we are bound to receive it without disputing, and to believe that a plurality of persons is consistent with unity of essence, although we do not know how to reconcile them. It is no excess of humility in creatures, who have just begun to open their eyes and to look around them, to acknowledge that things may be, of which they can form no conception; that there may be truths which their minds cannot grasp; that between finite beings, and Him who is infinite, no comparison can be instituted; and consequently, that a conclusion founded on the supposition that the one is the measure of the other, is presumptuous and false.

The doctrine of the unity settles religion upon a firm and immoveable foundation. We experience nothing of the uncertainty and anxiety which distressed the ancient heathens, who, amidst a multitude of gods, were sometimes at a loss to determine whom it was necessary to propitiate, by whose hand evils had been inflicted, and benefits bestowed. Knowing that there is only one God, we assure ourselves of his presence in every place, and of his agency in every event. If there is evil in the city, he has done it; and if good come, it can be traced to his bounty. Whithersoever we go, his eye beholds, and his power sustains us. It is his goodness which smiles around us in the fair scenes of creation; it is his inspiration which excites worthy thoughts in our minds, and devout affections in our hearts. We know to whom we should turn in the hour of difficulty, and to whom the tribute of our grateful hearts should be paid. "It is he that sitteth upon the circle of the earth, and the inhabitants thereof are as grasshoppers; that stretcheth out the heavens as a curtain, and spreadeth them out as a tent to dwell in. To whom then will ye liken me, or shall I be equal? saith the Holy One."*

LECTURE XIX.

ON GOD.

Immensity of God: denied by some-Definition of Immensity; distinguished from Omnipresence: proofs of Immensity-Distinguished from Infinite Extension-Unwarrantable Speculations respecting it-Presence of God with his Creatures-Practical Reflections.

OUR inquiries concerning the existence and unity of God, are not mere speculations which have no connection with our duty and our happiness. Whether there is a living intelligent Being, possessed of every possible perfection, would be a point which we might spare ourselves the labour of ascertaining, if the investigation were to terminate in the simple knowledge of the fact. It is inconceivable, however, that a subject, confessedly the most sublime which the mind can contemplate, should be so barren of advantage. If there is a God, infinite in excellence, and the Parent of the universe, there must subsist certain relations between him and men, whose existence and faculties are the gifts of his bounty: there must be duties arising from those relations, which the law of our nature binds us to perform; and there are expectations excited by the experience of his goodness, which almighty power can realize. It is natural therefore to ask, Where is this great Being so worthy of our admira tion and homage, that we may offer to him our tribute of adoration and thanks giving, and, with all humility, supplicate his favour and protection? With a devout man in ancient times, we may say, "Oh that we knew where we might * Is. xl. 22, 25.

find him! that we might come even to his seat.”* Is he afar off, or is he near? Is he on earth, or in heaven? If there is some region of the universe which he has chosen as his habitation, it may be so distant that our feeble voice cannot reach it, nor can his arm be extended to us.

The heathens who multiplied their deities, conceived them to be limited beings, who were confined to particular places, and had different provinces assigned to them. We have proofs of these unworthy ideas especially in the writings of the poets. They prevailed not only among the Greeks and Romans, but among other nations; and hence we find, that when the Syrians had been defeated by the Israelites, supposing Jehovah to be only a local Deity, they said to their king, "Their Gods are Gods of the hills, therefore they were stronger than we; but let us fight against them in the plain, and surely we shall be stronger than they." Such of them, however, as rising above the vulgar superstition, approximated to more just conceptions of the Supreme Being, seem to have entertained some notion of his universal presence. "Quocunque te flexeris," says Seneca, "ibi illum videbis occurrentem tibi: nihil ab illo vacat; opus suum ipse implet." We meet him every where: no place is without him; he fills his own work. Virgil too has these well-known lines: Deum namque ire per omnes,

Terrasque, tractusque maris, cœlumque profundum.

But we should remember when such passages occur, that they admit of an interpretation different from what the words suggest to us; for, by some of the philosophers, God was supposed to be the soul of the world, diffused through all its parts, and consequently a material Being.

Mahomet must have believed that God had a bodily shape and a local residence, since he pretended to have seen him when he was taken up into heaven, and tells us that between his eyebrows the distance was equal to a journey of three days. Some of the elder Socinians appear to have fallen into the same gross error; and Biddle, against whom Dr. Owen wrote his book entitled, Vindicia Evangelicæ, maintained that "God glisters with glory, and is resident in a certain place of the heavens, so that we may distinguish between his right and left hand by bodily sight." In the Racovian catechism, or the catechism of the Socinian churches in Poland, the immensity of God is defined to be, "the highest perfection of his dominion, power, wisdom, and providence, extending to all things, and excluded from no place." Nothing is said respecting the immensity of his essence.

In opposition to all these opinions, we maintain not only that God knows all things, and rules over all things, but that he is present in all places, and with all creatures at all times; or in other words, that he is infinite in essence as well as in wisdom and power. Bodies exist in space, which has been defined to be, "extension void of matter or body, and capable of receiving or containing matter or body." A particular body occupies only a portion of space; there are other portions of space where it is not. As body consists of parts, its limits are exactly defined. It has length, breadth and thickness; and the lines terminating these constitute figure. The earth, the sun, mountains, trees, and men, fill certain parts of space, and may be seen from other parts of space, but in these they do not exist. All this is quite obvious; but we find greater difficulty when we proceed to speak of spirits, because, as they have no parts, no dimensions and figure, we do not understand their relation to space. Of this, however, we are certain, that, to use the language of the Schools, they also have an ubi; so that the question may be asked, Where are they? and an answer may be returned, that they are here, and not there. They do not fill the place where Job xxiii. 3. † 1 Kings xx. 23. Benefic. Lib. iv. 8. Virg. Georg. iv. 221. Owen's Vind. Evang. Chap. ii. ¶ Catechesis Eccles. Polon. Sect. iii. de Dei natura, chap. i,

they are, because they are not material; but they are so in it, as not to be in any other place. This is plain with respect to our own spirits. They are so connected with our bodies, that they are where these are, and no where else. In consequence of their presence in a particular place, they can perceive objects within a limited sphere; but beyond it their perception does not extend. They are insulated, and can neither act nor be acted upon by objects at a certain distance, unless they are brought near, or some mode of communication with them is established. There is no doubt, that all other created spirits exist in the same manner in a place. This we are explicitly taught concerning angels, who are represented as moving from place to place, and as at one time in heaven, and at another time on earth. But you cannot ask, Where is God? if you mean that he may be in one place and not in another. His presence is not local; it is universal. "Am I a God at hand, saith the Lord, and not a God afar off? Do not I fill heaven and earth? saith the Lord."

no

A distinction is made between the immensity, and the omnipresence or ubiquity of God. When we call his essence immense, we mean that it has limits; when we say that it is omnipresent, we signify that it is s wherever creatures are. These propositions are not the same, unless creation be infinite; but although we cannot trace its boundaries, and its extent surpasses all calculation, yet there is this objection against supposing it to be absolutely unlimited, that it would be to suppose every part to be finite, but the whole infinite. By the same reasoning which proves that there could not be an eternal succession of beings, each of which began to exist, it is proved that the whole mass of co-existing created beings cannot be infinite. The attributes of God are distinguished into absolute and relative. His absolute attributes are those which may be considered without the supposition of any other thing; his relative attributes are those, the exercise of which supposes the existence of other beings, to whom they have a respect. Immensity is an absolute perfection; it belongs to his essence, which, as it necessarily exists, is necessarily infinite. Omnipresence is a relative perfection; for, to say that he is present with all things, supposes that other things exist besides himself. At the same time, this statement is so far inaccurate, as it may seem to imply that immensity and omnipresence are different; for they are, in truth, the same perfection under different aspects. Omnipresence is merely the relation of immensity to the universe; and all that we assert is, that God is present wherever his creatures are, but his essence is not bounded by creation; for he is present where no creatures are, and consequently, if new worlds were created, would be present also with them.

Some have attempted to prove the immensity of God from his necessary existence. He exists by an absolute necessity of nature, and by the same necessity he is infinite. This necessity being absolute in itself, it has been said, and not depending upon any external cause, it is evident that it must be every where, as well as always unalterably the same; or to express the idea more plainly, this necessity is the reason of his existence in every place, as well as throughout all duration. A necessity which is not every where the same, is plainly a consequential necessity only, depending upon some external cause.. and not an absolute one in its own nature; for, a necessity absolutely such in itself, has no relation to time and place, or any thing else. Whatever therefore exists by an absolute necessity in its own nature, must needs be infinite as well as eternal. To suppose a finite being to be self-existent, is to say that it is a contradiction for that being not to exist, while its absence or non-existence may be conceived without any contradiction; which is the greatest absurdity in the world. For, if a being can without a contradiction be absent from one place, it may without a contradiction be absent likewise from another * Jer. xxiii. 23, 24.

place, and from all places; and whatever necessity it may have of existing, must arise from some external cause, and not absolutely from itself; and, consequently, the being cannot be self-existent. We can conceive no reason why a necessary being should be in one place, and not in another. To suppose it to be finite, supposes some cause which determined that it should possess such a quantity of being, and no more. That cause must either be a voluntary cause, or else such a necessary cause, the quantity of whose power is determined and limited by some other cause. But in an original absolute necessity, antecedent in the order of nature to the existence of any thing, nothing of all this can take place, but the necessity is necessarily every where alike.

I have stated this argument nearly in the words of Dr. Clarke.* Its abstruseness renders it difficult of apprehension, and altogether useless to the great majority of mankind. It has even not given complete satisfaction to some who were as profound as himself. It is plain, I think, that no reason can be conceived why a necessary being should be limited; and that limitation presupposes a prior cause, by which the measure of any thing is determined. I confess, however, that I do not understand the meaning of making necessity in the order of nature antecedent to the existence of God. Such necessity is : an abstraction of which I can form no idea, and seems to me as unintelligible as the Fate of the heathens, to which gods and men were alike subject. Both, I suspect, are words, and nothing more.

I proceed to lay before you arguments which are more level to common capacities.

In the first place, it has been already observed, that when we speak of God, we mean a Being possessed of every possible perfection; because if only one were wanting, we could conceive another being still more perfect than he to whom we had first directed our attention; and that other would be God. We unite in one assemblage all the excellencies which we observe in creatures, free from mixture and limitation; we join to these every other excellence which we can conceive, although in creatures no trace of it should appear; and we refer all, whether communicable or incommunicable, to the Divine nature, as their proper and original subject. Now, the limited nature of creatures is evidently an imperfection; and it is because such is our judgment, that we consider those creatures which can, if I may speak so, enlarge their being by the power of locomotion, as having an advantage above those which are fixed to a particular place. If vegetables were sentient beings, we should deem animals superior to them, for this single reason, that they were not like them attached to the soil. And among the qualities which exalt angels above men, this is one, that although they cannot be in more places than one at the same time, yet they can pass from heaven to earth, and successively visit the various parts of creation. The limited nature of man is manifestly the cause of his imperfection. His sensations, enjoyments, and operations, are confined to a narrow sphere, beyond which events are taking place over which he has no control, and sources of happiness exist, from which he can draw no supply. Hence fancy in its dreams has sometimes, with a view to remedy this defect, invested him with a power to transport himself from place to place at his pleasure. The result is, that in our opinion it is better for a being to be in many places than in few, to be in all places than in many. To suppose, therefore, God to exist only in one part of the universe, to be in heaven but not upon earth, to circumscribe his essence within any boundaries however widely extended, would be to conceive of him as similar to his creatures. It would be easy to imagine a being still more perfect, for certainly he would be more perfect who was present at the same time in heaven and on earth. Thus it appears that it is agreeable to reason to ascribe immensity to God.

* Discourse concerning the Being and Attributes of God, p. 44.

In the second place, immensity is necessarily implied in the other perfections of the divine nature; or those perfections are such, that unless the divine nature were immense, they would not belong to it. What the perfections of God are, and that he is actually possessed of them, will be afterwards shewn; and in the mean time, we may be permitted to assume their existence. Every sound theist ascribes infinite perfections to God, infinite power, infinite wisdom, infinite goodness, and consequently must believe his essence to be infinite; for it would be a manifest absurdity to suppose a Being to have infinite perfections and a finite nature, to be limited and unlimited at the same time. It is one of our clearest conceptions, that the degree of any quality must be relative to the nature in which it is inherent, as the effect is proportioned to the cause. We are sometimes surprised to find a degree of power in certain creatures, much exceeding what their appearance had led us to expect; but we are never led to think that it may be indefinitely increased so as to be equal to every possible effect. It will be readily granted, that the divine understanding is infinite, or that God knows all things throughout the whole extent of the creation. The question of the Psalmist contains its own answer: "He that planted the ear, shall he not hear? He that formed the eye, shall he not see? He that teacheth man knowledge, shall not he know?"* The source of intelligence must be an intelligent Being; the Maker of all things must be acquainted with his own works. But how should he know every thing in the universe, ample as its boundaries are, and innumerable as are the substances of which it is composed, if he had a local habitation in a particular portion of space? Some things would be too distant to be seen, or too minute to be observed, or transacted in such secrecy as to be unknown to all who were not present on the spot. The universal and particular knowledge of God, his knowledge of all creatures without the exception of the least or the most obscure, and of all the circumstances relating to them, endlessly diversified and often too subtile and slender to be the objects of human observation, presupposes his immediate presence on the scene of their existence. There is no intelligible way of accounting for his infinite knowledge, but that of the Psalmist: "Thou compassest my path, and my lying down, and art acquainted with all my ways. For there is not a word in my tongue, but, lo, O Lord, thou knowest it altogether. Thou hast beset me behind and before, and laid thine hand upon me."t I might farther illustrate this point, by shewing that the almighty power of God presupposes the infinity of his essence, but the observations which might be made will occur under the next argument.

In the third place, the immensity of the Divine Being may be proved from his works, The creation of all things out of nothing, required almighty power. The power of God is not something distinct from his essence, but is his essence itself in energy, or God himself working. But we cannot conceive any being to act where it is not; the action of every being with which we are acquainted, supposes its presence. The actions of men are confined to the spot on which they reside; and if they are said to act at a distance, it is in a figurative sense, because their orders are executed by persons employed in their service. But God made use of no ministers, or subordinate agents, in the work of creation, and must therefore have been present in every portion of space where any being exists besides himself.

If we turn our attention to the providential government of the universe, we shall be led to the same conclusion respecting the omnipresence of God. Reason and revelation concur in bearing testimony to this truth, that the system of nature is sustained by the same power which raised it out of nothing. To imagine, that after it was arranged and subjected to certain laws, it was left to itself, and that it moves, like a well constructed machine, without requi Psalm xciv. 9, 10. + Psalm cxxxix. 3—5.