The age-old device of using a text is an extremely useful one. A text summarises—or should summarise—what the preacher has to say; and, even if, as is often the case, the congregation forget the contents of the sermon almost straight away, there is just a chance that they will remember the text. As an eighteenth-century divine wisely observed in advising young clergymen, ‘Propose one point in one discourse, and stick to it; a hearer never carries away more than one impression.’The text and the one point of this paper is evident from the title: ‘The philosophy of religion, the banner of a sect.’