I ask where he was before these heavens were made? These heavens have not always been; God was then where there was nothing but God; no heaven, no earth, no place. In what place was God, when there was no place? When the heavens were made, did he cease this manner of being in himself, existing in his own infinite essence, and remove into the new place made for him? Or is not God's removal out of his existence in himself into a certain place, a blasphemous imagination? Ante omnia Deus erat, solus ipse sibi, et locus, et mundus, et omnia.' Tertul. Is this change of place and posture to be ascribed to God? Moreover, if God be now only in a certain place of the heavens, if he should destroy the heavens, and that place, where would he then be? In what place? Should he cease to be in the place wherein he is, and begin to be in, to take up, and possess another? And are such apprehensions suited to the infinite perfections of God? Yea, may we not suppose, that he may create another heaven? Can he not do it? How should he be present there? Or must it stand empty? Or must he move himself thither? Or make himself bigger than he was, to fill that heaven also? 3. The omnipresence of God is grounded on the infiniteness of his essence. If God be infinite, he is omnipresent; suppose him infinite, and then suppose there is any thing besides himself, and his presence with that thing, wherever it be, doth necessarily follow; for if he be so bounded, as to be in his essence distant from any thing, he is not infinite. To say God is not infinite in his essence, denies him to be infinite or unlimited in any of his perfections or properties; and therefore, indeed, upon the matter Socinus denies God's power to be infinite, because he will not grant his essence to be. Catech. chap. 11. part 1. That which is absolutely infinite, cannot have its residence in that which is finite and limited; so that if the essence of God be not immense and infinite, his power, goodness, &c. are also bounded and limited; so that there are, or may be many things, which in their own natures are capable of existence, which yet God cannot do, for want of power. How suitable to the Scriptures, and common notions of mankind, concerning the nature of God, this is, will be easily known. It is yet the common faith of Christians, that God is ἄπερίγραφος, καὶ ἄπειρος. 4. Let reason (which the author of these catechisms, pretends to advance and honour, as some think above its its due, and therefore cannot decline its dictates) judge of the consequences of this gross apprehension concerning the confinement of God to the heavens, yea, a certain place in the heavens, though he glisten never so much in glory, there where he is. For first, he must be extended as a body is, that so he may fill the place, and have parts as we have, if he be circumscribed in a certain place; which, though our author think no absurdity, yet, as we shall afterward manifest, it is as bold an attempt to make an idol of the living God as ever any of the sons of men engaged into. 2. Then God's greatness and ours as to essence and substance, differ only gradually, but are still of the same kind. God is bigger than a man it is true, but yet with the same kind of greatness, differing from us as one man differs from another. A man is in a certain place of the earth, which he fills and takes up; and God is in a certain place of the heavens, which he fills and takes up; only some gradual difference there is; but how great or little that difference is, as yet we are not taught. 3. I desire to know of Mr. B. what the throne is made of that God sits on in the heavens and how far the glistening of his glory doth extend, and whether that glistening of glory doth naturally attend his person, as beams do the sun, or shining doth fire, or can he make it more or less as he pleaseth. 4. Doth God fill the whole heavens, or only some part of them? If the whole, being of such substance as is imagined, what room will there be in heaven for any body else? Can a lesser place hold him? Or could he fill a greater; if not, how came the heavens so fit for him? Or could he not have made them of other dimensions less or greater? If he be only in a part of heaven, as is more than insinuated in the expression, that he is in a certain place in the heavens, I ask why he dwells in one part of the heavens rather than another? Or whether he ever removes, or takes a journey, as Elijah speaks of Baal, 1 Kings, xviii. or is eternally, as limited in, so confined unto, the cer tain place wherein he is? Again how doth he work out those Si spatium vacat super caput Creatoris, et si Deus ipse in loco est, erit jam locus ille major et Deo et mundo;. nihil enim non majus est id quod capit, illo quod capitur. Tertul. ad Max. lib. 1. cap. 15. effects of almighty power, which are at so great a distance from him as the earth is from the heavens, which cannot be ́effected by the intervenience of any created power: as the resurrection of the dead, &c. The power of God doubtless follows his essence; and what this extends not to, that cannot reach. But of that which might be spoken to vindicate the infinitely glorious being of God from the reproach which his own word is wrested to cast upon him, this that hath been spoken is somewhat, that to my present thoughts doth occur. I suppose that Mr. B. knows, that in this his circumscription of God to a certain place, he transgresses against the common consent of mankind; if not, a few instances of several sorts may, I hope, suffice for his conviction: I shall promiscuously propose them, as they lie at hand, or occur to my remembrance. For the Jews, Philo' gives their judgment. Hear, saith he, of the wise God, that which is most true, that God is in no place; for he is not contained, but containeth all. That which is made, is in a place; for it must be contained, and not contain. And it is the observation of another of them, that so often as Dipo a place, is said of God, the exaltation of his immense, and incomparable essence (as to its manifestation) is to be understood. And the learned' Buxtorf tells us, that when that word is used of God, it is by an antiphrasis, to signify that he is infinite, illocal, received in no place, giving place to all. That known saying of Empedocles passed among the heathen, Deus est circulus, cujus centrum ubique, circumferentia nusquam.' And of Seneca: Turn which way thou wilt, thou shalt see God meeting thee; nothing is empty of him, he fills his own work.' All things are full of God,' says the" poet: and another of them, Estque Dei sedes nisi terræ, et pontus, et aer, Est cœlum, et versus superos, quid quærimus ultra : i " *Ακουσον παρὰ τοῦ ἐπισταμένου Θεοῦ ῥῆσιν ἀληθεστάτην, ὅις ὁ θεὸς οὐχὶ που· οὐ γὰρ περιέχεται, ἀλλὰ περιέχει τὸ πᾶν τὸ δὲ γενόμενον ἐν τόπῳ· περιεχέσθαι γὰρ αὐτὸ, ἀλλὰ ου TegiÉXEIV ȧvaynalov. Philo. lib. 2. Alleg. Leg. k Maimon. Mor. Nevoch p. 1. cap. 8. 1 Buxtorf. in Lexic: verbo pips. m Quocunque te flexeris, ibi illum (Deum) videbis occurrentem tibi, nihil ab illo vacat, opus suum ipse implet. Senec. de benef. lib. 4. cap. 8. ■ Jovis omnia plena. Virg. Ecl. iii. 60. 2 ō Lucan lib. 3. Of this presence of God, I say, with and unto all things, of the infinity of his essence, the very heathens themselves, by the light of nature (which Mr. B. herein opposes) had a knowledge: hence did some of them term him коσμOTTOLÒS vous, 'a mind framing the universe:' and affirmed him to be infinite. Primus omnium rerum descriptionem et modum, mentis Infinitæ in ratione designari et confici voluit,' says Cicero, of Anaxagoras: Tull. de nat Deor. lib. 1. all things are disposed of, by the virtue of one infinite mind and Plutarch, expressing the same thing, says he is, voũç kadaρòs, καὶ ἄκρατος ἐμμεμιγμένος πᾶσι : a ' pure and sincere mind, mixing itself, and mixed' (so they expressed the presence of the infinite mind) 'with all things :' so Virgil ; Jovis omnia plena :'all things are full of God:' (for God they intended by that name, Acts xvii. 25. 28, 29. and says Lactantius, Convicti de uno Deo, cum id negare non possunt, ipsum se colere, affirmant, verum hoc sibi placere, ut Jupiter nomi'netur;' lib. i. c. 2.) which, as Servius on the place observes, he had taken from Aratus, whose words are: 'Ek diòç ȧoxúμεσθα, τὸν οὐδὲ ποτ' ἄνδρες ἐῶμεν ἀῤῥητον μεσταὶ δὲ διὸς πᾶσαι μὲν ἁγυιαὶ, πᾶσαι δ ̓ ἀνθρώπων ἀγοραὶ, μεστὴ δὲ θάλασσα, καὶ λιμένες. πάντη δὲ διὸς κεχρημεθα πάντες, giving a full description, in his way, of the omnipresence and ubiquity of God. The same Virgil, from the Platonics, tells us in another place: Spiritus intus alit, totamque infusa per artus And much more of this kind might easily be added. The learned know where to find more for their satisfaction; and for those that are otherwise, the clear texts of Scripture, cited before, may suffice. Of those on the other hand, who have no less grossly, and carnally, than he of whom we speak, imagined ao diffusion of the substance of God through the whole creation, and a mixture of it with the creatures, so as to animate, and enliven them in their several forms, making God an essential part of each creature, or dream of an assumption of creatures, into an unity of essence with God, I am not now to speak. P Vide Beza, Epist. ad Philip. Marnix. 4 Vide Virg. Æn. lib. 6. Principio cælum &c. ex Platonicis. CHAP. III. Of the shape and bodily visible figure of God. Mr. Biddle's question. 'Is God in the Scripture said to have any likeness,-similitude,-person,-shape?' The proposition which he would have to be the conclusion of the answers to these questions, is this; That according to the doctrine of the Scriptures, God is a person shaped like a man. A conclusion so grossly absurd, that it is refused as ridiculous, by Tully, a heathen, in the person of Cotta (de Nat. Deorum), against Velleius, the Epicurean; the Epicureans only amongst the philosophers, being so sottish, as to admit that conceit. And Mr. B. charging that upon the Scripture, which hath been renounced by all the heathens, who set themselves studiously to follow the light of nature, and by a strict inquiry to search out the nature and attributes of God, principally attending that safe rule of ascribing nothing to him, that eminently included imperfection, hath manifested his pretext of mere Christianity, to be little better than a cover for downright atheism, or at best, of most vile, and unworthy thoughts of the divine Being. And here also doth Mr. B. forsake his masters. Some of them have had more reverence of the Deity, and express themselves accordingly, in express opposition to this gross figment. According to the method I proceeded in, in consideration of the precedent questions, shall I deal with this; and first, consider briefly the Scriptures produced to make good this monstrous horrid assertion. The places urged and insisted on of old, by the Anthropomorphites, were such as partly ascribed a shape in general to God; partly such as mention the parts and members of God, in that shape; his a Sine corpore ullo Deum esse vult, ut Græci dicunt acaparov. Tull. de Nat. Deor. lib. 1. de Platone. Mens-soluta et libera, segregata ab omni concretione mortali. Id. 、b Ex his autem intelligitur, membra humani corporis, quæ Deo in sacris literisascribuntur, uti et partes quædam aliarum animantium, quales sunt alæ, non nisi improprie Deo tribui. Siquidem a spiritus natura prorsus abhorrent. Tribuuntur autem Deo per metaphoram cum metonymia conjunctam. Nempe quia facultates vel actiones Deo conveniunt, illarum similes, quæ membris illis, aut insunt, aut per ea exercentur. Crellius de Deo; sive de vera Relig. lib. 1. cap. 15. P. 107. Epiphan. tom. 1. lib. 3. Hæres. 70. Theodoret, lib. 4. cap. 10. |