deities like Mars and Jupiter; much more the God of hosts, and the Merciful God, Our heavenly Father, &c. So might the universal God in every country and kingdom in which he has a different name be taken for a different god; or if it be only from corruptions of the sacred name like one before alluded to *: but among all the absurdities of polytheism as long as the same shall be acknowledged separately for the One SELF-EXISTENT, which is the same as ONLY God; the God of all the countries in the world, and of all the worlds in being,-there can be no great danger of a rival deity. Yet it was no easy task for the sacred writers to avoid some appearance of such an error; while they described continually a celestial agent interfering in the destinies of Israel, and ruling the fate of that highly favoured republic by means of other inferior angels or agents. In this arduous task they have succeeded however through the guidance of the same agent, by constantly identifying that Agent himself with the universal Being of God; so keeping close to the simple doc-· trine of the divine unity, and never impeaching nor oppugning that doctrine by any expression that could be fairly so construed. This doctrine then we might have believed on such high and consistent authority, though we had not also the consent of reason and experience for it, as we have most decidedly, and with such circumstances as no one who has ever considered them, can long doubt. But they who ever think of two beings, one supremely good and the other supremely evil equal and independent of each other, cannot so much have an idea of One simply Supreme: no more can they who think of many supreme beings presiding over as many different concerns, or in as many different spheres however denominated: because such beings can be considered as supreme in one point only, if in that; whereas our idea of God is, that of ONE ་་ * P. 332. : UNIVERSALLY SUPREME, and not in any particular respect or respects: of One above all that are good and all that are evil; above all that shine in peace or in war, in wisdom or in judgment, in prudence, or in skill; above all that excel or govern in Heaven, earth, or hell. Supremacy is indivisibility and if God has no equal in particular spheres or concerns, still less has he in the sphere of the universe. There cannot indeed be an example of two supremes in any particular concern or sphere; as two kings or two consuls in a government, or two masters in a business, trade, or profession: for though equal in respect of each other, they must both be subject still to some law or compact; and that again to some power or sanction, which, or its subject, is the real supreme. How then can He, the Only One, who is above all law, have an equal on any account, or in any respect; as he says himself by the prophet, "To whom will ye liken me, and make me equal, and compare me, that we may be like?" (Isai. xlvi. 5). As well might there be two abstract properties of any kind; as wisdom, or light, or love, as two supreme beings over the whole world. -2, But this unalterable unity is not the only peculiar attribute of Divinity, there being another obvious even to a finite understanding, to wit, Eternity: and it is obvious in this manner; namely, that no understanding, of course, can have any knowledge of its own beginning; however sensible some understandings may be of their own growth, and apprehensive of decay and that ignorance alone would seem good evidence of the divine property or attribute of eternity here alluded to. For if the mind be unconscious of its own beginning, it will then follow that the mind began, as directly as if it remembered the event; unless we are to suppose a translation of the mind from one sort of thing to another: but, as far as we know ourselves, every tittle of us, however minute, from the simplest act or constituent to the greatest and most complex, will seem to have its beginning and ending: there cannot be so much as a thought, but comes and goes, and is a subject of time; therefore the whole must be a subject of time likewise, and come and go like these; and not long about either, but quick as thought itself almost. "For what is your life? (says St. James) it is even a vapour that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away" (Jam. iv. 14). To have no beginning, we must know it; and that can only be the privilege of One to Whom we owe our existence. Thus the eternity of the Creator may be obvious to that which he has created, through a consciousness of its own creation. In other words, our own beginning will necessarily suppose the existence of One who never began. "It is He that hath made us, and not we ourselves" (Ps. c. 2). And, -3, Space too being only another predicament correlative with time, it will follow that He who has no limitation in respect of this, can have none either in respect of that: hence his Infinity with its consequent, ubiquity, or omnipresence, and other attributes that are too well known to need repetition, and better known, unfortunately, than they are remembered. And yet these attributes seem to remind us mutually of each other all the while; so closely are they connected, and as it were linked together; being alternately like a converse or consequence to each other. Thus, for example; as the divine attribute of infinity is equivalent, only in a different line, with eternity, so -4, The Incomprehensibility of the Subject to any other than himself will be a direct consequence of his eternity. For the whole of this state being peculiar to himself, there could be no one but himself to comprehend him in the beginning or, rather before any: whence his natural incomprehensibility is evident. And though one would not pretend to dispute the possibility of the Creator's forming a creature adequate to this comprehension, yet considering his forementioned property of Infinity, and (to our conception at least) the total impossibility of two infinites, while nothing less than infinity can comprehend that which is infinite; his incomprehensibility farther than his back parts, as Moses was allowed to view Him (Exod. xxxiii. 23), may thence be clearly inferred. The train of his divine Majesty may be seen by a singular favour: but the front or outgoing of the same, not; "Thou canst not see my face: (said He) for there shall no man see my face, and live" (Ib. 20). Much more therefore will personality, literally understood, be deemed incompatible with the nature of the divine Subject in all the forementioned respects; and, -5, The attribute of Impersonality be unavoidable; namely, in respect of the Subject's unity, eternity, incomprehensibility and infinity; as may appear by comparison, and 1, In respect of his natural unity and indivisibility. For if there were other subjects of this kind, that is to say, other gods, which we know there are not; although in that case the condition of a rational individuality, like that of angels or intelligent spirits, might apply; the species of individuality considered as personal could not. But there being no distinction in divinity, no other subject as we call it, but a perfect unity, it is hard indeed to conceive how there may be in this respect what we literally understand by Personality. =2, Still harder, if possible, is it to conceive this kind of individuality in respect of the second property above mentioned with its companion and consequences, namely, in respect of the eternity and infinity of the divine Subject, with his consequent omnipresence and ubiquity, according to the definition of a person before given. It may be, that God shall be presented or represented in the narrow limits of a human person; but that will not make God a person, and give him a limitation, if it make such person his human representation, and give him a relation to Infinity: or should He be presented in a spiritual or angelic medium, as he is, no doubt, much oftener than in a human, that would not make him a person, even if angels or spirits were persons, which they are not; but such spiritual or angelic medium his spiritual or angelic representation. As our idea of personality, however it may be abstracted in the sequel, is originally taken from a material form or circumscription with its several properties, including gravitation or confinement, also limitation, visibility, palpability, and other objects of sense; if every other positive property had not been denied, we could never think of such a one for that infinite and incomprehensible Being, "who (as St. Paul writes) only hath immortality, dwelling in the light which no man can approach unto; whom no man hath seen nor can see" (Tim. I. vi. 16): "whom the Heaven and Heaven of heavens cannot contain" (Kings I. viii. 27): and who, therefore, as any one may suppose, is not to be contained within any human, that is partly material, nor within any other fluctuating and finite dimensions. Every individual person is the boundary of his own existence, is a measure to himself, the measure as well as the presence of an intellectual being, and consequently of the whole of that being: therefore, as the being is infinite in this case, so will his measure or person be, that is INFINITE or in other words NONE, no measure nor personality, but impersonality and infinity. So that we can have no idea of an infinite person; and besides this and the other grounds before mentioned, still seem to have more for not receiving, nor endeavouring to imagine or conceive a case so inconceivable; as =3, For one, that the impersonality of the Supreme Being just mentioned as a necessary consequence of his incomprehensibility, may be considered as more than a consequence, or in the same view. For, to say that a subject may be incomprehensibly personified or presented, would itself be as incomprehensible a proposition as ever was uttered; seeing that Presence necessarily implies comprehension somewhere, if not with every object to which it occurs...... And literally, in short, there is no such person as the person of God, any more than there is literally such as the person of man, of the poor, of the mighty, of any other |