But this always is and must be
secondary. The spiritual faculty alone can receive and judge of
spiritual truth, and if that faculty be not reached a truly religious
belief is not yet attained.
External evidences of revealed religion must have a high place but
cannot have the highest. A revealed religion must depend for its
permanent hold on our obedience and our duty on its fastening upon our
spiritual nature, and if it cannot do that no evidences can maintain it
in its place.
This account of the fundamental beliefs of Religion when compared with
the fundamental postulates of Science shows that the two begin with the
same part of our nature but proceed by opposite methods. Both begin with
the human will as possessing a permanent identity and exerting a force
of its own. But from this point they separate. Science rests on
phenomena observed by the senses; Religion on the voice that speaks
directly from the other world. Science postulates uniformity and is
excluded wherever uniformity can be denied, but compels conviction
within the range of its own postulate. Religion demands the submission
of a free conscience, and uses no compulsion but that imposed by its own
inherent dignity. Science gives warnings, and if you are capable of
understanding scientific argument, you will be incapable of disbelieving
the warnings.
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