[140] [The true mode of distinguishing a temporary, local, or individual command from such as are of universal and perpetual obligation, is well laid down by Wayland, Mor. Sci. ch. ix. sec. 2.]
[141] [Natural religion shows us the danger of sin; but not the infinite danger of eternal retribution, and the hopelessness of restoration after death. And as to the efficacy of repentance, it rather opposes that doctrine than teaches it. At least it does not teach that repentance may be accepted, so as not only to cancel guilt, but restore to the favor of God.]
[142] [“Christianity was left with Christians, to be transmitted, in like manner as the religion of nature had been left, with mankind in general. There was however this difference that by an institution of external religion with a standing ministry for instruction and discipline, it pleased God to unite Christiana into visible churches, and all along to preserve them over a great part of the world, and thus perpetuate a general publication of the Gospel.” Butler’s sermon before the Soc. for Prop. the Gospel. He goes on to show, in that discourse, that these churches, however corrupt any may become, are repositories for the written oracles of God, and so carry the antidote to their heresies.]
[143] Rev. xxii. 11.
[144] [“It is no real objection to this, though it may seem so at first sight, to say that since Christianity is a remedial system, designed to obviate those very evils which have been produced by the neglect and abuse of the light of nature, it ought not to be liable to the same perversions. Because—1. Christianity is not designed primarily to remedy the defects of nature, but of an unnatural state of ruin into which men were brought by the Fall. And 2. It is remedial of the defects of nature in a great degree, by its giving additional advantages. 3. It might be impossible that it should be remedial in a greater degree than it is, without destroying man’s free agency; which would be to destroy its own end, the practice of virtue.”—Fitzgerald’s Notes.]
[145] [Chalmers (Nat. Theol., b. v. ch. iv.) makes this very plain. He shows the ethics of natural religion to be one thing and its objects another. Natural religion discloses no Redeemer or Sanctifier; but it teaches how we should regard such a person, if there be one. It teaches love and conformity to such a being by the relation in which we of course stand to him. How we are to express that love and obedience it cannot teach.]
[146] See The Nature, Obligation, and Efficacy, of the Christian Sacraments, &c., [by Waterland,] and Colliber of Revealed Religion, as there quoted.
[147] [If Christianity were but “a republication of natural religion,” or as Tindall says, “as old as creation,” why do deists oppose it? It does indeed republish natural religion, but it adds stupendous truths beside. If it gave us no new light, no new motives, it would be but a tremendous curse, making us all the more responsible, and none the more instructed or secure.]