to frame any adequate
Conceptions of it.

In the first Revelation which he makes of his own Being, he entitles
himself, _I am that I am_; and when _Moses_ desires to know what Name he
shall give him in his Embassy to _Pharaoh_, he bids him say that _I am_
hath sent you. Our great Creator, by this Revelation of himself, does in
a manner exclude every thing else from a real Existence, and
distinguishes himself from his Creatures, as the only Being which truly
and really exists. The ancient Platonick Notion, which was drawn from
Speculations of Eternity, wonderfully agrees with this Revelation which
God has made of himself. There is nothing, say they, which in Reality
exists, whose Existence, as we call it, is pieced up of past, present,
and to come. Such a flitting and successive Existence is rather a Shadow
of Existence, and something which is like it, than Existence it self. He
only properly exists whose Existence is intirely present; that is, in
other Words, who exists in the most perfect Manner, and in such a Manner
as we have no Idea of.

I shall conclude this Speculation with one useful Inference. How can we
sufficiently prostrate our selves and fall down before our Maker, when
we consider that ineffable Goodness and Wisdom which contrived this
Existence for finite Natures? What must be the Overflowings of that good
Will, which prompted our Creator to adapt Existence to Beings, in whom
it is not necessary? Especially when we consider that he himself was
before him in the compleat Possession of Existence and of Happiness, and
in the full Enjoyment of Eternity. What Man can think of himself as
called out and separated from nothing, of his being made a conscious, a
reasonable and a happy Creature, in short, of being taken in as a Sharer
of Existence, and a kind of Partner in Eternity, without being swallowed
up in Wonder, in Praise, in Adoration! It is indeed a Thought too big
for the Mind of Man, and rather to be entertained in the Secrecy of
Devotion, and in the Silence of the Soul, than to be expressed by Words.
The Supreme Being has not given us Powers or Faculties sufficient to
extol and magnifie such unutterable Goodness.

It is however some Comfort to us, that we shall be always doing what we
shall be never able to do, and that a Work which cannot be finished,
will however be the Work of an Eternity.

[Footnote 1: See Nos. 565, 571, 580, and 628.]

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