to be the Universe. How they could imagine God a compound consisting of so many parts as there are substances in the world, which is making many to be one, we need not now inquire for whatever notions they held inconsistent with unity, they did not see the inconsistency, and therefore we cannot deny them orthodox upon this article.

3. Some of the ancients assigned two causes concurring to the production of all things; Thales, Mind and Water; Anaximenes, Mind and Fire; the Stoics, God and Matter, to which they might as well have joined Space and Time if they had thought of them: but then they held their active principle to be One, and the others purely passive to take such forms as should be impressed upon them. Plato and the Pythagoricians asserted the eternity of ideas and forms, the former of which served the Deity for a plan guiding him in his works, and the latter to constitute the essences of things by being applied to Substance, of which they seem to have had a more confused idea than Mr. Locke or myself, for one knows not whether they conceived it as having an existence of its own, or receiving it from time to time upon the application of form. Our modern freethinkers talk confidently of a nature of things, eternal and unalterable, controlling the Deity, so that he cannot do this or the other, but as that shall permit him. I wish they would explain what we are to understand by this nature of things, with which they seem to be so well acquainted, as to tell us precisely what it will require upon every occasion: by their manner of speaking, they seem to make it another cause independent on the First; or rather make the First Cause dependent upon this for the measures it shall take; for they say God would be more beneficent and merciful than he is, delivering us from our vices with the miseries consequent upon them, but the nature of things will not let him. How they could avoid the imputation of two First Causes I know not, for they deal together in objections, and are wisely cautious never to give us a complete creed of their own, lest there should appear more holes in it than they can pick in any other. But the ancients, holding the eternity of forms and ideas, supposed them subsistencies inexisting within the divine Mind: what is the proper import of Inexisting, or the distinction between a Subsistence and a Substance, I shall not pretend to explain having no clear apprehension of it myself; but I think the invention of these terms show that those who employed them found it agreeable to their reason, that there should be nothing external to the Supreme Being which was not produced by his own power, and con sequently that the First Cause should be one sole and simple sub

4. The difficulty of imagining good and evil to proceed from the same cause induced the Magi to suppose two principles, one to be the source of either: but then greater difficulties will arise upon such a supposition. For the primary properties of substances must be given them together with their existence, nor can we conceive such a property superadded to what had it not in its nature before: now the capacity of receiving pleasure or pain, satisfaction or uneasiness, in spirits, is the foundation of all the good and evil befalling them, and had they not been endued with such capacity there could have been neither, but had they been rendered capable of uneasiness only, there could have been no good, or of satisfaction only, there could have been no such thing as evil in the universe. But we cannot suppose two opposite principles should concur in one operation, nor, could they agree so far, is it conceivable creation should be the joint work of several agents. I know that many workmen may join in the productions of art, for these being made up of pre-existent materials, and completed by piece-meal, each may take in hand some of the several parts, while others work upon the rest; but creation is a single act, instantaneous and admitting no gradations, so that were there a hundred creative powers, the primary qualities of each particular substance must proceed from the same cause, and be received at the same time with its existence. Nor did the Magi themselves imagine otherwise, for they attributed the creation of sentient Beings to Oromasdes, who made them capable of happiness, wherein they would have continued without intermission, unless Arimanius had introduced disorders and mischiefs among them. But his malicious purposes could have taken no effect upon Beings that had not likewise been capable of misery. So then the difficulty remains entire as before, because the good principle must have furnished his antagonist with fitting subjects to wreak his malice upon, and concurred in the production of evil, by giving his creatures a capacity of suffering by it. I do not know whether this argument against the quality of principles has been employed before, nor was there any need of it; for the absurdity of two first causes, which must require another prior first to determine the difference of properties and extent of powers between them, was so glaring, that it has quite exploded that notion off the stage: nor are there any now carrying their thoughts so high as to a first cause, but what are satisfied of its individuality and unity.

5. But our knowledge of the Being and unity of God will avail us little, unless we can gather something concerning what he is. Now the knowing what any substance is, implies our knowing the

qualities belonging thereto, its manner of existence, and particularly whether it may stand so circumstanced as to affect ourselves, for else all the rest would terminate in mere speculation. But qualities and modes of existence, when applied to God, are termed attributes: these then I shall endeavor to investigate so far as I can find a solid foundation in the phenomena of nature, and clearest deductions of reason. For I do not pretend to give an exact description of what is incomprehensible, nor do I design to pursue my inquiries further than my own line of conception shall reach, leaving all beyond with an acknowledgment of my ignorance neither would I proceed upon a fondness to gratify my curiosity, but with a sober and earnest desire of so much understanding in the divine attributes, as it may concern myself and my fellow-creatures to attain.

CHAP. XII.

OMNIPRESENCE.

LITTLE need be said in support of this attribute, which is inseparable from the idea of necessary existence: because, as we have remarked before, there can be no such difference in places as that what is necessary in one spot should not be so elsewhere. And this holds good as well with respect to a particular substance as to a species: therefore there cannot be many necessary substances, though of the same species, because each being absent from the places occupied by the others, there is no other necessity for their being where they are, unless what is brought upon them by a superior cause assigning them their several stations. Therefore whatever has necessary existence anywhere, must be One in number as well as in kind, and exist alike everywhere throughout all the immensity of space. Nor is there any variance of opinion upon this article, all who acknowledge a God, the cause and fountain of all things, believe him to be one pure, undivided, unbounded substance, pervading, containing, and co-existing with all the things he has created.

2. It must be owned this is an incomprehensible idea, too large for our imaginations to grasp, therefore no wonder we find difficulties in it but these arise all from our narrowness of conception and not from any shadow of positive proof that can be produced against it. For no man ever attempted to show the limits that might circumscribe the divine essence, or point the place

from whence it might be absent. But it is hard for us to reconcile omnipresence with individuality, because all the substances falling under our cognizance having a locality, we cannot conceive the same thing present at immeasurable distances unless successively by removing from one place to another. Large bodies we can apprehend taking up a large compass of space, but then the several parts of them occupy their several points; and body being the only object familiar to our senses we take our idea of occupancy from that. Wherefore some I have met with object, not as an argument overthrowing omnipresence, but as a difficulty wanting solution, that we seem to make God extended, and consequently consisting of parts, because it is the accession of parts that extends everything we know of into magnitude. But how are they assured there can be no extension unless by means of parts? even in matter we have already found infinite divisibility so inconceivable, and the difficulties on either side so much wanting a solution, that the most sober and judicious persons have forborne to decide peremptorily upon it and in our own spirits we have found an extension of another kind, for our sense assures us of our inindividuality, and daily experience furnishes us with reasons which to me carry the force of demonstration evincing a sphere of presence, in every part whereof we are actually existent and perceptive, because receiving sensations from a variety of objects at the same time; but neither can the same particle of matter conveying our sensation take various modifications at once, nor can many particles act together upon a mathematical point. And this experience of our own undivided extension may a little help our comprehension of omnipresence, for though we cannot make a new idea we may compound and enlarge those we have in store. Our own manner of existence in a sphere or portion of space sufficient to receive the action of many corporeal particles, we may term a totipresence throughout the contents of that sphere; we may then conceive another substance totipresent in a sphere of an inch, an ell, a rod, a mile, and so rise by degrees to the greatest extent we are able to contain in our imagination; and a totipresence throughout all immensity amounts to the same as omnipresence.

3. But we are unable with our utmost efforts to conceive an immensity of space, much less omnipresence wherein that idea is contained, nevertheless, what we cannot apprehend at once or in the gross, we may by piecemeal: whatever portion of space we fix our thoughts upon at any time we may conceive God to be there, and thus soar from height to height, with a denial of his absence from every point in the progress of our contemplation. And

this method has been recommended of old: "Whither shall I go from thy spirit, or whither shall I flee from thy presence? If I go up into heaven, thou art there: if I make my bed in the grave, behold thou art there. If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea; even there shall thy hand lead me and thy right hand shall hold me." To which we may add from ideas suggested by modern discoveries: If I follow the planets in their orbits, I shall find thee directing their courses; if I enter the assembly of fixed stars, there art thou holding them in their stations; if I penetrate the minute' fibres of vegetables or examine the little corpuscles of air and ether, there art thou also marshalling their order and invigorating their motions. Thus, though we cannot comprehend God absolutely everywhere, we may comprehend him wherever we can think of: this is an idea easy to our imagination, involving us in no perplexities of an extension without parts, and this we may satisfy ourselves with as being enough to answer all our useful purposes.

CHAP. XIII.

ETERNITY.

No proof seems requisite to establish this point, it being selfevident that something must always have existed, and what can that be besides the First Cause from whom all things else received their being? Nor can we find a difference in times any more than places with respect to necessary existence, but what was once and anywhere necessarily existing must be so always as well as everywhere. And the same rule extends to the attributes as well as the existence of God; for if there were a time when he was without any of them, I know not where he could have acquired them, or from what sources derived them. Therefore eternity infers immutability, nor was ever separated from it in the minds of men for all who believe a God, believe not only that he always was, but likewise that he continues, without variation or shadow of change, the same yesterday, to-day, and forever.

2. I know not how we can conceive otherwise of eternity than as a succession of time, with a negation of beginning or end. But the schoolmen are not satisfied with this idea, for they look upon succession as a continual perishing and renewing of things existing in that manner: for I am not and perceive not yesterday, the existence and perceptions I had then being lost and gone, and those