Systematic Theology (Volume 1 of 3)Strong, Augustus Hopkins
Religion
Systematic Theology (Volume 1 of 3)
Strong, Augustus Hopkins
Baptists -- Doctrines; Theology, Doctrinal
_Ps. 25:14—_“The secret of Jehovah is with them that fear him”;
_Rom. 12:2—_“prove what is the ... will of God”; _cf._ _Ps.
36:1—_“the transgression of the wicked speaks in his heart like an
oracle.” “It is the heart and not the brain That to the highest
doth attain.” To “learn by heart” is something more than to learn
by mind, or by head. All heterodoxy is preceded by heteropraxy. In
Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress, Faithful does not go through the
Slough of Despond, as Christian did; and it is by getting over the
fence to find an easier road, that Christian and Hopeful get into
Doubting Castle and the hands of Giant Despair. “Great thoughts
come from the heart,” said Vauvenargues. The preacher cannot, like
Dr. Kane, kindle fire with a lens of ice. Aristotle: “The power of
attaining moral truth is dependent upon our acting rightly.”
Pascal: “We know truth, not only by the reason, but by the
heart.... The heart has its reasons, which the reason knows
nothing of.” Hobbes: “Even the axioms of geometry would be
disputed, if men’s passions were concerned in them.” Macaulay:
“The law of gravitation would still be controverted, if it
interfered with vested interests.” Nordau, Degeneracy:
“Philosophic systems simply furnish the excuses reason demands for
the unconscious impulses of the race during a given period of
time.”
Lord Bacon: “A tortoise on the right path will beat a racer on the
wrong path.” Goethe: “As are the inclinations, so also are the
opinions.... A work of art can be comprehended by the head only
with the assistance of the heart.... Only law can give us
liberty.” Fichte: “Our system of thought is very often only the
history of our heart.... Truth is descended from conscience....
Men do not will according to their reason, but they reason
according to their will.” Neander’s motto was: “Pectus est quod
theologum facit”—“It is the heart that makes the theologian.” John
Stirling: “That is a dreadful eye which can be divided from a
living human heavenly heart, and still retain its all-penetrating
vision,—such was the eye of the Gorgons.” But such an eye, we add,
is not all-penetrating. E. G. Robinson: “Never study theology in
cold blood.” W. C. Wilkinson: “The head is a magnetic needle with
truth for its pole. But the heart is a hidden mass of magnetic
iron. The head is drawn somewhat toward its natural pole, the
truth; but more it is drawn by that nearer magnetism.” See an
affecting instance of Thomas Carlyle’s enlightenment, after the
death of his wife, as to the meaning of the Lord’s Prayer, in
Fisher, Nat. and Meth. of Revelation, 165. On the importance of
feeling, in association of ideas, see Dewey, Psychology, 106, 107.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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