Now everlasting and eternal mean something which has neither 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? My friends, how else could it be? How can you see life, but by seeing some one live it? You cannot see a man’s life, unless you see him live such and such a life, or hear of his living such and such a life, and so knowing what his life, manners, character, are. And so no one could have seen God’s life, or known what life God lived, and what character God’s was, had it not been for the incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ, who was made flesh, and dwelt among us, that by seeing him, the Son, we might see the Father, whose likeness he was, and is, and ever will be. But now, says St. John, we know what God’s eternal life is; for we know what Christ’s life was on earth. And more, we know that it is a life which men may live; for Christ lived it perfectly and utterly, though He was a man. What sort of life, then, is everlasting life?