RELIGION NOT EMOTION

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Feb 18, 1889

FromThe Signs of the Times, Vol. 15, No. 7

RELIGION NOT EMOTION.

Teach young converts that religion does not consist in raptures, ecstasies, or high flights of feeling. There may be a great deal of these where there is religion. But it ought to be understood that they are all involuntary emotions, and may exist in full power where there is no religion. They may be the mere workings of the imagination, without any truly religious affection at all. Persons may have them to such a degree as actually to swoon away with ecstasy, even on the subject of religion, without having any religion. I have known one person almost carried away with rapture, by a mere view of the natural attributes of God,—his power and wisdom, as displayed in the stormy heavens,—and yet the person had no religion. Religion is obedience to God—the voluntary submission of the soul to the will of God.—Finney.