizon, either the Day must be before the Night, or the Night before the Day, both could not coexist in the same Place; and if one be before the other then it is a Succession, and not an Eternity which is an abiding Now, without any Succession at all. If there hath been Infinite Time, then a Day must be as long as a Year; yea that this Day is not: If Infinite Days had gone before,