I suppose that Mr B. knows that in this his circumscription of God to a certain place, he transgresses against the common consent of man- kind ; if not, a few instances of several sorts may, I hope, suffice for his conviction. I shall promiscuously propose them, as they lie at hand or occur to my remembrance. For the Jews, Philo gives their judgment. "Hear," saith he, "of the wise God that which is most true, that God is in noplace,^ for he is not contained, but containeth all. That which is made is in a place, for it must be contained and not contain."^ And it is the observation of another of them, that so often as CiiP9, a place, is said of God, the exaltation of his immense and in- comparable essence (as to its manifestation) is to be understood.' And the learned Buxtorf tells us that wher>»that word is used of God, it is by an antiphrasis, to signify that he is infinite, illocal, received in no place, giving place to all.* That known saying of Empedocles passed among the heathen, "Deus est circulus, cujus centrum ubique, cir- cumferentia nusquam ;" and of Seneca, " Turn which way thou wilt, thou shalt see God meeting thee. Nothing is empty of him : he fills his own work."^ "All things are full of God," says the poetj® and another of them : —
" Estque Cei sedes nisi terras, et pontus, et aer, Est coelum, et versus superos, quid quasrimus ultra : Jupiter est quodcunque vidcs, quocunque moveris." ^
Of this presence of God, I say, with and unto all things, of the in- finity of his essence, the very heathens themselves, by the light of
' " Si spatium vacat super caput Creatoris, et si Deus ipse in loco est, crit jam locus ille major et Deo et mundo; niliil enim non majus est id quod capit, illo quod capitur." — Tertul. ad Mas. lib. i. cap. xv.
' " AKSuffov -rtxfia ToZ i'ri<rTecfii)ii)0 &lou friffn dXrihfrrdrnv, oti o Slo; ov^i vov r,u yap Ttfiil- ^iTai, akXa Tifiix,-' '^' "Trai. To W ymi/^ivov i» totm- Tifi'ip^i<r6at yaf cclro, aXXa ou "rifii^tiy dvccyx.tt:ov. — riiilo, lib. ii. Alleg. Leg.
3 ilaimon, Mor. Ncvoch. p. 1, cap. -viii . * Buxtorf in Lcxic.: verbo o*p^.
* " Quocumque tc flexeris, ibi ilium (Dcum) vidcbis occurrentcm tibi. Nihil ab illo vacat : opus suum ipse implet." — Sencc. de Benef. lib.iv. cap. viii.
' " Jovis omnia plena." — Virg. Eel. iii. 60. ' Lucan, lib, iii.
VOL. XII. 7
98 VINDICI^ EVANGELIC^.
Bature (which Mr B. herein opposes), had a knowledge. Hence did some of them term him xnGiioirailc, wZg, " a mind framing the uni- verse," and affirmed him to be infinite. " Primus omnium rerum descriptionem at modum, mentis infinitce vi et ratione designari, et confici voluit," says Cicero of Anaxagoras, Tull. de Nat. Deor. Ub. i.ll; — -" All things are disposed of by the virtue of one infinite mind." And Plutarch, expressing the same thing, says he is voug xadaphg, xai uTiparog s/jt^f^sfiiy/jjivog iradi, — " a pure and sincere mind, mixing itself, and mixed" (so they expressed the presence of the infinite mind) " with all things." So Virgil, " Jovis omnia plena," — " All things are full of God," (for God they intended by that name, Acts xvii. 25, 28, 29 ; and says Lactantius, " Convicti de uno Deo, cum id negare non possunt, ipsum se colere, affirmant, verum hoc sibi placere, ut Jupiter nominetur," lib. i. cap. ii.); which, as Servius on the place observes, he had taken from Aratus, whose words are: —
" Appmroy' fiio'Tai Ss S/oj truffcct fiiM ayvia), IJcierai S' a.v6pto7ruy dyopai, f^iffTri di BaXartrx,
— giving a full description, in his way, of the omnipresence and ubiquity of God. The same Virgil, from the Platonics, tells us in another place: —
" Spiritus intus alit, totamque infusa per artus Mens agitat molem." — Mia., vi. 726.
And much more of this kind might easily be added. The learned know where to find more for tlieir satisfaction; and for those that are otherwise, the clear texts of Scripture cited before may suffice.
Of those, on the other hand, who have, no less grossly and carnally than he of whom we speak, imagined a diffusion of the substance of God through the whole creation, and a mixture of it with the crea- tures,^ so as to animate and enliven them in their several forms, making God an essential part of each creature,^ or dream of an as- sumption of creatures into an unity of essence with God, I am not now to speak. "
CHAPTER III.
Of the shape and bodily visible figure of God.
Mr Biddle's question: —
Is God in the Scripture said to have any likeness, similitude, person, shape ?
The proposition which he would have to be the conclusion of the answers to these questions is this. That, according to the doctrine of
' Vide Bcza, Ep. ad Philip Mamix.
* Vide Virg. ^n. lib. vi. 724: " Principio cjelum," etc., ex Platonicis.
OF THE SHAPE AND BODILY FIGURE OF GOD. 99
the Scriptures, God is a person shaped like a man; — a conckision so grossly absurd that it is refused as ridiculous by Tully, a heathen, in the person of Cotta (De Nat. Deor. lib. i. 6), against Velleius the Epicurean, the Epicureans only amongst the philosophers being so sottish as to admit that conceit. And Mr B., charging that upon the Scripture which hath been renounced by all the heathens who set themselves studiously to follow the light of nature, and, by a strict inquiry, to search out the nature and attributes of God, principally attending to that safe rule of ascribing nothing to him that eminently included imperfection,^ hath manifested his pretext of mere Christi- anity to be little better than a cover for downright atheism, or at best of most vile and unworthy thoughts of the Divine Being. And here also doth Mr B. forsake his masters.^ Some of them have had more reverence of the Deity, and express themselves accordingly, in express opposition to this gross figment.