Man Has Wants Deeper Than Can Be

We Say Then, That Christianity Is Adapted To The Intellect, Because Its Spirit Coincides With That Of True Philosophy; Because It Removes The Incubus Of Sensuality And Low Vice; Because Of The Place It Gives To Truth; Because It Demands Free Inquiry; Because Its Mighty Truths And Systems Are Brought Before The Mind In The Same Way As The Truths And Systems Of Nature; Because It Solves Higher Problems Than Nature Can; And Because It Is So Communicated As To Be Adapted To Every Mind.

Everywhere The Tendency Has Been To Separate Religion From Morality, To Set Them In Opposition Even. But A Religion Without Morality Is A Superstition And A Curse; And Anything Like An Adequate And Complete Morality Without Religion Is Impossible. The Only Salvation For Man Is In The Union Of The Two As Christianity Unites Them.

The Moral Government Of God Is A Movement In A Line Onwards Towards Some Grand Consummation, In Which The Principles, Indeed, Are Ever The Same, But The Developments Are Always New - In Which, Therefore, No Experience Of The Past Can Indicate With Certainty What New Openings Of Truth, What Hew Manifestations Of Goodness, What New Phases Of The Moral Heaven May Appear.

Faith, Then, Generically, Is Confidence In A Personal Being. Specifically, Religious Faith Is Confidence In God, In Every Respect And Office In Which He Reveals Himself. As That Love Of Which God Is The Object Is Religious Love, So That Confidence In Him As A Father, A Moral Governor, A Redeemer, A Sanctifier, In All The Modes Of His Manifestation, By Which We Believe Whatever He Says Because He Says It, And Commit Ourselves And All Our Interests Cheerfully And Entirely Into His Hands, Is Religious Faith.

Christianity Excludes Malignity, Subdues Selfishness, Regulates The Passions, Subordinates The Appetites, Quickens The Intellect, Exalts The Affections. It Promotes Industry, Honesty, Truth, Purity, Kindness. It Humbles The Proud, Exalts The Lowly, Upholds Law, Favors Liberty, Is Essential To It, And Would Unite Men In One Great Brotherhood. It Is The Breath Of Life To Social And Civil Well-being Here, And Spreads The Azure Of That Heaven Into Whose Unfathomed Depths The Eye If Faith Loves To Look.