The Common Principles of the Christian Religion, Sermon 8
Exod. 3. 14. I AM THAT I AM. Psal. 19. 2. Before the mountains &c. from everlasting to everlasting thou art God. Job 11. 7, 8, 9. Canst thou by searching find out God, &c.
THis is the chief point of saving knowledge, to know God: And this is the first point or degree of the true knowledge of God, to discern how ignorant we are of him, and find him beyond all knowledge: The Lord gives a difinition of himself, but such a one as is no more clear than himself to our capacities: A short one indeed, and you may think it saith not much, I am, What is it that may not say so? I am that I am: the least and most inconsiderable creature hath its own being; mens wisdom would have learned him to call himself by some high styles & titles, as the manner and custome of Kings and Princes is, & such as the flattery of men attributes unto them; you would think the superlatives of wise, good, strong, excellent, glorious and such like, were more beseeming his Majesty, and yet there it more Majesty in the simple stile than in all others; but a naturall man cannot behold it, for it is spiritually discerned. Let the pot sheards of the earth (saith he) strive with the pot-sheards of the earth, Isa. 45. 9. But let them not strive with their Maker. So I say, let creatures compare with creatures, let them take superlative styles, in regard of others, let some of them be called good, and some better, in the comparison among themselves, but God must not enter in the comparison. Paul thinks it an odious comparison, to compare present crosses to eternal glory, I think them not worthy to be compared, saith Paul, Rom. 8. But how much more odious is it to compare God with creatures. Call him Highest, call him most Powerfull, call him most Excellent, Almighty, most Glorious in respect of creatures; you do but abase his Majesty to bring it down to any terms of comparison with them, which is beyond all the bounds of understanding; all these do but express him to be in some degree eminently seated above the creatures, as some creatures are above all others, so ye do no more but make him the Head of all, as some creaturs is the head of one line or kind under it; but what is that to his Majesty? he speaks otherwise of himself, Isa. 40. 17. All nations are before him as nothing, and they are accounted to him less then nothing. Then certainly you have not taken up the true notion of God, when you have conceived him the most eminent of all beings as long as any being appears as a being in his sight, before whom all beings conjoyned are as nothing; while you conceive God to be the best, you still attribute something to the creature, for all comparatives include the positive in both extreams: So then, you take up only some different degrees between them who differeth so infinitly, so incomprehensibly; the distance betwixt heaven & earth is but a poor similitude, to expresse the distance between God and Creatures; what is the distance betwixt a being and nothing? Can you measure it? Can you imagine it? Suppose you take the most high, and the most low, & measure the distance betwixt them, you do but consider the difference betwixt two beings, but you do not expresse how far nothing is distant from any of them: Now, if any thing could be imagined less than nothing, could you at all guess at the vast distance between it and a being; Now, so is it here, thus saith the Lord, All Nations, their glory, perfection and number, all of them, and all their excellencies united, do not amount to the value of an unity, in regard of my Majesty; all of them like Ciphers, joyn never so many of them together they can never make up a number, they are nothing in this regard, & lesse than nothing. So then we ought thus to conceive of God, and thus to attribute a being and life to him, and as his sight, and in the consideration of it, all created beings might evanish out of our sight; as the glorious light of the Sun, though it no not annihilate the Stars, and make them nothing, yet it annihilates their appearance to our senses, and makes them disappear, as if they were not; although there be a great difference & inequality of the Stars in the night, some lighter, some darker, some of the first magnitude, and some of the second and third, &c. some of greater glory, and some of lesse: But in the day time all are alike, all are darkned by the Suns glory: Even so it is here, though we may compare one creature with another and find different degrees of perfection and excellency, while we are only comparing them among themselves; but let once the glorious brightnesse of God shine upon the soul, and in that light all these lights shal be obscured, all their differences unobserved; an Angel & a Man, a Man and a Worm differ much in glory and perfection of beeing: But O, in his presence there is no such reckoning upon this account, all things are alike, God infinitly distant from all, and so not more or lesse: Infinitnesse is not capable of such terms of comparison. This is the reason why Christ sayes There is none good but one, even God. Why? because, in respect of his goodness, nothing deserves that name lesser light in view of the greater is a darkness, as less good in comparison of a greater, appears evil: How much more then shal created light and created goodnesse lose that name and notion, in the presence of that uncreated light, & self-sufficient goodnesse: And therefore it is, that the Lord calls himself after this manner, I am, as if nothing else were. I will not say, saith he, that I am the highest, the best and most glorious that is; that supposeth other things to have some being, and some glory that is worthy the accounting of: But I am, & there is none else, I am alone, I lift up my hand to Heaven, & swear I live for ever. There is nothing else can say, I am, I live, & there is none else; for there is nothing hath it of it self: Can any boast of that which they have borrowed, and is not their own? As if the bird that had stolen from other birds its fair feathers, should come forth and contend with them about beauty, would not they presently every one pluck out their own, & leave her naked, to be an object of mockery to all? Even so, since our breath and being is in our nostrils, and that depends upon his Majesties breathing upon us, if he should but keep in his breath, as it were, we should vanish into nothing, he looketh upon man as he is not, Iob 7. 8. That is a strange look, that looks man not only out of countenance, but out of life and being, he looks him into the first nothing, and then can he say, I live, I am; no, he must alwayes say of himself in respect of God, as Paul of himself in respect of Christ, I live, yet not I, but Christ in me, I am, yet not I; but God in me: I live, I am, yet not I but in God, in whom I live, and have my being. So that there is no other thing beside God can say, I am, because all things are borrowed drops of this self-sufficient fountain, & sparkles of this primitive light: Let any thing interveen between the stream and the fountain and it is cut off and dried up; let any thing be interposed between the Sun and the Beam and it evanishes. Therefore this fountain being this original light this self being foreign as Plato calleth him deserves only the name of being; other things that we call after that name are nearer nothing than God, and so in regard of his Majesty, may more fitly be called nothing than something, you see then how profound a mystery of Gods absolute self-sufficient perfection is infolded in these three Letters, I am, or in these four, Iehovah; If you ask what is God, there is nothing occures better then this, I am, or he that is, if I should say he is the Almighty, the only wise, the most perfect, the most glorious, it is all contained in that word, I am that I am, nempe hoc est ci esse, haec omnia esse: For that is to be indeed, to be all those perfections simply, absolutly, and as it were solely; If I say all that, and should reckon out all the Scripture-Epithets, I add nothing; If I say no more, I deminish nothing.
As this holds out Gods absolute perfection, so we told you that it imports, his eternity and unchangeablenesse, you know Pilats speech, what I have written I have written, wherein he meant, that he would not change it, it should stand so. So this properly belongs to Gods eternity, before the mountains were brought forth, from everlasting to everlasting he is God, Psalm 90. 2. Now this is properly to be, & this only deserves the name of being, which never was nothing, & never shal be nothing, which may alwayes say, I am, you know it is so with nothing else but God: The Heavens and Earth with the things therein could not say, 6000. years ago, I am. Adam could once have said, I am, but now he cannot say it; for that self being & fountain-being hath said to him, Return to dust; & so it is with all the generations past, where are they now? They were, but they are not: And we then were not, & now are; for we are come in their place, but within a little time, who of us can say, I am: No, we flee away & are like a dream, as when one awaketh; we are like a tale that is told, that makes a present noise, and it is past, within few years this generation will passe, & none will make mention of us, our place will not know us, no more than we do now remember those who have been before: Christ said of Iohn, He was a burning and shining light, he was, saith he, but now he is not: but Christ may alwayes say, I am the light and life of men. Man is, but look a little backward, and he was not; you shal find his original: and step a little foreward and he shal not be, you shal find his end, but God is Alpha and Omega, the beginning & the end: but oh, who can retire so far backward as to apprehend a beginning, or go such a start forward as to conceive an end in such a being as is the beginning, & end of all things, but without all beginning and end? Whose understanding would it not confound? There is no way here but to flee into Pauls Sanctuary, O the heighth and breadth and depth! We cannot imagine a being, but we must first conceive it nothing & in some instant receiving its being, and therefore canst thou by searching find out God? Therefore, what his being is, hath not entered into the heart of man to consider. If a man would live out the space but of two generations, he would be a worlds wonder; but if any had their dayes prolonged as the Patriarchs before the flood, they would be called ancient indeed, but then the heavens and earth are far more ancient; we may go backward the space of near 6000. years in our own minds, and yet be as far from his beginning as we were, when we are come to the beginning of all things, a mans imagination may yet extend to self-further, & suppose to it self as many thousands of years before the beginning of time, as all the Angels and men of all nations & generations from the beginning, if they had been imployed in no other thing but this, could have summed up: And then suppose a product to be made of all the severall summes of years, it would be vast & unspeakable, but yet your imagination could reach further, and multiply that great summe as often into it self as there are unites into it: Now, when you have done all this, you are never a whit nearer the dayes of the ancient of dayes. Suppose then this should be the only exercise of men and Angels throughout all eternity, all this marvellous Arithmetick would not amount unto the least shadow of the countenance of him who is from everlasting: All that huge product of all the multiplications of men and Angels, hath no proportion unto that never beginning, and never ending duration: The greatest summe that is imaginable hath a certain proportion to the least number, that it containeth it so oft and no oftner, so that the least number being multiplied, will amount unto the greatest that you can conceive. But O, where shal a soul find it self here? It is inclosed between infinitnesse before, & infinitnesse behind, between two everlastings, which way soever it turns, there is no out going, which way soever it looks, it must lose it self in an infinitness round about it, it can find no beginning, and no end, when it hath wearied it self in searching, which if it find not, it knows not what it is, and cannot tell what it is. Now, what are we then? O what are we, who so magnifie our selves: We are but of yesterday, and know nothing, Job 8. 9. Suppose that we had endured the space of 1000. years, yet, saith Moses, Psal. 90. 4. A thousand years are but as yesterday in thy sight. Time hath no succession to thee, thou beholdest at once what is not at once, but in severall times, all that hath not the proportion of one day to thy dayes: we change in our dayes, and are not that to day we were yesterday, but he is the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever, Heb. 13. 8. Every day we are dying, some part of our life is taken away; we leave still one day more behind us, and what is behind us is gone and cannot be recovered: Though we vainly please our selves in the number of our years, and the extent of our life, and the vicissitudes of time, yet the truth is, we are but stil losing so much of our being & time as passeth: First, we lose our child-hood, then we lose our man-hood, and then we leave our old age behind us also, & there is no more before us, even the very present day we decide it with death: But when he moves all things, he remains immoveable; though dayes and years be in a continual flux and motion about him, & they carry us down with their force, yet he abides the same for ever, even the earth that is establisht so sure; & the Heavens that are supposed to be incorruptible, yet they wax old as doth a garment, but He is the same, and his years have no end, Psal. 102. 26, 27. Sine principio principium, absque finc finis, cui praeteritum non abit, haud adit futurum, ante omnia, post omnia, totus, unus ipse, He is the beginning without any beginning, the end without an end, there is nothing bypast to him, and nothing to come, sed uno mentis c…rnit in ictu, quae sunt, quae erunt, quae fuerantque, He is one that is all, before all, after all, & in all: He beholds out of the exalted and supereminent Tower of Eternity, all the successions and changes of the creatures, and there is no succession, no mutation in his knowledge, as in ours, Known to him are all his works, from the beginning. He can declare the end before the beginning, for he knows the end of all things before he gives them beginning: Therefore he is never driven to any consultation upon any emergent, or incident, as the wisest of men are, who could not foresee all accidents and events, but He is in one mind, saith Iob, and that one mind, and one purpose is one for all, one concerning all, he had it from everlasting, & who can turn him? For He will accomplish what his soul desires.
Now, canst thou by searching find out God? Canst thou a poor mortal creature, ascend up unto the height of Heaven, or descend down unto the depths of Hell? Canst thou travel abroad, and compasse all the Sea & dry Land, by its longitude and latitude? Would any martal creature undertake such a voyage, to compasse the Universe? Nay, not only so, but to search into every corner of it, above and below, on the right hand and on the left: No certainly, unlesse we suppose a man whose head reaches unto the heighth of Heaven, and whose feet is down unto the depths of hell, and whose armes streached out can fathome the length of the Earth, and breadth of the Sea, unlesse, I say, we suppose such a creature, then it is in vain to imagine, that either the heighth of the one, or the depth of the other, the length of the one, and the breadth of the other can be found out and measured: Now if mortal creatures connot attain the measure of that which is finite; O then, what can a creature do, what can a creature know of him that is infinite, & the maker of all these things, you cannot compasse the Sea and Land, how then can a soul comprehend him, who hath measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, and comprehended the dust of the earth in a measure, & the mountains he weighs in scales, and the hill in a ballance, Isa. 40. 10. Thou cannot measure the circomference of the heaven, how then canst thou find out him, who metteth out the heaven with his span & streacheth them out as a curtain? Isa. 40. 12. 22. You cannot number the Nations, or perceive the magnitude of the Earth, and the huge extent of the Heavens, What then canst thou know of him who sitteth on the circle of the earth, and the inhabitants are but as Grasse-hoppers before him, & he spreadeth out the Heaven as a Tent to dwel into? He made all the pins and stakes of this Tabernacle, and he fastned them below, but upon nothing, and stretches this curtain about them, and above them; & it was not so much difficulty to him, as to you to draw the curtain about your Bed, for, he spake and it was done, he commanded and it stood fast. Canst thou by searching him out? And yet thou must search him, not so much out of curiosity to know what he is, for he dwels in inaccessible light which no man hath seen, nor no man can see, 1 Tim. 6. 16. Not so much to find him, as to be found of him, or to find what we can not know when we have found; Hic est qui nunquam quaeri frustra potest cum tamen inveniri non potest; you may seek him, but though you never find him, yet ye shal not seek him in vain, for ye shall find blessedness in him: Though you find him, yet can you search him out unto perfection? Then what you have found were not God? How is it possible for such narrow hearts to frame an apprehension, or receive an impression of such an immense greatnesse, and eternall goodnesse? Will not a soul lose its power of thinking and speaking, because there is so much to be thought and spoken; and it so transcends all that it can think or speak? Silence then must be the best Rhetorick; and the sweetest eloquence, when eloquence it self must become dumb and silent, it is the abundance & excesse of that inaccessible light, that hath no proportion to our understandings; that strikes us as blind as in the darknesse the want of light: All that we can say of God is, that whatsoever we can think or conceive, he is not that, because he hath not entered into the heart of man to conceive, and that he is not like any of these things which we know, unto which if he be not like; wee cannot frame any similitude or likenesse of him in our knowledge? What shall we then do? Seek him, and search him indeed; but if we cannot know him, to reverence fear and adore what we know: So much of him may be known, as may teach us our duty & shew unto us our blessednesse, let then all our inquiries of him have a special relation to this end, that we may out of love and fear of such a glorious & good God, worship and serve him, & compose ourselves according to his will, and wholly to his pleasure: what ever thou knowes of God, or searches of him, it is but a vain speculation, and a work of curiosity, if it do not lead to this end; to frame & fashion thy soul to an union & communion with him in love; If it do not discover thy self unto thy self that in that light of Gods glorious Majesty thou mayest distinctly behold thy own vilenesse and wretched misery, thy darknesse & deadnesse & utter impotency. The Angels that Isaiah saw attending God in the Temple, had wings covering their faces, & wings covering their feet, those excellent spirits who must cover their feet from us, because we cannot behold their glory, as Moses behooved to be vailed, yet they cannot behold his glory, but must cover their face from the radiment and shining brightness of his Majesty, yet they have other two wings to flee with; and being thus composed in reverence & fear to God, they are ready to execute his commands willingly and swiftly. Isa. 1. 2, 3. &c. But what is the use Isaiah makes of all this glorious sight? Wo is me, I am a man of polluted lips, &c. Oh all is unclean, People and Pastor: He had known doubtlesse something of it before; but now he sees it of new as if he had never seen it: the glory of God shining on him, doth not pull him up in arogancy, & conceit of the knowledge of such profound mysteries, but he is more abased in himself by it, it shines into his heart, & whole man, and, lets him see all unclean within & without, & so it was with Iob. Iob 42. 5. I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear, but as long as it was hear say, I thought my self something; I often reflected upon my self & actions with a kind of self complacency and delight: But now saith he, since I have seen thee by the seeing of the eye, I abhorre my self in dust and ashes, I cannot look upon my self with patience, without abhorrency and detestation, self-love made me loth other mens sins more then mine own, & self-love did cover mine own from me, it presented me to my self in a seigned likenesse, but now I see my self in my true shape, & all coverings stripped off, Thy light hath pierced into my soul, & behold I cannot endure to look upon my self: Here now is the true knowledge of Gods Majesty, which discovers within thee a mystery of iniquity; and here is the knowledg of God indeed, which abases all thing beside God, not only in opinion, but in affection, that attracts and units thy soul to God, & drawes it from thy self & all created things, this is a right discovery of Divine purity & glory, that spots even the cleannesse of Angels, and stains the pride of all glory, much more will it represent filthinesse; as filthiness, without a covering. Its knowledge & science (falsly so called) that pusseth up, for true knowledge emptieth a soul of it self, and humbleth a soul in it self, that it may be ful of God. He that thinks he knowes any thing, he knows nothing as he ought to know.
This then is the first property or mark of saving knowledge of God, it removes all ground of vain cō fidence; that a soul cannot trust unto it self; and then the very proper intent of it is, that a soul may trust in God, and depend on him in all things: For this purpose the Lord has called himself by so many names in Scripture, answerable to our several necessities, and difficulties, that he might make known to us how allsufficient he is, that so we may turn our eyes and hearts towards him: This was the intent of this name, I am, that Moses might have a support of his faith; for if he had looked to outward appearance was it not almost a rediculous thing, and like a vain fancy, for a poor inconsiderable man to go to a King with such a message, that he would dismisse so many subjects? And was it not attempt of some mad man to go about to lead so many thousands from a wicked tyrannicall King, into another Nation? Well, saith the Lord, I am: I who give althings a being, will give a being to my promise; I will make Pharoah hearken, and the people obey. Well then, what is it that this name of God will not answer? It is a creating Name, a Name that can bring all things out of nothing by a Word; if he be such as he is, then he can make of us what he pleases. If our souls had this name constantly engraven on our hearts: O what power would Divine promises and threatnings have with us? I, even I, am he that comforteth thee, saith he: If we believed that it were he indeed, the Lord Jehovah, how would we be comforted? How would we praise Him by His Name IAH? How would we stoop unto him, and submit unto His blessed will? If we believed this, would we not be as dependent on him as if we had no being in our selves? Would we not make him our habitation and dwelling-place? And conclude our own stability, and the stability of his Church from his unvariable eternity, as the Psalmist, Ps. 90. 1. & Ps. 102. ult. How can we think of such a foūtain being, but we must withal acknowledge our selves to be shadows of his goodnesse, and that we ow to him what we are, and so consecrate and dedicate our selves to his glory? How can we consider such a self being, independent; and creating goodnesse, but we must have some desire to cleave to him, and some confidence to trust in him? Now, this is to know him. When we think on his unchangeablenesse, let us consider our own vanity whose glory and perfection is like a summer flower, or like a vapour ascending for a little time, whose best estate is altogether vanity: Our purposes are soon broken off, and made of none effect; our resolutions change. This is a Character of Mortality, we are not alwayes alike, Non sibi constare, nec ubique & semper sibi parem eundemque esse. To be now one thing, and then another thing, is a property of sinfull & wretched man, therefore let us cease from man whose breath is in his nostrils, and not trust in Princes who shal die, far lesse in our selves who are lesse then the least of men: But let us put our trust in God, who changes not, and we shal not be consumed; our waters shal not fail, we shall never be ashamed of any hope we have in him. There is nothing else you trust in, but undoubtedly it shal prove your shame and confusion; in sum, whatever you shal hear or know ofGod, know that i… is vain & empty, unlesse it descend down into the heart to fashion it to his fear and love, and extend unto the outward man to conform it to obedience; you are but vain in your imaginations, and your foolish hearts are darkned, while when you know God you glorifie him not as God: If that be not the fruit & end of knowle…ge, that knowledge shal be worse to thee than ign…rance, for both it brings on judicial hardning here, and will be thy solemn accuser and witnesse against thee hereafter, Rom. 1. 21, 24. The knowledge of Jesus Christ, truly so called, is neither barren, nor unfruitfull, for out of its root & sap, springs out humility, self-abasing, confidence in God, patience in tribula ions, meeknesse in provocations, temperance & sobriety in lawful things, &c. 2 Pet. 1. 5, 6, 7, 8.