Eternalism

“ And just such a survey, and just such a life, not timeless, but time-inclusive, constitute the eternal, which is real, not apart from time, and from our lives, but in, and through and above all our individual lives. The divine will wills in us and in all this world, with its endless past and its endless future, at once. The divine insight is not lifeless. It includes and surveys all life. All is temporal in its ceaseless flow and in its sequence of individual deeds. All is eternal in the unity of its meaning. ”

“ If we define the Eternal to ourselves, 'a Great Personal First Cause, who thinks and loves, the moral and intelligent Governor of the universe,' we can never verify that this has from age to age been a refuge to men. But if we define the Eternal, 'the enduring Power, not ourselves, that makes for righteousness,' then we can know and feel the truth of what we say when we declare: Eternal, thou hast been our refuge from one generation to another! For in all the history of man we can verify it. Righteousness has been salvation ”

“ Blessed time, when there was a real existence, a life in life! when the vast whole of eternity, being sufficient to itself, had not splintered itself out into time! when the spirit did not need a succession, measured out by the atoms of time and space, to become conscious of its power and of its being! What a portentous event was it, when eternity and life parted fellowship!—when the band by which spirits were bound in one, burst, and that strange creature, Death, rusht in through the chasm to domineer over all. ”

“ The eternity of his nature; if he is from everlasting, he will be to everlasting, and we must have recourse to this first principle, when things seen, which are temporal, are discouraging, that we have hope and help sufficient in a god that is not seen, that is eternal. "Art thou not from everlasting, and then wilt thou not make bare thy everlasting arm, in pursuance of thy everlasting counsels, to make unto thyself an everlasting name?" ”

“ Eternity is without confines, and all things animate and inanimate have their existence in it. The Priesthood of God, that was given to the ancients and is given to men in the latter-days, as co-equal in duration with eternity—is without beginning of days or end of life. It is unchangeable in its system of government and its Gospel of salvation. It gives to Gods and angels their supremacy and power, and offers wealth, influence, posterity, exaltations, power, glory, kingdoms and thrones, ceaseless in their duration, to all who will accept them on the terms upon which they are offered. ”

“ If we could fuse past, present, and future into a totum simul, an 'Eternal Now,' would that be eternity? This I do not believe. A full understanding of the values of our life in time would indeed give us a good picture of the eternal world; but that world itself, the abode of God and of blessed spirits, is a state higher and purer than can be fully expressed in the order of nature. The perpetuity of natural laws as they operate through endless ages is only a Platonic 'image' of eternity. That all values are perpetual is true ”

“ It is of no consequence at all for our purpose, whether it is a positive conception, or simply the thinking away of all limitations. 'I know what God is, when you do not ask me.' I know what eternity is, though I cannot define the word to satisfy a metaphysician. The little child taught by some grandmother Lois, in a cottage, knows what she means when she tells him 'you will live for ever,' though both scholar and teacher would be puzzled to put it into other words. When we say eternity flows round this bank and shoal of time, men know what we mean. ”

“ That the Eternal is a world of spiritual life is what the idealists of the past have maintained, and the religious force of their doctrine lay not so much in the insight that was thus offered concerning the nature of the powers that are in the world, as in an- other insight. ”

“ From eternity Thou hast been exalted above the praise of all created things, and wilt to eternity remain far above the glorification of any one of Thy creatures. Existence itself testifieth to its non-existence when face to face with the manifold revelations of Thy transcendent oneness, and every created thing confesseth, by its very nature, its nothingness when compared with the sacred splendors of the light of Thy unity. Thou hast, in Thyself, been independent of any one besides Thee and rich enough, in Thine own essence, to dispense with any one except Thy Self. ”

“ It is hard for mankind to comprehend that principle. The philosophers of the world will concede that the elements of which you and I are composed are eternal, yet they believe that there was a time when there was no God. They cannot comprehend how it is that God can be eternal. Let me ask this congregation, Can you realise the eternity of your own existence? Can you realise that the intelligence which you receive is eternal? ”

“ Yet in order to experience that kingdom it is necessary to live long, to live beyond death,—yes, eternal life is necessary so that one can make up for ever for that earthly life "in faith," "in love," "in hope." ”

“ We are in eternity, and all that we have to do is to take the road that leads into the eternal lives. Eternal life is an inherent quality of the creature, and nothing but sin can put a termination to it. The elements in their nature are as eternal as are the gods. Let us learn, under the guidance and direction of Heaven, how to use these eternal elements for the building up, establishment and sending forth, of the Kingdom of God, gathering up the poor in heart to begin with, and the further things we will learn as we progress. ”

“ How often do the mists of this material existence obscure the brightness of eternity, our hopes based on faith, the promises given by faith, the everlasting realities, and the immortality of life in God! We are so steeped in lower pleasures that we forget what is higher. It is indeed necessary to bring back men's souls to the warm rays of the divine light, to disperse the clouds that envelop them, and to restore to them the thought of eternity and the desire to rise to heaven. ”

“ Betwixt a minute and a million of years there is some proportion, but betwixt time and eternity there is none. The long lives of the patriarchs were nothing to God, not so much as the life of a child (that is born and dies the same day) is to theirs. 2. All the events of a thousand years, whether past or to come, are as present to the Eternal Mind as what was done yesterday, or the last hour, is to us, and more so. God will say, at the great day, to those whom he has turned to destruction, Return—Arise you dead. ”

“ There was a sublimity, too, in the doctrines of my reverend teacher, and even a hope in the promises of immortality held out by him, which, in spite of reason, won insensibly both upon my fancy and my pride.
The Future, however, was now but of secondary consideration;—the Present, [pg 117] and that deity of the Present, woman, were the objects that engrossed my whole soul. For the sake, indeed, of such beings alone did I think immortality desirable, nor, without them, would eternal life have appeared to me worth a prayer. ”

“ It has been our endeavor to encircle the whole creation with the chain of faith, and to bind each to all in endless links of the divine love. We have dared to glance back before time into the bosom of eternity. We have beheld time, as it appears to our human ken, in a manner detach itself from eternity, and seem to become an entity—which indeed it is in a certain sense. ”

“ Since this divine era in the history of man, since the commencement of his emancipation in modern times, this spirit can no longer be called the prince of this world, but the spirit of time, the spirit opposed to divine influence, and to the Christian religion, apparent in those who consider and estimate time and all things temporal, not by the law and feeling of eternity, but for temporal interests or from temporal motives, change, or undervalue, and forget the thoughts and faith of eternity. ”

“ On the other hand philosophy convinces me that the Eternal can have no shape, or attributes, or passions, such as we can conceive of. A Divine Being is open to the same objection. A Being implies a material form—something which exists. Now the Eternal cannot be anything which exists, at least not in the same sense that is attached to matter as we know it, since everything which exists must have had a beginning, and therefore cannot be eternal. ”

“ What will you do in the Eternity when there will be no cause to fight for, no Goliath of Gath, twice your size, to sally forth against with sling and stone? In that Paradise that we are promised, where will be your place? We cannot tell. But, if there be a just God who made your high hearts, He will answer the question whose solution is not for us. ”

“ Because of that hope which is within your bosoms, which blooms with immortality and eternal lives. You have asked this question to yourselves, "Who am I, and what is the design of my existence?" and the Gospel has unfolded these things to your understandings. You feel that you are eternal beings: you feel that you are living for eternity and not for time only.
I have heard it recommended, by some poor fools in the shape of editors in the United States, to send missionaries here to convert the people. ”

“ Nevertheless it does give peace, and that kind of rationality is so paramountly demanded by men that to the end of time there will be absolutists, men who choose belief in a static eternal, rather than admit that the finite world of change and striving, even with a God as one of the strivers, is itself eternal. For such minds Professor Royce's words will always be the truest: 'The very presence of ill in the temporal order is the condition of the perfection of the eternal order.... ”

“ To those thinkers whose spiritual perceptions have been quickened by the doctrine of the unity of Nature into recognition of God as the Spirit of Life present in all form, a connection between prayer and immortality will be plainly evident. But if the idea of the aim of prayer which accompanies the interpretation of Nature as the vesture of God be that of voluntary effort to become one with the Divine Will, what idea of immortality is the natural outcome of such belief? ”

“ It is life, therefore, rather than immortality Christ speaks of; a present, not a future, good; an expansion of the nature now, and which necessarily carries with it the idea of permanence. Eternal life He defines, not as a future continuance to be measured by ages, but as a present life, to be measured by its depth. It is the quality, not the length, of life He looks at. Life prolonged without being deepened by union with the living God were no boon. Life with God, and in God, must be immortal; life without God He does not call life at all. ”

“ Suppose you were now in ignorance respecting the doctrine of life and immortality through a resurrection. You know you must die, and sincerely think that death will terminate your existence forever. You see your children one after another laid upon their dying bed, and with distraction shake the farewell hand of eternal separation, and with the most solemn melancholy and wo, look forward to the period when you must follow them down to the chambers of eternal silence, and cease to be. ”

“ But if through thine eternity thou hast been, and art, and wilt be; and to have been is not to be destined to be; and to be is not to have been, or to be destined to be; how does thine eternity exist as a whole forever? ”

“ This is the essential character of all ideas, consequently of eternity, in which the attributes of omniscience and omnipotence are included. Now prescience and freewill are in fact nothing more than the two contradictory positions by which the human understanding struggles to express successively the idea of eternity. Not eternity in the negative sense as the mere absence of succession, much less eternity in the senseless sense of an infinite time; but eternity,—the Eternal; as Deity, as God. Our theologians forget that the objection applies equally to the possibility of the divine will ”

“ If therefore eternity abides in itself, to what shall we primarily assign permanency in that which is prior to itself? For it is necessary that this being more divine, should have its generation prior to that which is inferior to it. ”

“ It has been stated that God our Father comprehends eternity, from eternity to eternity, all there is, all there was, all there ever can be about eternity, in and through it. When a person undertakes to establish such a doctrine, what does he do? He gives bounds to that eternity which he at the same time admits to be boundless. Admit such doctrine, and eternity flees away like the shadow of morning ”

“ We may make them a joy or a sorrow as we will. Transiency is stamped on all our possessions, occupations, and delights. We have the hunger for eternity in our souls, the thought of eternity in our hearts, the destination for eternity written on our inmost being, and the need to ally ourselves with eternity proclaimed even by the most short-lived trifles of time. ”

“ All things in time are changeful; all things in eternity are immutable. If you pass from time to eternity, without faith in Christ, without love to God, an enemy to prayer, an enemy to holiness, “unpurged and unforgiven,” so you must ever remain. Now is the season of that blessed change, for which myriads shall sing everlasting anthems of praise. ”