NATURAL THEOLOGY. 85 



rived, may be taken to be omnipresent. He who 

 upholds all things by his power, may be said to be 

 every where present. 



This is called a virtual presence. There is also 

 what metaphysicians denominate an essential ubi- 

 quity ; and which idea the language of Scripture 

 seems to favour : but the former, I think, goes as 

 far as natural theology carries us.'^ 



" Eternity " is a negative idea, clothed with a 

 positive name. It supposes, in that to which it is 

 applied, a present existence; and is the negation 

 of a beginning or an end of that existence. As 



'^ Upon this confessedly abstruse subject some statements will 

 be found in the Appendix. The three doctrines are — ubiquity 

 by diffusion, virtual; ubiquity, or that of power only; and ubiquity 

 of essence. The last is expressed thus, to the exclusion of the 

 second, by Sir I. Newton, in the Schol. Gen, to the Principia : — 

 ' ' OmnipreRsens est non per virtutem solam sed efiam per substan- 

 tiam; nam virtus sine substantia subsist(i*e non potest." It is per- 

 haps hardly correct to say that Natural Theology carries us not 

 to the idea of Essential Ubiquity. Dr. Clarke makes Essential 

 Ubiquity one part of his conclusion from the argument a ;)n"on ; 

 , and though his adversaries (see Chev. Ramsay, book i. prop. 8. 

 Schol.) cliarged him with adopting the Diffusive Ubiquity, he is 

 plainly not subject to this observation. The followers of Socinus, 

 who maintained Virtual Ubiquity, are ably cotnbatted, and the 

 Essential Ubiquity defended by Dr. Hancock (Boyle Lecture, vol. 

 ii, p. 222,) upon arguments drawn from natural religion. We are 

 here, it is to be observed, only speaking of the idea or doctrine it- 

 self having been attained independent of Revelation ; and not in- 

 quiring how far those arguments of unassisted reason have enfor- 

 ced the belief of it, or even made it comprehensible. Descartes 

 (Principia I. xxii.) does not enumerate Ubiquity at all among the 

 attributes, unless in so far as it may be included under infinite per- 

 fection generally ascribed. — (I. xxii. xxvii., II. xxxvi., III. i.) 



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