"But is it consistent with the doctrines of our Church to condemn and set aside all _feelings_ in religion, and rank them with unaccountable _impulses_? Give me leave, sir, to tell you that either you or the compilers of our Liturgy, Articles, and Homilies must be mistaken, if I did not mistake you.... They bid us pray (office for the sick) that every sick person may know and feel that there is no saving name or power but that of Jesus Christ. In the seventeenth of our Articles they speak of godly persons, and such as _feel_ in themselves the workings of God's Spirit. And in the third part of the homily for rogation week, they declare that when after contrition we _feel_ our consciences at peace with God through the remission of our sin, it is God that worketh this miracle in us. (Compare this with Rom. v. 1.) They are so far therefore from attributing such _feelings_ to the weakness of good people's nerves, or to a spirit of pride and delusion, that they affirm it is God that worketh them in their hearts....
"You seemed, sir, to discountenance _feelings_ as not agreeable to sober, rational worship; but, if I am not mistaken, reason by no means clashes with feelings of various sorts in religion. I am willing to let any man of reason judge whether feeling sorrow for sin, hunger and thirst after righteousness, peace of conscience, serenity of mind, consolation in prayer, thankfulness at the Lord's table, hatred of sin, zeal for God, love to Jesus and all men, compassion for the distressed, etc., or feeling nothing at all of this, is matter of mere indifference: yea, sir, take for a judge a heathen poet, if you please, and you will hear him say of a young man who, by his blushes, betrayed the shame he felt for having told an untruth,--_Erubuit, salva res est_....
"If a man may feel sorrow when he sees himself stript of all, and left naked upon a desert coast, why should not a penitent sinner, whom God has delivered from blindness of heart, be allowed to feel sorrow upon seeing himself robbed of his title to heaven, and left in the wilderness of this world destitute of original righteousness? Again, if it is not absurd to say that a rebel, condemned to death, feels joy upon his being reprieved and received into his prince's favour, why should it be thought absurd to affirm that a Christian, who, being justified by faith, has peace with God, and rejoices in hope of the glory to come, feels joy and happiness in his inmost soul on that account? On the contrary, sir, to affirm that such a one feels nothing (if I am not mistaken) is no less repugnant to reason than to religion....