ATTRIBUTES OF DEITY. 281 



sentations are well founded in point of authority — for all 

 depends upon that — they afford a condescension to the state 

 cf our faculties, of which they who have most reflected on 

 Ihe subject will be the first to acknowledge the want and 

 the value. 



Nevertheless, if We be careful to imitate the documents 

 of our religion by conrming our explanations to what con- 

 cerns ourselves, and do not aflect more precision in our ideas 

 than the subject allows of, the several terms Avhich are em- 

 ployed to denote the attributes of the Deity may be made, 

 even in natural religion, to bear a sense consistent with truth 

 and reason, and not surpassing our comprehension. 



These terms are, omnipotence, omniscience, omnipresence, 

 eternity, self-existence, necessary existence, spirituality. 



"Omnipotence," "omniscience," "infinite" power, "in- 

 finite" knowledge, are superlatives, expressing our concep- 

 tion of these attributes in the strongest and most elevated 

 terms which language supplies. We ascribe power to the 

 Deity under the name of "omnipotence," the strict and cor- 

 rect conclusion being, that a power which could create such 

 a world as this is, must be, beyond all comparison, greatei 

 than any which we experience in ourselves, than any which 

 we observe in other visible agents ; greater also than any 

 which we can want, for our individual protection and pves- 

 orvation, in the Being upon whom we depend. It is a 

 power likewise, to which we are not authorized, by our ob- 

 sirvation or knowledge, to assign any limits of space or 

 luration. 



Very much of the same sort of remark is applicable to 

 the term " omniscience," infinite knowledge, or infinite wis- 

 dom. In strictness of language, there is a diflerence between 

 knowledge and wisdom ; wisdom always supposing action, 

 and action directed by it. With respect to the first, namely. 

 knoic'Iedge, the Creator must know intimately the constitu- 

 tion and pro])erties of the things which he created ; which 

 seems also to imply a foreknowledge of their action upon 



