eternal God: it takes in both parts of eternity, what was before the creation of the world, and what is after. Though the eternity of God be one permanent state without succession, yet the Spirit of God suiting himself to the weakness of our conception, divides it into two parts, one passed before the foundation of the world, another to come after the destruction of the world; as he did exist before all ages, and as he will exist after all ages.

Many truths lie couched in the verse.

The world has a beginning of being. It was not from eternity, it was once nothing; had it been of a very long duration, some records would have remained of some memorable actions done of a longer date than any extant. The world owes its being to the creating power of God. "Thou hadst formed it" out of nothing into being. Thou, that is, God. It could not spring into being of itself; it was nothing; it must have a former. God was in being before the world. The cause must be before the effect; that word which gives being must be before that which receives being. This Being was from eternity, "from everlasting."-This Being shall endure to eternity, "to everlasting." There is but one God, one Eternal; "from everlasting to everlasting thou art God." None else but one has the property of eternity: the gods of the heathen cannot lay claim to it.

The

Doctrine. God is of an eternal duration. The eternity of God is the foundation of the stability of the covenant, the great comfort of a Christian. The design of God in Scripture is to set forth his dealing with men in the way of a covenant. priority of God before all things begins the Bible: "In the beginning God created," Gen. i. 1. His covenant can have no foundation, but in his duration before and after the world.1 And Moses here mentions his eternity, not only with respect to the essence of God, but to his federal providence:-as he is the dwelling-place of his people in all generations. The duration of God for ever, is more spoken of in Scripture than his eternity a parte ante, that is, eternity past; though that is the foundation of all the comfort we can take from his immortality: for if he had a beginning, he might have an end; and so all our happiness, hope, and being would expire with him; but the Scripture sometimes takes notice of his being without beginning as well as without end. "Thou art from everlasting," Psal. xciii. 2. "Blessed be the Lord God of Israel from ever lasting, and to everlasting," Psal. xli. 13. "I was set up from everlasting," Prov. viii. 23. If his wisdom were from everlasting, himself was from everlasting. Whether we understand it of Christ the Son of God, or of the essential wisdom of

1 Calv. in loc.

God, it is all one to the present purpose. The wisdom of God supposeth the essence of God, as habits in creatures suppose the being of some power or faculty as their subject. The wisdom of God supposeth mind and understanding, essence and substance.

The notion of eternity is difficult, as Austin said1 of time: "If no man will ask me the question what time is, I know well enough what it is; but if any ask me what it is, I know not how to explain it." So may I say of eternity; it is easy in the word pronounced, but hardly understood, and more hardly expressed; it is better expressed by negative than positive words.

Though we cannot comprehend eternity, yet we may comprehend that there is an eternity; as, though we cannot comprehend the essence of God, what he is, yet we may comprehend that he is; we may understand the notion of his existence, though we cannot understand the infiniteness of his nature. Yet we may better understand eternity than infiniteness; we can better conceive a time with the addition of numberless days and years, than imagine a being without bounds: whence the apostle joins his eternity with his power; "his eternal power and godhead," Rom. i. 20. Because next to the power of God apprehended in the creature, we come necessarily by reasoning to acknowledge the eternity of God. He that hath an incomprehensible power, must needs have an eternity of nature. His power is most sensible in the creatures to the eye of man, and his eternity easily from thence deducible by the reason of man. Eternity is a perpetual duration, which has neither beginning nor end. Time has both. Those things we say are in time, that have beginning, grow up by degrees, have succession of parts. Eternity is contrary to time, and is therefore a permanent and immutable state; a perfect possession of life without any variation. It comprehends in itself all years, all ages, all periods of ages: it never begins! It endures after every duration of time, and never ceases; it does as much outrun time as it went before the beginning of it. Time supposes something before it, but there can be nothing before eternity; it were not then eternity. Time has a continual succession; the former time passes away, and another succeeds; the year not this year, nor this year the next. We must conceive of eternity contrary to the notion of time; as the nature of time consists in the succession of parts, so the nature of eternity in an infinite immutable duration.2 Eternity and time differ as the sea and rivers: the sea never changes place, and is always one water; but the rivers glide along, and are swallowed up in the sea; so is time by eternity.

A thing is said to be eternal, or everlasting rather, in Scripture, 2 Moulin. Coo. 1. Ser. 2. p. 52.

Consul. Lib. 11. Confes. 15.

When it is of a long duration, though it will have an end; when it has no measure of time determined to it; so circumcision is said to be in the flesh for an everlasting covenant, Gen. xvii. 13; not purely everlasting, but so long as that administration of the covenant should endure.

And so when a servant would not leave his master, but would have his ear bored, it is said, he should be a servant for ever, Deut. xv. 17, that is, till the jubilee, which was every fiftieth year. So the meat-offering they were to offer, is said to be perpetual, Lev. vi. 20. Canaan is said to be given to Abraham for an everlasting possession, Gen. xvii. 8, whereas the Jews are expelled from Canaan, which is given a prey to the barbarous nations. Indeed circumcision was not everlasting; yet the substance of the covenant whereof this was a sign, namely, that God would be the God of believers, endures for ever; and that circumcision of the heart which was signified by circumcision of the flesh, shall remain for ever in the kingdom of glory; it was not so much the lasting of the sign, as of the thing signified by it, and the covenant sealed by it: the sign had its abolition, so that the apostle is so peremptory in it, that asserts, that if any went about to establish it, he excluded himself from a participation of Christ, Gal. v. 2. The sacrifices were to be perpetual, in regard of the thing signified by them, namely, the death of Christ, which was to endure in the efficacy of it; and the passover was to be for ever, Exod. xii. 24, in regard of the redemption signified by it, which was to be of everlasting remembrance. Canaan was to be an everlasting possession in regard of the glory of heaven typified, to be for ever conferred upon the spiritual seed of Abraham.-Again,

he

When a thing has no end, though it has a beginning. So angels and souls are everlasting; though their being shall never cease, yet there was a time when their being began; they were nothing before they were something, though they shall never be nothing again, but shall live in endless happiness or misery.

But that properly is eternal that has neither beginning nor end; and thus eternity is a property of God. In this doctrine I shall show-How God is eternal, or in what respects eternity is his property.-That he is eternal, and must be so.--That eternity is proper only to God, and not common to him with any creature. -The use of the whole.

1. How God is eternal, or in what respects he is so. Eternity is a negative attribute, and is a denying of God any measures of time, as immensity is a denying of him any bounds of place. As immensity is the diffusion of his essence, so eternity is the duration of his essence. And when we say God is eternal, we exclude from him all possibility of beginning and ending, all flux and change: as the essence of God cannot be bounded by

any place, so it is not to be limited by any time; as it is his immensity to be every where, so it is his eternity to be always. As created things are said to be somewhere in regard of place, and to be present, past, or future, in regard of time, so the Cretor, in regard of place, is every where; in regard of time, is semper-always: his duration is as endless as his essence is boundless. He always was, and always will be, and will no more have an end than he had a beginning; and this is an excellency belonging to the Supreme Being: as his essence comprehends all beings and exceeds them, and his immensity surmounts all places;3 so his eternity comprehends all times, all durations, and infinitely excels them.

2

(1.) God is without beginning.

In the beginning God created the world, Gen. i. 1. God was then before the beginning of it; and what point can be set wherein God began, if he were before the beginning of created things? God was without beginning, though all other things had time and beginning from him. As unity is before all numbers, so is God before all his creatures. Abraham called upon the name of the everlasting God, Gen. xxi. 33; the eternal God: it is opposed to the heathen gods, which were but of yesterday, new coined, and so new; but the eternal God was before the world was made. In that sense it is to be understood. "The mystery, which was kept secret since the world began, but now is made manifest, and by the Scriptures of the prophets, according to the commandment of the everlasting God, made known to all nations for the obedience of faith," Rom. xvi. 25, 26. The gospel is not preached by the command of a new and temporary God, but of that God that was before all ages: though the manifestation of it be in time, yet the purpose and resolve of it was from eternity.

If there were decrees before the foundation of the world, there was a Decreer before the foundation of the world. Before the foundation of the world he loved Christ as a Mediator, John xvii. 24: a foreordination of him was before the foundation of the world: a choice of men, and therefore a chooser, before the foundation of the world, Eph. i. 4; a grace given in Christ before the world began, 2 Tim. i. 9, and therefore a donor of that grace. From those places, says Crellius, it appears that God was before the foundation of the world, but they do not assert an absolute eternity; but to be before all creatures, is equivalent to his being from eternity. Time began with the foundation of the world, but God being before time, could have no beginning in time: before the beginning of the creation and the beginning of time, there could be nothing but eternity; no1 Gassend. 2 Crellius de Deo, cap. 18. p. 41. 3 Lingend. tom. 2. p. 496. 4 Coccei. Sum. Theol. p. 48. Gerhard, Exeges, cap. 86. 4. p. 266.

thing but what was uncreated, that is, nothing but what was without beginning. To be in time, is to have a beginning; to be before all time, is never to have a beginning, but always to be: for as between the Creator and creatures there is no medium, so between time and eternity there is no medium. It is as easily deduced, that he that was before all creatures is eternal, as he that made all creatures is God: if he had a beginning, he must have it from another, or from himself; if from another, that from whom he received his being would be better than he, so more a God than he. He cannot be God that is not supreme; he cannot be supreme that owes his being to the power of another: he would not be said only to have immortality as he is, 1 Tim. vi. 16, if he had it dependent upon another. Nor could he have a beginning from himself: if he had given a beginning to himself, then he was once nothing, there was a time when he was not; if he was not, how could he be the cause of himself? It is impossible for any to give a beginning and being to itself. If it acts, it must exist; and so exist before it existed; a thing would exist as a cause before it existed as an effect. He that is not, cannot be the cause that he is. If therefore God does exist, and has not his being from another, he must exist from eternity: therefore when we say God is of and from himself, we mean not that God gave being to himself; but it is negatively to be understood that he has no cause of existence without himself.

Whatsoever number of millions of millions of years we can imagine before the creation of the world, yet God was infinitely before those: he is therefore called the Ancient of days, Dan. vii. 9, as being before all days and time, and eminently containing in himself all times and ages; though indeed God cannot properly be called ancient, for that will testify that he is decaying, and shortly will not be, no more than he can be called young, which would signify that he was not long before. All created things are new and fresh; but no creature can find out any beginning of God: it is impossible there should be any beginning of him.

(2.) God is without end. He always was, always is, and always will be what he is; he remains always the same in being; so far from any change, that no shadow of it can touch him, James i. 17. He will continue in being as long as he has already enjoyed it; and if we could add never so many millions of years together, we are still as far from an end as from a beginning; for "the Lord shall endure for ever," Psal. ix. 7. As it is impossible he should not be, being from all eternity; so it is impossible that he should not be to all eternity. The Scripture is most plentiful in testimonies of this eternity of God, à parte post, or after the creation of the world. He is said to VOL. I.-40