live by them. Circumcision
verily profiteth if thou _keep_ the law; but if thou be a breaker of the
law, thy circumcision is made uncircumcision." If man had been true to
all the principles and precepts of natural religion, it would indeed be
religion enough for him. But he has not been thus true. The entire list
of vices and sins recited by St. Paul, in the first chapter of Romans, is
as contrary to natural religion, as it is to revealed. And it is
precisely because the pagan world has not obeyed the principles of
natural religion, and is under a curse and a bondage therefor, that it is
in perishing need of the truths of revealed religion. Little do those
know what they are saying, when they propose to find a salvation for the
pagan in the mere light of natural reason and conscience. What pagan has
ever realized the truths of natural conscience, in his inward character
and his outward life? What pagan is there in all the generations that
will not be found guilty before the bar of natural religion? What heathen
will not need an atonement, for his failure to live up even to the light
of nature? Nay, what is the entire sacrificial cultus of heathenism, but
a confession that the whole heathen world finds and feels itself to be
guilty at the bar of natural reason and conscience? The accusing voice
within them wakes their forebodings and fearful looking-for of Divine
judgment, and they endeavor to propitiate the offended Power by their
offerings and sacrifices.]

[Footnote 3: Infidelity is constantly changing its ground. In the 18th
century, the skeptic very generally took the position of Lord Herbert
of Cherbury, and maintained that the light of reason is very clear, and
is adequate to all the religious needs of the soul. In the 19th century,
he is now passing to the other extreme, and contending that man is
kindred to the ape, and within the sphere of paganism does not possess
sufficient moral intelligence to constitute him responsible. Like
Luther's drunken beggar on horseback, the opponent of Revelation sways
from the position that man is a god, to the position that he is a
chimpanzee.]

[Footnote 4: DANTE: Inferno, vii. 100-130.]

SIN IN THE HEART THE SOURCE OF ERROR IN THE HEAD

ROMANS i. 28.--"As they did not like to retain God in their knowledge,
God gave them over to a reprobate mind."

In the opening of the most logical and systematic treatise in the New
Testament, the Epistle to the Romans, the apost