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SERM. be far from thinking there are any

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IV. tions in his most blessed and perfect mind, as we feel in ourselves arifing from things furprizing or disagreeable to us. A little reflection would convince us that fuch paffions show the imperfection of our state, and a mixture of unhappiness in it; and therefore they cannot poffibly affect the infinite selffufficiency, the undisturb'd reft and the fect felicity of the supreme independent Being, When therefore he is spoken of as having indignation, compaffion, anger or grief, it is only to be understood as an analogical reprefentation of his conduct as governor of the world towards his creatures. What men would do when they are compaffionate, angry or grieved, that God does, or produces a fimilar effect, with unerring wisdom, perfect tranquillity and goodness, without the weakness of pity, the fenfation of forrow, or perturbation of wrath.

Again, an unchangeable life or abfolute immortality is a property belonging to the Divine nature as it is fpiritual. Our fpirits are fubject to pains and changes in their condition, from the body and otherwife; other fpirits of a higher order may be fo too in various degrees; but the most perfect Spirit is infinitely above the reach of fufferings, and infinitely

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hitely remote from all poffibility of change. SER M. Such is the abfolute fimplicity of his Being, IV. free from any mixture or compofition, there are no feeds or principles of decay within him, nor can he suffer from any thing without. We find by experience, that our compounded natures, made up of different parts, are liable to diffolution; it is the more fimple spiritual part of our conftitution that fhall outlive the present state, and being diflodg'd of the earthly tabernacle, shall subsist separately. But there is a great difference between our immortality and God's: Ours, as we were created for his good pleasure, continually depends upon it, and may cease if he pleases; but it is impoffible he should not be the living God, the fame immutable Spirit, yesterday, and to day and for ever.

I fhall only add, as the foundation of the improvement I propofe to make of this fubject, and which the text leads us to, namely, the regulating of our worship; That the Deity is not resembled by any fenfible forms; His nature and attributes are alike effentially different from all the properties and qualities of matter, and no one part of it makes any nearer approaches to him than another. He is not to be touched or handled, and no man bath feen him at any time, nor can fee him. The moft fubtle æther, or the pureft light, is no VOL. I. image

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SERM image of his fpiritual fubftance; and the huIV. man fhape is no more a true representation of God than the fhape of any other animal, nay, than a clod of earth or any other inanimate thing. It was therefore wifely provided by the Lawgiver of the Jews, (whofe principal care seems to have been the preferving of their worship from idolatry) that no image should be made of the Godhead; and he gives the reafon for it, that in all the miraculous appearances and extraordinary manifeftations God had ever vouchfafed to them, (and they were very many) they had never seen any militude; there was never any handle given them for fo abfurd and grofs a conceit, as that the Deity is like any visible being in the whole world. We read often of God's discovering his glory to them, as at the giving of the law, by a prodigious tempeft, thunder and fire; and in their march through the wilderness, by a cloud in the day, and a pillar of fire in the night, which were called the tokens of his prefence; tho' really he is alike present in all places. Such aftonishing things were apt to Arike the minds even of very ftupid people with a fenfe of his interpofition in their behalf; and that his care and power were employ'd for them. But fill there was no determinate shape, no figure of any abiding sensible object,

imitable by human art, whereby they fhould SER M. have the leaft countenance or occafion given IV. them, to make an image of their God, or change bis glory into the likeness of any creature. It is true, we read fometimes in the Old Teftament of divine appearances in a human form, Thus God is faid to have spoken to Mofes face to face as a man fpeaks to his friend; and of the three angels which appeared to Abraham in the likeness of men, before the deftruction of Sodom, one was distinguish'd by the peculiar veneration of that eminent faint, as of a fuperior character. But this feems to be rightly understood by interpreters concerning the Meffias, that divine Perfon who was in the form of God, before his incarnation. Several paffages of the Old Teftament and the New compar'd together, plainly intimate that he was with the Ifraelites, conducting them as the divine Prefence, and the Angel of the covenant, in whom the name of God was. St. Stephen, in the 7th of the Acts, fpeaking of God's appearing to Mofes in the burning bush, and fay ing with an audible voice, I am the God of Abraham and the God of Ifaac and the God of Jacob; St. Stephen, I fay, exprefsly attributes this to the person whom he calls the Angel of the Lord, and who was with Mofes in the church in the wilderness. And the Apoftle Paul

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SER M. Paul mentioning the fins and punishments of IV. the Ifraelites in the wilderness, for an admoni

tion to us on whom the ends of the world are come,

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clearly infinuates that Chrift was prefent with them directing their affairs; for he fays, neither let us tempt Chrift, as fome of them alfo tempted, and were destroyed of ferpents. Thus as our Lord Jefus Chrift, the image of the invifible God, in the fulness of time, affum'd the human nature, the word was made flesh and dwelt with us as in a tabernacle, manifefting the glory of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. Before his incarnation he acted with full power, representing his Father in his tranfactions with men; by him God made the world, and by him govern'd the church But the Divine nature itself, the effence of the fupreme Being is invifible; to whom is God like, or whereunto can he be refembled ?

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I shall in the next place, confider the practical purpose to which our Saviour has gone before us, in applying this important doctrine of natural religion afferted in the text, namely, the regulating our worship. First of all we may fee the abfurdity of that practice which great multitudes of mankind have run into, the forming corporeal images of the Deity as mediums of worship. The worfhipping of falfe gods, that is beings, whether * 1 Cor. x. + v. 9.

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