God is self-existent. His creatures are dependent upon him. Self-existence is an essential, inherent, untransferable attribute of Deity; and so is not a possible attainment for any creature. Every creature is necessarily dependent upon the Creator every moment, for his continuance in being. Let him attain ever so high a state of knowledge; let him, if the supposition were rational, acquire a knowledge equal to that of Deity; let him be endowed with all the power he could use, and he would not have made, nor could he make an effort even, in the direction of removing his dependence upon his Creator. In the very height of his glory, in the acme of his attainment, it would need only that God rest an instant, cease to sustain him, and he would not be, he would have gone out, as the light goes out on a burner when one turns the faucet. Again, the mode by which their knowledge is attained is different in kind; and the creature never can acquire the Creator's mode. The Deity possesses his knowledge as a necessary endowment, given to him at once, by a spontaneous intuition. Hence he could never learn, for there was no knowledge which he did not already possess. Thus he is out of all relation to Time. The creature, on the other hand, can never acquire any knowledge except through processes; and, what is more, can never review the knowledge already acquired, except by a process which occupies a time. This relation of the creature to Time is organic; and this distinction between the creature and Creator is thus also irremovable.