o doubt he would consider us sufficiently humble and
submissive, provided we would only forswear all the light which shines
within us and around us, and swallow his atheistical dogmas. But there is
something more valuable in the universe, if we mistake not, than even a
reputation for humility.

But no one will expect us to go so far in self-abasement and humility, as
to submit our intellects to all sorts of dogmas. It will be amply
sufficient, if we only go just far enough to receive the dogmas of his
particular creed. Thus, for example, if you assail the doctrine of
necessity, on which, as we have seen, Calvinism erects itself, the
Puseyite will clasp his hands, and cry out, "Well done!" But if you turn
around and oppose any of his dogmas, then what pride and presumption to
set up your individual opinion against "the decisions of the mother
Church!"(153) And he will be sure to wind up his lesson of humility with
that of St. Vincentius: "_Quod ubique, quod semper, quod ab omnibus._"
Seeing, then, that a reputation for humility is not the greatest good in
the universe, and that the only possibility of obtaining it, even from one
party, is by a submission of the intellect to its creed; would it not be
as well to leave such a reputation to take care of itself, and use all
exertions to search out and find the truth?

Tell a carnal, unregenerate man, it is said, that though God had physical
power to create him, he has not moral power to govern him, and you could
not furnish his mind with better aliment for pride and rebellion. Should
you, after giving this lesson, press upon him the claims of Jehovah, you
might expect to be answered, as Moses was by the proud oppressor of
Israel: "Who is the Lord, that I should obey his voice?"(154) He must,
indeed, be an exceedingly _carnal man_, who should draw such an inference
from the doctrine in question. But we should not tell him that "God had no
moral power to govern him." We should tell him, that God could not control
all his volitions; that he could not govern him as a machine is governed,
without destroying his free-agency; but we should still insist that he
possessed the most absolute and uncontrollable power to govern him; that
God can give him a perfect moral law, and power to obey it, with the most
stupendous motives for obedience; and then, if he persist in his
disobedience, God can, and will, shut him up in torments forever, that
others, seeing the awful consequences of reb