augmented, for political purposes, without a creed, yet never could it
have arisen without some creed, however mistaken, earnestly held of
old. A firm interior conviction is the starting-point of all outward
worship. But if the modern living worshipper is without creed and
conviction; if he be a scoffer at heart, or at least a doubter; what a
hollow, horrid skeleton thing is his religion,--all the more horrid,
the grander its dress! That is not worship, but mummery.

2. If then to worship God is a duty, as we have proved, it is a duty
likewise to know God. This supposes that God is knowable, a fact which
it does not lie within the province of this work to prove. To an
unknown God, all the worship we could render would be to build Him an
altar, without priest, prayer, or sacrifice, and so leave Him in His
solitude. God is knowable by the _manifestation_ of His works (Rom. i.
19); and where He is pleased to speak, by the _revelation_ of His
word. Apart from revelation--and, under a certain order of Providence,
God might have left us without revelation--we should study our Creator
as He is made manifest in the world around us, in the existence of
perishable things, in the order of the universe, in the region of
things eternally possible and knowable, in moral truths, in the mental
life and conscience of man. Philosophy would be our guide in the
search after God. Men with less leisure or ability for speculation
would acquiesce in the pronouncements of philosophers on things
divine; and, in the hypothesis which we are contemplating, Providence
would doubtless arrange for the better agreement and harmony of
philosophers among themselves. Their trumpet would not send forth so
uncertain a blast, were that the instrument, in the counsels of God,
whereby the whole duty of religion was to be regulated. As it is, we
know better than philosophy could teach us: for God hath spoken in His
Son.