REV. PREBENDARY WACH, D.D., ON ETHICS AND RELIGION. 133 
be determined by that omniscient eye which “looketh to 
the ends of the earth, and seeth under the whole heaveus,” 
and it is to an authoritative revelation that we must still 
look for the answer to such questions as Professor Sidg- 
wick propounds, respecting the “indestructible conditions 
of the well-being of life.’ By all means let moral criticism 
consider from time to time what liberty may be desirable in 
the details of family and social duty; but let it always be 
remembered that, in Luther’s ever-memorable phrase, it is 
only Christian liberty—liberty subject to the cardinal pre- 
scriptions of the Christian law in essential points—which can 
be safely indulged, and that moral progress and moral life 
must thus rest, alike for its permanence and for its freedom, 
on the authority of the Christian revelation. 
It remains to indicate, as may be done more briefly, the 
manner in which the recognition of this authoritative basis 
for morality deepens and enhances its whole character. An 
entire misconception pervades these Essays as to the 
relation which subsists, from the point of view of Christian 
philosophy, between morality and religion. It is conceived 
as a purely speculative relation; whereas, in point of fact, 
it is mainly practical. There is one Essay im this volume 
which is entitled “ Ethics and Theology,” and is expressly 
directed to the relation between the two, and which starts by 
saying (p. 161) that “the whole of ethical investigation has 
exhibited the groundlessness of the statement that morality 
rests upon theology: we do not find it anywhere necessary 
to bring the doctrine of theology to the support of morality ” ; 
but nevertheless the writer proposes “to subject the doctrine 
of the independence of ethics to a more special and searching 
proof.” 
He proceeds, however, to conduct this searching proof by 
misapprehending the main propositions which a reasonable 
statement of the relation of Ethics to theology would involve. 
He says that the statement to be examined, ‘declares, if we 
are to give it a clear and definite meaning, that conscientious, 
upright conduct, rests on a belief in a personal God, and in 
the immortality of the soul.” It has been sufficiently 
indicated already that this is in no way the question at 
issue. No reasonable man could doubt that individuals can 
and do actin a conscientious and upright manner without the 
support of these beliefs. The question is whether without the 
guidance of revelation, which involves theology, men in 
general can have an adequate assurance of what the highest 
