Not that they would have refused the Logos to all
men in words. They would have cursed a man for denying the existence of
the Logos in every man; but they would have equally cursed him for
acting on his existence in practice, and treating the heretic as one who
had that within him to which a preacher might appeal. Thus they became
Dogmatists; that is, men who assert a truth so fiercely, as to forget
that a truth is meant to be used, and not merely asserted--if, indeed,
the fierce assertion of a truth in frail man is not generally a sign of
some secret doubt of it, and in inverse proportion to his practical
living faith in it: just as he who is always telling you that he is a
man, is not the most likely to behave like a man. And why did this
befall them? Because they forgot practically that the light proceeded
from a Person. They could argue over notions and dogmas deduced from
the notion of His personality: but they were shut up in those notions;
they had forgotten that if He was a Person, His eye was on them, His
rule and kingdom within them; and that if He was a Person, He had a
character, and that that character was a righteous and a loving
character: and therefore they were not ashamed, in defending these
notions and dogmas about Him, to commit acts abhorrent to His character,
to lie, to slander, to intrigue, to hate, even to murder, for the sake
of what they madly called His glory: but which was really only their
own glory--the glory of their own dogmas; of propositions and
conclusions in their own brain, which, true or false, were equally
heretical in their mouths, because they used them only as watchwords of
division.
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