324 LECTURES AND ESSAYS [1874- 



I pass now to the second way of defending the notion 

 that all true religious knowledge is theology. Theology 

 is often taken in a loose sense, and permitted to include 

 all manner of unsystematic illogical odds and ends of 

 Christian thought and knowledge. A book of sermons, 

 for example, or a volume of practical meditations, is 

 taken to be a contribution to theology. In this loose 

 sense of the word, at least, every Christian, it is main 

 tained, has a theology. 



But this is also a thoroughly false position. Loose, un- 

 shaped knowledge, never leads to clear and decided action. 

 If a practical man can only tell in a rude, general way 

 the rules on which he works, you may be sure that he 

 does not think of these rules at all in the actual process 

 of his toil. The loose, vague rule is only an awkward 

 attempt to express in words some piece of knowledge of 

 which he has a practical grasp, perfectly firm and definite. 

 In fact, vague and inaccurate theological generalisations 

 are only a hindrance to Christian life. All generalised 

 knowledge, which is not scientifically precise in its 

 expression, contains some element of positive error, and 

 applied in practice may very readily prove misleading. 

 It will be found that the simple Christian argues safely 

 only when, by direct personal sympathy with the personal 

 Word of God, he takes it home to his own special case 

 without any generalisation whatever. He does this with 

 the perfectly definite knowledge that the word is spoken 

 by God to him ; but this personal appropriation of a 

 personal message of love is surely not by any straining 

 of words to be called theology. 



Let me, in a word, sum up this part of our argument. 

 Personal Christianity is not a play of subjectivities, but 

 moral converse with God practically dominating the life. 

 Such converse is necessarily intelligent : there is no faith 

 without knowledge. But the essential quality of the 

 knowledge is its personal and practical character. The 

 believer must be able to say, I know that God speaks 



