It consecrates error and vice, as being, equally with truth and virtue, necessary and beneficial manifestations of the "infinite." It is a system of Syncretism, founded on the idea that error is only an incomplete truth, and maintaining that truth must necessarily be developed by error, and virtue by vice.

According to this fundamental law of "human progress," Atheism itself may be providential; and the axiom of a Fatalistic Optimism--"Whatever is, is best"-- must be admitted equally in regard to truth and error, to virtue and vice.
It may be further observed, that modern Pantheism, whether in its Material or Ideal form, is nothing else than the revival of some of the earliest and most inveterate Principles of Paganism,--the same Paganism which still flourishes among the "theosophic" dreamers of India, and which exhibits its practical fruits in the horrors of Hindoo superstition.

For Pantheism, although repeatedly revived and exhibited in new forms, has made no real progress since the time when it was first taught in the Vedanta system, and sublimed in the schools of Alexandria.
Christianity, which encountered and triumphed over it in her youth, can have nothing to fear from it in her mature age,[144] provided only that she be faithful to herself, and spurn every offered compromise.

But there must be no truce, and no attempt at conciliation between the two.
The Pantheists of Germany have made the most impudent claims to the virtual sanction of Christianity; they have even dared to make use of Bible terms in a new sense, and have spoken of Revelation, Inspiration, Incarnation, Redemption, Atonement, and Regeneration, in such a way as to adapt them to the Pantheistic hypothesis.

Common honesty is outraged, and the conscience of universal humanity offended, by the conduct of individuals--some of them wearing the robes of the holy ministry--who have substituted the dreams of Pantheism for the doctrines of Jesus Christ, and assailed, both from the pulpit and the press, the sacred cause which they had solemnly vowed to maintain.