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moral Excellencies, his Wisdom, Goodnefs, Holiness, Juftice, and Truth. To resemble him in these is the highest Glory and Felicity of our Nature, and the greater Advances we make in fuch a Conformity to the Deity, the more will he delight in us, and the more meet shall we be rendered for that bleffed State, where we hope fo to behold his Face in Righteoufnefs, as to be perfectly fatisfied with his Likeness.

On

On the Eternity of God.

DISCOURSE IV.

PSALM XC. 2.

Before the Mountains were brought forth, or ever thou hadst formed the Earth, or the World, even from everlasting to everlasting thou art God.

IT

T is of high Importance to us, to endeavour to get our Minds habitually filled and poffeffed with just and exalted Sentiments of the Supreme Being. For these have a natural Tendency to produce in us devout Affections and Difpofitions towards him, and thereby lay a Foundation for a holy and virtuous Practice. Some of the divine Attributes, efpecially his amiable

moral

moral Excellencies, are of fuch a Nature, that they are proposed to us as the Objects of our Imitation; and to afpire to a Conformity to him in them, as far as we are capable of attaining to it, is our Privilege and Glory as well as Duty. But there are others of the divine Attributes with regard to which he is not fo properly to be imitated as adored. Such is the Eternity of God, which, if rightly confidered, tendeth to fill our Minds with the profoundest Veneration of the Deity, and is capable of being improved to the most excellent Purposes of Religion. This is what I propofe now to confider. And a humble Modefty becometh us when treating on this glorious Subject, left we darken Counfel by Words without Knowledge. If we fet ourselves feriously to contemplate it, our Thoughts are foon fwallowed up in a vaft and unfearchable Abyss. Something however we may ufefully offer concerning it, following the Light which the Scripture affordeth us, and which is perfectly agreeable to the foundest Reason.

By the Eternity of God we are to underftand the Duration of the divine Exiftence; and as his Being is infinite and boundlefs, fo is the Duration of it infinite. too. There are various Ways of Expreffion made ufe of in Scripture to help us in

our Conceptions concerning it. Though after all, the fublimeft Conceptions we can form, and the nobleft Expreffions that Language can afford, muft needs fall vaftly fhort, and muft terminate in a profound and awful Admiration.

There is scarce any Paffage in the facred Writings in which the Eternity of God is defcribed in a fublimer Manner than in that which I have chofen for the Subject of this Difcourfe. Mofes, as appeareth from the Title, was the Penman of this Pfalm. And he begins his Meditations on the Shortnefs and Uncertainty of human Life, which is what he principally infifteth upon, with the Contemplation of God's Eternity, which he thus admirably describeth. Before the Mountains were brought forth, or ever thou hadst formed the Earth, or the World, even from everlafting to everlafting thou art God. We are wont to divide Eternity in our Thoughts into that which is paft, and which was without Beginning, and that which is to come, and which fhall never have an End. Neither the one nor the other of these is to be fully comprehended by any finite Underftanding. But in whichfoever of these Views we confider it, whether we look back to the eternal. Duration' which passed before we ourselves, or the World had an

Existence,

Existence, or look forward to the vaft un limited Duration which is yet to come; God equally filleth and poffeffeth it all. From everlasting to everlasting thou art God.

It is to fignify God's Eternity that he is introduced as declaring concerning himfelf; Before me there was no God formed, neither fhall there be after me. Ifa. xliii. 10. And again, I am the firft, and I am the laft, and befides me there is no God. Ifa. xliv. 6. He is the first original Cause of all; from him all other Beings derive their Existence,, and on him they absolutely depend; and therefore he alone is properly and effentially God.

Another Manner of Expreffion which is made use of in Scripture in Condefcenfion to our Capacities, to defcribe God's Eternity, is, that he is reprefented under the Character of him which is, and which was, and which is to come. Rev. i. 8. iv. 8. All Duration, according to our Manner of conceiving it, is reducible to these Three, the past, the prefent, and the future, or that which was, that which now is, and that which shall be. And God equally comprehendeth all these, without Variation or Change, in his own infinite and boundlefs Duration. Juftly therefore is he called the everlasting God, the King eternal,

the

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