The Existence and Attributes of God, Volumes 1 and 2Charnock, Stephen
Religion
The Existence and Attributes of God, Volumes 1 and 2
Charnock, Stephen
God (Christianity) -- Attributes; Providence and government of God -- Christianity
{a187} 6. If God were not a Spirit, he were not immutable and
unchangeable. His immutability depends upon his simplicity. He
is unchangeable in his essence, because he is a pure and unmixed
spiritual Being. Whatsoever is compounded of parts may be divided
into those parts, and resolved into those distinct parts which make
up and constitute the nature. Whatsoever is compounded is changeable
in its own nature, though it should never be changed. Adam, who was
constituted of body and soul, had he stood in innocence, had not died;
there had been no separation made between his soul and body whereof he
was constituted, and his body had not resolved into those principles
of dust from whence it was extracted. Yet in his own nature he was
dissoluble into those distinct parts whereof he was compounded; and so
the glorified saints in heaven, after the resurrection, and the happy
meeting of their souls and bodies in a new marriage knot, shall never
be dissolved; yet in their own nature they are mutable and dissoluble,
and cannot be otherwise, because they are made up of such distinct
parts that may be separated in their own nature, unless sustained by
the grace of God: they are immutable by will, the will of God, not
by nature. God is immutable by nature as well as will: as he hath
a necessary existence, so he hath a necessary unchangeableness (Mal.
iii. 6), “I, the Lord, change not.” He is as unchangeable in his
essence as in his veracity and faithfulness: they are perfections
belonging to his nature. But if he were not a pure Spirit, he could
not be immutable by nature.
7. If God were not a pure Spirit, he could not be omnipresent. He
is in heaven above, and the earth below;[359] he fills heaven and
earth.[360] The divine essence is at once in heaven and earth; but
it is impossible a body can be in two places at one and the same time.
Since God is everywhere, he must be spiritual. Had he a body, he could
not penetrate all things; he would be circumscribed in place. He could
not be everywhere but in parts, not in the whole; one member in one
place, and another in another; for to be confined to a particular
place, is the property of a body: but, since he is diffused through
the whole world, higher than heaven, deeper than hell, longer than the
earth, broader than the sea,[361] he hath not any corporeal matter.
If he had a body wherewith to fill heaven and earth, there could be no
body besides his own: it is the nature of bodies to bound one another,
and hinder the extending of one another. Two bodies cannot be in the
same place in the same point of earth: one excludes the other; and it
will follow hence that we are nothing, no substances, mere illusions;
there could be no place for anybody else.[362] If his body were as big
as the world, as it must be if with that he filled heaven and earth,
there would not be room for him to move a hand or a foot, or extend
a finger; for there would be no place remaining for the motion.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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