.12 REVELATION AND REASON. 



vain and ignorant thing to suppose that Natural Theology is not 

 necessary to the support of Revelation," we do not think he fully 

 considered the force or applicability of the argument that might be 

 drawn from it. Shortly afterwards, he remarks, " that the doctrines 

 of the existence of a Deity, and of his attributes, which natural 

 religion teaches, preclude the possibility of such ambiguities, and 

 remove all those difficulties (which might attend upon Revelation 

 alone). We thus learn that the Creator of the world is one and the 

 same ; and we come to know his attributes, not merely of power, 

 which alone communication by miracles could convey, but of 

 wisdom and goodness. Built upon this foundation, Revelation be- 

 comes at once unimpeachable and invaluable. It converts every 

 inference of reason into certainty, and, above all, communicates the 

 Divine Being's intentions respecting our own lot with a degree of 

 precision, which the inferences of Natural Theology very imperfectly 

 possess. This is, in truth, the chief superiority of Revelation, and 

 this is the praise justly given to the gospel in sacred writ, not that it 

 teaches the being and attributes of God, but that it brings life and 

 immortality to light." We are certain, however, that Moses did 

 not base either his Cosmogony, or his Theology, upon natural reason: 

 we are also equally certain that the Prophets, who have since his 

 time been the agents for conveying the will and knowledge of the 

 Almighty, were not natural philosophers : and we are equally certain 

 also, that reason and natural religion neither have explained, or ever 

 can explain, the advent of Jesus Christ; this revelation does solely. 

 Neither do we accede to the postulatum of his Lordship, when he says 

 that " Revelation cannot be true, if natural religion is false,'' because 

 it assumes that our ideas of God, as resulting from the examination 

 of his works, are necessarily accurate, and that our present inquiries 

 have reached the limit of human reasoning ; for the results of these 

 inquiries have been of very diverse and even opposite characters ; 

 and from them one man becomes a sceptic, and another finds his 

 previous faith in Revelation strengthened. We have seen that the 

 ancient philosophers never, by the help of reason, approached a 

 knowledge of God. Thus Timaeus declares, that the Deity ought 

 not even to be inquired after, and at other times declares the stars, 

 the world, and the soul, to be Gods. Aristotle speaks equally 

 vaguely. Strabo says, that nature is God, having power to increase 



