atives of
spiritual enlightenment in Pagan souls, Epictetus the slave and Marcus
Aurelius the emperor.

Meanwhile, it is a matter for rejoicing that writings such as these give
us a clear proof that in all ages the Spirit of the Lord has entered
into holy men, and made them sons of God and prophets. God "left not
Himself without witness" among them. The language of St. Thomas Aquinas,
that many a heathen has had an "implicit faith," is but another way of
expressing St. Paul's statement that "not having the law they were a law
unto themselves, and showed the work of the law written in their
hearts." [49] To them the Eternal Power and Godhead were known from the
things that do appear, and alike from the voice of conscience and the
voice of nature they derived a true, although a partial and inadequate,
knowledge. To them "the voice of nature was the voice of God." Their
revelation was the law of nature, which was confirmed, strengthened, and
extended, but _not_ suspended, by the written law of God.[50]

[Footnote 49: Rom. i. 2.]

[Footnote 50: Hooker, _Eccl. Pol_. iii. 8.]

The knowledge thus derived, i.e. the sum-total of religious impressions
resulting from the combination of reason and experience, has been called
"natural religion;" the term is in itself a convenient and
unobjectionable one, so long as it is remembered that natural religion
is itself a revelation. 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