If literal, it all but indicates wilful imposture.

If mystical, it is disingenuously evasive; and it tended, not to instruct, but to irritate, and to move suspicion and contempt.

Is this the course for a religious teacher ?--to speak darkly, so as to mislead and prejudice; and this, when he represents it as a matter of spiritual life and death to accept his teaching and his supremacy ?].