SERM. II. is, that they fhould difcern any Thing at all fully and perfectly. All the Confufion arises from not distinguishing between Ideas of Intellect, and Ideas of Imagination: feveral Things may not be abfolutely unintelligible that are yet utterly unimaginable, or to which no Images belong. Thus we understand (and can demonftrate what we understand) that something must have exifted from all Eternity. But when the Imagination would lay hold on fome Idea to represent it, it can lay hold on none, but what labours under a Complication of Abfurdities: it cannot conceive any Being to exist without fucceffive Duration. Now Eternity in the Sense of fucceffive Duration, cannot be a neceffary Attribute of God; fince that cannot be neceffary, no two Parts of which ever exifted together. Duration paft is no more, that which is to come is not yet in Being; the present Moment only exifts; yet while we are speaking it is gone and has ceafed to be. And fince no Part of fucceffive Duration can be neceffary, the whole of it cannot be fo. A fucceffive, changing, and fleeting Duration cannot therefore be attributed to him, whofe Existence is unchanging, permanent, and neceffary; not to mention that an infinite fucceffive Duration implies an infinite Number of Years, an infinite Number is a last Number, a Number fo great that you

cannot add to it, which is a Contradiction. SERM. II. God's unbounded Duration cannot differ from ours merely in Degree, fince what is infinite and unbounded admits of no Degrees it must differ therefore in Nature and Kind: and if fo, it follows, that what would imply a Contradiction, when predicated of a finite Nature, may, in fome Cafes, be none with refpect to the divine; the Contradiction being not ad idem. Thus for Inftance it is a Contradiction to fay, that we have not existed longer to Day, than we had Yesterday; but it is no Contradiction as to that Being, with whom a thoufand Years are but as one Day, and one Day as a thousand Years. For the Deity had existed a whole Eternity Yefterday, and can have exifted no more than a whole Eternity to Day: or in other Words, unlimited Duration cannot be lengthened or fhortened; because, what can be lengthened or fhortened, enlarged or narrowed, must have Limits. It is demonftrable therefore, that what has exifted from Eternity muft exist in a Manner quite different from what we do, and of which we can have no Ideas. And if fo, what crude indigefted Notices must they entertain, who can argue, that because three feparate human Perfons are three Beings, therefore three divine Perfons must be fo too? In fhort the divine Nature not only infinitely tranfcends our Nature,

SERM. II. it infinitely tranfcends our very Conceptions.

"

of it the Deity not being only infinitely above what we are, he is infinitely above what we can think of him. If we would filence our Imagination, a delusive Faculty, and liften to the Voice of cool Reafon, we should perceive no abfolute Impoffibility that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, though diftinct from each other, and fubfifting in a different Manner, may be undivided; and to what is undivided and incapable of any Difunion, we may, with at least as ftrict Propriety of Speech, afcribe the Denomination of one Being, as we can to any Thing, of which we have a positive Idea, in the whole Universe.

Again, the Understanding may perceive that it implies no Contradiction, that there may be fuch a Relation in the divine Nature, as, according to our poor and low Ways of thinking and fpeaking, greatly difproportioned to the Originals which they fhould reprefent, is beft fhadowed out to us by that of a Son to a Father, to which it may bear fome faint Refemblance. But the Imagination falls immediately to work, and afcribing it to the Deity in as ftrict a Sense, as when it is applied to the human Nature, forms as many abfurd Conclufions, its own Workmanship, as it does, when it argues from our fucceffive Duration to, what is infinitely different from it, the Duration of

God.

God. Whatever Abfurdities fome People SERM. II. may fancy upon this Subject, they have all been occafioned by this, that they have confounded Strength of Reason, and Strength of Imagination: they did not perceive any Disagreement in the Ideas themselves, Ideas of pure Understanding, they only perceived a Difagreement in the Ideas of Imagination which it borrows from created and even material Beings; whereas it is evident that no Ideas of the Imagination, none but those of pure Intellect, ought to be employed, except by Way of Figure, in defcribing a pure intellectual and fpiritual Being. Something like this happens in the Point of God's Omniprefence. The Understanding clearly proves, that the Deity must be present to every Thing, which he made and governs. But the Imagination, ever obtruding beyond its Sphere, is impatient to bring down this Doctrine to its own Level; and not being able to conceive the Prefence of any Being that is unextended, it confiders the Deity under the grofs Idea of infinite Extenfion, of infinite Length, Breadth, and Height; and then a numerous Train of Contradictions break in upon us; as that Extenfion implies Parts; that Parts by the very Term imply Imperfection, which cannot belong to an All-perfect Being; that there must be as many distinct Confcioufneffes as there are diftinct Parts,

SERM. II. and confequently an infinite Number of diftinct Conscioufneffes in what is infinitely extended. The only Remedy for which is to confider, that as there is a Demonftration that there is one fpiritual Being which is prefent, fo there is a Demonftration too, that he must be present in a Manner, about which we can imagine nothing at all; because no Imagery of a fpiritual Being, or it's Prefence, can be drawn on the Fancy, as that of material Beings is. It is thus too as to the Trinity. Though we have Ideas of Union and Diftinction, and know well enough what we mean by them, when we apply them to the Divine Nature, yet those Ideas are fo defective that we cannot exactly compare them: and, where our Ideas are fo defective that we cannot exacly compare them, there we cannot have an evident Perception of a Contradiction or Difagreement of Ideas, which depends entirely on a full and exact Comparison of Ideas.

Arianifm feems to be divided from Deifm, and that again from Atheism, by thin Partitions. The Man who is obftinate in the Difbelief of his Saviour's Godhead, must be, one would think, ftrongly tempted to reject the Scriptures, as a Book big with Blafphemy, fince every Idea diftinc-. tive of God from his Creatures is there expressly afcribed to him; unless Paternity, a

mere