ic, and lay a solid foundation for a genuine scheme of
optimism, against which no valid objection can be urged.

In the first place, then, it is not a limitation of the divine omnipotence
to say, that it cannot work contradictions. There will be little
difficulty in establishing this point. Indeed, it will be readily
conceded; and if we offer a few remarks upon it, it is only that we may
leave nothing dark and obscure behind us, even to those whose minds are
not accustomed to such speculations.

As contradictions are impossible in themselves, so to say that God could
perform them, would not be to magnify his power, but to expose our own
absurdity. When we affirm, that omnipotence cannot cause a thing to be and
not to be at one and the same time, or cannot make two and two equal to
five, we do not set limits to it; we simply declare that _such things are
not the objects of power_. A circle cannot be made to possess the
properties of a square, nor a square the properties of a circle. Infinite
power cannot confer the properties of the one of these figures upon the
other, not because it is less than infinite power, but because it is not
within the nature, or province, or dominion of power, to perform such
things, to embody such inherent and immutable absurdities in an actual
existence. In regard to the doing of such things, or rather of such absurd
and inconceivable nothings, omnipotence itself possesses no advantage over
weakness. Power, from its very nature and essence, is confined to the
accomplishment of such things as are possible, or imply no contradiction.
Hence it is beyond the reach of almighty power itself to break up and
confound the immutable foundations of reason and truth. God possesses no
such miserable power, no such horribly distorted attribute, no such
inconceivably monstrous imperfection and deformity of nature, as would
enable him to embody absurdities and contradictions in actual existence.
It is one of the chief excellencies and glories of the divine nature, that
its infinite power works within a sphere of light and love, without the
least tendency to break over the sacred bounds of eternal truth, into the
outer darkness of chaotic night!

The truth of this remark, as a general proposition, will be readily
admitted. In general terms, it is universally acknowledged; and its
application is easy where the impossibility is plain, or the contradiction
glaring. But there are things which really imply a cont