Estrepe

a. [0. Fr. estreper, from Lat extirp are, to -Unchangeable; immutable; as, " eternal truth." Dryden. root up.] ( Law.) To commit waste or spoil in lands, -n. An appellation of God. houses, ., to another's damage, as by cutting down Eternalist, n. One who believes in the doctrine of the existence of matter being dependent upon eternity. trees, . tion, or without end only; forever; unchangeably; in variably; at all times; perpetually; without intermi ion. Eter'nity, n. [Fr. étern ité; Lat. ætern it as .] Duration or continuance without beginning or end; duration without end; the state of time after death. (Phil.) An attribute of the Deity, the existence of whom, according to the true principles of religion. is without beginning or end. It is a negative idea clothed with a positive name. To whatever it is applied, it supposes a present existence, and it is the negation or denial of any beginning or end to that self-same state of existence. As applied to the Deity, it has not been controverted by those who acknowledge a deity at all. On the common basis of argumentative philosophy, there never could have been a time when nothing ever existed, as a uredly that state of nothing impalpable must have nece arily have continued up to the present time. In strictne , however, we have nothing to do with duration prior to that of the visible world; it is sufficient for us to know that the contriver existed before his handiwork. Eternity being infinite, is inconceivable by our finite understandings; at the same time, we cannot imagine an infinite being to exist without it. There is a distinction made between an anterior and a posterior eternity; the latter belongs to beings whom God proposes to preserve forever, the former to himself alone.