comparing and reasoning upon the clear andSERM. distinct ideas we have, in order to improve VI. them to their true end in practice; and not to argue against the existence and importance of things, merely because we cannot comprehend their effences and all their attributes. So, Secondly, There are peculiar reasons why the Deity should be acknowledged to be by us unsearchable, and his attributes to furpafs our comprehenfion. When men insist on this pretence against believing, or applying their minds to the study of any principle, that it is dark, incomprehensible, unintelligible, the meaning may be, that there is some ground to suspect a design to impose upon them; perhaps it is imagined that the religionists artfully represent the objects of their belief as abstruse and mysterious in their nature, on purpose to make them venerable, which to inquisitive and confcious minds is rather a prejudice against them. To be fatisfied concerning this, the best way we can take is to look into the infeparable characters of the subjects themselves. If they obviously appear too high for our understanding, there is then no cause of fufpicion; and if difficulty necessarily attends our conceptions of such sublime subjects, that is no objection at all either against their reality P 4 SERM reality or importance, nor consequently VI. against our inquiring into, and believing that which may be known concerning them. Now, there are certain characters of the Deity and all his perfections, infeparably belonging to his condition of being the original cause of all things, our ideas of which must be necessarily inadequate, such as eternity, immenfity, and self-existence, and infinity which is the character of all his attributes; but at the same time these characters force themselves upon our minds, so that we cannot poffibly avoid them; or they are rendered intelligible by an analogy to other cases which are more familiar to us, as will appear by reflecting but very briefly on what has been already faid concerning them. First, Eternity and immensity are effential attributes of the supreme Being, incomprehenfible by the human understanding. Whenever we attempt to comprehend them we find ourselves involved in infuperable difficulties. How can we conceive an eternal duration now actually past? How can we form an idea of being no where included, no where excluded? And when men have reasoned upon these points, and endeavoured to explain them, their notions have been full of confufion and absurdity. Eternity has been represented as a Standing ftanding now or permanent inftant, co-existing SERM. with all parts of duration, because we cannot VI. conceive succession without a beginning, nor infinity unequal and capable of addition or diminution. And immensity has been imagined as an indivisible point, co-extended with infinite space. It is not to be wondered at that our conceptions of both these subjects are so imperfect, if we confider how we come by them. The idea of duration arises from observing a fucceffion in our own thoughts; it is enlarged by attending to the regular motion of fome bodies: But imagination carries it beyond the limits of our own existence, or any knowledge we have of actual motion, still with an apprehended poffibility of a farther addition; so that by this means our notion of eternity is only negative, that it is a duration undeterminable, or to which no bounds can be set. In like manner having by our senses the idea of corporeal distances, the fancy extends it beyond the utmost limits of material exiftence, till it runs us up to a negative infinity of space, that is, to which there may be an addition without end. So inadequate are our ideas of eternity and immensity! And therefore we reason upon them in the dark; and when we form hypotheses to explain them, from which we draw inferences, we presently SERM.run into contradictions, which only shew the VI. weakness of our understandings. But surely this is no argument against the divine eternity and omniprefence, or any pretence for neglecting them as unintelligible. For no scheme, not even atheism, can deliver us from the difficulty. Still we must believe something has existed from eternity; or if we should abstract from any particular being, nay from all being as actually existing, the idea of eternal duration will remain in our minds; and the train of our own thoughts will as naturally run us up to infinity of space, if we should imagine it to be only an infinite void unpossess'd by any being. And therefore the incomprehenfibleness of these divine perfections is no just objection against their reality or importance as articles of our faith. Secondly, Another character of the divine Being, imported in, or necessarily inferred from those just now mentioned, is felf-exiftence, the most obvious notion of which is, that he is unoriginated, and derives his being from no other. And though that be only negative, yet our reason convinces us that it includes a positive, most perfect, and peculiar manner of existence, of which no appearances in ourselves, or in the world about us, can furnish us with any idea. By reflecting on the li mited nature, duration, extent and power of SER M. the being we are confcious of, and of other VI. things which we difcern, our thoughts are naturally led to a commencement of our and their existence, and consequently, to a cause of it upon which it absolutely depends. From whence it plainly follows, that such things might not have been, and that they may cease to be, or that their manner and condition of being is derived and contingent, effentially different from necessary self-existence. Now as confciousness, and the observation of things without us by their sensible properties and effects, are the fountains of all our knowledge, how is it possible that they, conveying only the notices of things which have all of them the characters of derivation and dependence, should give us any idea of a manner or condition of being entirely different, that is, unoriginated, uncaused, self-fufficient, and independent? But that something has existed from eternity, and therefore necessarily and independently on any other cause, is what all men must agree in acknowledging, and they do acknowledge it. Consequently, upon all suppositions our minds must be alike embarrass'd with this idea; and the incomprehenfible self-existence of the Deity cannot reasonably be urged against our belief of his being, or the |