Thus, in the camp of old, as well as in the Church now, we learn that “God is not the Author of confusion.” Nothing could be more exquisitely arranged than the four camps, of three tribes each, forming a perfect square, each side of the square exhibiting its own specific standard. “Every man of the children of Israel shall pitch by his own standard, with the ensign of their father’s house: over against the tabernacle of the congregation shall they pitch.” The God of the armies of Israel knew how to marshal His hosts. It would be a great mistake to suppose that God’s warriors were not ordered according to the most perfect system of military tactics. We may plume ourselves upon our progress in arts and sciences, and we may fancy that the host of Israel presented a spectacle of rude disorder and wild confusion, compared with what may be seen in modern times; but this would be an empty conceit. We may rest assured that the camp of Israel was ordered and furnished in the most perfect manner, for the simplest and most conclusive of all reasons, namely, that it was ordered and furnished by the hand of God. Grant us but this, that God has done any thing, and we argue, with the most perfect confidence, that it has been perfectly done. This is a very simple, but a very blessed principle. Of course it would not satisfy an infidel or a skeptic; what would? It is the province and prerogative of a skeptic to doubt every thing, to believe nothing. He measures every thing by his own standard, and rejects whatever he cannot reconcile with his own notions. He lays down, with marvelous coolness, his own premises, and then proceeds to draw his own conclusions; but if the premises are false, the conclusions must be false likewise. And there is this invariable feature attaching to the premises of all skeptics, rationalists, and infidels—_they always leave out God_; and hence all their conclusions must be fatally false. On the other hand, the humble believer starts with this great first principle, that God IS; and not only that He is, but that He has to do with His creatures; that He interests Himself in, and occupies Himself about, the affairs of men. What consolation for the Christian! But infidelity will not allow this at all. To bring God in is to upset all the reasonings of the skeptic, for they are based upon the thorough exclusion of God.