ll sects are forward enough to boast about
being able to give a reason for the faith that is in them; but an
overwhelming majority love to exalt faith above reason. Philosophy they
call 'vain,' and some have been found so filled with contempt for it, as
to openly maintain that what is theologically true, is philosophically
false; or, in other terms, that the truths of religion and the truths of
philosophy have nothing in common. According to them, religious truths
are independent of, and superior to, all other truths. Our faith, say
they, if not agreeable to _mere_ reason is infinitely superior to it.
Priests are 'at one' on the point. Dissenting and Protestant, as well as
Romanising priests, find it convenient to abuse reason and extol faith.
As priests, they can scarcely be expected to do otherwise; for reason is
a stern and upright judge whose decrees have hitherto been unfavourable
to superstition. Its professors, who appeal to that judge, play a part
most inconsistent and dangerous, as is evident in the case of Origen
Bachelor, who more zealous and candid than prudent, declared the real
and only question between Atheism and Theism a question of fact;
reducing it to these terms--'Is there reason, all things considered, for
believing that there is a God, an intelligent cause of things, infinite
and perfect in all his attributes and moral qualities?' [24:1]

Now, the reader has seen that the hypothesis of 'an intelligent cause of
things' involves difficulties, greater, infinitely greater than the one
difficulty involved in the hypothesis that things always existed. He has
seen the folly of explaining natural, by the invention of supernatural
mystery, because it manifestly violates a rule of philosophising, the
justness of which it would be ridiculous to dispute. Having clearly
perceived thus much, he will perhaps think it rather 'too bad' as well
as absurd, to call Universalists 'madmen' for lacking faith in the
monstrous dogma that Nature was caused by 'something amounting to
nothing' itself uncaused.

There is something. That truth admits not of being evidenced. It is,
nevertheless, accepted. It is accepted by men of all religious opinions,
equally with men of no religious opinions. If any truth be self-evident
and eternal, here is that truth. To call it in question would be worse
than idle. We may doubt the reality of an external world, we may be
sceptical as to the reality of our own bodies, but we cannot doubt th