in all his perfections. From the powers which he 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?

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

our weakness, speaks as if he performed his visible acts by similar instruments. And it is to be remarked, that those faculties only that are expressive of the dignity of human nature, and are the instruments of the noblest actions, are fixed on to convey a notion of the acts and attributes of God to our mind, as the eyes, the heart, and the hands.

This being figurative language, it is obvious that we are to understand it according to its design; just as when Christ is called a sun, a vine, a rock, we are at once led by the metaphor to the thing which it signifies. If we keep our view fixed on the design of the metaphor when used in regard to God, we shall be aided in forming our conceptions of the attribute and the ways of him who is a spirit. Nor shall we see any reason for supposing, that because figurative language is employed on a subject on which no other could consistently with our weakness be employed, he to whom it relates is not, and in a sense far different from that in which it can be declared of any creature, in his essence and nature spiritual.

It has been a question, whether this describing of God by the members of a human body, were so much figuratively to be understood as with respect to the incarnation of our Saviour, who was to assume the human nature, and all the members of a human body. That the second person of the glorious Trinity did appear to the patriarchs in a bodily form,-that every economy since the fall of man has been conducted by his ministry, and that in the fulness of time he was born of a woman, and made in the likeness of men, are things most surely believed by us. But if it was

at all on this account that the figurative language which describes the Deity was used, it must also have been employed for the reasons which I have already assigned, reasons that are illustrative of the great condescension and loving-kindness of God.

As the perfection of the divine nature implies its spirituality, so its spirituality involves in it its infinite perfection. The excellencies of his nature are all infinite in him. We form a conception of some of these excellencies from the shadowy resemblance to them which exists in ourselves: but all excellency in the creature is limited; the perfections of the Creator are unlimited. It also follows, from the spirituality of the divine nature, that the perfections of God are nothing different from his nature, and are only the different modes in which the Divinity acts. His wisdom, and power, and goodness, and other perfections, are not additions to his nature, but that nature itself acting in different ways:-just as the powers of understanding and of will in the human mind are not any thing different from the human mind, but the various states of the same intelligent mind. So true is it that the attributes or perfections of the Deity are only the Deity himself, that his perfections are necessarily involved in our notion of God. They are not only essentially included in the divine nature, but they are that nature itself in its several excellencies and actings. Thus, when we speak of the almighty power of God, we mean, that whatever God wills to be done, is accomplished,-when we speak of his unerring wisdom, we mean that he has a perfect knowledge of all things, and can therefore adapt in endless variety the

means to the endless variety of ends;-when we speak of the goodness of God, we mean that he wills the happiness of his creatures, and that this happiness is communicated.

His excellencies being thus his own nature, existing necessarily, immutably, and from eternity, it is obvious that nothing can ever be added unto God, and that he can never possibly sustain any diminution of his perfection and blessedness. He is in His supreme perfection essentially one and indivisible. The attributes which we find it necessary to contemplate separately, exist in him in the most absolute oneness and simplicity. As they are not any thing different from the divine nature itself, so they cannot differ from one another in their exercise. Our very limited understandings, indeed, can view at the same time but parts of the indivisible and boundless perfection of the Deity, and cannot form conceptions of his nature and character but by little and little. In order to acquire knowledge, we find it requisite to analyze, to consider all the properties of a being or substance, each after each, as if they not only differed from one another, but were things different from the being or substance to which they belong, and we proceed in the same way when we attempt to know any thing of the ever-blessed God. Of him we cannot know any thing but by his works and his word; and of his character there revealed, we study so many distinct portions apart from one another, till we have surveyed the whole. The difference which we consider as existing between these separate aspects in which the divine character is contemplated, exists only in our