divine nature determined him to produce this greatest sum, then sin and misery would be necessary; whereby the doctrine of liberty is destroyed, and such a seeming reflection thrown on the divine character, as few would be able to digest. § 12. 8. It seems therefore on the whole best to keep to that in which we all agree, and freely acknowledge, there are depths in the divine counsels unfathomable to us; so that though we may justly believe God has his reasons for suffering evil to be produced, we cannot certainly determine what those reasons are; and when we go about particularly to explain them, we find it difficult, according to the different schemes we embrace, on the one hand to vindicate his goodness, or on the other his omnipotence. LECT. LIX. God is Incomprehensible-not the Subject of human Passions and Affections-Of divine Analogy. § 1. Prop. GOD OD is INCOMPREHENSIBLE. Vid. § 2. Dem. 1. This would follow merely from his being a spirit, endued with perfections vastly superior to our own. Lect. 29. § 11. Lect. 22. § 12. § 3. 2. There may be (for any thing we certainly know) attributes and perfections in God, of which we have not the least idea. § 4. 3. In those perfections of the divine nature, of which we have some idea, there are many things to us inexplicable, and with which, the more deeply and attentively we think of them, the more we find our thoughts swallowed up ; v. g. his self-existence, his eternity, his omnipresence, whether it be conceived of as diffusive or not diffusive; his producing effects by mere volition, the creation of matter or even of spirit; his omniscience, where his knowledge of what is past from the creation of the world (how long soever you suppose it to have been) bears no given proportion to the knowledge of what is yet to come, if any creature be supposed immortal; especially his knowledge. of future contingencies; how being perfectly happy, and consequently having nothing to wish or desire, he was excited to act how being perfectly good and omnipotent, he permitted evil to enter into the world; besides many other particulars touched upon in the preceding lectures. § 5. 4. God is incomprehensible. 2. E. D. 6. Cor. 1. We have reason to believe, that as the perfections of God are infinite, if there be any orders of intelligent creatures superior to us, these perfections must also be incomprehensible to them ". § 7. 2. It certainly becomes us to use great modesty and caution, when we are speaking of the divine perfections. 8. Schol. It ought to be remembered, that the incomprehensible nature of the divine being is no sufficient reason for our allowing ourselves in self-contradictory language, when we are speaking of him; as some of the antients did, when they spoke of him as more than unknown, without existence, without substance, a super-divine divinity, and as terminating infinity itself, so that infinite space is but a small corner of his productions, and beyond perfection; which, though probably designed only as strong hyperboles, tend to expose the persons that use them to ridicule, rather than to exalt our ideas of the divine glory d. $9. Prop. The passions and affections of human nature are not in any degree to be ascribed to God: Comp. Prop. 1. Gr. 3. and Prop. 13. 19. Dem. 1. Many of those passions are grievous and troublesome, as anger, envy, fear, shame, &c, and consequently there can be no room for them in a being perfectly happy, as God is. Lect. 43. § 6. § 11. 2. Others of them, which afford more pleasing sensations, are founded on some degree of weakness, and plainly imply a defect of happiness, as desire, and hope, &c. and consequently are inconsistent with the omnipotence, as well as the felicity of God. § 12. 3. The workings of the passions in us are always attended with some commotions in animal nature, and therefore imply corporeity; but God being incorporeal, such passions can have no place in him. Lect. 48. § 2. §13. 4. God is free from human passions. 2. E. D. §14. Schol. 1. Nevertheless in a figurative sense, love and joy, anger and pity, &c. may be ascribed to God; when we a ABERN. Serm. vol. ii. No. 6, 7. GROVE'S Posth. Works, vol. i. p. 141-156. b TILLOIS. Serm. vol. ii. p. 768. Rel. of Nat. p. 93, 94. C KING of Predest. § 30, 31. d Divine Analogy, p. 65, 66. FRASIER'S Life of Nadir Schal, p. 12-18. mean no more, than that God does such acts, as in us would be at least probable indications of such passions in our mind, v. g. supplying the necessitous, relieving the sorrowful, punishing the vicious, &c. Yet strictly speaking, we are to conceive of all these, as performed by him with the utmost calmness and serenity; and even that complacency, with which God contemplates his own perfections, and the actions and characters of the best of his creatures, is of a nature very different from, and vastly superior to, those sallies of joy, which we perceive in our, selves, in the most agreeable situations in life, and when our en joyments are most refined". 15. 2. It may be proper here to mention the scheme, which Mr. BROWN advances in his Divine Analogy as of so great importance, and which is built upon a hint in Archbishop KING, He pretends, that all we know of God is merely by analogy; i. e. from what we see in ourselves and observe in others, compared with events produced by the divine being, we con clude, that there is something in God, in some degree answerable to those phænomena, though indeed very different from them. This analogy, as he maintains, differs much from metaphor, which is a mere figure, v. g. when we speak of the eye of God, the hand of God, it is a metaphor, God being entirely incorporeal; but when we speak of the knowledge and power of God, it is by analogy. 16. If he means by this, that the divine manner of knowing and acting is different from ours, or whatever degree of knowledge and power we possess, bears no proportion to that of the supreme being, it is what every one will very readily allow, and has generally been asserted by all who believe the existence and infinite perfections of God: but if he intends any thing else, his meaning seems either very unintelligible, or very absurd; so that the scheme, in either of these views, seems utterly unworthy of that vast parade, with which he introduces. it, as if the whole of natural and revealed religion depended upon such an explication of the matter. LIMB. Theol. 1. ii. c. x. 3. Mrs. COCKBURN's Works, vol. ii. p. 288. b KING of Predest. 3-6, 8, 9, 37. GROVE on Wisd. p. 42, 43. Proced. of Understanding, p.3-6. and 132-143. LAW's Notes on King, on the Orig. of Evil, p LECT. LX. Definitions of Virtue considered. § 1. Prop. To consider some of the most celebrated defini tions of virtue, and accounts of the foundation of it, and to compare them with that given, Lect. 52. § 12. § 2. Sol. and Dem. 1. Dr. CLARKE and Mr. BALGUY have the same notion with that stated above; as evidently appears from the references to them, Lect. 52. § 12. and § 4. And those of the ancients, who defined virtue, to be living according to nature, seem to have meant much the same. § 3. 2. Mr. WOLLASTON has placed it in a reward to truth: i. e. he supposes that not only our words, but our actions have a language; when this language is agreeable to the nature of things, then the action is virtuous, but when it implies a false assertion, then it is vicious. This account, though it differs in words, seems entirely to coincide with the former, or evidently to depend upon it. 4. 3. Dr. HUTCHESON defines moral goodness, "to be a quality apprehended in some actions, which produces approbation and love towards the actor, from those who receive no benefit from the action;" and supposes what he calls a moral sense, implanted in our natures, or an instinct, like that of selfpreservation, which, independent on any arguments taken from the reasonableness and advantage of any action, leads us to perform it ourselves, or to approve it when performed by others ". That there is indeed such a sense, as to some branches of virtue, though in many persons and instances much impaired, is not to be denied, and is well illustrated and proved in HUTCHES. Inq. p. 107-124. Spect. vol. viii. No. 588. Nor does it imply any innate idea, as some have supposed; any more than the intuitive discerning of self-evident propositions, implies the ideas connected with them to have been in nates. § 5. But Dr. HUTCHESON has made this instinct to be the very foundation of virtue; and expressly says, that "every good action is supposed to follow from affection to some rational agent ;" and that "the true spring of virtue is some instinct, a Rel. of Nat. p. 8-13. and 20-24. HUTCHES. on the Pass. p. 253-274. GROVE's Works, vol. iv. p. 50--34 PRICE on Mor. p. 179-181. 215-226. b HUTCHES. Inq. Pref. p. 6. and p. 101-106. © WATTY's Ess. No. iv. 15. p. 103–113. which influences to the love of others, as the moral sense determines us to approve actions flowing from this principle1." § 6. But Mr. BALGUY pleads that this makes virtue an arbitrary thing, which might have been contrary to what it is, had the instinct been contrary: that it implies that a creature with intelligence, reason and liberty could not have performed one good action, without this affection: that it makes brutes capable of virtue, since they are capable of affections: that it estimates the excellency of characters by the strength of passions, by no means in our own power; and on the whole, gives us a much less honourable idea of virtue, than the method of stating it, which is taken above: to which we may add, that if we do not conceive of God as an affectionate being, such an idea of moral goodness as this, would be inconsistent with that of the divine rectitude. § 7. It may be observed by the way, that though Lord SHAFTESBURY uses many expressions, which Dr. HUTCHESON has adopted, yet it seems that he in the main falls in with the account given above; since he considers virtue as founded on "the eternal measure and immutable relation of things," or in other words as consisting "in a certain just disposition of a rational creature towards the moral objects of right and wrong"." § 8. We conclude this head with observing, that Dr. HUTCHESON's definition is liable to some exception; as there may be room to question, what he means by the expression, "those who receive no advantage from the action:" if it be only the generality of mankind, it is evidently a vague, uncertain manner of speaking, and for that reason to be declined in so important a definition; but if he means all rational beings, then it will remain to be proved, that all these, or even the human species, do necessarily approve and love virtue in all its branches, and all that practise it. LECT. LXI. Definitions of Virtue; continued, §1. Sol. and Dem. 4. MANY writers, both ancient and mo dern, have placed virtue in the imitation of God: and it must be a HUTCHES. Inq. p. 143, 153. b SHAFTESB. Char. vol. ii. p. 36, 40. BALG. Found. of Goodn. parti. p. 7-15, 20-22. TAYL. Exam. of HUTCH. pass. |