God giveth quite in another manner than man doth. It is our fault to measure infiniteness by our last, and to muse of God according as we use ourselves. The soul, in all her conclusions, is directed by principles and premises of sense and experience; and because we converse with limited natures and dispositions, therefore we do not form proper and worthy thoughts of God. It was the gross idolatry of the heathens to 'turn the glory of the incorruptible God into the image of a man.' Rom. i. 23; that is, to fancy God according to the shape and figure of our bodies. And so it is the spiritual idolatry of Christians to fancy God according to the model and size of their own minds and dispositions. I am persuaded there doth nothing disadvantage us so much in believing as this conceit that 'God is altogether like ourselves,' Ps. 1. 21. We, being of eager and revengeful spirits, cannot believe his patience and pardoning mercy; and that, I suppose, was the reason why the apostles (when Christ talked of forgiving our brother seven times in one day), cried out, Luke xvii. 5, 'Lord, increase our faith,' as not being able to believe so great a pardoning mercy either in themselves or God. And therefore, also, I suppose it is that God doth with such vehemency show everywhere that his heart hath other manner of dispositions than man's hath: Isa. Iv. 8, 9, 'My thoughts are not as your thoughts, nor my ways as your ways; as far as the heavens are above the earth, so are my thoughts above your thoughts:' I am not straitened in bowels, nor hardened, nor implacable, as men are; as there is a vast space and distance between the earth and the firmament, so between your drop and my ocean. So Hosea xi. 9, 'I am God, and not man; and therefore Ephraim shall not be destroyed;' that is, I have not such a narrow heart, such wrathful implacable dispositions as men have. Well, then, consider, when God giveth, he will give like himself. Do not measure him by the wretched straitness of your own hearts, and confine God within the circle of the creatures. It is said of Araunah that he gave as a king to David, 2 Sam. xxiv. 23. Whatever God doth, he will do as a God, above the rate and measure of the creatures, something befitting the infiniteness and eternity of his own essence.
—Thomas Manton
For the second point, picturing the Trinity, God hath not only forbidden it, but argued against it: Deut. iv. 15, 16, 'Take therefore good heed unto yourselves, for ye saw no similitude, when the Lord spake to you in Horeb out of the midst of the fire; lest ye corrupt yourselves, and make you a graven image, the similitude of anything male or female.' See how cautelous God is to prevent this abuse, and yet how boldly men practise it.—Thomas Manton
Carnal men at the same time approve what they seem to condemn; they hate and fear strictness: "Herod feared John, because he was a just man, and a holy, and observed him" (Mark vi. 20). They scoff at it with their tongues, but have a fear of it in their consciences: they revile at it while they live, but what mind are they of when they come to die? then all speak well of a holy life, and the strictest obedience to the laws of God: "Let me die the death of the righteous, and let my last end be like his" (Num. xxiii. 10); "Give us of your oil, for our lamps are gone out" (Matt. xxv. 8). Oh, that they had a little of that holiness and strictness which they scoffed at, whilst they were pursuing their lusts. How will men desire to die, as parnal and careless sinners, or as mortified saints? Once more, they approve it in thesi, and condemn it in hypothesi. All the scoffers at godliness within the pale of the visible church, have the same Bible, baptism, creed, pretend to believe in the same God and Christ, which they own with those whom they oppose. All the difference is, the one are real Christians, the other are nominal; some profess at large, the others practise what they profess; the one have a religion to talk of, the others to live by. Once more, they approve it in the form, but hate it in the power. A picture of Christ that is drawn by a painter they like, and the forbidden image of God made by a carver they will reverence and honour, and be zealous for; but the image of God framed by the Spirit in the hearts of the faithful, and described in the lives of the heavenly and the sanctified, this they scorn and scoff at.
—Thomas Manton
