Manasselds reign ; many Christians of later genera- objective 
tions were but little alive to the vivid realities in cSaracSr ectl of 
which their system began. It was part of the 
Responsibility of the individual in every case, to 
accept as principle the objective Revelation ; and 
any kind of reception of Christianity which does not aim to 
identify it with the personal conscience is inconsistent with 
Deontology. 
XXI. 
153. This internal reception of a Revelation, or Religion — its 
assimilation, if it may be so expressed, in our moral system — 
would seem indeed to be an integral part of that “ Assistance 99 
to Deontology which may be so much needed, (§10, &c.) when 
we remember that the perfecting of the individual 
character is our end. (§ 95.) What has thus far ^^temai Re- 
been said of Revelation, has regarded it first as veMkm.° e * 
assistance to knowledge ; but we must say some- 
thing more as to the definite effect on moral power; an effect 
which may be not simply the result of knowledge, but a 
specific energy. 
154. Whatever we may think of the ideal condition of moral 
agents, it is evident in fact, (as we have seen) that multitudes, 
who are subject to approval and disapproval, both of them- 
selves and others, have wide diversities of power as well as 
knowledge. Indeed the perception of u ought,” and “ ought 
not,” by no means corresponds at all times with either intel- 
lectual or moral power : and, not unfrequently, capacity is 
raised, and probation advanced, by practically elevating the 
sense of “ ought.” 
Many influences of others through education and society, 
of which we are aware, and some which lie beyond our 
scrutiny, affect the moral power of individuals. The fact that 
we are so influenced by agents around us is a proof that it is 
not unreasonable to admit the possibility of gratuitous aid to 
responsible beings ; and gratuitous moral aid, (or, what in 
Christian Theology is called “ grace ”) is, in many 
aspects, a kind of need to the accountable agent — so ideaof Grace 
that it has, by some, been thought to be the Assistance! 0118 
only explanation to be given of the existence of 
moral agency at all, that inward moral assistance has been 
always rendered, varying of course in degree. The theory, if 
it be such, may at least show, that there has been felt to be a 
congruity in the thought of superior aid being rendered to the 
moral power of the individual. 
