THE SIMPLICITY
OF
CHRIST'S TEACHINGS.








THE  SIMPLICITY
OF
CHRIST'S TEACHINGS,
SET FORTH IN
SERMONS.
BY CHARLES T.i BROOKS,
PASTOR OF THE UNITARIAN CHURCH, NEWPORT, R. I.
BOSTON:
CROSBY, NICHOLS, AND COMPANY,
117 WASHINGTON STREET.
1859.




Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1859, by
CROSBY. NICHOLS) AND COMPANY,
In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of /Massachusetts,
RIVERSIDE, CAMIBR'IDGE:
PRINTED BY HI. O. HOUGIITON AND COMPANY.




PREFACE.
THE writer of these twenty-five Sermons -a
few of the later fruits (or seeds) of a ministry of
nearly as many years - has been persuaded to believe that they " speak forth the words of truth and
soberness," in a wholesome way, for an age vibrating uncomfortably between extremes of religious
thought and feeling, and yearning, at heart, for that
unity in faith and in life, which Unitarianism, in its
best and true sense, seems to him to mean.
At the request, therefore, of those for whose
judgment he has the highest regard, this volume is
published with the hope that it may do something
to help on that work which is engaging some of
the noblest spirits of the time, - the reciprocal
reconciliation of reason and religion; the showing
of religion to be a reasonable thing, and (what is
quite as important) reason to be a religious faculty




Vi                  PREFACE.
and responsibility; the commending of Christianity
as a manly and humane faith, and the joining together of what God has united, but men have sundered,- thought, feeling, and action, — as inseparable elements in the one grand whole of a man's
true life.
NEWPORT, October, 1859.




CONTENTS.
CHAP.                                              PAGE
I. PILATE'S QUESTION...........................  1
II. A REVIVAL OF KNOWLEDGE NEEDED........... 15
III. DOING AND BELIEVING-.                       30
IV. RELIGION AS A HARMONIZER.................. 43
V. THE STUDY OF CHRIST'S LIFE.................. 58
VI. CHRISTIANITY TO BE LEARNED OF CHRIST......  72
VII. THE UNITARIAN IDEA........................ 85
VIII. THE CONSISTENT UNITARIAN BELIEVER......... 98
IX. THE REIGN OF THE FATHER................... 112
X. MAN, GOD'S OFFSPRING....................... 123
XI. GOD'S PROVIDENCE........................... 138
XII. " WHAT IS THE USE OF PRAYING?..........   150
XIII. WHAT AND WHERE IS THE CHRISTIAN HEAVEN- * 163
XIV. THE MORAL RESURRECTION.................. 175
XV. THE THREE PARABLES OF THE JUDGMENT. -.-.186
XVI. THE WORDS OF CHRIST, SPIRIT AND LIFE....... 198
XVII. THE CHURCH................................   214
XVIII. THE COMMUNION............................ 227
XIX. THE LORD'S SUPPER.......................... 240
XX. THE TIME OF REFORMATION................... 254




vill                    PREFACE.
XXI. LOVE TO MAN AND LOVE TO GOD..........  268
XXII. THE WINTER SOLSTICE................ 283
XXIII. EASTER.................................... 296
XXIV. THE BROAD COMMANDMENT.................. 308
XXV. THE PRESENT CRISIS OF FAITH.............. 323




SERMONS.
PILATE'S QUESTION.
PILATE SAITH UNTO HIM, VWHAT IS TRUTH? -John xviii. 38.
THERE seems to have been a good deal of doubt,
or at least difference of opinion, touching the question, in what character Pilate said this. From the
manner in which this brief utterance of his is commonly read and commented on, one would suppose
the general impression to be that he spoke either as
a theologian or as a philosopher; for the tone and
emphasis usually given to it would seem to imply
that Pilate wanted to know what was true, —that
he did not believe anybody could answer that question. The way in which his question is generally
repeated, when it is read in the pulpit or made the
subject of a sermon, ascribes too serious a frame of
mind to the Roman governor. It makes him speak
as a religious inquirer, putting the question in despair, or as a philosophical sceptic, throwing it out
in defiance, — What is truth? Who can produce
and prove it, among so many conflicting schools
and systems? And, according to this interpretation
1




2              PILATE'S QUESTION.
of his mood and motive, it was because he was so
fixed in his scepticism, (whether of despair or of
defiance,) — because he was so sure his question
could not be answered, - that he so abruptly turned
his back on the harmless enthusiast whom he mistook his illustrious prisoner to be.
But whoso thoughtfully reads this interesting and
significant passage of Scripture, and studies it in
the light of the whole record of Pilate's successive
interviews with the Jews and with Jesus, must
feel that the common interpretations, which make
him out either an anxious inquirer or a doubting
sophist, are quite inadequate. There was, at once,
a profoundness in the question itself which Pilate
uttered, and a levity in the spirit with which he let
it pass from his lips, neither of which the common
interpretation appreciates. He does not ask, " What
is truth? " - that is not the emphasis, - but what
he says, though in the form of a question, was really
meant for an answer- and, as he fancied, a triumphant answer — to what Jesus had so majestically
uttered, and what his own conscience, if he had
given it time, would have urged home upon him: -
" Truth!  What is truth?- What is all this idle
talk to me, who am set to represent the majesty of
an empire that deals with substances not with shadows, with facts not with fancies, and rules not by
the superstition of the priest or the speculation of
the philosopher, but by the sword of the magistrate,
by the strong arm of visible power, and the prestige
of success?" I think we get light upon Pilate's
feelings and motives in this case from the reply with




PILATE'S QUESTION.           3
which another Roman deputy interrupted Paul, when
he was about to defend himself against the Jews on
a charge similar to that now brought against Jesus;
and that Gallio spoke substantially what was in
Pilate's mind, when he said, " If it were a matter
of wrong or wicked lewdness, 0 ye Jews, reason
would that I should bear with you: But if it be a
question of words and names and of your law, look
ye to it; for I will be no judge of such matters."
So Pilate (as the whole account of his conduct
through the trial of Jesus goes to show) evidently
regarded, or affected to regard, the accusation of the
Jews and the counter-claim of Jesus, as " a question
of words and names;" and one of those empty
names was, to his mind, the one which Jesus had
repeated with so much emphasis, - the word Truth.
When he found that the alleged treason of his pris.
oner amounted to no more than this, - that this
was the residuum of the furious outcry of his Jewish
accusers, -that, after all, the poor man's claim was
to no other throne than the doubtful and barren
throne of Truth, - Pilate, evidently, at once regarded
the whole matter as beneath his dignity, and thought
to manage the bigoted persecutors by ridicule.
The sum and substance of what has been said is,
that when Pilate uttered that memorable question
(or exclamation), " What is truth?" he spoke neither as a theologian nor as a philosopher, but simply
as a politician. Hence it would be equally out of
the way to make the question, as from his lips, an
occasion for proceeding to set forth what is the
truth, as a matter of speculative doctrine (in other




4              PILATE'S QUESTION.
words, to give what we suppose would have been
the revelation Pilate did not stay to hear), and, on
the other hand, to indulge in surmises as to his
probable or possible sympathy with one or another
sect of philosophers that doubted the existence of
any standard of truth whatever, perhaps of any such
thing as truth itself.  Pilate spoke neither as a
churchman nor as a schoolman, but as a statesman.
Lord Bacon seems to have been one of the first,
and one of the few, to read our text with the right
tone and emphasis, who begins his essays: "' What
is truth?' said jesting Pilate; and would not stay
for an answer." Perhaps, indeed, in the expression
"jesting Pilate," the noble author anticipates a little,
for Pilate's jesting was with the Jews, not with Jesus,
and the very question,'" What is truth? " was really
addressed as much to the infatuated Jews to whom
he was going, as to the innocent man whom he so
abruptly left. All goes to show, I think, that, as
regards Jesus, the question was put more with the
feeling of one marvelling how a man could excite
such a commotion with people of sense by merely
pretending to be king of truth (that is, as Pilate
probably understood it, of opinion), than with any
disposition to ridicule him who claimed such a
sovereignty.
Lord Bacon reminds us that he who put the question of our text " would not stay for an answer."
It might be interesting to imagine what answer he
would have received if he had stayed, though we
should probably go wide of the mark in our attempt




PILATE'S QUESTION.           5
to act as spokesmen of Christ in this matter; and
it is more than possible that Jesus would not have
answered him, directly, at all. Pilate may have lived
long enough to have his question answered by stubborn and unmistakable facts. He may have learned
to read in the acts of the apostles a mighty reply to
the question he had so carelessly, with so little apparent conception of its significance, thrown out in
the presence of their Master. Little did he dream,
when he treated so lightly one whom he regarded as
guilty only of the harmless fanaticism of aspiring to
the sceptre and throne of Truth - how strong that
sceptre, and how exalted that throne, were one day
to be, even in the eyes of men; how soon the days
should come when that meek and lowly son of man,
who claimed no higher or imposing name than the
Word of God, should smite the nations with the
sword of his mouth - should rule them with a rod
of iron -breaking, with the sceptre of Truth, that
power so little appreciated by the world's mighty
ones, the rod of the oppressor, and judging, from the
throne of Truth, that invisible but all-present seat of
dominion, the souls and societies of men. He who
asked, " What is truth?" might have seen what it
was, if he had witnessed and heeded what took place,
a few months after, in Jerusalem, when the truth came
forth from the sepulchre in which blind bigotry, itself
entombed in darkness, had thought to bury her forever, -came forth,blinding the eyes of her jailers with
excess of light, and filling the hearts of unarmed and
unlettered men with power to confront the uttermost
terrors of earthly authority, and inspire thousands




6              PILATE'S QUESTION.
of others to give their bodies a living and a dying
sacrifice for that conviction of truth which, in the
eyes of the worldly wise, was foolishness and frenzy.
The question which Pilate put to Jesus stands there,
on the page of Scripture, to this day and forever, as
a representation of the attitude of worldly policy
towards the greatest interest of man, the living and
immortal soul. Far profounder was its significance
in reality, and forever is so, than he who uttered it
imagined, or we, who hear it, can well conceive.
The common reading of the words hides from our
view the mighty and momentous question which
lies far under it, -no mere speculative question, but
the great, practical question which the Spirit, the
ever-living witness and judge, is continually pressing
home upon all our hearts, amidst the distractions
and delusions of life. The question is, unfortunately, crowded out by the superficial one, "~ What truth
is there that we can be sure of, amidst the endless
variety and antagonism of sects and parties and
opinions?' and the sceptical one to which that leads,
(or which leads to that,) " What is truth, but a
glittering and sounding abstraction?" —but the
first of these questions loses its power to delude our
minds when we once feel the true meaning and
moral of the sublime announcement of Jesus, as
King of Truth and of the true, and learn that truth of
character (not merely truth of creed) is the test of
loyalty to his kingdom; and, when we once feel this,
the second sophistical form of the question " what
is truth? " falls to the ground, as we see that truth,
in the Christian religion, is a thing not of the fancy




PILATE'S QUESTION.              7
merely, but of the heart, out of which are " the
issues of life."  Undoubtedly, Christ came into the
world to bear witness to certain great truths of fact,
- truths for men to believe, in regard to God's government, and man's relations, duties, and destiny,
which whoso comes to him will believe; but no
man will come to him, as he himself said, who has
not first the spirit of truth; and, to the prior importance and prime excellence of the truthful spirit, he
testified, when he said, "Every one that is of the
truth heareth my voice;" that is, every true man is
the subject of my kingdom.
" What is truth? " askest thou, 0 Pilate! This
is our answer to thee and to all who, like thee, in
every age and nation, are repeating the question in
their hearts and in their actions, or in their neglect
of action: —Truth is the strongest, the only sure
thing in the world or the universe; Truth is almighty, for it is God himself, infusing himself into the
relations and laws of the universe, which is the
emanation of his own being, the expression of his
infinite thought. So far, therefore, as a man has,
nay, so far as he seeks the truth, the strength of God
is his. What though our creeds do but dimly and
distantly suggest the actual truth of things? It is
the truth as it dwells in the inward parts, - the truth
informing our convictions and characters; in a word,
the persuasion that there is such a thing as truth,
and that it is the only thing we can live by and
should live for; - this is the truth that we want, -
this is the truth that really saves the soul, all the
croakings of bigotry to the contrary notwithstand



8              PILATE'S QUESTION.
ing. " What is truth?" dost thou ask?  Truth is
the foundation of right, and it is that which must
prevail. " What is truth?" It is the light, the
heat, the lightning, of the world of thought. The
atmosphere of society is continually shaken by
those thunders of passion, which the dwellers upon
the surface of things now tremble at, and then
despise; but the noiseless electricity of thought is,
meanwhile, at work, cleansing the moral atmosphere,
and smiting one after another of the branches of the
giant poison-tree, which it will one day smite to the
root with a mortal stroke.
But we are come to a state of affairs in which
men seem very unwilling to trust to the simplicity
and soberness of truth, — to cast in their lot with
the plain truth,- to welcome and honor her wherever she may appear, and to desire nothing lovelier,
nothing better. How rare and refreshing, whether
in religion or in politics, to find the person, and still
more the party, whose strongest and supreme attachment is to the truth, come whence it may and
strike where it may! How few there are who do
not seem to want something more palatable or
stimulating, imposing or effective, than just what
is true; as if the Apostle had written (not "whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest"
-and the like- but) whatsoever things will tell,
whatsoever things will take, whatsoever things will
make a sensation and carry your point,-' think of
these things!" A vast proportion of people seem
determined to believe what they choose, and to
think with their passions rather than with their un



PILATE'S QUESTION.             9
derstandings; as if the only faculty of judgment
committed to them by their Creator were (not the
faculty to judge of the accordance of things with his
truth, but) the prerogative of judging their fellowmen. It would really seem as if, with multitudes,
truth were a thing to be invented rather than discovered. Surely, if our newspapers are to be universally taken as an exponent of the public health,
(which Heaven forbid that we should be compelled
to believe them!) it must be said that we are far
from being that people described by the Prophet:
" He said, these are my people, children that will not
lie; so he was their Saviour." If this is the condition of salvation, then must it be owned that we,
as a people, are yet far from that blessed state. We
are far from being eminently a truth-loving, truthseeking, truth-studying people. Our characteristic
question is, not what is true, but what is politic,
what is popular, what is safe. Consider to what a
serious extent ridicule is made a test of truth. How
much time and thought and talent are wasted in
showing, not that a principle is wrong, but that, if
adopted, it will lead to certain practical conclusions
which, at present, can be easily made to look absurd
in the eyes of the many. Instead of calmly and
candidly meeting the simple question, are these
things true or false? how very common it is to
indulge in a vast deal of windy declamation, which,
after all, amounts to something like this,- If you
accept such things as true, are you prepared for the
consequences, for the company into which your
confession will bring you, for the reputation (to




10            PILATE'S QUESTION.
say nothing worse) which you will get by it?
Such is really the staple of a great deal of the stuff
that calls itself argument at this day; and is, by
many, respected as such, partly because it appears
in print, greatly to the abuse of innocent types and
paper. Then, too, how much is the question of the
intrinsic merits of principles made, by multitudes,
to hang upon that of the merits of persons and
parties! Eighteen hundred years ago, it was said
that the world could not receive the spirit of truth.
Are we yet ready for it? Who of us is? "How
can ye believe," said Jesus to his generation, (and
does not his spirit say the same to ours?) — " how
can ye believe, which receive honor one of another
and seek not that honor which cometh from God
only?"
But does any worldly heart still ask, with something of the spirit of Pilate, " What is truth - this
truth of which you talk so much? Do you set up
your opinion, or your party's or sect's opinion, as the
standard of truth?" The answer is: Truth, as here
intended, is not a mere opinion, nor is it a public
thing, nor anything which one man or body of men,
however great and imposing, is to dictate to another.
Truth, as the term is here used, and according to the
best use of it, is a private and personal matter. In
speaking of the power of the truth, we do not mean
merely what we or any number of men may have
decided to be true, and that that is to do the great
work of the truth, in whatever manner and spirit it
may be put forward and carried forward. It is not
the thunder of declamation, but the lightning of




PILATE'S QUESTION.            11
conviction, and, still more, the potent, though quiet,
sunlight of persuasion, that is destined to reform and
redeem the world, the heart of society.
Let us go back for a moment to the meaning of
words. A celebrated philosopher says, that the word
truth (or troth, as it used often to be written) is
derived from troweth, the old English for thinketh, —
implying that what a man troweth or thinketh to be
true, to him is true. Whether this be the real etymology of the word, or whether it originated at a period
when it was taken for granted that a man's thought
would be the truth of his heart -the principle is
surely a sound one, namely, that nothing is true to
any man, that truth has for him no existence, except
so far as it is alive in his own convictions. " Dangerous doctrine! " does any one cry? " Where, then,
is our security? We are all afloat, without polestar or rudder, on a sea of uncertainty!"  Be not
hastily alarmed. The real danger of scepticism (or
rather of infidelity) comes not from the doctrine
that every one must think out his own truth, but
(little as it may be considered) from the very doctrine that he should have it thought out for him by
others. This is the doctrine that kills faith, and
leaves it a mere ghost - a mere name. It is a dangerous doctrine to say that, whatever a man wishes
to have true, that is true; but to say that, what a
man really thinks and believes to be true, that, and
that alone, for him and for the time, is true; so far
from being a dangerous doctrine, this is the very
doctrine of salvation. Supposing no two do agree in
thought, (though, in truth, the more freedom, the more




12             PILATE'S QUESTION.
real agreement,) - what then? Does the absolute
truth of God any the less live on, because we do not
yet apprehend it? Are we to despair because we
have not yet attained? Is there no satisfaction, no
blessing in the honest search and striving after
worthier and worthier conceptions of the Infinite?
"What, then, is truth?" do ye ask, O worldly
men, of whom  Pilate is the representative; —we
answer, truth is honesty, truth is candor; and this is
the truth which you first and most need, to live by, -
this is the truth which Jesus, by his faithful life and
his fearless death, most sacredly exhorts you to maintain, to buy at any price, and sell at none. Truth of
character has been, too generally, in the world, and
even in the church, made secondary to truth of creed;
but, in the kingdom of heaven, truthfulness of character, the simplicity of Christ, of the divine childhood, transcends unspeakably all other charms and
glories. And where this is, it goes far towards making a heaven on earth. Where truth dwells on the
lips, in the heart, and in the whole intercourse, there
is a lively foretaste of the peace and satisfaction of
the heavenly society. Need it be said how far we
are now from that blessed consummation? With all
the pious frauds in religion, and the party frauds in
politics, and the polite frauds in society, (by which
few are deceived, but many corrupted,) and the tricks
of trade in business, and the numerous little deceptions, acted lies, without which many suppose it impossible to keep a place in society or get a living in
the world,- a little clipping of the truth here and a
little stretching of it there, - who can tell how




PILATE'S QUESTION.             13
much, in these and so many other ways, the integrity
of manhood is eaten away at the core?
In regard to truth, indeed, as in regard to so
many other good things, there is a law of proportion
and perspective, not to be forgotten. Objectively, all
truths are not equally important at all times, - literal
accuracy is not to be put in comparison with the
truth-telling spirit. And a man might become so
nice in calculating his words, as to lose all living
utterance. But this is not the special fault, by any
means, in our day and country. We need to remember that, though not objectively, yet subjectively, —
that is, in reference to our own consciences, - all truth
is truth and equally significant, and that it is hardly
a tautology to repeat what an apostle says, " No lie
is of the truth." Here the word holds: " He that is
faithful in that which is least, is faithful also in
much." When great earthly interests are at stake, or
great truths and principles are to be carried forward,
we are easily seduced into thinking that a little exaggeration here, or a little keeping back of the truth
there, can do no harm; we become so impatient of
the slowness and slackness of the Lord, that we are
reluctant to trust the truth, and feel as if its arm
needed lengthening or strengthening; in the heat of
dispute or the sweep of declamation, we suffer ourselves to lose sight of the fair proportions and true
coloring of truth; and what was said in haste is defended at leisure, - making the last error worse than
the first.  Self-love, and the fear of man which
bringeth a snare, and a mixture of good and bad
motives, aggravate the evil and increase the snarl,




14             PILATE'S QUESTION.
till, at last, the warfare becomes quite a carnal one,
and we fight as those who beat the air. All this
comes from our once entertaining the presumptuous
wish that there could be some surer or shorter way
to success than He has ordained whose law upholds
the universe, -the way of truth and righteousness; —
from our forgetting, even for a moment, that falsehood
is weakness, that truth alone is strong, that truth is
almighty, - being the spirit and arm of God himself.
Sadly, indeed, does the world cry for truth, in the
sense of intellectual light, and still more of moral
wisdom, but most of all for fidelity to the truth which,
- at least since Jesus lived and died a martyr to the
truth of human brotherhood, not to say since God answered the question, " Am I my brother's keeper? " -
has been shining on in the consciences of men. Argument, and all kinds of manly appeal, are wanted,and the truth groans for deliverance from thousands
of minds and mouths in which it is yet imprisoned, -
groans for air and light and liberty; —but there is a
still higher duty we owe it, a higher service we can
render it. The truth requires not only to be spoken,
but to be done. The world cries for light, and especially for the light which comes from the example
of those truly independent souls that, instead of
making prosperity the test of truth, look to truth and
lean upon truth as the only hope of real prosperity.




IH.
A REVIVAL OF KNOWLEDGE NEEDED.
AND THIS I PRAY, THTAT YOUR LOVE MAY ABOUND YET  MORE AND MIORE
IN KNOWLEDGE AND IN ALL JUDGMENT; THAT YE MAY APPROVE
THINGS THAT ARE EXCELLENT.- Philippiany, i. 9, 10.
SOME would render this latter clause, "that ye
may prove things that differ," - as Paul himself
says elsewhere, " Prove all things," - and, strictly
speaking, indeed, we must prove before we can approve, - and in some cases the words mean about
the same thing, as where the Apostle speaks of
Jesus as a man approved by signs and wonders,
and (which is still more to the present point) where
he says, " There must needs be heresies (or divisions) among you, that they which are approved may
be made manifest; "- still, as the only christian, the
only sensible, ultimate object of proving things or
persons, of trying the spirits, opinions, ways of
men, is that we may find out and " hold fast that
which is good" and true, the phrase in question,
though not perhaps quite accurately rendered, may,
as it stands in our common version, be regarded,
with this explanation, as expressing very well the
Apostle's idea; and the whole, taken together, seems
to inculcate about what he represents, in still another




16     A REVIVAL OF KNOWLEDGE NEEDED.
place, to be the influence communicated by the Christian Religion, - namely, " the spirit of power, and of
love, and of a sound mind."
A sound mind. This, which seems to be the point
of the climax in that passage, indicates the main
purpose for which I have chosen, as my text, the
passage before us, in which the Apostle prays that
his brethren's love (of all good things) may abound
yet more and mnore in knowledge and in all judgment,
- prays, in short, that they may have what Solomon
so expressively calls "a wise and understanding
heart."
I regard the text as particularly valuable, just at
this time, for its showing, on such high authority, in
opposition to the extremes into which people are
prone to run, that not only may knowledge and
judgment abound without causing love (whether
you mean by it zeal or charity) to abound any the
less, but that knowledge and judgment are highly
important as constituting the conditions under which
such love may most favorably grow up and do its
work.
And there is no prayer, it seems to me, which a
thoughtful, christian man can more appropriately
offer, and make the presiding spirit of his labors, at
the very day we live in, in view of the wants of the
church and the community, than this, - that men
might come to a true understanding in the things of
religion; that they might really, and not merely in
form and phrase, know the truths, the beings, and
the powers, of the world to come, - that world, and
that kingdom, which is ready to come even now in




A REVIVAL OF KNOWLEDGE NEEDED.      17
the soul that shall be ready for its recognition and
reception.
In the discourse of last Sunday morning, from
those words of the Prophet Hosea, "My people
are destroyed for lack of knowledge," I made some
preparation for a practical treatment and present
application of this great subject, by calling your
attention, in quotation and reference, to the vast
amount of Scripture testimony in relation to it, and
submitting to you a key, by which the apparent
variations of that testimony (much fewer than some
seem to have imagined) may all be harmonized. I
maintained that the great mass of Bible expressions
on the subject - a mightier array than most of us,,
perhaps, are aware — go not only to recommend
knowledge as a pleasant and precious thing, but to
urge it home as something needful and vital to all
the great interests of man. I contended that, according to the doctrine of Scripture, we never can have
too much knowledge, if it is of the highest and
deepest kind, and that there is no such thing as our
seeking it too ardently, if we do it on the right track,
in the right spirit, and for the right end, namely,
when the road on which we pursue it is life, the
spirit in which we pursue it is humility, and the
end for which we pursue it is love.
And now, in passing on to make a practical use
of this vast subject, in some of its present bearings,
I do not hesitate to say, (always keeping in mind
the discrimination which we have shown to be required by Revelation and by reason,) that the most
crying want of this age is the want of knowledge.
2




18     A REVIVAL OF KNOWLEDGE NEEDED.
I do not mean that knowledge which is set before
the senses, (and which is all that knowledge means
to a great many,) but knowledge in the soul itself.
In regard to this kind of knowledge, I will not here
insist upon the Prophet's word and say that the peo-:ple are destroyed for the lack of it; I simply say that
it is for the want of it, that they are kept from growing in, and growing into, that true life of man which
is at once peace and progress.
It is to be feared that there are few, comparatively,
who can say, as Paul did, that they know in whom
they have believed, few who do really know in what
they now believe; for the tendency of this age to
draw or drive men's thoughts onward and outward
seriously interferes with the self-collection, the selfcontrol, the self-examination necessary to the possession of this knowledge. It is not without some
considerable effbrt that most men can, in an age (not
to say a world) like this, truly know where they stand,
what they are doing, whither they are going.
And yet how often it is said, or implied, (with a
significant allusion to the amount of schooling, and
preaching, and printing, and the extraordinary activity of what is called the " diffusion of knowledge,"
in these days,) that, if the people are destroyed nowadays,- if they destroy themselves, —it cannot be,for the lack of knowledge, — it is more likely to be
from the excess of knowledge, - at least of the means
of knowledge. Yes, but this saving clause- this." at least " - contains the gist of the whole question.
Do you point to the schools, and presses, and pulpits,
that are multiplying throughout the land, as a proof




A REVIVAL OF KNOWLEDGE NEEDED.      19
that we are not suffering for the lack of knowledge?
These are means of knowledge; but to have the
means and to use them are two things. Admitting
that most of what floats about in books and newspapers, and so many other forms of communication,
could be called knowledge, can you say confidently
that any great proportion becomes knowledge in
men's minds? Does any one suppose that mere
words, the memory of which used to be, and still
is too much, regarded as the process of education,
are going to save the soul, to form the character?
Are we not assured on high authority that one may
be " ever learning and never coming to the knowledge
of the truth?" The simple reason of which is, that
knowledge results only from the reaction of the individual mind on the stores of thought and fact with
which learning furnishes and fills the memory; and
he who, with the greatest supply of such material,
has no power and no will to make it his own, by
reflecting and reasoning on it, is, in the highest sense,
ignorant.
And when (as the scripture quotation just made
reminds us to do) we pass from the school, and the
wide school of the world, to the Church, which is designed, indeed, to be also the school of adult children
in the matter of religious instruction and spiritual
life, do we not find the distinction upon which we
have been insisting still to hold good, between that
knowledge (so called) which is only a phantasm,
and that which is knowledge in reality? It is often
said, indeed, that men know enough, if they would
only do what they know. A more correct statement




20      A REVIVAL OF KNOWLEDGE NEEDED.
would be, that they might know something of religion, (know enough to make them continually want
to know more,) if they would only follow their
holiest presentiments, the deep movings of the spirit
within them. I fear we are apt to assume too much
knowledge of religious truths, both on our own part,
as a ground of complacency, and on the part of
others, as a ground of condemnation. Does any man
know a thing to be true, merely because I tell him that
it is true? And because I repeat my assertion of it,
and re-repeat it, and thunder it in his ears, does he
any the more know it, for all that? Knowledge is
not to be poured or discharged from one mind into another; it can be communicated from one to
another, only by the waking up of those affections
and faculties in that other which, acting voluntarily
and independently, (I mean independently of man,)
shall lay hold of that truth which is the food of the
soul and assimilate it to its own nature by inward
digestion. To cram the ear with assertions, dogmatically and dictatorially made, is not to fill the mind
with knowledge, -may be only to inflate it with
presumptuous ignorance. Because a man has heard,
for years, the Gospel (or what some fallible man or
body of men pronounces the Gospel) proclaimed
and declaimed ever so energetically and unmistakably, it by no means follows that he has a knowledge
of the Gospel itself. That depends upon whether
he has used his own mental, moral, and spiritual faculties on the subject, — on the great matter which has
thus been appealing to him, - whether experimental
study has gained him the knowledge of experience, -




A REVIVAL OF KNOWLEDGE NEEDED.       21
whether he has tried the word and found it not
wanting in evidence to his highest faculties and affections, and in quickening and purifying power over
his life.
We often talk in a vague way of the power of the
truth. " Great is the truth," we often hear men say,"Truth is great and will prevail," - when, so far as
their conviction or comprehension of what they say
is tested by their showing practically their allegiance
to truth, their determination to live it, they might
almost as well have been crying, "Great is Diana of
the Ephesians!"  How is truth to prevail except
through individual action? There is a mode, not
uncommon, of quoting only half of some of the great
statements of Scripture; and one of the grandest of
our Master's assertions would seem to be often silently appealed to in this imperfect form.  One would
think men remembered, often, his having declared,
" the truth shall make you free," and forgot the other
and vitally important clause which precedes it, " ye
shall know the truth."
"He is the freeman whom the truth makes free,"
it has been rightly said; but him only does the truth
make free, in the inner world, who knows it; and he
only can know it who makes this knowledge his by
his own earnest study, effort, and conflict. No higher
or stronger word has ever been uttered upon the necessity of knowledge than that memorable one of
the Great Teacher, "Ye shall know the truth, and
(i. e. as a consequence of your knowing it) the truth
shall make you free."




22         REVIVAL OF KNOWLEDGE NEEDED.
Not even the reading of the Scriptures viii avail
for knowledge, without this internal activity of which
I speak. Jesus found fault with the Jews that they
searched the Scriptures, thinking that " in them " they
had eternal life deposited for them, while they had
not God's word, as he says, abiding within themselves, and would not listen to the voice of his spirit,
speaking to their hearts, and struggling to gain a
lodgment there, in the active convictions of their
nature.
And to this day, the great want is of that knowledge which men can acquire only by a thoughtful
study of the truth and of themselves. If we expect
to have saving knowledge given to us, without our
working for it, we may wait life-long, but we shall
wait in vain.
It is often said that our Unitarian discourses (and
the remonstrance has sometimes been made with regard to those delivered from this pulpit) appeal too
much to the reason, and too little to the feelings.
But I remember with what clear and conclusive
majesty of statement the great preacher who, twentyone years ago, gave me the charge on taking this
ministry, and who being dead, yet speaketh, exhorted me to " put confidence in the power of pure,
unsophisticated truth," - to " be willing to.....
seem cold, rather than'o'erstep the modesty' of
truth," - how he cautioned me " against distrust of
simple truth," " against artificial processes," " against
straining for effect," insisting that " in the long run,
nothing is so strong as simplicity."  " Truth is the
power," he said, " which is to conquer the world; and




A REVIVAL OF KNOWLEDGE NEEDED.      23
you cannot toil too much to give clear perceptions
of it. I may seem to waste words," he added, " on so
plain a point; but I apprehend, that few ministers understand the importance of helping men to see religious truth distinctly. No truth, I fear, is so faintly
apprehended. On the subject of religion, most men
walk in a mist." And never shall I forget the emnphasis with which he turned to me and said, "My
brother, help men to see." I believe I have always
had the spirit of this exhortation about me in all my
efforts to promote the great object of the gospel
ministry, not because it was the exhortation of a
man, even one so spiritually gifted, but because my
whole soul told me, and every year's reflection has
confirmed me in the conviction, that he uttered the
very word of truth and soberness.
I do not think that we have, by any means, entirely recovered yet from the grievous injury which
has been done to our religious interests by the disparagement of individual judgment in the matter of
religion.  There are, indeed, two extremes against
which Christian simplicity requires us to be on our
guard, - the stoical pride of rationalism on the one
hand, and the insidious Epicureanism of sentimentality on the other. I know no better way of securing the safe middle course, than by recognizing and
following the doctrine that reason is the foundation
of religion; but, at the same time, that this is no
ground for idle self-complacency, because reason is
the light of God in the soul, and, therefore, instead
of a self-exalting, the consciousness of this should be
a self-humbling, and yet quickening, sentiment to one




24      A REVIVAL OF KNOWLEDGE NEEDED.
who will see how that light strikes on his own character.
There are some who seem as if they could never
hear of religion's great appeal being to man as a
rational nature, without persisting in misunderstanding you; as if, in referring to reason, you meant
merely a speculative, negative principle; as if reason
were only a faculty which disproves, and denies, and
throws away error; or as if you were foisting into
the sphere of religion a faculty which was meant
merely to guide man in the secular affairs of life.
They will not see that this equally modest and sacred
faculty of reason is that in man which not merely
disproves what is to be disbelieved, but proves what
is to be believed, and revered, and obeyed; which
lays the foundation of that faith, that religion, which
alone glorifies God and benefits man; and especially
will they not see that one of reason's best offices is
to do away that unworthy distinction between holy
duties and common duties, which has ever been one
of the greatest stumbling-blocks in the way of religious belief and life.
I know, too, that there are many to whom it would
seem an unseasonable and ungracious course, at the
very moment when there is understood to be, and no
doubt to some extent is, an unusual awakening of religious feeling or attention to the forms and signs of
religion, around us and amongst us, to be urging the
importance of knowledge and of that thought and
study, that exercise of reason and that self-inquiry,
which lead to knowledge. There are some, no doubt,
who would designate this as nothing less than a




A REVIVAL OF KNOWLEDGE NEEDED.       25
standing out against the manifest pleasure of the
Spirit -a setting up of our will against the Divine
will, — if not a quenching of the spirit of charity.
To my mind, however, there is no unfitness, but a
peculiar propriety, in presenting the subject which I
have chosen, just now.
When many are running to and fro to meet the
spirit, is the very time, it seems to me, for those who
believe that the spirit of the ever-present and omnipresent One, in whom we live, and move, and have
our being, is always striving and struggling with our
spirits, always knocking at the door of our hearts, in
every vicissitude of life, and even in that dullness
which seems like death,- it is the very time for
those who believe this, to say so. When many are
running to and fro to seek religious feelings, then is
the time for those who believe that, after all, individual thought alone can make feeling genuinely and
practically religious, to say so. When many are crying, Lo here! and lo there! then is the time for those
who believe, and are impressed with the importance
of the truth, that the fountain of peace and purification is within, to say so, humbly, indeed, but honestly.
Undoubtedly the spirit of God is moving over the
face of the waters now, as it always is, whether the
waters are stormy or stagnant; but the cry of the
spirit still is, "6 Let there be light! " only it is not, as
of old, to material elements, but to moral and intelligent beings, to whom God has left it in a measure,
to us indefinite, to say how far there shall be light,
and order, and peace, and prosperity, and beauty,
and beneficence, in this lower world, or at least how




26      A REVIVAL OF KNOWLEDGE NEEDED.
far they will receive, and enjoy, and help to diffuse it.
The simple ground I take is, that any stir in the
community, in the name of religion, ought, even
without any reference to its immediate cause, or its
actual character, to remind every sect and every soul
that respects religion, of the necessity, not now only,
but from this time forth and always, of a real revival
of religion; and that no sect or soul is excusable,
that is not doing something, in its own way, whatever it may be, towards bringing on that devoutly
to be desired consummation, when religion shall be
not merely a tradition or a machinery, but a spirit
and a life.
I repeat, therefore, that I regard the subject of the
need, the nature, the conditions of genuine knowledge in religious things as peculiarly important even
now. I would fain do my part and help lead you to
do yours towards making sure that there shall be not
a temporary but a permanent awakening of that true
religion, which has been defined to be " the life of
God in the soul of man."  One of the best signs
of an awakening is the having of the eye open to
the light. Warmth of feeling is well, but what is
of more practical importance is clearness of vision,
that clearness of the mind's and whole spirit's perceptions - that singleness and steadiness of the inner
eye —which ancient moralists called the virtue of
the intellect, and which deserves even a higher distinction -which, for instance, enables us to discern
the significance, in the formation and testing of
the evangelical spirit within us, of those common,




A REVIVAL OF KNOWLEDGE NEEDED.        27
seemingly little, every-day matters, which, in the
glow and whirl of highly stimulated feeling, are too
apt to be overlooked or practically despised. The
calmness I plead for is not coldness, - far from it, -
it is the calmness of "a wise and understanding
heart."  It is desirable, indeed, that earnestness of
purpose should be accompanied with warmth of
feeling, and it will be; but it is all-essential that we
should each reflect soberly upon the occasions or
subjects by which the feelings are or should be
aroused.  The mind, and not the impulses, must,
after all, hold the reins in a rightly ordered nature.
There is surely enough in the truth we profess, in
the times we live in, and in our own consciences, to
call for a revival of religion. We need to take it home
to ourselves, that religion is our " reasonable service "
-and as a preparation for this, or rather as an important part of this, that reason is a religious faculty,
and that a faithful use of it is divine service. One
of our noblest minds has said: "Make men rational
and you make them religious." I believe this heartily. While, therefore, others are crying, " Get religion," I would echo that venerable call of Solomon,
as illustrated and enforced by Christ and his Apostles, " Get wisdom; and, with all thy gettings, get
understanding."
Certainly I should not be so irrational as to deny
that religion is a social matter, but I simply say that
it is a spiritual matter, not a formal or mechanical
thing.  Certainly if, in old time, " they that feared
the Lord spake often one to another," they that love
the Lord may well be expected to do so. But this




28     A REVIVAL OF KNOWLEDGE NEEDED.
may be done in the thoughtful hour of quiet intercourse as well as in the hour and the place at which,
called by the bell, men meet with the deliberate intention, " Now we are going to talk religiously." I
believe that whenever and wherever two or three are
met in the faith of Christ, as his disciples, (for that
I understand the phrase " in his name" to mean,)
then and there the holy spirit of Christ and the
Father is in the midst of them, and it is not at all
necessary that there should be two or three hundred.
One of the greatest dangers attending these general
movements on the subject of religion, is the tendency to estimate the growth of the kingdom of
heaven by outward statistics; by the quantity of the
fruits rather than its quality; by the superscription
of the coin rather than the fineness of the metal; by
show, and sound, and swell of numbers. Thus one
of the newspapers, the other day, objected to the
alleged revival in this place, and seemed disposed to
speak slightingly of it on the ground that only a few
at that time responded to the call of the bell to social
worship. As if truth had not as often been found
in minorities as in majorities! But what has the
question of numbers to do with the case? The
great question is, whether the few " find," whether
they seek, "the strait and narrow way."  And this
is the great question for all -for each of us. The
knowing and judging faculty is too much frittered
away in the criticism of other men's methods and
motives. Love does not abound in such knowledge
and judgment, either love for them, or for the truth,
or for the common Master. The chief question we




A REVIVAL OF KNOWLEDGE NEEDED.      29
have to settle is, not what will others do or say, but
what are we doing -what ought we to be doinghow can we in our sphere, with our aptitudes, best
honor our Maker and Master -best do our human
work- best serve our fellow-creatures?
I end, as I began, with echoing the prayer of the
Apostle, (extracted from an Epistle, the whole of
which I recommend to you as one of the very best
circular letters for a season of revival I can think of,)
" and this I pray, that your love may abound yet
more and more in all knowledge and judgment;
that ye may approve things that are excellent; that
ye may be sincere and without offence till the day
of Christ; being filled with the fruits of righteousness, which are by Jesus Christ, unto the glory and
praise of God."




III.
DOING  AND  BELIEVING.
A CERTAIN MAN HAl) TWO SONS; AND HE CAME TO THE FIRST AND SAID,
SON, GO WORK TO-DAY IN MY VINEYARD. HE ANSWERED AND SAID,
I WILL NOT: BUT AFTERWARD HE REPENTED AND WENT. AND HE
CAME TO THE SECOND AND SAID LIKEWVISE. AND HE ANSWERED AND
SAID, I GO, SIR, AND WENT NOT. - Matt. xxi. 28-30.
THEN SAID THEY UNTO HIM, WHAT SHALL WE DO, THAT WE MIGHT WORK
THE WORKS OF GOD? JESUS ANSWERED AND SAID UNTO THEM, THIS
IS THE WORK OF GOD, THAT YE BELITEVE ON HIM WHOM HE HATH
SENT. - John vi. 28, 29.
BY way of breaking up the narrowing, enslaving,
and distracting influence which the old, time-hallowed way of building upon single texts of Scripture has upon the mind, it is well for us, occasionally, to deduce the doctrine, on which we are going
to meditate in these hours, from several different
parts of the record, comparing them with each other,
and with the inner light which lighteth every man
that cometh into the world. By this course, we are
tempted and assisted to rise out of the besetting
tyranny of the letter and the form into the healthful
and enduring religion of the spirit.
The two extracts from  our Master's discoursings
with the Jews, which I have drawn together to make
the basis of my sermon, belong, as you perceive, to
quite different occasions, originally, but still they




DOING AND BELIEVING.            31
both bear upon the same great question, namely,
what Christ, in the name of the Father, calls man
to do; and they are, in such manner, supplements
to each other, that whoso will read and reflect upon
them in connection shall get a better impression of
the word of Christ, as combining the liberal and the
practical traits of a " law of liberty," than the readers of the written, and the hearers of the preached,
word do generally receive.
There is a twofold propriety in our considering
together, as one consecutive narration, the separate
portions of Scripture I have presented to you; for,
in the first place, the second explains the nature of
that work of God, or work for God, which the first
enjoins; and, in the next place, the opposition and
evasion with which the parable, in the former part,
represents men as treating God's message, arise,
after all, in no small measure, from misrepresentation
and misconception of the simplicity of the service
which, as Jesus intimates, in the latter part, our
Heavenly Father really requires of his children.
I spoke of the second part of our text as a supplement to the first. Strictly speaking, however, I
think we might pronounce it almost a repetition, in
a more distinct and proverbial form, of a truth
which, in the application he makes of the parable
we have prefixed to it, our Saviour, I think, strongly
intimates. For, if you will take notice, when Jesus
comes to show how the vineyard represents the
kingdom of heaven, into which he was sent to call
men, he makes the distinction between the penitent
publicans and the pretending Pharisees consist in




32           DOING AND BELIEVING.
the former's believing and the latter's not believing.
The belief is the obedience, and the disbelief is the
disobedience.'"John came unto you in the way of
righteousness, and ye believed him not: but the
publicans and the harlots believed him: and ye,
when ye had seen it, repented not afterward that ye
might believe him."
At all events, there is this natural transition from
the parabolic to the preceptive part of our text: If,
under the preparatory dispensation of the Baptist,
which, while requiring spirituality as a qualification
for the kingdom, did not fully reveal that heaven
consisted in spirituality, - if, even then, really believing in the Messenger (or believing him) was considered as virtually obeying his message, how much
more might he who came spiritually to fulfil the
dispensations, - not a servant only, but the Son,
of the Father's house, sent to give all men power
to become sons of God, - how peculiarly and emphatically might he say, " this is the work of God,
that ye believe on him whom  He hath sent."
In short, the words of Jesus which we have
brought together from different connections, different
moments of his ministry, combine to teach and
strikingly to impress upon us the double doctrine,
simple, however, to the truth-seeking spirit, that in
the kingdom of God, the kingdom of Christ, the
kingdom of faith, doing is believing and believing is
doing. I call this a double doctrine, for it does serve
the double purpose of affording us a plain test by
which to judge whether our belief is a reality, and
at the same time enabling us to try whether our




DOING AND BELIEVING.           33
works are dead works, or the live works of the
spirit.'"What shall we do that we might work the works
of God?" said a sceptical, superstitious, and mercenary generation, supposing, I doubt not, that there
were some distinct works of form and penance, independent of the daily work of life, by which they
might ingratiate themselves with the King of Heaven, and be finally admitted to the felicity of which
they so dimly and sensuously dreamed. And have
not we, at this day, a practical interest in the manner in which Jesus answered their question? Our
Maker and Father continues to call his children,
bidding them, I will not say to go, for we are taught
that he is everywhere, but to come and work for him
and with him in his vineyard. In the life and teachings and death of Jesus; in all the institutions and
influences that have sprung from his words and
labors; in the silent appeals of conscience through
the frequent mortification of pride and selfishness,
and the unsatisfactoriness of their triumph when
they seem to be successful; in all the sacred voices
of life and death and eternity, He, who is the same
yesterday, to-day, and forever, invites us to take his
yoke upon us and enter into the service and into the
joy of our Lord. And there can hardly be one of
us, I conceive, upon whose heart that urgent call is
not often pressing, even if there are many to whose
conscious thought it seldom distinctly shapes itself.
And I will add that there are probably few who dare
or desire outright to refuse obedience or acceptance
to the call of Heaven; yet it must be said that
3




34            DOING AND BELIEVING.
there are still many, and yet not deceivers, perhaps,
except in the sense of deceiving their own selves,
who are, virtually, all the time saying, " I go, Lord,"
and go not, but are always going to go; trying, it
would seem, to flatter themselves that postponement
is progress. But what is really the difficulty in the
case of such? What is it that weighs so heavily
upon their spirits and makes life, and, most of all,
that part of it which they profess to spend nearest
to God, the blessed and the benignant, a burdensome, a barren, and an unblest thing? Is not this
the trouble with a great proportion of them, that
while they feel that the so-called religious works
they already perform are dead works of custom and
fear and eye-service, they still labor under the idea
that what God requires of them is, nevertheless,
some more and some other just such kind of works,
that is, works not lovely and desirable in themselves,
but only good, as the "filthy lucre " of earth is, for
what they will bring. It is certainly a remarkable
fact that what has been and is, to this day, too
commonly, in the religious community, made to
mean entering into the Lord's vineyard, is the multiplying of those eye-services and lip-services which
are, essentially, precisely what Jesus reproved in the
Pharisees as equivalent to saying, "we go," and not
going.
Plainly, what we need, still, to a great extent, is
to hear and understand and inwardly digest the
counsel Jesus gave, out of the riches of his simplicity, to a class of men who were perhaps thinking
more of great works than of good works, and less of




DOING AND BELIEVING.          35
the good spirit than of either, when he replied to
their inquiry what works they should do for God,
" This is the work of God: that ye believe in him
whom he hath sent." Have we truly entered into
the heart of this oracle? Have we reflected upon
and realized the divine and practical philosophy
which it contains? The Jews talked of works, and
so do the uneasy souls of men still haggle with
conscience about works; what works must we do,
when, how often? Christ ends all this dreary and
hopeless self-torment with the simple and gracious
decision: there is but one work God requires, this is
the work which swallows up all works, the work of
believing. With what reason, with what hope of
satisfaction can you ask respecting the works you
have to do for God, when you do not yet really
believe in God, - for if you did, you would believe
in one whose works show that he is the Son of
God, and whose life and spirit are the image of the
Father.
There are three senses in which belief may be
called the work of God; first, because it is the work
man has to do in divine things; secondly, because,
as Paul reminds us, the faith which saves is God
working in the soul; and thirdly, just as, according
to a Hebrew idiom, the great trees of the forest are
called the trees of the Lord, so faith may be called
the work of God, because it is the grand work of all
works.
In either or in all of these senses, the wisdom of
our Master's declaration justifies itself to every considerate mind, every truth-seeking heart.




36           DOING AND BELIEVING.
It is easy to repeat sanctimoniously the confession
that we are nothing and can do nothing; but we
have to do a great deal before we can really so
renounce self as to believe that of God and through
him and to him are all things. "What shall we do
for God?" formalism and superstition ask. " You
can do nothing for him," the simplicity of Christ
answers, " except to let him work in you."
" What services must I perform, - what are those
good and perfect and acceptable works of God?"
asks the distracted spirit, perplexed, it may be, by
the cry of Lo here! and lo there! and again the simplicity of Christ answers, " Call home your wandering thoughts. Really to believe in my Father and
in me is what you want. Where there is a belief
there is a will, and where there is a will there is a
way."
" What shall we do that we might work the works
of God? " the disheartened spirit sighs, at the entrance of a long and lengthening vista of duties
rising like mountains behind mountains,  " how
shall we ever accomplish this endless succession of
labors?" And once again the spirit of grace in
Christ makes answer: " Yes, it is endless, this life
of religion, because it is the life of God. But be
not dismayed by that multitude of details which an
imagination uncontrolled by faith conjures up before
thee, nor indulge the desperate hope of finding peace
only at the end of an endless series of tasks. In
reality there are not many works,  there is but
one work for thee; and, when that is done, and just
in proportion as that is done, all is done.  Only




DOING AND BELIEVING.          37
believe; all things are possible to him that believeth."
There is one other way in which I would lead you
to feel the force of our Saviour's saying, that believing is the work of God, the great work of man, and
that is, by comparing his position in this matter, as
regarded the Jewish multitude, with that of his great
forerunner on a similar occasion. To John, also,
when his pungent words and-his austere and august
appearance in the wilderness impressed the people
with his divine authority, they came with the question, 4" What shall we do, then? " And what was
his reply?  Very different, I conceive, from  what
the crowd was led to expect by the solemn trumpet
strain of preparation.  Surely, they must have
thought, he will announce to us some great and
mighty work of penance and purification to fit us
for being ushered into this glorious kingdom! If
they did, greatly must they have been astonished,
when this mysterious messenger of Heaven replied
that he had no special and separate penances or
performances to require of them in God's name and
in the name of the coming Messiah, but simply that
they should continue in their several present spheres
of labor, only doing all in the fear of God and in the
love of man.
And did not John, in the spirit of this answer,
truly anticipate the spirit of the answer which the
great spiritual King he came to herald made, near
the end of his ministry, when another multitude,
roused to the same expectation of the approaching
kingdom, put to him the selfsame question, " What




38           DOING AND BELIEVING.
shall we do?"  Did not he, too, say in substance, I
have no new scheme of ceremonial service to announce to you; I only call upon you in the name of
God, to have that spirit of faith which shall give a
new meaning to the old and homely relations of life,
- a new meaning to that everlasting law of interdependence and mutual membership which God has
written upon the hearts of his children?
This, then, I would say: that to believe is the
work of God, because it is the spirit of God working in all our works to make them be clean and
satisfying and successful, all religious works, outgoings of a devout and divine life. And it is the
work of man — his one great work - because he is
called upon to do it; because the distractions and
delusions of the world make it a hard thing for
many to take upon them even the yoke that is, in
itself, light and easy; and finally, because, this work
once done, all is done; that is to say, duty no longer
is drudgery, toil is no longer torment, the work of
life is felt to be the work of the Lord, and the work
of the Lord not the affair of days and months and
times merely, but the great business of man's being.
It is true, then, however much the creeds may
have misrepresented the doctrine, that man's great
work is to believe, in the Father and in the Son and
in the Spirit, or to believe in the Son, which implies
all; because any one who really believes in him,
believes in his spirit, which is of the Father. One
who believes in Christ, believes in the principles
which he taught and lived, believes in the disposition he displayed, in the beauty and desirableness




DOING AND BELIEVING.            39
and efficacy and final victory of the spirit of selfsacrifice which he incarnated. This is why the Gospel says, from first to last, Believe; not that blind
assent to an unintelligible formula is a meritorious
or a magical act of violence to pride of reason; not
that professing and trying to believe what one cannot comprehend or even conceive, is a penance to
which the reward of future salvation has been affixed by an arbitrary enactment of Heaven; nothing
of all this, -but simply that what a man believes,
that (as the very word might teach us) is beloved by
him; not that faith, like a certificate held by a foreigner to the language in which it is written, is a
passport admitting into a future heaven the man
who has it about him, whether or not he has the
spirit of heaven in his heart, —but, on the contrary,
because faith is a key, not to the gate of the celestial city, but to the language of its blessed inhabitants; because faith does understand divine things;
because faith now works from insight, by love; because, in short, believing is now the saving of the
soul, and chiefly from the misery of looking on this
world and living in it, as if it were left, even for a
moment, to the will of Satan; as if it could be
doubtful, in a world of the Father's making, which
is fated to conquer, evil or good. He who truly
believes in Christ, lives in Christ; he who, with him
and through him, believes in God, does, with him
and through him, live in God.
Yes, it is verily the great thing to believe; and it
is, in a world like this, a great work to believe in
the pure, elevated, and enlarged principles of Jesus.




40            DOING AND BELIEVING.
The very fact that belief has been so much misrepresented, of itself tends to make the work of cherishing the faith a hard one. The pressure of the
atmosphere of worldliness, which we do not really
feel till we begin to try to rise above it, — the tide
of fashion and formality, of which we are often
quite insensible till we set ourselves against it,these influences make the work of getting faith still
harder. I am not speaking of professing belief, but
of having it.
How are we to have it? Will it be said that faith
cometh by hearing? This is the principal way in
which it would seem that a great proportion of men
expect, if ever, it will come to them. But it is not,
let such be assured, the hearing of the ear that is
ever going to exert that mighty power; only the
inward listening to that word of God which never
was written and never was spoken in human language, can achieve such a result. Whether he will
listen or not to this voice, to this preaching, depends
on the hearer's own mind.
When, therefore, God calls us, as he does again
to-day and every day, "work to-day in my vineyard," the first and last work for us is to have that
faith in God, in the universal presence and the perpetual providence of the Father, which shall make
us feel our Saviour's word, that "the field is the
world," that the vineyard is everywhere, that life is
the day of service and of satisfaction. Jt is not
here alone or specially, not in the Church, technically so called, that we are doing divine service.
Not here alone or chiefly are we working in the




DOING AND BELIEVING.           41
Lord's vineyard, though here the voice may be emphatically heard calling us to enter it, and here the
wilful heart is saying, "I go not," and the weak
heart, " I go, Lord."
But it is, or should be, the design of our Sabbathkeepings and public services to awaken and establish in us that faith which is the one thing needful.
Once believe in Christ, and you will not be asking
" What must I do?" but "what can I do? "
In conclusion, I would revert to the matter of
getting this faith which is so essential. It does not
come by what is called hearing, the hearing of custom or curiosity; it comes only by meditation, by
study, by practice, and by prayer. We must fix our
minds on the appeal which comes to us out of the
life of Christ; we must see and judge for ourselves
what he teaches and what he requires; we must
look into ourselves and consider whether God is or
is not speaking to us in the revelation and the
example here presented; and above all, we must
maintain a spirit that is neither too indolent nor
too timid nor too time-serving to really desire truth
more than anything else.
But just here is the great trouble -is and always
has been; it was, under the Jewish dispensation, it
is, under the Christian; we want to be saved in
some easier way than by thinking for ourselves,
wrestling with ourselves, watching and ruling over
ourselves. We want to be carried into Heaven passively, rather than to make an effort for it. On the
wing of a Sabbath dream, on the soft pillow of a
Sabbath melody, by the storm of persuasion, or




42          DOING AND BELIEVING.
terror, or sympathy, we would fain be borne into the
kingdom of faith, anyhow but by calmly considering and embracing the truth as it is in Jesus. But
the admonition comes to us as to them of old,
" strait is the gate and narrow is the way that leadeth unto life; " it is not the beaten way of custom,
not the thronged way of fashion, but the way the
Master trod, - the road of independent reliance
upon God, of patient continuance in believing.




IV.
RELIGION AS A HARMONIZER.
mu THE MINISTRY OF RECONCILIATION." — 2 Cor'. V. 18.
THIS ministry of reconciliation, so magnified by
the Apostles, is not merely an external or human
work, - it is a broader and deeper thing than those
whose principal teachers are custom, creed, and ceremony, are likely to imagine.  This is that atoning
work of the Father, the Son, and the Spirit, which
has been so much misrepresented in the churches;
that God, in Christ, was reconciling the world unto
Himself, and, in the Holy Spirit, sent to take the
place of a personal Christ, is, at this hour, still
preaching to the deluded and reluctant hearts of
men the word of reconciliation.
Reconciliation - this is the simple meaning of
that word, atonement, which, though but once used
in the New Testament, has been so often repeated,
and in a tone so significant of mystery, that one
might suppose the volume was full of it, — which
has been so long and so persistently misinterpreted,
that, not only in theology but in common speech, it
has come to be almost inseparably connected with




44         RELIGION AS A HARMONIZER.
the idea of some expiation, satisfaction, or compensation, - but which, in reality, expresses nothing of
the kind, signifying simply the restoring of oneness
between persons or things that had been previously
out of harmony.
The Christian doctrine of atonement, or reconciliation, is, I fear, very narrowly and superficially
understood, yet, among us. Between dogmatism
and formalism, - the one darkening it with metaphysical subtleties, and the other degrading it to a
magical or mechanical operation, — the spirit and
practical philosophy of the great gospel truth have
hard work to make themselves appreciated. The
atoning process being treated as a past fact, and a
thing foreign to the soul of man, something which he
is simply to believe in, rather than himself to pass
through, so far as he is out of harmony, - in consequence of this, the word of reconciliation has been too
generally transformed, so far as any practical effect
on the spiritual life is concerned, into a dead letter.
Controversy has tended to resolve the grand, characteristic conception of Christianity into a nice point
of textual criticism, or a thorny point of sectarian
warfare, and the very word of reconciliation has
been too often a word of recrimination and division.
I wish to lead you to a more comprehensive, profound, spiritual, practical, idea of the atoning, the
reconciling, the harmonizing efficacy of the Christian faith; an idea which we are already prepared to
receive, when we once take notice of the fact (so
extensively ignored indeed) that it was not God
but man who needed the atonement, and still more




RELIGION AS A HARMONIZER.         45
when we understand that not merely the death of
Christ, but his life also, and his life emphatically,
was and is the reconciling power. God was and is,
in the world, reconciling it unto himself, not requiring to be reconciled to his own creatures and children, and in his very nature not willing, I might
say not able, to be reconciled to sinners, while sinners; never hating their souls, however, but only
their sins; demanding, therefore, no sacrifice to appease himself except the sacrifice of their evil inclinations, but offering, as a motive to appease their
alienated and distracted natures, the sacrifice of a
precious life. The alienation was and is on the part
of man, -man therefore needed and needs the reconciliation.  No breach needed or needs to be
healed - no jar to be quieted - in the bosom of that
Being who is without variableness or shadow of
turning, " over all, God blessed forever."  No conflict between his attributes could there ever be, calling for mediation and compromise. It was in man's
idea of God that the breach existed, - it was among
the faculties and feelings of human nature the discord arose which has not yet subsided. God being
the unclouded sun of the spiritual world, the sea of
human passion is the fitful mirror which breaks that
glorious unity into a thousand images of superstition, or the element which generates the clouds that
hide or distort the perfect orb.
Therefore the Sun of Divine Love drew nearer and
shone down upon the world with its fullest and most
direct effulgence in Jesus Christ, seeking to dispel
the clouds of error and allay the waters of strife, and




46         RELIGION AS A HARMONIZER.
melt the hearts of its children together in fraternal
and filial affection. Jesus Christ, the express image
of the Father, was sent to teach men, by his very
disposition, that it was not the Almighty (whom
they were ever seeking to propitiate by their penances and subterfuges) that needed to be reconciled to
them, but they who needed to be reconciled to him,
to themselves, to one another. In other words, he
came to accomplish the ministry of atonement, of
reconciliation.
And this he does, not merely by the event of his
death, especially when it is considered as a separate
article of faith, but by his whole life, and by his
dying, regarded as one, the crowning, passage in his
life; and so, after all, by his life, (including both his
teachings and his example,) made immortal on the
quickening page of inspiration, and renewed in the
lives of all his true disciples.
Man needed, and needs, to be reconciled to God,
by being reconciled to godliness; not by having one
to do his work for him, but by having one who shall
instruct and inspire him to do it for himself, one
who shall, like the Lamb of God, take away the sins
of the world, by a winning exhibition of the beauty
of holiness, the majesty of rectitude, and the blessedness of obedience.
In a word, the gospel atonement is a work wrought
upon man's character, and "the ministry of reconciliation " expresses the harmonizing influence of the
spirit of true religion; and it is with reference to the
grand but much traduced idea of Religion that I
have chosen these words for my text.




RELIGION AS A HARMONIZER.          47
I make no apology for dwelling so much and so
often on this matter of Religion.  The subject presents itself or is presented generally in such a fragmentary and desultory shape, under the form of the
doctrines and duties of religion, that we lose, unless
we put forth a more than ordinary effort of continuous and connected reflection, the vital conception of
religion itself, as a principle, in its centrality and
its completeness. Distracted with a rapid shifting
of the attention from one point to another of faith
or practice, from one question to another of creed
or casuistry, the essential thing that lies under all
is too apt to escape us, and we wander on without
the guiding light or the motive-power of an interior
ideal. We are forever crying, Lo here, and lo there,
is the truth! because we do not look for the truth
where it must be found, by the various lights of reason, conscience, and revelation, within us.
And the truth of what I am here saying is made
more palpable and seen to be more pertinent, when
we consider, what I have so often reminded you of,
that religion, by its very name, denotes a bond of
unity, of harmony, and implies, where it is present
and effectual, a wholeness in the character of man,
and in his conception of the truth. An English
preacher, in a sermon on the Christian Mission, has,
incidentally, a paragraph pointing towards the great
truth which it is my object in this discourse to unfold.
He says, " The great difficulty of the preacher and
the moralist, a difficulty only to be overcome by the
cooperation of those to whom his exhortations are
addressed, is, that men so often either mistake their




48             RELIGION  AS A HARMONIZER.
vocation, or deny that they have one at all. This
last is the negation of the religious principle, whatever be the professed faith and practised forms of the
individual; a worse negation of it than any form of
speculative  unbelief.   There is no religion in  him
who  considers not himself as part of a whole, and
bound to act in relation to that whole. It is not
religion, without regard of others, to think of working out, or believing out, our own salvation; that
salvation being a future life of selfish gratification
to follow  a life of useless mortification  or useless
performances here.  Religion is the link which binds
all beings together; the visible and the invisible, the
rich and the poor, the sound-hearted and the brokenhearted, the prisoner and the free. If Christ knew
his own mission, this is Christianity."
Religion is that in the soul of man which attracts
and binds him to a divine whole. Its end is that
God may be to him " all in all." Its language is:
" How longs each gulf within the weary soul
To taste the life of this benignant hour,
To be at one with Thine untroubled Whole,
And in itself to know Thy hushing power! "
" In One, who walked on earth, a man of woe,
Was holier peace than e'en this hour inspires;
From Him to me let inward quiet flow,
And give the might my failing will requires!
So this great All around, so He, and Thou,
The central source and awful bound of things,
May fill my heart with rest as deep as, now,
To land and sea and air Thy presence brings!"
My  scope forbids dwelling  further, here, on  the
idea that religion is the sense of the Divine Omni



RELIGION AS A HARMONIZER.       49
presence - the omnipresence of the divine law of
love. To reveal this law to the mind of man and
reinthrone it in his heart, was and is the end of the
ministry of reconciliation.
The New  Testament abounds in expressions
which have been greatly slighted in theological
systems, going to show that the atonement was
meant to reconcile man not to his Maker only, but
to his fellow-man; that the Prince of Martyrs sacrificed his life to fill up a breach in humanity itself.
Paul reminds us of this most emphatically, and virtually rebukes the narrow expositions which creedmakers have given of the atonement, when he says
of Christ, "For he is our peace, who hath made
both one, and hath broken down the middle wall
of partition between us; 2... for to make in himself of twain one new man, so making peace; and
that he might reconcile both unto God in one body
by the cross, having slain the enmity thereby."
And when we turn to the Evangelists, to learn
from the record of Christ's life, what kind of a ministry of reconciliation he exercised, as well as what
kind of an atonement he preached, how much less,
how exceedingly little, do we find to give the smallest appearance of countenance to the confined theory
of the scheme of redemption which has so long held
such a sway in the Church! Jesus never alludes to
his death as an article of faith, but simply as an
event which will have a moral, spiritual, attractive
influence on the hearts of men. He dies, according
to his own account, to magnify the love of God, to
bear witness to the truth, to draw all men unto him,
4




50         RELIGION AS A HARMONIZER.
to reclaim the stray sheep into the fold, and gather
into one the children of God that are scattered
abroad. Faithful, tender, and disinterested shepherd, he bleeds and bleeds to death, in tearing his
way through the thorns and flinty rocks of a world's
hardness to rescue that which was lost! Read his
discourses, his conversations, his scattered precepts.
Hear how he preaches the atonement by making
love -to God and to man - the end and essence
of the commandments! Mark how in the solemn
description of the great judgment, this kind of atonement is the only one which he authorizes men to
build their hopes upon, the sacrifice of selfishness on
the altar of humanity! Would you learn from the
highest source, Christ himself, what are the essential, saving, atoning things in the Christian life?
They are none of those dry and thorny dogmas
which sectarianism and bigotry have made so prominent, but they are the vital sentiments and practical
principles of honesty, humility, charity, justice, —
these are, ye creed-enforcers and creed-worshippers!
the fundamental tenets of Evangelical religion, —
the truth as it is in Jesus.
And this point leads me to a third aspect of the
great Christian atonement, to which I have already
and all along alluded, but which demands a more
distinct presentation. When Christ came, as now,
man was at variance, not only with his Maker, not
only with his neighbor, but with his own self. He
was, as an expression in the parable of the Prodigal
so touchingly intimates, beside himself. He was distracted. Christ came, the good physician, to bind




RELIGION AS A IIARMONIZER.       51
up and make whole the deranged and dismembered
human soul, - to restore unity, harmony, and tranquillity to man's self-contradictory views and feelings
with regard to the spiritual world.  He came to
bring about an atonement, to exercise a ministry of
reconciliation, in the world of thoughts and motives
enclosed within each human breast. He came to
simplify, and so to vitalize and energize, men's ideas
of their relations to the unseen world. He found
what was deemed spirituality divorced from humanity, - a chasm made between the claims of the two
great commandments of the law. And this, because
the radical law in the heart was not recognized. He
saw the Pharisee withholding his due to humanity
and even to the common claims of nature, on the
ground of corban, the claim of the temple. He,
accordingly, announced most emphatically, that
what was given to God's poor was given to Godthat love to man was love to God - the service of
man the service of God - and, in a word, that hamanity was piety. And we may remark here, how
strikingly in accordance, in this respect, with the
genius of Christ's own preaching it was when his
Apostle, at a later day, taught his flock, who were
tempted, as has so often happened since, to let formal religion disparage quiet devotion to duty, that
a woman was in the way of working out her salvucation, in the very training up of her children to goodness and sobriety.  Again, Jesus saw that the
spiritual pride of his day made light of the sacred
claims of the physical man to relief and culture,
and so he devoted a great proportion of his early




52         RELIGION AS A HARMONIZER.
ministry to the curing of men's bodies, and the intimating, at the same time, of a close connection
between the vices of the body and the sins of the
soul. And thus, too, did not only his doctrine, but
his practice, preach the word of reconciliation; and
the so frequent and emphatic use of the phrase
made whole, to express a state of health, is an interesting intimation to a thoughtful mind, of the
degree in which the reestablishment of harmony in
man's nature entered into our Saviour's ministry of
reconciliation.
In a word, Jesus taught, and by his spirit still
teaches, that there are not two religions; that religion, like its object and inspirer, is one; that it is
the one threefold cord which binds the soul of man
into unity with its Father, its fellow-spirits, and
itself; and that in whichever of these relations the
sentiment is really exercised, it is virtually exercised
in all. This definition and description of religion
may sound to some like a truism, but certainly
there is much in men's actual ideas and habits
which shows that it is far from being realized.
The Church needs the ministry of reconciliation,
and the world needs it, that both may see, the one
for the sake of being kept from spiritual pride and
sanctimonious selfishness, and the other for the sake
of being brought to a sense of its responsibility, the
unity of the principle of religion as a common bond
between them.  How is it now?  On the one hand
we have professors of religion, those who think they
are regenerate, elect, and holy, regarding, or at least
treating, the world as if there were no common




RELIGION AS A HARMONIZER.        53
ground of reasoning between it and themselves, (and
there is not, if their idea of religion is true, and all
are utterly unsound who have not been through an
experience like theirs, and arrived at their conclusions,) - and on the other hand, we find the men of
the world, or the so-considered disciples of reason.
virtually admitting the assumption of the bigot, by
holding to their reason in a self-complacent, undevout way, which seems to say that it is not with
them a deep, lofty, and binding thing; that it is not,
in short, a religion. But both are wrong. Religion
is one thing; and it is just as much manifested in
devotedness to truth, justice, and humanity, as in
devoutness at the house and hour of what is usually
called divine service. Let the religionist assume
what he will, let the rationalist allow what he may,
-Christ being judge, both are amenable to one and
the same law, a law behind all written law, to which
the written, however, bears repeated and emphatic
testimony; a law variously magnified in Scripture, as
the perfect law, the law of liberty, the law of truth,
the law of the spirit of life, and the like, — the law
of reason and of religion. Shall man fold around
him the mantle of orthodoxy, and virtually say: I
cannot throw that which is holy to the dogs, by undertaking to reason with men whose very reason and
conscience are depraved, (as even the great but
greatly mistaken Luther once said, " I do not argue,
I assert, and call on you to believe what I assert;")
shall frail man assume this position, when even the
Lord himself says to the sinner, " Come, now, and
let us reason together?"




54         RELIGION AS A HARMONIZER.
This, then, do I hold to be a part, yes, and no small
part, of the ministry of reconciliation, as wrought out
by the spirit of religion,- to show, to convince men
of, and convert them to, the reality of a divine harmony between the religion of faith and the religion
of reason. How can reason, indeed, proceed without faith? Reason, certainly in the highest sense,
and the proper sense of the word, cannot reign in a
man, without his being, by that very fact, a man of
faith; for reason leads and links the mind to something beyond the region of the senses, to certain
first principles, which are an expression of the law
and mind of God, and so "the undevout astronomer," and the undevout votary of science, physical
or metaphysical, in any department, certainly are
" mad," not to see that they are occupied in the
sphere of religion, as much as any priest set apart
by human ordination to the service of the temple
made with hands.
It is not then, I affirm, heresy but Christianity, to
say, cultivate reason and you cultivate religion.
The Gospel is a ministry of reconciliation, again,
in mediating between the religion of scripture and the
religion of nature, or what are not very philosophically distinguished as natural and revealed religion.
Once possessed of, and with, the true idea of the
identity of the principle of religion, we shall not be
misled, as men have too often been, by the quibbling
distinctions which have been set up in relation to
these matters. We shall understand that a man
may be drawn to the religion of nature, without
his meaning to assert a theology of nature, as if




RELIGION AS A HARMONIZER.             55
nature could teach him originally about God, without, in short, intending to take nature for his tutor,
still less for his God. The religion of nature, as we
shall then understand it, consists not in the worship
of nature, but simply in worshipping with nature, in
catching from nature a sublime and soul-stirring
hint of that fidelity to the divine law, which in
whatever form, when cherished by intelligent beings,
constitutes religion, — in imbibing a new spirit of
reverence from her bending trees, of gratitude from
her opening flowers, of integrity from her mountains
and her strong foundations, (which one of the prophets so eloquently and strikingly appeals to as a
jury in the great action of the Lord against his people,) of faithfulness from  her suns and stars9 yes,
and a lesson of confirmation too, at least, in the
unity of theology, when
"From grains and motes, to spheres uncounted,
From deep beneath, to suns above,
Man's gaze with awe and joy has mounted,
And found in all One ordering love."
Once more, the principle of true religion, as exhibited in Christ, shows itself a ministering spirit of
reconciliation, by infusing into the soul of man that
simplicity which renders the transition no violent
one, that a mysterious providence so often calls
man to make, from the cares of this world to the
concerns of another; from the contemplation of life
to the contemplation of death, or rather, of that
immortality in which death is swallowed up; from
the first life, which is natural, to the second life,
which is spiritual, and into which the much mis



56         RELIGION AS A HARMONIZER.
understood process of regeneration introduces the
soul. The true philosophy of religion forbids us to
suppose in such case a change of nature necessary.
Religion does not break a man's experience, but fulfils the poet's wish, that his days on earth might be
" Bound each to each by natural piety.'
But I find, again, as I have so often before found,
that this great theme grows upon me, and seems to
soar and stretch and sink beyond my reach, as I
fancy myself advancing into it. One impression,
however, I always receive more and more strongly
from every new study of these broad, central truths
of Christianity, that they are in reality as practical
as they are profound and comprehensive, and that
general as they may seem, (" general truths " we call
them,) they are very particular truths in many points
to each one of us. And should the preacher be
asked, if these truths are common, why seem they so
particular to thee? there are times and moods in
which he feels as if the only answer he could make
would be to refer the hearers to their own several
experiences and consciences.
We shall best vindicate our claim to the name of
Unitarians by so studying the subject that has now
been just opened to you as to gain (what we never
shall but by study) a conviction of the unity and
identity of all religion, religion of thought, religion
of speech, religion of temper, religion of belief, religion of confession, religion of communion, religion
of enjoyment, religion of employment, -the union
and identification of all these forms of religion, so




RELIGION AS A HARMONIZER.          57
often and painfully sundered by man, in that " true
piety," which, as has been admirably said, " is not
the distinct work of a distinct faculty of the mind,
but the upward direction of all its faculties, and the
perfection thereby of all its thoughts, emotions, and
pursuits."




V.
THE STUDY OF CHRIST'S LIFE.
THEY RECEIVED THE WORD WITH ALL READINESS OF MIIND, AND
SEARCHED THE SCRIPTURES DAILY, WHETHER THOSE THINGS WERE
SO. THEREFORE MANY OF THEM BELIEVED. - Acts xvii. 11, 12.
THE emphatic word in this account to which I
wish to draw your particular attention, is the word' therefore." The persons referred to believed because they searched.  They looked into the subject
-the question presented to them, with their own
eyes and minds, and thile result was that they found
things to be so as the preacher had represented
them; and the next thing and the necessary thing
for single-hearted and true-souled men and women,
as, according to the narrative, they were, was to
accept the word which they had already, as we are
told, received, - to accept it as God's word, as the
truth, - that is, to believe it. This was the way in
which the people here spoken of came to have
Christian faith. First they girded up the loins of
their minds and prepared their hearts by yielding to
the spirit of truth, and placed themselves in readiness
to follow whithersoever the light should lead them;
then they went to the best directory they had in
divine things, to the law and to the testimony, and




TIE STUDY OF CHRIST'S LIFE.        59
searched out the matter in their old Scriptures, -
and finally they came to a conviction of the truth
and believed. This was their way to light and life,
and, essentially, I am convinced, it is the way for
all.
It seems strange that, in this age of the world,
which, if it claims any character, claims that of a
thinking age, it should be needful to assert and
repeat and reiterate so plain a proposition as that
belief must come from examination, from inquiry,
from study. But so it is. For, indeed, men too
often think they are thinking, when they are really
not using, not applying their minds, not actively
engaged at all with the mental muscle (so to speak)
of the inner man, but only driven or drifted to and
fro on a sea of what should scarcely be called even
ideas, but only fragments of ideas, broken images of
fancy and opinion, with but a feeble, if any, hold of
the helm of reason, or eye to the pole-star of central
principle, or to the chart of a higher wisdom. We
flatter ourselves that we are thinking, that we are
really not neglecting that first and last responsibility
of an immortal being, while we are, at least, putting
off the great duty, from day to day, as if it were
a drudgery instead of a deliverance. And meanwhile, for the present, (which means with too many,
life-longw,) we let any power or authority that may,
from one or another cause, chance to be in the
ascendant, — public opinion or private prejudice,
sympathy or antipathy, selfish wishes or superstitious
fears, hereditary habit or the force of fashion, anything but our own calm and independent judgment,




60         THE STUDY OF CHRIST'S LIFE.
make up for us those opinions which do so much to
color our whole atmosphere, and shape the whole
current of our real life. Does not this commend
itself, as hardly an exaggerated manifestation of the
truth, to every man's conscience, in the sight of God?
And not least (to speak moderately) does this
picture of popular indifference apply to the nature
of men's opinion and belief in regard to the doctrines
and duties of religion, especially as a matter of
revelation and record.
It may not be deemed or felt actually an ignoble
thing, but I fear it is not regarded as a specially
noble trait in man or woman, now, to search the
Scriptures and to search themselves, with a childlike
and reverent solicitude to get the key-word by which
God would have their tempers controlled and their
lives guided and inspired. I fear the popular tendency is to make people far more sensitive to the
question, what is likely to be taking, effective, and,
in a worldly way, convenient and gratifying, than to
the question what is the very truth of God, the very
ground-reality of a true man's life. And to such an
extent am I constrained to believe this true, that I
am apprehensive there are many congregations of
Gospel-hearers throughout Christendom, (whether
this is one, your own consciences and conduct only
can answer,) of which, if a historian as faithful as
Luke should give his testimony, it would have to
read in a way very different from his eulogium on
the Bereans: " These were not ready to receive the
word; they counted it neither a noble nor an honorable thing to sit-as children on the bench of instruc



THE STUDY OF CHRIST'S LIFE.      61
tion; they cared not to search the Scriptures to see
how things stood with the truth and with themselves;
therefore not many of them believed; of women there
were some devout and honorable exceptions; but of
men, few."
If these things are so, - if this is a true picture, -
(and no one can have a stronger desire to find it
false than I have,) then it is well and wholesome to
hold up before this generation and this congregation
the example to which the text refers us, which, if we
will reflect upon it, may lead us to some profitable
and practical results not only in thought, but in
actual life.
We are told in the history that, at the last place
where Paul had been preaching before coming to
Berea, namely, at Thessalonica, the unbelieving
Jews had raised a great tumult by insinuating that
he had come to turn the world upside down with
the doctrine that Jesus was the true and only King
of men. But at Berea the new doctrine and its
preachers were treated with more soberness and
magnanimity. There the people, instead of stopping their ears and opening wide their mouths
against the Apostle, took the opposite course, and
looked into the subject and the Scriptures, to see
whether, after all, it might not be true that there
was only one King, one Lord and Lawgiver to the
conscience of man in all his relations, public or
private, social or political, namely, the Lord Jesus
Christ.
And how beautifully does the case our text refers
to, thus connected with the history immediately pre



62        THE STUDY OF CHRIST'S LIFE.
ceding, fulfil those memorable words of the Saviour
himself, who, when Pilate said to him, "Art thou a
King, then?" answered, "c Thou sayest that I am a
King. To this end was I born, and for this cause
came I into the world, that I should bear witness
unto the truth." [In other words, I am the King of
martyrs, the purple of martyrdom is my purple of
royalty.] And " Every one that is of the truth"
[every one that owns allegiance to the truth] " heareth my voice," [and becomes the subject of my kingdom.]  The men of Berea were men of truth, not
like the Thessalonians, of prejudice and passion.
They felt that there could be no true gain or glory
for them, unless based on truth; and therefore, instead of drowning the voice of reason, they opened
their ears and their eyes to receive the divine word,
however different it might be from their hitherto
entertained opinions, and however unhallowed by
earthly fashion or ecclesiastical formality might be
the means and method through which it had been
brought to their convictions.
You may need to be reminded, but cannot need
to be informed, that "the Scriptures" which these
Bereans so diligently searched to find out the truth
about Jesus, were the Scriptures of the Old Testament, for the simple and sufficient reason that the
New Testament did not yet exist in the form of
scripture, but only in the formlessness of the spoken
word. And that, probably, explains, in great part,
the reason why we read only that " many of them "
believed, and not all. In another place, Paul speaks
of the Old Testament as able to make one wise




THE STUDY OF CHRIST'S LIFE.       63
unto salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. Having that key, one readily finds his way through its
mysteries, at least to a practical satisfaction. But
that it could furnish, of itself, the key, to even an
honest mind, and even after a long search, the case
of the Ethiopian eunuch and that of some of these
Bereans may well make us doubt.
The Scriptures which we are invited and summoned to search, however, for the confirmation of
our faith in Christ, are not the gorgeous Oriental
prefigurings of men who, though moved by the Holy
Ghost, were either not so enlightened by the spirit
of revelation as to see the veritable truth of the
Gospel, or else were not enabled to set it forth, by
reason, perhaps, of the unprepared state of the people, except in dark or dazzling parables, under a
drapery of imposing carnal pomp and circumstance;
— but our Scriptures are the records of a coming
of Christ which has actually taken place, actually
begun at least, first in the flesh, then in the spirit,
and in both is the presence of a living, impersonated
word - the word of God made man.  With the
New Testament in his hands, no man needs to be
in the perplexity of that Ethiopian nobleman, and
to inquire, when he reads the Evangelists touching
the passion of Christ, "' I pray thee, of whom speaketh" the writer " this? of himself, or of some other
man?"  For us and to us, Jesus, the Christ himself, speaks in his own simple and sublime tone and
spirit, -speaks, not only in his recorded and immortal words of wisdom, of power and of healing
virtue, but in the very record, the silent record of




64        THE STUDY OF CHRIST'S LIFE.
his deeds of truth and mercy, the authors of which,
in this their simple story, give us the express image
and impress of their and our Master.
The word which we are exhorted to receive with
all readiness of mind, and to search the Scriptures
daily and diligently, that we may receive, is the
Word made flesh; by which is meant no such mystery as has too generally been made out of it, but
simply the truth that, henceforth and forever, the
Eternal Wisdom, the Ineffable Beauty, the Beauty
of Holiness, speaks to us, to the very eye of the soul
as well as to the ear of conscience, out of the recorded life of One who was, at once, a Son of Man
and a Son of God; especially, when we approach
the record under the influence of the spirit which
his translated life breathes into the heart of a sincere seeker of God. This, plainly, is'John's own
explanation of the doctrine of the Word incarnate
when he writes, " That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen
with our eyes, which we have looked upon and our
hands have handled, of the Word of Life; (for the
Life was manifested and we have seen it, and bear
witness and show unto you that eternal Life, which
was with the Father and was manifested unto us;)
that which we have seen and heard, declare we unto
you."
But, if our Scripture is so plain, it may be asked,
why is it so necessary that we should search and
study it? I answer, that, plain as it is in itself, to
him that understandeth, (and a man must attend
before he can understand the plainest things of a




THE STUDY OF CHRIST'S LIFE.        65
life so opposite to much of our most enchaining occupation,) the religion of creed and ceremony, conspiring with the worldly habits which make men averse
to all religion, has so inveterate a power to interpose a veil between the soul and the simple life presented for its salvation, that, with many, it demands
a strenuous effort even to look fully and fairly at the
simple and actual Gospel (to say nothing of searching and studying it); to bring one's self into the mental and moral posture of a seeker and scholar, with
respect to the great pattern of life and godliness,
requires with many, if not most of us, something of
conflict, and victory over indolence, or indifference,
or at least over a disinclination based upon some
unworthy or irrelevant pretext.
The prevailing want of interest in the study of
those gospel records, which, to say nothing of their
religious importance, present the most striking phenomenon in the history of literature, and recite the
most wonderful train of events in all history, would
seem to need strong reasons or motives to account
for it. Something of the reluctance referred to,
more or less, is ascribable, clearly, to the false and
unpleasing associations which have been thrown
around the Scriptures by hard and unspiritual
dogmas respecting the origin, the contents, and the
claims of the sacred volume; something to the
want of a sufficiently cultivated moral taste, or to
an actual distaste for delineations of the beauty of
holiness, aggravated by the fear of meeting, face to
face, in the perfect mirror of divine purity, an image
of one's own defects and deformities of character.
B




66        THE STUDY OF CHRIST'S LIFE.
But, inasmuch as it is not easy for the conscience
to contemplate comfortably these excuses alone, a
variety of other reasons, many of them inconsistent
with each other, are put forward into the front
ground, like the skirmishers in an army, to keep at
bay the forces of truth, and take off the brunt of
their charge. Thus, it is alleged, at one time or in
one quarter, that the Scriptures are too plain to require study, at least minute study; and yet, again,
that they are so dark and difficult as to discourage
the attempt to sound their meaning. At one time,
it is pretended that there is Christian truth enough
in men's knowledge to save them, if they will use
it; and yet, at another time, it is said, that the rival
and wrangling sects have so confused the Scriptures,
that it is next to impossible to tell where lies the
path of Bible truth. At one time, it is said that we
have a class of men appointed and educated expressly for the purpose of telling us what the Bible
does say and mean; and yet, at another time, you
will hear, that to urge upon Protestants the duty of
searching the Scriptures, is a work of supererogation. But, leaving such apologies to confront and
correct each other, we will glance for a moment at
what probably, in these days, is the most common
and potent excuse for the neglect of exercising the
Protestant right in regard to the Scriptures. There
is a popular feeling, which expresses itself in various
ways, from time to time, that the exploration of the
old records of our religion is becoming less and less
necessary, because what we want more and more,
and what humanity is more and more earnestly and




THE STUDY OF CHRIST'S LIFE.        67
emphatically crying for, is the spirit and the practice
of Christianity. But is it not also made more and
more plain continually, that, for want of settling certain preliminary questions in regard to the contents,
and even the composition and claims of the Bible,
this very question, what is the substance and spirit
and practical point of the Gospel, is itself a vexed
question, and one upon which honest men, more
honest than wise, often deviate from  each other
somewhat widely? Shall we assume infallibility for
our own interpretation and application of Christ's
words, and say that because we know exactly and
entirely what he teaches, therefore there is no further
need of encouraging the study of his life? Even
supposing we had mounted, by the ladder of the
word, to the heights of the spirit, shall we say, let
the ladder be thrown away, there is no more use
for it? But is the mere knowing of the meaning
of Christ's words all?  May there not possibly be
something, nay much, of the fine combination and
balance and harmony of his character and spirit,
which we are far from having yet appreciated?
Yes, the spirit and the practice of the Gospel are,
indeed, what we want, and what the world wants,
this very day and hour; but for the very purpose of
having these, we want the tbrtth of the Gospel.
" Sanctify them through thy truth; thy word is
truth." It is the truth of Christ that is needed to
purify the morals, to rectify the spirits, and save the
souls of men. It is idle to plead that that truth is in
the world. It is not in the convictions of men, generally; where it must be, to do its work. It is not




68        THE STUDY OF CHRIST'S LIFE.
even in their understandings. Having but a vague
and feeble hold of any Christian truth, and none perhaps on the characteristic truth of Christ's gospel,
men easily fall a prey to the sharp arrows of doubt,
the insinuating and incessant assaults of error and
of sin. If society is to be armed for defence and
victory by the Gospel, this is to come about by each
individual man's and woman's drawing from the Gospel, by individual study, the pure and practical truth
of it: not by the mere name of a gospel; not by the
Sunday's preaching of its authority; not by such a
sentimental or self-willed religion as may be constructed out of men's heated fancies or passions.
Yes, the practical essence of the Gospel is, indeed,
what we need, and that was what the persons spoken
of in the text were after, when they searched the
Scriptures. It was something that was going, if
true, to revolutionize souls and societies. It was to
enthrone a new King, "one Jesus," over the delusions of the fancy and the passions of the heart. It
was, in an important sense, to "turn the world
upside down," for, to the unbeliever, the world was
inverted. And how is it with us? May it not be
-is it not quite likely -that many of us would find,
if we should come to examine the Scriptures intelligently and independently, that we had been deserting our rightful King, and worshipping, as our sovereign, either that Diana of the modern Ephesians,
Fashion, or that ruler of the darkness of this world,
Mammon, or that hard master, Custom, or that
many-headed idol, the Multitude, - any and every
false and fleeting shape of superstition, rather than




THE STUDY OF CHRIST'S LIFE.       69
the Maker and the Master of men, in whose name
Jesus came, and still, in the spirit, comes to his
brethren, the Shepherd-King of souls?
I have been speaking of the weakness of the
excuses men give for neglecting to study the great
model set before them in the Gospel. But, why
dwell on these negative questions? We all do
know full well, in our hearts and consciences, that
the recorded life of Jesus is the grand directory and
dispensary for us in the most intimate and vital
matters of our lives. And every right mind must
be secretly ashamed that it should be necessary to
argue against reasons for not being willing to study
that life,- a life which every human soul ought to
feel it a blessed privilege to have for a guide and an
inspiration.
Much is said, and justly said, of the value of
having good and great pictures of the masters
accessible to all the people, as an element in the
education of that taste for the beautiful and the
harmonious, which is so noble an ally to wisdom
and virtue. But, in the four Gospels, we have a
picture which the spirit of the great Master of Life
has impressed upon the souls and records of his
choice pupils, and which is hung up forever in the
gallery of the ages, nay, which is multiplied indefinitely, and placed within the reach of all, in the
hands of all, to study, and to impress upon their
memories and sympathies, and copy in their life and
temper and conversation. Shall we not (I will not
say merely bring our children, but) come ourselves,
as children, to the contemplation and examination




70         THE STUDY OF CHRIST'S LIFE.
of this picture, at once a picture and a reality, a
picture and a power - to elevate, to instruct, and to
inspire our souls, and prepare them for the tasks and
the trials of life?
I seem to have seen or felt, of late, the promise,
at least, of a renewed interest amongst us of this
congregation, in the social study of those records of
our common faith, by which that faith, if not first
communicated or awakened, must, at all events, be
revived, in order to be an internal conviction adequate to the satisfaction of our own souls, and to the
work God has for us to do in the world, as real, and
not merely nominal Christians. If any words, or
any efforts of mine can help kincg      smoking embers of such interest into a clear  ane of love for
the truth as it is in Jesus, and of zet for the possession of that truth by the study of.he life which
embodied it, I shall feel that the frequent reiteration
of my own ideas and convictions on this subject
under different forms, though to myself sometimes
wearisome, chiefly from an apprehension of wearying others, is not without its reward. To urge upon
you a privilege (for I will not call it a duty) which
seems to me so important, I feel that " necessity is
laid upon me." I was struck with the recent remark
of a Methodist brother, that, according to their idea,
"it takes the whole Church to preach the truth."  It
certainly takes the whole Church to practise it.
I conclude by saying that, in my historical reading and reflections, I find three principal ways
through which Christians have sought access to the
truth. The Protestants have made the Word to be




THE STUDY OF CHRIST'IS LIFE.      71
the way, confining that term, however, to the written word of Scripture; the Transcendentalists have
held to the sufficiency of the Spirit, meaning by it,
however, the sufficiency of private and solitary selfcommunion; and the Roman Catholic has set up
the Church as the dispenser of the Word and the
Spirit. But there is a true catholicity which resolves
these three into one, and finds the Church, the Word,
and the Spirit in a union of believers and inquirers,
earnestly and devoutly bent upon studying together,
by mutual comparison of convictions, the records of
the life of the common Master, in order, through the
letter, to penetrate to the life-giving spirit, to find
the Lord, the lawgiver and life-giver, the way, the
truth, and the life, for the sake of walking in that
way, realizing that truth, and having that life in
themselves more and more abundantly.
May this ideal of a Church rise more and more
clearly and fully and attractively before our vision,
and before the vision of all souls and societies that
profess to believe in Christ, till we shall be ashamed,
not of ignorance, but only of indifference, and become what the apostle longed to have all men,
"fellow-helpers to  the truth,"  fellow-workers
unto the kingdom of God."




VI.
CHRISTIANITY TO BE LEARNED OF CHRIST.
LEARN OF ME.- Matt. xi. 29.
CHRISTIANITY is to be learned of Christ: whoso
would understand the religion of Jesus must apply to
Jesus himself. But is not this a truism? It certainly
would seem so to one who consulted only his own
reason, and conscience, and common sense. But
the misfortune is that, in the din of sectarian and
scholastic wrangling, the calm voice of our better
judgment is so seldom heard, and, in the mist of
speculation and the heat of passion, the simple and
quiet countenance of sober truth is so seldom seen.
How often, when men of the best temper, but of
opposite opinions about Christ, reason together concerning him, it comes to pass, as it did with those
two disciples of old, who were walking along and
talking so earnestly about him that Sunday evening,
that, although Jesus himself, in the still, small voice
of his Gospel, comes and mingles in their conversation, their eyes are so holden by the bandage of
prejudice or the cloud of speculation, that they do
not know him, and their ears are so preoccupied
with each other's arguments that they do not hear




CHRISTIANITY TO BE LEARNED OF CHRIST.   73
his majestic and commanding tones. A great cloud
overshadows them, darkening counsel by words without knowledge, and they do not hear the divine oracle
which comes even from that cloud of controversy,
and, calling the heated and bewildered disputants
away from the traditions and systems of the scholars to the inspirations of the Master, says, " This is
my beloved Son, hear ye Him." Not only to the
open and blaspheming deniers of the truth of the
Gospel, (of whom there are few extant,) not only to
the indolent, procrastinating, and practically indifferent ones, fancying they receive it, (who are too
numerous,) not to these only, dead in sin or slothfulness, but to those also whose thoughts are busied,
and whose zeal is kept active, by the watchwords
and war-cries around which they have been trained
to rally, yet whose hearts are dried up because there
is no nourishment in the dead firewood of old, decayed creeds and systems, -to such the spirit of
Jesus still cries, as of old, in sorrowful rebuke, " Ye
will not come to me, that ye might have life."
Whoever looks over the history and condition of
Christendom,- still, to so sad an extent, a camp and
a kingdom divided against itself, - and considers to
what armories the leaders and legions of this singularly militant church are so apt to go for the weapons of their internal controversy, -will find that,
however much of a tautology it may seem to a
thoughtful spirit to say, " Christianity must be learned
of Christ," there are multitudes of nominal Christians, (to say nothing of the outside world,) who
need to have even so plain a proposition asserted




74   CHRISTIANITY TO BE LEARNED OF CHRIST.
and reasserted and presented in many different lights,
before it will strike them in such a way as to produce a living conviction. It would seem amazing,
if there were not so many other things in the history of our religion so much more amazing, that its
professed disciples should have persisted, as they
have, in forgetting, when the question was about
the character or contents of Christianity, to appeal
first and last to Christ, and to " hear him." But
the crowning wonder is that those systems of doctrine whose builders comparatively slight the Evangelic records in laying their foundation, depending
much more on what is said of Christ by others than
on what he says of himself, should coolly appropriate
and monopolize the name of Evangelical Religion.
One would think that that was preeminently the
Evangelic, the Gospel method, which goes first of
all, and comes back after all, to Christ as he lives in
the gospel history, to learn the vital, essential, and
saving doctrines of his religion,-which consults him
first and finally upon the great question, what relation he bears to his fellow-men in the momentous
matter of their salvation. I do not say that the
systems which have so long possessed the exclusive
title of Orthodox and Evangelical, absolutely neglect
to consider Christ's own testimony concerning himself and his works, and his relations to God and
man, and man's redemption; but I do say that they
comparatively neglect it, that they are far from giving
it anything like the priority and finality which he
himself claims for it, who said, " One is your master, even Christ," and which even the very apostle,




CHRISTIANITY TO BE LEARNED OF CHRIST.   75
upon whose writings they draw  so much  more
largely than  upon  the Master's words for their
building materials, himself acknowledges so often
and so emphatically, - as, for instance, where he remands the Corinthian sectaries to Christ as the only
foundation of doctrine, of whom Apollos and even
Paul are only ministers and not their masters, —
and which is strongly implied, at least, in what
he writes to those of Ephesus, " But ye have not
so learned Christ: if so be that ye have heard him
and have been taught by him, as the truth is in
Jesus." These admonitions alone would be enough,
if we needed any human authority or license in such
a matter, to make us turn to the great Master himself, where most surely we shall find him, namelyi in
his recorded life, or rather in our own hearts and
consciences, by which the meaning of that life is
interpreted, and there, in our own sympathizing and
self-communing souls, learn for ourselves what Christ
is to us and for us, and what, as believers in him, we
have to believe and have to do. But the truth is, in
a question like this, not even apostolic authority is
necessary or pertinent. In fact we are to judge the
apostle by the Master, and not the Master by the
apostle. If Peter is to be blamed, if Paul is in any
respect to be corrected, or, at least, if his interpreters
are, plainly Jesus, whose mind we, too, have or may
have, in the Gospel, enables us to reprove the spirit
of the one, and to set right the errors of the other.
There is no arrogance in this; simple duty to our
Master, and the responsibility of individual judgment, which he recognizes, require us so to do. If




76   CHRISTIANITY TO BE LEARNED OF CHRIST.
Jesus is our Master also, then it is not only our right
but our duty, in all questions of creed or of conduct,
to turn to him, just as Paul himself did, saying,
" Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?"
Now, I do affirm that the councils and creedmakers of Christendom, for almost as many centuries as Christianity has been in the world, have
practically overlooked these simple, but important
things. They have not sent us first and last to the
simple Christ of the gospel records, as the main foundation of Christian theology; they have perplexed
and plagued the church and the world with a complicated, metaphysical system, dependent preeminently on the writings of an apostle, in whom even a
contemporary found many things hard to be understood, but who, at any rate, is not our great authority, though the long-prevalent dogmas of the churches
might lead one of their disciples to think that he
was. The deity of Christ, the depravity of human
nature, the imputation of Adam's sin and of Christ's
righteousness, the vicarious atonement, - is it likely
that these doctrines, which form the most barren
and bewildering part of the old and not yet obsolete theology, would have stood their ground so
long, even if they had ever gained it, had Christians
all and always agreed in making Christ their great
Master in divinity, leaving all others, even apostles,
where these latter, certainly, prefer to sit, on the
lower seats? Paul was a wise master-builder, but
even he never thought of laying any other foundation than that already laid, which was Jesus Christ;
and even on that foundation warned every man to




CHRISTIANITY TO BE LEARNED OF CHRIST.   77
take heed how he builded; what would he have
said of systems of doctrine which made him (Paul)
the chief stone of the corner? I think he would
have said, " Ye have not so learned Christ."
How much wrangling and heart-burning and persecution and fraternal war the Church might have
been spared, how much scandal to the cause of
Christian truth have been avoided, if the terms of
salvation and the tests of salvation and the truths
essential to salvation had been always sought by
communion with the Master himself! If his words,
interpreted by his life, his life as an exponent of his
spirit, had always held the preeminence that rightfully belongs to them in shaping the creed and
course of every man and every church!  Could
there ever have been so much doubt and dispute as
to the mode of believing on the Lord Jesus Christ,
if men had simply believed the Lord Jesus Christ,
that is, received, with due appreciation, what he
himself says? The Law was a schoolmaster to
lead the world forward to Christ; the apostles, by
their own showing, are monitors to lead men back
to Christ; both prophets and apostles are instructive
and inspiring guides and monitors; but when it
comes to settling the great, vital questions of Christian faith and life, why need we go elsewhere than
to him who has the words of eternal life? Is any
one anxious to know what he shall do to be saved?
Why should he go to Paul, still less to any interpreter of Paul, and let his mind be perplexed and tormented with explanations of what it means and
what it does not mean to have faith in Christ, when




78   CHRISTIANITY TO BE LEARNED OF CHRIST.
Christ himself, with his own lips, in his own life, still
answers the question for every human being, as he
answered it over and over again to high and low, rich
and poor, wise and simple, when he labored to convert a people whose nature was precisely our own?
Shall it be said thatthe Lord's Prayer and the Sermon
on the Mount, and the parables of the good Samaritan and the prodigal son and the great judgment are
vitally defective, if appealed to, as showing what is
essential to human salvation? Shall it be said that
the great Teacher and Saviour kept back, to the
very last, certain of the most important truths of his
religion? He himself said, when his end drew
nigh, " To this end was I born and for this cause
came I into the world, that I should bear witness
unto the truth. Every one that is of the truth,
(i. e. willing to be its subject,) hearethl my voice."
And yet are we to believe, in the face of this, that
he omitted in his testimony truths which every man
must know or " perish everlastingly," —leaving them
for his apostles and the Church to announce as fundamental articles, and arrange into evangelical systems of faith? Yes, the Roman Catholic Church,
holding to continued inspiration and miracles,which are true enough, if rightly understood, - that
church and others, which really, though not so openly,
build on the same foundation of church authority, -
they with tolerable consistency do maintain that the
gospel, and a man's private reason and conscience
to interpret and apply it, are not enough, - that he
must, first and last, " hear the Church." Such, however, is not a consistent course for Protestants; their




CHRISTIANITY TO BE LEARNED OF CHRIST.   79
motto is, " hear Christ," he is the author and finisher
of our faith. The finisher - what can that expression mean, except that in Christ we can find all that
is absolutely needful to know and do in order to be
set right with God, that by studying him alone we
may become accomnplished Christians?  So far as
other men, the wise and good, show us how to study
him and how to serve him, we may well gratefully
accept their counsel; but he is the Master. The
Roman Catholics and extreme High Churchmen
and all those inconsistent and degenerate Protestants, who, frightened, perhaps, by the dangers of
liberty, account it presumptuous or too troublesome
to think for one's self in matters of religious belief,
and prefer that a man should receive his doctrines
from his Church, -these tell us that, after all, we
have received through the Church, by tradition, these
very gospels, which, I have contended, contain the
creed of the Christian. But it is one thing to receive
a fact on testimony, and another thing to receive an
opinion from tradition.  The gospel story is a historical, or, if you will, a spiritual fact, and for the
evidence of it we look backward, indeed, though
even here our faith rests greatly on internal evidence, but for the meaning, the application of this
great fact to our life, we look not backward, but
inward and upward; here we appeal not to tradition, but to reason, and our own moral sense enlightened by reason and revelation. It is a matter of
every-day experience that we gratefully receive testimony to fact from  men, whose inferences from
such fact we respectfully decline.




80   CHRISTIANITY TO BE LEARNED OF CHRIST.
The theme of this discourse has been suggested
by some recent movements in the theological world,
which give it a new and peculiar interest and importance.  You are aware that the tendency of
all sects to subdivide into minor parties, —a tendency which may be called the safety-valve of Protestantism, and which has already created in almost
all religious bodies, even among the Friends themselves, distinctions like that of Old School and New
School,- this tendency has not left even the so-called
Liberal denominations untouched.  In the early
history of Unitarianism in this country, the first
tendency to subdivision was seen in the distinction
between those, who, according to their respective
opinions in regard to the birth and preexistence of
Christ, and perhaps his place in the scale of being,
were called Arians and Humanitarians. But this
distinction was always, and still is, accounted
comparatively and practically an unimportant one.
Channing was of the former class. The English
Unitarians are, I think, mostly of the latter. Then
came, not many years ago, an agitation which
proved much more serious, arraying against each
other the so-called Transcendentalist, Rationalist,
or Spiritualist, as he was variously called, on one
side, and the adherent of Historical Christianity, so
called by its opponents, on the other. This controversy turned upon the relation of the Scriptures to
the soul, and of miracles to faith and reason, and was
settled, so far as it has been settled, by the parties'
agreeing to differ where they must and harmonize
where they can, - a rule which it will be well when




CHRISTIANITY TO BE LEARNED OF CHRIST.   81
the different denominations can adopt among themselves.
But now, somewhat more recently, a third internal movement has begun amongst us, no less earnest,
but less virulent, it is to be hoped, and, at present,
more limited than the one last noticed; a movement
in favor of partially reconciling liberal and orthodox
Christians upon the basis of scripture phraseology,
mystically interpreted. The ground of communion
on the one hand, and of controversy on the other, is
just now, as those of you are well aware who see
the papers and periodicals of our denomination, the
doctrine of the Atonement, upon which the new
movement men hold that our body, generally, have
failed to do justice to a large class of scripture testimonies which orthodoxy has recognized, particularly those which relate to the sacrificial character of
our Saviour's death. Now, I am not about to discuss
the merits of the whole controversy, which neither
subject nor space permits me to do. What I intended
was simply to remark upon one point, in which the
controversy, thus far, is very instructive, namely, that
almost all the difficulty, all the mystery, all the perplexity, all the anxiety and doubt and distress, that
have been conjured up and set forth in regard to the
death of Christ and its relation to our faith and life
and salvation, turn not upon what is said by Christ,
who is our great teacher, but upon what is said of him.
It is not so strange that men trained in the orthodox
creeds, but it is strange that men habituated to
liberal methods and principles should forget, while
marvelling over the frequency and fervor with which
6




82   CHRISTIANITY TO BE LEARNED OF CHRIST.
the apostles dwell upon the sacrifice of Christ, that
Jesus himself scarcely alludes to himself in that light,
under that figure, at all, and where he does so most
strongly, it is simply as the good shepherd laying
down his life for the sheep, -- one of the commonest
and best understood figures of language. This, and
the idea of his giving his life a ransom for many, -
which also is a simple, common, and intelligible
figure, - constitute about all that Jesus says about
his own death, beyond such plain declarations of its
moral meaning and spiritual efficacy as: — -" and I,
if I be lifted up," (i. e. on the cross,) " will draw all
men unto me."  When will Christians get to the
heart of that significant saying of the great Apostle
of christian liberty? Poring and disputing over all
that has been said and written about Christ, they
grope about with a vail upon their hearts, -" but,"
says Paul, " when it shall turn to the Lord," let them
once go to Christ himself, " the vail shall be taken
away.'
The Church has gone behind Christ and below
Christ — to prophets and apostles, and apostolic
fathers and early age councils and middle age metaphysics - to learn about Christ and Christianity, -
but how has Christ himself, the living Christ of the
Evangelists, Christ formed in a soul instructed and
inspired by reading them, been slighted in the comparison!  Our Puritan fathers, revolting from  a
Church which found its authority in the ages after
Christ, went away back and found their favorite authorities and examples in an anterior dispensation,
appearing to have acted upon a notion which is far




CHRISTIANITY TO BE LEARNED OF CHRIST.   83
from being yet extinct, that because the Old Testament is placed first within the sacred covers, it is
first in importance.  Macaulay says of a distinguished Covenanter in the time of William  and
Mary, " It is a circumstance strikingly characteristic
of the man and of the school in which he had been
trained, that, in all the mass of his writing which
has come down to us, there is not a single word indicating that he had ever in his life heard of the New
Testament." This reminds us of those disciples,
spoken of in the Book of Acts, who had not so much
as heard of there being any holy spirit.
The conclusion to which this discourse has tended
is this, that, in all questions of doctrine or duty, we
should begin with the Christ of the Gospels, start from
that high central ground to survey the field of truth,
and let the light of the plain revelation illustrate
what is obscure; whereas the opposite course is too
generally taken, men magnify a few obscurities, by
holding them close to their eyes, and let a speck
of darkness hide a heaven of light. Hardly any
thing has kept back the cause of truth in the church,
and I may add, of righteousness in society, so much
as this habit of going somewhere else for authority
more than to the spirit of Christ himself. Christ,
the word, the life, the spirit of Christ, is our great,
decisive example in all matters of creed and of
conduct.
But let no man comfort himself with the fancy
that he has lightened his responsibility by thus reducing his creed to the limits of the Gospel. Let no
man say lightly, as I fear some do say it, "the four




84   CHRISTIANITY TO BE LEARNED OF CHRIST.
Gospels contain all the religion I need." All the religion! Is it, then, so easy a matter to do - even to
believe - the Sermon on the Mount - to pray with
the heart the Lord's Prayer — to deny one's self
- to take up the cross and follow Christ daily - to
love God with the whole soul, and your neighbor as
yourself, and to do unto others as you would that
they should do unto you?  This is all that the Lord
requires of you, -but is the thought of this flattering to careless self-complacency? You may well
congratulate yourself if you are delivered from the
burden and bewilderment and bondage of human
creeds and dead traditions, but there still remains a
more obstinate and wily enemy, named, variously,
the love of the world, the fear of the world, the care
of the world, and to meet and overcome him in the
simplicity of Christ will cost your best thought, your
strongest faith, your highest courage, and your whole
life.




VII.
THE UNITARIAN IDEA.
TO US THERE IS BUT ONE GOD, THE FATHER. —1 Cor. viii. 6.
FOR several years, at all our great gatherings,'
three questions have, under one or another name
and form, more or less distinctly, always, I think,
more deeply than any others, exercised the mind and
heart of our denomination; and well may they do
so, in my opinion, until we come to comprehend
and feel, far more vividly than we yet do, the vantage-ground and place of responsibility, at once,
which we hold before God and in relation to our
fellow-men, by virtue of the simple and sublime,
the soul-stirring and soul-satisfying faith committed
to our branch of the Church of Christ.
The first of these three questions I am about to
call your attention to is a question of name; the
second a question of form; and the third and greatest of all is a question of idea. The first asks
whether we who belong to what is popularly known
as the Liberal Wing of the Church militant should
call ourselves, or let ourselves be called, Unitarians;, Preached as a review of the May Meeting of the American Unitarian
Association in 1859.




86            THE UNITARIAN IDEA.
whether it is not time to drop that name as a thing
outgrown and obsolete: the second, whether it is
desirable, convenient, consistent for us to be organized as a distinct body: and the third, —which seems
to me almost to swallow up the other two questions,
and of which we seem hitherto to have strangely
overlooked the relative importance, but give signs
every year of coming nearer to a right appreciation, -
is the question, whether there is not some one great
religious idea which is committed to us as really
Unitarians, (whatever called or calling ourselves,)
which distinguishes or should distinguish us from
the so-called Orthodox communions, because, however their heart and flesh may cry out or secretly
yearn for such an idea, their imposed or inherited
creeds will not allow it, - an idea, in short, which,
so far as we truly cherish and value it, must long
keep us a peculiar people, in fact, in form, and in
name.
In comparison with this third question, the one
first mentioned, whether we will adhere, or answer,
to the name Unitarians, is, in every sense, a merely
nominal one; and equally idle, as it seems to me,
were it to discuss the question whether we should
remain organized into one body. Our great idea, if
it is verily a living idea, organizes us, of itself, into
one church, one family, one body of believers.
Now I think, as has been already intimated, that
it is coming to be more and more a settled conviction with the representatives of our churches, as
they assemble year after year, to read together the
signs of the times, and give and receive mutual




THE UNITARIAN IDEA.           87
cheer and counsel, —and both the intense and insidious efforts of sectarianism around us, and the occasional wavering of some spirit amongst us, less
capable of enduring that hardness which a good
soldiership in the Unitarian cause requires, combine
to draw us the more strongly to the ground of union
upon this point, - that we have and ought to hold
and hold up a religious idea, which, once distinctly
seen and felt in its whole application to theology and
humanity, will make the name Unitarian to be no
longer the representative of an abstract, barren,
scholastic, sectarian notion, but an expression rich
in suggestion of truth, which the soul of man everywhere darkly yearns to reach and to realize.
There is a recreant tendency in this age, growing
partly out of men's weariness with mere verbal
quibbling and sectarian subtilty, to set up the mystical and sentimental elements of our nature above
thought and judgment; to say, "' Come, as we cannot be of the same mind, let us be of the same
mouth, let us fall back upon the form of sound words,
(which I fear means, or would mean, rather the
sound of formal words,) let us rest in the sacred utterances of the Scripture, and in the holy emotions
they awaken, and thus realize again the blessed
unity of the household of the faith." Plausible as
this sounds, flattering as it is to weak or weary
minds, it is not faithful to the wants of our age, it is
not just to the spirit of truth. The idea that, precisely in that department of life which is the most
important, we are to abjure and stifle that faculty
of reason which is the highest thing in man, and




88            TIIE UNITARIAN IDEA.
meant to rule the whole man, will not bear to be
looked at, must be seen, at least, through a mist, to
produce any other effect than a repelling one, on the
minds of men. And the idea that any safer, surer,
worthier union of Christian men is effected by merely
consenting to confine our religious expression to certain sanctified forms and phrases, and holding in with
a bridle the mouth of every question that instinctively
rises, as to what we mean by them, than by simply
and manfully owning that we do differ in our
thought, and that therefore no language can fix the
final expression and embodiment of our ever-growing theology, —shows a sad want of the liberty
wherewith Paul told his brethren, so many centuries
ago, that Christ makes his followers free.
It is not, indeed, on the one hand, a mere speculation, but neither is it, on the other, a mere sentiment, that is to make a sound basis for a living,
healthy, active Church of Christ and humanity. If
there has been excess in the way of speculation in
religion, the cure is not to make sentiment the creed,
the confession, the character. Every church must
be built upon an idea. Of course, when I say idea,
I do not mean merely a notion, nor merely an image
of truth; I mean a conviction of the mind, a judgment of the reason; I mean, too, something which
includes feeling; only, in this case, the feeling
springs from faith, whereas, in the case of religious
sentimentalism, the faith is a creature of feeling and
fancy.
Now, then, what is this grand idea, this mighty
source of the best feeling and the best works, if we




THE UNITARIAN IDEA.          89
truly have and believe it, this idea towards which
the heart of humanity struggles, but which the prevailing creed of Christendom does so much to confuse, and obstruct, and keep in the background?
The very name Unitarian expresses it; Paul expresses it in our text. Interpret the name by the
text. You will perceive that it designates no such
narrow notion as those who have assailed, and perhaps many who have assumed it, have sometimes
ascribed to it. Unitarianism means not merely the
doctrine of the unity, but of the unities. It declares
not merely the oneness of the Godhead, in the controversy touching the Divine existence, but, in the
greater, moral question, the harmony and identity of
so many sacred things which God has united, or
rather which in God are united, but which man has
put asunder.
Of course the primary, and, historically, the principal idea expressed by the term Unitarian is the
idea that there is and can be only one Being who is
the Supreme God, and that that Being is the Father,
(not the Son also, not the Spirit also, but the Father
only,) dwelling in the Son, working as a Spirit in
him and in all His true children, and in Christ's
true Church. And the time is far from having come
when, even in this sense, the unity of God no longer
needs to be defended, developed, diffused, and strenuously insisted upon. For we hear it distinctly said,
almost in express words, and it is evident enough,
the feeling is widely waking in the community, " we
must be sure of our faith in the Divine and Supreme
Three, at all events, and how and whether we can




90            THE UNITARIAN IDEA.
afterward make out for ourselves a unity of the
Godhead, is a secondary question."  While this is
so, how can any man allow himself to think of compromise in this matter? How can any one argue
that, because, philosophically, a trinity of manifestations may be conceived of, therefore, it is time for
liberal men to lay aside the ungenerous imputation
which the term Unitarian implies? It implies no
such imputation. It implies simply that we recognize a unity beneath, above, beyond all trinities, all
diversities, and toward that would ever look, and
labor, and call our fellow-men.
In establishing this Unity of God, or rather establishing ourselves upon it, we do also, at the same
time, virtually reduce to unity another discord which
has been created, in the personality of Christ, finding
him to be a simple and not a double being, and this,
again, gives a unity to the Gospel, as a picture of
Christ, and lifts from the heart that cloud of distressing perplexity, which the constant uncertainty
with which of the two persons in Christ we are talking introduces into the mind.
The Son and the Father are more truly one with
each other in the doctrine of the Unitarian than in
a creed which, virtually at least, makes the paternal
nature the exacting, and the filial the interposing.
Surely a far deeper unity is made out through an
exact moral resemblance, than by a hard and slippery
idea of Two in One, with which only the subtlest
metaphysics can grapple.
I say, a moral unity of the Son and the Father,
and this brings me to say, in general, that the Uni



THE UNITARIAN IDEA.           91
tarian idea, the doctrine of the Oneness of God, the
Father, contains in itself an element, which the heart
of humanity craves and cries to have brought out
and brought home to it more than any theory with
regard to the mode of the Divine existence, however great a hindrance confused and inconsistent
notions about that subject may be to the peace and
prosperity of the spiritual life, — and that peculiar
and precious element is the assertion of the Oneness
of God's almighty, all-wise, and all-gracious parental
providence, one everywhere, one always, drawing
good from seeming evil, and overcoming evil with
good. In one word, the idea of the unity of God's
disposition, and not merely that of the unity of his
person, is what, to my ear and mind and heart and
whole nature, makes the name of Unitarian most
dear and inspiring. When Unitarian polemics have
repeated the sublime declaration, "' To us there is
but One God, the Father," and when Trinitarian
polemics, with a strange hardihood, have set up the
counter-assertion, "' To us there is One God, the
Father, the Son, and the Spirit," -too often -so
often that I suppose, to this day, our text with many
makes that for its first and leading impression -the
word Father has awakened merely or mainly the
idea of official rank and title -denoting rather a
relation among the Divine Beings, than a relation of
Heaven to Earth. The Father has been spoken of
in speculative and controversial theology with hardly
more feeling of the tender meaning the name should
have for the affections than if it had been Creator
or King. In calling him the Father, have we always




92            THE UNITARIAN IDEA.
felt that He was even a father, in the best human
sense of the word?
Who can imagine that Paul let the hallowed name
pass his lips or his pen, with any such formal and
superficial association? What real Christian can
ever do it?
To say that the Father is our one God is to say
that parental love, in perfection, reigns through the
universe, — it is the Unitarianism which asserts a
perfect unity among all the attributes of the Godhead, between justice and mercy, between holiness
and love. It is fatal to the blighting dogma of everlasting reprobation. If God can ever cease to deal
as a father with his children, if he can ever disown
them, - the moment we admit the possibility of such
a time's coming, we give up our faith in the truth
that to us there is one God, the Father.  And He
whom no change of worlds can change, is without
variableness here.
Bewildering, indeed, is it to the mind and heart, -
"reason stands aghast and faith itself is half confounded," - when we are required to acknowledge
three supreme objects of worship; — but even this,
however distracting and distressing, is a far smaller
evil than the practical polytheism in which the slaves
of sense and passion cringe and burn incense before
the " gods many and lords many," which the superstition of worldliness sets up, simultaneously or successively, in the place of the true God and Father
of the spirit. Luck and chance, fate and fortune,
custom and opinion, power, wealth, and fashion, such
are some of the gods against which the revelation




THE UNITARIAN IDEA.          93
of One God, the Father, has to be held up before the
eyes and hearts of men.
When the heart is once established in the faith of
the unity of God, the Father, a beautiful and blessed
unity will follow in that life which, under the One
Father's Providence, man is called to live. In the
expressive language of the apostle, he will be enabled to "' wait upon the Lord without distraction."
If the consciousness of imperfection - if conscience
of sin — makes his heart sink within him, - if the
cloud of sorrow settles down coldly and heavily on
his heart's hopes, - still, under all this heaviness, he
will be able to rejoice in the good tidings from
Heaven, that the hand which chastens him, is the
hand of the one impartial, unchangeable Father.
Here, my friends, and not merely in any speculative or controversial ingenuity, lies the best criterion
of the depth and value of our Unitarianism. Do we
thus practically worship the One God and Father
in the soberness of a life equally removed from
gloom and giddiness, -rendering a cheerful, hopeful, thoughtful homage to the overruling Providence,
-proving our faith by our hope and our charity,
our contentment, and our disposition to recognize
every angel of wisdom and mercy under the darkest
disguise?
Need I say to you, friends of this church and
congregation, that the train of thought into which I
have led you is one to which the holy spirit of our
Father is leading us in these days, to-day and this
hour? I came home from our high and happy
meditations and communings on the blessed doe



94            THE UNITARIAN IDEA.
trine of God's Fatherhood, I came through scenes
of nature sparkling in paradisiacal purity, I came to
hear tidings of sorrow which, for a moment, flung a
black pall over all the beauty of the opening summer,
and turned the song of birds into a general dirge.
I see no other real cure or comfort for such woes
than the conviction that all these forms of beauty
are but the signs and shadows of an inner and everlasting world of spiritual realities, —no cure or comfort but the faith which sees God in all and all in
God, — which feels that Heaven is around us, that
its foundations are within us, because we live and
move and have our being in God. What other
refuge or relief is there? Will you tell me of the
healing virtue of time? " Sad cure!" which cures
only by killing the tenderest and holiest part of our
sorrow! Poor, negative solace! The heart and soul
cry out for a positive compensation. Such a compensation is not to be found where the children of
this world would find it, in the gradual deadening
of thought, but in the quickening of thought to the
meaning of those high and holy and healing lessons,
which God teaches his children through the ministrations of grief and pain.
When, in the very heart of all the bloom and glow
of this season of promise, the dearest hopes of earth
are blasted, - when childhood in its purity and
womanhood in its mature and serene beauty, are
snatched from our eyes, and we are tempted to feel
" an enemy hath done this," -what shall prepare
our hearts to take home to themselves the better
lessons of such events?  The practical answer of




THE UNITARIAN IDEA.           95
the hearts and lives of the majority, I fear, to such
questions is, that about all we can do is to let grief
have its way, and then to let time take its course, and
the bright and busy world resume, in due time, its
power. But who can really and calmly believe it to
be the meaning and will of God, that this one only
certain thing about life, this change that awaits all,
should break, as it does, into the midst of our enjoyments and expectations, only to depress us with a
temporary heaviness, to benumb and bewilder the
spirit for a while, and then send it back with no
higher and holier purposes to the intercourse and
business of life? What we need, and what Providence, by these sudden and startling events, would
teach us, is to think of these sad things, which, for a
time, we feel so keenly and so bitterly, - to look at
them in such a light that, at last, we can learn to
see them as a harmonious part of the holy plan of
Divine love, - can come to say from the heart and
by the whole tone of our life, that "to us there is
but One God, the Father," - one Lord of Life and
of Death, to whom all the elements of the moral, as
of the material world, are alike subject, - One God,
the Father, who can never cease to be a Father —
can never cast off the least or the worst of his
children.
You will see, of course, that I cannot have had
any idea of exhausting even the outlines of the great
Unitarian idea in a single discourse. It would take
hours and volumes to tell all that Paul says when
he says, " To us there is One God, the Father."
The doctrine of the Divine Unity is virtually the




96            THE UNITARIAN IDEA.
doctrine of the Atonement, that glorious truth which
has been so mournfully belittled in the creeds and
controversies of Christendom, — the Atonement, the
bringing into one of what had been at discord in
human thought, feeling, and practice, - the reconciling and harmonizing of the Divine attributes in
the soul of man, the reconciliation of man to his
Maker, to his brother, and to himself.
Finally, there is one aspect of the text to which
before leaving the whole subject with you, I must
briefly allude. The doctrine of the Divine Unity is
the doctrine of the oneness of humanity. The expression, "' To us there is One God, the Father,"
means not merely to each of us, but to all of us, one
and the same Father. Sectarian or social influences may make us feel or live as if we really had
different origins and destinies, but reason and revelation assure us with combined utterance, that we
are all the offspring of one and the same Being, " of
whom  and through whom and to whom  are all
things."
God, the Father, is one, and in Him we are one,
members one of another. The loss or gain, the
degradation or elevation, the distress or deliverance
of one, is the affair of all. In a thousand ways
men ignore this profound fact, judging instead of
helping each other; coldly and sternly they go on
their way, serving their several private gods, Chance,
Power, or whatever the idol may be they darkly
worship, but they only punish themselves by thus
banishing themselves from the presence of the allloving Father into the wintry land of selfishness;




THE UNITARIAN IDEA.           97
and daily one sees the curse written on many a
hard and haggard brow, in many a stolid, stony eye,
on many a sullen, envious lip.
I have given you a glimpse, an impression, perhaps, of what I call the great Christian revelation of
the Unities, of the Unitarian idea, in a word, concerning the highest matters of religion. It gives us
unity in our theology; unity between theology and
humanity; unity in the upper world; unity between
that world and this lower and preparatory one, - the
unity realized in the true Church-life.
To-day' again we confess One who invites men
to come to Him and find rest for their souls,- rest
from the confusion of self-contradictory speculations; rest from the heavy burdens thus laid upon
the mind; rest from the heavier burdens the dreary
and desperate demands of self-idolizing passion lay
upon the heart; rest in the bosom of the Father
whose love he images,- the rest of conscious and
confiding oneness with the "great Parent-mind"
that made and governs the universe, - that rest
which remaineth for the people of God, who through
faith and patience seek to inherit the promises. Let
us come to Him and partake in the great atonement I have endeavored to describe and commend.
- Communion Sunday.
7




VIII.
THE CONSISTENT UNITARIAN BELIEVER.
THOU BELIEVEST THAT THERE IS ONE GOD; THOU DOEST WELL: THE
DEMONS ALSO BELIEVE AND TREMBLE. -James ii. 19.
THE word in our common version is "devils";
but that is a wrong rendering; and the one which I
have substituted is not, as might at first be imagined, merely a more polite way of saying the same
thing. The class of beings called demons differs
from those called devils (whether either are real, or
only imaginary, I do not now inquire) in this respect: that the demons are simply disembodied
spirits; according to the Jews, they were for the
most part the ghosts of dead men; in the Pagan
mythology they were deities; and they might be
either good demons or evil demons, —and wHiich
they were, in any given case, would depend on the
connection in which the word was used. The demon of Socrates was a good genius. Paul, in his
address to the Athenians on the Areopagus, begins,
as we find by consulting the original, with giving
them credit for being more than commonly reverential
toward the demons. This is the idea contained in
the word rendered "too superstitious."  In the passage from James before us, the fact that the spirits




THE CONSISTENT UNITARIAN BELIEYER.    99
are represented as trembling, or shivering, as the
original seems literally to imply, would appear to
indicate that they belong to the tribe of dark spirits, though perhaps not necessarily totally depraved
ones.
So much for the meaning of the word. As to the
question, whether these demons have any actual
existence, or were only the creatures of the popular
imagination, and with Jesus and his apostles figures
of speech, the settlement of this question is not
essential to James's argument. My own opinion is,
that the demons that were supposed to possess men
in former ages were diseases, and not devils nor
ghosts. As to the heathen deities, although it seems
often to be supposed that there is scriptural authority for believing that the idols and oracles were really
devils, Paul says expressly, "We know that an idol
is nothing in the world, and that there is none other
God but one." And, I think, we may say something
of the same kind with regard to the demons of the
old Jewish mythology, that they were nothing in
the world, except the figments of a crazed brain,
a troubled conscience, or a superstitious fancy.
But this does not at all affect the practical purpose of the Apostle's argument in the case before
us; certainly it does not, if we suppose him to be
reasoning with those who believed in the actual existence of a race called demons, and it does not prevent that argument's having a significance for us,
who may not acknowledge the reality of any precisely such beings.
For what is the argument? The Apostle is meet



100   THE CONSISTENT UNITARIAN BELIEVER.
ing the case of those who fancy that they have a
faith that is going to save them, though it is a faith
which has now no other effect upon them than to
fill them with this notion. He takes, then, the first
and fundamental article of Jewish faith and of all
religious faith, and says: you tell me, for instance,
that you believe in the unity of God [for this is the
exact force of the original, "thou believest that God
is one;"] so far, so good; but the demons also, of
whom you read in your sacred writings, believe as
much and they tremble. This confession and consternation of the demons every reader of the Gospels will remember as there repeatedly described,
and it suits equally well the consistency of the Evangelist's narrative, and the requirements of the Apostle's argument, whether it was the demons, or the
man possessed with them, or with the notion of them,
who, being beside himself, cried out, " Let us alone,
what have we to do with thee, Jesus of Nazareth?
Art thou come to destroy us? I know thee who
thou art; the Holy One of God,"- though I think
the confusion of persons in some of these utterances
favors the conclusion, that it was properly the demoniacs who believed and trembled.
But the practical point with the Apostle was, that
these dark and troubled spirits, whether in the body
or out of the body, believed and confessed the same
truth which these nominal children of Abraham and
disciples of Moses and Jesus professed to hold by,
without giving any proof of it in their practice,
and that it was lawful for them to learn a lesson
even from an enemy. These darkened or depraved




THE CONSISTENT UNITARIAN BELIEVER.   101
spirits, whichever they were, recognized the true
Unitarian faith; they testified that there was one
God, and addressed Jesus as the Son and Messenger of that Supreme Being. And they showed their
faith by their works so far as this, at least, that their
faith wrought upon them, and that, believing in the
Deity, they at least trembled at his power and his
holiness, which was more than, as would appear,
many of those did to whom James addressed this
plain-spoken Epistle, and, on the other hand, was
far less than they ought to do, if any of them did
even so much.
I have said, that it was not essential to the Apostle's argument, whether we understood the confession
of faith referred to to come from disembodied spirits
or from men whom they were supposed to possess.
Only, if evil and incurable spirits were meant, a different tone and turn would have to be given to the
text, and it should be read, — in merely believing
that God is one, thou doest something, but no more
than the demons do, for they believe and tremble;
-whereas, upon the other supposition, the milder
one, the reading would be, —thou doest something,
but not so much as they do, for they believe and
tremble.
Whichever way we read and regard it, our text
reminds a reflecting person, that there are three kinds,
or perhaps we'should say degrees, of belief in religious matters; the belief of logic, the belief of terror,
and the belief of love. The first of these is a name,
the second is a dream, the third only is a wakeful
and living reality. The first two of these stages, as




102    THE CONSISTENT UNITARIAN BELIEVER.
we might call them, in the progress of the principle
of faith, from a shadowy to a substantial existence,
are recognized by the Apostle as existing even among
the worldly and the wicked; —the third is implied
by him, as the one which marks and makes the true
Christian, the true Israelite and friend of God.
The man with whom the Apostle supposes himself
arguing has no faith, in strict reality. Faith has a
name to live, on his tongue and in his brain, but it is
dead. He is a dead Unitarian. The question is
not as to the case of a man who has faith and not
works, but it refers to one who merely says he has
faith. Can faith save him? the Apostle asks. No, for
the simple reason that he has not got it. He professes to believe that God is one, and in a certain
sense he does believe it, that is, his reason teaches
him, that, if there is a God, He must be single, for the
idea of more than one supreme Lord and first cause
of all things would contradict the only principle upon which hle can trust his own intellectual faculties.
But this does not imply that the belief of the head
has gone down into the heart, or will go out into the
life. So long as it remains in this state, so far from
necessarily making him less proud, less selfish, it
may only aggravate his pride and his selfishness.
Rather than continue in such a condition of mere
nominal faith, well would it be for a man to exchange places with the trembling slave of superstition, who, at least, believes in something higher than
himself, than his own understanding, and has within
him a susceptibility to the true light and the true
life.




THE CONSISTENT UNITARIAN BELIEVER.   103
A distinguished commentator on the Epistles
contends, that, when James says that " Faith without works is dead," he does not mean to deny that
it is a real faith. And the reason he gives for this
opinion is, that, "' as the faith of the devils is a real
conviction, and is shown to be real by their trembling, when they think of God's holiness and power,
so a man may have a real conviction of the truth
of the Gospel, who is not habitually influenced
thereby." This I believe, however, to be a great
mistake, although a common one. If the truth of
the Gospel meant merely the terrors of the Gospel,
or rather the terrors of the Law, then, perhaps, that
would be more reason for saying that a man might
be convinced and convicted without being converted
thereby, though, even then, a real belief would influence the inner man, at least, and the real life, so
long as it lasted and so far as it went. And thus
the very trembling of the devils, especially coupled
with their confession, showed the working of the law
of faith on their natures, although it did not and
could not lead them to repentance, because it was
not a holy horror at sin, but only a cringing before
superior power. But the truth of the Gospel means
a great deal more than the revelation of power and
holiness and justice, it means more especially the
doctrine of fatherly love. This, indeed, is the Gospel
proper, the glad tidings of reconcilation. And the
question is, can a man have a real conviction of the
Gospel in this sense, the only true and full one, and
not show it in his life, and that, too, by something
better than trembling, namely, by trust? One might




104   THE CONSISTENT UNITARIAN BELIEVER.
as well say that because rain, without sunshine, cannot raise your corn from the ground, the thing is
beyond the power of nature. Let the sun shine out,
and test whether the corn is alive or dead. Let the
sun of gospel truth and love shine through the firmament of faith into the heart, and see whether the
graces and the virtues of a gospel life will not attest
its presence and its power. Would you say that
any one really had charity, who should merely say to
the destitute and the desolate sons and daughters of
poverty and affliction, " be comfortable and happy,"
without doing anything to help them? Why, then,
should you say that anybody could really have faith,
who merely professed a doctrine which he did not
practise? The truth is, this idea that there can be a
real faith which yet is not a live faith, makes a distinction without a difference, and, more than that, it
is a hurtful delusion. Let no one comfort himself
with the notion that he has any such thing as faith,
if it does not work in him and through him, - if it
does not affect his spirit and his life. What does
James's saying to his man, " Show me thy faith
without thy works," mean, but this: Prove' to me
that you have any faith? And, what is this confident challenge but a virtual denial of the man's
fancied possession?
The reproof of James, then, in our text, is directed
against a nominal faith, and particularly against a
lifeless Unitarianism.  He says, Thou believest
that God is one: thou doest well not to believe that
He is more than one, not to confuse thy mind with
the attempt to believe in two, three, or more gods,




TIHE CONSISTENT UNITARIAN BELIEVER.  105
simultaneously or alternately controlling the destinies of the world. But thou doest not well, if professing to believe that God is one, thou dost not
really so much as believe that God is, and provest
thy disbelief, or, at least, unbelief in this vital truth,
by living as if thine own will and pleasure were to
be supremely consulted, as if thou wert born not to
minister but to be ministered unto, as if thou wert
absolutely thine own master, as if, in short, God
were a mere name to keep the world in awe, and
constrain it into an outward peace. And to every
one who, professing to believe in the one God of
the Gospel, the God and Father of the Lord Jesus
Christ, entertains, at best, only an intermittent and
cringing conviction in reality, as if the language of
the heart to itself were "I am afraid there is a
God," to such an one the Apostle says, the very
demons (the devils, if you will) have this belief of
terror; and shall a man think that he knows, not to
say believes, the Christian's God, the tender, holy,
and gracious Father, who has no better faith than
this?
In a word, the Apostle reminds us what should
and would be the power of a true Unitarian faith.
And to this let us now direct our attention.
Unfortunately, too much of the professed Unitarianism extant concerns itself with the Divine nature
as'something quite disconnected with the nature of
the inquirer himself. It contemplates and discusses
the Supreme as coolly and distantly as if it were
mere fiction that in Him we live and move and have
our being. I do not mean to say that Trinitarian



106   THE CONSISTENT UNITARIAN BELIEVER.
ism and all formalisms do not fall under the same
reproach; I simply mean that Unitarianism ought,
by its theory, to be peculiarly free from it, - ought
to keep alive in a peculiar manner the sense of the
Divine Omnipresence, and constant spiritual nearness, and particular and perpetual providence.
Do we believe that there is one God, and only
one? Then see what practical consequences must
follow. Then we believe that there is one and only
one religion; if there is " one Lord," then "' one
faith, one baptism," — namely, the faith which
works by love, and the baptism of the temper into
the spirit of holiness and charity. There may be
many forms of religion, but there can be only one
religion; there may be many manifestations, but
there can be only one spirit. There may be various
theologies, but there can be only one religion; and
that religion consists in the allegiance of the soul,
under the fear of the Lord, to the principles of truth
and rectitude and honesty, and its devotedness to
the work which conscience calls it to do. If there
is only one God, there is only one religion, - godliness. The true Unitarian will be a true Catholic.
If there is one and only one God, He is the Almighty; and if that one, almighty God is love, then
no rival can divide or dispute with him the government of the universe; no spirit inconsistent with
love can cast its shadow upon the Infinite Benignity, and no dispensation, however seemingly inconsistent with love, can be permitted, except as it
may tend to swell the triumph and glory of the
Divine Grace. The true Unitarian, relieved of all




THE CONSISTENT UNITARIAN BELIEVER.   107'
lingering superstition about a conflict among the
divine attributes, imputing no such weakness or
variableness to the almighty and all-wise Father,
will ever cherish a calm faith in the omnipotence of
goodness, and will show his faith by casting in his
lot with that holy cause.
If there is one and only one God, who reigns on
the throne of the universe, he who truly believes
this and believes in Him, will possess his own soul's
inner world in the peace of unity, having his passions free from all anarchy, sweetly submissive to
the one authority of God's will.
If there is only one God, then, to the believer,
life is one harmonious expression. Having but one
God, he has but one grand object before him, to
which all others are secondary and subservient, - to
serve, please, and resemble Him; in a word, to glorify his name. As, in his faith, there is no discord
among the elements of the Divine nature, so in his
life is there nothing of that continual, gnawing, and
fretting collision between the various calls of propensity and circumstance, which make this world to
the faithless a scene of so much discomfort and so
little spiritual growth.
If there is but one God, then all intelligent beings
in earth as well as in heaven compose but one farnily, of which He is the Father. If there is but one
God, then all men, of every clime, condition, complexion, character, are His children, and we all are
brethren. He who believes that there is one God,
believes that that one is the God of all, without respect of persons, equally just to all, equally merci



108   THE CONSISTENT UNITARIAN BELIEVER.
ful; and so believing, he will be irresistibly impelled
to exercise in his own limited sphere the same justice and mercy.
If there is but one God, He is the same yesterday, to-day, and forever. He who ages ago wrought
his wonders in the heavens and on the earth, is still
with us and passing before us in the daily mercies
and miracles of his providence. We worship not,
if we rightly worship, the name or the memory of a
God that was, but in the name and strength of a
God who now is.
In a word, if there is one living and true God,
then, emphatically, faith without works is dead, for
He, we are told, worketh in us to will and to do;
and if we are not working with Him, then there is
no vital union between Him and us, in short, no real
faith.
I know what will be said to all this, what the
heart at least will say, namely, if you try the reality
of our faith by such tests, where can you find a true
believer? But still the question comes back, are
not the tests fair ones?
There is said to be joy and peace in believing.
The devils believe that there is one God, and tremble. The angels believe and know that there is one
God, because they dwell in Him, and they also
tremble —with joy, in His presence. There is terror
in believing only so much of the Gospel as the
slaves of sin and superstition do believe, - but how
small a part of it that is! If the Gospel were what
some creeds called Christian represent it, well might
one who should truly believe it, believe and tremble.




THE CONSISTENT UNITARIAN BELIEVER.   109
If the awakening, conversion, and salvation of our
souls depended on the arbitrary will of a Being, concerning whom there were any doubt whether his disposition towards us were that same parental love
which we all understand by its ideal in our own
nature, - if all we could know were that His nature
is called love, without knowing that it might not
have willed our everlasting misery, -who could
really take such a creed home to his heart, and yet
find joy and peace in believing it? A man might say
that he believed such a representation of the Deity,
in whose hands were the destinies of the fellowcreatures he was bound to love and pity, and he
might almost make himself believe that he believed
it, but if he did believe it, he must be either miserable, or else a monster or a maniac.
According to our view, the Gospel of Jesus involves no such terrible alternative. We are come,
if we are true to our profession,
"Where milder words declare His will,
And spread His love abroad."
To us, indeed, comes the admonition, "If ye call on
the Father, who, without respect of persons, judgeth
according to every man's work, pass the time of
your sojourning here infear;" but the fear enjoined
upon us, as reasonable beings, is a reverential fear
of offending against the Divine purity. We are
invited by the doctrine we profess, to cherish that
generous faith which, instead of freezing and benumbing the natural affections, enlarges and purifies them, and extends them to the height of piety




110    TItE CONSISTENT UNITARIAN BELIEVER.
and the breadth of charity. The genius of our large
and lofty creed, if it is suffered to possess our hearts,
will lift our ideas and impressions of the spiritual
above that region of the spectral or sepulchral, in
which those of a lamentably large proportion of the
religious world seem still to linger.
In the Unitarian controversy, as it figures in
church history, the chief question has related to the
Personality of the Divine Being. But there is another question, another controversy, constantly agitating the hearts of men, though not yet brought
out as it should be and is to be before their consciousness, pointing to a deeper, a more practical
Unitarianism, and that is, whether our God is really
one, not merely in his person, but in his disposition.
Until our Unitarianism  and Trinitarianism come
out clear on this great matter, they are having but
a preliminary skirmish.  What would it matter to
a man whether the form of government he lived
under were a monarchy or an oligarchy, in comparison with the question, what is the spirit of the government? All Christians agree that there is but
one God, whether he exist in one person or in three.
But the question is, what is the spirit of the Godhead that governs the universe? Is it a kind spirit,
eternally and invariably so, or is it an arbitrary, a
capricious, a changeable one?
" Thou believest that there is one God;" dost
thou really believe this in the only sense in which
thy belief amounts to anything more than a phrase
or a notion, namely, that there is one will presiding over all things in earth and heaven, and whatso



THE CONSISTENT UNITARIAN BELIEVER.   111
ever other darker world there may be, and that that
will is good-will towards men,- a will that means
their good only and continually? Acknowledging
this belief, well may we tremble at our inconsistency
and indifference, when we think of our inconstant,
fitful, and fluctuating lives.




IX.
THE REIGN OF THE FATHER.
A-THAT GOD MAY BE ALL IN ALL." - 1 Cor. xv. 28.
THIS text, as you well remember, forms part of
the solemn language with which the Church hallows
her service for the dead. And it is not always easy,
sometimes it may seem ungracious, to take any part
of such language from that tender connection for
the purpose of showing that the words of consolation spoken over the dead contain instruction and
quickening for the living, and that phrases heard
mostly in the subdued hours of sorrow and resignation express truth that needs to be repeated and reflected upon, in order to be acted upon, in the bright,
busy, bustling seasons and scenes of active life, in
all its employments and enjoyments, in all its eager
pursuit of practical objects, and in all its most sharp
and spirited conflicts. And yet the great Apostle,
even in the midst of his thrilling disclosures of the
future, even in the midst of his prophetic picture of
the resurrection of the dead, pauses to sound the
gospel trump for the resurrection of the living, admonishing them to " awake to righteousness," and
reproving them that " some have not the knowledge
of God."




THE REIGN OF THE FATHER.         113
I wish, then, to bring out to view so much as time
and strength may permit of the treasure of meaning, to think upon and to live upon, which lies concealed from the slaves of custom, but ready to reveal itself to the eye of the free spirit, under the
phrase which represents God as all in all. I shall
first ask you to consider what it meant and what it
means in the connection in which Paul uses it, and
then what it expresses as an absolute statement of
Christian faith. For I believe, and shall maintain,
that this text has a mighty bearing both on theology,
in manifold respects, and on practical religion; that,
though in its first and immediate purpose it had a
prophetic character, it also had, and has now and
forever, a most pressing application to the present
world, to the things and the thoughts of each passing
day and hour; that while it appears, on the surface,
to be describing only what is to be in the consummations of a remote futurity, it really tells a mind
that enters into it what are now, in some important
respects, the thoughts and purposes of God, the relations of God to Christ and humanity, and what
ought therefore to be the feelings and the dealings
of man.
But let us, as was proposed, take these things in
order. I need hardly remind you that our text, in
its original and immediate reference, points forward
to a time in the far future, (how far off Paul may
have conceived it in his day, it is difficult, if possible,
for any one now to tell,) when, everything that is
contrary being subdued and submissive, God alone
shall reign throughout the universe with an undi8




114        THE REIGN OF THE FATHER.
vided, undisputed, undelegated sway. Let us consider what this implies, and see whether it does
not strike at the root of some hoary errors which
have too long overshadowed the fair garden of the
Christian faith.  The time, we are told, will certainly come, however slowly, (and our own reason
and the best feelings of our nature echo the declaration, in view of the nature of God as an almighty
and all-wise Father,) when all God's enemies shall
be put under His feet. But let us not try to satisfy
our souls with the cold, hard, cruel interpretation of
this language which has been, and is, so common.
It is the language of strong figure. Let us, in the
spirit of our Christian faith, in the spirit of the
Gospel, the good news which Christ has brought us
from the Father, seek to enter into the heart of the
statement. The popular idea of it, as embodied in
so much of the creed and temper of Christendom,
implies that God, the omniscient Maker and all-wise
Father of the universe, is subject to the infirmities
and limitations of finite creatures. According to this
idea, the great and glorious consummation which is
to console Christian hearts in their sorrows by the
prospect of its coming, the blessed event for which
they are to look and reach forward in eager hope,
will have been brought about, even though many
souls to which God's love was the original cause of
existence shall have been subdued and silenced only
by being smothered in the penal fires of eternal torment. Is this the way in which eternal love and
wisdom overcomes its enemies? Is this coarse and
cruel system of subjugation the best which is known




THE RETGNT OF THE FATTER.      115
to the Father of Jesus? We know how the kings
and conquerors of this world put down their enemies,- they who, in the language of the old Roman
historian, " make a solitude and call it peace."  We
know  how  much, or rather how little, that submission amounts to, as regards the real gain and
glory of manhood, when the foot of the conqueror
is on the neck of his prostrate foe. A recent writer,
undertaking to reconcile eternal punishment with
reason and the love of God, represents Him as virtually saying, "I will not trouble you any longer
with the visitations of my Spirit; I will simply place
you where you may have your own way, and where
you can no longer disturb me and my friends." But
what a mockery of the idea of a triumph of the blessed Spirit of Christ and of God over all enemies is
it, to represent a large portion of these enemies as
given over even by the Infinite Father, as having
exhausted all the resources of his grace, and as being now left to gnash their teeth in unreconciled
agony forever! 0 no! no such mere show of a
victory meets the idea of the final reign of God
over his creatures. What and where are the real
enemies of God? They are not outward ones that
can literally be trodden under foot -that can be
said to be subdued when they are rendered incapable of making any further outward demonstration;
-the enemies of the Spiritual One are the thoughts
and tempers that love not to know Him, or that
know Him only to hate Him. How then can God
be said to have prevailed over all his enemies while
these deep, dark powers lie nursing an inveterate re



116         THE REIGN OF THE FATHER.
sentment? It cannot be said, to the satisfaction of
any save those who make God altogether such a
one as themselves. Who and what, I repeat, are
the enemies of the Father? " The last enemy that
shall be destroyed," the Apostle says, 1" is Death."
But think of this, I pray you, and see what it involves. How is death destroyed? Let the Apostle
himself answer: " The sting of death is sin."  Destroy sin, and then, and then only, you destroy
death. Then, and then only, " Death is swallowed
up in victory."  How is death destroyed? - let him
answer who represents Christ as having come to destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the
Devil. In other words, the destruction of death implies the end of all evil. It implies the time when
hell itself shall be cast into the lake of fire, when in
other words there shall be no such thing in the universe. If this is not the meaning of the Apostle's:
grand announcement, I can only say that he has notreached the heart of the religion of his Master. But
I am satisfied that he has reached it. I am satisfied
that he anticipates the time when God's enemies
shall be subdued by being turned into his friends;
when his love shall have melted the hardest foe into
penitence; when every thought of every heart shall
be brought into captivity to the obedience of Christ;
when all the spirits in prison shall be found clothed
and in their right mind in the palace of the Father
of Mercies, and God shall be all in all.
Long and hard and sore may be the way for many
before this glorious and blessed goal is reached.
And here I would say that the common objection to




THE REIGN OF THE FATHER.        117
this doctrine of the final restoration and salvation
of all men, namely, that it relaxes the law of holiness, is based upon the false assumption, that
the doctrine implies men are to be made happy
even without having to go through the hard and
humbling way of repentance. On the contrary, the
doctrine simply teaches that sooner or later all will
repent, will submit to the discipline, however bitter
it may be. It represents the Heavenly Father as
virtually saying to his most wayward and rebellious
child: " You will one day take this bitter medicine
which I offer you for your own good, — why will you,
by refusing, only make a still more bitter draught
needful."  It is, therefore, as Paul himself says, a
slanderous report of this great doctrine that it teaches
men to say, "let us do evil that good may come."
But there is one other old dogma that has wrought,
and is still working, confusion in the faith of men,
which our text also refutes. The doctrine that the
time is ever coining when God shall be all in all,
because not only all His enemies shall have been
subdued by Christ, but Christ himself shall render
up to Him the keys of authority, and be simply a
son among the innumerable multitude of brethren,
lays the axe at the root of that exaggerated idea of
Christ, so contrary to his own representations and so
confounding to the simplicity of faith in him and in
his and our Father.
It may, however, be said: Yes, hereafter, in that
far-off future of the next world, the time may come
when God shall be all in all; but, for the present,
Christ must be all in all. This is, indeed, a very




118        TiHE REIGN OF TIlE FATHER.
plausible, but a superficial and sophistical reasoning. Consult Christ himself. Hear him say, " He
that believeth on me, believeth not on me but on
Him that sent me." Ask yourselves calmly, to
whom did Christ ascribe the glory? You will say
at once, to his Father. His only desire was that the
Father might be glorified in the Son — that God
might be all in all.
And what is, or should be, meant (it might be
asked) by making Christ all in all? A great deal is
said about magnifying Christ, about loving Christ,
which has very little depth of meaning. The love
which Christ desires is, that we should love the things
which he loves; a practical sympathy in the great
object he lived for and died for, and not a mere sentimental expression of personal attachment, is what
his generous heart yearns for, on the part of his human brethren. "Ye are my friends," he says, 1" if ye
do whatsoever I command you."
Besides, there is another way of looking at this
subject. The time is coming, says the Apostle, and
every Christian echoes the teaching, when God will
be all in all. But can He, who is the same yesterday, to-day, and forever, be at any future time other
or more, in himself, than he now is? And if, as
Paul certainly and repeatedly implies throughout
his Epistles, a believer in Christ and in immortality
has his faith so much the substance of things hoped
for that to him death is already abolished, the enemies and the enmity already destroyed through the
power and promises of the Gospel - surely, to him,
then, God is all in all.




THE REIGN OF THE FATHER.          119
And is not this the great end for which Christ
came into the world, and for which he still continues
in the world, spiritually, to teach us to know God
as He is, that is, of course, as He is to us, the
universal, everlasting, unchangeable, and ever-present Father?  Did not Jesus glorify Him, to show
us how we should glorify Him on the earth?  This
is what the Spirit of Christ in our hearts yearns to
bring about, " that God may be all in all."
And so we come to the recognition of the fact
that in these words the great Apostle of the religion
of humanity announces boldly the truth which we
may denominate Christian pantheism, which, in opposition to atheism, polytheism, and cold monotheism, declares not only that there is a God, but that
He is all that there is except by sufferance; which, by
declaring Him to be the all, saves itself at once from
the looseness of polytheistic and the limitation of
monotheistic idolatries, and, by adding that He is
in all, dignifies itself as the true pantheism  of
Christian faith, instead of degenerating into that of
a pagan philosophy.  It is the pantheism  of the
Poet of the "Seasons," who begins that majestic
hymn:
"These, as they change, Almighty Father, these
Are but the varied God. The rolling year
Is full of thee."
It is the pantheism of that fervent faith which dictated the expression in the Epistle to the Romans:
"' Of Him, and through Him, and to Him, are all
things." It is the pantheism of every one who, being a believer in Jesus, believes in the omnipresence




120        THE REIGN OF THE FATHER.
and perpetual, pervading providence of the universal Father.
But what is the practical conclusion of the whole
matter? It is this. If the time is coming when God
will be all in all, — if, in a certain sense, in the absolute
sense, He is all in all, - then it surely follows that to
us, in our faith, in our feelings, in our conduct, God
should be all in all. And this means, in other words,
that Godliness should be all in all to us - that religion should be the grand, the constant, the all-inspiring, and all-comprehending occupation, as it is the allabsorbing interest of our being. Even as we may
say of God that if He is to us a partial, a limited
God He is no God, so of religion we may say that
if anything it must be everything -if it is not
everywhere it is nowhere. For religion, if it really
exists, is at the centre of a man's heart and life. It
is the spring, in both senses of the word, the motivespring, and the spring of refreshing and inspiration.
It is impossible that we should truly have God in
our sorrows, unless we have Him in our joys; that
we should truly have Him in our prayers, unless we
have Him in our conversation; that we should truly
have Him in the church, unless we have Him in the
street, the counting-room and the market-place, -
we are not truly doing anything to His glory, unless
we are doing all to the glory of God. We do not
make God all in all —we do not really recognize
Him to be all in all- we are not preparing our
hearts for the time of His being revealed as all in
all, - so long as we presume to limit, as we do, in
various ways, the Holy One of Israel — nay, the




THE REIGN OF THE FATHER.       121
universal Father of Christ, - so long as we mark
off the world and life, private or public, into districts, and say to piety, stay thou there! and to
morality, and thou there! and to conscience, thus
far and no farther! We do not make God all in all;
on the contrary, we set his authority at naught,
when we put asunder what God hath joined together- the work of the world and the work of
the Lord- religion and reason - freedom and reverence - piety and humanity - the special form
of divine service and the general and habitual temper of the mind. The Almighty will not be thus
divided. As well might we think to shut out the
sunlight by glass walls, as, by such means, to, shut
off from any one department of our life the authority of the Divine Spirit and Law.
The teaching of our text, if really taken home to
our convictions, ought to settle for us forever those
old questions in regard to Divine Providence which
have so perplexed the minds of men, as whether
that Providence is only general or is ever special.
If God is all in all, then His providence is both
special and universal, -not merely general but universal, -because extending to every particular in the
universe.  It is atheism to say that anything can
take place without being either produced or permitted by God.
And yet, within this range, man, in the mysterious
constitution and conditions of his being, has a certain, though not an absolute, freedom.  But the
perfection of his freedom lies in his yielding up his
whole nature to the free flow of the holy and




122        THE REIGN OF THE FATHER.
heavenly spirit, in working out what God works in
him.
What our text teaches is, therefore, no lazy, listless, Mahometan fatalism; if it does that, it is only
half received and believed. He who really feels the
truth that God is in all things, and that all things,
all that man wants, are in God, will prove it to be
not only a consoling but a quickening faith. To
him religion will be no mere superstition, alternate
smoke and flame, gloom and glory, but a steadily
burning and shining light. It will be a sun that
shall not go down, diffusing a serene and sober
cheerfulness through his inner world.
It may be said that this is a picture of what the
next world may realize for saints in glory, but not of
what can be in this. But there have been those
who so lived by faith in that world which knows no
past nor future, that to them death was abolished,
and they were already raised up to sit in heavenly
places in Christ Jesus. At all events, this is the
great end of our living, to build us up in that Divine life which alone is happiness, because it alone
is harmony; and the sooner and the more strenuously we begin to seek this life, the happier for us.




X.
XMAN, GOD'S OFFSPRING.
FOHASMIUCH THEN AS WE ARE THE OFFSPRING OF GOD. — Acts xvii. 29.
WHAT then?- Paul goes on to draw a negative
inference as to what man, the child of God, ought
not to think in regard to the nature of his Heavenly
Father; but beyond this there lies a vast field of inferences from his doctrine - as to what man should
think of God, and of himself, and what he should
do, if that great doctrine is true, -which the Apostle
had not occasion or time to enter upon, which we,
however, as thoughtful believers in his word, ought
always to have springing up in our minds and
quickening our hearts and bearing fruit in our lives,
as often as that word sounds in the ear of memory
and conscience, and to some of which we may this
evening profitably attend.
The particular and negative inference which Paul
draws from the admission that we are all the offspring
of God, namely, that we ought not to think that the
Godhead is like unto gold or silver or stone, is one
upon which we need not particularly dwell, inasmuch
as the error is one to which we in this age, or in this




124          MAN, GOD'S OFFSPRING.
quarter of the world, are not specially liable. The
times of that ignorance which made men imagine that
they got any worthy idea of the power that presided
over the universe by representations in metal, or even
in breathing marble, have long gone by in the civilized and Christianized regions of the globe; they
were fast going by, when Paul showed the absurdity
of such a supposition. Cicero had said, a century
before, that it was wonderful how the priests could
look in each others' faces without laughing, and still
more so, that those philosophers could keep a grave
countenance among themselves, who undertook to
maintain that the gods existed in a sort of bodily
form. And at the time when Paul lifted up his
voice at Athens, there can be little doubt that a
great portion, if not proportion, of the Pagans were
held to the old idolatry full as much, to say the least,
by those motives of expediency and worldly interest,
which actuated the town-clerk and silversmiths of
Ephesus in what they did and said, when Paul pronounced them no gods which were made with hands,
as by any lingering sense of the old religion, - that
old religion which, to be sure, in those who first
practised this image-worship, was undoubtedly sincere, though superstitious. But whether there were
or were not many who fancied that they really represented and revered the Godhead in the popular
mode of worship - whose idolatry was pure ignorance, their error is to us a mere matter of historical
interest; idolatry with us is of a different kind from
that of theirs-it is wilful —it is not merely a
thought of the mind, but a thought of the heart.




MAN, GOD'S OFFSPRING.        1 25
Men do not, in Christian lands, make their gods of
gold, but they do very often make gold their god,
and the fine gold their confidence, and worship it as
devoutly as the old Sabean did the moon, walking
in brightness. The hand-idolatry of the multitudes
that magnified the Ephesian Diana is to us merely
a curious relic of the past; but the heart-idolatry of
Demetrius and his fellow-craftsmen, with whom the
head and front of Paul's offending seemed to be
that if Diana should fall their business must come
down too, that is still extant. None amongst us pay
superstitious homage to silver shrines or statues, but
many do to that of which they are made.
There is no occasion, then, now and here, that the
Apostle should repeat in our ears, what, indeed, was
called for in Athens, and tell us "' we ought not to
think that the Godhead is like unto gold or silver or
stone, graven by art and man's device," because we,
none of us, think any such thing. We have other
and worse idolatries and iniquities than this to repent
of and forsake. And therefore have I taken for my
text, simply, the great truth which forms the preamble of Paul's admonition, omitting the particular deduction he makes from it, as to what men ought not
to think, and meaning, instead, to remind you presently, in the light of that great truth, what we ought
to think, and believe, and feel, and do.
I shall ask your attention, then, in the present discourse, to some of the principal doctrinal and practical consequences that follow from the fact that we
are the offspring of God. First, however, let us
dwell a few moments on the fact itself, as admitted




126          MAN, GOD'S OFFSPRING.
by the pagan poets and philosophers, as asserted by
Paul, and as confirmed by the testimony of human
nature.
It is very evident, to my mind, that the framers of
the popular creeds have either not believed or not
understood, or, at all events, not considered the statement of Paul which forms our subject at this time.
There are only two ways that I can imagine of pretending to evade its force. One is, to say that the
statement is not properly, not originally his own, but
only one which he takes out of the mouths of his
adversaries, for the sake of turning against them their
own weapons; and the other is, to interpret the word
offspring in some loose and general sense, so as to
make it mean little more than that God is the author of our existence. To dispose of the latter evasion first, our alleged relationship to God as his offspring must mean something stronger and more
intimate than that of creature to creator, for that
God is the Maker of all things and all men the
Apostle had before declared, and then proceeded to
bring Him still nearer to us, by asserting that we
have our existence not only from Him, but in Him;
and now he completes the climax by affirming and
bringing their own poets to witness the truth, a truth,
indeed, fatal at once to the polytheistic character
of their faith, and the idolatrous character of their
worship, that " we are also His OFFSPRING.'"
And then, as to the other alternative, of supposing
that Paul, making himself "' all things to all men,"
merely admitted, for the sake of the argument, the
truth of the sentiment quoted from their own litera



MAN, GOD'S OFFSPRING.        127
ture, winking at one piece of extravagance, the selfidolatry of poets and philosophers, in order, by thus
humoring them, to get a hearing for his rebuke of
another error, the image-worship of the populace,to this there are two objections; one is, that, though
what is called the argumenturm ad hominem  is apparently sometimes used even by the sacred writers,
it is hardly credible that at the height of so grave an
argument Paul would resort to a rhetorical manceuvre; and the other is, that if the sentiment quoted
from their poets was false, such a glorification of
humanity were a sort of idolatry, more dangerous,
and demanding more to be condemned by the Apostle
in such a man-worshipping nation, than the mere
adoration of images supposed to represent superior
beings, on the part of the multitude.
I am brought to the conclusion, therefore, that the
Apostle admits in good faith and earnest, and reaffirms, on the strength of his apostolic inspiration,
that truth which in many other parts of Scripture is
at least pointedly implied, that we are, all, that all
men are, God's offspring - of Divine descent - of
celestial origin.
The form of words in which Paul so happily expresses this idea is, indeed, adopted from some pagan writer, probably from Aratus, a Greek poet, a
native of the same country with himself, from whom
Cicero quotes largely in his treatise on the 1" Nature
of the Gods." The same sentiment, in nearly the
same words, is found in other ancient poets, particularly of the Stoic school; and it is not improbable that
it was some poet or poets of this school, also, of




128          MAN, GOD'S OFFSPRING.
which some of the philosophers were in his audience
and must have found much to approve in his train
of thought, that the Apostle had in his mind. The
Stoics maintained the existence of a Divine mind
and providence throughout the universe - a soul of
the world — but rather failed to supply a personal
deity; the Epicureans, on the contrary, were very
distinct as to the personality of the gods, but denied
them any interference or interest in the affairs of this
lower world. Epicureanism, and, indeed, the same
may be said of the popular pagan mind generally,
rather made God the creature of man, than man the 
creature of God. Cicero, in the treatise already referred to, says he does not understand why Epicurus
should prefer to say that the gods are like men,
rather than that men are like the gods. We ought,
rather, says he, to say that our form is divine, than
to say that their form is human. " But that as you
please," he continues, " I should like to know how
men suddenly sprang up in the form of gods? Shall
we suppose that the seed of gods fell from heaven
to earth, and so men existed like their fathers? I
wish you would say so; I should be glad to acknowledge the relationship of gods. But you say
no such thing; you say, it came by chance, that we
are like the gods. And now, must we seek arguments to refute this. O that it were as easy to find
out what is true as to refute what is false! "
We find many similar expressions, not only in
Cicero, but in other pagan philosophers, of the want
of some one to declare the Godhead they ignorantly
worshipped, and to declare to them the origin, the




MAN, GOD'S OFFSPRING.          129
destiny, and the duty of man himself. And Paul,
while he answers the great questions, reminds us
how often it is the case, that what had been lost out
of the notions of the people, and reasoned out of
the system of the philosophers, lives in the breathings
of the poet's soul. That great truth of the unity
and paternity of God, which Christianity came to
bring out into full light and fair proportions, had
never ceased to haunt the hearts of men, as a vague
impression, though, in the midst of a multitudinous
mythology that so contradicted it, and contradicted
itself, the impression could not struggle into the
shape of a settled belief.
The Apostle, in declaring God to man, declares
man to himself- out of the heart of man, as revealed in the poetry of natural piety, he declares him
- inviting men to think highly of themselves, (not
more highly indeed than they ought to think, but as
highly as they ought,) and so of their Maker and
Father. He argues to the idolaters around him that
if we are indeed the offspring of God, and if we are
living souls, then the Being from whom we spring
must himself be a living Spirit, and these images of
gold, silver, and stone must fail even to represent
him in the all-essential particular, the spiritual attribute of his nature. Better, however, it must be
said, if men will make their divinity altogether such
a one as themselves —far better were it, like the
old Pagan idolaters, to have only a metallic or a
marble god, shaped after the most beautiful model
of external humanity, or like the Epicurean to worship Fortune, and regard the deities as entirely
9




130          MAN, GOD'S OFFSPRING.
wrapped up in their own concerns, or like the Stoic
to worship Fate and iron Destiny, than to have
such an idea of God as men have sometimes had in
ages called Christian, imputing to him not indeed
the beauty of the fairest human form, but the ugliness of the worst human passions —an arbitrary,
jealous, vindictive, partial tyrant, tantalizing and
tormenting the victims of his capricious cruelty with
show of reason and of justice. Forasmuch as we
are the offspring of God, we ought to ascribe to God
those affections and sentiments which, according to
the calm and prevailing testimony of the human
heart in its sober moments and moods, constitute
the crowning grace and glory of the character of an
earthly friend and father -those affections and sentiments which belong to our very selves, and which,
when we come to ourselves, bestir themselves and go
forth into action. It is true, as I may be reminded,
that God was represented of old as angry with a
certain generation, because they thought that He
was altogether such an one as themselves. But that
was a generation of sinners and hypocrites, of slanderers and blasphemers, and the charge brought
against them really was that they acted the thought
of God's being like them, when they were in these
perverted and degraded states of character.  The
blasphemy consisted in attributing to that High and
Holy One the traits of a corrupted humanity -the
same deadness and indifference with regard to moral
distinctions into which they had let themselves down
-the same mercenary and corruptible character
which they had contracted-capable of conniving at




MAN, GOD'S OFFSPRING.        131
fraud and flattery - of being bought off from doing
justice by promises of gain or glory - in short, in
making their God a deification of man's worst vices
and crimes.
The sin did not lie in the shaping of the conception of God after the suggestions of humanity, as
such, —after the hints which human nature in its
legitimate condition furnishes.  Man always has
judged of God by himself, and always will and must
do so; so far is there from being any presumption in
this, it is the true and only way for man to form an
idea of God, to gather up in his thought what humanity in its highest moods and holiest moments experiences, expresses, and approves, and imagine that
raised to the infinite power, enthroned beyond the
reach of accident, exercised in unhindered freedom,
and expanded without any bounds save those which
are set by perfect wisdom and impartial love. Thus,
among men, is the idea of an upright judge always
and deservedly held in the highest reverence? God
is the judge who not only is incapable of the least
stain or shadow of partiality or prejudice, but who,
unlike the best and wisest earthly judge, has perfect
knowledge of all the secret sins and secret temptations of the human heart. And above all, and including all other human relations, is the idea of the
parent the one which calls up, in the tenderest and
noblest cluster, those qualities which man instinctively most loves and venerates? We abstract in our
minds all the excellences of the best and wisest parents we have known or heard of or dreamed of, separating them from every fault and frailty, and thus




132          MAN, GOD'S OFFSPRING.
form an idea of one universal and perfect parent,
God.  And then this should be our reasoning:
Earthly parents may cast off their children and
earthly children disown their parents, and there may
be cases where such treatment shall almost seem to
be a dictate of necessity. But can we possibly conceive of the Heavenly Father, infinite in resources
of knowledge, wisdom and power, being bound by
any such law of necessity? The earthly parent
gave not being to the mind of his child. God is the
Father of Spirits. He says, "6 all souls are mine."
How is it possible, supposable, that such a Being
should ever, under any provocation, any pressure,
(gloss it over as we may with specious and imposing phrases in our hard system of theology,) cast off
forever, and give over to eternal destruction as henceforth good for nothing, any child that His own
power, directly or indirectly, brought into being?
The idea is monstrous, and would be universally
seen and felt to be so, had not a false religion so
bewildered the perceptions and benumbed the sensibilities that right and wrong are confounded in men's
minds too often, in some degree too generally, the
moment questions of humanity are brought to the
bar of ecclesiastical inquisition.
What a cloud of false and oppressive dogmas
would roll off from the heart of Christendom, if men
could once come to see that the very point of the old
reproof, " Thou thoughtest that I was altogether
such an one as thyself," requires them really to reason as to God's attributes and dealings by what
their own better selves teach them, and that only by




MAN, GOD'S OFFSPRING.        133
doing this can they escape the alternative of dishonoring their Maker. What an effect, in short, would
it have on our whole theology, once to admit the
admission  which  Paul accepted from  the very
heathen, and reasserted as a Christian, that 1" we are
all God's offspring." The dogmas of total depravity,
of eternal torment, of partial election, and all others
that imply discord in the Divine nature, and produce
pride, alienation, hypocrisy, and discord in the hearts
of men, would disappear, and Love and Light
would reign together in man's world, as they do in
the Heaven of the Father.
Forasmuch then as we are the offspring of God, I
say, as we ought not to think that the Godhead is
like unto silver or gold, so neither ought we think
it like unto ice or iron. There is a sacred tenderness in the thought of man in his most truly tranquil and thoughtful seasons, which images the best
part of the idea that reason and revelation combine
to convey of the Heavenly Father.
Forasmuch, then, as we are the offspring of God,
we ought to reject instantly and utterly the idea
that it is possible such a Being should create, or
suffer to be created, a being with a guilty nature.
Something within us, something in the worst of
men at times, bears witness to the fact that we are
by nature God's offspring and image. Successful
wickedness or worldliness brings no sufficient peace
to the soul. Genuine happiness is found or foretasted only in generous devotion to the will of God,
the improvement of our characters, the good of our




134           MAN, GOD'S OFFSPRING.
race. The uneasy and hollow feeling which haunts
the worldling, bears witness, the witness of the
spirit, that he is the child of God.  The, prodigal
son, when he comes to find himself feeding on
husks, comes to himself, reflects on what he has
been and what he might have been, and remembers
and realizes that he is still his father's child. Although conscious of not being worthy to be called
so, still he feels that he is such.
Forasmuch, then, as we are the offspring of God,
we ought to believe it, and think highly of our nature. And the sense of guilt awakened by such a
view of ourselves, unlike that produced by the feeling of native depravity, instead of keeping us in a
passive, waiting state of mopish suspense, will
awaken that true humility which does not benumb
with its sting, but incites the soul to strive to
gain by the grace of Heaven more than it had
lost.
Forasmuch as we are the offspring of God, we
ought to stand in awe before the mystery of iniquity,
even while we abhor the guilt itself. For surely it
is a mystery, an unfathomable mystery, that the
child of God should consent to become a child of
the devil, should sell himself to Satan — his celestial
birthright for a mess of sin's pottage. We should
stand in awe of ourselves and sin not. Whoso will
observe and reflect on what he sees and feels, will
find an instinct in the common heart of humanity
which is right on this subject. There is a sort of
holy horror in the feeling with which men regard the




MAN, GOD'S OFFSPRING.        135
criminal, that testifies to their sense of the unnaturalness of crime in one who is the offspring and
image of God.
Forasmuch as we are the offspring of God, and
while we ought not, therefore, to think the Godhead
like unto silver or gold, we ought, on the other hand,
to account a man as being in the sight of God more
precious than gold, even a man than the golden
wedge of Ophir. Forasmuch as he is the offspring
of a holy parentage, we ought not to look upon him
as one born reprobate or fit only to be made a tool
of policy, a beast of burden, or an article of merchandise. "What God hath chosen" -nay, what
he hath created -that are we not to call common
or unclean. It may be hard for us, as we go about
among our fellow-beings, to acknowledge and discern in every one of them a divine lineage, - but it
does not make it any easier for us to do so, if we
begin by refusing to own the revealed fact that one
Being is the Malker and Father of us all. It may
seem like a dreadful piece of mockery to apply the
poet's expression, " the human face divine," to the
poor victims of vice that are seen almost everywhere. But there - even in the midst of all that sin
and misery —there still exists, unbroken, the link
that connects man with his Maker; and the very
desperation of the struggle which it costs the sinner
to avoid that awaking of conscience which is the
recognition of his high allegiance and relationship,
only confirms the declaration that man is the offspring of God, and shows that God's spirit ceaseth
not to strive with the spirit of his most depraved and




136          MAN, GOD'S OFFSPRING.
deluded child. Forasmuch then as we are all the
offspring of God, let us honor all men for their origin
and their capacity, and never cease to hope for our
race. God will never forsake nor forget his offspring. "Can a woman forget her sucking child,
that she should not have compassion on the son of
her womb? Yea, they may forget, yet will I not
forget thee."  The slave of sense and sin may so
far forget himself as to wander off into that far
country which lies in the shadow of death; but the
very desolateness of his condition shall prove that a
faithful father's chastening love hath not forgotten
nor abandoned him, and the deepening wintriness
of his feelings may only indicate, as at the winter
solstice of the natural year, that the sun of divine
mercy is drawing nearer to him, though he is yet a
great way off.
Forasmuch then, in fine, as we are the offspring
of God, we ought to walk with God in that habitual mood of mingling love and fear which the sense
of such a relation is fitted to inspire.  Then as
we walk thoughtfully beneath the starry heavens,
which God has formed man upright that he may admire and all but worship, we shall hear deep answering unto deep, the upper deep of immensity to the
inner deep of the spiritual realm, the Spirit testifying
with our spirits, that we are the children of God.
As we walk among men, we shall read it on those
human faces, every one of which is a volume of history, mysterious in other respects it may be, but
speaking one thing plainly to the eye of spiritual
sympathy, the consciousness of a nature which no




MAN, GOD'S OFFSPRING.            137
selfish life, however successful, can wholly satisfy.
WVe shall feel this sacred relationship in those moods
and' moments when, earthly pride and greed for a
while suspended, our attention is arrested by life's
startling vicissitudes and by the dread mystery of
death.




XI.
GOD'S PROVIDENCE.
ARE NOT TWO SPARROWS SOLD FOR A FARTHING? AND ONE OF THEM
SHALL NOT FALL ON THE GROUND WITHOUT YOUR FATHER.- Matt.
x. 29.
IN these words, I understand Jesus to teach a
doctrine concerning God's providence very different from the one which is even now commonly
received.  Your Father, he says to his disciples, the
father of those who are chosen to do his highest
work, is also and equally the father of the sparrow.
The creature that is most insignificant in the sight
of man, has God for its father. And the words of
David find in the doctrine of Jesus, when one goes
to the heart of it, a new and spiritual meaning,
when he cries out, "Yea the sparrow hath found an
house, and the swallow a nest for herself, where she
may lay her young, even thine altars, 0 Lord of
Hosts, my King, and my God." For the earth
itself is consecrated by the genius of Christian faith
and piety and philosophy to be not merely the footstool but the altar of God, and the swallow, unconsciously, no less than the royal priest on set purpose,
builds a house to the praise of the Maker. Jesus
goes on, indeed, to say that man is of more value




GOD'S PROVIDENCE.          139
than many sparrows. Any and every man is, as
wearing the image of his Maker, and emphatically
they who are chosen to be the vehicles of his truth
and the recipients of his spirit. This, however, was
said, not so as to imply the least detraction from the
preciousness of the sparrow or any correspondingly
minute creature in,the sight of its Creator, but
simply as an encouragement to the disciples to
believe that He who took such thought for what was
least, would not fail to care proportionately for what
was greater. The intention, undoubtedly, was to
say that all creatures, great and small, are comprehended in one and the same great circle of Divine
Providence; that to all alike He is a Father; and,
indeed, who can conceive of a Being such as reason
and revelation combine to set before us under the
name of God, as creating idly and carelessly any
thing, least of all any living thing, in regard to
which he should become even comparatively indifferent. Undoubtedly, it must be confessed and
lamented that certain common ideas or impressions of the Divine Being do imply or favor some
such conclusion, but, as evidently, such a conclusion
is revolting to every mind that really, rationally, and
profoundly believes in the God of that spiritual
religion which Christ inaugurates. It is not that
he regards the sparrow less, but man more; this is
the feeling respecting their Maker Jesus would
awaken in his disciples. The very fall of the sparrow dead on the ground indicates not its desertion
by the Father.  The same fatherly eye watches,
the same fatherly mind wills its extinction, that




140             GOD'S PROVIDENCE.
watched and sustained the first fluttering of the
feeble fledgeling, when it ventured from the parent's
nest.
Unless, then, this language of Jesus is mere empty
rhetoric or sentimental rhapsody, -if it is really the
language of truth and soberness, it certainly overturns a popular and long prevalent, though loosely
entertained, notion respecting God's agency in the
affairs of the universe.  It certainly pronounces
utterly void some distinctions which have been
taken for granted, and writes upon their tombstone
the epitaph, " words, words, words! "  It teaches us
that the God of nature and the God of grace are
one and the same Being; or, perhaps, one should
say, it teaches us that the common mode of divorcing grace from nature is unwarranted by a Christian
philosophy; that the kingdoms of nature, of spirit,
and of providence are, after all, but different, and yet
not entirely distinct provinces of one vast Divine
Empire, administered throughout, simultaneously
and equally by the same indivisible and impartial
spirit of love, that is of grace, - which, in relation to
God, is simply what love means. The doctrine of
Jesus in the text does away, also, the old and yet
vague idea of different sorts of Divine Providence, a
general one over all, and a particular one concerning
itself with individuals, or a general one running on
through ordinary times, and a special one exercised
on special occasions in the way of interposition.
Whoever is imbued with the spirit of Christ's doctrine, will feel that the idea of such interposition is
essentially atheistic. For it implies that, in the




GOD'S PROVIDENCE.          141
general course of things, it has not been the Lord
who was working, but some other power that had
assumed, or to which he had left, the conduct of
affairs, -a plausible theory, but one that will not
bear a calm, Christian looking into, and that, in
fact, we must fear, is chargeable with not inconsiderably aggravating the practical godlessness which
looks upon this mighty maze of universal life as
a vast piece of self-running clock-work, possibly
wound up, at most, in some immemorial if not, infinitely distant period, by a mysterious and unknown
power. Superstition and atheism, -I mean by this
virtual atheism, — do, in fact, thus provoke and
produce each other. Too generally, the piety which
finds God only or chiefly in special interpositions,
and the philosophy which denies them, agree in
throwing a slight on the common run and range of
creation and life, as manifesting the very present
and ever-present Deity. The example which Jesus
chooses is only one out of many equally to the
point and purpose of his argument.  He might
have taken a straw as well as a sparrow, so far as
it concerned the illustration of God's wisdom and
power in the ordinary processes of creation. The
principle that lies under his illustration is, that the
world is under God's care and government; that
" of him and through him and to him are all
things;" that there is no such thing as chance; that
it is no explanation of anything to call it a matter
of course; that everything shows the presence of a
superhuman and mysterious power.
And, indeed, what does Jesus herein but repeat




142            GOD'iS PROVIDENCE.
and reaffirm the poetry and piety of prophet and
psalmist to be simple and sober truth?  One of the
most striking characteristics of the Hebrew Scripture is the manner in which, on its living pages,
everything is ascribed to the direct agency of Jehovah. "I the Lord do all these things."  Every
sound of nature is the Lord's voice. The roar of
wind and wave is the voice of the Ljord upon the
waters.  The thunder is the voice of his majesty.
The lightning is the glance of his eye from one end
of the heavens to the other. When the tall cedars
of Lebanon crack and crash in the tempest and the
thunder, it is the voice of the Lord that breaketh the
cedars. Then the prophet calls upon his soul and
all that is within him to hear attentively the sound
that goeth out from the Lord's mouth. The air is
the very breath of God. " By the breath of God frost
is given and the breadth of the waters is straitened."
And when in spring the streams gush forth again to
gladden the wilderness, it is the breath of the Lord
that melts winter's icy chains. It is the Almighty
that " maketh small the drops of water;" and when
the sun shines out again and drinks up the mist
from the mountain-sides, behold, exclaims the psalmist, " He toucheth the hills, and they smoke! "
It may be said, indeed, that it is a different matter
when we pass to the agency of Jehovah in the affairs
of human history, because the Jews were a chosen
people under the special schooling of Divine Providence. But if this means that they alone stood in
such a relation to Him who says, "all souls are
mine," such a narrow assumption, however common,




GOD'S PROVIDENCE.           143
is entirely gratuitous. And one of the objects of
Christ's coming was to do away that idea of favoritism on the part of the universal and impartial
Father. Just as miracles are wrought to awaken the
dull and drowsy sense of man to the truth that God
is in all events and phenomena of nature and history, so one nation is singled out, and God's dealings
with it sacredly recorded, to remind men that he is
the moral governor of all nations.
The spirit of Jesus in the text, teaches any one
who will, in childlike simplicity, follow whither it
leads him, that God has not left the dominion and
destiny of the universe in any part of its extent or
period of its duration to the will of any rival power
or any self-blinded creature. - The great objection to
the common views of God's sovereignty - to the
pietistic doctrine of predestination and the philosophic doctrine of necessity, is not that they ascribe
too much power and control to the Almighty, but
that they "limit the holy one of Israel;" they
do not make the great doctrine of his supremacy
sufficiently comprehensive and flexible. They teach
a partial providence in opposition to Christ's doctrine of a universal one. They fall short of recognizing a Providence which accompanies man out of
this world through all eternity. They deny, in fact,
that the Divine Providence is that of an Almighty
Father, a righteous Father, a perfect Father, an impartial and universal Father, infinite in power, in
wisdom, in goodness, and in all possible resources
for accomplishing his purposes of benevolence. The
objector to the ideal theory, who proposes to test




144            GOD'S PROVIDENCE.
your doctrine that there is no external reality in
matter by laying the weight of his staff on your
head, is no more illogical than is the objector to
necessarianism, who thinks to refute it bv the workings of conscience.  The answer of the old Stoic
to his slave, who thought to escape a beating on
his master's own principle, by pleading'" I was fated
to steal," — " yes, and to be whipped for it," -
has generally been treated as an ingenious piece of
pleasantry, but it seems to me to foreshadow a profound view of the manner in which the necessarian
doctrine, when any one would abuse it to a wrong
purpose, corrects and cures itself.  And when we
come down to Christian times, I think we find
good reason for calling Universalism " Calvinism
improved." It is a vast, I might say an infinite, improvement, instead of saying that Divine Providence
has provided for the final redemption of a portion
of the human race, to say that it has provided for
that of all. It saves the character of God from
being that of an arbitrary and capricious tyrant, and
presents it as that of a perfect and equal Father.
What earthly parent would not, if he could, finally
correct and cure his child's follies? An earthly
parent does not always foreknow what will be the
effect of his discipline, — foreknows it less than
an earthly physician does what will be that of his
medicine; but shall we deem that the infinite Father
and physician needs to experiment upon his cases?
Far from us be the thought! If it could be said of
the Son of God in regard to a disciple, " This he
said to prove him, for he himself knew what he




GOD'S PROVIDENCE.          145
would do," shall we ascribe less discernment to the
Father, the Lord of Heaven and earth, in His dealings with his children?
It amazes one to see how slow men are, even in
this age, to appreciate the Christian doctrine of the
Universal Father. Only this last week I was reading a sermon by one of the most eminent Orthodox
preachers, the object of which was to show that reason and humanity could bring just as valid reasons
for disbelieving Noah's flood as for denying eternal
punishment. Even waiving the question, whether
that flood was absolutely a universal one and did
destroy all living creatures, but those the ark held,
everywhere,-how amazing that any man should
not see that the difference between the cases is infinite, -that to reason from temporal to endless death,
from the destruction of the body to the damnation
of the soul, is a most reckless proceeding! There
is no analogy in the cases. And there was no need
of resorting to anything on such a scale. The outcry of reason and humanity is not against the idea
of a million souls', but against even a single soul's
being created with a possibility of being eternally
and irremediably tormented.
We are often warned against being wise above
what is written. But we are also told that the
letter killeth. What is written and where written?
is the question. Do we not read, both in the Old
Testament and the New, as a description of the
new Christian dispensation, the dispensation of the
spirit, -" The days come," saith the Lord, "when
I will make a new covenant with them, when I will
10




146             GOD'S PROVIDENCE.
put my laws in their mind, and write them in their
hearts"? And what says the law in our hearts with
regard to the doctrines of partial predestination,
never-ending punishment of incurable spirits, and
generally of a limited providence of God?
It is very true, indeed, that the great end of Revelation is not to solve metaphysical problems, but to
teach moral truths; and of course the great motive
with a Christian, for this criticism of false human
theories, will simply be to clear the way for the pure
light and unobstructed power of the truth as it is in
Jesus, to flow into the heart and over the life. In
exercising such criticism we do not sit in judgment
on the Almighty, as is sometimes strongly asserted,
but simply on other men's judgments respecting his
word and ways.
We are taught, indeed, by Christ as well as by
conscience, to fear the Lord; but no less emphatically does Jesus bid us trust him. The word is for
all; " it is your Father's good pleasure to give you
the kingdom."  But it is equally true that, to a certain extent, of which the limit is known to God
only, he has seen fit to make us free and to intrust
us with a power of choice and place us in a position
of accountability.
In short, it is for us to endeavor that the Being
and Presence and Providence and all the revealed
attributes of God shall be to us practically, whatever
theories our minds may entertain about them, the
guiding and governing principles of our hearts and
lives. And who that reflects upon the matter can
fail to perceive how important is the sense of God's




GOD'S PROVIDENCE.           147
presence and providence, as the supreme moral governor, to the peace and the purity of our thoughts
and lives?  All sin is essentially, for the time at
least, atheistic and idolatrous. The sinner, for the
time, is an unbeliever; he denies the true God, he
worships false gods, he bows down to them and
serves them. He saith to gold, " Thou art my god,"
and to the fine gold, " thou art my confidence "; or
he saith to glory or to power, " Thou art my god,"
and he listens to the voice of the people as to God's
voice, -or in some form or other he says, "The
Holy One is not my God, -it is not in Him that I
believe and trust."
There may be comparatively few with whom this
is the constant language of the heart;-but are
there not too many of us who have learned to feel
as if God came down to visit and inspect and hear us
only on certain special and solemn occasions, and to
whom, for the rest of the time, if ever the thought of
consulting him importunes our hearts, a mocking
false prophet is always ready to repeat those withering words, " Cry aloud: for he is a god; either he is
talking with somebody, or he is engaged in the chase,
or making a journey to some other part of the earth,
or peradventure he is asleep and needeth to be awakened." But shall we then live, act, feel, as if we
really supposed that the Omnipresent Witness and
Judge of human spirits were ever absent or asleep?
Shall we not rather fear lest the power of custom
should put us to sleep, so far as regards the most important realities of our being, and especially that
most momentous reality, the presence of God?




148            GOD'S PROVIDENCE.
Does it not seem, sometimes, as if we could hardly look around us and see with our eyes, without
feeling and almost perceiving the immediate presence of God?  Verily " the pure in heart shall see
God "; and it seems as if the reason why we fail to
see him, if we do so, must be, that we want the purity of the filial disposition, that the eye of the soul
is clouded, and its perceptions, generally, dulled by
sensuality, sluggishness, and sin. Why do not these
spheres over our heads and under our feet rush wildly from their orbits, or rather why do they move at
all, unless their language is not only "the hand that
made us," but " the hand that moves us, is divine"?
Who holds the clouds balanced in mid-heaven?
" Dost thou know," says the Book of Job, " the balancings of the clouds?" and "whereupon are the
foundations of the earth fastened?'  The pillars
of Heaven, those invisible, magnetic pillars, which
tremble at His reproof, what upholds them but His
own hand? Why do not these walls of wood that
enclose us,-why do not these walls of flesh that
entabernacle our spirits, fly asunder and crumble to
dust? In the lecture-room of philosophy we might
deem it enough to stop at chemical and cohesive
forces, -to talk of gravitation and other attractions,
— but in the temple of religion we must " look
through Nature up to Nature's God." We must
own and feel that all these so-called natural forces
are but the power of the present Deity, —that it is
the Lord who doeth all these things.
If universal Nature reveals the present Deity, human nature ought especially to bring him before us.




GOD'S PROVIDENCE.          149
It is because familiarity keeps us on the surface of
things, that the face of man does not suggest the
Divine Presence as well as the face of the heavens.
Through human eyes the infinite looks into the finite.
Men are to each other embodied consciences. These
things may sound paradoxical to the thoughtless, but
they will not to the lowly seeker of truth and God.
God comes near to us in the person of infancy. The
brow of manhood, on which godlike majesty should
sit throned, and where the cloud of care or of conscience bespeaks the majesty of a self-avenging nature,- the brow and the eye of man, eloquent with
infinite and unutterable apprehensions, memories
and yearnings, proclaim the presence of His spirit
who dwells in the human body as in a temple, and
who will not cease to strive with man till that temple is made pure and clean and holy.
We live and move among the tokens of the perpetual presence of a God of majesty and of mercy.
"' He that formeth the mountains, and createth the
wind, and declareth unto man what is his thought;
that maketh the morning darkness, and treadeth
upon the high places of the earth; the Lord, the God
of Hosts, is his name," and for us he has a still
higher and holier name, -" The Father."  Let his
name be hallowed by us, and his kingdom come,
and his will be done on earth as it is in heaven.




XII.
"WHAT IS THE USE OF PRAYING?"
YOUR FATHER KNOWETH WHAT THINGS YE HAVE NEED OF, BEFORE
YE ASK HIM. - Matt. vi. 8.
WHY, then, ask? the question may naturally arise
here in a thoughtful mind; it has arisen in many a
mind, and it does not necessarily imply a captious
scepticism, but may be, and, I believe, has often
been, prompted by the purest piety; — if our Heavenly Father does know what we need without our
asking him, what need is there of our asking him
at all? It is said afterward, in this same Sermon
on the Mount, that even the imperfect and sinful
parents of earth will not refuse to give their children
what they need and ask; how much less the perfectly good and wise and rich and mighty Father
in Heaven! But were it not doing feeble justice to
the spirit of Jesus to stop at the mere letter of his
intimation? Does not the illustration he makes use
of suggest to a thinking mind and a feeling heart a
great deal more than it expressly states? Do even
human parents wait for their children to say what
they want before they supply it?  Do they not anticipate the necessities of the ignorant and impul



WHAT IS THE USE OF PRAYING?      151
sive creatures God's providence has made dependent
upon them? Certainly they do; instinctively they
do it; they who have scarcely any other virtue or
grace, will have this left, to show that they are men
and not monsters. "Worse than an infidel," yes,
and lower than a brute, were he who should neglect
to appease the hunger or shelter the nakedness of
his infant, because it could not articulate its wants,
not being indeed, as yet, distinctly conscious of
them. And are there not multitudes of grown-up
children in God's great family, who are like infants
in respect to the things of the spirit, so far as this,
at least, that they not only cannot express, but do
not understand what they most need?  Multitudes,
not only infants, but, according to Krummacher's
touching parable of Abraham's and Isaac's visit to
that afflicted family, idiot children in this great
house of the Father, who know not his face nor
his smile? Plainly there are, though, possibly, few
grow up to maturity without, at times, vague and
strong sensations of their want of something the
outer world has not to give them; yet how mighty
and constant an influence the distractions and delusions of this world have, to confuse the soul's conceptions, to dislocate the spiritual consciousness,
and prevent men from having a clear and connected
apprehension of what it is their innermost being
really craves!
Now, if even ordinary, not to say exemplary,
earthly parents apprehend and anticipate the inarticulate wants which cry to their natural sympathies
in the very looks and gestures of their offspring,




152-     WHAT IS THE USE OF PRAYING?
how much more - must we not conclude? - shall
He who hath created both parents and children and
impressed this instinct, doubtless an image of himself, on the parental heart, watch and provide for
those deeper wants of the hidden man of the heart,
whose inarticulate sighings can be heard and interpreted only by his " all-discerning ear."
In short, to come back to our question and to
our text, if we have a Father who knows all our
possible wants from the beginning, because he is
omniscient, and who can supply all our possible
wants, because he is almighty, -and if this allwise and almighty one who has created, cares for
us, as the very doctrine of his being a perfect
Father implies, then why, (reasons the thoughtful
mind,) why, (asks the submissive soul,) should his
children pray to him for anything? why not simply
and gratefully and contentedly receive, enjoy, and
use what he, in his infinite wisdom, sees fit to bestow, taking for granted, once for all, that all his
dealings will be ordered in perfect goodness, that
they will and must be for the best? Does not his
requiring to be supplicated seem to imply that,
though not needing to be informed or convinced of
what his creatures want, he does need to be persuaded, to be moved, or, at least, to be reminded?
Now, it must be admitted, that this question is a
wholesome one to ask, in consideration of what
prayer has too often been. When we think how,
under that name, men have taken occasion to advise, exhort, command the Lord, discussing, with a
painful familiarity, the grounds on which he should




WHAT IS THE USE OF PRAYING?     153
act, and, in fact, proceeding as if the Sovereign of
the Universe were merely an executive minister,
well may we allow, and more than allow, the cautionary question to stand on the door of the oratory, "Doth God need to be advised or awakened?"
Yes, and the question is always a timely and a
salutary one, in so far as it is fitted to remind us
what prayer, in the light of the spiritual religion of
the Gospel, should be, and what it should not be.
The admonition that God knows what things we
have need of without our asking him, may well
teach us that specific things are not the proper, certainly not the peculiar and characteristic, objects of
Christian prayer; that scarcely outward events are,
but far rather those inner goods and graces which
are called " the kingdom of God and his righteousness"; these are to be sought first, and it is promised that then those other incidental things, so far
as they are seen to be needful, will be added. The
things, the kind of things, which we are comparatively to take no thought for, certainly should not
enter into the heart of our prayers.
But more than this. The Saviour's declaration
that our Father knoweth what things we have need
of before we ask him, and the question which we
have recognized as growing out of it,-why, then,
ask anything of him? - even if the things alluded to
meant also the things of the spirit, might still, I
go on to say, not improperly, not unprofitably, be
kept together before our minds, as a wholesome reminder, not only of what we should chiefly pray for,




154      WHAT IS THE USE OF PRAYING?
but of the mood and attitude of spirit in which
Christian prayer places us.
For have you ever thought of this, —that the reason our Saviour assigns why we should not be anxious about the necessaries of life, namely, that our
Heavenly Father knows that they are necessary, applies just as forcibly (you will acknowledge, though
you may not have thought of it) to our not asking,
in a spirit to imply any need of our persuading him,
those provisions for the inner life which he also just
as well knows to be the only ones absolutely necessary to the proper prosperity of his spiritual offspring.
But I have not yet directly and distinctly met the
question with which we started, namely, whether it
follows from our Father's knowing what things we
have need of, before we ask him, that it is not
proper or necessary to ask anything at his hands?
I think we are prepared to say, after the thoughts
that have been suggested, that this question cannot
be absolutely answered in the affirmative, and yet I
think we must allow it to have so much force as
this, —that it should considerably modify and correct certain common and superficial ideas respecting
prayer. It certainly should not deter or discourage
us from expressing (though we cannot, without going back to childish thinking, call it making known)
our wants to God; but it should admonish us that
there can be no analogy, in effects, between our asking favors of men, who need to be instructed or persuaded, and our asking good things of that God
who is our Maker, and infinite Father, and everlasting Friend. Not only the formal repetitions of the




WHAT IS THE USE OF PRAYING?     155
heathen and the hypocrite, but also the fervid importunities of the fanatic and the enthusiast, are
reproved by him who reminds us that the Father
knoweth what things we have need of before we ask
Him. It is true that, in impressing on his disciples
the injunction, that they should never faint nor flag
in their devotion, Jesus resorts to certain homely
illustrations, (I refer to the woman's appeal to the
unjust judge, and the man's begging bread of his
neighbor at midnight,) which, literally, would imply
that the Father and Judge of all the earth may be
actually wearied into granting the requests of his
children; but these parables, based upon the idea of
human dependence, must not be perverted to the imputing of human imperfection to the Almighty
Father.
No: Jesus teaches us, in the text, that the Omniscient Providence does not need even to be reminded,
by any prayer of ours, what things we have need of;
and the alternative is the simple conclusion to which,
indeed, we are led by our Master's general revelation
of the divine perfection, and which an examination
into the composition of the model he gives us confirms, -that it is we who need to be reminded, even
by our very prayers, of our real and greatest want,
and of the mighty and ever-pressing claims of that
life of active meditation, charity, self-denial, and selfdiscipline, in short that spiritual devotedness in all
things, through which God has ordained that the
end of our devotions shall be accomplished.
I have said, that this view of the effect of prayer
is confirmed by an inspection of the brief abstract




156      WHAT IS THE USE OF PRAYING?
of prayer which Jesus left with his disciples; and,
indeed, it is as introductory to the Lord's Prayer,
and as illustrated thereby, that the words of my text
have for us their highest interest. Although we call
this a prayer, yet it seems as if we might almost as
truly call it, in the main, the meditative soliloquy of
a soul simply conscious of being overheard by
Heaven and earth. If prayer means simply asking
what is to come from another being to the suppliant,
it would seem as if other elements must be added to
the idea to make the word perfectly applicable here.
As the first clause, " Our Father, who art in Heaven," expresses, to the thoughtful mind entering into
the mind of Christ, the purpose of the soul as much
to remind itself of its relation to God's human family, as of its relation to God himself, so the first
clause, following, which has the sound of a petition,
" Hallowed be thy name," seems, after all, when
we reflect upon it, less a prayer to God that he
would hallow his own name than the language of a
soul calling upon itself and all within it and around
it, to hallow the name of him of whom David spoke
in a similar manner, " RBless the Lord, 0 my soul,
and all that is within me, bless his holy name."
"Thy kingdom  come."  This may, indeed, be regarded as a request to God, -but it may also be
regarded as a command from the soul of man to its
own thoughts, and an exhortation to all creatures, as
in the presence of Him who sitteth from everlasting
to everlasting upon the throne of the universe, reverently and gratefully to recognize his reign, and to
receive the messages of his sovereign will and wis



WHAT IS THE USE OF PRAYING?        157
dom  and goodness. "Thy will be done."  This
clause, also, may as naturally be understood to express a desire to cooperate in doing God's will, and
a willingness to resign one's self to its being done,
as a prayer that the Lord would do his will, (which,
indeed, seems to border upon tautology.) " Give us
this day our daily bread," is, indeed, a direct petition,
- a prayer proper; and yet when we consider that
this, the first pure request that occurs in the prayer,
relates to that very class of things which Jesus at
the end of the chapter pronounces secondary, we are
prompted to consider this also as rather an expression of contentment, of acquiescence, or at least, the
breathing out of a desire for that grace, than as a
special petition for even life, still less any comfort of
life. The clause, " Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors," especially when we read in connection with it our Saviour's cornment, " If ye forgive
men their trespasses, your Heavenly Father will also
forgive you," - (that is to say, not for your prayer,
but for your practice,) -this clause, thus interpreted
by our Lord himself, surely, if it is a petition for
anything, is for grace to exercise forgiveness ourselves; but it sounds, with that echo of the divine
comment, quite as much like the conscience of a
man admonishing him in the presence of the just
Father what he must do, if he would share in the
divine forgiveness.  In like manner the clause,
" Lead us not into temptation," when we consider,
in conjunction with it, the assertion of an apostle,
that God tempteth not any man, is almost equivalent
to a vow that, with the help of God, we will not run




158       WHAT IS THE USE OF PRAYING?
into temptation wantonly, by entering into any path,
in which we cannot look up and say, " Bless me
herein, O my Father!" And so we come at last to
the only clause, and that the conclusion of the original prayer, which is purely and plainly and positively a supplication, the petition for deliverance
from evil, which, however, we must add, is implied,
if all the previously expressed desires or determinations of the soul are fulfilled.
I have thus ventured to add one more to the numerous expositions and paraphrases of the Lord's
Prayer, which, for centuries, have been, from time to
time, attempted; but I am not aware of any one,
which has thus analyzed the whole prayer in harmony with the declaration which introduces it, that
the Father knoweth what things we have need of
before we ask him, and which has expounded it as
being, in its spirit and structure, an illustration of
that sentiment. I dare not affirm positively that
my exposition is the right one. I submit, however,
with considerable confidence, to such as are thoughtful and inquiring in spiritual things, and who care,
more than for aught else, to see and feel their way
into the heart of the truth as it is in Jesus, -whether
this bequest of our Lord is not given us for an example of the simplicity, spirituality and submissiveness of a Christian's religion generally, as truly as
of his prayers in special. To me, what is called the
Lord's Prayer, next to the precious sacredness it derives from early and tender associations, commends
itself by this, as its chief beauty, that it is a meditative summary of topics of prayer, fruitful enough to




WHAT IS THE USE OF PRAYING?       159
expand themselves through the universe and through
eternity. That thought of one of the old Fathers
in reference to the Saviour cannot be too often repeated, that his devotion instructs in doctrine, no less
than his doctrine inspires devotion; and surely of the
devout breathing and meditation that has now again
passed in review before us, the saying is preeminently true. It is no less a sermon than a prayer,a sermon, the text of which is the text of our own
imperfect attempt to treat its subject, "Your Father
knoweth what things ye have need of, before ye ask
him." In accordance with this sentiment, I would
say, that the Lord's Prayer seems to me not so much
an asking, as a grateful and reverent acknowledging,
that God is ready to give all that man is ready to
receive.
And as to prayer in general, I think, that sentiment of Jesus around which our thoughts have
clustered, though it may well excite scepticism as to
the worth and fitness of many prayers which human
lips have uttered, cannot damp the interest of any
soul in prayer itself, rightly conceived of,- namely,
as a devout, grateful, submissive, and aspiring recognition of God to be what He is, and an humble sense
of man's being what he is, in all his weakness and
all his capacity, in his infinite wants and his immortal destiny.
A vast proportion of the scepticism that exists in
relation to prayer, would, I believe, vanish the moment one should cease to think of it as the mere act,
whether by mouth or mind, of asking favors of a
Being apart from the soul of the suppliant, and




160       WHAT IS THE USE OF PRAYING?
should come to apprehend and believe the truth, that
He whomn, in prayer, we seek is the One in whom we
live and move and have our being; and, furthermore,
that he is already and always yearning to fill with
his spirit the souls his presence encompasses; that
he is perfectly wise to discern, perfectly able and
perfectly willing to satisfy the wants of the souls
that are his offspring, and that he has himself put
that spirit into the heart of his child which moves
him to yearn towards the invisible and infinite
purity; and that true prayer is simply a breathing
out of what was breathed into the soul by its Father.
The view of prayer I have been presenting has,
indeed, been derided, as a theory which resolves
the holy thing into a process of self-magnetizing.
But this is a mere caricature, utterly unworthy of a
mind capable of the least sympathy for those who,
in a sceptical and unspiritual time, (not to say
world,) feel themselves called to blend discernment
wvith devoutness. The view I have implied of the
great and sacred subject that has been commended
to you, is the one, in my opinion, which most honors
the perfections of God. And it is also, it seems to
me, the one best fitted to keep alive in us a sense of
the vital connection between prayer and practice.
But I chiefly cherish it, because I think the spirit of
Christ's religion teaches it, and it is sustained by the
word of truth and soberness.
If, then, any doubting or shrinking soul should
question with itself: Why should I ask of God, seeing that he knows what I need, infinitely better
than I can, before I ask him; the reply is threefold:




WHAT IS THE USE OF PRAYING?      161
First, because God has so made us,- such is our relation to him and his universe, —that when we live up
to our nature, when we act according to the truth of
things,- even as the flower yearns upward and opens
its little leaves to the influences of heaven, even as the
hart panteth after the water-brooks, -the soul will
yearn for the Father of Spirits; in its struggles for
holiness will and must seek rest and refreshment in
the thought and in the felt presence of Him who is
the source and sum of holiness; and in its struggles
after the truth, will feel its need of repeated and continued communion with the Spirit of Truth. But,
secondly, because asking, in the specific sense the
word bears in these earthly relations, is very far from
being all of prayer. Prayer is more than supplication
- it is submission. It is contemplation, confession,
communion.  Perhaps the most expressive phrase
ever used to designate it is " waiting upon the Lord."
Prayer is the thought of ones self in the all-surrounding, all-penetrating presence of the pure and
perfect One. It is the soul losing itself, only to find
itself truly in the all-revealing light of the Father's
countenance. It is the spirit musing till the fire
burns, and the tongue is loosed. And, thirdly,
we need to put our prayer into words, not for the
sake of its reaching the ear, or the mind or the heart
of God, but because what we express thoughtfully
we thereby impress upon our own convictions; and
prayer, which moves not the Maker of the universe,
does become, according to his own eternal appointment, a channel through which his best blessing
comes down to the soul. In fine, when we under11




162       WHAT IS THE USE OF PRAYING?
take to sever prayer and life from each other, we spoil
both.
How much, in this heated, impatient, flitting age,
when men are in such a hurry to prove all things
that they can hardly hold fast, for a moment or two,
that which is good, - when we break up the fairest
mansions of peace to build bridges over toward the
air-castle of that ever-flying to-morrow, — when people call it enjoying themselves that they are forever
hiding from themselves, — how much we need the
true philosophy of piety, how much we need the
composure, and the quickening, the elevation and
serenity, that would come from entering, with all the
heart and mind, into the reason of prayer, the meditation upon our real, innermost life and its laws, of
which prayer would be the necessary out-going —
prayer,
prayer,  A stream that, from the fountain of the heart,
Issuing however feebly, nowhere flows,
But with access of unexpected strength."
That this may be the spirit of our whole life, is
the great end of all this church-going and sermonhearing and form-observing; and it is hard to conceive of more impressive lessons in regard to our
need of this spirit than the lessons of life and death
which these days are holding up to us.




XIII.
WHAT AND WHERE IS THE CHRISTIAN HEAVEN?
AND NO MAN HATH ASCENDED UP TO HEAVEN, BUT HE THAT CAME
DOWVN FROM HEAVEN, EVEN THE SON OF MAN WHICH IS IN HEAVEN.
-John iii. 13.
I NEED hardly say that, to the natural man, there
is a self-contradiction in this verse. Of course, to
any one who should hear or read it only with a carnal sense, - which, indeed, it seems hardly possible
that any one at this day should do, - it would be a
perfect puzzle. As it is, with the local ideas of
heaven, which too generally govern us, such language as this of Jesus does not come to us quite free
from perplexity; and when to these local ideas of
heaven are added the literal ideas of the things of
Christ, which prevailing creeds have brought to bear
upon the subject, sanctifying but not solving the riddle, confusion is worse confounded. Says the latest
commentator on the Gospels: " There is something
paradoxical in this language -- No one has gone
up, but he that came down, even he who is at once
both up and down!' Doubtless it was intended to
startle and constrain his auditor to think that there




164 WHAT AND WHERE IS THE CHRISTIAN HEAVEN?
must be mysterious elements in his person." The
doctrine is, you know, that in Jesus there were two
natures, or rather two persons, the human and the
divine, and that while, as man, he was on earth talking with Nicodemus, he was, at the same moment,
as God, on his throne in heaven. But see how this
explanation, instead of clearing up any difficulty,
only deepens the darkness and aggravates the bewilderment of the seeker after truth. The person
who is in heaven, according to his own statement, is
not the Divine Being, as the creed requires, but the
human being, — it is " the Son of Man who is in
heaven." This doctrine of a double personality in
our Master is not, surely, a part of what Paul calls
"' the simplicity of Christ." It cannot but bring a
double-mindedness into men's faith, which must
make it unstable and unsatisfactory in all its ways
and workings. And it would be painful to see,
were there not the hope that minds may be roused
to think and reason on the subject,which had hitherto been indifferent, with what earnestness and ingenuity the defenders of the deity of Jesus are everywhere laboring to prop up the frail theory of his bipersonality; and in regard to such passages as the one
now before us for examination, it is almost amazing
that, at this day, when so many signs are inviting
and constraining us to recognize the spiritual nature
of the Christian religion, those who set themselves up
to be its expounders should take the very texts by
which that quality of our faith is most eloquently expressed, and make them the buttresses of just that
kind of mechanical religion which Jesus came to do
away.




WHAT AND WHERE IS THE CHRISTIAN HEAVEN? 165
When Jesus said to Nicodemus, by way of assuring him of the reliableness of the communications
he was making to him, that no man had ever gone
up to heaven but he who came down from heaven,
even he himself, the Son of Man, who was then and
always in heaven, he made use of one of those paradoxical forms of expression, not uncommon in the
Scriptures, which awaken in the thoughtful mind a
lively sense of the spirituality of the things of the unseen world and the Divine Nature. If the phrases
going up to heaven, and coming down from heaven,
would, of themselves, have been liable to encourage
a materialistic idea, then the additional assurance
that he who had been up and come down was still
in heaven, was precisely calculated, by the very impossibility of its being received in any literal and
local sense, to startle the hearer into at least the presentiment of another, higher, broader ground of conception and belief. To a Jew, to a Pharisee, such
an argument might not have been so readily appreciable; but to one who has the words of Christ continually before him for study and meditation as we
have, and the opportunity of comparing scripture
with scripture, and all the light on the spiritual
meaning and purpose of the Gospel which we enjoy,
the spiritual import of such passages as our text
ought surely to reveal itself upon a moment's calm
reflection, although to take home to ourselves the
whole extent of their application, may well require,
as it will well repay, a longer study.
The object of this whole conversation was to impress upon the man of worldly ideas that he must




166 WHAT AND WHERE IS THE CHRISTIAN HEAVEN?
be born again, born from above, born into a world
of spiritual realities, in order to see, or to see into,
the kingdom of heaven. That state of honor and of
happiness was not far off, either in place or in time.
It was ever at hand. It was ever present and everywhere present in God, the all-pervading Spirit. It
was present in his person, as the Son of God.
It was here on the earth in the hearts of all his true
disciples. But as yet there were none who understood it or him. None had, as yet, of all the saints
and sages, fully and clearly attained to this spiritual
conception and communion; but he, God's holy child,
had been raised to that intimacy with the Father,
out of which he was now communicating to men
such spiritual blessings, an intimacy which was not
merely occasional, as with priests and prophets of
old, but habitual, and an intimacy which, though
hitherto it had not been granted to man, hencefor.
ward would be shared by others; for he would give
power to them that should believe in him to become
themselves the sons of God, partakers of the divine
nature and the heavenly kingdom; and I would suggest whether that use of the plural, " We speak that
we do know and testify that we have seen," does not
shadow forth this very idea that he who was taken
up into the heavenly secrets, was to take up others
with him?
So far, then, from inviting or repelling, by any
enigmatical allusions to anything peculiarly mysterious about the person of the speaker, the text, when
looked at in its whole connection, calls us away from
metaphysical distinctions of personality to the sim



WHIAT AND WHERE IS THE CHRISTIAN HEAVEN? 167
plicity of moral and spiritual truth. Undoubtedly
there is mystery - there is paradox in the nature of
Jesus, as in what nature, human or other, is there
not?- but there is nothing to justify the intrusion
of any such idea here. The connection makes it
evident that to ascend into heaven means here to receive communications from the higher world; to descendfrom heaven means to bring these communications to men; and to be in heaven means to be constantly in communication with the Father, ever with
the Father by a mutual indwelling through the
spirit, constantly mediating between God and men.
Jesus had just said to Nicodemus, " If I have told
you earthly things and ye believe not, -how shall
ye believe, (i. e. how can it be expected that you will
believe,) if I tell you of heavenly things?" And
then the text which immediately follows gives the
reason why it was not to be expected, because no
human being had as yet ascended the height of holy
contemplation and communion, necessary to the attaining of the simple and spiritual truth.
This interpretation is confirmed by a remarkable
passage in the Book of Proverbs, which illustrates
the Oriental use of the peculiar phraseology employed in our text, and which I think it probable
that Jesus had in mind. I refer to the words which
in the thirtieth chapter of Proverbs, Agur (the one
who breathed that memorable prayer for competence
and contentment-" Give me neither poverty nor
riches"- -) is represented as prophesying to Ithiel
and Ucal, two disciples, perhaps, or opponents, who
had tried him with some high and hard question.




168  WHAT AND WHERE IS THE CHRISTIAN HEAVEN?
Whether it was irony or humility that dictated his
beginning, we read that " the man spake unto Ithiel,
even unto Ithiel and Ucal, Surely I am more brutish
than any man, and have not the understanding of a
man. I neither learned wisdom, nor have the knowledge of the holy. Who hath ascended up into heaven
[that is to acquire such knowledge] or descended
[to deliver it]? who hath gathered the wind in his
fists? Who hath bound the waters in a garment?
Who hath established all the ends of the earth?
What is his namre, and what is his son's name,
if thou canst tell? "  In other words, " I have never
heard of any such man."
If I am right in supposing that Jesus did take the
suggestion of the shape of his thought in the text
from the old Scripture, we may, perhaps, regard the
fact as implying that the knowledge of heavenly
things which he had come into the world to communicate was not of that high and hard kind which
old Agur's contemporaries affected; that it was to be
born not of speculative strife, the soaring and straining of the intellect, but of the still and steady sympathy of spiritual life.
At all events, (and this is the point in which the
words of our Saviour practically concern us,) no one
who meditates upon them in the light of his whole
manifestation, can fail to find in them a memorable
expression of that sense of the Father's presence
and providence and inspiration, which, as it was in
him the very breath of life, so in every meek and
lowly follower of his and believer in him and in his
God and Father, will also be realized just in propor



WHAT AND WHERE IS THE CHRISTIAN HEAVEN? 169
tion to the degree of his faith and fidelity, as he
himself has so emphatically promised in his conversation with his disciples near the close of his earthly
ministry. He there assures them, and all who shall
hereafter believe on him through their word, that if
they keep his commandments, he and his Father
will come and abide with them.
Jesus, while on earth, speaks of himself as being
already in heaven. His whole life and language are
those of one who feels himself to be, and is, always
there. And we learn from this that heaven is essentially a state, and not a place. How strikingly was
this also intimated in that last interview with his disciples, when he said to them, "' Whither I go ye know,
and the way ye know;" and they said to him, "Master, we know not whither thou goest, and how, then,
can we know the way?" and then Jesus (as if he
had said in so many words, " The way I speak of is
not anything local, but something spiritual,") replied,
"I am the way, and the truth, and the life," and presently declared to them his communion with God to
be so intimate that whoso had seen him had seen
the Father also,-thus teaching them that the way
to God and to heaven, the home of God, was not off
through space, but inward, through the invisible
paths of the spirit; that that other mansion to
which he alluded was no farther from them than the
God in whom they lived and moved and had their
being, - -that the partition which separated them
from it was only the thinnest veil, the frailest film
of flesh, through which he was about to pass, going
away from them in form, that they might be nearer




170  WHAT AND WHERE IS THE CHRISTIAN HEAVEN?
to him in spirit, having their conversation (as one of
their number afterwards expressed it) in heaven.
Jesus, while on earth, speaks of himself as being
already in heaven. Then there may be such a thing
as heaven on earth. The Christ-like, filial spirit realizes it. The pure in heart see God, they walk with
God; and as the child of nature beholds in the
sunlight the smile of the Great Spirit, so does the
child of grace feel in the smile of the Father of
Spirits the sunshine of heaven.
When Jesus, being on the earth, declares himself
in heaven, he reminds us how his religion is the culmination and consummation of the Bible teaching
concerning the inspiring truth of the presence and
providence of God in the world. WTe open the
Bible, the great record-book of the gradual unfolding of religion from form and letter to spirit and
substance, and of the gradual training of man to
receive the successive developments, and we find
that in the Old Testament the doctrine of the divine
presence and agency is, with some exceptions, set
forth under materialistic limitations. At one time
the Lord himself is represented as passing from one
part of his dominions to another; at another time
the eyes of the Lord run to and fro in the earth;
at one time it is He that sitteth upon the circle of
the earth; at another he is represented as asking,
Do I not fill heaven and earth? - but the representation is generally one that appeals to the eye of
the imagination at least, — and it is only when we
come to the New Testament, when we come to
God in Christ, that the Divine Omnipresence ceases




WHAT AND WHERE IS THE CHRISTIAN HEAVEN? 171
to be represented as if it were a matter of motion
or measurement, and is treated as purely a spiritual
fact. The material idea of the subject fades before
the spiritual idea. The notion of a deity existing
under the conditions of space or other form pertaining to the finite mind, is discovered to be superstition. If He fills heaven and earth, it is, as Augustine says, by containing them, not by being contained
in them; but heaven and earth are not to be thought
of as separate from Him; they are the oltshinings,
the outgoings of the infinite and inscrutable One.
When the Son of Man, being on earth, speaks of
himself as being at the same time in heaven, he
reminds us of the power and privilege offered to
every son of man, of participating in that consolation, that inspiration and that blessedness. In proportion as any one practises the spirit of the beatitudes, his earthly life becomes a heavenly one. If it
cannot be said that he is in heaven, it can be said
that heaven, or what makes it to be heaven, is in
him. Outwardly, he may have, and he must expect,
tribulation; but inwardly, in Christ, he has peace.
" Blessed are they that are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven."
As there is no presumption in any human being's
aspiring after this participation in the Son of Man's
heavenly state while on earth, so neither does it imply any selfishness, any indifference to the sins which
stain and sadden and madden the world. Jesus, who
lived in heaven while here, yet bore the sorrows and
the sins of humanity in his generous bosom. Paul,
who said, " our conversation is in heaven," yet felt




172 WHAT AND WHERE IS THE CHRISTIAN HEAVEN?
so keenly all the afflictions of his brethren, that he
could say, "Who is weak, and I am not weak?
Who is offended, and I burn not? " And He whose
pity and care for his children are incessant, are infinite, is " God, blessed forever."  The heaven into
which, even here, the spirit of Jesus invites us to
enter, is the heaven of disinterested, divine charity.
He who, while on earth, is thus, by the power of
Christian faith, in heaven, has an object in life capable of affording a sufficient solace in trial and an
ample security against the temptations that beset the
faithless. Beholding, with the eye of faith, God
everywhere, continually manifested in the bright and
blissful activity of creation, - feeling the presence
and providence of the Maker and Preserver in the
processes of his own complex life, - impressed thus
with the sacredness and majesty of existence, he will
find a never-failing interest in the labors of his earthly allotment,
To him who, while here on earth, dwells in heaven, the comforts as well as the sorrows of life will
be holy and heavenly. Cheerfulness will be as much
an expression of religion as sadness. Gloom, so
often made the exclusive or especial sign of godliness, will be utterly banished, as unbefitting the soul
that believes in a God of perfect and almighty goodness. The free play of innocent and worthy fancies
and feelings, will be held, in its place, no less divine
than the grave work of life or the solemnities of
worship.
To him who, while on earth, is in heaven, God's
providence will reveal itself as extending to every




WHAT AND WHERE IS THE CHRISTIAN HEAVEN? 173
particular of universal life. Miracles will be only unusual events of that providence, designed to awaken
the mind of man to a perception of the power which
passes before him daily in a constant procession of
wonders. He will see God in all things. The multiplication and preservation of life will be no less
a sign of God's working than the restoration of life
to the dead.
A poet has said that " Heaven lies about us in
our infancy." But just so far as we retain or recover
the childlike feeling, especially in proportion as we
grow into that holy childhood which comes from the
simplicity of Christian discipleship, heaven will still
be realized as all around us. Even as the earth
though to the natural eye heaven is far above it, is
in reality in the bosom of the heavens, so when the
spiritual sense is corrected and cleansed, will this
earthly life be seen and felt to be in heaven, because
in the all-encompassing presence of the Father.
The Son of Man, who, when on earth, was in
heaven, proved even in the last dark hours of his
earthly life, that what he had said of himself in the
beginning of his ministry still held true. Who does
not feel, that he who said, " Daughters of Jerusalem,
weep not for me but weep for yourselves and for
your children;" and, when they were nailing him to
the cross, prayed, " Father, forgive them, for they
know not what they do! " who does not feel that he
whose heart was so occupied was indeed in heaven?
"The mind is its own place, and, in itself,
Can make a heaven of hell."
Though infernal powers and passions were breathing




174 WHAT AND WHERE IS THE CHRISTIAN HEAVEN?
hotly around him in the darkness, in his soul was
the mild air of heaven.
It was one of his last prayers, before leaving this
world, that, as he and his Father were one, even so
his disciples might be one with him and with his
Father; that where he was, there they also might
be. And, after his departure, we hear one of his
apostles praising God, who has raised them up to
sit in heavenly places with Christ Jesus.
And this blessedness is offered us. But let us
understand it aright. It is not merely to sit in places
where, from the place itself, by some mysterious process, a holy virtue shall flow into us, and imbue our
characters without any effort of our own. By a true
and living and working faith, we shall not only,
wherever we abide, sit in heavenly places, but wherever we walk, walk in heavenly paths, in Christ Jesus.
For, once more, and this is the last thing I have
to say, the oneness with the Father which enabled
the Son of Man to say he was in heaven, was the
oneness of an active harmony of spirit, purpose, and
work. It is not by any mere sentimental dreaming,
or sanctimonious sighing, or speculative soaring, that
any one of us is to realize that happy state called
being in heaven; only a pure, spiritual, generous
purpose which raises us above ourselves, above the
world, can ensure that condition, and such a purpose is set before us in the life and religion of the
Son of Man.




XIV.
THE MORAL RESURRECTION.
IF, BY ANY MEANS, I AMIGHT ATTAIN UNTO THE RESURRECTION OF
THE DEAD. - Philippians, iii. 11.
THERE is a strong and striking emphasis on the
word attain, here.  The resurrection of the dead
(which we are accustomed to speak of as an arbitrary appointment and a universal destiny) is here
represented as a matter of individual acquisition,
apprehension, and conquest. It is more than possible that our familiarity with this oft-recited part of
Scripture prevents our being impressed with the intensity, the cumulative force of figare and feeling,
with which this truth is expressed and enforced.
Observe carefully the vividness and variety of the
images with which the idea is illustrated, that the
attainment of the resurrection of the dead demands
and deserves a man's highest and continual effort,
aspiration, ambition and  solicitude.  This resurrection is the goal, the Apostle says, which he has
always in his eye, the prize which, in the liveliness
of his faith and the earnestness of his purpose, he
not only runs but reaches forward to lay hold of.
Himself apprehended, through Christ, by this per



176        THE MORAL RESURRECTION.
fect ideal, he burns to apprehend the reality which
it promises. In the condensed expressiveness of the
original, to which our common translation fails to
do justice, he throws everything overboard (counting
the costliest freight of earthly gain or glory as dross
and dung in comparison, and especially in competition, with even the promise of this heavenly treasure); he counts it all as not only so much loss, but
so much encumbrance, and more than willingly lets
it go, that he may lighten his ship and ride safely
and successfully through the narrows of earthly
temptation and tribulation into the high port of
this divine achievement of the resurrection.  He
lavishes the wealth of his imagination upon this
point with more than his usual profuseness, insomuch that to one who so studies him and sympathizes with him as to take the natural impression of
the figurative element that pervades his language,
the very sentence in which he expresses his anxiety
to reach the consummation seems to labor and
climb towards its conclusion: 6 If —by any means
- I might attain (in the original find my way) unto
the resurrection of the dead."
But what I wish particularly to keep before your
minds is the paradox (for such I think it would be
to most readers or hearers of the Scriptures who
should suddenly be startled into thinking of these
things which are now, with so many, little more than
a solemn sound) that the resurrection of the dead,
or (what is equivalent) from the dead, is not something to be inherited, but something to be attained;
not something which is to come to us by the mere




THE MORAL RESURRECTION.        177
lapse of time, but something to which we are to
find our way and fight our way; not something
toward which the mere flow of these earthly years
is to waft us, but something toward which we are
to strive and struggle; stemming, with holy resolution, the tide, not of time merely, but of the times,
the tide of habit and fashion and worldliness, and
steering onward by the star of the cross into the
haven of spiritual victory.
Unfortunately we hear so much Scripture publicly read or quoted, before we begin to think, if we
ever do, of its meaning, authority, and application, -
it is such a long way with too many of us, from the
outer ear to the ear of thought and of faith, and
that avenue is so much clogged by earthliness, - so
hard or rare a thing is it for us, therefore, really to
know what we do hear from the sacred volume, that
I doubt whether the question would be generally
thought to have any point, and yet it seems to me
a very pertinent and profitable question to ask ourselves, how it would strike us, were we to hear now
for the first time a man with whom we had associated apostolic pretensions, express himself so modestly and anxiously about attaining what we had
been accustomed to suppose that every man not
only will but must come to, whether he seeks it or
not, something which is as sure as fate, as certain
as that other event which is "appointed unto all
men."  Would not this thought come over us: is it
possible that such a spiritual man as Paul should
doubt whether he was to share in a resurrection
which all men besides, just and unjust, are surely
11




178         THE MORAL RESURRECTION.
moving on to meet; or have we been wrong in supposing that there is to be a resurrection of the dead
without reference to character?
In a word, there is something about the Apostle's
distrustful expression which calls for a more penetrating look from us than it is apt to receive, either
in our secular or in our sanctimonious moods. If:any regard the man who calls himself Christ's and
God's Apostle as a fanatical declaimer, to such it
w7ill be a mere matter of curiosity to know what he
means by what he says; but whoso believes that he
knew what he said and said what he knew, will indcline to treat this also as one of those "words of
truth and soberness," and will have not merely the
Athenian curiosity which asks " what will this babbler say?" but the sacred curiosity which craves to
know what the Spirit of Truth says through him to
each living soul.
Nor is this a question which touches (to refer to
a distinction that has become somewhat prominent
in modern criticism) merely Pauline Christianity. It
is one that concerns no less the Christianity of Paul's
Master and ours. It is recorded that, on a certain
occasion when the Sadducees, who were materialists and denied the resurrection, thought to puzzle
Jesus by a casuistical question based upon the assumed formal continuance, in the higher world, of
the relations of this, the great Teacher made the
memorable reply, that they who should be counted
worthy to obtain that world and the resurrection from
the dead, being the children of the resurrection and
partakers of the Divine nature, should no longer be




THE MORAL RESURRECTION.         179
subject to the laws of flesh and blood; expressly
implying, you observe, the very idea Paul presents
us, that the resurrection of the dead is a prize, given
to those who are worthy of it. Here there was high
authority for Paul's idea of men's having to attain
the resurrection of the dead, his Master himself having spoken of it as something to be obtained.
But what was this resurrection?  What is it?
Although, in his peculiar position, beset by the materialistic Sadducee on the one hand and the spiritualistic Pharisee on the other, our Lord, in his wisdom, chose, for the sake of conquering by dividing,
to accept, to some extent, the phraseology of the
party that came the nearer to the truth, and to speak
of the spiritual world as if it did not begin till after
death, (as, indeed, it would not, till then, be fully
manifested,) yet at the same time numerous expressions of Jesus, and the whole spirit of his teachings
imply -what his Apostles well understood and present very prominently in their writings —that the
eternal life revealed by the Gospel is not merely something to be waited for in the future, but something
waiting to be entered into now. That Paul did not
understand by it anything that could not in the
nature of things be at all realized till after death, is
clear to my mind from his disclaimer, " not as though
I had already attained," -for if the thing in question were what a man must die in order to attain,
why should he speak so modestly about it, and say,
" Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended? "
And, in fact, when he adds to the phrase, " not as
though I had already attained," the clause, "either




180         THE MORAL RESURRECTION.
were already perfect," — is not this as much as to
say that the resurrection he speaks of is not a physiological fact, but a moral and spiritual principle, a
principle of perpetual progression, a life which,
though not yet ripe, was continually ripening within
him. And there is a significant ellipsis in one of
the most memorable of these verses from the midst
of which our text comes, that does not appear in
our common version, but is easily made to by dropping the words inserted there in italics by the translators, and then it reads, "Brethren, I count not
myself to have apprehended; but one thing-forgetting those things which are behind..... I press
toward the mark...."  Is it a forced thought to
read this as if the Apostle meant to say he had
apprehended one thing, namely, the idea and the
purpose of never-yielding effort; and what was this
but the spiritual, the eternal life, the life of the
resurrection, begun even here?
Paul, certainly, had not the idea that it was necessary to wait for this material body to crumble into
dust before the Christian doctrine, the Gospel doctrine of the resurrection, could take effect. Paul did
not feel as if he must be literally taken out of the
flesh in order to live the life of the spirit. On the
contrary he says, that the life he now lives in the
flesh, he lives by the faith of the Son of God, and yet,
without any inconsistency, he tells his brethren,'" Ye
are not in the flesh, but in the spirit, if so be that the
Spirit of God dwell in you;" and again, " If the
spirit of Him that raised up Jesus from the dead
dwell in you, He that raised up Christ from the dead




THE MORAL RESURRECTION.        181
shall also quicken your mortal bodies by His spirit
that dwelleth in you."
" Shall quicken your mortal bodies."  Whatever
we may think of the resurrection of the body in a
future world, there is certainly a sense in which the
bodily senses may experience, and are, in multitudes
of cases, trying to experience, a resurrection even
here. False views of salvation and of spirituality
may disguise from us this fact, making it appear as
if the body were necessarily a hindrance to the
soul's being saved, at least preventing our appreciating the possibility and the providential design
that the physical organs themselves should, when
raised up by the spirit to the freedom and dignity
of serving its high uses, actually assist in the accomplishment of the heavenly character.
In short, the great conflict through which man is
to fight his way toward the resurrection is not the
conflict of the soul against the body, but the joint
warfare of the soul and the body, in a manly religion, against the evil which each works when it
separates itself from the other and tyrannizes over
it, either the flesh over the spirit or the spirit over the
flesh. And the fact that the soul and senses must
work together in the things of the higher life is one
of which the prevalence in the Scriptures of that figurative language on which we have dwelt so much
should admonish every thoughtful mind. It is a popular impression that the figurative element in language is a mere ornament, addressed only to the
fancy. The connection of the imagination with faith,
conscience, and life, is a subject too little understood.




182         THE MORAL RESURRECTION.
The truth is that figurative language, so far from
being fit only for a parade-dress of thought, may be
the service-dress and armor in which earnest thought
shall show most truly its inner quality, do its most
effective work, and fight its noblest battles. The
spirit of truth loves to speak in figures, because so it
can most livingly express its very self. In other
words these figures of speech have a nearer relation
to the reality of things than an inattentive mind is
apt to suspect. There is a vast deal of profound
meaning covered up under the old, familiar images
of Scripture, meaning for the mind, for the conscience, and for the practical purposes of life, which
we lose, from the habit of gliding over them without
reflection. These figures of speech which we learn
to pass over so lightly, are, to a thoughtful mind,
the hints by which it passes to and fro between the
large and lofty truths of the spiritual world and those
(seemingly) little details of the world in which a
man's life has now to manifest itself. They preserve
the large idea of the spiritual truth, and at the same
time prevent it from becoming vague and visionary.
When the Bible represents the Christian life as a
walk, as a race, as a battle, - when it bids man ponder the path of his feet, not turn his eyes to the right
hand nor to the left, but tread the strait and narrow
way,- when it bids him seek those things which are
above, - of these and multitudes of other constantly
recurring forms of expression we say, " here is something to be understood figuratively, not literally."
But are we not apt, thus, to dismiss the matter too
summarily? For instance, life is called a warfare.




THE MORAL RESURRECTION.        183
We say this is a figure, but is it not a fact? So
much so that, to him who will live above the world,
life becomes not only a moral, but almost a physical
fight. Let any one who has ever known what it is
to put a spur into the side of his own indolence, to
tighten the check-rein of his own passions, to hold
his mouth with a bridle when the temptation to
turn his tongue to wicked or wanton uses pressed
hard upon him, and to close the very ear of his
heart against the snaky whisper of detraction, - let
him who has ever thus struggled to keep his nature
"upright, and innocent of the great transgression,"
- let him who has ever set his face against the
shallow smile of the world's conceit, -let him who
has ever set his feet to stand by the simple and sober
truth through desertion and unpopularity, and to
walk in the lonely road of independence, — let him
who has had to do perhaps the hardest work of all,
namely, to summon up his will against his own
wilfulness, and break his own spirit into the service
of the spirit of grace and holiness, - let such answer
whether it is a mere figure to call life a conflict.
Let then the figurative character of the language
of the Scripture and the spirit generally, admonish
us of the magnitude and moment of these truths, to
which no prose speech could have done justice. Let
especially the glowing imagery of the fervid yet
practical Paul, which we are in no danger of exaggerating in any mystic or monastic literalism, but
which we are in great danger of practically treating
as mere rhapsody, - and particularly let all that peculiar accumulation of images with which the Apostle




184         THE MORAL RESURRECTION.
labors to picture a man agonizing after the resurrection to eternal life, impress us with the truth that
that resurrection is a reality that invites us now to
apprehend it, —to apprehend not merely the idea
but the thing itself. Let it help set us free from the
delusion, so common and so insidious, of feeling as
if we might
"read our title clear
To mansions in the skies,"
while we not only have not, but care not supremely
to have, the clearness of the skies, the atmosphere
of heaven, the serenity of the heavenly temper, pervading our very souls and approving us children of
the resurrection. If we are dreaming that our souls
may somehow be saved, while we are not seeking to
work out the salvation, and to glorify God with our
very bodily senses and organs, -if the eye that was
made for the soul to look out from and receive and
reflect the light of truth and beauty and of God's
lofty and loving face, is made to give back from its
glossy or filmy surface only the image of this world's
vanity and pride, -if the brow on which the serenity
of a higher world should sit enthroned, is the camping ground of sullen and rebellious passions, - if the
ear which was made to listen to the music of creation is occupied with hearing, and the tongue, " the
glory of" man's "frame," with uttering, the whispers of detraction, the traitor-song of flattery, and the
thousand evil communications that corrupt the soul,
then for us is there a meaning, which not the mere
faint sigh or fervid fancy of an hour snatched for




THE MORAL RESURRECTION.        185
holy musing out of a week of unholy living can satisfy, in that trumpet-call of the Apostle, " Awake,
thou that sleepest and rise from the dead, and Christ
shall give thee light!"
I have brought together these thoughts upon the
Scripture and the spiritual life, under a heavy sense
of inadequacy to do anything like justice to the simple and sober harmony of that truth which the very
Spirit of truth furnishes to us with such calm
majesty in the silent lessons of life, and death, and
immortality. "To-day, if ye shall hear His voice,
harden not your hearts."  That voice comes from
the quiet dust below and from the tranquil heavens
above, at once to chasten and to quicken us, to
chasten the fever of earthly hankerings and to
quicken the languid wing of religious aspiration.
It steals into the midst of our distractions and diversions, it casts a shadow over the summer noon of
gayety, not to fill us with a momentary gloom, only
to be succeeded by the old giddiness, but on the
contrary to guard us against that gloom which follows upon the steps of frivolity, and to substitute
for a faithless and hollow excitement misnamed
happiness, that innocent gladness which is at once
the child and the parent of virtue, that true piety
which is the perennial fountain of joy undefiled and
everlasting.




XV.
THE THREE PARABLES OF THE JUDGMENT.
MATTHEW XXV. 1-46.
THE twenty-fifth chapter of Matthew contains
three parables, all bearing upon one subject, - the
judgment of the Jewish nation, of all nations and
souls, by the law of the Divine kingdom, as revealed
by Jesus Christ. These parables, of the ten virgins,
the ten talents, and the division of the sheep and the
goats, are so familiar to every one, from childhood, by
public and private reading and reference, that the mere
name and number of the chapter which comprises
them will always be enough, upon a moment's reflection, to bring those impressive pictures of momentous truth, which have so often awakened curiosity, if not conscience, back again to the mind's
eye, and home to every heart in which this world's
anxieties or amusements have left any place for sober, spiritual thought. Those wonderful and mighty
foreshadowings of the issues of life and death,
thrown by the hand of a master, of the Master,
upon the curtain of futurity, upon the veil which
mysteriously separates us from a world that any mo



THE THREE PARABLES OF THE JUDGMENT.  187
ment may reveal and every moment holds in its bosom, -those sublimely simple narrations of the deeds
and the doom of the wise and the foolish virgins, of
the faithful and the slothful servants, and of the humane and the inhuman sons and brethren of the holy
King's family, - those emblems of the most soulthrilling realities, that win by their imaginative
beauty, while they warn by their conscience-searching fidelity, invented, as they were, by the Lord's
wisdom to strike the fancy, to stir the curiosity, to
fasten upon the memory, and quicken the moral and
religious sensibilities of a generation of disciples,
who were as children in the school of this newly revived religion of the Spirit, — how well they have
justified, in all generations, the wisdom that originated them, by the early and lasting hold they have
always taken of the mind of childhood; while the
stream of fiction, gliding over the solid ground of
eternal truth, that charmed and chained the wandering eye of the child's mind to the pictured surface
of the narrative, has invited, by its transparency, the
mature thought of manhood, tried and quickened by
life's temptations and sorrows, to penetrate the thin
veil of the parabolic imagery and to recognize reverently a foundation of truth, which no experience
can ever exhaust, and no exposition can ever express.
I have spoken of the three divisions of this memorable chapter of the Gospel according to Matthew
as being all parables. The last portion, I know, has
not been generally so regarded and classified, as you
will see by the heading of the chapter in our com



188  THE THREE PARABLES OF THE JUDGMENT.
mon version of the Bible, which reads: " The parable of the ten virgins, and of the talents. Also the
description of the last judgment." Nevertheless I
am satisfied that that solemn representation of the
great judgment to come ought also to be ranked
among the parables, just as much as the scripture
which narrates as a thing of the past the scene between the tormented rich man and Abraham in the
world of retribution. It is no extenuation, on the
contrary it is a magnifying, of the vital and practical truth, to say that both of these highly-wrought,
oriental and scenic descriptions are parables. In
saying so, we do no more nor less than acknowledge
that such creations, through the cloud of mystery of
their poetic and prophetic inspiration, charge the
conscience with an electric truth, which is too vast
and far-reaching for the mind fully to grasp.
In one sense, indeed, it might be said that the
whole of the chapter which forms our subject is a
description of the great, spiritual judgment, not only
as a thing of the future, but as a thing of the past
and of each passing age and hour. For who is
there of us that has not already known by experience, who of us that has not felt, even if any of us
have never reflected upon the nature and import of
the feeling that darkly weighed upon us, that sense
of the judgment of the soul's indwelling witness
and judge upon its unfaithfulness to its calling,
which was a foretaste of the sentence one day to be
more clearly heard?  When we read, or when we
remember, what it needs no reading to recall, the
images of those heedless bridesmaids who suffered




TH-IE THREE PARABLES OF THE JUDGMENT.  189
their lamps to go out and found themselves in the
outer darkness, vainly crying to a Lord who knew
them not,-the image of that disobedient and distrustful steward who presumptuously hid his Lord's
money, also shut out into the dismal darkness from
the feast of honor and congratulation, and gnashing
his teeth to find that what his selfish hope had
hoarded, was gone from  his grasp, —and when,
finally, we recall the disappointment and dismay of
those mercenary subjects of the great King who had
dreamed that ministering unto him personally and
officially in an occasional and formal homage atoned
for the sin of neglecting those brethren of his own
royal family, whom, though ragged and wretched
and reprobate, he cherished as his own flesh and
blood, more dearly than his own life, how unutterably more than earthly reputation and flattering titles,
-when these characters, living on the page of the
Evangelist, pass in succession before us, in some
hour of sober meditation, who of us is so " void of
offence towards man and towards God," so singularly faithful to the laws of purity, piety, and philanthropy, that it might not be said of us, as by the
Pagan Poet,
" Change but the name, the fable speaks of thee?"
Nay, in this case, there is no need of so much as
changing the name. The selfish, the unspiritual
man, he who waits upon fortune or drifts along with
the tide of fashion, -he who suffers the light of reason which God has committed to him to be incrusted




190  THE THREE PARABLES OF THE JUDGMENT.
with sloth, sensuality and selfishness, to be blown
out by the gusts of passion, or die out in the heavy
air of materialism, — he who finds the Sodom-apple
of miserly greed crumble to ashes in the tightness of
his grasp, - he whose life is one continued and desperate effort to comfort his conscience with the notion that he does not fail in reverence for the Most
High, though, all the while, he makes religion a
secondary and incidental, if' not accidental thing,
and that he does not hate his brother man, when he
certainly does not love him, according to the Gospel standard, - all such, if they dare to look into
the glass of the perfect and holy law, as framed in
these last parables of the Gospel, will see, exactly
and expressly described, what manner of persons
they are, and what manner of persons they ought
to be.
On the one side of the picture they will hear a
voice saying, " Thou art the man," and on the other,
"' This is the man thou oughtest to be, the man that
thou art called and empowered to become."
But my leading thought in selecting this chapter
for my subject, was neither to retouch the threefold
picture in your memory, which would be a superfluous task, nor, and still less, to indicate even the
outlines of the life-applications of the three parables,
a theme too vast for a single occasion. My first
purpose was to call your attention to something in
the arrangement of these parables which I do not
think has generally been noticed, but which, in my
view, has a curious and instructive interest. Vividly
apprehended and fully appreciated, by the common




TItE THREE PARABLES OF THE JUDGMENT.  191
conscience of men, as each parable, separately taken,
is, in its broad, strong, general moral, at least, excepting, perhaps, the one most striking point of the
last, namely, that it is their not doing which condemns the hardhearted subjects of the Lord's displeasure, (a point which seems to have extensively
escaped notice,) although, with this exception, each
separate parable has not failed to be understood and
taken home, at least, to the conscience, — there is a
fitness and a felicity in the order by which these
impressive parables follow each other, rising to a
climax of moral significance, spiritual illumination,
and Christian instructiveness, which I do not remember to have seen or heard remarked, but which I
cannot help regarding as quite remarkable, and
fitted, if thoughtfully considered, to give the whole
subject of the judgment, as shadowed forth, I might
say elaborated, by these successive delineations, a
new impressiveness. It has been said of the discourses and sayings of Jesus by a keen analyist of
the evangelic records, that they seem as if they had
been rolled to and fro by the tide of tradition which
left the narrative in its present form, and now stand
here and there, like those geological monuments
called bowlders, dislocated from the connection to
which they originally belonged, and which it is often
impossible for us now to guess. Every attentive
reader of the first three Gospels, who has wished, as
every Christian disciple, not to say every philosophical scholar, must, to understand the historical connection of what he read, will acknowledge, in regard
to very many of the utterances of Jesus, the force of




192  THE THREE PARABLES OF THE JUDGMENT.
this criticism. But in the case of the three parables
composing the twenty-fifth chapter of Matthew, there
is a beautiful order of growth in the thought from
each to the next, a deepening and a broadening into
the spiritual life as one reads onward, which gives
assurance that the disciple did not put asunder what
the Lord had joined together.
Let me endeavor to indicate, in a few words, the
order and progress I refer to, as bearing the marks
of His hand, who is " the way, the truth, and the
life." Mark, then, how these parables complete each
other. The parable of the ten virgins comes first,
and sounds the key-note of the strain, the word
6 Watch! "  It teaches the wisdomr  of waiting and
watching for the corning of the Lord. It admonishes men to keep the lamps of faith and reason and
conscience, and all the higher lights of the soul,
trimmed and burning; in other words, it impresses
a man with a sense of his duty to himself, to his
own nature, and warns him that, if he slumbers on
his post, if he wastes in the entrancing influences of
the present the energies given to provide against the
future, he does it at his own peril. But thus far the
parable does not expressly intimate any other than
a selfish end of life, and if we confined our attention
to this aspect of things, as, indeed, in certain moods
and seasons the subjects of religious anxiety are too
apt to, we should not only fall far short of the full
ideal of the manly and religious character, but miss
the very, vital characteristic of the religion of Christ.
Man is called not only to wait and watch patiently,
but to watch and work patiently and faithfully. He




THE THREE PARABLES OF THE JUDGMENT.  193
is not merely to stand on the defensive, but to go
forward into the seed-field and the battle-field, to
sow and strive, to reap and conquer. Or, according
to that other familiar figure, of the house-servants,
he has not only to guard the house against thieves
and robbers by night, but to occupy and improve
the farm by day, to cultivate the ground, that is, the
powers his Maker and Master has committed to
him; to work, in short, for the lord of the house
and of the harvest, and not merely and selfishly
wait for the reward.  And this transition  from
watching to working is precisely the transition from
the parable of the virgins to that of the talents. The
former had closed with the warning that none can
tell when the Son of Man cometh. But when he
comes, why does he come? is the great practical
question. He comes not merely as a bridegroom to
feast with his friends, but as an employer to call his
agents to account. And he asks not how carefully
they have kept, but how faithfully they have used
the talents intrusted to them.  The narrow and
niggardly spirit, that thinks its Mlaster altogether
such an one as itself, and watches not to serve Him
but to save itself, wakes to feel itself lost and to
bear the name and doom of the unprofitable servant.
And this designation of " unprofitable" marks the
next transition, the next movement onward, toward the heart of the Christian life and law, the
connection between the parable of the talents and
that of the sheep and the goats, or the grand announcement of the test of Christian character and
the terms of Christian salvation. In the two previ13




194  THE  THREE PARABLES OF THE JUDGMENT.
ous ones man has been regarded first as living to
save himself, and secondly as living to serve and
glorify his Maker. But not yet have we reached
the crowning, the characteristic element of the Gospel law. God desires no glory except that which
consists in the growing manifestation and appreciation of his love. " Can a man be profitable unto
God, as he that is wise may be profitable unto himself?" asks the Book of Job, and subsequently answers its own question by saying,  "Thy wickedness
may hurt a man as thou art; and thy righteousness
may profit the son of man." And so that word
"'unprofitable" applied to the servant of the one
talent, reminds us that man, who cannot live to himself alone, cannot acceptably serve his Maker until
he sees the Son of God and the Son of Man in every son of man, loves the Father in the brethren, and
his neighbor as himself. The third and last of the
parables, as related to its forerunner, reminds us that
the greatest of all the talents intrusted to man is
the opportunity of sacrificing self on the altar of
humanity. In other words, to recur once more to
the parable of the householder, between which and
this chapter of parables there is a certain parallelism,
the faithful servant is not merely he who guards the
house, not merely he who keeps the property at a
brisk interest, that farm  and funds may make a
goodly show on the return of the Master, but he,
still more, who considers his fellow-servants, treats
them with forbearance and fellow-feeling, and who
remembers the poor at the gate, and honors his Master's name among the people, as a name that stands




THE THREE PARABLES OF THE JUDGMENT.  195
for kindness and mercy. In that parable, indeed,
sensuality and inhumanity on the part of the evil
servant are what provokes the lord's displeasure, but
in this of the Messiah's judgment, the inhumanity
imputed is, on the face of the accusation, simply indifference, the crime simply the sin of omission. The
King does not charge them upon his left hand with
having eaten and drunk with the drunken, and smitten their fellow-servants, his and their brethren of the
household; quite possibly, to say the least, they may,
in some such positive way, have hurt the feelings,
the fortune, or the fame of their King; quite possibly,
too, the very disregard of humanity may have been
only another phase of their self-pampering lust; but
the one, sole count presented in the indictment, is
the neglecting to do to others the works of mercy.
It is not for perverting their talents to purposes of
cruelty or self-aggrandizement that the Judge condemns them, but for not devoting them to noble and
generous purposes; in short, for living unprofitable
lives. What a singular union is there here of tender
forbearance and searching faithfulness! Behold, as
the Apostle says, the goodness and the severity of
God!  The Judge has so worded the preamble of
his sentence as to make it, at once, as moderate as
possible towards the guilty, as if it were, indeed, his
"strange work" to condemn them, and yet so profound and comprehensive in its terms, (leaving no
loophole for a mere negative piety,) as to show forth'
the faithfulness of that Father of Spirits, who loves
the human soul too well to look with complacence
on the least stain upon its purity, or flaw in its per



196  THE THREE PARABLES OF TtIE JUDGMENT.
fection, and corrects the child that it may be made
a partaker of infinite holiness.
I have now performed, so.far as time and strength
permitted, the task I had proposed to myself, that of
indicating the gradual development, from parable to
parable, in the chapter which has been under consideration, of the great principle upon which man is
judged by the law of Christ. The order is from
self-scrutiny to self-sacrifice. The fear of the Lord
is the begiinning of wisdom, but the end of the commandment, and the essence of the Christian commandment, is charity.
Purposely avoiding, on account of the limitations
of my special subject and object, the many other
interesting and important points suggested by the
chapter and the general theme it comprises, I have
aimed to draw forth into view the Divine wisdom
here manifested in the order of our Master's teaching.
Paul has saidl, " Knowing the terrors of the Lord,
we persuade men."  How true this is of the method
of the great Teacher, who is the pattern of all!
Finally, the conclusion of the whole matter, the
real moral of the series of parables which the vision
of judgment so solemnly and tenderly closes, is that
perfect love, and that only, casteth out fear. The
idea of never-ending punishment, as it is represented
in the popular feeling and the prevailing creed, is a
dark shadow projected by that superstition which is
born of human sin. When men believe that Christ
the Saviour is the express image of God, the Father
and the Judge, when they unlearn the dreadful




THE THREE PARABLES OF THE JUDGMENT.  197
delusion of imagining a human God to shield them
from the inhuman God their own hard and dark and
narrow hearts had created, then they will abjure the
idea of any torment that is not designed to correct
and restore. Believing in an Almighty Father, they
will reject a dogma the very possibility of whose
verification contemplates the final triumph of evil in
the Universe; and when religion, ceasing to be a
selfish anxiety and apprehension, becomes a selfsurrender to the law of love, then will the world be
far on the way towards an entrance into that kingdom which God has prepared for his children from
the foundation of the world.




XVI.
THE WORDS OF CHRIST, SPIRIT AND LIFE.
MANY, THEREFORE, OF HIS DISCIPLES, WHEN THEY HAD HEARD THIS,
SAID, THIS IS AN HlARD SAYING; WVHO CAN HEAR IT? WHEN JESUS
KNEW IN HIMSELF THAT HIS DISCIPLES MURMURED AT IT, HE SAID
UNTO THEHM, DOTH THIS OFFEND YOU? WHAT AND IF YE SHALL SEE
THE SON OF MAN ASCEND UP WHERE HE \WAS BEFORE? IT IS THE
SPIRIT THAT QUICKENETH; TIIE FLESH 1'ROFITIETH NOTHING: THE
WVORDS THAT I SPEAK UNTO YOU, THEY ARE SPIRITr, AND TIIEY ARE
LIFE. BUT THERE ARE SOME OF YOU TIIAT BELIEVE NOT. -John
vi. 60-64.
IN order to draw from this language the meaning
that lies behind it for us to-day and at this hour, it
is well to glance back, for a moment, at the occasion
out of which it grew.  What was the "hard saying " which made not only the Jewish  multitude
murmur, but the disciples themselves stumble, and
many of them fall away? Plainly it was the assertion of Jesus, so pointedly reiterated, that whoever
would have life in him must eat the flesh and drink
the blood of the Son of Man. Cardinal Wiseman,
in the elaborate, ingenious, and imposing argument
by which he attempts to prove that this was meant
literally, (a formidable argument to those who adopt




TIE WORDS OF CHRIST, SPIRIT AND LIFE.  199
the premises on which some great doctrines of Protestant orthodoxy are maintained,) admits that the
first half of the discourse, in which Christ simply
and generally represents himself as the living bread
from heaven, is undoubtedly figurative and was so
understood by his Jewish hearers, who murmured,
thus far, only at the idea of this carpenter's son
pretending to be the heaven-descended Messiah; but
the moment he intimates that the bread is his very
flesh, then, says the Cardinal, a new sensation at
once manifests itself. Now they evidently understand him to be introducing a new and far more
offensive doctrine.  Having called himself the bread
of life, without disturbing them by the figure, which
they readily explain upon spiritual principles, now
he announces (it is alleged) a mysterious and miraculous communication of his actual body and
blood to the believer.
The theory is a plausible one, but is open to
several fatal objections.  We may remark beforehand how strange it should seem, if John has recorded here the doctrine of transubstantiation, that,
when he comes to narrate the last supper, at which
the sacrament of the Communion is supposed to
have been instituted, he is wholly silent in relation
to any such observance.
But Cardinal Wiseman lays great emphasis on
the assertion that when the Jews implied their literal
understanding of the new announcement by murmuring, " How can this man give us his flesh to
eat? " Jesus did not, as in the case of Nicodemus,
modify his statement, so as to show that he meant




200   THE WORDS OF CHRIST, SPIRIT AND LIFE.
it spiritually, but only repeated and re-repeated the
offensive doctrine in still more specific terms.
It would seem amazing, if we did not know the
power the human mind has, not to see what it cares
not to see, that any one should say Jesus does not
disclaim the literal sense of his words, in the face of
these two explanations of his, first, when he says,
" As the living Father hath sent me, and I live by
the Father; so he that eateth me, even he shall live
by me," (a complete refutation of the Roman Catholic doctrine,) and secondly, when he tells his disciples, in referring to his discourse, " The flesh profiteth
nothing: the words that I speak unto you are
spirit."
The truth is, there is no such abrupt turn in this
discourse as the argument we are considering alleges. Slowly and steadily the Master gathers up his
reasoning towards its mighty conclusion. Slowly
and steadily that wave of thought swells, which, if it
breaks, breaks only against the unbelief of those who
" stumble at the word, being disobedient." So repulsive to the Jews was the idea of the Messiah's humliliation, and of their partaking in it, that it was
needful for Jesus to hold the truth nakedly before
their faces and turn it about in every position till
they should see its full shape and reality. We must
remember, too, what it was that gave immediate occasion to this whole discourse. It  was the fact that
the people were crowding after the wonder-worker
for the sake of the loaves and fishes. To such he
said virtually, " if you are to live upon me, it must be
in a nearer and more vital sense than you suppose.




THE WORDS OF CHRIST, SPIRIT AND LIFE.  201
You must eat and drink, not things of my procuring, but my very self. My own life and lot, my own
self and spirit, and not any of these things after
which you are hankering, are what you truly need
and what alone I can give."  Thus we see, without
resorting to the idea of a mysterious literality in his
words, that there was a twofold object in our Saviour's insisting so on the necessity of men's eating
his flesh and drinking his blood: the mortification of
worldly pride, and the mortification of earthly desire;
to impress it upon them that they must follow him,
from a personal interest in his character, and an interest strong enough to overcome the discouragements of a life of self-denial and the terrors of death
itself.
And when, turning from the people to his disciples,
he said, "Doth this offend you?  What if ye shall
see the Son of Man ascend up where he was before?"
according to my idea, Jesus simply meant, " are you
so troubled and perplexed at the mere mention andl
prediction of my being taken away from  you,what will be your feelings when the hour actually
arrives and you see me no more? Suffer not yourselves to be enslaved to these carnal conceptions and
attachments. It is the spirit that quickeneth; the
flesh profiteth nothing" [that is to say, except as a
symbol of the spiritual].
In other words, Jesus anticipates the sad farewell
that had to be taken only a month from the date
with which we are now occupied, (though the arrangement of the chapters would make it seem
longer,) when, as John also records, the Master said,




202  THE WORDS OF CHRIST, SPIRIT AND LIFE.
" But now I go my way to him that sent me; and
none of you asketh me, Whither goest thou? But
because I have said these things unto you, sorrow
hath filled your heart. Nevertheless I tell you the
truth; It is expedient for you that I go away: for if
I go not away, the Comforter [more properly the
Monitor] will not come unto you."
In other words, so long as their mysterious Friend
was personally present with them, they lingered or
stumbled, as the case might be, at the mere form and
figure of spiritual things, now beguiled and now bewildered by the shadows of the unseen realities,
gazing like children at the painted windows of
imagery, scarcely dreaming, or more than dreaming,
of the infinite heavens of truth beyond. While
Jesus was with them in the flesh, their dim and
drowsy eyes could scarcely look beyond the fleshly
veil. As yet they but faintly and distantly recognized the Spirit that, in him, dwelt with them and
should one day dwell within them.  The sensation of his external companionship hindered their
comrnuning with the mind in him  which communed with the invisible Father, and the very images which he used to startle the souls of men out
of the dream  of measuring and monopolizing the
infinite and invisible realm of the spiritual, seemed
often, at first, only to confirm thern in their formal
and carnal tendency.
When, therefore, Jesus said, "' The flesh profiteth
nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are
spirit, and they are life," he did, at once, reprove
(if that could have been necessary) the coarseness




THE WORDS OF CHRIST, SPIRIT AND LIFE.  203
which, in a particular instance, could even pretend to
interpret hitn so literally, and, in general, he asserted
the necessity of a large and free spirit to the receiving and interpreting of his words. It is as if he had
said: Flesh dies; forms change and pass away;
spirit only is immortal and immutable; and the
spirit of truth, which is to the word what the spirit
of life is to the body and form, -this alone gives
life to men's convictions, that life which belongs to
the true believer. And the words of the author of
the New Testament, which we have thus paraphrased, are (I hardly need say) closely related -to
that memorable saying of its greatest expounder,
"The letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life."
But those words of the Master have not only a
historical, but a prophetic meaning, and (particularly
when taken in connection with the discourse of his,
and the state of mind in his hearers, upon which it
was a comment) what he says of the unprofitableness of the fleshly and formal mind, in contradistinction to the conceptions of truth into which the Spirit
of truth enters, finds a striking and sad verification
in the history, not merely of the Papacy, but of that
Protestantism which should have been an image
of the perfect " law of liberty." Although I do not
think that this highly wrought representation of the
vital necessity of intimate communion between the
Christian disciple and his Master, refers to any
sacramental or commemorative observance, to suppose which would contradict the Saviour's own assertion of his spiritual meaning, yet the thoughtful
reader may well be reminded by it of the almost




204  THE WORDS OF CHRIST, SPIRIT AND LIFE.
emblematic scene in which the great Luther, after
having stood so manfully and fought so vigorously
as our champion in the struggle for deliverance
from the law of works, exhibited himself with such
an obstinate inconsistency in the double character
of despot and slave to the no less pernicious law
of words, only substituting for the tyranny of the
form the tyranny of the formula. Strange that
when he who would seem to have been called
to call men to liberty, to a faith founded upon
thought, a religion harmonized with reason, had no
answer for the remonstrances of his brother Protestants but to point to the ink-marks and say, I take
what I read, there it stands in black and white,
" This is my body," and you cannot drive me from
it, — and when he was driven, in defence of his position, to the hair-splitting theory that, though the
bread was not trans-substantiated into the body of
the Lord, yet the two were con-substantially present
in one and the same form, - how strange it seems
that, if not in the heat of controversial zeal, at least
in the cooler intervals of sober reflection, that language of the great Master should never have come
home to him with reclaiming power, - language that
might have seemed almost expressly framed to fit
his case: "the flesh profiteth nothing: the words
that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are
life!"
But I have called that passage in the great Reformer's life an emblematic one.  For does it not
foreshadow a fatal fault which has infected, more or
less, all branches of our Protestant religion, a relig



THE WORDS OF CHRIST, SPIRIT AND LIFE.  205
ion which, in denying a continued inspiration to the
Church, and virtually giving it to the very translators
of the Scripture, shutting it up, in short, within the
covers of the sacred volume, set the word up as the
master, rather than the servant, of the soul, and
imposed upon its disciples that narrow, rigid, and
stationary mode of receiving Christianity, under
which, to this day, even in the most liberal portions
of the Church, the life and spirit, the comfort and
efficiency of faith are seriously affected?
When Simon Peter, shortly after the discourse
our text relates to, apparently in the conversation
following it, said to Jesus, " Thou hast the words of
eternal life," he used a phrase of deeper import than
he was probably himself aware of. The words of
that wonderful Teacher were, and have been ever
since proving themselves, words of eternal life, not
merely in the sense that wountl be commonly attached to the assertion, namely, that they direct one
how to attain eternal life hereafter, but because they
are words full of eternal life, of perpetual and everfresh vitality, in themselves, and awaken him who
reads them rightly, and believes them truly, to have
life in himself, kindling in him something of the eternal life, even now. In other words, they not only
speak of eternal life, but they speak forth from it,they prove their inspiration by the inspiration they
com municate.
But how sadly it has fared with these words too
often, when they have been forced, these winged
creatures of the spirit, to wear the yoke of narrow
creeds and do the wearisome service of bigoted controversy!




206  THE WORDS OF CHRIST, SPIRIT AND LIFE.
It is from men's neglecting to attend to this grand
declaration of our Master, that his words are spirit
and life, not flesh and death, or from their not appreciating its bearings, - in other words, it is in consequence of the prosaic mood in which Christianity
has been presented and received, that sectarianism
and stagnation in Christendom have so sadly obstructed the two great characteristics of true religion: charity, and growth in grace.
If this word of Jesus had been read rightly, I
think we should hardly have had that dead load laid
upon the neck of the Church, the self-contradictory
doctrine of literal inspiration.  Statements may be
literally dictated, and in that case literally interpreted, but not so is inspired truth communicated,
not so is it to be apprehended.
It has been said of the Poet in reference to the
facts of nature, and of life in general, out of which
he coins his figurative language, that "in every
word he speaks he rides on them as on the horses of
thought." But unfortunately they become wooden
horses (finally hobbies) to the prosaic expositor of
the Poet's words.  I need not remind you that
the best parts of our sacred books, not only of the
Old, but of the New Testament, are full of the
highest poetry. " But," as has well been said, " the
quality of the imagination is to flow and not to
freeze..... Here is the difference between the Poet
and the Mystic, that the last nails a symbol to one
sense, which was a true sense for a moment, but
soon becomes old and false."
But what work has been made of the words of




TIlE WORDS OF CHRIST, SPIRIT AND LIFE.  207
inspiration by dogmatizing and disputatious minds!
Witness the fate of the Apocalypse!  Witness
the fate of hundreds of the sublimest utterances
of Seer and Psalmist, Apostle and Evangelist, at
the hands of men assuming to enable dull, moping minds to catch poetry and piety and charity
and all heavenly graces by mere dictionary and
grammar! These are the men who, seizing upon
the words in which an Apostle expresses the idea
that time, in the eye of the Eternal, is nothing,
" One day is with the Lord as a thousand years
and a thousand years as one day," proceed coolly to
precisely nullify its meaning by making an arithmetical fact of it, and applying it to the interpretation of the poetic traditions of Genesis, so as to
prove that the world was, or has been, just six thousand years in creating. These are the men who,
because Jesus says, " No man hath ascended up to
heaven, but he that came down from heaven, even
the Son of Man which is in heaven," instead of inferring (what common sense would seem almost to
compel one to conclude) that heaven is not a place
but a state of the spirit, resort to the confounding
explanation that he must be two persons in one, who
can be at the same moment in heaven and on earth.
When it is said that we need a poetic mood to
interpret the Scriptures rightly, many seem to get an
impression from this, that one is speaking of some
high and fine literary culture or philosophic training
not to be expected of people immersed in the cares
and labors of every-day life. But the simple amount
of the assertion we make is, that the free and fervid




208  THE WORDS OF CIIRIST, SPIRIT AND LIFE.
poetic utterances of Scripture to the mind, heart,
and soul of man, are to be laid hold of not by
science but by sympathy. There is a connection, I
apprehend, between the two statements Jesus makes
which is not generally recognized, when, having
said that the words he utters are spirit and life, he
adds, but there are some of you that believe not.
Faith is the element wanted for the right, spiritual,
effectual reception of the words of the spirit- faith,
the principle that pierces through forms and figures
to the invisible essence.  Where the spirit of truth
is, not merely the dead body of doctrine, there faith
and imagination dwell together in a lively and lifegiving harmony.
It is interesting, instructive, and edifying to study
the provision made in the Scriptures for counteracting the tendency of earthly dulness to degrade and
narrow  the dimensions of heavenly truth.  That
very mixture of metaphors, and that very clashing
of statements which would result from taking them
literally, so palpable on the sacred pages, whereat a
large portion of the Church has stumbled into the
assertion of a faith that defies reason, —all this
would lead a truly thoughtful mitnd beyond the
changing and conflicting forms of speech to a harmonizing spirit. When Jesus calls himself, almost
in one breath, the door to the sheepfold, the true
shepherd to lead the sheep through the door, and
then implies that the Father is his shepherd, or,
what is so often said of him, that he is himself the
Lamb of God, the tenderest and lowliest of the
flock, and when, again, the Lamb, as in the Reve



THE WORDS OF CHRIST, SPIRIT AND LIFE.  209
lations, appears as the Expositor of the Book, as
the Leader of the Faithful, the Bridegroom of the
Church, the King of the Saints, the Conqueror and
Judge of their Enemies, - does not all this and the
like variety of metaphor, compel a right mind to
ascend at once to a spiritual reality of which all
these shifting and conflicting representations are
only the shadows?
And when, from words, titles, and descriptions,
which, it is comparatively easy to admit, are palpa.
bly parabolic, we pass to quiet, solemn and deliberate annunciations of eternal things, how important
it still is for us to remember, and yet how generally
do men seem to forget, the saying of Jesus, that his
words are spirit and life! Take that large class of impressive declarations, for instance, scattered through
the pages of the Gospel, in relation to the great judgment. How strange it should seem to a thoughtful mind that the very inconsistency of these various declarations of Jesus taken literally, such as
that the Father judgeth no man but hath committed all judgment unto the Son, and yet that the Son
came not to judge the world, and many other statements which will recur to your mernories,-that the
very impossibility of reconciling these on the plane
of the formal understanding —does not compel every
mind at once to the conclusion, which, indeed, the
Master, in one place, expressly teaches, that the
word he hath spoken, the word witnessing in every
man's own conscience, has the authority to judge
(as an Apostle says it has the power to save) the
soul.
14




210  THE WORDS OF CHRIST, SPIRIT AND LIFE.
I might go on with many more applications of the
saying of Jesus to the interpreting of his own doctrines and those of his Apostles, but must leave the
further following out of his great principle in that
direction to your own minds. There is one application, prompted by the monthly festival to-day
celebrated, which has been indirectly implied in
some of the considerations I have presented, but invites a more distinct expression of thought. When
He who gave his flesh for the life of the world told
his disciples that the flesh was nothing, the spirit
everything, and that the words he spake to them
were spirit and life, living and spiritual words, I
cannot refrain from suggesting that he said something which it is wholesome for us to remember in
connection with those words which he spake to the
little band shortly after, as they ate and drank together with him for the last time in earthly relations,
and he said to themrn, "this do in remembrance of
me."  Has the church generally caught the " spirit
and life" of these words?  I more than doubt
whether we have done anything like justice to their
full bearing. I feel that superstition has given them
a repelling power which by no means belongs to
them, intrinsically, as they came from the lips and
heart of the Son of Man. Hypocrisy and superstition, how have they combined to petrify by their
stony look the spiritual and flowing words of Christ,
to freeze into dead formulas, and magic or military watchwords, the free and fervid expressions of
the Spirit of truth. Men have stood wrangling over
the empty sepulchre of a dead letter or a dead work,




THE WORDS OF CHRIST, SPIRIT AND LIFE.  211
heedless of the voice from above, " He is not here,
he is risen; " and while one class, superstitiously attached to forms and phrases, have made a mystery
out of the plainest metaphors, an opposite class have
manifested in their dread of forms an equal slavery,
and in disowning the mystery, have disregarded the
moral of Christ's weightiest words. I can readily
admit, indeed I cannot well avoid the conviction,
that when our Friend and Master thus uttered himself, he prophetically felt the presence of the great
company of disciples of all ages and nations who
should thereafter believe on hinm, and that what he
said to that little group around him, he said in a
sense to all. But' I cannot satisfy myself that we
get anything like the full import of that appeal of
his, when we make it merely or mainly the institution of a single and separate rite. A most appropriate and salutary occasion, indeed, it is, but greatly
would its efficacy, in my opinion, be enhanced, if it
could only, in our thoughts and feelings and observance, be more naturally and livingly connected with
our ordinary human life. Think of the Communion
as it has too generally been observed, -a table
guarded by the spectral shadows of superstition, or
the bristling battlements of bigotry, a few souls sitting afar off with the veil heavy upon them, heavy
as the shadow of spiritual death, as if the very Lord
of life were dead, and only some mysterious virtue,
transmitted through the magic memorials and through
the hands of the consecrated and consecrating priest
could make his place good! WVhat a contrast to the
days of the early simplicity, when they brake bread




212  THE WORDS OF CHRIST, SPIRIT AND LIFE.
from house to house, with gladness and singleness of
heart!  When those words recur to us, words which
originally were so affectionate and winning, but have
been invested by human perversions with so much
more of authority and mystery, than of tenderness
and privilege, "Do this in remembrance of me,"
does not the emphasis fall, in our minds, more upon
the mere doing than upon the thought what this is
and means, which we are entreated to do? I mean,
do we properly consider of what this service was to
be a memorial, not merely as regarded the life of the
Master, but as regards our daily life? I do not believe that we at all get the real spirit and life of the
words, " Do this in remembrance of me," until we
associate with them those other words of the great
apostle, " Do all in the name of the Lord Jesus."
" Whether ye eat 6r drink or whatsoever ye do, do
all to the glory of" your Christian faith. Does not
the spirit of our faith constrain us to regard this observance as a sacred link between the natural and
the spiritual life? Why did Jesus choose for emblems the two most familiar articles of daily cheer
and sustenance, but to impress vividly the idea that
all our comforts should be sanctified by the grace of
religion? Very far is this Communion service from
having its perfect work, until, by its two chief characteristics, its simplicity and its sociality, it preaches,
as no other service could, the two great virtues and
blessings of charity and contentment. In short, I
would say that it was not merely a monthly or a
yearly or a weekly observance, but a daily and
hearty obedience also, that our Saviour enjoined




THE WORDS OF CHRIST, SPIJIT AND LIFE, 213
when he said, " Do this in remembrance of me."
Let me recur, once more, to a fact already alluded
to, because it seems to me to have a significance not
yet fully brought out, - not against the communion
service rightly regarded, but against the stiff and
narrow ideas that have prevailed in relation to it,
I mean the fact that John makes no mention of
Christ's request that the disciples would remember
him by this sacrament, but, instead, represents him
as simply enjoining it upon them to love one another
as he has loved them. Does not his very silence
teach us that he felt the Master's meaning to be:
" Do this in remembrance of me," namely, live out
the spirit of mutual service and self-sacrifice which
I, in these emblems, foreshadow?
I have labored, this morning, in the cause of the
doctrine of spirituality. There are two ways, unhappily, in which that doctrine is defeated: on the
one hand, indeed, by the tendency to resolve religion into single acts disconnected with life as a
whole, and on the other hand, by the danger of
dissolving and evaporating our faith in generalization of idea and sentiment. Let us not forget, because the law of liberty introduces us into a circle
whose circumference is nowhere, that its centre is,
however, everywhere. Here and now, at any moment, in any place, religion comes home to us with
its admonitions and its invitations. Whoso would
live, says Eternal wisdom in Christ, let him now
come to me and have life.




XVII.
THE CHURCH.
UNTO THE CHURCH OF GOD WHICH IS AT CORINTH, TO THEM THAT ARE
SANCTIFIED IN CHRIST JESUS, CALLED TO BE SAINTS, WITH ALL THAT
IN EVERY PLACE CALL UPON THE NAME OF JESUS CHRIST OUR LORD,
BOTH THEIRS AND OURS. -1 Cor. i. 2.
SUCH is the large, emphatic, and explicit dedication
with which this letter of Paul's to the Corinthian
Christians is commended by him to all Christians
in every place, and, virtually, in every age. I say,
virtually to every age his words address themselves;
for, although most of the errors, dangers, and controversies which occasioned his writing, have, at
least in the specific forms in which he found them,
long since grown antiquated and obsolete, the great
spiritual truths and practical principles which form
the basis of his injunctions and arguments are as
valuable and as vital at this day and hour as they
were when he so nobly applied them;-  yes, and I
think it might be shown that many of the very
doubts and difficulties and dangers with which Paul
had to grapple, do, in their spirit and essence, still
exist.  Well is it, therefore, that the counsels which
were given originally to three or four Churches, were




THE CHURCH.              215
bound up with the Gospel and handed down for the
use of all the churches to the end of time.
But what I propose to use, at this time, for our
enlightenment or admonition, is simply the address
of this epistle, " Unto the church of God which is at
Corinth."
To-day we observe in this church a festival, - it
may sound to some almost like a mockery to give to
so familiar and slighted an observance the imposing
and attractive name of festival, -we keep a feast in
which the small proportion of the congregation who
participate are commonly considered as the only
ones in the society who belong to the church. Now,
I regard this as a very unsatisfactory and altogether
an unchristian view of the matter; nor do I see how
any person of thoughtfulness and sensibility can see
such an error kept up as this continues to be, even
in churches called liberal, without a deep discontent.
What, then, is the church, - or rather who are the
church? For one of the chief obstacles in the way
of the true, spiritual, and catholic idea on this subject, is the old, inherited notion that the church is a
thing, an edifice or an institution, rather than a live
power, — that it is something made for man and
imposed upon him, instead of being, as it is, made
out of men and, as Jesus said of the kingdom of
heaven (which means the true church), having its
real existence in them. It may seem like a forced
and fanciful idea, but I have no doubt of its being a
true one, that not a little of the stiffness and formality of our church ideas comes from that confounding
of figure with fact which led so long ago to calling




216              THE CHURCH.
the meeting-house of Christians the church. The
Scriptures call the church the house of God, meaning, however, the household of the faithful, just as
the phrase "Abraham and all his house" means
"and all in his house."  But, so sure and subtle is
the reaction of words upon our feelings and notions,
in process of time, as the true church faith and feeling declined and died out under the influence of
worldliness, the church became a place and a form,
instead of a spirit and a reality; people began to
mean, when they talked of going- to church, having
their bodies go and place themselves in certain consecrated seats, instead of going, in heart and soul, to
meet and mingle with other hearts and souls, not
only with visible, but with invisible beings, in spiritual communion; and so that wooden, stony rigidness
came over the popular idea of the church and everything relating to it, against which the simple, spiritual, and comprehensive truth has, at this day, so
hard a struggle.
And when, to this materializing of the spiritual
idea of the church, you add the consideration, how
soon after Jesus and the Apostles left the earth, it
began to be narrowed down by spiritual pride and
worldly power, -here, one man saying, " I am the
church," and there, a body of men saying, " We
are the church,"-when you reflect how the very
name of the church, which should have been a
watchword of union, has been a watchword of separation and exclusiveness, you can hardly wonder,
though you must mourn, if you care for truth and
righteousness, that the present generations should




THE CHURCH.                217
look at everything relating to the church, or listen to
any appeal for it, with a veil upon their hearts.
"Nevertheless," says the same Apostle who wrote
our text, " wheni it shall turn to the Lord," (when
the heart of man shall,) "' the veil shall be taken
away."  (The veil of prejudice and superstition and
formality shall melt away before the Sun of Righteousness.)  For'the Lord is that Spirit" (of life,
whereof he had been speaking): "and where the
Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty." What we all
need, in regard to the great subjects of the church
and Christianity, is the power so steadfastly to look
to the end of that which is abolished, that that which
cannot be abolished, the immutable and everlasting
reality of the spiritual life, may remain, as a precious
treasure, to our affections and our faith.
Now when we turn froml the misconceptions and
misrepresentations of centuries to the apostolic simplicity, when we return to our text to examine it
more attentively, we find that Paul, here, in his
very salutation to the church of Corinth, lays down,
as distinctly and carefully as if we had put our
question to him and he had answered it, repeating
himself in three several forms of expression, a definition of what a church is, or of who are the church,
and a definition (it is interesting to remark) exactly
answering to the meaning of the original Greek
word. Our English word church, while it is derived,
as you may not have been aware, from a Greek
word signifying that which belongs to the Lord,
translates, where it is used in Scripture, a different
word, also rendered assembly, but literally denoting




218               TIIE CHURCH.
those who are called out, and, in its Christian application, those who are called out from the world into
the kingdom  of Christ.  So that, originally, the
leading element in the idea of the church is the
calling.  Observe, now, how Paul, in the very titles
which he gives to the Christians of Corinth, the
phrases he employs as equivalent to the word church,
bears out our etymological explanation of the term.
First, he calls them " the church of God which is at
Corinth;" then he repeats the idea by calling them
the " sanctified;" then he explains this by designating them as persons " called to be saints;" or, as
Wicliffe and others read it, called saints; or, as
Tyndale has it, sanctes by callynge; and finally, extending his greeting to all Christians everywhere, he
describes them as those who call upon the name of
the Lord; but the general opinion of the best critics
is, that the phrase means those who call that name
upon themselves, — in other words, who call themselves or are called by the name of Christ, as the
disciples were first at Antioch.
It is evident, then, that in speaking of the members of the church as sanctified, Paul does not mean
they are made saints, in the modern sense of the
word, morally holy persons, for then he would not
have added that they were called to be saints; not
to say that this would contradict the very showing
of the whole epistle, which was written to rebuke
things in them  uniworthy of saints.  They were
sanctified, in the sense in which God is represented
as sanctifying the seventh day, - that is, set apart
for holy purposes.




THE CHURCH.              219
Now, from this account of the church, two things
follow. In the first place it follows that no sanctimonious pretension is necessarily involved in churchmembership. No one who views the matter rightly,
means to say, by participating in any church service,
" I profess to be holy;" the most that such a one may
fairly be presumed to mean is, "I know that I ought
to be holy." And therefore no false modesty or spurious humility should keep any one back from doing
what conscience dictates, and, perhaps, the heart demands.
But, secondly, if our idea of the church is true,
that it means all who are called to be holy, it further
follows that, however much the many may try to
deceive themselves in this matter by not acknowledging their church-membership, they do not thus
do away the fact, nor the responsibility growing out
of it; they do not thus avoid the obligation to
Christ, of gratitude, confession, and obedience. As
none of us are shut out from the privileges, so none
of us are released fromn the duties of the Christian
profession. Will you candidly read the New Testament on the subject, and then say that the little
handful of people who, in our congregations, are
compelled to represent, in their several little solitudes, the communion of saints, - that these are all
you really believe to belong to the church?  I
am confident that, in our hearts and consciences,
we all know better than this. How childish it is
to say, " I may do this [mean or frivolous thing], and
I need not do that [righteous and generous act,] because I do not belong to the church; my neighbor,




220               THE CHURCH.
who belongs to the church, is required to be more
exact about these things! " It is a pernicious sophistry. You, who hear the gospel, do all belong to
the church. You are the church. The Christian
congregation is the Christian church, and our earlier
English translators of Scripture had the true apostolic spirit when they put the word congregation
where our version says church. The church is not
so narrow as spiritual arrogance assumes, superstitious timidity confesses, or worldly laxity desires.
There may be- few that are chosen, but many are
called, and they that are called are the church, -
on earth, at least.  Christ has bought all he has
paid for. But for whom did he pay the price of
his life? " Scarcely for a righteous man will one
die: yet, peradventure, for a good man some would
even dare to die. But God comumendeth his love
toward us,' in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ
died for us." If, then, Christ's blood purchased the
church, and it was for sinners he died, we might as
truly say that sinners constitute the church, as that
saints constitute it. But the truth is, humanity is
Christ's church. The parable of the Gospel net, and
that of the tares of the field, (the field being called
at one time the world, and at another the kingdom
of God,) show that the church is humanity. But
without approaching the borders of paradox, we
certainly may and must affirm that Christian congregations, however they may choose to veil the
fact from their own eyes by the circumlocution of
" religious societies," are really churches, and parts
of the one church. Who shall say that the voice of




THE CHURCH.              221
God in the conscience, the hand of God upon the
heart, the solemn call of Providence, the story of
Christ's ministry and martyrdom, are less binding
upon a man than the sprinkling of a little water on
his brow by a human hand, or that the signing of
his name to a human covenant is more solemn and
sacred than his having had the highest and holiest
name and law written " with the spirit of the living
God " upon the tables of his heart? All of us have
been called, not once only, but again and again, and
are continually called, as those who are in the kingdom of God and church of Christ, to be worthy subjects of that kingdom, and, in the church, to live as
becometh saints. Our very birth in a Christian land
is a calling. The presence of the Gospel is a call.
Life, with all its vicissitudes, with the bitterness of its
disappointments, and the hollowness and heaviness
of its very successes and triumphs, Death, with its
mysteries and its solemnities, and Eternity, with its
manifold shinings and soundings into the realm of
the finite, —all these are mighty calls from God,
saying to every one, whatever his earthly vocation,
" Be thou holy, for I, thy Father and thy Judge, am
holy." And shall we flatter ourselves that we gain
anything by undertaking to drown this call, this cry
of the soul, with the empty plea that we have never
experienced a special and effectual calling?
There is, undoubtedly, a secondary sense of the
word call in the New Testament, in which it refers
to the case where people recognize and acknowledge
God's call and claim upon them (whence the phrase
"effectual calling"), just as there is a secondary




222               THE CHURCH.
sense of the word church, in which it means especially those, not only called, but chosen ones, who
belong, not by obligation only, but by character, to
the church of the first-born, whose names are written in heaven, and whose treasures and hearts are
there. But I have had occasion, in this discourse,
to dwell upon these terms only in their primary and
most comprehensive sense; and, indeed, when you
consider that even those who are the most emphatically designated as the called and the chosen, are
admonished to make their calling and election sure,
and that if perfection were the test of saintship, we
could hardly believe in the existence of a church
human, on earth at least, you will admit, I think,
that the safest way for us is to fall back upon that
view of the church I have been presenting, which
makes the characteristic element in the meaning of
the word to be that men are called to be saints and
to live as actual saints would do.
I have thus spent more time than my own sense
of the manifest truth of the proposition would have
dictated, but not more, perhaps, than the indisposition to see some of the plainest truths demands, in
maintaining that the church means all for whom
Christ died, and especially all whom he calls to virtue and to glory.
But the question what is the church, or who are the
church, leads to another and a still more important
question, namely, to what is this church, this congregation, (which we have described as including all
who are called by Christ,)- to what is it called?
We saw, in the beginning, that all people in Chris



TIE CHURCH.               223
tian society and societies are called saints, and
called to be saints. This is the end of the church,
with all its means and motives, all its ordinances
and instrumentalities, to make men saintly. Saintly, not sanctimonious. The immediate business of
the church is not merely to be somewhat, still less to
appear somewhat, but it is to do something. God
has not set Christians apart, that they may stand
apart and say, " Stand off, for I am  holier than
thou." Christ died, not to purify unto himself a
people peculiar only by having a mystical experience about them, known to no others, but to purify
unto himself a people peculiar in this respect, that
they are " zealous of good works." This declaration
of the Apostle has been but feebly appreciated.
Church-membership and saintship have been too
generally regarded as some mystical mark on men,
distinguishing them from their fellows in some way
quite aside from  the working out of manly and
generous virtue, if not independent of it. It is not
yet too late to affirm that there can be no such
creature as a selfish saint, a mean saint, a malignant saint, or even an indolent, indifferent saint. A
man may be ever so careful and fastidious otherwise to preserve the purity of his saintly skirts, but
if he lives supremely for self, supremely anxious for
his own comfort and reputation, his own outward
standing and dignity, if he does not cherish, as the
object of his deepest desire, the welfare of that
human brotherhood, which is the great church he
belongs to, which his Master lived and died to redeem, then is this neglect, this insensibility, a seri



224              THE CHURCH.
ous stain upon the saintship, the holiness, of his
character.
It is of little avail to cry Lord, Lord, or call ourselves his, ever so solemnly, to have ever so sound
a faith or saintly a demeanor, unless we are willing
to do the things which he commands us, and care
more for the realities of the moral and spiritual law
and life than for the most august pomp of phrase
and ceremony, - little can our church-life do for us,
unless we feel for the Christ and the church hidden
in a burdened, bruised, and bleeding humanity.
There has been a lamentable propensity in the
church, (by which I mean in the congregations,) to
substitute for real Christianity that nominal Christianity which thinks it enough to hear good words
and confess their truth, as if this were confessing
Christ.  The delusion has become inveterate, of
dreaming that one can be something without doing'
anything, - that Christian goodness is to be imbibed
from without, rather than worked out from within.
Our people have just been commemorating again
the birth of their political independence. And today, in many of the churches, is commemorated the
death which, to the Christian, was the birth of that
spiritual liberty without which all civil liberties are
of little account. And it is good that we should
thus show forth the Lord's death. It is a service
which belongs to us as a Christian congregation.
And, to my mind, there would be plainly just as
much propriety in having the hymns of the church
sung by the choir and the prayers offered by the
minister, in the absence of the congregation, (they




THE CHURCH.               225
satisfied, meanwhile, that all things pertaining to
salvation were being done decently and in order)
as there is in leaving the communion of the saints
and the commemoration of the Saviour to the -few,
called, by a gross abuse of language, the church.
This is a grievous drawback to the interests of
real Christianity.
And yet even this, serious as it is, is but a secondary matter. The chief confessing of Christ is to be
done, not in the church, (I mean what is called
the church,) but in the world. rWe often hear Christians complain that the great and good causes of
public morality and philanthropy are so much prejudiced and desecrated by being in the hands of weak,
foolish, or base men. I confess I cannot find it in
my heart to join very strongly in this lamentation,
when I look around me, and look backward, and
consider how little faithful the church (mlark me, I
do not mean merely the few calling themselves, or
called, the church, but the many who profess to own
Christ's authority) have been and are to the spirit
of his life and the truths and principles for which
he toiled and suffered and died. When I read the
vehement appeals of some of our radical reformers,
while I deplore the savage bitterness, the scurrility,
and profanity which occasionally, in the heat of
indignation, they suffer to stain their pages, I still
cannot let their sins of taste or temper blind me to
the mass of truth which lies behind them.  Their
faults, I say, are no excuse for other men's neglect.
And the reflection will force itself upon me: If one
tenth of the truth these men recognize and start
15




226              THE CHURCH.
from had been calmly and firmly looked at and
spoken out in time by those who could and should
have done it in good taste and temper, who were
bound to do it by their Christian profession, the
occasion of this complaining would probably scarcely
have existed. And I remember how it is written,
that "God hath chosen the foolish things of the
world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen
the weak things of the world to confound the things
which are mighty."
To acknowledge whatever is just and true wherever
we find it, candidly and cordially, undisturbed by
that swarm of nicknames which fills the atmosphere
of modern society, and scares so many from speaking the truth or doing their duty, - to value character
more than reputation,- to respect principles more
than persons, -to "prove all things and hold fast
that which is good," - this is one of the greatest
works, if not the great work, which the church has
to do in the present age, and which we have to do,
who, whether we confess it or not, in this or that
form, really belong to the church.




XVIII.
TIHE COMMUNION.
WHO HATH MADE BOTH ONE, AND HATH BROKEN DOWN TIlE MIDDLE
WALL OF PARTITION BETWEEN US; HAVING ABOLISHED IN HIS
FLESH THE ENMIITY, EVEN THE LAW OF COMMANDMENTS CONTAINEI)
IN ORDINANCES. - Ephesians ii. 14, 15.
AMONG the other revivals which are going on, or
needed, around and amongst us in these days,* there
is a peculiar want, it seems to me, of a revival (I
fear one might say, in regard to most of us, a beginning) of thoughtful feeling, as well as earnest,
enlightened, and independent action, in relation to
a simple, significant, but long-perverted memorial of
our religion, which, though nominally observed once
a month in this church, is really observed in a very
unsatisfactory sense of the word and in a very distant manner by this church, and which to-day, again,
makes its mute but touching appeal to our minds
and hearts.
It is a long time, perhaps too long, I may almost
say years, since I made a practice of directly pressing
this subject upon your attention.  There have been
times when, for many months together, I: hardly let a
- 1857-8.




928             THE COMMUNION.
month pass without making an argument, or appeal,
or both, in behalf of an observance (let me rather
say offer) of Christianity, which, ever since I began
really to think about it, has always seemed to me
equally natural in its original intention, wholesome
in its just acceptation, mournfully misrepresented
and misused in the creed and practice of Christendom.
My comparative silence, of late years, on this very
special, and yet very comprehensive or suggestive,
topic, that is, my abstinence from expressly insisting
upon it, has not arisen from any abatement of my
sense of its importance, of my conviction of the real
majesty and worth of the festival which commemorates Christ's sufferings and sacrifice, or of my sorrow
at knowing, and being monthly reminded in a most
depressing manner, how this beautiful and affecting
symbol of self-abnegation, victorious meekness, sinforgiving and death-conquering charity, is misunderstood, abused, and neglected.
On the contrary, it has been rather the deepening
and intensifying, than any diminution, of interest in
this matter, a growing rather than a dying away of
reverence for the meaning of this testimonial, that
has held me back from continuing so much direct
urging of it upon your attention. I had found, or
feared, that the prejudice, the superstition, rooted in
our minds in relation to a subject, perplexed rather
than perplexing, was so inveterate, I might almost
say innate, that it seemed next to impossible, or at
least past my wisdom, to do justice at once to the
truth and the error, without, in effect, though not de



THE COMMUNION.             229
signedly, exaggerating the relative importance of
what, after all, is only one of the means and expressions of Christian life, and confirming the delusion
which makes that service the end rather than the
means of a Christian experience, the master rather
than the minister of our faith, and so appearing to
narrow the idea of the Christian salvation, while
really wishing to exalt and enlarge it, or else, in
trying to avoid this extreme, falling into the other,
and by aiming to make what had so long been regarded as a mystery and monopoly appear common,
in the noble Christian sense of the word, as Peter
was taught to use it, when the Spirit completed his
conversion from Judaism, succeed only in getting the
congregation to treat the Communion as common, in
the degenerate sense of the word, that is to say, as
something of very little real account.
However, as Solomon says, there is a time for all
things, a time to keep silence and a time to break
silence. And I have been induced to take up the
subject of the Communion once more to-day, partly
by the fact that it is so long since I have done it,
partly by the fact that the new awakening of attention to religious questions turns many minds (all,
more or less) in this direction also, partly by the
signs which have lately come to my knowledge of a
fast ripening desire for reform (I mean in the sense
of John the Baptist and of Jesus) in the very idea
and use of these forms on the part both of ministers
and of parishes, and particularly by a noble book just
published by a brother minister and classmate of my
own, the motto of which is a part of that eloquent




280            THE COMMRIUNION.
language of Paul's, from which I have taken my
text.
From the time when the minister of one of our
oldest churches in Boston left his pulpit and profession, because the Communion, even in the comparatively free form in which our so-called Liberal
churches understand and observe it, seemed to him
singularly to misrepresent the spirituality, universality, and freedom of Christ, down to this day, when
the minister of another of the oldest churches in that
same city has just uttered (the love of Christ and
souls constraining him) his earnest and eloquent
" Plea for the Unity of Church and Congregation,"
- throughout these thirty years there has, I doubt
not, been a growing feeling, all through our part of
the Christian church, of the awkwardness and inconsistency of the manner in which the observance
of one request of our common Master, singled out
from so many other precepts and injunctions, is
made a distinguishing mark by which a mere handful of the society, (a society which being formed and
united for Christian worship ought, as a whole, to be
called a Christian Church,) a meagre proportion of
one in ten or twenty, as the case may be, is recognized as alone invested with the privilege (or responsiblity, whichever way you regard it) of Christian
discipleship, church-membership, and have to bear
the name (which I can confidently say they do not
covet) of being somehow the only representatives of
Christ in the whole congregation, though nobody
can precisely see how or why. Was it not to the
intensity of his whole soul's aversion to this incubus




THE COMMUNION.              231
upon our Congregational, and especially our Unitarian, instinct that the manly heart of our translated brother Judd gave his earthly life a sacrifice?
Whereby he now preaches and works amongst us
more effectually, I doubt not, for Christ and liberty
and spirituality and unity, than he could ever have
done in the flesh. He, being dead, yet speaketh, in
his honest, hearty, guile-scorning words and spirit,
exhorting us to listen to the word of Christ's spirit,
and to heed, and not " hide" from ourselves,
"The struggling pangs of conscious truth,"
or of conscious want, in our own hearts, to cherish the discontent our consciences awaken in us
with the unworthiness of our existing representations of the new covenant, until, turned fully upon
the Lord, we shall find the veil taken away in Christ,
and, seeing to the end of that which is abolished,
shall be able to rest all the more confidently in the
things which remain, to use all the more gratefully
and unreservedly all the means of spiritual life held
out to us, when we come to feel that they are means
to so glorious an end, and not themselves externally
the end and essence of religion, and shall enter the
more cheerfully into the service of Christ, when we
feel that in and through it we are called unto liberty.
I am persuaded that "He who has begun this
good work" in our Unitarian congregations, " will
perform it until the day of Jesus Christ " shall stand
above us in noonday revelation, - that it must
go on till (the new life grafting itself into the old
forms, or making new forms of its own new modi



'232            THE COMMUNION.
fications, at least, of the old) the partitions and restrictions that have stood over from an obsolete age
and an outworn dispensation shall disappear, and
that all-believing, all-loving, all-embracing spirit shall
reign, which alone has the right to reign in the
churches and in the hearts of men.
And the allusion just made to "' partitions" brings
me at length to the words from which the scripture
of the day and the text of the discourse have been
selected, - the words of the great Apostle of Christian liberty and liberality, — in which, as we have
read, he describes how those who had been formerly " far off" have now been " made nigh" by the
blood of Christ  At his death (just as the veil within
the temple was rent in twain, signifying that henceforth nothing was to be esteemed holier than what
awas simply holy, and that there was no mystery for
priests only to look upon, being too sacred for the
people, so in the courts around the temple) the partition-wall emblematically fell down which divided
Jew from Gentile, a priestly nation from the profane
world, and both those who had been treated as far
off; and those who had thought themselves peculiarly
near to God in favor, were taught that they were
equally near to the impartial Father's heart, and
equally near to the kingdom, if they cherished the
spirit of Christ. His death was the "atonement,"
taking away by the abolition of the law of ordinances the "enmity" which had existed between
nations, races or classes of men, that had said to each
other, " Stand off, I am holier than thou," - the.enmity which had filled man's bosom against a God




THE C0MMUNION.             233
whom  he knew  not truly, and which had been
thought to be cherished by that God himself against
his blinded creatures, - the enmity, finally, and contradiction which the'" law of ordinances" had introduced into the very heart and life of man, resolving
his existence into a scene of miserable perplexity
and haggling between the claims of things sacred
and things secular upon his time, his thought, and
his affections.  In all these respects, the death of
Christ, and the life which that death closed and
crowned, or rather the life which it introduced, began a reconciliation - a harmonizing - in the light
of the newly revealed spirituality of the Divine law
and the identity of all obedience, under whatever
external form.
All this is represented in emblem or by suggestion under the figure of taking away that partition-wall between Jew and Gentile. Let it not be
said that all this language relates to what is wholly
passed away, to errors in which we, to-day, have no
interest. Reflection will show us, what the writings
of the Apostles and the words of the Master often
imply, that the distinction, as made by human pride
or superstition, between Jew and Gentile, Pharisee
and Publican, clean and unclean, righteous and sinners, elect and non-elect, predestined favorites of the
kingdom and outside barbarians, answers to something in human nature's tendencies which is limited
to no age or race, which has passed down from the
synagogue to the church, and, to this day, obstructs,
hardly less than any other obstacle, the growth of
the religion of Jesus.




2384            THE COMMUNION.
But what is more particularly to my present purpose to say is, that the delusion and distraction
referred to, have been kept alive by the very ordinance of the Lord's Supper, as it has been generally
understood and observed in the churches, and particularly as regarded in the light of a dividing line, and
the one standing and leading line of demarcation,
between the congregation and the church. It seems
to me that, as things are and are understood, this
distinction is a perpetual source of mystification,
and a serious hindrance to real progress in (I might
almost say towards) the Christian life as revealed in
Jesus. I would even go farther in some sense than
the author of the recent book on the subject, and
suggest that he might have made his title not merely
" a Plea for the Unity of Church and Congregation,"
but " an a rgument for the identity of church and congregation."  In other words, I would say not only
that they ought to be one, but that they are one.
Thatt is to say, I hold that in the light of common
sense, common conscience, and the common humanity, as well as in the light of the New Testament,
in the light of that Gospel which Jesus taught and
lived, which John expounds in its spiritual, James
in its practical, and Paul in its universal character,
by their united testimony, the congregation of Christian worshippers is a Christian church; for the church
visible is nothing more nor less than the whole congregation of those who are called by God in Christ
to believe and to do the things taught by him, not
those who are saints, but simply those who are called
to be; and the church invisible, certainly, can no




THE COMMUNION.             235
more- be identified with the comparative handful of
those technically called communicants, than with the
great company of gentle, generous, just, and honest
souls that have taken upon themselves no such badge
in the eyes of men, but whose names charity leads
us to believe are written in the Lamb's book of life.
In either case the confusion created, the fallacy implied, by the existing mode of treating the subject of
the distinction between church and congregation, is
equally manifest.
But what then, - you may ask, - is not this, after
all, a mere question of names and forms? I answer,
no; it is something that touches practical feeling and
the vital working of our faith. For if the church on
earth means no more and no less than all who are
called to be one body in Christ, - and if communion
with Christ is not any more mysterious or sacred
than communion with God in prayer, -then surely
no decent reason can be given why it should be taken
for granted, as it seems to be, that while all the congregation are to unite in the worship of the Father,
only two or' three are to join in the commemoration
of his Son.
There is surely nothing in the words of Jesus,
and there is nothing in the teachings or practice of
the Apostles, rightly interpreted and applied in pursuance of the great spiritual principles of Paul and
of Jesus, -to countenance the assumption that an
expression of reverence for the Lord and of one's
need of his aid in the struggle and strife against self
and sense and sin, made in the way now under consideration, presupposes, any more than any other




236             THE COMMUNION.
expression of allegiance in daily life to the precepts
and principles of his religion, that one must in some
way have become enrolled or initiated as a member
of what is called the church but after all only represents a part of the church, which the congregation
itself also does.
But the truth is, the difficulty, the delusion, the
self-deception lies deeper than the region of forms.
The secret source of the chief trouble in this matter
of the Communion lies just here, —in the idea or
feeling that our duty and our privilege are measured
by our professions and pretensions in the sight of
men, instead of being measured by what our consciences show us to be in the sight of God. In one
word, pride, handed down to us from the old Pharisee, (not to say from the old Adam himself, -to go
no farther back,) - pride, keeping us always comparing ourselves among ourselves,- pride, making men's
expectations and not God's requirements the great
object of our dread and apprehension, - pride, leading us to ask, not what am I before God, but how
do I appear before men, -this is the pcower that
produces so much mystification in regard to a simple
dictate of the spirit of our common faith, and makes
us follow the world and walk in darkness, when by
following Jesus we might have the light of life.
There is a feeling that the Lord's Supper belongs
to the professors of Christianity; and one may say,
(as many no doubt do in their hearts,) " I am not
ready to profess yet, because I am not ready to practise, so high and holy a religion." But is not this
ery plea a profession, or what is practically equiva,




THE COMMUNION.             237
lent, a confession before God that we know and feel
the claim of this religion on every thoughtful soul,
and that our sense of the power and majesty of the
law gives it a claim upon us already, which an outward observance might appropriately attest, but no
observance could possibly make stronger than it
already is?
Besides, how, and how far is it true that the partaking of the Communion implies profession? Turn
away a moment from the traditions and inventions
of men, and look to Jesus, and listen to him, and say,
where do you find any trace of the intention of making this simple and touching celebration any such
test or trap as it has been actually made for ages by
bigotry and superstition? And when you pass on
to the Apostles, what do you read there? " So often
as ye eat this bread and drink this cup, ye show
forth " - what? your own sanctity, your own claim
to the title of saints,- no, but simply " ye show
forth the Lord's death till he come." Listen also to
the testimony of Paul in his letter to Titus, where he
says that Christ died to " purify unto himself a peculiar people," (which, however, simply means a people
of his own,) but what was to be their peculiarity?
-" a peculiar people, zealous of good works."
I must protest against the amount of precious time
and opportunity wasted in a state of listless and
morbid suspense, under the influence of the notion
that, until we can feel ourselves good enough to join
the church, we are neither required, nor permitted, to
commemorate the Saviour,-just as if he died for
saints only, and not for sinners! Let this rather be




238             THE COMMUNION.
our feeling, that the commemoration of the Redeemer is one of the means, just as prayer and praise
and preaching are, of helping us join the church,the true "' church of the first born, whose names are
written in heaven."
I think I feel as much as any one (I am sure I
have reason to) the desire that church life should
be greatly increased amongst us, as expressed by
church communion and church action, and that, so
far as it would promote this end, all who are in spirit
with our little nucleus of enrolled members should
be of us and with us in form also; but, after all, what
we all want, what our Maker and Master demand
and our own nature craves, is not the mere word,
but the deed, — not the mere shadow, but the substance, - not promises, but performances. And, applying this to the case before us, (which, to be sure,
is only one of its applications, but happens to be
a significant one) -I should be greatly misunderstood if I were thought to mean any indifference
to what are called the ordinances of our religion,
few and simple as they are. On the contrary, it is
because I value them as helps that I would not have
them become hindrances to our spiritual growthIt is the law of ordinances, as contradistinguished
from the law of the living spirit, against which,
with Paul, I contend; and I do so, because, when
once free from that law, and not till we are, I believe we shall begin to find the ordinances themselves our ministers, instead of our masters, and feel
that the sacraments, like the Sabbath, are made for
man, and not man for them.




THI COMMUNION.             239
I know not how I can more appropriately conclude
than in the words of the same Apostle, with whom
we began, " Whatsoever ye do, do it heartily, as to
the Lord, and not unto men;"... " not with eyeservice, as men-pleasers, but in singleness of heart,
fearing God."




XIX.
THE LORD'S SUPPER.
AND TIHIEY CONTINUING DAILY WITH ONE ACCORD IN TIlE TEMPLE,, ANID
BREAKING BREAD FR1OM IHOUSE TO HOUSE, DID EAT THEIR M1EAT WITHI
GLADNESS AND SINGLENESS OF HIEART. - Acts ii. 46.
I supposE there is no subject connected with
Christianity, in regard to which it is harder to get
the church back to the simplicity of Christ, than the
festival which we, in common with many other
companies of his nominal followers, celebrate to-day,
and which is known by the various names of the
Sacrament, the Communion, and the Lord's Supper.
I call it a festival, and one which we keep, -for
although so meagre a proportion of the worshippers
in our Protestant churches do formally observe it,
and perhaps fewer still feelingly, very few certainly
with festive and solemn gladness, yet surely all who
meet to worship in the name of Christ and who
have the smallest sense of personal relation to him,
must feel that this, as well as the other parts of the
public service, concerns them, belongs to them, judges
them, (their conscience also bearing witness, and
their thoughts the mean while accusing or else ex



THE LORD'S SUPPER.            241
cusing one another,) and may be said, therefore, in
some sense to keep, with a distant eye-service, at
least, the feast, which a few, thus unwillingly made
conspicuous (though, it is to be hoped, not unwillingly reminded of their Master's loneliness,) keep in
the name of the whole.
We may say what we will, — we may pretend
what we will to ourselves, - we may try to persuade
ourselves as much as we will of what our diffidence
or our indolence, - our superstitious fears on the
one hand, or our worldly inclinations on the other,
or both, mingling or alternating, may make us wish
to believe,- but, after all, the sober voice of reason
and conscience must, will, and does admonish each
of us that the observance which commemorates the
sufferings and sacrifice of Christ concerns us no less
than the day which memorizes the resurrection of
Christ, or the prayers and praises and preachings
which are this day attended in the name of Christ,
- concerns us whether we are worthy or unworthy,
and the less worthy we are or feel ourselves, concerns us all the more.
Is this an ordinance of the church, especially? Be
it so. But we, the congregation, are the church.
This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptation, that he who paid the price of his blood to buy
himself a church of humble hearts, died to save
sinners, - came to call sinners, not the righteous, to
repentance.
And so, then, in speaking of this homely, but
spiritually suggestive, as well as historically significant subject, I can say, not merely "6 Hear me for
16




242            THE LORD'8 SUPPER.
my cause," -rbut "6 Hear me for yo'ur own cause."
It is not an affair of the preacher, of the priest peculiarly, - certainly not in a Protestant, least of all
in a Liberal body, - but an affair of the people. It
is their interest, - and he, set to watch for their spiritual interests, not for the privileges of one or a few,
but for the truth that belongs to many -yea, allis their servant for Christ's sake.
To-day, therefore, I hold up before you that beautiful picture from the early Christian times, historically so interesting to the heart, and practically so
home-coming to the conscience, — " And they, continuing daily, with one accord, in the temple, and
breaking bread from  house to house, did eat their
meat with gladness and singleness of heart."
Observe how emphatic is almost every wordevery clause at least — in this expressive and impiessive description.  They continued daily in their
service of communion and commemoration - with
one accord they engaged in the grateful duty - not
only in the temple, but from house to house, breaking bread in the name and spirit of their Master,
and they partook of their daily bread and of that
better bread fiom  heaven, with gladness and with
singleness of heart.
When shall a scene like this be, spiritually, for
of course it cannot literally, again presented by the
Christian church and community to a well-pleased
God and an admiring world?  When shall the
church, - truly a brotherhood, -thus, once more,
accecptably praise God, by the very spectacle of its
consistency, and find favor with all the people? And




TIIE LORD'S SUPPER.         243
the question comes back to our own hearts, When
will ye cease to hinder, - when will ye be doing
your part to help on the devoutly-to-be-desired consummation?
What a disheartening contrast is presented, when
we turn from the glimpses which the closing hours
of Christ's life and the opening days of his church
afford us of the origin and early use of the feast of
Communion, and think what that simple festival
has been for so many centuries, and what, to this
day and hour, so extensively, it still is! First meant
for a bond of fellowship, it has beenl made a wedge
of division and a signal of strife; originally designed
as a memorial of spiritual deliverance and fieedom,
it has been perverted to the narrowing of the mind
and the enslaving of the spirit; originally intended
and used as an occasion of devout joy and sweet
society and sympathy, it has been so interpreted and
so observed and so enforced and so guarded as to
be made a benumbing element amidst the ministrations of a tender and gracious and generous religion;
emblem of redemption from a yoke and a burden,
it has itself been made a yoke and a burden to the
soul; emblem of redemption from the law of the
letter that killeth, from the law of dead works, from
the impositions and inquisitions of spiritual arrogance, it has been degraded to a dead work, to a
magic rite, fenced round with thorny points of creed
and controversy, guarded with the sword of priestly
authority and the flame of ghostly terror; and the
sacred remembrances which should gather into one
the children of God that were scattered abroad, into




241            THE LORD'S SUPPER.
the fold of the one Shepherd, who gave his life in
bringing home, amidst the teeth of wild beasts, the
errant sheep,- alas, how often has it been the occasion of deepening the unhallowed feelings that divide
sect from sect, even as the first disciples of our Lord,
precisely at the moment when his foreboding spirit
pointed to the shadow of his coming doom, took
especial occasion to press upon him their worldly
and selfish desires and ambitions; and even at that
last passover, when the question who it was that
should betray him, who it was that should do this
disgraceful thing, was hardly out of their mouths,
almost in the same breath, began to stir again the
question of strife, which of them  should be accounted the greatest!
From all these and many other like abuses, and
glaring misconceptions, of the truth as it is in Jesus,
and from all the less gross and glaring, but perhaps
not less injurious, because insinuating, misrepresentations which we allow to occupy our minds and
damp our interest in the things that are true and
pure and lovely, it is wholesome for us to recur
again and again to the original, simple, spiritual
idea of the Christian passover, so far as we may be
able to gather it from the record of Christ's life and
from the first acts of his Apostles, when their eyes
were opened to the unearthly import of the new religion, and it had burst upon their minds what their
Master had meant when he said it was expedient
for them that he personally should be taken away,
for otherwise the Comforter (or rather the strengthener) the Holy Spirit, could not come to them and
take possession of their hearts.




THE LORD'S SUPPER.            245
It is a fact worthy of notice, that while the first
three of the Evangelists each record the act of our
Saviour which has been commonly called the institution of the Lord's Supper, John, who, excepting
Matthew, was the only one of them  present, omits
it from his account altogether. How happened this,
or why was it?  Was it because the others had
already given such -full accounts of it? But, then,
in some other particulars, less impressive, John does
repeat what his predecessors had narrated before
him. Was it because, in his day, this incident in
our Saviour's ministry had become so familiar in
the continually recurring observance that brought
it to mind?  But so was the resurrection itself
brought to mind by each returning first day, at
least, and yet that event John records very fully.
Was it, then, because John was, of all the inspired
writers, preeminently the spiritual one, and concerined himself less with the form of religion and
more with its essence and inner working and realization? But, then, observe, that this very, spiritual
John is the only one who mentions, which he does
in full detail, the incident; at that same supper, of
our Master's washing his disciples' feet.
The true explanation, in my opinion, is simply
this: of the two symbolic acts, John, or the spirit
of truth and wisdom that dwelt in him and guided
him, selected that one which was the less liable to
be misconstrued into the injunction of a sacramental ordinance of magic efficacy; and while his pages
breathe and burn with the spirit of self-sacrificing
love, he is suffered to forget or omit the words of




246           THIE LORD'S SUPPER.
Christ, which the Holy Spirit foresaw would be fastened upon as the occasion of perverting that remembrance which should keep alive a large and allembracing sympathy, to the end of fettering and
freezing the sensibilities under the dominion of a
mysterious dogma and a rite of supposed magic
virtue.
It is true. indeed, that even the ceremony of the
feet-washing, which would seem so manifestly meant
not to be copied ritually, but only practically in the
humility and hospitality of a charitable life, and of
a heart ever ready for the homeliest acts of kindness, came, after a while, to have its original beauty
sadly obscured by being made part of the imposing
show-service of a pompous worldly church; this,
however, in the Protestant church, has not yet been
the case and is not likely to be; but the pagan perversion of the ordinance of communion the papal
church has transmitted to the Protestant, where it
has a hold to this moment.
Hence it seems to me a wholesome statement for
us to consider, which is made by the writer of a
somewhat notorious book, called " New Themes for
the Protestant Clergy," (though I doubt whether he
wrote it at quite the point of view at which I read
it and would have you read it,) that the ordinance
of washing the disciples' feet " is as clearly enjoined
as the Lord's Supper."  What I mean to say is,
that this assertion has a vital truth in it, as opposed
to the too common idea of the institution of the
Christian ordinances, but is chiefly valuable to us as
reminding us that that idea is not the true one.




TIHE LORD'S SUPPER.           247
I must say, then, that the silence of John in regard to that part of the last supper which has been
made in the church the ground of so much darkening of counsel by words without knowledge, —so
much deadening of the life of truth and destroying
of the liberty of souls by imposing mystifications, -
declares to my mind as plainly as words could, that
Jesus did not command and ordain the observance
iof the last supper as a form to be copied by all
Christians through all time on the ground of obedience, just as they do or should do right, on the
ground of obedience to God. The true basis on
which to rest the claim of this simple feast to the
respect and practical attention of all Christian worshippers, and the only one on which it can rest, is
the threefold basis of its being recommended by
early Christian and apostolic example, of its intrinsic naturalness, as an expression of gratitude, and
of its healing virtue to the soul and life, through its
power to awaken the conscience and the tender and
holy affections.
And when, to this expressive silence of John in
relation to the Communion as a required observance,
coupled with his full and fervid inculcations, in his
Master's name and his own name, of spiritual communion, (for instance, his dwelling so much on the
declaration of Jesus that whoso should not eat his
flesh and drink his blood could not have life in
him,) we add the evidence which is afforded by
the scattered expressions and records that stand as
fragments of the bridge which restores itself in a
thoughtful mind between the first suggestion on the




248            THE LORD'S SUPPER.
part of Jesus of the passover bread and wine's being
made a memorial of his spiritual relation to the
disciples, and the final ripening of that suggestion
into a stated symbolic service, - we are then quite
prepared to take that view of the Lord's Supper in
its natural relations on the one side, as well as in
its supernatural relations on the other, which alone
can render it what it should be, and all that it
should be to our faith and affections.
Let me remind you, then, that Luke, the author
of the book from which our text is taken, had recorded in the last chapter of his previous book the
touching incidents of that walk of the risen Jesus
with his two disciples from Jerusalem  to Emmaus,
and how, as he sat at meat with them, he was
known to them in breaking of bread.  WVe return
with them to Jerusalem, and there, not many days
after, when their number is swelled to several thousanfds, we read of them, that "' they continued steadfastly in the apostles' doctrine and fellowship, and
in breaking of bread and in prayers," and that "' they,
continuing daily with one accord in the temple, and
breaking bread from house to house, did eat their
meat with gladness and singleness of heart." The
commentators confess they do not know  whether
this breaking of bread, in which the disciples are
said to have steadfastly continued, doing it habitually, if not daily, was the observance of the
Lord's Supper, or the partaking of a love feast, or
the sharing of their ordinary meals. And it seems
to me this honest confession has a significance for
us, as hinting to us that free and spiritual concep



THE LORD' S SUPPER.          249
tion of the original idea and the perpetual import of
the Supper, which I have, throughout this discourse,
desired to suggest. When we learn that the service,
called the Lord's Supper, commonly took place in
the early church in connection with a social meal;
that it was so much a social thing, indeed, as to
have been made the occasion of excess in that direction, —and when here, in our text, we seem to see
it partaken indiscriminately in the temple and in
household gatherings, we have glimpses, I think, of
an idea much nearer, in some important and characteristic aspects, to the mind of Christ, than is anywhere embodied in our modern observances.  I feel
as if those first disciples, in the simplicity of their
fresh, fervent faith, must have felt that Jesus, when
he blessed the bread and the wine, those two simplest articles of the daily life around him, and said
" eat this in remembrance of me," and again, "this
do, as oft as ye drink it, in remembrance of me,"
had a natural as well as a mystical meaning; at
all events, that the spirit of the Father and the voice
of his good Providence would indicate hereby the
sacred relation which faith reveals between the services and enjoyments of the world of spirits and
the services and enjoyments of our earthly life. A
similar train of remark might be made on another
similar and similarly suggestive doubt of the critics
respecting the salutations which are sent, in the
Epistles, to the chiurch in one or another house,
namely, whether the expression refers to formal
church meetings, or implies that in early Christian
times the family was a church, as well as the




250            THE LORD'S SUPPER.
church a family. This doubt should also, I think,
go to the benefit of a free and generous idea of
Christian communion.
There is, indeed, a special and a solemn meaning,
on the side of the unseen world and its mysteries,
in the observance by which we expressly commernorate the sacrifice of Christ. It appeals to something
higher and deeper than our social emotions, to those
principles of our nature which impel us to go alone,
or oblige us to go alone, making us feel that none
but the Father of Spirits is with us, can understand
us, or help us; but, at the same time, if this service
is doing its legitimate work for our souls, it must be
bringing on the time when not here alone, in these
formal observances, but equally in many a familiar
season and scene of domestic and neighborly communion, we shall feel that one had been always in
the midst of us, whom we had not always known,
and when our daily bread, and not alone these consecrated elements, shall remind us of the bread
which cometh down from heaven, and is the life of
our souls.
The passage from the Acts of the Apostles which
has suggested the train of meditation we have been
pursuing, turns our thoughts to a more cheerful and
wholesome aspect of the Lord's Supper than we are
apt, I suspect, to recognize. Paul said of a certain
class of believers in his day, that when Moses was
read, the veil was upon their hearts, so that they
could not see to the end of that which was abolished, the law of ordinances. And we may say of
multitudes that that veil remains to this day "' un



THE LORD'S SUPPER.            251
taken away" when they look towards holy things,
holy subjects, holy occasions. They are slaves to
the form. Theirs is the spirit of bondage unto fear.
How obstinately does that benumbing influence cling
to the religious atmosphere we live in, with which,
so many ages ago, Pagan and Pharisaic and Papal
elements successively or simultaneously charged it,
sending the shock down through generation after
generation to this hour!
When it shall turn to the Lord, the veil shall be
taken away. The Sun of Righteousness shall melt
this veil of superstition. The first Christians, those
converts of Pentecost, had turned to the Lord and
found this freedom and joy. No longer seeking the
living among the dead, but finding the life of the
spirit in the death of selfishness, - even while they
broke together the bread which reminded them of a
crucified Master, they remembered his sufferings
only to realize the glory into which he had now
ascended, and they themselves were consciously
raised up by the power of their faith to sit together
in heavenly places with Christ Jesus.
I said in the beginning, that it would not be reasonable to expect that the winning picture of early
church-life and Christian brotherhood the text sets
before us is ever again to be literally any more than
locally realized on earth. All christendom, even if
it should be again of one accord, could never more be
in one place, unless you call the round earth one place.
But it is a spiritual and not a literal fulfilment of
the text that all christendom and all creation groan
and travail together in pain to see brought about.




252            THE LORD'S SUPPER.
Paul tells the Corinthians, " When ye come together
into one place, this is not to eat the Lord's Supper."
In other words, nearness of space is not nearness
of spirit.  They partake that holy feast together,
" new in the kingdom of God," as Jesus expresses
it, who, wherever they may be, nourish their convictions of truth and their purposes of duty, their
aspirations after holiness and their yearnings of
charity, with the memory of the common Lord,
" and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made
conformable unto his death;" who hear in their souls
the voice which cries from the scene of his agony,
howsoever it be represented or wheresoever remembered,'as I have died for you, die ye for one another, to all manner of selfishness, and live that only
true life which is love."
Nor may we be daily in the temple, that is, in
the temple made with hands; but there is a temple
which, wherever we go, goes with us, and wherever
we abide, spreads its roof over us-even God's
world, and there we are continually called to keep
bright the memory of Christ's sacrifice, by ourselves
sacrificing in his spirit on the omnipresent altar of
charity. In the spirit of the ancient bishop who
commanded the church-plate to be sold and given
to the church's poor, it becomes us ever to remember that, according to the true Christian idea, the
form is nothing except as it tends to express or
awaken the faith and the feeling, - in other words,
that' the end of the commandment is charity;"
only we must not forget to add, "out of a pure
heart and a good conscience and faith unfeigned."




THE LORD'S SUPPER.            253
This is the use and the only justification of forms,
to keep alive the faith out of which charity must
grow.
Finally, then, let the Lord's Supper remind us, as
an emblem, how the religion which it represents
reconciles, in the simplicity of Christ, the loftiest
mysteries of the heavenly life with the homeliest
relations of the earthly; and may the faith which
is in Him who transfigures death into the cradle of
life, and transmutes the sharpness of sorrow into
the sweetness of submission, harmonize all the aspects of our changeful lot in a sober serenity, and
inspire us, like those first disciples of whom we have
read and spoken, to continue daily and steadfastly in
the temple of trust, to break the bread of heaven in
our homes, not forgetting to do good and to communicate, which is, in the sight of God the most
acceptable sacrifice; and thus, free from the distractedness of eve-servers, doing all his commands and
receiving all his allotments with gladness, because
with singleness, of heart.
My desire, in these remarks, is, that that superstitious idea of a simple memorial which, exaggerating
its mystical significance, has led one class of minds
to abuse and still leads so large a class to neglect it,
should give way, under the influence of Scripture
study and spiritual sympathy, to that humane and
practical view of the observance which the spirit of
Christ would peculiarly dictate. "' Have I been so
long time with you," he seems to say, "and yet
have ye not known me?"  "' He that cometh to me
shall not walk in darlkness, but shall have the light
of life."




xx.
THE TIME OF REFORMATION.
WHICH WAS A FIGURE FOR THE TIME TIIEN PRESENT, IN WVHICIT VEIERE
OFFERED BOTHl GIFTS AND SACRIFICES, THIAT C(UID NOT MAKE
HIM[ THAT DID TIHE SERVICE PERFECT, AS PERTAINING TO TIlE CONSCIENCE; WVIIICII STOOD ONLY IN MIEA'IS AND DRINKS, AND I)IVERS
WASHINGS, AND CAR1NAL ORDINANCES, IMPOSED ON THEM UNTIL THE
TIME OF REFORMATI()N. BUT CHRIST BEING COME, AN HIGH PRIEST
OF GOOD THINGS TO COME..... HOW MUCH MORE STIAL,L THE
BLOOD OF CHRI-IST, WI-I, TRIIOUGH THE EI'TERNAL SPII'IT, OFFERED
HIMISELF WITHOUT SPOT TO GOD, PURGE Y()U]  CONSCIENCE FROM
DEAD WORKS TO SERVEI THE LIVING GOD! - Ieb. ix. 9-14.
AFTER  a winter of unusually close  confinement
to the routine of weekly preparation for the service
which I have come again to-day to perform, an opportunity has lately   been given me to pause for a
week or two and lift myself out from  this rushing
or lapsing tide of regularly and rapidly recurring
Sundays and other stated occasions, to step out on
the bank, and draw a longer breath and take a
larger vision.
I know not so well how it may be with hearers,
but I can answer for one preacher, at least, that it is
very desirable, if not necessary to  a man's individuality and even reality of spiritual life, that he should,
now and then, be thus taken out bodily from that
P l'reached atfter the'- May Meetings," 1858.




THE TIME OF REFORMATION.          255
mill of habit and custom, in which one so easily becomes not only a tender of the machinery, but a
part of a great machine himself, and be assisted to
realize for him-elf his independent responsibility, -
which meditation, indeed, will enable one, in a
measure, to do anywhere, but never so thoroughly
as when the whole man, mind and body, is withdrawn from the round and repetition of familiar occupations. It is one of the most familiar of proverbs,
that " Habit" (like so many other of our best blessings) " is a good servant, but a bad master;" or if
this is not a proverb it deserves to be one, as regards
the things of faith and spirituality,- of religion,
in the highest and proper sense of the word.  The
picture of blind Samson grinding in the mill is an
emblem of a too common case, especially if we add
that in the sphere of sanctified words and works,
formulas and formalities, the inner man of the soul,
who should be the strong man and judge, is so often
made blind by his grinding.  Habit draws a film
over the eye, so that it " cannot see afar off," and
often ceases to see beyond the surface of what is
nearest.  I have therefore  often wondered how so
discerning and discriminative a thinker as the essayist, John Foster, could say that whereas in most
matters habit is a greater plague than any that infested Egypt, in religion it is a grand felicity. It is
a grand facility, but that is far fromn being synonymous with a grand felicity. To my mind he would
have been nearer the truth, if he had just reversed
his antithesis and said, that in spiritual things the
mastery of that useful servant, habit, was to be particularly watched.




2.56       THE TIME OF REFORMATION.
But I should not dwell upon these thoughts at
such length, were it not that, instead of being merely
introductory, they also connect themselves vitally
with the proper subject of my discourse, which I am
presently to show you how the text indicates.
I have been led to a subject so central and comprehensive as that which our text opens to us, not
only by the special occasion to-day brings round to
us, reminding us of the great end for which Christ
came into this world and went out of it as he did,the great end and essence of Christianity, - not only
by the wide stirring that has lately taken place, of
the surface, if not the depths of religious ideas,partly indeed by these causes, but also by the fact,
already alluded to, of my recent absence from this
scene of quiet but absorbing cares and labors, during which I have mingled somewhat in the great
world, so called, and looked over the field of the
Church, by listening, at least, to the voices and
taking counsel with the representatives that came
up from different quarters of the world of thought
and trial, not only in our own, but in other denominations.  What I have heard and seen in these
short but crowded weeks has left thoughts and impressions in my mind which I should vainly hope to
shape into any unity before you, least of all in a
single sermon, but which so possess my mind as to
make it difficult for me to come before you with any
topic into which the influence of them  shall not
largely enter. As, when a stone is cast into the
water, it sends out a succession of ever enlarging
circular wakes, so the effect of this experience, of




THE TIME OF REFORMATION.        257
these contemplations and communings has been to
send my mind out into successive circles of widening survey and sympathy, with a yearning for that
catholic circle which should include religion and life
in a concentric harmony, at the same time referring
the meditative mind from each circle to the grand,
common centre of all.
At the meetings of our brethren of the so-called
liberal denominations, I have heard and thought a
great deal during the recent, as well as former, anniversaries, upon the question, What does the voice
of God's providence seem especially to enjoin upon
us, as a sect of Christian worshippers and workers,
cut off, not by our own will, but by the necessity of
our convictions, from so large a proportion of our fellow- Christians, as to outward and formal communion and cooperation - what is the word that comes
to us and should come from us in these times?
Some speakers were eloquent on the subject of our
need of a more clear and consistent policy, of our
showing the full front of our liberal force in opposition to the organized encroachment of enslaving
dogmas, - others were equally eloquent on our mission to present a reformed theology, — and others,
still, in maintaining that we are called to embody
our new or revived truth in a new ritual, - to me it
seemed, and has long seemed, and seems so to-day,
notwithstanding all warnings against rationalism
and radicalism, that the most urgent and emphatic
call from on high still made upon us, is that made so
long ago through the great Apostle, to stand fast in
the liberty wherewith Christ has made us, at least,
17




258         THE TIME OF REFORMATION.
has offered to make us, free, -to hold fast the great
idea of the Christian religion's being the Law of
Liberty,- and, whatever may become of forms and
names and fair shows in the flesh, and imposing
arrays of numbers and triumphant appeals to statistics, on no account whatever to desert the great central principle of Christ's religion, which is, that religion is a thing that actually exists only just so far as
it lives in the convictions of individual souls; that
the degree of its prevalence is not to be estimated
by extent of surface merely, but as much, if not more,
by depth of penetration, not by the patches of color
which diversify the maps of the earth's religious condition, not by quantity of profession, but by quality
of practice; not, in short, by the outward appearance, but by the internal reality.
And this is the great principle, the grand characteristic of the religion we are in the habit of calling
our religion, of which I have taken the text to remind you. I say to remnind you, because I am not
quite sure whether the writer of the Epistle to the
Hebrews himself had quite attained to the perfect
idea of the new spiritual dispensation -quite disencumbered himself of the last lingering traditions and
influences of that Jewish system which he himself,
to be sure, speaks of as old and obsolete. It is uncertain who wrote the Epistle to the Hebrews. The
name of Paul is attached to it in our common English version. In my opinion, the balance of evidence,
internal and external, is against the conclusion of its
being the production of that Apostle. I say this
merely in anticipation of any one's possibly feeling




TIHE TIME OF REFORMATION.        259
that my remarks make light of Apostolic authority.
Whoever was the author of the book, and whatever
his precise idea may have been of the Christian religion as compared with the Jewish, - and he uses
many expressions which look as if he was speaking
only in a figure when he set forth the death of
Christ in a manner which has so generally been
taken for granted as implying his faith in it as a
vicarious sacrifice, - I say his words, at least, whatever he may have meant by them, afford a happy
expression of an idea of the Gospel far more in
harmony than the Calvinistic doctrine is, with the
simple religion which we learn from  the lips and
life of Jesus Christ himself.
For let us now examine a little more closely those
words which we have selected for our present subject and the present occasion, and understand what
idea of the new, as contrasted with the old religion,
they naturally suggest to one coming to them from
the practical gospel of Christ and the spiritual Christianity of Paul.  He says that the old, outward services and sacrifices of the law could not give perfect
relief to the conscience. But may we not ask him
or his interpreters, can the sacrifice of Christ himself, of this perfect victim, give perfect relief to the
conscience, so long as this also is supposed to have
merely a magical efficacy? Can anything heal the
wounds of an old conscience of sin except the possession, through active and imitative faith in Christ
and Christ's teachings, spirit, life and Father, of a
new and good conscience?  Can any other being in
the universe, or in the realm of possibility, actually




260         THE TIME OF REFORMATION.
assume our individual conscience?  He may by
imputation; but it will be a mere, a false imputation, a complete contradiction, if the idea is that I
cease to be the person that did the things my conscience tells me I did, and another not only says
that he did them, but really becomes the one who
did them; and this is what the vicarious relief of
our conscience must mean, if it is anything more
than a tormenting riddle, if it is really going to
reach the secret of the disorder.
No- if the forms of Judaism could not meet the
wants of the human soul, neither can the formulas
of Calvinism. It is not the memory, chiefly, that
cries to be purged, as regards the past, the irreversible past; it is the conscience that craves this purgation, as regards the present. It is not the miracle,
the contradiction, of undoing what is done for once
and forever, that Christ bled to perform; it is the
present, the ever pressing appeal of the Holy Spirit to
our spirits for the recognition and reception of that
influence through which, and through which alone,
we can enter upon and enter into a new life, and
through shame of our old dead works, bring forth
new, living ones that shall shame the old in their turn,
and so make us partakers in the healing life of God
himself;-this is the great purpose for which Christ
offered himself to God, and God offers Christ to us.
We cannot understand what the writer to the
Hebrews, I will not say meant, but ought to have
meant, at all events, until we feel that the emphasis
in our text lies upon the word conscience, and upon
the antithesis between dead works and the living




THE TIME OF REFORMATION.        261
God. Here lies the great distinction, which Jesus
and Paul labored to impress upon men, between the
old, outward, effete religion, and the only acceptable
service of God. The former was sought as affording or promising something which a man could fall
back upon, as a security, a certificate, a passport,
a claim upon heaven; whereas the true religion
which Christ and his Apostles inculcated identified
holiness with heaven, taught them to forget the
things behind, to let the dead bury their dead, and
to live for the present and each next future, but
chiefly for the present call and claim of duty, of
charity, of piety, each day and hour, in the actual
and active world.  Whatever the writer to the Hebrews may have meant by his words, the spirit of
his Master speaking through them to us says: as
Christ offered himself without spot to God, so do
ye aspire to offer yourselves a living sacrifice, holy,
acceptable unto God, and be quickened by his
blood, by the life which flowed out in it, by the
spirit which gave it, to a feeling of the deadness of
all works which are done in the service of any idol,
of fear, formality, or fashion, and not in the hearty
service of the one living and true God.
Is it not too true, even up to this day and hour,
that what is called religion is a dead work, and that
its God is a dead God, being a defective one, an
idol of superstition, made after the image of a part
and that not the noblest of man's nature, - a dead
Deity, because conceived of only as an outward
one, and not as inwardly and vitally united with the
soul of the worshipper? The church has unlearned,




262         THE TIME OF REFORMATION.
in a great degree, the idea of God's being worshipped by men's hands, as if He needed anything
at their hands; but is the idea unlearned, that He,
the source and sustainer of all, needs anything from
his creatures, in any way, to make him cognizant of
their wants and weaknesses, or propitious to their
sinfulness? Perhaps the world is outgrowing the
Pharisaical and Papal principle of the magic power
of a form of works; but has not our Protestantism
retained, in a degree very obstructive to the simnplicity and efficiency of the religion of Jesus, the
essential evil of that old principle, by attaching a
similar magical and saving virtue to forms of words,
and only substituting ear-service for eye-service.
I may be asked, " Is there any special danger of
our being led astray by a religion of form? Do we
need any caution on this score, who have so very
few forms, and are so afraid of the few simple ones
we have?"  I answer, in the first place, this very fear
betrays a lurking, superstitious idea that the form is
the substance, the law, the authority, instead of being simply the sign, expression, and guide; it looks
as if we deified and so dreaded the very shadow
itself; and this is the very essence of superstition.
And then, as to the fewness of our forms, the history
of that body of Christians which began with the
idea of dropping all forms, and in which the very
denial of form became itself a formality, may well
remind us that it is not the number of forms that
necessarily makes religion a mere form, but the worship of the form and the neglect of the practical and
spiritual. And I have often thought that a slavish




THE TIME OF1 REFORMATION.      263
and superstitious dread of form may be proved just
as truly by the excuses many make for neglecting
it, as by the eagerness with which others cling
around it.
Our text speaks of a " time of reformation," until
which this old, formalistic religion might be expected
to continue by a sort of Divine Providence. It becomes an interesting and important question what
time the writer meant. When was this good time
to come? Evidently, it had already come when he
wrote; for, referring as far back as the days of
Isaiah, and quoting what the prophet had said
about a new covenant, he adds: " In that he saith
a new covenant, he hath made the first old. Now
that which decayeth and waxeth old is ready to
vanish away." It was at hand, then, even in the
age of Isaiah. But it had come, when John, and
immediately after him Jesus, went forth calling the
people to reform, because the kingdom of heaven
was at hand; to come out of the old, crumbling
house of the law into the free realm of the spirit.
That time of reformation had to be preached again
by Paul, when, enlightened by Jesus, he stood forth
to protest against those degenerate disciples who
would entangle the new faith again in the yoke of
the old bondage. And again and again in the
history of the church has that time of reformation
needed to be proclaimed, before and since the hour
when Luther so bravely,renounced the ceremonial
law, and left his name to a church which is notable
for its adoration of forms and formulas.
And now again has come a time which is asserted




264        THE TIME OF REFORMATION.
to be a time of reformation and refreshing from the
presence of the Lord. That it has been such to
many, and will yet prove such to many more, I do
not doubt, and will hope that it may appear to have
been the harbinger of the greatest reformation the
world has known since the new religion came on
earth bringing peace and a sword. But in order to
be such, in order to be such a reformation as the
present crisis in humanity calls for, it must go to
the root of that religion which worships the form
and the letter, and revolutionize that by substituting
the religion of the spirit.
I fear that too many who began in the school of
the free spirit are beginning to draw back and fall
away. I hear a cry, " Let us hold fast the form of
sound words, and not dispute about their meaning,"
-a cry which, in this age, makes me fear that what
is really meant is the fornmality of sounding words.
I hear whispers, growing louder and clearer, about
" denying the pride of our own reason;" but I seem
to recognize in the tone, that its real meaning is the
willingness of a faint heart and a faithless soul to
disown the troublesome responsibility of thinking for
itself. I see many depressing proofs everywhere
how true it is that names govern the world, and
how hard it is for the spirit of truth to dwell in such
a world; how, like birds in the Dead Sea's atmosphere, a free thought, a generous sentiment, can,
in so many quarters, hardly breathe, hardly lift its
wing. I am made aware of so much that would
seem as if, instead of reading the noble old Scripture, " Whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things




THE TIME OF REFORMATION.        265
are honest," and so on, men read it through some
strangely metamorphosing glasses which made it
say, " Whatsoever things are easy, whatsoever things
are comfortable, whatsoever things are convenient,
whatsoever things, whether in themselves just and
lovely or not, are in good repute, think of these
things." In a word, I see and feel that so much is
to be done before the old and inveterate religion of
name and form and habit will be broken up, and the
clouds of prejudice and the walls of partiality will
let through the pure light of truth and reason, that
it sometimes seems as if the work were hardly
begun.
We call to mind to-day, in a special service, one
who was born and lived and died that he might bear
witness to the truth; who was to send, as the comforter, to those deprived of his personal presence, the
Spirit of Truth; who taught us in his last prayers,
as well as in his first preachings, that truth — truth
alone - understood, believed, incorporated into the
very life of the soul, can be the soul's deliverance
and sanctification; whose death was the doom of
the old system of a ceremonial religion of incantations and penances, - which, in the strong figure of
Paul, he nailed to the very cross on which he suffered, bidding us, in the light of majestic truth that
beams around it, look to the end of that which is
abolished, and learn that mercy and truth and righteousness and devotion to the cause of humanity are
the sacrifice which God desires. From the cross of
Christ, rightly contemplated, comes a power to rend
the veil which superstition hangs over the eyes and




266        THE TIME OF REFORMATION.
the heart. Its language is as simple as it is holy
and august. It seems to say: O my brothers, this,
which, to all earthly appearance, is the end of my
life-long warfare with the powers of darkness, is
in reality only the beginning of its renewal, in a
broader field, by the spirit which I leave in human
hearts. Look hither and learn the sacredness of
fidelity to the truth. Let nothing deter or delude
you from seeing and saying the truth, however little
in a worldly way, it may promise; though its only
earthly reward be the mortification and crucifixion
of those feelings which look to earthly show or lean
on human sympathy. Cleave to the truth —cling
to it - though it be as a sword piercing through the
heart and as a fire in the bones. Seek not by any
pleasant process of self-mystification to disguise
from yourselves its simple and severe beauty. Stupify not your sober judgment by any of those opiates
which would prevent your tasting the wholesome bitterness of the herb of grace. Seek not to stain with
the cunning aid of fancy the pure glass of truth, so
as to see the world in those false colors which cheat
and charm the eye of folly. Trust in the truth; for
in it is the power, the wisdom, the goodness, and
the saving health of God. Resisting, with clear
mind and manly will, every temptation, in whatever
refined shape of doctrine or example it may come,
in whatever winning or warning guise, which would
seduce you to rely upon anything as a substitute for
personal, actual, and active religiousness; accepting
everything as a stimulus to that, but nothing as a
substitute for it, whether creed or ceremony; keep



THE TIME OF REFORMATION.       267
ing your mind and heart wakefully open to the
meaning of the cross of Christ, as regards your practical and earthly duty, so appropriate his life as well
as his lessons, that the blood of Him who, animated
by the Eternal Spirit, gave himself without spot to
God, may, whatever has been the imperfection or
iniquity of your past works, begin now, henceforth,
to purge your conscience from the works of death
and of deadness, and initiate you into the whole and
hearty service of the living God, the loving Father,
whose service alone is freedom, satisfaction, and
hope.




XXI.
LOVE TO MAN AND LOVE TO GOD.
liE THAT LOVETH NOT HIS BROTHER WHOMI HE HATIT SEEN, HO~W CAN
HIE LOVE GOD WHOM HE IIATH NOT SEEN? 1 John iv. 20.
How long this question has been standing on the
sacred page, -how long it has been sounding in
the ears of Christendom, - and yet how little does
the meaning (to say nothing of the moral) of the
question seem to have dawned on the hearts of men
even in the midst of the light of the Gospel! How
little do we appear (I will not say, to appreciate the
full spirit and practical application, but) to apprehend the idea of this passage, though it is one of
the most familiar in all Scripture!  We have a
strong and sharp impression, coupled with a general
and gross idea (if I may say so) of what the Apostle meant, and of what the Spirit that spoke through
him means, by this homely and searching challenge;
but how much have we reflected on the deep philosophy wrapped up in it, the practical theology,
the insight into the laws of our own nature, the wisdom it contains for spiritual life?
We do great injustice to the memorable question




LOVE TO MAN AND LOVE TO GOD.    269
before us, if we regard it exclusively either from a
dogmatic or from a pragmatic point of view. Although, undoubtedly, as it came from John's pen, it
conveyed a pointed rebuke to a certain class of
bigots and dreamers who endangered the simplicity
of Christ, yet we do not, by any means, get its full
force and significance, so long as we consider it by
itself alone, not until we regard it as part and parcel of the great and beautiful representation of the
philosophy of the Gospel which runs through this
epistle of one who stands preeminent among the
sacred writers for the manner in which he merges
and blends the theological and the moral aspects of
Christianity in the spiritual.
Not merely for the condemnation of presumptuous and proud speculatists, if I rightly read it, certainly not for the purpose of diminishing men's interest in unseen things and fixing their attention
upon visible and superficial matters, did John, in the
climax of his profound and sublime enunciation of
the new theology of the spirit, turn upon his readers, in a manner which seems a little abrupt at first
sight, with the blunt assertion from which our text
is taken. It was not for having gone too deeply,
but for not having gone down deeply enough into
divine things, that this pious expounder of the
Christian philosophy reproved the enthusiasts, dogmatists, and sentimentalists of his time.
Although, therefore, upon the face of it, our text,
or rather the passage containing it, has the appearance of being intended merely, in a negative
way, to expose the hollowness of the foundation




270      LOVE TO MAN AND LOVE TO GOD.
on which the hypocrisy of ungodly men rested, yet,
to a thoughtful student, this is but a small part, but
the beginning, of its meaning; its design being really
and positively to give instruction in the way of godliness, to lead inquiring minds to the true foundation, and the true fountain, of spiritual life.
It may not have occurred to you, when this old
and familiar passage has been brought to your remembrance, as it often must be, not by the pulpit
only, but by the Providence of God, that the question it proposes and the doctrine implied in that
question may mean either of two things, and (for so
I think) does mean both, namely, in the first place,
that love to man is a necessary proof of love to God;
and, secondly, that love to man is a necessary preparation for the true love to God. A little real reflection must convince any one that these two senses
of our text are not only not inconsistent with each
other, but do in fact both belong to it.
The first and most obvious idea suggested to us by
the Apostle's asking how a man who does not love
his brother man can love his heavenly Father, is
this: that if he did love God, he would love God's
children, and God's commandments, one of which
commandments is, that every man should love his
neighbor as himself; consequently, if any one fails
to do this, he shows that the love of the Father is
not in him.
This was, undoubtedly, the first and foremost
application the writer himself intended of his doctrine. It is as if he had said, " He that loveth not
his brother whom  he hath seen, and whom we see,




LOVE TO MAN AND LOVE TO GOD.       271
how can it be that he really loves, notwithstanding
his professions, that God whom no one hath seen
nor can see? "
But when we look a little further and deeper, I
see not how we can avoid the conclusion that, in
that little expression, " How can he," there resides a
more profound significance, a thought referring not
merely to the present state of the man's mind, but
to the question of his spiritual prospects and the
possibility of things. In other words, we pass on
from a particular case of fact and question of evidence, to a great principle and law of the spiritual
life, and of the very nature of man. We pass from
the consideration of love to man as an expression
and evidence of love to God, already cherished, to
the consideration how the former of these sentiments is the way and the means of attaining the
latter. In this light we should understand the Apostie as asking, How can he who does not love man
learn to love God?  If he does not think enough, if
he is too thoughtless, indolent, or selfish, to cultivate
the love of what is good in man, whom he daily
sees and continually meets and converses with, how
can it be expected that he should, (still less believed
that he already does,) love One whom he does not
and cannot see, excepting with the eye of faith and
purity and spiritual sympathy, of whose presence
there is no articulate voice, no sensible touch, no
definite face, form or feature, no speaking eye, to
help him conceive?
In propounding the question, " He that loveth not
his brother whom  he hath seen, how can he love




272      LOVE TO MAN AND LOVE TO GOD.
God whom he hath not seen? " the Apostle points
to a law and a lesson which Divine Providence, in
the appointed order of his natural life, has always
been striving to persuade man to learn. These
earthly relations of our life, the domestic, the neighborly, the social, the human, are the firame on which
the Author of our being meant that the delicate tendrils of the soul's affections should climb and creep
upward into the broad sunlight of piety.  Our
earthly parents represent and reveal to us the Divine
Parent, and our trust in them trains us up to trust in
Him.  Our earthly friends, through their love for
us and our love for them, are providentially educating us for the communion of that heavenly Friend
who is the one object for supreme affection. Our
earthly benefactors are the instruments for raising
our thoughts toward the Source of every blessing
and of every benevolent inspiration. And as we go
onward and outward, and the base broadens, the
superstructure rises, till philanthropy culminates in
piety.
This view of the education of our spirits conflicts
indeed with.the dogma of man's radical depravity,
and may seem  to with the Christian doctrine of
conversion and regeneration. It is proper to say,
therefore, that man must cooperate with the Holy
Spirit in the process we have indicated, otherwise
the heavy atmosphere of fleshly and worldly influence will check the aspiration of the soul towards
that higher life. It is when the growth of the human affections reaches a point where they excite
presentiments of that higher principle for which




LOVE TO MAN AND LOVE TO GOD.      273
they are the basis, then it is that the seed of the
new birth emphatically falls into the soul; but even
then the test question of the spirit still is, " He that
loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can
he love God whom he hath not seen?"  WVhen the
natural affection has so far done its higher work as
to suggest the necessity of the spiritual affection,
still the love of our human kind, itself subjected to
the test of the new light that has dawned upon our
consciousness, is the building-ground to which God's
voice calls us back ever and again as the only sure
foundation of a heavenly character, hope, and life.
The question, " He that loveth not his brother
whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom
he hath not seen? " assumes a peculiar force, when
we consider, in accordance with the teaching, so
clearly and felicitously put, that precedes it, what
God is and how He is to be apprehended. The
speculative intellect may formr an idea of a God,
but that idea will be only a personification of one
or more of the Divine attributes divorced from the
rest. Not by speculation, even sentimental speculation, can one know the living and loving Father.
Only by sympathy, by actual cooperation in his
blessed work of charity, his disinterested and unceasing devotion to the welfare of the creature,
can a human soul know Him who is a spirit, and a
spirit of ever-active benevolence. His disposition
must be tasted before it can be truly known. If we
are required to taste in order to see that the Lord is
gracious, how much more emphatically must we
taste in order to feel what He is, whose name and
18




274     LOVE TO MAN AND LOVE TO GOD.
nature are Love! How, then, can we even know
God, much less love Him, until we know what the
love is which he feels for his human children; and
how can we know that in reality, excepting in the
degree that we cherish a like love to them ourselves?
We may know the name of it, and be ever so skilful in praising it, but we cannot know the thing.
It is true that the Apostle himself, in the verse
that follows our text and closes the chapter, says
something which may seem to conflict a little with
the doctrine we have drawn from his language,
when he reminds us of its being the command of
God, that whoso loveth Him should love his brother
also, — a statement which, one might say, implied
the possibility of a man's loving God first, and then
having to be admonished to love his brother. But
in reality, he does not, in any such absurd way, contradict himself. The meaning of this supplementary statement is, that God has so made man, that
if he loves his heavenly Father, he must love his
human brother; in other words, that the first and
second commandments cannot, in practice, be separated. But the very necessity of any defence of
the Apostle on this point would, perhaps, have been
prevented, if our translators had only rendered the
statement in question literally: " This commandment have we from him, that he who loves God
loves his brother also."
And when we pass into the next chapter, which
has been unreasonably separated from this, (the author of the division probably thinking, very erroneously as I conceive, that John therein changed the




LOVE TO MAN AND LOVE TO GOD.       275
subject from our human to our Christian brethren,)
we find there, also, another assertion which may seem
to contradict our view of the Apostle's argument,
but in reality confirms it. How, it may be asked,
can he, who had just said, that the love of the brother
whom we have seen is a test of our love for the God
whom we have not seen, say, almost in the next
breath, "' By this we know that we love the children
of God, when we love God and keep his commandments?"  Is not this precisely reversing the criterion, and making our love for God the test of our
love for man?  Again I answer, not at all. Our
love for man leads upward, outward, and inward,
to the love of God, and then this higher affection reflects a searching light on the one which prepared
the way for it, and shows whether it is pure and profound as it should be. It is like the pupil, grateful
for his instructor's teachings and guidance, teaching
him in return. It is like the child, that has been
translated to the upper world, coming as an angel to
bless its earthly parent with a heavenly ministry of
light and love. In a word, the two forms of love,for, after all, it is but one principle in different manifestations, - act and react on each other. The question, " He that loveth not his brother whom he hath
seen, how can he love God, whom  he hath not
seen? " if followed out into the conclusions it must
suggest to a thoughtful mind, settles the old dispute
between the pietists and the moralists, by resolving
all goodness into godliness. It confirms the assertion of a writer, that " true piety is not the distinct
work of a distinct faculty of the mind, but the up



276      LOVE TO MAN AND LOVE TO GOD.
ward direction of all its faculties, and the perfection,
thereby, of all its thoughts, emotions, and pursuits."
And still more emphatically does it confirm what a
still more recent writer so admirably says of the
grace of charity in the Christian system: "; It is not
religion evaporated into benevolence, but benevolence taken up into religion. It is the practical exemplification of the two great characteristics of
Christianity, - the union of God with man, the
union of religion with morality; love to man for the
sake of love to God; love to God showing itself in
love to man."  Our doctrine meets a want of the
human heart - a want which, imperfectly understood, has given rise to low and narrow theories of
Divine incarnation, and, in practice, to a cumbrous
mediatorial system of substitutions and sacrifices.
Job expressed the yearning, thousands of years ago,
when he said, 6Oh that I knew where I might find
Ilim, that I could come even to His seat!"  The
question which Job asked, Jesus and John have answered. No man hath seen or can see God at any
time, but whoso loveth and serveth his brother, God
dwelleth in him and he in God. He has his being
in the luminous sea of Divine love, which Augustine so beautifully says, 1" filleth by containing " the
soul. He no longer needs to see God -no longer
asks to see Him. He realizes the spiritual idea of
the Christian religion.
But, after all, in this exposition of the great law
which underlies the question in our text, we have
not yet quite touched, or, at least, we have not
recognized, as it must be recognized, a peculiarity,




LOVE TO MAN LOVE TO TO GOD.     277
the most practical and home-coming of all in the
Apostle's, or rather I should say, in his and our
Master's doctrine of love to man as the proof of
love to God, —a principle particularly urged upon
our convictions, though not expressly stated, in
John's enforcement of the law of love, and the one
which gives to the whole appeal its chief point for
our consciences, and yet one which all the commentators, so far as I can remember, fail to notice.
I reminded you, in the beginning, how long the
question had been before our eyes and in our ears,
4" He that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen,
how can he love God whom he hath not seen? "
And now I ask, is there no reply that the human
heart ever makes to this question? And I answer
there are two replies, one or the other of which the
worldly heart is always virtually making as an
apology for itself. Either it will say, I do not say
that I love God- I do not make any professions
or pretensions of the kind, and therefore I am not
the inconsistent one whom the Apostle's argument
touches; or it will say, I do not hate my brother,
and therefore I am not the one "' having no hope
and without God in the world," whom your doctrine
exposes.
To the former alternative the reply is: " You may
not say to the world that you love God, you may
not wish to love the idea of God which many a
man or body of men sets up as the true one, and
which your heart and reason alike tell you is false,
but you do not know yourself, if you fancy you
really and absolutely are indifferent in regard to




27 8     LOVE TO MAN AND LOVE TO GOD.
the great Being on whose goodness you live. You
are grossly self-deceived if you fancy you have no
interest in Him, no care to please him, to secure
his favor, to be in communion with him. You
flatter yourself with the hope that at last, in some
other way, if not the strait and narrow one, to reach
Heaven, and therefore you are concerned to know
the best and only way of gaining that end.
But, taking the other alternative, a man may say:'" I cannot love mankind, because I have seen them
and seen too much that is unlovely to permit me
honestly to profess or try to love all men, - and yet
I trust I hate no one." And here precisely is the
great issue between the majority of worldly hearts
and the Christian law, and here is the point to
which I wish to draw your attention. And in order
to do so, I ask you to observe, first, how John, in
the passage from which our text is taken, makes
the not loving of our brother synonymous with the
hating of him, " If a man say, I love God, and
hateth his brother, he is a liar; for he that lovethl not
his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love
God whom he hath not seen?"  And then I ask
you to let your thoughts run over the whole Epistle
and see how, throughout the whole of'this close
reasoning and wrestling with the nominally Christian community, he evidently assumes that not loving is practically, in the eye of the heart-searching
law of Christ, equivalent to hating. He recognizes
no other alternative. He allows indifference not a
hair's breadth of ground to stand on. " Do you
love me or do you hate me? " is the question which




LOVE TO MAN AND LOVE TO GOD.        279
the spirit of grace seems to utter, as it rises from
the sacred and simple pages of this faithful disciple
and teacher, that still, after so many ages, speak
with such a power of silent, yet searching eloquence to our hearts. Critics often tell us that this
sharp way of putting the alternative is a peculiarity of the Hebrew style; but may it not be, as the
critic of critics in our consciences whispers, that the
Hebrew genius, in this respect, was rather nearer to
the genius of the sober truth as it is in Jesus, than
some of our more self-complacent interpretations
are? Besides, I do not see that a worldly, selfexcusing spirit is at all countenanced by this explanation. If, when Christ commands us to follow
him and hate even our nearest relations when they
would stand in the way of our doing it, he simply
means, as he undoubtedly does, that we should disregard them practically in our devotion to the right,
- it should seem that where the Apostle of Jesug
calls it a sin to hate our brother when God commands us to love him, the indifference under the
name of which misanthropy would take refuge, is
itself virtually hatred. At all events, if such indifference were a possible thing, it would be a sin in
the sight of Him who searches the heart, and according to the standard set up by Him, whose religion
makes negative obedience positive disobedience to
the command that says, "Be ye perfect as your
Father in Heaven is perfect."  When we remember the words that
Ilan's inhumanity to man
Makes countless thousands mournl,"




280       LOVE TO MAN AND LOVE TO GOD.
we must remember also that man's (so called) indifference to man is a part, and a huge part, of the
great sum of inhumanity which oppresses the world,
and hangs like a cold cloud over the heart of society.
The Apostle, in the epistle from which our subject
is taken, quotes the case of Cain, and draws from it
the moral that blood-thirstiness is not necessary to
make a man a murderer,  that envy and hatred
constitute him such. There is one expression of
Cain's which, though not referred to by John, is
forcibly recalled to our minds by John's own reasoning, and that is the question by which the violation
of the law of love, thinking to shelter itself, at worst,
under the cloak of indifference, has been ever since
extenuating its guilt, " Am I my brother's keeper? 
The very least that could be said would be that
to love man is the only security against the sin of
hating him. The ages have immortalized the sentiment of the Roman historian, that " men hate those
whom they wrong;" but surely there are few ways
in which men more grievously wrong each other
than by (assumed) indifference. There is a problem
which a large proportion of mankind are ever tormenting themselves with vain attempts to settle,
because they will not take that way of divine wisdom which a poet has so finely expressed:
"o 0 human heart! that which thou wouldst not hate,
Yet canst riot from thy thouights eradicate,No third alternative r emains to thee
But this,-to love and love it sacredly."
To remind you fairly and fully in what this- love
of our brother consists, which is the test of love to




LOVE TO MAN AND LOVE TO GOD.      2s1
God, and how it is manifested, - to expound the
operation of charity, showing how the true idea of
it transcends the prevailing ones, -- to exhibit the
divine quality in all the delicate shades of its manifestation in human intercourse, not only in relation
to the condition, but in relation to. the character of
men, -this would require and abundantly repay,
even at this day, a separate discussion. In the
present discourse I have been obliged to confine
myself to one aspect only of the practical bearing
of this morning's disquisition, and with one more
glance at this, in the light of Christ's own standard,
I will, for the present, leave the subject to your own
reflections.
The religion which this world sets up in opposition to that of Christ, would satisfy its disciples
with the negative consolation of not meaning to do
their neighbor any harm; the true religion of Christ
and of conscience sweeps away all such poor comfort, when, in the Sermon on the Mount, it identifies
and condemns with the workers of iniquity, "Whosoever heareth these sayings of mine and doeth them
not," and still more solemnly when, from another
mount, not of instruction merely, but of judgment,
before which all nations and generations and souls
pass in review, it announces, as the ground of condemnation, not what men have done, but what they
have neglected to do, and says, "Inasmuch as ye
did it not to one of the least of these my brethren,
ye did it not to me."
Often, perhaps too often, has that impressive and
awakening picture of the great judgment been held




282      LOVE TO MAN AND LOVE TO GOD.
up before men for the purpose of exciting a vague
terror; how seldom, or at least how feebly, has the
most searching trait of the picture been brought
home or taken home to the sober convictions of the
heart in the daily intercourse of life, namely, that it
is not the selfish, however sanctimoniously disguised, seeking to save ourselves, that can build us
up in the true life and blessedness, but the impulse
and inspiration to subordinate and sacrifice self-love
to the love of man, and of God as revealed in man.
Let the light of that tribunal, which Christ has
shadowed forth to us, fall upon those words of his
beloved disciple which we have been considering,
and make them  read, " He that loveth not his
brother whom he hath seen, and shows that he does
not by practical indifference to his human brotherhood, how can he love God whom he hath not seen,
hath not felt in the stirrings and strivings of a
spiritual brotherly affection, and how can he look
for that heaven where love to God is the bliss of
the saints, and'The smile of the Lord is the light of the soul?"




XXII.
THE WINTER SOLSTICE.
-THE DAYSPRING FROAM ON HIGH HATH VISITED US, TO GIVE LIGHT
TO THEMI THAT SIT IN DARKNESS AND IN THE SHADOW OF DEATH, TO
GUIDE OUR FEET INTO THE WAY OF PEACE.- Luke i. 78, 79.
THE beginning of a New Year is an anniversary
which all, in some way, notice, if only by hanging
up a new almanac on the wall. But there is another
anniversary which it implies, that is noticed very
little; being to some too familiar for them to make
much account of it, and for others too remote to be
thought of.  There is a Christian New Year's Day,
which is Christmas; there is a civil New  Year's
Day, which was yesterday; but there is also what
we may call a celestial New Year's Day of the natural world. This last is fixed by an event which,
not without its emblematic lessons for the spiritual
life of man, has, within a few days, been quietly
consurmmated. Quietly and noiselessly it has transpired, (and this is its first symbolic lesson,) like so
many other great occurrences both in the moral and
material world, reminding us of the beautiful expression of an old writer, that " God fills the universe silently and without noise."  He is speaking




284           THE WINTER SOLSTICE.
of the manner in which true joy fills the soul; but
what he says is emphatically true of the element of
light, which is God's noblest emblem, and equally
true of that harmony of the spheres and of the seasons, which the contemplation of their circuits makes
audible to the sense of the beholding and listening
mind. Is it not a striking and reproving thought,
and one which it would be well for us to entertain
oftener than we do, that while man, here on this little
earth, in this little day of his earthly existence, keeps
up such a tumult and turmoil of strife about the
petty objects of his pride and selfishness, that he
can hardly hear himself think, for the din of his own
passions; in the heavens, meanwhile, -almost without attracting one thought of reverent wonder and
gratitude, except on the part of here and there a
mind which has sufficient love of wisdom to pause
in the rush of worldly cares and cravings, — there
are goilg on, " in solemn silence, all " those mighty
revolutions, without which this little life itself would
come to a stand-still, and all these flowers and fountains of pleasure, which pride and greed so often
profane and poison, would utterly wither?
I am reminding you that, since we last assembled
here, the great transition has been made, which implies that the earth, on which we live and with which
we move, has accomplished its mighty annual journey- its hundred and ninety millions of miles -
around the sun, and has returned again, " according
to its circuits," as the Scripture expresses it, to the
place where it was a year ago - I was going to
say- but I correct myself; for modern science has




THE WINTER SOLSTICE.           285
learned that even here, too, is progress; that even
in this material universe, things do not return to precisely any former position; but that the sun itself,
with its whole attendant system, is moving towards
a fixed star, (called fixed for the present,) in a remote
constellation, which one day may prove to be itself
revolving, in a yet uncalculated curve, around some
still more distant sun in this infinite universe, of
which it has been said, the centre is everywhere and
the circumnference is nowhere.
Thus, already, has the simple phenomenon of the
year's revolution revealed to us two of its lifelessons; impressing a thoughtful mind first with the
peacefulness, and now, secondly, with the progressiveness, (if I may use so hard a word to express it,)
of the kingdom of nature. Thus, with this twofold
voice, does the occasion (even at this first, mere
outside glance at it) speak to the soul with its
providential inculcation of heavenly wisdom.
But there is further, deeper, higher wisdom, even
in what may be called this astronomical view of our
subject, well worth our following out. We, too, are
called upon, at such a time as this, to " stand still
and consider the wondrous works of God," which
surely are not the less wondrous for having been so
long appealing to our attention, and so often in
vain; for even the God of Nature might say, " Have
I been so long time with you, and yet have ye not
known me?"  It cannot, I think, be regarded as a
forced or eccentric turn to give the occasion which
the beginning of a new year presents to us if, following the hint which that expression of our text




286           THE WINTER SOLSTICE.
furnishes,-" the dayspring from on high," -we reflect upon some of the analogies between natural
and spiritual things, which certain of the simplest
facts in the science of the material heavens, particularly at this annual epoch, urge upon our notice.
It would be pleasant, on some accounts, if the
beginning of the civil and that of the Christian year
coincided; for the year of our Lord should seem to
begin, consistently with Christian faith or feeling,
on Christmas, the day received as the anniversary
of the Lord's birth.  Meanwhile, this slight confusion, occasioned by beginning the year of the
Lord, as it were, a week after the birth of the Lord,
may serve, as a sort of spiritual obliquity of the ecliptic, to stand for a memento of the fact, that earthly
and heavenly affairs are not yet moving in the same
plane of orbit; that man has not yet learned to harmonize all his secular life's doings and interests into
one great sphere with the principles of religion; that
the church and the world are not yet one; that civilization is not yet identical with Christianity.
It is, however, interesting, that both the Christmas festival, and New Year's Day, which may be
regarded as a second and secular side of Christmas,
should fall so near the moment which ancient Paganism, true, in this. respect, to its light, religiously celebrated as the date of the revival and return of the
"solar deity."  " The winter solstice was a season
of religious pomp."  " The ancient nations," it has
been said, "' saw with uneasiness that king, that
divinity, as they styled the sun, receding fiom  them
farther and farther, rising later to his task and retir



THE WINTER SOLSTICE.          287
ing earlier from it, like a giant wearied in his course,
and leaving the night to encroach, by insensible degrees, on his dominion. And when he stopped in
that fearful retreat, when he directed towards them
again his beneficent way, they marked that period
with festival and rejoicing." And it has been thought,
with strong reason, that the early Christians took
their hint from this, when they moved forward the
celebration of the nativity, which had previously
come a week after the beginning of the year, and
placed it a week before the same; for the moment
when the sun " begins to return to our hemisphere,
bringing with him a gradually increasing length of
the daylight, adding to it, it may be, only a single
minute, but that minute," as has been said, " the
promise of summer-time," might well seem, in the
absence of historical certainty, a fitting period to
commemoiate the return of the spiritual sun, "the
dayspring from on high," the loving look of a seemingly long alienated Father's face, to visit and bless
a benighted world.
I say seemingly alienated; for in reality, as the
Gospel teaches us, the alienation was on the part of
man. It was man who was alienated from the life
and the love of God. And this is another truth
which is imaged for us in the movements and appearances of the heavens. It is because the earth,
in consequence of the obliquity of her axis; turns
one hemisphere away from the sun's direct influence, that so large a portion of her children, at this
period, have to pass through a season of wintry suspense, and feel the beams of the great heat-giver fall




288            THE WINTER SOLSTICE.
upon them coldly'and askance. And this becomes
the more striking and spiritually significant, when
we add that, all this time, the sun is really nearer to
the earth than ever, when, to the natural sense and
feeling, he would seem to be the farthest off; just
as, (to draw still another illustration of the spiritual
from this natural storehouse,) man will often feel
himself the farthest from God, when God is the
nearest to him; even as the penitent prodigal, at
the very moment when his sensibilities awoke to the
dreary distance at which he had left his father's
house behind him, proved really, by the feeling of
anguish which prompted the resolution, " I will arise
and go to my father," that in spirit that father, or,
at least, which is particularly to our purpose, his
heavenly Father, was nearer to him, if possible, than
ever before.
And this train of thought brings us in sight of yet
another point in the analogy which, under the suggestion of our text and the occasion, we have begun
to study. We have come to that period of the year
when men repeat the old saying: —
"When the days begin to lengthen,
Then the cold begins to strengthen,"
which (though it presents its moral in an inverted
form) may be considered as equivalent to that other
proverb from our old German homestead —
" When the need is the severest,
Then the help is also nearest,"
which, again, has been condensed into the pithy saying, that " it is always darkest just before morning."




TilHE WINTER SOLSTICE.          289
It was when darkness covered the earth and gross
darkness the nations; when the gloom was like the
shadow of death, that light sprang up and the dayspring from on high  touched the hill-tops, and visited the homes and hearts of benighted and bewildered men, to cheer, to guide, and to bless. And
when the sun, which that dayspring heralded, had
seemingly set forever, it was at the sad hour of their
return home, so bowed and broken with disappointment as not to recognize their very Redeemer, as he
walked with them and talked with them by the way,
that his resurrection was about to be revealed to
those two disciples on the way to Emmaus, and the
prophecy verified, "' At even time it, shall be light."
I am as well aware as any of my hearzrs can be
that the groundwork of natural facts and superstructure of moral applications which I am  presenting
to you, by way of New Year's sermon, would serve
equally well for an astronomical lecture, with a
scripture text. Names and uses, however, do not
affect the truth of things. Truth is truth, from whatever quarter it comes; and, as the poet Cowper
says,
"All truth is from the sempiternal source
Of lighlt divine."
And one might add that all light is the light of
truth, whether it be the ray of the material sun or
the light of reason and revelation.  It is, all, the
"Bright effluence of bright essence increate."
On the first Sunday of a new year- our first day
of' the Sun -commemorating for us, as it does, at
19




290           THE WINTER SOLSTICE.
once the rising of the Sun of Grace upon a world of
darkness, the return of that sun to a world of spiritual wintriness, and the rising ag.ain of the Sun of
Ri ghteousness out of the temporary eclipse of the cross
and the sepulchre, there is something in this combination of reminiscences which draws the thoughtful
mind and grateful heart, as with a " threefold cord,"
to dwell on those analogies which the Scriptures)
and our very household language, (the word heaven
itself, for instance,) intimate, between the two great
hemispheres of truth, the visible and the invisible.
Those broad facts of natural science which I have
interpreted the entrance upon a new year as commemorating, in their relation to great spiritual realities, are such, indeed, as every schoolboy knows,
but their spiritual suggestions are such as it would
be instructive and awakening for the grown-up children of superstition and spiritual narrowness and
theological darkness often to meditate.  A curious
and instructive parallel might be traced between the
world's astronomical and its theological errors. It is
remarkable how, in both of these departmnents of inquiry, the truth of things (the mental perspective, so
to speak,) was so long inverted. Secular science has
outgrown its childish thought faster than sacred science; men have learned in the natural world, that the
sun does not go away or turn away from them, but
the reverse: but in spiritual matters how many are
still under the influence of the old idea of a changeable Deity, a Father who needs to be propitiated, a
Spirit of Life and of light that withdraws from its
children, when, in truth, it is they that withdraw from
him.




THE WINTER SOLSTICE.          291
"Speak to the earth," says the old book of Job,
"and it shall teach thee."  The earth is teaching
to-day those who will listen to its voice. We are
at the turning-point, not only of the civil year and
the Christian year, but of the natural year also,
when the sun appears to stand still and look back,
and begin to come back towards us, simply because
the earth has heard the voice, " Thus far and no
farther!" and has begun to incline itself toward the
great source of light and heat. And one might say
- it would be hardly an extravagant figure - that
the trees of the field and the springs of the mountains have heard the Lord's call and the earth's
silent answer.  The promise and prophecy which
the earth's conversion has mutely pronounced thrills
through the frost-bound woods and waters as an earnest of inevitable spring-time. The turning-point
is past. We may say the conversion of the planet
has taken place, though its regeneration is not yet
manifested to the eyes and ears of men. The word
has gone forth that shall not return void.
And now what does this say to man? Does it
not say, what the Scripture says to them who are
waiting in their wintry exile from God's face and
favor, for some miracle to turn the Almighty towvards them, "Draw near unto God and He will
draw near unto you! 9  Does it not say,'" Deceive
not thyself, 0 man; God changes not.  Return
thou, and be reconciled to God by returning to
godliness, and reconciling thyself to bear and do the
will of Him who is infinitely wiser than thou, who
beckons thee in the homeliest, lowliest and it may




292           THE WINTER SOLSTICE.
be loneliest, ways towards the land of uprightness
and peace and plenty, the home from which thou
hast exiled thyself in thy pride, thy selfishness, and
thy recklessness, the home of thy Father, the bosom
of thy Eternal Friend! Winter may be said to be
with most of us, a waiting season, a period of " chill
suspense." WThen shall the spiritual solstice come
for us - the turning-point in the winter of our practical indifference? for surely every state of the soul
deserves to be called indifference, in regard to such
truth as the Gospel, which is anything less than a
wakeful, earnest, all-transcending, all-comprehending devotion of the whole heart, soul, mind, and
strength, to the study and the doing of it. When
shall our conversion be?  Whenever it is, whenever our faces and feet are set heavenward, thenceforward the long-sealed fountains of gratitude and
happiness, though they may not at once gush forth
in the music of a spiritual spring-time, will have
heard and felt the summons which is one day to
break their icy chains, and let them pour forth songs
of gladness and streams of contentment and charity.
But when is this to be? It cannot be, so long as we
refuse to acknowledge the power God has intrusted
to us over our own fortune, so long as we will not
take earnest communion and counsel with the spirit
within us, but sit looking for our salvation to the
hills and the multitude of mountains, — that is to
say, to some great outward sensation and influence.
The earth and the heavens indeed have no power to
move otherwise than as they do. Blindly and passively they obey the will of the Omnipotent. But it




THIE WINTER SOLSTICE.         293
is the pleasure of God in regard to man, and it is
man's privilege and glory, that he should serve the
Lord as a man and not as a machine, as a free mlan
and not as a slave. How little we appreciate this!
There is, therefore, an emphasis which, I apprehend, is not apt to be thought of, in those expressions of our text which represent the Sun of Righteousness as having risen to enlighten them that sit
in darkness and guide their feet into the way of
peace. The light from on high summons us to arise
-to "1 arise and shine' ourselves, by looking towards it and so reflecting it from our countenances,
and by opening our hearts to let it shine through us,
as those who live to the glory of God. That light
which we to-day commemorate, the light which, in
the beginning, at the creation of the world, shone
out of darkness, and, at the new creation in Christ,
beamed from his face to give the light of the knowledge of God's highest glory, that light which continues to this day and forevermore to stream forth
from the open sepulchre and the open heavens —
that light shines not for us to sit and stare at it in
barren wonder -it summons us to stand upon our
feet and to walk as children of the light and of the
day - as children of the day to be sober, having our
loins girded about with truth, and our brows clothed
with the serenity of that hope which can come only
from a steadfast continuance in such principles and
pursuits as imply the harmonious activity of our
whole divinely constituted nature. Unhappily too
many of us live as if we still really believed a dogma which we say or think we have outgrown.'" You




294          THIE WINTER SOLSTICE.
proceed in the idea," said one of our preachers, who
has since gone to the company of the first-born,
"that nothing in a religious way is to be expected of
you until you have been converted. But that sort of
conversion the men and women here to-day will never
reach, go where you will and hear whatever preaching you may, for the reason that in your own minds
you do not and cannot be made to accept the dogma
on which it rests. No, you will go on just as you
are now doing, through life, from this to your dying
day, with the light of evangelical truth shining full
upon you, but with your feet at the same time cumbered with the miry clay of error and prejudice, unless by some immediate, vigorous, and, as it were,
revolutionary decision you break the spell that binds
you."  Says the same plain and pungent writer, " If
your child runs into the street, and you send for him
to come back, does it content you that he replies,'when I am converted I will go back'?  You send
him to school, and he plays truant, and wanders
down to the river. When one speaks to him and
urges him to return to school, shall he take refuge in
the same preposterous reply? And yet that reply is
no whit less absurd in respect of religious duties
than it is in the cases just supposed." A light has
come into the world - it has visited those who sit
in darkness, even in the darkness of such self-delusions as this, and it offers to guide our feet into the
way of peace. But the very idea of its being a
guide implies that we are to accept and follow its
leading. " Turn ye, turn ye," is the call of the
scripture and of the Spirit. Shall we refuse to walk




THE WINTER SOLSTICE.          295
forth into the light and by the light of the natural
sun, which to-day shines so gloriously, because we
cannot yet solve the problem how the mind, through
the will, operates on the bodily organs?  No man
but a hypochondriac is so foolish as that. Why, then,
should any mysteries which lie behind, or hover distantly about, the subject of the inner life and walk,
prevent our putting forth the power God has given
us to follow Christ and the sunlight of the spiritual
world?
HOW long we have waited, many of us - all of
us, in some respects - for the revolution of years to
bring us round where we ought to be, and, if we
know ourselves, really want to be! We feel, somehow, as if the multitude of years would, at last,
not only teach wisdom, but compel us to use it.
But man is, after all, not a machine, not a clod.
There is a spirit in man, by virtue of which he
becomes an accountable vieegerent in this lower
sphere. And there is no real peace for him until he
confesses to himself, and in his life, this great truth.
The best wisdom the days and years teach, as
they steal away so swiftly, is that we are not to depend upon them to bring us the practical wisdom
we most need. Not the golden sand of that Divine
wisdom do the ebbing waters of time leave behind
them as a deposit on the shores of life; that wisdom
which maketh wise unto salvation cometh only from
above, and from within, from the fountains that are
supplied from above, out of the everlasting hills of
God.




XXIIJL
EASTER.
THIAT ~tWHICH THOU SOWVEST IS NOT QUICKENED, EXCEPT IT DIE: AND
THAT WHIICIH THOU SOWEST, THOU SOWEST NOT THAT BODY THIAT
SHALL BE, JUT BARE GRAIN, IT MAY CIIANCE OF ~WHEAT OR OF SOMIE5
OTHERI GRAIN: BUT GOD GI'VETH IT A BODY AS IT HATH PLEASED
HIAI, AND TO EVERY SEED HIS OWN BODI). —- Cor. xv. 36-38.
THERE is certainly a beautiful appropriateness,indeed, one may say, a twofold appropriateness,and the text I have chosen recognizes, or at least
implies it, —in the fact, (and whether we should be
warranted or not in supposing that Divine Providence contemplated the fact, every Christian heart
must surely feel it to be a significant and sacred coincidence,) that the anniversary of the resurrection
of Christ from  the dead, the festival devoted to the
thought of man's immortality, should occur just at
the time of the natural year's resurrection from  its
death-like winter-sleep.  In one sense, of course, we
can hardly attribute this correspondence to a direct
design of God, because there is a large portion of
-the world which knows not our alternation of the seasons; but for us, at all events, the Spirit of Wisdom
may well have a meaning in this conjuncture of the
natural and the spiritual, by which, at the moment




EASTER.                  297
when the earth is preparing, with the music of bird
and bud and brooklet, to hail the fulfilment of the
promise which (as we saw on a former occasion)
was given in the very solstice of winter, the church
also is called to put on her garments of gladness to
greet her risen Master, to hail the second advent,
the full and final rising into the spiritual firmament,
of that Sun of Righteousness, whose first appearing
above this earthly horizon the Christmas season had
commemorated.
It is true, with us, in the crude and sluggish
spring-times of our New England climate, where the
cold earth is as slow to blossom into vernal beauty
as the heart of man is to show forth praise and gratitude, - (but with more reason, for the natural sunshine is not steady, like the smile of Heaven's mercy,)
- in this region the harmony of festivals, to which
we have alluded, in the secular and sacred calendars,
is often but faintly perceptible to the senses, and
requires, for its appreciation, considerable help from
fancy and from faith.  While, however, to the outward sense only a feeble and flickering presentiment,
it may be, is awakened within us of dawning summer by the greenness of the meadow and the roadside, and the intermittent tenderness in the look of
the heavens, there is another suggestion of the season, which even the' Chill suspense and slow delay"
of our backward spring-time are fitted to impress
only the more deeply on the thoughtful mind, as a
help to faith in that Christian doctrine and promise




298                 EASTER.
of immortality which religious usage invites us to
study.
I refer to the fact, that this is not only the resurrection-time of the year, (as we have called it,) but
the time of the burial of the seed. With each returning spring, and by each returning spring, is
illustrated not only that power of God, which clothes
with new bodies and new beauty the seeds and
stalks that had lain dead or dormant through the
winter, but that faith of man, which says to him, in
the language of our text, " That which thou sowest,
O man! is not quickened, except it die: and that
which thou sowest, thou sowest not that body that
shall be, but bare grain, it may chance of wheat, or
some other grain: but God giveth it a body, as it
hath pleased Him, and to every seed its own body."
I call the instinctive feeling of assurance with which
man, at this season, buries his seed-grain in the
ground,faith.  And it is faith- faith in God. He
may attempt to disguise it under the phrases, reliance on nature, belief in his senses, trusting to
experience, confidence in the uniformity of the connection between cause and effect; but, after all, it
resolves itself into faith, —into a principle which
simply believes, —in the morning sowing its seed,
and in the evening withholding not its hand, because
it knoweth n'lot whether shall prosper either this or
that, or whether they both shall be alike good.
What I simply meant to say, however, at this
moment was, how fitting a season it is, when the
natural man, with such faith in the Lord of Nature,
deposits his seed in the ground to die, expecting its




EASTER.                 299
resurrection in beauty and abundance, for the Christian man to behold in emblem, and have renewed
within him, his faith that the spiritual seed which
he bears about with him. in this dying body, which
God, at his' birth, sowed in this corruptible mortality, shall, by God's power and grace, be clothed
upon with a new and spiritual body of its own, in
that world of promise; and that, in return for the
precious seed which, perhaps, at this very season of
earthly hope and promise, he has borne forth weeping, God, smiling on the burial-sod which his tears
have watered, shall one day call him to come again,
bringing his sheaves with him to the harvest-home
of heaven.
Let us, then, amidst the associations of this season and hour, give our thoughts to the consideration of a part of Scripture which, so long as man is
mortal, and yet feels omens of immortality within
him, can never cease to be regarded with deep sensation.
It is an interesting question, and one which, if
properly considered, might possibly have moderated
a little the minute and vehement contentiousness
with which Christians have so often speculated and
striven about the precise meaning and bearing of
some of Paul's expressions in this memorable chapter, -to ask, whence did the Apostle derive the
explicit information he here gives us in regard to
the resurrection; from a special revelation, or from
the working of his own spirit upon tile hints which
were furnished him by the words and personal transfigurations of his Master, with the aid brought to




300                 EASTER.
his comprehensive genius by the analogies of nature.
This much we know, that while he claims, in some
cases, a direct revelation from the Lord, in other cases,
he professes to speak only in the exercise of his own
reason; and while, indeed, in regard to the grand
truths and laws of the spiritual world, we have the
best ground for confidently receiving his declarations, as to the comparatively non-essential matters
of time and place and form, we may not readily
condemn any who should be disposed to differ from
us, or even from  him.  I doubt, myself, whether
they rightly understand him who ascribe to him a
belief that the coming of Christ, in the form of the
earth's destruction and the general resurrection to
judgment, would take place in the lifetime of some
then on the stage of existence; and I certainly
do not agree with the conclusion which seems to
have been so extensively assumed, that he teaches
literally the resurrection of the very dust into which
the body had been dissolved in the grave.  But
what I would say is, that, in regard to all such matters, it would have been much more for the interests
of our faith if Christians had freely and reverently
exercised their own judgment, feeling that such questions were, after all, not the vital ones, and did not
call for a special revelation, or an infallible scripture,
or an infallible interpreter of scripture; and remembering always to fall back upon the great central
realities of the spiritual law and of the prophetic
conscience.
It is a significant and an instructive fact, how little our Master himself, - He who came down from




EASTER.                301
heaven and ascended up into heaven, the Son of
Man who was ever in heaven, - had to say, in the
way of gratifying even what might be called a
sacred curiosity; how little, except what concerned
moral relations, of the state of man after death;
how little he countenanced speculation about the
circumstances of the next world. When he does
refer to such things, it is almost exclusively for the
purpose of putting a negative upon some incongruous assumption.  And in justice to Paul it
should be said, that, certainly in the chapter from
which our text is taken, he will be found, upon a
just view of his language, to discuss the physiology
of the resurrection much more for the sake of showing the baselessness of scepticism, and of making
matter itself a refutation of materialism than for any
other purpose; and that he gives far less of positive
information as to the secret things of the after-world,
or the under-world, or the upper-world, than, from the
tone of those who have talked and written about his
doctrine, one would infer.
We find, among the recorded expressions of Jesus,
one remarkable utterance, which fell from him, as
that seemingly ignominious end approached, which
he called his glorification, and his earthly life was
about to be swallowed up by immortality; and we
may well remember it at this season, and all the more
as it may well have suggested the analogy Paul notices in our Easter text. " Verily, verily I say unto
you," said Jesus, on the occasion referred to, " except
a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but, if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit.




302                  EASTER.
He that loveth his life shall lose it; and he that
hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life
eternal" - beautifully teaching  them  and us (I
would remark here in passing) that the unproductive life is a lonely life, and that the life of self-forgetfulness and self-devotion is the only life of salvation. And this was said by the Saviour, at once
for his own comfort and for the admonition of his
disciples.
Paul, who uses the same illustration for a controversial purpose primarily, answering by it the objection of sceptical philosophers, has occasion.to look
into it with more of physiological minuteness. The
principal opposition Jesus encountered came from a
class of men who believed already in the resurrection of the body, and that in too gross a sense; and
what he had occasion chiefly to dwell on, was the
moral aspect of the resurrection. Nor does Paul,
by any means, neglect to lay all the stress which it
deserves on the moral resurrection, as may be seen
by eloquent and well-known chapters in his letters
to the Romans and to the Philippians. Nay, in the
indignant preamble with which he introduces the
scepticalquestion he uses the illustration of the seed
to answer, he shows plainly that his great and ultimate object is to awaken the scepticism of the sensual and frivolous to the need of that resurrection
of which conscience, and not chemistry, is the expounder; which flesh and blood, and the corrupt passions that live thereby, cannot inherit, and which he
himself dies daily in order to attain.
But let us look now at Paul's doctrine of the resur



EASTER.                303
rection of humanity, and see how much he does teach.
And here the first thing that strikes us is, when we
recur to his language and place side by side with it,
in our minds, the old doctrine of the resurrection of
the body, -that the very gist of the Apostle's whole
argument, as drawn from the analogy of the burial
of the seed, consists in the fact, that the thing buried
is not the body that shall be, but that the future
body is one which the God of nature shall provide.
It is true the Apostle says the seed itself is quickened, and that God gives each seed its own body,
and it may seem to follow from this, that there is at
least a germ or nucleus of material in the buried
form, from which a body is developed or on which
it is superinduced. All that our anilmal chemistry,
however, can say in regard to the seed is, to suggest
to us that some law inheres in it, in accordance with
which the various elements combine to create its
new body, — but when we come to the question, by
what spiritual chemistry corruption can be made
even the crucible for generating that which is incorruptible, we come to a question not only not to be
answered, but rather not to be asked. A human
body, to make it such, requires three things, - substance, form, and organization; now, supposing, for
the moment, that Paul means by a spiritual body a
something that has shape and organism, still a just
appreciation of the analogy he institutes would
seem to require us to understand, by the seed which
is to take that body, the spirit, which is the man,
and not the flesh or anything connected with the
flesh. As I understand the Apostle, what he means




304                EASTER.
to teach by the analogy of the seed simply is that,
as, in fact, you do not know where the plant was or
how it existed, which springs up on the ruins of the
seed you deposited, neither do you know, or need
to know, how or whence the heavenly man comes,
who rises on the ruins of the earthly man. And the
words, "It is sown a natural body; it is raised a
spiritual body," might equally well have been rendered, and then they would have ceased to suggest
the materialistic idea, "' There is sown a natural
body; there is raised a spiritual body."'
It has been very ingeniously said, by one who
would reconcile the two ideas, that the future body
is to be the same as the present one and yet different, that " it will really be the same body, whether its
fleshl be made of the matter which composed the
body laid in the grave, or of any other matter; or
whether it be of a contexture more rare or more
dense. For every one knows," he says, " that our
present body is justly reckoned the same body in all
the different stages of our life, on account of the
continued similarity of its members to themselves,
and of the whole body to itself, notwithstanding the
matter of which it is composed be continually changing; and notwithstanding the bulk and strength of
its members, and the appearance of the countenance,
gradually alter in the progress of the body from its
birth to manhood, and from manhood to old age."
But may it not be, after all, an unwarranted
assumption that the spiritual body, which Paul announces, bears any analogy to this fleshly one? The
illustration he draws from a comparison of the seed




EASTLR.                          305
and the plant would lead us to think so. A great
deal, I doubt not, has been  ascribed to  him, which
existed only in the minds of his interpreters. Strictly
speaking, a spiritual body need not mean anything
else than simply a spiritual being. I do not find, indeed, in the connection of the words spiritual body, any
such self-contradiction as some have fancied.   For I
do  not, certainly, conceive the word spiritual to imply the material of which the body is made, any more
than the phrases mzuscular power and  mental power
imply that the force in the one casecconsists of flesh,
and in the other case of spirit, —but simply that
there is a body, or a something, through which the
spirit continues to be manifested, as there is a  body
here for the animal soul. Nor, on the other hand,
does it seem to me inconceivable that the spirit
should exist and act and make its presence felt, without a visible form. I can, therefore, well conceive
that there may be a deep truth in those beautiful
lines:
"' How shall we know them - the holy dead,
Whom owe left alone in their narrow bed?
"How shall we know him - the one who died,
Like a shock of corn in autumn pride;
flef, whom we knew by her pallid cheek,
By sickness blighted, by grief made weak'?
Not bay the leamn of their silver hair,
Not by the traces of time and care;
But by the feelings, more deeply shrined,
The feelings that dwell in the chanogeless mind;
By a childlike love - the love we felt
In the earthly homes, where our parents dwelt.
How shall we know them -the infant race;
How will the mother her loved one trace?
Not by the glance of his sunny eye,
20




306                     EASTER.'Twas but a gleam o'el mortality;
Not by his look when he sank to rest,
A closing flower on her throbbing breast;
But by a feeling like that which burned,
When her heart o'er the guileless stranger yearned;
Byv a thrill like that which, when first he smiled,
Came o'er her soul, will she know her child.'"
I have not, in this discourse, expressed any very
confident opinions on the questions alluded to; and
I think, as I have said, that Paul, himself, decides
much less than we have been too generally in the
habit of attributing to him.  His great point, as I
conceive, is to show  that scepticism  has nothing
substantial to present against the Christian doctrine
that man will live again, the doctrine of Him who
rose, himself, from  the dead to help struggling and
staggering faith.  And he dwells, as he does, upon
the analogies of nature that bear upon the subject,
not for the purpose of amusing an idle curiosity,
bat for the  purpose of arousing  a dormant conscience.  *" Awake to righteousness," is the burden
of the solemn  disclosure.  Like  his  Master, he
brings life and immortality to light, that men may
walk as children of the light and of the day, in sober
and serene elevation of spirit, in sure hope, in peaceful faith.  Like his Master, he would have man to
know that the commandments of God are life everlasting. He admonishes us that it is the fool who
says in his heart, Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we go hence and are no more; that the wise
man will say, Let us cultivate a taste for intellectual, moral, and spiritual pleasures, for those pleasures which  he enjoys who makes the senses his




EASTER.                  307
servants, instead of being their slave; for a world is
fast approaching in which those pleasures will be
the only ones. Let us, he will say, cherish that
thirst after righteousness and truth and grace which
shall, surely as God liveth, be satisfied as fast as it
is renewed, for ever and ever, at the fountains of
immortality.
My friends, we may speculate with Paul, but in
Jesus must we, (according to Paul himself,) in
him, the Master, must we believe, if we would
know and possess the life eternal. To the truth as
it is in Jesus, does the great Apostle himself bid us
go. Whosoever liveth and believeth in me, said
Jesus, shall never die.  To him that does believe in
Jesus, that is, in the spiritual truth, law, and providence which he represents, and which he lived and
died to glorify, no other death is more than a transient incident, except the deadness of the mind and
heart to the beauty of holiness, the gain of godliness,
the preciousness of truth, the majesty of virtue. The
waking up and living up of man to these great realities is the true resurrection to life immortal. By
such awakening and such life, immortality begins
even here. To-day, even now, the Lord, the Saviour,
the captain of salvation, speaks to each one of us
and says, " If thou wilt enter into life, keep the
commandments.  I know that the commandments
of the Father are life everlasting and thou shalt
know it, when thou knowest me, and through me
Him that sent me."




XXIV.
THE BROAD COMMANDMENT.
THIS DO, AND THOU SHALT LIVE.... GO, AND DO THOU LIKEWISE... 
ONE THING IS NEEDFUL.... - Luke x. 25-42.
THE portion of Scripture which has been read to
you this morning constitutes the text and presents
the theme of my discourse. A long text and a large
theme - nevertheless I think you will find that there
is sufficient unity - and sufficient definiteness in the
drift of the whole to give a practical point, and a not
unseasonable turn, to the discussion, even of what
contains in itself several subjects and sermons.
David, in the 119th Psalm, speaking of the Law
of the Lord, and comparing it with human models
and attainments, says, " Thy commandment is exceeding broad." My object in using the Scripture
before us, is to show how emphatically true this is
of the commandment of God, the law of life, as set
forth in the teachings of Jesus.
There has always been a tendency in the religious
world, and it is apt to be particularly strong at times *
when any sudden waking up of the public mind to
X This sermon was preached during the "' Revival Winter " of 1857-8.




THE BROAD COMMANDMENT.           309
religious matters creates a desire for decisive tests
and manifestations of piety, - to really reduce the
dimensions and demands of the gospel, while professing to exalt them; to bring the standard down
that it may seem near to the eager impulseof the
new enthusiasm; to narrow the channel of the Christian life, in order that the zeal of the believer may,
thus confined, be urged on in a stronger and swifter
current.  At such times single phases of truth, of
duty, of character are liable to be put forward for
the complete and harmonious whole. "Christ is
divided," (to use Paul's striking expression,) the
symmetry of the divine perfectness of truth, beauty,
and holiness, as imaged in the man Christ Jesus, is
seen at best in a defective and distorted form; and
though we hear, on every side, the cry, " lo here is
Christ! " and " lo there! " we do not find him, his
whole, well-balanced teaching or temper, in all its
fair proportions, but only some one or other of his
truths or traits, exaggerated at the expense of the
rest. The representations put forth, at such times,
of the saving truth, the saving work, the sanctifying
spirit of the Lord, are too apt to elicit from a
thoughtful soul the ejaculation, " O righteous Father,
O meek and lowly Son of God and of man, the
world hath not known thee!"
It is well, indeed, that occasions should occur
which urge upon us the duty of seeing to it that the
stream of our religious thought and life does not
spread itself out into such a wide and shallow bed,
as to waste itself in a speculative or sentimental
stagnation, - it is well that we should be admonished




3810       THE BROAD COMMANDMENT.
that mere musing, mere drifting along as chance
may direct, cannot meet the demands of the Christian law; that we should, in whatever way, be wakled
up to the necessity of there being some banks, some
defining landmarks, to form a channel in which our
life of faith, and hope, and charity shall flow on, as
a strong, steady and fertilizing river, to the good of
man and the glory of God; but, at the same time,
there is no inconsistency in our taking care that the
channel shall be as broad as the Christian pattern:
there is certainly no necessity of our so narrowing
the channel, for the sake of increasing the speed of
the waters, that the earth-stained and spray-mantled
element shall reflect in its bosom no clear and consistent image of the upper world of God's truth and
grace.
In what way the teachings of Jesus, by their general tenor and tendency, offer to help us seize the
advantage of a period of religious stimulation, like
that through which we are passing, and at the same
time guard ourselves against its power to belittle our
conception of the true ideal of manhood and godliness, is happily illustrated for any one who, with his
mind and heart open to the fair impression of the
whole, will read and ponder, in their connection with
each other, the several parts which go to form the
scripture selected for our present study.
Those of us who have recently begun to study together the gospel history, - and I take this occasion
to remark how proper and goodly a thing it would
be, for a whole congregation to resolve itself into
a Sunday school or Bible school, - have observed




TEE BROAD COMMANDMENT.           311
that the Evangelists do not undertake to give a
complete or consecutive biography of Jesus, but
only memorabilia, reminiscences, of his deeds and
discourses, such as their own recollection, quickened
by the Holy Spirit, enabled them, and wisdom from
above directed them, to record; and that they arranged these memoirs not always, by any means, in
chronological order, but in many cases, (and this applies especially to the writer from whom our text is
taken,) grouped together incidents and sayings, simply because, from some resemblance among them,
they seemed to belong together or recurred together
to the memory. And in some cases, where, perhaps,
even what we, in our ignorance, call accident, led to
the order in which things follow each other, we find
a significance and felicity in the connection, which
impresses us with the feeling of a divine wisdom.
And with regard to the Scriptures in general, I
think, every reflecting reader will agree with me that
there is no one trait which more strongly marks
them as a whole, (and, to my mind, this gives what
I may call a providential unity to the Bible as a
great education book, as well as record of the actual
schooling of humanity,) - than the sober tone, the
evenly-balanced, well-proportioned manner in which
all sides of truth are presented -the even-handed
justice which is done to all the various wants and
tendencies of our manifold nature. On surveying
the whole field at a glance, I am continually more
and more impressed with this characteristic of the
Bible, and its fitness, by virtue of this, to be the
teacher of a world, and an age of the world, in which




312        THE BROAD COMMANDMENT.
soberness is so much needed (I do not mean dulness
nor sanctimoniousness, but harmony) in the theories,
tempers, lives of men.  I speak of that freedom
from exaggeration and extravagance in the Bible,
that largeness of scope which forbids it to be monopolized by any sect of religion or school of philosophyo  Well has it been said that, " the simple and
unprejudiced study of the Bible is the death of religicus extravagance."  And this effect it has, not
by making a man indifferent to truth, but by informing his whole nature so equally with the spirit of
all the great truths, that his life of thought and zeal
and action, shall be a sustained and strong and
steady one. And when, in accordance with this, I
say, that a sober spirit is just now greatly needed,
I do not mean that meagre and bloodless, that sanctimonious and sepulchral thing which so often passes
for soberness, and which is simply a vacuity of
thought and feeling, but that noble quality which
consists in a harmonious combination of gifts and
graces, - which aspires, at least, to stand perfect and
complete in all the word and will of God.
But this soberness requires something which in
our day is not easy —and that is study. It has
been said that " we are, beyond any nation that
is or ever was on earth, a reading people." I fear,
however, that the amount of study done, in proportion to the amount of reading, is alarmingly small.
It seems to me particularly needful now, when there
is so much stir in the name of religion, so much
running to and fro to hear the word of God or of
man, so much looking to and fro for signs and won



THE BROAD COMMANDMENT.          313
ders, that we should labor for a revival of the reading and reflecting spirit. There seems to be a feeling with multitudes, that " faith cometh by hearing'."
If it does, (for I would observe that this assertion is
not made by Paul, but only supposed by him to be
the objection of a man with whom he is arguing,)
if faith does come by hearing, it does not come
through the outer ear.  It springs up from within
the mind that listens with the ear of thought. Faith
comes neither through the ear nor through the eye,
neither by hearing nor by reading merely, but by
thinking, by studying, by meditation, and that prayer
to which meditation impels, and that life to which
prayer impels. We need in these days to remember,
that the sanctification for which there is just now
so much praying and laboring in the community, is
to come (according to one of the last words of Jesus)
through the truth, and we are further admonished
that no soul can make the truth its own without an
earnest and sober study of it.'We need vastly more
study, (I do not mean merely solitary, but social
study, also,) of the Scriptures, -- the records and remembrancers of that truth which is at the bottom of
all the great movements that are reforming and redeeming the world, — that study which alone can
properly replenish and sustain and guide the zeal
that is to carry them on to perfection. We need to
study the Book of Books, so that we may read other
books, not for the mere purpose of killing time or
keeping up with the fashion, but for the noble purpose of accomplishing ourselves in the wisdom that,
in the largest sense, makes wise to salvation.




314        THE BROAD COMMANDMENT.
But, breaking off here these general remarks, I
ask you now to look with me into that mirror of the
law of liberty, which the scripture, that has been
read here to-day, holds up, to show us what manner
of persons we ought to be; and I beg you to see,
within the short compass of these few specifications
of incident and character, how many of the common tendencies among men to narrow the spirit
of Christianity into one or another form of manifestation are virtually rebuked by the teaching of
the Master, and how impossible it is to read his
teachings connectedly and thoughtfully, with a view
to learning what is the great commandment of the
law, without feeling how broad that commandment
is, how large is his philosophy of life, how generous,
free and flexible his way of salvation.
Thus, is there at this day one, perhaps many a
one, who comes in a speculative or sentimental
mood, self-complacently, to have the thought of his
heart confirmed and the habit of his life countenanced by the highest authority, to extort from the
wisdom of Christ an acknowledgment that it is
enough for a man to cherish a large and liberal theory of religion, or who, hearing it preached that to
love God and man is the sum and substance of
Christianity, is ready to exclaim, " That is exactly
my sentiment," showing by his life and temper that
it is little more than sentiment, - to such a one what
a keen reproof does the simplicity of Christ administer, when he says, " ThZis do and thou shalt live,"(conscience silently adding, " say this without doing
it, and thou shalt die, even as when an hungry man




THE BROAD COMMANDMENT.          315
dreameth and behold he eateth; but he awaketh,
and his soul is empty,") and how he presses the
probe home, when he makes it the vital question
whether all our orthodoxy or liberalism or sentimentalism  can keep us from giving way to the inhumanity that tempts us, in daily life, through the power of a fierce partisanship, a false patriotism, or a
cold, worldly, or spiritual pride!
Or, again, is there one, who, catching only the
words, " This do and thou shalt live," thinks he is
echoing the sentiment when he says,'" Yes, that is
exactly it; true religion does not consist in dreaming fine theories and sentiments, but in doing what
God has given a man to do from day to day; that
is just my creed, that every man should mind his
own business, and whatsoever his hand findeth to
do, do it with his might," — is there one who thus
justifies himself for being so immersed in earthly
cares that he has no time nor thought for higher
things, pleading that Divine Providence has placed
him where he is, and that he is attending to the
great work of life and the business of the Father in
following his earthly calling, and treating every
thought of holiness and heaven that would steal
into the midst of it, as an impertinent intruder, -to
him again the faithful Friend and Master comes
and says, " Thou art careful and troubled about
many things, but one thing is needful," — he does
not say (as it has been sometimes interpreted) that
there is but one thing needful, for daily bread is
needful, else he would not himself have taught us
to pray for it, - but he simply says that one thing is




316        THE BROAD COMMANDMENT.
preeminently, absolutely, and eternally needful, to
which all others must be secondary and subservient.
He does not blame Martha-he does not blame
any man or woman at this day for attending to
household or business duties, but only for being anxious and worried about them, as if they were not
a worthy human interest,- he does not bid Martha
leave her house-work; he simply forbids her to take
Mary away from the work she was doing at the
time in another sphere, declaring that she has chosen
that good part of the great work of humanity which
must not be taken away from her: —at the same
time he does unmistakably intimate that the higher
world should be heard, in the very midst of life's
cares and joys, to hallow and to chasten them, and
that its messenger should abide with us, not, indeed,
as a strange and spectral apparition coming to torment our life, but, on the contrary, as a calm friend
and monitor, who would prevent us from  being
strangers and spectres to ourselves, from tormenting
ourselves with earthly apprehensions that cast their
long shadows into the unseen future, and would
anchor our souls in peace to that which is within
the veil.
But now, once more, is there any one, (as there
doubtless are many,) who, taking only those words
by themselves, " One thing is needful," and associating them only with that pensive and receptive
sister, sitting at the great Teacher's feet, concludes
that that is the only good part of what is done
among men, that is the one thing needful, to wait
and watch for a work to be wrought mysteriously




THE BROAD COMMANDMENT.           317
in the soul, to attend upon the direct exercises of
religion, to hear the word, to be looking and listening for a sensible influence to come and convert the
heart; and is there, perhaps, one (as it is to be
feared there are also many) who carries this, or is
carried by it, to such an extreme, as to be really getting farther away from the characteristic element of
the Gospel, namely, its practical and philanthropic
essence, while under the delusive dream of growing
in grace; is there any one who thus resolves salvation into a sanctification of selfishness, instead of a
quickening of generosity, -to such a one the spirit
of Christ, speaking out of the Gospel and out of the
conscience, pointing back to the good Samaritan,
says, " Awake from thy dream of indolent self-indulgence and self-complacency; go and do thou like
him; live not for thyself, but for thy brethren, and
then thou livest indeed, and livest eternally, because
the spirit of the Father and of the Saviour liveth in
thee; thou hast denied thy very self, thou hast emptied thyself of self, and the ILord has filled thee, and
there is that built up in thee which death cannot
dissolve."
If we would read to our present and practical
profit the short but most suggestive narration which
Luke so felicitously (as has been said) places directly after the parable of the good Samaritan, we
must consider that, inasmuch as the illustrious and
holy guest, whose presence caused such a sensation
in that home at Bethany, ceased long ago to be a
personal partaker of human hospitality, a personal
object of earthly homage, of course the 1" much serv



318         THE BROAD COMMANDMENT.
ing" undertaken in his honor, which the spirit of
Christ deprecates, now takes other forms. The carefulness and cumbersomeness of creed-worship and
ceremonial observance too often makes man forget
practically what it all professes to remind him of,
the one thing which is really needful, the devotion
of his own mind, heart, and life to the glorification
of the God who made him, and sent him into this
world to serve and to save it, and so to glorify the
Father by doing his will. And hence one might say
that in these days, in the house of the Lord, Mary
may sometimes be found cherishing, with her homage
of the Saviour, a superstitious anxiety about appearing well in his presence, which is hardly more worthy
of a spiritual faith in the simple and practical Gospel than was the secular anxiety of Martha herself.
How true it is, as Paul said, that when the soul
shall once turn to the Lord, who is a spirit, the veil
(and so these veils, whether of self-love or of servility) shall be taken away, or rather shall melt away;
as the mists melt before the sun, so shall these
heavy mists of fear and formalism be swallowed up
in the light and love of Him whose law is a law of
liberty, whose countenance is a sun of righteousness.  Then, instead of cumbering themselves, instead of worrying themselves and one another, with
a thousand minutia  of dogma and discipline, men
shall all listen to the common Master, and hear him
say, that the one thing needful is not merely to do
this or that act, to observe this or that rite, to believe
this or that opinion, but to have the whole heart and
life filled with that faith in God which must needs




THE BROAD COMMANDMENT.         319
be always manifesting itself in the works of God,that love of God which will shine out steadily in the
love of man, as God's child, not of man in the abstract, but of men in detail,-a charity that shall
not exhaust itself in almsgiving any more than
evaporate in sentimental sighs or sectarian tolerance,
and that shall remember the wounds of the spirit,
and seek to heal and not aggravate them, as well as
the wounds of the flesh.
Behold, my friends, something, however imperfectly and feebly I have presented it, of the large
idea of the life communicated by Christ Jesus!
Once in his spirit, we look upward without spiritual
pride, inward without morbid anxiety, outward without distraction. Between these three worlds, - the
upper world of truth, the inner world of conscience,
and the outer world of action, -we keep a calm
position, hold on a calm course, finding all their
otherwise conflicting and distracting demands to
harmonize in the simplicity of a Christian faith in
the Divine Omnipresence, and in the identity of all
goodness.
Let our great solicitude be, in these days of eager
chase and anxious inquiry in the things of religion,
to get a broad and deep foundation laid within us
that shall sustain a strong and steadfast character.
Other foundation can no man lay than that which
is laid, even Jesus Christ; but we must remember
that no man can lay this for another; each must lay
it for himself, after the pattern laid down in the
gospel itself. Men will be ready enough to show
us how we are to lay our foundation with the single




320         THE BROAD COMMANDMENT.
stone of some dogma or observance; but we must
come to the gospel, and humbly but honestly build
for ourselves on a foundation no less broad than the
truth as it is in Jesus.
The scripture which we have been studying
shows forth, in the light in which we have surveyed
it, a fact worthy of more attention than has hitherto
been given to it, - how comprehensive and particular
a thing, at once, the religion of Jesus is. How few,
perhaps, of those who repeat the familiar saying,
that one thing is needful, take so general and generous a view of the truth as it is in Jesus, as to understand and feel that that one thing is no single,
specific, mysterious, passive experience of faith or
feeling, but a life of love to God, manifested in the
active service of truth, and goodness, and charity.
The tide of true Christian zeal, then, needs not
be shallow in order to be clear, nor narrow in order
to be strong. If it flows from the fountain of communion with Christ himself, as presented in the
gospel, it is a calm, broad, beneficent river of water
of life.
There are a few conclusions and cautions which
I would now, in leaving the subject with ycu, comnmend to your attention.
In the first place, let no one say that the doctrine
which has now been preached is a hard doctrine;
and in the second place let no one say that it is an
easy one.  Whoever should say either of these
things, in his heart, would greatly misconceive the
truth, as I have intended to represent it.
Say not in your hearts, as men did of old, "' This




THE BROAD COMMANDMENT.          321
is a hard saying; who can hear it? This is a- high
achievement; who is sufficient for it?"  What is
it, I demand for the Gospel? Simply that it should
be studied, received, and lived soberly, in the spirit
of that Master who said, " This ought ye to have
done, and not to leave the other undone."  I do
not demand the possession of any great philosophical powers, or the putting forth of any great intellectual effort, but simply soberness of mind, steadiness of view, and justness of discernment. My
doctrine does not presuppose any mighty comprehensiveness of theoretical faculty. It simply calls
you to notice that the same law in nature which
enspheres a universe, gives a globe-form to the drop
of dew; and to reflect that this is an emblem of the
truth, that the religious principle which forms the
unity of Heaven, which binds all intelligent creatures to God and to each other, may be manifested,
and should be manifested entire in each smallest act
of our life.
On the other hand, let it not be imagined that our
doctrine is too easy, as if it recommended what may
be called a mere chameleon-Christianity,
" All things by turns and nothing long;"
or a mere eclectic religion, which goes about picking
out what is good or agreeable in this, that, and the
other human system, and so making up a patchwork-creed and method. The method I contend for
is just the opposite of this. It may, indeed, be suggested to a thoughtful mind and sympathizing spirit,
by mingling with all souls and sects and systems,
21




322        THE BROAD COMMANDMENT.
and lamenting the distractedness of the religious
world; but its remedy is no outside measure; it does
not run round on the circumference of the world of
forms and opinions; it goes right inward to find the
central principle of the religion of Christ, - that principle which, once settled in the soul's faith and love,
Will radiate divine life outward in every direction
toward the circumference of being and all the forms
of existence. This central principle can be found
only by entering, through meditation, study of Scripture, prayer to God, and labor for man, into the
innermost mind of the Lord.
May the broad and deep faith which I have thus
imperfectly delineated be ours, my friends, so that
we shall not, like so many unhappy slaves of a half
superstitious, half sensuous system of religion, steal
through the midst of life's cares and joys as if truants from God; that, on the contrary, we may feel
ourselves to be always in the school of the Spirit,
faithful and growing pupils of the Divine grace;
glorifying the Father in all our works and ways, by
the honesty and humility of our purpose; adorning
the broad commandment, the law of the spirit of life
in Christ Jesus, by a true filial gratitude, and reverence, and charity; and having, not merely a hope
to live, still less a mere name to live, but something,
and continually more, of that real and eternal life
which is in the Father and in the Son.




XXV.
THE PRESENT CRISIS OF FAITH.
BY FAITH, ABRAHAM, WI-HEN IE WAS CALLED TO GO OUT INTO A PLACE
WHICH HE SHOULD AFTER RECEIVE FOR AN INHE.ITANCE, OBEYED;
AND HIE WENT OUT, NOT KNOWING Wl-ITIIER HE WENT. - Heb. xi. 8.
THIS historical picture of the Father of the Faithful
going forth, in obedience to the call of God, into an
untried and unknown wilderness, is also an emblematic and prophetical picture of that noble army of
exiles and pioneers in the world of thought, who, in
every age, whether called or not to sunder the external
ties of home and country, have bravely and cheerfully
left the comfortable home of conformity and community in creed and worship, to follow Christ and conscience and conviction.  They, too, went out, not
knowing whither they went, into the field of inquiry;
not knowing whither the Spirit of Truth would lead
them; knowing this only,-which was enough for
them to know, - that, if, with Truth, safety was not
to be found, there was no safety for them; that,
without faith in the Truth, the ground swas hollow
under their feet, but, with Truth in the inward parts,
they stood on the rock of ages. The father of the
Hebrew race is, in this respect, a type of our Pil



324      TlHE PRESENT CRISIS OF FAITH.
grim Fathers, - the fathers of our political independence, - the fathers of our spiritual liberty, - and of
all the pilgrims and protestants and martyrs of faith
and freedom in all time. All of them have been
sustained and cheered by the memory of his exampie, and by their faith in the promises and providence
of the God of Abraham.
Nor has the day yet arrived when the remembrance of such examples is no longer needed, when
the call ceases to come to us to cherish the spirit
which animated these old independents, and to follow their faith. To judge by what we hear from
time to time, one would think that the battle for free
thought and free faith was ended; that the trumpet
might be hung up in the hall, the sword restored to
its scabbard, and the pilgrim soldier sing the song
of peaceful commemoration. But this would be a
serious mistake. It is not yet too late for us to be
reminded that, to be in a minority, and a small minority, is not a symptom of our being in the wrong;
it is still seasonable to remember that the kingdom
of God cometh not with observation; the occasions
have not all gone by, which make it wholesome to
caution those who profess faith in Christ against
despising the day of small things; and against the
danger that ambition, to make a fair show in the
flesh, will outrun anxiety to have our life hid with
Christ in God. It is not superfluous nor ill-timed, at
this day, to exhort one another not to be ashamed,
and not to be weary of well-doing, and of hard
endurance, in the precious cause of building ourselves up on a faith that shall not need the support




THE PRESENT CRISIS OF FAITH.        325
of imposing statistics, the sympathy of a complacent
crowd; that can live upon a meat which the world
knoweth not of.
It must be said, that this age is not specially a
spiritual one. It; is not specially an age of clear,
consistent, understanding faith. A great deal is said
and done, printed and preached, about this faith and
that faith; there is no little stir in regard to creeds
and forms; but of faith, that understands itself, —
faith, as a profound, generous, independent principle, independent of all else, because dependent upon
God, - of this, a thoughtful spirit finds too little in
this busy, bustling age.
Faith is an inexhaustible, because an infinite
theme,  But in these last few weeks attention has,
in a special manner, been drawn to the subject.
That old word has come up again in a fresh aspect;
and it may, therefore, be seasonable for us to do,
what is always serviceable, namely, to reconsider
what it means; to revive our convictions of what is
to be received as true, and what is to be unlearned
as false, and rejected as useless, burdensome, or injurious, in relation to the subject it suggests.
Hardly any who hear me can be unaware of
what, since the foreign war ceased, has become to
such a degree the staple, not only of religious but of
secular newspapers of the day, namely, the position
of what is sometimes called the Liberal, and sometimes the Unitarian denomination, in regard to religious faith in general, and Christian faith in particular. It has been asserted with great confidence,
argued with great ability, and illustrated with great




326       THE PRESENT CRISIS OF FAITH.
felicity, that the age we live in is characterized, religiously, by a " suspense of faith."  The idea has
been eloquently and energetically impressed upon
the popular mind, that Protestantism, particularly in
the rational form held by ourselves, (who have been
called " Protestants of the Protestants,") having gone
over so far in the direction of individuality, independence, and informality, as to shudder at its own
hardihood and at the wilderness before it, is beginning to pause, and consider whether it is not time
to turn back and seek again the central ground, the
safe ground, the solid ground of fixed forms and formulas.
Here are two questions: first, as to the nature of
the disease, and then, as to the best mode of curing
it. Perhaps, as has been said, it is easier to detect
and describe the disorder, in this great religious
matter, than to prescribe, clearly and wisely, a
remedy for it.  It seems to me, however, that in
these spiritual concerns, really and rightly to conceive of the difficulty, where it lies and what it
means, is one important step towards, at least, a
practical, even if not yet a theoretical solution of it.
There is often too great an impatience amongst us
to frame theoretical solutions of problems in the life
(of the church, instead of awaiting, and helping work,out the practical one, which we are invited to believe that a good Providence is, however slowly, as
we may think, yet surely, bringing about.
This discourse will, therefore, treat chiefly of the,question, what the trouble really is; intimating, perhaps, occasionally, a negative suggestion,- how it




THE PRESENT CRISIS OF FAITH.      327
is not to be relieved, - that anxiety and effort may
not be frittered away in unprofitable directions.
And if I dwell somewhat on the meaning of
terms, it is because I feel that a great deal of the
disagreement among us, in regard to the real trouble
to be cured, grows out of loose ideas as to what we
mean by certain consecrated words; and that often,
when we think the only question is one of fact, there
is a previous question, that scarcely gets a hearing,
as to the use of language. Now, the phrase " suspense of faith" may be admitted to express, fitly
enough, what is, to a great extent, the spiritual condition of the general mind at this day, not merely
outside of the nominal church, but in some parts
of the church, or congregation of nominal Christians itself. Only the phrase is capable of several
different meanings, and, I suppose, does awaken different ideas in different minds. To one, the " suspense of faith" may mean that faith is in a state of
suspended animation.  It may suggest the image of
a faith which, exhausted in the struggle with surrounding infidelity, iniquity, and indifference, gasps
in the heavy atmosphere, painfully holding its breath,
and panting for some inspiration from above, or
some power to bear it aloft into the clear upper air.
To another, the phrase may tell of a faith which,
having outgrown old forms, is in a state of suspense
until it can find or frame new ones, -a new dress
and body for the disembodied spirit of truth and
piety. To another, - looking from another point
of view, or with other eyes,-" the suspense of
faith" may call up the picture of a spirit only bal



328        THE PRESENT CRISIS OF FAITH.
ancing itself on level wing in the sky of faith and
freedom, which the vast, infinite kingdom of truth
opens, and in which it only seems to be for the moment idle, when it is really bearing itself up by an
almost unconscious effort, and preparing for further
and higher sweeps through that element,
Where nothing earthly bounds her flight,
Nor shadow dims her way."
In either of these, and in still other senses, according to our idea of what faith signifies, we might,
one and another of us, readily grant that our age is
marked by a suspense of faith. To say, that such
is its reigning characteristic, at this or at any moment, provokes, I think, at least a suspense of
judgment in a thoughtful mind; because it is not
easy, and grows more and more difficult, in proportion as education makes people think, and thought
makes them independent, to say what is the one
great and common trait of that agglomeration or
average of individual souls which we call an age.
It is very easy to deceive ourselves, by generalizing
too rapidly in the direction in which some strong
feeling or vivid experience of our own may lead us,
and letting the mood of our spirits color the whole
field of our vision. Men, proverbially, often reason
from  their feelings.  The wish is father to the
thought, or sometimes the fear is.  So, too, the
rhetoric is often father to the logic, and a felicitous
figure stands for a final argument.
It is a tempting illustration to speak of faith as
having gone, in the swing of free thought, to the
apogee of its orbit, and to say that it is about time




THE PRESENT CRISIS OF FAITIH.      329
for it to swing back to its perigee, to the neighborhood of the great source of life and object of worship.  But, after all, the figure is defective and
deceptive, because the alternation of perigee and
apogee is a constant law of the earth's movement;
and so what it would really seem to teach is, that
faith should be free to pass back and forth from the
centre to the circumference; or, rather, that its centre, God, is everywhere; its circumference, the limit
of thought, nowhere. But why not just as well, if
not better, regard this apparent recession of faith as
only the momentary recoil of the wave of thought
and feeling, that it may gain a new impetus for
moving forward, and say that the tide of truth also
gains on the shore of scepticism, under the ruling
power of God, by a succession of retreats and advances? Or, yet again, why might not one say
that the changes of form and opinion in religion
may be, after all, only the swaying of the branches
of the tree of spiritual life, whereby the root of faith
is but fastened the more deeply in the earth?
For myself, without professing to speak for the
whole spiritual family, without denying that the
same words hold true in other senses, I do, indeed,
feel, and think I see, that there is a wide-spread "6 suspense of faith," in this sense, and of this kind, in
Christendom around us: namely, a dissatisfaction
with the forms of creed and worship in which the
religion of the existing sects expresses itself; a feeling of something so inadequate, if not unjust, to
the instincts of a humble, honest, humane heart, in
the doctrines which undertake to describe religion,




330      THE PRESENT CRISIS OF FAITH.
and in the established methods of administering it,
that faith is repelled and constrained to fall back
upon itself, to remain self-secluded and silent, (the
soul thus misinterpreting the Apostolic injunction,
" Hast thou faith, have it to thyself before God,")
till, at last it sinks into a sort of quietism and apathy,
lying for the time dead or dormant, - unless (which,
indeed, happily, is often the case) the native piety
of the heart, unable to confine itself within the narrow conduits or cisterns which a church of tradition
offers it, pours the warm tide of its energy into the
broad channel of humanity, finds in the world its
church, resolves divine service into daily cheerfulness
and charity, feeling itself to be sustained therein by
the words, " Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one
of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it
unto mne."
The present suspense of faith, then, so far as it
may be called so, seems to me owing, in no small
degree, to the fact that the Providential cultivation
and civilization of the heart of man in the school
of life has brought it to a point which the Christianity of the creed and the church has for the
most part failed to reach, and hence a chasm in the
inner life, at which the spirit of the age stops, in a
state which may be called, indeed, in some sense, a
suspense of faith, though, I think, a more fitting
description of the crisis would be, to call it a
transitionary struggle of faith, of a faith which has
outgrown the walls of old dogmatism and the ways
of old discipline, and yearns to build itself a new
home on the rock of ages, with its roof the free




THE PRESENT CRISIS OF FAITH.       331
heaven, and its ministers the thoughts and aspirations of believing, loving hearts.
I know there are those who make the names of
liberty and charity a cloak for mental indolence,
moral indifference, and self-indulgence; but, making
all due allowance for such cases, I still hold that
there is a great deal, far more than the nominal
church recognizes, not only of the capacity, but of
the disposition to believe and be religious, which
does itself violence, or disguises itself in forms not
reckoned specifically religious; and that thus, for the
simple reason that neither we who judge the age,
nor the age we judge, rightly estimate the essence
and end of faith, men often pronounce faith to be
asleep precisely when and where, perhaps, the real
spirit of faith is in active conflict. I believe that,
when we once have fixed within us a clear and consistent idea what faith is, we shall cherish more
cheerful and charitable views of the condition and
prospects of the age in the matter of faith and true
religion, as an inward work of the spirit and a general effort of the principle out of which grows the
higher life of man.
What is faith? What is the meaning of this
much used and much abused word?  It is used in
three senses, only one of which goes to the heart of
the truth.
In the first place, faith is familiarly spoken of as
an opinion or a doctrine. In this sense we talk of
the Christian faith and the Jewish faith, - the Trinitarian faith and the Unitarian faith, - commonly
confounding, when we do so, the internal principle




332      TIHE PRESENT CRISIS OF FAITH.
with the external system. For we do not mean, in
such cases, the believing spirit in the Christian or
the Jew, or the Trinitarian or the Unitarian, but
the things which they severally believe. This is the
sense in which faith is generally made the subject
of discussion in the world.  This is the sense in
which we talk of " our faith."  This is the sense in
which, for the most part, men try to convert each
other to their respective faiths, and in which they
are said to go over from one faith to another. Faith,
thus thought of, or talked of, is merely a thing, often;
and a dead thing, too.
There is a second use of the word, in which, indeed, the mind passes inward, conceiving of faith
as a spiritual thing, but still as something suddenly
and mysteriously introduced into the soul from  a
foreign source.  This is the sense in which theologians talk of faith as something at war with reason;
in which we are told that we shall receive self-contradictory doctrines, when we have faith given to us
by the mysterious agency of the Lord.
The third and true sense of the word is that
which reason and revelation conspire to inculcate,
according to which faith is simply the state of a soul
recognizing, revering, relying on the great unseen
reality which lies at the foundation of all being, the
all-pervading, all-sustaining God.  We must not
hastily infer that faith is wanting, or wavering, from
the fact that we find it so hard to get people to
agree in expressing truth by the same form of words,
or in expressing piety by the same form of worship.
The fact that men are dissatisfied with any prev



THE PRESENT CRISIS OF FAITH.       333
alent or proposed method of stating or showing
religion by creed or ceremony, may, after all, prove
that they have more faith rather than less, when you
once come to the recognition of the truth that faith
is that in a man which yearns after what is infinite,
what no form or formula can express.
Faith is a quality to be educated, - to be educed
from the soul itself. Why is it that the Scriptures,
when they speak of faith, in so large a proportion
of cases say, simply, faith, without specifying any
particular being, or object, or truth, wherein that faith
is to be placed, —just as they also do when they
speak of hope and love?  Several reasons might be
given, but this is the one which most impresses my
own mind, that the Spirit of Truth would thereby
lead us to reflect that what we need first and chiefly,
what must lie at the very foundation of religion, is
the great principle, or sentiment of faith itself. Before we can have a vital and effectual faith in any
truth out of ourselves, we must have faith in ouirselves as actually needing and as capable of knowing the truth.  We must believe that which is
written, and believe it as applying to our own selves,
that man shall not live by bread only, but by the
word that cometh from the mouth of God shall man
truly and eternally live. Before we can have a living
and -working faith in any doctrine of God, or Christ
as the messenger of God, or Heaven as the kingdom
of God and the seat of his laws and the source of
his retributions, we must have faith in our own
reason and conscience, and in all those holy sentiments which are the presence and power and purity




334      THE PRESENT CRISIS OF FAITH.
of God stirring within us. In a word we must have
the believing spirit, -that is, the religious spirit, -
alive and awake within us. How  much has that
form of faith been wanting, both in the scorners of
reason and in the abusers of it, which consists in
recognizing reason in man as a religious faculty and
responsibility!
If we have faith in God, we shall show it by
faith in the faculties he has intrusted to us, in the
high and holy instincts which are his inspiration,
and whose clear, majestic voices are the voice of
God. We shall have faith in the value of truth,
the safety of right, the power of love. We shall
have faith that what ought to be can be and will be;
faith that (as has been nobly said) the heavens will
not fall, if justice is done; that, on the contrary, they
will (or would, if, it were possible,) stand stronger.
And we are without faith, we are infidels and atheists, when we treat moral and religious truth as a
shining abstraction or a sounding generality; -yea,
we have denied the faith and are worse than infidels,
whatever be our professed or fancied creed, when we
thus do despite to the Holy Spirit.
Faith, while, from one point of view, we may regard it as simply the beginning and root of religion,
in another aspect, presents itself as the whole of religion, of spirituality, of piety, of right character.
In a word, faith, according to the favorite view of
the sacred writers, means as much as faithfulness.
So that, although the authors of our common version have, strictly speaking, translated incorrectly by
the phrase " faithful Abraham," what means literally




THE PRESENT CRISIS OF FAITH.       33o
"believing Abraham," yet it is one of those mistakes which direct us to a valuable truth. It reminds us that whoever is full of faith is and will be
a faitlhful man; that belief is the evidence and the
essence of obedience. Faith is sometimes, indeed,
treated, in Scripture, as simply an intellectual act or
experience, but in the vast majority of cases, as a
matter of affection and will. Hence it is that men
are so often exhorted and commanded to have faith.
The reason why, in our popular speech, and that
greatly through the influence of scripture usage, this
word faith has come to be used in such a variety of
applications, is, that faith is really equivalent to
religion, which means the allegiance of the soul to
God, who, not in one form of manifestation only,
but in the manifold appeals of truth, and beauty,
and goodness, and good, seeks to draw his children
to the contemplation and communion of his infinite
perfections.
Faith begins, indeed, with a simple conviction-of
the mind. In order to have faith in God, we must
first believe in his existence. " He that cometh to
God, must believe that He is."  But faith is not
complete, till it not only believes that there is a God,
but believes God, and believes in Him. Faith in
Him means reliance on his word, confidence in his
wisdom and goodness, trust in his providence, joy in
the light of his love, constant, cheerful, and implicit
obedience to his commandment. Here is a glimpse
of the great Tree of Faith, the Tree of Life, which
springs from the seed of thought, and whose shade
is for the refreshment, its fruit for the nourishment,
and its leaves for the healing of the nations.




336       THE PRESENT CRISIS OF FAITH.
With this view of faith, instead of asking whether
or not there is a suspense of it, would it not be more
pertinent to consider whether it has begun to live
and move and have its being within us, - whether
the spirit of that Master who, when his disciples besought him to increase their faith, virtually replied
that if they had any faith to increase, even as a grain
of mustard seed, it would increase itself, - is not
now going up and down anxiously to find faith on
the earth? May it not, after all, well be, that to
talk only of a suspense of faith, and that only in one
branch of the church, is really, when you take into
view the grand ideal of faith, but a feeble statement
of the actual case?
And now, lest it should be felt by any that this
great subject has been treated too exclusively in the
way of argument or criticism, let us dwell, a few
moments, on the positive, evangelical doctrine of
faith, as it appeals to the whole man, from the pen
of Paul. Nor will such a presentment be a digression here, even from the somewhat special turn the
general subject has taken; for I can hardly suppose
there is one of us, who can, even at this late day,
return to the study of the subject without a new
feeling of gratitude and of responsibleness, in view of
the great truth that the law of faith, as declared
by the spirit of Christ, is a law of freedom.
Behold, then, the method of the great deliverance
offered in the Gospel of Christ.  Distinguishing
itself in this by a broad contrast firom the various
ideas of religion which set before a man the dreary
prospect of having to buy the favor of Heaven by a
certain (or rather an uncertain) amount of works,




THE PRESENT CRISIS OF FAITH.       337
penances, and sacrifices, the religion of the Gospel,
by simply announcing to man that all he has to do
is to believe in God, and let God work in him and
for him,-that when he once has this spirit, this
faith, all his doings, all his life, outer and inner, becomes an acceptable divine service and a process
of salvation, - by this simple, comprehensive, and
beautiful assurance, Christianity delivers man, who
would otherwise be all his lifetime subject unto bondage, from the dismal drudgery of the law of works
which is a law of death, redeems him into the glorious liberty of the law of the Spirit, which is a law
of life, transforms religion from being a mere restraint into a beckoning and quickening presence,
and makes man, the conscious child of God, to be
no longer a slave, but a son. Until the sunlight of
the true religion shines, while he remains in the
darkness or in the twilight of superstition, with a
belief half sensual and only half spiritual, a man
asks not so much Whlat shall I do? but rather, How
much must I do?  Not merely the nature, but more
especially the number of services and sacrifices required of him as an advance payment for salvation,
exercises and torments his mind, and divides the
wholeness of his life and joy. His dim and doubting eyes behold that vague object, called salvation,
that something of which he so strongly feels the
want, yet so feebly discerns the outlines, only at the
end of an indefinite succession of dead worlis. Life
becomes a sandy desert, and the cry of the soul is,' Here, forlorn and lost, I tread,
AiWith faiinting steps and slow,
22




338       THE PRESENT CRISIS OF FAITH.
Where wilds, immeasurably spread,
Seem lengthening as I go."
Religion, with such an idea, becomes not only an
endless, but a hopeless task, like an attempt to bail
dry the ocean, or to reckon eternity. But the moment the sun of Christian righteousness, of God's
gracious way, shines upon the earthly pilgrim's
heart, and reveals to him that, not the external which
can be measured, but the internal which is infinite,
not the outer work, but the inner spirit, not human
merit, but divine mercy, is the source and ground
of salvation, - from that moment he finds the peace
of mind, the rest of faith, in which alone the work
of religion, being the work of life, and expressing
the whole heart, carries with it an earnest of success
and of heaven.  He is lifted to a central mount of
vision, from which he sees, in the light of the gospel, that salvation, the deliverance which the gospel
came to reveal and bring about, is not merely the
end, but the beginning, as well, of a life of religious
effort; not the future reward, merely, but the present
and perpetual inspiration of the laboring soul. Instead of being the oppressive obligation of giving
something to God or doing something for Him,
religion is discovered to be simply the willingness
to receive God himself into the soul, and let Him do
and be all.
Do we not need this religion, this blessed indwelling of the Law of Faith in our hearts, in this
anxious and ambitious age of ours?  Instead of
being over-careful to strengthen our battlements and
draw our lines of circumvallation, instead of looking




THE PRESENT CRISIS OF FAITH.    339
so much at the outworks, and numbering our forces,
(as David was provoked into numbering Israel,) to see
what kind of a show we can make in the flesh, were
it not better to be looking to our foundations, knowing what manner of spirit we are of, and proving
our faith, whether it has the breadth and depth of
the requirements of the spirit of Christ? Instead of
worrying ourselves to know who does and who does
not believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, in a sense and
shape that may be called orthodox, were it not better to consider whether we truly believe in Jesus;
whether (which is the most searching form of the
question) we believe him, what he teaches about
our life, our relations to God our Father, and to our
brother man?
Let us not be as those who doubt that an Almighty and All-wise Providence is at the helm. Let
us not sleep, indeed, but neither let us feel as if the
Lord were sleeping, and knew not when it was time
to awake. The work we have to do is too great to
be discomposed by such fitful apprehensions as we
are too apt to let interfere with the simplicity of a
Christian faith and walk. Let us labor to have
faith, and let us seek faith that our work may be a
joy, and not a distraction and a burden.
I know it will be said (this, indeed, is the meaning of the existing agitation on the subject) that the
very question is, how are we to get this faith, which
all must feel is so important to their real peace.
But does not the very form the question takes, how
are we to be set right, how is faith to be revived
amongst us, in the community, in the churches, —




340       THE PRESENT CRISIS OF FAITH.
tend to lead us off from the true track? Do we feel
that the appeal of the Spirit is to individual souls?
Do we not indulge the daydream, that there may be a
social waking, independent of individual self-consideration? There is much talk about forms. But,
after all, it is for faith to create or reanimate forms;
not the reverse. Every one must begin with himself; and if he does so thoughtfully, it is impossible
that he should end there. I believe, what wvould do
more than anything else to attract new interest to
the few social services of our religion, is a turning
of individual minds to the simplicity of an independent faith. Each must do his own part, without
waiting for all to begin at once. It is a great mistake, and yet I fear a common one, on the part of
those who count the preaching of independence a
" sad cure" for the age, to imagine that, because we
say a man must live from himself, we imply that he
must live for himself.  We simply say, every one
must begin with what faith he has, — for every one
believes in something. Let every one be true to himself. Let every one understand himself, and seek to
know " the mind of the Spirit" that, in his better
moments, in the intervals of calm thought, stirs
within him. I believe, whoever shall do this will
find a conviction spring up, that God is truth and
loves truth; I believe he will then be ready to hear
the voice of Christ, and follow the Good Shepherd.
The last thing this age has to fear is too much
of individual and independent thought.  If we
have not so earnest and effective a church union,
not so much Christian cooperation as we need,




THE PRESENT CRISIS OF FAITH.       341
it is because, as individuals, we have waited for a
general life to spring up, or come down out of
heaven, and make us partakers of itself, instead of
recognizing that a true Christian bond is woven of
the strands of individual faith and faithfulness, the
faith growing out of earnest thought, and the fervor
growing out of earnest faith. The melting of many
souls in the glow of a common faith and charity is
to be effected, not by fires kindled on the outside,
still less by painted fires, but by the heat communicated from each individual soul out of its communion with God. When each is in Him, who dwells
in all, then, and only then, is there a true, spiritual,
living church unity.
Have we to wait for the Broad Church?  It is
already at hand, waiting for us,- a church as broad
as humanity, with a service as large and as long as
life. We can best aid the cause of faith, not by
swelling the cry for new forms, or new stress on old
ones,-the great trouble has been, in past times, that
faith has had to feed too much on the mere husks of
formalism and formulism, and too little on the juices
of natural sentiment and vital action; —no; it is
not in any such set and methodical manner, through
the adoption of artificial and arbitrary symbols of a
ritual religion, that we can render the most efficient
service to the wavering and struggling faith of the
age; but by steadily carrying real religion, the religiousness of a truthful simplicity, into all the common
intercourse of life; living out the conviction that
" whatsoever is not of faith is sin;" preaching, by
the practical eloquence of example, that sincerity is




342       THE PRESENT CRISIS OF FAITH.
salvation; recommending, in that persuasive way,
the devout reverence our own walk and spirit shall
show, for that wholeness of life by which the indwelling of a real religious faith is most clearly evinced.
Paul, in his Epistle to the Romans, tells them
that the saving grace of God in the Gospel is "from
faith to faith."  And does not this striking expressioti happily describe the providential progress of
humanity, not only in the mass, but very extensively in the individual, —a progress from faith,
through doubt and discontent, to faith again, higher
and purer, and more enduring?  Let us hope that
our present " suspense of faith " is a progress of this
kind; that we are passing from the faith of childhood to that of manhood; from the faith of fear to
the faith which worketh by love; from the faith of
superstition to the faith of reason; from the faith
which finds God only in the strange and exceptional,
to that which finds him, or rather has him, in what
is familiar and universal.
THE END.