ADDITIONAL DISCOURSES.

SECTION I.

OF GOD, AND HIS ATTRIBUTES.

QUI MARE ET TERRAS, VARIISQUE MUNDUM

TEMPERAT HORIS:

UNDE NIL MAJUS GENERATUR IPSO,

NEC VIGET QUICQUAM SIMILE AUT SECUNDUM. HOR.

SIMONIDES being asked by Dionyfius the tyrant, what God was, defired a day's time to confider of it, before he made his reply. When the day was expired, he defired two days; and afterwards, instead of returning his answer, demanded still double the time to confider of it. This great poet and philofopher, the more he contemplated the nature of the Deity, found that he waded but the more out of his depth; and that he lost himself in the thought, instead of finding an end of it.

If we confider the idea which wife men, by the light of reason, have framed of the Divine Being, it amounts to this: That he has in him all the perfection of a spiritual nature; and fince we have no notion of any kind of spiritual perfection but what we discover in our own fouls, we join Infinitude to each kind of these perfections, and what is a faculty in an human foul becomes an attribute in God. We exift in place and time; the Divine Being fills the immenfity of space with his presence, and inhabits eternity. We are poffeffed of a little power, and a little knowledge; the Divine Being is Almighty and Omnifcient. In short, by adding Infinity to any kind of perfection we enjoy, and by joining all these different kinds of perfections in one Being, we form our idea of the great Sovereign of nature.

Though every one who thinks muft have made this obfervation, I fhall produce Mr. Locke's authority to the fame purpose, out of his Effay on Human Understanding. If we examine the idea we

have of the incomprehenfible Supreme

• Being,

'Being, we fhall find, that we come by it 'the fame way; and that the complex 'ideas we have both of God and separate 'spirits, are made up of the fimple ideas 'we receive from reflection: v. g. having, 'from what we experiment in ourselves,

got the ideas of existence and duration, ' of knowledge and power, of pleasure and 'happiness, and of feveral other qualities 'and powers, which it is better to have, 'than to be without; when we would 'frame an idea the most suitable we can 'to the Supreme Being, we enlarge every "one of these with our idea of Infinity; ' and fo putting them together, make our 'complex idea of God.'

It is not impoffible that there may be many kinds of spiritual perfection, besides those which are lodged in an human foul; but it is impoffible that we should have ideas of any kinds of perfection, except those of which we have fome small rays and fhort imperfect strokes in ourselves. It would be therefore a very high prefumption to determine whether the Supreme Being has not many more attributes G 4 than

than those which enter into our conceptions of him. This is certain, that if there be any kind of fpiritual perfection, which is not marked out in an human foul, it belongs in its fulness to the Divine Na

ture.

Several eminent philofophers have imagined that the foul, in her separate state, may have new faculties fpringing up in her, which she is not capable of exerting during her prefent union with the body; and whether these faculties may not correfpond with other attributes in the Divine Nature, and open to us hereafter new matter of wonder and adoration, we are altogether ignorant. This, as I have said before, we ought to acquiefce in, that the Sovereign Being, the great Author of nature, has in him all poffible perfection, as well in kind as in degree; to speak according to our methods of conceiving. I fhall only add under this head, that when we have raised our notion of this infinite Being as high as it is poffible for the mind of man to go, it will fall infinitely short of what he really is. There is no end of his

great

greatnefs' The most exalted creature he has made is only capable of adoring it; none but himself can comprehend it.

The advice of the son of Sirach is very just and sublime in this light. 'By his 'word all things confift. We may speak much, and yet come short: wherefore in 'fum, he is all. How fhall we be able to 'magnify him? For he is great above all his works. The Lord is terrible and very great; and marvellous is his power. When you glorify the Lord, exalt him as much as you can; for even yet will he far exceed. And when you exalt him, put forth all your ftrength, and be not weary; for you can never go far enough. "Who hath feen him, that he might tell

6

us? And who can magnify him as he is? There are yet hid greater things than these be, for we have seen but a ❝ few of his works.'

I have here only confidered the Supreme Being by the light of reason and philofophy. If we would fee him in all the wonders of his mercy, we must have recourse to revelation, which represents

him