The Chautauquan, Vol. 05, February 1885Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle
Philosophy
The Chautauquan, Vol. 05, February 1885
Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle
Chautauqua Institution -- Periodicals; Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle -- Periodicals
The Deity is intended to be the everlasting field of the human intellect,
as well as the everlasting object of the human heart, the everlasting
portion of all holy and happy minds, who are destined to spend a blissful
but ever active eternity in the contemplation of his glory.… He will
forever remain “the unknown God.” We shall ever be conscious that we
know little compared with what remains to be known of him; that our most
rapturous and lofty songs fall infinitely short of his excellence. If we
stretch our powers to the uttermost, we shall never exhaust his praise,
never render him adequate honor, never discharge the full amount of claim
which he possesses upon our veneration, obedience, and gratitude. When
we have loved him with the greatest favor, our love will still be cold
compared with his title to our devoted attachment. This will render him
the continual source of fresh delight to all eternity. His perfection
will be an abyss never to be fathomed; there will be depths in his
excellence which we shall never be able to penetrate. We shall delight in
losing ourselves in his infinity. An unbounded prospect will be extended
before us; looking forward through the vista of interminable ages we
shall find a blissful occupation for our faculties, which can never end;
while those faculties will retain their vigor unimpaired, flourish in the
bloom of perpetual youth, … and the full consciousness remain that the
Being whom we contemplate can never be found out to perfection … that
he may always add to the impression of what we know, by throwing a veil
of indefinite obscurity over his character. The shades in which he will
forever conceal himself will have the same tendency to excite our adoring
wonder as the effulgence of his glory; the depths in which he will
retire from our view, the recesses of his wisdom and power as the open
paths of his manifestation. Were we capable of comprehending the Deity,
devotion would not be the sublimest employment to which we can attain.
In the contemplation of such a Being we are in no danger of going beyond
our subject; we are conversing with an infinite object, … in the depths
of whose essence and purposes we are forever lost. This will probably
give all the emotions of freshness and astonishment to the raptures of
beatific vision, and add a delightful zest to the devotions of eternity.
This will enable the Divine Being to pour in continually fresh accessions
of light; to unfold new views of his character, disclose new parts of
his perfection, open new mansions of himself, in which the mind will
have ample room to expatiate. Thus shall we learn, to eternity, that, so
far from exhausting his infinite fullness, there still remain infinite
recesses in his nature unexplored—scenes in his counsels never brought
before the view of his creatures; that we know but “parts of his ways;”
and that instead of exhausting our theme, we are not even approaching
nearer to the comprehension of the Eternal All.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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