the Rev. W. Turner , Jun. , MA., Lives of the eminent Unitarians

In this sense it might even be granted, that the gospel was nothing more than a ‘republication of the religion of nature;’ even though it could be shewn that a time had actually existed in some primeval golden age, when the most honourable notions of the Divine perfections and character, and the purest principles of religion and morality were generally professed and acknowledged, and that these principles, so influencing the practice of men, had, in the first instance, been investigated and ascertained, and recommended to the general acceptance by the arguments and persuasions of philosophers, guided to the truth by the solitary torch of unaided human reason,—though all this could be made out, still if this religion of nature had become obsolete, and if mankind, by whatever means, had relapsed into such a state that it was no longer probable that the torch should be again illuminated, still less that its guidance should be generally followed, we can hardly allow it to be any imputation on the wisdom of God, that in the fulness of time he saw fit to substitute in its place the daylight of Gospel truth. Yet, after all, it appears that, with respect to many of the distinguishing principles of Christianity, all that can be alleged is, that when they are made known by an authority competent to discover and establish them, they approve themselves to our reason as consistent, right and good. But it does not follow, that what human reason is ready to acknowledge under