{145} God is a __living__ being. Let us ask ourselves whence does God receive the life of His Divine Being? Who is the author of His life? Plainly, from no one but from Himself. He is the first, and only, and complete cause of His own life. There was nothing before Him from which He drew His infinite being, nor upon whose prior existence He depends for life. There is nothing now that can sustain Him or support His life, neither can there be anything after Him. He is the eternally living God. He is, then, the eternal cause of His own life. What is He as cause, and what is this divine life of His being which is the effect of that cause? As cause, He is the Father, the Parent, the Progenitor, the Producer, the Begetter of His own life. And that life, which is begotten in Himself, is the Son. He is the eternally living God, and hence the Son is eternally begotten of the Father. The Person of God who begets His own life is the Father. The Person who is the Life begotten is the Son; and is a Person, because it is God who says by the mouth of the Son--I am the Life begotten. Both the Father and the Son are equal, because it is the same Divine Being who is both Father and Son, as we profess in the Creed--"__consubstantial with the Father__." Both are eternal. The Father does not exist before the Son, because it is the same Divine Being which is the life as Son, as well as Giver of life as the Father. God is the Father, because He begets a Son--His Life. {146} God is the Son, because He is the Life begotten of the Father--the Divine Progenitor of the Life of the Eternal Godhead. God is the eternally living God. He lives the life which He gives Himself. His life is infinitely perfect, infinitely lovely, infinitely good. He enjoys the life He has. We possess life, not like the life of God, it is true, because it is limited in duration, imperfect in action, subject to change, and incapable of absolute happiness; but, such as it is, we live it, we enjoy it. The enjoyment or living of our life proceeds from two sources. First, from the cause of our life--from that which makes us live; and, secondly, from the life we possess. And we say--I enjoy my own life. But, mark it, we cannot say as the Father can say--I give myself life; nor as the Son of God can say--I am the life. We can only say--I enjoy the life which is given to me. Hence we are only one person--the person living, enjoying the life which is not from ourselves, but from God.