---
title: 'James Henley Thornwell on the Nature of True Religion: Knowledge and affection'
type: post
author: 'Caleb Cangelosi'
date: 2021-10-05
url: https://confessional.org/blog/2021-james-henley-thornwell-on-the-nature-of-true-religion-knowledge-and-affection
---

# James Henley Thornwell on the Nature of True Religion: Knowledge and affection

“\[Religion is\] a state of heart which holds *knowledge* and *affection* in solution, not successively, but in unity. If you take away the affection, you have only *dogmatism*; if you take away knowledge, you have a mere *spiritualism*, a mere fancy, an *idolatry.* If you preach doctrine to a Christian, the affection springs spontaneously on the apprehension of the doctrine; if you preach the *affection* to him, he will immediately, and, perhaps unconsciously, hitch it on the doctrine; and this endorses the maxim that we ought to preach our doctrine practically, and our practice doctrinally.”

— [*Life and Letters if James Henley Thornwell*](/authors/james-henley-thornwell), p. 100