world: and the prophets had always rebuked them, for resting upon their outward solemnities, Isa. lviii. 5; Micah vi. 6, 7. But a worship without legal rites was proper to an evangelical state and the times of the gospel; God having then exhibited Christ, and brought into the world the substance of those shadows, and the end of those institutions. There was no more need to continue them, when the true reason of them was ceased. All laws do naturally expire, when the true reason upon which they were first framed is changed.

Or by spirit may be meant, such a worship as is kindled in the heart by the breath of the Holy Ghost. Since we are dead in sin, a spiritual light and flame in the heart suitable to the nature of the object of our worship, cannot be raised in us without the operation of a supernatural grace: and though the fathers could not worship God without the Spirit, yet in the gospel times, there being a fuller effusion of the Spirit, the evangelical state is called the administration of the Spirit, and the newness of the Spirit, in opposition to the legal economy, entitled the oldness of the letter, 2 Cor. iii. 8; Rom. vii. 6. The evangelical state is more suited to the nature of God than any other: such a worship God must have, whereby he is acknowledged to be the true sanctifier and quickener of the soul. The nearer God doth approach to us, and the more full his manifestations are, the more spiritual is the worship we return to God. The gospel pares off the rugged parts of the law, and heaven shall remove what is material in the gospel, and change the ordinances of worship into that of a spiritual praise.

In the words there is,

I. A proposition, "God is a Spirit," the foundation of all religion. II. An inference, "They that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth." As God, a worship belongs to him; as a Spirit, a spiritual worship is due to him. In the inference we have-The manner of worship, "in spirit and in truth"-The necessity of such a worship, " must." The proposition declares the nature of God; the inference the duty of

man.

The observations we have to make lie plain. -God is a pure spiritual Being, he " is a Spirit." The worship due from the creature to God, must be agreable to the nature of God, and purely spiritual. The evangelical state is suited to the nature of God.

Observation 1. God is a pure spiritual Being.

It is the observation of one, that the plain assertion of God's being a Spirit is found but once in the whole Bible, and that is in this place; which may well be wondered at; because God is so often described with hands, feet, eyes, and ears, in the form and figure of a man. The spiritual nature of God is deducible from many places; but not any where, as I remember, asserted totidem verbis, in so many words, but in this text. Some allege that place, "the Lord is that Spirit," 2 Cor. iii. 17, for the proof of it; but that seems to have a different sense. In the text the nature of God is described; in that place, the operations of God in the gospel. "It is not the ministry of Moses, or that old covenant, which communicates to you that spirit it speaks of; but it is the Lord Jesus, and the doctrine of the gospel delivered to him whereby this spirit and liberty is dispensed to you: he opposes here the liberty of the gospel to the servitude of the law." It is from Christ, that a Divine virtue diffuseth itself by the gospel: it is by him, not by the law, that we partake of that Spirit.

The spirituality of God, is as evident as his being. If we grant that God is, we must necessarily grant that he cannot be corporeal; because a body is of an imperfect nature. It will appear incredible to any that acknowledge God the first Being and Creator of all things, that he should be a massy, heavy body, and have eyes and ears, feet and hands, as we have. For the explication of it;

(1.) Spirit is taken various ways in Scripture. It signifies sometimes an aerial substance, as Psa. xi. 6, a "horrible tempest;" Hebrew, " a spirit of tempest." Sometimes the breath, which is a thin substance, Gen. vi. 17, "all flesh, wherein is the breath of life;" Hebrew, "spirit of life." A thin substance, though it be material and corporeal, is called spirit: and in the bodies of living creatures, that which is the principle of their actions is called spirit-the animal and vital spirits, and the finer parts extracted from plants and minerals we call spirits, those volatile parts separated from that gross matter wherein they were immersed, because they come nearest to the nature of an incorporeal substance. And from this notion of the word, it is translated to signify those substances that are purely immaterial, as angels, and the souls of men. Angels are called spirits. "Who maketh his angels spirits," Psa. civ. 4. Heb. i. 14: and not only good angels are so called, but evil angels. Mark i. 27. Souls of men are called spirits, Eccl. xii; and the soul of Christ is called so, John xix. 30. Whence God is called "the God of the spirits of all flesh," Numb. xxvii. 16: and spirit is opposed to flesh. Isa. xxxi. 3. The Egyptians are "flesh and not spirit." And our Saviour gives us the notion of a spirit to be something above the nature of a body, Luke xxiv. 39; not having flesh and bones, extended parts, loads of gross matter. It is also taken for those things which are active and efficacious: because activity is of the nature of a spirit. Caleb

"The

had another spirit, Numb. xiv. 24, an active affection. The vehement motions of sin are called spirit, Hos. iv. 12. spirit of whoredoms" is used in that sense. "A fool uttereth all his mind," all his spirit, Prov. xxix. 11; he knows not how to restrain the vehement motions of his mind. So that the notion of a spirit is, that it is a fine immaterial substance, an active being, that actuates itself and other things. A mere body cannot actuate itself; as the body of man cannot move without the soul, no more than a ship can move itself without wind and waves.

So God is called a Spirit, as being not a body, not having the greatness, figure, thickness, or length of a body, wholly separate from any thing of flesh and matter. We find a principle within us nobler than that of our bodies; and therefore we conceive the nature of God, according to that which is more worthy in us, and not according to that which is the vilest part of our natures. God is a most spiritual Spirit, more spiritual than all angels, all souls:1 as he exceeds all in the nature of being, so he exceeds all in the nature of spirit: he hath nothing gross, heavy, material in his essence.

(2.) When we say God is a Spirit, it is to be understood by way of negation. There are two ways of knowing or describing God: the one by way of affirmation, affirming that of him in a way of eminency, which is excellent in the creature; as when we say, God is wise, good: the other by way of negation, when we remove from God in our conceptions what is tainted with imperfections in the creature. The first ascribes to him whatsoever is excellent; the other separates from him whatsoever is imperfect. The first is like a limning, which adds one colour to another to make a comely picture; the other is like a carving, which pares and cuts away whatsoever is superfluous, to make a complete statue. This way of negation is more easy; we better understand what God is not, than what he is; and most of our knowledge of God is by this way: as when we say, God is infinite, immense, immutable, they are negatives: he hath no limits, is confined to no place, admits of no change. When we remove from him what is inconsistent with his being, we do more strongly assert his being, and know more of him when we elevate him above all, and above our own capacity. And when we say God is a Spirit, it is a negation; he is not a body; he consists not of various parts, extended one without and beyond another. He is not such a spirit as our souls are, to be the form of any body; a spirit, not as angels and souls are, but infinitely higher: we call him so, because, in regard of our weakness, we have not any other term of excellency to express or conceive of him by; we transfer it to God in honour, because spirit is the highest excellency in our nature. Yet we must apprehend God above any spirit, since his nature is so great, that he cannot be declared by human speech, perceived by human sense, or conceived by human understanding.

Some among the heathens imagined God to have a body; some thought him to have a body of air, some a heavenly body, some a human body. And many of them ascribed bodies to their gods; but bodies without blood, without corruption; bodies made up of the finest and thinnest atoms; such bodies, which if compared with ours, were as no bodies. The Sadducees also, who denied all spirits, and yet acknowledged a God, must conclude him to be a body and no spirit. Some among Christians have been of that opinion. Tertullian is charged by some, and excused by others: and some monks of Egypt were so fierce for this error, that they attempted to kill one Theophilus a bishop, for not being of that judgment.

But the wiser heathens were of another mind, and esteemed it an unholy thing to have such imaginations of God.3 And some Christians have thought God only to be free from any thing of body, because he is omnipresent, immutable, he is only incorporeal and spiritual; all things else, even the angels, are clothed with bodies, though of a finer matter and a more active frame than ours: a pure spiritual nature they allowed to no being but God. Scripture and reason meet together to assert the spirituality of God. Had God had the lineaments of a body, the gentiles had not fallen under that accusation of changing his glory into that of a corruptible man, Rom. i. 23. This is signified by the name God gives himself, Exod. iii. 14, "I am that I am," a simple, pure, uncompounded being, without any created mixture; as infinitely above the being of creatures as above the conceptions of creatures: "Touching the Almighty, we cannot find him out," Job xxxvii. 23. He is so much a Spirit that he is the Father of spirits, Heb. xii. 9. The Almighty Father is not of a nature inferior to his children. The soul is a spirit; it could not else exert actions without the assistance of the body, as the act of understanding itself and its own nature, the act of willing, and willing things against the incitements and interest of the body; it could not else conceive of God, angels, and immaterial substances; it could not else be so active, as with one glance to fetch a compass from earth to heaven, and by a sudden motion, to elevate the understanding from an earthly thought, to the thinking of things as high as the highest heavens. If we have this opinion of our souls, which in the nobleness of their acts surmount the body, without which the body is but a dull, inactive piece of clay; we must needs have a higher conception of God, than to clog him with any matter, though of a finer temper than ours. We must conceive of him by the perfections of our souls, without the vileness of our bodies. If God made man according to his image, we must raise our thoughts of God according to the noblest part of that image, and imagine the exemplar or copy, not to come short, but to exceed the thing copied by it. God were not the most excellent substance, if he were not a Spirit. Spiritual substances are more excellent than bodily; the soul of man more excellent than other animals; angels more excellent than men: they contain in their own nature whatsoever dignity there is in the inferior creatures. God must have therefore an excellency above all those, and therefore is entirely remote from the conditions of a body.

It is a gross conceit, therefore, to think that God is such a Spirit as the air is:1 for that is to be a body as the air is, though it be a thin one; and if God were no more a Spirit than that or than angels, he would not be the most simple Being. Yet some think that the spiritual Deity was represented by the air in the ark of the testament. It was unlawful to represent him by any image; that God had prohibited. Every thing about the ark had a particular signification: the gold and other ornaments about it signified something of Christ, but were unfit to represent the nature of God. A thing purely invisible, and falling under nothing of sense, could not represent him to the mind of man: the air in the ark was the fittest, it represented the invisibility of God, air being imperceptible to our eyes. Air diffuses itself through all parts of the world, it glides through secret passages into all creatures, it fills the space between heaven and earth; there is no place wherein God is not present.

To evidence this,

[1.] If God were not a Spirit, he could not be Creator. All multitude begins in and is reduced to unity. As above multitude there is an absolute unity, so above mixed creatures there is an absolute simplicity. You cannot conceive number without conceiving the beginning of it in that which was not number, namely, a unit: you cannot conceive any mixture, but you must conceive some simple thing to be the original and basis of it. The works of art, done by rational creatures, have their foundation in something spiritual. Every artificer, watchmaker, carpenter, has a model in his own mind of the work he designs

Talov. Socin. Proflig. p. 129, 130. 2 Amyrald Sup. Heb. 9. p. 146, &c.