Is it put as an impossibility, that there _cannot_ be any definite or certain Theology? Can there, then, be a Revelation? Can there be an Incarnation? Those only are consistent, who assert that all three are impossible, and who understand that in so doing they are limiting the possibilities, and therefore _pro tanto_ questioning the reality of a Personal God. But if there be a Personal God, what are the adequate grounds on which it is nevertheless laid down that He _cannot_ directly reveal Himself? Or, if He can reveal Himself, on what ground can the _à priori_ assertion rest, that theological truth must be uncertain or indefinite? The Christian Church claims to have both definite and certain knowledge. These claims can never be met by any _à priori_ judgment that such knowledge is impossible. Such a judgment is too slenderly based to bear the weight of argument. To argue from it would be to commit the very fault so often imputed to the dogmatist. It would be a flagrant instance of dogmatic assertion (and that for the most important of argumentative purposes) of what we could not possibly know. The claim of the Church to knowledge through the Incarnation can only be rationally met, and only really answered, when the claim itself, and its evidence, are seriously examined. Herein lies, and will always lie, the heart of the struggle for or against the dogmatic character of the Church. Anything else is only the fringe of the matter. Any rebutting of _à priori_ presumptions against dogma is a mere clearing of the way for battle. Thus it is said, perhaps, that the objection is to the degree of definiteness, or to the tone of authority. It is fancied that dogma in its very nature, quite apart from its contents, is a curtailment of the rights, and a limitation of the powers, of mind. Is dogma, the most definite and authoritative, fettering to the freedom of intellect? We can see in a moment the entire unreality of the objection, by simply substituting for it another question. Is truth fettering to intellect? Does the utmost certitude of truth limit freedom of mind? Because, if not, dogma, so far as it coincides with truth, cannot fetter either. If perfect knowledge of truth could paralyse the intellect, what (it is worth while to ask) do we mean by intellect? Do we mean something which must for ever be struggling with difficulties which it cannot overcome? Is it necessary for the idea of mind that it should be baffled? Is it a creature only of the tangle and the fog? And if ever the day should come, when after struggling, more or less ineffectually, with the tangle and the fog, man should emerge at last in clear sunshine upon the mountain top, will mind cease to have any faculty or place, because the knowledge of truth has come? At least, if we understand this to be the conception of mind, it need not frighten us quite so much as it did, to be told that dogma interferes with mind. But if, however different from our experience