Exod. iii. 14. I AM THAT I AM. Pfal. xc. 2. Before the Mountains, &c. from everlasting to everlasting thou art God. Job. xi. 7, 8, 9. Canft thou by searching find out God, &c.

you imagine it? Suppofe you take the
most high, the most low, and mea
fure the Distance betwixt them, you do
but confider the Difference betwixt two
Beings, but you do not exprefs how far No-
thing is diftant from any of them: Now,
if any Thing could be imagined lefs than
nothing, could you at all guefs at the vaft
Distance between it and a Being? Now
fo it is here; thus faith the Lord, all Na-
tions, their Glory, Perfection, and Num
ber, all of them, and all their Excellencies
united, do not amount to the Value of an
Unity, in regard of my Majefty; all of
them like Cyphers, joyn never fo many of
them together, they can never make up a
Number, they are nothing in this regard,
and less than nothing. So then, we ought
thus to conceive of God, and thus to attri-
bute a Being and Life to him, as in his
Sight, and in the Confideration, of it, all
created Beings might evanish out of our
Sight as the glorious Light of the Sun,
though it do not annihilate the Stars, and
make them nothing, yet it annihilates their
Appearance to our Senfes, and makes them
difappear, as if they were not; although
there be a great Difference and Inequality of
the Stars in the Night, fome lighter, fome
darker, fome of the firft Magnitude, and
fome of the fecond and third, &c. fome of
greater Glory, and fome of lefs: But in the
Day-time all are alike, all are darkned by
the Sun's Glory: Eyen fo it is here, though
we may compare one Creature with ano-
ther, and find different Degrees of Pering is in our Noftrils and that depends upon
fection and Excellency, while we are on
ly comparing them among themfelves;
but let once the glorious Brightnefs of
God shine upon the Soul, and in that Light
all these Lights fhall be obfcured, all their
Differences unobferved; an Angel and a
Man, a Man and a Worm, differ much
in Glory and Perfection of Being; but O

in his Prefence there is no fuch reckoning.
upon this account all Things are alike,
God infinitely diftant from all, and so not
more or lefs: Infinitenefs is not capable of
fuch Terms of Comparifon. This is the
Reafon why Chrift fays, There is none
good, but one, even God. Why, because,
in refpect of his Goodnefs, nothing de
ferves that Name; leffer Light in the View
of the greater is a Darknefs, as lefs Good
in Comparison of a greater, appears Evil:
How much more then fhall created Light
and created Goodness lofe that Name and
Notion, in the Prefence of that uncreated
Light, and Self-fufficient Good nefs: And
therefore it is, that the Lord calls Himfelf
after this Manner, I am, as if nothing elfe
were. I will not fay, faith he, that I am
the Highest, the best and moft Glorious.
that is; that fuppofeth other Things to
have fome Being, and fome Glory that is
worthy the accounting of; But I am, and
there is none else I am alone I lift up my
Hand to Heaven, and fwear, I live for
ever. There is nothing elfe can fay, I am,
I live, and there is none elfe; for there is
nothing hath it of it felf: Can any boast of
that which they have borrowed, and is not
their own? As, if the Bird that had ftol-
len from other Birds its fair Feathers,
thould come forth and contend with them
about Beauty, would not they prefently e-
very, one pluck out their own, and leave,
her naked, to be an Object of Mockery to
all? Even fo, fince our Breath and Be

his Majefty's breathing upon us, if he should but keep in his Breath, as it were, we' thould vanish into nothing, He looketh upon Man and be is not, Job vii. 8. That' is a ftrange Look, that looks Man not only out of Countenance, but out of Life and Being, He looks him into his first nothing; and then can he fay, I live, I am; no, he

muf

nity, Before the Mountains were brought forth, from Everlafting to Everlasting be is God, Pfal. xc. 2. Now this is properly to be, and this only deferves the Name of Being, which never was nothing, and never fhall be nothing, which may al ways fay, I am; you know it is fo with nothing elfe but God; the Heavens and Earth, with the Things therein, could not not fay 6000 Years ago, Iam. Adam could once have faid, I am, but now he cannot fay it; for that Self-being and Fountain-being hath faid to him, Return to Duft; and fo it is with all the Generations paft, where are they now? They were, but they are not: And we then were not, and now are; for we are come in their Place, but within a little Time, who of us can fay, I am? No, we flee away and are like a Dream, as when one awaketh: We are like a Tale that is told, that makes a prefent Noife, and it is paft; within few Years this Generation will pafs, and none will, make Mention of us, our Place will not know us, no more than we do now remember those who have been before Chrift faid of John, He was a burning and fining Light, he was, faith he, but now he is not: But Chrift may always fay,I am the Light and Life of Men. Man is,but look a little backward, and he was not; you shall find his Original; and ftep a little forward and he fhall not be, you shall find his End: But God is Alpha and Omega, the Begin

must always fay of himself in refpect of God, as Paul of himself in refpect of Christ, I live, yet not I, but Chrift inme; I am, yet not I, but God in me: I live, I am, yet not I, but in God, in whom I live, and bave my Being. So that there is no other thing befide God can fay, I am; becaufe all things are but borrowed Drops of this felf-fufficient Fountain, and Sparkles of this primitive Light; let any thing intervene between the Stream and the Fountain, and it is cut off and dryed up; let any thing be interpofed between the Sun and the Beam, and it evanishes. Therefore this Fountain being, this original Light, this Self being durò or, as Plato called him, deferves only the Name of Being; other Things that we call after that Name are nearer nothing than God, and fo, in regard of his Majefty, may more fitly be called nothing than fomething. You fee then how profound a Myftery of God's abfolute ⚫ felf-fufficient Perfection is infolded in thefe three Letters, I am, or in thefe four (JEHOVAH.) If you ask what is God? There is nothing occurrs better than this, I am, or be that is: If I fhould fay He is the Almighty, the only Wife, the moft Perfect, the moft Glorious, it is all contained in that Word, I am that I am, nempe boc eft ei effe, bac omnia effe; For that is to be indeed, to be all thofe Perfections fimply, abfolutely, and as it were folely; if I fay all that, and should reckon out all the Scripture-Epithets, I add nothing; if I fay no more,, I diminih no-ning and the End. But Oh, who can re thing.

As this holds out God's abfolute Perfection, fo we told you that it imports his Eternity and his Unchangeablenefs. You know Pilate's Speech, what I have written I bave written, wherein he meant, that he would not change it, it should ftand fo. So this properly belongs to God's Eter

tire fo far backward as to apprehend a Beginning, or go fuch a start forward as to conceive an End in fuch a Being as is the Beginning and End of all Things but without all Beginning and End? Whofe Understanding would it not confound? There is no Way here but to fee into Paul's Sanctuary, O the Heighth and

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Breadth, and Length and Depth! We Number being multiplyed will amount un cannot imagine à Being, but we must first to the greateft that you can conceive. conceive it nothing, and in fome inftant But O, where fhall a Soul find it felf here? receiving its Being; and, therefore canft It is inclofed between Infinitenefs before, thou by Searching find out God? There- and Infinitenefs behind, between two Ever. fore what his Being is, hath not entred in- laftings, which way foever it turns, there to the Heart of Man to confider. If any is no out going; which way foever it looks, Man would live out the Space but of two it muft lofe it felf in an Infiniteness round Generations, he would be a World's Won- about it, it can find no Beginning and no der; but if any had their Days prolonged End, when it hath wearied it felf in fearchas the Patriarchs before the Flood, they ing, which if it find not, it knows not what would be called ancient indeed, but then it is, and cannot tell what it is. Now what the Heavens and Earth are far more An- are we then? O what are we, who fo cient; we may go backward the Space of magnifie our felves? We are but of near 6000 Years in our own Minds, and yesterday, and know nothing, Job viii. yet be as far from his Beginning as we 9. Suppofe that we had endured the were; when we are come to the Beginning Space of 1000 Years, yet faith Mofes, of all Things, a Man's Imagination may yet Pfal. xc. 4. A thousand Years are. extend it felf further, and fuppofe to it felf as but as yesterday in thy Sight; Time many Thousands of Years before the Be-hath no Succeffion to thee, thou beholdest ginning of Time, as all the Angels and Men at once what is not at once, but in feveral of all Nations, and Generations from the Times, all that hath not the Proportion Beginning, if they had been imployed in no of one Day to thy Days: We change in other thing but this, could have fummed our Days, and are not that to-day we up; and then fuppofe a Product to be made were yefterday, but He is the fame Yef of all the feveral Sums of Years, it would terday, and to-day, and for ever, Heb. be vaft and unspeakable, but yet your Imagi- xiii. 8. Every Day we are dying, fome nation could reach further, and multiply Part of our Life is taken away; we leave that great Sum as often into it felf as there ftill one Day more behind us, and what are Unites in it: Now when you have is behind us is gone and cannot be recodone all this, you are never a whit nearer vered: Though we vainly please our selves the Days of the Ancient of Days. Sup- in the Number of our Years, and the Expole then this fhould be the only Exercife tent of our Life, and the Viciffitudes of of Men and Angels throughout all Eternity, Time, yet the Truth is, we are but still all this marvellous Arithmetick would not lofing fo much of our Being and Time, as amount unto the leaft Shadow of the Con- paffeth: Firft, we loft our Child-hood, tinuance of Him who is from Everlast then we lofe our Manhood, and then we ing; all that huge Product of all the Mul- leave our old Age behind us alfo, and tiplications of Men and Angels,hath no Pro- there is no more before us, even the very portion unto that never Beginning, and ne-prefent Day we divide it with Death: But ver ending Duration: The greateft Sum when he moves all Things, he remains that is imaginable hath a certain Proportion immoveable though Days and Years be to the leaft Number, that it containeth it in a continual Flux and Motion about him. fo oft and no oftner, fo that the leaft

and