Further, whether Christianity be a reasonable creed or not obviously depends on whether or not certain beliefs regarding God are reasonable. If there be no God, if there be more Gods than one, if God be not the Creator and Upholder of the world and the Father of our spirits, if God be not infinite in being and perfection, in power, wisdom, and holiness, Christianity cannot possibly be a thing to be believed. It professes to be a revelation from God, and consequently assumes that there is a God. It demands our fullest confidence, on the ground of being His word; and consequently assumes that He is "not a man that He should lie," but One whose word may be trusted to the uttermost. It professes to be a law of life, and therefore assumes the holiness of its author; to be a plan of salvation, and therefore presupposes His love; to be certain of final triumph, and so presupposes His power. It presents itself to us as the completion of a progressive process of positive revelation, and therefore presupposes a heavenly Father, Judge, and King. The books in which we have the record of this process--the books of the Old and New Testaments--therefore assume, and could not but assume, that God is, and that He is all-powerful, perfectly wise, and perfectly holy. They do not prove it, but refer us to the world and our own hearts for the means and materials of proof. They may draw away from nature, and from before the eyes of men, a veil which covers and conceals the proof; they may be a record of facts which powerfully confirm and largely supplement what proof there is in the universe without and the mind within: but they must necessarily imply, and do everywhere imply, that a real proof exists there. If what they in this respect imply be untrue, all that they profess to tell us of God, and as from God, must be rejected by us, if we are to judge and act as reasonable beings.[1] [1] See Appendix I.