Another result is obvious in the still more extended influence among all classes, learned, religious, ignorant and skeptical, of the discovery--made, probably, or adopted, alike by the Talmudists and Origen though not openly professed as a clue to their productions--that language is a very inadequate, imperfect, indeterminate vehicle of thought; an uncertain, incompetent, unreliable means of expressing men's ideas. The incautious, half demented inheritors of this discovery, however, apprehending, in the present condition of things, no danger of injury to their intellectual, professional, literary or religious reputation, proclaim it as boldly and unreservedly as if it were universally admitted and confirmed by universal experience. Out of charity or out of hypocrisy towards their readers, indeed, or because they consider themselves exceptions to a general rule, applicable, in their view, even to the penmen of the sacred writings, they directly profess and apply this fancied discovery only in relation to the language of Scripture and to that of orthodox creeds and confessions. In this they feel secure of the acquiescence of the great majority of all descriptions, and, but for their heresies in other relations, and having other bearings, would feel in other respects, as well as in this, secure of the learned among the orthodox. It is obvious how, by this device, the Arch-enemy wins and secures his prey among those who have the oracles of God; as of old among the heathen by his own oracles, the responses from which were ever capable of several meanings, from among which the consulting party might adopt the one most agreeable to his wishes, feelings, and emotions. CHAPTER XVII. Relation of the antagonism between the Messiah and the great Adversary to the local, personal, and visible Manifestations of the former--Modes of Visibility on the part of the latter, through human agents and various instrumentalities.