Labouring under this most blighting and soul-darkening opinion for several centuries, without the light of any new revelation, and without the aid of that immediate inspiration which attended Moses and the prophets, their foolish hearts became darkened as a necessary consequence. Inflated with pride, and a false but sincere reverence for the scriptures of a previous age, they became a conspicuous and warning example to this generation of ignorance, not only of the scriptures, which they carefully memorized, but also of all the essential attributes of the person, character, and doctrine of God. Now, sir, during the long period of sixteen or eighteen hundred years, in which the light of immediate revelation has not shone, the religious world have fallen into similar and even far greater darkness. The true and living God is not known as I shall proceed to show. The religious world have an abundance of zeal for God, and diligence in spreading the scriptures and their missionaries over the face of the earth; but, alas! the God they profess to worship is an unknown God, and this ignorance of God is the legitimate consequence of not having immediate revelation from him, during a _long_ period of near eighteen hundred years; and unaided by the spirit of inspiration, the ancient scriptures have become a dark and obscure book--their import has been warmly debated by a thousand learned disputants, without any prospect of approximation to unity. A very general conviction concerning the character of God now is, that He is a Being without body, or parts, or passions. A greater absurdity cannot be furnished in all the annals of heathenism. Even images of wood, and brass, and stone, are scarcely more remote from the picture of the true God, than the theory of a passionless, matterless God--an inconceivable sort of chaotic being, that is without form, or void, or dwelling place! a being whose circumference is everywhere, and his centre nowhere! Another theory concerning God, that is entertained by Jewish Rabbies, though of an opposite character, is not much more extravagant than the common orthodox theory, viz, the Rabbies suppose that God is a Being of some "_millions of miles in length_." Again, the popular notion of modern Jews, as expressed in a recent number of the _Jewish Chronicle_, is, that the Almighty God is a Being of such infinite _dimension_, that He cannot _condense_ himself sufficiently to speak to men, or be tangible or visible by mortals. Accordingly, when he gives revelation to men, He creates a fictitious or imaginary messenger, through whom he communicates his will, and this messenger has no real existence in the eye of God, and _only_ in the momentary perception of the person addressed.--(See _Millennial Star_ No. 15, also _Jewish Chronicle_.)