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

Professor Park's Sermon.
contents of those feelings, is the province of the intelligence,
so that theology is but the intellectual forms in which the
religious consciousness expresses itself. The standard of
truth is, therefore, nothing objective, but this inward feeling.
Any doctrine which can be shown to be the legitimate expression
of an innate religious feeling is true-and any which is assumed to have a different origin, or to be foreign to the relig,ious consciousness, is to be rejected.
What the scriptures teach on this subject is, as it seems to
us, in few words, simply this. In the first place, agreeably to
what has already been said, the Bible never recognises that
broad distinction between the intellect and the feelings which
is so often made by metaphysicians. It regards the soul as a,
perceiving and feeling individual subsistence, whose cognitions
and affections are not exercises of distinct faculties, but complex states of one and the same subject. It never predicates
depravity or holiness of the feelings as distinct from the intellig,ence, or of the latter as distinct from the former. The
moral state of the soul is always represented as affecting its
cognitions as well as its affections. In popular language, the
understanding is darkened as well as the heart depraved. In
the second place, the scriptures as clearly teach that holiness
is necessary to the perception of holiness. In other words,
that the things of the Spirit must be spiritually discerned:
that the unrenewed have not this discernment, and therefore.
they cannot know the things which are freely given to us of
God, i. e., the things which he has graciously revealed in this
word. They may have that apprehension of them which an
uncultivated ear has of complicated musical sounds, or an un tutored eye of a work of art. Much in the object is perceived,
but much is not discerned, and that which remains unseen, is
precisely that which gives to these objects their peculiar excel lence and power. Thirdly, the Bible further teaches, that no
mere change of the feelings is adequate to secure this spiritual
discernment; but on the contrary, in the order of nature and
of experience, the discernment precedes the change of the
affections, just as the perception of beauty precedes the an swering aesthetic emotion. The eyes must be opened in order
to see wondrous things out of the law of God. The glory of
1850.]
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