gave him an opportunity of saying, "Lord, I what wilt thou have me to do?" Acts ix. 6. It was the patience of God which gave him an opportunity of making that honest confession, "I was before a blasphemer, and a persecutor, and injurious: but I obtained mercy," Tim. i. 13. incline my heart to piety and to the fear of God, and to attach me to religion by bands of love. On a certain occasion, Providence put into my hands a religious book, the reading of which discovered to me the turpitude of my conduct. At another time, one of those clear, affecting, thundering sermons, that alarm IV. But why should we go out of this as- sleepy souls, forced from me a promise of resembly, (and here we enter into the last arti-pentance and reformation. One day, I saw cle, and shall endeavour to prevent your abuse the administration of the Lord's supper, which, of the patience of God in the dispositions of awakening my attention to the grand sacrifice men,) why should we go out of this assembly, that divine justice required for the sins of manto search after proofs of divine mercy in a de-kind, affected me in a manner so powerful and lay of punishment? What would have become moving, that I thought myself obliged in graof you, my dear hearers, if vengeance had im- titude to dedicate my whole life to him, who mediately followed sin' if God had not pro- in the tenderest compassion had given himself longed the days of sinners; if sentence against for me. Another time an extremely painful evil works had been executed speedily? illness showed me the absurdity of my course of life; filled me with a keenness of remorse, that seemed an anticipation of hell; put me on beseeching God to grant me a few years more of his patience; and brought me to a solemn adjuration that I would employ the remaining part of my life in repairing the past. All these have been fruitless; all these means have been useless; all these promises have been false; and yet I may have access to a throne of grace. What love! What mercy! What would have become of some of you, if God had required of you an account of your conduct, while ye were sacrificing the rights of widows and orphans to the "honour of the persons of the mighty," Lev. xix. 15; while ye were practising perjury and accepting bribes? It is the long-suffering of God that prolongs your days, that ye may make a restitution of your unrighteous gain, plead for the orphan and the widow, and attend in future decisions only to the nature of the cause before you. What would have become of some of you, if God had called you to give an account of your conduct, while the fear of persecution, or, what is infinitely more criminal still, while the love of ease, prevailed over you to renounce a religion which ye respected in your hearts while ye denied with your mouths? It is the patience of God which has afforded you time to learn the greatness of a sin, the guilt of which a whole life of repentance is not sufficient to expiate: it is the patience of God which has prolonged your days, that ye might confess that Jesus whom ye have betrayed, and profess that gospel which ye have denied." This long-suffering of God with impenitent sinners, will be one of the most terrible subjects that sinners can think of when the avenging moment comes; when the fatal hour arrives in which the voice of divine justice shall summon a miserable wretch to appear, when it shall bind him to a death bed, and suspend him over the abyss of hell. But to a poor sinner, who is awakening from his sin, who having consumed the greatest part of his life in sin, would repair it by sacrificing the world and all its glory, were such a sacrifice in his power: to a poor sinner, who, having been for some time afraid of an exclusion from the mercy of God, revolves Let us not multiply particular examples, let these distressing thoughts in his mind: Perus comprise this whole assembly in one class. haps "the days of my visitation" may be at There is not one of our hearers, no, not one, an end; henceforth, perhaps, my sorrows may who is in this church to-day, there is not one be superfluous, and my tears inadmissible: to who has been engaged in the devotional exer- such a sinner, what an object, what a comfortcises of this day, who would not have been in able object, is the treasure of "the forbearance hell with the devil and his angels, if vengeance and long-suffering of God that leadeth to rehad immediately followed sin; if God had ex-pentance." My God, says such a sinner, "I ercised no patience towards sinners; if sen- am not worthy of the least of all thy mercies!" tence against evil works" had been "executed Gen. xxxii. 10. My God, I am tempted to speedily." "It is of the Lord's mercies that think that to doubt of my interest in thy fawe are not consumed!" Lam. iii. 22. The devour is the rendering of a proper homage to lay of punishment is a demonstration of his thy mercy, and my unbelief would arise from mercy; it does not prove that he is not just, my veneration for thy majesty! But let me but it does prove that he is good. not think so; I will not doubt of thy mercy, my God, since thou hast condescended to assure me of it in such a tender manner! I will lose myself in that ocean of love which thou, O God, infinitely good! still discovers to me; I will persuade myself that thou dost not des pise the sacrifice of a broken and contrite heart; and this persuasion I will oppose to an alarmed conscience, to a fear of hell that anticipates the misery of the state, and to all those formidable executioners of condemned men, whom I behold ready to seize their prey! I could wish, my brethren, that all those who ought to interest themselves in this article, would render it needless for me to enter into particulars, by recollecting the history of their own lives, and by remembering the circumstances to which I refer. One man ought to say to himself, in my childhood, an upright father, a pious mother, and several worthy tutors did all that lay in their power to form me virtuous. In my youth, a tender and generous friend, who was more concerned for my happiness, and more ambitious of my excelling, than I myself, availed himself of all the power of insinuation that nature had given him, to My brethren, "the riches of the goodness, and forbearance, and long-suffering of God,' are yet open to you: they are open, my dear נור of this fear, and it deserves either praise, or blame, according to the different degree to which it is carried. A man, whose heart is so void of the knowledge of the perfections of God, that he cannot rise above the little idols which worldlings adore; whose notions are so gross, that he cannot adhere to the purity of religion for purity's sake; whose taste is so vitiated that he has no relish for the delightful union of a faithful soul with its God; such a man deserves to be praised, when he endeavours to restrain his sensuality by the idea of an avenging God. The apostles urged this motive with success, "knowing therefore the terror of the Lord we persuade men," 2 Cor. v. 11. "Of some have compassion," says St. Jude to the ministers of the gospel, "making a difference; and others save with fear, pulling them out of the fire," ver. 22, 23. Such a disposition is, without doubt, very imperfect, and were a man to expect salvation in his way, he would be in imminent danger of feeling those miseries of which he is afraid. No casuists, except such as have been educated in an infernal school, will venture to affirm, that to fear God in this sense, without loving him, is sufficient for salvation. Nevertheless, this disposition is allowable in the beginning of a work of conver brethren, to this church, how ungrateful soever we have been to the goodness of God; how much insensibility soever we have shown 12 to the invitations of grace: they are open to the greatest sinners, nor is there one of my hearers who may not be admitted to these inexhaustible treasures of goodness and mercy. But do ye still "despise the riches of the long-suffering of God?" What! because "a space to repent," Rev. ii. 21; is given, will ye continue in impenitence? Ah! were Jesus Christ in the flesh, were he walking in your streets, were he now in this pulpit preaching to you, would he not preach to you all bathed in sorrows and tears? He would weep over you as he once wept over Jerusalem, and he would say to this province, to this town, to this church, to each person in this assembly, yea, to that wicked hearer, who affects not to be concerned in this sermon, O that "thou hadst known, even thou, at least in this thy day, the things which belong unto thy peace!" Luke xix. 42. What am I saying? he would say thus, he does say thus, my dear brethren, and still interests himself in your salvation in the tenderest and most vehement manner. Sitting at the right hand of his Father, he holds back that avenging arm which is ready to fell us to the earth at a stroke; in our behalf he interposes his sufferings and his death, hission, it is never altogether useless to a regeneintercession and his cross; and from the top of that glory to which he is elevated, he looks down and says to this republic, to this church, to all this assembly, and to every sinner in it: O that "thou hadst known, even thou, at least in this thy day, the things which belong unto thy peace!" My brethren, the patience of God, which fet endures, will not always endure. The year which the master of the vineyard grants, at the intercession of the dresser, to try whether a barren fig-tree can be made fruitful, will expire, and then it must be cut down, Luke xiii. 6. Do not deceive yourselves, my brethren; the long-suffering of God must produce in the end either your conversion or your destruction. O may it prevent your destruction by producing your conversion! The Lord grant you this favour! To him, the Father, the Son, and the holy Spirit, be honour and glory for ever. Amen. SERMON XII. rate man, and it is of singular use to him in some violent temptations, with which the enemy of his salvation assaults him. When a tide of depravity threatens, in spite of yourselves, to carry you away, recollect some of the titles of God; the Scripture calls him "the mighty, and the terrible God; the furious Lord; a consuming fire," Neh. ix. 32; Nah. i. 2; Heb. xii. 29. Remember the terrors that your own consciences felt, when they first awoke from the enchantment of sin, and when they beheld, for the first time, vice in its own colours. Meditate on that dreadful abode, in which criminals suffer everlasting pains for momentary pleasures. The fear of God, taken in this first sense, is a laudable disposition. But it ceases to be laudable, it becomes detestable, when it goes so far as to deprive a sinner of a sight of all the gracious remedies which God has reserved for sinners. "I heard thy voice, and I was afraid, and I hid myself," Gen. iii. 10, said the first man, after his fall; but it was because he was naked;" it was because he had lost the glory of his primitive innocence, and must be obliged to prostrate GOD THE ONLY OBJECT OF FEAR. himself before his God, to seek from his infinite PART I. JEREMIAH X. 7. Who would not fear thee, O King of nations? For to thee doth it appertain. THE prophet aims, in the words of the text, to inspire us with fear, and the best way to understand his meaning is to affix distinct ideas 3 to the term. To fear God is an equivocal phrase in all languages; it is generally used in three senses in the holy Scriptures. 1. Fear sometimes signifies terror; a disposition, that makes the soul consider itself only as sinful, and God chiefly as a being who hates and avenges sin. There are various degrees mercy the proper remedies for his maladies; to pray to him, in whose image he had been first formed, Gen. i. 26; to "renew him after the image of him that created him," Col. iii. 10; and to ask him for habits, that "the shame of his nakedness might not appear," Rev. iii. 18. Despair should not dwell in the church, hell should be its only abode. It should be left to "the devils to believe and tremble," Jam. ii. 19. Time is an economy of hope, and only those, whom the day of wrath overwhelms with horrible judgments, have reason to cry to the mountains and rocks, Fall on us, and hide us from the wrath of the Lamb," Rev. vi. 16. Too great a degree of fear, then, in this first sense of fear, is a detestable disposition. 66 Fear is no less odious, when it gives us tragical descriptions of the rights of God, and of his designs on his creatures; when it makes a tyrant of him, whom the text calls "the king of nations," Rev. xix. 16; of him, who is elsewhere described as having on his thigh the stately title of "King of kings;" of him, whose dominion is described as constituting the felicity of his subjects, "The Lord reigneth, let the earth rejoice;" Ps. xcvii. 1. Far be such descriptions of God from us! They represent the Deity as a merciless usurer, who requires an account of talents that we have not received; who requires angelical knowledge of a human intelligence, or philosophical penetration of an uninstructed peasant. Far from us be those systems, which pretend to prove, that God will judge the heathens by the same laws by which he will judge the Jews; and that he will judge those who lived under the law, as if they had lived under the gospel? Away with that fear of God, which is so injurious to his majesty, and so unworthy of that throne, which is founded on equity! What encouragement could I have to endeavour to know what God has been pleased to reveal to mankind, were I prepossessed with an opinion, that, after I had implored, with all the powers of my soul, the help of God to guide me in seeking the truth; after I had laid aside the prejudices that disguise it; after I had suspended, as far as I could, the passions that deprave my understanding; even after I had determined to sacrifice my rest, my fortune, my dignity, my life, to follow it; I might fall into capital errors which would plunge me into everlasting wo? No, no, we "have not so learned Christ," Eph. iv. 20. None but a refractory servant fears God in this manner. It is only the refractory servant who, to exculpate himself for neglecting what was in his power, pretends to have thought that God would require more than was in his power: Lord, says he, "I knew thee that thou art a hard man, reaping where thou hast not sown, and gathering where thou hast not strawed," Matt. xxv. 24. I knew! And where didst thou learn this? What infernal body of divinity hast thou studied? What demon was thy tutor? Ah! thou art a wicked servant," and, at the same time, "a slothful servant;" slothful, ver. 26, not to form the just and noble resolution of improving the talent that I committed to thee: wicked, to invent such an odious reason, and to represent me in such dismal colours. "Thou oughtest to have put my money to the exchangers, and then I should have received mine own with usury," ver. 27. Thou oughtest to have improved that ray of light, with which I had enlightened thee, and not to have forged an ideal God, who would require that with which he had not intrusted thee. Thou oughtest to have read the books that my providence put into thy hands, and not to have imagined that I would condemn thee for not having read those which were concealed from thee. Thou oughtest to have consulted those ministers, whom I had set in my church, and not to have feared that I would condemn thee for not having sat in conference with angels and seraphims, with whom thou hadst no intercourse. Thou hadst but one talent; thou oughtest to have improved that one talent, and not to have neglected it lest I should require four of thee. "Thou wicked servant! Thou slothful servant! take the talent from him. Give it unto him who hath ten talents," ver. 28. These are the different ideas, which we ought to form of that disposition of mind which is called fear in this first sense. To fear God in this sense is to have the soul filled with horror at the sight of his judgments. 2. To fear God is a phrase still more equivocal, and it is put for that disposition of mind, which inclines us to render to him all the worship that he requires, to submit to all the laws that he imposes, to conceive all the emotions of admiration, devotedness, and love, which the eminence of his perfections demand. This is the usual meaning of the phrase. By this Jonah described himself, even while he was acting contrary to it, "I am an Hebrew, and I fear the Lord the God of heaven," Jonah i. 9. In this sense the phrase is to be understood when we are told that "the fear of the Lord prolongeth days, is a fountain of life, and preserveth from the snares of death," Prov. x. 27; xiv. 27. And it is to be taken in the same sense where "the fear of the Lord" is said to be "the beginning of wisdom," Ps. cxi. 10. The fear of the Lord in all these passages includes all the duties of religion. The last quoted passage is quite mistaken, when the fear that is spoken of is taken for terror: and a conclusion is drawn from false premises when it is inferred from this passage that fear is not sufficient for salvation. This false reasoning, however, may be found in some systems of morality. Terror, say they, may, indeed, make a part of the course of wisdom, but it is only the beginning of it, as it is said, "the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom:" but, neither does fear signify terror in this pas sage, nor does the beginning mean a priority of time; it means the principal point. "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom;" that is, the principal point; that without which no man is truly wise, that is, obedience to the laws of religion, agreeably to the saying of the Wise Man, "Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man," Eccl. xiv. 13. dif It seems needless to remark what idea we ought to form of this fear: for, it is plain, the more a soul is penetrated with it, the nearer it approaches to perfection. It seems equally unnecessary to prove that terror is a very ferent disposition from this fear: for, on the contrary, the most effectual mean of not fearing God, in the first sense is to fear him in the last. "Fear not," said Moses formerly, " for God is come to prove you, that his fear may be before your faces. Fear not, that ye may fear;" this is only a seeming contradiction. The only way to prevent fear, that is, horror, on account of the judgments of God, is to have "his fear before your eyes," that is, such a love, and such a deference for him, as religion requires. Agreeably to this, it is elsewhere said, perfect love (and perfect love, in this pas sage, is nothing but the fear of which I am speaking,) "perfect love casteth out fear," that is, a horror on account of God's judg ments: for the more love we have for him, the to us. stronger assurance shall we enjoy, that his judgments have nothing in them dangerous 3. But, beside these two notions of fear, there is a third, which is more nearly allied to our text, a notion that is neither so general as the last, nor so particular as the first. Fear, in this third sense, is a disposition which considers him who is the object of it as alone possessing all that can contribute to our happiness dor misery. Distinguish here a particular from a general happiness. Every being around us, by a wise disposal of Providence, has some degree of power to favour, or to hinder, a particular happiness. Every thing that can increase, or abate, the motion of our bodies, may contribute to the advancement, or to the diminution, of the particular happiness of our bodies. Every thing that can elucidate, or obscure the ideas of our minds, may contribute to the particular happiness or misery of our minds. Every thing that can procure to our souls either a sensation of pleasure, or a sensation of pain, may contribute to the particular happiness or misery of our souls. But it is neither a particular happiness, nor a particular misery, that we mean to treat of now: we mean a general happiness. It often happens, that all things being considered, a particular happiness, D considered in the whole of our felicity, is a general misery: and, on the contrary, it often happens that all things being considered, a particular misery, in the whole of our felicity, is a general happiness. It was a particular misfortune in the life of a man to be forced to bear the amputation of a mortified arm: but weighing the whole felicity of the life of the man, this particular misfortune became a good, because had he not consented to the amputation of the mortified limb, the mortification would have been fatal to his life, and would have deprived him of all felicity here. It was a particular calamity, that a believer should be called to suffer martyrdom: but in the whole felicity of that believer, martyrdom was a happiness, yea, an inestimable happiness: by suffering the pain of a few moments he has escaped those eternal torments which would have attended his apostacy; the bearing of a "light affliction, which was but for a moment, hath wrought out a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory," 2 Cor. iv. 17. S fi 18 soul and body in hell," Matt. x. 28. To kill the body is to cause a particular evil; and to fear them which kill the body is to regard the death of the body as a general evil, determining the whole of our felicity. To fear him which is able to destroy the soul, is to consider the loss of the soul as the general evil, and him who is able to destroy the soul as alone able to determine the whole of our felicity or misery. In this sense we understand the text, and this sense seems most agreeable to the scope of the place. Let us sum up these reflections. To consider a being as capable of rendering us happy or miserable, in the general sense that we have given of the words happiness and misery, is to fear that being, in the third sense which we have given to the term fear. This is the sense of the word fear, in the text, and in many other passages of the holy Scriptures. Thus Isaiah uses it, "Say ye not a confederacy, to all them to whom this people say a confederacy: neither fear ye their fear, nor be afraid. Sanctify the Lord of hosts himself, and let him be your fear, and let him be your dread," ch. viii. 12, 13. again, "Who art thou, that thou shouldst be afraid of a man that shall die, and of the son of man that shall be made as grass?" ch. l. 12. And again in these well known words So of our Saviour, "fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both The prophet was endeavouring to abase false gods in the eyes of his countrymen, while the true God was suffering their worshippers to carry his people into captivity. He was aiming to excite the Jews to worship the God of heaven and earth, and to despise idols even amidst the trophies and the triumphs of idolators. He was trying to convince them fully, that idols could procure neither happiness nor misery to mankind; and that, if their worshippers should inflict any punishments on the captives, they would be only particular evils, permitted by the Providence of God; "Be not dismayed at the signs of heaven because the heathen are dismayed at them. One cutteth a tree out of the forest with the axe to make idols; another decks them with silver and with gold, and fastens them with nails and with hammers that they move not. They are upright as the palm-tree, but speak not. They must needs be borne, because they cannot go. Be not afraid of them, for they cannot do evil, neither also is it in them to do good," ver. 2, &c. Remark here the double motive of not fearing them: on the one hand, they cannot do evil; on the other, neither is it in them to do good. This justifies the idea that we give you of fear, by representing it as that disposition, which considers its object as having our happiness and our misery in its power. Instead of fearing that they should destroy you, announce ye their destruction, and say unto them, in the language of the Babylonians who worship them, "the gods that have not made the heavens, and the earth, even they shall perish from the earth, and from under the heavens," ver. 11. Having thus shown that heathen gods could not be the object of that fear, which considers a being as able to procure happiness and misery; the prophet represents the God of Israel as alone worthy of such a homage, "He hath made the earth by his power, he hath established the world by his wisdom, and hath stretched out the heavens by his discretion. When he uttereth his voice there is a multitude of waters in the heavens, and he causeth the vapours to ascend from the ends of the earth: he maketh lightnings with rain, and bringeth forth the wind out of his treasures. Molten images are falsehood and vanity. The portion of Jacob is not like them: for he is the former of all things, and Israel is the rod of his inheritance; the Lord of hosts is his name," ver. 12, &c. The prophet, his own mind being filled with these noble ideas, supposes that every other mind is filled with them too; and in an ecstacy exclaims, "Who would not fear thee, O King of nations? for to thee doth it appertain!" These words are in the Chaldean language in the original. Fear, then, taken in this third sense, is a homage that cannot be paid to a creature without falling into idolatry. To regard a being, as capable of determining the happiness or misery of an immortal soul, is to pay the honours of adoration to him. As it can be said of none but God, "it is my happiness to draw near to him:" so of him alone can it be truly said, "it is my misery to depart from him," Ps. lxxiii. 28. Moreover, this homago belongs to him in a complete and eminent manner. He possesses all without restriction that can contribute to our felicity, or to our misery. Three ideas, under which we are going to consider God, will prove what we have affirmed. I. God is a being, whose will is self-efficient. II. God is the only being, who can act immediately on spiritual souls. III. God is the only being, who can make all creatures concur with his designs. From these three notions of God follows this consequence, "Who would not fear thee, O King of nations?" I. God is a being, whose will is self-efficient. We call that will self-efficient, which infallibly produces its effect. By this efficiency of will we distinguish God from every other being, either real or possible. No one but God has a self-efficient will. There is no one but God of whom the argument from the will to the act is demonstrative. Of none but God can we reason in this manner: he wills, therefore he does. Every intelligent being has some degree of efficiency in his will: my will has an efficiency on my arm; I will to move my arm, my arm instantly moves. But there is as great a difference between the efficiency of the will of a creature, and the efficiency of the will of the Creator, as there is between a finite and an infinite being. The will of a created intelligence, properly speaking, is not self-efficient, for it has only a borrowed efficiency. When he from whom it is derived, restrains it, this created intelligence will have only a vain, weak, inefficient will. I have to-day a will efficient to move my arm: but if that Being from whom I derive this will, should contract, or relax, the fibres of this arm, my will to move it would become vain, weak, and inefficient. I have a will efficient on the whole mass of this body, to which it has pleased the Creator to unite my immortal soul: but were God to dissolve the bond, by which he has united these two parts of me together, all that I might then will in regard to this body would be vain, weak, and destitute of any effect. When the Intelligence, who united my soul to my body, shall have once pronounced the word "return," Ps. xc. 3; that portion of matter to which my soul was united will be as free from the power of my will as the matter that constitutes the body of the sun, or as that which constitutes bodies, to which neither my senses, nor my imagination, can attain. All this comes to pass, because the efficiency of a creature is a borrowed efficiency, whereas that of the Crea tor is self-efficient and underived. Farther, the efficiency of a creature's will is finite. My will is efficient in regard to the portion of matter to which I am united: but how contracted is my empire! how limited is my sovereignty? It extends no farther than the mass of my body extends; and the mass of my body is only a few inches broad, and a few cubits high. What if those mortals, who are called kings, monarchs, emperors, could by foreign aid extend the efficiency of their wills to the most distant places; what if they were able to extend it to the extremities of this planet, which we inhabit; how little way, after all, is it to the extremities of this planet? What if, by the power of sulphur and saltpetre, these men extend the efficiency of their will to a little height in the air; how low, after all, is that height? Were a sovereign to unite every degree of power, that he could procure, to extend his efficiency to the nearest planet, all his efforts would be useless. The efficiency of a creature's will is finite, as well as bor rowed: that of the Creator is independent and universal; it extends to the most remote beings, as well as to those that surround us, it extends alike to all actual and to all possible beings. My brethren, are ye stricken with this idea! Do ye perceive its relation to our subject? "Who would not fear thee, O king of nations" Our low and grovelling minds, low and gro velling as they are, have yet some notion of the grand and the marvellous; and nothing can im pede, nothing can limit, nothing can equal our notion of it; when we give it scope it presently gets beyond every thing that we see, and every thing that exists. Reality is not sufficient, fancy must be indulged; real existences are too indigent, possible beings must be imagined; and we presently quit the real, to range through the ideal world. Hence come poetical fictions and fabulous narrations; and hence marvellous adventures, and romantic enchantments. A man is assuredly an object of great pity when he pleases himself with such fantas tic notions. But, the principle that occasioned these fictions, ought to render the mind of man respectable: it is the very principle which we have mentioned. It is because the idea, that the mind of man has of the grand and mar vellous, finds nothing to impede, nothing to limit, nothing to equal it. The most able architect cannot fully gratify this idea, although ho employs his genius, his materials, and his artists, to crect a superb and regular edifice in a few years. All this is far below the notion which we have of the grand and the marvellous. Our mind imagines an enchanter, who, uniting in an instant all the secrets of art, and all the wonders of nature, by a single word of his mouth, or by a single act of his will, produces a house, a palace, or a city. The most able mechanic cannot fully gratify this idea, although with a marvellous industry he builds a vessel, which, resisting winds and waves, passes from the east to the west, and discovers new worlds, which nature seemed to have forbidden us to approach, by the immense spaces that it has placed between us. Our mind fancies an enchantment, which giving to a body naturally ponderous the levity of air, the activity of fire, the agility of flame, or of ethereal matter, passes the most immeasurable spaces with a rapidity swifter than that of lightning. It is God, it is God alone, my brethren, who is the original of these ideas. God only possesses that which gratifies and |