the help of God,' but simply to mean 'without the help
of any special revelation[11].'

{105}

Universally then, according to St. Paul, two sources of the knowledge
of God exist; nature, with its evidences of the divine power and other
similar attributes, and conscience, with its witness to divine
righteousness. And, though the sciences of nature and man have grown
since St. Paul's day past recognition, nothing (we may boldly say) has
really weakened either element of this double witness. It is, and
remains true, that the only reasonable argument from the universal
order of nature is to a universal reason or mind: and that the method
by which the moral conscience may be believed to have developed out of
'animal intelligence,' makes no difference as to the cogency of its
witness to a divine righteousness, in response to which alone it could
have developed as in fact it has done. It is worth notice also before
we leave this part of our subject, that St. Paul's line of thought
affords a true explanation of the double fact that, on the one hand,
the actual moral standards with which the conscience of different
individuals, races, and generations is satisfied, greatly varies; and,
on the other hand, that all the standards tend towards unity in a
common idea of righteousness. The tendency towards unity St. Paul
would attribute to the divine righteousness {106} which lies behind
conscience and which it exists to reflect. The variations would be due
to the different degrees of development reached; or still more to the
different degrees of faithfulness or unfaithfulness, attention or
inattention, with which the conscience of the race or the individual
has responded to the light. The conscience, like the speculative
reason, is an instrument for coming to the truth; but an instrument
capable of every variety of racial or individual error or obtuseness.

3. It appears clearly enough in this chapter, that St. Paul's
doctrines of free grace and justification by faith must be grossly and
carelessly misconceived unless they are viewed upon a deep background
of what we commonly call 'natural religion,' that is (practically) the
religion that appeals straight off to the conscience of almost all
honest and civilized men. It is 'natural religion' to believe that God
will judge men with absolute power and insight and impartiality
according to their conduct and their characters: that there can be no
'making believe,' no substitute