Discourses upon the Existence and Attributes of God

If this going out from everlasting were only in the purpose of God, it might be said of David, and of every Creature: And in Isa. 9.6. He is particularly called the Everlasting, or Eternal Father; Not the Father in the Trinity, but a Father to us; yet eternal, the Father of Eternity. As he is the mighty God, so he is the everlasting Father: Can such a title be ascribed to any, whose being depends upon the Will of another, and may be dashed out at the pleasure of a Superior?

If this going out from everlasting were only in the purpose of God, it might be said of David, and of every Creature: And in Isa. 9.6. He is particularly called the Everlasting, or Eternal Father; Not the Father in the Trinity, but a Father to us; yet eternal, the Father of Eternity. As he is the mighty God, so he is the everlasting Father: Can such a title be ascribed to any, whose being depends upon the Will of another, and may be dasht out at the pleasure of a Superior?

As the Eternity of God is the ground of all Religion, so the Eternity of Christ is the ground of the Christian Religion: Could our Sins be perfectly expiated, had he not an eternal Divinity to answer for the offences committed against an eternal God? Temporary sufferings had been of little validity, without an infiniteness and eternity in his person to add weight to his passion.

2. If God be eternal, he knows all things as present. ^*All things are present to him in his Eternity; for this is the notion of Eternity, to be without succession. If Eternity be one indivisible point, and is not diffused into preceding and succeeding parts, then that which is known in it or by it, is perceived without any succession; For knowledge is as the substance of the person knowing; if that hath various actions and distinct from it self, then it understands things in differences of time as time presents them to view: But, since Gods Being depends not upon the revolutions of time, so neither doth his Knowledge; it exceeds all motions of years and days, comprehends infinite spaces of past and future. God considers all things in his Eternity in one simple knowledge, as if they were now acted before him: