a notion settled in the minds of all,――that God can do whatsoever
he pleases, everything that is not against the purity of his nature,
and doth not imply a contradiction in itself; he can therefore
create millions of worlds greater than this; and millions of heavens
greater than this heaven he hath already created; if so, he is then
in inconceivable spaces beyond this world, for his essence is not
less narrower than his power; and his power is not to be thought of
a further extent than his essence; he cannot be excluded therefore
from those vast spaces where his power may fix those worlds if he
please; if so, it is no wonder that he should fill this {a385} world:
and there is no reason to exclude God from the narrow space of this
world, that is not contained in infinite spaces beyond the world.
God is wheresoever he hath a power to act; but he hath a power to act
everywhere in the world, everywhere out of the world; he is therefore
everywhere in the world, everywhere out of the world. Before this
world was made, he had a power to make it in the space where now it
stands; was he not then unlimitedly where the world now is, before
the world received a being by his powerful word? Why should he not
then be in every part of the world now? Can it be thought that God who
was immense before, should, after he had created the world, contract
himself to the limits of one of his creatures, and tie himself to a
particular place of his own creation, and be less after his creation
than he was before? This might also be prosecuted by an argument from
his eternity. What is eternal in duration, is immense in essence; the
same reason which renders him eternal, renders him immense; that which
proves him to be always, will prove him to be everywhere.
III. The third thing is, Propositions for the further clearing this
doctrine from any exceptions.
1. This truth is not weakened by the expressions in Scripture, where
God is said to dwell in heaven and in the temple.
(1.) He is indeed said to sit in heaven (Ps. ii. 4), and to dwell
on high (Ps. cxiii. 5), but he is nowhere said to dwell only in
the heavens, as confined to them. It is the court of his majestical
presence, but not the prison of his essence: for when we are told that
“the heaven is his throne,” we are told with the same breath that the
“earth is his footstool” (Isa. lxvi. 1). He dwells on high, in regard
of the excellency of his nature, but he is in all places, in regard of
the diffusion of his presence. The soul is essentially in all parts of
the body, but it doth not exert the same operations in all; the more
noble discoveries of it are in the head and heart. In the head where
it exerciseth the chiefest senses for the enriching the understanding;
in the heart, where it vitally resides, and communicates life and
motion to the rest of the body. It doth not understand with the foot
or toe, though it be in all parts of the body it informs; and so
God may be said to dwell in heaven, in regard of the more excellent
and majestic representations of himself, both to the creatures that
inhabit the place, as angels and blessed spirits, and also in those
marks of his greatness which he hath planted before, those spiritual
natures which have a nobler stamp of God upon them, and those
excellent bodies, as sun and stars, which, as so many tapers, light us
to behold his glory (Ps. xix. 1), and astonish the minds of men when
they gaze upon them. It is his court, where he hath the most solemn
worship from his creatures, all his courtiers attending there with
a pure love and glowing zeal. He reigns there in a special manner,
without any opposition to his government; it is, therefore, called
his “holy dwelling place” (2 Chron. iii. 27). The earth hath not that
title, since sin cast a stain and a ruining curse upon it. The earth
is not his throne, because his government is opposed: but heaven is
none of Satan’s precinct, and the rule of God is uncontradicted by
the inhabitants of it. It is from thence also he hath {a386} given
the greatest discoveries of himself; thence he sends the angels his
messengers, his Son upon Redemption, his Spirit for sanctification.
From heaven his gifts drop down upon our heads, and his grace upon
our hearts (James iii. 17). From thence the chiefest blessings of
earth descend. The motions of the heavens fatten the earth; and the
heavenly bodies are but stewards to the earthly comforts for man by
their influence. Heaven is the richest, vastest, most steadfast, and
majestic part of the visible creation. It is there where he will at
last manifest himself to his people in a full conjunction of grace and
glory, and be forever open to his people in uninterrupted expressions
of goodness, and discoveries of his presence, as a reward of their
labor and service; and in these respects it may peculiarly be called
his throne. And this doth no more hinder his essential presence in
all parts of the earth, than it doth his gracious presence in all the
hearts of his people. God is in heaven, in regard of the manifestation
of his glory; in hell, by the expressions of his justice; in the earth,
by the discoveries of his wisdom, power, patience, and compassion; in
his people, by the monuments of his grace; and in all, in regard of
his substance.
(2.) He is said also to dwell in the ark and temple. It is called
(Ps. xxvi. 8) “the habitation of his house, and the place where his
honor dwells;” and to dwell in Jerusalem as in his holy mountain,
“The mountain of the Lord of Hosts” (Zech. viii. 3), in regard of
publishing his oracles, answering their prayers, manifesting more of
his goodness to the Israelites, than to any other nation in the world;
erecting his true worship among them, which was not settled in any
part of the world besides: and his worship is principally intended in
that psalm. The ark is the place where his honor dwells. The worship
of God is called the glory of God; “They changed the glory of God into
an image made like to corruptible man” (Rom. i. 23), _i. e._, they
changed the worship of God into idolatry; and to that also doth the
place in Zechariah refer. Now, because he is said to dwell in heaven,
is he essentially only there? Is he not as essentially in the temple
and ark as he is in heaven, since there are as high expressions of
his habitation there as of his dwelling in heaven? If he dwell only
in heaven, how came he to dwell in the temple? both are asserted in
Scripture, one as much as the other. If his dwelling in heaven did not
hinder his dwelling in the ark, it could as little hinder the presence
of his essence on the earth. To dwell in heaven, and in one part of
the earth at the same time, is all one as to dwell in all parts of
heaven, and all parts of earth. If he were in heaven, and in the ark
and temple, it was the same essence in both, though not the same kind
of manifestation of himself. If by his dwelling in heaven he meant
his whole essence, why is it not also to be meant by his dwelling in
the ark? It was not, sure, part of his essence that was in heaven,
and part of his essence that was on earth; his essence would then be
divided; and can it be imagined that he should be in heaven and the
ark at the same time, and not in the spaces between? Could his essence
be split into fragments, and a gap made in it, that two distant spaces
should be filled by him, and all between be empty of him, so that
God’s being said {a387} to dwell in heaven, and in the temple, is so
far from impairing the truth of this doctrine, that it more confirms
and evidences it.
2. Nor do the expressions of God’s coming to us, or departing from
us, impair this doctrine of his omnipresence. God is said to hide his
face from his people (Ps. x. 1); to be far from the wicked; and the
Gentiles are said to be afar off, viz. from God (Prov. xv. 29; Eph.
ii. 17), and upon the manifestation of Christ made near. These must
not be understood of any distance or nearness of his essence, for that
is equally near to all persons and things; but of some other special
way and manifestation of his presence. Thus, God is said to be in
believers by love, as they are in him (1 John iv. 15); “He that abides
in love, abides in God, and God in him.” He that loves, is in the
thing beloved; and when two love one another, they are in one another.
God is in a righteous man by a special grace, and far from the wicked
in regard of such special works; and God is said to be in a place by
a special manifestation, as when he was in the bush (Exod. iii.), or
manifesting his glory upon Mount Sinai (Exod. xxiv. 16); “The glory
of the Lord abode about Mount Sinai.” God is said to hide his face
when he withdraws his comforting presence, disturbs the repose of our
hearts, flasheth terror into our consciences, when he puts men under
the smart of the cross; as though he had ordered his mercy utterly
to depart from them, or when he doth withdraw his special assisting
providence from us in our affairs; so he departed from Saul, when he
withdrew his direction and protection from him in the concerns of his
government (1 Sam. xvi. 14); “The Spirit of the Lord departed from
Saul,” _i. e._ the spirit of government. God may be far from us in
one respect, and near to us in another; far from us in regard of
comfort, yet near to us in regard of support, when his essential
presence continues the same: this is a necessary consequent upon the
infiniteness of God, the other is an act of the will of God; so he was
said to forsake Christ, in regard of his obscuring his glory from his
human nature, and inflicting his wrath, though he was near to him in
regard of his grace, and preserved him from contracting any spot in
his sufferings. We do not say the sun is departed out of the heavens
when it is bemisted; it remains in the same part of the heavens,
passes on its course, though its beams do not reach us by reason of
the bar between us and it. The soul is in every part of the body, in
regard of its substance, and constantly in it, though it doth not act
so sprightly and vigorously at one time as at another in one and the
same member, and discover itself so sensibly in its operations; so
all the various effects of God towards the sons of men, are but divers
operations of one and the same essence. He is far from us, or near
to us, as he is a judge or a benefactor. When he comes to punish, it
notes not the approach of his essence, but the stroke of his justice;
when he comes to benefit, it is not by a new access of his essence,
but an efflux of his grace: he departs from us when he leaves us to
the frowns of his justice; he comes to us when he encircles us in
the arms of his mercy; but he was equally present with us in both
dispensations, in regard of his essence. And, likewise, God is said to
come down (Gen. xi. 5, “And the Lord came down to see the city”), when
he doth some signal and wonderful {a388} works which attract the minds
of men to the acknowledgment of a Supreme Power and Providence in the
world, who judged God absent and careless before.
3. Nor is the essential presence of God with all creatures any
disparagement to him. Since it was no disparagement to create the
heaven and the earth, it is no disparagement to him to fill them; if
he were essentially present with them when he created them, it is no
dishonor to him to be essentially present with them to support them;
if it were his glory to create them by his essence, when they were
nothing, can it be his disgrace to be present by his essence, since
they are something, and something good, and very good in his eye (Gen.
i. 31)? God saw every thing, and behold it was very good, or mighty
good; all ordered to declare his goodness, wisdom, power, and to make
him adorable to man, and therefore took complacency in them. There is
a harmony in all things, a combination in them for those glorious ends
for which God created them; and is it a disgrace for God to be present
with his own harmonious composition? Is it not a musician’s glory to
touch with his fingers the treble, the least and tenderest string,
as well as the strongest and greatest bass? Hath not everything some
stamp of God’s own being upon it, since he eminently contains in
himself the perfections of all his works? Whatsoever hath being, hath
a footstep of God upon it, who is all being; everything in the earth
is his footstool, having a mark of his foot upon it; all declare the
being of God, because they had their being from God; and will God
account it any disparagement to him to be present with that which
confirms his being, and the glorious perfections of his nature, to
his intelligent creatures? The meanest things are not without their
virtues, which may boast God’s being the Creator of them, and rank
them in the midst of his works of wisdom as well as power. Doth God
debase himself to be present by his essence, with the things he hath
made, more than he doth to know them by his essence? Is not the least
thing known by him? How? not by a faculty or act distinct from his
essence, but by his essence itself. How is anything disgraceful to the
essential presence of God, that is not disgraceful to his knowledge
by his essence? Besides, would God make anything that should be an
invincible reason to him to part with his own infiniteness, by a
contraction of his own essence into a less compass than before? it
was immense before, it had no bounds; and would God make a world
that he would be ashamed to be present with, and continue it to the
diminution and lessening of himself, rather than annihilate it to
avoid the disparagement? This were to impeach the wisdom of God, and
cast a blemish upon his infinite understanding, that he knows not
the consequences of his work, or is well contented to be impaired in
the immensity of his own essence by it. No man thinks it a dishonor
to light, a most excellent creature, to be present with a toad or
serpent; and though there be an infinite disproportion between light,
a creature, and the Father of lights, the Creator: yet God, being a
Spirit, knows how to be with bodies as if they were not bodies;[664]
and being {a389} jealous of his own honor, would not, could not do any
thing that might impair it.
4. Nor will it follow, That because God is essentially everywhere,
that everything is God. God is not everywhere by any conjunction,
composition or mixture with anything on earth. When light is in every
part of a crystal globe, and encircles it close on every side, do they
become one? No; the crystal remains what it is, and the light retains
its own nature; God is not in us as a part of us, but as an efficient
and preserving cause; it is not by his essential presence, but his
efficacious presence, that he brings any person into a likeness to his
own nature; God is so in his essence with things, as to be distinct
from them, as a cause from the effect; as a Creator different from
the creature, preserving their nature, not communicating his own; his
essence touches all, is in conjunction with none; finite and infinite
cannot be joined; he is not far from us, therefore near to us; so near
that we live and move in him (Acts xvii. 28). Nothing is God because
it moves in him, any more than a fish in the sea, is the sea, or a
part of the sea, because it moves in it. Doth a man that holds a thing
in the hollow of his hand, transform it by that action, and make it
like his hand?[665] The soul and body are more straitly united, than
the essence of God is, by his presence, with any creature. The soul is
in the body as a form in matter, and from their union doth arise a man;
yet in this near conjunction, both body and soul remain distinct; the
soul is not the body, nor the body the soul; they both have distinct
natures and essences; the body can never be changed into a soul,
nor the soul into a body; no more can God into the creature, or the
creature into God. Fire is in heated iron in every part of it, so that
it seems to be nothing but fire; yet is not fire and iron the same
thing. But such a kind of arguing against God’s omnipresence, that if
God were essentially present, everything would be God, would exclude
him from heaven as well as from earth. By the same reason, since they
acknowledge God essentially in heaven, the heaven where he is should
be changed into the nature of God; and by arguing against his presence
in earth, upon this ground they run such an inconvenience, that they
must own him to be nowhere, and that which is nowhere is nothing.
Doth the earth become God, because God is essentially there, any more
than the heavens, where God is acknowledged by all to be essentially
present? Again, if where God is essentially, that must be God; then
if they place God in a point of the heavens, not only that point must
be God, but all the world; because if that point be God, because God
is there, then the point touched by that point must be God, and so
consequently as far as there are any points, touched by one another.
We live and move in God, so we live and move in the air; we are no
more God by that, than we are mere air because we breathe in it,
and it enters into all the pores of our body; nay, where there was a
straiter union of the divine nature to the human in our Saviour, yet
the nature of both was distinct, and the humanity was not changed into
the divinity, nor the divinity into the humanity.
5. Nor doth it follow, that because God is everywhere, therefore
{a390} a creature may be worshipped without idolatry. Some of the
heathens who acknowledged God’s omnipresence, abused it to the
countenancing idolatry; because God was resident in everything,
they thought everything might be 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;[666] “Shall we continue
in sin, that grace may abound?” when he prevents an objection that he
thought might be made by some: but as to this case, since though God
be present in everything, yet everything 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 anything 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 honor 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 cherubims, 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. 13); and he is said to dwell between the cherubims (Ps. lxxx. 1),
_i. e._ 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 (1 Chron.
xxxiii. 7)? had it been a good answer to the charge, God is present
here, and therefore everything 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, where we pray
and worship God, yet heaven is not the object of worship; the soul
abstracts God from the creature.
6. Nor is God denied by being present with those creatures 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 {a391}
power by producing it: no creature is foul in itself, though it may
seem so to us. Doth not an infant lie in a womb of filthiness and
rottenness? 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 (Ps. 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 anything without God, or no? Every artificer looks with pleasure
upon the work he hath 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
heavens 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 everything 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 us. 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 (Ps. 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. Whoever
heard of a sunbeam stained by shining upon a quagmire, any more than
sweetened by breaking into a perfumed room?[667] 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 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, be 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 (Dan. vi. 22)? Their spiritual nature
secures them against any infection when they are ministering spirits
to persecuted believers in their nasty 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 shore, 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 {a392} 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 (Joshua
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:[668] “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.”
IV. _Use._ First, of information.