ESSAY I. 335 infinite capacity. Nor can we possibly conceive of it beyond the universe, but as immense or unmeasurable : it seems tobe omni- present, if it penetrate all things ; and it has several other appear- ing properties of godhead. We have also an idea of it as eternal, and unchangeable ; for we cannot conceivethat it begun to be, since wecannot conceive it as having ever been non-existent, or any otherwise thannow it is : It cannot be Created nor annihilat- ed. It seems to contain what existence it has in the very idea, nature or essence of it ; (which is one attribute of God, whereby we prove his existence.) It appears therefore in this view to be a necessary being, and lias a sort of self - existence, for we cannot tell how to conceive it not to be. It seems to be an impassible, indivisible, and immutable essence ; it looks like anall - pervading, all-containing nature, an all-comprehending being. What are all these but attributes of godhead ? and what can this be but God himself ? And how agreeable are these properties of space (say some persons) to the attributes of God in scripture, taken in the most vulgar and literal sense ? It has a being like God in heaven, earth and hell, diffused through all, as Ps. cxxxix. describes the omnipresence of God : And as theprophet represents God speak- ing, Do not Ifill heaven pnd earth, saith the Lord ? Ter. xxiii. 24. Heaven, and even the heaven of heavens, saith Solomon, cannot contain him ; 2 Chron. vi. 18. Nor does the idea of space disagree with St. Paul's account of God ; Acts xvii. 28. He is not farfrom every one of us, for in him we live andmove and have our being. And accordingly some philosophers (as is before mentioned) have written to prove that space is a real being, and that this space is God. SECT. V.Space cannot be God. BUT is not this too gross an idea of the Deity, and un- worthy of him ? I am afraid of those natural and necessary con- sequences which seem to arise from the idea of real extension attributed to God, because they seem sovery frightful and absurd. We can hardly mention them indeed with a preservation of that reverence of language, and that sacred veneration of soul thàt is due to the Majesty ofheaven and earth ; and this is a sort ofpre- sumptive argument against them, viz. That if they are truths, they are such a kind of horrendous truths, that a devout crea- ture shudders to hear them in a literal manner attributed to his Maker. Yet if we will manifest their absurdities, we are forced to pronounce a few of them. I. If space be God himself, then all bodies are situated in God, as in their proper place ; then every single body exists in part of God, and occupies so much of the dimensionsof godhead, as it fills of space ; then an elephant or a mountain, a whale, or
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