Discourses upon the Existence and Attributes of God

he is present with their essence to sustain it and support it; not in their defection, wherein lies their defilement; and which is not a Physical, but a Moral evil; Bodily filth can never touch an incorporeal substance. Spirits are not present with us in the same manner that one body is present with another; bodies can by a touch only, defile bodies; Is the Glory of an Angel stained by being in a Coal-mine? or could the Angel that came into the Lions Den, to deliver Daniel, be any more disturbed by the stench of the place,^* than he could be scratched by the Paws, or torn by the Teeth of the Beasts? their Spiritual nature secures them against any infection when they are ministering Spirits to Persecuted Believers in their nasty Prisons^*. The Soul is straitly united with the Body, but it is not made white or black, by the whiteness or blackness of its habitation; is it infected by the corporeal impurities of the Body, while it continually dwells in a Sea of filthy Pollution? If the Body be cast into a Common-shore, is the Soul defiled by it? Can a Diseased body derive a Contagion to the Spirit that animates it? Is it not often the purer by Grace, the more the body is infected by nature? Hezekiah's Spirit was scarce ever more fervent with God, than when the Sore, which some think to be a Plague Sore, was upon him^*; How can any Corporeal filth impair the purity of the Divine Essence? it may as well be said, That God is not present in Battles and Fights for his People⁴, because he would not be disturbed by the noise of Canons and clashing of Swords, as that he is not present in the World because of the ill scents: Let us therefore conclude this with the Expression of a Learned man of our own⁵; To deny the Omnipresence of God, because of ill scented places, is to measure God rather by the nicety of Sense, than by the sagacity of Reason.

he is present with their essence to sustain it and support it; not in their defection, wherein lies their defilement; and which is not a Physical, but a Moral evil; Bodily filth can never touch an incorporeal substance. Spirits are not present with us in the same manner that one body is present with another; bodies can by a touch only, defile bodies; Is the Glory of an Angel stained by being in a Coal-mine? or could the Angel that came into the Lions Den, to deliver Daniel, be any more disturb'd by the stench of the place,