on of the soul while in the body, which is almost addicted unto
the senses in the body, therefore the Lord accommodates himself unto our
terms and notions, _balbutit nobiscum_,--he, like a kind father, stammers
with his stammering children, speaks to them in their own dialect, but
withal, would have us conceive he is not really such an one, but
infinitely removed in his own being from all these imperfections. So when
you hear of these terms in scripture, O beware of conceiving God to be
such a one as yourselves! But, in these expressions not beseeming his
Majesty, because below him, learn your own ignorance of his glorious
Majesty, your dulness and incapacity to be such as the holy One must come
down as it were in some bodily appearance, ere you can understand any
thing of him.

III. If God be a Spirit, then he is most perfect and most powerful. All
imperfection, all infirmity, and weakness in the creature, is founded in
the gross and material part of it. You see the more matter and bodily
substance is in any thing, it is the more lumpish, heavy, and void of all
action. It is the more spiritual, pure, and refined part of the creation
that hath most activity in it, and is the principle of all motions and
actions. You see a little fly hath more action in it than a great
mountain, because there are spirits in it which move it. The bottom of the
world contains the dregs of the creation, as it were,--a mass and lump of
heavy earth, but the higher and more distant bodies be from that, the more
pure and subtile they are, and the more pure and subtile they be, the more
action, virtue, and efficacy they have. The earth stands like a dead lump
but the sea moves, and the air being thinner and purer than both, moves
more easily and swiftly. But go up higher and still the motion is swifter,
and the virtue and influence is the more powerful. What is a dead body
when the soul and spirit is out of it? It hath no more virtue and efficacy
than so much clay, although by the presence of the spirit of it, it was
active, agile, swift, strong and nimble. So much then as any thing hath of
spirit in it, so much the more perfect and powerful it is. Then I beseech
you consider what a One the God of the spirits of all flesh must be,--the
very Fountain spirit,--the Self being spirit,--{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER UPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER PI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~}{~GRE