But when we inquire what degree of knowledge men, in their actual state, acquire from nature alone, the result will be very different. We may consider, separately, the case of a deist in a Christian country, and that of a heathen, who inherits the moral darkness of long ages, unaided by one gleam of light from any supernatural revelation.

The natural religion which deists have set up as a rival to Christianity, is one which they have invented for themselves, amidst the light and knowledge of a professedly Christian country. There are thus no direct means of judging how far it deserves the name, and how much they would have really learned for themselves, without the help of that revelation which they affect to despise. Yet there are two ways in which it may be discovered, indirectly, with a full assurance-from the reason of the case, and a mutual comparison of these writers among themselves.

Let us assume, for the moment, that Christianity is a Divine revelation; that it republishes and enforces, with more powerful sanctions, those doctrines and duties which the light of nature might possibly have taught us; and that it reveals further truths, under the same sanction, in harmony with those previously known, so as to confirm them with fuller evidence, and increase their power to influence and control the minds of men. Let us further assume the truth of the Scripture doctrine, that men are fallen and perverse, willing to shut their eyes to the light; that many, who receive the gospel in name, do not embrace it with their heart, although it still exercises some influence on their conscience. In this case, the gospel will produce a double effect in every country where it has been proclaimed. Some will embrace it heartily; while many others experience only a secondary influence-an intellectual conviction, varying in extent and fulness. The conscience responds to parts of the message, while the truth, as a whole, may be unwelcome, and perhaps even unknown. The general standard of morality will be raised, and the simpler lessons of religion generally recognised; but the distinctive features of the gospel, as a positive revelation, may be understood, prized, and obeyed only by a small minority of true Christians.

If, now, some deist were to arise in this society, who hates Divine revelation, and wishes to undermine its autho

rity, it is not hard to conjecture the course he will pursue. All those truths of morality and first elements of religion, which have kept their hold on the general conscience, will be carefully retained, as the only lever by which to operate on the minds of his countrymen. But all the mysterious parts of revelation, which clash with the pride of the human understanding, those branches of morality which are most obnoxious to the public taste, and those positive ordinances of religion which serve for a test of obedience to the will of God, will be renounced and despised. Whatever is retained will be referred to the teaching of natural reason; but all that is rejected will be spoken of as a superstitious and needless incumbrance, which has been added by positive revelation. The natural religion vaunted by such writers, is not the religion they have derived, or probably could ever have derived, from nature only. It is, in fact, an uncertain and variable compromise between the full light of Christianity and popular unbelief; a selection, out of the truths which the conscience may have gained from Divine revelation, of those parts which are least offensive to a worldly heart, and most conducive to a reputation for morality and common sense. Its measure and amount will therefore vary, in every case, with the personal taste and character of the writer, and the degree of Christian light that prevails around him. To argue against the need of Divine revelation from such a religion of nature, is as wise as to infer that the sun is useless, from the brightness of the early twilight, when he has just sunk beneath the horizon. All the authority and clearness of the truth, which happens to be retained, is borrowed from Christianity; and when its true source has been renounced and cast aside, the effects will speedily disappear. The heart of man, when once set free from the sense of a Divine authority, will dispense, first with one article, and then with another, of this poor and scanty creed which the deist pretends to build up out of the débris of a rejected revelation. Those who began with renouncing ordinances and despising mysteries, under pretence of the complete sufficiency of Natural Religion, will soon find that heartmorality is still more burdensome than outward ceremonies, and virtue itself not less mysterious than Christian faith; and they will end by sinking into the sty of Epicurus, and

a profligate advocacy of present indulgence and sensual pleasure, as the only real good and happiness of man.

The religion of nature, then, in the lips of deists, is nothing else than a lifeless skeleton of Christian morality, deprived of the breath which should animate it, the truth which should clothe it with living power and beauty, and then set up in rivalry to the word of God, from which it has borrowed everything it contains of real value. In its best and purest form, many of its doctrines may be such as unfallen creatures, athirst for Divine truth, might perhaps have gleaned from the works of nature, had no supernatural revelation been given. But this is no proof that the most clever deist, and still less that the great body of mankind, would ever have learned these doctrines in such a way. Reason proves the very reverse.

Those

who have quenched so much of the light which now shines around them, if they were left to their own course, would speedily quench the little that remains, and precipitate themselves into a lower and lower deep of spiritual darkness.

66

The same conclusion will result, if we trace the character of Natural Religion, as it appears actually in the writings of deists. The earliest of these, in our own country, is lord Herbert, of Cherbury. "His lordship seems to have been one of the first that formed deism into a system, and asserted the absolute perfection of Natural Religion, with a view to discard all revelation as useless and needless. He seems to assume to himself the glory of having accomplished this labour, and accounts himself for it as happier than any Archimedes. He reduces it to five articles, which he frequently mentions in his works: 1. That there is one supreme God. 2. That he is chiefly to be worshipped. 3. That piety and virtue are the principal part of his worship. 4. That we must repent of our sins; and, if we do so, God will forgive us. 5. That there are rewards for good men, and punishments for bad men, in a future state; or, as he sometimes expresses it, both here and hereafter. These he represents as common notices, inscribed by God on the minds of all men.'

Such was the first form of this religion of nature, in an age when Christian faith was still vigorous, though its

* Leland's View, sec. i.

strength had begun to waste away in fierce disputes and controversies. The Characteristics of Lord Shaftesbury came rather later. The general life of religion in England was then decaying; and his system bears marks of the change, and includes less truth than that of his predecessor. He maintains the beauty and excellence of moral virtue, and the being and dominion of God; but treats the hope of future reward, and fear of future punishmentsthe last article of lord Herbert's creed-as a base and slavish notion; and declares that "nothing can be more fatal to virtue than this weak and uncertain belief." Here is one stage of declension, answering to the decay of Christian faith and zeal in the nation at large.

When we turn to Hume, and the French writers of the last century, a further change has passed over this natural religion. Instead of lord Herbert's five articles, we are taught that it is impossible to be sure that there is a God, since it cannot be proved from a view of the universe, and any proof by miracles is also impossible; that all the religion in the world is "like sick men's dreams, or the playful whimsies of monkeys in human shape;" that it is quite uncertain whether there be a life to come, or even a distributive justice in the present life; and that "the whole is a riddle, an enigma, an inextricable mystery; and doubt, uncertainty, and suspense of judgment, appear to be the only result of our most accurate scrutiny."* Similar statements are frequent in the writings of Voltaire, Diderot, Volney, and others of the same school of infidelity.

But

Out of the lips, then, of deists themselves the sufficiency of this natural religion is fully disproved. We may see plainly that it is only a dim twilight, borrowed from the rejected light of revelation—a twilight that sinks rapidly into midnight darkness. What a difference between the creed of lord Herbert, and of Hume and Condorcet! the former lived where Christianity retained much of its native force and vigour; and the latter in a less favoured age-one of them in a less favoured country, where Christian faith was just ready to expire. When the gospel grew dim with worldliness, or was buried in superstition, that dim reflection from it, which they misnamed Natural Religion, would of course die out and disappear. It began

* Hume's Essays, ii., 484.

Christianity may be safely made to rest on the reality and certain truth of Natural Religion. It is not meant that the great body of mankind would ever attain a clear knowledge of Divine things, by their own unaided contemplation of the outward universe; still less does it imply, that what deists have styled the religion of nature really deserves the name, or is anything more than a disguised robbery from that gospel which they profess to despise. It means simply, that faith in God must precede faith in a Divine revelation; that a consciousness of duty to God must be earlier than a sense of sin, or desire for pardon, or any other deep feeling that can prompt the wish for such a revelation to be given; and that the works of nature give such clear tokens of the power and wisdom of our Maker, as to leave those without excuse, who yield him no reverence, and have no desire to acquaint themselves with the Almighty. In this sense alone, Natural Religion is the very basis of Christianity. The great apostle teaches us to view it in this light, in that striking passage which introduces the most full and regular exposition of Christian truth, Rom. i. 18-24.

It is not needful, then, to decide how much insight into the will of God might possibly be gained, in each particular case, from the works of nature alone. It is enough that the invisible power and Godhead of our Maker may be clearly seen in them; and that such beams of the Divine greatness and wisdom shine out in the whole universe, as to leave those without excuse who will not glorify their Creator, nor give him thanks for his countless benefits. If men do not see God in his works, it is because they have wilfully put out the eyes of their own spirit. The darkness they have created around them, instead of justifying their unbelief, will only be a fatal evidence of their guilt and perverseness, in the day when God shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ, and shall make manifest the counsels of their hearts, in the sight of the holy angels, and of an assembled universe.