number of years applied to it. We may afcend as high as we please, and employ our Being to that eternity which is to come, in adding millions of years to millions of years, and we can never come up to any fountain-head of duration, to any beginning in eternity: But at the fame time we are fure, that whatever was once prefent does lie within the reach of numbers, though perhaps we can never be able to put enough of them together for that purpose. We may as well fay, that any thing may be actually prefent in any part of infinite space, which does not lie at a certain distance from us, as that any part of infinite duration was once actually prefent, and does not alfo lie at fome determined diftance from us. The distance in both cafes may be immeasurable and indefinite, as to our faculties, but our reafon tells us that it cannot be fo in itself. Here therefore is that difficulty which human understanding is not capable of furmounting. We are fure that fomething must have exifted from eternity, and are at the fame time unable to conceive, that any thing which exists, according to our notion of existence, can have existed from eternity.

It

It is hard for a reader, who has not rolled this thought in his own mind, to follow in fuch an abstracted fpeculation; but I have been the longer on it, because I think it is a demonftrative argument of the Being and Eternity of a God: And tho' there are many other demonstrations which lead us to this great truth, I do not think we ought to lay afide any proofs in this matter which the light of reafon has fuggefted to us, efpecially when it is fuch a one as has been urged by men famous for their penetration and force of understanding, and which appears altogether conclufive to thofe who will be at the pains to examine it.

Having thus confidered that eternity which is paft, acoording to the best idea we can frame of it, I fhall now draw up those several articles on this fubject which are dictated to us by the light of reason, and which may be looked upon as the Creed of a Philofopher in this great point.

First, It is certain that no Being could have made itfelf; for if fo, it must have acted before it was, which is a contradiction.

Secondly, That therefore fome Being must have existed from all eternity.

Thirdly,

Thirdly, That whatever exists after the manner of created Beings, or according to any notions which we have of Existence, could not have existed from Eternity.

Fourthly, That this eternal Being must therefore be the great Author of nature, The Ancient of Days, who, being at an infinite distance in his perfections from all finite and created Beings, exifts in a quite different manner from them, and in a manner of which they can have no idea.

I know that feveral of the School-men who would not be thought ignorant of any thing, have pretended to explain the manner of God's exiftence, by telling us, that he comprehends infinite, duration in every moment; that eternity is with him a punctum ftans, a fixed point; or, which is as good Senfe, an infinite inftant; That nothing with reference to his Exiftence is either past or to come: To which the ingenious Mr. Cowley alludes in his description of Heaven,

Nothing is there to come, and nothing past, But an eternal Now does always last.

For my own part I look upon these propofitions as words that have no ideas. annexed to them; and think men had better own their ignorance, than advance Doctrines

Doctrines by which they mean nothing, and which indeed are felf-contradictory. We cannot be too modeft in our dif quifitions, when we meditate on Him who is invironed with fo much glory and perfection, who is the fource of Being, the fountain of all that existence which we and his whole Creation derive from him. Let us therefore with the utmoft humility acknowledge, that as fome Being muft neceffarily have exifted from eternity, fo this Being does exift after an incomprehenfible manner, fince it is impoffible for a Being to have exifted from eternity after our manner or notions of existence. velation confirms thefe natural tates of reafon in the accounts which it gives us of the Divine Existence, where it tells us, that he is the fame yesterday, to-day, and for ever; that he is the Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and the Ending; that a thoufand years are with him as one day, and one day as a thousand years; by which and the like expreffions we are taught, that his existence, with relation to time or duration, is infinitely different from the Existence of any of his creatures, and confequently that it is impoffible for

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us

us to frame any adequate conceptions of

it.

In the first revelation which he makes of his own Being, he intitles himself, I am that I am; and when Mofes defires to know what name he fhall give him in his embaffy to Pharaoh, he bids him fay that I am hath fent you. Our great Creator, by this revelation of himself, does in a manner exclude every thing else from a real Exiftence, and diftinguishes himself from his creatures, as the only Being which truly and really exifts. The ancient Platonic notion, which was drawn from fpeculations of eternity, wonderfully agrees with this revelation which God has made of himself, There is nothing, fay they, which in reality exists, whofe existence, as we call it, is pieced up of past, present and to come.

Such

a flitting and fucceffive Existence is rather a fhadow of Existence, and fomething which is like it, than Existence itfelf. He only properly exifts whofe Exiftence is entirely prefent; that is, in other words, who exifts in the most perfect manner, and in fuch a manner as we have no idea of.

I fhall conclude this fpeculation with one useful inference. How can we fufficiently