THE result of what hath been said in the past Excursion, will, I hope, amount to a sufficient justification of what hath been said at the beginning of this Discourse, about The High Veneration our Intellects owe to God. For Since we may well think in general, that he hath divers Attributes and Perfections of which we have no knowledge or suspicion in particular; and Since of those Attributes of His that are the most manifest to us, as His Power and Wisedom, we have but a very dim and narrow knowledge; and may clearly perceive that there is in these an unbounded Extent of Perfection, beyond all that we can evidently and distinctly discern of them: how unfit must such imperfect Creatures, as we are, be to talk hastily and confidently of God, as of an Object that our contracted understandings grasp, as they are able (or pretend to be so) to do other Objects! And how deep a sense ought we to have of our Inestimable inferiority, to a Being, in reference to whom, both our ignorance and our knowledge ought to be the Parents of Devotion! Since our necessary ignorance proceeds from the numerousness, and Incomprehensibleness of His (many of them undiscovered) Excellencies, and our knowledge qualifies us but to be the more Intelligent Admirers of His conspicuous Perfections.
If we duly and Impartially consider these and the like things, we may clearly perceive, how great an effect and mark of ignorance, as well as presumption, it is, for us Mortals to talk of God’s Nature and the Extent of His Knowledge, as of things that we are able to look through, and to Measure. Whereas we ought whenever we speak of God, and of His Attributes, to stand in great awe, lest we be guilty of any misapprehension or misrepresentation of him, that we might by any wariness and humility of ours have avoided; and lest by an over-weening Opinion of our selves, we presume that we have a perfect, or at least a sufficient, knowledge of every thing in God, whereof we have some knowledge; since this at the least consists in such Notions, as are rather suited to our limited faculties, than any way equal to His Boundless Perfections.
That Higher Order of Intellectual Beings the Angels; though their minds be so Illuminated, and their Knowledge so extensive, the Angels themselves, I say, are in the Scripture affirmed to be desirous to pry into the Mysteries of the Gospel: whence we may guess, how far they are from penetrating to the bottom of what the Scripture calls the Depths (1 Cor. 13. 10) of God; and how much farther they are from comprehending the Infinite Nature of God. And accordingly when in the (formerly mentioned) Majestick Vision, that appeared to the Prophet Isaich, they are set forth1 as Attendants about the Throne of God, they are represented covering their faces with their wings, as not (Isa. 6. 2) able to support, or not presuming to Gaze on, the Dazling Brightness of the Divine Majesty. And shall we poor sinfull Mortals, who are infinitely beneath Him, not onely by the degeneracy and sinfulness of our lives, but even by the imperfection and inferiority of our nature; presume to talk forwardly or irreverently of the Divine Essence and Perfections, without considering the immense distance betwixt God and us; and how unable, as well as unworthy, we are to penetrate the recesses of that Inscrutable as well as Adorable Nature, and how much better it would become us, when we speak of Objects so much above us, to imitate the just humility of that Inspired Poet, that said (Psal. 136. 6) Such Knowledge is too Wonderfull for me; it is High I cannot attain unto it: And joyn in that seemingly, and yet but seemingly, Lofty Celebration of God, (Nehe. 9. 5) That His Glorious Name is Exalted above all Blessing and Praise.
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Footnotes
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Isa. 6. ↩