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

Nature of the Proposed Theory.
often called knowledge. Hence, to know God, is the sum of all
religion. The vision of the glory of God in the face of Jesus
Christ is the vital principle of inward Christianity. Hence
throughout the Bible, the knowledge of God, wisdom, understanding, and words of like import, are used as designations of
true religion. With spiritual discernment is inseparably connected a feeling corresponding to the nature of the object apprehended.- This is so intimately united with the cognition, as to
be an attribute of it-having no separate existence, and being
inconceivable without it. And it is to the two as inseparably
united that the name religion properly belongs. Neither the
cognition without the feeling, nor the feeling without the cognition completes the idea of religion. It is the complex state of
mind in which those elements are inseparably blended, so as to
form one glowing, intelligent apprehension of divine things,
which constitutes spiritual life. But in this complex state the cognition is the first and the governing element, to which the other
owes its existence; and therefore, in the second place, the Scriptures not only teach that knowledge is an essential constituent
of religion, but also that the objective presentation of truth to
the mind is absolutely necessary to any genuine religious feeling
or affection. It is by the truth as thus outwardly presented,
that the inward state of mind, which constitutes religion, is produced. We are begotten by the truth. We are sanctified by
the truth. It is by the exhibition of the truth, that the inward
life of the soul is called into being and into exercise. This is
the agency which the Spirit of God employs in the work of conversion and sanctification. Hence truth is essential to the salvation of men. It is not a matter of indifference what men
believe, or in what form right feeling expresses itself. There
can be no right feeling but what is due to the apprehension of
truth. Hence Christ commissioned his disciples to teach. The
Church was made the teacher of the nations; she has ever
regarded herself as the witness and guardian of the truth.
Heresy she has repudiated, not as an insult to her authority,
but as destructive of her life.
Is not this scriptural view of the relation between knowledge
and feeling, confirmed by consciousness and experience? Is
not the love of God intelligent? Is it not complacency in the
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