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308 CONSEQUENCES OF THE REFORMATIONthe Reformed faith, although they took, and rightly took, theHoly Scriptures as the foundation of theology, yet by nomeans required that philosophy should rest upon the samegrounds.A wide field was, therefore, opened to its inquiries; and thus it became possible for that system ofknowledge to be founded and to be developed by the geniusof great men, to which we rightly give the first place amongviz.philosophical systemsthat of natural theology , which,setting out from the idea of a Supreme Being, undertakesto prove that there is a God that he exists : independentlyof the world : and that he is the cause of the existence ofthe world. How excellently Melancthon has treated thissubject will be acknowledged by those who consult his workon physics,in which the proofs of God's being and of hisgovernment of the world, (which have been more fully illustrated by philosophers of later days,) are to be found clearlyand evidently set forth. And though amongst more modern inquirersthere may be some, who have not only used,but abused the freedom procured them by the heroes of theReformation, and thus either lost themselves in atheism oradvanced far towards it, yet it is an acknowledged truth, thatthe abuse should not vitiate the use ;while the writings ofthose men, to whom not only their own but subsequenttimes have assignedthe first rank among philosophers, affordproofs that their speculations upon the nature of the Godhead were pursued in a modest and reverent spirit.In the company, or at least in the train, of this bettermethod of thinking and speaking of God and religion, camethat improved philosophy of human life,which forms thesubject of our second assertion. That the schools of thesophists of those days should, by their undivided attentionto logic, have wholly excluded practical philosophy, wasnaturally to^be expected. This practical philosophy restsupon inquiries into the nature of man it must be shown;what the disposition of our nature and itspowers are what:suits, what is repugnant to it, and consequently, what is tobe desired, and what shunned. It must be inquired whatseeds of virtue or vice are implanted in us; what is the nature of our passions, what the method of controlling them ?Finally, in what consists true happiness, what the object ofour life should be, and how we may best attain it? Now,