Page images
PDF
EPUB

wife be whatever a powerful, wife, and good being cannot but be. These, therefore, together with the attributes of felf existence, immateriality, eternity, and unchangeableness, may be called the primary attributes of God; and all others may be called fecondary ones, or fuch as depend upon, and flow from those that are pri

mary.

SECTION IV.

Of thofe attributes of God which are deduced from the confideration of his power, wif dom, and goodness jointly.

A

S the matter of which the world con

fifts can only be moved and acted upon, and is altogether incapable of moving itself, or of acting; fo all the powers. of nature, or the tendencies of things to

their different motions and operations, can only be the effect of the divine energy, perpetually acting upon them, and caufing them to have certain tendencies and effects. A ftone, for inftance, can no more move, or tend downwards, that is towards the earth, of itself, than it can move or tend upwards, that is from the earth. That it does tend downwards, or towards the earth, muft, therefore, be owing to the divine energy, an energy without which the power of gravitation would cease, and the whole frame of the earth be diffolved.

It follows from these principles, that no powers of nature can take place, and that no creature whatever can exift, without the divine agency; fo that we can no more continue, than we could begin to exist without the divine will.

God, having made all things, and exerting his influence over all things, must know all things, and confequently be omniscient

omniscient. Alfo, fince he not only ordained, but conftantly fupports all the laws of nature, he must be able to forefee what will be the refult of them, at any distance of time; juft as a man who makes a clock can tell when it will ftrike. All future events, therefore, must be as perfectly known to the divine mind as those that are prefent; and as we cannot conceive that he should be liable to forgetful. nefs, we may conclude that all things, past, prefent, and to come, are equally known to him, fo that his knowledge is infinite.

The divine being, knowing all things, and exerting his influence on all the works of his hands, whereby he supports the existence of every thing that he has made, and maintains the laws which he has eftablished in nature, muft be, in a proper fense of the term, omniprefent. For, tho' being a spirit, he can have no proper relation to place, and much less to one particular place more than another (which

is

is a property of spirit of which we can have no adequate conception) he must have a power of acting every where, to which the idea belonging to omniprefence is fufficiently applicable.

Since God made all things to answer an important end, namely the happiness of his creatures; fince his power is fo great, that nothing can be too difficult for him; fince his knowledge is fo extensive, that nothing can pass unnoticed by him; and fince the minutest things in the crea tion, and the most inconfiderable events, may affect the end that he has in view, his providence must neceffarily extend to all his works; and we may conclude that he conftantly attends to every individual of his creatures, and out of every evil that befalls any of them produces good to themselves or others.

We cannot help conceiving that any be ing must be happy when he accomplishes all his defigns. The divine being, there

fore,

fore, having power and wisdom to execute all his defigns, we infer that he must be happy, and perfectly so. Also, though we cannot say that the confequence is demonftrable, we cannot but think that he who makes us happy, and whofe fole end in creating us was to make us happy, must be happy himself, and in a greater degree than we are capable of being.

In all the preceding course of reafoning, we have only argued from what we fee, and have fuppofed nothing more than is neceffary to account for what we fee; and as a cause is neceffary, but not more caufes than one, we cannot conclude that there are more Gods than one, unless some other kind of proof can be brought for it.

Befides, there is fuch a perfect harmony and uniformity in the works of nature, and one part fo exactly fits and correfponds to another, that there must have been a perfect uniformity of defign in the whole, which hardly admits of more than one

« PreviousContinue »