INTRODUCTION.

CHAPTER I.

"No one hath seen God at any time."a Why the Deity should be thus invisible, appears from the following declaration made by the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ: "God is a Spirit." A spirit is mind; and mind, as well as thought and propensity to action, can only be seen in the outward visible act which ensues from the exercise of those faculties. It is by the act only that the spirit which actuates intelligent beings is clearly seen: hence it follows, that the great Divine Spirit is only to be seen or known by his acts or works. Wherever his works may be found, there will be his Spirit also; or, in other words, there God is present, is present in person or as a person; for it is truly said by the ingenious Paley, "That which can contrive, that which can design, must be a person." "c Contrivance and design, infinite in degree of excellence, are visible in every part of the creation; and therefore the created world or universe is a just representation, an apt symbol of the great God supreme.

a John i. 18. b John iv. 24. c Paley, Nat. Theology, chap. xxiii,

B

What may thus be learned from argument, the authority of Holy Writ-the revealed word of God, fully confirms. The Apostles were assured by the Redeemer, that the Spirit of Truth should guide them into truth.d That Spirit must be presumed to have given especial guidance to the pens of the Apostles, when reciting precepts and doctrines which were to remain recorded for generations. That Spirit drew from the pen of Saint Paul the following precept, "The invisible things of him, (God) from the creation of the world, are clearly seen by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead."e If, then, God cannot be seen in his person, he may be seen symbolically in his works, collectively considered, as far as the knowledge of the contemplator may extend.

In the infancy of knowledge, a mountain might suffice for a representation of the world; in an advanced state of knowledge, the whole earth must be exhibited in some form which must of necessity be figurative, for it is not possible to comprise the whole in one view. In the present state of knowledge, extended as it is by all the wonderful discoveries which the arts and sciences have enabled man to make, the universe, consisting of an assemblage of countless worlds, something little short of infinite, ought to be exhibited in a proper representation of the Deity. It were difficult to devise a form adequate to this purpose; some inadequate representation must therefore now suffice. Such are the reasons that invite the mind to regard the creation as a symbol of the Deity, and such the necessity of having recourse to a symbol of that symbol. What this may be will in due time be shewn.

It appears from Holy Writ, that the early patriarchs, the faithful servants of the true God, did make use of symbolical forms in their sacred structures, to excite the mind to pious sentiment, and to give steadiness to pious purposes; but the

symbols adopted by them were always such as were significant of the whole world or universe, as far as then known. In later ages, and an improved state of knowledge, the sacred structures representative of the world and of the Deity became more complex and large. Different gradations in the extent, and different variety in the forms of sacred structures were used in successive ages, till at length those forms were devised which are now exhibited in the Christian churches of England, and other countries of Europe. The reason why our churches bear their present form, and why the temples and sacred structures of other nations and ages bore forms different from ours, will be found in the endeavour to render them symbols of the divine presence by bearing a resemblance to the great and proper symbol, the world. What that symbol may have been, or what it ought now to be, will depend upon the answer to the question, What may have been the ideas entertained in different ages of the form of the world or universe? The answer will be given in the following statements.

There is no ground for a supposition, that when the Deity revealed to Adam in successive conferences the history of the creation, he gave him any information respecting the structure of the universe, or any matters except such as immediately required his attention, and were intimately connected with his daily business and concerns. It may indeed be imagined, that Adam did acquire, during the long period of his life, some acquaintance with the planets which appear to revolve round the earth; such attainments, however, must have been the result of long-continued and careful observation. Several centuries of his life must have passed, during which he would have had little or no idea of any other place than the earth, of whose form experience and observation had afforded little knowledge: of the universe, and even of the solar system, he probably had no conception.

The infirmity of human nature is ever prone to give locality to the ubiquity of the Deity; and there can be no doubt that Adam was, even while in the Garden of Eden, subject to infirmities, little, if at all, different from those of his descendants. Knowing almost nothing of the created world, he would have no idea of any other place of the divine abidance than in the adjacent country, and would presume, from the frequent presence, that the Garden was the true abode of God.

After the expulsion from the Garden, that place would be regarded by the unhappy pair with feelings of sorrowing affection. The recollection of comforts enjoyed there, rendered more dear by the experience of manifold annoyances to which they were daily subject in the wide and wild world into which they were driven, must have induced them to regard the Garden of Eden as the true Paradise, as the terrestrial abode of God and of heavenly beings; the place also which they regarded with an interest more intense, from the notion they fondly entertained, that the seed of the Woman would break the Serpent's head ere many years had passed, and replace them in their first abode, and restore to them the wonted favour of their mighty God and the friendly intercourse of his ministering spirits.'

Feelings and hopes such as these, the father of mankind did most assuredly render familiar to his descendants, in those traditional lectures which, on every sabbath or other religious occasion of assemblage, he must be supposed to have delivered as part of the service which they met to perform. The doctrine that the Deity held his abode on the eminence of the Garden inaccessible from the flaming sword, (perhaps a volcanic issue of fire,) may be presumed to have been known and generally believed, and often to have been the subject of contemplation with the sons of Adam residing in

See Reflections on the Books of the Holy Scripture, by P. Allix, 2 vols. where this opinion is amply vindicated.