THE UNITY OF THE DEITY. 
249 
which idea the language of Scripture seems to favor: 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 applied to the Deity, it has not been 
controverted by those who acknowledge a Deity at all. 
Most assuredly, there never was a time in which nothing 
existed, because that condition must have continued. The 
universal blank must have remained; nothing could rise 
up out of it; nothing could ever have existed since: noth¬ 
ing could exist now. In strictness, however, we have no 
concern with duration prior to that of the visible world. 
Upon this article, therefore, of theology, it is sufficient to 
know, that the contriver necessarily existed before the 
contrivance. 
“ Self-existence” is another negative idea, viz. the nega¬ 
tion of a preceding cause, as of a progenitor, a maker, an 
author, a creator. 
“Necessary” existence means demonstrable existence. 
“ Spirituality” expresses an idea, made up of a negative 
part, and of a positive part. The negative part consists in 
the exclusion of some of the known properties of matter, 
especially of solidity, of the vis inertice, and of gravitation. 
The positive part comprises perception, thought, will, 
power, action ; by which last term is meant, the origination 
of motion; the quality, perhaps, in which resides the essen¬ 
tial superiority of spirit over matter, “ which cannot move, 
unless it be moved; and cannot but move, when impelled 
by another.”* I apprehend that there can be no difficulty 
in applying to the Deity both parts of this idea. 
CHAPTER XXV. 
THE UNITY OF THE DEITY. 
Of the “ Unity of the Deity,” the proof is, the uniformi¬ 
ty of plan observable in the universe. The universe itself 
is a system; each part either depending upon other parts, 
or being connected with other parts by some common law 
of motion, or by the presence of some common substance. 
* Bishop Wilkin’s Principles of Nat. Rel. p. 106. 
