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EXERCITATION IV.

Divine attributes calling for transcendent respect, They are set down in the Scripture, so as to curb our curiosity, to help our infirmity, to prevent our misapprehensions, and to raise our esteem of God, Spiritual knowledge superadding to literal clearness of light, sweetness of taste, sense of interest and sincerity of obedience,

NEXT to essence and subsistence of God, his attributes are to be considered; concerning which I premise this rule,

1. The degrees of our respect are to keep proportion with degrees of worth in persons and things; ordinary worth requiring esteem, eminent calling for reverence, supereminent for admiration, yea, and adoration too, if it is an uncreated object. Hence the psalmist upon contemplation of God crieth out as in an extasy, "O Lord, our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth!"* His attributes are his name; their worth so superexcellent, as far to transcend the utmost pitch of that observance, which we, poor we, are able any way to render. Seeing as the stars of heaven disappear, and hide their head upon the rising of the sun that out-shineth them

* Psal. ii. 1, and 9.

so creatures seem not to be excellent, yea, not to be, when the being and excellency of their Maker displayeth itself, according to that, "All nations before him are as nothing; and they are counted to him less than nothing and vanity."* The best of them have but some perfections: God either hath (as manna is supposed to have had the relish of all meats) or containeth all; sovereignty comprehendeth inferior honours. The best of their perfections are mixed with some defects: but "God is light, and in him is no darkness at all." They may be perfect and good in their kind: he is perfection and goodness itself. In them we may find matter of wonder, but of astonishment in him, witness that eminent place Nehem. ix. 5. "Blessed be thy glorious name, which is exalted above all blessing and praise." Nature, though not altogether silent upon this argument, to wit, the divine attributes, yet enjoyeth but a dim light to discover them by, whereas the scripture representeth them most magnificently in sundry respects.

2. First, so as to curb our curiosity. For which end it expresseth divers of them negatively, as when God is said to be infinite, immortal, invisible, unsearchable: whereby we are taught that it is easier for us to know what he is not, than what he is; which is known only to himself. The best terms (as Scaliger hath it) for

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men to manifest their understanding of God by, are those which manifest that they understand him not. * "Thou, O Lord, saith: Nazianzen, hast produced all those things of which we speak ; but art unspeakable thyself. All that can be known by us is from thee, but thou thyself cannot be known." Yea Austin was not afraid to affirm, that Nescience is the better way of knowing God." +

Secondly, So as to help our infirmity. For whereas we are not able by any one act of our finite understandings to comprehend that infinite essence, which is itself one simple act, but comprehensive of all perfections; Holy Scripture, condescending to our weakness, alloweth us to take up as it were in several parcels, what we cannot compass at once; and in contemplating the Attributes to conceive some under the notion of divine properties incommunicable to creatures; such as are Immensity, Independence, Eternity, Simplicity, Self-sufficiency, All-sufficiency, Omnipotence, Omniscience, Omnipresence. Others under that of divine faculties; such are understanding, will, and memory ascribed to God. It gives us leave to look at some as divine affections; such are his Love, Hatred, Anger, Grief and Delight. At others as divine virtues; such are

Μένος εών άγνωσος

Μένω ἔων ἄφρασος ἐπει' τέκες οσσα λαλείται. επει τέκες όσο νοειται. Nazianz. hymn. ad Deum. + Melius scitur nesciendo. Aug. lib. 2. de ordine.

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his mercy, justice, patience, faithfulness, holiness, wisdom, &c. and at other some as divine excellencies resulting out of all the former; such are Majesty, Blessedness and Glory.

3. Thirdly, so as to prevent our misapprehensions. The attributes of God however diversified in our conceptions (as hath been said) are identified with his essence, which is but one: though to us they appear to be different each from other, and all from it; as the vast ocean, though but one, receiveth divers names from the several shores it washeth upon: so however justice, mercy, power and the and the rest, be several names suited to different operations; yet God is but one simple act under those various denominations. Lest we should therefore apprehend them to be such qualities as our virtues are, really distinguishable, yea and separable from our being (as appeared when the first man fell from his holiness, yet continued a man still) scripture doth sometimes predicate them of God in the abstract: as when Christ is styled Wisdom ;' * when it is said God is love,' † and the Spirit is truth.' Men may be called loving, wise and true: God is love, wisdom, and truth itself. The apostle telleth us that if God swear, he doth it by himself and no other,'§ yet we find him in the Psalm swearing by his holiness:||' whence it followeth

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*Proverb viii. + 1 John vi. 8. + 1 John v. 6. § Heb. vi. 13. Psalm lxxxix. 35.

that his holiness is himself. Christ is usually said to sit at the right hand of God; but in one place it is exprest by sitting on the right hand of power :' *. Therefore God is power, as well as love. There is the same reason of all his attributes.

§ 4. Fourthly, So as to raise our esteem of God. Some there be which are frequently called Communicable Attributes, because in them the creatures share, as being, immortality, goodness, and wisdom. Lest we should in this respect have lower thoughts of God than becomes us, Scripture is wont to ascribe them to him in such a way of supereminence as, (however they be participated by angels and men, yet) he only is said to have them. Witness these texts," there is none besides me. Who only hath immortality. God only wise. And there is none good but God."+ Because in him they are all infinite, all eternal, all unmixed, and without the least allay of imperfection. An apostrophe borrowed from a devout, though popish, writer, shall shut up this. "O abyss of divine perfection. How admirable art thou, O Lord, who possessest in one only perfection the excellency of all perfections, in such excellent sort, that none is able to comprehend it but thyself !+"

§. 5. There is yet behind, a third kind of

* Mark xiv. 62.

+ Isa. xlix. vi. 1 Tim. vi. 16. and Chap. i. 17. Matt.xix. 17. Fr. Sales' Love of God, lib. 2. cap. 1. § 3. page 74.

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