Had such men lived in Athens of old, they would have found men possessed of spiritual faculties, and those of no mean order, engaged in erecting an altar with this inscription, "_To the Unknown God._" One of the wisest of the heathen (Socrates) acknowledged that he could attain to no certainty respecting religious truth or moral duty, in these memorable words, "We must of necessity wait, till some one from him who careth for us, shall come and instruct us how we ought to behave toward God and toward man." The chief of the Academy, whose philosophy concerning the eternity of matter occupies a conspicuous place in the creed of American heathens, had no such confidence in the sufficiency of his own powers of discovering religious truth.

"We can not know of ourselves what petition will be pleasing to God, or what worship we should pay to him; but it is necessary that a lawgiver should be sent from heaven to instruct us." "Oh how greatly do I long to see that man!" He further declares that "_this lawgiver must be more than man, that he may teach us the things man can not know by his own nature_."[49] Whether this want of a revelation from God was real, or merely imaginary, will appear by a brief review of the opinions and practices of those who never enjoyed, and of those who reject the light of God's revelation.
_They knew not God._ If there is any article of religion fundamental, and indispensable to its very existence, it is the knowledge of God.

It is admitted by Rationalists that the spiritual faculties are designed to lay hold on God.

It has been proved in the previous chapter, and it will be admitted by all but Atheists, that God is an Intelligent Being.

And further it has been proved that God is not everything and everybody, but distinct from and supreme over all his works.