God changed? No more than the sun changes when the different parts of the earth successively come into his light, and retire into darkness. That glorious luminary continues to shine with equal splendour, but terrestrial objects are in perpetual motion. He stands still, and they pass away. To ascribe motion to him is a vulgar error, which philosophy corrects. God does not love at one time, and at another hate an individual continuing in all respects the same; for were this the case, we should be compelled to say that he is mutable. Those who are always holy, are always the objects of his love; and those who are always impure, are always the objects of his hatred. The change is in his creatures, who having lost their righteousness, have fallen under his displeasure; or having recovered it by his grace, have regained his approbation. It would be an unequivocal proof of mutability, if he entertained the same regard to a creature after it had lost its innocence as before; because the object of his regard, although physically the same, would be morally different, and could not continue to attract his love, without a change in him corresponding to the change which it had undergone. The withdrawment of his favour from a sinner, and the restoration of it to the believing penitent, supply irrefragable evidence that he is governed by an unbending principle of rectitude, and that justice and judgment are the habitation of his throne.

The immutability of God is fraught with consolation. It is a rock on which we can fix our feet, while the mighty torrent is sweeping away every thing around us. Awful indeed is the idea of a Being dwelling from age to age amidst the plenitude of perfection and felicity, to whom time is as a moment, and the universe as a span! What is man, that he should regard him? What is man, who yesterday opened his eyes to the light, and to-morrow shall close them in the grave? Yet he condescends to be our friend and protector, and consoles us by the assurance, that although we are as the flower of the field, which is withered by the passing blast, yet his mercy is from everlasting to everlasting, and his faithfulness to children's children. To Christians this consolation belongs. The permanence of his character secures to them the performance of his promises, a welcome reception when they come to him with their requests, succour in the season of need, and happiness stretching beyond the boundaries of time, uninterrupted by death itself, and prolonged through an infinite duration. "The mountains shall depart, and the hills be removed; but my kindness shall not depart from thee, neither shall the covenant of my peace be removed, saith the Lord, that hath mercy on thee."*

The Divine immutability, like the cloud which interposed between the Israelites and the Egyptian army, has a dark as well as a light side. It insures the execution of his threatenings, as well as the performance of his promises; and destroys the hope which the guilty fondly cherish, that he will be all lenity to his frail and erring creatures, and that they will be much more lightly dealt with than the declarations of his own word would lead us to expect. We oppose to these deceitful and presumptuous speculations the solemn truth, that God is unchangeable in veracity and purity, in faithfulness and justice. There is another delusion which this doctrine is fitted to dispel. The thought of hell, as a prison from which there is no release, is alarming; and men, unable to work themselves into a complete disbelief of its existence, have sought to relieve their minds by converting it into a purgatory, or a place of temporary punishment. The Judge will relent, and let the criminals go free. Future sufferings will prove corrective, and prepare for a universal restoration. But here again his immutability meets us. It is vain to expect from him what is inconsistent with his nature. What he is at present he will always be. As fire will always burn, so his holiness will always abhor, and his justice will always pursue with vengeance, the workers of iniquity. There can be no

Isaiah liv. 10,

just hope of escape without a change in themselves, and it must take place before the day of doom. This life is the season of trial, the world to come is the place of recompense, and there the allotment is final. The decree by which it is fixed, is founded on the eternal principles of justice, and is as immutable as God himself.

LECTURE XXI.

ON GOD.

Division of the Divine Attributes into communicable and incommunicable-First communicable Attribute, Knowledge: proof of this Attribute-Extent of the Divine Knowledge-Scholastic distinctions respecting it-Illustration of its Perfection-Practical Reflections.

THE attributes of God are the properties or excellencies by which his nature is distinguished; and in the possession of them, he is absolutely and infinitely perfect. There are two ways of demonstrating them: a priori and a posteriori. They are demonstrated a priori, when having ascertained that there is a necessarily existing Being, we prove that such a Being must be eternal, immense, immutable, intelligent, and active. They are demonstrated a posteriori, when we prove them from the evidence afforded by his works. In the preceding lectures both kinds of reasoning have been employed.

The Divine perfections are usually divided into two classes, the incommunicable, and the communicable. The incommunicable are those of which there is no vestige or resemblance in creatures, as self-existence, absolute eternity, immensity, and immutability. Of these a nature created, limited, dependent, and consequently subject to change, is incapable. The communicable perfections are those to which there is something corresponding in creatures, as knowledge, wisdom, goodness and justice. As they do not in their nature imply the idea of infinity, although in the Creator they are infinite, they may belong in a low degree to limited beings. I say in a low degree, as faint shadows of the great Original; and on account of their comparative insignificance, the Scripture sometimes speaks as if creatures were as destitute of these, as of the perfections which are acknowledged to be incommunicable, and they were to be found in the Creator alone. He is called "the only wise God;" and our Lord said to the young man who addressed him by the compellation of Good Master, "Why callest thou me good? there is none good but one, that is, God." When we are contemplating his underived and unbounded perfection, the excellencies of man and angels disappear, like the lesser lights in the meridian blaze of the sun.

In speaking of the attributes of God, we must remember that his nature is perfectly simple. This truth has been demonstrated from his unity, which excludes the idea of composition; from his self-existence, which imports that nothing preceded him as something does in the case of all compounds; from his immutability, which could not be predicated of his nature if it were made up of parts; and from other topics, which it is unnecessary to mention. If it has already appeared that he is an immaterial Being, it is a necessary consequence that he is not compounded, in the grosser acceptation of the term, because a spirit has no parts, and is indivisible and incorruptible. But the simplicity which theologians ascribe to God is a metaphysical conception, and

* 1 Tin. i. 17.

Matth. xix. 17.

means that his essence and attributes are not distinct, or that his attributes must not be conceived as superadded to his essence, and hypothetically separable from it; but that his essence and attributes are one. And as they are not distinct from his essence, so they are not distinct from each other; but there is one indivisible nature, having different manifestations and relations to external things, which, according to our inadequate conceptions, appear to us to be different perfections. In themselves they are one, although to us they seem to

be many.

This manner of representing the subject has been objected to, and attempts have been made to turn it into ridicule. "Here," it has been said, “are attributes, which are no attributes; which are totally distinct, and perfectly the same; which are justly ascribed to God, being ascribed to him in Scripture, but do not belong to him; which are something, and nothing; which are fig. ments of human imagination; mere chimeras, which are God himself; which are the actors of all things, and which, to sum up all, are themselves a simple act." There is no doubt that a person, who was disposed to amuse himself on a subject so solemn, might find some ground in the language employed. The only sense in which it is intelligible is, as stated in a former lecture, that we ought not to conceive his attributes to be separable from his essence; that he is what he is, by necessity of nature; that when we speak of his wisdom, it is God himself who is wise; of his power, it is God himself who is mighty; of his goodness, it is God himself who is good. We have said that some of the qualities of creatures are not essential to them; but God never is or can be without his perfections. All this is plain to any understanding; but if there is any other sense in which his perfections are said to be himself, I confess that it surpasses my comprehension; and equally incomprehensible is the proposition, that his perfections are one in themselves, if any thing more be meant than that the Divine essence is at once intelligent, holy, just, and benevolent. I know not well what is meant by making them distinct from his essence; nor am I certain that any man ever conceived them to be distinct, however unguardedly he may have expressed himself. A physical distinction is impossible, and a metaphysical one is only a mode of thinking, which is unavoidable in considering any being simply as a being, and then as endowed with certain characteristic properties or qualities. It is enough to believe that God is by nature possessed of all possible perfections.

Having made these observations, which are applicable to the Divine perfections in general, I proceed to the consideration of those which are called communicable, because there is some resemblance of them among creatures. Let us begin with the attribute of knowledge.

Every person who believes that there is a God, readily admits that he is possessed of intelligence, without which he would be inferior to many of his own creatures. Intelligence is so manifestly essential to the First Cause, that none have doubted of it, whatever erroneous conceptions they have entertained of the Deity in the want of supernatural instruction. Some have conceived their gods to be material beings, have clothed them with human infirmities, and represented them as subject to human passions; but all have believed that they were witnesses of the actions of men, and acquainted with the events which take place upon the earth. The ancient Egyptians, who expressed their conceptions by hieroglyphics, made an eye the symbol of the Deity, to intimate that all things are open to his inspection. The prayers, and other religious services of the heathens, proceeded on the supposition that they were heard and observed by the objects of their worship; and their belief in prophets who foretold future events, and in oracles to which they resorted for counsel in matters of difficulty, implied an opinion, that from the gods nothing was concealed, and that events were subject to their control.

In proof that knowledge is one of the perfections of God, the following ar guments may be adduced.

In the first place, as it necessarily enters into the idea of a perfect Being, so it is essentially connected with other attributes, which all acknowledge to belong to him, and which will be afterwards considered. We believe him to be omnipotent, holy, just, and good, and these perfections imply that he is an intelligent Being. Power without knowledge would be blind force, which would remain inactive from want of any motive to exert it, or would be exerted by mere chance, to build up or to demolish, to create or to annihilate. Such an effect as the present system of things could not have been produced by it, for it exhibits the clearest proofs of design, and must therefore be regarded as the result of a plan previously formed. Without intelligence, he could not be holy and just; for moral perfections imply a perception of the essential differences of things, the power of distinguishing good and evil, right and wrong, an acquaintance with the nature and relations of other intelligent beings, their faculties, their opportunities, their temptations, their duties, and their crimes. He could not be good, if by a blind necessity or a fortuitous act he dispensed life and its enjoyments, any more than the sun is good, because it pours light and heat upon the earth. We do not call a man good, who scatters his favours at random from instinct rather than from reason; for goodness implies a benevolent design, and a benevolent design supposes the objects of its exertions to be known, and their welfare to be intended. What excellence could we perceive in a Being, eternal, omnipresent, and immutable, if he were ignorant of every thing without himself, and even of his own existence and attributes, as he would be if knowledge were not one of the number? The meanest creature who was conscious of his own thoughts and capable of observation and rea soning, would be superior to him; and in fact, we could hardly distinguish such a Being from the material universe. We could not believe him to be a spiritual Being, because although we will not be so absurd as to confound a substance with its property, and say that thought is the essence of spirit, yet we must hold, that to a spirit it is essential to think.

In the second place, the intelligence of the Supreme Being may be inferred from its existence among creatures, since it is an unquestionable principle, that as every effect has a cause, so there can be no more in the effect than there is in the cause. It cannot communicate what it does not itself possess. We have a sure proof that there is intelligence among creatures, from consciousness and observation. We find intelligence in ourselves, and we see unequivocal evidence of it in others: our bodily senses and our mental faculties are the gifts of our Maker; if we acknowledge that we were created by his power, we cannot doubt from what source those parts of our constitution are derived. We perceive the external world; we discover the properties and relations of objects around us; we become acquainted with a variety of truths in science, morals, and religion, which do not fall under the cognizance of our senses. Passing the boundaries of our terrestrial habitation, we extend our researches to other regions, and can tell the laws by which the planets are guided in their course, and the most distant star which twinkles in the abysses of space is preserved. Limited as our knowledge is, and insignificant when compared with the omniscience of God, or even the attainments of superior beings, it extends so far as to demonstrate the strength and grandeur of our faculties. It may be presumed that the minds of superior beings are endowed with more ample powers. The discoveries which are the boast of human reason, may seem to angels as insignificant as the thoughts of a child appear to a philosopher; what is difficult to us may be easy to them, and what is mysterious may be plain. It is an obvious inference from the intelligence of creatures, that there is intelligence in the Creator, and that he possesses it in the most

perfect degree. Whence could our knowledge have proceeded but from the Father of lights? We cannot resist the force of these questions of the Psalmist, "They say, The Lord shall not see, neither shall the God of Jacob regard it. Understand, ye brutish among the people; and ye fools, when will ye be wise? 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?”*

In the third place, we prove the knowledge of God from his omnipresence, which has been already demonstrated. When speaking of that perfection, we shewed, that unless he were present in all places, he could not know all things; and it may seem like reasoning in a circle now to prove, that he does know all things, because he is present with them. But the proper conclusion from this mode of proceeding is, that the two perfections are necessarily connected, so that the one cannot be conceived without the other. From his presence with creation, indeed, it does not necessarily follow that he knows it, unless there be some other evidence that he is an intelligent Being; but it corroborates that other evidence, by shewing that there is no obstacle to his knowledge of all things which exist. The supposition of a local Deity would lead us, not directly to deny his intelligence, but to question whether his knowledge was infinite. We might think, that like other limited beings, he has his own sphere of perception, beyond which every thing was unknown to him. And if God were in heaven and not also upon earth, we could not believe that he was acquainted with all persons and events so remote from the place of his residence. We should be tempted to say with those ungodly men whom Eliphaz reproves, "How doth God know? Can he judge through the dark cloud? Thick clouds are a covering to him, that he seeth not; and he walketh in the circuit of heaven."† Some things would be too distant or minute to be seen, and others so carefully concealed as to be observed only by persons on the spot. But such unworthy notions are inapplicable to an infinite Being. Nothing is hidden from him. As there is not a point of space from which he is excluded, he knows the meanest insect as well as the lofty archangel; what is done in a corner as well as the most public transaction. He is in the closet and in the market place; and it is a saying among Mahometans, that when two persons meet together, there is likewise a third. "Yea, the darkness hideth not from thee; but the night shineth as the day: the darkness and the light are both alike to thee."

Having proved that God is an intelligent Being, I proceed to inquire into the objects and extent of his knowledge. We shall find that it is unlimited, comprehending every thing which can be known. "His understanding is infinite." S

In the first place, God knows himself. "What man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him? even so the things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God." He knows what his own essence is, of which we can only say that it is spiritual, without being able to affix any positive idea to the term; he knows his own perfections, with some of which we have a partial acquaintance, while there may be many others, of which we have received no intimation; he knows the harmony of his attributes, which our weak minds are sometimes at a loss to reconcile; he knows his own counsels and plans, which are too extensive and complicated to be comprehended by any created intellect; he knows, in a word, all the mysteries of his nature, at which reason stands amazed and confounded. While there can be no hesitation in ascribing this knowledge to God, we may take occasion to remark, in order to shew how much superior is his understanding to ours, that we have no reason to think that any creature is possessed of similar know

Ps. xciv. 7-10.

Ps. cxlvii. 5.

+ Job xxii. 13, 14.

1 Cor. ii. 11.

Ps. cxxxix. 12.