The Common Principles of the Christian Religion, Sermon 10
Joh. 4. 24. God is a Spirit, and they who worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.
WE have here something of the Nature of God pointed out to us, & somthing of our duty towards him: God is a spirit, that is his Nature; and man must worship him, that is his duty; & that in spirit & in truth, that is the right manner of the duty: if these three were right pondered till they sink in to the bottome of our spirits, they would make us indeed Christians, not in the Letter, but in the Spirit: That is presupposed to all Christian worship & walking, to know what God is; its indeed, the Primo cognitum of Christianity, the first Principle of true Religion, the very root out of which springs & grows up walking sutably with. & worshipping answerably of a known God. I fear much of our Religion be like the Athenians, They builded an Altar to an unknown God; and like the Samaritanes; Who worshipped they know not what. Such a Worship I know not what it is; when the God worshipped is not known: The two parents of true Religion are, the knowledge of God and of our selves, this indeed is the beginning of the fear of God, which the wise Preacher cals the beginning of wisdom: And these two, as they beget true Religion, so they cannot truly be one without the other; It is not many notions and speculations about the Divine nature, it is not high & strained conceptions of God that comprises the true knowledg of him, many think they know something when they can speak of these mysteries in some singular way, and in some tearms removed from common understandings, which neither themselves nor others know what they mean; & thus they are presumptuous, self-conceited knowing nothing as they ought to know there is a knowledge that puffes up, & there is a knowledge that casts down, a a knowledge in many that doth bu… swell them, not grow them; Its but a rumor full of wind, a vain and empty, and f…othy knowledge, that is neither good for edifying others, nor saving a man… self, a knowledge that a man knows, and reflects upon so, as to ascend upon the height of it, and measure himself by the degrees of it: this is not the true knowledge of God, which knows not it self, looks not back upon it self, but straight towards God, his holinesse and glory, & our basenesse & misery, and therefore it constrains the soul to be ashamed of it self in such a glorious presence, and to make haste to worship, as Moses, Iob, Isaiah did.
This definition of God, if we did truly understand it, we could not but worship him in another manner. God is a spirit: Many ignorant people form in their own mind some liknesse, and Image of God, who is invisible; you know how ye fancy to your selves some bodily shape, when you conceive of him, you think he is some Reverend and Majestick Person, sitting on a Throne in Heaven; But I beseech you correct your mistakes of him, there is outward idolatry, and there is inward, there is idolatry in action, when men paint or ingrave some similitude of God, & there is Idolatry in imagination, when the fancy and apprehension runs upon some Image, or likenesse of God: The first is among Papists, but I fear the latter be too common among us, & it is indeed all one, to form such … similitude in our mind, and to ingrave or paint it without, so that the God whom many of us worship, is not the living and true God, but a painted or graven Idol. When God appeared most visible to the world, …s at the giving out of the Law, yet no man did see any liknesse at all, he did not come under the percep…ion of the most subtile sense, he could not be perceived but by the retired understanding, going aside …om all things visible, & therefore you do but fancy …n idol to your selves in stead of God, when you ap…rehend him under the likenesse of any visible or sen…ble thing, & so what ever love, or fear, or reverence …ou have, it is all but mispent superstition, the love …nd fear of an idol.
1. I know then that God is a Spirit, and therefor he is like none of all these things you see, or hear, or smel, or taste, or touch: The heavens are glorious indeed, the light is full of glory, but he is not like that. If all your senses should make an inquiry and search for him throughout the world, you should not find him, though he be near hand every one of us yet your eyes and ears, & all your senses might travel the length of the earth, and breadth of the sea, and should not find him, even as you might search all the corners of heaven ere ye could hear or see an Angel; if you saw a man asunder, and resolve him in atomes of dust, yet you could not perceive a soul within him, why? Because these are spirits, and so without the reach of your senses.
II. If God be a Spirit, then he is invisible, & dwels in light inaccessible, which no man hath seen or can see, then ou… poor narrow minds tha… are drowned, as it were, and immersed into bodies of clay, & in this state of mortality, receives all knowledge of the senses, cannot frame any suitable notion of his spiritual, and abstracted nature: We cannot conceive what our own soul is, but by some sensible operation flowing from it, and the height that our knowledge of that noble part of our selves amounts to, is but this dark & confused conception, that the soul is some inward principle of life, and sense and reason; how then is it possible for us to conceive aright of the divine nature, as it is in it self? but only in a da…k & generall way, we guesse at his Majesty, by the glorious emanations of his power, & wisdome, & the rayes thereof which he displayes abroad in all the works of his hands, and from all these concurring testimonies, & evidences of his Majesty, we gather this confused notion of him, that he is the fountain-self-independent being, the originall of all these things, and more absolute in the world, then the soul is in the body, the true Anima, mundi, the very life and the light of men, & the soul that quickens, moves, & forms all this visible world, that makes all things visible, and himself invisible: Therefore it is that the Lord speaks to us in the Scripture of himself, according to our capacities, of his face, his right hand & arm, his Throne, his Scep…er, his back parts, his anger, his fury, his repentance, his grief, and sorrow; none of which are properly in his spiritual, immortall, & unchangeable nature, but because our dulnesse an… slownesse in such, in apprehending things spiritual, it being almost without the sp…e & comprehension of the soul while in the body, which is almost addicted unto the senses of the body: Therefore the Lord accommodates him… unto our termes, and notions; balbutit nobiscum he like a … father stammers wi…h the stammerin… chil…ren, speakes to them in their own dialect; but withall would have us conceive he is not really such a one. but infinitely removed in his own being f…om all these imperfections. So when you hear of these te…ms in Scripture, O beware ye conceive God to be such a one, as your selves: but in these expressions not beseeming his Majesty, because below him; learn your own ignorance of his glorious Majesty, your dulnesse and incapacity to be such, as the Holy One must come down as it were in some bodily appearance, ere you can understand any thing of him.
III. If God be a Spi…it, then he is most perfect, & most powerfull, all imperfection, all infirmity, and weaknesse in the creature, is founded in the grosse & material part of it, you see the more matter and bodily substance be in any thing, it is the more lumpish, heavy, and void of all action, it is the more spiritual, pure, and refined part of the creation, that hath most activity in it, and is the principle of all motions, and actions: You see a little flye hath more action in it than a great mountain, because there are spirits in it which move it. The bottom of the world contains the dregs of the Creation, as it were, a masse & lump of heavy earth, but the higher and more distant bodies be from that, the more pure and subtile they are, and the more pure & subtile they be, the more action, vertue and efficacy they have; the earth stands like a dead lump, but the sea moves, & the air being thinner and purer than both, moves more easily and swiftly; but go up higher, and still the motion is swifter; and the vertue and influence is the more powerfull: What is a dead body when the soul and spirit is out of it? It hath no more vertue nor efficacy than so much clay; although by the presence of the spirit of it, it was active, agill, swift, strong & nimble; so much then as any thing hath of spirit in it, so much the more perfect and powerfull it is. Then I beseech you consider what a one the God of the spirits of all flesh must be, the very fountain-spirit, the self-being spirit, foreign. When the soul of a man, or the spirit of a horse, hath so much vertue, to stirre up a lump of earth and to quicken it to many diverse operations even though that soul & spirit did not; nay, could not make that piece of earth they dwel in; then what must his power and vertue be, that made all those things? Who gave power and vertue, even to the spirits of all flesh; their horses, saith God, are flesh, and not spirit, Isa. 30. Because, in comparison of his Majesty, the very spirits in them, are but like a dead lump of flesh: If he should draw in his breath (as it were) they would have no more vertue to save the Israelites no… so many lumps of flesh or clay; for he is the spirit of all spirits, that quickens, actuates and moves them in their severall operations, & influencies. Anima mundi & anima animarum mundi, an Angel hath more power than all men united in one body. Satan is called the Prince of the air, & God of this world, for he hath more efficacy and vertue to commove the air, and raise tempests; then all the swarmes of multiplied mankind, though gathered into any army, if the Lord did not restrain and limit his power, he were able to destroy whole Nations at once: An Angel killed many thousands of Senacheribs Army in one night; what would many Angels do then, if the Lord pleased to apply them to that work? O what is man that he should magnifie himself, or glory in strength, or skill? Beasts are stronger than men, but mans weaker strength being strengthned with more skil, proves stronger than they; but in respect of Angels he hath neither strength nor wisdome.
IV. If God be a Spirit, then he is not circumscribed by any place; and if an infinit spirit, then he is every where, no place can include him, and no body can exclude him. He is within all things, yet not included nor bounded within them, & he is without all things, yet not excluded from them: intra omnia, non tamen inclusus in illis; extra omnia, nec tamen exclusus ab all is. You know every body hath its own bounds & limits circumscribed to it, & shoots out all other bodily things out of the same space, so that before the least body want some space, it will put all the universe in motion, & make every thing about it to change its place, and possesse another; but a Spirit can passe thorow all of them, and never desturb them: A Legion may be in one man, & have room enough, If there were a well of Brasse, or Tower, having no Open, neither above, or beneath, no body could enter, but by breaking thorow, and making a breach into it, but an Angel or Spirit could storm it without a breach, and pierce thorow it, without any division of it: How much more doth the Maker of all Spirits fill all in all; the thicknesse of the earth doth not keep him out, nor the largenesse of the heavens contain him: How then do we circumscribe and limit him within the bounds of a publick house, or the heavens? O, how narrow thoughts have we of his immense greatnesse? Who without division or multiplication of himself, fills all the corners of the world, whose indivisible unity is equivalent to an infinite extension, and divisibility: How often, I pray you, do you reflect upon this? God is near hand every one of us. Who of us think of a Divine Majesty nearer us than our very souls and consciences, in whom we live, and move, and have our being? How is it we move, & think not with wonder of that first Mover, in whom we move? How is it we live & persevere in being, & do not always cōsider this fountain-being, in whom we live and have our being. O, the Atheism of many souls prosessing God! We do speak, walk, eat and drink, & go about all our businesses, as if we were self-being, & independent of any, never thinking of that all-present quickning Spirit, that acts us, moves us, speaks in us, makes us to walk, and eat and drink, as the barbarous people, who see, hear, speak & reason, and never once reflect upon the principle of all these, to discern a soul within: This is bruitish, & in this, Man, who was made of a straight countenance to look upward to God, & to know himself and his Maker, till he might be differenced from all creatures below, is degenerated, and become like the beasts that perish. Who of us believes this alpresent God? We imagine that he is shut up in heaven, and takes no such notice of affairs below: but certainly, he is not so far from us: though he shew more of his glory above, yet he is as present and observant below.
V. If he be a Spirit, then as he is incomprehensible and immense in being, so also there is no comprehension of his knowledge. The nearer any creature come to the nature of a Spirit, the more knowing and understanding it is; life is the most excellent being, and understanding is the most excellent life. Materia est imers & mertua, the nearer any thing is to the earthly matter, as it hath lesse action, & so lesse life and feeling: Man is nearer an Angel then beasts, and therefore he hath a knowing and understanding Spirit in him. There is a spirit in man, and the more or lesse this spirit of man is abstracted from sensual and material things, it lives the more excellent and pure life, and is, as it were, more or lesse deliverd from the chains of the body. These souls that have never risen above, & retired from sensible things. O, how narrow are they, how captivated within the prison of the flesh? But when the Lord Jesus comes to set free, he delivers a soul from this bondage, he makes these chains fall off, & leads the soul apart to converse with God himself, and to meditate on things not seen, sin, wrath, hell, and heaven; & the further it goes from it self, & the more abstracted it is from the consideration of present things, the more it lives a life like Angels: And therefore, when the soul is separated from the body, it is then perfectly free, and hath the largest extent of knowledge: A mans soul must be almost like Pauls (whether out of the body, or in the body, I know not) if he would understand aright spiritual things: Now then, this infinite spirit is an alknowing spirit, al-seeing spirit, as well as al-present; There is no searching of his understanding, Isa. 40. 28. and Psal. 147. 5. Who hath directed this spirit, or being his counsellour hath taught him? Rom. 11. 34. Isa. 40. 1…. He calls the Generations from the beginning, and known to him are all his works from the beginning. O, that you would alwayes set this God before you, or rather set your selves alwayes in his presence, in whose sight you are alwayes: How would it compose our hearts to reverence & fear in all our actions, if we did, indeed, believe that the Judge of all the World is an eye-witnesse to our most retired and secret thoughts and doings? If any man were as privy to thy thoughts, as thy own spirit and conscience, thou wouldst blush and be ashamed before him: If every one of us could open a window into one anothers spirits, I think this assembly should dismisse as quickly as that of Christs, when he bade them that were without sin cast a stone at the Woman, we could not look one upon another: O then, Why are we so little apprehensive of the al-searching eye of God, who can even declare to us our thought before it be? How much Atheism is rooted in the heart of the most holy? We do not alwayes meditate with David, Psal. 139. on that al-searching and al-knowing spirit, who knows our down-sitting & up-rising, & understands our thoughts a far off, and who is acquainted with all our wayes. O, How would we ponder our path, and examine our words, and consider our thoughts before hand, if we set our selves in the view of such a Spirit, that is within us, and without us, before us, and behind us. He may spare sinners as long as he pleases, for there is no escaping from him; you cannot go out of his dominions; nay, you cannot run out of his presence, Psal. 7. 8. 9. He can reach you when he pleases, therefore he may delay as long as he pleases.