The Christian, equally with the Heathen, is open to the reproach of worshipping HE KNOWS NOT WHAT.  Yes, to idol-hating ’enlightened Christians,’ may be fairly applied the severe sarcasm Minutius Felix so triumphantly levelled against idol-loving ‘benighted Heathens.’  Will any one say the Christian absolutely knows more about Jehovah than the Heathen did about Jupiter?  I believe that few, if any, who have attentively considered Bishop Watson’s queries, will say the ’dim Unknown,’ they so darkly shadow forth, is conceivable by any effort either of sense or imagination.

Under cover, then, of what reason can Christians escape the imputation of pretending to adore what they have no conception of?  The very ’book of books,’ to which they so boldly appeal, is conclusive against them.  In its pages they stand convicted of idolatry.  Without doubt a God is revealed by Revelation; but not their God, not a supernatural Being, infinite in power, in wisdom, and in goodness.  The Bible Deity is superhuman in nothing; all that His adorers have ascribed to Him being mere amplification of human powers, human ideas, and human passions.  The Bible Deity ’has mercy on whom he will have mercy, and whom he will he hardeneth;’ is ‘jealous,’ especially of other Gods; changeful, vindictive, partial, cruel, unjust, ‘angry with the wicked every day;’ and altogether a Being far from respectable, or worthy to be considered infinite in wisdom, power, and goodness.  Is it credible that a Being supernaturally wise and good, proclaimed the murderous adulterer David, a man after his own heart, and commanded the wholesale butchery of Canaanites?  Or that a God of boundless power, ’whose tender mercies are over all his works,’ decreed the extermination of entire nations for being what he made them?  Jehovah did all three.  Confessedly a God of Armies and Lord of Hosts; confessedly, too, a hardener of men’s, hearts that he might destroy them, he authorised acts at which human nature shudders, and of which it is ashamed:  yet to reverence Him we are commanded by the self-styled ‘stewards of his mysteries,’ on peril of our ‘immortal souls.’  Verily, these pious anathematisers task our credulity a little too much.  In their zeal for the God of Israel, they are apt to forget that only Himself can compass impossibilities, and altogether lose sight of the fact that where, who, or what Jehovah is, no man knoweth.  Revelation (so-called) reveals nothing about ’the creator of heaven and earth,’ on which a cultivated intellect can repose with satisfaction.  Men naturally desire positive information concerning the superhuman Deity, belief in whom is the sine qua non of all superstition.  But the Bible furnishes no such information concerning Jehovah.  On the contrary, He is there pronounced ‘past finding out,’ incomprehensible, and the like.  ’Canst thou by searching find out God?  Canst thou find out the Almighty to perfection?’ are questions put by an ‘inspired writer,’ who felt the cloudy and unsatisfactory nature of all human conceit concerning Deity.