Imágenes de página
PDF
ePub

'tis Therefore apt to fill our minds with the Higher admiration of the Great God, in whom alone it is found. But ftill

'tis in this, as in various other inftances of Things Wonderful in Themselves, that, though the Mode or Manner of it be very Abftrufe, and Difficult, and Puzzling to our conceptions, yet the Certainty of the Thing is deducible from our Natural Notions of God, and that Deduction is plainly confirmed in his Holy Word; Do not I fill Heaven and Earth, faith the Lord? In difcourfing on which words, I fhall

I. First, Endeavour to Evince and Illuftrate the truth of this Proposition, that God is Omniprefent, and

II. Secondly, Draw fome Practical Inferences from it.`

1

I. I fhall endeavour to Evince and Illuftrate the truth of this Propofition, that God is Omniprefent.

And the Evidence of this, arifing from our natural notions of God, will appear, in a few words, by confidering those other kinds of Prefence, which are opposed to Immenfity, and are, by Metaphyfical Writers, reprefented under Terms,

Terms, not very Familiar and obvious, but which do admit of an explication very Eafy, and very useful too in the Illustration of this Subject. Bodily Subftances are faid to be in Place Circumfcriptively, that is, their parts are anfwerable to, and confined by the limits of that Space in which they Subfift, and do exclude every other Body from it. Created Spirits are faid to be in Place Definitively, that is, they are fo determined to one Space, that they cannot at the fame time be in another; And yet it cannot be faid of Them, that their Parts are answerable to the Parts of Space containing them, because Spiritual Substances are void of Figure and Parts, and for that reason they admit of the Exiftence of other Subftances in the fame Space wherein themselves are confined.

Thus a Humane Soul exifts in the fame Space with a Humane Body. In one of these two ways all creatures do exist in Place, and That Being, which does not exist in Space according to either of them, must be Immense or Omniprefent; for there is no Possibility of Subfistence, but

in

in one of these three kinds of Prefence. As therefore 'tis demonftrable from our Natural notions of God that he is a Spirit, and that he is not a limited or Confined, but an Infinite Spirit, therefore neither of the two firft kinds of Prefence can belong to him, and by consequence he is Omnipresent. And as this feems intirely agreeable to our Reason, and clearest manner of Thinking; fo is the fame Confequence deducible from our natural notions of God, confidering him as Creatour. For, if every Created Being be the Immediate Effect of Himself; Then Himself is Present to every Created Being. And as Creation does evince this Attribute, fo does Conservation too. If he should withdraw his Support from Material Substances, their Diffolution must Immediately follow. For they are no more Capable of Suftaining than they are of Producing themselves. And this Refult of our natural notions is plainly Confirmed in Holy Scripture. For the Third Verfe of the First Chapter to the Hebrews does not only comprehend all Corporeal, but Spiritual Beings alfo: He upholdeth

All things by the Word of his Power: And there can be no room for Doubt, whether He, who by his own Immediate Arm upholdeth all Beings, be present in All Places. And, that he is declared by himself to be fo in the Text, is plain, because the Terms Heaven and Earth do comprehend the whole Creation, and are in this fenfe ufed elsewhere in Sundry places of Holy Scripture.

Accordingly, the Prophet Isaiah also does, under the use of the fame terms elegantly introduce the Almighty afferting to himself the fame Attribute; * Thus faith the Lord, the Heaven is my Throne, and the Earth is my Footstool; fignifying to us, that the Persons of Earthly Princes are not more certainly prefent upon their Thrones, do not more certainly fill the Space from the Throne to the Footstool, than he himself is prefent in all places, or in all the Parts of the Universe.

Some Speculative writers have carried the Omnipresence of God into a ftill Higher Signification, intimating thereby, that he is not only present with every

* Ifa. lxvi. 1.

12

Being in the World, but that he fills a Space which they apprehend to be beyond the limits of all Created Subftances, and not poffefs'd by any Being but Himself. For when we give our Thoughts the reins, and let them run freely through the Compass of the Univerfe, till they advance as High as the Third Heavens, beyond which we do not know, that there is any Created Substance, or, till they advance as High as Thoughts are capable of advancing, they cannot at last fo fix upon any point, as to exclude the conception of Space beyond it. This is ftyled Imaginary Space; and, if any fuch space there be, as it would perhaps be somewhat Difficult to prove, that there is not, we cannot but believe that God is prefent There. And this notion feems to be favoured by the Holy Scripture, wherein we have an Acknowledgment made unto God of his Immenfity, under this Expreffion, * The Heaven, and heaven of Heavens cannot contain thee.

If we should carry our Thoughts back as far as God's Exiftence in the

* 1 Kings viii. 27.

moment

« AnteriorContinuar »