of true idolatries:]—­was it unlikely, I say, that in such a shape Deity should have deigned to become visible, and have blazed Manifested God, the central Sun of Heaven?—­This probability, prior to our forth-flowing thoughts on the Incarnation, though in some measure anticipating them, will receive further light from the views soon to be set forth.  I know not but that something is additionally due to the suggestion following; namely:  that, raise our swift imagination to what height we may, and stretch our searching reason to the uttermost, we cannot, despite of all inventive energies and powers of mind, conceive any shape more beautiful, more noble, more worthy for a rational intelligence to dwell in, more in one Homeric word [Greek:  theoeides], than the glorified and etherealized human form divine.  Let this serve as Reason’s short reply to any charge of anthropomorphism in the doctrines of his creed:  it was probable that God should be revealed to His creation; and as to the form of any such revealed essence in any such infinite beginnings of His work, the most likely of all would appear to be that one, wherein He, in the ages then to come, was well resolved to earn the most glorious of all triumphs, the merciful reconciliation of everlasting justice with everlasting love, the wise and wondrous scheme of God forgiving sinners.

THE ORIGIN OF EVIL.

It will now be opportune to attempt elucidation of one of the darkest and deepest riddles ever propounded to the finite understanding; the a priori likelihood of evil:  not, mind, its eternal existence, which is a false doctrine; but its probable procession from the earliest created beings, which is a true one.

At first sight, nothing could appear more improbable:  nothing more inconsistent with the recognised attributes of God, than that error, pain, and sorrow should be mingled in His works.  These, the spontaneous offspring of His love, one might (not all wisely) argue, must always be good and happy—­because perfect as Himself.  Because perfect?—­Therein lies the fallacy, which reason will at once lay bare.  Perfection is attributable to no possible creature:  perfection argues infinity, and infinity is one of the prerogatives of God.  However good, “very good,” a creation may be found, still it must, from essential finitude, fall short of that Best, which is in effect the only state purely unexceptionable.  For instance, no creature can be imagined of a wisdom undiminished from the single true standard, God’s wisdom:  in other phrase, every creature must be more or less departed from wisdom, that is, verging towards folly.  Again; no creature can be presumed of a purity so spotless as to rank in an equality with that of the Almighty:  in other words, neither man, nor angel, nor any other creature, can exist who is not more or less—­I will not say impure, positively, but—­unpure negatively.  Thus, the birth-mark of creation must have been an