bfeFINITtOJfS. i77 



fore, to assign the perfections of God to himself as their 

 sole origin. It is the universal dominion of a spiritual 

 being which constitutes God; and so sensible was Sir 

 Isaac Newton of this truth, that he chose thus to define 

 the Deity, not even by his intelhgence, goodness, and other 

 perfections, as is usually done, but by his omnipotence, 

 from which all his other qualities flow by the exertion of 

 a perfectly free will. 



§. If we meditate on the nature of a continuous being, 

 the mind is soon confounded by ideas too vast for its 

 comprehension; but this difficulty is no more than what 

 we anticipate in the consideration of an all-powerful and 

 perfectly intelligent being. We know by experience our 

 own power, our own intelhgence, to be circuniscribed by 

 very narro^v limits, and thus are in som^ measure led to ex!- 

 pect an immeasurable and inconceivable distance between 

 omnipotence and human weakness. But it is very different 

 when we turn our attention to the unintelligent conti- 

 nuous beings Time and Space. We are surprised to find 

 our minds so easily lost in the endeavour to comprehend 

 beings such as these, absolutely without intelligence or 

 active power, and intimately connected with every action 

 of our lives ; and we are induced to suppose that the error 

 lies rather in our manner of considering them, than in any 

 natural incapacity of our soul. The great Newton, there- 

 fore^ thought that the Deity constituted them : and some of 

 his followers, proceeding on this idea, imagined that time 

 and space are but attributes of God, being abstract terms 

 for his qualities, eternity and immensity. Our inability 

 to comprehend them is however far from being thus less- 

 ened, since, though it is impossible to conceive the exist- 

 ence of an attribute without that of its subject, it is well 



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