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
and resemblance of his infinite excellency? founding it upon the
infiniteness of his nature, which necessarily implies the spirituality
of it, God is infinitely above any statue: and those that think to
draw God by a stroke of a pencil, or form him by the engravings of
art, are more stupid than the statues themselves. To show the
unreasonableness of it, consider,
1. It is impossible to fashion any image of God. If our more capacious
souls cannot grasp his nature, our weaker sense cannot frame his image;
it is more possible, of the two, to comprehend him in our minds, than
to frame him in an image to our sense. He inhabits inaccessible light;
as it is impossible for the eye of man to see him, it is impossible
for the art of man to paint him upon walls, and carve him out of wood.
None knows him but himself, none can describe him but himself.[388]
Can we draw a figure of our own souls, and express that part of
ourselves, wherein we are most like to God? Can we extend this to any
bodily figure, and divide it into parts? How can we deal so with the
original copy, whence the first draught of our souls was taken, and
which is infinitely more spiritual than men or angels? No corporeal
thing can represent a spiritual substance; there is no proportion
in nature between them. God is a simple, infinite, immense, eternal,
invisible, incorruptible being; a statue is a compounded, finite,
limited, temporal, visible, and corruptible body. God is a living
spirit; but a statue nor sees, nor hears, nor perceives anything. But
suppose God had a body, it is impossible to mould an image of it in
the true glory of that body; can the statue of an excellent monarch
represent the majesty and air of his countenance, though made by the
skilfullest workman in the world? If God had a body in some measure
suited to his excellency, were it possible for man to make an exact
image of him, who cannot picture the light, heat, motion, magnitude,
and dazzling property of the sun? The excellency of any corporeal
nature of the least creature, the temper, instinct, artifice, are
beyond the power of a carving tool; much more is God.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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