(_c_) _Versus_ Thomas Paine: “Natural religion teaches us, without the possibility of being mistaken, all that is necessary or proper to be known.” Plato, Laws, 9:854, _c_, for substance: “Be good; but, if you cannot, then kill yourself.” Farrar, Darkness and Dawn, 75—“Plato says that man will never know God until God has revealed himself in the guise of suffering man, and that, when all is on the verge of destruction, God sees the distress of the universe, and, placing himself at the rudder, restores it to order.” Prometheus, the type of humanity, can never be delivered “until some god descends for him into the black depths of Tartarus.” Seneca in like manner teaches that man cannot save himself. He says: “Do you wonder that men go to the gods? God comes _to_ men, yes, _into_ men.” We are sinful, and God’s thoughts are not as our thoughts, nor his ways as our ways. Therefore he must make known his thoughts to us, teach us what we are, what true love is, and what will please him. Shaler, Interpretation of Nature, 227—“The inculcation of moral truths can be successfully effected only in the personal way; ... it demands the influence of personality; ... the weight of the impression depends upon the voice and the eye of a teacher.” In other words, we need not only the exercise of authority, but also the manifestation of love. B. Historical proof.—(_a_) The knowledge of moral and religious truth possessed by nations and ages in which special revelation is unknown is grossly and increasingly imperfect. (_b_) Man’s actual condition in ante-Christian times, and in modern heathen lands, is that of extreme moral depravity. (_c_) With this depravity is found a general conviction of helplessness, and on the part of some nobler natures, a longing after, and hope of, aid from above.