1. The immaterialist assumes that God consists of an immaterial substance, indivisible in its nature, "whose centre is everywhere and circumference nowhere." The indivisibility of a substance implies impenetrability; that is, two substances cannot exist in the same space at the same time; hence, if an indivisible substance exist everywhere, as it cannot be penetrated, it will absolutely exclude the existence of all other substances. Such a substance would be a boundless, infinite solid, without pores, incapable of condensation, or expansion, or motion, for there would be no empty space left to move to. Observation teaches us that this is not the case; therefore an infinitely extended, indivisible, immaterial substance is absurd in the highest degree, and opposed to all true philosophy.

2. The immaterialist teaches that the godhead consists of three persons of one substance, and that each of these persons can be everywhere present. Now in order to be everywhere present, each of these persons must be infinitely extended, or else each must be susceptible of occupying two or more places at the same time. If a substance be infinitely extended it ceases to be a person; for to all persons there are limits of extension called figure; but that which is not limited can have no figure, and therefore cannot be a person. Therefore, it is absolutely necessary that a person should be included in a finite extent. Now that which is limited within one finite extent, cannot be included within some other extent at the same time; therefore it is utterly impossible for a person to be in two or more places at the same time, hence immaterialism is totally absurd and unphilosophical.

3. The immaterialist teaches that the substance of the Deity is not only omnipresent and indivisible, but that all other substances are contained in his substance and perform all their motions in it without any mutual action or resistance. The profound and illustrious Newton, in the Scholium at the end of the "Principia," has fallen into this error; he says, "God is one and the same God always and everywhere. He is omnipresent, not by means of his virtue alone, but also by his substance, for virtue cannot subsist without substance. In him all things are contained, and move, but without mutual passions God is not acted upon by motions of the bodies; and they suffer no resistance from the omnipresence of God." Here we have an omnipresent substance, which is said by immaterialists to be so compact as to be indivisible, with worlds moving in it without suffering any resistance: this is the climax of absurdity. All masses of substance with which we are acquainted, are susceptible of division, yet even in these, bodies cannot move without being resisted; how much more impossible it would be for worlds to exist and move in an indivisible substance without resistance, yet this is the absurdity of the immaterial hypothesis. There is nothing too ridiculous or too unphilosophical to be incorporated in an immaterial substance when its existence has been once assumed.

The reflecting mind turns away from such fooleries with the utmost disgust, and feels to pity those men who have degraded the great and all-wise Creator and Governor of the universe by applying to him such impossible, unheard of, and contradictory qualities. The heathen, in their wildest imaginations never fancied up a god that could begin to compare with the absurd qualities ascribed to the immaterialists' god.