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CHAPTER IV.

THE OMNIPRESENCE AND OMNISCIENCE OF GOD.

THE infinite knowledge of God is intimately connected with his omnipresence, and, therefore, I shall enter on the consideration of both in this chapter. They are often spoken of as united by the sacred writers. Can any hide himself in secret places, that I shall not see him? Do not I fill heaven and earth, saith the Lord? The heaven and the heaven of heavens cannot contain thee. Great is the Lord, his understanding is infinite." The attribute of knowing all things, as necessarily resulting from the omnipresence of God, is stated as an obvious and elementary truth in that sublime address of the Psalmist: "O Lord, thou hast searched me, and known me. Thou knowest my down-sitting and mine up-rising, thou understandest my thoughts afar off. Thou compassest my path and my lying-down, and art acquainted with all my ways. For there is not a word in my tongue, but lo, O Lord, thou knowest it altogether. Thou hast beset me behind and before, and laid thine hand upon Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high, I cannot attain unto it. Whither shall I go from thy spirit? or, whither shall I flee from thy presence? If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there: if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there. If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea; even there shall thy hand lead me, and thy

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right hand shall hold me. If I say, surely the darkness shall cover me; even the night shall be light about me. Yea, the darkness hideth not from thee; but the night shineth as the day: the darkness and the light are both alike to thee."

The same evidence which proves the being of God, shews that he is present everywhere in the undivided perfection of his nature. "The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament sheweth his handy work. Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night sheweth knowledge." We see the agency of God in the air, the earth, the sky; in all the kingdoms of nature, and in all the blessings of domestic enjoyment. All above and around us will lead us to believe that God is ever present, ever felt, "in the void waste, as in the city full ;"-that he pervades, sustains, surrounds, and fills this universal frame. He who possesses necessary and self-existence, must be everywhere and always the same, and must fill, without any variety or mutation, every point of infinite space.

He fills all space, not merely by knowing all that it contains, all that is done in it, and all that can be done in it, he fills it not only by his authority and power directing all things, and accomplishing all the divine. purposes without any to control them,-but he fills it with his essence and being. God not only fills all places, and at the same time, but he is present in every place, in his nature, and in all his perfections. At the farthest verge of the universe to which our imagination can reach, there is a boundless void beyond which the King eternal, immortal, and invisible fills, and beyond this, still there is an infinite space

which cannot limit his being and attributes. Nothing can exclude the presence of his essence; for he is not only nearus, but in us. "In him we live, and move, and have our being." In consequence of his filling all space, he is not only nearer us than the air that surrounds us, but far nearer us than it is possible for us to conceive. All creatures have their being in him, and at the same time his essence remains unmixed with that of any creature. As no place can be without God, so no place can compass and contain him. It was his influential presence that gave being to the universe at first, and it is his influential presence that sustains it. While all things exist in him, the space which all existences occupy is but a point in the vast infinitude which he fills. What is the wide creation to him " who hath measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, and meted out heaven with the span, and comprehended the dust of the earth in a measure, and weighed the mountains in scales, and the hills in a balance?”

It was this idea of the immensity of God, and of his being present unmixed and undivided in every part of the boundless extent of space, that made Solomon admire his condescension in deigning to make the most magnificent temple the place of his glory. "Will God indeed dwell on the earth? Behold, the heaven and heaven of heavens cannot contain thee: how much less this house that I have builded!" Being spiritual and uncompounded in his nature and essence, he is without parts, and cannot be divided: he is present everywhere, in the world and beyond it, not by diffusion, but himself in his all-perfect nature and attributes. In his omnipresence, he is "high as the

heaven, what canst thou do? Deeper than hell, what canst thou know? The measure thereof is longer than the earth, and broader than the sea."

The omnipresence of God is necessarily implied in his infinite perfection. If there be no perfection wanting in a being who is infinitely perfect, and if it be a perfection to be present everywhere, and at the same time;-to be present everywhere, not successively by motion, but without motion, then it follows that the all-perfect God is omnipresent. Infinite in himself, what power is there without him to bound his nature and essence to time or space; or can we conceive that he would voluntarily place any restraint on himself? Immutable in his being and perfections, it cannot be said of him, that there is any place in heaven or in earth, or in the boundless void of space from which he is absent; or, that he moves from one place to another. Almighty in his power, what is there to limit him in creating and in peopling many millions of worlds through an eternity to come? And must not he who forms be present at the formation of the works which he makes, and continue to be present to direct and uphold them? This was the induction of the Apostle, when persuading the Athenians of the omnipresence of God. He is not far from every one of us; "for in him we live, and move, and have our being. If we have life, and breath, and all things, he from whom we receive them, must be in us and around us." We are placed on a theatre on which we, and every thing about us, are exhibiting the presence of God in all the power and benignity of his nature-and if we are not yet admitted into the place of his peculiar glory,

we are allowed constantly to witness the excellence of his working, and the wisdom of his counsels.

The idolatrous heathens were ignorant of the omnipresence of God as they were of his other perfections: the phenomena of nature they ascribed to the influence of their local deities; they were supposed to preside over certain regions of the air, or the earth, or the sea, over hills and valleys, over groves and fountains, and rivers. Nor did they think it derogatory to conceive that they might be occasionally absent from those very places to which their power was confined. Hence, the keen irony of the prophet addressed to the worshippers of Baal,-irony founded on the notions which the worshippers entertained of their deity. "Cry aloud: for he is a God; either he is talking, or he is pursuing, or he is in a journey, or peradventure he sleepeth, and must be awaked. And they cried aloud, and cut themselves after their manner with knives and lancets, till the blood gushed out upon them. And it came to pass, when mid-day was past, and they prophesied until the time of the offering of the evening sacrifice, that there was neither voice, nor any to answer, nor any that regarded." Hence, also, when the Syrians were defeated by the Israelites, they ascribed the superiority of their enemies to the local influence of the deities which they supposed them to worship. "Their gods are gods of the hills, therefore, they were stronger than we; but let us fight against them in the plain, and surely we shall be stronger than they." Nor were some of the Jews much more enlightened, who conceived that the presence of God was confined to the land of Canaan, or to the temple at Jerusalem. To

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