incommunicable properties of the divine nature, are ascribed to
Christ, so also is this of omnipresence or immensity (John iii. 13):
“No man hath ascended up to heaven, but he that came down from heaven,
even the Son of Man which is in heaven.” 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 (John i. 10): “He was in the world, and
the world was made by him.” 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 place, either circumscribed
as body, or determined as spirit to be in one space, 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 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 promiseth
his presence with his church (Matt. xviii. 20): “There am I in the
midst of them:” and (Matt. xxviii. 20), “I am with you alway, even to
the end of the world,” _i. e._ by his divinity: for he had before told
them (Matt. xxvi. 11), that they were not to have him alway with them,
_i. e._ 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 {a393}
the church, doth 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: “My father and I 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 hath 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
doth 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 everywhere 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 presence is mentioned in
the text, in order to his government of the affairs of the world. Is
he everywhere, to be unconcerned with everything? Before the world
had a being, God was present with himself; since the world hath
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
everywhere 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 everywhere
without acting everywhere. “Wherever his essence is, there is a power
and virtue worthy of God everywhere dispensed.”[669] 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 were together,
to create them when he saw good to do it. Every creature hath 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 cares; and the wisdom he employed in framing them will not
suffer him to be careless of them. His presence with them engageth
him in honor not to be a negligent Governor. {a394} 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 alway, so
his immensity renders him King everywhere. 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 hath 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 bless thee” (Gen. xxvi. 3.) “I am with thee, and I will strengthen
thee” (Jer. xv. 20.) “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 be present
everywhere, he must needs know what is done everywhere. It is for this
end he proclaims himself a God filling heaven and earth, in the text,
“Can any hide himself in secret places that I shall not see him, saith
the Lord? I have heard what the prophets say, that prophesy lies in
my name: if I fill heaven and earth, the most secret thing cannot be
hid from my sight.” An intelligent being cannot be everywhere present,
and more intimate in everything, than it can be in itself; but he
must know what is done without, what is thought within. Nothing can be
obscure to Him who is in every part of the world, in every part of his
creatures. Not a thought can start up but in his sight, who is present
in the souls and minds of everything. How easy is it with him, to
whose essence the world is but a point, to know and observe everything
done in this world, as any of us can know what is done in one point of
place where we are present! If light were an understanding being, it
would behold and know everything done where it diffuseth itself. God
is light (as light in a crystal glass all within it, all without it),
and is not ignorant of what is done within and without; no ignorance
can be fastened upon him who hath an universal presence. Hence, by the
way, we may take notice of the wonderful patience of God, who bears
with so many provocations; not from a principal of ignorance, for he
bears with sins that are committed near him in his sight, sins that
he sees, and cannot but see.
5. Hence may be inferred the incomprehensibility of God. He that
fills heaven and earth cannot be contained in anything; he fills
the understandings of men, the understandings of angels, but is
comprehended by neither; it is a rashness to think to find out any
bounds of God; there is no measuring of an infinite Being; if it were
to be measured it were not infinite; but because it is infinite, it is
not to be measured. God sits above the cherubims {a395} (Ezek. x. 1),
above the fulness, above the brightness, not only of a human, but a
created understanding. Nothing is more present than God, yet nothing
more hid; he is light, and yet obscurity;[670] his perfections are
visible, yet unsearchable; we know there is an infinite God, but
it surpasseth the compass of our minds; we know there is no number
so great, but another may be added to it; but no man can put it in
practice, without losing himself in a maze of figures. What is the
reason we comprehend not many, nay, most things in the world? partly
from the excellency of the object, and partly from the imperfection of
our understandings. How can we then comprehend God, who exceeds all,
and is exceeded by none; contains all, and is contained by none; is
above our understanding, as well as above our sense? as considered in
himself infinite; as considered in comparison with our understandings,
incomprehensible; who can, with his eye, measure the breadth, length
and depth of the sea, and at one cast, view every dimension of the
heavens? God is greater, and we cannot know him (Job xxxvi. 26); he
fills the understanding as he fills heaven and earth; yet is above the
understanding as he is above heaven and earth. He is known by faith,
enjoyed by love, but comprehended by no mind. God is not contained in
that one syllable, God; by it we apprehend an excellent and unlimited
nature; himself only understands himself, and can unveil himself.
6. How wonderful is God, and how nothing are creatures! “Ascribe
the greatness to our God” (Deut. xxxiii. 3); he is admirable in the
consideration of his power, in the extent of his understanding, and no
less wonderful in the immensity of his essence: that, as Austin saith,
he is in the world, yet not confined to it; he is out of the world,
yet not debarred from it; he is above the world, yet not elevated
by it; he is below the world, yet not depressed by it; he is above
all, equalled by none; he is in all, not because he needs them, but
they stand in need of him; this, as well as eternity, makes a vast
disproportion between God and the creature: the creature is bounded
by a little space, and no space is so great as to bound the Creator.
By this we may take a prospect of our own nothingness: as in the
consideration of God’s holiness we are minded of our own impurity;
and in the thoughts of his wisdom have a view of our own folly; and
in the meditation of his power, have a sense of our weakness; so his
immensity should make us, according to our own nature, appear little
in our own eyes. What little, little, little things are we to God!
less than an atom in the beams of the sun; poor drops to a God that
fills heaven and earth, and yet dare we to strut against him, and
dash ourselves against a rock? If the consideration of ourselves in
comparison with others, be apt to puff us up, the consideration of
ourselves in comparison with God, will be sufficient to pull us down.
If we consider him in the greatness of his essence, there is but
little more proportion between him and us, than between being and
not being, than between a drop and the ocean. How should we never
think of God without a holy admiration of his greatness, {a396} and a
deep sense of our own littleness! and as the angels cover their faces
before him, with what awe should creeping worms come into his sight!
and since God fills heaven and earth with his presence, we should fill
heaven and earth with his glory; for this end he created angels to
praise him in heaven, and men to worship him on earth, that the places
he fills with his presence may be filled with his praise: we should be
swallowed up in admiration of the immensity of God, as men are at the
first sight of the sea, when they behold a mass of waters, without
beholding the bounds and immense depth of it.
7. How much is this attribute of God forgotten or contemned! We
pretend to believe him to be present everywhere, and yet many live
as if he were present nowhere.
(1.) It is commonly forgotten, or not believed. All the extravagances
of men may be traced to the forgetfulness of this attribute as
their spring. The first speech Adam spake in paradise after his fall,
testified his unbelief of this (Gen. iii. 10); “I heard thy voice in
the garden, and I hid myself;” his ear understood the voice of God,
but his mind did not conclude the presence of God; he thought the
trees could shelter him from Him whose eye was present in the minutest
parts of the earth; he that thought after his sin, that he could hide
himself from the presence of his justice, thought before that he could
hide himself from the presence of his knowledge; and being deceived in
the one, he would try what would be the fruit of the other. In both he
forgets, if not denies, this attribute; either corrupt notions of God,
or a slight belief of what in general men assent unto, gives birth to
every sin. In all transgressions there is something of atheism; either
denying the being of God, or a dash upon some perfection of God;――a
not believing his holiness to hate it, his truth that threatens, his
justice to punish it, and his presence to observe it. Though God be
not afar off in his essence, he is “afar off in the apprehension of
the sinner.”[671] There is no wicked man, but if he be an atheist, he
is a heretic; and to gratify his lust, will fancy himself to be out of
the presence of his Judge. His reason tells him, God is present with
him, his lust presseth him to embrace the season of sensual pleasure;
he will forsake his reason, and prove a heretic, that he may be an
undisturbed sinner; and sins doubly, both in the error of his mind,
and the vileness of his practice; he will conceit God with those in
Job, “veiled with thick clouds” (Job xxii. 14), and not able to pierce
into the lower world, as if his presence and cares were confined to
celestial things, and the earth were too low a sphere for his essence
to reach, at least with any credit. It is forgotten by good men, when
they fear too much the designs of their enemies; “Fear not, for I
am with thee” (Isa. xliii. 5). If the presence of God be enough to
strengthen against fear, then the prevailing of fear issues from our
forgetfulness of it.
(2.) This attribute of God’s omnipresence is for the most part
contemned. When men will commit that in the presence of God which
they would be afraid or ashamed to do before the eye of man, men do
not practice that modesty before God as before men. He that {a397}
would restrain his tongue out of fear of men’s eye, will not restrain
either tongue or hands out of fear of God’s. What is the language
of this, but that God is not present with us, or his presence ought
to be of less regard with us, and influence upon us, than that of a
creature?[672] Ask the thief why he dares to steal? will he not answer,
“No eye sees him?” Ask the adulterer why he strips himself of his
chastity, and invades the rights of another? will he not answer (Job
xxiv. 15), “No eye sees me?” He disguiseth himself to be unseen by
man, but slights the all‑seeing eye of God. If only a man know them,
they are in terror of the shadow of death; they are planet‑struck,
but stand unshaken at the presence of God (Job xxiv. 17). Is not this
to account God as limited as man――as ignorant, as absenting, as if
God were something less than those things which restrain us? ’Tis a
debasing God below a creature. If we can forbear sin from an awe of
the presence of man, to whom we are equal in regard of nature, or from
the presence of a very mean man, to whom we are superior in regard of
condition, and not forbear it because we are within the ken of God, we
respect him not only as our inferior, but inferior to the meanest man
or child of his creation, in whose sight we would not commit the like
action: it is to represent him as a sleepy, negligent, or careless
God; as though anything might be concealed from him, before whom
the least fibres of the heart are anatomised and open, who sees as
plainly midnight as noon‑day sins (Heb. iv. 13). Now this is a high
aggravation of sin: to break a king’s laws, in his sight, is more bold
than to violate them behind his back; as it was Haman’s offence when
he lay upon Esther’s bed, to force the queen before the king’s face.
The least iniquity receives a high tincture from this; and no sin can
be little that is an affront in the face of God, and casting the filth
of the creature before the eyes of his holiness: as if a wife should
commit adultery before her husband’s face, or a slave dishonor his
master, and disobey his commands in his presence. And hath it not
often been thus with us? have we not been disloyal to God in his sight,
before his eyes, those pure eyes that cannot behold iniquity without
anger and grief? (Isa. lxv. 12), “Ye did evil before my eyes.” Nathan
chargeth this home upon David (2 Sam. xii. 9), “Thou hast despised the
commandment of the Lord, to do evil in his sight;” and David, in his
repentance, reflects upon himself for it (Ps. li. 4); “Against thee,
thee only, have I sinned, and done this evil in thy sight.” I observed
not thy presence, I neglected thee while thy eye was upon me. And this
consideration should sting our hearts in all our confessions of our
crimes. Men will be afraid of the presence of others, whatsoever they
think in their heart. How unworthily do we deal with God, in not
giving him so much as an eye‑service, which we do man!
8. How terrible should the thoughts of this attribute be to
sinners! How foolish is it, to imagine any hiding‑place from the
incomprehensible God, who fills and contains all things, and is
present in every point of the world![673] When men have shut the door,
and {a398} made all darkness within, to meditate or commit a crime,
they cannot in the most intricate recesses be sheltered from the
presence of God. If they could separate themselves from their own
shadows, they could not avoid his company, or be obscured from his
sight.[674] Hypocrites cannot disguise their sentiments from him; he
is in the most secret nook of their hearts. No thought is hid, no lust
is secret, but the eye of God beholds this, and that, and the other.
He is present with our heart when we imagine, with our hands when we
act. We may exclude the sun from peeping into our solitudes, but not
the eyes of God from beholding our actions. “The eyes of the Lord
are in every place, beholding the evil and good” (Prov. xv. 3). He
lies in the depths of our souls, and sees afar off our designs before
we have conceived them. He is in the greatest darkness, as well as
the clearest light; in the closest thought of the mind, as well as
the openest expressions. Nothing can be hid from him, no, not in the
darkest cells or thickest walls. “He compasseth our path wherever we
are” (Ps. cxxxix. 3), and “is acquainted with all our ways.” He is
as much present with wicked men to observe their sins, as he is to
detest them. Where he is present in his essence, he is present in his
attributes: his holiness to hate, and his justice to punish, if he
please to speak the word. It is strange men should not be mindful
of this, when their very sins themselves might put them in mind of
his presence. Whence hast thou the power to act? who preserves thy
being, whereby thou art capable of committing that evil? Is it not
his essential presence that sustains us, and his arm that supports
us? and where can any man fly from his presence? Not the vast regions
of heaven could shelter a sinning angel from his eye: how was Adam
ferreted out of his hiding‑places in paradise? Nor can we find the
depths of the sea a sufficient covering to us. If we were with Jonah,
closeted up in the belly of a whale; if we had the “wings of the
morning,” as quick a motion as the light at the dawning of the day,
that doth in an instant surprise and overpower the regions of darkness,
and could pass to the utmost parts of the earth or hell, there we
should find him, there his eye would be upon us, there would his hand
lay hold of us, and lead us as a conqueror triumphing over a captive
(Ps. cxxxix. 8‒10). Nay, if we could leap out of the compass of heaven
and earth, we should find as little reserves from him: he is without
the world in those infinite spaces which the mind of man can imagine.
In regard of his immensity, nothing in being can be distant from him,
wheresoever it is.
Second, _Use_ is for comfort. That God is present everywhere, is as
much a comfort to a good man, as it is a terror to a wicked one. He
is everywhere for his people, not only by a necessary perfection of
his nature, but an immense diffusion of his goodness. He is in all
creatures as their preserver: in the damned, as their terror; in his
people, as their protector. He fills hell with his severity, heaven
with his glory, his people with his grace. He is with his people
as light in darkness, a fountain in a garden, as manna in the ark.
God is in the world as a spring of preservation; in the church as
his {a399} cabinet, his spring of grace and consolation. A man is
present sometimes in his field, but more delightfully in his garden.
A vine yard, as it hath more of cost, so more of care, and a watchful
presence of the owner (Isa. xxvii. 3); “I, the Lord, do keep it,” viz.
his vineyard; “I will water it every moment, lest any hurt it: I will
keep it night and day.” As there is a presence of essence, which is
natural, so there is a presence of grace, which is federal: a presence
by covenant; “I will not leave thee, I will be with thee.” This latter
depends upon the former; for, take away the immensity of God, and
you leave no foundation for his universal gracious presence with his
people in all their emergencies, in all their hearts. And, therefore,
where he is present in his essence, he cannot be absent in his grace,
from them that fear him. It is from his filling heaven and earth he
proves his knowledge of the designs of the false prophets; and from
the same topic may as well be inferred the employment of his power and
grace for his people.
1. The omnipresence of God is a comfort in all violent temptations.
No fiery dart can be so present with us, as God is present both with
that and the marksman. The most raging devils cannot be so near us, as
God is to us and them. He is present with his people to relieve them,
and present with the devil to manage him to his own holy purposes: so
he was with Job, defeating his enemies, and bringing him triumphantly
out of those pressing trials. This presence is such a terror, that
whatsoever the devil can despoil us of, he must leave this untouched.
He might scratch the apostle with a thorn (2 Cor. xii. 7, 9), but
he could not rifle him of the presence of divine grace, which God
promised him. He must prevail so far as to make God cease to be God,
before he can make him to be distant from us; and while this cannot
be, the devils and men can no more hinder the emanations of God to the
soul, than a child can cut off the rays of the sun from embellishing
the earth. It is no mean support for a good man, at any time, buffeted
by a messenger of Satan, to think God stands near him, and behold
how ill he is used. It would be a satisfaction to a king’s favorite,
in the midst of the violence some enemies might use to him upon a
surprise, to understand that the king who loves him stands behind
a curtain, and through a hole sees the injuries he suffers: and were
the devil as considering as he is malicious, he could not but be in
great fear at God’s being in the generation of the righteous, as his
serpentine seed is (Prov. iii. 6): “They were in great fear, for God
is in the generation of the righteous.”