ON THE NATURE AND ATTRIBUTES OF GOD.

"Live ye,

Or are ye aught that man may question?"

FEW subjects have been more submitted to mental discussion than the one upon the consideration of which we are now engaged, and perhaps few have been less openly and professedly examined. Some reason for this apparent inconsistency may perhaps be ascribed to the nature of the human mind, the functions of which are so various, and differently defined, as have hitherto defied the deepest penetration of the scrutinizing eye of Science. There is this peculiarity in the mind of man, that it will enter into the consideration of the most clear and striking truths, the most obvious and mathematically-demonstrated facts, with calmness, patience, and research: but upon subjects of a hypothetical or mere visionary nature it loses the helm of its government, and becomes captious, dogmatical, and intolerant. This peculiarity. has not been confined to any age, nor is it limited to any country, but the extent of its influence is universal, and it has only been among master spirits and mighty geniuses that Reason has asserted and maintained her empire over the rest of the mental faculties. Call in question the veracity and fair dealing of a man whose mind is so circumstanced and he prepares himself to meet the charge with vigour and promptitude, and it may be that he will forgive the accuser and admit him to be acting upon an erroneous impression. Doubt for an instant the truth of some speculative idea which he has formed; some imagery of his own brain, incapable of proof, because incapable of demonstration, and he immediately becomes convinced of your inferiority of intellect, and your cloudiness of mental vision. But if this same phantom of his creation; this undefinable hypothesis, be in any way connected with his religious associations, or be wrought up with the mystical reveries of theology, he is your open, bitter, and professed enemy, should you have the hardihood to call in question the reality of his imaginations. Still this weakness of the energy of the mind is not the only and original cause why the nature and attributes of God have not been oftener made the subject of discussion, why the reality of God has not been deduced to one standard, by which all might know him, all might worship him. To the extensive influence of religion must the primary reason be assigned why this important and soul-involving question has not been more definitely settled. Priests, of every Vol. XIV. No. 23.

system of theology whatever, have found it necessary to their interest, and indispensible to their advancement to oppose a barrier against free enquiry, and a barrier of such a nature that has proved pretty generally effective. The first professors of every mode of religious worship have asserted, and caused to be believed, that they have been appointed divine agents from heaven, to whom the glorious and immortal word of God has been revealed. Believe what we tell you-seek not to enquire furtherthe subject is too mysterious for vulgar comprehension; and the greater the mystery the greater the reality. Such are the maxims which have ever been artfully promulgated by designing and crafty priests, and which have been as eagerly adopted by a supersti tious and degraded population. Bold and uncompromising men, have, at different periods, applied the pruning hook to the theolo gical tree, and removed some of the wild-spreading and mischievous branches which sprung from it: but none have been hardy enough to lay the axe to the root, and cut off the canker which corroded it. Although wrangling and disputing about minor points of difference, they have tacitly agreed to leave the grand, fundamental point, undiscussed and undisplayed. That would have spoiled their trade, by opening the eyes of mankind as to the real state of the case; and would have discovered, that not words alone, but things, needed to be the subject of debate. The idea of a God has ever been of a vague and unsatisfactory nature, hardly definable by those even whose imaginations have been most futile, and whose faith most implicit. Though in general making great professions, and being clamourously obtrusive in their zeal when sceptical, interrogatory, or naked philosophy have asserted their claim to enquiry, very few of the multitude, the great mass of mankind, have been religious, feelingly and honestly religious; they have talked, not acted; professed, not performed. Few have, in any way, given themselves trouble or anxiety to discover the truth of their belief, or to ascertain the approximation of its tenets to morality; they have not thought upon the subject at all, nor felt its vast importance to themselves individually, and to society at large, but have lulled themselves in the fancied security of its being made apparent and satisfactorily displayed by the learning and ingenuity of those who were employed and amply paid for the purpose. A still fewer number even than these have been the men who have openly and explicitly avowed their disbelief as 'to the veracity of the prevailing mode of theology, or have even dared to venture the most unobtrusive doubts upon the matter. Religion has been, in fact, a hypothesis; an ideal perfection; much vaunted and exultingly eulogized in theory, but 'deemed incompatible, or, perhaps, not thought any thing of at all, with relation to the practical purposes of life.

If a robber burglariously enter his neighbour's dwelling with

intent to deprive him of his property, at the time he commits this offence" he has not the fear of the Lord before his eyes;" neither does he feel any remarkably strong attachment to the devil; but if alarm or timidity overcome his resolution, it is lest the treadmill, transportation, or the gallows be his fate: these are the terrors which operate upon his imagination, but he knows, either personally or by credible witnesses, of the certainty of the application. Temporal punishments, alone, and not eternal ones, influence his conduct. Upon the latter kind he bestows no thought, or if a wandering idea of eternity should casually flit across his callous mind, it is quickly dispelled by the consolatory reflection -that it is a long way off, and perhaps may never come. The nefarious speculation, the deceitful stock jobber, the swindling merchant, think none of them on futurity when engaged in their several fraudulent transactions, each prefer the real and obvious wealth of the world's disposal to the riches which they are taught by their parson to believe is reserved for those who love the Lord."

4

Man being unable by experience, or the evidence of his senses, to account for the various phenomena surrounding him, or the ori gin of the beautiful and extensively modified works of nature the stupendous and wonder-inspiring harmony of the celestial regions, or the more familiar and tangible objects of a terrestial kind, has, in every age, agreed in the conclusion, that some being greater than himself must be in existence; some infinitely wise and powerfully gifted being endowed with extraordinary attributes by whom all things were made, and by whose will all continue to be: the author of life; the inflicter of death; the promoter of good; the allower of evil; the alternater of the seasons; of night, and of dayin fine, the grand mover of the universal machines, the originator, and perfector. This opinion, which merely removed the object of enquiry a step farther, by assigning as a cause a something without ascertaining what was the original causes of the production of that something, seems to have been hastily inferred, and as quickly decided as being of unequivocal certainty, and mankind adopted the belief as a truism, which it would be a needless loss of time to dispute.

Different nations, and the inhabitants of the same countries, have, at various periods of time, adopted singularly different opinions concerning the nature and descriptive form of this Being, according as priestly dictation, or political circumstances have intervened. But in almost every theological system, the Deity has been represented as a jealous and revengeful God; as the cruel torturer and remorseless persecutor of all evil doers; that is to say, of all who did not comply with his wishes, and obey his commands, however repugnant they might appear to propriety of conduct, or hostile to moral rectitude. The supposed precepts and ordinations of this creature of the imagination have

ever been presumed as more appropriately fitted to respect and observance than the honest dictates of an approving conscience. Though, in general, all religious systems which have been, and are now in existence, assert the Unity of God, yet many of them have divided his different attributes, and described and personified each under some nominal appellation and reality of figure. Thus the power of God was called by the Pagan Greeks Jupiter, and delineated under the form of a majestic and venerable man, seated upon a golden throne with thunderbolts in his right hand: the vengeance of God was named Juno, and described as a female sitting on a throne of gold or ivory, with a scepter in her hand, The wisdom of God was named Minerva, and depicted as a masculine looking female with a helmet on her head; in one hand holding a spear, and in the other a shield, with the dying head of Medusa upon it. Thus other attributes were described under different names and forms. anat

The Christian religion teaches that the attributes of God compose one entire perfection, and which diversity of attributes are distinguished by the terms NATURAL and MORAL, the former of which divisions is again subdivided into communicable and incommunicable. The natural incommunicable attributes of God are spirituality, eternity, immensity, immutability, and unity. The natural communicable attributes of God are life, knowledge, wisdom, power, aud happiness. The moral attributes of God, and which are all communicable, are holiness, goodness, mercy, justice, and veracity. Christians differ very much in opinion, and have done from a very early period in their history, concerning the nature and essence of the Supreme Being; the greater number of them have ever been, and still remain, worshippers of three persons in the unity of the Godhead, while many others have followed the opinions of Arius, a presbyter of Alexandria, who lived about 317 years after Christ, and maintained the doctrine of the Unity of God, affirming the Word, or Son of God, to be a creature. In their doxologies they ascribe Glory to the Father, through the Son, in the Holy Ghost. Ever since the time of Arius, this distinction has been imagined and kept alive by numerous and contending partisans of either belief. The early Christians allowed of no images to express the ideas, the func tions of their divinity, for the first three centuries of their progress, because the remembrance of idolatrous idol-worshipping was first in the minds of mankind. The Council of Eliberis decreed that pictures ought on no account to be exhibited in churches, or other religious edifices, stating as a reason" lest that be worshipped which is painted on the walls." About the latter end of the fourth century pictures of saints and martyrs began to gain admittance in the holy buildings; and after the second Council of Nice, images of God, and also of the Trinity, were allowed to be constructed. A lamb, then, became the sym

bol of Jesus Christ, and a dove became typical of the Holy Ghost; but the sixth general council forbade Christ to be any longer described as a lamb, and ordered that he should be represented under the effigy of a man, since which time the adoration of images has been a constant practice among the Catholics, as objects upon which the eye might rest while in prayer, to prevent the thoughts from wandering from the sacred subject.

The only description which has been given of God in the canonical gospels of the New Testament is that of A SPIRIT, but of which kind is left for the futile imagination to infer, though the Israelites, upon whose tenets Christianity was partly engrafted, have given a much more tangible and visible appearance to the same being, describing him as being the image of a man or the light in brightness, having horns coming from his hands, a sharp edged sword issuing from his mouth, and burning coals proceeding from his feet: before him travelled a pestilence, and he was as a consuming fire. Though the Jews had depicted to them such a terrible and merciless God, one who could formidably revenge all crimes committed against his ordinations, yet they wandered much after strange deities, which were worshipped by the inhabitants of the surrounding nations. Not being able to discard the remembrance of the Gods of Egypt, of which country they were originally a colony, they set up a golden calf, emblem of the Egyptian Apis or Bull, as the object of their adoration. In the Book of Judges we read that a man, named Micah, had a house full of gods, and that he consecrated one of his sons, who became his priest. In sundry other places mention is made of the Israelites turning after Baal, and forsaking the God described to them as the true one; throughout the Bible such apostacy is of frequent occurrence.

Upon taking a glance into the history of past ages, and, at the same time, viewing philosophically the prevalent opinions of the present day, we shall find that countries and nations have had and still subscribe to nearly the God, though each differing in typical illustration. Among the ancient Persians the sun was the glorious object of their idolatry, being the purest emblem of God, who was the refulgence of light, the creator of all things, called by them Ormuzd. He being alone powerful in the universe, and feeling weary of the perpetual sameness, communed within himself, saying, "If I have no one to oppose me, where is all my glory." This reflection created darkness, which was deified under the title of SANVIнV-always written inverted, and who by his continued opposition to the divine will, and being always defeated in his attempts at victory, contributed greatly to the glory of Ormuzd.

palme belief in the attributes of

Before the introduction of the Mohammedan religion into Arabia, the ancient inhabitants worshipped a vast number of Deities, the statues of 360 of which stood round the temple at