(3.) There remaineth only, then, that these attributes of
God, so manifested and exercised, are powerful and able to bring
us to the everlasting fruition of him. To evince this, the Lord wraps up
the whole covenant of grace in one promise, signifying no less: “I
will be your God.” In the covenant, God becomes our God, and we are his
people; and thereby all his attributes are ours also. And lest that we
should doubt — when once our eyes are opened to see in any measure the
inconceivable difficulty that is in this thing, what unimaginable obstacles
on all hands there lie against us — that all is not enough to deliver and
save us, God hath, I say, wrapped it up in this expression, Gen. xvii. 1, “I am,” saith he, “Shaddai, Aquila interpretatur ἄλκιμον,
quod nos robustum et ad omnia perpetranda sufficientem possumus
dicere.” — Hieron., Epist.
cxxxvi. “God Almighty” (all-sufficient); — “I am wholly
able to perform all my undertakings, and to be thy exceeding great reward.
I can remove all difficulties, answer all objections, pardon all sins,
conquer all opposition: I am God all-sufficient.” Now, you know in whom
this covenant and all the promises thereof are ratified, and in whose blood
it is confirmed, — to wit, in the Lord Christ alone; in him
only is God an all-sufficient God to any, and an exceeding great reward.
And hence Christ himself is said to “save to the uttermost them that come
to God by him,” Heb. vii. And these three things, I
say, are required to be known, that we may have a saving acquaintance, and
such as is attended with consolation, with any of the properties of God;
and all these being hid only in Christ, from him alone it is to be
obtained.