It is not careful writing, and I am afraid it must be said that the prejudice of the author has determined the side which the expression leans.

But how difficult is it to make words express all the due shades and qualifications of meaning--how difficult especially for a mind that seems to be naturally distinguished by force rather than by exactness and delicacy of observation! We have all 'les defauts de nos qualites.' [10:1] Much harm has been done by rashly pressing human metaphors and analogies; such as, that Revelation is a _message_ from God and therefore must be infallible, &c.

This is just the sort of argument that the Deists used in the last century, insisting that a revelation, properly so called, _must_ be presented with conclusive proofs, _must_ be universal, _must_ be complete, and drawing the conclusion that Christianity is not such a revelation.

This kind of reasoning has received its sentence once for all from Bishop Butler.

We have nothing to do with what _must_ be (of which we are, by the nature of the case, incompetent judges), but simply with what _is_.
[18:1] Cf.