observation is stinted to a certain number of objects. The sphere in
which we move, and act, and understand, is of a wider circumference to
one creature than another, according as we rise one above another in the
scale of existence. But the widest of these our spheres has its
circumference. When therefore we reflect on the Divine nature, we are so
used and accustomed to this imperfection in ourselves, that we cannot
forbear in some measure ascribing it to Him in whom there is no shadow
of imperfection. Our reason indeed assures us that his attributes are
infinite; but the poorness of our conceptions is such, that it cannot
forbear setting bounds to every thing it contemplates, till our reason
comes again to our succour and throws down all those little prejudices
which rise in us unawares, and are natural to the mind of man.

We shall, therefore, utterly extinguish this melancholy thought of our
being overlooked by our Maker in the multiplicity of his works, and the
infinity of those objects among which He seems to be incessantly
employed, if we consider, in the first place, that He is omnipresent;
and in the second, that He is omniscient.

If we consider Him in his omnipresence; his being passes through,
actuates, and supports the whole frame of nature. His creation, and
every part of it, is full of Him. There is nothing He has made that is
either so distant, so little, or so inconsiderable, which He does not
essentially inhabit. His substance is within the substance of every
being, whether material or immaterial, and as intimately present to it
as that being is to itself. It would be an imperfection in Him, were He
able to move out of one place into another, or to draw himself from any
thing He has created, or from any part of that space which He diffused
and spread abroad to infinity. In short, to speak of Him in the language
of the old philosophers, He is a being whose centre is everywhere and