No _antithesis_ is so unfortunate and pernicious
as that of natural with revealed religion. It is "a contrast rather of
words than of ideas; it is an opposition of abstractions to which no
facts really correspond." God has revealed Himself, not in one but in
many ways, not only by inspiring the hearts of a few, but by vouchsafing
His guidance to all who seek it. "The spirit of man is the candle of the
Lord," and it is not religion but apostasy to deny the reality of any of
God's revelations of truth to man, merely because they have not
descended through a single channel. On the contrary, we ought to hail
with gratitude, instead of viewing with suspicion, the enunciation by
heathen writers of truths which we might at first sight have been
disposed to regard as the special heritage of Christianity. In
Pythagoras, and Socrates, and Plato,--in Seneca, Epictetus, and Marcus
Aurelius--we see the light of heaven struggling its impeded way through
clouds of darkness and ignorance; we thankfully recognize that the souls
of men in the Pagan world, surrounded as they were by perplexities and
dangers, were yet enabled to reflect, as from the dim surface of silver,
some image of what was divine and true; we hail, with the great and
eloquent Bossuet, "THE CHRISTIANITY OF NATURE.
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