These principles are supported by the following arguments:  Truth is one and there is but one true religion.  If the happiness of men depends on the fulfilment of her commands, these must be comprehensible to every man and must have been communicated to him; and since a special revelation and legislation could not come to the knowledge of all, they can be no other than the laws of duty inscribed on the human heart.  In order to salvation, then, we need only to know God as creator and judge, and to fulfill his commands, i.e.. to live a moral life.  The one true religion has been communicated to man in two forms, through the inner natural revelation of reason, and the outer historical revelation of the Gospel.  Since both have come from God they cannot be contradictory.  Accordingly natural religion and the true one among the positive religions do not differ in their content, but only in the manner of their promulgation.  Reason tries historical religion by the standard furnished by natural religion, and distinguishes actual from asserted revelation by the harmony of its contents with reason:  the deist believes in the Bible because of the reasonableness of its teachings; he does not hold these teachings true because they are found in the Bible.  If a positive religion contains less than natural religion it is incomplete; if it contains more it is tyrannical, since it imposes unnecessary requirements.  The authority of reason to exercise the office of a judge in regard to the credibility of revelation is beyond doubt; indeed, apart from it there is no means of attaining truth, and the acceptance of an external revelation as genuine, and not merely as alleged to be such, is possible only for those who have already been convinced of God’s existence by the inner light of reason.

To these logical considerations is added an historical position, which, though only cursorily indicated at the beginning, is evidenced in increasing detail as the deistic movement continues on its course.  Natural religion is always and everywhere the same, is universal and necessary, is perfect, eternal, and original.  As original, it is the earliest religion, and as old as the world; as perfect, it is not capable of improvement, but only of corruption and restoration.  Twice it has existed in perfect purity, as the religion of the first men and as the religion of Christ.  Twice it has been corrupted, in the pre-Christian period by idolatry, which proceeded from the Egyptian worship of the dead, in the period after Christ by the love of miracle and blind reverence for authority.  In both cases the corruption has come from power-loving priests, who have sought to frighten and control the people by incomprehensible dogmas and ostentations, mysterious ceremonies, and found their advantage in the superstition of the multitude,—­each new divinity, each new mystery meaning a gain for them.  As they had corrupted the primitive religion into polytheism, so Christianity was corrupted by conforming