of society; whatever or wherever we contemplated, throughout the works and dominions of the Eternal God, we should have cause to be astonished at the displays of his incomprehensible intelligence and wisdom, the grandeur of his mighty operations, the never-ceasing and unbounded effects of his goodness and love. For He is ever present, ever felt Where universal love not smiles around. "These are thy works, parent of good. Great and marvellous are thy works, Lord God Almighty; just and true are thy ways, thou King of saints. Who shall not fear thee, O Lord, and glorify thy name, for thou only art holy?" How great and awful, and far surpassing our conception must be the perfections and the majesty of God. On him every thing in the animate and inanimate creation is depending every moment for its being, its properties, its continued existence; the sparrow, that cannot fall to the ground without his permission, not less than the bright assemblage of worlds that move in harmonious order throughout the range of illimitable space. He is present himself, in all the perfection of his being, with the atom, to give it its formation and direction, with the insect to preserve it, not less than with man to continue each pulsation of his heart, or with the archangel to pour lustre and beauty around him by the reflection of his own glories. How dark and inadequate must be all our thoughts of Him who does all this by his will and his word; who د commands the heavens, and they rain not; who speaks to the elements, and they obey him; who bids the universe fulfil its destination; and who will hereafter roll together the heavens as a scroll, and make the earth retire from his presence! "Hast thou not known, hast thou not heard, that the everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary? There is no searching of his understanding." 91 CHAPTER 11. ON THE ATTRIBUTES OF GOD. On the Spirituality and Unity of his Nature. WHEN we look around us we perceive a substance whose qualities are extension, divisibility, and impenetrability. When we observe what takes place within us, we are conscious of the operations or acts of reflection and volition, of the states of mind in which we are affected with joy or sorrow, hope or fear; and because these latter qualities are different from the former, we justly conclude that the substances to which they respectively belong, are also essentially different. Of these substances we cannot know any thing but by their properties. The one we call matter, and the other immaterial, or not matter. As intelligence is the attribute of the immaterial substance, and as the Creator and Preserver of all things possesses this attribute in an infinite degree, we are led to infer that his nature cannot be material, but spiritual. The testimony of revelation confirms this conclusion; it tells us that God is a spirit. To this conclusion we are led by a variety of considerations. The Deity, as possessed of self-existence, eternity, and infinity, must, in his nature, be simple and incorruptible. He cannot have the attributes either of figure, or parts, or motion, or divisibility, or any of the properties of matter, since these convey the notion of finiteness, and cannot belong to him who is infinite in all his perfections. has communicated, we infer the spirituality of his nature and essence. Every attribute negative of imperfection of which he is the author in his creatures, necessarily belongs to himself. The Almighty Creator not only displays his wisdom and understanding in the phenomena of nature, but because he is the Creator, has produced a substance which is susceptible of perception, of comprehension, and of judgment. The mere act of bestowing properties such as these, implies that he himself possesses them, and his possession of them again implies the spirituality of his nature. He that planned the ear, shall he not hear? He that formed the eye, shall he not see? From the powers which he Assuming that God is one, is infinite, unchangeable, omnipresent, and all perfect, we might easily prove that He who is possessed of these attributes is a spirit. We can say little of what a spirit is. We know that angels and the souls of men are in their nature and essence spiritual. We know this not only from revelation, but from a variety of other sources to which we cannot now allude. But it is in a far higher sense that we say of the self-existing and eternal God that he is a spirit. The highest order of beings, whatever be their essence, have been created by him, are depending upon him, and are, therefore, finite in their power and faculties. But his nature is necessarily spiritual, uncreated, independent, and infinite in all his perfections. He is the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only living and true God. It is true, bodily parts are ascribed to him in scripture. He is spoken of as having eyes, and ears and a mouth, and hands. But this is in condescension to our weakness. Our opinion of what is comparatively unknown, is formed from its supposed relation or resemblance to what we do know. And when He makes himself known to us, who is the blessed and only Potentate, the King of kings, and Lord of lords, who only hath immortality, dwelling in the light which no man can approach unto, whom no man hath seen, nor can see, when he makes his character and perfections known to us, he addresses us in the language which we already understand, and which is best adapted to aid our conceptions on a subject on which the conceptions of all created beings, however just, must remain inadequate. Besides, those acts which God is said to perform by the parts of the human body ascribed to him, are somewhat analogous to the same acts which man performs by the use of similar parts. So that when God is thus spoken of, we are to understand his visible operations, and not his invisible nature. Thus, the wisdom of God is called his eye, because he knows that with his mind which we see with our eyes. The efficiency of God is called his hand and arm, because it is with our hands that we act, and it is by them that men generally exert their power. When God is said to have eyes and ears, we are to understand his omniscience; by his face, the manifestation of his favour; by his mouth, the revelation of his will; by his heart, the tenderness and sincerity of his affections; and by his feet, his omnipresence. We exercise attributes, and perform works somewhat similar, by means of bodily organs and faculties; and God, in condescension to |