rit? Every fpirit is a body, and has a form proper to it. Melito, fo much boafted of for * his virtues and knowledge, composed a treatife to prove that God is corporeal." p. 474. The incorporality of the Fathers, p. 472, did not exclude vifibility, nor in confequence all forts of corporality. For there would be a manifeft contradiction in faying that corporeal eyes can see a being that has abfolutely no extenfion. Thofe bifhops alfo, who compofed the council of Conftantinople, which decreed that there is an emanation from the divine effence of an uncreated light, which is, as it were, his garment, and which appeared at the transfiguration of Chrift, muft have believed God to have been a luminous fubftance; for it is impoffible that a visible, and confequently a corporeal light, fhould be an emanation from a pure fpirit. p. 472.

On the mention of this fubject, it may not be amifs to obferve, that there was a famous difpute among the Grecks of the fourteenth century, whether the light which furrounded Christ at his transfiguration was created or uncreated. Gregorius Palamas, a famous monk of mount Athos, maintained that it was uncreated, and Barlaam maintained the contrary opinion. It was objected to Palamas, that an uncreated light could not be feen by mortal eyes. But Leo Allatius attempted to remove this difficulty, by saying that if mortal eyes were fortified by a divine virtue, they might fee the Deity himself. p. 470.

When,

When, continues my author, p. 476, I confider the manner in which the Greek Fathers explain the incarnation of Chrift, I cannot help concluding that they thought the divine nature corporeal. The incarnation, fay they, is a perfect mixture of the two natures, the fpiritual and fubtle nature penetrates the material and corporeal nature, till it is dif perfed through the whole of that nature, and mixed entirely with it, fo that there is no place in the material nature that is void of the fpiritual nature. p. 476.

Clemens of Alexandria fays, in fo many words, that God is corporeal. Encyclopedie, Article Immaterialism. Juftin fays, All substance, which, on account of its tenuity, cannot be fubject to any other, has nevertheless a body, which constitutes its effence. If we call God incorporeal, it is not that he is fo in reality, but to speak of him in the most respectable manner. It is because the effence of God cannot be perceived, and that we are not fenfible of it, that we call it incorporeal, Ib.

Tertullian believed God to be a body, because he thought that what was not a body was nothing. He fays, when we endeavour to form an idea of the divinity, we cannot conceive of it but as a very pure luminous air, diffused every where. Beaufobre, P. 477. Origen obferved that the word incorporeal is not in the Bible. p. 484; and Jerom reproached him with making God corporeal. Maximus did not believe the immenfity of the

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divine fubftance, nor could any of those who thought him corporeal; because it was a maxim with them, that two fubftances could not be in the fame place at the fame time. P. 475. Austin fays that God is a piritual light, and that this light is no other than truth. Is truth nothing, fays he, because it is not diffufed through fpace, finite or infinite. p. 481. This is the very language of the Magi.

Thofe paffages of scripture which speak of God as a Spirit, were fo far from deciding this controverfy in favour of the immateriality of the divine effence, that thofe chriftians who believed God to be corporeal alledged, in fayour of their opinion, that very expreffion of our Saviour, that God is a Spirit. Can you, fays Gregory Nazianzen, conceive of a fpirit without conceiving motion, and diffufion, properties which agree only to body. Origen fays that every fpirit, according to the proper and fimple notion of the word, fignifies a body. This is confirmed by Chalcidius. The idea of a fpirit, according to the ancients, was nothing but an invifible, living, thinking, free, and immortal being, which has within itfelf the principle of its actions and motions. P. 485.

If the modern metaphyfician be fhocked at what he has heard already, what will he say of the Anthropomorphites, who maintained that God had even a human form? and yet Beaufobre fays, P. 502, that this error is fo ancient,

ancient, that it is hardly poffible to find the origin of it. They fuppofed that God had a body, fubtle like light, but with organs exactly like the human body, not for neceffity but for ornament, believing it to be the most excellent of all forms. This opinion muft have been very common in the Eaft, The contrary opinion was even confidered as herefy, because it was the opinion of Simon Magus. Melito, bishop of Sardis, wrote in favour of this opinion, and though it was combated by Novatian in the Weft, and by Origen in the Eaft, it still kept its ground in the church. The monks, who foon became very powerful, undertook its defence, and almost all the anchorites of Nitria were fo attached to it, that, on this account, they raised violent feditions against their patriarch Theophilus, and exclaimed against the memory and writings of Origen. p. 502.

They who did not believe the immenfity of God, believed, nevertheless, his infinity, because he knows all things, and acts every where. There is but one true God, fays the author of the Clementine Homilies. He is adorned with the moft excellent form, he prefides over all beings, celeftial and terrestrial, and conducts all events. He is in the world, as the heart is in the man; and from him, as from a center, there is continually diffused a vivifying and incorporeal virtue, which animates and fupports all things. p. 507..

As we come nearer to the present time, we fhall find that the metaphyfical turn of thofe who are ufually called Schoolmen, refined upon the notions of the early Fathers, as will appear more diftinctly when I recite their opinions concerning the human foul; but still fome of the properties of matter were ascribed to fpirits even till very near our times. It is fomething remarkable, however, that we find in the works of Gregory the Great, who flourished in the fixth century, expreffions more nearly approaching to the modern language than any that were generally used long after his time. The only queftion is whether he had precifely the fame ideas to his words.

He fays that God penetrates every thing without extenuation, and furrounds every thing with extenfion; he is fuperior et inferior fine loco, amplior fine latitudine, fubtilior fine extenuatione. Speaking of Satan going out from the presence of God, he fays, how can he go from him who per molem corporis nufquam eft, fed per incircumfcriptam fubftantiam nufquam deeft? Opera, p. 6. H. I.

Damafcenus, who wrote in the eighth century, fays that God is not in loco, for he is a place to himself, filling all things, and himfelf embracing (complectens) all things; for he, without any mixture, pervades all things, omnia permeat. Opera, p. 281.

Photius, in the ninth century, fays that God is not in the world as created beings are, but in a more fublime manner; that he is in every