PERSONALITY OF DLIT? 25.*> 



CHAPTER XXIII. 



OF THE PERSONALITY OF THE DEITY. 



Con TRiVj^NCE, if established, appears to me to prove 

 every thing which we wish to prove. Among' other things, 

 it pioves the 2^erso?ialiti/ of the Deity, as distinguished from 

 what is sometimes caUed nature, sometimes called a princi- 

 ple ; which terms, in the mouths of those who use them 

 philosophically, seem to be intended to admil and to express 

 m efficacy, but to exclude and to deny a personal agent. 

 .Now, that which can contrive, which can design, must be 

 I person. These capacities constitute personality, for they 

 :mply consciousness and thought. They require that which 

 lan perceive an end or purpose, as well as the power of 

 providing means and directing them to their end,^ They 

 require a centre in which perceptions unite, and from which 

 volitions flow ; which is mind. The acts of a mind prove 

 the existence of a mind ; and in whatever a mind resides, is 

 a person. The seat of intellect is a person. We have no 

 authority to limit the properties of mind to any particular 

 corporeal form, or to any particular circumscription of space. 

 These properties subsist, in created nature, under a great 

 variety of sensible forms. Also, every animated being has 

 its sensorium; that is, a certain portion of space, within 

 which perception and volition are exerted. This sphere 

 may be enlarged to an indefinite extent — may comprehend 

 the imiverse ; and being so imagined, may serve to furnish 

 us with as good a notion as we are capable of forming, of thf 

 vmnensity of the divine nature, that is, of a Being, infinite; 

 1 5 well in essence as in power, yet nevertheless a person. 



"No man hath seen God at any time." And this, 1 

 believe, makes the great difficulty. Now, it is a difficulty 

 which chiefly a.rises from our not duly estimating the state 



* Priestley's Letters to a Philosophical Unbeliever, p. KOS, edit. 2. 



Hat Theol. 1 2 



