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. The 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:[539] 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 forever is more spoken of in Scripture than his
eternity, _à parte ante_, though that is the foundation of all the
comfort we can take from his immortality: 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”
(Ps. xciii. 2); “Blessed be God from everlasting to everlasting” (Ps.
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
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 said of time,[540] 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 hath neither beginning nor end; time hath 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 {a280} 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 ceaseth; it doth as much outrun time, as it went
before the beginning of it: time supposeth something before it; but
there can be nothing before eternity; it were not then eternity. Time
hath a continual succession; the former time passeth away and another
succeeds: the last year is 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. 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.[541] A thing is said to be eternal, or
everlasting rather, in Scripture,
1. When it is of a long duration, though it will have an end; when
it hath no measures 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
“forever” (Deut. xv. 17); _i. e._ 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); when as 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, viz., that God would be the God of
believers, endures forever; and that circumcision of the heart, which
was signified by circumcision of the flesh, shall remain forever 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 he
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 to the thing signified by them; viz., the death
of Christ, which was to endure in the efficacy of it: and the passover
was to be “forever” (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 forever conferred upon the spiritual seed of Abraham.
2. When a thing hath no end, though it hath 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 hath
neither beginning nor end; and thus eternity is a property of God.
In this doctrine I shall show, I. How God is eternal, or in what
respects eternity is his property. II. That he is eternal, and must
{a281} needs be so. III. That eternity is only proper to God, and not
common to him with any creature. IV. The use.
I. 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 everywhere, so it is his eternity to be
alway. 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 Creator
in regard of place is everywhere, in regard of time is _semper_.[542]
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.[543] As his essence comprehends all beings, and exceeds them,
and his immensity surmounts all places; so his eternity comprehends
all times, all durations, and infinitely excels them.[544]
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.[545]――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 command of the everlasting God, made known to all
nations for the obedience of faith” (Rom. xvi. 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; a fore‑ordination of him was
before the foundation of the world (John xvii. 24); 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, saith 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.[546] 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 {a282} time, there could be nothing but eternity;
nothing 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 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 doth exist, and hath 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 hath 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,
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 hath 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
forever” (Ps. 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 “live forever” (Rev. iv. 9, 10). The earth shall perish,
but God shall “endure forever,” and his “years shall have no end” (Ps.
cii. 27). Plants and animals grow up from small beginnings, arrive
to their full growth, and decline again, and have always remarkable
alterations in their nature; but there is no declination in God by all
the revolutions of time. Hence some think the incorruptibility of the
Deity was signified by the shittim, or cedar wood, whereof the ark
was made, it being of an incorruptible nature (Exod. xxv. 10). {a283}
That which had no beginning of duration can never have an end, or any
interruptions in it. Since God never depended upon any, what should
make him cease to be what eternally he hath been, or put a stop to the
continuance of his perfections? He cannot will his own destruction;
that is against universal nature in all things to cease from being, if
they can preserve themselves. He cannot desert his own being, because
he cannot but love himself as the best and chiefest good. The reason
that anything decays is either its own native weakness, or a superior
power of something contrary to it. There is no weakness in the nature
of God that can introduce any corruption, because he is infinitely
simple without any mixture; nor can he be overpowered by anything
else; a weaker cannot hurt him, and a stronger than he there cannot
be; nor can he be outwitted or circumvented, because of his infinite
wisdom.[547] As he received his being from none, so he cannot be
deprived of it by any: as he doth necessarily exist, so he doth
necessarily always exist. This, indeed, is the property of God;
nothing so proper to him as always to be. Whatsoever perfections
any being hath, if it be not eternal, it is not divine. God only is
immortal;[548] he only is so by a necessity of nature. Angels, souls,
and bodies too, after the resurrection, shall be immortal, not by
nature, but grant; they are subject to return to nothing, if that word
that raised them from nothing should speak them into nothing again.
It is as easy with God to strip them of it, as to invest them with
it; nay, it is impossible but that they should perish, if God should
withdraw his power from preserving them, which he exerted in creating
them; but God is immovably fixed in his own being; that as none
gave him his life, so none can deprive him of his life, or the
least particle of it. Not a jot of the happiness and life which God
infinitely possesses can be lost; it will be as durable to everlasting,
as it hath been possessed from everlasting.
3. There is no succession in God. God is without succession or
change. It is a part of eternity; “from everlasting to everlasting he
is God,” _i. e._ the same. God doth not only always remain in being,
but he always remains the same in that being: “thou art the same”
(Ps. cii. 27). The being of creatures is successive; the being of God
is permanent, and remains entire with all its perfections unchanged
in an infinite duration. Indeed, the first notion of eternity is to be
without beginning and end, which notes to us the duration of a being
in regard of its existence; but to have no succession, nothing first
or last, notes rather the perfection of a being in regard of its
essence. The creatures are in a perpetual flux; something is acquired
or something lost every day. A man is the same in regard of existence
when he is a man, as he was when he was a child; but there is a new
succession of quantities and qualities in him. Every day he acquires
something till he comes to his maturity; every day he loseth something
till he comes to his period. A man is not the same at night that he
was in the morning; something is expired, and something is added;
every day there is a change in his age, a change in his substance,
a change in his accidents. But God hath his whole being in one and
the same point, or moment of eternity. {a284} He receives nothing as
an addition to what he was before; he loseth nothing of what he was
before; he is always the same excellency and perfection in the same
infiniteness as ever. His years do not fail (Heb. i. 12), his years
do not come and go as others do; there is not this day, to‑morrow, or
yesterday, with him. As nothing is past or future with him in regard
of knowledge, but all things are present, so nothing is past or future
in regard of his essence. He is not in his essence this day what he
was not before, or will be the next day and year what he is not now.
All his perfections are most perfect in him every moment; before all
ages, after all ages.[549] As he hath his whole essence undivided in
every place, as well as in an immense space, so he hath all his being
in one moment of time, as well as in infinite intervals of time. Some
illustrate the difference between eternity and time by the similitude
of a tree, or a rock standing upon the side of a river, or shore
of the sea; the tree stands always the same and unmoved, while the
waters of the river glide along at the foot. The flux is in the river,
but the tree acquires nothing but a diverse respect and relation of
presence to the various parts of the river as they flow. The waters
of the river press on, and push forward one another, and what the
river had this minute, it hath not the same the next.[550] So are all
sublunary things in a continual flux. And though the angels have no
substantial change, yet they have an accidental; for the actions of
the angels this day are not the same individual actions which they
performed yesterday: but in God there is no change; he always remains
the same. Of a creature, it may be said he was, or he is, or he shall
be; of God it cannot be said but only he is.[551] He is what he always
was, and he is what he always will be; whereas a creature is what he
was not, and will be what he is not now. As it may be said of the
flame of a candle, it is a flame; but it is not the same individual
flame as was before, nor is it the same that will be presently after;
there is a continual dissolution of it into air, and a continual
supply for the generation of more. While it continues it may be said
there is a flame; yet not entirely one, but in a succession of parts.
So of a man it may be said, he is in a succession of parts; but he is
not the same that he was, and will not be the same that he is. But God
is the same, without any succession of parts and of time; of him it
may be said, “He is.” He is no more now than he was, and he shall be
no more hereafter than he is. God possesses a firm and absolute being,
always constant to himself.[552] He sees all things sliding under
him in a continual variation; he beholds the revolutions in the world
without any change of his most glorious and immovable nature. All
other things pass from one state to another; from their original,
to their eclipse and destruction; but God possesses his being in one
indivisible point, having neither beginning, end, nor middle.
(1.) There is no succession in the knowledge of God. The variety
of successions and changes in the world make not succession, or new
{a285} objects in the Divine mind; for all things are present to
him from eternity in regard of his knowledge, though they are not
actually present in the world, in regard of their existence. He doth
not know one thing now, and another anon; he sees all things at once;
“Known unto God are all things from the beginning of the world” (Acts
xv. 18); but in their true order of succession, as they lie in the
eternal council of God, to be brought forth in time. Though there be
a succession and order of things as they are wrought, there is yet no
succession in God in regard of his knowledge of them. God knows the
things that shall be wrought, and the order of them in their being
brought upon the stage of the world; yet both the things and the order
he knows by one act. Though all things be present with God, yet they
are present to him in the order of their appearance in the world,
and not so present with him as if they should be wrought at once.
The death of Christ was to precede his resurrection in order of time;
there is a succession in this; both at once are known by God; yet the
act of his knowledge is not exercised about Christ as dying and rising
at the same time; so that there is succession in things when there
is no succession in God’s knowledge of them. Since God knows time,
he knows all things as they are in time; he doth not know all things
to be at once, though he knows at once what is, has been, and will
be. All things are past, present, and to come, in regard of their
existence; but there is not past, present, and to come, in regard of
God’s knowledge of them,[553] because he sees and knows not by any
other, but by himself; he is his own light by which he sees, his own
glass wherein he sees; beholding himself, he beholds all things.
(2.) There is no succession in the decrees of God. He doth not decree
this now, which he decreed not before; for as his works were known
from the beginning of the world, so his works were decreed from the
beginning of the world; as they are known at once, so they are decreed
at once; there is a succession in the execution of them; first grace,
then glory; but the purpose of God for the bestowing of both, was
in one and the same moment of eternity. “He chose us in him before
the foundation of the world, that we should be holy” (Eph. i. 4): The
choice of Christ, and the choice of some in him to be holy and to be
happy, were before the foundation of the world. It is by the eternal
counsel of God all things appear in time; they appear in their order
according to the counsel and will of God from eternity. The redemption
of the world is after the creation of the world; but the decree
whereby the world was created, and whereby it was redeemed, was from
eternity.
(3.) God is his own eternity. He is not eternal by grant, and the
disposal of any other, but by nature and essence.[554] The eternity
of God is nothing else but the duration of God; and the duration
of God is nothing else but his existence enduring.[555] If eternity
were anything distinct from God, and not of the essence of God, then
there would be something which was not God, necessary to perfect God.
As immortality is the great perfection of a rational creature, so
eternity is the choice perfection of God, yea, the gloss and lustre of
all {a286} others. Every perfection would be imperfect, if it were not
always a perfection. God is essentially whatsoever he is, and there
is nothing in God but his essence. Duration or continuance in being
in creatures, differs from their being; for they might exist but for
one instant, in which case they may be said to have being, but not
duration, because all duration includes _prius et posterius_. All
creatures may cease from being if it be the pleasure of God; they are
not, therefore, durable by their essence, and therefore are not their
own duration, no more than they are their own existence. And though
some creatures, as angels, and souls, may be called everlasting, as
a perpetual life is communicated to them by God; yet they can never
be called their own eternity, because such a duration is not simply
necessary, nor essential to them, but accidental, depending upon the
pleasure of another; there is nothing in their nature that can hinder
them from losing it, if God, from whom they received it, should design
to take it away; but as God is his own necessity of existing, so he is
his own duration in existing; as he doth necessarily exist by himself,
so he will always necessarily exist by himself.[556]
(4.) Hence all the perfections of God are eternal. In regard of
the Divine eternity, all things in God are eternal; his power, mercy,
wisdom, justice, knowledge. God himself were not eternal if any of his
perfections, which are essential to him, were not eternal also; he had
not else been a perfect God from all eternity, and so his whole self
had not been eternal. If anything belonging to the nature of a thing
be wanting, it cannot be said to be that thing which it ought to be.
If anything requisite to the nature of God had been wanting one moment,
he could not have been said to be an eternal God.