come unto the Children of Ifrael, and shall fay unto them, The God of your Fathers hath fent me unto you, and they fhall fay unto me, What is his Name? What shall I fay unto them? To whom God replies, in this majestick and awful Manner, I AM THAT I AM; and farther, in the Words of the Text, Thus fhalt thou fay unto the Children of Ifrael, 1 AM bath fent me unto you.

So that these Words are that Defcription of the Supreme Author of all Things, which he was pleased himself to give his Prophet. They contain the Name, and defcribe the Nature, of the Almighty, as far as he then thought fit to communicate it to his Creatures, and perhaps as far as either Words can convey, or the Mind of Man conceive, any pofitive Ideas of it. They declare his Exiftence in the moft fublime and expreffive Manner; and by declaring no more, do plainly imply, that the Manner of that Existence is neither to be expreffed nor understood by us. I AM, fays he, THAT I AM. My Exiftence is founded in, and derived from, my felf, who am the Source, from whence all other Beings derive theirs; but what I am, or how I exift, I neither declare, nor haft thou Capacity to conceive; and go therefore, and give my People this fhort Account of me, and fay unto them, I AM hath fent me unto you. In treating of which Words I fhall endeavour practically to confider, the VOL. I. three

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three following Particulars as contained in them.

I. That God alone can properly be faid TO BE; I AM is his peculiar Character. II. That the Divine Nature and Attributes exceed our Capacity, we cannot attain to any comprehenfive Ideas of them. That he is, we know, but what he is, we know not. And III. That we ought therefore to model our Faith in him, as well as regulate our Obedience to him, by the Revelations which he has given us of himself, by his Prophets and Apostles; and that for this evident Reafon, because I AM hath sent them unto us.

I. The first Obfervation is, That God alone can properly be faid TO BE; I AM is his peculiar Character. His Existence alone is in and of himself, and neceffarily fo too; whilft that of every Creature was in its beginning precarious, and is in its Duration dependent upon him. And this, I conceive, may be one Reafon why he altogether infifts on this Attribute of necessary Self-Existence, in his Description of himself. For this implies his Creation of all Things, (for the first Caufe only can have been neceffarily exiftent) this is what most eminently distinguishes him from all created Beings, and from all those

Gods,

Gods, falfely fo called, whofe Existence is

imaginary only. alone, he gives of himself, as,

And by infifting on this his People fuch an Account if attended to, muft lead them to himself, prevent their Adorations of any other Being, and direct their Worship to the one fupreme Author of all Things. For, if they learned from hence, as most naturally they should, to direct their Prayers and Thanksgivings to I AM only, that is to him who alone can properly be faid TO BE, or whose Existence is necessary and independent; they could not have mistaken the Object of their Worship, but must have had Recourse to that Divine Being only, by whom and through whom are all Things. For there neither are nor can be two neceffary-existent Beings; to fuppofe there are, is to fuppofe that they are not necessary, for there is no Neceffi ty for any more than one; and whoever therefore is thus neceffarily exiftent, must be that firft Caufe, to whom we owe ourselves, and all we enjoy, and who must therefore be entitled to all the Homage and Duty we can pay him, as his Creatures. Moft of his other Attributes are in fome Senfe communicable, and he has made fome of his Creatures to partake of them, but this neither is, nor can be, in any Senfe communicated; it is what effentially diftinguishes him from all others; and whoever addreffes himself to him, to whom this Attribute belongs, must consequently

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quently addrefs himself to the God who made him, the God who brought bis People the Children of Ifrael out of Egypt. So that the Hebrews had, in this Appellation, an infallible Guide to the true Object of their Worship, and a folid Foundation, for the most absolute and implicite Obedience, they could poffibly pay to their Deliverer.

Not that Neceffary-Exiftence is the only Attribute of God implied in this glorious Name, what it farther fuggefts to us is, that He is without Beginning of Life or End of Days. He does not fay, I was hath fent me, for that would have implied a Change from what God had been; nor I WILL BE, for that would have fignified his not having yet attained to fome future Perfection; but I AM. I AM, the One Eternal and Immutable God, in whom is no Variableness, or Shadow of Changing, with whom the Diftinctions of paft, prefent, and future, have no Place; but who is the fame Yesterday, to Day, and for ever. And for this Reafon, I conceive, our bleffed Saviour likewife, who is God of God, and Lord of Lord, makes ufe of the fame Terms to exprefs the fame Thing, and fays not to the Jews, I was before Abraham; but before Abraham was, I AM. Time is indeed with us the Measure of the Duration of Things, and the Continuance of ever changing, and ever fucceeding Objects is denoted by it; but with Regard to him who

very

ever was, and ever will be, the fame unchangeable Being, it is an empty Name, without any Signification; we have here neither Beginning, nor End, nor Succeffions, to take our Measures by; and without them the Words was or will be are idle Sounds without a Meaning, and the Idea of Time is loft and swallowed up in that of Eternity. For Eternity, as applied to him, and to him only, is the Duration of a Being without Beginning or End; whereas Time is the Duration of fuch Things as have one or both; and therefore the one is as nothing, with Refpect to the other, it vanishes away and disappears upon the Comparison; and when we raise our Reflections from the one to the other, the very Notions we have of it are swallowed up in the vast Abyss, which opens itself to us, as that of Place is in the Infinitude of Space, or that of Power in Omnipotence. In Contemplations of this Kind, the Mind of Man is bewildered and confounded; it ftretches itself as far as it can, and fwells and labours with the mighty Thought, but is utterly unable to comprehend it; and ever will be, even when our Faculties fhall be enlarged beyond their prefent Limits, and our better Comprehenfions of the Divine Perfections fhall probably become the Happiness of our own partial Eternity, and the Reward of our present Humility and Obedience. And this may (hew us, both how fublime and how expreffive this H 3 Divine