CULTURE AND THE GOSPEL. 
 
Culture anti tfje (Gospel; 
 
 A PLEA 
 
 THE SUFFICIENCY OF THE GOSPEL TO MEET 
 THE WANTS OF AN ENLIGHTENED AGE. 
 
 By REV. S. McCALL, 
 
 OLD SAYBROOK, CT. 
 
 NEW YORK: 
 
 A. D. F. RANDOLPH AND CO. 
 
 1S71. 
 
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1870, by 
 
 A. D. F. RANDOLPH AND COMPANY, 
 
 In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 
 
 Cambridge: 
 press of john wilson and son. 
 
NOTE. 
 
 The germ of this little work is a " Concio 
 ad Clerum," preached, by appointment of the 
 General Association of Connecticut, at New 
 Haven, July 20, 1869, in connection with the 
 Commencement exercises of Yale College. 
 This may account for the particular cast of 
 the production. The theme of that discourse 
 was "The special adapteclness of the Gospel 
 to the wants of an enlightened age." The 
 discussion here takes a wider range, for the 
 sake of more general usefulness. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER PAGB 
 
 I. Introduction . . i 
 
 II. The Gospel an Unimpeachable Record of 
 
 Facts n 
 
 III. The Doctrines High Enough for the 
 
 Ripest Intelligence 20 
 
 IV. A Rule of Action demanding and pro- 
 
 moting Intelligence 33 
 
 V. Method of Operation, Intellectual and 
 
 Spiritual 38 
 
 VI. The Historic Demonstration 47 
 
 VII. Affinity with all True Culture and Ex- 
 cellence 52 
 
 VIII. A Corrective of the Faults Incident to 
 
 Knowledge 67 
 
 IX. Capable of Meeting the Growing Wants 
 
 of the Soul 75 
 
 X. Grandeur of its Practical Mission . . 89 
 XI. Conclusion 119 
 
CULTURE AND THE GOSPEL. 
 
 I. 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 A MONG the earliest traditions of our race 
 is one of a golden age, when, according 
 to the Greeks and Romans, Saturn ruled the 
 earth. He, fearing that he should be de- 
 throned by one of his sons, devoured his chil- 
 dren at their birth. But Jupiter was concealed 
 by his mother, and at an early age deposed his 
 father, and reigned in his stead. Christianity 
 also has its tradition of a golden age, when 
 love reigned, and sorrow was unknown. Its 
 records speak of the advent of a hostile power, 
 of the entrance of Satan, sin, death, and all 
 our woe. But they know nothing of another 
 divinity able to wrest the sceptre from the 
 hands of Him who first held the throne. They 
 
2 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 do not chronicle long, gloomy ages of degen- 
 eracy among men, and of strife and violence 
 among the gods, without any promise or hope 
 of restoration and peace. But upon the very 
 day of Satan's first triumph came the promise 
 of the Seed who should bruise his head. And 
 for ages the promise was renewed, till, in the 
 fulness of time, "God sent forth His Son, 
 made of a woman, made under the law, to 
 redeem them that were under the law, that we 
 might receive the adoption of sons." The work 
 of this Son is not to dethrone His Father, but 
 to restore the world to its allegiance to Him ; 
 and in this restoration reproduce its golden 
 age, with additional and higher benefits and 
 felicities. 
 
 But there are not wanting those, who call the 
 paradise of the Mosaic records a myth, and 
 represent their Jehovah as an old man, too 
 feeble to cope with the fiery genius of this age, 
 the spirit of knowledge and wisdom and prog- 
 ress, the Jupiter-Tonans of the nineteenth 
 century. They are fond of expatiating upon 
 the antagonisms between the old Bible-religion 
 
INTRODUCTION. 3 
 
 and the discoveries of modern science, and of 
 predicting for the latter a speedy and universal 
 triumph. Their battle cry is, " Science must in- 
 crease and prevail." But there is to us nothing 
 terrible in that sound. We are not only quite 
 willing that real science should increase, but 
 we will gladly hasten its triumphs by every 
 means at our command. We are not careful 
 to defend any falsehood in physics, which the 
 ignorance of any part of the church, in any 
 age, has endorsed. The true church found 
 out a great while ago that "the world moves." 
 We have no controversy with real light-bearers, 
 show us what they may. 
 
 But when men, misled by their theories and 
 speculations, call darkness light, and parade 
 before us " the oppositions of science falsely so 
 called," and demand of us the surrender of our 
 faith in the Scriptures, we are bold to tell them 
 we prefer "the sure word of prophecy," for 
 "the word of the Lord is tried," and we doubt 
 not it will endure for ever. We expect science 
 to increase, we expect progress in all depart- 
 ments of knowledge, we hail every indication 
 
4 INTR OD UC TION. 
 
 of growing intelligence with delight. But we 
 reserve the right to discriminate between pre- 
 tenders or experimenters and real teachers. 
 
 We are aware that mistakes have been made 
 in religion, and by religious men in matters 
 of secular knowledge. But we think those, 
 who have set up their theories or their discov- 
 eries against the word of God, by no means 
 infallible. We have observed sometimes a 
 chano-e of base even in the so called scientific 
 world. And even now we hear it whispered 
 in certain quarters, with a sort of oracular as- 
 surance, that Gravitation, — which, in the hands 
 of Newton and others, has been a golden key 
 to unlock so many mysteries of the earth and 
 the heavens, — is, to say the least, quite un- 
 worthy of the high honor it has enjoyed : and 
 that a new Philosophy of Force, resolving all 
 things into modes of motion, is the only true 
 wisdom, and is destined to make all things 
 new in the whole domain of human thought 
 and knowledge. But truth is our concern, not 
 less than it is of those, who confidently claim 
 for themselves all the treasures of knowledge, 
 
INTR OD UC TION. 5 
 
 and call us the victims of superstition. We 
 think at least we know whom we have be- 
 lieved, and are ready to give an answer to 
 every man that asketh a reason of the hope 
 that is in us. The church having had large 
 experience in battle with the giants, will not 
 be dismayed by the advent of any new divinity, 
 not even when Minerva leaps fully armed from 
 the head of Jupiter. 
 
 It is no new thing that the preaching of the 
 Gospel should be accounted foolishness. It 
 was this to the- cultivated men of the apostolic 
 age. And yet it was declared to be the power 
 and the wisdom of God, and God's foolishness to 
 be wiser than men. In view of it, one of the loft- 
 iest intellects of that age, or of any age, indited 
 this language: "Oh, the depth of the riches 
 both of the wisdom and knowledge of God ! " 
 And still in view of it we may renew the chal- 
 lenge of the prophet, " Who hath directed the 
 Spirit of the Lord, or being his counsellor hath 
 taught him? With whom took he counsel, 
 and who instructed him, and taught him in the 
 path of judgment, and taught him knowledge, 
 
6 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 and showed to him the way of understand- 
 ing?" 
 
 The Scriptures unquestionably claim for the 
 gospel scheme the first or highest place in all 
 the manifestations of the wisdom of God. And 
 the writers of this book were not ignorant of 
 the fact, that His perfections are notably dis- 
 played in the constitution of nature and man, 
 and in the history of the world. The inference 
 is plain and direct, that this scheme must be 
 sufficient for the necessities of men up to any 
 point of intelligence, which they can possibly 
 attain. 
 
 The application of this scheme is made the 
 special work of the Holy Spirit, who " search- 
 ed! all things, yea the deep things of God." 
 
 The end proposed to be answered by it is the 
 highest to which any can aspire. Oneness in 
 the faith, a practical knowledge of the Son of 
 God, a perfect manhood, even the measure 
 of the fulness of Christ, are combined by the 
 great apostle as the grand aim and result of 
 gospel teaching. "And he gave some, apos- 
 tles: and some, prophets; and some, evangel- 
 
INTRODUCTION. 7 
 
 ists ; and some, pastors and teachers; for the 
 perfecting of the saints, for the work of the 
 ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ ; 
 till we all come in the unity of the faith, and oi 
 the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect 
 man, unto the measure of the stature of the ful 
 ness of Christ." If we desire to know what this' 
 fulness is, we may learn it from the Gospels and 
 the Epistles. " And the Word was made flesh, 
 and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory, 
 the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, 
 full of o-race and truth." "To this end was 1 
 born, and for this cause came I into the world, 
 that I should bear witness unto the truth. 
 Every one that is of the truth heareth my 
 voice." "In whom are hid all the treasures of 
 wisdom and knowledge." "Beware lest any 
 man spoil you through philosophy and vain 
 deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudi- 
 ments of the world and not after Christ. For 
 in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead 
 bodily." Truth, knowledge, wisdom, in regal 
 perfection, divine fulness, — can the most en- 
 lightened age rise above or go beyond these? 
 
3 INTR OD UC Tl ON. 
 
 If we allow the Scriptures to make and plead 
 their own claims, we shall without a question 
 be brought to the conclusion that the gospel is 
 adequate to the wants of any age, however ripe 
 its culture, however advanced its intelligence. 
 They contemplate no other scheme of religion, 
 no change in substance of doctrine, for the bet- 
 ter instruction of even the latest ages. The 
 time of shadows has passed away, and the good 
 things, which were to come, have come, and 
 will abide until the end, till the revelation of 
 the new heavens and the new earth, wherein 
 dwelleth righteousness. This book has only 
 anathemas for those who preach another gos- 
 pel. Its last word of warning is this : " If any 
 man shall add unto these things, God shall add 
 unto him the plagues that are written in this 
 book. And if *any man shall take away from 
 the words of the book of this prophecy, God 
 shall take away his part out of the book of life, 
 and out of the holy city, and from the things 
 which are written in this book." Only those 
 who reject the Scriptures, or at least deny their 
 inspiration, can look for a more perfect scheme 
 
INTRODUCTION. 9 
 
 to meet the demands of an enlightened age, 
 With this conclusion we who believe may for 
 ourselves rest content, cleaving to the old gos- 
 pel in its simplicity, without any misgivings, 
 until we are discharged from our earthly min- 
 istry, resting upon it all our hope of personal 
 salvation, and the completed redemption of the 
 world. 
 
 But for the sake of those, who question the 
 authority of this book, and more especiallv of 
 those, who are in danger of being drawn away 
 from the faith by their pretensions to a more per- 
 fect wisdom, we may be justified in setting forth 
 some of the grounds in reason which support 
 the position assumed by the Scriptures. Any- 
 thing like a complete exhibition of these must 
 take notice of the following points : A record 
 of facts, which will bear the most rigid criti- 
 cism ; a system of doctrines, at least up to the 
 level of the ripest intelligence ; a rule of action, 
 demanding the exercise of an enlightened iudcr- 
 ment for its most perfect application ; an intel- 
 lectual and spiritual, rather than a physical or 
 a sensuous, method of operation ; a history, 
 
I O INTR OD UC TION. 
 
 demonstrating the practical superiority of the 
 scheme ; affinity with all true culture and ex- 
 cellence ; an efficient corrective of the faults 
 specially developed in an advanced state of in- 
 telligence ; capability of meeting the growing 
 wants of the soul ; a mission to develop and en- 
 gross the best powers of the mind and heart. 
 
THE GOSPEL, &c. , II 
 
 II. 
 
 THE GOSPEL AN UNIMPEACHABLE RECORD 
 OF FACTS. 
 
 r I ^HAT form of philosophy, called by its 
 author and adherents the Positive — and 
 which, in their belief, is the final form of 
 knowledge, and destined to be the universal — 
 makes a strenuous demand for facts. To this 
 demand we take no exception. While we do 
 not accept this philosophy as a whole, nor 
 share the confidence of its adherents with 
 respect to its general prevalence or its advan- 
 tages, we concede the propriety of this demand. 
 We have no answer but that of consent to the 
 author of a Biographical History of Philosophy, 
 when, in the interest of real knowledge as 
 opposed to mere opinion, he quotes with appro- 
 bation from the writings of Sir Francis Bacon, 
 
12 THE GOSPEL 
 
 such words as these : " Men have sought to 
 make a world from their own conceptions, and 
 to draw from their own minds all the materials 
 which they employed ; but if instead of doing 
 so they had consulted experience and obser- 
 vation, they would have had facts and not 
 opinions to reason about, and might ultimately 
 have arrived at the knowledge of the laws 
 which govern the material world." 
 
 We propose to cany the demand for facts 
 into the domain of spiritual as well as of ma- 
 terial things. We hold that there are facts of 
 a spiritual order, and that these, when properly 
 verified, are the sure foundation of religion. 
 The record which God has given of His Son 
 is a record of facts; some of them, indeed, 
 lying out of the range of our observation, but 
 supported by appropriate evidence. The life 
 of Jesus Christ, substantially as reported to us 
 by the Evangelists, is a fact. It is no mythic 
 figure, which moves before us upon their pages. 
 The date, place, and circumstances of His 
 birth and death can be accurately determined. 
 It is worth while to remember, and to magnify 
 
AN UNIMPEACHABLE RECORD. 1 3 
 
 even more than writers upon Christian Evi- 
 dences have been wont to do, that his life was 
 fully within the historic period. The record 
 does not send us back to the dim shadows of 
 uncertain tradition, but sets Him among men 
 as distinctly seen as those of the last century. 
 We have veritable history filling its place in 
 the annals of a distant but not hidden age. 
 This thing was not done in a corner. 
 
 And the testimony has not yet been success- 
 fully impeached, although thousands of the 
 keened intellects, and the most hostile hearts, 
 have lent their energies to the task. We stand 
 for the facts, we stand by the record, for reasons 
 which satisfy us, which have satisfied many of 
 the leading minds in all the Christian centuries, 
 and which we are persuaded ought to satisfy 
 the most advanced thinkers of this and every 
 subsequent age. But this is not the place to 
 give even a synopsis of those reasons. We 
 have works on the Evidences, which have not 
 been answered by the enemies of the cross, and 
 we shall have other works as there may be oc- 
 casion in the future conflicts of the church. If 
 
14 THE GOSPEL 
 
 unbelief has more Goliahs to defy the armies 
 of the living God, the church has more Davids 
 to take off their heads. All that we ask of our 
 adversaries is fair treatment of the evidences, 
 a candid consideration of the facts. We hold, 
 with Isaac Taylor, that, — 
 
 " If those modes of proceeding, which have been 
 authenticated as good in other cases, are allowed to 
 take effect in this case, nothing in the entire round 
 of human belief is more infallibly sure than is Chris- 
 tianity, when it claims to be, — Religion given to 
 man by God. It can be held in question only by aid 
 of violence done to established principles of reason- 
 ing, and by contempt of the laws of evidence, which 
 in all cases analagous to this are enforced." 
 
 " All things mundane I must regard as a troubled 
 dream ; all history must become as an incoherent 
 myth, if it be not certain that the Christ of the Gos- 
 pels is a reality, and the incidents of His life in the 
 strictest sense historical." * 
 
 We invent nothing, we suppress nothing, we 
 mean to pervert nothing, but take the duly 
 authenticated record, and govern ourselves as 
 the facts there inscribed require. If many of 
 
 * Restoration of Belief, pages 109 and 364. 
 
AN UNIMPEACHABLE RECORD. 1 5 
 
 them are not found elsewhere, this does not 
 bring them justly under suspicion, but simply 
 calls for a more careful testing of the accom- 
 panying proofs. If they are sui generis , so is 
 their purpose, a purpose vast, good, and neces- 
 sary enough to justify a new thing under the 
 sun, especially since that thing had been the 
 burden of prophecy for not less than four 
 thousand years. 
 
 For the quality of these facts we ask, with- 
 out hesitation, the respect and even the admir- 
 ation of all thinking men. The incidents of 
 that wonderful life are neither of doubtful pro- 
 priety nor trivial purpose. The incarnation, the 
 miraculous conception, the wonderful preserva- 
 tion in infancy, the ripe wisdom in childhood, 
 the preaching, the healings, the miracles of 
 every sort, the sufferings, the crucifixion, the 
 resurrection, and the ascension, are not only 
 peculiar, but also grand and inspiring realities. 
 They constitute a career of surpassing beauty, 
 dignity, power, and glory. Whoever admits 
 that these are facts, must confess that there is 
 no other such series of facts in the history 
 
1 6 THE GOSPEL 
 
 of the world, nor even any series of fancies 
 of equal elevation, in all the legends, fic- 
 tions, and mythologies of men. Until one 
 shall arise to outdo the works of Christ, and 
 give better evidence of divine Sonship, we 
 shall hold ourselves justified in challenging 
 for Him the reverence and allegiance of all 
 mankind. 
 
 The enemies of Christ understand very well 
 the legitimate effect of the admission that the 
 Evangelists have given us a true account of a 
 real life. Hence the attempts of such men as 
 Strauss, Renan, and Schenkel, to say nothing 
 of other and earlier writers of the same general 
 class, to divest the Gospels of their strictly his- 
 toric character, and make them the creations 
 of later rhapsodists, or a medley of fact and 
 fiction, embellished by partizanship and super- 
 stition. The Christ of the Gospels, in the 
 beauty of His faultless humanity and the power 
 of His essential divinity, is too formidable for 
 the peace of those, who will not bow down and 
 worship Him. Their inward thought seems to 
 be that of the chief priests and Pharisees, when 
 
AN UNIMPEACHABLE RECORD. 1 7 
 
 they said, "If we let him thus alone, all men 
 will believe on him ; and the Romans shall 
 come and take away both our place and na- 
 tion." Hence one principal part of the work 
 of the Christian advocate in our day is to 
 maintain the historic accuracy, the integrity 
 of the records, which detail the beginning and 
 ending and manifold incidents of His matchless 
 life. In the facts, accepted as facts, is the 
 secret of that power, by which He will draw all 
 men to himself. 
 
 In this connection, a word about the number 
 of the facts may not be out of place. It must 
 be confessed that for so wonderful a life the 
 account is very brief. But this we are told is 
 not for lack of materials. The extraordinary 
 language of John is, "And there are also many 
 other things which Jesus did, the which, if 
 they should be written every one, I suppose 
 that even the world itself could not contain the 
 books that should be written." And yet three 
 of the Gospels are occupied chiefly with the 
 same things. Why this repetition, when there 
 was so much material, and so little space al- 
 
1 8 THE GOSPEL 
 
 lowed ? To make us sure of the great things, 
 rather than to gratify mere curiosity by a multi- 
 plicity of details. Children and unreflecting 
 persons desire many or long-drawn stories. 
 Maturer minds are satisfied with less particu- 
 lars, and pass to the bearing of the facts re- 
 lated. To the ignorant, incidents are the chief 
 thing ; to the reflecting, the principles which 
 they illustrate. The peculiarity of the Gospels, 
 with respect to the number of facts related, 
 commends them to the reflecting mind. Here 
 is material enough to engage, not so much as 
 to distract, attention, enough certainly for the 
 profoundest study of any generation which has 
 yet come upon the stage. Our great want to- 
 day is not more facts, or greater facts, but a 
 better appreciation of those in our possession. 
 The apocryphal gospels were invented for weak 
 and credulous minds, but they are an offence to 
 sound intelligence. They show the craving of 
 undisciplined minds for the marvelous, without 
 reference to any great moral purpose to be served 
 by it. But the influence is every way pernicious. 
 The dictate of wisdom, the utterance of ancient 
 
AN UNIMPEACHABLE RECORD. 1 9 
 
 days, an utterance still in honor among think- 
 ing men, is "Non multa sed multum." And 
 this demand is exactly met by our Gospels in 
 their present form. 
 
20 THE DOCTRINES HIGH ENOUGH 
 
 III. 
 
 THE DOCTRINES HIGH ENOUGH FOR THE 
 RIPEST INTELLIGENCE. 
 
 TRACTS which mean nothing and teach 
 nothing, if such a thing were possible, 
 could possess but little or no interest for an 
 enlightened mind. Scientific men are patient 
 in observation, not so much for the sake of the 
 things they see as for the sake of the truths 
 which those things teach. Science is not the 
 bare knowledge of facts, but rather of their 
 relations and bearings. Out of their obser- 
 vations natural philosophers construct their 
 system of philosophy, the orderly statement of 
 those doctrines which they suppose their facts 
 justify. In like manner gospel facts stand not 
 alone, but are the foundation of a system of 
 doctrines in religion and ethics. And of this 
 
FOR THE RIPEST INTELLIGENCE. 21 
 
 system, disclosed in part by the teachings of 
 Christ, and in part by those of the apostles, 
 and other inspired men, we affirm that it is at 
 least up to the level of the ripest intelligence to 
 which any age or any man has yet attained. 
 So much as this is requisite to its adaptedness 
 to the wants of an enlightened age. We might 
 claim for the gospel much more than this, with- 
 out overstating its merits. It has depths which 
 no man has yet fathomed. And this is a proof 
 that it is not of man, nor by the will of man, 
 but by the revelation of God. It is also an 
 indication that it is for man in the fullest devel- 
 opment of his powers. There ever has been, 
 and we do not hesitate to say ever will be, some- 
 thing in it to invite further study on the part 
 of the strongest and most accomplished minds. 
 In this respect it agrees with the universal 
 frame of nature. In the heights above and 
 the depths beneath there are many things which 
 the eye of no observer has yet seen, which the 
 thought of no savant has yet reached. If the 
 astronomer perfects his instruments, and so 
 enlarges his field of vision, he is rewarded 
 
22 THE DOCTRINES HIGH ENOUGH 
 
 indeed by clearer views of familiar objects, 
 but he discerns also in the receding distance 
 other objects whose form he cannot determine. 
 There is ever something beyond. And the 
 fact, that it is thus with the most patient and 
 far-seeing students of the gospel, indicates that 
 it also is the production of the one infinite 
 Mind. 
 
 But the simple fact that there are points 
 of gospel doctrine as yet beyond the grasp of 
 men, is not its only claim to the attention of 
 intelligent minds. We do not hesitate to affirm 
 that it has no points which are unworthy of 
 their study, respect, and assent. It is the 
 fashion of many in our times to exalt the gospel 
 morality, while they deny what they call its 
 dogmas. They have no patience with some of 
 its doctrines. They would remand its teach- 
 ings about sin, redemption, and eternal retri- 
 bution to the faith of an ignorant and credulous 
 age. They consider that the world has now 
 no place for notions so monstrous. But we 
 claim that its doctrine of sin is fully justified by 
 the developments of sin even in this enlightened 
 
FOR THE RIPEST INTELLIGENCE. 23 
 
 age, that its doctrine of redemption is still 
 essential to the actual putting away of trans- 
 gression, and that its doctrine of retribution is 
 rendered the more credible by the light which 
 science pours upon the sweep of natural law, 
 and the consequences which wait on its viola- 
 tion. 
 
 The more man is magnified by the discovery 
 of the possibilities latent within him, the greater 
 must appear the wrong of either preventing 
 these possibilities or perverting them to a base 
 and destructive purpose. The more mind is 
 developed, either in some particular line of prog- 
 ress or in the general elevation of its faculties, 
 the higher is our estimate of its value, and the 
 clearer our perception of the wrong, the guilt 
 involved in its misuse. What we think excus- 
 able in an ignorant child we think heinous in 
 an intelligent man. The gospel makes this 
 distinction in the degrees of human guilt : "And 
 the times of this ignorance God winked at ; 
 but now commandeth all men everywhere to 
 repent." "If I had not come and spoken unto 
 them, thev had not had sin ; but now they have 
 
24 THE DOCTRINES HIGH ENOUGH 
 
 no cloak for their sin." "And that servant, 
 which knew his lord's will, and prepared not 
 himself, neither did according to his will, shall 
 be beaten with many stripes. But he that 
 knew not, and did commit things worthy of 
 stripes, shall be beaten with few stripes. For 
 unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall 
 much be required ; and to whom men have 
 committed much, of him they will ask the 
 more." According to these representations, 
 the measure of a man's guilt is determined by 
 the measure of his light or his intelligence. 
 No sane man can think of taking exception to 
 this. 
 
 But the rock of offence is the tremendous 
 consequence, which the gospel ascribes to the 
 intelligent violation of the moral law. Many, 
 who claim to be among the wisest of their gen- 
 eration, call this a horrid phantom, devised to 
 frighten the ignorant and superstitious. But 
 increased reflection upon the capabilities of 
 mind, the goodness of God, the nature of moral 
 action and moral government, and the conse- 
 quences which naturally flow from transgres- 
 
FOR THE RIPEST INTELLIGENCE. 25 
 
 sion, ought to produce a profounder impression 
 of the evil of sin. A perfect understanding of 
 its relations and bearings, of the authority which 
 it contemns, of the goodness which it wrongs, 
 of the interests which it destroys, of the bless- 
 edness which it prevents and of the misery 
 which it procures, of its tendency to spread its 
 poison and perpetuate its power, would give a 
 view of its enormity not less distinct and fearful 
 than that which confronts us upon the sacred 
 page. It is not the intelligence of men which 
 takes offence at the gospel exhibition of human 
 guilt. We have an interest in denying our 
 guilt, or reducing it to the lowest possible point. 
 Those who would reach a just conclusion in 
 this matter, must let their intelligence, without 
 their prejudices, enter into this sphere, must 
 consent to study the deep things which pertain 
 to this evil. A man deep in chemistry or 
 astronomy, or in the whole round of natural 
 science, may be profoundly ignorant here. 
 An exclusive attention to the play of physi- 
 cal forces may even disqualify a man to 
 speak of a thing so diverse in its nature as the 
 
26 THE DOCTRINES HIGH ENOUGH 
 
 voluntary and perverse action of a knowing 
 mind. 
 
 And let not those who think they have 
 disproved the existence of mind as a thing 
 radically different from the material organism, 
 and thereby made sin impossible, suppose that 
 they have introduced an improvement into the 
 economy of human thought and life. If it be 
 so that man is doomed, by the irresistible action 
 of physical forces, to do and continue to do, 
 and to increase in doing, that dreadful thing 1 
 which we call sin — a thing terrible in its direct 
 influence upon others, and its reflex influence 
 upon himself — what is he the better? If he 
 can neither cease from it nor escape from its 
 effects, is he not in a far worse condition than 
 he is put by the gospel ? What do we gain to 
 be without sin, if we cannot be without this 
 awful curse ? And what claim to superior 
 intelligence can that man have, who divests 
 himself of the faculties and prerogatives which 
 are the prime condition of all intelligence, who 
 in his admiration of chemical affinities and 
 modes of motion discrowns himself, and makes 
 
FOR THE RIPEST INTELLIGENCE. 27 
 
 all thinking beings the slaves of a substance 
 without the power of thought, and a process 
 without the shadow of a purpose? Let men 
 use their intelligence honestly and faithfully 
 in trying to discover what they are, what is the 
 nature and extent of their moral relations, then 
 they will have no difficulty in seeing that sin is 
 exceeding sinful. 
 
 Even those who cannot abide the gospel 
 doctrine of sin, often show, by the maledictions 
 which they pour upon its advocates, that they 
 believe there is a thing in men bad enough to 
 be called by the hardest names they can find 
 or invent. To this conviction of the enormity 
 of sin did Theodore Parker unwittingly tes- 
 tify, when, with a disgust and bitterness quite 
 inexpressible, he denounced the "Christian 
 doctrine of sin as the devil's own," and said, 
 f? I hate it, — hate it utterly." 
 
 The developments of sin in this day of light 
 are so obvious, that there is no occasion for 
 special remark concerning them in this con- 
 nection. 
 
 The gospel doctrine of sin naturally carries 
 
28 THE DOCTRINES HIGH ENOUGH 
 
 with it the doctrine of retribution. So great a 
 wrong and evil deserves corresponding treat- 
 ment. When we know what sin is, we are 
 prepared to read, "The wages of sin is death." 
 " Tribulation and anguish upon every soul of 
 man that doeth evil.'' "These shall go away 
 into everlasting punishment." And this verdict 
 of the gospel is confirmed by the discoveries 
 made in the domain of nature. Not only is the 
 sweep of penalty here often tremendous and 
 remediless, but the operation of the destructive 
 force is secret and mysterious. The blow comes 
 without warning, and from a quarter where no 
 danger was suspected. And when its work is 
 finished, neither the beginning nor the method 
 can be discovered. When the worshippers of 
 nature have explained these mysteries, it will 
 be soon enough for them to cry out against the 
 retribution of the gospel as an offence to their 
 enlightenment. Greater things ought to be 
 expected in the domain of the moral and the 
 spiritual. 
 
 In keeping with the gospel doctrines of sin 
 and retribution is its doctrine of redemption. 
 
FOR THE RIPEST INTELLIGENCE. 29 
 
 Nothing less than a divine Saviour can answer 
 the cry of a soul burdened with the intelligent 
 conviction of sin, nothing less than expiation 
 by the blood of His cross can quell the fears 
 of a soul looking for the due reward of its 
 deeds. The conceit that sin may be forgiven 
 without an atonement is a shallow thought ; it 
 comes not of deep views of moral government, 
 or the demands and working of the human 
 conscience. The more men see of their own 
 needs, the more do they admire the way of sal- 
 vation through Jesus Christ. And it becomes 
 men, wise in their own esteem, to beware how 
 they undervalue the wisdom of that scheme 
 which angels desire to look into. Vicarious 
 sacrifice is not a heathen conception, nor the 
 clumsy expedient of a rude age, but God's own 
 method for the vindication of His authority, and 
 the deliverance of men from the curse of His 
 law. w Other foundation can no man lay than 
 that is laid, which is Jesus Christ." And other 
 foundation can no man have occasion to use, 
 however vast his knowledge, or fearful his con- 
 sciousness of guilt. 
 
3° THE DOCTRINES HIGH ENOUGH 
 
 The gospel furnishes the true and the only 
 true philosophy of existence. The great and 
 dark problems, which have in all ages perplexed 
 the minds of men, find their solution here. Not 
 refinements of speculation, but solid answers to 
 the cry of the soul for light upon the end of its 
 existence, its destiny, and the reasons of the 
 changes which pass over it, are here furnished. 
 Comte may declare that r ' human knowledge is 
 the result of the study of the forces belonging 
 to matter, and of the conditions or laws govern- 
 ing those forces." " The fundamental character 
 of positive philosophy is, that it regards all 
 phenomena as subjected to invariable natural 
 laws, and considers as absolutely inaccessible 
 to us, and as having no sense for us, every 
 inquiry into what is termed either primary or 
 final causes." And George Henry Lewes, sit- 
 ting at his feet, and extolling him as the wisest 
 teacher of time, may affirm that philosophy in 
 any other sense is impossible ; that men, if they 
 travel out of this course, are doomed ever to 
 come back to the point from whence they 
 started. But we must think there was riper 
 
FOR THE RIPEST INTELLIGENCE. 3 1 
 
 thought, as well as higher wisdom, in the 
 answer of Schelling in his old age to one who 
 asked him, "What is the principle and, so to 
 speak, the key-note of the harmony of revela- 
 tion with philosophy?" His reply was in the 
 words of the great apostle : "For of Him, and 
 through Him, and to Him, are all things, to 
 whom be glory for ever. Amen." Then he 
 added : " There is the foundation and the last 
 word of philosophy." 
 
 How long will those who aspire to be phi- 
 losophers, in the highest sense, continue to 
 repeat the exploded error of astronomers in 
 adhering to the geocentric theory of the uni- 
 verse? How long will they refuse to know 
 that the true philosophy of the world, men- 
 tally and morally considered, has its centre in 
 Christ? His appearing in our world was not 
 an accident of that day, but the manifestation 
 of the great purpose for which the world was 
 made. His life was the ruling period of time. 
 Philosophy will never be complete, never make 
 legitimate progress, except as it is pursued 
 from this centre, and under the influence of 
 
32 THE DOCTRINES, dbc. 
 
 this truth. Any philosophy, worthy of the 
 name, must recognize and duly honor " God 
 manifest in the flesh," the grand central Power 
 which in every age shapes the course of his- 
 tory. 
 
A RULE OF ACTION, &c. 33 
 
 IV. 
 
 A RULE OF ACTION DEMANDING AND PRO- 
 MOTING INTELLIGENCE. 
 
 HPHE great principles of moral action set 
 forth in the gospel are unchangeable. 
 But the mode and measure of their application, 
 in particular cases, is left very much to our 
 individual judgment. Love to God and men 
 embraces the whole compass of our duties. 
 But in what ways this love shall be expressed 
 is not prescribed, except in a few leading par- 
 ticulars. Prayer is one prescribed method of 
 honoring God. And some models of prayer 
 are furnished. But we are not shut up to the 
 use of these models. We may frame our own 
 speech, and ask for such things as we judge 
 most suitable to our circumstances. We are 
 required to remember the sabbath-day and 
 3 
 
34 A RULE OF ACTION 
 
 keep it holy. But what specific actions are to 
 be done on that day we must judge for our- 
 selves, in view of the end to be answered and 
 the facilities provided. We must love our 
 neighbors as ourselves. But to which of them 
 we should give money or other aid, and to 
 what extent, we must decide for ourselves, in 
 view of their necessities and our ability. It is 
 taken for granted that the right principle in 
 the heart, and the proper use of the intelli- 
 gence, bestowed or acquired, together with 
 such increase of wisdom as may be obtained 
 in answer to prayer, may be safely trusted to 
 regulate these details of daily duty. 
 
 And we can but mark a great difference in 
 this regard between the earlier and the later 
 prescriptions of Holy Writ. The Mosaic insti- 
 tutes abound in minute specifications. They 
 fixed the place of worship, the time, order, and 
 amount of the daily offerings. They named 
 the precise penalty for a great number of trans- 
 gressions. That mode of procedure was fitted 
 for days of comparative ignorance and depend- 
 ence. The church was then in the condition 
 
PROMOTING INTELLIGENCE. 35 
 
 of a child, who "is under tutors and governors 
 until the time appointed of the father." But 
 when that first covenant, not faultless, passed 
 away, the child was advanced from the con- 
 dition of a servant to that of a son. The yoke 
 of ceremonial prescription was taken off, and 
 principles implanted in the heart were left com- 
 paratively free to work themselves out in such 
 details as might best serve their great purpose. 
 Our Saviour claimed to be Lord of the sabbath- 
 day, and He did not scruple to do some things, 
 and permit His disciples to do some things, 
 which offended the strict legalists of His da} T . 
 He taught that the new wine must not be put 
 into the old bottles. 
 
 Now this gospel liberty, this flexible rule of 
 action, — flexible not in principle, but in the 
 application according to the exigencies of each 
 case as apprehended by the best wisdom of the 
 agent, — commends itself to the intelligence of 
 mankind. It stimulates our self-respect. It 
 gives us credit for knowing something, of being 
 able of ourselves, in one sense, to judge what 
 is right. We are thus treated not as children 
 
36 A RULE OF ACTION 
 
 in understanding bat as men. And the neces- 
 sity of determining the bounds and steps of our 
 duty, in many things, requires of us careful 
 study, the most earnest exercise of our intelli- 
 gence. It may be a convenience for an ignorant 
 man to have a fixed rate of his duties, to be told 
 just what and how many prayers to repeat', 
 and just how much money to spend for religion 
 and charity. But it may be safely asserted 
 that such a man will remain ignorant, or make 
 but slow progress in knowledge. The gospel 
 is a fountain of light, and he who receives it in 
 spirit and in truth becomes qualified for judging 
 of his duty, as otherwise he could not be. " He 
 that is spiritual discerneth all things." "The 
 commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening 
 the eyes." 
 
 And if it be objected that with such a rule 
 of action, throwing us so often upon our own 
 judgment, and demanding our most careful 
 thought to give it the best application, the 
 uninstructed must often fall into great and dis- 
 astrous errors, we may reply in the words 
 of the apostle : " If there first be a willing mind, 
 
PROMOTING INTELLIGENCE. 37 
 
 it is accepted according to what a man hath, 
 and not according to that he hath not." And 
 we may further say, that the mistakes which a 
 conscientious man makes in trying to find out 
 his duty are not the least valuable part of his 
 education. And one who distrusts his own 
 competence to judge, will not ordinarily hesi- 
 tate to ask the advice of those better informed. 
 And never, if he is sincerely desirous of know- 
 ing his duty, will he fail to " ask wisdom of 
 God, who giveth unto all men liberally, and 
 upbraideth not; and it shall be given him." 
 It is taken for granted, that those who receive 
 the gospel will not remain willingly ignorant, 
 but search the Scriptures, and use all available 
 means for understanding the way of the Lord 
 more perfectly. He who is not disposed to do 
 this, is not worthy to be called a disciple of 
 Christ, no matter how long he may have been 
 in communion with an organization calling 
 itself the church of Christ. 
 
3§ METHOD OF OPERATION. 
 
 V. 
 
 METHOD OF OPERATION, INTELLECTUAL AND 
 SPIRITUAL. 
 
 /CHRISTIANITY contemplates the growth 
 of its adherents in every virtue, and the 
 accession of many that are without. By what 
 means does it aim to secure these ends? Prima- 
 rily and chiefly by the preaching of the gospel. 
 " Now after that John was put into prison, Jesus 
 came into Galilee, preaching the gospel of the 
 kingdom of God." "From that time Jesus 
 began to preach, and say, Repent: for the 
 kingdom of heaven is at hand." And when 
 His earthly ministry was finished, He said to 
 His disciples, "All power is given unto me in 
 heaven and in earth. Go ye, therefore, and 
 teach all nations, baptizing them in the name 
 of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy 
 
INTELLECTUAL AND SPIRITUAL. 39 
 
 Ghost ; teaching them to observe all things 
 whatsoever I have commanded you." Imme- 
 diately after His ascension, one was chosen in 
 the place of Judas Iscariot, to be with the other 
 apostles " a witness of His resurrection." When 
 the great apostle of the Gentiles was called to 
 his high office, and sent "to open their eyes 
 and turn them from darkness unto light," he 
 "showed first unto them of Damascus, and at 
 Jerusalem, and. throughout all the coasts of 
 Judea, and then to the Gentiles, that they 
 should repent and turn to God, and do works 
 meet for repentance." Twenty-five years later, 
 it was his joy to remember and assert that, 
 from Jerusalem and round about unto Illyri- 
 cum, he had fully -preached the gospel of 
 Christ." To the Corinthians he wrote, ''Christ 
 sent me not to baptize, but to preach the gos- 
 pel." Here is his estimate of rites, even those 
 of Christ's appointing, in comparison with the 
 preaching of the gospel. Of arts and tricks to 
 impose upon the credulity of men he knew 
 nothing, but to despise and abhor. "We have 
 renounced the hidden things of dishonestv, not 
 
4° METHOD OF OPERATION, 
 
 walking in craftiness, nor handling the word 
 of God deceitfully ; but by manifestation of the 
 truth, commending ourselves to every man's 
 conscience in the sight of God." Miracles 
 were to some extent also employed in those 
 days. But the object of these was to prepare 
 the way for the reception of the gospel. And 
 when any required miracles, merely for the 
 gratification of an idle curiosity, they were 
 denied. And after Christianity was established 
 miracles ceased. Men were then shut up to 
 the preaching of the gospel, and the two simple 
 rites which Christ ordained, — Baptism and the 
 Lord's Supper. 
 
 But many who professed conversion, did not 
 long remain content with these simple means 
 of instruction and edification. The ordinances 
 were grossly perverted, and to them was 
 ascribed a regenerating power. Other rites, 
 and ceremonies without end, were added, to 
 dazzle the senses and charm the taste of unre- 
 flecting and unrenewed men. Thus the number 
 of nominal adherents was rapidly multiplied. 
 And by and by the preaching of the gospel 
 
INTELLECTUAL AND SPIRITUAL. 4 1 
 
 ceased. Then the dark ages came in, and 
 hung their pall of death over the nations. 
 Force also became a favorite instrument for 
 effecting conversions and preventing apostasy. 
 The sword of the State was more in requisition 
 than the sword of the Spirit. This was not 
 according to the instructions of Christ. His 
 way of discipling the nations was by teaching 
 them, by appointing chosen men to tell them 
 the story of the Lord, to preach among them 
 the unsearchable riches of His wisdom, love, 
 and grace. And since preaching has been 
 restored to its appointed place in the Protestant 
 church, a new era for the intelligence of man- 
 kind has opened upon the world. 
 
 One still standing among us has paid a fitting 
 tribute to the intelligence of an earlier genera- 
 tion in our Commonwealth, whom he represents 
 as content to sit without fire, in an open house, 
 long hours in the drear winter time, listening to 
 the word of life. His words are: ''There is 
 no affectation of seriousness in the assembly, 
 no mannerism of worship ; some would say too 
 little of the manner of worship. They think 
 
42 METHOD OF OPERATION, 
 
 of nothing, in fact, save what meets their intel- 
 ligence, and enters into them by that method. 
 They appear like men, who have a digestion 
 for strong meat, and have no conception that 
 trifles more delicate can be of any account to 
 feed the system. . . . Under their hard and, as 
 some would say, stolid faces, great thoughts 
 are brewing, and these keep them warm. 
 Free-will, fixed fate, foreknowledge absolute, 
 trinity, redemption, special grace, — give them 
 any thing high enough, and the tough muscle 
 o{ their inward man will be climbing sturdily 
 into it ; and if they go away having something 
 to think of, they have had a good day. A per- 
 ceptible glow will kindle in their hard faces, 
 only when some one of the chief apostles — 
 a Day, a Smith, or a Bellamy — has come to 
 lead them up some higher pinnacle of thought, 
 or pile upon their sturdy mind some heavier 
 weight of argument." 
 
 A noble generation of men, and worthily 
 commended to the study and imitation of these 
 softer and more graceful days. Would that an 
 intelligence not less sturdy, in spiritual things, 
 
IXTELLECTUAL AND SPIRITUAL. 43 
 
 were blended with the refinements of this age. 
 Is there not in many places occasion for the 
 rebuke administered to the Hebrews? "When 
 for the time ye ought to be teachers, ye have 
 need that one teach you again which be the 
 first principles of the oracles of God, and are 
 become such as have need of milk and not of 
 strong meat." Is not this the explanation of the 
 recent rapid growth of ritualism? 
 
 It is true, historically, that ritualism lias 
 flourished greatly in times of general igno- 
 rance. A barbarous people can appreciate its 
 gorgeous displays. And the low degree of gen- 
 eral culture among the chosen people may be 
 one principal reason why the appointments for 
 the tabernacle and temple were so magnificent. 
 A further reason may have been, to show the 
 world the unsatisfying nature of the experi- 
 ment. It is quite certain that, in the early days 
 of Christianity, no account was made of such 
 things. They were not only not relied upon, 
 but they were discarded. Christ took upon 
 Himself the form of a servant, and made Him- 
 self of no reputation. He would not be made 
 
44 METHOD OF OPERATION, 
 
 a king. The first disciples and apostles were 
 plain fishermen. The great apostle shunned 
 the brilliant rhetoric of his day. But if Chris- 
 tianity ever needed the aid of an imposing 
 ceremonial, it was at the outset. But then it 
 was utterly rejected, and it ought to be dis- 
 carded to the end of the world. Let it be 
 attached to false religions that have nothing 
 else to recommend them to the acceptance of 
 mankind, or be remembered as an adjunct 
 of an imperfect system, which God meant only 
 for the childhood of the race, adopted as a 
 temporary and preparatory expedient until the 
 times of the reformation. The modern apostles 
 of ritualism offer an affront to the intelligence 
 of this age, while they obscure the glory of the 
 cross. The gospel asks no such service at 
 their hands, while discerning minds reject it as 
 a degradation of the religion it professes to 
 honor, and a fearful wrong to the souls it 
 attempts to guide. God's truth shines by its 
 own supernal brightness, for low and high, for 
 the ignorant and the learned, cr the light of the 
 knowledge of the glory of God in the face of 
 
INTELLECTUAL AND SPIRITUAL. 45 
 
 Jesus Christ." It asks not the poor candles 
 of human invention to help it irradiate the 
 world. Away with these rush-lights, these 
 robes curiously wrought, these censers and pro- 
 cessions, away with every thing which comes 
 between the simple truth of the gospel and the 
 minds and hearts of men, who must be saved 
 by the intelligent apprehension and the hearty 
 reception of it, or be lost for ever. Christianity 
 has indeed its symbolism, but it is the very 
 essence of simplicity and transparency, — water 
 for baptism into the name of Father, Son, and 
 Holy Ghost ; bread and wine for showing forth 
 the Lord's death until He comes ; the word of 
 truth for correction and instruction in righteous- 
 ness. These address directly and powerfully 
 the intelligence of men. 
 
 But the gospel method of operation is not of 
 the intellectual order only. It is also spiritual. 
 The gospel does indeed invite and demand the 
 thoughtful attention, the candid, earnest, per- 
 sistent consideration of men, but it does not 
 rest upon this method alone. In fact no vital 
 change is expected without the power of the 
 
46 METHOD OF OPERATION, &c. 
 
 Holy Ghost. It is most agreeable to reason 
 that He, who made the mind, should have full 
 access to it, and know how to work changes 
 in it. And according to the Scriptures, the 
 most radical change which is ever made in it, 
 is wrought by the Holy Spirit. He who created 
 can renew. But this renewal, by a special 
 exercise of divine power, is not independent of 
 the truth. The sword of the Spirit is the word 
 of God. The heirs of eternal life are chosen 
 to salvation through sanctification of the Spirit 
 and belief of the truth. It was when the apos- 
 tles preached, that the Holy Ghost fell on them 
 which heard the word. This combined power 
 of the word, and the Inspirer of the word, 
 must not only be the most efficient possible, but 
 also commend itself to the reflecting mind as 
 the most fit and worthy agency for reaching 
 and transforming, for enlightening, subduing, 
 elevating, and perfecting men. 
 
THE HISTORIC DEMONSTRATION. 47 
 
 VI. 
 
 THE HISTORIC DEMONSTRATION. 
 
 TT surely is reasonable to ask that, in the 
 course of eighteen centuries, the gospel 
 should accomplish something worthy of its 
 claims. The time has been long enough for 
 a conclusive demonstration. And this we hold 
 has been given. We freely admit that, as yet, 
 it has gained the adhesion of only a fraction of 
 the race. But the explanation of this fact is 
 found in the nature of its appeal. It does not 
 come upon men with an overwhelming force, 
 but comes to them with considerations of reason 
 and truth, with motives which they may either 
 receive or reject. They may even resist the 
 Holy Ghost, and He will leave them to their 
 own chosen ways. The native bias of the 
 heart is opposed to the gospel. All the prog- 
 
4^ THE HISTORIC DEMONSTRATION. 
 
 ress it has made in the world has been in the 
 way of conquest, overcoming that toughest of 
 all resistants, human depravity. If men, or 
 generations, in the pride of their self-will, and 
 the love of sinful pleasures, would none of it, 
 so much the worse for them ; but this detracts 
 nothing from its inherent worth. If God, in 
 view of their perversity, gave them over to a 
 reprobate mind, this is no impeachment of His 
 goodness, and their doom is no reflection upon 
 the grace which would have saved them, if 
 they would have received it. This grace 
 would be infinitely glorious if all men should 
 reject it. 
 
 And yet, as a practical scheme of redemp- 
 tion, the gospel must be declared a failure, 
 unless it can be shown that it has won many 
 and substantial triumphs. A vast multitude 
 have embraced it, and given the highest pos- 
 sible evidence of their sincerity in so doing. 
 The Acts of the Apostles herald its early vic- 
 tories. And they tell us what manner of men 
 those became who received it. They continued 
 steadfastly in the truth and worship of Christ, 
 
THE HISTORIC DEMONSTRATION. 49 
 
 and sold their possessions and goods, and parted 
 them to all men as they had need. In later 
 days, impurities came in to disturb the course 
 of its history. And the written annals of the 
 church may have preserved more of her con- 
 troversies and mistakes, than of her truthful 
 inculcations and her benefactions. But even in 
 her worst estate, she was doing signal service 
 for mankind. Her noble army of martys can 
 never be forgotten. Her work, in preserving 
 both secular and sacred learning, can hardly 
 be too highly prized. Nations of barbarians 
 have been tamed and civilized by the power 
 of the cross. The habitations of cruelty have 
 been transformed into the abodes of charity 
 and peace. Altars wet with human blood 
 have been thrown down, and temples conse- 
 crated to Jehovah have been reared up in their 
 stead. Asylums for the unfortunate and the 
 wretched have been opened in many lands. 
 Prisons have lost their tortures, and slaves 
 have been delivered from their fetters. Gov- 
 ernments have* learned the humanities of their 
 office, and peoples the sacredness of their rights. 
 4 
 
50 THE HISTORIC DEMONSTRATION. 
 
 Homes and schools and churches have been 
 made the nurseries of learning, piety, philan- 
 thropy, all the graces of refinement, all the 
 fruits of civilization. And the blessed work 
 wrought in individual souls cannot be named 
 or estimated. What righteousness, what peace, 
 what joy in the Holy Ghost ! What zeal in 
 life, what transports in a dying hour ! And 
 there is to-day a great army, toiling in patience, 
 waiting in hope, praying in faith, looking with 
 confidence, for the overthrow of all wickedness, 
 and the perfect establishment of righteousness 
 and peace in all the earth. It were easy to 
 speak of wrongs in the past and defects in the 
 present. But in spite of these, we maintain 
 that the adherents of the gospel, the true dis- 
 ciples of Christ, as a body, are in the van of 
 all movements calculated to restore man to 
 himself, his true place in society, and his alle- 
 giance to God. Others may be more boastful 
 in pretensions, more extreme in expedients, 
 more fierce in invectives, more violent in dem- 
 onstrations, but the great burden of the real 
 work of renewing the face of the earth rests 
 
THE HISTORIC DEMONSTRATION. 5 1 
 
 upon the shoulders of the army enlisted under 
 Christ. The path of the gospel through the 
 ages has been a track of light, and notwith- 
 standing all the errors and impurities and 
 wrongs which have taken shelter under the 
 name of the church, and all the prejudice 
 raised thereby against the cause of Christ, we 
 believe that it will lead right on and upward, 
 till He shall be enthroned over the nations, and 
 all nations shall be blessed in Him. 
 
AFFINITY WITH 
 
 VII. 
 
 AFFINITY WITH ALL TRUE CULTURE AND 
 EXCELLENCE. 
 
 TT has not been uncommon to represent Chris- 
 tianity as hostile to many other forms of the 
 good, the true, and the beautiful. And occa- 
 sion has been found in the manner in which 
 some Christians have spoken of and treated 
 these things. They may have erred, but it 
 is quite as likely that they have been mis- 
 understood. It is common for evangelical 
 preachers to speak of the total depravity of 
 unrenewed men, notwithstanding all the pleas- 
 ing and commendable traits which they may 
 possess. This sort of language does not deny 
 that for some purposes the natural virtues, as 
 they are called, are good and useful. But it 
 declares that in the matter of justification before 
 
ALL TRUE CULTURE. 53 
 
 God they are of no account whatever, inasmuch 
 as the radical principle of action is utterly want- 
 ing in that regard for God and His will and 
 glory, which is the very essence of holiness. 
 Repentance toward God, and faith in our Lord 
 Jesus Christ, are insisted upon first of all, not 
 as arbitrary terms of salvation, but as involving 
 the new and holy principle from which right 
 actions will proceed. None can be more ear- 
 nest than the preachers of total depravity, in 
 exhorting believers to "maintain good works 
 for necessary uses." If Luther was afraid of 
 the Epistle of James, because he read in it, 
 "Ye see then how that by works a man is jus- 
 tified, and not by faith only," this must be 
 put to the account of his want of completeness 
 in the knowledge of God, a want which can 
 surprise no man, who thoughtfully considers 
 the errors of doctrine and practice so rife in his 
 day. It is rather to be wondered at that he 
 came so near complete emancipation from the 
 falsehoods and abuses in which he was trained. 
 Good works, in their proper place, cannot well 
 be magnified more than they are in the gospel, 
 
5+ AFFINITY WITH 
 
 while it does not ascribe to them an importance 
 in other relations, which must utterly disap- 
 point those who trust in them. 
 
 It is common for a certain class of writers 
 and speakers to declaim^ against the church as 
 a stickler for dead dogmas, but indifferent to 
 the great practical issues of the day. To this 
 accusation we have three replies. First, for 
 the most part it is false. In the main, the 
 church — the living, evangelical church — is, 
 to say the least, abreast of any other body of 
 progressive men in matters of reform. In some 
 matters of innovation, which are not of reform, 
 the church is quite willing that others should 
 do the work and reap the reward. When it 
 comes to giving and doing and suffering and 
 dying for a worthy object, the hosts of the 
 church will not be found wanting, as compared 
 with any other body of men. So long as there 
 is nothing but speaking to be done, other voices 
 may perhaps be louder than hers. 
 
 Our second reply is, that the church has 
 always in hand a greater work than what are 
 called the issues of the day. In her view, to 
 
ALL TRUE CULTURE. 55 
 
 save a soul from death, and hide a multitude 
 of sins, is greater than to save a kingdom from 
 anarchy or despotism ; to put a man in the way 
 to heaven, is better than to lavish upon him all 
 the treasures of wealth and liberty and learning. 
 First, the kingdom of God and His righteous- 
 ness ; then all other good things as there may 
 be opportunity for gaining and using them 
 consistently with the great commanding pur- 
 pose. 
 
 Our third answer is, that the fundamental 
 work of the church is the most reliable support, 
 the most efficient promoter, of every good thing 
 in man and in society. Regenerated men are 
 the best material and the best instruments for 
 any great undertaking, or for any worthy enter- 
 prise that is not great, — whether you would 
 build a character, a home, a literature, or a 
 nation. First, get the man right in his views 
 of the great end of life, in his spirit, in his feel- 
 ing of brotherhood with all the race, in his 
 consciousness of fellowship with God, — then 
 will his own invigorated faculties find out a way 
 of rendering service to his kind ; then will his 
 
5 6 AFFINITY WITH 
 
 own ever-gushing impulses urge him onward 
 in a career of self-denial, toil, endurance, honor, 
 usefulness. He is jit for a friend, a neighbor, 
 a citizen, a philanthropist. He will build on 
 the everlasting foundations, and his work in 
 substance shall abide, no matter how many 
 nor what sort of revolutions may assail it. The 
 form only can ever pass away. With very 
 defective political and social institutions, he 
 will do better for himself and for humanity 
 than one, who knows nothing of true gospel 
 power, in his own experience, can possibly do 
 with the most perfect organizations ; and at the 
 same time, he will make sure and steady prog- 
 ress toward the reformation of those faulty 
 institutions. 
 
 Follow the missionary of the Cross from his 
 Christian home to his chosen field of self-denial 
 among the heathen. Mark the despotism, the 
 ignorance, the superstition, the degradation, 
 the barbarism, which confront him at every 
 step. Tarry with him till lie grows old in 
 the service, and forgets his mother tongue. 
 Observe now the chancre in his field of labor. 
 
ALL TRUE CULTURE. 57 
 
 The government has learned to respect the 
 rights of conscience. The people have become 
 industrious and moral. The idol shrines are 
 forsaken. The house of God is filled with rev- 
 erent worshippers. Falsehood, theft, violence, 
 have disappeared. Charity, with open hand, 
 feeds the hungry, relieves the distressed. The 
 solitary place is glad, the desert blossoms as 
 the rose. This is gospel work, the work of 
 men who hold, and who find all their inspira- 
 ti >n in, the grand old doctrines which some 
 are pleased to call the antiquated rubbish of a 
 metaphysical or controversial, not a practical 
 age. 
 
 But we must pass on to look at this matter 
 in other relations. Liberty has been regarded 
 among enlightened nations as one of the great- 
 est blessings. With the progress of light in 
 this century, the cry for liberty has waxed 
 louder and louder. Even old Spain, the home 
 of the Inquisition, is beginning to hear the cry, 
 and to feel the stirring of a new life in her 
 darkened soul. Is the gospel unfriendly to 
 this cry? Not unless it means liberty to bias- 
 
5§ AFFINITY WITH 
 
 pheme the name of God, and wage war upon 
 the dearest rights of mankind. Christ, at the 
 very outset, proclaimed deliverance to the cap- 
 tives, and liberty to them that are bruised. 
 The great apostle speaks of the glorious liberty 
 of the children of God. Where does liberty 
 dispense its choicest blessings to-day? In Eng- 
 land, Scotland, and these United States, the 
 most nearly Christian countries in the world, 
 the lands in which true gospel preaching has 
 most place and power. Guizot affirms that the 
 comparative histories of the world, whether 
 Christian or Pagan, place it beyond all doubt 
 "that Christianity alone restored to man, as 
 man, and for no other reason, his rights to 
 liberty." And Farrar, in his "History of Free 
 Thought/' declares that it was Milton, that 
 prince of Christian poets and writers upon civil 
 affairs, " who first enunciated in its breadth the 
 principle of universal religious freedom and 
 liberty of conscience." 
 
 The love of the beautiful is characteristic of 
 an enlightened age or people. Does the gospel 
 encourage or repress it? Had we space we 
 
ALL TRUE CULTURE. 59 
 
 might pursue this inquiry with reference to 
 architecture, sculpture, painting, poetry, music, 
 oratory, and general refinement or elegance in 
 the business, courtesies, and enjoyments of life. 
 But a particular examination of this wide and 
 inviting field is obviously quite impracticable 
 in this connection. There is material here for 
 a volume, by which some true disciple of 
 Christ and true lover of Art may instruct and 
 enrich his generation. There is room in this 
 place for nothing more than the statement and 
 brief defence of the doctrine in general, that 
 the gospel favors all these so far as it may 
 without detriment to its grand -purpose — the 
 regeneration of the world, the salvation of the 
 soul. 
 
 True gospel work is a refining process. Its 
 aim is perfect moral excellence. Its legitimate 
 effect in all other relations must be in keeping 
 with this. If the effect is ever otherwise, it 
 must be ascribed to an alien element, which has 
 come in to disturb the normal action of the gos- 
 pel. It cannot, however, be denied that those 
 bearing the name of Christ have sometimes 
 
60 AFFINITY WITH 
 
 manifested indifference, or even hostility, to the 
 creations of Art. It is freely allowed that the 
 appearance of Christ, and the style of the great 
 apostle, did not indicate any ambition for artistic 
 perfection. And some may recall the words 
 of Peter: "Whose adorning, let it not be that 
 outward adorning of plaiting the hair, and of 
 wearing of gold, or of putting on apparel, but 
 let it be the hidden man of the heart, in that 
 which is not corruptible, even the ornament 
 of a meek and quiet spirit, which is in the sight 
 of God of great price." Not a few passages of 
 like tenor may be gathered out of the word 
 of God. In explanation of these things two 
 points are to be considered, the relative impor- 
 tance of outward graces, and the disposition of 
 men to magnify them unduly. As compared 
 with the graces of the Spirit, the beauty of holi- 
 ness, they are not of great account. And if 
 the question is, Which shall be sacrificed for 
 the other? there can be no hesitation in decid- 
 ing that the less must yield to the greater. 
 And the truth is, that men are so readily cap- 
 tivated by the outward and the sensuous, that it 
 
ALL TRUE CULTURE. 6 1 
 
 is ever necessary to guard against its encroach- 
 ment upon the spiritual. If the right eye offends, 
 it must be plucked out ; the right hand be cut off. 
 But it is only when the outward withdraws 
 attention from the inward, only when the sen- 
 suous obscures the spiritual, that there is occa- 
 sion for applying this precept of the gospel. 
 In subordination, all these graces of form, 
 manner, and action, may minister to the edify- 
 ing of the body of Christ. But in subordination 
 they must be kept, or put away. Whatever 
 men can bear with safety to their spiritual 
 integrity, progress, and usefulness, they are 
 allowed : more than this they may not inno- 
 cently desire. 
 
 It is not because these things are evil in 
 themselves, but because we are prone to make 
 a god of them, that we are charged to take 
 heed lest they prove a snare to our souls. In 
 a perfect state, there will be no need of this 
 caution. The thoroughly sanctified spirit may 
 go in and out among the fairest creations of 
 even divine skill, without hindrance or abate- 
 ment of its delight. The New Jerusalem, 
 
62 AFFINITY WITH 
 
 descending out of heaven from God, prepared 
 as a bride adorned for her husband, having the 
 glory of God, is the perfection of beauty. And 
 this shall be the home of the ransomed for ever. 
 To pass through its pearly gates, to gaze at its 
 jasper walls, to tread its golden streets, to han- 
 dle its harps and palms and crowns, to hear its 
 mighty voices and its melodious songs, to be 
 surrounded by its splendors and filled with its 
 magnificence, shall be the portion of all who 
 "have washed their robes, and made them 
 white, in the blood of the Lamb." It shall be 
 their portion, because for them it will be safe. 
 But while we are in the flesh, we must consider 
 what and how much we can bear without 
 prejudice to our character, and our hope of 
 everlasting life. 
 
 It is the thought of some that paradise restored 
 would end our w r oes. But they forget that all 
 the charms of Eden kept not sin out of the 
 world. If the innocent fell, in the midst of all 
 these delights, how can we think that plenty 
 and beauty are the prime necessity of fallen 
 and guilty men? No, the work of sin must be 
 
ALL TRUE CULTURE. 63 
 
 undone, the world renewed, before paradise 
 can be safely restored. As the world pro- 
 gresses toward the sinless state, through the 
 rectifying power of the Cross, the outward con- 
 dition may, with safety, increase its charms. 
 But while the church is in deadly conflict with 
 the powers of darkness, all her energies should 
 be consecrated to her work, and her appear- 
 ance that of one girded for battle. It is no 
 time to sit down and clothe herself in holiday 
 attire, while the enemy is coming in like a 
 flood, and souls are pressing down to death. 
 
 When our Lord began his ministry, there 
 was no lack of outward splendor in church or 
 state. The temple at Jerusalem was blazing 
 with magnificence. Athens and Rome were 
 filled with costly shrines and beautiful statues 
 of the gods. Poetry produced the strains, and 
 eloquence the speeches, which the world is 
 still charmed to hear. But Jews, Greeks, 
 Romans, and barbarians, were alike dead in 
 trespasses and sins. Society was a garnished 
 sepulchre. The work to be done was to strip 
 off this covering of deceit, and create a new 
 
64 AFFINITT WITH 
 
 life in the centre of the soul. In this vital work 
 little account could be made of ornaments, 
 which, to say the least, would not help the 
 great endeavor ; and which, in consequence of 
 their association with degrading mythologies 
 and dead formalism, were likely either to ob- 
 scure its purpose or corrupt its adherents. In 
 the great crises of history men are too earnest, 
 too much intent upon the vital issue to give 
 much indulgence to the passion for the beau- 
 tiful. 
 
 And this consideration goes far to explain 
 the fact that, in some departments of Art, the 
 old masters of the pagan world have never been 
 surpassed. While we do not admit that, all 
 things considered, there has been no progress, 
 no development, no elevation of the artistic 
 idea, under the reign of Christianity, we are 
 willing to allow that in some departments, like 
 that of sculpture for example, the ancients of 
 the ante-Christian age came as near perfection 
 as any of a later day. And if this be named 
 as a reproach to the gospel,, our answer is that 
 the great concern of its true adherents has ever 
 
ALL TRUE CULTURE. 65 
 
 been not to make faultless statues, dead images, 
 but perfect men, alive with the noblest impulses, 
 active in the holiest ministries, adorned with 
 the choicest graces, animated by the loftiest 
 hopes, and sealed as the heirs of immortality. 
 This work is immeasurably nobler than the 
 grandest and the most finished creations or 
 imitations of Art. 
 
 But we may claim a very high place in this 
 matter of Art for our holy religion. Indeed, 
 some portions of the sacred writings are of 
 inimitable beauty and sublimity. And but for 
 the gospel, where had been Handel's unmatched 
 Oratorio of the Messiah, Dante's Divina Corn- 
 media, Milton's Paradise Lost, Leonardo da 
 Vinci's Last Supper, Michael Angelo's Last 
 Judgment, Volterra's Descent from the Cross, 
 or Raphael's Transfiguration? However de- 
 fective may have been the character of any of 
 these, or other great masters, in Christian Art, 
 it is undeniable that they drew their inspiration 
 from the oracles of God. These gave them 
 the sublime conception which, more than their 
 style of expression, is the abiding charm of their 
 
 5 
 
66 AFFINITT, 4c 
 
 work. Let rationalism, positivism, naturalism, 
 do better and greater things than these, ere we 
 are summoned to exchange our Faith for their 
 Unbelief. In his life of Michael Angelo, Her- 
 man Grimm has recorded a fact, or uttered an 
 opinion, which is worth the study of those who 
 would banish the supernatural from the world. 
 His words are : " The decline of painting and 
 sculpture began when the sacred element wholly 
 disappeared, and when the artist's single aim 
 was to satisfy the purchaser of the work." Art 
 can never do its best, both in theme and expres- 
 sion, until it feels the breathing of the Divine 
 Spirit, grasps some great divine thought, and 
 bathes itself in the radiance of the divine glory. 
 
CORRECTIVE OF THE FAULTS, &c. 67 
 
 VIII. 
 
 A CORRECTIVE OF THE FAULTS INCIDENT 
 TO KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 IGHT is always good if a man will use it 
 "^^ lawfully. But it is the prerogative of a 
 free agent, and very often the impulse of the 
 human agent, to use it unlawfully. No one 
 thinks of controverting the adage, " Knowledge 
 is power." But it must be remembered, that it 
 is power in the bad as well as in the good. 
 It may indeed be claimed, that the legitimate 
 influence of knowledge is purifying and eleva- 
 ting ; that other things being equal, crimes and 
 gross immoralities will abound more in an 
 ignorant than in an enlightened community. 
 And yet it is incontrovertible, that many 
 learned men have been also very profligate, 
 and a greater scourge to society in consequence 
 of their learning. And it is generally supposed 
 
68 
 
 A CORRECTIVE OF THE FAULTS 
 
 that the Augustan age, eminent in letters, was 
 among the most corrupt in Roman history. 
 And the subsequent decay of learning was the 
 effect more than the cause of moral degeneracy. 
 And it is the conviction of many among us in 
 advanced life, who can remember the two 
 generations before them, and observe the two 
 following them, that the moral tone of society 
 has not, to say the least, kept pace with the 
 increase and diffusion of knowledge. And 
 there are not wanting those who affirm posi- 
 tively, that the loss in morals has been greater 
 than the gain in learning. Considering the 
 measure of light now enjoyed, we have cer- 
 tainly no occasion to boast of the moral purity 
 and vigor of society. The frequency and enor- 
 mity of crimes, the prevalence of social and 
 vicious dissipation, to say nothing of profanity 
 and blasphemy, forbid our glorying, lest we 
 glory in our shame. 
 
 And, most certainty, it cannot be supposed 
 that the gospel has contributed materially and 
 directly to the prevalence of these abominations, 
 for it is in continual protest against them. The 
 
INCIDENT TO KNOWLEDGE. 69 
 
 explanation was long ago recorded by the 
 prophet Isaiah : "Thy wisdom and thy knowl- 
 edge it hath perverted thee, and thou hast said 
 in thine heart, I am, and none else beside me." 
 And to the same purpose are the words of the 
 apostle: "Knowledge puffeth up, but charity 
 editieth. And if any man think that he know- 
 eth any thing, he knoweth nothing yet as he 
 ought to know." Does the gospel then set its 
 face against knowledge? By no means. The 
 same apostle, writing to the same church, used 
 this language: "Brethren, be not children in 
 understanding : howbeit in malice be ye chil- 
 dren, but in understanding be men." It is the 
 abuse of knowledge against which we are 
 warned. If men think they have made great 
 attainments in it, they are prone to be proud, 
 puffed up with the conceit of their own conse- 
 quence. And this pride stands in the way of 
 further attainments, if it does not make useless 
 or pernicious those already gained. The influ- 
 ence of the gospel tends to abase this pride, 
 and keep men ever learning and ever turning 
 their knowledge to good account. 
 
70 A CORRECTIVE OF THE FAULTS 
 
 It may indeed be said, that the more thor- 
 oughly a man is educated, the less likely is he 
 to be proud. We freely allow it, provided his 
 education be symmetrical, including the knowl- 
 edge of God as^well as the knowledge of nature, 
 and the training of the moral as well as the 
 intellectual part. But the question is, How to 
 get men safely up to this point of a thorough 
 education : how to carry them past the perils 
 which beset them by the way, and to give them 
 the requisite impulse to push forward to the 
 goal. Pride is apt to spoil the work while in 
 progress. Here is needed a sanative moral 
 influence to humble and quicken the soul. And 
 this is furnished by the gospel. Here we are 
 taught the nothingness of human excellence 
 and acquirements. Here we learn to put a 
 true estimate, both in kind and degree, upon 
 the treasures of human learning. We discover 
 that the wisdom of the world is nought without 
 the knowledge of God. We see that the grand- 
 est heights of human thought are infinitely 
 below the thoughts of God. 
 
 If pride does not stay the march of intellect, 
 
INCIDENT TO KNOWLEDGE. 7 T 
 
 ambition is likely to convert it into a crusade 
 of violence and destruction. When the prog- 
 ress of knowledge is rapid, great forces are 
 developed, great schemes conceived, which will 
 prove a bane or a blessing according to the 
 direction which is given them. And this direc- 
 tion depends chiefly upon the prevailing moral 
 tone. If this is corrupt, a fierce competition 
 for wealth, honor, and power, will generate 
 gigantic frauds in business and politics, unsettle 
 the confidence of men in each other, and not 
 unlikely desolate a continent by the sweep of 
 war. If, on the other hand, the moral tone is 
 pure and high, these forces will be made the 
 instruments of a beneficent progress in the con- 
 veniences and comforts of life, in the general 
 culture of society, and in all the arts and ap- 
 pliances and resources which characterize an 
 advancing civilization. What can give the 
 requisite moral tone but the gospel? Knowing 
 the power of self-interest and carnal ambition, 
 we shall stultify ourselves if we suppose that 
 the sense of honor and self-respect, or the gen- 
 erous sympathies native to the human heart, 
 
7 2 A CORRECTIVE OF THE FAULTS 
 
 will alone furnish any effectual restraint upon 
 the lawless passions. Nothing but moral prin- 
 ciple, born of the Divine Spirit, and supported 
 by the high sanctions of divine revelation, can 
 meet the emergency. In the midst of light, 
 which shows men how to wield the arts of 
 Satanic cunning, there must be the regener- 
 ating and sanctifying efficiency of the Holy 
 Ghost, or society, — under the spur of a mad 
 ambition for great things, of honor, pow r er, 
 gain, and pleasure, — will rush into the abyss 
 of corruption and destruction. 
 
 If it be said that the gospel has no appreci- 
 able influence in counteracting the fierce passion 
 for gain and self-aggrandizement, stimulated 
 by the facilities which knowledge supplies, 
 we answer that it has, in fact, much less than 
 we desire, but that without it the evil would 
 be far worse. And we further allege that, but 
 for the teachings of unbelief, it would have far 
 greater power. Where received, the gospel 
 does moderate, if not destroy, the ambition to 
 get great things for one's self. And but for 
 those who deny its claims, it would be far more 
 
INCIDENT TO KNOWLEDGE. 73 
 
 generally received. Those who would take 
 the reins out of its hands know not what they 
 do. Their conceit of superiority is a dangerous 
 thing for themselves and the world. Let them 
 increase in knowledge as rapidly as they can, 
 but let them never suppose themselves wiser 
 than God. It were well for them to recall the 
 story of the Titans attempting to scale the 
 heights of heaven, and of Phaeton to guide 
 the chariot of the sun. It were better still for 
 them to ponder, with a teachable mind, the 
 inspired account of the first human pair, who, 
 deceived by the father of lies, and aspiring to 
 be gods in wisdom and knowledge, fell from 
 their high estate, lost the pure image of their 
 Creator, and let in upon themselves and the 
 world floods of error, sin, and woe. At first, 
 as Milton writes, — 
 
 "As with new wine intoxicated both, 
 They swim in mirth, and fancy that they feel 
 Divinity within them breeding wings 
 Wherewith to scorn the earth." 
 
 But at length reflection comes ; they wake from 
 their guilty dream, and seek a covering for 
 their shame. 
 
74 A CORRECTIVE OF THE FAULTS, &c. 
 
 "They sat them down to weep; nor only tear6 
 Rained at their eyes, but high winds worse within 
 Began to rise, high passions, anger, hate, 
 Mistrust, suspicion, discord, and shook sore 
 Their inward state of mind, calm region once 
 And full of peace, now lost and turbulent: 
 For understanding ruled not, and the will 
 Heard not her lore; both in subjection now 
 To sensual appetite, who from beneath 
 Usurping over sovereign reason claimed superior sway. 
 
CAPABLE OF MEETING, &c. 75 
 
 IX. 
 
 CAPABLE OF MEETING THE GROWING WANTS 
 OF THE SOUL. 
 
 FT must not be forgotten that the more men 
 know the more they want. Desire not only 
 keeps pace with attainment, but goes ever be- 
 yond it, and even grows with greater rapidity. 
 Few and simple things satisfy the desires of 
 the savage. A rude wigwam for his dwelling, 
 the primeval forest for his hunting ground, a 
 little fish and maize for his food, skins for his 
 clothing, the war dance for his amusement, 
 and some low, vague notions of a divinity, 
 with corresponding rites of worship for his reli- 
 gion, — these meet the chief part of his felt 
 necessities. But to the man of cultivation and 
 refinement they are as nothing, or perhaps 
 even an offence and irritation. Better and 
 
76 CAPABLE OF MEETING THE 
 
 greater things than these are required for his 
 comfort day by day. And with all his inge- 
 nuity of invention, and facilities of communi- 
 cation, he cannot obtain supplies with sufficient 
 rapidity, and in sufficient measure, to make 
 him content. His eagerness for something 
 new is stimulated rather than satisfied by every 
 fresh acquisition. The thirst for knowledge 
 increases with attainment, like the passion for 
 gold. Larger and more refined conceptions 
 in religion reach up for something still greater 
 and higher. 
 
 Now the question arises, Is the soul doomed 
 to this indefinite expansion of its desires without 
 the possibility of finding any object vast enough 
 to fill them, and keep them filled always and 
 everywhere? This question must be answered 
 in the affirmative, unless there is some Being 
 able to do more for us than all the mythologies, 
 the philosophies, the arts, and the sciences of 
 men, either in their present condition or in any 
 improved state to which the studies and labors 
 of human genius may bring them. The uni- 
 verse is indeed vast, and we are yet far short 
 
GROWING WANTS OF THE SOUL. 77 
 
 of a complete knowledge of its manifold objects, 
 processes, relations, and uses. A great meas- 
 ure of satisfaction is yet to be enjoyed from the 
 discoveries which will be made. But these 
 discoveries will develop the human soul into 
 still grander proportions, and set it upon asking 
 questions still more difficult to be answered. 
 And what shall be the end? Is there no rest- 
 ing place for this aspiring, yearning, expanding 
 spirit ? 
 
 The gospel answers this question. It brings 
 us to the Infinite in a personal form, and satis- 
 fying relations. This great, growing, human 
 mind it sets face to face with the Infinite under- 
 standing, and bids it commune with the Author 
 of its being, — bids it ask its far-reaching ques- 
 tions of Him who gave the power to ask, and 
 holds the power to answer. On nothing below 
 Him can rest the full)- awakened and developed 
 human mind. All possibilities of thought and 
 knowledge are with Him. And He is acces- 
 sible to His rational creatures. He may be 
 known of them, and in knowing Him they may 
 be satisfied. If they know less of Him than 
 
78 CAPABLE OF MEETING THE 
 
 they desire, they may increase in that knowl- 
 edge, and go on increasing for ever, and find 
 in all increase added joy. The Father of our 
 spirits, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus 
 Christ, is the God of all comfort, the God of 
 peace. To the best knowledge He adds the 
 gifts of faith and hope. 
 
 It is matter of experience that many of the 
 most gifted and cultured souls, reconciled to 
 Him, resting upon Him, have found peace, 
 even that peace which passeth all understand- 
 ing. He who has found a gospel which can 
 inspire, and a God who can answer, such a 
 prayer as that of the great apostle for the 
 church at Ephesus, must be satisfied, however 
 vast and varied his desires, or however rapid 
 the rate of their increase: "That he would 
 grant you, according to the riches of his glory, 
 to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the 
 inner man ; that Christ may dwell in your hearts 
 by faith ; that ye, being rooted and grounded in 
 love, may be able to comprehend with all saints 
 what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and 
 height ; and to know the love of Christ, which 
 
GROWING WANTS OF THE SOUL. 79 
 
 passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with 
 all the fulness of God." From the ever exult- 
 ant soul of such a man must break forth the 
 doxoloirv : "Now unto him that is able to do 
 exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or 
 think, according to the power that worketh in 
 us, unto him be glory in the church by Christ 
 Jesus throughout all ages, world without end. 
 Amen." 
 
 The question of range, or compass of thought, 
 is not the only one answered for the soul in the 
 God of the gospel. The need of forgiveness is 
 liable to be felt more and more, as the soul 
 advances in the knowledge of God and itself. 
 His holiness will appear more glorious, its 
 impurity more loathsome ; His authority more 
 sacred, its sin more criminal ; His displeasure 
 more awful, its guilt more inexcusable. It is 
 unquestionably true, in many cases at least, 
 that the more men grow, both in knowledge 
 and grace, the deeper is their sense of sin, the 
 more they abhor themselves. Not sin in gen- 
 eral alone, nor some gross forms of it observed 
 in others, but their own heart sins take on an 
 
So CAPABLE OF MEETING THE 
 
 enormity, in their view, which is quite inex- 
 pressible. No sane man will question either 
 the intelligence or the comparative purity of 
 Jonathan Edwards. But this saintly man has 
 left on record this expression of his sense of 
 sin : " When I look into my heart, and take 
 a view of my wickedness, it looks like an abyss 
 infinitely deeper than hell. And it appears to 
 me, that were it not for free grace, exalted and 
 raised up to the infinite height of all the fulness 
 and glory of the great Jehovah, and the arm 
 of his power and grace stretched forth in all the 
 majesty of his power, and in all the glory of his 
 sovereignty, I should appear sunk down in my 
 sins below hell itself; far beyond the sight of 
 every thing but the eye of sovereign grace, 
 that can pierce even down to such a depth. 
 And yet it seems to me, that my conviction of 
 sin is exceeding small and faint : it is enough 
 to amaze me, that I have no more sense of my 
 sins." These words were deliberately chosen 
 to convey not a momentary but an abiding 
 impression. The sentence immediately pre- 
 ceding is : "Very often, for these many years, 
 
GROWING WANTS OF THE SOUL. ol 
 
 these expressions are in my mind and in my 
 mouth, — Infinite upon infinite, Infinite upon 
 infin'te." 
 
 These are -not the utterances of a narrow 
 soul, cramped and darkened by a morbid mel- 
 ancholy, but of a royal nature, grand in its 
 perceptions and its emotions. While enter- 
 taining these views of sin, he was not despon- 
 dent, but he could say : "Of late years I have 
 had a more full and constant sense of the abso- 
 lute sovereignty of God, and a delight in that 
 sovereignty ; and have had more of a sense of 
 the glory of Christ, as a mediator revealed in 
 the gospel. On one Saturday night in partic- 
 ular, I had such a discovery of the excellency 
 of the gospel above all other doctrines, that I 
 could not but say to myself, This is my chosen 
 light, my chosen doctrine; and of Christ, This 
 is my chosen Prophet. It appeared sweet, 
 beyond all expression, to follow Christ, and to 
 be taught and enlightened and instructed by 
 Him ; to learn of Him and live to Him. Another 
 Saturday night (January, 1739, thirty-five years 
 of age) I had such a sense how sweet and blessed 
 6 
 
82 CAPABLE OF MEETING THE 
 
 a thing it was to walk in the way of duty, to 
 do that which was right and meet to be done, 
 and agreeable to the holy mind of God, that it 
 caused me to break forth into a kind of loud 
 weeping, which held me some time, so that I 
 was forced to shut myself up and fasten the 
 doors. I could not but, as it were, cry out, 
 How happy are they which do that which is 
 right in the sight of God ! They are blessed 
 indeed ! they are the happy ones ! " 
 
 Such a sense of sin as was habitual with this 
 great and good man can be met by nothing 
 less, nothing else, than "the glorious gospel of 
 the ever blessed God." And such a sense may 
 any man have if he possesses the requisite 
 intelligence, and is enlightened by the Spirit 
 of God. There is a Power working among 
 men adequate to a similar result in the case of 
 any competent, well-instructed mind. The Holy 
 Ghost can sweep away the sophistries of men, 
 so energize the conscience, and so reveal the 
 glory of the Lord, that they shall cry 'out, 
 "Woe is me, I am undone!" "Behold, I am 
 vile ! " And the providence of God may put 
 
GROWING WANTS OF THE SOUL. S3 
 
 other thoughts into minds little accustomed to 
 serious reflection. The voice which once shook 
 the earth may also shake the heavens, and, by 
 confusing the order of nature, confound the 
 thoughts of the wise. Those who have been 
 loudest in their eulogies of her may be most at 
 their wits' end, when " there shall be signs in 
 the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars, and 
 upon the earth distress of nations ; the sea and 
 the waves roaring ; men's hearts failing them 
 for fear, and for looking after those things 
 which are coming on the earth." 
 
 If a generation, wise in its own conceit, will 
 not learn the fear of the Lord from the teach- 
 ings of His word and the common works of His 
 hand, there are wonders of counsel and might 
 at His call. In any event, He will be exalted in 
 the earth, and men shall acknowledge that He 
 sitteth King for ever, enthroned high above all 
 the works of His own hands, high over all the 
 imaginations and doings of the children of 
 pride. Shaken by His power, convicted by 
 His Spirit, the boldest deniers of His presence 
 and agency, the most complacent worshippers 
 
84 CAPABLE OF MEETING THE 
 
 of nature and themselves, may be seized with a 
 trembling like that of Belshazzar, when the 
 fingers of a man's hand came forth to write 
 upon the wall of his palace. No man can 
 safely affirm that he is proof against an over- 
 whelming sense of his sin against 'God, or 
 secure from an overwhelming fear of His dis- 
 pleasure, unless he has laid hold of the hope 
 set before him in the gospel. Before such a 
 sense of sin. the doctrines of naturalism and 
 the sacrifices of paganism flee away like chaff 
 before the wind. 
 
 But supposing there were no such thing as 
 sin, or fear, or wrath, still the soul of growing 
 intelligence would need love, both subjective 
 and objective, which can be found only in and 
 through the gospel. This is the great radical 
 want of every soul. And only that God, whose 
 grace bringeth salvation, can either inspire in 
 us, or bestow upon us, an adequate love. Ad- 
 miration of the beautiful is not the same thing as 
 love of the good ; and, in order to be complete, 
 we must do more than admire, — we must love. 
 We may love an unworthy object inordinately ; 
 
GROWING WANTS OF THE SOUL. o 
 
 but the power of loving cannot be fully devel- 
 oped without embracing a great and good 
 object ; cannot reach its highest without finding 
 and resting upon the Greatest and the Best. 
 Beyond all other objects ever known or con- 
 ceived of, the creating, preserving, redeeming 
 God of the Scriptures has power, and power 
 because He has worth, to beget and develop 
 love in the human soul, — a love true, pure, 
 great, tender, active, enduring, eternal. In 
 many ways is this worth displayed, this power 
 exerted ; but beyond and above all else in the 
 redemption through Christ Jesus. Here, most 
 emphatically, is the hiding of this power. There 
 is nothing great enough and good enough for 
 us to love with all the heart, but this God of 
 grace. Naturalism, pantheism, may set before 
 us marvels to excite our wonder and admiration, 
 but they give us no such object to love. 
 
 On the other hand, there is no other such 
 Being, no other being great and good enough 
 to love us as we long to be loved. Precious, 
 indeed, is the love of human hearts. But in 
 feeling and purpose they come short of our 
 
86 CAPABLE OF MEETING THE 
 
 necessities, especially when, by reflection and 
 culture and divine teaching, we become con- 
 scious of the greatness of our need. We might 
 be comfortable, possibly content, with nothing 
 higher or stronger than the devoted attachment 
 of pure unselfish human hearts, but our'jov 
 could not be full. Room has God made in 
 these hearts for His own infinite love, and room 
 that never can bejilled by any thing else. The 
 language of the man who has become conscious 
 of his need is : "As the hart panteth after the 
 water-brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, 
 O God. My soul thirsteth for God, for the 
 living God." And the language of one who 
 has found the supply is : " Whom have I in 
 heaven but thee ? and there is none upon 
 earth that I desire besides thee. . . . God is 
 the strength of my heart, and my portion for 
 ever." 
 
 Impersonal nature, however great and varied 
 her charms, cannot give us love. This great- 
 est, most enduring want of the soul can be 
 met, is met, and we have abundant reason to 
 believe will be met for ever, by the Father 
 
GROWING WANTS OF THE SOUL. 87 
 
 of our spirits and the Saviour of our souls. 
 "Herein is love, not that we loved God, but 
 that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the 
 propitiation for our sins." "And we have 
 known and believed the love that God hath to 
 us. God is love ; and he that dwelleth in love 
 dwelleth in God, and God in him." 
 
 Thus being loved, and loving thus, we must 
 be supremely and for ever blessed. To a soul 
 thus developed, ennobled, satisfied, what are 
 the trials incident to this mortal life? Those 
 who can say, " The love of God is shed abroad 
 in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given 
 unto us," can also add, "We rejoice in hope 
 of the glory of God ; we glory in tribulation 
 also, knowing that tribulation worketh patience, 
 and patience experience, and experience hope, 
 and hope maketh not ashamed." And may 
 we not confidently affirm that this love creates 
 a better atmosphere for the cure, the comfort, 
 and the true development of our poor stricken 
 humanity, than that which surrounds the purest 
 philosophers and the noblest teachers of sci- 
 ence, who have learned nothing in the school 
 
88 CAPABLE OF MEETING, &c. 
 
 of Christ? What else can so soften, refine, 
 adorn, and ennoble the nature made rugged 
 and selfish by indwelling sin, and made bitter 
 and reckless by the wrongs inflicted upon it? 
 Knowledge we do not despise ; but love, God's 
 own to us, and such in us for God and man as 
 the gospel alone can inspire, we must have, to 
 smooth the rugged way of life, and fit us for 
 our mission to our kind. In this atmosphere 
 we would live and die, and live again, and live 
 for ever. 
 
GRANDEUR OF ITS MISSION. 89 
 
 X. 
 
 GRANDEUR OF ITS PRACTICAL MISSION. 
 
 P^HE gospel zvork is one to invite and en- 
 gross the very best -powers of our minds 
 and our hearts. It should be reckoned a privi- 
 lege and not a burden. We naturally thirst 
 for something to do. Indolence has indeed 
 been spoken of facetiously as "our original 
 sin." And there is a coloring of truth in the 
 representation. And yet the common aversion 
 to work is not an indisposition toward all 
 activity, but only toward certain forms of it. 
 The little child is not simply restless, but eager 
 also to do something. That something may 
 not be useful, but it requires the exercise of 
 strength, calculation, and perhaps all the little 
 stock of knowledge as yet possessed. It would 
 probably be as correct to say that men acquire 
 
9° GRANDEUR OF ITS MISSION. 
 
 as to say that they inherit idle tendencies. 
 And never can a man be fully satisfied with 
 himself without employing his faculties and 
 energies in some useful calling. It is not 
 really a question with us whether we shall be 
 active or inactive, so long as we are able to 
 accomplish any thing either with our brains or 
 with our hands. We are impelled by an 
 inward, if not an outward, necessity to be 
 doing something daily. The impulse is not 
 indeed sufficient with all, for the doing of any 
 thing like what they are capable of. But if 
 those comparatively idle are satisfied with them- 
 selves, their course does not commend itself to 
 any earnest, noble mind. It is barely possible 
 that a man may be so indolent, that he cannot 
 even appreciate the schemes and achievements 
 of more earnest men. But, ordinarily, those 
 least efficient are ready to praise the man of 
 lofty ambition and heroic labors. And some- 
 times, by such examples, the idle are made 
 ashamed of their aimless and useless lives. 
 
 It being settled, then, that we are to do some- 
 thing, are to employ our energies upon some 
 
GRANDEUR OF ITS MISSION. 9 1 
 
 kind of business, the question arises, How may 
 they be employed in the most worthy, useful, 
 and satisfying manner? The work now under 
 consideration furnishes the best answer to this 
 question. Here is a mission, whose tendencies 
 are unmistakably good, — more than this, are 
 the best conceivable, — and whose measure 
 gives scope for all the faculties and energies 
 of any and every man. The tendencies are so 
 obvious, and so well understood in a Christian 
 community, that there is no occasion to dwell 
 upon them here. True gospel work embraces 
 every right form of teaching, healing, purify- 
 ing, elevating, strengthening, enriching, and 
 comforting ministration. Its aim is to form a 
 perfect character, fill the mind with the knowl- 
 edge of the greatest things, and the heart with 
 the purest and sublimest joys. In connection 
 with this, it favors such alleviations of the ills, 
 and such enhancement of the benefits, pertain- 
 ing to the outward estate, as the highest well- 
 being of the individual and of society may 
 require. To the work of the gospel, carried 
 out according to the plan and in the spirit of 
 
9 2 GRANDEUR OF ITS MISSION. 
 
 its great Author, no candid, truth-loving, and 
 benevolent mind can object. No man can pos- 
 sibly desire to do any thing better for his fellow- 
 men, any thing which will more certainly secure 
 and increase their moral worth, or redound 
 more to their lasting happiness. The kind of 
 work, taken in a comprehensive sense, is just 
 what an enlightened reason and a pure heart 
 must judge most fit and needful to be done. 
 
 But this work is great as well as good. And 
 by this characteristic, it is in a special manner 
 commended to an enlightened mind. With the 
 progress of knowledge, in science and art, men 
 are learning to do great things; i.e., things 
 which are great in comparison with the achieve- 
 ments, or even the ideas, of an earlier age. 
 They project and accomplish gigantic schemes. 
 They make highways for thought under the 
 ocean, for trade and travel across the conti- 
 nents. They amass splendid fortunes, and 
 rear magnificent palaces. They are moving 
 toward the recognition of all nations as mem- 
 bers of one great family, with common interests, 
 and made for mutual acquaintance and profit. 
 
GRANDEUR OF ITS MISSION. 93 
 
 They are looking to the ends of the earth in 
 their calculations for gain or pleasure. Not 
 a few despise small plans, and are impatient 
 of slow gains. They are for a larger place and 
 bolder operations than those which satisfied their 
 fathers. 
 
 And not in material enterprises alone are men 
 making themselves familiar with broad plans 
 and great endeavors. In the domain of knowl- 
 edge they are pushing their discoveries into the 
 depths below and the heights abov r e, laying 
 bare secrets of the ocean, and uncovering the 
 face of stars, which have been hid from the 
 foundation of the world. In ethics and politics 
 and social relations, they are agitating, if not 
 compassing, great revolutions. These things 
 all spring from a growing intelligence, although 
 some of their experiments may be little to its 
 credit. But however crude some of the theories, 
 or harmful even some of the expedients, which 
 are born of this mental quickening, they foster 
 a passion for schemes of amazing magnitude 
 and splendor. It is requisite, therefore, if a 
 moral undertaking is to hold its own, and win 
 
94 GRANDEUR OF ITS MISSION. 
 
 new victories, in such an age, that it should 
 have a vastness in keeping with these schemes 
 of secular wisdom and enterprise, or far out- 
 reaching them all. 
 
 And this is the character of the Christian 
 enterprise, considered as an agency for effect- 
 ing changes in the character and fortunes of 
 mankind. Its grandeur is made evident when 
 we consider the material which it takes in 
 hand, fas. forces by which it shapes this mate- 
 rial to its purpose, the excellence of the per- 
 fected result^ and the extent of its actual or 
 intended operations. 
 
 What is the material in hand? It is the 
 human soul, or man as a moral being, — intel- 
 ligent, responsible, immortal. The business 
 of Christianity, specifically, is to transform this 
 being into the likeness of God, and set him in 
 relations of fellowship and co-operation with 
 God. Of the value of this soul, no adequate 
 estimate can be formed by any mind which 
 cannot fathom infinity and eternity. The im- 
 pressive, the startling words of our Saviour, 
 " What shall it profit a man if he shall gain the 
 
GRANDEUR OF ITS MISSION. 95 
 
 whole world, and lose his own soul ?" fail to 
 convey to us any thing like a full, an exhaustive 
 idea of its priceless worth. How high, com- 
 paratively, does the rational being stand on the 
 scale of created objects? At the head of this 
 lower and visible creation, and but a little below 
 the angels, is this creature man. And above 
 the angels we know of none but God. And, 
 indeed, we are told that " God created man in 
 his own image." Reason, imagination, judg- 
 ment, conscience, will, what faculties are these ! 
 To what a development of strength, order, and 
 beauty they may be brought ! The desires, 
 the aspirations, the passions, the affections, 
 w r hat powers are these ! To what degradation 
 and shame they may sink, or to what dignity 
 and glory they may lift, the soul ! What sus- 
 ceptibilities, what capabilities, in this creature 
 man ! Shut up to this little corner of the 
 universe, made the tenant of a frail earthly 
 tabernacle, compassed about with infirmities, 
 he can nevertheless send his thoughts back- 
 ward far beyond the beginning of measured 
 time, and onward far beyond the point at which 
 
9 6 GRANDEUR OF ITS MISSION. 
 
 time shall be no longer, and outward beyond 
 the orbits of uncounted and invisible worlds, 
 and upward to the very throne of the eternal 
 God. He can frame instruments, by which he 
 may bring to light the hidden things of dark- 
 ness, searching with equal ease the microscopic 
 and the telescopic spheres, and making real to 
 his apprehension in these domains an infinitude 
 of things small and great. 
 
 And these magnificent capabilities may all 
 be used in quick response to the mandates of 
 the eternal King, with the conscious and the 
 willing purpose to glorify Him, and further the 
 great ends by Him ordained. The laws of 
 nature are beautiful in their simplicity, order, 
 and majesty, but they have neither conscious- 
 ness nor volition. The instincts of animals are 
 often charming in their accuracy, strength, and 
 utility, — their affections, also, in their tenderness 
 and fitness, — but they cannot entertam a moral 
 purpose, nor perform a moral action. Here 
 man stands alone, or with the angels and with 
 God. Oh that in the best sense it could be said 
 that here he stands! But, alas! he has fallen 
 
GRANDEUR OF ITS MISSION. 97 
 
 by his iniquity ; and yet, in his fall, has not 
 made his soul less precious. Lost in a spiritual 
 sense, and most unworthy, and yet in God's 
 thought too precious to be lost, without any and 
 every practicable sacrifice to redeem it ! The 
 recovery of this soul, whose redemption is so 
 precious, is the work of the gospel. Is there 
 any other work like it ? Should some evil 
 power quench the light and destroy the heat 
 of the sun, so that the earth and all the other 
 planets would roll around it in darkness, deso- 
 lation, and death, and then a good spirit should 
 rekindle its fires, and so bring back to us the 
 old brightness, beauty, and life, he would be 
 a benefactor worthy of unmeasured praise, and 
 yet less a benefactor than this gospel, which 
 brings life and immortality to light ; which lays 
 hold of dead souls, and wakes them to newness 
 of life; which brings these wandering stars, 
 that were on their way to the blackness of 
 darkness for ever, back to their place, and 
 pours upon them the effulgence of the Sun of 
 righteousness. 
 
 And by what forces does the gospel shape this 
 7 
 
q8 grandeur of its mission. 
 
 frecious soul into the likeness of God? The 
 purest and the richest of which we have any 
 knowledge, or of which we are able to conceive, 
 — the attractions of love, human and divine 
 love. "The Spirit and the bride say, Come." 
 A word first about the office of human love. 
 Men are employed as instruments in persuading 
 their fellow-men to receive the gospel. And 
 if they expect any success in this work, they 
 must speak the truth in love. This has been 
 exemplified in the history of many successful 
 workers in the vineyard of the Lord. Take 
 one example, that of the apostle Paul. Such 
 love had he for his people that he said, " I 
 could wish that myself were accursed from 
 Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen according 
 to the flesh." And this was his way of pleading 
 with men to receive the gospel : "Now. then, 
 we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God 
 did beseech you by us : we pray you in Christ's 
 stead, be ye reconciled to God." This love for 
 souls, which is born of love to God, is the purest 
 and the strongest which man bears toward his 
 fellow-man. The love of husbands and wives, 
 
GRANDEUR OF ITS MISSION. 99 
 
 of parents and children, is often extremely 
 tender and beautiful. But, to this, additional 
 charms and strength are imparted by a true 
 apprehension of the worth of the soul, and a 
 Christian concern for its salvation. 
 
 And even where there are no ties of kindred, 
 or interest, or friendship, in the common accep- 
 tation of that term, this gospel love is often a 
 consuming passion. It is benevolence quick- 
 ened and intensified by the fear that souls will 
 perish, by a dread for them of everlasting burn- 
 ings, and by the anticipation of their unending 
 felicity. How can we possibly exert our influ- 
 ence so well as through this affection of grace ? 
 What are personal charms, or learning, or 
 wealth, or position, as means of influence, com- 
 pared with this undying, unselfish, unspeakable 
 love of souls? And we are not to reckon this 
 kind of human love as unworthy of a place in 
 this great work of drawing men to goodness 
 and to God. Even divine love, that it might 
 be made most efficient, became allied with the 
 human. Christ loved as a man not less truly 
 than as God. In that tearful lament over Jeru- 
 
IOO GRANDEUR OF ITS MISSION. 
 
 salem, we perceive the yearning" of human as 
 well as divine compassion. By His lifting up 
 does He draw all men to Him. And God is 
 in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself. 
 
 And when we come to speak of divine love, 
 in distinction from human, we can only touch 
 an ocean without bottom and without shore. 
 Here is all the fulness of God, for God is love. 
 The ways in which this love are expressed are 
 countless, and many of them amazing. The 
 bounties and the charms of nature declare it ; 
 the care of daily providence confirms it ; the 
 facts, ordinances, and promises of revelation 
 magnify it; and the history of grace through 
 all the weary ages illustrates it. In no one of 
 these departments can we measure its fulness. 
 The world around us and the heavens above us 
 are crowded with the shining tokens of God's 
 wisdom and beneficence, of His care for our 
 sustenance and our enjoyment. The history 
 of every day is replete with evidence that "His 
 tender mercies are over all His works." But 
 more especially in the gospel of His grace is 
 this love made known. Here come to view the 
 
GRANDEUR OF ITS MISSION. IOI 
 
 length, the breadth, the depth, and the height, 
 in each of which it passeth knowledge. 
 
 The commandment which meets us here is 
 holy, just, and good. The types and shadows 
 of the earlier dispensation are full of pleasing 
 intimations of the grace to be revealed. And 
 the coming of the great Deliverer was such 
 an unspeakable boon, that prophets must be 
 commissioned, in a long line of succession, to 
 predict it, and angels charged to appear in 
 hosts to celebrate it. And the Spirit of inspi- 
 ration, who searcheth all things, yea, the deep 
 things of God, and who is also the Spirit of 
 truth, proclaims: "In this was manifested the 
 love of God toward us, because that God sent his 
 only begotten Son into the world, that we might 
 live through him." Many times and in many 
 forms is this repeated in the true sayings of God. 
 This is the sum of the good tidings of great joy. 
 And the Spirit is ready to make this message of 
 grace effectual to the salvation of all them that 
 believe. The demonstration and the applica- 
 tion are both of God. Here we behold the 
 Father giving, the Son dying, the Spirit reveal- 
 
102 GRANDEUR OF ITS MISSION. 
 
 ing, Each and All intent upon our redemption. 
 The cross is the consecrated sign, and the 
 church the enduring monument, of this eternal 
 love of the triune God. With the cords of this 
 love does He draw and bind men to Himself. 
 And in this work He grants us also a share ; 
 putting it upon us, if we will consent, to make 
 known the exceeding riches of His grace, and 
 to exhibit in the purity and blessedness of our 
 own lives the benign efficacy of His transform- 
 ing power. Can we elsewhere wield so choice 
 and potent an influence as this? Looking at 
 this kind of power, and considering wherein 
 its glory lies, noting the disposition in which it 
 began, the purpose by which it was disclosed, 
 the sacrifice by which it was proved, and the 
 way in which it is applied, can we not see that 
 there is no honor like that of beino- "laborers 
 together with God " ? 
 
 But we must pass on to look at the perfected 
 result of this gospel work. At every stage it 
 is a good work, but it cannot be fully under- 
 stood until it is finished. In one sense it is 
 finished when the work of sanctification is com- 
 
GRANDEUR OF ITS MISSION. 103 
 
 plete, when every thought of the renewed 
 man has been brought into captivity to Christ. 
 We are permitted to see some examples, in 
 which this work seems to be nearly or quite 
 complete. And we must confess that a perfect 
 "Christian is the highest style of man." And 
 the highest style of man is the best thing upon 
 the earth. A Christian is not perfect until the 
 same mind is in him that is in Christ, — the same 
 not only in its general spirit and purpose, but 
 also in all subordinate particulars so far as we 
 may have the mind of Christ. He must be a 
 singular man, or a reckless one, who, with the 
 Gospels in his hand, can fail to see and con less 
 that in Christ our humanity finds its complete- 
 ness and crown. That is a distempered fancy, 
 which dreams of going beyond and improving 
 upon this model of all excellence. No man, 
 with a decent regard for truth, has ventured to 
 say that He does not hold a very lofty place. 
 Even the followers of Mohammed allow this. 
 And few, if any, will be found to deny that it 
 would be an infinite advantage if the world 
 generally could be brought up to this high 
 
104 GRANDEUR OF ITS MISSION. 
 
 standard, an immense advantage to any com- 
 munity which can be named, however select, 
 enlightened, advanced. And, without a ques- 
 tion, it will be discovered that any who think 
 they are going beyond are really falling be- 
 hind. This is just what man needs, — no less, 
 no more, — to reach the measure of the stature 
 of the fulness of Christ. And if this is the 
 point of perfection, then it must be a good 
 thing, the best thing practicable, to be pressing 
 ourselves and drawing others, with all our 
 might, toward it. What we do at any partic- 
 ular time is to be estimated with reference to 
 the completeness toward which it is reaching. 
 And it is matter for devout thankfulness and 
 rejoicing, that He who hath begun a good work 
 in us or others will carry it on unto perfection. 
 There is no reason to fear that we shall lose 
 our labor, when it is expended upon new-born 
 souls. The earlier parts of the work are not 
 less essential than the later, which may seem 
 more excellent. He that soweth and he that 
 reapeth may rejoice together. 
 
 Individual perfection, great and desirable as 
 
GRANDEUR OF ITS MISSION. 105 
 
 it is, cannot show all the strength and beauty 
 of gospel work. This takes account of man as 
 a social being, and aims not only to make him 
 worthy of his place in the family, in society, 
 in the church, and in the state, but also to 
 make all these worthy of him. And, obviously, 
 in proportion as individuals are perfected, the 
 associations of them, whether larger or smaller, 
 will become so also. But organizations, how- 
 ever faultless in theory, will be imperfect in 
 practice, while the individuals composing them 
 are imperfect. The true method of securing 
 the completeness of society, in all its forms, or 
 that upon which the chief reliance should be 
 placed, is by pressing individuals closer and 
 closer to the great standard of righteousness. 
 When there is no wrong in individuals, there 
 can be none in society. And when the pre- 
 ponderance in any association or community is 
 decidedly in favor of the righteous, it will be 
 an easv thing to bring institutions, customs, 
 and laws, to the most desirable form, and 
 work them with the requisite efficiency. And, 
 indeed, we might almost say that in this condi- 
 
106 GRANDEUR OF ITS MISSION. 
 
 tion of the body, — domestic, social, or politic, 
 — these things will regulate themselves, so 
 spontaneous and powerful will be the general 
 impulse to shape, preserve, and use them, 
 according to the rights and needs of all parties 
 in interest. 
 
 But the perfected man and perfected society, 
 as they are or may be seen upon this earthly 
 theatre of action, disclose only the beginning 
 of the grand result at which the gospel aims. 
 These are introductory : the great life, the 
 great joys, belong to the future, the eternal 
 state. This is the crowning glory of gospel 
 work, that it is for ever. The choicest works 
 of human genius, which are of the earth earthy, 
 must in time feel the touch of decay ; must, at 
 least, share in the destructive changes to which 
 the earth itself is reserved. But this work of 
 grace, wrought in deathless souls, will change 
 only from glory to glory. The risen body, 
 incorruptible and immortal, joined with the 
 glorified spirit, sinless and raised above every 
 weakness, these in exact harmony, and in the 
 presence of God and the Lamb ! — what higher, 
 
GRANDEUR OF ITS MISSION. 107 
 
 what better, what fuller, can there be than this? 
 What more is there to contemplate or receive, 
 except the multiplying of the numbers by whom 
 this fulness is enjoyed? 
 
 And this idea of numbers brings us to the 
 remaining thought named, as indicating the 
 true character and grandeur of the gospel 
 work. A scheme so high in its origin, so 
 peculiar and wonderful in its development, so 
 noble in its purpose, so rich in its provisions, 
 so genial in its spirit, so attractive in its forces, 
 and so benignant in its operation, must be fitted, 
 and, we should say, also designed, for a preva- 
 lence in proportion to its excellence. And if 
 we ask the great Author concerning His pur- 
 pose, He declares to us that "the field is the 
 world," and the day of its power is until the end 
 of the world. He solemnly charges us to "go 
 into all the world, and preach the gospel to every 
 creature." There is no place for halting, until 
 the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the 
 Lord. We are not allowed to overlook either 
 the near or the remote. The first apostles, 
 whose commission covered all nations, must 
 
IOS GRANDEUR OF ITS MISSION. 
 
 » 
 begin at Jerusalem. Those who had high 
 thoughts of the kingdom must not despise any 
 little one. In this comprehensiveness of design, 
 the gospel is like the creating wisdom of God. 
 The little insect — too small for our unaided 
 vision, too feeble for our care — has received 
 from the divine Hand as perfect a finish, and 
 from the divine resources as perfect a provision, 
 as ourselves, or as an)' brightest orb or angel 
 in the heights of heaven. The gospel is for 
 man, in a very important sense for man only ; 
 but it is for universal man. And the business 
 of those called into the vineyard of the Lord is 
 to give free course to the gospel in all lands, 
 as quickly as possible, by all the facilities at 
 their command for so high and spiritual a pur- 
 pose. In Christian communities, in a large 
 number of Christian families, new subjects are 
 coming forward to be moulded by its spirit, or 
 to £0 out and wield their influence against it. 
 In the church itself are some to be reclaimed 
 from their wanderings, many to be urged 
 onward and upward to higher attainments in 
 grace, and nobler achievements for Christ. 
 
GRANDEUR OF ITS MISSION. 109 
 
 Some have a name to live, and lo ! they are 
 dead. To these, of whatever name, — Greek, 
 Roman, Armenian, or Nestorian, — the gospel 
 is to be brought as a quickening power. And 
 in the regions beyond, millions rise upon mil- 
 lions, who have not yet heard the precious 
 Name. They have their own religions, but in 
 them is but little to guide, purify, or comfort, 
 nothing to save, their souls. They are wedded 
 to their superstitions, and may think themselves 
 wiser than those who come to show them the 
 way of life. 
 
 And some there are, who w r ould leave them 
 under their delusions, because, in their view, 
 these, if not the best things, are at least well 
 enough for them. They even account it a 
 reproach to Christianity, that it aims to super- 
 sede all these, because, as it alleges, they can- 
 not save the soul. They esteem it intolerance 
 in the advocates of the gospel, if not also in its 
 Author, that they allow no other foundation for 
 human hope. Nothing is plainer than this, 
 that Christ, in His own apprehension, came 
 not to be a king among kings, a lord among 
 
HO GRANDEUR OF ITS MISSION. 
 
 lords, but the Kin£ of kin^s and Lord of lords. 
 There is a sense in which the gospel is uncom- 
 promising, full as it is of all sweetest tenderness 
 and gentle charities. It claims the whole world, 
 because it is the word of the one only, the liv- 
 ing, and the true God, to the creatures whom 
 He alone has made, and whom alone His only 
 Son can redeem. It claims the whole world, 
 because it speaks in the name of the one great 
 Sovereign of the world. Christ claims the faith 
 and obedience of all men, because He came 
 down from heaven, and gave Himself a ransom 
 for all. 
 
 Lords many and gods many there may be 
 in the faiths of fallen men, and these may have 
 their rivalries, but He who made the heavens 
 and the earth acknowledges none of them. 
 Knowing that there is no God except Himself, 
 it is His right to require that men shall not 
 acknowledge any other. Christ, the only real 
 incarnation of God, may justly claim the hom- 
 age of all for whom He became flesh, and for 
 whom in the flesh He laid down His life. To 
 do otherwise would be to deny Himself, to 
 
GRANDEUR OF ITS MISSION. Ill 
 
 bring Himself down to a level with the cre- 
 ations of men. While He rejects nothing that 
 is true and good in the teachings of any man, 
 He claims to be "the Way, the Truth, and the 
 Life." 
 
 Confucius, Gautama, Zoroaster, Moham- 
 med, and many others revered by multitudes 
 as sources of divine knowledge, taught much 
 truth ; but not one of them is a Saviour, not one 
 of them is King of truth. When the gospel 
 comes to their adherents, it does not require 
 them to renounce any true doctrine, or abandon 
 any right practice. And yet, without a ques- 
 tion, their systems of faith and worship as such 
 will be overturned by the gospel, wherever it 
 is received. And what harm, we may here 
 -inquire, if all these systems should give place to 
 the gospel? Are they doing such great things 
 for their adherents, that these would suffer loss 
 if they should be taken away, and Christianity 
 installed in their stead? This question may be 
 answered by asking two more. Where are 
 the nations to-day, that cling to any of these 
 systems, and yet are in advance of the great 
 
112 GRANDEUR OF ITS MISSION. 
 
 Christian nations, or that ever were in advance 
 of them, with respect to culture, character, 
 institutions, and the means for obtaining and 
 dispensing either the common comforts or the 
 choicest enjoyments of life? And what is the 
 character of the work wrought by the heralds 
 of the cross in our times among the adherents 
 of these systems, so far as they have been able 
 to prevail with them to receive the gospel ? 
 Have they not been lifted to a higher plane 
 of intelligence, civilization, morals, and enjoy- 
 ment? 
 
 But even if the objections, which some urge 
 against what they call the exclusiveness or 
 intolerance of Christianity, were valid, little 
 would be taken from the sublimity of the mis- 
 sion to which it calls its adherents. With 
 reason or without re: son, Christ summons His 
 followers to attempt the conversion of the world. 
 And they who truly believe in Him cannot set 
 any narrower limits to their commission. And 
 if they are true to their own faith, they will 
 throw themselves into this great undertaking. 
 And there is nothing so sublime in human 
 
GRANDEUR OF ITS MISSION. 1 13 
 
 action as this. It would be a grand scheme to 
 convert a single race, or some great empire 
 like that of China or Japan. But it is far 
 grander to embrace all races, all empires, all 
 tribes; all kindred, and all tongues. 
 
 But the bare naming of the countries and the 
 peoples, the survey of the vast area for which 
 the gospel is designed, does not convey any 
 thing like an adequate idea of the work to be 
 accomplished. It would be no very difficult 
 thing to raise an army of heralds, and send 
 them forth into all lands. It would be no 
 special burden for these heralds to deliver their 
 message, if the nations were only waiting to 
 receive them. But the way must be prepared. 
 A language unformed must be reduced to order ; 
 another, bristling all over with difficulties, must 
 be acquired, and when acquired, found defi- 
 cient in terms to state the cardinal truths of the 
 gospel ; prejudices must be removed, hostility 
 abated, hypocrisy circumvented, and all the 
 twistings and turnings of human perversity 
 followed and defeated. It is especially in this 
 variety, fulness, complexity, and obstinacy of 
 
 8 
 
114 GRANDEUR OF ITS MISSION. 
 
 the details, which confront the great enterprise, 
 that we see the loftiness of aim and purpose 
 which moved Him, who first undertook Him- 
 self and now summons us to such a service, 
 and which must move those who would enter 
 heartily and efficiently into it. He who gets 
 his eye fairly upon this work, and his heart 
 and hands fully in it, will not be in want of a 
 mission to engross his sympathies or employ 
 his energies. He will not ask for any thing 
 greater, but only for wisdom, grace, and 
 strength, to make full proof of his ministry. 
 The names of Alexander and Caesar will be 
 kept, not only in the knowledge, but also in the 
 admiration of multitudes, perhaps as long as 
 the world shall stand, because in their daring 
 ambition they conquered the world. But the 
 glory of the Macedonian and of the Roman is 
 a poor and hollow thing in comparison with 
 that which shall accrue to the Captain of our 
 salvation, when great voices in heaven shall 
 proclaim that "the kingdoms of this world are 
 become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of his 
 Christ ; and he shall reign for ever and ever." 
 
GRANDEUR OF ITS MISSION. 1 15 
 
 And in that glory shall every man have a 
 share, if only he has been a faithful helper 
 unto the kingdom of God. The service is one, 
 in whatever age, country, or sphere performed. 
 The poor widow, who cast her two mites into 
 the treasury of the Lord, will have a part in 
 the honor of the final triumph as surely as 
 that great apostle, who, from Jerusalem round 
 about unto Illyricum, fully preached the gospel 
 of Christ. There is no right and worthy thing 
 to be done, which may not be made a part of 
 this service. Every man in his own calling, 
 in his own place and business, provided they 
 are such as God can approve, may bear a part 
 in pressing forward the standards of the con- 
 quering host. 
 
 And this is a thing of the greatest moment. 
 If nothing could be done in this great enter- 
 prise except in particular lines of effort, — like 
 making a pilgrimage, or preaching the word 
 in the way of set and official discourse, — only 
 a few could have a part in it. The necessities 
 of life bind most to other kinds of service. 
 Christ is not unmindful of these necessities. 
 
n6 
 
 GRANDEUR OF ITS MISSION. 
 
 His regard for them is evinced by that saying, 
 ''The sabbath was made for man, not man for 
 the sabbath." Some parts of human care and 
 toil seem to have little dignity or use, as com- 
 pared with others ; but we should remember 
 that what is feeble may be even more necessary. 
 Great trusts are few, and but few are called to 
 meet them. Little things are many, and to the 
 many it is given to do them. If one desires 
 the office of a bishop, he desires a good work. 
 But one may also receive the reward of a good 
 and faithful servant, if, whatever little things he 
 is called to do, he does them heartily as unto 
 the Lord. Every kind of lawful and useful 
 business should be regarded and followed as a 
 divinely appointed stewardship. 
 
 The fault of many is not in what they do, 
 but in doing it for themselves outside of the 
 vineyard of the Lord. We can do the most 
 common things out of respect to the will of 
 God, and with the abiding purpose to honor 
 Him. We can hold our time, our plans, our 
 activities, our pleasures, and our gains, at 
 God's bidding and disposal. So doing, we 
 
GRANDEUR OF ITS MISSION. 1 17 
 
 shall be in His service, let our calling be what 
 it may. To suffer for Christ's sake belongs 
 also to this comprehensive service. And in 
 the grand economy of grace, perhaps, none 
 can so ill be spared as those who suffer for 
 Him. The finer and more difficult parts of 
 the work are given to them. And those who 
 are too poor to give, too weak to labor, and so 
 mercifully cared for that they need not suffer, 
 may with their praying breath help on the 
 great endeavor. With a look of sympathy, 
 and a word of supplication and of benediction, 
 the dying may hallow it and give it impulse. 
 And if one has genius to devise and strength 
 to execute great things, he will find room in 
 this service for the best he can think or say or 
 do. The difficulty of explaining and applying 
 the word of God so as to reach the minds and 
 hearts of young and old, of them that are near 
 and them afar off, of defending the faith against 
 the assaults of impiety and unbelief, of project- 
 ing and working necessary agencies for the 
 relief of suffering and the supply of want, will 
 so tax his wisdom and his endurance, that he 
 
Il8 GRANDEUR OF ITS MISSION. 
 
 will be constrained to say, "Who is sufficient 
 for these things ? " Entering fully into the 
 work of Christ, he will find it broad and deep 
 and high enough for all the wisdom of men, 
 taught and strengthened by the wisdom of 
 God. 
 
CONCLUSION. 119 
 
 XL 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 COME claiming to be the most advanced 
 thinkers of this age do not scruple to set 
 aside the gospel as effete, or of less importance 
 than the speculations and discoveries of their 
 fertile minds. This assumption should lead all 
 true believers to contend more earnestly for the 
 faith once delivered to the saints. We will not 
 disparage their persons or their acquisitions. 
 But when Henry Buckle tells us, that "it 
 may well be, that in the march of ages eveiy 
 definite and written creed now existing is to die 
 out, and to be succeeded by better ones," our 
 answer is, or would be, had he not already 
 proved its truth in part, "All flesh is grass, 
 and all the goodliness thereof is as the flower 
 of the field. . . . The grass withereth, the 
 
120 CONCLUSION. 
 
 flower fadeth : but the word of our God shall 
 stand for ever." When John Stuart Mill says 
 to us : "Many essential elements of the highest 
 morality are not provided for, nor intended to 
 be provided for, in the recorded deliverances 
 of the Founder of Christianity. ... I think it a 
 great error to persist in attempting to find in 
 the Christian doctrine that complete rule for 
 our guidance, which its Author intended to 
 enforce, but only partially to provide," our 
 answer is : " The law of the Lord is perfect, 
 converting the soul : the testimony of the Lord 
 is sure, making wise the simple." "Though 
 we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other 
 gospel unto you than that which we have 
 preached unto you, let him be accursed." 
 When E. L. Youmans teaches us that "it is 
 now established that the dependence of thought 
 upon organic conditions is so intimate and ab- 
 solute, that they can no longer be considered 
 except as unity," we confront him with the 
 words of the Royal Preacher : "Then shall the 
 dust return to the earth as it was : and the 
 spirit shall return unto God who gave it." 
 
CONCLUSION. 121 
 
 And when he further affirms : " The full-orbed 
 intellect is yet to come, and will doubtless 
 bring with it the perpetual motion and the 
 Jews' Messias," we tell him that "grace and 
 truth came by Jesus Christ ; " that " God hath 
 in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, 
 . . . the brightness of his glory, and the express 
 image of his person." 
 
 These men, and others like them, speaking in 
 the name of History, Philosophy, and Science, 
 have power to mislead many who have not 
 known by experience the grace of our Lord 
 Jesus Christ, and to unsettle the faith of some 
 who have believed. Of all such, in so far as 
 they make war upon Christianity, must we be 
 able to say to those imperilled by their show 
 of superior wisdom : w To whom we gave place 
 by subjection, no, not for an hour ; that the 
 truth of the gospel may continue with you." 
 Bold as is the tone of modern Unbelief, we have 
 no occasion to be disquieted for the ark of God. 
 The power of the Cross is mighty, our enemies 
 themselves being judges. Lecky, in his lau- 
 dation of Rationalism, makes this admission : 
 
122 CONCLUSION. 
 
 " When we look back to the cheerful alacrity 
 with which, in some former ages, men sacri- 
 ficed all their material and intellectual interests 
 to what they believed to be right, and when we 
 realize the unclouded assurance that was their 
 reward, it is impossible to deny that we have 
 lost something in our progress." Guizot tells 
 us of an intelligent and distinguished disciple 
 of Voltaire, who said to him : " It is not on my 
 own account that I regret these attacks, but I 
 ask for regularity and peace in my own house- 
 hold ; I felicitate myself that my wife is a 
 Christian, and I mean my daughters to be 
 brought up like Christian women. These de- 
 molishers know not what they are doing ; it is 
 not merely upon our churches, it is upon our 
 houses and their inmates, that their blows are 
 telling ! " And the philosopher Diderot is re- 
 ported to have said to his associates, at the 
 house of Baron d'Holbach : " In spite of all the 
 evil we have spoken, and doubtless with reason 
 enough, of this book, I defy you, witli all your 
 power, to compose a narrative which shall be 
 as simple, but at the same time as sublime and 
 
CONCLUSION. 123 
 
 as touching, as the recital of the passion and 
 death of Jesus Christ ; which shall produce the 
 same effect, and make so strong a sensation, felt 
 so generally by all, and the influence of which 
 shall continue the same after so many ages." 
 Astonishment and silence were the fit, the 
 impressive, and the only answer. 
 
 Cambridge : Stereotyped and Printed by John Wilson and Son.