The principle of illuminism, when properly conceived, has nothing at all reprehensible in itself, or at variance with the Christian religion. In the same way that Christianity, if not only its dogmas were developed, but its general influence extended, and made triumphant in the world, would soon supplant the existing human Reformation, and be the true, the divine reformation of mankind, of the world, and even of the visible creation; so it is itself the true illumination, whereof Holy Writ speaketh: it is that light of eternal light, which was in the beginning, and which was the life of men, (as the words from the mouth of eternal Truth declare,) and in which men are once more to find their life. But to descend from this lofty idea into the world of historical experience, we should carefully distinguish between a true, lasting, and vivifying illumination, and a false, mimic, and illusive species of enlightenment. One thing is the warm, genial light of the sun returning to the new-born spring, or the fresh glow of morning after the lengthened night--and another the transient glimmer of a bonfire, which after exciting a false alarm, sinks rapidly again into darkness. One thing is the solitary midnight lamp of silent meditation--and another the lightning which flashes athwart the gloomy heavens, or the dark lantern of the murderer stealing his way along in the night, or the torchlight in the robbers' cave, where the spoil is divided, and new misdeeds are concerted. For all these various significations of true and false illumination, the eighteenth century in its real or pretended enlightenment may furnish us with historical proofs. Thus without misapprehending or disowning that true and divine light visible even in the progress of science, or without rejecting, or contracting in too narrow bounds the salutary and necessary light of human reason, still we must be careful to distinguish from the former the light which is illusive, or changeable, as well as that which is spurious, and counterfeited by the powers of darkness.