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I do not presume to determine whether God does so, and whether these
times which are called "ages of ages" are joined together in a
continuous series, and succeed one another with a regulated diversity,
and leave exempt from their vicissitudes only those who are freed from
their misery, and abide without end in a blessed immortality; or
whether these are called "ages of ages," that we may understand that
the ages remain unchangeable in God's unwavering wisdom, and are the
efficient causes, as it were, of those ages which are being spent in
time. Possibly "ages" is used for "age," so that nothing else is
meant by "ages of ages" than by "age of age," as nothing else is
meant by "heavens of heavens" than by "heaven of heaven." For God
called the firmament, above which are the waters, "Heaven," and
yet the psalm says, "Let the waters that are above the heavens praise
the name of the Lord." Which of these two meanings we are to attach
to "ages of ages," or whether there is not some other and better
meaning still, is a very profound question; and the subject we are at
present handling presents no obstacle to our meanwhile deferring the
discussion of it, whether we may be able to determine anything about
it, or may only be made more cautious by its further treatment, so as
to be deterred from making any rash affirmations in a matter of such
obscurity. For at present we are disputing the opinion that affirms
the existence of those periodic revolutions by which the same things are
always recurring at intervals of time. Now whichever of these
suppositions regarding the "ages of ages" be the true one, it avails
nothing for the substantiating of those cycles; for whether the ages of
ages be not a repetition of the same world, but different worlds
succeeding one another in a regulated connection, the ransomed souls
abiding in well-assured bliss without any recurrence of misery, or
whether the ages of ages be the eternal causes which rule what shall be
and is in time, it equally follows, that those cycles which bring
round the same things have no .existence; and nothing more thoroughly
explodes them than the fact of the eternal life of the saints.
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