412 OF THE FLACE AND MOTION OF SPIRITS. planets ay the only bodies that perform these diurnal, menstrual and annual motions. For this reason thesoul of man may be said to be in his brain, because it is more immediately conscious of some present sensi- ble object, when the motions or impressions made on the outward parts of the body or organs of sense are conveyed to the brain by the nerves : And if this conveyance be interrupted between the extreme parts and the brain, the soul has no sensation, no consci- ousness of what is done to the extreme parts. We say also the soul resides in the brain, because it more immediately exerts its motive power open some parts of the brain, or the origin of the nerves there, whensoever the soul designs to move the body ; and also because when we set ourselves to think or to remember any idea, we do as it were feel the soul employing the brain. Now in the same sense in which we say, My soul or nay spirit is in my body, we may say also concerning the great God, the infinite spirit, that he is present every where, i. e. he is imme- diately conscious of every property, figure and motion Of every part of matter in the universe, and of every thought of every created mind. His will bath an actual agency on every created being, at least so far as to maintain or support them in their na- ture and existence ; and he has an immediate and unlimited power of actingupon every part of matter, and upon every crea- ted spirit ; and therefore God is said to be omnipresent, or present with all things, even as my soul, which hath a limited conscious- ness of several of the motions and impressions caused in this my animal body, and a limited power óf agency upon it, issaid to bepresent with my body. And if we extend our thoughts beyond all the real creation into the supposed emptinessor imaginary space, we may as well assent, that the ubiety of God reaches to all the supposed infinity of empty space ; that is, that his knowledge extends to all things that are, or shall be, or can be, and that he has a power of im- mediate agency to create what he pleases, through all the infinite void or empty nothing, or wheresoever there is nothing already created. This immediate and universal consciousness and agency of the supreme spirit on all things, is the omnipresence of God, and this perhaps is the only true notion of his immensity ; and yet this infinite consciousness and activity of God, which are his very self, have no measurable or unmeasurable relation either to body or to space, as the parts of extension or quantity have to each other ; and therefore we say, he is in no place in strict and philo- sophical language; though in common speech and in the language of scripture, which is suited to the balk of mankind, God is said to fall all things, and to exist every where, in heaven, earth, and hell, because of his immediate consciousness of all beings what and wheresoever they are, and his power of immediate agency
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