Remarks on the Princeton Review [pp. 306-347]

308 Prof. Park's Remarks on the Princeton Review. [APRIL
they say, or is allowance to be made for their freedom, abatement of their force, and their terms to be considered antiquated
and their spirit only as still in force? For example, when
these creeds speak of the imputation of Adam's sin, is that to
be considered as only an intense form of expressing "the definite idea, that we are exposed to evil in consequence of his
sin."* This is surely a question of great importance.
From an early period in the history of the Church, there
have been two great systems of doctrine in perpetual conflict.
The one begins with God, the other with man. The one has
for its object the vindication of the Divine supremacy and sove
Sermon, p. 535. In the following article the references to Professor Park's
sermon are to the edition of it contained in the Bib. Sacra for July 1850; and
those to his remarks on the Princeton Review are the Bib. Sacra for January 1851.
That the point at issue is what is stated in the text will be made more apparent in
the sequel; for the present it may be sufficient to refer to the following passages. In giving his reasons for the title of the sermon, Professor Park says:
", Secondly, the title was selected as a deferential and charitable one. The representations which are classified under the theology of feeling are often sanctioned
as, the true theology,' by the men who delight most in employing them. What
the sermon would characterize as images, illustrations and intense expressions, these
men call doctrines." "We call one system of theology, rational' or, liberal,'
simply because it is so called by its advocates; much more then may we designate
by the phrase'emotive theology,' those representations which are so tenaciously
defended by multitudes as truth fitted both for the feeling and the judgment."
Remarks p. 140.
,, A creed, if true to its original end, should be in sober prose, should be understood as it means, and mean what it says, should be drawn out with a discriminating, balancing judgment, so as to need no allowance for its freedom, no abatement of its force, and should not be expressed in antiquated terms, lest men regard
its spirit as likewise obsolete. It belongs to the province of the analyzing, compar ing, reasoning intellect; and if it leave this province for the sake of intermingling
the phrases of an impassioned heart, it confuses the soul, it awakens the fancy and
the feelings to disturb the judgment, it sets a believer at variance with himself by
perplexing his reason with metaphors and his imagination with logic; it raises
feuds in the church by crossing the temperaments of men, and taxing one party to
demonstrate similes, another to feel inspired by abstractions. Hence the logo machy which has always characterized the defence of such creeds. The intellect,
no less than the heart, being out of its element, wanders through dry places, seeking
rest and finding none. Men are thus made uneasy with themselves and therefore
acrimonious against each other; the imaginative zealot does not understand the
philosophical explanation, and the philosopher does not sympathize with the imagi native style of the symbol; and as they misunderstand each other, they feel their
weakness, and, to be weak is to be miserable,' and misery not only loves but also
makes company, and thus they sink their controversy into a contention and their
dispute into a quarrel; nor will they ever find peace until they confine their intel lect to its rightful sphere and understand it according to What it says, and their
feeling to its province and interpret its language according to what it means, ren dering unto poetry the things that are designed for poetry, and unto prose what
belongs to prose." Sermon, p. 554.