C.N. Douglas, comp. Forty Thousand Quotations: Prose and Poetical. 1917.
Theology
Theology is Anthropology.
All my theology is reduced to this narrow compass—“Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners.”
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.
We can no more have exact religious thinking without theology, than exact mensuration and astronomy without mathematics, or exact iron-making without chemistry.
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.
A theology at war with the laws of physical nature would be a battle of no doubtful issue. The laws of our spiritual nature give still less chance of success to the system which would thwart or stay them.
He that seeks perfection upon earth leaves nothing new for the saints to find in heaven; for whilst men teach, there will be mistakes in divinity, and as long as no other govern, errors in the State.
Theology is but a science of mind applied to God. As schools change theology must necessarily change. Truth is everlasting, but our ideas of truth are not. Theology is but our ideas of truth classified and arranged.
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.