The infinite distance between God and the creatures, in respect that he is the maker and preserver of them; in that also he is eternal, and so before they had being he dwelt alone in himself, and possessed all things in himself.—He is the high and lofty One, and is so supremely excellent, as it transcends all other; his name is holy, and so is above the creatures, and separated from them.—The true name of Being is proper only to God: the creatures are but the shadows and appearances of being.
For thus saith the high and lofty one that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is holy: I dwell in the high and holy place, with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite ones.—Isaiah 57:15.
Thus saith the Lord, The heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool: where is the house that ye build unto me? and where is the place of my rest? For all those things hath mine hand made, and all those things have been, saith the Lord: but to this man will I look, even to him that is poor, and of a contrite spirit, and trembleth at my word.—Isaiah 66:1, 2.
Here is the highest and the lowest met dwelling together: the highest God, and the lowest and poorest of his creatures.
The prophet had just in the chapter afore, in Isa. 65:25, foretold a like wonder to this: 'the wolf and the lamb shall feed together;' which, in Isa. 11:6, is varied thus, 'The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the calf and the young lion,' &c., which, if literally understood, were a wonder in nature. But behold, a greater is here: 'the high and lofty One that inhabits eternity, whose name is holy,' dwells with the sinner who is 'contrite' and 'broken' in heart for it. This is a wonder in grace; or rather, the wonder of grace.
The language the words are penned in is God's, and could be no other's for him. The thoughts of the creature could not have invented such a style to speak to him in; and God's scope therein is by lifting up and exalting his own greatness above all creatures, withal to discover the height and depth of his grace in so condescending to the meanest of creatures, than which himself accounts nothing more his glory.
As to my presently scope, it is not to enlarge upon the description of a broken heart, or of God's affecting and delighting therein to dwell, or his grace shewn thereby; but my present design is to enlarge upon the height and distance which God bears above us and his whole creation, considered as we are creatures. Nor is my scope simply to set forth what God is in himself, but as here he is set out comparatively with his creatures; limiting my discourse herein, also, only unto what description he makes of himself here in the text. And the use I shall put it to will be, to humble us as creatures, even in our best estate, and not as sinners only.
This comparative distance of this height above us, is set forth in these particulars:
I. 'I, the maker and preserver.' And these things were made and do exist by me.
First, The maker. So in both places: in Isa. 66:2, 'All these have my hands made.' The very tenor of this speech is a slighting them as creatures: and being 'they are but made things, and will ye compare them to me?' It is as if an artificer should speak of his works made by him, that are different from himself. These are the clay and my pots, and I am the potter. He speaks of them as a potter would do of his potsherds, so distant from himself, the maker. Or he speaks thus of them, with difference from his own internal acts of his mind within himself; whereas these are utterly external, and out of himself. 'These have my hands made,' as an artificer would speak of his manufactures and works without him. And then in the other scripture, Isa. 57:16, 'The souls' (the subjects of this my grace) 'which I have made.' In both, he speaks of them as made by him, and the souls made altogether, i.e., the whole of their being, as Ps. 33:15, for creation is productio totius entis; Acts 17:25, 'He giveth to all life and all things;' and Acts 17:28, being itself; 'In him we live, and have our being;' and Rom. 11:36, 'Of him are all things;' and therefore, not so much as a first matter was existing to his hands. But 'all these have my hands made.'
Secondly, The preserver, as giving and continuing. To give them existence; as those words in Isa. 66:2, 'And all these things have been, saith the Lord,' Piscator renders, Per eum existunt omnia: to which that of Acts 17. 28 corresponds, 'In him we live, and move, and have our being,' i.e., as the original, so the continuance of them. He gives life, Acts 17:25, and then preserves it. In him we continue to have it; thus both Paul and Isaiah.
II. 'Inhabiting eternity,' which he speaks, first, with exclusion of all things made, as things that have not, de facto, been from eternity; and notes out an eminent distinction put thereby between them and him, Ps. 90:2: 'Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting thou art God.' And whereas some creatures, as angels and men's souls, have an eternity of existence to come, yet that is but derived. It is he is said only to have 'immortality,' 1 Tim. 6:16, and therefore he is called the last as well as the first. That though they be eternal for time to come, yet he is after them all; which could not have been said but in respect that creatures their eternity doth depend on him; and so he is the last, though they continue with him for ever. God hath eternity, both past and to come; and this is proper to him.
Secondly, The phrase here, 'inhabiting eternity,' is unusual, and significant of far more than simply that God is eternal in both respects aforesaid. It imports, over and besides, 1, That he hath dwelt alone, and shall dwell alone for ever apart, by and in himself; whether afore any creature were or since, it is all one as to this. For himself is that eternity which he dwelt in, and shall dwell in: 1 Sam. 15:29, 'The Eternity of Israel will not lie,' so it is varied in the margin. And since the creatures was, he is his own proper mansion-house, even as he was before.
First, That afore any creature was, he dwelt alone, that is evident; for they not being or existing, he must needs have had an eternity past alone to himself, which he says he dwelt in, and no creature with him. Not only there was no other God with him (as Moses), but no creature with him (as Solomon), Prov. 8:23-32. So that what was said of Israel, that they were a people that dwelt alone, Deut. 33:28, the same may be said of the God of Israel; he was utterly without all society of any creature.
And secondly, It is all one after he hath made the creatures; he still dwells in his own eternity, apart by himself.*
[* The Jews call him Makom [i.e. מקום—ED.], place, because he is place to himself—his own centre and his own circumference]
It is one of the attributes which Paul gives him, 1 Tim. 6:16, 'Who only hath immortality, dwelling in the light which no man can approach unto.' And therefore you see in Isa. 66:1, that since hath made heaven and earth, how yet he speaks of the whole creation: 'Where will ye find me a place for my rest?' which imports, that since he made the world, he dwells by himself apart in the same eternity he did. His making of creatures was not to add to or enlarge his dwelling, that he might inhabit more commodiously (as it is with man, whose person is one thing, and whose house is another). No. Their building is not a new piece of an house to him who alone inhabits eternity, that is, himself.
It is true, that now he hath made all these things, if he should not be everywhere, where any of them are, and 'through them all,' as Paul's phrase is, Eph. 4:6, he should not be God, the immense God: 'I fill heaven and earth,' saith he, Jer. 23:24; seeing they are made, he fills them also, yet so as still he is not beholding to them for room or place. As the sun filleth the air, but is not beholding to it for the place it affords it, but the air to the sun that fills it.
Thirdly, That he inhabiteth eternity shews that he possesseth all things in himself, for himself is his own eternity to himself; and that eternity being a house to himself, is furnished with all things within himself. He went not then out of himself for anything, nor needs he yet to do so—as Acts 17:25, 'He needs not anything'—but was abundantly supplied with all things within himself, as a great man in his own house, whose glory it is to have all things sufficiently about him therein and therewith.
Fourthly, That he inhabiteth eternity imports that his being is so infinite, as he fills the immense expanse of all or both eternities in one moment. He comprehends and compasseth the whole, and all within himself, and extends himself through it all; he is the king of ages, that is, of the courses of times, 1 Tim. 1:17; and so as a king hath all ages as subjects always extant afore him. In the 40th of Isaiah it is said, he 'spanneth the heavens,' [Isa. 40:12, 22] and it is a good grasp that, you will say; but that is spoken only of a thing that is now at present existing; but in Deut. 33:27 ye read, he hath 'everlasting arms:' a right arm to environ eternity, á parte ante, eternity past, and another that to come, and so encircles both eternities, past and to come, without succession of time to him. Eternity is but a moment to him; a τò νùν æternitatis, as the school men speak; for he comprehends it within the arms of his infinitely extensive being. As he subsists not in place per partes, so nor in time by parts. He runs not through a time past, present, and to come. His duration is not measured by the differences of time; for then it might be said, as to time to come, he as yet is not. By the same reason that a 'thousand years are but as one day to him,' by the same you may say, that eternity is but one instant. He inhabits, that is, possesseth even the whole continually; he builds not one part of his eternity in one age, and another part in another, so that he should dwell in it by piecemeal and successively; nor yet removes he his habitation, as men that have great houses do, from one part of their house, as in winter (suppose), and to another in summer, and the other part standing empty the while. No; but from eternity to eternity is but one entire individual and complete house for the whole of him at once to fill, who is fulness of being in the intenseness of perfection. And hence he enjoyeth all blessedness in an instant;* ...
[* The philosopher said of him, that God doth αἰει αἰει ἀπλῆν χαίρειν ἡòúνην.]
...not as we, one part this moment, and another piece in another, which when put together, do make a complete happiness, but in a succession.
Fifthly, His house is always one and the same, and never hath any decay, or needs the least reparation in any part of it. His eternity is an immutability and unchangeableness. He is semper idem; his style is always I am, and I will be, Ehieh, that is, always the same, and the cause of my own being. And by this also his eternity is differenced from the creatures; all of them 'was old as a garment,' and of themselves they would do so, did not God renew their being every moment. The angels would wax old, as the children of Israel's garments in the wilderness did not, but it was because God perpetually kept them as new. But of God it follows, 'Thou art the same,' Ps. 102:27; and therefore us and our years he compareth to a flood, Ps. 90:5, that is always running and in succession, but him to a rock of ages that stands (as the phrase in the original is, Ps. 102:26) immoveable.
III. 'The high and lofty One.'
The high One: for the transcendency and supreme excellency of his being.
The lofty One: for the sovereignty and dominion of it.
The high. It is a common title given him in the Old and New Testament, the 'high God,' and the Lord on high,' 'God most high;' Ps. 83:18, 'The most High over all the earth.' And in the New, 'the Highest,' three times in one chapter, Luke 1:32, 35, 76.
And to take the height of him, let us first take into consideration the course and way the Scripture (as condescending to our sense) useth to set this forth by, which is by a comparative, and rising up from one degree to another; and it begins thus:
1. In respect of place, which yet is the lowest kind of height. And for this take Eliphaz his staff in Job 22:12, 'Behold the height of the stars, how high they are.' (How high is God then? so riseth he,) 'Is not God in the height of the heavens?' as it immediately follows thereupon.
2. In dignity and dominion, he is said to be 'higher than all nations on earth' (which are in dignity exceeding, and more high than the stars), 'higher than all the people,' Ps. 99:2, whom (as elsewhere it is said), 'he rules and stills at his pleasure.' And Ps. 113:4, 'The Lord is high above all nations.'
3. But yet you will say, So are kings that are set over the nations. And if you do suppose but one man to be king of all the world 9as the Roman emperors once), it may be said that he is higher than all the nations.
But thirdly, He is over all the kings of the earth; that is another ascent. 'He is higher than the highest, and there are higher than they,' i.e., who are between him and them: Eccles. 5:8, For he is 'higher than the highest, and there be higher than they.' The they are the rulers of this earth, whom he there speaks of; and those that are 'higher than they' are the angels. But he is the highest absolutely, singularly, higher than the highest, above the angels themselves. All principalities and powers, both in heaven and earth, they are under his feet. 'He is the blessed and only potentate,' 1 Tim. 6:15; and so in Ps. 97:9, 'Thou, Lord, art high above all the earth;' it follows, 'Thou art exalted above all the gods,' i.e. angels, whether good or bad, which the heathens worshipped.
4. To shew the height and super-excellency of his dignity and dominion, he was pleased to give this demonstration; he did on purpose build a place for himself, separate from and far 'above all things' else which he had made, and calls it here, 'The high and holy place,' in Isa. 57:15, and 'heaven is my throne,' in Isa. 66:1; and that is the 'highest of heavens,' as a place separate, and an apartment for himself to dwell in after he had made creatures, until Christ, that was made higher than the heavens, pierced (as the phrase in Heb. 4:14 is), and broke up that separate place 'prepared from the foundation of the world,' which is to the rest of heaven as the 'holy of holies' was to the other parts of the temple, which the high priest only went into; which the angels by the law of their creation, and right of their creatureship, did not enjoy as the first place of their habitation, and in which, had the angels that fell been inhabitants, they had never fallen. For as it is the high, so the holy place, wherein the immutable glory of God so shineth, as would immutably have fixed them in holiness unto God, that they should never have departed from him. God's height, even as in respect to this high place, is often set out thereby, as that he is 'higher than the highest heaven:' Ps. 113:5, 'His glory is above the heavens; who is like unto the Lord, who dwelleth on high?'
5. Let us rise one ascent yet higher, which the gospel affords us of the man Jesus united personally to the Son of God, who is gone into heaven, and is on the right hand of God, angels, and authorities, and powers being made subject to him, as they are said to be under his feet, Eph. 1:21, 22, and who therefore is said by that personal union to 'be made higher than the heavens,' Heb 7:26; and all this is spoken of the man Jesus, for it is said he was made thus high. And yet, lo, how afore this high and lofty One he humbleth himself; 'I am a worm,' which is lower than the footstool man treads on: Ps. 22:3, 6, 'Thou art holy; but I am a worm, and no man.' Thus he speaks of himself before he ascended, and did thus humble himself at God's command. And now when he is ascended 'far above all heavens,' as Eph. 4:10, 'He that descended is the same also that ascended up far above all heavens, that he might fill all things,' he is yet but at God's right hand; the throne is God's, who is higher than this highest. 'My Father is greater than I.'
But all this hath been but a comparative way of shewing his highness.
His being the high and lofty One, notes forth the transcendency and super-excellency of his divine being itself in itself, and that it is utterly of another kind from creatures, and indeed that it only is being. In Ps. 83:18, 'That men may know that thou, whose name alone is JEHOVAH, art the MOST HIGH over all the earth,' he thereby argues his height from his name, that his name is alone Jehovah, and therefore he is most high, and in that very respect. Now Jehovah, we know, is the name of his essence, 'I AM,' and here it is that men may know that thou, whose name alone is Jehovah, are the most High; and therefore most high in respect of such a glorious being as is proper alone unto him. In Eph. 4:6 he is said to be 'above all,' and yet to be 'through all,' i.e., his creatures. His being above all shews the transcendency of his being, spoken of separate from all ours, not intercommuning with ours, nor intermingled, although it is said he is through all too; but as the sunbeams intermingle not with the air, though they shine through the air, so nor doth God with creatures.
Here I might amplify upon the glory of this his title, that he is the most High in respect of his being, that he alone hath the name Jehovah, as the Psalmist saith, and also of being; that all the creatures are but the shadow of being, but he only is. But I shall defer it unto the use.
IV. 'Whose name is Holy.'
First, it is a name that is proper to God, as Christ saith: Mat. 19:17, 'There is non good but God,' so nor holy. He is separate and alone in his holiness, as he is alone in his being. And if he only be good, then much more is he only holy, for holiness is the height and perfection of goodness; so in man, and so in God. And Rev. 15:4 you have it express, 'who only is holy,' and 'the holy One,' as elsewhere. Now of all that could have been said or attributed to him, this sets up God the highest, and most sovereign. And this of all others, layeth us low, both as we are creatures and as we are sinners. Holiness is said to be his dreadful name: Ps. 99:2, 3, 'The Lord is high above all people;' it follows, 'Let them praise thy great and terrible name; for it is holy,' and that makes him high. And again, at Psalm 99:5, 'Exalt ye the Lord our God, and worship at his footstool;' for he is holy; nay, the margin varieth it, 'his footstool is holy,' i.e., the ground he sets his feet on. The like you have in Psalm 99:9.
Secondly, This separates him from the creatures; for holiness imports a separation, as it is in common applied to anything, person, place, or time. Christ was separate from sinners, made higher than the heavens, but God from creatures.
Thirdly, Holiness is that whereby God aims at his own glory, as the angels' cry shews in Isa. 6:3, 'Holy, holy, holy: the whole earth is filled with thy glory;' as being that which the attribute of holiness in him aims at from his creatures. And that being the only attribute mentioned when his glory doth there appear, Isa. 6:1, and is beheld by Isaiah and the angels, this and the single conjunction to holiness and glory argues it. Now he being so great a God, his desires of glory from the creature are so vast and so intensive, as the creatures cannot come up unto, nor satisfy; for as Rom. 1:21 hath it, he would be glorified as god, which the creatures cannot reach to the height of. Two scriptures put together do shew this: Job 15:15, 'Behold, he putteth no trust in his saints; yea, the heavens are not clean in his sight;' and he means the angels, who are called heavens. And they are the good angels he means is manifest, those who have kept their station in heaven; and yet all their holiness, you see, makes them not clean in his pure eyes. Thus Job 4:17, 18, 'Shall mortal man be more just than God? shall a man be more pure than his Maker? Behold, he put no trust in his servants; and his angels he charged with folly.' We sinners are unclean privatively, wanting that holiness we were created in, and positively defiled; but the best of his creatures are negatively not clean, because they answer not, nor come up unto his immense desires of glory from them. He would have more, though it cannot be had. But of this deficiency and falling short of creature holiness as to God, I shall speak in the use.
Use. To humble you, as you are creatures, afore this Majesty on high. I would humble ye, I say, as you are creatures, as well as that you are sinners; which latter, I know, you do every day. I do not say that you are to humble yourselves as much simply as you are creatures as that you are sinners, yet you are to do it as truly. It is to be an humbling of ourselves this, though in another way. We humble ourselves as sinners by way of mourning and godly sorrow; but this as creatures by way of self-emptiness and sense of our own nothingness and vanity. They are both in the text; he speaks of the humble considering themselves as creatures, and the contrite ones as sinners. And God is therefore represented, first, as the high and lofty One inhabiting eternity, to humble us as creatures; and secondly, as holy, to humble us as sinners, though that will humble us as creatures too. I enforce this use from this, that to teach you to humble yourselves as creatures is a piece of the gospel; and where you have the gospel spoken of, there you have this also. As in Isa. 40:3, the beginning of the preaching of the gospel is prophesied of: 'The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness,' &c., which was John Baptist's ministry; and then follows the prophecy of all the apostles' preaching which succeeded John, 'O Zion, that bringeth good tidings,' Isa. 40:9. Now among other things, what was it John was to cry and the apostles to preach? Even this, 'All flesh is grass,' &c. Isa. 40:6-8, 'The voice said, Cry. And he said, What shall I cry? All flesh is grass, and all the goodliness thereof is as the flower of the field: the grass withereth, the flower fadeth; because the Spirit of the Lord bloweth upon it: surely the people is grass. The grass withereth, the flower fadeth; but the word of our God shall stand for ever.' Which the apostle Peter applieth unto that very word and gospel which was spoken by himself and the other apostles: 1 Peter 1:25, 'But the word of the Lord endureth for ever. And this is the word which by the gospel is preached unto you.' And this was done by the 'revealing of the glory of the Lord Christ,' namely, discovered in the gospel: Isa. 40:5, 'And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together: for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it.' Now observe that there is in that chapter a setting forth of God in his greatness, to the end thus to humble the creature, such as you have not in all the Scriptures. So as indeed we should lose a piece of our religion if we do not attend to this; and I will here suppose myself to have a congregation of Adams and Eves, men and women, in that pure and first estate; yea, and I will take the angels in also before they fell, and some angels are here at present this day; but if all were here in their original estate, or those that are now in their confirmed estate, I might preach this sermon to them, reminding them of their estate by creation, to humble them as they are creatures in that estate.
And to enforce this the more, I take in that additional to my text, Ps. 113:5, 6, 'Who is like unto the Lord our God, who dwelleth on high, who humbleth himself to behold the things that are in heaven, and in the earth?' He represents him as so great a God, as it is an humbling to him so much as to cast an eye upon any creature now he hath made it; and yet he were not God if he did not behold the least motion of every creature, to the falling of a sparrow to the ground without his cognisance. Further, observe it, it is not only spoken of things on earth, but of things in heaven—his best saints, and angels, or whatever that high and holy place is furnished with. Now my inference is, that if it be an humbling to God to behold the best of these, it may much more be an humbling to us when we appear before this God. And that we may do so, let us take these considerations.
1. Whereas God had the ideas of infinite worlds he could have made, and so of creatures reasonable, which lay before his eternal counsels, as candidates, and as fair to have been made existent as we that are made; for not only all things were once nothing (that will afford a second consideration), but there was yet an higher remoteness from nothing, and that is of things possible to be, which in respect of God's not willing to create them, never did, nor ever shall, come into being, although when they should have done so it would have been out of nothing; yet God said of us, Stand you forth, I decree and will you to exist afore me, whenas an infinite number of like creatures slept still, and to eternity shall sleep in darkness and non-existence.
2. After God had decreed to make thee, and to give thee an existence and actual being, yet thou wert in reality still nothing, pure nothing in entity. Thy pedigree is from nothing; thy ancestry, and that not far removed, is nothing. Job, in the view of his own rottenness and corruption, humbles himself, Job 17:14: 'I have said to corruption, Thou art my father; to the worm, Thou art my mother, and my sister.' But in rehearsing thy original from whence thou camest, I may say that nothing, pure nothing, was thy great grandmother. Thy body was immediately mode of dust, that was thy next mother by that line; but that dust was made of the first rude earth, without form, and that was thy grandmother; but that earth was made purely of nothing; so then nothing was thy great grandmother. Thus of thy body. Then for thy soul, that was immediately created by God out of nothing, and so by that line thy next mother was nothing. And what was thy soul twenty, thirty, or forty years ago, and so many years upwards? Plain nothing. It is observable how, in the Scriptures, when God's confounding the creatures is expressed, the threatening runs in these terms, a bringing them to nothing. So in 1 Cor. 1:28, he takes μὴ ὄντα, things that are not (that is, are as if they were not, as to such an effect as God useth them for), even to bring to nought things that are, that is, to nothing, as the opposition shews. In these terms the sentence of confusion, and the destruction of things that are, is penned, as thereby reminding them, how that their first root and original was nothing; and so does speak in a way of reflection upon what once they were; even as when he threatened Adam to turn him to dust: 'Out of dust thou camest,' and says he; in a way of debasing of him, minds him of his descent and original. And in like phrase of speech Job utters their destruction: abeunt in nihilum, they go away, or vanish to nothing; that is, pereunt, they perish. The like in Isa. 41:11, and 34:12, and 40:23, 'He bringeth the judges to nothing.' And further, as if the creatures had by instinct a common sense of their nothingness, if God do but chastise them, presently we cry out to God, Bring me not to nothing,—so afraid are they of becoming nothing; yea, and in extremities of distress are apt to wish they were nothing, nor had ever been. And in this language the prophet Jeremiah utters his fears: Jer. 10:24, 'Correct me not in thine anger, lest thou turn me to nothing.' If we are but touched, we apprehend that we are in danger of becoming nothing. All miseries are smaller vacillations or reelings of the creature towards their first nothing; we are like those slight, small green flies that creep upon leaves in summer; we men cannot touch them so gently but they die. The whole creation is built upon a quagmire of nothing, and is continually ready to sink into it, and to be swallowed up by it, which maketh the while or any part of it to quake and quiver when God is angry, as Jeremiah there did. The foundation of the creatures' changeability to sin (whenas at first made near to holy) is by our divines put upon this, that we being made out of nothing, are apt to verge and sink into nothing, and so fall towards it in sinning. And truly sin is a great leap, or fall rather, and tottering towards it, and we may view our own nothingness most by it. And did not God, in the just act of our reeling towards sinning, put a stop, and uphold our beings, we should fall to nothing. But then he should want an object or a subject to punish for sin, or to be sensible of sin.
Humble yourselves therefore in the apprehension of this, and look, as in point of sanctification, although God giveth so great a measure of it to his children, and maketh them very holy, yet in the point of justifying them he would have them for ever to look upon themselves as ungodly, because once they were such, as Rom. 4:5. And Paul, whilst he did never so much, saith, 'Yet I am nothing.' Thus here, though he hath given us a being and existence, yet because we once were nothing, and that was the state (if a state) he found us in, he would ever have us account ourselves as nothing, though now by his grace 'having all things,' as the apostle says.
3. This made being of ours, when it is made and termed being (as it is in Acts 17:28, 'In him we live, and move, and have our being'), yet that being is not only derived purely from him, and his efficiency, but farther, it is but equivocally and falsely called being, as the apostle speaks of the knowledge the Gnostics boasted of, 'science falsely so called.' It hath but the name of being, but in reality is but the shadow of being; even as the shadow or picture of a man is falsely and equivocally termed a man. All of a picture is but a shadow of the man.
4. God and Christ only have the name of substance, as Prov. 8:21. Being, both name and thing, is proper only unto God, who is δὖν, as the Septuagint still render the name Jehovah; or as Plato from thence, τò ὅν, in truth is said of God alone. For which here the psalmist, Ps. 83:18, 'That men may know that thou, whose name alone is Jehovah, art the most High over all the earth.' And what other is the Scripture language of man, and the greatest of men? All of man, and about man, are therein compared to a shadow; his actions, and courses, a shadow: Ps. 39:6, 'Surely every man walketh in a vain show' (or image, as in the Hebrew); leads an imaginary life, rather than life itself; so Ainsworth. And as his ways, so is himself; and that in his best and most flourishing estate. Thus in Ps. 39:5, 'Verily, every man' (both in his person, his being, the circumstances of his life), take him at the best, every way, he and his best estate, 'is altogether vanity, all vanity,' which vanity is all one in account with nothing, or no being. As in the same verse, My worldly 'time is as nothing before thee;' 'my substance,' so the Septuagint renders it; 'my body,' as the Chaldee. As nothing, not only as compared with God, but afore God, and in his judgment and valuation of him. And that he says it of his time in this world, 'that his days are nothing,' it imports that his existence and himself are such. For to say a man's time in this world is such or such, connotates his existence and being in the world. And to say a shadow is all one as to say it is but a being in show, and not in reality. And that we find abundantly said, Job 14:2, and 8:9, and Ps. 122:11, and 144:5, and make the best you can of it, a shadow is but a middle between nonentity and true being. The Platonists said,*...
[Solum Deum revera esse, cætera vero videri.—Marsilius Ficinus, Epist. viii. Dr. Twiss in his opposition to Dr. Jackson on the Attributes, who discourseth this equivocal being of creatures at large, objects this, that yet a picture is a true picture, although not the man; and so the creatures, though but shadows, and the best of them the image of God, yet still withal they are vere entia, truly beings. But I reply, If God only be said to be being itself, and to have both being, name, and thing proper to him alone, as the Scriptures speak, then by the same reason that the picture of a man is not the man, allowing it to be a true picture; so the creatures are not true being, but barely the shadow of it. And it is not enough to say they are not God; but if to be God be only to have being, then they are but the shadows of being.]
...God only in truth is, and all things else seem but to be, which answers unto David's expression, 'in a show.' And truly God himself speaks of all the while creation at no other rate. And his valuation and judgment is a righteous judgment: Isa. 40:15, 'Behold the nations are as a drop of a bucket, and are counted (namely, by God) as the small dust of the balance.' He first, in the balance wherein he weighs them, lessens them, and compares them to things that are of no value or regard with men—things neither here nor there, as we say. The drop of a bucket, when it falls from the bucket upon the earth, the matter thereof is so swallowed up into the earth and the dust of it, as it is not so much as seen any more, but vanisheth away as it were to nothing. The small dust of the balance hath no sway at all on the beam to stir it one way or other; it makes it neither lighter nor heavier. And if they be severed from the bucket and the balance, they are not missed; they make no vacuum, no emptiness in either.
But yet you will say, that however these speak some entity or being, though but small, and though of no moment or consequence, yet of entity they partake something. He goes on, Isa. 40:17, casting them yet lower, 'All nations before him are as nothing,' &c. And yet still you will say, that particle as nothing, is but a diminutive; that though in esteem and regard they are as nothing, yet still in some smaller kind of reality they are something, though compared with a greater they are as nothing. But I answer, that that kind of speech speaks what a thing is in deed and in truth. As in that speech John 1:14, 'The glory as of the only begotten Son of God,' the import of that as is not a diminution, as if it were not in reality what is said of it, the excelling glory of the Son of God in truth; but that it was truly and indeed such a glory as was proper to him, and proportionable to him that was the Son of God. And that he might here yet speak the reality of their nothingness more plainly, he adds, 'they are counted to him less than nothing,' plusquam nihil, as the Hebrews hath it; concerning which, if it be again said, that they were but nothing at the worst, but why less than nothing? The account to me is this, that now when he made them, and had been at the expense and power to make them and uphold them, yet they had, for anything he acquires by them, been as good have been nothing still; and so are less than nothing by reason of the cost he hath been at, and expectation (as speaking after the manner of men) he might look from them, they were not worth his producing out of nothing; yea, it had been better they had been nothing still. Another account is, that this being a comparative of what the creatures are unto the great God, there is, now that they are made, a less distance and disproportion between the creatures and nothing than is between God and the whole creation. For if you measure the distance between the creatures, now they are made, and nothing, if God should return them unto it, it were but a finite distance privatively considered; for their annihilation would be but privatio finiti, the depriving them of a finite good and being; but the distance between God's being and theirs is infinite, yea, and in excellency and transcendency more distant than was betwixt nothing and the creatures before they were made, though philosophers would ascribe an infinite distance negatively considered, yet no such as that wherein God is above us; and so they are less every way to God than nothing is to themselves. And therefore to conclude this, if there could have been supposed a greater distance any way imaginable, whereby to have expressed the distance of God and the creature, which should have cast them down lower than this of being less than nothing, God would have expressed it thereby. But take them barely as creatures, and you cannot speak lower of them. Oh the infinite height and depth of God, which Zophar speaks of, Job 11:8, to whom the creatures are less than nothing.
Our divines, therefore, reckon not God, in point of arithmetic, together with us. They cast not God and us into the same numbering. They do not say of him, that he is unus, or one, though he be the first and great one, and so go on to number the rest of things. No; they suffer not creatures to bear or sustain the repute and account of number after him, or when he is spoken of. They say of him that he is unicus, the only one, that stands apart by himself out of all arithmetic, as his transcendent being comes not under our logic; which is in effect the same that God, but the prophet Isaiah, speaks. Our acuter commentators on those passages in chapters 3, 4, 5, wherein God sets himself out alone the true God—'I am Jehovah, and there is none else; there is no God besides me; I am the first and the last'—and the like to these, which you find up and down in those chapters, do observe, that though his dispute, or rather an over-disputing discovery of his creatures, be pitched for the confusion of the idol gods of heathens, that yet his arguings do rise higher than simply against those idols their being gods, but involves, in the confutation thereof, that as creatures they had no being, much less as gods. Thus Isa. 43:10, compared with Isa. 43:13, 'Before the day was, I am he;'*
[* See Gataker in the English Annot. on the words.]
and therefore, accordingly, still mentions his name Jehovah—his name that assures wholly the name of being to him; and as of them, speaks up and down of his being the creator and former of them, as merely out of nothing; and will you take them, and make gods of them? Thus his argument lies. And when, in Isa. 45:5, as in the conclusion of that discourse, he speaks thus, Isa. 45:5-7, 'I am the Lord, and there is none else, there is no God besides me: I girded thee, though thou hast not known me; that they may know from the rising of the sun and from the west, that there is none besides me: I am the Lord, and there is none else. I form the light, and create darkness; I make peace and create evil. I the Lord do all these things.' He manifestly points the dint of his speech in relation to them as creatures, and not as gods only set up by men. And he was the creator of all things, who only had therefore being in himself, and so did or made all those things, as his saying is, Isa. 45:7. And that, therefore, there was not only no God besides him, but that their gods, as creatures, had no being, but he alone whose name was Being, or Jehovah. As to such a sense as this, I understand the order of those words in Isa. 45:5 (taking in all these things that stand round about it), 'I am Jehovah, and none else, there is no God besides me,' that the fore part of that speech is applied to the point of being and existence: 'I am Jehovah,' that is, being itself only, and none else. For then, over and above besides, he adds, 'There is no God besides me;' that is, no creature is, no god, to be sure, besides him. So as their swelling words, used of the creatures to be styled 'all things' besides him, doth, in reality and effect, come but just to the same account as if you would set down a multitude of cyphers apart by themselves, and then say of the account of them, there is a million or many thousands of them, which is a vast number in sound of words, and reacheth a long way in figures, but yet still they be but a million of cyphers, and what comes that to? Even to just nothing, because there is not so much as one real number of their rank or kind to set afore them. All and every creature being nullius numeri, as we say, bearing no account, all of them make not so much as an unit, as one in truth; but they are empty shadows, appearances of being, all and every one of them.
To apply all this to humble you as creatures: look as this false and fictitious name of idols, their being gods, is but an imposed and equivocal title, whereas an idol is really nothing—1 Cor. 8:4, 5, 'We know that an idol is nothing in the world, and that there is none other God but one. For though there be that are called gods, whether in heaven or in earth, as there be gods many and lords many,' it is no such thing—so in like manner we may say of the creatures, There are creatures many, that have the title of being, the name, yea, are styled 'all things' in Isa. 45:16, yet in reality and truth they are nothing, as and afore God; and humble yourselves, therefore, for your idolatry, and too high valuation of yourselves. All is as nothing. This parallel of ourselves with idols, in this respect to humble us, is not mine, but the prophet Isaiah's, Isa. 41:29, 'Behold, you are as nothing, and your works are nothing.' He speaks there of their idols. They had made gods for themselves, and his intent and meaning is thereby to humble them, as if he had said, Lo, here the idols you make your gods, and give a being to: such, as such, are really nothing, though fictitiously, in your imaginations, made your gods. Even so your very selves, though you assume and arrogate the name of being and greatness to yourselves, yourselves are nothing if you be compared with the great God, whose glory you corrupt and turn into a lie, in your setting those creatures like yourselves up for gods. And his speech is similar unto that of the psalmist, 'They that made them are like unto them.' Even so Isaiah here: 'They are nothing, and you are nothing.'
