nefs, and knowledge, and liberty, and goodness, and you diveft him of his glory; you take away his moft effential perfections. So that thefe great abfurdities following from the fuppofing of God to be mere matter or body, we are to conceive of him as another kind of substance, that is, a fpirit. So that I wonder that the author of the Leviathan, who doth more than once exprefly affirm, that there can be nothing in the world but what is material and corporeal, did not fee that the neceffary confequence of this pofition, is to banish God out of the world. I would not be uncharitable, but I doubt he did fee it, and was content with the confequence, and willing the world fhould entertain it: for it is fo evident, that by fuppofing the divine effence to confift of matter, the immenfity of the divine nature is taken away; and it is alfo fo utterly unimaginable how mere matter should understand, and be endowed with liberty, and confequently with goodness, that I cannot but vehemently fufpect the man who denies God to be a fpirit, either to have a grofs and faulty understanding, or a very ill will against God, and an evil defign to root out of the minds of men the belief of a God. I come in the

III. Place, to confider the objections.

1. Obj. Why then is God reprefented to us so often in fcripture by the parts and members of mens bodies? Anf. I fhall only fay at prefent, that all thefe descriptions and reprefentations of God are plainly made to comply with our weakness, by way of condefcenfion and accommodation to our capacities.

2. Obj. How is it faid, that man was made after the image of God, if God be a fpirit, of which there can be no likeness nor refemblance? Anf. Man is not faid to be made after the image of God, in refpect of the outward fhape and features of his body, but in refpect of the qualities of his mind, as holiness and righteoufnefs; or of his faculties, as understanding and will; or, which the text seems most to favour, in refpect of his dominion and fovereignty over the creatures; for, in the two former refpects, the angels are made after the image of God. Now this feems to be spoken peculiarly of men, Gen. i. 26. Let us make man in our own image, after our

own

own likeness, and let them have dominion over the fifh of the fea, and the fowls of the air. &c.

IV. I come now to draw fome inferences or corollaries from hence, and they fhall be partly fpeculative, partly practical.

First, Speculative inferences.

1. That God is invifible. The proper object of fight is colour, and that arifeth from the various difpofition of the parts of matter which cause several reflections of light. Now, a fpirit hath no parts nor matter, and therefore is invifible. 1 Tim. i. 17. Unto the eternal, immortal, invifible, the only wife God. Heb. xi. 27. He endured, as feeing him who is invifible; as feeing him by an eye of faith, who is invifible by an eye of fenfe.. 1 Tim. vi. 16. Whom no man hath feen, nor can fee. When Mofes and the elders of Ifrael are faid to have feen God, and Jacob to have seen him face to face, Exod. ii. 9. Gen. xxxii. 30. it is meant of an angel covered with divine glory and majefty; as we fhall fee if we compare these with other texts. When Mofes is faid: to have spoken to him face to face, that is familiarly;. and fo Micaiah, 1 Kings xxii. 19. is faid to have seen God upon his throne, and all Ifrael fcattered up and down; this was in a vifion. And it is promised, that in heaven we fhall fee God, that is, have a more perfect knowledge of him, and full enjoyment; as to fee good days, is to enjoy them. Those texts, where it is faid, No man can fee God and live, Exod. xxxiii. 20. and John i. 18. No man hath feen God at any time, do not intimate that God is vifible, though we cannot fee him; but seeing is metaphorically used for knowing, and the meaning is, that in this life we are not capable of a perfect knowledge of God. A clear discovery of God to our understanding. would let in joys into our fouls, and create defires in us too great for frail mortality to bear.

2. That he is the living God; fpirit and life are often put together in fcripture.

3. That God is immortal. This the fcripture attributes to him, Tim. i. 17. To the king immortal, invifible. 1 Tim. vi. 16. Who only hath immortality. This alfo flows from God's fpirituality; a fpiritual nature hath no principles of corruption in it, nothing that is

N 3

liable

liable to perish, or decay, or die. Now, this doth fo eminently agree to God, either because he is purely fpiritual and immaterial, as poffibly no creature is; or elfe because he is not only immortal in his own nature, but is not liable to be reduced to nothing by any other, because he hath an original and independent immortality; and therefore the Apoftle doth attribute it to him in fuch a fingular and peculiar manner, who only hath immortality.

Secondly, Practical inferences.

1. We are not to conceive of God as having a body, or any corporeal shape or members. This was the grofs conceit of the Anthropomorphites of old, and of fome Socinians of late, which they ground upon the grofs and literal interpretation of many figurative fpeeches in fcripture concerning God, as where it fpeaks of his face, and hand, and arm, &c. But we are very unthankful to God, who condefcends to reprefent himself to us according to our capacities, if we abufe this condefcenfion to the blemish and reproach of the divine nature. If God be pleased to stoop to our weakness, we must not therefore level him to our infirmities.

2. If God be a fpirit, we are not to worship God by any image or fenfible reprefentation. Becaufe God is a fpirit, we are not to liken him to any thing that is corporeal; we are not to represent him by the likenefs of any thing that is in heaven above, that is, of any birds; or in the earth beneath, that is, of any beaft; or in the waters under the earth, that is, of any fifh; as it is in the fecond commandment. For, as the Prophet tells us, there is nothing that we can liken God to; Ifa. xl. 18. To whom will ye liken God? or what likeness will ye compare to him? We debafe his fpiritual and incorruptible nature, when we compare him to corruptible creatures. Rom. i. 22. 23. fpeaking of the Heathen idolatry, Who profeffing themselves wife, became fools, and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and to four-footed beafts, and creeping things. They became fools; this is the folly of idolatry, to liken a fpirit, which hath no bodily fhape, to things that are corporeal and corruptible. So that, however fome are pleased to mince the matter, I cannot

fee

fee how the church of Rome, which worships God by or towards fome image or fenfible reprefentation, can be excufed from idolatry; and the church of England doth not without very just cause challenge the Romish church with it, and make it a ground of feparation from her.

3. If God be a fpirit, then we should worship him in fpirit and in truth. This is the inference of the text, and therefore I fhall fpeak a little more largely of it; only I must explain what is meant by worshipping in fpirit and in truth, and fhew you the force of this confequence, how it follows, that because God is a Spirit, therefore he must be worshipped in fpirit and in truth.

1ft, For the explication of it. This word fpirit is fometimes applied to the doctrine of the gospel, and fo it is oppofed to letter, by which name the doctrine of Mofes is called, 2 Cor. iii. 6. Who hath made us able minifters of the New Teftament, not of the letter, but of the fpirit; not of the law, which was written in tables of ftone, but which Chrift by his Spirit writes in the hearts of believers. Sometimes to the worfhip of the gofpel; and fo it is oppofed to the flesh, Gal. iii. 3. Having begun in the fpirit, are ye now made perfect by the fleh? that is, by the works of the ceremonial law, which is therefore called flesh, because the principal ceremony of it, circumcifion, was made in the flesh, and because their facrifices, a chief part of their worship, were of the flesh of beafts, and because the greatest part of their ordinances, as washing, and the like, related to the body. Hence it is the Apoftle calls the worship of the Jews, the law of a carnal commandment, Heb. vii. 16. and Heb. ix. 10. Carnal ordinances, fpeaking of the fervice of the law, which, faith he, ftood in meats, and drinks, and divers washings and carnal ordinances. Now, in oppofition to this carnal and ceremonial worship, we are to worship God in fpirit. The worship of the Jews was moft a bodily fervice; but we are to give God a reafonable fervice, to ferve him with the fpirit of our minds, as the Apostle fpeaks; instead of offering the flesh of bulls and goats, we are to confecrate ourselves to the fervice of God: this is a holy and acceptable facrifice, or reasonable service.

And

And in truth. Either in oppofition to the falfe worfhip of the Samaritans, (as in fpirit is oppofed to the worfhip of the Jews) as our Saviour tells the woman, that they worshipped they knew not what; or, which I rather think, in oppofition to the fhadows of the law; and fo it is oppofed, John i. 17. The law was given by Mofes, but grace and truth came by Jefus Chrift.

Not that the external fervice of God is here excluded, not that we are to fhew no outward reverence to him; but that as under the law, the service of God was chiefly external and corporeal, fo now it fhould chiefly be inward and fpiritual: the worship of God, under the gofpel, fhould chiefly be fpiritual and fubftantial, not a carnal, and bodily, and ceremonious devotion.

2dly, For the force of the confequence, it doth not lie in this, that juft fuch as God is, fuch muft our worship of him be; for this would exclude all bodily and outward worship; our worship of God muft therefore be invisible, eternal, &c. for fo is he; and befides, the will of God feems rather to be the rule of his worship than his nature: but the force of it is this; God is of a fpiritual nature, and this is to be fuppofed to be his will, that our worship fhould be as agreeable to the object of it, as the nature of the creature, who is to give it, will bear. Now, faith Christ to the woman, the Jews and the Samaritans limit their worship to a certain place, and it confifts chiefly in certain carnal rites and ordinances; but, faith he, though God have permitted this for a time, because of the carnality and hardness of their hearts, yet the time is coming, when a more spiritual, and folid, and fubftantial worship of God is to be introduced, which will be free from all particular places and rites; not tied to the temple, or to fuch external ceremonies, but confifting in the devotion of our fpirits, even the inward frame and temper of our hearts; all outward circumftances, excepting those of the two facraments which are pofitive, being left by the gofpel to as great a liberty, as natural neceffity and decency will permit.

We must worship God; and therefore it is naturally neceffary, that we fhould do it fomewhere, in fome place; now, feeing fome-body muft determine this, it is most convenient that authority fhould determine it ac

cording