and attributing to him all their perfection^ esrjecially 

 those of our own minds. Yet in truth, even these 

 cannot be supposed to be in God, as they are in us. - 

 And therefore we are said to ascribe them to him only 

 in the abstract : which is saying in other words, that 

 they are of a different species in the Creator, from 

 what they are in the creature. 



Accordingly, that there are incomprehensible per- 

 fections in God, answerable to knowledge and power 

 in man, whereof these are only the faint, though 

 true resemblances, is natural and easy to conceive. 

 But the conceiving his power as an ability to change 

 things infinitely, his knowledge as only infinite 

 ing ; the multiplying and enlarging our own 

 ctions in number or degree only, to the utmost 

 stretch of our capacity, and attributing them so en- 

 larged to God, is no more than raising up an unwieldy 

 idol of our own imagination, without any founda- 

 tion in nature. 



The sum is this. We have no idea of God, as he 

 is in himself. For want of one, we frame the best 

 conception we can, by putting together the perfec- 

 tions of the creatures, particularly those we observe in 

 ourselves, to stand for Ins perfections : not grossly 

 inferring, that God is, in effect, such an one as our- 

 selves ; but, concluding, that our greatest excellen- 

 cies are the aptest representations of his incompre- 

 hensible perfections, though these infinitely transcend 

 the most exalted of what are in any created beings* 

 aud are far above, out of the reach of all human 



