(a) Though God has given us no innate ideas of himself, yet, having furnished us with those faculties our minds are endowed with, he hath not left himself without a witness; since we have sense, perception, and reason, and cannot want a clear proof of him as long as we carry our selves about us. To show, therefore, that we are capable of knowing, that is, of being certain that there is a God, and how we may come by this cer tainty, I think we need go no farther than our selves, and that undoubted knowledge we have of our own existence.
(b) I think it is beyond question, that man has a clear perception of his own being; he knows certainly that he exists, and that he is something. In the next place, man knows, by an intuitive cer tainty, that bare nothing can no more produce any real being, than it can be equal to two right angles. If, therefore, we know there is some real Being, it is an evident demonstration, that from eternity there has been something; since what was not from eternity had a beginning; and what had a beginning must be produced by something else.
(c) Next it is evident, that what has its being from another must also have all that which is in and belongs to its being from another too; all the powers it has must be owing to, and derived from, the samc source. This eternal source, then, of all being, must be also the source and original of all power; and so this eternal Being must be also the most powerful.
(d) Again: man finds in himself perception and knowledge: we are certain, then, that there is not only some Being, but some knowing, intelli gent Being in the world. There was a time, then, when there was no knowing Being, or else there has been a knowing Being from eternity. If it be said there was a time when that eternal Be ing had no knowledge, I reply that then it is im possible there should have ever been any knowl edge; it being as impossible that things wholly void of knowledge, and operating blindly, and without any perception, should produce a knowing Being, as it is impossible that a triangle should make its three angles larger than two right ones. (c) Thus from the consideration of ourselves, and what we infallibly find in our own constitu tions, our reason leads us to the knowledge of this certain and evident truth, that there is an eternal, most powerful, and knowing Being, which, wheth er any one will call God, it matters not. The thing is evident; and from this idea, duly consid ered, will easily be deduced all those other at tributes we ought to ascribe to this eternal Be ing. From what has been said, it is plain to me, that we have a more certain knowledge of the existence of a God, than of anything our senses have not immediately discovered to us. Nay, I
presume I may say that we more certainly know that there is a God, than that there is any thing else without us. When I say we know, I mean there is such a knowledge within our reach, which we cannot miss, if we will but apply our minds t'o that as we do to several other inquiries.
The Old Testament as little thinks of arguing or proving that God may be known as it .thinks of arguing that he exists. Its position is here again, so to speak, far in front of such an argu ment. How should men think of arguing that God could be known when they were persuaded they knew him, when they felt they were in fellow ship with him, when their whole mind was filled and aglow with the thought of him, and when his spirit was within them? The expression 'to see God' (job xix:26; xxxiii:26; Is. xxxviii:t0 sometimes signifies merely to experience his help; but in the Old Testament scriptures it more usually denotes the approach of death (Gen. xxxii :3o ; Judg. vi :23 ; xiii :22 ; IS. Yi :5).
4. Attributes of God. (1) Ascribed by Noses. The attributes ascribed to God by Moses are systematically enumerated in Exod. xxxiv:6-7, though we find in isolated passages in the Pentateuch and elsewhere, additional prop erties specified, which bear more directly upon the dogmas and principles of religion, such as e. g. that he is not the author of sin (Gen. i :31), although since the fall, man is born prone to sin (Gen. vi:5; viii:2t, etc.) But as it was the avowed design of Moses to teach the Jews the Unity of God in opposition to the Polytheism of the other nations with whom they were to come in contact, he dwelt particularly and most promi nently on that point, which he hardly ever omit ted when he had an opportunity of bringing for ward the attributes of God (Deut. vi :4; x :17; iv:39; ix :t6, etc.; Num. xvi; xxii; xxxiii :27, 29 ; Exod. xv :It ; xxxiv :6, 7, etc.) (2) By the Prophets. In the Prophets and other sacred writers of the Old Testament. these attributes are still more fully developed and ex plained by the declarations that God is the first and the last (Is. xliv :6), that he changes not (Hab. iii :6), that the earth and heaven shall per ish, but Ile shall endure (Ps. cii :26)—a distinct allu,ion to the last doomsday—and that he is Omnipresent (Prov. xv :3; Job xxxiv :22, etc.) (3) In the New Testament. In the New Testament also we find the attributes of God systematically classified (Rev. Y:12 and vii :12), while the peculiar tenets of Christianity embrace, if not a further, still a more developed idea, as presented by the Apostles and the primitive teach ers of the church.