t it ascertains.

The intellectualism in religion which I wish to discredit pretends to
be something altogether different from this. It assumes to construct
religious objects out of the resources of logical reason alone, or of
logical reason drawing rigorous inference from non-subjective facts.
It calls its conclusions dogmatic theology, or philosophy of the
absolute, as the case may be; it does not call them science of
religions. It reaches them in an a priori way, and warrants their
veracity.

Warranted systems have ever been the idols of aspiring souls.
All-inclusive, yet simple; noble, clean, luminous, stable, rigorous,
true;--what more ideal refuge could there be than such a system would
offer to spirits vexed by the muddiness and accidentality of the world
of sensible things? Accordingly, we find inculcated in the theological
schools of to-day, almost as much as in those of the fore-time, a
disdain for merely possible or probable truth, and of results that only
private assurance can grasp. Scholastics and idealists both express
this disdain. Principal John Caird, for example, writes as follows in
his Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion:--

"Religion must indeed be a thing of the heart, but in order to elevate
it from the region of subjective caprice and waywardness, and to
distinguish between that which is true and false in religion, we must
appeal to an objective standard. That which enters the heart must
first be discerned by the intelligence to be TRUE. It must be seen as
having in its own nature a RIGHT to dominate feeling, and as
constituting the principle by which feeling must be judged.[289] In
estimating the religious character of individuals, nations, or races,
the first question is, not how they feel, but what they think and
believe--not whether their religion is one which manifests itself in
emotions, more or less vehement and enthusiastic, but what are the
CONCEPTIONS of God and divine things by which these emotions are called
forth. Feeling is necessary in religion, but it is by the CONTENT or
intelligent basis of a religion, and not by feeling, that its character
and worth are to be determined."[290]

[289] Op. cit., p. 174, abridged.

[290] Ibid., p. 186, abridged and italicized.

Cardinal Newman, in his work, The Idea of a University, gives more
emphatic expression still to this disdain for sentiment.[291] Theology,
he says, is a science in the strictest sense of the word.