We can no more have exact religious thinking without theology, than exact mensuration and astronomy without mathematics, or exact iron-making without chemistry.
The theological systems of men and schools of men are determined always by the character of their ideal of Christ, the central fact of the Christian system.
Comparative theology testifies that Jesus Christ, who is not less truly the incarnation of the Christian's theology than of the Christian's God, is indeed the desire of the nations, but not their product, their invention, or their discovery.
All my theology is reduced to this narrow compass—"Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners."
A man must have a stout digestion to feed upon some men's theology; no sap, no sweetness, no life, but all stern accuracy, and fleshless definition. Proclaimed without tenderness, and argued without affection, the gospel from such men rather resembles a missile from a catapult than bread from a Father's hand.
Brethren, what makes a Christian is not the theology you have in your heads, but the faith and love you have in your hearts. We must, indeed, have a clear statement of truth in orderly propositions,—that is, a system of dogmas,—to have any thing to trust to at all. There can be no saving faith in an unseen Person, except through the medium of thoughts concerning Him, which thoughts put into words are a creed.
