Acts 17:24-25
God is a being that is all-sufficient. He stands in no need of any creature. He has need of nothing, of none of us. He has enough within Himself before the world was; God was as blessed in Himself as now He is. There can be nothing added to Him; there is such an excellency even in God's being itself, that there can be nothing added to Him.
We are poor creatures that stand in need of a thousand things continually, the air to breathe in, the earth to bear us, fire to warm us, clothes to cover us, meat and drink, a thousand things; we stand in need of the meanest creature, and if God should take away the use of it, our lives would be made miserable to us.
But that is the excellency of God's being that He has need of nothing; He has all within Himself; all the creatures in heaven and earth cannot add to Him; no, if there were then thousand worlds more, although God did possess them all, yet they would not add one whit to what is in God Himself; therefore, though the Lord has made the heaven and earth, and all things therein, yet we must not think that God is ever a whit the better for these things, or has the more glory.
He had as much glory and blessedness as now He has, or can have. When all the angels and saints shall be eternally blessing God in heaven, yet they can add nothing to God's glory. We say the sun is a glorious creature, but does that add any light to the sun? So for saints and angels to be praising and blessing God, what does that add to God? And in this the Name of God is excellent.
—Jeremiah Burroughs
Readings taken from Day by Day with the English Puritans
God is a being that is all-sufficient. He stands in no need of any creature. He has need of nothing, of none of us. He has enough within Himself before the world was; God was as blessed in Himself as now He is. There can be nothing added to Him; there is such an excellency even in God's being itself, that there can be nothing added to Him.
We are poor creatures that stand in need of a thousand things continually, the air to breathe in, the earth to bear us, fire to warm us, clothes to cover us, meat and drink, a thousand things; we stand in need of the meanest creature, and if God should take away the use of it, our lives would be made miserable to us.
But that is the excellency of God's being that He has need of nothing; He has all within Himself; all the creatures in heaven and earth cannot add to Him; no, if there were then thousand worlds more, although God did possess them all, yet they would not add one whit to what is in God Himself; therefore, though the Lord has made the heaven and earth, and all things therein, yet we must not think that God is ever a whit the better for these things, or has the more glory.
He had as much glory and blessedness as now He has, or can have. When all the angels and saints shall be eternally blessing God in heaven, yet they can add nothing to God's glory. We say the sun is a glorious creature, but does that add any light to the sun? So for saints and angels to be praising and blessing God, what does that add to God? And in this the Name of God is excellent.
—Jeremiah Burroughs
Readings taken from Day by Day with the English Puritans
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