God has given us a broad world of truth for our spiritual and intellectual habitation. This universe of truth is to the human soul as limitless as the air to a bird or the sea to a fish. There the Christian mind can luxuriate at perfect liberty. While the ages unfold the believer will need no more than has been already given, for it represents the broad and manifold will of God, the happy home of saints and angels. This vast sea of truth is expressed in nature, in the Holy Scriptures and in Christ, the Wisdom of God incarnate. Its rational phase can be reduced to a creed which may be learned as one would learn any other truth, and which when so learned constitutes Christian orthodoxy, best and most perfectly embodied in the beliefs of modern evangelical Christianity.
But we must also remember that orthodoxy is not synonymous with Procrustean uniformity. We may bring every thought into accord with divine revelation without sacrificing our intellectual freedom. We can be orthodox without becoming mentally stultified. We can believe every tenet of the Christian creed and still leave our imagination free to roam at will through the broad worlds of nature and grace. We are free but not ?freethinkers.?
