John iv. 24.—“God is a Spirit, and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.” We have here something of the nature of God pointed out to us, and something of our duty towards him. “God is a Spirit,” that is his nature, and “man must worship him,” that is his duty, and that “in spirit and in truth,” that is the right manner of the duty. If these three were well pondered till they did sink into the bottom of our spirits, they would make us indeed Christians, not in the letter, but in the spirit. That is presupposed to all Christian worship and walking, to know what God is, it is indeed the primo cognitum of Christianity, the first principle of true religion, the very root out of which springs and grows up walking suitably with, and worshipping answerably of, a known God. I fear much of our religion is like the Athenians, they built an altar to the unknown God, and like the Samaritans, who worshipped they knew 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 ourselves. This, indeed, is the beginning of the fear of God, which the wise preacher calls “the beginning of true 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 and strained conceptions of God,—that comprise the true knowledge of him. Many think they know something when they can speak of those mysteries in some singular way, and in some terms [pg 054] 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 likeness and image of God, who is invisible. Ye know how ye fancy to yourselves some bodily shape. When you conceive of him, you think he is some reverend and majestic 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 engrave some similitude of God, and there is idolatry in imagination, when the fancy and apprehension run upon some image or likeness of God. The first is among Papists, but I fear the latter is too common among us, and it is indeed all one, to form such a similitude in our mind and to engrave 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, as at the giving out of the law, yet no man did see any likeness at all. He did not come under the perception of the most subtle sense, he could not be perceived but by the refined understanding going aside from all things visible. And therefore you do but fancy an idol to yourselves, instead of God, when you apprehend him under the likeness of any visible or sensible thing, and so whatever love or fear or reverence you have, it is all but misspent superstition, the love and fear of an idol. I. Know then, “that God is a Spirit,” and therefore he is like none of all those things you see, or hear, or smell, 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 at hand to every one of us yet our eyes and ears and all our 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 you could hear or see an angel. If you would saw a man asunder and resolve him into atoms 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, and dwells in light inaccessible, “which no man hath seen or can see.” Then our poor narrow minds, that are drowned, as it were, and immersed in bodies of clay, and in this state of mortality, receive all knowledge by the senses, cannot frame any 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 ourselves amounts to, is but this dark and 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 itself, but only in a dark and general way? We guess at his majesty, by the glorious emanations of his power and wisdom, and the ways thereof, which he displays abroad in all the work of his hands, and from all these concurring testimonies, and evidences of his majesty, we gather this confused notion of him, that he is the fountain, self independent Being, the original of these things, and more absolute in the world than the soul is in the body, the true Anima mundi, the very life and the light of men, and the soul that quickens, moves, and forms all this visible world, that makes all things visible, and himself is invisible. Therefore it is that the Lord speaks to us in Scripture of himself, according to our capacities,—of his face, his right hand, and arm, his throne, his sceptre, his back [pg 055] III. If God be a Spirit, then he is most perfect and most powerful. All imperfection, all infirmity, and weakness in the creature, is founded in the gross and material part of it. You see the more matter and bodily substance is 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 fly 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 mass and 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 and subtile they be, the more action, virtue, and efficacy they have. The earth stands like a dead lump but the sea moves, and 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 virtue and influence is the more powerful. What is a dead body when the soul and spirit is out of it? It hath no more virtue and efficacy than so much clay, although by the presence of the spirit of it, it was active, agile, swift, strong and nimble. So much then as any thing hath of spirit in it, so much the more perfect and powerful 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,—a?t? p?e?a. When the soul of a man, or the spirit of a horse, hath so much virtue, to stir up a lump of earth, and to quicken it to so many diverse operations, even though that soul and spirit did not, nay could not make that piece of earth they dwell in, then, what must his power and virtue be that made all those things? Who gave power and virtue even to the spirits of all flesh? “Their horses” saith God, are “flesh and not spirit,” (Isa. xxxi. 3) 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 virtue to save the Israelites, than so many lumps of flesh or clay. For he is the Spirit of all spirits, that quickens, actuates and moves them to their several operations and influences. Anima mundi, et Anima animarum mundi. An angel hath more power than all men united in one body. Satan is called the prince of the air, and the god of this world, for he hath more efficacy and virtue to commove the air, and raise tempests than all the swarms of multiplied mankind, though gathered into one 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 Sennacherib's 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 magnify himself, or glory in strength, or skill? Beasts are stronger than men, but man's weaker strength being strengthened with more skill, proves stronger than they. But in respect of angels he hath neither strength nor wisdom. IV. If God be a Spirit, then he is not circumscribed by any place, and if an infinite Spirit, then he is everywhere, no place can include him, and no body can exclude him. He is within all things, yet not included nor bounded within them, and he is without all things, yet not excluded from them. Intra omnia, non tamen inclusus in illis, extra omnia, nec tamen exclustts ab illis. You know every body hath its own bounds and limits circumscribed to it, and shuts out all other bodily [pg 056] 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 comes 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 iners et mortua. The nearer any thing is to the earthly matter, as it hath less action, so less life and feeling. Man is nearer an angel than beasts, and therefore he hath a knowing understanding spirit in him. There is a spirit in man, and the more or less 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 less delivered from the chains of the body. These souls that have never risen above, and 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 and leads the soul apart to converse with God himself, and to meditate on things not seen—sin, wrath, hell, and heaven. And the farther it goes from itself, and 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 man's soul must be almost like Paul's “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 all knowing Spirit, all seeing Spirit, as well as all-present, “there is no searching of his understanding,” Isa. xl. 28, Psalm. cxlvii. 5. “Who hath directed the Spirit of the Lord, or being his counsellor, hath taught him?” Isa. xl. 13, Rom. xi. 34. He calls the generations from the beginning, and known to him are all his works from the beginning. O that you would always set this God before you, or rather set yourselves always in his presence, in whose sight you are always! How would it compose our hearts to reverence and fear in all our actions, if we did indeed believe that the Judge of all the world is an eye witness 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 [pg 057] |