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 Presented by Dr. F! L.Pc^-llo-n . 
 
 BX 98A1 .M56 1870 
 
 Metcalf, Richard, 1829-1881. 
 
 Letter and spirit 
 
LETTEK AND SPIKIT. 
 
w 
 
LETTER AND SPIRIT 
 
 aEincJjester ILectures. 
 
 BY 
 
 / 
 
 RICHARD METCALF. 
 
 BOSTON: 
 
 AMERICAN UNITARIAN ASSOCIATION. 
 
 1870. 
 
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1869, by 
 
 THE AMERICAN UNITARIAN ASSOCIATION, 
 
 In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the 
 District of Massachusetts. 
 
 CAMBRIDGE : 
 PRESS OF JOHN WILSON AND SON. 
 
TO 
 
 THE^PEOPLE OF WINCHESTER, 
 
 WHOSE QUESTIONS I HAVB TRIED TO ANSWER HERE, 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 I WAS often asked, " What do Unitarians 
 believe ? Why do they believe it ? and, How 
 do they explain the Bible passages which are 
 used to teach a different faith ? " In reply, 
 I gave a course of " Winchester Lectures," 
 which, with a few alterations, are now pre- 
 sented to the public. 
 
 As for the form of the lectures, I aimed 
 chiefly at a statement clear enough to be un- 
 derstood by all, and short enough to be re- 
 membered. 
 
 As for the range of topics, I took up the 
 doctrines about which I was questioned, and 
 none others. 
 
Vlll PREFACE. 
 
 As for the name of the book, I call it the 
 " Letter," because I think it is the literal mean- 
 ing of what Jesus taught in his Gospel, eigh- 
 teen centuries ago ; and the " Spirit," because 
 I think it is what the Spirit of God teaches, 
 this very day, through the spirit of man. 
 
 R. M. 
 
 Winchester, Mass., Dec, 1869. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAQB 
 
 Preface vii 
 
 LECTURE 
 
 I. The Use of Creeds 9 
 
 Have Unitarians a creed ? 9 
 
 Creeds and character 11 
 
 Creeds not final 13 
 
 Free inquiry 15 
 
 Value of creeds 17 
 
 II. OxE God — the Father 20 
 
 Minorities and majorities 21 
 
 Following the wisest 22 
 
 Trinitarian language unscriptural . . 23 
 
 Only one God 25 
 
 Jesus' own testimony 26 
 
 Confessions of Faith 27 
 
 God and Satan . 28 
 
 The Father 29 
 
 m. What thlntk ye of Christ? .... 31 
 
 Belief in Christ 32 
 
 Christ and God 33 
 
 Christ and Man 36 
 
X CONTENTS. 
 
 XiXCTTTRX PAGB 
 
 Christ, the great Teacher 37 
 
 Christ, the Mediator 38 
 
 Christ, our Atonement 40 
 
 Christ, the Saviour 41 
 
 Christ crucified 42 
 
 Christ, our heavenly Brother .... 44 
 
 IV. "The Son OF God" 46 
 
 Common meaning of the phrase ... 46 
 
 How applied to Jesus 50 
 
 Only-begotten Son 50 
 
 First-begotten Son 52 
 
 God's own Son 52 
 
 Jesus a Son 55 
 
 Jesus the Son 56 
 
 V. The Holy Spirit 58 
 
 The Holy Spirit of the Bible .... 59 
 
 The gifts of the Spirit 62 
 
 Promise of the Comforter 64 
 
 The promise fulfilled 65 
 
 The essential doctrine 67 
 
 The lesson of the hour 69 
 
 VI. ♦♦ What IS Man?" 72 
 
 Man, the Son of God 73 
 
 Libels on human nature 75 
 
 "All souls are mine " 77 
 
 God's, by creation 78 
 
 God's, by education 80 
 
 God's, by redemption 82 
 
 Filial obligations 84 
 
CONTENTS. xi 
 
 LECTURB PAGE 
 
 VU. The Unquenchable Fire 85 
 
 Gehenna 85 
 
 Eternal punishment unscriptural ... 86 
 
 Eternal punishment unreasonable ... 89 
 
 This fire a reality 90 
 
 Fires, present and future 91 
 
 Use of these fires 91 
 
 Salvation of all 93 
 
 Objection to this doctrine 95 
 
 Lesson of the hour 96 
 
 Our tribulations 97 
 
 The unpardonable sin. Note .... 99 
 
 VIII. The Day of Judgment 101 
 
 Jesus' own predictions 101 
 
 Apostolic predictions 103 
 
 " Judgment to come " 105 
 
 "End of the world" 106 
 
 The fulfilment 107 
 
 Will the world end ? Ill 
 
 Our day of judgment 113 
 
 Christ has come 115 
 
 IX. Salvation 117 
 
 The two meanings 117 
 
 What we want 119 
 
 What is possible 121 
 
 How Jesus saves 124 
 
 True repentance 125 
 
 Certainty of salvation 128 
 
 Moral power 130 
 
 Summary of doctrine 132 
 
Xll CONTENTS. 
 
 LECTURE PAOB 
 
 X, The New Birth 135 
 
 Seeing God's kino-dom. 135 
 
 Meanino: of new birth 139 
 
 Who must be changed 146 
 
 The practical lesson 147 
 
 XI. The Life that now is 150 
 
 Nearest world and next world . . . 151 
 
 God's presence here 153 
 
 A present heaven 155 
 
 Unquenchable fires now 157 
 
 Worth of the body 160 
 
 Worth of the world 166 
 
 Xn. The Life that is to come .... 171 
 
 Universality of belief 172 
 
 Great faith of the dying 174 
 
 Love for the departed 175 
 
 Teachings of Jesus 176 
 
 Personal identity 178 
 
 Endless progress 180 
 
 Ministering spirits 181 
 
 Reunion of friends 183 
 
LECTUEE I. 
 
 THE USE OF CREEDS. 
 
 TTNITARIAN doctrines were once so often 
 proclaimed, in sermons, tracts, and pub- 
 lic controversies, that whether a man believed 
 or denied, he could not well fail to know 
 what they are. Now, however, not only has 
 a new generation of Unitarians arisen, which 
 knows not Channing and Ware, and is sadly 
 ignorant of the very faith it professes, but 
 many outside of our church are truly desirous 
 of knowing what we believe. From within 
 and from without the question is continually 
 coming, Wliat is the Unitarian Faith ? and it 
 is a question we are always glad to answer. 
 
 HAVE UNITARIANS A CREED? 
 
 But have Unitarians a creed ? As an or- 
 ganized body we have none. There is no 
 
10 THE USE OF CREEDS. 
 
 formal statement of belief that has ever been 
 voted on and adopted by the denomination. 
 There are no articles to which a man must 
 assent before he becomes connected with our 
 churches ; for Greek and Roman Catholics, 
 Trinitarian and Unitarian Protestants, are 
 alike welcomed to our baptismal rites, com- 
 munion service, the fellowship and privileges 
 of the Church, if they are truly seeking the 
 Christian life. We have no one creed bind- 
 ing upon all the members of our body. But 
 each one of us has his own creed, which is as 
 full and long as that of any other Christian. 
 For a creed is simply a belief, though it may 
 never have been written down upon paper, or 
 uttered in definite phrases by the lips. The 
 faith which a man clings to and positively be- 
 lieves is really his creed. While, therefore, we 
 differ among ourselves as the members of all 
 churches do, there are certain fundamental 
 points on which we are all agreed. It is to 
 these fundamental agreements that I shall 
 chiefly call your attention, and shall begin 
 
THE USE OF CREEDS. 11 
 
 with considering our doctrine concerning the 
 use of creeds. 
 
 I. CREEDS AND CHARACTER. 
 
 No creed is to be made a test of character. 
 To say of the living, " they are Christian " 
 because they believe what we do, or " unchris- 
 tian" because they believe something else; 
 to say of the departed, they have gone to 
 heaven because they accepted oar creed, or to 
 a very different place because they rejected it; 
 that is a practice too often followed in the 
 churches, but always and everywhere de- 
 nounced by Unitarians. We find no sanc- 
 tion for any such mode of judgment in the 
 teachings of the Spirit within us, and certainly 
 none in the words or life of Jesus. Not those 
 who call him " Lord, Lord," are to enter the 
 kingdom of heaven and live with him there 
 for ever, but they, and they alone, who do the 
 Father's will ; and so in his description of the 
 judgment scene, the dread penalties are an- 
 nounced, not against unbelievers or misbe- 
 
12 THE USE OF CREEDS. 
 
 lievers, but only against the workers of iniqui- 
 ty, or chiefly against those who neglect to do 
 the right. Nowhere in his teachings is intel- 
 lectual belief held up as a ground for either 
 praise or blame. When, therefore, the churches 
 about us require this creed or that to be signed 
 before admitting you to their privileges, we 
 boldly say that their practice cannot be de- 
 fended by one word which was ever spoken 
 by Jesus of Nazareth, any more than it can 
 by the words which the Comforter is whisper- 
 ing this day to our hearts. 
 
 At the entrance to the visible Church below 
 sit the doctors of theology, the self-appointed 
 judges of their fellow-men. To all applicants 
 for admission they say, "Do you believe the 
 Trinity or Unity, the atonement or reconcilia- 
 tion, as we understand and explain them ? " 
 And when honest hearts declare they cannot 
 accept such articles of faith, the answer comes, 
 "Depart from us, ye who err in your belief; 
 the gates of the Church shall not open for 
 you." But, thank God, this judgment is not 
 
THE USE OF CREEDS. 1»3 
 
 the last. At the entrance of the invisible 
 Church is he whom the Father hath appointed 
 judge. Of those who draw near he asks the 
 question, not " Did you believe the doctrines 
 I taught ? " but " Did you visit the suffering 
 children of God and minister unto them ? " 
 Then shall they who, in spite of darkness, 
 doubt, and misbelief, tried to do the Father's 
 will, hear the welcome, " Well done : enter 
 into the joy of your Lord." And they shall 
 enter in to go no more out for ever. 
 
 II. CREEDS NOT FINAL. 
 
 No creed is to be regarded as a final state- 
 ment of truth. K instead of considering it 
 simply a statement of present belief you look 
 upon it as perfect and entire, wanting noth- 
 ing; if you imagine it contains not merely 
 the truth, but the whole truth and nothing 
 but the truth, so that nothing can be added 
 to it or taken from it, then it will surely harm 
 your mind and soul. It will so enslave you 
 that you will miss the glorious liberty of the 
 
14 THE USE OF CREEDS. 
 
 sons of God, — the liberty of roaming unchal- 
 lenged through the whole domain of truth. 
 For what are we, even the wisest and best 
 of us, that we vainly imagine we know all 
 that God can reveal or man can learn ; that 
 we think our finite minds have comprehended 
 the Infinite; that we suppose we have by 
 searching found out every thing about God, 
 and in our wisdom have learned to know him 
 perfectly ! No, friends ! Our very name, 
 disciples, means learners, and shows that we 
 are yet to remain in that attitude of soul, 
 wherein the inner eye shall be open to each 
 new gleam of heavenly truth, and the inner 
 ear open to each new whisper of the still 
 small voice of God. 
 
 The Great Teacher did not proclaim all 
 truth. There were many things which he 
 wanted to say, but withheld because the dis- 
 ciples could not bear them at the time ; they 
 were never to be taught by his lips, but only 
 in after years by the spirit of truth abiding in 
 human hearts. There are many other things 
 
THE USE OF CREEDS. 15 
 
 also, which we, like the disciples, misunder- 
 stand when they first come to us from Jesus, 
 and do not comprehend the full meaning of, 
 till taught by the varied experience of life. 
 Some things which he says as well as does, 
 we know not now, but we shall know here- 
 after. For it is not Christian character only, 
 but Christian theology, which is " first the 
 blade, then the ear, then the full corn in the 
 ear." We therefore do not regard even the 
 best creed as final. We look for new truths, 
 and new statements of old ones. We look 
 for some things which Jesus did not declare, 
 and which must be taught by the Holy Spirit ; 
 and also for richer and higher meanings in 
 his recorded words. 
 
 III. FREE INQUIRY. 
 
 As a consequence of what was just said, 
 we maintain the unlimited right of free inqui- 
 ry. No one can justly interfere with this. 
 No man or church can set bounds to the prog- 
 ress of religious thought, and say to the in- 
 
16 THE USE OF CREEDS. 
 
 quiring spirit, " Thus far shalt thou go and 
 no farther." For each one is at liberty to 
 think for himself, and abide by his honest con- 
 victions. 
 
 This liberty of thought is something more 
 than a right which may be used or laid aside 
 as we please ; it is a positive duty, always 
 and everywhere binding upon us. Yes, a 
 positive duty to seek whatever new light 
 comes from heaven, and to re-examine by it 
 at times your old belief. " To the law and 
 to the testimony," — to the three great wit- 
 nesses of the Divine, — God in nature, God 
 in his inspired teachers, and God in his ever- 
 present Holy Spirit ; if your creed agree not 
 with these, it is because there is no light in it. 
 We would have you go to all these witnesses, 
 because they are parts of the law and testi- 
 mony of God. He who searches the Scrip- 
 tures does well; but in refusing to search 
 any thing else, he does not do well. God is 
 in the Bible, and no church proclaims it more 
 emphatically than we; but He is also every- 
 
THE USE OF CREEDS. 17 
 
 where and in all things, and this cannot be 
 forgotten without great loss. The whole 
 universe is an expression of the God who 
 created it and dwells in it. Astronomy is his 
 word written in flaming characters all over 
 the heavens, and geology his word graven on 
 the solid rock ; and so geology is but the 
 lithograph, and astronomy the photograph, of 
 that Divine Word, which was not only " made 
 flesh," but ages before, was made rock, star, 
 and flower, to dwell among us where we 
 might behold its glory. And here in our own 
 souls is a perpetual revelation from God 
 through that Holy Comforter who will abide 
 with us, even unto the end of the world. 
 Now what Unitarianism maintains is the 
 duty of every man to seek whatever religious 
 truth comes from all these sources. 
 
 IV. VALUE OF CREEDS. 
 
 We test Christianity by the life rather than 
 belief, by the heart more than the head. We 
 do not say to those who come, " Because you 
 
18 THE USE OF CREEDS. 
 
 believe what we do, we receive you into our 
 number ; " but the one invitation which goes 
 forth from our lips is this : " Brother, if your 
 heart is right, give me your hand." Yet we 
 cling to the doctrines we hold, and proclaim 
 them earnestly, because the right belief helps 
 in the formation of the right character. A 
 correct knowledge of what Jesus was, saia, 
 and did, helps us gain that spirit of Christ 
 without which we are none of his. It is only 
 the truth which can set us free from gloomy 
 superstitions. It is only the truth which can 
 set at liberty those who, through fear of death, 
 are all their lifetime subject to bondage. 
 Nothing but the right doctrine concerning 
 God can make us come to him with filial 
 love, instead of shrinking away with abject 
 fear. Nothing l)ut true ideas of life will help 
 us live always as in the divine presence, ren- 
 dering service, not unto man only, but God. 
 Nothing but right ideas of death will sustain 
 us when we part from those who leave our 
 homes but not our hearts, to go unto their 
 
THE USE OF CREEDS. 19 
 
 Father and our Father; and nothing but 
 right ideas of the future will enable a man to 
 say in all sincerity, that " To live is Christ, 
 but to die is gain." So, while no one gains 
 or loses divine favor because of his belief, he 
 will yet, through that belief, either gain or 
 lose hope, joy, and consolation. The strength 
 with which we do the Father's will, and the 
 calm trust with which we let it be done, are 
 alike determined by the sincere belief to which 
 we cling. Therefore I ask you to consider 
 with me the essential doctrines of our Unita- 
 rian ChurcL 
 
LECTURE II. 
 
 ONE GOD — THE FATHER, 
 
 "li/TANY people object to re-opening a ques- 
 tion which seems to have been decided 
 by a majority of their fellow-men, especially 
 when that decision accords with their own 
 belief. But majorities cannot decide a truth. 
 There was a time when the whole Church 
 numbered one hundred and twenty souls; 
 yet Christianity was as true then as now, 
 when it numbers more than one hundred and 
 twenty millions. There was an earlier day 
 when our religion was confined to one single 
 breast, that of Jesus of Nazareth ; but it was 
 as true then as it will be in that coming day, 
 when he who has been lifted up from the 
 earth shall have drawn all men unto him. 
 
ONE GOD — THE FATHER. 21 
 
 MINORITIES AND MAJORITIES. 
 
 I do not mean to imply that the doctrine 
 of only one God, the Father, is held by a very 
 small minority of Christians. In our country 
 it is taught not only by those who are called 
 Unitarians, but also by the Christian Disci- 
 ples, Progressive Friends, and, foremost in 
 point of numbers, the Universalists ; so that 
 it is probably proclaimed or implied every 
 Sunday in the teachings of at least fifteen 
 hundred pulpits. Still any attempt to decide 
 the question by numbers would lead only to 
 hopeless confusion. If I leave the Unitarian 
 Church for the Orthodox, because the advo- 
 cates of the latter are more numerous, I must 
 for the same reason give up Orthodoxy itself 
 for the old Greek Church, which is far larger 
 and more powerful. Then the Church of 
 Rome would command me by her multitude 
 of worshippers, more than one-half of Chris- 
 tendom, to enter her venerable portals. But 
 Mahometanism claims as much popularity as 
 
22 ONE GOD — THE FATHER. 
 
 Romanism, and Christians and Mahometans 
 both are outnumbered by the heathen nations 
 of Asia and Africa. The followers of Christ 
 number scarcely one-third of the human race, 
 and therefore if we are to be guided by num- 
 bers in our investigation of truth, we must 
 begin by giving up Christianity itself as some- 
 thing which the great majority of mankind do 
 not believe. Majorities cannot decide a truth. 
 
 FOLLOWING THE WISEST. 
 
 Some who would not have us follow the 
 multitude, would yet urge us to follow the 
 wisest and best. But this would be an un- 
 safe rule to adopt, since we are apt to consid- 
 er those " wisest " who agree with us, and 
 those " best " who do what we think is right. 
 If, however, this rule should be adopted, we 
 should not be ashamed to be classed with 
 those who have held our doctrine of the strict 
 unity of God. We should point to men like 
 Milton, Newton, Lardner, and Priestley in 
 England, Franklin, Adams, Channing, and 
 
ONE GOD THE FATHER. 23 
 
 Ballou in our country, and say that we find 
 no wiser heads or purer hearts than are found 
 among the advocates of this faith. We think 
 we are following the wisest, in holding this 
 doctrine so firmly; and yet we do not urge 
 it upon others for this reason, but only be- 
 cause we think it is the truth. We do not 
 refer you to the number of men, or the wis- 
 dom of men, but to the simple record of what 
 Jesus was, said, and did, for the proof which 
 we have to offer that there is but one God, 
 the Father. 
 
 TRINITARIAN LANGUAGE UNSCRIPTURAL. 
 
 In examining the New Testament, we find 
 a strong argument for our faith in the fact 
 that we nowhere meet the words which are 
 always used in stating the opposite doctrine 
 of the Trinity. Trinity, Triune God^ Jeliovali 
 Jesus, Godrman, are nowhere met with. We 
 find no mention of the first, second, or third 
 person of the Godhead. We look for " God 
 the Son," and find only the " Son of God." 
 
24 • ONE GOD — THE FATHER. 
 
 We look for " God the Holy Spirit,*' and find 
 only the " Spirit of God," or the " Holy Spir- 
 it." You do not believe a principle of gov- 
 ernment is constitutional if it cannot be stated 
 in constitutional terms ; and we do not believe 
 any doctrine to be Scriptural which cannot 
 be stated in Scriptural terms. 
 
 Only three passages in the common version 
 of the New Testament seem to mention the 
 Father, Son, and Spirit in one sentence. 
 One of these is the baptismal formula (Matt, 
 xxviii. 19), which all Unitarians can use, be- 
 cause it does not say that the three who are 
 mentioned are equal, or that each one is God, 
 and therefore it is no statement of a Trinity. 
 Another passage is the apostolic benediction 
 (2 Cor. xiii. 14), "The grace of our Lord 
 Jesus Christ," &c. ; but it is not said that 
 each is God, or that all are equal, and there- 
 fore it is no statement of a Trinity. One 
 more text, as our common version stands 
 (1 John V. 7), mentions the Father, the Word, 
 and the Holy Ghost, and says " these three 
 
ONE GOD — THE FATHER. 25 
 
 are one." But the impartial scholars of every 
 denomination now agree in rejecting the pas- 
 sage as being the production of a later age, 
 and not written by the apostle ; and Calvin, 
 who thought that John wrote it, still says it 
 does not refer to the Trinity, but only means 
 that the three bear one record, are one in 
 their testimony. 
 
 ONLY ONE GOD. 
 
 While we cannot find in the Bible a state- 
 ment of the Trinity, we do meet passages 
 which expressly declare that the Father alone 
 is God. Jesus says in his prayer to the Fa- 
 ther, " That they might know thee, the only 
 true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast 
 sent." To the same effect we have the words 
 of Paul : " There is one God, and one Media- 
 tor between God and men, the man Christ 
 .Jesus ; " and also, " To us there is but one 
 God, the Father, and . . . one Lord, Jesus 
 Christ." These texts are very positive. They 
 declare in plain, absolute terms, that the 
 
26 ONE GOD — THE FATHER. 
 
 Father only is God. The doctrine which wc 
 preach could not be asserted more strongly, 
 and we ou2:ht not to be turned from our faith 
 by inferences of an opposite kind which might 
 be drawn from more obscure passages. 
 
 JESUS' OWN TESTIMONY. 
 
 The conclusion to which we have just ar 
 rived is strengthened by the testimony of 
 Jesus respecting himself : " I came not to do 
 mine own will; " " lean of myself do nothing ; " 
 " The Father that is in me, he doeth the 
 works ; " "I ascend to my Father and your 
 Father; and to my God and your God." 
 Who can read these words and still think 
 that Jesus represents himself as the supreme 
 Divinity, the independent God ? He does 
 indeed, on one occasion, say, " I and my 
 Father are one ; " but that he meant a unity 
 of purpose, design, and will, is evident from 
 his subsequent prayer for his disciples, " That 
 they all may be one ; as thou. Father, art in 
 me, and I in thee, that they also may be one 
 
ONE GOD — THE FATHER. 27 
 
 in US." And again he says, " That they may 
 be one, even as we are one." It is possible 
 then for us all to be one, in exactly the same 
 sense that the words apply to the relation of 
 Jesus to the Father ; and this is not simply 
 a Unitarian interpretation, but is given very 
 positively by John Calvin himself. 
 
 COiNFESSIONS OF FAITH. 
 
 It is also to be noted that the earliest con- 
 fessions of faith contain no reference to the 
 Trinity, but are such as we Unitarians use. 
 Such was the confession of Peter : " Thou 
 art the Christ, the Son of the living God ; " 
 and this seems to have satisfied Jesus per- 
 fectly. Such, too, was the confession of Mar- 
 tha : " I believe that thou art the Christ, the 
 Son of God ; " and this, which we all can say, 
 was deemed sufficient. The reason also 
 which John gave for writing his Gospel does 
 not make the slightest allusion to the doctrine 
 of a Trinity ; it was simply, " That ye might 
 believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of 
 
28 ONE GOD — THE FATHER. 
 
 God." If, as is sometimes asserted, the fourth 
 Gospel was written to prove the supreme 
 divinity of Jesus, it is strange that in sum- 
 ming up the book the writer does not make 
 the slightest allusion to any such doctrine. 
 We are willing to abide by the testimony of 
 the apostles, and declare our faith in " Jesus 
 of Nazareth, a man approved of God among 
 you by miracles and wonders and signs, 
 which God did by him in the midst of you." 
 We compare our doctrine with the whole 
 testimony which we have concerning the 
 Saviour's life and teachings, and then say, 
 without any hesitation, that however difficult 
 it may be to determine his precise nature 
 and rank, we are fully convinced that he is 
 everywhere spoken of as a separate being 
 from God. 
 
 GOD AND SATAN. 
 
 To us, then, there is but one God. He is 
 the sole ruling power in the universe, and all 
 things, above and below, are forced to obey 
 his will. Therefore we reject the old idea 
 
ONE GOD — THE FATHER. 29 
 
 that any Satan divides the sovereignty of the 
 universe with the Almighty, and wages cease- 
 less war against Him for the possession of 
 human souls. Evil spirits there are, out of 
 the body as well as in, but all of them com- 
 bined can no more be compared with God, 
 than a single mote which floats in the sun- 
 beam can be compared with this whole uni- 
 verse of matter. All power belongs to One ; 
 and we are persuaded, " that neither death, 
 nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor 
 powers, . . . nor any other creature, shall be 
 able to separate us from the love of God." 
 
 THE FATHER. 
 
 And this one God is in the truest sense a 
 Father. We use that word, which Jesus so 
 often employed, without any restriction what- 
 ever as to its meaning. It declares that we 
 not only hold to Him the relation of a creat- 
 xire to the Creator, but still more that of a 
 child to a parent who watches over him with 
 constant tenderness and love. " As a father 
 
30 ONE GOD — THE FATHER. 
 
 pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them 
 that fear him." As a father watcheth over 
 his children with an impartial love, so the 
 Lord " maketh his sun to rise on the evil and 
 on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and 
 on the unjust." As a father corrects a child's 
 faults, not in anger, but mercy, so the Lord 
 chastens us not for his pleasure but our profit, 
 that we may be partakers of his holiness. As 
 a father welcomes back a penitent child to 
 the paternal home, so the Lord sees the prod- 
 igal while yet he is a great way off, and has 
 compassion on him, and folds him in the em- 
 brace of his love. Unqualifiedly, without any 
 limitations. He is the Father of the whole 
 human race, and should receive the supreme 
 love of our hearts, the highest service of our 
 lives. 
 
LECTURE III. 
 
 WHAT THINK YE OF CHRIST? 
 
 'VT'E believe in God, said Jesus ; and in our 
 last lecture we replied, Yes, we do be- 
 lieve in Him. We believe in the one being, 
 who fills the whole universe with his pres- 
 ence, and is the kind and loving Father of us 
 all. 
 
 Believe also in me, continued Jesus ; and 
 we reply, to-day. Yes, we do believe in thee. 
 We believe in the messenger who brought as- 
 surance of heavenly pardon and peace ; in the 
 Great Teacher, whose words, more than all 
 others, have shown the ways of God to man ; 
 in the well-beloved Son, through whose life 
 and character are revealed those heavenly vir- 
 tues which make us regard him as the bright- 
 ness of the Father's glory. 
 
32 WHAT THINK YE OF CHRIST ? 
 
 BELIEF IN CHRIST. 
 
 But exactly what is meant by believing in 
 Christ? It does not commit us in any way 
 to the statements which others have made 
 concerning him, whether in past times or the 
 present. It means simply that we accept him 
 for just what he claims to be, whatever that 
 is. It declares that we do not regard him as 
 an impostor or a fanatic, as self-deceived, or 
 wilfully deceiving others, but as being in real- 
 ity exactly what he himself believed. It is 
 possible for one to regard Christ's character 
 with admiration, and put a high value upon 
 his teachings, while yet thinking him to have 
 been mistaken in some of his claims ; and such 
 a one cannot be said to believe in him, any 
 more than, he believes in an ambassador whose 
 credentials are forged, or in a physician whose 
 skill he greatly doubts. For ourselves we use 
 language in its common acceptation when we 
 say that we believe in Christ, because we 
 believe him to have been exactly what he 
 claimed. 
 
WHAT THINK YE OF CHRIST ? 33 
 
 CHRIST AND GOD. 
 
 When, therefore, the question is raised 
 about the nature of Jesus, we turn away from 
 the creeds of the churches and simply ask, 
 What did he himself claim to be ? We find 
 on examination that he always claimed a pow- 
 er and rank far beyond that of any other re- 
 ligious teacher. There was an authority in his 
 words, " I say unto you," and an assurance in 
 his declaration, " my words shall not pass 
 away," which no one else among the spiritual 
 leaders of humanity ever assumed. You 
 may modify this statement, that all power is 
 given unto him in heaven and on earth, ac- 
 cording to all the rules of language, and 
 still it will mean something which no other 
 law-giver dared say unless in moments of 
 wildest fanaticism ; and the way in which he 
 joined himself with the Father in the bap- 
 tismal formula, has in it very great irrever- 
 ence, unless it teaches some exalted position 
 on his part. He calls himself the bread from 
 
34 WHAT THINK YE OF CHRIST? 
 
 heaven which can satisfy hungry souls ; the 
 true liofht which shines for all who were in 
 darkness ; the door through which we pass 
 into the kingdom of heavenly peace. In short, 
 he regarded himself as the way, the truth, and 
 the life; and while he would have us stand on 
 the platform of equality, regarding each other 
 simply as brethren, he bids us remember that 
 we have a Master, even Christ. It is not 
 strange that the Jews declared no one else 
 ever spoke like him ; and should any one 
 whom we know speak in this way, we should 
 pronounce him guilty of gross blasphemy, or 
 else the victim of complete madness. When 
 we consider that these are not isolated pas- 
 sages in the life of Jesus, but are so numerous 
 and so closely connected with his whole biog- 
 raphy that whoever strikes them out of the 
 Gospels destroys the whole history, and leaves 
 but an unmeaning mass of words behind, we 
 cannot resist the conviction that Jesus claimed 
 a peculiar power, insight, and inspiration ; and, 
 as believers in him, we admit whatever he 
 claimed. 
 
WHAT THINK YE OF CHRIST? 35 
 
 But in believing him to have been the in- 
 spired messenger of God, we nowhere find that 
 he claims to be God himself. With all his 
 knowledge, he did not claim to know every 
 thing, but declared there was a day and hour 
 of which he was ignorant, and which his 
 Father, only, knew. Great as was his power, 
 he was not almighty ; for he asserted that of 
 himself he could do nothing, and whatever 
 strength he had was given unto him. Inti- 
 mately as he was joined to the Father, he had 
 a mind and will entirelv distinct from that of 
 God, as he shows in his words to the Jews : 
 " It is also written in your law that the testi- 
 mony of tioo men is true. I am one that bear 
 witness of myself, and the Father that sent 
 me beareth witness of me." Whatever, there- 
 fore, be the exact nature of Jesus, all Unita- 
 rians accept the literal truth of the declaration 
 he made, " My Father is greater than I." 
 Some of our number believe that he occupies 
 an intermediate rank between God and man, 
 and existed in the heavenly world before his 
 
36 WHAT THINK YE OF CHRIST ? 
 
 birth in Bethlehem ; but the majority, so far 
 as I can learn, regard him as possessed of a 
 truly human nature, which was so endowed 
 with spiritual power and insight beyond any 
 other, as to make him the spiritual leader of 
 mankind. We speak of him, therefore, as 
 one whom the Father filled with the Holy 
 Spirit, instead of giving it by measure unto 
 him ; and we preach to-day, what the apostles 
 did of old, " Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved 
 of God among you by miracles and wonders 
 and signs, which God did by him in the midst 
 of you." 
 
 CHRIST. AND MAN. 
 
 The relation of Christ to the Father may 
 safely be left to that future hour when all mys- 
 teries shall be revealed. By and by we shall 
 go to the spirit-world where we can see Jesus 
 face to face, and settle, by a few short ques- 
 tions and replies, the whole controversy about 
 the place and time when his conscious exist- 
 ence began. All that concerns us now is the 
 relation he bears to us. We turn away from 
 
WHAT THINK YE OF CHRIST? 37 
 
 the idle speculations which have too long en- 
 grossed the Church, to inquire what benefits 
 he has conferred upon the human race, and 
 whether he can truly give those who believe 
 in him power to become sons of God. The 
 subject might be presented in many ways; 
 but, as a great many titles are usually applied 
 to Jesus, I wish to show on the present oc- 
 casion in what sense they can be rightly em- 
 ployed. 
 
 I. CHRIST THE GREAT TEACHER. 
 
 We call him the Great Teacher whose 
 words come with authority to the human 
 mind. But we must not liken this authority 
 to that of an Eastern king who makes his ar- 
 bitrary will the supreme law of the land, and 
 binds all men by his word, simply because it 
 is his word, whether it be true or false, right 
 or wrong. It is rather the authority of one 
 who does not make truth, but only discerns 
 it ; who does not establish new laws, but sim- 
 ply proclaims those which God ordained in 
 
38 WHAT THINK YE OF CHRIST ? 
 
 the beginning. His authority is that of a 
 guide, who has thoroughly explored the coun- 
 try into which you are just venturing ; of a 
 pilot, who has sounded and marked every spot 
 in the channels of the harbor; of a citizen, 
 who has been through every street, lane, and 
 alley where you might get bewildered. You 
 may disregard the guide, and get lost in the 
 swamps ; disregard the pilot, and wreck 
 your bark on the shoals ; disregard the citi- 
 zen's directions, and lose your way in the 
 great metropolis : but you cannot justly pre- 
 tend that your freedom has been infringed 
 upon, simply because some one has told you 
 the right way. Such we believe to be the 
 authority of Jesus. 
 
 II. CHRIST THE MEDIATOR. 
 
 Christ is spoken of as a mediator, and his 
 ministry as a ministry of reconciliation. The 
 object of a mediator is to unite those who, 
 from any cause whatever, are at variance with 
 each other, and therefore his precise work will 
 
WHAT THINK YE OF CHRIST ? 39 
 
 vary with the degree and cause of alienation 
 between two parties ; for sometimes both will 
 be filled with so much bitterness that they will 
 equally need to be appeased, and at other 
 times the guilt or folly of one will be the sole 
 obstacle in the way of perfect agreement. Ac- 
 cording to the creed of many churches, the 
 great hindrance to pardon and peace was 
 some feeling on the part of God — either an- 
 ger, because his law had been broken, or a 
 fear that the majesty of his law would be dis- 
 honored if he forgave us as freely as he bids 
 us forgive each other. But the instant you 
 turn to the Bible you are told that the only 
 obstacle to pardon was on the part of man. 
 The separation was caused by the sins of the 
 children, not the anger of the Father. He 
 was always ready to forgive those who would 
 repent; and the sole work which Jesus had, 
 as mediator, was to lead men to that true 
 penitence where they would seek and obtain 
 forgiveness. Hence the only ministry of re- 
 conciliation spoken of is, that God was in 
 
40 WHAT THINK YE OF CHRIST ? 
 
 Christ reconciling the world to himself — not 
 reconciling himself to the world ; and the 
 prayer which went up from the apostle's 
 heart was, that ye might be reconciled unto 
 God — not that He might be reconciled to you. 
 Jesus and his early followers always teach 
 that whenever men come to the Father with 
 true penitence and love, the reconciliation is 
 complete. 
 
 III. CHRIST OUR ATONEMENT. 
 
 This shows us, also, what is meant by the 
 atonement which we have received through 
 Jesus. We often speak as though it meant 
 some expiation which he made for the sins of 
 the people, some penalty he paid, or some 
 suffering he endured in their stead. But in 
 the Bible the words atonement and reconcilia- 
 tion have exactly the same meaning, and are 
 translations of the same word. According to 
 old English usage, atonement is simply at-one- 
 ment, that is, reconciliation ; and the proof of 
 this is as conclusive as it is simple. Our com- 
 
WHAT THINK YE OF CHRIST? 41 
 
 mon version of the Bible was first published 
 in 1611. and if you turn to the English writers 
 of that and an earlier day, you will find this 
 to be the only meaning of the word we are 
 now considering. Thus, Sir Thomas More 
 speaks of " The late made atonement in whyche 
 the king's pleasure had more place than the 
 partie's willes." In Beaumont and Fletcher's 
 Spanish Curate we read, " I have been aton- 
 ing tv70 most wrangling neighbors;" and in 
 Othello, when Desdemona is asked, " Is there 
 division 'twixt my lord and Cassio ? " she re- 
 plies, *' A most unhappy one ; I would do 
 much t' atone them for the love I bear to 
 Cassio." The translators of the Bible must 
 have used words in the same sense as their 
 contemporaries, and hence in speaking of the 
 atonement which Jesus effected, they must 
 have meant the reconciliation of man to 
 God. 
 
 IV. CHRIST THE SAVIOUR. 
 
 The term Saviour is applied to Jesus by Uni- 
 tarians as well as Trinitarians, but in a differ- 
 
42 WHAT THINK YE OF CHRIST ? 
 
 ent and, as we think, a truer sense. We do 
 not believe that he saves us from the power of 
 Satan, for we deny that any such being has 
 control of human souls; we do not believe 
 he saves us from the wrath of God, for we 
 deny that the Father has any such feeling 
 towards his children ; we do not beJieve that 
 he saves us from all the evil consequences of 
 our sins, for every one knows by observation, 
 if not experience, that many of these conse- 
 quences remain long after repentance and 
 reformation, in spite of our tears and prayers. 
 But he saves us from the sins which corrupt 
 our souls and make us unfit for the life which 
 now is and that which is to come. We 
 call him Saviour to-day, for the same reason 
 that the angel declared he should be called 
 Jesus, because he shall save his people from 
 their sins. 
 
 V. CHRIST CRUCIFIED. 
 
 But it may be asked what, according to this 
 view, was the effect of Christ's suffering and 
 death ? We certainly believe they had an 
 
WHAT THINK YE OF CHRIST? 43 
 
 effect on us, but not upon God. The apostle, 
 in speaking of the blood of Christ, does not 
 hint at any influence it had upon the Father, 
 but only declares that it deanseth us from sin; 
 and when Christ's death is spoken of as an 
 agent in the reconciliation, the simple state- 
 ment is that we were reconciled to God in this 
 way, not that he was reconciled to us. Jesus, 
 likewise, in speaking of the effect of his cruci- 
 fixion, does not claim that it will make his 
 Father merciful, but only says, " I, if I be 
 lifted up from the earth (that is, crucified), will 
 draw all men unto me." And the history of 
 the Church has clearly shown, that, in all ages 
 and among all nations, the sufferhigs and 
 death of Christ have played an important 
 part in bringing men to God. Not his turn- 
 ing of water to wine at Cana of Galilee ; not 
 his feeding the thousands by the lake side, or 
 raising Mary's brother or the widow's son to 
 life ; not these, or any miracles he performed, 
 however wonderful, or any works, however 
 great, reach the depths of our inmost hearts. 
 
44 WHAT THINK YE OF CHRIST ? 
 
 We turn from all he did in health and 
 strength, to gaze upon the cross where he 
 hangs helpless and alone. From that up- 
 lifted form shines out a love which melts the 
 heart and draws us all to him. When life's 
 sorrows press heavily, when its temptations 
 entice, its duties reprove, and its sins torment, 
 we turn to Calvary, if we would learn to say, 
 " Thy will be done." And when time rolls 
 on, and every nation at last is filled with love 
 for him, it will result, not from any teachings 
 he gave or miracles he wrought, so much as 
 from his patient endurance unto death, even 
 the death of the cross. 
 
 VI. CHRIST OUR HEAVENLY BROTHER. 
 
 To sum up all, we regard Christ as our 
 heavenly brother, to whom we look with a fer- 
 vent love. We recognize in his teachings the 
 true light which reveals the way to eterna 
 life We see in him the highest revelation 
 which has yet been made of the fatherhood 
 of God, the brotherhood of man, and the joy- 
 
WHAT THINK YE OF CHRIST? 45 
 
 ful immortality of the human soul. We are 
 grateful to him for those glad tidings of great 
 joy which he brought to all people; and when 
 we look at the whole spirit in which his mis- 
 sion was performed, we long to be classed 
 among his disciples and friends. When, there- 
 fore, ^ve hear his voice saying, " Ye believe in 
 God, believe also in me," we reply, with sin- 
 cere hearts. We do believe in thee ; and on 
 rising from this examination of all that he was, 
 and said, and did, we repeat with truthful lips 
 the apostle's words, " Lord, thou knowest all 
 things ; thou knowest that I love thee." 
 
LECTURE IV. 
 
 "THE SON OF GOD." 
 
 XN the previous lecture, I showed the mean- 
 ing which we, as Unitarians, attach to the 
 various titles which are applied, in the New 
 Testament, to Christ. One of his titles, how- 
 ever, is so prominent in the Gospels, that it 
 deserves a special consideration. He is called 
 " The Son of God ; " and I wish now to 
 show, first, what is the general meaning of 
 this phrase ; and, secondly, whether it had an 
 unusual meaning when applied to him. 
 
 COMMON MEANING OP THE PHRASE. 
 
 First, then, what was the common use of 
 the phrase, " Son of God," among the Jews? 
 
 Angels were, in early times, called His 
 sons, as in Gen. vi. 2, where they are said 
 
"THE SON OF GOD." 47 
 
 to have married the daughters of men, — and 
 in two or three passages of the Book of Job. 
 They, doubtless, gained the title from the 
 great dignity of their nature, or else from 
 the idea that they held a peculiarly intimate 
 relation to Jehovah. This usage of the words 
 is confined to the most ancient traditions, 
 and does not occur once in the later Hebrew 
 records. 
 
 We next find the phrase used of the chil- 
 dren of Israel collectively. Thus, in Hosea 
 xi. 1 : " When Israel was a child, then I loved 
 him, and called my son out of Egypt;'' and 
 the same writer says, " Ye are the sons of the 
 living God." The prophets often spoke of 
 God as the Father of the Jewish nation. 
 
 In the New Testament, we find Christian 
 believers spoken of as sons of God, from their 
 spiritual regeneration. " To them gave he 
 power to become sons of God " (John i. 12). 
 " Beloved, now are we the sons of God " (1 
 John iii. 2). So it is throughout the Epis- 
 tles, and in many parts of the Gospels. 
 
48 "THE SON OF GOD." 
 
 In certain poetic passages, God is called the 
 Father of the material bodies which he has 
 created ; but the correlative title, " Son of 
 God," is not applied to the created thing. 
 This same use of the term is found in mod- 
 ern poetry also. 
 
 According to common usage, therefore, at 
 the beginning of our era, the phrase Son of 
 God denoted either an Israelite, considered 
 as one of the chosen people, or a Christian, 
 considered as having God's spirit, and being 
 dear to the heavenly Father. The idea of 
 " proper filiation " — any peculiar relation, by 
 birth, to the Deity — does not seem to have 
 occurred to the Jewish mind ; a man's moral 
 character, or his spiritual relation to the 
 Deity, alone was thought of. The same use 
 of language that made them call the wise 
 " the children of Wisdom," and the wicked 
 " the children of the Devil," would lead them 
 to call the good " the children of God." All 
 were, indeed, created by Jehovah, and there- 
 fore, as will hereafter be shown, were, in 
 
" THE SON OP GOD." 49 
 
 a true and exalted sense, his children ; but 
 only those whose characters were most ac- 
 ceptable to him, were called, with peculiar 
 emphasis, the sons of God. Hence, in the 
 apocryphal book of Wisdom (ii. 18), it is said, 
 " If the just man be the son of God, he will 
 help him, and deliver him from the hand of 
 his enemies." As this is one of the latest 
 of Jev/ish writings before the time of Christ, 
 it must be good authority for the use of Jew- 
 ish phrases ; and it shows clearly that the 
 term " sonship," when denoting any thing 
 more than the relation which we all sustain 
 to the Creator, referred only to character, and 
 not to peculiarities of either nature or birth. 
 Unless, therefore, there is reason to suppose 
 that the title was applied to Jesus in an unu- 
 sual sense, we must infer that he was called 
 pre-eminently the son of God from his good- 
 ness, purity, and spiritual life, not from any 
 difference between his nature and ours. 
 
% 
 
 50 "THE SON OF GOD." 
 
 HOW APPLIED TO JESUS. 
 
 "Was, then, the title applied to Jesus in an 
 unusual sense ? This is a question to be 
 answered by considering the qualifying phrases 
 with which the words are used. 
 
 He was called the " only-begotten son," 
 — from which some have inferred a marked 
 difference, in nature, between him and our- 
 selves. This would have been a just infer- 
 ence if the term " only-begotten " had always 
 kept its etymological meaning ; but this was 
 not so. For the corresponding Hebrew word 
 occurs twelve times in the Old Testament; 
 but when Jewish scholars, before the Chris- 
 tian era, brought out their famous Greek ver- 
 sion of that book, they translated this word 
 only three times by " only-begotten," v/hile, 
 in eight other cases, they translated it by 
 " loved," " beloved," or some similar term. 
 Now, this fact, that the same Hebrew ex- 
 pression meant both " only-begotten " and 
 " beloved," shows that these two terms were 
 
"THE SON OF GOD." 51 
 
 regarded as, in many cases, equivalent by 
 those who translated the Old Testament into 
 Greek. The authors of our common English 
 version had the same opinion ; for they ren- 
 dered the word by " dear," " beloved," or 
 some such term of affection. In Psa. xxxv. 17, 
 it is rendered " darling," — " Rescue my soul 
 from their destruction, my darling from the 
 lions." Indeed, there is one case in the New 
 Testament, where the phrase cannot possibly 
 mean what we do by " only son ; " for it is 
 written (Heb. xi. 17), " By faith Abraham, 
 when he was tried, offered up Isaac : and he 
 that had received the promises offered up his 
 only -begotten son." But, as an historical fact, 
 Isaac had an elder brother, and of course was 
 not an 07ily son ; and this name could have 
 been given him only from the great affection 
 his father cherished for him. 
 
 Therefore, we believe that the term only- 
 begotten son, when applied to Jesus, is sim- 
 ply a term of endearment, and corresponds to 
 " well-beloved son." 
 
62 " THE SON OF GOD." 
 
 The name of " first-begotten " is also ap- 
 plied to him ; yet a little examination shows 
 that this does not necessarily refer to time of 
 birth, but rather to the estimation or favor 
 in which he was held. Hence, Ex. iv. 22, says, 
 " Israel is my son, even my first-born ; " — not 
 in point of time, surely. So Psa. Ixxxix. 27, 
 says of David, " I will make him my first- 
 born, higher than the kings of the earth ; " 
 and Jer. xxxi. 9 : " I am a father, and Ephraim 
 is my first-born," — which, of course, was not 
 true in the sense of priority of birth. Now, 
 when we have four different " first-born sons " 
 spoken of, — as Israel, David, Ephraim, and 
 Jesus, — the word is clearly used to express 
 only the favor in which a being is held, and 
 not any peculiarity of nature or birth. 
 
 But it is still claimed by some that Jesus 
 is called God's 0W7i son, and that this is 
 so emphatic as to show a peculiar relation 
 between him and the Father of us all. Yet, 
 if you examine the scriptural use of that ex- 
 pression, you will find that, like the preceding 
 
" THE SON OF GOD." 53 
 
 ones, it denotes only the affection in which a 
 son is held. It was even used where no real 
 filial relationship existed, as where Paul called 
 Timothy his " own son," and his " dearly- 
 beloved son," and then writes to Titus as his 
 " own son," too. But, in these cases, the re- 
 lationship was purely spiritual; and hence, 
 when the term is applied to Christ, we simply 
 infer that he was peculiarly loved by the Fa- 
 ther of us all. 
 
 It cannot be denied that the qualifying 
 words of which we have been speaking, — 
 " own," " only-begotten," " first-born," — are 
 sometimes used literally ; but since they are 
 so often used figuratively, the mere words 
 themselves afford no reason for supposing 
 that Jesus is a son of God in any different 
 sense from that in which all the pure and 
 good are. If now we look at the circum- 
 stances in which the title was applied to him, 
 we shall see that it had only the common 
 meaning. The beginning of John's Gospel 
 implies that all Christians are sons as truly as 
 
54 "THE SON OF GOD." 
 
 Jesus was ; for it says, " But as many as re- 
 ceived him, to them gave he power to become 
 sons of God : which were born, not of blood, 
 . . . but of God. And the word became flesh 
 . . . and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the 
 only-begotten of the Father." 
 
 Nathanael's strong profession of faith in 
 Jesus (John i. 49) is inconsistent with any 
 idea of peculiar relationship between him and 
 the Father : " Rabbi, thou art the son of 
 God ; thou art the king of Israel." If the 
 speaker had regarded Jesus as of the " same 
 substance " with the Father, — as " very God 
 of very God," — could he have addressed him 
 as " Rabbi," that is, " Doctor ? " 
 
 Again, in John x. 35, 36, Jesus makes no 
 other claim to the title son of God than the 
 simple fact that he is the one " whom the 
 Father hath sanctified, and sent into the 
 world." No difference of nature or substance 
 between him and us is even alluded to by 
 him. 
 
 In opposition to all that has been said, T 
 
"THE SON OP GOD." 55 
 
 fii)d but one expression which gives a different 
 account of the origin of the title, when ap- 
 plied to Jesus. In the beginning of Luke, it 
 says, " Therefore also, that holy thing which 
 shall be born of thee, shall be called the son 
 of God." But even if this account of his birth 
 is one reason why some have called him the 
 son of God, it is not the only or the com- 
 mon one, and is never alluded to, subse- 
 quently, by either Jesus or his apostles, in any 
 of their recorded words. Moreover, no pecul- 
 iar mode of birth made any difference to his 
 nature ; and what Luke wrote does not con- 
 flict with Paul's use of language in such 
 expressions as " the man Christ Jesus." 
 
 JESUS A SON. 
 
 This title, then, was applied to Jesus be- 
 cause his character was so acceptable to the 
 Father as to make him peculiarly an object 
 of divine favor and approbation. It has noth- 
 ing to do with his nature. Whether he was 
 a man, divinely inspired, or an angel, who 
 
56 " THE SON OF GOD." 
 
 " ruled Lord of Heaven," before he came to 
 earth, is not settled, in any way, by this name ; 
 it refers solely to his character. But while 
 this conclusion removes much of the mystery 
 which hangs around his name, it does not 
 lessen our love for him. He is still a son of 
 God, possessing the pure and spotless charac- 
 ter which endears him to the heavenly Father. 
 We see in him a holy spirit inspiring every 
 word, prompting every deed, and giving such 
 a coloring to his life as to make those who 
 saw him feel that he came from God, — yes, 
 that he was then in the bosom of the Father. 
 He still exhibits what there is divine in hu- 
 manity ; and as a guide, an example, and a 
 giver of spiritual life, he bestows on others the 
 power to become, in the same exalted sense, 
 " sons of God." 
 
 JESUS THE SON. 
 
 And he is also the son of God, — not only 
 one of the ideals of humanity, but the high- 
 est ; not only one of the manifestations of the 
 
" THE SON OF GOD." 57 
 
 Father, but the truest and purest. All that 
 is most excellent in manhood, we find in him ; 
 and in him, also, we find the fullest revelation 
 of God that has yet been made through the 
 flesh. Rightly is he called, far above all others, 
 " the soii,^^ from that character which has 
 warmed some of the coldest hearts, awakened 
 the most dormant affections, and quickened 
 the most sluggish consciences. Well may 
 those who think their ideal of excellence has 
 not yet been reached, and who are looking 
 for some anointed one, still to come, ask 
 calmly, as did the men of old, " When the 
 Christ cometh, will he do greater things than 
 these?" 
 
LECTUEE V. 
 
 THE HOLY SPIRIT. 
 
 TTNITARIANS, no less than Trinitarians, 
 baptize the disciple in the name of the 
 Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spir- 
 it. You have seen that by the Father we 
 mean the one and only God, who created all 
 things by his mighty power, and watches 
 over all with perfect wisdom, mercy, and love ; 
 and that by the Son we mean just what the 
 apostle meant, "Jesus of Nazareth, a man 
 approved of God among you by miracles and 
 wonders and signs, which God did by him in 
 the midst of you." It remains that I should 
 show you what we mean by the Holy Spirit. 
 If you noticed in previous lectures that all 
 the arguments were based upon the New 
 
THE HOLY SPIRIT. 59 
 
 Testament, you are not to infer from that 
 fact that we sanction the too common error 
 of regarding the Bible as the only source of 
 religious knowledge ; for while God does 
 speak to us clearly through the Bible, he 
 speaks also through the works of nature, and 
 through the Holy Spirit he sends into our 
 hearts. But because those lectures related 
 almost entirely to questions about Jesus 
 Christ, we were forced to confine ourselves to 
 the authentic records of what he was, said, 
 and did, since neither nature nor reason, ob- 
 servation nor experience, can settle a matter 
 of pure history. On this occasion, however, 
 we have to consider a present influence, no 
 less than a past fact, and must inquire, not 
 only what the Bible teaches about the Holy 
 Spirit, but what we know from its own oper- 
 ations in our souls. 
 
 THE HOLY SPIRIT OF THE BIBLE. 
 
 It is claimed in the larger part of Christian 
 churches, that the Holy Spirit mentioned in 
 
60 THE HOLY SPIRIT. 
 
 the Bible is a person equal to. but distin- 
 guished from, the heavenly Father. But as 
 we read the Bible, it nowhere speaks, as the 
 church creeds do, of God the Spirit, but al- 
 ways uses instead of that expression a far 
 different one, the Spirit of God. Now the 
 Spirit of God can, primarily, mean nothing 
 more nor less than God himself, just as the 
 spirit of man means only the man himself. 
 When any one says, " My soul doth magnify 
 the Lord," or, " My heart crieth out for the 
 living God," we simply understand that the 
 speaker does this ; and, in the same way, 
 when we are told that the Spirit of God moved 
 upon the face of the waters, we have but an- 
 other form of saying that this was the act of 
 God. 
 
 While, however, this was the original mean- 
 ing of the term, there soon arose a secondary 
 use of it, to denote some power or energy 
 which God exerted. As Dr. Eliot has clearly 
 shown, " Whatever God himself does, he is 
 said to do by his Spirit, or by his word, or by 
 
THE HOLY SPIRIT. 61 
 
 his hand, or by the breath of his mouth, all 
 of which mean substantially the same thing. 
 See, for example, Job xxvi. 12: ' He divideth 
 the sea with his power, and by his under- 
 standing he smiteth through the proud. By 
 his Spirit he hath garnished the heavens ; his 
 hand hath formed the crooked serpent.' " No 
 one, it would seem, can fail to see that all the 
 terms here employed are but different modes 
 of declaring the exercise of divine power. 
 So, when in one of the Gospels we find Jesus 
 declaring that he cast out demons by the 
 Spirit of God^ and in another by the finger of 
 God, we can rightly infer that the different 
 words had the same meaning, simply to de- 
 note the power of God. Our conclusion, 
 therefore, is that when the Spirit is spoken of 
 as a person, it means the Father himself, and 
 in all other cases it denotes the spiritual in- 
 fluence which the Father exerts ; and hence, 
 in the solemn rite of baptism, the disciple 
 declares his purpose to live as a child of the 
 heavenly Father, to be a disciple of Christ, 
 
62 THE HOLY SPIRIT. 
 
 our heavenly brother, and to open his heart 
 to the holy influence and spiritual blessings 
 which the Christian faith has brought. 
 
 THE GIFTS OF THE SPIRIT. 
 
 We are confirmed in this view by what the 
 Bible tells of spiritual gifts. It recognizes 
 inspiration as one of those gifts which elevated 
 Moses, Isaiah, Paul, and John above the 
 great mass of mankind, and exalted Jesus to 
 a far higher position still, so that even to this 
 day, after the lapse of eighteen centuries, the 
 wisest and holiest acknowledge him to be 
 their Lord and Master. But this peculiar 
 inspiration is never spoken of as the only di- 
 vine gift ; if it were, how few indeed would 
 be partakers of the Spirit! When some of 
 the Corinthians thought that only remarkable 
 powers 'were given by God, Paul devoted a 
 portion of his first letter to them to the cor- 
 rection of that error. He said that no ex- 
 traordinary gifts are needed to make one 
 spiritual; for the humblest child who sin- 
 
THE HOLY SPIRIT. 63 
 
 cerely confesses that Jesus Christ is Lord, 
 is also acting under a divine influence. The 
 power to give practical lessons in wisdom, to 
 give doctrinal teachings, to speak with glow- 
 ing, inspiring words, to talk in different lan- 
 guages, and to tell whether what is uttered 
 comes from a true or a false spirit, are all 
 alike divine gifts from the same bountiful 
 Giver. Thus he taught the humblest mem- 
 ber of his church to feel that the Spirit of 
 God resides in him, as truly as in the in- 
 spired prophets and apostles. 
 
 But the Bible language goes even farther 
 than this. It does not regard moral and 
 religious qualities as the only ones which 
 have a spiritual origin, but speaks in just the 
 same manner of what we call ordinary, nat- 
 ural powers. If you turn to the closing part 
 of Exodus XXXV., you will see that the Spirit 
 of God is said to teach all manner of work- 
 manship, and show a man how to work in 
 gold and in silver and in brass and in the cut- 
 ting of stones and in the carving of wood. It 
 
64 THE HOLY SPIRIT. 
 
 teaches the work of the engraver, of the em- 
 broiderer, and of the weaver, " Even of them 
 that do any work, and of those that devise 
 cunning work." Passages like these prove 
 most clearly that the Bible recognizes no nat- 
 ural gifts except those which God confers, 
 and they enforce the conclusion before arrived 
 at, that the Holy Spirit is not a separate per- 
 son from the Father, but only the spiritual 
 influence which he exerts. 
 
 PROMISE OP THE COMFORTER. 
 
 While there is thus a divine influence 
 poured out upon the whole world, Jesus 
 promised his disciples some special spiritual 
 help after he should be taken from their sight. 
 They should receive, he said, another Com- 
 forter who should abide with them, not for a 
 few short years as he had done, but for ever. 
 It was to be a peculiar, spiritual influence 
 from the Father, which should show them 
 the meaning of many things which Jesus did 
 and which they at the time failed to under- 
 
THE HOLY SPIRIT. 65 
 
 stand ; should teach them the many things 
 which he had wished to impart but they were 
 not able to bear ; should explain to them, as 
 he said, the things that were to come, allud- 
 ing to his own death and resurrection ; and, 
 in short, should guide them into the real 
 meaning of the religion he had proclaimed. 
 
 THE PROMISE FULFILLED. 
 
 And this promise has been fulfilled. Ex- 
 plain it as we will, or leave it without ex- 
 planation, the fact yet remains that the true 
 followers of Jesus have felt this spiritual in- 
 fluence of which he spoke, as none others 
 have in the history of the world. They have 
 been inspired, comforted, and guided by it, 
 exactly as he promised, and felt that God was 
 indeed dwelling within them. This Spirit 
 has been their teacher. It has brought to 
 every new generation a more complete under- 
 standing of the Christian faith, and shown 
 higher meaning in the gospel words, so that 
 we, to-day, know better what Christianity is, 
 
66 THE HOLY SPIRIT. 
 
 and what power it has over human hearts, 
 than did those early disciples who gathered 
 round the Master. This Spirit has been the 
 great Comforter of the human soul. It is 
 never easy to tell how "joy comes, grief 
 goes ; " but that, the more sincerely we live 
 as disciples of Jesus, so much the more pa- 
 tience we have in times of trial, the more 
 strength to stand up under our burdens, the 
 more inward peace, even in the midst of out- 
 ward misfortunes, is a fact which cannot be 
 denied even by those who fail to explain it. 
 Then, too, what an inspiration this Spirit has 
 been ! How strong it has made men for 
 every sacrifice that could be demanded, so 
 that no journey has been so long, no conflict 
 so severe, no danger so great, as to keep them 
 from their heaven-appointed work. And this 
 spiritual influence, which does so much to 
 purify every believing heart, has made its 
 power felt on* every side, so that the world 
 has been lifted up, and we dwell on a higher 
 plane, nearer God and heaven, because the 
 
THE HOLY SPIRIT. 67 
 
 promise has been fulfilled that he would 
 send another Comforter. We rejoice in be- 
 lieving that God is present in all ages and 
 among all people ; yet we cannot help ac- 
 knowledging that his power is felt so much 
 more in Christianity, as to make it true that 
 the Holy Spirit came through Jesus Christ. 
 
 THE ESSENTIAL DOCTRINE. 
 
 Here, then, is our doctrine of the Holy 
 Spirit. We are not the children of a far-off 
 God, who, having created and peopled this 
 earth, withdrew to a distant heaven beyond 
 all thought or care for what he made ; but he 
 is still, as at the beginning, the Light and 
 Life of the universe, and every thing we see 
 is simply the manifestation of his will. Now 
 what Unitarians teach is, that the same God 
 who is without us is also within us, and that 
 his presence is no more felt among the works 
 of nature than in the soul of man. He it is 
 from whom good thoughts and holy desires 
 proceed, since it is the Spirit of the Lord rest- 
 
68 THE HOLY SPIRIT. 
 
 ing upon a man which gives him " the spirit 
 of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of 
 counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge 
 and of the fear of the Lord." How often when 
 we have been filled with perple^xing doubts 
 about the choice we should make in life, and 
 a thick, heavy cloud has settled over our path- 
 way, hiding every thing from our sight, so that 
 even our most earnest, anxious thought could 
 not answer our questions or settle our doubts, 
 has a heavenly light suddenly shone around 
 us, a perfect peace come into our souls, and 
 every thing been made clear before our eyes ! 
 This we felt to be the gift of our Father's 
 Spirit. Then there have been times when 
 some great trial awaited us, to which we 
 looked forward with gloomy forebodings as 
 something we could not possibly endure, a day 
 of sorrow which we could not see and live. 
 And as the day drew near, and our anguish 
 and fears kept increasing, and we prayed that 
 if it was possible the cup might pass from us, 
 yet all the while asking to be resigned to his 
 
THE HOLY SPIRIT. 69 
 
 will, — all at once the pain was over, every 
 fear left us, and we waited what was to come 
 with the fullest confidence of a loving child. 
 This, also, we knew came from the Spirit of 
 God. In our highest joy and deepest grief, 
 our humblest penitence and holiest aspirations, 
 we recognize this spiritual influence which he 
 exerts. 
 
 " He is with us, now and ever, 
 When we call upon his name, 
 Aiding every good endeavor, 
 Guiding every upward aim." 
 
 THE LESSON OF THE HOUR. 
 
 There is no scepticism so sad to witness, as 
 scepticism about the present power of the 
 Holy Spirit to take hold of human hearts, and 
 make the man of to-day, in very truth, a man 
 of God. It is a great misfortune when one 
 cannot believe that holy men of old spake as 
 they were moved by the Holy Spirit ; when 
 he can look at prophets or apostles, and not 
 feel sure that they had a divine Helper who 
 
70 THE HOLY SPIRIT. 
 
 made their lives full of strength for men of 
 many generations; a great — who can tell 
 how great ? — misfortmie to look upon him 
 of Nazareth, and see only a fanatic or impos- 
 tor, instead of the well-beloved Son who gives 
 life to every soul that comes to him. But to 
 believe all this, and yet doubt God's actual 
 presence to-day, is a far sadder scepticism, 
 and blinds the soul still more completely to 
 the realities of earth and heaven. To believe 
 he was with past generations, but is not with 
 the present ; to believe that he spoke at sun- 
 dry times and in divers manners to the fathers, 
 but not once, in any way, to their children ; 
 to believe that he talked through Moses and 
 Isaiah, Paul and John, but has not broken the 
 silence of the last eighteen hundred years, even 
 to speak through Luther or Calvin, Wesley 
 or Channing; to believe that he once sent 
 angels to the suffering and sorrowing to min- 
 ister unto them, but that now there 
 
 ** Come not spirits from the realms of glory 
 To visit earth as in the days of old, 
 The times of sacred writ and ancient story," — 
 
THE HOLY SPIRIT. 71 
 
 this is the scepticism which makes earth a 
 desert, man an orphan, and human life a 
 hopeless wandering away from God and 
 heaven. 
 
 i Such unbelief has no sanction in Christian- 
 ity. However much fuller the measure of 
 divine Spirit which was granted to some of 
 olden times than to any of to-day, the promise 
 is still true that a Holy Spirit will abide with 
 pure hearts evermore. If any one fails to re- 
 ceive it, it will not be because the Father does 
 not offer the gift, but because the child has 
 allowed the avenues of his soul to be so ob- 
 structed that the blessing cannot enter. Only 
 open your hearts to receive it, and this rich 
 blessing will come to you from above and 
 abide in you throughout your unending life. 
 
LECTURE VI. 
 
 " WHAT IS MAN 1 " 
 
 T> ELIGION consists in love to God and 
 man. It is the tie which binds us to- 
 gether as members of the great family in 
 heaven and earth, whereof God is the Father, 
 and we, his children, are all brethren. It is 
 evident, therefore, that our religion will vary 
 with the different ideas which we form of God 
 and man ; since the bare possibility of loving 
 any being depends upon his possessing some 
 lovable qualities. Accordingly I have, in pre- 
 vious lectures, shown you the basis of our 
 love for God, in that he is a kind and merci- 
 ful Father, who eighteen centuries ago sent 
 Jesus, our heavenly brother, to lead men 
 away from their sins, and to-day sends his 
 Holy Spirit into every open heart to bring 
 us all to holiness and heaven. 
 
"what is man?" 73 
 
 On the present occasion, I wish to show the 
 ground of our love for man. It is an impor- 
 tant subject, because the idea which you hon- 
 estly entertain concerning it will influence 
 your whole course of action. Men do not 
 spend their days in washing the river sands, 
 when they have not even a hope of finding 
 some grains of pure gold ; they do not raise 
 mills to crush the mountain quartz, unless 
 some vein of the precious metal, however 
 fine, is seen running through the stone : so 
 no one ever labored zealously for the welfare 
 of mankind if, in spite of his creed, he did not 
 believe some germs of virtue yet remained in 
 human nature ; and just in so far as any the- 
 ology represents this nature as unworthy our 
 regard, it is a stumbling-block in the way of 
 true religion. 
 
 MAN, THE SON OF GOD. 
 
 Our Unitarian" faith agrees with the Apostle 
 Paul's, in declaring, that " The Spirit itself," 
 — God's Holy Spirit which in times of devout 
 
74 " WHAT IS MAN?" 
 
 meditation is felt stirring in the heart, — this 
 " Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit," 
 enforces the conviction of our own soul, " that 
 we are the children of God." The longings to 
 be connected intimately with the Infinite are 
 not vain and selfish ; they do not pervade the 
 heart in hours of worldliness and pride ; they 
 are the strongest when our souls are the best. 
 When we have thought most seriously, and 
 prayed most earnestly, and labored most de- 
 votedly, then is the conviction the most pow- 
 erful within us that we are heirs of heaven. 
 The Father's Spirit adds its testimony then to 
 that of our own heart, that we are children of 
 God. 
 
 Yet many fear to trust these spiritual teach- 
 ings. They never doubt their senses, the 
 lowest part of their nature ; they believe the 
 conclusions of their reasoning powers, the 
 next higher part of their being : but the soul, 
 the highest of all, is regarded with mistrust. 
 Spiritual insight they will not confide in for 
 guidance ; spiritual yearnings they will not 
 
" WHAT IS MAN ? '' 75 
 
 regard as signs of truth. The soul's own 
 conviction of its origin and destiny is thrust 
 one side, and hence numerous libels on human 
 nature have crept into the popular creeds. 
 
 LIBELS ON HUMAN NATURE. 
 
 Look, for example, at the different answers 
 given to the question, " What is man?" 
 
 " Man," says one, " is a child of Adam. He 
 inherits the guilt of his ' Federal Head,' who, 
 by taking the fruit of a forbidden tree, brought 
 death into the world and all our woe. As 
 his children, we are all justly liable to eternal 
 punishment." Not so. " Ye are my sons and 
 daughters," saith the Lord. 
 
 " Man," says another, " is a child of Satan. 
 He inherits his father's vices, and, like him, is 
 totally depraved, — utterly opposed to good- 
 ness, truth, and virtue. His garment of right- 
 eousness is nothing but filthy rags in the sight 
 of Heaven ; his prayers are an abomination ; 
 his best deeds only an offence. The anger 
 of God is kindled against him, and were it 
 
76 "WHAT IS MAN?" 
 
 not for divine forbearance, he would instantly 
 be consumed." — "Not so," says the Spirit; 
 " ye are the sons and daughters of the living 
 God." 
 
 Yet still another says : " Man is a worm of 
 the dust, a frail child of mortality. Toil and 
 trouble he inherits from the past; vanity and 
 vexation of spirit he bequeaths to posterity, 
 and passes through a lonely vale of tears to 
 reach a resting-place in the grave." — " O no," 
 says the spirit of man, and the Holy Spirit 
 enforces the assertion, " we are the children of 
 God ; and if children, then heirs ; heirs of God, 
 and joint-heirs with Christ." 
 
 There you have the voice of man, speak- 
 ing through human creeds, and the voice of 
 God speaking through human souls. Which 
 will you believe ? Our souls can have but 
 one Father ; with which will you claim rela- 
 tionship ? 
 
"what is man ?'' 77 
 
 "all souls are mine." 
 
 How hard men find it to believe the voice 
 which says, " All souls are mine ! " They try 
 to limit the assertion in some way. In a 
 spirit of exclusiveness, they separate humanity 
 into Christians and Infidels, and speak of the 
 former only as children of God; as though 
 the many mansions are not large enough to 
 hold the whole race, or the divine love not 
 great enough to embrace all. But still the 
 Lord's voice in the heart repeats what he 
 spoke through his Prophet of old, " Behold, 
 all souls are mine." Yes, all. All worship- 
 pers are his, whether in churches, groves, or 
 temples ; all men, oppressors and oppressed, 
 good and bad; all women, whether Madon- 
 nas or Magdalens ; all children, in whatever 
 land or condition of life they are born, and 
 whether baptized with water by a Christian 
 minister, or blessed simply by the holiest bap- 
 tism of all, a mother's kisses and tears. Ev- 
 ery soul belongs to him, because he creates, 
 nurtures, and redeems it. 
 
78 "WHAT IS MAN?" 
 
 I. god's, by creation. 
 
 We are children of God by creation. Hence, 
 in infancy, we are peculiarly his. In maturer 
 years, we mar both soul and body through 
 an abuse of our free-will ; and theologians, 
 looking at the wreck of beauty, virtue, and 
 manhood, say, " See the depravity of human 
 nature," whereas they should say, " See the 
 depraved character of man." From this con- 
 founding of nature and character comes much 
 of the misunderstanding between the churches. 
 The two words have in reality very different 
 meanings. The nature is what God gave 
 us; the character is what we make for our- 
 selves. Neither praise nor blame can we 
 deserve for the former. It is simply our inher- 
 itance from the past, the portion of our Father's 
 goods that fell to our lot. But for the char- 
 acter we are rightly held responsible, since 
 it is the result of our voluntary lives. Every 
 word, therefore, uttered against any one's 
 character is simply directed against the man 
 
" WHAT IS MAN?" 79 
 
 himself; but every thing said against human 
 nature is a casting of reproach on him who 
 created that nature, and then pronounced it 
 good. 
 
 Whatever be our answer to the question, 
 " What is man ? " we should at least observe 
 the Golden Rule, and pass no judgment on 
 other people's children which we would not 
 wish passed on our own. Let all theories of 
 human nature be tested by the experience of 
 home. When God intrusts to your charge a 
 darling child, a soul he has just made ; when 
 you bend over its cradle, to watch the smile 
 which makes you think it is dreaming of an- 
 gels ; or when it first learns to clasp the hands, 
 and say, " Our Father," then say whether it 
 is a child of Adam, of Satan, of wrath, or a 
 child of God. Clasp it to your breast, mother, 
 and between your kisses repeat the articles 
 of your creed. If your voice falter, and your 
 heart loathe the words of your lips, be sure 
 your lips are not speaking the truth. The 
 judgment of the heart is worth more than 
 
80 "WHAT IS MAN?" 
 
 that of the head. Those words only are true 
 which can be repeated gladly and lovingly, as 
 you hold a son or daughter, brother or sister, 
 in your arms; such words as the Saviour's, 
 " Suffer little children to come unto me ; " 
 such words as the Father's, " All souls are 
 mine ; " such words as the Holy Spirit speaks 
 through the soul, " Ye are the children of God." 
 
 II. god's, by education. 
 
 We are children of God because nurtured 
 by him. It is true that by the laws of our 
 being we are affected by the virtues and the 
 vices of former generations, so that holy men 
 who have lived, make our road to holiness 
 easier, and the sinful men of the past make 
 us far more prone to yield to temptation ; and 
 in this way there is a connecting link between 
 Adam's sin and ours. The common theory 
 of the " fall," however, presupposes that 
 Adam and Eve were, by nature, different 
 beings from ourselves, and that every thing 
 has been changed since their sin was com- 
 
"WHAT IS MAN?" 81 
 
 mitted. But the Bible gives no reLison for 
 believing the first human beings to have been 
 different from the present race. Adam and 
 Eve yielded, we are told, to their first tempta- 
 tion ; did any of their descendants ever do 
 worse ? Why does it show the depravity of 
 a fallen nature that you committed your first 
 sin, when these, who are always called per- 
 fect, committed the only sin which lay in 
 their power? No one can show more weak- 
 ness in the time of temptation than these 
 dwellers in Eden, and there is no reason for 
 thinking their natures were different from 
 ours, or were any more under the fostering 
 care of God. 
 
 We start in life, like our ancestors, with 
 powers and capacities to be trained and en- 
 larged; and God has so arranged the disci- 
 pline of life, that even our mistakes teach us 
 wisdom, and our failures help us rise. Stum- 
 blings and falls, while we are learning to walk, 
 are but lessons of caution and wisdom, not 
 
 signs of a depraved physical nature ; and our 
 
 6 
 
82 " WHAT IS MAN ? " 
 
 moral stumblings, while learning truth and 
 duty, are to be regarded in the same light as 
 the tripping of the feet. A child makes mis- 
 takes while learning to read and spell every 
 word in the Bible ; why should you be sur- 
 prised that it makes some in learning to prac- 
 tise the duties spoken of in that large book ? 
 He hesitates on first pronouncing such words 
 as "veracity," "obedience," or "integrity;" 
 why is it strange that conscience hesitates in 
 the same way ? All parts of our nature hes- 
 itate, stumble, or fall in the course of their 
 training; and yet all, as was shown in the 
 last lecture, are subjects of God's watchful 
 care, as expressed through his constant laws 
 and daily bounties. 
 
 III. god's, by redemption. 
 
 We are God's children because redeemed 
 by him from our sins. As this will be pre- 
 sented more fully in subsequent lectures, I 
 shall only state here what I hope to prove 
 there. While denying the total depravity of 
 
" WHAT IS MAN ? " 83 
 
 human nature, we assert the actual depravity 
 of man's character, and therefore his need of 
 redemption. Salvation, we believe, consists 
 in restoring the soul to virtue, healing the 
 spiritual infirmities. As a skilful physician 
 saves our bodies by removing the disease, so 
 the Physician of Souls saves us by removing 
 vice and all evil habits. It is not salvation 
 from either present or future suffering that 
 we seek ; for if the cup of sorrow may not 
 pass unless we drink it, His will be done. It 
 is not the wrath of God which we wish to 
 escape ; we do not believe he ever has such 
 a feeling towards his children. We desire 
 salvation from our sins; from the gross appe- 
 tites which enslave us ; from the chains of 
 evil habits ; from the power of sinful passions ; 
 from weaknesses and wanderings, spiritual 
 blindness and coldness of heart: from all 
 these we pray to be redeemed, and from all 
 these God will redeem us in his own time 
 and way. His omnipotence is pledged to our 
 support. We shall surely succeed in rooting 
 
84 " WHAT IS MAN ? " 
 
 out evil, because he is with us. And because 
 we believe that every prodigal will at last 
 return, and seek and obtain forgiveness, we 
 say that by redemption, no less than by crea- 
 tion, all souls are God's. 
 
 FILIAL OBLIGATIONS. 
 
 Not in pride do we assert this relationship, 
 and claim our " Birthright," but in humble 
 thanksgiving. How mean and trivial the past 
 life seems, when our high nature and destiny 
 are thought of. All this grovelling in the dust, 
 this wallowing in the mire of sensuality, all 
 the meanness and folly of life, — how unwor- 
 thy of one who has a heavenly origin, and 
 is called to a heavenly home. It might do 
 for a nature hopelessly fallen, or for a child 
 of mortality, an heir of the grave; but how 
 far beneath those to whom the Spirit has said, 
 " Ye are the children of God." 
 
 *' I therefore . . . beseech you that ye walk 
 worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are 
 called." 
 
LECTURE VII. 
 
 THE UNQUENCHABLE FIRE. 
 
 npHE Gehenna, or hell, of the early Jews 
 means literally the " Valley of Hinnom." 
 It was once used by the worshippers of Mo- 
 loch as a place for burning infants to appease 
 their god ; and after the suppression of this 
 idolatry it received the refuse of the city, which 
 would burn until every thing combustible about 
 it had been consumed. Because the fires were 
 kept up constantly, by being fed with new 
 materials every day, the valley became in later 
 ages a symbol of the punishment of the wick- 
 ed, as being a place where the worm dieth not 
 and the fire is not quenched, and the smoke 
 ascends for ever and ever. Material flames 
 cannot, indeed, burn up a spiritual body, but 
 they can help us understand the sharp, terrible 
 punishment which follows the commission of 
 
86 THE UNQUENCHABLE FIRE. 
 
 sin, — a punishment so severe that it has for 
 centuries been called an " everlasting burn- 
 ing." 
 
 ETERNAL PUNISHMENT UNSCRIPTURAL. 
 
 Yet, while using this popular language, we 
 must remember that the Bible nowhere teaches 
 that the punishment of the wicked never 
 comes to an end. It calls the fire " unquench- 
 able," which means that it will not go out 
 until it has consumed all the combustible 
 materials in its reach. John the Baptist, who 
 used the word, was referring to the flames 
 which burned up the chaff at the harvest sea- 
 son, — flames which were not eternal, for they 
 lasted only a few hours, but were unquench- 
 able in the sense of not dying out until the 
 chaff was completely burned up. So Josephus 
 called the altar-fires of the Jews " always un- 
 quenchable," although at the time he wrote 
 altar and temple had both been destroyed. 
 
 But Jesus calls the fire " everlasting ! " So 
 the Bible calls the hills everlasting, though 
 
THE UNQUENCHABLE FIRE. 87 
 
 they will be worn away and will come to an 
 end. The Levitical priesthood was called 
 everlasting, but it did not continue more than 
 1500 years. The temple had " everlasting 
 doors," but they were destroyed six centuries 
 before Christ, having been in existence about 
 400 years. Therefore you cannot infer the 
 never-ending misery of sinners from the words 
 " everlasting fire," when the same Bible ap- 
 plies the term everlasting to objects which 
 survived the lapse of only a few centuries. 
 Long duration is denoted by the word, but 
 not always or necessarily what we mean by 
 the phrase " never-ending." 
 
 Yet in the gospel use of words, eternal or 
 everlasting has more reference to the quality 
 of joy and sorrow than to mere length of time. 
 The " eternal life " which comes from know- 
 ing God and Christ is not the immortal exist- 
 ence which everybody has, but the spiritual 
 life, joy, and blessedness which are given to 
 the pure and holy. So we enter into eternal 
 life now, by sharing in the gospel privileges 
 
88 THE UNQUENCHABLE FIRE. 
 
 and blessings. On the other hand, in the 
 judgment scene recorded by Matthew, the 
 " everlasting " character of the punishment 
 refers more to its quality than its duration ; 
 and it means, in popular language, spiritual 
 misery, privation, and the failure to gain 
 Christian blessedness. 
 
 But the smoke of their torment ascends " for 
 ever and ever I " Turn to your Bible again 
 to see how long that meant to a Jew. The 
 Hebrews were told that they might keep the 
 heathen as their bondmen for ever ; but for 
 much of the past 1800 years they have been 
 slaves themselves, instead of the owners of 
 slaves. Again, the land of Canaan was prom- 
 ised to them for an " everlasting possession " 
 which they should hold " for ever and ever." 
 No language about the duration of punish- 
 ment is stronger than this ; and yet this " ever- 
 lasting," this " for ever and ever," amounted to 
 less than 1500 years ! Now since Jesus and 
 his apostles must have used common words 
 in the common way, you cannot infer from 
 
THE UNQUENCHABLE FIRE. 89 
 
 these terms in the New Testament that pun- 
 ishment never comes to an end. 
 
 ETERNAL PUNISHJIENT UNREASONABLE. 
 
 If the doctrine of unending misery cannot 
 be supported by scriptural phrases, it cannot 
 be proved at all. Reason and conscience al- 
 ways reject it ; partly because the excessive ' 
 pain is opposed to God's goodness, and partly 
 because it impeaches his wisdom to say, that 
 all his discipline fails in the end to bring 
 about a reformation. You call it a heavy cen- 
 sure on some of our prison systems, that they 
 send a criminal out no better than he came 
 in; and what will you say to the common 
 theory of " hell fire," which declares that no 
 one is ever made better by it, or • ever comes 
 out of it a law-loving, law-abiding subject of 
 the heavenly King? It represents future 
 pain as inflicted without doing any good, or 
 even being designed to do it, and therefore it 
 is opposed to both reason and conscience. 
 
90 THE UNQUENCHABLE FIRE. 
 
 THIS FIRE A REALITY. 
 
 Yet no figure of speech ever expressed a 
 greater truth than these which represent the 
 terrible punishments of sin as everlasting 
 flames. They teach the solemn warning that 
 all evil in the soul will be consumed by fiery 
 trials and afflictions. The flames once kin- 
 dled in the breast by the varied discipline of 
 life will not expire till all the dross has been 
 consumed, and nothing but the pure gold of 
 truth and holiness remains. For a man can- 
 not escape the judgments of Heaven ; he can- 
 not drown the fires of remorse, or escape his 
 terrible heart-burnings, until he throws away, 
 utterly and for ever, the sins which add fuel to 
 the flames, and becomes in character, as he is 
 by creation, a child of God. So long as he 
 persists in guilty thoughts and deeds, he is in 
 danger of suffering the sure misery which 
 awaits all sin ; or, as Jesus said, " he is in dan- 
 ger of hell fire." 
 
THE UNQUENCHABLE FIRE. 91 
 
 FIRES, PRESENT AND FUTURE. 
 
 In denying that punishment is unending, 
 we by no means deny that it reaches into the 
 future life. How long it may continue in 
 that spirit world, if we pass impenitent from 
 this, no one can estimate ; all that we know is 
 that it will be long enough and severe enough 
 to produce the reformation of the soul. If 
 hundreds of years are required for this ; if the 
 soul must be agitated by remorse till long after 
 the earth has ceased to exist, before it will ac- 
 knowledge the Father's sovereign will, both 
 mercy and justice would unite to impose that 
 length of discipline. For the mercy of God, 
 no less than his justice, leads him to punish 
 sin in this world and the next, for days and 
 for years, until the sin has been destroyed 
 and the immortal soul is purified by its fiery 
 affliction. 
 
 USE OF THESE FIRES. 
 
 What Jesus called the fires of hell are kin- 
 dled, not to destroy souls but to save them ; 
 
92 THE UNQUENCHABLE FIRE. 
 
 not to consume the sinner, but to burn up his 
 sin. Whether in this or the spirit life, our 
 Father aims to reform the erring by either 
 winning or driving them back from forbidden 
 paths ; and the most loving discipline ever in- 
 flicted by a tender-hearted mother on a way- 
 ward child falls far short of the wisdom, mercy, 
 and love with which God inflicts the penalties 
 of his violated laws. 
 
 And this is the undertone of the Bible ut- 
 terances respecting the penalties of sin. All 
 the miseries brought on the Prodigal Son are 
 to bring him to himself, that he may arise and 
 go to his father. All the chastenings of God 
 are sent, not for his pleasure, but our profit, 
 that we may be partakers of his holiness ; and 
 though his chastening is grievous at the time, 
 it afterwards yieldeth the peaceable fruits of 
 righteousness. It is good for a man to be 
 afllicted, that he may learn God's statutes ; 
 since thus the affliction, which in comparison 
 with the whole of life is but for a moment, 
 works out for us a far more exceeding and 
 
THE UNQUENCHABLE FIRE. 93 
 
 eternal weight of glory. It is true that many 
 passages speak only of the certainty and se- 
 verity of punishment without mentioning its 
 use ; but the long list of passages which are 
 like the few above quoted, force us to believe 
 that the use of punishment is always the 
 same, and that God's corrections are all de- 
 signed to correct his children and make them 
 pure and holy. He who sits as a " refiner of 
 silver," places us in the hottest furnace of af- 
 fliction, that he may burn away all impurities 
 and make us fit to dwell with the holy angels. 
 
 SALVATION OF ALL. 
 
 From these uses of the purifying flames, it 
 follows that every human being wiU finally 
 become holy. If it is, indeed, the object of 
 God's corrections to make us correct, of his 
 chastenings to make us chaste, of his affliction 
 to drive us back from evil, he will certainly 
 accomplish his design ; for who can thwart 
 his plans ? Even the free-will of man is sub- 
 ject to surrounding influences, and must yield 
 
94 THE UNQUENCHABLE FIEE. 
 
 to some one of the infinite forms and infinite 
 degrees of divine discipline. Therefore in re- 
 jecting our belief in the final holiness, i.e., sal- 
 vation, of every human being, you must make 
 one of these charges against the Almighty; 
 either, he can save all, but will not; or he 
 would like to save all, but cannot; or he 
 neither can nor will. For our part, we believe 
 that God wills to have all men turn unto him 
 and live, and that his will is to be done. 
 
 These teachings of reason are but repeti- 
 tions of what Jesus and his apostles taught 
 about the future of mankind. Accepting most 
 fully their statements concerning the mis- 
 ery caused by sin, we yet find everywhere 
 glimpses of a future still more remote, when 
 these fires shall cease, and hell itself be de- 
 stroyed, because its work is done. So we 
 look forward in full assurance of faith to the 
 time when he, who will have all men to be 
 saved, shall finish his work ; the time when he 
 who has been lifted up will draw all men, with- 
 out any exception, to him ; the time when all 
 
THE UNQUENCHABLE FIRE. 95 
 
 who are spiritually dead in sin shall be made 
 alive in Christ ; the time when the Son, hav- 
 ing subdued all things, shall deliver up the 
 kingdom to the Father that God may be all 
 in all ; the time when all the world shall, like 
 " all Israel," be saved ; the time when every 
 one shall know, what many have thus far 
 failed to see, that Christianity has brought 
 good tidings of great joy to all people. 
 
 OBJECTION TO THIS DOCTRINE. 
 
 But it is said, " So you believe a murderer 
 enters heaven as readily as the purest saint." 
 Our reply is. No, not while he is a murderer. 
 No sinful soul enters heaven so long as it re- 
 mains sinful. But there is not the slightest 
 foundation for the doctrine that " after death 
 there is no repentance." God's mercy does 
 not stop at the grave ; and wherever, on earth 
 or in the spirit world, a man turns to the 
 Father in penitence and love, he enters into 
 the blessedness prepared for the children of 
 God. 
 
96 THE UNQUENCHABLE FIRE. 
 
 LESSON OF THE HOUR. 
 
 Yet let no one forget the certainty and se- 
 verity of divine punishment in these specula- 
 tions about its length. There is a fearful 
 reality in Jesus' words about the " danger of 
 hell fire." The Emperor Nero besmeared the 
 bodies of early Christians with pitch, and set 
 them on fire, that they might serve as living 
 torches to illumine the night. Even heathen 
 writers rebuked him for his inhumanity ; but 
 was he any more inhuman than those of us 
 who besmear our souls with all that can defile, 
 though we know that a fire shall at last be 
 kindled there, which no tears can quench until 
 all the evil is destroyed ? Was he worse than 
 you, my brother, if you have stored the cham- 
 bers of your imagery with unholy pictures 
 whose poisonous colors must one day be 
 burned out, even though it sear the soul like 
 the burning of red-hot iron ? Or was he worse 
 than you, mother or sister, if instead of the 
 solid gold of truth which no fire can touch, 
 
THE UNQUENCHABLE FIRE. 97 
 
 you store your treasure-house with idle con- 
 ceits and vain follies which shall at last be 
 consumed by the flames ? You remember 
 the tears which were shed for a young girl, 
 over the lace covering of whose beautiful form 
 the flames in an instant spread, and she could 
 only writhe in pain, and moan and die. But 
 how much more to be pitied is one whose 
 soul has coverings equally light and frail, 
 which will burn with greater fury and cause 
 a greater anguish in the day when conscience 
 shall awake from its slumber and kindle the 
 fires of remorse for a wasted, misspent life ! 
 
 OUR TRIBULATIONS. 
 
 Yet, with this warning, take encourage- 
 ment, also, from the thought that a wise 
 Father will appoint such trials for his chil- 
 dren as shall at last make them perfect 
 through that which they suffer. Therefore 
 the noblest souls are they who have passed 
 through great tribulation, and now stand 
 
 chastened before God. And that one word 
 
 7 
 
98 THE UNQUENCHABLE FIRE. 
 
 "tribulation," as Dean Trench has shown, 
 expresses the true uses of both present and 
 future punishment. For the " tribulum," he 
 says, was the Roman flail, and " tribulatio " 
 the sturdy blows which separated the chaff 
 from the wheat ; and hence our tribulations 
 are the means by which God would tear the 
 perishable chaff of sin from our immortal 
 souls. In fhat one word a whole volume of 
 truth is contained ; and if from this discus- 
 sion you carry away only the true meaning 
 of " tribulation," and learn to interpret your 
 own tribulations by that meaning, this even- 
 ing will not have been spent in vain. 
 
 " Por till the bruising flails of God's corrections 
 Have thrashed out of us our vain affections ; 
 Till those corruptions which do misbecome us, 
 Are by thy Holy Spirit winnowed from us ; 
 Until from us the straw of worldly treasures, 
 Till all the dusty chaff of empty pleasures, 
 Yea, till his flail upon us he doth lay 
 To thrash the husk of this our flesh away, 
 And leave the soul uncovered ; nay, yet more. 
 Till God shall make our very spirit poor. 
 We shall not up to highest wealth aspire ; 
 But then we shall, and that is my desire." 
 
THE UNQUENCHABLE FIRE. 99 
 
 NOTE. 
 
 THE UNPARDONABLE SIN. 
 
 In answer to all arguments, it is claimed by some that, 
 as a simple matter of Hict, the gospel declares that cer- 
 tain Pharisees committed an " unpardonable sin," and 
 therefore can never be saved. Yet Jesus did not teach 
 that even those Pharisees will fail to receive forgiveness 
 at the last. To show their great guilt, and the great 
 difficulty they would find in being reconciled to God, he 
 said, " Whosoever speaketh a word against the Son of 
 man, it shall be forgiven him ; but whosoever speaketh 
 against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven him; 
 neither in this world, neither in the world to come." 
 He meant exactly what we do by calling any one " in- 
 corrigible," which is never to be taken literally, as im- 
 plying that he cannot possibly be corrected, but only 
 as showing how faint hopes we have of making him 
 better. 
 
 You are to understand these words of his as you do 
 his other expressions of the same kind. In John vi. 27, 
 he says, "Labor not for the meat which perisheth, but 
 for that meat wliich endureth unto everlasting life." He 
 meant that we should labor for both, but especially for 
 the latter. So in Luke xiv. 12, he says, that when you 
 give a dinner or supper party, you must never ask your 
 
100 THE UNQUENCHABLE FIRE. 
 
 friends or relations, but the poor, lame, and blind. Al- 
 most every New England family breaks tbe letter of the 
 precept on Thanksgiving day, and the rest of the Chris- 
 tian world break it at Christmas. But, evidently, the 
 Master meant that charity to the needy is a higher vir- 
 tue than simply the entertainment of friends. 
 
 Now Jesus uses this same idiom, to say, that whoever 
 blasphemes against the Holy Ghost will find ijb harder to 
 obtain forgiveness than if he committed any other sin. 
 The difficulty does not come from God's unwillingness 
 to pardon, but from the hardened state of heart which 
 will make such a man among the very last to repent and 
 ask forgiveness. Jesus, therefore, did not teach that 
 there is an unpardonable sin, any more than he taught 
 that you must not labor for daily bread, and must not 
 invite your friends to your table. He simply meant 
 that there is one sin far harder to repent of than all the 
 rest. 
 
LECTURE VIII. 
 
 THE DAY OF JUDGMENT. 
 
 TESUS spoke of a day of judgment at the 
 
 end of the world, when he should once 
 
 more come to the earth. What did he mean ? 
 
 HIS O^VN PREDICTIONS. 
 
 There are eleven passages in which Jesus 
 alludes to his second coming, and they show 
 conclusively that what he refers to was to take 
 place eighteen centuries ago. 
 
 On sending out the twelve to preach, he 
 said, " Ye shall not have gone over the cities 
 of Israel till the Son of man be come." 
 (Matt. X.) Palestine was a small country, 
 and it would not take them long to visit all 
 its cities. 
 
 " The Sort of man shall come in the glory 
 of his Father with his angels, and then shall 
 
102 THE DAY OF JUDGMENT. 
 
 he reward every man according to his works. 
 Verily I say unto you, there be some standing 
 here who shall not taste of death till they see 
 the Son of man coming in his kingdom." 
 (Matt, xvi., Mark ix., Luke ix.) His coming 
 was to be in the lifetime of some of his 
 audience. 
 
 " This generation shall not pass away till 
 all these things be fulfilled." (Matt, xxiv., 
 Mark xiii., Luke xxi.) Therefore he cannot 
 have meant any thing which is yet to take 
 place. 
 
 " Hereafter shall ye see the Son of man 
 sitting on the right hand of power, and com- 
 ing in the clouds of heaven." (Matt, xxvi., 
 Mark xiv.) 
 
 " And when he was demanded of the Phar- 
 isees when the kingdom of God should come, 
 he answered and said. The kingdom of God 
 cometh not with observation. Neither shall 
 they say, Lo here ! or, Lo there ! for behold j 
 the kingdom of God is within you." (Luke 
 xvii.) 
 
THE DAY OF JUDGMENT. 103 
 
 In speaking to Peter about John, Jesus 
 said, " If I will that he tarry till I come, what 
 is that to thee ? " (John xxi.) The second 
 coming was therefore to take place in the life- 
 time of John, and is not to be looked for 
 either in or after our day. 
 
 Leaving out parallel passages, I find only 
 six occasions on which Jesus alluded to an- 
 other " coming ; " and on four of those he 
 fixed the time to that generation, while on 
 the other two he did not fix any time at all. 
 The inference is therefore irresistible, that the 
 event to which he referred was to take place 
 while some of his hearers were still alive. If 
 you think that second coming has not yet 
 taken place, you must also think that he was 
 greatly mistaken as to the time. 
 
 APOSTOLIC PREDICTIONS. 
 
 We are confirmed in the above conclusion 
 by the acknowledged fact that the apostles 
 were always looking for the speedy coming 
 of their Lord. Paul wrote to the Romans, 
 
104 THE DAY OF JUDGMENT. 
 
 " It is high time to awaken out of sleep. The 
 night is far spent, the day is at hand ; " and 
 to the Philippians he said, " The Lord is at 
 hand." James wrote to the churches, " The 
 coming of the Lord draweth nigh ; " while the 
 unknown author of the Epistle to the He- 
 brews declared, " Yet a little while, and he 
 that shall come will come, and will not tarry." 
 The Book of Revelation, also, from which so 
 many descriptions of the judgment are taken, 
 says over and over again, that the events of 
 which it speaks are about to take place at the 
 time its author is writing. The very opening 
 of the book declares that it is showing " things 
 which must shortly come to pass. . . . Blessed 
 is he thatreadeth, for the time is at hand;" 
 and the closing chapter is in the same strain : 
 " Seal not the sayings of the prophecy of this 
 book, for the time is at hand. . . . He who 
 testifieth these things saith, Surely I come 
 quickly." 
 
THE DAY OF JUDGMENT. 105 
 
 "JUDGMENT TO COME." 
 
 A correct translation of such phrases as 
 "judgment to come," or "wrath to come," 
 would also show that the speakers were not 
 referring to a distant event which has not yet 
 taken place, but to something which they re- 
 garded as close at hand. The word trans- 
 lated " to come " is the very same one that 
 Luke uses, to say that the centurion's servant 
 was ready to die ; and it is used by John, 
 when he tells us that the nobleman's son was 
 at the point of death. The modifying word 
 is the same in all those cases ; and Felix, 
 therefore, trembled in view of a judgment 
 which was on the point of taking place ; and 
 the Pharisees fled from an " impending wrath," 
 one which was close at hand ! That is the 
 precise meaning of the original, and it justi- 
 fies us in saying that the idea of a distant 
 day, on which the whole race is to be judged, 
 is not even alluded to in the Bible. 
 
106 THE DAY OF JUDGMENT. 
 "END OF THE WORLD." 
 
 But did not Jesus ^ay there would be an 
 end of the world, and his second coming 
 would take place then ? Yes : our English 
 Bibles read so ; but that expression does not 
 mean the " destruction of the earth," for Jesus 
 declared, in almost the same breath, that he 
 was referring to something which should take 
 place in the lifetime of his hearers. When 
 (Matt, xxiv.) he was asked the signs " of the 
 end of the world," he gave them, and then 
 added, " This generation shall not pass away 
 till all these things be fulfilled." The diffi- 
 culty of understanding him lies wholly in the 
 double meaning of the term " world." In one 
 sense it denotes the earth, and in another the 
 state of things on the earth. Hence, a young 
 man leaves school, and goes out into " the 
 world;" by which he does not mean that he 
 is to live on the earth, for he has always lived 
 there since he was born, but that he is to en- 
 ter society and take part in social affairs. 
 
THE DAY OF JUDGMENT. 107 
 
 Now the Greek, in which the Gospels were 
 written, avoids this equivocal use of language, 
 by having two different words for these two 
 different meanings ; one of which, " kosmos," 
 means the earth, while the other, " aion," 
 means the state of things on the earth ; that 
 is, the age, to use our simplest term. So in 
 explaining the parable of the tares, Jesus 
 says the field is the kosmos (that is, the earth) ; 
 and the harvest is the end, not of the earth, 
 but of that age, of that state of things which 
 then existed in the world. The confusion of 
 ideas is solely in our imperfect translation and 
 the double meaning of the English term 
 "world;" for the original Gospels nowhere 
 speak of the destruction of the earth, but only 
 of the end of that age, or, as we sometimes 
 say, the end of those times. What, then, did 
 Jesus mean ? 
 
 THE FULFILMENT. 
 
 He meant that he was coming, not visibly, 
 in bodily form, but spiritually, in the power 
 
108 THE DAY OF JUDGMENT. 
 
 of his religion and the power of God, to judge 
 the Jewish nation. That Jewish world, age, 
 or dispensation, was to come to an end ; and 
 the Christian world. Christian age. Christian 
 dispensation, was to take its place. Christ's 
 kingdom was to be established on the earth, 
 after being heralded by that day of judgment 
 with which he threatened the impious and 
 cruel people who murdered the prophets of 
 God. Famine, pestilence, and war should all 
 combine to bring destruction upon the nation, 
 to waste away the people, destroy the armies, 
 burn up the cities, and throw down the sacred 
 temple, so that all the tribes of the land should 
 mourn. Terrible was the judgment with 
 which Jesus threatened them, but still more 
 terrible was the reality, when, in the lifetime 
 of that very generation, the whole Jewish 
 world came to an end as he predicted. Long 
 before the Roman armies, the ministers of 
 divine justice, reached Judea, a hundred thou- 
 sand Galileans and Samaritans were put to 
 death ; and then the devoted city of Jerusalem 
 
THE DAY OF JUDGMENT. 109 
 
 saw itself hemmed in. Of the horrors of that 
 siege, when so large a part of the nation was 
 cooped up in the circuit of the city walls, 
 when they were butchered by their own mad 
 zealots, were slain by the Roman javelins, 
 were wasted away by famine and disease, and 
 reduced to such dire extremity that a mother 
 was willing to eat her own child, no one can 
 adequately speak. Josephus, who witnessed 
 the scene, estimates that more than a million 
 lives were lost in those five years of warfare, 
 and says, " It seems to me that the misfor- 
 tunes of all men, from the beginning of time, 
 sink in comparison with those of the Jews." 
 Truly the Son of man did come in the power 
 of his Father and of the holy angels, when 
 this great enemy to Christianity was over- 
 thrown and blotted from the face of the earth ; 
 and the Roman General himself is said to 
 have declared, when he saw the strength of 
 the captured city, " We certainly have had 
 God for our assistant in this war, and it was 
 no other than God who drove the Jews out 
 
110 THE DAT OF JUDGMENT. 
 
 of these fortifications; for what could the 
 hand of men, or any machines, do towards 
 overthrowing these towers ? " 
 
 This was the second coming of Christ, 
 which he foretold so vividly that its literal 
 fulfilment must have given his disciples a still 
 clearer proof of his Messiahship. The judg- 
 ment with which he threatened the cities 
 wherein most of his mighty works were done, 
 came, as he said it would, in the lifetime of 
 that generation. The judgment which Paul 
 said was impending came within five years 
 of the time when Felix trembled in view of it. 
 The disciple whom Jesus loved did tarry till 
 the coming of his Master ; and all the Gospel 
 predictions upon the subject were realized in 
 that spiritual coming at the end of the Jewish 
 age, between A.D. 65 and a.d. 70. Not the 
 slightest hint is given of still another coming 
 to be looked for in or after our day ; for all 
 that was meant by the second coming of 
 Christ, the great day of judgment and the 
 end of the world, took place eighteen centuries 
 ago. 
 
THE DAY OF JUDGMENT. Ill 
 
 WILL THE WORLD END.' 
 
 " Is there, then, no end of this material 
 world which we inhabit ? " T do not know. 
 All that I have said about it thus far is, that 
 Jesus did not hint at such an event in his re- 
 corded teachings. What I do know, however, 
 is, that, so far as you and I are concerned, our 
 connection with the world will come to an 
 end. We may heap up worldly treasures by 
 violence, cunning, and fraud, or engage in un- 
 holy traffic for the sake of its unholy gains ; 
 but the hour is coming when they shall all 
 drop from the cold, lifeless hands which an- 
 other shall fold for us across our breast, after 
 the sins of earth are all over, but not the pun- 
 ishment of those sins. We may seek worldly 
 pleasures in an unchristian way ; may go off 
 into forbidden paths to pluck forbidden fruit ; 
 may live as though the bodily appetites alone 
 were worth caring for, while the soul is left to 
 pine away and starve ; but the hour is coming 
 when the world shall fade from our dull, glazed 
 
112 THE DAY OF JUDGMENT. 
 
 eyes, and with it shall fade all " the lust of the 
 flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of 
 life," which are not of the Father, but belong 
 wholly to the world. We can live in our 
 vices and for them, — indulging every vile 
 passion that asks to be gratified, heeding the 
 whisper of every vile thought, and finding 
 our momentary pleasure (to be followed by 
 years of woe) in scenes from which the holy 
 angels veil their faces in shame ; but the hour 
 is coming when the body, with all these de- 
 sires, shall be stripped off, and we shall stand 
 face to face with the spiritual realities we now 
 neglect or despise. And how will it be with 
 us then ? Shall we find that the faithful efforts 
 of a lifetime have laid up for us treasures in 
 heaven, so that we shall be rich towards God? 
 Shall we have in our hearts a capacity for 
 pure and holy joy, so that we can share in the 
 delights of the angels ? or shall we find to our 
 dismay, as we draw near the heavenly host, 
 that " we cannot join in the dance, for we 
 know not the measure, — and cannot join in 
 
THE DAY OF JUDGMENT. 113 
 
 the song, for we know not the strain " ? The 
 end of all material things draws near to your 
 soul and mine ; and soon we must learn 
 whether we are fitted to enter at once into 
 the mansions of the blessed, or must remain 
 in the outer darkness to expiate, through long 
 years of suffering, the sinful abuses of life. 
 
 OUR DAY OF JUDGMENT. 
 
 " Is there, then, no day of judgment ? " 
 Yes : there is such a day. The great judg- 
 ment, which Jesus foretold to the men of his 
 generation, came and passed as he declared ; 
 but our day of judgment remains, and we 
 must give account of ourselves to God. I 
 know that this does not always come speedi- 
 ly, as men reckon time. I know you may 
 possibly be dishonest, impure, profane to-day, 
 and yet to-morrow call yourself as well as 
 ever, and say nothing can hurt you, and laugh 
 at all threats of punishment. I know that 
 you can despise the long-suffering of God, not 
 knowing that he is trying to win you to re- 
 
 8 
 
114 THE DAY OF JUDGMENT. 
 
 pentance before driving you back from sinful 
 paths by his chastening rod. But I also know 
 that, sooner or later, the full penalty of your 
 guilt must be paid. Even though no one on 
 earth is acquainted with the sin, you will find 
 that " the way of the transgressor is hard ; ^' 
 and that before the brief delirium of sinful 
 enjoyment has passed, the bitter punishment 
 will have already begun. Not one law of God 
 can be violated with impunity. We shall be 
 forced at last to acknowledge to ourselves, 
 even if we still conceal it from the world, that 
 the Judge of all the earth has pronounced sen- 
 tence upon us, and has kindled in our being 
 the unquenchable fire which never goes out 
 till its purifying work is finished. No surer is 
 it that the setting sun will rise again, than that 
 every act of transgression and disobedience 
 will receive its just recompense of reward. 
 Nay, this last is the surer of the two ; for the 
 time may come when the setting sun shall not 
 rise or be seen any more in all the universe, 
 and yet we must suffer the inevitable punish- 
 ment of our iniquities. 
 
THE DAY OF JUDGMENT. 115 
 
 " Though the mills of God grind slowly, yet they grind ex- 
 ceeding small ; 
 Though with patience he stands waiting, with exactness 
 grinds he all." 
 
 Nothing in all nature or revelation is more 
 
 certain than this, that for every sinning soul 
 
 there is a day of judgment. 
 
 CHRIST HAS COME. 
 
 " But is not Christ coming again to his dis- 
 ciples ? " Ah, friends ! have you yet to learn 
 that Christ is already on the earth with his 
 disciples, only our dull, mortal eyes cannot 
 discern him ? Our eyes are holden that we 
 should not know him. Yet a little while, — 
 who can tell how little ? — and we shall see him 
 who in his bodily form will not come to us. 
 As soon as we are absent from the body, we 
 shall realize the presence of the Lord ; and 
 then looking at him, no longer obscurely in 
 the Gospel pages, we shall see him face to 
 face, and shall know even as we are already 
 known. Therefore it would be treachery to 
 my own deep convictions if I should simply 
 
116 THE DAY OF JUDGMENT. 
 
 say to you, " The Lord is coming," when the 
 words which keep rising to my lips are so 
 much sweeter, dearer, and truer, " The Lord 
 has come." He is very near his disciples. 
 He will be with them to their journey's end. 
 He is in no far-oif heaven where he cannot 
 watch his followers, to sympathize with their 
 defeats and rejoice in their triumphs ; but he 
 is near enough to see his religion spreading 
 slowly through the world, and to note who 
 are doing good service for God and humanity. 
 He heard the Christmas carols whose echoes 
 have scarcely died out over the world, and the 
 anthems of praise which have risen to heaven 
 this day. Wherever true hearts are toiling 
 and praying for the regeneration of mankind, 
 his spirit is among them ; and the work which 
 was begun eighteen hundred years ago by the 
 Man of Sorrows is watched over and blessed 
 to-day by the risen Lord of glory. I cannot 
 say to you, " Christ is coming," but " Christ 
 has come ; " and when the scales drop from our 
 eyes we shall see him as he is. 
 
LECTUHE IX. 
 
 SALVATION. 
 
 rr^HE INew Testament continually asserts 
 that we are saved through Jesus Christ. 
 We are told it " is a faithful saying, and wor- 
 thy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came 
 into the world to save sinners;" and an apostle 
 declares, " Neither is there salvation in any 
 other, for there is none other name under 
 heaven given among men whereby we must 
 be saved." Therefore I ask, to-night, what is 
 that salvation, and how it is secured through 
 him? 
 
 THK TWO MEANINGS. 
 
 At the outset, we find in popular use two 
 different meanings of the word " salvation." 
 One makes it refer chiefly to deliverance from 
 some threatened punishment, and lays great 
 stress on the fact that Jesus is to save us from the 
 
118 SALVATION. 
 
 wrath and the judgment to come. It promises 
 to rescue the dishonest man from the just pen- 
 alty of his dishonesty, the drunkard from the 
 penalty of his intoxication, the impious man 
 from the penalty of his impiety, and all the 
 worldly, selfish, and unspiritual from the evil 
 results which threaten them under the moral 
 government of God. Especially does it point 
 to the ever-burning fires of the spirit world, 
 and call upon men to enter the Christian 
 Church to escape so great a condemnation. 
 
 But the other meaning of salvation, which 
 we think far more scriptural, makes the word 
 refer to deliverance from sin. It declares that 
 as a physician cures a sick man by restoring 
 him to health, so Jesus saves the dishonest 
 man by making him honest, the drunkard by 
 making him temperate, the blasphemer by 
 teaching him to hallow the holy name, and 
 all the worldly, selfish, and unspiritual by turn- 
 ing them away from their transgressions, and 
 leading them to serve the Lord, henceforth, 
 with loving hearts and willing hands. Nearly 
 
SALVATION. 119 
 
 every theologian, it is true, preserves both 
 these meanings in his use of the word, and yet 
 you will find, in listening to two different 
 preachers, that one talks chiefly of saving you 
 from the punishment of your sin, and the 
 other of saving you from the sin itself. 
 
 V WHAT WE WANT. 
 
 But which of these two salvations does the 
 penitent soul really crave ? Most certainly it 
 does not crave deliverance from punishment. 
 The truly penitent child confesses his fault, 
 and willingly submits to the parent's disci- 
 pline ; and the truly penitent man acknowl- 
 edges his sin, and declares his readiness to pay 
 the just penalty. The natural utterance of 
 real contrition has always been in the spirit of 
 the Jewish publican, " If I have taken any 
 thing from any man by false accusation, I 
 restore him fourfold." Indeed, so far from 
 craving a deliverance from punishment, the 
 repentant soul often can find no rest until it 
 has offered to bear whatever can be inflicted 
 
120 SALVATION. 
 
 upon it. A man who had committed mm'der 
 in the State of Ohio, and changed his residence 
 to Iowa, where no one suspected his crime, was 
 yet filled with the deepest remorse for what he 
 had done. The image of his victim haunted 
 him continually, and he was driven at last, by 
 the stings of conscience, to return to the scenes 
 of his guilt, make himself known to the offi- 
 cers of justice, confess the murder, and submit 
 to the extreme penalty of the violated law. 
 And even if you call this an unusual, though 
 it is by no means a solitary, case, it is still true 
 in smaller crimes that sincere penitence is al- 
 ways ready to accept whatever justice may 
 decree. " Let him do what seemeth good in 
 his sight," is the utterance of the contrite soul; 
 and the prodigal after reaching home does 
 not ask his father to make up what has been 
 wasted in riotous living, but humbly prays, 
 " Make me as one of thy hired servants." 
 
 The one and only thing a contrite soul cares 
 for (and you know it by your own experi- 
 ence if you have learned what real contrition 
 
SALVATION. 121 
 
 means), is not to escape the punishment, but 
 to escape the sin. " Create in me a clean 
 heart," is its desire, " and renew a right spirit 
 within me." It prays that the evil thought 
 may be thrust out of the mind for ever; that 
 the evil longings may be completely crushed 
 and no more disturb our peace ; that the evil 
 habits may be broken, and no more have do- 
 minion over us. The one divine request which 
 has echoed down through the ages is, " My 
 son, give me thine heart;" and the one gen- 
 uine petition which has risen up from every 
 penitent child has been, " Save me from my 
 sins, and give me a heart fixed on God." 
 
 WHAT IS POSSIBLE. 
 
 I say that the soul wishes only this salva- 
 tion from sin. Now we must go farther, and 
 see that no other salvation is possible ; for you 
 cannot by any tears, penitence, or reformation 
 escape the just punishment of your past sins. 
 Whatever penalty has been affixed to any 
 act of disobedience is no idle threat of some- 
 
122 " SALVATION. 
 
 thing which may or may not be exacted when 
 the hour of reckoning comes; for, just as sure- 
 ly as God exists, the penalty must be paid to 
 the uttermost farthing by every one of us who 
 commits the act. Has he pronounced judg- 
 ment against an evil deed ? It will be exe- 
 cuted on you if you commit the deed. Has 
 he threatened an evil thought with punish- 
 ment? Then you will be punished for every 
 evil thought you cherish. If on leaving this 
 house you enter on a night's debauch, and 
 then, to-morrow morning, repent of it most 
 sincerely and prayerfully, that penitence will 
 not save you from the sure results which God 
 has ordained to follow every such violation of 
 his holy laws. You may be dishonest, im- 
 pure, intemperate, and profane, and then turn 
 squarely round and seek the Christian life ; 
 but the penalty for what you have done must 
 still be paid. The prodigal is freely forgiven 
 by his father, and welcomed back to his bound- 
 less love, but the patrimony he has wasted 
 and the constitution he has destroyed are not 
 
SALVATION. 123 
 
 restored ; and who can doubt that such a one 
 feels to the end of his life the bitter results of 
 his early misdeeds ? Look fairly at your own 
 experience, friends, and answer in the privacy 
 of your souls, — " After all your repentance 
 and reformation, are you not this very night 
 suffering for the evil you once committed ? " 
 
 And why should a man ask to be saved from 
 the punishment connected with his sins? For 
 those punishments are ordained, either wisely 
 or unwisely. If you say, "unwisely," you im- 
 peach the character of God ; and if " wisely," 
 then they are the best results to follow your 
 acts of disobedience, and to ask to be saved 
 from them would be folly indeed. Rather 
 should we bow before God in childlike trust 
 and say, " Thy will is the best will, may thy 
 will be done. The cup which my Father 
 gives me to cure me of my sins, shall I not 
 drink it?" 
 
 The only salvation offered us is the only 
 one desired by humble and contrite souls — a 
 salvation from every sin. Thanks be to God, 
 
124 SALVATION. 
 
 that is promised us, and is in the reach of all. 
 From anger, hatred, and revenge ; from ava- 
 rice, vanity, and lust ; • from guilty habits 
 which enchain us and guilty passions which 
 lord it over the soul ; from every vice which 
 corrupts our nature, every sin against God, 
 every crime against humanity, we can be 
 saved. We can be delivered from every 
 thing which estranges us from the heavenly 
 Father, and be reunited to him in perfect re- 
 conciliation through penitence and love. And 
 so the Gospel tells us that the Messiah re- 
 ceived his name of Jes.us, because he should 
 save his people from their sins. 
 
 HOW JESUS SAVES. 
 
 But in what sense, with our Unitarian be- 
 lief, can we say that salvation comes through 
 him ? We reject in every one of its forms the 
 doctrine of vicarious atonement. We do not 
 believe that Jesus suffered the punishment due 
 the human race ; for we see that every man is 
 punished for his own sins. We do not believe 
 
SALVATION. 125 
 
 that his righteousness is accepted as a substi- 
 tute for our non-performance of duty ; for we 
 hold that each one, individually, is called on 
 to lead a righteous life, and will not be saved 
 until he does. We do not believe he did any 
 thing to avert the wrath of God, and persuade 
 him to be merciful to sinning men ; for we 
 know that even when men were most sinful, 
 God looked upon them with the tenderest 
 mercy and love. Nor do we believe, as some 
 of our fellow- Christians imagine we do, that 
 we are saved through the power of Christ's 
 example alone ; for, much as we value that 
 example, we do not think of it as the only or 
 the chief means by which he delivers us from 
 sin. But we do believe that perfect reconcilia- 
 tion requires a change in man only, not in 
 God ; and I wish to show you what Jesus 
 has done to bring about this change. 
 
 TRUE REPENTANCE. 
 
 First, then, we say that Jesus saves us from 
 sin by leading us to true repentance. Stand- 
 
126 SALVATION. 
 
 ing forth in the midst of the world's corrup- 
 tions, he made men feel, as never before, the 
 sinful character of their lives. His purity- 
 shamed the world's impurity, his virtues the 
 world's vices, his perfections the world's im- 
 perfection. Before knowing him, men might 
 have gone on heedlessly in their old ways, 
 without once realizing how far they had 
 swerved from rectitude, and how scarred and 
 stained their souls had become. Compar- 
 ing themselves simply with themselves, they 
 thought they had need of nothing; and they 
 did not know that they were wretched, mis- 
 erable, poor, and blind, until they looked on 
 him who was rich in all virtues and was 
 clothed with the beauty of holiness. The 
 coming of Jesus was, therefore, a revelation, 
 not merely of the true life which ought to 
 be led, but of the false life which so many 
 were leading. The word he spoke was a dis- 
 cerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. 
 It stripped off the disguise from human souls, 
 and, like the magic touch of Ithuriel's spear. 
 
SALTATION. 127 
 
 revealed sin in all its hateful deformity. " If 
 I had not come and spoken unto them," said 
 Jesus, " they had not had sin ; but now they 
 have no cloak for their sin." 
 
 This feeling that we need salvation must 
 lie at the basis of every Christian effort. In- 
 deed, a sense of need must lie at the basis of 
 all action whatever. It is the want of food 
 which stirs up our sluggish natures, arousing 
 the indolent savage from sleep to kill the bear 
 and deer, impelling the Esquimaux to chase 
 the seal and walrus, and covering the lakes 
 and oceans with the sails of countless ships. 
 So, also, it is only those who have been made, 
 to feel a hunger and thirst for righteousness, 
 thaj will buckle on the Christian armor and 
 force a passage " by the thorn-road " to heav- 
 en's gate. And this thirst for holiness, this 
 loathing of former sins, this longing for recon- 
 ciliation with God, comes to us from a knowl- 
 edge of Jesus' life and teachings. It is the 
 first step in our salvation through him. 
 
128 SAiVATION. 
 
 CERTAINTY OP SALVATION. 
 
 In the second place, besides showing the 
 need of salvation, Jesus also teaches that 
 every earnest effort to reach it will surely suc- 
 ceed. Indeed, the former without the latter 
 would be no blessing at all, but only a posi- 
 tive curse. Better let a man perish in all un- 
 consciousness, than rouse him to the fear of 
 an evil which he will not be able to avoid ; 
 since always, to create a new want which 
 cannot by any possibility be gratified, is far 
 worse than to leave the soul untouched. 
 Christianity therefore would not have been 
 truly a gospel, unless, after filling a man with 
 hatred of all sin, it had shown him a sure way 
 of escape. 
 
 Now this assurance that we can be saved 
 from our sins is given us through a belief in 
 Jesus. The very moment we accept his words, 
 our doubts and fears all vanish, and deliver- 
 ance is seen to be directly within our reach. 
 The battle may be hard, but the victory is 
 
SALVATION. 129 
 
 sure. The race may be long, but the crown 
 can be won. The all-loving Father is seen 
 ready to welcome us while yet we are a great 
 way off; and the heavenly hosts are heard 
 tuning their harps for the glad anthem which 
 rises when any wanderer turns his weary feet 
 toward home. Very weary, weak, and heavy- 
 laden a man may be in this life, but if he lays 
 hold of Christianity with a loving faith he will 
 find rest for his soul. Very low, vicious, and 
 degraded he may be, but if he turn to the Fa- 
 ther in true penitence, he shall enter the blessed 
 mansions and be in nowise cast out. The 
 whole Gospel, from beginning to end, is filled 
 with this assurance ; so that every one wlio 
 accepts its teachings knows beyond all doubt 
 or questioning that if he asks for God's for- 
 giveness he will receive it ; if he seeks Chris- 
 tian holiness he will find it ; if he knocks at 
 heaven's gate it will open to admit him. The 
 very essence of the religion of Jesus is, that 
 every penitent soul will find pardon, peace, 
 
 9 
 
130 SALVATION. 
 
 and full salvation ; and therefore we say that 
 we are saved through him. 
 
 MORAL POWER. 
 
 Thirdly; besides showing the need and cer- 
 tainty of salvation, Jesus gives us power to 
 become sons of God in character as we already 
 are by creation. Explain the method as we 
 will, the great fact yet remains that our high- 
 est spiritual life flows from the Father through 
 the Son into human souls; and the experience 
 of the world declares that Jesus did not fail 
 to accomplish the lofty purpose for which he 
 came — that we misfht have life and have it 
 more abundantly. It was not weak bodies 
 only that he endowed with might, but weak 
 souls; so that whoever comes into spiritual 
 union with him, feels able to do all things 
 through the strength which comes from Christ, 
 It was not human bodies only, that he called 
 back from the grave ; but his voice reached to 
 human souls, also, which were dead to noble 
 thoughts and aspirations, and awoke them to 
 
SALVATION. 131 
 
 a new and holier life. The very moment you 
 come into harmony with his spirit, you find 
 his words to the Samaritan true : " The water 
 that I shall give him shall be in him a well 
 of water springing up into everlasting life." 
 Have we not found this true ? When we read 
 the narrative of Jesus' life before our morning 
 or evening devotions, are we not more in the 
 mood of praying ? When temptations fierce- 
 ly assail us, do we not find there an increased 
 power of resisting them ? When we are wait- 
 ing the workings of God's will, even as the 
 sick watch wearily for the morning, have not 
 his words helped us possess in patience our 
 souls ? And when affliction comes, and the 
 hand of death is laid upon those we love, 
 have not our hearts learned through him the 
 secret of quiet resignation ? And so, have we 
 not found that it is life eternal to know the 
 only true God and Jesus Christ whom he has 
 sent? 
 
 There is no room here for dogmatism ; 
 scarcely any for argument. We can only 
 
132 SALVATION. 
 
 look at the declarations of the Gospel on the 
 one hand, and the experience of humanity on 
 the other; the Gospel everywhere declaring 
 that Jesus was to infuse health and strength 
 into human souls, and myriads of souls re- 
 sponding that he has, indeed, raised them up 
 from the weakness and death of sin, and 
 given them power to become sons of God. 
 
 SUMMARY OF DOCTRINE. 
 
 I have shown you in a former lecture that 
 we look forward with full assurance of faith 
 to the salvation of every human being. That 
 is the only view to our mind which accords 
 with the teachings of Jesus in his Gospel, or 
 the teachings of the Holy Spirit in our souls. 
 Yet it does not follow from this, that all or 
 any human beings will escape the punishment 
 of their sins ; for you have seen to-night that 
 every act of transgression and disobedience 
 will receive a just recompense of reward. Not 
 unly is it impossible to escape in thi^ way the 
 consequences of our guilt, but the truly pen- 
 
SALVATION. 138 
 
 itent soul never so much as asks for it, since 
 it knows that all the divine chastenings are 
 for our profit, to make us partakers of God's 
 holiness. The Scriptural meaning of salva- 
 tion, we have learned, is deliverance from sin, 
 and only when we become pure and holy shall 
 we be fully saved. Then when we look far- 
 ther and inquire how this deliverance is se- 
 cured, the New Testament tells us that our 
 great helper is Jesus Christ. For, first, he 
 brings that conviction of sin, which makes us 
 feel how much we need Christian salvation, 
 and how far short we fall of the perfect stand- 
 ard of holiness. Then, secondly, when we are 
 truly penitent, he shows the certainty of for- 
 giveness, and assures us, by the full authority 
 of his religion, that if we earnestly try to es- 
 cape our sins, we shall become free indeed, 
 and shall enter the joy of our Lord. And, 
 finally, while promising us this salvation, he, 
 himself, through his life and teachings, suffer- 
 ings and death, gives us power to become sons 
 of God. The divine wisdom, strength, and 
 
134 SALVATION. 
 
 comfort, flow into us through him, so that we, 
 like the beloved disciple, " have seen and do 
 testify that the Father sent the Son to be the 
 Saviour of the world." 
 
 And my heart's desire and prayer for you 
 all is that you may thus be saved. 
 
LECTUEE X. 
 
 THE NEW BIRTH. 
 
 TTNITARIANS admit as fully as Trinita- 
 rians the truth of Jesus' words, " Ex- 
 
 cept a man be born again, he cannot see the 
 
 kingdo] 
 
 meant. 
 
 kingdom of God." Let us find out what he 
 
 SEEING god's kingdom. 
 
 Jesus speaks sometimes of seeing God's 
 kingdom, and sometimes of entering it, — 
 meaning, in both cases, the same thing. In 
 no instance does he use it of any future abode 
 in distinction from this which we now in- 
 habit (though he teaches at other times that 
 there is such an abode), but always of that 
 loyal condition of the soul which we can 
 attain to in the body and on the earth. So 
 John Calvin says, " They are mistaken who 
 
136 THE NEW BIRTH. 
 
 suppose that the kingdom of God means 
 heaven ; for it rather means the spiritual life 
 which is begun by faith in this world." To 
 understand exactly what Jesus meant, we 
 have only to recall a similar use of language 
 in the journals of the day, when announcing 
 nearly three years ago, that the state of Ve- 
 netia had just " entered the kingdom of Italy." 
 Now what is it that has happened there? No 
 change has taken place in the location of 
 Venice ; for its lands and water remain just 
 where they were, and the great mass of the 
 population is the same. But the state which 
 once obeyed the Austrian rule now acknowl- 
 edges the Italian ; substitutes Italian laws for 
 Austrian laws ; the proclamations of Victor 
 Emmanuel for those of Francis-Joseph ; the 
 decrees of the Italian parliament for those 
 which used to come from Vienna. Young 
 men who once served in the Austrian ranks 
 now volunteer in the Italian, and the taxes 
 which once helped keep up the Austrian em- 
 pire now find their way into the Italian treas- 
 
THE NEW BIRTH. 137 
 
 ury. Little change could at first be seen in 
 the people, or their occupations ; but the 
 allegiance which before was paid under com- 
 pulsion to one country, has been offered 
 cheerfully fo another, and we, therefore, say 
 that " Venice has entered the kingdom of 
 Italy." So a man enters the kingdom of God 
 when he gives himself up to the divine will; 
 renders cheerful obedience to the divine laws ; 
 consecrates himself to the divine service ; 
 and acknowledges in every way his allegiance 
 unto God. 
 
 In one sense, it is true that the divine king- 
 dom is already established in the world. All 
 things exist by the mighty power of God, and 
 are subject to his will. He makes the winds 
 his messengers, the flaming lightnings his 
 ministers ; he rides upon the whirlwind, and 
 directs the storm ; he lifts the mountain 
 ranges of the ea#th, and holds the sea as in 
 the hollow of his hand : and thus, snow and 
 hail and stormy winds fulfil his word, by 
 rendering obedience to his will. Even man, 
 
138 THE NEW BIRTH. 
 
 however rebellious his spirit, cannot break 
 away from this net-work of laws, but must 
 often observe how completely God can make 
 the wrath of his children to praise him, while 
 the remainder of their wrath he restrains. So 
 in one sense it is true, that, either willingly or 
 unwillingly, we must all obey the same un- 
 changing laws. 
 
 But there is a certain sphere of freedom 
 allowed every soul, in which the Almighty 
 does not exercise his sovereign rights. There 
 is a limited freedom to choose, though not al- 
 ways to do what we choose ; to rebel against 
 God, or to stand up boldly for his cause ; to 
 cherish unholy purposes, or to become filled 
 with a Holy Spirit. If a man's house is his 
 castle into which the king may not come un- 
 invited, still more is this free-will of man a 
 private refuge into which the King of kings 
 does not strive to force his M^iy by his omni- 
 potence ; and a full entrance, therefore, into 
 the kingdom of God requires that this per- 
 sonal will should come into harmony with the 
 
THE NEW BIRTH. 139 
 
 divine ; and that while doing what we choose, 
 we should choose to do the right. 
 
 So each of you enters the kingdom of God, 
 not when you die and go to a future world, 
 but when you render this voluntary obedience 
 to him in filial trust and love ; when you 
 place conscience before passion, duty before 
 inclination, what is right before what is pleas- 
 ant. In short, when you are loyal to God in 
 body, mind, and soul, you will have entered 
 his everlasting kingdom. 
 
 MEANING OF NEW BIRTH. 
 
 What then is meant by the " new birth " 
 through w^hich we come into this right rela- 
 tion to God ? It means just what you do in 
 saying, " This one or that must be a very dif- 
 ferent person before I'll trust him." " He 
 must be a new man before he'll be a true 
 Christian." A^*you turn over the pages of 
 the Bible, you find many terms used to ex- 
 press the nature of the change which men 
 must undergo in becoming what they ought 
 
140 THE NEW BIRTH. 
 
 to be. Thus the Psalmist prayed that God 
 would " create a clean heart and renew a 
 right spirit within hird." Paul desired men 
 to be " renewed in the spirit of their minds," 
 and " to put on the new man which is created 
 in righteousness and true holiness." The 
 Apostle John found the change so great that 
 he called it " passing from death unto life." 
 And Jesus at times said that men must " be 
 converted and become like little children," 
 and at other times that they " must be born 
 again." Yet all these terms are but varied 
 modes of declaring that a great, a radical, 
 change is needed in a man's character, heart, 
 and life, before he can truly say he is a faith- 
 ful subject of the divine kingdom. Each ex- 
 pression above quoted throws light on all the 
 rest, and helps us understand that Jesus was 
 announcing no new mystery, but only a most 
 momentous fact. 
 
 Not a mystery, but a simple, intelligible 
 fact, we are to see in his words. Look up at 
 the bright, but far-off, picture of what it is to 
 
THE NEW BIRTH. 141 
 
 be fully in God's kingdom ; the perfect loy- 
 alty, trust, obedience, love, that are required ; 
 the complete giving up of yourself to him, so 
 that you speak only those words, think only 
 those thoughts, and do only those deeds 
 which are pleasing in his sight; look up to 
 that bright ideal, and then look down into 
 your own hearts — so far below this standard 
 — so imperfect, so sinful ; look, I say, at this 
 broad gulf between what you are and what 
 God would have you become, and you will 
 see how great, how radical, a change is re- 
 quired — a change so thorough that Jesus 
 called it being " born again." No outward 
 alteration of the conduct is enough ; no put- 
 ting on of solemn looks, going through with 
 sacred forms, reading from Holy Scriptures, 
 and making loud professions of faith. No, 
 none of these are enough, unless the change 
 goes way down into the heart out of which 
 are the issues of life ; unless the change is 
 inward, as well as outward, you have not 
 entered the kingdom of heaven. 
 
142 THE NEW BIRTH. 
 
 To return to the illustration before used, 
 you may possibly find in Venice, to-day, some 
 Austrian sympathizer who pays large taxes 
 to Italy very promptly; who keeps all the 
 laws that have been ordained for the king- 
 dom ; who hires a substitute to serve in the 
 national army, and himself administers some 
 office so faithfully that no fault will ever be 
 found, and yet, you say, " he's no good Ital- 
 ian for all that;" and some ragged beggar 
 who, instead of supporting the government, 
 has to be supported by it, may be far more 
 of a genuine Italian citizen. And why ? Be- 
 cause, in spite of his outward life, the rich 
 nobleman is Austrian at heart, hates the new 
 king who rules over the land, and longs to 
 have a German army come back and restore 
 the ancient order of things : while the 
 wretched beggar leaps for joy that the city is 
 free, and shouts "Long live Italy." It is a 
 loyal heart that makes a loyal citizen; and 
 the nobleman's heart must be changed ; must 
 be born anew ; must be made all over again, 
 
THE NEW BIRTH. 143 
 
 SO that he shall love the new kingdom, rejoice 
 in its joys, weep for its sorrows, labor and 
 pray for its welfare. What if he is doing all 
 his outward duties to-day ? You still tell 
 him he must be a very different man, must be 
 " born again," before he can be as good an 
 Italian as the poor fellow who is starving at 
 the palace gates. And it is the heart which 
 makes the true subject of the heavenly King; 
 and he who at heart is worldly, selfish, sinful, 
 must be born again in order to enter the king- 
 dom of God. The two cases are perfectly 
 parallel; and if you understand the change 
 required of that Austrian sympathizer in 
 Venice, you can understand also what Jesus 
 requires of each one who is not leading a 
 Christian life already. 
 
 But some one may say, " Does not the ex- 
 pression ' born again ' imply, literally, a com- 
 plete transformation ? " I suppose it does ; 
 but you must interpret the Bible as you do 
 other books, and remember that many things 
 in it are written in a popular way to be un- 
 
144 THE NEW BIRTH. 
 
 derstood like other popular words which are 
 used in common conversation. Thus the 
 Bible says Jerusalem and all Judea and all 
 the country round about Jordan were baptized 
 by John. Do you believe that literally all — 
 every one — submitted to baptism? Again 
 it says, all men came to Jesus. Do you be- 
 lieve it, literally, that every man in the whole 
 world came to him ? Again it says, no man 
 receives Christ's testimony; and yet at that 
 very moment he had at least four of his 
 twelve apostles with him, and was baptizing 
 crowds of converts continually. How can 
 you explain the contradiction ? Only by say- 
 ing that the Bible uses language in a popular 
 way, and must be explained in that way. 
 The statement that everybody went to Jesus, 
 means neither more nor less than your com- 
 mon statement that you " met everybody you 
 knew " in the city the last time you went in, 
 or that you " went to the city yesterday and 
 didn't see anybody." There is a certain li- 
 cense of speech everywhere claimed and al- 
 
THE NEW BIRTH. 145 
 
 lowed ; and as you see from the examples just 
 given, it must be allowed the speakers and 
 writers in the Bible. You have no more 
 right to apply rigid philosophical tests to 
 every passage of the Scriptures than to every 
 word spoken by a truthful man or woman ; 
 and so when Jesus tells of a " new birth " 
 being needed, you cannot infer that every 
 thing must be made over again, but only 
 that the required change is a great, radical 
 one, reaching way down to the springs of life. 
 Jesus used forcible words, because they 
 were needed in order to impress the truth. 
 Simply to say, " improve," " be better," " try 
 harder," &c., were far too feeble commands ; 
 he bids you begin all over again with a new 
 heart and new purpose which shall be to you 
 as a new life. When you can truly say that 
 your great desire is to love and serve God, 
 vou have been born as^ain. 
 
 10 
 
146 THE NEW BIRTH. 
 
 WHO MUST BE CHANGED. 
 
 The final question, "Who must be changed ? 
 has already been answered in substance ; it is 
 every one who has not yet entered the king- 
 dom of God. Whether the words of Jesus, 
 therefore, apply to this man or that, to some 
 men or all. is no matter of abstract reasoning 
 or dogmatic assertion, but simply a question 
 of fact. And yet there is one sense in which 
 the words seem to apply to the whole human 
 race. The child's bodily life is developed be- 
 fore the spiritual ; its senses, appetites, and 
 instincts control it first in point of time, and 
 slowly give over the reins of government into 
 the hands of reason and conscience. Though 
 born with a religious capacity, the child can- 
 not be said to love and serve God, since he 
 does not even know the name. His embryon- 
 ic virtues must be fully developed ; his germs 
 of goodness quickened into life ; his dormant 
 soul awakened to the reality of spiritual 
 things. And when this time of awakening 
 
THE NEW BIRTH. 147 
 
 comes, and he first is conscious of his relig- 
 ious obligations, and devotes himself with his 
 whole heart to a religious life, he is truly born 
 again. 
 
 This, then, is our Unitarian faith: that by 
 entering the kingdom of God, Jesus did not 
 mean " going to any future abode," but com- 
 ing into right relations with God in perfect 
 obedience and love ; that by the " new birth," 
 he meant just what you do in saying, that 
 " such a one must become a new man before 
 he will be a Christian;" and this new birth 
 is required of every one who does not already 
 love and serve God. 
 
 THE PRACTICAL LESSON. 
 
 So far from being a matter of mere specu- 
 lation, the doctrine, as we preach it, has great 
 practical value. This " new birth " is not 
 something which you passively undergo, 
 some change wrought on you by the mighty 
 power of God. He does not stretch forth his 
 hand from the heavens, to snatch you up out 
 
148 THE NEW BIRTH. 
 
 of your sins, and drag you into his kingdom 
 of peace and love. He does not change a 
 human soul from sin to holiness by any irre- 
 sistible grace, in a moment, in the twinkling of 
 an eye, — like the old magicians, whose wand 
 changed stones and brutes into thinking, lov- 
 ing men. No, friends ! if you wait for God to 
 make you all over again, while you do noth- 
 ing for yourself, you will wait through all 
 eternity, and never see salvation come from 
 him; but you must work with him in holy 
 fear and trembling earnestness, and then the 
 happy result is sure. He gives the powers, 
 but you must use them in accordance with 
 his will ; he gives the opportunities, but you 
 must improve them faithfully each day ; he 
 sends down his Holy Spirit to your side, but 
 you must open wide the door of your hearts, 
 and give it a cordial welcome. The divine 
 and the human must work together, in, with, 
 and for each other, and then you enter the 
 kingdom of God. 
 
 The heavenly Father has done his part 
 
THE NEW BIRTH. 149 
 
 every moment since you were born ; and if 
 you have failed thus far to enter his kingdom, 
 the failure has not been owing to him but to 
 you. Have you tried by all the power you 
 had, to resist the sin which so easily besets 
 you ? Have you used all the proffered helps 
 to a Christian life, — the reading of devout 
 books, meditation upon holy themes, and 
 habits of fervent prayer? Have you taken 
 unto yourself the whole armor of God, that 
 you may be able to withstand the power of 
 evil when the time of trial comes ? Then be- 
 gin at once to do all this. Put forth every 
 power, use every help, and live in humble 
 reliance upon God, — and you shall become a 
 new man, and enter his heavenly kingdom to 
 dwell with him for ever. 
 
LECTURE XI. 
 
 THE LIFE THAT NOW IS. 
 
 X N both Exodus and Deuteronomy you read 
 that the earth is the Lord's, but find the 
 emphasis placed on a different word in the 
 two passages. In the first you read that " The 
 earth is the Lord^sP It is neither yours nor 
 mine to gratify our sinful passions with ; 
 neither Satan's nor Mammon's to hold his 
 court in. It belongs to no king or parliament, 
 no hero or saint, no church or state, but solely 
 to our God. That is what the book of Exodus 
 means. 
 
 In the other place, however, you read that 
 the earth is the Lord's. Not merely heaven, 
 and the heaven of heavens, belong to him ; 
 not merely the far-ofi' worlds, which daily and 
 nightly roll over our heads ; not merely the 
 paradise of the blest, where the good of all 
 
THE LIFE THAT NOW IS. 151 
 
 ages unite in serving and loving the Eternal 
 Father, and the fiery furnace of affliction, 
 where the impure soul must have all its dross 
 consumed before it can be one of the jewels 
 of the heavenly King ; not merely these be- 
 long to the Lord, but this earth, also, which 
 we tread beneath our feet, is his. That is 
 what the book of Deuteronomy implies. Now 
 if you will take these two trains of thought 
 and unite them, you will have the Christian 
 doctrine concerning " the life that now is." 
 
 NEAREST WORLD AND NEXT WORLD. 
 
 Christians have often made the sad mistake 
 of thinking so much of the next world, to 
 which they are going, as to forget the nearest 
 world, to which they have already come. God 
 is sometimes spoken of as seated on a far-off 
 throne whither we shall go to see him by and 
 by ; and heaven as a distant resting-place 
 where virtue will find, after death, the reward 
 which does not await it here ; while the un- 
 quenchable fires, which form a part of the 
 
152 THE LIFE THAT NOW IS. 
 
 divine chastenings, are imagined to be all re- 
 served for a future time when sin will receive 
 the punishment it now so happily escapes. 
 So long as my soul is pent in the body, I am 
 told that I roam "absent from God; " and the 
 world is thought to be so far removed from 
 the tokens of divine presence, that to live in 
 it is to live away from God and heaven. 
 There are times, indeed, when this exclusive 
 regard for the future seems natural to human 
 souls. When our dearest earthly treasures 
 have been carried away to the heavenly king- 
 dom, our hearts must go there too. It be- 
 comes at such times our only real home, the 
 only quiet resting-place ; since, so far as mere 
 pleasure is concerned, whatever life may have 
 to offer, death will be gain. It was in this 
 spirit Paul declared that he desired to depart 
 from this world and be with Christ, for he felt 
 that while at home in the body he was absent 
 from his Lord ; not absent from God^ — he 
 never dreamed of that impossibility, — but 
 absent from the dear Saviour and Friend he 
 
THE LIFE THAT NOW IS. 153 
 
 longed to see — the Lord Jesus Christ. Yet 
 these are but exceptional moods of the soul, 
 which still leave unimpaired the general rule 
 for human conduct, that we should not forget 
 this nearest world which we now inhabit, in 
 any dreams of the next, .which God has in 
 store for us. Therefore I want to show you 
 what Unitarianism teaches about this nearest 
 world — the life that now is. 
 
 I. god's presence here. 
 
 First, it tells us that God is as truly present 
 here as in any world which he has made ; as 
 truly present in this state of being as in any 
 we shall ever enjoy. It is as Useless to talk of 
 going to God, as it would be hopeless to try 
 to escape him, whether we purpose to go up 
 into the heavens or down into the grave, or to 
 fly on the wings of the morning to the utter- 
 most parts of the universe. Whichever way 
 we turn he is present ; and philosophy has no 
 diviner wisdom than the child's, who when 
 told, " I will give you this dollar if you '11 
 
154 THE LIFE THAT NOW IS. 
 
 show me where God is," instantly replied, 
 " And I '11 give you twice as much if you '11 
 show me where he is not." 
 
 Yes, God is with us here to-day. Under 
 these skies, by this stream, among these hills, 
 he has his kingdom. Our beautiful valley is 
 no prison-house or desert of exile, but a tem- 
 ple for the ever-loving Father. To remain 
 longer in the world is not to pass our hours 
 away from him ; to be pent in the body is 
 not to be cut off from his presence. We are 
 not journeying toward God, but with him ; 
 and our moving tents, wherever pitched at 
 night, are in truth his mansions, and sur- 
 rounded by the unseen host of angels. Then 
 it is holy ground whereon we tread — hal- 
 lowed by the Creator's footsteps ; and holy 
 dwellings in which we live — sanctified by 
 his presence. In his sight we walk the daily 
 round of duty, perform our labors, bear our 
 griefs, and meet temptations, since " all things 
 are opened unto him with whom we have to 
 do." And if God's presence could always be 
 
THE LIFE THAT NOW IS. lo5 
 
 realized, where it actually is, in every situa- 
 tion of life, the tempter would flee far away 
 from us, and our hearts would keep free from 
 sin. Let me only feel, what Jesus has taught, 
 that the reign of God has begun even here, and 
 henceforth sin will have no attractions which 
 cannot be resisted, and earth no sorrow which 
 cannot be cured. 
 
 II. A PRESENT HEAVEN. 
 
 Then, in the second place, heaven also be- 
 gins on earth. Christianity does not store its 
 blessings away in some well-guarded vaults of 
 the unseen world, and simply promise to turn 
 them over to our hands when we have passed 
 through the gates of the grave. It is true that 
 for the full fruition of our hopes we must wait 
 until the future, just as children in the first 
 drudgery of the alphabet and numeration can- 
 not comprehend the joy of knowledge which 
 will fill their minds years hence. The pre- 
 cious seed of holiness may be sown with many 
 bitter tears in the morning of life, and the full 
 
156 THE LIFE THAT NOW IS. 
 
 hour of rejoicing not be known until in the 
 higher world we lay our sheaves before the 
 Lord of the harvest. • Yet, even here and 
 now, we can have a foretaste of that heaven. 
 Christianity is no "century plant," which 
 shows nothing but leaves to one generation 
 after another ; but it is a tree of life, which 
 beareth all manner of good fruit and yield- 
 eth that fruit every month, — yes, yieldeth 
 enough every day for the soul's wants. 
 
 Therefore it was no general rule which the 
 apostle laid down when he declared that, " if 
 in this life only we have hope in Christ, we 
 are of all men most miserable." He was but 
 referring to those fearful persecutions which 
 were experienced by him and his comrades 
 who were called on so literally to take up the 
 cross and follow their Master ; and there may 
 at times be seasons of just such trials now, 
 when a truly Christian life will bring a man 
 to sorrow, pain, and death. But save in these 
 exceptional cases, holiness will bring its peace 
 — its inward joy — to-day, as truly as in any 
 
THE LIFE THAT NOW IS. 157 
 
 coming time. Each good act will receive the 
 approbation of God ; each pure thought will 
 help us on towards complete harmony with 
 him ; each fervent prayer will bring as gen- 
 uine a response as any which we shall send 
 up hereafter when we have joined the angelic 
 throng. Whatever will make us rejoice in the 
 presence of God then, will do so now^; so that 
 even here we can enter at once into our heav- 
 en, and need go no more out for ever. 
 
 III. UNQUENCHABLE FIRES NOW. 
 
 In the third place, our Unitarian faith 
 teaches that the unquenchable fires, which 
 are to consume all the evil in the soul, are 
 kindled here on the earth as soon as we com- 
 mit a single act of sin. They are not all re- 
 served for a distant future day, when those 
 who shall not have " made their peace with 
 God" will be cast into the ever -burning 
 flames, while others, who repent before the 
 hour of death, will wholly escape. No such 
 uncertainty exists. No more here than here- 
 
158 THE LIFE THAT NOW IS. 
 
 after can one of God's laws be violated with 
 inripunity. Not the slightest act of sin can be 
 committed without incurring the sure misery 
 which he has ordained. Whoso tampers with 
 evil thoughts and purposes, whoso injures or 
 defrauds his neighbor, whoso wastes his pow- 
 ers by doing the wrong or neglecting the right, 
 is condemned already by an unconditional 
 sentence which contains no " if." He cannot 
 enjoy the fruits of sin for a season, and im- 
 agine that if he prepares a plea of repentance 
 before the judgment day he will keep clear of 
 the flames. He is judged already ; and a sure 
 retribution has begun, which no remorse or 
 regrets can avert. Repentance will indeed 
 secure forgiveness, and forgiveness will bring 
 a return of the heavenly Father's favor, but 
 the strict penalty of each violated law must 
 be paid. It is, then, nothing less than suicide 
 to calculate the length of life to determine 
 how long the soul can sin with safety and yet 
 escape its sentence of condemnation. The 
 moment you sin is your nroment of judg- 
 
THE LIFE THAT NOW IS. 159 
 
 ment ; and a fire is immediately kindled 
 which cannot be quenched by any tears, but 
 will burn until all traces of your guilt are 
 consumed. 
 
 Therefore you will not in our churches hear 
 the customary appeals to the uncertainties of 
 life and the possibilities of death. We never 
 give as a reason for repenting to-day, that 
 you may, perhaps, die to-morrow ; for this 
 seems to imply the sad mistake that if you 
 were certain of living to-morrow, there would 
 be no special need of repenting at present! 
 Hence, you may have met with people who 
 cherish the deliberate purpose of becoming 
 Christians before they die, and think that, if 
 they do, the present sins will do no harm, or 
 may even be a clear gain. Theologians may 
 not mean it, and yet the practical effect of 
 their teachings sometimes is, that sin is re- 
 garded as the most desirable state for this life, 
 and is to be avoided chiefly because it may 
 not be repented of in season. No error can 
 be more fatal than that ; for sin is now and 
 always the ruin of the soul. 
 
160 THE LIFE THAT NOW IS. 
 
 Jonathan Edwards closed a sermon with 
 the words, " Brethren, perhaps some of us will 
 be in hell before to-morrow morning." But 
 Unitarianism strikes out the word " perhaps," 
 and says that if you sin to-night you certain- 
 ly will have the fires of hell kindled in your 
 soul before to-morrow morning. There is no 
 "if," or "perhaps," or any conditional word, 
 about it. Misery follows sin by a law which 
 is as unchanging as God himself. The un- 
 quenchable fires are not reserved for the spirit 
 world, however long they may burn there, but 
 are kindled here on the earth, at the moment 
 when the sin is committed. 
 
 IV. WORTH OF THE BODY. 
 
 Because God's reign has begun on the 
 earth, so as to give us a foretaste of the joys 
 of virtue and the misery of vice, we find an 
 increased value in the human body. I ap- 
 proach the topic reverently, for it is very sa- 
 cred ; and delicately, for it is connected with 
 our seasons of bereavement : but I must 
 
THE LIFE THAT NOW IS. 161 
 
 dwell upon it long enough to show that much 
 of our talk about the bodily life is utterly- 
 opposed to human reason and divine revela- 
 tion. Christians too often pronounce the 
 body a prison-house of the soul — which is 
 true only in cases of physical infirmity. They 
 call the dead happy in escaping the body, and 
 speak as though death were better than life. 
 They give the school children verses to read, 
 beginning, — 
 
 " O fear not thou to die. 
 But rather fear to live ; " 
 
 which last line is utterly unchristian ; and as 
 for the result of reading and believing such 
 errors, — 
 
 " ' It is good when it happens/ say the children, 
 * That we die before our time/ " 
 
 And some expressions which even ministers 
 use in the house of mourning, or by the newly- 
 opened grave, mean, if they mean any thing 
 at all, that the human body is only a hin- 
 drance to the «oul, and that more thanks 
 
 11 
 
162 THE LIFE THAT NOW IS. 
 
 should be given for a child's death than its 
 birth. 
 
 . This whole idea we utterly reject. The 
 body is no more the prison of the soul, than 
 the hot-house where your summer produce is 
 started is the prison of your plants. Your 
 physical frame is the nursery of the new-born 
 soul — your real self. It is the home which 
 the Creator prepared for you in his loving 
 caiie ; it is your defence against the enemies 
 that await you in the first days of your spirit- 
 ual feebleness ; it is your first medium of 
 communication with the external world, and 
 with the other souls that God has created. 
 Through its eyes you take in the beauties of 
 Nature ; through its ears you are charmed 
 with the melody of sweet sounds ; with its 
 feet you transplant yourself to sunnier spots 
 where you can unfold your whole being more 
 harmoniously; through its lips you can 
 pour your own comfort, wisdom, and love into 
 other hearts, so that they shall be " lifted up 
 and strengthened." Will you call such a 
 
THE LIFE THAT NOW IS. 163 
 
 body a prison ? Why, it is your loving nurse 
 who receives you from the hand of the Creator, 
 enfolds you within protecting arms, feeds you, 
 clothes you, watches over you with unceasing 
 care, and takes the hard blows that would 
 have destroyed your feeble life. By and by 
 the child will leave the nurse's arms and look 
 out for itself; and your soul will be wise 
 enough and strong enough to quit the body, 
 and fly to higher spheres of life ; but, in the 
 earlier stages of your being, this residence in 
 the body must be a cause of gratitude to 
 God. 
 
 We lay it down therefore, as a deduction 
 of reason, that the soul needs the physical life 
 to prepare it for what is to come afterwards ; 
 and the whole gospel record shows that this 
 was also the belief of Jesus. Not one expres- 
 sion which disparages the human body can 
 be found in his teachings. Instead of saying 
 that death is better than life, his prayer was 
 " not that thou shouldst take them out of the 
 world." When he stood by the bedside of 
 
164 THE LIFE THAT NOW IS. 
 
 the young and found the spirit just leaving 
 the body, he called it back to take up the 
 physical life once more. When even those 
 in maturer years had gone down to the gates 
 of the grave, he did not hesitate to exert his 
 power and bid them re-enter their tenements 
 of flesh. When young and old alike were 
 brought to him in all their sickness and suf- 
 fering, he did not bid any of them despise 
 their earthly existence, but always used his 
 gifts of healing to prolong their days. And 
 when he sent forth his apostles to cure the spir- 
 itual diseases of the world, he enjoined them 
 also to restore the human bodies which were 
 wasting away. Oh friends, you cannot read 
 these gospel scenes without feeling that to the 
 Saviour this human body had a far higher 
 value than to those of his followers to-day 
 who look on the peaceful face of the departed 
 and say, " It is better to die than to live." 
 Save when the body is ripe with age, or has 
 become the seat of disease, it is not better to 
 die than to live ! Jesus never said so ; and if 
 
THE LIFE THAT NOW IS. 165 
 
 it were true, the heavenly Father would never 
 have given us a body. 
 
 Yet what shall we say concerning those 
 who pass away in early years before they 
 have gained the lessons taught us through 
 and by the body ? We say that for them it is 
 well ; yes, for them it is best. Perhaps they 
 are the ones who do not need the earthly 
 training to fit them for a heavenly home ; 
 perhaps God has some higher good in store 
 for them, which we cannot understand now, 
 but shall know hereafter ; perhaps it was bet- 
 ter for them to go not through the world, but 
 by some other of the 
 
 " thousand ways the Father hath 
 To bring his children home." 
 
 Therefore if after all our most patient care 
 the loved ones are taken away, we trust them 
 to God's still greater love ; but while any life 
 remains, it is as much Christian, as human 
 nature, to regard the body as one of heaven's 
 great blessings, to be watched over with con- 
 stant care and used with constant fidelity. 
 
166 THE LIFE THAT NOW IS. 
 
 Unitarianism, therefore, teaches that the 
 laws of the body are divine laws, and that the 
 connection between the body and the spirit 
 must be preserved by all the means in our 
 power, when it can be done without neglect- 
 ing the higher claims of the soul. 
 
 V. WORTH OP THE WORLD. 
 
 Closely connected with the common error 
 of despising the body, is the equally common 
 one of despising the world. It is spoken of 
 as something which we are not to love or 
 care for, — something, too, that we must be 
 very cautious about enjoying. Very many 
 excellent people feel called on to speak slight- 
 ingly of it, when they mention it at all, and 
 to talk of another and better world in a tone 
 of voice which implies that this is not the one 
 on which the Creator looked when he " saw 
 every thing he had made, and behold it was 
 very good." They pronounce the friendship 
 of the world to be enmity toward God, and 
 declare that if any one loves it, the love of the 
 Father is not in him. 
 
THE LIFE THAT NOW IS. 167 
 
 "But are not such expressions apostolic?" 
 Yes ; and they were true when first written. 
 When every nation on the face of the earth 
 was opposed to the new religion and was try- 
 ing to root it out; when nearly every prison 
 contained Christian captives and every am- 
 uhitheatre witnessed Christian martyrdoms; 
 when a gross, licentious idolatry was infused 
 into literature, amusements, and social inter- 
 course, poisoning the very fountains of life 
 and joy, — who could love the world and its 
 delights without giving up his love for God ? 
 But now that Jesus has lived, suffered, 
 and died, now that apostles have taught a 
 higher faith and martyrs borne their witness 
 to it, now that the Church has lived and la- 
 bored for eighteen centuries, — surely the world 
 has somewhat altered. The nations are not 
 now all opposed to Christianity, and there 
 are pure fountains of social pleasure whence 
 we draw life and health, not poison and death, 
 for our souls. The very object of Jesus was 
 to change the world. Has he failed to do it ? 
 
168 THE LIFE THAT NOW IS. 
 
 Then Christianity is a failure. Has he suc- 
 ceeded in doing it? Then the apostolic 
 words which described- the world correctly, 
 ages ago, cannot be applied to it now. 
 
 Therefore, in opposition to what is com- 
 monly taught from the pulpit, our Unitarian 
 faith teaches us to attach a high value to the 
 world, whether we mean by that word this 
 material earth, or our present life upon it. It 
 maintains that true religion renders us still 
 more susceptible to the beauty and power of 
 Nature. He most enjoys the world who sees 
 in it, not brute matter, but the m a nifes taction 
 of an infinite mind ; he who learns the glory 
 of God from the heavens, and hears a voice 
 concerning him from each successive day, and 
 receives new knowledge of him from every 
 coming night; he to whom the beauty of a 
 cloud is but the type of a higher beauty, and 
 the grandeur of the mountain but a type of 
 the infinite majesty, and the breaking waves 
 of ocean but a voice from the Great Creator 
 bearing a message to the human soul. The 
 
THE LIFE THAT NOW IS. 1G9 
 
 richest beauties that strike the eye, and all 
 that is lovely, grand, or terrible in cloud and 
 storm, aurora and rainbow, have new mean- 
 ing, higher value, and greater enjoyment for 
 him who looks through them all to the Infi- 
 nite Being whose glories they ever portray. 
 He who finds nothing good in this world 
 which he has seen, how can he hope to find 
 any in the spirit world which he has not seen, 
 but which is created by the same God ? 
 
 Or if by the term " world " we mean our 
 life upon the earth, it is still true that it de- 
 serves more honor than it usually receives 
 from the pulpit. If there are any Christians 
 who have not learned the full value of the 
 world, they are ignorant of their birthright 
 privileges. Let him despise this present life 
 who knows of nothing beyond ! Let him 
 who does not see God's presence here, say, 
 " Vanity of vanities ! " Let him who does not 
 know that the human body can be a temple 
 of the Lord, talk of " vexation of spirit I " Let 
 him call the world a prison-house, a vale of 
 
170 THE LIFE THAT NOW IS. 
 
 darkness and of tears, who in his hour of trou- 
 ble does not see the kingdom of heaven already 
 established on the earth ! But the Christian 
 who knows that God is present with him to- 
 day, helping the right and condemning the 
 wrong, should recognize the real worth of this 
 life. Its duties should seem to him more im- 
 perative — its labors more important; nor till 
 he believes his whole work is finished should 
 he ask to be taken from the world. 
 
 Not the heavens only, but the earth, is the 
 Lord's ; not the future only, but the present ; 
 not the soul only, but the body : that is the 
 lesson of the day. Still, important as it is, it 
 is only half a truth ; and as I have now 
 shown you the high value which we place on 
 " the life that now is," I shall try, in my next 
 lecture, to show the still higher value we 
 assign to "the life that is to come." 
 
LECTURE XII. 
 
 THE LIFE THAT IS TO COME. 
 
 4 MAN'S faith has little to do with the 
 reasons he gives for it. You may hold 
 his arguments up to ridicule and demolish 
 them every one, without shaking his faith in 
 the slightest degree. You may question him 
 as to the source of his strength, as Delilah did 
 Samson, and think you have learned his whole 
 secret; but when you have bound him with 
 the seven green withes, or the new ropes, which 
 he has said he could not possibly break, and 
 look to see him fall a helpless captive to your 
 doubts and unbelief, he rises up as free and 
 strong as ever, and goes on his way rejoicing. 
 For the strength of a man's faith does not 
 depend on the strength of the arguments by 
 which he tries to justify it to your mind or 
 his own. 
 
172 THE LIFE THAT IS TO COME. 
 
 Now this fact must be remembered in con- 
 sidering the life that is to come. Here is a 
 belief in immortality, as nearly universal as 
 any human belief can be. It is prior to all 
 arguments, and depends so little upon them 
 that it would stand firm and unshaken though 
 we utterly failed to justify it by any of the 
 reasons we assigned. In other words, as a 
 simple matter of fact, the reasons are all after- 
 thoughts, like any we might give for loving 
 our mother or trusting our father, while the 
 real faith in immortality comes long before a 
 single proof is offered to our minds. The 
 most, therefore, that can be looked for in this 
 lecture is an enumeration of arguments or cir- 
 cumstances to strengthen the belief in a future 
 life, and show that there is no occasion for 
 doubts or fears. 
 
 UNIVERSALITY OF BELIEF. 
 
 The first argument is drawn from the uni- 
 versality of this belief. No age, nation, or 
 form of religion has failed to catch glimpses 
 
THE LIFE THAT IS TO COME. 173 
 
 of this truth ; and if here and there a few in- 
 dividuals are blind to the tokens of a " world 
 which is to come," they are no more numer- 
 ous than those who are blind to the glories of 
 " the world which now is." In some, the belief 
 is so vague that they speak of the departed as 
 " the shades," to denote the unsubstantial life 
 which awaits them ; in others, it is so real that 
 a warrior's horse is buried with him that he 
 may go prepared for a new campaign ; and in 
 all, the definite conception of that life varies 
 with the civilization of the age. But beneath 
 all these changing forms you find the one sen- 
 timent of immortality, — as universal as the 
 love which sets the solitary in families, or the 
 social instincts which unite those families into 
 States. It is, therefore, to be reckoned among 
 the primitive instincts of the human soul. It 
 is to be relied on because it comes from the 
 Creator. " We take it on trust from the 
 Father." 
 
174 THE LIFE THAT IS TO COME. 
 
 GREAT FAITH OF THE DYING. 
 
 This argument is strengthened by the fact 
 that faith in immortality increases as the hour 
 of death draws near. The early doubts which 
 were mingled with our trust all vanish as we 
 enter the deep valley. The early fears which 
 were mingled with our hopes pass away when 
 the decisive change must be made. The soul 
 no longer shrinks back as from a leap in the 
 dark, but is so assured of spiritual realities as 
 to reach gladly forth to them. The moment 
 men are convinced that they have done with 
 the life which now is, they are surer than ever 
 of a life which is to come, and are so peace- 
 ful, trusting, smiling, that they seem the only 
 happy ones in the whole household, — the 
 only ones who can wipe tears from every eye. 
 As I look back upon the death-bed scenes I 
 have witnessed, and recall the cheerful faces of 
 the departing, I can truly say, " These all died 
 in faith," whatever fears and doubts assailed 
 them while living; and, unless you think the 
 
THE LIFE THAT IS TO COME. 175 
 
 Creator mocks us in those last hours on earth, 
 the immortality in which we then believe more 
 firmly than before, must be a reality. 
 
 LOVE FOR THE DEPARTED. 
 
 Our continued affection for the departed is 
 an indication of their continued existence. 
 The undying love in our hearts will not let us 
 believe that they have passed out of being. 
 Because their memory remains so constantly 
 with us that we cannot forget them even if 
 we would ; because our affection, instead of 
 dying out, grows stronger and tenderer than 
 before ; because the longing to be with them 
 is never more intense than when they have 
 passed from our sight, — we know that they, 
 also, must still be remembering and loving us. 
 Else would all these feelings of ours be but 
 shameful mockery, and God would have filled 
 our hearts with hope only to deceive ! If we 
 did not miss those who have gone from our 
 homes, we might indeed call them dead ; but 
 since the Creator makes us love them all the 
 
176 THE LIFE THAT IS TO COME. 
 
 more as the years roll by, he must have in 
 store for us a reunion in another world. You 
 cannot conceive of a good God keeping alive 
 in our hearts an undying love for the departed, 
 unless he means that we shall meet them 
 again. 
 
 TEACHINGS OF JESUS. 
 
 All this natural faith in immortality is sanc- 
 tioned and strengthened by the teachings of 
 Jesus. He says indeed but little about it in 
 his recorded words ; but once, when he de- 
 clared that there was plenty of room in the 
 heavenly mansions to which he was going, he 
 explained why he had referred to it so little in 
 his teachings, by adding, " If it were not so, I 
 would have told you." It was in effect a dec- 
 laration that the natural faith in immortality 
 is well founded. 
 
 No one, therefore, who believes in Jesus 
 doubts of immortality; and although faifh in 
 a future world existed before his coming, it is 
 a hundred-fold stronger and clearer to-day be- 
 
THE LIFE THAT IS TO COME. 177 
 
 cause of his teachings, life, and death. One 
 of the very first effects of his mission was to 
 give his followers a clearness and strength of 
 f \ith which no one in earlier ages ever reached. 
 Read the speculations of Grecian philoso- 
 phers concerning the future, and the va^ue 
 allusions to it in the Old Testament, and then, 
 turning to the Christian Scriptures, see what 
 a new conviction was in the hearts of the 
 apostles. They did not think, or imagine, or 
 hope, they hnew^ that if their bodies were dis- 
 solved they had an everlasting home above. 
 They no more doubted heaven than they did 
 earth ; they felt as sure of the future as of 
 the present. And so they considered that de- 
 parture from earth is not merely endurable, 
 but after life's work is over " to die is gain." 
 There is no utterance, in all the ages preced- 
 ing Christ, which approaches the assurance of 
 faith in these exulting words, " to die is gain." 
 They show that the immortality, in which 
 other men hoped and trusted, had becomie a 
 firm, unfaltering conviction ; and whenever we 
 
 12 
 
178 THE LIFE THAT IS TO COME. 
 
 reach the apostolic faith in Jesus, we have the 
 same assurance about the future, and no 
 longer say, we think, we believe, but we know 
 we have a building of God, eternal in the 
 heavens. 
 
 ' Now without touching again the question 
 of future punishment which has been so fully 
 discussed already, let us consider what inti- 
 mations we have concerning the kind of life 
 in that future state of being. For though it 
 doth not yet appear exactly what we shall be, 
 we yet learn much from the teachings of Jesus 
 in the Gospel, and of the Holy Spirit in our 
 hearts. 
 
 I. PERSONAL IDENTITY. 
 
 In that other state of being we preserve our 
 personal identity. The spirit, when it returns 
 to God who gave it, does not lose its individ- 
 ual character, as the body does in returning 
 to the earth, but retains its thoughts, feelings, 
 memories, and all its powers. Hence, proper- 
 ly speaking, man has not two lives, but one. 
 In the body and out of the body he is the 
 
THE LIFE THAT IS TO COME. 179 
 
 same person ; and life is one continuous ca- 
 reer which begins on earth but never comes to 
 an end. 
 
 How this view of immortality does clothe 
 our life with new responsibility I This little 
 span of time is long enough for planting the 
 seed whose harvest shall be reaped through 
 the endless ages of eternity. This little speck 
 of earth is large enough to give rest to the 
 soul which is pluming her wings for a higher 
 flight above. Even the most trivial thing we 
 do is affecting in some degree our whole exist- 
 ence, and preparing the way for higher joy or 
 deeper sorrow. Our daily work is not, as it 
 sometimes seems, a mere finger-mark on the 
 sands of time which the waves of eternity will 
 wash away; for even when the world has 
 crumbled back to chaos we shall feel in our 
 characters, for good or evil, the effect of its 
 fleeting pursuits. There is no end to human 
 life ; and whatsoever a man sows, there will 
 be time for him to reap, if not here then here- 
 after, the full harvest. 
 
180 THE LIFE THAT IS TO COME. 
 
 II. ENDLESS PROGRESS. 
 
 But while entering the • spirit-world with just 
 the same nature and character that we pos- 
 sess on leaving this, we believe that our life in 
 it will offer opportunities of endless progress. 
 The questions which vex us now will find their 
 answers then. The doubts which perplex us 
 here will all be settled there. The truths 
 which we are vainly trying to search out will 
 become at last clear to our strengthened vis- 
 ion ; new and higher thoughts than we have 
 ever dreamed of will pour into our minds ; 
 and as the endless ages roll by, each will bring 
 something still nobler for our souls to grasp. 
 In virtue, also, no less than knowledge, we 
 shall have opportunities of constant growth. 
 Higher and still higher we can climb the 
 heights of excellence, and rise nearer and still 
 nearer to the measure of the stature of the per- 
 fect child of God. How glorious a life that must 
 be, which never leaves us, as the old hymn as- 
 serts, " Fixed in an eternal state," but offers 
 
THE LIFE THAT IS TO COME. 181 
 
 continually new thoughts to the inquiring 
 mind, — new degrees of holiness to the upris- 
 ing soul ! 
 
 III. MINISTERING SPIRITS. 
 
 Heaven is a field for higher duties and no- 
 bler work than earth. It is painful to hear 
 descriptions of the future made up of singing 
 psalms, playing harps, and keeping Sabbaths, 
 as though these spiritual enjoyments, which 
 begin and end solely with ourselves, could 
 represent the length and breadth of the heaven- 
 ly life ! Why, you have no right to pass even 
 a week on earth in this way, much less a whole 
 eternity above ! It is probable, indeed, that 
 Christian love will always show itself by mak- 
 ing melody in the heart unto the Lord, but its 
 noblest work must ever be the doing of good 
 service to the wayward, suffering children ol 
 God. 
 
 No more in heaven than on earth will the 
 truly blessed ones remain content in their ev- 
 erlasting habitations, and let the world groan 
 
182 THE LIFE THAT IS TO COME. 
 
 unheeded beneath its weight of sorrow and 
 sin. There, as here, they must find as great 
 joy in what they freely give, as in what they 
 freely receive ; there, as here, they must de- 
 light in teaching those below them, no less 
 than in learning from those above ; there, as 
 here, they must rejoice in each new step in 
 holiness, not simply because it brings them 
 nearer God, but also because it enables them 
 to lift up the lower spirits still. Were it not 
 so, we should shrink from heaven as we do 
 from a monastery's cell. If to lay aside the 
 body is to lay aside all power to comfort the 
 sorrowing, strengthen the weak, reclaim the 
 erring and save the lost, then no one who is 
 filled with the true spirit of Christ will wish 
 to be taken from the world. Heaven would 
 be no heaven if all generous care for others 
 was lacking ; we should grow sick at heart in 
 remembering the wide-spread misery which 
 still existed, and should pray the good Father 
 to send us out on an errand of mercy to the 
 world. And are not the holy ones who have 
 
THE LIFE THAT IS TO COME. 183 
 
 passed on, all ministering spirits sent forth to 
 minister unto those who have not yet claimed 
 their inheritance in the heavens ? 
 
 If you believe the Bible you know that this 
 is no idle fancy, but the true angelic life. That 
 book tells you that God gives his angels charge 
 over his children who still remain on earth ; 
 that he sends them with divine strength to 
 those who are tempted in the desert ; that he 
 bids them carry heavenly comfort to those 
 whose Gethsemane is a garden of agony ; 
 that he places them by the grave to say to all 
 mourning hearts, " He whom you seek is not 
 here ; he has arisen." From beginning to end 
 it speaks of them as chiefly engaged, not in 
 their own spiritual culture or enjoyment, but 
 in doing his will on earth as in heaven ; and 
 therefore we are right in regarding the spirit 
 world as a field for higher duties and nobler 
 work. 
 
 IV. REUNION OF FRIENDS. 
 
 Finally, we look forward in the future to 
 the reunion of those who are separated here. 
 
184 THE LIFE THAT IS TO COME. 
 
 Jesus clearly implied this recognition of friends, 
 when he prayed that his disciples might be 
 with him in heaven and behold his glory; 
 Paul, also, taught it, when he felt a desire to 
 depart and be with Christ ; and John, when 
 he declared that in the future we shall see 
 Christ as he is ; and as for the teachings of 
 the Holy Spirit in our hearts — the wishes, 
 hopes, longings of our inmost souls, they 
 are one and all prophetic of the hour when 
 we shall meet again with those who have 
 been dearest to us here, and shall meet also 
 with a warmer and truer love than we had 
 before. 
 
 Without this reunion, even immortality 
 would prove but a partial blessing. It is 
 much indeed to feel that we live right on, 
 preserving our personal identity in spite of 
 physical death. It is a cause of rejoicing still 
 further, that beyond the grave there is op- 
 portunity for endless progress in truth and 
 holiness. It is a matter of still more devout 
 thanksgiving, that in that higher sphere we 
 
THE LIFE THAT IS TO COME. 185 
 
 are not to be idle spectators of the world's 
 sufferings, but are ourselves to be ministering 
 spirits unto others. But amid the cries of 
 anguish which go up from countless hearts 
 and homes about us, we can nowhere find a 
 lasting consolation, save in the assurance that 
 our souls are to be gladdened by and by when 
 the whole family circle will be reunited, and, 
 not one member missing, all shall join in lov- 
 ing and serving each other and the dear Father 
 of us all. 
 
 So without undervaluing the life which now 
 is, we would give hearty thanks for that which 
 is to come. Thanks, O Lord, that in spite of 
 what we call death, our life never comes to an 
 end ! Thanks for the new lessons of truth and 
 virtue which we shall keep on learning through 
 the endless ages! Thanks that even more than 
 now, we shall be able to minister to all thy 
 needy children, and bring them to their heav- 
 enly heritage! Unnumbered thanks, from the 
 depths of our being, that after the long, weary 
 
186 THE LIFE THAT IS TO COxME. 
 
 months of separation, husband and wife, broth- 
 er and sister, parent and child, shall have their 
 hour of consolation ! 
 
 Thanks be to God for his unspeakable 
 gift! 
 
 THE END. 
 
 Cambridge : Stereot)rped and Printed by John "Wilson & Son.