80 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



CHAPTER XXIV. 



OF THE NATURAL ATTRIBUTES OF THE DEITY. 



It is an immense conclusion, that there is a 

 God ; a perceiving, intelligent, designing Being ; 

 at the head of creation, and from whose will it 

 proceeded. The attributes of such a Being, suppose 

 his reality to be proved, must be adequate to the 

 magnitude, extent, and multiplicity of his opera- 

 tions : which are not only vast beyond compari- 

 son with those performed by any other power ; but, 

 so far as respects our conceptions of them, infinite, 

 because they are unlimitted on all sides. 



Yet the contemplation of a nature so exalted, 

 however surely we arrive at the proof of its exist- 

 ence, overwhelms our faculties. The mind feels 

 its powers sink under the subject. One conse- 

 quence of which is, that from painful abstrac- 

 tion the thoughts seek relief in sensible images. 

 Whence may be deduced the ancient, and almost 

 universal propensity to idolatrous substitutions. 

 They are the resources of a labouring imagination. 

 False religions usually fall in with the natural pro- 

 pensity ; true religions, or such as have derived 

 themselves from the true, resist it. 



