An End of Doctrinal Controversies, Chapter 1
An END of Doctrinal Controversies, &c.
CHAP. 1. How we may and must conceive of GOD.
§. 1. A True Knowledge of God is necessary to the Being of Religion, and to Holiness and Glory. No man can love, obey, trust, or hope beyond his knowledge: Nothing is so certainly known as God, and yet nothing so defectively known: Like our Knowledge of the Sun, of which no man doubteth, Whether it be a glorious igneous Substance, endowed with the Power of Motion, Light and Heats: And yet what is less comprehended? And no man hath an adequate knowledge of it, or of the least part of it.
§. 2. There are three things that must concurr to our Conceivings of God: 1. Our General Conceptions. 2. Our Metaphorical Conceptions by way of Similitude. 3. Our Negative Conceptions; what God is not.
§. 3. I have opened this as distinctly as I am able in my Methodus Theologiae, Cap. 4. in the Table called Ontologia, the beginning to which I must referr the Reader that would be accurate and clear. I. We must conceive of God as a Substance, lest we think him to be nothing: And as a spiritual transcendent Substance, not univocally the same with created Substance, nor such as Man can reach to any sensible, or immediate or formal Conception of: But by the Similitude of created Substance our Conceptions may get some help.
This we call the Fundamental Conception; but it is but a Conception partial and inadequate; yet necessary, fetcht from the Similitude of the Creature, whose Matter or Substance is the first constitutive Conception.
§. 4. II. We must conceive of God as the prime Essential LIFE: And though God be not compounded of Substance and Form, yet from Similitude of Creatures, we must as inadequate Conceptions, think of his being LIFE, as the form of his Substance, not divisible or compounding, but as a distinguishing Conception. And formadat esse & noment.
§. 5. III. Though in God's Essence there be no Parts, Degrees or Accidents, yet to answer the Similitude of Parts, Degrees or Accidents in Man, we must put in general Transcendent Perfection: And this includeth abundance of his Perfective Attributes; as that He is One, infinite, eternal, necessary, independent, uncompounded, unchangeable, and all the rest that are contained in Absolute Perfection.
§. 6. IV. When we say, That God is the prime essential LIFE, we mean a Life of Eminency above all that is created: But yet such as must be known by Creature-similitude: And therefore from the Similitude of Man, we must think of the Formal Divine LIFE by a threefold Conception, 1. As Vital Power in Act, 2. As Eminent Intellect and Will, called Omnipotency in Act, Wisdom and Goodness, or Love. Whether these be the FATHER, SON and HOLY GHOST, is after to be opened: But as FATHER, SON and HOLY GHOST, the Scripture teacheth us to conceive of God; As Three in One God, and One God and Substance in these Three.
§. 7. V. God is to be conceived of in relation to the Creation in general, as OF HIM, and THROUGH HIM, and TO HIM are all things: As He is the Divine Efficient, the more than Constitutive, and the final Cause of all.
§. 8. VI. He is especially to be conceived of in his Relations to the Reasonable Creatures, as their absolute Owner, supreme Ruler and chief Benefactor and amiable attractive Good and End.
§. 9. VII. He is especially to be conceived of …s related to Man; As our Creator and Conserver, as the God of Nature. 2. As our Redeemer by Christ and the God of Grace. 3. And as our Perfecter by his Spirit, and the God of Glory: And as related to his Kingdom of Nature, Grace and Glory.
§. 10. VIII. He being without Passivity a pure Act, must be conceived of, as, 1. In virtute seu potentia Activa. 2. In his Acts objectively immanent, 1. Self-living, 2. Self-knowing, 3. Self-loving. 3. In his transient Acts or Works, considered both ex parte agentis, and as the Effects.
§. 11. IX. He is negatively to be known, by the d…nial of all that noteth Imperfection.
§. 12. X. When I say, that God is to be known by Similitudes, I mean, that though nothing be fully like to God, yet somewhat in which he may be partly known, appeareth on the whole frame of Nature; but especially on the Soul of Man, which is his Image. Therefore he that would know how to conceive of God, must first know himself, and what his own Soul is: The true Conceptions of your Souls must be the prime Helps to conceive of God by similitude.
And here you first find Intellective, Volitive, and Executive Acts. 2. And by these you know that you have the Power so to act; for no one doth that which he cannot do. 3. And hereby you know that your Souls are Substance: For all Power is the Power of some Substance: Nothing can do nothing. 4. And by this you know that an intellectual Spirit is a Substance so impowered: And that others are such as well as you: And knowing what a Spirit is, you know what God the Father is transcendently and eminently. And though all God's Works notifie him, you have thus the most intelligible Similitude within you.
§. 13. Therefore I know not how you can better conceive of God, than as MORE THAN A SOUL TO ALL THE WORLD, but especially to Saints.
I say, More than a Soul: For a Soul is but a Part and C…i…utive; but God can be no Part, and is more than Constitutive: The World is finite, but God is infinite, therefore he is more than a Soul of the World: …ass…ndus calleth the World Indefinite, but seemeth to mean Infinite, and so to make God but the Soul of the World: But that cannot be proved: Not but that there be created Souls under God: But while God is more than a Soul to all those Souls, he is more than a Soul to all the World.
§. 14. It is lawful and useful to think of God, by such similitudes as he hath used of himself in his Word, how low soever. Even by his particular Works.
Three Names he assumeth; Life, Light, and Love: He is the Living God; He is Light, and with Him is no Darkness: God is Love; saith the beloved Apostle. GOD is said to cloath himself with LIGHT as with a Garment: And a man will say, I have seen the KING to day, who saw him but in his Garments: And if he saw the Skin of his Face, how little of the King did he see? In Scripture, they that have seen Angels are said to have seen God, and heard his Voice by them.
When we see the Glory of the Sun, that diffuseth its Beams to all the surface of the Earth, and uniteth it self with every Eye, even of the smallest Worms, and quickeneth every thing that liveth; this giveth us by similitude some low resemblance of the Divine Life and Light and Glory. When he is called Our FATHER, and he is said to love us as a FATHER his Children, this is some help to our Conceptions of him: When we read of all those Visions which Iohn had in the Revelations, of Christ's glorious Appearance (as before on the Mount) and of God on the Throne, with the four Beasts and seven Spirits, and the thousand thousands of glorious Attendants, and of the metaphorical Description of the Heavenly Ierusalem: It is not unlawful nor unuseful to us to make use of such Spectacles of Similitudes in our Thoughts of God, while we exclude all the Imperfections of such Similitudes.
§. 15. But after all, till the Love of God be shed abroad on our Hearts by the Holy Ghost, and God as LOVE look on us with his attracting and exhilarating Aspect or Communication, all these notions will be dull and barren, and will leave the Soul under fears and despondency: It is Love by vital Influence warming the Affections, that must give us a sweet taste of what we know, and overcome the fear of Death and Wrath, and give us comfortable Boldness and Courage in all the Dangers that we must go through.
And seeing Christ telleth Philip, If thou hast seen or known me, thou hast known the Father; we must by Faith see the Father in the Son incarnate, who came into our Nature, to be a Mediator of our Thoughts and Conceptions of God, and especially as he is LIFE and LIGHT and LOVE: and I think in his GLORY will in Heaven be the Mediator of our LIFE, INTUITION and FRUITION. Come Lord Jesus,
Amen.