1. To look upon God
with eyes of flesh is impossible: for the incorporeal cannot be
subject to bodily sight: and the Only begotten Son of God Himself
hath testified, saying, No man hath seen God at any
time John i. 18.. For if
according to that which is written in Ezekiel any one should understand
that Ezekiel saw Him, yet what saith the Scripture? He saw the
likeness of the glory of the Lord Ezekiel i. 28.;
not the Lord Himself, but the likeness of His glory, not the
glory itself, as it really is. And when he saw merely the
likeness of the glory, and not the glory itself, he fell to the
earth from fear. Now if the sight of the likeness of the glory
brought fear and distress upon the prophets, any one who should attempt
to behold God Himself would to a certainty lose his life, according to
the saying, No man shall see My face and live Exod. xxxiii. 20.. For this cause God of His great
loving-kindness spread out the heaven as a veil of His proper Godhead,
that we should not perish. The word is not mine, but the
Prophet’s. If Thou shalt rend the heavens, trembling
will take hold of the mountains at sight of Thee, and they will flow
down Is. lxiv. 1, Septuagint. R.V. Oh that
Thou wouldest rend the heavens, that Thou wouldest come down, that the
mountains might flow down.. And why dost
thou wonder that Ezekiel fell down on seeing the likeness of the
glory? when Daniel at the sight of Gabriel, though but a servant of
God, straightway shuddered and fell on his face, and, prophet as he
was, dared not answer him, until the Angel transformed himself into the
likeness of a son of man Dan. x. 9, 16, 18.. Now if the
appearing of Gabriel wrought trembling in the Prophets, had God Himself
been seen as He is, would not all have perished?