beginning nor end. That is certain. The wisest of the heathen knew
that: but we are apt to forget it. We are apt to think a thing may
be everlasting, because it has no end, though it has a beginning. We
are careless thinkers, if we fancy that. God is eternal because he
has neither beginning nor end.

But here come two puzzles.

First. The Athanasian Creed says that there is but one Eternal, that
is, God; and never were truer words written.

But do we not make out two Eternals? For God is one Eternal; and
eternal life is another Eternal. Now which is right; we, or the
Athanasian Creed? I shall hold by the Athanasian Creed, my friends,
and ask you to think again over the matter: thus--If there be but
one Eternal, there is but one way of escaping out of our puzzle,
which makes two Eternals; and that is, to go back to the old doctrine
of St. Paul, and St. John, and the wisest of the Fathers, and say--
There is but one Eternal; and therefore eternal life is in the
Eternal God. And it is eternal Life because it is God's life; the
life which God lives; and it is eternal just because, and only
because, it is the life of God; and eternal death is nothing but the
want of God's eternal life.

Certainly, whether you think this true or not, St. John thought it
true; for he says so most positively in the text. He says that the
Life was manifested--showed plainly upon earth, and that he had seen
it. And he says that he saw it in a man, whom his eyes had seen, and
his hands had handled. How could that be?