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the mental energies; a morality, which contributes to form the suspicious- cha- ra£ler of a grave sentimentalist, and not that of a rational philosopher ; a moralityj which is' totally incompatible with the necessary duties of human life considered as a state of discipline, and as A preparation for a state of eternal hap- piness and perfeftion. DISCOURSE VI. m ' ' ■ ON THE b"RAHMINICAL KEPRESENTATIONS, OF THE DEITY OPERATING AS A PRESERVATIVE OF MORAL PURITY, AND AS A SOURCE OF HAPPINESS,, , ContradiSiion in the 'Hindoo character ex- plained — Of the mystic Worship' of the Hindoos and their licentious Rites— -Of the Do&rine of the immortality of the Soul, how converted into a source of misery-^ Of the effedis of a System of Metaphysics operating on the Superstition of the Vulgar — Of the Influence of Cli- mate on national CharaSer, DISCOURSE VI. ON THE BRAHMINICAL EEPEESENTATIONS OF THE ITEITY OPEKATING AS A PRESEllVATIVE OF MORAL PUllITY, AND AS A SOURCE OF HAPPINESS. Exodus 34, v. 5. 6, ^nd the Lord descended in the cloud, and stood with him there, and proclaimed the name of the Lord. And the Lord passed by before him, and proclaimed the Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, long suffering, and abundant iii goodness and truth. An eminent '^ writer has observed, that the indistinftnesSj produced by the association of abstraft ideas, is often a soilrce of the true sub- Jime. The reiiiai"Tk: is in no case so well illus- trated, as in those r^pVesentaitions of tKe Deity, with which the Hbly'Scriptures abound : repre- sentations, which whille they exclude form and body, aJfFe£l the soul with the most awful sense of infinite power, majesty, and glory, manifested .? .Edmnnd Burke, n2 . 180 in ijifinite mercy and goodness. The mind of man, utterly incapable of comprehending the objeft, shrinks back within itself, at the contem- plation of the y high and holy one who inhabiteth eternity," and hurnbles itself, in unutterable aspirations, before the Lord God Almighty. If he who " was caught up into the third Heaven," knew not, even, when the rapture was past, whether he had been " in the body or out of the body : if he was unable to utter the things which, he had seen and heard: if the positive, the experimental knowledge of " the things which God hath prepared for them that love him," could be represented by an inspired Apostle, only in negative' and, indistinft terms ; well may we -be assured of the insufficiency of language to describe Huvr who is the author of them all : and of whom the human imagination can conceive nothing more than the shadows of his perfeftions ; the out-skirts of his gloj-y,- That man, unassisted by revelation, is capable of forming any notions worthy of the Alpiighty, may safely be denied ; because most certain it is, that all the proper no- tions which any people on earth ever did form concerning him,- may be traced to their sources, , either in primeval tradition, or in the ^written theology of Moses. 181' But insufficient ' as man must ever be to ^p^ak or to think of the eternal Majesty, " with the , Jionour due unto his name," still man is capable of knowing Him, so far as lie has condescended to reveal himself; because the terms of such revelation must of necessity comport at once Vvith the Divine nature, and with the capacity of the creature to whom the revelation is made. When the Gd of the utiiverse x\o longer hideth himself in thick darkness, he allows us to recog- nize him as the God of man, as the Lord, the Lord God', merciful aiid gtacious, long-suffering, and abundant in goodness and truth. Again — what- eVer peculiar attributes such revelation ^hould display as inherent in the divine essence, those attributes must be analogous to the ideas or them, with which man ' is coriveTsant. The archetypal wisdom, and pow'er, and goodness, and 'patience, cannot be different in nature, though' infinitely different in degree, from the siame qualities in a created being ; because a regl difference in their nature, would not only render a revdation of the divine' natiire totally inqorhr prehe'nsible' as a truth ; but every deduftion from its principles -would defeat all proprie:ty and justness of religious sentiment, and all order in religious obedience. Whensoever therefore the Divine Being should' have imparted to his rational N 3 ■ 182, creatures the knowledge of himself, that know- ledge must be at* once proportioned to their intelleftual capacity, and to the purposes for which the knowledge is imparted. But the intclle£tual powers of man, however capable of pursuits and attainments, transcendently higher than his present state of existence demands, are, with respe£t,,to "the things of God," merely dormant faculties, till awakened into aftion by a divine call, and dire£ted by a divine rule ; and the duties prescribed by that rule, must be con- sonant to the nature and to the authority of Him who gives it. But the spiritual nature, and the inherent dominion of the Lord God, must of necessity, to be intelligible by man, be adum- brated by representations to which man's faculties are equal, because it is impossible for man to understand them as they really are j and the religious duties towards Him who is without parts or passions, must be conformable to the intellectual powers of the creature who is to fulfil them ; and in terms, of which, so far as they go, his conceptions are clear and just, however inadequate to the essential dignity of the Lord ' OF ALL. Most of those terms, by which the Holy Scrip.- tures represent the attributes of the Supreme 183 Being, are, in a strift sense, inapplicable to Him : they are derived from qualities and relations appli- cable to MAN alone, for whom language was in- tended, & whose wants it was designed toexpress, !|But yet those, notions which are philosophically erroneous, may be rendereid pra£lically useful. Though in condescension to the weakness, and in conformity to the capacity of man, the'Al- mighty is sometimes described as sifFe£ted' by human passions and subjeftto human infirmities; yet these representations carry with them no pra£tical error. They are such as no blindness can misunderstand, and no base passion misinter- pret, .On the contrary they are such as are adapted to produce the happiest influence on the conduft. Whenever occasions present themsdves, when a more appropriate idea of the Divinity is essentially connefted with the revelation of any important truth, or with the injun£lion of any parti- cular precept, he always appears in a manner cal- culated to impress sentiments of the purest vene- ration: he is then divested of every passion which belongs to humanity, and is exhibited in awfulj but indistinft grjancieur. And if under the Jewish law, where the conditions of obedience were more strict, the N 4 134 penalties ofinvoluntary error or of wilful rebellion were proportionably severe : yet/ even then. Almighty Power is tempered isy mercy j though the formalities with which' the Jaw, was intro- duced, wer^ designed to impress terror, yet th^ precept itself was only love. The Governor of the universe is, indeed,. represented, as punishing a violation of his commands on distant geripra- tipns; but -when he prqmulgates that code of moral duty of which rigorous justice i? the charafteristic, he desicribes himself as " gracious,, long suffering, and abundant in goodness and truth*'' The -same design was preserved through- out the old covenant, which is still more con- spicuously displayed under the Christjan.dispen- satlon, that of placing the Divine Being in such a point of view, as, while it may operate on the on^ hand in ^he most forcible manner, sfs a preservative of inoral purity, may, on the other hand, afford, to^ man a.sourc:e of rational happiness. In the general delineation of the Brahminical system, in its influence on, the moral charafler, the first place was assigned to the ideas which it inculcates concerning the Divine nature ;; but, before a particular discussion is attempted of their praftic^l effefils, it wilt be proper to state the irresistible influence, which these ideas rausthiave. 183 on the general complexion of every religion, and consequently on the fprmatioti of the chara£ler. It has been frequently stated, that, although the religion of the Hindoos, on a superficial view, appears to consist in the rnost extravagant polytheism; yet that it is, in fafl, the worship of the one true God. According to their own expla- natioui they ^ave, " in their temples, many statues, " both of superior and inferior divinities, before *' which they prostrate themselves, and present *' them with offerings ; nevertheless they do not be^ "JLeve that the statues are the divinities them-, "selves, but only their image or representation; " and that they honour them only on account of " the beings which they represent ; that they are *' placed in the temples only to furnish the " ^people with some visible obj eft of attention; ^' ^nd that when they pray, it is not to the statue, but to him whom it rfipres^nts."' This indeed has been the apology for idol-, atrous wot-ship in every, age; but on this very ajccountj w^ assume the superiority of the; Jevvish and of the Christian revelation, over the-, dreams of Pagan superstition. In each we are oqcasJDnalljr ^ Sketches eftb^Hindoosi 186 afFefted by sublime descriptions of the invisibility of the Supreme Being; in each the Supreme Being is brought nearer to the human compre- hension, by being invested with the relations and qualities of human nature.