The sura of Mr B.'s reasoning from these places is: "God, in the
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creation of the lower world and the inhabitancy thereof, making man, enduing him with a mind and soul capable of knowing him, serving him, yielding him voluntary and rational obedience; creating him in a condition of holiness and righteousness, in a resemblance to those blessed perfections in himself, requiring still of him to be holy as he is holy, to continue and abide in that likeness of his; giv- ing him in that estate dominion over the rest of his works here below, — is said to create him in his own image and likeness, he being the sovereign lord over all his creatures, infinitely wise, knowing, just, and holy: therefore he hath a bodily shape and image, and is therein like unto a man." " Quod erat demonstrandum."
His next quotation is from Num. xii. 7, 8, where it is said of Moses that he shall behold the "similitude of the Lord." The word is ni^ittri; which, as it is sometimes taken for a corporeal similitude, so it is at other times for that idea whereby things are intellectually represented. In the former sense is it frequently denied of God ; as Deut. iv. 15, " Ye saAV no manner of similitude," etc. But it is frequently taken, in the other sense, for that object, or rather impres- sion, whereby our intellectual apprehension is made; as in Job iv. 16, " An image was before mine eyes," namely, in his dream ; which is not any corporeal shape, but that idea or objective representation whereby the mind of man understands its object, — that which is in the schools commonly called phantasm, or else an intellectual spe- cies, about the notion of which it is here improper to contend. It is manifest that, in the place here alleged, it is put to signify the clear manifestation of God's presence to Moses, with some such glorious appearance thereof as he was pleased to represent unto him; there- fore, doubtless, God hath a bodily shape.
His next quotation is taken from James iii. 9, " Made after the similitude of God," — Tovc, zad' 6/xoiuffiv Qiou yeyovorac. Certainly Mr B. cannot be so ignorant as to think the word bfioluGig to include in its signification a corporeal similitude. The word is of as large an extent as "similitude" in Latin, and takes in as well those abstracted analogies which the understanding of man finds out, in comparing several objects together, as those other outward conformities of figure and shape which are the objects of our carnal eyes. It is the word by which the LXX. use to render the word HID'H; of which we have spoken before. And the examples are innumerable in the Septuagint translation, and in authors of all sorts written in the Greek language, where that word is taken at large, and cannot sig- nify a corjooreal similitude; so that it is vain to insist upon particulars. And this also belongs to the same head of inquiry with the former, — namely, what likeness of God it was that man was created in, whether of eyes, ears, nose, etc., or of holiness, etc.
His next allegation is from Job xiii. 7, 8, " Will ye accept his
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person?" ''''^?n, TpoVwroi' alrou, — an allegation so frivolous tliat to stand to answer it studiously would be ridiculous. ]. It is an interroga- tion, and doth not assert any thing. 2. The thing spoken against is 'Trpoffoi'jToXri'^iot,, which hath in it no regard to shape or corporeal jjer- sonality, but to the partiality which is used in preferring one before another in justice. 3. The w^ord mentioned, with its derivatives, is used in as great or greater variety of metaphorical translations than any other Hebrew word, and is by no means determined to be a signification of that bulky substance which, with the soul, concurs to make up the person of man. It is so used. Gen. xxxiii. 18, ""P.^'^^, ■ — "Jacob pitched his tent before" (or " in the face of") " the city," It is confessed that it is very frequently translated crpoVwrof by the LXX., as it is very variously translated by them ; sometimes « dfidaX- fji^og. See Jer. xxxviii. 26; Neh. ii. 13; Job xvl 16; Deut. ii. 36; Prov. xxvii. 23. Besides that, it is used in many other places for dvTi, 'ivuvTi, d'jsmv-i, lirdvoi, svuiTiov, and in many more senses. So that to draw an argument concerning the nature of God from a word so amphibological, or of such frequent translation in metaphorical speech, is very uni'easonable.
Of what may be hence deduced this is the sum: "In every plea or contest about the ways, dispensations, and judgments of God, that which is right, exact, and according to the thing itself, is to be spoken, his glory not standing in the least need of our flattery or lying; therefore God is such a person as hath a bodily shape and similitude, for there is no other person but what hath so."
His last argument is from John v. 37, "Ye have neither heai'd his voice at any time, nor seen his shape," — Oun eJdog aiiroij supd- xan. But it argues a very great ignorance in all philosophical and accurate writings, to appropriate eJdog to a corporeal shape, it being very seldom used, either in Scripture or elsewhere, in that notion; — the Scripture having used it where that sense cannot be fastened on it, as in 1 Thess. v. 22, *At& TravTog s'/doug -rovripou diviyish' which may be rendered, " Abstain from every kind," or " every ap- pearance," but not from every shape " of evil ; " and all other Greek authors, who have spoken accurately and not figuratively of things, use it perpetually almost in one of these two senses, and very seldom if at all in the other.