JAMES MARTINEAU (1805 – 1900)
A Study of Religion: Its Sources and Contents
Volume I, Oxford: Clarendon Press
and
New York: Macmillan and Co., 1888
The word ÔReligionÕ is here
used in the sense which it invariably bore half a century ago. É Understanding
by ÔReligionÕ belief in an Ever-living
God that is, in a Divine Mind and Will ruling the Universe and holding moral
relations with mankind. É In the soul of Religion, the
apprehension of truth and the enthusiasm of devotion inseparably blend: and in
proportion as either is deserted by the other, the conditions of right judgment
fail. The state of mind in which
they coexist may present itself under either of two formsÉ. If it be reached by reflection on the
order of the physical and moral world, it is called ÔNatural ReligionÕ; if it arises without conscious elaboration
of thought, and is assigned to immediate communication from the Divine Spirit
to the human, it is called ÔSupernatural Religion.Õ
[Submitted by James A.
Santucci]