Christians as redeemer of the world.' Lord Brougham as 'the subject of
the science called Theology:' a science he defines as 'the knowledge and
attributes of the _unknown_;' which definitions agree in making the
essential principle of religion a principle of ignorance. That they are
sufficiently correct definitions will not be disputed, and upon them the
Atheist is satisfied to rest his case. To him the worship or adoration
of what is confessedly _unknown_ is mere superstition; and to him
professors of theology are 'artists in words,' who pretend to teach what
nobody has any conception of. Now, such persons may be well-intentioned;
but their wisdom is by no means apparent. They must be wonderfully
deficient of the invaluable sense so falsely called 'common.' Idolisers
of 'thingless names,' they set at naught the admirable dictum of Locke,
that it is 'unphilosophic to suppose names in books signify real
entities in nature, unless we can frame clear and distinct ideas of
those entities.'

Theists of every class would do well to calmly and fully consider this
rule of philosophising, for it involves nothing less than the
destruction of belief in the supernatural. The Jupiter of Mythologic
History, the Allah of Alkoran, and the Jehovah of 'Holy Scripture,' if
entities at all, are assuredly entities that baffle human conception. To
'frame clear and distinct ideas of them' is impossible. In respect to
the attribute of _unknowability_ all Gods are alike. They are all
supernatural; and the merely natural cannot attach rational ideas to
names assumed to stand for something above nature. It is easy to talk
about seeing the Creator in creation, looking through nature up to
nature's God, and the like, but very difficult to have any idea whatever
of a God without body, parts, or passions; that is to say, the God set
forth in one of the Church of England's Thirty-Nine Articles.