itself, however lofty, wild, or daring its flights, cannot quit the universe—­matter is its prison, where, like Sterne’s starling, it is ‘caged and can’t get out.’  Fortunately, however, imagination, though a prisoner, has abundance of room to legitimately exercise itself in.  But, is it not obvious that if, as Des Cartes and D’Alembert contended, the ’imitations of imagination are imitations entirely confined to the material world,’ all conceits about a Supernatural somebody, or Supernatural somebodies, are necessarily false, because of purely natural origin, and should be viewed as at best ’mere cobwebs of learning, admirable indeed, for the fineness of the thread and work, but of no substance or profit.’ [54:1]

It is unfortunate for Theologians that the fundamental principle of their ‘science’ either cannot be comprehended, or, if comprehended, cannot be reconciled with any known principle of nature.  ‘God is,’ they pompously declare; but what He is they are unable to tell us, without contradicting themselves and each other.  Some say God must be material; some say, nay, He must be no such thing; some will have Him spiritual, others immaterial, others again neither spiritual nor material, nor immaterial, nor even conceivable.  Some say, if a Spirit, He can only be known by His place and figure; some not.  Some call Him the author of Sin, some the permitter of sin, while some are sure He could not consistently, with his own perfections, either authorize sin or grant to sinners a permit.  Some say He made the Devil, others that the Most Low bedevil’d himself; others that He created Him angelic and upright, but could not keep him so.  Some say He hardens men’s hearts, others that they harden their own hearts; others again, that to harden men’s hearts is the Devil’s peculiar and exclusive privilege.  Some say He has prepared a Hell for all wicked people, others that Hell will receive many good as well as tricked, while others cannot believe either the just or the unjust, the faithful or the unfaithful, will be consigned to perdition and made to endure torments unutterable by a God ’whose tender mercies are over all his works.’  Some affirm His omnipotency, some deny it; some say He is no respecter of persons, some the reverse.  Some say He is Immensity, others that He fills Immensity; others that He don’t fill anything, though ‘the Heaven, of Heavens cannot contain Him;’ others again, that He neither contains nor is contained, but ’dwells on his own thoughts.’  Some say He created matter out of nothing; some say it is quite a mistake—­inasmuch as creation meant bringing order out of chaos.  Some say He is not one person, but three persons—­the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, which together constitute Godhead; others that He is ‘one and indivisible,’ while others believe Him ’our father which art in heaven,’ but will have nothing to do with the Son and the Holy Ghost, Unitarians, for example, one of whose popular preachers in the town of Manchester, was about twelve months ago charged with having in the course of a single sermon ’killed, two Gods, one Devil, and slacked out Hell Fire.’