![]() ![]() Thus our Saviour says, There is none good but one, that is God. And though divers of God’s attributes are, through his goodness, participated by his creatures, yet because they possess them in a way so inferior to that transcendent, peculiar, and divine manner in which they belong to God, the Scriptures seem absolutely to exclude created beings from any title to those attributes. There is another consideration which makes this name peculiarly applicable to God, namely that he is the fountain of all being and perfection, and that from him all things have derived their existence so that it is he alone that has life in himself: and no creature, of whatever rank or order, has so much as an existence of its own: For in him we live, and move, and have our being. Other beings are, and have been, and shall be but because what they have been might have been otherwise, and what they are might possibly not have been at all, and what they shall be may be very different from what now is therefore their changeable, dependant, and precarious essence, which to-day may be one thing, to- morrow another thing, and the next day possibly nothing at all, scarce deserves the name of being. For the words are with equal propriety rendered, I WILL BE WHAT I AM, or, I AM WHAT I WILL BE, or, I WILL BE WHAT I WILL BE. 2d, That he is eternal and unchangeable: the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever. And being self-existent, he cannot but be self-sufficient, and therefore all-sufficient, and the inexhaustible fountain of being and blessedness. It explains his name Jehovah, and signifies, 1st, That he is self- existent: he has his being of himself, and has no dependance on any other. ![]() That is, I am He that enjoys an essential, independent, immutable, and necessary existence, He that IS, and WAS, and IS TO COME. The Septuagint renders the words ειμι ο ων, I AM the existing Being, or HE WHO IS and the Chaldee, I AM HE WHO IS, and WHO WILL BE. God said - Two names God would be known by: 1st, A name that speaks what he is in himself, I AM THAT I AM. ![]()
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