Natural law in the spiritual world / by Henry Drummond.

  • Henry Drummond
Date:
1888
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Natural law in the spiritual world / by Henry Drummond. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    395/456 page 363
    •—but in no other sense than he might apply them to astronomy or physics. But truth in the Bible is a fountain. It is a diffused nutriment, so diffused that no one can put himself off with the form. It is reached not by thinking, but by doing. It is seen, discerned, not demonstrated. It cannot be bolted whole, but must be slowly absorbed into the system. Its vagueness to the mere intellect, its refusal to be packed into portable phrases, its satis- fying unsatisfyingness, its vast atmosphere, its find- ing of us, its mystical hold of us, these are the tokens of its infinity. Nature never provides for man’s wants in any direction, bodily, mental, or spiritual, in such a form as that he can simply accept her gifts auto- matically. She puts all the mechanical powers at his disposal—but he must make his lever. She gives him corn, but he must grind it. She elabo- rates coal, but he must dig for it. Corn is perfect, all the products of Nature are perfect, but he has everything to do to them before he can use them. So with truth ; it is perfect, infallible. But he can- not use it as it stands. He must work, think, separate, dissolve, absorb, digest; and most of these he must do for himself and within himself. If it be replied that this is exactly what theology does, we answer it is exactly what it does not. It simply
    digitised image 1
    digitised image 2
    digitised image 3