SERMON XCIII.

For ever, O Lord, thy word is settled in heaven.—Ver. 89.

THESE words are usually rendered as making but one proposition; but the accent athnah showeth there are two branches, the one asserting the eternity of God, the other the constancy and permanency of his word. Thus—(1.) ‘For ever art thou, O Lord;’ (2.) ‘Thy word is settled in the heavens.’ So the Syriac version readeth it; and Geierus, and after him others, prove and approve this reading. And so this verse and the following do the better correspond one with another, if we observe beginning and ending, as ‘Thou art for ever, O Lord,’ and ‘Thy faithfulness unto all generations,’ which are exactly parallel. And then the last clauses, ‘Thy word is settled in the heavens,’ ‘Thou hast established the earth, and it abideth.’ And implieth, as God is eternal, so is his word, and hath an emblem and fit representation both in heaven and in earth: in heaven, in the constant motion of the heavenly bodies; in earth, in the consistency and permanency thereof; that as his word doth stand fast in heaven, so doth his faithfulness on earth, where the afflictions of the godly seem to contradict it

First, Of the first clause, ‘Thou art for ever, O Jehovah.’

1. That Jehovah is the one, only, eternal, and everlasting God. What eternity is passeth our skill exactly to define. As we understand it, it is the duration of a being that is without beginning or end. Duration is a continual tract of being; and eternal duration implieth an immutable and unterminable abode in being. So it is here.

[1.] It is an infinite, unterminable duration, without beginning or ending: Ps. xc. 2, ‘From everlasting to everlasting thou art God.’ God never was nothing, never shall be nothing. All the generations past were, but now are not. We heretofore were not, but now are. God is the beginning and end of all things, yet himself without beginning or end. He had an infinite, incomprehensible being before 392any part of the world was framed, and will remain the same still when the world shall be no more. The soul, in viewing God, is enclosed between infiniteness before and infiniteness behind, and which way soever it looketh it seeth infiniteness round about it.

[2.] Immutable; as without beginning and end, so without any change: Ps. cii. 25-27, ‘Of old thou hast kid the foundation of the earth, and the heavens are the work of thy hands: they shall perish, but thou shalt endure, yea, all of them shall wax old like a garment; as a vesture shalt thou change them, and they shall be changed: but thou art the same, and thy years shall have no end.’ God from the mount of eternity beholdeth all the successions and changes of the creature; but he is not changed, his nature is one and the same from everlasting to everlasting. We change every day; we are not that to-day which we were yesterday; we have left some part of our life behind us, which is gone, and cannot be recovered; and our duration lesseneth every day; but God abideth for ever one and the same, though all things be in continual flux and motion about him.

2. Now, that God is eternal I shall prove by scripture and reason.

[1.] By scripture: Gen. xxi. 33, ‘Abraham called there on the name of the Lord, the everlasting God.’ The gods of the nations were upstart gods, but lately found out and soon destroyed; but he is the eternal God, who ever was, and is, and ever will be: Job xxxvi. 26, ‘Behold, God is great, and we know him not, neither can the number of his years be searched out.’ He speaketh of God’s eternity in such terms as man is capable of; for God’s being is not to be measured by days and years, but so we express it for our understanding, for his duration is far above our reach and capacity. So Isa. lvii. 15, God is said to ‘inhabit eternity.’ Thus the scripture propounds God’s eternity as matter of our faith, reverence, and admiration.

[2.] By reason, because the perfection of the first cause requireth that his duration should be without beginning or ending, or, which is all one, eternal. He is Jehovah, that hath his being from himself, and all other things have their being after him and from him. Some thing must be eternal, or else there would be nothing made. It is certain that if there had been a time when nothing was, there never would be anything, for something cannot come out of nothing; therefore we must stop in some first Cause and eternal being.

3. That eternity belongeth to God is to be seen in all his attributes; for if God be eternal, his wisdom, power, and goodness are eternal also.

[1.] His wisdom is eternal, for all things are present to the knowledge of God. Things come to our knowledge successively, some before, and some after. We see and know things according to their duration and existence. We compute by days and years, yesterday, to-morrow, last year, and next year. One generation passeth and another cometh, but in God’s understanding there is no succession of before and after: ‘Known to God are all his works from the beginning,’ Acts xv. 18. God, that doth all things in time, knew them all before time, otherwise his knowledge was not infinite and eternal; they are all present to his understanding. Hence is that expression: 2 Peter iii. 8, ‘One day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.’ All those differences of duration, which to the 393creatures are longer or shorter, are all alike to God; for all things are constantly present to God, and under his view and prospect. Indeed the Lord is pleased to condescend to our shallow capacities, and to give us leave to express his duration in our own terms, whilst he calleth himself ‘Yesterday, to-day, and for ever,’ Heb. xiii. 8; and Rev. i. 4, ‘From him which is, which was, and which is to come.’ Yet in proper speaking, God always is. I am is his name; and all things to him are present, either past, present, or to come. Time hath no succession to him: he beholdeth at once what is not at once, but at several times; there is nothing past to him, to come to him, but all present. He knoweth the end of all things before he giveth them a beginning.

[2.] His power is eternal; therefore it is said, Rom. i. 20, that his eternal power and godhead is clearly understood from the creation of the world, and seen in the things that are made. How else could so many things be educed out of nothing, and still kept from returning into their original nothing, if there were not an infinite and eternal power then and still at work? So Isa. xxvi. 4, ‘Trust ye in the Lord for ever, for in the Lord Jehovah is everlasting strength.’ We may depend upon him, for his arm is never dried up, nor doth his strength fail; there is no wrinkle upon the brow of eternity. God is where he was at first; he continueth for ever a God of infinite power, able to save those that trust in him.

[3.] His goodness and mercy are eternal: Ps. cxxxvi., it is often repeated, ‘For the mercy of the Lord endureth for ever.’ It is true a parte ante his mercy did not begin of late, but was towards us before we or the world were; from all eternity we were thought upon, that he might do us good himself. It is said, ‘With an everlasting love have I loved thee, and therefore with loving-kindness I have drawn thee,’ Jer. xxxi. 3. Whomsoever God draweth to himself in time, he loved them before all time. And a parte post it holdeth good; his love and affection continueth the same, and shall do for ever; he is not weary of doing good, nor is his mercy spent. You have both, Ps. ciii. 17, ‘The mercy of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting upon them that fear him.’ The mercy was decreed and prepared before the beginning of the world, and we shall have the fruits and effects of it when the world shall be no more. It was from everlasting; for God, foreseeing the fall of Adam, provided us a remedy in Christ; and having all lapsed in his prospect and view, did out of his free love choose some, whilst others are passed by, to life and salvation by Christ. That God did from eternity decree and purpose this is manifest, because he doth in time effect it, otherwise he should not ‘work all things according to the counsel of his will,’ Eph. i. 11, or else his will would be mutable, willing that in time which he willed not from eternity; whereas in him there is no variableness or shadow of turning. And that his mercy is to everlasting appeareth because he doth in time convert and sanctify them, and so bring them to glory and blessedness; for the eternal God will make his people eternally happy with himself.

4. That God showeth himself as an eternal being, both as a governor and benefactor.

[1.] As a governor. His eternity is seen in his government, in 394threatening eternal misery to the wicked, and appointing eternal happiness to the godly: Mat. xxv. 46, ‘These shall go away into ever lasting punishment, and the righteous into life everlasting.’ The joys of the blessed are everlasting; there shall never be a change of nor interruption in their happiness, but after millions of years they are to continue in this life as if it were the first moment. Thy crown will be thy crown for ever; thy kingdom thy kingdom for ever; this glory will be thy glory for ever; thy God will be thy God, and thy Christ, for ever. We affect the continuance of this life, though it be a life of pain and misery: ‘Skin for skin, and all a man hath, he will give for his life.’ Oh, how much more valuable should this eternal life be, which is a life of uninterrupted joy and felicity! On the other side, the punishment is everlasting, the loss is eternal, the wicked are everlastingly deprived of the favour of God. The disciples wept when Paul said, ‘Ye shall see my face no more.’ Oh, how much more terrible will it be to be banished everlastingly out of God’s presence! Mat. xxv. 41. Besides, the pain will be eternal, as well as the loss. This worm never dieth, this fire shall never be quenched, Mark ix. 44. Neither heaven nor hell hath any period or end, either of them are eternal. Now this way God ruleth and governeth the creature, as becoming his infinite and eternal majesty. The laws of kings and parliaments can reach no further than some temporal punishment; their highest pain is the killing of the body; their highest reward is some vanishing and fading honour, or perishing riches; but God’s law concerneth our everlasting estate, our eternal well or ill-being; eternal life or eternal death is wrapped up in these commandments. These are rewards suitable to the eternal majesty of the lawgiver; and if thou do evil there is an eternal loss of heaven, and an eternal sense of the wrath of God. If you believe and obey the gospel there is eternal salvation provided for you; for Christ is ‘the author of eternal salvation unto all them that obey him,’ Heb. v. 9.

[2.] As a benefactor he showeth himself also an eternal being. There is a double beneficial goodness of God—common and special. His common goodness runneth in the channel of creation and common providence; his special goodness in the channel of redemption and renovation by Christ.

(1.) He is a benefactor to all men; he hath given them an immortal spirit that shall abide for evermore: Eccles. xii. 7, ‘The dust shall return to the earth as it was, and the spirit to God that gave it.’ There is an immortal soul that dwelleth in a mortal body. The body was made of corruptible principles, was dust in its composition. It is true, God can annihilate it; but the soul, as it is a spirit, hath no corruptible principles in it; it is a thing that cannot be killed or destroyed by any created power. Now this divine spark, which cannot be quenched, is a pledge and effect of God’s eternity; for he that giveth immortality certainly is immortal himself: nothing can give what it hath not. And besides, because our souls are immersed and sunk into matter, and forget their divine original, therefore God by the blessings of his providence seeks to raise them up to look after this supreme and spiritual being, and giveth us all kind of comforts and mercies, whose creatures we are, ‘that we may seek the Lord, if haply 395we may feel after him, and find him,’ Acts xvii. 27; that we may own him as the first cause or father of lights, by whom this spark was kindled in us; or seek him as the chief good, in whom alone this rest less soul of ours can find contentment and satisfaction.

(2.) He is a benefactor in a way of grace and recovery by Christ. This also sets forth his eternity. The first rise and bottom cause of all this grace and favour that stirred and set all the causes on work which concurred to it, was God’s everlasting love, John iii. 16. And Christ saith, Prov. viii. 31, ‘I was set up from everlasting;’ and this ‘grace was given us in Christ before the world began,’ 2 Tim. i. 9. Before the foundation of the world was laid this business was transacted with Christ for our benefit. And then the way how it was brought about, it was by an everlasting redemption, Heb. ix. 12, of an eternal force, value, and efficacy. And the grace wrought in us; it is called ‘incorruptible seed,’ 1 Peter i. 23. There is an eternal principle in our hearts, and that is the reason why a believer is so often said to have eternal life abiding in him, because of the beginning, seed, and principle of it that is sown in his heart; and the comfort and fruit of it that we have here is called ‘everlasting consolation,’ 2 Thes. ii. 16, ‘He hath loved us, and given us everlasting consolation, and good hope, through grace.’ It is not bottomed on any poor fading thing, but on matters of an eternal duration; the happiness itself is the eternal fruition of the ever-blessed God: 1 Thes. iv. 17, ‘We shall be ever with the Lord.’ So that we are made eternal also both in body and soul; whence you see how abundantly God discovereth his eternal being, in all his gifts and graces by Christ.

5. When the creatures are spoken of as eternal, it must be understood; it is a communicated, dependent, half eternity, and so no derogation to this perfection which is proper to God.

[1.] It is communicated to us, for originally God only hath immortality, 1 Tim. vi. 16. We have it by derivation, God hath it originally in himself and from himself. God dispenseth and measureth out the duration and continuance of all other things, their races and stages, when they shall begin and when they shall end. And that immortality which the angels and the souls of men have is ascribed to us by participation; we have it from God, because he was pleased to give it to us.

[2.] It is a dependent eternity, for every moment we depend upon God; if he take away his Spirit we are gone, man or angel. We assert the immortality of the soul because it hath not the principles of corruption in it as the body hath; but yet we cannot, must not cut off the dependence upon the first cause and fountain of being. In his hand is the breath of all living, and he is often called ‘the God of your life,’ and ‘the God of the spirits of all flesh.’

[3.] It is but a half eternity: we sometimes were not, God is from everlasting to everlasting; but we are appointed to eternal life, and time was when we lay in the womb of nothing. We are but of yesterday, poor upstarts, that had but an existence and a new being given us of God; if he will lengthen it out, and continue it to all eternity, it is not such an eternity as he hath, but a half eternity; not an eternity without beginning, but only without ending.

6. This eternity of God is not seriously and sufficiently enough thought of and improved, till it lessen all other things in our opinion and estimation of them and affection to them. Two things should especially be lessened—the time we spend in the world, and the things that we enjoy in the world.

[1.] The time we spend in the world. Alas! what is this to God’s eternity! Ps. xxxix. 5, ‘Behold, thou hast made my days as an handbreadth, and mine age is nothing before thee.’ Whether our days be spent in prosperity or adversity they are but short, a hand-breadth, a mere nothing, compared with God’s eternity: Ps. ex. 4, ‘A thousand years in thy sight are but as yesterday when it is past, or as a watch in the night.’ A thousand years, compared to eternity, are but as a drop spilt and left in the ocean, or as time insensibly past over in sleep. Forty, fifty, or seventy years seemeth a great time with us; yet with God, who is infinite, ten thousand years is no considerable space, but a very short and small duration.

[2.] As time, so the things of the world: 2 Cor. iv. 18, ‘The things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal.’ They are short as to continuance and use. As to continuance, he calleth the honours and delight of Pharaoh’s court, Heb. xi. 25, ‘The pleasures of sin for a season.’ Whatsoever is temporal a man may see the end of it. Be it evil: a man in the deep waters is not discouraged as long as he can see banks; but in eternity there are neither banks nor bottom. If good: Ps. cxix. 96, ‘I have seen an end of all perfection.’ The most shining glory will shortly be burnt out to a snuff; it wastes every day. Eternity maketh good things infinitely good, and evil things infinitely evil. If it be temporal, whatever paineth us is but a flea-bite to eternal torments. Whatever pleaseth or delights, it is but a may-game to eternal joys. So for use too, it is but for a season, Deut. xxiii. 24; the law gave an indulgence to eat of his neighbours’ grapes for refreshment; ‘But thou shalt not put any in thy vessel:’ 1 Tim. vi. 7, ‘For we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out.’ The manna was useful and refreshing when used in the day, but if kept all night it perished and was useless; it was useful in the wilderness, but ceased when they came to Canaan.

The uses are many.

Use 1. First, Comfort to the godly, for their own particular. He is an eternal God that ordereth and guideth all things, that he may bring them to their eternal felicity, and will in time admit them into it: Ps. xlviii. 14, ‘For this God is our God for ever and ever, and he will be our guide even unto death.’ After death he will be their God still; death doth not put an end to this relation; for God is Abraham’s God when he is dead, Mat. xxii. 32. God is the same still, both in himself and to those that believe in him: he will constantly guide them all the days of their life, and after death receive us to the ever lasting enjoyment of himself, and revive our dust. Oh, what a blessedness is this, to have an interest in such an eternal God! Secondly, As to the community and society to which they do belong. God’s eternity is the church’s stability; and so it is urged in scripture: Mal. iii. 6, ‘For I am the Lord; I change not: therefore ye sons of 397Jacob are not consumed;’ Ps. cii. 27, 28, ‘Thou art the same, and thy years shall have no end; the children of thy servants shall continue.’ So when the flourishing of the wicked is spoken of, when they spring as grass: Ps. xcii. 8, ‘But thou, O Lord, art most high for evermore.’ If they be high, God is higher, and they are but upstarts to him; their power is of a late rise and short continuance. So Ps. xciii. 2, ‘Thy throne is established of old; thou art from everlasting.’ God’s throne is as eternal as his being. So Lam. iii. 17, ‘Thou, O Lord, remainest for ever, and thy throne from generation to generation.’ Is the life of thy enemies long? God endureth for ever. Is their power great? It is but dependent. God had power before them, and will have power when they shall be no more.

Use 2. Terror to the wicked: Heb. x. 31, ‘It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.’ They may outlive other enemies, but they cannot outlive God, who abideth for ever, to avenge his quarrel against them. And judge you if his controversy against them be not just, since they are such impious fools and brutes as that they prefer the creature before the creator, and choose temporal things rather than everlasting, and prefer earth before heaven, and the satisfaction of their bodily lusts before the saving of their souls. Can you blame God of any injustice in dooming them to everlasting misery? What part of the punishment would you have relaxed? the loss, or the pain? The loss is double—of God’s favour or their natural comforts. Would you have God admit those to the sight and everlasting fruition of him self who never cared for him? Or return again to their natural comforts, that they may eternally run riot with them, or abuse them to an occasion of the flesh? Or is it the pain? Would you have God take off that when the sin and impenitent obstinacy doth still continue, since they preferred a temporal good before that which is eternal, and would ‘sell their birthright for one morsel of meat’? Heb. xii. 16. How just is it for God to make them everlastingly to lie under the fruits and effects of their own evil choice!

Use 3. To press us to seek after the everlasting fruition of this blessed and ever-glorious God, because many live as if they had never heard of things eternal; most live as if they did not believe any such thing; the best do not improve those things as they ought: therefore I shall a little insist upon a quickening exhortation, to stir you up to seek an eternal happiness in God.

1. As we are reasonable creatures, we were made for eternity; for God hath given us an immortal spirit, and there is no proportion between an immortal soul and temporal things. It cannot be content with anything that shall have an end, for then we may survive our happiness. If we had souls that would perish, it would be more excusable to look after things that perish. What will you do when your souls shall be turned out of doors, when ye fail? Luke xvi. 9. To what region will the poor, shiftless, harbourless soul betake itself when you die? All your thoughts that concern the present world perish; and if you did perish too, it were no such great matter. But you shall live; and what will you have to comfort yourselves if you have not an interest in the eternal God? In whose hands will you be if you have slighted him while you were upon earth, and the eternal happiness he 398offereth to us, and could not find enough in God and his eternal salvation to take off your hearts from the pleasures and vanities of the world? Can you expect that he will favour you and be kind to you?

2. Eternity is made known to us Christians, and clearly set before us in the doctrine of the gospel: 2 Tim. i. 10, ‘He hath brought life and immortality to light through the gospel.’ Nature hath but guesses at it, the law but shadows; but here it is clearly, certainly, and fully revealed. You know that you have an eternal God to please, and an infinite and eternal reward to expect. The whole drift of our religion is to call us off from time to eternity, from this world to a better. Christ came not to settle us here in a state of prosperity, nor to make this world our rest and portion, but to draw us up to God and heaven.

3. The same religion showeth that we are already involved in an eternal misery, and stand under a sentence binding us over to the curse and everlasting wrath of God: John iii. 18, ‘He that believeth not is condemned already: and this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men love darkness more than light, because their deeds are evil.’ God hath offered life and immortality to them who have so miserably lost it, and involved their souls in eternal death. Therefore, if we know what it is to be liable to the wrath of an eternal God, and to be interested in the hopes of eternal glory, we should awaken and be more serious in a business of such concernment.

4. You will shortly be summoned to give an account, Luke xvi. 2. You have received so much from me, such riches, honours, parts, sufficiencies, such invitations to draw you home to me, what will you answer? Nay; there is not only a little time between you and judgment, but a little time between you and execution; nothing but the slender thread of a frail life, which is soon fretted asunder. And will you, can you sleep in sin so near eternity, and laugh and dance over the brink of hell? You cannot soon enough flee from wrath to come.

5. Consider what poor deluded wretches, who are in that everlasting estate, would give, if they might be trusted with a little time again, that they might provide for eternity. How happy would they think themselves if God would but try them once more! If careless creatures would but anticipate the thoughts of another world, how soon would they discern their mistake! How miserably will you bewail yourselves when you have lost eternity for poor temporal trifles! What comfort will it be to you that you have been merry here, lived in pomp and ease, when you must endure the wrath of God for evermore, and wish for any allay of your torments? Luke xvi. 24, ‘Father Abraham, have mercy on ‘me, and send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water, and cool my tongue, for I am tormented in this flame.’ It is better to believe than try; provide against it, than try.

6. If you be Christians indeed, you have not the spirit of this world. Christianity, as it is acted by us, is but the exercise of faith, hope, and love. Now, the eternal fruition of God is the matter that all these graces are conversant about. Faith believeth that there is an eternal being, and that our happiness lieth in the fruition of him, Heb. xi. 6. Love is that which levelleth and directeth all our actions to this blessed end, that we may see God and enjoy him as our portion and felicity: Ps. lxxiii. 25, ‘Whom have I in heaven but thee? and there is none 399upon earth I desire beside thee.’ Our desires are after him, our delights in him; it is our work to please him, our happiness to enjoy him. The truth of his eternal being is the object of our faith; so the apprehension of him as our chief good and felicity is the object of our love, so as he is capable of being enjoyed; and our participated eternity is the object of our faith: this is the end of all our desires and labours, and the expectation of this fortifieth us against all the difficulties of our pilgrimage, and so directeth us what to mind, be, and do: 2 Cor. v. 9, ‘Therefore we labour, that, whether present or absent, we may be accepted of the Lord.’

Directions what we shall do.

Direct. 1. Meditate often and seriously of eternity. There is a great deal of profit gotten by this meditation; nothing doth more promote the great ends of the gospel than this meditation.

1. For Christ. Nothing makes Christ precious but serious thoughts of eternity, he being the only means to deliver us from wrath to come, which is the great evil of the other state, and procure for us the eternal enjoyment of God, which is the good of that estate: Ps. lxxxiv. 11, ‘He is a sun and a shield, and no good thing will he withhold from them that live uprightly.’ You can make a shift without Christ in this world, you are by ordinary means well provided against the evils of this life, and well fortified with the good things thereof; but in death, Christ will be to thee gain and advantage.

2. It would promote the great change. What will make a proud man humble, a vain man serious, a covetous worldling heavenly, a wicked man a good man? Let him think of eternity, where only the humble, the heavenly, are favoured and accepted, 2 Cor. iii. 11.

3. What would check temptations, either from the pleasures, riches, or honours of the world? These are not eternal riches, nor eternal pleasures, nor eternal honours; transitory things are not our business, nor our scope, Heb. xi. 25.

4. What would quicken diligence, and put life into our endeavours but the meditation of eternity? Everything should be laboured for that hath an everlastingness in it; the travail of your souls should be laid out upon those things: Isa. lv. 2, ‘Wherefore do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labour for that which satisfies not?’ So John vi. 27, ‘Labour not for the meat that perisheth, but that which endureth to life everlasting.’ Surely serious diligence is necessary. Shall I trifle away that time which I am to improve for eternity?

Direct. 2. Let the enjoyment of an eternal God be your end and scope: 2 Cor. iv. 18, ‘While we look not to things which are seen, but to things that are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal.’ When you have set eternal things before you, then make your choice. On the one side there are eternal joys, on the other eternal torments. Now vain pleasures lead to the one, solid godliness to the other. By the neglect of God you run the hazard of a miserable eternity. By the choice of God for your Lord and portion, you get an interest in a blessed eternity: only let me warn you—

1. To choose end and means together: Mat. vii. 13, 14, ‘Enter ye 400in at the strait gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leadeth to destruction, and many there be that go in thereat. Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way that leadeth to life, and few there be that find it.’ They must be coupled; both quicken each other, the intention of the end quickens to a diligent pursuit and an earnest use of means; and the use of means will sooner give you to understand what your condition will be than a bare reflection upon the end.

2. Do not confound principal and subordinate means, so as one should jostle out the other. The primary means of going to the Father is Christ: John xiv. 6, ‘Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, and the truth, and the life: no man cometh to the Father but by me.’ The secondary means is holiness: Heb. xii. 14, ‘Without holiness no man shall see the Lord.’

Direct. 3. Be resolvedly true to your end, which is the enjoyment of God, and that will quicken you the more, and direct you; for the end is both our measure and our motive. In short, do all things from eternal principles to eternal ends. The eternal principle is the grace of the Spirit; the eternal end is the pleasing, glorifying, and enjoying of God: Phil. i. 11, ‘Being filled with the fruits of righteousness, which are by Jesus Christ unto the praise and glory of God.’ Actions carried on from eternal principles, according to an eternal rule, for an eternal end, cannot miscarry.