N02384:941
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.
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, ⟨p. 109⟩they could never have come to an end, to make room for the Introduction of This Day; yea Yesterday, this Day, and to Morrow would be the same; which things are meerO••tradictions.
6. THE Corruption also of things in the World. d•th […] that it had a Beginning. For of things had not a Beginning, how could they End: Now in this World we see things are daily Corrupted; Men and other Creatures are going to their Dissolution: Time and Change are Com•••itants, Eternal things are Immutable […] •••t which hath a Death, had a Earth, the• which goes did come; fleeing things are Tem••••••, dissoluble things were set together; and we are told of the very Earth and •en, what they we like to come in tho' for the present they seem to abide through all these Changes, 2. Pet 3.10. but the day of the Lord will come as a chief on the night; in the which the been shed pass ry with a great se, and the […] shall me serve bear, the earth also, and the works th are therein shall be […] up. If then the World had a Beginning it was Created; and this will se further appear in the sequel of this Discourse.