ore men think about Gods; the less competent they are to give any
rational account of them.

Cicero was sensible and candid enough to acknowledge that he found it
much easier to say what God was not, than what he was. Like Simonides,
he was _mere_ Pagan, and like him, arguing from the known course of
nature, was unable, with all his mastery of talk, to convey positive
ideas of Deity. But how should he convey to others what he did not,
could not, himself possess? To him no revelation had been vouchsafed,
and though my Lord Brougham is quite sure, without the proof of natural
Theology, revelation has no other basis than mere tradition, we have
even better authority than his Lordship's for the staggering fact that
natural Theology, without the prop of revelation, is a 'rhapsody of
words,' mere jargon, analogous to the tale told by an idiot, so happily
described by our great poet as 'full of sound and fury, signifying
nothing.' We have a Rev. Hugh M'Neil 'convinced that, from external
creation, no right conclusion can be drawn concerning the _moral_
character of God,' and that 'creation is too deeply and disastrously
blotted in consequence of man's sin, to admit of any satisfactory result
from an adequate contemplation of nature.' [69:1] We have a Gillespie
setting aside the Design Argument on the ground that the reasonings by
which it is supported are 'inapt' to show such attributes as infinity,
omnipresence, free agency, omnipotency, eternality, or unity,' belong in
any way to God. On this latter attribute he specially enlarges, and
after allowing 'the contrivances we observe in nature, may establish a
unity of _counsel_, desires to be told' how they can establish a unity
of _substance_. [69:2] We have Dr. Chalmers and Bishop Watson, whose
capacities were not the meanest, contending that there is no natural
proof of a God, and that we must trust solely to revelation.' [69:3] We
have the Rev. Mr. Faber in his 'Difficulties of Infidelity,' boldly
affirming that no one ever did, or ever will 'prove without the aid of
revelation, that the universe was designed by a single designer.'
Obviously, then, there is a division in the religious camp with respect
to the sufficiency of natural Theology, unhelped by revelation. By three
of the four Christian authors just quoted, the design argument is
treated with all the contempt it merits. Faber says, 'evident design
must needs imply a designer,' and that 'evident design shines out in