DESCRIPTIONS OF THE DIVINE BEING.
By Gershom F. Cox.
It is a difficult task to shadow forth spirit. The best emblems of the earth can give but faint and distant views of its incomprehensible nature. Our own consciousness, too, must fail to give us adequate notions of the mysterious traits of its character. Aided by the brightest images of earth, or the most subtle principles of philosophy, who can bring to view any tolerably good picture of a human soul!—who can draw the outlines of thought!—thought that is as immeasurable as the universe!—thought that could encompass, with more than the quickness of the lightning's flash, all that God has made!—thought that gives to us, at once, the gravity of the merest atom, the beauties and properties of the petal of a single flower, or the structure, density, size and weight of the worlds that border on the outskirts of our own universe; and when it has done its noble work, as if plumed for fresh conquests, stretches itself far beyond the material universe, into the deep solitudes of eternity, in quest of something more! Who, we ask again, can give the outlines of thought? Who can tell us of its yet hidden resources; or of a mind like that of Newton, or of Bacon, which, after they had taken from the arcana of nature some of her most hidden principles, "entered the secret place of the Most High, and lodged beneath the shadow of the Almighty?" How much less, then, can we give just descriptions of the Deity! How can we describe Him "who covereth himself with light as with a garment,"—whom no man hath seen, nor can see.
We are aware that every thing speaks of a God. All nature has its language; and however dark the alphabet, it still speaks, and speaks every where; for there is no place where he has not "left a witness." We acknowledge, too, that the only reason why the deep tones of nature are not more audible, may be found in the imbecilities or transgressions of man. But, while the babbling brook hath its story to tell of its Maker, and the willow that bends and sighs by its side, and the pebble o'er which the streamlet rolls;—while the glorious dew-drop has its power of speech—the soft south breeze, and "the hoar-frost of heaven;" while the deep vale may offer its chorus to the waving corn, or to the lofty summit by its side; while often may be heard the full notes of the angry tempest, and of the tornado as it sweeps by us, carrying fearful desolation in its path; although these may all speak forcibly of the power, of the goodness, of the wisdom, of the terrible justice of God; yet, without divine revelation, like the inscription at Athens, they only point to a God unknown. The awful precipice, where
"Leaps the live thunder,"
in the hour of the tempest, doth but stun the intellect of man with its overhanging and dizzy heights. And "the sound of many waters," or "the deep, lifting up his hands on high,"—although they may arouse every passion of the spirit, and address it as with the voice of God; yet, to man, these all want an interpreter. Lo! these are but "parts of his ways." But what a mere "whisper of the matter is heard in it, and the thunder of his power who can understand!"
Nature speaks—we repeat it—but her language, to us, is often indefinite; like the dream of Nebuchadnezzar, it may arouse the spirit to inquiry—agitate every passion to consternation; but without a Daniel to interpret her admonitions, "the thing is passed from us." Else why this gross ignorance of the character of God among even the enlightened, or rather civilized, nations of antiquity? Why did not Egypt, when all the "wisdom of the east" was concentrated in her sons, have some notions of the Deity that would have raised their minds above the serpent or crocodile, or some insignificant article of the vegetable creation? Why did not the savage, roaming in the freedom of his interminable forests, have some correct views of God? He had talked with the sun, and heard the roar of the tempest; the evening sky in its grandeur was an everlasting map spread out before him, and the broad lake mirrored back to him its glories. But how confused—how degraded were the loftiest notions of the Deity, among the most powerful of Indian minds!
But I have already strayed from my purpose. I intended only to give a specimen or two, of attempted descriptions of the Deity, for the purpose of showing the infinite superiority of those contained in the bible, above every other in the world.
It ought, however, to be recollected, that the descriptions we find among heathen authors, are doubtless more or less indebted to sentiments borrowed from the Jewish scriptures; although we believe the contrast will show that they have passed through heathen hands. One of the most sublime to be met with in the world, out of the bible, was engraved in hieroglyphics upon the temple of Neith, the Egyptian Minerva. It is as follows: