' Aristotle, that great secretary of nature, being not able to comprehend the reason of the sea's ebbing and flowing, cast himself into it; oh how much less able was he to com- prehend God, blessed for ever 1
Lam. III. 24] an ark for all god's noahs. 29
past finding out ! When men and angels do search farthest into God's perfection, they do then most of all discover their own imperfection ; for it is utterly impossible for angels or men, by their most accurate dis- quisition, to find out the Almighty to perfection, 1 Tim. vi. 16, 'who only hath immortality, dwelling in the light which no man can approach unto, whom no man hath seen, nor can see.' Here is a denial both of the fact and the possibility. It is a good observation of Chrysostom on the Avords, Diligentice Pavli attende, non dicit lucem incomprehen- sibilem, &c. Observe the diligence of Paul, he doth not say a light incomprehensible, but a light inaccessible, which is much more ; for that which, being sought and searched for, cannot be comprehended, we say is incomprehensible ; but that which suffereth not by any means the labour of searching after, and which no one can come near, that is in- accessible. There is infinitely more in God than the tongues of men or angels can express.' There is much in God beyond the apprehension and comprehension of all created beings. The sum of all that philoso- phers and schoolmen have attained to concerning this great principle, amounts to no more than this, viz , that men and angels can never com- prehend that perfection which dwells in God ; for the perfection of God is infinite, and therefore incomprehensible. God, saith Dionysius, is a super-substantial substance, an understanding not to be understood, a word never to be spoken.
When one was asked what God was, he answered, that he must be God himself, before he could know God fully.
When the tyrant Hiero asked the poet Simonides what God was,* he craved a day to study an answer ; but the more he sought into the nature of God, the more difficult he found it to express ; the next day, after being questioned, he asked two days, and the third time he craved four, and so went on, doubling the number; and being asked why he did so, he answered, that the more he studied the nature of God, the less he was able to define what God was. He being so incomprehensible in his nature, the more this poor heathen inquired, the more he admired, and the less he understood.
It was a notable observation of Chrysostom, who being very busy and studious in searching into the nature of God, saith, I am like a man digging in a deep spring ; I stand here, and the water riseth upon me ; and I stand there, and still the water riseth upon me. Indeed, this is a knowledge that passeth knowledge, Ephes. iii. 19.
The Turks build their mosques* or churches without any roof, because they hold as we do, that God is incomprehensible. God is a circle whose centre is everywhere, and whose circumference is nowhere, all which speaks out his infiniteness and incomprehensiblencss.
But now all earthly portions are easily apprehended and comprehended. A portion in money, or plate, or goods, or lands, or jewels, is easily cast up, and so many hundreds or thousands a year are quickly told. There are few, except it be children or fools, but can readily give an account of all earthly portions. The child's portion, and the wife's portion, and the servant's portion, and the soldier's portion, and the poor man's portion,
' If one man had all the reason, gifta, graces, and excellencies that are in angels and men, yet would he never bo able to comprehend an incomprehensible God. * Simonides apud Ciceronem de Nat. Deoorum, lib i. * Spelling, 'Moachea,'— G.
30 AN ARK FOR ALL GOD's NOAHS. [LAM. III. 24<.
and the rich man's portion, are talked on all the city over, and all the town over, and all the country over; but God is such an incomprehensible portion, that there is not a man in town, city, or country that is able to comprehend him, Prov. iii. 15. But,
(12.) Twelfthly, As God is an incomprehensible portion, so God is an inexhaustible portion; a portion that can never be spent, that can never be exhausted ; a fountain that still overflows ; a rich mine that hath no bottom ; a spring that can never be drawn dry, but continiies always full, without augmentation or diminution: John iv. 14, 'But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst ; but the water that I shall give him shall be a well of water springing up unto everlasting life.' If grace in the soul be such a perpetual flow- ing fouutain, that it shall never be exhausted till grace be swallowed up in glory, then certainly the God of grace is much more an inexhaustible fountain that can never be drawn dry. Angels, saints, and sinners have lived upon this portion almost this six thousand years, and it is not in the least diminished. Col. i. 16, 17. God hath his city-house, and his country-house, where millions have been kept at his table, and lived upon his purse, his charge, even days without number, and yet God is not one penny the poorer for all this. This portion is like the meal in the barrel, and the oil in the cruse, which never failed : I Kings xvii. 14-16, 'For thus saith the Lord God of Israel, The barrel of meal shall not waste, neither shall the cruse of oil fail, until the day that the Lord sendeth rain upon the earth. And the barrel of meal wasted not, neither did the cruse of oil fail, according to the word of the Lord which he spake by Elijah.' God is such a portion as cannot be wasted nor dimi- nished ; he is such a portion as can never fail. Should all Christians now live to the age of the patriarchs, who lived many hundred years, and should they all live freely, and keep open house every day in the year, yet at the end, not a dram, not a penny, no not a farthing of this portion will be expended or diminished.