The following comes from George Klein Nicolai, The Everlasting Gospel, originally published in 1705 under the pseudonym “Paul Siegvolck.” It was first published in English in 1753, and the following excerpts comes from the third (1753) English translation:
IV.
IT
IS IMPOSSIBLE THAT TWO CONTRARY THINGS SHOULD BE BOTH OF ENDLESS DURATION
It is as impossible that there
should be two endless contrary things, as that there should be two real
contrary Deities, a good God, and a bad one, or two sorts of contrary
creatures, both of truly divine origin, some being made good by God, and others
bad.
For an absolute and merely
infinite duration, which has neither beginning nor end, is, according to the confession
of all divines, yea, of every reasonable man, a property peculiar to the
uncreated Being only. But such an infinite duration, which although it has a
beginning, yet shall have no end, can only be the property of those creatures that
re of divine original. For as these, according to the language of Scripture,
are of divine origin, and therefore are rooted in God, or in his almighty
creating power, which has no beginning, they can also be everlasting, their
existence or duration can also be without end in God.
“For in him we have and move, and
have our being.
For we are also his offspring.” (Acts 17:28)
But whatsoever has not its eternal
root in God, or in his eternal creating power, but is sprung up in the creature
in this world, by its voluntary turning away from God, and against his holy
will, and consequently it is an abomination and displeasure to the Most High,
and is only suffered by him, such as sin, and the punishment depending thereon,
these things cannot possibly be of an absolutely endless existence, and
duration, or remain so long as God shall exist; but must of necessity crease at
last, and be annihilated.
For as God is a Being to those
creatures which he created good, and which exist through his will, whereby they
may subsist and be preserved without end; so he is, on the contrary, to
iniquity and sin (which against his will is sprung up in and sticks to the
creatures) a consuming fire, whereby all sin and perverseness in the creatures
must be at last consumed, annihilated and separated from them in the highest
degree, in order to restore them to their primitive purity; in the same manner
as fire does not consume and destroy the gold, but only the dross and that
which is impure.
Now all those who pretend that the
degeneracy and sin found in fallen angels and men, together with the punishment
following it, are of an absolutely endless existence, and will continue so long
as God exists, make sin either a God, or a creature of divine original; but how
much this resembles the heresy imputed to the Manicheans, is left to their own
judgment; or they deny that God is entirely a consuming fire to sin, because,
according to their pretense, he either cannot or will not destroy it in most of
the of the creatures; and consequently represent him either an impotent God, or
one who takes delight in sin and the punishment of it. For what man will suffer
that continually before his eyes which is loathsome, or an abomination to him, if he has it in his power to remove it? Since God, therefore, has so earnestly
declared in his word, that all sin is an abomination unto him, and that he
takes no pleasure in the punishment of it; yea, that his end, in sending his
Son, is utterly to destroy sin and death, and essentially to restore an eternal
righteousness to all mankind, who all both sinned and died in Adam; so that “As
by the offense of one, judgment came upon all men to condemnation; even so by
the righteousness of one, the free gift came upon all men, onto justification of
life” (Rom. 5:18). It is evident, that all those who by their tenets maintain
that God will suffer sin and the punishment of death in and upon his creatures
to all endless eternity, which by his almighty power he can destroy, and hath
solemnly promised that he will destroy, make the most true and holy God a liar,
and a hypocrite, and contrary to his own plain words accuse him of taking delight
and pleasure in sin, and the punishment of death depending thereon. (George
Klein Nicolai, The Everlasting Gospel [Apophasis, 2018], 41-43)
Again, if anyone would say, that
the equality of these two eternities of evil and of good, is not backwards, but
forwards, that is, although evil, to wit, sin and punishment depending thereon,
was not without beginning, as the eternal happiness considered in itself, and
according to its nature was; yet that the eternity of evil is without evil is
without end; and forwards, of the same extension with the eternity of glory; he
must know, that if this extension is not to be the same, as well backwards as
forwards, it wants a great deal of being every way alike; and, if my adversary
is obliged, to avoid falling into heresy, to shorten it one way, why should not
I have liberty, for good and weighty reasons, to cut it short another way? I
answer, secondly, that it is altogether false that the Scripture always,
whenever it uses the words aion, aionios, for ever, of two
contrary things, thereby necessarily understands an equally long duration of
both. I will here only allege three plain passages of Scripture which prove the
contrary. Please to look into the Greek text of Matt. 12:32; Luke 20:34-35;
Eph. 1:21. In these places this present world, and the future, or next world are
compared together, where it is said that in the Greek, according to the
Scripture style, en touto to aioni, oute en to mellonti; ton aionos toutou,
ton aionos ekinou; en to aioni toutou en to mellonti; that is, this
eternity, or age, and the eternity, or age to come. But by this eternity, or
age, nothing else is meant but this world, or the present period of time, which
has begun with the fall of man and will end with the coming of Christ; and by
the next world is intended that period of Christ’s future reign in his
manifested glory. But if by the words aion, aionios, eternity, or
eternal, we are always to understand an equally long duration, even when they
are used for contrary things, it must necessarily follow from the above quoted
texts of Scripture, that the future world, wherein Christ is foreign in his
glory, is to last no longer than this present wicked world; for the periods of
both worlds are expressed by the Holy Spirit, according to his usual way of
speaking, by one and the same word, namely, aion, eternity, or age, as
is also the duration of the future damnation and happiness (Matt. 25:46). But
who of the opposers of the Restoration of all thins will allow of this,
especially as long as by the future world they understand an endless eternity,
according to the common hypothesis?
Thirdly and lastly, if our
adversaries will absolutely have it so, that the glorious reign of Christ with
his elect, and the state of damnation and unhappiness of the poor creatures
cast into the fiery lake, must be two equally long eternities, and we should
even grant them this too, they would gain nothing at all by it against the
blessed doctrine of the Restoration. That economy, therefore, and sort of government
of Christ and his elect, during which all enemies must be put under Christ’s
feet, and all rebellious creatures in reality made subject unto God and Christ,
after the abolition of death, and sin which is the sting of death; that
economy, I say, will certainly have an end; namely, at that period when Christ’s
aim is obtained, and the Son himself shall be subject to Him that put all his
under his feet. But hereby is not meant that the kingdom of Christ shall cease,
which, according to the word of God is to have no end (Luke 1:33). But it will
rather through such subjection of Christ under God his Father, get an
infinitely greater lustre. So that we must well distinguish between the
particular government of Christ and his elect, and the kingdom of Christ and
his believers as one with the kingdom of his heavenly Father.
The first will certainly cease,
and consequently the eternities of eternities, or ages or ages, appointed for
it will end; but the latter is to last forevermore, or to all eternity.
Now, as long as the said
eternities or ages of the particular government of Christ are to lats and succeed
one another, so long will also last the eternities or ages of pain in the fiery
lake: for as soon as all eternities are conquered, and every creature is brought
to true obedience and subjection under God and Christ, he will deliver up the
kingdom to the Father. Therefore, both these eternities are of an exactly like
long duration. (Ibid., 83-87)
