The decrees, the punishments and rewards are given with some clearness and are easily understood; there is no appeal and little equivocation.

They served a useful purpose in the earlier ages of civilisation, but cannot solve the problem for the complex civilisation and advanced culture of the present age.

They place God too far from man, and attribute to man powers which he cannot of himself possess.

The conceptions of the Deity involved in them are too anthropomorphic in character--too much coloured by human frailties.
The religions of law have had to give place to those of a superior type--the religions of redemption.

These religions appreciate the difficulty there exists for humankind of itself to transcend the world of sin, and are of two types--one type expressing a merely negative element, the other a negative and positive element.
The typical negative redemptive religion is that of Buddhism.