lently set forth in that most significant, yet unintelligible paradox of the heathen philosopher-That God was a circle, whose centre was everywhere, but its circumference nowhere. His simplicity also, excluding all composition and mixture, which no creature doth; for, take the more simple of created beings, as angels, and the separate souls of men, yet they are at least compounded in their essences, and powers, and acts; for the power of understanding is not the soul, nor the act of understanding the power; therefore in these there is one thing and another. But it is not so in God; but whatsoever is in God is God himself, being one most pure and simple act. Hence follows his immutability and unchangeableness, there being nothing in God which was not from all eternity. And in the same rank are his omnipotence and all-sufficience, his omniscience and independence, and the like, which are incommunicable attributes, and cannot without blasphemy be ascribed unto any of the creatures.

There are other attributes of God that are communicable, and are so called because they may in some analogy and resemblance be found in the creatures also; so to be holy, just, merciful, true, powerful, and the like, are the names of God, and yet may be ascribed to the creatures. So in that most triumphant declaration of his name to Moses, we find that the most of the letters that compose it may be found in some degrees even among men: the Lord proclaimed his name, "The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, long-suffering, and abundant in goodness and truth, forgiving iniquity, and transgression, and sin," Exod. xxxiv. 5-7. Now this name of God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in goodness, which he seems

so much to delight and glory in, and which he adorns with such fair flourishes, he himself would have us to own and imitate, "Be ye merciful, as your Father also is merciful," Luke vi. 36. To aspire to a resemblance with God in his incommunicable attributes and name, is a most horrid and blasphemous presumption, a pride that cast the devils from heaven to hell; but to aspire to a resemblance to God in his communicable name, is the tendency of grace, and the effect of the Spirit of God, conforming us in some measure to his purity, and making us partakers in this sense of the Divine nature. And therefore it is urged upon us, "Ye shall be holy for I the Lord your God am holy," Lev. xix. 2. And "Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect," Matt. v. 48.

Now these communicable attributes of God, though they may in some respects be found in the creatures, yet then are they properly the names of God, when they are applied to him free from all those imperfections with which they are necessarily attended in the creatures. Abstract them from all imperfections, and we may apply them to God as his name. Now these imperfections are of two sorts, either privative or negative. A creature is then said to be privatively imperfect when he falls short of what he ought to be; and so are the best of men imperfect in this life; merciful they are, but still retain a mixture of cruelty; patient they are, but still they have impatience mixed with it; holy they are, but yet not spotless, as the law requires them to be; and therefore in ascribing holiness, mercy, and patience, unto God, we must be sure to separate from them all such imperfections as are

found in us, through the mixture of the contrary corruptions with those graces; otherwise they will be so far from being the name of God, that they will prove blasphemous derogatives from him; neither is this enough, but we must remove all negative imperfections also. Now a creature is said to be negatively imperfect, when though it hath all the perfections that are due unto it, or required from it, yet it hath not all perfection that is possible or imaginable. Thus the holy angels, and the spirits of just men in heaven, although they are made perfect so as to exclude all privative imperfection, their holiness and their graces there being as perfect as they should be, and as God requires from them, yet have they a negative imperfection; that is, there is some perfection of those graces, and of that holiness, further possible, which they have not, nor is it within the sphere of their natures to attain unto; in which sense it is said, "His angels he chargeth with folly," Job iv. 18; that is, not as if they wanted any wisdom or righteousness that were due unto their natures, but they had not all that wisdom that was possible, and so were at least negatively imperfect.

In all perfections of the creatures, whether angels or men, be they ever so great or excellent, there are three imperfections that will necessarily attend them. 1. That they have them not originally from themselves, but derivatively from another, who is the author and embellisher of their natures. 2. That they have them not unchangeably, but may not only increase, but decrease, yea, or utterly lose them. 3. That they have them not infinitely, but in a stinted and limited measure.

Now in all the communicable attributes of the

Divine nature, remove from them these three negative imperfections, and then apply them to God, and they become his proper name. God is holy, wise, powerful, just, merciful, true, &c., and so are likewise some of his most excellent creatures, whom he hath made like unto himself; but then the dif ference between God and them consists in this, that his wisdom and the rest of his attributes are originally from him, theirs derivatively from him; his infinite and boundless, theirs limited and stinted; his invariable and unchangeable, theirs subject to mutations, and decays, and total abolition. that in these three respects even the communicable attributes of God are themselves incommunicable; and so they are his name, whereby he is known and differenced from all other beings whatsoever.

So

But may it not be here said to me as it was to Manoah, "Why askest thou after my name, seeing it is secret?" Judg. xiii. 18. Indeed we can no more find out the name of God to perfection, than we can his nature and essence, for both are infinite and unsearchable. And there are two expressions in Scripture that make this knowledge impossible, the one of them quite contrary to the other. One is, that God dwelleth in that light to which no man can approach, 1 Tim. vi. 16. Scrutator majestatis opprimetur à gloriâ: "He that will too busily pry into majesty shall be oppressed and dazzled with glory." And the other is, that he dwells in thick darkness, 2 Chron. vi. 1. They both imply the same impossibility of searching out the Almighty to perfection, as Job speaks, Job xi. 7.

But though this comprehensive knowledge be impossible, yet God hath given us hints and traces of himself, by which we may discover enough for

our adoration, though not perhaps for our satisfaction. And there are two ways whereby God hath made known himself and his name unto us; namely, by his works, and by his word.

1. We may spell out God's name by his works; and to this end serve those two great capital letters of heaven and earth, the air and sea; yea, there is no one creature, how vile and contemptible soever it be, but it reads us lectures of the power, wisdom, and goodness of the great Creator; in which sense the apostle tells us, "The invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead," Rom. i. 20.

2. More expressly and distinctly by his word. By this we come to a more clear and evident knowledge of these attributes of God, which the works of nature held forth to us in a more obscure and confused manner. And by this likewise we attain to the knowledge of those perfections of God which the works of creation and providence could never have instructed us in; as of a Trinity in unity, of the eternal generation and temporal incarnation of the Son of God, of the whole mystery of religion, and the tenure of the covenant of grace, which are things that could never have been known but by Divine revelation.

Indeed, we may from the works of God alone gather knowledge enough of him to make us inex-cusable if we worship him not as God, for so did the heathen, as the apostle speaks in the forecited place, Rom. i. 20, but it is only from the word that we know so much of God as to make us eternally blessed and happy. Here he hath displayed his name, "the Lord God, gracious and merciful,