GENERATION. This word, besides the common acceptation of it, is used for the History and Genealogy of any man; for example, This is the book of the Generations of Adam. This is the history of Adam’s creation, and that of his posterity. These are the Gen. v. 1.Generations of the heavens and of the earth. This is a recital of the creation of Heaven and Earth. And the book of the Generation Matth. i. 1. Gen. ii. 4.of Jesus Christ the Son of David. This is the Genealogy of Jesus Christ, and the history of his Life. The Ancients sometimes computed by Generations, and the Scripture follows frequently this method. In the fourth Generation Gen. xv. 16.thy descendants shall come hither again. Joseph saw Ephraim’s Children of the third Ib. l. 22.Generation. A Bastard shall not be admitted into the Congregation till the tenth Generation, Deut. xxiii. 3. But among the Ancients, when the duration of Generations was not exactly described by the age of four men succeeding one another from father to son, it was fixed by some at an hundred years, by others at an hundred and ten, by others at thirty three, thirty, five and twenty, and even at twenty years. So that there was nothing uniform and settled in this matter. Only it is remarked, that the continuance of Generations is so much longer, as it comes nearer to the more ancient times. For example, Homer says, that Nestor lived three Generations, and that he was going on the fourth; that is to say, that he lived above three hundred years.
Matth. xxiv. 34.This Generation shall not pass away till all this is fulfilled. All who are at present living, Luke xi. 31. Ib. ix. 41. Acts ii. 40. Ps. xxxiii. 11.shall not be dead when this shall happen. There are some at this day living, who shall be witnesses of the Evils which are foretold by me. The men of this Generation, the men who are now alive. O faithless and perverse Generation! And, Save your selves from this untoward Generation, from these perverse men. To Generation and Generation, Tit. iii. 9.denotes future ages. Who shall declare his Gene- Generation? Isaiah liii. 8. Who shall relate the eternal Generation of the Messiah? Generatio Dei conservet eum, 1 Joan. v. 18. The Saints, the Predestinated who are created by God, who are his children by regeneration, live in innocence, because this regeneration, this quality of God’s children preserves and secures them from sin.