Excerpt from Discourses on Some Theological Doctrines: As Related to the Religious Character

The ensuing discourses were preached during the years when the author was delivering his theological lectures. They were connected with his lectures, as they were designed to exhibit certain practical relations of certain theological doctrines, to show that the doctrines were to be revered for their use in religious experience as well as for their harmony with sound reason and divine inspiration. The discourses were not designed to be theological or doctrinal in the full and distinctive meaning of those terms. Neither were they designed to be scientific discourses. They do not adopt, they sometimes avoid, the precise definitions, the expressive technical terms, the logical trains of argument needed in such discussions, see notes on pages 176 sq., 232 sq.

Here and there, in consequence of his adopting popular, instead of scientific, language, the author may have exposed himself to be misunderstood. For example: in his seventh sermon he might have defined the doctrine of it to be, that all the divine moral attributes are comprehended in the elective preference for the greater and higher, above the smaller and lower, good of sentient beings, on the ground of, and in proportion to, their worth. He has defined the doctrine in phrases less technical and exact, see pp. 156, 157. None of these phrases favor the opinion that all the moral attributes of God are comprehended in his love to his creatures. They imply the contrary.

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