Religion 77
of religion have overthrown governments, but nearly al-
ways they have made the claim in doing so that they were
fighting for freedom of conscience to worship God accord-
ing to its dictates. Instead of creating a spirit of revolution
and sapping the foundations of government, these militant
Christians held that their opponents by their tyranny and
injustice were themselves the subverters of the only founda-
tion on which solid government could be established, namely
the Divine moral law. In spite, however, of the divergent
political tempers of the various churches, it may be con-
fidently affirmed that they have promoted stability in gov-
ernment and that their members have made good citizens.
A third principle which the Churches have inculcated in
their members is, that man and his world are part of a
Divine purpose which is more or less intelligible to him.
They supply a certain philosophy of life. That it is based
on the conception of the revelation of a supernatural order
does not invalidate the claim. In the noble philosophy of
Thomas Aquinas, which is now dominant in the Church of
Rome, its members have been provided with one of the
great systems of human thought which will continue to cast
a spell over many powerful minds. The non-Roman
churches also have their systems of thought in their theol-
ogies, which are really attempts to construct philosophies
of religion. In the past more than now these doctrines
were preached in sermons, and the theological system was
incorporated into a creed which was held to be the essential
interpretation of the Gospel. Like the Roman these sys-
tems were thoroughly coordinated, but unlike the Roman
these were believed to be deduced wholly from the Scrip-
tures.
Protestantism, however, is facing greater difficulties than
Rome, because the advance of scholarship and the introduc-