some analogy between them, but so essentially
different from them in other respects, that whatever term we make use of
to denote the one, it must be improperly applied to the other." He
specifies several points of "essential difference" between the human and
the Divine mind: the _first_ is, the limited intelligence of the one as
contrasted with the all-comprehensive omniscience of the other; the
_second_ is, the omnipotence which belongs to God, and in virtue of
which He can produce, or annihilate, anything at His pleasure: the
_third_ is, that "the Divine essence cannot be the object of any of our
senses, as everything else that we call 'matter' is." And on these
grounds he concludes that "as the Divine powers, so the Divine nature,
must be essentially different from ours, and, consequently, no common
term, except such comprehensive terms as _being, nature_, &c., can be
properly used to express both." He further argues that "no proof of the
materiality of man can be extended, by any just analogy, to a proof or
evidence of a similar materiality of the Divine nature; for the
properties or powers being different, the 'substance' or 'essence' (if
it be any convenience to us to use such terms at all) must be different
also."[177]

Now, we conceive this to be a mere evasion of the real difficulty:
_first_, because the same mode of reasoning, if applied to the case of
the human mind, would equally serve to prove that _it_ should be
distinguished from matter: and, _secondly_, because the alleged
_differences_ between the human and the Divine mind, great and real as
we admit them to be, afford no better reason for calling God a "spirit,"
than that which may be found in the _resemblance or analogy_ between
created and uncreated intelligence. It is as true of the human as it is
of the Divine mind, that we know nothing of its essence, except what we
learn through its properties and powers, that "it cannot be the object
of any of our senses, as everything that we call 'matter' is," and that
if it be right to give different and distinctive names to substances,
expressive of their properties in so far as these are known to us, we
are warranted in calling the human soul a "spirit" and distinguishing it
from "matter," until it can be shown that the properties of both are
identical. If this be denied, we cannot see on what ground the
distinction between "matter" and "spirit" can be maintained with
reference to God Himself. Dr. Priestley