INCOMPREHENSIBLE NATURE OF GOD. 373 



attributes than that they are infinite? What 

 mode of expression can the most cautious philo- 

 sophy suggest, other than that He, to whom we 

 thus endeavour to approach, is infinitely wise, 

 powerful, and good ? 



5. But with sense and consciousness the his- 

 tory of living things only begins. They have 

 instincts, affections, passions, will. How entirely 

 lost and bewildered do we find ourselves when 

 we endeavour to conceive these faculties com- 

 municated by means of general laws ! Yet they 

 are so communicated from God, and of such laws 

 he is the lawgiver. At what an immeasurable 

 interval is he thus placed above every thing 

 which the creation of the inanimate world alone 

 would imply ; and how far must he transcend all 

 ideas founded on such laws as we find there ! 



6. But we have still to go further and far 

 higher. The world of reason and of morality is 

 a part of the same creation, as the world of matter 

 and of sense. The will of man is swayed by 

 rational motives ; its workings are inevitably 

 compared with a rule of action ; he has a con- 

 science which speaks of right and wrong. These 

 are laws of man's nature no less than the laws of 

 his material existence, or his animal impulses. 

 Yet what entirely new conceptions do they in- 

 volve ? How incapable of being resolved into, or 

 assimilated to, the results of mere matter, or mere 

 sense ! Moral good and evil, merit and demerit, 



