overwhelming greatness and glory, mingled with that awful mysteriousness
with which, to all finite minds, and especially to the minds of mortals,
the divine essence and mode of existence must ever be invested. Though
ONE he is אלהים, ELOHIM, GODS, _persons adorable_. He is יהוה, JEHOVAH,
self-_existing_; אל, EL, _strong_, _powerful_; אהיה, EHIEH, _I am_, _I
will be_, _self-existence_, _independency_, _all-sufficiency_,
_immutability_, _eternity_; שדי, SHADDAI, _almighty_, _all-sufficient_;
אדן, ADON, _Supporter_, _Lord_, _Judge_. These are among the adorable
appellatives of God which are scattered throughout the revelation that
he has been pleased to make of himself: but on one occasion he was
pleased more particularly to declare his _name_, that is, such of the
qualities and attributes of the divine nature as mortals are the most
interested in knowing; and to unfold, not only his natural, but also
those of his moral attributes by which his conduct toward his creatures
is regulated. “And the Lord passed by and proclaimed, The Lord, the Lord
God, merciful and gracious, long-suffering, and abundant in goodness and
truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity, transgression,
and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty; visiting the
iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and upon the children’s
children, unto the third and fourth generation,” Exodus xxxiv. This is
the most ample and particular description of the character of God, as
given by himself in the sacred records; and the import of the several
titles by which he has thus in his infinite condescension manifested
himself, has been thus exhibited. He is not only JEHOVAH,
_self-existent_, and EL, _the strong or mighty God_; but he is, says Dr.
A. Clarke, “רחום, ROCHUM, _the merciful Being_, who is full of
tenderness and compassion; חנון, CHANUN, _the gracious One_, he whose
nature is goodness itself, the loving God. ארך פים, EREC APAYIM,
_long-suffering_, the Being who, because of his tenderness, is not
easily irritated, but suffers long and is kind; דב RAB, _the great or
mighty One_: חסד, CHESED, _the bountiful Being_, he who is exuberant in
his beneficence; אפת, EMETH, _the Truth_, or _True One_, he alone who
can neither deceive nor be deceived; נצר חסד, NOTSER CHESED, _the
Preserver of bountifulness_, he whose beneficence never ends, keeping
mercy for thousands of generations, showing compassion and mercy while
the world endures; נשא עון ופשע וחטאה, NOSE AVON VAPESHA VECHATAAH, _he
who bears away iniquity, transgression, and sin_; properly the
_Redeemer_, the _Pardoner_, the _Forgiver_, the Being whose prerogative
it is to forgive sin, and save the soul; נקה לא ינקה, NAKEH LO YINNAKEH,
_the righteous Judge_, who distributes justice with an impartial hand;
and פקד עין, PAKED AVON, &c, _he who visits iniquity_, he who punishes
transgressors, and from whose justice no sinner can escape; the God of
retributive and vindictive justice.”
8. The second means by which the Scriptures convey to us the knowledge
of God, is by the _actions_ which they ascribe to him. They contain,
indeed, the important record of his dealings with men in every age which
is comprehended within the limit of the sacred history; and, by
prophetic declaration, they also exhibit the principles on which he will
govern the world to the end of time: so that the whole course of the
divine administration may be considered as exhibiting a singularly
illustrative comment upon those attributes of his nature which, in their
abstract form, are contained in such declarations as those which have
been just quoted. The first act ascribed to God is that of creating the
heavens and the earth out of nothing; and by his fiat alone arranging
their parts, and peopling them with living creatures. By this were
manifested--his _eternity and self-existence_, as he who creates must be
before all creatures, and he who gives being to others can himself
derive it from none:--his _almighty power_, shown both in the act of
creation and in the number and vastness of the objects so produced:--his
_wisdom_, in their arrangement, and in their fitness to their respective
ends:--and his _goodness_, as the whole tended to the happiness of
_sentient_ beings. The foundations of his natural and moral government
are also made manifest by his creative acts. In what he made out of
nothing he had an absolute right and prerogative: it awaited his
ordering, and was completely at his disposal; so that to alter or
destroy his own work, and to prescribe the laws by which the intelligent
and rational part of his creatures should be governed, are rights which
none can question. Thus on the one hand his character of _Lord_ or
_Governor_ is established, and on the other our duty of lowly _homage_
and absolute _obedience_.
9. Agreeably to this, as soon as man was created, he was placed under a
rule of conduct. Obedience was to be followed with the continuance of
the divine favour; transgression, with death. The event called forth new
manifestations of the character of God. His tender _mercy_, in the
compassion showed to the fallen pair; his _justice_, in forgiving them
only in the view of a satisfaction to be hereafter offered to his
justice by an innocent representative of the sinning race; his _love_ to
that race, in giving his own Son to become this Redeemer, and in the
fulness of time to die for the sins of the whole world; and his
_holiness_, in connecting with this provision for the pardon of man the
means of restoring him to a sinless state, and to the obliterated image
of God in which he had been created. Exemplifications of the divine
_mercy_ are traced from age to age, in his establishing his own worship
among men, and remitting the punishment of individual and national
offences in answer to prayer offered from penitent hearts, and in
dependence upon the typified or actually offered universal
sacrifice:--of his _condescension_, in stooping to the cases of
individuals; in his dispensations both of providence and grace, by
showing respect to the poor and humble; and, principally, by the
incarnation of God in the form of a servant, admitting men into familiar
and friendly intercourse with himself, and then entering into heaven to
be their patron and advocate, until they should be received unto the
same glory, “and so be for ever with the Lord:”--of his strictly
_righteous government_, in the destruction of the old world, the cities
of the plain, the nations of Canaan, and all ancient states, upon their
“filling up the measure of their iniquities;” and, to show that “he will
by no means clear the guilty;” in the numerous and severe punishments
inflicted even upon the chosen seed of Abraham, because of their
transgressions:--of his _long-suffering_, in frequent warnings, delays,
and corrective judgments inflicted upon individuals and nations, before
sentence of utter excision and destruction:--of _faithfulness_ and
_truth_, in the fulfilment of promises, often many ages after they were
given, as in the promises to Abraham respecting the possession of the
land of Canaan by his seed, and in all the “promises made to the
fathers” respecting the advent, vicarious death, and illustrious offices
of the “Christ,” the Saviour of the world:--of his _immutability_, in
the constant and unchanging laws and principles of his government, which
remain to this day precisely the same, in every thing universal, as when
first promulgated, and have been the rule of his conduct in all places
as well as through all time:--of his _prescience_ of future events,
manifested by the predictions of Scripture:--and of the depth and
stability of his _counsel_, as illustrated in that plan and purpose of
bringing back a revolted world to obedience and felicity, which we find
steadily kept in view in the Scriptural history of the acts of God in
former ages; which is still the end toward which all his dispensations
bend, however wide and mysterious their sweep; and which they will
finally accomplish, as we learn from the prophetic history of the
future, contained in the Old and New Testaments.
Thus the course of divine operation in the world has from age to age
been a manifestation of the divine character, continually receiving new
and stronger illustrations until the completion of the Christian
revelation by the ministry of Christ and his inspired followers, and
still placing itself in brighter light and more impressive aspects as
the scheme of human redemption runs on to its consummation. From all the
acts of God as recorded in the Scriptures, we are taught that he alone
is God; that he is present every where to sustain and govern all things;
that his wisdom is infinite, his counsel settled, and his power
irresistible; that he is holy, just, and good; the Lord and the Judge,
but the Father and the Friend, of man.
10. More at large do we learn what God is, from the declarations of the
inspired writings. As to his _substance_, that “God is a Spirit.” As to
his _duration_, that “from everlasting to everlasting he is God;” “the
King, eternal, immortal, invisible.” That, after all the manifestations
he has made of himself, he is, from the infinite perfection and glory of
his nature, _incomprehensible_: “Lo, these are but parts of his ways,
and how little a portion is heard of him!” “Touching the Almighty, we
cannot find him out.” That he is _unchangeable_: “The Father of Lights,
with whom there is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.” That “he
is the fountain of life,” and the only independent Being in the
universe: “Who only hath immortality.” That every other being, however
exalted, has its existence from him: “For by him were all things
created, which are in heaven and in earth, whether they are visible or
invisible.” That the existence of every thing is upheld by him, no
creature being for a moment independent of his support: “By him all
things consist;” “upholding all things by the word of his power.” That
he is _omnipresent_: “Do not I fill heaven and earth with my presence,
saith the Lord?” That he is _omniscient_: “All things are naked and open
before the eyes of him with whom we have to do.” That he is the absolute
Lord and _Owner_ of all things: “The heavens, even the heaven of
heavens, are thine, and all the parts of them:” “The earth is thine, and
the fulness thereof, the world and them that dwell therein:” “He doeth
according to his will in the armies of heaven, and among the inhabitants
of the earth.” That his _providence_ extends to the minutest objects:
“The hairs of your head are all numbered:” “Are not two sparrows sold
for a farthing? and one of them shall not fall on the ground without
your Father.” That he is a Being of unspotted _purity_ and perfect
_rectitude_: “Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of hosts!” “A God of truth, and
in whom is no iniquity:” “Of purer eyes than to behold iniquity.” That
he is _just_ in the administration of his government: “Shall not the
Judge of the whole earth do right?” “Clouds and darkness are round about
him; judgment and justice are the habitation of his throne.” That his
_wisdom_ is unsearchable: “O the depth of the wisdom and knowledge of
God! How unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out!”
And, finally, that he is _good_ and _merciful_: “Thou art good, and thy
mercy endureth for ever:” “His tender mercy is over all his works:”
“God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us,
even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ:”
“God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing
their trespasses unto them:” “God hath given to us eternal life, and
this life is in his Son.”
11. Under these deeply awful but consolatory views, do the Scriptures
present to us the supreme object of our worship and trust; and they
dwell upon each of the above particulars with inimitable sublimity and
beauty of language, and with an inexhaustible variety of illustration.
Nor can we compare these views of the divine nature with the conceptions
of the most enlightened of Pagans, without feeling how much reason we
have for everlasting gratitude, that a revelation so explicit, and so
comprehensive, should have been made to us on a subject which only a
revelation from God himself could have made known. It is thus that
Christian philosophers, even when they do not use the language of the
Scriptures, are able to speak on this great and mysterious doctrine, in
language so clear, and with conceptions so noble; in a manner too so
equable, so different from the sages of antiquity, who, if at any time
they approach the truth when speaking of the divine nature, never fail
to mingle with it some essentially erroneous or grovelling conception.
“By the Word of God,” says Dr. Barrow, “we mean a Being of infinite
wisdom, goodness, and power, the Creator and the Governor of all things,
to whom the great attributes of eternity and independency, omniscience
and immensity, perfect holiness and purity, perfect justice and
veracity, complete happiness, glorious majesty, and supreme right of
dominion belong; and to whom the highest veneration, and most profound
submission and obedience are due.” “Our notion of Deity,” says Bishop
Pearson, “doth expressly signify a Being or Nature of infinite
perfection; and the infinite perfection of a being or nature consists in
this, that it be absolutely and essentially necessary; an actual Being
of itself; and potential, or causative of all beings beside itself,
independent from any other, upon which all things else depend, and by
which all things else are governed.” “God is a Being,” says Lawson, “and
not any kind of being; but a substance, which is the foundation of other
beings. And not only a substance, but perfect. Yet many beings are
perfect in their kind, yet limited and finite. But God is absolutely,
fully, and every way infinitely perfect; and therefore above spirits,
above angels, who are perfect comparatively. God’s infinite perfection
includes all the attributes, even the most excellent. It excludes all
dependency, borrowed existence, composition, corruption, mortality,
contingency, ignorance, unrighteousness, weakness, misery, and all
imperfections whatever. It includes necessity of being, independency,
perfect unity, simplicity, immensity, eternity, immortality; the most
perfect life, knowledge, wisdom, integrity, power, glory, bliss, and all
these in the highest degree. We cannot pierce into the secrets of this
eternal Being. Our reason comprehends but little of him, and when it can
proceed no farther, faith comes in, and we believe far more than we can
understand; and this our belief is not contrary to reason; but reason
itself dictates unto us, that we must believe far more of God than it
can inform us of.” To these we may add an admirable passage from Sir
Isaac Newton: “The word GOD frequently signifies _Lord_; but every lord
is not God; it is the dominion of a spiritual Being or Lord that
constitutes God; true dominion, true God; supreme, the Supreme; feigned,
the false god. From such true dominion it follows, that the true God is
living, intelligent, and powerful; and from his other perfections, that
he is supreme, or supremely perfect; he is eternal and infinite;
omnipotent and omniscient; that is, he endures from eternity to
eternity; and is present from infinity to infinity. He governs all
things that exist, and knows all things that are to be known; he is not
eternity or infinity, but eternal and infinite; he is not duration or
space, but he endures and is present; he endures always, and is present
every where; he is omnipresent, not only virtually, but also
substantially; for power without substance cannot subsist. All things
are contained and move in him, but without any mutual passion; he
suffers nothing from the motions of bodies; nor do they undergo any
resistance from his omnipresence. It is confessed, that God exists
necessarily, and by the same necessity he exists always and every where.
Hence also he must be perfectly similar, all eye, all ear, all arm, all
the power of perceiving, understanding, and acting; but after a manner
not at all corporeal, after a manner not like that of men, after a
manner wholly to us unknown. He is destitute of all body, and all bodily
shape; and therefore cannot be seen, heard, or touched; nor ought he to
be worshipped under the representation of any thing corporeal. We have
ideas of the attributes of God, but do not know the substance of even
any thing; we see only the figures and colours of bodies, hear only
sounds, touch only the outward surfaces, smell only odours, and taste
tastes; and do not, cannot, by any sense, or reflex act, know their
inward substances; and much less can we have any notion of the substance
of God. We know him by his properties and attributes.”
12. Many able works in proof of the existence of God have been written,
the arguments of which are too copious for us even to analyze. It must
be sufficient to say that they all proceed, as it is logically termed,
either _à priori_, from cause to effect, or, which is the safest and
most satisfactory mode, _à posteriori_, from the effect to the cause.
The irresistible argument from the marks of _design_ with which all
nature abounds, to one great intelligent, designing Cause, is by no
writers brought out in so clear and masterly a manner as by Howe, in his
“Living temple,” and Paley, in his “Natural Theology.”
GODS, in the plural, is used of the false deities of the Heathens, many
of which were only creatures to whom divine honours and worship were
superstitiously paid. The Greeks and Latins, it is observable, did not
mean, by the name _God_, an all-perfect being, whereof eternity,
infinity, omnipresence, &c, were essential attributes: with them the
word only implied an excellent and superior nature; and, accordingly,
they give the appellation _gods_ to all beings of a rank or class,
higher or more perfect than that of men, and especially to those who
were inferior agents in the divine administration, all subject to the
one Supreme. Thus men themselves, according to their system, might
become gods after death, inasmuch as their souls might attain to a
degree of excellence superior to what they were capable of in life. The
first idols, or false gods, that are said to have been adored were the
stars, sun, moon, &c, on account of the light, heat, and other benefits
which we derive from them. (See _Idolatry_.) Afterward the earth came to
be deified, for furnishing fruits necessary for the subsistence of men
and animals: then fire and water became objects of divine worship, for
their usefulness to human life. In process of time, and by degrees, gods
became multiplied to infinity; and there was scarce any thing but the
weakness or caprice of some devotee or other, elevated into the rank of
deity: things useless or even destructive not excepted. The principal of
the ancient gods, whom the Romans called _dii majorum gentium_, and
Cicero celestial gods, Varro select gods, Ovid _nobiles deos_, others
_consentes deos_, were Jupiter, Juno, Vesta, Minerva, Ceres, Diana,
Venus, Mars, Mercury, Neptune, Vulcan, and Apollo. Jupiter is considered
as the god of heaven; Neptune, as god of the sea; Mars, as the god of
war; Apollo, of eloquence, poetry, and physic; Mercury, of thieves;
Bacchus, of wine; Cupid, of love, &c. A second sort of gods, called
demi-gods, _semi-dii_, _dii minorum gentium_, _indigetes_, or gods
adopted, were men canonized and deified. As the greater gods had
possession of heaven by their own right, these secondary deities had it
by merit and donation, being translated into heaven because they had
lived as gods upon earth.
2. The Heathen gods may be all reduced to the following classes: (1.)
Created spirits, angels, or demons, whence good and evil gods; Genii,
Lares, Lemures, Typhones, guardian gods, infernal gods, &c. (2.)
Heavenly bodies; as, the sun, moon, and other planets; also, the fixed
stars, constellations, &c. (3.) Elements; as air, earth, ocean, Ops,
Vesta; the rivers, fountains, &c. (4.) Meteors. Thus the Persians adored
the wind: thunder and lightning were honoured under the name of Geryon;
and several nations of India and America have made themselves gods of
the same. Castor, Pollux, Helena, and Iris, have also been preferred
from meteors to be gods; and the like has been practised in regard to
comets: witness that which appeared at the murder of Cæsar. (5.) They
erected minerals or fossils into deities. Such was the Bætylus. The
Finlanders adored stones; the Scythians, iron; and many nations, silver
and gold. (6.) Plants have been made gods. Thus leeks and onions were
deities in Egypt; the Sclavi, Lithuanians, Celtæ, Vandals, and
Peruvians, adored trees and forests; the ancient Gauls, Britons, and
Druids, paid a particular devotion to the oak; and it was no other than
wheat, corn, seed, &c, that the ancients adored under the names of Ceres
and Proserpina. (7.) They took themselves gods from among the waters.
The Syrians and Egyptians adored fishes; and what were the Tritons, the
Nereids, Syrens, &c, but fishes? Several nations have adored serpents;
particularly the Egyptians, Prussians, Lithuanians, Samogitians, &c.
(8.) Insects, as flies and ants, had their priests and votaries. (9.)
Among birds, the stork, raven, sparrowhawk, ibis, eagle, grisson, and
lapwing have had divine honours; the last in Mexico, the rest in Egypt
and at Thebes. (10.) Four-footed beasts have had their altars; as the
bull, dog, cat, wolf, baboon, lion, and crocodile, in Egypt and
elsewhere; the hog in the island of Crete; rats and mice in the Troas,
and at Tenedos; weasels at Thebes; and the porcupine throughout all
Zoroaster’s school. (11.) Nothing was more common than to place men
among the number of deities; and from Belus or Baal, to the Roman
emperors before Constantine, the instances of this kind are innumerable:
frequently they did not wait so long as their deaths for the apotheosis.
Nebuchadnezzar procured his statue to be worshipped while living; and
Virgil shows that Augustus had altars and sacrifices offered to him; as
we learn from other hands that he had priests called _Augustales_, and
temples at Lyons, Narbona, and several other places, and he must be
allowed the first of the Romans in whose behalf idolatry was carried to
such a pitch. The Ethiopians deemed all their kings gods: the Velleda of
the Germans, the Janus of the Hungarians, and the Thaut, Woden, and Assa
of the northern nations, were indisputably men. (12.) Not men only, but
every thing that relates to man, has also been deified; as labour, rest,
sleep, youth, age, death, virtues, vices, occasion, time, place,
numbers, among the Pythagoreans; the generative power, under the name of
Priapus. Infancy alone had a cloud of deities; as, Vagetanus, Levana,
Rumina, Edufa, Potina, Cuba, Cumina, Carna, Ossilago, Statulinus,
Fabulinus, &c. They also adored the gods Health, Fever, Fear, Love,
Pain, Indignation, Shame, Impudence, Opinion, Renown, Prudence, Science,
Art, Fidelity, Felicity, Calumny, Liberty, Money, War, Peace, Victory,
Triumph, &c. Lastly, Nature, the universe, or τὸ ϖὰν, was reputed a
great god.
3. Hesiod has a poem under the title of Θεογονία, that is, “The
Generation of the Gods,” in which he explains their genealogy and
descent, sets forth who was the first and principal, who next descended
from him, and what issue each had: the whole making a sort of system of
Heathen theology. Beside this popular theology, each philosopher had his
system, as may be seen from the “Timæus” of Plato, and Cicero “_De
Natura Deorum_.” Justin Martyr, Tertullian, Arnobius, Minutius Felix,
Lactantius, Eusebius, St. Augustine, and Theodoret, show the vanity of
the Heathen gods. It is very difficult to discover the real sentiments
of the Heathens with respect to their gods: they are exceedingly
intricate and confused, and even frequently contradictory. They admitted
so many superior and inferior gods, who shared the empire, that every
place was full of gods. Varro reckons up no less than thirty thousand
adored within a small extent of ground, and yet their number was every
day increasing. In modern oriental Paganism they amount to many
millions, and are, in fact, innumerable.
4. The name of God, in Hebrew, _Elohim_, is very ambiguous in Scripture.
The true God is often called so, as are sometimes angels, judges, and
princes, and sometimes idols and false gods; for example: “God created
the heaven and the earth,” Gen. i, 1. The Hebrew _Elohim_ denotes, in
this place, the true God. “He who sacrificeth unto any god, (_Elohim_,)
shall be put to death,” Exodus xxii, 20. And again: “Among the gods
there is none like unto thee,” Psalm lxxxvi, 8. Princes, magistrates,
and great men are called gods in the following passages: “If a slave is
desirous to continue with his master, he shall be brought to the
judges,” Exod. xxi, 6, in the original, to the _gods_. Again: “If the
thief be not found, then the master of the house shall be brought unto
the judges,” Exod. xxii, 8, in the original, to the gods; and in the
twenty-eighth verse of the same chapter, “Thou shalt not speak evil of
the gods;” that is, of the judges or great men. The Psalmist says that
the Lord “judgeth among the gods,” Psalm lxxxii, 1. And again, God says
to Moses, “I have made thee a god to Pharaoh,” Exod. vii, 1. The pious
Israelites had so great an aversion and such an extreme contempt for
strange gods, that they scorned even to mention them; they disguised and
disfigured their names by substituting in the room of them some term of
contempt; for example, instead of _Elohim_, they called them _Elilim_,
“nothings, gods of no value;” instead of _Mephibaal_, _Meribaal_, and
_Jerubaal_, they said “Mephibosheth, Meribosheth, and Jeribosheth.”
_Baal_ signifies master, husband; and _bosheth_, something to be ashamed
of, something apt to put one in confusion. God forbade the Israelites to
swear by strange gods, and to pronounce the names of them in their
oaths, Exod. xxiii, 13.
GODLINESS, strictly taken, signifies right worship, or devotion; but, in
general, it imports the whole of practical religion, 1 Tim. iv, 8; 2
Peter i, 6.