PHIL OSOPHY
OF
SKEPTICISM  AND  ULTRAISM,
WH EI N
THE OPINIONS OF REV. THEODORE PARKER, AND OTHER
WRITERS ARE SHOWN TO( BE INCONSISTENT WITH
SOUND REASON AND THE CHRISTIAN
RELIGION.
BY JAMES B. WALKER,
AUTEHOR OF "THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE PLAN OF SALVATION," "GOD
BEIVEAL]ED IN THE PROCESS OF CREATION AND BY THE
MANIFESTATION OF CHRIST," ETC.
NEW YORK:
DERBY & JACKSON, 119 NASSAU STREET.
CINCINNATI: RIOKEY, MALLORY & WEBB.
CIICAGO: D. B. COOKE & CO.
1857.




Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1857, by
I)ERBY & JACKSON,
In the Clerk's Office of the District Court, for the Southern District of New York.
STEREOTYPED BY                                       PRINTED BY
T H O M A S B. SMITH,                               GCEO. IRUSSELL & CO.,
82 & 84 Beekman-st.                                   61 Beekman-st.




TO
9rad. -i5stow;Eloh~nn vadmta brrtph Nartar; 
AND  TO ALL THINKERS,
WHETHER THEY BE
CHRISTIAN, SCEPTIC, OR REPROBATE,
Tiis  bolume
IS MOST RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED
BY THE AUTHOR.








CONTENTS.
LETTER I.
PAGE.
TEE NONSENSE OF THEODORE PARKER'S THEOLOGICAL PHILOSOPHY.............................................. 11
LETTER II.
VARIATIONS AND INCONGRUITIES IN THE THEOLOGICAL OPINIONS
OF MR. PARKER AND OTHER TRANSCENDENTALISTS........ 23
LETTER III.
MISSTATEMENTS OF ORTHODOX OPINIONS.................... 31
LETTER IV.
THE PERSONALITY OF GOD.................* * O  -... 41
LETTER V.
TiE TRI-UNITY OF THE DIVINE MIND....................... 61
LETTER VI.
HiUMAN DEPRAVITY..................................... 80
LETTER VII.
AT-ONEI-MENT; OR,  RECONCILIATION WITH GOD.........  99




vi                   CONTENTS.
LETTER VIII.
PAGE.
FUTURE RETRIBUTION..................................... 119
LETTER IX.
RATIONAL EXPOSITION OF PROBATION AND RETRIBUTION....... 140
LETTER X.
REFUTATION OF COMMON FALLACIES ON THE SUBJECT OF FUTURE RETRIBUTION.................................. 161
LETTER XI.
REFORMERS AND THEIR RELATION TO CHRISTIANITY........... 175
LETTER XII.
A DISCRIM-INATION BETWEEN THE GOOD AND EVIL IN MODERN
REFORMERS....................................... 188
LETTER XIII.
WRITTEN REVELATION A NECESSITY IN ORDER TO THE MlORAL
DEVELOPMENT AND MORAL PROGRESS OF MANEIND....... 213
LETTER XIV.
REVELATION THE MOTIVE-POWER IN tHUMAN PROGRESS........ 234
I PPENDIX...................................... 273




PRE F ACE.
IN the following pages the author has endeavored to
meet, in a popular form, some of the prevailing moral
fallacies of the times.
It is admitted by every one who has observed the
state of public opinion in relation to moral and religious
questions, that no inconsiderable portion of the business
men of our cities and villages-especially the young
men-are influenced by opinions which are inconsistent
both with sound reason and with revelation. This little volume is an endeavor to bring back some who
have wandered, to a rational apprehension of religious
doctrine and duty.
It asks the forbearance of the dogmatic theologian.
The effort of the author is to give the rationale of the
Christian doctrines which he discusses. Those for whom
these letters are mostly designed have chosen reason,
rather than revelation, as arbiter in matters of faith.
We have, therefore, permitted reason to speak freely
in behalf of revealed truth, and to speak sometimes in




Viii              PREFACE.
forms of language that we would not use with those
who are believers in divine revelation.
WVe have, in the discussion, waived all questions not
involved in the main issues, and have granted to the
opposers and accusers of the evangelical ministry all
that a fair mind can ask; and as the skeptics of our
day claim a philosophical basis for many of their opinions, we have endeavored to meet them on their own
ground.
One of the volumes of Rev. Theodore Parker (Discourses of Religion) was put into our hands by a friiend.
We read it, and were surprised to find a book strong
in phrase and assuming in rhetoric; but without congruity, and, as it seemed to us, out of harmony both
with reason and revelation.
With this view of the book, we commenced a series
of letters to a fiiend, one of which was published in a
religious journal. Other letters were written, but not
published.  In those letters we referred, in two or
three instances, to portions of two volumes previously
published, and to which our respondent had access.
For the benefit of those who may possess these volumes,
we have given references, or condensed the thought
and put it into another form.
These letters, with some additional matter and a few
notes, are now submitted to the public. They are respectfully commended to the consideration of those




PREFACE.                     iX
who desire to act sincerely and intelligently in relation
to the matters in question.  "Prove all things: hold
fast that which is good," is a Scripture precept.
The matter of some of the letters has been prepared
in haste. The discussion covers the living issues of
our times between the friends and opponents of evangelical Christianity.  The style is as popular as the
character of the subjects would permit. If it shall answer the ends of a hand-book on the subject of heterodoxy in religion and reform, the author's aim will be
accomplished.








LETTER I.
NONSENSE OF THEODORE PARKER'S THEOLOGICAL
PHILOSOPHY.
MY DEAR SIR:
I learned to respect you for your learning
and talents in by-gone years. When I first knew
you I doubted concerning the divine legation of
Moses and the manifestation of -God in Christ.
Since then you have departed in some measure
from the faith which you then commended to me.
It has been matter of sincere regret to myself and
others that a friend, who we believe possesses one
of the best minds in the land, should no longer act
with us in advancing the plan of Christ in the
world. But whatever may be your convictions in
relation to the divine nature of Jesus, it surprises
me most of all to be informed that you listen with
apparent complacency to the teachings of Theodore
Parker on the subject of THEISM. Whatever regard you may have for Mr. Parker as a man and
a reformer-a regard which I likewise cherish —




12  PARKER'S THEOLOGICAL PIILOSOPHYo
still I am sure you can see little but a verbiage,
something like Carlyleism diluted, in the style and
matter of Mr. Parker's teaching. I confess that I
can not see how any one who prizes the logical faculty so highly as you do, should have any respect
for such a book as the " Discourses of Religion,"
which has scarcely a reliable logical process from its
beginning to its close.
I think you injure the character of your countrymen in the estimation of thinking men, both at
home and abroad, by the sanction which a discriminating American scholar may seem to give to
the vagaries of such a writer as Mr. Parker.
The course pursued by other gentlemen in relation to Mr. Parker as a public teacher, differs, in
my opinion, morally, from the same course when
pursued by yourself. Men who have little or no
knowledge of the Scriptures, and who affiliate
mostly with those who reject the authority of God
in Christ, if they have sagacity to see the defection
from Christian principle which exists about them,
may be expected to swell the psean which hails the
anti-scriptural reformer.
But should any apparent defections in some portions of the Christian church lead such men as you
to reject Christian principle?




PARKER'S TIIEOLOGICAL PHILOSOPHY. 13
You answer by saying that, "Whenr Parker has
the courage to denounce statesmen who prostitute
their great talents, and become recreant to the principles of freedom and humanity; and when Greeley
has the courage to sustain the denouncement,
although it is against his own party —or rather
against a self-degraded man who was the Magnus
Apollo of his own party-the man," you say,
"whose better nature does not sympathize with such
devotion to principle, while it reluctates against
those venal ministers and presses that are silent,
or become the apologists for theological or political
sinners, has no better nature."
I have, you know, no desire to abate any thing
from the homage which you pay to the moral courage of reformers. I only regret that the class of
men to whom you refer should reject the faith
which alone can give a right spirit and final success to their efforts. So long as they reject Christ
as the model and motive, they will themselves
grow more selfish, and their constant failures will
make them misanthropes in the end.
So far, then, as Mr. Parker and other teachers
and lecturers of his class get indorsement from
you, there is ground for that blame which always
attaches to those who know when they sanction the




14  PARKER'S THEOLOGICAL PHILOSOPHY.
transfer of a valueless or injurious article to those
who do not rknow.
There are many men —young men especiallywho have paid little or no attention to tlhe grave
matters which Mr. Parker "talks about," and who
no doubt suppose that -his scholastic words and
phrases upon theological subjects have profound
truth and significance in them. You know better,
and should not therefore give, even by silent acquiescence, countenance to teachings which must
be an offense to your intelligence if not to your
conscience.
Allow me here to note for you some passages in
Mr. Parker's " Discourses of Religion."  They will
sufficiently indicate the character of his theologizing, and warrant any language which may seem to
you or others to be severe in the foregoing paragraphs:
1. THE " SENTIMENT" OF GOD.
Mr. Parker says (p. 18), " The religious sentiment
does not disclose the character, and much less the
nature and object, on which it depends."
Again (p. 27), " The sentiment of God, though
vague and mysterious, is always the same in itself."




PAERKER 7S THEOLOGICAL PHILOSOPHY. 15
2. THE "i IDEA" OF GOD.
On page 24 we are told that "the idea of God
comes of the joint and spontaneous action of
reason and the religious sentiment."
Again (p. 27), " The idea of God as a fact given
in man's nature, and affording a consistent representation of its object, is permanent and alike in
all."
But (p. 24) we are told that " The idea of God is
perfect only when the conditions are complied
with"-but, in a majority of cases, " the conditions
are not complied with."
3. THE "CONCEPTION" OF GOD.
Page 24. "The CONCEPTION of God, as man
expresses it, is always imperfect."
Page 27.  " The conception of God is of the
most VARIOUS and EVANESCENT character, and is
not the same in any two ages or men."
Page 95. "-The conception which man forms of
God depends on his character."
In the above passages the italics are our own,
introduced to note the points which we shall notice. The sense is fairly and fully quoted. They
are " UTTERED" mostly in the same chapter, and




1G  PARKER'S THEOLOGICAL PHILOSOPHY.
near the beginning of the book. Taken together,
their absurdity is equaled only by other " INTUITIONS" of like character which follow them in the
same volume.
First, we are told that the mind of man has three
different apprehensions of God, which are spoken
of: SENTIMENT, IDEA, and CONCEPTION. NOW, if
we suppose all these to exist at the same time, as
Mr. Parker evidently does, the notion is a positive
absurdity. They might exist consecutively, combined with a doubt which were right; but that they
should exist simultaneously as SEPARATE apprehensions, is contrary to the laws of mind.
If they could exist simultaneously, the one apprehension would nullify the other. One would be
various and false, the other permanent and true;
while a third would be mysterious and always the
same.
But if these succeed each other-which is first,
and which is most influential? Mr. Parker tells us
-that the conception of God is different in all men,
and always imperfect. Does this "conception" obliterate the idea which is given as a FACT in man's
nature? Of what benefit is a true idea if it be obliterated in all men (EXCEPT a few such men as
Mr. Parker) by a conception which is utterly




PARKER'S THEOLOGICAL PHILOSOPHY. 17
false?  Beside, how can a sentiment-the same in
all-and an idea which is a fact given in man's nature, ever be varied or perverted by a conception
which is different in all men?
This SENTIMENT, IDEA, and CONCEPTION is a
sort of trinity never before thought of-not a
trinity in unity, but a trinity in antagonism existing in the same mind.
If man is conscious of these three different apprehensions of God, either in connection or in succession, why does he not choose one of them?
But if the idea is a fact given in his nature, then be
can not obliterate from his mind a true knowledge
of God. And again, would not the " vagueness" of
the sentiment be dissipated by the definiteness of
the idea, or the force of the conception?
We are told, on page 24, that the idea of God
comes of the joint and spontaneous action of reason and the religious sentiment (action of a sentiment?), but we are informed, on page 125, that this
vague and indefinite sentiment, combined with ignorance and fear, leads to superstition. And then,
on page 188, et seq., man can by reason get but an
imperfect knowledge from  nature: yet from  a
vague and mysterious sentiment and imperfect data,




18  PARKERtS TIHEOLOGICAL PHILOSOPHY.
a Being of wisdom, power, and love, is derived by
the reason.
But strange enough, in immediate connection
with this, the idea of God is said to be " a FACT
given in man's nature, which affords a consistent rep.
resenitation of its object, PERMANENT AND ALIKE IN
ALL."  Thus it is at the same time an intuition,
given as a fact in man's nature, permanent and
alike in all, while yet it is the result of a rational
process, predicated upon a vague sentiment and imperfect data.
But strange again, we are told in the same chapter that this idea, which is permanent and alike in
all," depends upon conditions which, in a majority
of cases, are not complied with."
tHow can a fact which is the same in all, depend
upon conditions?  Or, if the fact be unknown
until the conditions are complied with, how can
any man rationally comply with the conditions of
the unknown?  Mr. Parker must solve such difficulties for his friends by intuition. They are
without the limits of reason.
But the conception of God, as we have been informed, is very different from either the sentiment
or the idea. "i t is (p. 27) 6f the most various and
evanescent character, and is not the same in any two




PARKER nS THEOLOGICAL PHILOSOPHY. 19
ages or men." This conception of God, we are told,
" depends on a man's character;" that it is bad or
good as a man is bad or good; and that it is
"always im2perfect."   But subsequently we hear
something very different of this conception. On
pp. 156-7, Mr. Parker analyzes it, and finds in the
evanescent and imperfect conception, which is never
the same in any two men, what he denominates the
perfect character of God. He says: " At the end
of the analysis what is left?-BEING-CAUSE —
K;NOWLEDGE-LOVE-each  with  no conceivable
limitations. To express it in a word, a Being of
infinite power, wisdom, and goodness. Thus, by
an analysis of the conception of God, we find in fact,
or by implication, just what was given synthetically by the intuition of the reason."
Now, as we were taught that the character of the
conception depends on the character of the man,
and that it is never the same in any age or in any two
men, whose conception has Mr. Parker analyzed?
And if he finds this result in one case, according
to his own authority, he will certainly find a different one in every other case. And as conceptions have an objective origin, how can an analysis
of a conception give an intuition as its result?
But this is not all that Mr. Parker has to teach




20  PARKER'S TEEOLOGICAL PHILOSOPHY.
his hearers on the subject of the divine nature and
the divine character. Such vagaries as the following occur further on in the same volume:
Page 151.  " God can not be personal and conscious as Joseph and Peter, and yet impersonal and
unconscious as moss," etc.
Page 159.  "God is the substantiality of matterI"
Page 170.  "God is the materiality of matter."
Page 156.  "God is universal being."
This is pantheism run mad. If God is substantial, and material, and universal being, he must be
developed into all specialities, such as doves and
snakes, eagles and alligators, porcupines and pumpkins.
Again, page 149.  "God is infinite motherliness,' and "'is immanent in all things."
Page 163.  "The things of nature reflect his
image, and make real Whe conception."  Yet the conception, we are told, is of the most various and
evanescent character.
On page 377, we are told that "we can only
know God through self;" but, strange to say, the
contrary of this is likewise true, for on page 392
we are informed that "there is nothing but self
between us and God."
Even these are not the worst passages as speci



PARKER'S THEOLOGICAL PHILOSOPHY. 21
mens of Parkerism. There are others in which
transcendental verbiage becomes worse than ridiculous. As that on page 140, where it is written,
"Nature, which is the outness of God, favors religion, which is the inness of man; and so God works
with us. Heathens knew it many centuries ago."
Now, we affirm that this is not true, and we postulate its antagonism thus: "' Theodore Parker,
who is the uzpness of materialism, favors diluted
moonshine, which is the inness of transcendentalism; thus mental charlatanism works with us, and
men of discernment knew it years ago."
In all the attributes of nonsense, the first paragraph is more than a match for the second one. I
am  almost ashamed to put such rhodomontade
upon paper, but I am more ashamed of my countrymen, who hear and laud it.
There are, likewise, in this book evidences of
malignity toward the sacred writers and the orthodox faith, which I am sorry to see, and which give
a darker hue to its spirit than that given by conceited or erratic intellect. On page 275 Mr. Parker speaks of the Evangelists as " dual evangelists,"
who may have thrust their own fancies into the
mouth of Jesus; and on page 277 he says Christ
did not call Peter "a false liar, as he was."




22  PARKER'S THEOLOGICAL PHILOSOPHY.
Now that a man can write in this way concerning those whom Jesus called as his friends and
disciples, and commissioned to be the founders of
the Christian Church, and concerning one who
willingly atoned for an error by penitence and
martyrdom, is an indication of malignity so distinct that it is painful. It may not seem so to Mr.
Parker, but it will seem so to every one who is in
sympathy with the spirit and principles of Christ
and his apostles. It may be said that Christ spoke
of Peter as a tempter, and admonished him of his
errors. But the language of admonition and rebuke serves a purpose. The language of malignity,
when no good end can be subserved by it, is a
different thing.
I have written these paragraphs to establish a
principle. I have used Mr. Parker's name and his
book, rather as the representatives of a class. If
Mr. Parker would accept revelation as a guide to
his reason, and the example and spirit of- Christ as
model and impulse in the achievement of all real
good for humanity, he would be a wiser and a
better man. The man who rejects these, and yet
professes to teach of God and duty, is necessarily a
BLIND LEADER Of the BLIND.




LETTER II.
VARIATIONS AND INCONGRUITIES.
MY DEAR SIR:How is it that such men as you tolerate dogmatic assertion and crude philosophisms in such
writers as Carlyle,,Emerson, and Parker, while on
the same subject you require in others mature and
accurate thought?  It is possible that in relation to
some things the teachings of Christ may not be fully
nor clearly apprehended, even by those who receive
and obey his instruction; thoughtfully to examine
those teachings is therefore lawful and proper. If
there be objections to the views of Christians, let
them be distinctly and fairly stated, and upright
minds will hear and weigh the reasons alleged by
objectors. If men have a better system to propound,
let them show it, and old errors will vanish in the
light of a newly-developed truth. Let those who
do not discriminate between good sense and pompous pretense stand agape in the presence of theological bravado and assertion; but will you, and the




24  VARIATIONS AND INCONGRUITIES.
intelligent class of men to which you belong, accept
crude dicta from any man, on a subject of serious
moment, and accept it, as I am sorry to believe,
with little or no examination.
We do not design, in thus writing, to disparage the
conceded ability of the authors to whom we have
alluded. In some respects they are learned and able
men; and Mr. Parker, especially, seems to me to be
sincerely engaged in some of the reform efforts of
our time. But any mind-even that of Laplace or
Bishop Butler —were it afloat on the sea of skeptical
conjecture, without the pole-star by which reason
might direct her course, would become perplexed,
and would perplex others, by its erratic wanderings
on a starless sea.
Notice, with me, whether there be any evidence
of crude and contradictory thought in the teachings
of the popular skeptic already named:Mr. Parker affirms that " Christianity is the absolute religion," and that Jesus taught absolute religion to men. Now, this is obviously true, and
when rightly considered, it is absolute evidence, not
only of the divine origin, but of the divine nature
of Christianity. Christianity teaches absolute obedience to God. It reveals infinite love in Christ.
Love can reach an expression no higher than is given




VARIATIONS A'ND INCONGRUITIES.  25
in the crucifixion. It is in Christ stronger than death
-hence it is absolute. The Fatherhood of Godthe brotherhood of men are taught in ultimate and
abs6lute terms. Filial obedience becomes absolute
when we love God with all our heart; and righteousness is absolute when we love our neighbor as ourself.
There can be nothing different-nothing betternothing further in morals and piety than the example
and teachings of Christ: hence Christianity, as expressed by the life and teachings of Jesus, is absolute
and ultimate religion.
We may affirm that Christianity is absolute in
another sense. It is perfectly and alone adapted to
promote the highest good of men. If received and
obeyed in the spirit of its Author, it combines as
much of happiness and active usefulness in the life
of its recipient as his constitution will permit.
Let it be allowed, then, in the accepted sense, that
Jesus taught the absolute religion.  In this the true
Christian rejoices. This Mr. Parker affirms; but
yet, as we shall see, he makes his own statement
both nugatory and ridiculous.
Mr. Parker says, in the beginning of his book,
p. 18, that "the religious sentiment does not itself disclose the'character, and still less the nature and essence, of the object on which it depends."




26  VARIATIONS AND INCONGRUITIES.
Again, p. 27-" The sentiment of God, though
vague and mysterious, is always the same in itself."
Further, on p. 226, we are told that' Christianity can be no greater than the religious sentiment,
though it may be less."
The absolute religion of Mr. Parker, then, is no
greater than a vague sentiment, that does not itself
disclose the character of God-" and it may be less."
Verily, Mr. P.'s disciples are in the way of getting
a queer idea of "c the absolute religion" taught by
Jesus.
But furthermore, there is not only one, but there
are several judges to aid in deciding that " Chris.
tianity is the absolute religion." On p. 22, we are
informed that " Christianity is to be judged of by
the religious sentiment-by other forms of religion,
and by reason." Strange enough, this —a religion
to be judged by a vague sentiment that does not
give the character of God I Christianity does give
the character of God. How shall it be judged by a
sentiment that does not? How shall facts be judged
by a sentiment! But Mr. P.'s absolute religion is
not only to be judged by reason, which is well
enough (if he means enlightened reason), but it is to
be judged by other religions. We supposed the




VARIATIONS AND INCONGRUITIES. 27
absolute was the judge of all else; but Mr. P. makes
all else judge the absolute.
We are told, on p. 269, of a peculiarity of the absolute religion which Mr. P. teaches, and tells his
readers Jesus of Nazareth taught. He says:
"It is not a system  of theological or moral doctrines, but a method of religion and life. It lays
down no positive creed to be believed in-commands no
positive action to be done. It would make man perfectly obedient to God, leaving his thoughts and
actions for reason and conscience to govern."'
We have, then, an absolute Christianity which is
a method without theological or moral doctrines.
WVhat does Mr. P. intend to do with his theological
doctrine of the religious sentiment?  He tells us,
too, at the close of his book, that he wants " real
Christianity-the absolute religion-preached with
faith, and applied to life."  Faith in what?  A doctrine is a rule of faith and practice; but if " Christianity has neither theological or moral doctrine" in
it, and requires neither faith nor practice, how can,
it be preached with faith?-how applied to life?
Does not Mr. P. mean a transcendental rather than
an absolute religion. We think this must be so, as
the same author teaches in another volume (Ten




28   VARIATIONS AND INCONGRUITIES.
Sermons, p. 12), that a man may be religious and
not know it.
Mr. P. tells us that his absolute religion is a
"method of life according to conscience and reason."
But a man's conscience is as his faith; and we are
told that the absolute religion of Mr. Parker prescribes no creed to be believed. The method, then,
must be very various; and it can not be a method
of any particular value, for our philosopher tells us,
in another place (p. 104), that "' many a savage-his
hands smeared all over with human sacrifices-shall
come from the east and the west, and sit down in
the kingdom  of God, with Moses and Zoroaster,
with Socrates and Jesus."  The worst method in
the world, then, will answer the same end as Mr.
Parker's Christian method. And then Mr. Parker
tells us, that method is all there is of Christianity!
O transcendentalism!
Mr. Parker's "absolute Christianity," then, is a
religion no greater, but which may be less, than a
vague religious sentiment. It offers nothing to be
believed. It commands nothing to be done. It is
a method of life; but any other method-even a
human sacrifice-will answer the same end!
There are other definitions of- " absolute Christianity," some of which are better than the foregoing.




VARIATIONS AND INCONGRUITIES.  29
It would be wrong to pass them without notice. In
one place we are told, religion is " perfect obedience
to the law of God, revealed in instinct, reason, conscience, and the religious sentiment."  The Mormons
have this phase of the absolute, putting instinct first,
as Mr. Parker does.
There is another definition on page 226, which
approaches the circle of sense, and if the author
would admit that "faith which works by love," his
definition on this page might be accepted. He says,
"Absolute religion is perfect obedience to the law
of God" —"perfect love toward God and man exhibited in a life allowing and demanding a harmonious action of all man's faculties so far as they act
at all."
This, although a little blind as to its import, is a
very different thing from the absolute religion on
another page, which proposes nothing to be believed, and requires nothing to be done.
Then, on page 271, we have something just the
opposite of what is said before. We are told that
"Christianity differs from  other religions in its
eminentlypracticac character." Agreed, Mir. Parker!
Eminently practical, certainly, if we take the life
and teachings of the Christ as its exponent. ILet us
forget the falsehood and folly of " nothing to be be



30 VARIATIONS AND INCONGRUITIES.
lieved and nothing commanded," and listen to the
voice of the Master calling us to faith and duty —
"Go ye, therefore, teach all nations, baptizing them
in the name of the FATHER, and of the SON, and
of the HOLY GHOST-teaching them to observe
all things whatsoever Ihave COMM. ANDED you, and
lo! I am with you always, even to the end of the
world. Amen."
There, my dear sir! How different the intent; the
thought, and the spirit of this commission from the
theological vagaries over which we have passed I
The doctrine of the Trinity —one name, yet three
persons; men to be baptized into that three persons
in one name; taught to "observe all things that
Christ had commanded," with the blessed promise
annexed of the spiritual presence of Jesus: " Lo! I
am with you always unto the end of the world."
What is this? Christ a man like, his disciples,
and yet to be with them, everywhere and always,
unto the end of the world!
Pausing and thoughtful-your friend as ever..




LETTER III.
M I S S TAT E ME i~ T S.
MY DEAR SIR:Men who are sincere and interested inquirers
in relation to religious truth, will not commit themselves to a guide who, by any subterfuge, exhibits
part of the truth as the whole-certainly not to one
who makes exaggerated and erroneous statements
in relation to the facts in the case. Honest men
sometimes misrepresent the opinions of others because they are not fully informed upon the subject
of discussion; but erroneous statements are inexcusable when they are made by those who seek to
gain an end by perverting, or keeping out of sight,
a correct view of the subject which they are
opposing. This bad men, who are political or religious partisans, will do; but this a man who honestly seeks to discover and establish truth will
not do.
In the volume before us there is evidence of




32           MISSTATE AM ENTS.
subterfuge and erroneous affirmation. Let us put
the best construction upon the motive, while we
notice some palpable instances.
In speaking of inspiration in the general senseor of " the influence of God in nature," to use the
language of the author (p. 212) —the lovely, the
interesting-whatever leaves upon the sense a
pleasant impression, or stirs the mind with elevating thought, is grouped into a picture to convey an
idea of God, as he exhibits himself to the senses;
and then we are told, "Nature is religion."  But
the " night side of nature" is omitted. It is indeed
pleasant to ignore foul odors, poison, torture, malignant passion, and the horrid and the driveling
in natural objects; but for one possessing Mr. Parker's opinions-one who involves the divine in the
material-for such an one to speak of God in natural good, while he omits to notice in the same connection natural evil, is simply to beguile such of his
hearers as choose to be thus beguiled; and such
likewise as are unable to discriminate between
rhetoric and reason.
In " Piscourses of Religion," p. 239, Mr. Parker
states that Jesus considered himself as sent of God,
but he adds, " Yet he never speaks of his connection with God as peculiar; never calls himself




MISSTATEMENTS.                  33
the Son of God in any sense wherein all good men
are not also sons of God."
Now, this statement is an absolute misrepresentation of the teaching of Christ. Can it be that Mr.
Parker would take advantage of the ignorance of
many of his readers in relation to the claims of the
Redeemer? Shall we not rather suppose that the
writer's zeal to gain a point had excluded, for the
time being, from his mind all counter statements?
Jesus says, Matt. xi. 27, and also in Luke, " All
things are delivered to,me of my Father; and no man
knoweth who the Son is, but the Father, and who the
Father is, but the Son, and he to whom the Son will
reveal him."
Here the Christ not only speaks of himself as
sovereign of all things, but he affirms that no one
knows who or what he is, but the Father; and
further, that no man knows the Father but the
Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal
him.
Notice, Christ, as the Son, is trhe revealer of the
Father.  And without the revelation which Christ
makes, no man knows who God the Father is.
And notice, especially, that he declares his own
nature to be still more unknown to men than that of
the Father. The Father only knows the Son, but
2*




34        - MISSTATEMENTS.
it is not said the Father reveals the Son. The
Son only knows the Father, but it is said the Son
reveals the Father. The union of God with humanity in Christ is a mystery, as it respects the
nature of that union.
Instead, therefore, of its being true that Christ
never speaks of himself as holding a peculiar connection with the Father, differing from  that of
other good men, he affirms the awakening truths
that the Father alone knows the Son, and that the
Son alone knows the Father; and that he is the
only revealer of the Father to men.
Now, my dear sir, what shall we think of our
countrymen who assail the divine in Christianity
under the guidance of a champion who makes such
palpable misstatements in regard to one of the most
vital points involved in the subject of inquiry?
To the foregoing might be added many passages
from the book of John, which I am just informed
this author has recently concluded does not belong
to the Apostolic age. Matthew and Luke, however, are yet, I presume, considered evangelists,
although Mr. Parker speaks of them  as being
" dull," and often mistaken.
There are flippant and false charges against the
orthodox religion in this volume.  In the Intro



MISSTATEMENTS.                  35
duction it is written, "The popular religion is hostile to man; tells us he is an outcast; not a child
of God; but a spurious issue of the devil." Now
it was Jesus who said, "Ye are of your father the
devil, and the lusts of your father ye will, do"
(John, viii. 44). In the sense in which Jesus uttered these words the statement is true, and the
popular religion never makes the statement in any
other sense.
The tenor of the gospel, as taught by all evangelical preachers, is just the opposite of what Mir.
Parker would convey by these words. While it
teaches that all men are the servants of sin, and not
characteristically children of God, yet this is made
the very basis of mercy. God, in the person of his
Son, speaks to the offenders-offers pardon —enlightens the mind by truth-does not impute sin
where there is no light —and with the light there is
revealed a love that is stronger than death, in order to subdue the heart to the rule of duty. And
then eternal life, is promised to all who, being enlightened, will repent from sin, and love God in
Christ, and thus be induced to labor for the good
of men."  (See " God Revealed in Creation and in
Christ," p. 299, etc.)  This is the tea_ ing of the
gospel, according to the popular religion, and yet




36           MI SSTATEME ENTS.
our author tells his readers that -this religion is hostile to man!  They manifest hostility to man who
labor to turn away his mind from this religion.
We hope such may be forgiven.  "They know not
what they do."
It would be utterly impracticable. to go through
the book and mark all the passages which offend
against truth and fairness, in a manner similar to
those noted above. Mr. Parker is adroit in weaving into the same passage-often into the same
paragraph —a mixture of truth and error. Sometimes one predominates, and sometimes the other.
In relation to the life and death of Christ, he writes
plainly. After affirming that the party he represents " calls God Father, not King," and " Religion
nature," with various other expressions equally
right and wrong, hes ays —" Jesus lived for himsel
died for himself, worked out his own salvation, and
we must do the same, for one man can not live for
another any more than he can eat or sleep for him."
This sort of guileful sophistry, to give it no
worse name, is prevalent throughout the book.
"' One man can not live for another any more than
he can eat or sleep for him I" Suppose I should
say, one man can not succor or instruct another
any more than he can breathe for him I Can not




IIS STATEMENT S.               37
men of sense see the fallacy of such statements?
To eat and sleep are the habitudes of the animal
nature, necessary to the existence of animal life.
[But do not parents, in a moral sense, often live for
their children? -work for them-suffer for them —
nay, even die for them?  One man can not eat
for another, but one man can procure food to sustain life in others who have no means of procuring
it for themselves. This Mr, Parker knows is the
sense of the New  Testament. And shall one
earthly friend suffer and even die for another,
while our Divine Friend and Father will not manifest so much love for his earthly children?
It is said that a Scotchman, whose wife, for some
offense against the laws, was sentenced to undergo
certain penal labors-labors more than he supposed
her little strength could endure-obtained the release of his wife by discharging the penalty which
was to be inflicted on her. Did he not live for
her' bear her burden?  And would not his wife
abhor the offense ever afterward which brought the
evil on her husband?-a husband now rendered
surpassingly dear to her by the manifestation of his
love; and would she not avoid a repetition of the
offense, and love him with the love of devotion and
gratitude to the end of her days?




38            MIS STATEIENTS.
Ahs human nature is constitued by its Maker,
this would be the effect upon the human heart
of such acts of self-denial for the benefit of the
guilty. And the very nature of love, of goodness,
of mercy, is to impart of our means, our efforts,
and even of our blood, if need be, for the good of
our fellow-men. Love is absolute. It is one. It
must be the same in kind in God as in man. It is
one in all moral beings. Holy minds find their
life and happiness in the labor and self-denial which
love prompts for the good of others. Is not God
benevolent?  If he is, then love begets love; and
hence an exhibition of self-denying love for men
would aid and bless all who would believe. Manifested love reconciles enemies. Would not God
manifest his love to the disobedient?  Would he
himself act according to laws which himself has
constituted?  If Christ's sacrifice was not an exhibition of divine love, then God is not so benevolent as he requires man to be. Has heaven manifested  no benevolence to  earth?  Not if Mr.
Parker's statement be true.  If " Christ lived for
himself and died for hiznself," there is benevolence
on earth, but not in heaven.
" Christ died for Himself," says Mr. Parker.
Did he?  Then he did what he did not intend




MISSTATE MEN TS.               39
to do. He says, in Matthew, xx. 28, " The son of
man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister; and to give -his life a ransom for many."  So
believers and confessors have ever understood and
fet in relation  to Christ's death.  " He gave
himself a ransom  for all to be testified [made
known to all] in due time."  "He worked out his
own salvation," says Mr. Parker. Did he? Then
he did what he did not mean to do. He affirms
that "for your sakes I sanctify myself, that you
may be  sanctified through  me." _ He said he
should "be lifted up, that whosoever believeth on
him might not perish, but have everlasting life."
"' The good shepherd giveth his lifefor the sheep."
Here, my dear sir, I leave this portion of the
book which you commended to my notice. Its
teachings I pronounce to be untrue to Scripture,
and often false to reason. Its style is sinister and
pretentious. Its teachings are as unlike the Christianity of the New Testament as your beautiful garden is unlike the tangled morass where
grow some wild-flowers, but flowers enveloped in
impure vapor. The flowers are those aspects of reform and humanity for which we respect the author-the vapors are the prevalence of wrong and
hurtful thought, which we deplore.




40           MI S ST A TE M ENTS.
At some time not far in the future I shall notice
some other things in this work, and endeavor to
give you my views of the reasonableness of some
of the funclamental doctrines of Christianity —especially of those doctrines which are rejected by
the prevailing skepticism of our times.
Yours truly.




LETTER IV.
DIVINE PERSON AIITY.
MY DEAR SIR:The skepticism of our times, like its talented
preachers, is popular in many circles of well-informed
people. I call it skeRpticism, because, while it assails
the generally-received faith of evangelical Christians,
it offers no comprehensible system  instead of the
faith it labors to destroy. It begets doubt, but it
produces no conviction that is influential upon the
heart and will of men. It is, therefore, skepticismn
and if the Christian religion, in its evangelical
interpretation, be of any value, it is hurtful skepticism.
It is popular in some instances, because it assumes
the attitude of reform, and therefore commends itself to minds of humane and progressive tendencies.
It is popular in a wider sense with many who desirse
to retain the name of Christian while they refuse
obedience to Christ. In the name of Jesus it denies
the divine authority of Christianity; whether a man




42        DIVINE PERSONALITY.
receive or reject the gospel, he is a Christian: he
that believeth shall be saved, and he that believeth
not shall be saved. Such a svstem has the elements
of popularity with all sorts of men, except those
who maintain the Scripture doctrine, that repentance
and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ are conditions of
holiness and eternal life.
But does this modern phase of skepticism commend itself to the reason of fair-minded men?
Should the doubts which it encourages concerning
the foundational truths of revealed religion be entertained? Let us put into the balance of reason
some of its utterances, and weigh them against the
doctrines of the Christian faith.
You will, doubtless, have noticed, that while the
writers of the Carlyle school, such as Emerson
and Parker, adopt language which speaks of God as
a personal being, they likewise write many passages
which make the impression that there is no personal God; or none that can be called personal in
any comprehensible sense. On this, as on other
subjects of the most grave interest, one may find on
one page of Mr. Parker's book a distinct recognition
of truth, while in another place the same truth is
perplexed by doubt, nullified by contradictory expressions, or rendered incomprehensible by words




DIVINE PERSONALITY.               43
as innocent of any particular import as moonshine
is of caloric.
We have noticed, in a preceding letter, the peculiar philosophy in relation to the "idea," "sentiment," and "conception" of God. Now, if any of
Mr. P.'s disciples suppose that by this teaching they
know any thing about God as a personal being,
there are several passages that will correct that mistake at once. It had been said that all men have
an idea of God; but, according to other passages,
if any one believes that he knows any thing about
God, either as a personal or a conscious divine being
-or that he has any comprehensible " idea" whatever on this subject, it is all a mistake. Notice this
in the following passage:
"We talk of a personal God. If thereby we only
deny that he has the limitations of unconscious matter, no harm is done. But our conception of personality is that of finite personality, limited by
human imperfections-hemmed in by time and
space-restricted by partial emotions —displeasure
-wrath-ignorance-caprice. Can this be said of
God? If matter were conscious, as Locke thinks (?)
it possible, it must predicate materiality of God, as
persons predicate personalityv. If it mean God has
not the limitations of our personality, it is well. But




44        DIVINE  PERSO,NALITY.
if it mean that he has those of unconscious matter,
it is worse than the other term.'Can God be _personal and conscious as Joseph and Peter-unconscious
and impersonal as a moss or the celestial ether? No
man will say it. Where, then, is the philosophic
value of such terms?"-p. 151.
Now, we affirm that this is not only directly contradictory to what was said before, but that there is
neither philosophy nor sense in it.
Mr. Parker, as we have seen, analyzes the conception which he says men form of God, and finds
in it "power, wisdom, and love," witzout limitation.
Now, if the idea of personality in God must be limited by human imperfection, why not wisdom and
love thus limited?  There is contradiction in affirming the one and denying the other. So that, if Mr.
P. affirms that God is not personal in any comprehensible sense, then he must affirm, according to his
own showing, that God is neither wise nor unwise,
good nor evil, in any comprehensible sense. To
affirm personality of God as an infinite being is, as
we shall see, more rational than to affirm wisdom or
love of him, because the human idea of moral character, without revelation, is imperfect; but the idea
of personal identity is absolute, and always the same
in all beings.




DIVINE  PERSONALITY.              45
There are some things which are the same in
themselves, and the same forever. Truth must be
the same to all intelligent beings, so far as known
to them. Two and three are five with God as they
are with Joseph and Peter. Self-consciousness can
not be one thing in God and another thing in man,
The absolute truths of the universe, when known,
must be the same to all beings that have a moral
nature, or else the moral universe is founded on the
principle of discord.  Personality is an absolute
truth-it is an intuition. We conceive of it in God
as distinctly as we perceive it in ourselves.
Mr. Parker's reasons, annexed to the above paragraph, are about equal to the reasons annexed to
his statements on some other subjects. So far as
there is any reason in the matter, the author's idea
is, that because God can not be affirmed to be impersonal and unconscious as the moss and the celestial ether, therefore he is not personal nor conscious. If the argument were good for any thing —
judging of the cause from the effect-then, as two
opposite characteristics are instanced in the objects
named, instead of proving that God is neither conscious nor unconscious; personal nor impersonal, it
would prove that he is both the one and the other.
The foregoing passage is written in the phrase of




46        DIVINE PERSONALITY.
blank pantheism; and yet Mr. Parker, in other
places, denies the doctrine.
Furthermore, it is admitted by the writer that
man is a personal and conscious being, and that
matter is not personal or conscious. It is conceded;that personal agents and impersonal objects do exist.
To deny this would be to deny the validity of both
sense and reason. Now, if it be a fact that personal
and conscious agents do exist, separate from impersonal and unconscious objects, why may not God
exist as a proper personal and conscious being, separate from and ruling over the kingdoms of nature?
Is man a personal and conscious being, while God
has a mixed identity-conscious and unconscious at
the same time! To argue that because one man is
white and another is black, therefore George Washington could be neither a white man nor a black
man, would be a conclusion as rational as that of
Mr. P. when he utters the nonsense, that because
personal agents and impersonal objects both exist,
therefore God is neither, or that he is both.
To doubt of the personality of God and his
conscious separateness from  matter, is to plunge
the human reason back into the blindness of an
atheistic philosophy. The wisdom of the ancients,
of which Plato is the highest exponent, after ages




DIVINE PERSONALITY.                47
of discussion, reached the conclusion that plan was
before organization —a designer before a construction. And if there be such a thing as an intuition
(which we ought to admit, notwithstanding the
word is sadly abused by the transcendentalists when
they utter their opinions in its name), this is onethe designer is before and apart from the' design.
Man is conscious of designing and then of moulding
the unconscious matter into the forms of the mental
archetype. We are so made, that it is not possible for any one to perceive clearly the marks of
design in any object without the accompanying
conviction that plan was before the construction.
Whether we call this conviction, intuition, experience, or a logical deduction, the result is still the
same: common reason teaches every man, what
philosophy sanctions as the result of her most profound inquiries, that a designing cause is before
and apart from a designed effect. Reason affirms
design in nature. To write skeptically, therefore,
concerning the conscious personality of God, as Mr.
Parker has done, is a sin against reason and philosophy, as well as against common sense and religion.
But there are scientific facts, ascertained beyond
question, which should dispel the vague notions of




48        DIVINE  PERSONALITY.
those who speak of God as the " materiality of matter," and as being "inseparable from nature."  An
extract from  " God Revealed in the Process of
Creation, and by the Manifestation of Christ," will,
I think, show that the idea of a God who is neither conscious nor unconscious, in the common acceptaticn of language, is no more in consonance
with the facts of science than it is with the deductions of right reason.
The "Natural Development" theory-which argues that nature has been advanced from lower to
higher species, by some law or power which is inseparable from the material universe, and which
has developed itself from  inanimate matter up
through an ascending series from the lowest to the
highest genera of things-issues itself in an utter
absurdity.  " God is inseparable from nature," says
the author of the  "Vestiges."   To this agree
Compt6 and probably such philosophers as Nott,
Gliddon, and multitudes of others, like Mr. Parker,
who know little or nothing of the scientific basis of
the argument.
Let us notice some legitimate results of this
theory. The whole subject is discussed at length
in the volume referred to. The following is a passage from chapter viii.:




DIVINE PERSONALITY.                 49'"When it is said,'God can not be separated
from nature,' while at the same time he is affirmed
to be the' author and sustainer of nature,' the import can not be, according to this theory, that God
has exercised any personal act of creation or control, since gravitation first affected the material
which formed our system; or, if the theory be confined to the earth, then no creative act has been put
forth by the Maker since the first organic cell was
formed, and that was not formed by a divine author, but by law. God is declared to be' nature.'
It is said he is inseparable from nature, and that
-nature is the manifestation of God. Hence, as a
logical necessity, natural phenomena, organic and
inorganic, manifest all the God that belongs to this
theory.' If, then, God be inseparable from material nature now, he has been inseparable from nature in
all periods of past progress. Then what follows?
Why this: Reason is a product of material development; hence, before the existence of organic
forms, there was no reason in existence, none, at
least, in any wise connected with our planet. Intelligence was developed from lower susceptibilities
up to higher instincts, and thence still up to the
human mind. Then, as a sequent of this doctrine,
3




60        DIVINE  P E R SONALITY
at early periods of creative progress by law, intelligence did not exist; and if God can not be separated from nature, then before nature produced intelligence, there was no intelligent God. During
the Saurian Age, the lizard mind was the highest
in existence; and if there be nothing above and
separate from nature, then the fish-lizard-god was,
for the time, the supreme being; or at least the supremest being that acted in connection with the
earth.
" But, is it said that not only the laws and beings
of our earth, but the laws and beings of our whole
system, or of the universe, are included in the idea
of'progressive development,' and that, with. this
enlarged conception, God can not be separated from
nature?  Now, admitting the idea to be expanded,
then, if God can not be separated from nature, fHe
is in diferent stages of development in the universe at
the same time. He is in different stages of development at the same time in our solar system; thus,
in either view, the idea is an absurdity.
The legitimate ultimatum  of any theory that
recognizes the law of progressive development in
creation as a power developing new and higher
species out of lower ones; and which affirms at the
same time that'God is nature' and'inseparable




DIVINE P ERSONALITY.               51
from nature'-thus placing divine interposition out
of the question-the ultimatum  of such a theory
is, that as law has produced new species progressively from the mollusk to the man, so the future
will be as the past; the latter product rising above
previous ones, untdi tihe laws of nature will create a
God, instead of God creating nature.
"What a rest to the soul is the rational, philosophical, and scriptural view, compared with such
atheistic monstrosities:-matter and its properties
in the beginning; force developed and laws instituted by the dispositions of matter; organic life
and progress from  lower to higher forms; that
progress effected by the instrumentality of natural
forces and laws; advance by the destruction of
lower and the introduction of higher species; —the
whole produced, advanced, and controlled in accordance with a plan which bears the impress of a Supreme Creator and Governor."
There are moral considerations connecting themselves with this subject which add to the difficulties
of skepticism, while they accumulate proofs of the
personal existence -)f the Divine Being.
Reason can account for things as they are, only
upon one of three theories.
1. Chance, or the undetermined succession of




52        DIVINE P E RS ONAL ITY.
events, in which nothing is settled, but every thing
happens fortuitously and without design.
2. An omnipotent fate or law, sometimes called
necessity, or the necessity of things, which causes
and determines each event to exist invariably as it
does; and which must thus cause all events in matter and mind forever.
3. A supreme intelligent Creator and Lawgiver,
who governs the universe by laws adapted to the
nature of things.
The first of these theories needs no discussion.
The second theory has been proposed by skeptical inquirers ever since the birth of philosophy. It
is still held in some form by atheists, by materialists, by those who believe in a law-soul of the
world; and more recently by some who seem to
believe that the machine of the universe being
started, its own impulse produces all phenomena
and all results which are exhibited in the worlds
of matter and of mind.
Supposing this theory to be true, what do we
learn concerning the moral character of God, and
the condition and prospects of man?
If there be no personal God, then Theodore Parker is a personal creature without a personal creator-a child without a father, and an effect without




DIVINE PERSONALITY.                53
a cause. But leaving laconics which need explanation, it will not be denied that man is a mortal and
dependent being. He did not cause his own existence, and he is liable at any moment to suffer detriment in mind and body by laws or circumstances (call them what you will) over which he
has no control. If there be no personal God who
administers a moral government which differs from
the allotments of nature, then man is plainly the
victim of a power that is malignant in its nature.
Call that power what you will-the " substantiality
of matter," as Parker would say; or the impersonal
nature of things, as Mirabaud and Compte would.
assert. A personal God separate from nature being
ignored, then the nature of' things is a power —man
is subject to that power, and that power is evil per
se, and evil in development,. If this blind power
be called God, it can be described by adding a'single adjective to the definition of Mr. Parker-a
"God-neither personal nor impersonal, conscious
nor unconscious"-but mnaiignant.
In order to see the. ground of this affirmationl
notice in connection with it the phenomena of conscience.
If all things occur by a force of nature, or by
any impersonal force operating through nature, a




54        DIVINE  PERSONALITY.
-man should suffer no more for an evil act than a
good one. If a parent were to force, or even influence his child to do a certain action, and then punish him for doing it, such a father would be a monster. It has been replied to this, that a man suffers
compunction of conscience because he believes an
act to be wrong, and thus believing, it is righteousness, in the nature of things, which causes him to
suffer for it.  But evidently this reply only removes the difficulty one step further back. According to this system, a man's faith, good or bad,
is produced as much by a force of nature and circumstance as his actions; hence, the compunctionr
of conscience is still the result of a necessitated antecedent.  Nature, therefore,  which  attaches remorse to an act which she herself produces, either
immediately or by a chain of causes, is just as malignant as a parent would be if he influenced his
son to do a wrong action and then punished him
for doing it. If man be a voluntary moral agent,
and sin a moral evil, the office of conscience in admonishing of sin and denouncing the sinner, is an
evidence of the mercy and justice of God. But if
man be not a personal agent —if God be not a personal sovereign-the conscience is a mystery and a
malignity.




DIVINE  PERSONALITY.               55
It is, moreover, a law of man's moral nature that
the more he loves evil, and the more frequently he
sins, the less he suffers from the inflictions of conscience. If, then, there be beyond this law of nature no God who is the moral governor and judge
of men, then nature is evidently malignant; because many men grow more selfishand wicked till
they die, and the more evil they become, the less
remorse they feel for sin. Nature thus makes sin
the way of life. Despots succeed in crushing out
light and liberty by banishing the master-spirits
of the age, and shedding rivers of human bloodas those heartless adventurers the Bonapartes (and,
I had almost written, some of their biographers).
And yet, thousands of widows and orphans suffer
thousands of times more in consequence of their
evil acts than thev do themselves. WVho dare say
that if this be the work of nature, beyond which
there is no God, that nature is not malignant? In
charity we accept some of Mr. Parker's best definitions as his prevailing idea of God; but when he
becomes a materialist with Mirabaud, or a pantheist
or law-soulist with Chambers and Compte, then,
instead of writing down his impersonal God as
knowledge, love, power, he should write _power, law,
malignity.




56        DIVINE  PERSONALITY.
But furthermore, and finally, and conclusively,
unless the alaker has incorporated a falsehood into
the human soul, man is a free, responsible agent,
and God is a personal moral governor.  Man is so
constituted, that he can not feel guilty for wrong
unless he is conscious that he was voluntary in the
wrong act. If, therefore, he is not the responsible
cause of his own moral action, God has placed a
lying witness in his soul.
But look again at the irrefragible testimony
which the human consciousness gives of the responsibility of man and the personality of God.
Man is actually so constituted, as a moral being,
that obedience and gratitude can be exercised only
toward a _personal being-a being who consciously
and voluntarily does us good. Can man be grateful to the bread that satisfies his hunger?  Can he
obey, as a responsible being, something that is neither personal nor impersonal in any comprehensible
sense?  The thought is preposterous!  Unless the
moral nature of man be a lie, produced by malignity, there is a personal conscious God, in the
proper and only import of those terms, to obey and
love whom is the life and adaptation of the human
soul.
Is it not ridiculous, as well as preposterous, to




DIVINE PERS ONALITY.             57
think of Mr. Parker expatiating upon the nature
of God with the exhortation to love and obedience
which must follow. He tells his hearers-" God is
the ground of nature"-" he is what is 1permanent in
the passing-what is real in the apparent."  "God
is the materiality of matter," so'"he is the spirituality of spirit."  But " he is neither personal nor
conscious, like Peter and Joseph, nor impersonal
and unconscious, like the moss or the ether."  "The
greatest religious souls can say with an old heathen,'Since God can not be fully declared by any one
name, though compounded of never so many,
therefore he is rather to be called by every name,
he being both one and all things.' " Mr. Parker
then adds an exhortation, thus: " As I have always
told you, my friends, love and obedience to God
is the duty and happiness of man. You have
heard my description of'the dear God.' I enjoin
upon you to love and obey The Materiality of
Matter, the All Things, the Spirituality of Spirit,
the neither personal nor impersonal, conscious nor
unconscious God. Yea, my hearers, I say unto
you obey it!  It is immanent in all things —in
the blush of the rose and in the bite of the dogin the breath of the breeze and in the howl of the
maniac.'Rernember, too, our party' calls religion
3*




58        DIVINE PERSONALITY.
nature' (p. 450)-believes' the divine incarnation
is in all mankind' (p. 451) —' asks no forgiveness
for sin' (452)-therefore we will imitate the divine
incarnation, and if we sin we will ask no forgiveness. Amen and amen."
Now, if this be preposterous, it is so because it
is an application of Parkerism in the light of common sense.  If any one says that passages are
so clustered together as to make them seem preposterous, we deny the impeachment. Other results may be obtained by inferences from other
passages, but the above is a fair and an unavoidable result from one class of passages written in this
volume.
And beside, there are -single passages which are
as preposterous in themselves as these are put toagether, and not only in this volume, but they are
found in nearly all of this author's writings. In
one of his Ten Sermons (p. 176), for instance, he
says of a fly, "Lo! here I am  an individual and
conscious thing, sucking the bosom of the world."
This is certainly hyperbole run mad; and is just
about as ridiculous as though I should say of Theodore Parker, "Lo! there he is, an individual and
conscious philosophist, sucking transcendentalism
from the great toe of the-man in the moon."




DIVINE  PERSONALITY.              59
Such nonsense produced by a man of ability,
capable of writing sensibly and consistently, is only
another evidence that without faith the mind is like
a ship without ballast, driven by contrary winds.
Turn away, my dear sir, from such hallucinationshallucinations that mingle the evil and the incongruous with something of good; and rejoice with
me in the evidence, that above the laws of nature
there presides a supreme personal God, the parent
and the president of the universe.
There are other evidences beside those to which
we have alluded that affirm this great truth-evidence in which all good and thoughtful men will
rejoice together, although the doubts and difficulties interposed by skeptics were a thousand-fold
greater than they are.
God Is justBecause he has -connected the monitions and reproofs of conscience with acts known to be wrong.
Because, if conscience be not heeded, it leaves
the transgressor to grow hardened in evil; evil
which in itself is incipient penalty, and which being
voluntarily persisted in, becomes confirmed in the
character of the transgressor.
Because motives to good, if obeye~( become
more influential; if disobeyed, less so.




60        DIVINE  PERSONALITY.
Because the moral constitution is so formed, that
the more sinful men become, the more blind they
become, both to the evil and the desert of sin.
Because evil is not only linked with sin here,
but while it brings present evil, it also forms an
evil character in the soul, which secures future
evil.
God Is goodBecause, to include much in one thought, he has
made the soul so that its best good consists in a
life of love to God and to men. And- as love only
can beget love, God becomes immanently personal
in Christ, in whose sacrifice he reveals his loveand thus by faith the law of love is fulfilled in all
who walk not after the flesh, or natural mind, but
after the Spirit.
Tell me now, my dear sir, is not such evidence,
and the known practical results of' the Christian
faith, a satisfaction to the reason and a joy to the
heart, while the brilliant vagaries of skeptical
thinkers are empty and evil?
Yours, in behalf of right reason.




LETTER V.
THE TRI-UNITY OF THTE DIVINE MIND.
MY DEAR SIR:At the close of a former letter I proposed
to offer, when leisure would allow, some reasons
affirmatory of the orthodox faith, with the design
more especially to illustrate and defend some of the
doctrines which are controverted or rejected by
the skeptics of our times.
In what I shall say I do not propose to give a
Scriptural exposition of these doctrines, nor to present them in the form of a dogmatic statement; nor
do I propose to illustrate or confirm the symbols
of any particular denomination.
Illustrations are seldom perfectly accurate; and
reasons which should be limited to certain aspects
of a question, may be misapplied to cover the
whole subject. My design, therefore, will not be
to prove the systematic form  of the doctrines of
which I shall speak; but to show that the evangelical interpretation of the Scriptures, as generally




62  TRI-UNITY  OF TIE  D]IVINE  MIND.
expressed in the formularies of the churches, has
illustrative and analogical reasoning on its side. I
desire to show that reason is with the evangelical
system, and not against it; and that many aspects
of vital Christian doctrine, as expressed in the New
Testament, may be sustained by accurate deduction, and illustrated by the most profound analogies.
The subject is presented in this form, not so
much for the edification of Christians, as to convince gainsayers that reason, so far as she utters
her voice, is with us, and against them.
Let us look first at the doctlrine of the Trinity.
This doctrine is contained in the general expression that there is one God, one name, Jehovah, who
is manifested in the Scriptures as subsisting in
three divine persons, the Father, the Son, the Holy
Ghost.
It is agreed that the word person is used in dogmatic theology, not because its common import conveys a perfect sense of the doctrine as revealed in
the New  Testament; but because it conveys a
sense, which, being defined by the phrases of the Scriptures, gives an accurate idea. It is, moreover, the
most proper, we may say the only proper word, because the sacred writers all use the pronouns which




TRI-UNITY OF THE DIVINE 1MIND.  63
the laws of language require should be used in a
personal sense in  substitution for Father, Son, and
Spirit. No other word in any language will generalize the expressions of the sacred writers. They
apply the personal pronouns, as you know, to
Father, Son, and  Holy Spirit, while yet they  give
to each of these the attributes of the one name-JEHOVAH.  It is easy for men to  declaim  against the
doctrine of the Trinity, but so long as they can not
deny this usage of the inspired writers, there is a
Scriptural basis for the orthodox interpretation.
WVe affirm, then, that there is in the divine na-n
ture a basis for the  tri-personal manifestation  of
God, and that it is only  by  the manifestation  of
God in three persons that the divine nature can be
efficaciously known.*
* The Andover exposition of Schleiermacher, in the notes of Professor Stuart, affirms a basis in the divine mind for the triune manifestation of God to men; and affirms, likewise, the adaptations of
this divine manifestation to the wants of humanity.  " Tri-unity, according to my humble apprehension, consists in something that
belongs to the Mopcdr itself, and which laid the foundations for the
manifestations of Father and Son and,pirit." —" Who can refuse to
acknowledge that either some modification or some property cf thedivine nature, in respect to substance or attribute [general enough,
certainly] led to the manifestation of the Godhead in what we call a
personal manner?"
Dr. Bushnell, of HIartford, who gives Schleiermacherism blinded
by an imperfect conception, doubts this, as he does the proper humanity of Christ. In our humble opinion, Andover is right in its




64 TRI-UNITY OF THE DIVINE MIND.
It is well known that in the age of Plato, when
reason  reached  her culminating  point among  the
ancients, the idea  of the  tri-unity  of God  was
strikingly  approximated.   Now, while  this  fact
does not prove that the depths of the divine can
be fathomed by the finite human, we think it does
prove that the most profound indications of the
light of nature point in  the direction of orthodox
Christian doctrine.'
The Philonic exposition is grounded in the phraconception of the basis of that manifestation and of the person of
the Redeemer, and Princeton is right in its announcement of the
one will in three persons.
It has been true in times past that the fear of the power which
graceless dogmatics have exercised to create odium against reason,
has prevented many who love the truth from conceding the value
of the elder developments of the human reason on this and kindred
subjects [that of Plato and Philo, for instance]; but so long as it is
true that the Alexandrine exposition of the Logos gives the usus loquendi of apostolic times-the man departs from the correct laws
of interpretation who refuses to acknowledge the fact.
*The seeds of the philosophy of Philo are found in the Old Testament, while his system (if he really has one) is developed in Platonic
phraseology. Philo in some passages undoubtedly attributes personality to the logos; and it must be conceded that the Apostle John
coincides in conception more nearly with Philo than he does with
some symbolic expressions of later times-even of our times.
We might speak, too, of some of the most profound thinkers
among the Unitarians who have intimated in impressive circumstances, and in imposing positions, a desire to be understood as approximating the Trinitarian views of the Godhead.-See Channing
and Bancroft's Addresses.




TRI-UNITY  OF THE DIVINE  MIND.  65
seology of the Old Testament-the Platonic in the
constitution of the human mind.  Both of these
bear the impress of the Maker's mind, and hence
analogies derived from  these sources are founded
in truth. We do not affirm that they are always
rightly applied.
" The physical universe," you say, "as well as
the moral, bears upon its nature the impress of the
creator." Certainly it does, and those who are disposed to pantheistic notions-who tell their hearers
that " nature is religion," and who find "God immanent in all things"-will, of course, favor analogies from the nature of material things to the nature of God. But when you say that " a simple
monad lies at the origin of all natural phenomena,"
the illustration is clearly at fault. If the atomic
philosophy be true, there is an infinity of atoms,
and likewise a diversity in their qualities.
The elementary principles of matter may be separated the one from the other, by chemical processes, and each of these, perhaps, has a molecular
constitution; but the actual economic entities of
the physical world are mostly tri-unities. The elements of the phenomenal world were not created
to exist in separate unities, but to combine in the
forms in which matter is manifested to man.  172e




66  TRI-UNITY OF THE DIVINE  MIND.
elementary principles prove by their a#nities that they
abhor absolute unity.  Some two  elements, with
electricity, the every-where-present spirit of matter, combine to form  the character of material
things, as manifested to the human sense.  The
earths, air, water, are trinities, or rather tri-unities.
They have qualities as unities and qualities as triunitties.  Tle elements of things were not designed
to exist alone.  They seek tri-unity in one spirit
by their inherent affinities.  And in tri-unity alone
is nature practically adapted to humanity. Physical nature is mostly manifested by tri-unity.
The evangelical view of the Godhead does not
need that we should plead this analogy in its support; but the fact that matter is manifested, in
many instances, by a tri-unity, and that the nature
of elementary things is such that they seek union
in a trinity, and that it is only in this form that
they have, for the most part, a practical value and
relation to other things-this, we affirm, proves this
much, viz., the analogies of the physical world are
opposed to those who argue from nature, as you
do, for absolute unity in the manifestation or in
the nature of God.  The awful solitude of one i~ndividual elementary essence is a thought against
which the heart reluctates.  God is a social being;




TRI-UNITY  OF THE DIVINE  MIND.  67
and the tri-unity of his nature alone enables us to
conceive of him as such.
As you have introduced this form of illustration,
suppose we look into the intellectual world, and inquire whether there are not analogies here that
connect themselves with this subject?
Reason is an absolute unity. Love is an absolute
unity.  VWTill is an absolute unity. These are the
same in themselves, and the same in all moral
beings. They are separable from each other, and
yet united in one consciousness. Human reason,
love, and will, are finite, and they may be perverted
in finite beings, but they are the same in their nature
whether they inhere inll an infinite or in a finite being,
The eldest Scripture declares that man was
created in the moral image of God. To infer,
therefore, the moral nature of the Maker from the
moral nature of man, is not only warranted by the
fact that reason, wilt, and love must be the same in
kind in all beings, but it is warranted likewise by
the statements of revelation. Now, while we do
not find the human nature manifesting itself tripersonally, as the divine does, yet we do find humanity manifested in a tri-partite form. And thus
reason has a basis in the one for accepting what is
revealed concerning the other.




68  TRI-UNITY  OF THE DIVINE  MIND.
Man is one in nature. HEe is conscious of oneness
in himself; while yet his nature is such that it can
be made known or revealed to others only by a trifold manifestation.  To love is a different thing from
to know; and to cknow diffei's both from to will and
to love; yet it is the one man that thinks, wills, and
loves. And not only this, but while these powers
of the human mind are diverse from each other,
yet the whole man acts in each of them-the whole
man thinks, wills, or loves.
aWe may know a man by his intellectual manifestation, while we know little or nothing of his
affections and will-nothing of his moral character.
This is experienced sometimes when we read an
unknown author. We only know a man's nature
truly when he has revealed himself to us in his
threefold manifestation of intellect, sensibility, and
will.
This analogy is but introductory. It does not,
in my opinion, give a correct idea of the Trinity.
A better analogy than this can be derilved from the
economy of moral natures. The logos of the mind
(or the mental exercises or ideas) is not the same
as the conscious I in the soul of man. Thought is
born of man's conscious nature as the light is born
of the sun. But in moral beings there is some



TRI-UNITY  OF THE  DIVINE  MIND.  69
thing that stands in the nature back of thought, and
judges of its  character and fitness.  I see imy
thoughts and judge of them.*   The I that sees
and judges of the product of the mind is as separate from the thought, in one sense, as the subject
is from the object. In their relation to each other,
the one is begotten of the substance of the other;
yet they are in a true sense one-one is the manifestation of the other —one is the vital image or
living exhzibition of the other.  The unknown one in
the human or in the divine nature can be made
known only by this manifestation, and yet the true
character of this logos, or son of the mind, is known
only to the unknown one.  As saith the Messiah,
"No man knoweth the Son but the Father; and
no man knoweth the Father but the Son, and he to
whomsoever the Son will reveal him."
Again, while the logos, or conceived ideas, is
neither the affections nor the will, yet will and
affection are manifested through and by the intelligence. The logos is the out-birth of the moral
nature, and it is through the logos that the tender* This thought undoubtedly possessed Richard Baxter when he
advised his friends "to be none of those who shall charge with
heresy all who say the three persons in the Godhead are —God Wnde'rstanding himself, God w/ndersloocl by himself, and God loving himself."




70 TRI-UNITY OF THE DIVINE AIND.
ness of the affection  and  the  determination  of the
will are made known  to  others.  The logos is an
out-birth.  Will and love  are  a  procession  of the
moral nature through the logos. They are seen in
the intelligence, and manifested by it.*
The Scriptural statement then may be affirmed as
profoundly accordant with the analogies of nature.
" In the beginning was the Word, and the Word
was with God, and the Word was God."
Then  there  is  the  Word  conceived, and  the
Word revealed or manifested.t
* We purposely, for the most part, avoid the imperfect definitions
of mental philosophy, and use such words as we hope may be plain
to common readers.  Such as will refer each reader to his own
consciousness.
f Matthew Henry, the best read in the Bible of all the commentators, has clearly conceived and distinctly stated the inspired conception in the first of John. ~We give the passage in full, for the
benefit of any who seldom refer to this most biblical of all the commentators.
"The Chaldee paraphrase very frequently calls the Messia the
Wbrd of Jehovah, and speaks of many things in the Old Testament
said to be done by the Lord, as done by the ~Word of the Lord.
Even the vulgar Jews were taught that the Wlord of God was the
same with God. The evangelist, in the close of his discourse (v. 18),
plainly tells us why he calls Christ the Wordcl of God-because he is
" the only-begotten Son which is in the bosogm of the iat~lher, and has decdared him.  Word is two-fold; word conceived and'word uttered.
(1.) There is the word cozceived: that is thought, which is the only
-immediate product of the soul (all the operations of which are performed by thoghtg), and it is one with the soul.  Thus the second
person in the Trinity is fitly called the Word; for he is the first



TRI-UNITY OF THE DIVINE MIND. 71
Some  passages from   the  ancients, held  at the
time when the primitive church was exercising the
power which converted the world, will give the
mode  of thinking  among  the  best men  of that
age.
The following beautiful passage  is a true translation from  the Exhortation of Clement of Alexandria  to  the  Greeks:  "The  divine  Logos- the
Christ-was the cause of our being, and our wellbeing also, for he was in God; and now this Logos
himself appears to men; the only being that ever
partook of both natures, as well that of God as of
man; to be the cause of all good to us.  From  him
begotten of the Father; that eternal wisdom which the Lord possessed,
as the soul doth its thought, in the beginning of his way, Prov. viii.
22. There is nothing we are more sure of than that we think, yet
nothing we are more in the dark about than how we think; who can
declare the generation of thought in the soul?  Surely then the generations and births of the eternal mind may well be allowed to be
great mysteries of godliness, which we can not fathom, while yet we
adore the depth.
(2.) There is the word lttered, and that is speech. Thus Christ is
the ~Word, for by him God has in these last days spoeken to us (leb.
i. 2), and has directed us to heacr hiwm, Matt. xvii. 5. He has made
known God's mind to us, as a man's word or speech makes known
his thoughts, as far as he pleases, and no farther.  Christ is called
that wonderful speaker (Dan. viii. 23), the speaker of things hidden
and strange. He is the Word speaking from God to us, and to God
for us. John Baptist was the voice; but Christ the Word; being the
Word, he is the Truth>, the Amen, the faithful WViitness of the mind of
God."




72  TRI-UNITY  OF THE DIVINE  MIND.
we learn to live virtuously; by him we are conducted in the way of eternal life; as saith the
divine apostle of the Lord,' The love of God the
Saviour was manifested to all men, instructing us
in order that we having abjured all impiety and
worldly desires, we might live soberly and piously
in this world, expecting in blessed hope tlie manifestation of the glory of our great God and Saviour
Jesus Christ.' "
Tertullian says: " The Greeks term  that Logos
which we translate Word, and thus our people
Ii. e. the Christians], for brevity sake, say,' In the
beginning the Word was with God,' though it
would be more proper to say reason [or thought],
since God was not speaking from  the beginning,
although rational.  *       *  Considering, therefore, and disposing by his reason, he effected his
will by his Word, which thou mayest easily understand by what passes in thyself. * * * when
thou conferrest silently with thine own reason."Tertull. adv. Praxeam, c. v.
Says Justin, Ap. ii.:'" It is not allowable; therefore, to think otherwise of the Spirit and the Power
which is in God, than that it is the Logos, which
also is the first-born of God."
"That distinction in the nature of God which




TRI-UNITY  OF THE DIVINE MIND. 73
would lead to his development as Father, Son, and
Holy Spirit, and which fitted him for this, existed
from all eternity, and was an inseparable part of
his nature; but Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, in
the full sense of the economy of the gospel, he
actually was not, until the incarnation of the Logos,
and the outpouring of the Spirit had been actually
completecd."-Moses Stuart.
The origin of the conceived Word is as old as
the divine mind. tHe was in the beginning with
God-the eternally- begotten Son of the Father.
But the revealed or manifested Word is no older
in his relations to men than the time when the
character of the mind is manifested to others by its
Logos.' No man hath seen God at any time; the
only-begotten Son, which IS in the bosom of the Father,
he hath declared him."
Man can embody his logos impersonally in written language, and send it thus embodied to all
nations who understand the written character.
Why then might not the " Word of God become
flesh?"  Why might not the Son of God thus become personally incarnate, so that the affections
and will of the Father might be expressed in him
and through him, not impersonally but personally,
in life and power? The Scriptures affirm, what a
4




74  TRI-UNITY  OF THE DIVINE   IIND.
true reason approves, that the Word of God did
become flesh, and that Christ is the " out-shining
of the Father's glory, and the express image of his
person."  "He that hath seen Christ hath seen the
Father."  The embodiment of man's logos in language is only vital with intelligence. The embodiment of the divine logos is the revealment of the
"fullness of the Godhead bodily"-the logos in a
nature in which can be manifested not only the intelligence but the affection and will of God.
Let us advance one step further, and look at this
thought in another aspect. Jesus said to his disciples, " It is expedient for you that I go away, for
if I go not away, the Holy Spirit, or Comforter, will
not come unto you; but if I go away I will send
him unto you; and when he is come, he will not
speak of himself, but he will take of the things
that belong to me, and show them unto you."
Thus the Spirit is represented not as a revealer
of new truth, but as a personal procession from the
Father through the Son into the hearts of believers.
He takes the facts furnished by the Logos, and, by
a revealment of life and love, gives efficacy (as divine power and love alone can do) to the truth as
it is in Jesus. The Son is eternally-begotten of the
Father-the same in nature with him, and the only




TRI-UNITY OF THE DIVINE MIND. 75
revealer of the Father. The Holy Spirit comes to
us in power and love, baptized in the humanities
of Christ, being revealed in and through the Son.
Christ furnishes the material for redemption-the
facts which reveal the divine nature. The Holy
Spirit applies them in the soul. Hence, Christ and
the Holy Spirit dwelling in believers are interchangeable terms in the New  Testament.  The
Father and the Son are likewise interchangeable.
" I am in the Father and the Father in me."  So
"the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ,- and the love
of God the Father, and the communion of the Holy
Ghost," are with those who believe. Such, undoubtedly, is the apostolic conception.
Let us look again into the human consciousness,
and listen again to the voice of reason, while we
consider revealed truth in another aspect.
Human nature, as constituted  by its Maker,
would certainly be fitted to appreciate the divine
character. The moral relations between God and
man, the one being a sovereign, the other a subject,
require this; and the fitness of things observable
throughout the creation, assure us of the fact. An
argument, therefore, for the trinity may be found in
its adaptations to the mental constitution and moral
necessities of man.  Let us inquire then for the




7G  TRI-UNITY  OF THE DIVINE MIND.
value of the doctrine as adapted to meet the finite
apprehension of men, and to aid them in approximating a knowledge of the character of God.
The mind of man has a logical conformation. It
is made to ratiocinate, to develop processes of synthesis, analysis, and generalization. In studying
the nature of any thing, we combine its manifestations, or phenomena, and thus gain a knowledge
of its true character. This being the character of
the mind, it is adapted by its constitution to attain
ultimate knowledge of God through the revealed
doctrine of the Trinity, in the same way by which
it attains knowledge of other things, that is, by the
exercise of its rationalpowers. If the knowledge of
God's character, as well as his being, were by intuition, as Mr. Parker teaches, man would not know
the character of God as a reasoning being, but as an
unreasoning animal.
The character of God is adapted to regenerate
nature, and adapted to regenerated nature; hence
man's rational nature is profoundly adapted to the
doctrine of the Trinity. The mind of man can not
apprehend the divine character, nor the relations
of God to his creatures, by a single conception.
Even the character and relations of an earthly
ruler can not be compassed by one view of the




TRI-UNITY  OF TIlE  DIVINE  MIND.   77
mind.  Victoria is not only Regina, but she is Defender of the Faith  and patroness of the great
charities of her queendom. (We speak of Victoria
because she is a rare instance of a virtuous sovereign, while she combines in her person regal, spiritual, and benevolent prerogative.)   In order to
form a true idea of the character of this sovereign,
and of her relations to her realm, we must form the
distinct conception of three regal offices, and of the
queen acting personally in each of these, and then
combine these several conceptions in one character.*   By this illustration  we do not, of course,
mean to be understood that the Christ-hood is only
God acting officially: while this is true, yet it is, as
we have shown, also true that Christ is Logos-the
revealer of the Godhead bodily and personally.
The statement is presented to prove a fact which is
verified in the experience of every man —(a fact,
the consideration of which ought to influence the
mind of skeptics to a right conclusionj-that the
mind of man is so constituted, that the triune
* It would, perhaps, be more proper to say that person is an intuition or coetaneous conception always present in the mind when
Awe conceive of a moral being; and the three offices attach themselves by a mental necessity to the one name of Victoria; and then
the character of Victoria must be derived from her action in them
all.




78  TRI-UNITY  OF THE DIVINE MIND.
manifestation of God is adapted to enable him as a
rational being to comprehend God; and that by
this manifestation he can approximate the absolute
truth, far beyond any attainment he could make by
his own unaided conception.
That man can have no just idea of God who endeavors to compass the divine mind in a single
thought. The bare idea of power and Godhead
transfers the mind back from the third to the first
dispensation, when the Almighty was known as
God of Creation only; not as Jehovah, more perfectly revealed to Moses, in the second dispensation; nor as God in Christ, most perfectly revealed
in the New Testament.  After we have apprehended God as the Father Almighty, and conceived
of him as truth and love in Christ, and as an everywhere-present life and power in the Spirit; after
the soul has appreciated and appropriated, by faith,
all that there is in Father, Son, and Holy Ghost,
then only it has arisen to the best knowledge that a
finite mind can gain of the character of the true
God. Hence it is written, " Go teac~h all nations,
baptizing them into the ONE name but three persons —the FATHER, the SON, the HOLY GHOSTand lo! I am with you always, even to the end
of the dispensation."




TRI-UNITY  OF TIE DIVINE,MIND.  79
The Christian alone who has faith in the Trinity, as revealed in the New Testament, obtains an
adequate and vitalizing knowledge of God.  77e
God of one intuition or conception is an abstract nullity, devoid of all moral power over human character
and human life. The God of one intuition, with
the superadded characteristics which man's folly or
his philosophy always frames when he is devoid
of faith in revelation, is more or less an erroneous
and corrupting conception. Christianity alone enlightens the natural mind, guides the reason, and
matures the conception of the divine character.
Hence the idea of God, as conceived by such men
as Mr. Parker, who reject revealed religion, is incongruous and foolish.  The Christian alone rises
by faith to a knowledge of the living and true God,
clothed in his attributes of power, light, and love.
Shall we not, then, my dear sir, turn away from
the hallucinations of the skeptics, and the moonshine rationalisms of the transcendentalists, and
seek in the Scriptures the knowledge of God,
"whom to know ARIGHT is life eternal."
Yours in defense of revealed, rational, and spiritually-efficacious Christianity,




LETTER VI.
DEPRAVITY.
MY: DEAR SIR:The doctrine of human depravity is rejected
contemptuously by the skeptics of our day; and with
these there are many good and thoughtful men who
misapprehend its import, and hence doubt of its
truth. This latter class is led into doubt upon this
subject about as much by the overstrained definition of some orthodox preachers, as they are by the
same fault on the part of those who oppose Christianity as a system of revealed religion.
There is a basis in human reason and experience,
as well as in revelation, for this doctrine; and neither the misstatements of the friends of Christianity,
nor the mal-statements of its enemies, can invalidate
the facts andt reasons upon which the doctrine
rests.
The statement that men are by nature averse to
all good, and as evil as it is possible for them to
be, is not true to the common sense of men, nor in




DEPRAVITY.                  81
the common use of language. Such expressions
may be explained into accordance with the Scriptures, but it is far better to avoid the extreme expression to which every denomination (from the
very nature of selfishness) is prone to carry its
own distinguishing tenets, and present the Christian
doctrines in such phraseology as falls clearly within
the import of the facts and texts upon which they
are grounded.
While, therefore, there may be some apology for
misapprehension on this subject, there can be no
good apology for such mal-statement as that of
Mr. Parker to which we have already alluded, viz.,
"The popular religion is hostile to man; tells us
he is an outcast; not a child of God, but a spurious
issue of the devil."
The most trustworthy writers on this subject
always state the question in its connections, and
with the limitations which experience and the Bible
require. Dr. Chalmers, in speaking of those who
are unregenerated, says: "The principle upon
which you may have acted may be respectable and
honorable and amiable. We are not disputing all
this. We are only saying that it is not the love
of God. And should we hear any one of you assert that I have nothing to reproach myself with,
4*




82             DE P RAVIT Y.
and that I give every body their own, and that I
possess a fair character in society, and have done
nothing to forfeit it; and that I have my share of
generosity and honor, of tenderness and civility:
our only reply is, that this may be very true; you
may have a very large share of these and of other
estimable principles, but along with the possession
of these many things, you may lack one thing, and
that one thing may be the love of God. An enlightened discerner of the heart may look into you
and say with our Saviour,'I know you that ye
have not the love of God in you."'
We will give another extract from a writer generally accepted among evangelical Christians-one
of the most clear-minded and pure-hearted men of
his age. These extracts are given at length, in
order that you may consider this subject unbiased
by the opinion that the views which we shall present do not apply to the subject as generally received by enlightened Christians.
We do not, as we have already said, present our
views as an exposition of the symbols of any one
denomination-some of the creeds were wrought
out by good men in a darker age than the present.
We write to show that the doctrine of human depravity, as revealed in the Scriptures and ex



DEPRAVITY.                  83
pounded by men of spiritual apprehension, accords
with reason and with human experience.
Dr. Dwight says: " The human character is not
depraved to the fuall extent of the human powers. It
has been said, neither unfrequently nor by men
void of understanding, that man is as depraved a
being as his faculties will permit him to be; but
this has been said without consideration and without truth. Neither Scripture nor experience warrant the assertion.'Wicked men and deceivers,'
it is declared,'wax worse and worse, deceiving
and being deceived.' During the first half of human life this may, perhaps, be explained by the
growth of the faculties, but during a considerable
period preceding its termination it can not thus be,
explained, for the faculties decay while the depravity still increases."  " The young man -who
came to Christ to know what good thing he should
do to inherit eternal life, was certainly less depraved than his talents would have permitted him
to be.
"Like him, we see daily many men who neither
are nor profess to be Christians, and who, instead
of being wicked to a degree commensurate wilh
their faculties, go through life in the exercise of dispositions so sincere, just, and amiable, ar d in the




8-               D E P RAVI TY.
performance of actions so upright and beneficent,
as to secure a high degree of respect and affection
from ourselves, and from all with whom they are
connected. It certainly can not be said that such
men are as sinful as many others possessed of
powers far inferior, much less that they are as'sinful as they can be. Those who make the assertion
against which I am  contending, will find themselves, if they will examine, rarely believing that
their wives and children, though not Christians, are
fiends."
Again, Dr. Dwight says: " Some of the natural
human characteristics are amiable. Such are natural affection; the simplicity and sweetness of disposition in children, often found also in persons of
adult years; compassion, generosity, modesty, and
what is sometimes called natural conscientiousness,
that is, a fixed and strong sense of the importance
of doing that which is right. These characteristics
appear to have adorned the young man whom I
have already mentioned. We know that they are
amiable, because we are informed that'Jesus, beholding him, loved him.' In the same manner we,
and all others who are not abandoned, love them
>always and irresistibly, whenever they are presented to our view. They all, also, are required,




DEPRAVITY.                  85
and exist in every Christian, enhancing his holiness
and rendering him a better man. Without them it
is not easy to perceive how the Christian character
could exist.  Accordingly, Saint Paul exhibits
those who are destitute of these attributes as being
literally profligates."
If then, the doctrine of human depravity, as expounded by the accepted teachers of the orthodox
faith, does not affirm that man's faculties are
wholly depraved; if it be a manifest and indubitable fact that men may possess by nature many excellent and amiable qualities for which we ought to
love them; what then is the scriptural, rational,
and experimental import of the doctrine of human
depravity, and in what sense are all men depraved?
It is affirmed in the Scriptures, and Mr. Parker
adopts the principle as a tenet of absolute religion,
that man shall love God with all his heart, and his
neighbor as himself. Of the obligation of this requirement there can be no doubt.  God is the
supreme being, and the best being, and, therefore,
of right demands supreme love. The interests of
other men are as valuable to them as our -interests
are to us; hence they should be regarded equally
with our own. This is the moral law of the uni



86              D E P RAVIT Y.
verse. To this all agree. Now, the question is not
whether some men have not by nature many good
qualities, nor whether any man is as bad as he
could be?  But the question is, whether men do by
nature love and obey God? whether they are by nature
conformed or unconformed to the moral law of God?
The question, when fairly stated, is a very plain
one; and the man who doubts of human depravity
in the light of a true statement, can have but little
apprehension either of God's character or of his
own. If men loved and obeyed the true God by
nature, they would have to make an effort not to
love and obey him. Every body knows that the
reverse of this is true, and that the effort is on the
other side of the question. But while argument
may not make a palpable experience more plain to
Christians, it may promote right conviction with
those who are not. Let us, then, look first at the
testimony of universal consciousness.
I need not recite to you those passages from the
ancient classics with which you are more familiar
than I am myself. Epictetus, speaking of the consciousness of every natural mind in which the
moral sense is not obliterated, says, almost in the
words of Paul, or rather Paul says, almost in his
words, " He that sins does not what he would, but




DEPRAVITY.                  87
what he would not, that he does."  In accordance
with this speak all the worthy ancients who have
given us their self-consciousness on moral subjects.
Take again the testimony of universal history.
It can not be doubted that humanity has always
been found by the light of history and revelation
in a corrupted moral state. We mean, distinctly,
in a state entirely destitute of supreme love to God
as a holy sovereign, and to men as brothers. That
civilization made progress in some old nations-that
intellectual light- and a perception of moral truths
were in some minds clear and strong, is granted;
but the knowledge of God, the disposition to love
men as brethren, and a prevalent regard for moral
purity, is not the natural state of man. The fact is
striking as it is indubitable, that the- most enlightened nations, as they increased in years, have invariably, without the aid of revelation, become
more corrupt. And as they added years, they
added evil to their national life. (Vide Phil. Plan
Sal., ch. i.) And even now, in lands professing to
receive the religion of Christ, and among those who
recognize the obligation to love God as the common Father, and all men as brethren-even in
Christendom, notwithstanding an assent to right
principles, war and lust, pride and self-seeking, are




88              D EPR AVITY.
the rule, and obedience to the recognized moral
law of love is the exception.
Leaving the universal law of love out of the
question, which is the recognized standard of duty,
and to which man would be conformed if he, by
nature, knew and obeyed the true God —even setting this aside, it is true that men have in all ages
been conscious of being unconformed to their own
knowledge of duty. This is evidenced by the fact,
that the human consciousness of sin in all time
(until Christ's sacrifice) has been evinced by the
sacrifice of victims, human and bestial, as expiatory
or propitiatory offerings, to procure reconciliation
with God.
This testimony of universal consciousness, universal history, and universal conduct, can not go for
nothing.  To make a light thing of the deepest
and most solemnly-expressed convictions of human
nature, is to be untrue to humanity as it is. The
human consciousness cries out for reconciliation
with God. The man who answers that it needs
none, is as injurious to the soul as a physician
would be to the body, who, in a dangerous maladly, should give opiates, and let the disease take
its course.
But in view of Mr. Parker's own theories, how




D E P EA VITY.              89
can he avoid admitting the total depravity of human nature? Iundeed, it is true that he, in statement, apparently unconscious that almost his whole
book is in contradiction to this, utters words affirming the depravity of humanity and the necessity of
Christ's death. He says (p. 467), " The history of
society is summed up in a word-Cain killed AbeZ.
That of real Christianity also in a word- Christ
diedfor his brothers."
The direct inference from Mr. Parker's philosophy goes likewise to establish the opposite of what
he believes. If man has by intuition, or in some
other way, a " true idea of God, which is the same
in all men," then it follows as a fact corroborated
by all history, that man must have propensities so
totally depraved that they lead him to reject the
true knowledge of the divine, and plunge into
darkness and evil, notwithstanding the counter influence of Mr. Parker's absolute religion. If this
be not an evidence of depravity, we would humbly
inquire what can be evidence in the case?
Perhaps Mr. Parker would refer us to the conception which he says man gets from nature, and
then tell us that the conception obscures the intuition. Then, two things follow-first, that all nature is depraved from which man gets the obscur



90              DEPRAVITY.
ing conception; and, second, that God has given
man a true idea of himself, which is not strong
enough to resist the depraving power of depraved
nature. Yet Mr. Parker affirms " the popular doctrine of depravity" to be a " No-fact."
But let us turn from the "variations" found in
the "Discourses of Religion," and look at the appeal which may be made to each individual's consciousness in behalf of the doctrine of depravity.
Men will acknowledge that they do not live up
to the amount of their knowledge-that they do
not live up to their ability-that they do not live
up to their conscience. Now, what is the reason
of this?  Who will answer?  The brute lives up
to the best instincts of his nature. The brute conforms by nature to the laws of his highest life and
happiness.  Why is not man thus conformed to
the moral law of love? Why does he not by nature live a life like Christ? Let the reader frankly
acknowledge that it is because the current of the
human will runs in another direction. Hence it is
the experience of every living man who seeks conformity to the will of God, that he must strzggle
against the inertia and earthly and selfish propensions of his natural mind. And it is likewise, as
we believe, an experience, that divine aid alone




DEPRAVITY.                   91
enables the soul to rise above the natural into the
spiritual life.
We repeat, if there be any thing plain in the
Scriptures, it is the struggle or spiritual warfare
that is necessary to attain and MAINTAIN conformity
to the will of God as manifested in Christ. If there
be any thing true in Christian experience it is this
same warfare-a warfare which reaches a conscious
and joyful triumph only by faith in Christ, as a
present divine Saviour. If men by nature be not
out of conformity with the law of God, then the
whole tenor of the New Testament and all Christian
experience are together false, because the one affirms what the other realizes.!
But it is not possible to lead any man who has
ever seriously endeavored to be like Christ, to
doubt that by nature his will " is alienated from the
life of God."  Transcendentalism may lead men of no
Christian purpose to doubt, but it can do no more.
The'man who permits his boat to float upon the
current of Lake Superior will move downward
without an effort to the more rapid current of the
Niagara river.  He can not be conscious of any
effort, because he makes none. It requires no effort to float with the current. But if a man will
save himself from going over the falls, he must




92               DEPRAVITY.
turn his boat against the stream, and his labors will
grow light, and his hope and peace will increase, as
he escapes the dangerous current, and sees on the
farthermost verge of the lake the light-house of the
homeward-bound. So the Christian who has struggled against the natural current of the will, finds
peace as he overcomes, and rejoices as the light
grows brighter which shines out from  the "lighthouse in the sky."
The teachings of the Scriptures on this subject
not only accord with experience, but they contain
a profound philosophy, which will, by some future
writer, be developed in a more satisfactory manner
than it is at present. Allow me, in conclusion, an
allusion to this philosophy.
Adam, the origin of our transmitted humanity, is
said to have been a " living soul."  Christ, the
source of our spiritual and eternal life, is " a quickening Spirit." We inherit from Adam an earthly
nature, whose appetites, motives, aspirations, are
limited to the earth. This is, in the language of
the New Testament, "the natural mindl,'i "the old
man," "the flesh."  The first birth is natural, and
gives to man only earthly and selfish instincts and
aspirations. Man by nature may be an amiable
and excellent earthly being, or he may be a morally




D EPRAV ITY.                93
deformed and despicable one; but still he is "of
the earth earthy," and, as Jesus affirmed, "' the love
of God is not in him." He is "alive" to earthly
and selfish motives and objects; but he is "dead
unto God;" he does not feel and move in view of
what God is, nor in view of what he has commanded. In his mind his own will, not the will of
God, is supreme; and he resists subjection to the
will of God as much as an animal (fere naturce),
wild by nature, resists subjection to the will of man.
The divine Teacher affirmed the foundational truth
on this subject when he said, "That which is born
of the flesh is flesh, that which is born of the
Spirit is spirit."
Christ is a "life-giving Spirit;" and the new
spiritual life which proceeds from him is superinduced upon an animal or earthly nature. Christians are twice born-first by nature-again by
Spirit.  By the second birth, the soul that was
spiritually dead before, begins to live and move
in view of God's character, will, and manifested
benevolence in Christ. By the first birth every
man has the mental and fleshly nature of Adam;
by the second birth every believer has in him the
spiritual lineaments of Christ.  This new divine
nature is developed out of the old earthly nature,




94               D E PRAVITY.
or superinduced upon it. As the chrysalis has the
lineaments of the butterfly within it, while yet it
retains the body, and, to some extent, the instincts
of the caterpillar, so the Christian has the spiritual lineaments of Christ formed in his soul while
yet he retains the earthly nature of his earthly
progenitor. In the resurrection the spiritual soul,
disenthralled  from  its Adamic  corporeity, will
assimilate to itself, by divine power, a body of a
spiritual nature, adapted to the propensions of its
new  spiritual life, "fashioned like unto Christ's
glorious body."   Hence, the "image of Christ
formed in the soul" here, is the only " hope of glory"
hereafter.
The spiritual and the earthly nature-the one
being superinduced upon the other-are antagonistic the one to the other. It is reasonable to suppose that, as in the lipodeptera, the rudiments of
the winged insect prevail against the worm from
which it is developed, the antagonistic efforts of the
two opposing instincts arefelt, and the one prevails
over the other with a struggle; so, in the case of
those who are "'born of the Spirit," "the flesh
lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the
flesh, and these are contrary the one to the other."
When a man is born again, the two natures are




DEPRAVITY.                   95
distinctly marked by the  diverse aliment upon
which they live. The natural mind lives on natural aliment, and seeks its highest good on'earth.
The spiritual mind grows and develops itself by
truth. The new nature draws its life from Christ.
The conscience, the affections, and the will, live
and move in view of God in Christ. God becomes
the spiritual Father of the spiritual soul, and the
new-created" is a son. Truth is eternal-Christ
is eternal. Hence, the soul which lives on this
aliment has eternal life. Jesus said, "I am the
bread of life, of which if a mnan eat he shall never die,
but shall have everlasting lfe."  The natural man
" liveth by bread alone," but the Christian liveth
"by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth
of God."
In the light of this philosophy, which is discriminatingly true to the Scriptures, we may see the
reason and the necessity of the doctrine of the
divine Spirit. The glory of the gospel is in its
power, offered at this point, to transform the human soul from the habitudes of an earthly to that
of a spiritual life. A  nature can not transform
itself. One species can not produce another. The
instincts of the earthly nature can not turn against
themselves. The germ of the new nature must be




96               DEPRAVITY.
"begotten" in order to prevail against the'old.
When the new nature is begotten, the old nature
becomes as a body of death, until the new rises
above it, and brings it into subserviency.
The Scriptures exhibit this subject more distinctly than I am able to do. I will close this long
letter with a quotation, and some inferences from it.
The apostle, in his letter to the Romans, says:
" There is, therefore, now no condemnation to them
which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the
flesh, but after the Spirit; for the law of the Spirit
of Life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the
law of sin and death. For what the law could not
do in that it was weak through the flesh [or because
of the earthly nature], God sending his own Son
in'the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin [as a sacrifice for sin], condemned sin in the flesh, that the
righteousness of the law may be fulfilled in us,
who walk, not after the flesh but after the Spirit
[i. e. not after the old nature, but the new]. For
they who have only the earthly nature-' are
earthly'-do interest themselves only in the things
of the earth; and they that have the spiritual nature are interested in the things of the Spirit.'For
to be carnally-minded is death.  [Those who are
governed only by earthly and selfish motives and




DEPRAVITY.                   97
aims are spiritually dead.] But to be spirituallyminded is ife and peace. For the carnal mind is
enmity against God. It is not subject to his law,
neither indeed can be. So then, they that are in
the flesh [or natural state] can not please God.
"B~at if the Spirit of him  thfat raised up Jesus
Christfriom  the dead dwell in you, he that raised utp
Christ from  the dead shall also quicken your mortal
bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you."
Look a moment at one or two of the points in
this passage.
The law can give knowledge of duty, but it can
not beget life. It can show us the evil, but it can
not beget the disposition to overcome the evil. It
is not knowledge that men want, but strength to do
what they know. The man is a fool who supposes
that light is love. The law requires love, but it
can not beget it.  Every thing begets its kind.
Love only can beget love. Hence, Christ crucified
in the humanity as a sacrifice for sin, is such an
exhibition of love that it begets love in believers.
Faith accomplishes "what the law could not do."
Love is life.  "Love is the fulfilling of the law,"
and hence " the law of God is fulfilled in us who
walk not after the flesh, but after the  Spirit."
Men by nature are morally "dead already," and
5




98               DEPRAVITY.
have no "eternal life" unless born again by the
Spirit of Holiness in Christ Jesus.
In the Christian are the rudiments of a- new
species-a new and higher type of the rational
order of humanity.  His new life is by divine interposition, but received in accordance with his own
voluntary powers —begotten by truth and cherished
by love. The spiritual germ is implanted and developed here until it attains the resurrection statei. e. overcomes the habitudes of its earthly bodythen, in the resurrection, a spiritual body adapted
to its propensions is given to it.  " To every seed
its own [adapted] body." Christ is the head and
the type of the new creation (shall we say of the
new species?). Let us rejoice, my friend. The
process now developing in Christian minds on the
earth, will reach, in body and spirit, a glorious consummation in the resurrection of the just.
Yours, in the hope that we shall awake in his
likeness,




LETTER VII.
RECONCILIATION, OR AT-ONE-MENT.
MY DEAR SIR:You know that the Christian doctrine of
atonement is held confidingly by the evangelical
churches; but, as we have seen, this doctrine is
determinedly rejected by Mr. Parker and other
skeptics, as it is likewise by a portion of those calling themselves Unitarians.
It should be stated at the outset that the subject
of sacrifice has its essential relations with the moral
nature of man-the conscience, the affections, the
will, rather than with the intellect. The love-power
of sacrifice when appropriated by faith-its relations to man's moral nature, and to God's moral
government-is too profound to be fully developed by mere logical elucidation. The sacrifice of
Christ is a manifestation of power and love transferred by faith to the consciousness of the believer.
The skeptic can not know this. Hence the main
evidence is absent in his case. But there are adapt



100  RECONCILIATION, OR AT-ONE-MENT.
ations of the atonement to imperfect humanitythere are grounds of its necessity in moral government, which may be seen by the reason; and seeing these, a reason that is reverent will accept the
aid of faith which gives us the substance of what
the reason had given us distinct indications.
We inquire, then, is there any thing in the nature of man which is met only by the sacrifice of
Christ, offered not for himself, but for those who
will accept its mercy by faith?
It can not be doubted that there is in man a
consciousness of sin, or of something else (call it
what you will) that leads him to feel the want of a
sacrifice-or rather that leads him  to sacrifice as a
means of reconciliation with God.  Since the world
began man has had something in his soul that has
led him to offer sacrifice. We inquire neither for
the reason of the fact, nor for the form of the fact,
but for the fact itself. Men may call the fact propitiation, expiation, substitution-by any or all
these names, still the thing sought by the soul is
plain:- It is peace with God, a mitigation of the consciousness of sin, reconciliation, at-one-ment. Super-.stitious usages have been connected with sacrifice,
and priestcraft has turned the offering of the sinoppressed soul to a selfish account; but the perver



RECONCILIATION, OiR AT-ONE-MENT. 101
sion of the fact does not ignore the existence of the
sense of want which has produced in all ages and
among all nations, the various phenomena of sacrifices.
The ultimate truth in the case, then, is, that
there is something in the human soul that leads it
to seek peace with God by sacrifice. The form
may be varied never so much. Some may inflict
torture upon themselves; some part with, as an offering, what they deem most precious, even a son
or a daughter; some make a pilgrimage; some
offer the first-fruits of grain or of cattle. Whatever the form, the phenomena are all produced by
the one want of the sin-conscious soul —a desire
of peace, or at-one-ment with God.
The want of atonement felt in the soul is as universal as the sense of sin.  Man, therefore, as a
being, naturally seeks reconciliation by sacrifice, because his reason, as well as his moral sense, teaches
him that sin alienates and separates from God.
In this connection notice an important fact-a
fact which is evidence not only of the fallen and
darkened state of the human mind, but likewise of
the necessity of revelation, especially of the revelation of the mercy of God by sacrifice. While the
sense of sin, which is universal, produces in men




102  RECONCILIATION, OR AT-ONE-MENT.
the sense of want which demands a propitiation,
yet to offer self, or any object we can call our own,
produces selfishness and pride in the soul instead
of benevolence, gratitude, and humility.  We feel
the want of a sacrifice, but nothing we possess produces the effect necessary in order to peace of conscience and purity of heart.  The man who goes
upon a pilgrimage to Mecca, or to any other shrine,
especially if he has walked on his knees a part of
the way, returns to his home a censorious and selfrighteous spirit, his self-sacrifice having led him
away from  humility, and rendered gratitude impossible.  He can not be grateful to God for a salvation which he himself has worked out for himself.  So
with the devotee who tortures himself.  So in the
case of those who give, as a propitiation, money or
cattle. The effect necessarily connected with sacrifice, when that sacrifice is made by SELFfor SELF, iS
the opposite of that which the sacrifice of Christ for
the sinner is adapted to produce. The one produces self-righteousness and self-dependence-the
other gratitude and dependence on God.*
This then is the actual condition of man in his
* It is a singular fact that Mr. Parker makes out, that a " sense
of dependence" is the ultimate idea in religion (p. 18), and yet discards the doctrine which alone produces a sense of dependence.




RECONCILIATION, OR AT-ONE-MENT.  103
natural state. He has a sense of sin, and the accompanying sense of sacrifice, but the selfish sacrifices to which his natural want leads, produce evil
and not good in the soul. Instead of rendering a
man humble and grateful, the sacrifices prompted
by the natural want, and offered by self for self,
produce pride and impiety. It has done so since
the beginning of the world, and would have continned to do so until the end of the world, if divine
revelation and a divine sacrifice had not revealed
Christ crucified, which rescues the soul from selfish
sacrificing. Skeptics can not deny these facts. If
they reject the gospel solution of them, we defy
them to furnish any other that does not impugn
either the justice or the mercy of God; and thus
involve the difficulty in deeper darkness, rather
than resolve it by light and love revealed in " the
Lamb slain from  the foundation of the world," to
be " testified to all in due time."
In what way, then, could the natural want of
propitiation be met, and the soul receive spiritual
good by the sacrifice?
We probably have anticipated the answer to this
question. But let us look at one or two particulars.
In the first place, it is necessary, in order to the
formation of a benevolent character, that the motive




104  RECONCILIATION, OR AT-ONiE-MENT.
of our action be out of self. What I do for another
makes me more benevolent.  What I do from
selfish motives makes me more selfish. Now the
man who has faith in Christ's love-sacrifice for us,
is redeemed from a selfish motive. tHe labors for
Christ's sake.  Christ's sacrifice moves him. He is
God-moved, not self-moved. Christ becomes motive both in the heart and in the will. Faith produces gratitude and good works, but works can
never produce faith.
The sacrifice of Christ then is a necessary part of
the moral system which includes man as a sinner.
Without it the natural sense of sin and dependence works injury to the human soul. With it the
sense of sin in believers is canceled by a sense of
reconciliation, and reason and conscience find rest
by trust in the divine sacrifice.  A sense of dependence, now, places the soul in its true position. It
depends not on itself, but on the love of God manifested in Christ's sacrifice. And every time we
pray in his name the sense of dependence and
gratitude is renewed in the mind.
The introductory dispensation of Moses produced, so far as an initiatory process of types and
figures could produce, the salutary ideas which are




RECONCILIATION, OR AT-ONE-MENT. 105
produced under the Christian dispensation by the,
sacrifice of Christ.
The faith and ritual of the Mosaic institution was
such, that the sacrifice offered was not deemed the
property of the individual, but as belonging to the
Lord (Exodus, xiii. 11-16). The Lord permitted
the redemption by sacrifice of the first-born, which
belonged to him by the most solemn covenant.
The ceremonial was such that it was to the mind of
the Jew the Lord's sacrifice, while yet it was permitted to be offered for a sin or a peace-offering.
Thus the idea of ownership in the offering was destroyed by the plan of the Mosaic economy; hence,
the concomitant idea of pride and self-righteousness
could not follow the offering. The fee of the sacrifice was in Jehovah, not in the sinner who offered
it.
But as a sense of sin would again arise by renewed transgression or omission of known duty,
hence a succession of sacrifices was the burden of
the old law. These sacrifices, says the apostle,
could not make the comers thereunto perfect. The
renewed sense of sin required a renewed sacrifice.
The thing needed to meet the want was one sacrifice that could be pleaded perpetually, which would
thus make the comers perfect, and supersede for



7 06  RECONCILIATION, OR AT-ONE-MENT.
ever the offering of sacrifices by the people of God.
Hence the whole system is fulfilled in the sacrifice
of Christ. He is " the end of the law [of sacrifice]
to every one that believetlh." " Nor yet (Heb. ix.
25) that he should offer himself often, as the high
priest entereth into the holy place every year with
the blood of others;" "but now once in the end of
the dispensation hath he appeared to put away sin
by the sacrifice of himself." Hence, " the blood of
Christ who by the eternal Spirit offered himself
without spot unto God, will purge your consciences
from dead workcs to serve the living God."
It is not necessary to inquire, as some have done,
whether in the darkness of the age, the divine
Father adapted the sacrifices which the natural
want had produced, and which were then existing,
to the end of initiating the one sacrifice offered by
the eternal Spirit, which would more perfectly
purify the conscience and heart, and produce obedience by a right motive. It is enough to know
the fact that the sacrifice of Christ does purify the
heart-speaks peace to the conscience-redeems the
soul from  selfish or dead works-and  produces
works of love in those who are servants of the living God.
There is another aspect of the atonement which is




RECONCILIATION;  OR AT-ONE-MENT. 107
frequently brought to view in the Scriptures, and
which many consider the foundation of its necessity.
Man has' an innate sense of justice and right.
This is a distinguishing attribute of his moral nature. A sense of responsibility for all moral action
of which conscience takes cognizance is based upon
it. A sense of the evil and desert of sin arises, in
a great measure, from the sense of justice, which is
in conflict with sin. Law is the development of
justice, as benevolence is the development of love.
Love often develops itself in acts which are superior
to law, because they are acts of self-denial which
the law or justice does not demand. But laws are
the immutable rules of the creation, physical and
moral; and mercy is never rightly exercised except it be to bring the ignorant and erring back to
light and law. Justice, then, underlies mercy, and
mercy is exercised in maintainance of the principles
of eternal justice. Mercy rises above the law only
to bring back the transgressor into conformity to law.
Now, God having given to man this foundational
sense of justice, would not violate it by atonement
or in any other way. Beside, God himself possesses the attribute of justice, and his moral governmrent, even in the administration of mercy, must
be based upon it.




108  RECONCILIATION, OR AT-ONE-MENT.
The principle of justice, then, which develops
itself in law can not be sacrificed to the power of
mercy which develops itself in benevolence; notwithstanding benevolence often rises above the requirements of law. Nor can the one produce the
effects which the other does in the human mind.
Gratitude can not be exercised fully for an action
in others which the law requires of them. We
must see in the act something of the mercy which
produces acts of personal selfdenial for us, before
gratitude flows spontaneously. But the being who,
while he maintains the principles of justice, exercises mercy by acts of self-denial which the law
does not require, commends himself both to the
conscience and the affections of moral beings, and
begets in all right minds not only a sense of respect and benevolence, but at the same time a sense
of grateful love for the benefactor.
There are many who seem to have no right sense
of the principles of justice and mercy as they relate
to moral government. This state of mind is born
of ignorance and sin. God is not only the Father,
especially of those who are "born of the Spirit,"
but he is the ruler and judge of men. A father
may pardon a son for an offense against himself;
but if he is a magistrate, and that son commits the




R0ECONCILIATION, OR  AT-ONE-MENT.  109
same offense against the public law, he can not pardon him without forfeiting his character as a ruler,
or impairing the sense of justice in the public mind.
If the sense of justice is of God and in God, he
will maintain it in moral government. The best
men have the strongest sense of justice.
A proclamation of pardon on repentance would
render repentance a selfish act, or make it impossible.
" God is love," and therefore in governing the
world he would exercise benevolence; but benevolence would be exercised in such a manner as to
maintain the sense of justice, which is the basis of
moral government.
We desire not only to elucidate this subject, but
to produce positive conviction in relation to it.
Instead of reproducing the same thought, allow me
to refer you to the chapters on law and atonement
in " God Revealed in Creation and in Christ," beginning with the second book, and thence onward
to the 198th page.*
* It was my intention, in printing these Letters, to introduce as
notes, or as an appendix, several quotations from my previous works
("'The Philosophy of the Plan of Salvation," and "God Revealed,"
etc.), but the excellent publishers of these works, Messrs. Gould &
Lincoln, of Boston, were not willing that such large extracts should
be made frombooks, the copyright of which is owned: bythomselves.
I have no doubt their views of the'matter are proper; hence I




110   RECONCILIATION, OR  AT-ONE-MENT.
I commend most heartily the whole subject of
law and atonement, in the beginning of the Second
Book, to your attention  (I have marked the emphatic passages in the volume expressed to you).
Please read them with the conviction in mind, that
in order to maintain the principle of justice in the
minds of intelligent beings, God must develop and
maintain this principle in his own moral government. A:nd in connection with this, keep in mind
that benevolence, which is above law, can be properly exercised only to bring back transgressors to
obedience to law.  As law is the only foundation
of order in the moral universe, and of safety and
happiness to the creature, benevolence can be exercised in no way that is congruous with the system, except in the pardon and restoration of offenders.
Notice, with me, an outline of the principles
upon which this conclusion is predicated.
The universe, physical and moral, is founded in
have quoted but little of the passages to which I had referred my
respondent. In one or two cases in which the thought is necessary
to the completeness of my argument, I have reproduced my own
thought in other forms. To this I think there can be no objection,
as those able writers, _Rev. Dr. Hopkins, in his Lowell Lectures, and
Dr. Berg, in his Discussion with Barker, have reproduced, in their
own words, some of the most valuable thought in my first volume.
It is perhaps due to myself to say that my volume was published
some time before the appearance of those works.




RECONCILIATION, OR AT-ONE-MENT. 111
law and governed by law. In obedience to law
there is safety and happiness. Whatever transgresses law has taken the first step in the road to
ruin. Law knows, and can know, no pardon. As
life in any case is impossible without obedience to
law, pardon while the transgressor is not restored
would be a nullity and an absurdity.
Whatever departs from law secures derangement
in the beginning and death in the end; and in addition to its own aberration, produces derangement in
other things. If an orb were to leave its sphere,
it would not only rush to destruction, but it would
cross other orbits, and dash itself against other
bodies. In such an event the system would be destroyed unless the deranged body could be drawn
back before the final destruction, and at the same
time a re-adjustment be made of the derangement
which it had caused in the system. When any
thing departs from the rule of law, it has no power
to recover itself or to rectify the error. In the
physical universe the slightest departure would unbalance the attractive forces, and the tendency
would be to swifter departure. The very laws
which preserve from destruction every thing in
obedience to them, hastens and compels the destruction of whatever departs from obedience.




112  RECONCILIATION, OR AT-ONE-MENT.
So in the moral world; one sin tends to produce
another.  Sin weakens the moral forces which. hold
the soul to obedience. Like all other derangements, the tendency to sin augments itself by its
own activity; hence, in the moral world, as in the
physical, the import of the sentence is, " the soul
that sinneth it shall die."
Moral transgression, likewise, not only puts the
soul in the road to ruin, but it deranges other moral
agents. One sinner causes sin in others. Sin begets sin. As the leprosy, which symbolized its influence in the camp of Israel, sin is contagious. It
ruins one while it infects others.
"Law, then, is a necessity of things, and penalty
is a necessity of law." Law is inexorable. Every
transgression tends to the destruction of the subject;
while the subject, by the transgression, is put without the pale of safety, and rendered incapable, in
himself, of returning or of compensating for his
transgression.
This inviolability of moral law finds a sanction in
the reason and conscience of men. The moral law
is an expression of the will of God. He could not,
therefore, permit sin without permitting a violation
of his own will, which would be absurd. Beside,
if God is holy he ought not to make a law which




RECONCILIATION, OR AT-ONE-MENT. 113
would permit sin. No man will say that God
ought to make a law that would allow a single
transgression. Now, if the reason and conscience
that God has given men say, and sanction the saying, that God ought not to permit sin, who dare rebel against his moral nature, and say that he has
done so? Reason affirms, conscience sanctions, and
the moral law reveals the same penalty that is
written against the transgressor of every other
law of the universe —The transgressing subject shall
die.
Now, then, man is a sinner. In gospel-enlightened lands, he has not lived up to his knowledge
of good; nor up to the demands of conscience;
nor up to the amount of his ability. IHe is a transgressor of the moral law of God, and the penalty of
that law —" dying thou shalt die"-is against him.
His moral nature is deranged, and tending to the
second death.
How, now, shall man be restored and pardoned?
How shall the evil propension be regenerated, and
the evil he has occasioned in others be balanced
and compensated for?  Is there any method by
which, without impairing the sense of justice, benevolence, which is above law, may restore the transgressor to obedience, and arrest the evils which his




114  RECONCILIATION, OR AT-ONE-MENT.
sin has occasioned in other minds?  This is the
problem of the atonement. Let us see.
There are, in the physical universe and in physical and instinctive law, compensations which are
placed over against each other; and thus the inequalities of the various systems of law are met and
balanced. These compensations or adjustments are
made by the Creator; and they become at once the
evidences of his wisdom and goodness.
Are there likewise deviations and compensations
in the moral universe?  We can answer only for
ourselves, as moral beings, and as we are related to
the moral law.
1. The moral law, which requires supreme love
to God and impartial love to man, is the rule of
reason and righteousness; and being the will of
God, it is the obligatory law for all intelligent and
moral beings.  From  this- statement I presume
there will be no dissent. Certainly none by yourself.
2. Now, accepting the law as the rule of life, it
is admitted that man falls below its requirements —
that, judged by the law, he is condemned as a transgressor. He is guilty in view of his own conscience, knowledge, and ability. He is likewise
guilty in nature (or, if you prefer it, in character),




RECONCILIATION, OR AT-ONE-MENT.  115
not having the disposition to fulfill his duties according to the example of Christ. The penalties of
the law are therefore against him, and he can nei-.
ther pardon himself nor beget that love in himself
which is the fulfilling of the law.
3. The law, then, is the rule of life. Man is below its requirements, and therefore liable to destruction as the penalty of transgression.  He is
without love to God-dead already, and tending to
the "second death."  Now, is there any compensation in the moral universe for this aberration of
man from the sphere of law?  Is there a recuperative principle in the moral as there is in the physical system of things?-a redeeming power adapted
to the nature of the case?
The thing required in order to moral compensation is that some being, united in the same system with
man, should possess a moral worth rising above law in
the same degree that man falls below it. Now, we
postulate that Jesus Christ, by his sacrifice, meets
this condition in the equation.  The law can not
demand the sacrifice of the innocent for the guilty.
Its requirement can rise no higher than perfect
obedience.  The death of Christ, therefore, was
above law; and if it tended to honor the law by
restoring transgressors to obedience, it accomplished




116  RECONCILIATION, OR AT-ONE-MENT.
on one side an actual balance against what was deficient on the other side.
The question, then, of vital interest is, does the
super-merit of Christ, which is above law, practically
counterworlk the demerit of man, which is below law?
Now, we affirm  that this result is actually and
practically accomplished in every one that believes
in the divine sacrifice of the Redeemer.
"Love is the fulfilling of the law." Christ's sacrifice was a love-sacrifice-a sacrifice produced by
divine love.  The law  required  obedience, but
could not produce it. It required love, but could
not beget love. The sacrifice of Christ is a revealment of divine love, and hence —as every thing
begets its kind-by the love of God manifest in
Christ, love for God in Christ is begotten in believers. Now, "if men love God, they will keep
his commandments."   Hence the disposition to
obedience is restored in the soul of every one who
believes in Christ.  Thus the current of death
which originated in Adam is met and counteracted
by the /i/e-current which originated in Christ. One
was made a' living soul," that is, an earthly being
-the other is a "quickening," that is, life-giving
Spirit.
Now, you know that faith in Christ disposes men




RECONCILIATION, OR AT-ONE-MENT. 117
to love and obey him. You know more than this.
You know that in the case of your own relatives,
it produces peaceful obedience in the soul-it casts
out sin-it works by love, and purifies the heart.
What then, is the thing which constitutes the
merit and power of the divine sacrifice? We answer, its merit is in its love, which is above law. Its
personal suffering endured for others.  This fact
likewise constitutes its power. I can not love with
the love of gratitude one who does no more for me
than the law requires him to do. But when love
transcends law, and one rescues me by a sacrifice
of himself, a sacrifice which love prompted, but
which law did not require, then my heart, and the
heart of every believer responds by grateful love
to the Redeemer.  Thus "'faith works by love,"
and love works by obedience.
The merit, then, is found in the sacrifice of
Christ, which, as an expression of divine love, restores the transgressor and procures pardon by
balancing his demerit in the sight of the law. By
this merit the sinner can be pardoned, while by its
power he is redeemed from sin, and restored to
obedience.
Thus law and love are the complement of each
other in the divine government; and Christ came




118  RECONCILIATION, OR AT-ONE-MENT.
in our humanity "to give himself a ransom for
many, that whosoever believeth might not perish
but have eternal life."
Yours, for a life-giving faith.




LETTER VIII.
ON FUTURE RETRIBUTION.
MY DEAR SIR:You have not, I presume, any distinct- impression of the views of Mr. Parker on the subject
of future retribution. He frequently refers to the
subject, but does not often announce his own opinions. There are passages, however, in which he
speaks distinctly.  Such an one occurs on page
438: " The woes of sin are its antidote. Suffering
comes from wrong-doing, as well-being from virtue.
If there be suffering in the next world, it is, as in
this, but the medicine of the sickly soul,"
This is plain. Mr. Parker adopts the opinions
of those who are called Universalists on the subject
of future retribution. He is wiser than those generally are who think with him. He affirms without argument. Others argue, and in their argument
reason sees the fallacy.
We-can not but doubt of the sincerity of men
who profess to find their religion in the Bible, and




120     ON FUTURE  RETRIBUTION.
yet tell us they believe in no future punishment.
The Bible can not be interpreted to favor such
views except by subterfuge and perversion on the
part of the interpreter. Mr. Parker; therefore, seldom refers to the Bible on this subject. There is
at least frankness in the audacity of the skeptic
who sets his own reason above the reason of the
Bible, and rejects or modifies it when it does not
accord with his own conceptions. But to assume
that the Bible is in agreement with the doctrine of
no future punishment, is a subtlety that "perverts
the right ways of the Lord," and indicates dishonesty in the interpreter.
We shall give the more attention to this subject,
because it is one of vital interest to all persons who
enjoy the light of the gospel. It has to do with
the motives which deter men from  sin. We do
not say that Christians act in view of future retribution. Love deters the Christian from sin. For
them there is no evil in the future. But for the
unthankful and disobedient-for those who abuse
the divine mercy and harden themselves in selfishness-there is evil in the future; and repentance
with such is impossible so long as they believe
there is no future punishment. Convince an impenitent man that sin will not exclude him from




ON FUTURE  RETRIBUTION.    121
future happiness —that all the evil he will experience is present inconvenience or compunction of
conscience-and with such convictions, repentance
toward God and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ are
out of the question. Every wicked man is willing
to take the sin with its present evil; and as for the
figment, that the consequences of sin will cure sin,
or remove the cause of sinning, it is, as we shall
see further on, contrary to both reason and the
Scriptures.
An absurd argument is destroyed so soon as its
absurdity is made apparent. The Universalist view
of the future state, which Mr. Parker adopts, can
be shown to be absurd both by reason and Scripture. We shall endeavor to make this apparent,
and to reach, by our conclusion, the evil not only
as it is maintained by Mr. Parker, but as it prevails
in a wider sense.
You will notice that in this and succeeding chapters, and indeed in all I have written on this subject, I use the Scripture phrases, without discussing
the questions at issue between denominations, in
relation to what will be the character ofiuture punrshment-I make no effort to determine the mode of
punishment, whether it be to sin and suffer forever,
or whether the " second death" be the death of the
0




122    OlN FUTURE RETRIBUTION.
soul.  Archbishop Whately and others have discussed those points. We argue only the question
at issue with Mr. Parker and those who, like him,
believe in no future punishment; or, if there be
any, that it is only disciplinary. We do not wish
to occupy space with any other issue than the main
one. The main question is not whether " God will
destroy the soul and body of the wicked in hell?"
or whether he will permit them to live sinning and
suffering forever.  The negative of the position
that all men will- be saved, is, that all men will NOT
be saved. We believe this point is plain, whether
we view it in the light of reason or of revelation.
The other question concerning eternal sin and suffering, or the destruction of those unfitted for
heaven, admits of discussion, and whichever way it
may be settled by any one, the vital doctrines of
the Scripture remain intact. In either case, the
finally impenitent never enter the kingdom of the
blessed.
My own opinion is, that while many expressions
of the New Testament favor the doctrine that those
unfitted for heaven will suffer the'" second death"
by the " destruction of both soul and body in
hell," yet the specific expression of the Saviour in
the 25th chapter of Matthew requires a different in



ON FUTURE RETRIBUTION.    123
terpretation.  I do not now see how any fair exegesis will give any other sense to this passage than
the one which the great body of evangelical Christians have received, namely, that those who have
rejected Christ and disobeyed his commands, will
be doomed to " ev.erlasting punishment," while the
righteous will inherit " life eternal."  The difficulty
of construing this passage in accordance with the
opinion that the "destruction of ungodly men" is
the destruction of the soul, is given with distinctness and discrimination by Professor Post, in a
recent article in the New-Englander.*  We have
extracted thtt part of this article which relates to
the passage referred to.
In all discussions relating to this subject we use
Scripture phrases. We shall prove that those who
die unregenerated will " never see life."  Whether
they will be annihilated after the judgment, or sin
and suffer forever, we leave for Mr. Parker and
the Universalists to determine.
We are aware that the intensity and eternity of
fuiture misery have sometimes been urged with a
spirit which indicated any thing else in the polemic
beside a sense of the justice of God. Advantage
has been taken of this by bad minds to create preju* See Appendix.




124   ON FUTURE RETRIBUTION.
dice against evangelical piety, and to destroy in
the minds of those who disobey the gospel the
salutary impression that without repentance they
will be " reserved unto the day of judgment to be
punished."
Let us leave, then, whatever may be doubtful or
difficult concerning the mere form  of the doctrine
of future punishment, and consider the main question. We affirm that neither Scripture nor reason
teach  the future salvation  of those who  die impenitent; but that they will " perish" in the " second death"-whatever that second death may be.
Notice, first, the absurdity of any effort which
seeks to derive the doctrine of no future punishment from  the Scriptures.  By willful perversion,
Universalism might be tortured out of Bunyan, or
Baxter, or Edwards, much more readily than it can
be out of the Bible.  By the same artifice universal damnation may be proved-the one as readily
as the other.  Let us see.
Universal salvation proved by per-   Universal damnation proved by
verting the Scrisptures.    perverting the Scriptures.
1st John, i. 9. God is faithful   Joshua, xxiv. 19.  ie is a holy
and just to forgive us our sins: God, he is a jealous God, he will
and to cleanse us fiom all un- not forgive your transgressions
righteousness.               nor your sins.




ON FUTURE RETRIBUTION.   125
Universal salvation proved by  Universal damnationp roved by
perverting the Scriptures.    perverting the Scriptures.
Lain. iii. 31. For the Lord will   1st Chron. xviii. 9. If thou
not cast off forever.          seek him  he -will be found of
thee; but if thou forsake him he
will cast thee off forever.
All will be saved, because the    All will be damned, because
Scriptures say-Mal. ii. 10, "Have  the Scriptures say-Isaiah, xxvii.
we not all one father? Hath not 11, He that made them will not
one God created us?"          have mercy on them; and he that
formed them will show them no
favor.
The world will be saved, be-   The world will be damned, because the Bible says, Christ gives cause the Bible says-They who
eternal life to as many as the  have not the spirit of Christ are
Father hath given him; and in  none of his, and in another place
another place it says, the Father it says positively, the world can
hath put all things into his hands  not receive the spirit of Christ-so that the proof is clear that  therefore it follows that the whole
all will be saved in Christ.   world must inevitably be damned.
All men will be saved, because    All men will be damned, bethe Bible teaches that Christ will cause the Bible teaches, Jude 15,
reconcile all things unto himself  that the Lord cometh with ten
-Col. i. 20-and says in another thousand of his saints to execute
place that we "-see not now all judgment upon all (7ravrov all
things reconciled," implying that things); and if we do not see
all will be reconciled hereafter.  judgment executed upon all now,
HEere is universal reconciliation  yet the passage says, the Lord
and salvation plainly proved.  cometh, or will come, to execute
judgment on all things hereafter.
The words  "forever,"  " everlasting,"  "forever
and ever," occur frequently in the Scriptures, sometimes in connection with temporal, sometimes with
spiritual subjects.   An  attempt has always been




126   ON FUTURE RETRIBUTION.
made by those who hold the views of Mr. Parker,
to strip these words of their usual import, which is
that of endless duration. Sometimes, as all know,
they are applied to temporal things, when the common sense of the reader, as in all other similar
cases, will limit them  by the nature of the subject.
" The everlasting hills" will stand while time lasts;
God and the soul live when time dies.  When these
words are limited in signification, the limitation
grows out of the nature of the subject.  To this all
agree; and this is all that is necessary to show the
absurdity of the effort to destroy their import in
connection with the future destiny of the wicked.
THE WORD  "EVERLIASTING" APPLIED  TO EXPRESS
THE DURATION OF THE
Happiness of the Righteous.      Misery of the Wicked.
Matth. xix. 29. Those that    2 Thess. i. 8, 9.  The Lord
leave all to follow Christ shall Jesus shall be revealed from
" receive an hundred-fold, and  heaven, in flaming fire, taking
shall inherit everlasting life."  vengeance on them that know
not God, and obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, who
shall be punished with EVERLASTING destruction from the presence
of the Lord and the glory of his
power.
Luke, xviii. 30. They "shall   Matth. xxv. 41. Depart from
receive manifold more in this me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire,
present time, and in the world to  prepared for the devil and his
come, life everlasting."       angels.




ON FUTURE RETRIBUTION.   127
Happiness of the Righteous.       Misery of the Wic7ced.
Romans, vi. 22. But now be-    Matth. xviii. 8. If thy hand or
ing made free from sin and be- thy foot offend thee, cut them off
come servants of God, ye have  and cast them  from thee; it is
your fruit unto holiness, and the  better for thee to enter into life
END, everlasting life.          halt or maimed, rather than having two hands or two feet to be
cast into EVERLASTING fire.
Dan. xii. 2. Many of them      Dan. xii. 2.  Many of them
which sleep in the dust of the  which sleep in the dust of the
earth shall awake, some to EVER- earth shall awake, some to everLASTING life, and some to shame  lasting life, and some to shame
and everlasting contempt.       and EVERLASTING contempt.
Matth. xxv. 46. These shall    Matth. xxv. 46. These shall
go away into everlasting punish-  go away into EVERLASTING punment, but the righteous into life  ishment, but the righteous into
EVERLASTING.                   life everlasting.
THE PHRASE " FOREVER AND EVER" AS APPLIED
TO EXPRESS THE DURATION OF THE
Happiness of the Righteous..lisery of the Wicked.
Dan. xii. 3. They that turn    Rev. xiv. 11. The smoke of
many to righteousness shall shine  their torment ascendeth up foras stars forever and ever.      ever and ever, and they have no
rest day nor night.
Rev. xxii. 5. The Lord God    Rev. xx. 10. The devil, the
giveth them light, and they shall beast, and the false prophet shall
reign forever and ever.         be tormented day and night forever and ever.
Mark, now.  We do not argue from  these tables
that either the existence of punishment or of happiness is eternal. This is as clearly revealed as any
words in the Hebrew or Greek language can reveal




128    ON FUTURE RETRIBUTIO N.
it; but this is not our argument. Our proposition
is, that the destruction of the wicked will be as enduring as the happiness of the righteous, because
both are supported by precisely the same proof. If
Mr. Parker and his friends affirm that these words
never mean eternal duration, then they get rid of
everlasting punishment; but they likewise get rid
of the everlasting God, and of the everlasting life
of the righteous.
If they say that they sometimes mean eternal duration, and sometimes limited duration-that the
duration is to be inferred from the nature of the
subject to which they are applied; then the subject
to which they are applied is the same in both cases,
man-or the soul of man, or the body of man.
Whatever they may choose to call the subject, there
is no doubt but that it is the same in both cases.
If they reject both of these, and argue that the
words " everlasting," and " eternal," and " forever,"
do not apply to the soul, but to the punishment or
misery of the soul or body; then, on the other hand,
the words do not apply to the soul of the righteous,
but to the happiness or joy of the soul or body,
and if misery is not eternal in its nature, then joy
or happiness is not eternal in its nature.
Now, whatever these words mean in one case,




ON FUTURE RETRIBUTION.    129
they mean the same in the other.  One thing,
therefore, is manifest, namely, that the "death" of
the wicked will endure as long as the "life" of the
righteous. This truth is more obvious than it is in
the proposition, six and half a dozen are equal;
for in the one case the number is expressed in different language, in the other the same duration is
expressed in the same language.
If the Universalist can succeed in proving that
the punishment of the wicked will end; he has at
the same time proved that the happiness of the
righteous will end; because precisely the same
words and phrases used to express the one are used
to express the other. Thus the dilemma is perfect,
and one from which there is no possible escapethat so fast and so far as Mr. Parker is able to destroy, in the minds of the wicked, the fear of everlasting punishment, he destroys at the same time, in
the minds of all that believe him, the hope of everlasting happiness; because the proof which sustains
the one is the same that sustains the other; so that
if one fails, both fail-if one stands, both standand the duration of the one must remain the same
as the duration of the other. Thus, like blind
Samson in the temple of the uncircumcised Philistines, if Mr. Parker could succeed in subverting the
6*




130    ON FUTURE RETRIBUTION.
pillars of the temple of truth, the wreck would fall
upon his own head.
There are but two ways by which it is possible
to express truth in language. The same truth may
be asserted affirmatively and negatively, and when
a proposition is proved affirmatively and negatively, it is not possible to make it either stronger
or plainer.
Now, the "everlasting punishment" of the impenitent is not only, as proved above, repeatedly
affirmed in the word of God; but it is likewise asserted in a negative form, a form by which the
existence of God and the happiness of the righteous
are also expressed. In relation to God it is written,
"Thy dominion shall not pass away."  In relation
to the righteous, they shall receive "a crown of
glory that fadeth not away."  In relation to the
wicked, consider the following:
"He that believeth not the Son shall not see ifhe,
but the wrath of God abideth on him."
The blasphemy against the Holy Ghost "shaZll
not be forgiven unto men, neither in this world, neither in the world to come."
" In hell he lifted up his eyes, being in torment."
"Between us and you there is a great gulf fixed,
so that those who would pass from hence to you




ON FUTURE RETRIBUTION.    131
can not, neither can they pass to us who would come
from thence."
"Their worm  dieth not, and their fire is not
quenched."
"Without holiness no man shall see the Lord."
"For if ye believe not that I am he ye shall die
in your sins."
The truth in relation to this topic is, that the same
words which are applied in the Bible to teach the
eternity of God and the eternity of happiness, are
applied to teach the eternity of that " destruction"
which shall come upon the wicked. They are the
strongest words and phrases which can be used in
any language; and all competent interpreters agree
that their first import is eternal. And in addition
to this, the same truth is taught not only affirmatively but negatively; so that the everlasting punishment of the wicked is proved in the strongest
way, and in all the ways that human language can
prove any truth.
The Universalists adopt a similar method of
interpretation in order to escape the force of the
figurative language used in the New Testament.
Because the figures which relate to future punishment had a local and temporal origin, they infer
that they have only a local and temporal import.




132    ON FUTURE RETRIBUTIO N.
The word translated hell they find originally referred to the valley of the sons of ilinnom, near Jerusalem; hence they confine the figure to its fact,
and thus destroy the end for which figures were
made.  Mr. Parker has not told us whether he
adopts the reasoning of those who believe with him
in this matter, but as he adopts their conclusions,
it is fair to infer he adopts their reasons. Now, if
the force of figures is to be destroyed on one side
of the argument, it should be on the other; then,
supposing this reasoning to be true, there is neither
a heaven nor a hell. The word heaven is derived
from a word which in its original import signified
the atmosphere or the firmament; and the import
of the word paradise is a garden. In both cases the
words which signify heaven and hell are educed
from things temporal and local in their nature. If
one must be divested of its meaning, which signifies
a state of future punishment, then the other must
be divested of its import, which signifies a state of
future happiness. We should then, according to
this method of interpretation, have neither a hell
nor a heaven.
This interpretation strikes at the foundation of
revelation. It would be impossible, if such perversions were permitted, for any revelation ever to be




ON FUTURE RETRIBUTION.    133
made to man. Man can learn the unknown only
by figures and parables drawn from the known.
"For what of God above or man below?
What can we reason but from what we know?"
No terms are used in the Bible to teach us the
existence of a future world, or the condition of the
sou in that world, which are not derived in some
way from things that pertain to the present state
of existence. The Saviour always spake in parables and figures (Matt. xiii. 34), because he had
to illustrate the unknown by what was known to
his hearers. The individual, therefore, who endeavors to destroy in the minds of his hearers the
application of these figures to another life, destroys,
so far as he succeeds, the very effect which Christ
designed to accomplish by  using them.  This
method of interpretation proves there is no hell,
but it proves likewise that there is no devil, no
angel, no heaven, no God!
The general tenor of the New  Testament-the
general acceptation of the words and phrases used
by Christ and his apostles, as well as the effects
produced by their ministry, render it certain that
they taught men that eternal life depended on reconciliation to God as he is manifested in Jesus Christ.




134.    ON FUTURE RETRIBUTION.
Notice the evidence of this in the following passages.
The points of the following passages are directly
against Parkerism.  " Fear not them which kill the
body, but are not able to kill the soul, but rather
fear him which is able to destroy both soul and
body in hell."
John v. 25-29. "Marvel not at this, for the hour
is coming in the which all that are in their graves
shall hear his voice; and shall come forth, they
that have done good unto the resurrection of life;
and they that have done evil unto the resurrection
of damnation.
The judgment is, by the sacred writers, put in
order after death, and the resurrection of the dead.
Heb. vi. 2. " The doctrine of baptisms, and of
the laying on of hands, and of the resurrection of
the dead, and of eterna judgmento'-'
Heb. ix. 27. " And as it is appointed unto men
once to die, but after this the judgment; so Christ was
once offered (or died once), and unto them which
look for him, shall he appear the second time, without sin unto salvation."
2 Tim. iv. 7, 8. "I have fought a good fight, I
have finished my course, I have kept the faith;
henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of right



ON FUTURE RETRIBUTION.    135
eousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will
give me at that day; and hot to me only, but unto
all them also that love his appearing."  Was this
righteous- judgment when Paul would be crowned
with " all that loved Christ's appearing," or " all
them that looked for him" to be at the destruction
of Jerusalem? Or was it then taking place? Either idea is an absurdity.
2 Tim. iv. 1. "I charge thee, therefore, before
God and the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge
the quick [living] and the dead, at his appearing
and his kingdom."
2 Pet. ii. 7. "But the heavens and the earth
which are now, by the same word are kept in store,
reserved unto fire, against the day of judgment and
perdition of ungodly men."
By looking at the preceding verses it will be seen
that Peter is speaking of the physical earth, affirming
its destruction or dissolution once by water, and its
final change or dissolution by fire; at which time will
be the day of judgment and the "perdition of ungodly men."  Observe, he says the present earth
is I"kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day
of judgment and perdition of ungodly men." How
could language make the truth plainer, that the day
of judgment and perdition of ungodly men will be




136    ON FUTURE RETRIBUTION.
at the time when this earth shall be changed by
fire?
2 Peter, ii. 4, 9. "The Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temptation, and to reserve
the unjust unto the DAY OF JUDGMENT, to be punished."
Are the unjust rewarded and punished as they
go along, and reserved beside unto (not a day, nor
this day, nor all days, but) the day of judgment, to
be punished?
Matth. xii. 32. "Whosoever speaketh a word
against the Son of man, it shall be forgiven him.
But whosoever speaketh against the Holy Ghost, it
shall not be forgiven him, neither in this world nor
in the world to come.1"
John, iii. 16. " For God so loved the world that
he gave his only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life." If this does not imply that whosoever
does not believe in him shall perish and not have
everlasting life, then there is no meaning in language.
John, vi. 54. "Whosoever eateth my flesh and
drinketh my blood hath eternal life, and I will
raise him up at the last day." What does this imply, if Christ did not deceive his disciples?




ON FUTURE RETRIBUTION.    137
Acts, xxiv. 25. "And as Paul reasoned of
righteousness, temperance, and judgment to come,
Felix trembled."  Was it a judgment that had
already come, or the destruction of Jerusalem, that
made a Romacn governor tremble?
1 Peter, iv. 18. "And if the righteous scarcely be
saved, where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear?" Easily answered, says Mr. Parker. They
will appear in heaven, with the righteous who are
scarcely saved.
Matt. xxvi. 24. "It had been good for that man
he had not been born."  How could this be, if
Judas went to heaven at death?  If the doctrine
that Mr. Parker preaches be true, Judas got to
heaven before Jesus.' He with a cord outwent his Lord,
And got to heaven first."
Luke, x. 42. "But one thing is needful, and
Mary hath chosen that good part that shall never
be taken away from  her."  Will those who do not
choose it have the good part and Jthe one thing
needful, which- shall never be taken away from
them?
James, i. 15. "Then when lust hath conceived,
it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished,




138    ON FUTURE RETRIBUTION-.
bringeth forth death."  Mr. Parker and the Universalists say that when sin is finished it bringeth
forth life. Which is right?
John, viii. 51. " Verily, verily, I say unto you
(mark it) if a man keep my sayings he shall never
see death."  Does this mean the first or the second
death-death of the body or of the soul?
It is not doubted by any well-informed person
that Christ and his apostles used the words and
phrases which those who heard them-those to whom
they wrote, would understand as teaching the future punishment of the wicked. They either taught
what they believed on this subject, or they willfully
deceived the people.  They not only used the
words which the Jews used to designate future
punishment, but they were even careful that the
Gentiles should not mistake their meaning. Hence
Paul speaks of " blackness of darkness," and Peter
uses the word," Tartarus" to convey the same idea.
The whole form and pressure of the apostolic
teaching represent themselves and those who heard
them as acting under a deep sense of responsibility
in regard to the future. " TWVe must all stand before
the judgment-seat of Christ."  "Knowing the terrors of the Lord, we persuade men."  They " warned
every man night and day with tears."




ON FUTURE RETRIBUTION.    139
Some who heard them " trembled;" others cried
out " Men and brethren, what shall we do?" And
all believers took up their cross daily and followed
Christ-all of them to persecution, and many of
them to the flames.
Now, in conclusion of this long letter, I do not
know that a vindication of the Scriptures is necessary in your case, and with Mr. Parker it would
have little influence. But there are others that it
may save from a leap into the darkness of skepticism; and we offer the vindication as a basis of
the rational exposition which will ensue.




LETTER' IX.
RATIONAL EXPOSITION OF PROBATION AND RETRIBUTION.
MY DEAR SIR:The reasonings of those who reject the authority of Scripture while they teach the salvation
of all men, are usually predicated upon what they
assume to be the attributes of God and the parental character of God. Their proposition is as follows: "God is love." He is infinitely wise, infinitely
good, and infinitely powerful. He must, therefore,
have designed from the beginning the greatest good
of all his creatures, and as he has power to execute
the designs which his love prompts and his wisdom
devises, therefore (they infer) the whole family of
man will be saved.
In one sense this proposition is true; but they
give it a false sense, and draw from it a false inference. The first fallacy is in the method of their
reasoning, which must of necessity produce false
results. They start with the d priori method, by




PROBATION  AND RETRIBUTION. 141
forming in their own minds a conception of what
they choose to imagine the nature and attributes of
God ought to be, and then infer results from their
own suppositions. Now, every one that knows any
thing about the subject knows that the  _posteriori
method, or reasoning from effects to their causesi. e., induction from the works of God and the Word
of God -is the only method by which we can reason with any certainty concerning what the love of
God is, or what acts that love would prompt him
to accomplish. One man may assume that God is
love, and another that he is a God of vengeance;
and the reasoning of both concerning what love is,
and what vengeance is, will be mere idle or wicked
imaginations from beginning to end, unless they
define what these words mean when applied to
God, by referring to what God does in nature and
providence, and what he says in revelation. Nature and revelation both proceed from God, and
must, when rightly interpreted, bear true and harmonious testimony to his nature and attributes.
The character of the First, or of any cause, not
cognizable by the senses, can be known only by
the effects which it produces.  Vain talkers, by
forming in their own minds a character for God,
and determining, ca priori, what kind of religion




142  PROBATION  AND RETRIBUTION.
God ought to give, and then forcing nature and
the Bible to coincide with their speculations, has
given rise to more injurious heresies than all other
causes combined.
A false method must necessarily lead to a false
conclusion. By this method an individual would
reason as follows: God is infinitely good and infinitely powerful. As he is infinitely good, he would
not desire to create his creatures subject to any evil
whatever; and as he is infinitely powerful, he can
accomplish all his purposes, therefore all his creatures will be free from all evil, and perfectly happy
during their whole existence. But this speculation
would lead him into direct falsehood. His reasonings from the supposed character of God would be
contradicted both by nature and revelation. And
as God is forever the same, the same method of
reasoning will forever lead to falsehood as its result.
Let us, by a better logic, endeavor to reach a
result more in accordance with experience and the
Bible. The Scriptures affirm that " God is love,"
and as the results which skeptics deduce from their
own assumptions on this subject are contradicted
both by natural and revealed truth, the vital questions arise, What is the love of God? and, In what
manner is the love of God manifested?  The Scrip



PROBATION  AND RETRIBUTION. 143
tures teach " God is love," " Our God is a consuming fire," " His name is holy." The living creatures before the throne, full of eyes within, denoting
profound and pervading intelligence, cry continually, "Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God Almighty."  Holiness is applied to God more emphatically, more frequently, and in a greater variety
of language, than any other word in the Scriptures.
The love of God, then, is holy love, or love of holiness. Now, if holy love is the character of God,
then his character is directly opposed to sin. It is
a truism that God must be opposed by nature to
whatever is opposed to his nature. It belongs to
the nature of things, that just in proportion as any
being loves one thing, he is opposed to that which
is its opposite. HIence it follows that God can not
love holiness without hating sin, just in proportion
to his love of holiness. The principle is so obvious
that every sane mind will assent to it. This truth
is not only matter of principle, but it is matter of
fact. We know the more holy-the more like God
a Christian becomes, the more he hates sin. It is
likewise matter of necessity, because sin is the opposite of holiness, and love is the opposite of hatred.
It is likewise matter of revelation; Jesus said, " If
a man love the one he will hate the other, ye can




144  PROBATION  AND RETRIBUTION.
not serve God and mammon." From these premises
then, it follows, that the more any being loves holiness, the more he hates sin; and the conclusion follows incontrovertibly and eternally, that as God has
infinite love for holiness, he is infinitely opposed
to sin.
If, then, God's nature is holy love, how would
the love of God be manifested toward the human
family, who are sinners? The answer is plain in
two respects-(1) It would be manifested in a manner consistent with the nature and wants of man;
and (2) it would be manifested in a manner adapted
to turn man from sin to holiness. Man can find
happiness only in holiness. God is love, and would
seek man's happiness only by making him holy.
There is a physical necessity in the one case, and a
moral necessity in the other. There is, first, the
necessity of nature. The beaver is so constituted,
that he finds his happiness in the water; and if he
were by some means thrown upon the land, no
benefit could be conferred upon him that would
make him happy, and answer the ends of his nature, only that he should be led back to the water.
His constitution was such, that no other benefit
would do him permanent good. If a physician
were called to see a patient who had a cancer on




PROBATION  AND RETRIBUTION. 145
his breast, the only thing to be done would be to
cut it out from the roots. The physician might give
palliatives, so that the patient would have less pain
-or he might make his patient believe it was no cancer-or forget that he had a cancer near his vitals;
but if the physician were to do this instead of removing the evil, he would be a wicked man and the
enemy of his patient. The man's case was such,
that the only favor which could be conferred upon
him would be to cut out the cancer. Now all agree
that sin is the great evil of the soul of man. Nothing can make man spiritually happy here, or fit
him for happiness hereafter, but the removal of sill
from his nature. Sin is the plague-spot on the soul
which destroys its peace, and threatens its destruction unless removed. It is therefore certain that if
the love of God were manifested toward man, it
would be in turning man from sin, which produces
misery, to holiness which produces happiness.
The question that remains is, in what way, consistently with the nature of man, would the love of
God be manifested in using means and influences to
turn men from sin to holiness?
All revelation, as well as philosophy and experience, teach that man is a sinner;-but God holy.
Now, if God is holy and man is a sinner, two things




146  PROBATION AND RLETRIBUTION.
follow of course. First that the will of man differs
from the will of God; second, that God desires the
will of man should be conformed to. his will. The
question then arises, by what method would God's
goodness be manifested in influencing the will of
man to accord with his own will as revealed to us
in reason and the Bible? The answer to this question is obvious, both from reason and revelation.
The will of man can be influenced but in two
ways, viz., by compulsion and by motives. A man
might be forced to sign a deed, or say his prayers,
or to obey by external action some commandment;
yet his acts would have no moral character. The
only way that a man's will can be moved, and he
continue a moral agent, is by motives. The will
of man never acts morally except in view of motives.
It follows, then, that as it is God's desire that man,
as a free agent, should love and obey him-the evidence of his goodness is just in proportion to the
motives which he has presented to turn him from
evil to good. For it being true that the will of
man in his present condition may be influenced to
good or evil by motives-and it being likewise true
that sin is an evil which destroys the happiness or
life of the soul-then it is obvious that that being
manifests the most goodness, who presents the




PROBATION  AND RETRIBUTION.  147
strongest motives to man, as afree agent-to deter
him from sin and influence him to holiness; and
that is a wicked being, and the enemy of God and
man, who destroys the motives which would influence men from sin to holiness.
Further, the soul is so constituted that it can be
influenced by motives in two ways, viz., by addressing its hopes and its fears. Now, if God has so
constituted the soul, that it can be influenced by
motives from evil to good in these two w\ays, it is
conclusive evidence of his goodness that he has in
both these ways used means to influence the minds
of his creatures.  And the stronger the motives
thus presented, the stronger the evidence of the
goodness of God. Now, from these premises, mark
the motives which God has set before sinners in
the Bible. To deter them from sin, God has presented for their consideration the everlasting punishment of devils and disobedient sinners; and to
influence them to good, he has set before them the
everlasting blessedness of those who repent, and
love and obey him. Both of these being motives
alike designed to influence men from sin to holiness, the man who denies the existence of a hell,
denies the evidence of the goodness of God as truly
as the man who denies the existence of heaven.




148  PROBATION  AND  RETRIBUTION.
Everlasting punishment and the perdition of ungodly men. as the consequence of sin, and involving
suffering in proportion to their sins, is the greatest
motive that can. be addressed to men to deter them
from evil; and everlasting life and happiness the
greatest that can be presented to induce them to
good.
In presenting these motives, God has given the
highest evidence of his goodness and love to his
creatures; because he has presented infinite motives
to induce them to heaven and happiness; and presented them in every way by which they can affect
the will. On the one side there is the everlasting
punishment of hell, as the consequence of sin, and
on the other the blessedness of heaven, as the consequence of holiness, through the mercy of Christ;
and he that will continue to disobey God, notwithstanding these motives, deserves to go to hell, and
must go there from the necessity of the case, because no greater motives than everlasting punishment and everlasting happiness can be presented
to influence the will of an intelligent free agent;
and no greater kindness can be manifested to move
the heart than the voluntary sacrifice of Jesus for
man. If the sinner will not repent and love God,
in view of these, nothing but physical force re



PIOBATION AND RETRIBUTION. 149
mains, and God will never force sinners by physical means to heaven and happiness.
We do not design to say that the fear of punishment is a motive which induces Christians to
obey. " The love of God casteth out fear." There
is no punishment for the children of God, therefore
they have nothing to fear. It is for those who disobey and pervert God's truth to fear hell. God has
told them the consequence of their sin in order
that they may be arrested in their course of transgTession. Before them in the way to hell stands
the angel of justice, holding up the holy law, in
which it is written, "IRepent or perish." Behind
them, in the way to heaven, stands the divine Saviour, crying, " Turn ye, turn ye-for why will ye
die?" A sense of evil and danger arrests the sinner-love reforms and guides the saint.
M/an is a being of hopes and fears, and God has
addressed him as such in the Bible; and it can not
be doubted that if there were no motives in the
gospel addressed to the fears of men to turn them
from evil, that God might have influenced men in
one vXway which has not been done. Consequently, by
denying the existence of everlasting punishment,
Mr. Parker denies that God has presented infinite
motives to deter men from sin; instead, therefore,




150  PROBATION AND RETRIBUTION.
of showing the infinite goodness of God, he makes
a direct attack upon the goodness of Jehovah; and
an attack which, so far as successful, destroys the
power of the gospel, by destroying the motives by
which Godl would influence men to repentance.
And this is done notwithstanding that terrible anathema which God has thundered in the ears of all
those who pervert his truth-" If any man preach
any other gospel unto you than that ye have received-let him be accursed."
The existence of future punishment and " everlasting destruction," is an evidence of the goodness,
justice, and wisdom of God: of goodness, in that
it is a motive to prevent sin and turn men from evil;
of justice, in that it is the righteous doom of irreclaimable sinners; and of wisdom, in that God
can thus make the penalty of sin a motive to deter
from sin.
And the fact that all these divine means, and
motives, and influences are used in this world to
turn men from sin to holiness, teaches us that this
world is a place of probation-the place where
God's long-suffering spares men in order that they
may repent and obey the gospel. If in view of
forbearance and infinite mercy and motives on the
part of God, they will not be saved, the only alter



PROBATION  AND RETRIBUTION., 151
nativ-e is that they be permitted to sin and suffer the
consequence. In the intermediate state they will
suffer in proportion to the sinfulness of their character, and when "death and hell deliver up their
dead every one not found written in the Lamb's
Book of Life will be cast into the lake of fire, which
is the second death."
The existence of hell may even be, in one sense,
an evidence of God's mercy as well as his justice.
It may be the best thing that can be done for natures which have confirmed themselves in sin.
Suppose. it had been proposed to Benedict Arnold,
after his apostasy, to return to the colonies-ask the
pardon of Washington-ononfess his wicked duplicity
and treachery, and on these conditions be restored
to citizenship. He would have known that such a
course would promote his happiness, yet without a
change of principle, he would have rejected it with
contempt.  Suppose further, that when the war
was finished, and Washington had put down all
power adverse to the happiness of the colonies,
Arnold was found among the prisoners, having
contended as long as he could against the government. His situation was now such, that any confession that he might make, or any pardon for
which he might ask, could proceed from no other




152  PROBATION AND RETRIBUTION.
than selfish motives. When men fall into the hands
of the living God, or into the hands of the executor
of the law, repentance and love to the lawgiver is
then impossible, because the motive determines the
character of the act, and right motives in acting
would then be impossible, because they would be
necessarily selfish.
Now, then, seeing repentance and love for the
governor under such circumstances would be impossible, suppose the alternative had been proposed
to Arnold either to spend his life in the presence
of %Washington, and in the society of those who
knew him to be a traitor at heart; or to be banished
to an island which contained only rebels and criminals like himself, he would undoubtedly have
chosen the latter immediately. Because, although
the island would be a hell on account of the remorse
of guilty consciences and the rage of evil passions
that would exist and increase there, yet his nature
had become so corrupted, that to live under the
eye of the magnanimous Washington, and amid
those who abhorred bad principles, would have been
to his soul severer punishment than to live among
the guilty and condemned in the island.
Now, suppose Washington (knowing that his
apostasy had so corrupted his nature that he -would




PROBATION  AND RETRIBUTION. 153
be less miserable to be banished from his presence
than to continue in the society that made patriots
happy), in view of his past life, and in view of the
character he then possessed, had banished him forever from his presence, such banishment would
have been not only an exhibition of justice but of
mercy, and it would have been the best thing that
could have been done for the man in view of his
character and circumstances. So with God. Banishment to hell is the best thing that can be done
for those who die in rebellion; therefore God has,
in justice and mercy, provided a hell for fallen
angels and impenitent sinners, who die unpardoned
and unreconciled to God, as revealed in Christ Jesus.
These views, then, present the love of God in
the only rational light-consistent with justice and
with the principles of righteous moral government
-with the nature of man, and especially with the
revelation of God. In the light of the subject as
thus exhibited, the revelation of truth, the existence
of conscience, the influence of the church of Christ,
the motives of the gospel, the power of the atonement, and the influence of the iloly Ghost, are all
direct evidences of the love of God.  And the
wickedness of individuals, notwithstanding these
7*




154  PROBATION AND RETRIBUTION.
manifestations of mercy, in refusing to repent and
put their confidence in Christ, renders it necessary
that they should be damned, because they will not
be saved in consistency with their own nature, nor
with justice, nor with the moral government of
God.
Another form of argument, constantly reiterated,
is stated as follows:
God is the Father of all men. A good father, if
he had the power, would not permit his children to
suffer except for their own good.  God has the
power, and therefore will permit no suffering except for the good or the reformation of his offspring.
In the assemblies of Universalists and Rationalists this appeal is constantly made to the partialities,
prejudices, and sympathies of parents; and by this
method as much as any other, they pervert the
truth and beguile unstable minds into error.
This position is untrue in both its parts. God
does not act toward the family of man as a good
earthly parent would act toward his children if he
had the power; nor can he do so, as we shall see,
without a direct violation of the principles of truth
and righteousness. A good earthly parent, if he
had the power, would not allow his child to become




PROBATION  AND  RETRIBUTION.  155
a thief, or a debauchee, or a blasphemer, or a murderer; yet God, having the power to prevent it,
does permit men to commit every degree of crime.
A good earthly parent would not permit his children to suffer excruciating pain by fire, accident,
or poison, yet God permits these. A good earthly
parent, if he had the power to prevent it, would
not allow one child to oppress another, nor would
he allow his children to become insane, or to blaspheme the name of their father, or to injure his
interests; yet God has the power, and allows all
these things among the human family. And if the
condition of all be alike hereafter, God is unjust to
permit one child to make another miserable during
their whole life in this world, and then receive
both to equal blessedness hereafter.
But further, it would be unjust in God if he were
to treat all men as earthly parents, under the influence of their parental instincts, treat their children.
God has for wise purposes implanted in the hearts
of parents peculiar instincts. These instincts are
constitutional, as they are in animals, and they lead
parents to feel peculiar attachments and partialities
for their own children, which they do not feel for
the children of others. This natural instinct has
been recognized as partial in all ages. It is recog



156  PROBATION AN:D RIETIRIBTJTION
nized in all courts of justice as disqualifying parents
and children for testifying for or against each other.
While parents would insist upon the execution of
the law upon others, their parental instincts would
lead them to resist its execution upon their own
children.  Those who hear the appeal of false
teachers upon this subject never stop to reflect that
it charges God with injustice. Earthly parents are
partial-God is impartial. Suppose, for instance,
that in some neighborhood a young man should
rebel against the laws, and commit murder, or some
crime worthy of imprisonment for life. His own
father would shelter him from the just penalty of
the law, and use every means that his son might
go "' unwhipped of justice."  But what would the
other fathers in  the neighborhood do?  These
would use all diligence to bring the guilty individual to the justice which his crimes merited. They
would even enter his father's house and commit
him to the officers of the law. Now, in this case,
which did right? Every honest man says, those
who brought the culprit to justice; while the father
who concealed his son, acting as a parent, was
" partial" and a " respecter of persons."  Now, shall
man be more just than God? And yet skeptics
delude their hearers by comparing the justice of Je



PROBATION  AND RETRIBUTION. 157
hovah, who is "no respecter of persons," to the
natural sympathies of this earthly parent. Will it
not be great mercy in God to forgive such outrages
upon his character; especially after he has plainly
said, Rom. ii. 6, that he "will render to every man
according to his deeds-to them who by _patient continuance in well doing seek for glory, and honor,
and immortality, eternal life; but unto them that
are contentious, and obey not the truth, but obey
unrighteousness, indignation and wrath, tribulation
and anguish, upon every soul of man that doeth
evil; of the Jews first, and also of the Gentiles."
Nor are men the children of God in the sense
that Adam was the son of God. God was the immediate creator both of the soul and body of Adam.
The first man was created holy, possessing the moral
image of his Maker, and was the son of God in a
sense in which Adam's posterity are not.
Nor is it true that all men are the children of
God in the same sense that Christians who are born
of the Spirit are the sons of God. Like many of
our day, the Jews, who denied the divinity of
Christ, and expected salvation without repentance
and faith, claimed that they were the children of
God, and that God was their father. They said to
Jesus (John, viii. 41-47), "We be not born of




158  PROBATION AND RETRIBUTION.
fornication, we have one father, even God."  The
reply of Christ to this assumption of wicked men
ought to put to shame Universalists, Rationalists,
and all others, who, without faith and the love of
God, which produce obedience, yet claim  to be
God's children. Said Jesus to such individuals,
"Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of
your father ye will do," etc.
THE TRUE VIEWS.
God is the Universal Creator. " All things were
made by Christ, and without him was not any thing
made that was made."  Man was distinguished from
the creatures by being created in the moral image
of God, " in righteousness and true holiness."  After
God had created the original parents of the races,
he instituted those laws, in accordance with which
they perpetuated their earthly existence. By his
sin man lost his holiness and his birthright, and the
moral image of God, in which he was created, was
effaced from his soul. The steps by which he fell
(mark them) were —-First. Under evil influence he
was led to doubt the truth of God's word. Second.
Under the influence of this doubt he turned from
holiness to disobedience. Now, in order to his
restoration, he must return by precisely the same




PROBATION  AND  RETRIBUTION.  159
steps by which he departed; only the agency under
which he acts is the opposite one, and the steps the
opposite way. First. Under the influence of the
iHoly Spirit he must place his confidence again in
God's Word, i. e., have faith in Christ; and, second,
under the influence of this faith, he must return to
obedience, i. e., must repent. Man must be born
again of the Spirit, and then he will have Christ,
the image of God, again "formed in his soul, the
hope of glory."  (John, i. 12, 13.)  "_As many as
received him, to them gave he power to become
the sons of God, even to them that believe on his
name; which were born, not of blood," i. e., not
by natural generation; "nor of the will of the
flesh,9' i. e.,- not by the power or self-determination
of the fleshly or carnal will; " nor of the will of
man," i. e., not by the power of moral suasion, nor
by the efforts of the will of men over each other;
"but of God," i. e., renewed by the Holy Ghost.
The sons of God are those who are born again of
the Spirit through the truth. None are the children of God, and God is a Father to none in the
spiritual sense, except those who are willing to
separate themselves from the unbelieving and disobedient, and by faith and repentance become as
little children.  (See 2 Cor. vi. 14, 18.)




160  PROBATION  AND RETRIBUTION.
When individuals are thus restored to the favor
of God, and the inmage of God is restored to their
souls, then they become " heirs of God, and jointheirs with Jesus Christ." They have the privileges,
the blessings, and the inheritance of children, and
God covenants as their father to overrule all things
for the good of his obedient children (Rom. viii.
28), and when it is necessary, in order to their
spiritual good, he chastens them  as a good father
does his children, and in a manner in which those
are not disciplined who are called in the Scriptures
the " children of this world-the children of disobedience-the children of the devil."  (See 1 Cor.
xi. 32; Heb. xii. 6-8.)




LETTER X.
REFUTATION OF COMMON FALLACIES ON THIE SUBJECT
OF FUTURE RETRIBUTION.
MY DEAR SIR:We are told, as noticed in a preceding letter,
that "c the woes of sin are but its antidote. Suffering comes from wrong-doing, as well-being from
virtue. If there be suffering in the next world, it
is, as in this, but the medicine for the sickly soul,"
p. 438.
In the above sentence the usual method of the
author is adopted. Truth is adroitly mingled with
error. The fallacy of disciplinary punishment, as a
cure for sin, and the hope of universal salvation, is
propagated in a form of words which, in proper connections, would teach a general truth. All good
men believe that "suffering comes from  wrongdoing, as well-being from virtue;" but it does not
therefore follow that the woes of sin are its antidote,
either in this world or the next.
It is true, no doubt, that good men are punished




162   ON FUTURE RETRIBUTION.
for their sins in this world; their discipline produces
reform, and fits them for heaven. But it does not
follow that the woes of sin produce the same effect
upon the impenitent mind. Such a result in the
case of those who are not converted is impossible,
because it is by faith that discipline from  the divine
Father becomes a good in the soul. In the case of
those who have  faith, a Father's hand  and a
Father's love are seen in adverse providences.
They receive them as discipline, and are brought
by them into a penitent and filial temper; and thus
temporal afflictions are, as a matter of experience,
a means of separating a believing mind from  evil.
But in the case of those who are "without faith
and without God in the world," temporal afflictions
do not produce piety.  God does not design to reform
sinners by the woes of sin. If he does, he fails in his
object; because some men sin, and suffer the woes of sin
all their lives, and grow worse and worse till they die.
If, therefore, God disciplined them in order to reform them, the effort was worse than a failure, because instead of making them better, it made them
worse.
It is not only a fact which all but the morally
blind can see, that the discipline which is a " savor
of life ~unto life" with some, is a "savor of death




ON FUTURE RETRIBUTION.    163
unto death" with others; but it is likewise a distinctly revealed doctrine of the New  Testament.
"God knows how to deliver the godly out of
temptation, and to reserve the unjust unto the day
of judgment to be punished."  The inspired writer
says to his fellow-Christians, " When we are afflicted
we are chastened of the Lord, that we may not be
condemned with the world."  So far, then, as this
world is concerned, it is matter of experience and
of revelation that while the woes of sin are a moral
discipline and a moral benefit to -one class, they do
not benefit the other.
That wicked and worldly men often repent when
they feel the consequences of their wrong-doing,
there is no doubt. But selfish repentance "worketh death."  Instead of making men better, it
makes them worse. They sorrow because they
have injured themselves. Such repentance is selfish,
and fits men for hell.  "The sorrow of the world
worketh death." The effects of sinning upon selfish minds make them worse instead of better; and
so far as Mr. Parker leads unregenerated men to
believe that the woes they experience in consequence of their sins will be a cure of sin, he aids to
fit them for the " second death."  These are solemn
words, but they are true.




164    ON FUTURE  RETRIBUTION,
Now, without dwelling further on the philosophical blunder, which any thoughtful mind should
be ashamed to commit, i. e., that an effect will
change or cure its cause, let me invite your attention
to another aspect in which this doctrine of Mr.
Parker (a doctrine held likewise by Emerson,
Chapin, and all the Transcendentalists and Universalists in general) is opposed both to experience and
revelation.
It may be said-(because in view of preceding
facts it must be admitted that temporal providences
do not reform sinners)-it may be said that the
moral relations of things, or the " operations of man's
moral nature," will cure sin in his soul. Now, we
shall show that this fallacy is as absurd as the preceding.
Instead of sin being a self-destructive, it is a selfstrengthening and self-perpetuating principle. Instead of the consequences of a sinful act tending
to cure the sinful propension, it actually strengthens
it. After one sin, another is more easily and more
readily committed; because the sinful act weakens
the conscience, confirms a sinful habit, and strengthens the propension to sin in the soul. As a matter
of fact, sin blinds the moral vision, and kills the
moral sense. The more sinful any individual be



ON FUTURE RETRIBUTION.    165
comes, the less he sees and the less he feels of the
evil of sin. This momentous moral fact can not be
denied. It is a natural law-the law  of divine
judgment-and so long as it is true, the statement
that the effect of sinning cures sin is a falsehood
uttered in the face of law, experience, and the
Scriptures.
The doctrine that conscience punishes men for sin
is an impeachment of the justice of God. If this
were true, in order that God might be just, the
greatest sinner should be the greatest sufferer. But
the opposite of this is true. A good man will suffer
more for neglecting his prayers, than a bad one will
feel for the crime of profaneness. If conscience is
the measure of God's justice, then the divine being
loves the wicked more than he loves the good; because the more holy the mind, the more potent is
conscience —the less holy, the less the infliction.
If " men are punished as they go along," and suffer
in this world in proportion to their sin, then, as we
have said before, Jesus Christ was the greatest of
sinners, because he was the greatest of sufferers.
The fact that conscience dies as sin increases, but
grows strong in proportion to holiness, shows, by
human experience, what is affirmed  in the Scriptures, that the good are punished in this world, while




166    ON FUTURE  RETRIBUTION.
the evil are reserved unto the day of judgment to
be punished.
"But," says our philosopher, "suffering comes
from  wrong-doing, as well-being from  virtue."
Now, if this fact renders it doubtful whether there
be any future punishment, it renders it doubtful, in
the same measure, whether there be any future happiness. If sin punishes itself, virtue rewards itself.
And if sin ceases to punish itself at death, then
virtue ceases to reward itself at death; so that there
is neither rewards nor punishments-neither a hell
nor a heaven, in the life to come.
If the woes of sin will make men good, then the
joys of goodness will make them bad. So in the
next world. We are told that if there be any suffering, it is but the medicine of the sick soul, i. e.,
it cures sin; then the same reasoning is valid in
regard to heaven. If there be any enjoyment there,
it makes the soul sick by sin: thus hell fits the
soul for heaven, and heaven fits- the soul for hell,
one as much as the other. And we defy any man
to show that the foundation for the argument is
not as good on one side as it is on the other. If
the soul, by the practice of sin will make itself holy,
then certainly the soul, by the practice of virtue,
will make itself sinful.




ON FUTURE  RETRIBUTION.    167
Let us look, in conclusion, at the facts which are
connected with the subject of sin and retribution.
What are the effects of sin in this life? and —Do
the effects of sin continue in the future world?
The answers to these inquiries are plain both from
reason and the Scriptures. Sin produces two results
in the soul. It produces present evil, while at the
same time it fits the character for future retribution.
Just as benevolent action produces peace and complacency of soul in the present life, and forms the
soul into a benevolent character, which fits it for
heaven. Every one knows-Mr. Parker knowsthat while sin produces more or less unrest when
the act is done; it likewise, by the same act, fixes
character. Like a stream which, running constantly
over a rock, wears for itself a channel from which
in the end it can not escape, so the soul, by continued action of a selfish or sensual nature, forms a
habit which fixes its mode of action for the future.
Now, destiny depends upon character. A  benevolent heart is happy in its own exercises; a selfish
mind is confirming a character which destroys happiness, or rather which renders happiness impossible. All men act either from a selfish motive or a
benevolent one. Every selfish act confirms a selfish
character, and the man who dies having confirmed




168    ON FUTURE RETRIBUTION.
a selfish character by a selfish life, is fitted for hell;
and as death is not a change of the soul but a
change of the body, he will experience hell forever,
unless God annihilate him after the judgment.
Is it said now, as a final lie, that so soon as the
soul is separated from sense, and experiences in the
next world the evil consequences of sin, these evil
consequences will lead to repentance. We answer
that repentance in view of the experience of evil
or the fear of evil, is repentance toward self, not toward God. The more men repent from an experience of evil consequences, the more they are
damned. The thief always repents when the sheriff arrests him. Death forces many men to submit,
others to repent. Such repentance is by necessity,
or in view of consequences, not in view of God's
goodness and of the evil of sin. Some weak people
talk of repentance on the gallows. Dying sinners
and murderers often repent, but it is a repentance
forced in view of the termination of their moral
agency. In this world "repentance toward God"
works by reformation; and faith in our Lord Jesus
Christ works by love. In the world of doom, when
moral probation is ended, repentance, by the necessity of the case, works by remorse; andfaith by trembling.  "The devils believe in one God and tremble."




ON FUTURE RETRIBUTION.   169.
Character is the only hope of heaven. Character
that begins with "repentance unto life," and is
formed by benevolent aspiration and action-character which is conformed to the divine law, and
governed by benevolent motive-which motive is
begotten only by faith in God, as manifested in
Christ Jesus.
The last thought in the foregoing paragraph
brings us to a vital point in the divine process of
human salvation. It introduces Christ as the motive power, without which the soul is destitute of
divine life. It will admit of a homily, which you
will suffer me to give in conclusion.
One of the darkest developments of Mr. Parker's
infidelity-a development which indicates cardinal
alienation from Christian character in all those who
sympathize with it —is the contempt and hostility
manifested toward the self-sacrifice of Christ as the
motive and the merit by which men are saved. In
words which caricature the Christian creed, while
they convey the hostility of the author to the Christian faith, it is written in the introduction of " Discourses of Religion," p. 5 (speaking of the evils of
the prevailing religious ideas): "We dare not approach the Infinite one face to face. We whine
and whimper in our brother's name, as though we
Q




170     ON FUTUR.E RETRIBUTION.
could only approach the Infinite One by attorney."
And again, page 432, "Can men approach the
Everywhere-present only by attorney, as a beggar
comes to a Turkish king?  Away with such folly.
Christ bears his own sins, not another's."
Has Mr. Parker forgotten that it is one of the
most explicit commands of Christ, that after his
sacrifice and ascension, his disciples should always
make their supplications in his name. John, xvi.
22-27-" And in that day ye shall ask me nothing.
Verily, verily, I say unto you, whatsoever ye shall
ask the Father in my name, he will give it you
[ch. xiv. 13, "I will do it"]. Hitherto ye have
asked nothing in my name. Ask, and ye shall receive, that your joy may be full."  " At that day
ye shall ask in my name, and I say not unto you
that I will pray the Father for you, for the Father
himself loveth you, because ye have loved me, and
have believed that I came out from God."
In accordance with this command is the practice
of the apostles and of the church of Christ in all
ages.
The scoffing of Thomas Paine was more fair in
language and less repulsive in spirit than that of
Mr. Parker.  Thomas Paine believed in future
retribution, and, in stating the views of Christians,




ON FUTURE RETRIBUTION.    171
he did not usually pervert them. WVe should be
glad\if as much could be said of Mr. Parker and
other Universalists and Transcendentalists. It is
easy to caricature the most sacred doctrines. The
doctrine that Christ is Mediator between God and
men is philosophical, experimental, and scriptural.
Mr. Parker does not argue in opposition to this.
The logical faculty is not developed in the Carlyle
school to which he belongs. He " utters" his "intuitions" in words which men whose feelings are
hostile to the gospel will love, because they travestie
the truth.
We say the doctrine of Christ's mediation is a
truth which commends itself to the reason, as it
does to the moral wants of men. [See Phil. of Plan
of Salvation, and Book II. of " God in Christ."]
All spirit, so far as we know, affects other spirits
through organization. How does Mr. Parker know
but that Christ is the medium (if we may so speak)
by which God comes in contact with matter? We
know that he is the medium by which God unites
himself with humanity.  "There is one God and
one Mediator between God and men-the man
Christ Jesus."  The human soul operates through
corporeal media upon other minds; and upon matter it operates through more remote instrumentali



172     ON FUTURE RETRIBUTION.
ties, Media of communication between the inferior
and superior is the order of nature. Is not the divine Mediator in this order? or does God contravene the order he has himself established?
It is a&law of creation that substances as well as
spirits come together by affinity. If matter or
spirit of different affinities ever be united, a new
medium, or solvent, must be found by which the
diverse qualities may be reconciled or harmonized.
But Mr. Parker wants no mediator between him and
the Most Holy-no reconciliation of the earth-born
to the Eternal-no solvent of the imperfect earthly
that it may melt into the bosom of Infinite Love.
Blessed be God, there is a more rational and a
holier faith than this. The revealed Christ is the
Mediator in the order of nature, and in the ordination of grace. God, by the mediation of Christ,
unites himself with our earthly. and imperfect nature, and by faith the soul is transformed from a
lower to a celestial species. On one side-the divinity-God comes in. On the other, the humanity,
man comes in; so that God and man are reconciled
in Christ.  "God was in Christ reconciling the
world unto himself."
Mr. Parker ridicules the idea of approaching God
in the name of Jesus, and tells us that " he died




ON FUTURE  RETRIBUTION.    173
for his own sins!"  (Such phraseology is wicked,
but it needs a reply as well as a rebuke.)  We are
so constituted, that benevolent action is impossible
with the human mind unless the motive-power
which moves the will be drawn from  another, not
from ourselves. The man who lives and acts in
view of Christ is God-moved; that is, his soul is
exercised by the character of God manifested in
Christ Jesus. The man who has no faith is selfmoved. His own will is supreme, and not God's
will. Hence he is a rebel in the moral government
of God. When we love another, we are willing to
deny ourselves in order to conform to the object of
our regard. This takes the motive out of ourselves.
If the will of that other is incarnate love, the soul
moved by it becomes benevolent, and the soul can
become benevolent in no other way. Until this is accomplished, every act of life is selfish; and thus
life-action is death-action, which fits the soul for the
second death.
For Christ's sake, then, is only another expression for the great truth, that all our holy motions
and emotions are dependent on him. "~ In Christ's
name" is a recognition that God is manifest in his
sacrifice for sin, and that it is in his mercy alone
that we have hope. In all systems there are two




174    ON FUTURE RETRIBUTION.
motions of subordinate bodies, one on their own
axis, the other around the central orbit; so in the
spiritual world, the soul is self-moved, and the regenerated soul moves likewise in its orbit of dependence on God. To feel reliance on the merit of
Christ-to trust in his name-is the expression of this
actual and practical relation. The man who does
not feel it is dead.
Thus the mind that draws its motive from Christ
is a restored spirit. The affinity between the divine
and human mind is re-united, and the soul takes on
its eternal movement around the infinite center of
life and love.
O holy One, who hath manifested thy mercy to
us in Christ Jesus, in thy name and in thy merit
we trust for motive to move 6ur will, mercy to affect our heart, and for grace to pardon our sin; and
not unto us, but unto thee, be the glory.
Yours in the heart of the gospel.




LETTER XI.
REFORMERS AND THEIR RELATION TO CHRISTIANITY.
MY DEAR SIR:In the first letter of this correspondence I
had occasion to advert to Mr. Parker as a reformer,
and in that connection to speak with proper respect
of his principles and the value of his labors.  I
mentioned that in the introduction of his name in
many cases, I used it as the representative of a class.
I wish you so to understand it still. While it is
true that his published opinions represent, to some
extent, all the heresies and moral vagaries of the
times, yet as he is not " alone in his glory" in relation to many things of which we have spoken, and
are now about to speak, we design that you should
apply our remarks to others, and to yourself so far
as you "muster in the same company."
I wish in this letter to present in a connected
and more extended form what I believe to be the
true value of reform effort, and the relation of benevolent reforms to the gospel of Christ.  I am




176   REFORMERS AND  CHRISTIANITY.
sorry to know that your present alienation from
many with whom you once labored is occasioned,
in part at least, by what you believe to be " a defection from the principles of justice and mercy on the
part of those who claim to be, par excellence, the
disciples of Christ."  Now, I admit your charge,
and approve the sentiment, if not the spirit, of your
censure in some cases; but the facts that seem to
have alienated you from gospel fellowship, bind me
more devoutly to gospel truth and influence as our
only hope.
While I indorse, to some extent, the denouncements which you and Mr. Parker utter against those
who, professing to be Christians, yet by their silence,
or in other ways, "give aid and comfort to evildoers;" still, there is often a spirit of indiscriminate
denouncement and of uncharitableness of speech
which indicates something else than the " mind of
Christ" in the reprover.
Let the defection of professing Christians on the
subject of reforms be distinctly condemned. There
are cases which can not be contemplated by rightminded men without pity and abhorrence.  The
studied silence of ministers and whole denominations in regard to one of the most demoralizing and
anti-republican institutions under the sun —the gross




REFORMERS AND CHRISTIANITY.  177
inconsistencies of great church courts which condemn and disfellowship dancers and such like offenders while they fellowship actual sinners-the
defection of some who were true to humanity in the
beginning, but have been perverted by public sentiment, or awed into silence by worldly influencesthe purchase of others by great boards or church
powers, by offering them secretaryships, editorships,
and such like bribes-such cases are repulsive not
only to Christians but to all upright minds. I do
not believe as you do, that " Jesus would class such
men with Judas, as'a devil' whom the popular
church power bought to betray his master;" yet
that Jesus would look with disapprobation, if not
with anger, on such men, I can not doubt.
How far there may be palliation or apology for
such cases of defection, it is difficult to see. To
apologize for wrong-doing weakens the moral sentiment against wrong. The wisest way for individual
Christians and churches to do, would be to follow
the advice of Albert Barnes (which he has not followed himself), and separate themselves from all
church bodies and boards which tolerate and sanctify sin by giving it the communion,
Great church organizations are thought to be expedient, but they must, from the nature of the case,
8*




178   REFORMERS AND CHRISTIANITY.
embody in their extended limits much of worldly
influence and of sin. Many of them have power
to give men place and position. Hence they become
the objects of idolatrous regard with some, and
their sentiment and power control many others. It
is not strange, therefore, that men of aspiring minds,
who are dependent on them in a measure for position or reputation, should endeavor to propitiate
their power, even so far as to tolerate and apologize
for the sins which great bodies include in their
bosom.  "They sacrifice to their net, and burn
incense unto their drag, because by them their portion is fat, and their meat plenteous." Hab. i. 16.
But the true Christian, while he sees the cause
and deplores the consequence in such individual
cases, does not, therefore, denounce all church organization and all evangelical Christianity. Many
who followed Christ when he announced to them
popular truth, went back and walked no more with
him when he announced unpopular truth. And
one of the most enlightened of his professed friends
betrayed him on the charge of being the enemy of
the government. But would it have been wise in
the men of that age, while they condemned this defection and wickedness, to have refused allegiance
to Jesus as "the only name given under heaven




REFORMERS AND CHRISTIANITY.   179
among men, by which they must be saved?"  On
one such occasion Jesus said to the few faithful ones,
" Will ye also go away?"  One answered, "Lord,
to whom shall we go? thou hast the words of eternal life?" The apostacy of those men, whose motive is corrupted by worldly sentiment, or church
power, will only lead the true heart to cling more
closely to its master.
Let us, therefore, endeavor to discriminate in individual cases, between what is good and evil in
this matter.  I shall follow your objections and
allegations for the most part, but shall not deem it
necessary to quote, in an extended form, your words.
I wish to give your allegations all'the force they
deserve, while I show at the same time that in the
evangelical doctrine and power of our holy religion
is the only hope of good to men.
You speak of Christian ministers as " more Judaic than Christian, more orthodox than evangelical in their sentiments."  This I have no doubt is
true of some of the prominent theologians of this
and other countries. By a strange hallucination,
the introductory and imperfect system of Moses is
made, in many instances, the higher law in seeking
an exposition of the teachings of Jesus. The spirit
of both the Old and the New Testaments condemns




180   REFORMERS AND  CHRISTIANITY.
such a method of exposition. The Old Testament,
in its later periods especially, looked joyfully to
clearer light in the future. The New declared that
"the law made nothing perfect," else it would not
have been superseded.  Grace and truth are by Jesus
Christ. The error of interpreting the divine teachings of Jesus in accordance with a darker dispensation, and especially in accordance with the deteriorated principles and lkfe of the church in this age, is one
of the evils of our times. It is an error that has
prevailed in all ages, just in proportion as the
church has become worldly and wicked. The most
hopeful aspect of the age is, that a protest against
this and kindred abuses of the gospel is rising to
heaven, while it is stirring the hearts of thousands
upon earth. It gathers strength and volume, and
betokens a period of coming renovation.
But it is likewise said that we are more orthodox
than evangelical.  The charge is true only in some
cases. Orthodoxy without evangelism has been the
bane of the church in all ages. The Scribes and
Pharisees sat in Moses' seat, and in forms of faith
and non-essentials, their teaching was correct; and
yet Jesus denounced them  as the enemies of love
and righteousness.  The orthodox unevangelical
divines are the most subtle and difficult enemies that




REFORMERS AND CHRISTIANITY.  181
the true church of Christ has to deal with. In the
days of Edwards they resisted and persecuted him.
So they did Wesley; so they did Whitefield. Now
they build their tombs and laud their piety, and at
the same time persecute and denounce other men of
like spirit. In the next age the orthodox but uzevangelical theologians will build the tomb of Edwards and Finney, and persecute some other man
of God that denounces the sins of his age, whether
in the church or out of it.
What we want is not less orthodoxy, but more
of Christ's spirit-more love, more power in the
hearts of the ministry. The devil may be orthodox,
but not evangelical. The form of godliness without
its power, is the curse of the church and the world.
There are many churches, especially in our cities,
from which the poor are excluded as really as
though one of the elders stood at the door with a
club, to strike every man who did not have the
mark of the world on his forehead. Such arrange.
ments are from beneath, not from above; and many
of those who worship there, if they have any object, have only a selfish one-to add heaven to
their other possessions, just as they would add another farm to their domain. If Christ's gospel is
true, self-seeking, lower law, orthodox, unevangeli



182   REFORMERS AND CHRISTIANITY.
cal teachers, and such selfish worshipers, are not
ministers, or members, such as are required in the
New Testament church. Do not understand me as
denouncing the ministry and the churches.  God
forbid! Jesus did not mean to denounce the true
church when he reprobated the formal, selfish,
hypocritical majority of the Jewish teachers and
worshipers. There are hundreds of true ministers
and thousands of true Christians in the churches;
and true Christians are nowhere else; but now, as
in Christ's time, they have to fight with powers and
principalities, —with "spiritual wickedness" in the
church; as well as "the world, the flesh, and the
devil" out of the church.
In my opinion, a reformer who is endeavoring to
promote liberty and love in the world, is much better than a professor who turns a cold shoulder to
benevolent reforms. The one, without a profession
of the gospel, does by nature some things written in
the gospel. The other professing the gospel, denies
its spirit.
It may be asked, then, "What advantage hath
the Christian?"  " Much, every way."  His advantages are eminent and vital. Let us see.
Society can receive its final moral renovation only
by Christianity, and reforms can triumph in the end




REFORMERS AND  CHRISTIANITY.  183
only through Christian faith. Seneca and Plato,
who represent the highest moral attainment without
Christianity, say nothing about the wickedness of
slaveholding, and nothing about the intrinsic selfishness of living for the good of the individual or
class, and not for the good of the family of man.
They do not announce the principles of fraternity
and equality, nor do they reveal a faith which works
by love to God and men. They do not require those
who have means, light, liberty, to make self-denials
to confer the advantages they possess on those deprived of them. They did not send forth epistles
to urge the world to worship a common Father, and
to require men to labor for each other, as a common
brotherhood. They did not say, " Love your enemies," " Resist not evil," " God is love, and he that
loveth is born of God."  Yet these are the vital elements of all true reform, and without them reformation
from social, civil, and moral evil is impossible. Without the principles of Christianity, there is neither
the element nor the power necessary to reform the
world.
Further. Although reform principles may produce social progress, where they are urged and advocated without faith in Christ as a model or a
motive, yet the result -is only a temporary and a




184  REFORMERS  AND CHRISTIANITY.
temporal good. What the world needs most is an
increase of benevolence, something that tends to destroy
selfishness, andproduce love to God and nman. Now,
philosophy and religion say that love only can beget
love. Every thing begets its kind. A selfish mind,
by faith in Christ, becomes benevolent. HIence
faith in Christ, as a manifestation of the love of God,
is essential in order to motive power in the heart.
Knowledge of truth is needful, but it is not the one
thing needful in true reform.  Those who have
most knowledge are sometimes the worst men in
the land. The thing wanted is love for men as a
motive in the heart. We may know to do good,
and have no disposition to do it. We want something within that empowers conscience, and actuates
the will in accordance with the conviction of right.
This power must likewise be a love-power —a power
moving the affections. It must be a spiritual
power, so that we shall seek the spiritual good
as well as the temporal good of others. It must
likewise be a God-begotten power in the soul, or
our effort for men will not be to make them like
God, by leading them to love and obey him. Mere
conviction of right, without love for man, can be
bribed; and there is a natural love of man that is
mere instinct, more fully developed in some natures




REFORMERS AND CHRISTIANITY.  185
than in others. This has nature, not moral motive,
for its basis, and is easily overcome by interest, and
perverted by selfishness and passion. Hence what
the soul wants most after a knowledge of duty, is a
faith that works by love-a faith that causes the
man to act out his convictions under the influence
of the love-motive. Now we affirm  that faith in
Christ as the model and the motive, gives the soul
this guide and this power. Reform without gospel
faith may accomplish good, but it will be a good
that is earthly and local in its nature, and that does
not rise to the unselfish, the immortal, and the spiritual. God's love for man was revealed in Christ,
and man's love for man is begotten by faith in
Christ. Without this vitalizing faith, reform will
be a mere struggle of natural benevolence against
the predominating selfishness of the church and the
world.  The struggle will promote self-righteousness on
the one hand, and increase malignity on the other.
But, more than all, the true Christian aims to
bless all the interests of man. He looks upon man
as an immortal being-as having a soul as well as
a body. To emancipate a slave does not change his
character nor reform  his morals. To do good to
men temporally is good-to do good to them  temporally and spiritually is both better and best.




186   REFORMERS A-ND CHRISTIANITY.
Freedom from sin is a greater blessing than freedom from slavery. The gospel aims to accomplish
both. Reform, then, without Christianity, is but a
partial, a temporal, and an imperfect good. The
principle, the spirit, and the power of reform are
combined in the gospel.
There may be activity in reform which is accoempanied with a wrong spirit.  The denunciatory reformer would engage himself in the evil he denounces
if his locality or circumstances were altered.  Some of
the most self-elated, self-sufficient, and self seeking
men that I have known, have belonged to this class
of reformers. They labor for the right with a selfish and wrong spirit.  They speak the truth in
bitterness, and hence their truth becomes an occasion of hardening evil-doers, almost as much as the
withholding or perverting of truth by the self seeking and the unsanctified in the churches. The difference is, that truth, even though it be uttered in
a bad spirit, will enlighten and awaken conscience
in men-it will produce agitation, and hence ultimate benefit; while to pervert or withhold truth, is
to refuse the only remedy which the Almighty
prescribes for the evil of sin.
Let us have reform then-reform both in Church
and State. Progress is the order both of the phys



REFORMERS AND CHRISTIANITY.  187
ical and the moral world. But we can have no permanent reform without the impulse and guidance
of faith in Christ. The stability of reform must be
conscience, and the impulse in reform must be love.
But conscience and love are generated alone by
faith in Christ. When the reformer moves in the
sublimity of power, the momentum is generated in
the heart.
Yours for the right, the true, and the good.




LETTER XII.
REFORMS AND REFORMERS.
MY DEAR SIR:Permit me now, in conclusion, to notice what
I believe to be mistakes and mischiefs in the methods and opinions of Mr. Parker and his class of
reformers.
No one doubts but that a great advance will yet
be made in promoting equality and fraternity among
men. There are abuses in the social usages of the
world that need to be reformed; and the inquiry
with the philanthropist and the Christian is, by
what means can we best remove evil and promote
good? Now, I for one, as you know, believe that
but little good can be achieved by any one, no matter how good the intention may be, unless Christianity, according to the orthodox interpretation, be
made the central and vital element in the effort.
Some years ago there was a mania abroad in the
land in regard to associated labor; and many men
of good intentions-men who really supposed that




REFORMS AND  REFORMERS.    189
the highest good of themselves and others could
be promoted by common-stock and common-labor
communities -- united themselves in  associations
formed more or less on the Fourier plan. Wise
Christian men knew the experiments would fail;
but it required a large number of experiments, and
immense losses of property, and the wrecking of
many families, to convince the friends of the scheme
that it was impracticable for the ends they proposed
to gain. Associations which receive the Christian
faith as a bond of union have generally succeeded.
Such were the common-stock associations of the
early church of Christ; such are the Moravian associations, and others that might be named. But
associations founded on selfish principles can not
succeed. The motive inducing the effort is a selfdestructive one. The members of such associations
are drawn together, each one, by the motive to promote his own happiness and ease. Each individual
seeks his own good as the supreme end, and uses
the association as a means. Thus it is an aggregate
of self-seeking minds. Every selfish effort strengthens the selfish principle in.them, and an explosion
in the end follows as a natural consequence. The
Christian association seeks the good of the world by
means of association.  In their motive and labor




190    REFORMS AND REFORMERS.
the members seek to please Christ, not themselves.
For this end they make self-denials, because they
have a higher aim than self. They can find happiness in any labor which will promote the common
object. Self is not supreme, but subordinate. With
such motives association is possible, and generally
profitable to the members, conducive to individual
happiness, and to the glory of God.
All efforts of a philanthropic character should be
encouraged up to the line of practicability and
utility, but ult'ra action produces re-action; and there
are many men of good intentions and enthusiastic
minds who have little wisdom to judge either of
human character or the feasibility of schemes to
promote human good, who engage in popular reforms. The scheme of Christ includes the whole
family of man. Its means are available and beneficent, and adapted to its end. It seeks to engage
every individual both as a recipient and a disseminator of its blessings. It is pitiful to see those who
evidently are not so wise as Christ, rejecting the
divine scheme for a chimera of their own weak or
wicked minds.
Christianity favors efforts that will benefit men
temporally as well as spiritually. The Christian
can labor with those who reject Christ, in schemes




REFORMS AND REFORMERS.    191
to promote the mere temporal good of men, provided there be nothing to hinder him from seeking
in addition to this their highest good, by promoting
that faith which alone gives peace and right motive
in the soul. Most or all reforms that aim, in the
estimation of worldly men, merely at the temporal
good of men, are auxiliary to Christianity, and
hence Christians should aid in promoting them, not
only for temporal but ultimate good.
The land reform has beneficent phases. Monopoly of land is an injury and an evil. The system
of Moses gave each family of each generation the
privilege of accumulating, while yet it caused the
fee of the soil to revert once in fifty years, thus preventing monopoly of soil by industrious parents for
indolent children. This was the wisest and most
comprehensive scheme possible. In our own country, at the beginning, something like this reversion
law might have been adopted.  And even now,
while the rewards of industry should be sacredly
protected, a policy should be adopted to prevent a
monopoly of the untilled soil by men of capital.
Let capital have its reward in other directions, but
not by excluding actual cultivators of the land, nor
by raising the prices of the virgin soil against those
who desire to cultivate.




192    REFORMS AND REFORMERS.
The vagaries of reformers who make no allowance
for the different degrees of bodily or mental strength
in individuals-who would give indolence the same
reward as industry-who would give the wicked a
bribe, and vice the means of indulgence, are contrary to nature, and injurious to good morals. Such
vagaries are worse than weakness. Every plan that
does not reward industry, calculation, and enterprise,
is at war with virtue, and in league with vice. In
this country, where all have equal chances, the
prevention of monopolies is the main duty of those
who seek to promote human welfare.
But in all associations, whether for reformation or
for social protection and benefit, there is one central
and universal defect which can be remedied only by
Christianity.
The masonic institution, and other secret associations, may seek to some extent the moral and
temporal good of their members, and of those connected with their members; but secret association
gives men an advantage of their neighbors, if they
are willing to take it. And beside, such associations are good or bad according to the character of
their individual members. Where  the general
prevalence of Christianity has made the members
better, lodges are better. Where the temperance




REFORMS AND  REFORMERS.    193
reform banishes intoxicating drinks, lodges are
sober.  They are in themselves good or evil as
Christian agencies from without the lodge have
affected them.
Then there is still the central defect, a selfish motive. Providence has made a difference in the condition of men. Some are defective in body, in
mind, in health. Some are laboring under evils by
circumstances which society has induced.   For
these no selfish association can make provision.
Christianity brings the influence of love, fraternity,
and the authority of Christ to bear on its disciples,
as motives to induce them to relieve those who, by
providential arrangements, need relief, without respect of persons, of birth, or of sex. The most decrepid and needy are to be aided first, whether they
be in one set of circumstances or another.: Christianity is the complement of Providence. It is the system God has ordained to work into the inequalities
of natural providence, and thus to balance natural
evil by moral good. Provident associations of mechanics, or moral associations for the promotion of
temperance and virtue, may be auxiliary to this
great end; but Christianity alone, by church organization and by individual effort and beneficence,
meets the imperfections of natural providences and
9




194    REFORMS AND  REFORMERS.
balances them. Hence Christianity is a part of the
divine economy of the world; and if its requirements were fully carried out, in act and spirit, there
would be no evils to reform which would not be
reached by human agency.
It is evident, then, that reformers, even if engaged in a good cause, are fools and blind in all
cases, just so far as they reject the plan and the
power offered by evangelical Christianity.
Those who seek to promote what are called
" woman's rights,'" have a good object in view so far
as they aim to promote equal legislation in relation
to marital rights and parental duties. They pursue
laudable objects when they seek to ameliorate the
condition of female workers, and to advance wages
in all cases in proportion to the value of the service.
But when they labor to make women public speakers, or public actors in politics, or in any masculine
endeavor, they are doing injury to society by acting
against the constitution of nature and the revealed
will of God.
The male is armed by nature for defense. He is
strong to provide. He is voiced for public speech.
The female is unarmed, and voiced only for social
speech. A hen can crow, but it is ridiculous, and
indicative of unmaternal qualities, when she does.




REFORMS AND REFORMERS.    195
A woman, by an effort against nature, can give a
public harangue, and can say things often more
witty and beautiful than most men would say on
the same subject. So some men could do certain
domestic duties better than some women; but the
change to accommodate the exceptions would be
unnatural and unwise. There is no public speaking to be done that can not find advocates of the
best talent among men; and the influence which
social effort will produce for any cause in which a
woman ought to be interested, will always be
greater and better than any she could exercise by a
public exhibition of herself. We say public exhibition of herself, because there are many persons
who will go to see a woman speak in public, that
attend to look at her person and gestures, and the
flush of her excitement; and for no better purpose.
Public places and speeches attract all sorts of characters. A woman may excite certain characters to
applause which arises from a source that a chaste
mind would abhor. Continued attention to work
or office, every week for years, is of most value in
all responsible labors. This married women could
not give. Hence, male duties and wages, in such
cases, is impossible.
The contention for the ballot is an indication of




196    REFORMS AND  REFORMERS.
like folly. The ballot is not given, as the common
plea supposes, to represent property. If that were
so; the rich would vote, as the slaveholders do, for
their chattels. Every man who is a citizen has a
ballot, whether he own property or not. Where
the property of the country is represented' in legislative bodies by those who have an equal interest
with others, then every property-holder is represented whether they cast their ballot or not.
The incongruity to nature and circumstances of a
woman's making speeches and voting is so palpable, that the evil can never gain much favor with
the public. If all women were to vote, it would
only double the number of votes, without increasing the strength of either side in civil questions,
and if they had a ballot-box of their own, the Irish
Catholic women would kill off our wives. In moral
questions, the social influence of women to lead
men to vote right is greater in the result than any
thing that could be gained by antagonistic public
action. Nature has made men the providers and
the protectors, and has devolved duties upon a married woman that incapacitates her from providing,
while it renders her necessarily the inmate of the
home. The duties of most men require all days of
the year in a steady employment. Nature forbids




REFORMS AND REFORMERS.   197
this ability to woman. A  "woman's rights" lady
might say to her like-minded sister, " Send your
son John down this evening, and I will let my
daughter Lucy go home with him  after dark, to
protect him from night rowdies;" but such a speech
would be supremely ridiculous;-not more so, however, than the aims of Mr. Parker and others, who
adopt the vagaries of foolish men and women in
regard to what they call " woman's rights."
Let the women rule where only true happiness is
found-in the home and social circle. Let the men,
as nature requires, rule in public works, public assemblies, and out-door life. In families, as there
can be only one will in relation to removals, expenditures, and many joint interests, if there be two
opinions, after kind examination, which is seldom
the case, then, as one will must govern in the case,
the nature of things, in all ordinary instances, makes
the husband's will supreme. If one or the other
must yield, the husband is by the law of nature and
revelation, the head of the family.
As we have stated, there is provision made against
the possibility of much evil from the hallucinations
of ultra reformers in this direction; but their effort
repels many who desire to promote real reform.
There are employments which women might fill



198    REFORMS AND REFORMERS.
there are trades which they might learn. In the
practice of some branches of the medical profession
women might do much good, and in some cases do
it more appropriately than men. Let us not cease
then to seek the good in this matter because of the
vagaries of fools.
There is a class of reformers who are moved by
their sympathies rather than by the reason and justice of the case. This class of men sometimes become dangerous to the well-being of society. They
sympathize with scoundrels, and seek to save them
from just penalties. They would make the penitentiary a place of comfortable retirement for villains; and thus induce such a state of things, that
those who had never been there, would have no
dread of the crime that would send them there; and
those who had been there would be prepared for
any villainy, if going back to light labor and comfortable quarters was the only consequence.  To
provide for the health and moral reform of criminals
is proper, but to make their penalty a punishment
is a duty, which it is crime against society to neglect.
The persons alluded to may be called instinctive
reformers, becauses their impulses are organic, not
moral. They frequently misdirect their compassion,
because the impulse, in their case, is the highest




REFORMS AND  REFORMERS.    199
law. But as subjection of the will to instinctive
compassion is much better than subjection of the
will to a corrupt public sentiment, hence the natural
reformer may be a better man than a corrupt Christian teacher.  But both are wrong in the main
matter.  There is the susceptibility of sympathy
even in the lower animals. When one suffers, its
cry will rally others of its class to the rescue.
When the cry of distress is heard among animals,
if one should tale sides with the enemy that was
crushing its suffering fellow, instead of rallying to
the relief, it would be an apostate even from the
best principles of brute nature. The "natural reformer" obeys the highest impulses of his naturethe professed Christian, who is not a reformer, has
apostatized both from the higher impulses of humanity and from  Christ. But the true Christian
obeys Christ, and by faith the higher instincts of humanity become rational and moral in their exercise.
Let us apply these principles to some of the ultra
notions of Mr. Parker and others. They speak of
capital punishment, and denounce those who maintain the justice of the death penalty. They do this
in common ad captandum phrase  Now, while it is
admitted that none but the willful and deliberate
murderer should die, it can not be slhown that the




200    REFORMS AND  REFORMERS.
Scriptures, or the principles of mercy guided by
justice and reason, would permit the deliberate murderer to live. Sympcathy with the mzere suffering of
criminals is suspicious.
Suppose I witness a pirate-ship attack a packet,
and murder in cold blood the crew and passengers.
I witness immediately after a revenue-cutter attack
the pirate, and destroy the murderers of the innocent. There was as much of animal suffering in
the one case as the other. But if I feel for the sufferings of the pirates as I do for the murdered passengers, I am a brute, possessing blind compassion
without a sense of justice; or else I am a pirate at
heart, sympathizing with like character.
It is painful to read the remarks of such reformers when they talk mawkishly about the momentary
suffering of the murderer, while not a word is said,
and apparently not an emotion felt, in view of the
various, protracted, and  excruciating  sufferings
which the villain may have inflicted upon his innocent victim.
It is an error to place the mercy of the New Testament in antagonism to capital punishment.  The
cardinal principles of the Christian Scriptures recognize the rectitude of the voluntary suffering of individuals, when it is necessary for the good of the




REFORMS AND  REFORMERS.    201
whole, and of penal infliction when necessary as
penalty for violated law. Even the death-penalty
is recognized as proper when executed as a penalty. Paul says, " If I have done any thing worthy
of death, I refuse not to die." Thus implying that
such crimes were possible, and such penalty proper.
The Mosaic institutions were for a peculiar people,
in the initiatory stages of civilization and piety;
but the Great Teacher sanctioned the death-penalty
under the law of Moses, and thereby taught that
taking life as a penalty is not wrong in itself.
Hence the true inference is, that while it may be
proper under the gospel to abate the death-penalty
in all minor cases of crime, yet the infliction of the
penalty on the part of society can never be shown
to be wrong in itself. Jesus said to the Scribes
and Pharisees who had abrogated the death-penalty
in the case of the drunken, stubborn, and rebellious
son that cursed his parents, and could not be re.
formed (Matt. xv.), " God commanded, saying, Honor
thy father and thy mother, and he that curseth father or
mother let himv die the death; but ye say otherwise,
and thus' mnake the commandment of God of none
effect.' "
The ultimate principle, admitted by all, is, that as
life is the highest individual good, it should be pro



202    REFORMS AND REFORMERS.
tected by the highest penalty. If no other than the
death-penalty will so certainly protect the life of the
innocent, then those who would spare the life of the mur.
derer, do it at the expense of the'life of the innocent.
Now it has never been proved, and can not be, that
imprisonment for life is a security against future
murder by the condemned. A criminal was condemned by a jury to be hung for deliberate murder, in a neighboring State, a few years since.
This penalty was commuted to imprisonment for
life. In less than three years, he was pardoned;
and for the crimes he has since since committed in
Texas, the sympathizers with this murderer are
guilty.
Commutation, or sentence to life imprisonment,
endangers witnesses both before and after trial. A
man of fifty commits a theft.  He knows an imprisonment of ten years will follow the proof. Will he
not thus be bribed to murder the witness?  tiis
penalty for both crimes can be no greater than that
for the least; and if he murders the witness he
hopes to escape. Will not the discontinuance of
the death penalty transform most thieves into murderers? It has done so in many cases. If they
commit the murder it is only imprisonment for a
longer term, and that penalty doubtful; if they kill




REFORMS AND  REFOR0MERS.    203
their victim, his testimony is impossible, and chances
of escape are greater, while the penalty is in many
cases no greater. Will it not take away from the
public mind an impression of the sanctity of life, and
thus in the estimation of villains decrease their sense
of the guilt of murder?  Michigan has been for
some years the paradise of villains, owing, as all
reason teaches, to the low estimate of guilt, and the
light penalty of crime prevailing in that State. A
virtuous community will punish the guilty. An
immoral community will punish them by impulse,
or not at all. The remission of the death-penalty
has produced in Wisconsin, and is now producing
in some other States, the most dreadful outrages.
The conscience which God has given men says the
murderer should die. This has been its testimony
in all ages and in all time. When an immoral philanthropy remits the death-penalty, natural conscience is outraged, and men rise in mobs to inflict
vengeance upon the murderer.
The pleas usually urged against the death-penalty
have no real foundation either in morals or in reason.  It is said that in some cases the innocent
suffer death, and no remuneration can be made.
So they may suffer imprisonment for life, and no
remuneration can be made. Imperfection may at



204    REFORMIS AND  REFORME1lS.
tach to all law and penalty that is based upon testirnony; but even this possible  evil might be
guarded against by sentence of imprisonment, without pardon, when doubt of the fact were possible.
It is said, again, that society, when it takes life
for life, commits the same crime with the malefactor.
Shame on such solecisms; then when we confine a
murderer for life, we commit a crime equal in guilt
to that of the criminal. When society takes a certain sum as penalty from a man who damaged his
neighbor, it commits the same offense with the
criminal, does it'? If there were a society of devils
for the promotion of crime, such arguments would
receive a premium.
But life is sacred.  It ought not to be taken in
any case. It can be forfeited only to him who gave
it. The statement is false in fact and in theory.
If Mr. Parker were attacked by an assassin, with
deadly weapons, and with the known intent to kill,
it would be his duty to save his own life by taking
the life of the murderer.  Now, is not life forfeited
as much after the act as before?  It is certain that
the guilt is as great, and that justice and universal
conscience would affirm the same penalty after as
before the fact.
It is said society is guilty in view of the imperfect




REFORMS AND  REFORMERS.    205
provision made for the moral and intellectual training of the masses of the people. If our school system be inadequate or partial, it should be reformed
and strengthened; but this, while it would prevent
the development of evil, in many cases would not
prevent crime.  It is a fallacy to argue that the
absence of remedies used to prevent an evil is the
cause of that evil. If the argument were true, all
who have inadequate intellectual and moral training
would be alike criminals; which statement is false
and slanderous.
It is said, again, by the philosophers of the
Fowler school, that the propensity to crime is organic; that criminal acts arise from the unbalanced
impulsion of certain developments; and that therefore the criminal should be an object of pity rather
than a subject for penalty. If this be true, then
the Calvinistic sjystem, which these reformers take
pains to deride, is true in its utmost stringency. If
this were true, then murderers should be exterminated for the same reason that we kill a viper or a
tiger. Both are the natural enemies of human life;
and reform in one case would be just as possible
as in the other. The Chinese, who kill both the
criminal and his children to prevent the propagation
of crime, would be right. Such a philosophy ig



206    REFORMS AN[1) REFORMERS.
nores reform  efforts of all kinds. Reform in that
case would be possible only by knocking in the evil
developments on the head with a hammer. The
Fowler philosophy perpetrates the error of all
superficial thinkers. It takes facts, true only as a
general expression, and derives particulars from
them. It likewise applies its principles wrong-end
foremost. It makes development govern mind instead of urging the true application, that it is the
character of the mind that produces the peculiarities
of development in the body. The seed produces
the tree-not the tree the seed. A bad spirit produces bad development. The law of creation and
of philosophy agrees with the Scriptures that " every
seed produces its own body, and'so it will be in the
resurrection.' "
But it is argued that murderers dread imprisonment for life as much as they do the gallows. All
facts, and all consciousness in all men, deny this assertion. If this be true, why do criminals and their
friends seek a commutation of penalty?  Why do
all murderers joyfully accept commutation? Even
the devil concedes the falsehood of this statement
when he said, "All that a man hath will he give
for his life."
Penalty is designed to prevent as well as to pun



REFORMS AND REFORMERS.  207
ish crime.  The death-penalty is the highest restraint that can possibly be opposed to murder.
Murder is unlike all other crimes. It is the crime
of crimes: but it can never be distinguished as such
without inflicting upon the murderer the highest
penalty.  B13y the death-penalty the murderer is
taught to value the life of others as he does his
own.  This is the golden rule.  And unless death be
the penalty, a villain meditating crime can never
value the life of another as he does his own. By
the imprisonment-penalty he is taught to value the
life of his neighbor as little as he values imprisonment in the penitentiary.  Who dares to teach
murderers this low estimate of life?
It is said that facts and statistics prove that imprisonment is a remedy as effectual in preventing
murder as the death-penalty. This is not proved;
and I believe it is not true. Facts, as far as they
go, prove the contrary. The instances alleged in
favor of abolishing the death-penalty, those of Catharine of Russia and the government of Tuscany,
were of too short duration to prove any thing.  On
the other side, we have the case in the German
States, where the statistics are accurate, and sufficient time for a fair experiment has been allowed.
The " Conversation-Lexicon," a work of the highest




208    REFORMS AND  REFORMERS.
authority concerning German topics, says, "Those
States where, from a one-sided benevolence, the
government wished to abolish capital punishment,
were compelled again to avail themselves of it, and
that on the ground that in the opinion of men death
is the greatest of evils, in preference to which they
would willingly undergo the most laborious life,
with some hopes of escape from  it, because the
death-penalty is the most terrible of penalties."
Wordsworth, a man of the most highly-endowed
intellect, the purest and the warmest benevolence,
in the London Quarterly Review, No. 137, says:
" Whenever it appears to be good foi mankind, according to the arrangements of Providence, that
death should be inflicted by human ministration, it
is a false humility, a false humanitty, and a false piety,
for a man to refuse to be the instrument."*
Robespierre resigned his office in early life rather
than sign a warrant for the execution of a criminal.
His future life showed him to be a monster destitute
by nature of the sense of justice.
The following passage in Blackstone (Book IV.
chap. i.) should not be forgotten: " In France the
punishment of robbery, either with or without murder, is the same; hence it is that though perhaps
* See Cheever on Capital Punishment.




REFORMS AND  REFORMERS.    209
they are subject to fewer robberies, yet they never rob
but they also murder. In China murderers are cut
to pieces, but robbers not; hence in that country
they never murder on the highway, though they often
rob." Is not this satisfactory proof that the man,
or the legislature, that, through sympathy with
criminals, aids to abolish the death-penalty, thereby
stimulates villains to murder the innocent.
If this is not sufficient, take a fact nearer home.
Capital punishment was abolished several years
since in Michigan. The grand jury of Wayne
County in that State made a presentment to the
legislature, in which they say: "Facts, we are informed, have occurred in our midst, proving that
some of the murderers in this county have been
influenced and urged forward to their deeds of
wickedness through the consideration that the deathpenalty has been abolished from our penal code."
Much might be added, showing that in some cases
imprisonment for life is a bribe to commit murder;
in other cases it is no penalty, and in all cases it
places the murderer where no further penalty for
crime is possible. He may murder his keeper; he
may poison the prison well, and thus murder all the
inmates; his life is sacred, and he is above law;
no further penalty can be inflicted.




210    REFORMS AND  REFORMERS.
That paragraph of your letter which is designed
to have a point touched with sarcasm, which alludes
to the repentance of murderers and the hanging of
Christians, is to be regretted. The Bible nowhere
teaches that willful murderers ever exercise repentance unto life.  "No murderer hath eternal life
abiding in him." That murderers repent, no one
doubts.  Judas repented and went to "his own
place." Repentance is either selfish or holy. If
it is repentance in view of the consequence to one's
self; it produces remorse, or deceives the mind.
Every criminal repents when the hand of the sheriff
is on his shoulder. This is forced repentance. It
is the murderer's repentance. It is honest repentance.  But it is "repentance unto death."  Not
holy repentance, produced by faith in Christ.
Some I know believe that true repentance in such
cases is possible. If it be possible, the death-penalty is
much more likely to produce repentance than the penalty of imprisonment. Dr. Webster, while there was
hope of escape or commutation, maintained the
falsehood that he was innocent. When sentence
was passed, and pardon or commutation denied, he
became penitent and truthful. In " Bemis' Report,"
in Webster's last conversation with the sheriff he
says: " All the proceedings in my case have been




REFORMS AND  REFORMERS.    211
just. The court have discharged their duty. The
law officers of the commonwealth did their duty,
and no more. The verdict of the jury was just.
The sentence of the court was just; and it is just
that Ishould die on the scaffold, in accordance with
that sentence."  Thus does the sentence of death,
when there is no hope of escape, produce in some
cases honest repentance. In Webster's statement
that his sentence was just, and that he deserved to
die, we have the same evidence given in many other
cases when the crime is confessed. It is the decision of the human conscience, one which ought not
to be violated, that the man who deliberately takes
the life of his neighbor forfeits his own. The man
who refuses to award this highest penalty to the
highest crime manifests a corrupted sympathy, rejects the decisions of an honest conscience, and the
conviction  of human reason in all ages, and
strengthens the hands of the guilty against the innocent.
Yours truly.
We have now traveled over the Philosophical, the
Theological, and Reform vagaries of Theodore Parker, and have occasionally referred to others who
are affiliated with the abnormal moral movements




212    REFORMS AND REFORMERS.
of our times. We have endeavored to separate the
pure from the vile, and to reject nothing good, while
we repudiated the evil. Perhaps we have, in our
desire to grant all that charity demanded, allowed
some things to stand as truth which the betterinformed may condemn as error. We have done
what we could. To God and sincere inquirers we
commend the effort.




LETTER XIII.
WRITTEN REVELATION A NECESSITY IN ORDER TO THE
MORAL DEVELOPMENT AND MORAL PROGRESS OF
MANKIND.
MY DEAR SIR:
You express a doubt whether there be any
Revelation as I understand that word, and invite a
statement of "reasons." lHealth will scarcely permit me to pursue this correspondence, yet the hopes
awakened by your last note encourage me to give
"reasons for the faith that is in me."
I think it was the son of Sirach who said that
"all things are set over against each other."  A
wiser than either Sirach or his son says, "Man was
not made for the Sabbath, but the Sabbath for
man."
There is a collocation of the providences of God
with the developments of human life; and there -is
an adjustment of moral appliances and means to human faculties, in order to produce the progressive
development of the human family. Wherever any




214      WRITTEN  REVELATION.
distinct adaptation in the universal fitness of things,
is seen to be harmonious with other adjustments
and perfect in itself, the conclusion is infallible that
it is a part of that "stupendous whole" "whose
builder and maker is God."
Now, Mr. Parker will no doubt admit the validity
of this principle as applied to the natural world;
but he will deny that the Bible is of God, and that
its dispensations have an adaptation to the moral
progress of mankind.
With Mr. Parker and his class of thinkers, reason
and conscience are the highest guides of men; with
the Christian, reason when enlightened by divine
revelation, and conscience when empowered by divine authority, unite in the guidance of men.
Now, in my opinion this question can be settled.
It can be shown that the Christian is right, and that
the Bible is a necessary means in order to the development of man as an individual, and of mankind
as a family.
We inquire, then, is the Bible of God? Was it
made for man?
Let me premise that in the remarks which follow
I do not propose to discuss any question concerning
discrepancies in the Old Testament. There may be
historical discrepancies and interpolations-there




WRITTEN  REVELATION.             215
may be fables added in some of the minor books to
the proper matter of revelation-there may be books
in the canon whose places are not rightly adjusted.
These questions we leave to the learned. Men of
sense will inquire concerning the only thing that
is of vital interest to them, i. e., Was the dispensation given by Moses revealed by divine authority
to the Jews? and is the Christian dispensation a
perfect, ultimate, and obligatory dispensation from
God designed for all mankind, "to be manifested
[to all] in due time?"
In speaking of the Old Testament as revealed to
and for the Jews, we do not hence infer that as
Christians we have no moral connections with the introductory dispensation. My views of this connection you have read, and the Christian public, on
both sides of the sea, have approved, in the volume
referred to. I make the preceding suggestions, only
that your mind may be separated from some things
which seem to trouble you, but which are not of importance in connection with our present inquiries.
Mr. Parker, and the skeptics generally, hold that
reason —including intuitional and reflective reason
-is a sufficient guide for men in matters relating
to God. We can not see how men who are conversant with human history, some of whom have made




216      WRITTEN  REVELATION.
philosophy a study, can adopt such an opinion.
The highest result that reason can give on this.
subject has been worked out in such a variety of
circumstances, that a man who fails to learn a lesson that all experience teaches, must have a will
over which reason has, in some measure, lost its influence.
The testimony of universal experience is, that all
men have an idea of the existence of God. But men
can not have an intuition of the character of God,
for the plain reason that a knowledge of character
implies comparison, quality, and hence requires a
process of reason. It is a shallow fallacy in philosophy, that Mr. Parker should assume, as he does,
that men have an innate idea of the character as
well as the being of God. The moral duties of men
to each other may be learned in a good measure by
experience, even up to the measure of the golden
rule. I know the effect which the conduct of another has upon myself. I judge of that conduct,
whether it is in itself right or wrong; and hence,
by this process, I can determine what would be
right in my neighbor's case, were our circumstances
changed. Reason is clouded in men, and it is developed slowly in nations; hence, while rules of
human morality may be developed by reason, yet




WRITTEN  REVELATION.              217
it is only in the best ages and in the highest minds
that these higher moral conceptions have appeared.
But the character of God and the duties of man to
his Maker, are different things. Man without faith
has no immediate experience of the divine character,
and having a mixed experience by Providence, it is
absolutely impossible for reason to clothe the idea
of God with the moral attributes which belong to
the divine nature.
Now, the universal experience of nations and races
of men has certified these facts. The highest attainment of reason in relation to God has been skepticism, or diversity. This was the result in India, in
Greece, in Rome, in France, in Germany, and in
America. In all ages and nations which have furnished an opportunity for the ultimate development
of the reason, the results have been the same.
Greece gathered all the gods of all nations into
her capital city. This was the ultimatum of human
reason, in the direction of variety. Her philosophers believed in a divine being; but, while they
doubted of all the idolatries of the people, they differed as much among themselves as the people did
in relation to prevalent superstitions. Such was
also the development in Rome. Tully and others
expressed the ultimatum of reason in the affirmation,
10




218      WRITTEN  REVELATION.
that all things in relation to the gods and the future
world were matters of doubt.
Reason reached the same ultimatum in France and
Germany. Revelation in those countries was either
forbidden or perverted. The people followed the
prevailing superstition, while the philosophers
reached a skepticism that was malignant and terrible in its effects on human character and human
happiness; so terrible, that the people who had
been seduced by it, were glad to take refuge again
in the stronghold of the old superstition, as the least
of two evils.
The highest result that reason could attain, unaided by revelation, and aided by all the light and
experience of past ages, was wrought out fairly in
France. It was a complete triumph of skepticism.
Every thing concerning God, and man, and the
future was involved in utter doubt. Reason triumphed, and ultimated in the worship of herself,
in the form of a profligate woman. Reason even
doubted her own affirmations; and only enough of
light was left to see the darkness into which she had
plunged.
This the best minds of the age stated, in words
full of true and solemn portent —words which should
teach others to recede from the abyss into which




WRITTEN REVELATION.                         219
these  skeptical philosophers  looked  before  they
fell.*
In Great Britain and America skepticism  can not
* Diderot, dying after a life of doubt and disappointment, said to
friends that stood by his couch to close his eyes in the last sleep, " I
am about to take a leap in the dark."
The justly-celebrated Rousseau uttered a striking description of
the results of skepticism, and the moral character and aim of skeptics.
It is true to life, and true for all time-a picture of the highest product of reason unaided by revelation.
He said:
" I have consulted our philosophers, I have perused their books,
I have examined their several opinions. I have found them all
proud, positive, and dogmatizing, even in their pretended skepticism, knowing every thing, proving nothing, and ridiculing one another; and this is the only point in which they concur, and in
which they are right. Daring when they attack, they defend themselves without vigor. If you consider their arguments, they have
none but for destruction; if you count their number, each one is reduced to himself; they never unite but to dispute; to listen to
them was not the way to relieve myself from my doubts. I conceive that the insufficiency of the human understanding was the
first cause of this prodigious diversity of sentiment, and that pride
was the second. If our philosophers were able to discover truth,
which of them would interest himself about it?  Each of them
knows that his system is not better established than the others;
but he supports it because it is his own: there is not one among
them who, coming to distinguish truth from falsehood, would not
prefer his own error to the truth that is discovered by another.
Where is the philosopher who, for his own glory, would not willingly
deceive the whole human race? Where is he who, in the secret of
his heart, proposes any other object than his own distinction? Provided he can but raise himself above the commonalty, provided he
can eclipse his competitor, he has reached the summit of his ambition.
The great thing for him is to think differently from other people.
Among believers he is an atheist, among atheists a believer. Shun,




220    WRITTEN REVELATION.
become  so  prevalent, because  in  these  countries
Christianity is better understood; and where it does
prevail, it will seek to  attach  to itself many of the
virtues which Christianity has introduced: but the
result of the  unguided  reason  can  in  no  circumstances be any thing better than doubt, varied in its
form  by  the diversity  of the  different minds that
propagate it.  Which  one  of the English  skeptics
agreed with another in  respect *to the character of
God or human duty?*  Who agrees with Theodore
Parker or Joseph  Barker in  America?   No  one
ever did or ever can. Skeptics agree in doubt, but
they  can  not agree  concerning  the  things  about
which  they  doubt.  The  effort to  propound  any
shun then those who, under pretense of explaining nature, sow in
the hearts of men the most dispiriting doctrines, whose skepticism is
far more affirmative and dogmatical than the decided tone of their
adversaries.  Under pretense of being themselves the only people
enlightened, they imperiously subject us to their magisterial decisions, and would fain palm upon us for the true causes of things
the unintelligible systems they have erected in their own heads;
while they overturn, destroy, and trample under foot all that mankind reveres, snatch from the afflicted the only comfort left them in
their misery, from the rich and great the only curb that can restrain
their passions; tear from the heart all remorse of vice, all hopes of
virtue, and still boast themselves the benefactors of mankind.' Truth,' they say,' is never hurtful to man.' I believe that as well
as they, and the same, in my opinion, is a proof that what they
teach is not the truth."
* See Leland and Gregory.




WRITT EN  REVELATION.              221
thing positive is, in all cases, a failure; and in most
cases-as in Priestley's form of worship and Parker's
philosophy of God —the effort is ridiculous as it is
futile. The wandering mind feels the need of something positive in religion; and having rejected revealed truth, it seeks to attain from reason such
baseless dogmas as Parker's " idea, sense, and conception of God." The mind of man was made to
rest in faith; and when skepticism deprives men of
this support, the soul feels more of unrest and deprivation than do the heathen, who rest in a false
faith.  Unaided reason can doubt, but it can not
affirm anv thing in relation to God and the future
that will satisfy the soul.
Man was not made to be the victim of skepticism.
Heathenism is better than this, just as ignorance is
better than aberration.  Revelation was made for
man; made to elevate the races progressively, from
a state of nature to a state of grace; made to spread
from families to nations, and finally to reach all
mankind.
But leaving strictures on doubt and negation,
which are to positive religion as night is to the day,
let us look at some thoughts which may prepare us
more intelligently to consider the positive side of
the argument, which maintains that the Christian




222      W RITT E N  REVELATION.
Scriptures are a revelation from God, containing the
ultimate rule of faith and duty.
All things are progressive in their development.
Individually or socially considered, in the life-history
of things there is an infancy; youth, and maturity.
"First the blade, then the ear, then the full corn in
the ear." The Scriptures affirm this principle. The
family of man are, as a family, subject to this law.
There are ages of infancy, of youth or tuition, and
of maturity. The first law would be one relating
to animal wants, and adapted to the period of childhood. Hence the law, "Thou shalt not eat forbidden fruit," and those of similar character.  Hence*
the name of God as Al-Shaddi, God of Power, or
God of Nature, as known to the patriarchs.
The second dispensation would be adapted to
man's tuition in the next stage of development.
Hence the Mosaic: which, as pictures in a child's
primer, with explanations attached; and a written
moral law in the briefest form, gave to man a more
perfect idea of God and of moral duties.
The third stage would be the ultimate and perfect-" the full corn in the ear."
The first stage, or patriarchal, would develop itself from the family into a nation; the second from.
the nation to all nations.




WRITTEN  REVELATION.              223
Men of the Christian age, together with the knowledge of their own dispensation, get the knowledge
generated and transmitted by the two preceding
ones. The foundation-principles of these were developed into the final and perfect form of Christianity.
The vital importance of thefamily-especially its
law of duty and obedience-is developed fully in
the first dispensation. Abraham is chosen because
he will instruct and command his children (Gen.
xviii. 19). In all ages of revelation this important
principle needed to be understood. Families trained
to obey righteous authority, and having their consciences and hearts nurtured by the admonition and
fear of God, are the anchor-hope of a free state.
Man needs to know also the relation of a state,
as a whole, to the divine government; that every
state has its probation; that departure from righteous principle will, in the end, bring dissolution and
disaster. This is the teaching of the national history of Israel. It exhibits to all ages the principles
upon which God administers his govermnent over
favored nations, and the discipline which they must
incur for national offenses against justice and mercy.
These three stages of development are likewise
exhibited in individuals. There is first the animal,




224      WRITTEN  REVELATION.
when animal appetite governs. Second, the intellectual period of growth, when law and penalty
governs. Third (for those who rise to it), a dispensation of love and fruit-bearing, when faith
governs.
There are likewise the lineaments of these three
stages in the advance of each individual that enters
the kingdom of heaven on earth. An illustration
is furnished in the experience of Paul. Before he
became a Jew spiritually, i. e., before he apprehended
the law as being from God, and obligatory upon his
mind, he was free from a sense of sin; he was sensual, governed by his own natural impulses. Second, when he realized the spirituality of the law, he
became a true Pharisee; felt condemned for sin;
and endeavored to escape condemnation by works
of law. Third, he was made free by faith; and that
which before was a work of the intellect and will,
without inward love and impulse, now became easy
and holy, being prompted by love which was produced by faith in Christ. Through this process, in
some degree, passes every individual who rises frorm
nature thlrough convictiont into grace.
Hence also the three developments of the name
of Jehovah. Al-Shaddai, God of nature or of power.
Second, Jehovah. A development of the same name




WVRIBTTEN REYEL ATION.          225
known to the fathers (Ex. vi. 3); but, in the second dispensation, to be changed from  Al-Shaddai
to Jehovah, who now developed himself in moral
law and tuition. In the third, Father, Son, and
/ioly Spirit-the God of power, and developed by
law and tuition into the God of grace. Thus by
the progressive development of the divine character, has the human mind been raised through the
first and second, into the third and ultimate state
of knowledge.
With these preliminary remarks, I invite your
attention to the following train of thought, as proof
of the Necessity of a Written Revelation.
I have in my published volumes discussed the details of the statements which follow. An outline
view will indicate the course of thought which you
will find more fully and carefully stated in the volumes which I send you.
Every species of nature may be cultivated. Its
properties or faculties may be improved. This is
true in a general sense; and especially true as we
rise toward the higher species. But the improvement of any species must come from one higher
than itself. There may be choice individuals pro10o




226       WRITTEN  REVELATION.
duced by chance circumstances, but no species can
raise itself above its natural level.
Now, a distinguishing characteristic of man is,
that he is both a cultivable and a cultivating being.
IIe cultivates the species of nature fitted to his use,
while he himself is capable of moral culture.
But as it requires man's superior powers of intellect and example to cultivate the orders below
him, and raise them  above their natural condition,
so it requires the powers of a being above man to
elevate him, as a moral being, into a new sphere of
thought and feeling.  The conclusion, therefore,
arises not only from the analogy but from the necessity of things, that man cultivates nature, and Christ
cultivates man.
But what are the means of culture adapted to
man's nature as a moral being?  There are four,
namely, written language, faith, conscience, and example.  Faith and conscience are subjective susceptibilities, and written language and example are
objective means answering to them; And by the
interaction of these, man may be cultivated into the
sphere of a superior species.  But the external
means must be exercised by an agency superior to
himself, or he will never rise above his natural
selfish and earthly nature.




W RI TT E N R EV E LATIO N.       227
Notice the facts and their application. Written,
or sign-language, is generally supposed to be a natural product of the human reason. However this
may be, it is certain that men, after they have attained a settled social condition, always form for
themselves a language of signs. Without this they
can not ascend from the first stages of barbarism.
Fixed signs of thouight are necessary before there
can be commercial progress, forms of law, or fixed
moral principles.
Sign-language is one of the distinguishing characteristics of the human species. Animals below
man can communicate to each other certain ideas,
but they can not impress upon external objects, and
thus transmit to others, a fixed sign of their thought.
If, then, sign-language is a characteristic of man,
and if he can not be elevated from barbarism to
social and civil position without it, it would be
absurd to suppose that his moral culture can be
accomplished without this necessary medium.
Hence, so soon as the primitive nations became
settled, and so soon as sign-languages were matured,
God gave to man, in order to his moral progress, a
written record of the past-of his character, and of
his will; and these, together with new and progressive spiritual ideas generated by forms and external




228    WRITTEN REVELATION.
types, were rendered permanent in sign-language,
and transmitted to the future by the ritual dispensation of Moses.
The second characteristic which distinguishes man
from  irrational beings, is faith.  Animals receive
their knowledge through the senses; man receives
most of his knowledge by credence.* All the experience of the past is given to him  by faith in
testimony. It is faith alone that connects man with
the past and the future-with God and the spiritual
world.  Faith depends on written language to reach
the past, and on hope to reach the future, and on
written revelation to know God.  Man is a believing
being by creation; and without faith he is no better than the brute-with a bad faith he is worse.
Faith is the spiritual sense.  By it spiritual objects become subjective in the soul, as external
physical objects become subjective by sense.  By
faith in revealed truth, the character of God becomes a conscious entity in the soul.  "Faith works
by love."  " He that loveth knoweth God, for God
is love." Thus by faith the character of God, and
the life and precepts of God recorded in divine reve* There is a class of philosophers who contend that they receive
all their knowledge through the senses. By this method men may
approximate aiimal natures; but the distinguishing characteristic
betwcen sense and spirit can never be entirely obliterated.




WRIITTEN  REV ELATION.             229
lation, become united in the moral culture of man.
In this way the subjective susceptibility of faith is
met by the objective actuality of divine revelation.
Mark, now, that without divine truth externally
revealed, the susceptibility of faith is injurious and
evil to man. Faith controls man's ch]aracter and
his life. If I believe my neighbor to be a bad
man, I will feel as though he were so. If a Catholic
believes he ought to confess to the Virgin Mary, his
conscience will reprove him if he does not do so.
Faith forms man's character and his conscience in
accordance with what the man believes, whether
that be true or false. Faith of itself is blind; it
needs a guide as much as a blind man needs eyes.
Without revealed religion as the guide of faith,
" the blind lead the blind, and both fall into the
ditch."
But faith is connected with conscience as well as
with sign-language in the moral development of
man. This brings us to the third fact in the means
of human culture. There are two elements in efficient faith-one the external fact, the other the
divine authority of the fact. Conscience will respond to no truth unless faith delivers it as coming
from God. Great souls, such as Plato, Seneca, and
Tully, have spoken great truths; but who cared for




230      WRITTEN  REVELATION.
these? None but those who did not need them.
These were men like others-liable to mistakes —
could give only their opinions-had no authority
over men. Their sayings, therefore, could neither
awaken or guide the conscience.
God has so constituted the soul, that conscience
-will enforce no truth upon the life with efficiency,
unless it has God in it. The moment faith sees God
in truth, that moment conscience awakes and enforces it as a duty. Jesus Christ himself did not teach
that his truth would have full reforming efficacy
nntil after his resurrection. He taught that by his
resurrection and the advent of the Spirit, the evidence of divine authority would be given to his
truth, and then it would attain new power and application in the souls of men. Truth alone has no
power with the conscience. When truth comes in
the name of God, then conscience awakes and enforces obedience.
But mark, now. Conscience, like faith, is blind
without a guide, and with a blind guide it is doubly
blind. If a man believe in no God, he will have
no conscience in relation to any religious duty. If
he believe his god sanctions theft, as do the devotees of Kale, he will steal. If he believe his god
sanctions child-sacrifice, conscience will enforce the




WRITTEN REVELATION.               231
murder, even against the parental instinct. So faith
governs conscience, and both are false and foul
without truth.  With truth recognized as being
only of human origin, faith is dead and conscience
inefficient. Hence, the truth, and not only the truth,
but God-revealed truth-the truth of God in written
language-is the only true guide of the soul.
God has so constituted the soul that a written
revelation is required in order to moral progress.
As God is true, that revelation would be given.
As God is true, that revelation has been given in
the Christian Scriptures. A revelation of truth in
progressive dispensations, up to the perfect in love,
in precept, and in example.
We come now to the fourth requisite in order to
the moral culture of man —a perfect example of human duty.
Theory is never perfect without example. Oliver
Evans could not give his perfect theory of a steammill, and say to any one who understood his words
and his plan, " Go and build a mill."  HIis commonsense would teach him that the practice has to be
learned as well as the theory. The master-workman
must take the saw and hatchet, and practice the theory
in the presence of the pupil, and put the learner
through the routine of the labor. So in all things:




232      WRITTEN  REVELATION.
theory is only a part of knowledge; the practice
has to be learned by example. So in religion. WVe
needed not only the precept, but the example under
the precept. This Christ has given. In the New
Testament, Jesus is seen practicing the divine precept, and saying to his disciples, " Follow me."
Again, example is needed not only of moral duty,
but of the spirit in which duty is to be discharged.
This also is given in the New Testament.
A.gain, as precepts must be general in their nature, there are many specific applications of them
which men could not know were it not for the example of Christ. WVhen a son knows the character,
and spirit, and motives of his father, he will be
able to judge, in his absence, what his father would
do in specific cases, and hence what he would have
him do. So the example and spirit of Christ is a
sure guide to his disciples in applying his precepts
to the specific duties of life. WVhen the believing
mind inquires, what would Christ have me do in
this case? the life and Spirit of Jesus, revealed in
the Scriptures, will guide to the right conclusion.
[But, finally, and above all, in order to man's continued progress toward the perfect, he needs an example that is ever above him-the example of one
whose excellence will show him his defects, and whose




REFORMS AND REFORMERS.    233
love and proffered aid will invite him to higher attainments. Faith in Christ's example induces a sense
of unworthiness, at the same time that faith in his sacrifice for us; moves the soul by love, and induces selfdenial for others.  This is the true Christian consciousness, and highest moral condition. (Matt. xi. 28-30.)
No one will doubt but that a sense of present imperfection and a struggle for higher attainment in
holiness, is the method of moral progress. Now, at
the entrance of the straight gate that leads to life
stands the Saviour of men. He is ever before his
disciples. The light of his perfect character shows
them their defects.  The love of his heart strenothens and encourages by the way. The mark of the
priza of their high calling is to attain the perfection
of his character; and to those who are running the
race with whatever of knowledge and strength they
possess, the divine favor and the divine providence
are a conscious blessing and constant guard.
Thus, my dear sir, I think it is plain that the
Bible was made for man; that it possesses the characteristics which are adapted to develop his moral
faculties up to the perfect. A revealed written revelation is a necessity of man's moral nature. The
Bible meets the necessity of the case, and therefore
the Bible is of God.       Yours truly.




LETTER  XIV.
REVELATION THE MOTIVE-POWER IN  UMtAN PROGRESS.
MY DEAR SIR: —
I did not purpose to trouble you with another letter; but your last note brings to view a
point where I think you and many others have
fallen into a grave misapprehension. That point is
expressed in the paragraph quoted below. I will
not open again the discussion in relation to those
professing Christians whom you charge with complicity with sin. A word or two with reference to
alleged Bible authority for slavery, and then I shall
show-I hope conclusively —that the " facts" are not
" against -my logic," as you allege, but that they sustain, decisively, the views to which you seem to
think they are opposed.
You say: " Almost thou persuadest me to believe
a Written Revelation necessary. But I put facts
against logic. How happens it, if the Bible be a
book of revealed religion, that progressive move



REVELATION AND HUMAN PROGRESS. 235
ments are generally led by those who do not hold
your views of the Bible? How happens it that reformers have to advance against the resistance and
denouncements of the most influential churches,
who often justify wrong by the Bible; as you know
has been the case in the anti-slavery discussion in
this country. It is true that while they defend
slavery by the Bible, many of them profess to be
opposed to slavery; but in this they are either
hypocrites or accusers of their own book: for if the
Bible (as I think it does) sanctions the practice of
slaveholding, they ought to defend the institution.
By condemning it, they condemn their own Scriptures."
Now, sir, I admit, as you know, to some extent,
your allegation against the American churches; but
I deny its application entirely to the true church of
Christ. It has always been the few who, in the
martyr ages of human progress, have stood and
achieved the victory, both against church and state;
but those few have stood in the light of the Bible,
and have succeeded by the power of conscience
strengthened by Bible faith. -In relation to those
who seek to sanction sin by the Bible, it proves
nothing now, any more than it did in the time of
the prophets, and of Christ. Neander, who, I be



236  REVELATION  THE  MOTIVE-POWER
lieve, is held in high esteem by you, somewhere
says that men interpret the Scriptures by their own
hearts.  This is a true saying.  The moral disposition of a man will determine what use he will make
of the Bible.
A  certain kind of servitude was no doubt admitted by Moses. By the necessities of the Mosaic
economy, the soil belonged to Israelites. The reversion land law returned the fee of the farms in
Israel to the family of the original holder, at the
end of each fifty years. Strangers, therefore, among
the Jews, had to seek labor and subsistence as
servants. Hence there was a life servitude, or a
servitude until the Jubilee, but the Jubilee freed all
the in/hafitants of the land.  Hence there could be
no such thing (and there was no such thing) as an
accumulation of slaves in Israel. Beside this, the
mitigations of the law of Moses (and especially the
law forbidding the return of fugitives) alleviated,
even in the dispensation "which made nothing perfect," the fearful rigors of the slavery which existed
in that age. A servant, being of the same color
with his master, if he were misused, could escape to
Israel or from  Israel, and the "fugitive law" (the
opposite of ours) forbade his return.
But the dispensation of Moses was inspired for




IN  HUMAN  PROGRESS.              237
that age, and for the Jews. It was only a stage of
progress toward the perfection of the gospel.  He
is either an ignorant man or a sinner, who endeavors to justify slavery under the gospel by any
servitude which may have existed during the introductory dispensation. If slavery may thus be justified, so may polygamy. Beside, if the Bible tolerates slavery, it is the slavery of poor whites, not
of negroes. Its servitude was predicated on condition, not color. Every nman, therefore, who attempts to justify slavery by the Bible, should be
held responsible for teaching that the enslavement
of the poor is justified by the Scriptures.
There are those, I know, who justify American
slavery by the New Testament.  For such men,
educated in the slave States, I could find an apology;
but for northern Christians who hold such sentiments, argument is not the thing needed. In the
divine government pardon or penalty is the issue
with them.
They tell us that " Christ regulated slavery;"
that " he gave precepts regulating the conduct of
the master and the slave in their several relations."
So he regulated assault and battery, and gave precepts that, when a man is smitten on the one cheek,
he should turn the other. Has he, therefore, j usti



238  REVELATION  THE  MOTIVE-POWER
fled assault and battery?  Christ abrogated slavery
by the golden rule-by placing all men upon the
platform  of civil equality-by making it a, fundamental'tenet of his religion that those who had
privileges should labor to elevate others up to their
own position; and thus practically love their neighbor as themselves.  Slavery is expressly abrogated
in the epistle to Philemon, who is required to receive his old servant "not now as a servant," but as
a brother man and a brother Christian.  The 6th
chapter of first Timothy you have translated rightly.
The first verses teach as distinctly as any words can
convey the same truth, that those servants who had
" believing masters" were not "under the yoke" of
slavery, as were those whose masters had not received the gospel. Those who had not believing
masters are exhorted to endure their affliction for
Christ's sake; and those who had "believing masters" are exhorted (as emancipated slaves are in the
WCest Indies) still to labor for their old masters,
rather than for another; because their master was
" now a brother;" and as the benefit of their labor had
to be given to some one, it was a Christian duty to
prefer that the believing master should receive that
benefit.
If they were still considered slaves in the legal




IN  HUMAN PROGRESS.               239
sense, such an exhortation to the two different
classes would be absurd. Those who had believing
masters were evidently no longer held "'under the
yoke" of involuntary servitude.
But let us pass to the main and ultimate question
as to the facts. Has not the Bible given impulse
and direction in every successful effort that has
ever been made for the moral progress of mankind?  Let us see whether "the facts are against
my logic."
The Bible itsey, as you know, claims that its
mission is to enlighten the world, and to advance the
moral interests of the human family. As this is a
Bible topic, I can do no better than remodel for you
a discourse recently delivered upon this particular
subject. I ask your attention to the discriminations
which it makes, and to the facts by which the conclusion is reached. We have shown, as we think,
that human nature is so constituted, that revealed
religion is necessary in order to the moral development of our race. Do historical facts verify this
conclusion?
We have said that the Bible claims to be both
light and power in the moral progress of the world.
I wish you would observe this, because in some of
your letters you speak of the orthodox party claim



240  REVELATION  THE MOTIVE-POWER
ing more for the Bible than it claims for itself.
This may be true when some eulogists of revelation
claim for it extraordinary excellences of style, and
other extrinsic matters of that sort. But it is not
true in regard to the claim of moral light and power.
The Bible does claim these, and all friends of revelation should claim them for it. Notice this.
The Old Testament writers speak of their own
dispensation as the light of their age; and the minds
of the old prophets glow with inspiration when they
refer to the increased light and purity of Messiah's
age-an age when " the light of the moon was to
be as the light of the sun, and the sun itself would
shine with sevenfold effulgence."  " To the people
that sat in darkness and in the valley and the
shadow of death,"' they declared that a " light would
spring up."  About the last utterance of the last of
the prophets refers to the purifying power of the
Messiah's dispensation, and to the spiritual light
which would be revealed in his day. (Mal. iii. 1,
2,) "Behold I will send my messenger before me
[John Baptist], and he shall prepare the way before
me; and the Lord [Messiah] whom ye seek shall
suddenly come to his temple; even the messenger
of the covenant whom  ye delight in: behold  he
shall come, saith the Lord of hosts!  (2) But who




IN. HUMAN  PROGRESS.             241
may abide the day of his coming? and who shall
stand when he appeareth? For he shall be like a
refiner'sfire and like fuller's soap; and he shall sit
as a refner and purifier af silver."  That is, the Messiah's dispensation would purify and elevate those
who were subjects of its influence. And (ch. iv. 2,
3) while the wicked would be condemned and destroyed, "to those who feared the Lord the Sun of
righteousness would arise with  healing in his
beams."
To this light of the old dispensation the people
who first heard the gospel, and who lived in the
transition period (from the death of Christ to the
fall of Jerusalem) were exhorted to take heed.
Although it shone in a darker dispensation, yet it
was a " lamp" in the path that led to a fuller manifestation of divine love and truth. This view of the
relations of the Old and New Testament light the
Apostle Peter beautifully expresses in his second
letter, chap. i. 19, "We have also a more sure word
of prophecy, whereunto ye do well that ye take
heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark place
[age], UNTIL the day dawn, and the day-star [of the
gospel dispensation] arise in your hearts."  The
Old Testament dispensation-as interpreted by the
inspired prophets-was as a light in the night. The
11




242  REVELATION  THE MOTIVE-POWER
New Dispensation was daylight, which was then
dawning in the hearts of believers.
John Baptist, the forerunner of Jesus, who came
to reprove his nation and to call them to repentance,
as the proper preparation for the reign of Messiah,
was called " a burning and a shining light." The
first prophetic announcement of the character of Jesus, after his advent, by the pious Simeon, was that
he should be " a light to enlighten the Gentiles, and
the glory of his people Israel," and that he would
"be set for the fall [by repentance] and rising again
[to a higher moral state] of many in Israel." That
is, the Gentile nations should be enlightened by
Christ, and "'many" of the Jewish nation would
feel condemned in the light of his dispensation, and
would rise again into the higher moral condition
which it required.
John, although himself called a light, affirmed
that he was not that light which was to raise a portion of the Jewish people, and enlighten the Gentile
nations. " He was not that light, but was sent to
bear witness of that light"-" that was the true
light that enlighteneth every man that cometh into
the world," both Jew and Gentile.
Jesus himself claimed to be "the light of the
world."  "I am," said he, "come a light into the




IN  HUMAN  PROGRESS.            243
world, that whosoever believeth in me should not
abide in darkness."  "I am the light of the world;
he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but
shall have the light of life." The truth which he
declared as the basis of condemnation was, that
" light had come into the world, and men loved the
darkness rather than the light, because their deeds
were evil."
The apostles apprehended distinctly that the increased light of revelation was the reforming and
the elevating power of the nations. They not only
understood the fact, that revelation was the moral
life and light of men, but they understood the relations of this fact, and its place in the moral progress
of the world. "The darkness," said they, " is past,
and the true iJght now shineth." They speak of the
church of Christ as "the light of the world," and
Christians as " the children of the light." There is,
probably, no other topic which suggests illustrations
to the minds of the sacred writers more varied and
beautiful than this one; and there is none other
which conveys to us truth of more vital importance.
There is, in my opinion, no figures in human language more striking than those which the inspired
writers use in presenting truth under the symbol of
light, not only in the past and present, but in the




244  REVELATION  THE  MOTIVE-POWER
apocalyptic visions of the future. What can be
more striking than the figures of the revelator.
Forecasting the period of the Reformation, he speaks
of the "two witnesses," the Old and New Testaments, which, clothed in  sackcloth, were lying
without vitality in the streets-these are elevated
into the heavens, from which position they attract
the attention of men, and send the rays of the Re.formation down into their hearts. The church of
Christ, witnessing for truth, is spoken of as " A
woman, clothed with the sun, and the moon under
her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve
stars."
But I need not to dwell upon the fact that the
Scriptures do claim that the truth of revelation is
the moral light of the world. There is another fact
connected with this subject; one whichithe cursory
reader overlooks; but it is one which relates to the
vital power of truth-the Scriptures claim that there
is spirit and life in the truth which they reveal. To
this life of the light I ask your attention before the
historical analysis which is to follow.  It is well to
ascertain accurately the apostolic conception, and
the breadth of the Scripture claim, before an appeal
to external testimony.
To see an evil is one thing; to lead men to feel




IN  HUMAN  PROGRESS.              245
the turpitude of evil, in itself, in themselves, and in
the sight of God, is quite another thing. We have
noticed this fact in a previous letter. It will not be
necessary to dwell on it here. Suffice it to say,
that in order to the moral progress of men two
things are necessary. First, that men should see the
evil; and second, that they shouldfeel such a sense
of the evil as will lead them to turn from it, and
seek a higher life. Light is necessary to see the
evil. A sense of God and duty with that light, is
necessary to lead men from the evils which the light.
reveals.
Now, this reproving or convicting power accompanies the light of revealed religion. There may be
intellectual culture where there is no moral purity.
The first benefit is scarcely a blessing without the
last. A knowledge of right and duty only renders
one a greater hypocrite unless he have moral sense
and moral life sufficient to conform to his own convictions. Now, this reproving power, which leads
men to feel the evil of sins which they perceive, the
Scriptures claim for themselves as a spiritual efficacy which accompanies revealed truth.  Let us
notice and illustrate this fact.
We have shown elsewhere that truth has power
over the moral nature of men, only so far as a




246  REVELATION  THE MOTIVE-POWER
sense of God ancl duty is in it.  There needs to be
life as well as light in that truth which has reforming
power in the world. This life-power the sacred
writers claim as belonging to the gospel. It is a
power by which men feel reproved or condemned
for the sins which truth reveals to them-a power
which leads them to reprove evils in themselves and
others " made manifest by the light."
Christ is spoken of as being not only the " light,"
but the " life" of men. The second Adam gave not
only light to the intellect, but life to the heart.
He was a "life-giving" as well as a " light giving"
Spirit.  "The words that I speak unto you," said
Jesus, "they are spirit and they are life."  "I am
the light of the world. He that followeth me shall
not walk in darkness, but shall have the tlqht oflife."   "I am  the way, the truth, and the life."
Now, this life, or reproving, or convicting power,
is the glory of the gospel. Without this, the intellect may be enlightened, while the conscience will
be dead and the heart corrupt. Hence Jesus said,
" Ye will not come unto me lest your deeds should
be reproved." The one thing needful, after the
understanding is enlightened in relation to moral
duties, is this reproving life in the conscience of
men, which produces " repentance unto life."  The




IN  HUMAN  PROGRESS.              247
Holy Ghost is personally this reproving poower.  The
divine Spirit gives life to the soul, by the truth.
Christ taught that when the Comforter, which is the
Holy Ghost, should come into the world, "IIHe
would persuade-reprove-the world of sin, righteousness, and judgment."
The disciples understood that without this moral
power, the mere intellectual light of truth would
increase sin instead of producing holiness. Hence
they said, " Christ hath made us ministers of the
New Testament: not of the letter, but of the spirit;
for the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life."`
Paul, in his letter to the Christians at Ephesus,
states with great distinctness the effect and the necessity of gospel truth, both as an enlightening and
reproving power.  (v. 13) " All things that are reproved are made manifest by the light; for whatsoever doth make manifest is light: wherefore [the
gospel] saith, Awake, thou that steepest, and arise
from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light."
That is, the light of revealed religion shows the
moral evils which exist in the heart and in the
world; and the life-power of the Spirit accompanying that light, leads us to feel the guilt of these
evils.
Notice. now, an instance of the influence and




248  REVELATION  THE MOTIVE-POWER
practical operation of this moral power of truth, as
it effected the reformation of the world in the apostolic age. The same principle we shall see is applicable in all other cases, and in all time.
Take the case of the city of Ephesus, to the
Christian inhabitants of which Paul writes the passage we have quoted. The apostle describes this
city as sitting in darkness, and her citizens as corrupted by the practice of the most debasing vices.
He says to the Christians,'"Ye were sometime
darkness, but now are ye light in the Lord- Walk
as children of the light, and have no fellowship with
the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove
them; for it is a shame even to speak of those things
which are done of them in secret." Such was the
celebrated city of Ephesus when the light and reproving power of the gospel reached her. What
was necessary in her case?
Intellectual light was not what the men of Ephesus wanted. They lived in the Augustan age, the
noon-day of ancient civilization. They lived when
the light of reason had reached its meridian in the
ancient world. They lived in the Eclectic age, when
the best thoughts- were collected from Plato and all
the great thinkers that had gone before. It was
the age of Seneca and Pliny, of Tacitus, Josephus,




IN  HUMAN  PROGRESS.            249
and Plutarch, the crowning authors of the ancient literature, in morals, history, science, and
religion.
And this city of Ephesus was one of the points in
Asia where art and letters had done all they could
do for human culture. Diana of the Ephesians was
one of the purest shrines at which the old world
worshiped; and her temple was one of the most
magnificent structures that was ever erected and
adorned by human hands. About the time that Paul
wrote the passage which we have quoted, describing
the appalling corruption which prevailed in the city,
Pliny, one of the wisest and most refined men of his
age, speaks of Ephesus as " one of the luminaries
of Asia."  The one considered her as full of light,
the other looked upon her as full of darkness. Both
views were true, according to the standard by which
the writers formed their judgment. Pliny saw her
as the seat of the- best civilization and the highest
culture that a people without revelation had ever
attained. But underneath the glare of vain-glory,
Paul saw a degree of corruption that defiled her.very heart. She was " a whited sepulcher, full of
dead men's bones." The light that was in her was
darkness. Those who lived in it said, "Behold, we
see 1" and the baptism of their sacred rites, by which
11*




250  REVELATION  THE MOTIVE-POWER
they sought to purify themselves, only infected them
with baser pollution.
What was needed, now, in order to reform and
save this people?  Was it civilization?  This they
had attained in the highest degree. Was it philosophy?  Some of the most celebrated schools
were in this city. Was it perfection of art? The
best models of the age, some of which still exist as
artistic wonders for the moderns, were at Ephesus;
and it is recorded that the personal accomplishments
and taste of her citizens were celebrated throughout
surrounding regions. All these she had (as many
cities of modern Europe have still), and yet, having
eyes, her citizens saw not the prevailing corruption;
and having ears, they heard not the sentence of
condemnation written against them.
What they needed, first of all, was light to discern the evil nature of sin; and second, that personal sense of the evil which would lead them to escape from it, and endeavor to rescue others. Until
they saw their sin and felt its evil, they could make
no advances in moral character.
Now, Paul affirmed in relation to these men, and
to this subject two things-that whatever they saw
to be evil in their former practice was made manifest
to them by the moral light of the gospel, and that




IN  IHUMAN  PROGRESS.            251
whatsoever makes sin manifest, as the gospel does,
is light.
Once more. Notice that this state of intellectual
culture and moral blindness was not confined to the
old world.  The same is true of the moderns.
Our own country does not remind one of the union
between culture and sin, as do the cities of Europe.
Paris, with her academy, her columns, her galleries
of painting, her'statuary, her cathedrals, her phiP
losophers, her oratories, her taste and fashion, her
every thing that is deemed a mark of high intellectual culture-Paris, with all these, is the brothel of
nations-a city where every species of moral corruption festers and infects the inhabitants, and
spreads moral contagion over the continent.
I have stood in her galleries at Versailles and the
Louvre, and felt in my soul that her models of art
were a curse to the people. They are adapted to
gild the memory of those who, being corrupt in
heart and profligate in practice, are now suffering
the hell that awaits selfish and impure minds. Their
undraped statuary imparts the infection of the old
world's guilt to the new. The pictures of the old
masters, and from them down even to David, sanctify the deeds of devils under the name of kings
and cardinals. Thus the popular mind is led to




252- REVELATION THE MOTIVE-POWVER
reverence despots and evil-doers.  Their popular
religion is as impure as the orgies of Ephesus, and
their moral corruption as great as hers. In my
opinion, while art might lose something, progress
and morality would gain much, if the next outbreak
in Paris should destroy all the public galleries in
the city. What is true of Paris, is true likewise of
all the great cities of the continent where the people
are without the light of revelation. Culture and
crime prevail together, to some extent, even in
Protestant cities; but there is as much moral difference between the Protestant cities of Geneva and
Aberdeen on the one hand, and Florence and Naples
on the other, as there is between daylight and darkness.
Intellectual culture without Christian culture, is
a painted harlot, who lives in moral night; and,
decorated in the tinsel of art and letters, allures the
weak and the wicked to hell. Were there no hope
for mankind but that which art, letters, and intellectual culture produces, despotism and darkness
would reign over the earth, and the hope of moral
progress, of human freedom, and human happiness,
milght be abandoned forever.  Men might be as
cultivated as was Robespierre, and yet become as
dark-minded and as desperate as he. They might be




TN HUMAN PROGRESS.              253
as polished externally as was Dr. Webster, while yet
internally they might be as wicked. John Newton
had the same mind and the same intellectual culture
when engaged in the slave-trade, that he afterward
possessed when his muse charmed and purified the
hearts of all those who listened to him.
In many and striking forms Christ taught men
the difference between intellectual- and Christian
culture. The one without the other is " the whited
sepulcher"-" the hidden grave" -the darkness or
"night" of the soul. The one pertains to man's
moral nature-his affections and his consciencethe other to his intelligence. The one without the
other engenders selfishness and hypocrisy; but intellectual culture, used and sanctified by a living
conscience and pure affections, secures all human
good to its possessor, and leads him to labor for
the good of the world. When the intellect moves
to the work of human elevation, the power which
gives the impulse and secures permanency, is generated in the heart and conscience. Men with intellectual light alone may make advances without
moral principles, as they have done often in France,
South America, and elsewhere; but without moral
principle, which gospel faith produces, permanent
progress is impossible.




254  REVELATION  THE MOTIVE-POWER
With these principles and discriminations in mind,
I now proceed to show that all human progress, both
ancient and modern, has its origin in the truth and
power of revealed religion; and that without this
the hope of reform is fallacious, and if progress were
attained, it could not be permanent.
It is a historical fact which has not been sufficiently noticed, that human nature is always below
revelation. This fact indicates the divine origin of
revelation. Great discoveries are usually the product of preceding ages of thought. One mind develops the idea; but it is the fruitage of the age
ripened in that mind. A pearl is found; but the
location had been indicated by previous researches.
But revealed religion is something different from
this. It is separate from and superior to the thought
of the age. It calls the wisdom of the world foolishness, and introduces a new stand-point and starting-point, around which it gathers what was valuable in the old, and destroys the remainder. Hence
it will always be found true that a struggle is necessary
to bring up the human mind and keep it up to the
level of revealed religion, and that revealed religion
produces that struggle. The human mind naturally
falls below it; hence frequent struggles are necessary to restore it from its relapses. Even those who




IN  HUMAN  PROGRESS.            255
profess to be the friends of the dispensation, retrograde so soon as its power is in any wise abated;
and new applications of the same power have to be
made to rescue them, and bring them up again
nearer to the requirements of their dispensation.
No one will doubt but that the theology of
Moses was antagonistic to that of Egypt, and to
that of all the nations with which the Israelites had
intercourse. Its great aim was to destroy idolatry,
to remove physical and moral impurities, and establish the worship of the one true God, Jehovah.
But'the Jews (although all their traditions were in
favor of monotheism, and all their experiences such
as were adapted to drive them from idolatry) were
constantly falling into the vices and idolatries of surrounding nations. Their history is a record of sad
departures from the purity of the Mosaic economy.
Now, the question is, by what means was the advanced system maintained and reformation produced,
when the people had again dropped down to their
natural level?  We answer, by the power of revealed truth, and by this alone. "Whatsoever was
reproved in Israel, was made manifest by the light,"
and " whatsoever does make manifest is light."
Their defections were shown to them by referring
them to the light of the law of Moses. This alone




256  REVELATION  THE MOTIVE-POWER
could show them the evil of polytheism, for no
other system existed in the world that did not favor
the evil. The evil being revealed by the law, they
were reproved out of the same law for departing from
its requirements, and in this way alone reformations
were produced. The instances of reformation by
the light and power of the revealed religion I need
not to enumerate, especially to you. The relapses
were all recovered, and the nation finally delivered
from all disposition to idolatry, by the Bible, and
by the providence of God working in harmony with
the dispensation-punishing departures and encouraging reform.
When the nation was almost lost in the surrounding darkness, the Reformation under Josiah was
produced by the law alone. "The Book" found —
as Luther found it afterwards in the convent-was
the light and power of the rescue.
In the later periods of the dispensation, the old
prophets stood up in the solemn grandeur of their
mission, to reprove the rulers and the people, and
restore them to obedience to the law. The voices
of Jeremiah, of Isaiah and Ezekiel, are heard in
tones of sorrow, instruction, and reproof, reverberating othrough the nation. They held aloft the law,
and showed to the people that the judgments of God




IN  HUAMAN  PROGRESS.           257
would come, or had come, upon them for departing
from it. They gave the law a spiritual import in
advance of what it had before [a characteristic of
the true preacher]; they enforced it by the authority
of God; and spoke almost with the tongue of an
evangelist of a future Messiah. Thus, in the light
of the law they reproved in the name of God: and
if reformation was not produced, they led the people
to feel that judgment came upon them for disobedience; and thus their captivities and sufferings
tended finally to cure their errors.
Now, I need not say to you, what you know, that
by this process, and this alone, was the worship of
one God at length established in the world. By the
law of Moses, and the administration of the reproving prophets, the thing was accomplished, and in no
other way. Thus the law was a schoolmaster to
bring us to Christ. When the evil of idolatry was
cured, and ideas of the Messiah created by the Mosaic ritual, the world was prepared for a higher
dispensation.
One other topic here is worthy of notice. It is a
part of the history of monotheism that has not been
sufficiently studied. I allude to the history of the
Arabians, as it connects itself with the Old Testament on the one side, and with Islamism on the




258  REVELATION  THE MOTIVE-POWER
other. The Arabs claim Abraham, the first reformer of the world, as their father. Ishmael was
the son of the father of the faithful; but his son by
a foreign wife; yet to Ishmael also was the promise
given, that he should inherit-but in an inferior
degree-the blessing of Abraham. Other descendants of Abraham were mingled in Idumea, constituting two lines of the Abrahamic family-the Arabic
and the Jewish. They have the same relation to
the true religion that the two sons have to Abraham, or Esau and Jacob to Isaac. Through the
true son conies the true gospel; the other is a degree removed from it. But the fact is, that both
lines recognize and worship the same one God:
from both originate the reformers of idolatry. The
Arabs are now, in this respect, about where the
Jews were before the coming of Christ. They, like
the Jews, have frequently relapsed into the idolatry
and vices of surrounding nations; yet before Mohammed there were many reformers who restored monotheism in some of the tribes. But the points at
which this history connects itself with our subject
are, first, the Mohammedans are monotheists; second, they' worship Jehovah, the God of Abraham
and Moses; third, mark it, this reformation of the
Arabian tribes, which restored the worship of the one




IN HUMAN  PROGRESS.            259
God, was effected by Mohammed through the light and
power of the patriarchal and Mosaic dispensations.
The truth which the prophet uses to kill idolatry is
drawn from the history of Abraham and the precepts of Moses. The 14th chapter of the Koran is
entitled "Abraham."  The patriarch is introduced
as praying for the suppression of idolatry-" Keep
me and my children from the worship of idols; they
have seduced part of the people." The authority of
Moses is likewise recognized, and he is frequently
introduced as denouncing idolatry and commanding
the worship of Jehovah.
Thus, the evidence is palpable and incontrovertible, that the worship of one God revealed in the
Old Testament Scriptures, has been the reforming
power of the whole world, so far as man is rescued
from idolatry. The two branches of the Abrahamic
family have done the work. Mohammedans are
now, in this one respect, where the Jews were before Christ, and where the unbelieving Jews are
still. All that they have in advance of heathen
polytheism is by the revealed religion of the Old
Testament, and the authority of Jehovah as there
revealed. All that we have in advance of them
starts from this point. This brings us to the gospel dispensation-the "true light that now shineth."




260  REVELATION  THE MOTIVE POWER
The prophets of the old dispensation, as we have
noticed, had foretold the sevenfold light of the Messianic age. The last prophetic utterance (Mal. iii.
1-4) announces that Christ would send his messenger (John Baptist) before him; that he would suddenly come in his temple; but that his dispensation
would be " as a refiner'sfire"-a moral power, purifying the world and the church.
John Baptist came, and affirming that the kingdom of heaven was at hand, he called the nation
to repentance; thus practically promulgating the
truth that reformation was necessary in order to
enter the Messiah's kingdom. This was the burden
of his baptism-" The axe is laid at the root of
the tree."  The separating fan is in the hand of
the Messiah. He will separate the chaff from the
wheat —gather the wheat into his garner, and burn
the chaff with unquenchable fire.
Jesus came, preaching reformation and a higher
life.  He denounced the traditions of the Jewish
teachers.  He selected men without literary or
philosophical attainment. He imbued them with a
new spirit, and with power from on high; and commissioned them to revolutionise all forms of power
in church and state; promising divine aid and supervision until the work should be accomplished.




IN  HUMAN  PROGRESS.             261
You know the result. You know- the struggle
and the success of the truth in the apostolic age.
As it was in Ephesus, so it was in other cities.
When Jesus died, the old world had its greatest
intellectual light, and its greatest moral darkness.
The truth and power of the gospel was a purifying
element, reforming and elevating out of the mass of
corruption a large company of the men of that
age.
In establishing a new system, with new powers
and principles, the agency of the Divine Author
must be interposed, of course; just as every new
geological advance requires divine interposition.
But as human nature is always below the revealed
religion which is designed to reform and elevate it,
the corrupt age, and the dark ages which followed,
were a natural sequence., The last of the apostles
was not in his grave, and- the visible power which
established the New Testament had scarcely subsided, before humanity lapsed into error. To the
light of the apostolic age there succeeded clouds,
darkened by depravity and tinged by superstition.
When earthly power could not subdue the church,
it allied itself with her, and thus corrupted her
truth; and from the period of the adulterous union
between church and state the light of truth waned




262  REVELATION  THE MOTIVE-POWER
into the total eclipse of the dark ages —ages without
a Bible.
But out of the darkness a light sprung up which
has shone more and more down to our day. Now,
our last inquiry is, Has revealed religion been the
source and the power of reformation and moral progress in the world, under the Christian dispensation,
and from the dark ages until now?
We need not inquire concerning the causes which
immediately introduced the dark ages. Suffice it
to say, that during the period from the sixth to the
fifteenth century, the light of revelation was vailed.
The Scriptures were no longer in the vernacular
tongue of the people. Both church and state were
without a Bible. The dawn of reformation begins
with Wicklif and Huss. Their translations and
preaching ante-date the art of printing, and the
other great inventions of the fifteenth century. The
art of printing no doubt greatly aided the Reformation. But printing in itself has no reformatory
moral power in it. Whether it advances or retards
the civil and moral progress of men depends on the
things printed.  The enemies of the Reformation
used the press as freely as the reformers.  The
press infected the continent with atheism in the days
of Voltaire, and the press strengthened the power




IN HIUMAN PROGRESS.             263
of despotism under Robespierre. The press can do
no more than disseminate the thought of the age,
whether that be bad or good. Truth is stronger
than error; hence the press is an auxiliary in the
world's enlightenment. But light without moral
principle has no real reformatory power. It does
not create conscience, and hence wants the element
of permanent moral progress.
Luther is identified, as the man of the Reformation.
Whence did Luther draw his power?  A benighted
monk, he found a copy of the Bible in the convent
of Erfurth. The Bible enlightened Luther. He
translated it into the vernacular tongue of his country,
and it enlightened the people. Every shaft that the
reformers hurled at the Papal demon was drawn
from the Bible. Nine tenths of the literature of
the Reformation was biblical. That the Bible made
the reformers is as true as that the reformers produced the Reformation by the same means. About
the facts in the case there can be no controversy.
The dark ages were dissipated, and the Reformation
accomplished by the light and power of revealed
religion.
You have, no doubt, read the recently-published
history of the Dutch Republic, by Motley. If you
have not, get it at once. It will give you the de



264  REVELATION  THE MOTIVE-POWER
tailed statement of the struggle between the Bible
power and the Papal devil in the Netherlands-a
struggle, the successful issue of which placed Holland in the forefront of the civilization of the age,
furnished an asylum for the persecuted in other nations, and developed a degree of moral progress
greatly in advance of the times. That the Bible
power achieved this moral victory for humanity,
freedom and religion can not be questioned.
It is conceded that the basis for the Reformation
in England was laid by Tindall's translation. Beside this, during the struggle in the Netherlands,
multitudes of the persecuted fled to England, and
carried the seeds of Bible truth with them across the
Channel. Thus was begun the progress that was rendered permanent by the translation under KingJames.
Another stage of progress in civil and religious
freedom was initiated by the Puritans. To them it
is conceded, even by Macaulay, that England owes
all that places her in advance of other Protestant
nations of Europe. To them, and the Scotch and
Dutch Puritans, we owe all of religious liberty that
we possess in America. And yet who dare deny
that all these stages of progress were gained by the
Bible power? The questions of those ages of progress were Bible questions. The conscience that




IN  HUMAN  PROGRESS.            265
strengthened true moral heroes to endure and to
triumph was Bible-made conscience.  The issues
between them and their opponents were Bible issues. Luther's moving issue was justification by
faith against the error of justification by penance
and indulgences. The Dutch and the Scotch fought
against the powers of darkness, and triumphed under
the same banner. The Puritans inscribed on their
banner "' Bible faith and practice against forms."
The pure Bible was their watchword. Wesley's
Reformation was purely religious, but, like preceding
advances, it was founded on Bible principle-experience against profession. So the principle of Penn
was non-conformity to the world, against a worldly
church. But more than all, it was Bible faith which
gave strength of heart and conscience and will to
these reformers; so that they braved dangers, suffered persecutions, subdued the wilderness, and
achieved all the civil and religious progress which
the world possesses.
This historic analysis might be run through all
the details of human progress. So far as the human families have advanced in moral culture, with
its concomitant blessings of civil liberty and social
comfort, that advance has been achieved-even in
limited localities —by Bible light and power.
12




266  REVELATION THE MOTIVE-POWElR
But this long letter must be closed. Take an
epitome of instances and illustrations.
In my school-days we had a map in our geographies which gave us an apprehension of the degree of civilization existing in different countries of
the globe. Those regions which were the most advanced in civil and moral culture, were light; the
utterly pagan regions were black; those regions
partially civilized were partially radiated. Now,
upon that map, which I took pains to inquire for
and examine very recently, the degree of national
enlightenment corresponds precisely with the amount
of Bible knowledge prevalent among the people.
There is no exception to this. It is universal over
the whole earth. The Bible is the light and life of
the moral world, just as distinctly as the sun is the
light and life of the physical world.
The local illustrations of this fact are striking.
I have had the privilege, in various portions of the
old and new world, of noticing evidences that have
left lasting impressions on my heart. Allow me, in
conclusion, to give you a transcript of these imnpressions.
Various states of Germany contain a mixed popution-some Protestant, some Papal inhabitants.
Now, just in proportion to the Protestant element




IN HUM AN PROGIRESS.           267
does moral progress and civil liberty exist. Take
Belgium as the starting-point. Travel up the Rhine
and through the German states toward Rome, and
the amount of progress can be gaged accurately by
the amount of Bible knowledge among the people.
As you approach Rome, the seat of Papal power
and superstition, the darkness can be felt. There
the Bible is totally withheld from the masses, and
the despotism of the rulers, and the degradation of
the people, and the superstition of the whole, are
almost equal to that of Central Asia; while vice and
crime are more prevalent than they are in Central
Africa.
Pass from Paris-at the same time the Athens
and the Sodom of the continent-to Geneva, and
thence to the Sardinian Alps.
Bible-reading Protestants preponderate in Switzerland; hence civil freedom prevails, and there is
piety and probity among the peasantry, which contrasts favorably with the Catholic French. But in
passing from Geneva, by Lake Leman to Chamouni,
you pass from the Protestant canton Vaud into the
Catholic canton Valais. Here moral night follows
day without an intervening twilight. The dress, the
physiognomy, the habits of the people change at
once. In one you meet no beggars. In the other




268  REVELATION  THE MOTIVE-POWER
the road is thronged with them. In both, the peasants are poor; but in one there are evidences of
honest industry, and you meet open, frank countenances; in the other poverty, with uncouth garments
and sinister aspect. The more broken character of
the country may have something to do with this;
but the Bible power makes a difference that can be
felt by the traveler.
Pass with me, now, through Scotland and Ireland.
Scotland has one curse in common with Irelandthe habit of using ardent spirits prevalent among all
classes. But apart from this, the peasantry are equal
to any in Europe. In the cities of Edinburg and
Glasoow there is a degree of poverty and vice in
some of the poorer streets (as in High and Cowgate streets, Edinburg) which is revolting. I saw
nothing like it in Aberdeen. On inquiring of an
intelligent gentleman the reasons of the phenomenon, he said most of the mass of depravity accumulated in these pens was made up of IIrish Catholics
and similar elements; and that scarcely any of it
originated with the Bible-reading population of the
vcoun try.
Pass from Glasgow to Belfast, in Ireland; and
from  Belfast through Dublin to the south of the
island. In this journey, as you leave the Bible



IN  HUMAN  PROGRESS.              269
reading north, and pass to the Catholic south, you
pass from light and morals into the heart of one of
the most degraded and superstitious regions that
there is in Europe. Perhaps, after the masses of
Rome and Naples, there is none more so in Christendom.
Now, sir, look with me, a moment, over the different sections of our own country. You will agree
with me that the most intelligent and moral population of the world, take them  en gmasse, is in that
portion of the Union where the people are most
generally instructed in the Bible principle and precept; while in other sections of our land vice and
ignorance prevail just in proportion as the people are deprived of the Bible; or in proportion as
they suppress Bible truth in professedly Christian
churches. In the one section principles and practices
are maintained that -would have appalled the men
of the same section twenty years ago. In the other,
I hope the light is advancing.
It is likewise true that all the moral reforms for
which our land is distinguished, so far as they have
succeeded, have been initiated and advanced by the
Bible light and power in the hearts and consciences
of reformers.  The temperance movement began in
the church; and the process of enlightenment was




270  REVELATION  THE  MOTIVE-POWER
carried forward almost exclusively by Christians.
Search the record, and you will find that the impulse and the direction were both given by Bible
readers. I know the final appeal has been to legislation; but legislation can do nothing until sufficient light is disseminated and sufficient conscience
produced in relation to the evil to be reformed.
Our legislation, in some States, has gone in advance
of the moral sentiment of the masses, and reaction
has ensued; and the reform will never become prevalent until the light and moral power of the Bible
produce sufficient-conscience to sustain it.  There
only is the moral principle that creates perseverance
-there the benevolence that prompts to persistent
seyf-denial for human good.
So in relation to the anti-slavery reform. In England, the Christian sentiment of the nation began,
carried forward, and consummated the work of
emancipation. In this country, the first fifteen years
were spent entirely in moral endeavor by Bible
men. It is true that a large portion of the churches
withheld their influence, especially those churches
rendered conservative by wealth, or connection with
the sin; but after all, it is true that in every region
of the free States where the reform was urged perseveringly, and one advance after another secured,




IN  HUMAN  PROGRESS.              271
in every such instance, it will be found that the
Bible power was the impulse, and Christians the
agents in the work. There are parties who claim to
be anti-slavery men, par excellence, of whom this can
not be said; but these are self-elated and impracticable parties, united by idiosyncrasies, and utterly
infeasible in their aims, as they are uncharitable in
their spirit.
But, enough.  I appeal to you, my dear sir,
whether the idea that human progress can be
achieved without the Bible be not a fallacy, branded
as such both by the principles developed in the preceding letter, and by the historical statements and
illustrations of the present one? My logic, as you
were pleased to call it, is verified by the facts of
history. Revealed religion is the Alpha and the
Omega of human progress.
Yours, my dear sir, for that light which makes
evil manifest, reproves it when made manifest, and
thus abates it in the world.
J. B. W.








APPENDIX,
EXTRACT FROM THE NEW  ENGLANDER OF MAY, 1856.
OUR previous article* refers the whole question df man's immortality to the will of God. An argument from nature is only
our inference of that will from the disclosures of God in the
material universe and in the consciousness of the human soul.
In these, and especially in the latter, we find evidence of a God
of wisdom, justice, and goodness. From these attributes the
inference is irresistible, to a divine will, ordaining endless existence to all to whom such an existence would be an endless
progress in virtue and bliss. But in regard to those irrevocably
moving toward an opposite moral destiny, the voice of nature,
though unmistakably predicting a future life as a necessity of
divine justice and moral government seems to some not so
explicitly to assure immortality. Contrawise, rather, the very
attributes of the Godhead, which guaranty to the good an
everlasting being, might be regarded as necessarily dooming the
wicked to ultimate annihilation; or at least as creating, in behalf of that doctrine, so strong a presumption as to be entitled
materially to modify and control our interpretation of the Scriptures.
Our argument thus far has been engaged in combating such
a presumption; in showing the insufficiency of the grounds and
the invalidity of the assumptions on which it rests; and that
* New Englander, Feb., 1856.
12*




274                   APPENDIX.
our ignorance of the moral system and economy under which
we now are, ill entitles us to dogmatize in regard to that which
is to be. -The very same difficulties and mysteries embarrass
the existence of evil in the present world that are supposed to
forbid its existence in the eternal future,* and they require, as
far as we can see, that the wicked should never have been at
all, not less than that they should forever cease to be. Our ignorance of the law or principle which underlies the origin and
continuance of evil, makes us incompetent to limit its scope and
duration.  But reasoning from the analogy of nature, we should
infer from its existence, spite of seeming mysteries and difficulties, its not improbable co-existence with them hereafter.
Still there are minds in our times-minds, too, which we respect for sagacity, erudition, and piety-that do take this term
of doom in another sense.  We raise no question of their candor
or sincerity, but we can not resist the impression that with them,
though without their consciousness, natural theology is father
to revealed; and that philosophy and prejudgment of' what the
word of God must teach, have much to do with their interpreting what it does teach.  They contend that everlasting punishment means, or at least is compatible with, annihilation.  They
maintain that everlasting punishmezt, even if everlasting be taken
in the sense of endless, which they affirm  can be questioned,
does not of necessity imply everlasting existence; that its import
may be satisfied by a punishment whose effects are everlasting,
i. e., one from which there shall be no recovery.
They claim, moreover. that such a limitation of the term is
necessary to reconcile it with other Scripture, where words significant of utter and total extinction of being are applied to the
future destiny of the wicked, such as death, destruction, "everlasting destruction," perishing, perdition, and the like.  They
* This is at least a doubtful statement. The past is, in all the series
below man, a progressive system-the higher types being advanced,
while those unfitted for new and better conditions are not restored
but destroyed.




APPENDIX.                        275
tell us, moreover, that Jesus Christ is presented in the Scriptures as the author of life; and that eternal life-by which they
understand eternal existence-is promised by him to those only
who believe in him; while death, or the negation of existence,
is denounced as the doom of those who believe not; and, moreover, that the agent or instrument of future punishment, "fire,"
is one whose nature is to consume, not conserve in pain, so that,
whether it is to be interpreted figuratively or literally, it is evidently designed to convey the idea of the utter destruction of
its victim. Such are the grounds, philological and exegetical,
upon which the argument for annihilation is defended, and on
which, presumptions from nature being abandoned, it must be
sustained, if at all.
Now the simple question before us, we premise here, is, What
is a fair interpretation of language? Not, what is suitable to
our notions of God's nature or government; or what may arm
the gospel with the most powerful incentives; or what may
seem to us most safe or expedient to promulgate; or what most
enhances the value of the soul. Such considerations we discard
as alien to our present inquiry, and tending only to perturb the
mind with influences having no connection with evidences of
truth or falsehood. It is not ours, in determining a question of
divine doctrine, to inquire after what is safe or prudent to be
taught, or what is requisite to give motive power to the gospel,
or dignity to the human soul. These questions are God's;
and we best seek their solution when we inquire, what is truth?
what is God's teaching and God's arrangement?  Let us not
presume to be wiser than God, or to understand better than he
the true forces of the gospel. Nor, again, let us permit the
logical and philological import of language to be overruled by
our fears for God's honor, or the integrity of his wisdom, justice,
and benevolence.  God will care for his own honor, and he
knows perfectly what is congruous with his wisdom, justice, and
goodness.  God hath spoken I we have to do, simply, with the
inquiry, What hath he said?  God hath spoken to man. He




27'G                 AI'PENDIx.
has spoken, then, according to the laws of human language, and
is to be interpreted according to the laws of human speech.
The question before us now, let us bear in mind, then, is not
one of philosophy, but purely of criticism, philologic and exegetical.  It bears through awful deeps, it is true, but they are
deeps beyond our philosophic soundings; and there is the more
need, manifestly, that we folloW, in childlike trust and simplicity,
the divine voice.
Our present argument claims, that approached and interpreted
in this spirit, the Scriptures do teach the immortal existence of
the wicked, by direct, deliberate, formal declarations, as well as
by implication, in numerous passages; and that the words and
phrases alleged to convey a contrary doctrine, are, when applied
to the soul, not only susceptible of a limitation and modification
of import which may avoid such contradiction, but are actually
employed in the familiar and constant usage of the Scriptures,
in such application, with such limitation and modification of
meaning. It claims, moreover, that those terms which, applied
to the body, denote dissolution and destruction, find, when predicated of the soul, their analogy most perfectly met, and have
an especial appositeness of significancy in indicating spiritual
ruin; that they are actually in common use in the Scriptures,
without denoting extinction of being, but with the unquestionable significancy of a spiritual corruption; and that the mind at
once recognizes the fitness of the usage, and feels that the import of the terms is satisfied, and the analogy of signification,
required in the application to the soul, is fully met in such usage.
They can, therefore, thus interpreted, be reconciled with the direct, obvious import of the passages declarative of the future
doom of the wicked, without doing any violence to language;
whereas the contrary process-controlling the direct, explicit,
and declarative, by the indirect, the allusive, incidental, and ins
ferential-violates a common canon of interpretation.




AP P E N D I.                   271
RULING TEXTS.
Let us now examine some of those passages of Scripture that
may seem entitled to be regarded as ruling texts on this question; that is, those that with the most deliberateness, distinctness, and solemn formality, set forth the process of final judgment; or with the most fullness and explicitness characterize
the future doom of the lost. And first, perhaps, amongo these,
the judgment scene in the 25th chapter of Matthew, demands
our' attention, as entitled, because of its calm, deliberate, didactic character, and its freedom from the excitements and coloring
of imagination or passion, as well as its greater explicitness and
fullness, to rank among' the leading passages-the "loci classici"
of Scripture-on the theme of human destiny.  The imagery
employed is purely for the purpose of instruction and elucidation,
not rhetorical or emotive. The spirit pervading it coheres with
the time and scene. It is a case where he, who is himself to
be the future Judge, sitting on the brow of Olivet, in secluded
and calm converse with the disciples, who are waiting to receive
from his lips the word, that they may proclaim it through ages,
sets forth the process and sentence of the last judgment, and
the separate destinies of the two great moral divisions of our
race.  The shadows of the hastening crucifixion are falling
around the speaker. Life is entering the solemnity of its last
hour.  The theme, the speaker, the time, the scene-all are
above poetry, above passion; too awful for rhetoric; all belong
to severe reason and pure truth. Word and phrase now mean
all they utter. No abatement is required for amplification or
embellishment, for enthusiasm or fanaticism. Terrible as they
are, still we must regard them  as dispassionate and severely
true, even as the doom they utter, belonging, if ever did words
uttered in this world, to the intensely, utterly, eternally real
Let us so interpret them.  They present before us the judgment
scene as connecting, in the divine government, two eternities;




278                  APPENDIX.
and with its double aspect toward the everlasting. The Son of
man has come in his glory; before him are gathered all nations;
the division is made, and sentence and execution thus proceed.
" Then shall the King say to those on his right'hand, Come, ye
blessed of my Father! inherit the kinigdom  prepared for you
before the foundation of the world."  *  *  *  "And then
shall the King say also to those on the left hand, Depart, ye
cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels."*  "' And these shall go away into everlasting punishment,
and the righteous into life eternal"t-or everlasting; the epithet
in the original is the same as that just applied to the punishment.
Such is Jesus Christ's statement of the final destiny of man.
It is final; there is nothing beyond-no reappearance or readjudication. From that judgment scene they pass to return no
more.  They disappear in the unapproachable light, or the impenetrable darkness. One would at first suppose the words of
Christ in this case were so explicit and positive in assertion of
the immortality of man-good or evil-that they could not be
made more so; that the hermeneutics that could evade them
would defy any grasp of human language. But still, as their
import has been questioned, let us aim to develop it in formal
propositions. Now, no one will dispute that a text asserts the
immortality of the wicked, if the three following propositions can
be established in regard to it:
1st. It describes the doom of the wicked after death.
2d. It predicates of that doom eternzal duration.
3d. That doom implies the continued existence of its subject.
Let us apply these propositions to the above passage:
First, THE PASSAGE RELATES TO THE DOOM OF THE WICKED
AFTER DEATH. This is unquestionable.  The scene is the last
judgment; the sentence, the final reward; the history, the last
disclosed in the empire of God.
* Matt., xxv., 34-41.                          Ibid, 46.




APPENDIx.                  279
Second, THE DOOM AFFIRMED OF THEM IS OF ETERNAL DURATION. The adjective of time used asserts this; it is the one
that would naturally have been employed to express that idea.
It answers in import and usage to its English representative
eternal and everlasting.  By its probable etymology (altloc alJUv,
cEi,) it denotes the ALWAYS-BEING, or EVER-BEING; its radix
being the adverb of perpetuity, or continuance.  In actual usage,
it regularly carries, in all its modifications, the sense of time
unlimited if not illimitable.  It is the proper adjective of eternity, so much so, that in common usage of the Scriptures it is
applied characteristically to God, signifying his eternity.* The
original Greek had no stronger epithet of duration.  It is true
that, like its English representatives, it is sometimes attached to
objects of a measurable date.  But such usage belongs to rhetorical and poetic diction, or to the language of imagination and
passion, or appears with obvious limitations in the nature or relations of the subject to which it attaches; (as, e. g., everlasting
hills; everlasting statutes, etc.). Such cases, however, indicate
and explain themselves. Apart from such diction and limitation,
expressed or implied, the term, of its own proper force, carries
the idea of eternal duration.  But in this text is no such diction; nor is there any such limitation, unless in the nature of
the soul, to suppose which, begs the entire question by assuming the very point at issue, or in some popular notion of the
soul's mortality, prevalent at the time-but such notions did not
prevail among those to whom Christ spake.
For again, amid the strongest proofs that Christ here designed
by the term "everlasting" to convey the idea of endless duration, is the historic fact that the Jews, with their ideas of the
immortality of the soul, must have so understood it. The Jews
in Christ's time-all who believed the soul would exist at all
after death-believed it would never die. For this fact Josephus expressly and explicitly testifies: "The doctrine of the
* Rom. xvi. 22. Sept. Gen. xxi 33. Isa. xl. 28, etc.




280                   APPENDIX.
Essenes is this: That bodies are corruptible, and the matter
they are made of, not permanent; but that souls are immortal
and continue forever. * * * And indeed the Greeks seem
to me to have followed the same notion, when they allot the
islands of the Blessed to their brave men, and to the souls of
the wicked, the region of the ungodly in Hades; where such
persons as Sisyphus, Tantalus, and Ixion, and Tityus are punished; which is built on this first supposition that souls are immortal; whereby bad men are restrained by the fear and expectation they are in, that although they should lie concealed in
this life, they should suffer IMMORTAL PUNISHMENT AFTER DEATH."
Of the Pharisees, Josephus also testifies, " they say that all
souls are incorruptible, but that the souls of bad men are subject to ETERNAL PUNISHMENT.'  But the Sadducees take away
the belief of the immortal duration of the soul, and the punishments and rewards in Hades.*
Again, elsewhere, he testifies, " The Pharisees believe that
souls have an immortal vigor in them; that under the earth
there will be rewards or punishments according as they have
lived virtuously or viciously in this life; the latter are to be detained in an EVERLASTING PRISON, but that the former shall have
power to revive and live again.  *  *    * But the doctrine of
the Sadducees is that souls die with the bodies."t'
Such is the testimony of the Jewish historian cotemporary
with Christ. The sects embracing the doctrine of immortality
were the great majority of the nation; those rejecting it, rejected
a future life altogether.  Our Saviour, therefore, in that discourse, must have been understood by those who heard him, as
meaning, by the term  in question, strictly everlasting; and he
knew he must be so understood.  Of course, using it without
limitations, he designed to be so understood; and such must be
its meaning in the passage.
* Josephus' Wars of the Jews: Book II. Chap. viii. Sects. 11-14.
f Antiquities of the Jews: Book XVIII. Chap. i. Sects. 3-4.




APPENDIX.                         281
That then it should have here its proper import of everduring, would seem  plainly inferrible from  the nature of the
subject, from the time and scope of the scene described, from  the
notions prevalent on the theme of discourse amid those to whom
the description was addressed, and from  the definition of the
term in? the context, in application to a subject-the life of the
righteous-to which none think of applying a restricted signification.  Instead, then, of the word everlasting being here restricted in its natural signification, it appears to us expanded by
the character of its subject, and by the occasion and the auditory, to its infinite capacity.
As predicated of the soul and especially the doom of the soul
after the last judgment, we may say without begging the question, the terms everlasting and eternal, to the common mind
and usage, carry the idea of endless duration. For however
imperfect and unsettled may be the notions of men in regard
to the immortality of the soul, they do not think of using or
understanding the terms, eternal and everlasting, in relation to
it or its future destiny, in a limited import. The mind naturally, if admitting the existence of the spirit after death at all,
conceives of it as among the most enduring of things. Especially would a limited import be attached to an epithet describing
the final doom of the soul, because that doom is the very uttermost syllable of its history. It covers the infinite future. [Bearing this, the soul disappears from  view forever.  No ulterior
judgment, no reversal of doom is intimated. Every aspect of
the scene and transaction looks to the everlasting.  The personages with differences of moral character and history, are dismissed from that throne on destinies that shall turn back no
more. If the scope of any scene or action could sustain in
common usage the unlimited extent of the time-term employed,
surely this were such an one. If that doom were not to cover
the unlimited future, and that life and punishment were to be
consummatecd, and have an end, we should expect, in a professed
exhibit of man's destiny, some intimation of it.




282                 APPENDIX.
Moreover, our Lord obviously would not have used, in such
a case, language which he knew would have been misapprehended, with no explanation or caution, or any intimation at
all guarding against misconstruction. And certainly he would
not have done so, knowing as he must, that by the use of the
same word in the next clause, where none would think of limiting it, viz., in application to the happy destiny of the righteous,
he would necessarily be understood by hearers and readers as
fixing its meaning. According to all rules of fair and perspicuous speech, the term which applied to the life of the righteous
in one clause embraces endless being, can not in one immediately adjacent shrink into finite and measurable date.
Thirdly. THIs DoOM IMPLIES CONTINUANCE OF BEING IN ITS OBJECTS. The words everlasting punishment imply this. This
might seem too obvious and self-evident for argument. But
some contend that these words may import simply a punishment
everlasting in its consequences (one from which there shall never
be a recovery), and may thus be fully satisfied by the annihilation
of those punished. But that these words have not this meaning
here, is clear from the following considerations.  This is not the
natural and obvious import of the words; that import by which,
according to the laws of sound criticism, we ought to interpret
language, in the circumstances in which this was uttered, and
according to which the phrase was unquestionably understood
by those who heard it. We think we certainly are not mistaken in feeling that " everlasting punishment" is not the term
in which one would naturally have expressed the idea of the
extinction of being; some other word than "punishment"
would have been used. Again, that is not the proper meaning
of the phrase employed.  The word translated punishment,:6Xaalt, is a word denoting, not the consequence, but the aot
of punishing. It is a verbal noun, a nomen actionis, equivalent
not to an opus operatum (a work operated), but to the operation.
It indicates not result so much as process. It is stronger than
the common word rendered punishment, the word employed




APPENDIX.                        283
with its adjective by Josephus to indicate eternal or immortal
punishment (rlyopia).  It is more significant than atonement,
amercement, expiation, penal satisfaction, etc. It corresponds
more nearly to our word chastisement, and might not inaptly
have been rendered punishing instead of punishment. It is a
noun of infliction. Its prime etymological idea is that of maiming, cutting, mutilation, and the like. In common usage it implies conscious suffering in its object. It is the same word which
is rendered torment in 1 John, iv. 18; where it is said, "There
is no fear in love, because fear hath torment."  This is the only
other passage exhibiting this word in the New  Testament.
If translated in this manner in the clause under inspection, ambiguity of meaning would have been impossible. We regard
the word, therefore, as implying its proper force, and because
of the popular belief amid those to whom the word was addressed, the conscious existence of its subject. Again, we infer this doom carries the idea of conscious being, because of the
adjunct attached to the instrument of the punishment predicated
(whether in reality or figure is immaterial). That instrument
or adjunct is called everlasting fire.  But why apply the epithet
everlasting to the agent, unless to convey the idea of everlasting
action? and what pertinency in calling the action everlasting,
if the suffering were not to be so?  It certainly would seem
frivolous to say the fire was everlasting, but the torment inflicted
was not so. The only pertinency in the use of this adjective of
endless duration attached to the penal agent, is found in the
implication of correspondent duration of the suffering of those
subjected to its power. The sentencing to a fire which shall
burn forevermore, would be naturally understood to be a sentencing to burn in it forevermore. The adjunct were nugatory
otherwise.  So of everlasting fire here; it were childish to accumulate epithets upon the fire for any other end. Would God
attempt to create terror by a mere sonorous and idle play of
words? Would our Saviour-would the great Judge-resort
to a mere trick of language, a childish illusion of the imagination?




284                  APPENDIX.
What matters it to souls absolutely and forever to be burned
up, whether the fire that consumes them  should raven on
through eternal ages, or is to be quenched with the extinction
of their own being? whether they are consumed in a bonfire or
in the conflagration of worlds? If I am to be drowned, what
matters it whether it be in the rivulet or the Atlantic?  It
surely were unworthy of the awful dignity and truthfulness of
the scene, for the Judge in his sentence before the assembled
universe thus to dilate on the everlastingness of the fire, when
he knew the culprits sentenced would soon be forever beyond
its burning. Let it burn on forever, it could not reach them.
What would its endless rage, even should it devour the universe, be to them in the bosom of eternal nothing? Certainly
the sentence of the last day will not attempt to frigohten the
condemned by a childish play on unreal fears. If the application of the epithet everlasting, to the fire, does not import that
the lost ones punished by it are to be everlastingly exposed to
its fury, it would be hard to acquit the final sentence of falsifying the obvious, designed, and inevitable impression of language,
by a mere artful equivoque worthy of a Pagan oracle. But the
scene and the speaker drive such a thought wide as the universe
aloof.
Suppose the sentence had been, Iepart, ye cursed, into fire
that shall burn a hundred years, or a thousand years, who would
think otherwise than that those sentenced were to burn in that
fire one hundred or one thousand years?  We should all think
of nothing else than takino an attributive of duration attached
to the agent ofpunishment, as an assignment of the date to the
punishment itself. We could discern no reason for its introduction at all if not for this purpose. So in case of the sentence of
the great day, if the time-term of the fire is not meant to be
that of its infliction of pain, we can see no reason why it is introduced here. Surely the eternal judgment were no theme
nor scene for admitting an artful fetch, by indirection conveying
a falliacy it shrinks from directly uttering. And surely he fronm




APPENDIX.                       285
whose lips these words fell-who was himself truth and love,
and in whose mouth guile was never found —would not abuse
and afflict men with unreal terrors; and especially by terrors
which, as is contended, while afflicting man, only dishonor God.
So subsequently in applying the epithet everlasting alike to the
life of the righteous and the punishment of the wicked, in continuous clauses, we can not suppose our Lord, in pronouncing
the irreversible doom, would palter in a double sense of the
same word, making the life endless, but the penal suffering not
so. Is everlasting punishment, in the common sense and usage
of words, simply punishment irreversible?-punishment from
which there shall be no recovery, irrespective of continuance of
being?  Does it not imply something felt everlastingly? Does
an infliction merely extinctive of existence correspond to its
common idea?  Should we think of saying of a man shot or
beheaded, that he departs into everlasting punishment, even
though there is no recovery from it, and its effects are enduring?
Is this a common-sense acceptation of the phrase? Would not
the common mind understand more, and must it not have understood more by this when Christ uttered it? A punishment
which the victim should forever suffer and from which he
should find no rescue, nor release, nor reprieve? Punishment
continuing implies existence continuing; everlasting punishment, everlasting existence. In common parlance you would
no more speak of the punishment of the annihilated than of the
uncreated.
Again, the words " everlasting punishment" imply everlasting
continuance of being, because our Saviour must have been conscious they conveyed that signification to those listening to him,
and his use of them, knowing they would be thus understood,
makes him responsible for intending that signification. The
Jews, with the notions entertained among themn of the future
destiny of the soul, could have interpreted them in no other
way. The theory of extinction after judgment, had no place
among them; the penal sufferings of the wicked, if there were




286                  APPENDIX.
any at all hereafter, were without end. But it is an established
canon of interpretation, which construes the words of a fair and
truthful speaker in the meaning in which he is conscious, while
uttering them, they will be understood by the hearer. And
evidently the Jewish mind, hearing words in customary use to
indicate a common belief, with no indications of departure from
that usage, could only understand by eternal punishment an
immortal woe. This Jesus knew, and this he must have intended.
We think, then, our three propositions are proven in case of
this text. It relates to the future doom of the wicked, affirms
of that doom, eternity, and implies the continued conscious existence of its objects, viz., wicked souls.
This is the most full, formal, and methodic statement of the
process and sentence of the final judgment to be found in the
Scriptures, and taken in all its aspects, may be regarded as not
less, certainly, than any other, a text entitled to rule on this
topic. We pause here to inquire, then, whether the above passage, to one looking at it by itself, and bringing to its examination no theory to be established, and no prejudgments to be
sustained, would not.seem perfectly decisive of the whole question; so plain and so unambiguous, indeed, that there could be
no mistaking its intent?                      DR. PosT.
THE END.