worshipped; and some have used it as an argument against this doctrine: the best doctrines may by men's corruption be drawn out into unreasonable and pernicious conclusions. Have you not met with any, that from the doctrine of God's free mercy, and our Saviour's satisfactory death, have drawn poison to feed their lusts and consume their souls, a poison composed by their own corruption, and not offered by those truths? The apostle intimates to us, that some did, or at least were ready to be more lavish in sinning, because God was abundant in grace; "Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound?" Rom. vi. 1;1 where he prevents an objection that he thought might be made by some. But as to this case; since though God be present in every thing, yet every thing retains its nature, distinct from the nature of God; therefore it is not to have a worship due to the excellency of God. As long as any thing remains a creature, it is only to have the respect from us which is due to it in the rank of creatures. When a prince is present with his guard, or if he should go arm in arm with a peasant, is therefore the veneration and honour due to the prince to be paid to the peasant, or any of his guard? Would the presence of the prince excuse it, or would it not rather aggravate it? He acknowledged such a person equal to me, by giving him my rights, even in my sight. Though God dwelt in the temple, would not the Israelites have been accounted guilty of idolatry, had they worshipped the images of the cherubim, or the ark, or the altar, as objects of worship, which were erected only as means for his service? Is there not as much reason to think God was as essentially present in the temple as in heaven; since the same expressions are used of the one and the other? The sanctuary is called the glorious high throne, Jer. xvii. 12; and he is said to dwell between the cherubims, Psal. lxxx. 1, that is, the two cherubims that were at the two ends of the mercy-seat, appointed by God as the two sides of his throne in the sanctuary, Exod. xxv. 18, where he was to dwell, ver. 8, and meet and commune with his people, ver. 22. Could this excuse Manasseh's idolatry in bringing in a carved image into the house of God? 2 Chron. xxxiii. 7. Had it been a good answer to the charge, "God is present here, and therefore every thing may be worshipped as God?" If he be only essentially in heaven, would it not be idolatry to direct a worship to the heavens, or any part of it, as a due object, because of the presence of God there? Though we look up to the heavens, when we pray and worship God, yet heaven is not the object of worship: the soul abstracts God from the creature.

(6.) Nor is God defiled by being present with those crea1 "Shall we sin, because we are not under the law, but under grace?" ver. 15.

tures which seem filthy to us. Nothing is filthy in the eye of God as his creature; he could never else have pronounced all good: whatsoever is filthy to us, yet as it is a creature, it owes itself to the power of God. His essence is no more defiled by being present with it, than his power by producing it: no creature is foul in itself, though it may seem so to us. Does not an infant lie in a womb of impurities? Yet is not the power of God present with it, in working it curiously in the lower parts of the earth? Are his eyes defiled by seeing the substance when it is yet imperfect? or his hand defiled by writing every member in his book? Psal. cxxxix. 15, 16. Have not the vilest and most noisome things excellent medicinal virtues? How are they endued with them? How are those qualities preserved in them? By any thing without God, or no? Every artificer looks with pleasure upon the work he has wrought with art and skill; can his essence be defiled by being present with them, any more than it was in giving them such virtues, and preserving them in them? God measures the heaven and the earth with his hand; is his hand defiled by the evil influences of the planets, or the corporeal impurities of the earth? Nothing can be filthy in the eye of God but sin, since every thing else owes its being to him. What may appear deformed and unworthy to us, is not so to the Creator; he sees beauty where we see deformity; finds goodness where we behold what is nauseous to All creatures being the effects of his power, may be the objects of his presence. Can any place be more foul than hell, if you take it either for the hell of the damned, or for the grave where there is rottenness? yet there he is, Psal. cxxxix. 8. When Satan appeared before God, and God spake with him, Job i. 7, could God contract any impurity by being present where that filthy spirit was, more impure than any corporeal, noisome, and defiling thing can be? No, God is purity to himself in the midst of noisomeness; a heaven to himself in the midst of hell. Who ever heard of a sunbeam stained by shining upon a quagmire, any more than sweetened by breaking into a perfumed room? Though the light shines upon pure and impure things, yet it mixes not itself with either of them; so though God be present with devils and wicked men, yet it is without any mixture: he is present with their essence, to sustain it and support it; not in their defection, wherein lies their defilement, and which is not a physical but a moral evil; bodily filth can never touch an incorporeal substance. Spirits are not present with us in the same manner that one body is present with another: bodies can by a touch only defile bodies. Is the glory of an angel stained by being in a coal-mine? Or could the angel that came into the lion's den, to deliver Daniel, Dan. vi. 22, be

us.

1 Shelford of the Attributes, p. 170.

any more disturbed by the stench of the place, than he could be scratched by the paws or torn by the teeth of the beasts? Their spiritual nature secures them against any infection, when they are ministering spirits to persecuted believers in their filthy prisons, Acts xii. 7. The soul is straitly united with the body, but it is not made white or black by the whiteness or blackness of its habitation; is it infected by the corporeal impurities of the body, while it continually dwells in a sea of filthy pollution? If the body be cast into a common sewer, is the soul defiled by it? Can a diseased body derive a contagion to the spirit that animates it? Is it not often the purer by grace, the more the body is infected by nature? Hezekiah's spirit was scarce ever more fervent with God, than when the sore, which some think to be a plague sore, was upon him, Isa. xxxviii. 3. How can any corporeal filth impair the purity of the Divine essence? It may as well be said, that God is not present in battles and fights for his people, Josh. xxiii. 10, because he would not be disturbed by the noise of cannons and clashing of swords, as that he is not present in the world, because of the ill scents. Let us therefore conclude this with the expression of a learned man of our own; "To deny the omnipresence of God because of ill-scented places, is to measure God rather by the nicety of sense than by the sagacity of reason."

4. The Use.

Use (1.) Of information.

[1.] Christ has a Divine nature. As eternity, and immutability, two incommunicable properties of the Divine nature, are ascribed to Christ, so also is this of omnipresence or immensity. "No man hath ascended up to heaven, but he that came down from heaven, even the Son of man which is in heaven," John iii. 13. Not which was, but which is; he comes from heaven by incarnation, and remains in heaven by his Divinity. He was, while he spake to Nicodemus, locally on earth, in regard of his humanity, but in heaven according to his Deity, as well as upon earth in the union of his Divine and human nature. He descended upon earth, but he left not heaven; he was in the world before he came in the flesh. "He was in the world, and the world was made by him," John i. 10. He was in the world, as the light that enlightens every man that comes into the world: in the world as God, before he was in the world as man. He was then in the world as man, while he discoursed with Nicodemus, yet so that he was also in heaven as God. No creature but is bounded in space, either circumscribed as body, or determined as spirit to be in one place, so as not to be in another at the same time; to leave a place where they were, and possess a place where they were not. But Christ is so on

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earth, that at the same time he is in heaven; he is therefore infinite. To be in heaven and earth at the same moment of time, is a property solely belonging to the Deity, wherein no creature can be a partner with him. He was in the world before he came to the world, and "the world was made by him," John i. 10. His coming was not as the coming of angels, that leave heaven, and begin to be on earth, where they were not before; but such a presence as can be ascribed only to God, who fills heaven and earth. Again, if all things were made by him, then he was present with all things which were made. For where there is a presence of power, there is also a presence of essence, and therefore he is still present. For the right and power of conservation follows the power of creation. And according to this Divine nature, he promises his presence with his church. "There am I in the midst of them," Matt. xviii. 20. And, "I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world," Matt. xxviii. 20, that is, by his Divinity; for he had before told them, that they were not to have him always with them, Matt. xxvi. 11, meaning, according to his humanity; but in his Divine nature he is present with, and walks in the midst of the golden candlesticks. If we understand it of a presence by his Spirit in the midst of the church, does it invalidate his essential presence? No, he is no less than the Spirit whom he sends; and therefore as little confined as the Spirit is, who dwells in every believer. And this may also be inferred from John x. 30. "I and my Father are one; not one by consent, though that be included; but one in power: for he speaks not of their consent, but of their joint power in keeping his people. Where there is a unity of essence, there is a unity of presence.

[2.] Here is a confirmation of the spiritual nature of God. If he were an infinite body, he could not fill heaven and earth, but with the exclusion of all creatures. Two bodies cannot be in the same space; they may be near one another, but not in any of the same points together. A body bounded he has not, for that would destroy his immensity; he could not then fill heaven and earth, because a body cannot be at one and the same time in two different spaces; but God does not fill heaven at one time and the earth at another, but both at the same time. Besides, a limited body cannot be said to fill the whole earth, but one particular space in the earth at a time. A body may fill the earth with its virtue, as the sun, but not with its substance. Nothing can be every where with a corporeal weight and mass; but God being infinite, is not tied to any part of the world, but penetrates all, and equally acts by his infinite power in all.

[3.] Here is an argument for providence. His His presence is mentioned in the text, in order to his government of the affairs of the world. Is he every where, to be unconcerned with

every thing? Before the world had a being, God was present with himself; since the world has a being, he is present with his creatures, to exercise his wisdom in the ordering, as he did his power in the production of them. As the knowledge of God is not a bare contemplation of a thing, so his presence is not a bare inspection into a thing. Were it an idle, careless presence, it were a presence to no purpose, which cannot be imagined of God. Infinite power, goodness, and wisdom being every where present with his essence, are never without their exercise. He never manifests any of his perfections, but the manifestation is full of some indulgence and benefit to his creatures. It cannot be supposed God should neglect those things wherewith he is constantly present in a way of efficiency and operation. He is not every where, without acting every where. Wherever his essence is, there is a power and virtue worthy of God every where dispensed. He governs by his presence what he made by his power; and is present as an agent with all his works. His power and essence are together to preserve them while he pleases, as his power and his essence are together to create them when he saw good to do it. Every creature has a stamp of God, and his presence is necessary to keep the impression standing upon the creature. As all things are his works, they are the objects of his care; and the wisdom he employed in framing them will not suffer him to be careless of them. His presence with them engages him in honour not to be a negligent Governor. His immensity fits him for government; and where there is a fitness, there is an exercise of government, where there are objects for the exercise of it. He is worthy to have the universal rule of the world, he can be present in all places of his empire, there is nothing can be done by any of his subjects but in his sight. As his eternity renders him King always, so his immensity renders him King every where. If he were only present in heaven, it might occasion a suspicion that he minded only the things of heaven, and had no concern for things below that vast body; but if he be present here, his presence has a tendency to the government of those things with which he is present. We are all in him as fish in the sea; and he bears all creatures in the womb of his providence and the arms of his goodness. It is most certain that his presence with his people is far from being an idle one; for when he promises to be with them, he adds some special cordial, as, "I will be with thee, and will bless thee," Gen. xxvi. 3; Jer. xv. 20. "I am with thee-I will strengthen thee; -I will help thee-I will uphold thee," Isa. xli. 10. 14. Infinite goodness will never countenance a negligent presence. [4.] The omniscience of God is inferred from hence. If God

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