!i52 OP THE NATURAL ATTRIBUTES, &C. 



tion of a power, which we believe, mediately or immediate' 

 Jy> to proceed from the Deity. For instance ; in what part 

 or point of space, that has ever been explored, do we not 

 discover attraction ? In what regions, do we not find light ? 

 In what accessible portion of our globe, do we not meet 

 with gravity, magnetism, electricity ; together with the 

 properties also and powers of organized substances, of veg- 

 etable or of animated nature? Nay, further, we may ask, 

 what kingdom is there of nature, what corner of space, in 

 which there is any thing that can be examined by us, where 

 we do not fall upon contrivance and design ? The only re- 

 flection perhaps which arises in our minds from this view of 

 the world around us is, that the laws of nature every where 

 prevail ; that they are uniform and universal. But what do 

 we mean by the laws of nature, or by any law ? Effects are 

 produced by power, not by laws. A law cannot execute it- 

 self. A law refers us to an agent. Now an agency so 

 general, as that we cannot discover its absence, or assign 

 the place in which some effect of its continued energy is 

 not found, may, in popular language at least, and, perhaps, 

 without much deviation from philosophical strictness, be 

 called universal ; and, with not quite the same, but with no 

 inconsiderable propriety, the person or Being, in whom that 

 power resides, or from whom it is derived, may be taken to 

 be omnipreseJit. He who upholds all things by his power, 

 may be said to be every where present. 



This is called a virtual presence. There is also what 

 metaphysicians denominate an essential ubiquity : and 

 which idea the language of scripture seems to favour : but 

 the former, I think, goes as far as natural theology carries 

 us. 



" Eternity," is a negative idea, clothed with a positive 

 name. It supposes, in that to which it is applied, a present 

 existence ; and is tne negation of a beginning, or an end of 

 that existence. As applied to the Deity, it has not been 

 controverted by those uho acknowledge a Deity at all. 

 Most assuredly, there never was a time in which nothing 

 existed, because that condition must have continued. The 

 universal blank must have remained ; nothing could rise 

 up out of it ; nothing could ever have existed since ; noth- 

 ing could exist now. In strictness, however, we have no 

 concern with duration prior to that of the visible world. Up- 

 on this article, therefore, of theology, it is sufficient to know, 

 that the contriver necessarily existed before the contri- , 

 vance. 



