“From everlasting to everlasting thou art God.” Psalm 90:2
1. I would fain speak of that awful subject, — eternity. But how can we grasp it in our thought It is so vast, that the narrow mind of man is utterly unable to comprehend it. But does it not bear some affinity to another incomprehensible thing, — immensity May not space, though an unsubstantial thing, be compared with another unsubstantial thing, — duration But what is immensity It is boundless space. And what is eternity It is boundless duration.
2. Eternity has generally been considered as divisible into two parts; which have been termed eternity a parte ante, and eternity a parte post, — that is, in plain English, that eternity which is past, and that eternity which is to come. And does there not seem to be an intimation of this distinction in the text “Thou art God from everlasting:” — Here is an expression of that eternity which is past: “To everlasting:” — Here is an expression of that eternity which is to come. Perhaps, indeed, some may think it is not strictly proper to say, there is an eternity that is past. But the meaning is easily understood: We mean thereby duration which had no beginning; as by eternity to come, we mean that duration which will have no end.
3. It is God alone who (to use the exalted language of Scripture) “inhabiteth eternity,” in both these senses. The great Creator alone (not any of his creatures) is “from everlasting to everlasting:” His duration alone, as it had no beginning, so it cannot have any end. On this consideration it is, that one speaks thus, in addressing Immanuel, God with us: —
Hail, God the Son, with glory crown’d Ere time began to be; Throned with thy Sire through half the round Of wide eternity!
And again: —
Hail, God the Son, with glory crown’d Ere time shall cease to be; Throned with the Father through the round Of whole eternity!
4. “Ere time began to be.” — But what is time It is not easy to say, as frequently as we have had the word in our mouth. We know not what it properly is. We cannot well tell how to define it. But is it not, in some sense, a fragment of eternity, broken off at both ends — that portion of duration which commenced when the world began, which will continue as long as this world endures, and then expire for ever — that portion of it, which is at present measured by the revolution of the sun and planets; lying (so to speak) between two eternities, that which is past, and that which is to come. But as soon as the heavens and the earth flee away from the face of Him that sitteth on the great white throne, time will be no more; but sink for ever into the ocean of eternity!
5. But by what means can a mortal man, the creature of a day, form any idea of eternity What can we find within the compass of nature to illustrate it by With what comparison shall we compare it What is there that bears any resemblance to it Does there not seem to be some sort of analogy between boundless duration and boundless space The great Creator, the infinite Spirit, inhabits both the one and the other. This is one of his peculiar prerogatives: “Do not I fill heaven and earth, saith the Lord” — yea, not only the utmost regions of creation, but all the expanse of boundless space! Meantime, how many of the children of men may say,
Lo, on a narrow neck of land, ‘Midst two unbounded seas I stand, Secure, insensible! A point of time, a moments’ space, Removes me to that heavenly place, Or shuts me up in hell!
6. But leaving one of these unbounded seas to the Father of eternity, to whom alone duration without beginning belongs, let us turn our thoughts on duration without end. This is not an incommunicable attribute of the great Creator; but he has been graciously pleased to make innumerable multitudes of his creatures partakers of it. He has imparted this not only to angels, and archangels, and all the companies of heaven, who are not intended to die, but to glorify him, and live in his presences for ever; but also to the inhabitants of the earth, who dwell in houses of clay. Their bodies, indeed, are “crushed before the moth;” but their souls will never die, God made them, as an ancient writer speaks, to be “pictures of his own eternity.” Indeed all spirits, we have reason to believe, are clothed with immortality; having no inward principle of corruption, and being liable to no external violence.
7. Perhaps we may go a step farther still: Is not matter itself, as well as spirit, in one sense eternal Not indeed a parte ante, as some senseless philosophers, both ancient and modern, have dreamed. Not that anything had existed from eternity; seeing, if so, it must be God; yea, it must by the One God; for it is impossible there should be two Gods, or two Eternals. But although nothing beside the great God can have existed from everlasting, — none else can be eternal a parte ante; yet there is no absurdity in supposing that all creatures are eternal a parte post. All matter indeed is continually changing, and that into ten thousand forms; but that it is changeable, does in nowise imply that it is perishable. The substance may remain one and the same, though under innumerable different forms. It is very possible any portion of matter may be resolved into the atoms of which it was originally composed: But what reason have we to believe that one of these atoms ever was, or ever will be, annihilated It never can, unless by the uncontrollable power of its almighty Creator. And is it probable that ever He will exert this power in unmaking any of the things that he hath made In this also, God is not “a son of man that he should repent.” Indeed, every creature under heaven does, and must, continually change its form, which we can now easily account for; as it clearly appears, from late discoveries, that ethereal fire enters into the composition of every part of the creation. Now, this is essentially edax rerum: It is the universal menstruum, the discohere of all things under the sun. By the force of this, even the strongest, the firmest bodies are dissolved. It appears from the experiment repeatedly made by the great Lord Bacon, that even diamonds, by a high degree of heat, may be turned into dust: and that, in a still higher degree, (strange as it may seem,) they will totally flame away. Yea, by this the heavens themselves will be dissolved; “the elements shall melt with fervent heat.” But they will be only dissolved, not destroyed; they will belt, but they will not perish. Though they lose their present form, yet not a particle of them will ever lose its existence; but every atom of them will remain, under one form or other, to all eternity.