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invisible power, to challenge every unknown being to evince his existence by his vengeance; or what train of causes has operated to form that adventurous spirit which can carry him forward to the great experiment of futurity under a different kind of hazard from that of all other men. But he may say that there is no daring in the case; it is the result of superior knowledge. The wonder then turns on the great folly by which a man could grow up to this knowledge, that there is no God; that the luminaries of heaven shine not with his splendor, the earth looks not fair with his beauty ; that the darkness of the night is not rendered solemn by his majesty ; that life and thought are not the effect of his energy ; that it is not his providence that supports an infinite change of dependent beings ; that his justice does not pervade the universe ; nay, that the universe itself does not spring from his creating power. And surely such knowledge as this involves the attributes of divinity, while a God is denied. For unless this man be omnipresent, and unless he be at this very moment in every place in the universe he cannot know but there may be, in some place, manifestations of a God, by whom he might be overpowered. If he does not know absolutely every agent in the universe, the one that he does not know, may be God. If he is not himself the chief agent in the universe, and does not know who is so, he who is so may be God. If he is not in absolute possession of all the propositions which constitute universal truth, the one which he wants may be, that there is a God. If he cannot with certainty assign the cause of all that he perceives
