61Ë THE ETERNAL DURATION OF [DISC. XTTI. constitutions of God concerninghis creatures : And they, should be translated an age, or ages, more properly than any thing else : And the adjective AtwvtO,, when applied to creatures, can relate only to these ages ; but these expressions were never designed to enter into,God's own eternity, either before the existence of this world or after the consummation of it : Upon which reason it is highly improper and absurd to assert, that the duration or pu- nishment of creatures in hell shall be properly eternal and equal to the duration of the blessed God himself. Now since every thing in God's transactions towards his creatures is sometimes united by these Aiwvas or ages, which are periods of time that shall be finished, why may not the damnation and the sorrows ofhell be also finish- ed and cancelled at a certain length of years, though the common words, which we translate eternal and ever- lasting, be ascribed to them in scripture ? Answer I. These are the same words both in Greek and Hebrew, by which God expresses his own eternity, which is absolute and complete without end. " He is the everlasting God ;" Gen. xxi. 33. " The eternal God, and his everlasting arms ;" Deut. xxxiii. 27. Rom. i. é0. and xvi. 26. and several other places. These are the words also by which the scripture expresses the duration of the felicities of heaven, and the eternal life and hap- piness of the saints ; Dan. xii. 2.---Rom. vi. 23. John iii. 15 -18. Now, why should we not suppose the same words to signify the same duration, when the Old or New Testament speaks of everlasting burnings as the ven- geance of God against the wicked ; Isaiah xxxiii. 14. or " everlasting shame and contempt ?" Dan. xii. 2. And especially where the joys of the saints, and the "misery of sinners are set in opposition to one an- other in the same text, as in Dan. xii. 2. and Matt. xxv. 46. " The wicked shall go away into everlasting punishment, and the righteous into life eternal ?" And yet further, when we find this doctrine sufficiently con- firmed by many other places of scripture which set forth the eternity of these torments ? I grant, that the eternity of God himself, before this world began, or after its consummation, has something in it so im- mense and so incomprehensible, that in mymost mature thoughts I do not chuse to enter into those infinite abysses; nor do I think we ought usually, when we
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