01.05. Chapter 5

CHAPTER V. On Eternity. That we should conceive concerning it. How it differs from God’s Eternity. Some Gospel Truths proposed to sustain the Mind in the contemplations fit.

WHAT is written and expressed in the following words, If God set his heart upon man, if he gather unto himself his spirit and his breath; all flesh shall perish together, and man shall turn again unto dust. Job 34:14-15, is realized in our bodies in our dying moments. It is in the Lord’s gathering unto himself the spirit and the breath from us, that the body drops, and becomes lifeless. The spirit is removed first, then the breathing stops, and the body becomes a corpse; it is then eternity begins with each and every disembodied spirit. All the while believers in Christ remain in the body, it may be written over their heads, The saved of the Lord. When they are about to die in Christ, they may then be well entitled, the preserved in Christ Jesus. When they are actually dead in their bodies, it may then be said of them, they sleep in Jesus. It is by it they enter an eternal world, and on an eternal state. Some style Death crossing the gulf which separates time and eternity. When the bodies of saints are in their graves, they are the dead in Christ. To many persons, the thought of entering eternity on the very moment of leaving the body, is solemn, confounding, and awful. When we consider eternity, we are to conceive of it as it concerns us: as such, it is a continual flux of time, or the continuation of a creature’s existence, a stop to which is not to be. It is a procrastination of our existence: it is in God we live, and move, and have our being; it is so now, whilst we are in our bodies in a time state; it is in God we shall have the continuation of our beings in the eternal state; it is by his will and power that our faculties will be kept up to all eternity. When we have proper ideas of it, I conceive there is nothing to cause the believer in Jesus to tremble in the prospect of it; he may consider it so as to afford relief to his mind, and real consolation to his heart; yet it is too often the case, that persons cry out, O eternity! eternity! how tremendous the thought! I would ask why? Wherefore is it so ? Surely it is sweet to consider that we shall never cease to be. It would damp our prospect of joy and life everlasting, to conceive any end put to the same; it must serve to animate our minds, to consider that the state we enter on at the dissolution of our bodies, is fixed, permanent, and everlasting. It well becomes us to receive all our ideas from the revelation the Lord hath made of these subjects, in his most holy, written, and blessed word. We understand from it that time is the measure of a creature’s being, existence, and continuation in this present evil world; and eternity, as it respects us, is the prolongation of being and existence in an eternal and invisible state. As it respects the saints of the Most High, God’s will is, to uphold them in being for ever, in the state of glory, that he may display in them, and on them, the exceeding riches of his grace, in his kindness towards them in Christ Jesus.; and this is all we are to conceive and apprehend concerning it there is, therefore, nothing in the subject, as thus stated, to be in the least distressing to real believers, when they are about to enter on their commencement of it.

God’s eternity, and our eternity, are vastly different subjects; yet I conceive we so confound them, as not to have proper and distinct apprehensions formed in our minds from the scriptures of truths respecting them. Jehovah’s eternity is an everlasting now; he is his own eternity; he is being without beginning, succession, or end of duration; all which is contained in his self-existence & Jehovah comprehends the knowledge of all things in his infinite understanding, and all time in his own eternity. God’s eternity is expressed in his being from everlasting to everlasting. Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God.

He, speaking of himself, says, I am that I am. He proclaims himself to be the High and Lofty One that inhabiteth eternity. He saith, I am the first, and I am the last. He is the Eternity of Israel: he is so entitled, I Am. 15:29. Look into the margin. When the scriptures ascribe the terms of Eternal, Everlasting, and Eternity, to God, they denote his being, without beginning, succession, or end of duration; for he who is self-existent can admit of no supposable period in which he is not the same. But the manner of the divine duration, and of Jehovah’s coexistence with time, is no more comprehensible than the co-existence of his infinity with particular places. He liveth for ever and ever. God’s eternity is essential to himself; our eternity entirely depends on his will We shall be continued every moment in eternity, or in an eternal state, by his power alone, not by any act of our’s. God’s eternity may afford us matter of comfort; it did the Prophet. He, when contemplating his own frailty and mortality, says, My days are like a shadow that declineth; and I am withered like grass. But thou, O Lord, shalt endure for ever, and thy remembrance throughout all generations. Psalms 102:11-12. God says, I am Jehovah, I change not. We may well consider what follows, as all sufficient to sustain our minds whilst we are either in living or dying circumstances, in the contemplations of God’s eternity, and our duration in being to, what we style, eternity. It may well he styled gospel consolation. The love of the Three in Jehovah is everlasting. His mercy unto us is from everlasting to everlasting. The covenant of the Three in Jehovah is an everlasting one. The Lord embraces his people, and lays underneath them his everlasting arms; he remembers them with everlasting kindness; he is their everlasting life; he gives them everlasting consolation. He, the eternal God, is their refuge; he receives them at death into everlasting habitations. The kingdom they are received into, when they enter eternity, is styled the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ; heaven is entitled, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. When an account is given of the final sentence pronounced by Christ on all flesh, it is added, And these shall go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into life eternal. The gospel is styled the everlasting gospel. Christ hath brought in everlasting righteousness; his sacrifice is of everlasting virtue and perfection; he is yesterday, to-day, and the same for ever. In all these substantial realities there is a great and glorious all-sufficiency to bear up, and sustain the minds of the Lord’s believing people, under the views of an immediate entrance into eternity, both as it respects the state we then enter upon, and the duration thereof. In the scriptures of the Old and New Testament, eternity, as it concerns us, is set forth by the following terms: Ever, evermore, daily, always, to eternity. Thus, The fire shall ever be burning upon the altar; it shall never go out. Leviticus 6:13. Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us, unto him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end. Amen. Ephesians 3:20-21. Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air; and so shall we ever be with the Lord. 1 Thessalonians 4:17. I am he that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive forevermore, Amen; and have the keys of hell and of death. Revelation 11:8. As the soul disunited from the body, being clothed with immortality and eternal glory, enters on eternity, which is an endless flux of time, and bath no period; so the very apprehension of it is, as spiritually looked at, very comfortable and relieving. It is no more nor less than our entrance on our state of glory, which is permanent and fixed. It is not that it will never alter, so as that we shall not have farther and farther revelations and manifestations of the divine goodness unto us. We shall have such. Our souls will be without their bodies for a season, whilst their happiness will be complete, so far as suited to the separate state; yet joys will more fully and abundantly abound at the resurrection of the body, on the soul’s entrance into it, and re-union with it. The glories of the resurrection state will exceed the glory which the saints are partakers of now in heaven: it will be then eternity, yet this will be an increase of happiness unto them. And even this will be put down by the ultimate state, when God shall be all in all; and in sights and views of the personal glory of Christ, saints will be so swallowed up as to forget all past discoveries of what they have enjoyed. These are so many gradations in the state of glory, in which the elect of God will be perfectly conformed to Christ. He was in his state of humiliation whilst he dwelt here below: his last and lowest state of humiliation was death and the grave. He went to heaven in his soul first, in a private way and manner, as we also must; he rose again from death to life immortal, by the reunion and entrance of his soul into his body; he lived in his resurrection state a certain period on our earth; he then ascended body and soul into heaven, and is now in his state of glory. So with respect to us, who are his; we die in our bodies, and go privately to heaven in our souls, and enjoy what is most exactly suited to our disembodied state. We are, and live, with Christ. When the resurrection shall take place, he will descend from heaven, and we shall descend with him. He will raise our bodies, and make them like unto his glorious body, according to the working whereby he is able even to subdue all things unto himself; we shall then live in our bodies with him in the resurrection state, and have most intimate communion with him. The apostle John, speaking of saints in the new Jerusalem state, says: And there shall be no more curse; but the throne of God and of the Lamb shall be in it; and his servants shall serve him. And they shall see his face; and his name shall be in their foreheads. And there shall be no night there; they need no candle, neither light of the sun; for the Lord God giveth them light: and they shall reign for ever and ever. Revelation 22:3-5. All this will be in eternity; after which will follow the ultimate glory, which will consist in the open vision of Christ in his personal glory: so that, whilst we enter on our fixed and durable state of glory by death, yet there are successions and fresh glories which belong to that state; which, when we have scriptural views and apprehensions of, must remove all fears and concerns from us about what we style eternity. To be absent for a season from the body, and present with the Lord, will be very advantageous to us. A duration of being will be a blessing to us; to be continued in a state of immortality and eternal glory, must be most truly desirable; to be for ever with the Lord, must give us endless satisfaction: so that these truths, properly received into our minds, and digested in our thoughts, must make eternity, the term, and what we understand by it, very comfortable to our view. Whether we live or die, we are the Lord’s we shall live together with him, we shall reign with him, we shall reign fin, ever and ever. Here, then, is support for us, and consolation, derived from the glorious gospel of the blessed God; in that eternal state and world into which we, as the Lord’s, are about to enter, we shall be present with the Lord. This very consideration is all-sufficient to take away all our cares and fears concerning entering on our eternal state. The Lord Christ was set up from everlasting, from the beginning or ever the earth was. We are entering on that state in which we shall have some blessed knowledge of the life he lived, as our head, before the foundation of the world. We shall lay aside our bodies, and all the animality, sense, and reason, which belong to them; we shall be as truly fitted in our minds, for the sight, worship, and enjoyment of Christ, as we can be. We shall find the disembodied state well suited to us. All our intellectual faculties will be fixed and properly exercised on Christ, when we are admitted to see him as he is, therefore we need no concern or fear about eternity. In due time, our bodies will be as truly fitted to live with Christ, and enjoy him, as our minds will be in heaven before the resurrection. We shall be all life, all activity, no darkness in our minds; we shall be like unto the angels; we shall be their companions, and they will be ours; we and they shall worship together, in the utmost perfection of love and delight, our Lord Jesus Christ for ever and ever.

0 my soul! let me speak to thee, and turn this, subject on eternity into sweet meditation. Of the, eternity of God, who can conceive! It is the very essence and perfection of Deity. Jehovah lives in the everlasting enjoyment of his essential blessedness, in his persons and perfections. Christ lived an eternity before time, in exercising his de lights in his bride and church: he now lives after: the power of an endless life. His eternity is thy security. O my soul! thou art shortly to enter on an eternal state, and into, eternal glory. Thou hast nothing in the prospect hereof, but what is most truly divine and encouraging. There will be no sin nor sorrow in thy mind, notwithstanding thy continuance to an eternal duration; and thy views of Christ, thy delight in Christ, thy communion with Christ, will increase with thy continuation in being and existence. This, O my soul, will be eternity to thee! this will be thy blessedness. O what support is there in these gospel apprehensions of the subject! I really find my mind fed and encouraged by them. In the presence of the Holy Three in the one incomprehensible Jehovah, and as they reflect their everlasting love upon my mind, in the person of Christ on me, I shall have fullness of joy, and pleasures for evermore. It is the immutability of their love to my person in Christ, and the continuation of it for ever, which will be the perfection of my felicity. I may well long for this; the gospel gives me ground and warrant to expect life, immortality, and glory, to break in upon my soul, with inconceivable brightness, as soon as I enter eternity. Blessed be the Lord, I have, though in a very small measure and degree, experienced at times what is contained in these words of the apostle, who, speaking to saints concerning the appearing of Jesus Christ, saith, Whom having not seen, ye love; in whom, though now ye see him not, yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory 1 Peter 1:8 :1 have eternal life in my soul; I have at seasons had some real apprehensions and foretastes thereof. Blessed be the Lord for it. I will now, having in the gospel every thing to support my faith on views of eternity, turn the substance of my meditation and soliloquy into prayer.

0 Lord Jesus Christ, I am thine; save me. Thou hast saved me in thyself with an everlasting salvation: I am in thine eye; I am on thy heart; it is before thee, when and where thou wilt call me hence, and what shall be my personal circumstances in the article of death.

Thou art pleased to save me from all fears concerning the same. Blessed be thy name, it is all of grace. I would request thee, O Lord Jesus Christ, to increase my views and prospects of eternity, so as that I may be favoured with most blessed scriptural apprehensions of the same. Lord Jesus Christ, bestow on me afresh the spirit of glory and of God, that by the inward teachings of the Holy Spirit, I may have an increasing knowledge of the glory which awaits me, and which will be revealed in me immediately on my entrance into eternity. Holy Father, holy Son, Holy Spirit, which art, and toast, and art to come, who liveth for ever and ever, help me to rejoice in views of that exceeding and eternal weight of glory, which will be bestowed on me, and all the elect in Christ, and be continued for ever and ever. Exercise my mind very expressly and particularly thereon, to the glory of your grace, as displayed in each of the offices you engaged in before all time. This is what I would particularly request, as I must soon enter eternity. Grant it me, holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, who liveth for ever and ever, to the praise of the glory of free, sovereign, and reigning grace, and for the honour of Christ, to whom be glory throughout all ages-world without end. Amen.