It is principally in this I
am His image and likeness. What a greatness that borders upon
infinite is here! This is a ray of the Deity itself: it is a kind
of Divine power I have over my will; but I am but a bare image of
that supreme Being so absolutely free and powerful.
The image of the Divine independence is not the reality of what it
represents; and, therefore, my liberty is but a shadow of that First
Being, by whom I exist and act. On the one hand, the power I have
of willing evil is, indeed, rather a weakness and frailty of my will
than a true power: for it is only a power to fall, to degrade
myself, and to diminish my degree of perfection and being. On the
other hand, the power I have to will good is not an absolute power,
since I have it not of myself. Now liberty being no more than that
power, a precarious and borrowed power can constitute but a
precarious, borrowed, and dependent liberty; and, therefore, so
imperfect and so precarious a being cannot but be dependent. But
how is he free? What profound mystery is here! His liberty, of
which I cannot doubt, shows his perfection; and his dependence
argues the nothingness from which he was drawn.
SECT. LXX. The Seal and Stamp of the Deity in His Works.
We have seen the prints of the Deity, or to speak more properly, the
seal and stamp of God Himself, in all that is called the works of
nature. When a man will not enter into philosophical subtleties, he
observes with the first cast of the eye a hand, that was the first
mover, in all the parts of the universe, and set all the wheels of
the great machine a-going.
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