INCOMPREHENSIBLE NATURE OF‘ GOD. 379

good, and wise, and perfect Being, as we thus irresistibly conceive him. It would indeed be extravagant to assert that the imagination of the creature, itself the work of God, can invent a higher point of goodness, ofj ustice, of holiness, than the Creator himself possesses: that the Eternal Mind, from whom our notions of good and right are derived, is not himself directed by the rules which these notions imply.

It is’ diflicult to dwell steadily on such thoughts: but they will at least serve to con- firm the reflexion which it was our object to illustrate; namely, how incomparably the na- ture of God must be elevated above any con- ceptions which our natural reason enables us to form: and we have been led to these viexvs, it will be recollected, by following the clue of which science gave us the beginning. The Divine Mind must be conceived by us as the seat of those laws of nature which we have dis- covered. It must he no less the seat of those laws which we have not yet discovered, though these may and must be of a character far dif- ferent from anything we can guess. The Su- preme Intelligence must therefore contain the laws, each according to their true dependance, of organic life, of sense of animal impulse, and must contain also the purpose and intent for which these powers were put in play. But the Governing Mind must comprehend also the laws of the responsible creatures which the