need not quarrel. A lower end doth not exclude the higher, but serves it; and is, as to it, a means. God is our end, as he is to be glorified and enjoyed by us: our glorifying him, is but the agnition of his glory; which we do most in beholding and partaking it; which is therefore in direct subordination thereto.”—John Howe: Blessedness of the Righteous.

"Hence we discern the futility of the objection against the doctrine of future rewards, drawn from an apprehension, that to be actuated by such a motive, argues a mean and mercenary disposition; since the reward to which we aspire, in this instance at least, grows out of the employment in which we are engaged, and will consist in enjoyments which can only be felt and perceived by a refined and elevated spirit. The success of our undertaking will, in reality, reward itself, by the complete gratification it will afford to the sentiments of devotion and benevolence, which, in their highest perfection, form the principal ingredient in future felicity. To have co-operated in any degree towards the accomplishment of that purpose of the Deity, to reconcile all things to himself, by reducing them to the obedience of his Son, which is the ultimate end of all his works; to be the means of recovering, though it were but an inconsiderable portion of a lapsed and degenerate race, to eternal happiness, will yield a satisfaction exactly commensurate to the force of our benevolent sentiments, and the degree of our loyal attachment to the supreme Potentate.” Robert Hall: Encouragements and Supports of the Christian Minister.

M. (page 317.)

The

Blanco White, speaking of a sentiment in Dr. Woodward's Sermons, viz., that God cannot prevent all evil, says, "It is demonstrable that such a Being is not God. It may be a Jupiter Optimus Maximus, subject to fate; but God, the Supreme, he is not. original idea of God is inseparable from that of unlimitedness. Man is conscious of his own limited existence; and, without the necessity of a logical inference, perceives, in his own limitation, the existence of the unlimited that limits him. Dr. W.'s God must be limited in regard to his power over evil, by one greater than he. That Limiting-Unlimited is God. If Dr. W. does not perceive the force of this demonstration, he is incapable of abstract philosophical reasoning.”—Life, &c. vol. iii. p. 13. This paragraph is quoted, not for the

purpose of contradicting the general reasoning on which it is founded. That is taken from Suabedissen's Principles of Philosophical Religion. A creature feels limited; he would be, perchance, unlimited or at least less limited; he is limited by his nature, or by the conditions. of that nature; he does not limit himself, his Creator has limited him; the existence of that Creator is proved by this limiting power: he must be, therefore, unlimited. To all this we do not object. Let, however, the spirit of this paragraph be considered. That holy regard to character and principle which every virtuous being acknowledges, is denied to the Deity. We never honor ourselves more than when we say that we cannot do evil, cannot speak falsely, cannot act dishonorably. God is a Creator; he has formed creatures with faculties of reason and choice. God is a Moral Governor; he rules those creatures by laws urged with rewards and punishments. Could He make rational creatures otherwise than free? or being free, otherwise than accountable? Evil must then be allowed, ex hypothesi, a possible existence.--According to this sophistical and profane reasoning, the means which God morally employs to resent and counterwork evil are proofs of his limitation. This is, indeed, to "limit the Holy One!" How grossly materialised, how senselessly mechanical, are all these ideas of power! The moral rectitude of the Deity is not even surmised.

N. (page 378.)

So often is the word alávios brought into this controversy, and so great importance really attaches to it, that it is proper to give a larger attention to it, than could be very easily or popularly devoted to it in the text. Its true composition and derivation are found in two words, deì, an adverb,—always,—and &v, the present participle of eiμì, I am. Ovoía, essence, a phrase so much employed by the Greek philosophical writers, is little varied from the feminine of v, ovσa. Eon is borrowed from it to denote a class of mythological powers; and the Latin word ævum, age, is also taken from it, the digamma passing through the Æolic dialect into the Roman v. In the formation of air and aiovios, we are not left to our fancy. Aristotle furnishes us with its definition and its history. In the ninth chapter of the first book, IIepì Oipavov, speaking of Deity and celestial intelligences, he says : “ Τὴν ἀριστὴν ἔχοντα ξωὴν καὶ αὐταρκεστάτην, διατελεί

τὸν ἅπαντα Αἰῶνα, κ.τ.λ. These possessing a most excellent and self-sufficient life endure to all eternity. For this word has been divinely or inspiredly enounced by the ancients.

For the term which includes the sum of every man's life, though according to the most ordinary tenor of nature, is called his alcov. For the same reason, the consummation of the whole heaven and that which contains endless time, even very infinity, is properly its Alŵv; for taking its actual name from ceaseless existence, àñò тoû deì eiva, it is immortal and divine, àðávatos kaì deîos." We find this collocation very frequently. In Plato, in the tenth Book of the Republic, we find it. twice in the same sentence: “ δῆλον ότι ανάγκη αυτὸ ἀει ὄν εἶναι· εἰ δ ̓ ἀει ὄν, ἀθάνατον. It is obvious that this must necessarily be always existing, but that which is ever existent is immortal." The ov is the neuter of v; and though not in compound, the constituents are in immediate juxta-position.

It is no reply that alov often, in the classical writers, means no more than human life. In Homer this is clearly the case when ux is joined with it. Iliad, b. xvi. In the Fragment of Philoctetes by Euripides, we read, ̓Ανέπνευσεν αἰῶνα. Sometimes it is personified : Αἰων Κρόνου παις. Eurip. Heraclidæ. In Eschylus, we find, alŵva παρθενιον, αιώνα ευποτμον, αἰῶνος χρονον. In the last, the phrase rises in value, "Who, save the gods, is happy all the time of his life ?" Then it might express the duration of the gods. Ai aivos means, continually: Choëph. Hoλú@pηvov aiŵva, would be well translated, an age of woe: Agamem. Aristotle, as we see, admits that it expresses simple life. We have marked, nevertheless, how much more it can convey and is employed to signify. Our reference is to classical authorities for illustration and defence. But they are of little weight in our application of the question. We might find some later Greek writers employ alov to give the sense of a mark, and even of the spinal marrow. Our demand is, What is its radical idea? It invariably expresses duration. It may be short or long, just as the subject may be. Human life as to its period, divine life in its immortality, are alike its powers. And still our more immediate question is, What is its force in Scripture? It may take a new or, at least, a stronger, sense, like some of its other appropriated words. Three peculiarities of its inspired use we must notice. 'Atv is never employed to denote human life, though this is its most common pagan acceptation. Its frequent government by eis, is as peculiar. It occurs nowhere else, though an' al@vas is not an infrequent form, and though the Latins used it,-"in omne

volubilis ævum."

Nor less strange is its almost constant reduplication, τοὺς αἰῶνας τῶν αἰώνων. This latter phrase is always rendered in the Latin liturgies, secula seculorum. No canon is more just than this,—where aiŵv respects the limited in time, it is itself limited in idea; when it respects the boundless in duration, it is itself of boundless idea. Most commonly it is applied to a state of things subsequent to the judgement; after "the last day," when "time shall be no longer." Then is eternity. It is as to this dread duration that the word is fully and naturally applied.

Perhaps it may be right to notice a counter-argument raised upon this reduplication. Alv, it is mooted, must be definite, or it would not admit of it. Why repeat what it might express alone? "Ages of ages" can only be successions of definites. We reply, that we rest not the defence of its eternal meaning on the reduplication. It may be a rhetorical pleonasm. It may be a Hebraistic superlative and intensitive. The eternal idea is in the singular form of the word, and is not strengthened by its plural or its reiteration. But this manner may more strongly deliver it. When we say, ever, for ever, Yet we often reduplicate it: for ever and ever, ever and aye. What reasoning would that be, which denied that for ever could intend eternal, because we said, for ever and ever? which pleaded that we could not deem the one sufficient, or that otherwise we should not utter it again? which tortured the first into necessary limitation from such practice, and then deduced that the second could only pledge a continuance of limitations?

we mean, eternal.

แ

The reader may be referred, in order to facilitate his inquiries, to Stephens' Thesaurus. One striking selection may be quoted: it is taken from Philo, De Mundo : “ Εν αιωνι δε ουτε παρεληλυθεν ουδεν, ούτε μελλει, αλλα μονον υφέστηκε.” Nor must we forget Suicer's Thesaurus Ecclesiasticus, e Patribus Græcis. One of his selections may be cited here. Theodoretus being referred to on Heb. xi. 3, calling "O ael wv," Damascenus is described as saying, though much is the same as Gregory Nyssen gives in his Thirty-sixth Oration: "Aeyerai aiwv, ov χρονος, ουδε χρονου τί μέρος, ἥλιου φορᾶ καὶ δρόμω μετρουμενον, ἤγουν δι' ἡμερῶν καὶ νυκτων συνισταμενον, ἀλλὰ το συμπαρεκτεινόμενον τοις αἴδιοις, οἷον τι χρονικὸν κίνημα καὶ διαστημα ὁπερ γαρ τοις υπο χρονον ὁ χρονος, τοῦτο τοις αίδιοις εστιν αιων.”

Passow, as a Greek Lexicographer, is the highest authority of our day. He translates Alávios by the strongest explanations of his language, Immerwährend, Ewig. An excellent dictionary has been

formed upon his work in our language, by Liddel and Scott. These writers give alwvoßios, which he also gives, but they supply the authority of the Rosetta Stone. Two other compounds are furnished by them, alwvoTOKOS, Synesius, Parent of eternity, and aiovoxapηs, Clemens Alexandrinus, Rejoicing in eternity.

Than this word there is none so significant and forcible. It would be found that, ἀταλευτητος, ἀκατάλυτος, ἄπαυστος, οὔποτε, ἐνδελεχης, ádiáλeinтos, and other terms, were deficient and feeble in those awful connexions in which Scripture employs that which we now attempt to vindicate.

In the text a reference has been made to the use of this word by the Christian Greek writers. Justin may be quoted with this particular view. He must have been very conversant with this language,— its philosophy, and genius. The following citations, quite distinct from each other, are out of his Dialogue with Trypho. “Tà dióvia dikaia, These everlasting laws," opposed to those which are œconomical and temporary. “ Μετα ταυτα (χιλια ετη) αἰώνιαν ὁμοθυμαδόν αμα Tavτwv ȧváστaσw, After these,-namely, the thousand years,-the “ Από του νῦν καὶ ἑὼς του universally-allowed eternal after-life of all." แ

atavos, From now, and until, or through, eternity."

It may just be observed that æternus is often used in an inferior sense by the classics. To go no farther than Horace, "Serviet æternum." But does he mean no more when he speaks "Eternæ Vestæ ?" Or Virgil, "Gleba æternum frangenda." mean no more in his descriptions of Jupiter,

"O, qui res hominumque Deûmque

Æternis regis imperiis?"

But does he

And of Cerberus, " Æternum latrans ?" Justified by this authority, the earliest Latin Christian writers seek no other word, for their strongest idea in æternum. Surely Lanctantius knew how it might be applied, a man who wrote on the immortality of the soul: "Colunt; ut mercedem immortalitatis accipiant; accipiunt immortalitatem, ut in æternum Deo serviant."-Epitome: cap. 69. Routh's Script. Eccles. Opuscula.