at the 'assigned boundaries' of reason
are, they don't state, nor by whom 'assigned.' That if there is a God,
He must have some form is self-evident; and why Mr. Collibeer should be
'called over the coals' by his less daringly imaginative brethren, for
preferring a spherical to a square or otherwise shaped Deity, is to my
understanding what God's grace is to their's.

But admitting the unfitness, and absurdity, and 'blasphemy' of such
conceptions, it is by no means clear that any other conceptions of the
'inconceivable' would be an improvement upon them. The Author's serious
and deliberate opinion is, that ascribing to Deity a body analagous to
our own, is less ridiculous than affirming he has _no_ body; nor can he
admire the wisdom of those Christians who prefer a partless, passionless
God, to the substantial piece of supernaturalism adored by their
forefathers. Undoubtedly, the matter-God-system has its difficulties,
but they are trifles in comparison with those by which the
spirit-God-system is encompassed: for, one obvious consequence of faith
in bodiless Divinity is, an utter confusion of ideas in those who have
it, as regards possibilities and impossibilities. The Author confidently
submits that, no man having 'firm faith' in a Deity--without body parts
and passions--can be half so wise as the famous cook of my Lord
Hoppergollop, who said,

What is impossible can't be,
And never never comes to pass.

He, moreover, confidently submits that, granting the existence of so
utterly incomprehensible a Deity, still such Deity could not have caused
nature, or matter, unless we deny the palpably true proposition of
Spinoza, to wit--Of things which have nothing in common, one cannot be
the cause of the other. In harmony with this proposition, Atheists
cannot admit the supernatural caused the natural; for, between the
natural and the supernatural it is impossible to imagine any thing in
common.

The universe is an uncaused existence, or it was caused by something
before it. By universe we mean matter, the sum total of things, whence
all proceeds, and whither all returns. No truth is more obviously true
than the truth that matter, or something not matter, exists of itself,
and consequently is not an effect, but an uncaused cause of all effects.

From such conviction, repugnant though it be to vulgar ideas, there is
no rational way of escape; for however much we may desire, however much
we may struggle