"KEITN VERTRAUTERE GABE VERMAG DER MENSOI[
ANZUBIETEN ALS WAS ER I]I INNERSTEN DES GEMUTEHES.
GEREDET HAT."
Schleiermacher.
BOSTON:
WALKER, FULLER, AND COMPANY
245, WASHIN;GTON STREE.
1865.
I
i
\
. 
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1865, by
WALKER, FULLER, AND COMPANY,
In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts.
SECOND EDITION.
BOSTON:
STEREOTYPED AND PRINTED BY JOHN WILSON AND SON,
No. 15, Water Street.
I. 
C O N T E N T S.
INTRODUCTORY.
CHAPTER.
I. BErG AND SEEIG...........
II. "NATURAL AND SPIRITUAL"........
w 
RELIGION WITHIN THE BOUNDS OF THEISM.
THE RETREATING GOD.
THE ADVANCING GOD 
TiE REGENT GOD..
THE ANSWERING GOD~
THE EXORABLE GOD.
THE OLD ENIGMA..
THE OLD DISCORD.4
TiE OLD FEAR...
THE OLD HOPE....
FREEDOM IN BONDS..
[iii]'
PAGE.
3
21
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CHAPTEF
L.
M:.
III"
IV.
V.
VI.
VII.
VIII.
IX.
X.
PAGE.
35
53
* - ~ - ~....
* i
)
......... 71
........... 85
.......... 99
......... 113'
...........  129
......... 145 
CONTENTS.
ah   Strnb,
RATIONAL CHRISTIANITY.
PRELIMINARY. - THE  CAUSE  OF REASON  THE
CAUSE OF FAITH...........  197
I. CULMINATION OF PERSONALITY IN THE CHRIST
OF THE CHURCH...........       227
IL LIMITATION OF PERSONALITY IN THE CHRIST OF
REASON.................
MIRACLES................
THE REVELATION OF THE SPIRIT......
THE SPIRIT IN THE LETTER........
SAVING FAITH..................
THE AGE OF GRACE; OR, ATONEMENT WITHOUT
EXPIATION..............
THE "DOUBLE PREDESTINATION ".......      3
THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF IMMORTALITY....
CRITIQUE OF PENAL THEOLOGY.......
TiX m Two TYPES.............
THE MORAL IDEAL...........
iv
CHAPTEIL
PAGE.
247
263
283
301
317
M.
IV.
V.
VI.
VU.
333
349
369
387
421
441
VHI.
IX.
X.
XL
XII.
0
A* 
REASON IN RELIGION.
I.
BEING AND SEEING.
I
I
t,
I
i
~~ntrobrurf -ax U~~.  
INTRODUCTORY.
I.
BEING AND SEEING.
PIILOSOPHY has observed that human consciousness is
most distinct on the surface of life, and grows dim and
confused as it reaches toward the interior. The reason
alleged is, that individuality, the subject of consciousness, is merely phenomenal; and that, where the phenomenal ceases, individual existence is merged in the
universal life.
The fact is certain, the explanation questionable. I
rather believe that individuality is real and radical,
and that the limitation of consciousness on the inner
side is due to the fact, that consciousness depends on
external impressions: its condition is re-action on a
world without;'it is the differentiation of self from all
beside, and therefore loses its distinctness in proportion as all beside is withdrawn; that is, toward the
interior of our being.
There is, in all men, something deeper than themselves, -than the conscious self of their experience.
It is the elder, aboriginal self, which no consciousness
can grasp. Who remembers the time when first he
[3]
0
11,
.,
I 
INTRODUCTORY.
began to say "I," and found himself a conscious unit,
distinct from all others? If we attempt to trace the
history of the soul, its beginning is lost in a period of
blank unconsciousness, beyond all scrutiny of memory
or imagination. Blind mystery envelops our origin,
as it does our end.  No  man quite possesses himself.
The self which he seems to possess is growth from a
root which bears him, not he it.
Springing from this unknown root, our being carries
an unknown factor which modifies all its action. Our
thinking, as well as our doing, obeys its influence. It
is written, "As a man thinketh, so is he." We may
reverse the proposition, and say with equal truth, " As
a man is, so he thinketh." His thinking is the product
of his being; consequently, the gauge and exponent of
his being. It is his being translated into thought,his being intellectually expressed. According as he is
wise or foolish, his opinions will be true or false: they
will be right or wrong according as he is good or
evil.
The character in religion determines the creed.
Character has been defined "the educated will." But
the will-the conscious, personal will-is not the
only factor in this product: there is something in it of
the radical self. And something of the radical self
there is in every creed which is genuine, and not mere
subscription to the placita of a Church.   The true
creed of a man is his character confessed.
Or does any one suppose that belief is independent
of character?- that a man can be one thing, and think
another? We sometimes talk as if truth were a secre
0
4 
BEING AND SEEING.
tion of the brain, entirely unaffected by moral condi   tions; as if one could lay hold of spiritual truth, without
spiritual insight, by mere dint of logic: or as if spir   itual insight were the product of some organic arrange   ment, mechanical in its operation, and quite as likely
to go right with a vicious character as with a righteous
one; just as a watch may keep equally good time
whether worn by a sinner or a saint.
This I believe to be a very false view of the action
of the mind in this relation.  The intellect is nothing
distinct from man.   It is man himself in one of his
functions.  As the man, so the function, so the product
of that function. As he is, so he thinketh.
I say nothing of positive science. I do not deny
that one who is morally depraved may be a good
mathematician or a  good physiologist.   These  are
regions of truth beyond the jurisdiction of religion, and
independent of moral conditions; excepting always the
general influence which character has on all the action
of the mind. I am speaking of truth in morals and
religion, when I say that the character determines the
belief.  Truth of spirit is essential to the right appre   hension of spiritual truth. To know the truth, it is
necessary to will the truth, and to be the truth.
This connection between being and seeing implies
two things:  1st, A  perverted nature cannot see the
truth; 2d, A (morally) sound nature, seeking without
bias, will see the truth.
1st, A perverted nature cannot see the truth. A
man must be in harmony with it by moral and spiritual
affinity, in order to apprehend it. There are facts which
seem to contradict this proposition. It is notorious,
5 
INTRODUCTORY.
that very depraved men sometimes profess a very pure
theology; at least, a very Orthodox one: whereas, according to this view, they ought to be infidels and
atheists. I leave out of question the hypocrisy which
consciously and deliberately assumes the disguise of
religion to lull suspicion or to palliate crime.   Such
characters are not very common in our day, and are
wholly foreign from our theme. I speak of bad men
who actually receive, or think they receive, the religion
they profess.
But, observe, there is a wide difference between reception and conviction. Various degrees of persuasion
are comprehended in the term " belief." Most of them
stop short of genuine conviction.   In fact, there are
few, the world over, who can be said to have positive
convictions in religion, if we understand by convictions
the results of personal investigation or personal intuition. The religious tenets of most men are accidents;
that is, they are impressions derived from the ecclesiastical atmosphere in which the holders of them happen
to live.  Or they are social conventions, adopted unconsciously, as it were by contagion.   Or they are
traditions inherited by education. A man is said to
believe" a doctrine imbibed in this way, although he
has never come into real mental contact with it, - has
never subjected it to the action of his own mind,
has never looked it fairly in the face. He is said to
believe what he has never questioned.   The fact is
precisely the reverse. A man can never truly believe
what he has not at some time questioned.  In this
sense of unquestioning reception, a very depraved man
may hold very Orthodox opinions. Nay, the more de
6 
BEING AND SEEING.
praved he is, the more tenacious of such opinions he is
likely to be; the more zealous in defence of the Orthodoxy in which he was bred; the more disposed to annex
to it an outlying Orthodoxy exceeding that in which he
was bred, and to clothe himself in extra folds of rigorous doctrine; actuated, it would seem, by the notion
that a rigorous creed atones for a vicious life. For the
Protestant world inherits from the Church of Rome
the idea, that God is pleased with Orthodoxy, and that
every article which a man adds to his creed, so it have
the sanction of the Church, is a step toward heaven.
It is nothing uncommon for very unscrupulous people -tradesmen of doubtfu4 integrity, intriguing politicians, unprincipled men in public life and in private
to maintain with earnestness a stringent Orthodoxy.
Not from hypocrisy, not with any intent to deceive;
but partly in the hope of being justified by their belief,
and partly in order to atone to themselves for conscious
depravity.. They would balance laxity in practice with
severity in doctrine, and thus maintain a moral equilibrium in their life. It is the same principle which led
the gay women of the court of Louis XIV. to become
devotees with advancing years; putting on "the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit" as outward charms
decayed, and replacing the varnished attractions of
personal beauty with the still available "beauty of holiness." It is the same principle which leads worldly
mnen and women, in later time, to seek refuge in the
bosom of Romanism and to expiate a reckless life by 
religious austerity.
In such cases, there is no genuine conviction; no
true interior knowledge, but mere profession. It may
7 
DODUCTORY.
be sincere, so far as intention goes, but based on no
actual personal experience of the truth.   Only they
have sight of spiritual verities, who arrive at them
through spiritual experience. Only the true soul can
know the truth.
2d, A sound nature, seeking without bias, will see
the truth.
Here, again, we encounter a fact which seems to
contradict the supposed connection between the intellectual and the moral in man, between character and
creed.   There are cases of men  of pure character
and blameless life, who hae been infidels in religion.
If it be true that the character determines the belief, it
would seem that every pure and honest mind must
receive, if not the doctrine of the gospel, at least the
essential truths of universal religion; and that all who
reject these must be morally depraved. But such is
not the fact. At least, there are many and significant
exceptions. Epicurus, the arch-atheist of antiquity, is
said to have lived a blameless and beneficent life at the
head of a company of friends who professed to seek
private satisfaction as the sure and only good. Spinoza,
who is usually regarded as the arch-atheist of modern
time, is allowed by his bitter opponent, the unscrupulous Bayle, to have been upright, kind, and strictly
moral; which, says he, "may seem strange, but, in
reality, ought not to surprise us any more than that
men who believe in the truth of the gospel should lead
an irregular life."  Hume,  the inveterate sceptic of
English philosophy; is characterized by Adam Smith an
generous, charitable, and urbane.  Shelley, the zealot
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BEING AND SEEING.
antagonist of Christian Orthodoxy, seems to have been
possessed with the purest spirit of Christian love.  HIow
shall we explain such cases, in which it would appear
that pure minds and sound natures had no perception
of the truth?
It must be remembered, that what we know of these
men, for the most part, is not their belief, but their
negations.  We see that they reject the established religion as a whole: we do not always see what equivalent they received in its place. But we know, from the
nature of the human mind, that some equivalent they
must have had; some secret convictions; some spiritual
insight; something in the nature of religious faith,
however imperfect and ill-defined. For man is not so
constituted as to do without faith. These unbelievers
have been repelled by some apparent absurdity, or
some revolting impiety, in the popular creed. In warring against that, by a natural tendency of the human
mind, they have been led to reject the entire system of
religious belief of which it seemed to be a necessary
part.  Or perhaps it is the form in which the popular
conception, or a false philosophy, has clothed the doctrines of religion, that they reject; and, rejecting that,
they appear to reject the essential truth so embodied.
Be this as it may, where the life is pure it is so through
belief, and not through unbelief; through the influence
of truth, and not through falsity or error. If the life of
these unbelievers was true, some true perception must
have sprung from it, some religious conviction must~
have accompanied it.  Is there a reputed atheist whose
heart is true and whose life is righteous?  I say that
man believes in God, in a spiritual centre, however his
9 
INTRODUCTORY.
conception of divine wisdom and love may differ from
the popular conception, or the theological dogma which
bears that name. He believes in a moral law, and a
necessary and everlasting distinction between right and
wrong, however his standard of moral obligation may
clash, in some particulars, with the commonly received
ecclesiastical code. IHe believes in an Infinite Good,
in eternal spiritual realities, however he may dissent
from the popular view of the life to come.
IHear the confession of one who was counted an
atheist in his time, and is still so regarded by most
~theologians: "Experience had taught me," says Spinoza,
"that all which life commonly offers is worthless and
vain. I therefore determined to know if there were
any genuine good which might be attained, and with
which the soul, abandoning every thing else, might be
content; the discovery and appropriation of which
would yield a continual and supreme satisfaction.
That which mankind, if we judge from their actions,
regard as the highest good, is either wealth, honor, or
sensual enjoyment. The pleasure derived from these is
delusive, and only an infinite and everlasting good can
impart pure joy to the soul. Therefore I resolved to
collect myself, that I might lay hold of this supreme
good."  And what was the supreme good in his appre hension?  "The supreme good," he continues, "con sists in becoming partaker of a more excellent nature,
and in realizing the intimate relation which connects the
individual soul with the universe of things."
And so this remarkable man, a Jew by birth, but
excommunicated from the Jewish synagogue for his
opinions, lived a life of strict seclusion, devoting him
10 
BEING AND SEEING.
self to meditation and inquiry concerning the deepest
mysteryof things, refusing lucrative offices which were
tendered to him, and maintaining his frugal existence
by mechanical labor.
Thus we see that the nominal unbeliever may cherish
in his heart a sublime faith which explains the moral
anomaly of his life. But we deceive ourselves, if we
suppose that such cases are frequent; and that even
this negative purity of life (for usually it amounts to
nothing more) is a common accompaniment of what is
called infidelity. Such combinations are exceptions,
not the rule.  If we search for the saints of history,
for the moral heroes, the men and the women who stand
pre-eminent in moral excellence, choice examples of
heroic virtue, - we find them, not in the ranks of unbelief, but among the disciples and among the confessors
of a given religion.
If speculative unbelief is sometimes associated with
purity of life, practical unbelief, on the other hand,
is inseparably connected with moral corruption. By
practical unbelief, I mean inward aversion; alienation
of the heart from spiritual truths which, however, may
not be contradicted by the understanding, and which
are outwardly acknowledged by formal compliance with
the uses of the Church. I have spoken of depraved
men who seek to atone for their vices by their Orthodoxy. There are men who are not depraved in
that sense of the term; who are guilty of no misdemeanors; whose life is regular, their manners irreproachable; but whose hearts are selfish and filled
with vicious affections, -  envy, hatred, and lust; -
there are such, I say, who formally assent to the
11 
INTRODUCTORY.
truths of religion; who never entertained a speculative
doubt; who never dreamed of questioning the creed of
their communion; who deem such questioning impious,
and burn with righteous indignation against all who so
question, all so-called infidels; but who no more believe in that creed with a genuine appreciative faith
than they believe in Brahmanism. Their theological
creed is one thing; their practical belief, another and a
very different thing.  Ecclesiastically, they subscribe
to the Athanasian Creed, or the Apostles' Creed, or the
Thirty-nine Articles, or the Westminster Catechism;
but, if they would confess the secret conviction of their
hearts, their creed would be, "I believe in ong supreme
and all-sufficient good, -the good of riches, the good
of honor, the good of enjoyment.   These three are
one good; the same in substance, equal in value
and satisfaction. I believe that the chief end of man
is to get gain and lay up much good for many
years. I believe that religion is the necessary safeguard of life and property, and must be maintained
with strict conformity and punctual observance.   I
believe in success. I believe in respectability. I believe that the respectable are the children of God and
shall inherit the kingdom prepared for them from the
foundation of the world; but the needy and the vagabond, the profane rabble, shall be cast into outer darkness, where there is wailing and gnashing of teeth."
It is commonly supposed, that the understanding is
competent, in and of itself, with no aid but its own
inductions, and no method but its own law, to discover
and establish the truths of religion. This supposition
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BEING AND SEEING.
is contradicted by the history both of science and religion. The understanding possesses no such capacity;
otherwise, the truths of religion would long since have
ceased to be matters of debate.  What the understanding is competent to decide, it does decide beyond the
possibility of question. If by its own methods, in its
own right, it could decide these questions, there would
be no more difference of opinion concerning them than
there is concerning the properties of a circle or a triangle.   There are no open questions in mathematics.
There is but one theory in astronomy, in mechanics, in
any department of inquiry of which the understanding
is an adequate judge. Accordingly, recent philosophers
have excluded from their survey of human knowledge
all ideas of God and spirit, -whatever transcends the
facts of sense and the methods of the understanding, as
without the pale of legitimate inquiry.   To all the
revelations of faith and feeling they oppose their socalled " positive philosophy."
The truths of religion are not discovered by the
understanding: they are not laid hold of by scientific
inquiry. The understanding has no God, no spiritual
high calling, no immortal destination. Whoever would
know of these things must arrive at them by a different
way: he must follow the dictates of faith; he must
obey the law written in the heart; he must live in them
and for them. To the mere understanding, the world
is as intelligible and as satisfactory without a God as
with one. If the only use of belief in a God were to
furnish a theory of the material universe, to account for
the origin of things, - by means of a "First Cause"
and a supermundane, creative Power to aid the under
13 
INTRODUCTORY.
standing in the solution of its problems, -humanity
could do without this idea, which, after all, does not
solve the problem of existence to the intellect, but only
replaces it by a new one, and gives us, instead of an
inexplicable world, a more inexplicable God. If the
understanding were the only or principal source and
organ of truth, mankind would have lived to this day
without God in the world, and would never have felt
the want of the Being whom we so name; would never
have felt the inadequacy of a world without a God.
But there are other faculties and functions in man;
other sources of perception and conviction than the
understanding; and other necessities and cravings than
those which the understanding can supply. There are
moral and spiritual sentiments and aspirations, -the
sense of duty, of moral obligation and accountableness;
the longing of the soul for an infinite good; the ltyalty
of the affections to an invisible Supreme; faith, devotionI, hope. These demand a God and providence and
grace, a spiritual world, and everlasting life.
The greatest philosopher of the last century employed the penetrating analysis of the keenest powers
that ever dealt with metaphysical problems, in a critical
examination of human ideas and belief, with a view to
ascertain what portion of our supposed knowledge could
be absolutely legitimated by scientific demonstration.
Hle could find no logical foundation, no critical authority, for those ideas with which religion is conversant,the sublimest convictions of the human mind, - God,
infinity, eternity. And he wrote a book, in which he
denied to these ideas any basis in pure reason, any
scientific value. But our philosopher was too wise not
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BEING AND SEEING.
to perceive, that convictions so deeply rooted, so universally diffused, so inseparable from human nature, could
not be mere illusions, but must have some other basis
besides tradition and popular prejudice. He saw that
man needed a God, and he saw that the need implied
the reality.   He  therefore applied his analysis next
to the moral and practical part of man's nature; and he
found the ideas of God and eternity to be legitimate
inductions of the moral sense, truths logically resulting
from the feeling of moral obligation,- the law written
in the heart. That law, he concluded, must have a
lawgiver; that obligation, a sanction; that consciousness, an object: there must be a God to answer these
conditions, to explain the facts of the soul. And he
wrote another book, affirming, as truths of practical
reason, what the speculative reason had denied.
That part of man's nature which science calls into
action is not the whole man.   Spiritually, intellectually
even, it is a very small part of us, and however respectable, however wonderful in its capacity, is comparatively limited and transient in its application. A
man may be very able and very eminent as a scientist,
immensely learned, astonishingly acute; and yet be a
poor creature tried by the true -criterion and highest
standard of humanity. He may be a mere child in
spiritual attainments and spiritual insight; a stranger to
all the deeper experiences of the soul; morally meagre,
lank, hungry, destitute. With great activity of brain,
there may be an utter want of interior life.
Far be it from me to undervalue the work of the
understanding, or to speak disparagingly of the scientific mind in its own legitimate province and function,
15
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i
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INTRODUCTORY.
or to cast contempt on scientific pursuits.  Who  can
help revering the power which possesses and rules this
world of ours like a second terrestrial god, -that power
to which Nature, in all her realms, is subject and
tributary; to which the deeps below and the deeps
above yield up their secrets; which makes to itself eyes,
that, transcending the limits of natural vision, discover
new worlds in the heavenly spaces, millions of miles
removed, or detect them near by, in a globule of water
or a grain of sand; - the speculative faculty which
methodizes the heavens with its unerring calculus, and
predicts the position of a planet in some far-removed
time;- the practical faculty which utilizes the waste of
Nature; which harnesses the idle vapor to the axle of a
carriage, or chains it to the oars of a ship, and traverses
earth and ocean by aid of this ethereal agent; which
converses with distant lands in electric whispers of
instantaneous communication; which disarms the surgeon's lancet of its terrors, and transmutes the agonies
of the flesh into tranquil dreams?  Who can help admiring these things and triumphing in these triumnphs?
Nevertheless, this power which spans the heavens
and subdues the earth has no interest or part in the
highest objects of human life and the noblest aspirations of the human soul. It has no experience and no
vision and no surmise of the real and eternal. The
devout heart is conscious of a higher calling and worthier aims than the scientific mind; and many an unlearned but faithful doer of God's will converses with
sublimer topics than  "star - eyed  science" has ever
scanned.   To science belongs the material universe,
with its heights and its deeps, its earths and its suns,
16 
BEING AND SEEING.
its stuffs and its shows.  Still, the material universe is
but a sprinkling of dust upon the spiritual All which
encloses it; at best, a transient vision, a temporary
showing of God to the finite mind.   It had a beginning, it will have an end; and the science which explores it must share with it its date and its doom. But
faith and duty have the spiritual and real, - absolute
Being, for their sphere and portion. The knowledge
which they acquire is not relative and accidental, but
essential and unchangeable; for, in it, Being and
Knowing are one.
2
17 
I 
II.
" NATURAL AND SPIRITUAL."  
II.
" NATURAL AND SPIRITUAL."
"There are not two worlds, but one and the same, embracing all, even
that which vulgar thought conceives as opposite,- Nature and Spirit."
SCHELLING.
THE popular religion is Manichean.  It is so not only
in its pneumatology, where it has the warrant of its
sacred books, but also in its ontology, where it has no
such warrant. It assumes, in the current antithesis of
Nature and Spirit, a duality of which its scripture
knows nothing.* The doctrine crept into the Church
from an extra Christian source, and belongs to another
system.   A distinction is recognized by philosophy,
ancient and modern, between soul and spirit.  The
soul is common to man with the brute; the spirit is
that which distinguishes him from other animals. This
distinction, in the hands of theologians, became oppugnance: a difference of degree became battle-array of
hostile forces.  Instead of "natural" and "supernatural,"
the two were conceived as natural and contranatural.
* St. Paul distinguishes between animal and spiritual, -r'b IPVtc6v and
' -brvevltamrtc6v.  Our version mproperly renders the former term "natural."
Hence the popular dualism. There is nothing of this dualism in the doctrine of Christ, who so penetrated what we call Nature with his spiritual
vision as to see only spirit there, and who was so domesticated in what we
call the spiritual world, that to himn,it was as natural as earth and sky.
[211 
INTRODUCGTORY.
NAture was put in antaoisnis  with spirit, that is, with
(]-)d; and St. Aug,ustine, wIho did more than any other
to mould the anthropology of the Christian Church,
and who never outgrew his Manichean antecedents,
taught that all which is good in man is contrary.to
nature, and that all which is natural in man is Satanic;
making the human a mere arena for the demonstration
of hellish and divine powers.
So ingrained in the language of religion is this dualism, that the popular theology i iineradicably infected,
the  popular  mind  irrecoverably bewildered,  by it.
Writers in defence of Christianity declare it to be
" against the grain of human nature," and fancy that
they exalt it by this declaration. What could infidel
say more damaging to the cause of Christian truth?
As a classification of the facts of life whereby one
class of phenomena and functions is distinguished from
another, the antithesis of natural and spiritual, although
inadequate, might pass as loose phraseology. But to
make of the rhletorical antithesis an ontological antagonism, to say that nature and spirit are mutually
oppugnant, is to put contradiction in the Godhead; or,
what is the same thing, to affirm two Gods.
What we mean by nature, when we speak of it as an
active power, is God. And "that which is natural,"vegetable and animal, day and night, summer and
winter, growth and decay, - are divine operations,
processes ordained and conducted by God. And, what
we mean by spirit, - is it not the same God? And
"that which is spiritual,"- truth and goodness, conversion, grace, - are these not also divine operations, processes, acts? Are they not also of the very God who
22 
" NATURAL AND SPIRITUAL."
made day and night, and the earth and the stars?
Further than this we cannot go.   We have no experience and no revelation which reaches behind the phenomena; no revelation other than that of the one Creator
and Spirit. We only know that all phenomena have
one origin at last; that the same all-present and allteeming Power works equally in the soul and in the
sod, is manifest, however diversely, in the life of a saint
and the life of a plant; that the God who makes grass
to grow in the field makes love and goodness to spring
in the heart; that the Father of spirits is the sparrow's
Father too, and the Father of the lilies of the field;
that the sovereign Will, which, in one of its aspects,
we term the law of gravitation, in another is the law
of duty which impels the Christian and the Christ.
Nature and spirit are not opposite, but one; related
to each other as genus and species, or as parts of one
whole; the same arch-power in different characters
and functions. It matters little how we theorize about
them, so long as we acknowledge in nature and spirit a
common fountain and a radical affinity thence arising.
VWe may call nature unconscious spirit, and spirit conscious nature; or we may regard them as parallel independent manifestations. However we may speculate,
the essential fact remains.   Both meet in one source;
both reflect one image.  All that is natural is spiritual
"in its ascent and cause;" all that is spiritual is natural
"in its descent and being.
If for "natural" we substitute "material," we have,
it might seem, a more legitimate antithesis.   But, even
then, the terms should be conceived as expressing
different stages of being, not contrary powers. Matter
23 
INTRODUCTORY.
is nature at rest; spirit is nature in action. Throughout nature, there is a tendency and an effort to become
spirit, a struggling-up into liberty and consciousness.
From shapeless masses to the salient crystal, the beginning of intelligible form; to the growing plant, the
beginning of organism; to the sentient animal, the first
revelation of conscious soul; to rational man, the highest
and last revelation of spirit;-the progress is still from
stage to stage of natural life.  We say of the plant, it
lives. Previous to that, through all the stages of the
mineral kingdom,-  earths, metals, jewels,    Nature
had slept. But now, with the plant, she awakes from
her torpor, and looks about her. From the dark bosom
of insensate matter emerges a soul. Intelligence looks
out from the full-blown flower; instinct shows itself in
the natural adaptation of the seed to the soil. With
the brute creation, nature attains a higher level,becomes more active and free. Deeper instincts, sensation, affection, begin to appear.   Then finally, in
man, the same nature appears as spirit: it becomes
reflective, self-conscious, moral. The sense of obligation, aspiration, reverence, charity, faith, devotion, are
its finished fruits.
In this progressive unfolding of itself from what we
call matter to what we call spirit, nature does not cease
to be nature as it rises and ripens. The flower is not
less natural than the earth from which it springs; the
animal, not less natural than the plant; and the perfect
man with all his aspirations and his virtues, the prophet, the saint, is not less natural, but more so, than
plant and brute; more natural because more developed
and complete.
24 
tNATURAL AND' SPIRITUAL."
And now, within the region of the human, what do
we mean, what can we mean, by the "natural" and the
spiritual" man?  I say, the natural and the spiritual
man are the same man int different manifestations and
stages of growth. They differ from each other as the
garden-plant differs from the same plant in its native
state. We say of fruits and flowers which derive their
character from the culture bestowed upon them and
without that culture could not be what they are, - we
say they are not natural but artificial products. In
one sense, we are right: they are not original nature.
And yet they are natural. For "nature is made better
by no means, but nature makes that means." The
very culture bestowed on flower and fruit is an operation of nature. In all that he does in the way of cultivation, man employs the aid of natural agents and
laws. Whatever he produces, therefore, is a product
of nature.   So, too, the spiritual- our virtue, our
religion -is, in this sense, a natural product. As the
plant is created a flower-and-fruit-bearing, creature, so
man is created a moral and religious creature: he has a
capacity of moral and religious life, as the plant has
a capacity of floral and pomal life. In'either case,
culture is required to bring out that capacity; and
whatever that culture produces is natural.   No measure
of holiness, no work  of grace,  can exceed nature.
Whatever height of goodness the saint may attain in
his upward progress, he can arrive at nothing of which
the germ and the promise were not laid in his' constitution.  He can arrive at nothing that is not natural.
This view does not overlook the immediate action of
Deity on the soul. It does rnot overlook or deny what
25 
INTRODUCTORY.
is technically called the operation of divine grace.
Whoever believes in God as a present, immanent,
diffusive Power, not as an isolated, incommunicable
individuality, will recognize a divine agency in those
influences which regenerate human nature, renewing
the selfish, earth-bound soul, and establishing the empire of truth and goodness in man)'s will and life.  All
such influences are God working in us to will and to
do. To question a divine agency in the education, or
in the conversion and renewing, of the human soul, is
to question a fact to which the consciousness of every
Christian man or woman will bear witness. But what
right have we to say that there is any thing unnatural
in this kind of influence, -  any thing which distinguishes
it from other divine operations, except the direction
which it takes, and the consequences in which it results?  What process or product of nature is there in
which the agency of the same God is not concerned?
Not to speak of great thiings, of suns and systems, and
the earth with its seasons, take the humblest product
of a summer's growth; take the berry by the wayside,
the clover in the field.   These creatures exhibit the
immediate action of God in every period and circumstance of their being.  The juices of the earth, the
beams of the sun, the summer showers which conspire
to unfold their little life, which round their bodies and
paint their cheeks and.put sweetness in all their cells,
- what are these but so many agencies and aspects
and acts of the universal Being who is equally present
and equally active and equally perfect in the clover and
the berry, and the soul of man?  If, then, Divinity is
required to call forth and perfect the produce of the
.26 
t NATURAL AND SPIRITUAL." 
field, which to-day is, and to-morrow passes away, how
much more is such agency required to unfold the moral
life which never dies?  We may call this agency in the
one case a process of nature; in the other, an operation
of the spirit: but these phrases do not alter the identity
of the agent. Because the effects are different, is it not
therefore the same God? " There are diversities of
operations; but it is the same God who worketh all in
all."
A process of nature is also a work of grace, and a
work of grace is also a process of nature.   We no
more degrade the agency in the one case by giving it
that name, than we exaggerate it in the other. What
but a miracle of grace is each returning spring, unlocking myriad doors of life, flooding the landscape with
glory and joy, everywhere bursting into flower and
song, evangelizing the new-born earth with summer
beauty and harvest hopes? The heart is not satisfied
with ascribing all this to the different position of the
sun in the ecliptic, and the action of cold mechanical
laws.   Piety sees here the immediate presence and
grace of God; and long ago, before the revelation in
Jesus Christ, had learned and sung the great truth,
" Thou sendest forth thy spirit; they are created: thou
renewest the face of the earth." And so, on the other
side of the antithesis, the purest manifestations of
divine grace do not disdain to exhibit themselves in
natural processes; and, even of him whose life was the
advent of grace and truth on the earth, it is written,
that " the child grew, and waxed strong in spirit," and
increased in wisdom and in stature, and in favor with
God and man."  The operation of God's spirit in the
27
16 
INTRODUCTO!'Y.
regeneration of a human heart but unfolds a life-germi
inborn in that heart, and is therefore a natural process,
as much so as the growth of an apple or an apple-tree.
The tree may never bear, and man's spiritual life may
never mature;  but there it is: there is the faculty,
there is the root. Whatever springs from that faculty
and that root is a natural product.
This view is something more than philosophic specu lation: it is theologically and practically important in
its bearings on human duty and destiny. If we say
that natural and spiritual are contrary and incompati ble, we affirm that religion is unnatural, contranatural;
that man must become denaturalized, must become
inhuman, before he can become religious, — before he
can lead a religious life. And this, I grieve to say, is
virtually the doctrine of a large portion of the Christian
world. The doctrine taught by Augustine, and revived
by Calvin, is, that human nature, as such, is adverse
to religion; that Christianity and human nature are
related to each other, not merely as root and fruit, or as
stock and graft, but as fire and water, or as heaven
and hell. Human nature, as such, according to this
doctrine, is incapable of holiness: nature must be
supplanted by grace. Until that revolution is accomplished, all that man does, however angelic in appearance, is sinful and devilish; and, after that change has
taken place, the righteousness that follows is no product
of human nature, but grace excluding human nature,
and acting in its stead.  All this has been inferred
from that saying of St. Paul,- or been thought to be
sanctioned by that saying, -  "The natural man receiveth not the things of the spirit of God." I cannot
..28
,-i 
' NATURAL AND SPIRITUAL.'
so interpret the apostle's language. For " natural" let
us say "animal;" and the real meaning will be found
to be this,- Man, as an animal, with only so much of
mental life developed in him as belongs to his sphere in
the animal scale, cannot receive the truths of the gospel: he cannot be a Christian. A further development
is needed for that. Even as animal, man develops a
certain degree of mental or spiritual life: he is capable
of society and civil government, but not of religion,
not of conscious communion with God, not of worshipping in spirit and truth. To attain that is the new
birth by which man becomes what Paul calls "spiritual," as distinguished from. animal. One is represented by Adam; the other, by Christ. But both are
one and the same man, - the same human nature in
different stages of development.   First that which is
animal; then that which is spiritual.
Human nature, as such, is not hostile to religion;
but a hostile principle, as we all know, may spring up
in it. There is a possible adversary in human nature
as well as a "Lord from heaven." In man, as we find
him, for the most part, there are opposite tendencies:
a principle of self and a principle of love; an upward
and a downward tendency.  But both of these tendencies are equally natural: the one is as proper to man as
the other. Both are constituent elements of humanity.
Man's calling is to subdue the one, and unfold the
other.
Here, then, is the true antagonism.'Not nature and
spirit are contrary, but the worldly (or carnal) and the
heavenly mind.   "The carnal mind," it is written, " is
enmity against God." Yet even here we have to dis
29 
INTRODUCTORY.
tinguish between the carnal mind in its proper essence,
and those to whom that mind may be ascribed, - be tween worldliness intrinsically considered, and worldly
men. It is my belief, that worldliness is seldom so
predominant as utterly to extinguish the moral and
religious life. The most worldly-minded have some
religious experiences; some aspirations, some gropings,
at least, sufficient to attest the fellowship of the Spirit,
though not sufficient to regenerate the life. Could you
look into the heart's recesses of this unregenerate world ling; this eager, driving man of business, to whom,
if you speak of the " highest interest," he straightway
thinks of his ten per cent; of this hack - politician,
who trades in principles, and would sell his country for
some paltry office in the gift of Government; of this
bloated sensualist, whose face is a record of no spiritual
experiences, but of spirituous draughts and unctuous
repasts, -could you penetrate the interior of such
characters, you would find, that, even there, in those
wastes and deserts of the soul, the Iholy Spirit is not
quite extinct; you would find even there some faint
flicker of the everlasting Light, feeble though it be
/as the last gleam of departing day on some desolate
crag, which reddens without reclaiming its ungracious
barrenness. I have seen in Catholic lands a wayside
chapel which seemed to be divested of all sacred asso ciations, - exposed as it was to public desecration, and
covered with the dust of daily travel; but, entering,
I found, in a quiet niche, a votive lamp, which the piety
of another generation had kindled, and which the present generation would not suffer to go out.  And I
thought, how many a man of affairs, who stands in the
30 
t NATURAL AND SPIRITUAL."
thick of public life, and is well-nigh smothered with
the dust of the world, may have in his heart some quiet
corner where the lamp of life which a pious mother
once kindled there burns feebly indeed, but still burns,
and may, by God's grace, flame forth one day into fervent devotion!
The worldly mind, in its proper essence, is enmity
against God; but men of the world are not all worldly.
The deepest tendency of every being is Godward; and
when all the layers of life are removed, and all other
images erased from the heart, the image of God will be
found there, inwrought and indelible. And when all
the experiments of life have been tried, and all other
satisfactions exhausted, the heart will still thirst for
the living God" with longings insatiable.
31 
I
I 
BOOK FIRST.
&tliion fxitn ie N O -of eiEtismi
I.
THE RETREATING GOD.
8 
AV 
BOOK FIRST.
getlioi ivt~in Aft Mounts of itism
I.
THE  RETREATING GOD.
THE eldest of religious ideas remains to this day the
most indemonstrable, the most undefinable. For unknown ages, religion has said "God" with intense conviction of some arch-reality answering to that term,
and has wondered and trembled and triumphed in the
contemplation of that reality; yet science, at this moment, is no nearer the truth of that idea, no better
prepared to affirm it on independent grounds, no more
ready to say "God" from any discovery or experience
of its own, than when it first opened the book of Nature. In'that book, as leaf after leaf was turned over,
Science found order, law, intelligent method, beneficent
arrangement; but a Being distinct from nature, in
whom those qualities inhere, it found not, and cannot
find by its own legitimate methods.
Attempts have been made to prove the existence of
God from nature. Whatever apparent success has att e n d e d    such efforts is due to an        antecedent faith already
possessed of the God whom it sought. The first glance
at nature reveals him to faith; the most intimate ac                                            f85] 
36  RELIGION WITHIN THE BOUNDS OF THEISM.
quaintance with nature will not reveal him to science.
There is no way to God through the understanding,
which knows only to arrange and elaborate what the
senses supply. He who, by the very hypothesis of his
being, underlies both the senses and the understanding,
and is himself the light by which they see, must needs
be inscrutable to both. He eludes investigation, not
by foreignness and distance, but by intimate nearness.
No candle can show us the daylight;  we cannot go
behind our own consciousness; we cannot see behind
our eyes. "I am nearer to thee," he says in the Persian oracle, "than thou art to thyself." —" The roads
leading to God are more in number than the breathings
of created beings.... The eyes of purity see him,
and the lustre of his substance; but dark and astounded
is he who hath sought him by efforts of the understanding."  Hussein was asked the way to God.   "Withdraw both feet, and thou art with him,- one from this
world, the other from the world to come."
When we say he is inscrutable, it,is not in the sense
of latency, as a jewel of the mine is inscrutable, but in
the sense of reconditeness, as light and life are inscrutable, which yet are the most patent of sensible facts.
Our knowledge of God is constituted by faith and consciols experience. If we attempt to verify that knowledge by demonstration, it disappears. The moment
we approach God with scientific tests, " he hideth himself." And his hiding is his own transcendent light.
As science advances, God retires from the commerce
of the understanding into mystery more and more impenetrable.  Do we seek him in the realms of space?
Science rebukes that quest as preposterous.   How can 
THE RETREATING, GOD.
he be nearer to one point of space than another, of
whose idea omnipresence is a prime constituent? What
lurking-place, what local retreat, what private chamber
in the heights or the deeps, can we  assign to God?
With powers of perception that could look creation
through, we should come no nearer the secret of his
presence. We need not be told that the fancied throne
above the heavens, which figures in the poetry of ancient devotion, is a crude and childish conceit; but,
for scientific purposes, what does it avail to take up
the word of philosophy and talk of the one sole Substance, the all- animating Life?   The being of God
is brought no nearer by such phraseology.   For who,
in any creature, can detect the final secret of its
life, or discover by analysis any thing more essential
and divine than life itself, as it passes before our eyes?
No experiment will disclose the root and substance by
which an object subsists. Science explores the secrets
of nature, and hopes, by removing veil after veil of
material form, to come upon the innermost hidden life,
-the soul or substance which those veils conceal,- to
reach tle radical essence of things. But science finds
only qualities, - form, color, size: the substance in
which those qualities inhere is undiscoverable.   The
most powerful microscope, the most active chemistry,
detects only qualities.  Science, through all eternity,
will discover nothing else.
If, on the other hand, we say, as Jesus taught us,
God is a spirit," we have the statement which best
satisfies rational faith, but not one which serves any
better as a demonstration of God to the understanding.
All that the understanding can know of spirit is nega
37 
38  REUGION WITHIN THE BOUNDS OF THEISM.
tive; that it is not body, and has none of the properties
of body, -no parts nor form nor color, density or
weight. The thing itself which we designate as spirit,
in its positive essence, is unknown, is inconceivable.
In whatever way, by whatsoever terms, we state our
idea of the being of God, the substance of that being
for ever eludes, not only the test of scientific inquiry,
but all intellectual conception.  As substance, God is
not only inscrutable, but inconceivable.
Is he, then, more apparent, or more traceable, as
agent and cause? Do we seek him, in that capacity,
in the processes of nature? We find there only our
own inferences, - confirmations of a preconceived idea.
We see what we call design, adaptation of means to
ends, which proves intelligence.  But intelligence in
nature is one, and the God of religion is another.   It
is not logic, but faith, that builds the inferential bridge
between the two. I said science is no nearer to God,
no more apprehensive of the truth of that idea, now,
than when the study of nature commenced. I might
rather say, that science is further estranged from that
idea, less cognizant of the being of God, less ready to
affirm him, now than then. Science hides the agency
of God in a multitude of secondary agents, which multiply the more, the more we become acquainted with the
constitution of things. In the infancy of knowledge,
every thing was referred directly to God as the sole and
immediate cause of every existence and every event. If
a nation was visited with pestilence or blight, it was the
Lord that sent them; and there ended the inquiry.
There was nothing more to be said on the subject. If
a comet or eclipse appeared in the heavens, they were 
TE RETREATING- GOD.
quite spontaneous occurrences, with no antecedent but
the arbitrary will of God. Every blessing and success
was a special providence, entirely aside of the necessary
sequence of events.   In the progress of intellectual
culture, it has come to be understood that every event
has its necessary antecedent in time, and forms a necessary link in a chain of events which extends indefinitely
before and after, beyond the knowledge and surmise of
man. Every effect which we witness or experience in
nature or ourselves has its necessary cause in something that went before; is itself the cause of something
that is to come; is part of a process of which no man
knows the beginning or the end. In the view of faith,
the one divine Cause, the immediate will of God, is
present and active at every stage of this process, —
is the real agent by which that effect was produced.
In the view of faith, there is but one Cause:  those
which we call secondary causes are no causes at all,
but only accompanying conditions. But this is not the
aspect which the facts present to science, holding by
visible agents, investigating natural laws, and tracing
the necessary operation of cause  and effect in the
natural world. Where science finds an invariable
connection between certain antecedents and certain consequents, where it finds that, one particular thing
preceding, another particular thing invariably follows,
it affirms the former to be the origin or cause of the
latter.
Thus, without any conscious atheistic design, it is
the tendency of science to put God out of view. Science does not formally deny the agency of God; but it
is not the business of science to take knowledge of it.
39 
40  RELIGION WITHIN THE BOUNDS OF THEISM.
On the contrary, its business is, if possible, to get on
without it; i.e., to discover for every phenomenon in
nature some natural, finite, intelligible agent, without
resorting to the supernatural. A resort to the supernatural is a confession of ignorance which it is the interest and business of science, so long as possible, to
avoid. In other words, it is the interest of science, so
far as possible, to banish the supernatural; that is, to
banish God from the actual world.  This is not said in
disparagement of-scientific' men, who are often devout
believers.  And surely no class of men have greater
reason to be so! They may heartily believe in God;
they may acknowledge his agency in nature; they may
acknowledge all nature to be his work and method and
manifestation: but this acknowledgment is out of
school. As scientific investigators, it is their business
to find natural causes for every fact and event; to
supplant the supernatural, so far as possible, with
known, appreciable, natural agents. Where religion
says " creation," science says " development."  It refers
the genesis of things to the operation of natural laws,
by which the earth, and all the planets, suns, and stars
have shaped themselves, in the lapse of ages, out of the
shapeless, igneous mass that furnished the raw material
of their being, and by which all the tribes of animated
nature, with man at their head, have been evolved, in
their order, from certain vesicles and rudimental germs
of organic life.  Now, the agency of God, in the view
of faith, is as much required to conduct this process,
and to furnish the elements out of which this development proceeds, as it would be to form each creature by
itself, with a special act of creative skill. But this is 
THE RETREATING GOD.
not the scientific aspect of the subject. Science puts
God out of view, and substitutes law instead. A personal agent in the processes of nature is not apparent
to scientific investigation.
If law and design and intelligent order are no
demonstrations of God to the understanding, neither
are the tokens, as we regard them, of providential
care,- the marks of divine beneficence, the bounty of
Nature, the joy of which all beings partake according
to the measure of their capacity and kind, - demonstrations of God to the understanding. The understanding recognizes good in nature, - genial sunbeams,
refreshing showers; the smiles of heaven, the wealth
of earth; the beauty of flowers, the deliciousness of
fruits. But the understanding sees also evil in nature,
- evil and suffering so manifold, so vast, so irremediable, that mere logic could never reconcile its existence with the doctrine of one God of boundless wisdom,
power, and goodness, of whom and by whom all things
are. Faith alone can vindicate that doctrine against
the contradiction of this enormous woe. And even
faith, in most religions, has had recourse to the supposition of an evil principle to meet the difficulty which
theism encounters in this aspect of things.
Passing from nature to the moral world, shall we
seek for the agency of God  in human  life?  Shall
we seek him as ruling and overruling Providence?
An essential part of faith in God is faith in divine
providence. No belief is more precious to the human
heart, and none perhaps more needful, than faith in a
special, providential agency interposing succor in seasons of peril and distress. But this sacred idea, this
41 
42  RELIGION WITHIN THE BOUNDS OF THEISM.
cherished conviction, without which religion can hardly
exist, the understanding refuses to verify. The understanding cannot find, in the cases which are cited of
such interposition, any special and extraordinary agency
exerted to secure a particular end. The event so signalized in the view of faith is found to have, like every
other event, its natural antecedent, and to stand in
intimate, unbroken connection with the constant order
of human things. The guiding power in such cases,
though extraordinary in our experience, is not found to
be extraordinary in itself. It flashed intensely upon
our feeling; but, when sought by the understanding, it
hides itself in the ordinary, fixed series of agencies and
functions by which all the processes of nature, and
all the events of life, are conducted and brought to
pass. God came nearer to our consciousness in this
instance than in others; but the understanding finds
here also no unveiled Divinity.  It is still the same
hidden, secret force, the same inexplicable, inextricable
web of cause and effect; no thinner, no more transparent, at this point than at others in our experience
of life.
There are cases in which our impatience craves the
special action of God's providential government, not
for our own, but for others' and Humnanity's sake, -
cases which seem to us to cry aloud for divine interposition, in the way of protection or of retribution, to
avert some impending evil or avenge some outrageous
wrong; cases in which we feel, that, if we had the
power, we could not refrain from exerting it in such a
cause.  "Oh for an hour of Omnipotence! " sighs the
outraged heart, in view of triumphant wvrong.  When 
THE RETREATING GOD.
the liberties of a people are assailed with unrighteous
usurpation; when the union and existence of a nation
are threatened by rebellious treason; when the Goddefying evil-doer prospers in his wickedness, - it seems
to us that a merciful and just God cannot look on, and
see the mischief grow and the crime succeed, the good
suffer and the righteous perish, without stretching forth
the arm of his power to smite and to save.  But when
did Providence ever visibly respond to such demand?
The interposition comes not: God hides himself wleni
most we need and invoke his aid. "My God! my
God! why hast thou forsaken me?" is a cry which
elicits no theophany, and wrings no audible response
from the heavens, - not even when uttered by the Son
of man. The answer is found in the heart alone, — the
trusty heart; the brave, strong heart; the deep, unfathomable heart, that flings its wondrous self into the
balance, and outweighs a world of woe.
History is full of apparent injustices. We see calamities piled on the head of the good; we see treacherous and bloody men prosper to the last.  A Huss, a
Craumer, a Sidney, a More, we  see perish  at the
stake or beneath the axe; while the judges and kings
who condemn them die quietly in their beds. We
see a Richelieu, guilty of every vice, licentious, cruel,
tyrannical, loaded with riches and honors, crowned
with every gift of fortune, reaching an age of more
than fourscore years without reverse; while men like
Raleigh and Vane are doomed to a felon's death.
Christ is crucified, and Barabbas set free.  Had  the
Son of man but come down from the cross, every knee
had bowed; but he came not down. A righteous God
43 
44 RELIGION WITHIN THE BOUNDS OFP THEISM.
does not interpose with visible retributions to avenge
his violated laws, or to rescue and protect his faithful
servants. Nor is the world so arranged by any principles inherent in its constitution, and invariable in their
operation, as to bring only good to the good, and only
evil to the wicked. The most we can say is, that
the good,.on the whole, are more likely to prosper,
and the wicked to fail; and that, not from any providential interference for or against, but through the inherent strength of the former and the fatal disability of
the latter. Further than this, the moral government
of God, which forms so essential an article of faith,
does not approve itself, does not reveal itself, to the
understanding. God, in his character of moral governor and judge, as in every other predicate affirmed
by religion, is inaccessible to all attempts of the understanding, to verify his attributes.
So, whether we seek him in the realms of space, in
the processes of nature, or in human life, God hides
himself from the curious intellect, more inscrutable
now, in the full age of the human understanding, than
in its childhood; retiring ever farther, the farther we
advance in culture and knowledge. To the early world,
he seemed separated only by distance of space. The
imagination enthroned him on mountain-tops or above
the clouds. It was deemed not impossible that he
might appear to the human eye in a human form, and
converse with mortals face to face. But science, which
has scaled all heights and sounded all deeps, has dispelled this illusion, and, while extending indefinitely
the bounds of creation, can find no room for a local
God. He is separated from us now, not by distance 
THE RETREATING GOD.
of space, but by the impossibility, in our intellectual
enlightenment, of forming any image of his being which
reason does not immediately rebuke as incongruous.
To the intellect, he is removed by the impassable gulf
which yawns between the finite and the infinite, between every organized nature and uncreated mind.
He hides himself the more, the nearer we seem to approach him in intelligence. Other mysteries disappear
like spectres of the night before the spreading illumination of science;  but this one mystery deepens and deepens with increasing light.
And let us be glad that it is so; that this aboriginal
mystery remains, inviolable, impregnable, unsearchable
still; that while the profane intellect is removing the
veil from so many a wonder which its marvellousness
had endeared to our early faith, and letting daylight in
upon so' many a recess long consecrated to our imagination by embowering shade, here still is a veil which no
human intellect will ever lift; a covert where wonder
and awe, and faith, their offspring, may repose for ever;
an idea on which the mind, retreating from the shallowness of. human knowledge, may rest, and be sure that
no plummet cast by mortal thought or immortal inquiry
will ever sound that infinite deep. Man needs this
mystery for the health of his spirit, as he needs for his
physical well-being the sweet intercession of overshadowing, night.   He needs the relief of shade for his
mental eye as well as for his bodily.  Religion needs
mystery, and cannot exist without it.  Without mystery, it degenerates into mere mechanical philosophy;
into arithmetical calculation; into ethical systems that
may serve to smooth the outward life, but exert no
45 
46  RELIGION WITHIN THE BOUNDS' OF THEISM.
quickening power on the soul. The tree of life, like
the plants of the earth, needs darkness for its roots;
while its fruit-bearing branches rejoice in the light.  It
is good to know that here is a mystery which no inquisition of science can detect, and no reach of intellectual
vision comprehend; that the highest created intelligence, searching, soaring, sounding through eternity,
can never attain to a theory of God which shall cover
all the dimensions and define all the attributes and exhaust all the secrets of his being.   A God whom the
intellect might fathom would be no God to us. Let us
understand this; let us freely admit it, - admit the
futility of all attempts to demonstrate God to the understanding, to prove him from the marvels of nature,
to establish the fact of Godhead by induction. Let us
freely concede to the atheist, to the positivist, the inadequacy of such demonstration, the inconsequence of
most of the reasoning employed for this end.
There is no danger that science will ever unclasp
man's hold of this primal truth, or seduce the general
heart from the Being more assured to us than our own;
the Being whose certainty is the basis and guaranty of
all certainty beside.
God withdraws from the speculating intellect.  IHe
will not be laid hold of with scientific inquiry; but shut
the eye of speculation, and the heart soon finds him
who is personally related to every soul. Let every soul
bless  the  never - to - be - known, - grateful,  like  the
prophet in the rock-cleft, for even the vanishing skirts
of the mystery in which the Eternal hides, reverently
adoring where we cannot comprehend; content to follow where we cannot fathom; happy if we are able 
THE RETREATING GOD.
to walk by faith where neither man nor angel can ever
walk by sight.
At the funeral of Ferdusi, says his biographer,
the Scheikh Aboul Kasem refused -to repeat the customary prayer, because the deceased had sung the
praise of the Magi. The following night, he saw, in a
vision, Ferdusi in Paradise, in a blaze of glory. Being
asked how he came to be thus exalted, he replied, " It
was because of that one verse of mine in which I sung
the unsearchable God:'Thou art the highest and the
deepest. I know not what thou art. Thou art all
that thou art.'"
Religion would press science into her service, and
compel her to testify of theism. But science has her
own appointed way of serving the truth: she furnishes
her own incidental and involuntary illustrations of
Deity, and will not be subsidized by religion, nor render the kind of testimony which religion demands.
Science is no theist: her business is to seek the causes
of things in the universe of things, and not to appeal
to supermundane power. Her mission and that of
religion, as ministers of truth, are essentially one; but
the methods and immediate objects of the two are
entirely distinct, and neither should usurp the other's
function. The end of science is knowledge; that is,
intellectual possession: the end of religion is worship;
Tthat is, intellectual renunciation. The aim of the one
is conquest; the aim of the other is surrender. Both,
in different ways, are a search after truth. But in
ways how different!  Science seeks with the senses,
with the understanding, with computation and deduc
47 
48  PELIGION WITIN THE BOUNDS OF THEISM.
tion, with analysis and hypothesis.   Religion seeks
with the trusting heart and devout aspiration. Science
would fathom all the realms of being, would stand face
to face with the final fact, and write her eureka on
the core of creation. Religion is content to bow low
before an Unknown, Unknowable.
Such being the divergence of their nature and func tion, it is not to be expected that science and religion
will ever unite in one perception.   It is not to be
expected that religion will attain to scientific demon stration of her convictions; it is not to be expected
that science will ever appropriate those convictions as
scientific truth. It is possible that a higher synthesis
may one day unite them in a new and better bond than
the old infructuous union which theology has sought to
enforce' meanwhile, let each pursue its separate way.
Let science have her rule in the heights and the deeps,
wherever she can reach, and establish her sway. Let
her reconstruct the genesis of nature, lay over again
the courses of the planet, and lean her ladder against
the stars. But, after all, it is faith that builds the
house where life and honor love to dwell. All great
works, all noble births, all that is most precious and
saving in life,- scriptures, temples, hymns, - all
beautiful arts, all saintly and heroic lives, all grand and
sublime things, are her offspring.   When  faith languishes, civilization droops, empires perish.   When
faith revives in some new advent of the Spirit, new
empires start into life. The course of ascending history is tracked by her benefactions; of history descending, by her lmurts. Her monuments, in distant lands
and ages past, are honored in their decays and draw 
THE RETREATING GOD.
the wondering eyes.. These are the things which men
traverse earth and sea to behold, -the pyramids that
still point heavenward after the lapse of four thousand
years, the stupendous aisles of Phila, the unerring
sculptures of Athens, the sacred dust of Palestine, the
newer marvels of Christian Rome. All these are the
offspring of faith: they consecrate the world. Curiosity
traces them out in every remote corner of the globe.
Science waits upon them with eager ministries; traffic
and travel are accommodated to them; railroads are
built to convey pilgrims to their sites; at their crumbling altar-stones, devotion rekindles her fires.
Shall men wander so far to behold what faith has
done in time past, and despise the power of faith in the
present? That wonder - working power which laid
the entablature of Denderah, and sprung the arches of
Cologne, is no antique, no recluse of the middle age,
no native of Egypt or Rome, but cosmopolitan and
modern as the sun. God her father, and Humanity
her mother, survive all change; and the constant offspring works hitherto, and will work.
4
49 
0 
II.
THE ADVANCING GOD.  
II.
THE ADVANCING GOD.
IT belongs to the nature of God, or, what is practically
the same thing, it belongs to our idea of God, that he
should make himself known. Our idea of God includes the Creator. An uncreative God is no God,
since God is conceivable only as the correlate of a finite
world. But creation - especially the creation of conscious, intelligent beings- implies conscious intelligence in the Creator. And, if God be supposed selfconscious, he must be supposed to will the reflection of
himself in intelligent minds.* Or, to rest our thesis
on more practical ground, if God be that moral Sovereign whom we suppose, it follows that the subjects of
his rule must be made acquainted with the Lord of their
allegiance.
The necessity of revelation is thus grounded in the
very idea of God.
Assuming, then, that God, by his nature, is selfrevealing, and must make himself known to intelligent
beings, what will be the method and conditions of that
* This statement perhaps is too condensed. God, conscious of his perfection, must will the recognition of that perfection in intelligent beings, as
their ideal and way to a blessed life,- that being the only supposable end
of the moral creation.
[ 53] 
54  RELIGION WITHIN THIE BOUNDS OF THEISM.
revelation? In what way can we suppose that God
will declare himself, his will and his truth, to man?
Let any one figure to himself a demonstration that
would satisfy all mankind of the being and attributes
of God,- of such a God as theism represents, -what
will he propose? Shall we say that some stupendous
prodigy would best accomplish that result?- some ex hibition so far transcending human power and skill,
that all who beheld it should be forced to confess a
superhuman agent; therewith, some clear, emphatic annunciation of the truth to be received? —an appari tion in the sky, with accompanying voice out of the
heavens? - a scroll cast down upon the earth, or tablets, received amid lightnings and thunders on some
mountain-top, inscribed with the lessons of Deity?
Somewhat after this fashion would be, I suppose, the
first conception of a revelation from God. Such, in
fact, was the Hebrew idea. But closer attention will
convince every one who reflects on the subject, that no
such portent could serve as a permanent communica —
tion, valid to all generations, from God to man. Its
efficacy, at the most, would be confined to the sphere
in which it occurred and to those who witnessed it, or
their immediate offspring. Beyond that sphere, and
beyond the experience of eye-witnesses and the children
of eye-witnesses, it would soon become an incredible
tradition, a legendary myth, an old wives' fable, which
the critical understanding, unable to adjust it with other
experiences, would unfailingly set aside.
Or, if we suppose the revealing portent to be a
stated permanent wonder, it would soon cease to be
a wonder at all; it would take its place among the 
THE ADVANCING GOD.
forms and processes of daily nature, and be regarded
with no deeper attention, and no livelier emotion, than
sunrise and sunset or the rainbow or the moon's phases.
For what indeed is universal nature,-this ancient
frame of earth and sky, with its stated wonders, its
solemn shows, its serviceable forces, its unfathomable
deeps and golden fires, its august days and refulgent
nights,- what is it but just that portent, - a present
and pressing demonstration of the living God? What
stronger demonstration can there be? what  prodigy
more astounding? If they believe not in sunrise and
sunset, in summer and winter, in earth and sky, neither
will they believe though an angel stood in the sun, and
proclaimed the fact of Deity, or though the stars were
constellated into runes that should spell the sacred
name. No prodigy can reveal God, for the reason
that prodigies. can only appeal to the senses; and the
strongest demonstration of God to the senses is already
given in the universe as it passes before our eyes.
Yet this demonstration has never sufficed to convey
the knowledge of God to minds unenlightened by other
revelation.  We  know how, age after age, the earth,
as it traversed the annual round, had clothed itself with
annual splendors; how bloom and hoarfrost had chased
each other around the belted globe, and sunrise and
sunset balanced their pomps, and the heavens declared
the glory of God; how day unto day had spoken his
word, and night unto night had shown his wisdom;
and yet how many ages had elapsed before that word
was understood, or that wisdom perceived? And we
know how small a portion of the race, comparatively
speaking, has even yet seized the idea of God, - of the
55 
5 6  RELIGION WITHIN THE BOUNDS OF THEISM.
only God. It is plain that the senses have no knowl edge of God, nor, through the senses, the understand ing; although, -the idea once started in the mind, both
sense and understanding may nourish and confirm it.
By no prodigy does God reveal himself, nor by any
external demonstration.
Revelation is not external, but internal. Internal in
the first instance; then, in a secondary sense and degree,
it may become, as personal or ecclesiastical authority,
external.
The first revelation of God is a revelation to the
moral sense.  For what is it in God that is nearest to
man, and which man-is most concerned to know? Not
his creative power, not the fact of creatorship, but the
moral archetype, the moral ideal, which, received by
the conscience, becomes the moral law.  If God were
merely omnipotent force or transcendent skill; if all
that could be said of him were, that " he can create and
he destroy," or that the universe is his handiwork, it
would matter little whether we knew him or knew him
not; it would matter little whether the universe were
conceived as the product of a single will or of many
wills, or whether as a self-existent power. What it
really concerns us to know of God, is, not that he
made the worlds, but that he is justice and truth and
holiness and love. And of this the evidence is not
external, but internal.   Nature does not furnish it.
Nature knows nothing of holiness,- has no perception,
exhibits no trace, of the moral law. " The depth saith,
It is not in me; and the sea saith, It is not with me."
Man would never have inferred it from the visible creation, until it was first revealed to him by a voice within. 
THlE ADVANCING GOD.
Some elect individual of rare endowments and exceptional moral nature, living in the midst of polytheisms and wild superstitions, reflecting on the facts
of consciousness, perceives in himself a law which impels him, in spite of inclination and passion, to choose
the right and refuse the wrong. This law he refers
to the Author of his being, and concludes that the Author of his being is not mere power and cunning, but a
holy Will, a moral Governor and Judge. This is the
first revelation of Godhead; for, until God is known as
moral ideal, he is not known at all. Whatever bears
the name of Deity previous to that, is fetish or myth,
and lies without the pale of theism and revelation.
In the mental process which I have described, it is
not necessary, nor is it possible, to draw the line between the spontaneous action of the individual mind,
and the action upon it of the mind of God, -between
reflection and inspiration. The vulgar idea of revelation as a purely external communication supposes in
the human subject no other agency than obedient reception of some truth or command conveyed from without
by an audible voice or visible sign. It is not enough,
in the yiew of this idea, that Moses experiences within
himself an impulse which he interprets as divine commission; it is not enough that he is thus, by the witness in the heart, divinely called. God must appear to
him externally; he must hear a voice; he must see an
apparition which represents God in person. Christian
thought has outgrown such fancies. All direct revelation is internal; and, in that revelation, reflection and
inspiration combine. The mind is not a passive recipient, but an active, co-operating power. In every
57 
58  RELIGION WITHIN THE BOJNDS OF THEISM.
original intuition of the mind, there is something divine,
and in all inspiration there is human  co-agency, voluntary effort, intense thought, meditation musing till the
fire burns.
When therefore certain truths are said to be revealed,
or given by inspiration of God, we are not to understand that they are given, so to speak, bodily; that
they are )ut into the mind, or breathed into the mind,
from without, in distinct propositions. We are to understand, rather, a state of mental exaltation, a quickening of the mental faculties, whereby the prophet or
seer arrives at perceptions beyond the reach of ordinary
powers or ordinary states of mind. This mental exaltation, this quickening of the powers, is inspiration,
the divine Spirit co-operating with and re-enforcing the
action of the mind. And this is revelation; the unveiling of hidden truth by quick prophetic insight;
the intuition of the Spirit that "searcheth all things,
even the deep things of God."
The prime condition, the one indispensable prerequisite, of all revelation is sincerity, entire surrender
of the mind to the leadings of the Spirit. The truth
comes only to such as seek it with perfect simplicity
and singleness of purpose, without pre - occupation,
without conceit. Only to such does God reveal himself.
On the other hand, these elect souls, these seers and
prophets, may be supposed to be specially endowed
and qualified by God to become the oracles and organs
of spiritual truth. With the strictest propriety, therefore, they are said to be " called," or, considered in relation to their fellow-men and their earthly work, to be
" sent," by God. 
THE ADVANCING GOD.
If, now, it be asked how revelation is to be discriminated from mere philosophic speculation, I answer,
First, by its practical character, its sensuous, popular
handling of the deepest questions and dearest concerns
of the soul. The truths of revelation are no metaphysic conceptions, no labored inductions, no analytic
subtleties, no abstract reasonings, which can only be
expressed in abstruse, scholastic phraseology, but plain,
emphatic enunciations of truths concerning God and
man, duty, destiny, and human well-being; such as the
humblest and most uncultured can appreciate and appropriate, and turn to use. Plato and Plotinus, Spinosa
and Hegel, speak only through the medium of books to
scholars, -here and there a scattered few. Moses and
Paul, through the oral circulation of their word, address themselves to kindreds and nations. Philosophy
concerns itself with intellectual and theoretical aspects
and relations; revelation, with practical. All its utterances have a moral bearing: they point to some practical use, some work to be performed, some  saving
discipline, some rule of life, some peril to be shunned,
some evil to be put away, some prize to be secured,
some heavenly consolation.   God in revelation is presented in no theosophic formulae,- as abstract Deity,
Soul of the world, the one universal Substance, or
however speculation may strive to express the divine
nature, - but in personal, practical relations; as Father, Ruler, Judge. Not the God of speculation, but
the God of experience, personally present, and personally
related to every soul.
Another criterion of revelation, distinguishing it from
mere philosophy, is authority, - the authority it gives
59 
60  RELIGION WITHIN THE BOUNDS OF THEISM.
to the Teacher who first declares its truths, the authority
with which those truths are clothed, as uttered by him.
It was said of Jesus by his contemporaries, that he
spoke as one having authority, and not as the scribes,"
-not as the learned and philosophic of his time.
They felt that here was something more than learning
or cleverness or mental ingenuity. In these utterances,
there was no casuistry or cunning, and no  dialectic
prowess, but real insight, direct intuition of the truth;
hence, rightful assurance, and the weight which that
assurance unfailingly gives. Jesus, says Renan, did not
argue with his disciples; he did not preach his opinions;
he preached himself.   This is the impression which
revelation makes, and revelation only, in that degree.
The character, no doubt, is a part of this effect. The
moral pre-eminence which marks the true prophet, his
sanctity of life, is one ingredient in his authority. I
can hardly conceive of a high degree of spiritual insight
associated with great moral defects.  But moral excellence, as seen in the manners and the life, is not the
true or chief source of this authority. One can easily
imagine great purity of life, a character unblemished,
and abounding in all the virtues, without much insight,
and, consequently, without authority. It would not be
difficult to name individuals, among the saints of history, whose life was blameless, and whose virtues unsurpassed; but whose opinions, notwithstanding, carry
no weight,-who have no authority in matters of belief.
I find no fault in St. Francis of Assisi, or Charles
Borromeo, or Philip Neri; but their views and convictions on spiritual topics would not influence my faith.
Moral superiority there must be in the organs of revela 
THE ADVANCING GOD.
tion; but moral superiority, in this connection, means
something more than blameless manners and a virtuous
life. It means a superior nature: it includes intellectual power, but intellectual subordinate to moral. It is
nearly related, if not identical with, what, in its intellectual manifestations, in poetry and art and the conduct of affairs, we call genius. It includes that, but
with it unites a moral intensity which genius lacks. It
is genius adopted by the Spirit of God into heavenly
fellowship, and consecrated to heavenly uses.
In a rude and uncritical age or population, the prophet who appears as the organ of revelation will be a
reputed worker of miracles. Whether he actually perform them or not, he will have the credit of miraculous
works. For his, in the popular judgment which deifies material power and exalts material phenomena as
God's chief witnesses, is the test of revelation, the only
authentic proof and warrant of divine authority. "What
sign showest thou?" and "Show us a sign from Heaven," is the popular demand. On the contrary, in an
age of scientific culture, of critical investigation, the
reality of such performances will be disputed; and not
only so, but the very allegation of miraculous works, in
the judgment of some, will discredit the revelation and
the prophet of whose truth and claims they are cited as
proofs.
The two positions, - the popular and the scientific,
- it seems to me, are equally erroneous. To say that
revelation is impossible without miracle, or that miracle
is the only valid proof of revelation, is inverting the divine order.  It is subordinating the greater to the less.
The prophet's intuition of the truth is more than any
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62  RELIGION WITHIN THE BOUNDS OF THEISM.
feat which he may perform in the world of sense.
Truth is a right relation between the human and the
divine. To see the truth is to see God; to live the truth
is to be like God: and he who effects that vision and
that likeness performs the greatest of all works, greater
than healing the sick or raising the dead. And if it be
urged that the latter is a necessary condition of the
former; that the prophet, in order to make his word
seem truth, and secure its entrance into the mind, must
exhibit superhuman power; that so only can he draw
the requisite attention to himself and his mission; that,
granting the superhuman power and granting the miraculous work, it is God that speaks in the prophet's
word, and without this, only man,-  I reply, in the
first place, that, so far as the word is true, it is God
that speaks in any case;  for all truth is of God.
And, again, I maintain that a candid examination of
the history of religion will show, that, where miracles
were claimed, the belief in the prophet preceded the
belief in the miracles, and furnished its chief support;
and that the opponents and unbelieving who rejected
the prophet's word were not convinced by his wonderful works. "But, though he had done so many miracles before them, yet believed they not on him."
But then, to deny the possibility of miracle,-  that
is, of any thing out of the ordinary course of human
experience, of any thing that may not be explained by
laws yet discovered, or paralleled with ascertained facts,
-  appears to me equally unphilosophical.  What right
has science to dictate a negative judgment of this question? what right, from all that is known, to determine
all that can be? Who will presume to draw the 
THE ADYANCING GOD.
boundary-line of the possible?  "The laws of nature
cannot be violated." Granted; but who claims that
miracle is a violation of the laws of nature? And what
are the so-called " laws of nature" but our own generalizations of observed facts? And what is the so-called
" constancy of nature" but the statement, in objective
terms, of the limitation of our experience? And who,
moreover, has had such private advices from the Author
of nature as to warrant the conclusion, that all the
laws of nature have been discovered, and all the laws
of spirit? and that, perchance, some unknown law may
not subsidize, and so seemingly contradict, some known
one, as the law of projectiles seemingly contradicts the
law of gravitation? "A miracle cannot be proved."
Granted. Does it therefore follow thence that a miracle cannot be? I receive no truth and no prophet on
the ground of miracles; but I can believe in a wonderworking Power. I can believe that the man of God,
in closer alliance with, and so partaking more largely
of, the one sole Power that moves and makes this
world of shows, may effect results impossible to men
of ordinary vision, and unprecedented in human experience. To believe the contrary, seems to me not very
rational and not very cheering. I can conceive, that
the prophet, through the might of the Spirit, shall work
miracles; and, to many, the miracles will be a confirmation of his mission. But they will not be performed
for that sole purpose: they will be the natural working
of a spirit in league with God, intent on beneficent
ends, and overcoming natural obstacles by the willing
of that faith to which nothing is impossible. I cannot
conceive, that the prophet should parade his wonders
63 
64  RELIGION WITHIN THE BOUNDS OF THEISM.
for the mere purpose of drawing attention to himself,
that he should say in effect, "Behold! I do this and
that feat which to you were impossible; therefore what
I tell you is true." The Son of man repels, as a devilish suggestion, the idea of amazing the world by throwing himself from a pinnacle of the temple.
Finally, revelation and philosophy are differenced by
their respective results.   Philosophy founds schools;
revelation, churches. Philosophy discusses; revelation
prophesies. The one has professors; the other, confessors and martyrs. The one is represented by lectureships; the other, by sacraments. The one utters
treatises; the other, Bibles. Through these, its peculiar products, revelation assumes a secondary phase
and becomes external, - what we call a religious dispensation.  Sucl are Mosaism, Islamism, Christianity.
This is revelation in the usual popular sense, and the
only revelation known to the mass of mankind. Direct,
internal revelation, in any degree, is a rare experience.
A revelation so emphatic and intense as to issue in a
Church, as to furnish the ground of a new dispensation,
has been the experience of a few individuals only in all
time. The mass of mankind must receive their religion
at second hand, and receive it on historical authority,
as they receive the greater part of all their knowledge.
The accredited prophet, the Church, the Bible, and
even perhaps the favorite preacher, the catechism, the
creed of their sect, are revelation to them.   Thus
the founders of religions acquire a mediatorial character: they become interpreters of heavenly mysteries,
the medium of communication from God to man; in
some cases, themselves the God of the popular religion. 
THE ADVANCING GOD.
So strong a disposition there is in man to interpose a
middle term, a third person, between the Supreme and
the human soul.
In this way, then, God makes himself known, and
becomes a fact to human intelligence. Not by prodigy
or portent, in whirlwind or in fire, but through the still
small voice of the moral sentiment in man, he advances
from the unimaginable secret of his being into such
cognition as the finite mind can have of the Eternal.
On some retired soul, intensely musing, far back in the
unknown past, first dawned the great Idea which fills
and rules this earthly sphere; the idea whose birth in
the human mind was the birth of an intelligible, spiritual world from the dark, wild chaos of polytheism; the
idea which alone gives being a plan, creation a purpose,
a meaning to life, to holy aspiration an adequate goal.
Once risen on the world, the quickening, saving idea
did not set; but, when it waxed dim, in the dim, confused ages of nature-worship and priestly oppression
which compose the cycles of primeval history; fresh
inspiration was breathed upon it, new musing souls
rekindled its beam, new revelations confirmed the old;
- new revelations and better, clearer, fuller, as human
progress opened the mind, and reflection deepened
with advancing life.   For revelation is a thing of
degrees; the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob, though sacred and dear as the morning-star of
theism, is not the God of the Isaiahs, still less the
God who is a spirit, to be worshipped in spirit and
truth.
The- revealing word was always in the world; the
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65
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6  RELIGION WITHIN THE BOUN'DS OF TiEISM.
receptive mind, not always.  " He came unto his own,
and his own received him not." But, finally, they did
receive him,- some with such power and fulness as to
be, in the high apostolic sense, the "sons of God."
And those who received the'light in its fulness dispensed
it to others: they became the lights of their time,
sages, prophets, servants of God, to whom and through
whom " he revealed his secret." From them issued
streams which outlived them; which passed into sayings; laws; which became institutions, became churches,
became fixed traditions, descending from generation to
generation. And all such traditions, however hardened
and sapless with the lapse of time they become, attest
some former inspiration which flooded the soul, as the
fossil-shell on the mountain-side attests the swelling of
the waters in some foregone spasm of the globe.
The fruit of revelation is tradition;  but revelation
itself, in its origin and essence, is spiritual insight.
The different terms express two different aspects of one
fact. Spiritual insight is the human aspect; revelation, the divine.  But spiritual insight is something far
different from induction or ratiocination. The knowledge of God is not a conclusion of the understanding,
but an intuition of the moral sense.   Theism never
originated in that way. The being of God would never
be inferred from the constitution of things, without the
idea pre-existing in the mind.* There is no natural
* The uttermost that legitimate induction can establish, on this basis, is
intelligent Power, - the so-called "First Cause" to which speculation refers
the creation of the world.  But that intelligent "First Cause" is not the
God of religion. There is nothing in it of ethical or religious import. The
argument from design may suggest a Designer, but can never amount to 
THE ADVANCING GOD.
religion, in the sense of a theism, born of the understanding; but the being of God is given in the moral nature
of man. There, if anywhere, the Eternal reveals himself from time to time, in successive communications,
to such as are able to divine his secret.
Revelation is a thing of degrees; yet all revelation is
essentially the same. All revelation is in man and
through man. It is not an unearthly voice speaking to
us out of the clouds: it is not an angelic apparition;
but always the voice of a brother man that instructs
and exhorts.  And that voice is not the revelation itself, but only its witness and declaration. The true
revelation is internal. The only effectual knowledge
of God is the private experience of the individual soul.
The earliest prophet of Jehovism saw this and confessed
it, appealing from his own written law to the elder
tables of the heart: "For this commandment is not
hidden from thee; neither is it afar off. It is not in
the heavens, that thou shouldst say, Who will go up for
demonstration of a God.  Cicero, arguing against the atheism of Epicurus,
affirms it to be just as credible that the letters which compose the "Iliad," if
thrown promiscuously into the air, should come to the ground arranged in
that order, as it is that the world was made by chance. The argument from
design has never been better stated; but Cicero was no monotheist, and
Cicero's doctrine, such as it was, created the argument, not the argument
the doctrine. The Esquimaux told the missionary, that he had often reflected how a kadjak, or canoe, with all its tackle, does not come of itself,
but requires to be constructed with much care and skill; and how a bird is
a far more wonderful contrivance than the best kadjak: and yet the
bird is no man's workmanship. I bethought me, he said, that a bird proceeds from its parents, and they from their parents; but there must have
been some first parents. Whence did they proceed? I concluded that
there must be some one who is able to make them and every thing else,some one more knowing and powerful than the wisest man. So reasoned
the Esquimaux; and yet he had never arrived at the idea of God.  A cunning artificer, surpassing the cunning of men, but no God.
67 
68  RELIGION WITHIN THE BOUNDS OF THEISM.
us to heaven, and bring it down to us, that we may
hear it and do it? Neither is it beyond the sea, that
thou shouldst say, Who shall go over the sea for us,
and bring it to us, that we may hear it and do it?  But
the word is very nigh thee, in thy mouth and in thy
heart, that thou mayest hear it and do it."
il 
III.
THE REGENT GOD. 
I 
III.
THE REGENT GOD.
ALL who believe in the being of God believe in a
divine Providence of some kind in the natural as in the
moral world;  but opinions vary as to the nature and
method of its action. Some believe it a rule of fixed
laws, established in the beginning, inherent in nature,
and self-acting. Others believe it to be partly a rule
of fixed laws, and partly an immediate action of the
divine will. Others still believe it to be wholly the immediate action of the divine will. The first of these
opinions makes Providence to consist of a pre-adjustment of the universe, dating from the first commencement of its existence, and so complete as to comprehend every agency and every event,- the world's
entire history from beginning to end. It makes the
world a perfect machine,- a machine directed by God,
who bears the same relation to it that an engineer does
to the engine which he invented and superintends.
The second makes Providence to consist in occasional
interposition, where the course of nature, as it is called,
i.e., the ordinary agencies at work in the world, the
regular order of events, would otherwise fail to accomplish the desired ends, or where those agencies would
[71] 
72  RELIGION WITHIN THE BOUNDS OF THEISM.
result in consequences to be avoided.   It makes the
world a machine, but not a perfect one,-a machine
which requires regulation, adjustment, alteration. The
third makes Providence to consist in those very agencies which compose the order of nature and the regular
course of events, -a present, immediate, continuous
action of Deity in every event that takes place. It
makes the world no machine at all, but a living organism pervaded by the spirit of God, a constant and immediate expression of the divine mind. I propose to
examine these different theories, with a view to determine the true idea of divine Providence in human
affairs.                             - 
1. The first is the theory of those who suppose that
the world is governed by general and fixed laws,laws impressed upon the universe in the beginning of
creation,- by which it now pursues its course and fulfils its functions. They suppose that the act of creation
embraced a plan or scheme of operation, which the
universe, once set in motion, has followed ever since, as
a piece of human mechanism fulfils of itself the functions intended and provided for in its construction.
Every event that takes place is the necessary consequence of these laws, and could not be other than it is.
The theory does not suppose that every event was specially willed by the Author of the universe: only the
laws and processes which produced it are so willed.
The laws of the universe are not aimed at particular
cases, but at general results.   In other words, the
world is governed, not by partial, but by general laws.
The action of these laws will sometimes result in disastrous consequences to individuals, especially when 
THE REGENT GOD.
applied by man to his purposes, - when human freeagency comes in as one of the factors in determining
the course of events. But these disasters, it is argued,
are rare exceptions, and do not materially affect the
beneficent design and operation of these laws. They
are designed to produce, and do produce, the greatest
possible good on the whole. They could not be other
than they are without diminishing the amount of good
in the world.   Any change in the constitution and
government of the universe, by which these disasters
could be avoided, would cause more evil than it would
cure. The vast preponderance of good in the world
demonstrates the wisdom of the present arrangement,
and, in spite of occasional, unavoidable exceptions,
vindicates the general beneficence of divine rule by
fixed and universal laws.
The objection to this theory is, that it separates God
from his works and makes him, instead of a present,
living, inworking power, at the most, a mere director
and overseer of past creations.   It supposes a God
intensely active at one time, and comparatively inactive
ever since; exhausting his activity in one original
effort of creative power, then ceasing from creation,
and taking up his millennial rest.  It places him  far
away in the past, and gives us in effect a universe without a God. For what need of a God, a present, living
God, or what room for one, if laws will suffice for the
world's governance? -if the world once created -and
put in motion, and furnished with the requisite agencies
and adaptations, will thenceforth govern itself, obeying, with automatic regularity, the impulse imparted,
and the laws assigned, to it by one original fiat of crea
73 
74 RELIGION WITHIIIN THE BOUNDS OF THIEISM.
tive power? The world, in this view, is a soulless,
unconscious mechanism, cast off by its master, whose
care of it was exhausted in its first production, and
thenceforth left to take care of itself.  Suppose that
this view of creation could satisfy the understanding;
suppose it sufficient to account for the order of events,
and explain the phenomena of nature and of life,- it
can never satisfy the heart. The heart demands a present God, - a God who is never far from any one of us;
it demands the immediate presence and constant care of
a heavenly Father; it demands, when it looks upon nature, to feel that God is there, not in his laws only, but
in conscious and perpetual action; not in the sense of a
Wisdom and a Goodness, embodied in arrangements
contrived and perfected long ago, as the mind of an
artificer may be said to present in the work of his
hands, but in the sense of a Love co-present to every
aspect of nature, and a Will inworking in every event
that takles place. It demands, in human life, to know
that it is not abandoned to hard, inevitable laws, and
processes that act with unconscious necessity, but to
feel the guiding hand of the Shepherd God, in whom
is no want. The heart rejects the theory of pre-established laws: it demands an immediate, personal Provi
dence.
But neither is this theory, rightly considered, sufficient for the understanding. It is based on a notion,
which, however plausible it may seem at first view, is
not only incapable of demonstration, but will be found,
on a closer inspection, to be very questionable. It
borrows the idea of a self-acting universe from those
contrivances of human workmanship, which, once set 
THE REGENT GOD.
in motion, by the interaction of mechanical forces will
retain that motion, and perform certain functions, for a
given time, without the aid of any other agency than
their own mechanism.   If human skill can construct a
machine which will act thus by laws and forces inherent
in itself, then infinite Wisdom, it is argued, may construct one which will do the same, on an infinitely
larger scale, for all time;-the material universe is
such a machine. But the analogy fails in one important particular. Man makes the machine, but he does
not make the laws and capacities by which it acts. He
avails himself of laws and capacities that are given in
the substances he employs. And what are those laws
and capacities? They are nothing inherent in the substances themselves; they are not attributes of matter.
To call them so, may suffice for practical purposes; but
it does not satisfy reason.   Matter, by definition, is
passive and incapable: it does not act of itself, but
is acted upon. Laws and capacities are not attributes
of matter, but of intelligence. In reality, the machines
of man's make are not self-acting, but are acted upon
by intelligence; and that intelligence is God. All the
forces of the material world are only methods of divine
action; and what we call the laws of the material world
are only a phrase to denote the regularity and usualness
of that action. When I say that the law of gravitation causes a body thrown into the air to return to the
ground, I do not express a property of bodies, but a
simple fact, - a fact which the term " gravitation" designates, but does not explain; of which no explanation
can be given but the immediate volition of God. Thus
the inference drawn from human contrivances in favor
75 
76  RELIGION WITHIN TIEE BOUNDS OF THEISM.
of a self-acting universe is a fallacy. The idea of such
a universe has no foundation in analogy, or in any
thing we know of the nature of things.
2. The second theory of Providence supposes it to
consist partly in pre-established,  general laws, and
partly in occasional interpositions of divine power for
the sake of certain ends not included in the original
plan of creation, and which general laws would not
have accomplished. The latter method is called a par ticular Providence; the other, a general one. Those
who believe in such interposition find examples of it in
remarkable escapes from danger, in instances of special
good-fortune, or in signal retributions -" judgments,"
as they are called- incurred by evil-doers. This hypothesis is even more objectionable than the first. It
adds to the notion of pre-established laws and a self acting universe, which we have seen to be groundless,
the greater difficulty of ineffectual contrivance. It supposes, like the other, a mechanized nature; but supposes
an imperfect mechanism,- a mechanism which fails to
accomplish all that should be accomplished, which requires constant addition, correction, and improvement.
It supposes a Contriver whose contrivances come into
collision with his own will, a God whose providence is
in conflict. with his own works. Moreover, it gives the
providence of God the appearance of arbitrariness and
partiality. If here one is rescued from peril, why is
another, equally deserving, permitted to perish? If
one sinner is overtaken with divine retribution, why
does another, equally guilty, escape unharmed? In
supposing Providence more active in some cases than
in others, putting in here, quiescent there, it virtually 
THE REGENT GOD.
supposes that God does some things, and not others;
that some events are the products of his agency, and
others not: and the query arises, If this is of God, why
is not that of God? If helpful here, why help-denying
there? If the world is specially guided by divine
power in parts, why is that power not uniformly active?
We are right in speaking of special providences; if by
that term we  designate striking providences;  if we
merely express our own feeling of their import to us,.
if it is understood that the specialty refers to our own
personal experience, and not to the will of God. When,
in any instance, we have experienced a signal felicity,
and feel ourselves peculiarly blest, the devout mind is
peculiarly impressed with a feeling of providential care
and love. To our gratitude, such blessing is a special
Providence; and we do well to emphasize it as such.
At the same time, we ought to understand, that, so far
as the divine government is concerned, every event that
befalls is equally providential. To suppose that some
things are more so than others, is to charge God with a
fitful and partial rule, instead of a uniform care and
government over us.
3. We come, then, to the third hypothesis, which
supposes Providence to consist in the everywhere present, uniform, and direct action of Deity; which supposes it to be the sum and substance of all these
agencies, processes, and laws which we call Nature,
and by which the material universe moves and subsists.
According to this theory, there is no power in nature,
or in works of man's device, but God; no law but
divine volition; no process but divine performance.
Gravitation is one mode of Providence; magnetism,
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77 
78  RELIGION WITHIN THE BOUNDS OF THEISM.
another; electricity, another. Providence is attraction
and repulsion, cohesion and explosion, flood-tide and
ebb-tide, sunrise and sunset, motion and rest. All the
energies of nature are methods of divine activity, and
all the phenomena of nature are phases of the one eter nal Presence. According to this view, whatever chances
is willed,- the mischance as well as the looked-for and
desired result, the failure as well as the fulfilment, the
disaster as well as the success, the foundered and unreturning vessel as well as the safe arrival, the earthquake which shatters a city as well as the sunrise which
blesses a world: according to this view, the unlookedfor escape is providential; but equally providential the
loss and the death. Whatever chances is willed; and
whatever is willed is right.
This is the theory of Providence which my own feeling inclines me to embrace, -the only theory which
approves itself to my judgment, as satisfying equally
mind and heart. It satisfies the understanding by its
simplicity. It avoids the paradox of an active universe
and an inactive God, of intense activity at one time and
quiescence ever after, of a sabbath longer than the term
of labor. It avoids the perplexity of two divinities,
- Nature and God; of self- subsisting energies and
forces; of attributes without an adequate substance;
and, lastly, of a double Providence, - one for everyday use, and one for special occasions. It offers a
plain, distinct, and decided view of God's connection
with the natural world, - his agency in, and his government over it. It presents an idea of Providence,
which, if any object to it on other grounds, must be
allowed, at least, to be unambiguous, well-defined, and 
THE REGENT GOD.
perfectly intelligible,- a Providence at once universal
and particular, uniform and unceasing; not coming
in and going out, now here and now there, as occasion
may require, but everywhere present and all time active, and everywhere and all time one and the same,a Providence, in fact, which is nature itself in all its
aspects and ways. This theory satisfies the heart by
bringing God nearer to us. It shows him equally near
at all times, and equally active and equally beneficent * at all times, in all things. It dissipates the hard
and comfortless doctrine of a government of general
laws, which, acting with fatal and remorseless necessity,
pursue their course and fulfil their functions, blindly
regardless of individual necessities; and which, though
productive of general good, are often fraught with individual evil. It makes God the special guardian of each
individual, as if that individual were Providence's sole
and peculiar charge, and the universe made and managed expressly for his behoof. It realizes to each one
with gracious emphasis, as a personal experience, the
beautiful word of the Psalmist, " The Lord is my shepherd: I shall not want." It spiritualizes the universe,
instead of mechanizing it. It gives us a full world,
instead of an empty one; instead of brute matter, insensate forms and unconscious forces, the living Presence, the conscious Spirit, the pervading God. The
universe is transfigured to him who considers it in the
light of this doctrine. " The dead, inert mass which
choked up space has vanished, and instead thereof flows
* This statement presupposes the moral character of God as a being
whose purpose is the good of his creatures.
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80  RELIGION WITHIN THE BOUNDS OF THEISM.
and waves and rushes the eternal stream of life and
power and deed. All is quick, all is soul, and gazes
upon us with bright spirit-eyes, and speaks in spirittones to the heart."* In the eye of this hypothesis, the
universe is not a past product of creative effort, which,
once produced, subsists thenceforth by mere conservative power, but a present, momentary, continuous production.   The action by which it subsists is not a
preservation of some former work, long since created
and complete, but an ever-new creation.  The universe
is new-born continually,    birth everlasting out of the
bosom of self-existent, original being. The old types
remain; but the substance is new evermore, - an eternal generation from the Lord; life welling forth in
measureless efflux, fresh from the heart of the living
God; a beginningless, endless procession of self-communicating Love.
Informed with this view, I can never be alone in the
world; for the world itself is the presence of God to
my mind and heart. Wherever the moment may find
me,-in the thronged highway, in the closet's retirement,
in pathless deserts, on the rolling deep, -the benign
Presence confronts me face to face. Wherever I turn
my feet, wherever I turn my thought, I encounter the
besetting God. He is my sun, and he my shade.
The  morning comes, he floods  me with  his  light;
in the evening, the heavens are all eyes, through which
he gazes as a pitying Father on his child. If I say,
"Surely the darkness shall cover me," I look within,
and there I meet him "in eternal day." Every process
* Fichte, "Bestimmung des Menschen." 
THE REGENT GOD.
in nature is the going-forth of the Everlasting on his
messages of love, and every event in my experience is
a message of love fulfilled in me.
If any one object to this view, that, in shunning the
one extreme of a far-away, isolated God,- a God
who dwells apart from his works in solitary self-sufficingness, - it runs to the opposite extreme of pantheism, I can only say, I have no desire to repel the plea.
I accept the charge of pantheism, not in the cheerless,
impious sense of a God all world, and a world instead
of God, but in the true and primary sense of a world
all God; i.e., a God co-present to all his works, pervading and embracing all; a God, in apostolic phrase,
" in whom and through whom  are all things."  If this
is pantheism, it is the pantheism which has ever been
the doctrine of the deepest piety: it is the pantheism
professed by devout men in every age of the world. It
is the pantheism of Berkeley when he speaks of "finite
agents inmbosomed in an infinite Mind." It is the pantheism of Newton when he speaks of "a Being pervading space, who, present to all things, sees and
embraces all things present within himself." It is the
pantheism of David when he says, "Thou hast beset me
behind and before."-"If I ascend into heaven, behold!
thou art there; if I make my bed in the under-world,
behold! thou art there."  It is the pantheism of Paul
when he says, "In him we live and move, and have
our being."
To embrace this truth with a faith proportioned to its
blessed import, to believe it truly and to feel it wholly,
is the best result of practical wisdom, as it is the distinguishing trait of pious souls. To feel around us the
81
6 
82  RELIGION WITHIN THE BOUNDS OF THEISM.
everlasting arm in all time of peril, to know and adore
the present God in all time of distress, to discern and
to follow the guiding "Shepherd " in every strait, is the
high privilege of manly faith. Such faith is strength
in weakness, refreshment in sorrow, hope in death.
So instructed and so panoplied, we shall "not fear the
power of any adversary," nor sink despairing under any
fate. We shall bide undaunted our season of peril,
and fearless tread the dark valley. When the blows of
adversity fall thick and fast on our devoted heads, we
shall bear, with strength proportioned to our day, the
spoiling of our goods, the loss of our beloved, the disappointment of our hopes; - most comforted then when
most afflicted, most trusting then when most severely
tried, most hopeful when most stricken, most calmly
blest when at length we have learned effectually the
hard but fruitful lesson of unconditional, undoubting
submission to the Power which passes alike comprehension and control.
"Submit, in this or any other sphere,
Secure to be as blest as thou canst bear;
Safe in the hand of one disposing Power,
Or in the natal or the mortal hour.
All nature is but art unknown to thee;
All chance, direction which thou canst not see;
All discord, harmony not understood;
All partial evil, universal good." 
IV.
THE ANSWERING GOD.  
IV.
THE ANSWERING GOD.
IN our prayers and addresses to the unseen Power,
faith takes it for granted that the suppliant is heard;
that the prayer is not a cry into empty space, a breathing wasted on the desert air; that there are really two
parties in all such exercises,- the soul that prays, and
the God who hears. Faith supposes this, or prayer
would be the most unmea.ning mockery, and, with honest, simple souls, would soon cease altogether.
And yet, if we consider it, what a daring assumption, to suppose that the Infinite takes note of individual
supplications! When we think what countless myriads
of suppliants are proffering their petitions, it may be,
at one and the same moment, and, it may be, for contradictory   favors; in such wise that t o grant the requests of one party would be to deny the requests of
the other; as where, in the conflict of armies, individuals on both sides pray for success in battle; or where
religionists of different faiths entreat the divine blessing,
each on their separate cause, and desire the prevalence
of their respective churches; - when we think of this,
it baffles the understanding to conceive that the infinite
God should give special heed to the prayers of individ                                             [85] 
86  RELIGION WVITIHIN THIE BOUNDS OF THEISM.
ual finite beings.  On the other hand, the belief of this
is so essential to religion, that the two must stand or
fall together. Religion, in any sense characteristically
distinct from philosophy, poetry, or art, is impossible
without worship; and worship is hardly possible without
prayer; and prayer would soon cease without the belief
in a Being who hears and heeds supplication, if he does
not always grant the request.
And happily, the power of the understanding to conceive is not the measure of spiritual truth. The understanding knows nothing of the existence of God by any
insight or function of its own; and, if the understanding were the only guide and the only avenue of truth to
man, no prayer would ever go up from mortal lips, and
no Godward thought or desire would ever arise in mortal breasts. The understanding views every thing in
the light of its own laws, which weigh and measure the
material world, and reduce all the processes of nature
and life to arithmetical calculation. Happily there is
something else in the world beside measure and weight,
and the multiplication-table, and cold, mechanical laws.
What a world it would be in which every thing went by
dead-weight; where all could be calculated, - so much
always in a given time; so much, and no more, with
given means!   a world in which there should be no
surprises, no incalculable factor ever interposed among
the measurable forces that work the machine and work
out the results of every-day life, no inspiration in man,
no reserved power in nature, no residue of spirit or
supplemental grace in God.   Such  is the world in
which the understanding lives and moves; a piece of
mechanism of limited capacity, in which there is noth 
THE ANSWERING GOD.
ing spontaneous, in which every act is predetermined,
and piety itself the result of inevitable laws.   In such
a world there is evidently no place and no legitimate
ground for prayer.  The world is a machine set agoing
with the prime creation, and all the processes of nature
and human history are mechanical functions: there is
nothing for it but to take what the mill of all-work may
grind for us, and ask no questions. Instead of a present God with whom our spirits may commune, and
whose spirit responds to our seeking, we must rough it
as we can with driving-wheel and fly-wheel, - memorials of a God who lived long ago, - and trust that the
power may not fail, nor the gearing foul, in our short
day.
The world which faith inhabits is otherwise constituted.   In that world,  God is the present Will by
whose momentary action it exists and proceeds,- a
Will in immediate contact with our wills; and prayer,
in that world, is a real power; and human life, instead
of the blind play of shaft and piston, is growth from a
seed, susceptible of momentary modification  through
the action of that power of prayer on that present,
living Will.
For those who live always and altogether in that
world, there needs no other proof than their own faith
that prayer is heard by the Being addressed; that their
souls are in actual communication with God, and God
with them, through this medium. But faith is not
equally active at all times. Doubts of the objective
efficacy of prayer will sometimes obtrude themselves on
otherwise believing souls. Do we breathe our petitions
into empty space? or do they light upon some listening
87
I 
88  RELIGION WITHIIN TIE BOUNDS OF THEISM.
Presence? Do they reach their destination in some
sympathizing,  infinite Spirit, - some divine  Person,
who, shrouded in unfathomable but not inaccessible
mystery, receives and considers the supplication addressed to him? It is a question between theism and
atheism.
There are moments in life when some pledge is desired of divine communication, - some demonstration
of a real, responsive relation between the soul and the
Supreme. A man is hesitating, let us suppose, between two sides of a given alternative: he has to choose
between two courses of conduct, between doing or not
doing a certain thing, between taking or not taking a
certain position.   His decision involves consequences
of vast moment to himself and others.  Reasons are
weighty on both sides, for and against. Hle is in a
strait betwixt two. Unable or unwilling to decide of
his own wisdom, he craves direction from the All-wise.
Let God decide: let the burden of responsibility rest
with him!  His will be done!  But what is his will
concerning the matter in debate? Hlow shall the suppliant, seeking divine guidance, be apprised of it?
Individuals, in such cases, resort to different measures, or satisfy themselves with different tests, according as different ages  and faiths, or differences of
individual constitution, may incline.
The Hebrew Gideon, fifth in that line of military
dictators known in our Bible by the name of " Judges,"
felt himself divinely called to free his people from the
ravages of the Midianites who invaded their borders
and laid waste the land. Before entering on this difficult and dangerous enterprise, he required to be assured 
THE ANSIVERING GOD.
of the truth of his calling by some visible token which
should justify and supplement the inspiration of faith,
and be a God-given pledge of success. "If now I
have found grace in thy sight, show me a sign that thou
talkest with me."... "If thou wilt save Israel by my
hand, as thou hast said, behold! I will put a fleece of
wool in the floor; and if the dew be on the fleece only,
and it be dry upon all the earth besides, then shall I
know that thou wilt save Israel by my hand as thou
hast said." According to the story, the sign was vouchsafed: the fleece, in the morning, was wet with dew,
and the earth around was dry. The chief still wavered.
Natural causes might explain the wonder. Another
trial was required. Let the miracle now be reversed.
"Let it now be dry only upon the fleece, and upon all
the ground let there be dew. And God did so that
night; for it was dry upon the fleece only, and there
was dew on all the ground."
I enter into no explanation of this story. My concern is not with Gideon's fleece, but with the impression on the mind of the suppliant, -with the feeling
which led him to desire this external authentication of
his mission. The same feeling has impelled men in
every age to look for demonstrations of the will of
Hieaven in some visible or audible sign. The Greeks
had recourse to oracles, which consisted in the utterances of a kind of delirium, supposed to be a medium
of divine communications. The Hebrews consulted the
sparkle of jewels, or were counselled by voices in
the air. The Romans drew auguries from the entrails
of victims and the flight of birds. Decision by lot is a
common resort in cases of doubtful choice. When,
89 
90  RELIGION VITItIN TIHE BOUNDS OF THIEISM.
after the death of Judas Iscariot, the disciples of Jesus
proceeded to fill his vacant office, of two individuals who
seemed to be equally fitted for the function, they prayed
the Lord to designate by lot the one whom he had
chosen. And, when the lot fell upon Matthias, they
doubted not that the Lord had directed the event in
accordance with their prayer.
Chance readings in sacred or cherished books have
also been accepted as signs from heaven. St. Augustine, at a critical moment of his life, resolved that the
passage on which his eye should first light, on opening
a copy of Paul's Epistles, should determine his future
course. He opened and read, " Make no provision for
the flesh to fulfil the lusts thereof," and forthwith embraced a life of devotion. How many good Christians,
the world over, have sought and received counsel, suggestion, consolation, inspiration, from accidental words
of Scripture! The soldier on the eve of battle, opening his pocket Bible in the tent, chances on the passage,
"A thousand shall fall at thy side, and ten thousand at
thy right hand; but it shall not come nigh thee."  And
he thinks, on the field the next day, in the thickest of
the fight, that he bears a charmed life. The preacher
on shipboard, in imminent peril as he fancies, opens at
random, and reads,  "Thou shalt not die, but live and
declare my statutes." He feels that God has spoken to
him in those words, and the tempest loses its terrors.
There are few devout persons who have not at some
moment of their lives experienced what seemed to be an
immediate communication of God to their souls, - who
have not felt that God spoke to them individually by
some written word or sign addressed to the eye or ea-: 
THE ANSWERING GOD.
or, it may be, some dream which they so interpreted,
or some internal experience which they could not, or
would not, explain in any other sense than that of the
immediate action of God on their mind. The prepared
soul finds a divine communication in every word or
event that touches it effectually and savingly in its hour
of need. Wherever it finds God especially near, it
feels itself found and addressed by him.
But reason still questions, Can there be a direct
communication with God, and of God with us, as man
converses with man? Can there be any token or demonstration to the senses or the understanding of such
communication? Can there be, in the nature of things,
any credible sign that God talks with us, or hears and
heeds our prayer?- that he is really a party, an active, conscious party, in this supposed communication
with Deity in prayer?- that the conscious action is not
all on one side,- on the side of the soul? Can there
be any proof of this that will stand the test of criticism?
Here are two distinct questions. The possibility of a
real communication between the human and divine is
one question. The possibility of any proof to the understanding, of such communication, is another. The
first is substantially, as I have said, a question between
theism and atheism; between God and no God, in the
proper sense of the term; between a personal God and
any other conception to which we may choose to apply
that sacred name.  Mutual communications between the
human soul and a personal God follow necessarily, if
truly and devoutly sought on the human side, from the
nature of that divine Person. And, if we dismiss from
91 
92  RELIGION WITHIN THE BOUNDS OF THEISM.
our idea of God the attribute of personality, what have
we left but the absolute rule of almighty Power, - the
origin and law of universal being? A wise and beneficent rule, if you please,- a rule of which the purpose
and issue is the general good, and submission to which
is duty and safety, but not a God who receives supplication, or to whom supplication would ever be addressed by rational souls. Prayer, in that case, can
mean nothing more than devout contemplation of the
universal order, and devout acquiescence therein; grateful recognition of the good received, patient endurance
of necessary evil. This, too, is a kind of religion, but
not a religion which meets the requirements of faith, or
satisfies devout aspiration. It is not enough for me to
know that the world is not subject to irrational, lawless
accident, but governed, and well governed, and ordered
for good. I desire to enter into personal, conscious,
mutual relations with the Power that rules; to feel that
I, individually, am known and loved by that ruling
Power; can reach him with my petitions, so that he
shall heed them; that I can commune with a Spirit
above the level of the human, and above the order of
nature; and that Spirit with me. The idea of a person
in the Godhead answers to this demand: it reaches my
need with infinite succors. The idea of a personal God
carries with it the possibility - nay, certainty - of divine communication to all who sincerely desire, and
earnestly and perseveringly seek it.
But when we inquire further, if any sign is possible
of the fact and reality of such communication, which
shall satisfy the understanding, - any proof impregnable to criticism, -  reason answers that such signs are 
THiE ANSWERING GOD.
neither possible nor desirable.   The  region in which
these communications take place is a region of faith,
and only through faith and to faith are such communications possible. When God speaks to the understanding, it is not of himself, or things spiritual, that he
speaks, but of such things only as the understanding,
whose function is to methodize sensible impressions,
referring them to physical or physiological laws, can
receive. Only those truths which admit of mathematical demonstration, or those which follow with logical
necessity from incontrovertible premises, are impregnable
to criticism.  Spiritual truths, however assured to those
who receive them, thoulgh certain as mathematical demonstration within their proper domain, cannot be proved
to the understanding, because the domain itself to which
they relate is outside of the sphere of the understanding,
or more properly perhaps inside of it; in either view,
beyond the reach of that faculty, which deals only with
sensible existences and their relations. It is impossible
to imagine any outward sign or visible token of divine
communications which the understanding will not dispute; for which it will not find another interpretation.
The Hebrew warrior doubted the very token lie himself
had desired: he demanded another, and would, with a
little more criticism, have doubted that as well. Visible tokens of divine communication there may be; but
faith will always be required to receive them as such.
In the view of faith, the answer of prayer in the thing
desired will seem a sufficient demonstration of the falct
that the prayer is heard, and that the favor received is
the natural effect and fruit of prayer. Yet it is impossible to prove to the understanding any real causal
93 
94  RELIGION WITHIN THiE BOUNDS OF THEISM.
relation between the two. - A  sceptic, disinclined by
mental habit to admit the principle involved, will dispose of such cases with the vague and accommodating
phrase "coincidence; " which, duly considered, is only
a different statement of the fact from another point of
view. Coincidence is the external aspect of that for
which some interior reason must be supposed.   For
though things which coincide are not always related as
cause and effect, yet where, together with coincidence
in time, there is also a mutual fitness and a moral link
between the two, a reaching-forth of one toward the
other, a natural correspondence between the antecedent
and the consequent, it is fair to presume a divine adaptation.  Sober thought, independently of faith, will not
rest satisfied with an empty name; but, pursuing the
inquiry, will see that coincidences are not blind accident, but marks and moments of a pre-established harmony which arranges these parallelisms between the
natural and the moral world, and adjusts creation to
the faithful soul.
Further than this, it is not to be expected, and not
to be desired, that the commerce with God assured
to faith should be vouched to the senses by visible
signs.  One sees at once what a door would be opened
to wild superstition and irreverent use, if such demonstrations were vouchsafed, or might be expected whenever and by whomsoever desired; how every event
would be subsidized by vain curiosity imnpertinently
questioning the deep things of God; how all nature
would be perverted to oracles of private interpretation
by importunate souls; and how all barriers between
the holy and profane would be broken down. The 
TIHE ANSWERING GOD.
visionary Rousseau relates, that, in early youth, he
sought, by throwing stones at a mark, to ascertain
whether he was destined for heaven or hell. A hit or
a miss should be a sign from God of life eternal, or everlasting death. No wonder he took care, as he frankly
confesses, to stand very near, and to have the mark
conveniently broad.   Such misapplications  might  be
expected of any supposed license to question God by
visible signs. The soul has a right to seek assurance
of the presence and participation of God in its conference with him, but not to prescribe the desired pledge,
or to dictate the nature of the proof.  It stands in the
nature of the thing, that the proof must be internal,
and the token evident only to faith. Such a token is a
sudden inspiration breathed into the mind, or a sudden
peace descending on the heart, in answer to the soul's
aspiration and appeal; the new strengthening of the
will; the new - born  courage; the new - born  hope.
These are the fire from heaven that kindles the flame on
the altar, assuring an acceptable offering. What better
sign can there be? What surer pledge of a hearing,
heeding, answering God?
If there be the personal God whom faith conceives,
there must be the personal relations and communications with him which faith supposes and religion craves.
Our spirits must be in contact with their kind. Somewhere and somehow there must be an answer to every
true prayer. For surely the economies of the moral
world are not less exact than those of the natural.
In the realm of matter, there is no waste. Not a grain
of dust, not a drop of water, not a particle of vapor,
can ever be lost to the sphere of which it is a compo
95 
9 6  RELIGION WITHIN THE BOUNDS OF THEISM.
nent part. The dew which bathes the summer rose,
and glorifies the meadow with its morning sheen, had its
origin in what might seem to be the escapes and wastes
of the planet. And, when rose and meadow have exhaled their dews at the touch of the sun, the viewless,
imponderable vapor is not dissipated beyond recall; it
is not all spent on the thankless air; it is gathered and
garnered in the chambers of the sky, and returns again
in due season, according to its circuit, in orient dews
or refreshing showers. And shall not the finer exhalations of the soul, -' the prayers which are breathed
from the deeps of the breast, the secret vows, the Godward thought, the devout aspiration, - shall not these
also return again according to their circuit, and bring
their blessing? 
~V
THE EXORABLE GOD.
[97]
t
7 
0 
~~~\
V.
THE EXORABLE GOD.
FAIT   and unbelief alternate in human history, and
shape the world according to their kind. An age of
devotion followed by a period of secularism, a period
of secularism followed by an age of devotion, inverts
the proportions of mortal life. At one time, this earth
is but the forecourt of an unseen, heavenly world; the
lodge before the garden gates of a spiritual paradise; a
mere suburb of the city of God: at another, heaven and
the life to come are only a perspective finish, - a kind
of artistic background to the earthly world. But, in
every age, prayer and religion are one and inseparable:
as much as there is of the one, so much of the other.
For this is the one universal thing in religion,
common alike to the lowest forms of nature-worship
and the most sublime mysticism, more universal than
even the belief in God. Religions that have no God,
as we understand that termn, no Supreme Ruler of the
universe, still practise prayer to such forces and demons
as they know. However the exercise may vary, and
whether performed by mechanism or meditation, whether
it consist in the revolutions of a wheel, in manipulating
beads, or in the rapt contemplation of the Quietist,
prayer is still the essence of religion. The negroes of
[99]
*..'"-:!V! 
100  RELIGION WITHIN THE BOUNDS OF THEISMiI.
Guinea, according to Father Loyer, along with their
fetichism, believe in an unseen Power, and pray to it in
this fashion, when, in the morning, they have washed
in the running stream: "My God! give me this day
rice and yams; give me gold and slaves and riches;
and grant that I may be active and swift." Compare
the frank and childish egoism of such petitions with the
prayer of Socrates: "Grant that I may be inwardly
pure, and that my lot may be such as shall best agree
with a right disposition of the mind!"  Compare it
with the prayer of St. Augustine:  "God grant that
my heart may desire thee; that, desiring, it may seek
thee; that, seeking, it may find; that, finding, it may
love; that, loving, it may be redeemed from all evil!"
Compare it with the prayer of Jesus: "That they all
may be one, as I, Father, am in thee, and thou in me;
that they may be one in us!" Consider these four
degrees of supplication,s   the prayer for sensual gratification, the prayer for moral excellence, the prayer for
God himself as the supreme Good, and, finally, the
prayer that all mnankind may be partakers of that good,
-and learn from these examples the carry and the
scope of this act of faith.
Prayer for specific objects, proffered with the hope
of influencing the divine Will, is the topic I am now to
discuss. In the chapter preceding this, I considered
the question, and maintained the fact (in the world of
faith), of a real communication with God. The efficacy
of prayer-  its power to procure the desired blessingis a quite distinct point. Is God an exorable being?
On this question, religion and the current philosophy
*.-  I.
!-'i "       
THE EXORABLE GOD.
conflict. Religion assumes the efficacy of prayer as a
fundamental postulate. The current philosophy pleads
the alleged immutability of God, and the necessary
order of events. God is supposed to have pre-arranged
every thing, and every thing therefore to be unalterably fixed.  Every- thing that can happen to me is
fore-ordained: so, and no otherwise, must it be with
me. All the solicitation I can urge cannot move the
Eternal from his fixed purpose, or change the complexion of my lot. Whatever it has seemed good to the
All-wise that I should have or be, will come to pass
without my  asking, and in spite of my  entreaty.
And whatsoever it has not seemed good to the All-wise
that I should have or be, that no asking will procure
for me. Why, then, should I pray?
The argument rests on a bare assumption. That
God has predetermined every thing or any thing is
pure hypothesis, - a theory of God unsubstantiated by
any trustworthy authority, incapable of scientific demonstration. Unquestionably, the order of events is a
necessary order. Every thing that takes place is the
necessary consequence of something which went before
it. But, when we say "predetermined," we transfer to
God the modes and conditions of the finite mind. We
imagine him subject, like ourselves, to the laws and
order of time and place, with whom there is neither
here nor there, nor before nor after. The order of
events is necessary; inasmuch as it is not accidental,
but governed by powers, and determined by causes,
which act according to immutable laws. But then my
will is one of those powers; and prayer, being one of
the modes in which my will acts, may be one of the
101 
102  RELIGION WITHIN THE BOUNDS OF THEISM.
causes which determine thile order of events. God is in
me as well as out of me. He acts not only on me and
for me, but through me. Every movement of my soul
is one of his instrumentalities, and prayer among the
rest. Therefore it is not unreasonable to suppose, that
my destiny and others' destinies may be affected by my
prayer.
Another answer to this objection, drawn from the
inflexibility of the divine nature and the necessary order
of events, is, that no man believes it.  No man believes
it to that extent, that he is willing to act upon it as a
rule of life, which would be equivalent to not acting at
all. The objection is just as valid against every other
act and effort, as against prayer.   If all things are
unalterably fixed and must come to pass, so and not
otherwise, -whatever we do or omit to do, -then why
act at all with a view to any end to be accomplished by
our action?  But no man is a fatalist to that extent.
No man who professes to believe that all things are foreordained abstains from voluntary action on that account.
You believe that God has predetermined whether A or
B shall carry the day in a popular election: why should
you take any steps to promote or prevent that which is
fixed by inevitable decree? But you do not hesitate to
deposit your vote, and to use such means as you can,
to secure the man of your choice. God has predetermined whether or no thieves shall break into your
dwelling; but you do not hesitate to adopt the usual
precautions.   God has predetermined whether or no
your farm shall produce; but you do not hesitate to
fertilize the soil, and to put it in the best condition for
the largest yield.   The  reason is, you see in these 
THE EXORABLE GOD.
cases, whatever your theory of fixed decrees, a relation
of means to ends which invites to action.  No man  is
so persuaded of the fore-ordination of events as not to
exercise some voluntary agency of his own in bringing
about such as are desirable, and staving off that which
he fears. Whatever their theory, men practically believe that events are contingent, and hang in some
mneasure on their volition,-  on their voluntary action.
In prayer you do not see this relation of means and
ends, and therefore you assume that it does not exist;
that prayer is unavailing for any practical end beyond
the mind of the suppliant.  "Our ignorance of Deity,"
says Plutarch, "manifests itself in two opposite tendencies: one is inordinate superstition; the other, atheism." There are various kinds of atheism. Disbelief
in prayer is one kind.
But is the Deity an exorable being?  Is the all-wise
Disposer of events to be moved by entreaty, determined
by the prayer of finite minds? This is not a question
on which any one has a right to dogmatize. I only
know that the Deity so reveals himself in me; and I
also know -  who does not know?-  that prayer, in
imminent necessity, is a universal instinct of the human
heart,- an instinct which characterizes man as man,
and is common to all faiths and nations. There are
few, perhaps none, who would not pray in some cases,
however indisposed to prayer in general, by theory or
habit, - who would not breathe forth a silent petition
in moments of extreme peril. " When the wish within
you," says "Asmus,"  concerns you nearly, and is very
ardent, it will not question long; it will overpower you
like a strong man armed; it will hurry on a few rags
1103 
.t04  RELIGION WITHI THE BOUNDS OF TIIEISM.
of words, and knock at the door of heaven."-  " I have
great respect for the necessary order and connection of
events; but I cannot help thinking of Samson, who
left the connection of the gate-leaves unchanged, but
carried the whole gate off bodily on his shoulders."
Philosophy or no philosophy, such is man; such is
the instinctive faith of the human soul!  This instinct
supposes a meaning  and efficacy in prayer, without
which it would seem to have been implanted in vain.
To all theory and reasoning and speculation on the
subject, I oppose this inborn, ineradicable instinct of
the soul, which, if it does not demonstrate the efficacy
of prayer, affords at least a rational presumption in its
favor, and, on the whole, is less likely to deceive us
than our speculations. It may be objected, that these
instinctive prayers for aid in great emergencies are not
always answered: they do not always avert the impending evil. The calamity befalls, our prayers to the
contrary notwithstanding. It may be so. The prayer
is not always answered; but who shall say that it is
never answered?   Wrho shall say, that, when  unanswered in the thing desired, it is not answered in some
other and better way?
As a question of philosophy, I much suspect that
philosophy as shallow and insufficient which runs counter to the native instincts of the soul. Philosophy objects, that prayer is founded in low, anthropomorphic
views of God.   What if it should appear that the
current philosophy itself is guilty, and that, in a far
greater degree, of precisely the same fault?-that the
view of God which that philosophy assumes is the least
adequate, the most crude and unphilosophical, of the 
TIlE EXORABLE GOD.
two? For is it not a mechanical view of divine methods
and operations? It regards God as a mechanician; the
world as a machine, which, once set agoing,, obeys
with automatic regularity the impulse imparted to it,the law in its constitution,- and admits of no change.
It places God afar off, apart from the world, which he
governs by its own mechanism, interfering only to
repair and adjust when the mechanism is out of gear.
Is it not more philosophic to think of God as the immanent, all-present Source of life, and the universe as the
manifestation of that life?- to think of him, not as apart
from his works, but as a Spirit pervading and possessing them and us,- he in us, and we in him,-and
prayer as the felt contact of our spirits with his? If
this view is the true one, then the question whether
God is exorable is already answered.   We may boldly
say that every genuine prayer affects the Deity in proportion to the faith that is in it. Every genuine prayer
is a positive force in the universe of things. The eternal Will-  the axis of creation - bows and dips to
human entreaty. The world of spirits, subsisting and
centred in God, is moved by it as the sea is moved by
whatever stirs within its depths.  The motion may not
reach to the outward, visible result which the prayer
contemplates. It may want the requisite force for that
consummation. But every prayer, in proportion to the
force that is in it, tents to that result.  And the force
that is in it is the measure of faith which inspires it;
which works in it and by it.  Faith is the hold we have
of the Godhead. Faith is a power which sways Omnipotence. It is no figure of speech, no oriental exaggeration, when Jesus says, " If ye have faith, all things
105 
106  RELIGION WITHIN THE BOUNDS OF THEISM.
shall be possible to you." It is impossible to set any
limit to this power. We may say, without irreverence,
that God is constrained by it; inasmuch as itself is
divine. In this sense, it was said, "The Spirit itself
maketh intercession for us."  The Spirit prays,-  God
acting on God.
I say, then, God is moved, constrained by prayer.
I find the philosophy which denies the efficacy of prayer
to be shallow and superficial. A more profound philosophy, a more faithful analysis of all the elements
involved in the question, will lead to the opposite conclusion. Every sincere prayer is effectual to some extent: it is effectual in proportion to the faith that is in it.
The prayer of perfect faith will never fail of its answer.
On the other hand, this perfect faith is itself the
inspiration of God, and not to be attained without absolute surrender to the supreme Will.
Faith and prayer relate to each other as inspiration
and aspiration, breathing in and breathing out,- the
systole and diastole of the soul.   In the one, we imbibe the divine life: in the other, we express it. In
faith, the Godhead floods the soul as the ocean rushes
inland with the swelling tide. In prayer, the soul regurgitates again, and merges itself in the Divine.
The efficacy of prayer depends on the measure of
faith. Only that which we ask in full faith are we
likely to receive.   No rational mn believes that he can
obtain an accession to his property, success in financial
speculation, or any worldly good, by praying for it; because no one who has well considered the discipline and
ends of life can feel so assured of the necessity of these
things to his well-being as to ask them with perfect 
THE EXORABLE GOD. 
faith. A lurking unbelief will vitiate the truth and
efficacy of such petitions: they verify the saying, " Ye
ask and receive not, because ye ask amiss."   Haydon,
the painter, prayed for success with his pictures, intent
only on the personal advantage to be gained by them,
and did not succeed. George Miiller prayed for pecuniary succor in his charities, intent on the good of
others, and again and again received an answer to his
supplications, in pecuniary supplies.
The prayer for even spiritual good may remain unanswered, if, while we perceive with our understanding
the need of divine grace, we want that profound conviction and fervent desire which prompt the prayer of
faith.   Only what we wish do we really pray for;
and all our wishes are prayers.  There are who pray
in set words for the gifts of the Spirit, while the
heart's unworded collect solicits the comforts of the
flesh. They ask forgiveness of sins, and mean impunity; they ask salvation, and mean prosperity, like the
worshipper stigmatized by the Roman  satyrist, who
offered his prayer in due form to Apollo, but prayed
between his teeth to the goddess of thieves: "O fair
Laverna! grant me the talent to cheat and defraud
without detection, to get the better of all whom I
shall deal with, at the same time to appear just and
holy before men."  It is not inconsistent with the theory
of prayer, nor any proof against the principle, that
many prayers should fail of their purpose: on the contrary, the theory itself requires that they should. Only
the prayer of faith is ever answered to the suppliant.
I have spoken of prayers for specific objects; for this
was the topic I proposed to discuss. But the asking
107 
108 RELIGION WITHIN THE BOUNDS OF THEISM.
of favors is not the whole nor the most important part of
prayer.  Nor is the value of prayer to be measured by
the answer in kind. Its best effect is that about which
there is no dispute. There are many states and acts
of the mind, beside asking of favors, which partake, in
a greater or less degree, of the nature of prayer. Every
reference to God in our thoughts, wishes, or actions, is
prayer.  Every emotion of gratitude for blessings enjoyed, every feeling of contrition for evil committed or
duty neglected, every noble aspiration, every good
resolution, every resignation to God's decree, every
meditation on divine things; is prayer.
There are many who complain that they can form to
themselves no distinct conception of the Being to whom
prayer is addressed. They have no definite object before the mind.   God seems to them so remote, so
inconceivable, they cannot lay hold of him by any effort
of the imagination, or fancy themselves in real communion with him. But why is it necessary to form
a distinct conception of God? Will the prayer be more
effectual because addressed to a mental  image,-a
creature of the imagination?  " Beware of idols."  All
that is necessary is the impression, the conviction, of
overruling Power, divine Beneficence, incorruptible
Justice, unchangeable Truth, presiding over all tle
course of things. With this conviction, let the soul
go into itself, and consider its belongings, and consider
its wants, and breathe its desires; not attempt to form
to itself any notion of Divinity, but confine itself to the
thing, to the subject of prayer, -its needs, its aspirations,
its hopes. Let it rouse and direct itself to worthy ends, 
THE EXORABLE GOD.
under a sense of its relation to the Eternal, its moral
responsibilities, its spiritual calling;-  that is prayer.
The real difficulty lies behind these metaphysical
objections. There is a sluggishness of mind which
prevents it from collecting itself in a vigorous effort of
self-communion. There is a coldness of heart which
makes it indifferent to the supreme Good, - a practical
unbelief which shuts the soul against God and the influx of his spirit. If these obstacles were not, there
would be no questioning. The spirit of prayer would
take possession of the soul, and keep an unbroken communication with the secret God.
The spirit and life of prayer is the consciousness of
God, the feeling that we are his, that he is ours, that
nothing but the voluntary aversion of our spirits can
separate us from him. A feeling of Deity as the power
by which we live, the light by which we see, the great
Reality in the knowledge of whom is eternal life, and
whose participation is the supreme blessing. Where
this consciousness lives and burns, there is prayer,
though not always expressed in words. For the soul,
in its highest devotion, is content to repose in the
thought of God, asking nothing, seeking nothing; its
whole being concentrated in the one unuttered desire,
Thy will be done!"
There are times, however, when the feeling, if genuine, cannot choose but utter itself in words.   The mnore
intense it is, the more apt it will be to seek that vent.
"I was dumb with silence," says David: "I held my
peace even from good."  But, "while I mused, the fire
burned; then spake I with my tongue."
109 
110  RELIGION WITHIN THIE BOUNDS OF THEISM. -
I conclude with the words of one who, more than
any writer of the English tongue, had explored this
subject in its breadth and depth, and has written most
profoundly concerning it: "Poor and miserable as this
life is, we have all of us free access to all that is great
and good and happy; and we carry within ourselves
the key to all the treasures that Heaven can bestow.
We starve in the midst of plenty,- groan under infirmities, with the remedy in our own hands; we live
and die without knowing and feeling any thing of the
one only Good, whilst we have it in our power to know
and enjoy it as really and truly as we know and feel the
power of this world. For heaven is as near to our
souls as this world is to our bodies....  God, the
only Good of all intelligent natures, is not an absent
or distant God, but is more present to and in our souls
than our own bodies; and we are strangers to heaven,
and without God in the world, for this only reason,
that we want the spirit of prayer, which alone can, and
which never fails to, unite us with the one only Good,
and to open heaven and the kingdom of God within us.
A root set in the finest soil and the best climate, and
blessed with all that sun, air, and rain can do for it, is
not in so sure a way of its growth to perfection as
every man may be who aspires after that which God is
ready and infinitely desirous to give him. For the sun
meets not the springing bud that stretches towards him
with half that certainty with which God, the source of
all good, communicates himself to the soul that longs
to partake of him." *
* Law's "Spirit of Prayer." 
VI.
THE OLD ENIGMA.  
vi.
THE OLD ENIGMA.
WHOSO  interrogates  the order of nature from  the
ground of theism soon stumbles on the world-old problem of Evil,-its origin, reason, and right to be in the
scheme of things. The problem states itself thus in
our inquiry. If a God created and governs this world
of ours,-a God all powerful, wise, and good,-why
are these attributes so imperfectly expressed in creation?
Why this immense deduction from the good, which a
rule of perfect Love, conducted by infinite Wisdom,
ought, it is believed, to secure to its subjects?. Why
does eternal Goodness permit the wide-spread evil with
which creation groans?  Why this dark shadow which
everywhere bounds our capacity, our well-being, our
life? If only the guilty suffered,' and suffered only in
the measure of their guilt, such suffering would seem
but just retribution, the wise operations of moral laws.
But over and above the evil due to man's free agency,the woes inflicted by human passion and all the misery
incident to mortal folly and crime, -beside all this,
which constitutes so large a part of the burdens of humanity, we are persecuted with evil which lies in the
constitution of things, elemental plagues, hostilities of
nature, national calamities, tempest, blight, physical
8                 [113] 
114 RELIGION WITHIN THIIE BOUNDS OF THEISM.
infirmities, monsters, madness, and all inevitable ills.
The universe is full of them. Nature at her brightest
conceals beneath that sun-beaming countenance innumerable and inestimable griefs. " All being is in pain,"
said Paul.    Creation travails." -   The heavens and
the earth, and things without life," said Philo, " may be
seen to suffer." Philosophers, ancient and modern,
Christian and Pagan, have stood perplexed and aghast
in the presence of the unveiled enormous woe. One
of the most recent denounces the optimism which can
see only good in the arrangements of nature, and
which deems that this world of ours is the best possible
world.  " Evil," he says, " is real, colossal, incessant;
the world is bad; it is a misery to have been born."
"Life is the natural history of sorrow; it is the war of
all against all, an internecine strife for ever renewed from
age to age, till the crust of the planet shall peel off
piecemeal."-" There are miracles of destructiveness in
nature, -in the human as well as the brute creation.  It
is not only in the solitudes of the new world that plants
of gorgeous hues delight in putrid miasmata, and drink
thie death which makes their life; it is not there only
that giant oaks are strangled by creeping vines, and die
in their grasp. It is not in Australia only that the ant,
by a prodigy of suicidal instinct, devours itself, nor only
in the ocean-deeps that the young polype nourishes itself
with the substance of its sire. Man surpasses all these
horrors, and the word of Scripture is for ever true:
'There are those who devour men as they eat bread."' *
Evil inheres in the constitution of things. The most
* Schopenhauer.
I 
THE OLD ENIGMA.
cheerful philosophy cannot blink the fact, however
lightly it may esteem it, however hopefflly it may reason
about it. Evil abounds: what shall we say of it?
why tolerated by perfect Love? why uncorrected by
almighty Power?  how reconciled with infinite Wis dom? This is the question on which age after age has
tried its skill, and on which all philosophies thus far
have foundered, if the test of philosophic success be ani
answer at once so luminous and so decisive as to solve
every doubt, to satisfy every scruple of reason and piety,
and to stop all further inquiry.
The oldest solution of the great problem is also the
most natural. It seems to have been the first rude
effort of speculative thought in the world's infancy, and
formed the basis of one of the most ancient of historic
religions. The answer which the Persian gave to the
question concerning the origin of evil, was the theory of
two Gods, - a holy, just, and benevolent God, who
created all that is good and healthful and blessed in
nature, all that is fruitful of life and joy; a God whose
symbol is light, and whose truest visible type is the sun:
and opposed to him a wicked and malevolent God,
whose symbol is darkness; who made all hateful and
baleful creatures, -whatever hurts and destroys, -and
to whom is attributed all the evil that is in the world.
A fragment of this Persian faith was introduced through
Judaism into Christianity, and still survives in the pop ular notion of the Devil, who formerly occupied a
larg,er place and played a more important part in Chris tian systems of theology and philosophy than he does in
the modified creeds of our time. Physical as well as
moral evil, calamities, and disasters, hail, blight, light
115 
116 RELIGION WITHIN THE BOUNDS OF THEISM.
ning, wrecks, and hurts of all kinds, were ascribed to
him by our ancestors. Luther gravely charges him
with the floods of the river Saale, with fires in the forests of Thurin,gia, and the sulphur in its wines.
The Satanic theory of the origin of evil has the
advantage of great simplicity: it offers, if one could
accept it, an easy and sufficient explanation of all existing and all possible evil, and absolves the divine rule of
all complicity with it. But it does not relieve the theological difficulty involved in the incompatibility of evil
with the supposition of infinite power and wisdom in
the God of our worship. On the contrary, it bounds
and circumscribes that infinity; and while it absolves the
divine rule of the charge of willingly grieving or afflicting, it also limits that rule by the empire, larger or
smnaller, as we may figure it, of a border-power and an
outlying hostile State. It disturbs and degrades our
idea of God by circumscribing his sway.   It is no
longer Omnipotence that rules, but Omnipotence qualified by the Devil. Moreover, although it explains the
existence of evil, it presents another problem of equally
difficult solution. The hypothesis is convenient till we
look behind it, and then we fall upon a new entanglement greater than the first. The Devil explains every
thing, but who shall explain the Devil?  A fallen angel,
shall we say? - then explain to us that fall.
And here we come upon another proposed solution of
the problem of evil, of wide acceptation in the Christians
Churchl, - the fall, whether of angels in heaven or of
man on the earth; more commonly understood of the
latter; or let us say, sin, the necessary antecedent of
the fall, and also its consequent. Sin, it is contended
6 
THE OLD ENIGMA.
by Christian theologians of a school which still very
widely prevails, is the cause of all the evils that afflict
mankind. All physical infirmities, ails, and plagues,
nay, all cosmic disturbances, the War of the elements,
all calamities that befall, are traceable and rightly
attributable to man's transgression. The world was
what it should be, a garden of delights, the Eden of
the Bible, the golden age of Gentile tradition, -no
noxious plants, no venomous reptiles, no beasts of prey,
no briers or thorns, no tempests and no sterility, no
need of heavy and exhausting toil, no burdensome
cares, no aches or pains,-till man transgressed.
Then, suddenly, nature was put out of joint, the universe was dislocated: all these plagues and woes rushed
in; and the enemies of human happiness hastened to
their prey as vultures and vermin flock to the banquet
of corruption. This theory, which throws on the freewill of man the responsibility of natural as well as moral
evil, seems at first to honor God in affirming a creation
originally free from the imperfections and disorders, the
discomforts and disasters, which now attend it, and which
only opposition to God's will could engender. But
rightly considered, critically weighed, it furnishes no
satisfactory vindication of the fact and agency of evil in
the scheme of things. What is gained by it for one of
the divine attributes is lost to others. It presents a
God whose plans are traversed, his agency thwarted,
his purposes of mercy defeated, by his creature. The
divine Artificer constructs a world "of absolute perfection," exempt from all harm, fruitful of blessing, and
only blessing: his creature disobeys, and constrains him
to undo his work, to remodel the universe on a baser
117 
118  RELIGION WITHIN TIHE BOUNDS OF THEISM.
scale, adjusting it to man's unworthiness. So Milton's
great verse, tfe highest expression which Christian
literature has given to this hypothesis, represents the
origin of evil in the natural world. The Creator, he
says, after Adam's transgression
i' Calling forth by name
HIis mighty angels, gave them several charge
As sorted best with present things. The sun
Had first his precept so to move, so shine,
As might affect the earth with cold and heat
Scarce tolerable; and from the North to call
Decrepit Winter, from the South to bring
Solstitial Summer's heat.
To the winds they set
Their corners, when with bluster to confound
Sea, air, and shore, the thunder when to roll
With terror through the dark, aerial hall.
Some say he bid his angels turn askance
The poles of earth twice ten degrees and more
From the sun's axle. They with labor pushed
Oblique the eccentric globe,
~.. To bring in change
Of seasons to each clime; else had the Spring
Perpetual smiled on earth with verdant flowers.
~   *  ~..    *....,  
These changes in the heavens, though slow, produced
Like change on sea and land; sidereal blast,
Vapor and mist and exhalation hot,
Corrupt, and pestilent...
... Thus began
Outrage from lifeless things
Beast now with beast'gan war, and fowl with fowl,
And fish with fish; to graze the herb all leaving,
Devoured each other."
Such, poetically set forth, is the theory of physical
evil by moral delinquency. Making all needful allowance for the uses and laws of poetic representation, and
granting, as we needs must, that a large proportion of
the troubles and disasters that afflict mankind - some 
THE OLD ENIGMA.
bodily infirmities and most civil disorders - are the fruit
of sin, I cannot persuade myself that man's transgression has affected the poise of the planet and changed
the angle of the earth's axis with the plane of the ecliptic from a right to an oblique one; or that disobedience
to the moral law accumulated the ice of the poles and
the sands of the desert, giving rise to the tempests
which desolate sea and land; nor yet that vicious indulgence is the cause of all the earthquakes and all the
malaria, and the blight and the famine, that distress the
world.  In fact, there is no pretence of any natural
connection in these matters: it is not pretended that sin,
by natural and necessary sequence, entails these disorders; but that God, by a special act of penal legislation,
avenges sin by deranging the spheres and depraving the
globe. However it may flatter the poetic imagination,
this theory of the origin of evil fails to satisfy universal
reason, and would scarcely merit a moment's attention,
were it Aot still stoutly defended by writers of our
time.
Another solution of this problem, or rather a way
of disposing of it, is what may be termed the heroic
method, as taught and professed, and to some extent
practised, by the Stoics.  It consists in denying the
existence of evil, in indifference to all the vicissitudes of
life; esteeming as equally vain what men call good and
ill; serenely accepting, or rather ignoring, pain, privation, loss, and want, as things external and foreign to
the soul, which therefore ought not to disturb its tranquillity, nor discompose the supreme content, which,
based on the soul itself, is complete and impregnable.
Here is no attempt to answer the question, " Whence
119 
120  RELIGION WITIIIN THE BOUNDS OF THEISM.
and why the evil of this world?" but only a sublime
irrecognition of any such question to be propounded.
There is nd evil, the Stoics said: no evil and no goQd
to the wise, in things external; no pleasure and no pain
derivable from them. Of this doctrine a critic justly
remarks: "It may be sublime, but is none the less
absurd." It is worthy of note, that the Stoic philosophy flourished most in the darkest period of the world's
history. These Stoics, says the critic, were optimists
indeed, " optimists at the table of Nero and in the gardens of Tiberius. It was the enormity of evil which
made them Sophists. They denied it in order not to
curse it: they denied it in order to conceal it from their
own eyes. By force of pride or of meanness, they acted
an impossible part. Wounded on all sides, wounded
unto death, they declared themselves invulnerable.
O inanity of wisdom!...They wished to appear erect
when  already prostrate.... They sought to extract
happiness from  the  bitterest rinds of pain,  and  to
make us believe in felicity in the midst of that bath
of blood and crime known as the despotism of the
emperors."   It is needless to enlarge on the theory of
the Stoics. Whatever value it may have as a practical
philosophy, as a theory:he mere statement is its own
refutation.
One other solution of the question in debate I can
only glance at, although, in my judgment, the most
defensible that has ever been propounded. It is that
already alluded to in the word " optimism." This view
supposes that God's creation is a perfect work, and
the world in which we live the best possible world on
the whole; not the best possible to the individual 
THE OLD ENIGMA.
at any given moment, but the best possible on the
whole: all creatures considered, and all the ages of man
taken into the account. It supposes evil to be, in the
first place, a necessary accompaniment of finite being;
a condition inherent in the act of creation; a consequence resulting from the very limitations which bound
individual existence. And, secondly, it supposes evil to
be a necessary condition of development and growth.
And this development and growth - not present supreme satisfaction -it justly assumes to be the true
ideal of human life. There are some things of which
it is no disparagement of infinite Power and Wisdom
to say, that they are impossible even with God. God
could not make an infinite, and therefore not a perfect
being, -much less a universe of such beings.  He could
not make an imperfect being perfectly happy.   The
limit of nature is the limit of enjoyment; the end of
power, the beginning of discontent. And yet a world
of such beings may be a perfect world; that is, the best
possible world to the sum of the beings contained in it,
affording the greatest possible happiness to the greatest
number. And that is all that reason needs, to vindicate
divine perfection. Again: it was possible for God to
create a world in which there should be no suffering.
But the absence of suffering, so far from assuring the
greatest conceivable amount of happiness, may be easily
shown to be incompatible with that amount of happiness which actually exists, of which the two most
essential ingredients are progress and hope.
On these two fundamental conditions,-imperfection,
a necessity of finite existence on the one hand; and
progress, the highest good, on the other, -optimism
121 
122  RELIGION WITHIIN THE BOUNDS OF THEISM.
constructs its solution of the problem of evil, and bases
the proposition of a best possible world. I am far
from maintaining that this theory furnishes a full and
sufficient answer to the question we are considering, and
all the questions connected with it. I only contend, that,
so far as it reaches, it is the most satisfactory answer
that has yet been given; most truly reverent toward
God, because most trustful in divine wisdom and goodness; most ennobling, because replete with encouragement and hope for man.
But after all is said that philosophy has to say on
this subject, however satisfactory and incontrovertible
in theory, the ills of life present an inexplicable mystery still to the heart. We may talk about the best
possible world, and may think we believe in it: but a
great sorrow makes us forget all that; and we feel in
the marrow of our bones how insufficient for the heart
is every solution which philosophy can offer of this terrible enigma. The enigma is not solved by philosophy,
but solved, if at all, by an act of faith. Faith has its
own optimism, very different from that of the understanding, or very differently put. It is perfectly expressed in that homely phrase, which contains, I think,
the sum of all wisdom in relation to this matter: "It is
all for the best." Not Seneca nor Leibnitz has said
any thing which hits the heart of the matter like this.
It is all for the best."  All plagues and harms that
lacerate the soul, the war of the elements, the wrath of
man, " the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune," all
wounds of the heart, all losses and deaths, are ministers
of good: a divine purpose works in all. With these
stones in our path, the unchangeable Love is laying the 
TIIE OLD ENIGMA.
courses of the house of life, strong against all the accidents of earth and all the wear of time. As part and
product of this earthly world, we belong to the system
of subject-nature, we are tossed in its storms and
mixed up with its wrecks.   " We that are in this tabernacle do groan,  being  burthened."   Subject-nature
travails in us; but the travail is the birth-pang out of
which is the life, secure within, tempest-proof, unracked
by mortal throes.
All that reason teaches of God is expressed in the
saying, "God is Law." All that religion teaches is
expressed in the saying, "God is Love." Each of
these aspects is the other's complement.
1. God is Law. That law embraces all that is or
can be in the universe of things, -  the wildest freaks
of chance, the most exorbitant anomalies in nature, the
toughest spasms, the slightest incidents of matter or
mind, storm, earthquake, fire, the shoot  of an avalanche, the dropping of a leaf, the esentricities of a
comet, the vagaries of a dream, the birth of a monster,
the suggestion of a thought, every stroke of good fortune, every mishap that befalls. There is no accident
in the scheme of God.   What is casual and exceptional
is as much determined as what is stated and constant;
the earthquake which -swallows up a city, as much as
the motion of the earth on its axis; the lightning which
shatters the human frame,. as much as the electric currents which traverse the globe; the tempest which
dashes the ship upon the rocks, as much as the earth's
atmosphere; the disease which lays waste, as much- as
the physical economy it invades. Life would be intol
123 
124  RELIGION WITHIN THE BOUNDS OF THEISM.
erable on any other terms. More grievous than any
actual calamity would be the thought, that calamity is
unwilled and undesigned; that man is at the mercy of
a lawless power. We are compassed about with perils
and pains; but inviolable law encompasses them.  And
evil is not the fatal misstep of groping, reeling acci dent, but the conscious, measured tread of providential
and paternal Power, - a part of that Providence which
is co-extensive with the uttermost range of being, and
co-present to every movement within its bounds; to
which the farthest star beyond the dream of astronomy
is not too remote, nor the smallest animalcule within
the surmise of zoology too minute.
Why evil exists is a problem which no philosophy
will ever solve with entire satisfaction of all the questions involved in it and all the minds perplexed by it.
Pursue it, and it brings you at last to the previous
question, Why God created a universe at all?  Why
went he forth of himself in creative action? Why,
rather, did he sot abide in himself, sufficient to himself?
Whatever is created is finite; and a finite world implies
evil, because it implies limitation, imperfection. The
imperfect striving after perfection,- this is Reason's
account of the origin of evil.
2. God is Love. And, because he is Love, he must
will the best. This is Faith's theodicy. Faith does
not reason about the limits and possibilities of things:
it judges that God might make men happy in uninterrupted enjoyment, if enjoyment were the supreme
good. But life has something better than enjoyment.
The best of life is the work which it brings, and growth
by work. Prolonged enjoyment hinders growth by 
THE OLD ENIGMA.
making us  content without  it.   Suffering  furthers
growth by the stimulus of unrest.
Faith teaches that evil is good undeveloped, - a part
of the process of which good is the end.   It is the
bitter, biting oil which makes the flavor of the orange
and the peach.
View life as discipline, and you have the solution of
all its enigmas, and a justification of all its ills. Use
it as discipline, and you can never be quite overcome by
its sorrows. It is because we do not so view it and use
it that we quarrel with our lot.  Believe that your lot,
however crossed, is the best possible lot for you, the
only one by which the ends of life for you can be
attained.   Believe, in all tribulation and trial, that
God has considered your particular case, and adjusted
the course of nature to it, as if nature existed for your
behoof;  not to gratify your selfish appetite, not to
pamper your sense with sweets, or your pride with
pomps, but to draw from you the uttermost that is in
you of worth and of work.
The contradiction between the real and the ideal is
the standing tragedy of human life, in which all tragedies and griefs are comprised. The order of events
contradicts the standard in our minds, contradicts the
wish in our hearts.   All our jeremiads are variations
of this theme. Man's business is to reduce this contradiction by conforming his ideal, in things fixed, to the
scheme of God, and by compelling the actual, in things
not fixed, to take the form of his ideal.  There is in
him a power transcending all material agents, greater
than all the forces of this world, and able to bend them
125 
126  iRELIGION WITHIN THE BOUNDS OF THEISM.
to his own behoof. As fast and as far as our knowledge extends, we push our conquests over nature, and
become the Providence of this lower world. The refractory elements, rude Titans of the realms of matter,
are brought under. One by one, the genius of humanity encounters these enemies, grapples with them,
subdues them, makes them servants of his need. Forests are levelled, mountains scaled, gulfs bridged; fire,
vapor, and all deeps acknowledge the sovereignty of
man; heat, cold, lightning, space and time confess his
might. "Thou madest him to have dominion over all
the works of thy hands." Could he but learn to subdue himself as well; could he but achieve a dominion
as complete in the moral world as in the natural;
could he but chain the rebellious Titans of the breast;
-what an empire were his! How vast his realm, how
sure his sway! No contradiction, then, between the
real and the ideal, when every wish and purpose of
man's heart obeys the divine law, and the steadfast
Order reigns in his will as in his destiny. 
VII.
THE OLD DISCORD. 
I
I 
VII.
THE OLD DISCORD.
AMooNG  the traits which distinguish man from  other
known orders of being,, we find that peculiarity of
moral self-contradiction which we term "sin."  Man,
so far as we know, is the only being who sins: that is,
the only moral being, the only one who sits in judgment on himself, the only one capable of conscious
guilt.
For herein consists the essence of sin.*  It is not
the wrong act, but the wronged consciousness, the
offended genius, defection from the inner, holy self.
Sin does not exist until it is perceived; in other words,
there is no sin but conscious sin. "If a man," says
Novalis, "could suddenly believe in sincerity that he
was moral, he would be so." It follows that sin ceases
when the consciousness thereof ceases, whether the cessation result from atonement or consummate depravity. "Sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death,"
-the death of the moral nature to which alone sin can
be ascribed. Devils (if such beings exist) are sinless.
Possessing no higher self, they experience no internal
* From the German Sinde: the root is found in the word siihnen, to
expiate. It means that which requires to be expiated, the unatoned selfalienation, which is alienation from God.
9                        [129] 
130  RELIGION WITHIN THE BOUNDS OF THEISM.
discord, no self-alienation, but accept and rejoice in evil
as their normal state.
Within the known world, the sense of guilt is a
purely and peculiarly human experience. No creature
but man is conscious of wrong in the moral sense
of that term.   Other creatures appear to transgress;
but transgression in them is obedience to a law more
binding at the moment than that which they violate. Where they deviate from the given track, their
very deviations are justified by imperious necessity:
they may seem to go astray, but they are never morally
wrong. Amenable only to the law of instinct, their
aberrations are all lawful, as the irregularities in the
heavenly bodies, once supposed to be imperfections of
the solar system and to threaten eventual dissolution,
are proved by science to have their own law to which
they yield punctual obedience; a limit which they never
exceed, and a compensation which adjusts and corrects
the threatened disturbance.  There are acts of brute
animals, especially of such as man has impressed and
trained to his service, which seem on the surface to
be morally wrong because we impute to them our
own associations, because we ascribe to them liberty
of choice, and moral perceptions. But the liberty of
choice is only apparent, or does not exist to such an
extent as to constitute accountableness: moral perceptions are altogether wanting.   The sense of wrong is
not in their experience: what has that appearance in
the looks and motions of domestic animals is due to
fear, and possibly to shame, but never, I suppose, to
conscious guilt.
The sense of guilt is a thing unknown beyond the 
THE OLD DISCORD.
sphere of self-consciousness, i.e. of humanity. Nature
bears not this stain on her brow, feels not this sting in
her breast. There is no self-questioning in nature, no
scruple, no  repentance.   Stars, plants,  and beasts
rejoice in eternal innocence.   They obey without a
struggle the law prescribed for them. Impulse is their
religion, instinct their duty: they experience no conflict with opposing passions in what they do, and no
compunction when it is done. They know no law but
the moment's choice or the moment's necessity. The
law in their members is also the law of their mind.
Man alone is capable of guilt, the only being whose
nature contradicts itself, the only being who feels remorse; who does that which he would not, and repents
what he does.  Man alone "perceives another law" in
his mind; the law of duty, which he feels to be the
paramount law of his nature, - a moral statute, whose
claim he feels to be more imperative than any instinct
or impulse beside, and whose precepts he cannot transgress without crime.
This, then, is the peculiarity of the moral law, distinguishing it from every other, and distinguishing man,
as sole subject of that law, from the brute creation, -
that the violation of it carries a sting essentially different
from all other suffering, - the sting of conscious guilt.
Whence this anomaly of human experience? What is
the import of this sensation?   Other  laws  may  be
transgressed with impunity, so far as the mind is affected by transgression. The penalty affects the body
only. If the State should enact a law requiring me to
be a spy upon my neighbor, or to aid in enslaving a
brother-man, I should feel no compunction in refusing
131 
132  RELIGION WITHIN TIHE BOUNDS OF TIEISM.
obedience.   But, when  I have  consciously wronged
another, my soul is troubled by the thought of that
wrong; and the pain I incur by it exceeds, if my con,science is tender, the pain I inflict.   What is the
import of that sensation? what means the sense of
guilt?
It means that I ought to have done differently.  And
the ought apparently implies the could; the sense of
obligation pre-supposes the power to act in accordance
with my moral perception, or pre-supposes, at least, a
belief in that power. And yet, if I go back in my
recollection of such a case, and recall its circumstances,
and the motive power accruing therefrom, I find an
overpowering impulse constraining me, -an impulse
which, placed as I was, with the moral power which I
then possessed, I could not resist.   The ought does
not always secure the can.   Moral strength is not
always commensurate with moral perception. But the
judgment of conscience is none the less true; the pang
of conscious guilt is no illusion. The moral obligation
implies the moral power, but does not, of itself, secure
for any given exigency the requisite degree of moral
strength. It implies the moral power as a possible and
needful acquirement, not as a present, fixed possession;
it implies it as something to be developed and perfected
in us, not as something already conferred in full perfection.
The pang of conscious guilt is no illusion. It is a
reasonable sorrow, and the import of it is not exhausted
in that first interpretation. It means not merely that
we ought to have done differently in that particular
case which awakened this consciousness, and in which 
THE OLD DISCORD.
perhaps, being such as we were, we could not do other
than we did. It means a good deal more than this.
It signifies a general deficiency of the moral nature;
a want of that moral soundness, which, if possessed,
would save us from that and all similar transgressions.
It signifies the need of repentance; not of that one
transgression only, but of all the transgressions with
which we offend, of that unsoundness and defect of our
nature whence all transgressions flow, of that general
sin of which all particular sins are but the symptoms;
as coughs and catarrhs, and pains of the head, and pains
of the chest, are symptoms of disease, which is nothing
more than absence of health, want of bodily sound
ness.
I indicate here the answer to the question concerning
the nature of sin, - a question which the Church, or
which theologians have needlessly mystified. Christian
dogmatists have represented sin as a positive element in
human nature. In addition to all other principles and
propensities, they suppose a distinct ingredient in man
which they call sin, - a positive something seated in
the soul, the root and source of all the iniquities of
human life. This view I believe to be essentially erroneous. The writers of the New Testament sometimes
speak of sin as if it were a positive, antagonist power
in man, which arrays itself against God and his rightQousness.  It must be remembered, however, that the
Scriptures present these things not analytically, but
popularly, -in language derived from the popular conceptions of the time. The popular conception of sin
was based on the supposition of a personal evil Power
in the world; a conscious, malevolent, almost omnipo
133 
134  RELIGION WITHIN TIHE BOUNDS OF THEISM.
tent agent, a Prince of Devils, to whom all the sin and
all the evil that is in the world was ascribed. But, independently of this hypothesis, it was natural enough,
and is still natural, looking at the consequences, not at
the essence of the thing, to speak of a negative power
in terms which describe a positive one.   We speak of
darkness and cold, and even death, as positive agents:
although the former is simply the absence of light; the
second, of heat; the third, of life. Take the last instance, -  death, - and see how all languages and literatures agree in representing it as a positive, aggressive,
even conscious and voluntary power. Death reigns,
Death works and walks about, and lurks and lies in
wait, and shoots arrows, and has plans and propensities and predilections, and acts the part of a voluntary,
intelligent being. And yet, if we ask ourselves who
or what it is that does all this? what is death? the
answer is, -  nothing.  Death is  no thing, but the
absence or cessation of a thing; it is pure negation.
It is the name we give to the stoppage of the breath
and the other vital functions. What wonder, then, that
sin, the absence or cessation or limitation of the moral
life, should be described in positive terms, - in terms
expressive of positive agency and power?
The evil of sin, the deadly mischief and misery of
of it, are nowise abated or disguised by this view, which
regards it as negation. The results of this negation,
the effects of sin, are damnably positive; and, naturally enough, they induce the conception of a positive power as their source and cause. And this notion
of a positive element of sin in the soul may seem to
derive some color of truth from certain phenomena of 
THIE OLD DISCORD.
human  consciousness.   The resistance we sometimes
encounter in obeying the moral law, the opposition we
experience in our efforts to perform what We find it in
our conscience to do, but not in our inclination, might
seem to imply a contrary element, an antagonist quality
in our moral composition, beside and distinct from all
the other elements and powers of the soul, to which we
give the name of sin. But, if we analyze the facts of
this experience, we shall find that the conflict in such
cases is not with sin as a separate force and distinct
constituent of our nature, but a conflict of principles
equally good in their place, and equally essential to
man's well-being, when working in due order and right
proportion,- a contest between the moral sense and
some  affection or propensity, innocent  in itself but
unduly active in this particular case, misdirected, and
intent on some gratification forbidden by the moral law.
When that propensity triumphs in the conflict, transgression ensues.
Sin is the transgression of the law; not a distinct
principle within us which breeds transgression, but the
act of transgression. What causes transgression is not
a positive but a negative condition; it is not any one
affection of the soul, in itself considered, but the absence
of that restraining principle and power without which
any affection of the soul may lead to sin. All human
propensities, powers, and affections are good in their
origin; sinful only in their perversion.   AU sin, when
traced to its source, will be found to consist in the misdirection of principles innocent in themselves, and not
only so, but essential to human well-being. What one
of the normal affections or propensities of human nature
135 
136  RELIGION WIT1IN THlE BOUNDS OF THEISM.
is there which man could spare without loss to society?
What one of our passions so ill-favored and hard  named, but careful scrutiny shall detect in it some vir  tue in disguise?  Impartial analysis will discover self  respect in pride, respect for others in vanity, prudence
in avarice, justice in revenge, in mad ambition somne
breathing after excellence, in lust some color of love.
All our vices are perversions of some good. Sensu ality, intemperance, selfishness, -what  are they but
perversions of the instinct of self-preservation? Dis honesty is perverted love of acquisition; mendacity,
excess of caution, or perverted self-defence; even indo lence, which of all the vices it is hardest to connect
with any good principle in our nature, and which
Lavater affirmed to be the original sin, is perhaps re solvable into love of freedom.
Sin is nothing special within the soul, but one of its
states. Our virtues and our vices are products of one
nature. Vice is the growth of the wild or neglected
soil, and virtue the fruit of right culture and right use.
The same affection which grows to virtue in one man
may turn to vice in another.   The reason of the difference is a want of something in the one case which exists in the other, -the want of that controlling power
which limits the fleshly and selfish propensities, keeps
the passions in due subjection, prescribes to the untamed
forces of the breast their mete and bound within which
they may act with beneficent effect, and impresses on
the native bullion of the soul the formn and stamp of
righteousness.  The want of that power and that righteousness is sin, or the cause of sin; which, accordin,gly, is shown to be a negative, not a positive state. 
THE OLD DISCORD.
If we investigate the nature of that controlling power
which is active in some men and wanting in others, we
shall see that it cannot, from the nature of the case, be
any thing foreign from the soul itself, however quickened by impulses from without, and aid from above.
To suppose this would be to make righteousness external and accidental. This power is nothing imported
into us from abroad, but something inherent, implanted
in all men; patent in some, and latent in others; here
born into active virtue, a beneficent agent, possessing
the will and shaping the act; there, unquickened, a
torpid germ without motion or life. In its active
state, on the human side, it is the will self-determined
to good; on the superhuman or objective side, it is
God's determining grace in the soul.
The good principle in man, the power which subjects
the appetites and passions, and turns them into virtues,
the fountain of the moral and spiritual life, is none
other than the Spirit of God in the soul, uplifting and
consecrating its affections, directing and blessing its
deeds.  And this spirit is nothing imported, but native
in man. For our spirits are God's spirit, one light in
many lamps, one power in many agents, one treasure
in many vessels. The dawn of that spirit in human life
is a moral genesis resembling the material of Mosaic tradition.   The natural man is a chaos of wild,
waste  powers  and unorganized capacities; a world
without form, and void. The Spirit of God broods over
this deep; piercing its discord, resolving its confusion,
binding its wild forces, commanding light to shine out
of darkness, adjusting, reconciling, assigning to each
element its proper place and function, until the waste
137 
138  RELIGION WITHIN THE BOUNDS OF THEISM.
chaos becomes a peaceful and happy world. In this
process there is nothing added, and nothing taken away;
the process but substitutes organization for disorder,
peace for discord, measure for excess.
This view of sin, as negative not positive, not a principle but the want of one, is charged with an import in
which the whole scheme of religion is concerned. If
sin were something positive, lodged in the soul, born
with us at our birth, an original endowment, part and
parcel of our nature, then would God be the author
of sin, not indirectly, in the sense of permitting, but
directly and solely. This doctrine either charges infinite
Goodness with what is wholly and purely evil, or else
it changes the nature of sin; which, being in that case
the creature of God, must be right and good, not a
transgression of the law, but the law itself, divinely
written on the heart. The existence of moral evil is, in
any view, a perplexing problem That view of it is
most rational and welcome which is most consistent with
the moral attributes of God; and that is the view, that
God has implanted no propensity in man which is evil
in itself, and which needs to be extinguished before man
can accomplish his mor4l destination; but that every
property with which he has endowed us is good in itself,
and only by perversion and excess, in the absence of a
moral and controlling power, productive of evil.
The view is practically important as indicating the
method and source of mnoral regeneration. If sin is
not a property but a want, not a positive power but the
absence of good, it follows that the way to deal with it
is to educate the latent good until it gains the ascendency in us, and becomes the dominant power in our 
THE OLD DISCORD.
life. The problem of reform consists not so much in
struggling with an inward, secret foe, as in cultivating and establishing an inward counsellor, protector,
friend.  Struggles there will be: no character was ever
matured without them. But they are consequences, not
means;  they are the wreck and breaking-up of the
past, not the source of the future; as the pangs of
birth and of death belong to the old life which is passing, and not to the new that is coming.  Observe how
nature heals and corrects the evil in her kinds by
evolving some opposite good.   The  diseases of the
body are cured by the energy of the principle of life,the increased action of the sound parts overcoming the
unsound. And moral diseases are cured by evolving
and establishing a principle of life, which shall purge
away the excesses of passion, and harmonize the forces
of the soul.
The main principle of life to the moral nature is
faith: religion is the complement of all morality. Without a God, there can be no righteousness, because no
supreme Right, -no standard and guaranty of moral
truth. And if God is, then worship is the supreme
ethic, and virtue true worship. Are we seeking deliverance from the yoke of the ever-besetting sin? The
way is not to chafe against it with frantic effort, wasting time and wasting heart in a vain and endless conflict; but to turn to the infinite Good, whose holy
idea is never far, but greets the mind the moment it
looks up, and turns away from self and sense. Rally
your faith in all the ideals; "rally the good in the
depths of thyself." Will to believe in what is highest
and best; choose to walk in the light of those ideas
139 
140  RLIGION WITHIN TIE BOUNDS OF THEISM.
which the wisest of men have proved with their lives,
and the best have sealed with their blood. Let the
soul receive freely into her dark mansion the sunshine
of the Spirit; and sin, which is nothingness and shadow, shall flee away.
Theologians would have us dwell in the consciousness
of sin: they measure piety by self-reproach. They
would make the impulsive utterance of St. Paul a rule
of conscience for all men, and have each one think himself the chief of sinners. This is one of the enormities
of false religion, and involves a principle as fatal to the
health of the soul as the opposite extreme of moral
indifference. The sense of sin is a necessary crisis in
the moral education of most men; but, the perpetuation
of that crisis is a state of arrested development which
plainly contradicts the divine order. It makes religion,
instead of a stimulus and an inspiration, a burden and
a curse. It is a cruel act of religionists to endeavor to
force the consciousness of sin on healthy, unoffending
natures; that is, in effect, to make them sinners. No
soul so pure but may find flaws in its consciousness, if
put upon the search. The ingenuity of self-torture, when
conscience is stretched on the rack, will always elicit a
confession of guilt. One's very virtues are arrayed
against him; what was fair and pure is turned to deformity and hideousness by this cruel exposure in this
concave mirror of a morbid self-consciousness.   St.
Elizabeth, the sweetest spirit of her time, was spiritually
murdered by her confessor; and how many saints have
committed spiritual suicide, -by a misdirected piety
turning the sword of the Spirit against themselves! 
THE OLD DISCORD.
No sin which this process detects is so damning as
the process itself; and no scepticism can be more fatal
than the doubt of salvation in conscientious and religious men.   No soul can heartily rejoice in God, that
abides in this sickly contemplation of self.  The office
of religion is, not to drive us back upon ourselves with
anxious self-criticism, but to take us out of ourselves
and unite us to the Whole, in loving self-abandonment.
A man must take himself for better or worse, and forget himself, if possible: so shall he soonest arrive at
the beatific vision. 
I 
VIII.
TIIE OLD FEAR.  
VIII.
TIIE OLD FEAR.
"Tolle istam pompam sub qua lates et stultos territas: Mors es, quam
super servus meus, quam ancilla contempsit."- SENECA.
IN every life there are two points of paramount interest, -its beginning, and its close. No life so barren,
so insignificant, but some importance will attach to it at
these extremities.  "Twice in the course of his earthly
career," says Jean Paul, "the humblest mortal becomes
an object of supreme moment to those about him, -
once, when he arrives on this earth; and, again, when
he quits it."
Birth and death! the rising and the setting of a human soul, -alike in this, that, of all the events of man's
life, they alone are universal, how unlike in the feelings with which they are regarded!  The one a festival,
a gospel of glad tidings; the other a message of grief
and gloom in the circles in which they occur.  Why
this contrast?  Why have we only smiles for the newborn, and only tears for the dying?   Why  must joy
and welcome auspicate our coming, and only tragedy
10                 [ 145 ] 
146  RELIGION WITHIN THE BOUNDS OF THEISM.
celebrate our exit? If either is fit subject of congratulation, by all the affirmations of religion and experience
it is the departing. Setting aside the belief in a life to
come, when we think of uncertainties which hang over
this, the certain disappointments, cares, and griefs which
await the most favored, the anxiety which rocks the
cradle of childhood, the far deeper anxiety which tracks
the trial-steps of youth, the sore conflicts which heave
the bosom of manhood, the infirmities and impotence
of age, - when we think of these, it should seem that
solemn forebodings must gather round the entrance of
life, and a shade of sadness mingle with the welcome
which ushers in the new-born on this earthly shore; and
that congratulations belong more fitly to those who  are
about to lay down the burden of life and to be delivered from the evil that is in the world. It was some
such feeling as this which suggested the bitter saying,
"It is better to walk than to run; it is better to lie
down than to walk, better to sleep than to lie down,
better to die than to sleep." It was this that suggested
to the dreamy Hindoo his doctrine of despair, which
makes annihilation the supreme good.
As a practical principle, we feel the falsity of this
view of life, since the true philosophy of life finds its use
to consist, not in profit to ourselves, but in service to
others; not in comforts enjoyed, but in work performed.
But, viewed as a question of selfish advantage, one
would say, with Pliny, that the best gift of fortune is an
early death!  And if to all this we add the belief in
immortality; if we think that the soul which sets on
this world is rising at the same moment on some other
sphere; if we think that its life is progressive, that new 
THE OLD FEAR.
conditions will supply new forces, and open new and
richer fountains of being and of action, then, certainly, death, in itself considered, is a more legitimate
cause for rejoicing than birth; a happier event to the
individual who goes hence; a worthier occasion for congratulation to those who remain.
But the instinct of life is deeper than all our philosophy, and stronger than most men's faith. Argue as
we will, our nature clings to this familiar world, to
earth and man, to the cheerful day, and shrinks from
the private pass, and the nameless future to which it
leads.  Death is reckoned an enemy still, after so many
ages of mental discipline. It is the last enemy that
will be put under. The ancient Egyptians are said to
have placed a larva, by way of memento mori, at their
banquets. A larva still, at the feast of life, is, to most
mortals, the thought of death.   "The heaviest stone
which melancholy can throw at a man," says Sir
Thomas Browne, "is to tell him that he must die."
No religion has yet been able to eradicate this traditional dread.   Nay, religion itself has enhanced the
terror by representing death as the fruit of sin.  Milton,
who embodies the popular conception in his immortal
epic, finds its origin in Hell. There the word was first
uttered, which when uttered,
"Hell trembled at the hideous name, and sighed
From all her caves, and back resounded Death."
And not only is death, in the popular conception, the
penalty of sin, but it introduces the sinner to new and
direr penalties and woes.  To the "natural man," before
religion had made him a coward, to die was to sleep, -
147 
148  RELIGION WITHIN THE BOUNDS OF THEISM.
"No more, and by a sleep to... end
The heart-ache."
But religion suggested that " to sleep" was " perchance
to dream," and scared him with thinking " in that sleep
of death what dreams may come."
Paul boasted, in the beginning of the Christian era,
that Christ had given his followers the victory over the
grave.  The victory is not so apparent as it might be.
It is doubtful if Christians have made any great advance
on the ancients in their feeling about death.   It is
doubtful if they manifest even so much of equanimity
in this respect as the stoics of Greece and Rome.*
The larva still frowns at the feast; an image of terror
and gloom is the thought of death to most mortals.
The terror and the gloom exist only in our imagination: we shut out the light, and see spectres in the
dark. A fixed look dispels apparitions: let us look
steadfastly in the face of this larva, holding up to it
the lights of reason and of faith, till we see it to be a
phantom of the brain.
Think of death not as inevitable merely, but as something divine; a process of the universal Love, a moment in the universal life. Here is nothing monstrous
or out of the way; no frightful anomaly, no dispensation of wrath; but something of a piece with the setting
sun and the waning moon and the falling leaf,- a part
of the great order, a necessary link in the universal
chain which binds all being to the throne of God. A
true religion will adjust itself with it, -will look upon
* The Romans celebrated the death-day of their heroes as we dc their
birth-day; and they called the death-day the dies natalis. 
THiE OLD FEAR.
it as we do upon the parting day and the dying year,
with minds sobered and thoughtful indeed; for all
changes and all endings are sad, but not with horror
and dread. St. Francis of Assisi, who embraced all
nature, brute and plant as well as man, with affectionate
sympathy, included death also, as a part of nature, in
his infinite good-will.    Welcome, sister Death," he
said, as he felt his end draw nehr.
Death is natural: let us hold by that. The nearer
we are to nature, the more fitting and beautiful and
welcome it will seem. In a primitive state, it has not,
so far as we can judge, the terrible aspect which it
wears in an artificial one. The notion that death is the
penalty of sin could not have originated, I think, in a
primitive age. The patriarchs knew nothing of it.
Death to them was natural and right. The terms in
which they speak of it express their entire consent.
They call it a falling asleep, -the being gathered to
one's fathers.
What is it that makes death terrible?  The pain of
parting with goods and satisfactions; with all that we
have learned to love and enjoy in this mortal world;
with the dear familiar uses of life.      0 death! how
bitter is the thought of thee to him that liveth at ease
in his possessions, to him that hath prosperity in all
things! " Death has no terrors for the wretched and
forlorn; for those who have already died to all that
makes life a blessing.    Death," says  Lord Bacon,
" arrives graciously to such as sit in darkness, or lie
heavily burdened with grief and irons; to despairful
widows, pensive prisoners, and deposed kings; to
those whose fortune runs back, whose spirits mutiny.
149 
150  RELIGION WITHIN THE BOUNDS OF THEISM.
Unto such death is a redeemer, and the grave a place
of retiredness and rest. These wait upon the shore of
death, and waft unto him to draw near, wishing above
all others to see his star."
If, then, the delights of the world throw so dense a
shadow on the grave; if goods and pleasures make
death appalling; what remedy for such engorgement
but renunciation? Not disuse Qf the thing enjoyed, if
innocent, but moderation of the pleasure we take in it;
the habit of regarding it as foreign, extrinsic, transient;
not as the substance and life of our life. Medical art
has invented a way to mitigate the worst diseases of
flesh, by forestalling their action, by adopting them in
the flesh, by  inoculation.   Let  religion  apply  the
same therapeutic. The cure for death is to inoculate
ourselves with it, - to accept it in our meditations.
When life is too sweet to be resigned without a pang,
when we feel its satisfactions to be all-sufficing, then
it is time to die to the world in thought and purpose
and affection; to disengage the fond heart from the
warm embraces of fortune; to untwist the golden links
of pleasure, and teach the weaned spirit to stand alone.
Parting with beloved friends is another bitter drop
in the cup of death. Bitter and sad are earthly partings; but those of death are not the saddest.  We lose
our beloved none the less, though death spare them.
The friend whom we grapple to our hearts to-day will
not be the same when a few years have passed over
him and us, and we shall not be the same to him. We
think we have him when another occupying his predicaments comes to our side, and converses with us as
he was wont.  The dear illusion satisfies us, until sorr. 
THE OLD FEAR.
reflective hour or some accident discovers our 10loss.
In this age of photography, we are easily overtaken
with such disenchantments, as we place side by side
the impression of ten years since and that of to-day,
and, looking on that picture and on this, perceive that
time is more destructive of identity than death.  The
departed friend had left undisturbed an image which
the living displaces.
When the mother closes the eyes of her little one,
and sees the turf laid upon its coffin lid, her heart is
torn with anguish; she thinks it the crowning grief of
her life. But what if the death-angel had spared her
darling; can she retain him?  Impossible!  The inevitable years will steal away her child as surely as any
mortal disease. It is our living children that we lose,
not the dead. Do you doat on the infant Bleauty which
you fold in your arms?  Say farewell! you will never
see it again.  "Eyes, look your last; lips, take your last
embrace!" it is going,; it is gone.   Let the portrait of
your boy be taken at the height of childish bloom, and,
if you and he shall live so long, look at it thirty years
hence, compare it with what he shall then have become,
and you will see that you have lost your child as truly,
as irrecoverably, as if those fair locks and that guiltless
smile had been consigned to the ground. It is strange
to think, that the most bronzed and hardened face that
meets us in our daily walks, - the face on which the
world and sin have set their coarsest and most forbidding
stamp, - was once the face of a little child, over which
fond parents doated, and dreamed their dreams. There
are bitterer partings than death, and more heartrending
farewells than those which we breathe over the grave.
151 
152  RELIGION WITHIN THE BOUNDS OF THEISM.
And what is death?  For those who reach maturity,
what is it? Is it any thing more than the consummation of a process which begins with infancy, and continues and proceeds from day to day, every day of our
lives? We die daily. That is something more than a
figure of speech: it is literal fact. We call it death
when the breath fails and the heart stops. But that is
only the last in a series of acts, each one of which is
fatal. Our life from the beginning is a constant descent into death.   Why  should we  concentrate our
regrets on the last step, when all our years have been
travelling the same way? Are the last sands that run
through the glass so much more precious than all the
rest? Are these all diamond sparks, and the rest all
flint? How many golden days, more fruitful and blest
than we are likely ever to know again, have gone by,
and no obsequies were celebrated, and no requiemn sung!
The death of our youth is so much sadder and more
appalling than any other death; but no tear was shed,
and no funeral prayer offered, and our step never faltered, and our heart never quailed, when we crossed
that fatal bourne. And why? Because the passage
was gradual? It is then merely a question of time,
of slow or sudden, of early or late. If the youth of
eighteen were to be changed by a stroke into an elder
of eighty, human nature could not endure the metamorphosis.  How much more appalling it would seem
than sudden death! But we see nothing terrible in it
when the change proceeds in the ordinary way, step by
step, day by day. We are not sensible of death when
our youth dies in us, although that death in reality is
so much harder and sadder than the dissolution of the
earthly frame. 
THE OLD FEAR.
We die daily: with each new section of our mortal
history we give up something that belonged to  the
section preceding. We are losing continually a portion of our being; we suffer ceaseless dissolutions.
Let the mature man compare himself with the budding
boy, and see how much of death he has already experienced. HIow much of what he was has perished in
him and from him, never to be restored! Where
now is the careless mirth that lit up the boyish eye?
where the sunny peace or gushing joy of the boyish
breast? Where the boundless expectation, the implicit
faith, the indomitable hope, the buoyant nature, the
unshadowed soul, the exuberant life? Is not the loss
of these as truly death as the putting-off of the fleshly
tabernacle? Is it not as much dying to lose the splendor and joy of our young years, as it is to be divested
of our mortality? The veteran, however blest with
"that which should accompany old age," looks back
upon his youth as a Paradise lost, never in this world
to be regained.
"0 man! that from thy fair and shining youth
Age might but take the things youth needed not!"
This ceaseless death would make existence intolerable, were it not balanced and comnpensated by ceaseless
new births. The true soul gains as fast, or faster than
it loses. Life is constant acquisition as well as constant
waste; a series of resurrections as well as deaths. If
we die daily, we are also renewed day by day. If we
lose in buoyancy, we gain in earnestness; if we lose
in imagination, we gain in experience; if we lose in
freshness, we gain in weight; if we lose in fervor, we
gain in wisdom; if we lose in enjoyment, it is to be
153 
154  RELIGION WITHIN TIE BOUNDS OF THEISM.
hoped we gain in patience. If we gradually die to the
world, it is to be hoped that we more and more live
unto God.
Now, applying this principle to the final event which
we call death in the usual and literal sense; if our life
has been what it should be, - a constant effort for
good and constant progress; -it will be found at last
that we have accumulated more than we have spent;
that, though flesh and heart fail us, the spiritual assets
exceed the temporal failures. There is a feeling, that,
however the body may perish, life preponderates over
death in our system; that the bursting of the mortal
hull will be the disengaging of a force which must still
persist in its irrepressible career.
There is a dread of death independent of any views
of the future destiny, - a dread of it as something unknown, and differing in kind from all that is known; a
leap in the dark, a plunge into a new element, a sudden transition into something wide of all past experience. If death were this, - a transition from one state
to an entirely different state, -it would destroy our
identity, and would therefore be something with which,
as conscious beings, we could have no concern.  There
can be no such leap, no abrupt transition in our mental
life. Our mental life is a linked succession, a continuous series of consecutive states, each one of which is
necessarily connected with the one which preceded it.
Every moment of our being is the product of the previous moment, and the parent of the next. Death, like
every other experience, must run along this line of
successive moments; that is, it must  be  gradual. 
THE OLD FEAR.
However sudden to the senses, as a mental experience
it must be gradual; else it would be annihilation. As
a mental process, it is probably so gradual that the
subject of it can never know  at what precise moment
he ceases to exist for this world and enters on another.
We experience daily something of this sort, something
which is probably the same as death to individual consciousness, when we lay ourselves down to our nightly
rest. No man can tell the precise moment when his
slumbers begin; when he passes from a conscious to an
unconscious state. Neither can any man determine the
precise moment of his waiting.   And death is a waking
too, as well as a falling asleep,-  a waking, it may be,
after some brief moments of self-forgetting; it may
be after countless millions of years. But of this we
may be sure, that whether the interval of slumber be
long or short, -whether it be for seconds or for eons,
the waking, as a mental experience, will be gradual.
By degrees we lose our conscious self; by degrees we
find it again.
I brought together, at the beginning of this chapter,
the two extremes of birth and death. These are but
different aspects of one fact.  Death is birth.  The
birth into this life was the death of the embryo life
which preceded, and the death of this will be birth into
some new mode of being.  And as at our birth into this
world we came slowly and gradually into conscious
existence and the knowledge of our condition; so, in the
life into which we next pass, our knowledge of that life,
it may be presumed, will be a thing of gradual growth.
Little by little, we shall find ourselves, and our new
position in the universe. And as in this life we woke
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156  RELIGION WITHIN THE BOUNDS OF THEISM.
into consciousness in the arms of loving friends, so, we
may venture to hope, our next waking will be bosomed
by that eternal Love which provided this shelter for us
here.
SUPPLEIMENT.
CONVERSE WITH THE DYING.
WHO would not wish, if possible, to smooth their passage through the Valley, who are passing before our
eyes? -to shed that comfort on their dying bed which
we covet for our own?
An easy death depends in part on physical conditions which we cannot control, but in part also on
mental conditions which we may control, or at least
assist. It depends on the conduct, the converse, the
very tones of surrounding friends. If these are sad and
despondent, their sadness and gloom will tell on the
dying, in that enfeebled state of mind when the feelings
and opinions of others exert a disproportionate influence,
and when it takes so little to bring a shadow upon the
soul. Let the wants and necessities of the death-bed -
I mean its mental wants and necessities - be studied by
the living; for who knows how soon he may be called
to minister to those requirements in person? On their
careful study will depend the success of our ministry.
This is a case in which reflection is a better guide than
instinct, though it be the instinct of affection.
Shall those who are wasting away with a lingering
death, be informed of their condition, - of the nature 
CONVERSE WITH THE DYING.
and impending issue of their disease, when recovery is
seen to be hopeless? Assuredly, let them be informed
of it, if their own consciousness has not anticipated
such communication, while yet in full possession of
their senses. For why will we deal deceitfully with
a brother or sister in that solemn season when the
false shows of this world are rapidly passing away,
and the kingdom of eternal verities impends?   Let
there be that perfect understanding between the dying
and their friends on this point, and all points, without
which they are estranged, and can have no frank and
hearty communion. But, when this understanding is
established, let every thing about the chamber of death
wear a cheerful aspect. Let the fading eye encounter
nothing sad or harrowing. Let there be smiles and
cheerful converse, if nature will permit; and let those
tears and pangs which cannot be controlled be concealed. Let the tones which fall upon the ear be firm
and calm. Let no heart-rending sights or sounds disturb the tranquillity of the closing scene, no agonizing
demonstrations embitter the last farewell. In the place
of that stillness which the spirit craves when about to
commit itself to rest, let no lamentations make harsh
discord in the ear, nor the final struggle be aggravated
by the struggles of surrounding friends. What the
dying want is quiet, -that quiet you so willingly accord to them, are so anxious to secure to them, when
they close their eyes for temporary slumber.
As to offices of religion, and the character those
offices should assume in the case of incurable disease, it
seems to me that the only legitimate function of religion
in such cases is to soothe and cheer, to meet such wants
157 
158  RELIGION WITHIN THE BOUNDS OF THEISM.
as are expressed or well understood, and not to force
the consideration of questions, which, unless they have
been already considered, can hardly be considered with
profit then.   It sometimes happens, that well-intentioned but misjudging friends of a different faith seek
the presence of the dying, in order to draw their attention to points of sectarian theology, and to bring about
a state of mind which they suppose to be an essential
condition of future blessedness. Let such visitations
and ministrations by all means be excluded, as tending
only to perplex and agitate a mind too enfeebled for
discussion or resistance, with no likelihood of future
and final gain. For, of all the absurdities engendered
by false views of God and man, there is none which
exceeds the absurdity of supposing that the everlasting
welfare of a human soul can depend on the presence of
a certain idea in the mind a few moments before the
pulsations of the animal frame have ceased. The future well-being, so far as it depends on moral conditions, must be the fruit of a life. Where the life has
not produced this fruit, it is not likely to spring forth
ripe and complete, from the pressure exerted on the
mind in the dying hour. No doubt the character may
be permanently benefited by the experiences of the
death - bed; but they must be natural experiences
wrought into the soul by the Spirit of God through
the proper discipline of that season, and not forced
experiences, produced by efforts from without, and the
importunity of dogmatic presentations.   Let religion
offer to the dying such consolations and hopes as it
(in, consistently with its own convictions.  There can
hardly be a case in which religion has not some conso 
CONVERSE WITHI THE DYING.
lation to offer to the mind that desires it. It may be
said there is danger of deceiving with a false hope.
This one would not willingly do. Deception is bad,
and self-deception is bad, at all times, in all things.
It is better that the soul should have sight of the truth,
the exact truth, whether bitter or sweet. But who has
the truth? Who can be so sure of it as to know with
certainty that the view he presents will exactly convey
it? Our duty to the dying is to give them all the
solace and cheer we can, consistently with our own
expectations and beliefs, by every argument that does
not belie our established convictions: and more still, by
our deportment and looks and tones, to make death
easy to the dying; to save them from all distress which
it lies in our power to avert; to give them a staff and
comfort, and words of cheer, through the way of mystery, that they may tread it with victorious step, and
a joyful presage of light, and a freer horizon beyond.
159  
IX.
THE OLD HIOPE.
11 
IX.
THE OLD HOPE.
"Oh joy that in our embers
Is something that doth live! "- WORDSWORTII.
"At nihilo minus sentimus experimurque nos zeternos esse."- SPINOZA.
MAN is a yonder-minded being, an embodied hereafter.
There are faculties, purposes, aspirations in him for
which this life affords no adequate scope, which therefore presage a life to come. Their import, it is true,
may relate to the species, not to the individual. They
may be but intimations of the higher capabilities of
human life, and a better future for man on this earth;
as certain rudimental organs in the lower orders of animated nature seem to be prophecies of a higher organism, which find their fulfilment in man. Yet, even so,
they have a savor of immortality. The strongest proof
of individual immortality is the fact that men believe in
it.  The ancient and wide-spread faith may be regarded
as a pledge from the Power that made us, not indeed
that each individual soul shall, without exception, perpetuate a conscious identity, but that immortality is
within the possibilities and scope of the human constitution.
[163] 
IX.
THE OLD HOPE.
"Oh joy that in our embers
Is something that doth live! "-  WORDSWORTI.
"At nihilo minus sentimus experimurque nos %ternos esse." - SPINozA.
MAN is a yonder-minded being, an embodied hereafter.
There are faculties, purposes, aspirations in him for
which this life affords no adequate scope, which therefore presage a life to come. Their import, it is true,
may relate to the species, not to the individual. They
may be but intimations of the higher capabilities of
human life, and a better future for man on this earth;
as certain rudimental organs in the lower orders of animated nature seem to be prophecies of a higher organismni, which find their fulfilment in man. Yet, even so,
they have a savor of immortality. The strongest proof
of individual immortality is thefact that men believe in
it.  The ancient and wide-spread faith may be regarded
as a pledge from the Power that made us, not indeed
that each individual soul shall, without exception, perpetuate a conscious identity, but that immortality is
within the possibilities and scope of the human constitution.
[163] 
164  RELIGION WITHIN THE BOUNDS OF THEISM.
The analogies of nature, so often insisted on in this
connection, appear to me not to possess much weight.
The old and ever-repeated illustration of the caterpillar
and the butterfly fails in one or two essential particulars. First, The caterpillar, before developing into the
butterfly, does not die, in any such sense as that which
we intend when we speak of the death of man. Secondly, If the caterpillar does die by some fatal injury,
or if such injury be inflicted on the grub, no butterfly
succeeds. And, thirdly, The butterfly is not immortal,
but, as if by way of compensation for her double life,
perishes before the birth of her offspring. Nature, so
far as we can see, is not concerned to perpetuate the
individual, but only the species. I am not aware of
any fact in nature which favors the belief in individual
immortality. The affirmative voices on this question
are not to be collected from the world of facts, but
from that of ideas.
Moreover, the question of the immortality of the soul
must not be confounded with that of the immortality
of the conscious self. Most of the reasoning on the
subject applies only to the former; but it seems to assume the identity of the two. The immortality of the
soul being granted, it would still be a question whether
the soul is the continent and carrier of the conscious
self,* in such wise that the perpetuation of the one
* Perhaps we exaggerate the importance of this one aspect of the
general question. There may be as much of egoism as of reason in the interest felt in the continuity of the conscious self. I cannot agree with those
who would place the whole emphasis of immortality here, and who think
that not to remember the I of the present life is not to live at all hereafter;
since, then, it is not I that live, but another. It is still I in the sense most 
THE  OLD HOPE.
necessarily involves the continuity of the other, - involves the recollection of the present life. Whether I
- that is, this soul of mine - shall live again, and
live for ever, is one question; whether I shall hereafter
remember my present self is another, and, it seems to
me, a quite secondary one. If any object, that not to
remember the present self is not to remember the past
at all; that, consequently, it is annihilation of the past,
consequently, destruction of identity, consequently, not
so much immortality, as new creation, - I reply, that
memory has two parts, - retention and association. I
can suppose that the ideas, and all essential knowledge
acquired in the present life may be retained, while the
association with the present perishes. Experience is
not necessarily lost when the past is no longer recalled.
Its substance may still exist without the form of memory.   What is now memory, or remembered knowledge, may hereafter be intuition.
Leaving, then, the uncertain analogies of nature,
and taking our stand in the world of ideas, I find there
the idea of immortality; not a recent speculation, nor
a private conceit, but ancient and universal as civilized
man. What account can be given of it? Whence its
origin?  Shall we say that the wish is father to the
thought? But how many things there are which we
desire, which all men desire, with no accompanying
belief in their possibility. I find no explanation of the
important to the whole, if not in the sense most important to self-love. It
is still the same soul with all that earthly discipline has made it; and, by
that discipline, fitted and endowed for its new career. This is all that concerns the city of God. The question of conscious identification (" Ille ego
qui quondam ") is a private affair, important only to self-love.
i65
I 
166  RELIGION WITHIN THE BOUNDS OF THIEISM.
fact of this belief so satisfactory as the supposition of a
truth on which it rests, and an understanding between
the human and divine spirit, by which that truth is
assured.
And I find in this idea the best solution of the moral
problems and contradictions of human life.  Of these
contradictions, the most glaring, perhaps, is the incom patibility of the claims of the moral law with the in stincts of nature.  The moral law announces itself in
our consciousness as the highest law of our being, as
that to which we owe supreme allegiance, - the " cate gorical imperative." Deep in the universal soul is laid
the conviction of moral obligation, of the binding ne cessity of right. The law of duty is unconditional: it
demands unconditional obedience. It requires the sacrifice, not only of present ease, but of life itself, whenever they stand in the way of its sacred claims.  It
requires that we encounter all hazards, and count not
our life dear, in any service to which the providence of
God has called us.* We blame the man who abandons
the post of duty from a cowardly love of life; the
physician who deserts his patients attacked with infectious disease; the soldier who perils his country's cause.
through fear. But why do we blame them? Is not
life the supreme end to which every thing else must be
sacrificed?   So says the instinct of self-preservation.
But no! conscience protests against this view. There
is something higher than self- preservation: duty is
more sacred than life. Then what a contradiction is
man!  What opposite laws prevail in his constitution?
* The illustration which follows is from Bretschneider. 
-THE OLD HOPE.
What means thissense of obligation which contradicts
the instincts of nature? How can his self require himn
to expose his self to destruction?  Here is a problem
wh+ich requires immortality for- its solution. Grant an
hereafter, and the contradiction becomes  intelligible.
It is not our very and whole being that we are to sacrifice, but only the earth-life, brief aid imperfect at best.
The law of duty is not calculated for earthly. limitations.   Its scheme is irrespective of the bounds of
time. The obedience it requires supposes an immortal
nature.
For not only must that obedience be unconditional:
it must also be complete and entire. A voice in man,
speaking with divine authority, bids him make the law
of duty the sole and uniform law of his life.  This he
can never succeed in doing; for he carries within him,
beside the law of right, another law,- the law of selfish appetite.  e The flesh lusteth against the spirit."
He who is most intent on the right does not always
perform what the spirit wills, and what the law demiands.   This conflict between flesh and spirit ends
never while flesh endures. No man becomes in this
world what he is capable of being, in moral purity and
strength.  The virtue that is in him is not brought out
in mortal action. Will it never appear? Will it never
become fact?  Then the supreme Wisdom would seem
to contradict itself.  The order of God is to accomplish great ends with small means; but here the ends
are little, and the means great. What wealth of faculty!
What paltry attainments! The only solution of this
inconsistency is the supposition of another term -and a
longer date for the moral life, and perhaps  a better
167 
168  RELIGION  WITHIN THE BOUNDS OF THEISMI.
temperature of the spirit, that shall perfect the fruit
which would not ripen in the climate.of this world.
Great powers and small performance; vast schemes
and petty results; " thoughts that wander through eternity," and a life that
"can little more supply
Than just to look about us and to die"!
Will any philosophy that denies immortality satisfy us
with its reading of this riddle?  It is true, these aspirations in man which transcend the scale of earthly life
are not in themselves a sufficient proof of a life beyond.
Still, the consciousness of an unfulfilled destiny, which
afflicts alike the strongest and the weakest, in view of
their attainments as compared with their designs, is
hardly reconcilable with earthly limitations, if those
limitations represent " the be-all and the end-all" of the
soul. " Life's short sum," the poet warns us, " forbids
the undertaking of a long hope." But who was ever
persuaded to abridge his hope in accommodation to the
narrow span? "Life is short and art is long," said
the wise physician. Who was ever deterred from art
by the known disproportion? And who ever lived to
accomplish his uttermost aim? What career so complete as to comprehend all that is wanted of this world?
We retire with an imperfect victory from the battle of
life.  The campaign is not finished when  we strike
tents. We have devised schemes of gain or ambition
which are still in full operation. The scholar has unsolved problems at which he is laboring. The philosopher is summoned in the midst of experiments he
cannot stay to complete. The philanthropist is overtaken in projects of reform that are to add new value 
THE OLD HOPE.
to hunan   life.  We  all stop short of the goal which
entertained our livelong hope.
In this abrupt termination of the present existence,
there lies an intimation of another state and a further
existence for the scheming soul, whose schemes the
present has failed to realize. I do not say proof; for
it does not amount to that. The proof of immortality
is faith in it.  Alas for man, if his faith is at the mercy
of his wit! Yet it is well to listen to these intimations: they help to illustrate what they cannot establish.  It is a well-known fact of familiar experience,
that no dream is ever finished. They all break off in
the midst; they stop short on the eve of some further.
development.   The reason is, that the law by which
the dream proceeds and unfolds itself does not reside in
the dream itself, but in a life behind the dream-life, and
including that as one of its states or phenomena. If
the dream subsisted by itself, and unfolded itself by a
law of its own, it would continue to unfold until it
reached its natural termination; and every dream would
then be complete in itself, - a perfect whole. But being what it is,- a mere dependency of the waking life,
and attached by a thread to the actual world, -the
slightest disturbance in that is sufficient to break it
up. So we may suppose, so indeed we know, that
the law of our waking life  the law by which we live
in the actual world- has its root in a life behind that.
Our scheming and our action are projected on a scale
of the soul; our existence as children of earth is pro,jeeted on a scale of physical laws. The two scales do
not (,oincide.  The scale of earthly existence is a small
frame applied to a larger plan. It bounds that plan
169 
170  RELIGION WITHIN THE BOUNDS OF THEISM.
for this world: does it bound it for ever? Does it
bound the planning and producing soul?  I see no
reason to suppose that it does. What our dreams are
to our waking existence, that our waking existence
may be to an inner and larger life of the soul; and
what we call the actual world - that is, our experience
of it- may be but a dream of this inner life pro jected on a scale of physical laws, and bounded by
them, as our nightly dream is bounded by them in its
narrower limits; and what we call death may be but
the breaking up of this more protracted dream, at the
point where the scale of physical laws intersects the in ner life; consequently a waking-up of the soul to a
more intense and expanded consciousness, - a con sciousness which shall bear the same proportion to this
present state that the present does to the nightly dream.
What a miracle it is, for all our familiarity with it,
when we wake in the morning, new-born, into the
great, wide world of day, after being shut up for some
hours in the narrow confinement of the world of sleep!
iHow little and nugatory seems to us then our dream,
if remembered at all! Olly when, in that dream which
we had, some fierce passion was called into play, or
some terrible calamity pursued us, do we dwell upon it
still, for a while, in the growing dawn, until the importunate realities of waking existence chase its image
from the soul.  I can imagine a waking consequent on
death, or coincident with it, which shall give us a consciousnress by so much the more vivid, a morning by so
much the more resplendent, a world by so much the
larger and more glorious, as our conceptions and the
possibilities of being transcend the actual' experience 
THE OLD HOPE.
of life. And perhaps every future life of the soul may
be as a dream to that which succeeds it, and the only
waking life in the universe be that of God.
I assert nothing. On this subject all dogmatizing
is ridiculous. All positive assertion is rebuked by the
consciousness of ignorance and limitation.   I stand
with profound submission and with reverent expectation before the veiled future which bounds this mortal
span.  It is not the light of revelation, but the candle
of conjecture, which I hold out into the uncertain dark.
Thus much we may affirm; and the more we meditate the matter, the more the conviction grows, that
this interior force which we call the soul, this scheming
and,productive power which works in us and through
us, shaping our life in the world, and, in some small
measure, the world by our life, contriving and producing,-  that this power, I say, does not exhaust itself
in these productions. The capacity remains in man's
consciousness, of further production.  The scale of mortality which bounds and measures the product is not
the measure of the power. It is not the measure of the
soul. WVe die in the midst of our schemes. The fault
is not in the schemes that they break off and stop
short of their fulfilment. Nor is it the incapacity of
the soul that fails to fulfil them; but another law coming in, another force breaking through, a physical
necessity, cuts them short. Does that force destroy'
the producing power, or only arrest its action for a
season, as the winter stops the flowering of the plant,
leaving the root unimpaired for further production?
The organism in and by which we performed our
tasks is broken up. Are we that organism? Is what
171
I 
172  RELIGION WITHIIIN TiHE BOUNDS OF THIEISM.
we call the soul the product of organization? If so,
then death puts an end to us and our work for ever.
The particles which composed the machine may work
again in other forms of which they shall become part;
but of us and our work there is an end for ever. But
we are not that organism. No man identifies himself
with his bodily organs, but regards these as something external to himself, something which clothes him,
something which he inhabits. WVe are not the hand
surely, nor the foot, nor the trunk. We separate in
our consciousness between self and each particular part,
between self and the totality of parts.   There is a
feeling of something distinct, detachable,  something
which is not part, but whole and indivisible, transcending organization, surviving it.
We lived before we saw the light. Our embryo
life may have been a conscious life: if so, what dreams
and associations were interrupted and broken up when
the new-born emerged from his narrow, dark world,
" Like a shipwrecked sailor tost
By rough waved on a perilous coast,
Flung by laboring nature forth
Upon the mercies of the earth"!
The present life may be embryonic with relation to
some future life of the soul, and the discipline of this
world a process of gestation, in which the great Mother
travails with her children until they burst the matrix
of mortality, and put on new life. The embryo state
ceases: the life it enclosed survives.
But how survives?  In what form? with what surroundincgs? with what human or superhuman conditions? Is it here, on this earth, that we resume and 
THE OLD HOPE..
pursue our calling? Do we re-appear again and again
in new forms of humanity?   Or do we migrate to
some other sphere? Or does the dissolution of the
mortal body disengage an ethereal form, invisible to
the eye of flesh, which, without any grosser embodiment,  contains and perpetuates  the conscious life?
These are questions for which reason and religion have
no legitimate answer, other than a candid confession of
utter and helpless ignorance. Every theory we may
frame of the future of the soul is a baseless speculation.
No conclusion which philosophy has drawn from nature
or consciousness can lay any claim to scientific credibility. All our inquiries and soundings of this matter
bring us no nearer the truth. We want the first and
most essential condition of a rational theory on the
subject.  We do not even know what the soul or self
of the individual, as distinguished from the visible person, is.  The most intelligible theory that has ever
been propounded is that of a succession of human
births; the soul, at death, investing itself with a new
body, and living a new life on the earth. The early
Christians also believed in a new life on the earth for
the saints, but one invested with the same body, which
they supposed would be raised and re-animated * for
. * Science protests against the doctrine of the resurrection% of the body
as a physical impossibility, on the ground that the same particles have, at
different times, been constituents of different human bodies. I attach no
great importance to this reasoning, and rather suppose, that, if the resurrection of this identical body were desirable, the divine chemistry is competent
to that result. Besides, the doctrine does not contemplate the restoration
of every ounce of flesh, but conceives that the resurrection-body will recover
so much of the present as to constitute essential identity of the outward
man.  But there are other weighty objections to the doctrine, which survives only in the creeds of Christendom, not in its thought.
.
173 
1 74  RELIGION WIVITHIN THE BOUNDS OF THEISM.
the purpose, and for whose mrnillennial abode the earth
itself would be renewed.
There are moods and moments when the wish to
renew our relations with this earth, or to know, at
least, of its on-goings, predominates over every other
feeling in our contemplation of the hereafter.   The i
founder of the Hebrew Commonwealth is represented,
in the Pentateuch, as dying within sight of the promised
land which had been the object of his lifelong endeavor.
When I think of him looking from the summit of the
border-mountain into that fair Canaan into which it
was whispered to his soul that he should not live to
enter and take possession in person, it seems to me
that an irrepressible longing must have seized the heart
of tIle prophet to visit, in the day of their prosperity,
the people he had guided in weakness and want, and
to witness the maturity and power of the State of
which he had laid the foundations, at the foot of HIoreb
and on the banks  of the Nile.   We, too, from  the
height of our own timne, from the height of modern
civilization, discern a future of rich promise,- a
Canaan of social progress and prosperity, into which
our descendants shall enter, but of which the distant
vision only is granted to us.  Who so cold or so indifferent to human weal as not to desire, in the future of
the soul which lies for us beyond the Jordan of death,
to see with our own eyes the realization of this great
hope?  Who would not wvish to know the condition of
society as it will be after the lapse of another century,
when the tendencies which are now at work in human
affairs shall have consummated their legitimate fruit?
An  astronomer,  speaking of Halley's comet, which 
THE OLD HOPE.
returns to that point in its orbit from whence it is visible to our earth after an interval of - I forget how
many years, remarks, -that, "while we gaze on this
mysterious visitant, not without a feeling of sadness,
knowing that its larger year outspans the cycle of one
of earth's fleeting generations, and that, when it once
more returns, it will tell of the victories of science, not
to us, but to those who  are fast forgetting us, the
thought clutches by the heart, that man must be immortal."  Fromn the same feeling it might be argued,
that man does not quit this earth; that the life of the
individual must be co-present to all the generations that
come after him; that he must realize, in his individual
experience, all that collective humanity, in all time, is
destined to know, to produce, and to be.
This, however, is reasoning on the assumption, that
the interest of this present must be the interest also
of the life to come; that "quoo cura fuit vivis eadem
sequitur tellure repostos."  It is quite possible that we
may exaggerate the importance of the future of this
planet and of human society, in relation to the whole
to which they and we belong; that, however momentous all this may seem to us now, its importance will
dwindle into nothing when we wake from the dream of
mortality, and take up our new position in the universe
of God.   This world and its belongings miay then be
no more to us than last night's dream, whose intense
interest we scarce recall in the morning,  and whose
history we soon dismiss from the mind.
Besides, the future of this earth, -is it not in ourselves? All that collective humanity is capable of, all
that the ages to come of human existence shall unfold
175 
176  RELIGION WITMN THE BOUNDS OF THEISM.
in long procession, -the whole scope and theme of
mortal years,  is it not folded up in the individual
soul?  All that man can be is in us; and, wherever
our being may lodge in the great hereafter, fast as that
being unfolds we shall read the history of advancing
man in our own progressive life.
The more prevailing doctrine concerning the form
and method of the future life is that of the " spiritual
body," so called, - a finer frame, supposed to be contained within this visible, to be disengaged from it by
death, and to constitute thenceforth the vehicle and
dwelling of the soul.  The "spiritual body," if I rightly
apprehend it, is a more ethereal body, differing firom
this present mainly in the matter of weight, and exemption from animal functions.'The future state is supposed to be a realm inhabited by these ethereal bodies,
and is called " the spiritual world." Whatever may be
thought of the ontology of this view, its claim of spirituality is founded on mere difference of mass and bulk.
But the essence of spirit consists not in levity. When
we talk of spirituality, it is not a question of specific
gravity, of thick or thin, of solid or fluid.  A cubic
foot of oxygen is no more spiritual than a cubic foot of
lead.   Light and electricity are just as material as
density and gravitation;  and a body of a hundred
pound weight is just as likely a vehicle of spirit, and
just as much entitled to be called a spiritual body, as
any imponderable substance.
We speculate into thick darkness when we try conclusions with the region beyond the grave. Impervious
night baffles all intellectual adventure in that direction.
We shall have to be content with the simple fact of
I 
TfIE OLD HOPE.
immortality, suggested by the longing heart, and confirmed by the general faith of mankind.  Enough to
know that the bounded horizon of this mortal is not
" the butt and seamark of my utmost sail;" that the
tickings of the fleshly heart are not the measure of the
soul's unending day.  More than this is not revealed;
and, however curiosity may burn to penetrate the
secret, our riper reason must.needs bless the veil of
inscrutable mystery which a kind God has thrown
around our passage hence, and the deep, unanswering
silence, which baffles science but fosters hope.
The only thing that can, with any degree of certainty, be predicated concerning the life to come, is,
that its character, so far as our own consciousness for
good or evil is concerned in it, will mainly depend on
ourselves. Whatever may be the mode of existence
hereafter, whatever the embodiment, the locality, that
which to us is most essential in it is that which we
bring to it of our own. Our life is from within; and he
who would know what his state and pursuits and sensations will be, when this mortal is put off, must look into
his own heart, and see what he finds there: what aptitudes, what tendencies, what inclinations and desires.
To suppose that Omnipotence- if such a thing be possible - will take a soul out from all its past habits and
belongings, and set it down in some new state entirely
foreign from its bent and wont, is a vain imagination.
But this we may hope, that the God to whom all souls
are dear will compensate past defects of circumstance
and means, and provide such guidance and such drawing as, not resisted, shall bring the wanderer to blessedness at last.
12
177 
S
a 
X.
FREEDOM IN BONDS.  
x.
FREEDOM IN BONDS.
THE beginning of conscious existence to finite beings is
the sense of limitation. The first experience -which
consciousness reports is one which separates us from all
other being, and draws the boundary-line of our personal estate. The first thing which the infant learns
from its contact with the world is the fact of bounds.
Its sensations are crossed by a foreign existence;  its
efforts are thwarted by a foreign power.   Every subsequent age repeats and confirms this first experience.
We are not free, as "the natural man " interprets and
postulates freedom. Our freedom, in that sense, is
narrowly circumscribed. On all sides, we are straitened
and cramped, - walled in by adamantine necessity.
Every wish we breathe confesses limitation. Every
wish is a feeling of restraint, a conflict between soul
and circumstance.  And wishes multiply as fast as the
mneans of gratifying them. You are straitened in your
affairs;  you  desire a competent  support.   Imagine
that competence obtained, and desire is as active as
before. Your property must be so vested as to give
absolute immunity from loss or care. Health you must
have to enjoy your fortune; social position, to command
[181] 
182  RELIGION WITHIIN THE BOUNDS OF THEISM.
the respect of your fellow-men. You must be happy
in your family, happy in all your connections. You
must live to a good old age without the infirmities of
age. And, when every thing is fixed according to your
desire, thie end of all things stares you in the face; and
you find, in your finite nature, a limit which bounds
the uttermost good that fortune can bestow.
Every lot in life has its limits, and the limits are
equally oppressive in all. From whatever point we set
out, the goal of perfection is equally remote. Happi ness is not the end of a line, along which our fortunes
are ranged in different degrees of proximity: it is the
centre of a circle; and all human conditions lie in
the same circumference, at equal distances around it.
The feeling of limitation depends, not on circumstance,
but on ourselves.   With a happy temper, the law is
easy, and the limits large; with a discontented, fretful
spirit, the limits are close, and the law is hard. But
none are so happy as never to feel the restrictions
which limit and shut in our mortal life.  We  may not
rebel against our lot; and yet the universal conditions
to which humanity is subject shall sometimes pain us
with their sharp restraints. Time and space, climate,
weather, sickness, death, everywhere oppose our desires.  We feel our incapacity to be and to do what
our better instincts prompt; we can never quite come
up with our conscience; we can never quite burst the
meshes of weakness and sense.  Then, too, the inevitable course of events rushes on, regardless of our wishes;
and all our sighs and prayers cannot extort the least
dispensation from nature or time. When heaviness
weighs on our spirits, we cannot take wings and fly 
FREEDOM IN BONDS.
away; we cannot escape the weary sameness and wearier changes of life. We cannot prevent the loss of
friends and the hitter disappointments of fate.  We
witness suffering which we cannot relieve, changes we
cannot avert, vice we cannot refobrm. Who so hard
or who so wise as to care for none of these things,as never to wish that the everlasting law might for
once relent in his behalf?
We find a limit in the strict compensation which pervades all departments of life, and qualifies all the gifts
and advantages allotted to man. One thing is set off
against another. You can have no good, without. incurring the risk of some proportionate evil. You can
have no pleasure, but some pain goes with it.  Nothing
is given for nothing; every thing must be bought with
its proper price. Our very existence is not yiven: we
must pay for it with ceaseless care and toil, and the
moral obligations it imposes. The higher the condition
into which you are born, the greater the struggle to
maintain that condition, and the greater the cares and
obligations which it brings. The savage needs little to
maintain his meagrre existence.  His rude weapons and
strong limbs will procure him the food and raiment
which his fathers enjoyed.  His means are as ample as
the forest and the flood; but his wants are cheap, his
gratifications few.  The civilized man has greater
needs, and greater pains to satisfy them.   Hle asks
more of the world, and the world demands more of
him. The more we multiply the means of enjoyment,
the more we multiply the sources of pain.   If you
build an expensive house, and surround yourself with
splendid furnitures and costly decorations, you have the
183 
184  RELIGION WITHIN THE BOUNDS OF THEISM.
. *
trouble of keeping these things in order, and the fear
that they may pass out of your hands. You must
burden yourself with domestic cares: for every convenience which you introduce into your establishment,
you must take some inconvenience in its train. If you
live simply and at little cost, you forego some of the
gratifications of taste; but you avoid also the cares
which they Evolve. If you indulge your affections,
form friendships, gather a family around you, and enter
into near relations with your fellow-mlen, you gratify
your social nature, and enjoy the precious satisfactions
of love:  at the same time, you lay yourself open to
painful anxieties and poignant griefs unknown to him
who leads a solitary life. If you lead a solitary life,
you escape a world of care, and lose a world of enjoyment.   Whatever  is gained in one way  is lost in
another; whatever good you pursue, you must pay its
price. If you seek wealth, you must pay the price of
ceaseless drudgery and livelong care; if you. seek
knowledge and intellectual culture, you must pay the
price of long devotion, rigid self-denial, late watchings,
early risings, and a resolute renunciation of other good,
which may or may not be added unto you. If you
seek ease and present comfort, you must pay the price
of obscurity and insignificance. If you seek the kingdom of God, you must renounce the world;  if you
love the world, you must forego the kingdom of
God.
Life itself, and every circumstance of life, is amenable to the law of compensation. It is the first statute,
-the regulative principle in all human things.   It
pervades, like gravitation, the whole economy of na 
FREED)OM IN BONDS.
ture.  Disturb it in one place, and it rights itself in
another. If the tide rises here, it ebbs there. If the
ocean loses by evaporation, the air gains. It always
takes so much  to effect so much.   Eternal Justice
holds in opposite scales the good and ill of life: what ever is added to one scale is rectified by its just equiva lent in the other.  There may be occasional oscillations;
an unwonted pressure, a momentary success, may cause
one side or the other to preponderate for a while: but
the re-action is always equal to the action; the equilibrium is never long disturbed.
We find a limit in the law of retribution which
avenges every unlawful advantage, and punishes every
sinful act.  Since the beginning of the world, no man
ever wronged another without wronging himself.   No
man ever consulted his private advantage at the expense of his neighbor, or the gratification of his senses
at the expense of his morals, without incurring the
penalty annexed to such acts. It is the underside of
that evil deed of which the advantage sought is the
upperside. Cut never so fine, shave never so close,
you cannot divide the benefit from the wrong. The
penalty is a part of the thing. Sin is a poisoned fruit.
No art has yet been able to separate the sweet from the
noxious, the taste in the mouth from the mischief in
the soul. Every little dishonesty in worldly dealings,
every falsehood of speech, every spiteful word or act,
every sensual excess, judges itself more surely, more
adequately, than any court can judge it. Men do not see
the judgment, because it is not an object of sense; but
to deny it is not to believe in the soul. Every temptation to which I yield is so much lost to the soul's
185 
186  RELIGION WITHIN THE BOUNDS OF THEISM.
growth. Every sin is a misstep which has got to be
rectified.  By just so much as honesty is better than
fraud, by just so much as kindness is better than injury,
by just so much as self-command is better than indulgence, by just so much am I punished for every transgression. The gratification sought by unlawful means
is never realized: it slips through the fingers; and, in
all the annals of crime, there was never a transgressor
who would say that he had bettered his condition by
any wrong act which he did.
So, then, in every direction I find a limit which
bounds my will and defines my life. I am fenced with
stern  conditions, compassed  about with  everlasting
denials. AIy freedom is an island of small extent in
an ocean of necessity which opposes, on every side, an
inexorable bar to mny finite power.   In vain do we
chafe against these bonds; in vain do we strive with the
limits which contain our little life. There is nothing
for it but to take the conditions we cannot annul, and
accommodate ourselves as we may to our narrow orbit.
Is it an evil that we are thus limited, - that our freedom, our capacity, is not absolute, but circumscribed?
Behold here the method of the highest good!
For what is the highest good? Every creature has
its proper destination; and, in the fulfilment of that
destination, the highest good for that creature consists.
But no creature can fulfil its destination, except it abide
within the limits prescribed for it. The inanimate substances' of nature are useful only when restricted and
confined. Gold would be useless, if less xare than it is.
Iron is useful only when reduced to suitable forms;
and all form is limitation.  The burning gas is useles 
FREEDOM IN BONDS.
while it flickers and flares in unrestrained freedom; but
reduce and control its issue, and it radiates a serviceable
light. What more useless than the vapor which escapes
from boiling water, in its free and diffuse state? It
wastes itself in air; it mingles with the clouds, and
returns to the earth again according to its circuit.  But
confine A within the iron chambers of a steam-engine,
and it becomes a mighty and beneficent power; it
gives wings to motion, extends the spirit's conquest
over matter, and is made subservient to all the arts of
life.
Look next at organized beings. Consider the plant.
That blade of wheat is destined to bear so many kernels, according to its kind.  But not one kernel could
ever come to perfection, were not the plant confined
within certain limits which it cannot transgress. Nature must bound herself in one way, that she may
glorify herself in another. If the growth of that stalk
were not arrested when it reached a certain prescribed
stature and bulk, if it continued to grow beyond its
proper dimensions, the vegetative power allotted to it
would be exhausted in disproportionate expansion of
volume, and the stalk would absorb what was meant
for the fruit. The plant would fall short of its destination in striving to exceed it. In like manner, the animal economy is a system of forces and limitatons,
working together for a common end. Every muscle
is balanced by some antagonist muscle, every organ is
qualified by some associate organ, every instinct is limited by some counter instinct; and so the whole is kept
within the type, and made to fill up the type, in which
and for which it was formed.   The  bird has wings
187 
188  RELIGION WITHIN THE BOUNDS OF THEISM.,
which lift it above the earth; but, lest it should lose
itself in endless space, it has instincts and gravitation
which draw it to earth again. Beasts of prey have
instincts which prompt them to devour; but, to keep
the peace of nature, they have also a love of repose
which prompts them to rest when their hunger is
stilled.                                       o
So man, the head and crown of creation, has his
type and design, within which his perfection and happiness lies, and out of which there is no perfection or
happiness for him. If he transgresses this type in any
direction, he sacrifices more than he gains. If he goes
too far in one way, he loses something in another. If
he attempts-to be more than man, he becomes less than
man.   The chief and only good is to be man, -  simply
man; to unfold, in its just proportions, our human
nature, taking heed that no part or function or faculty
shall trespass on any other, but that all conspire to
fulfil the perfect image of God in which our being is
east. This type of ours is constituted and maintained
by those very laws, physical and moral, which we find
in our experience, and to which we must needs submit,
seeing that obedience to them is sure and only good.
Imagine these limitations removed, suppose these
laws abolished, paint to yourself that unbounded capacity or that unbridled'license which your fancy may
have craved when hampered and confined by the close
conditions of life; you will see that nothing would be
gained, that every thing would be sacrificed by the
abolition of those laws against which you chafe. The
imagination can picture no condition more appalling
than that of a creature absolved from law. Suppose 
FREEDOM IN BONDS.
an instance of such emancipation. Suppose the Allruler to take off the restraints of law from matter. Or
suppose but one law - the law of gravitation - suspended, and suppose that suspension to takle effect in a
single planet only, of the solar system.  Imagine one
lawless planet. Loose the centripetal bond and set it
adrift. See it wander madly from its native sphere,
aimless, pathless, into infinite space.   It entangles
itself with foreign firmaments, amazing, with its lawless presence, the loyal orbs that move obedient in
their steady rounds; perplexing their path with incalculable nodes, and missing the sweet influences of its
kindred sky, - an intruder in orderly places, the vagabond of creation, unblessing and unblest.   Suppose
that body endowed with consciousness, how would it
long for its old beat! how gladly submit itself to saving
law, and return, after fruitless and joyless roving, to
its safe perihelion and its brother stars! Carry this
idea into the moral world. Suppose mankind absolved
from their allegiance to right and duty; suppose that
no one finds in himself, or out of himself, any law
restraining his inclinations; that each one does what
passion urges or impulse suggests; - would that be a
comfortable state of society? No hell within the compass of human imnagination could exceed the possibilities of such a state.
But aside from those possibilities, and aside from the
harm to others, consider only the loss to himself which
man must suffer in the absence of law and restraint.
Pushing his propensity in one direction without limit,
as each should incline, none would fulfil the design of
his being; none would be man, but something else and
189 
190  RELIGION WVITHIN THE BOUNDS OF THEISM.
less than man. Pursuing one object and excluding
others, he would sacrifice his entireness to that one.
This man would give himself to sensual indulgence,
and become an organ of sense. That one would
give himself up to repose, and become a stone.
One would be all intellect, another all feeling; none
would be man. To be an entire man, to fulfil his
type, is the highest to which man can aspire. To this
end, as the vessel is conformed to its mould, we are
placed in a framework of laws which prescribe the
dimensions and the plan we are to fill, that no propensity may exceed its due, but each be developed in
harmony with all the rest, until we reach the perfect
man. We are limited on every side, and bound in
each particular, that we may be glorified in the whole.
Our nature, to be perfect, must be restrained. Let us
not chafe, but glory in these bonds, and welcome every
law which we find in our condition and in ourselves as
the finger of God in the uncertainties of life, pointing
out the path which alone can bring us the satisfaction
we seek.
I have spoken of law as a limitation of freedom; but
law is also a condition of freedom. A nearer view will
show that law and liberty are co-ordinate. We find,
as we ascend in the scale of life, each order of beings
more free than the one beneath it.  The plant is rooted
in the grbund: it has no freedom of locomotion; its
only liberty consists in turning its leaves to the sun,
and opening its pores to the atmospheric influences
which supply it nurture. The shellfish clings to its
native rock, and has no liberty but to open its valves
Dtnd receive the nourishment conveyed to it by the ele 
FREEDOM IN BONDS.
ment it inhabits. The quadruped has the freedom of
the field and the forest: it procures its food by its own
effort, and exercises volition.  Man has the range of
the planet, and not only freedom of locomotion, but
freedom of thought and action: he can choose his path
and mode of life; he can choose between good and
evil. Man is freer than planet or brute; but is man
less subject to law than they? On the contrary, the
laws which govern him are more numerous and complex than those which govern the inferior orders. The
plant obeys no law but that of vegetable life; the brute
obeys no law but those of animal nature: but man, in
addition to the physical laws which comprehend him
with the rest of creation, is amenable also to civil,
social, moral and spiritual laws, which claim his allegiance.
Law is a restriction of liberty to those only who
resist its control. The way to surmount this restraint
is by perfect obedience; by accepting the law so entirely,
by so identifying our wills with the supreme Will which
ordained it, that we become ourselves a party to the
law. Then it ceases to be restraint, and becomes our
own volition. We say that the plant grows freely
when it grows as nature designed, without artificial
restraint, according to the law of its organization.
We call the bird free when it moves in obedience to the
law in its members. If tree and bird were conscious,
Ithey would feel that they were following their own
inclinations, although the direction of every twig in the
one, and the motion of every muscle in the other, is
determined by strict necessity Man is free when he
freely obeys the law in his mind.  There is no freedom
191
0 
192  RELIGION WVITHIN TiE BOUNDS OF THIEISM.
if we look for it outside of ourselves, if we seek it in
circumstance. The inner world alone is free or capa ble of freedom. We are all thrown upon circumstances
which do not answer to our ideal; the universe about
us has its laws and methods against which human pas sions beat in vain, and gain nothing but their own foam
flung back upon them from the adamantine negations
which God opposes to their hungry tide. The world is
inexorably conditioned, and conditions us; and we
sometimes weary of our estate, and pine as in bondage.
The homesick soul demands its release. Oh that we
had wings to lift us above the confining tasks  and
drudgery of life! The only way to escape this bond age is to give ourselves to it with mind and heart; to
find our life in our task, our freedom in our obliga tions; to make our good-will as broad as our necessity.
Resist the law of duty, and it galls you with an iron
grip; seek to evade it, it pursues you with a merciless lash; accept it, and it becomes a law of liberty.
The skin which bounds this mortal body we do not feel
to be a confinement, because it is a part of ourselves,
a secretion of kindred matter, a fabric of our own
blood. So, when we have come into perfect harmony
with God by willing obedience, the law which had
seemed to us imposed by a foreign power shall be seen
to proceed from ourselves, to be a part of our nature,
-the spontaneous expression of our wills; and therefore no longer a bond, but a graceful and transparent
covering with which the sQul arrays and protects its
sacred life. We shall see the absurdity then of wishing
that any thing in this world were other than it is.
Every regret will be seen to be injustice to ourselves
0 
FREEDOM IN BONDS.
and impiety toward God. Then shall cease the feeling
of obligation.   The language of command shall be
heard no more.   "Thou shalt" and "thou shalt not,"
"must" and "ought," those stern sentinels of the soul
that keep such jealous watch of our actions, shall be
discharged from their superfluous posts.  Choice shall
then be our only obligation; "I may" and "I will," our
ten commandments.
18
193 
I 
PRELIMINARY.
THE CAUSE OF REASON THE CAUSE OF
FAITH.
-     0.-  7..-.-,s.  no.-   "- X  
I 
BOOK SECOND.
itXisanif  g.
THE CAUSE OF REASON THE CAUSE OF
FAITH.
THIE earliest controversy in the Christian Church,
though concerning a matter of purely practical import,
involved a theory of the rights of reason which marked
-the new era then dawning on the world. It was virtually a conflict of reason with authority, -  a revolt of
the emancipated intellect against ecclesiastical rule.
Antioch, representative of rationalism and liberty, was
arrayed against Jerusalem, jealous custodian of old
tradition. The remarkable thing in this controversy
is, that the rationalistic side was the side of faith.
Although, in relation to Judaism and Jewish Christianity, the rationalism of Paul and his party assumed a
negative and destructive character, its real import was
divinely positive.   Opposition to authority was  only
deeper fidelity to Christ. The cause of reason was, in
this case, the cause of faith; and the term Faith"
became the technical designation of rationalistic or
Pauline, as distinguished from Jewish, Christianity.
[197]
&aiiznal 
RATIONAL CHRISTIANITY.
In many of the later controversies of the Church,
and especially in those of the eleventh and twelfth centuries, we note the same coalition of reason with faith
in the war against authority. The men of faith were
the infidels of the Church. Such were Abelard, and
Arnold of Brescia, Henry of Cluny, and Gerhard of
Parma.
And the great controversy of all, the central controversy of modern history, -that which severed the
German churches from the -Latin, -  exhibits pre-eminently this relation and antagonism of faith and reason
with authority. Luther, the arch-rationalist of the old
Church, is the hero and type of faith to all succeeding
generations of the new. In every clear conflict between
reason and authority, the genius of Christianity inclines
to the rational side. The cause of reason is ever the
cause of faith.
Yet no delusion is more current than that which
identifies faith with implicit submission to ecclesiastical
authority, and confounds rationalism with unbelief.
The Protestant Church, while practically basing
itself on the rights of reason, in its abnegation of irrational dogma, has never duly appreciated, or even
theoretically acknowledged, that position, -has never
heartily accepted the legitimate construction of that
position, and its obvious consequences.    The  term
Rationalism, which truly expresses that position, is,
with Liberal Christians as well as with the exclusive
sects, a term of reproach, conveying an idea of some
impious and unholy license. In the mind of the liberal
as well as of the exclusive, faith is associated only with
authority, and dissociated from reason.  Rationalism: 
9
198 
THE CAUSE OF REASON THAT OF FAITH.   199
regarded as in principle unbelief, in practice sacrilege.
This abuse of the term, and consequent disgust to the
thing, is partly due to the old association of the word
with a class of theologians now extinct, and whose
methods and conclusions rational criticism itself disavows.  But the misapplication of a principle does not
invalidate the principle itself, nor ought the mistakes of
a Paulus or a Strauss to discourage the application of
reason to religion. Rationalism means that, and nothing, more.  Reason may er in some of its conclusions;
but reason is none the less the supreme arbiter in theology. Its errors can be consistently refuted by Protestants, only on rationalistic grounds. Only the Romanist
can with consistency speak of rationalism in the way
of reproach. Protestantism assumes the application of
reason to religion as the basis of its ecclesiastical life.
Whoever calls that principle in question, whoever finds
or intends reproach in the word Rationalism, abandons
the Protestant ground, and confesses himself in spirit
and temper a Romanist. Whoever allows that principle
at all, and allows it in himself, must allow it in others,
and allow it without stint, while even rejecting the conclusions of those who adopt it. Reason or Rome,
there is no middle ground.
If the Protestant principle is false, then the Church
of Rome is infallibly true in all its policy and all its
doctrine; and we are all heretics and doomed who are
out of that communion, having the understanding irremediably darkened, for ever alienated from the life of
God through the blindness of our hearts. If, on the
other hand, the Protestant principle is true, — if we
believe in it and profess it,- then in Christ's name let 
RATIONAL CHRISTIANITY.
us stand by it manfully, and follow it boldly, and confide in it frankly, and not be scared by a name, nor
wish to scare others. When a fellow-Protestant advances opinions which seem to us false, irreligious,
dangerous, let us try those opinions by their own merits
or demerits, and judge them by their own evidence or
want of evidence, and not assail them with the anile cry
of Rationalism, as if that trait were itself a sufficient
condemnation, whereas in fact it is their only title to
be        so much  as criticised.   As  Protestants, we  are
all rationalists in the fundamental principle of our
ecclesiastical position: we may repudiate this or that
rationalistic conclusion; but we may not repudiate, or
repudiating cannot  escape,  the principle itself.   If
rationalism be a sin, that sin have we incurred, and are
now   -
"Stepped in so far that, should we wade no more,
Returning were as tedious as go o'er."
There is nothing for it but to hold on, - if we admit the
principle at all, to stand by it manfully, to acquiesce in
all its legitimate applications, to let full daylight in on
our beliefs; to follow trustingly where reason leads, to
accept the results of competent, honest criticism, and
whatever unbiassed and conscientious investigation shall
approve. We must seek some other term to express
that negative position and tendency in religion which
piety deplores. If criticism in any case exhibits an
unmistakable spirit of hostility to religion, call it irreligion, infidelity; -give it some name expressive of
that hostility, and not one which, so used, casts reproach on criticism and on reason itself.
200 
THE CAUSE OF REASON THAT OF FAITH.  201
Protestantism is, historically and theoretically, a
contest of reason against ecclesiastical authority. In
prosecuting this contest, the Reformation summoned to
its aid another authority by which to offset the authority
of Rome, - the Bible.   The  consequence was, that
the Bible came, in the Protestant world, to occupy the
place which the Church had occupied in the Roman
Catholic.   Not  only authority,  but infallibility, was
claimed for it,- an infallibility extending to every jot
and tittle of the text. An infallible book replaced the
infallible Church.   The letter of Scripture was  now
the immediate voice of God, and must countervail the
clearest perceptions of reason and the strongest testimony of the heart. A more developed and instructed
Protestantism perceives the monstrousness of this assumption,  and steadfastly protests,  and will continue
to protest, against it. I call it an assumption because
it is wholly destitute of either external or internal
evidence; and, in spite of the rooted impression of
most Protestant communions, and hard as the assertion
may sound, I have no hesitation in saying that this
assumption of the infallibility of Scripture in every
topic and word of its contents is more indefensible and
wide of the truth than that of the infallibility of the
Church of Rome, or the claim of her primate to be
the vicegerent of Christ on earth.   Authority is not
infallibility;  neither is inspiration infallibility.   The
authority of Scripture is incomplete without the assent
of reason; and, in things doubtful and insusceptible of
demonstration, authority can mean nothing more than
the strong presumption in favor of a view or a fact
from the providential position and inspiration of the 
RATIONAL CHRISTIANITY.
writer. For, not to insist on the previous question,
whether in the nature of things a writing can be, not
only a permanent depositary, but a lasting and everlasting and exact exponent of the truth, our evidence
that any particular writing is from God can never be
stronger than the evidence of reason for or against the
matter contained in it.
This momentous principle - the very kernel of Protestantism - was clearly seen and distinctly stated by
Locke.  "Revelation," he says, "where God has been
pleased to give it, must carry it against the probable
conjectures of reason.... But yet it still belongs to
reason to judge of the truth of its being a revelation,
and of the signification of the words wherein it is
delivered. Indeed, if any thing shall be thought revelation which is contrary to the plain principles of reason
and the evident knowledge the mind has of its own
clear and distinct ideas, there reason must be hearkened
to as to a matter within its province, since a man can
never have so certain a knowledge that a proposition
which contradicts the clear principles and evidence of
his own knowledge was divinely revealed, or that he
understands the words rightly,... as he has that the
contrary is true, and so is bound to consider and
judge of it as a matter of reason, and not to swallow it
without examination  as a matter of faith." *  And
again, "Faith can never convince us of any thing that
contradicts our knowledge." Locke did not apply this
proposition to the Bible. The revelations he had in his
mind were pretended revelations claimed by enthusiasts
* Essay on Human Understanding, book iv. chap. 18.
202 
THE CAUSE OF REASON THAT OF FAITH.   203
independent of the Church. In those days, when criticism was yet in its infancy, and discrepancies undetected
which are now familiar, the Bible was either received
as a whole or rejected as a whole, and Locke was of
those who received it.   But the application of this
great principle to Scripture is obvious, and the bibliolatry which refuses so to apply it-which refuses to
discriminate between different degrees of authority and
authenticity, between genuine and spurious, between
poetry and history- is not of the nature of faith, but
of fetichism.
This sluggish acquiescence in something external,
tlhis slavish reliance on a letter, an institution, on the
"says so" of an individual, is precisely the state of
mind to which the name and credit of faith are commonly assigned. This is the kind of faith which the
Church of Rome  demands  and fosters.   The  entire
surrender of the understanding to a symbol, of the will
to a priest, is the highest virtue in that communion.
The noblest saint in the feminine calendar, the holy
and beautiful Elizabeth of Thiiringen, though clothed
with every virtue which could merit a seat among the
saints in any age or Church, was chiefly lauded by her
judges for unqualified submission to her confessor,
even to the extent of renouncing, at his dictation, her
works of love.  Her only weakness was esteemed her
supreme merit. An intelligent female convert to Romanism in our own land was asked how her disciplined
mind could reconcile itself with certain dogmas of her
new confession. The answer was, "I do not exercise
my mind upon them; I suspenzd mny reason on all
questions on which the Church has pronounced its 
RATIONAL CHRISTIANITY.
decision." Romanizing Christians may see in this suspense of reason the crowning triumph of consummate faith. I can see in it only the dying confession
of faith in articulo mnortis, the religion of despair,despair of the inner light, despair of divine guidance,
and the Holy Ghost. Such confessions throw a ghastly
light on the true nature of such conversions,- on all
conversions from the light of reason and rational faith
to obsolete dogma and ancient night.   Suspense of
reason! the history of Christendom for twelve centuries
is expressed by that phrase. < And the times of that
ignorance God winked at, but now commandeth all
men everywhere to repent." Whatever merit blind
acquiescence in blind authority might once have had,
it has none now, and will find no longer a conniving
God in the providential eclipse of the gospel. The
light is there: if any prefer the darkness to the light,
the darkness they have chosen is their doom.  " For it
is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and
have tasted the heavenly gift, and were made partakers
of the Holy Ghost, and have tasted the good word of
God and the powers of the world to come, if they shall
fall away, to renew them again, seeirng they crucify to
themselves the Son of God afresh and put him to an
open shame."
It is not a healthy and robust faith that seeks refuge
in authority, and flies for shelter to an antiquated creed.
In the beginning of the Anglican Tractarian movement,
one of its leaders complained that the " Church had too
much light." Following this hint, the more consistent
Tractarians turned their backs on such light as they
had, and, retreating beneath the shadow of the Church
204 
THE CAUSE OF REASON THAT OF FAITH.   205
of Rome, escaped the annoyance altogether. It is the
only safe course for men who do not wish to see what
they believe. Let the blind follow the blind into congenial darkness, and let the seeing gratefully accept the
light. It is not complete illumination as yet; it is not
co-extensive with all our belief. There are many dark
passages in life and religion, where we must walk by
faith, not by sight. We must walk by faith in a vast
number of cases, whatever church we walk in, and
though we walk in no church at all. Man is a poor
creature if he does not believe a great deal more than
he sees. Nevertheless, we will walk by sight, even in
religion, where we have sight to walk by.   We  will
not shut our eyes for the mere pleasure of groping in
the dark. We will thankfully accept the light we have,
and strive for more.
And'is there, then, no infallible authority in religion?
You take from us first the infallible Church, and now
the infallible Book. To what oracle then shall we flee
for safe conduct in the controverted questions of theology, - for safe deliverance from the agonies of doubt
and the endless mazes of the mind? To the question,
What is Truth?-the supreme question of the soul, on
which hang the issues of everlasting life,- is there no
expressed and unmistakable answer of God, on which
the soul may repose with the certainty of infallible
truth, and there end the bewildering quest?  No  infallible oracle out of the breast. The oracle within, the
answer of the Holy Ghost which the listening, waiting
soul receives in the innermost recesses of her own consciousness, is for each individual the high tribunal of
last appeal. However desirable it may seem that infal 
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lible guidance from without should have been vouch safed to our perplexity, however we may covet it and
sigh for it, it has not been so ordained. We have not
been so constituted as to see infallibly or to act infallibly. And perhaps, if we duly consider the uses of
the world and the needs of the soul, we shall cease to
think it desirable, shall see it to be incompatible with
moral discipline and moral growth.   For what, after
all, would be the difference between infallible guidance
and mechanical guidance? The theory of infallibility
is at variance with all the known methods of divine
Providence. God does not act on the mind mechanically, but morally.   He does not compel belief by
absolute certitude, but persuades belief by fair probability; the individual mind, with its idiosyncrasies,
being one of the factors by which that probability is
constituted.   It is very essential to our growth,  as
individuals and as society, that we should not have
certainty, -that faith should be elective, and not the
inevitable result of evidence acting with mechanical
compulsion on the mind. It is the liability to error
and the experience of error that make us human, that
furnish to human nature the topics of discipline and
the means of growth. The better part of truth is the
search after truth. Lessing was right in his preference
when he said,  "If God should offer me  the absolute
truth in- the right hand, and the love and pursuit of
truth in the left, I should choose the left." The absolute is not for man.
The cause of reason is the cause of faith. In affirming this, I but re-affirm what the wisest and devoutest
of the Church have always maintained. But indeed
206 
THE CAUSE OF REASON THAT OF FAITH.   207
the proposition is a necessary inference from the nature
of man;  it lies in the very constitution of the human
mind.  Reason and faith have one interest,-Truth.
They differ only in their mode of apprehension. Reason has the clearer discernment; faith, the stronger hold.
Faith has the ampler discourse; reason, the more accurate survey. Faith, conversant with matters beyond
the scope of reason, "is the evidence of things not
seen."   But reason, so far as it reaches,  is sight.
Reason, therefore, so far as it reaches, is the necessary
corrective of faith. Faith is determined by accidental
causes; it has no necessary relation to the truth. A
strong persuasion, but no objective certitude. It embraces error as well as truth, and embraces it with
equal affection. But reason, in its proper nature, is
identical with the actual truth of things, that is, their
relation in the mind of God; and human reason, on
any intelligible theory of God's government, must be a
continual approximation to absolute truth. The faith
of the Brahmin in the ten incarnations of Vishnu, or
that of the Catholic in the Transubstantiation of the
" elements," or the Tri-personality, is as strong as that
of the Protestant Christian in the unity and providence
of God. But the relation of reason to these different
dogmas is very different. The former demand a suspense of reason; the latter, if not an original perception
of reason, is at least an invitation to reason to -follow
and find.
An original perception of reason, it is not. Nor are
any of the primary and fundamental truths of religion
original perceptions of the mind. And here let me
say, that, in advocating the cause of reason in religion, 
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I am far from maintaining the sufficiency of reason as
a substitute for faith in spiritual things. On the contrary, it is my belief that reason in its own original
capacity and function has no knowledge of spiritual
truth, not even of the first and fundamental truth.of
religion, the being of God. "Natural theology" supposes that this and kindred truths are reasoned out, or
may be reasoned out, by a process of induction, in the
same way that the truths of astronomy were reasoned
out by Kepler and Newton and Laplace; that the being
of God is as much an inference from the facts and
processes of nature, as the earth's motion is an inference
from the oscillations of the pendulum and the changes
in thie sk   y; that the inference is inevitable, and would
have been reached by competent logicians without the
light of revelation and without the idea of God preexisting in the mind. I do not believe in any such
induction. I deny the logical sequence in that argument. I            deny the logical soundness of that conclusion. I            deny the ability of the human intellect to
construct that ladder, whose foot being grounded in
irrefragable axiom, and its steps all laid in dialectic
continuity, the topmost round thereof shall lift the
climbing intellect into vision of the Godhead. Between
the last truth which the human intellect can reach by
legitimate induction and the being of God there will
ever lie
"Deserts of vast eternity."
Not by that process did any soul yet arrive at that
transcendent truth; not from beneath, but from above,
- not by intellectual escalade, but by heavenly condescension,- comes the idea of God, even by the con
208 
THE CAUSE OF REASON THAT OF FAITH.   209
descending Word,  "of the Eternal co-eternal beam,"
the fountain of all our ideas of spiritual things, the well
from which reason draws, but not to be confounded
with it. What is true of the being of God is true of
all kindred verities. All our perceptions of the primary
truths of religion are products of divine illumination.
All religion that is true is revealed religion.   But
revelation is education, -education of the reason as
well as of the heart. What reason in its own original
capacity could not discover, it may come by divine
education to apprehend, and even, in a negative way,
to substantiate, by removing objections and showing
the absurdity of a contrary supposition. The office of
reason in religion is not discovery, but verification and
purification.  Its function is to make and keep religion
true and pure, by eliminating from the code of elemental beliefs the human  additions and corruptions that
have gathered around it. This, faith cannot do: faith
can only embrace, not discriminate, and, for want of
discrimination, may soon degenerate and turn to monstrous superstition, as in all historical dispensations of
religion it has done. Faith is no critic. In its own
nature and proper function, it chooses nothing and
refuses nothing. Impartial and impolitic, it befriends
itself with every enormity of the human mind. Nothing is too absurd for it,-  nothing too hateful or too
cruel. The wildest idolatries, the most brutal fetichism, the direst self-torture, the most ferocious persecution, Phoenician lust-offerings, Aztec blood-offerings,
Egyptian magic, Hindu suttees and gymnosophism,
Christian inquisitions and immolations, demonology
and witchcraft, _ these things are as natural to faith as
14 
RPATION.AL  Cl-IRISTIANITY.
belief in the Holy Ghost, and, but for the veto of educated reason, as near to it now and here as in any land
or time. It lies in all of us so to believe and so to act:
thanks to our rationalism, we think and act otherwise.
I say, then, that the cause of reason is the cause of
faith, because the corrective of faith.  Each is the
other's complement.   Reason requires the nutriment
and impulse furnished by  faith.   Faith requires the
discreet elaboration of reason. The one has the substance; the other, the form.  Reason alone would give
us a world without a God, bodies without spirits, earth
without heaven, a day without a morrow, a way without a goal. Faith alone would give us a pantheon of
questionable divinities, a pandemonium of unquestionable fiends, an overshadowing theocracy for civil rule,
a dispensation of dark ages without end.
From the genius of the gospel, no less than the constitution of the human mind, I infer the right of reason
in religion.  Christianity is professedly a revelation of
reason. The first systematic statement of it by a competent witness affirms this, and justifies rationalism in
one word.   And  that word is the Word,  - in the
original tongue a synonyme for Reason. "In the beginning was the Word (or Reason), and God was the
Word," and in Christ was  the Word  "made flesh."
The eternal Reason revealed in the human; not different from the human in kind, for it comes to "his own,"
and is "the light that lighteth all who come into the
world."   St.  Paul,  though  disclaiming, as  "carnal
wisdom" and "the wisdom of this world," the philosophic prepossessions of his time, is himself the subtlest
210 
THIE CAUTSE OF REASON TIHAT OF FAITi.   211
of reasoners, - an inveterate rationalist, never more
thoroughly in his element than when arguing the claims
of Christianity on psychological grounds, or boldly
rationalizing the Old Testament to rebut the scruples
of his countrymen.  The authorities at JerusalemBishop James and Peter and the rest -stood aghast,
and no wonder, at this "terrible child" of their communion; they spoke doubtfully of "our beloved brother
Paul" and the "hard things" in his Epistles; they
could not quote him without a caution; but who at
this day doubts that Paul's idea was nearer the mind
of Christ than the views of his Judaizing critics?
Providence adopted it; it carried the age; Jewish
Christianity decreased, Liberal Christianity increased,
-and will increase.
The history of a religion, like that of a nation or an
individual, is its verdict, the test of its proper quality,
a revelation of its innermost idea, a public confession
of the meaning which lay in its germ and constitution.
Try Christianity by this test; compare it with the elder
religions, or its younger sister, Islam.   What is the
characteristic fruit of Christian history? One fruit is
humanity; another, equally generic, is rationalism.
Not intellectual life as such, for Hinduism has developed that, and developed it more abundantly; but that
form of intellectual life in which reason is the dominant
element, -the application of reason to nature and
society, to art and literature and life. For proofs of
this assertion we have but to look around us. This
Protestant Christendom, with its schools and its arts,
its traffic and its liberties, comprising whatever is progressive and humane in the present, and containing 
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who can doubt it? - the future of humanity, the moral
destinies of this planet, -this embodied, practical,
beneficent rationalism I claim as the genuine fruit of
the gospel, - humanity's late but how significant answer to the condescending Word for whose communication in old Judaea the heavens were opened.
The  prominent feature of Christian civilization is
science, that new estate of the social realm which never
before, since the world began, attained the consequence
and moment it now has in the scale of the forces that
govern society. Science is sometimes found in opposition to the Church, which accordingly rages against
it, - the old with bull and ban, the new with the cry
of "infidelity," and both with the same result. As I
view it, the denial of God's light and truth in human
reason implies a far deeper infidelity than any questioning of the truth of a letter.
It is a losing contest which theology wages against
reason and fact. In striking at science, the Church but
dashes her ineffectual arm against the thick bosses of
thie Almighty's shield. For what is science? It is
simply the truth of things, i.e. the truth of God, and
-s surely a revelation of God as the gospel, - a revelation to reason of things mundane, as the gospel is a
revelation to faith of things supermundane. The two
revelations from one God can never really conflict.
Whatever of seeming conflict there may be is the fault
of the Church, which vainly opposes tradition to demonstration, and confounds the gospel with the Bible,
which is only a witness of the gospel. If the demonstrated facts of science shall be found to contradict the
text, the text must give way, and no harm is done to
212 
THE CAUSE OF REASON THAT OF FAITH.
religion except in the fond conceit which identifies the
cause of Christianity with the infallibility of a letter,
and stakes that cause on that infallibility. 
Moreover, in contending against science, the church
denies and rejects her own. For science, after all, is
the offspring of the Church. Born in monkish cells, the
foundling of religious houses vowed to Christ and the
saints, nursed by cowled friars, cradled among crucifixes and breviaries, with men like Raymond Lully and
Roger Bacon and Albert the Great for its sponsors, the
child was baptized with the Holy Ghost; and though in
her maturity electing another path than that anticipated
by her spiritual fathers, though adopting lay methods
and associations, she has never belied the divine anointing, nor betrayed her sacred trust. For science, too, is
a minister of God,- an evangelist whose mission is to
" show us the Father " and regenerate the world.
With no conscious God in her perceptions, she yet
refreshes and expands the idea of God by new revelations of the heights and deeps and infinite riches of the
wondrous All. With no moral sensibility of her own,
she yet deepens the sense of obligation in man, and
solemnizes human life by showing how most exact is
nature's frame in which that life is set, where the severe
and geometrizing God suffers no transgression and no
defect that is not compensated by its just equivalent, -
where every law is self-executing, and the wildest
excesses - the meteor's path, the earthquake's brief
spasm, the comet's long but measured furlough - are
all minutely prescribed and timed. With no human
sympathy in those eyes that look creation through, she
yet strengthens the bonds of love by a wiser adjustment
213 
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of human relations, by multiplying means of beneficence
and extending opportunities of good. With no charity
in her aim, she yet evangelizes the world by closer
commerce of man with man, by furnishing wings to
missionary zeal, and implements to charity, by dissolving
the rocky barriers of prescription, by developing the
vast resources of nature for the comfort and relief of
the suffering, and the edification of human kind.
Does theology understand, does the Church suspect,
what a reign this is which is now establishing its throne
among us, and stretching its sceptre alike over priest
and people? A veritable kingdom of God, because a
kingdom of light and truth.  Who  hath eyes to see,
let him see how old things are passing away, and all
things are becoming new. Let the clergy lift up their
eyes, and welcome the prophet whom nature vouches,
the fellow-laborer who also cometh in the name of the
Lord.   Let the Church make haste to acknowledge
the credentials which bear the seal of sovereign and
puissant fact, - the plenipotentiary of Him " who layeth the beams of his chambers in the waters and walketh
upon the wings of the wind." And let the Church
understand that she must either accommodate herself
to the new dispensation, or else go down before it, as
the temples of heathendom went down when the waters
of Christian baptism prevailed on the earth.
Let there be no strife between theology and science:
there need be none. The gospel of Christ and the
gospel of science have essentially one mission.   The
methods differ; the end is the same. " Glory to God
in the highest, and on earth peace and good-will toward
men," was the mission divinely proclaimed for the one:
214 
THE CAUSE OF REASON THAT OF FAITI-.  215
to minister to "the glory of God and the relief of
man's estate" was the calling which England's great
Chancellor, its own high prophet, prescribed for the
other.
If the cause of reason is the cause of faith, then it is
also the cause of the Church, and then theology may
not dispense with its aid in constructing the doctrinal
fabrics in which the faith of the Church is to dwell.
For want of the counsel and concurrence of reason in
time past, theology hath builded her house in vain.
Showy and imposing structures they were, which housed
the faith of the fathers, the Gothic style of theology,those groined and carved and turreted systems of divinity, -but without internal coherence, having no
sure principle of support in themselves, requiring stays
and props from without, and needing constant repair.
They resemble the material edifices, their counterparts,
the churches of the Middle Age, - that much-vaunted
but unsubstantial Gothic architecture, as characterized
by Michelet, and by him contrasted with the scientific
building of Florentine art. "The Gothic architecture,"
he says, "made great pretensions; it was ostentatious
of calculation and numbers. The sacred number three,
the mysterious number seven, were carefully reproduced, either in themselves or their multiples, in every
part of these churches.... Build by three and by
seven, and your church will be solid." -  "But why,"
then, continues he, "t this army of buttresses surrounding it, these enormous stays, this everlasting scaffolding,
which the mason seems to have forgotten to take away?"
The very ornamentation conceals iron clamps which 
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deoxidate continually, and have to be replaced. "A
really robust edifice would cover and enclose its own
supports, the guaranties of its perpetuity.   But the
Gothic, which leaves these essential members to chance,
is constitutionally sickly, necessitating the maintenance
of a population of doctors; for so I call those little
hamlets of masons which I see established at the foot
of these edifices, - the hereditary repairers of the fragile creation which is mended so constantly, piece by
piece, that, after two or three hundred years, not a stone
perhaps of the original structure remains."
Brunelleschi, "the sceptic, the denier of Gothic
architecture," first Protestant in art, when intrusted
with the completion of the cathedral at Florence, proceeded on a different plan. He went scientifically to
work: he studied the strength of materials, the principles of form, the proportion of part to part, and so
built the Maria del Fiore. "Without carpentry, without prop or buttress, without the succor of any exterior
support, the colossal church rose simply, naturally, as
a strong man rises in the morning from his bed, without
staff or crutch; and with terror the people saw the
hardy calculator place upon its head a ponderous marble hat,-  the lantern.   He laughed  at their fears,
assuring them that this new weight would only add to
its solidity."
And thus, says the historian, "was laid the cornerstone of the new era, - the permanent protest against
the halting art of the Middle Age, the first but triumphant essay of a serious structure self-sustained, being
based on calculation and on the authority of reason.
Art and reason reconciled, that is the new era, the
216 
THE CAUSE OF REASON TIAT OF FAITH.
marriage of the beautiful with the true.... -'Where
will you be buried?' they asked lvlichel Angelo, who
himself had just completed St. Peter's at Rome.
'Where I may for ever contemplate the immortal work
of Brunellesehi."'
What the Duomo at Florence, what a really scientific building, is to a crumbling Gothic edifice, such is
a rational theology to the rotten systems of the past.
As that, in the language just quoted, is the marriage
of the beautiful with the true, so this is the marriage of
the holy with the true, -the marriage of Faith and
Reason.
It will be understood, that in arguing this cause, in
contending for the faithful and fearless application of
reason to religion, I am advocating a principle, not a
particular view or result. I have wished to contribute
something to do away the false association of rationalism
with unbelief, as if the sole function of reason were to
deny,  and negation of existing beliefs, its legitimate
fruit. The rationalist is not necessarily one who rejects
the miraculous  element  in  the  gospel  history,  and
denies the exceptionally divine in Christ. For my own
part, I believe both, and claim to do so on rationalistic
grounds. I claim to have reached these conclusions by
no bias of authority or ecclesiastical tradition, but by
rational criticism applied to the facts in the case. It
may be a limitation in me to believe thus; then it is a
limitation of my faculty, and not an intentional limitation of the principle I am advocating. I demand an
unlimited application of that principle; and I firmly
believe that the full and conscientious and persistent use
217 
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of reason in religion will restore and confirm much that
the partial use has discredited and disturbed. It is not,
as I judge, the maturity and strength of reason that
repudiates those truths, but its rawness and weakness,
- its enslavement to negative experience, and inability
to construe the arc of which the seemingly straight line
of our experience constitutes so small a segment. That
is not a pleasing view of divine operations, or of human things, which supposes the Universe and Providence bound to an everlasting mechanical sequence of
events; it is not one which will permanently satisfy
human reason. The virtual atheism of such a view no
formal acknowledgment of a great First Cause can
redeem. Reason demands, and true theism supposes,
a present as well as a former God, - a God co-ordinate
with and exceeding creation, - a God untrammelled by
custom, or what we call law, which is merely a human
form of thought, and not an objective reality. This
regular sequence of events, which seems so necessary,
so absolute to our mundane experience, may be in the
infinite consciousness of God a free and incalculable
spontaneity. If miracles, as I believe, are not to be
eliminated from the canon of historical facts, then science, I doubt not, will come to know them, and reason
will rationalize them without impairing their miraculous
character.
I am far from maintaining that Christianity must
stand or fall with the belief in miracles; but I do maintain that Christian churches, as organized bodies of
believers, must stand or fall with the Christian confession, -that is, the confession of Christ as divinely
human Master and Head. Men of wit and spirit,
218
"I 
THE CAUSE OF REASON THAT OF FAITH.   219
earnest and able speakers, outside of that confession,
will not want hearers, and may gather congregations
around them which shall wait on their stated ministry.
But such congregations, so far from being Christian
churches, may even come to assume an attitude of open
and avowed hostility to Christian doctrine and life.
Things exist in this world by distinction one from
another. Enlarge as you will the idea and scope of a
church, there must be somewhere, whether stated or
not in any formal symbol, a line which defines it, and
separates those who are in it from those who are without. The scope of the Liberal Church is large; but
every thing and everybody cannot be embraced in it.
The Christian confession is its boundary-line, within
which alone it can do the work which Providence has
given it to do. This boundary-line I have all along
assumed.   The distinction involved in the Christian
confession is organic and vital; its abolition would be
the dissolution of the ecclesiastical world and the end
of Christendom.
One thing more. In pleading the cause of rationalism, I am supposing the use of reason in religion to be
a conscientious use, and the critical investigation to
be conducted in a spirit of Christian reverence and love.
The most searching investigation, actuated by ill-will
to the Christian cause, is no more secure of the truth
than blind acquiescence or blind infidelity. A negative
and destructive spirit will find many things doubtful
and many things false which a pious and affirmative
spirit, exercising an equal measure of critical acumen,
would approve and confirm. Criticism is not all nega 
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tive; nor does Biblical criticism in Germany, as many
suppose, pursue an arbitrary, wilful course, minded
only to destroy, and never to rest till the last support
be removed from the New Testament, and every vestige
of documentary evidence for the truth of the Gospel
done away. On the contrary, destructive criticism,
not arbitrary but scientific in its method, and generally
unbiassed in its motive, has already reached its limit.
The work of negation - an honest and necessary work
- has been accomplished. Little more, I conceive, remains to be discovered or propounded in that direction.
Criticism has done its uttermost with the New Testament. What is now left standing is likely to stand.
What the microscopic eye and remorseless knife of
Strauss and Baur have spared, may be presumed invulnerable. And what is it that is thus secured to us?
Enough in those Epistles of Paul, whose genuineness
remains unquestioned, to establish the great facts of
the doctrine of Christ and the gospel story; Enough
to substantiate, to fair and rational criticism, the crowning, fact of the Resurrection. I do not say to demonstrate beyond doubt or cavil, but to make it reasonably
certain to reasonable minds. In spite of all cavil and
evasive interpretation, this fact must stand, and with
it the miraculous gospel, — a divine interpolation of
the Spirit in the secular text of history.
Destructive criticism has done its work: henceforth
we may expect that the work of criticism will be mainly
constructive and restorative. Who can say how much
may be accomplished in that line?  Already signs of
agreement ate perceptible among competent critics of
different schools. Some approximation has been made
220 
THE CAUSE OF REASON THAT OF FAITH.   221
to settlement of controverted questions, that is, to certainty in Biblical theology.   This agreement among
theologians cannot fail to exercise a reconciling influence on Christian sects, and will tend to abolish the
boundary-lines which now divide the Christian world.
One need not despair of a Catholic Church in that sense
in which alone Catholicism is possible or desirable.
We do not expect or desire complete uniformity of
administration and rite, or even of doctrinal type.
There must always be differences of administration, of
worship, and of doctrine. Catholicism does not consist
in uniformity of articles, but in unity of spirit, - not in
a common exposition, but a common confession and
mutual good-will. Where the catholic spirit is, there
is the Catholic Church. We may hope for so much of
that spirit as shall serve to secure a full recognition
of the Christian name for all who honestly claim it, and
a friendly co-operation of Christians of every type for
practical Christian ends.
The time is prophetic of new modifications of the
ecclesiastical world and a better life for the Church.
In our own land, the unlimited freedom of opinion
accorded by law, and encouraged by the absence of a
national Church, has ceased to develop new sects, and
is drawing the old into nearer communion. It is widely
felt that existing lines do not rightly define the parties
they divide; theological distinctions are becoming more
and more indistinct; the separative tendency has exhausted its force; a unitive tendency has begun. In
England, writers in the Established Church are taking
the lead in liberal views and critical inquiry. In Germany, criticism, once prevailingly negative, assumes 
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more and more an affirmative tone. In Italy, where
many of the best ideas of modern society had their rise,
and where commenced the revival of the Unitarian faith,
the eldest faith of Christendom, - in Italy the temporal
power of the Pope - that public offence of the Christian world- is melting away. A Catholic Church
without a hierarchy may become a progressive Church,
and meanwhile furnishes the surest guaranty for the
unity of Christendom.
Throughout the Christian world the prevailing influences favor liberty; the auspices look toward an era of
spiritual life untrammelled by priestly rule and dogmatic conditions, carrying its own authority in its own
triumphant and beneficent sway.
A celebrated mystic of the twelfth century * predicted
a third age and dispensation of God, corresponding
with the third Person in the Trinity. The first age,
representing God the Father, was the dispensation of
the Law, the age of the Old  Testament, -an age
of bondage and fear. The second, representing the
Son, was the age of the New Testament,- an age of
instruction and discipline, a dispensation of doctrine.
The third, representing the Holy Ghost, is to be an age
of knowledge and spiritual emancipation, a dispensation of liberty and love. The first he characterizes as
an age of bondsmen; the second, an age of freedmen;
the third, of friends; - the first, an age of old men;
the second, of the middle-aged; the third, of children.
Six hundred years have rolled by since that Calabrian
monk delivered this sublime burden of the Lord: so far
* Abbot Joachim of Floris.
222 
THE CAUSE OF REASON TIIAT OF FAITH.   223
does the vision of holy and loving spirits outstrip the
tardy-footed ages charged with the execution of " the
pattern in the mount."
Six hundred years! and the Christian world still
waits this consummation of its destiny.  
I.
CULMINATION OF PERSONALITY IN THE
CHRIST OF THE CHURCH.
15 
,it: 
I.
CULMINATION OF PERSONALITY IN TIlE
CHRIST OF THE CHURCH.
"Die Pers6nlichkeit der Hebel der Weltgeschichte." - BUxsEN.
IN the various attempts which during the last half-century have been made to construe the veritable image of
Jesus * from the ill-digested and often conflicting accounts of the four Evangelists, no result is so conspicuous as the impossibility of any valid and final solution
of that problem. The historical and legendary are so
confused in these narratives, the genuine sayings of
Jesus are often so undistinguishably blended with the
comments and interpolations of his reporters, that criticism, incompetent to the work of elimination, can do
no more than furnish an approximate and conjectural
reconstruction, liable to be set aside by each succeeding critic who brings to the subject a different precon
* Of these attempts the charming work of Dr. Furness (" Jesus and his
Biographers ") may be characterized as written in the interest of faith and
in a spirit of enthusiastic affirmation; that of Strauss as written in the interest of scepticism; that of Neander, in the interest of conservatism; that of
Schleiermacher (posthumous work just edited), in the interest of impartial
criticism; that of Renan, of historic  speculation; that of  Schenkel, of
historic probability.
[2271 
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ception, or adjusts his conclusions by a different light.
It comes to this at last, that every reader must construct
his own Christ from the fourfold record, according to
his own impression of the verisimilitudes of the case.
And, on the whole, the impression derived immediately
from the record by a thoughtful reader, with no theory
to support and no case to make out, is quite as likely to
be correct as any obtained through a foreign medium.
Were it possible to reproduce, with exactitude beyond
dispute, the portrait of the true historical Jesus, the
image, I suppose, would be found to differ widely from
the Christ of the Church, or the Christ received by the
great majority of Christians. Yet there is one point in
this personality, in which, it seems to me, all candid
inquiry must agree, - one fact which no criticism professing to treat these narratives as in any sense historical
can set aside; - this, namely, that Jesus felt himself
sent" and ordained by God in a quite peculiar and
exceptional sense, divinely commissioned to establish a
heavenly kingdom on the earth; that he looked upon
himself as distinguished from other men by virtue of
this calling. Whether differing from them, or not, in
any metaphysical or ontological sense, he felt hi;mself
officially, politically, discriminated from them in this
respect.
If any thing in the New Testament is historical, it is
this, -that Jesus called himself "the Son of Man."
Whatever may be the precise meaning of that phrase,
there can be no doubt that he meant to designate by it
a distinguishing peculiarity. It is equally certain, that
he appropriated to himself the Messianic prophecies of
his countrymen; that he assumed to be the Christ,
228 
CULMINATION OF PERSONALITY IN CHRIST.  229
not indeed as the Jewish people figured their Messiah
at that time, or at any time, -but as he himself interpreted the import of the national hope.
This seems to me beyond legitimate question. It is
not more certain that such a being as Jesus existed, than
it is that hlie supposed and represented himself a being
apart from other men, in the sense now explained. M.
RPenan declares, that the consciousness of God in Jesus
exceeded that of all other men.* To this we must add,
that he was aware of the peculiarity of this consciousness. He nowhere assumes to be an incarnation of
God. Such an idea, as M. Renan again very justly
remarks, was entirely foreign to the Jewish-mind. t
And when, in such sayings as those reported in the
Fourth Gospel, "I and the Father are one," " He that
hath seen me hath seen the Father," he identifies
himself with the one Supreme, he does so in the sense
of personation or representation, not of co-entity.   To
constitute, or at least to establish, the identity contemplated by the Monophysite doctrine, it would not be
sufficient that Jesus should even say in so many words
(what he never did say), "I am God." It would
further be necessary that God should say, speaking by
some other voice of equal  authority, "I am Jesus,"
- a thing inconceivable and self-contradictory. At the
same time, it is probable that the sayings referred to
furnished one of the factors in that deification of Jesus
by the Church which still prevails in Christian dogma
* "La plus haute conscience de Dieu qui ait existe au sein de l'humanitd, a dtd celle de J~sus." - Vie de Jesus.
f " Une telle idle 6tait profonddment dtrangbre a l'esprit Juif."-lb. 
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tic. Alexandrian speculation supplied another; and a
third may be found in that view of atonement which
assumes the necessity of an actual contact of God with
man, in order to any complete redemption of human
nature.
All the varieties of opinion which have been entertained respecting the person of Christ may be comprehended under these four heads: 1. Christ is mere man,
-the old Jewish (Ebionite, Nazaroan) and modern
Humanitarian view. 2. Christ is mere God, - the
old Docetic, Patripassian, Monophysite, and modern
pseudo-orthodox view. 3. Christ is neither God nor
man, but a being between both,- the Arian view.
4. Christ is both God and man, —the Catholic and
genuine Orthodox view.
I have named these opinions in the order in which
they make their appearance in the history of Christian
doctrine. This order is by no means an accidental
sequence or wilful determination, but represents the
natural history of Church Christology, which is not to
be conceived as a human invention, but a natural, spon
taneous growth.
The prevailing doctrine of the first century concerning Christ was Unitarian. Jewish converts and Hiebrew-Jewish ideas had then the ascendency in the
Church; and Judaism, as such, was strictly and purely
Unitarian.   The Jews,  at least the unlettered  and
unspeculative among them, were rigid Monotheists;
the idea of division or multiplicity in the Godhead was
utterly abhorrent to their conceptions, and outraged all
their prejudices. Their God, their Jehovah, was not
230 
CULMINATION OF PERSONALITY IN CHRIST.  231
only one, but an individual,- a great and powerful individual, defined, discrete, and incommunicable; not sole,
universal Being, but a single, particular Being, who
created the world in the beginning, created it once for
all and put it from him; not immanent but transient in
creation, and now and for ever apart from his works;
different in substance as well as in power and glory.
This rigid Monotheism contained an error which gradually undermined it. It necessitated in philosophic
minds the conception of an intermediate being between
God and his works, which became, as we shall see, a
middle term or point of transition between Hebrew
Jehovism and Trinitarian theism.
Meanwhile, that class of Jews who for the most part
embraced Christianity untinctured by such speculations,
received it as fulfilment of their national prophecies.
Christ to them was tle Beloved in whom God was well
pleased, the national Messiah, - Son of God, not in the
sense of generation, but in the sense of election and
divine favor. God was in heaven, and man on the
earth: nothing could bridge the distance between them.
The risen Christ was gone to God and would soon
return to judge the world, and establish his throne on the
earth. This was the earliest doctrine concerning Christ,
the Jew-Christian doctrine, the Christology of the
apostles. The doctrine was Unitarian; it distinguished
broadly between God and Christ; -no hint, as yet, of
an Athanasian Trinity. It was the doctrine of the first
century.  There is no Christian writing, whose date can
be proved anterior to the close of that century, which
recognizes a different doctrine, unless it be as a heresy
to be repudiated. The Book of Revelation, which 
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recent criticism assigns to the year 69, knows nothing
of a God-Christ, but speaks of the Lamb as entirely
distinct from God, - symbol of the mediatorial office.
But when, with the fall of Jerusalem, the Palestinian
Jews lost their influence in the Church, and Gentile
tendencies and Gentile conceptions gradually obtained
the ascendency, a new phase of the doctrine concerning
Christ, diametrically opposed to the foregoing, and representing the contrary extreme, developed itself; a
view which, overlooking his Messianic character, denied
the proper humanity of Jesus, and affirmed him to be
"very God;" God in a human body, -- that body his
only human attribute. Some* even went the length
of denying to that body material consistency: it was no
true body, but an apparition;-the visible Christ an
apparition with which, through the medium of their
deluded senses, God acted on the thoughts and faithi of
mankind. Others, who allowed the fleshly body, denied the human soul, and all the other attributes of
humanity. They knew no difference between Christ
and God: these were only different names for one and
the same person.
This view, known as Patripassian in relation to
Christ, as Monarchian in relation to God, prevailed
especially in the Western portion of the Church. Both
West and East meanwhile united in the common confession of three sanctities, - Father, Son, and IHoly
Spirit. But in the West the Monarchian view of the
divine nature regarded these three, not as separate
persons, but only as different names for the one God.
* The Docetee.
232 
CULMINATION OF PERSONALITY IN CHRIST. 233
In the East, on the other hand, theological speculation
inclined to hypostatize Son and Spirit, while at the
same time it recognized a human nature in the Christ.
And now comes in that most important element
in ecclesiastical Christology, as elaborated by eastern
theologians, the idea of the Logos,- a kind of secondary Deity, - whose origin requires a word of explanation.
We observe in the animal kingdom a regular gradation of being, in descending series from man  through
the simia and other mammals and vertebrates; throurghl
serpents, mollusks, meduse, down to the rhizopod, or
whatever may be the lowest term and extreme limit of
animal nature. Analogy suggests a similar gradation
in the spiritual world, - an ascending series reaching
up from man to God. But the supposition of such a
series is contradicted by the very idea of an Infinite Being. We may push our scale up through the heavenly
principalities, from angel to archangel, from cherub to
seraph; but the highest finite is still a creature, -it
had a beginning, an origin in time; between it and the
uncreated there is still a gulf, which creation (as the
Jews understood creation, and as most Christians understand it) cannot bridge. So long as the Infinite is
conceived as a separate Being, the topmost round of
your ascending scale, the highest finite is logically no
nearer the Infinite than the lowest.
To bridge this gulf, to bring the Godhead into such
connection and communication with the worlds, - especially the human world, - as religion craved, Jewish
philosophy had recourse to the supposition of an intermediate agent; a power intervening between God and 
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creature, and connecting the two, -Wisdom, or the
Word (Logos). This conception, not yet hypostatized,
is shown to have originated in the Jewish mind * before
the Christian era, and independent of Platonism, to
which it has usually been referred.
Christian theology applied this conception to the
Messiah, using the term "Son" as convertible with
Word."  The Christ was the incarnate "Word."  But
now, though the reason of this conception seemed to
imply the eternity of the Word, a question arose: Was
the Son, supposed to be incarnate in Jesus, created or
uncreated? The Arian controversy concerned precisely
this point.  Arius, considering the matter  from the
ground of the understanding, maintained that the Son
was a creature. Otherwise, he said, you must either
suppose two original divine essences (ditheism), or else,
if you substitute " generation" for "creation," you suppose with the Gnostics a partition of the divine essence.
Accordingly, the Christ of the Arian view is neither
God nor man, but a being intermediate between the
two.  And this is the third of the four hypotheses concerning, the nature of Christ.
But Arianism leaves the chasm unatoned. If the
Son is a creature, then (it was urged) there is still the
infinite distance between God and man. But, in order
that man may be redeemed, Divinity must be in immediate contact with humanity. God and man must unite
in one person. To meet this difficulty, the Orthodox
claimed that the Son was not created, but generated, and
* See an excellent dissertation on this subject by Michel Nicolas: "Des
Doctrines Religieuses des Juifs."
234 
CULMINATION OF PERSONALITY IN CIHRIST. 235
that from all eternity. Consequently, the Son is of
the substance of the Father (h]omousion), and there
never was a time when the Son was not. Both parties
held that the Logos was incarnate in Jesus. According
to one, it was the incarnation of a creature, leaving a
void between God and man. According to the other,
it was the incarnation of an uncreated, eternal and divine Power, whereby the void is filled; man being, in
Christ, in immediate contact with God.*
Arian Christology triumphed for a time; but Athanasius, the bulwark of philosophic Christianity, the hope
of the Church, was inflexible. His single indomitable
will decided the destinies of Christian theosophy. The
Homousian doctrine, already approved by the Council
of Nicka in 325, was re-affirmed and applied to the
Spirit as well as the Son at the second ecumenical
Council, assembled at Constantinople in 381, when the
Trinitarian creed, as we now have it, was adopted and
established.
Another question remained to be considered, and
another half-century was spent in discussing it. Granting the complete Deity of the Son or Divine Word, how
* The fallacy of this conclusion is very transparent. Allowing that God
is exceptionally present, in the coarse, materialistic sense supposed, with the
man Jesus; still, Jesus was an individual, and being thus excepted, and abnormally possessed, there is a gulf between him and other individuals, which
the Trinitarian theory leaves unfilled, and which only the dogma of Transubstantiation, affirming the actual, material participation of Christ (that is,
in the Trinitarian view, of God) by believers in the Eucharist, can bridge.
Transubstantiation is the logical complement of that materialistic view of
atonement by substantial contact of God, conceived as individual, with a
certain human individual. 
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is that Deity united to humanity in Jesus Christ? How
do God and man in Christ consist together? On this
point, two parties were opposed to each other in mutual
mad strife. One party would merge the human in the
divine, and know no Christ but unmixed God. The
other demanded the human nature undivided and unimpaired. The controversy was, in some sort and in some
of its stages, a feud between the intelligent, refined,
and conscientious ecclesiastics on one side, and the ignorant, rude mob, led on by the turbulent and unprincipled
Cyril, bishop of Alexandria, on the other. Thoughtful
men, like Nestorius, while admitting the deity of Christ
in the sense of the creed of Nicea,. stumbled at such
conceptions as that expressed by the phrase "Mother
of God," applied to Mary. They protested that "a
child of two years old" was no God. But the mob
of ecclesiastics rejoiced in such views, and, headed by
Cyril, who brought a band of ruffians to the Council
of Ephesus for that purpose, with intimidation and intrigue enforced their adoption by that Council, A.D.
431, together with the doctrine of the one undivided
person of Christ.
But wisdom and order finally prevailed. The attempt
to force on the reluctant Church the Monophysite doctrine-the doctrine of one nature in Christ, and that
nature the divine -was foiled at every turn; and, at
last, the Council of Chalcedon, in 451, decided that two
natures, a human and divine, subsist together in Christ,
without conflict or confusion, each doing its own work,
each preserving its own property, and both combining
in one appearance and one effect.. In vain the Monophysite party struggled a century longer, under differer;
236 
CULMINATION OF PERSONALITY IN CHRIST.   237
pretexts, with various devices, to overthrow the decision
of this Council: it continued to be the Orthodox faith.
As such it was re-affirmed by another Council at Constantinople (fifth Ecumenical, 553), a century later;
and when, in the seventh century, the question came up
in another form,- the question of one or two wills in
Christ,-  a sixth Council (sixth cecumenical, Constantinople, 680) decided, in perfect agreement with that of
Chalcedon, that two wills were united in Christ, without
schism and without confusion,   " the human invariably
subject to the divine."
That final decision of the Council of Chalcedon
has never been set aside, it remains to this day the
Orthodox doctrine.  Very different, indeed, from the
would-be  Orthodoxy which overlooks or postpones
the humanity of Christ. The true significance of that
decision is not generally understood. It is the most
comprehensive view that has  ever been  propounded
respecting the person of Jesus. While it acknowledges the divine origin and authority of the Christian
dispensation, and gives assurance that this mighty agent
in the education of the human race is no accident or
human invention, - not born, as the Scripture says,
"of the will of the flesh, or the will of man,  but of
God; " that God himself conducts the education of man,
and is spiritually, as well as providentially, immanent
in this human world, - it also declares, that man is the
medium, as well as the object, of this dispensation,
of this system of divine education; that the highest
revelation and expression of the Godhead is man; that
human nature, in its purity and truth, embodies the
divine. The creed of Nicna, the first authoritative step 
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in the formation of the doctrine concerning Christ, declares that the Word made flesh in Jesus is of one substance with the Father. This statement is one which
concerns human nature as well as the divine. If, on
the one hand, it represents God as self-communicating,
as passing out of self in action and revelation, contrary
to the Hebrew idea which made God an isolated, incommunicable individuality; on the other hand, it represents
man as partaker of the divine nature, as the vehicle
and manifestation of Godhead.  For the Son of Man is
humanity's type; "the Lord from heaven" is human
nature in its heavenly image.  " Christ," said Irenmus,
" became what we are, that we might become what he
is." We cannot be too thankful, that the Athanasian
view in this Council prevailed against the Arian, which
recognizes no divinity in man.
The same view was more fully developed and more
adequately expressed, although unconsciously perhaps
to those who framed them, in the formulas of the Council of Chalcedon; the substance of which is, that God
and man are one in Christ, and the deep interior sense
of which is, that God and man are one, - that human
nature is in real communion with the divine. What
was true of Christ historically is potentially true of all
men.  There is nothing between God and man but
man's self-alienation through waywardness  and sin.
The most liberal and radical of modern theologians,
the late Dr. Baur of Tiibingen, does but re-affirm the
decisions of the Councils and the Orthodoxy of the
Church, when he declares that "the most. essential and
distinctive doctrine of Christianity is, that God became
man in Christ;" and when he states, as the sense of the
238 
CULMINATION or FPERSONALITY IN CHRIST.   239
dogma of the Trinity, that "God and man are one in
the self-consciousness of the Spirit."
It must not, however, be supposed, that this interpretation of the doctrine of Chalcedon was popularly received and understood, or even that the doctrine itself
of the two natures in Christ, though established by
Council, was the commonly received view, and the one
which practically prevailed in the middle age. The interior sense of that decision was far in advance of the
consciousness of the Church, in that and subsequent
times. The humanity of Christ was sunk in oblivion;
the two natures were merged in one,- that one the superhuminan and divine. Christ was God, and only God,
in the popular conception of that and the following ages
of the Church. There was no wilfulness in this, and
no mishap.  There were good and weighty reasons for
it in the nature of man and the circumstances of the
time. We may call it a corruption of Christian doctrine: only let us understand that this corruption was
not designed, but providential, - a providential phase
of Christian development, a necessary stage in the history of religion; necessary in the counsels of the Spirit,
necessary in human experience.  No doubt it satisfied t
real want of the soul. Whether it was that the Christian religion obtained thereby an authority and sanction,
which its moral superiority alone would not have secured
to it; or whether the human mind required and still
requires in the God of its worship a more definite and
appreciable object than it finds in the proposition, "God
is spirit,"- an historical and human God, - whatever
thie occasion and cause, no doubt the general prevalence
of this conception of Christ as God is justified by the
S 
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moral and spiritual needs of mankind. I must suppose
a providential order, a divine method and reason, in it.
But observe, that, when Christ is declared to be God,
that declaration is, properly considered, a definition, not
of Christ, but of God. The rule is to define the less
known by means of the more known. Of Christ we
have some definite knowledge from the record of the
New Testament. Of God we know nothing except by
hypothesis or faith, and can apprehend nothing except
by illustration.  The unknown God may be made more
intelligible by identifying him with the known historical
character of the evangelical record; but the known historical character is made no clearer by identifying him
with the unknown God.  If a chemist should define
electricity by saying, "It is the principle of life in the
world of spirits," he would give me no clearer idea of
electricity, whatever he might of the life-principle of
the spirit-world. To say that Christ is God may bring
God nearer to my apprehension: but, as to Christ, this
saying but puts him further from me; and, instead of
a genuine human life, a life of struggle and of suffering,
- the life of one "who was tempted in all points as wve
are,' it gives us a spectral illusion, at best a dramatic
exhibition, a part enacted by Omnipotence in the scenes
of time.
In point of fact, I suppose no man, whatever creed
he may adopt, really believes, or can believe, that Christ
is God in the sense which is sometimes claimed,which was claimed by the old Monophysites, - in the
sense that the Jesus who was born in Bethlehem, and
died on Calvary, was identical with the Infinite Father,
and co-ordinate with absolute Being. It is hardly
240 
CULMINATION OF PERSONALITY IN CHRIST.   241
possible to state the doctrine so as not to leave some
loop-hole of escape from such a paradox. When the
"Athanasian Creed," the highest Trinitarian standard,
affirms the Father unbegotten and the Son begotten, it
affirms an infinite difference between them.
The question concerning the nature of Christ was
the first opened, and will probably be the last closed in
Christian dogmatics.  Scarcely can two individuals be
found who think precisely alike in this matter; and yet
all who rightly claim the name of Christian are agreed
in this, that there is a divine and also a human element
in the gospel and life of Christ. In what manner and
proportion these elements unite, who can ascertain with
perfect assurance for himself?-who will undertake to
determine for others? Councils and creeds may decide
the question for ecclesiastical use; but no council can
determine and no creed can state it with such authority
and such precision as to satisfy all the demands of the
understanding and theheart.  It is a question of philosophy, not of religion, and one whose theoretical solution is not essential to spiritual growth. The heart that
seeks will find a practical solution of it suited to its own
need; but all will not find the same. Some are born
to one way of thinking, some to another. Some prefer to contemplate the divine in Christianity; some, the
human. Some require a human God for their Saviour,
and some require a mortal example for their standard
and guide in action and suffering.
To me it seems, that the truest form of Christian faith
unites both elements, the divine and the human; and
that none can know the full power of the gospel, and
16 
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experience all its height and depth and breadth, where
either is wanting.
I. We want the divine; we want to see in Christianity the power of God and the wisdom of God made
manifest for the moral welfare of man; we want to see
the Spirit of God entering into human nature to revive
and redeem it. WAe want a teacher conscious of God's
inpresence, claiming attention as a voice out of the heavens. We want a doctrine which shall announce itself
with divine authority; not a system of moral philosophy, but the word and kingdom of God. Without this
stamp of divine legitimacy, without the witness and
signature of the Eternal, Christianity would want that
which alone gives it weight with the mass of mankind,
and the place it now holds in human things. This it is
which constitutes the specific difference between philosophy and religion; between the abstractions of the intellect addressed to the intellect, and truth incarnate,
addressing heart and will.
II. We  need in Christianity the human also.  We
need the Son of Man; we need the human example as
model and motive. We need, for our Saviour, a nature
to which no human experience is strange, -a nature
that images but completes our own. If I saw in Jesus
only God  assuming human nature, enacting a human
part for the inculcation of moral truth, I should see an
illustration of the fair and good, but without flesh and
bones; a hollow apparition. I need no gospel to show
me that God is without sin, that God can act wisely,
that God can bless. What I want to know is, that man
can resist; that man can endure; that man can be holy,
and live a sinless life on the earth. This is the lesson
242 
CULMINATION OF PERSONALITY IN CHRIST.   243
of the life of Jesus, and this its chief value for us. The
gospel is given as a revelation of God, but is given also
as a revelation of man; as a type of human nature, a
pledge of human destiny; as encouragement to human
frailty, as incentive to action; a call from the Son of
Man to the sons of men, - a call to glory and immortality; a pledge of divine communications according
to the measure of faith; a witness to all generations
that the communications of Godhead, and the wonderworking power of the Spirit, are always equal to man's
receptivity, and that the measure of man's receptivity
is his obedience. 
I 
II.
LIMITATION OF PERSONALITY IN THE
CHRIST OF REASON. 
I~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 
II.
LIMITATION OF PERSONALITY IN THE
CHRIST OF REASON.
"Then shall also the Son himself be subject unto him that put all things
under him, that God may be all in all." - ST. PAUL.
IT is the tendency of intellectual progress to displace
personalities with ideas and laws. This is strikingly
manifest in the change which the progress of science
effects in man's conception of material nature. The
savage sees in nature an aggregation of innumerable
personalities. Mountain, lake, and forest are alive
with conscious, invisible agents. Earth and sky are
peopled with friendly or malignant beings; every natural process is the voluntary act of some good or evil
spirit, designed for the benefit or injury of human
kind.
The early religions incorporated this view of nature
in their systems of divinity and the objects of their worship. They adored every natural ageilncy, almost every
natural object, as embodying or (in the case of Fetichism) as being a divine person.  Every tree and every
river had its god; the ocean swarmed with divinities;
the very winds were sacred personages,- all natural
[247] 
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agents conscious individuals, objects of religious wor ship. Not only the Greek and Roman polytheisms,
with whose fanciful impersonations we are more famil iar, but most of the religions of antiquity, like most
Gentile religions of our own time, personified and
deified natural  objects and  agencies.   The  devout
Egyptian, beset before and behind with his copious
mythology, could scarcely steer his daily course amid
the sanctities which environed him, without profaning
some god by unritual contact and secular use.  The
Persian derived from his two supreme Principles of
Good and Evil an infinity of good and evil spirits.  The
Hebrew, even, believer as he was, by calling and profession, in one only God, adopted from his neighbors,
as objects of faith, if not of worship, a mythology of
angels, good and bad, which formed no part of the law
of Moses, but which a later superstition engrafted on
the earlier creed.
The progress of science dispels these illusions, replaces the mythological view of nature with the scientific, puts natural forces for voluntary agents, dethrones
the old divinities, disenchants the landscape, unpeoples
earth and flood, and gives us a code of rational laws
instead of a hierarchy of gods. The first effect of this
change from mythology to science is to rob nature of
half her charms. It seems to take from the landscape
its best interest, - the interest of personality.  The
world, as interpreted by science, seems cold and desolate and dead, compared with the populous and teeming
nature of old poetic tradition, -the world of sylphs
and dryads and nereids and gnomes, - a world in
which.the whispers of the poplar and the pine could
248
4 
LIfITATION OF PERSONALITY IN CHRIST.   249
seem intelligent and articulate voices; the sparkle of
the wave,  half seen through the bushes,  the  smnile
of some inhabiting spirit,-  a world where the deepest
solitude promised the richest communion; not internal,
spiritual, but visible, audible communion with angel or
sprite. The most Christian of the poets of this century,
smitten with the recollection of those old beliefs, now
become pleasant fables merely, could exclaim in a moment of impatient protest against the sordid utilities of
modern life,- 
"Great God! I'd rather be
A pagan suckled in a creed outworn,
So might I, standing onl this pleasant lea,
Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn,
Have sight of Proteus coming from the sea,
Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn."
But a better experience succeeds. It is true, the
charm of the old world, born of mystery and ignorance,
vanishes with the dawn of science; but a new interest,
born  of light and knowledge, springs in its place.
Pleasant was the old belief in personal powers pervading nature with conscious effort,-  spirits of earth and
air: but a nobler satisfaction attends the revelations of
that science which presents the authentic marvels of creation, and enlarges indefinitely the sphere of our perception; which rolls back the curtains of time and space,
and discloses a universe immeasurably wider, grander,
richer than the wildest imaginings of the men of old,revealing, in the boundless empyrean, worlds so remote
that all the ages of huinan history would not suffice
for the swift - footed light to accomplish the distance
between them and us; which finds past eternities chronicled in the earth's crust,- foregone creations pressed, 
RIATIONAT CHRISTIANITY.
like a botanist's herbal, between the leaves of the rocks;
which encounters microscopic nations in a handful of
dust, and sees continents reclaimed by successive generations of insect architects, converting sea into dry land;
which discovers, in all the realms of organism and in
all the processes of chemic and mechanic nature, such
marks of pervading mind, such vestiges of all-present
Deity, as abundantly compensate the absence of the
fauns and dryads of Greek superstition, or the elfs and
gnomes of the Gothic creed. The poet whomn I have
quoted is glad, in a happier mood, to acknowledge this
holier Presence which replaces to the modern, instructed,
thoughtful observer the trivial beings of the old mythology, -
"A presence far more deeply interfused,
Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,
And the round ocean and the living air,
And the blue sky, and in the mind of man,          A motion and a spirit that inmels
All thinking things, all objects of all thought,
And rolls through all things."
What science has done for nature, Christianity, when
first promulgated, did for religion: it discharged the
mind of its former reverences, while, at the same time,
it instilled a far profounder reverence for new and sublimer ideas in the soul. The preaching of the gospel
scared the old sanctities from all their haunts, as the
cockcrow scares the spirits  of the  night.   It shook
the gods, like withered leaves, from all the branches of
mortal life; but new-hallowed the tree by deriving its
sap  direct from  the  one Supreme,  and grafting on
its stock the divine humanity from which, as a branch
abiding in the vine, every faithful soul imbibes its por
250 
LIMITATION OF PERSONALITY IN CItRIST.   251
tion of divine nature. It expelled from the field of
faith and worship all lesser personalities, and claimed
the whole ground for the one eternal Person above all
and through all and in all.  The birth of Christ emptied the pantheon, and disenchanted the landscape.
"From haunted spring and dale,
Edged with poplar pale,
The parting genius is with sighing sent."
And piety resented the desecration.   Nothing in primitive Christianity more shocked the Roman world
than its want of divinities. It was not enough that
Christians believed in One above all: intelligent Gentiles did the same.  "'We know," says Plutarch, "that,
among the great company of gods which are generally
believed, there is but one who is eternal and immutable: all the rest, having been born in time, shall end
in death."  But then the Gentiles did believe in those
inferior divinities: the Christians did not, and were
therefore accounted  atheists by their fellow-citizens.
In the persecution of the Christians instituted by the
Emperor Diocletian, when the church at Nicomedia
was destroyed by the imperial commissioners, the people
ransacked the sacred precincts in vain for shrines and
statues, representing Christian divinities, on which to
wreak their spite.   No statue, no idol, found they;
no sacred thing which they could insult; nothing but a
copy of the Scriptures, -  the Church Bible, -which
they brought out, and publicly burned in the mnarketplace.  The fact is symbolic: it illustrates the grand
distinction between the Christian religion and most of
the religions of antiquity. No idol but a book. Above
all personalities, the Sacred Word; the best thoughts of 
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the best minds; their holiest and deepest, purged of all
personal infirmities and limitations; the purest utterance of the Spirit.
Christianity, we know, did not keep in this its first
estate.  The idols it expelled returned to confuse and
corrupt the Church.   Canonized saints succeeded to
the seats of heroes and demigods; a Christian pantheon
replaced the gentile; a new mythology filled its niches
and shrines with a new code of sacred personalities,
superior indeed to the old in its moral scope, but, like
that, entangling devotion with secondary objects, and
interposing inferior sanctities between the soul and the
All-holy.
One principal effect, as it was one principal aim, of
the Protestant reform, has been to purify Christian worship; to recall devotion from the adoration of all lesser
names, and fix it on the true and only God. And if
some who profess the Christian faith have gone further
in thlis reform than others; if, not content with repudiating the worship of the Virgin and the saints, they
also deny to the person of Christ the supreme homage
which belongs to the Supreme God, they have been,
whether right or wrong, impelled to this result by
precisely the same feeling which actuated the early
reformers in their renunciation of saint-worship and
Mary-worship,-  the desire to come into primary and
direct relation and communion with the Father of
spirits, and the consciousness that the fact of creation,
as well as the calling in Christ, entitles and invites to
such communion.
Another cause conducing to the same result is the
preference given by this class of miinds to the ethical
252 
LIMITATION OF PERSONALITY IN CHRIST.   253
above the dogmatic in religion.  What they value most
in Christianity is its clear revelation of moral truth; its
sharp and emphatic enunciation of the law of love; and
the aid it furnishes to purity of heart, and righteousness
of life. In this consists, as they believe, the transcendent merit of the gospel, - that it tends above all
other religions to this result. Nothing is so near to
God, or brings man so to near him, as this. Every
other approach, except it in some way ministers to this,
is delusion.   Every attempt to draw near to him by
ecstasy or passion is a vain imagination; at best, a
temporary spasm. There is no true union with God
but loving and loyal obedience. And when religion
is divorced from practical goodness; when this most
Christian element is out of it; when  the doctrinal
interest or the ecclesiastical interest, or even the devotional interest, supersedes the moral, -it loses its practical significance; - Christianity, its distinctive value
as a practical mediator between the human and divine.
This is what believers of the class I am considering
find and prize in the gospel of Christ. To them it is
an ethical rather than a sacramental or dogmatic code,
- a dispensation of grace and truth, and not an ecclesiastical rule.
It follows, that, in their conception, the person of
Christ has not the same aspect and meaning which it
has in most ecclesiastic and dogmatic systems. The
denial of supreme worship implies the denial of deity
to Jesus in the would-be orthodox and monophysite
sense, and the limitation of that revered personality
within the bounds of historic fact.  Viewed historically,
Christ to them is a sacred memory, the model man in 
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whom was the fulness of the Godhead; who illustrated,
as no other has done, the divine humanity which he
affirmed; who alone could say from the fulness of his
moral consciousness, "I and the Father  are one;"
and who therefore remains to all ages a standing witness of the height to which human nature has attained;
the Providential type of spiritual sonship, of the adoption
of the human into the divine. Viewed in the present,
Christ to them is a holy aim; the ideal Head toward
which the Church, or human society, is to grow, "till
we all come unto a perfect man, unto the measure of
the stature of the fulness of Christ," -the ideal Vine
in which the body of believers is rooted and grafted,
and by union with whose idea they are made fruitful
of good: they abiding ill his word and love, his word
and love abiding in them. This is what Christ is to
minds of this class; a method, a way, the approach to
God; not a vicarious sanctity, an interposed secondary
person, intercepting and superseding the Supreme.
To me there has always seemed, in the views and
language of Christians  claiming to be orthodox on
this subject, a baleful and hopeless confusion. Their
Christology and their common  sense- the dogmatic
and historical conscience- conflict. They would have
their Christ to be "very God," and worship him  as
such, and still retain the mediatorial idea, and make the
Christ serve in that capacity also. But the two uses
are incompatible. In the region of dogmatic we may
speak of two natures in one person, and invent philosophic formulas for that conception; we may say that
Christ is "God-man," and this may be the truest word
concerning him, the truest definition of the Christ
254 
LIMITATION OF PERSONALITY IN CI-IRIST.   255
ideally considered. But practical religion, and especially private devotion, craves more precise conceptions.
If God is one, and the human individual is one, they
cannot both be the same one, though both may unite
in one appearance (,p6,gOov, person); that is, the visible,
human individual may personate or represent the invisible God.   But the  appearance  is but a transient,
earthly phenomenon, though embodying an eterinal
idea; and if we are logically honest, and in the spirit
of that honesty analyze this conception of the God-man,
we shall see that the phrase denotes an idea, and a personal appearance in the scenes of time embodying that
idea; a divine demonstration, not the individual through
whom and in whom that demonstration was made.
The Christ of the Gospel is that demonstration,- God
in man. The image which Jesus has stamped of himself on the Church and the world stands for that. But
when from the Christ of the Church we turn to the
actual Jesus, as we figure him; when we think of him
as a presently existing individual, we shall see that this
individual must be one of three things: 1. The Supreme
God; 2. Neither God nor man, but an intermediate
being; or, 3. Pure man.
1. If we say that Christ is Supreme God, we  not
only deny a presently existing Jesus distinct from God,
but we virtually deny that any such individual ever
existed (unless we suppose him annihilated at death).
We make the Christ of the Gospel history a mere apparition, that history an illusion, - a phantasmagoria with
no human reality subtending it. They who hold this
opinion have lost their Christ; not in the sense contemplated by Paul as the consummation of the Christian 
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ages, when Christ is to deliver up the kingdom to the
Father; but in the sense that there is and was no Christ
other than the Father.   Instead of two they have only
one; it is either Christ that they have lost, or else it is
God. It follows further from this view, that all praying to God in the name of Christ is glaring contradiction, or an impious mockery of devotion; addressing
Christ, and using him as a third person at the same
time. There should be no confusion in prayer. Devotion requires for the being addressed a simple, however imperfect and inadequate, conception. Dogmatically, we may speak of two natures in one, or say that
the Godhead is contained in two persons, or in three;
but, practically, we cannot address one person as two,
or as three, without confusion of mind; and we cannot
address two persons, or three, as co-equal, without
polytheism.
2. If we say, in accordance with the Arian view, that
the Christ is neither God nor man, but a being distinct
from both, we remove him so far from our sympathies,
and all our associations and habits of thought; we make
him so unreal, so chimerical, so abnormal a being, that
we know not how to adjust ourselves with one whom
we can neither adore as God  nor sympathize with as
man, and so must needs lose the best effect of his idea.
3. If, finally, we say that Jesus, as presently existing, is pure man, a glorified human spirit, we have
a precise idea in our minds, and a definite object of contemplation; a being with whom the consciousness of
Christians may find itself in true relations, but still a
finite being, and therefore not one who can fully satisfy
the craving soul, or take the supreme place in our devo
256 
LIMITATION OF PERSONALITY IN CHRIST.   257
tions; and though, theoretically, there would seem to
be no reason why prayer should not be addressed to
Christ, and though we readily conceive that a Christian
soul may be moved so to pray, yet to one who rationally ponders the matter, it will probably occur, that
the feeling which prompts one man to offer prayer to
a glorified Jesus may prompt another to pray to a
glorified St. Paul or St. Augustine;  that the principle
which justifies the one will justify the other, will cover
the broad hagiolatry of the Church of Rome. Moreover, it might seem that Christ himself has forbidden
prayer to himself, in those words of his:' In that day
ye shall ask nothing of me." And when, above all, we
recollect, and lay it to heart, that the one chief aim of
the gospel is to reconcile and unite to God, -to bring
the soul into conscious relation and immediate contact
with the Father; then all dwelling in inferior sanctities,
all pre-occupation of mind and heart with lesser names,
will be seen to be a traversing of that intent, and contrary to the doctrine of Christ. If "the Son can do
nothing of himself but what he seeth the Father do;"
if the Son can give nothing but what he receives,then why not go to the Father at once? why stop short
of the infinite fulness? Why kneel at the pool, when
through the pool the everlasting prime Fountain invites
every soul to full participation of the underived, supernal grace?
The mystic words of St. Paul, prefixed to this chapter,
seem to anticipate the view, here presented, of the personality of Christ. The language is obscure, its import somewhat uncertain. Criticism is not authorized
17 
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to pronounce definitively concerning it.  But I can suppose, that the rapt apostle, discoursing of the " resurrection" and immortality, and rising, in his argument
on this sublime theme, to the height of prophetic vision,
foresaw the approaching deification of the Son of Man;
divined its reason and necessity in the counsels of God
and the wants of the Church; and so announced, that
Christ "must reign till he hath put all things under his
feet."  But, casting his inspired glance along the line
of the Christian ages, he foresaw that this deification
would be temporary, because no created or generated
being can hold for ever the place of the Supreme, by
whose will alone he can hold it at all; and so predicted
"the end, when Christ shall deliver up the kingdom to
God, even the Fatlier," and when the Son himself
should "be subject unto HIim that put all things under
him, that God mlay be all in all."
Assuming this to be the true interpretation, the first
part of this saying has been signally verified.   Its
verification has been the chief topic of the doctrinal
history of the Church.   Christ did not reign as God
when Paul wrote; he dic so reign in the ages which
followed. And we can see, inll the retrospection of those
ages, how needful it was, for the triumph and perfect
dominion of the gospel, that Christ should be the God
of the nations that renounced for his sake the gods of
their inheritance, and deserted their country's altars.
We can see that the abstract God of our theologythe God who is absolute being -would not suffice for
the peoples just emerging from the darkness of polytheism, and used to succinct and concrete divinities. They
needed a precise, historical God; one to lay hold of
258 
LIMITATION OF PERSONALITY IN CHRIST.   259
with their conceptions, one whose portrait could be
painted in mortal colors, whose actuality was vouched
by mortal witnesses; a God of whom you could tell
anecdotes, and show the birthplace and earthly abode;
a God whose being was not an inference, or fact of
revelation, but a fact of history, a well-attested human
experience. Such a God the Church supplied in the
Son of Mary, as Christian tradition presented him;
the divine mystery, "manifest in the flesh, justified in
the spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles,
believed on earth, received up into glory;" the being
who was cradled in prodigy, and moved in an element
of perpetual marvel; whose manger angels heralded,
whose sepulchre angels unsealed; whose birth into this
world was heavenly condescension, whose going out of
it was heavenly triumph.  This august being the grateful
adoration of the Church, and the will of the Father,
lifted into Godhead, -the worthiest figure that had
ever occupied that place. And there he reigned from
age to age, and put all things under him. All the gods
of the nations to whom his word came he put under his
feet, - Olympian Jove, and his shining progeny, Phoebus Apollo, great Diana of the Ephesians, and her
Tyrian counterpart, "Mooned Ashtaroth," "Peor and
Baalim," and the stormy spirits of the Norse Walhalla.  The devils quailed before his sovereignty.  Satan as lightning fell from heaven, whole mythologies
withered away, the forest and the sea and the lonely
mountain-top gave up their divinities, Death and IHell
were cast into the burning lake, the old heavens and
the former earth passed away, and the new creation
acknowledged with divine honors its author and Lord. 
RATIONAL CHRISTIANITY.
So truly and exceedingly has that saying of Paul hitherto been fulfilled.
As to what remains, -the predicted end when Christ
shall deliver up the kingdom to the Father, and'the
Son himself be put under, -it is easy to speculate;
and some may think to find the fulfilment of that
prophecy in the blank denials and repudiations of a
shallow iconoclasm. But fulfilment comes not by way
of denial: it comes by complete development.   It is
easy to speculate and easy to deny; it requires little
wit to spurn and reject an old belief which we cannot
rationalize: but only time and the ever - progressive
consciousness of Christendom can unfold, and only
the fully unfolded fact can rightly interpret the folded
truth of the prophet's word.
Meanwhile, this truth remains,  and may serve as
our guide in these inquiries, -that the function of
the person is historical, and therefore transient. In the
sphere of spiritual contemplation, no personality abides
but the ever-becoming personality of God, conceived
by faith, and born of faith, in the individual soul. Infinite and underived being alone can satisfy the freely
inquiring, freely aspiring. Only that which bounds the
uttermost thought, and tops the boldest imagination,
can fulfil to reason and faith the idea of God.  Whatever derived and secondary power by divine permission
may hold that place is a temporary vicegerent, occupying a borrowed throne, and exercising a delegated sway,
which he must finally deliver up to God, "even the
Father."-   For when," says the brave apostle, "he
saith,'all things are put under,' it is manifest that He
is excepted which did put all things iunder."
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III.
MIRACLES. 
0 
III.
MIRACLES.
"Mais il faut remarquer que ces mots, de'sur humain' et de'surnaturel,' emprunt,s a notre th(ologie mesquine, n'avaient pas de sens dans
la haute conscience religieuse de Jdsus." - RENAN, Vie de Jesus.
THE earliest records of our religion - the books of the
New Testament -  contain accounts of certain transactions to which, as exceeding the ordinary experience of
human kind, we give the name of miracles; that is,
wonders.
These accounts, in time past, were received without
question.   But  the prevalence, in our day,  of the
scientific mind, and the progress of critical inquiry,
have brought such narratives into disrepute, as conflicting with those laws of nature which science claims to
have established. The events in question, it is urged,
cannot be explained by known laws: they have no
parallel in our experience, and therefore are not to be
received as historical.
The repugnance to miracles, so far as the Christian
records are concerned, is due, in part, to the unwise
use which modern theologians have made of them as
proofs of divine authority, and therefore evidences of
[263] 
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Christian truth. The claim of the gospel to be a divine
dispensation has been rested upon them. The uncertain evidence of human testimony, reported by uncertain
tradition, has been preferred above the witness of the
Spirit, wliich speaks for itself, and is always its own
demonstration. This is all wrong, and is felt to be so
by Christian thinkers at this day. Miracles are valueless as proofs of divine authority, because, with our
views of such matters, it is easier to believe in the thing
to be proved than it is to believe in the alleged proof.
It is easier to believe that a teacher is divinely inspired,
than it is to believe that he exhibits any prodigy which
contradicts, or seems to contradict, the possibilities of
nature.
In the age which produced the writings of the New
Testament, when the laws and limits of nature were
less generally understood, when belief was less critical,
and marvels of all kinds more readily received, this
difficulty, of course, did not exist in the same degree.
Yet, even then, a mind that was sceptically inclined, or
predetermined against the revelations of the gospel,
would not have been likely to be convinced by the
demonstration of a power which many in that day were
supposed to possess, and a class of works which many,
beside Jesus, assumed to perform. In fact, so common
in the ancient world was the claim of miracle, that a
statute of Moses expressly provides against receiving
that as a test of prophetic truth.
Nor does it appear that Jesus aimed to force conviction in that way.   Whatever may be the truth concerning the miracles ascribed  to  him  in the  New
Testament, they are represented as works of love. To
264 
MIRACLES.
suppose them performed for any other purpose is to
substitute an inferior motive in the place of that divine
beneficence, which gives to these acts, if real, their
highest value. No unprejudiced person can read the
record, and say that Jesus ever sought to surprise men
into belief; that he ever stormed the senses in order to
carry the heart.  Had such been the motive, the miracles would have been in accordance therewith: they
would all have been of that portentous kind which he
repudiated when urged to exhibit " a sign from heaven."
Had it been his policy to work conviction by appeal to
marvels, he would have multiplied marvels where incredulity was greatest. He would have hurled prodigy
upon prodigy at the head of unbelief, until it should
capitulate, and cry, "Lord, I believe." But such is
not the nature of man, and such is not the nature of
faith.  The senses do not command the soul.  No evidence of the senses will convince a man of that which
all within him contradicts. The senses, in such cases,
are suborned by the will, and refuse to testify truly.
Or, if the senses say true, the understanding, like a
tricksy advocate, has always an argument at hand to
invalidate their testimony,  can always put a contrary
interpretation upon it, or find some method of evading
the conclusion to which it points. Two persons of 
different persuasion, and different tendencies of mind,
shall witness the same phenomenon without seeing the
same thing,; they shall state it differently in their reports;  they shall draw entirely different conclusions
from it.
There is no such connection between supernatural
power and spiritual truth, as would make a miracle a
265 
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sufficient and infallible test of divine revelation. A
man may work wonders before my eyes.  I know not
by what means he operates, nor whence he derives his
wonder-working power.   But, without other evidence,
I shall not therefore consider him a divine person, or
divinely commissioned prophet. I shall not receive his
doctrine, if it contradicts the voice in my heart.
Let me fetch an illustration from our own time. We
have heard of certain phenomena  perhaps have wit nessed them -  known as "spiritual manifestations;"
such as moving of furniture by invisible agency, deto nations syllabling words and names, involuntary writ ing, and the like.  These phenomena are affirmed by
those who pursue them to be the work of invisible per sonalities called "spirits." We have here a species of
miracle as well attested as such things can be. It is
not my purpose to discuss these phenomena. Suppose
them real, not empty illusions, and suppose them to be
the work of the agency to which they are ascribed:
the question is, what evidence do they furnish of pro phletic wisdom or spiritual truth? -None whatever, that
I can discern. I can see no connection between the
prodigies in question and the truths of religion, or any
other truths. Invisibility is to me no pledge of superior
*   wisdom.   The word of a wise and good man, speaking
from the fulness of a sound mind and an honest heart,
communicating by natural organs, unaccompanied by
any extraordinary manifestations, would weigh with me
more than the utterances of a hundred mediums, pur porting,r to speak by dictation from the shades. And, if
a doctrine were propounded to me, through such a
medium, which contradicted my own conviction, I
266 
MIRACLES.
should certainly have no hesitation in rejecting it,
though I might not be able to disprove the dictation,
and though I should admit the marvels appealed to in
defence of that origin. I should say, I know not what
latent powers there may be in the air or the human
organism, by which such wonders are effected; but the
doctrine is all the more questionable which comes to me
from such a source. I should say, that these invisibles
-if spirits they are who dictate such stuff -were
more in need of instruction themselves than able to
impart it; and that if they are really, as is sometimes
claimed, the great departed who deliver themselves
thus, then to die, for them, has not been gain: they
have lost the wit which they had in the body, and
verify the melancholy saying, that "a living dog is
better than a dead lion."
Had Jesus been disposed to act on the faith of men
by means of marvels, he yet knew too well what was
in man not to know that the senses do not lead, but
follow, the convictions of the heart; that faith is not the
offspring of miracles, but miracles, of faith.  Had he
been disposed to enforce belief by signs and wonders,
he would have multiplied those wonders where unbelief
was greatest. So far from this, an evangelist tells us,
with great frankness, that Jesus " did not many mighty
works" in his own country, " because of their unbelief."
Do you wonder at such incredulity?  The wonder is
rather that so many believed on him. To one who
regarded only the circumstances of the man, what was
there to inspire trust? His fellow-citizens saw in him
a townsman as lowly born, as poorly circumstanced, as
themselves.  The people of Judea saw.in him a Gali
267
0 
RATIONAL CHRISTIANITY.
lean whose origin seemed a presumption against him.
There wanted the prestige of the Pharisee, the learning
of the scribe. There was a rumor of wonderful cures;
but rumor is so apt to exaggerate!  Did he cast out
devils? It was by Beelzebub, the prince of devils. Do
we wonder that Jesus was so judged by his age? Was
ther.e ever an age that would have judged otherwise?
Was there ever an age that would have been more
ready to receive such a prophet, to see the divine in
him, than were his contemporaries? Regarding him
fromn our point of view, it seems to us, that such purity,
such devotion, such beneficence, would have won our
belief, had we come within their sphere. It is easy to
see these qualities in the past; but to see.them in the
present, to see them in one who offends our cherished
convictions or pre-conceptions, is quite another thing.
If we had lived in those days, we should have seen
through our prejudices as those people did.  We should
have seen what our prejudices permitted, and nothing
else. Miracles would not have convinced us, if otherwise indisposed to believe. It is folly to imagine that
we could be made to believe against our wills by any
material sign. Our unbelief would put its own. construction on that sign.  We should find an explanation
of it congenial with our views. We should see it
through the medium of our prepossessions. We should
see it, not as it was, but as we are.
No one who rejects the divine origin of Christianity
will ever be brought to believe in it on the ground of
its miracles, for the obvious reason that they never can
be proved to the satisfaction of unbelief. No amount
of evidence is sufficient for that purpose. A miracle is
268
4* 
MIRACLES.
insusceptible of historic proof, because; as a matter of
external evidence to be weighed in the balance of prob abilities, the d priori presumption against such facts
outweighs any testimony that can be adduced in its
support. The Princess Ulrica of Sweden wished to
test the reality of Swedenborg,'s intercourse with the
spiritual world.   She  asked  him  to report to her
the substance of a conversation which she had had with
her brother, a short time previous to his decease, of the
nature of which she was sure that no living person
could have any knowledge. A little while after, the
seer, to her amazement, -so the story goes,- fulfilled
her request. But she would not accept the conclusion
which seemed to follow from that test. Her answer
was, " How M. v. Swedenborg has possessed himself
of this knowledge, I cannot guess; but I do not believe
that he has conversed with my departed brother."
The presumption against the supernatural is not only
stronger, with those who disincline to believe, than
human testimony; it is even stronger than the evidence
of our own senses, as is shown in many remarkable
cases where individuals have been unable to see what
others saw, or unable to believe that they had seen it.
Shakespeare understood the human heart when he made
Hamlet, after conversing with the ghost of his father,
speak of " the undiscovered land from whose bourne no
traveller returns." It is in vain to appeal to ocular
demonstration, - to say that seeing is believing.   Unbelief will see with the eyes of unbelief; for we can see
only as we are.
Let us bring the case home to ourselves.  Suppose
a prophet sent to our time, and reported to work mira
269 
RATIONAL CHRISTIANITY.
cles among, us. iHe is said to have raised the dead.
Would the sceptically inclined give credit to such a
report upon any conceivable testimony that might be
adduced in its support? Nay, suppose them to have
witnessed it with their own eyes,- to have stood by
the graveside of some Lazarus when the inhumed came
forth, would they even then believe that they had seen
the dead arise?  Would they not find some explanation
of that or any similar phenomenon, which should strip
it of its miraculous character, and range it with the
uniform experience of mankind? Only when we had
been brought into contact with thne prophet himself,
and had read- divinity in the light of his eye, and imbibed its influence by coming within its sphere, and
been all penetrated with reverence and love, - only
then should we - I will not say believe in those miracles - but only then should we be in that moral
condition in which belief in miracles is possible to disciplined and intelligent minds. We should then have
gone behind the miracle, and conversed with its source.
We should have stood at the power-fountain of miraculous goodness to which all things are possible. Happily, we are so constituted that we can believe in
something higher than the senses and the understanding.  We  can believe in something which does not
admit of demonstration. What would become of us,
embosomed in this material, with no nurture but hard
facts, and no light to guide us but our bounded experience;'- with no mystic border to our existence in the
flesh, and no horizon of celestial ether to our day?
The argument which Hume draws from the undemonstrableness of miracles is conclusive only against
270 
MIRACLES.
the use of them as evidence, not against the facts themselves. It does not follow, because a miracle is insusceptible of proof, that a miracle is impossible. The
understanding tolerates nothing supernatural: and we
do right to explain what can be explained, by known
causes, - to suppose no miracle where other supposition will serve; as far and as fast as possible, to translate the supernatural into the natural.
But, on the other hand, we are poor creatures if
nothing is dreamed of in our philosophy but square
and compass, and mechanical laws; if our logic rejects every thing that cannot be measured by feet and
inches, and weighed in market-scales;  if there is no
corner in our mind or heart where faith in miracles 
can lodge.
And now, a word concerning the objection to miracle,
drawn from "the order of nature," so called, -the
alleged inviolableness of natural laws. The argument
amounts to no more than an a' priori presumption
against any event which contradicts the common experience. It is not conclusive, and cannot be accepted
as proof, without absolute assurance that all the laws
and possibilities of nature and spirit are known to us.
But who. will pretend to such assurance? Who will
pretend, that his knowledge embraces all the possibilities of nature? Who will pretend, that all the possibilities of the human organism, much less of the human
spirit, are known to him? A mathematician demonstrated by mechanical laws the impossibility of the leaps
performed by athletes on the stage: they contradicted
the order of nature.  And  they were repeated night
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RATIONAL CHRISTIANITY.
after night.   One  law  overrules  and subordinates
another in the daily experience of life.  I contradict
the law of gravitation whenever I jump from the
ground.   Whenever I will to hold my breath, I contradict the known laws of the human organism. What
we call the order of nature is simply a convenient
formula; safe enough in its ordinary applications, but
a mere illusion when urged as alone conclusive against
extraordinary events. What we call the order of nature is but the statement, in objective terms, of the
limitation of our human experience. To one who had
never seen or heard of an eclipse.of the sun, the first
experience of that phenomenon would be a violation of
the order of nature.  It would be just as correct to
affirm that the method of nature is miracle, as it is
to affirm with some that "the method of nature is not
miracle, but law," if by miracle we understand the
unprecedented, or a new creation.   The  new is as
much the result of law as the old; the unprecedented,
as much as our most familiar.experience; a miracle, as
much as the constancy of things. The experience of a
few thousand years affords no warrant for pronouncing
dogmatically what is or is not a violation of the " order
of nature," -an order of which the catastrophes and
cataclysms known to geology, and distanced by millions of years, are as much a constituent part as the
rising and setting of the daily sun. In Babbage's calculating, machine,* a law of increase which had operated, with unbroken uniformity, in a hundred million and
one instances, is overruled in the hundred million and
* See "Vestiges of Creation," American edition, page 156.
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MIRACLES.
second instance by another law coming in and changing
the rate of increase from one to ten thousand at a single leap. That new term was as much a part of the
constitution of the machine, as much in the order of its
mechanism, as the uniform regularity of the hundred
million and one instances which had preceded it. In
the dateless mechanism of the universe, the rarest exception is just as legitimate as the rule; and in human
life, for aught we know, there may be exceptional experiences, exceptional powers, exceptional souls, which
are just as much a part of the divine order as the most
familiar events.   It ill becomes man, whose history
bears no larger proportion to the age of the world than
the life of the ephemera bears to recorded time, to
speak too confidently of the order of nature.
" But is not a real miracle simply a violation of the
l a w s of nature? a    sk several. Whom I answer," says
Carlyle, "with this new question, What are the laws
of              nature? T o  m e, perhaps the rising of one from the
dead were no violation of these laws, but a confirmation,                       - were some f ar deeper law now first penetrated
into, and by spiritual force, even as the rest have all
been, brought to bear on us with its material force."
B    u    t is it n ot th e  deepest law of nature that she be
constant? cries an illuminated class. Is not the machine of the universe fixed to move by unalterable
rules?            Probable enough, good friends.... And now
of you, too, I make the old inquiry, what those same
unalterable rules, forming the complete statute-book of
nature, ma         y        possibly be.... Have any deepest scientific individuals dived down to the foundations of the
universe,  and gauged every thing there?  Did the Mak                          18
273 
RATIONAL CHRISTIANITY.
er take them into his counsel, that they read his groundplan of the incomprehensible All, and can say, This
stands marked therein, and no more than this?  Alas!
not in anywise. These scientific individuals have been
nowhere but where we also are, -have seen some handbreadths deeper than we see into the deep that is infinite, without bottom as without shore."-" The course
of nature's phases on this little fraction of a planet is
partially known to us;  but who knows what deeper
courses these depend on, - what infinitely larger cycle
(of causes) our little epicycle revolves on?   To the
minnow, every cranny and pebble and quality and accident o'f its little creek mnay have become familiar; but
does the minnow understand the ocean-tides and periodic currents, the trade-winds and monsoons, and
moon's eclipses, by all which the condition of its little
creek is regulated, and may, from time to time (unmiraculously enough), be quite overset and reversed?
Such a minnow is man, - his ocean the immeasurable
All; his monsoons and periodic currents the mysterious
course of Providence through eons of eons."
The radical mistake in the scientific objection to
miracles consists in defining a miracle to be a violation
of the laws of nature.  Such a definition must needs
provoke the opposition of all whose function it is to
ascertain and promulgate natural laws. Suppose we
define it, an effect from an unknown cause, or the
operation of an unknown law, subordinating or holding
in abeyance a known one. So defined, its incredibility
is made to consist in its unwontedness, which may furnish a presumption against the alleged fact, but cannot
be considered a ralid refiltation.  The unknown  law
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MIRACLES.
may be conceived as a spiritual fact beyond the reach
of natural science,- as belonging to that region of
forces and experiences, which, in current phraseology,
is termed "supernatural." That phrase "supernatural,"
however, must not, e construed as unnatural or con tranatural, but only as designating a higher plane of
the universal Will, which comprehends in one omni present, omnipotent' agency the seen and the unseen,
the world of causes and the world of effects. The real
final and efficient cause of every event is the will of
God.  All causes and laws which science knows, and
all which science does  not know, are but different
phases of the one Supreme.
I am far from maintaining that belief in miracles is a
necessary article of Christian faith.   I only protest
against the crudeness of that dogmatism which affirms
ad priori the impossibility of all that cannot be explained by known laws, or that does not agree with
universal experience, and exalts its idol of the tribe, its
misconceived " order of nature," above the incalculable
power of the spirit.
I distinguish, moreover, in the so-called miracles of
the New Testament, between the essential fact and the
manner in which it is presented in the record.   I conceive that a nucleus of historic truth, in a credulous
age, may gather to itself a mythic embodiment which is
questionable.   Intelligent criticism must separate, if
possible, the one from the other. For criticism has its
legitimate function in relation to these as to other parts
of the Sacred Writings, and to all writings. Bu~ legitimate criticism has also its limitations, and must not
assume to rule out in the mass whatever conflicts with
275 
RATIONAL  CIIRISTIANITY.
the critic's prepossessions, and only because of those
prepossessions. It must not reject, on the ground of
imperfect evidence, what does not admit, in the nature
of things, of any other.
Not only is a miracle insusceptible of proof,  but
revelation itself is insusceptible of proof,-of any other
proof than its own interior light.   Revelation transcends, and must transcend, demonstration. This is its
specific distinction, - without which it is not revelation, but philosophy, -that it speaks with self-evident
authority.   Christianity has  been more injured than
aided by the indiscreet attempts of its defenders to
ground its authority on external proofs. The misstatements of unbelievers should be exposed, their false
conclusions refuted; but, beyond this, all so - called
"evidences of Christianity" are worthless  and vain.
That would be a very insufficient religion which could
be proved by testimony exterior to itself. If it does
not speak with authority above all others, it speaks in
vain.
Attempts to prove the truth of Christianity are like
attempts to prove the existence of light. The light
shines, and proves itself by shining.   It is its own
demonstration, and no demonstration can make it
clearer.  So this moral light -  the lig,ht of the gospel
-which shines into every soul that is willing to receive
it, and which makes our soul's day, - what can we
say of it that shall be so convincing as itself?  If
we have any other argument more cogent than that, we
have aj-igher revelation, and need not its light.
There may' be errors respecting the nature of the
light, and false theories there may be concerning its
276 
MIRACLES.
source; but what of that?  Astronomy may be mistaken in some of its calculations: is the sun, on that account, less glorious or less dear? I need uo astronomy
to tell me what a blessing it is.  And suppose we have
not, in these biographies, unmixed historical truth;
that some errors and misstatements have crept into
the records; - is the character of Christ, on that account, less noble, or his word less divine?  The question is not whether Jesus said precisely this, or did
precisely that, in each particular case; but whether
Christianity, on the whole, is divine,- whether this
light, which for so many ages has irradiated the world,
and given us such guidance as we have had in spiritual
things, is God's truth, - a ray of heaven conducting to
endless day, or a meteor born of the night, and misleading the blind. And this is not a question of logic,
but a question of experience, which every soul must
answer for itself.  Christianity is not a matter of records and parchments, but a light and a life: which, if
a man has it not, no logic can reason into him; and
which, if a man has it, no logic can reason out of him.
Nay, if you could prove that this record which we have
of the sayings and doings. of Jesus is a fable and a
myth, even then you would not have destroyed Christianity.  In that case, I should say, Whether fable or
fact, the mind that could conceive and give to the
world such a portrait as that of the Christ, is itself
the Christ.  The product of that mind would still be
the wisdom and the power of God. Suppose you could
prove that no such person as Michael Angelo ever
existed; that the name is not historic, but mythic; the
tradition we have of him a fable; - the Church of
277
0 
RATIONAL CHRISTIANITY.
St. Peter's would still be the wonder of the world, and
the mind that planned it a master mind. However
we may speculate concerning its origin, the Christian
Church, -  that stupendous fabric of which St. Peter's
is a feeble type,-  that august temple in which so
many ages have knelt and prayed,- stands, and will
stand, in spite of criticism.   Christianity is: it is a
fixed fact,-  a part of the round world.  And when I
consider what it is, and what it has been; how many
millions of believing souls have found peace in its
doctrine, and freedom in its spirit; to how many it has
been their guide in lhfe, and their stay in death; and
how it has changed the face of the world; - it seems
to me a small thing, in view of all this power and
glory, to quarrel about the record, and fight against
miracles, with this miracle of all time staring us in
the face.
Some of the miracles recorded in the New Testament I cannot receive in the sense of the narrative:
but I believe in the possibility of miracles;  i.e., of
works transcending common experience.   I believe in
them because I believe that spiritual powers are superior to physical, and may hold them in subjection;
because I believe that the soul is stronger than material
nature, and may command it when it truly commands
itself; because I see in the person of Jesus a greater
miracle than any of the works recorded of him. When
I think of the greater, I can easily believe-the less. I
contemplate the portrait of Jesus as presented in the
gospel; and it seems to me so great and real, that
material nature, with its uses and forces, looks shadowy
beside it; so solid and commanding, that all things
278
0 
MIRACLES.
must needs be subject to it. And, after all, I find in
miracles no difficulty greater than I encounter when I
reject them. I know of no canon of criticism by which
I can eliminate every thing miraculous from the record,
and yet retain the rest.  If I reject them, I must reject
the whole; and, rejecting the whole, I do such violence
to historical evidence as would undermine all history,
and annihilate the past.
At the same time, I would not be bound to a rigorous construction of the letter of the narrative in every
case in which a miraculous event is represented in the
text. I will not suffer my judgment to be brought into
bondage to a letter. We have not, in these writings,
contemporary documents; but later productions, into
which it is fair to suppose that some errors may have
found their way. Whatever is written is open to criticism; for the soul is greater than any scripture, and
nothing can be more foreign from the spirit of Christianity than a slavish interpretation of its records.
The intelligent reader who  brings to the New Testament a candid temper and an ordinary share of understanding will make such allowance as may be needful
to reconcile the credit of the record with the credibility
of the facts recorded. He will separate what is essential in the record from what is incidental; the central
fact fromn the form in which it appears. Hle will not
always see a miracle where the narrative has that look;
and, where he acknowledges a miracle, he will not
always accept the common interpretation. In a word,
he will give due honor to this memorial of a heavenly
life, without doing unnecessary violence to reason and
commonsense
common sense.
279 
RATIONAL CHRISTIANITY.
But be it remembered, that common sense and common experience are not the sufficient and only m'easure
of spiritual truth; and that, unless by the power of
faith and the power of the spirit we can raise ourselves
to a plane of vision above the level of ordinary life, the
divinest word that ever yet found utterance in human
speech, or embodied itself in human life, will speak to
us in vain.
280
0 
IV.
THE REVELATION OF THE SPIRIT.  
IV.
THE REVELATION OF THE SPIRIT.
TiHE New Testament speaks of "the Spirit" very much
as the Old Testament speaks of Jehovah, or "the
Lord." Where the Old Testament says, "The Lord
spoke," or "The word of the Lord came," to this or that
prophet, the New Testament substitutes Spirit. "Jesus
was led by the Spirit into the wilderness."    " The Spirit
said to Philip."'-  The Spirit said to Peter," &c. &c.
The same thing is meant in both cases, but the different
phraseology marks a difference between the two dispensations. The same fact, the same power, is differently
conceived. In one case, it is formal, concrete, - an
individual. In the other, it is liberal and diffusive,an influence. When the Jew thought of his Jehovah,
it was somewhat as the Gentile thought of his Jove.
He thought of him as a powerful individual, as a wise
and strong man. When the evangelists thought of the
Spirit, they thought of it as a breath, a vision, a whisper in the heart; a subtile influence informing the mind,
inspiring the will, directing the life.
The personification of the Spirit in the New Testament is merely rhetorical; but the Church, not satisfied
*![21 —! * 
RATIONAL  CHRISTIANITY.
with a figure of speech, converted the rhetoric into
dogma. They constituted the Spirit a distinct person
in the Godhead. No harm in this, if by " person" is
meant nothing more than a mode of manifestation.
But with many the idea of person hardens into that of
independent individuality. The Spirit is conceived as
a being, distinct from the Father, instead of-a character
of, or in, God the Father. This was not the intent of
the doctrine, as defined by the councils of the Church.
It conflicts with the accompanying doctrine of the
"pocession," as it is called, "of the Holy Ghost."
The Spirit is said to "proceed" from God.   And this
procession was not once for all, but still continues. It
is not a past transaction, a fact accomplished, but a
present and constant process.   The  language is not
proceeded," but "proceeds." The question arose in
the ages which developed this doctrine, whether the spirit
proceeds directly and solely from God, or from God
through Christ. The Greek Church taught, and still
teaches, that the Spirit is wholly and only from the
Father. The Latin or Roman-Catholic Church maintained, and still maintains, that the Spirit proceeds from
the Father and the Son. And the Latin Church is
right: the interior meaning of that doctrine is, that
the spiritual creation, like the material, is based on
intelligence.   There can be no holiness without insight.
The Holy Spirit is that particular agency of God,
direct or indirect, which concerns itself with the moral
and religious education of mankind. It is God acting
in this particular way as distinguished from God in
nature.
284 
THE REVELATION OF THE SPIRIT.
Self-nmanifestation- the revelation of himiinself in rltional minds- must be supposed to be the end of all
God's doing.  The visible universe is one revelation,
intelligible only when viewed as such. " Day unto day
uttereth speech, and night unto night showeth knowledg,e." Nature reflects to intelligent minds the divine
Wisdom and Love. But Nature could never convey
the most distant idea of moral good. The truth which
we attempt to express, when we say that God is just,
that God is holy; the fact of a moral law, duty, conscience, accountableness, -these have no prototype or
symbol in Nature.  This is something of which Nature
is unconscious. The animal world exhibits something
of instinctive love, something of blind attachment, but
nothing like justice, holiness.  This is "the way which
no fowl knoweth," which "the vulture's eye hath not
seen," and which " the lion's whelps have not trodden."
" The abyss saith, It is not in me; and the sea saith, It
is not with me." -We should know God only as mighty,
wise, and beneficent, never as holy and just, were
there not another creation and revelation co-parallel
with the material, - the moral creation, the revelation
of the Spirit, in which God is revealed as Moral Law,
and as Moral and Spiritual Good.
The element and medium of this moral creation is
the moral nature which always accompanies conscious
intelligence, here and wherever conscious intelligence
is found. Its materials are rational souls. Of these
living stones" the divine Architect, the Holy Spirit,
compiles the spiritual fabric which all good men are
helping to build, and whose completion will be the consummation and crown of time. The Christian Church,
ee.e- ee..
285 
RATIONAL CHRISTIANITY.
in the vision of the apostles, was identified with that
fabric, "Christ himself being the chief corner-stone; in
whom all the building, fitly framed together, groweth
unto an holy temple in the Lord."   The  Christian
Church, in their theory, is not only the product, but the
earthly representative and embodiment, of the Holy
Spirit. At once both agent and object, creator and
creature, it sends forth the influences which convert the
world, and grows and reproduces itself by the influences
it sends forth.
If, now, from the theology of the Holy Spirit, we
turn to its practical human side, we find in its action
on human individuals a twofold influence. The Spirit
acts on the reason and on the will.  It inspires the
knowledge of moral and spiritual truths, and it quickens
the moral and spiritual life.  We are influenced by it
in our perceptions and in our practice.
First, our perceptions,- the knowledge of moral
and spiritual truth. All knowledge partakes more or
less of inspiration. Our mental faculties are not the
sources of truth.  In and of themselves, they see nothing and know nothing. They are but organs, - seondary agents. As the soundest eye conveys no image
to the mind, until the light from without has touched
its nerve; so the keenest intellect can never comprehend the simplest truth, until moved to action by some
impulse from abroad.  Not that any knowledge, strictly
speaking, is imparted. We acquire nothing by passive
reception alone. All truth is the product of our own
minds.  But the mind can produce only as it is quickened from abroad. If this is true in respect to secular
knowledge, how much more in respect to spiritual!
*-....
286 
THE REVELATION OF THE SPIRIT.
If the truths which relate to the kingdoms of nature
come by inspiration, how much more the truths which
relate to the kingdom of heaven! Why was it that all
the wisdom of antiquity failed to penetrate those inysteries which are now familiar to. the dullest minds?
Why is it that many an uneducated Christian possesses
on these subjects a depth of insight which puts to shame
the wisdom of the world?   Why,  but that truths of
this order are apprehended by some other faculty than
the sensuous understanding. The Holy Spirit is the
teacher here. And the fact illustrates the equalizing
power of the Spirit, which not only overrules the factitious distinctions of social rank, but sets at nought
those intellectual disparities which separate more widely
between man and man.   More than  any scheme of
human polity, it levels society by raising the lowest
to an equality with the highest in that which in all is
highest and best. It preaches its gospel to the poor,
and so maintains the equal rights of the mind, without
which all other equality is futile and vain.
What, then, it may be asked, is the agency of the
spirit in the communication of truth?  It is the agency
of the sun in the natural world. The Spirit is to the
mind what light is to the eye.   Its office is not to
impart truth, but to show it.  To those who seek the
truth in sincerity, the aid of the Spirit will not be wanting.   Let the eye be open, the heart free, and the
understanding will be full of light. Doubt and unbelief
will vanish away: the Spirit will guide into all truth.
2. The Spirit is not only light to the understanding:
it is also mniotive and guide to the will. Its agency
affects not only the knowledge but the- practice of the
287 
RATIONAL CHRISTIANITY.
truth. By it we are filled with holy aspirations, and
moved to good deeds. All goodness is from God, just
as all power is remotely or directly referrible to him.
This divine influence is not incompatible with human
freedom. Every act of goodness is still an act of the
will.   Omnipotence itself will not enforce obedience.
Nevertheless, it is God who worketh in us, both to will
and to do. From him we derive the capacity and the
impulse. But capacity is not necessity, and impulse is
not coercion.  We are moved, and yet move freely; we
accept the divine influence, yoke it with our destiny,
and choose that the Spirit of God shall reign in our
wills. Liberty is not absolute disengagement from all
rule. It does not consist in lawless roving, but in free
consent with legitimate sway, in free co-operation with
the Supreme Will.  Some rule we must obey; but we
may or may not elect our ruler. Two opposite currents
of influence traverse the world. The one leads Godward; the other deathward.  To move with the former
is moral freedom; to be carried with the other is contradiction and bondage. To say that God is the author
of our goodness, no more detracts from the power of
the human will, than to say that God is the author
of truth detracts from man's intellectual powers.  He
acts upon us, not as compulsory force, but as quickening influence.
The operation of the Spirit is not always a direct
action on the individual mind. More frequently it acts
throu,gh the instrumentality of other, subordinate agents,
- through the lips and lives of men, by teachers and
books, by instruction and example, by institutions
and ordinances, by every influence which moves the
288 
THE REVELATION OF THE SPIRIT.
soul to well-doing. When we read a good book, and
are profited by it; when we listen to discourse that acts
favorably on our moral nature, that awakens good
impulses in the breast, - we are visited and moved by
the Holy Ghost.   The Church,  and every institution
established for moral and religious ends, so long as it
fulfils its original design, is a medium of this influence.
It is the Holy Spirit made concrete.
But, though this indirect operation is the more usual
mode in which the divine influence is communicated,
it acts also without the intervention of any visible
agent: it acts as direct inspiration.  There are motions
of the Spirit in us which are not to be ascribed to any
external influence: they are the Spirit of God acting
on the instinct of goodness in the soul. There is this
instinct in every soul. It is not the most patent, but
the deepest, of all our instincts. Often neutralized by
other propensities, it needs the quickening of the Spirit
to give it life.  Then it manifests itself in those moral
aspirations by which the most thoughtless are sometimes roused to conscientious and beneficent action.
If ever, at some moment of solitary musing, we have
felt within ourselves a stronger conviction of moral
and spiritual truth, a stronger determination to good;
if ever we have seized with truer insight the meaning
and purpose of our being, and have formed the resolution to live for duity and for God,- it was the Spirit
breathing on the latent spark of spiritual life in the
breast, which gave us that vision, and caused those
fires to glow. And, if we analyze our experience at
such seasons, we shall see how man's free a-geney may
cousist with divine impulsion.   We shall see, that while
19
28a 
RATIONAL CHRISTIANITY.
the determination of the mind to moral ends is a free
determination, calling into action the whole force of
our own will, it is still a divine impulse that moves us,
and a God that works in us to will as well as to do.
The agency of the Spirit, as now defined, is impartial, in itself considered; but its efficacy in each individual is limited by personal conditions. It is limited
by the receptivity which we  bring to it.   And  the
receptivity which we bring to it will depend in a great
degree on previous training. I do not deny original
differences of moral endowment.    Some  men seem
born to goodness as a natural heritage: it is their patrimony.   Their way apparently is smooth  and  free.
No obstacle seems to intervene between the purposes
they form and the ends they contemplate. The intent
and the act hang together b;y natural dependence, like
the links of a chain.   We  admire  the facility with
which they appear to glide onward to perfection, while
we are constantly thwarted, and pulled back by inward
contradiction or external force.   Something  of this
difference may be due to natural inequality of moral
constitution; but more is due to self-discipline. If the
Spirit of God has greater influence with some than
with others, the reason is generally, that, by early obedience and long discipline, they have attained to higher
degrees of spiritual life. Their previous habits have
disposed the mind to be easily affected by such influences; the will has not been perverted and depraved;
the first impulses of the Spirit in them were not resisted, but received into willing mninds,, and suffered to
acquire, permanent control of the thoughts and desires.
In nothing is the truth of the saying, that "to him who
290 
THE REVELATION OF THiE SPIRIT.
hath shall be given," more evident than it is in relation
to the moral life. Therefore said an apostle, "Grieve
not the Holy Spirit of God."   By a figure derived from
human affections, the divine agency is represented as
a friend who wills our good,  but may be vexed  and
alienated by our opposition or our indifference. Not
that we can actually change the purpose of God,  or
avert his grace. Nothing that we can do can alienate
his love, or render the Father of spirits less willing to
aid and to bless. lie is true to us, however we may
turn from him.   Nevertheless,  we  may  destroy the
efficacy of his gifts in us; and, by alienating our own
minds, may virtually alienate his love. The effect for
us is the same, whether he is turned from us or we from
hiim.
There is a very remarkable coincidence between this
apostolic precept and the doctrine of some of the
ancient  Gentile  philosophers.    Gentile  philosophy
taught, that a good spirit waits upon all who choose to
accept its guidance.   The great Athenian personified
in this way the nobler instincts of his mind. Hie spoke
of a demon (or, as we should say, a good genius)
who informed and impelled him. And Seneca, the
contemporary of Paul, says more explicitly, as if he had
received the thought directly firom him, "There dwells
in us a holy spirit who watches all our good and all
our evil deeds, and who treats us according to the
treatment he receives."
Subjectively, then, the Holy Spirit is to be considered
a divine instinct in man; a special faculty, differing from
reason and understanding, and the other faculties of
the mind, in this, that it always speaks with authority;
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it addresses us, not as argument, but as command.
So it appears in numerous instances in the history of
the apostles, who are represented as urged and impelled
by this divine instinct to do, or refrain from doing,
sometimes contrary to their own judgment or their own
will. Paul and Timothy, it is said, "assayed to go into
Bithynia; but the Spirit would not suffer them." It
was reserved for Protestantism, in harmony with its
true-original tendency, to follow out these hints, and
unfold this subjective side, as the elder Church had
developed the positive theological view of the Holy
Ghost.  Honor to George Fox and the founders of the
sect of Friends, who first did justice to the Christian
idea of divine inspiration; who re-affirmed the spiritual
instinct, and vindicated the inward light!  What to the
elder Church was a barren dogma, a scholastic abstraction, an hypothesis, the third person in Trinity, - to
them was a spiritual fact. I When the Lord God and
his Son Jesus Christ," says Fox, "sent me forth into the
world to preach his everlasting gospel and kingdom, I
was commanded to turn men to that inward  light,
spirit, and grace, by which all might know the way
to God; even that divine Spirit which would lead into
all truth, and would never deceive." His theory, and
that of his followers, was and is, that man, if he will,
may have the immediate guidance of the Spirit of
God; that inspiration is not a past fact, but a present
reality.
"Grieve not the Spirit!"  Be true to your highest
instincts!  Often, in temporal matters, we are warned
by a secret voice, which comes to us like a mandate
from above, to do or forbear. It is always wise to
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THE REVELATION1 OF THE SPIRIT.
accept such warnings. WTe cannot hope to prosper, if
we sacrifice our own instinct to formal reasons and the
judgment of others.  People come to you, when you
are hesitating between two courses of conduct, and say,
Do thus and so.  It is all very well, so long as no
instinct of your own prompts otherwise; but if something within you says, Do no such thing, then be sure
you do no such thing.  If this is true doctrine in matters of temporal import, how much more in things
pertaining to our spiritual well-being! Resist not this
sacred force! Beware of alienating the divine influence! Whenever you feel yourself prompted to any
good work, to any act of kindness or self-denial, to
any course of discipline or holy living, accept the
impulse, hasten to obey while the fire burns.  It is
God that speaks in these secret promptings. Harden
not your heart when you hear that voice. The Spirit
will leave you if you refuse obedience; every warning
disregarded is a door closed against future progress.
If you do not now the good which you can, the time
will come when you cannot do the good which you
would.
If we would receive the divine influence in its fullest
measure and its greatest force, we must earnestly desire it.  God will help no one in that in which he himself is indifferent; he will not give his Spirit except to
those that ask it. Other gifts do not wait our entreaty;
the common bounties of Providence are not withheld
from those who neglect to ask for them; but prayer is
an indispensable condition of spiritual gifts. By prayer
I mean not a form of words, but an earnest desire and
a fervent affection. No needed gift is denied to the
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prayer of faith.  Every thing may be had by him who
earnestly desires what he should.  If we fail to receive
the grace we implore, it is because we ask with a wavering mind, and a lazy desire, and at sluggish faith. It
is because we ask as if we wished or expected to be
denied; as a man asks a dentist to draw his tooth,
or a surgeon to cut off a limb, or to execute any other
painful operation which he supposes to be necessary,
but would fain avoid if he could.  "If we loved truly
what we ask for daily," says Bishop Taylor, "we should
ask with hearty desires and a fervent spirit. The river
that runs slow and creeps by its banks, and begs leave
of every turf to let it pass, is drawn into little hollows,
and dies with diversion. So, if a mian's prayer move
upon the feet of an abated appetite, it wanders into the
society of every trifling accident, and stays at the corners of the fiancy and cannot arrive at heaven.  But,
when it is carried upon the wings of strong desire and
a hungry appetite, it passes on through all the intermediate region of the clouds, and stays not until it
dwells at the foot of the throne, and draws down showers of refreshment."
Pray for the Spirit; for who in this world can do
without it, -without its impulse, without its leaven,
without its restraining and sustaining power? It has
been affirmed that civilization and the progress of
society are wholly and purely an intellectual product.
To assert this is to forget the gift of God, and what it
is that keeps the hulman  heart from dying out, and all
the powers from perishing thlrough utter corruption.
It is not our laws and our courts, not well-balanced
constitutions and social devices, not science and steam
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THE REVELATION OF THE SPIRIT.
and electro-magnetism, -not these alone that have
brought us thus far, and made this world what it is;
but beneath all these, and above them all, a divine
impulse, never wanting to the race of men; a divine
Spirit for ever haunting them with those two radical
and universal ideas, -truth and duty, without whose
penetrating and creative power not one stone would
ever have been laid upon another of all our cities, no
tree ever felled, no human implement fashioned for its
work. And, if God should now withdraw his Spirit,
this proud civilization, with its gorgeous palaces and
solemn temples; this shining and sounding culture,
with its traffic and its arts, its stately conventions, and
fair humanities, -would tumble and dissolve; the wild
beasts that are caged in these human frames, now awed
and tamed by the presence of that Spirit, would creep
forth, and rend, and devour; and the civilized earth
revert to chaos and night.
The individual no more than society can dispense
with the Holy Ghost. The rich requires it as well as
the poor.. He needs its promptings, and he needs its
peace; he needs its strength, and he needs its consolation. He needs it in smooth prosperity, and he needs
it in the struggles and straits of life. IHe is subject to
assaults from within and from without; he is tempted
to transgress the law in his mind, to obey the law in
his members, to forsake himself, to swerve from the
right.   No earthly power  can secure  him  against
temptation, or deliver him when tempted. The Holy
Spirit alone can bring him safely through the wars,
and save his feet from falling and his soul from death.
He is subject to calamity and sharp distress, to grief
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and bereavement, the loss of his beloved, the wreck of
his hopes.   No earthly power can avert these woes,
or soothe their sting. The Holy Spirit is the only
comforter that can reach him in those deeps, and make
the night seem light about him. This same Spirit is
nearer to us all, and more to us, than any soul can
fully know in this world, or is willing to believe.
What. is it, in fact, but the hidden life, the self of our
self, which now and then bursts into consciousness, and
amazes us with a foreign presence in our private
thought?   Those  lucid intervals in our experience,
those clear spaces in our life, when the roar and rush
of the world's torrent ceases, and the cloud-rack lifts,
and a bit of the blue sky struggles through, with revelation of immortal deeps;-  these are momentary realizations Of the presence of the Holy Spirit, from which at
no time we are otherwise sundered than by the wanderings of our own thought and will.
But suppose this earthly world could be traversed,
and this mortal life lived, without the gift of the Holy
Ghost, how will it be when the gulf yawns toward
which we are momently drifting? No earthly power
can bridge that gulf, or ferry us over it.  There is no
spring in this breast of ours by which it can throw off
the clod that is laid upon it, and erect itself out of dusty
death.   There is no power in this soul by which to
extricate itself out of the wreck of this mortal. Let
philosophers say what they will, there is no natural
immortality. If ever we rise again to conscious life,
it will be by no native power, but by the operation of
the Spirit of God on souls already possessed by it, and
in some degree conformed to its likeness.
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THE REVELATION OF THE SPIRIT.
The doctrine of the Holy Spirit is peculiarly Chris tian. It is not a deduction of the human understand ing, but a revelation from  "the Father  of lights."
And, without this revelation, the name of God is only
a name, a vague abstraction, having no relation to the
heart or life. It is only through his Spirit that God
becomes to us a person and reality. You may gather
- who does not? - frommthe rvisible creation the notion
of almighty power and beneficent design. From the
course of human affairs you may get-who does not?the impression of a superintending Providence and an
all-present Love. From the experiences of your moral
nature you infer - who does not? - a moral government and a righteous law. But all this does not constitute the God of the Christian revelation, the Father
.of spirits and of mercies. That idea could never be
wrought out of those materials. The idea of God is a
revelation of his Spirit; and unless the Spirit of God
dwell in us, superstition may have an idol, conscience
a law, philosophy a name; but the heart has no God.
297  
V.
THE SPIRIT IN THiE LETTER.  
V.
THE SPIRIT IN THE LETTER.
ALL spirit, in proportion to the force thee is in it,
seeks to embody itself, and tends in time to become
a letter.   All spiritual movements,  that  are strong
enough and true enough to last, end there. All revelations and reforms, after passing through the fluid
stage, arrive at a solid one: after living and working
as disembodied spirit for a while, they crystallize into
stated, formal agencies, and settle down into scriptures
and churches. Judaism was a spirit once, and became
a letter; Christianity was a spirit, and became a letter;
Protestantism was a spirit, and became a letter.  Such
was their providential destiny. Every letter, ordinance,
organization, that now exists, was once a disembodied
spirit; and every thought, sentiment, movement, which
now agitates society, if genuine and destined to endure,
will one day become a letter.
It will not do to quarrel with the letter: the spirit
requires it.  Spirit will not stay without  a letter to
hold it, as every one knows from his own experience.
What avails your vision, your aspiration, your ideal?
what avail your kind purposes and generous emotions,
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if they do not embody themselves? You have a vision
of excellence;  it fills your whole soul; your spirit is
aglow with it; it is your spirit for the time; and could
your spiritual interior at that moment be laid open and
portrayed, as a photograph fixes the fleeting expression
of the countenance, the portrait would be that of a hero
or a saint. What boots it, if you do not embody that
spirit in some word or work?   It expires with the
pulses of the breast; it evaporates with a breath, and
no man is benefited by it: it was and is not, and no
memorial of it remains to kindle aspiration in another,
or to rekindle it in yourself. But express that spirit,
record it in some way, embody it somewhere, and you
add something to the spirit's life and the world's riches.
As yet, it is a mere breath that steals over the soul,
a possibility only; you are none the better for it, nor
any one else, if it end so. And yet the spirit is good
and holy and divine as that which fired St. Francis
when he poured out his soul in measureless love, or
that which flooded the heart of Jesus when he prayed
for his enemies on the cross. But, divine as it is in
possibility, it is nothing in reality, until it is embodied;
and.it may be worse than nothing, as exhausting sensibility in leaves without fruit, like the infructuous figtree, whose leafy and lying luxuriance availed nothing,
but drew to itself a curse. As yet, it is a mere breath:
shall it end so? - a passing wind whence coming you
heed not, nor whither going? or shall it become actual,
and a fact of life? Express it, actualize it in some
way, and straightway it becomes life, a thing, a fact;
insignificant in appearance, obscure in place, evanescent
in time; but still, life, and a fountain of life to others,
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THE SPIRIT IN THE LETTER.
an influence in the world, and so an actual, constituent
part of the world, inseparable, indestructible.   The
difference between it and spirit unexpressed is simply
infinite, -the difference between something and nothing
I fancy that, when the soul reckons with us in our day
of judgment, we shall burn less with the memory of
bad acts or words, than of good designs unembodied,
and worthy thoughts unexpressed.
All spirit, so far as it is good and holy at all, is a
unity. The spirit which prays in any of us to-day, if
the genuine fire of devotion is in us, is the same which
discoursed in the Sernion on the Mount, and opened the
eyes of the blind; which blew into the soul of Peter,
and drove Paul like a rolling thing around the world,
and built up universal Christendom, with its temples
and its scriptures, its sanctities and its arts.   The
difference between the spirit that did all this, and the
holy thought or generous sentiment that stirs my heart
to-day, and remains unexpressed, is not in quality, but
ill outwardness, - the difference between the spirit
with a letter, and the spirit without it. Theoretically,
the spirit that originated these things might not have
originated them (although providentially it must),
and yet have been as holy and divine a spirit still. It
was no more holy and divine than the spirit that has
wrought in many an anchorite and recluse, and in
many a Quaker Friend, which might have produced
the like, but did not embody itself, - spent itself,
rather, in private devotion and secret contemplation.
We are indebted to the letter as much as to the
spirit, — to the spirit only through the letter. And
when we consider how a piece of parchment in a regis
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RATIONAL CHRISTIANITY.
trar's office, which is not even looked at once in a lifetime, may fix the occupation of large portions of the
earth's surface for thousands of years; and how a
printed paper which they call a Constitution may determine the political condition of a nation,-  the measure of external freedom enjoyed, or bondage endured,
of millions of people; and how some leaves inscribed
with tables of figures will enable a ship's company to
find their way across the pathless sea, and to circumnavigate the world, - wen, I say, we consider these
things, and note the power of the letter, and the value
of its function in the secular economy of life, we may
come to think respectfully of its agency, as a power in
religion.
It must be granted to those who argue the cause of
the spirit as against the letter, that no existing letter
can endure for ever, or continue for ever to hold the
place which it once held in the spiritual economy.
Every form in which the spirit clothes itself, every body
it puts on, is transient; every existing organization is
destructible, and to be destroyed. The spirit endures,
the form perishes.   Yet even here we  must distinguish between form and type;_ that is, between the
material form and the spiritual,-  between soul and
body. Every form of being which is not exceptional
or transitional and accidental, expresses a type which
will re-appear when the form that now embodies it is
dissolved.   In other words, the form will reproduce
itself continually. The human body is fragile and corruptible: all the bodies in which humanity is now
invested will soon be dust; but the human form will
endure while heaven and earth remain; and when the
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THE SPIRIT IN THE LETTER.
heavens and the earth that now are have passed away.
The human form is a letter that can never become
obsolete. And so there may be types of the spirit in
the present institutions and ordinances of religion,
which will survive their dissolution, and reproduce
themselves in new and similar ordinances, if ever the
present shall pass out of use; as indeed the present are
reproductions of elder rites.   Sacrifice is as old as
worship itself; but what a difference between the human
sacrifices of ancient religions and the High Mass of the
Church  of Rome!  And  what a difference between
that and the commemorative rite of our Protestant
faith!
This also must be conceded, that in no letter is the
spirit fully and perfectly. expressed, and that the letter
still requires the spirit to interpret its import, and to
make it available and edifying to those who would use
it. It is a medium of spiritual life to those only who
come to it with and in the spirit. Without that touch
of kindred life, it is dead and deadening.  Then it is
that "the letter killeth."   The  metallic wire which
conveys your message to a distant friend, and his to
you, possesses that capacity in a latent state.   No
manipulation can make it work to that end without the
touch of the electric fluid which develops its secret
virtue.  Nevertheless, that metallic wire is a necessary
condition of the communication desired: no other
!medium can supply its place, nor can the communication take effect without a medium. So is the letter
without the spirit, and still an indispensable mediator
of spirit.
It is an old controversy, the dispute concerning the
20
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RATIONAL CHRISTIANITY.
letter and the spirit in religion.  All parties agree in
asserting the supremacy of the spirit.   There  is no
difference between Quaker and Romanist on that point.
The only question is, whether any, and how much, of
letter is essential to spirit.  There is always  a party
in the Church who despise the letter and disparage
ordinances  and all external  sanctities.   They  think
they have Paul on their side, when they quote those
words of his, "The letter killeth." But Paul is not
to be so understood. He does not condemn the letter
as such, -any and every letter, -but only the literality
and empty formality which Judaism in his day had
come to be. The correct application of this saying will
depend on what we assume to be the object of the
word "killeth."  It is not the spirit that the letter killeth; on the contrary, we have seen that the letter is
necessary to any continued life of the spirit;- not the
spirit, but those who rest in the letter alone; those
who separate the letter from the spirit, and make it
supreme and final. The fault, then, is not in the letter,
but in those who use it.
Men may rail as they please at the letter, and disparage what is outward in religion: but those churches
are the strongest that have most of it; strongest not
only in the way of efficient action and ecclesiastical
power, but strongest in spiritual vitality. Out of them
have come the sublimest examples of spiritual life;
while those churches which have thought meanly of the
letter, and sought to dispense with it, have languished
and died out.   George Fox  and his followers were
filled with perhaps as pure a spirit as ever animated a
body of religionists.   If spirit without letter could
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THE SPIRIT IN TIE LETTER.
accomplish any thing, how much should have been
accomplished by them! Here was spirit with a witness,
spirit shed with boundless prodigality, - a river of
God which was full of water. But for want of the
letter, which it flouted and disdained, comparatively
little was accomplished by this movement; while the
Church of England, against which it contended on
account of the alleged excess of the letter in its ministrations, has, through that letter, survived to this day,
and still flourishes with undiminished vitality; and is at
this moment to millions of souls an efficient medium of
spiritual life. I am no friend to the Church of Rome.
I believe it to be an enemy to social progress and
intellectual freedom.  But what a power it is! maintaining itself to this day, through so many revolutions
of time and society; at this moment the strongest
Church in Christendom, the strongest organized force
on the globe. And, after deducting its manifold evils
and corruptions, what a vast amount of spiritual good
must still be conceded to it; of how much genuine
piety and practical holiness, and good works, it is still
the fruitful and constant source! What is the reason
of this continued vitality? The Church of Rome, as a
leader of human thought, has long since fallen from her
pride of place; as a guide and law of the human soul,
she has long been obsolete; the vision and the prophecy
have departed fromher:  no longer capable of originating new thoughit or generating new life, her sole
aim is to guard and perpetuate the life of the past.
The reason of her continued vitality is the fulness and
breadth of the letter, by which she subsists, and which
supplies, at least, and will long supply, that traditional
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RATIONAL CHRISTIANITY.
life. When the spirit of the living God was poured
out upon this Church, in the days of her youth, it was
gathered into these vessels, which are still so far impregnated with it that he who comes to them in the
spirit of faith, by the power of that faith in himself
awakens the spirit that is latent in them, and partakes
of its life.
Where the letter killeth, the fault is not in the letter
itself, though of that there may be, no doubt, an
excess. The fault is the want of spirit in us by which
to interpret its import, and reproduce it in our use.
Whoever comes with the spirit in himself to the letter
of his Church will find it living. So much spirit as he
brings to it, so much spirit will he find in it, and
give to it in his communications; as Jesus, when he
took the traditional cup of the Passover at the Last
Supper, flashed the light of his own spirit over all the
ages that had handed it down to him, recovering its
original import, and forward across all the ages that
were to hand it down, reproduced with new import, to
us. The letter killeth not the spirit, but the unspiritual; and the spirit maketh alive, not the spiritual
only, but every letter which the spirit produced in times
gone by. Much of the complaint which we hear of the
oldness of the letter, and much of the impatience of
rites and forms and scriptures, so far fromn betokening
larger spirituality, is often but a  roof of weakness of
faith, - a want of power to pen'rate into the soul
of these things, to interpret their deeper import, and
recover their latent life.   Or  it may  be that spirit
abounds in those who contemn the letter, yet not the
spirit which gcave the letter, but one contrary thereto.
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THE SPIRIT IN THE LETTER.
"Try the spirits whether they be of God." Not every
spirit that arises in the Church, and discourses of religion, is of that denomination.   The world of spirits,
like that of chemic forces, has its negative as well as its
positive pole. The spirits of God are known by their
affirmations; but there is a spirit which denies. So
Goethe, in his immortal drama, makes Mlephistopheles
describe himself, "I am  the spirit that evermore denies;" a necessary agent, no doubt, in the universal
and divine economy; but beware of that spirit, - the
spirit of negation, opposition, unbelief. Subsidiary, let
it be, not dominant, in your scheme of life. The test
of a true spirit is its productiveness. The spirit that
can originate a letter in which men shall find their
oracle and comforter and life, or that can interpret such
a letter when it has grown dim, or re-animate it when
it is old, - the same is of God.
In advocating the claims of the letter in religion,
I am advocating the cause of the spirit. It is not
a lifeless form, but a living body, as distinguished
from spirit disembodied, for which I plead. Not letter and spirit are opposed, but literal and spiritual
views and interpretations.
There is a literal and a spiritual way of viewing and
handling the doctrines and ordinances of religion, as
in Paul's day there was a literal and a spiritual Judaism. "The letter killeth" in doctrine and rite, when
doctrine and rite are held and interpreted as letter
alone, in slavish subjection to a formula which should
be regarded as a servant of thought, and not as a law;
an imperfect attempt to articulate truth, and not as the
limit and measure of truth. Every doctrine which is
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RATIONAL CIRISTIANITY.
not an individual conceit, but has the acceptance and
sanction of the Church, expresses a truth, which, spiritually interpreted, maketh alive, but expresses it in a
letter, which, held in its literal narrowness, killeth. It
is always on the letter, and not on the spirit, that sects
have split. For example, the doctrine of the Trinity,
an ancient and generally received doctrine of the
Church, - Father, Son, and Spirit, - conceived as a
kind of theological arithmetic or ecclesiastical mythology, proposing three Gods, and calling them one,
-this doctrine is death to reason and common sense;
but conceived in the sense of those immortal leaders
and interpreters of the Church, - Anselnm, Thomas
Aquinas, Lullus, and Abelard,-  as expressing a selfcommuniicating God, in contradistinction to the incommunicable one of Judaism and Mahommedanism, or as
shadowing forth the encyclic completeness of the Godhead in its three chief aspects of Power, Wisdom, and
Love;  or Being, Truth, and Action; -  although no
part of the gospel, it is a quickening and edifying view
of the divine nature.   The divinity of Christ, understood, as modern orthodoxy too often conceives it, in a
sense which violates the humanity of Jesus and insults
the gospel record; which leaves us but this alternative,
to conceive of God as a once-limited personality, or to
conceive of Jesus as a mere apparition by which God
wvas manifest; -so understood, I say, it is a letter
which  killeth.   But  conceived as ancient orthodoxy
conceived and settled it, as expressing that unity of the
human and divine which was realized in Christ, it is a
truth which  " maketh alive."   The  doctrine of the
Atonement, conceived as an historical transaction or
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THE SPIRIT IN THE LETTER.
commercial arrangement by which God consents to
waive the action of his penal law, in its application
to human kind, in consideration of the meritorious
death of Christ, is death to reason and the moral sense;
but conceived as a mediating and reconciling influence
through the ministry of Christ, by which the erring and
alienated nature of man is restored to God, according
to the saying of Paul, that "God in Christ is reconciling
the world to himself;"- so conceived, the doctrine is
life to mind and heart.
The letter killeth in sacraments and rites, where
rigid conventionalism precludes spontaneity, or where a
low utility assumes to be the measure of sanctities, or
where the symbol becomes a fetish; or where the ordinance is viewed as compulsory observance, instead of a
free communication or free-wifl offering.  Why sprinkle water on a baby's forehead in any other name,
utility asks, than that of personal cleanliness, - in any
other way than that of physical ablution? Why, indeed, if those sprinkled drops are all that baptism
means to you?  If you see in baptism nothing but ritual
water, it is a dead and deadening formality. But fill
your mind with the awful truth, that the infant, born
this day into this phenomenal and vanishing world, as
one of its phenomena and passages, rising like a bubble
on the great world-stream to fill a place among the
shows of time, and to act a part in its processes, is also
a child and heir of eternity, and is born, at one and the
same moment with its time-birth, into a world of spirits
that is real and eternal, a family of God, transcending
the home-circle, and yet including it; a kingdom of
God, transcending and inclucding civil society; a uni
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verse of God, transcending and-including the mundane
sphere, and connecting this breathing creature of today, this palpitating human animal, with the farthest
star that looks down on its cradle, with the Church of
the first-born in the infancy of time and the Church
of the last-born in time's completeness, and with God,
the Judge of all, and the Mediator of his love, and
which knows the life just cast on this shore, and claims
it as its own, and yearns toward it out of all its heavens;
- consider this, and you will see that some open and
solemn recognition of this fact is no vain ceremony,
but a just and becoming-acknowledgment of the image
of God bound up in that form, of the immortal aestiny
bound up in that life. And if water, the most universal of tangible creations, and therefore fit type of universality, is the given and accepted symbol of all this
in your sphere and time, then should the water be
sacred in your eyes that bathes a baby's forehead in
the rite of baptism, administered in the name of the
Father, the head of this spiritual All; the Son, the
connecting link between him and it; the Spirit, its
universal bond.  And then is infant baptism not the
mere dash of water on the brow:  it is the solemn
recognition of a new advent, the auspicious presentation
of the new-conier to the general and august assembly of
his spiritual home.
The sacrament of the Supper, like that of baptism,
has its literal and its spiritual side. He who sees in it
only a bit of bread and a sip of wine, of which a company of churchgoers partake in common, will see only
the letter that killeth, - a lifeless and killing formality.
But lay to heart the meaning which lies in that word
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THE SPIRIT IN THIE LETTER.
" communion," and consider that this spiritual All of
which I have spoken exists, for us only as we turn
toward it the eye of our consciousness, and embrace it
with our thought and aspiration, and you will see significance and sanctity in whatever promotes that consciousness or assists that aspiration. To him whose
faith can take in the idea of the general assembly of
our common humanity present as one man through all
its epochs, in all its spheres, the Supper is no vain
form, but the highest act of the consciousness of society. It is not the commemoration of an indvidual
merely that gives this rite its true significance. The
memory of Christ, as the summit of humanity, is a
point of meeting for all souls. Whatever symbol
recalls that memory is a door of communication with
the Church universal and eternal, comprising whatever
is noble and brave and wise and holy in the past and
the present, in heaven and on earth. The thought
which connects us dwellers in the dust with the noble
army of the immortals who have shed their light on
the course of time, and wrought their life into this our
world, is one of the suLblimest revelations of the gospel,
and deserves expression in the rites of religion. This
is the expression the Church has given it, showing us,
in the Eucharist, our part and place in the common
march and the sacred host. The bread and wine which
it sets before us are the symbols of immaterial nourishment,- types of the constant daily feast of life, the
same -for all souls in all worlds, - the feast whose food
is God's will in daily work, whose guests are the faithful of every faith and name, whose cheer is love, and
whose song is praise.
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RATIONAL CHRISTIANITY.
The spirit in the letter, the spirit through the letter,
is a lesson wide as human life, -  the reconciliation of
ideal and actual in human things. If the visible letter
of our work be no dead letter merely, but a genuine
fruit of the spirit, a service and a sacrifice, into which
we breathe the aspiration and good-will, the faith and
the love, which alone can make it and make us alive,
it will be an epistle from the heart to the world of our
time, in which all who behold it shall read the spirit
that was in us, that possessed our thought and wrought
in our will, and sought to express itself, not wholly in
vain, in our activity. Therefore let the spirit that stirs
in us, ere it evaporate in idle dreams, or degenerate
into sickly sentimentality, hasten  to record itself in
some visible letter and condign work that shall give it
effect.  If love springs in the breast, let it rush into
action; the vision in the brain, let it turn into deed;
let the plastic present - the mnolten metal of the hour
-receive the impress of our will before it stiffens into
the past. The world about us is a standing admonition
to this effect, stamped all over as it is with the letter
of the spirits that have gone before us, and proving
that the smallest deed whose grain is good is better
than the noblest aspiration that dies in the breast.'
314 
VI.
SAVING FAITH. 
. 0 
VI.
SAVING  FAITH.
THE  oldest controversy in religion respects the comparative value of faith and works. This contest pervades the whole history of man's spiritual progress from
Abraham down. It arrayed that patriarch against the
worshippers of Moloch, his contemporaries.   It was
the quarrel between Brahmanism and Buddhism in
India. It was the quarrel between Judaism and Christianity; later, between Romanism and Protestantism,
between the Orthodox * and the Liberal.
It was the earliest topic of dispute in the Christian
Church.  W~e find the writers of the New Testament
at variance on this point, maintaining opposite sides of
this question. Paul maintains the sufficiency of faith:
James insists on the absolute necessity of works. Singularly enough, they both appeal to the same example
in defence of their respective positions, -the example of the patriarch Abraham. Paul cites him as a
supereminent instance of faith.   "Abraham believed
* Belief in orthodoxy, when made a condition of salvation, is as much
a species of "works" as pilgrimages or fasts.
[317] 
RATIONAL CHRISTIANITY.
God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness.
IKnow ye, therefore, that they who are of faith, the same
are the children of Abraham."   James, on the other
hand, magnifies Abraham's works -  his acts  - as the
real, meritorious, justifying, and saving trait of the pa triarchal example.   "Was  not Abraham  our father
justified by works when he had offered Isaac his son
upon the altar? Seest thou how faith wrought with
his works, and by works was faith made perfect?" To
this plea it might have been objected, that Abraham,
according to the story, did not sacrifice his son, al though it was the fashion of that time and country to
do so.  Parents, in that country, sacrificed their firstborn, as a matter of course. Custom demanded it;
religion enjoined it: it was the old Canaanitish worship.
What distinguished Abraham from his contemporaries
was, that he did not sacrifice his first-born.  It must
have cost him a stru,ggle to resist the universal custonm;
but he did resist it: and he did so, not from excess of
parental fondness, but from a deeper, truer faith.  Ike
had such faith in God as to believe, contrary to the
general voice, that a man  might be justified without
that unnatural sacrifice. He believed in the sacredness
of nature; he believed in the still small voice of the
heart, and God speaking in that; and, though his first
impulse was to comply with what seemed to be the
dictate of religion, his second and manlier thought was
to refrain. If at first he seemed to hear the voice of
the Lord, saying, "Take now thy son, thine only son,
Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of
Moriah, and offer him there for a burnt-offering," he
listened again in a hig,her and healthier mood, and
'a' I 8 
SAVING FAITH.
heard the command, "Lay not thine hand upon the
lad, neither do thou any thing unto him." So I interpret the old tradition. Abraham did not sacrifice his
son: he believed that he might forego the sacrifice;
and it was "accounted to him for righteousness."  If
faith was shown by a willingness to make the off'ing,
it was still more signally proved by withholding it.
For which requires the greater faith, -to comply with
custom and tradition, or to refuse compliance? Nonconformity, no doubt, may sometimes arise from irreligion  and unbelief; men may neglect a religious
ordinance from want of interest and want of faith; but
when it is faith that impels dissent, as in the case of
such earnest and heroic and devout natures as are
sometimes found in that predicament, that faith is
unquestionably greater than the faith expressed by any
works of conformity and tradition. There can be no
question that the faith of Paul was something superior
to that of the Jews of Damascus, or the silversmiths
of Ephesus; or that the faith of John Hiuss was superior to that of the bishops who assisted at the Council.
of Constance; or Luther's to that of Leo X.;; or the
faith of George Fox to that of the magistrates of Manchester and Worcester.
Paul but puts into words what Abraham, three thousand years before, had uttered in action, when he says,
" The just shall live by faith."
When we speak of salvation by faith, we do not
mean that a man is saved by his orthodoxy. Else
were the greater part of the world irrevocably doomed,
-all the pagan world, and the greater part of the
Christian,-  the greater part, and, I fancy, the better
319 
RATIONAL CHRISTIANITY.
part; so that the remnant saved would not much commend the salvation, or exalt the Saviour in the world's
judgment.  There is no saving power in orthodoxy;
there is no saving power in mere belief of any kind,
except as belief may be symptomatic, indicating a
receptivity of mind; and that receptivity a vitality
which certainly is saving,- say, rather, which is salvation.  Then, however, it is not because the belief
is     dogmatically correct that it saves.  It may not be
correct, and yet be saving, so far as the state of mind
in the believer is concerned. Setting aside the influence
on the life, a man shall as soon be saved by be~leving
with the Hindu in the incarnations of Vishnu, as by
believing with the Christian in the Word made flesh.
Salvation by faith means two things. It means that
man's destiny is determined by what he is, not by what
he does; and it means that confidence itself is salvation.
1. A man's destiny is determined by what he is, and
not by what he does. In other words, being is more
than doing. This is the Christian view of salvation, as
interpreted by Paul.   And  so truly and specifically
Christian is this view, that I am tempted to call it a
discovery of Christianity,-  a spiritual truth which
Christianity first brought to light. Not what we do,'
but what we are. The old theory, the childish, pagan,
Jewish theory of salvation, - the theory which  still
most widely prevails, even in Christendom still prevails, - is precisely the reverse of this: it puts doing
before being; it reckons by works; it tries a man by
tale and stint, as a task-master tries a slave. Now, it
must be granted that human judgments are necessarily
320 
SAVING FAITH.
based on the standard of action.  What a man does,
that he is, we say, and say truly; for, generally speak ing, we know men only by their works. Nay, more,
in judging of ourselves, we have to apply the same test.
For who dare flatter himself that he is wise and charita ble and devout, when all his conduct bears witness to
the contrary? But observe that this test is safely appli cable only as a negative criterion: it is a very doubtful
one if we apply it positively.  In the absence of all
works, or where the works are only evil, we are safe in
inferring moral deficiency or moral corruption; but we
cannot reverse the criterion, and rate the internal
goodness of the man by the external goodness of the
act, which may or may not be the genuine offspring of
the heart.
False religion puts doing before being: it reckons
by works. It has always been so. I account for it
thus: The sense of accountableness is instinctive in
man, and suggests a Power which punishes  and re wards, and whose punishments and rewards the childish
mind conceives to be regulated by the same standard
which governs earthly authorities,- the parent,  the
task-master, the governor, in appointing theirs,compliance or non-compliance with external requirements.   This  is the first rude conception of moral
accountableness,-something done to please God, to
win his favor and avert his wrath. Hence the inquiry,
'-perplexing, doubtful, anxious, -What must I do to
be saved? the feeling that something is to be done
to satisfy and gratify Almighty Power.   Hence the
idea,- so natural, so universal, so hard to eradicate,
-salvation by works.
21
321
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0 
RATIONAL CHRISTIANITY.
Judaism was no wiser in this than other religions,
though wiser and better in so many respects.   The
Jewish idea of human accountableness was that of a
God who sets his people stints, and rewards and punishes accordingly. So Paul described it: "The law is
not of faith; but the man that doeth them shall live by
them." The Jewish religion was a tariff of duties
levied on its subjects, with corresponding forfeitures,
exacted ad valorem, for every article omitted or transgressed.  The Christian religion, in its principle and
essence, averse to all this, as interpreted by Paul, was
yet converted into this by the misapprehension and
misguided zeal of the ages following. And, because
the gospel had set no stints, the Christians of the East,
and, after them, the Christians of the West, began to
stint and task themselves with works by which they
hoped to earn salvation. They made their dwellings in
deserts and caves; they spent their lives in saying
prayers; they subsisted on the scantiest and poorest
food; they wore haircloth; they scourged their flesh,
and in every way made life as uncomfortable as bodily
privation and hardship could make it. In process of
time, the Church authorities took it upon themselves to
prescribe these works and impose these stints on
their subjects.   The Church  had its tariff of good
works, and dispensed the salvation of which it assumed
the administration and control, in conformity with it.
All Judaism caine back with the penances and fasts,
the pilgrimages and mulcts, and other prescriptions,
of the Church of Rome.   Instead of Christ  being
"the end of the law of righteousness," as Paul had
predicted, a new law of righteousness (or a new law
322'
0 
SAVING FAITH.
righteousness) was instituted in his name. The exploded principle, "He that doeth them shall live by
them," was revived and adopted by the recreant Church
as the Christian rule. So inveterate is man's proclivity
to materialize in religion, to convert the most interior
concerns of the soul into formalities and business transactions, to look abroad for that which only the heart
can  give, to trade  in the  unmerchantable.    Every
revival of religion is a protest against this one everlasting mistake. When Luther, in his younger days,
as a pious monk and obedient son of the Church, was
climbing on his knees, according to prescribed usage,
the sacred staircase of the Lateran Church, he recalled
the saying, "The just shall live by faith."  With that
recollection began a crisis in the history of religion.
Christianity was  new-born  in that hour,-  the end,
once more,' of the law of righteousness to every one
that believeth."
Has Protestantism, then, entirely outgrown this
error in all its applications?  We have ceased to rely
on ecclesiastical good works, on pilgrimages and fasts:
do we not still cherish the belief in salvation by moral?
The Pauline principle applies to these as well as those.
Moral works are as valueless as ecclesiastical, when
undertaken upon speculation, as means and conditions
of salvation. Temperance, chastity, charity, are saving
graces when they exist as genuine fruits of the Spirit:
they lose that saving quality when adopted as expedients and means to an end. Action, like belief, is
merely symptomatic. The best acts are valuable and
saving only as authentic exponents of the moral life.
If they do not truly express that life, if they have any
323 
RATIONAL CHRISTIANITY.
other source than that life, they are spiritually worthless, like promissory notes from an empty vault.
Not what a man does, but what he is, is his justification or condemnation. Doing may be copied, being
cannot. All the graces can be imitated; but grace is
original in every man in whom it exists. Works may
be borrowed; but the heart is man's own.
Every religion, in turn, repeats the illusion about
salvation as a bargain with God, a good to be purchased with a price.   But what price can purchase
heaven, if we come to the question of equivalents, - of
value earned by service rendered? Who is sufficient
for such a trade? Who so rich and strong and good
as to offer an equivalent for heavenly gifts? Who has
that which God so needs, and has so much of it, that
God will think it worth the while, as a matter of profitable trade, to sell him eternal blessedness therefor?
The best of us can do no more than pay, as he goes, for
all that he receives and has received during all the
years when he could do nothing. Can the best of us
do even that?
But, though our good works can be no equivalent,
may they not be still a condition of salvation, — the
terms which God has seen fit to exact in return for that
great boon?   Suppose it to  be so, what are those
terms? If there is such a covenant, expressed or understood, what is man's part in the contract?  Nothing
less, surely, than obedience to God's law. Now, if
God has made our well-being to depend on strict obedience to the moral law, then our moral welfare is forfeited by disobedience to that law, not only by gross
and continued disobedience, but by all disobedience
324 
SAVING FAITH.
whatsoever. Every violation of the moral law violates
the contract.   This is Paul's argument.   But every
one does violate it.' There is none righteous," in that
sense; "no, not one."  "They are all gone out of the
way."   It is impossible not to violate it.  Perfect
obedience is practically impossible. It is what no one
has yet accomplished, or will accomplish. It is impossible, because man is not a machine, but a spirit. You
may construct a machine with such precision that it
shall perform a given work in a given manner. You
may construct it with such precision that the action of
the motive power on each part shall be reduced to a
certainty; the function of every wheel and screw may
be determined and controlled, - so far and no farther,
so much and no more in a given time. Such a machine
may be made for a while to perform its whole duty, and
nothing but its duty. But even a machine will become
disordered in time, and sin against the law written in
its constitution, by neglect or transgression. But man
is not so fashioned, and cannot be so manag,ed, or so
manage himself. lIe cannot be made to perform aU
possible duties, and keep the whole law of God, with
that mechanical exactness with which the hands of a
clock perform a certain number of revolutions in a given
time. Let him try the experiment for a single day.
Let him undertake for one whole day to fulfil the law
in every minute particular, positive and negative, in
thought as well as deed; to do every thing which he
dught to do, in the way in which he ought to do it;
and to do nothing, say nothing, think nothing, which
he ought not. Let him at night subject the history of
that day to a rigorous scrutiny; and, if his conscience is
325 
RATIONAL CHRISTIANITY.
but moderately enlightened, he will discover, that, with
the best intention, he has not been perfect for one whole
day, -that the day might possibly have been better
spent than it was. With the best intention and the
uttermost endeavor, he has still come short of the mark.
Man is a poor creature, if he is to be judged in this
way; he is less perfect than a steam-engine or a watch.
" By the deeds of the law shall no flesh be justified; for
all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God."
The Mohammedans have a fable, that the soul, before
it can enter )aradise, must cross a bridge, narrow as
the edge of a sword, over a gulf of fire; and that no one
can be saved who does not endure this test. A good
illustration, this, of the doctrine of salvation by works.
To attempt to win heaven by this method is like the
attempt to cross a gulf of fire on the edge of a sword.
Forlorn would be our prospect, perdition our doom, if
our destiny depended solely on our works.
To remedy this difficulty, to complement this deficiency of human virtue, theologians, still clinging to
the notion of a law to which perfect obedience is the
one indispensible condition of salvation, have proposed
a substitute in the person of Christ. At first, it was
the perfect obedience of Christ which answered, instead
of other men's obedience, and satisfied the law on their
behalf; more recently, it is the death of Christ, which,
received as the penalty of sin, serves instead of the
punishment of sinners, and insures their salvation in
spite of transgression.  It is not my purpose, at pre~ent, to criticise these views.   The error lies in the
prior assumption, that salvation is made by divine decree
to depend on perfect and exact obedience to the moral
4
326 
SAVING FAITH.
law; that is, on works: in strange and direct contradiction to the teaching of Paul, who shows that the ground
of salvation is faith.
Not what we do, but what we are, is the strength
of our present, and the hope of our future, if any
strength there is in us, or any hope for us.  There are
cases, no doubt, in which the actions of men are better
than their hearts. Whited sepulchres there are, fair
without, not wanting in good works, but inwardly full
of treachery and uncleanness. What are the acts of
such natures worth? Suppose them to be ten times
fairer than they are, can their works save them?
But most men, it is to be hoped, are a great deal
better than their works. Their inward life is more
divine than all the manifestations of it that have yet
appeared. The best of men would seem to us less
perfect than they do, did we not impute to them a goodness exceeding all their actions. Jesus would not be
to us the pure ideal that he is, did we not suppose him
to be better than his life, divine as that is. We feel
that what he did was a very small part of what he was;
his nature was not all expressed in his works: there
was more virtue in him than went out of him. The
exigencies of his condition did not exhaust all the fulness of his divine humanity; the mould was not equal
to the form. He stands in our apprehension immeasurably great behind his works, more honored for what
he was, in our ideal, than for what he did. Most of us,
it is to be hoped, are better than our works. It is to
be hoped there is more goodness in us than appears.
The conduct is a very imperfect exponent of the inner
life. Still, if the inner life is sound and strong, it will
327 
RATIONAL CHRISTIANITY.
sooner or later justify itself in action, and justify the
actor. But the justifying power is not in the act, but
in the faith that produced it. The virtue resides not in
the fruit, but in the tree. You value the trees in your
orchard for their fruit-bearing power, not for the fruit
that hangs on them at the time. That tree must be a
poor one, which is not worth more than its present
crop.
Being before doing,, - this is the interior truth which
lies in the doctrine of salvation by faith. And another
thing is meant by it.  It means,  2. That confidence in salvation, in one's own salvation, is essential to salvation; nay, more, that it is salvation. Does this statement seem questionable? I see
very clearly the abuse that may be made of it; nevertheless, it is the doctrine of Paul, if I rightly understand
him. It is the doctrine of Luther, the best interpreter
of Paul, because interpreting him  out of a kindred
spirit and similar circumstances.
Believe that you are saved, and you are saved. Such
a belief must be the result of an inward experience
which justifies it. But may there not be a false confidence, an overweening pharisaic conceit, like that recorded of the Rabbi Jeremias?  "I saw the sons of
the Feast; they are very few in number.  If there are
a thousand, I and my son are of the number; if a
hundred, I and my son are of the number; if there are
two, I and my son are they." To this I reply, Conceit
is one thing, and belief is another. The faith which this
view supposes is not born of conceit, but of verity.
It is easy to put cases which shall seem to make
the doctrine ridiculous.   There  is Graceless, whom
328 
SAVING FAITH.
we all know, a thorough worldling, selfish, hard,
sensual, mean.   Suppose that Graceless fancies his
salvation sure, is he therefore saved? The presumption
is, that Graceless bestows no thought upon the matter:
but, if he does, you may be sure he feels no such confidence as you suppose; you may be sure that salvation
to him looks very problematical.
There are cases of indifference, - of what may be
called a negative confidence, the taking-for-granted of
ignorance and unbelief. And there are cases in which
the moral life is apparently too feeble to weather the
crisis of death, and survive the dissolution of the mortal
frame. If ever souls so destitute of spiritual life can
recover themselves from the wreck of mortality, if they
are to assume a conscious existence hereafter, it is only
through sore pangs and bitter travail, if at all, that
the moral life can be born  again.   There  are also
cases of superstitious terror, of doubt and despair, experienced by very worthy people, induced by false
religion, where the spirit of adoption and filial trust
has not yet replaced the spirit of bondage and of fear.
All that is disease.  All anxiety about salvation, all
fears about the future, fears of death and judgment to
come, in really good people, in those who love and
seek the right, are morbid affections. The healthy
soul casts off all that. Conscious of right purposes,
believing in God, it never troubles itself about the
hereafter: it commits its future, without misgiving, to
the infinite Father, not doubting that the Power which
has brought us thus far, and kept us hitherto, will be as
near to us in every coming state as here and now, and
equally able and equally willing to guide and to bless.
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RATIONAL CHRISTIANITY.
The perfection of spiritual growth gives us back the
unconsciousness of primitive man, when life flowed on
from its source to its close without question or fear of
the hereafter. I figure to myself a state when this
unconsciousness, like some lost paradise, shall be re gained; when the emancipated spirit, having realized
its own nature by complete development, and having
outgrown the dreary period of self-questioning, shall be
conscious of no obligation, shall never hear the " stern
daughter of the voice of God;" but follow its own
impulse with absolute freedom, and never stray; shall
gravitate to good by divine necessity, and know not
that it is good, and know no merit in seeking it, because
there is no evil in its consciousness with which to contrast it. A seraph at work is a child at play, combining the earnestness of settled purpose with the freshness
of immediate impulse, and the glow of a momentary
mood. Will such an one ask, "What shall I do to
be saved?" WVill the sun desire to know the method
of its shining, or the stars how far to cast their ray;
or the rushing and rejoicing river, the meaning and
purpose of its course?   The emancipated  pirit has
outgrown all questions; it derives its knowledge, not
through the troubled medium of the questioning, groping, prying, doubting intellect, but directly from the
fountain-light of the purified, perfected will.  It knows
by doing, and in knowing does. Knowing, doing,
willing, loving, are no longer the severed and unequal
functions of a halting and distracted life, but one undivided, spontaneous action of a life as serene as the
source from which it flows.
330 
VII.
THE AGE OF GRACE;
OR,
ATONEMENT WITHOUT EXPIATION.  
VII.
ATONEMENT WITHOUT EXPIATION.
"Die Vernichtung der Siinde, dieser alten Last der Menscheit, und alles
Glaubens an Busse und Siihnung, ist durch die Offenbarung des Christenthums eigentlich bewirkt worden. * - NOVALIS.
THE years of the Christian era are technically styled
years "of grace." The term is used without, I suspect,
an adequate cense of the import and fitness of that
designation. The word "grace " - synonymous with
pardoning mercy" -  denotes a special and characteristic trait of the Christian religion; a fundamental distinction between it and other religions. I know of no
other religion in which pardoning mercy forms a constitutive, organic element, -none which assures forgiveness of sins to penitent souls on the simple condition of repentance, and so absolves from the superstitious
fears which other religions connect with the thought
of God and the hereafter.
I find in other religions the principle of propitiation,
which is quite a different thing. When the gods of
* The proper effect of the Christian revelation is the annihilation of
sin,-the ancient burden of humanity, and of all belief in penance and
expiation.
[ 833 ] 
RATIONAL CHRISTIANITY.
the Gentiles were supposed, by their votaries, to be
incensed by neglect or transgression, the only way to
pacify themn, to bring back the averted eye of their
iblessing, was to offer animal sacrifices. So only could
the Powers be propitiated and the sin atoned. Even
this method was not always effectual. The wrath of
the.lumen, as we read in the old myths, would sometimes continue to burn with immitigable fury against
the offender, and even against his remote posterity, as
in the case of " Pelops' line." And, when effectual, the
result was not forgiveness, but expiation; not grace, but
quittance; not pardoning mercy, but satisfied ire. So
the Jehovah of the Hebrews is represented as propitiated
by sin-offerings and trespass-offerings, which the priest
was required to offer with exact and complicated rites
for the sins of the people, that they might be remitted.
For without blood, by the Law of Moses, there was
"no remission."  The writers of the New Testament,
and especially the writer to the Hebrews, transfer this
idea of sacrifice from the old dispensation to the new.
They represent the blood of Christ as the substitute for
the blood of bullocks and of lambs. By such representations they describe the subjective fruits of Christ's
ministry, -of his death as the consummation of that
ministry, - not the objective nature of his work, viewed
in its relation to the Godhead. The language is figurative, not dogmatic.  I see not how any other interpretation could ever have been put upon it by Christians.
Nothing in the history of opinions is more marvellous
than that Christian theologians should fail to see, that
by treating Christ's death as the satisfaction of a debt,
whether in the sacrificial sense of expiation, or the
334 
ATONEMENT WITHOUT EXPIATION.
governmental sense of a shift or compromise, they rule
out of Christianity precisely that which constitutes its
most distinctive feature, - Grace. They reduce it to
the level of the elder religions, in which law and sacrifice
were predominant elements. In what sense can grace
be said to have come with Christ, if the Christian's God,
like the Jew's and the Gentile's, is a Being whose
enmity is provoked by sin, and propitiated by sacrifice?
with this remarkable difference, that, while the Gentile
or Jewish Divinity was alienated from individuals and
tribes, by individual and ancestral transgressions, and
reconciled by the blood of bulls and rams, "the God
and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ" is represented as
alienated from the entire race of man by the moral
infirmity of the first pair, and reconciled only by the
blood of a man.   Surely, on this supposition, the
.Christian's God is less gracious than any other. Instead of living under a dispensation of grace, we are
under a dispensation of inexorable law. Instead of a
Heavenly Father, we have only a Hebrew Jehovah or
Olympian Jove.
The gospel was meant to be a message of glad
tidings: any system of theology which makes it a message of bad tidings, carries falsehood on its face. Its
message is grace; and its grace is peculiar to it,- the
grace of God, which by faith and repentance absolves
from sin, and redeems from the terrors of divine wrath,
which the consciousness of sin awakens in the soul.
Religious terrors are incident to all faiths, and common to all nations. Christianity alone reveals the grace
that delivers from this torment; the perfect love which
casteth out fear.  Let us glance for a moment at other
335 
RATIONAL CHRISTIANITY.
dispensations, and compare them with the gospel in
this particular.
If there is any nation of antiquity which might be
supposed to be exempt from spiritual terrors, it is the
Greeks,- a cheerful people, who seem to have lived
a life of the senses, thoroughly at home, and perfectly
content with this visible world; caring little for any
other; having no faith and no interest in the spiritual,
except a poetic and an artistic one. Such is the character of the Greeks as represented in poetry and art.
But go behind these manifestations, inquire from other
sources the state of mind of the Greeks on the subject
of religion, and you will find that, where atheism had
not neutralized the idea of God, the mind was haunted
by religious fears.   Wherever there was  enough of
belief in Divinity to constitute religion, there was
superstition. A Latin poet praises the atheist Epicurus for being the first to deliver men from this fear.
Atheism, in his view, was the only salvation. Plutarch,
whose writings bring us nearer to the mind of the
ancients than any others, has depicted superstition in
a. way which shows what the terrors of religion must
have been, with no revelation of divine grace to mitigate their gloom. " The victim of spiritual terrors," he
says, " has no hiding-place, no refuge. Polycrates was
the scourge of Samos, and Periander of Corinth; but
one could escape both, and find shelter in some free and
equal government. But he who fears the divine government as an inexorable, implacable tyranny, whither
can he remove, or whither can he flee?  What land or
what sea can he find where God is not? Miserable
man! in what corner of the world canst thou be so
836 
ATONEMENT WITHOUT EXPIATION.
concealed as to think thou hast escaped him? Slaves
are allowed by the law, when despairing of their freedom, to demand another sale, in the hope of obtaining
kinder masters. But superstition allows no change of
gods; and where could he find a god whom he would
not fear, who dreads his father's and his own? A slave
may fly to an altar; and they that are pursued by an
enemy think themselves safe if they can but lay hold
of a statue or shrine: but the superstitious fear and
tremble there most where others, even the most timid,
take courage. Death itself puts no end to this foolish
dread.   It extends its fears beyond the grave;  and,
after the sorrows of this world, looks forward to sufferings that never end.   Then open I know not what
gates of hell from beneath, rivers of fire, Stygian torrents, judges and tormentors, ghastly spectres and
endless woes."
Such was the religion of the most polished nation of
antiquity, in the experience of those who were spiritual
enough to regard religion as any thing more than a
civil institution. It was a religion of fear, in which no
voice of grace spoke comfort to the stricken and tremblirng soul, overwhelmed with the terrors of the invisible.
Still more remarkable is the absence of grace in the
two great systems of Eastern and Southern Asia,Brahmanism and its offspring, Buddhism.   In these
religions every sin is unpardonable, and must be expiated by a separate life in some new state whose conditions are determined by the errors of this. When the
soul is separated from the body by death, it migrates
into some new body, - it may be of a man, or it may
be of a brute,- in which it must bear the penalty of
22
337 
RATIONAL CIRISTIANITY.
some particular sin, committed in some former state.
According to the Buddhist conception, all life is penal.
The life which we lead in this body is charged with the
penalties of past transgressions, of which the soul has
been guilty in unremembered lives antecedent to this;
and the life that now is, has its own transgressions to
be atoned for in lives to come. Thus the soul lasses
from life to life, from body to body; through form after
form, grade after grade, of humanity and animality;
through princes and beggars, and cats and dogs, and
creeping things,- ascending and descending; now soaring into spiritual day, now steeped in thickest night of
sense; still atoning, and sinning and atoning again;
until, after ages of mundane experience, every sin expiated, every blot wiped out, the pilgrim spirit arrives
at last at its destined goal.  And that goal,-the end
of all these wanderings, the fruit of all this discipline,
-  what is it?  Hear, O  Christian! and compassionate
the infinite despair which lurks in the doctrine. Annihilation!  The privilege of non-existence; extinction of
the individual being, absorption in the universal Being;
the soul dissolved in blank unconsciousness, which, if not
absolute annihilation, is personal decease in every practical sense of the term. The gospel says, " The wages
of sin is death;" but the faithful soul "is passed from
death unto life." Buddhism says, "The wages of sin
is life; but the perfect soul passes from life to death.
Life is penance; extinction is salvation.*'
I find in all these religions no sign of pardoning
mervcy, no trace of those ideas so prominent in the gospel,-  the efficacy of repentance, and forgiveness of
sins.
338 
ATONEMENT WITHOUT EXPIATION.
These ideas, it is true, are found in the writings of
the Jewish dispensation; and, although the religion of
Moses is characterized as "law" in contrast with the
grace which came by Christ, the Old Testament contains the nearest approximation. to the gospel, the most
clear and emphatic declarations of forgiveness to be
found in any of the elder religions. "The Lord is
merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and plenteous in
mercy. He will not always chide, neither will he keep
his anger for ever.  He hath not dealt with us after
our sins, nor rewarded us according to our iniquities."
Let the wicked forsake his ways, and the unrighteous
man his thoughts, and turn unto the Lord, and he will
have mercy upon him; and to our God, and he will
abundantly pardon." - "If the wicked will turn from
all his sins that he hath committed, and keep all my
statutes, and do that which is lawful and right, he shall
surely live: he shall not die."
But let it be remembered, that these utterances are
no part of the Mosaic Law; the spirit which they
breathe is not the spirit of Judaism. They are glorious
anticipations rather of the grace that was to come, and
such anticipations as were possible only to a prophet of
the race of Shem; to a Hebrew standing where Moses
stood, and seeing, from the spiritual Sinai to which the
lawgiver had brought his people,- its thunders all
hushed, its blackness and darkness and tempest rolled
away, -more clearly even than Moses saw, the deep
things of God.  Such anticipations were possible  only
to the shepherd-king whose musing youth the Shepherd
God had lodged in the green pastures, and led by the
still waters of his grace, and anointed with the oil of
t
339 
RATIONAL CHRISTIANITY.
gladness above his fellows; to the rapt Isaian, whose
eyes in the midst of "a people of unclean lips" had
, seen the King, the Lord of hosts," and whose mouth
the seraphim had opened with a coal from the altar;
to the brooding exile, to whom, in the land of the
Chaldeans, by the river Chebar, the heavens were
opened.
What was rapt vision, and rare, prophetic apperception, known only to elect and inspired souls, under the
old dispensation, is become the staple and commonplace
of the new.   Christianity is the first and only religion
that teaches forgiveness of sins on the simple ground of
repentance, as a fundamental element of its doctrine.
It is the only religion that makes adequate provision
for the troubled conscience, and redeems from bottomless despair the soul that is penetrated with a poignant
sense of sin.   That  overpowering conviction of sin
which lashes into madness the souls it masters; which
the Greeks impersonated in the fable of the Furies,
that malady was proof against all the remedies of the
ancient religions.  It yields only to the healing grace
of the gospel.
It is true, Christianity enhances the consciousness of
sin.  "I had not known sin," says Paul, "but by the
law."  Not Moses' law merely, but every clear revelation of righteousness, develops this knowledge.   The
clearest revelation of righteousness comes  by Christ;
consequently the profoundest consciousness of sin. No
one who has not experienced conviction of sin, whether
in the way of remorse for actual transgression, or a
general sense of unworthiness, can understand Christianity aright. But the same ministration which causes
340 
ATONEMENT WITHOUT EXPIATION.
the disease supplies also the homceopathic remedy. If
the gospel awakens consciousness of sin, it is also
charged with healing virtue. The soul that is drawn
with reverential faith and love to the manifestation of
perfect love in the Crucified, is made partaker of that
love; it feels itself relieved of its crushing weight: as
the heavy-laden, staggering pilgrim, in the beautiful
fable of Bunyan, when he came at length to a place
"where there stood a cross, and a little below, in the
bottom, a sepulchre, his burden loosed  from off his
shoulders, and fell from off his back, and began to
tumble, and so continued to do till it came to the mouth
of the sepulchre, where it fell in."
The higher the revelation, the clearer the consciousness of sin; but the clearer also, and the fuller, the
absolution.
But is not forgiveness of sins a doctrine of "Natural
Religion" which the common understanding is competent
to discover, and would have discovered without other
illumination?  It is time this phantasm of a " Natural
Religion" were exploded. There is no natural knowledge of divine things, as the word "natural" is commonly understood. WVe can judge of what might be,
only by what has been; and we know that the keenest
and profoundest minds of antiquity did not attain to this
idea.   Plato, in whom, if anywhere, the student of
antiquity might expect to find it, knows  it not.  The
Hebrew prophets alone attained, before Christ, to the
vision of unconditional grace and atonement without
expiation.
But, while we claim for the Christian religion the
peculiarity of a dispensation of grace, it must be con
341 
4RATIONAL CHRISTIANiTY.
fessed that the gospel has not been so received and so
interpreted by the Christian Church. The grace that
was in it was soon forgotten, and overlaid with dogmatic additions and ecclesiastical inventions. It would
seem as if the Church had made it her special aim to
obscure and obliterate this characteristic trait of our
faith,- to assimilate the religion of Jesus to other
religions, by engrafting upon it a sacrificial, expiatory
element entirely foreign to its spirit. So completely
has the Church of Rome misconceived the spirit of Jesus in this particular, that her authorized version of the
Scripture substitutes for the word " Repent," in the
New Testament, the perverse rendering, " Do penance."
"From that time Jesus began to preach, and to say,
Do penance; for the kingdom of God is at hand."
That one word indicates the change from a religion of
faith and grace to a religion of legality and of works.
But this vital truth of the gospel was too deeply rooted
in the heart of Christendom to be quite choked by the
tares of theology, or eradicated by priestly tampering.
The sentiment of the Church re-acted in a very remarkable manner on its doctrine.   The  grace which was
banished from its creed re-appeared in its mythology.
It incarnated itself in the Virgin Mary -the supreme
object of Catholic devotion, more than Christ himself, the divinity adored and implored in the homage
and prayers of the faithful.  The Virgin Mary of the
Roman Church, the Queen of Heaven, the Mother of
God, is a providential embodiment of divine grace.
However we may liken her to the female divinities of
other religions, Phoenician, Egyptian, Hindoo, Greek,
with all of which undoubtedly she has some affinity,
342 
ATONEMENT WVITHOUT EXPIATION.
the most zealous Protestant must confess that the
Christian goddess represents a character, expresses an
idea, entirely distinct and infinitely removed from any
conception embodied in any other religion. It is not
beauty, nor wisdom, nor purity alone, nor even the
union of virginity and maternity, - however peculiar to
Christian mythology,- that Mary represents;  but the
infinite grace of God, stooping down to human infirmities and sins; raining pity from eyes of love on the erring and abandoned, on the slave of sense and the victim
of passion; the exorable mother of the inexorable, coming between the sinner and the law, softening the
terrors of absolute rule, -directing the applications of
abstract justice, making justice but means to an end, -
the means remedial, the end salvation.
I say, this embodiment was providential. It fulfilled an important office to the Christianized Pagan in
an age that must of necessity have other objects of
worship beside the Supreme. It was the most effectual,
if not the only way, in which the idea of divine grace
could be presented to the unreflecting mind of the time.
I believe that this benign form has often stood between
the sinner and despair. Often, in sorrow and perplexity
and imminent peril, prayer to the Virgin, and faith in
the Virgin's intercession, has sustained the sinking soul
when the thought of the infinite God was too awful
and too remote for support. The Mother seemed so
much nearer and more real than the Son! The devout
Catholic instinctively flew to her in all time of trial, as
the child flies to its natural mother for relief.
Protestantism purged religion of idolatry; but it
failed, in its early stages, to replace the image of the
L343 
RATIONAL CHRISTIANITY.
Virgin with any adequate representation of divine
grace in its creed. Protestantism, in some of its communions, developed the ideas of Expiation and Vicarious Satisfaction and Propitiation of divine wrath, with
such bleak emphasis, with such unrelenting rigor, as to
dissipate the idea of grace more effectually than even
Romanism had done; and to give us, instead of an
evangile or message of glad tidings, a bloody cartel of
vengeance and of doom.
But one thing, Protestantism has done, for which
Christendom owes it everlasting thanks. It has restored the written word. It has given us the Scriptures, and with them the way of escape from its own
entanglements. It uncovered the well of divine truth
on which twelve centuries had piled their traditions;
and, though the spring was troubled at first by the process, and reflected only distorted images, there have
not been wanting-Heaven  be praised!-persistent
spirits who stayed by the waters, and gazed till the
troubling angel had passed away; and then saw in the
crystal depths a human image, and the sun-grace of
God, and the pure, unfathomable heavens bending over,
serenely inviting, and ready to embrace.
Grace is the innermost sense and soul of the Christian revelation; the Alpha and Omega of the "New
Covenant;" the hidden pearl of the parable, for which,
when found, the theologian is willing to, give up all his
theology.  A  false theology has long ignored it; but
it could not remain for ever concealed. May its lustre
become ever more apparent to Christian faith, until the
Church of the Crucifixion, which has hitherto prevailed
in the Christian world, shall be replaced by a Church of
II
344 
ATONEMENT WITHOUT EXPIATION.
the Resurrection! And as Christendom has borne in its
body "the dying of the Lord Jesus" in its doctrine of
Expiation, so may "the life also of Jesus be manifest"
in its future grateful recognition of a grace without
expiation!
345
40 
a 
VIII.
THE "DOUBLE PREDESTINATION." 
* 
VIII.
THE " DOUBLE PREDESTINATION."
THE first glance at society discovers a vast inequality
in the outward condition of men. A second and nearer
view reveals a less portentous, yet very considerable,
difference in human desert, or what we call desert,a difference in the moral character and life.   If the
former of these differences exactly corresponded with
the latter; if high and low, rich and poor, fortunate
and unfortunate, happy and wretched, were identical
with moral good and moral evil, -these contrasts would
not much trouble us. To the greater part of mankind,
they would seem quite natural and proper: the why
and wherefore of them to most minds would present no
difficulty. The common judgment would be, that some
are righteous, having chosen righteousness, and therefore deservedly blest; and that others are wicked,
having chosen wickedness, and therefore deservedly
wretched.
But if any should consider the matter more curiously,
and inquire more minutely into the causes of that moral
difference which has wrought  this difference of outward condition, to such the common answer, that the
[349] 
RATIONAL CHRISTIANITY.
good and evil have chosen respectively to be what they
are, would not suffice. A further question would suggest itself: "Why have they chosen thus? why have
they not rather all chosen what is best, and will bring
the greatest satisfaction?"   And  if to this it were
answered, "These have chosen thus because they were
wise, and those have chosen otherwise Uecause they
were foolish," a new question would immediately arise,
Why were these wise, and those foolish?"  And the
answer to that question would carry the inquirer beyond the actors themselves, and beyond the present
condition of society, back, and still back, from circumstance to circumstance, and from generation to generation,-  back to the first man.   And here a portion of
these inquirers would halt. The first man, they would
say, explains every thing. The first man had it all in
his power,- the future history of the race, the character and condition of all his successors.   He made a
mistake; he did the wrong thing; and all his posterity
have contracted a taint from his guilt, and inherit from
his fall an irresistible proclivity to evil, by which they
slide to sure destruction, excepting those whom God
by his grace shall see fit to elect, and snatch from the
common doomin..
But some there would be who would not stop here.
They would ask again, "What possessed the first man
to blunder so foully, consigning himself and his offspring
to everlasting death? Something must have ailed him
to choose as he did." They would seek the reason of
his mistake in his constitution; which was not made
proof against such folly; that is, they would seek it in
the author of that constitution. They would go beyond
350 
THE " DOUBLE PREDESTINATION."
the first man, and never stop till they reached the
First Cause, and would stop there only because they
must; because the will of God is the adamantine boundary-wall of the mind, which no wit can penetrate,
and which no imagination can scale.
In thus describing the natural and probable course 
of inquiry concerning the differences in the nature and
condition of men, I have indicated the actual history
of the doctrine of " Election," or rather of " Predestination," which includes "Election" as one of its terms,
and includes - Reprobation" as the other.
It is true, the conditions of the problem are not precisely such as I have supposed. The difference in the
outward condition of men does not exactly correspond
with the differences in their moral nature.- Moral good
and temporal good, moral and temporal evil, are by no
means identical or commensurate, the one with the
other. Prosperity and vice are sometimes conjoined,
and righteousness is sometintes wedded to adversity.
But all this, in the eye of theology, is very superficial
and transient. The doctrine of Predestination overlooks all this as insignificant; it takes its stand in
eternity, and sees there a portentous and overwhelming
difference in the human condition. It sees an eternal
state of outward blessedness on the one hand, and of
outward misery on the other, corresponding with and
compensating moral good and evil.
In the system of religion received by our fathers,
originating with Augustine in the fifth century, developed by Gottschalk in the ninth, revived by Calvin in
the sixteenth, and consummated by Edwards in the
eighteenth, -that system which once reigned in thlis
351 
(
RATIONAL CHRISTIANITY.
country with despotic sway, which overshadowed the
New England of the Puritans, and in the shadow of
which many now living were born and bred,- in that
system the doctrine of Predestination maintained a con  spicuous place. It was held, that God had chosen a
* limited portion of the human race to be for ever blessed;
that he chose them before they were born, while as yet
they existed only in idea;. chose them from all eternity,
and without regard to any future and foreseen merit
on their part;  chose them of his own  free grace,
undetermined by any quality in the object, or by any
consideration out of himself; chose them by an act of
irresponsible, absolute will. And this will was irre  sistible. No one who was fore-ordained to eternal life
could fail of his destination, or forfeit the blessedness in
store for him, through any slip or fault of his own. He
might sin as other men sin, but his sin would do him no
mortal harm.  His "effectual calling" would triumph
over all the defects of his-nature, and all the evil of his
life, and carry him to heaven in spite of himself by the
final perseverance" of divine grace.
There is nothing revolting to the moral sense in the
doctrine thus far. Had it never been developed beyond
this point, or if nothing more were implied in it, it
would have had no stronger objection to encounter than
its want of foundation in the universal consciousness,
and its want of support from the Scripture. This is the
favorable side of the doctrine, " Jacob have I loved."
Some modern theologians have pretended that it goes
no farther, and involves nothing more; that all men are
capable of attaining that which the elect are sure of
attaining. All are called, if few are chosen. All are
352 
THE " DOUBLE PREDESTINATION."
filrnished with the requisite means and opportunities,the only difference being, that some are left to win the
prize by the unaided exercise of their own powers,
while others are goaded to it by an irresistible compulsion, stronger than their own wills, and than all the
powers of a hostile world. But this was not the doctrine held by the fathers. That doctrine had a dark
and  repulsive  side, -  "Esau  have  I hated."   The
Church could not fail, in the course of her inquiry, to
discover, that predestination and extraordinary action of
divine grace are superfluous, if every man, by the
ordinary pourers of his nature, is capable of attaining
that for the sake of which this special action is put forth.
The doctrine, as consummated in the formularies of the
ninth century, was, that every-man who attains to everlasting life does so by a special act of grace, electing
him thereto; and that no man attains to it who is not
so elected.   It follows, that the elective grace is an
exclusive grace.   In the act of choosing a part, is
included the act of rejecting the rest. And since it
is undeniable that God might have elected the whole
race, as well as a part, - no respect being had to the
qualities and claims of the chosen, - it follows further,
that Predestination is as much an act of hostility to
the many who are excluded, as it is of favor to the few
who are chosen. Again, the Church was too acute
not to see, that what God alone can prevent, and does
Inot prevent, that he ordains. If none can be saved
without the special election of God, then every one who
is not elected is condemned by him to endless misery.
Hence the horrible doctrine of the "Double Predestination" (preedestinatio duplex), taught by Gottschalk, and
23
353
I 
RATIONAL CHRISTIANITY.
confirmed by the Synod of Valence in 855, -  the doc trine of Calvin and Edwards.
Do-lble Predestination includes Reprobation as well
as Election. Reprobation is the other side, the com plement of Election; the latter is incomnplete without
the former. Reprobation means that a large portion
of the human race are foredoomed, for no fault of their
own, by the arbitrary will of God, to endless misery.
I say, by no fault of their own. The guilt contracted
by the sin of the first man was assigned as the reason
and justification of this decree. But the reason is no
reason at all, so far as the justice of God is concerned.
A  thorough inquiry will not stop, and did not stop,
with the sin of the first man. It demands, and de manded, the cause of that sin, the reason of its permission, the justification of a liability in which such
portentous consequences were involved. Besides, Reprobation is not the necessary consequence of hereditary
sin: if it were, then none could be saved.   If God
could elect some to be saved in spite of that sin, then
he could elect all to be saved in spite of it. And if he
did not, then Reprobation was purely an act of arbitrary will, undetermined by moral considerations.
After some vacillation of opinion,  St.  Augustine
denied all efficacy to the human will, and ascribed the
work of salvation to God alone, whose grace and election are entirely independent of any merit or quality in
the subject.  In other words, he maintained an absolute
Predestination. His antagonist, Pelagius, starting from
different premises and reasoning from a different experience, maintained, on the contrary, the power of all
men to become good and holy. The Church decided in
354 
THE " DOUBLE PREDESTINATION."
favor of Augustine, and the doctrine of Pelagius was
repudiated as heresy.   Augustine, however, did not
consummate the doctrine of Predestination. His opinion
was rather a practical than a speculative principle. After the lapse of three hundred years, the discussion was
revived by a German monk, -a man of subtler intellect,
if less elevated nature, than Augustine, who applied the
principle of Predestination not merely, as heretofore, to
the good, but also to the wicked. The one, he maintained, follows necessarily from the other. If a portion
of the race are predestined to salvation, the rest are as
certainly predestined to damnation. This Double Predestination was finally adopted by the Church.   It was
re-affirmed by Calvin after the Reformation, and carried out to its last results by Jonathan Edwards, who
frankly admits that the doctrine makes God the author
of sin.
There is something sublime in the uncompromising
and inexorable consistency of this doctrine, and in the
heroic disregard of consequences with which those who
taught it carried out their reasoning, and pursued their
principle to its final and legitimate result. And tley
seemed to find a ground and warrant for their doctrine
the sacred books.   "For whom he did foreknow, he
also did predestinate.... Moreover, whom he did predestiniate, them he also called." There is a kind of election affirmed in the New Testament.   Christians are
called the  elect of God."  They seemed to be singled
out from the rest of mankind, and made the recipients
of peculiar and exclusive privileges and blessings. This
election is justified by Paul, who finds a precedent for
it in IHebrew history, in the case of Jacob and Esau.
355 
RATIONAL CHRISTIANITY.
Before Jacob and Esau were born, consequently without regard to the character of either, it was ordained
that the elder should serve the younger. "The children
being not yet born, neither having done any good or
evil, that the purpose of God, according to election
might stand, not of works, but of him that willeth."
"As it is written, Jacob have I loved, and Esau  have
I hated." That is, according to the true rendering of
the Hebrew idiom, Jacob have I preferred before Esau,
and distinguished with peculiar blessings.
HIere was an instance of actual Iredestination or
Election in the world's history.   It stands forth the
representative of many others, -an instance of what
has been in the world's history, and what is still, - an
example of preference and divine favor wholly irrespective of personal merit.  Jacob is no better than Esau;
in many respects he is worse, - cunning, perfidious; a
man entitled to no preference on the score of merit; and
yet he is preferred. HIe is wade inheritor of the promises; he is placed in the line of divine communications;
through him is transmitted the Abrahamic blessing,
while his brother is set aside,-  ignoble head of an
inferior line.
St. Paul adduces this instance, by way of precedent,
to illustrate God's method in the distribution of civl
blessings. It was an instance of what was then taking
place in the election of those who were called to be
disciples of Christ.   Christians were called without
regard to any previous claim, - Gentile and Jew,
those who had performed the works of the law, and
those who were without the law, -that the elective
purpose " might stand, not of man's works, but of God's
356 
THE  DOUBLE PREDESTINATION."
will." -"For he saith to Moses,'I will have mercy on
whom I will, and compassion on whom I will.' So,
then, it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that run neth, but of God, that zhoweth mercy."  This was the
order of Providence then, and this is the order of
Providence now. God's government is not a system
of equality as it regards the privileges and blessings
enjoyed by different orders of men: on the contrary,
it is a system of seeming partiality, -so far as we
can see, of arbitrary election;  that is, an election
entirely irrespective of the qualities and claims of the
chosen, and undetermined by any law intelligible to
us. All creatures have by nature an equal claim on
the Universal Love; all are children of one Father;
but how different the rank assigned to them in his
household! One is created an angel, another is created
a worm. Or, confining ourselves within the limits of
the human family, some are elected to the highest culture and the noblest works of which human nature is
capable; others are condemned to life-long ignorance
and vice.
Observe this election on the large historic scale, as
manifested in the lot of nations. One nation is set in
the van of humanity, nurtured in Christian schools and
churches, and blest with every advantage of moral
and scientific culture; another is overshadowed by
gloomy superstitions, and crushed by inexorable despo'tism. Compare our Protestant Christendom of to-day
with the polities of some rude Polynesian tribe, and
lbarn how wide the scope and how vast the distinction
embraced in the scheme of divine election, as applied to
nations.
357
4 
RATIONAL CHRISTIANITY.
But the fact and import of this election are most
striking when we view it in its application to individuals.
Suppose two  souls, two  individual entities, not yet
incorporated in human frames; existing as yet only in
the vision and will of the parent Mind.   Both are equal
in the sight of God; neither possesses any claim above
the other, "being not yet born," as the apostle says;
neither having done any good or evil." What shall
be the calling and destination respectively of these two
fouls? The one shall be launched into life in a civilized land, illumined by the light of the gospel, ennobled
by science, adorned by art, rich in historic traditions,
rich in sacred memories, abounding in the means of culture, affording scope and supplying motive to the nobler
faculties of mind and heart. It shall draw its earliest
nurture from the bosom of Christian parents, and come
forth taught and stimulated by sages and poets and
heroes and saints, imbued with all human learning, instituted in all useful arts.' The other shall be cast on a
savage shore, among savage children of the desert, in
some unexplored island of the Indian Ocean, or some
African wild, neighbor to the tiger and the ape; where
hopeless night broods over the mind, and God's truth is
quenched in thick superstition which not a ray of the
everlasting light can pierce; where no science is learned
but that which  teaches the fingers to fight, no  art
acquired but that of fashioning and handling the bow
and the spear, no calling known but that of violence,
and no good pursued but the gross satisfactions of
appetite and lust.  Or, again, the one shall be lodged in
a sickly and deformed frame, and crawl through life with
labor and sorrow, and a crushing sense of inferiority;
358 
THE "DOUBLE PREDESTINATION."
the other shall incarnate itself in strength and beauty,
and, with full command of its powers, rejoice in the
buoyancy of perfect health, - every sinew tense, and
every nerve in tune,- a body worthy to be the temple
of the Lord. Yet, again, the one shall be born into the
lap of wealth and social refinement, born to high station
and command; the other shall enter humanity by the
way of penury and want and grovelling vice, and see
no way open but that of shame and guilt. These are
no imaginary differences, but well-known and familiar
facts. They present a curious theme for contemplation,
when we think what a different value life is likely to
have for individuals so divided in the circumstances of
their lot.  But they assume a more serious aspect,these inequalities, if we attempt to trace their consequences in the moral destiny of those who are thus
distinguished. Consider the influence of circumstance
on character. Suppose two youths just entering the
world, -the one a child of intelligent Christian parents,
well circumstanced, able and willing to give their offspring such an education as shall best secure his moral
well-being; the other sprung from the bosom of want
and vice in some squalid den of a populous city, brought
up in the daily contemplation of evil examples, - every
known influence that acts upon him unfavorable to
moral growth. What are likely to be the lives of these
two subjects? Let any one attempt from these elements
to calculate their future history; what will he predict?
For the one, a useful and honorable career, life-long
progress in well-doing; for the other, a life of infamy
and shame, constant declension into gulf after gulf of
depravity and ruin. But this is not all; it is not the
I
359 
RATIONAL COIRISTIANITY.
worst: it might seem to be the least and most favorable
part of the calculation. We are taught that the con sequences of our actions extend beyond this mortal
world; that this life delivers us over to another, like this
in its moral conditions, subject to the same law, taking
up and carrying on the same process of development;
that the next world finds us as this world leaves us:
he that leaves this with pure habits, unspotted by sin,
enters a circle of pure spirits, and engages himself to
eternal purity hereafter; he that leaves it in sin, in sin
begins his future course; and every step which he takes
in that course, binds him to inextricable entanglements
of guilt and woe, and renders his recovery more difficult and doubtful. So that, for aught that we can see,
the eternal destiny of a human soul may be determined
by the accident of his earthly condition. According to
the circumstances of his birth, he might seem to be
fore-ordained to eternal life, or foredoomed to endless
woe. And is not this the very election and predestination which the fathers taught; put in a different shape,
deduced by a different process from different premises,
but the same in substance and effect? So it would
seem; and it may be that some such contemplation of
the facts of life, some deep impression of the huge
inequalities of the human condition, lay at the foundation
of the old doctrine, or was intimately connected with it.
But this view of life, so far as the happiness and moral
destiny of the individual are concerned, is a mere illusion, a fallacy, which confounds the certainty of the
facts observed with the certainty of the inferences from
them.  The facts are certain; the inferences are merely
plausible, and will not bear examination. The election
360 
THE  DOUBLE PREDESTINATION."
affirmed in the New Testament is election only as to
means and opportunities and external condition. And
this is not a theory, but a fact; an election actually
observed; a matter of history.   But this is all.  The
distinction goes no further than outward advantages
and blessings. No other election is taught in the Scripture, no other is inferrible from the facts of life. A
closer examination will show that this election is quite
superficial; it does not touch the interior life.' It does
not affect, or does not necessarily affect, in the way
supposed, the happiness or moral destiny of the chosen
or rejected.   Happiness and character may  bear  an
inverse ratio to circumstance. The most favorable, as
we reckon, may prove the least so.
1. As it regards happiness, who that has studied
human nature and human life does not know that happiness is a thing which defies calculation? It is found
in greatest abundance there where there seemed least
reason to expect it. It has nothing to do with circumstances. It would even seem as if a kind God, by way
of compensation, had bestowed most of it there where
circumstances are most forbidding; so that the poorer
and the more degraded a man's condition, provided the
poverty and degradation are native, and not a reverse
of fortune, the happier he is; and, on the other hand,
the higher we ascend in the scale of life, the more
thoughtful, serious, ay, the more sad, life becomes.
Indeed, I figure to myself the blessedness ascribed to
higher natures, the blessedness of heaven, to be very
different from what we call happiness, - as far from glee
as from mourning. A divine compensation is for ever
equalizing the human condition, reconciling its opposite
361 
RATIONAL CHRISTIANITY.
extremes, and awarding to each individual, in his inteiors, so much and no more of secret satisfaction as his
own consciousness enables and entitles him to receive,
without respect to circumstance or person.   When the
tide rushes inland,~every channel is flooded; the river
which bears a thousand tons on its bosom is no fuller
than the creek on which the schoolboy launches his
mimic  craft.   When  the dew of heaven  distils, all
plants pairtake of the blessing, -the vilest weed that lifts
its despised head above the soil, as well as the queenly
rose and the trellised vine. And the mercy of God is
that tide and that dew which floods and blesses all,
both small and great, both splendid and vile, with its
equal and impartial largess.  Nothing is more delusive
than to judge of another's consciousness by his visible
condition. Do you wonder how the beggar, the prisoner, the slave, the maimed and diseased, can endure
the burden of being; or whence, in their hard estate,
they derive so much of satisfaction as the heart requires
to maintain its life? - ask where the berry in the arid
rock-cleft, with its minimum of earth and moisture,
finds the sweetness that circulates in its veins? - ask
whence the flower that springs fromm,corruption gets its
spotless raiment and its balmy breath?- ask whence
the pearl-fish, in the unsunned darkness of the deep,
derives the rainbow hues that paint the walls of its cell?
The heart is a chemist, more subtile than berry or
flower or pearl. In the hardest and most arid conditions it will find some nurture. If the world of its
surrounding  yields nothing, it will push  its  roots
through into another, and draw in heaven by the mighty attraction of a mighty need.
362 
THE " DOUBLE PREDESTINATION."
Happiness is not confined to the favored of fortune.
Jacob may be preferred before Esau; but Jacob is not
therefore the happier man. The actual, historical Jacob of the Old Testament, we know, was not. Turn to
the record, and see. He triumphed over his brother;
but his triumph had a root of bitterness which avenged
its wrong.  He stole a blessing; but a curse went with
it. He was doomed to be most sorely afflicted there
where chiefly he had garnered his heart and hope; and
he spoke the bitterness of his soul when he said, "Few
and evil have been the years of my pilgrimage."  On
the other hand, Esau may be postponed and cast out,
but not therefore for ever miserable. What did the
Esau of history when he found himself defrauded of his
rights?  "He cried with an exceeding bitter cry, and
said unto his father,'Bless me also, even me, O my
father!' And he said,'Thy brother came with subtlety, and hath taken away thy blessing.' And he said,
'Hast thou not reserved a blessing for me?  Hast thou
but one blessing, my father? Bless me also, even me."'
This is the cry which still goes up from the poor, the
injured, the oppressed, to the mercy-seat. "Bless me
also, even me also, O my Father! Though poor and
vile, let not me be excluded from a share in the general
joy."   And the prayer is heard.   The  Father  has
other blessings besides outward distinctions and the
prizes of the world. He opens a compensating fountain
of joy in the heart of the desolate, over which the world
has no power, and entertains it with the hope of deliverance: "And it shall come to pass when thou shalt
have the dominion, that thou shalt break thy brother's
yoke from off thy neck."  So much fol-he influence of
circumstance on happiness.
363
It 
ATION  CRISTIITY.
RATIONAL CHRISTIANITY.
2. As it regards the character and moral destiny of
the individual, these two are less affected. by thIe inequalities of fortune- that is, they are less affected by
adverse circumstances - than we are apt to suppose.
There is a superficial morality induced by prosperous
fortunes,- a correctness of deportment; an external
decorum which cannot be too highly prized in its social
bearings, but which has no relation, or an inverse one,
to the inner man, - which is not the fruit of the heart,
but its covering. So there is a superficial depravity
induced by adverse circumstances, a contempt of law
and social conventions, an external flagitiousness, which
looks bad, and which society must punish in self-defence,
but which does not necessarily involve any great depravity of heart. Many a one who leads a profligate
life, from having been "to the manner born," may be
less infected with sin in the core of his heart, than a
hundred others of decent reputation all around him.
Jesus, who knew what was in man, who could see murder and adultery in the heart, beneath a canonical robe,
and who could see a soul of goodness in the fallen prostitute, told the wealthy and respectable Pharisees of his
day, "Behold, the publicans and the harlots go into the
kingdom of heaven before you." The moral w6rth and
the moral destiny of men are not determined by the
means of moral culture, allotted or withheld, or the
manners corresponding thereto; but by somnething in
the heart, which only God can see; by a certain proportion, which only God can estimate, between the means
and the life.
But suppose a deeper corruption of the moral nature,
instead of this superficial depravity. Suppose the vic
364 
THE " DOUBLE PREDESTINATION."
tim of adverse fortune to have sinned, not only against
social conventions, but against the witness in the heart,
and to have perished in the midst of his sins.  What
right have we to limit the redeeming power of God to
the present life, or to think that, because the requisite
means of reformation have not been afforded in this
world, they will not be afforded hereafter? For that
very reason, that this life has not furnished them,
there must be some state that will. There must be
some provision in the immeasurable future, some crisis
there must be in the history of that soul, which shall
reach its necessity, and place before it the same opportunties of moral culture which Heaven has vouchsafed
to the most favored in this world. So, too, I can see
no reason why the character which has never been sorely
tempted in this world may not be so tempted in some
future state: on the contrary, I see every reason to
suppose that it will.  That virtue is of little worth,
it can never be a heaven and a fountain of life to the
soul, -which has not been tried to the uttermost point
of endurance. Somewhere in the course of its history,
every soul must enjoy the means of grace; and, somewhere in the course of its history, every soul must be
tried with fire.
An equal Love has ordained the inequalities of life.
Esau is as dear to God as Jacob. He loves the wild
Ishmaelite as well as the polished Israel of the old covenant or the new, the vagabond and the outlaw as well
as the saint.  Meanwhile, these inequalities are lessons
to us of courage, and patience, and gratitude, and
trust. They teach reliance on the Wisdom that arranges
the conditions of life, allotting to each the portion most
365 
RATIONAL CHRISTIANITY.
needful for the discipline of each, whether prosperous
or adverse; they admonish us to make the most of our
position by brave endeavors to meet its requirements,
by patient endurance of its evil, and by free communication of its good.
366 
IX.
THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF IMMORTALITY. 
0 
IX.
THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF IMMORTALITY.
"Dust and clay,
Man's ancient wear,
Here you must stay,
But I elsewhere! "- VATUGHAN.
IT is commonly supposed, that the doctrine of a future
life is one of the specialties of the Christian revelation.
Gibbon ascribes to it, among other causes, the early conquests of the gospel. But had the historian been challenged to produce from the gospel record the statement
of this doctrine, in clear and explicit terms, as a universal spiritual truth, embracing the whole family of
man in its import and application, he would have been
at a loss to recall a proposition answering to his own
impression of the place which that doctrine occupies in
the Christian scheme.  Had he turned to the New T'estament to refresh his knowledge of its teachings on this
subject, he would have found the resurrection of Christ
asserted by all the four Gospels, pervading the Acts of
the Apostles with its glad report, and enlivening the
Epistles with its heavenly promise.  But a critical ex                         24                -[ 369] 
RATIONAL CHRISTIANITY.
amination would have shown him, that the promise was
bounded in its application by the household of faith,
and had no validity in the apprehension of the writers
of the New Testament beyond those bounds; that when
Jesus says, "Because I live, ye shall live also," he is
thinking only of his own; and that Paul had only believers in view when he wrote, "As in Adam all die, so
in Christ shall all be made alive." He would find the
immortality of the soul, as a universal psychological
fact, if seemingly intimated, nowhere explicitly declared.
I recall, at this moment, but two passages in which that
doctrine is even intimated. One is that saying of Jesus,
in which he deduces the fact of a future life from the
phrase, "The God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob."
"God is not a God of the dead, but of the living; for
all live unto him."  A most noteworthy saying!   All
live unto him." The world of past generations is not a
charnel, or world of dust, but a world of life and
thought, of energy and love. The Spirit of.God strikes
through it and enfolds it no less than our human world
of to-day. The other instance which occurs to me is a
passage in the well-known 15th chapter of 1st Corinthians, " If there be no resurrection of the dead, then is
Christ not risen; " words which represent the truth of
the resurrection of Christ as depending on the general
fact of a resurrection, - which make it a particular instance under a general law.
Elsewhere in the New Testament, so far as I remeinmber, the future life is regarded, not as a natural event,
- a consequence resulting from the nature of the soul,
-but as something achieved by faith, or communicated
by God through Christ.
370 
THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF IMMORTALITY.    371
Thus envisaged, the doctrine of a life to come unquestionably occupied a large place, and constituted an
active ingredient, in the consciousness of the early
Church. You can hardly open the New Testament
without lighting on some allusion to it, or some hint of
the speedy coming of the Son of Man, whose advent
was to raise his departed followers from the dead.
The Church of that age, still glowing with the recent
Sun which rose on the first great Easter morning with
a right ascension, and, it may be, still ascends, appears
to have lost the consciousness of death. For Christians
it did not exist. They might "fall asleep in Christ," as
Paul termed it, but only to "be caught up with him in
the clouds." Their sun of life might decline, but only
as the sun of the arctic midsummer skirts an horizon
where evening and morning club their splendors to furnish an unbroken day. In their horizon there was no
dissolution of the continuity of life. Day blossomed
into day, mortal was swallowed up in immortality.
Friends who had seemed to depart, putting off this corruptible, came beaming back, and swelled the cloud of
immortal witnesses that filled the Christian's heaven.
Believers felt that they had come "to an innumerable
company of angels;" that there was but one "family in
earth and heaven;" and one of them was bold enough
to say, that Christ had "abolished death."
These heats could not last; the vision faded; the
senses resumed their sway, doubt returned, and death
ireturned; and, even within the covers of the New Testament, we hear the complaint, "Where is the promise
of his coming? for, since the fathers fell asleep, all
things continue as they were from the beginning of cre
46 
RATIONAL CHRISTIANITY.
ation." We cannot, in our age, appropriate with the
fervor of young Christendom the brave saying, that
Christ has " abolished death;" but this we may say,
that the modern Christian world is possessed with a better view of the future of the soul, and a better hope,
than the ancient.  The ancients believed in a life to
come; but it was not the hereafter contemplated by the
Christian. The difference between the two is fitly expressed by the word "resurrection; " understanding by
that term, not the resuscitation of the mortal body, but
the resurrection of the soul from Hades. The state of
the departed, as conceived by the ancients,- except for
the few who were raised to the fellowship of the gods,
- was no improvement on this present life. It was
human life relieved, indeed, in the case of the good, from
mortal cares and pains; but still occupied, in a dim and
dreamy way, with earthly pleasures and pursuits. Its
locality was not like the Christian's heaven, the dwelling-place of divinity; it was not above, but below, in
the bowels of the earth, or in distant isles of the sea,
from which there was no return. With all its delights,
which were mostly sensual, it was still a prison; at best,
a peaceful asylum whose inmates lived in the past, and
dreamed over again the scenes of their mortality, with
no  development  and no progress, -  an  after-shine
of the sun that was set, or pensive moonlight, not a
new day.  The  Christian hereafter is Plesurrection;
that is, spiritual new-birth, life more abundant, intenser
action, endless progress, - the mortal life quickened
into life eternal.
I am speaking of the Christian ideal of the future destiny. A very different thing is the Church doctrine of
372 
THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF IMMORTALITY.   373
the life to come. The doctrine of the Church, in most
of its communions, is that of a bodily resurrection,- a
simultaneous resurrection of all the dead at the end of
the world, accompanied by a general judgment, which
shall fix the condition of each soul for all coming time.
The state of the departed previous to that event is a
question on which different communions hold very different opinions. The Church of Rome affirms the existence of an intermediate spiritual world, in which all
but the saints are confined until the general resurrection.
The doctrine of Protestant sects in relation to this point
-of those, I mean, which hold the resurrection of the
body, and do not admit the intermediate world - is
painfully confused and wavering. The more consistent
among  them suppose that the soul exists in an unconscious state; that it sleeps with the body until with the
body it is raised at the last day. This is the view embodied  in the popular hymn,
"Unveil thy bosom, faithful tomb!
Take this new treasure to thy trust."
Others conceive that the disembodied spirit enters at
once on a state of happiness or misery, according to its
character and life in the flesh,- a view which nullifies
the point and significance of the doctrine of a bodily
resurrection and the general judgment, by making both
seem ridiculously superfluous. For, if the soul can exist'for ages, and fulfil the conditions of a moral agent
without a body, why should the perished body be revived and re-annexed? And, if it has already reaped
the reward of its deeds, of what use the verdict after
the award? 
RATIONAL CHRISTIANITY.
This diversity and confusion in the doctrine of the
Church is due, in part, to the conflict of views represented in the New Testament itself, and the vain attempt
to combine in one theory the civil and personal elements
in these representations, -the passages relating to the
great historical crisis in huinan society, and passages
relating to individual destiny. It is impossible, I believe, to deduce from the Scriptures of the New Testament a doctrine of the life to come, which shall fit all
the texts and satisfy all the requirements of the subject;
which shall harmonize the Apocalyptic vision of the
"new earth" and the New  Jerusalem upon  it, with
Paul's conception of being raised from the dead and
caught up into the clouds to dwell with the Lord in the
air; which shall harmonize any doctrine of final resurrection with the words of Jesus to the thief on the cross,
This day shalt thou be with me in Paradise."
Whilst the doctrine of the Orthodox Church, mistaking the import of the resurrection, and substituting
a bodily rising for a spiritual one, perverts and degrades
the Christian idea, the popular belief in those communions which reject the dogmatic impositions of Orthodoxy is false to the moral aspects of that idea, in
supposing that immortality is the natural heritage of
man,- that man is born to it as the sparks fly upward; that life eternal is the sure destination of every
soul; that for every soul the attainment of the highest
and best is only a question of time; in other words,
that in every human animal, not only the possibility but
the fact of a spiritual man is enfolded. This representation wears, to the superficial thought, an aspect of
plausibility which vanishes on closer inspection. What
374 
THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF IMVIORTALITY.   375
is gained in diffusion is lost in depth. What is gained
in popularity is lost in aspiration. On its Godward
side, the Universalist doctrine embodies a precious and
momentous truth; to wit, the impartiality and limitless
scope of divine love. On its human side, it errs in not
recognizing the proprieties and fatalities of the individual soul.
The Christian idea of immortality is essentially a
moral idea. Only the moral and spiritual in man is
supposed by it to be capable of resurrection; whatsoever is not concluded in that category is mortal. So I
interpret that saying of Faul, " As in Adam all die, so
in Christ shall all be made alive."
Adam and Christ represent respectively different sides
of human nature,- different phases or principles -in
man,- the natural (or animal), which is mortal; the
spiritual, which is immortal. VWe cannot say, that the
spiritual in man, as source and ground of everlasting
life, originated, historically speaking, with Christ; that
before the Christian era there was no spiritual, eternal
life. By Christ we must here understand, not the historical, but the eternal Christ, the ideal man, the divine
man.   What is put chronologically, we must understand spiritually. " In Christ shall all be made alive."
In Christ all are made alive. In and through the
spirit which Christ represents, man is made partaker of
eternal life; all men -whether nominally Christians,
or whatsoever name they bear; whether contemporary
with Jesus, or ages after or ages before - who partake
in that spirit, in the degree in which they partake of it.
Immortality is a thing of degrees. All souls are
immortal in some sense; none are utterly annihilated at 
RATIONAL CHRISTIANITY.
death. Even animal souls are not annihilated, but survive, with unknown conditions, the dissolution of the
bodily frame. I assume the existence of the entity
called "soul," and that what we so name is not, as some
have pretended, the result of organism, but rather the
foundation and, cause of organism,- the central force
of the system it inhabits. The greater this central
force, the more perfect the organization, the more immortal the soul, though, perhaps, the more mortal
the body. In animals of a low type, the weakness of
the central principle is compensated by increased vitality
of the members.  Instead ofa single regent soul, these
forms are pervaded by a general diffusive life, or multiplicity of inferior, unconscious souls, distributed equally
throuTgh the whole economy.   The unconscious vitality
is great, even to the reproduction of perished members; 
but the individual, voluntary energy is small. The snail
and the earthworm, it is probable, do not define their
own individuality by an act of consciousness embracing
the entire organism, and distinguishing it from other
bodies. Immortality cannot be predicated of such natures in any other sense than the indestructibleness of
the atoms which compose them.
As we rise in the scale of being, life becomes more
central and individual; one monarch soul possesses and
dominates the entire frame, subjecting and subordinating all its organs, and enduing all its members with
its own vitality. That soul, we may suppose, is immortal in a higher sense than that of essential indestructibleness.  Not  only is  it indestructible  in its
essence, but it enters after death, as soul, as central
vital principal, into new forms of animal life.
376 
THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF IMORTALITY.   377
The immortality which we ascribe to the higher animals, we cannot of course deny to the natural or animal
man. But neither can we attribute much more to the
animal man in this regard than we concede to other
animals. His intellectual superiority, the faculty of
speech, the powers by which he acquires and applies
scientific knowledge, his philosophic insight, his capacity
for abstract truth, his converse with ideas, creative
genius, poetry and art, - all the mental traits and endowments which distinguish a Shakspeare or a Raphael
prove nothing on this head. These have no immortality other than that of the works they produce, and
confer none other on the author of those works than the
deathless name which they hand down. Splendid as
these endowments are, they contain no germ of everlasting life, no intimation of their reproduction in a
future world.  There is no reason to suppose that the
Shakspeares and Raphaels of this life will be Shakspeares and Raphaels in the life to come. The qualities
of genius are rightly termed "gifts;" they are not the
soul's own, not spiritual property, not part and parcel
of the inmost nature; but extrinsic, incidental, like personal beauty, muscular strength, an ear for music, or a
sweet voice; they are not of the nature of substance,
but of accident; they are detachable; they pertain to
the tabernacle that is dissolved, to the natural and corruptible which is put off in death, not to the spiritual
which is raised.
Only through his moral and spiritual nature can man
become partaker of an immortality essentially different
from that of the brute, -the immortality of which
Christ is the prototype, " the first-fruits." Only through 
RATIONAL CHRISTIANITY.
the spirit does he lay hold of everlasting life. Only the
highest can inherit the highest. The Holy Spirit is the
summit of all being, the top of all imagining; the
source and mark, the beginning and the end of life eternal. Whatever holds of that, whatever co-operates or
sympathizes with it, whatever ranges in the same line
with it, is immortality of that supreme type of which the
apostle says, that "in Christ all shall be made alive,"
and which justifies the contrast, amounting to antagonism, which the apostle sets between the destination of
man in Adam, and the destination of man in Christ.
Even in Adam all is not mortal. The soul of man,
independently of those spiritual experiences and acquisitions which alone insure, which alone mediate eternal
life in the gospel sense, possesses a kind of immortality. That mysterious, indivisible entity, that insoluble
something which we call "soul," must survive in some
sort the dissolutions of death; albeit, in some cases of
extreme depravation or limitation, it may not be able to
recover itself from the mortal shock, and to take up
again the conscious life which it had in the flesh; it may
lack sufficient force to collect together a new system of
particles, and to organize a new body, of which it shall
reign the central, life-giving power. It may only survive as one of the constituents of such a system, with
no independent, conscious individuality; -subordinate,
not chief, in the new economy to which it belongs. In
most cases, however, one would fain believe that the
soul is raised as soul, - as regent, conscious principle
again. In the case of the strong men of history, the
men of might, who have stamped their image on their
time and filled the world with their deeds, it is impossi
378 
THE CHRISTIAN' IDEA OF IMMORTALITY.   379
ble not to believe that the power which wrought with
such mighty effect will continue to work in a new body,
with new conditions. Yet even here, in so far as the
power put forth was mere self-assertion, -the power of
egoism, working for private and selfish aims, - -it dies
with the death of the body. All egoism dies; worldconquering, world-coveting ambition must not expect to
push its adored self across the gulf, and resume its
conquests on the other side. No self so sought is raised
again. All efforts, wishes, and pursuits that terminate
in self are self-limited, and end with the grave. Constantine the Great rebuked the covetous ambition of one
of his courtiers, by drawing with his spear the man's
figure on the ground. "Within that space," he said,
is contained all you will carry with you when you go
hence."
Even in Adam all is not mortal; and yet, as we survey the world of which Adam is the type; as we follow
thle changes of time, and cast our thought along the line
of the quick succeeding generations that have occupied,
each in its turn, the populous past, -there comes to us
from that survey a savor of death. The sentiment impressed upon us by the contemplation of Adam's line is
a sense of mortality.
" He lived: he died. Behold the sum,
The abstract, of the historian's page!"
The march of humanity across the fields of this planet
is a funeral procession; the planet itself is a moving
cemetery; the ground we tread is saturated with the
dust of our fathers. So true it is, that in Adam all
die. 
RATIONAL CIIRISTIAITY.
But look again; glance at the world as it is in
Christ. I mean not the technically Christian world,
but this human world, in so far as any portion of it has
been illumined, enriched, regenerated, sainted, by that
spirit of truth and love, which, while it dwelt without
measure in Christ, has dwelt and wrought, in varying
measures and degrees, in countless others before and
since, - in how many prophets and heroes of the Old
Covenant! in how many martyrs and saints of the New!
in how many lights of the Gentile world, - the Sakyas
and Zoroasters, the Socrates and Antonines of other
faiths. When we so gaze, there is nothing that speaks
of mortality; nothing that breathes of dust and decay.
The thought here is not of death, but of faith triumphant over death; of the victories of the spirit, of everlasting life. The mind recalls a venerable host whose
names are written in heaven, - prophets, evangelists,
patriots, apostles, benefactors of every  kind, differing
widely in power and grace, and the worth of their work,
as one- star differeth from another in glory; but all
agreeing in this one trait, that they labored, not "for the
meat that perisheth, but for that which endureth unto
everlasting life." They gave themselves up with unwavering faith and uncalculating love to some worthy
object in and for which they lived. Their creeds were
many; but the same mind which was in Christ was in
them all. They wrought with differences of administrations, but in them wrought one and the self-same spirit,asserting, itself in all diversities of operations as holy
and divine. We cannot think of these as dead and
dust. They are with us still by the witness of the spirit
that was in them: vital forces in the realms of faith,
380 
THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF I{IMORTALITY.
the spirit's own, they live unto God and they live unto
us, witnessing and working with us and for us until
now. So I interpret the saying, "In Christ shall all
be made alive."
As we trace the presence and the working of that
spirit in human history, we open an interminable gallery of the pious and brave, whose unselfish aims and
devoted lives have raised them to the sainted seats of
the world's undying reverence and love. Some by wisdom And some by charity, some by patience and some
by daring,: but all, in the spirit of Christ, have been
lights and saviours in their generation. Some have wandered through desert lands, and some have traversed
the ocean waste; some, who were born to wealth and
rank, have renounced their heritage of earthly splendor,
and spent their lives in poverty and obscurity, companying with rude and ignorant men, perhaps with savage
children of the forest; some have perished for their
country's rights; some have laid down their lives for the
truth; some have been eyes to the blind, and feet to the
lame; some have burst the bonds of error; some have
broken the fetters of the slave; some have brought
truth and newness to the understanding; some have
brought truth and newness to the heart: but all these,
in their kind and degree, have been made alive with the
life that never dies.
This is the Christian idea of immortality, of the
"everlasting life."  It is not a "natural," but a moral
growth; not universal, but special; not a heritage, but
an acquisition. It is somethingwvhich appertains, not to
the natural man, but to the spiritual. I do not question
that it may be developed in another state, in cases where
381 
RATIONAL CHRISTIANITY.
contrary influences have made its development impos  sible in this. I only deny that it is or will be developed
in all cases as a matter of course,- developed by the
accident of death. I deny that, without development
and without an effort, it will be imparted to the grovel  ling soul; that where it has not been attained, or even
sought in this world, good angels wait to confer it in
the next, or that God will hand it over as a birthday
gift.  We do not tumble into everlasting life when "our
feet stumble on the dark mountains." Only the moral
and spiritual in man is capable of conscious immor* tality. "Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom
of God; neither doth corruption inherit incorruption."
There are human creatures with whom it is impos  sible to connect the idea of immortality, - children
of earth, whom it is impossible to conceive of as start  ing up at once from the bed of death into new and im  mortal life. On the other hand, when we see a man
noble, generous, active in good, we can hardly imagine
such a spirit and such an energy suddenly and for ever
extinct, when the blood has ceased to circulate in the
mortal frame in which and through which it wrought.
The soul in its essence is indestructible; but inde  structibleness is not immortality. The soul as an entity
may and will survive; but the soul as a conscious agent
may, nevertheless, suffer death.
Only the fulness of the spirit can " abolish death,"
as it did in that affluent dispensation of it in theeearly
days of the Church. Brave souls may look upon it un  daunted; philosophic miinds may comfort themselves
with the thought, that this is a fate which strong, brave
men, and feeble men, and women, and little children,
382 
THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF IMMORTALITY.   383
have been through; that we can bear what these have
borne, sustained by the everlasting love co-present to all
the exigencies of being. But only the spiritual eye, instructed by faith, and conscious of immortality, can look
through the gloom, and dissolve it in its own supernal
light.  " If a man keep my sayings," said Jesus,  he
shall not see death." The spirit cannot see death, no
more than the sun sees the shadows which it casts behind it.
The Miussulmans have  a'fable about Moses, that,
when the hour of his departure was come, God sent the
angel of death, who appeared before him and demanded
his soul. Moses greeted the angel with a friendly salutation, but questioned his right to touch a soul that
had had communion with God. The death-angel was
baffled by such assurance, and knew not how to proceed;  for death and Moses, it seemed, had nothing in
common. Then the Lord deputed the angel of Paradise to convey to him an apple of Eden. And, as
Moses inhaled the immortal fragrance, his spirit went
forth from him, and was borne upon the odors of Eden
into the presence of the Lord.
This is the Mussulman's parable, and this is the interpretation of it. The assurance which disputes the
power of death is the spirit's unconquerable faith in
spirit; and the apple of Eden is that full and untroubled vision of immortality, whose strong attraction
conquers death. 
I  
x.
CRrITIQUE OF PARTIALIST AND UNIVERSAL
IST VIEWS OF PENAL THEOLOGY.
25 
CRITIQUE OF PENAL TIHEOLOGY.
" Ein jeder muss seine Ho11e noch im Himmel und seinen Himmel noch
in der H5lle finden." - LESSING.
IT is a matter of comparatively little moment to a rightminded man how speculative theology may figure the
awards of the life to come.  No dogma relative to this
subject can be more offensive than that whole system
of views concerning the moral order of the universe,
in which the ideas of punishment, and escape from punishment, (partial or universal) play so prominent a part.
The objection to this system is, that it turns the mind
from that which is primary and vital, and fixes it on
that which is secondary and subordinate, -  turns it
from the everlasting substance, and fixes it on the accidents; that it puts happiness above goodness, and puts
goodness as a means of happiness.
The first and last and only question which this system propounds to the individual is, how to escape the
eternal damnation to which it supposes him doomed
by the fact of his humanity; i.e. by the measure of
[ 387]
X. 
RATIONAL CHRISTIANITY.
sinfulness proper to human nature as such. The ques tion is, not how to escape the sin, but how to escape
the damnation incurred by it. The system makes the
whole essence of revelation to consist " in the discovery
to man of a new means by which, without any previous
eradication of' sin, sin can be pardoned." The aim of
a true religion is, not to escape damnation, but to lay
hold of everlasting life.   These aims may seem to
coincide in effect; but the difference between them is
heaven-wide.   The one is dictated by selfish fear: the
other springs from exceeding love.   The former  is
ascetic in its tendency and method; it delights in scrupulous correctness of deportment, it accomplishes wonders of self-denial, but all for self's sake, to escape
damnation; as the miser denies himself the gratifications of sense for the sake of increasing his store.
The other is a self-forgetting, a losing of one's self in
some worthy object for its own sake. It is written,
"He that will lose his life for my sake" (not for the
sake of his own soul, but for my sake, for the sake of
truth and righteousness and human weal)  "shall find
it." And who can doubt, that one who devotes himself, a living sacrifice, to some great and good work,
without troubling himself about the salvation of his
soul, or spending a single thought on the subject, is
in quite as salvable a condition as one whose single
aim in life has been to save his soul from death? A
very poor soul it may be when it is saved, and very
little comfort he may have in it. However free from
positive vice, however unspotted from the world, it
may not have expanded, not developed; it may never
have fairly come out of itself in one true act of self
388 
CRITIQUE OF PENAL THEOLOGY.
abandonment. A very little soul after all, and scarcely
worth the pains it has cost.
A true religion will rather aim to make us forget
ourselves in the love and pursuit of noble ends, than
seek to occupy us with thoughts of the hereafter,our part and lot in another world.   Let theologians
say what they will, that is not the first, and great concern, but a very secondary one. What we want of
religion is to develop  in us the principle of love.
Without this no soul can be truly blessed, and this the
fear of hell will never awaken. The uttermost that
the fear of hell can do, is to keep the life unspotted
from the world. It can never kindle the flame of love;
it can give no hold of eternal life. What we complain
of in this system is, that, instead of taking us out of
ourself, it drives us back upon ourself, in self-tormenting introspection.   Instead of showing us spiritual
beauty in forms that shall win and command our affections, it turns a magnifying-glass on our sins and
unworthiness. It aims to frighten us with our lost
state.   If it does not succeed in that, it leaves us
weaker than before. If it does succeed, the remedy it
proposes to our fear is, not eradication of the sinful
principle, but a transfer of the penalty.   It makes
more of the penalty than it does of the sin. The salvation it offers is salvation from the consequences of
sin, rather than from sin itself.
The various opinions which have been entertained
regarding the moral future of souls may be reduced to
these two: 1st, That of the Universalists, who suppose that all souls, after a purgatory longer or shorter
according to the exigency of each case, or even without
389 
RATIONAL CHRISTIANITY.
purgatorial discipline, will be eternally blest; 2d, That
of the Partialists, who suppose that only a select portion will be so blest, and the rest consigned to eternal
punishment, either in the way of annihilation or of
conscious endless suffering. From the earliest period
of the Church, these two parties have divided, very
unequally, the Christian world. These two, and no
third.  No sect has maintained that all will be lost.
An eschatology so desperate, however agreeable to the
Church Despondent, involves too violent a theory of
life for the hardihood even of penal theology.   It
seemed absolutely necessary that some should be saved,
and that hell should have its correlative heaven, were
it only for the sake of perspective. Simple theism
required thus much. A God who creates only to destroy, or, creating to save, is balked in that intent by
the wilfulness of his creatures or the power of Satan,
and cannot so much as save one soul, would be equivalent to no God, and would answer no theological purpose. It was therefore conceded (not without seenling
reluctance in some cases) by even the most zealous of
those who identified the majesty of God with revenge
for violated law, that a special effort of grace would
be made by way of showing what Mercy could do if
Justice would.
Universalist  and  Partialist -both  of  these  systems, with proper modifications, that is, with a reasonable extension of the penal discipline on the one
side, and a reasonable allowance of saving grace on the
other, are plausible; but neither is demonstrable, neither possesses the certainty requisite to constitute it a
positive doctrine of religion, nor is it in the power of
390 
CRITIQUE OF PENAL THEOLOGY.
theological learning or human wit to establish any
thing definite on this subject. Theology here must content itself with generalities; religion must rest on those
everlasting laws which compose the framework of the
moral universe, and which include, together with this
earthly life, the heavens and the hells in one dominion.
If we suppose, with the Universalists, that all souls
are predestined to everlasting blessedness in the world
to come, we must suppose a fitness or, capacity for
such blessedness on the part of the subject, already
existing or to be hereafter acquired.   Without this
fitness on the part of the subject, blessedness in any
state is inconceivable.  No man in his senses believes
that happiness hereafter will be thrust upon him in
spite of himself, and against all the habits and antecedents of the soul. But to change that condition of the
soul by an external force, in order to make it receptive
of happiness, would be to annihilate one soul, and to
create another in its place.   If we say that this capacity
already exists in the subject, - in all subjects, - we
are contradicted by the plainest facts of nature and life.
It may be urged, that the present unfitness arises from
causes which cease with death; that death will make
all men blest by removing the obstacles to blessedness
which abound in this world, and which belong to this
world alone. This plea supposes an efficacy in death
which we have no right to assume.  It is thought by
some, that the body and the physical or other external
influences by which we are conditioned in the present
life are the cause of all evil; and that every soul will
be found fit for happiness when once divested of its
0
391
0 
RATIONAL CHRISTIANITY.
mortal covering, and disencumbered of its present rela       tions. But are there no evils beside those which arise
from physical and terrestrial relations? Granting that
a portion of our sins and our sufferings have their
origin in the flesh, there are others which cannot with
any propriety be traced to that source. Some organi       zations, no doubt, are more favorable to moral rectitude
than others: but experience shows, that moral rectitude
may exist under all conditions; that the most favorable,
so far as we can judge, do not secure it; that the most
unfavorable, so far as we can judge, do not preclude it.
We have, therefore, no authority from any grounds in
our present experience, and certainly not from any
other source, for supposing that vice and misery belong
*      to the body alone, and will cease with the ending of this
bodily life. Moreover, in its extreme form, - the sup       position of immediate and universal happiness hereafter,
-the Universalist theory  impugns  the disciplinary
character, and confounds the meaning and aggravates
the mystery of this human world.   If all men  are
morally fit for happiness now, it is difficult to under       stand why this world has not been so arranged as to
yield that happiness now; and why we are doomed
to reach, by the long and circuitous route of mortal
experience, and through the miracle of death, a good
to which, in our present capacity, we might seem to
have a present claim.
Or, adopting the modification with which the Uni       versalist theory is commonly held, if we suppose that
the fitness and capacity for happiness which exist not
now will arrive hereafter, will arrive to all, - that all
souls are destined to eternal blessedness after such
392
0 
CRITIQUE OF PENAL THEOLOGY.
probation as each may require, we still stretch the
right of conjecture. We suppose a remedial and
restorative influence in the air of hell, or (lest the theological term should mislead) in the future transmundane penalties of sin, which may possibly belong to
them, but of which we know nothing, and which seems
to be assumed for the sake of the argument.   Our
observation does not detect this medicinal quality in
the penal sufferings of the present life. There is virtue
in sorrow to educate and perfect the good, but none
that we can see to reclaim the wicked. It does not
appear that punishment in this world has always the
effect, or has in -the majority of cases the effect, to
reform the sinner; contrariwise, it is notorious that
men continue to sin and suffer to the day of their death.
What authority have we for supposing that this process
is arrested hereafter? or for not supposing that the
sinner will go on sinning and suffering everlastifingly,
or till evil becomes so predominant in the soul as
utterly to quench its moral life, and conscious suffering
ends in everlasting death? Who shall say, that sin,
once established, may not grow to be supreme and
ineradicable, -  that the habit of transgression  contracted in this. world, and -confirmed by every fresh
transgression, may not become a necessity of nature
strong as fate and deep as life?
Thus, in either of its species,- that of immediate
emancipation from sin and suffering by death, or that
of final restoration to holiness and happiness by remedial suffering,- the Universalist theory concerning the
future destination of the soul is pure conjecture, undemonstrated, incapable of demonstration.
393 
RATIONAL CHRISTIANITY.
Moreover, although, in a matter like this, individual
authority is of little account, we cannot conceal from
ourselves that the weightiest names in the realm of
speculation, both within and without the Christian
Church, are found on the side of eternal retributions.
Of each of these classes suffice it to name one. Of ethnic sages our example shall be Plato, the supreme name
in ancient philosophy. Plato, in the "Gorgias," delivers
himself, through the mouth of Socrates, to this effect:
It behooves that every one who suffers punishment, if
justly punished by another, should either become better and be benefited, or should serve as an example to
others, that others, seeing him suffer the things which
he suffers, and being afraid, may reform. Now, there
are some that are profited when punished, both by
gods and by men: these are such as have sinned with
curable sins. * Nevertheless, by torments and sorrows
cometh their benefit, both here and in hell; for it is not
possible otherwise to be freed from wickedness.   But
others have been wicked in the extreme, and on account
of such wickedness are become incurable.   Of these
examples are made:  they themselves are  no  longer
benefited, being incurable; but others are benefited,
seeing these suffer on accott of their sin the greatest,
the most afflictive and most terrible woes eternally,t
being regularly fixed as examples there in the prison of
hell, as shows and warnings to the wicked perpetually
arriving."
Our modern and Christian example shall be Leibnitz,
the optimist, - an authority second to none in metaphy
*!i6aoa 61.apr7ara.
394
t  bv aec  rp6vov., 
CRITIQUE OF PENAL THEOLOGY.
sical profundity, or in logical acumen or conscientious
love of truth. Optimism and eternal damnation are'
things hard to reconcile; but Leibnitz, in the " Theodicee," after glancing at the Universalist theory, proceeds
to say:
" Holding, then, to the established doctrine, that the number of human beings who are damned eternally wil] be incomparably greater than that of the saved, it behooves us to
say, that the evil would still appear as almost nothing in
comparison with the good, when we consider the veritable
magnitude of the City of God.... The ancients had narrow
ideas of the works of God; and St. Augustine, through ignorance of modern discoveries, was sorely put to it when the
problem was to excuse the prevalence of evil. It appeared
to the ancients that our earth was the only inhabited sphere:
they were even afraid of the antipodes. The rest of the
world, according to them, consisted in some luminous globes
and crystalline spheres. At the present day, whatever limits
may be assigned or denied to the universe, we cannot overlook the fact that there are innumerable globes as large and
larger than ours, which have as much right as that to be the
abode of rational beings, although it does not follow that
those beings are men.... It is possible that all the suns are
inhabited only by happy beings; and nothing obliges us to
believe that there are many damned among them, since few
examples or patterns will suffice for the use which the good
may derive from the evil."*
This reasoning, it must be confessed, is very weak,
and altogether unworthy of such a mind. Its fallacies
are too obvious to need any comment. Nor need we
* Thdodicde, Partie I. 19.
395 
RATIONAL CHRISTIANITY.
stop to inquire how far Leibnitz was hampered by the
wish to avoid controversy on secondary points with
the theologians of his day, or what mental qualifications may have neutralized his exoteric admissions. I
cite the passage only as showing that so resolute an
optimist and so penetrating a thinker as Leibnitz believed the principle of eternal punishment,  in some
sense, to be compatible with the goodness of God and
a best possible world. And this belief is more unequivocally expressed, as well as more ably vindicated,
in another passage of the same work:
"There is, nevertheless, one species of justice, and a certain sort of rewards and punishments, which seems less applicable to those, if any such there be, who act from absolute
necessity. It is that species of justice whose object is neither
amendment nor example, nor even reparation. The only
foundation of this justice is the fitness which demands a
certain satisfaction, by way of expiation, for an evil act.
The Socinians, Hobbes, and others, do not admit this punitive
justice which is properly vindictive.... Nevertheless, it is
founded iri a relation of fitness which contents, not only the
offended party, but also the wise who behold it, as beautiful
music or a fine piece of architecture contents well-constituted
minds.... One may even say that it carries with it a certain
indemnification to the mind, -  that the disorder would offend
if the punishment did not contribute to re-establish order.*
.... Thus the pains of the damned continue then, even
when they no longer serve to deter from evil."t
* "Et on peut m6me dire qu'il y a ici un certain dddommnagement de
1'esprit, que le desordre offenseroit si le chiatiment ni contribuoit a rdtablir
l'ordre."
t Thlod., Partie II. 78, 74.                              W
396 
CRITIQUE OF PENAL THIEOLOGY.
Turning now to the opposite view, we shall find
that Partialism has its own peculiar difficulties. We
encounter here obstacles different in kind, but equal in
their way to those which embarrass the view we have
been discussing.
If we suppose, with the Partialists, that only a select portion of human souls will be finally blest-, and
the rest consigned to everlasting punishment, we are
met on the threshold by a strong objection drawn from
the idea of God,- a God all-merciful and all-wise,and a universe formed and ruled by Infinite Wisdom and
Mercy. This idea seems to require that adequate provision shall be made in the constitution of things and
the soul for every case of sin and suffering which the
universe contains; it seems to demand from the infinite
resources of the Spirit a remedial force commensurate
with every exigency of spiritual life, a power of nature
or of grace by which the most corrupt may be reached
and restored. It does not help the matter to say, that
the sinner sins of -his own free will, of his own free
will persists in sin, and so dooms himself to endless
perdition.   That a being should  have been created
with this liability in his constitution, capable of so sinning  and  suffering eternally, -this is precisely the
difficulty in the case. This it is which piety finds it
so hard to adjust with the cherished idea of a Father
of spirits and of mercies.   In that word  "Father," it
seems to see a refutation of Partialism.
The old defenders of this theory associated with it
a doctrine of predestination, importing, as they interpreted that phrase, that the sinner sins by strong necessity, acting as his evil nature prompts, incapable of
397
0 
RATIONAL CHRISTIANITY.
acting otherwise. Modern orthodoxy, anxious to relieve the idea of God of the odium of damning predestined sinners, shifts the responsibility of the act from
the Creator to the creature, and, by substituting the
notion of free-will for the dogma of Predestination,
seeks to devolve on the damned the burden of his own
destiny; while at the same time, retaining the partial
Grace of the old system; it claims for God the undivided merit of salvation. But the shift is a failure,
so far as the honor of God is concerned. The justice
of eternal damnation is not vindicated by the theory of
free-will. If human free-will is capable of abuse to
such an extent as to be the occasion of endless misery,
and if God foresees that abuse of it in any subject, then
no theology can exonerate God from the consequences
of that fatal endowment, and the responsibility of such
a doom.   The difference is merely nominal between a
God who destroys by his own immediate act, and a God
who puts into the hands of his creature an instrument
by which he will certainly destroy himself.  "It is as
sure a method of killing a man," says Bayle, in his
comments on this point, "to give him a  rope with
which one knows for a certainty that he will hang
himself, as to stab him or to have him stabbed with a
dagger. His death is willed as much by one who uses
the former method, as by one who employs either of
the others;" nay, "il semble meme  qu'on la veut
avec un dessein plus malin puisqu'on tend a lui laisser
toute la peine et toute la faute de sa perte."
Theology must not think to escape this dilemma by
taking a high tone, and insisting on the power which
the Creator has over the creature.   "Hath not the
0
398 
CRITIQUE OF PENAL THEOLOGY.
potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make
one vessel to honor and another to dishonor." * True,
O Paul!  Nevertheless, the question is not of power,
but of right.  The Being who possesses this almighty
power has created in me a sense of justice which demands justice of the Maker,- has established in me a
judgminent-seat by which his own acts are inevitably
tried. The answer quashes the plea, instead of refuting
it. It may silence the objector, but does not satisfy the
objection. Unquestionably-the potter possesses power
over the clay.   Unquestionably the Maker possesses
the power to make one man wicked and miserable,
and another righteous and happy.   But Christianity
has taught us to know God, not as absolute Power
merely, but as Justice and Mercy. "Shall the thing
formed say to Him that formed it, Why  hast thou
made me thus?"  The thing formed in this case is the
human heart; and that heart is so constituted by its
Author that it craves to know, and must and will ask, 
concerning the purport and end of its being. And if
to such questioning it receives  this answer,  "Thou
wast formed to be wicked and eternally damned," shall
not the thing made then say to Him that formed it,
"Why hast thou made me thus?  Why thus, 0 thou
Infinite! who hast all power to make and mould, even
as the potter has power over the clay,- why hast thou
made nme, thy helpless vessel, to be the subject of such
deep dishonor and boundless wrong?"  It will so ask,
and will not be content to receive for answer the
absolute will of God as the sole and sufficient reason
* Rom. ix. 21.
399 
RATIONAL CHRISTIANITY.
for such ordination. Could it really believe in such
ordination, on such grounds, the heart would feel that
it had no God; for, verily, absolute power does not
make a God. And the heart would sink into itself
with a grinding sense of infinite cruelty and almighty
wrong, or re-act on oppression like the chained Prometheus of the old Greek fable, -profound symbol of
oppressed but unyielding manhood, - and scorn omnipotence dissociated from justice. But the fact is, the
heart can never truly believe in such an ordination and
in such a God. The Divine has written his nature too
deep in man to be extinguished by a dogma It is
possible to human piety to love God without demanding
his favor in return; * but true piety knows by its own
deep sympathy with the Divine, that God is love, and
that in that love there is no distinction of persons,that all being is embraced in its boundless affection.
No one felt this more profoundly than Paul. No one
more ready to confess it, notwithstanding the words just
cited. When, in this same Epistle to the Romans, he
declares his belief that " all Israel shall be saved,"
together with the "fulness of the Gentiles," he discovers
the real conviction of his heart.
Wre may say, then, speaking as critics of the Partialist theory, that that theory militates with the infinite
love which reason compels us to ascribe to God, and
which seems to require that to every creature of God
its existence shall be on the whole a blessing, - that
no creature shall be called into being for whom in any
* " Qui Deum amat, conari non potest, ut Deus ipsum contra amat." —
SPINOZA: Eth. V. 19.
400 
CRITIQUE OF PENAL THEOLOGY.
case it would be better that he had never been born.
It matters not how widely we extend the circle of the
blest, or how greatly we reduce the tale of the lost.
The principle is the same, and no arithmetic can alter
it. Suppose all saved but one, the difficulty still remains.  Humanity demands that one;  it mourns an
imperfect heaven where that one is not, it hears a
wail in the Alleluia whose -choral symphony lacks that
complemental voice. Indeed, the smaller the number
of the damned, the heavier the damnation, and what
is gained in one way by such concession is lost in
another. What is gained numerically is lost qualitatively. It may even be questioned if the old doctrine
which made damnation normal, and salvation exceptional, be not, on the whole; a more rational view than
that which saves the mass and abandons the few. For,
if the happiness of the world to come is purely a matter
of grace, the free gift of God's love, entirely irrespective of the merits of the subject, then the few who are
excepted from that grace would seem to be more hardly
dealt with, and to have more legitimate ground of
complaint, than the multitude of the lost, where perdition is the rule, and salvation a rare and exceptional
favor.   But if, on the other hand, the hereafter is
determined by moral conditions, the few who shine
with pre-eminent holiness are more broadly distinguished
from ordinary degrees of moral excellence than the few
superlatively wicked are from the general mass of unworthiness.
The insufficiency of those distinctions on which the
rewards and punishments of the future state are presumed to be based, is another of the difficulties which
401
26 
PRATIONAL CHRISTIANITY.
embarrass the Partialist theory.  If we suppose, what
that theory commonly assumes, that the state of the
soul is unalterably fixed at death, -the wicked precluded from all chance of reform,  the good secured
from all danger of lapse, - the disproportion between
the moral distinctions of this world and the different
fortunes of the next is too monstrous for reason to
contemplate. The infinite difference between right and
wrong must not be urged in defence of such a doctrine.
The infinite difference betweeif right and wrong is one
thing; an infinite difference in the characters of those
wlio, during the years of this mortal life, have done well
or ill, is quite another thing. If we subtract from the
character and life of the righteous all that may be
termed good fortune, natural temperament, the native
strength of the higher faculties, the comparative weakness of the baser appetites, education, social influences,
opportunity, absence of strong temptation,- who  can
say that what remains of a purely moral nature is
sufficient for eternal life, or even a sufficient guaranty
that the individual who has borne so fair a character in
this world will preserve the same in another, - that he
will not change from saint to sinner when placed in
new circumstances and solicited by new relations? So,
too, it is impossible to say with certainty how much of
the crimes of this life may be due to external conditions;
how far the circumstances of the sinner may have tended
to suppress the good in his nature, and to bring out the
bad; and how far the good may be elicited and the bad
counteracted by a different position hereafter. We are
not warranted in ascribing all sin to circumstance; yet
much that we call sin, and that makes the apparent
402 
CRITIQUE OF PENAIL THEOLOGY.
difference between the moral and immoral classes of
society, may have this origin, and the good and bad
of this world may change places in the next.
It avails not to say, in vindication of the dogma of
eternal damnation, that God inflicts no positive pains
on the sinner, but simply "withdraws," and leaves the
wicked to their own  devices.   This withdrawing  is
precisely the thing which God cannot do,- one of the
limitations of his omnipotence. Out of him no creature
can exist; in him and by him all being subsists, the
hells not less than the heavens. The mystic Yggdrasil
is rooted in him as well as crowned by him.
Verily, the strength of the Orthodox heaven does not
consist in its exclusiveness, or the rule by which it
excludes. The rough Norseman, on the eve of regeneration, when the priest, to his inquiry, disclosed the diff~rent future of Christian and heathen, withdrew his foot
from the water, and declined the baptism which would
separate him from the cherished heroes of his house and
heart. Many, not wholly depraved, except in the theolog,ical sense, will sympathize with the honest sea-king
in this, less tempted by what the ecclesiastical salvation
offers, than pained by what it excludes. Even from its
heaven blows the east-wind of Orthodoxy.
St. Augustine affirms of divine anger and forgiveness, that God does not change, but his creatures. He
is changed to them in their sufferings "as the sun to
sore eyes is changed from mild to harsh, and from
pleasant to oppressive, while he himself remains the
same." * And, speaking of the blessedness and misery
* "Illi potius quam ipse mutantur, et cum quodammodo mutatum in his
que patiuntur iniveniunt: sicut imutatutr sol oculis sauciatis et asper quod
403 
RATIONAL CHRISTIANITY.
of the future life, he identifies the one with a clear
vision of the truth, - the other with ignorance and unreality. There are two opposite kinds of affection, he
says: "one by which the blest are ravished with the
purest cognition of their Author; the other by which
the wicked are plunged into the deepest ignorance of
truth. The latter will suffer real punishment by means
of unreal images; the good will enjoy real beatitude in
the contemplation of realities."*
In like manner, MIaximus, the contemplative theologian of the seventh century, makes the nature and
punishment of the wicked to consist in want of reality.
"They who wisely meditate the divine words," he says,
"call by the name of Perdition, Hell, Sons of Perdition, and the like, those who make to themselves, according to the affection of their mind, a reality of that
which is not, and so come in all things to resemble
phantasms." t But, above all, John Scotus, the intel
ammodo ex miti et ex delectabili molestus efficitur quum ipse apud seipsum
maneat idem qui fuit."
* It must be confessed, that St. Augustine has maintained in his writings
as grossly material views of the sufferings of the damned, and of the physical constitution of the life to come, as have ever been propounded by the
Christian Church. See, for example, the second, ninth, and tenth chapters
of the De Civitate Dei, which treat of hell-fire. But, when he speaks of the
joys of the blest, it is always the Beatific Vision that predominates in his
conception.  "Quapropter cum ex me qusritur quid acturi sunt sancti in
illo corpore spiritali, non dico quod jam video, sed dico quod credo....
Dico itaque, Visuri sunt D)eum in ipso corpore." -" Ibi vacabimus etyidebimus: videbimus et amabimus; amabimus et laudabimus." -De  Civ. Dei,
lib. xxii. cap. 29 and 30.
t "Qui divina sapienter meditantur verba perditionem et infernum et
filios perditionis et similia appellant eos qui quod non est, sibimet et secundum mentis affectum subsistentiam faciunt et sic phantasiis per omnia
similes fiunt." - Quoted by Scotus Erig. in the De Divisione Naturce, lib. v.
c. 31.
404 
CRITIQUE OF PENAL THEOLOGY.
lectual wonder of the ninth century, who treats these
matters more profoundly than any one else, has developed in all its bearings the idea of the vision and participation of the Truth as the chief distinction between
the good and the wicked hereafter. Both, he says, will
have their intellectual images, as it were, the expressions
of so many faces (phantasice veluti facies qucedam
expressce). The just will see God in diffeltnt appearances, according to the altitude of contemplation
attained by every saint.   The wicked, on the other
hand, will see different and false appearances of mortal
things, accqrding to the diverse motions of their evil
thoughts.  As the deified ascend through innumerable
grades of divine contemplation, so those who depart
from God descend ever through the different declensions
of their vices into the deep of ignorance and into outer
darkness. But the general, natural goods of humnanity, he maintains, will be common to all. "These
are given from above, coming down from the Father
of lights, generally diffused among all, from whose
participation no one is excluded, of which no one is
deprived, since no one can exist without them; no demerits can imnpede the gift, no merits promote it; they
anticipate all merit; by the sole, abounding, divine
plenitude of goodness, they flow to all, everywhere, in
unexhausted effusion; in none are they increased, in
none diminished; the property of all alike, the good
and the bad, they are withdrawn from none; eternally
and substantially they will endure in all, free from all
corruption and independent of all contrary passion."*
* "Hoec sunt data de sursum a Patre luminum descendentia, in omnes,
generaliter diffusa, quorum participatione nemo excluditur, nemo privatur,
405 
RATIONAL  CHIRISTIANITY.
Hell-fire, he maintains, is not penal in itself, nor designed for penal purposes; it is a part of the universal
good, an element which the blest will inhabit as well as
the wicked; what is torment to the one will be health
and joy to the other.
I said the weight of authority is on the side of the
Partialists.  It must not be forgottgn, however, that
the other view has had its advocates in every period
of the Christian Church, and among them has numbered some of the best voices of the Church, from
Paul to Schleiermacher. The opinion of Origen on
this subject-his doctrine of an a roK(arautg, or general
Restoration *-is well known.   It subjected him to
persecution during his life, and to heavy condemnation
after his death. Gregory of Nyssa, and Theodore of
Mopsuestia, both eminent in the Trinitarian controversies of the fourth and fifth centuries, inclined to
Universalism.   St. Jerome, while insisting on  the
irrevocable and everlasting damnation of the heathen,
expects a milder fate for Christian transgressors.t  The
Christian poet Prudentius, in the fourth century, proba
cum nemo sine his subsistit; nullius mali meritis impediuntur ne dentur,
nullins bona merita proecedunt, quibus preestentur; omne meritum preeoccupant; sola divina bonitatis largiflua plenitudine omnibus per omnia
universaliter inlexhausta effusione manant; in nullo augentur, in nullo minuuntur; equaliter omnibus insunt, et bonis et malis; a nullo retrahuntur,
oeternaliter in omnibus et substantialiter permanebunt, omni corruptione
contrariaque passione absoluta."- -De. Div. Nat.
* It ought to be stated in this connection, that the Restoration of Origen
was not a finality, but only one stage in a great revolution, to be followed
by a new lapse.
t "Sicut diaboli et omnium negatorum et impiorum qui dixerunt in
corde suo, Non est Dens, credimus oeterna tormenta, sic peccatorum  et
inipioruml et tamen Christianorum, quorum opera in igne probanda sunt
atque purganda, moderatam arbitramur et mixtam clementia sententiam."
406 
CRITIQUE OF PENAL THEOLOGY.
bly expresses the prevailing sentiment of his time,
when, in one of his hymns, he makes eternal damnation
a rare exception to the universal Benignity,
"Idem tamen benignus
Ultor retundit iram
Paucosque non piorum
Patitur perire in evumn."
The prevalence of Universalism in St. Augustine's
day may be inferred from the fact, that several chapters
of the "De Civitate Dei "are devoted to its refutati6n.
After that, with the doubtful exception of John Scotus,
above named, who rather hinted than confessed his
heresy,* its traces are lost in the barbarism of the
Middle Age.   "Dismiss all hope" was written over
the entrance of the medieval hell; and, until the Reformation, theology seems scarcely to have questioned the
legend. And since the Reformation, the authorities,
in number if not in quality, preponderate on the side
of Partialism. If questions in theology could be settled
by the votes of theologians, the truth of Partialism
would be established by an overwhelming majority.
But, in such matters, one original thinker and independent critic outweighs a hundred traditionalists, - one
fresh voice, a hundred echoes.
Will any maintain that the Christian Scriptures have
decided this question beyond dispute for all who receive
them as final authority? That they have not done so
appears from the fact, that opposite opinions concerning
* "Divina siquidem bonitas consumnet malitiam, Tterna vita absorbet
mortem, beautitudo miseriam,.... nisi forte adhuc ambigis dominum
Jesum humanen nature acceptorem et salvatorem non totam ipsam sed
quantulamcunque partem ejus accepisse et salvasse."
407 
RATIONAL CHRISTIANITY.
it are entertained'by different sects, each claiming to be
Christian, each professing to receive the New Testament as final and divine authority. The testimony of
the sacred books on this subject is not uniform: the
voices conflict. The doctrine of Paul in the Romans,
as we have seen, is Universalism: other portions of
the Scripture emphatically assert the opposite view.
The language in these passages is strong, yet not so
strong but that modern criticism, sharp and trenchant
as a two-edged sword, will pierce between the words
and the doctrine supposed to be contained in them.*
Indeed, what language can be made so strong as to be
impervious to the sword of criticism, when many transcribers, and many mediating witnesses, and many
centuries, and a foreign language, intervene between
the writer and the critic? What language can be made
so strong as to bind for ever thought and faith? The
purpose of revelation is not to settle speculative questions depending on tile nice interpretation of words,
but to infuse a new spirit into human things, to illustrate great principles of practical import with new
sanctions. The principles are eternal; the dogmas in
which they are embodied are limited and transient.
The question is one of the antinomies of theology,
* We attach little weight to the verbal criticisms on the word atevmog.
Granting what has often been alleged, that this word, in its strict and original import, is not equivalent to our" everlasting," it is nevertheless probable
that the New-Testament writers connected the idea of endlessness with it.
But the plea, that whatever is deducted, in the interpretation of this word,
from the duration of hell punishments, must also be deducted from the
duration of future bliss,- a plea as old as Augustine,- is utterly futile (as
De Quincey has shown) as an argument for the eternity of the former.
408 
CRITIQUE OF PENAL THEOLOGY.
- a question of which affirmative and negative are
equally debatable and equally doubtful. It is a question on which sentiment and reason are divided. Our
heart is with the Universalists; but reason is shocked
by the violence of the hypotheses which Universalismtheological as well as philosophical - seems to necessitate. Theological Universalism supposes a too forcible interference of Almighty Love in the normal processes of the individual soul, bringing the Divine into
self- collision. Philosophic Universalism assumes an
inevitable triumph  of  self-recovery, -a fatality of
goodness in man which seems to be based on no analysis of human nature, which certainly is not warranted
by any mundane experience, and whose only voucher,
so far as we can see, is a brave hope, which, however
honorable to those who cherish it, is of no great use in
the critical investigation of this subject.   Theodore
Parker, one of the ablest representatives of philosophic
Universalism in this country, states the doctrine with
his usual vigor: "But there is no spiritual death,only partial numbness, never a stop to that higher life.
The soul's power of recovery from wickedness is infinite; its time of healing is time without bounds.
There is no limit to the Vis rnedicatrix of the inner,
the immortal man.   To the body, death is a finality;
but the worst complication of personal wickedness is
only one incident in the development of a man whose
life is continuous, an infinite series of incidents all
planned,' and watched over by Absolute Love.... In
all the family of God there is never a son of perdition."
This is fine, had the author but legitimated it by some
demonstration of the grounds of his prophecy beside
409 
RATIONAL CHRISTIANITY.
general reference to the revelation of the "Universe,"
from which he professes to have derived it.  "I think
there is not in the Old Testament, or the New, a single word which tells this blessed truth, that penitence
hereafter shall do any good.... But the Universe is
the revelation of God, and it tells you a grander truth,
- infinite Power and infinite Love, time without
bounds for the restoration of the fallen and the recovery of the wicked."
I am far from questioning the fact of conversions and
reformations in the world to come. On the contrary, I
believe that-to countless profligates who perish in their
sins, opportunities and appeals and gracious influences,
denied in this world, will be vouchsafed hereafter, and
will tell with saving effect; and that many who were
last, will be first. But does it follow that all will be
converted? that saving influences will act with compulsory force? that the soul, as such, is fatally bound and
predetermined to goodness? that every Borgia is a
Carlo Borromeo in eclipse, and every Brinvilliers an
undeveloped Elizabeth Fry? Has this pleasant fancy
any foundation but its own pleasantness, any authority
but an undefined conception of the possibilities of Divine government?  It is not a natural consequence, not
a development according to cause and effect, but a
monstrous accident, a wild interposition of juggling
miracle which we expect when we so dream.  The most
distinguished of American philanthropists, with large
experience of human nature and reformatory discipline,
expressed to me his conviction that some natures are
beyond the reach of moral influence, -proof against
all discipline, - moral incurables. What reason to ex
410 
CRITIQUE OF PENAL THEOLOGY.
pect a moral revolution in such characters hereafter?
If any derived from the nature of the human soul, let
psychology declare it.  The divine mercy?  It is easy
to talk of divine mercy;  but the question is here of
divine power.   The question is of possibility; it is
whether Omnipotence itself can reform such characters
without so violating their idiosyncrasy, without so traversing their normal developments, as in effect to destroy their identity; and whether it would not better
comport with divine economy to substitute at once
another soul. A conversion which, instead of developing a native good, should impose a foreign one, would
not be a reformation, but a mcetaktizosis, a transubstantiation. But we are supposing a case, in which
there is no good to be developed, if not a case of entire
depravity, -the existence of such cases may be denied,
yet a case in which the will is irrecoverably divorced
from good, and bent on evil. Schiller describes the hero
of the "Robbers" by saying, that he would not pray,
if once so resolved, though God should appeal to him in
person with the offer of immediate heavenly bliss. I
fancy this conceit expresses a possibility of human nature, that the soul may arrive at a point of antagonism
where the pride of self-hood shall resist all appeals, and
a self-centred wilfulness shall say, "Evil, be thou my
good."  When that point is reached, we can see no
remedy, no way of restoration, that would not comproinise the soul's integrity. Yet even these cases are
scarcely more hopeless than those of weak and unstable
souls, swift to repent, and equally swift to transgress
anew, whose existence oscillates between contrition and
indulgence. The moral influences which recoil from
411 
RATIONAL CHRISTIANITY.
the solid resistance of the former character, glide infiructuous from the smooth facility of these.
If, therefore, we allow that Universalism is a natural
and legitimate inference from the moral nature of Deity,
we must qualify that inference,. admitting  here, as in
every general principle, possible exceptions. Universalism is true in the general principle, that future blessedness is the normal destination of man. God will
have all men to be saved, in the sense in which he wills
that all fruit-germs shall become fruits, and all human
embryos, well-formed, healthy men and women. But
this destination is not always accomplished: * resistance or defect in the stuff, collision of forces, or what
not, produces abortions in the one case; and defect or
contradiction of the will may produce them in the other.
The world of souls may have its failures, as well as the
world of forms.
Supposing, then, that some individualities shall prove
intractable and insalvable, what, in the final event, is to
be the destiny of these abortive and exceptional souls?
The idea of a state of endless, positive, unmitigated,
conscious suffering, such as the old theology prescribed
for them, we, in this age, have no hesitation in repudiating, as utterly inconsistent with all just views of divine government and the nature of the soul. However
imposing the authorities in favor of a doctrine which
numbers a Plato and an Augustine among its advocates,
we cannot so affront the more imminent authority in
* "It is true," said old MIeletius of Mopsuesia, "that God will have all
men to be saved; but it is evident that the human will does not always coincide with the Divine."
412 
CRITIQUE OF PENAL THEOLOGY.
our own breast as to symbolize with them in this particular. Though a vast majority of the Christian Church
affirm it, we pronounce the doctrine unchristian, contrary to the spirit of Christ, however it may seem to
accord with the letter of the gospel. Orthodoxy may
steel itself to approve an immortality of woe, and even,
as in the case of Tertullian and of Edwards,* imagine
a satisfaction in the contemplation of it; but mature
reason and the unperverted heart alike and instinctively
reject it. Moreover, I hold such a state to be psycholog,ically impossible. Satisfaction, in the way of fruition or of hope, is the pabulum vitace without which
no soul can permanently subsist: the result of continued
suffering must either be an accustomedness which will
make it tolerable, or an intolerableness which will overpower and extinguish consciousness. "No soul," says
Lessing,, "is capable of a pure sensation; that is, of one
which even in its smallest moment is only pleasant or
painful, much less of a state in which all the sensations
are thus unmixed, whether of the former or the latter
kind." t  More elaborately, Schleiermacher, in his trea
* See a Sermon of Jonathan Edwards entitled "The End of the Wicked
Contemplated by the Righteous, or the Torments of the Wicked in Hell no
Occasion of Grief to the Saints in Heaven." -" The miseries of the damned
in hell," says Edwards, "will be inconceivably great....  The saints in
glory will see this, and will be far more sensible of it than we can possibly
be. They will be more sensible how dreadful the wrath of God, and will
better understand how terrible the sufferings of the damned are; yet this
will occasion no grief to them. They will not be sorry for the damned;
it will cause no uneasiness or dissatisfaction to them: but, on the contrary,
when they have this sight, it will excite them to joyful praises." - The
Works of President Edwards (Worcester edition), vol. iv. p. 290.
t Theologische Aufsatze.
413 
RATIONAL CHRISTIANITY.
tise on Christian Faith,* has shown the irreconcilable   ness of a state of perpetual torment as well with the
constitution of the human soul as with the supposition
of an opposite state, appointed for the good, of perfect
and everlasting blessedness. If the torment, he says,
be supposed to consist in physical pains, the conscious
power of enduing such pains is itself a mitigation of
the suffering.  If remorse  be the punishment, con  science must be active in the sufferer, aqd that activity
of conscience supposes a change for good, and is in its
nature remedial;-if consciousness of forfeited joys,
the ability to figure those joys implies the capacity of
like enjoyment, and that capacity a partial reformation.
On the other hand, if such a state be considered in rela  tion to the opposite state of the blest, it is vain, he
argues, to deny to the blest a sympathy with souls in
torment which must effectually disturb their felicity; it
is vain to contend that eternal pains, if decreed, must
be just, and that the contemplation of God which con  stitutes the blessedness of heaven must include the
contemplation of his justice; that contemplation does
not exclude and cannot neutralize sympathy with suffer  ing; and we even demand of the righteous " a deeper
compassion for rnerited pains than for unmerited."
In discussing these matters, one principle is of last
importance; namely, that the future, whatever its char  acter, will be a necessary consequence of the present,
the natural result of causes now at work, the fruit of
_  a good or evil life.  Much of the error which prevails
* Der Christliche Glaube nach  den Grundsatzen der Evangelischen
Kirche (ed. 1836), vol. ii. p. 163.
414 
CRITIQUE OF PENAL THEOLOGY.
in relation to the future state must be ascribed to a
disregard of this principle. The essential truth involved
in the figurative language of Scripture has been confounded with the pictures which envelope it. Hence,
in the doctrine of the Church, the natural results of
character have been converted into rewards and punishments, these into states of rewards and Punishments;
and these states have been conceived as entirely distinct
from each other, each perfect in its kind and eternal in
duration. Such, to this day, are the popular heaven
and hell of the Christian world. The consequences of
men's actions are eternal. Let us keep this principle in
view, and we shall see that the future state of the
wicked can hardly be one of pure suffering.  For who
so depraved that no good has ever mingled with his
earthly life? This good, however scanty, is not lost:
it must bring forth fruit according to its kind, and yield
its consolation in eternity. If any shall object, that,
according to this principle, the good must have their
sorrows in the world to come, and that "Heaven" is
not  the unmixed rapture represented by the popular
faith, I have no wish to avoid this obvious conclusion.
On the contrary, I frankly confess that the popular representation seems to me to err as widely on the one side
as on the other; the idea of a heaven into which no
sorrow can enter,- a broad, unchastened day,
"Shining on, shining on, by no shadow made tender,"
seems to me just as absurd as that of a hell whose Stygian hold no joy can penetrate, and no hope relieve.
The heavens and the hells interpenetrate each Other;
and the souls of men, with few exceptions, hereafter as
415 
RATIONAL CHRISTIANITY.
here, for a time at least, will inhabit both or harbor both.
The difference between the wicked and the righteous
consists, not so much in the funded good or evil of their
respective natures, as in the tendencies-  good or evil
-established in their wills.  These tendencies, once
established, will draw their subjects contrary ways, with
progressive divergence sundering souls, the good from
the bad; attracting the former to the Infinite Good, and
impelling the latter - shall we say to the Infinite Evil?
There is no infinite evil.
What, then, is the final destination of incorrigible
and exceptional souls?  Not endless torment, but everlasting (spiritual) death, utter extinction of the moral
life. All the analogies point to this conclusion, all true
deductions from the moral nature confirm it; and, for
those who demand the warrant of the letter, what conclusion more just to the letter of the Scripture which
declares that "sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth
death "?  Conscience (or self-consciousness) is the lifeprinciple of moral natures. The tendency of sin is to
weaken and corrupt, and finally to mortify and destroy,
that principle.  When, accordingly, in any soul the evil,
tendency exceeds a'certain stage of development, the
soul loses the power of self-recovery, and-the evil
tendency still proceeding - arrives at last to rest in
evil as its good, and to sini without compunction, or
any inward  restraint or contradiction.*  Then - the
evil tendencystill proceeding - commences a process of
mortification, which involves, as its final consummation,
loss of consciousness; for consciousness supposes a ca
* This is the stage of Devildom, or "Evil Spirits."
416 
CRITIQUE 01F PENAL THEOLOGY.
pacity of distinguishing good and evil, and loss of voluntary power, for voluntary power involves also a moral
element. Sin is then finished, and has brought forth
death. The soul, as a moral agent and a conscious
individuality, is extinct: as a monad it still survives.
No longer a person, but a thing, its condition thenceforth is not a question of psychology, but of ontology.*
The view here offered is by no means new, but has
never obtained extensive currency in the Christian
Church. Yet it is the one which seems to me most defensible, as being less violent in its hypothetical assumptions than Universalism, and more in harmony with just
conceptions of Deity and divine rule than other forms
of Partialism. The only point we may regard as established in this matter is the immortality of the moral
nature, and a moral connection between the life that
now is and the life to come. All else is mere speculation; and so little is gained by speculating on a future
state, that the raisc, after sounding in vain, to the extent
of their line, this uncertain deep, will bound their inquiries by such practical conclusions as are best adapted
to our moral wants. No reform in theology is more
needed at present, than one which shall teach us how
to prize, and how best to possess, this mortal world.
We make too much of death and hereafter. We seem
to be wandering at the foot of a mountain, behind
which lies the land of our dreams. And the mountain
* To those who are curious in such speculations, the Gnostic cosmogony
of early Christendom, which was afterwards unconsciously revived by Jacob
Bohme, -the cosmogony which supposes the material universe to be the
wreck of a foregone spiritual creation, - may suggest the possible uses of
lost souls.
27
417 
RATIONAL CHRISTIANITY.
casts its long, dark shadow across our earth-life, obscuring its import and veiling its glories.  The mountain exists only in our conceit: the land of our hopes
and our fears is in the soul. We carry within us
the "Judgment" to come, and the Judge, and all the
hereafter. To be in eternity is not to be personally
translated, but spiritually transformed; it is not to be
disembodied, but disenchanted, unselfted. To fill the
moment worthily is everlasting life.
418 
XI.
THE TWO TYPES. 
a 
XI.
THE TWO TYPES.
WVHEN  the gospel was first delivered to the world, it
had to encounter two contrary tendencies, represented
by two different classes of minds.   It encountered religious prejudice on one side, and philosophic pretension
on the other. The former of these tendencies was represented by the Jews; the latter, by the Greeks. No
two minds could be mnore unlike than the minds of
these two nations, - the one perversely straitened, bigoted, intolerant, but firm; the other liberal, expansive,
but curious, fickle, doubting. The one demanded external authority; the other demanded philosophic justice.
The one required that a doctrine or system should be
authenticated by some visible token; the other required
that it should be scientifically legitimated. With the
one,.the question as to every doctrine was, " Hath
the Lord spoken? hath the Lord said it?" And the
evidence that the Lord had said it must not be internal,
but external.  It was not the nature of the doctrine
itself, but some prodigy or supernatural circumstance
attending its first annunciation. With the other, the
question was, "Is it philosophical?  Is it logical?  Is
[ 421 ] 
RATIONAL CHIRISTIANITY.
it capable of demonstration? Does it harmonize with
this or that school?
The Jews were a nation taught by prophets, who
claimed a divine commission for what they uttered.
They delivered their doctrine with an introductory,
Thus saith the Lord."  The Greeks were taught by
sophists and philosophers, who claimed no authority
but that of reason for their opinions. They questioned
nature, questioned the soul, analyzed their impressions,
and gave forth the results of their inquiries in the form
of scientific propositions, subject to criticism, to be received or rejected as criticism should confirm or refute
them; not as the burdens of the Lord, to be received,
without question, in the Lord's name.   Their wisdom
was reflective, not intuitive; it was elaborated, not inspired.  They surveyed, according to their light, the
entire field of human inquiry; they investigated all
the questions  which have  ever agitated  the human
mind. All the tendencies of modern thought were
anticipated, all the schools of modern philosophy are
represented, in their speculations. When these speculations were brought to bear upon Christianity, they
encountered a new and opposing element. Christianity
would not accommodate itself to the wisdom of the
schools.  The schools could not adjust themselves with
Christianity. To Greek philosophy Christianity seemed
"foolishness." As little could the Jews, on the other
hand, reconcile Christ with their traditions. They could
not, or would not, see their Messiah in the Crucified.
To Jewish prejudice, a gospel sealed with the cross
was a  stuinbling-block."   But the gospel, ordained to
be a new wisdom and a new power in the world, pur
422 
THE TWO TYPES.
sued its way, regardless of Jewish traditions and of
Greek philosophy.  "To the Jews a stumbling-block,
to the Greeks foolishness," it proved itself to those who
received it, " the wisdom of God and the power of God
unto salvation."
The Jew and the Greek, as Paul found them, have
passed away from the stage of this world; but these
two  tendencies remain.   There  are still these' two
classes of minds, -the Jew and the Greek; and, corresponding with them, two different forms of religious
thought and life,   a Jewish and a Greek Christianity.
Neither of these is complete in itself; neither expresses
the whole truth of the gospel; each serves as a check
on the other; each is the other's complement.  True
Christianity is the reconciliation of the two. Let justice
be done to both!
1. The prevailing type in theology is Judaism. In
the Christian Church, as everywhere else, the majority depend on external authority for their opinions,
especially their  religious  opinions.   In  settling  for
themselves tht question what is true, they look outward,  and  not  inward.   The  doctrine which shall
gain their assent must have some other basis than reason, or than their understanding.   Is it the doctrine
of the Bible?  Is it the doctrine of our sect?  Has the
Conference or the Council endorsed it? Does this or
that preacher accept it? If you inquire the grounds
of their belief in Christianity, they refer you to the
signs which accompanied its first promulgation. The
miracles of the New Testament are more to them than
the evidence of the spirit in the doctrine and life of
423 
RATIONAL CHIRISTIANITY.
Jesus.   They appeal to the Scriptures.   If you de mand of them, " How do you know that the Scriptures
are true?" the answer is, "Because they are inspired."
"And how do you know them to be inspired?"
" The Church says so."  The "says so" of the Church
carries greater conviction to their minds than the evidence of the spirit in the word itself. If you could
convince them that the miracles of the New Testament
are not true,' Christianity, in their estimation, would
lose all its authority.   The doctrines might still be
true, but they would cease to have any special value.
If you could convince them that the Scriptures are
not inspired, in that technical and half-material sense
which they connect with the term; that, though full of
a divine spirit, they are not exceptional compositions,
convince them of this, and the Scriptures woul4 seem
to them to be deprived of all their significance. In
short, truth to them is not a relation between their own
minds and a given proposition or aspect of a subject,
but a relation between them and some authorized person or persons, or institutions.   It is not an act of
perception, but an act of homage;  not'an individual
experience, but a foreign dictumr.  They are constitutionally averse to new opinions, or such as have the
aspect of novelty. And, when they assail such opinions, it is not by reason, but by authority. They call
for a sign, and triumphantly appeal to their own. "To
the law and the testimonies" is their cry. And what
they cannot find in the law and the testimonies, according to their interpretation, or the interpretation of their
sect, they not only reject, but reject with scorn. The
asserter of such opinion is not only an errorist, but anti
424 
THE TWO TYPES. 
christ.  It is not enough to disallow his doctrine: they
rise against it.  Not content with ignoring it for their
own particular, they denounce it as an offence; and,
where the times will permit, they punish it as a
crime.
These are the Jews in religion; in modern phrase,
the " Orthodox." They are the conservative force in the
Church, the safeguard and bulwark of Christian doctrine; without which it would run wild, and lose itself
in endless perversions. If not philosophic and rational,
they are politic and practical. If not progressive, they
are all the more steadfast. They are " constitutional."
I intend by that phrase, so familiar in political life,
the same quality or the same attitude in religious matters which is commonly expressed by it in relation to
civil. We say that a statesman, or public officer, or
public act, are ( constitutional," when they conform to
the written instrument on which the State is founded,
and by which it is agreed that the legislation of the
State and the administration of its affairs shall be ruled.
The constitution is not infallible: it may be faulty in
some of its provisions, it may need revision and amendment; but, so long as it is the constitution of the State,
it is very evident that wisdom and the public good require its observance. It is easy to see what mischief
must ensue, what disorganization and dissolution of all
bonds and proprieties, what confusion, what hazard to
life and goods, if the people of the State, and especially
those in authority and public trust, should wholly disregard its provisions, and conduct themselves as if no
such instrument existed, as if nothing were settled, but
every thing left to the private discretion of each indi
425 
RATIONAL CHRISTIANITY.
vidual. It is obvious that the State could not stand
on such a basis as that. There must be some kind of
constitution, written or understood, to secure the well  being, to secure the existence, of society.  And there
must be constitutional men to maintain and execute its
* o
provisions.
The Christian Church is a spiritual society, asso ciated for spiritual ends on the same terms, as regards
the point we are now considering, on which the State
associates for civil and temporal ends; that is, on the
terms of -a mutual understanding as to aim and action.
And, since the greater part of the business of the
Church is the communication and inculcation of reli gious truth, it follows that there must be a mutual
understanding on that point, -on the question, What
is truth, or what is the truth which the Church has to
teach? That understanding, expressed or implied, is
the constitution of the Church. And when I say the
Church, I mean each particular branch of the Church,
by whatsoever name it may be called. Each branch of
the Church has its constitution, which serves as the basis
of its action, and the maintenance of which is essential, not only to its prosperity, but to its very being.
Suppose that no such understanding existed; that the
doctrine of the Church, of any Church, were wholly
undetermined; that not so much as a fundamental proposition, or general outline of Christian faith, were
admitted or understood; that every proposition which
miglIt offer, from whatsoever quarter,' of whatsoever
import, were equally entitled to call itself Christian,
and to be received as the doctrine of the Church;'that,
instead of a constitution, the. Church presented a blank
426 
THE TWO TYPES.
tablet, on which each might inscribe his own theory and
call it Christianity, - suppose this, and what follows?
It is easy to see, that Christianity, as a form of faith,
would soon become extinct, overlaid with the speculations of all who incline to speculate, with the visions of
all who are given to dream. The Christian Church,
instead of the " Bride of the Lord," would become the
harlot of every reformer who might wish to dally with
her; the temple, instead of a fane for Christian worship, would become a pantheon for all the divinities of
all religions, or a pandemonium for every- abortion
of the human mind. Thanks, therefore, to the Jewish
party, the Orthodox, the conservative party in religion!
They are the body-guard of the Church; they stand by
the record; they guard the ark of religious truth from
the wildness of fanaticism on the one hand, from insidious speculation on the other.   Let them have their
dues. If unfriendly to inquiry, and indifferent to absolute truth, they are fervently attached to what they
suppose to be " the faith once delivered to the saints."
If limited in their views, and bigoted in action, they
are serious and  devout.   If wanting  in liberality,
they excel in zeal.
At the same time, we must not, in justice to Christian
truth, conceal from ourselves the radical vice of the
Jewish type. - Having no interest in truth as such, but
interested only in the forms that embody it, and in them
only as something given, as fixed facts and institutions,
minds of this class refuse to perceive that no existing
forms or institutions contain the whole truth; that truth
cannot be thus confined; that the forms of one age
become inadequate to the wants of the next, -the
427 
RATIONAL CHRISTIANITY.
human mind, with its capacity for truth, for ever growing, while forms and institutions remain stationary.
The Jews in religion are unfriendly to progress; they
oppose themselves to progress; and, had it. depended
on them alone, religion would have made no progress
in the world, and humanity none.   The same zeal
which levels its ban at every new word in the Christian
Church would ban Christianity itself, if Christianity
were a new dispensation just offering itself to the
human mind.  One cannot help feeling, that the Jews
who require a sign at the present day, and admit
nothing without authority, are the genuine descendants
of the Jews who required a sign in the days of the
apostles, and would not see it when it was given. One
cannot help feeling, that these Orthodox, who contend so
zealously for the old way, had they been contemporaries
of Jesus would not have been among the number of his
disciples. It.was the Orthodox party in the old Jerusalem Church that demanded the crucifixion of Christ.
It was the Orthodox party in the early Christian Church
that resisted the propagation of Christianity among
the Gentiles, except they first became Jews, and would
have kept it, if possible, a national privilege, confined
to the children of Abraham. It was the Orthodox
party which all along, from the final establishment of
Christianity in the fourth century until now, has uniformly resisted every attempt to reform the doctrine or
the polity of the Church. It was the Orthodox party
which clamored for Mary-worship and the worship of
images, and raged against all who sought to abate or to
banish these corruptions. It was they who sent hell
among the Vaudois, and presided at the Council of
428 
THE TWO TYPES.
Constance; who choked Savonarola, and would have
choked Luther; who unsepulchred the bones of Wickliffe, and killed the fires of Smithfield, and instituted
the blood-bath of Huguenot France. It was the Jewish party in the English Church which enacted the Act
of Conformity; which wielded the Star Chamber and
the Court of High Commissions against the Puritans.
It was the Jewish party in Puritan New England that
hanged and scourged the Quakers, and re-enacted in
the New World, the ruthless rigors of the Old
In fine, the Jews in religion are no friends to truth
as such. Though fanatically jealous of what they call
truth, they value it not for its own sake, but only for
authority's sake and tradition's sake.   They value it,
not as wisdom, but as a sign; not as the bread of life
to be nourished by, but as show-bread to swear by.
They value it, not as something to use, but as something to hold. If the formulas which they guard so
jealously, express the truth, it is accidental, so far as
they are concerned. Any other formulas which should
happen to have been delivered to the r ould answer
the purpose just as well. They might as well have
falsehood as truth in their creed, as to any life which
they draw from it.  It is not truth that they want,
but authority.
2. If, now, we turn to the Greek type ill religion, we
shall find it to be the exact reverse of the foregoing in
all its essential features.  "The Greeks seek after wisdom; " that is, philosophy, knowledge, understanding.
Conviction, with them, is not based on authority, but
on insight. They make little of authority, and little
of tradition; they want, not only to believe, but to corn
429 
RATIONAL CHRISTIANITY.
prehend. It is not enough that a doctrine is delivered
to them by the Church.  They cannot receive it on that
ground, unless it shall approve itself to tlir investigation.   They subject it to critical analysis; and what
analysis confirms, that only they receive.   The first
question with them is, not what has been delivered,
but what is true; not what the Church teaches, but
what Reason affirms. They are not careful to abide
by the Past; they do not believe that all truth is embodied there. They believe in progress; they believe
that truth is progressive, that more light is to break
forth, and new discoveries to be made.   They seek
truth in all directions, and welcome it, or the promise
and. semblance of it, from whatsoever quarter, whether
it be the School or the Church. They love to supplement the word of revealed truth with the teachings of
secular philosophy, and to reconcile and blend them
both in a more comprehensive view than the current
theology, in their judgment, supplies.
This is the Greek element in religion, - liberal, inquiring, receive, progressive, apt to learn, eager to
comprehend. A very important agent it has been in the
Christian Church. Whatsoever of progress, of freedom, of light, of enlarged and comprehensive vision,
the Church has attained, has come to it through this
medium.   Without it, the Church would never have
emancipated itself from Judaism, from Romanism, from
any other form of doctrine or discipline which has once
been impressed upon it. Each successive development
of Christian doctrine is directly or-indirectly the product of this element. Personally, it is an indispensable
condition of a living and productive faith. Without it,
430 
THIE TWO TYPES.
faith is a blind instinct, on which no reliance can be
placed; which stimulates without directing; which
makes fimatics, but never discreet and effective servants
of the truth. We may believe without understanding,
as we may also understand without believing; but the
highest form of religious life is that in which reason is
guide to faith, and in which believing is an act of the
intellect as well as the heart.
But while we honor the Greek in religion, with his
search after wisdom, and while we rejoice that this type
has never been extinct in the Church, we must not
overlook its essential defects, nor blink its perversions.
We must bear in mind, that the very trait which constitutes its merit and its glory is peculiarly liable to abuse,
and, when abused, is more mischievous than bigotry
itself. There are two sides to the love of knowledge.
It may be a dutiful desire for the truth, as spiritual
nourishment, as means of growth, as something divine
to be realized in life; and it may be mere curiosity,
a thirst for mental excitement amusing itself with
mental images, as a child turns over the leaves of its
picture-book, or pulls its playthings to pieces, with a
scrutiny in which there is more of the love of marvel
than of wise research.  There is a seeking after knowledge which looks upwards, and aspires to the light,
aspires to it as divine manifestation and divine guidance;
and which, with earnest speculation in its eye, still
acknowledges the God-ordained limits of human vision,
and reverently accepts the everlasting mystery in which
the Absolute hides itself from finite apprehension, and
restrains intrusive fingers where it seems to see the
handwriting of God, "Thus far, and no farther." And,
431 
RATIONAL CHRISTIANITY.
again, there is a seeking after knowledge which looks
not up, but underneath and behind; which pries and
peeps and peers; and, not satisfied with the radiant
and majestic face of truth, puts forth its impious hand
to detect the forbidden form.   Its desire is not for
light and manifestation of the Godhead, and heavenly
guidance; but for penetrating into dark corners, and
disembowelling sacred mysteries.   It is not to face
inistruction, but to go behind it. It tolerates nothing
hidden, and is for ever peeping beneath the veils which
the course of revealing Providence has not yet removed;
and which science, by legitimate methods, has been unable to lift.  For all that is to be known is not yet
revealed, and not yet revealable. The language of
God to the human mind is, "I have many things to
declare unto you; but ye are not able to bear them yet."
For every revelation, and for every discovery, there is
a time; and no real progress is made, or insight gained,
by empiric groping, where neither revelation points nor
science leads the way. If it were possible to anticipate
truth by prurient speculation, it would not be truth in
effect. For truth is not an entity, but a right relation
of the mind with the objects presented to it. And that
cannot be a right relation in which the natural and divine order is violated. The rash disciple of Egyptian
mysteries who uncovered the veiled image at Sais, was
not instructed, but smitten with madness, by what he
discovered.
Observe, too, that the Greek propensity in religion,
so far from securing the inquirer against that excessive
credulity which might seem to be the peculiar attribute
of the Jewish mind, is itself especially liable to this
432 
THE TWO TYPES.
weakness, and not unfrequently terminates in grosser
illusions and wilder superstitions than ever authority
imposed on those whose faith requires a sign. It was
the Gnostics, among the early Christians, - that speculating sect for whom Christianity was not sufficiently
intellectual, and who sought to piece it with their
philosophy, -it was they who received the spurious
" Gospel of the Infancy," with its foolish tales of miracles wrought by the infant Jesus. Lord Herbert, of
Cherbury, believed in a special revelation vouchsafed to
encourage him in a work in which all revelation was
denied.  And, in our day, manv who professed philosophic doubts of Christianity, and could not accept the
alleged improbabilities of the gospel history, have given
unhesitating credence to pretended visitations from the
spirit-world, of which table-tipping and anile. gossip
have as yet been the only fruit.
The propensity of the Greek mind is to require a
reason for every truth. And it needs the critical action
of this propensity to distinguish truth from falsehood
in the doctrines presented to the mind; to secure the
mind from error and superstition, and that unlimited
credulity which is practically no better than unbelief.
But let it be remembered that truth is not the product
of reason; and that there are truths for which no reason
can be given, but the reason assigned for the being of
God, "I am because I am." This divine because is
the terminus of human inquiry in religion and philosophy, beyond which speculation is fruitless, and where
reverent minds will bow submissive, andsinquiry yield
to faith.
A mind indulging this bias, and pushing this pro
28
433 
IRATIONAL CHRISTIANITY.
pensity without heed and without check, will be very
likely to lose its self-possession, and either to founder
in the realm of inanities, without bottom an& without
goal; or, what is equally bad, to entangle itself with
life-long, inexorable bondage. These are the minds that
riot in ultraisms.  The complexion of their ultraisms
depends on accidental conditions.   In  one direction
they become brawling infidels; men who glory in having, no God and no hope, no calling but corruption,
and no destination but the grave. In another direction
they become vehement schismatics, disorganizers, destructives; anti-church anti-state, anti-law; implacably
hostile to every thing established, and, above  all, to
established peace and good-will among men: or if, as
sometimes chances, they land in the Church of Rome,
they find special satisfaction in all the extreme and
most offensive features of that religion; they urge its
exclusive principles with a rigor which exceeds the consciousness of native Romanism.   They out-fulminate
the Vatican, and complacently surrender to damnation
their former acquaintance, and the greater part of mankind.
Such are the vagaries incident to minds of this class.
They are liable to either and any extreme of superstition or unbelief.   Seeking after wisdom  is a brave
pursuit; but the truest wisdom comes not by the Greek
method. None so likely to depart firom wisdom as he
who  seeks it through the understanding  alone.   I
picture to myself the course of such a spirit diverging
ever farther from the Source of truth, turning from the
sun in quest of light, and losing itself in endless aberration.
434 
THE TWO TYPES.
The Greek mind inclines to'metaphysic subtleties, and
delights in curious speculations and abstract questions,
which have no bearing on practical life.  It was the
Greek that introduced those perplexing questions of
speculative theology, those controversies respecting the
nature of the Godhead, and the nature of the Word,
which rent the early Church, and which still divide the
Christian world. It was the Greek Fathers who first
mingled inetaphysic subtleties with Christian doctrine.
All those weary disputations -Arian, Hiomousian, Homoiousian,  Heterusian, Monophysites, Monotheleteswhich confuse the records of primitive ecclesiastical
history are of Greek manufacture.   And whatsoever
of scholastic theorizing and mnetaphysic speculation,
rationalistic, Calvinistic, transcendental, in later time
has perplexed the Christian mind, has in it something
of the old Greek element.
The Jew and the Greek - both types have existed
in the Church from the beginning, and will continue to
exist. Each has its merits and its dangers: either,
when exaggerated, is fraught with evil; the one resulting
in bigotry and superstition, the other in bleak negation
or mystic aberration.. Unhappily, they are found too
often disjoined.  If we look around on the world of
our acquaintance, among those whose minds are active
in religion, we find the Jew and the Greek each
marked and distinct, -on the one hand, the rigorous
conservative, the slave of tradition, the stickler for the
letter, narrow, repulsive, hard; on the other, the rash
innovator, the wild theorist, transcendentalist, mystic,
genial and quick, but loose, uncertain, vague. A true
435 
RATIONAL CHRISTIANITY.
religion unites both elements. The co-action of both
is required for a healthy spiritual growth. We need
the Jew;  we need the sign,-external, supreme authority. We need the ultimate appeal of a given
word to make our Christianity something more than
a system of philosophy, a human invention, a fabric of
the brain; to make it a faith, a religion, a certainty,
a spiritual rock in the flood of thought and the tide of
time. And we need the Greek; we need the reflective,
intellectual element to make religion something more
than a charnel and a sleep; to give it a propulsive and
quickening influence; to give us in it and through it an
abundant entrance into the everlasting; to make it a
progress and a life.
Let each supply what the other lacks. Is your
religion of the Jewish type,- a religion of authority,
of rigid literality?  Endeavor to enlarge your thought
and to liberalize your mind by intercourse with minds
of a different cast; converse freely with thinkers of
every name; make yourself familiar with the literature
and philosophy of religion beyond the limits of your
School and Church. Add to conviction, insight; to
tradition, reason; to dogma, charity; to the letter, life.
Let ever green nature and loving humanity twine their
tendrils around the walls of your Zion, and relieve with
a gracious tolerance the harsh angularity of your creed.
Are you a Greek in religion, - rationalistic, studious
of knowledge, addicted to speculation, impatient of
authority, seeking in the human understanding alone
the grounds of belief?   Consider that if mortal wit
were equal to all the wants of the soul, and to all the
problems of spirit and life, no historic dispensation
436 
THE TWO TYPES.
would have been vouchsafed; no church would ever
have been established in the world. Reason as you
will, examine, question: but overlook not the necessities of human nature; accept the limits of human insight, and temper the boldness of speculation with
reverent regard for the manifest course of Providence
in the education of the human race, and with something
of respect for the faith of mankind.
The Jews require a sign, and the Greeks seek after
wisdom; " but Christianity comprehends and embodies
both wisdom and sign.   Christianity is larger than
Jewish authority, and deeper than Grecian philosophy;
and when in its infancy it burst upon the world, it
swept away both; it bore down synagogue and academy;
it floated Gamaliel and Plato, resolved them into itself,
and, preserving what truth was in each, reproduced it
in its own reconciling and transcendent kind.  So it
will do in all time to come with the sects and schools
ttat have sprung from its bosom.  It will absorb them
all, -will survive them all. That steady flood will
swallow up all our creeds, philosophies, organizations,
reforms,-  all our prophecy, all our knowledge; while,
forcing its way through the heart of the world, it bears
humanity on from truth to truth, and from life to life.  
XIL.
THE MORAL IDEAL.
41 
t 
XII.
THE MORAL IDEAL.
DIFFERENT ages and religions entertain very different
notions of moral excellence, which they express in the
models propounded for the admiration and respect of
mankind. In many of the religions of the world,
human models have been exalted into objects of worship. In the Greek and Roman cult, a considerable
part of the rites of worship consisted in honors paid to
deified men.   The Herakles who forms so prominent a
figure in the Greek mythology, is an instance of this
deification, the prototype of many worthies, - part historic, part mythic, -  whom their virtues raised to the
company of the gods. The ritual name by which these
worthies were designated was "hero;" a term which
expressed the highest conception then entertained of
human excellence.
The Christian Church, in its Roman branch, adopted
the same practice. What in ancient Rome was Apotheosis, in modern Rome is Canonization.   Canonization
is the declaration of the Church of Rome, by her constituted authorities, that a certain individual is a holy
f441 ] 
RATIONAL CHRISTIANITY.
person; one who, having passed directly to heaven without enduring the pains of purgatory, is to be invoked
with prayers and honored with appropriate worship.
The ritual name by which these Christian heroes are
designated is " saint;" a name which expresses the highest ecclesiastical conception of human excellence. This
is the present technical meaning of the term as applied
to worthies of the Christian Church.   The  ancient
apostolic use was different. Wherever the word " saint"
occurs in the New Testament, it means simply Christian,
without the attribution of personal merit. And after
the time of the apostles, for more than a century,
Christians without discrimination Were called " saints."
By that term they were distinguished from Jew and
Gentile, but not from each other.
This change in the use of the word is very remarlkable. It indicates the different view, entertained by
different periods, of what constitutes holiness. In the
view of the early Church, holiness resulted from position,  the position given by the Christian calling.  In
the view of the later Church, position results from holiness. In the former case, Christians were regarded as
called" in a special sense.  It was not so much their
own deliberate choice, as it was the special favor of God,
that had made them Christians, according to the saying, "Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you."
Being chosen, called from amid the great mass of the
profane world, they were a separate and select race:
" Ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy
nation, a peculiar people." Their separation was their
sanctity.  As the age advanced, and Christendom extended its borders; and Christianity, instead of a spe
442 
THE MORAL IDEAL.
cialty and a separation, became an empire and a world,
-this view of sanctity got obsolete. Christian and saint
were no longer synonymous.   The idea of holiness was
then transferred from a providential state to a voluntary
act, from calling to character, from the lot to the life.
But still the Church so far maintained the original idea
as to recognize no holiness outside of the Christian fold.
And, as being within that fold was purely providential,
-a matter of nativity or opportunity, -  holiness was
still, in part, external and accidental. Accordingly,
the saint of the Christian Church represents the two
elements of fortune and character,- an accidental and
a moral element: the fortune consisting in the circumstance of Christian nativity or Christian opportunity;
the character being his own developed and disciplined
will.
Regarding the moral element in the Church idea of
the saint, we have here a type of character differing
widely from that represented in the objects of Gentile
adoration. The deified men of the Gentile Church
were the strong, the brave, the beautiful, the eminent,
and such as were distinguished by worldly success.
The canonized worthies of the Christian Church were
men and women, distinguished by moral exactness and
religious devotion. Here, then, we have a point of comparison by which to estimate the different tendencies of
the Gentile and the Christian mind.  Here we  have
their respective ideals of human excellence, the characters to which they paid the highest honor, the hero and
the saint, the powerful and the good. Out of this one
difference it would not be difficult to develop all the
moral differences which distinguish the two religions.
443 
RATIONAL CHtISTANITY.
The hero was the saint of ancient worship, the saint
is the hero of the Christian Church. And observe that
the same qualities which the Greeks adored in their
heroes and demigods were also embodied, and constituted the distinguishing traits, ip their higher divinities.
The Olympian gods were deified Force, Beauty, Cunning, Art.
In the city of Rome, in the early period of the Christian era, the two religions encountered each other, and
contended together in a deadly conflict, which resulted in
the overthrow of the Gentile and the triumph of the
Christian worship, of the Christian ecclesiastical power,
also of many Christian ideas, and among themn the
recognition of the Christian type of character. There
remain, as monuments of this conflict and this triumph,
some ancient temples, once consecrate to Gentile divinities, which, after the overthrow of polytheismn, were
purified, re-dedicated, and converted into Christian
Churches, and which still survive as such. The most
remarkable of these is the griat pantheon of Agrippa,
a temple erected near the time of the birth of Christ;
and dedicated, not to one deity only, but to all the
divinities of the Greek and Roman faith.   Early in
the seventh century, Pope Boniface IV. new consecrated this splendid fane, cleared it of the symbols of polytheism, replaced the ancient statues with representations
of Christian worthies, and devoted it to the Virgin
Mary and all the martyrs. It still exists under this
designation, the most perfect monument which modern
Rome contains of ancient architectural art. This venerable temple of two successive ages and religions
affords, in the contrast of its present symbols, images,
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TIIE MORAL IDEAL.
and decorations, with those of ancient time, an apt illustration of the change which religion has wrought in the
moral ideals of the people of Rome. A writer * in
the interest of the Catholic Church, defending it against
the charge of Paganism, supposes an ancient Roman,
who had known this temple in his lifetime, to revisit it
in its present form. " The first thing which would strike
him, instead of the statue of Jupiter, which once stood
fronting the entrance, would be the image of Christ
crucified, which now occupies that spot. On the right
hand, the picture of one whom men are stoning, while
he, with uplifted eyes, prays for their forgiveness, would
rivet his attention; on the left, the modest statue of a
virgin with a child in her arms would invite him to inquiry. Then he would see the mnonuments of men whose
clasped or crossed hands express how they died with
unresisting patience, and the prayer of faith in their
hearts. When he should inquire into the character of
these men, he would learn that they were not such as had
been crowned with worldly success, or whose achievemnents had won for them the applause of their contemporaries; not victors in battle, not rulers and potentates,
but men whose highest distinction was their humility and
devotion, - men who were persecuted for righteousness'
sake; who resisted not evil, but returned blessings for
cursing, and submitted themselves to a painful death
rather than deny their faith."-   I fancy," says this
writer, "it would be no difficult task, with these objects
before him, to expound and fully develop to him the
Christian faith; and I think this ancient Roman would
* The late Cardinal Wiseman.
p
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RATIONAL CHRISTIANITY.
get the idea of a religion immensely different from that
which he had professed, when he should see the substitu tion of symbol for symbol, -the cross of ignominy with
its unresisting victim for the haughty Thunderer, the
purest of virgins for the goddess of lust, the forgiving
Stephen for the avenging god of war.  He would con ceive the idea of a religion of the meek and humble, of
the persecuted and suffering, of the merciful, the modest,
and devout."
In this change from the old to the new, from Gentile
to Christian, the most marked and remarkable and
indisputable sign of spiritual superiority on the part of
the Christian is the irrecognition, the sublime disregard
by the Church, of all adventitious, external, splendor
and renown, of all pomp of circumstance, of all conventional distinctions of rank or place, of all physical
endowments, such as beauty or strength, of all celebrity
won by merely animal or merely secular or intellectual
prowess or enterprise. The qualifications for ecclesiastical saintship have been precisely those qualities which
the gospel commends, - humility, meekness, patience.
The gospel announced itself as a power that was to
"exalt them of low degree." -   Blessed are the poor in
spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven," "He that
humbleth himself shall be exalted," is its spirit and
promise, its all-pervading idea. This idea and promise
the Church of Rome has strikingly and nobly fulfilled.
Mistakes she may have made in regard to the claims of
some whom she canonized; but one mistake she did not
commit, from one abuse of power an impartial judgment
must pronounce her wholly and signally free. In the
canonization of her worthies there has been no respect
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THIDE MORAL IDEAL.
of persons; no regard was paid to earthly rank or
glory. However, in her policy toward the living, she
may have truckled to rank and power, in the administration. of her rites and duties to the dead she has known
no man according to the flesh, and recognized no claim
but holiness. There is no aristocracy in the Christian
calendar but the aristocracy of good works and moral
desert.   There is no Julius there, no Augustus, no
Antinous, much less a Caligula. If any crowned heads
are there, they are such as Olaf and Edward, and
Princess Elizabeth.  If any nobles are there, they are
such as St. Theresa and St. Charles. It is creditable
to the Church of Rome, that she has canonized very few
sovereigns, only one or two popes, and those not the
most distinguished, nor the most devoted champions of
ecclesiastical power; -  not Hildebrand nor Innocent
III., although one would say the temptation to canonize
these must have been very great. On the other hand,
the Church has freely and gladly exalted them of low
degree, and raised them to sainted seats, where, after due
investigation, the claim of holiness could be satisfactorily
made out. In that calendar there are worthies whom
some of their votaries would not have deigned to meet,
while living, on equal terms, - would have deemed it
beneath their dignity to consort with in the flesh, whose
contact they would have shunned, to speak affably to
whom would have seemed condescension, by whose side
they would not have chosen to sit in public places.
Servants are there, and beggars are there, and negroes
are there; and their worshipful and aristocratic contemporaries are not there.   The former are honored
and adored, and invoked with prayer: the latter are
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RATIONAL CHRISTIANITY.
forgotten and unknown. In this exaltation of the low,
and neglect of the mighty, - where lowliness was
coupled with holiness, and greatness was not, -the
Church has done nobly, and carried out the idea of
Christ.   For if there is any thing which Christianity
honors, it is humility; and, if there is any thing which
God hates, it is exclusiveness and pride..
Thus much it seemed fitting and right to say in vindication and commendation of the ecclesiastical type of
moral excellence as represented in the calendared saints
of the Church.   But when, from the positive side of this
type, we turn to the negative, we perceive a certain narrowness, a one-sidedness, which renders the saint of the
Church of Rome not altogether satisfactory to the liberal
and philosophic mnind.  We are struck with the fact, that
the heroes of the calendar are all Christians. I use the
word in the technical sense. Those whom Rome canonizes must all have been within the pale of the Church;
since the rupture of the Eastern and Latin Churches,
they must all have been within the pale of the Church of
Rome. No outsider, no ancient Gentile, no heathen
of Christian ages, and, not only so, no Protestant
Christian, can be in that calendar,,-can be a saint,
however pure and lowly and devout. I should be sorry
to believe that there are not as many saints, ay, and a
great many more, according to the highest Christian
standard of excellence, outside of that calendar, than are
in it, both among the dead and among the living.  My
calendar, were I authorized to frame one, would be a
great deal larger than that of Rome. Not to speak of
ancient worthies, of Socrates and Epictetus and Antoninus, there are numbers in our own age who by every
448 
TIE MORAL IDEAL.
principle of Christian right should be in it, and are not;
men and women among the departed, to whom, were
it lawful to address supplication to any below the
Supreme, I would certainly as soon pray as to any
Augustine or Chrysostom, ay! or the blessed Virgin
herself. The Church of Rome could not be expected
to know of all the holy without her own pale; but some
she did know, and should have recognized, and would
have recognized and canonized, had a wise and liberal
piety guided her decisions; had she duly considered the
words of the Master, "Other sheep have I who are not
of this fold;" had she not been more influenced by
ecclesiastical exclusiveness than by all her reverence for
piety and holiness.  Will the Church be more scrupulous than her Lord? She knew of Gentiles in the old
world; she has known of heathen and Jews in the new,
in whom was the very spirit of goodness and of Christ,
to whom  nothing was wanting but the accident of
Christian baptism -a mere external, physical experience, a material sign - to constitute them as true
Christians as any within the pale. These are not only
excluded from the company of saints, but are  not
even salvable according to the Catholic theory of salvation.
The Protestant Church, with truer sympathy and
broader charity, accepts for the most part the recognized
saints of the Church of Rome, while she wisely refrains
from establishing any canon for herself of either Catholic or Protestant worthies. But the private heart has a
canon of its own, independent of the Church, and needing no decree of ecclesiastical councils to give it sanction. In that rubric of the heart are written many
29
449 
RATIONAL CERISTIANITY.
names unknown to Rome and unknown to the world.
How many men of pure minds and spotless lives,
whose daily record has been a registry of good deeds,
and whose course through the world a river of blessing!
And, oh! how many women, self-sacrificing, unpretending, uncomplaining, whose  only art was  lovingkindness, in whom was no thought that did not turn on
others' need and others' weal, who have borne with
patience and unconquerable faith the heavy burden of
a thankless service and an unblest house, -  the very
incarnation of the charity which "hopeth all things,
believeth all things, endureth all things"!  Calendar or
no calendar, our faithful rubric shall recognize these as
booked and enrolled in that sacred host whose upper
ranks and whose earthly platoons "but one communion
make;" fellows and heirs in the peerage of holiness,
"partners with the saints in light."  Our highest mood
will gratefully canonize all such, and praise the Allgiver for that most needful and divinest blessing, good
men and good women in every-day life,- the saints of
the workbench, the saints of the office, the saints of the
kitchen, the saints of the needle, the nursery, and
the hearth.
I said that the Roman-Church type of the saint was
too exclusive on its negative side. I must also add, that
it seems to me somewhat narrow on the positive;  a
little too contracted in its moral aspect. Lowliness,
purity, abstemiousness, devoutness, which constitute the
chief ingredients in the composition of the calendar
saint, are priceless qualities, no doubt; still, they are
not the only virtues, nor the sole conditions of holiness.
Sincerity, frankness, cordiality, liberality, cheerfulness,
450
4 
THE MORAL IDEAL.
- these also are Christian graces, and essential constituents of human excellence.   And these are qualities
which the Church canon makes little account of; which
are often wanting, or not apparent, in the Church's
saints. The consequence is, that the Church's saints,
save here and there a Francis of Assisi, a Philip Neri,
and a Francis Sales, are rather objects of reverential
wonder than of cordial, affectionate sympathy, or enthusiastic emotion. I fancy the image conveyed to most
minds by the word "saint" is that of a drooping, emaciated, wobegone figure, of sad countenance, " as the
hypocrites are.' or perhaps of a stern, repulsive look;
not that of a healthy, eupeptic, cheerful, humane, and
genial nature, such as one would choose for companion
or friend. At best, it is an image of rapt, devout looks,
"commercing with the skies," as of one who has no
part or lot in things below.  Nor can it be denied, that
the saints sometimes have been men of narrow minds
and narrow hearts, of limited views and sympathies;
formal, unlovely, severe, -men in whom the religious
sentiment has had a morbid and unnatural development,
not carrying the other sentiments along with it, running
to formalism, not blossoming into a large humanity and
generous expansion of the heart, but contracting the
affections, and seeking its food in asceticism instead of
charity.   Such examples have made the saintly character suspicious and repulsive to men of the world.
The world will tolerate faults in its heroes, but not in
its saints.  Or, if there be faults, they must be such as
spring from over-softness, not from defect of charity.
No character is more repulsive than that in which religion is divorced from lhumanity.
451 
RATIONAL CHRISTIANITY.
The fact is, there are two quite opposite theories of
moral excellence: we may term them the humane, and
the ecclesiastical. The one makes goodness a natural
growth; the other, an artificial product. The former
discerns it in a healthy nature healthily developed,
seconded by divine grace: the latter regards it as the
substitution, by divine grace, of a theological and ecclesiastical conscience in the place of the natural heart.
In the one view, grace re-enforces nature; in the other,
it supersedes nature.   According to one conception,
goodness is self-manifestation; according to the other, it
is self-alienation, - manifestation of an alien power.
In the fifth century of the Christian era, the two
theories, represented respectively by St. Augustine and
Pelagius, were brought into sharp collision, and debated
in a council of the Church. The Church decided for
the Augustinian doctrine; the humane view was declared a heresy, and has been out of favor ever since
with the Orthodox sects. But when, from the bar of
Orthodoxy, we appeal to the common sense of mankind,
that judgment is reversed. In the court of common
sense, true goodness is a natural growth: the more of
individuality, the more of nature there is in it, the more
genuine. Unless the original nature and deepest heart
of the individual are expressed in it, however respectable, and however virtuous in its kind, it is not the
highest style of goodness. It may be a good substitute
where the genuine article is not vouchsafed, but good
only as an artificial product is good in the absence of
the natural. Still the natural is better. We rejoice
when art can in any degree supply or redeem the deficiency of nature; but we rather rejoice in nature.   A
452 
THE MORAL IDEAL.
forced goodness is better than none. Nay, there may
be even more merit in it than in natural goodness,
because of the effort it costs. But there is not the
beauty in it that there is in the natural, and therefore
not the attractiveness and life-giving power. There is
all the difference between them that there is in literature
between a work of genius, the gift of inspiration, and a
work  elaborated by  assiduous toil, -the same  that
there was between the two wives of the patriarch Jacob:
"Leah was tender-eyed, but Rachel was beautiful."
It is seldom that canonical holiness is found in combination with an opulent, genial nature; still less, with
humor and love of fun. But the possibility of such- a
combination is shown in one remarkable example at
least, in which the saintly character appears completely
redeemed from that ghostly unreality which attaches to
most of its calendared representatives; an ecclesiastic
whose goodness was not of the ecclesiastical type, but
thoroughly and richly humane. St. Philip Neri, founder of the order of the " Oratory," was a man of exalted piety and boundless beneficence, - a man whose
lengthened life was a life-long sacrifice, a pouring forth
of himself in ecstatic devotion Godward, and in ceaseless charities manward; but withal so entirely natural,
so genial, so sparkling with exuberant mirth, so constitutionally averse from all cant and pharisaism,
that he often affronted  the traditional  standard  of
priestly decorum with his uncanonical deportment, his
humorous disregard of conventional proprieties. The
oddest freaks are recorded of him; and, while he figures
as a saint in the calendar, he lives as a humorist in popular tradition.  He encouraged the desponding penitent
453 
RATIONAL CHRISTIANITY.
to confess, by pretending to expect something worse than
the fact.  "Is that all?  Would I had done nothing
worse!"  Hle hated nothing so much as the reputation
of a saint. One day, in the house of the Marchesa
Rangoni, the Spanish ambassadress inquired of him,
how long he had renounced the world.   He replied
that he was not conscious of having renounced the
world at all, and soon began to speak of a jest-book in
his possession, and to recount some of the droll things
contained in it.
At the request of his friend, Angelo da Bagnarea,
he called on a nobleman who had desired his acquaintance, but who was rather scandalized at his jocose
manner, and afterward confided to Angelo that he had
not been much edified by the interview. Whereupon
Angelo requested Philip to repeat the visit, and to put
on a graver deportment. "What would you have?"
said the impracticable devotee. "'You want me to
play the' serious, that people may say,'That is Father
Philip,' and tell fine stories about me. Depend upon
it, if I go again I shall only make matters worse." He
would never engage in spiritual conversation with distinguished strangers, whom curiosity and the reputation
of his piety attracted to his cell.
At times a humorous fit would seize him in public,
and tempt him to practical jokes. Standing, one day,
in the midst of a crowd at the door of a church, awaiting the exhibition of some relics, his eye caught the
flowing beard of a soldier of the Swiss Guard. Following the impulse of the moment, he grasped it with both
hands, and began to stroke it with droll caresses, much
to the amazement and amusement of the bystanders.
454 
THE MORAL IDEAL.
He was often known, when walking the streets, to take
off his spectacles, and put them to the eyes of people
who passed. He would dance and caper in the public
squares, and say occasionally to lookers-on, after executing some extraordinary feat of agility, "What do you
think of that?"' He was much delighted on hearing some
one whisper to his neighbor, "See that crazy old fool!"
As an instance of his moral independence and the
deep sincerity of his nature, it is related, that, when
the Sacred College with mistaken policy attempted to
enforce the due observance of the rite of Confession, by
posting the names of delinquents in that kind, Philip
said,  I will go, and read the list, that I may ascertain
who are the brave men who will rather incur such
reproach than dishonor themselves and blaspheme God
by a hypocritical and forced compliance."
NoT less entertaining than the pranks recorded of him
is the effort of his ecclesiastical biographers to qualfy
and excuse these evidences of a genuine human nature
underlying the saintly fame. The Church could not
choose but canonize, after his death, a man of such transcendent and well-established sanctity; but he often
scandalized the Church, while living, by the freedom of
his manners. The same fear of scandal is evident in
most of the memoirs which recount his life. What was
pure, unadulterated fun they ascribe to excessive humility.* So fearful was he of being too highly esteemed
* It is reckoned as penance and mortification (per mortificarsi)
by the Italian biographer from whom most of these anecdotes are.
taken. Vita di S. Filippo Neri, Fondatore, &c. Scritta dal P. R. Giacomo Bacci. Edizione Terza.  Roma, 1831. From the Protestant side
there is an excellent sketch in "Herzog's Real-Encyclopaidie."
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RATIONAL CHRISTIANITY.
that he was willing to appear "a fool for Christ's sake."
The "Acta Sanctorum" maintains a prudent reserve
on the subject; but tradition, and the annals of the
brotherhood which he established, have transmitted
the genuine lineaments of one of the truest and noblest
spirits that have ever sprung from the bosom of the
Church.
The world in general cares less for piety than it does
for force: it demands the strong man rather than the
good. The types of character known respectively as
"hero" and "saint" represent, not only different systems of religion, but different stages of moral culture
in Christian lands and times. On the ordinary level
of human experience, the hero is the more popular
character of the two. With how different a sound
tl* two titles strike the common ear! what dilferent
feelings they awaken in the breast! The one attracts
with magnetic power,- it stirs the blood, it sets the
whole nature aglow: the other looks pale and cold,
-it seems something spectral, whose commerce and
uses are not of this world. The reason is, that the
former appeals to the animal nature; the other, to
the spiritual. The appeal to the spiritual leaves men
unmoved, because the spiritual is undeveloped. With
the heroic we can all sympathize: the feelings which it
touches are common to all. We cannot all sympathize
with the saint for want of the saintly in ourselves: we
have not yet attained to apprehend him. The saint will
be our hero when we reach that plane of moral life on
which he stands; and the heroes of our present idolatry
will then no longer satisfy our more advanced sense of
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THE MORAL IDEAL.
the true and the good. We outgrow our idols with
growing insight: the models of our childhood are not
the models of our youth, and the models of our youth
have ceased to charm our riper years. In literature the
authors and passages that filled our souls at one period
leave us unmoved at another. The tumid phrase, the
stormy sentiment, the coarse ideals, which gratified our
inexperienced judgment, we now reject; and have
learned to prize instead, those calmer, chaster models
which once repelled.   Most men are children in moral
culture; their tastes are crude, their judgment green,
their idols such as fit and please the undeveloped mind,
great in their way, eminent in their kind; but that
way how imperfect, that kind how poor, compared with
the higher models of the soul! Advancing culture disabuses us of our early predilections, exposes the inadequacy of our early ideals, strips our idols of their
fancied perfections, and tears them to pieces before our
eyes.  We outgrow the pagan in our experience: Hercules gives way to Christ.
The world's heroes are not unworthy the homage
they receive on their own plane.  Whatever savors of
heroism is worthy of honor. All great and shining
qualities, strength, valor, genius, - who can help
admiring these!  I rejoice that such things are; I rejdice that there is a power in man to appreciate such.
Still, there is something greater than these; they do not
exhaust the power that is in man. The piety which
dwells in the heights of the soul, which walks and works
with God in godlike beneficence, is more sublime than
the valor which breasts the shock of armies, than the
genius which walks in glory among the stars.
457
4 
RATIONAL CHRISTIANITY.
There are two things which all men reverence who
are capable of reverence, - strictly speaking, only two.
The one is Beauty; the other, Power. Whatever is
worshipped and loved in this world is comprised under
these two heads. Our idea of God and all possible
excellence is resolvable into these. Power and Beauty,
-— man is so constituted that he must reverence these
so far and so fast as he can apprehend them. And so
far and so fast as human culture advances, men will see
that Holiness is Beauty; and Goodness, Power.
THE END.
Boston: Printed by John Wilson and Bob.
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