Discourses upon the Existence and Attributes of God

He hath no difference of time; for he is the same yesterday, to day, and for ever; ^*The same, with the Name of God, I am, which signifies his Eternity; He is no more to day than he was yesterday, nor will be any other to morrow than he is to day; And therefore Melchizedek whose Descent, Birth and Death, Father and Mother, Beginning and End of days are not upon Record, was a Type of the Existence of Christ without difference of time.^* Having neither beginning of Days nor end of Life, but made like the Son of God. The suppression of his Birth and Death, was intended by the Holy-Ghost as a Type of the excellency of Christ's person in regard of his Eternity, and the duration of his Charge in regard of his Priest-hood. As there was an appearance of an Eternity in the suppression of the Race of Melchizedek, so there is a true Eternity in the Son of God. How could the Eternity of the Son of God be expressed by any resemblance so well, as by such a suppression of the Beginning and End of this great Person, different from the custom of the Spirit of God in the Old-Testament, who often records the Generations and Ends of holy Men; and why might not this, which was a kind of a shadow of Eternity, be a representation of the true Eternity of Christ, as well as the restoration of Isaac to his Father without death, is said to be a figure of the Resurrection of Christ after a real death?^* Melchizedek is only mentioned once (without any record of his extraction) in his appearance to Abraham after his victory, as if he came from Heaven only for that action, and instantly disappeared again, as if he had been an eternal person.

He hath no difference of time; for he is the same yesterday, to day, and for ever; ^*The same, with the Name of God, I am, which signifies his Eternity; He is no more to day than he was yesterday, nor will be any other to morrow than he is to day; And therefore Melchisedeck whose Descent, Birth and Death, Father and Mother, Beginning and End of days are not upon Record, was a Type of the Existence of Christ without difference of time.^*