50 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



CHATTER XXIII. 



OF THE PERSONALITY OF THE DEITY. 



Contrivance, if established, appears to me to 

 prove every thing which we wish to prove. 

 Amongst other things, it proves the 2)ersonality of 

 the Deity, as distinguished from what is sometimes 

 called nature, sometimes called a principle : which 

 terms, in the mouths of those who use them phi- 

 losophically, seem to be intended, to admit and to 

 express an efficacy, but to exclude and to deny a 

 personal agent. Now that which can contrive, 

 which can design, m.ust be a person. These capa- 

 cities constitute personality, for they imply con- 

 sciousness and thought. They require that which 

 can 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 per- 

 ceptions unite, and from which volitions flow ; 

 which is mind. The acts of a mind prove the ex- 

 istence of a mind ; ard 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 proper- 

 ties subsist, in created nature, under a great variety 



♦Priestley's LetUis to a riiilosophicul Unbeliever, p. 153, ed. 2. 



