ashes like bread, and mingled my drink with weeping." Evil men enjoy all the good, and good men endure all the evil. But seeing there is a God, he will deal righteously with men, Gen. xviii. 25., the atheist would take away our God from us, John xx. 13., They have taken away my Lord." So we may say of atheists, they would take away our God from us, in whom all our hope and comfort is laid up. Ps." Shall not the Judge of all the xiv. 1., "The fool hath said in earth do right?" Offenders must his heart there is no God." He come to punishment. The sindurst not speak it with his tongue, ner's deathday and doomsday is a but said it in his heart; he wished coming; Ps. xxxvii 13., "The it. Sure none can be speculative Lord seeth that his day is comatheists ! "The devils believe ing." While there is an hell, and tremble," James ii. 19. I the wicked shall be scourged have read of one Arthur, a pro- enough; and while there is eterfessed Atheist, who, when he nity, they shall lie there long came to die, cried out he was enough; and God will abundamned; but though there are dantly compensate the faithful few found who say, "There is no service of his people. They God," yet many deny him in their shall have their white robes and practices, Tit. i. 16., “In works crowns: Ps. lviii. 11., “ Verily they deny him." Cicero said of there is a reward for the righteous! Epicurus, verbis reliquit, deos re- Verily he is a God that judgeth sustulit. The world is full of in the earth!" Because God is practical atheism; most people God, therefore he will give forth live as if they did not believe glorious rewards to his people. there was a God. Durst they lie, defraud, be unclean, if they believed there were a God who would call them to an account? If an Indian, who never heard of a God, should come among us, and have no other means to convince him of a Deity, but the lives of men in our age, surely he would be of Protagoras' mind, who did hang in a doubtful suspense, and did question whether there were a God,-utrum Di sint, non ausim affirmare! Use 2. Seeing there is a God, he will deal righteously, and give just rewards to men. Things seem to be carried in the world very unequally; the wicked flourish, Ps. Ixxiii; they who tempt God are delivered, Mal. iii. 15., the ripe clusters of grapes are squeezed into their cup, and, in the meanwhile, the godly, who wept for sin and served God, are afflicted, Ps. cii. 9., "I have eaten Use 3. Seeing there is a God, wo to all such as engage this God against them! He lives for ever to be avenged upon them, Ezek. xxii. 14., "Can thine heart endure, or can thine hands be strong in the day that I shall deal with thee?" Such as pollute God's sabbath,-oppose his saints, trampling these jewels in the dust, such as live in a contradiction to God's word,-these do engage the Infinite Majesty of heaven against them; and how dismal will their case be? Deut. xxxii. 41., "If I whet my glittering sword, and mine hand take hold of judgment, I will render vengeance to mine enemies ; I will make mine arrows drunk with blood," &c. If it be so terrible to hear the lion roar, what is it when he begins to tear his prey? Ps. 1. 22.," Consider this, ye that forget God, lest I tear you in pieces!" O that men would think of this, who go on in sin! Shall we engage the great God against us? God strikes slow but heavy; Job. xl. 9., "Hast thou an arm like God?" Canst thou strike such a blow? God is the best friend, but the worst enemy. If he can look men into their grave, how far can he throw them? "Who knows the power of his wrath?" Ps. What fools are they, who, for a drop of pleasure, drink a sea of wrath? Paracelsus speaks of a frenzy some have, which will make them die dancing: sinners go dancing to hell. xc. 11. wants, scatter all your fears, resolve all your doubts, conquer all your temptations; the arm of God's power can never be shrunk; he can create mercy for us, and therefore can help and not be beholden to the creature. Did we believe there is a God, we should so depend on his providence as not to use any indirect means; we should not run ourselves into sin to rid ourselves out of trouble: 2 Kings i. 3., "Is it not because there is not a God in Israel, that ye go to inquire of Beelzebub the God of Ekron ?" When men run to sinful shifts, is it not because they do not believe there is a God, or that he is all-sufficient? Use 4. Seeing there is a God, let us firmly believe this great article of our creed. What reli- Use 5. Seeing there is a God, gion can there be in men, if they let us labour to get an interest in do not believe a Deity? "He him, Ps. xlviii. 14., "This God that cometh to God, must believe is our God." Two things will that he is." To worship God, comfort us,-Deity and property. and pray to him, and not believe Since the fall we have lost likethere is a God, is to put a high ness to God, and communion scorn and contempt upon God. with God; let us labour to reBelieve that God is the only true cover this lost interest, and proGod; such a God as he hath re-nounce this Shibboleth, My vealed himself in his word, "A God,' Ps. xliii. 5. It is little lover of righteousness, and hater comfort to know there is a God, of wickedness," Ps. xlv. 7. The unless he be ours; God offers real belief of a Deity gives life to himself to be our God, Jer. xxxi. all religious worship; the more 33., "I will be their God." And we believe the truth and infinite- faith catcheth hold of the offer; ness of God, the more holy and it appropriates God, and makes all angelical we are in our lives. that is in him over to us, to be ours Whether we are alone, or in company, God sees us; he is the heart-searcher; the belief of this would make us live always under God's eye, Ps. xvi. 8., "I have set the Lord always before me." The belief of a Deity would be a bridle to sin, a spur to duty; it Use 6. Seeing there is a God, would add wings to prayer, and oil let us serve and worship him as to the lamp of our devotion. The God. It was an indictment belief of a Deity would cause de- brought in against them, Rom. i. pendance upon God in all our 21., "They glorified him not as straits and exigencies. Gen. xvii. God." 1. Let us pray to him as 1., "I am God all-sufficient," -a to God. Pray with fervency, God that can supply all your James v. 16., " An effectual fer his wisdom to be ours, to teach us,-his holiness ours, to sanctify us,-his Spirit ours, to comfort us, his mercy ours, to save us. To be able to say, God is mine, is more than to have all the mines of gold and silver. vent prayer availeth much." This is both the fire and the incense; without fervency it is no prayer. 2. Love him as God, Deut. vi. 5., "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart." To love him with all thy heart, is to give him a precedency in our love: desire to let him have the cream of our affections, to love him not only appreciatively, but intensively, as much as we can. As the sunbeams united in a burning glass, burn the hotter, so all our affections should be united, that our love to God may be GOD IS A SPIRIT. QUEST. IV. What is God? 2d. The thing expressed, John iv. 24., "God is a spirit." God is essentia spiritualissima. ZANCH. Q. What do you mean when you say, is a Spirit? A. By a spirit I mean, God is an immaterial substance, of a pure, subtile, unmixed essence, not compounded of body and soul, without all extension of parts. The body is a dreggish thing: the more spiritual God's essence is, the more noble and excellent. The spirits are the more refined part of the wine. Q. Wherein doth God differ from other spirits ? fined to a place; but God is an God is a super 2. The soul is a spirit: Eccles. xii. 7., "The spirit shall return unto God that gave it." Q. How doth God, being a spirit, differ from the soul? Servetus and Osiander thought, that the soul being infused did convey into man the very spirit and substance of God; an absurd opinion, for the essence of God is incommunicable. A. Therefore, when it is said, the soul is a spirit, it is meant God hath made it intelligent, and hath stamped upon it his likeness, not his essence. 1. The angels are spirits.. A. We must distinguish of spirits. 1. The angels are created, God is a spirit uncreated. 2. The angels are spirits, but they are finite, and capable of being annihilated; the same power which made them is able to reduce them to their first nothing; but God is an infinite spirit.-3. The angels are con- A. By divine nature there, is fined spirits; they cannot be meant divine qualities, 2 Pet. i. duobus locis simul, they are con-, 4. We are made partakers of the Q. But is it not said, that we are made partakers of the divine nature ? divine nature, not by identity or union with the divine essence, but by a transformation into the divine likeness. Thus you see how God differs from other spirits, angels and souls of men. He is a spirit of transcendent excellency," the Father of spirits." OBJ. Against this Vorstius and the Anthropomorphites object, that, in scripture, an human shape and figure are given to God; he is said to have eyes and hands. ble of being hurt. Wicked men set up their banners, and bend their forces against God; they are said to fight against God, Acts v. 39. But what will this fighting avail? What hurt can they do to the Deity? God is a spirit, and therefore cannot receive any hurtful impression; wicked men imagine evil against the Lord, Nahum i. 9., " What do ye imagine against the Lord ?” But God, being a spirit, is imA. It is contrary to the nature penetrable. The wicked may of a spirit to have a corporeal eclipse his glory, but cannot touch substance : Luke xxiv. 39., his essence. God can hurt his "Handle me, and see me for a enemies, but they cannot hurt spirit hath not flesh and bones, him. Julian might throw up his as ye see me have." Bodily dagger into the air against heamembers are ascribed to God, not ven, but could not touch the properly, but metaphorically, and Deity. God is a spirit, invisible. in a borrowed state; he is only How can the wicked with all their set out to our capacity; by the forces hurt him, when they canright hand of the Lord is meant not see him? Hence all the athis power; by the eyes of the tempts of the wicked against God Lord is meant his wisdom. Now are foolish, and prove abortive: that God is a spirit, and is not Ps. ii. 2, 4., "The kings of the capable of bodily shape or sub-earth set themselves against the stance, is clear. 1. A body is visible, but God is invisible; therefore he is a spirit, 1 Tim. vi. 16., whom no man hath seen, nor can see;" not by an eye of sense.-2. A body is termi- Use 2. If God be a spirit, then nated; can be but in one place at it shows the folly of the papists, once; but God is everywhere, in who worship him by pictures and all places at once; therefore he is images. Being a spirit, we cana Spirit, Ps. cxxxix. 7, 8. God's not make any image to represent centre is everywhere, and his cir-him by: Deut. iv. 12., “The cumference is nowhere.-3. A Lord spake to you out of the midst body being compounded of in- of the fire, ye heard the voice of tegral parts may be dissolved, the words, but saw no similitude." quicquid divisibile est corruptibile; but the Godhead is not capable of dissolution; he can have no end, from whom all things have their beginning. So that it clearly appears that God is a spirit, which adds to the perfection of his nature. Use 1. If God be a spirit, then he is impassible, he is not capa Lord and against his anointed. He that sits in the heaven shall laugh." He is a spirit, he can wound them, but they cannot touch him. 1. God being a spirit is imperceptible, cannot be discerned; how then can there be any resemblance made of him? Isa. xl. 18., "To whom then will ye liken God, or what likeness will ye compare unto him?" How can you paint the Deity? Can we make an image of that which we never saw? "Ye saw no similitude." God is a spirit. It were a folly | dom, love, and holiness of God to go to make the picture of the soul, because it is a spiritual thing; or to paint the angels, because they are spirits. the Father shine forth in Christ, John xiv. 9., "He that hath seen me, hath seen the Father." Use 3. If God be a spirit, it shows us, that the more spiritual we grow, the more we grow like to God. How do earth and spirit agree? Phil. iii. 9. Earthly ones may give for their crest, the mole or tortoise that live in the earth. What resemblance is there between an earthly heart, and him who is a spirit? The more spiritual any one is, the more like God. OBJ. Are not the angels in scripture represented by the cherubims? A. There is imago persona et officii,-there is the image of the person, and the image that represents the office. The cherubims did not represent the persons of the angels, but their office. The cherubims were made with wings, to show the swiftness of the angels, in discharge of their office; and if we cannot picture the soul, nor Q. What is it to be spiritual? the persons of angels, because A. To be refined and sublimatthey are spirits, much less can we ed, to have the heart still in heaven, make an image or picture of God, to be thinking of God and glory, who is infinite and the Father of and to be carried up in a fiery spirits. chariot of love to God,-this is 2. God is also an omnipresent to be spiritual: Ps. lxxiii. 25., spirit; he is present in all places," Whom have I in heaven but Jer. xxiii. 24., "Do not I fill heaven and earth? saith the Lord." Therefore, being every where present, it is absurd to worship him by an image. Were it not a foolish thing to bow down to the king's picture, when the king is present? So it is to worship God's image, when God himself is present. Q. But how then shall we conceive of God, being a spirit, if we make no image or resemblance of him. A. We must conceive of him spiritually viz. (1.) In his attributes, his holiness, justice, goodness, which are the beams by which his divine nature shines forth. (2.) We must conceive of him as he is in Christ, Christ "is the image of the invisible God." Col. i. 15. Set the eyes of your faith on Christ, God-man. In Christ we see some sparklings of the divine glory; in him there is the exact resemblance of all his Father's excellencies. The wis thee:" on which Beza paraphrased thus, Apaga terra, utinam tecum in cœlo essem! "O that I were in heaven with thee!" A Christian, who is taken off these earthly things, as the spirits are taken off from the lees, hath a noble spiritual soul, and doth most resemble him who is a spirit. Use 4. It shows what that worship is God requires of us, and is most acceptable to him, viz. such a worship as is suitable to his nature, spiritual worship.' John iv. 24., "They which worship him, must worship him in spirit and in truth." Spiritual worship is the virgin worship. Though God will have the service of our bodies,-our eyes and hands lifted up, to testify to others what reverence we have of God's glory and majesty,-yet chiefly he will have the worship of the soul, 1 Cor. vi. 20., Glorify God in your body and in your spirit." Spirit worship, God prizeth, be |