The Theology of the Intellect and that of the Feelings. By Edwards A. Park. [pp. 642-674]

Professor Park's Sermon.
not what form it takes. These gifted ones, therefore, can
afford to be very liberal. They see in Christianity as in all
things else, a manifestation of what is real. They pity, but
can bear with those who lay stress on the historical facts and
doctrinal assertions of the scriptures. They look on them as
occupying a lower position, and as belonging to a receding
period. Still men can have the substance in that form as well
as in another. The misfortune is that they persist in considering the form to te the substance, or at least inseparable from
it. They do not see that as the principle of vegetabale life is
as vigorous now, as when it was expressed in forms extant
only as fossils, and would continue unimpaired though the
whole existing flora should perish; so Christianity would flourish
uninjured, though the New Testament should turn out to be a
fable.
This theory has more forms than one; and has many advocates lwho are not prepared to take it in its full results. Neither is it confined to Germany. With most of the productions
of that teeming soil, it is in the process of transplanting.
Shoots have been set out, and assiduously watered in England and Americi which bid fair to live and bear fruit. The
doctrine that " Christ;ianity consists not in propositions-it is
life in the soul,"* an,l a life independent of the propositions,
of necessity supe -ced!s the authority, if not the necessity of
the script res. ibhis doctrine, variously modified, is one of
the forms in i ii -l a word (oi God is ma(le of none effect.
Anothle theory, intimately related to one just referred to,
is the doctrine that inspiration differs in degree, but not in
nature, from te, spiritual illumination which ordinary men
enjoy. Just in lproportion as the religious consciousness is
elevated, the intuition of divine things is enlarged and rendered more distinct. If sanctification were perfect, religious
knowledge would be perfect. " Let there be a due purifica_
tion of the moral nature," says Morell, " a perfect harmony
of the spiritual being with the mind of God-a removal of all
inward disturbances from the breast, and what is to prevent or
disturb this immediate intuition of divine things?" p. 174.t
* Morell's Philosophy of i,.eliion, p. 172.
t MORILL is a very superior man. He stands among the first rank of repro
1850.]
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