OF THE PERSONALITY OP THE DEITY. 235 



stantly exerting its influence, though every where around 

 'tis, near us, and within us, though diffused throughout 

 all space, and penetrating the texture of all bodies with 

 which we are acquainted, depends, if upon a fluid, upon a 

 fluid which, though both powerful and universal in its 

 operation, is no object of sense to us ; if upon any other 

 kind of substance or action, upon a substance and action 

 from which ice receive no distinguishable impressions. Is 

 it then to be v/ondered at, that it should, in some measure, 

 be the same with the divine nature ? 



Of this, however, we are certam,that, whatever the Deity 

 be, neither the universe, nor any part of it which we see^ 

 can be he. The universe itself is merely a collective 

 name ; its parts are all which are real, or which are things. 

 Now inert matier is out of the question ; and organized 

 substances include marks of contrivance. But whatever 

 includes marks of contrivance, whatever in its constitution 

 testifies design, necessarily carries us to something beyond 

 itself, to some other being, to a designer prior to, and out 

 of itself No animal, for instance, can have contrived its 

 own limbs and senses ; can have been the author to itself 

 of the design with which they were constructed. That 

 supposition involves all the absurdity of self-creation, i. e. 

 of acting without existing. Nothing can be God, which is 

 ordered by a wisdom and a will which itself is void of: 

 which is indebted for any of its properties to contrivance 

 ah extra. The not having that in his nature which requires 

 the exertion of another prior being, (which property is 

 sometimes called self-sufficiency, and sometimes self-com- 

 prehension,) appertains to the Deity, as his essential dis- 

 tinction, and removes his nature from that of all things 

 which we see. Which consideration contains the answer 

 to a question that has sometimes been asked, namely : Why, 

 since something or other must have existed from eternity, 

 may not the present universe be that something? The 

 contrivance perceived in it proves that to be impossible. 

 Nothing contrived can, in a strict and proper sense, be 

 eternal, forasmuch as the contriver must have existed before 

 the contrivance. 



Wherever we see marks of contrivance, we are led for 

 its cause to an intelligent author. And this transition of 

 the understanding is founded upon uniform experience. 

 We see intelligence constantly contriving, that is, we see 

 mtelligence constantly producing effects, marked and dis- 

 tinguished by certain properties; not certain particular 



