our weakness, speaks as if he performed his visible acts by similar instruments. And it is to be remarked, that those faculties only that are expressive of the dignity of human nature, and are the instruments of the noblest actions, are fixed on to convey a notion of the acts and attributes of God to our mind, as the eyes, the heart, and the hands.

This being figurative language, it is obvious that we are to understand it according to its design; just as when Christ is called a sun, a vine, a rock, we are at once led by the metaphor to the thing which it signifies. If we keep our view fixed on the design of the metaphor when used in regard to God, we shall be aided in forming our conceptions of the attribute and the ways of him who is a spirit. Nor shall we see any reason for supposing, that because figurative language is employed on a subject on which no other could consistently with our weakness be employed, he to whom it relates is not, and in a sense far different from that in which it can be declared of any creature, in his essence and nature spiritual.

It has been a question, whether this describing of God by the members of a human body, were so much figuratively to be understood as with respect to the incarnation of our Saviour, who was to assume the human nature, and all the members of a human body. That the second person of the glorious Trinity did appear to the patriarchs in a bodily form,-that every economy since the fall of man has been conducted by his ministry, and that in the fulness of time he was born of a woman, and made in the likeness of men, are things most surely believed by us. But if it was

at all on this account that the figurative language which describes the Deity was used, it must also have been employed for the reasons which I have already assigned, reasons that are illustrative of the great condescension and loving-kindness of God.

As the perfection of the divine nature implies its spirituality, so its spirituality involves in it its infinite perfection. The excellencies of his nature are all infinite in him. We form a conception of some of these excellencies from the shadowy resemblance to them which exists in ourselves: but all excellency in the creature is limited; the perfections of the Creator are unlimited. It also follows, from the spirituality of the divine nature, that the perfections of God are nothing different from his nature, and are only the different modes in which the Divinity acts. His wisdom, and power, and goodness, and other perfections, are not additions to his nature, but that nature itself acting in different ways:-just as the powers of understanding and of will in the human mind are not any thing different from the human mind, but the various states of the same intelligent mind. So true is it that the attributes or perfections of the Deity are only the Deity himself, that his perfections are necessarily involved in our notion of God. They are not only essentially included in the divine nature, but they are that nature itself in its several excellencies and actings. Thus, when we speak of the almighty power of God, we mean, that whatever God wills to be done, is accomplished,-when we speak of his unerring wisdom, we mean that he has a perfect knowledge of all things, and can therefore adapt in endless variety the

means to the endless variety of ends;-when we speak of the goodness of God, we mean that he wills the happiness of his creatures, and that this happiness is communicated.

His excellencies being thus his own nature, existing necessarily, immutably, and from eternity, it is obvious that nothing can ever be added unto God, and that he can never possibly sustain any diminution of his perfection and blessedness. He is in His supreme perfection essentially one and indivisible. The attributes which we find it necessary to contemplate separately, exist in him in the most absolute oneness and simplicity. As they are not any thing different from the divine nature itself, so they cannot differ from one another in their exercise. Our very limited understandings, indeed, can view at the same time but parts of the indivisible and boundless perfection of the Deity, and cannot form conceptions of his naturé and character but by little and little. In order to acquire knowledge, we find it requisite to analyze, to consider all the properties of a being or substance, each after each, as if they not only differed from one another, but were things different from the being or substance to which they belong, and we proceed in the same way when we attempt to know any thing of the ever-blessed God. Of him we cannot know any thing but by his works and his word; and of his character there revealed, we study so many distinct portions apart from one another, till we have surveyed the whole. The difference which we consider as existing between these separate aspects in which the divine character is contemplated, exists only in our

mind, and as the consequence of the mode in which we acquire our knowledge, and not in the infinite excellencies of the divine nature. These excellencies are in God one and the same thing, forming the boundless and indivisible perfection of his nature, in its state of entire and inconceivable simplicity. We are, therefore, far from being correct, when we speak of infinite wisdom and infinite power, if we mean that these things differ one from the other, or are any thing else from the oneness of the perfection of the divine nature, which is not only inclusive of all excellency, but is in itself one undivided and infinite excellency.

From what is thus implied in the spirituality of the divine nature, it follows also, that when the creature possesses any faint image of any excellency in the Creator, such as wisdom and goodness, it must be understood as belonging to God in the highest degree. When even negative attributes are ascribed to him, such as immortality, invisibility, and eternity, they are to be understood as implying something positive in him-and as expressing an undecaying fulness of life, and such glorious and unbounded perfection as no created being can even look upon. And hence the distribution of the divine attributes into two classes, the incommunicable, and communicable; or, as they have otherwise been termed, the natural, and the moral. Some of the perfections of the divine nature cannot in any degree be communicated, and are so exclusively God's, so appropriate to the glory of his nature, that they are not so much as common in name to him and to us; such are his self-subsistence, his all-sufficiency, his eternity and immensity. There are

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others of the divine perfections which are said to be communicable, because the images of the same attributes exist in the creature, and are spoken of under the same name, such as his power, wisdom, and goodness.

As I have shewn that the unity of the divine perfections is necessarily involved in the spirituality of the divine essence, so does the unity of the Godhead necessarily follow from the same doctrine. If God be a spirit, he is essentially one in his nature, attributes, and counsels. If he possess all attributes that are negative of imperfection, and such as imply infinite excellence; if he is self-existing, immutable, and eternal, then does it most surely follow that there is one only living and true God. The same truth is rendered highly probable from the uniformity of design observable in the appearances of nature and government of the world. I say this truth is rendered highly probable; for it is admitted, that the harmony of the universe is so far from conclusively proving the unity of God, that it does not even prove a unity of counsel. It is, indeed, certain, that there does exist in nature an uniformity of plan; that amid the greatest diversity all things proceed according to established laws; that similar causes produce similar effects in every place and period; that day and night, summer and winter, seed-time and harvest, return with the most exact régularity. And this argument unanswerably proves, that there cannot be two infinite Beings, opposite in their character and design. But it does not afford proof that there may not be two infinite Beings agreeing in character and in counsel.