ABSTRACT
This chapter concerns the use of principles of natural religion in natural theology and, in particular, their relation to the new experimental natural philosophy. Talk of a contrast class comprising natural versus revealed religion seems to have emerged in England around the same time as the notion of principles of natural religion. The chapter provides a general outline of a generic theory of principles so as to evaluate just how the more specific theory of the principles of natural religion was handled. There appears to be no connection in virtuoso John Wilkins's mind between the principles of natural religion and experimental philosophy. The first work of natural theology explicitly to graft determinate Newtonian principles into an account of natural religion is George Cheyne's Philosophical Principles of Natural Religion of 1705. Samuel Clarke's comment en passant that experimental philosophy might sometimes be of help to religion typifies his lack of interest.
