THERE hath risen up from out of the bottomless pit, in this age, a prodigious opinion, which hath ventured and maintained with more daring impudence than men of themselves could have assumed, had not the devil inspired and blown up their fancies thereunto, viz., that all things which God hath made, are indeed but pieces and parcels of God himself; and that that which is called by the creation is but a turquoising of God, or God translated, as you do a great and large whole cloth when you cut it forth into garments of several fashions, as some of them have spoken; whereas it is the creatures that are the 'garment that waxeth old,' Heb. 1:11, but God is without so much as a 'shadow of turning.' If in his love to us (whereof that place speaks), much more in his essence, which is the ground of the unchangeableness of his love. They say, the visible appearance is indeed as of creatures, but really, materially, and substantially, they are all but God. So as I may rightly express this opinion of theirs, they would make a transubstantiation of the great God, such as the papists (though they in a contrary way to this) make a transubstantiated Christ. For what say they but that the creatures, or elements of bread and wine, are changed into the substance of the body and blood of Christ substantially; yea, into Christ himself, soul and body present, and lying veiled under the appearance of bread and wine. But these men would have the divine essence of God transubstantiated into the outward appearance of several shapes of creatures, the substance of which is God, lying, as they would have it, hidden under outward visibility. Thus they cursedly crumble the indivisible, simple nature of God into little fragments and parcels; whereas that infinite, vast distance between him and us is, that 'we are the clay, and he the potter.' They would have God to turn part of himself into clay, and become that clay; and then the rest of himself, to become the potter over himself, and to metamorphose himself into shapes, as the heathens did their gods; and to please himself in making himself, as children do their clay into clay pies, or the shapes of dogs, or lambs, and the like, as their fancies lead them. And yet forsooth they would seem to allow him the main bulk of his Godhead, to live abstracted from the creatures, and separate from their creature existence and appearance. For I do not find that they affirm the whole of God to be no other than what is shrouded under the appearance of the creature, and adequate to it; yet they do make up some part of him, dispersed into creature appearance (as hath been said), and so as both make up together but one God, partly visible and partly invisible; even like as Peter says of the earth that now is, that it 'partly stands out of the water and partly in the water,' 2 Pet. 3:5, and both making but one globe, so here they frame one God; whereas the Scriptures set him forth as a Being 'eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God,' 1 Tim. 1:17, 'who dwelleth in light inaccessible, whom no man hath seen, nor can see,' 1 Tim. 6:16; and again, Isa. 42:8, 'I am Jehovah, and my glory I will not give to another.' Now, that other is not, nor can be, any other but the creature, for it is only God and the creature that have any being, or pretence thereto; when therefore God says, 'he will not give his glory to another,' the meaning is, he will not in any sort allow or endure the glory that is proper unto him as God to be given unto his creatures, any of them, in any respect; much less hath he himself given that glory to them, that they should be God with himself, who are a different, yea, infinitely different, sort of being from him. And again, in Isa. 40. 15, having said 'that all nations before him are as nothing, and are counted to him less than nothing and vanity,' the prophet's inference from thence is this, 'To whom then will ye liken me?' His next and immediate scope is, to confound their imaginations and outward lineaments made of him in graven images; but then his argument for this runs higher and reacheth deeper: My being is such and so transcendent that you cannot match me with all nations or the souls of men, much less therefore draw any outward shape in graven images; for 'who hath seen his shape at any time?' Therefore also his being, wisdom, power holiness is of another kind than ours; the souls of men made wise and holy cannot match him. As therefore God is called the only good, and only wise, and only immortal, so by the same reason only is or hath a being. And therefore the glory of his nature is, that it is incommunicable. Take his essence: we cannot attain to dwell in it, as he dwells in himself, that inhabiteth eternity—1 Tim. 6:16, 'Who only hath immortality, dwelling in the light which no man can approach unto, whom no man hath seen, nor can see'—much less therefore can reach to the participation of him in his being and glory, so as to be himself. His being is proper to himself, and entire with himself.
The devil of this opinion that the creature is God, or at least a piece of him, hath haunted the world in former ages as well as it walks now. The philosophers had it up,* ...
[* Hermes Trismegistus, 1. 5, ad filiam Tatium. 'Nihil est in universo mundo quod non sit ipse. Deus est totum quod vides, totum quod non vides.'-Seneca. Agust 1. contra Secundinum Manicheum, speaking against the opinion of the Manichees, argues thus: 'Si dominus ejusdem substantise Creator et Creatura essent, non reprehenderentur qui servi erant Creaturæ ptius quam Creatoris, quoniam cuique serviissent ab eadem natura et substantia non recessissent; cum vero reprehenduntur ab apostolo, et detestabiles habentur qui et servierunt Creaturæ potius quam Creatori, satis ostenditur, illius et hujus diversas esse substantias.' Again, in Gerson's time, Gerhard: 'Quidam se imaginati sunt per contemplationem ita uniri Deo, ut reipsa ipsorum natura in abyssali profundo submergantur; pura humanitas annihiletur, et toto transeat in Divinitatem.' Which also the Anabaptists, which are called Methiists in Holland, have held of the humanity of Christ. Also Servetus, as Calvin hath it, held 'Deitatem in omnibus Creaturis esse substantialiter.' So Calvin, Tract. Theolog., page 609 and 657. Also Sebastianus Franck, 'In trunco, Deum esse truncum, in porco porcum, in diabolo diabolum': Calvin, cap. 18, speaking of Lucretinus, one of them, 'Sum Deus.' saith he. And since then, Wigelius; and of old, Dionysius: 'Esse omnium est ipsa Divinitas, omne quod vides, et quod non vides.' Lucan, 1. 8, 'Jupiter is est quodcunque vides quocunque moveris.']
...the poets amongst the heathen, and heretics among the Christians, downwards in all ages. My brethren, consider what Paul hath uttered, Rom. 1:25; speaking of the heathen, he saith, 'They changed the truth of God into a lie' (that is, the essence and being of God), 'and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever, Amen.' In which speech at once he puts a bar and wall of separation between God's being and that of the creatures, and also adores the infinite blessedness of that his being entire within itself, as is not communicable to the creature; and also speaks in opposition to the worshipping of creatures as God upon any account, much less as if they were essentially God. The Jews indeed, they would narrow God, by confining him to their temple; and therefore God vindicates himself against that restraint by this, Isa. 66:1, 'I made all things: and where will you find me an house?' But the heathen, they fancied God was like the creatures, and under that notion worshipped him in the creatures; and in opposition thereunto said Isaiah also, 'To whom will ye liken me?' speaking of heathenish idolatry. And Paul had an eye to both: Acts 17:24, 'God, that made the world, and all things therein, dwelleth not in temples made with hands;' and again, Acts 17:29, 'We ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold, or silver, or stone, graven by art and man's device.' The idolatry of the heathen did rise no higher (whatever the opinion of some of them was) than this, that 'they changed the truth' (or essence) 'of God into this lie,' by worshipping the creature as like unto God; and yet thereby (whilst they knew it not) 'they worshipped the creature more than God.' If God found fault with these, how must his jealousy rise up in fury against those that not only make the creature like to God, but make every creature to be God himself! To these he might not only say, as to them, 'To whom will ye liken me?' but who, more impiously, do make the creature the same that I am. This is an idolatry which the generality of the heathen practised not.
Are not we, as was said, the clay, and he the potter? And are not those two distant enough, if we take but the distance between a man that is the potter and his clay, when yet the man himself, who is that potter, is made, as well as his pots are by him? You find the comparison, Jer. 18:6, and Rom. 9:21. But, to make God the potter, to turn himself to clay, and then to make vessels out of himself, and then for him to say again unto his pots as made out of himself, 'Return, ye sons of men, into God again' (as their fancies are), is not this a goodly religion? A goodly religion indeed! 'O ye potsherds of the earth,' know your distance from your Creator; you are of a differing metal! 'Let the potsherds of the earth rant it against their fellow-potsherds of the earth,' as Isaiah hath it, Isa. 45:9, and not think to vie with your Creator, as if you were pieces of him, yea, fellow-mates with him, whenas you are less than nothing: Isa. 40:17, 'They are nothing; yea, less than nothing.' He hath much ado to keep himself from denying them a name of being; and even that vanisheth whilst compared with him. And if they had been a drop of him, taken altogether they could not have added to this ocean; but if they be nothing, and less than nothing, then sure they are no parts of him; of which afterwards.
Again, To argue this from invincible reason. If all things were God, all difference of good and evil would be taken away, and God should sin in all that is acted in and by the creature, which is that these men do aim at, to have their consciences discharged of all obligations. If they can once persuade their souls that they are God, then as God sins not, so nor do they.
Again, If so, then there would be no obligation between the Creator and the creature, nor any law which they are obliged unto; which also they would obliterate out of their own and other men's consciences, in saying that it proceeds from the degenerate ignorance of the creature, and their unbelief of what they truly are, that they think themselves subject to a law.
Again, There could be no redemption, the creature needed it not; for it could never be lost from God, it being substantially a piece of himself. Nor God could make no election nor reprobation among his creatures; for himself were both that which is chosen, and what is condemned; and he would then be condemning himself, or self-condemned. And God should hate part of himself; whereas 'no man ever yet hated his own flesh,' Eph. 5:29; but the Scripture says in the name of God, 'Esau have I hated,' &c., Rom. 9:13.
Again, All the idolatry of the nations would be justified by this; yea, even such idolatry as the light of the wisest of them condmened.
'Oh sanctas gentes, quibus hæc nascuntur in hortis, Numina!'—Juven.
Condemning the Egyptians worshipping herbs for gods; yea, not only herbs, but serpents, 'four-footed beasts and creeping things;' which the apostle, Rom. 1:23 ('And changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and four-footed beasts, and creeping things'), toucheth upon. Oh! 'these are the gods, O Israel;' and not only these, but the devil himself, that old serpent, for he is a creature too. Yea, men might worship their own draught, and so make a god of that, which God himself, in so much scorn, speaks of the heathens' gods by the prophet, a dunghill god,* ...
[* See Deut. 29:17, marginal reading.—ED.]
...Dii stercorarii. It might further be said that God creates himself, and creates nothing but himself; that opus est artifex, himself the work of his own hand, and yet the maker too.
It is true indeed, the Scriptures says, that 'all things are of him,' and 'all things are thine,' as David in his panegyric made to God. It is also said of him, that he is 'above all, and in you all, and through all,' Eph. 4:6. It is also said that 'God is all in all'; but it is nowhere said, that God is all things, or that all things are God himself.
