2. Again ; if God be now "in a certain place in heaven," I ask where he was before these heavens were made ? These heavens have not always been. God was then where there was nothing but God, — no heaven, no earth, no place. In what place was God when there was no place ? When the heavens were made, did he cease this manner of being in himself, existing in his own infinite essence, and remove into the new place made for him ? Or is not God's removal out of his existence in himself into a certain place a blasphemous imagination? " Ante omnia Deus erat solus ipse sibi, et locus, et mundus, et omnia," Tertul. Is this change of place and posture to be ascribed to God ? Moreover, if God be now only in a certain place of the heavens, if he should destroy the heavens and that place, where would he then be ? in what place? Should he cease to be in the place wherein he is, and begin to be in. to take up, and possess another ? And are such apprehensions suited to the infinite perfections of God? Yea, may we not suppose that he may create another heaven? can he not do it? How should he be present there? or must it stand empty? or must he move himself thither? or make himself bigger than he was, to fill that heaven also?
96" VINDICI^ EVANGELICiE.
8. The omnipresence of God is grounded on the infiniteness of his essence. If God be infinite, he is omnipresent. Suppose him infinite, and then suppose there is any thing besides himself, and his presence with that tiling, wherever it be, doth necessarily follow ; for if he be so bounded as to be in his essence distant from any thing, he is not infinite. To say God is not infinite in his essence denies him to be infinite or unlimited in any of his perfections or properties; and there- fore, indeed, upon the matter Socinus denies God's power to be in- finite, because he will not grant his essence to be, Cat. chap. xi. part 1. That which is absolutely infinite cannot have its residence in that which is finite and limited, so that if the essence of God be not immense and infinite, his power, goodness, etc., are also bounded and limited ; so that there are, or may be, many things which in their own natures are capable of existence, which j^et God cannot do for want of power. How suitable to the Scriptures and common notions of mankind concerning the nature of God this is will be easily known. It is yet the common faith of Christians that God is d'Triplypu'TrTog, xalcli'Trsipog.
4. Let reason (which the author of these Catechisms pretends to advance and honour, as some think, above its due, and therefore can- not decline its dictates) judge of the consequences of this gross ap- prehension concerning the confinement of God to the heavens, yea, " a certain place in the heavens," though he "glister" never so much "in glory" there where he is. For, (1.) He must be extended as a body is, that so he may fill the place, and have parts as we have, if he be cir- cumscribed in a certain place; which though our author thinks no ab- surdity, yet, as we shall afterward manifest, it is as bold an attempt to make an idol of the living God as ever any of the sons of men engaged into. (2.) Then God's greatness and ours, as to essence and substance, differ only gradually, but are still of the same kind. God is bigger than a man, it is true, but yet with the same kind of greatness, dif- fering from us as one man differs from another. A man is in a cer- tain place of the earth, which he fills and takes up; and God is in a certain place of the heavens, which he fills and takes up. Only some gradual difference there is, but how great or little that difterence is^ as yet we are not taught. (3.) I desire to know of Mr B. what the throne is made of that God sits on in the heavens, and how far the glistering of his glory doth extend, and whether that glistering of glory doth naturally attend his person as beams do the sun, or shining doth fire, or can he make it more or less as he pleaseth? (4.) Doth God fill the whole heavens, or only some part of them? If the whole, being of such substance as is imagined, what room will there be in heaven for any body else ? Can a lesser place hold him ? or could he fill a greater? If not, how came the heavens [to be] so fit for him I Or could he not have made them of other dimensions, less or greater? If he be only in a part of heaven, as is more than insinuated in the
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expression that he is " in a certain place in the heavens," I ask why he dwells in one part of the heavens rather than another?^ or whether he ever removes or takes a journey, as Elijah speaks of Baal, 1 Kings xviii. 27, or is eternally, as limited in, so confined unto, the certain place wherein he is ? Again ; how doth he work out those effects of almighty power which are at so great a distance from him as the earth is from the heavens, which cannot be effected by the intervenience of any created power, as the resurrection of the dead, etc. The power of God doubtless follows his essence, and what this extends not to that can- not reach. But of that which might be spoken to vindicate the in- finitely glorious being of God from the reproach which his own word is wrested to cast upon him, this that hath been spoken is somewhat that to my present thoughts doth occur,