Granting the mind to be depraved, the light of reason inevitably guides to a weak or malevolent Creator. To illustrate this, suppose a man is seen manufacturing beautiful porcelain vases, and out of the "clay of the same lump," as he makes them, he spoils every one, cracking, marring, and defacing them in the very process of manufacture. Now suppose this person should turn to a witness, and offer to instruct him in the _best way of doing things_, what would be the common-sense reply? Exactly that which would be due to a Creator who has ruined every mind he sent into this world, and then proposes to reveal the _right way for those ruined creatures to act_! Another illustration may be permitted. Suppose a colony, by some mischance, settles on an isolated island, which is found covered with the tobacco plant. They clear their plantations, but find that, by a remarkable and unintelligible arrangement, after every shower there is a fall of tobacco seeds, disseminated from an inaccessible height by a machine erected for the purpose and constantly supplied. After some years, they receive a missive from the king to whom the island belongs, in which he informs them that tobacco is the chief object of his detestation; that it is doing incalculable mischief to his subjects; that it is the chief end of his life, and he wishes it to be of theirs, to exterminate the plant, and thus its use. He, at the same time, states that he is the author of the contrivance for scattering the seed, and that he keeps it constantly supplied, and claims that he has a right "to do what he will with his own," without being questioned by his subjects. He then enacts that any person who is found to use tobacco, or even to have a single seed or plant on his premises, shall be burned alive in a caldron of fire and brimstone. If, in addition to this, that king were to command supreme love to him, and perfect confidence in his wisdom, justice, and goodness, all this would but faintly illustrate that awful system under consideration, whose penalties are _eternal_. The assumption that the constitution of mind is depraved not only destroys the evidence of the Creator's wisdom and benevolence by the light of reason, but _destroys the possibility of a credible and reliable revelation from him_. For the belief in the existence of a God is dependent on an intuitive truth, while his character is understood, without a revelation, only by the aid of that intuitive truth which teaches that the nature of his works proves his character and designs. Now if his greatest work, the immortal mind, that which alone gives any value to his other works, is malformed, and thus made the cause of all the misery, crime, and evil of this life, what is there to give any foundation for confidence that his revelations will not be false, pernicious, and malignant?