The same also I can do of knowing them more perfectly;
i.e. all their qualities, powers, causes, consequences, and relations,
&c., till all be perfectly known that is in them, or can any way
relate to them: and thus frame the idea of infinite or boundless
knowledge. The same may also be done of power, till we come to that we
call infinite; and also of the duration of existence, without
beginning or end, and so frame the idea of an eternal being. The
degrees or extent wherein we ascribe existence, power, wisdom, and all
other perfections (which we can have any ideas of) to that sovereign
Being, which we call God, being all boundless and infinite, we frame
the best idea of him our minds are capable of: all which is done, I
say, by enlarging those simple ideas we have taken from the operations
of our own minds, by reflection; or by our senses, from exterior
things, to that vastness to which infinity can extend them.
35. God in his own essence incognisable. For it is infinity,
which, joined to our ideas of existence, power, knowledge, &c.,
makes that complex idea, whereby we represent to ourselves, the best
we can, the Supreme Being. For, though in his own essence (which
certainly we do not know, not knowing the real essence of a pebble, or
a fly, or of our own selves) God be simple and uncompounded; yet I
think I may say we have no other idea of him, but a complex one of
existence, knowledge, power, happiness, &c.
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