Genre:

Extract, Miscellaneous

Publications extracted:

Anon 1837

Subjects:

Biblical Authority, Piety, Feeling, Christianity

    Argues that, while the 'Scriptures offer insurmountable proofs of their truth to the understanding; the strongest proof of which they are capable is that which they address to the heart'. Observes that this appeal is to a 'renewed' heart, 'averted, from the general objects of pursuit and preference, and attracted to different or contrary objects'. When a heart 'familiar with the beauties, the glories, and wonders of nature—of art—of science' is re-born and drawn away to religious sympathies, critics call it 'cant, and weakness, and degeneracy', when in fact it is 'as high and pure a feeling and motive above science' as science is 'above the habits, the feelings, the enjoyments of the savage state of man!'. (120) As the educated savage pities the uneducated, 'so the christian, properly so called, has no feeling but of pity for those who still despise the pure influence of christianity. He is a botanist, a chemist, an electrician, an anatomist, a physiologist, in his admiration of these elevating sciences; but he is an anatomist of the mind, and a student in immortality'. It is to such a heart that the strongest biblical evidence is addressed: 'this evidence is the assertion of the fellowship of this heart in the sufferings of Christ'. (121)