'The Knowledge of Divine Things from Revelation, not from Reason or Nature' (1743), laboured to prove that neither the being of a God nor any other principle of religion could be legitimately deduced from the study of the phenomena of the universe. He argued on the assumption that the senses are the only natural inlets to knowledge. The late Archbishop Magee adopted his views on this subject. One of the most widely known expositions and defences of the theory is that contained in the 'Theological Institutes' (1823) of the eminent Wesleyan divine, Richard Watson. In order to establish that all our religious knowledge is derived from special revelation, he employs all the usual arguments of scepticism against the proofs of theism and the principles of reason on which they rest. In the Roman Catholic Church, scepticism as to reason and the light of nature has been often combined with dogmatism as to the authority of revelation and the Church. In the system of what is called the theocratic school may be seen the result to which attempts to establish the certitude of authority by destroying the credit of human reason. naturally lead. It is a system of which I have endeavoured to give some account in my 'Philosophy of History in France and Germany,' pp. 139-154.

The fact on which I have insisted in the latter part of the lecture-the fact that theism has come to mankind in and through revelation-has caused some altogether to discard the division of religion into natural and revealed. They pronounce it to be a distinction without a difference, and attribute it to sundry evil consequences. It has led, they think, on the one hand, to depreciation of revelation-and, on the other, to jealousy of reason: some minds looking upon Christianity as at best a repub

lication of the religion of nature, in which all that is most essential and valuable is "as old as the creation;" while others see in natural religion a rival of revealed religion, and would exclude reason from the religious sphere as much as possible. The distinction is, however, real, and the errors indicated are not its legitimate consequences. If there be a certain amount of knowledge about God and spiritual things to be derived from nature-from data furnished by perception and consciousness, and accessible to the whole human race,while there is also a certain knowledge about Him which can only have been communicated through a special illumination or manifestation through prophecy, or miracle, or incarnation, -the distinction must be retained. It is no real objection to it to urge that in a sense even natural religion may be regarded as revealed religion, since in a sense the whole universe is a revelation of God, a manifestation of His name, a declaration of His glory. That is a truth, and, in its proper place, a very important truth, but it is not relevant here it is perfectly consistent with the belief that God has not manifested Himself merely in nature, but also in ways which require to be carefully distinguished from the manifestation in nature. In like manner, the distinction is not really touched by showing that revealed religion has embodied and endorsed the truths of natural religion, or by proving that even what is most special in revelation is in a sense natural. These are both impregnable positions. The Bible is, to a large extent, an inspired republication of the spiritual truths which are contained in the physical creation, and in the reason, conscience, and history of man. But this does

not disprove that it is something more.

The highest

and most special revelation of God-His revelation in Jesus Christ-was also the fullest realisation of the true nature of man. But this is no reason why we should not distinguish between the general and the special in that revelation. We can only efface the distinction by reducing Christ to a mere man, or confounding God with man in a pantheistic manner.

It has been further objected to the division of religion into natural and revealed that it is unhistorical, that natural religion is only revealed religion disguised and diluted Christianity without Christ. It never existed, we are told, apart from revelation, and never would have existed but for revelation. But this very objection, it will be observed, implies that natural religion is not identical with revealed religion-is not revealed religion pure and simple-is not Christianity with Christ. Why is this? Is it not because revealed religion contains more than natural religion-what reason cannot read in the physical universe or human soul? Besides, while the principles of natural religion were presented in revelation in a much clearer form than in any merely human systems, and while there can be no reasonable doubt that but for revelation our knowledge of them would be greatly more defective than it is, to maintain that they had no existence or were unknown apart from revelation, is manifestly to set history at defiance. Were there no truths of natural religion in the works of Plato, Cicero, and Seneca? Is there any heathen religion or heathen philosophy in which there are not truths of natural religion?

The belief in a natural religion which is independent alike of special revelation and of positive or historical religions has been argued to have originated in the same

condition of mind as the belief in a "state of nature" entertained by a few political theorists in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. This can only be done by confounding natural religion with an imaginary patriarchal religion, which is, of course, inexcusable. Natural religion is analogous, not to the state of nature, but to the law of nature of the jurists. Natural religion is the foundation of all theology, as the law of nature is the foundation of all ethical and political science; and just as belief in the law of nature is perfectly independent of the theory of a state of nature, so the belief in natural religion has no connection whatever with any theory of patriarchal or primitive religion.

There is a well-known essay by Professor Jowett on the subject of this note in the second volume of his 'St Paul's Epistles,' &c.

NOTE II., page 9.

INFLUENCE OF RELIGION ON MORALITY.

The assertion of Mr Bentham and of Mr J. S. Mill that much has been written on the truth but little on the usefulness of religion, is quite inaccurate. Most of the apologists of religion have set forth the proof that it serves to sustain and develop personal and social morality; and, from the time of Bayle downwards, not a few of its assailants have undertaken to show that it is practically useless or even hurtful. But Bentham may have been the first who proposed to estimate the utility of religion apart from the consideration of its truth. The notion

was characteristically Benthamite. It was likewise far too irrational to be capable of being consistently carried out or applied. The work compiled by Mr Grote from the papers of Mr Bentham, and published under the name of Philip Beauchamp-Analysis of the Influence of Natural Religion on the Temporal Happiness of Mankind'-and Mr Mill's 'Essay on the Utility of, Religion,' are, in almost every second page, as well as in their general tenor, attacks not merely on the utility but on the truth of religion.

The former of these works is an attempt to show that natural religion has done scarcely any good, and produced no end of evils-inflicting, so runs the indictment, unprofitable suffering, imposing useless privations, impressing undefined terrors, taxing pleasure by the infusion of preliminary scruples and subsequent remorse, creating factitious antipathies, perverting the popular opinion, corrupting moral sentiment, producing aversion to improvement, disqualifying the intellectual faculties for purposes useful in this life, suborning unwarranted belief, depraving the temper, and, finally, creating a particular class of persons incurably opposed to the interests of humanity. The author makes out that religion is responsible for this catalogue of mischiefs, by two simple devices. First, he defines religion as "the belief in the existence of an almighty Being, by whom pains and pleasures will be dispensed to mankind during an infinite and future state of existence," or, in other words, he so defines religion as to exclude from the idea of God the thought of moral goodness, righteousness, and holiness. He even insists that the God of natural religion can only be conceived of as "a capricious and insane despot," and bases his argumentation on this assumption. Dr Caselles,