ATTRIBUTES OP THE DEITY 



manufactories established for supplying employ 

 ment to every class of labourers and artizans, 

 and lecture-rooms prepared, furnished with re 

 quisite apparatus, to which they might resort for 

 improvement in science. Roads would be cut 

 In all convenient directions, diversified with rural 

 decorations, hedge-rows, and shady bowers, 

 foot-paths, broad and smooth, would accompany 

 them in all their windings, and gas-lamps, 

 erected at every half-mile s distance, would va 

 riegate the rural scene and cheer the shades of 

 night. Narrow lanes in cities would be either 

 widened or their houses demolished ; streets on 

 broad arid spacious plans would be built, the 

 smoke of steam-engines consumed, nuisances 

 removed, and cleanliness and comfort attended 

 to in every arrangement. Cheerfulness and 

 activity would everywhere prevail, and the idler, 

 the vagrant, and the beggar would disappear 

 from society. All these operations and improve 

 ments, and hundreds more, could easily be ac 

 complished, were the minds of the great body of 

 the community thoroughly enlightened and mora 

 lized, and every individual, whether rich or poor, 

 who contributed to bring them into effect, would 

 participate in the general enjoyment. And what 

 an interesting picture would be presented to 

 every benevolent mind, to behold the great body 

 of mankind raised from a state of moral and 

 physical degradation to the dignity of their ra 

 tional natures, and to the enjoyment of the 

 bounties of their Creator ! to behold the country 

 diversified with the neat and cleanly dwellings 

 of the industrious labourer, the rural scene, 

 during the day, adorned with seminaries, manu 

 factories, asylums, stately edifices, gardens, 

 fruitful fields and romantic bowers, and, during 

 night, bespangled in all directions with varie 

 gated lamps, farming a counterpart, as it were, 

 to the lights which adorn the canopy of heaven ! 

 Such are only a few specimens of the improve 

 ments which art, directed by science and mora 

 lity, could easily accomplish. 



SECTION VI. 



ON THE INFLUENCE OF KNOWLEDGE IN PRO- 

 MOTIWO ENLARGED CONCEPTION S OF THE 

 CHARACTER AND PERFECTIONS OF THE 

 DEITV. 



ALL the works of God speak of their Author, 

 in silent but emphatic language, and declare the 

 glory of his perfections to all the inhabitants of 

 the earth. But, although &quot; there is no speech 

 nor language&quot; where the voice of Deity is not 

 heard, how gross are the conceptions generally 

 entertained of the character of Him &quot; in whom 

 we live and move,&quot; and by whose superintending 

 events are directed ! Among the 



greater number of pagan nations, the moat al&amp;gt; 

 surd and grovelling notions are entertained re 

 specting the Supreme Intelligence, and the 

 nature of that worship which his perfections de 

 mand. They have formed the most foolish and 

 degrading representations of this august Being, 

 and have i changed the glory of the incorruptible 

 God into an image made like to corruptible 

 man, and to four-footed beasts and creeping 

 things.&quot; Temples have been erected and filled 

 with idols the most hideous and obscene ; bulls 

 and crocodiles, dogs and serpents, goats and 

 lions have been exhibited to adumbrate the 

 character of the Ruler of the universe. The 

 most cruel and unhallowed rites have been per 

 formed to procure his favour, and human vic 

 tims sacrificed to appease his indignation. All 

 such grovelling conceptions and vile abomina 

 tions have their origin in the darkness which 

 overspreads the human understanding, and the 

 depraved passions which ignorance has a ten 

 dency to produce. Even in those countries 

 where Revelation sheds its influence, and the 

 knowledge of the true God is promulgated, how 

 mean and contracted are the conceptions which 

 the great bulk of the population entertain of the 

 attributes of that incomprehensible Being whose 

 presence pervades the immensity of space, who 

 &quot; metes out the heavens with a span,&quot; and su 

 perintends the affairs of ten thousand worlds 

 The views which many have acquired of the 

 perfections of the Deity, do not rise much higher 

 than those which we ought to entertain of tho 

 powers of an archangel, or of one of the sera 

 phim ; and some have been known, even in our 

 own country, whose conceptions have been so 

 abject and grovelling, as to represent to them 

 selves &quot; the King eternal, immortal, and invisi 

 ble,&quot; under the idea of a &quot; venerable old man. 3 &quot; 

 Even the more intelligent class of the commu 

 nity fall far short of the ideas they ought to form 

 of the God of heaven, owing to the limited 

 views they have been accustomed to take of the 

 displays of his wisdom and benevolence, and 

 the boundless range of his operations. 



We can acquire a knowledge of the Deity 

 only by the visible effects he has produced, or 

 the external manifestations he has j^iven of him 

 self to his creatures ; for the Divine Essence 

 must remain for ever inscrutable to finite minds. 

 These manifestations are made in the Revela 

 tions contained in the Bible, and in the scene of 

 the material universe around us. The moral 

 perfections of God, such as his justice, mercy, 

 and faithfulness, are more particularly deline 

 ated in his word ; for, of these the system of 

 nature can afford us only some slight hints and 

 obscure intimations. His natural attributes, 

 such as his immensity, omnipotence, wisdom, 

 and goodness, are chiefly displayed in the works 

 of creation ; and to this source of information 

 the inspired writers uniformly direci our atten- 



