Probabilities | Page 5

in
the cobweb of metaphysics, soon to be destroyed, and easily to be
discussed at leisure by some Aranean logician. However, it seemed to
my midnight musings a probable mode of arriving at truth, though
somewhat unsatisfactorily told from poverty of thought and language.
Moreover, it would have been, in such _à priori_ argument, ridiculous
to have commenced by announcing a posterior conclusion: for this
cause did I do my humble best to work it out anew: and however
supererogatory it may seem at first sight to the majority of readers,
those keener minds whom I mainly address, and whose interests I wish
to serve, will recognise the attempt as at least consistent: and will be
ready to admit that if the arduous effort prove anteriorly a First Great
Cause, and His attributes, be futile (which, however, I do not admit), it
was an attempt unneeded on the score of its own merits; albeit, with an
obvious somewhat of justice, pure reason may desire to begin at the
beginning. No one, who thinks at all upon religion, however
misbelieving, can entertain any mental prejudice against the existence
of a Deity, or against the received character of His attributes. Such a
man would be merely in a savage state, irrational: whilst his own mind,
so speculating, would stand itself proof positive of an Intellectual
Father; either immediately, as in the first man's case, or mediately, as in
our own, it must have sprung out of that Being, who is emphatically the
Good One--God. But if, as is possible, a mind, capable of thinking, and
keen to think on other themes, from any cause, educational or moral,
has neglected this great track of mediation, has "forgotten God," and
"had him not in all his thoughts," such an one I invite to walk with me;
and, in spite of all incompleteness and insufficiency, uncaptious of
much that may haply be fanciful or false, briefly and in outline to test
with me sundry probabilities of the Christian scheme, considered
antecedently to its elucidation.

A GOD: AND HIS ATTRIBUTES.

I will commence with a noble, and, as I believe, an inspired sentence:
than which no truth uttered by philosophers ever was more clearly or
more sublimely expressed. "In the beginning was the Word: and the
Word was with God; and the Word was God." In its due course, we will
consider especially the difference between the Word and God; likewise
the seeming contradiction, but true concord, of being simultaneously
God, and with God. At present, and previously to the true
commencement of our _à priori_ thoughts, let us, by a word or two,
paraphrase that brief but comprehensive sentence, "In the beginning
was the Word." Eternity has no beginning, as it has no end: the clock of
Time is futile there: it might as well attempt to go in vacuo.
Nevertheless, in respect to finite intelligences like ourselves, seeing
that eternity is an idea totally inconceivable, it is wise, nay it is only
possible, to be presented to the mind piecemeal. Even our deepest
mathematicians do not scruple to speak of points "infinitely remote;" as
if in that phrase there existed no contradiction of terms. So, also, we
pretend in our emptiness to talk of eternity past, time present, and
eternity to come; the fact being that, muse as a man may, he can
entertain no idea of an existence which is not measurable by time: any
more than he can conceive of a colour unconnected with the rainbow,
or of a musical note beyond the seven sounds. The plain intention of
the words is this: place the starting-post of human thought as far back
into eternity as you will, be it what man counts a thousand ages, or ten
thousand times ten thousand, or be these myriads multiplied again by
millions, still, in any such Beginning, and in the beginning of all
beginnings (for so must creatures talk)--then was God. He Was: the
scholar knows full well the force of the original term, the philological
distinctions between [Greek: eimi] and [Greek: gignomai]: well pleased,
he reads as of the Divinity [Greek: ên], He self-existed; and equally
well pleased he reads of the humanity [Greek: egennêthê], he was born.
The thought and phrase [Greek: ên] sympathizes, if it has not an
identity, with the Hebrew's unutterable Name. HE then, whose title,
amongst all others likewise denoting excellence supreme and glory
underivative, is essentially "I am;" HE who, relatively to us as to all
creation else, has a new name wisely chosen in "the Word,"--the great
expression of the idea of God; this mighty Intelligence is found in any
such beginning self-existent. That teaching is a mere fact, known

posteriorly from the proof of all things created, as well as by many
wonderful signs, and the clear