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Theology as Maniclieism, to which Dean Milnian traces most of the heresies of 

 Christendom ; and which may perhaps be found a large ingredient in not a few 

 of its existing creeds. Nor is that a strange voice which we may hear com- 

 plaining — " I delight in the law of God after the inner man ; but I see another 

 law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me 

 into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. wretched man 

 that I am ! who will deliver me from the body of this Death 1 ? " Cleared from 

 the partial misconceptions which obscure it, the primitive belief in God and 

 Man, so deeply grounded, so universally diffused, most surely will outlast 

 successive theories of Physics which, to our darkened understandings, appear 

 from age to age to threaten its extinction ; and out of their materials will hud 

 fresh arguments to vindicate itself. And, stationed at the summit of terrestrial 

 Nature, looking thence, backward, on the long gradations of inferior creatures, 

 forward, up the world's great altar-stairs, to glory upon glory, dimly discerned, 

 yet surely awaiting the obedient, the soul of Man, as in the clays of old, will 

 overflow in grateful benediction fox the life already given ; in earnest prayer 

 for larger measures of the quickening Spirit Who is Himself the substance of 

 the fuller life to come. 



The Modern Aspect of Natural Theology. By C. W. Richmond, 

 One of the Judges of the Supreme Court of New Zealand. 



[Lecture delivered in Nelson, August 21, 1869.] 



Natural Theology is definable as that branch of Moral Science which inves- 

 tigates the indications in Nature of the Divine existence and attributes. 

 Observe, I say, a branch of Moved Science ; for to me it seems a great mistake 

 to claim a place in Physics, or even an influence, for any department of 

 Divinity. Physical Science and Theology alike suffer from confusion of their 

 respective Provinces. In times not very distant, Theology, as we all know, 

 attempted to dictate to the leaders of physical inquiry, most happily for us, 

 without success. For if the ecclesiastics coidd have had their way, not only 

 should we have lost the grand results of our present extended knowledge of the 

 laws of Nature, but Divinity itself would, in all likelihood, have retained its 

 narrow mediaeval type ; and mankind, subjected to that withering influence, 

 would have sunk deeper and deeper in the slough of a childish and cruel super- 

 stition. About 250 years ago it was heretical to believe that the earth moves 

 round the sun. At the same period the few who had sufficient courage and 

 enlightenment to deny the reality of witches and sorcerers were branded as 

 blasphemers. And, reverting to still earlier times, the Australasian colonist is 

 amused to learn, that by the Christian Father Lactantius, the Antipodes were 

 held to be impossible ; by Saint Augustine, contrary to Scripture ; by Saint 

 Boniface, of Mentz, beyond the latitude of salvation. In the middle of 

 the eighth century, Virgilius, an Irishman, rashly venturing to assert their 

 existence, the whole religious world was thrown, says Mr. Lecky, into a 

 paroxism of indignation. For, as Cosmas had well reasoned, does not Saint 

 Paul expressly tell us, that all men are made to dwell upon " the face of the 

 earth 1 " From which it clearly follows that they do not live upon more faces 

 than one, or upon the back. With such a passage before his eyes, a Christian, 



