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Who, either on the one side, indulging too much their thoughts immersed altogether in matter, can allow no existence to what is not material: or who, on the other side, finding not COGITATION within the natural powers of matter, examined over and over again by the utmost intention of mind, have the confidence to conclude That Omnipotency itself cannot give perception and thought to a substance which has the modification of solidity.
But not to go so far as beyond the utmost bounds of body in the universe, nor appeal to God's omnipotency to find a vacuum, the motion of bodies that are in our view and neighbourhood seems to me plainly to evince it.
Whatever hath no beginning may be confident of no end, which is the peculiar of that necessary essence that cannot destroy itself, and the highest strain of omnipotency to be so powerfully constituted, as not to suffer even from the power of itself. All others have a dependent being, and within the reach of destruction.
Let the omnipotency and prescience of a First Cause be granted, the corollary of 'whatever is, is right, is one of the most obvious that can flow from any proposition: the distance of any link in the eternal sequence cannot lessen the connection with a First Cause, admitting its Omnipotency and Prescience. The author of these detestable paragraphs admits both.
All others have a dependent being and within the reach of destruction, which is the peculiar of that necessary essence that cannot destroy itself, and the highest strain of omnipotency, to be so powerfully constituted as not to suffer even from the power of itself.
Also his name, I am, Jah, Jehovah, with several others, what is by them intended but his nature, as his power, wisdom, eternity, goodness, and omnipotency, &c., might be expressed and declared. The name of God is therefore the object of a Christian's fear. God tells us that his name is dreadful, and that he is pleased to see men be afraid before his name.
"We have the ideas of matter and thinking, but possibly shall never be able to know whether any mere material being thinks or no; it being impossible for us, by the contemplation of our own ideas, without Revelation, to discover whether Omnipotency has not given to some systems of matter, fitly disposed, a power to perceive and think.... I see no contradiction in it that the first eternal thinking Being should, if He pleased, give to certain systems of created senseless matter, put together as He sees fit, some degrees of sense, perception, and thought."
"The Edenton ladies, conscious of this superiority on their side by former experiences, are willing to crush us into atoms by their omnipotency. The only security on our side, to prevent impending ruin is the probability that there are few places in America which possess so much female artillery as Edenton. Pray let me know all the particulars when you favor us with a letter."
All things are possible to him that believes; and where all things are possible, there is a kind of omnipotency. The inquiries and debates concerning tonnage and poundage went hand in hand with these theological or metaphysical controversies. * Essay of Atheism. Rushworth, vol. i. p. 646. Parl. Hist. vol. viii. p. 260. * Rushworth, vol. i. p. 655. Parl. Hist. vol. viii. p. 289.
I grant it, but to argue from thence that God therefore cannot give to matter a faculty of thinking is to say God's omnipotency is limited to a narrow compass because man's understanding is so, and brings down God's infinite power to the size of our capacities....
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