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D_023.TXT
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Cn,xP. IV. OF THE NATURE OF GOD.
people called Anthropomorphites, who bore the christian
name, ascribed an human body, and the parts of it, to
God, in a proper sense, mistaking some passages of scrip-
ture; and the common people, among the papists, have
no other notion of God, than of a grave old man: in
this respect. both Jews and Heathens have better notions;
of the Jews, R. Joseph Albo"', Maimonidesa, and others,
deny that God is a body, or consists of bodily parts: and
of heathens, Pythagoras {4}, Xenophanes5, Sallustius {6}, and
others {7}, affirm God to be incorporeal; and the Stoics
say, he has not an human forms. But if God was
matter, which ii inert, unactive, and motionless, he could
not be the maker and mover of all things, as he is; for
in him we live, and move, and have our being, Acts xvii. 28.
Matter is without consciousness, is not capable of think-
ing, and without understanding, wisdom, and knowledge;
and as it is not capable of acting, so much less of doing,
such works as require contrivance, skill, wisdom, and
knowledge, as the works of creation and providence; and
therefore if God was matter, he could not be the Creator
and Governor of the world; nor if a body, could he be
omnipresent; a body is not every where, cannot be in
two places at the same time; whereas God fills heaven
and earth: and was he of so huge a body as to take up
all space, there would be no room for other bodies, as
there certainly is; nor would he be invisible; a body is
to be seen and felt; but God is invisible and impalpable;
" no man hath seen God at any time ;" and if a body,
he would not be the most perfect of beings, as he is,
since angels, and the souls of men, being spirits, are
more excellent than bodies.
It is no objection to this, that the parts of an human
body are sometimes attributed to God; since these are
to be understood of him not in a proper, but in an im-
proper and figurative sense, and denote some act and
action, or attribute of his; thus his face denotes his sight
and presence, in which all things are, Gen. xix. 13. some-
times his favour and good will, and the manifestation of
his love and grace, Psal. xxvii. 8. and lxxx. 3. and some-
times his wrath and indignation against wicked men,
Psal. xxxiv. 16. Rev. vi. 17. H is eyes signify his omnis-
cience and all-seeing providence; concerned both with
good men, to protect and preserve them, and bestow good
things on them; and with bad men, to destroy them,
Prov. xv. 3. 2 Chron. xvi. 9. Amos ix. 8. His ears, his
readiness to attend unto, and answer the requests of his
people, and deliver them out of their troubles, Psal.
xxxiv. 15. lsa. lix. 1. His nose and nostrils, his accep-
lance of the persons and sacrifices of men, Gen. viii. c2 1.
or his disgust at them, anger with them, and non-accept-
ance of them, Dent. xxix. 20. lsa. lxv. 5. Psal. xviii. 8.
His mouth is expressive of his commands, promises,
threatenings, and prophecies delivered out by him,
Lam. iii. 29. Isa. i. c20. Jet. xxiii. 16. His arm.s and
hands signify Iris power, and the exertion of it, as in
making the heavens and the earth, and in other actions
of his, Psal. cii. 27. Job xxvi. 13. Psal. lxxxix. 13. and
cxviii. 16. Dent. xxxiii. c27.
= S_,i~2: !' !kkarim, 1. ~. c. 6.
a litzealot Yestide Hator,h, c. 1. s. 5., 6.
4 Apud L?tctant. de Ira, c. 11.
~ Apud Clement. Stromat. 5. p. 601..
Nor is it any proof of corporeity ih God, that a divine
person has sometimes appeared in an human form; so
one of the men that came to Abraham, in the plains of
Mamre, was no other than the Lord omniscient and
omnipotent, as the after discourse with him shews,
Gen. xviii. 3. And the man that wrestled with Jacob
till break of day, was a divine person, of which Jacob
was sensible; and therefore called the place where he
wrestled with him, Peniel, the face of God, Gen. xxxii.
24, 30. So he that appeared to Manoah, and his wife,
Judg. xiii. 6, 10, 18. with other instances that might be
mentioned. But then these were appearances of the
Son of God in an human form, and were presages of his
future incarnation; for as for the Father, no man ever
saw his shape, John v. ,57. and, it may be, the reason
why the parts of an human body are so often ascribed to
God, may be on account of Christ's incarnation, to pre-
pare the minds of men for it, to inure them to ideas of
it, to raise their expectation of it, and strengthen their
faith in it; and the rather since these attributions were
more frequent before the coming of Christ in the flesh,
and very rarely used afterwards.
Nor will the formation of man in the image, and after
the likeness of God, afford a sufficient argument to prove
that there is something corporeal in God, seeing man has
a soul or spirit, in which this image and likeness chiefly
and principally lay; and which was originally created in
righteousness and holiness, in wisdom and knowledge:
and though he has a body also; yet, inasmuch as a body
was prepared in the council and covenant of grace, from
eternity, for the Son of God to assume in time; and in
the book of God's eternal purposes, all the members of
it were written; which in continuance were fashioned,
when as yet there was none of them, Heb. x. 5. Psal.
cxxxix. 16. God might, according to the idea of it in
his eternal mind, form the body of the first man.
2. The description of God, as a Spirit, teaches us to
ascribe to God all the excellencies to be found in spirits
in a more eminent manner, and to consider them as trans-
cendent and infinite in him. By spirits, I understand not
subtiliZed bodies, extracted out of various things; nor
the wind and air, so called because invisible, and very
piercing and penetrating, though bodies, and very pon-
derous ones; nor the spirits of animals, which are material,
die, and go downwards to the earth: but rational spirits,
angels, and the souls of men; the former are called
spirits, Zech. vi. 5. Heb. i. 1,5. and so are the latter,
Job xxxii. 8. Heb. xii. 23. they are indeed created spirits,
Psal. civ. 4. Zech. xii. 1. but God an uncreated one, and
is the Creator of these, and therefore said to be, "the
Father of spirits," Heb. xii. 9. These are creatures of
time, and finite beings; made since the world was, and
are not every where: but God is an eternal, infinite, and
immense Spirit, from everlasting to everlasting; .and
whom "the heaven of heavens cannot contain;" yet there
are some excellencies in spirits, which may lead more
easily to conceive somewhat of God, and of his divine
nature.
* De Diis et Mundo~ c.
7 So Aristotle~ Laert. !. 5, in Vita ejus.
s Laert. 1.7. in Vim Zeno.