f the sea, yet it can do nothing here. "Canst
thou by searching find out God?" Job xi. 7. Imagination cannot travel in
these bounds, for his centre is everywhere, and his circumference nowhere,
as an old philosopher speaks of God _Deus est, cujus centrum est ubique,
circumferentia nusquam._ How shall it then find him out? There is nothing
sure here, but to lose ourselves in a mystery, and to follow his majesty
till we be swallowed up with an--_O altitudo!_ O the depth and height and
length and breadth of God! O the depth of his wisdom! O the height of his
power! O the breadth of his love! And O the length of his eternity! It is
not reason and disputation, saith Bernard, will comprehend these, but
holiness, and that by stretching out the arms of fear and love, reverence
and affection. What more dreadful than power that cannot be resisted, and
wisdom that none can be hid from? and what more lovely than the love
wherewith he hath so loved us, and his unchangeableness which admits of no
suspicion? O fear him who hath a hand that doth all, and an eye that
beholds all things, and love him who hath so loved us, and cannot change!
God hath been the subject of the discourses and debates of men in all
ages; but oh! _Quam longe est in rebus qui est tam communis in vocibus?_
How little a portion have men understood of him? How hath he been hid from
the eyes of all living? Every age must give this testimony of him,--we have
heard of his fame, but he is hid from the eyes of all living. I think,
that philosopher that took it to his advisement, said more in silence than
all men have done in speaking. Simonides being asked by Hiero, a king,
what God was, asked a day to deliberate in and think upon it. When the
king sought an account of his meditation about it, he desired yet two days
more; and so as oft as the king asked him, he still doubled the number of
the days in which he might advise upon it. The king wondering at this,
asked what he meant by those delays; saith he, _Quanto magis considero,
tanto magis obscurior mihi videtur_,--"the more I think on him, he is the
more dark and unknown to me." This was more real knowledge than in the
many subtile disputations of those men who, by their poor shell of finite
capacity and reason, presume to empty the ocean of God's infiniteness, by
finding out answers to all the objections of carnal reason against all
those mysteries and riddles of the Deity. I profess, I know nothing can
satisfy reason