YALE
UNIVERSITY LIBRARY

THEOLOGICAL ESSAYS.

PRINTED BT R. OLAY, LONDOIf,
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MACMILLAN & CO. Cambridge.
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THEOLOGICAL ESSAYS.

FREDERICK DENISON MAURICE, M. A.

CHAPLAIN OF LINCOLN S INN.

II s'en faut peut-etre que le christianisme, a cette heure qui nous parait
si avancee, ait produit dans la conscience et dans la vie de rhumanite toutes
ses applications, ait exprime toute sa pensee, ait dit son dernier mot. Dans
un sens, il a tout dit des l'abord ; dans un autre sens, il a beaucoup a
dire encore, et le monde ne finira que quand le christianisme aura tout
dit. — VlNET.

WITH A NEW PREFACE, AND OTHER ADDITIONS.

©ambrittge:
MACMILLAN & CO.
1853.

TO
ALFRED TENNYSON, ESQ.
$M -gmtatt.
My dear-Sir, I have maintained in these Essays that a
Theology which does not correspond to the deepest
thoughts and feelings of human beings cannot be
.a true Theology. You writings have taught me
to enter into many of those thoughts and feelings.
Will you forgive me the presumption of offering
you a book which at least acknowledges them
and does them homage?
As the hopes which I have expressed in this
volume are more likely to be fulfilled to our chil
dren than to ourselves, I might perhaps ask you
to accept it as a present to one of your name, in
whom you have given me a very sacred interest.
Many years, I trust, will elapse, before he knows
that there are any controversies in the world into

VI DEDICATION.
which he has entered. "Would to God that in a
few more he may find that they have ceased ! At
all events, if he should ever look into these Essays,
they may tell him what meaning some of the
former generation attached to words, which will
be familiar and dear to his generation, and to those
that follow his, — how there were some who longed
that the bells of our churches might indeed
Ring out the darkness of the land, ,
Ring in the Christ that is to be.
Believe me,
My dear Sir,
Yours very truly and gratefully,
E. D. Maurice;

ADVERTISEMENT.
A Lady, once a Member of the Society of Friends
who died some years ago, desired me m her Will to
apply a small sum to purposes in which, I ' knew that
she was interested.' It was not difficult to comply with
the letter of this -command, as she was interested in
many benevolent undertakings. But I was aware that
the words of her bequest had a special meaning, and
that she intended to lay me under the obligation of
writing, or procuring to be written, some book especially'
addressed to Unitarians.
I have made several efforts to execute this task, but
have never done anything which gave me the least
satisfaction. A mere controversial work I felt tliat I
could not compose. Such works, so far as my ex
perience has' gone, do* little else than harm to those
who write, and to those who read them. Still it has
been a great weight 'on my conscience, that I was neg-'
lectiug a request so solemnly conveyed to me.

Vill ADVERTISEMENT.
Some months ago I seemed to see a way in which
I might acquit myself of the obligation. A series of
Discourses which had occurred to me as suitable for
my own Congregation, in the interval between Quin-
quagesima Sunday, and Trinity Sunday, might, 1
thought, embrace all the topics which I should wish to
bring under the notice of Unitarians. It was suggested
by a friend that I should throw each discourse into the
form of an Essay, after it had been preached. By .
following this advice, I have been able to avail myself
of criticisms which were made on the sermons when
they were delivered ;, to introduce many topics, which
would have been unsuitable for the pulpit ; and at the
same time, I hope, to retain something of the feeling of
one who is addressing actual men with whom he sym
pathises, not opponents with whom he is arguing. I did
not allude to Unitarians while I was preaching. I have
said scarcely anything to them in writing, which I do
not think just as applicable to the great body of my
contemporaries, of all classes and opinions. Nearly
every Essay has been re-written, and greatly enlarged
in its passage out of the sermon state. Two were
originally composed in their present form.
Though I have printed the Essays one after another,

ADVERTISEMENT. IX
before the whole work was completed, that I might be
compelled to perform a task which I had deferred so
long, I cannot ask for any toleration on the plea of
haste. The book expresses thoughts which have been
working in my mind for years ; the method of it has
not been adopted carelessly ; even the composition has
undergone frequent revision. No labour I have been
engaged in has occupied me so much, or interested me
more deeply. I hope it may be the means of leading
some to a far higher knowledge than their guide has
ever attained.
May 24, 1853.

PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION.

A critic of these Essays in the November
number of the Prospective Beview, observes that
I have " not the art of convincing " him ; but then,
" that it is startling to think how few writers ever
do radically overturn any mature system of belief."
I certainly never suspected myself of possessing
this ' art.' I do not know whether there is such an
'art.' If there is, and if I had it, I am not certain
that I should wish to exercise it. To overturn
" radically a mature' system of belief" is the very
last object of my ambition. There are some
Unitarians, and some Trinitarians also, who are not
very mature in their convictions, not very settled in
their belief, who have tried systems, and are not'
content with them. To such I addressed myself.'
By some of these I have been understood. They1
have responded to my words with more sympathy
than I had any right to expect. Eor they have
perceived that I have not wished to unsettle them
in their, opinions, or to bring them to mine, but to

xii PREFACE TO THE
show that God has laid a foundation for them and
for me upon which we may stand together.
I should wish these weary and earnest seekers to
read the Article to which I have referred, and to
ask themselves whether they find there what they
are looking for. The Review is written with
much gracefulness and eloquence. It contains the
latest message of the new Unitarian school. It
undertakes to expose the feebleness of my analysis;
and the unsatisfactoriness of my logic. Very likely
it may have succeeded. But the question at issue
between us is not that at all, not whether they are
good reasoners and I am a bad one, but what
Gospel they have to bring to mankind, what light
they have to throw on all the questionings and
yearnings of the human spirit, what they can show
has been done for the deliverance of our race and
of its members, what hope they can give us of that
which shall yet be done. On that issue I am
willing to put their creed and mine. That which
is true in itself, that which the God of Truth de^
clares to his creatures, can, I am sure, bear the test.
What proceeds from man will never satisfy man.
I have no cause to complain of the Writer of this
Article for want of courtesy to me personally. On

SECOND EDITION. XU1
the contrary, he has paid me compliments to which
I am not entitled, and which I am bound to dis
claim. He thinks that I have some good and genial
qualities of my own ; that I should probably prefer
truth to a lie, if I had not set myself to defend
certain Articles of Faith. That necessity leads me
into " miserable juggling," and makes me an object
of the Reviewer's deepest compassion. It is very
agreeable thus to get all honours for oneself, and to
have all one's crimes attributed to an unfortunate
position. I feel the temptation to accept a dis
tinction which sets the conscience so much at ease,
and gives one's vanity such a pleasant stimulus.
But I cannot do so without proving myself not to
be what the Reviewer is kind enough to say that I
am, but the very opposite of it, — without being guilty
of a conscious and inward falsehood. I know that
the Creed which leads me, as the Reviewer thinks,
to contradict my better nature, gives me an interest
in my fellows, a sympathy with mankind, which I
have not naturally, and which I find it exceedingly
hard to maintain. I know that that Creed has led
me to desire truth in my inward parts, and to resist
those tendencies to 'juggling' and trickery into
which the Reviewer supposes that it tempts me.

XIV PREFACE TO THE
I know, moreover, that the belief in fixed Arti
cles respecting the relations and acts of God has
enabled me, and does enable me, to believe that
the world is progressive, and not stationary; just as
the belief in the fixed article respecting gravitation
has given an impulse to all the inquiries of natural
students. If, after nearly 6,000 years of man's
existence, we assume that nothing is known respect*
ing the questions which men have felt to concern
them most, we shall not expect that anything will
be known. I contend that articles do not crush
inquiry, but awaken it ; that they do not hinder
education, but show how we may avoid superstitions
which have hindered it most effectually ; that they
do not oblige us to be harsh or repulsive to any
men of any sect, but qualify us to understand them;,
to sympathise with them, to justify their opposing
thoughts, to reconcile them.
These doctrines I maintained in the first book
which I wrote after I took orders.* The exper
rience of nineteen very eventful years in English
Ecclesiastical history has led me to change some
of the opinions which I expressed in that book.
* Subscription no Bondage; or, the Thirty-nine Articles guides in
Academic Education. Oxford. 1835. *»

SECOND EDITION. XV
I would not impose our Articles upon the stu
dents in our Universities, because I see that by
doing so we tempt them to dishonesty, and lead
them to dislike a document which I believe
they ought to love. But the other convictions
which I maintained then, instead of being shaken,
have been confirmed by all I have seen, heard,
thought, and regretted since. I am more than ever
persuaded that they whose zeal for progress leads
them to preach that the Bible is a collection of
obsolete Hebrew stories, are seeking to defraud the
world of the treasure to which it has owed its past
and will owe its future progress ; — that those who
tell us that we may not express the facts and
principles of the Bible in popular Creeds and teach
them to our children, leave us at the mercy of
coteries, where men and women prostrate themselves
before some newspaper oracle which allows them
no freedom whatever; — that those who would take
from us our intellectual formularies, under pretence
that if we cast them off we shall do greater justice
to the earnest convictions of those who dissent from
us, are not just to these convictions themselves, but
very intolerant of them ; and that, on the contrary,
we are bound by those forms, in spite of our own

XVI PREFACE TO THE
natural narrowness, sectarianism, and dogmatism, to
recognise and honour the strivings after truth of
every man whatsoever, even of the man who scorns
us and hates us most.
In connexion with this subject, I shall allude to
an event of which it would be affectation to suppose
that the readers of this book are altogether ignorant.
Most of them will have heard that the publica
tion of it has led to my expulsion from a College
connected with the Church of England. The
inference has been readily drawn, that I shall now
feel the position which I have taken up as a
defender of the Church and its formularies to be
untenable, that I must have learnt in myself how
galling that yoke is which I have wished that
other men should endure.
I do not know whether I shall be suspected by
some of a base motive for what I am going to say ;
but I know that there are those who will believe
that I am speaking solemnly, deliberately, as in
the presence of God. I affirm, then, that during
the thirteen years which I passed in that College, I
never was restrained from uttering one word which
\ thought it would be good or right to utter before
my Class, by the obligation under which I had laid

SECOND EDITION. XVII
myself to teach according to the formularies of the
Church of England ; that I should have suppressed,
in obedience to what have been called my " sec
tarian timidities," many words which I did utter, if
those formularies had not given me boldness, had
not raised me to a higher point of view than my
own, had not warned me against the peril and guilt
of accepting the opinions of the age as my guides.
I declare that if I have ever been able to see any
method in history, civil or ecclesiastical, or to make
my pupils see it, the Bible and these formularies
have shown me that method. I declare further,
that if I have been able to teach my pupils, — and
I have tried diligently to teach them, — that they are
to reverence the convictions of all men of all sects
and schools, and to show them sympathy, I have
done what I should not have been encouraged to
do, or have thought it safe to do, if I had not taken
these Articles as my own teachers and helpers, and
if I had not considered that it was my duty, as far
as I could, to impregnate those who would after
ward be ministers in the Church with their spirit.
Once more, the fact that I had accepted these
Articles and had bound myself to teach according
to them, made me comparatively indifferent about
I

XV111 PREFACE TO THE
the question, whether my view of the right method
of education was the same with that of my supe
rior for the time being. I had announced over
and over again in various forms of language, that
I did not look upon our Articles as marking out
a close and narrow line between two opposite
schools, and as authorizing us to denounce both ;
but as announcements of a higher truth, which
should lead us to deal fairly with the strongest
assertions of both. I could not lecture on Church
History without telling my pupils that Creeds and
Articles do not and cannot stifle opinions, seeing
that the decrees of the Nicene Council were the
beginning, not the end, of the Arian controversy,
and that the proclamation of James I. against dis
cussions upon Election and Predestination, was the
signal for the most furious war between Calvinists
and Arminians ever waged. The Principal of
King's College had, I believe, declared himself the
conservator of a via media; he probably expects
results from Articles which I should consider most
undesirable, even if they were not unattainable. But
if, in the face of my statements, he could accept
me as a fellow-worker, even invite me to become
one, my conscience was clear. I could teach with

SECOND EDITION. XIX
perfect freedom, knowing that I was trying to
obey the laws which we both confessed, not feeling
that I was more tied to the habits- of his mind,
than he was to mine. It might be reasonable to
expect that such a connexion would at some time
or other terminate. But it would have termi
nated much sooner, — it would have been immea
surably less satisfactory while it lasted, — if there
had been no common rule to which all the members
of the College did homage. In that case, the fear
of saying something which a superior would dis
approve if he knew it, must be continually torment
ing the mind of a teacher. He works in that
most fretting of all chains, the sense of some un
expressed, implicit obligation to abstain from acts
which his duty to his pupils, to the Church, and to
God, would urge him to perform.
I cannot pretend that any recent experience of
mine, either in a College or in the Church, has in the
least changed my opinion, that our formularies are
the best protection we have, against the exclusive
ness and cruelty of private judgments. If our Cate
chism did not bear a continual witness to our children
that Christ has redeemed them and all mankind,
how could we. resist the dictation of writers who

XX PREFACE TO THE
pronounce it a heresy to say that our race is
redeemed at all, that it is not lying under God's
curse? If our Articles did not put forth the
doctrine of Christ's Godhead and Manhood as the
ground of Theology, before they speak of the Fall
and the depravity of man, how could we withstand
the popular theory, so plausible, so gratifying to all
the selfish instincts of religious men, that the
Gospel is only a scheme for saving them from the
ruin which God decreed for the universe when Adam
sinned? If the Articles had not refused to dog-
,matise on the meaning of the word Eternal, and on
the endlessness of evil, what could prevent the
doctrine, that an immense majority of our fellow-
beings are in an utterly hopeless condition, from
being regarded as the characteristic doctrine of
Christian Divinity ? I am sure that it has been"
so regarded by multitudes of our lay brethren, and
that therefore the consciences and hearts to which
we ought to present our message are closed against-
it. They understand us to say that God has
sent His Son into the world, not to save it, but
to condemn it.
I count it the highest blessing of my life that
I have been permitted to become a witness,

SECOND EDITION. XXI
that the Church of England gives not the faintest
encouragement to so horrible a contradiction of
God's word. I receive the cordial and generous
sympathy which has been shown to me by persons
from whom I had no right to expect it, who would
naturally have regarded me with prejudice and sus
picion, not as rendered as to me, but as a proof how
much affection towards the Church there is still in
the hearts of our countrymen, how glad they are to
beheve that she is not what her sons sometimes
represent her to be. And though opinions, which,
merely as such, are a thousand times weightier than
mine, are in favour of forcing our Church to say
what as yet she does not say, I believe they will
not succeed in putting a new yoke upon our necks.
I believe the English clergy will assert the freedom
which God has given them, — the freedom of being
silent where He has not spoken, being well assured
that if they do not, they will soon be compelled to
keep silence when He has spoken, nay, to deny
that He wishes that all men should be saved,
though He has declared that He does.
In the present Edition of these Essays, I have
altered some passages which were said to be ob
scure, and have erased some which have caused

XXII PREFACE TO THE
unnecessary offence. In the Essay on the Atone
ment, besides some changes in my own language,
I have made one omission with very great reluc
tance. I had quoted the beautiful Collect for the
Sunday before Easter. I quoted it simply to show,
by the most living instance, that the Church
referred the Sacrifice of Christ to the ' tender love
of God to mankind.' I never even alluded to the
clause which speaks of our * following the example
of his great humility,' not because I did not prize
it, or believe that it stood in the closest connexion
with the rest of the prayer, but because it did not
concern the special truth of which I was speaking.
Yet I read with my own eyes, in one of our
religious newspapers, the charge that I had ap
pealed to this Collect because I regarded Christ's
death not as a sacrifice, but simply as an example :
and because I wished to fix that opinion upon the
Church ! As the Church believes, and as I believe,
in Christ's Sacrifice, not in a narrower or more
' attenuated ' sense than that in which this religious
newspaper believes it, but in an infinitely wider
and deeper sense, — as I believe it to be a real
sacrifice made by the Son, of His whole spirit, soul,
and body, to the Father, — as I believe it is a sacri-

SECOND EDITION. Xxill
fice which takes away sin, a sacrifice, satisfaction,
and oblation for the sins of the whole world, — I have
deliberately blotted out a sentence which was worth
all the rest of the Essay together, rather than even
seem to sanction so monstrous an inference. But I
have not, of course, modified in the slightest degree
the principles which I maintained in that Essay.
The Church does not maintain in one prayer,
but in all its prayers, that the love of God is the only
root and ground of Christ's Atonement, and that
the perfect submission of the Son to the will of
the Father constitutes the deepest meaning of the
Sacrifice. These principles belong to the essence
of our faith. In life, in death, I hope I may never
abandon them or shrink from confessing them, and
from repudiating any notion which sets them at
nought or weakens them. I have perceived that the
factoHhe Atonement, which is the fact ofthe Gospel,
is lost to numbers of people who are very earnest
and who desire to be thoroughly Christian, through
the restless efforts which their understandings make
to apprehend the cause of it. They do not believe
the Atonement, but an explanation ofthe Atone
ment which they have received from others or
devised for themselves. And so they do not ac-

XXIV PREFACE TO THE
tually feed upon the Sacrifice which is given for
the life of the world, but on some dry notions about
the Sacrifice, which cannot give life to any human
being, But this is not all. These explanations,
being exceedingly plausible, seeming wonderfully
to conspire with the experiences of a sin-sick soul,
being such as a Heathen would use to defend the
Sacrifices which he offers to a malignant power,
come into the most frightful collision with those
which the Scripture gives for the Sacrifice where
with God is well pleased. There may be myriads
of aspects of this cardinal doctrine which I have
perceived very imperfectly, and into which I shall
rejoice to enter more deeply. But they must be
such aspects as do not interfere with and invert
the very nature and meaning of the Sacrifice. 'The
more unspeakably precious we consider it to each
man and to all mankind, the more vehement shall
we be in protesting against misrepresentations of
it, which are leading more than we know or can
count, to cast it out of their thoughts altogether. <
I would make a similar remark in reference to
the Essays on the Resurrection and the Judgment
Day, which I have altered very slightly. It has
been affirmed that I have sought to explain away

SECOND EDITION. XXV
the doctrines of the Resurrection of the Body, and
of Christ's final Judgment ; or at least, to throw1
an atmosphere of doubt over them. I affirm that
I have endeavoured to bring forth these doctrines,
which I hold to be most vital and necessary, out
of the atmosphere of doubt, which popular theories,
as it seems to me, have thrown over them, I
do not say in any case who does or does not hold
these theories, or any modification of them. But I
find that they have darkened and are darkening the
faith of multitudes in the articles of the Creed, and
are destroying their practical effect on many more.
Therefore I have spoken. Unitarians are probably
less pleased with my words on these subjects than
any other persons. I did not write to please them,
or anybody, but to maintain what I think is the
truth. And I ask any serious person whether those
who say that the doctrines ofthe Atonement, of the
Resurrection, and of the Judgment, can only be re
ceived in connexion with certain metaphysical, legal,
or commercial explanations, — or I who say that they
may be received simply as good news from Heaven,
which suffering people on earth have need of, most
deserve to be accused of Rationalism ?
I have rewritten the Essay on Eternal Life and

XXVI PREFACE TO THE
Eternal Death, and greatly enlarged it. It has
been supposed that I have argued for some miti
gated notion of future punishment, as more con
sistent with the mercy of God than the ordinary
one. To me the ordinary doctrine seems full of
the most miserable mitigations and indulgences for
evil. I plead for the Love of God, which resists
sin, and triumphs over it, not for a mercy which
relaxes the penalties of it. With continual effort,
— only by the help of that revelation of God which
is made in the Gospel of Christ, — I am able to
believe that there is a might of Good which has
overcome Evil, and does overcome it. To maintain
this conviction, to believe in the Love of God, in
spite of the appearances which the world presents
and the reluctance of my own nature, I find to
be the great fight of life ; one in which we are
continually baffled, but in which we must hold on,
if we are not to become haters of each other, as we
are always prone to be. I admire unspeakably
those who can believe in the Love of God and can
love their brethren, in spite of the opinion which
they seem to cherish, that He has doomed them to
destruction. I am sure that their faith is as much
purer and stronger than mine, as it is than their

SECOND EDITION. XXV11
own system. But if that system does prevent me
from believing that which God's word, the Gospel
of Christ, the witness of my own conscience, the
miseries and necessities of the universe, compel me
to believe, I must throw it off. I do not call upon
them to deny anything they have been wont to hold;
but I call upon them to join us in acknowledging
God's Love and His redemption first of all, and
then to consider earnestly what is or is not com
patible with that acknowledgment. As it is, we
are desired to believe the popular tenet respecting
the future condition of the world absolutely, and
God's love to mankind in a sense. I appeal to
every devout man, to every preacher of the Gospel
especially, dares he adopt this order in his con
victions? Must he not confess that he has no
good news for mankind if he does ?
I have expanded the Theological part of the Essay
on Regeneration, and have added to that on the
Trinity some observations respecting the Unitarian
notions 6f Prayer. I have also added some passages
at the end of the Essay on Inspiration, the purpose
of which has been perhaps more misunderstood than
that of any in the book. It is against the very low
notion of the worth of the Bible and of the nature
of Inspiration which seems to prevail in the religious

XXVIII PREFACE TO THE
world, that I have there protested. I hold the
Bible to be the Book of Life ; I see it turned into
a Book of Death. It is treated in a way in which no
other book is treated. The divine method of it is
despised ; it is reduced into a collection of broken
sentences; these are used in the most reckless
irreverent manner by any one who has a notion of
his own to defend, .or a notion of an adversary to
attack. The posture of students and learners to
wards it is abandoned by those who yet profess to
accept it as their only guide and authority. There
must be something very wrong in our belief, when
this is our habitual practice. Have we not lost the
faith in Inspiration, while we have been talking
about it and inventing theories about it? Have
we not lost our faith in the Inspirer ? I trust to
show shortly, in a book which I have been writing
for several years on the Gospels and on the Epistles
of St. Paul, that I do not receive the words of
the Bible less literally, or regard it less as a whole,
or submit to it less as an authority, than those who
have complained of me because I cannot bear to see
their sons driven into hopeless infidelity by their
hard and cruel attempts to substitute a tenet con
cerning Inspiration for the Divine Word.
I ought not to conclude this Preface without

SECOND EDITION, XXIX
referring to the kindness and generosity of the
new Bishop of Natal, who chose a moment when
he knew that my character was in disgrace with
the religious public, and when any acknowledg
ment of me might be perilous to him, for dedi
cating to me a volume of admirable Sermons. The
very great delight which I felt at receiving such
a testimony from such a man, would have been
no compensation for my sorrow, that he should
have risked his own reputation for the sake of
a friend, from many of whose opinions he had
expressed his dissent, if I had not seen in this
act a pledge of his possessing those qualities of
courage and indifference to self, which are so
especially needed in a Chief Pastor of the flock,
and which have very remarkably characterized our
Colonial Bishops. For the events which followed
this Dedication I cannot feel anything but thank
fulness. Though Dr. Colenso had proved by his
Sermons that he believed in the endlessness of
future punishments, he had asserted most broadly
and distinctly his conviction, that we are living
in a world which God loves, and which Christ
has redeemed, and had affirmed that this was the
message which he was called to bear to the natives,

XXX PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION.
as well as to the colonists, of South Africa. Those
who' think that the world is not redeemed, that
God's love is limited to a few, felt that a golden
opportunity was afforded them of obtaining from
the authorities of the English Church, a practical
contradiction of the doctrines which they abhor.
The attempt was made, and it failed. Bishop
Colenso is permitted to carry to the English and
the Zoolus, the same Gospel, which St. Paul was
denounced by his countrymen as a heretic and
blasphemer, for carrying to Jews and Gentiles, in
Greece and Asia Minor. May the message be
as mighty and effectual in the nineteenth century
as it was in the first !
London, December 9ih, 1853.

CONTENTS.

PAOE
ESSAY I.— On Chabitt -  1

'It— On Sin  18
IIL— On the Evil Spibit  33
IV. — On the Sense of Righteousness in Men, and
theib Discovery of a Redeemer ... 54

V. — On the Son of God  76

VI. — On the Incarnation  98
f" VII. — On the Atonement  127

VIII. — On the Resubbeotion of the Son of ^(od
L from Death, the Geave, and Hell . . 152

XXXII CONTENTS. PAGE
ESSAY IX.— On Justification by Faith ........ 189
X. — On Regenebation .. ^ ....... • 214
XI. — On the Ascension of Chbist  , .. 254
XII. — On the Judgment Day v ., . . . ...... 287
XIII. — On Inspiration ., . .„ ..... . .. ., . . 318

XIV.— On the Peesonality and Teaching of the
N • ¦ •
Holy Spirit ..,„.,  , . . . 355

XV. — On the Unity of the Church .. . ..... 382

XVI.— On the Teinity in Unity ........ 410

Concluding Essay— On Eteenal Life and Etebnal Death 442

ESSAY I.

ON CHARITY.

St. Paul says, Though I have all faith, so that I
could remove mountains, and have not Charity, I am
nothing. Many a person in this day has exclaimed, when he
has heard these words, ' If the Apostle Paul always
' adhered to that doctrine, how readily one would listen,
' to him, — what sympathy one would have with him !
' For this one moment he confesses how poor all those
' dogmas are, on which he dwells elsewhere '* with so
' much of theological refinement ; faith, which he told
' the Romans and Galatians was necessary and able to
( save men from ruin, shrinks here to its proper dimen-
' sions, and in comparison of another excellence is
' pronounced to be good for nothing. It is for divines to
' defend his consistency if they can ; we are only too
' glad to accept what seems to us a splendid inconsis-
' tency, in support of a principle which it is the great
' work of our age to proclaim.' B

2 FALSE MODE OF DEFENDING ST. PAUL.
I have been often tempted to answer a person who
spoke thus, in a way which I am sure was foolish and
wrong. I have been inclined to say, ' The Charity
' which the Apostle describes is not the least that tole-
' ranee of opinions, that disposition to fraternize with
' men of all characters and creeds, which you take it to
'be. His nomenclature is spiritual and divine, yours
' human and earthly. If you could look into the real
' signification of this chapter, you would not find that
' you liked it much better than what he says of Faith
' elsewhere.' This language is impertinent and unchristian. We
fall into it partly because we look upon objectors as
opponents whom it is desirable to silence ; partly because
we suppose that there is a spurious Charity prevalent in
our time, which must be carefully distinguished from
real and divine Charity ; partly because we think that
the interests of Theology demand a more vigorous
assertion of those distinctive Christian tenets which are
often confounded in a vague all-comprehending philo
sophical Theory. I have felt these motives and argu
ments too strongly not to sympathise with those who
are influenced by them. It is in applying them tp
practice that I have found how much I might be misled
by them.
1. I know I can silence an objector by telling him
that the Bible means something altogether different from
that which it appears to mean. He does not care to

COMPREHENSIVENESS OF THE BIBLE. 3
discuss any question with me when he has understood
that there is no medium of communication between us ;
that I am speaking a language which I cannot interpret
to him. He believes the book I honour above all others
to be a book of Cabbala, and he throws it away accord
ingly. And if I afterwards refer to any passages of
beautiful human morality which I think may impress
him in its favour, he tells me plainly, that I know the
intention of those passages is not what the words indi
cate, and that the conscience of mankind responds to
their apparent, not to their real, signification.
I have done this service to him by that method of
mine. What have I done for the Bible ? I have prac
tically denied that its language is inspired, and that the
truth which the language expresses is divine. I must
suppose that inspired language is the most inclusive
and comprehensive of all language ; that divine truth
lies beneath all the imperfect forms of truth which men
have perceived, — sustaining them, not contradicting
them. If a particular temper or habit characterises a
man, or a country, or an age, the believer in a Revela
tion would naturally conclude that there must be an
affinity between this temper or habit, and some side of
that Revelation; — he would search earnestly for the point
of contact between them, and rejoice when he recognised
it. He might find the temper or habit in question often
confused, often feeble, often evil. His only hope of
removing the confusion, strengthening the feebleness,

4 HOW TO MEET THE TEMPER OF AN AGE.
counteracting the evil, would lie in the power which
seemed to be given him of connecting it with that wider
and deeper principle from which it had been separated.
Every, even the slightest, inclination on the part of
persons who were habitually suspicious of that which he
regarded as truth, to acknowledge a portion of it as
bearing upon their lives, he would eagerly and thank
fully hail. So far from complaining of them because
they fixed upon a certain aspect of the Revelation, re
maining indifferent or sceptical about every other, he
would consider this a proof that they were treating it in
the most natural and sincere way, — accepting what in
their state of mind they could most practically apprehend
and use. If another side of it was for them lying in
shadow, he might, — provided he had any clear convic
tion that God has His own way of guiding His creatures, —
be content that they should not, for the present, try to
bring that within the range of their vision. At all
events, he would feel that his work was clearly marked
out for him. In this, as in all other cases, he could not
hope to arrive at the unknown, except through that
which is perceived, however partially. He would not
quench the light by which any men are walking, under
pretence that it is merely torch-light, lest he, as well as
they, should be punished with complete darkness. If I
have failed to act upon these maxims, I am certain that
my faith in God's Revelation has been weak.
2. I do hot deny that there is much in the feelings

CHARITY IN OUR DAY. 5
which we of this age associate with the word Charity,
that is artificial, fantastical, morbid. Most will admit
this respecting the charity of others, — some about their
own. I do not deny that the talk about charity, the
sensation about it, even the attempt to practise it, is
compatible with a vast amount of uncharitableness. That
also will be generally admitted ; perhaps, the confession
is more sincere than any other which we make. It is
equally true that each school has its own notion of
charity, that the definitions of it are unlike, that the
limitations of it are various and capricious. The
point to be considered is, whether all these diver
sities, subsisting under a common name, do not prove,
more than anything else, the tendency of the time in
which they are found, — the direction in which our
thoughts are all moving. The conscience of men,
asleep to many obligations, is awake to this. All con
fess that they ought to have charity of some kind. Por
traits of dry, hard, cold-hearted men, who have in them,
possibly, a sense of justice and right, are sure to produce
a revolting, as from something profoundly and essentially
evil, even in spectators who can look upon great crimi
nals with half-admiration, as gigantic and heroical. The
formalist has become almost ihe name for reprobation
among us ; that from which every one shrinks himself,
and which he attributes to those whom he execrates
most, precisely because it denotes the man in whom
charity has been sacrificed to mere rule. The more you

6 WHY WE SHOULD BEGIN FROM IT.
look into the discussions of different parties in our time,
the more you will find that, however narrow and ex
clusive they may be, comprehension is. their watchword.
We separate from our fellows, on the plea that they are
not sufficiently comprehensive ; we strive to break down
fences which other people have raised, even while we are
making a thicker and more thorny one ourselves.
If there is any truth in the observations which I made
under the last head, these indications might appeal-
almost to determine the course which a divine ini the
nineteenth century should follow, though by adopting
it he departed from the precedents of other times. The
same motive which might have led one of the Reformers to
speak first on Faith, — because all men, whether Roman
ists or Anti-Romanists, in some sense acknowledged the
necessity of it, — should incline a writer in this day to begin
his moral or theological discourses from Charity, at what
ever point he may ultimately arrive. But there would
be no deviation from precedent. The doctors of the
first ages, and of the middle ages, continually put forth
the Divine Charity as the ground upon which all things
in heaven and earth rest, as the centre round which they
revolve. And this was done not merely by those who
were appealing 1p human sympathies, but in scientific
treatises. What is more to our purpose, the compilers of
our Prayer-book, living at the very time when Faith
was the watchword of all parties, thought it wise to
introduce the season of Lent with a prayer and an

PRECEDENTS FOR THAT COURSE. 7
epistle, which declare that the tongues of men and of
angels, the giving all our goods to feed the poor, the
giving our bodies to be burnt, finally, the faith which
removes mountains, without Charity, are nothihg. This
Love was to be the ground of all calls to repentance,
conversion, humiliation, self-restraint ; this was to unfold
gradually the mystery of the Passion, and ofthe Resur
rection, the mystery of Justification by Faith, of the New
Life, of Christ's Ascension and Priesthood, ofthe Descent
ofthe Spirit, ofthe Unity of the Church. This was to be
the induction into the deepest mystery of all, the Name
of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.
If it is asked what human charity can have to do with
the mysteries of the Godhead, the compilers of the
Prayer-book would have answered, ' Certainly nothing
' at all, if human charity is not the image and counter-
' part of the Divine ; if there can be a charity in man
' which beareth all things, believeth all things, endureth all
' things, unless it was first in God, unless it be the nature
' and being of God. If He is Charity, His acts must
' spring from it as ours should; Charity will be the key
1 to unlock the secrets of Divinity as well as of Hu-
• manity.' As a Churchman, I might, perhaps, venture
to follow out a hint, which rests on such an authority
and comes to us supported by such a prescription, with
out being suspected of innovating tendencies.
3. But I know why many will think that such a
course may have been adapted to former days, and yet

8 INDISTINCTNESS OF THE AGE.
be unsuitable for ours. I shall be told ' that it was very
' well to speak of Charity, divine or human, when the
' importance of dogmas and of distinguishing between
' orthodox and heretical dogmas, was admitted, nay, if
' that is possible, exaggerated; but that now, when all
' dogmatic teachings are scorned, not by a few here and
' there, but by the spirit of the age ; when it is the
1 minority who plead for them and feel their necessity ;
' and when the popular cry is for some union of parties
' in which all barriers, theological, nay, it would seem
' sometimes, moral also, shall be thrown down : — at such
' a time to speak of putting Charity above Faith, or of
' referring to Charity as a standard for Faith, is either
' to palter with words in a double sense, pretending that
' you agree with the infidel, while you keep a reserved
' opinion in your own heart which would repel him if
' you produced it ; — or else it is to give up your arms to
' him, owning that he has vanquished.'
I feel as strongly as these objectors can feel, that this
age is impatient of distinctions— of the distinction
between Right and Wrong, as well as of that between
Truth and Falsehood. Of all its perils, this seems to me
the greatest, that which alone gives us a right to tremble
at any others which may be threatening it. To watch
against this temptation in ourselves, and in all over
whom we have any charge or influence, is, I believe, our
highest duty. In performance of it, I should always
denounce the glorification of private judgment, as fatal

DOGMATISM. 9
to the belief in Truth, and to the pursuit of it. We are
always tending towards the notion that we may think
what we like to think; that there is no standard to which
our thoughts should be conformed; that they fix their
own standard. "Who can toil to find, that which, on
this supposition, he can make? Who can suffer, that
all may share a possession which each man holds apart
from his neighbour?
But Dogmatism is not the antagonist of private judg
ment. The most violent assertor of his private judg
ment is the greatest dogmatist. And, conversely, the
loudest assertor of the dogmatical authority of the
Church, is very apt to be the most vehement and fanat
ical stickler for his own private judgments. His reverence
for the Church leads him to exercise in his individual
capacity, what he takes to be her function in her
collective capacity. He catches what he supposes to be
her spirit. He becomes, in consequence, of all men, the
most headstrong and self-willed. There must be some
other escape than this from the evils of our time ; this
road leads us into the very heart of them.
It seems to me that, if we start from the belief, —
' Charity is the ground and centre of the Universe, God
' is Charity,' — we restore that distinctness whicK our
Theology is said to have lost, we reconcile it with
the comprehension which we are all in search of. So
long as we are busy with our theories, notions, feelings
about God — so long as these constitute our divinity

10 ARTICLES OF FAITH.
— we must be vague, we must be exclusive. One
deduces his conclusions from the Bible ; one from the
decrees of the Church ; one from his individual con
sciousness. But the reader of the Bible confesses that
it appeals to experience, and must in some way be
tested by it; the greatest worshipper of the Church asks
for a Bible to support its authority; the greatest believer
in his own consciousness perceives that there must be
some means of connecting it with the general conscience
of mankind. Each denounces the other's method, none is
satisfied with his own. If Theology is regarded not as
a collection of our theories about God, but as a declaration
of His will and His acts towards us, will it not conform
more to what we find in the Bible — will it not more
meet all the experiences of individuals, all the experiences
of our race ? And to come directly to the point of the
objection which I am considering, will it not better
expound all the special articles which our own Church,
and the Christian Church generally,, confesses ? This at
least is my belief.
I have tried to understand those articles when they
have been interpreted to me by some doctor or apologist
who did not start from this ground, and I frankly own
I have failed. Their meaning as intellectual propositions
has been bewildering to me ; as guides to my own life,
as helps to my conduct, they have been more be
wildering still. But seen in this light, I have found
them acquiring distinctness and unity, just in pro^

UNITARIANS OF TWO CLASSES. 11
portion as I became more aware of my own necessities
and perplexities, and of those from which my con
temporaries are suffering. They have brought the
Divine Love and human life into conjunction, the one
being no longer a barren tenet or sentiment, the other
a hopeless struggle.
I wish that I might be able to set them before some
whom I know, as they present themselves to me. I do
not think that I have anything rare or peculiar to tell ;
I believe I have felt much as the people about me are
feeling. I might therefore address myself to many of
different classes with a slight hope of being listened to ;
but I have one most directly and prominently before me
while I write.
The articles of which I shall speak are precisely those
which offend the Unitarian ; in defending them I shall
certainly appear a dogmatist to him, however little I
may deserve that name from those who regard it as an
honourable one. He either repudiates these articles
absolutely, and considers that it is his calling to protest
against them ; or he repudiates them as distinct portions
of a creed, holding that all the spiritual essence which
may once have been in them, departs when they assume
this character. I differ from those who take up the last
position quite as much as from those who maintain the
first; but I have points, strong points, of sympathy with
both, and I have profited by the teaching of both. I
am not ashamed to say that the vehement denunciations

12 OBLIGATIONS TO THE FIRST.
of what they suppose to be the general faith of Christen
dom which I have heard from Unitarians, — denunciations
of it as cruel, immoral, inconsistent with any full and
honest acknowledgment of the Divine Unity, still more
of the Divine Love, — have been eminently useful to me.
I receive them as blessings from God, for which I ought
to give Him continual thanks. I do not mean, because
the hearing pf these charges has set me upon refuting
them ; — that would be a very doubtful advantage ; (for
what does one gain for life and practice, by taking up
the profession of a theological special pleader?) — but
because great portions of these charges have seemed to
me well founded; because I have been compelled to
confess that the evidence for them was irresistible. And
I have been driven more and more to the conclusion,
that that evidence does not refer to some secondary,
subordinate point, — which we may overlook, provided
our greater and more personal interests are secured, — or
to some point of which we may for the present know
nothing, and be content to confess our ignorance : but
that it concerns the grounds of our personal and of our
social existence; that it does not touch those secret
things which belong to the Lord, but the heart of that
Revelation whicii He has made to us and our children.
I owe it very much to these protests that I have learnt
to say to myself: — ' Take away the Love of God, and
' you take away everything. The Bible sets forth the
' Revelation of that Love, or it is good for nothing. The

OBLIGATIONS TO THE SECOND. 13
' Church is the living Witness and Revelation of that
' Love, or it -is good for nothing.'
I owe also much to those Unitarians, who, being
less strong in their condemnation of the thoughts and
language of books written by Trinitarians, and avowing
a sympathy with some of the accounts which they have
given of their own inward conflicts, nevertheless hate
Orthodoxy, as such, with a perfect hatred, affirming it to
be the stifler of all honest convictions, and of all moral
growth. I have not been able to gainsay many of their
assertions and arguments. I cannot say that I have not
seen and felt these effects following from what is called
a secure and settled profession. I cannot say that the
events of the last twenty years in the English Church
do not convince me that it is God's will and purpose
that we should be shaken in our ease and satisfaction,
and should be forced to ask ourselves what our standing
ground is, or whether we have any. I cannot dissemble
my belief, that if we are resting on any formulas, sup
posing they are the best formulas that were ever handed
down from one generation to another, or on the divinest
book that was ever written by God for the teaching of
mankind, and not on the Living God Himself, our foun
dation will be found sandy, and will crumble under our
feet. For telling me this, for giving me a warning which
I feel that I need, and that my brethren need, I thank
these Unitarians, and all others not called by their name,
who have, in one form or another, in gentle or in rough

14 FAILURES OF THE FIRST CLASS.
language, united to sound it in our ears. I can say
honestly in the sight of God, I have tried- to lay it to
heart, though not as much as I might have done, or as
I hope to do. And now I wish to show that my grati
tude for these benefits is not nominal but real, by telling
the men of both these classes what they have not taught
me, — what I have been compelled to learn in another
school than theirs.
To the first, then, I say: — You have urged me to
believe that God is actually Love. You have taught me
to dread any representation of Him which is at variance
with this ; to shrink from attributing to Him any acts
which would be unlovely in man. Well! and I find
myself in a world ruled over by this Being, in which
there are countless disorders : yes, and I find myself
adding to the disorder ; one of the elements of it. My
heart and conscience demand how this is. I want to
know, — not for the sake of a theory, but for the most
practical purposes of life, — I want to know how these
disorders may be removed out of the world and out of
me. You are, I am aware, benevolent men, a great
many of you eager for sanitary, social, political reforma
tion. That is well, as far as you are concerned ; but is
the Ruler of the Universe as much interested in the state
of it as you are ? Has He done anything adequate for
the deliverance of it from its plagues : is He doing any
thing? I have not found you able to answer these
questions ; and I do not think other people find that you

NOT WITNESSES FOR THE LOVE OF GOD. 15
are able. Men who have to sorrow, and suffer, and
work, may accept your help in improving their outward
condition, but they do not accept your creed : it is no
thing to them. Atheism is their natural and necessary
refuge, if the only image of God presented to them is of
One who allows men to be comfortable, — who is not
angry with them, — who wishes all to be happy, but
leaves them to make themselves and each other happy
as well as they can. They can meditate the world almost
as well without such a Being as with Him. I say this,
because it is true, and because the truth should be
spoken. God forbid that I should say for a moment
that it is true for you. I know it is not. I know the
vision you have of God is consolatory to you ; that it
would be a loss to all of you, — to some, a quite unspeak
able loss, — to be deprived of it. Not for the world would
I rob you of it, or of one iota of strength and comfort
which you derive from it. Not for the world would I
persuade you that your belief in a God of infinite Charity
is not a precious and divine gift. But, remember! —
infinite Charity. Charity is described as bearing all
things, hoping aU things, enduring all things. Any
Charity which is not of this character, I am sure you
would cast out of your scheme of ethics ; you would feel
it could not be an ideal for men to strive after ; you do
wish, in your own case, not to give barren phrases to
your fellows, but to ' suffer with your suffering kind.'
I have a right to claim, that you should not think more

16 THE MODERN SCHOOL.
meanly of the God whom you condemn other sects for
misrepresenting, than you do of an ordinarily benevolent
hero, nay, than you do of yourselves. It is all I ask of
you before we engage in our present inquiry.
You, again, who think that there is some important
truth in the doctrines we confess, but are convinced that
we hold the shell of it, while you are possessing, or at
least seeking for, the kernel ; and that no fellowship will
ever exist among human beings till they have been per
suaded to cast the shell away; you who support this
sentiment by evidence, all too clear and authentic, drawn
from the records of the controversies between Church
men, and from the feebleness of their present condition ;
you who bid us always keep our eyes upon some good
time coming, when such controversies will cease, and
another kind of Church will emerge out of those which
you tell us are crumbling into dust; you, I have asked
what the substance is within the shell; and the best
answer I have got is, — ' a certain religious sentiment — a
' tendency, that is, or bias or aspiration ofthe soul towards
' something.' And that is — what ? Is it known or un
known, real or fantastic, a Person or an abstraction ? It
is not a trifle to me whether I know or not ; the world,
too, is interested in the question. We cannot be told
that our words and phrases are worthless, and then be
put off with other words and phrases, which are certainly
not more substantial. You declare aloud how divided
Churches are : will you tell us what has prevented them

THE CHURCH THAT IS TO BE. 17
from being wholly divided ; what has kept the members
of them from being always at war? Has it been a
religious sentiment; — has it been a philosophical abstrac
tion? Are you afraid to join with me in considering
that question ?
Lastly, you look for a better day, and a united
Church : — so do I. But I want to know whether the
foundation is laid on which that church is to stand, or
whether it is to be laid ; whether the Debverer and Head
of mankind has come, or whether we are to look for
another ? Your speculations have left me quite in the
dark on this subject: I cannot bear the darkness. Shall
we try if we can grope our way into the light ?

ESSAY II.

ON SIN.
•Clergymen seem to take it for granted that their
congregations understand what they mean when they
speak of .Sin. I am afraid some of us do not ourselves
quite understand what we mean by it. Perhaps, if we
would attend more to the doubts and objections of
others, they might assist in clearing and deepening our
own thoughts.
They frequently take this form : { We find a number
' of crimes, outward, palpable, interfering with the
' existence of society; these we try to check by direct
' penalties. We find that these crimes may be traced
' to certain habits formed in the man, beginning to be
' formed in the child; these we try to extirpate by some
' moral influences. There is scope for infinite discussion
' as to the nature, measure, and right application, of
' these direct penalties, and these moral influences ; as to
' the evils which most demand either. But scarcely any
' one doubts that both these methods are necessary; that

ethics, legislation, theology. 19
' there are disorders which need the one and not the
' other. It is different when a third notion is thrust
' upon us, one which we can refer to the head neither of
5 Legislation nor of Ethics.
' The Theologian speaks of Sin, What is this?
' You say it is committed against God. Does God, then,
' want anything for His own use and honour? Does He
' crave services and sacrifices as due to Him? Is not
' doing justice and mercy to the fellow- creatures among
' whom He has placed us, the thing which He requires
' and which pleases Him? If not, where would you
' stop ? Do not all Heathen notions, all the most into-
' lerable schemes of propitiation, all the most frightful
'inventions and lies by which the conscience of men
' has been defiled and their reason darkened, and from
'which crimes against society have at last proceeded,
'force themselves upon us at once? What charm is
'there in the name or word "Christianity" to keep
' them off, if they are, as we know they are, akin to ten*
' dencies which exist in all men, whatever names they
' bear, and which, for their sakes, need to be abated, if
'possible extinguished, certainly not fostered? But, if
' once we admit good feeling and good doing towards
' our neighbour to be the essence and fulfilment of God's
' commandments, why are not the ethical and legal con-
' ceptions of evil sufficient ? What room is there for
' any .other ? '
Those of us who have had these thoughts, and have

20 • theological calculations.
expressed thems have ^probably heard answers which
have satisfied us very ill. We have been told, perhaps,
' that the Commandments speak of a duty towards God
' as well as of a duty towards our neighbour ; that there
' is no Reason why He, from Whom we receive all things,
,' should not demand something in return ; that, a priori',
' we could not the least tell whether He would or not ;
' that if He did, it would be reasonable to expect that
'. He would enforce very heavy punishments upon our
' failure, — especially if it might have been avoided.;
'• that those punishments may be infinite, — at all events;
.' that we can have no reason to allege why they should
' not be ; that if we have any authority for supposing
' they will be so, we ought to do anything rather than
' incur so tremendous a risk.'
There is something in us all which resists these argu
ments. I believe great part of the resistance comes
from conscience, not from self-will. There is a horror
.and heart-shrinking from the doctrine that we are to
serve God because we are ignoriant of His nature and
character. There is a greater horror and heart-shrinking
from the notion that we are to serve Him because, upon
a fair calculation, it appears hkely that this course will
answer better than the opposite course, or that that will
involve us in ruin. He who says, ' I cannot be religious
' on these terms, — it is my religion to repudiate them,'
may not prize the Commandments very highly. He
may look upon them merely as the words of an old

THE CONSCIENCE RESISTS THEM. _>1
Jewish legislator. But he will at least feel that this
legislator meant more by duty to God than his inter
preters suppose him to mean, nay, meant something
wholly and generically different from this. He may not
acknowledge the name of Christ, or may attach to that
name quite another signification from that which we
attach to it : but he will at least be sure that Christ did
not come into the world to tell men that they cannot
know anything of their Father in Heaven ; or that He is
to be served for hire, or through dread of what He will
do to them.
Most earnestly would I desire that each man should
hold this conviction fast, that he should suffer no argu
ments of divines or of lay people, however plausible, to
wrest it from him. And if he does not yet perceive any
reality in the word ' Sin,' or in the thoughts which his
teachers associate with it, by all means let him not feign
that he does! For the sake of the sincerity of his mind*
for the. sake of the truth which may come to him here
after, let him keep his ethical or his legal doctrine, if
he really has some grasp of it, not exchange it for any
that has a greater show and savour of divinity. But I
would conjure him also, for the sake of the same sin
cerity, not to bar his soul against the entrance of another
conviction, if it should come at any time with a very
mighty power, because he is afraid that he may be
receiving some old tenet of Theology which he has
dreaded and hated. At some moment, — it may be one of

22 THE CONSCIENCE OF EVIL.
weakness and sorrow, it may also be when he is full of
energy, and is set upon a distinct and decided purpose,
• — he may be forced to feel ; ' I did this act, / thought
' this thought.; it was a wrong act, it was a wrong
' thought, and it was mine. The world about me took
' no account of it. I can resolve it into no habits or
' motives ; or if I can, the analysis does not help me in
' the least. Whatever the habit was, I wore the habit ;
* whatever the motive was, I was the mover.' At such
a moment there will rush in upon him a multitude of
strange thoughts, of indefinite fears. There will come
a sense of Eternity, dark, unfathomable, hopeless, such
as he fancied he had left years behind him amidst the
pictures of his nursery. That Eternity will stand face
to face with him. It will look like anything but a pic
ture, it will present itself to him as the hardest driest
reality. There will be no images of torture and death.
' What matter where, if I be still ihe same ? ' — this ques
tion will be the torture, all death lies in that. Yes,
brother, such a death, that you will gladly fly from it to
any devices which men have thought of for making their
Gods gracious, tP any penances which they have in
vented for the purpose of taking vengeance on them
selves. These are all natural, — oh, how natural !-^-there
is not one of them which the coldest, most unimaginative
man may not have coveted ; there are few which, in cer
tain periods of confused restless anguish, he may not
have believed would be worth a trial. And why?

HORRORS OF IT. 23
Because anything is better than the presence of this
dark self. I cannot bear to be dogged by that, night
and day ; to feel its presence when I am in company,
and when I am alone ; to hear its voice whispering to
me, — * Whithersoever thou goest, I shall go. Thou wilt
' part with all things else, but not with me. There will
' come a day when thou canst wander out in a beautiful
' world no longer, when thou must be at home with me.'
This vision is more terrible than all which the fancy
of priests has ever conjured up. He who has encoun
tered it, is beginning to know what Sin is, as no words
or definitions can teach it him. When once he arrives
at the conviction, ' I am the tormentor, — Evil lies not in
' some accidents, but in me,' he is no more in the circle
of outward acts, outward rules, outward punishments ;
he is no more in the circle of tendencies, incbnations,
habits, and the discipline whicii is appropriate to them.
He has come unawares into a more inward circle, — a
very close, narrow, dismal one, in which he cannot rest,
out of which he must emerge. And I am certain he can
only emerge out of it when he begins to say, ' I have
' sinned against some Being, — not against sqciety
' merely, not against my own nature merely, but against
1 another to whom I was bound.' And the emancipation
will not be complete till he is able to say, — giving the
words their full and natural meaning,— 'Father, I have
' sinned against Thee,'
I know there are some who will say, ' There is no

24 NEED A MAN UNDERGO IT?
occasion for a man ever to be brought into this strange
sense of contradiction. He need not be thus confronted
with himself : he need not see a dark image of Self be
hind him, before him, above him, beneath him. Very
few people, in fact, do pass through this experience.
Some of a particular constitution may. But how ab*
surd it is of them to make themselves the standards fps
humanity ! How monstrous, that a few metaphysicians
or fanatics should lay down the law for aU tbe busy
men, the merchants, tradesmen, handicraftsmen, who
get through the world, and must get through it some
how, without ever knowing anything of these torments
of conscience, internal strifes, or by whatever other
names philosophers or divines Hke to describe them ! ' *
Very well ! but were not you complaining— have you
not a right to complain— of those priestly inventions
which interfere so much with the peace ,of society, which
interrupt the merchants and handicraftsmen in their
employments, which beget so many horrors, especially
such dreadful anticipations of divine punishment and
vengeance, in human hearts ? Is it not your object to
sweep these away as fast as you can, because yPu find
them so troublesome, taking so many different forms,
reappearing wben you least expect them, in periods and
countries whence they seemed to have, been driven for
ever? Do you not complain that Christianity gives you
no security, that Protestantism gives ypu no security j
against the invasion of superstitious terrors, and.against

WHY IT IS BETTER THAT WE SHOULD. 25
all the sacerdotal powers which are acknowledged where-
ever they prevail ? Do you not say that they interfere
with the progress of science, and that science needs an
aid against them, which neither itself, nor civil rulers,
nor public opinion can give? Would it not be well,
then, to look a little more deeply into the matter, and
instead of raving at certain pernicious effects, to examine
from what cause they may have sprung ?
I tell you the cause is here. That sense of a Sin
intricately, inseparably interwoven with the very fibres
of their being, of a Sin which they cannot get rid of
without destroying themselves, does haunt those very
men who you say take no account of it. This is
not the idiosyncrasy of a few strange inexplicable
temperaments. It is that which besets us all. And
because we do not know what it means, and dp not
wish to know, we are ready for all deceits and impos
tures. They may come in various shapes. They may
be religious impostures, or philosophical; they may
appeal to our love of the outward world, or to pur
craving for mysteries ; but they will not permit us
to be at rest, or to be acquainted with our own hearts,
or to understand one another. All you can boast is,
that preachers of religion have not a monopoly of these
influences in this time ; that here, as elsewhere, there is
unrestricted competition ; that Mormonists, Animal
Magnetists, Rappists, take their turns with us, and
often work their charms more effectually than we worl^

26 METHODIST PREACHING.
ours. As long as men are dwelling in twilight, all
ghosts of the past, all phantoms of the future, walk by
them : I want to know, as I suppose you do, how they
can come out of the twilight? The passage is the same",
friend, for them, as for you and me ; we are not of
different flesh and blood from theirs : that within us
which is not flesh and blood is not more different, but
more closely akin, whatever you, in your philosophical
or Hterary or religious exclusiveness, may think. The
darkness which is blended with the light must, in some
way, be shown to be in deadly contrast with it, — the
Ppposites must be seen one against the other.
Think of any sermon of a Methodist preacher which
roused the heart of a Kingswood collier, or of a dry,
hard, formal man, or of a contented, self-righteous boaster
of his religion, in the last century. You will say the
orator talked of an infinite punishment which God might
inflict on them all if they continued disobedient. He may
have talked of that, but he would have talked till dooms*
day if he had not spoken another language too, which
interpreted this, and into which the conscience rapidly
translated it. He spoke of an infinite Sin : he spoke
of an infinite Love : he spoke of that which was' true
then, whatever might become true hereafter. He said,
• ( Thou art in a wrong state : hell is about thee. God
' would bring thee into a right state : He would save
'thee out of that hell.' The man believed the words ;
Something within him told him they were true : and that

POWER OF IT; CHANGE IN IT. 27
for the first time he had heard truth, seen truth, been
Himself true, I cannot tell what vanities and confusions
might come to him afterwards, from his own dreams or
the crudities of his teachers; But I am sure this was
hot a delusion — could not be. He had escaped from the
twilight : he had seen the opposite forms of light and
darkness no longer miserably confused together. Good
was all good ; evil was all evil : there was war in
heaven and earth between them ; in him, even in him,
where the battle had been fiercest, the odds against the
good greatest, good had gotten the victory. He had a
right to believe that the morning stars were singing
together at the news of it ; otherwise, why was there
such music in his, the Kingswood collier's, heart ?
If such processes are rare in our days, it is, I believe,
because the descendants of these Methodist preachers,
and we in imitation of them, fancy that the mere
machinery, whether earthly or divine, which they put
in motion, was the cause of them, — because we do not
thoroughly understand or heartily believe that there is that
war of Life and Death, of Good and Evil, now in every
man's heart, as there was of old. Therefore, we do not
speak straightly and directly to both. We suppose men
are to be shown by arguments that they have sinned,
and that God has a right to punish them. We do not
say to them, ' You are under a law of love ; you know
* you are, and you are fighting with it.'
Benevolent men wish that the poor should know

28 .EDUCATION OF THE PEOPLE. '
more of Legislation and Ethics and Economy! I wish
heartily that they should. But I believe that you will
never bring them to that knowledge unless you can
point them to. the deeper springs of humanity, from
which both Ethics and Laws and Economics must be
fed, if they are ta have any freshness and life. I do
not think it dangerous that any man should get any
knowledge of any subject whatever ; the more he has
the better. And I often think, that what is sincerely
communicated to him of Economics or Physics, may
bring him sooner to a right moral condition,— may
startle him into apprehensions respecting his own being,
sooner, — than insincere artificial theological teaching.
But yet I cannot help seeing also, that Legislation,
Ethics, Economics, even Physical Science, may them
selves contribute to the foundation of superstitions, if the
man is not first called into life to receive them and to
connect them with himself. I am sure, at all events, that
an infinite responsibility rests upon us, — not to be inter*
fering with pther men, or to be checking their efforts,
whatever direction they may take, — but to be calling
forth, by that power which, I believe, we possess, if we
will use it, the heart and conscience of men, so that
being first able tp see their Father in Heaven truly,, and
themselves in their true relation to Him, they may
afterwards manfully investigate, as I am sure they will
long to do, the cPnditions under which they themselves",
His children, exist, and the laws which govern all His

SOCIAL FEELINGS. 29
works. I am convinced, indeed, that the message will
be, in some respects, different from that which the
Methodists delivered, even when theirs is stripped of
all its foreign and enfeebling accidents. Men are evi*
dently more alive now to their social than to their indi
vidual wants ; they are therefore more awake to the
evils which affect society, than to those which affect their
own souls. To him who merely, or mainly, preaches
about the soul, this is a most discouraging circumstance,
—to him whose purpose is to awaken men to a know
ledge of God and a knowledge of Sin, it need not be
discouraging at all.
For if God presents Himself to us as the Father
of a Family, it is not necessary for the knowledge of
Him, that we should force ourselves to forget our rela
tions to each other, and to think of ourselves as alone
in the world. And though, as I have admitted and
asserted, the sense of Sin is essentially the sense of
sobtude, isolation, distinct individual responsibility, I
do not know whether that sense, in all its. painfullness
and agony, ever comes to a man more fully than when
he recollects how he has broken the silken cords which
bind him to his fellows ; how he has made himself alone,
by" not confessing that he was a brother, a son, a citizen,.
I believe the conviction of that Sin may be brought home
more mightily to our generation than it has been to
any former one ; and that a time will come, when every
family and every man will mourn apart; under a

30 REPENTANCE.
sense of the strife and divisions of the body politic,
which he has contributed to create and to perpetuate.
The preaching Repent, for the, Kingdom of Heaven
is at hand, has always been the great instrument of
levelling hills and exalting valleys. It will be so again.
The priest and the prophet will confess that they have
been greater rebels against the law of love than the
publican and the harlot, because they were sent into
the world to testify of a Love for all, and a Kingdom for
all, and they have been witnesses for separation, for
exclusion, for themselves./^
My Unitarian brother! You believe that, at least,
respecting us. You have often told us so. And how
is it you have no power to work on the minds and
hearts of men, and to convince them of God's love,
when, as you say rightly, we are forgetting or deny
ing it? How is it, that in the last age you were
in sympathy with all our feeble worldly tone of mind,
and thought we were right in mocking at spiritual
powers, and in not proclaiming a Gospel to the poor?
Why did you talk just as we talked, in sleepy language
to sleepy congregations, of a God who was willing to
forgive if men repented, when what they wanted to
know was, how they could repent, who could give
them repentance, what they had to repent of? You
had a mighty charm in your hands. You spoke of a
Father. Why could you not tell men that He was
seeking. them, and wishing to make them true instead

THE UNITARIAN MESSAGE. 31
of false? You did not, you know you did not. Why
was it? I beseech you, do not turn round and say,
' You were as guilty as we.' I have said already, ' We
' were much more guilty.' Every creed we professed,
every prayer we uttered, told us that this "Father was
an actual Father, actually related to us by the closest,
most intimate bonds. We did not believe much of
those creeds and prayers; you wished us to believe less
than we did. Thank God, neither you nor we could
get rid of the witnesses which He had established, or of
the deep necessities which corresponded to them. The
earnest preachers of the day beat us both, because they
believed in a Father, while we repeated His name, and
you argued to prove that He was the One God.
And now you have, many of you, changed your lan
guage. You see that there is a spiritual power in the
world ; these preachers have proved that there is. You
point out powerfully and skilfully, what dull, drowsy
priests we were who denied it. But you say that those
who asserted it were narrow, that they are worn out, that
spiritual power is much more widely at work than they
supposed, that.it is to be felt everywhere. Be it so, —
the lesson is most impressive ; we accept it. But why
are you still powerless ? why cannot you stir the hearts
of the people by your message more than your fathers
did ? Why must it be proclaimed, not exactly like theirs,
in the ears of comfortable merchants and dowagers want
ing a not too troublesome religion, — but at least in the

32 NECESSARIES AND LUXURIES.
ears of those 'chiefly, who crave for some new thing;
not of those who are hungering and thirsting for life ?
The secret of both failures seems to me this. You,
of the older school, knew something of transgression';
almost nothing of Sin. But the transgression was of
a rale rather than of a law ; breaches of social etiquette
and propriety, at most uncomely and unkind habits,
seemed to compose all the evil_i you took account of,
which did not appear in the shape of crimes. Those
who must be treated, not as members of some class of
men, but as men, have no ears for discourses about
conventions and behaviour; if you cannot penetrate
below these, you must leave them alone. You who
believe in spiritual powers, do you yet acknowledge
spiritual evil ? Can you speak to us as persons ? Can
you tell me of myself; what I am; who is for me, who
is against me? I have not found that you can. You
have a religion for us, I know, apparently a graceful
and a refined Pne. It is a luxury, if we can afford it.
But we have an enemy who tries to deprive us even of
necessaries. Unless you can teach us how to procure
them, in spite of him, I and my fellow-fighters must for
the present let your religion alone.

ESSAY III.

ON THE EVIL SPIRIT.

I suppose if any of us met with a treatise which
professed to discuss the Origin of Evil, our first and
most natural impulse would be, to throw it aside. ' The
' man must have great leisure,' we should say, ' or be
' very youthful, who could occupy himself with such a
' subject as this. After six thousand years' experience
' of Evil, and almost as many of hopeless controversy
' about its source, we may as well reckon, that among
i the riddles which men are not to solve, and pass to
' something else.'
The resolution may be a wise one, as far as it relates
to discussions philosophical or theological upon this
topic. Possibly the chief good they have done is,
that they have shown how Httle they can do ; that they
have proved how inadequate school logic is for the
necessities of human bfe. But if we supposed, when we
closed the book, that we had done with the question
wbich it raised and which it tried to settle; if we.
D

34 INFLUENCE OP CIRCUMSTANCES.
thought it would not meet us again in the law-court
and the market-place, and mix itself, most inconve
niently, in all the common business of the world, —
a little experience will have shown us that we were
mistaken. We must consider the origin of Evil,
whether we like it or not, We are debating it with
ourselves, we are conversing about it with others, we
are acting on some conclusions we have formed about it,
every day of our lives. Take a few instances.
1. A man cannot help perceiving that the climate he
is living in has some influence on himself, and upon
all who are about him. It is an influence whicii
directly affects his body, but it does not stop there ;
through this, it acts in a number of ways upon his
thoughts and his habits. If it affects him less or
more than others, the difference is caused by a dif
ference of temperament ; that must be set down as
another influence which requires to be taken account
of; one of which the workings are great, and in vari
ous directions. Add the conditions of luxury, medi
ocrity, or poverty, into which he is born, and he is
conscious of a whole system of agencies working upon
him from childhood upwards, modifying apparently,
if not determining, his wishes, conceptions, purposes.
He has not yet calculated the effect of association
upon him, even taking that word in its simplest
narrowest sense, to ' express his intercourse with his
brothers, sisters, schoolfellows. If he enlarges the

EVIL TRACED TO IT. 35
word to comprehend all that he has received from the
atmosphere of his country and his age, he may become
well-nigh overwhelmed. For he begins to think what
shape his moral code might have taken, if he had been
born within certain degrees of latitude. He asks him
self whether he should not almost certainly have been
a Roman Catholic, if his lot had been cast in any part
of the south of Europe ; — a Hindoo or a Buddhist,
or perhaps something worse, if he had grown up in
some of the finest regions of Asia. Without plung
ing into these speculations, there is the obvious and
undeniable operation of those who have educated him ;
the operation of all the thoughts, feelings, and habits,
which had descended upon them from their instructors
and ancestors.
These are but a few items in an enormous calculation,
a few hints which might be expanded indefinitely. What
is the result ? As some evil tendency or temper, which
exists in him, forces itself upon his notice, or is forced
upon him by the criticisms and admonitions of others,
he refers it to some of these circumstances by which he
is hemmed in. Has he not a right to do so ? Can he
not prove his case ? That effeminate, slothful disposition,
— cannot he explain to himself clearly, what early indul
gence, what ill-health, what inherited morbidness begot
it in him ? That gambling fever which is consuming
him, does not he know where it was caught, who gave
him the infection? That loss of truth in words and

36 IN OURSELVES, IN OTHERS.
deeds, cannot he trace it up to frauds practised on him
in the nursery ; cannot he almost fix on the hour, the
moment, when one of them seemed to undermine his soul
and make it false ? But for riches, would he have been
so hard and indifferent to others ? But for poverty and
successive disappointments, would he have been so sour
and envious ?
In this way we reason about ourselves ; we debbe-
rately assign an origin to the evil within us ; can we
refuse the advantage of the same plea to our fellows ? Do
we not blush when we tell any man, ' You ought to have
' been so different ? ' Have not a thousand influences that
we know acted upon him for evil, which have not acted
upon us ? May there not have been tens of thousands
which we do not know ? Our practical conclusion, if we
are charitable, is, that we must make great allowances
for him : his circumstances have been, or may have been
very unpropitious ; may not much of his wrong-doing
be owing to these ? Here we seem to be extending a
doctrine concerning the origin of evil to men generally.
And if we are aroused to exertion respecting ourselves
or our brethren, it appears as if we directly appbed
this doctrine to practice. We fly from old associations,
we bring new ones about us ; we assume that those
who have erred will not be better unless we can give
them a different education, another social, position,
positive restraints imposed by us, opportunities for
restraining themselves, freedom ' from some shackles

CONCLUSION FROM THESE PREMISES. 37
which appear to have operated injuriously. We do not
scruple, any of us, to say that there are forms of
government and forms of belief which we wish to see
destroyed, because we suppose individual morabty can
scarcely exist under their shadow.
From these data it is not wonderful that some persons!,
anxious to set the world right, should have generalized
the conclusion, that all evil has its origin in circum*
stances ; that when you make them good, you make men
good. It is not wonderful that they should strive tp
point out how the first object may be accomplished here
and everywhere ; how the second is necessarily involved
in it. We must submit to be charged by them with
great logical inconsistency, for going with them so far;
and yet stopping short at what seems to them the
inevitable consequence.
2. There is one great hindrance to the acknowledgment
of that consequence ; perhaps to some persons it is the
only one. They cannot persuade themselves that human
creatures would receive so many evil impressions from
the surrounding world, if there was not in them some
great capacity for such impressions. They cannot sup
pose that the bad circumstances produce the suscepti
bility to which they appeal, however they may increase
it. How, they ask, did the circumstances become bad ?
Perhaps the elements are good, but they are ib-combined.
What produced that bad combination ? Who put them
out of order ? Or there is some one of them that was

38 CORRUPTION OF NATURE.
bad and disturbed the rest. That one must have
become so, independently of its circumstances. ' There
' must,' they say, ' be some evil, which was not made so
' by the accidents that invested it ; you will be involved
' in a wearisome circle, an endless series of contradic-
' tions, if you do not admit this. And if you do, is it
' not more reasonable/ they ask, ' to say that this evil
' belongs to the very nature of man, that it is a corrup-
' tion of blood ? Will not that account both for the
' growth of bad circumstances and for the reaction of
' them upon you, upon us, upon all ? Confess that the
' infection you speak of is in us all, confess that we are
' members of a depraved race, and you can explain all
' the phenomena you take notice of; oh any other
' hypothesis they are incomprehensible.'
This view of the origin of Evil is also pregnant
with practical consequences ; it never can become a mere
theory. It must lead all who hold it to inquire, whether
this corruption is necessary and hopeless, or may be
cured ; whether the cure may come by the destruction of
the substance in which it dwells, or whether that may
be reformed : in either case, what the seat of the malady
is, how the amputation may be effected or the new blood
poured in, and the man himself survive. The world's
history is full of the most serious and. terrible answers to
these questions, — answers attesting how real and radical
the difficulty was which suggested them. ' The disease
' is in my body, this flesh, this accursed matter ; ' — here

SEAT OF THE DISEASE, 39
was one often-repeated, never-exhausted reply ; ' the
' flesh must be destroyed ; till it is destroyed, I can
* never be better.' All the macerations and tortures of
Indian devotees had this justification. ' No, it is hot
' there ; it is in the soul that you are corrupted and
* fallen ; the body is but the tool and handmaid of its
' offences;' — that was another, seemingly a more hopeful
conclusion. And this soul must try to recover itself,
must seek again the high and glorious position which
was once its own. By what ladder ? ' It must think
' high thoughts of itself; it must not allow itself to be
' crushed and overpowered by low bestial instincts, it
' rnust refuse to be degraded by the mere animals in the
' form of men, among whom it dwells.' This was one
prescription. 'Ah, no!' said the mystic, after bitter
trial of that method ; ' it must not rise, but sink ; the
' soul must desire annihilation for itself; till it dies, it
' will never know what life is.'
These conclusions, we might fancy, affected only a few
individuals. Oh no ! the whole society in which they
are found, is coloured and shaped by them. I do not
deny that there may come a time when they may lose
their power, when the large mass of notions and practices
which they have created through a series of ages may
begin to upheave, when a general unbelief may take the
place of an all-embracing credulity. But out of that
unbelief you will see forms arising which will prove
that the old notions are npt dead ; that they cannot die.

40 POWERS OF DARKNESS.
They are about you while you are despising them; they
are within you while you are denying them ; if you can
find no clue to them, no explanation of them, they
will still darken your hearts and the face of the whole
universe, 3. This is equally true, I bebeve, of another, an
older, we may think quite an obsolete, method of
accounting for the existence of Evil. The belief iu
Evil Spirits, in Powers of Darkness, to which the bodies
and spirits of men are subject, which haunt particular
places, which hold their assemblies at certain times,
which claim certain men as their lieges, from whose
assaults none are free : this belief we may often have
been inclined to look upon as the most degrading and
despicable of all, from which a sounder knowledge of
physics and of the freaks and the capacities of the
human imagination, has delivered us. Are we sure
that the deliverance has been effected? Are we sure
that fears of an invisible world, — of a world not to
come, but about us,-^are extinct,- or that they may not
rush in with great force upon rich and luxurious people,
as much as upon the poorest and the least instructed?
Are we sure that they may not press the discoveries of
physical science, and the possibibties of the vast un
discovered regions above and beneath to which it points
us, into their service ? Are we sure that all our
discoveries, or supposed discoveries, respecting the spir
ritual world within us, may not be equally appealed

, DEMONOLOGY NOT OBSOLETE. 41
to in confirmation of a new demoniac system? Are
we sure that the very enlightenment, which says it has
ascertained Christian stories to be legends, wiU not be
enlisted on the same side, because if we will only believe
these facts, it will be so easy to show how those falsities
may have originated ?
And why is this belief at least as potent as either of
the others, often mixing with them and giving them a
new character? Because there is in men a sense of
bondage to some power which they feel that they should
resist and cannot. Because that feeling of the ' ought,'
and the ' cannot,' is what forces, not upon scholars, but
upon the poorest men, the question of the freedom of the
will, and bids them seek some solution of it. Has not
every one wondered that the deepest problem in meta
physics, the one which so many professional metaphy
sicians relinquish as desperate, that respecting which
divines cry out in pulpits, ' Ask nothing, it is so hard ;
' there is some truth in each view of it,' — should exercise
and torment peasants in ten thousand ways ; that they
should have bstened, as they did when Covenanters and
Puritans were preaching, to the most elaborate as well
as the most startling expositions of it ; that if they can
not have the knot untied for them, they always find some
intelligible superstition wherewith to cut it? Oh ! let us
give over our miserable notion that poor men only want
teaching about things on the surface, or will ever be
satisfied with such teaching ! They are groping about

42 THEOLOGY IN RELATION TO _T.
the roots of things, whether we know it or not. You
must meet them in their underground search, and show
them the way into daylight, if you want true and brave
citizens, not a community of dupes and quacks. You
may talk against devilry as you like; you will not get
rid of it unless you can tell human beings whence cornel
that sense of a tyranny over their own very selves,
which they express in a thousand forms of speech, which
excites them to the greatest, often the most profitless,
indignation against the arrangements of this world,
which tempts them to people it and heaven also, with
objects of terror and despair.
Here then are three schemes of the universe, all de
veloped out of the observation of facts, or, if you like
that form of speecb better, out of the consciousness of
men, all leading to serious results affecting our well*
being in this as well as in other periods of history*
Each has given birth to theories of divinity, as well as
to a very complicated anthropology. They show np
symptoms of reconciliation ; yet they exist side by side,
and gather new votaries from various quarters, as well
as new confirmation from each of these votaries, Shall
we ask what Christian Theology, not according to any
new conception of it, but according to the statements
which have embodied themselves in creeds, and are most
open to the censures of modern refinement, says of
them? 1, First, then, — there is no disguising it, — the assertion

DEMONS IN THE OLD WORLD. 43
stands broad and patent in the four Gospels, construed
according to any ordinary rules of language ;— the
acknowledgment of an Evil Spirit is characteristic of
Christianity. I do not, of course, mean, that the dread
of such a Spirit did not exist in every part of the world,
before the Incarnation of our Lord. Powers which are
plotting mischief against men, enter into every heathen
religion ; gradually those religions came to signify little
else than the conciliation of such powers ; in the highest
civibzation of the Roman Empire, when unbelief in the
Divine had become habitual, the fear of the devibsh
expressed itself in a devotion to magic and prophecy,
which was as real as the devotion of frivolous people
can be. The Jew was taught, throughout all his history,
that there were enernies within as well as without, who
were contending against him. He realized the conviction
in his prayers to the God of his fathers. He could
not believe that Philistines or Moabites were tormenting
him in his chamber. He learnt that the secret impalpable
enemies there, were his country's tyrants, even more
than the visible ones. The Pharisee of later times,
with no feebngs for his country except as it reflected his
vanity or ministered to his contempt of others, wrapt
up in the desire to get what he could for himself in this
world and the next, had wrought out of the hints which
the living men of former days suppbed him, a very ex*
tensive Demonology. Beelzebub, the prince of the
devils, occupied a large place in his theory ; he could

44 THE EVIL SPIRIT IN THE GOSPELS.
always be resorted to for the explanation of any more
than usually startling difficulty. And this being was
unconsciously becoming the object of Jewish worship.
AU his features were gradually transferred by the imagi*
nation of the self-seeker to the God of Abraham.
When then I speak of the belief in the existence
and presence of an Evil Spirit as characteristic of the
Gospels, I mean this : — that in them first the idea of a
spirit directly and absolutely oppPsed to the Father of
Lights, to the God of absolute goodness and love, bursts
full upon us. There first we are taught, that it is not
merely something in pecubarly evil men which is con
tending against the good and the true ; no, nor some
thing in all men : that God has an antagonist, and that
all men, bad or good, have the same. There, first, this
antagonist presents himself to us, altogether as a spirit,
with no visible shape or clothing whatsoever ; there first
the belief that Evil may be a rival creator, or entitled to
some worship, — a belief, which every reformer in the
old world had spent his life in struggling with, — is
utterly put to flight ; the vision of a mere destroyer, a
subverter of order, who is seeking continually to make
us disbebeve in the Creator, to forsake the order that we
are in, takes place of every other. With these discoveries
another is always connected ; that this tempter speaks
to me, to myself, to the will; that over that he has
established his tyranny ; that there his chains must be
broken ; but that all things in nature, with the soul and

RELATION TO NATURAL CORRUPTION. 45
the body, have partaken, and do partake, of the slavery
to which the man himself has submitted.
I simply state these propositions ; I am not going to
defend them. If they cannot defend themselves, by the
bght which they throw on the anticipations and diffi
culties of the human spirit, by the hint of deliverance
which they offer it, by the horrible dreams which they
scatter, my arguments would be worth nothing. But I
am bound to show how this part of the divine revelation
affects those two other hypotheses of which I spoke
first. 2. That there is a pravity or depravity in every
man, and that this pravity or depravity is felt through
his whole nature, the Gospel does not assert as a prin*
ciple of Theology, but concedes as an undoubted and
ascertained fact of experience, which no one who con
templates man or the universe can gainsay. What it
does theologically with reference to that experience is
this ; — as it confesses an Evil Spirit whose assaults are
directed against the Will in man, it forbids us ever to
look upon any disease of our nature as the ultimate
cause of transgression. The horrible notion, which has
haunted moralists, divines, and practical men, that
pravity is the law of our being, and not the perpetual
tendency to struggle against the law of our being, it
discards and anathematises. By setting forth the Spirit
of selfishness as ihe enemy of man, it explains, in per
fect coincidence with our experience, wherein this pravity

46 RELATION TO CIRCUMSTANCES.
consists ; that it is the inclination of every man to set
up himself, to become his own law and his own centre,
and so to throw all society into discord and disorder.
It thus explains the conviction of the devotee and the
mystic that the body must die, and that the soul must
die. Self being the plague of man, in some most
wonderful sense he must die, that he may be delivered
from his pravity. And yet neither body nor soul can
be in itself evil. Each is in bondage to some evil
power. If there is a God of Order mightier than the
Destroyer, body and soul must be capable of redemption
and restoration.
3. And thus this Theology comes in contact with that
wide-spread and most plausible creed, which attributes
all evil to circumstances. Every one of the facts from
which this creed is deduced, it fully admits. Every
husband, father, ruler, brings his own quota of selfish
ness to swell the general stock, It accumulates from
age to age. The sins of the fathers are visited upon
the children, to the third and fourth generation. The
idolatrous habit, the sensual habit, goes on propagating
itself, so that the cry,
_Etas parentum, pejor avis, tulit
Nos nequiores, mox daturoa
Progeniem vitiosiorem,
is the ordinary complaint of intelligent observers. And
because it is so, the prudential alleviations of the evil
to which, as I admitted, we all do and must resort, have

GENERAL INFERENCE. 47
the highest justification in principle. Take away from
a man aU the injurious influences that it is possible to
take away; not because circumstances are his rightful
masters, but because these influences lead him to think
that they are, and to act as if they were. Take them
away that he may know what has robbed him of his
freedom, whose yoke needs to be broken if he is not
always to be a slave. And since the man soon dis
covers, — since his worship of circumstances is itself an
acknowledgment of the discovery, — that the tyranny
which is over him is a tyranny over his whole race, we
shall never give him any clearness of mind, or any hope,
unless we can tell him that the Spirit of Selfishness is
the common enemy, and that he has been overcome.
I cannot be ignorant, that in this Essay I have
encountered one of the most deeply rooted aversions
in the minds of Unitarians. They have always re
garded the doctrine of the existence and personahty
of the Devil as the least tenable figment of orthodox
theology, They scarcely think that any one who pro
fesses to hold it, in the present day, can be sincere.
They are very tolerant, can give us credit for much
invincible ignorance ; but they do not believe that any
man in the nineteenth century is quite fool enough
for that.
I perfectly understand this feeling. I know that it
is very widely diffused. I shrink with instinctive cow
ardice from saying, ' I maintain this dogma.' I should

48 DEPRAVITY MADE A LAW.
like exceedingly to hide it under some respectable peri
phrasis. I will tell you why I cannot. I bebeve that
some of what seem to me the hardest, most mischievous
theories of our modern popular divinity, — those which
shock the moral sense and reason of men most, those
which most undermine the bebef in God's infinite
charity, — arise from this timidity, of which I am con
scious myself, and which I see in my brethren. When
men in the old time would have said bravely, mean
ing what they said, ' We are engaged in a warfare with
' an Evil Spirit, he is trying to separate us from God, to
* make us hate our brethren,' we talk of the depravity of
our nature, of the evil we have inherited from Adam*
Now that every child of Adam has this infection of
nature, I most entirely and inwardly believe. But to
say that this infection forces us to commit sin, is to say
what the Jews of old said, — what the Prophets
denounced as the most flagrant denial of God, — We are
delivered to do all these abominations. And it is the very
close approximation which we make in some of our
popular statements to this detestable heresy, which has
called forth an indignant and a righteous protest from"
many classes of our countrymen, the Unitarians being
in some sort the spokesmen for the rest. When we
try to avoid this censure, it is by the very feeble and
pusillanimous course of introducing modifications into
the broad phrases with which we started', modifications
that make them mean almost nothing. We maintain

EQUIVOCATIONS. 49
the ' absolute, universal, aU-pervading depravity ' of
human nature ; but then there are ' beautiful relics of the
divine image,' ' fallen columns/ &c. ; — pretty metaphors,
no doubt; but who wants metaphors on a subject of
such solemn and personal interest ? Who can bear them
when they reduce assertions, which we were told had
the most profound signification, into mere nonentities ?
What is pravity or depravity, — affix to it the epithets
universal, absolute, or any you please, — but an inclina
tion to something which is not right, an inclination to
turn away from that which is right, that which is the
true and proper state of him who has the incbnation ?
What is it that experiences the inclination ; what is it
that provokes the inclination ? I believe it is the spirit
within me which feels the inclination : I believe it is a
Spirit speaking to my spirit, who stirs up the inclina
tion. That old way of stating the case explains the
facts, and commends itself to my reason. I cannot find
any other which does not conceal some facts, and does
not outrage my reason. And of this I am sure, that
when I have courage to use this language, as the
expression of a truth which concerns me and every
man, the whole battle of life becomes infinitely more
serious to me, and yet more hopeful; because I cannot
bebeve in a Spirit which is tempting me into false
hood and evil, without believing that God is a Spirit,
and that I am bound to Him, and that He is attracting
me to truth and goodness. E

50 JUSTICE AND MERCY OPPOSED.
And thus another very unsightly, and to me quite
portentous, imagination of modern divines, is shown to
be utterly inconsistent with the faith which we and our
forefathers have professed. There is said to have been
a war in the Divine mind between Justice and Mercy.
We are told that a great scheme was necessary to bring
these quabties into reconciliation. When I attribute
this doctrine to modern divines, I do not affirm that
there may not be very frequent traces of it in the argu
mentative discourses of old divines; but I mean that,
with the strong belief which they had, that an Evil
Spirit was drawing them away both from mercy and
righteousness, — was tempting them to be both unjust
and hard-hearted — they had a practical witness against
any notion of this kind, which we have lost, or are
losing. They could not but feel that to be in a
healthful moral state, they must be both just and
merciful ; that there must be a perfect unity and har
mony between these qualities ; that whatever puts them
in seeming division, comes from the Evil Spirit ; that it
is treason to ascribe to the archetypal mind that which
destroys the purity of the image. The God who was to
deliver them from this strife, could r not Himself be
the subject of it. I believe, then, that the change which
the Unitarians perceive in us, and which they consider
the blessed effect of civilization and progress upon minds
naturally averse from either, has introduced darkness
into our views of God, feebleness into our struggles

APPLICATION TO UNITARIANS. 51
for good as men. As soon as we return to the practical
faith of the old teachers, we shall fling their theories
and our own to the winds when they interfere with the
absolute righteousness and love of God ; we shall know
that there must be an All-Good on the one side, or that
we shall be at the mercy of the Ab-Evil on the other.
And now, having applied this principle to our own
condemnation, I have a right to turn round upon the
Unitarian and ask him, whether the same causes are not
at work upon him as upon us. I complained in my
first Essay that the Unitarians of the last century sub
stituted a mere amiable, good-natured Being, for a God
of perfect Charity, I referred in the last to their super
ficial notions respecting Sin. I said that they could
not tell us anything about the actual conflict of life ;
that the deepest wants of which human beings are
conscious were unknown to them; that they could
only teach us to preserve quietness and propriety, when
there is bttle to ruffle the air or the sea. Is not that
refinement which will not face the fact of an .Evil
Spirit, — the scorn of such a belief as vulgar, — at the
root of a weakness which is alienating not merely other
men, but the youthful and earnest members pf their own
.sect, from them ?
For these younger men, I know, do confess the reality
of spiritual conflicts, Bunyan's ' Pilgrim's Progress '
they regard as a book of great significance. They have
no. doubt that Christian must, in some sense, fight with

52 SPIRITUAL CONFLICTS.
-Apollyon. 'And who,' they ask, ' oan object to an
' allegory which clothes so much of real experience in
' a robe of fantasy? Of course,' they continue, ' you
' would not take the whole of that story for gospel,
' would you? And if we are quite willing to take what
' is universal in it apart from its old Hebrew drapery,
' what more do you want ? We allow there are abysses
' and eternities, with which men have to do, — -valleys of
' the Shadow of death, if you like that language. When
' you speak of the Devil, we suppose you mean that, -or
¦* a conceit of your own, or a dream of the past.'
One word, dear friends, only one word, just ;that we
may understand each other. If you do maintain the
universal truth wbich lies- in that story of Apollyon, I
am thoroughly content : let all the outsides pass for
what they are worth ; let them be acknowledged as the
mere dress suitable to a story, not to fact ; to the
seventeenth century, not to the nineteenth. But mark,
it is the outside which I give up; to the inside I hold
fast. I am very sorry to say, that these eternities and
abysses of yours look to me very bke outsides, mere
drapery; the fashionable dialect of a certain not very
earnest, rather fantastic, period. The dress of the old
people being stripped off, as we are agreed it shall
be, there remains — what? The history of some mental
process, no doubt ;— but the nature of the process ? Is
it a shadow-fight? Is it a game of blacks and whites,
'the same hand moving both ? These are questions of

SUBSTANCE AND DRAPERY. 53
some importance to the sincerity of our acts and thoughts.
I tell you plainly you have not resolved them, as I
have a right to demand, on my own behalf and on be
half of my kind, that they should be resolved. And
though I would not for the world that you should anti
cipate by one hour the decision of your own consciences
upon them ; though I honour you for not adopting
phrases of ours, or of the Bible, which do not express
something substantial to you ; yet I cannot conceal my
conviction, the result of my own experience, that your
minds will be in a simpler, healthier state, that you will
win a victory over some of the most plausible conven
tionalisms of this age, that you will grasp the truth
you have more firmly, and be readier to receive any you
have not yet apprehended, when you have courage to
say, ' We do verily believe that we have a world, and
a flesh, and a Devil, to fight with.'
And before you believe it, or know that you do, I
shall claim you as men who are actually engaged in
this struggle, and I shall go on to show, that in your
heart, as much as in mine, there is a witness fox
righteousness and truth, which world, . and flesh, and
Devil, have been unable to silence.

ESSAY IV.
ON THE SENSE OF RIGHTEOUSNESS IN MEN, AND THEIR
DISCOVERY OP A REDEEMER.
Every thoughtful reader of the book of Job must
have been struck by two characteristics of it, which
seem, at first sight, altogether inconsistent. The suffer
ing man has the most intense personal sense of his own
evil. He makes also the most vehement, repeated,
passionate, protestations of his own righteousness. It
cannot be pretended that he defends his innocence' as
far as men are concerned, but that he confesses himself
guilty in the sight of God. On the contrary, he appeals
again and again from men to God. He calls for His
judgment. He longs to go and plead before Him.
There would have been no need of clearing himself
before a human tribunal. His friends do not, as it has
been customary to say, attack him. They try, in their
way, to console him. They are as much astonished at
the vehemence of his self-accusations a3 they are shocked
at his self-righteousness. They are quite convinced
that God is ready to forgive those who make their
prayer to Him. That is what they would do, if they

JOB AND HIS FRIENDS, 55
bad fallen into Job's calamities. The ancients, who
were much wiser than he or they, have assured them
that it is the right course. Why does not the stricken
man take it ? Why does he indulge in such dreadful
waibngs, which must be offensive to the Judge who has
afflicted him? Above all, how dares he talk, as if a man
might be just before God? How could he, who com
plained that he possessed the sins of his youth, never
theless declare, that there was a purity and a truth in
him, which the Searcher of all hearts would at last
acknowledge? What did this contradiction mean?
How could he justify it against all their precedents and
arguments ?
He could not justify it at all. The contradiction was
there, He felt it, he uttered it, he found in it the
secret of his anguish. He could only tell his friends :
' Your precedents and your arguments do not clear it
' away in the least. I knew them all before. I could
' have poured them out upon you if you had been in
' my case. But when one is brought face to face with
' suffering, they prove to be mere wind. These words
' of yours buzz about me, torment me, sometimes leave
' their stings in me, but they have nothing to do with
' me. They do not show me where I am wrong and
' where I am right. I am before a Judge who does not
' appear to recognise your maxims and modes of proce-
' dure. Oh ! that I might order my cause before Him!'
Nor was it only the self-righteousness of Job which

56 HIS PROTEST AGAINST SUFFERING.
shocked Eliphaz, and Bildad, and Zophar. Their theory
of the nature of pain was also thoroughly outraged by
his language. I do not see any proof that they thought
it merely a judgment from God for his transgressions.
They would have been quite willing to call it, as we do,
a merciful visitation. What offends them is, that Job
groans under it as if it were an evil, that he seems to
speak of it as if it came from an enemy. How can this
be ? Did not God send it ? Is not all this suffering
permitted, even ordained, by Him? What possible
right can a poor creature, a worm of the earth, have to
remonstrate and complain that anything is amiss ?
Again it is clear that the friends have the advantage.
Job cannot at all explain how it is that pain should
seem to him so very intolerable, and yet that it should
be from God. It is the secret he wants to discover.
But the demands for submission which his friends make
upon him are not the least helps to the discovery. He
cannot satisfy these demands ; he cannot do what they
tell him to do. He must and will cry out. He is sure
that all is not right, let them pretend, to think so, as
much as they will. This pain, however it may have
come to him, is an evil. No one shall force him to belie
his conscience by saying that it is a good.
It does not appear from the story that, in either of
these points, Job grows into more consent with their
opinion, as his discipline becomes more severe and
his experience greater. His confidence that he has a

SIN AND RIGHTEOUSNESS. 57
righteousness, a real substantial righteousness, which no
one shall remove from him, which he will hold fast and
not let go, waxes stronger as his pain becomes bitterer
and more habitual. There are great alternations of
feebng. The deepest acknowledgments of sin come
forth from his heart. But he speaks as if his righteous
ness were deeper and more grounded than that. Sin
cleaves very close to him ; it seems as if it were part of
himself, almost as if it were himself. But his righteous
ness belongs to him still more entirely. However
strange the paradox, it is more himself than even that is.
He must express that conviction, he does express it,
though he knows, better than any one can tell him, how
much it is at variance with what he had been thinking
and saying the moment before.
So also of the suffering. He has wonderful intuitions,
ever and anon, of the mercy and goodness of God. He
believes that He is trying him, and that He will bring
him forth out of the fires. And yet, why does this
happen to him ? What is it all for ? He will not cheat
God and outrage His truth, by uttering soft phrases
which set at nought the conviction of his heart. There
is that about him from which he feels that he ought
to be delivered, an anguish of body and soul, which
he cannot reconcile with the goodness he yet clings to
and trusts in.
There comes a moment in the life of Job when these
two thoughts, the thought of a righteousness within

58 MY REDEEMER LIVETH.
him which is mightier than the evil, the thought of
some debverance from his suffering which should be
also a justification of God, are brought together in his
mind. He exclaims, ' I know that my Redeemer
' liveth; in my flesh shall I see God, whom I shall
' see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold, and not
'another.'* He expects that this Redeemer will stand
at the latter day upon the earth. But he evidently
does not rest upon an expectation. It is not what this
Redeemer may be or may do hereafter he chiefly
thinks of. He lives, He is with him now. There
fore he calls upon his friends to say whether they do.
not see that he has the root of the matter in him.
At length, we are told, God answers Job out of the
* The force of this passage, as I understand it, is not in the least
affected by the question whether the word 'Redeemer' should be
exchanged for ' the Avenger of Blood.' I do not quote Job to prove
a future state, or anything relating to a future state. The idea of an
Avenger is inseparably connected with that of a Redeemer ; he who
believes there is one, believes there is the other. I make this remark"
in especial reference to an eloquent article on the book of Job, which
has appeared in the Westminster Review, since the fi.st edition of these
Essays was published. To a great part of that article I must object,
as containing what seems to me a wrong statement of facts. I cannot
find, as I have explained more at large in my Sermons on the Old
Testament, that the Jewish Scriptures exhibit that theory about Pro-,
sperity and Adversity which the Reviewer attributes to them. Every
one of the heroes of the history, Joseph, Moses, David, iB a sufferer.
The chosen people is a suffering people. But this difference between
us ¦ doeB not affect the Reviewer's interpretation of the text to which
I have alluded. I am quite content that he should demolish any
formal argument which has been deduced from it J its practical and
spiritual significance become thereby the more apparent.

THE BOOK ACCEPTED AS TRUE. 59
whirlwind. He shows him a depth of wisdom in the
flight of every bird and in the structure of every
insect, which he cannot dive into. He shows him an
order which he is sure is very good though he is lost
in it. Then he says, ' I have heard of Thee by the
' hearing of the ear ; but now mine eye seeth Thee.
'Wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and
' ashes.' A wonderful conclusion follows. God justifies
the complaining man more than those who had pleaded
so earnestly for His power and providence. They are
forgiven when he prays for them. And the last days
of Job are better than the beginning.
The early passages in the book of Job respecting
Satan seem to anticipate what I said was especially
New Testament theology. They do so only, I believe,
because the story is more simply human, less Jewish,
than any in the Old Testament. Job is represented
as bving outside of the limits within which the
posterity of Abraham was confined. No words are
used to identify him with them, or to show that he
possessed any of the privileges with which their
covenant and history invested them. We have here,
therefore, what is at least meant to be a history of
human experience. Whether it is biographical or dra
matical, or,- as I conceive, both, this must be the
intention of it. Job is shown, and we are shown, by
an experimentum crucis, what in him is merely acci
dental, what belongs to him as a man. Christendom

60 ALL HAVE A SENSE OF RIGHTEOUSNESS.
has received the book in this sense. Doctors have
taken pains to illustrate it, and have left it much as
they found it. Plain, suffering men have understood it
with all its difficulties much better than the most simple
tracts written expressly for their use. You will see
bedridden women, just able to make out the letters of
it, feeding on it, and finding themselves in it. You
will hear men who regard our Theology as a miserable
attempt to form a theory of the universe, expressing
their delight in this one of our theological books,
because it so nobly and triumphantly casts theories
of the universe to the ground. How it squares with
our hypotheses they cannot imagine, but it certainly
answers to the testimony of their hearts.
And I believe most clergymen, most religious persons,
who have conversed at all seriously with men of any
class, from the most refined to the most ignorant, in
any state of mind, from that of the most contented
Pharisee to that of the lowest criminal, have another
test of the authenticity of the book as a record of actual
humanity. They hear from one and all, in some Ian*
guage or other, the assertion of a righteousness which
they are sure is theirs, and which cannot be taken from
them. They may call themselves miserable sinners;
some of them may feel that they are so; some may
tremble at the judgment which they think is coming upon
them for their sins. But in all there is a secret reserve
of belief, that there is in them that which is not sin,

PAIN. 61
which is the very opposite of sin. When you tell them
that the feeling is very wrong, that ' God be merciful to
me ' is the only true prayer, that God's law is very holy,
that they have violated it, and so forth, — they will listen,
— they may assent. From prudence or deference to you
they may suppress the offensive phrase, or change their
tone. Those will not be the best and honestest who
do so. The man who cries, Till I die you shall not
taJce my integrity from me, and who makes his teacher
weep for the fearful deceitfulness of the human heart,
may be nearest, if the Bible speaks right, to the root of
the matter, — nearest to repentance and humiliation. But
•be that as it may, the fact in each case is nearly the
same. Each man has got this sense of a righteousness,
whether he realizes it distinctly or indistinctly, whether
he expresses it courageously or keeps it to himself.
Not less true is it that each man has that other con
viction which Job uttered so manfully, that pain is an
evil and comes from an enemy, and is contrary to the
nature and reason of things; however from a stoical
maxim, or a sense of duty, or a habit of patience, he
may submit to it; however much, to please his teacher
or to get rid of him, he may assent to phrases which
appear to affirm an opposite doctrine. The witness of
the conscience, — of the whole man, — on this point, is
too strong for any cool, disinterested reflections. It is
no time for school distinctions about soul and body.
Both are confounded in one mortal anguish.

62 THE ANSWER OUT OF THE WHIRLWIND.
And when the man sends forth a bitter cry towards
heaven, when he expresses his faith that he has a
Deliverer somewhere, it is not a Redeemer for his soul
that he asks, more than for his body. It is from the
condition in which he finds himself that he cries to be
Set free ; he feels that he has a kind of right to be set
free from it, To be as he is, is not, he thinks, according
to nature and order. He asks God, if he asks at all,
to show that it is not according to His will.
If we did believe that there is a divine process, such as
the Book of Job describes to us, — if we might take that
book as an inspired history of God's ways to men, — we
should not surely stop at this point of the application.
We should suppose God was really answering his crea
ture and child out of the whirlwind; and by wonderful
arguments, drawn, it may be, from the least object in
nature, from the commonest fact of the man's experience,
or from the whole Cosmos in which he finds himself,
addressed to an ear which our words do not reach,
entering secret passages of the spirit to which we have
no access, was leading him, — ^the instincts and anticipa
tions of his heart being not denied but justified, — to lay
himself in dust and ashes. When a man knows that he
has a righteous Lord and Judge, who does not plead His
omnipotence and His right to punish, but who debates
the case with him, who shows him bis truth and his
error, tbe sense of Infinite Wisdom, sustaining and
carrying out Infinite Love, abases him rapidly, He

CHRIST BEFORE THE GOSPELS. 63
perceives that he has been measuring himself, and his
understanding, against that Love, that Wisdom. A feeling
of infinite shame grows out of the feeling of undoubting
trust. The child sinks in nothingness at its Father's
feet, just when He is about to take it to His arms.
But it is a Father, not a vague world, before which
he has bowed. Oh! if we would preserve our brethren
from a dark abyss of Pantheism, when their spirits
are beginning to open to some of the harmonies of
the universe, let us not pause till we understand
how it should be the end of God's discipline to
justify Job more than his three friends; how it can
be possible for Him to sanction that conviction of an
actual righteousness, belonging to the man himself,
which we were so anxious to confute. I believe, for
this purpose, we must lay the foundations of our faith
deeper, not than they are laid in the Scriptures or in our
Creeds, but very much deeper than they are laid in
-modern expositions. We say we wish to bring the sin
ner, weary, heavy-laden, and hopeless, to Christ. What
can be a more blessed, or more benevolent, or more
divine desire? But do we mean that we merely wish
to bring the sinner to know what Christ did and spoke,
in those thirty-three years between his birth and his
resurrection? I fear we shall never understand the
infinite significance of those years, or be able to take the
Gospel narratives of them simply as they stand, if we
bave no other thought than this, or if there is no other

64 THE STRAUSSIAN DOCTRINE.
which we dare proclaim to our fellow-men. Do we not
really believe that Christ was, before He took human
flesh and dwelt among us? Do we not suppose that
He actually conversed with prophets and patriarchs, and
made them aware of His presence? Or is this a mere
arid dogma, which we prove out of Pearson, and which
has nothing to do with our inmost convictions, with our
very life ? How has it become so ? Is it not because
we do not accept the New Testament explanation of
these appearances and manifestations ; because we do
riot believe that Christ is in every man, the source of all
light that ever visits him, the root of all the righteous
thoughts and acts that he is ever able to conceive or do?
I am afraid, not only that we are letting this truth
go, but that we are actually disbelieving it, and that
we shall therefore fall not into the doctrine about Christ
which prevailed in the last century, not into a bebef of
Him as a man and nothing more than a man, — various
experiences have been making it difficult, almost impos
sible, for us -to acquiesce in such a theory, — but into
the notion of Him as a shadow-personage, whom the
imagination has clothed, as it does all its heroes, with a
certain divinity, really belonging to and derived from
itself. That notion, when it is presented to our divines,
strikes them at first with amazement, as an hypothesis
which cannot by possibility gain acceptance with rea
sonable people. Then they discover how much accep
tance it has gained ; how naturally men in our day fall

HOW IT CANNOT BE REFUTED. 65
into it ; how many of them seem to receive it as if it
was that which they had always been holding, only they
had not courage to teb themselves so, or skill to put
their thoughts into words.
The next step is to look about for some method of
confuting the theory ; to see whether we can prove that
Strauss and his disciples have misquoted the New Tes
tament or abused ancient authorities. Perhaps, if we can
not estabhsh these points sufficiently by our learning, our
German friends, who have been more closely engaged in
the battle, may help us. I dare say they can, and that we
also may do something for ourselves in that line, if we try.
But I am convinced, also, that the effort will be worth next
to nothing, if it is made ever so skilfully, if our blows are
ever so straight and well directed. That which is aj
tendency and habit of the heart, is not cured by detecting
fallacies in the mode in which it is embodied and presented
to the intellect. If you have no other way of showing
Christ not to be a mythical being, or a man elevated into
a God by the same process which has deified thousands
before and since, except by convicting the propounder
of the hypothesis of some philological and historical
blunders, you may be quite sure that he will prevail,
though those blunders were multiplied a thousand-fold.
I would earnestly entreat our divines to think well
whether they are not to blame for the prevalence of this
theory ; and whether, if they would eradicate it, they
must not, in the first place, deal much more honestly
F

66 ACKNOWLEDGMENT OF RIGHT IN MAN.
with the facts of human experience, and secondly, con
nect those facts with principles which they admit to a
certain extent, when they are arguing with those who
deny them, but which they seldom fairly present to;
themselves, and still more rarely bring home to the
consciences of their suffering fellow-men. The facts I
have tried to present in the light in which Scripture
exhibits them tous, — Scripture abundantly confirmed by
daily observation. We apply the principle to those
facts, when we say boldly to the man who declares that
he has a righteousness which no one shall remove from
him — ' That is true. You have such a righteousness.
"¦ It is deeper than all the iniquity which is in you. It
' bes at the very ground of your existence. And this
' righteousness dwells not merely in a law which, is
* condemning you, it dwells in a Person in whom you
' may trust. The righteous Lord of man is with you, not
' in some heaven to which you must ascend that you
' may bring Him down, in some hell to which you must
' dive that you may raise Him up, but nigh ypu, at
"¦¦your heart.'
The principle is expressed again when we say, ' You
' maintain that the pain you are suffering, is not good
' but ill, — a sign of wrong and disorder. You say that
' it is a bondage, from which you must seek deliverance.
1 You say that you cannot stop to settle in what part
' of you it is, that it is throughout you, that it affects
1 you altogether, that you want a complete emancipation

EFFECTS OE PAIN, AND THE CURE OF IT. 67
' from it, Even so. Hold fast that conviction. Let
' no man, [divine or layman, rob you of it. Pain is
' a sign and witness of disorder, the consequence
' of disorder. It is mockery to say otherwise. You
' describe it rightly; it is a bondage, the sign that
' a tyrant has in some way intruded himself into this
' earth of our's. But you are permitted to suffer the
1 consequence of that intrusion, just that you may attain
' to the knowledge of another fact, — that there is a Re->
' deemer, that He lives, that He is the stronger. That
' righteous King of your heart whom you have felt to be
' so near you, so one with you, that you could hardly.
1 help identifying Him with yourself, even while you
' confessed that you were so evil, He is the Redeemer aa
' well as the Lord of you and of man. Believe that He
' is so. Ask to understand the way in which He has
' proved Himself so. You will find that God, not we,.
' has been teaching you of Him, that He has been
' talking with you in the whirlwind, while we were.
' darkening counsel with words without knowledge;.
' leading you to the sight of His glory, that He might
' make you wilbng to confess your own baseness. He
'has taught you that you have been in chains, but that
;,you have been a wilbng wearer of the chains. To
'. break them He must set you free. . Self is your great
'prison-house. The strong man armed, who keeps that
'prison in safety, must be bound. The rod of the
' enchanter, who holds your will in bondage, must be

68 ULTIMATE BLESSING.
( broken by some diviner spell before the arms can be
* loosed, and the captive rise and move again.
* If you have carried away this lesson from your hours
' of suffering, and resolve to keep it, your latter days will
' be better than the beginning. The grey hairs of the
•^stricken, worn out, desolate man, though no new chil-
' dren should crowd his hearth in place of those that are
' departed, though no flocks and herds should be restored
* to him for those which the robbers have taken away,
' will be fresher, freer, more hopeful than the untaught
* innocence of his childhood. But you have had, in
f those hours, a glimpse into the deep mystery, how God
fmay use the consequences of the evil to which you
*have yielded, — and can make also the deliverance, if
e it be at present only a partial one, from those conse-
'quences, — instruments in your emancipation from the
^evil itself; because, through His discipline, these
' have become the means of leading you to the appre-
' hension of Himself, and of that Daysman, between us
'¦and Him, whom Job saw that he needed, and who
* must be as much yours as He was his.'
The remarks I made in my last Essay show that I do
not undervalue the testimony which the elder Unitarians
bore against some of- the phrases and opinions respect
ing human nature and human corruption, into which our
popular religious teachers have fallen. They maintained
Stoutly, that ordinary men do good acts, and that we have

UNITARIAN PROTESTS. 69
no business to cab such acts splendid sins. ' Either,'
they said, ' words mean nothing, and human language,
' when it is turned to religious purposes, is used to con*
' ceal not to express our thoughts, or else the epithets,
'gentle, brave, just, to whomsoever they are applied,
' must be taken as expressing sincere moral commen-
' dation, and must not be explained away because we
'have some mental reservation about the religion or
' irrebgion of the person to whom we apply them.' All
such protests seem to me honest appeals to the con
science, and to the truth of God, — denunciations of a
style of thinking and judging which leads to the most
fatal moral confusions.
But the Unitarians, I think, were very bttle able
to sustain these useful assertions of theirs against an
earnest and thoughtful man, who had known what evil
was in himself, and who had adopted St. Paul's
language, not only because it was St. Paul's, but because
it expressed the deepest thoughts of his own heart, In
me, that is, in my flesh, dwelleih no good thing. Such
expressions seemed to them merely extravagant and
foobsh ; indications of a temporary insanity in the person
who resorted to them, which time or change of air would
probably cure. Sometimes they saw that these remedies
were effectual. The man's judgment of himself was
Connected with much that was morbid; his judgments
of others, and the theories which he deduced from his
experience, he graduaUy perceived to be uncharitable

70 EARNEST MEN NOT CONVINCED.
and untenable; his vivid impressions yielded to such
discoveries and passed away. There were others whom
neither time nor change of air, nor the observation of
their own rashness, nor repentance for it, at all shook
in this strong and solid conviction. They had found
the Apostle's assertion to be true. They could abandon
it for no Pelagian refinements. With them, these Uni
tarians felt themselves utterly at a loss. They could
only talk to them about an external morality, of which
the hearers made no account. The disputants were
speaking of different subjects ; but subjects between
which there existed a close connexion ; one of which,
if rightly understood, would have been of the greatest
help in explaining the other. The Unitarians discoursed
concerning the doings of a man, those they called enthu
siasts concerning his being. But how poor are his
doings if they do not draw life from his being; how
much he will deceive himself about his being, if it does
not make itself manifest in doings! How soon will
even commercial honesty perish, if you have not found
out the secret of making the man honest! But how
easy is it for a man to frame for himself a certain
internal standard, which shall be compatible with the
greatest external fraud and wrong !
I am sure people are coming to some discoveries of
this kind ; and that they are almost equally dissatisfied
with that flimsy doctrine about behaviour, which was all
that the rehgion of rewards and punishments could pro-

denial of Christ's pre-existence. '71
duce, and with that assertion of truths as belonging to
the believer and not to other men, which is its antagonist.
Both systems are falbng by their own weight. The
external morabst fails to produce the results he says are
ab-important ; the exclusive religionist shows himself
more worldly than his neighbours. But while each is
separately perishing, was there no truth in each which
cannot perish ? What is it ? How shall we find it out ?
I have been led in this Essay to seek for this recon
ciliation, by a method which will seem to the Unitarian
to the last degree strange and monstrous. What infinite
pains Priestley and his school took to disprove the pre*
existence of our Lord ! How satisfactorily they showed
that that pre-existence must imply something more than
the Arians said it implied ; that there was no resting in
their half-conclusion! How indefatigably they strove
to exhaust Scripture of all expressions which savoured
of this mystical imagination ! With what rapture they
hailed a bad translation, or a doubtful reading ! How
resolved they were that even the early Church and the
early heretics should not mean what all previous stu
dents of their language thought they must mean ! They
exhibited great diligence, undoubtedly, and diligence
not without its reward. For their orthodox antagonists,
eager to confute these statements, made a concession
which, for their purposes, was quite invaluable. They
argued as if you might start from the Unitarian hypo
thesis of our Lord's nature, and then prove Him to be

72 , THE LAST AND PRESENT AGE.
something more than that hypothesis affirmed Him to
be. It was to be taken for granted that the new Testa
ment spoke of Jesus of Nazareth first as a good man
and a great prophet ; it was to be contended that it also
spoke of Him as divine.
To be involved in such a controversy is to be involved
in the necessity of arguing, refining, special-pleading
for a principle which, at the same time, we affirm to be
the substance of the Gospel, to be connected with the
very life of man. What an utterly false position for
men to be thrown into ! How could the spectators help
thinking that it was a fencing-match, the interest of
which depended upon successful parries and thrusts;
unless, as was too often the case, the combat acquired a
deadly interest when one of the combatants was perj
suaded into the crime of Laertes,. when, changing their
rapiers, they struck each other with the poisoned instru
ment ? And where there was on the one side the advan
tage of academical fame, of ecclesiastical dignity, the
shouts of the crowd, the patronage of the state, the
sympathies of the lovers of fair play would of course be
bestowed on the opposite.
It was not exactly that the supporter of the orthodox
side chose a bad standing-ground. In the last age this
was felt to be the natural standing-ground. Some men
were driven from it by spiritual convictions ; some found
it inconsistent with a scholarbke study of the Bible;
but most spoke as if it were the reasonable position.

MOTIVES TO STRAUSSIANISM. 73
You yielded it up in deference to an invincible array of
texts or authorities, or to some power which directly
bore upon your own spirit. Those who maintained it
were supposed to be adopting the faith which every
philosopher and every simple man would adopt, unless
he were prepared for a very bold infidelity, or unless, in
deference to Scripture and tradition, he gave up his
common sense.
In what I have said of Strauss, I have hinted how
much the case is altered now in this respect. The habit
of thought which made the arguments of the Humanita
rians seem so strong and decisive, which was always
ready to supply any gaps in their reasoning, is subverted.
Through whatever influence the change has come to pass;
philosophers recognise it; ab feel it. There is no eager
ness now to show that the disciples of Jesus did not
attach a mysterious and supernatural dignity to His
character ; the labour is to prove that they did. Philology
is discovered to have been in favour of the older notion
of their opinions; only philosophy failed in accounting
for them. The modern Unitarian has strong motives
for looking favourably upon statements of this kind.
They meet the discontent with which he has learnt to
regard the dryness of his own creed. They justify his tra
ditional dislike of the orthodox creed. They gratify his
desire for a religion which shall point less to external
conduct, more to internal life. If he can look upon
Jesus as connected in some way with the experiences of

'74 WHO CANNOT YIELD TO THEk.
his own heart, with those spiritual conflicts of which he
has learnt to see the significance, what an emancipation
it wiU be from the formalism which he hates, in his
own school and ours ! How much more easily than
Priestley or Belsham, with how much less of outrage
Upon scholarship, he can get rid of mere texts and narra
tives ; with how much more of delight than they ever
betrayed, can he recognise all that was divinest in the
life of him who is called the Son of Man ; with how
much more of freedom and less of exclusiveness can he
connect him with all the other great champions of the
race! Yes ; these are great temptations, irresistible tempta
tions to one who, as Bunyan says, ' has not a burthen on
his back.' I may easily persuade myself that the Christ
I was taught to believe in, is a creation of the human
inteUect or imagination. That hypothesis will come
to me clothed with a wonderful plausibility, when I
stumble all at once, in my walks through this common
world, upon mines of which I had not suspected the
existence, — mines in which the most busy processes are
going on, and must have been going on for generations.
But if by chance while I am exploring these rich mines
in myself, I am brought to a stand-still by the discovery
that I am the worker of them ; that I have worked them
ill; that I am the steward of some one who is the
possessor of them ; that I am bankrupt, and guilty ; —
then it becomes a necessity — not of my traditional faith,-

CONCLUSION. 75
or of my fears, but — of my inmost sphit, that I should
find some One whom I did not create, some One who is
not subject to my accidents and changes, some One in
whom I may rest for life and death. Who is this?
What name have you for Him ? I say it is the Christ,
whose name I was taught to pronounce in my childhood ;
the Righteous one, the Redeemer in whom Job, and;
David, and the Prophets trusted, the ground of all that/
is true, in you, and me, and every man ; the Source of
the good acts, — which are therefore not splendid sins, —
pf you, and me, and every man ; the Light that lighteth
every man who cometh into the world. Apart from Him,
I feel that there dwells in me no good thing ; but I am
sure that I am not apart from Him, nor are you, nor is
any man. I have a right to tell you this : if I have any
work to do in the world it is to teU you this. And now
I wiU teU you further why I hold that this righteous
Being is the Son of God.

ESSAY V.

THE SON OF GOD.

" I believe in Jesus Christ, the only Bon of God,
our Lord," has been for eighteen centuries the creed of
Christendom. The teachers to whom I alluded in my
last Essay, are especially active in pointing out the
delusion into which we have fallen Upon this subject,
' All mythologies recognise Sons of God. Every
' legendary person in the Greek world was the offspring
' of some God ; the most conspicuous, of Zeus the chief
' God. Where is your singularity ? Where are the
' signs of some essential characteristic divinity in your
' faith ? ' It bears about it the ordinary tokens of
' humanity. To these it owes its general acceptance.
' In this instance, as in all others, it has adopted into
' itself those human feelings and notions which had
' taken various forms in different ages and races ; it has
' adopted them free from some adjuncts and accidents
' which were worn out and ready to perish. It has
' added to them accidents of its own, which will

SONS OF GOD IN MYTHOLOGY. 77
' drop off in due time by a necessary law. It has
' especially connected a high ideal of humanity with
' a particular person. That ideal will be found to
' belong to the whole race, not to him. He will retain
' a high place among the asserters of human rights and
' duties, not that which the idolatry of his disciples has
' assigned him.'
I have admitted abeady that the ordinary methods
of controversy are entirely out of place when statements
of this kind are propounded. The question, whichever
way it is decided, must concern the bfe and being of
every one of us. It must affect the condition of man
kind now, and the whole future history of the world.
To argue and debate it as if it turned upon points
of verbal criticism, as if the determination could be
influenced by the greater or less skill in reasoning on
either side, as if it could be settled by votes, must have
the effect of darkening our consciences, of making us
doubt inwardly whether the truth signifies anything to
us, or whether we can arrive at it. To keep silence on
these doubts, if this is the only mode of treating them,
is not only a sign of rebgious reverence, but of common
sense. But since there is, I believe, another way of
dealing with them, — one which wiU be acknowledged as
faber by those who experience them, and yet one which
does not require the heart and conscience to be asleep,
but which asks all their help in determining whether
we have received a fable, or are holding, all too weakly.

78 STATEMENT OF THE FACT, ;
an eternal verity, — I consider it much safer not to leave
such a topic to the chances of ordinary conversation and
popular literature, but to introduce it into solemn dis
courses as if we were aware of the number pf human
souls whicb it is tormenting.
Our first plain duty is to admit the fact as it is-
stated, not entering into particulars for the sake of
showing whether there are any exceptions to it or
bmitations, of it. For our purpose it is not necessary
to inquire why the Oriental spoke more of emanations
from God, and the Greeks, as well as out own Gothic;
ancestors, more of sons of God. The question is very,
interesting and even important. I may allude to it
again at some other time, but it is enough here to admit
the general proposition, that sons of. God will be found
occupying a conspicuous place in the mythology of
every people which has left any strong impression of
itself upon the history of the world. This being.
granted, the next point is to ascertain what are those
general human feelings which this faith embodies,
We cannot hesitate for a moment to allow that there
are some ; that it is very desirable to know what they;
are; and that they must be nearly related to Chris
tianity. First, then, it seems to be an instinct of men, so far
as we may judge by these indications, that their helpers
must come, to them from some mysterious region ; that
they cannot be merely children of the earth, merely of

WHAT IS INVOLVED IN IT. 79
their own race. If they belong to us, — so the conscience
of man interpreted by history seems to bear witness, — ,
they cannot understand our evils, or bring any power
that is adequate to overcome them. Secondly, there
seems to have been a strong persuasion among men
that human relationships have something answering to
them in that higher world from which they suppose.
their heroes, to have descended. Thirdly, they seem
to have been sure, that unless the superior beings were,
not only related to each other, but, in some way related
to them, their mere protection would be worth very little;
they would not confer the kind of benefits which the
inferior asks from them. These are the obvious com
mon-place inferences from these stories, which suggest,
themselves to every one ; they lie upon the surface of
them. And if so, it can hardly, I think, be taken for granted
that we are showing our respect for the instincts and
conscience of humanity, when we assume that aU the
beings who have done it good, have not come from any.
mysterious source, but have belonged to the common
stock of human beings ; that they have not been given to
us, but, as to aU their more transcendent quabties, created
by us ; that their relation to us was the ordinary one of
flesh and blood ; that we have glorified and deified them.
These conclusions may be true, but they cannot follow
from those facts to which our attention has been so
eagerly directed ; those facts would seem at first sight

80 THE GODS, HOW CREATED BY MEN.
to contradict them. I am quite wilbng, however, to
acknowledge that there is evidence, and very strong
evidence, in favour of these opinions, — evidence which
has made it most natural that serious thinkers should
adopt them in this day and in other days. Notwith
standing that strong conviction in the minds of men,
that their gods and heroes must be of a nature higher
than their own, and that any sympathy with them must
imply a condescension and stooping, it is quite manifest
that they have imputed to the beings whom they reve
renced, aU the habits and peculiarities of the countries
and races to which they belonged, all that was morbid
in their own temperaments, much of the corruption and
debasement to which they know themselves to be
prone. About this point. there is no dispute. It is no
new discovery, but one which Greek sages made more
than two thousand years ago, about their own country
men. It was the secret of the unbelief of so many of
them. It led a few into the strongest and most settled
assurance, that there was that which man did not create,
and to which he must be conformed. And there is no
doubt that, from age to age, the tendency went on
increasing, tiU the Gods became different from the mass
of men only by being the models and ideals of a super
human malice and cruelty.
But there is a chapter of human experience which
we have not yet looked into. It is that of which I spoke
in my last Essay. We found a man brought into a con-

REFERENCE TO THE LAST ESSAY, 81
dition of physical and moral pain and weakness which
deprived him of all advantages he might once have
possessed, and confessing himself on a level with the most
wretched of human creatures. There came to this man,
so smitten, a consciousness of evil, which was perfectly
new to him. This consciousness was strangely mixed
with the assurance that there was a righteousness which
he could actuaUy claim as his. The righteousness was
more deep than the evil. At times he felt that it was
even more his own, though that seemed bone of his bone
and flesh of his flesh, This conflict in his mind was
connected with another. He could not deny that his
suffering had come from God ; but yet he felt it to be a
plague, an evil, an enemy. It spoke to him of bondage,
and oppression, Could God be the oppressor? This
man, we found, was gradually taught that God was not
his oppressor, but the defender of his cause, — the
asserter of his righteousness. How was this ? Was he
then righteous ? Was he not the sinner he had believed
himself to be? Yes ; it was then first that he felt him
self to be wholly a sinner, — that he became ashamed of
all the pleas he had put forth on his own behalf, But
there was, in some mysterious manner, a Redeemer, — an
actual person connected with him, — one who he was
sure lived, — one who was at the root of his being, — one
in whom he was righteous,
I tried to show, not from a particular sentence, but
from the context of the book, that this was Job's
G

82 PRINCIPLE OF IT FURTHER DEVELOPED.
experience. I tried to show further, that Job was not a
man unlike other men, placed under rare and peculiar
conditions, which enabled him to ascertain certain facts
as true for himself, which are riot true for his race ; but
that by hard discipline, he was drawn oUt of that which
was local and individual, brought to the apprehension of
that which is human and universal. I tried to show that
any other hypothesis is inconsistent with our reverence
for the book of Job as part of the 'canon of Scripture,
equally inconsistent with the testimonies which have
been borne to its truthfulness by people of the most
various characters, and in the most dissimilar circum
stances. If so, tbe Avenger or Redeemer whom Job
confessed was not a Redeemer, but the Redeemer ; not
one of those whp came down frori_ time to time, out of
some unknown world of light, to scatter some pPrtion of
the world's darkness, but the actual source of light ; not
one of those who here and there puts dowri one of the
earth's oppressors, but the asserter of man's right against
the oppressor of man. He cannot be one of those
whom men have called into existence, and invested with
the qualities which belong to them as members of some
particular race or locality. The sufferer has been
compelled to feel himself simply a man. All accidents
are nothing to him now; If he has not hold of a sub*
stance, he must perish in his despair.
Such are the results at which we have arrived already.
But if that part of the story is true, — and no part of it

THE SON OF GOD. 83
can be true if that is not,— which represents God as
Himself discovering to the innermost heart and spirit
of the man his righteousness as WeU as his sin, — the
Avenger as well as the oppressor, — the question must
have forced itself upon Job, and forces itself upon us :
Is this Redeemet, so closely connected with the human
sufferer, not connected also with that divine Instructor
who answered him out of the whirlwind? Was this
righteousness which Job perceived, not the righteous
ness of God Himself? Was He as widely separated
from His creature as ever ? Was there no meaning in
the assertion that one was the image of the other?
What did all this history of a struggle signify, if that
assertion was false ? Why had Job cared to know the
mind and purpose of his Maker? Why had he that
sense of separation from Him— that longing to plead
with Him? Whence came that cry for a Daysman
between them ?
If the Lord and Redeemer whom Job, and thousands
besides Job, in that day and in all days, in that country
and in aU countries, felt after and found, explains to us
those many lords and redeemers, whom men in different
places and age& have dreamed of or hoped for, may not
He also explain those many sons of God of whom I
have been speaking here ? May not this be the great
radical experience which interprets those superficial
experiences ; the great universal experience which inter
prets those partial ones ? Job could not think of this

84 NOT YET INCARNATE.
Daysman, near as He was to his very being, except as
one who had come to Him, — who had stooped to him, —
who belonged to a world of mystery. Job could not
think of Him, except as related to the Invisible Lord of
ab, Job's most intimate conviction was that He was
related to himself. These are the conditions that meet
in all those dreams of demigods and heroic men which
mythology presents us with, But here are not the causes
which make those dreams local,' temporary, artificial.
It is from the One Being, the Lord of the spirit of all
flesh, that this Son of God must have come. He must
be spiritual like that Being ; for it is the spirit and not
the sense of the sufferer,, which confesses Him. And
whatever righteousness and goodness are perceived by
the erring, trusting, broken-hearted penitent to be in
the One, — speaking to his sorrows and wants, — must be
the image and reflex of an absolute righteousness and
grace in the other, which he could only adore.
Many readers fancy that when we speak of a Person
who is at once divine, and the ground of humanity,
we must be assuming an Incarnation. I have not yet
touched that doctrine ; what I am saying here has no
reference to it. Christian theology does not speak of
an Incarnation, till it has spoken of ' an only-begotten
' Son, begotten of his Fathe? before all worlds, of one
'substance with Him.' These words, though we unite
so often in pronouncing them, and though in former
times they were the strength and nourishment of con-

MYSTERIES PRACTICAL. 85
fessors and martyrs, have come, in modern days, to be
regarded as mere portions of a school divinity, which
learned men must maintain by subtle arguments and an
army of texts ; which ordinary men are to receive im
plicitly, because it is dangerous to doubt them ; but which
have no hold upon our common daily life, which can be
tested by no experience, which those who are busy with
religious feelings and states of mind will pass by with
indifference, as not concerning vital godliness. We owe
it to those objectors of whom I have spoken, (and this
surely ought to convince us how faithless and heartless
our dread of any objections is, and how much we are
fighting against God, when we try to suppress them), —
we owe it to them that this delusion has been scattered,
or must soon be scattered; and that these truths are
compeUed to come forth from amidst the cobwebs in
which we have left them, to prove that they, can bear
the open day, and that they bring a more glorious
sunlight with them, which may penetrate into all the
obscurest caverns of human thoughts and fears. If
we take the Apostle St. John as our guide, we shaU
find that those mysteries, from which we have shrunk
back, as if they must rob us of all simple and child
like faith, are the preservers of simplicity in thought,
in word, in act, from the innumerable temptations to
artifice and falsehood which beset religious men, not
less, but more, than others ; that they can set us free
from a host of vulgar earthborn notions and super-

86 PASSAGE IN ST. JOHN'S GOSPEL.
stitions, which we have adopted from the cloister or the
crowd into our Christian dialect and practice ; that they
can show how the one fundamental truth of God's love
and charity makes all other facts, — those belonging to
the most inward discipline of the heart, those concerning
the most outward economy of the world, — sacred and
luminous. I can only see at a great distance, that this must, be
so and is so, and can hope and pray that God may raise
up some in these latter days of the world who will help
us to feel that it is so. The utmost I shall attempt
now is, to say a few words on one passage of St. John's
Gospel, in which our Lord points out, as it seem to me,
in a wonderful manner, the relation in which a belief in
the Son of God stands tp that eonscipusness of bondage
which is inseparable from the consciousness of sin.
If I traced in this passage any allusion to a belief iu
His Incarnation or tp that Passion which had not yet
taken place, I should not quote it. But the only way
in which the words bear upon the first of these subjects
is this : they were addressed to certain Jews who had
believed on Christ as a teacher, as a man standing visibly
before them. He desired to lead them, into a higher
and better faith, the one which true men had held before
He was born into the world, the only one which qpuld
sustain any after He had left it. He had said to those
Jews who believed on Him, f If ye continue in my word,
then are ye my disciples indeed, and ye shall know the

THE SON OVER HIS OWN HOUSE. 87
truth, and the truth shall make you free' They answered,
' We are Abraham's children / we were never in bondage
ta any man. How sayest thou then, Ye shall be made
free f ' A strange question for men who were looking
so earnestly for a deliverer from the Roman yoke, and
yet one which had a good meaning in it. They were
certain that in some way or other the privilege of being
Abraham's children was the gift of a higher freedom, a
nobler citizenship, which the Caesars could not take
from them. Perhaps it was this. Perhaps our Lord
came to show them how it was this. But in the mean
time, there was a plain staring fact which they must
admit. Whether they were Abraham's children or not,
they had committed sin ; they felt and knew that they
had. And that sin did make them bondsmen. They
were under a yoke, a heavy one to each of them, how
ever he might slight his subjection to the emperor,
however little that might practically or individually gall
him. His will had a master ; he confessed it in a thou
sand ways ; he continually pleaded its subjection as an
excuse for doing wrong acts, for not doing right ones.
It was better simply to owu the fact, than to dissemble
it. To own it was the beginning of emancipation.
' For the servant, abideth not in the house for ever, but the
Son abideth ever.' Over that house of theirs, not made
with hands, there was a S°n actually ruling, a Son of
God. To Him the house belonged, not to the poor
slave who fancied it was his. Let him once confess the

80 -PRAYER TO THE SON OF GOD.
true Lord of it, let him once give up his own imaginary
claim of dominion, which was submission to a real ser
vitude, and his chains would drop off. ' For if the Son
shall make you free, then are ye free indeed.' All other
attempts to shake off the yoke from your wills, make it
harder and heavier. In the confession that a Son, an
actual Son of God is your Lord, lies the secret of free
dom. This is the true Hercules who takes Prometheus
from his rock, and slays the vulture that is preying
upon him. This is the deliverer of each man, because
He is the deliverer of mankind.
I believe there never has been, is not, nor will be, any
other way of asserting freedom or of preserving it than
this. And I do believe that God is leading us by strange
and hidden paths, to seek for this freedom and to find it.
Many a heart, I trust, which shrinks back froin our teach
ing, and perhaps thinks that we are binding grievous
chains on men's necks, is yet praying this prayer ;
" Strong Son of God, Immortal Love,
Whom we, that have not seen thy face,
By faith, and faith alone, embrace,
Believing where we cannot prove;
* * * * * *
"Thou wilt not leave us in the dust :
Thou madest man, he knows not why;
He thinks he was not made to die;
And Thou hast made him ; Thou art just.
" Thou seemest human and divine,
The highest, holiest manhood, Thou :
Our wills are ours, we inow not how;
Our wills are ours, to make them Thine.

REVELATION NOT SYSTEM. 89
" Our little systems have their day ;
They have their day and cease to be :
They are but broken lights of Thee,
And Thou, 0 Lord, art more than they." '
Yes ! it is deeply and eternally true that ' Thou, O
Lord, art more than they.' And therefore it becomes us
most earnestly, for the sake of our fellow-men and of all
the thoughts and doubts which are stirring in them so
mightily at this time, not to let the faith in an actual
Son of God be absorbed into any rebgious or philoso
phical theories or abstractions. When we lose that, we
lose all hope of freedom : our own conceits become our
masters, and we are at the mercy of any ingenious and
skilful combiner, who can put those conceits into a system ;
we become liable for a time to all the caprices and
fantasies of the age in which we live ; we shall probably
sink at last into the implicit credence which we suppose
to be the characteristic of ages that are past. Let us .
look, therefore, courageously at the popular dogma, that
there are certain great ideas floating in the vast ocean
of traditions which the old world exhibits to us, that
the Gospel appropriated some of these, and that we
are to detect them and eliminate them from its own
traditions. We have found these great ideas floating
in that vast sea ; — the idea of an Absolute God, the idea
of a Son of God, who has close and intimate relations
with men as their Lord and their Deliverer. We have
found that these ideas demand to be substantiated ; that
1 "In Memoriam,'' opening verses.

90 UNITARIAN BELIEF IN A SON OF GOD.
all mischief, confusion, materialism, surrounded them
when they became the creatures of men's fancy, liable
to be altered, disturbed, divided, at their pleasure. What
we ask for, is — not a System that shall put these ideas
into their proper places, and so make them the subjects
of our partial intellects, but— a Revelation which shall
show us what they are, why we have had these hints and
intimations of them, what the eternal substances are
which correspond to them. We want such a Revelation
for philosophers and common men, for the prince and the
serf: we ask if there is such a one or no : we beseech the
Father of Lights, if He is the God of infinite Charity we
proclaim Him to be, to tell us whether all our thoughts of
Freedom and Truth have proceeded from the Father of
Lies ; whether for eighteen centuries we have been propa
gating a mockery when we have said that there is a Son
of God, who is Truth, and who can make us free indeed-,
' And is this all you have to say,' asks a grave
Unitarian of the older school, ' to convince me that
' I must believe those mysteries, so outrageous to my
' reason, which you confess that even persons proud of
' their orthodoxy are rather eager to dismiss from their
' thoughts ? That is really, as the lawyers say, your
' case?' I will tell you, friend, why I have said thus
much, and why, on this topic, I mean to say no more.
It is because I know that I have you on my side;
because you are the principal evidence for what I have
been maintaining, You never have made up your

UNITARIAN BELIEF IN A SON OF GOD. 91
minds to abandon the name, ' Son of God.' You find
it in the Gospels. Your desire to assert the letter of
them, against what you suppose our figurative and
mystical interpretations, forces you to admit the phrase.
You not only do so, but you make the most of it.
You quote all the passages in which Christ declares
that the Son can do nothing of Himself, that the Father
is greater than He, as decisive against the doctrine
of our creeds. You do a vast service by insisting upon
them, by compelling us to take notice of them. They
are not merely chance sentences carelessly thrown out,
inconsistent with others which occur in the same books.
You are right in affirming that they contain the key tp
the life of Christ on earth. You have suggested
the thought to us, — you could not, consistently with
your scheme, bring it forward, but it was latent in
your argument, — that what He was on earth must be
the explanation of what He is. Never can I thank you
enough for these hints, for the help they have
been to me in apprehending the sense and connexion of
those words which you cast aside. If the idea of
subordination in the Son to the Father, which you so
strongly urge, is once lost sight of, or considered an
idle and unimportant school tenet, the morality of the
Gospel and its divinity disappear together. You have
helped to keep alive in our minds the distinction of the
Persons, and that I believe is absolutely necessary that
we may confess the unity of Substance.

92 PROTEST AGAINST IDOLATRY.
But, moreover, you have borne a very strong and
earnest protest against Idolatry. You have said that
the Christian Church is just as liable to idolatry as
the Heathen world was, and that its idolatry may be,
probably will be, of the same kind, one adopted from
the other. Truths most needful to be uttered, which
Christian men refuse to heed at their peril! We
Protestants require them as much as Roman Catholics ;
we Englishmen, as much as Spaniards or Italians.
May I venture to add, You need them also? In so
far as you feel, — and I am sure many of you do feel, —
a sincere, fervent admiration and love for the character
of Jesus Christ, in so far as you believe him to be the
wisest, holiest, most benignant Teacher the world ever
had, are you not in danger of setting a man above
God? For I think the dim and distant vision of a
Being nowise related to you, as far as your theory is
concerned, — though by a happy and noble inconsistency
you delight to call Him, Father, — cannot, by any possi
bility, be so satisfactory as the thought of one who has
actually done good and wrestled with evil, and, in
some sense, for you. When you can fairly say, we
are contemplating either, that is the fairer object, is
it not ? — the one upon which you would rather dwell,
even, if it must be so, to the exclusion of the other?
Well ! but surely here is the commencement and germ
of all idolatry. For you do not mean by idolatry, plain
and practical people as you are, the mere outward service

ESCAPE FROM IT. 93
of the temple, the bowing the knee to a certain name ;
you mean the deliberate preference of the judgment
and the affections. And that, it seems to me, you will
and must bestow upon Christ rather than upon God, if
you do not accept the doctrine, that He is God of God,
Light of Light.
And do not think that it is possible for you, or for
any man, to stop short at this point of idolatry. I
think I could show from the history of the Christian
no less than of the ancient world, that where a Son of
Man, simply in that character, has attracted to himself
the reverence, affection, gratitude, homage, which are not
"paid to God, those sons of men and daughters of men,
who are felt to be less removed from the sins and im*
purities of ordinary creatures than He is, practically over
shadow him. I intreat you, as resolute asserters of the
worship due to the One God, seriously to consider this
evidence, as history presents it to us, and then seriously
to compare it with the evidence which your own hearts
present to you. By utter coldness, by becoming merely
men of the world, by forgetting Christ habitually, and
using the name of God merely as the symbol of a formal
worship, you or we may contrive to escape any fervent
idolatry either of natural or human objects, because the
sleepy, habitual, unconscious, aU-pervading idolatry of
Mammon in his grossest form takes its place. But let
any earnest sympathy or affection be awakened in us",
and does not the clear, definite creature supplant the

94 THE CHRIST IN SORROW.
dim vision of the Creator, unless, in some way or
other, it Suggests Him? If it suggests Him, how and
why? What link is there between the human love
and the divine? What and where is the Daysman?
Who can it be— must there not be some one ?— * in
whom the human love entirely represents and images
the divine?
I do not wish to press this argument further, lest it
should become too satisfactory to your reason, before it
has satisfied your conscience. There is an ascent by
another and more rugged road, which is, I believe,
generally safer. In the sad hours of your life, the
recollection of that Man you read of in your child
hood, the Man of Sorrows, the great sympathiser
with human Woes and sufferings, rises up before you,
I know ; it has a reality for you, then ; you feel it to be
not only beautiful, but true. In such moments, does
it seem to you as if Christ were merely a person who,
eighteen hundred years ago, made certain journey ings
between Judea and Galilee? Can such a recollection
fiU up the blank which some present grief, the loss of
some actual friend, has made in your hearts ? It does
not, it never did this for you, or for any one ! Yet I dp
not doubt for a single instant, that a comfort has come
to you from that contemplation. So far from denying
your right to it, I would wish you and all earnestly to
believe how strong and assured our right to it is. In
. Him, and for Him, we were created; this is our doctrine,

THE NEW OPINIONS. 95
or rather the doctrine of St. Paul ; for we have said
little enough about it. If so, is it wonderful that He
should speak to you, and tell ypu of Himself? And Oh !
if that voice says, ' You may trust me, you may lean
1 upon me, for I know all things in heaven and earth — •
' land my Father are one ;' is the whisper too good to be
true, too much in accordance with the timid anticipations
arid longings of our spirits not to be rejected ?
In some of the younger Unitarians, I hope, these
words, (or if not these, yet the thoughts which they
try to express, in some other words or without any,) may
find a response. I do not mean in those who have learnt
to talk of the great defenders of humanity and human
rights, the Moseses, the Zoroasters, the" Jesus Christs, the
Mahomets, the Robespierres. Men who put forth lan
guage of this kind to grieve their mothers and sisters^
and insult those whom they pretend to call their brethren,
are not in earnest. They use -#0rds to which they attach
no meaning. They may be Unitarians or Emersonians
to-day. • After a little time they may become stiff Angb*.
cans. Thfen they may take a turn with Cardinal Wise-
itaan. One Can only hope for them that in their final
transmigration, after they have had a glimpse into the
bottomless pit of Atheism, they may become little chil
dren again, eager to leam something, if it be but their
alphabet. I do not speak of these. But there are many
who are confounded with them, — who, in a kind of reck
lessness, adopt phrases nearly akin to theirs, or who take

96 HOW THEY TEND TO IDOLATRY.
that course from disgust with our hard speeches and
narrowness of heart, — between whom and the vain cox
combs with whom they are associated there is the breadth
pf a whole heaven. What I fear for them is a great
and vehement reaction against the opinions which they
have learnt, not in orthodox but, in liberal and Unitarian
nurseries. Instead of recognising an impassable chasm
between the human and the divine, these become in their
minds utterly confounded. The distinction between them,
they describe as impalpable, impossible to discover ; the
plague of orthodox divinity they say is, that it hag
made the attempt, that it has used hard and stiff words
to define the boundary. ' Of course, Christ is divine,
' Why should he -not be? How can so beautiful a con-
5 ception as that which his character exhibits, be other*
' wise than divine1?' But the vehement struggle against
their earber faith which this mode of speaking indicates,
shows also how strong the impression of that early faith
has been, They are working up from the earthly
ground ; they can recognise no basis except that ; they
conceive Divinity only as an apotheosis of humanity,
Now here is and must be the beginning of a very
extensive and very frightful idolatry. The Straussians
are perfectly right. There always have been sons of
God; there always must be. We cannot contemplate
the world without them. They always must stand in
the most close relation to us ; they must leave their
footprints pn every different soil. Buddhists, old Greeks,

TRANSITION TO THE NEXT ESSAY. 97
modem Romanists, we of this utilitarian time and
country, have all traced them and confessed them. The
temptation of one and all has been, by measuring and
comparing these footprints, to form an abstraction which
is called a God, and which may be anything, everything,
nothing. The witness in all these hearts has been —
It cannot be so that we arrive at Divinity. These must
be the sons of a God. An abstraction, a generalization,
cannot be their Father.
' The witness of all these hearts ! Why that is your
' old orthodox dogma, against which we have been all
' our Uvea protesting ! ' I cannot help that. You can
help embracing that dogma. You can continue your
protest. But wiU you not think a bttle of the other
alternative ? WiU you not ask yourselves seriously if
you can escape the worship of ten thousand imaginary
Buddhas and demigods ? Have you courage to go with
me into the yet further question, whether you can avoid
the acknowledgment oi fleshly beings made into gods,
with aU their infirmities and crimes, if you are not pre
pared to confess that there is an only-begotten Son of
God, who ha? been made flesh ?

H

ESSAY VI.

THE INCARNATION.

The Sons of the gods in Greek mythology Can
scarcely be separated from human forms, from actual
flesh and blood. Those mysterious emanations from
the Divinity which the Oriental spoke of, and which
became closely connected with the later Greek philo
sophy, shrunk from this contact. But the hearts of
the people, as much in the East as in the West, de
manded Incarnations ; no efforts of the more spiritual
and abstracted priests could resist the demand. If you
consider the passages in the Old Testament which
speak of Angels or Sons of God, you will be struck
with a resemblance to both these conceptions, and
a difference from both. They are persons, not abstrac
tions ; they converse with human beings as if they
were of the same kind ; no clear or deep line is drawn
between them. On the other hand, they are never
spoken of as assuming flesh, as putting on any vesture
of mortality. You know not how, but they leave on
you an impression of spirituality all the more strong,

THE WORD OF GOD. 99
because no pains are taken to produce it. Yet it is not
an impression made at our cost ; we feel ourselves to be
raised by what is told us of them ; if they are spiritual,
we must be so likewise. For this reason, the Jew had *
no difficulty in acknowledging one higher Angel, one
Son of God, above all the rest ; who yet was in more
direct and continued communication with human crea
tures than they were ; a Word who spoke to prophets
and holy men, drew them away from the phantoms of
sense, taught them that they were spirits^ inspired
them with cravings for the knowledge of God. Such a
Person they traced through their Scriptures. Those
perceived Him most who entered into the Scriptures
most, and whose own minds were most alive. The
formal Scribes, who were busy in framing a religion
about God from the Bible and the Elders, might never
discern Him, though they might expect, some day or
other, the coming of a great King and Messiah. But
those who bebeved that God was speaking and ruling,
who had some vision of His awfulness and absolute
perfection, who yet felt that He had made men in His
image, and meant them to know Him, could inquire
earnestly how and in whom He governed and spake,
how that awfulness and perfection could come into
¦relation with creatures, and be apprehended by therri.
They did not confine the illuminations of this myste
rious Teacher to the wise of their own land, but they
believed that the Law and the Prophets interpreted

100 DISLIKE OF THE APOSTOLIC DOCTRINE.
His relation to God and to the souls of men as no other
books did, and that their nation was chosen to be an
especial witness of His presence.
But when the voice went from a band of despised
men, ' The Word, or the Son of God, has been made
flesh, and has dwelt among ms,'— each of these classes,
the Oriental, the Greek sage, the learned and devout
Jew, as weU as the popular idolater, had his own
reason to be offended. Was not flesh the very seat of
all evil, if not its cause? Was not the great effort ofthe
wise man, to disengage himself from fleshly appetites
and fleshly illusions? Had not the Divine Word
especially chosen out a band of spiritual men to appre
hend secrets, which the multitude, given up to the
pursuits of the flesh and the world, must remain igno
rant of? These were arguments of prodigious weight
for all who had pursued the deeper wisdom. The
traditional worshippers, Jew or Gentile, did not need
arguments. The force of habit and prescription was
strong enough without them. The love of what was
fleshly and external was as mighty a motive with these
for rejecting the new message, as the dread of it was
with the others. They were told to turn from their
dumb idols — ^and the Jew was given to understand that
the rites in which he trusted had become his idols — to
the Living God. The Son of God was said to have
taken flesh that He might reclaim all for the servants
of His invisible Father.

THE STRUGGLE IN THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. 101
Accordingly, the chief struggle of all minds in the
first centuries after the Church had established itself in
the world, was against this bebef. I say emphatically
and deliberately, in all minds, for the conflict was just
as apparent among those who had been baptized, as
among their opponents. As they became less alive to
their own personal necessities, they had leisure to con
template the many sides which the Gospel presented to
the student and to the world — the points of contact
between it and surrounding opinions. Then this and
that teacher arose to show how possible it was to
regard Christ as one of the emanations from the unseen
and absolute Essence, one of the stars which had pene
trated from the world of light into a world of darkness,
one of the agents of a good Being, who had come to
recover elect souls from fleshly corruption, and to make
them capable of the highest knowledge. Then more
accomplished teachers traced an order and scheme of
emanations; assigning to Christ a place amidst a
multitude of qualities, energies, intellectual or physical
principles. Then the modes of attaining the higher
intuitions were duly set down and distinguished by
each school for its own initiated disciples. But in
every one, it was necessary to account for the appear
ance of our Lord in the world, without supposing Him
to have been actually endowed with a human body.
The connexion, it was said, was not real but fantastic ;
the Christ or the Son of God had descended for a while

102 REASONS AGAINST AN INCARNATION.
into the body of Jesus at His baptism, leaving it before
His passion, not actually participating in any of its
infirmities, By some means or other, it must be ex
plained how a deliverer could come among men without
being one of themselves, without being associated with
that in which lay, as these teachers held, aU defilement.
I have expressed what I believe were the three
maxims common to these various and dissentient schools,
They held, first, that it was possible to know God
without an Incarnation ; secondly, that it is not right
or possible, that a perfectly good Being should . be
tempted as men are tempted ; thirdly, that all we have
to look for, is a deliverer of some choice spirits out of
the corruption and ruin of humanity, not a deliverer of
man himself, of his spirit, his soul, and his body.
These being the three cardinal dogmas of the teachers
who departed from the general creed of the Church, the
convictions which have sustained that creed cannot,
perhaps, be expressed better than by reversing these1
propositions. First, We accept the fact of the Incarna
tion, because we feel that it is impossible to know the
Absolute and Invisible God as man needs to know
Him, and craves to know Him, without an Incarnation.
Secondly, We receive the fact of an Incarnation, not
perceiving how we can recognise a perfect Son of God,
and Son of Man, such as man needs and craves for, unless
He were, in all points, tempted like as we are. Thirdly,
We receive the fact of an Incarnation, because we ask

FAITH WITHOUT AN INCARNATION. 103
of God a Redemption, not for a few persons, from
certain evil tendencies, but for humanity from all the
plagues by which it is tormented. I will take these
points in their order.
1. Rapt devotees who have lived in perfect abstraction,
have obtained a vision of a cloudless essence, of that
which they felt was awful and infinite, and which they
could adore in silence. Thoughtful and earnest seekers
after wisdom, by careful study of all common things which
are presented to them, by honest meditation upon the
words which they use, by diligent efforts to escape from
the appearances of the senses and the prejudices of the
intellect, have been enabled to confess, and confidently
to believe, that there is an Absolute and Eternal sub
stance at the ground of all things. Suffering men,
tormented by pain of body and anguish of spirit, have
perceived that there must be a health deeper than their
sickness, a righteousness beneath their evil. Are we
to slight any of these discoveries, or not to reckon them
true and divine? Certainly not. Their worth is, I
believe, unspeakable. But why were not those who
obtained them satisfied with them ? Why did Heathen
sages turn back with a look half of longing, half of
loathing, to the popular legends ? They saw. that there
was in them a witness of the presence of Guardians,
Brothers, Fathers, which they could not part with. To
accept these, clothed in all the tempers and tendencies
which they felt to be imperfect and distorted in them-

104 CRAVING FOR ONE.
selves, was impossible for their reason. But their
reason demanded a standard for act's; ike grace and
righteousness which they saw in different divided hu
man images ; a foundation for the relations upon the
preservation and purity of which society depends ; an
absolute Truth, which should not be merely dry exist
ence, merely an ultimate Hercules' Pillar of the Uni
verse, but living ; such as truth is when it comes forth
in a guileless person.
St. John says, ' We beheld His glory as of the only-
begotten of the Father, full of .grace and truth.' Am
I to believe this, asks the objector, on the testimony of
a Galilean fisherman, or, for aught we know, of some
later doctor assuming that guise ? I answer, You are
not to believe — you cannot believe — either fisherman
or doctor, if the assertion itself is contrary to truth, to
the laws of your being, to the order and constitution
of the Universe in which you are living. They may
repeat it till doomsday. It may come, as it did, with
no authority, against the weight of all opinion, breaking
through the customs and prescriptions of centuries,
defying the rulers of the world ; or it may come clad
with authority, with the prescriptions of centuries, with
the help of rulers and pubhc opinion; it is all the
same ; you cannot beheve the words, however habitual
and familiar they may be to you, if there is that in
them which contradicts the spirit of a man that is in
you, whieh does not address that with demonstration

ST. JOHN'S ANSWER TO IT. 105
and power. What we say is, that these words have
not contradicted that spirit, but have entered it with
the demonstration of the spirit and of power. Men
have declared, 'The actual creatures of our race do
' teU us of something whicii must belong to us, must
' be most needful for us. A gentle human being does
' give us the hint of a higher gentleness ; a brave man
' makes us think of a courage far greater than he can
' exhibit. Friendships, sadly and continually inter-
' rupted, suggest the belief of an unalterable friendship.
' Every brother awakens the hope of a love stronger than
' any affinity in nature ; and disappoints it. Every
' father demands a love, and reverence, and obedience,
' which we know is his due, and which something in
' him as well as in us hinders us from paying. Every
' man who suffers and dies rather than be, bears witness
' of a truth beyond his life and death, of which he has
' a gbmpse.' Men have asked, ' Are all these delusions ?
' Is this goodness we have dreamed of all a dream ? this
' Truth a fiction of ours ? Is there no Brother, no Father
' beneath those, who have taught us to believe there must
' be such ? Who wiU tell us ? '
What St. John answers is this : ' No, they are not
1 delusions. It has pleased the Father to show us what
' He is. A man did dwell among us — an actual man
' like ourselves, who told us that He had come from
'this Father, that he knew Him. Arid we believed
' Him. We could not help bebeving Him. There did

106 WHY HE SPEAKS OF THE ONLY-BEGOTTEN.
' shine forth in His words, looks, acts, that which we
' felt to be the grace and the truth we were wanting to
' see. We were sure they were not of this earth ; that
' they did not spring from that body which was such as
' ours is. We should have been ready enough to call
' them His. But He did not — He said they were His
' Father's, that He could do nothing of Himself, only
' what He saw His Father do. That was the most
' wonderful token to us of all. We never saw any man
'.before who took nothing to Himself, who would glorify
' Himself in nothing. Therefore, when we beheld Him,
' we felt that He was a Son, an Only-Begotten Son, and
' that the glory of One whom no man had seen or could
' see was shining forth in Him, and through Him upon us.'
But why must we think that this person was more
than a shrine of the Holiest? why should we speak of
Him as the One? why should this name of ' the Only-
Begotten' be bestowed upon Him? Again I say,
Withhold it if your heart and conscience bid you do
so. But do not deceive yourselves. The question is
not any longer, whether there should be an Incarna
tion, whether God can manifest Himself in human
flesh; but what the Incarnation should be, in what
kind of person we are to expect such a manifestation ;
or whether He will diffuse His glory through many
persons, never- gathering it into one. With respect
to the former question, the Church has always ad
mitted, the Apostles eagerly asserted, that the demand

THE CARPENTER. 107
which they made upon human faith was enormous.
The glory of God revealing itself, not in a leader of
armies, a philosopher, a poet, but in a carpenter, —
could anything be more revolting? There was no
shrinking from the shameful confession. It was put
forward prominently ; it was part of the Gospel which
was preached to Jews, Greeks, Romans. And it was
received as a Gospel, a message of good, not of ill,
because the heart of man answered, ' We want to
' see, not some side of earthly power elevated till it
' becomes celestial ; we want not to see the qualities
' which distinguish one man from another, dressed out
' and expanded till they become utterly unbke anything
' which we can apprehend or attain to. We want to
' see absolute Goodness and Truth. We want to know
' whether they can bend to meet us. That which can-
' not do this is not what we mean by Goodness. It
' is not what we should call goodness in any man.
' That truth which belongs to a few and not to all, is
' not what we mean by Truth. The truest man we know,
' has a voice which commends itself to all, which
' reaches even the untrue, if it be but to frighten and
'incense him. The goodness which can stoop most,
' which becomes, in the largest sense, grace, — the truth
' which can speak to the inmost heart of the dullest
' human creature, is that which has for us the surest
' stamp of divinity,'
And here lies also the answer to the other question,

108 THE FIRST-BORN AMONG MANY BRETHREN.
' Why should not the Glory of God be diffused
' through many images? why must it be concentrated
' in one? ' The practical reply which Christendom has
made is : ' That it may be diffused through many, it
' must be concentrated in One. That there may be sons
' of God in human flesh ; men shining with the glory
' of God, reflecting His grace and truth ; there must be
' One Son who has taken human flesh, in whom that
' full glory dwelt, who was full of grace and truth.' He,
so we have proclaimed, who could say, My Father,
could say, Your Father ; he who could say, He has
sent Me, could say, So send I you. And Christendom
has not merely put this doctrine forth in a proposition.
She has been able to establish it by the experience of
other men's truths ; still more by the experience of her
own errors. She can say, ' Take away the belief of the
' one incarnate Son of God and Son of Man, and all the
' heroes of the old world and of the new become merely
' so many men who have earned a right, by their supe-
' riority to the mass of their fellow-creatures, to despise
' them and trample upon them. Admit Him to be the
' centre of them, and they aU fall into their places ;
' each has had his separate protest to bear,. his appointed
' work to do. Though he may not have known in
' whose name he was ministering, his ministry, so far as
' it was one of help and blessing to mankind, so far as
' it impbed any surrender of self-glory, may be referred
' to the man, may be hailed as proceeding from Him

THE SON TEMPTED AS WE ARE. 109
' who took upon Him the form of a servant.' On the
other hand, the Church can say, and should say, with
the deepest humiliation, ' Look what miserable creatures
' the saints whom I have boasted of have become, when,
' through their own crime, or the crime of those who
' have magnified them, it has been supposed that they
' had some independent merits, that their souls or their
' flesh had some sacredness of their own. Look through
' my whole history, and see whether the greatest con-
' fusions I have wrought in the world, the cruellest
'' oppressions of which I have been guilty, have not been
' caused by my desire to exalt individual men into the
'. place of the Christ ; by my efforts to accomplish the
' very object which you hope to attain, when you have
' emancipated yourselves from my Creed.'
2. But I pass to the second point, upon which the
teachers who deny an Incarnation are at variance with
the Apostles, and, I think, with the conscience of man
kind. ' They say, ' It destroys the idea of a Son, of God,
' to suppose him in contact with the temptations of ordi-
' nary men.' We say, ' We cannot know Him to be
' the sinless Son of God, except He was in aU points
' tempted like as we are.' This is that side of Chris
tian divinity which presented itself in all its power to
Milton; Paradise was, according to him, regained by
the endurance of temptation. His strict adherence to
that one idea has given a unity to his second poem, as
a work of art, which is wanting to its more magnifi-

110 PARADISE REGAINED.
cent predecessor. And this unity it would not have
received, if the soul of the writer had not been pene
trated and absorbed by the principle which it embodies.
In it lay the strength and vitality of the age which he
represented ; especially of the Puritan part of it. Men
felt then that they had a battle with principalities and
powers ; the test of the Son of God was, that he had
entered into that battle, and had overcome in it. This
thought might become too exclusive in their minds;
when it was separated from the one we have just been
-Considering, it was liable to various perversions ; but I
can scarcely conceive of any which has stood men in
greater stead, or which we can less afford to dispense
with. In fact, as I said in a former Essay, it seems to
me that our actual forgetfulness of it, our effeminate
timidity in acknowledging the existence of an Evil
Spirit, our desire to represent all temptations as arising
out of our nature, has been the cause of more super
stitions, and more dishonourable thoughts of ourselves
and of God, than any other of our popular religious
habits. But it is inevitable while there is the least
reluctance tP adopt the language of the New Testament
.respecting our Lord's temptation. We cannot and dare
not think that there is an actual spirit striking at the
deepest root of our being, striving to separate us from
what is good and true, if we do not believe that right
eousness is mightier, or if we suppose it has only a
distant abstract superiority ; not Pne which has been

DISBELIEF OF CHRIST'S TEMPTATION. Ill
ascertained in an actual trial. If we suppose that the
Son of God had any advantage in that trial, any
power save that which came from simple trust in His
Father, from the refusal to make or prove Himself His
Son instead of depending on His word and pledge, we
shall riot feel that a real victory has been won. And
thence will come, (alas ! have come,) the consequences
of supposing our flesh to be accursed in itself, our
bodies or our souls to be subject to a necessary evil,
and not to be holy creatures of God, made for all good.
It is needful to repeat these maxims often; for the
habits and maxims which contradict them, are present
ing themselves in every variety of form and application,
and are, I think, disturbing ab our lives. I recur to
them now, because I wish to put that doctrine of the
Incarnation, which is so often denounced as an outrage
upon reason, conscience, and experience, to every pos
sible test of reason, conscience, and experience* If there
are ariy tests besides these, I do not ask that it should
be tried by them ; these should not be declined by those
who are continually appealing to them. Let them fairly
•and manfully ask themselves whether they do not evade
either some great fact of daily experience, some evidence
of actual misery and evil, or else some sure and authentic
testimony of the heart that nothing in its principle and
constitution can be evil, if they deny that there has been
One, "who, in our condition, was tempted by the Devil ;
and that it was no imaginary temptation, but thfe real

112 DELIVERANCE OF ELECT SOULS.
one, that which makes others real. Either I shall resort
to some subterfuge to conceal my own evil, or I shall
shrink from acknowledging my relation in hope and in
sorrow to all human beings, or I shall invent some
wretched substitute for the Friend whom I have lost, if
I am too refined to believe that there is one who showed
himself in my flesh, to be a sharer of all God's truth
and of all my danger.
3. This refinement in the Gnostical teachers had the
closest connexion with that third characteristic of theirs
to which I alluded, — their belief that Christ descended
from some pure and ethereal world, to save certain elect
souls from the pollutions of the flesh and the death
which was consequent upon them ; not to save the human
race ; above all, not to save that which was designated
as the poor, ignoble, accursed body.
The whole Gospel history was a most cruel insult to
the feelings which this opinion denoted. Christ is re
presented as addressing himself to multitudes. Those
selected out of these multitudes to be His disciples, are
ignorant men, not better, not more spiritual, than their
fellows. Those who gather about Him are publicans
and sinners. He heals their bodies. He speaks of their
bodies as bound by Satan. Pain, disease, death, are
treated not as portions of a divine scheme, but as proofs
that it has been violated ; as witnesses of the presence
of a destroyer, who is to be resisted and cast out. These
are the startling phenomena of the Gospels, subversive

REASONS FOR DISCARDING THE GOSPELS. 113
of their credit and character with all persons who, on
any grounds whatever, religious or philosophical, are
maintaining an exclusive position, striving to separate
themselves from other human beings, or wishing to dis
parage animal existence as the only way of exalting
that which is intellectual or spiritual. The traditions
of their country may induce some of these to suspend
their condemnation of the documents, — nay, even to
express unlimited bebef in them. Some may hesitate,
from sympathy with that in them which their hearts
acknowledge as beautiful and divine. But when the
chain of authority is broken for the one, when the other
find books appealing more directly to their tastes and
temper, as being dressed in the fashion of their own
time, it will be seen how gladly they will welcome any
mode of accounting for the Gospel narratives, which
shall not compel them to accept what they do not bke
to think divine because it is so human. And here
again it is to the great human heart- that theology must
make its appeal. That has found a witness for the Gos
pels and for the fact of an Incarnation in these offensive
passages. That has clung to them because it demands
one who comes into contact with its actual condition ;
who relieves it of its actual woes ; who recognises not
the exceptions from the race, but the lowest types of it,
as brethren with Himself, and as the children of His
Father ; who proves man to be a spiritual being, not by
scorning his animal nature and his animal wants, but
I

114 REASONS FOR HOLDING THEM.
by entering into them, bearing them, suffering from
them, and then showing how all the evils which affect
man as an animal have a spiritual ground, how he must
become a citizen of the kingdom of heaven, that every
thing on earth may be pure and blessed to him. ' The
Sonof God was manifested that He might destroy the
works of the devil; ' this is St. John's summary of the
whole matter, He revealed the Father, and so in human
flesh He destroyed the great calumny of the devil, that
man has not a Father in heaven, that He is not alto
gether good, that He does not care for His creatures :
He submits to aU temptations in human flesh, and so
proves that man is not the subject and thrall of the
tempter. He in human flesh delivered spirits, souls,
and bodies out of bondage, so affirming that the state into
which the devil would draw them is no^ the state which
is meant for them, that His own humanity is the stand
ard of that which each man bears, and is that to which
man shall be raised. ,
The evangelists say that when the Son of God was
to be manifested to men, there did not come a great
prophet to argue and prove the probability of an Incar
nation ; but there came a prophet preaching in the wil
derness, and saying, ' Repent, for the kingdom of Heaven
is at hand.' I have said already that I believe such a call
to repentance is the true way of bringing evidence for
any one of the articles of Christian theology. When the
hearts of the fathers are turned to the children, when

PREACHING OF REPENTANCE. 115
the doctor or pharisee feels himself ou the level of the
pubbcan and the harlot, then these articles come forth in
their own native and divine might ; then the objections,
which are merely the creatures of fancy or of pride, are
scattered as chaff before the wind; then those deeper
objections, which touch the heart and reason, are seen to
affect not the principles themselves, but only some
earthly additions to them, which have weakened and
subverted them. While we are frivolous, exclusive,
heartless, no arguments ought to convince us of Christ's
Incarnation ; they would carry their own condemnation
with them, if they did. When we are aroused to think
earnestly what we are, what our relation to our fellow-
men is, what God is, — the voice which says, ' The Word
was made flesh and dwelt among us,' ' The Son of God
was manifested that He might destroy the works of the
devil, will no more be thought of as the voice of an
apostle. We shall know that He is speaking to us
Himself, and that He is the Christ that should come into
the world.
Let no Unitarian suppose that these last words are
pomted at him, — that I suppose he has greater need of
repentance than we have, because some special moral
obliquity has prevented him from recognising the truth
of the Incarnation. I had no such meaning; I was
thinking much more of the orthodox. I was considering
how many causes hinder us from confessing with our

116 WHY ORTHODOX AND UNORTHODOX NEED IT.
hearts as well as our lips, that Christ has come in the
flesh. The conceit of our orthodoxy is one cause. What
ever sets us in any wise above our fellow-men, is an
obstacle to a hearty belief in ihe Man ; it must be taken
from us before we shall really bow our knees to Him. I
know not that if He were now walking visibly among us,
He might not say that many a Unitarian was far nearer
the kingdom of heaven than many of us ; less choked
with prejudice, less self-confident, more capable of recog
nising the great helper of the wounded man who has
fallen among thieves, than we priests or Levites are,
because more ready to go and do likewise. I cannot
say that this might not be so ; I often suspect that it
would be so ; and therefore I certainly did not intend to
convey the impression that the moral disease at the root
of their most vehement intellectual denials, is, neces
sarily, a malignant one.
But though I do not think that such a call as we are
told went forth from the lips of John the Baptist, to
prepare the way for Christ, is less needful for us than for
them, I should be far indeed from wishing to shut them
out from so great a benefit. We all want it, I think,
for the same reason. When St. John explains the object
of the Baptist's mission, he does not use the language of
the other evangelists. He says, ' He came to bear witness
of the LIGHT, that all men through Him might believe.'
This is not a mere equivalent for the words, ' Repent,
for the kingdom of heaven is at hand;' but it gives us

THE LIGHT WITHIN. 117
the innermost force of those words ; it takes away their
vagueness ; it shows why one person, as much as another,
had need to hear them. ' There is a light within you,
' close to you. Do you know it ? Are you coming to it?
' Are you desiring that it should penetrate you through
' and through ? Oh, turn to it ! Turn from these idols
' that are surrounding you, — from the confused, dark
' world of thoughts within you ! It will reveal yourself
' to you ! It will reveal the world to you ! ' ' What do
you mean ? ' asks the weU-instructed, formally, habitu-
aUy religious man : ' my conscience, I suppose.' ' Call
' it that, or what you please ; but in God's name, my
' friend, do not cheat yourself with a phrase. I mean a
' reality ; I mean that which has to do with your inner-
' most being ; I mean something which does not proceed
' from you or belong to you; but which is there, searching
' you and judging you. Nay ! stay a moment. I mean
'. that this light comes from a Person, — from the King and
' Lord of your heart and spirit, — from the Word, — the
' Son of God. When I say, Repent ; I say, Turn and
' confess His presence. You have always had it with
' you. You have been unmindful of it.'
Such words would startle some Unitarians, but not
more than they would startle those who are settled on the
lees ofa comfortable orthodoxy. The cries of ' Mysticism,'
' Lore imported from the Alexandrian fathers,' ' Utterly
' inconsistent with aU sound modern philosophy,-'
' Derived from our own conceits, not from the Bible,!

118 MATERIALISTS.
' Fenelon, Madame Guion, Jacob Bohme,' &c., would
rise just as loudly from one as from the other. The
teacher, if he happens to know anything of tbe persons
he is accused of copying, may tell what he knows ; but
he will do better if he delivers his message simply to
those who have need of it. They will discover in them
selves whether it is a poor plagiarism ; they will know
whether it fills them with mystical conceits, or scatters
those conceits. If he has courage to go on, he will find
a response, not only in those who have been told, from
their youth upward, that the voice of conscience is
Christ's voice, but from a number who are nominally
and in profession materialists ; who cannot conceive of
any spiritual communication whatsoever, who think that
the testimonies of conscience are the echoes of words'
addressed to the ear. For theories signify little when
the question is one of fact and moral demonstration.
They disappear, as they do before any great and decisive
experiment in physics, and adjust themselves, not at
once but gradually, to the law which has been brought
to light. And a materialist who has "been honest with
himself, has sought to do right, and has not used phrases
which for him had no meaning, is quite as likely as
another man to yield to such evidence.
It is necessary for my present purpose to make this
statement ; for I cannot disguise from myself the truth
that there are many, not only among Unitarians, but
among us, who would be simply bewildered by the '

THE MANIFESTATION AND THE MANIFESTER. 119
proposition, ' Christ took flesh.' What Christ ? they
would ask, if they were not withheld by some fear. ' Is
' not Jesus of Nazareth the Christ?' And this difficulty
is not relieved, but increased, by the emphasis with
which the ablest, most devout, and most learned divines,
both here and in Germany, are dwelbng on the words,
' God manifest in the flesh.' I do not mean that these
divines care whether or not that precise expression
occurs in the Epistle to Timothy ; whether the line in
the O can be detected with the aid of spectacles or not ;
they are far too manly and too well grounded in their
faith, to make it depend upon this or any other philo
logical crux. They take these words as expressing the
very sense of the Gospel and of the New Testament. I
do not think they can be stronger in that persuasion
than I am ; but I cannot help perceiving, — and a con
sideration of Unitarian difficulties has especially led me
to this conclusion, — that if, in their eagerness to set
forth the manifestation, they take no pains to declare
'who is the manifestef, they wiU leave an impression on
a number of minds, the very opposite to that which they
seek to produce. They will lead people to suppose that
the Image of the Holy One had no reality till it was
presented through a human body to men, or at least,
that till then, this Image had no relation to the creature
who is said in Scripture to be formed in it. By this
means the whole of the Old Testament economy, instead
of being fulfilled in the revelation of the Son of God,

120 st. john's method.
becomes hopelessly divided from it. But, what is worse
still, by this means the heart and conscience of human
beings become separated from that revelation. It stands
outside, as if it were presented to the eye, not to them ;
as if those who saw Christ in the flesh must really have
known Him for that reason, whereas every sentence of
the Gospels is telling us that they did not.
I conceive the method of St. John is far more scien-;
tine, and also far more human and practical. He de
clares to us the Word as God, and also as with God ; as
Him by whom aU things were created ; as Him whose
Life was the Light of men ; whose light was shining in
the darkness, and the darkness did not take it down
into itself; whose Light was witnessed by the visible
teacher, that all men might, beheve ; Who was in the
World, though the world knew Him not ; Who came to
his own house, and its inmates did not receive Him ;
Who gave those who did receive him power to become
sons of God, being born not of flesh nor of blood, nor
of the will of man, but of God ; Who at last was made
flesh and dwelt among men, and in Whom the glory of
the Only-begotteri of the Father, full of grace and truth,
was seen. Quite aware how strange this method must
seem to many of ourselves, still stranger to the Uni
tarian, I have yet tried to follow it, because it appeals,
I think, both to the reasPn and to the conscience, and
because I should be very inconsistent if I supposed that
the Light which bghteth' every man did not light the

OMNIPOTENCE AND OMNIPRESENCE. 121
Unitarian, or that he may not come to it and discover
whence it flows. Nor do I think that any one of the
grounds upon which I have rested my defence of our
creed concerning the Incarnation, will be entirely
¦unintelligible to him.
1. I have told him before, that I think he is exposed
to a danger, of which he least dreams,— that of ho
nouring the Son, not as he honours the Father, but
above Him. I would now ask him seriously to con
sider, whether the best part of the honour he ever has
paid to the Father, that which has been most real
and akin to his heart, has not been derived from the
image which was presented to him in Christ? He
may have used some large phrases about Omnipotence,
or Omnipresence. I do not say that they conveyed no
meaning to his mind. But was it such a meaning, — so
deep, so penetrating, so satisfactory to his moral in
stincts,— as that which was brought to him by the story
of a person actually, thoroughly, inwardly and out
wardly, righteous? If the quality of mere power
became more sacred and venerable in his mind than
that of righteousness, or mercy, or truth, will he not
have suspected himself? will he not have said, ' I am
' yielding to a disease, I am borrowing my notions from.
' the pharitoms of greatness and glory, which the world.
' worships ; I am forgetting the moral standard which
'I profess to set up?' And if, (as I think,) power is
intended to command a reverence, and must always.

122 Christ's truth And power.
command it, though in subordination to that which
determines its ends, have not the instances of calm
power, recorded in the Gospel, — of Christ ruling the
waves, for instance, or feeding the multitude, — appealed
more directly to the faculty whicii receives that impres
sion, and bows to it, than any such mere abstraction as
this of Omnipotence? These are hints which I should
like any Unitarian who wishes to give a fair account to
himself of his own emotions and convictions, steadily
to follow out, not minding whither they lead him. They
may not lead him at once, or for a long time, to accept
our language, ' of one substance with the Father; ' he
may make a great many attempts to avoid it, by speak
ing of a Unity of purpose or of will. But if he once
comes to understand himself about Unity of purpose
and will, and carefully to consider what that involves,
I have no fear but that he will by degrees understand
thoroughly what the Church intends by Unity of
Substance. 2. Nor do I fear that the younger Unitarian, espe
cially, will discard what I have said of Christ entering
into our temptations, as worthless and unmeaning,
What I do fear for him, as I have told him already, is,
that he may adopt a kind of sentimental talk, very
prevalent in our day, about struggles and conflicts of
the spirit, — as if these were striking phenomena to
observe in men of other ages, who are entitled to our
patronage, and in a qualified sense to our admiration, for

CALVINISTS AND UNITARIANS. 123
having passed through tempests, which we can contem
plate and criticise from a calm and secure height. I know
this temptation ; I do not warn them of it as if I were
on a calm height out of its reach. It assaults us all
continuaUy; I cannot tell how often I may have yielded
to it while writing this book. But I can testify that
the only escape I have ever found from it, is in the belief
that a real and ' strong ' Son of God encountered the
enemy of me, and of all the men who are living now,
or ever have bved. While I hold fast that confidence,
I cannot suppose that the fight which our fathers had to
fight is a different one from ours. I cannot fancy that
I have acquired any position or any skill, which gives
me the slightest advantage over them, or on the other
hand, that our circumstances are the least to be deplored ;
that the former days were better than these. I must
believe that the struggle becomes intenser as it ap
proaches nearer to the final decision ; but the thought of
that decision, and that it wiU be for, not against, the
race whose nature Christ took, ought to make us more
trusting, not more self-confident, than those were who
have finished their course.
3. If I dared to indulge in a mere argumentum ad
hominem, I might hope to make much of my third pro
position in discoursing with a Unitarian. He is pledged
to hostility against the Calvinistical theory of election;
he has often fraternised with Churchmen on that ground.
But I think that he and the Arminians of my own com-

124 THE TWO ASPECTS OF CALVINISM.
munion, have been equally to blame, for the course
which they have taken in this controversy. They have
complained of the Calvinist partly for his exclusions,
partly for his zeal in proclaiming the will of God as the
sole cause of man's redemption and salvation. Because
I dislike and repudiate his exclusions, I would follow
him with all my heart and soul in that proclamation.
If man is held to choose God, and not God to choose
man, I see no deliverance from the darkest views of His
character and of our destiny. Some of the Unitarians
appear to be making this discovery ; at least I judge so,
from a very impressive sermon by Mr. Martineau, on the
words : ' Ye have not chosen me, but I. have chosen
you.' Before, then, we enter into any alliance, offensive or
defensive, against Calvinism, it must be clearly under
stood that we do not mean this side of Calvinism ; for
that i3 as much presumed in the doctrine that God
redeems mankind, as in the doctrine that He redeems
certain elect souls out of mankind. Every redeemed
person must, according to me as much as according to
the Calvinist, refer every good, that is in him, that he
does, thatbefals him, to the'Father of Lights, — must con
sider his will as freed by Him from a bondage, and as
freed, that it may become truly a servant. Nay, so
strongly do I feel this, that I see no refuge from the
exclusiveness of some of those who consider them
selves, very moderate Calyinists, especially from those

EXCLUSIVENESS OF VARIOUS KINDS. 125
favourite divisions of theirs which seem to make the
'' believer ' something different from a man, and so to
take from him the very truth, which he has to believe, —
but by recalling the strong and energetic statements of
the earlier Calvinists, respecting the one root and origin
of faith, as well as of right acts. But this is not
aU. I have no right to denounce the exclusiveness of
the Calvinists, unless I am willing to renounce all that
may cleave to myself. The Unitarian may fairly say
to me, ' Give up your Anglican exclusiveness if you
' wish me to think you sincere in your complaints of
•' them.' And I, if I am striving to do so, may
turn upon him and say, ' Give up your Gnostical
' exclusiveness, your Emersonian exclusiveness, your
' notions of a high intellectual election, if you wish me
' to think you sincere in your complaints of Calvinists
' or of Anglicans.' I do not believe that we shall any of ,
us comply with these demands, each of which is per
fectly reasonable and righteous, unless we heartily and
unfeignedly acknowledge that Christ, the Son of God,
has taken the nature of every man. With that faith,
when it has possessed our whole being, exclusiveness of
any kind cannot dwell.
To conclude. I should be content to put the whole cause
on this issue. Let it be considered earnestly what has
made the difference between the belief concerning God
and concerning Man, which has prevailed in Christendom,
and that which exists in any part of heathendom. To

126 THE TEST.
understand the difference, study as carefully the resem
blances, — all the dark and horrible thoughts respecting
our Father in heaven, and our fellow-creatures on earth,
which exist among us, and which we have adopted from
Heathenism. Let aU allowance you please be made for
varieties of races, and for progress of civilization, on con
dition that you are not satisfied with these formulas, but
are willing to regard them as indications of facts, which
need to be explained. And then let it be seen whether the
belief that the Jesus Christ set forth in the Gospels is
the express Image of God, and the image after which
man is formed, has not been the secret of all that is con
fessedly high, pure, moral in our convictions ; the de
parture from that belief, and the attempt to deduce the
nature of God from some philosophical generalization,
or from some heroical man, or from a number of men,
or from ourselves, has not been at the root of all that is
cruel in our doctrine, as well as of that which is most
feeble and base in our practice.

ESSAY vn.

ON THE ATONEMENT.

It will be evident, I hope, by this time, on what
grounds I object to the so-called Theology of Conscious
ness. Not, surely, because I am not anxious to observe
all the experiences and consciousnesses which the his
tory of the world bears witness of. Not because I do
not desire that all these should be understood, as they
can only be understood, through the conscience of each
man. Not that I do not ask of theology that it should
explain these consciousnesses, and clear and satisfy that
individual conscience.
But I find that a theology which is based upon con
sciousness, which is derived out of it, never can fulfil
these conditions. In former Essays, I have tried to
indicate the feelings and demands of a man who has
been awakened to know sin in himself. He asks for
deliverance from a plague, which seems part of his own
existence. He asks that some power, which is crushing
him and vanquishing him, and making free thought and

128 CONSCIOUSNESSES.
action impossible, may be put down. He is in despair,
because he is sure that he is at war, not merely with a
Sovereign WiU, but with a perfectly good will. He is
convinced that, in some way or other, he has a righteous
cause, though he is so deeply and inwardly evil. He
thinks a righteous Being must be on his side, though
he has grieved Him, and been unrighteous. He thinks
he has an Advocate, and that the mind of this Advocate
cannot be opposed to the mind of the Lord of all, the
Creator of the universe, but must be the counterpart of
it. He thinks that the true Son of God must be his
Redeemer. He thinks He must stand at some day on
the earth, to assert His Father's righteous dominion
over it, and to redeem it from its enemies.
Here are strange, conflicting, ' consciousnesses,' all of
which are actuaUy found in human beings, all of which
must be heeded, which will make themselves manifest
in strange ways if they are not. The consciousness of
sin will lead to a consciousness of consequences flowing
from sin, stretching into the furthest future. And when
this consciousness tries to construct a theology for itself,
those consequences, apprehensible, tangible, material,
will determine the character of the theology. How can'
I escape from these ? will be the question. Who shall
sever the consequences from the cause ? The conscious
ness that the Creator has linked the one to the other,
suggests the thought that pain, suffering, misery, are
especially His work, the signs which denote His feelings

A THEOLOGY BUILT UPON THEM. 129
towards His creatures. The consciousness of a tyrant
and oppressor leads to the supposition that He is that
tyrant and oppressor. The consciousness of an Advo
cate, leads to the supposition that He may be the
instrument of debvering us out of the hand of the
Creator, of saving us from the punishment which the
Creator has appointed for transgression. The con
sciousness that we share our sin with our fellow-crea
tures, and that we are obnoxious to a punishment which
belongs equally to them, leads to the reflection, ' How
' can we put ourselves into a different position from
' theirs ? how can we escape from the calamities with
' which God has threatened them?'
What I wish the reader to observe is, that in each
of these cases a notion or maxim respecting theology is
likely to be generalized from the consciousness, which
wiU oppose and outrage the conscience. Building on his
own ground, assuming aU his own vague and contra
dictory impressions as data, the man of necessity works
out a system, on which he afterwards gazes with horror,
from which he longs to break loose, which he charges
priests and doctors with having created. No doubt they
have contributed their wicked aid to the fabric; their
guilt is heavier than that of the poor bewildered crea
tures who have consulted them. But their guilt has
consisted in the wilbngness which they have shown
to create a religion out of consciousnesses ; to endorse
aU the conceptions and conclusions about God which
K

130' THE SIN OF PRIESTS.
the diseased heart fashions for itself, while they have
a witness within them of truths which contradict these
conceptions and conclusions ; to supply inteUectual
links which may fasten together what would be loose,
incoherent, fragmentary fappies ; to devise rules, and
ethical practices, which may meet the morbid and
selfish cravings of the heart, and be justified by the
theory the understanding has moulded from them;
finally, to stamp with the name, dignity, and sacredness
of faith, that which is grounded,, in great part, upon fear;
and distrust.
I believe that priests, in all lands, have been charge
able with this great crime of accommodating themselves
to the carnal notions and tendencies of those whom they
might have raised and educated.. For I believe they
have had an intuition of a higher truth, which it was
their calling to proclaim, and which alone gave sub
stance to the opinions with which they and their dis
ciples disfigured it. I dare not deny that this crime has
been greatest in the priests of Christendom, precisely
because I hold that they have a theology revealed from
Heaven, which perfectly satisfies the demands of the
human heart ; which explains to men the contradictions
in their own impressions and experiences ; which pre
sents such a God, as the conscience witnesses, there must
be and is, npt such a one as the understanding tries
to shape out from its own reflections on the testimony
of the conscience ; which shows what the relation be-

THE POPULAR DOCTRINE OF SACRIFICE. 131
tween Him and men is, what the cause of the separation
between Him and men is-, what He has done to esta
blish the relation, to destroy the separation.
1 have now reached the subject which is the test of all
that I have been- saying hitherto. Those who cry for a
theology based upon consciousness, which shall supersede
the theology of Christendom, say that the doctrines re
specting sacrifice and atonement which prevail in Chris
tendom, among Protestants as well as Romanists, prove
more clearly than anything else what need there is ofthe
reform which they seek. ' These doctrines,' they say,
' darken the sense of right and wrong in the minds of
' Christians ; bewilder their understandings ; sanction
' the most false conceptions concerning sin, the most
' cruel conceptions concerning' God. The conscience of
' human beings is in revolt against them. Civil authority
1 owns that it can defend them no longer. Ecclesiastical
' authority tries to defend them. They have a certain
' public opinion on their side ; — that which has resisted
'in every age every great moral improvement, that
* which has sustained every false religion. They derive
' « support from those who half believe them, who dare
' not say how much of them they do not believe. But
' they are doomed ; texts of Scripture will not preserve
' from burial that which is already dead. No appeal to
' the verdict of centuries will galvanise doctrines which
' do not represent our convictions. We must have a
' theology which embodies them, or none.'

132 WHENCE ITS CORRUPTIONS HAVE PROCEEDED.
On this point I join issue with them. I say that
they are right in imputing to Romanists and Protes
tants a set of notions, — some of them common to
both, some peculiar to each, — which deserve the
epithets they bestow on it; which outrage the con
science, which misrepresent the character of God, which
generate a fearful amount of insincere belief, of positive
infidelity, — also, I think, of immorality. I see, with
them, that these notions are becoming more and more
intolerable to thoughtful and earnest men ;. that those
who are neither, often maintain them merely because
they do not care to look at them, or to question them
selves about them. I cannot conceal from myself that
our want of courage in saying whether we regard these
as parts of our creed, or not, is leading thousands to
identify ,them with it, and to reject it as weU as them.
But I maintain that these notions are not parts of God's
Revelation, or of the old Creeds, but belong to that
Theology of Consciousness which modern enlightenment
would substitute for the Theology of the Bible and of
the Church ; that their rise can be distinctly and his
torically traced to this source ; that the protest on the
part of the conscience against them in other days, has
been a confession of its own inability to construct a
Theodiceea, a claim that God should remove its con
fusions by reveabng Himself; that the protest of the
conscience against them in our day is of the same kind
and must have the same issue, if it is not unnaturaUy

ORDINARY HISTORY OF ROMANISM. 133
silenced; that Christian theology, as expressed in the
language of the Bible and of the Creeds, construed most
simply, is a' deliverance from these oppressive notions,
and is the only one which has yet been or ever will be
found. 1. The account which I have given of the way in
which different consciousnesses, beginning with the con
sciousness of sin, have worked themselves out into a
scheme, is precisely that which has been given over and
over again by liberal historians, who have wished to
describe the growth of the Romish system. ' Men,' they
have said, ' who were stung with the recollection of evil
' acts, thought they might do something to win the
* favour or avert the wrath of the Divine Being. They
' must make sacrifices, the greatest they could think of,
' or which any could suggest to them, that their sins
' might be forgiven. What sacrifices these should be,
' they could very imperfectly guess ; they must ask
' wiser people to teU them. They found an organized
' hierarchy established for the very purpose of explain-
' ing the relations between the visible and the invisible
' world, and of maintaining the intercourse between
' them. Those who composed it ought to know what
' they should do. And these devised indulgences to
' soothe the pains of the diseased patients, -penances that
' irritated them. At first, the suggestion might be merely
' benevolent, even suitable to the case, grounded on a
' knowledge of the symptoms. Then came in the love

134 NECESSARY LIMITATIONS OF IT.
' of power, with the discovery how much of that (which
' presented itself to the vulgar priest in the form of ma-
' terial riches) might be obtained by catering to the
L cravings of a morbid appetite. If the regular prac-
' titioner did not meet them, popular confessors appear-
' ing in new orders supplied the defects of the original
' system. But neither one nor the other were sufficient.
' The poor offender felt, all confused as he was, that his
' sacrifices could never of themselves move the mind of
' God. He must ask the aid of those who bad prevailed
1 in the fight, in which he.seemed likely to be worsted.
' Saints must be invoked, who would themselves invoke
' the Highest of all, to be merciful. A number of acci-
' dents of time, place, occupation, education, would die*
' tate which should be besought by any particular person.
' The Virgin Mother would be a more general pleader,
' especially for the female suppliants. Those who
' habitually sought her intercession with the Divine
' Son, might hope that His infinite sacrifice would
' remove the sins which they had contracted, after
' the great original sin had been purged away in
' baptism.' Something libe this is the natural history of Roman
ism, past and present, which we find in books not pre
tending to be speciaUy theological, but trying to look
at the subject fairly, from an ordinary human point of
view. To make the statement quite fair, I suppose most
persons would admit, — I, at least, as a very vehement

THE EVIL HOW DETECTED. 135
Protestant, should, — that there is an immense amount
of moral and spiritual influences acting upon those who
are tied and bound in this system, which does not
proceed from it, and is not expressed by it. Romanists
will be found in no ambiguous phrases acknowledging
the love of God and His free grace as the only source
of good human acts, submission to His will as the only
acceptable sacrifice. They wiU make these confessions,
not as if they were conceding something to us, but as
the proper expression of their own faith, as implied in the
very nature of a Catholic church ; they will prove the
sincerity of them by their lives. All such facts are to
be admitted, not reluctantly, not as if it was a shock to
our belief that we were obliged to make them, but with
the most unspeakable delight ; as well for the sake of
those to whom they apply, as because they prove how
utterly the notions which oppose these confessions are
at war with the deepest and truest convictions of men,
how unnatural it is to associate them with any faith.
Multiply proofs of this bind a thousandfold, you increase
the evidence that it is a duty to labour continually that
a cancer may be extirpated, which is eating out the
heart of Christendom, the poisonous quality and deadly
effects of which our most vehement Protestant declaimers
-do not exaggerate, but underrate.
2. Nor can I discover that those declaimers are the least
mistaken in the explanation which they commonly give
of the means whereby this mischief was detected, and by

136 STORY OF LUTHER.
which some were enabled to escape it. They say that
when Luther found out that he was a sinner, when he
knew that fact in the length and breadth of it, — not by the
hearing of the ear, but by his own tremendous expe
rience, — he could no longer be content with any of the
priestly inventions for putting away sin ; that he then
knew that he could only be delivered from it if God de
livered him; that he demanded to know whether He
had proclaimed forgiveness of sin ; whether there was
any sacrifice which He had appointed and accepted?
They say that Luther found the answers to these ques
tions in the Bible : that he was content when he was
told, on its authority, that the Son of God had taken
away sin ; that this might be received and preached to
all men as His Gospel. The person who differs most
with Luther, must accept this as a statement of noto
rious facts ; it is as much acknowledged by Michelet as
by Marheineke, or Merle d'Aubigne*. I accept it also
as being entirely in accordance with internal evidence, —
with the law which I am endeavouring to establish.
Luther's conscience did not make a system. It pro
tested against one which had been made in compliance
with apparent necessities of the conscience. It said
that the real necessity of the conscience was, that God
should speak to it, declare Himself to it, — should pro
claim Himself as its reconciler, should show how and in
whom He had accomplished that work on its behalf.
3. But I admitted that there were grave and earnest

COMPLAINTS OF THE PROTESTANT DOCTRINE. 137
protests against much of what is called our doctrine of
the Atonement. ' You hold,' it is said, ' that God had
' condemned all His creatures to perish, because they
' had broken His law ; that His justice could not be
' satisfied without an infinite punishment.; that that in-
' finite punishment would have visited all men, if Christ
' in His mercy to men had not interposed and offered
' Himself as the substitute for them ; that by enduring
' an inconceivable amount of anguish, He reconciled the
' Father, and made it possible for Him to forgive those
' who would believe. This whole statement/ the ob
jector continues, ' is based on a certain notion of justice.
' It professes to explain, on certain principles of justice,
' what God ought to have done, and what He actually
' has done,. And this notion of justice outrages the con-
' science to which you seem to offer your explanation.
' You often feel that it does. You admit that it is not
' the kind of justice which would be expected of men.
' And then you turn round and ask us what we can know
' of God's justice ; how we can tell that it is of the same
' kind with ours ? After arguing with us, to show the
' necessity of a certain course, you say that the argu-
1 ment is good for nothing ; we are not capable of taking
' it in ! Or else you say that the carnal mind cannot
' understand spiritual ideas. We can only answer, We
' prefer our carnal notion of justice to your spiritual one.
' We can forgive a fellow-creature a wrong done to us,
' without exacting an equivalent for it ; we blame our-

"138 TO WHAT THEY ARE LEADING.
' selves if we do not ; we think we are offending against
' Christ's command, who said, " Be ye merciful as your
' Father in Heaven is merciful," if we do not. We do not
' feel that punishment is a satisfaction to our minds ; we
' are ashamed of ourselves when we consider it is. We
' may suffer a criminal to be punished, but it is that we
' may do him good, or assert a principle. And if that
' is our object, we do not suffer an innocent person to
' prevent the guilty from enduring the consequences of
' his guilt, by taking them upon himself. Are these
' maxims moral, or are the opposing maxims moral ? If
' they are moral, should we, because God is much more
' righteous than we can imagine or understand, suppose
' that His acts are at variance with them ? Should we
' attribute to Him what would be unrighteousness
' in us?'
These questions are asked on all sides of us. Clergy
men are exceedingly anxious to stifle them. ' We
' know,' they say, ' by experience whither such doubts
' are leading. The objector begins with disputing
' some views of the Atonement, which may perhaps be
< extreme. He goes on to deny the doctrine itself; to
' say that it has no place in the scheme of Christianity.
' He knows, however, that his fathers held it to be a
1 vital doctrine. He suspects that it is in the Bible.
' The end is, that he denies the Bible itself.' Such a
conclusion may well startle a good man. He feels that
principles which his experience has proved to be infi-

THE PENITENT. 139
nitely precious are in hazard. He has never visited
the dying bed of a humble penitent who did not cling
to the cross of Christ as her dearest hope, who did not
feel that without His sacrifice and death she could have
no peace. He asks whether he is to rob the poor and
meek of these jewels because certain proud men do not
like the casket which contains them, because they cannot
bring the teachings of the Bible to the level of their
understandings ?
Debates are going on in every corner of our land
suggested by these difficulties. What misery, what
abenation of heart arises from them no one can tell !
On the one side, the consequence of the strife is an
ever increasing hardness and dogmatism blighting all
the fruits of the Spirit ; on the other, a barren hopeless
infidebty. It must then be the most serious of all
duties to labour so far as in us lies that the sound
and deep convictions which evidently are in the heart
of the divine and the moralist may not become utterly
destroyed through their separation, that each should
confess the error which was mingled with that truth in
his mind and is threatening to make it inoperative.
The statement of the clergyman is certainly not exag
gerated, that the best, the humblest, truest hearts are
those which rest with most childlike faith upon the
belief that ' God has reconciled the world unto Himself, not
imputing their trespasses unto them; ' that the death of
Christ is the death of that ' Lamb of God who taketh away

140 THE SIMPLE GOSPEL.
the sins ofthe world.' To tell such persons that no atone
ment has been made between man and God, would be to
tell them that the future is only a perpetual lengthening
out of the anguish of conscience which is and must be
bitterer to them than all other anguish ; that there is an
impassable gulf between them and all truth and right
eousness. What is it to assure them that transgressions
are forgiven by a bare act of amnesty, unless the sin of
the heart and will, the separation from God, which is the
root of these transgressions, is at an end ? How can
you ever persuade them that it is at an end unless God
Himself has removed it ? How can God have removed
a separation unless there is some One in whom we are
bound more closely to Him than our evils have put
us asunder ?
The broad simple Gospel, that God has set forth His
Son as the propitiation for sin, that He has offered
Himself for the sins of the world, meets all the desires
of these heart-stricken sinners. It declares to them the
fulness of God's love, sets forth the Mediator in whom
they are at one with the Father. It brings divine Love
and human suffering into direct and actual union. It
shows Him who is one with God and one with man,
perfectly giving up that self-will which had been the
cause of all men's crimes and all their misery. Here
is indeed a brazen serpent to which one dying from
the bite of the old serpent can look and be healed.
The more that brazen serpent is bfted up, the more

WRATH AGAINST SIN. 141'
may we look for health and renovation to the whole
of humanity, and -to every one of its palsied and
withered bmbs.
I do not deny, that besides these leading convictions
which take possession of the heart as it contemplates the
Cross of Christ, there are others apparently of a dif
ferent kind. Since nowhere is the contrast between
infinite Love and infinite Evil brought before us as it
is there, we have the fullest right to affirm that the
Cross exhibits the wrath of God against sin, and the
endurance of that wrath by the weU-beloved Son. For
wrath against that which is unlovely, is not the counter
acting force to love, but the attribute of it. Without it
love would be a name, and not a reality. And the
endurance of that wrath or punishment by Christ came
from His acknowledging that it proceeded from love,
and His wilbngness that it should not be quenched tiU
it had effected its fuU loving purpose. The endurance of
that wrath was the proof that He bore in the truest and
strictest sense the sins of the world, feeling them with
that anguish with which only a perfectly pure and holy
Being, who is also a perfectly sympathising and gracious
Being, can feel the sins of others. Whatever diminished
his purity, must have diminished his sympathy. Com
plete suffering with sin and for sin is only possible in one
who is completely free from it.
But is the clergyman who preaches this gospel, and
sees the effect of it upon some of his flock, therefore

142 TEST OF THE POPULAR NOTIONS.
bound to adopt, those conclusions respecting the reasons
of Christ's death, which have so shocked the conscience
of the sceptic whom he is condemning? Properly
speaking, his business is simply to proclaim the good
news of reconciliation. Reasons may occur to him
besides those which the Bible gives us. Some may be
plausible, some may be tolerable. But they do not
belong to the essence of his commission. Woe be to
him, if he mistakes the best of them for that which it
tries to account for. Since, however, it is inevitable
that his understanding and imagination will be busy
with this and every other subject divine or human
that he handles, it is very necessary that he should
perceive what conclusions of theirs may contradict the
truth which God has committed to him. For this pur
pose, I would beseech him to observe carefully which
portions of his statements come home to the hearts of the
really humble and contrite — which afford delight and
satisfaction to the conceited, self-righteous, self-exalting
men and women of his flock, who in ease and health
think that they are safe,, because they are condemning
others, who in sickness and on a death-bed discover that
in seeming to bebeve everything, they have actually
believed nothing. This comparison, if it is faithfully
pursued, and never separated from self-examination, will
lead him I believe, to precisely the same result at which
he would arrive by the other method of considering
what is demanded by the principles which Protes-

THE WILL OF GOD. 143
tants and Romanists recognise in common. On this
last subject, I wish to speak a little more at large.
I wish to show that the orthodox faith as it is. expressed
in the Bible and the Creeds, absolutely prevents us from
acquiescing in some of those explanations of the Atone
ment, which both in popular and scholastic teachings
have been identified with it.
1. It is involved in the very method of theology, as
the Bible and the creeds set it forth to us, that the Will
of God should be asserted as the ground of aU that is
right, true, just, gracious. There is no acknowledged
difference of opinion on this point. It would be ac
counted heresy in aU orthodox schools to deny that
the Father sent the Son to be the Saviour of men ; that-
the Father set forth the Son to be the propitiation for
our sins ; that Christ, by his life, proved that God is
light, and, that in Him is no darkness at all. These
declarations of St. John are admitted as fundamental
truths, to which aU others must do homage, which no
other passages can contradict. All I ask is; that we
may hold fast this profession without wavering ; that no
feeble compromiser, may be suffered to come in and say,
'AU this is. true in a sense,' without telling us in what
sense ; and if it is such a sense as clearly is not meant-
to govern aU our thoughts, determinations, conclusions,
he may be dismissed as one who has no business to call
himself an orthodox man.
2. It is admitted in all schools, Romanist and Pro-

144 ESSENCE OF THE SACRIFICE.
testant, which do not dissent from the Creed, that
Christ the Son of God was in heaven and earth, one
with the Father, one in will, purpose, substance ; and
that on earth His whole life was nothing else than an
exhibition of this Will, an entire submission to it.
There is no dispute among orthodox people about this
point, more than about the other. And there is no
dispute as to the principle being a fundamental one,
that on which the very nature of Christ's sacrifice must
depend, as the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews
declares that it does. What we have a right to insist on
is, that no notion or theory shall be allowed to interfere
with this fundamental maxim. If we would adhere to
the faith once delivered to the Saints, we must not dare
to speak of Christ as changing that WiU which He took
flesh and died to fulfil.
3. It is confessed by all orthodox schools, that Christ
was actually the Lord of men, the King of their spirits,
the Source of all the light which ever visited them, the
Person for whom all nations longed as their Head
and Deliverer, the root of righteousness in each man.
The Bible speaks of His being revealed in this cha
racter ; of the mystery which had been hid from ages
and generations being made known by His Incarnation.
If we speak of Christ as taking upon Himself the sins
of men by some artificial substitution, we deny that He
is their actual Representative.
4. The Scripture says, Because the children were

REASONS OF CHRIST'S DEATH. 145
' partakers of flesh and bhod He alsa Himself took part
of the same.' He became subject to death, f that He might
destroy him who had the power of death, that is, the
Devil.' Here are reasons assigned for the Incarnation
and the death of Christ. He shared the sufferings
of those whose head He is. He overcame death, their
common enemy, by submitting to it, He debvered them
from the power of the Devil. All orthodox schools, in
formal language, — tens of thousands of suffering people,
in ordinary human language, — have confessed the force of
the words. Instead of seeking to put Christ at a dis
tance from themselves, by tasking their fancy to con
ceive of sufferings which, at the same moment, are
pronounced inconceivable, they have claimed Him as
entering into their actual miseries, as bearing their
griefs. They have bebeved that He endured death,
because it was theirs, and rose to set them free from it,
because it was an evil accident of their condition, an
effect of disorder, not of God's original order. They
have bebeved that He rescued them out of the power
of an enemy, by yielding to his power, not that He
rescued them out of the hand of God by paying a
penalty to Him. Any notion whatever which inter
feres with this faith ; any explanation of Christ's
sufferings which is put in the place of the Apostle's
explanation, or does not strictly harmonize with it ; far
more any that contradicts it, and leaves us open to the
awful danger of confounding the Evil Spirit with God, —
L

146 REMOVAL OF SIN, SATISFACTION.
we have a right to repudiate as unorthodox, unscriptural,
and audacious.
5. The Scripture says, ' The Lamb of God taketh away
the Sin of the world.' All orthodox teachers repeat the
lesson. They say Christ came to deliver sinners, from
sin. This is what the sinner asks for, Have we a right
to caU ourselves scriptural or orthodox, if we change the
words, and put ' penalty of sin ' for ' sin ; ' if we suppose
that Christ destroyed the connexion between sin and
death, — the one being the necessary wages of the other,
— for the sake of benefiting any individual man what
ever ? If He had, would He have magnified the Law
and made it honourable? Would He not have destroyed
that which He came to fulfil? Those who say the law
must execute itself, must have its penalty, should re
member their own words. How does it execute itself if
a person, against whom it is not directed, interposes to
bear its punishment ?
6. The voice at Christ's baptism said, ' This is my
beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.' Christ said,
' Therefore doth my Father love me, because I lay down
mv We f07" fhe sheep.' All orthodox schools have said,
that a perfectly holy and loving Being can be satisfied
only with a holiness and love corresponding to His own ;
that Christ satisfied the Father by presenting the image
of His own holiness and love, that in His sacrifice and
death, all that holiness and love came forth completely.
There is no dissent upon this point, among those

SUMMARY. 147
who adhere to the Creed. But it cannot be an acci
dental point ; it must belong to the root and essence of
divinity. How, then, can we tolerate for an instant that
notion of God which would represent Him as satisfied
by the punishment of sin, not by the purity and
graciousness of the Son ?
7. Supposing all these principles gathered together;
supposing the Father's wiU to be a will to all good ; —
supposing the Son of God, being one with Him, and
Lord of man, to obey and fulfil in our flesh that will by
entering into the lowest condition into which men had
faUen through their sin; — supposing this Man to be,
for this reason, an object of continual complacency to
His Father, and that complacency to be fully drawn
out by the Death of the Cross; — supposing His Death
-to be a Sacrifice, the only complete sacrifice ever offered,
the entire surrender of the whole spirit and body to
God; is not this, in the highest sense, Atonement? Is
not the true, sinless root of Humanity revealed ; is not
God in Him reconciled to man ? Is not the Cross the
meeting point between man and man, between man and
God ? Is not this meeting point what men, in all times
and places, have been seeking for ? Did any find it till
God declared it ? And are not we bringing our under
standings to the foot of this Cross, when we solemnly
abjure all schemes and statements, however sanctioned
by the arguments of divines, however plausible as hn-
plements of declamation, which prevent us from beheving

148 NO APPROACH TO UNITARIANISM.
and proclaiming that in it all the wisdom and truth and
glory of God were manifested to the creature ; that in it
man is presented as a holy and acceptable sacrifice to
the Creator?
' I am not nearer, then, to Unitarians, because I have
* joined them in repudiating certain opinions which they,
' and many of us, have supposed inseparable from the
' doctrine of the Atonement ? ' Not nearer to them, cer
tainly, in any one of their negative conclusions. On
the contrary, I have used the articles in the Creed which
. they most dissent from, as my weapons against the
representations of God, which we agree in thinking
horrible. I have appealed to the Creed, as my protec
tion from dogmas which I have attributed to the active
workings of the consciousness and the intellect ; one or
other of which they are generally inclined to deify. Nor
can I help further offending them by saying, that the
tenacity with which my orthodox brethren have main
tained notions, at variance, as I think, with their inmost
faith, has been owing in great measure to their Unitarian
Opponents. They have heard the faith and the opinions
assailed together ; they have supposed that there must
be an intimate connexion between them; they have
feared to ask whether there is or not. Men of the Evan
gelical school, who did not bke Archbishop Magee's
book, because they found nothing in it which responded
tp the witness of their hearts, yet accepted it on the

UNITARIANISM AND UNITARIANS. 149
poor calculation that it was a learned book, and might
defend what they were pleased to call the outworks of
the faith. Men of the Patristic school, who knew how
little it accorded with the divinity they most admired,
yet argued, oeconomically, that it might serve the purposes
of such an age as ours is, and might confute objectors
who did hot deserve to be acquainted with any higher
truth. I acknowledge the dishonesty and faithlessness
of both decisions; I feel most deeply the mischiefs
which have foUowed from both ; but I see how much
there was to make them plausible. I believe it is only
a peculiar discipline, and some very painful experience*
which has led me to abandon them, and to say boldly,
' I must give up Archbishop Magee, for I am determined
' to keep that which makes the Atonement precious to
' my heart and conscience ; to keep the theology of the -
' Creeds and of the Bible.'
But though I should be dishonest if I pretended that
I was approximating a step nearer to Unitarianism,
because these seemingly impassable barriers are re
moved, I do think that they have separated us from
the hearts and reasons of Unitarians most unnecessarily
and mischievously. When the Atonement is defended
as an opinion of ours which they are setting at nought,
as a conception respecting the method of God's govern
ment, and the reasons of His conduct, which they are
disputing, the indignation against them becomes greater,

150 EFFECT OF BELIEVING THE ATONEMENT.
because the question at issue becomes more involved
with our personal credit, ingenuity, security. We are
on one side, they are on the other ; the assurance that
the divine Atonement is infinitely wonderful, mixes
with a consciousness that we are making it petty by
our mode of fighting for it. We revenge ourselves for
the painful contradiction by increased violence, hoping
so to convince ourselves that we are in earnest. When
the Atonement is contemplated as the ground of a
'Gospel to men, — when I dare to say, God so loved the
world as to give His only-begotten Son for it, — how
closely does that bebef bind me to Unitarians, of every
class and hue ! They may build their theology upon
certain deductions of the intellect, or upon certain indi
vidual consciousnesses.; mine rests on the Eternal Love,
which overlooks all distinctions, which embraces the
universe. They may glorify this or that material — this
or that spiritual — notion and conception. I am bound
to acknowledge a Son of God, who is the Lord of their
spirits and souls and bodies as He is of mine, who took
their nature as He did mine, who died upon the cross
for them as He did for me. They may argue about the
degree of sin in. one or another of us ; I am bound to
think that I am as much a sinner as any of them can
be, and that Christ is the Lamb of God who took away
the sin of the world. They may think there is some
other way to the Father than through the cross of the

EFFECT OF BELIEVING THE ATONEMENT. 151
Son; I must confess that there, He is as willing to meet
and bless every one of them, as He can be to meet and
bless me. I can only hope to know Him while I seek
Him in One who perfectly humbled himself; what a
be and a blasphemy to exalt myself on the plea of
possessing that knowledge !

ESSAY VIII.
THE RESURRECTION OF THE SON OF GOD FROM DEATH,
THE GRAVE, AND HELL.
In the last Essay I spoke of the Death of Christ
as it is connected with the Christian idea of Sacrifice
and Atonement. But all people who know the tenden
cies of this age, and who know themselves, are aware
how much more easy it is to contemplate this or any
event recorded in the Scripture, as an idea, than as
a fact. There are many who acknowledge the Death
and Resurrection of Christ, in what they call a spiritual
sense, to whom the plain words of the Creed, ' He was
dead and buried, He descended into Hell, the third day
He rose again from ihe dead,' are merely words which
they repeat because they have repeated them from child
hood. Numbers more hold those words to be the relics
of an effete superstition, out of which the world has
extracted whatever good there was in it, and which
may now be left to crumble. I wish to inquire whether
the spiritual men, or these words of the Creed, meet the
demands of the human heart best ; whether these words,

The last enemy. 153
or those who cast them aside, are most favourers of
Superstition. 1. St. Paul says : ' The last enemy which shall be
destroyed is Death.'1 Strauss, being at issue with him
on most other points, appears to have reached the climax
of opposition upon this. He says : ' The last enemy
' which shaU be destroyed is the belief of man in his own
' immortality.' Some may suppose that he has merely
uttered an audacious paradox, for the sake of startling
us, and showing us how far his vehemence against our
ordinary faith will go. I do not think so, If we ques
tion our own minds honestly, we may find that there bave
been many hours, days, weeks, perhaps years, in which
we have practically yielded assent to his proposition.
' If I could get rid of this sense of immortality, if I
* could convince myself that my years would be rounded
"¦ with a sleep, if I could be sure that there would be no
* dreams in that sleep, — what freedom I should possess !
'how I should be able to enjoy the threescore years,
e or the thirty or twenty years, which are allotted ine
' here ! ' Surely the modem teacher has a large body of
unconfessing, unconscious disciples ; he must have known
that he was the spokesman for thousands, whom some
fear withheld from expressing their own feelings. And
have I not been obliged to confess in former Essays, that
there is a justification for these feebngs ? Cannot num
bers tell of sad effects which the dread of the world to
come. has produced upon their conduct to other men,

154 DREAD OF IMMORTALITY.
upon their judgment of the beautiful world in which
God has placed them, upon their thoughts of God Him
self? Have they not been cold, hard, selfish, whenever
their minds have been occupied with the one problem,
how they may avert the doom which they fear is await
ing them hereafter? Have they not almost cursed the
trees and flowers, the new birth of spring, the songs of
birds, the faces of children, as if they were mockeries, —
witnesses of some present life with which they cannot
safely sympathise ? Has not the vision of God been one
of darkness and horror ? When they have said, ' Our
Father,' have they not intended one who might destroy
them, and from whom they have wished to be delivered?
Such experiences in themselves, interpret what they
read in history. They see what frightful crimes have
been committed by men for the sake of pleasing or ap
peasing those who may dispose of their future destiny ;
how these crimes have become a part of their moral
system, sanctioned and promoted by those who had ap
parently more insight into the mind of their God or
gods than they have; what poverty and filth, what
neglect of relations, what slavery and cowardice have
been engendered by the notion that the business of
existence here, is to provide for the possibilities of
another existence elsewhere.
Tantum Relligio potuit suadere malorum
has been no unreasonable summary of this evidence. Is
not this summary expressed in another form by the

CAN WE ESCAPE FROM IT? 155
words : ' The enemy to be got rid of, is the sense of
' immortahty ? '
But practical men are driven to ask themselves another
question. How is this sense to be got rid of? How is
this enemy to be destroyed ? No experiments for the
purpose have succeeded yet ; no theories of the universe,
no new arrangements of it. When you have seemingly
extinguished this consciousness, it starts up again ; the
arguments and schemes which were to exclude it, them
selves suggest it and awaken it. And yet there have
been such approximations to the extinction of this feel
ing, as show clearly the only way in which it ever can
be reached. Each one may understand for himself that
the more he cultivates a merely animal existence, the
more he forgets that he was created for anything but to
eat and drink and sleep, the less clear and strong is
this sense of immortality. And if he could stifle all
thoughts that carry him back into past generations, and
onward into those which will be when he has left the
earth; if he could disconnect himself altogether with
family, race, country, social sympathies ; if he could cease
to think of himself as a person, and become merely a
thing, — he might quit himself of this coil; not, I suspect,
till then. As long as everything about him preaches of
permanence and -restoration, as well as of fragility and
decay ; as long as he is obliged to speak of succession
and continuance and order in the universe, and in the
societies of men ; as long as he feels that he can inves-

156 CAN It become merely POLITICAL?
tigate the one, and that he is a living portion of the
other : so long the sense of immortahty will be with
him ; he cannot cast it off. The philosopher to whom
I have alluded, probably supposes that he can substi
tute a political immortality for a personal one ; that he
can teach men to be indifferent about their own con
tinuance after death, by making them think of the
life and endurance of their race. He will find that
the more strongly one sentiment is developed, the
more certain the other is to come forth ; that if one
perishes, the other must perish. For he who heartily
bebeves himself to be the member of a family or
society, for which it is worth while to fight, and tp
perish, has the strongest conviction of his own per
sonality; he cannot separate his bfe from its life; if
it has any being, he must have a being.
But on the other hand, it is most true that a man
may become awfully conscious of his own personahty,
while he is standing apart from all human beings. This
is what I spoke of, in a former Essay, as emphatically
the sense of Sin, the experience of a dark, hopeless
isolation, caused by one's own self, certain to continue
while that continues. And this it is which unites Sin to
Death, which makes it so hard for us to divorce them in
our thoughts. Death, in the obvious aspect of it, is
isolation ; the separation of each creature from its fellow.
The internal dread of it, strictly corresponds to this its
outward manifestation. ' I said, in the cutting off of my

THE SOLITUDE OF DEATH. 157
days, I shall go to the gates of the grave ; I am deprived
of the residue of my days. I shall not see the Lord, even
the Lord, in the land of the living. I shall behold man
no more with the inhabitants of ihe world.' This was
Hezekiah's language ; the most natural language that a
man could utter ; the revelation of the thoughts of innu
merable hearts. He has in himself the sense of immor
tality. It has been nourished by all his faithful acts as
a King, by aU his sympathies with his nation, by all his
efforts to preserve it alive, by all his confidence that
God would uphold it from generation to generation.
Now he is losing sight of all those with whom he has
shared his hopes, his fears, his sorrows. He is losing
sight of the temple of God, of all that has reminded him
of His presence. Where shall he be ? shall he not be
alone? A living creature, but an exile from bving
creatures. No longer in an order ; perhaps in a chaos.
Oh! infinite horror; the horror of absolute solitude!
what can be compared with it ?
The German philosopher, then, has much to say for
himself ; but I think St. Paul has more. The sense of
immortahty is very dreadful, but the terror is not one
which the thought of death relieves us of; the thought
of death awakens it in us, — the nearer we come to death,
the more it faces us. Death, then, is the enemy ; we
must grapple with that if we would overcome the other.
And men do grapple with it. There is a deep convic
tion in their minds, that death is utterly monstrous

158 MEN DO NOT SUBMIT TO DEATH.
anomalous ; something to which they cannot, and should
not, submit. Generations of moralists have done no
thing whatever to enforce the experience of six thousand
years. They go on denouncing the folly of men for
thinking that death is not a necessity, for not yielding
to the necessity ; the heart of man does not heed their
discourses ; their own hearts do not heed them. There
is that in them which rebels against death, which rebels
against it all the more because it is a necessity. Till
you explain what that is, till you justify it, you wiU not
cure it. You may wonder why men are so unreason
able, why they dread death, hate it, defy it, and then
again seem to long for it, to suppose that it is the only
end of their struggle of pain and doubt and despair ; but
you will fall into the same unreasonableness yourself,
you will repeat all these inconsistencies as soon as you
pass from the professor's chair to the couch of actual
suffering. I cannot see that the belief in Christ's death would
be any debverance from these awful perplexities, if that
death were an artificial arrangement for saving us from
a future penalty, while the actual penalty which makes
us tremble is incurred as much as ever. But it is not in
this light that the Cross ever presented itself to a weary,
heavy-laden man. He hears that there is One who has
shared his death and the death of the whole world;
One in whom God delights; One in whom each man
may debght. If this news is believed, the separation of

COMMUNITY IN DEATH. 159
death, that which is indeed its sting, is taken away. It
is now, for the first time, common to the individual man
with his race. He shall not die alone. He shall not
cease to see the Lord, even the Lord in the land of
the living; no, nor man with the inhabitants of the
world. A new and mysterious attraction holds him to
both. Death becomes a bond to them. And it is no
longer a mere necessity. Christ chose it because it is
ours. We can choose it as His more than ours. What
I am saying, has no direct reference to our belief in the
issue of the death. That may be always implicitly
contained in our belief of the death itself. We should
not be satisfied with it if we did not see in it the pledge
of triumph. But Jesus Christ, as the Crucified, has
been an object of rest and comfort to multitudes who
have not consciously dwelt on His resurrection. The
fact is undoubted, and we do not rightly understand
ourselves or our feUow-creatures if we overlook it.
2. Nor are we accurate observers of facts, if we
roughly confound the feelings of men respecting death,
with those which are awakened by the grave. Philo
sophers or divines may classify them together, — for
actual men they are different. ' He is gone,' are the
words by which those who are standing by a bed-side,
declare that the person whom they knew, is not in the
form which they look upon. But that form is sacred,
and awful. It is the witness and pledge that he has
been. They cannot look at it in its stillness and repose,

160 EARTH TO EARTH.
and satisfy themselves with any thoughts of a disem
bodied spirit. In some way or other, they must connect
it with the friend who spoke with them, and cared for
them. And yet the instinct, ' Bury the dead out of our
sight,' is also deep and healthy; there is something
essentiaUy brutal in those people who, like the Tartars,
can bear to leave corpses exposed. We call that which
the earth encloses, that which it devours and assimilates
to itself, ' remains ;' or, ' what is mortal ;' we have a
horror of identifying it with the actual body which was
so precious to us. We shrink from the mummy as from
a weak, irreverent, materialistic experiment to preserve
that which was meant to perish. The earth or ashes
seem to us far better ; we would rather cast the dearest
form into the sea, than give it that horrible, unnatural
kind of endurance. These are true feelings, which are
found strongest in the truest minds ; yet they are
very inexplicable. The body associates itself with any
thoughts we have of personality and immortality ; that
which lies in the earth, or is consumed with the fire, we
naturaUy and inevitably associate with decay, putrefac
tion, destruction. It is easy for superstition to confound
the feelings, and to invest relics with the sacredness
which we must attach to body ; none of its appeals to
the heart have been so successful. But the conscience
bears witness against the confusion, and longs for a
deliverance from it, ' HE was buried.' He, the King
pf men, the true Man, the Son of the Highest, has been

.THE ABYSS OF SPACE. 161
in the grave. He knows its secrets, not as a stranger,
but as an inhabitant. I believe myriads of sorrowers
have found comfort in that conviction, which all their
speculations could not give them, but rather took away.
His burial, they feel, ought to explain that which all
pthers cannot explain. And they do get the explanation
into their hearts, though their understandings may still
be much bewildered.
3. But besides and beyond this narrow house, there
are fields of speculation, in which men have lost them
selves almost from the beginning of the earth until now.
Lord Byron has brought Cain into the Abyss of Space,
Lucifer being his guide, thither. No conception can be
truer. The first murderer must have traversed those
regions; innumerable footsteps have followed his, all
perhaps under the same conduct. A dark, formless
world, in which there is nothing for the eye to dwell
upon, for the heart to embrace, where all is vague
and monstrous, — this may become, this has become, the
habitation of human inteUects, formed in God's image.
We can come into such utter dreariness, because we
are spirits, because we have a home and a Father,
because we can have no rest till we find that home
and that Father, If we were merely children of
earth, we might be satisfied with its pictures and
images; these would be all in aU to us. Being better
than this, we must make a hell for ourselves, if we
pannot find a heaven. Yes,, a hell! the simple language
M

162 MEANING OF HADES.
is the best. I wiU not quarrel about the etymology of
Hades. It may mean the unseen, or the formless. But
the unseen becomes to the bewildered conscience the
formless; the negation of a world, the darkest concep
tion a man can have of that which is without himself.
He brings into it a more terrible darkness, that which
is within himself; the worm of conscience which he
cannot kill, the fire he can never quench. To be de*
bvered from that, is to be delivered from sin. But how
may he be delivered from the imagination to which sin
has imparted its own horror and confusion? What
glimpse of daylight can he discern in the trackless
abyss? ' He descended into Hell.' Mighty words! which
I do not pretend that I can penetrate, or reduce under
any forms of the intellect. If I could, I think they
would be of little worth to me. But I accept them as
news that there is no corner of God's universe over
which His love has not brooded, none over which the
Son of God and the Son of Man has not asserted His
dominion. I claim a right to tell this news to every
peasant and beggar of the land. I may bid him rejoiGe,
and give thanks, and sing merry songs to the God who
made him, because there is nothing created which his
Lord and Master has not redeemed, of which He is not
the King; I may bid him fear nothing around him or
beneath him while he trusts in Him. I may beseech
him to watch continually, lest he should lose his con
fidence in the divine and human Saviour and Conqueror,

THE RESURRECTION. 163
or forget that He has saved and conquered for his
brethren as well as himself. I may teU him that if he
does, he wiU become again the self-seeking, self-wor
shipping, cowardly creature the Devil is always seeking
to make him, and that then he will assuredly faU into
a condition of utter falsehood, in which all real things
will seem to him unreal, and all unreal real; in which
the worm and the fire of conscience will become ever
more and more intolerable.
4. The Gospel narratives of the Resurrection are only
a little longer and more minute than those which record
the fact of Christ's burial. The women go to the
sepulchre, they find the stone rolled away, angels ask
them why they seek the living among the dead. He is
not there, He is risen. They tell Simon Peter. He and
John go to the sepulchre. One stays without, one
looks at the linen cloth and the napkin. They tell it
to the rest. There is wonder and doubt. — This is the
story. What! only this? no greater array of proofs to
secure our assent for that which stands solitary in the
history of the world? No more overpowering testi
monies than that of these women and these fishermen, in
support of an event which is to be the basis of a world-
belief? No! — meditate the fact weU — this is aU. Dib-
gent men, in later times, may have shown, with great
skill, why these fishermen and women were entitled to
credit; why their simplicity and their own doubts con
firm their trustworthiness ; what they endured for their

164 OLD EVIDENCE OF IT.
perseverance in their story, &c. Those to whom the
word of the Resurrection first came, received it simply
as a message which, through whatever feeble voices it
might reach them, must have been sent them from a
Father in Heaven, because no one else knew how much
they wanted it. If they had a Father, if He wished
them to know that they had, this, they felt, must be
His way of telling them. Between them and God there
had been a dark impassable. gulf; if that were not in
some way filled up, they might talk of Him, use His
name in their petitions, dream that He meant them well,
but nothing had actually been done for them ; no one
hope of their hearts had been satisfied, no dread had
been taken away. If there was no person who was
actually one with God and one with man, the gulf
must remain for ever unfilled ; if there was, it was not
incredible that. He had entered into man's death, grave,
Hell ; it was absolutely incredible that He should be
holden of them. Everything such a Being did, must
be actual, not fictitious ; seeming could have no relation
to His nature ; what men knew of suffering and fear He
must have known. But to suppose that His Father forgot
Him, did not own Him, did not claim Him, because He
was exhibiting the fulness of His love, and carrying
out His purposes, would have been a shock to the heart
and reason such as they had never been caUed to undergo
yet. Here was the evidence for the Resurrection ; with
this did the preachers of it subdue the world.

NEW EVIDENCE, 165
And this, I believe, must and will be the evidence of
it in all generations to come, as much as it was in the
first. The testimony will be mighty, because the thing
testified of is that which all men, everywhere, are want
ing, — which some who do not crave for what is pecu
liar and distinguishing, who must have that which is
human, are taught by many hard processes that they
want. But though I hold this evidence to be the
highest, and to be that which all other kinds of it only
serve to corroborate, I am convinced that the expe
rience of eighteen centuries, — our experience especially of
the confusions and contradictions into which churchmen
and church doctors have fallen respecting the state of
men here and hereafter, the experience that is appealed
to as conclusive against our Creed, — illustrates the
words I have been speaking of in this Essay, as they
could not have been ulustrated in the first ages,
1. We speak continually of death as the separation
of the soul from the body. If we try to give ourselves
an account of what we mean by Soul and Body, we
should say, I suppose, roughly, that the soul is that
with which we think ; the body that which moves from
place to place, and to which certain organs of sense
belong. If this be so, how little does our language
correspond to the fact which it tries to describe ! Death,
so far as we can judge from any of the phenomena it
presents to us, affects the powers of thinking, of motion,
of sensation, equally ; our natural impression would be,

166 SOUL AND BODY.
that whatever influence it produces on one, it produces
also on the other. But that strange ' sense of immor
tality' which the benevolent German is so eager to
extinguish, would not allow people to follow this con-
elusion of nature ; something, they said, must survive.
The soul would go to Hades ; the hero himself would be
a prey to the birds and dogs. We have adopted the
language very nearly; often we adopt it altogether^
even though we have a confused impression that the
soul has more to do with the hero himself, and the body
with that which the dogs or birds devour. But when
that conviction has thoroughly taken possession of a
man, when his ' sense of immortality' has begun to
express itself in the only language which can express it,
and he says, ' I shall survive, / cannot perish ! ' then,
first, all that horror which Strauss would deliver us from
is awakened ; then, secondly, it becomes impossible for
the man to divide his soul from that which has been,
during all his experience of it, its yoke-fellow. If he
has cultivated his powers of reflection, and has studied
the forms of language, he may learn graduaUy to find
that the names which have stood so distinct in men's
discourses, have distinct realities answering to them.
But he will not aUow his imperfect psychology to
interfere with the witness of his conscience — that he,
who uses equally the powers of thought and the powers
of motion and sensation which have been entrusted
to him, is responsible for both ; — that, however they

Christ's soul poured out to death. 167 ¦
may be divided or united, they are both' intimately
attached to his personality.
If, then, there comes upon him a much stronger sense
of his connexion with deeds done in the body than he
had while he was drawing those artificial lines, and also
a much stronger conviction of the dignity and sacredness
of the body than those can entertain who would sepa
rate it from the soul, — the marvel of death, which seems
to extinguish soul as well as body, and yet which he
can neither hope nor fear will extinguish him, presents
itself under a new aspect. He must have a solution of
it. The solution must be one which does not hide any
part of the fact, which does not impose a notion upon
him as a substitute for the fact. The Scripture says
plainly, that Christ poured out His soul, as well as His
body, to death. The description of His agony and cru
cifixion has been received by those who have bebeved it,
practicaUy, if not in name, as the history of the death of
a soul as well as of a body. Those who have wished to
represent His death as different from all others, for the
sake of enhancing its worth, have dwelt upon this as
its most wonderful characteristic. To me it seems the
most wonderful, because from it I am able to learn what
other deaths are, — what the death of man is. Christ
gave up all that was His own, — He gave Himself to
His Father. He disclaimed any life which did not
belong to Him in virtue of His union with the Eternal
God. It is our privilege to disclaim any life which

168 RELICS.
does not belong to us in virtue of our union with Him,
This would be an obvious truth, if we were indeed
created and constituted in Him, — if He was the root of
Pur humanity. We should not then have any occasion
to ask how mUch perishes or survives in the hour of
death. We should assume that all must perish, to the
end that all may survive.
2. Such a conclusion would go far, I think, to help
us through that terrible perplexity, into which I said we
all fell, respecting the body and that which we commit
to the ground. As long as we suppose the mystery of
death to be the division of soul and body, so long we
must cling, with a deep love, to those remains which
yet we are forced to regard with a kind of loathing.
We shall be ready to believe stories of miracles wrought
by them, we shall be half inclined to worship them,
Or if we reject this temptation, — because Romanists have
fallen into it, and we think it must therefore be shunned,
— we shall take our own Protestant way of asserting
the sanctity of relics, by^maintaining that at a certain
day they will all be gathered together, and that the very
body to which they once belonged will be re-constructed
out of them. That immense demand is made upon our
faith, — a demand in comparison of which all notions of
cures wrought at tombs fade into nothing, — by divines
who would yet shrink instinctively from saying that
what they call a living body here, is a mere congeries of
particles, — who would denounce any man as a mate*

CORRUPTION INHERITING INCORRUPTION. 169
rialist if he said that, This demand is made upon us by
divines, who use as a text-book of Christian evidences
' Butler's Analogy,' the ground chapter of which, ' On
the Future State,' is based on the argument that there
is no proof that death destroys any of our living powers,
• — those of the body more than those of the soul ; — and
which distinctly calls our attention to the fact, that
ordinary attrition may destroy the particles of which
the matter of our bodies consists, more than once in the
course of a life ; so that nothing can be inferred from
our depositing the whole of that matter at the moment
of dissolution. This demand is made upon our faith by
divines, who read to every mourner as he goes with
them to the grave of a friend, that corruption cannot
inherit incorruption ; that flesh and blood cannot inherit
the kingdom of God,
But though I speak of this opinion as ' a demand
upon our faith,' I hold it to be the fruit of our unbelief,
If we did attach any meaning to that expression upon
which St. Peter at Jerusalem, St. Paul at Antioch,
dwelt so earnestly, that Christ's body saw no corrup
tion ; if we did believe that He who was without sin
showed forth to us in Himself what is the true normal
condition of humanity, and showed forth in that body
of His what the human body is, — we should not dare,
I think, any longer to make the corrupt, degrading,
shameful accidents which necessarily belong to that
body in each one of us, because we have sinned;

170 IDENTITY OF THE BODY.
the rule by which we judge of it here: how much
less should we suppose these to be the elements out of
which its high, and restored, and spiritual estate can
ever be fashioned ?
It is impossible not to perceive, under this notion of
a resurrection of relics, — of that corruption which our
Lord did not see, — a very deep conviction that the body
of our humiliation must be identical with the body re
deemed and renewed. This conviction is so rooted in the
heart, that if will absolutely force nature, fact, Scripture,
everything, into accordance with it. I must be, in all
respects, the same person that I was before I put off my
tabernacle; therefore these elements, which were once
attached to my body, must come from all the ends of the
earth to constitute it. What a witness for the reality
of a belief, that it can sustain such a contradiction as
this rather than cease to exist ! All through my life on
earth, soul and body are groaning together under a
weight of decay and mortality,- — are crying for deliver
ance from it. An hour comes which seems to say that
their emancipation has taken place; that these Adam
conditions belong no more to the man ; that as to them
he is utterly dead. The preacher of God's Gospel
runs about saying, ' Oh, no ! it is a mistake ! These
' witnesses of the fall, — these pledges of pain and shame,
' from which fever, consumption, cholera, after days or
' years of suffering, have at last set your friend free, —
' belong to him inseparably, necessarily, eternally. They

DEATH IN ADAM, LIFE IN CHRIST. 171
' are that body, the most curious, wonderful, glorious,
' of God's works ; they are not, as your consciences tell
' you, as the Scripture tells you, the proofs that this
' wonderful fabric has suffered a monstrous and cruel
' outrage ; that it needs a deliverer to raise it and renew
'it.' A strange Gospel, one would think ! And yet one
which men receive, which they will continue to receive
and hold, rather than think that they are to perish, or
that they are to have merely a visionary soul-life.
1 As in Adam all die, so in Christ shall all be made
alive.' This is St. Paul's broad statement in that
passage of his writings which deals specially and for
maUy with this subject. It is in strict accordance with
all his other doctrine. Christ is the Lord of Man, the
Life-giver of Man, the True Man ; Adam is the root of
his individuabty, of his disease, of his death. All is
strictly in order. Death has its accomplishment : the
Adam dies, and is buried, and sees cormption ; Christ
gives Himself to death, and sees no corruption. If a
man has an Adam nature and is also related by a
higher and closer affinity to Christ, — is the effect of that
union that he shall be redeemed, body and soul, out of
the corruption which is deposited in the grave, or that it
shall be his future, as it has been his past, inheritance ?
But has not St. Paul spoken of a change to take
place in the twinkling of an eye ? and has he not con
nected this with the last trump ? I hope, at some other
time, to examine the whole of this great chapter, and to

172 THE twinkling of an eye.
see what it actuaUy reveals to us, But I cannot refuse
even here to meet this special objection, it is for many
reasons so practically important.
If, then, there was no aUusion to that last tramp of the
Archangel in this sentence, I do not think we should any
of us have hesitated to believe that St. Paul, in strict
conformity with all his teaching respecting our death in
Adam, and our bfe in Christ, was unfolding the mystery^
— so deep, so necessary to all, so contrary to all the
notions of the Corinthians, — that men, instead bf sleep
ing in their graves, would be changed in a moment, in
the twinkling of an eye. And I believe no one could
have hesitated in any particular case to have applied
the words. Nay, I do not find that men hesitate, even
with their customary notions and opinions, to apply
them now. As they watch the last breath departing
from a dear friend, they seize the language, they feel
they have a right to it. They say, ' A moment ago he
' was mortal, and now he is free ! It has been but the
' twinkling of an eye, and what a change has come ! '
Such are the unconscious utterances of men's faith and
hope, grounded, as they surely think, and, as I am con
vinced they have a right to think, on St. Paul's words.
Nor does the thought then disturb them, that there is
a want of identity between him that has been and him
that is. Though the decaying, agonized frame is lying
Calm and at rest, they do not then doubt that he who
spoke tp them a few moments before, did not derive his

THE LAST TRUMP. 173
powers of speech, any more than the celestial smile
which still remains on the clay, from that clay. Faith
and reason, however crashed and confounded, are too
strong, in that hour of reality, for a notion so cold and
so inhuman.
' But the trump ofthe Archangel! that seems to put all
8 belief of a resurrection of the body to an inconceivable
' distance, and to make the hypothesis, which identifies it
' with a resurrection of remains, after all, the only scrip-
' tural one.' And this opinion becomes so intertwined
with the expectation of a great future judgment of the
just and the unjust, and therefore with all the most
sacred moral principles, that we may well tremble when
we encounter it. If I did not feel that morality, and
godliness, and the practical belief of a judgment, were
put into the greatest risk by the confusions which we are
tolerating respecting these words, I would gladly pass
them by. But I dare not be silent, because I see what a
mass of unbelief and indifference is congealing in men's
minds under a thin coating of apparent orthodoxy.
I scarcely need ask any Protestant whether the words
' tramp of the .Archangel ' convey to him precisely the
impression which he would derive from the picture of
Michael AngelP. He is likely to answer with, what I
should think, rather excessive and unnecessary indig
nation, that none of his impressions are derived from
pictures ; that he has the greatest horror of their sensu-
abzing effect; that of course he dpes not dream of a

174 pictures.
material trumpet. I do not use this language myself.
I have learnt from pictures, and am willing to learn from
them. I believe I might learn much from this one of
Michael Angelo's, which would do me great good, which
would give strength, distinctness, even depth, to my
own convictions, and to the words of inspiration. But
I accept the statement, from which I am sure no pious
and inteUigent Romanist would for an instant dissent,
that the mere trumpet, whether read of in a book, or seen
in a picture, though it may be helpful to the mind in
delivering it from vagueness, is symbohcal; that to give
it an actual material counterpart, would be gross and
superstitious in the last and lowest degree.
I should scarcely think it necessary to make this re
mark, if I did not perceive painful proofs that our zeal,
— to a great extent, I think, an honest zeal, — against
symbolism, sometimes involves us in a confusion, to
which those who are educated in it, (being thereby, I
allow, exposed to other temptations,) are not equally
subject. We adopt what we suppose is a spiritual sub
stitute for some literal or material representation. We
find we have got only a shadow or phantom. We must
fill up the hollow in our hearts by some means ; and we
unconsciously add on the very driest and most material
conception, to the (so called) spiritual one, as a necessary
support to its feebleness. I could give instances upon
instances of this strange intellectual hocus-pocus; the
neglect of them by divines is, I believe^ contributing

MEANING OF THE TRUMPET. 175
most effectually to the return of Romanist notions and
habits. I do not therefore think it unnecessary to bring
each person who speaks of the Archangel's trumpet dis
tinctly to book, and to make him confess, — though he
may be disposed to shrink from the acknowledgment as
too obvious and humiliating, — that he does not mean
such a trumpet as men play upon ; that he would count
it shockingly irreverent to let the thoughts of such an
instrument dwell in his mind in connexion with such
a subject. But are we then to dismiss the phrase as if it im
ported nothing to us, because we cannot reduce it to
this signification, which would be actually nothing ? I
apprehend that it has the most serious import, and that
the Scriptures tell us what it is. The Prophets of the
Old Testament, in whose ears the trumpet that sounded
loud and long on Sinai was ever repeating its notes,
did not allow their countrymen to rest in the old image.
Every rending of the mountains, every earthquake,
everything which idolaters looked upon as the sign of
the wrath of the tyrant before whom they trembled,
everything that the mere philosopher calls an ordinary
convulsion of nature, was with them an Archangel's
trumpet, declaring that the righteous and everlasting
King was coming forth to punish the earth for its iniqui
ties, and to set truth and judgment in the midst of it.
This was the teaching, — the uniform teaching, — of the
old seers, in whose school St. Paul's mind was formed.

176 JUDGMENT OF NATIONS AND MEN.
Are we to suppose that he had a less comprehensive,
less spiritual idea of the divine method than they had, —
that he deserted them for some more heathenish con
ception? Are we not rather to conclude that he was
carrying out their truth to its highest power ; that what
ever they meant he meant still more perfectly ?
If you ask whether he meant that there would sound
in his own day an Archangel's trumpet, which would call
the nations, — his own first, — into God's judgment, and
that a mighty change in the condition of them all, the
beginning of what may be rightly called a new world,
would follow upon that judgment, I should answer, Un.
doubtedly I think so ; I can put no other construction
upon his language ; and I can put no other construction
upon the facts of history, except that they fulfilled his
language. But if you ask further how he connected
this with the condition of each individual man, who
might or might not be alive at that crisis in the world's
history, I should say, Since he held that in Adam all
die, and that in Christ all are made alive, he of necessity
believed also that a day was at hand for every man,
a day of revelation and discovery, a day which should
show him what bfe was, and what death was ; what his
own true condition, what his false condition was. And
everything which warned a man that such a day was at
hand, which roused him to seek for bght, and to fly
from darkness, was a note of the Archangel's trumpet ;
a voice bidding him awake, that Christ the Lord of his

THE GENERAL AND PARTICULAR JUDGMENT. 177
spirit might give him hght. And in a moment, in
the twinkling of an eye, by a fit of apoplexy, by the
dagger of an assassin, the vesture of mortality which
hides that light from it might drop off from him, and he
might be changed. What had merely sounded to him
here as some common earthly note of preparation for
death, would then be recognised as the Archangel's
trumpet caUing him to account, asking him whether the
light that had been vouchsafed to him, whilst shadows
were still about him, had been faithfully used, or
whether he had loved darkness rather than light, because
his deeds were evil ?
In both these anticipations, — if they are, or can be
separated, — I accept St. Paul and the other Scriptures
as a guide respecting the condition of us who are living
in this later period of the world. I look for a judgment
of Nations and Churches to wind up our age, as he
looked for one to wind up his age. I believe the trumpet
of the Archangel has been sounding in every century of
the modern world, that it is sounding now, and will
sound more clearly before the end comes. But I do
not, for this, aUow myself to doubt that it is sounding
in the ears of each individual man; that a time will
come, when the light wiU burst in upon him, and show
him things as they are ; when he will know that there
is all bfe for him in Christ, and that there is all death in
himself. I cannot persuade myself that the eloquent
words I have heard from preachers, in which this truth
N

178 DISCOURSES OF PREACHERS.
was pressed home upon the consciences of men, in which
they were told how all personal and family visitations
were messages from heaven, trumpets of the Archangel
caUing them to repentance, were merely fine metaphors
which, if possible, were to produce a startling effect, but
which meant nothing. It is indeed ' fiddling while
Rome is burning,' for God's ambassadors to be in
dulging in fine talk about His judgment, which their
congregation are not to take as real. I must sup->
pose that they think such language not metaphorical,
but the translation of metaphors into reality. And if
so, there is nothing in this part of the teaching of
St. Paul, to hinder us from accepting the other part as
a confirmation, not a contradiction, of the inference
which we should draw from the New Testament gene
rally, — that Christ was buried in order that the body
might be claimed as an heir of life ; as redeemed from
corruption. 3. Supposing this to be the doctrine which is involved
in the belief of Christ's descent into the grave, another
enormous weight would be taken from the human spirit,
¦—a weight which the heart and the understanding have
been equally unable to bear. We are told to believe
in a place of disembodied spirits. According to all the
maxims which we ordinarily recognise, place appertains
to body ; it is only of body that you can predicate it,
And this logical principle, so far from being at variance
with our higher instincts, entirely accords with them»

DISEMBODIED SPIRITS. 179
People talk of their friends as disembodied.. When
they think of them, they are obliged to suppose them
clothed with bodies. They admit the necessity; it
is part, they say, of their weakness. They ought to
feel otherwise, They ought to compel themselves to
imagine that which they cannot imagine ; that which
they do only imagine at the peril of a direct contradic
tion ! ' But Scripture demands it.' How, and where ?
It speaks of the bodies of saints coming forth, and
showing themselves after the Resurrection. It speaks of
Moses and Elias appearing to the disciples, It records
acts of our Lord on earth, by which bodies are recalled
from the unseen region into ours. ' Oh ! but these are
exceptions,' Exactly ; and Scripture presents nothing
but exceptions to your theory. If, however, I accept
the Scriptures as teaching me laws by instances, and so
correcting my theories, and dispossessing me of them,
I think I am at least as much bowing my neck to its
authority as you are, even though the result may be
that I am not obliged to force my conscience or my
intellect into an impossible position.
' But are we not, then, to believe in a Hades ? ' It
was not a duty, but a terrible necessity, which led men
of the old world to speak of Hades. They did not
believe in it ; there was nothing to believe. The void
beyond the grave had never been entered; they could
do nothing but mark it down in their charts by some
name which left an impression of its vague, inaccessible

180 THE GENTILE AND JEWISH HADES.
character. But the heart was so impatient of the void,
that ^11 earthly forms and pictures must be thrown into
it, if, perhaps, it might be filled. It cannot beaU
Stygian darkness ; there may be verdant meadows here
and there, scattered in the midst of the desolation ; the
forms of human justice must be there ; __Eacus and Rha-
damanthus will decide which of the shadows that pass
by them shall be consigned to the better, which to the
more hateful, region. The Jew, taught in the law of his
fathers, dared not let his fancy indulge in such crea
tions. There was no Elysium in his Hades. He fled
from the frightful vision of mere death and darkness,
to trust in the living God. The dead he was sure
could not praise Him : if God had been his hope and
deliverer all through his pilgrimage, He would not
desert him at last. He would not leave his soul in
Hades, nor suffer that which had been holy in His eyes
to see corruption. Yet the fact of corruption was before
his eyes ; the grave did receive its ¦victim ; the worms
did gnaw upon him. Was this confusion to last for
ever ? I believe that the words, ' His soul was not
left in Hades; His body did not see corruption,' are a
removal of it, once and for ever. I have no right to
speak again of an unvisited, trackless region beyond the
grave ; I have no right to people that region with forms
of my fancy. Elysium and Stygian pools have vanished ;
I have no right to call them into existence again. I
have no right to accept the darkness which haunted the

THE EARTH A PLACE OF SPIRITS. 181
minds of patriarchs and prophets, and in which they
believed it was a sin to dwell, as if it were intended
for us.
' But we mean by Hades, a place of Spirits ; do not
' you bebeve in that?' Certainly, I believe in a place
where Spirits dwell. This earth is such a place ; we,
who dwell in it are spirits. There may be a multitude
more dwelhng in it, who have cast off their conditions of
mortabty, or who have never been subject to such condi
tions ; I do not know ; there is nothing to oppose such a
belief,— much, perhaps, to encourage it. As the butter
fly in its free flight may drop upon the leaf or flower,
and taste its sweets, on which it fed as a caterpillar, or
in which it lay wrapped as a chrysalis, so those who
could just see the glories of the earth through its decay,
and were sometimes so entranced by them as to forget
their own greatness and their Father's house, may now
enter fully and safely into the beauty which overpowered
them, and make it the occasion for thanksgiving, or
may be instruments in leading us to an apprehension of
it. There may be many more places for Spirits in those
innumerable worlds which the Astronomer is discover
ing to us, and which we shall delight in and wonder at
the more, as we become more convinced that they are
God's worlds, and that not one of them can have been
made without Him who is the Light of men. The
question is, whether, above and beyond all these, I
must invent a place which my senses do not tell me of,

182 The spirits in prison.
which Science does not open to me, — not for spirits;
but for shadows ; and must use the language of Scrip
ture which, apparently, is meant to deliver me from.
Such a dreary necessity, as the excuse for it.
1 But Christ went and preached to the spirits in
' prison.' I rejoice to believe it. I do not, indeed, knowj
more than St. Augustine did, to what age or place that
preaching is to be referred ; I may think with him, that
the words of St. Peter, literally taken, point more to the
time of Noah than to a later time. But be that as it
may, I thank God that Christendom, even in some of
those traditions wherein there has been most of vague
ness and fancy, has borne witness to the fact that Christ
is the Lord of all spirits, who have lived , in all times,
and that He is the great deliverer of spirits. I thank
God that men have been sure that there was a justifica
tion for that faith in Scripture, whether it is to be found
in the particular texts to which they appealed, or not,
But how that preaching to spirits in prison warrants me
in building a prison for them, which, according to no
laws that the Scripture teaches us about spirits, could
hold them,— a place for the disembodied, — I have yet to
be informed.
( But, your language, pushed to its consequences, might
' prove that there is no Heaven and no Hell.' Forgive
me ; that is the very consequence which I dread from
the perplexity into which you have led us. I believe
that Christ came into the world expressly to reveal the

HEAVEN AND HELL. 183
kingdom of Heaven, and to bring us into it. He and
His Apostles speak of it as the kingdom of righteous
ness, peace, joy in the Holy Ghost. They present
Righteousness, Love, Truth, to us as substantial reali
ties, as the Nature of the Living and Eternal God ;
manifested in the Only-begotten Son ; inherited by all
who claim to be made in His image. And since they
reveal Heaven to us, they of necessity make known Hell
also, The want of Righteousness, Truth, Love, the
state which is contrary to these, is and must be Hell.
' Mystical ! mystical ! States, not places ! So we
' expected.' A danger to be feared ; and one to be care
fully avoided. I have tried to avoid it, by saying that
I know of no place for disembodied spirits. I cannot
understand how men realise a state except in some place,
I do not try to understand it, I find some spirits in
different places of this earth very miserable, and others
in a certain degree of blessedness. I do not find that
the place in which they are, makes the difference. The
most fertile and beautiful may be the most accursed ; the
naturally sterile may be more desirable. I should con
clude from these observations, if I had nothing else to
guide me, that the moral and spiritual condition of the
inhabitants is the means of making a heaven or a hell
of this earth. Scripture sustains this conclusion. All
it teUs me of the kingdom of Heaven, shows me that
man must anywhere be blessed, if he has the knowledge
of God and is living as His wilbng subject ; everywhere

184 god's laws the same everywhere.
accursed, if he is ignorant of God and at war with
Him. This, I have a right to say, I know. And if I
believe God's revelation of His Son, I may know a little
more. I may be sure that death,— as Butler maintains
from analogy, — does not change the substance of the
human . creature, or any of its powers or moral con
ditions, but only removes that which had crushed its
substance, checked the exercise of its powers, kept its
moral conditions out of sight. I may. conclude, even if
Christ did not tell me so expressly in all His parables,
that the laws of God's kingdom in its different regions
are not different ; that one must explain the other ; that
everywhere to know God, and work for God and with
God, to help His creatures, to cry and labour for the
extirpation of evil, must be the good of spirits formed in
God's image; that everywhere sympathy, fellowship,
affection, must be the condition of right human exist
ence ; selfishness, its plague and contradiction. I can
not bebeve the good anywhere, in any creatures, to have
reached its climax, because the Scriptures and reason
teach me that there must be a perpetual growth in the
knowledge of God, and in the power of serving Him.
And as long as there is any evil in the universe, I must
suppose, seeing that God and His Son desire its over
throw, that good spirits also desire its overthrow. Fur
ther than this I dare not go. And this, it seems to me,
should be enough to make our zeal in proclaiming the
Gospel of men's deliverance from evil, and death, and

I AM THE RESURRECTION. 185
hell, very strong and vehement, and in exhorting our
brethren not to reject so great a salvation ; seeing that
left to ourselves, without a Redeemer and a Father,
there must be a continual descent into a lower depth.
It cannot signify much to riie, or any man, whether I
call that depth Hades or Gehenna. To me the Hades
becomes a Gehenna, because my own self becomes one,
if I cannot be raised out of myself, and brought into
sympathy with God's order, and God's love.
4.. When Jesus said to Martha, ' Thy brother shall
rise again,' she, taught in the popular school of the time,
answered, ' I know that he shall rise in the resurrection
at ihe last day.' ' Jesus answered,' says St. John, ' /
am the Resurrection and ihe Life; he that believeth in
me, though he were dead, yet shall he live. And who
soever liveth and believeth in me shall never die.' It
seems to me sometimes, in low and desponding moods,
that in the nineteenth century of the Christian Church,
we have got back to Martha's point of view, — that we
believe just what the Pharisees had instructed her to be
lieve ; — that the glorious mystery implied in the words
by which our Lord raised her out of that condition of
mind, and in the act which confirmed them, has perished
out of the circle of our convictions. But I am sure this is
not so, and that it only seems to be so, because we judge
of the inward bebef of human beings, — of that deep and
secret wisdom which they receive from above, — by the
hard and formal propositions which they have caught

186 THE RESURRECTION ACCORDING TO UNITARIANS,
from us, and have probably misunderstood. This dis
tinction, — which I find it more and more necessary to
keep in mind respecting ourselves, that I may feel our
sins, and God's mercy, — is also a great comfort in
thinking of Unitarians. To me, nothing sounds harder
and colder than their mode of talking about Christ's
Resurrection. In old times they clung to the belief with
great tenacity ; it was the main article of their faith.
The Resurrection, they said, proved the truth of im-
Jnortality, which phUosophers had always disputed. It
proved also the truth of the Christian religion. Appa
rently the translation of the first statement is, that a
Stupendous violation of aU the laws and principles of
the universe was divinely ordained, to convince men of
a truth which they had never been able to forget ; which
had haunted them, and given birth to the most frightful
Superstitions ; from which the most modern wisdom hopes
that we may at last be rescued. As to the second reason,
a man is compelled to ask, * And what is the rebgion
f which this stupendous anomaly is to establish ? ' for it
cannot itself be the religion ; it is described as a means
to an end; a mere mode of demonstration. Is it to
fihow that certain great moral maxims are sound and
true, which would commend themselves to the conscience
without any such evidence, and which cannot be obeyed
at all the more, if it were multiplied a thousandfold?
Both these difficulties would seem to have been in
creased greatly, by the perseverance with which Priestley

Priestley's faith, 18?
and the earlier Unitarians maintained the simplest mate-
riabsm, denying the existence of a soul, and holding that
the body slept till some distant Resurrection-day, And
yet I am sure that the faith of these Unitarians in the
Resurrection was often most strong, most energetic. It
bore them through many outward difficulties, made them
ready to encounter popular indignation and contumely,
saved them from the temptation, — which must have been
often great, as the correspondence between Gibbon and
Priestley shows, — to cast in their lot with the accom
plished infidels, who respected them for their knowledge
of physics, and despised them for their want of boldness
in not wholly repudiating the supernatural. A bebef
which could bear these fruits, I at least feel that I have
no right to speak slightingly of; nor do I discover that
I have what German doctors call ' a theological interest '
in undervaluing it. I rather think, that if I were
thoroughly rooted in the principles which I have en
deavoured to assert in this and the foregoing Essays, I
should give thanks for these signs and witnesses that
Christ is with those who seem to speak most sbghtingly
of Him, testifying to them that He is risen indeed, and
that they have a life in Him which no speculations or
denials of theirs have been able to rob them of, even as
we have a life in Him, which our sins often hinder us
from acknowledging, but cannot quench. Since, how
ever, it is evident that the younger Unitarians cannot
retain the ground which their fathers held; since they

188

CONCLUSION.

must either give up all bebef in the fact of the Resur
rection, or find some divine basis for it, which was npt
perceived by them, — I do very earnestly ask them to
reflect upon the deeds and words on which I have been
trying to comment, and not to let the theories of my
brethren, or mine, hinder them from uniting with us in
a confession which existed before all these theories, and
wiU live when they have perished.

ESSAY IX.
ON JUSTIFICATION BY FAITH.
Whenever such broad statements are put forward as
those which I have endeavoured to defend in my last four
Essays, — that Christ is the Lord of man ; that He took
the nature of man; that He reconciled man and God by
the sacrifice of Himself ; that He rose again, as the Re
deemer of man, from death, the grave, and hell, — there
arises in our minds a fear which is both natural and
righteous. Does not such language overlook the notPrious
fact, that good and evil men are mixed together in this
world, — that the evil far outnumber the good ? Does it
not break down moral distinctions, which it is our first
duty to preserve? Does it not practically deny that
God approves the just and condemns the wicked ?
No one should be weary of answering these objections,
or should complain because they rise up again and again
after he fancies that he has disposed of them. Though
the whole purpose of his argument may have been to
show how essentiaUy and eternally opposed Good and
Evil are, how impossible it is that they ever can blend

190 HOW TO SEPARATE THE GOOD AND BAD.
together; what, according to God's revelation of Himself,
He has done and is doing to separate them, — he must
not be the least grieved if he should be met at last with
the observation, ' What you talk about the redemption of
' mankind, means nothing after all. It is a mere dogma
' or technicality, with which those who are not in contact
' with the actual world may amuse themselves. We who
' are, know that, instead of identifying ourselves with
' the mass of the creatures around us, we must learn how
* we may become most entirely unlike them, or we never
' shall be like Him who you say is perfectly Good and
' True.' Such words, even though they may be uttered
in a very contemptuous tone, would not excite any dis-«
pleasure in us, if our own minds were in a right and
healthy state. We should welcome them as signs that
the speaker had an honest and deep conviction which he
will not part with, and which must be thoroughly satis
fied before he takes in any other. And it is the less
excusable to manifest any irritation when we are the
subjects of this kind of animadversion, because we
know, or ought .to know, that this difficulty, in one
shape or other, has given occupation to every age of
the Christian Church ; that it has been no sooner over
come by a mighty effort in one direction, than it has
reappeared in another; that it has, therefore, all the
tokens of being a practical human difficulty, and one of
so grave a kind, that people have been compelled to seek
an explanation of it ; and that when they have sought,

LINE OF DEMARCATION ; BAPTISM. 191
they have found. The past experiences of the world,
in this and in all cases, are not warrants for discourage
ment ; if we use them faithfully, they are full of hope.
1. The Church, after the days of the Apostles, was
no longer contending chiefly with Jewish sects, which
claimed to be portions of the one divine nation. It
was in the midst of a huge empire which hated it, and
with the principles of which it was at war. Its members
must carefully distinguish themselves from those among
whom they dwelt, with whom they trafficked, who were
under the same protection or tyranny. Baptism was
the sign of their fellowship. Baptism must separate
the churchman from the common earthly man. It could
not merely denote an outward contrast. The new dis
pensation had penetrated, below the surface to the roots
of things, Baptism must import the most inward puri
fication, the removal of that common evil which all men
had inherited from Adam. * Then,' it was argued, ' he
4 who wants this, is necessarily lying under that common
* evil ; he can be looked upon only as a natural creature.'
There were innumerable checks and counteractions to
this opinion, It was incompatible with the interest
which the more spiritual of the Fathers felt in the
inquiries of Gentile philosophers, as bearing upon aU
the deepest mysteries of the Gospel ; it was still more
obviously incompatible with the view which they took
of their own internal conflicts, before they entered into
the fold of Christ. But it became the formal recognised

192 POST-BAPTISMAL SIN.
school maxim, and it could not be that, without having
the most dbect influence upon practice. The influence
was felt more bitterly and painfully within the Church
than without it. Many Christians were found to be
leading as sinful lives as heathens. It could not be
doubted that their responsibilities were greater, and that,
therefore, their sin must be greater. An inference was
speedily deduced from that fact. The blessings of Bap
tism were said to be infinite for those who first received
it. Their sins were blotted out ; they were new crea
tures. But the blessings were exhausted in the act;
Every subsequent step, in the immense majority of cases,
perhaps in every case, was a step out of purity into evil.
The white robes were soiled ; the divine offering for
sin had been spurned ; pardon could only be hoped for
by continual acts of repentance and mortification.
In this instance, as in the other, the counteracting
influences were most numerous. The Psalms were still
the great book of Church devotion. They spoke of
flying to God as a refuge from all enemies; of sins
being forgiven and iniquities covered ; of God not de
siring sacrifice and offerings. The Creed proclaimed
belief in forgiveness of sin, as part of the ordinary and
necessary faith of a Christian man ; the Lord's Prayer
taught him to say, ' Our Father ; ' the Eucharist was
a continual thanksgiving for a sacrifice offered and
accepted. Still the doctrine of post-baptismal sin had
been proclaimed ; the understanding could not refute it ;

EFFECT OF THE DOCTRINE. 193
the sin-stricken conscience confirmed it ; the natural
inference that it was much safer to defer baptism to the
latest moment was drawn, and, as in the case of the first
Christian emperor, reduced into practice. Constantine
had settled the debates of the Donatists and presided at
a Council concerning the deepest mysteries of the faith,
before he received the rite of initiation. He availed
himself of the delay to murder his son, and to leave
orders for the slaughter of the most conspicuous members
of his family,
If this memorable example of the moral consequences
of the doctrine had been wanting, there was more than
enough in the despair with which it inspired numbers of
those who had received the Sacrament, in the experi
ments to which that despair drove them, in the utter
confusion of their thoughts respecting the character of
God and the services which He required of them, to
startle its most resolute champion. But it continued
to dwell in the minds of good men, because for them it
was, to a great extent, inoperative;, their love for God
and His family, and for the whole world, made any
opinion they held a reason for severity to themselves,
and for tenderness to their brethren. They could not see
any logical escape from this one ; they conspired with
bad men to suggest practices, for curing outward sins or
removing the sores they left in the heart, which strength
ened and deepened it. And thus it seemed as if the
great line which separated the Church from the world
0

194 THE RELIGIOUS AND THE SECULAR.
was one which? could not be wisely passed ; for, by the
Church's confession, the majority of those who were
within it were not better thart the rest of men, and were
exposed to a more dreadful doom-
But if this line was not deep enough, others might be
drawn. One class of baptized men might be allowed to<-
sest contented with an ordinary secular life, — to marry,
rule the household, and do those works which were
considered godly by the patriarchs and prophets, and
which St. Paul commanded the ministers, as well as
the members, of the churches he founded, to perform ;
others might become religious, — might eschew, as far'
as possible, human ties and obligations, and give them
selves to the service of God. Here was another expe
riment for the purpose- of separating the righteous from
the unrighteous; A church was to be set up within
the Church. The whole fellowship was not one of
saints, but it was one which might nurture saints.'
There were two great counteractions to the habit of
mind which this division indicated. The first lay in
the feeling of churchmen that they were meant to rule-
the world, and therefore must take part in all the most'
secular affairs of it, whatever danger there was of de
filement from them. The Second arose from the strange
discovery, that those who were felt and! confessed to be
the truest saintB in virtue of the . influence which they*
exerted, were precisely those who broke down th©
barriers which- had been raised between them and ordi-

EFFECTS OF THE DIVISION. 195
nary people. They ate and drank with publicans and
sinners. They were especially witnesses to the people
of a common Friend and Redeemer, who cared for aU.
But these existing agencies enable us to understand
better the effect of the belief itself on the morality ot
the Church. Its dealings with the ordinary business ot
tib,e world took a particularly cunning, sordid, debasing
form, because that ordinary business was supposed to be
destined only for a lower Christian caste; the very sym
pathies which were most truly human and divine looked
artificial, because, according to the theory, they were
portions of the saintly ideal, and the means by which
it was exhibited to men. And the lowering effect of the
scheme upon those who gathered from it that their calbng
was to shuffle through existence as they could, and only
to expect that divine helpers would be found waiting for
them at the close of it, no words can describe.
2. At last there came a clear and effectual testimony
against these notions, and the practices to which they
had given birth. And it took this form : — It said, ' You
'are seeking to make yourselves just or righteous before
'.God. You cannot do it. There is but one Righteous-
' ness, that which is in Christ, for the worst and the best
' of us. You are seeking to deliver yourselves by this
' and that experiment from the sense of the evils you
' have committed. You cannot do it. Faith in the Son
'of God. is the only deliverance for the conscience of
' any man. You are not free till you trust Him ; tiU

196' PROTEST AGAINST IT,
' you are free, you cannot do the works of a freeman,-
' but only those of a slave.' The Reformers who bore-
this protest were obliged to carry it still further back.
They were forced to say, as St. Paul had said before
them, < God Himself is the justifier. He has given
' Christ for our sins, and has raised Him again for our
* justification. He calls you, each of you, to know that
' Just One, in whom you are accepted.'
It is impossible not to see that this was levelling
language ; it was breaking down, to aU appearance, the
barriers between the righteous and the wicked, barriers
which centuries had been at work to build up. Nay, it
seemed as if this language carried one beyond the limits
of the Church : as if any man might claim the righteous
ness of Christ, — might have his conscience set free from
sin, — might believe that God had justified him. The
Romanists charged both these consequences of their doc
trine upon their opponents. ' By preaching faith without
' the deeds of the law,' they said, ' you efface moral dis-
' tinctions; by speaking so generally as you do of Christ's
' death and resurrection, you seem to take away the pri-
' vileges of the baptized man.' The Reformers retaliated.
' You,' they said, ' are guilty of the sin you impute to
' us. You have overthrown all difference between the
' pure and the impure ; you have done so inevitably,
' because you have destroyed all difference between those '
'who believe and those who do not believe.' That
being the danger which they dreaded most, they set'

NEW DIVISIONS, 197
themselves to consider how they might most successfully
avoid it. The result was a new set of experiments to
separate the Church from the world, and then to create
a Church within the Church. Faith justifies, but it
must be ascertained who have faith, Christ's is the
only righteousness ; but to whom is that righteousness
imputed ? God calls men to the knowledge of His Son ;
but if He calls, does He not also reject ? It seemed to
Protestant divines and laymen just as necessary to in
vent plans for dividing the faithful from the unbelieving,
— those who belonged to Christ from those who had no
relation to Him, — the elect from the reprobate, — as it
had ever seemed necessary to the Romanist to divide
heathens from baptized men, ecclesiastics from the laity,
the saint from the ordinary Christian. And I think it
must be owned, that the effects in each case have been
similar. The great moral distinctions, which God's law
proclaims, and which the conscience of man affirms,
have not been deepened but obliterated ; fictitious
maxims and standards have been introduced, which are
as unfavourable to the common honesty of daily life, as
they are to any higher righteousness which we should
seek as citizens of God's kingdom, as creatures formed
in His image. It seems as if faith signified a persuasion
that God wiU not punish us hereafter for the sins we
have committed here, because we have that persuasion ;
as if some men were accounted righteous, for Christ's
sake, by a mere deception, it not being the fact that they

198 THEORIES AND WITNESSES AGAINST THEM.
are righteous ; as if God pleased of mere arbitrariness
that certain men should escape His wrath, and. that cer
tain men should endure the fuU measure of it. I find
it hard even to state these propositions, without being
guilty of a kind of profaneness, and a kind of uncharita-
bleness, so shocking do they sound when they are put
- into plain words, and so wrong is it to suppose that any
man holds them in the sense which those words seem to
convey. But it is not wrong, — it is a great duty, — to
set them out broadly and nakedly, that those who have
dallied with thoughts which are capable of such a con
struction may shudder, and may ask themselves whether
this, onatiything like this, is their meaning; or, if not,
what they do mean. Provided always, that we admit,
in this instance, as in that of the Romanists, what enor
mous influences there are at work to neutralize these
notions and statements ; even to change them into their
direct opposites ; how strong and earnest their desire is
for freedom from sin, arid their willingness to bear any
punishment rather than be slaves of siu, who seem as if
they thought their faith was merely to procure them an
exemption from penalties which others must suffer; how
serious their zeal for God's truth, who seem, by their
words, as if they could bear to suspect Him of a fiction;
how thoroughly in their hearts they acknowledge God
to be without partiality, and to be altogether just, whose
phrases ascribe to Him a principle of conduct upon
.which they would themselves be ashamed to act. I

OUR DUTY. 199
repeat what I said before ; the more frankly and thank
fully we make these admissions, the more we are bound
to labour, that the faith which is in the hearts of men
may not be extinguished in them and utterly misrepre
sented to their children, by the perilous unbelief which
they allow to mingle with it. For the sake of the
-precious good, we must wrestle with its counterfeit;
And this, I believe, we can only do by resolving once
for aU, that since every attempt which has been hitherto
made to draw lines and limitations about the Gospel of
God, for the purpose of dividing the righteous from the
wicked, has tended to confound them, — to put evil for
-good, and good for evil, — we will abstain in future from
all such (attempts, and will ask seriously whether God
has not Himself established eternal distinctions, which
become clear to us when, and only when, we are content
- to be the heralds of his free and universal love. I think
•it may be shown, not only that these distinctions are
most recognised when we look upon all men as inte
rested in Christ's Death and Resurrection, but that we
cannot do justice to the zeal of Romanists for Bap-
- tism, of Protestants for Faith, that we cannot reconcile
the one with the other, paying the highest honour
to -each, till we claim the wider ground from which
ihey are both incbned to drive us. I think that we
' shaU find that the Scriptures interpreted simply, in
terpreted 'especially in connexion with the fact of the
Resurrection which "has lately occupied us;, explain and

200 THE JUSTIFICATION OF CHRIST.
vindicate each of these apparently inconsistent tenets,
but explain and vindicate them by taking from each its
exclusive and inhuman, and with that, its fictitious and
immoral, character.
3. If we start from the -point at which we arrived in
the last Essay, and believe that the Christ, the King of
man's spirit, having taken the flesh of man, willingly
endured the death of which that flesh is heir, and that
His Father, by raising Him from the dead, declared that
death and the grave and. heU could not hold Him,
because He was His righteous and well-beloved Son, we
have that first and highest'idea of Justification which
St. Paul unfolds to us. God justifies the Man who per
fectly trusted in Him; declares Him to have the only
righteousness which He had ever claimed, — the only one
which it would not have been a sin and a fall for Him
to claim, — the righteousness of His Father, — the right
eousness which was His so long as He would have none
of his own, so long as He was content to give up
Himself. ' He was put to death in the flesh, He was justi
fied in the Spirit;' this is the Apostle's language ; this
is his clear, noble, satisfactory distinction, which is reas
serted in various forms throughout the New Testament.
But St. Paul takes it for granted, that this justification
of the Son of God and the Son of man was his own
justification, — his own, not because he was Saul of
Tarsus, not because he was a Hebrew of the Hebrews,
but because he was a man, AU his zeal as an Apostle

JUSTIFICATION OF MEN. 201
of the Gentiles, all his arguments against his own
countrymen, have this ground and no other; the one
would have worn out, from contempt arid persecution,
the other would have faUen utterly to pieces, if he had
not been assured that Christ's resurrection declared
Him to be the Son of man, the Head of man, and
therefore, that His justification was the justification of
each man. He had not arrived at this discovery without
tremendous personal struggles. He had felt far more
deeply than Job did, how much he was at war with the
law of his being, the law which he was created to obey;
he had felt far more deeply than Job, that there was a
righteousness near him, and in him, in which his inner
mind delighted. He had been sure that there must be
a Redeemer to give the righteousness the victory over
the evil; to deliver him out of the power to which he
was sold, to satisfy the spirit in him which longed for
good. He had thanked God through Jesus Christ his
Lord, And now he felt that he was a righteous man;
that he had the only righteousness which a man could
have, — the righteousness of God, — the righteousness
which is upon faith, — the righteousness which is not for
Jew more than for Gentile, — which is for all alike,
¦ How impossible, then, was it for him to receive Bap
tism as if it were merely the outward badge of a
profession, a sign which separated the sect of the Naza
renes from other Jews, or other men ! If it marked him
out as a Christian, that was because it denoted that he

'202 . MEANING OF BAPTISM.
would no more be the member of any sect, of any
¦partial society whatever,— that he was claiming his
, relation to the Son of God, the Head of the whole human
race. It must import his belief that this Son of God,
and not Adam, was the true root of Humanity ; that
from Him, and not from any ancestor, each man derived
his life. It must import his acknowledgment, that in
himself, in his flesh, dwelt no good thing; but that he
was not obbged or intended to live as a creature of
flesh, as a separate self-seeking being ; that it was
utterly contrary to God's order that he should. But if
Baptism imported so much, it must import more. Paul
had not devised it, or invented it. An act which
expressed the giving up of himself, could not be one
which only signified that he had made a choice between
two religions, abandoning one, adopting another. He
had done nothing of the kind. He had not abandoned
his Jewish faith ; he was holding it fast, maintaining
that it had been proved to be true throughout. He was
not adopting a Christian religion. He was simply
submitting himself to a Son of David as being also the
Son of God. Baptism, then, he accepted as the
ordinance of God for men, as His declaration of that
which is true concerning men, iof the actual relation in
which men stand to Him. If He had justified His Son,
by raising Him from the dead, — if, in that act, He had
justified the race for which Christ had died, — then it
was lawful to tell men that they were justified before

WITNESS OF GOD'S RELATION TO MAN. 203
'God, that they were sons of God in the only-begotten
Son ; it was lawful to teU them that the act which, by
Christ's command, accompanied the preaching of the
Gospel to all nations, signified this, and nothing less
than this. If Christ was not the actual Mediator
between God and man, — if His resurrection did not
declare that God confessed Him in that character, and
thereby confessed men to be righteous in Him, —
Baptism Was a nullity, a mere delusion ; it pught not
to be associated with the proclamation of facts so stu
pendous ; a message professing to come from God, who
is a spirit, and concerning all the mysteries of man's
spiritual bfe, should not be linked to a poor petty rite
which denoted merely his external position.
By declaring in plain words, that they who were
baptized into 'Christ were baptized into His death, that
they put on Christ, that they were to count themselves
dead indeed to sin, but alive unto God, risen with
.- Christ, St. Paul pointed out the ever-effectual protection
.against the error into which the Church afterwards fell ;
t the one great divine distinction for which it substituted
its awkward and mischievous theories and practices.
¦ So long as Baptism was really felt to denote the true
and eternal law of man's .relation to God, so long it
could give no excuse for those notions respecting post-
baptismal sin, out of which such enormous and com
plicated evils were developed. How could those who
.believed that God had declared His Son to be the root

204 TRUST ALWAYS RIGHT,
of righteousness for every man,— that they were baptized
into Him, adopted to be sons of God in Him,— teach
any human creature that he had had a certain righteous
ness, justification, freedom from evil, for a moment, but
that when he had yielded to the lusts of the flesh, or the
power of the Evil Spirit, these blessings were his no
longer ? Of course it would be so, if his righteousness
were his own property, if it could ever become his own
property. But if what baptism proclaimed was pre
cisely, that it never could, that the notion of a self-
righteousness is false in principle, the greatest of all
contradictions, then it must be the right and duty of
men at all times to turn to Him in whom they are
created, redeemed, justified ; their trust was either lawful
at no time, or it was lawful at every time ; on no prin
ciple, save that of continual trust in the Lord of his
spirit, could a man assert the privilege and glory of his
baptism, and rise above his enemies. Whatever doctrine
robbed him of that trust, or led him to build his life
and conduct upon distrust, was earthly, sensual, devilisL
The Reformers, I conceive, were not denying ' the
strongest assertions of St. Paul respecting baptism, when
they used this language, and called on all men to be
lieve in the Son of God for their justification. In fact,
they appealed to these assertions continually ; they were
their most effectual weapons. Nor, I conceive, did they
pervert or weaken these words, when they said that the
Church was falling into the condition of a mere world,

PROTESTANT SINS. 205
and that faithful men must be the instruments of raising
it out of that condition. Faith, they said, — and the con
science of men confirmed their words, — is the ground of
right hearty action ; unbelief makes it impossible,
'Yes,' replies the Romanist, 'and your Protestant
' mode of reforming the universal Church was to split it
' into a thousand sects ; your Protestant way of asserting
' the preciousness of faith was, to leave us nothing in
' which we should believe.' The mockery is severe, and
it is deserved. Sectarianism has been the effect of the
schemes which Protestants have adopted for the purpose
of defining who have a right to be members of Christ's
Church, and who have not ; the loss of a distinct and
common object of faith has been the effect of the schemes
which Protestants have adopted to ascertain who have
and who have not the gift of faith, or the right to bebeve.
They have sought to be wiser than God, and God has
confounded their vanity. He has laid one foundation
for a Universal Church, and they thought they might
make foundations for themselves. He has established
the great distinctions, that there is in every man a spirit
which seeks righteousness, and a flesh which stoops to
evil; that there is with every man the Christ, who would
quicken his spirit, and deliver his soul and body out of
death; and with every man an evil power, who tempts
him to become the slave of his flesh, and so to destroy
his soul and body ; that in Christ, the true Lord of their
spirit, men are claimed as sons of God, and that

206 THEIR CARNAL AND SPIRITUAL MEN.
they, by distrusting Him, and yielding to the devil,'
become utterly unbke Him, forming themselves in the:
image of the father whom they have chosen. And we, :
for these great practical divine contrasts, which will bet
brought out in the clear light of God's judgment-defy,
and which nothing in earth or hell or heaven can alter1
or modify, must have our own sets of spiritual and car-'
nal men ; of those who can make it clear to us that they*
believe, and of those who cannot: divisions which are'
so many premiums to hypocrisy, so many hindrances
to honest men, so many temptations to him whose ex
periences have acquired for him the title 'religious '
to think that he has not a world and flesh and devil to-
straggle with, while he may be convincing a looker--
on, by his ordinary behaviour, that he is an obedient
slave of all three ; which tempt those who are treated;
as carnal and worldly, to believe what they are told of
themselves, to act as if they had not that longing for
good, which they yet know that they have, and which:
God does not disown, for His Son has awakened it,
though His servants may be stifling it.
' Most assuredly the curse of God is upon these Pro
testant devices, and we shall feel it more and more. But
13 the refuge in going back to those who have been guilty1
of framing devices for the same ungodly end ; devices,-
the condemnation of which is written in the history of
the world? Is it not rather in the bolder, freer procla-"
mation of God's universal Gospel, of a Church founded:

THE CLAPHAM SCHOOL. 207 i
on Christ the Son of God and the Son of man, of His.
justification of each man as a spiritual creature, a child
of God created to trust Him, to know Him, to exhibit
His likeness ?
I have aUuded to the sympathy which existed between
orthodox English Churchmen and Unitarians in the last
cfentury, on the subject of the conversions and spiritual
straggles upon which the Evangelical teachers dwelt so
much. There was an alliance also between these same
parties against the leading- Evangehcal doctrine. Both
alike foretold that the consequence of holding and preach
ing justification by faith, must be the weakening of
moral obligations. ' A high-flown pedantical morality
' might be cultivated by those who adhered to this tenet ;¦
' plain home-spun English honesty and good faith would,
' be undermined by it.'
When the Evangelical teachers appealed to our Arti
cles, in defence of their proposition, they used a. good
argumentum ad hominem for one division of their op
ponents; it had no weight at all for the other. The
evidence they required was of a different kind, and it was'
not wanting. The Edinburgh Review, by adopting Sir1
James Stephen's delightful Essay ' On the Clapham/
School,' has practically declared, that the cause of which
it was the ablest champion forty years ago, is not now
defensible ; that the: men who, if the words of its ac
complished clerical ally were true, must have been;

208 THEIR WITNESS FOR TRUTH.
utterly fantastical, as well as fanatical,— governing them
selves by some absurd imaginary principle, which has
nothing to do with the business of the world, — were really
simple, clear-hearted, clear-headed men, who were faith
ful in their callings, who infused a new and juster spirit
into commercial life, who compelled politicians to ac
knowledge other maxims than those of party, another
object than that of advancing themselves. There can
be now no manner of doubt that the existence of such
men had the most purifying, elevating influence upon
English. society; that they did very much to overthrow
that morality pf sentiment, which the Anti-Jacobin
could only ridicule, and to counteract the stock-jobbing
tendencies of the day, which some of those whom the
Anti-Jacobin most lauded were nurturing. Their one
great testimony, that a man can never be a chattel, was
the most significant practical commentary on all they
said of the worth of the individual soul ; a proof how
thoroughly their doctrine possessed their lives ; an ex
ample to all after generations ; seeing that the very time
they chose for making this protest was the one in which
the doctrine of the individual rights of men was fright*
ening them and most of their political associates, seeing
that they were accused of promoting Jacobinism as weU
as of putting the wealth and commerce of the great Eng
hsh cities in peril, and that they nevertheless persevered,:
in the faith that evil must be denounced at all hazards,
and that that which is wrong in the tendencies of a time,-

APPEAL TO UNITARIANS. 209
can only be effectually resisted by the assertion of the
right which is most akin to it. This was faith, and these
men were in the true sense 'just by faith.' Their out
ward acts proceeded from a principle ; that principle was,
Trust in an unseen Person.
' Why do those who talk most of justification by faith
in our day exhibit no similar fruits ? Why is English
society not raised or purified by their presence in it ?
Why are the tradesmen among them as ready as any
others to mix chicory with their coffee ? the merchants
and politicians to job ? the divines to slander ? Is it
not because they bebeve justification by faith, instead
of believing in Christ the Justifier ? Is not the whole
principle changed?. Is not the formula which represents
the principle doing duty for it ?
I know well how many there are in the modern Evan
gehcal school who imitate the faith as well as the works
of their fathers. I know how deeply, they are grieved
by the crowd of heartless and noisy champions who de
fend their cause because it is the popular and patronised
one now, as they would have cursed it and slandered its
professors fifty years ago. I entreat the Unitarians to
compare these two classes; — those whom they cannot
for one moment suspect of hypocrisy, to whose honesty
and simplicity of character they are willing to do
homage ; and those whom they have a right to con
demn as loud, talking, unreal bigots, bitter against all
who differ from them, in proportion as they feel their
p

210 UNITARIAN AND EVANGELICAL ALLIES.
own ground insecure. I entreat them to ask themselves
whether the most striking characteristic of the former,
so far as they are able to judge, is not faith in, and devo
tion to, a living Person, whom they reverence as their
Lord, and to whom they cleave as their Friend? whether
the others are not as evidently fighting for a notion or a
theory? Supposing this to be the case, then are not the
former holding with a strong grasp that very bebef,
which the Unitarian idea of Christ would wrest from
them? Would not the loss to the other, if that idea
were forced upon them, be very inconsiderable, indeed?
If the anti-orthodox faith obtained the ascendency which
it once held among the Vandals in Africa, and were as
persecuting as it was among them, is there not the
highest probability that this latter class would supply
a band of ready, promising, very soon vehement, converts
to the new system? is. it not certain that the former
would withstand it to the death ?
There is one fact recorded by the faithful and affection
ate biographer of the Clap-ham school, which I should be
very dishonest and cowardly if I suppressed. It is, that
one of the neighbours of Mr, Wilberforce and Mr. Thorn
ton, who was united with them in many of their bene
volent projects, and in close personal friendship, was
professedly and notoriously a Unitarian. It must have
puzzled him greatly at first, to explain how all the plain
and practical virtues which he saw in them, not only
accompanied, — that he might have accounted for on his

COWPER. 211
general maxims of toleration, — but manifestly flowed
out of, the faith which he had been taught was so likely
to beget immorality. It may have puzzled them almost
equaUy to understand how he, an opposer of that faith,
not only performed right acts, but exhibited, as we are
told he did, that habitual rectitude, which they would
ordinarily and rightly attribute to some deep root. I
suppose he came at last to some solution of his difficulty.
which satisfied him. I should think their faith in Christ
the Justifier must have been the solution of theirs. As
that grew stronger, they must have said more and more
frequently, ' Thou, 0 Lord, art more than all our sys-
' tems and calculations. Thou mayest perchance have
' rule in a thousand hearts, where they are not admitted,
' even as it is clear Thou dost not rule in many where
' they are received.' And that conclusion, instead of
leading them to Latitudinarianism, wiU have saved them
from it. How could they ever give up their faith in
Christ as a living Person, when they traced, not only
all that was not evU in themselves, but all that was good
in any man, to Him ? If they had not only seen that
truth at certain times, but had been able to state it fully
at all times, from how much of misery might they have
saved some of their contemporaries, from how much
vagueness and infidelity their descendants ! Need Cow
per have sunk into despair, if he had believed that
Christ was in him at all times, and was not dependent
upon his apprehension or faith ? Would his evangehcal

212 BLANCO white: faith in an idea.
biographers have been reduced to, the miserable — not
always the successful — apology, that his riiadness was
not caused or aggravated by his Christianity? Might
they not have had to give thanks that that was the cure
of it? If Blanco White had ever learnt to extend that
belief to all men, would he have approached the confines ¦
of speculative atheism ?
I ask these questions with fear; but I think, for
many reasons, that they should be asked. And since
the last of them has a very close interest for the new
school of Unitarians, I would venture to offer one or two
more thoughts for their reflection. They have learnt
from Mr. Carlyle and others, to speak of faith in a tone
altogether different from that which was common in the
last generation. I would respectfully inquire of, them,
whether they are not, ever and anon, falling into the
error which I have attributed to our modern Evangeli
cals, and which infects many beside them, — that of
making Faith itself an object of trust, almost of worship ?
I know how they will escape from the charge. ' Oh no ! '
' they will say, ' we mean, not faith in Faith, but faith in
' an idea. Don't you know what Mr. Emerson says of
' the Mahometans, that they overthrew hosts, because
' they were horsed on an idea ? What we object to is,
'. your doctrine that faith in a Christian idea is the only
' faith.' I beg to disclaim any such representation of
my doctrine. I acknowledge that Mahomet triumphed
over hosts, I acknowledge that he triumphed by faith.

THE VICTORY OVER THE WORLD. 213
Yes ! by faith in a real living God. His opponents were
horsed upon ideas ; (&sc rather conceptions of their own
mind;) therefore the horses and the riders were cast
into the sea. I think that his faith could overcome
much, because it was faith in a substance, a reality, a
Person. I do not think it could overcome the world,
or the flesh, or the devil. I think all three have proved,
in the issue, too strong for the Mahometan. I accept
the Apostle John's explanation of the two conditions
which are necessary to a complete victory. It has stood
the test of much experience, and will, I think, stand
the test of all. ' This is the victory that opercometh
the world ; even our Faith.' ' Who is he that over-
comeih the. world, but he that believeth that Jesus is
ihe Son of God ?

ESSAY X.

on regeneration.
Mr. Combe's Essay on the Physical Constitution pf
man has, I am told, had an enormous circulation, both
here, and in Scotland. I cannot wonder at its success ;
nor do I regret it, though I might not easily find a
book from the conclusions of which I more entirely
dissent. It has, I think, brought the question of educa
tion, and many other questions, to the right issue. What
is the constitution of man? We want to know that.
Till we know it, we connot educate ; we cannot do much
to benefit the condition of men, individually or socially.
When we know it, our main business will be to ask
what there is which has hindered men from being in
conformity with their constitution; how they may be
brought into conformity with it. That I understand to
be Mr. Combe's main principle, and I heartily assent to
it. I do not think it is now for the first time announced.
I believe men have been trying to act upon it. But
I believe also that many causes have prevented us from

PHYSICAL CONSTITUTION OF MAN. 215
stating it to ourselves consistently ; that notions of edu
cation and reformation, inconsistent with this, have
intruded themselves into our minds ; that they are con
fusing us greatly; that any one who recals us to this
sound and orthodox doctrine, is doing us a service. Mr.
Combe, however, claims for himself an honour which
did not belong fcTour ancestors. He says, that they
knew little or nothing of man's physical state, of the
laws of his body, of the condition under which he exists
as a citizen of this earth. I am not inclined to dispute
either the charge against them, or the pretensions which
he puts forth for himself. I have no doubt this was
their special ignorance, and that it was the mother of a
multitude of false theories and mischievous practices, I
think God has given us great means of removing the
primary error, and its fruits ; and that we are guilty in
His sight, if we do not use them.
But, further, Mr. Combe assumes that this knowledge
which we have attained, repecting men's physical con
dition, is the only secure knowledge, the only knowledge
upon which we can act. All other, he thinks, all which
our ancestors supposed they had, is a mere collection of
guesses. They did not agree about it themselves ; we
agree about it still less. How can we teach men guesses ?
How can we apply them to practice? When they are
put into one scale, and ascertained laws into another,
must not they kick the beam ? Practically, therefore,
even if we have ever so much hankering after these

216 GUESSES AND LAWS.
guesses, — ever so much of what we call Faith in them,
— we must leave them out of our calculation. And is it
not probable that we shall find, at last, that we had the
best possible right to leave them out ; that, in fact, these
physical laws explain them ; that if we understand them,
we understand the whole constitution of man ? .
To these questions I answer distinctly: Whenever
guesses are balanced against laws, guesses "must kick
the beam; if divines and moralists have nothing but
guesses to produce, and Mr. Combe has laws, it is not a
matter of doubt but of certainty, that he will be the
teacher of the world, and that they must make their way
out of it as fast as they can. I admit, further, that there
are a great many appearances in the history of the world
and in our present position, which may, very naturally,
lead Mr. Combe and thousands of others to the conclu
sion that divines and morabsts are guessers and nothing
else. Not a few of them have almost admitted that
they have no certain ground to stand on. Many of
those who do not, rest the proof that they can teach
things which may and should be believed upon reasons
which do not satisfy the understandings ahd consciences
to which they are presented. The divisions of Chris
tendom, which have increased, and are increasing, seem
to make out the strongest primd facie case in favour
of Mr. Combe's practical decision. If every other method
of education is laid aside and his adopted, as the only
one which States can sanction or which is available

REASONS FOR DISSENTING FROM MR. COMBE. 217
for men universally, he and those who have joined
with him in advocating it will be much less answerable
for the result, than we who have opposed him.
After what I have said in previous Essays, it would be
great affectation to pretend that I have any doubt as to
the final issue of that experiment. As I have throughout
been tracing feelings and consciousnesses in men which
point to some spiritual object, and which are uneasy,
feverish, tormenting, precisely because that which they
seek they cannot find, and because some faint, .obscure
image is offered to them as the substitute for it ; as
I have maintained that these feelings and consciousnesses
are not less active now than in former days, but, perhaps,
more active, — active in quarters where the influence of
Church doctrines is utterly repudiated ; as I have dif
fered from my brethren chiefly in confessing the wider
extent of these consciousnesses, the evidence which proves
them to exist where we should be inclined to ignore them ;
as I have been reasoning with those who would build a
new scheme of divinity on these very consciousnesses, —
one which is, they say, to be universal, and to displace
our exclusive doctrines ; it cannot be very necessary that
I should enter at large into my reasons for not supposing
that we can provide for aU the necessities of human
beings, or set them altogether right, by treating them as
creatures possessing a stomach, a liver, and a brain.
It is, of course, an obvious and familiar theory, that
these consciousnesses are secreted in the stomach, the

218 GOOD THAT HIS DISCIPLES MAY DO.
liver, and the brain ; I am quite willing that any one
should hold that theory, and should try to work it
out. I bebeve that in the course of his workings he
will do much good; that he will continually observe,
and may enable us to observe, the close connexion of
these bodily functions with the thoughts and moral state
of human beings, — their action and re-action upon each
other. I bebeve that the more the facts which esta
blish that relation and inter-dependence are noted, the
better ; that the more they are meditated upon, the
better. And this because the thorough patient observa
tion and meditation of them will, I am sure, set right a
great many crude notions of ours, and will also convince
the inquirer that his scheme must fail ; that when he has
got all priests and traditions out of his way, he is only
beginning the process of clearance which is needful for
his success ; that he must get the thoughts and convic
tions which have helped most to raise and civilize human
society out of his way also ; that if he does not, they
will perplex and torment him continually. And I do
tell him plainly and confidently, that, tolerant man as
he is, — honestly tolerant, I have no doubt, and eager to
rid the earth of us, because we are intolerant, — he will
not be able to expel an infinite number of religious
experiences, fancies, notions, by medicines allopathic or
homoeopathic; he will be obliged to resort to older,
more tried methods. He must — I would say it to him
in the lowest whisper — but I must say it, and he and the

WHY THEY MUST BE PERSECUTORS. 219
world will find whether I am right, — he must persecute.
The inconvenient consciousnesses, which do not let the
physical constitution act freely and healthily, will have
to be prohibited. And since it is not easy to reach
them by decrees and swords, the expression of them
must be checked ; because it will be found that they are
just as infectious as scarlet fever, or small-pox. I do
not speak these words lightly or inconsiderately. The
history of persecution by aU sects, governments, churches,
in all families and neighbourhoods, seems to me most
clearly to show that it originates with a desire, — (often
an honest desire, — it was so in Trajan and Marcus
Aurebus, when they ordered the deaths of Ignatius and
Polycarp), — to put down that which is found to interfere
seriously, either with the quiet of society, or with the
comfortable working of some system or theory, which
we have convinced ourselves is salutary and needful for
human beings. That I think is an account of it which
includes aU cases, the particular motives and influences
being of course most various. And I cannot understand
how those who think that there are certain common
tendencies in aU men, call them physical or what you
please, should suppose themselves free from this ten
dency, which experience shows to be so general ; or, at
least, why the world should suppose them free from it.
I rather think the danger of their yielding to it is
greatly increased by their apparent conviction that it
never can assail them.

220 BUTLER. OUR MORAL CONSTITUTION.
I do not, however, dream that warnings of this
kind will deter any one from reducing Mr. Combe's
theory to practice; most certainly I do not wish that
they should hinder any one from giving it the most
serious consideration*. There are some eminent moralists
among ourselves, formed in the school of Butler, who
will be inclined to dismiss it rather superciliously, on
another ground. They will exclaim, ' Why, are Mr.
' Combe's disciples really ignorant that a much closer
' observer and deeper thinker than he is, has ' been in
' this field before him, and has shown us clearly and
' satisfactorily that there is a moral constitution in which
' all human beings are sharers ? Have they never heard
' that Butler has proved social affections to be an integral
' part of our human nature, a far more essential part of
' it than the senses or the power of locomotion ? Dp
' they not know that he has proved self-love and re-
' sentment to have a moral basis ? Have they forgotten
' the evidence by which he has shown that the Conscience
' is not only one of the faculties of our nature, but the
' lordly, sovereign faculty, to which all owe obedience ?
' Will any one say that the processes by which these
' positions have been demonstrated are less legitimate or
' less scientific than those to which Mr. Combe has had
' recourse ? '
I, at. least, feel no temptation to maintain that para
dox.- I should find it difficult to say how much I honour
Butler, or how much I owe to his discourses on Human

BUTLER'S DISADVANTAGES. 221
Nature. But I cannot help perceiving that there are
causes which give the exclusive believers in a physical
constitution, — immeasurably inferior as they may be to
him, — a very decided advantage over him. Though
Physiology may be even yet in its infancy, the physi
ologist speaks confidently of some facts and laws which
he has ascertained. As Butler is commonly interpreted,
he assumes all moral principles to depend merely on
probable evidence. Some of his disciples seem to look
upon that as his most characteristic doctrine.
Again, there are certain diseases of the body which can
without any hesitation be traced to certain conditions
of the atmosphere, which are the effects of bad drainage,
neglect of ventilation, want of cleanliness ; others, which
can be directly referred to drunkenness or profligacy.
The former are positive evils directly curable by physical
remedies, the latter, which we commonly call moral,
might be avoided by a man who noticed how much
of sickness, pain, poverty, they produced. But when
our social affections and our self-love are diseased, i
it does not appear that Butler has pointed out any
satisfactory method of setting them right, of restoring
their healthy activity. He shows that they are meant
for us, and that they are meant to be in harmony ;
but suppose they are dormant, how are they to be
awakened? suppose they are in discord, what is to
reconcile them ? , Is it not likely that a man will say,
' Mr. Combe helps me to a certain extent. He shows

222 HIS DOCTRINE OF THE CONSCIENCE.
' me some influences which may seriously derange the
' economy of my individual life, and of the world. He
' tells me how I may avoid those influences. Till you
' can give me some aid that is more efficient, I must avail
' myself of his.' The student of Butler's doctrine on the
Conscience, is often forced even more painfully upon this
conclusion. For he will say to himself, ' My conscience
' ought, you say, to be a king. But it is not a king.
' It is a captive. How shall it be raised to its throne ?
' And when it has got a temporary ascendency, can I
' trust it ? Does not Butler himself admit the possibihty
' of superstition acting upon it, and deranging its de-
' cisions ? Is that a slight exception to a general maxim?
' Does not all history show that the decrees of this great
' ruler may be made contradictory, monstrous, destructive,
' by this disturbing force, which Butler notices, but
' hardly deigns to take account of? '
And thirdly, it must not be forgotten that so intelli
gent and ardent (I dare not say, so excessive) an admirer
of Butler as Sir James Mackintosh, has complained, that
while he is bold and clear in asserting the fact of a con
science, and its right to dominion, he is timid and hesi
tating in affirming what it is, and how its prerogatives
are to be exercised. Is not this remark strictly true ? Is
not every practical student of Butler obliged to put the
question to himself: ' This faculty belongs to my nature,
' then : — What, to me ? Is the conscience mine ? Do I
' govern it, or does it govern me? ' The school-doctor may

THEOLOGY AND MORALITY. - 223
dismiss this difficulty with great indifference. For the
living man everything is involved in the answer to it.
I have taken Butler as the highest specimen and best
known representative of a noble class of thinkers and
writers, to whom I believe we are under the greatest obli
gations; who have brought to light truths which we could
never less afford than now to lose sight of, but who are
in danger of being utterly supplanted by a race of mere
physical philosophers, or of mere spiritualists, if we are not
prepared to examine in what relation they stand to both.
The great facts to which Butler bore so brave a witness,
cannot, I think, be explained, while we regard them
merely as facts in man's nature. The more we look
into them, tbe more they imply an ascent out of that
nature, a necessity in man to acknowledge that which
is above it, that which is above himself. When we
take in this necessity, as implied in our constitution,
the difficulties which beset the most full and masterly
explanation that can be given of these facts, gradually
disappear. I wiU endeavour to explain what I mean,
and to offer one more evidence that Theology is the
protector and basis of Morality and Humanity.
The word Regeneration occupies a prominent place
in all summaries of Christian Theology. It seems to
many who hear it, and to many who use it, as if it im
ported a principle most inconsistent with that which
Butler has defended in his Sermons on Human Nature.
' If a man requires to be regenerated/ they ask, ' before

224 regeneration; one meaning of it.
' he can be that which God requires him to be, that
' upon which He looks with approbation, how can human
< nature in itself be the good thing which Butler would
' have us believe that it is ? Must he not be at variance
"with the Scriptures, at variance with the testimony of
' our hearts, which confess the Scriptures to be true,
' and ourselves to be evil ?' I am always glad when I
hear a person who has really a reverence both for our
great moralist and for the Scriptures, asking this ques
tion; it is nearly certain to lead him into a clearer
apprehension of both. I am always sorry when I hear
a person asking it who wishes to prove Butler wrong ;
it is nearly certain that he will be confirmed in the
notion that he himself is perfectly right, and that in his
¦eagerness not to twist the Bible into confprmity with
Butler's notions he wiU twist it into conformity with
his own.
Regeneration may mean the substitution, in certain
persons, at some given moment, (say in the ordinance of
Baptism, or at a crisis called conversion,) of a nature
specially bestowed upon them, for the one which belongs
to them as ordinary human beings. No doubt it has this
meaning for a great many Protestants, as well as Roman
ists; no doubt this meaning mixes with another, in
some of the purest and noblest hearts to be found in
either communion. Such a doctrine of regeneration, I
apprehend, is quite incompatible with the doctrine of
a moralist, who supposes the human constitution, —

another meaning of it. 225
that which belongs to us not as special individuals differ
ent frorii the race, but as members of the race, — to be
good, and any violations of it and transgressions of it
to be evil. There is no possibility, so far as I see, of
bringing these two schemes of thought into reconcili
ation ; they are directly, essentially antipathic. For, to
suppose that they can coexist in any human heart Pr
intellect, merely because one has the label ' moral,' and
the other, ' theological,' is to suppose that heart or intel
lect a mere shop or warehouse of opinions, in which no
living processes are going on, but where goods are kept
to meet the inconsistent demands of different markets.
Regeneration may mean the renovation or restitution
of that which has fallen . into decay, the repair of an
edifice according to the ground-plan and design of the
original architect. This meaning is in accordance with
the common usage of language. It is more like the
sense which either a popular writer or a philologer would
put upon the word, supposing he did not know that it
had acquired another. And it is a signification which
cleaves to the word in the discourses of the most reh
gious people; one which Romanists and Protestants
adopt consciously in the way of argument, and fall into
unconsciously in their prayers and exhortations. It is
obvious that such a signification need not in the least
contradict Butler's idea of a human constitution, but
might remarkably ulustrate it. There being a certain
constitution intended for man by His Creator, and cer-
Q

226 objections to that meaning.
tain influences about him or within him which weakened
or undermined it, the author of the work might look
lovingly upon it, and devise certain measures for coun*
teracting those influences, and bringing it forth in its
fulness and order. Some such theological complement
of his moral system we may suppose gave coherency
and satisfaction to the mind of Butler himself.
But there is a great difficulty in our way, if we seek
to put this idea of Regeneration in the place of the one
which I set forth previously. Such a regeneration may
be intended for us; there may be processes leading
some men, even leading the world, towards it ; but are
there any signs that it has been accomplished? Is the
order, in this sense, restored? Can even good men be
said in this sense to have recovered what the race had
lost ? Theologians therefore dweU on a restitution or
reformation, or complete renewal of the divine image in
individuals, as an object of hope, Many of them connect
with that, a restitution and reformation of the earth and
pf the order of human society. But they contend, as
earnestly, that there is something abeady obtained by
Christ, for those who will receive it. This something,
they say, is very real; we are partakers of it now, not
tp be partakers of it in some future ideal state ; it is
the necessary beginning of, and preparation for any such
state. And the words ' birth ' and ' generation,' which
they find recurring so continually in Scripture, do, they
contend, suggest another thought than that which the

the dialogue with nicodemus. .227
restoration of an edifice suggests. They must indicate
a life communicated from a Father. A life of this kind
they affirm they have received ; it is renewed every hour ;
they cannot possibly wait for it till the world recovers its
primitive glory ; they want it as the pledge that they
shall not sink into utter debasement.
Those who use this language, refer to the 3d chapter
of St. John's Gospel, as containing the full interpre
tation of the doctrine which is so unspeakably precious
to them. All Christians admit that this is the passage
by which their opinions respecting Regeneration must
be tested. No humble reader, I suppose, thinks that
he has fathomed the depth of the discourse with Nico
demus. Every humble reader probably feels that he
has caught glimpses of light from it which he would not
exchange for the most costly treasures of the world. He
perceives from the very letter of the Evangelist, that
the birth is from above; that a Divine Spirit is the
author of it ; that it is the birth of a spirit ; that it is the
condition of entering a kingdom ; that it has something
to do with Baptism. He suspects that the latter part of
the conversation, concerning earthly things and heavenly
things, the Son of Man who came down from Heaven
and is in Heaven, the serpent that was lifted up in the
wilderness, the love of God to the world in sending His
only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him
should not perish, but have everlasting life ; the light
which is come into the world, the condeihnatiou which

'228 DIFFICULTIES RESPECTING IT. '
consists in loving the darkness, cannot be separated from
the former part. But he is bewildered by the number
of different opinions that present themselves to him re
specting the relation which the portions of this truth, as
our Lord sets it forth, bear to each other. ' How comes
' the external rite of baptism,1 he inquires, ' to be so
' bnked with an inward operation ? What has a king-
-' dom to do with a new bfe ? Is it a future state that is
¦'denoted by the term Heaven; or if not, what is it?
' Howis the Son of Man said to be in this Heaven, even
'while He is upon earth? Why should the' exaltation
' of the Son of Man upon the cross be referred to in this
-' connexion, all-important as it may be in reference to
' the doctrine of redemption, or the expiation for sins ?
' Why is God's love to the world brought into a passage
' which seems to speak expressly of the condition of those
' who are separated from the world ? Is not the con-
' demnation of men this, that they do not partake of this
' divine and spfritual birth ? Why is it declared to be
* that they love darkness rather than hght' ?
AU our disagreements, intellectually considered, arise
from the answers which are given to these questions.
Each of us is disposed to fix upon some one of our Lord's
statements, as that to which he shaU refer all the rest.
If we desire to have our thoughts orderly, not loose and
incoherent, not mere qualifications or contradictions one
of another, there must be a centre round which they
revolve. But it is unspeakably important that we should

CENTRE OF" THE DISCOURSE. 229
not choose this centre and so create a system for our
selves ; but that we should find it. Then we may find
also what are the orbits and inter-dependencies of the
bodies which it illuminates. Will any one say that I
am wrong if I affirm that God Himself is the centre here,
that the love with which he loved the world, is that to
which our Lord is leading us, that if we learn from Him
what that love is, what it has designed, what it has
accomplished, we shall be in a better condition to appre-;
hend all that He is teaching us respecting the birth from
above ?
Starting from this point, then, it seems to me that
this love is declared to have manifested itself in setting
forth the only-begotten Son, not merely as the author of
forgiveness, but as the very ground and source of man's
eternal life. Looking up to the cross as the exhibition
of God's love, — as the exhibition of the true and perfect
Man,-1- the man does not perish by the bite of that
serpent which is continually stinging him, that spirit of
selfishness which is continuaUy separating him from
God and from his brethren. He sees that Eternal Life
which was with the Father, and which in the Divine
Word is manifested to us ; he becomes an inheritor of it.
But his perception does not make the fact which he per
ceives. The Son of Man, who is one with men and one
with God, who is in Heaven, in the presence of God,
whUst He is walking on earth, has come down to esta
blish the kingdom of Heaven upon earth, to unite earth;

-.30 baptism; life; HEAVEN,
and heaven in Himself. He has come to claim men as
spiritual beings capable of this spiritual life, inheritors
of this spbitual kingdom. Baptism declares this to be
their proper and divine constitution in Christ. All who
receive it claim the kingdom which God has declared to
be theirs. They take up their rights as spiritual beings.
He bestows His Spirit upon them that they may enjoy
these rights ; that they may be as much born into the
light of Heaven, into the light of God's countenance, as
the child is born out of the womb into the light of the
sun. That countenance is shining upon them, the Spirit
is with them to open their eyes, that they may take in
the light of itv And this is the condemnation, and
this wiU be the only condemnation, that they do not
come to it, that they shut the eyes of their spirit to it,
that they love darkness rather than light, because their
deeds are evil.
We have considered three views of Regeneration, each
of which was plausible, each of which had arguments
from Scripture and arguments from experience to allege
on its behalf. The first of them was directly opposed to
Butler's doctrine of a moral constitution for man. The
second was compatible with it, but scarcely accorded
with the exact language of Scripture. The third pro
mised something like a kingdom or constitution to man
hereafter, but seemed to make the existence of a spiritual
society at present rather an anomaly and an exception
among human societies. If we may take Christ's own

APPLICATION TO BUTLER. 231
exposition, if we may assume Him to be the Regenerator
of humanity, a light seems to fall on all these different
aspects of the theological doctrine ; we need not despair
of their being reconciled. And that same light enables
us to remove the practical obstacles which hinder the
application, even the acceptance, of Butler's ethical
principle. First, that great and serious objection of his affec
tionate critic, Sir James Mackintosh, is taken away. The
name, Conscience, would seem to import, n6t a power
which rules in us, but rather our perception and recog
nition of some power very near to us, which has a claim
on our obedience. I think this interpretation of the
word is fully borne out by the most familiar, and at the
the same time by the most serious and thoughtful, usage
of it. The most conscientious man does not speak of
his conscience as giving him a law ; he speaks of it as
confessing a law which he dares not violate. No one,
I believe, felt this more strongly than Butler. Again
and again one perceives how much it penetrated his
whole mind. If the individual conscience undertakes
to lay down laws of its own, his idea of a human consti
tution, that is, of a law or order for all human beings, is
absolutely set at nought. And yet he was forced to say,
that in our nature, conscience is the lordly faculty, the
one entitled to speak and to be obeyed. But if I am
entitled to say, ' There is a Lord over my inner man to
' whom I am bound, apart from whom I cannot exercise

232 butler's dilemma.
' the functions which belong to me as a man, according
' to the law of. my being,' conscience can be restored to
its simple and natural signification ; it does not demand
sovereignty, but pays homage. , And since it is the wit
ness of His authority who governs all the faculties and
energies of man, since it claims their service for Him,.
since it testifies of every act of disobedience done by
any of them to Him, it does occupy that position
relatively to all of them which Butler has assigned it.
They are all out of order when they do not listen to,
its voice ; they are all in harmony when its suggestions
are heeded. It may in the most true sense be said, that
we are only in our natural, that is to say, in our orderly
and reasonable state, when everything within us is
preserving its subordination to its righteous ruler.
It can be said with equal truth, — and one assertion
illustrates instead of contradicting the other, — that
naturally, that is to say, when we follow our own inch-
nations, when we set up to govern ourselves, and forget
that there is a supernatural government established
within us, we become disorganized and bestial.
The habits of Butler's time, perhaps, did not aUoW
him to use this language. Hence that hesitation and
timidity which Mackintosh so livingly and admirably
describes. We may see in it the shrinking of a reverent
thinker when he approaches an awful truth, interwoven
with his own being, which he is not able distinctly to
express. But what was reverence in him, would be, it

SUPERSTITION. 233
seems to me, cowardice in us. We have been driven
forward into a new position, in which we must either
grasp a higher truth, or let the one go which he vindi
cated. I feel that I am not confessing Christ before
men, that I am ashamed of Him and of His words, if I
do not say that it is of Him my conscience speaks, that
I am under His government, in His kingdom. Nor
dare I hide from any man the good news that he, too, is
a subject of this kingdom, that the Regenerator of
humanity is his Lord and Master, or the warning that
if he chooses another condition than this, he is de
claring war with his Creator, with his fellows, and with
himself. Next, if this truth be accepted, Butler's honest admis
sion respecting the possible effects of superstition in
perverting the decrees of the conscience will no longer
be fatal to his principle. Till the true Lord of the
conscience has made Himself known to it, of necessity it
must go about seeking rest and finding none, Every
false king will assume dominion over it ; as it bows to
the impostor it will become beclouded in its judg
ments; the more it tries to regulate its vassals, the more
mischief it will do them, the more cruel they will feel
its tyranny. It may prescribe those very outrages on
physical rales, which I said would oblige the disciples
of Mr. Combe to coerce it. It may prescribe outrages on
the social affections, and so may drive the disciple of
Butler, with all his reverence for its authority, to coerce

234 THE SPIRIT AND THE FLESH.
it. Butler confesses the necessity ; the appeals which he
makes to our fears when he most desires to convince us
that we have, in ourselves, a love of right for its own
sake, are an acknowledgment of it. But if we believe
that Christ is the ruler of this conscience, how beautifuuy
that distinction of St. Paul between the flesh and the
spirit, to which I alluded in my last Essay, would
interpret the mystery of His divine government ; what a
solid basis would it lay for ethics and practical education!
All the actual punishments which overtake wrong doing,
all the fears of punishment which visit the wrong doer,
are needful for that evil nature in us, which is always
seeking to break loose from law, and which, would
reduce us into mere animals, But the Christ, the true
bridegroom of man's spirit, is ever drawing it towards
Himself, — is holding out to it freedom from evil, and the
knowledge of Himself as its high reward. Owning
Him, the man rises out of dark superstitipns, out of
immoral practices ; he recognises the fitness of all
God's arrangements in the physical and moral world;
he claims for the body as well as the soul a redemp
tion from all which corrupts and degrades it.
The full bearing of the principle that Christ is the
regenerator of humanity, upon Butler's view of the
human constitution, is not however understood till we
have sought to apply his doctrine that we are essentially
social beings just as much as we are individuals. I say,
to apply it ; for nothing is easier than to state the maxim ;

SELF-LOVE AND SOCIAL. 235
it may sound to us like the veriest common-place. But
when we have tried, in any particular case, to ' bid self-
love and social be the same,' we have, probably, found
that we could utter that command, just as we could call
spirits from the vasty deep; but that self-love and social
did not do as they were bid, any more than the spirits
came when they were called. The theoretical common
place then becomes the hardest of all practical para
doxes: and yet in its very difficulty there lay the
strongest witness of its truth. I am certain that I have
no self that I can love, — nay, that self must be an object
of intense torment and hatred to me, unless I am the
member of a body. I am certain that I cannot be the
member of a body consisting of persons, unless I am
myself a person; that I cannot love another person
unless I do also love myself. Bring in the belief of
the one Head and Brother of each man, the one Centre
of society, and that great moral contradiction is felt to
be a great moral necessity ; one which we can welcome
and rejoice in, and act upon.
' But after all,' the disciples of Mr. Combe will say,
< you have not proved these positions. They have not
' the certainty which belongs to our statements respect-
' ing the physical constitution of man. Butler, in his
' Analogy, fairly admits that he is dealing only with
' probabibties and chances. That is affirmed by his
' disciples, his religious disciples especiaUy, to be his
'. great merit. You may pretend that you have given

236 butler's weakness.
' certainty to what was doubtful in his speculations by
' adding to them the words of Scripture. But you have
' only given us your interpretation of those words, which
' is surely not entitled to any great weight. It is but a
' guess sustaining a guess.'
Now I am bound to own that Butler did use words
addressed to the loose thinkers of his day, the men of
wit and fashion about town, which seemed to confound
probabilities with chances, to suggest the thought that
we ought to calculate the odds for and against the truth
of a religious principle, and that, if there is a slight
balance in favour of it, — nay,none at aU, — we are to throw
in the danger of rejectirig it, and so force ourselves into
the adoption of it. I mourn over these words as I read
them, feeling how much a great and good man sacrificed
of what was dearest to his heart for the sake of an argu-
mentum ad hominem, which after all was not an argu
ment that ever reached the conscience of any man, or
that could do so if the conscience is what Butler affirms
it to be. But I have mourned more deeply when I have
seen these passages culled out by persons of great acute-
ness, — acuteness cultivated in an Aristotehan, not a Ba-*
conian, school, — and used first as a representation of the
whole plan and purpose of Butler, secondly as the basis
of a theory which was to save English divines from the
necessity of demanding either the dogmatical certainty
which Rome promises to her children, or the scientific
certainty which Protestants seem to be. craving fpr.

THE DOCTRINE OF CHANCES. 237
Thanks be to God, that house of cards has fallen down
The ingenious architect has, himself, undertaken to ex
pose its instabibty.* How much better for him that he
should be seeking even such a temporary standing-ground,
— sandy and shifting as I believe it to be, — as Rome can
afford him, till he finds an eternal rock, neither of au
thority nor of probabilities, on which he and the Church
may rest; — nay, how much better that one in whose heart
there is, I am convinced, a real, even a passionate, love
of Truth, should pass through all imaginable subtleties,
distortions, impostures of the inteUect, in his way to it,
than that he should be content with a scheme which
shuts out Truth from men as an unattainable, scarcely
desirable, treasure ! How much better for us that we
should incur the bitterest hatred and scorn, expressed
with the most admirable cleverness and wit, of one who
I yet doubt not is capable of all generous affections,
¦than that we should be saddled with a theory which was
leading numbers of young men to think that the main,
perhaps the only, reason for believing in a God is,
thet if there should happen to be one, He might send
them to hell for denying His existence! I am sure
that the thought of tempting any to such an opinion
would have been horrible to this writer at all times;
I have dared to put it into words, that it may awaken
* Compare Father Newman's book on " Romanism and Popular
Protestantism," with the masterly demolition of his theory of proba
bilities in his " Essay on Development."

238 HOW PRESUMPTIONS BECOME CERTAIN.
horror in the minds of those who are left amorig us, and
may lead them to reflect on the infinite peril of resorting
to plausible arguments for Faith, which may prove to
be hiding-places for Atheism. ;
But to return to Butler, I entirely deny that either
these conclusions of his disciples, or his own inconvenient
statements in some passages of the Analogy, repre
sent his design or his method as it comes out in the
first part of that great work, or in the Sermons at the
Rolls Court. On the contrary, he is pursuing precisely
the same end as the physical inquirer, by an inductive
process as nearly as possible the counterpart of his. He
is as unwilling to accept hasty generalizations as every
disciple of Bacon must be ; he is as ready to look at facts
and test them ; he seeks to be delivered from vague
hypotheses that he may feel the ground upon which he
is actually standing. What more can Mr. Combe do ?
He knows perfectly well that he cannot lay down con
clusions which shut out further inquiry ; that he would
be a very mischievous man if he could ; that he cannot
have certainty in this sense ; that he disclaims it. He
must collect facts respecting the condition of men in
different circumstances; respecting their states of health
and of disease ; respecting the treatment, mischievous
or beneficial, which has been applied to them, Such
facts must not be merely observed, loosely and care
lessly : they must be submitted to a series of searching
experiments. There must be experiments on the bodily

CERTAINTY IN PHYSICS. 239
frame which illustrate those on the influences to which
it is exposed ; the anatomist, physiologist, chemist,
geologist, must each contribute his quota of observation
and thought, to the confirmation or correction of the
other. Then, after many theories have been accepted,
and thrown aside, some simple law is brought to light,
the great test of which is its power of explaining facts,
new and old ; so far as it can do that, it sustains its
character; when it fails, it is not discarded, but it is
supposed that some deeper, more comprehensive law is
yet to reward the toil and humility of the inquirer.
What can be better or truer than investigations of this
kind ? What duty can be greater, than to avail ourselves
of the results to which they lead? But the more we study
them and admire them, the less shall we adopt those
loose expressions which represent this evidence as some
thing altogether different in kind from that which is open
to moralists and divines, if they like to make use of it.
They may scorn facts; they may cling to anticipa
tions and definitions which they bring with them ; just
as all the old physical students did ; but if they take
that course they depart from all the precedents of the
wisest of their predecessors; they depart still more
from the precedents of Scripture, For the Bible is
a book in which God is teaching His creatures induc
tion by setting them an example of it. Nothing is
there taught as it is in the Koran, by mere decree;
everything by life and experiment. It offers us the

240 THE BIBLE.
severest tests of its own credibility. It meets the facts
of human life and the difficulties of human speculation;
it undertakes to interpret the one, to show us the
source of the other. If we accept Revelation for this
purpose we do not put our own sense upon it ; we go to
it in our great necessity, to see whether it can give us
the help we need ; we expect that if it is God's, He will
do for us what we cannot do for ourselves. If that
which was a presumption before, — a presumption which
I could not disown without disowning all my own pro
cesses of thought and judgment, but yet which I did not
dare to pronounce certain, because I was afraid lest some
idiosyncrasy of rny mind should, in spite of my watch
fulness, have mixed itself with these processes, and
falsified the result, — becomes clothed with a new force,
illuminated with a new brightness ; if it comes back to
me, stripped of aU that was merely my own, and yet I
recognise it a3 more mine than ever, — I do not know
what the reason can ask for besides, to quiet it, and
satisfy it. That, and more than that, I think the bebef
of Christ as the Regenerator of humanity does for all the
questionings and demands of human suffering beings;
that and more than that, for the speculations of the
faithful moral student who has been painfully tracing
the vestiges of an order and constitution in the thoughts
and doings of himself and his feUow-creatures.
What I say is to be tested by life, and cannot
be proved by words. But since Mr. Combe and his

TEST OF TRUTH. 241
followers are rightly and naturally disturbed by the
discords and contradictions of Christian divines,— by
their practical contradictions even more than their
speculative, — by the evil acts and courses which have •
seemed to follow from their dogmas, and by their eager
ness to enforce them, — I shall draw the evidence I
produce from this source; I shall maintain that these
can be distinctly traced to the unbelief of Christians in
the fact that Christ is the Regenerator of man ; that this
faith, had they maintained it, must have made their
conduct and their influence on society very different
from what they have actually been.
1. It may sound like the strangest of aU charges
against Romanists to say that they have undervalued
the Church; that they have thought meanly of it
in relation to God and to man, of its work and of
its powers. But I do believe that that is the very
charge which we have most right to bring against both
Latins and Greeks ; it is for this sin, I hold, that they
have been called, and will be called, to give account
before the tribunal of Him who has committed to them
their stewardship, and before those for whose use they
have received it. Do you say, ' They have done their
' very utmost to exalt the Church ; they have boasted of
' it as divine ; they have said that there was nothing in
' earth or heaven that it could not bind and loose ; they
' have, till men became too enbghtened to believe them,
1 reduced their doctrine to practice, and made the priest
R

242 THE CHURCH DENYING ITS OWN POSITION.
' the ruler over the spirits, souls, bodies of men?' Even
so; your words are true; they establish my posi
tion. The Apostles, instead of doing their utmost to
•exalt the Church, did nothing. They spoke of the
Church as being in God the Father and in Jesus
Christ; they told those who belonged to it that they
were created and redeemed in Christ Jesus and called ;
they bade them remember that they had no worth or
greatness of their own ; they said that they were to be
witnesses to all men of the redemption which had been
wrought out for them by the love of God, through the
sacrifice of Christ ; they said that in proportion as they
renounced idols, and devil worship, and parties, and
claimed the dignity of spiritual creatures, and acted as
if they were sons of God and members one of another,
they would be such witnesses. How could men who
had this position make one for themselves ? What had
men who could exercise such a mighty power over the
world to do with asserting or vaunting of it ?' No Jew
or heathen believed that they had it ; but they believed
it, and acted as if they did. When the Church's faith
in its divine birth, in its regenerate position, in God's
calbng, was growing weak, then it must begin to say
how very divine it is. When it no longer understands
itself tp be in Christ, to be by its very nature and con*
stitution spiritual, it must begin to assert that a certain
mysterious spirituality had been conferred upon it, apart
from Christ ; it must suppose that He had delegated His

POWERS AND WORKS OF THE CHURCH. 243
functions to those who should have been the witnesses
that He was continually and in person exercising them ;
at last the notion must be adopted, and be regarded as
necessary to the unity of the Church, that one person
was representing Him in His absence, was His com
missioned vicar.
Every pretension of the Church, which has been
felt as tyrannical and intolerable by the inward con
science and reason of mankind, has arisen from this
low and imperfect view of its own position. It must
force men's assent to opinions, because it did not believe
that it had power to elevate them into a knowledge of
the Truth; if must hold down human thoughts and
energies, because it did not believe that it had a com
mission to awaken and emancipate them; it must be
the worst of all civil rulers, the most miserable of police
men, the most despicable of intriguers, because it did
not feel that the God of Truth was with it; that it
might make men citizens of His kingdom ; might raise
them out of the inner corruptions, the evil results
of which troubled the civil ruler — demanded the aid of
the policeman; that it might deliver people and their
rulers from the habit of lying one to another.*
But the Church has done — all honest modem histo
rians, infidel as well as Protestant, confess it — other
* See the Essay on "the Unity of the Church," where I have
endeavoured more fully to work out these statements, in connexion
with the doctrine of an Indwelling Spirit, which I have not touched
Upon here. -

244 POWERS AND WORKS OF THE CHURCH,
works than these. However strange it may be to say
that, having committed all these abominations, she has
yet been a civilizer and educator of human beings ; has
given a new principle to society ; has helped, at least,
to break the chains of the serf; has made the new world
quite unlike the old ; this has been said, and must be
said; Those who cannot bear the inconsistency, cannot
bear history. If they want it to utter either fact
without the other, they must write it afresh ; it is not
what God has written. Both facts must be explained
in some way. If I find that men who have acted in
the faith of God having regenerated the world in Christ,
and who have thought themselves called as churchmen
to proclaim that fact and bear testimony to it by their
lives, have been the great instruments of good to the
world, and if I find that men — possibly these very men
at some other period of their lives, or at the very same
period; — whp have acted on the opposite hypothesis,
who have behaved as if it was their business to make
human beings something else than God has made them,
have produced aU manner of mischief and confusion; I
have a right to say, that my explanation is not alto
gether unreasonable.
2. But Protestants have said, — Englishmen especially
have said with great energy:— The habit of magnifying
the Church, which Romanists, and Greeks also, though
not perhaps in an equal degree, have indulged in, has
been utterly injurious to ordinary morality and human

CIVIL AND DOMESTIC LIFE. 245
life, because the state and civil order, and ultimately,
domestic order, have been disparaged, for the sake
of glorifying it ; for the sake of maintaining a certain
spiritual or ideal life, which is supposed to be the most
truly Christian. "Undoubtedly all this has happened ;
the complaint has the best possible foundation. And
why has this been so ? Because Romanists and Greeks,
whatever they have professed, have not believed that
Christ came into the world to regenerate all human
society, all the forms of life, — all civil order, all domestic
relationships ; — because they have not really confessed
that, when He took human flesh, and ate common food,
and sat at the marriage feast, He declared these to be
connected with Him, to have a divine, eternal, spiritual^
basis, and not to lose that character because they are
connected with the earth and the body. A secret
Manicheism has been infecting the practice of the
Church, while she has denounced the heresy in terms ;
and that Manicheism has gained strength, and must
gain strength every hour, till the idea of a regenerated
humanity supersedes and extinguishes it. You may try
other expedients, and you will try them in vain. The
office of the magistrate will be scorned as secular,
marriage will not be held to be honourable nor the bed
undefiled, till neither king, father, mother, wife nor
child, are loved more than Christ, till all are honoured
and loved, because He is acknowledged as the bond of
their unipn. What, then, are Protestants doing to

246 HOW TO SECURE HONOUR FOR THEM :
maintain that which it is the peculiar glory of Protest
antism to maintain, when they deny the renewal and
regeneration of society in Christ ; when they insist that
we may not claim for our children the glory and privi
lege of the new birth, of being members of Christ ; that
this is the special distinction of a few persons who have
been brought to know that they possess it ? How can
they defend the honour of kinghood or fatherhood, or of
conjugal life, against Romanists, while they surrender
their true position for so feeble a one ?
3. And thus I am brought back to Mr. Combe and
the Physical Constitution of Man. ' That has been very
' often disparaged by churchmen ; the body has been
' spoken of contemptuously by them ; health and clean-
' liness have been treated as vulgar things.' Assuredly;
to our shame be it spoken ; it has been even so. And
why? Because we have forgotten that Christ took a
human body, and spent the greater part of His time on
earth in healing the sicknesses of it : because we have
not confessed that the body and the earth are as much
redeemed and regenerated by Him as our spirits, or
intellectual powers ; because we have not confessed the
meaning and power of the Resurrection. A man who
fully believes in Christ's Regeneration, must regard
every physical study as a sacred study, physiology as
the most sacred of all ; must desire that they should be
pursued manfully and fearlessly, with no other check
than that which every true student voluntarily submits

AND FOR THE BODY AND THE EARTH. 247
to, — the check upon his own pride and impatience, — that
restraint, which tends to the highest freedom, which
every scientific man covets, that he may be a true dis
coverer of God's laws, and a benefactor to his brethren.
We ought to feel that all God's judgments by fever and
cholera, are judgments for neglect of His physical laws,
but that they will not be obeyed till men obey His moral
laws, by ceasing to live to themselves, by feeling that
it is their business to care for their fellows and for the
earth. 4. An able and benevolent man* has complained that
we have been talking and arguing about Baptismal
Regeneration, while our brethren of the working classes
are discussing the question, whether there is a God.
He means to intimate that we know next to nothing of
what is going on in their minds, that we are quarrelling
about our technicalities, while they are occupied with
first principles. I feel the truth of much of the charge,
and desire to take it home to myself. There is a sad
chasm between us and them ; the cause is all too well
indicated by this remonstrance. But I cannot admit
that we are discussing theological technicalities, when
* Since these words were written, he to whom they referred has
left a blank in many hearts, and has been taken from the evil to come.
The sentence I alluded to occurs in a beautiful lecture by the Rev. F.
Robertson, of Brighton. If I objected to the mere form of his
complaint, it was with the full consciousness that he knew infinitely
more about the working classes than I did, sympathised with them far
more deeply, was teaching them much better the mystery of spiritual
and social Regeneration,

248 THE WORKING CLASSES
we are talking about Regeneration ; I believe we are
discussing the most radical principle of human life. I
cannot admit that the working classes are strangers to
the word Regeneration, or to controversies about it ; it is
one of their favourite words ; they are continually think
ing about plans of social regeneration. I cannot believe,
finaUy, that they will ever come to the settlement of that
primary question, whether they have a God to believe in
and worship, till they are taught whether He has done
anything, or is doing anything, for their regeneratioh.
Our fault, I conceive, is, not that we have spoken
too much on this great subject, not that we have been
too earnest in asserting that God has regenerated us,
and has given us a simple sign and pledge that He has
done so, but, that we have not made the people under
stand, because we have not understood ourselves, that
we were needing such a Regeneration as they want and
feel that they want, — a social as well as an individual
Regeneration. If we did see our way to tell them this ;
to explain that we regard Christ as the Restorer of Hu
manity to its true and proper condition ; as the King of
kings, and Lord of lords; as the Head and bond of
a universal brotherhood ; as the righteous Judge and
Punisher of all that violate their relations to each other,
and set up self in opposition to society; I think we
might, in time, bring some of thein to feel that the
Church was their friend and deliverer, not as they now,
with great excuse, consider it, the bitterest of their foes.^

INTERESTED IN THIS DOCTRINE. 249
Let any one, however, who shall determine to speak
and act on this principle fully count the cost, and deter
mine with himself whether he is ready to incur it. Let
him be sure that he must offend all parties, without a
single exception. He is a silly dreamer, if he fancies
that he shall conciliate High Churchmen because he
defends Baptismal Regeneration, or Low Churchmen
because he says that faith in Christ as the Redeemer
and Regenerator is the ground of all right Christian
action. He must offend priests, monarchs, nobles, for he
must tell them they have sinned against Christ, who has
appointed them to take care of His sheep. He must
offend those who denounce priests, monarchs, and nobles,
because he recognises their appointment, and does not
conceive that the Church, being a brotherhood, is there
fore a democracy. He will displease those who say
that you must reform the individual before you reform
society, for he declares that Christ is the Reformer of
both, and that the individual who claims any relation to
Him, must own himself the member of a society. He
must displease those who talk of reforming Society, as
the only way of reforming the individual, because they
understand by the reformation of society, the alteration
pf its circumstances, not the assertion of a spiritual root
and ground of it. He must count upon the hostility
of those who wish to keep things as they are, and who
dread change lest the whole social fabric should fall to
pieces, because he is certain that it will fall to pieces,

350 WHAT WILL COME TO THOSE WHO TEACH IT.
Unless Christ, who sacrificed Himself, is acknowledged
as its foundation, and unless aU maxims and practices,
religious, political, commercial, which assume another and
contrary foundation to this, are abjured and cast aside as
anti-social, immoral, destructive. He must count upon
the active opposition, or profound contempt, of the whole
new school of philosophers and reformers, because their
greeting to each other is, ' Christ is not risen ; ' their
message to the tyrants and wrong-doers of the earth is,
' You need not fear the wrath of Him that sitteth upon
' the throne, or of the Lamb ;' their gospel to the pri
soners in Neapolitan or Roman dungeons, ' The deliverer
'of captives has not come ; it is a figment ofthe priests
' that there is such a one.' Whereas, his only hope of
that which shall be, lies in his acknowledgment of that
which has been and is. His assurance that the bands
of death and hell have been loosed, is his only ground
for confidence that they will be loosed ; his certainty that
Christ is the Judge of the earth is his only reason for be
lieving that it will be one day purged of all its oppressors ;
his trust that the King has actually been one of the
sufferers, and the chief of them, is his warrant for declar
ing that the earth shall not cover the blood of any of her
slain, — that what has been done of good or evil to the
least of Christ's brethren, has been done to Him.
I cannot tell what amount of sympathy has been ex
pressed by Unitarians generally with Mr. Combe's doc
trines, but I should imagine that one class of Unitarians,

UNITARIAN POLITICS. 251
being sincerely philanthropical, and more or less strongly
inclined to materialism, must be very favourable to them.
I have no arguments to urge upon them in reference to
these doctrines, besides those which I have addressed to
my countrymen generally. Some of them, I know, are
admirers of Butler, and regard his doctrine of human
nature as a valuable counteraction to our favourite theo
logical dogmas, — to that especially which they under
stand us to associate with the word Regeneration. If I
have succeeded in showing that this dogma, interpreted
not according to some peculiar theory of mine, but in the
way most consistent with the profession of Churchmen,
explains Butler's moral constitution, and proves that we
need not reject it because we do all honour to Physics,
I shall at least prepare their minds (and this is all I
desire) for a calmer and less prejudiced consideration of
the whole subject.
As men earnestly interested in politics, I also claim
their attention. They will see, I trust, that a clergyman
may concern himself with politics, not merely as they
bear upon the interests of his order, not merely as they
contribute to make the office of the priest more ho
noured either on civil or ecclesiastical grounds. And
this not because he thinks meanly of his order, or enter
tains any theories about a universal priesthood which
interfere with the acknowledgment of individual priests;
but because he counts it a most degrading thing for
a priest to assert his powers instead of using them, and

252 whiggism ; its Truth.
because he believes those powers must be used sinfully
and shamefully, if they interfere with those which are
committed to any other functionary, and if they do not
promote the moral and civil freedom of the community in
which they are exerted. The elder Unitarians are, I
believe, commonly Whigs. And so far as Whiggism im
plies the recognition of a constitution for each particular
nation, the principles and forms of which are adapted
to the character and circumstances of its inhabitants,
and are brought to light through its history, I heartily
sympathise with them, and would only suggest that in
our day we can scarcely understand or defend such
particular constitutions, unless we are willing to inquire
whether there is a constitution for mankind, — one which
does not destroy, as so many universal Constitutions
that men dream of do, but upholds, the order of each
country and each family. But if by Whiggism they
mean merely a compromise between the past and the
present, between order and freedom, I who hold that
a faithful care of the treasures of the past ensures the
brightest hopes for the ages to come, — that there cannot
be an excess of order or of freedom,— must part com
pany with them as wholly unsatisfactory teachers, from
whom no practical good can be obtained, and betake
myself to some of the younger men of the sect who,
I suppose, would prefer the name of Radicals.
That name, too, I hold in sincere reverence, and wish
that I were. worthy to claim it, I fear we have none. of

RADICALISM; ITS TRUTH. 253
us been radical enough, that we have all been too con
tent with superficial changes, not demanding a full and
thorough reformation. After thinking, with some ear
nestness, how that may be attained for us in England
and for men everywhere, I have come to the conclusion
which this Essay expresses. I hinted at it when I
begged the new school of Unitarians to tell me plainly
what kind of a Church it is which they look for in the
future ; — whether it has anything to do with that which
has existed in the world for eighteen centuries ; whether
He who is declared in our Creeds to be the Corner-stone
of that, is also to be the Comer-stone of this. I press
the inquiry again, now that I have told them my mind
frankly upon it. I will add this only : that if I accepted
the doctrine of some of those with whom they are asso
ciated, and whom they sometimes proclaim to be the
heralds of a new dispensation ; if I thought that the
world which is to arise out of the wreck of that in
which we are living, were one of which some other
than Jesus Christ, the Son of God, was to be the king ;
I should have no more fervent wish, supposing I could
then form a wish, — I could conceive no better prayer,
supposing there was any one to whom I could offer a
prayer, — than that I and my fellow-men, and the whole
universe, might perish at once, and for ever.

ESSAY XI.
ON THE ASCENSION OF CHRIST.
It is a favourite practice among some writers and
thinkers of our day, to contrast the vulgar, low-minded,
animal Jew, with the refined, imaginative, spiritual
Greek. The comparison is dwelt on especially by those
who wish to deliver us from what we have been used to
call the facts, from what they call the legends, of the
New Testament. All these, they say, had an ideal
truth for the old Greeks, and furnished them with
the hints of a thousand beautiful stories. The hard,
definite forms in which they have obtained currency
throughout Christendom, they owe, we are told, to the
intellects of a few Galil_eans, below even the average of
their countrymen in cultivation, beyond them in coarse
ness and superstition.
This charge applies more or less directly to all the
records of our Lord's life in the Evangelists ; to all the
articles of the Creed which I have been considering in
my recent Essays. But it bears most strongly upon

THE GEEEK AND THE JEW. 255
the words, " He ascended into heaven, and sitteth on
the right hand of God the Father Almighty." ' Here,'
it is said, ' we have a great idea sensuabsed and mate-
' rialised. Humanity is continually longing and striving
' to ascend above itself. There is always a mysterious
' heaven, which it desires to reach. Ever and anon
' it feels that it has actually gained a vision of the
' Infinite, towards which it aspires. The Greeks, pos-
' sessing the creative faculty, had various modes of
' expressing this truth. The people rejoiced in the
' symbols ; the wise men, indifferent to them, perceived
' that which was latent in them. The poor Jew could
' think only of an actual body ascending into some
' actual Heaven. The Christian Church, unable to divest
' itself of the same dry habit of mind, has accepted the
' Jewish dogma. But she has felt the restraint which
' it imposes. The notion of a present Christ alternates
' in her teachings with that of One who has gone
' away. The doctrine of Transubstantiation has repre-
' sented and perpetuated the contradiction. Protestants
' have tried to rid themselves of it. They will not do
' so,' these teachers continue, ' till they are content to
' receive the kernel without the shell, to take the idea of
' the Ascension, and to cast away the story of it*
I have ventured already to encounter the idealists
in some of their favourite positions; I can have no
wish to shrink from a fair examination of these, I
should be taking a very strange course if I denied that

258 THE IGNORANT GALILEANS.
the Gablseans were the most ignorant part of a race
which was specially inclined to animal worship, which
had exhibited that tendency throughout all its history.'
The Scriptures tell us so ; as I accept their testimony, I
must believe that it was so. Nor can I make any ex
ception in favour of the fishermen, from whom our Lord
chose His Apostles. If I did, I should contradict their
own repeated statements. No doubt they were immea
surably less imaginative than the Greeks, very little
able to conceive of a world beyond the range of their
senses, or to people it with bright forms. Not only
had they little natural capacity for this kind of crea
tion ; it was restrained in them by laws, institutions,
traditions. They were told that the Lord God, the
Creator of heaven and earth, had chosen their fathers
to know Him, and to spread abroad the knowledge of
Him. They were told that they must not think of
Him as being bke anything in heaven, or earth, or
under the earth. They had a great hankering to do so.
It was very hard to help such thoughts. What could
He be like if He were not like some of these things ?
From time to time they were ready to fancy Him like
the meanest of them ; foreigners might suggest that He
was like the worthiest, like a man : they were not in
sensible to the suggestion ; still they clung to the law of
their fathers.
Were they never to have any knowledge of this
Being except what they got from their books and their

THEIR KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. 257
traditions? How strange and sad it was to read the
books, to hear the traditions, if that was the case ! For
all whose stories were related to them had spoken of
actually knowing His name for themselves, of taking
refuge in Him, of delighting in Him, of finding Him a
high tower from the face of their enemies. Was all
this changed ? Was He removed to an infinite distance
from them, — He who had seemed to promise that the
ages to come should know Him better than those to
whom He spoke; who had encouraged the fathers to
hope that they should leave a richer legacy to their'
children than any that had come to them, and that it
would go on increasing for their heirs ?
At times they felt that this could not be; at times
they knew that it could not be. What times were
thpse ? Were they hours of some special freedom from
their ordinary cares and dulness, when the peasant was
for an instant transfigured by the sight of some glorious
sunset, when the fisherman looked into another world
below the lake, and heard voices tempting him to come
down and behold its wonders ? No ! it was not then ;
it was in hours of special toil, sickness, oppression ; it "
was when the child or the friend was taken away ; it
was when sorrow for the past, doubt in the present,
terror of the future, were griping them fast ; it was then
that the conviction dawned upon them, ' He still is ; '
' He may be known by us,' ' We may find in Him a
' refuge, even as David or Isaiah did,' And then they
S

25&. THEIR TEACHERS ; THE TEACHER.
pereeived how it was that He must be known, if the
knowledge was to do them any good, to bring them
any comfort; that their hearts, not their eyes, were
crying out for the living God ; that with their hearts
they must perceive Him, if they were ever to throw off
their burden and enter into rest-
It was but for a little while they retained that confi
dence, and that clear understanding ; they tried, perhaps,
to keep both alive, by asking aid and instruction from,
some scribe or doctor of the law. He might give them
words which would sink into their memories and their
hearts, to come up again at some other day ; he might
give them rules which would bind them with heavy
ehains, from which afterwards they would struggle in
vain to break loose, because they were rules for fitting
them to seek that intercourse into which they must enter
before they could be fit for it ; or rales which bound
them to those earthly things and those shameful recol
lections, from which they wanted to be set free.
But at last there came- a Teacher, not removed from
them like the Rabbis^ a peasant, even as they were, —
One who had grown up in their villages, and walked
about in their cities, — One who went into all companies,.
but who seemed to care for no society so much as
theirs. And He spoke tp them as one having authority.
He did not teji them of a God, who had been in
other days, with whom it was possible for Moses and
the prophets to hold converse. He spoke to them of a

HIS METHOD. 259
Father who knew them, the fishermen of Galilee, and
whom they might know. He spoke of having come
forth from Him. He spoke of His kingdom as the
Kingdom of Heaven, and yet as one in which they, the
meanest sons of earth, could dwell, the secrets of which
they might understand, the powers of which they might
exert, which they were to assure their own countrymen
was at hand, the gates of which they would ultimately
open to the world. As He interpreted to them the
nature of this kingdom, they more and more felt that He
was drawing them from a world which they looked upon
with their eyes, into an unseen world which another
eye that He was opening must take in ; yet a world which
was intimately united to the one they were walking in,
which gave the forms of that world a distinctness they
had never had before. When He wielded the powers of
His kingdom, they felt more and more that He governed
the secret heart of nature and of man ; that spirits were
subject to Him ; that through them He was acting upon
bodies; that aU His influences proceeded from within,
though at last they left the clearest marks upon that
which was visible and outward. It was strange how
they were continually striving against this education,
trying to. invert it, translating His words arid acts of
power into some low, material, ineffectual sense. But
it was stranger still how His teaching met all their
thoughts and anticipations, in spite of this opposition ;
how natural it seemed to be, how exactly framed aud

260: PROTECTION AGAINST IDOLATRY.
devised for them ; how it harmonized with all they had'
heard in their Scriptures of a righteous and invisible
God, who cared for His creatures, and desired that they
should seek Him and find Him ; how it raised them
above those animal inclinations of theirs ; what a new
feeling of humanity it kindled in them ! But the
Teacher Himself; what was He? Might not He who
was leading them out of all visible idolatry Himself
become the object of it ? Could they help regarding Him
with such a reverence as interfered with the reverence
for Jehovah? Did not the Pharisees continually re
proach them with this sin, and Him with encouraging it?
There was this danger. What was He doing to deliver'
them from it ? When Simon Peter said, ' Thou art the
Christ, the Son of the living God,' He said, ' Blessed art
thou, Simon Bar-jona, for flesh and blood hath not re
vealed it to thee, but my Father in heaven.' When
Simon Peter, said, ' That be far from Thee, Lord,' that
Thou shouldst be .rejected of the chief priests and
scribes, and be put to death, He said, ' Get thee behind
me, Satan ; thou savour est not the things that be of God,
but the things that be of men.' For a moment He was
transfigured before them, and His face became bright and
glistening ; then a cloud covered Him, and a voice came
out of the cloud, ' This is my beloved Son ; hear Him ; '
and He began to speak of His passion, and, He came
down into the crowd about the boy who had fits. Thus.
a sense of inward glory belonging to Him, which spirit

THE PASSOVER NIGHT. 261
might apprehend, but the eye could not, was awakened
in them ; while they saw Him crashing and humbling
all that they looked upon, all that they could make
an excuse for idolatry. And at last the humibation
became complete. They saw Him in agony. The Jewish
law sentenced Him as a blasphemer. The Gentile ruler
gave Him up as an impostor, who pretended to the
crown and the purple. He was not stoned, but crucified.
Whatever could put contempt upon a Son of God,
or a King, was poured upon Him. The night before
His passion He spoke words, so St. John tells us,
which the Apostles could not at all interpret. ' For a
little while,' He said, ' they should see Him, and then a
little while, and they should not see Him, because He
went to His Father.' ' What is this,' they said to them
selves, "which He saith, a little while? We cannot
tell vjhat He saith.' And then ' when He saw they were
desirous to ask Him,' He spoke of a day of bliss to them,
which should succeed a night of sorrow ; a day when
they should feel like the woman who remembers no
more the anguish of travail, ' for joy that a man is born
into the world.' That same night, we are told, ' He
took bread and blessed it, and gave it to His disciples,
and said, Take, eat, this is my body, which is given for
you ; ' and poured out wine, and said, ' Drink ye all of
this ; for this is my blood, the blood ofthe New Testament,
which is shed for you and for many, for the remission of
sins' What such words signified, they knew not, and

262 PREPARATION FOR THE ASCENSION.
could not know. His body was there ; within a few
hours it was taken down from the cross and laid in a
sepulchre. That He would ever rise out of it, they say,
they had only the faintest dream, in spite of words which
encouraged the belief. But then, they add, that when
He did rise, this seemed to them the explanation of aU
that He had done, and said, and been. They report
words which they say they heard of Him : ' Ought not
Christ to have suffered these things, and to enter into His
glory?' If there was such a Son of God and Son of
man, as He had led them to believe there was, then it
seemed to them strange and monstrous that He should
die, but natural and reasonable that He should rise.
And soon they seemed to have felt it scarcely less
natural and necessary that He should ascend to Him
from whom they believed that He had come. They
relate, in a few simple words, how they arrived at that
conviction, how He educated them into it. He ap
peared to them while they were met together, the doors
being shut for fear of the Jews. He showed them His
hands and His side ; He ate with them ; He vanished
out" of their sight ; He breathed on them ; He com
manded them to go and baptize all nations ; He said,
' All power is given unto Me. in heaven and earth;'
He said, ' Loi lam with you alway, even unto the end
ofthe world.'
I repeat their story. If it sounds unnatural, incon
sistent, grotesque to any, I certainly shall not make it

RESULT OF THE TEACHING. " '263
less so by translating it out of their words into mine.
But at all events this was clearly the effect of what they
heard and saw, or fancied or pretended they heard and
saw. They felt, ' This Lord of ours is actually related to
' us now as He was before He was crucified. He is
' related to His Father now as He was then. His body
' is the very body which He had then. But we are not
' henceforth to see Him often in that body. Our
' intercourse with Him will not be helped or hindered by
' the eye. It will be, as it has always been, intercourse
' with a divine Teacher, with a Guide and Enlightener
' of our spirits. It may be — must be — immeasurably
' more perfect than it has been, because He has been
' Himself cultivating and preparing us for it so long.
' But it must be, as He has always taught us to expect,
1 intercourse with Him as the Head of a great kingdom,
' as the Lord of men, as One who has a work for us to
' do on behalf of men. It will be real and blessed if we
' enter into that work ; if we do it as those whom He
'has called to do it ; if we do not seek to appropriate
' Him to ourselves, to confine Him withia our bounda-
' ries ; if we remember that He is to' fill all things, to
' bind earth and heaven in Himself. It must be—
' as He told us it would be — henceforth awful intercourse
' with the Father through Him, so that as in Him God
' has stooped to us, in Him we may ascend to God.'
' We may ascend to God ! Why that is the ideal
'language. You are now translating Hebrew into

264 THE GALILEANS SPIRITUAL BEINGS.
* Greek.' If I am, I am doing what the Apostles did.
Their minds — the minds of these dull Galileans — were
idealised, spiritualised. It is what I wish you to observe;
and I wish you to observe also the process by which
this strange transformation was wrought, A person
Whom they had known, with whom they felt that they
•were inseparably, eternally united, had gone out of this
Tvorld; to what place they knew not, nor cared to know;
but certainly to His Father, certainly to Him with whom
He had always been one, with whom He had come to
make them one, whom He had declared and proved to
be their Father, as well as His Father. It was the
great witness and demonstration to them that they were
- spirits having bodies, that they were not bodies into
which a certain ethereal particle, called spirit, was in
fused. That which conversed with God was not some
thing accidental to them, but their substance. And
this too was that by which they held converse with each
other. Without this there was no possibility of their
feeling together, suffering together, hoping together.
With this, it was possible to feel, suffer, hope with all
' men, with the whole universe. But was it necessaiy to
forget that Christ had a body in order that they might
enter into this fellowship with His Father and with His
brethren? If they did forget that, the fellowship would
cease, and their spirits would fall again into their old
slavery. For this is the pledge of their union to
Him ; His victory in the body, over the body, for the

THE EUCHARIST. 265
body, is theirs also. They could claim the dignity of
. spirits, because they were one with Him who had re
deemed the body and made it spiritual. They could
have fellowship with all sufferers in the body, because
He had suffered and died', and was the common Lord
of all. They could rise to communion with the Father
of Spirits, because there was One in a body who was
His well-beloved Son, and who had offered Himself
for them.
The disciples of Christ, having gained this learning,
could enter into the force of those words spoken at the
Paschal supper, which had been at first merely bewilder
ing. They could remember how at Capernaum He had
spoken of his flesh being meat indeed, of His blood being
drink indeed ; how He had said that His flesh would be
given for the life of the world; how, when some were
offended, He said, ' The spirit quickeneth, ihe flesh pro-
flteth nothing ; ' and how He had connected these appa
rent contradictions with the question, ' What and if ye
shall see the Son of man ascend up where He was before?'
And now, as they ate the bread and drank the wine,
according to His commandment, they could receive these
tokens as the surest pledges that they were risen with
Him ; that they were in His presence as much as ever;
that they had no life in themselves; that the life of
the world was in Him ; that His flesh and blood were
indeed the bond between the creatures and the Creator,
.between the creatures and each other.

'266 THE TWELVE APOSTLES ; SAUL OF TARSUS.
You see, then, bow careful the Apostles are to impress
us with that fact, which wise men, who do not in general
consider them trustworthy authorities, are also so anxious
to impress us with, that they were very stupid people, —
on a level with the most stupid. Thus they show that
the great experiment of what man is and what he is
meant for, was made in corpore viii; so that none could
say, ' This lesson is not for me ; I cannot claim to be a
' spiritual being, and to be risen and ascended with
' Christ.' These Galileans, not being men of any gifts of soul,
not men whose race or general culture led them to
magnify the soul above the body, yet came to such an
apprehension of the spiritual condition and glory of
man, — to such a practical apprehension of it, — as no
¦sages in any country had ever reached; I say of Man ;
for this was necessarily involved in the discovery that
they were not better than the worst of their countrymen,
and that Christ had eared for the worst and taken their
nature. Though, as their mission was to the lost sheep
of the House of Israel, all they needed, generally, to
proclaim was, that the siUiest of those sheep, — the one
who had wandered furthest, — had an interest in the
sufferings and triumphs of the good Shepherd.
But there came a time when a Jew of Tarsus felt
that he was called to go forth and tell Greeks that they
were possessors .of the blessings of the children of
Abraham. The blessings of the children of Abraham !

THE HEBREW AMONG THE GEEEKS. 267
What a message to bring to the most graceful and
refined people on the earth, that they might share the
privileges of those whom they accounted the most coarse
and inhuman ! To assure those who believed that they
must be meant, in one way or other, to bear rule over
mankind, because they had souls and the majority of
men only an animal nature, that they might become what
some of the least intellectual of that miserable majority
already were! And yet this was the proclamation of
the Jewish tent-maker. And instead of its seeming to
him or to his countrymen a message which flattered their
national pride, Saul declared that, until that pride was
crushed in him by a revelation of Jesus the Son of God,
— until he knew Him to be indeed the King of his own
spirit, and the risen and ascended King of the whole
earth, he could not endure the thought that the Greek
was cared for by the God whom he worshipped, and was
a member of the same body with himself. When he
did with his whole heart acknowledge that truth, and
was convinced that he had a commission to declare it,
Greeks, who had been given up to dsemon-worship, and
whose thoughts of that which was divine had found the
most exquisite visible forms to clothe themselves in,
turned with wonder and awe to the invisible Lord whom
the poor Syrian tribe had for centuries been confessing ;
claimed Him as the common Father of them and the bar
barians ; owned that one perfect human image of Him
-had been manifested, and that all the images which they

268 GROUND OF A FELLOWSHIP FOR MEN.
had formed must be cast away; believed that away was
opened into His presence for them and for all, through
the Mediator, who was in their nature at His right hand.
On this ground a church of men, taken out of all nations
and kindreds, stood ; this was the bond of their fellow
ship ; this destroyed the divisions which locahty, race, in
dividual temperament, old traditions, private judgments,
had established among them. And when they met, as
St. Paul told them they were to meet, and kept that
feast which Christ had instituted the same night that He
was betrayed; they met to have fellowship with a Lord
who had ascended in that body which He had offered
up, and which death could not hold ; they met in the
assurance that they were risen with Him and brought
into His presence ; they met to realize their union with
the whole family in heaven and earth, which was named
in Him the elder Brother of it ; they met to give thanks
in Him, to the Father who had made them meet to be
partakers of an inheritance with the saints in light.
But St. Paul discovered in each one of these churches,
tendencies which were threatening the existence of this
communion, and were bringing back all Judaism, all
idolatries, all local divisions, the materialism of old
traditions, the spiritual conceits of those who had not
been taught to suspect themselves and to know that
they knew nothing. He encountered each of these
tendencies as he saw it rising; traced it to its source;
pointed out the habits that were akin to it, and that

DISEASES OF THE CHURCH. 269
were fostering it. Among the Corinthians he discovered
the love of faction and party leaders, which was so
specially Greek ; among the Galatians, the influence of
teachers who persuaded them that the Jew had still a
position higher and diviner than that of all other men, and
that they must become Jews if they were to have God's
favour ; in the Colossians, speculations about angels,
daemons, emanations ; all that constituted the philoso
phised mythology of Orientals or Greeks. There is some
thing peculiarly adapted to this last habit of mind in the
words which we find in the third chapter of the Epistle
to the Colossians : ' If ye then be risen with Christ,
seek those things that are above, where Christ sitteth
on the right hand of God.' He wished to remind the
philosophers who were trying to scale heaven by their ,
theories, that they would be baffled, as all the giants of
former days had been. He wished to show them that.
what they called spirituality was not that at all ; that it
was merely the exaltation of the soul at the expense of
the body, of the sage at the expense of the common
man, and that it led by a very direct road to the de
gradation of Humanity. He wished them to see how
— not the soul or the sage — but the man, had been ex
alted in the exaltation of Christ ; how the whole Body,
and not some of its choice members, might claim to be
risen with Him ; how impossible it was for any one
to rise who tried to rise by himself, or to set himself in
anywise apart from his brethren. But though there

270 RISEN WITH CHRIST; PALEY.
is this special appropriateness in the words, they are
generally applicable to all conditions of the Church,
which St. Paul discovered then, or which he expected
might exist hereafter. They point out, I think, what
would be the source of various diseases, and what would
be the one remedy for them.
When we hear the words, ' If ye be risen with Christ?
our first inclination is probably to say, ' It is not ah
' actual rising, of course, which he means ; the lan-
' guage is metaphorical. We are to rise, as one of the
' collects expresses it, in heart and mind.' Now Paley,
who had a broad, simple, English nature, who was a
utilitarian by profession, and who had as little tendency
to1 mysticism as any one who ever lived, was struck espe
cially by the business-like quality of St. Paul's mind.
You may say, Paley was an advocate, he held a brief for
St. Paul. No doubt ; brat he need not have chosen that
peculiar merit for his panegyric; there were a thousand
stereotyped common places about devotion, intrepidity,
self-sacrifice, which would have done as well. He would
certainly have resorted to them, and not to this phrase, if
he had thought Paul was in the habit of using metaphors
when he was writing on grave practical topics. No man
of business would do that, and therefore Paley, whatever
construction he might have put on, or have abstained
from putting on, such passages as these, which are so
familiar to every reader of St. Paul, so characteristic of
his style and ofthe man, certainly must have concluded-

THE FANTASTIC AND THE SUBSTANTIAL. 271
that they were not pieces of fine writing, not flourishes
of rhetoric ; that they were unlike those expressions of
poets or philosophers, which are far from being unmean
ing or nonsensical, but which he would have deemed so,
about the wings of Psyche, or the ascent of the divine in
man into its native element. Our Archdeacon must'
have perceived, with his shrewd northern common
sense, that St. Paul, though very unlike him in most
respects, was just as substantial as he was, just as little
ofa dreamer or a sentimentalist; that there was a con
nexion between what he said of spirit and ' business.'
It is precisely this connexion which I have been
endeavouring to trace, and which marks out St. Paul as
'a Hebrew of the Hebrews.' The Teacher whom the
other Apostles had known after the flesh, trained him,
by discipline not less regular, mysterious, and severe
than theirs, to know that the spirit is the substantial
part of man ; that he is, because he is made in the image
of God, who is a Spirit ; that he is in a fallen, anomalous
condition, when the senses which connect him with the
earth are his rulers, and he judges what he is from them ;
that he is in a restored,, risen, regenerate condition,
when he is able to assert his glory as a spiritual
being by asserting his relation to God. Believing,
therefore, that God had regenerated and restored Hu
manity in Christ, that He had called men to claim -
itheir relation to the Father through the Son, he could-
eay boldly, ' You are risen with Christ..' ' It is not a

272 VICTORY OVER SENSE AND SUPERSTITION.
' metaphor or fancy that you are ; you will be always in a
' region of metaphors and fancies, always shaping some
' dream of a nobler life out of the coarse material of
' your earthly existence, until you take up this position.
' Then all becomes simple and real. There is no more
' a straining after some high ideal ; the most quiet,
' reasonable life you can lead is that of creatures who
' are raised into union and fellowship with a higher
' nature; who are continually looking up to Him, in
' weakness and dependence leaning upon Him, confident
' that He can lift you, and is lifting you, above all the
' things which He has put in subjection to you, and is
' giving you the power to use them as your ministers,
' and to consecrate them to Him. And because you
' know how these things have corrupted you, and en-
' slaved you, and become your idols, therefore as risen
'creatures, as regenerate sons of God, seek the things
' that are above, where Christ sitteth at the right hand
' of God. Claim your portion in the eternal Truth, and
' Love, and Righteousness, which He has manifested to
' you, and of which He has made you heirs ; have done
' with all earth-born phantoms, superstitions, conceits,
' fears. They will cling about you, as all groveUing
' lusts and filthy imaginations wiU likewise. But give
' entertainment neither to one nor to the other. You
' can disengage yourselves from them. For you are
' members of Christ's body, and Christ is at the right
' hand of God, And if you say, " But the earthly

THE FLESH AND BLOOD. 273
' attraction is too mighty, and the sense of past evil and
' slavery recurs continuaUy, and the moment we seem
' to rise we are faUen again, and when we seek to be
'united to our brethren, then come in all low, petty
' thoughts about ourselves; and when we want to rale
' the world for God, the world gets the mastery, and
'rules us for the Devil;" then, I say, remember the
' words, " My flesh is meat indeed, my blood is drink
' indeed." Be assured that He who is at the right hand
¦' of God is not merely a spiritual being separated from
' you ; He is in your nature, He has taken your flesh.
' He has redeemed it, glorified it ! Come, then, brother
' man, not as a fine, dainty, selfish epicure, to seek some
'special and solitary blessings for yourself; but come
' as one of a family, to seize a common food which is
' given to all, a sacrifice which has been offered for all.
' Come, and eat it in haste, with your shoes on your feet
' and your staff in your hand, as a man who has a
' journey before him and work in hand, as a pilgrim, not
' as a phUosopher. But again : eat it, all of you, as
' risen men, as spiritual creatures ; not as those who are
' peeping into the ground and muttering, to ask the aid
' of some famihar spirit ; not as those who come with
' cowardly prostration before a daemon whose favour they
' are bribing ; but as those who have their habitation
and their polity with Christ, their Representative and
' Intercessor.' If the Greeks, with their high spirituality, had any-
T

274 THE UNBELIEF OF THE CHURCH.
thing to produce which was more spiritual than this, — if,
with their Humanity, they had anything which was
more human, — it is a pity they did not bring it forth in
those three centuries when they were struggbng, with
every possible advantage, against the Christian Church.
But I think the more we look into the history of that
Church in those centuries, and in all that have succeeded
them, the more we shall perceive that it has become
earthly, debased, superstitious, inhuman, just in propor
tion as it has lost hold of this truth of Christ's actual
ascension, just in proportion as it has substituted a mere \
symbolical or ideal ascension for that, just in proportiomi
as the Greek notion of men rising and ascending by '
dint of high gifts of soul into gods, has superseded
the notion of the fishermen and the tent-maker, that
they and the humblest men are risen with Christ, and
may therefore seek those things that are above.
My readers will perceive at once that this is a natural
and direct inference from the doctrine I maintained in
my last Essay. I showed then how many of the
mischiefs and abominations which had tormented the
Church, and made her the oppressor of mankind, arose
from her disbelief in Christ as the Regenerator of man.
There are some special applications of this statement
which belong to the subject I am now considering.
The resurrection and ascension of Christ having been
taken by a "great portion of the Church as merely
extraordinary, anomalous everits, — riot as events which

MIRACLES OF THE MIDDLE AGES. 275
could not have been otherwise, which exhibit eternal
laws, which vindicate the' true order and constitution of
human existence, — while at the same time there has been
an assurance that they were necessary to men, and that
they must in some way be pattern events, examples of
that which men were to be and to do, — a series of acts,
attesting the power of spirit over body, the capacity of
men to overcome the powers of nature, the possibility
of rising into communion with the infinite, has been
imagined. These have been considered strange ex
ceptions in the order of the world; and being such,
the whole inventive power of the human spirit has been
employed in decking them out and connecting them
with the bfe of some favourite saint or hero. By degrees
it has been discovered that a number of these triumphs
may be referred to ordinary principles and laws, which
govern the hurnan frame and the course of nature ; that
other portions of the stories are traceable to mistake,
confused reporting, or direct fraud. Still not merely
the affections of men, but their consciences, have clung
to these instances of an actual connexion between the
spiritual arid the external world, and of the dominion
of the first over the second. In vain you produce the
clearest evidences of imposture; in vain you talk of
natural causes. The heart of man says, ' Here are signs
' of a, faith which was not false, but true ; here are tokens
' of that which is not natural, but supernatural.' And now
a new change is evidently taking place. Science itself

276 HATERS OF SCIENCE AND ART.
is becoming dynamical rather than mechanical ; powers
and agencies are discovered in nature itself, not less
mysterious than those which miracle-workers spoke of.
Man is able, through science, to exercise such powers as
seem to attest the dominion of spirit over nature more
completely than any signs they wrought. The victories
of the old artist over the marble, the mysterious energy
by which he compelled it to express the thoughts arid
emotions of living beings, are leading many whom these
facts do not impress, in the same direction ; the legends
of Greece are received as striking commentaries on the
powers of her sculptors and poets. The Romish priests,
as teachers of youth, see that a movement is going on very
like that which the popes rashly encouraged at the revival
of letters. Some of them cry out that it must be checked.
' Let us have as little science as we can. The old notions
' about the sun are safer than the new. They must be
' restored if possible. Let us banish the classics from our
' schools. The Greek legends are: corrupting our youth.
' They and profane art must be proscribed.' Ifis impos
sible not to see that many in Protestant England, who
hate these priests on other grounds, would be ready to
join them in their prohibitions. There are those among
us who think that the facts of science, unless they are
weU sifted and sorted by religious men, and mixed with
religious maxims, are likely to disturb the faith of the
people, and that the beautiful forms of Greek sculpture,
especially if they are not clothed, and made unnatural,

SUCH FEELINGS SHAMEFUL IN US. 277
must corrupt their morals. I shudder at these notions,
but I do not wonder at them. It seems to me that the
Romish protesters are wise in their generation. If their
disciples are to learn fictions, it is better they should not
be able to compare them with facts ; it is not well that
they should know how many of their stories are borrowed
from Pagan sources, and how much less pure the copies
are than the originals. On higher grounds they may be
right in thinking that those who are not allowed to read
the Scriptures in their simplicity and breadth, have
no standard for judging of what is good and evil in
other literature, and had better be kept from it alto
gether. The existence of such feelings amongst us is
far less excusable. Our education in the Bible ought
to have taught us to bebeve in a God of Truth;
! to reverence facts, because they must be His facts ; to
long that laws should be discovered because they are
His ; to fear nothing but what is false, that being cer
tainly of the Devil. Our Bible culture ought to have
made us understand that nothing is impure save the
corrupt and darkened conscience and will, and that that
may convert all things, even the holy words of inspiration,,
into its own nature. The breadth, simplicity, naked
ness of the Scripture language should have taught us to
dread what is disguised and dressed up for the purpose
of concealment as immoral and dangerous ; to regard
the study of forms as they came from the divine
hand, with the beauty which He has impressed upon

278 HOW OUR EDUCATION HAS FAILED.
them, as safe and elevating. Such has been the
effect of the Bible upon the daughters of England;
if her sons manifest it less, the Greek legends are
not to blame. Those, like Milton, who have been
most deeply penetrated by the meaning of these, if their
minds have had a sound Hebrew root, have been the
purest and the bravest. I do not believe any single
man of us can look back and say, ' It was this
' culture, or my diligence in seeking it, which has done
' me injury.' It was a want of zeal and sincerity some
where else. It was that the words the boy heard in
church or was compelled to learn about the religion
of his countrymen, did not present themselves to him as
connected with those which he was reading in his Greek
or Latin form. One did not illustrate the other; they
seemed to be mere contradictions, intended for different
creatures. If the heart acknowledged a fellowship and
sympathy with the one, it seemed as if the other was
frowning disapprobation. The Hebrew Scriptures, and
the Creed, and Catechism, were taken to be setting forth
a theory about God. The Greek world was human.
And what had the human and divine to do with each
other? Yes ! — let the words be rung in the ears of our
divines till they have taken in the full force of them —
our youths ask, What have the Divine and human to do
with each other ? in a country which receives as the
cardinal tenet of its theology, that Jesus Christ is very
God and very Man.

CRISIS IN ENGLAND. 279
' We accept that tenet certainly in a sense.' Yes,
and, in the name of my countrymen, of our faith, and of
God, I demand in what sense ? Is it a real sense, is it
a fundamental sense? Is it one which explains the
facts of Humanity, or leaves them unexplained? Because
if it is, be assured people will get their explanation else
where. The Greek legends,' all feeble as they are
because they interpret God by human measures and do
not bring men to a divine measure, will yet be preferred
to a mere doctrine which puts God at an infinite distance
from man, and makes Him an object of dread not of
confidence to the creatures who are declared to be formed
in His image and who are craving for the knowledge of
Him. These thoughts must press heavily on the heart of
every one who studies the condition of England, —
especially of her young men, — at this time. The straggle
between the tendencies which incbne them to regard
Christianity as utterly hopeless, — as convicted of inca
pacity for giving any relief to the efforts of human
beings after a higher state, — and to accept a Christ
ianity which guarantees the salvation of their souls
if they will abjure all such efforts, and surrender to a
system that which their consciences tell them they can
only surrender to God, — this struggle is more tremendous
than any of us know. Their English hearts solemnly
protest against either alternative; but it is impossible
for men, whose minds are awake, to bve in a per-

280 HOW IT MAY END.
petual see-saw ; nothing, they feel, is less English, less
manly, than such a position. What evil may not -be
awaiting us, if all the sounds which reach such per
turbed spirits are loud ravings against Rationalism
and Romanism, whUe nothing is offered them but
what looks less sincere and hopeful than either ! But
oh ! what good, beyond anything I can think of or
dream, may God be preparing for us through this
conflict! What a day of joy may succeed a night
of travail, if the message is indeed brought to us,
' The Man is born into the world ! ' And is not this""
the message which is contained in the old story of
Christ's ascension to the right hand of God, if we take
that story not as a legend, but as the fulfilment of all
legends; not as an idea, but as the substantiation of
an idea in a fact ? With what delight might we then
trace the unfolding mysteries of science, believing that
each new fact is revealing some step in an ascending
scale of creatures, the lowest of which is an object
of creating and redeeming love, the highest of which
is in communion with the Son of God! How the
triumphs of art would then be felt as witnesses for
the subjection of all things to man, a subjection accom
plished in Him who has gone through, death and has
ascended to His Father! What joyful testimony would
every mythological story then bring in, not to the wishes
and aspirations of men only, but to God's satisfaction
of them ! Why may not the countrymen of Bacon,

THE EUCHARIST. 281
and Shakspeare, and Milton, aspire thus to declare to
aU mankind, the significancy of science and art, the
essential and practical connexion of earth with heaven,
of the human and the divine?
But they have still a higher work to accomplish,
which perhaps must precede the other. I have alluded
more than once in this Essay to that feast which the
Galilean fishermen were told to keep when they sat at
the Paschal supper ; which St. Paul said that he was
commanded to perpetuate in the churches which were
gathered by the preaching of his gospel from the different
tribes of men. For eighteen centuries Christendom has
kept this feast ; there has been no other like it in the
world. It has spoken of the union of rich and poor,
of men of all races, kindreds, educations, opinions, with
each other, and with a divine Lord who had died for
them.^ All the sections of Christendom have kept up
some form of it, save the Quakers, and they affirm that
they keep it in a higher sense. All the sections pf Chris
tendom have made it the symbol of their separation from
the rest. That which was to unite all men,, of every kind
and degree of inteUect, has been made the subject of the
most subtle, inteUectual distinctions. That which was
to deliver men from the bondage of sense, has been made
the minister of the senses. The doctrine Pf Transubstan
tiation has gathered up all idealism and all materiabsm
into itself, is a compendious expression of all the con
tradictions in the hearts and understandings of human

282 ENGLISH PUZZLES CONCERNING IT.
beings. Yet what hold it seems to have upon those hearts !
How it defies the skill of Protestant divines, the wit of
Protestant scoffers ! How it mixes itself, unconsciously,
with their theories! How mightily it has stood its
ground against all notions that the bread and wine were
but the memorials of an absent Lord, or that the behever
created a Presence which, but for His faith, would not
be! How it is strengthened by all Quaker experi
ments to make spiritual feelings and notions, which ap
pertain to the few, — the expression of which is intelligible
to still fewer, — the media of intercourse, instead of those
symbols which speak of food and life for mankind!
My dear countrymen are puzzled by all these observa
tions which their experience forces on them. They
are impatient of theories, unskilful in forming them.
Yet it seems to them as if they must have a theory,
either compounded of all theories that have ever existed,
or the negation of all: — some grains of Paschasius, a few
globules of Luther, an infusion of Zwingle, shaken toge
ther, and plentifully diluted with the aqua pura of
George Fox. Then tired of a mixture, which must be
either tasteless or nauseous, this man plunges into
Romanism ; that exchanges sacraments for some tran
scendental exposition of them; another who discovers
the flimsiness of the exposition, flies to the open
worship of Mammon, to his sacraments, in which the
outward sign and the thing signified are so perfectly
consubstantiated. Oh, brethren ! must we, being such

HOW WE. MAY RECEIVE IT AND USE IT. 283
blockheads, as our German and GaUic brethren consider
us, and as we know ourselves to be, in all metaphysical
conceptions, always try to rival them ? Is it not
possible God may have some other work for us, not so
satisfactory to our pride, but, on the whole, if we perform
it faithfully, not less serviceable , to mankind, or less to
His glory ? Has it struck you that we are not merely
countrymen of Bacon, Shakspeare, or Milton, but also
| of some millions of men, living on our own soil and in
l our own day, speaking our tongue, who work with their
hands, and who have, besides those hands, senses which
converse with this earth, sympathies that should unite
them to each other, spirits that might hold converse with
God? I do not know that they want theories about
transubstantiation or consubstantiation, Romanist dog
mas or transcendental dogmas, Le Maistre or ScheUing.
But I do know that they want occupation for these
senses, these hearts, these spirits. And I do know
that you can, if you will, say to them, one and all,
' Brothers, here are the pledges that we have a great
' Elder Brother, who was a suffering peasant here on
' earth, who died and rose again, and who is at the
' right hand of God. These tell us that we are one
' with Him where He is. We need not ascend into
' Heaven to bring Him down ; we need not go down into
' the deep to bring Him up again. You may hold con-
' verse with Him where He is. He has proved you to be
' spirits. He has given you this bread and this wine,

284 HOME; OUR COLONIES.
' these common things which belong to us all alike, that
' we may claim a participation in that body and that
' blood which were as real as yours, which were given
' for you, raised from death for you, glorified at God's
' right hand for you. Take, eat ; receive this New
' Testament in His blood. Confess your selfishness,
' your divisions, your heart-burnings. Claim the unity
' which belongs to you. Go your ways ; work like men ; ,
' till the earth, and subdue it for God ; make it bring j
' forth corn for the sower, bread for the eater. In due
' time it will be all God wants it to be. Meantime you
' have a city that hath foundations ; a house not made
' with hands, eternal in the heavens.'
And there is something besides which perhaps we
have forgotten. Though it has not pleased God to-
make us clever in building systems, He has seen fit to
bestow on us an empire on which the sun does not set.
He has committed to our care some hundreds of millions',
of human beings, who have certainly the same flesh and'
blood with us, and who show by the strange speculations
which their sages (often rich in the gifts we are so
deficient in) express in words, and which are for the
people embodied in acts, that they are spiritual beings,
and that they know they are. Most of our civil and
military servants, though they have done some parts of
their business admirably, and have taught these people
to bebeve that -there is truth and justice among men, —
pias ! they have often doubted and denied their own

THE HEATHEN WORLD. 285
position, — have felt that with this part of their mind,
though the most radical, though affecting their whole
existence, they could not meddle. Missionaries have
gone forth with the noblest aims ; not seldom they have
effected blessed results. Yet the officials say, nay,
many of them say themselves, that the majority of the
natives have only derived from their presence a vague
impression, that all they had held themselves is false ;
and, that we could offer them in exchange the choice of
some twenty different religions, manufactured in Europe,
and belonging to white men. Suppose we could go to
them and say, ' There is an Advocate and Intercessor,
' not for Europeans, but for men, at the right hand of
'God. And here are the witnesses that you as men,
r having flesh and blood, and being, as you know,
j ' spiritual creatures, are one with Him, sharers of His
' nature, and, therefore, children of God, fellow-heirs,
' with aU men everywhere, of His kingdom,' — does it not
seem possible that the animal and the human sacrifice,
the fearful invocation to Kali, the prayer-machine of the
Buddhist, might disappear more quickly, than while we
merely argue with them for opinions respecting which
we are divided as weU as they ?

These are thoughts which I have addressed specially
to English Churchmen, who, if they heeded them, might,
perhaps, in due time, first bring the sects in their

286 MATERIALISTS AND SPIRITUALISTS.
own land to meet them in a common sacrifice and
a common Lord ; secondly, might reconcile Protestants
and Romanists abroad, instead of hovering uneasily
between them, or showing a contempt, which is amply
returned, towards both.
I now lay these same thoughts before my Unitarian
brethren, of both sections. What I have said of Paley,
may show those whom the younger school stigma
tise as materialist or utibtarian, that I do not feel
separated from them ; that I do not think it is needful
for them to go through an initiation in any German or
American school, before they can understand St. Paul
or St. John. Good manly sense seems to me so precious
and noble a gift, that I am afraid I often speak intole
rantly of those who put spiritualism and philosophy in
place of it. But I have no right to do so, for I have
felt that temptation strongly ; and if I have felt also the
punishment for having indulged it, and the reaction
against it, I should be the last to cast stones at any
offender. Most earnestly, therefore, do I call upon all of
the spiritual school to join with those from whom they
are in part alienated, and with me, in believing that there
is One ascended on high, and on the right hand of God,
who is our Mediator and theirs ; who claims us as spirits
now, and can change the body of our humiliation to the
body of His glory, by that power whereby He is able
to subdue even all things to Himself.

ESSAY XII.

THE JUDGMENT DAY.

There is no question which exercises the minds of
morahsts and politicians so much as the question of
responsibility. How are you to make ministers of
state, legislators, judges, responsible? To whom are
the highest officers in every state responsible? Are
they to be practically ruled by those whom they profess
to rule ? Is the sovereign a sovereign only in name ?
Is the ultimate authority vested in those who, by a
fiction, are called his subjects ? Or is he governed only
by some code written in letters which he has himself
the power of interpreting, with which he may even at
times dispense? Or is he an autocrat, whose own will
is the last court of appeal, that to which all must not
only in name, but in deed, do homage ? We all know in
what an infinite variety of forms these questions present
themselves, how they force themselves upon us in the
business of every day life.
The notion which prevails mostly among ourselves

288 PUBLIC OPINION.
is, I think, something of this kind. In a civilized
country, — above aU, in one which possesses a free press,
— there is a certain power, mysterious and indefinite in
its operations, but producing the most obvious and
mighty effects, which we call public opinion. If this
can be brought to bear upon the acts and proceedings
of any functionary, we suppose that there is as much
security for his good behaviour as can be possibly
obtained. He lives under the conviction that his acts,
as a public servant, are open to a vigilant and suspi
cious scrutiny ; experience assures him that no nice or
accurate line will be drawn between this part of his life
and that which he might wish to claim as private — his
domestic relations, his opinions on the different topics
which interest his fellow-men. Thus his whole exist
ence is in a great measure exposed ; his sphere of inde
pendent action or judgment is very limited. Though
the right of thinking for himself may be one which
he is anxious to assert, nay, which the habits and
rules of the times require him to assert, the actual
power of thinking fpr himself can only be exercised
under strict conditions ; practically, the circle in whieh
he moves, or the world at large, or those, be they who
they may, who direct the world, think for him.
When public opinion has been for some time deified
in this manner, there comes a strong recoil. ' Is it
' possible,' men ask, ' to live honestly upon such terms
' as these? Has the progress of civilization, as it is called,

rebellion against it. 289
' not brought us into greater freedom, but only into more
' hopeless slavery ? If we are to have masters, should
' we not know who they are ? Should we not, at least,
' know what is their right over us ? Should they not have
' some claim to our reverence, if they have no hold upon
' our affections ? What can be so ignominious as this
' subjection to judges whom we do not in our hearts
' believe to be wise, to whom in secret we attribute little
: sincerity or truth, who are the sport of a thousand
1 accidents and influences, as vulgar as any of those
' which could pervert our own judgments if we were left
' to ourselves? Is it not the business ofa man to shake
' off such a yoke as this, to say that he will not have his
' deeds or thoughts moulded by this opinion, that he wUl
' not bow down and worship an image, which has been
' set up he cannot teU when or by whom, but which exacts
' devotion to itself under the heaviest penalties? Should
* not a minister of state, a legislator, a judge, hold him-
1 self responsible to some other tribunal than this ? Must
' he not do so, if the words which go forth from his lips,
' if the deeds which he performs, are ever to be of any
' worth to ages to come, even to his own?'
These complaints are uttered. In youth, many strong
resolutions are often founded upon them, — many bold
and eccentric courses taken in pursuance of them. But
again and again the man is driven into the old rut. He
finds that the world was right in saying that self-will is
a perilous and fatal guide. He thinks in vain where
U

290 REFLECTIONS ON ITS NATURE.
a substitute for this strange force of opinion is to be
found ; how wicked men are ever to be curbed, if it is
not held up to them as an object of fear ; how weU-dis-
posed men are ever to be kept in an even course, if they
have not some hope of its protection. ' It is vague,
' indefinite, intangible enough, no doubt ; but is not that
' the case also with all the powers which affect us most
'in the physical world? The further men advance in
' the study of nature, the more of these uncontrollable,
' invisible forces seem to make themselves known. If
* we think with awe of mysterious affinities, of some
' mighty principle which binds the elements of the
' universe together, why should not we wonder also at
' these moral affinities, this more subtle magnetism,
' which bears witness that every man is connected by
( the most intimate bonds with his neighbour, and that
' no one can live independently of another?'
It may easily be admitted that a reflection of this
kind is suggested when we meditate upon public
opinion, — the insignificance of the agents by which it
works, and the greatness of its results for good or for
evil. But I apprehend no one is able to derive this
lesson from it, or at least to turn it to any practical use,
tUl he has risen in some measure above the terror of it ;
any more than he can estimate the sublimity of a storm,
whUe he is trembling lest it should in a moment destroy
him and all that are dear to him, or than he can think
of all the hallowed associations which a churchyard

THE GREAT ASSIZE. 291
at night-time might call up, while he is dreading lest he
should be pursued by some pale spectre. If we could
learn the secret of overcoming this power, of acting
as if we were indeed responsible to some other and
more righteous one; if that conviction could be as
present to us as the thought of the judgment which our
fellow-creatures pass upon us; if our whole lives were
moulded by the one belief as much as they are wont to
be moulded by the other, — we should be able to under
stand what the world's judgment can do for us as well
as what it cannot do ; the very same principle which
keeps us from obeying it would keep us from despising
it ; we should be saved from setting up our own tastes,
caprices, nay, our own most deliberate judgments,
against the tastes, caprices, judgments of our own or
other ages; just because we should have courage to
say to them, one and aU, ' Whether it be right in the
sight of God to hearken unto you more than unto God,
judge ye.'
Divines have thought that the words, ' We must all
appear before the judgment-seat of Christ,' might be so
taken into the hearts of men, and become such a strong
abiding conviction there, that all the opinions of con
temporaries, all fear of popular assembbes — even of
the most august earthly tribunals — should shrink and
dwindle before them. They have, therefore, presented
to ' their disciples the picture of a great assize, to which
aU ages and nations shall be summoned. What has

292 DESCRIPTIONS OF IT.
been the effect of such descriptions ? We feel ourselves
at leisure to analyse our own emotions in listening to
them, to compare the methods in which the subject is
treated by different artists, to criticise their skill. We
observe how much more powerful and judicious Jeremy
Taylor is than others, because he has gathered together
distinct groups, such as ' those whom Caesar Augustus
did tax,' instead of trusting to vague, cloudy abstrac
tions. Surely this is proof sufficient that the preacher
has failed of his purpose. He has not given us some
mighty conviction before which we must bow, — which
will go with us where we go, and stay with us where we
stay. The fabric of this vision, raised by however noble
an architect, fades more surely, more rapidly, than that
of any of the earthly temples which he tells us are
perishing. As it departs, it leaves the impression on
our mind that the vulgarest, pettiest motives, which act
upon us in the bustle of the common world, are more
efficient than the most magnificent anticipations of that
which is to be, in some far-off period. We may mourn
that it should be so ; we may utter some common-places
about the weakness or depravity of human nature ; but
in some way or other we reconcile ourselves to the
discovery. Have earnest, devout men, then, deceived them
selves in this matter? Were they wrong in supposing
that the belief in Christ's judgment ought to be a
mighty belief for mankind? Was it not a mighty

THE JUDGMENT PRESENT. 293
one for their own hearts? I am sure they were not
deceived. The thought of Christ's judgment was their
strength in prosperity and in calamity. It saved them
from floating with the current of their times when it
was gentle, — from being swept away by it when it was
strong. But I do not conceive they would have de
rived the least support from the anticipation of standing
before Christ in some distant day, if they had not
believed they were standing before Him in their own
day. They were sure that for them the judgment
was already set, the books were abeady opened ; that
they were every hour of their lives in the presence of
One who knew the intents of their hearts, and who was
calling them to account for these and for the acts to
which they gave birth. It is for the efforts which they
have made to ground us in the same habitual persuasion.
that we are chiefly beholden to them. Whatever bght:
they have thrown on the Scripture doctrine of a judg
ment to come has proceeded from the light in which
they were continually walking. If they have ever
darkened that doctrine, or coloured and distorted it by
their fancy, we may trace the error to their forgetfulness
of that truth which the writers of the New Testament
never suffer us to forget, — that Jesus Christ is the same
yesterday, to-day, and for ever.
Perhaps you will say, 'After all, these descriptions
' which you represent as so ineffectual, even when the
' ability displayed in them is greatest, are only the

294 THE CREED AND THE PICTURE.
' expansion and realization of the words in the Creed :
' From thence He shall come to judge the quick and the
' dead. If one is weak, the other must be weaker ; if the
' picture which tries to embody the fact is of such small
' worth, what can be the use of merely repeating a bare
' announcement of it ? '
The objection would be most reasonable if the words,
' He shall come to judge the quick and dead,' could
be separated from all that has gone before, — if no pains
had been taken to tell us who He is. But if the Creed
has been declaring Him to be the Son of God our Lord ;
if it has been exhibiting Him, first, in the closest rela
tionship with God, secondly, in the closest relationship
with man, — this relationship not being created by any
acts which are recorded afterwards, but being the ground
and explanation of those acts, not being the consequence
of His Incarnation, or Death, or Resurrection, or Ascen
sion, but the cause of them;— -then I apprehend the
practical difference between the dry statement and the
brilliant translation of it is immeasurable. According
to the one, it is impossible, without violating the law of
my being, the eternal order and constitution of things,
that I should separate myself from Christ. He is the
Lord of my own self, of my spirit ; whether I confess
Him or not I must continually hear His voice, be open
to His reproofs. Wherever I am, whatever I am doing,
He must be there ; He must be the standard of my acts;
the right in them must be that which has originated in

CHRIST ALWAYS WITH US. 295
Him, — the wrong must be the revolt from Him. No
present or possible conditions of our being can change
this order. Death, it has been proved, does not dissolve
our relation to Him; He has entered into it for us,
The Resurrection from the dead is a resurrection for
us as well as for Him ; it has vindicated man's true
condition, not subverted it. The Ascension, if we
admit it to be a fact, not a mere idea, proves, as I
urged in the last Essay, not that we are divided from
Him, but that place cannot divide us ; that we are
spirits; that when we act as if we belonged to the
bodies which we are meant to rule, we stoop knowingly,
and are condemned by our consciences. Such a doc
trine, I said, so far from being at variance with the
facts of history and the laws of the physical universe, is
confirmed by both. History shows how confident men
have been in all times that they were meant to ascend
above their earthly conditions, and to have fellowship
with an unseen world ; their noblest dreams have had
this origin, — their wildest and most degrading supersti
tions have arisen from their incapacity to claim what they
felt was their right. Physical science shows how many
violations of true and divine laws men commit when
| they become slaves of their bodies, and into what igno-
' ranee they fall when they accept the testimony, of their
senses as determining those laws ¦;-. in either case they are
evidently not obeying reason, -but'-settirig;itr at naught;
What follows ?. This ¦ exclusion of Christ from' the eye$

296 HOW THE DISCIPLES DISCOVERED IT.
of sense is not, as men fancy, an interruption of that
judgment which He, as Lord of their spirits, is con
tinually pronouncing ; they are not less in His presence,
open to His clear, all-penetrating vision, now, than if
He were walking in their streets. The disciples who
accompanied Him when He journeyed from Galilee to
Jerusalem, and sometimes were amazed at the mystery
of His being and at His knowledge of their thoughts,
understood first when He was parted from them how
entirely independent that being and that knowledge
were of the accidents which then surrounded Him, — how
much these accidents had interfered with their recog
nition of Him. As long as they had any notion that
they stood to Him only in the peculiar relation of dis
ciples to a Master, as long as that relation seemed to
them an external fleshly relation, they wanted the real
awe and check, as well as the real help and support, of
His presence. It was when they understood that this
relation was common to them with a multitude of
persons no-wise bound to them by kindred, occupa
tion, race ; it was when they learnt that the real bond
between a disciple and a Lord is not a visible, but
an invisible one, that they exercised themselves to
have consciences void of offence, being certain that all
things were naked and open to the eyes of Him with
whom they had to do, and that to be reproved by Him '
was a far more serious thing than to be reproved by
Sanhedrims or Proconsuls. The Creed, then, affirms;

WHAT IS A JUDGE? 297
for you, and me, and mankind, first of all this dis
covery of theirs, — that Christ, ascended on high at the
right hand of God, is our judge, the judge of the living
and the dead. I do not say that thi^ is all which the
words signify ; I do not think so ; but I say that what
ever else they signify, they signify this, and that we
never can enter into the other part of their signification
if we do not acknowledge this as the groundwork of it.
And though this meaning may be latent in our popular
discourses on a great judgment day, — and I have no
doubt it is, — I cannot think that the hearers or readers
of those discourses commonly detect it ; they suppose
that they are, at some distant, unknown period, to be
brought into the presence of One who is far from them
now, and who is not now fulfilling the office of a Judge,
whatever other may be committed to Him.
There is another difference, not less radical and essen
tial, which, I think, we must all at times have perceived,
if not when we were repeating this article of the Creed,
at least when we were reading those parts of the Scrip
tures which most illustrate it. What is this office of a
Judge ? If we foUow the popular representations of the
great Assize, we should conclude that it was fulfilled
when certain persons were subjected to an infinite
penalty for their transgressions, and certain others were
absolved from that penalty, — perhaps acquired, by some
means, an infinite reward. It is obvious that those who
make these statements, intend to accommodate them-

298 SCRIPTURE IDEA OF IT.
selves to the ordinary maxims of men ; to those which are
recognised in earthly jurisprudence. They rightly as
sume that there must be an analogy between the divine
procedure and that which we own to be righteous here.
' The difference of degree,' they would say, ' does not
' prevent the inspired writers, and ought not, therefore, to
' prevent us, from resorting to the same language to re-
' present both.' I fully accept this statement, and, there
fore, I would put it to any English jurist, whether such
an account of the function of a judge as this, satisfies
any conception that he has formed of it ? Would not
he say at once, 'It is a very secondary part of this
' function to assign penalties or rewards ; that, in a
' majority of cases, is done already by the law which
' the judge announces. But to discern who is right and
' who is wrong ; amidst a multitude of shifting, dis-
' tracting appearances, to find out the fact ; to detect
' the lie which is hidden under the plausible coherent
' story ; to justify the true and honest purpose which may
' have got itself bewildered in a variety of compbcations
' and contradictions, — hie labor, hoc opus; here is, indeed,
' a sphere for the exercise of that judicial faculty, which
( we aU esteem so highly, — scarcely any of us enough.'
And I am certain we shall find that, when the Scrip
tures speak of a divine Judge, it is this , correspond
ence, this analogy that they mainly suggest to us.
You hear of the Word of God, who is quick, and
powerful, and sharper than any two-edged, sword;: who

MINOS AND RHADAMANTHUS. 299
divides asunder soul and spirit, joints and marrow, who
is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.
You hear St. Paul declaring that though he is not con
scious of anything against himself, he does not judge
himself, but He that judgeth him is the Lord. You
find him using, in the] same passage, the remarkable
expression which occurs again and again in his writings,
and to which I shall have to refer presently for another
purpose, that it is a very little thing for him to be judged
by a human day.* Such an expression, so strikingly
denoting the kind of light which men were able to throw
upon the secrets of the heart, is a key to thousands of
others in the New Testament — nay, I will be bold to
say — a key to the language of the Bible, wherever there
is an allusion to the judgments of God, or to Christ as
judge. Everywhere the idea is kept before us of judg
ment, in its fullest, largest, most natural sense, as im
porting discrimination or discovery. Everywhere that
discrimination or discovery is supposed to be exercised
over the man himself, over his internal character, over
his meaning and will. Everywhere, the substitution
of any mere external trial or examination for this,
is rejected as inconsistent with the spirit and gran*
deur of Christ's revelation.
Nowhere is this difference more remarkably brought
out than in the words which we have translated, ' For
we shall all appear before the judgment-seat of Christ.'
* 1 Cor. IT. 3, avSpuTtiv-qs j)fi(pas.

300 II. CORINTHIANS, CHAP. V.
When we hear these words without examining them, or
their context, we are likely enough to say, ' Here is the
' old story of Minos and Rhadamanthus again ; St. Paul
' knew that it was familiar to the ears of the Corinthians.
' He altered it, and adapted it to his Christian notions.' I
am far indeed from denying that St. Paul was anxious to
preserve the eternal truth which lay hid in those legends.
He would have been most grieved if he had, in any one
point, made the Greeks, to whom he proclaimed a faith,
unbelievers. It was his duty to avail himself, as far as
it was possible, even of the forms of language, — espe
cially if they were not merely Greek, but human forms,
appealing to the feelings and consciences of men in all
countries, — which had been associated with old con
victions. To this extent I am ready to admit that
the word ' judgment-seat,' or ' tribunal,' was intended to
remind the Corinthians both of the courts with which
they were familiar in their own city, of the more solemn
Areopagus, and of those which their imaginations had
fashioned on the model of these for the pale spectres in
the world below. But if this were his object, mark
what the process of transformation is. In the first ten
verses of this chapter, and several of the preceding, he
has been working out the doctrine that man stands in a
twofold relation ; to an earthly visible tabernacle which
is dissolving ; to an invisible Lord. The dissolution of
that perishable tabernacle will not, he says, involve
homelessness, nakedness. There is a new clothing pro-

MANIFESTATION BEFORE CHRIST. 301
vided for him ; a house not made with hands, eternal in
the heavens. Here there is much groaning ; the body
bears the signs of suffering and death. He longs to put
on one which shall be free, living, immortal, ' that mor
tality may be swallowed up of life.' He believes that
God is working in him to produce such a renovation,
and has given His Spirit as an earnest of it. He is con
fident, therefore, and had rather be absent from the body
which is making such demands upon him, that he might
be present with the Lord of his spirit. ' For we walk,'
he says, ' by faith, not by sight.' We do not see Him
to whom we are united ; we only believe Him and trust
Him. And whether that vision at any time is strong or
weak, whether we are crushed by the external taber
nacle, or are rising above it, we are still ambitious to be
well-pleasing to Him, ' For we must all' — not appear —
but ' BE MADE MANIFEST before the tribunal of Christ.'
A time must come when it will be clearly discovered to
all men what their state was while they were pilgrims
in this world ; that they were in a spiritual relation just
as much as they were in relation to those visible things
of which their senses took cognizance. That which has
been hidden will be made known ; the darkness will no
longer be able to quench the light which has been shin
ing in the midst of it, and seeking to penetrate it ; each
man will be revealed as that which he actually is, that
every one may receive the things done in the body

302 THENCE HE SHALL COME.
according to that he hath done, whether it be good
or bad.*
This language is, I think, strictly and beautifully
consistent with all that the Apostle has taught us of
Christ as the Redeemer and Justifier — with the whole
purpose and method of His Gospel. But it certainly
suggests to us the thought, that the tribunal of Christ is
one which is not to be set up for the first time in some
distant day, amidst earthly pomp and ceremonial, but
that it is one before which we, in our own inmost being,
are standing now, and that the time will come when we
shall know that it is so, and when all which has con
cealed the Judge from us will be taken away.
' But if that is the sense of St. Paul's words, why do
' we speak in the Apostle's Creed of His coming thence
' to judge the quick and dead ? why do we say in the
' "Nicene Creed that He shall come again in glory ? '
These questions are so important, and they connect
themselves with so many thoughts which are occupying
and agitating men's minds in the present day, that I am
most anxious fairly to consider them,
If I read the words, From thence He shall come, foUow
ing immediately upon the account of an ascension into
heaven, which is described as a great triumph for Him
and for mankind, I do not think my first notion would
* "Iva Konlorjrai .koo-tos rd Sui tou crtu/iuros, irp&s & %irpa%ev, __t. ayaBor
-.re muttr. I do not think any one can be exactly satisfied with our
rendering of this sentence, though I am not prepared to suggest another.

THE UNVEILING OF CHRIST. 303
be that they implied that He would descend from that
state — that He would assume again the conditions and
limitations of the one which He had left. The favourite
scriptural- analogy of the sun coming forth out of his
bridal chamber, after the dark night, would present itself
as, at all events, much more obvious. No doubt a great
many considerations might induce me to reject this sense
and accept the other. I might find that express words
in the New Testament or a general current of meaning
obbged me to take up with the more difficult hypo
thesis. But, in fact, express words and the current of
sense force me out of the difficult hypothesis into the
natural one. When St. Paul wishes to teach us about
the coming or the judgment of Christ, the word he most
commonly uses is a7roicdXvyjri<s, or ' unveiling.' He looks
forward to the unveiling of Christ. He bids His disciples
in all the Churches live in the expectation of it. Or else
he speaks of (pavip(oo-t,<; — ' a manifestation ' — as in the
passage I referred to just now, and as in that celebrated
passage in the eighth chapter of the Epistle to the
Romans, where he describes the whole Creation as look
ing forward to deliverance from its travail at the mani
festation of the sons of God. Each of these words,
especially the first, receives the greatest iUustration
from the Apostle's own history. Whenever he gives
the story of his conversion, he describes it as an unveiling
of Christ to his bodily eye; when he lays open the
principle and meaning of his conversion, he represents

304 THE DAY OF CHRIST.
it as the revealing or unveiling of Christ in him. This
idea, in these two different aspects of it, therefore, pos
sessed his whole mind, and penetrated his teaching.
His Gospel to men was a manifestation or revelation of
Christ to them, as one who had proved himself to be
their Lord, by entering into their death, and by redeem
ing them from their tyrants. His assurance to each
man was, that if he yielded to his Deliverer, and
struggled against all that were trying to enslave him,
Christ's power and presence would be revealed to him
more every day. His hope for the world was, that
Christ would in due time reveal himself completely as
its Conqueror and King, and would bring all men to
see that His universe was built on truth and righteous
ness. In strict accordance with this teaching, he uses
' day ' to express the coming or revelation of Christ ;
'day' being taken, as the reader will perceive if he
turns to the thirteenth chapter of the Epistle to the
Romans, or to the fifth chapter of the First Epistle to
the Thessalonians, in opposition to night. Hereby he
explains that use of the words ' human day,' to which
I referred before, as expressing the judgment passed by
men upon himself; hereby he brings forth the full force
and intention of that phrase which recurs so continually
in the prophets of the Old Testament — ' The day of the
Lord.' *
* I have dwelt so much upon the use of this language, in my
Sermons on the Kings and Prophets of the Old Testament, as well as

• THE DAY OF CHRIST. 305
And there is this further — I think, quite unspeakable
— benefit arising from his use of this form of expression.
Instead of allowing us to dream of a final judgment,
which shall be unlike any other that has ever been in
the world, he compels us to look upon every one of
what we rightly call ' God's judgments ' as essentially
resembling it in kind and principle. Our eagerness to
deny this doctrine, — to make out an altogether peculiar
and unprecedented judgment at the end of the world, —
has obliged us, first, to practise the most violent out
rages upon the language of Scripture, insisting that
words cannot mean really what, according to all ordi
nary rales of construction, they must mean. Secondly,
it has obliged us to treat with most especial contumely
that solemn discourse of our Lord with his disciples
when they showed Him the buildings of the Temple,
and almost to deny His assertion that that generation
should not pass till all the things he spoke of were
fulfilled; though he adds to it a sentence which might
have made us serious in our belief of Him, if anything
could : — ' Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my
word shall not pass away.' Thirdly, as I hinted when
I was alluding to this subject in connexion with the
doctrine of the Resurrection, it has driven us into the
perilous notion that we are only using metaphors when
in the previous volume on the Old Testament, that I did not wish to
enlarge upon it here; especially as it will come out more properly
when I speak of the Epistles to the Thessalonians, in the book I have
mentioned in the preface to this Edition.

306 FALSE IDEA OF JUDGMENT.
we speak of God as coming forth to judge the world in
any crises of war or revolution. Certainly the Bible
justifies that language, as not metaphorical, but most
real. It speaks of all such crises as ' days ofthe Lord.'
The ' coming' of the Apostles' Creed, and the ' com
ing again ' of the Nicene Creed, must both indicate, if
we derive our interpretation of them from the Scriptures,
not that Christ will resume earthly conditions, or will
take a throne in some part of this earth, but that He
wUl be manifested as He is. The Nicene phrase,
' coming again in glory,' which is taken from our Lord's
own words, ' The Son of man shall come in the glory
of His Father, and of the holy angels,' seems expressly
intended to guard against the notion that He should be
invested with some of those vulgar ensigns of royalty
which the sense-bound Jew supposed were needful to
make Him a King, while He proved Himself to be one
by healing the sick, and casting out devils. In our day,
many of those who are most busy in the study of pro
phecy, complain of the Creeds, because they do not set
forth, distinctly, their notion ofa second coming of Christ
to reign on the earth, but only speak of a judgment of
quick and dead. I can sympathise, to a considerable
extent, with their feebngs, though I am convinced that
the Creeds are right, and that they are wrong.
If the belief of a judgment takes the form, which it cer
tainly has taken in the minds of many of us ; if we look
upon it only as something exceedingly terrible, which we

THE SECOND COMING. 307
are to set before our readers when all ordinary resources
of argument and rhetoric have faUed, — when we can no
longer move them by any testimonies we bear concern
ing the mercy of God or His redeeming Love ; if the
thought of Christ as a Judge is one which we are
to shrink from, though we may find satisfaction in
thinking of Him as a Saviour; — then it is, indeed, utterly
uninteUigible why the writers of the Old Testament
should so continually caU upon God to rise and judge
the earth ; why this should be the great burthen of then-
prayers, the ultimate point of their hopes ; and why the
writers of the New Testament should exhort their
disciples to lift up their heads, and to desire, above all
things, the Revelation of Jesus Christ. To escape from
this amazing contradiction, it has been natural for men to
invent a theory and say, ' He is coming, but not only
' for this end, not first for this end. He is coming to
'reign over His saints, — to give them rest from their
' enemies ; then the judgment of the world will follow.'
It is better, I think, that men should cherish this belief,
than that they should contemplate Christ as one who has
saved heretofore, but is coming hereafter only to punish
and condemn. For though some connect no better
thoughts with this faith than the expectation of their
own supremacy, — and from the supremacy of those
who can indulge so dark and selfish a dream, good
Lord! debver Thy bleeding earth — no tyranny that
has ever existed upon it, would be so godless and so

308 THE CREEDS SPEAK OF A REIGNING KING ;
intolerable,— there are numbers of true-hearted Millen-
narians, who rejoice in it only because it is identified in
their minds with the victory of Christ over what is evil,
with the establishment of His gracious dominion over
all people. Such men felt themselves tied and bound
by the notion of the rehgious world, that Christ had
taken the nature of man and died on the Cross, only to
save a few elect souls. They were sure that He must
intend to bless mankind, to redeem the earth. Most
glorious conviction, which no Creeds that men have
ever framed, must tempt us to part with, for the Bible
witnesses of it in every page; the truth and love
of God are involved in our holding it fast ! But the
Creeds differ in one respect from the supporters of
this pre-millennial Advent. They teach us that 1800
years ago, He who was crucified under Pontius Pilate,
asserted and proved that He was the Lord of man ; that
while the Jews were confounding a real king with an
emperor clothed in purple, He demonstrated wherein
kingship consists, and what are the highest powers which
belong to it. A creed that speaks of a Son of God and
a Son of Man, has no need to tell us, — could not teU us
without contradicting all its other statements, — that at
some distant day He will assume an authority which
He has never exercised yet. But it may tell us, it
should teU us, that He who sat as a King, and judged as
a King, when the city and temple of Jerusalem fell, and
the old world, passed away with a great noise ; He

AND OF A KING WHO SHALL JUDGE. 309
who sat as a King, and judged as a King, when the
mightiest empire the world had ever seen was broken
in pieces by a stone cut out of the mountain without
hands ; He who has been confessed as a King by all the
most civilized nations of the Western world ; in whose
Name kings have reigned, and decreed justice ; He who
has been proving that the powers which they used
were His, by sweeping away dynasties, and putting
down nations, the cup of whose iniquities was full;
He from whom all that has been righteous, gracious,
gentle, orderly, civilized, in the economy of nations,
families, churches, has come; He against whom all
that has been cowardly, cruel, slavish, superstitious, in
that economy, has been rebelling, — -will most assu
redly be manifested, not in some little obscure corner
of the . earth, where pilgrims may go to look for Him,
but as the lightning shineth from the one end of
heaven to the other ; will be manifested, not changed
and shriveUed from the crucified, risen, ascended Lord,
to the miserable Csesar the Jews fancied Him to be ; but
' coming as He went,' in the glory of His Father, so that
every eye may see Him, so that every king, and judge,
and priest, who has. professed to rale or teach by His
authority or for Him, shaU be forced to own to himself
and to the universe, whether he has been serving
truth or a be ; whether he has been serving Christ, or
Mammon, or himself; whether he has bowed down to
the judgment and opinion of any public, religious or

310 HOW TO KEEP BAD MEN IN AWE.
secular, or has walked as a child of the day in that
light which lighteth every man who does not choose
the darkness. Surely a sound creed should tell us
this, and should therefore convey to us the needful
assurance and comfort, that all events have been work
ing under a divine guidance to a divine issue; that
nothing which has been good can ever perish; that
nothing which is evil can abide in that kingdom of
righteousness, and truth, and peace, which is the king
dom of God and of His Son, and therefore can have
no end.
In spite of my conflict with the Idealists in my last
Essay, I am quite prepared to hear the charges that
I have now been defending an ideal, and not an actual,
judgment day, and that I confound the spiritual king
dom of Christ with His reign over the earth. I can only
answer, as I have answered before, that I have found
the current notions of a judgment, not exactly ideal, but
exceedingly fantastic, figurative, inoperative, and that I
have tried to ascertain whether Scripture does not give
us the hint of something more practical and more
substantial. If the popular notion on this subject is
thought necessary to produce terror in the minds of
thieves and vagabonds, I own that I am ideal enough
to think the constabulary force a more useful, effectual,
and also a more godly, instrument. That does assert
the existence of an actual present justice; that does
awaken in the consciences of evil men the sense of a

WORLDLY MEN — RELIGIOUS MEN. 311
law, which never loses sight of them, and may find
out their darkest deeds ; that holds out to their merely
animal nature, which requires such discipline, the pro
spect of a sure and speedy punishment. If, again, the
popular notion on this subject is wanted as an influence
to act habitually on the lives of ordinary worldly men,
and it is alleged that I have substituted for it the
notion of a mysterious judgment, of which it is im
possible that such men can make any account, — then
I reply, that it is precisely this kind of mysterious
judgment which these men do recognise, and to which
they pay habitual homage under the name of Public
Opinion. But if you require this popular notion for
the sake of rehgious men, or of those who are looking
forward to some great improvement in the consti
tution of the world, then I say it is quite clear that
such men are not in the least satisfied with it, but are
inclined rudely to discard it. Such men demand for
themselves sua. habitual government, inspection, judg
ment, reaching to the roots of their heart and will; such
men 'demand for the earth some complete deliverance
from all that defiles it and sets it in rebellion against a
true and righteous King. The religious men must have
a kingdom over their own spirits ; do not they see that
only such a kingdom can be of any worth to any human
being whatsoever? Has not Christ claimed to be King
over both the spirits and bodies of men? over their
bodies, because over their spirits ; over all things what-

312 THE CHRISTIAN HOPE.
soever, because over the creature to which all things are
put in subjection. Do we need a return to the lowest
Judaism, the lowest Heathenism, in our notions of the
relation between spirit and matter, the eternal and
the temporal? Do we not require a redemption of
aU that is human from its changeable accidents; a
judgment and separation which shall come from the
revelation of Him who has redeemed and glorified
our whole humanity, between that in us which is His,
and that which we have contracted by turning away
from Him? Do we not ask for a day in which all
the scattered limbs of Christ's body in heaven and earth
shall be gathered together in Him, for a day in which
bght and darkness, life and death, shall never be mingled
or confounded again ? Is there any one who seriously
believes that it is a day of twenty-four hours in duration
which we are thus expecting? Is it not one which has
dawned on the world already, which our consciences tell
us we may dwell in now, which therefore Scripture and
reason both affirm must, wax clearer and fuller till He
who is the Sun of righteousness is felt to be shining
everywhere, and till there is no corner of the universe
into which His beams have not entered ?

I do not intend these Essays as a commentary on
either of our Creeds. We have, I suspect, more com
mentaries on them than we want. In most cases, I have

USE OF THE WORDS OF THE CREED. 313
preferred to take my titles from popular and recognised
names of doctrines, not to express them in the words of
our formularies. I have spoken of the Incarnation, of
the Atonement, of Justification by Faith ; not of Christ
being conceived by the Holy Ghost, or born of the
Virgin Mary, or suffering under Pontius Pilate. For
my object has been to examine the language with
which we are most familiar, and which has been open to
most objections, especiaUy from Unitarians. Respecting
the Conception, I have been purposely silent ; not because
I have any doubt about that article or am indifferent to
it, but because I believe the word ' miraculous,' which
we ordinarily connect with it, suggests an untrue mean
ing ; because I think the truth is conveyed to us, most
safely, in the simple language of the Evangelists ; and
because that language, taken in connexion with the
rest of their story, offers itself, I suspect, to a majority
of those who have taken in the idea of an Incarnation,
as the only natural and rational account of the method
by which the eternal Son of God could have taken
human flesh.*
But I have deviated from this practice in three cases.
I have used the express words of the Creed as the text
of my remarks upon the Resurrection, the Ascension, and
the Judgment. I have done so, perfectly weU knowing
that I am laying myself open to the displeasure, not
* I have expressed my thoughts on this subject in a Sermon " On
Marriage," in " The Church a Family."

314 TENETS AND CREEDS.
only of the Unitarians, but of the other Dissenters, who
would have a much better opinion of me, if I had de
fended the same principles without appealing to what
they consider dry and worn-out documents.
I do not know whether I can find a better opportunity
than this for addressing myself directly to the feelings
of Unitarians on this point. They have a great horror
of a Creed. But tenets they must have. The other
Dissenters have a great many. Their list, they boast,
is reasonably small. The tenet of a Judgment to come,
or Resurrection of the just and unjust, however, is
included among them. I do not know whether they
very distinctly define their opinions on this subject ; but
a respectable, well-conditioned Unitarian would be very
sorry if his orthodox neighbour supposed they were
widely at variance upon it. I conclude, therefore, that
the same vague, superstitious apprehension, which I
have said that we derive from Heathenism, he must
have derived from it also. The sense of a judgment to
come is so kindred to our nature, so rooted in our nature,
that we must hold it under one form or another. The
old Minos form, or one that is akin to it, will be the
form which this tenet assumes so long as it is merely a
tenet. What I contend is, that it assumes a higher,
nobler, more practical form when, ceasing to be a tenet,
it becomes part of a Creed. When it is viewed as
one of the acts of a living Person, a Son of Man, and a
Son of God, then its coating of superstition falls off from

THE __ FORTIORI ARGUMENT. 315
it: it becomes identified with the greatest triumphs
that humanity has yet won ; with its present struggles,
with its most glorious hopes.
I submit this remark to the earnest consideration
of all classes of Unitarians, but especially of those
who are becoming discontented with the tenets of*
their forefathers. They very naturally ,argue in this
way, — ' We cannot bear the yoke which is upon our
' necks already. You would put a heavier one upon
' them. We have been beaten with rods; you would
' beat us with scorpions.' The other Dissenters press the
same argument upon their disciples : ' You complain of
' us for compelling you to accept dogmas which you do
' not feel to be reasonable, nay, even for preventing you
! from appealing to Scripture against them, because, after
' a congregation or school has accepted a certain interpre-
' tation of Scripture, it is bound by that. What would
1 become of you, then, if you were connected with a
' Church which formally and avowedly holds its members
• to a certain Creed ? ' I am not careful to answer this
argument. I am a very bad proselytizer. If I could
persuade all Dissenters to become members of my Church
to-morrow, I should be very sorry to do it ; I believe
the chances are, they might leave it the next day. I do
not wish to make them think as I think. But I want
that they and I should be what we pretend to be, and
then I doubt not we should find that there is a common
ground for us all far beneath our thinkings. For truth I

316 THE OPPRESSION OF TENETS.
hold not to be that which every man troweth, but to be
that which bes at the bottom of aU men's trowings, that
in which those trowings have their only meeting point.
But what I cannot and would not do, I believe, the
experience of a great many Dissenters will do for
them. They wiU be driven to Creeds by their weari
ness of tenets. They will find that they are at the
mercy of every tyrannical congregation, of its wealthiest
member, of every dogmatist who rules & school, of the
public opinion of the sect which rules him. They will
be compelled to ask, ' How does this happen? Is there
' no escape from these oppressive judgments of human
' beings, — no escape, but into absolute doubt and denial ?
' not even an escape into them, — for what intolerant
' dogmatists there are among doubters and deniers ! '
If they want freedom for their reason and wills, the old
Creeds speak of One who came to deliver them. If. they
feel that the language of Scripture cannot be tied down
by the language of a formula, Creeds obbge us to look
out of themselves to some book which shall unfold the
person and the acts of Him of whom they are bearing
witness. They never can put themselves in the place
of our reason or of Scripture, till their words are per
verted,, and the sense of them contradicted. Why
there should be such documents in the world, I can ex
plain no more than I can explain why any part of the
order of Nature should exist, or why it should be in
harmony with any other part. I find it so. I give

god's method. 317
God thanks that it is so. I hope, in the day when He
is revealed, and we are all called to answer for the use
or abuse we have made of His gifts, that He will enable
us to enter more fully into this and many other myste
ries of His government, which I understand most im
perfectly, but which have helped me to understand
myself.

ESSAY XIII.
ON INSPIRATION.
Any Clergyman who ventures to write on Inspiration,
will be asked whether he is prepared to defend the .
popular views on that subject. If not, all his more
judicious friends will advise him to be silent. He may
injure his own reputation; he may do what is much
worse, — he may injure the faith of his countrymen and
countrywomen. I cannot undertake to defend the popular views
upon this or any other subject. First, I find it very
difficult to ascertain what they are. What is called a
popular view expands or contracts at the pleasure
of writers in newspapers and reviews. It appears to be
exceedingly definite; you approach it, it has almost
vanished. Popular notions have a considerable vigour
for purposes of attack. They can be used with great
effect against a supposed enemy of the faith. They
only fail when you want them for use and comfort.
They are full of warmth and fervour on the platform,

POPULAR NOTIONS ; ARE THEY POPULAR? 319
in the closet they are as cold as ice. They stir up all
the elements of strife and bitterness in the natural heart ;
I do not find that they stir the spirit to any energetic
action for God or man. Next, what are called popular
notions answer, it seems to me, very ill to their name.
They do not come from the people, they do not touch
the hearts of the people. They are not like old, racy,
homely proverbs, which embody so much of common,
and therefore so much of genuine, feeling. They do
not caU forth any hearty, intelligent response when they
are proclaimed among simple men who work with their
hands. There is a sickly perfume about them, which
denotes them not to have been nursed in the open air,
but in flower-pots. The seeds of them may have been
sown in the study, but they have ripened in the
boudoir ; their greatest exposure has been in crowds, in
which there is breath enough of some kind, but which
the breath of heaven is not suffered to visit. And
lastly, adherence to these popular notions is, I think,
incompatible with a strict adherence to those Creeds
whicii we solemnly confess, still more incompatible with
a continual and direct appeal to the Bible, as a guide
and an authority. I have explained why I think
so in other cases; some of the popular notions about
Inspiration, instead of being an exception to either
remark, offer, I suspect, the most striking illustrations
of both
What is said about the danger to reputation is per-

320 REPUTATION AND USEFULNESS.
fectly true ; every one should consider it for himself. A
man trembles for his wealth in proportion to the in
security of his investment; the miser, who has been
afraid to deposit it anywhere but in some chest or
cupboard within his reach, has the best reason of
all for trembling. The religious world has a painful
feeling that it has been hoarding up treasures for itself,
and has not been rich towards God ; therefore it is con
tinually in dread of burglars and pickpockets. Let it
use all precautions ; let it prove how free it is from the
maxims of the ordinary world, by banishing trust and
cultivating universal suspicion. All of us like its
smiles, dread its frowns. We shall take great pains to
secure one, and avert the other, if there is no smile that
we care for more, no frown which we count more ter
rible. But many of us persuade ourselves, all of us
have probably at one time yielded to the opinion, that
reputation is necessary for the sake of usefulness. Every
hour, I think, will show us more and more that the
concern about reputation is the great hindrance to use
fulness ; that if we desire to be useful, we must struggle'
against it night and day.
That thought suggests the really great argument
against meddbng with this subject of Inspiration ; we
may injure the faith of our brothers and sisters. A
most potent reason for taking some course in reference
to it ; whether silence is that course, they may be able
to decide who know something of the present feeling of

DUTY OF SPEAKING ON THIS SUBJECT. 321
different classes of Englishmen. Can you prevent any
set of men, nay, any man or woman, from knowing that
this question has been stirred? Do not those who lay
down theories of Inspiration, and denounce others for
not acquiescing in them, proclaim that fact aloud ? Is
it not true, as these persons affirm so constantly, that the
faith of our countrymen, as weU as of other Europeans,
in the Bible, is shaken already ? Are there not very
clear evidences in their restless eagerness to get all objec
tions put down, that their own faith is feeble and totter
ing? Is it not a duty which we owe to those who
confess their doubts, which we owe quite as much to
those who are trying to hush their doubts by making a
noise, not to avoid the subject, but to face it, and to
express ourselves upon it with as much frankness, as
little ambiguity, as possible? To avoid the charge of
ambiguity, of wilfully concealing some opinion which
it would be inconvenient to express, is impossible. No
one who has had the slightest experience will expect
to do that. The most vehement champion of modern
theories about the Inspiration of the Bible, — the most
passionate denier of its Inspiration, — will agree in de
claring that any person who refuses the shibboleths of
either is tampering with his conscience, and does not
mean what he says. They are perfectly entitled to
their opinion; their harmony upon one point, while
they agree on no other, will be a decisive proof with
many that they are right. Those who try to disturb so
Y

322 DANGER OF REPETITIONS.
fixed a conviction, will always repent of their pains, and
will find that the argument, — probably, which is much
more precious, the temper — they have expended, has
brought no calculable return. The utmost any one can
dream of or should desire is, that his sincerity should be
tried by his peers ; that is to say, by those who have felt
these difficulties, and have sought, or still seek, a solution
of them ; not by men of another and altogether superior
race, who are quite above human dangers and human
sympathies, and are able to look down upon us from a
region of self-satisfied, untroubled orthodoxy, or from a
region which, being exactly antipodal to this, resembles
it in temperature, the region of self-satisfied, untroubled
unbelief. The only legitimate reason which can deter a person
who has spoken or written much on theological subjects,
from entering on this, is, that he must almost necessarily
have handled it before. The question of Inspiration
touches so nearly upon all the thoughts with which men
in this day are occupied, that at whatever point one
comes into contact with those thoughts, it must be
encountered. The fear of repeating the same propositions
again and again, besets every one who tries to express
convictions which are very sacred to him, and which
he thinks his contemporaries have as much right in as he
has. As he knows only common-places, . and cares for
nothing else, he cannot deal in novelties. But he must
be conscious how much common-places lose their force,

NECESSITY FOR THEM. 323
and are mistaken for the idiosyncrasies of a particular
mind, when they come forth frequently clothed in the
phrases and forms which education or circumstances
have made habitual to him. The dread of giving them
merely a personal character, grows with his belief that
they are truths for mankind. But however justifiable
this feeling is, it must often yield to other considerations.
A man will not understand what your convictions are,
till you have put them in various lights ; till you have
given him an opportunity of applying various tests to.
them. It is not enough to treat of any great subject which
an age is busy with, collaterally ; you must speak of it
directly, must grapple with the very words and forms in
which people are wont to see it exhibited ; else they will
fancy that you and they are not intending the same
thing. It is better to run the risk of a hundred repeti
tions, (which, after all, not fifty or twenty persons may
be aware of,) than to omit an opportunity when it offers,
of relieving the conscience of a fellow-creature from some,
distressing bondage, or of protesting against some
unrighteous attempt to keep it in prison.*
* Not at all that I may oblige any reader (which I could not do if
I would) to look into books which he may never have heard of, but.
simply that any one who pleases may have an opportunity of proving
either that I have merely said again here what I have said before, or
that I have said something altogether inconsistent with that, I would,
mention that I have alluded to the subject of Inspiration in a chapter
on the Bible, in a book called ' The Kingdom of Christ,' which was
published many years ago ; more recently in a Sermon on the Psalms,
contained in a volume on the Prayer Book ; and in a Sermon on the,

324 GREEK INSPIRATION.
I shall therefore fix my thoughts on the word Inspi
ration: our disputes are emphaticaUy about the word.
They are not less real for that. They point to facts and
to substances ; but the best way of getting at these, and
of coming to understand what we mean ourselves and
what others mean, is to examine our uses of the name
which we feel to be so sacred.
1. We find the singers of the old world asking some
divine power to inspire them. In the last age this
language of theirs was not much heeded. It had been
so much abused by the vulgarest writers who adopted
classical fashions (I should be scarcely correct in saying
classical forms), that it was supposed never to have had
any signification. We have learnt to do more justice to
the men whom we profess to admire, We feel that they
would be worthy of no admiration, that they could not
have won any, if they had not been simple and sincere.
If they were merely using a trade phrase when they
asked a Muse or a God to teach them, they must have
had the fate of similar traders in later times. The rest
of their speech is genuine and transparent ; this part of
character of Balaam, in a volume on the Old Testament. I should not
have spoken of some still more casual references to it, in a book on
the Prophets and Kings of the Old Testament, published this year, if
a particularly kind critic in the Nonconformist, for whose commenda-"
tions, and still more for whose friendly reproofs, I desire to express
my gratitude, had not called upon me to develop more clearly my
hints, and to state my whole mind on the subject of Inspiration. I
would request him to accept this Essay as an answer to that courteous
challenge.

THE BIBLE. RELIGIOUS MEN. 325
it cannot be less so. It must express, not their loosest
convictions, but their strongest.
2. But whatever force we allow to this sense of the
word, are we to suppose it has any even the slightest
relation to the sense in which religious men speak of the
Inspiration of the Bible? A number of voices all
around us are saying, ' There is no real distinction
' between these books and any others. Inspiration is
' predicable of both, in the same sense. It can be
' but a question of degree, and therefore if you feel
' yourselves at bberty to exercise all kinds of criticism
' upon the methods, principles, and authority of the one,
* you cannot fairly debar yourself or any one else from
' the same liberty in respect of the other.' We hear
again a number of voices saying, 'You exercise that
1 liberty at your peril. The Bible must be looked upon
* as the inspired book. To put it on the same ground
• with any other, is to deprive us of all foundation for
' our faith now, for our hopes in the world to come,'
3. But again : rehgious men, the most earnestly re
ligious men, speak of themselves as taught, actuated,
inhabited by a Divine Spirit. They declare that they
could know nothing of the Scriptures except they were
under this guidance. Is this the Inspiration which we
attribute to the writers of the Old and New Testament,
or is that different from it in kind ?
4. A number of religious teachers actually claim
to be inspired men, and circles of admiring disciples

326 FANATICS. THE ENGLISH CHURCH.
believe them ; nay, crowds run after them, in the faith
that they have a divine commission. Here is another
fact which well deserves to be examined, a very serious
fact indeed. It is one which the peremptory decrees
of our schools have certainly not cleared Up. They
have not prevented the fanatics from appearing by their
maxim respecting inspiration. They have not done
much to weaken or to explain their influence. If fana
ticism is to be checked, we must understand ourselves
a little better about its nature and cause.
5. But the Church of England, which many religious
people say is not spiritual enough, whose sons boast
that it is expressly opposed to fanaticism, has used this
very word ' Inspiration,' and has claimed it for these
sons, apparently in a fuller, larger sense than either of
the classes to which I have last referred. On the Fifth
Sunday after Easter, we ask ' Him from whom all good
1 things do come, that by His holy inspiration we may
' think those things that be good, and by His merciful
' guiding may perform the same.' Every Sunday morn
ing, and on every Festival-day, we ask, in our Com
munion Service, that ' the thoughts of our hearts may be
' cleansed by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, so that
' we may perfectly love God, and worthily magnify His
' name.' Here are petitions which concern not a few
specially religious men or some illuminated teachers, but
the whole flock ; to say the least, all the miscellaneous
people who are gathered together in a particular' con-

ST. PAUL IN GREECE. 327
gregation. Are we paltering with words in a double
sense? When we speak of Inspiration do we mean
Inspiration? When we refer to the Inspiration of the
Scriptures in our sermons, ought we to say, ' Brethren,
' we beseech you not to suppose that this Inspiration at
' all resembles that for which we have been praying.
' They are generically, essentially unlike. It is blas-
' phemous to connect them in our minds ; the Church is
' very guilty for having suggested the association.'
These are the questions we have to discuss ; let us not
shrink from them, or dispose of them lightly and frivol
ously, as if the hearts of tens of thousands were not inte
rested in them.
1. When St. Paul came into the different cities of
Greece, he found men whose traditions told them of an
Inspiration, which poets, prophets, priestesses, received
from some divine source. These traditions had facts
for their basis. Men were actually seen to be carried
far above the level of their ordinary thoughts; they
spoke as they did not speak when they were buying
and selling ; their words entered into other men's minds
and worked mightily there. There was no denying
this ; the experience of men established it beyond all
controversy. And I think the conscience of men, ex
pressed in these traditions, was entitled to bear its
testimony as well as their experience. That conscience
said, ' This power is something which we cannot measure
' and reduce under rules. It works in us, but it is above

328 CHARACTER OF HIS TEACHING.
' us. We may in some sort control its exercises, but
' we are the subjects of it. It must come from some
' higher source; A God must have imparted it to us.'
The next and more awful question was, ' What God,
* what is his name?' When they tried to consider this
question, a number of new facts forced themselves upon
their observation; A man under the influence of some
extraordinary afflatus, might be raised to a higher and
nobler state, might be an inventor of arts, might over
come his inclinations to pleasure, might do heroic acts
for the benefit of the world, might have intuitions of the
futurei Or he might be merely inebriated, maddened,
might exhibit wild contentions, might, in the worst and
grossest sense, lose the mastery of himself. The theory
of a divine Inspirer must, they thought, explain both
these discordant experiences. Every one who reflects
upon the legends which cluster about the name of Dio
nysus, and the various grotesque forms which embodied
them for the eye, will understand how the heart and ima
gination of the Greek were exercised by this problem.
How might we suppose that St. Paul would act, —
how do we know that he did act, — when he brought his
Gospel to a people with these notions and traditions ?
If he had told them that all the thoughts of their ances
tors were unmeaning and ridiculous, he would have
found a willing and prepared audience in Athens and
Corinth. Their sophists had told them so before ; the
inchnation of their minds was to accept the statement.

EFFECT OF IT. 329
They would indeed have continued to bow down to all
manner of idols ; why not ? they were beautiful objects ;
worship might do them some good ; who could tell ?
' The people certainly heeded such images ; it was
* philosophical to humour the vulgar taste ; a very high
' philosophy might see a meaning in it.' But St. Paul did
not take this course. The one which he did take must
have tended to awaken that old faith out of its sleep; not
to smother it in its sleep; For he spoke of gifts of heal
ing ; gifts of speech ; gifts of government. He spoke of
these gifts as proceeding from a Person. He spoke of
His presence as the great gift of all. He spoke of that
gift as coming to men, because a Man had appeared in
the world, and had ascended on high, who was the Son
of God. Such language could not but associate itself
with all the thoughts which they had before of Inspi
rations and an Inspirer. We know that it did, for most
of the confusions in the Corinthian Church arose from the
old dreams of a Dionysiac inspiration. And how are
the two distinguished ? There would have been nothing
to distinguish them, there would have been no witness
against idol worship or demon worship, if St. Paul had
said, ' Those powers which you referred to Dionysus, or
' Apollo, or _3Esculapius, are not what we are permitted
' and enabled to exercise ; ' for the understanding would
still have demanded, 'What then is the origin of those?'
But if he was able to say, ' What you have attributed
' to a demon, to a being whom you have fashioned out

330 THE DIVINE AND DEVILISH.
' of a set of phaenomena which you could not account for,
' I come to vindicate for the Father of Spirits, for the
' Father of our Lord Jesus Christ ; ' this would indeed have
been the most triumphant testimony he could bear, that
the reign of the old Gods was over, and that the one Lord
who had spoken to a poor band of exiles from Egypt,
was now asserting His dominion over the world. And
so — and only so— it would be apparent, why He who
lifted men into a nobler and freer bfe, could not mean man
to be the victim of a frenzy, or of mere animal impulses.
The history which the Apostle told was the history of
the gradual discovery of man's relation to God, and
consequently of man's spiritual condition. That a
Divine Spirit should come to meet and raise a spirit
hard pressed with animal inclinations, to give it the
power of maintaining its own position, of looking up to
Him in whose likeness it was made, apart from whom
it had no life, was so reasonable, was so necessary a
corollary from the previous part of the message, that the
heart of the hearers anticipated it, was eager to recog
nise it. But then whatever counteracted this influence,
whatever led the animal to assert that supremacy to
which it had been proved to have no claim, must be
either the turbulent and rebellious movement of the
lower nature, or the action of some evil power, speaking
directly to the spirit and aiming to destroy it.
The opposition between the divine and either the
animal or the devibsh, which had been confounded with

THE SPECIAL AND GENERAL. 331
it in the old mythology, was manifested just in propor
tion as those very powers and gifts, which man had felt
before he could not ascribe to himself, were ascribed to
the Spirit of God, the Spirit of Order and Truth. But
it is equally evident that there was another great and
broad distinction between the old and new belief. The
first had been partial, narrow, peculiar. It had tried to
explain how extraordinary men, or men in some extra
ordinary crisis of their lives, were able to do strange
acts, to speak unusual words. St. Paul's Gospel
was human and universal. It explained indeed the
influence of seers and prophets ; it asserted the exist
ence of special endowments; it put all honour upon
distinct caUings. But first, it asserted that the Spirit
was necessary for all human beings, and was intended
for all. And this human gift it did not degrade below
the other, as being a secondary, inferior exhibition of
that which the great man obtained in its highest form.
The Divine Spirit, the Spirit of Love, who was promised
to all, was described as the source and spring of those
peculiar endowments which were given to this and that
man as He wiUed. They were to esteem their gifts
mainly as witnesses of His presence.
2. But if St. Paul asserted that the inspiration which
the Greeks had attributed to false Gods was derived
only from the true, what kind of dignity did he claim
for the inspiration of his own seers and prophets ? I
apprehend that he could say nothing more glorious for

332 LAW BEFORE INSPIRATION.
them than this, that they had spoken as they were
moved by the Holy Ghost ; that they had consistently
disclaimed all wisdom and power for themselves ; that
they had been, in the most orderly and divine manner,
preparing the way for that manifestation of Him which
had been promised to their children, and had at length
been granted. Inspiration was not the first idea in the
mind of a Jew, as it was perhaps in that of a Greek,
The Law took precedence of the Prophets ; the Covenant
was before either. The Lord had said to Abram, ' Get
thee out of thy father's house, to a land that I will show
thee,' — had promised ' that in him and his seed the
families of the earth should be blessed,' The Lord
had declared to Moses His great name, had sent him to
be the deliverer of His people, had given them through
him commandments, and statutes, and ordinances. The
Righteous King and Judge, who claims men as His
servants, who teaches them to judge between right and
wrong, is revealed first. The prophet who speaks in
His name is still mainly the witness of Unchangeable
Right, and of judgments that shall distinguish between
it and the wrong. And the Word, who comes to him,
and speaks to him, makes him aware how he and his
people are related to that Lord God whom the heaven
of heavens cannot contain ; makes him understand that
there is a King on the holy hill of Zion, One whom he
can call his Lord, and to whom the Lord is saying, ' Sit
Thou on my right hand, till I make Thine enemies Thy

THE PROPHETS' INSPIRATION. 333
footstool.' The revelation of this mysterious Teacher,
this Divine King, is what he looks for ; he gains glimpses
of the steps and method of His manifestation through his
own sorrows and the trials of his country ; he is con
fident that some day God will be fully declared, and
that in that day man, His image, wiU attain his proper
glory. But how is it that the prophet is able to enter into
these divine communications? What is there in him
different from other men which makes him capable of
them? What mean these stirrings within him, this
sense of a power which seems at times more than he
can bear, this mighty influence to which he must yield,
which does not suffer him to speak till it has humbled
and crashed him ; which, when he does speak, makes
him know that his words, though they have come out
of the depths of his own heart, are the Lord's, and that
they belong as much to all his countrymen as to him ?
This is surely Inspiration. But who is the Inspirer ?
How can He be so near to him, to his own very self?
For this power is not merely or chiefly one which
elevates and transports. It does not merely take hold
of some faculty or impart some energy. It carries on
the most searching, intimate, terrible converse with him
who uses the faculty, who wields the energies.
The answer to this demand came graduaUy, slowly, like
the answer to the other. St. Paul believed that it had come
at last most effectually. John the Baptist preached of

334 THE BAPTISM T)F THE SPIRIT.
repentance for the remission of sins. But he preached of
One coming after him, that was before him, lwho, should
baptize with the Holy Ghost and with fire. Jesus (so
Paul's companion teUs us) had received the Holy Ghost.
in His baptism, when He was proclaimed to be the Son of
God. In the power of that Holy Ghost, he resisted the
Tempter, healed the broken-hearted, preached deliver
ance to the captives, proclaimed the Jubilee of the Lord.
Then when He was going away, He spoke of a Spirit
of Truth whom He would send to His disciples from
the Father, who would abide with them, who w°uld
bring all things to their remembrance, who would show
them plainly of the Father. He had spoken con-.
tinually in his earlier discourses of a Father who was
both His and theirs ; all these words seemed intended
to receive their interpretation from what He said to
them now of a Comforter. The disciples were perplexed.
How could they have another to supply His, place?
How could He be with His Father, and yet manifest
Himself to them ? What could He mean by saying that
He and His Father would come to them, and abide
with them? He told them to wait -for the promise of
the Father ; then they would know what was now dark
to them. When He had ascended, and had led them, by
that strange discipline I spoke of in a former Essay, tp
believe that in some wonderful way they were even
then to ascend with Him, and be with Him where,
He was, He again told them to wait; He could not

THE REVELATION OF THE INSPIRER. 335
satisfy their desire to know whether the kingdom would
be at that time restored to Israel ; He could only assure
them that they should be endued with powers from
on high. On the Festival day, St. Luke says, the
sound of the mighty rushing wind was heard; the
cloven tongues sat upon the Apostles ; they spoke as the
Spirit gave them utterance ; the multitude heard them
in their own tongues proclaiming the wonderful works
of God. Herein St. Paul saw the revelation of Him who
had inspired the Prophets ; the fulfilment of the divine
promise ; the assurance that the Father of all was indeed
claiming the sons of men, Jews, Greeks, barbarians, as
His children. So soon as he learnt this truth, he became
the herald of a new dispensation. This manifestation of
tbe Spirit was that which the world had been waiting
for so long. He had taught prophets to speak, He had
enabled them to suffer, He had given them glimpses of
a glory which their children should see, in which they
themselves should be sharers. Now it might be pro
claimed aloud. ' The Baptism which John foretold is
' for you all. Because ye are sons, God hath sent forth
' the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying, Abba,
' Father.' All gifts ever bestowed upon prophets, were
the gifts of a Father to His children, the foretastes of
that adoption and emancipation which were awaiting
men, when their schooling under the elements of the
world should be completed.
What a magnificent idea, then, must St. Paul have

336 st. paul's views of the old testament.
had of those books, which, in his Pharisaical days, had
seemed to him merely objects of fear, and of a kind of
Worship ; excuses for Jewish self-exaltation ! How every
old teacher will have started into life, when he contem
plated him no longer as a mere utterer of dark sentences,
which the Scribes copied out and made darker by their
expositions, but as endued with that same Divine Spirit
which was enabling him to be a teacher of the Gen
tiles ; of whom he could dare to say to each Church,
' He dweUs with you;' to each member of a Church,
' He has made your body His habitation ! ' What a
grand procession those old teachers formed, each one of
whom was leading men onwards to that discovery of
the Inspirer ! What was there in all the rest of the
world together that could compare with them, not in
their distinct worth alone or chiefly, but in their con
tinuity, their orderly succession, their harmony ; their
worth as witnesses to the divine method of government
in their own day, a method which must be the same in
all after generations; their worth as foreseers of that
which had now come to pass ! What would the history
of the rest of the world be but a collection of inex
plicable fragments, if there were not this revelation to
unite them and make them a whole !
But if this was the effect of his New Testament
wisdom, how must he have feared any relapse into that
state of mind from which he had emerged ; how must
he have dreaded it for his converts, and for those who

THE EVANGELICAL PROTEST. 337
should come after them ! Can we conceive any view of
the Holy Scriptures, — either of those he had known from
a child, or those he was contributing to form, — which
would have seemed to him more dreadful, than one
which, under colour of exalting them, should set aside
their own express testimony concerning the unspeakable
gift which God had conferred on His creatures ? If he
would have turned with indignation from those in later
days who, pretending to honour the Bible, forbid men
to read it, lest it should awaken the questionings in
their hearts, which it is meant to awaken, and which a
Church instead of stifling should encounter, and satisfy ;
would he have felt less indignant with those who,
talking of the Bible as their only religion, and only
rale of life, prevent it from being either, by saying
that its Inspiration has no relation to that of the writers
whose dark sayings it illuminates, to that of the human
beings it is intended to educate and console ?
3. This Scribe notion of the Bible was stoutly
resisted by the Evangelical teachers of the last age.
Francke and Spener have been referred to again and
again by their admirers in this country, as faithful
witnesses against the hard German doctors of their
day, who looked upon the Bible as a mere collection of
dry facts and dogmas, and who supposed that it could
be understood without the aid of such a Spirit as dwelt
in the writers of it. Our own Venns and Newtons
took up the same language ; the orthodoxy as well as
z

338 SUFFERERS OF TWO KINDS.
the Uberalism of their contemporaries was offensive to
them, precisely because both seemed equally to separate
the Bible from the conflicts and experiences of Christian
men. The testimony which they bore, I hope, is not
extinct, — has not merely given birth to a set of phrases
about 'head knowledge,' or to charges of 'want of
' vital and experimental acquaintance with divine things,'
— phrases which any one can learn by heart, and which
may often be used most glibly by those who are half
conscious that they have a very near and personal
application. In solitary chambers, among bedridden
sufferers, the words of the old men have still a living
force. The Bible is read there truly as an inspired
book ; as a book which does not stand aloof from human
life, but meets it ; which proves itself not to be the work
of a different Spirit from that which is reproving and
comforting the sinner, but of the same. It is of quite
infinite importance that the confidence in which these
humble students read, should not be set at nought and
contradicted by decisions and conclusions of ours. It is
absolutely necessary that we should be able to say, that
they are not practising a delusion upon themselves ; that
they are not amiable enthusiasts ; that they are believing
a trath and acting upon it. But we cannot say this if
we must adopt the formulas, which some people would
force upon us. Either we must set at nought the faith
of those who have clung to the Bible, and found a
meaning in it when the doctors could not interpret it, or

DOUBTERS. 339
we must forego the demand which we make on the
consciences of young men, when we compel them to
declare that they regard the Inspiration of the Bible as
genetically unlike that which God bestows on His
children in this day.
I know well how this last remark will be met. ' Do
' you not know,' some one will say, ' that the simple
' Christians you speak of have the most- unfeigned, un-
' questioning reverence for the Bible? do you not know,
' also, that those young men of whose consciences you
' are so tender, avoid expbcit statements respecting the
' Inspiration of the Bible, precisely because they are full
' of neological doubts and theories about it, which never
' entered into the heads of the others, and would utterly
' shock them if they did ? What folly or dishonesty to
' compare cases so dissimilar ! ' Now I am perfectly ready
to admit, that, in a great many cases, perhaps in most,
scruples, which may be called neological, are at the
bottom of the objections which the younger members of
Evangelical famihes make to the doctrines respecting the
Inspiration of the Bible, which their elders require them
to accept. But I venture to think, first, that it is neither
foolish nor dishonest to protest against the invention of
tests to meet a particular case, which — supposing they
do accomplish their particular object, and supposing
that is a good one — also may promote another which is
decidedly and evidently bad. I should have thought
that the history of heresies might have taught us that,

340 THEIR EDUCATION.
whenever a dogma has been devised merely to fit and
contradict some denial which is prevalent, it has almost
always been the parent of some other denial quite as
dangerous; But secondly, I should bke to be informed
how these neological tendencies have arisen in persons
apparently so well secured by their education against
them. It seems to me that this is generally the history
of their growth. These young men were informed early
that no true knowledge of the Bible could be had, unless
God's Spirit illuminated the page and their hearts. It
was intimated to them also, (or this was what they
gathered from the lessons they received,) that they did
not at present possess this illumination. In the mean
time they were instructed in what was called the ex
ternal evidence, which proved that these records were
of divine authority. Some of this evidence might be
good, such as would pass muster in any English court
of justice ; some might be tolerable, such as would be
listened to if there were nothing to overweigh it on the
other side; some was decidedly weak and worthless. But
the best could not put in the least claim to authority;
it would have abandoned all its peculiar boast if it had.
All was therefore open to legitimate examination and
criticism; that which could not hold water must give
way ; that which was worthy would often be suspected
for its sake. Very soon the book itself, the merits and
dignity of which had been staked upon this issue,— which
the youth had been distinctly told that he was not

MODE OF DEALING WITH DOUBTERS. 341
to receive, merely because his parents or his country
received it, which he had been told also that he could not
yet receive upon any distinct witness of his own spirit,
sank nearly — never quite — to the level of the arguments
by which it had been recommended to him. He dis
closes his perplexities, he asks whether this or that
passage in the book is not less tenable than the rest :
he is told that he must take all or none : the whole
is inspired ; to doubt it is to renounce the word of God,
— to renounce God bimself. This course I hold to be
inhuman and ungodly, one which will infallibly make
the doubter what you accuse him of being. It is possible
to pursue quite a different method, one that may make
your children feel that the Bible is their book as it was
their fathers', and that no modern wisdom will supply
the place of it. You may show them that there is divi
nity here and inspiration there ; you may lead them to
confess that there are passages which speak to the heart
within them, which awaken a heart that was asleep;
you may make them know, — if you believe it your
self, — that there is a Divine* Word who. is enlightening
them, that there is a Divine Spirit who is seeking to
inspire them. , You may then bring them gradually,
with many tears and much joy, to trace that Word and
that Spirit not only here and there, but connecting,
reconciling those various documents which seemed to
them sp inconsistent with themselves, explaining the
facts of the universe with which they appeared to

342 THE ARGUMENTUM AD HOMINEM.
be at war. Be sure, however, that before you can
take one step in this course, you must give up the
attempt to impose a theory of Inspiration upon them,
nay, you must very gravely consider whether the one
which you hold is compatible with that belief in Inspi
ration which belonged to prophets and apostles.
I foresee that some critic will say to me, ' It is a
' cunning method to put forward these young men, and
' to pretend so much sympathy with them. Every one
' can see that you are really pleading your own cause.
' You have some secret unbebef about the books of the
' Bible, which makes you shrink from this tenet of
' Inspiration. We are glad to know it. The screw
' should always be applied where there are any symptoms
' of tenderness or wincing.'
I wish my friend the critic could look me as steadily
in the face, while he is making these observations, as,
if he stood before me, I would look him in the face while
I repbed to them. I would tell him that I am conscious
of just as much unbelief about the books of the Bible, as
I am about the facts of nature and of my own existence.
I am conscious of unbelief about those facts ; often
times they seem to me quite incredible. I overcome
this unbelief, and acquire what I think is a truer state
of mind, when I turn to the Bible as the interpretation
of them. The more difficulties I have found in myself
and in the world, the more help has it been to me.
The Bible is not the cause of my perplexities, but the

ANSWER TO IT. 343
resolver of them. Of course there are a multitude of
things in it which I do not understand ; a multitude
more in myself which I do not understand. But this
has been my experience hitherto, and each year, almost
each day, that experience is strengthened. Instead,
therefore, of wishing to get rid of those documents which
the traditions of my country teach me to hold divine,
because they belong to some bygone condition of things
with which modern civilization has nothing to do, I
feel the necessity of them increasing with every step
which civilization takes, with every new complication
of feelings and circumstances in which I am myself in
volved. Books of the Bible which were lying in shadow
for me, in which I could see little meaning, have come
forth into clearness, because I met with hard passages
in myself or in society which I could not construe with
out their help. And I have found this to be the case
more and more in proportion as I have rested my faith
on the God whom the Bible declares to me, and not
upon my conclusions respecting the authenticity of
different books. These conclusions may be sound, — I
hope they are ; but they may not be sound. My under
standing is very liable to error ; and how can those who
require me to consider the Bible as alone free from
eiTor, encourage me, at the same moment, to transfer
that immunity to myself? This they must do, if they
will not let me first of aU accept the canon of Scripture
as given to me, and secondly, rise gradually to believe,-

344 FAITH IN GOD AND IN CONCLUSIONS.
not on the authority of any Samaritan woman or Church
doctor, but because I have heard Christ for myself,
speaking to me out of this book, and speaking to me in
my heart,- and therefore know that He' is indeed that
Saviour who should come into the world.*
* A distinction is often hinted at, sometimes formally taken, be
tween Facts and Doctrines. ' You may,' it is said, ' believe that the
' Spirit guides a man into a knowledge of principles. But do you accept
' the facts of the Bible ? Do you look upon them as divinely com-
' municatedto the seer ?' Any one who considers doctrines as I have
considered them in these Essays, finds it exceedingly hard to separate
them from facts ; doctrines and principles he supposes to be the
meaning of facts. If, then, I am asked whether I receive the tran
scendent facts of Scripture, those which offer most occasion to dis
belief, I appeal to what I have written here. If I am asked whether I
believe the ordinary facts of Scripture, e. g. that such a city was taken
at such a time ? I answer, that when I find a man so free from biblical
prepossessions as Niebuhr assuming Isaiah and Jeremiah to be better
authorities about such taJcEs than any he knew of, I am surprised that
ov/r divines and religious people should be so very eager to get con
firmation of the testimonies in sacred books from profane authorities,
as if they felt insecure of them till then, — a sentiment I cannot the
least understand or share in ; that, believing the writers of the Bible to
have been possessed by the Spirit of Truth, I am sure they will have
more shrunk from fictions, and have been more careful to avoid mixing
them with facts, than other men ; that it seems to me far safer, more
scriptural, more godly, to suppose they did take pains, and that the
Spirit taught them to take pains, in sifting facts, than to suppose that
they were merely told the facts; that I most assuredly should not give
up the faith in God which they have cherished in me, if I found they
had made mistakes; and that I have too much respect and honour
for those who use the strongest expressions about the certainty of
every word in the Scriptures, to suppose that they would. I will not
believe any Christian man, even upon his own testimony, who tells
me that he should cease to truBt in the Son of God, because he
found chronological or historical misstatements in the Scriptures
as great as ever have been charged against them by their bitterest
opponents. If I did suspect him of such hollowness, I should pray

VERBAL INSPIRATION. 345
On his way to this discovery, a man may have to pass,
as numbers have passed before him, through terrible
struggles and contradictions of mind. But you believe
it is true, do you not ? You think God has revealed it,
do you not ? You bebeve He lives, do you not ? If so,
He can perhaps take about as good care of His truth,
His book, His creatures and the universe, as you or I
can. He can teach us without a theory of Inspiration,
which is taking the place, it is to be feared, in very
many minds, not only of faith in Inspiration, but of
faith in Him.
For the different forms in which this theory expresses
itself, I care little. If any one likes to talk of a verbal
Inspiration, if that phrase conveys some substantial
meaning to his mind; by all means let him keep it. He
cannot go further than I should, in calling for a laborious
and reverent attention to the very words of Scripture,
and in denouncing the unreasonable notion, that thoughts
and words can be separated ; that the life which is in
one must not penetrate the other. If any one likes to
speak of plenary Inspiration, I would not complain ; I
object to the Inspiration which people talk of, for being
too empty, not for being too full. These forms of speech
are pretty toys for those who have leisure to play with
for him that he might never meet with any travellers or philologers
who confirmed the statements of Scripture ; none but such as denied
them or mocked at them ; because the sooner such a foundation as
this is shaken, the better it will be for him.

346 FANATICS.
them, and if they are not made so hard as to do mischief,
the use of them should never be checked. But they do
not belong to business. They are not for those who are
struggbng with life and death ; such persons want, not a
plenary Inspiration or a verbal Inspiration, but a book of
Life ; and they will know that they have such a book
when you have courage to tell them that there is a Spirit
with them, who will guide them into the truth of it.
4. ' But if these words are openly proclaimed, what a
' plentiful crop of ranters and fanatics shall we have !
' What crowds will ran after them ; for who then will
' have a right to deny their inspiration ? ' A dreadful
prospect! But is it a prospect? Have we not the
fanatics and ranters already ? Do they not draw dis
ciples after them? You have tried to weaken their
influence by telling them that the Bible was the Inspired
book ; that it is utterly absurd and extravagant for men
in these days to call themselves inspired ; that the same
course has been tried in former times, and has always
led to ruin. There is great apparent justification for
this method; it has been used often by very ingenious
and sagacious men, with whom it ought to have suc
ceeded, if it was to succeed. But it has not succeeded. It
has not cured the immediate evil which it was meant to
cure; it has left the seeds which produced that evil
always ready for fresh germination. And what is worse,
this kind of treatment has destroyed precious seeds,
which God has planted in men's hearts, and which they

HOPES DISAPPOINTED. 347
cannot afford to lose. You long to expose the impostor,
the mountebank, who is deceiving a number of poor
simple souls. But do you desire that the earnest, cordial
faith, which has been called forth in them, while they
are following him, should be taken from them? Do you
desire that those fervent hopes, kindled for the first time
in men who have been crawling all their days on the
earth and eating dust, should be put out for ever ? Do
you think nothing of the desolation which they will feel,
when they find that he in whom they trusted has failed
them utterly, and that what looked the most real of
all things, was but a dream? Oh! is there nothing
dreadful in the unbelief, the prostration of soul, the
wretchfteeness of unclean living, which follows such
disappointments and discoveries ?
' But they must come,' you say, ' how can we help
it?' We could have done this. We could have told the
deceiver that he was not exaggerating in the least the
blessings of which a man is capable, and which God is
willing to bestow on him. We could have told him that
instead of a mere power of utterance, which it is evident
he possesses, and for which he will have to give an
account, the Spirit who has endued him with that power
is near him, claiming him as a servant ; near him, and
hear every one of those too whom he is making his
tools. We might say to him, ' If you believe this,
' there wiU come into your mind 3uch an awe, such a
' sense of the fearfulness of trifling with this gift and

348 THE TRUE INSPIRATION.
' blessing, — there will come such a desire to learn, such
' a fear of the responsibility of ruling over other men,
' such a conviction that you can only do it without a
' crime, when you give up yourself to the Spirit of
' Truth,— that nothing will seem to you so great a
' reason for penitence and shame, as that you have dared
' to exalt yourself on the plea of possessing that, which
' if you had possessed it rightly, would have entirely
' humbled you.' And if with this, we teach the people
that the Spirit of God has come down, not on the
great prophet only, but for the whole flock of Christ,
to keep them from pride and self-conceit and delusion,
and to guide them into all truth, I believe we shall
do our best that the chaff in their minds may be sepa
rated from the wheat, and may be burned up.
5. For this principle, we of the Church of England
are, I conceive, specially bound to bear testimony.
The collects I have quoted, and the tenour of our prayers,
which is in conformity with them, lay us under this
obligation. The function which our orthodox men in
the last century claimed for us, of being witnesses against
fanaticism, is a most honourable function. God grant
that we may be able to fulfil it ! But we cannot fulfil it
in the way they dreamed of, — by setting at nought all
belief in spiritual operations, by referring all that is spoken
of them in Scripture to the age of the Apostles. That
plan has been tried ; none ever failed so completely and
shamefully. We cannot do it by the course which our

THE THREE METHODS. 349
modern evangelical school, renouncing the maxims of
their forefathers, seem inclined to recommend, — the
course of setting up the Bible as a book which encloses
all that may lawfully be caUed Inspiration. That plan
is under trial, and, if we may judge by present indi
cations, it is likely to produce a general alienation from
the Bible, a widely spread unbelief in Christianity.
There is another method : may we have faith to follow
it out ! It is that of saying to our countrymen, of every
order and degree, ' The Father of all has sent forth His
' Son, made of a woman, that you may receive the
' adoption of sons. He has baptized you with the Spirit
' of His Son : and that Spirit would be crying in your
' hearts, Abba, Father. That Spirit would be leading
' you into fellowship with all your brethren. That Spirit
' would be making you humble, teachable, courageous,
' free. That Spirit would claim all things for you;
' common books and the chief book, Nature and Grace,
' Earth and Heaven.'
It may seem to some Unitarian listener, who had hoped
that I was going to join him in cursing several of his
enemies, that I have blessed them these three times.
He might expect from me some more rational theory
about Inspiration than that which is current among our
Evangelical and High Church teachers. He might
think my apparent indifference to their opinions, pro
mising. But I have at last come to a conclusion which

350 THE POPULAR NOTIONS SEMI-UNITARIAN.
will strike him as far more distant from his own than
theirs is. I have appeared to protest against current
theories of Inspiration, because they fail to assert the
actual presence of that Spirit, whom it has been one
of the standing articles of his creed not to confess.
I cannot deny this charge. I do think that our
theories of Inspiration, however little they may accord
with Unitarian notions, have a semi-Unitarian charac
ter ; that they are derived from that unbelief in the Holy
Ghost which is latent in us all, but which was developed
and embodied in the Unitarianism of the last century.
I have not been able to conceal this opinion in, the
present case or in other cases. I have not tried to con
ceal it; for I am persuaded that we must go further
from Unitarianism, if we would embrace Unitarians ;
that we shall never know them as brothers, or love
them as brothers, till we bring out our own faith more
fully, and disengage it from some of the elements of
distrust which we, in imitation of them, have allowed
to mingle with it. Especially do I look forward to this
result, however distant and improbable it may seem,
from a full assertion of that portion of our creed which
refers to the Person of the Comforter. I do see in that,
such a bond of loving fellowship for all men, — such
a breaking down of sect-barriers, — that I long to speak
of it, even if it be with the most stammering tongue, to
those who have been divided from us. I have not
entered upon that subject here. Till the question of

COMPLIMENTS TO APOSTLES. 351
Inspiration had been fairly considered, I saw no hope of
being able to express my thoughts fully and clearly
upon it : for nothing seems to me so dangerous, as that
the Bible should be used to hinder the reception of a
truth which can alone make its words intelligible, and,
apart from which, its Inspiration, and all inspiration, is
the dream of a shadow.
But as the subject of this Essay is not merely inspi
ration but the inspiration of the Bible, I should like to
say one word on a method of treating that book whicii is
characteristic of the new Unitarian school. The mem
bers of that school readily recognise the inspiration of
Apostles and of Prophets. Where their fathers honoured
the letter, they perceive a divine mind in the old seers.
But they do not half so much accept them as teachers.
It seems to me that the last writer of an article in one of
their newspapers or reviews looks upon himself as a
much more enbghtened man than St. Paul or St. John,
as one who can afford to compliment them upon the ap
proximations which they often made to the wisdom which
he has attained. I discover this tendency in men who I
think really wish to be modest and self-distrusting ; who
are driven into what must strike us as insufferable arro
gance, not willingly, but by the necessity of their posi
tion. They defend that position as being the only one
which it is possible for men of science and men of pro
gress to occupy. If earnest search is always rewarded
with new discoveries, how can we acquiesce in the

352 HOW TO BE SCIENTIFIC.
decrees of the past ? If the world is always advancing, is
not a third-rate man of this day wiser than the greatest
of ages gone by ? Such questions are not in general
fairly met. The understanding is staggered by them ;
though I believe the conscience in every man revolts at
the conclusion to which they lead.
The process of thought by which I have myself been
delivered from them is something of this kind. Physical
science, it has seemed to me, presumes a world which
exists and which we did not create. Science was impos
sible while men glorified their own thoughts and specu
lations more than that which nature presented to them.
It has become firm and safe since they have humbled
themselves into the condition of learners. This has been
the secret of discovery, this has been the security for
progress. Is it altogether otherwise, I have asked my
self, in moral science ? Is self-worship the posture of
mind which is most favourable to- that, as self-abnegation
is the great pre-requisite in the other ? Shall we dis
cover because we believe in our powers of discovery?
Will the ages to come learn from us if we teach them
that all wisdom is concentrated in us ? I have not the
least reason to think so. I do not meet with any man
who does think so consistently. I often see those who
ought to hold this opinion, if their other statements
were true, clinging to the past with great affection and
reverence, nay, not seldom disposed to appeal to it with
even a fond -idolatry, when they find themselves pressed

SCIENCE AND DISCOVERY. 353
down and tormented by the maxims of their own age.
And so I have been forced by the inconsistencies of
these modern teachers when I liked them best, by the
vanity which made me despair of all good from them
when they were following their theory to its conse
quences, to inquire whether that old notion of a Bible, a
book of books, a book which sets forth a revelation that
has been made of God and His relations to man, a reve
lation that is complete and cannot receive additions from
our researches, — is unfavourable to science, to discovery,
to progress ; nay, may not be the necessary protection of
all three. If Science concerns that which is fixed and
absolute, that which is, then to believe that God has
declared Himself, that He has withdrawn the veil which
hides Him from His creatures, that He has in a wonderful
and orderly history enabled us to see what He is, and
what He is to us, what those eternal laws and principles
are which dwell in Himself and which determine His
dealings with us, is to believe that there is a divine and
human Science, that we are not left to the anticipations
or guesses of one age or of another. If He who thus
reveals Himself is light, there must be perpetual open
ings for Discovery the more we meditate upon His reve
lation, the more we compare it with our own experiences
and the experiences of the world. Instead of being cut
off from such discoveries by acknowledging that we are
not the authors of them, we enter upon just such a steady
and gradual method for arriving at them as the physical
A A

354 PROGRESS.
student entered on when he exchanged the syllogisms of
the study for the induction of the laboratory. If all
Progress consists in the advancing further into light and
the scattering of mists which had obstructed it, the Bible
contains the promise of such Progress, a promise which
has been most fulfilled when it has been most reverently
listened to, when men have gone to it with the greatest
confidence and hope. I complain of our modern religious
world, not for cherishing this confidence or this hope,
but for abandoning it and robbing others of it. If we
come to the Bible as learners, it has more to teach us
yet than we can ask or think. If we believe that we
know all that is in it and merely resort to it for sentences
and watchwords to confirm our own notions and to con
demn our brethren, God will show us, — He is showing
us, — how great the punishment to us and to our children
must be, for abusing the unspeakably precious treasure
with which He has endowed us.

ESSAY XIV.
ON THE PERSONALITY AND TEACHING OF THE HOLY
SPIRIT.
I SUPPOSE there is nothing which is causing so much
unbelief here and everywhere, as a comparison of the
hopes which Scripture seems to hold out of the effects
that should follow the revelation of Christ, with the
history of the world since He appeared in it. I appre
hend this difficulty is felt much more strongly in our
day than in former days. There are several reasons
why it must be so. We have been led to consider the
different portions of history more in relation to each
other than our fathers did. The records of the old
Pagan world have been brought side by side with those
of the Christian Church. Great differences have been
observed in them, no doubt; more differences than were
perceived formerly. But though all new inquiries may
show us more clearly what crimes, what contradiction
of moral principles, what superstition existed in the
countries whose literature we have been most taught to

356 THE OLD AND NEW WORLD.
prize, they show us also, that our ancestors were not
mistaken in speaking of the patriotism and nobleness of
particular men in those countries, of the ideal which
they set before themselves, nay, of the homage which
was paid to that ideal by the body of their countrymen, —
proving it to be national, not individual. ' What other
' conclusion does the history of the later world suggest ?
' There, too, is crime, contradiction of moral principles,
' fearful superstition. There, too, are facts which show
' that many have set before themselves a high standard,
' and have done various acts in conformity with it ;
' there, too, we see that their contemporaries, who often
' persecuted them and cast out their names as evil, yet
' confessed that their aim was the right aim ; there we
' find proofs that they were not creating a rule for
' themselves, but following one which would have been
' good for all men. Where is the great alteration ? Are
' not all things much as they were from the beginning ?
' In some respects, is there not a change for the worse ?
' Does not Christendom confess, by the pains which it has
' taken that its sons should study the lore of the old
' Pagan world, that something is to be gained from that
' lore which is not to be found among its own treasures?
' Have not some crimes, against which the old world
' protested, been canonized by what has been called the
' faith of the new ? Have not some of the old virtues
' been disparaged, even trampled under foot, by the pro-
' fessors of the same faith ? '

VIEWS OF CHRISTIANITY CHANGED. 357
There is another cause for the new strength which
these reflections have gained in our time. If we thought,
as many divines in the last century thought, that the
appearance of an illustrious Teacher, a great Messiah, in
the world, who promulgated a sublime code of morals,
and did certain extraordinary acts to illustrate its truth,
is all that was signified by the New Testament Dis
pensation and the name ' Christianity, 'we might not be
under any great obligation to explain why that Teacher
had not been much more heeded than those who pre
ceded Him, why the announcement of His code has
not ensured obedience to it, why His miracles may be
acknowledged as singular occurrences for the time
which witnessed them, and yet may have left no dis
tinct practical impression upon human life. But we have
abandoned, — I think, have been compelled to abandon, —
this apparently secure position. The hearts of suffering
men have demanded from the book which we told them
contained the charter of their inheritance, — have found
in it, — information which these statements did not con
vey. They have asked whether God had merely laid
down rales for them, without giving them any power to
follow the rules; whether He had bidden them love
Him and their neighbours, without taking account of
the tremendous inclination they had to care only for
themselves, or supplying them with any means to over
come it. They have craved for some influence over
themselves, a quickening, transforming influence. And

358 THE CONFESSION OF A SPIRIT.
they -have thought that the Bible very distinctly met
these necessities of theirs. In the New Testament espe
cially, they have discovered continual reference to a
Spirit who should work in men to do those act3 which
they were least able of themselves to do, who should
help their infirmities, who should teach them what they
wanted, and how they might ask for if ; who should knit
together those whom place, time, jealousies had divided.
They have perceived that the promise of this Spirit is
put forth as the most obvious and characteristic promise
of the Christian dispensation. The very name of Christ,
they have learnt, indicates that He was Himself endowed
or anointed with a Spirit; the preaching of His fore
runner and all His own preaching declared that He had
received it Himself, to the end that He might bestow it
upon His disciples then and in ages to come. Church
men have discovered that the language of our formula
ries, as well as of the Scriptures, is in accordance with
these convictions. We have learned to speak habitually
ofa dispensation of the Spirit; we have said that our
Lord's coming in the flesh would have effected very little,
that His moral teaching would have been necessarily in
operative, if He had not carried out His own assurance,
and sent His Spirit to enlighten and renew hearts which
would have been otherwise dark and lifeless.
But if we adopt this language, we ought to under
stand that we give every one a right to ask us some
searching questions. They will take this form : —

CONSEQUENT DEMANDS ON US. 359
' A Divine Spirit,' you tell us, ' has been given to men,
' given for the very purpose of moulding their lives into
' conformity with the law which has been proclaimed to
' them. Surely, then, you are bound to show some evi-
' dence of that conformity. It cannot suffice merely to
' complain of men's disobedience or incredulity. Do
' you mean there has not been a power which could
' overcome these ? It cannot avail to talk of a world, or
' flesh, or Devil. Do you mean that these are stronger
'than God?'
There are several ways of evading this difficulty, of
which Christian teachers and students have not failed to
avail themselves. ' We can point you,' they have said,
' to fruits of faith and love, which can only have been
' produced by a divine influence ; we can show you that
' those who have done the best deeds and cherished the
' best thoughts have traced them to this influence. More
' than this we are not bound to do. Nay, we are bound
' to draw a broad line between these and the multitude
' who do not confess any spiritual influence, who are not
' the subjects of any.'
To a reader of the New Testament this statement
must be" most unsatisfactory. The Apostles speak of
the holy men of old as moved by the Holy Ghost ; no
one who reads the words of those men can doubt that
they referred every true thing in themselves to a divine
source. Yet the Apostles teach us, and they teach us,
that they were looking forward to a blessing which had

360 THE BIBLE.
not been given them, and which later ages should inherit.
This expectation, as I showed in my last Essay, pointed
not merely to the manifestation of a great king, but also
to the manifestation of Him from whom their thoughts
and impulses had proceeded.
The Christian kingdom cannot be described as a dis
pensation of the Spirit if these anticipations were not
fulfilled. The Apostles must have deceived their hearers
if the condition of those who lived after Christ's glori
fication, was not better in this respect than that of those
who waited for His coming. The story of the descent of
the Spirit on the day of Pentecost, and of the signs which
accompanied it, and of the preaching which followed it,
must be thrown aside altogether, if no great blessing was
then vouchsafed to mankind, — if a few here and there
may vindicate and appropriate to themselves a treasure,
which the true men who understood its nature best were
impatient to acknowledge as universal.
Some of those who could not acquiesce in so limited a
view of the language of the Gospels and the Acts of the
Apostles as this, have suggested that since the holy
Scriptures are the work of the Divine Spirit, the com
plete Bible may perhaps be that common possession
which distinguishes the new world from the old. To
possess a divine history which was growing for cen
turies, in its order and fulness, so that all the steps of
it may be traced, and the issue to which it was leading
distinctly apprehended, is no doubt an incalculable

LAPSES OF THE SPIRIT. 361
advantage. But, if what I said in the last Essay is
true, we lose altogether the sense and symmetry of this
history unless we look upon the revelation of the Divine
Spirit to men as that which explains the past to us and
binds it to the future. Nay, according to its own show
ing, we have not the capacity of judging of its particular
passages, and of their relation to each other, unless we
partake of the Spirit by which its writers were guided.
So that to put the book as the substitute for the gift of
which it testifies, or as including it, is as flagrant a con
tradiction as we can possibly fall into.
A popular ecclesiastical historian of the last century,
quite alive to this inconsistency, and, at the same time,
aware of the wretched divisions and horrible atrocities
which he should have to record, has resorted to the
hypothesis that there have been certain ' lapses ' of the
Spirit in different periods, like in their principle, though
not in their outward tokens, to that of which Whitsun
tide reminds us. Such lapses he thought would account
for the revival of moral light and life after long ages of
superstition and degeneracy; for such events as the
Keformation in the sixteenth century, and for others
nearer to his own day, to which he attached a similar,
and almost equal, significance. I shall not now inquire
whether his theory will account for these facts, or, if it
does, whether there are not others equally demanding
interpretation, for which it does not account. I would
only remark that the phrase, occasional ' lapses ' of the

362 THE SPIRITUAL NATURE OF MAN.
Spirit, cannot be an exact counterpart of that which our
Lord uses when He speaks of a Spirit who shall abide
with His disciples for ever, and that what we have to
consider is whether such a description corresponds with
the experience of Christendom, or contradicts it.
Finally, in our own day, a number of persons fancy
they have discovered a sufficient equivalent for the
doctrine of Scripture respecting a divine Spirit imparted
to man, in the belief that man himself has a spiritual
nature, — that all his powers, energies, affections show
him to be more than a creature of flesh and blood. The
doctrine of the Creed, they say, is only an old theocratic
mode of enunciating a truth which belongs to the con
sciousness of all men, and bf which some races have
had a much keener intuition than the Jews. As I have
already maintained that the Gospels and Epistles assert
not merely that man has a spiritual nature, but that he
is a spiritual being, as I have spoken of our Lord's
ascension according to the ordinary view of it, as being
the practical vindication of our spiritual position and
spiritual capacities, I certainly cannot refuse to connect
the doctrine of the coming of a divine Comforter with
that human principle. St. John connects them ; for he
says, ' The Spirit was not yet given, because that Jesus
was not yet glorified.' But both he and St. Paul take
the greatest possible pains to distinguish them. A
mighty gift, according to the one, was bestowed upon
God's creature as soon as that creature was capable of

MONTANUS. 363
receiving it. ' The Spirit,' according to the other,
' witnesseth with our spirit that we are the sons of God.'
It would have been obviously unfitting that I should
reckon amongst these methods of explaining the words
of our Lord and His Apostles that to which a Phrygian
heretic of the second century resorted, when he affirmed
that the Comforter whom our Lord promised was a
bodily teacher, who was to fill up the gaps in His
doctrine. But since that proposition, even accompanied
with the assertion that Montanus himself was the fulfiller
of the promise, had plausibility enough to secure the
support of so able a man as Tertullian, and since it
has reappeared in various shapes ever since, and was
never more likely to appear than now, I think it is
worth while to consider why it has seemed to those
who entertained it, to answer more exactly to our
Lord's language than any mere notion of an invisible
influence. Such an influence is continually spoken of in Scrip
ture. The symbols of ' rain ' and ' dew ' serve beautifuUy
to describe its silent, penetrating, life-giving, orderly
nature. But what is there in such symbols which cor
responds to these words ? —
' And when He is come, He will reprove the world of
sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment : of Sin,
because they believe not on me; of Righteousness, be
cause I go to my Father, and ye see me no more ; of
Judgment, because the Prince of this world is judged.'

364 CAUSE OF HIS HERESY.
AU here is personal in the strictest sense. I will send
Him, He shall come, He shall reprove. Is a Teacher, a
Helper, a Sustainer, bke moisture or vapour ? I appre
hend, then, that if a man has been much vexed, as
Tertullian with his fierce African nature was, by Gnos-
tical Teachers, who have no associations with Spirit,
except these, — who do habitually confound it with
vapour, and do not even attach to vapour that sense of
power which the sight of a locomotive engine suggests to
us, — he is very likely to adopt a coarse material counter
part of reality, and as the punishment of his intem
perate foUy, to become the victim of some feeble impostor.
A great lesson bes, I think, in that painful experience.
If Christ has shown that the body which He took did
not constitute His personality, but that, because He was
a Person, because He was the Son of God, he could
raise, redeem, and glorify His body ; if He has shown
a man not to be a person because he has a body, but
that he only claims and realizes his personality then
when he maintains his relation to God, and holds his
body as a subject ; if the Evil Spirit is not less personal
because he comes to us and came to Christ in no bodily
shape ; if we can only worship the living and true God
as a Person and a Father;— then I believe we shall
accept the words which I have quoted in the most literal
sense when we take them in their most spiritual sense.
There is indeed a deep question growing out of this con
cerning the relation of the Person of the Comforter to

THE SENSE OF SIN. 365
the Son, who says He will send Him, — to the Father,
from whom He is said to proceed. That question I
reserve for a future Essay. In this 1 propose only to
inquire whether, if we acknowledge this Spirit as a
Person, and if we accept our Lord's account of His work,
we shall not have a solution of the difficulty with which
I started — the only interpretation of the dark as well as
of the bright passages in the History of Christendom.
1. I suppose no one doubts that the feelings about
Sin in the modern world have been very different
from any which can be traced iu the old. I have
little need to make out a proof of this fact, because it
will be rather eagerly accepted as a concession by those
who hold that Christianity has operated injuriously on
the welfare of mankind. They will say, ' It is cer-
' tainly true that there has been a terror in the minds of
' men respecting a number of practices and habits which
' seemed very innocent to Pagans, comparatively inno-
' cent even to Jews. There has been a fear of teaching,
' tasting, handling, which belonged in an immeasurably
L less degree to Greeks and Romans. A dark shadow
' has been cast over the face of nature, and over social
' life.' I shall not now inquire to what extent these
charges are true, because I have considered the subject
in my second Essay ; and I have had occasion in every
succeeding one to make use of the conclusions at which
I arrived in the course of it. I spoke of an evil which
bes beneath the transgression for which laws affix

366 CONSEQUENCES OF IT.
punishment, beneath the habits and temperament to
which the mere ethical philosopher confines himself.
This evil lies close to myself; I become conscious of
it when I think of myself; I cannot refer it to the
operation of outward circumstances ; I am rather obliged
to confess it as the cause of anything wrong which
affects me in them. I said that undoubtedly this sense
of personal evil had set men upon devising a multitude
of schemes for avoiding its present anguish, for escaping
from the terrors of which it seemed pregnant in the
future, for conciliating the Power whom it might have
offended. If then it is true that this sense of personal
evil did not exist to at all the same extent before the
coming of Christ as it has existed since ; that though
we may trace clear anticipations of it in some of the
great thinkers of the old world, as well as in the popular
belief, yet that for the most part both are occupied
with the less radical and inward forms of evil, it is
quite to be expected that the superstitions of the latter
time should have had oftentimes a worse character
than those of the former, that the wickedness should
be of a more conscious kind, that the man should be in
more direct open war with himself, with his fellows,
and with his Creator. All this sounds very shocking,
and very confirmatory of that which the objector urges.
And yet I maintained that it is good for a man thus to
know what is going on within him ; thus to see himself
stript bare of appearances and plausibilities ; thus to be

THE SENSE OF DELIVERANCE. 367
prevented from transferring to accidents, which he can
not remedy, what may be cured when he sees it and
confesses it as his own. And I urged that all the
mischief of those contrivances which the man himself
has imagined, or his priest suggested, for the sake of
soothing his pain, lies in this, that they throw him back
into a region of phantoms and shadows, out of which
this dreadful experience is intended to lead him ; that
they hinder him from seeking the moral freedom which
is awaiting him if he wUl receive it.
For there is another set of facts, as we have seen, in
the history of Christendom to which, also, there is only
a most imperfect parallel in the ancient world. We
find men emerging out of darkness into a marvellous
light, coming to understand what that strife in them
selves meant, and how and why they had fallen into it,
coming to see that their true state is that of union with
One higher than themselves, their King and their Deli
verer, in whom they were created, apart from whom they
cannot subsist, in trusting whom they lose that feverish
self-consciousness which has been their death, and ac
quire a pure, and true, and common life.
Now, what is it that one wants to make these two
sets of facts, which comprise so much of what is most
dismal and most blessed in the individual and in the
social experience of eighteen centuries, intelligible to
us? Is it not the belief that some Person has been
leading men, in spite of all straggles and reluctance

368 THE AUTHOR OF BOTH FEELINGS.
on their parts, in spite of all efforts to escape from
the reality of things, in spite of all the soothing or
irritating prescriptions of earthly doctors, to a know
ledge of what they are according to that separate, un-.
natural, immoral condition which they have imagined
for themselves, and of what they are according to the
true and blessed order which God has established for
them ? And is not this precisely what is expressed in
the words, ' The Comforter shall reprove ' (or convict)
' the world of sin, because they believe not on me?'
Nothing in those words determines how this or that
man shall receive the influence which is exerted upon
him. The ' world ' is said to be the subject of the con
viction; the whole of Society will be acted upon by the
divine Spirit. And yet it is not to the outside world
that He wUl speak. A conviction of Sin must be
addressed to the conscience, the inner man, the person
from whom thoughts, words and acts flow. There will,
it is said, be this silent mysterious operation. It wUl
produce results. These results may be merely fear,
cowardice, horror of God, contrivances to escape from
Him. They may be trust in Him as a Friend and Deli
verer, a renunciation of all self-seeking experiments,
rest in the Son of Man. They may be any condition of
feeling between these two extremes. On this subject we
have no information ; we require none. We want to
know who is speaking to us ; what He is saying, to what
issue He would lead us, what there is in us which may

STANDARD OF RIGHTEOUSNESS. 369
yield to Him or resist Him. On these points we have all
the light we require ; all that can help us to obedience
and peace. If we wish to limit the movements of that
Spirit which bloweth where it listeth, that we may
prove ourselves to be within the circle of His influence,
we offer a sad evidence that we are resisting Him.
2. If the conscience of sin is characteristic of the new
world as distinguished from the old, I do not think any
one can doubt that there has been, also a higher standard
of Righteousness than any which can be traced in the
best men and the best nations that classical history
introduces to us. I make this remark with a full
recollection of the apparent objections to it which I
noticed before, and with the greatest desire to admit
their reasonableness. I acknowledge that the elevation
of the Christian standard has been a plea for treating
the love of city and country which the Greek and
Roman heroes exhibited as mundane and heathenish.
I acknowledge that this feeling has prevailed among
Protestants as well as Romanists, and that whenever and
wherever it has prevailed, there has been the best excuse
for exclaiming against the popular religious doctrines and
doctors as immoral and anti-social, for declaring that the
patriotism which they despised was better and truer
than any thing which they put in its place. I admit,
as I did in my Essay on Regeneration, that spiritual
or ecclesiastical maxims of life have proved, not only
hostile to civil life, but to domestic ; to those relations
B B

370 PERVERSIONS OF IT.
»
upon which God, in the Jewish dispensation, put such
high honour, which He takes as the very instruments of
reveabng himself, which St. Paul connects with the life
and substance of the Church. And this being the case,
it has followed, of course, that the ideal Righteousness
has sunk into a meaner and more degrading form of
Self-righteousness than any which can be found beyond
the circle of Christendom. Nay, it would seem as if
the self-righteous practices which have tormented the
world elsewhere have their centre and explanation in
Christian Society.
Above all, the fearful contradictions which have
gathered about the idea of Sacrifice, and have made the
giving up of Self the plea for the most intense calcu
lating Selfishness, have received their fullest illustration
from the acts and conceptions of Christian men. Among
them, too, the horrible notion of making the safety of
the soul a motive for violations of Trath, nay of making
Truth merely a means to safety, has led to such intri
cacies of deception and of cruelty, as it would be hard
to find examples of in the countries where it has never
been proclaimed that the Lord God is a God of Truth
and without iniquity, one who hateth robbery for burnt-
offering. I do not want to conceal one of these terrible obser
vations ; we have need to meditate them more and more
deeply. I only want you to dweU as earnestly, on
another class of observations, which appear utterly

UNIVERSALITY, SELF-SACRIFICE, TRUTH. 371
opposed to them, and yet which cannot be separated from
them. That wicked contempt for national and domestic
bfe to which I alluded, is connected with such an idea
of a universal feUowship, of a union with men as men,
of duties owing to aU men everywhere, with such evi
dences that this idea is not a barren one, not a mere
maxim or theory, but a mighty operative principle, — as
you can scarcely perceive the faintest foreshadowing of
among the greatest citizens of the old republics. That
grovelbng notion of men practising acts of devotion
that they may avert some penalty or buy some prize,
has been associated with such a resolute casting away of
life, reputation, hope, everything, when other men were
to be blessed, and the love of God to them was to be
declared, — with such an overpowering belief in a charity
that is mightier than Sin, Death, the Devil, which can
penetrate the being of man, and utterly destroy the
selfishness there, — as you can only hear the feeblest
prophecy of in the highest raptures of ancient poets and
philosophers; and yet the realization of it has been
among peasants and feeble women. That blasphemous
notion of lying for God, which has defiled the morality
of Romanists and Protestants, has been accompanied in
the minds of both, with a persuasion that Truth is
higher than Heaven and deeper than Hell, that God
Himself is the Trath; that everything is to be parted
with for the sake of that. I do not say that the best
men in the old world had not a conviotion that this

372 THE CONVICTION OF RIGHTEOUSNESS. '
must be so, or that we do not owe them gratitude un
speakable, for having testified that man's business in life
is to seek for that which is, to believe in it that he may
find it, and to strip himself of all phantoms and shadows
which interfere with the apprehension of it. God be
thanked for having raised up such witnesses to Him
self ! What I say is, that the witness has been found to
be real and substantial, by tens of thousands who have
known nothing of dialectics, whose only training has
been that of poverty, sickness, the prison, the rack. These
were their schoolmasters ; by these they were lifted up
to feel that there was a perfect Righteousness, a universal
self-sacrificing Love, an eternal Truth, of which they
were inheritors.
And here is the solution of the mystery. ' When He
cometh He shall convince the world of Righteousness,
because I go to my Father, and ye see me no more.'
There had been a standard of. eternal righteousness,
love, self-sacrifice, exhibited in the world, exhibited by
a man carrying mortal flesh, dying a death which we
die. And that man had gone out of sight, had seemed
to leave no traces of Himself on earth. But a voice
was ever whispering at men's hearts, ' He is ascended
' on high to His Father and your Father. That
' Righteousness which was seen here, is now yours ; it
' is for one and all of you. You are participators in
' that sacrifice which He has offered for all, and which
I He is presenting as your Intercessor to His Father.

WHENEVER IT MUST HAVE COME. 373
' You may know that Truth, and that Truth may make
' you free, of which He came into the world, and died,
' and has ascended, to testify.'
How otherwise we could bring these different warring
experiences into harmony, I cannot conceive. The wis
dom of Church teachers will not explain them ; they
have been often the great agents in corruption, and when
they have been otherwise the secret must be accounted
for. The innate nobleness of man wiU not explain them,
for we have to interpret proofs of his debasement. His
innate evil will not explain them, for we have to inter
pret high thoughts and glorious deeds. If we believed
that there had been a Spirit of Trath, not acting upon
the surface of men's minds, but carrying on a controversy J
with them- in their inmost being, encountering, all the ''¦
rebeUions of the cowardly, reluctant Will, all its desires
f to become a mere Self-will, bringing out its darkness,
as bght always must, into fuller and stronger relief,
making the devilish apparent because it was confronted
with the divine ; if we could believe that this was a
Comforter, a divine Person, stronger than His enemies,
able to strengthen man to all fixed resolutions and noble
purposes, — to bring the objects which he perceives dimly
and at a distance, within the sphere of his vision ; able
to inspire longings and hopes when the spirit of man is
most bent and cowed ; able to point him upwards to a
Father in Heaven when he is most ready to call himself
merely a son of earth ; able at the same time to make

374 SENSE OF JUDGMENT.
him understand his work on earth, and to endow him
with powers for performing it ; able to support him in
suffering, to give him gbmpses of the substantial glory
into which Christ has entered through suffering; able to
make him perceive that everything which is merely his/i
own is perishable, that what is most divine is common 1
to him with his fellows ; — then I think we need nor
choose the bright spots of modern history and conceal
its horrors ; the more courageously we face the one, the
more hope wiU come to us from the contemplation of
the other.
3. For assuredly there has been, and is, a conviction
working in the minds of men, the most various and un
like each other, that this kind of conflict is not to go on
for ever. There is a sense of Judgment, of some great
decision, that is to settle for ever which of these is
the stronger, the Evil, or the Good with which the Evil
has been so intricately combined. This thought of
Judgment has been itself as perplexed as either of the
others. Men have fancied they were to prepare for
judgment by eschewing their common duties, — by de-l
voting themselves to the work of saving their own souls. I
They have fancied that if, by any means, they could
escape from judgment, it would be an unspeakable bless
ing. They have fancied that Christ came, not as He)
said, to save the world, but to save them, that they might/
not be judged bke their fellows. The strangest results,
doctrinal and practical, have followed from these habits

HOW CHARACTERISTIC OF CHRISTENDOM. 375
of mind, and from the encouragement which Christian
teachers have given to them ; some of them I pointed
out in my twelfth Essay. But in the midst of these we
perceive a deep and settled desire for judgment, a long
ing that there should not be a perpetual confusion of
Sin and Righteousness, of Truth and Falsehood, — a cer
tainty that if Christ is King, there cannot be. While
there has been, and is, such a dread of judgment as
there never was in the old world, there has been,
and is, such a passionate craving for judgment as the
heroes of it may have now and then felt in hopeful
moments when the contradictions of the world became
very oppressive ; but such as certainly never became
a part of their abiding convictions. For it is evident
that the feebngs respecting Judgment must correspond
to those respecting Sin and Righteousness. If our
thoughts of these are superficial, our thoughts of that
wiU be ; if we connect them with the very substance
of our being, the judgment will bear reference to that.
The awfulness of the thoughts of Judgment which we
in Christendom have entertained has been the inevitable ]
consequence of Sin coming out in such close tremendous
connexion with our own selves, of the Righteousness I
which opposes it being brought so close to us. The hope
fulness of our thoughts respecting Judgment has arisen
in bke manner from the sense of a mighty struggle in the
inmost region of our thoughts and consciences between
the powers of good and evil, from the certainty that the

376 THE PRINCE OF THE WORLD JUDGED.
good is mightier even there, and that God, being abso
lutely righteous, is on the side of the good against the
evil. But what external doctrine about the righteous
ness of God could have kept this faith alive in any
single heart, far more in the heart of Christendom, for
eighteen centuries? What confidence that Christ had
come and preached of good being mightier than ill,
nay, had shewn it in His own person to be mightier,
could have kept it alive ; or how could that confidence
have been itself preserved ? * When He cometh He shall
convince the world of judgment, because the Prince of this
world is judged.' Yes ! The Spirit has been saying to
every generation, He is saying very emphatically to
ours, — ' It is not uncertain what the issue of the battle
' between right and wrong, trath and lies, will be. It
' is known ; you may know it. The evil power seems
' to have a mighty ascendency. If you look at the out-
' side of history, if you merely dwell upon statistics,
' you will come to the conclusion that the good is very
' weak indeed. But examine the inner life of the world,
' search into the principles and causes of its peace and
' order, of its misery and confusion ; above all, look into
' the principles and causes of the right and truth you
' have sought and done, of the wrong and falsehood to
' which you have yielded, and you will find in the one
' the pledges of endurance and eternity, in the other of
' swift and sudden destruction. It is true for yo u ; itis
' true for mankind ; Christ has proved it ; and though

INFLUENCES MUST BE REFERRED TO A PERSON. 377
' heaven and earth pass away, His words, His acts, His
' triumphs, do not pass away. He will bring forth right-
' eousness to judgment.'
To speak of this conviction merely as some gracious
influence which steals into certain gentle, prepared, be
lieving hearts, is altogether to misinterpret its nature,
and to make such influences unintelligible to the persons
who receive them. They are worth nothing to any one
who calls them his own. They soon become occasions
of pride and self-glorification, or else of despondency,
because the feelings which were so serene and pleasant
yesterday are turbulent and gloomy to-day ; unless they
are traced to One whose presence does not depend upon
any of our changeable moods. No doubt it is a paradox
that we have the Comforter, and ask for the Comforter ;
that we pray for Him, and could not pray without Him.
No doubt it is a paradox that He is with those who feel
His presence least ; that when we seem for a moment to
feel He is ours, He is gone. These are paradoxes ; for
everything which has relation to our internal being,
puts on a strange shape when it takes the form of
a proposition. Every man finds this out for himself,
when he begins to think and suffer. The difficulty is not
increased by referring our thoughts and feelings to. One
who overlooks them, and knows them, and sympathises
with them. It is saved from being intolerable. If we
were forced to think that all which Scripture tells us of
One who grieves with us, and for us, and whom we may

378 THE COMFORTER IN THE BOOK.
grieve, is mere fiction, the burden of existence would
have nothing to lighten it. Few as there may be who
attach a distinct meaning to those words, all would
find an infinite loss if they were taken away. For they
belong to all, and we cheat ourselves of the blessing
they might afford us, and the light they throw upon
God's ways, by denying them to any.
Again, it cannot be that this Teacher is merely speak
ing to us out of the Bible. To have Him speaking there
in broad common words ; to have Him setting before us
thoughts that were thought, and feelings that were felt,
ages ago, and which we may, nevertheless, assert as ours
to have Him there, unfolding the steps of a world-drama
which has reached a divine catastrophe, and yet which
is moving on to another catastrophe, — we being persons
in it now, and able to understand the passing scenes of
it by those which are presented to us in the book, — and
to be sure that the same Divine Person who appeared
at the opening of it, has been present throughout, and
will gather all round Himself, at the end ; this is won
derful : this is a sign to us that we are not to control
the Spirit, or make Him the mere minister of our expe
riences. But the Comforter is not in the book if He is
not convincing the world.
And therefore it cannot be that He descends now and
then, at distant intervals, in uncertain lapses, like the
Angel into the pool of Bethesda. There may be great
crises in the education of the world, times when it starts

EFFECT OF GLORIFYING FACULTIES. 379
up after years or centuries of paralysis, into a more
vigorous and healthy life; when buried truths come
forth out of their caves, and cast away their grave-
clothes ; when there seems to be a new heaven and a
new earth, because the clouds which hid the face of one,
and hindered the quickening processes of the other,
have passed away. But such moments, however sur
prising they may seem to us, obey some fixed law, and
are connected by close, however invisible, links, and
denote the action and inspiration of One who is dwelling
in the midst of us.
But oh, how melancholy if we must resolve this
Spirit into the spiritual movements, affections, powers
of the creatures whom He came to guide and animate !
Thanks be to God for the witness which is borne in
our day for the spirituality, not of a few men, but of
man as man. It is His teaching, His way of declaring
His Son to us, the battle of His Spirit with our pet-
tishness and vanity. But if we substitute the lesson
for the Teacher, if man falls down and worships his
own faculties of worship, if he determines to be a
God because he has the- capacity of knowing God, what
a tyranny of particular spiritual men is he preparing
for himself, what a slavery to mere gifts, what a rivalry
of impostors, each pretending to be the spiritual and
divine man who can guide the rest ; ultimately what an
abyss of materialism ! We shaU not have one Montanus
claiming to be the Comforter, but each little neighbour-

380 DENIAL OF THE COMFORTER.
hood and sect will have its own Montanus, its petty
prophet, to take the place of the Spirit who guideth into
all truth.
' After all, how easy it has been for the Unitarian
' to deny the Personality of the Holy Spirit, and even to
' find Scriptural excuses for his denial ! ' It is most easy
for him, and for all of us. I could find a thousand ex
cuses if I wanted them ; I should not despair of bringing
any texts by skilful processes to vote on my side ; after
a time I might convince myself that that was their most
natural meaning. But I cannot find that it is an object
for which I ought to spend this labour. I cannot find
that I should be much the gainer if I persuaded myself
that I had not this Friend, and Teacher, and Comforter
with me. I do not mean in ease, or satisfaction, or peace
of mind. These, one is never to keep at the expense of
truth. In fact, I have never discovered how one can
keep them, if one prefers them to truth. But it seems
to me that I shall not love the truth better, if I feel
I have not a Spirit of Truth guiding me towards it.
I think I should give up the pursuit altogether, I should
take up with any appearances or falsehoods that looked
plausible. ' It -is not, however,' some Unitarian will say, ' a
' proof of our having a gift, that we have a need
' of it. Locke's argument against the Papists has
' always passed muster with us. You. say there _3 an
' infalbble authority, because we should be the better for

REASONS FOR TRUSTING HIM. 381
' having one ; how much better we should be off if we
' were aU infallible, and yet we are not.' I am bold
enough to differ both with Locke and the Papists. I do not
think we should be better for having an infallible mortal
guide, or for being infallible ourselves. If either state
were good for us, I believe it would have been appointed
for us. I think we have an infallible, immortal Guide,
and that this is what we need. But do not accept the
evidence of your wishes or necessities, if you think that
unsatisfactory. Try whether you can solve the problems
of the world without the bebef in this personal Teacher.
Or if you do not care for the problems of the world, try
whether you can solve the problems of your own heart.
I speak boldly to you on this point, for I am satisfied
that you have this Comforter with you as I have ; that
He is convincing you of sin, of righteousness, and of
judgment, as well as me. I am sure there is a Spirit of
lies who is always striving to lead me into all falsehood,
and to separate me from you and from all men. I believe
we shaU understand one another when we know that his
adversary is with us, to make us true and to make us
one. The unity of the Spirit, however, and what is
involved in it, I reserve for my next subject.

ESSAY XV.
ON THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH.
' Supposing those facts which you dwelt upon in
' your last Essay do imply the presence of Him whom our
' Lord calls the Comforter, the great difficulty for those
' who compare the promises of the New Testament with
' the History of Christendom still remains. The Apostles
' speak, or have always been supposed to speak, of a
' Church, a one Catholic Church, as established, or about
' to be estabhshed, on this earth. They connect that
' Church with the gift ofa Spirit, who is called the Holy
' Spirit, who, it was said, should dwell in the Church as
' He did not in the world, — who was to purify the hearts
' of its members. Where is this Church ? What does
' History say of it ? What do our eyes tell us about it ?
' Answer these questions, or the deepest anxieties of our
' age are still unsatisfied.'
I feel the truth of these remarks. The subject which
I discussed in the last Essay approaches so closely to
this, that I could not always avoid allusion to it. But I

THE BIBLE, SOCIAL. 383
passed it by as much as I could ; the words of our Lord
on which I commented enabled me to do so. They
speak of a World, not of a Church. They speak of the
Comforter as convicting the world of Sin, of Righteous
ness, of Judgment, — not of Him as a Sanctifier, or Recon
ciler. I desired to follow His guidance : but I did not
wish to shrink from the other examination, however
appaUing it may seem. I allow that there is a very
distinct obligation laid upon us all to explain what
we understand by the language of Scripture respecting
the gift of the Spirit and the foundation of the
Church, and how we suppose the records of the world,
and the world which we see, can be explained in
accordance with it.
I cannot make this task easier to myself by main
taining that the New Testament promises certain spiritual
blessings to individuals, but that it does not connect the
gift of the Spirit with a Society. Every passage in the
Bible — the construction of the Bible — refutes that sup
position. The earber records speak of a nation called
out by God to be the witness of His presence and go
vernment; the later records have no connexion with
these, — have no distinct meaning of their own, — if they
do not describe the expansion of a national Society into
a human and universal Society. The expectations of the
Apostles, awakened and sustained by their Lord's teach
ings, pointed to this issue : — they were to be the ministers
of a kingdom ; they were to preach of a kingdom to

384 THE APOSTLES, A BODY.
Israelites ; finally, they were to baptize all nations. They
were told they had not yet power to fulfil that work.
They knew that they had not. They had a mysterious
assurance that they were united still to the Lord who
had been with them on earth ; they felt they might call
upon His Father as their Father. But they could not
realize their relation to that invisible world into which
their Master had entered — entered, He said, for them.
He had chosen them as a body to work under Him. He
had told them that they were to work together after He
had gone away. He had said that all men would know
they were His disciples by the love they had to each
other. But they were conscious of jealousies and rival
ries ; each might soon again be trying to live and act
for himself. Unless their Lord could bind them together
by that power which bound Him to them, fellowship
among such naturally unsociable elements was im
possible. And surely such a power was needed if they
were ever to break through the fetters of their Jewish
exclusiveness ; to have any communion with men of
other kindreds and tongues. The events said to have
occurred on the, day of Pentecost, exactly corresponded
to these anticipations. A power is said to have taken
possession of them,-— a power which governed their
thought and speech. But it was the power of a Spirit
who made them feel they were one, and proclaim their
oneness with the crowd which was assembled at that
feast, because He who estabhshed it, and whose mighty

THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 385
works were commemorated in it, was declaring them
to be one with Him. The story follows of the bap
tism of the three thousand, who were to receive the
same gift as the Apostles had received, and of the new
Society at Jerusalem, — which is not noted for the exercise
of the gift of tongues, but for the continuance of its mem
bers in the Apostles' doctrine and fellowship, for the joy
and singleness of heart with which they ate their bread,
for their not counting the things they had as their own,
for the distribution which they made to those who had
need, for their courage before the Sanhedrim, for the
confidence with which they prayed that they might
speak with all boldness of the King against whom Jews
and Gentiles had gathered together.
The Apostles do indeed exercise powers of healing,
and they are especially careful to assert that no cure was
wrought in their own name, but in the name of the
ascended Son of God. But what the historian chiefly
dwells on, is the order of the Society which was
established in that Name, its unity and holiness while
it confessed the Spirit to be with it, — the punishment
of those (for there were such in that infant community)
who lied against the Holy Ghost, — the new organiza
tion which was suggested by the quarrels (for there were
those in that infant community) between Hebrews and
Hellenists. When St. Paul goes with his Gospel into the cities, of
Asia Minor, of Macedonia, of Greece Proper, it is stiU
C C

386 THE. PHENOMENA OF THE WORLD.
to form Societies. Each of these is named an Ecclesia ;
the members of it are said to be called or chosen, or to
be in God the Father and His Son Jesus Christ. They
are said to be baptized by one Spirit into one body.
These distinct bodies are portions of a universal body.
Everything, then, in the Old and New Testament,
speaks of fellowship and organization. And to suppose
that the latest birth in the universe so solemnly an
nounced, so long waited for, was an abortion, or that the
child was not to come to the use of its limbs and vital
energies for centuries, is to suppose the Apostles at once
deceived and deceivers. They told their disciples, as
their Lord had told them, that a crisis to be witnessed
by some of them, would show that a kingdom had come
forth, which, however apparently insignificant, was
instinct with a Spirit that would enable, it to rule the
nations. Admitting this, how can I dare to face the problems
which the world, as we see it, presents to us ? Must I
not save the credit of Inspiration by resorting to fictions
which have not done men much good hitherto, and
which will certainly not save them now ? By assuming,
for instance, that forms and professions constitute a
Church, — that external badges mean the same thing as
an indwelling Spirit ? I hope I shall be preserved from
any such wicked trifling ; if I faU into it, the falsehood
will soon make itself evident.
I. First then ; we find a body which affirms itself to be

CLAIMS OF THE LATIN CHURCH. 387
the one Holy Catholic Church of the world. Its members
form the bulk of the population of Western Europe : its
claims to be what it represents itself to be, are publicly
recognised by many of the most conspicuous and civilized
states. This body boasts that it is the heir of that
which was established in Jerusalem on the day of Pente
cost : whatever rights and powers resided in that Church,
it says, have descended upon it. If that Church was
able to do wonderful works, this Church declares that it
can do the same ; the gift, it says, has never been with
drawn, has been exercised at intervals in all generations,
makes itself manifest now. This sign of continuance
and identity it is inclined to dweU upon most; still
others are not wanting. ' There has been no break, '-it
declares, ' in the line of Church ministers, from the time
' of the Apostles downwards. The character of the
' organization is the same. The Apostles were regarded
' as the fathers of a family; the idea of paternity has
' been strictly preserved; it has even unfolded itself ; it
' is more completely realized now than it was at first.
' The capital of the Church,' it is admitted, ' has been
' changed; but that change came to pass, first, by a
' divine ordinance expressly depriving Jerusalem of its
' honour; secondly, by a series of events, — equally
' attesting the divine purpose, — which have deposed the
' old Caesars from their seat, and have, established the
' successors of St. Peter upon it. And this circumstance
' has, it is said, produced an unity which would other-

388 ITS POWERS AND DIFFUSION.
wise have been wanting to Christendom. The wild
Gothic tribes, full of their separate strifes, impatient of
fellowship, have been brought to confess a general
spiritual head, and a community of faith higher than
any differences of race or any national disagreements.
In defiance of the tendencies of each nation to find a
separate language for itself, a common language has
established itself as an organ of devotion. In defiance,
again, of the tendency of each nation to set up for itself
a separate worship — a tendency equally evident in the
Old world and the New, — a common creed and a com
mon worship have succeeded in keeping their ground
for many centuries, the head of the Society being,
always able to interpret what has been misunderstood,
to put down the inventors of new opinions, to provide
for fresh emergencies. For, there being such a person,
whose authority all the different members of this So
ciety acknowledge as infallible and past appeal, the
Church,' it is said, * can combine the greatest fixedness
with the greatest elasticity. It has maintained the
faith once delivered to the saints without wavering;
it has ever been giving birth to new opinions and
practices, where they were needful to develope and
complete the old, — to new orders of men when it was
requisite to encounter diseases or necessities in the body
politic, that had previously not existed or not been
observed. ' This Church,' it is further declared, ' is not only

ITS HOLINESS. 389
spread over the whole surface of modern European so
ciety ; not only are its priests to be seen at the corners
of every street; not only are they, performing services
continually in every Church, which establish a commu
nion between angels and men, the living and the
departed ; not only is the Sacrifice continually offered
up which reconciles the offending creatures to their
Creator, and brings down blessings on the earth ; not
only is that Sacrifice lifted before the eyes of men, that
they may believe and adore, — but the influence of the
Church affects the politics of all kingdoms, penetrates
into the recesses of all families. Every individual is
within the reach of its guidance and blessing. Every
burdened conscience knows where it may go that it
may lay down its burden, — who can set it free.
Nothing in the arrangements of this Society,' it is said,
is merely distant and abstract ; it meets each peculiar
case, provides a remedy for every ailment, a satisfaction
for every craving. And it proves,' — so its champions
triumphantly continue, — ' its title to be the one Catholic
Church, since all who rebel against it or separate from
it necessarily become divided, since no body besides
it can put forth the least pretension to universality.
And it proves itself to be holy, because no other
can show such an array of devoted, self-sacrificing
saints.' It is at this point, I suspect, that the ordinary ob
server, the simple layman, the European traveUer,— -for

390 OBJECTIONS.
it is to such a man, and not to some adverse divine, that
these statements are likely to be addressed, — wiU step in
with an objection. '.All your arguments,' he will
answer, ' may be true enough ; at all events, I cannot
* refute them. You may have the miraculous powers
' you speak of, the uninterrupted descent, -the infalbble
' authority, the fixed dogmas, the adaptation to circum-
' stances, the band of saints. But when you 'talk of a
' holy society, do tell me what your words mean, for
' they utterly bewilder me. Do you call this society, in
' which I am dwelling, a holy society ? Do you call this
' country, for instance, which is nearest the centre of
' holiness, a holy country ? I will not press you too
' much. I will suppose that though you have miraculous
.' powers, the power does not always exert itself in this
' way. That it can make statues wink more easily than
' it can make human beings abandon their habits of
' revenge or lying, — I can understand. But when the
' power is exerted, when you are doing a work for men,
' I want to know whether that is for good or for ill ?
' Lcannot make up my mind that it is for good. I
' cannot help perceiving, not that you do not reclaim
' men from being false, but that you continually make
' them raise ; not that you sometimes fail in preventing
' moral corruption, but that you are working very hard,
' by some of your most potent and most vaunted agen-
' cies, to promote it ; not that evil and debasing habits
' have defied all the energies of preachers, confessors,

IS THE UNITY REAL? 391
' and absolvers ; but that preachers, confessors, and
' absolvers, are very often helping more to strengthen
' these habits, and make them invincible, than all other
' men together.'
This kind of conviction, — Romanists should understand
it, and we for our humiliation should understand it too, —
is doing immeasurably more to make their arguments
fall lifeless upon practical men, whose minds are not
blinded to the distinction of right and wrong, than all
our elaborate reasonings. And when a man has gone
so far in his examination of the phrase, ' One Holy
' Catholic Church,' his observation, without any help
from divinity, or much from ecclesiastical history, may
carry him a little further. He may demur to a unity
which is compatible with tbe infinite contrarieties, not
diversities, of belief, which he wiU himself have met
with in Roman Catholic countries; with the wild
immoral heathenish superstitions, which an intelligent
priest will at once disclaim, yet whicii exist in the very
classes that most acknowledge the influence of priests ;
with the contemptuous infidelity which they themselves
impute to the classes that are out of their reach;, with
the discontent that is muttered by better men. AU
this, — with the modifications of faith which ^xist in the
sacerdotal order itself, touching all points from the
most unquestioning orthodoxy to absolute atheism, —
-may co-exist, no doubt, with something that is called
unity; nay, these differences may be alleged as proofs

392 PROTESTANT NATIONS.
how vigorous the system must be which can enforce
a uniformity in spite of them. But they may some
what puzzle a person who is inquiring whether this is
that Church which began when a Spirit of unity took
possession of a body of men, allowing them to retain
their external differences, because they had that within
which made them one. And a similar difficulty will
beset him when he considers that the symbol of the
descent of that Spirit was, that men could hear, in their
different tongues, the wonderful works of God, and when
he observes that the one tongue which is the symbol
of modern Catholicism is a sentence of exclusion to the
whole body of Greeks, seeing that they boast of a
somewhat older and more sacred dialect. And gene
rally it will strike him, I fancy, that the boasts of
Romanists themselves establish the inference which he
would have deduced from his own experience, that
the preservation of a vast machinery, of a surface uni
formity, of an artificial holiness, is what they under
stand by the preservation of a Church in which the
Holy Spirit of Unity has made His habitation.
II. An impartial observer who has arrived at this
mournful conclusion may turn, with some pleasure, to
another class of facts which the modern European
world offers to him. He may hear with satisfaction
that several nations have raised their protest against
the attempt to crash all distinct thoughts and lan
guages, under one general name. He will rejoice to

COMPLAINTS OF THEM. 393
find that their rulers are considered responsible to God,
for their conduct to their subjects and to other lands ;
and to no earthly superior, whatever claims of infalli-
bibty or divinity he may allege. He may find that
in such countries there is a recognition of the dignity
of civil life, of the duty of nations to maintain their
independence, of the inviolability of the domestic hearth,
of the worth which belongs to the ordinary virtues of
plain dealing and truth-speaking, which he has sought
for in vain among those who only breathe a sacerdotal
atmosphere. He may be pleased to observe that never
theless in these countries there is an acknowledgment
of the importance and necessity of a spiritual influence;
that the priest, though he cannot claim to be a king,
has his own recognised and lawful position. .
At first such discoveries may be very cheering ; pos
sibly they will not cease to be so. But he will soon
hear, not only from Romanists, not only from those who
suppose that the Romanist is somewhere near the truth
in his conception of the Church, but also from those
who regard him as hopelessly and fatally astray, that
these protesting nations are altogether unspiritual and
secular. These hard names will not be bestowed with
out some startling evidence to show that they are de
served. ' Look,' he will be told, ' at the lower classes
' in these nations. They may be less flagrantly super—
' stitious than those in Romish countries. Are they less
' debased, less animal, less ignorant? What spiritual

394 THE COMPLAINTS REASONABLE.
' influence has been exerted over them?' — 'Look,' it will
be said again, ' at the upper classes. The priests are
' less obnoxious to them than the Romish priests are to
' those among whom they dwell. Is not this because it
' is more clearly understood that they shall be left to
' themselves, that their vices and their wrong doings to
' those who are under their influence shall not be noticed ;
' that the priest shall abdicate his functions as a spiritual
' reprover, and shall be content to be reckoned a safety-
' valve of the social machine, or as some insignificant
' accessory to it, which no one will disturb until it begins
' to move? Certain doctrines he is to believe, certain
' words he is to repeat, certain acts he is to go through ;
' wbat have those doctrines, words, acts, to do with men
' not of his. profession; — often, what have they to do with
' him ? They are charms to keep the different classes of
' a country in those positions to each other, which the
' laws and conventions of the land have assigned them.
' And whither,' it is asked, ' are these nations tending?
' Are not material gratifications becoming more and more
' the only prizes which they are setting before them-
' selves ? Is not the pursuit of wealth the one great
' means of winning that prize ? Are not art, science,
' rehgion, valued just so far as they contribute to make
' the possession of money more agreeable, or the search
' for it more secure ? Is it here that we are to look for a
' Holy Catholic Church ; can we find tokens here that a
' Spirit of Holiness and Love is dwelling among men ? '

SPIRITUAL SECTS. 395
What use can there be in shutting one's ears to such
words as these ? Is it not better to take in the full force
of them, and to meditate on them silently ? For so we
may in due time discover, not the secret of acquiescence
in the evUs which press upon us, but the secret of deliver
ance from them. Those who are flying to Rome expect
that a miraculous illumination wiU some day enable
them to see the anomalies which now shock them in its
system, quite differently. It is probable that a blindness,
(which maybe also miraculous), will by degrees save them
from the unhappiness of seeing these anomalies at all.
We should wish and pray, in proportion as we love our
country, that we may not shrink from contemplating one
of its sins which are our own, but that God's hght may
show them to us just as they are.
III. Perhaps the student may find some relief in turn
ing from both these spectacles to a number of particular
societies, which declare that the so-called Catholic body,
and the bodies which pretend to be National Churches,
have equaUy mistaken the foundation on which a Church
ought to rest. He must needs be attracted by their
statements, not only because they point out evils which
he has himself noticed in their opponents, but because
they affirm that the true spiritual principle is with them.
' The Church,' they say, ' cannot be a mere world. It must
' be a body of men chosen out of the world. It cannot be
' a body merely held together by certain external profes-
' sions. It mustconsistof those who are drawn by a Divine

396 THEIR GOOD AND EVIL.
' Spirit to confess a Divine Lord.' What data can sound
more hopeful than these ? How likely it seems that here
at last the feet of weary pilgrims will find some resting-
place ; that here we have arrived at the secret which has
escaped anxious and earnest men for so many genera
tions ! There is much in the early history of all sects
to favour this opinion. Who can deny the fervent zeal
against injustice and evil which possessed the leaders ;
the hearty affection, genial sympathy, passionate self-
devotion of the followers? Who can say that they
were only denouncing other men, and not uttering the
deepest conviction of their own hearts ? If they were
sometimes unjust and violent, their fierce language was
often the indication of a loving rather than of a hating
spirit ; a wise man who was the object of it would have
liked it much better than the smooth and civil speeches
of less cordial foes. A Spirit— yes, the Spirit of Truth-
there must have been among these men; their sect
would not have survived them for a century, or even
a year, if it had been merely gathered for a purpose of
spite or faction.
A person who has arrived at this conviction will not
be driven from it by any criticisms or denunciations of
those who oppose these sects. But what if he should
hear deep groans arising from the midst of them, from
the very persons who have been educated in them, from
those who have learnt to despise, and have continued to
despise, the bodies whence they have gone out ? What

DESPONDENCY. 397
if the complaints of them should be of this kind, — that
they are not spiritual bodies at all, but formal and
worldly; not assertors of moral freedom, but great
restrainers of it ; that they are bitter against each other,
seldom at peace within ; that the best praise which can
be bestowed upon the best man in any one of these
bodies, — the praise which his admirers always dwell
upon, — is that he has emancipated himself from the
ordinary habits and temper of it ? Such is the testi
mony, not of hard judges, but of sufferers. And if so,
can we find among these sects the resemblance of that
Church of which St. Paul spoke as being one Body,
into which all had been baptized by one Spirit ?
, But if no one of these separate inquiries has led to
any satisfactory result, how much more unsatisfactory
would the comparison of them seem to be ! What an
impression that must leave upon every mind of conflict,
strife, contradiction, in those who bear the name of the
one Lord ! What utter despair it must awaken in him
of all Unity, unless, indeed, men can agree that they are
not spiritual beings ; that they are not connected with
an invisible world at all ; that they are not children of
a Father in Heaven ; that they have no ties to each
pther except such as are produced by outward animal
necessities, whicii one man cannot satisfy without the
assistance of his neighbour. Were it possible to arrive
at that state of feeling, some difficulties might no doubt

398 hope.
be removed. But does experience show that it is
possible ? Would perfect unity or unbroken discord — a
war of elements, without the hope or chance of peace, —
be the consequence, if it were ?
To one revolving that frightful possibihty, and asking
whether there must not be some way out of this laby
rinth, the thought, I am sure, will at last present itself,
that those facts which he has been pondering, offer the
most decisive witness for, not against, the law which-
was proclaimed on the day of Pentecost ; for, not
against, the assertion that it is the law of human
Society, — the one by which Society is governed, —
however much men may be denying it or rebelling.
against it. Look once again at that Church which
boasts to be One, Holy, Catholic. Is her boast too
grand a one? Has she believed too firmly that a
Church has been established of which all her sons have.
a right to call themselves members, that a Spirit has
been given of which they all have a right to be par
takers? Would to God she did hold that bebef!
What a different picture her history would present if
she had held it steadfastly ! If she had been convinced
that Heaven and Earth were brought into one, — that
a real feUowship exists, and has been manifested,
between them, — what a mass of contrivances to produce
that feUowship, to fill up the chasm between the visible
and the invisible world, would be swept away ! What

THE agent and the KING. 399
portentous superstitions, what dark idolatries, would
vanish if once that faith, — not the faith of her enemies,
but her own, — was reaUy accepted, honestly carried out !
I pressed this point in my Essay on Regeneration;
but I could not then speak of the faith which the
Romish Church professes to have in an in-dwelling
Spirit, a Spirit of truth, and love, and power, which is
to bind all together in one and enable her to rule the
nations. I could not then point out what the contra
diction was between this profession and her adoption of
those practices of the conjuror, which the miracles of
the Gospel were intended to explode ; of the practices
of the diplomatist, from which she ought to have
delivered the nations, instead of setting the vilest ex
ample of them ; of the practices of the hard-hearted
worldly oppressor, crushing the spirit under the flesh,
the conscience under casuistry, the reason under decrees,
when she was sent to teach men of a Father who had
claimed them as His sons, of a Son who was at His
right hand for them, of a Spirit who was within them
to make them inheritors of His glory. I could not
then show how great the sin was which she had com
mitted in assuming that St. Peter, or any successor of •
his, could be the Father of the Church, how necessarily
such a fiction divides earth from heaven, and makes the
Church into a world.
Like the Angelp of our great dramatist, the deputy of
a true ruler has played his tyrannical and hypocritical

400 INNOCENT III.
tricks, punishing others for the crimes which he commits
himself, often betraying the innocence which he is com
missioned to protect. But, as that same story teaches
us, the Duke is not really absent from his government,
but is watching, counteracting, bringing to an altogether
different issue, the plots of his agent. See how the
Papal history in its most palmy moment bears witness
of that fact. The policy of Innocent III. was so mys
terious and so perfect, that a modern German historian,
through admiration of it, is said to have abandoned.
the faith of his childhood. ' What but a divine power,'
he and others have argued, ' could have enabled a man
' to rule the world as Innocent did ; to guide at the
' same moment the Latin kingdom in Greece, which he
' did not assist in establishing, but which he knew so
' well how to use when it was established ; to nurse a
' young monarch for Germany, who might hereafter
' make the Empire the tool of the Papacy ; to set his foot
' on the prostrate monarch of England?' A wonderful
spectacle assuredly ; but there is another as well worthy.
of our study. Is it not as clear an evidence of a divine
government in the world, that all these exquisite plots
came to nothing ; that the reviving energies of Greece
so. soon shattered the Latin kingdom in pieces ; that
Frederic II. became, not the instrument of Popes, but
their most hated enemy and scourge; that Stephen
Langton, forced into his see by interdicts and excom
munications, became the assertor of English indepen-

THE SIN OF NATIONAL CHURCHES. 401
dence, the punisher of the monarch who betrayed his
trust, the author of the Charter? Is it not as great a
proof of a spiritual power in the world, that the feeble
Francis of Assisi, by the one thought that Christ is the
friend of the poor, did so much more to preserve and
extend the Church, — even to support the Papacy itself, —
than the hundred-handed Pope, with all his resources of
outward strength and unrivalled craft? Is it nothing
that Louis IX., because he was a faithful national
sovereign who loved justice, was felt to be such a saint
as no Pope had ever been ?
Thus, then, every oppression and crime that has been
rightly imputed to Rome, has arisen from her not con
fessing in deed, as she has confessed in words, that
a Spirit has appeared to build up a one Holy Catholic,
Church. Every healthful influence she has ever exer
cised, — or Christian men and women have ever exer
cised in her name, — has proceeded from that belief.
And may not all the sins, which, with no less truth,
have been imputed to Protestant National Churches, be
traced to the same unbelief; all that has been good to
the same faith ? Have they erred from their too great
patriotism, their too zealous determination not to give it
up for emperor or pope, for man or devil ; from their fixed
purpose that no religion whatever should rob them of
their common morality, or persuade them to do evil for
the sake of pleasing God ? No ; but they have erred in
not thinking that the Spirit of God was with them, to.
DP

402 AND OF SECTS.
enable them to maintain their national steadfastness, to
fulfil their common duties, to support their love of truth
against the temptations which are continually over
powering it ; to purify their patriotism of exclusiveness,
their zeal for the plain and the practical, of sordidness ;
to enable them to feel that all citizens of the same com
monwealth, however different their ranks and civil posi
tions, are, in the highest sense, equal ; to give them the
freedom, the manliness, the sympathy with those of
other races, which selfishness is taking from them.
And why have those sects I spoke of become so par
tial, so hard, so cruel ? Is it because their forefathers
were wrong in telbng them that the Spirit was seeking
to bind them in one, and that no mere external bond
could bind them? Surely not; this lesson taken home
to the heart, makes men first true, in due time Catholic,
leading them to cling mightily to the special conviction
God has wrought in them, afterwards enabling them to
feel the necessity of other convictions to sustain that. It
is the loss of this faith, it is the substitution of some
petty external badge and symbol of theirs, for the belief
and confession of a Divine Spirit, which is making them
impatient of dogmas, yet fiercely dogmatic ; eager to rob
other men of their treasures ; feeble in their hold upon
their own. It is this which tempts their sons to ask
whether the earth has no other foundations than those
which the sects have laid, often to arrive at the miserable
conclusion that its foundations are built on rottenness.

THE CHURCH AND THE WORLD. 403
. But it is not so !¦ however much excuse they may
have for suspecting it. There has no promise of
Scripture been proved nugatory; there is none which
has not been fulfilled more than men dreamed of, which
will not be fulfilled to the very letter. I have said there
were liars and murmurers in the Church at Jerusalem.
The promise was not, that there should not be these in.
the time to come. Every form of corruption and heresy
was discovered by St. Paul in the Churches to which he
wrote. There was no pledge given, that these should
not appear in the later time. St. John said there were
many Antichrists in his day. It is no stumbling-block.
to our faith, if there are many in ours. But it would be
the utter uprooting of our faith if we found that there.
was no such body as the Apostles told us there should.
be, with which aU lying and contention should be at
war ; if there was no Spirit dwelbng in that body against
which these heresies and corruptions and Antichrists are
fighting, and which will at last prevail against them.
Romanists, Protestant nations, all sects, declare that.
there is such a body, and that there is such a Spirit.
Their words bear witness of it ; their crimes, which out
rage those words, bear witness of it still more.
And thus we are enabled to understand better than
by all artificial definitions, how a Church differs from a
world. ' The Comforter,' our Lord says, ' shall convince
the world.' When He speaks to the disciples, He says,
' He shall come and dwell in you.' The world contains

404 NULLA SALUS EXTRA ECCLESIAM.
the elements of which the Church is composed. In the
Church, these elements are penetrated by a uniting,
reconciling power. The Church is, therefore, human
society in its normal state ; the World, that same society
irregular and abnormal. The world is the Church with
out God ; the Church is the world restored to its relation
with God, taken back by Him into the state for which
He created it. Deprive the Church of its Centre, and
you make it into a world. If you give it a false Centre,
as the Romanists have done, still preserving the sacra
ments, forms, creeds, which speak of the true Centre,
there necessarily comes out that grotesque hybrid which
we witness, a world assuming all the dignity and
authority of a Church, — a Church practising all the
worst fictions of a world ; the world assuming to be
heavenly, — a Church confessing itself to be of the earth,
earthly. From this contradiction a number of others proceed :
I will take one which will serve as the specimen of a
whole class. The doctrine, Nulla salus extra Ecclesiam,
sounds the cruellest of all doctrines ; it has become so
in fact. But consider the origin of it. A man possessed
with the conviction that human beings are not meant
to live in a world where every one is divided from his
neighbour, — in, which there is no uniting, fusing prin
ciple, in which each lives to himself, and for himself, —
bids them fly from that chaos. For he cries, ' There is
* a universe for you ! Nay, more, there is a Father's

THE OLD AND NEW MEANING OF IT. 40$
' house open to you. God is not the frowning, distant
' tyrant the world takes Him to be ; not split up into a
' multitude of broken forms and images ; not One to
' whom we are to offer a cold civil lip service, by way
' of conciliating Him or doing Him honour. He is the
' Head of a family; His Son has proved you to be
' members of it ; His Spirit is given you that you may
' know Him. as He is, not as your hard material hearts
' represent Him to you. Come into this Ark ! Take
' up your place in this Family ! Here is debverance and
' health ! Nulla salus extra Ecclesiam. No comfort,
' no health, no peace, while you count yourselves exiles
' from God, strangers to your brethren.'
Is this a hard saying ? Is it not full of gentleness*
benignity, love? But the Church becomes a world-
Church ; a Church that speaks of a Father in Heaven,
and sets up a Father on earth ; that introduces earthly
mediators because the Mediator has gone away, and it is
needful to make Him propitious ; that boasts itself to
be endued with a Spirit of trath, and can only exhibit
the powers of the Spirit in doing untrue acts : then
the phrase necessarily assumes, not a different mean
ing from this, but one that is directly opposite to
it. 'Nulla salus extra Ecclesiam! God is ready to
' destroy you. We can save you from Him. Think
' what a risk you are incurring. You may be wrong !
' Then perdition is certain.' Oh, doctrine of devils* if
such is to be found in earth or in hell ! Surely, Salva-

406 • DUTY OF OUR CHURCH.
tion and Damnation become identical, if the soul is
saved by the loss of its trust in God, by conceiving Him
to be like those demons from whom the Apostles said
that Christ came to deliver mankind, as unbke as pos
sible to the perfect image which was shown forth in
Him! We cannot, however, cast stones at the Romanists,
for adopting this notion of safety. We have faUen
into it almost as much as they have. It belongs espe
cially to our money-getting habits. If some wander
from our Chureh to Rome, because they believe that, on
•the whole, they have a better chance of escaping' de
struction there, we have ourselves to blame; we have
sown the wind of selfishness, and we must reap the
whirlwind of desertion. But it would be a great mis
take and injustice, to suppose that the selfish motive is
the exclusive one, even in the worst cases, or the pre
dominant one in any better men. Love and Selfishness
are strangely, inextricably blended. The true idea of
Safety is mixed with its accursed counterfeit. They long
for a larger fellowship, a Father's house, a Spirit who
can make them brothers with all men, Greeks, Romanists,
Protestants. The wish may be shrivelled and contracted
by a thousand causes ; but it is there ; and if we cannot
gratify it, — if we cannot tell them that they are inheritors
of Christ's kingdom in earth and heaven, and that the
Spirit of the Father and Son is with them — in order that
the inheritance may not be a nominal, but a real one,— -

THE REVIVING CHURCH. 407
we shaU not keep them, we ought not to keep them.
.They will try whether that blessing which our creeds and
prayers assure them is theirs, can be obtained elsewhere ;
and if they meet with bitter disappointment, or take up
with a wretched substitute for the infinite good which
God has taught them to feel necessary, is not our unbe
lief the cause ? And is not the only way of preserving
our National Church, to declare solemnly, habitually,
perseveringly, that it does bear this witness not for itself
alone, but on behalf of the Romanist and the Protestant
Sectarian? yes! that it is ready to make any sacri
fices if it can but bear that witness effectually ?
I do not indeed say that this witness must come from
us alone, perhaps not from us chiefly. Let it come from
where it will, God must be the author of it. He may
see fit to bring this truth with mighty power to the heart
of some Itaban monk, who has been seeking in vain to
make himself holy, and discovers that hobness must
come from a Spirit of Hobness, who is also a Spirit of
Unity. It may come to some Romish Bishop as he
listens to the Yeni Creator Spiritus, and believes that
the sevenfold gifts are intended for him. It may come
to some earnest member of a Protestant sect, feeling that
the Spirit of Trath cannot be the Spirit of narrowness.
It may come to some man lying outside of all churches
and sects, and asking whether he can be intended to be
only a part of an unsympathising, forlorn world. To
whichever it comes first, the faith will pass rapidly, as

40& THE TRINITY.
by an electrical chain, from one to another. It will
break through all barriers of opinion and circumstance.
None will know how he has received it, because all will
have received it from that Spirit who bloweth where He
listeth, and of whom you cannot say whence He cometh
or whither He goeth.
But seeing that what appear to us the most irregular
currents obey a fixed and eternal law, we may be sure
that that Spirit will work as He has always worked;
that He wiU change nothing and yet will make aU
things new. That mighty wonder which we behold
every year when the self-same roots and stems, which
were the symbols of all that is hard, and dry, and sepa
rate, become clothed with verdure, full of bfe, and joy,
and music, will be exhibited in the moral world. No
form will be cast away, no ordinance will be treated as
worthless, nothing which has expressed the thought or
belief of any man will be found unmeaning, because
the Spirit of the living God will call forth every sleeping
and latent power into activity, everything that has been
dead into life, all that has been divided into harmony.
Only the miserable counterfeits will pass away. What
ever has been true, if it has been ever so weak and
broken, will find its place in that creation which God
has declared to be very good.
But have I not spoken again and again in this Essay
of a Father, a Son, and a Spirit? Has not all my
comfort in the past, my hope for the future, been con-

CONCLUSION. 409
nected with the revelation of that Name, with the full
acknowledgment of it ? Even so, my Unitarian brother.
And all the longings you have for fellowship, and free
dom, and unity, for the breaking down of barriers, for a
universal comprehension, point the same way. I have
not deceived you by pretending to agree with you where
I cannot. I am more entirely at issue with you in your
denials than those who denounce you most. I have
come now to the root of all your denials, to that Name
which / believe to be the ground of human life, and of
human society. If you have borne with me so far — con
sidering many of my words, no doubt, enthusiastical,
antiquated, obscure, foolish, yet still I hope now and
then detecting a sense in them which answers to a sense
in you, — will you listen while I tell you why I could
not believe that a Trinity in Unity is a foundation for
myself to rest upon, if I did not also regard it as a
foundation for you and for all men ?

ESSAY XVI.

ON THE TRINITY IN UNITY.
My first Essay was on Charity ; this will also be on
Charity. I could not find that a charity which believed
all things, hoped all things, endured all things, had its
root on this earth, or in the heart of any man who
dwells on this earth. Yet it seemed to me that such a
Charity was needed to make this earth what it ought to
be, and that human hearts have a profound sense of its
necessity for them, an infinite craving to possess it, and
be filled with it. Something stood in the way of the
good which the earth sighs for, and which man sighs for.
A vision of Sin rose up before us confronting the vision
of Charity. It was portentous, for it seemed part of the
very creature who had the dream of a perfect good. But
he disclaimed it, he tried to account for it by some acci
dents of his position, or by some essential error in his
constitution ; at last he said, I have yielded to an op
pressor ; an Evil Spirit has withdrawn me from my true
Lord. Then arose the question, Who is this true Lord ?

RECAPITULATION. 411
where is He to be found ? Righteousness was felt to be
even more closely intertwined with the being of the man
than EvU ; for awhile he was disposed to claim it as his
own; suffering, and the sense of an infinite contradic
tion, did not debver him from that belief. But some
- one there was who led him to cry for a Redeemer, to be
sure that He lived, to be sure that Righteousness was in
Him, and therefore was Man's.
Was this Redeemer, so near to man, so inseparable
from man, of earthly race ? The vision of a Son of God
rose upon us ; a thousand different traditions pointed to
it ; it took the most various forms ; but the heart of man
said, ' There must be one in whom all these meet ; there
' must be One who did not rise from manhood into God-
' head, but who can exhibit the perfection of manhood,
' because he has the perfection of Godhead.' Is the
perfection of manhood then compatible with the infir
mities and corruptions of which men have become heirs ?
The mythologies of the world said, ' It must be so, we
' need Incarnations ; our deliverers must share our flesh,
' our sorrows ; ' yes ! they could not stop there — ' our
' sins.' The philosophers said, ' It cannot be so ; the
' Divine Nature must be free from the contact of that
' which debases us, of that from which we ourselves need
' emancipation.' They could show how men, forming
the Gods after their own images, had glorified and
deified what was m03t immoral and base. The Scripture
spoke to us of the Son of God taking the flesh of man,

412 RECAPITULATION.
entering into aU the infirmities of man, bearing the sins
of man, so showing forth the purity, compassion, love, of
His Father.
But the sense in men of a separation, from the God to
whom they were meant to be united, had, we found,
produced innumerable schemes for bringing about a
reconciliation. The Scriptures told us of an Atonement,
originating with God ; made with men in His Son ;
who entirely trusted and entirely obeyed His Father ;
who willingly entered into the death of man ; who made
the perfect Sacrifice which took away Sin ; whose death
was the satisfaction to the Divine Love of the Father ;
the expression of that wrath against Evil which is a part
of Love ; the satisfaction of man's yearnings for recon
ciliation with God. Yet Death, the Grave, the Abyss
beyond, are the dark contradictions for human beings ;
He could not be a perfect deliverer who had not entered
into them, or who remained under their power. The
idea of a bodily Resurrection, we found, had been ac
cepted by men, not as a fact to be attested by a great
amount of evidence, but as the inevitable issue of the
previous revelation. If there is a Son of God, a Lord of
man, He must rise. What did such a Resurrection
imply ? The Scripture speaks of it as implying a Jus
tification of Gentile as well as of Jew ; that is, of every
man, who might therefore believe in Christ and acquire
His Righteousness. We saw how Christians had evaded
this declaration, and the evidence of it which their

RECAPITULATION. 413
baptism offered, limiting the blessing by certain rales and
measures of theirs, even using the witness of it as an
excuse for doubt, and for new efforts of their own to
make themselves righteous; then, at last, discovering
that faith in God's Justification is the only condition of
doing any good acts. But this faith of each individual
man, that God had justified him by the Resurrection of
Christ, and was inviting him to habitual trust, implied
something more. We discovered in the belief of Chris
tians the acknowledgment of a Regeneration, effected not
for individual men merely, but for human society in the
true Lord and Head of it.
This belief, however feebly and imperfectly held by the
Church, had nevertheless vindicated itself by the experi
ence of history, and enabled us to reconcile the doctrines
of eminent moralists respecting the constitution of man,
with the fullest admission of actual departures from it.
For, if the Resurrection of Christ declared that men, in
spite of all that seemed to put them at a distance from
God, were recognised by him as his children on earth,
tbe Ascension of Christ in their nature proclaimed that
they did not belong to earth ; that they were spiritual
beings, capable of holding converse with Him who is a
Spirit ; able to do so, because that Son who had taken
their flesh, and had offered it up to God, and had glori
fied it, had said that His body and blood should be their
food and nourishment. This belief of the Ascension as
the great triumph for man, was greatly shaken by a

414 RECAPITULATION.
prevalent notion that Christ, being absent now and not
exercising the functions of royalty or judgment, will
assume them at some distant day ; and be subject again
to earthly bmitations. It was therefore needful to show,-
that the Judgment spoken of in the Bible and the
Creed, implied the continual presence of Christ, the daily
exposure of men and nations to His cognisance and
Censure, the assurance that He will be manifested, not
in some humbler condition, but as He is, to the con
sciences and eyes of men ; for the putting down of all evil,
and the establishment of righteousness. But though
the minds of men had always felt that they must look
upwards to some Ruler above them, they had equally
confessed the presence of an Inspirer within them. The
Christian revelation, we found, corresponded as much to
these anticipations, as to any which we had considered,
before. It explained to us whence all Inspirations had
proceeded, who was the Author of them, how they are
to be received, how they may be abused. The full
Revelation, with that which was the preparation for it,
had been recorded to us in a book which had been the
treasure of the Church, the witness of the emancipation
of mankind, the assurance of a Comforter who should
come to the ages following Christ's Ascension, in a way
He had not come to those which preceded it. I inquired
whether events have justified this assurance. I endea
voured to show that there had been such a sense of sin,
of righteousness, and of judgment in the later periods of

THE TRINITY NOT A FRESH SUBJECT. 415
the world's history, ag cannot be traced in the earlier, and
as could only have proceeded from the teaching of a
Person, such as our Lord describes to us. But finally,
we were told this Person would not only convince a
world, but be the establisher of a One Holy Catholic
Church. The difficulty of accepting this statement was
very great. A certain body had claimed to be the one
Cathohc Church, a number of bodies had claimed to be
Churches; they had denounced each other; there had been
that in aU which contradicted the idea the Scripture sets
forth of holiness, unity, universality. But this contradic
tion showed that the Scripture had revealed the true law
of human society ; for that one body and these diffe
rent bodies had not become partial, tyrannical, godless
by maintaining too strongly that Earth and Heaven had
been reconciled, and that the Spirit had come down
from the Father and the Son to establish that reconcili
ation ; but by acting as if Heaven and Earth were still
separated, as if we had still to effect for ourselves that
which the Scripture declares that God has effected, as
if there were no Spirit to unite us with the Father and
the Son, and with each other. To this cause, — no other
was adequate, — we could trace the want of holiness,
catholicity, unity in the Church. This unbelief being
removed, all that man has dreamed of, all that God has
promised, must be accomplished.
I have not, then, to enter upon a new subject in
this Essay. I am not speaking for the first time, of the

416 OBJECT OF THIS ESSAY.
Trinity in Unity. I have been speaking of it through
out. Each consciousness that we have discovered in man,
each fact of Revelation that has answered to it, has
been a step in the discovery and demonstration of this
truth. I should be abandoning the method to which I
have endeavoured strictly to adhere, if I admitted that
now, at last, I have come upon a mere dogma, which had
no support but tradition, or inferences from texts of
Scripture ; or, on the other hand, upon a great philoso
phical tenet which wise men may deduce from reason
or find latent in nature, but with which the poor way
farer has nothing to do. We may owe much tp tradition
for giving expression to the faith in a Trinity; texts of
Scripture may confirm it; the context of Scripture may
bring it out in beautiful harmony with all the divine
discoveries to man. Philosophy may have seen indica
tions of a Trinity in the forms and principles of the
universe, in the constitution of man himself. But unless
we are utterly inconsistent witir all that has been said
hitherto, these can be but indexes and guides to a Name
which is implied in our thoughts, acts, words, in our
fellowship with each other ; without which we cannot
explain the utterances of the poorest peasant, or of the
greatest sage; which makes thoughts real, prayers pos
sible ; which brings distinctness out of vagueness, unity
out of division ; which shows us how in fact, and not
merely in imagination, the charity of God may find
its reflex and expression in the charity of man, and

FATE AND JUPITER. 41?
the charity of man its substance as well as its fruition in
the charity of God. What I have to do in this Essay,
then, is certainly not to bring forward arguments against
those who impugn this doctrine, but only to show how
each portion of that Name into which we are baptized,
answers to some apprehension and anticipation of human
beings ; how the setting up of one part of the Name
against another has been the cause of strife, unrighteous-^
ness, superstition ; why, therefore, the acknowledgment
pf that Name in its fulness and Unity, is Eternal Life.
I, It often seems to us a great contradiction in Greek
Mythology, that the chief of the Gods should be repre->
sented as himself subject to Fate. We do not enough
consider what a real and deep comfort the Polytheist
found in this thought. A ruler of the Elements might
have in himself all the vicissitudes which nature exhi
bits. If he were bke a human sovereign, he might have
aU the caprices of a human sovereign. This faith in
Necessity told the Greek that the Universe was not
after all, dependent on those natural vicissitudes or human
caprices, that a law fixed and unchangeable was beneath
them all. At times, it seemed to him as if Jove, the
king of earth, was chaining down all the aspirations
of man, was fastening to a rock, and tormenting with a
vulture, the champions who sought to do him good,
to make him freer and wiser. What a relief to think
that Destiny had determined the period of this captivity,
and of the tyranny which had imposed it ! j_nd yet
E E

418 LAW AND WILL.
there were times when the sense of a hard, dry, iron
rule, — an irresistible necessity, — became more intolerable
than the government of the most uncertain king ; when
the heart fled from that as a horrible oppression, to this
as human and sympathetic. EspeciaUy these words,
' Father of Gods and men,' touched chords which at once
responded to them. There was the hint of something
not only more friendly than Fate, but more mighty.
The will in man leaps up to acknowledge a Will that is
akin to its own, and that may govern it.
Through all the Jewish History, fixed law, grounded
on the name of the I AM, had been coming forth in
conjunction with a course of discipline which the God
of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob was declared by prophets
and holy men to be carrying on for the children of His
Covenant. The Law asserted that which was right;
nothing could alter it ; to violate it was death. The
Judge of the whole earth was doing right ; His design
was to make His people right. Christ on the Mountain
announced the WiU of which that law was the expres
sion. He said it was the Will of a Father. Here is
the root and substance of His revelation. He does not
proclaim a WiU which dispenses with law or changes it,
but that absolutely righteous and true Will of which it
affirms the existence, but which it cannot make effectuab
And this Will, is the WiU of the Father. Beneath the
name of the God of Abraham, this was concealed. The
sound of it. was from time to time caught, not. only by

¦ HOW POLYTHEISM REVIVES. 419
holy men in their closets, but by the ordinary worshipper.
The Greek heard the echo of it from his Thessalian hill.
Christ uttered it.
For those who receive His message, the two concep
tions which were always fighting with each other, always
trying to be one, are actuaUy united. There is the
perfect rest which comes from the thought that there
can be no caprice in the order of the Universe, — that
right can never become wrong, or wrong right ; there is
the comfort that no hard fate controls caprice, that the
Divine Will excludes it. The fixed and the absolute
which man craves for as the support of his being, and of
aU creation, is there. It is bound inseparably with a name
which speaks of Relation, which tells him what he was
sure must be ; that his own Will has an author ; that he
is not merely a creature of the highest God, but a child.
AU is peace if we accept this as a Revelation, — as a
Gospel from God. Reduce it again into the conceptions
of your own mind, — make your anticipations, not the test,
that they must be, but the measure of the Revelation, —
and all becomes war again. An iron necessity for the
nineteenth century after Christ, as much as for all before
it, becomes that to which you refer the world's life and
your own. It is your best comfort to do so. And yet it is
such miserable comfort that you will be continuaUy seek
ing a refuge from it. The vision of some present helper, —
some one to whom you can address cries and litanies, —
rises up whether your philosophy has taught you to

420 THE FATHER — NOT A NOTION.
banish it or not. To such a one you will give the name
of Father; it wUl seem the most natural name ; you wiU
feel that you must use it, or that your words die in the
utterance. But that name wiU be associated, as it was
among old Polytheists, with thoughts of the clouds and
the changes of Nature ; if your heart insists upon more
human associations, then with the turbulence and irregu
larity you find in yourself. Deal honestly with your
own experiences, — it is all I ask, — and then say whether
the old name, the given name, is not that which you need,
and which you are trying to spell out. You are sure it
is there : it must be very near to you. But speculaion
does not bring it nearer. The child must confess its
Father, and confess itself to Him ; then it knows whose
WUl rules it, and with what Will it has been striving.
All our past inquiries into the superstitions of the
Christian world have brought us to the same conclusion.
From whatever quarter they have proceeded, their ten
dency has been the same. The notion of a sovereign
Necessity has taken the place of a WiU of absolute truth
and goodness; the notion of a capricious Power to be
made placable by some agency of ours has superseded
the belief in a Father, whose will Christ came on earth
to manifest and to fulfil. Each opinion gives birth to
the other as a debverance from it ; one is supposed to
be more philosophical, the other more practical, than our
Baptismal Faith ; that remains as a refuge for those who
have found the first utterly offensive to their reason, the

MEDIATORS. 421
second subversive of their morality. The more simply
it is proclaimed, the less pains we take to sustain it by
our proofs,- — the more it will commend itself to the hearts
that are needing it. If we substitute for a bebef in a
Father a belief in a notion of ours about a Father, we
shall turn a confession which should be the greatest wit
ness that the Kingdom of Heaven has been opened to
all, into a means of excluding our brethren as well a9
ourselves from it.
II. There can be no Mediator between a man and a
mere Fate or Necessity. A multitude of mediators will
be conceived between a man and the capricious Power
who seems to be deahng with him at his pleasure.
These mediators will be aU, more or less distinctly, felt
to be the helpers of the creatures against their Creator ;
they may be regarded as having some natural relation
ship to him, or as having by some merit obtained an
influence or a right over him ; but they will be always
the benignant patrons of those whom he is disposed, for
some reason, to injure. When the word ' Father ' has
taken any strong hold of a man anywhere, when it
has displaced the notion of a mere sovereign, there will
be a counteraction to this feeling. Those who plead for
man with Him, must be felt in some sense to express
His mind; they will be acknowledged as His sons.
But this counteraction, though great, will be inadequate
till we have leamt the lesson of which I was speaking
just now, — the lesson that the Will of this Father is as

422 THE living word: the SON.
steadfast as any Fate can be ; that its steadfastness con
sists in its righteousness ; that there cannot be variable
ness in it, because it is good, and can only seek to do
good. This Will demands that which the Necessity
excludes. It must speak, it must utter itself. A Will
cannot be without a Word. A Will that is, and lives,
must utter itself by a living Word. This is what
St. John, in his divine theology, declares to us. But if
he speaks in one sentence of a Word, he speaks in the
next of a Son. The names are used interchangeably ;
but we should, I believe, lose more than we know, if
either had been used exclusively. Experience has shown
that those who determinately prefer the first, soon fall
into that notion of a mere emanation from some mys
terious abyss of Divinity, which haunted the oriental
mystics and the early heretics, or else into the notion of
a mere principle indwelling in man. The Word becomes
impersonal: the Will becomes impersonal: very soon
the man forgets that he is a person himself, and becomes
a mere dreamer or speculator. The blessed name of
Son, which connects itself with all human sympathies
and relationships, is the deliverance from this phantom
region. While we cleave to it, we can never forget
that only a Person can express the Will of the Absolute
Being ; that only in a Person He can see His own
image. But the Son of God will soon be merged for us
in the Son of Man, — we shaU refer His relationship to
ours, not ours to His,— if we do not recur to that other

THE ABSTRACT AND POPULAR TENDENCIES. 423
name, if we do not, by meditating upon it, save our
selves from the unspeakable dangers into which those
fall who think of the Son only as their Saviour, and
not as the brightness of His Father's glory. Both
these perils are besetting us now as much as they
beset any former age. I think they are besetting us
more ; often when we are not conscious of either as a
theological tendency, it is affecting our moral and social
feebngs, and our ordinary acts, in innumerable ways.
There is an abstract way of thinking about the
Son of God which is hurrying some of us into Pan-*
theism, and multitudes partake of the effect who are
not in the least alive to the cause. There is a popular
way of thinking about the Son of God, which is
hurrying us into idolatry ; and parents are startled at
seeing their children faU over a precipice, to the edge of
which they have walked under their guidance. Nor do
I see how either evil can be averted if we do not more
earnestly consider what is involved in the faith of little
children ; whether the name of the Son into which we
are baptized is not our redemption from all vagueness^
and from all partial, separate, self-seeking worship, a
witness that we are adopted into Him as members of
His body, and must therefore seek the things that are
above, where He sitteth at the right hand of God. This'
faith is not notional, but practical ; not for this and
that man, but for mankind. If we were forced to form
conceptions about a Son of God, or Son of Man, there-

424 COMMUNICATION OF LIFE.
-would be a perpetual strife of inteUects ; there could be
no consent ; each man must think differently from his
neighbour, must try to establish his own thought
against his neighbour's!. If He is revealed to us as the
ground of our intellects, — the creative Word of God
from whom they derive their light : as the centre of our
fellowship, the only-begotten Son of God, in whom we
are made sons of God ; the weary effort is over ; our
thoughts may travel to the ends of the earth, but here
is their home ; apart from Him men have infinite dis
agreements ; in Him they have peace.
III. A mere Fate or Necessity of course communicates
no life or energy to those who are the subjects of it;
Life and energy are excluded from the very idea of
Necessity. A Ruler or Lord of Nature may impart
powers or energies to particular men. It will be the
great sign of his favouring them, above others, that he
does so. A free and imaginative people like the Greeks
Would account it a much greater proof of a man's being
dear to the Gods, that he was able to perform rare
achievements, and exhibit unusual wit and prowess, than
that he possessed houses and land, and an outward good
fortune. High gifts were felt, as I showed before, to
indicate an Inspirer, and that Inspirer was acknowledged
to have descended from the highest God* Here, again,
the name of Father greatly modified the previous bebef.
The gift of Inspiration was generally taken as an
evidence that the man who received it stood in some

THE DIVINE ESSENCE. 425
real relation to the Divine Power ; it was not merely
bestowed from choice or favouritism, it was a kind of
inheritance. The moment a Will drives out a Fate, an absolute will
to good, mere irresistible decrees, the belief that this Will
must seek to make other wills like its own, forces itself
upon us. ' This is the will of God, even your sanc-
tification' becomes the deepest conviction of the reason,
At first these words may be reflected on with much
inward satisfaction, without any great awe. But when
a man remembers that holiness, in its fullest sense,
hobness as involving truth and love by involving sepa
ration from what is false and unlovely, must be the
innermost nature of God, he may weU wonder and
tremble while he hears that of this, it is the will of God
to make him partaker. This gift is so amazing, so
essential, that he is utterly baffled when he tries to
meditate how he can ever be possessed of it. Can he be
come a God ? While he dreamed of God as a being of
mere power, he might dream also of measuring his own
power with His. But as soon as the belief of God's
holiness has at all entered into him, his desire is
to sink rather than to rise. The consciousness of his
pride is that which alarms him most. And that pride
haunts him perpetually. If he became the most abject
of men, he feels as if he should be proud of that
abjectness, — more proud than he had ever been before.
This is a perplexity concerning himself; there is another

426 LOVE MUST HAVE AN OBJECT.
concerning God. It is wonderful that the inmost bfe of
God should be communicated; but it would be a con
tradiction that it should not be communicated. We
cannot think of a Being of perfect love as wrapt up in
Himself, as dwelling in the contemplation of His own
excellence and perfection; we can as little think of
His being satisfied with any lower excellence or per
fection. The belief of a Spirit proceeding from the
Father and the Son, meets both the human and the
divine difficulty. To think of the Father resting in the
Son, in the deepest sense knowing the Son, and of the
Son knowing the Father, we must think of a uniting
Spirit. And if there is such a Spirit, it must be capable
of being imparted; that must be the way in which
holiness is imparted. And if this gift comes to men
through the Son, we are sure that the Spirit which
they receive must be the Spirit of lowliness, and meek
ness, and obedience. We are sure that it cannot be a
Spirit which exalts any one man above his fellow. It
must bring all to a level. In so far as they confess it
to be the Spirit of a Father, they must confess that it is
meant to make them Sons of God; in so far as they
confess that it is the Spirit of Christ, they confess that
it is meant to make them brothers. But the more this
Spirit quickens them, the more they will delight to own
it as distinct from them ; the more our Lord's words
respecting a Comforter will seem to them the truest and
fullest of all ; the more they will be compelled to feel

UNITY. 427
that there is a Divine Person with them to whom they
owe reverence and worship.
So wonderfully, — if our baptismal faith is true, — are
Divinity and Humanity blended ; so awfully are they
distinguished. Each step in the revelation of the distinct
Persons comes out to meet and satisfy some infinite need
of man ; some witness which has been awakened within
him of his own grandeur, and of his own weakness ; of
his belonging to a society, and of his being an individual;
of his dwelling in a world, subject to all the accidents
of time; of his right to a state that is free from these
accidents. The more near he is brought to God, the
greater he feels is the necessity for adoration and wor
ship ; while he contemplates Him at a distance there is
terror, but not reverence or awe.
And it is equally true that while he beholds Him at a
distance from himself, as the heathen did, and as we are
always prone to do, there can be no acknowledgment of
His Unity. As long as a Jove, or some Lord of Nature is
worshipped, he must be divided into a multitude of forms.
The conception of such a being shows what a need the
heart and reason have of Unity, but also how impossible
it is for them to find it, or create it for themselves. The
multitude of forms which we behold in the world will
make, in spite of all reasonings and theories, a multitude
of world-gods; it is only when we ask in wonder whence'
we ourselves are; to what law we are subject; in whom
it is that we are living, and moving, and having our

428 DIVISION OF THE NAME.
being ; who is guiding us ; whither he would lead us ;
that we begin to escape from darkness into light, from
division into Unity. When the Gospel was preached,
when the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy
Ghost, was uttered, when men had been baptized into
it, idols fell down ; the worship of the visible became
intolerable ; the sense of Unity profound. The separa
tion of that name has been in all ages since, the secret of
division, the commencement of idolatry. If we watched
our own minds more we should find that it is so with
them. We have sometimes fancied we could dweU
simply on the thought of a Father; all others should
be discarded as unnecessary. But soon it has not been
a Father we have contemplated, it has been a mere sub
stratum of the things we saw, a name under which we
collected them. How rejoiced is the heart to pass from
such a cold void to the thought of a Son filled with all
human sympathies! But how soon does the sin-sick
soul frame a thousand images and pictures of its own
as a substitute for the perfect Image ; dream of Media
tors closer and more gracious than the One who died for -
all ! What a relief to fly from these fancies to a Divine
Spirit! How we wonder that we should ever have
thought that God could be anywhere but in the con
trite heart and pure! Alas, the heart does not long
remain contrite and pure ! Its holiness disappears : then
the Object of its worship disappears; for that Object was
becoming more and more itself. And the man either is

ETERNAL LIFE. 420
content with that miserable condition, and amuses him
self with high phrases about humanity to hide the facts
of it from his own conscience; or he asks for some
mortal to teU him what he should believe, because he
discovers that he has come to bebeve nothing.
He wiU find many ready to meet that craving. . He
wiU hear voices saying to him, ' To what a condition
' you have reduced yourself by forsaking the one safe
' guide, the only teacher who can enable you to obtain
' Eternal Life ! For does not Christ say that we can
* only obtain eternal bfe by knowing God and Him ?
' And what knowledge, what certainty, have you on
1 these subjects? How can you get that certainty unless
' there is an infallible guide who wUl say to you, This
' is true, believe it ? ' What a powerful, almost irre->
sistible, argument to one who fancied that he bebeved
everything, and is beginning to find that he scarcely
bebeves in a God! And if the new teacher could
restore him that belief, what else does he want, what
might he not sacrifice for such a gift? But can that be,
when he begins with assuming our Lord to have Uttered
words which He nevetr did utter, and which directly set
at nought His actual words ? He did not say, ' Men
* obtain eternal life by knowing God;' but, ' This is life
eternal, that they may know Thee, the only true God, and
Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent.' The knowledge does
not procure the life, but the knowledge constitutes the life.
We fancy we attach a distinct meaning to these words,

430 ETERNITY AND TIME DISTINCT.
Eternal Life ; they are such precious words, that every
one tries to form some notion of them. But surely if
there is any subject on which we want a guide, an infal
lible guide, it is on this. We feel that we are under a
law of change and succession, that we live in days, and
months, and years. We feel also that we have to do
with that which is not changeable, which cannot be
represented by any divisions of time. A long life, the
poet says, may be curdled into an hour. Every great
and serious event of our lives has taught us that this is
so. We experience the utter vanity and emptiness of
chronology as a measure of suffering, of thought, of hope,-
of love. All these belong to another state of things.
We perceive that Scripture is speaking to us of that
state of things ; that it is educating us into the appre
hension of it. The more we attend to the New Testa
ment, the more we find to confirm the witness of our
reason, that eternity is not a lengthening out or continu
ation of time ; that they are generically different ; as St.
Paul so beautifully expresses it, ' that which we see is
temporal; that which we do not see is eternal.' The
spiritual world, — we are obliged t« confess it in a thou
sand ways, — is not subject to temporal conditions. This
is no discovery of philosophers. Every peasant knows
it as well as Newton. If you have listened with earnest
ness to the questions of a child, you may often think
that it knows more of eternity than of time. The suc
cession of years confounds it ; it mixes the dates which

'this is life eternal.' 431
it has been instructed in most strangely ; but its intui
tion of something which is beyond all dates makes you
marvel. Scripture, in like manner, illustrates and makes
clear our own thoughts about Life and Death. It teaches
us to think that the healthy activity of all our powers
and perceptions, and their direction to their right object,
is the living state ; that the torpor of these, or their con
centration on themselves, is a state of Death.
With these hints, which every day's reading of the
Scriptures, by an earnest student, wUl multiply and
expand, what need we have of some direct words to
bring together the two thoughts of Eternity and of
Life. If I spoke of defining Eternal Life, I should
feel, and I think aU would feel, that I was using
an improper word ; for how can we define that which
is out of the bmits of time? But in the depth
of prayer and communion with His Father, our Lord
gives us that which corresponds to the most accurate
and divine definition, an exposition which we are bound
henceforth, if we reverence His authority, to apply on
all occasions, and to use as the correction of our loose
and vague conceptions. Instead of picturing to our
selves some future bliss, caUing that eternal bfe, and
determining the worth of it by a number of years, or
centuries, or millenniums, we are bound to say once for
all : ' This is the eternal bfe, that which Christ has
' brought with Him, that which we have in Him, the
'^knowledge of God; the entering into His mind and

432 ROMANIST PERVERSION.
' character, the knowing Him as we only can know any
f person, by sympathy, feUowship, love.' And so the
meaning and order of the Divine revelation become
evident to us ; God has been declaring Himself to us
that we might know Him, because He would have
us partakers of this eternal life. And the final Revela
tion, that which is expressed in our Baptismal name,
teUs us what all the experience of ourselves and of the
world tells us also, that unless the Spirit of the Father
and the Son were with us, we could not break loose
from the fetters of Time, the confusions of Sense, the
narrowness of Selfishness ; that if we yield to that Spirit
we can have fellowship with those who are nigh and
those who are far off; with men of every habit, colour^
opinion ; with those whom the veil of flesh divides from
us; with Him who is the Perfect Charity; with the
Father and the Son who dwell in the Unity of one
blessed and eternal Spirit.

Many Unitarians stiU think as their fathers did, that
the idea of a Trinity involves an utter contradiction, — ¦
that every rational man must reject it. Many of them
are aware that some of the deepest minds in the world
have felt that the acknowledgment of a Trinity was
necessary to their reason. But they are careful to
observe that this is not the Trinity of which we speak ;
if they should ever come to accept a Trinity as a portion
of their bebef they would still, they say, not be stooping

THE PHILOSOPHICAL TRINITY. 433
to a creed. That act would be a sign of Progress, not
of retrogression; they would welcome a discovery of
philosophy, not surrender themselves to a religious
tradition. Such language is lofty; I would beseech every
earnest Unitarian to consider whether it is wise. Does
he mean by a discovery of philosophy, the discovery of
a verbal formula ? If he does, I must leave him to any
advantage he may get from it, only reminding him that
he has now become the worshipper of formulas ; that he
cannot henceforth cast that charge upon us. But if it is
a truth he discovers, may it not be a truth for mankind ?
And may not a living and true God have taken some
way of making that truth known to the creatures
whom He has made capable of knowing it ? When we
speak of a Creed which may be taught and believed, we
say that He has done this. We say that in Christ the
Trinity is revealed substantially. It is not a doctrine,
unless it is more than a doctrine. Either real Persons
are declared to us, or nothing is declared, about those
Persons. Either a real Unity is declared, or nothing is
made known to us about a Unity. Supposing philo
sophy to have perceived a Trinity, or the shadow, or
the hint of one, it cannot appropriate this perception tp
itself, — any more than Gravitation is a trath which
Newton could appropriate to himself. The philosopher
must ask to what reality the perception or intuition
corresponds; of what substance that which he sees is
F F

434 THE ROAD TO TRUTH.
the shadow. No one is bound to assume the position
of a philosopher ; few have any call to assume it ; but
supposing a man becomes one, this must be the condi
tion of his work: — he must seek for that which is
human and universal; for Truth itself, not for some
image of it or some logical expression of it. And he
must ask how trath in this sense, — trath as the equi
valent of substance or being, — can be made known, so
that all shall be partakers of it. I leave that thought
to the modern Unitarian philosopher. I would not have
him abandon his task, if he thinks that he is appointed
to it. I would have him pursue it steadily. For I
bebeve he will find that the philosopher must ascend to
knowledge by the same steps as the man ; that if he is
to find truth, God must reveal Himself to him.
These last words suggest a subject upon which I
should like to say a few words. I have used the phrase
that a belief in the Trinity makes ' Prayer possible.'
Do I mean that it is impossible to every person who has
not received our Creed, — that the Unitarian cannot pray?
I mean no such thing. My great desire has been to
show that we are dwelling in a Mystery deeper than
any of our plummets can fathom, a Mystery of Love.
Our prayers are not pleasured by our conceptions ; they
do not spring from us. He who knows us, teaches us
what we should pray for, and how to pray. Therefore,
of all transgressors of our Lord's command 'not to judge,'
they are the greatest who pretend to pronounce upon the

PRAYER. 435
depth or sincerity of their neighbour's prayer, who think
they can ascertain it by the professions which he makes,
by his apparent pride or humility.
But the more I have seen of Unitarians, or have read
of their books, the more have I been convinced that this
was the great difficulty of their Creed — that in which its
other difficulties begin and terminate. ' Is God's Will
1 good, — then why attempt to move it by petitions and
' intercessions? Is it not good? then how hopeless
' the effort must be, seeing that He is omnipotent ! '
These logical icebergs continually move away for human
sufferers who are trying to force a passage between them.
They pray because they cannot help it. Whether the
effort is a reasonable one or not, they must make it.
When the necessity has passed away, the understanding
finds a justification for the violence which has been put
upon it, and for the habitual repetition of such violence,
by saying that though our prayers cannot move God,
they are useful for their action upon our minds. But
conscience then comes in with its protest : ' What,
' practise a pious fraud in order to effect an improve-
' ment in your moral condition ! Pretend that you are
' praying to some Being beyond yourself, when you are,
' in fact, your own object ! What charms, what Budd-
' hist praying-machine can be more insincere than such a
' process ? Can the adoption of it make us more serious
' and truthful ? If not, what is that reaction upon our
' own characters, which is urged as a defence of it ? '

436 HOW IT IS SOMETIMES DEFENDED.
I do not think the Unitarian has ever been able to
answer these objections, and yet I am nearly sure that
many Unitarians would sooner die than give up the act
of prayer, and that they believe it not to be the falsest,
but the truest of all acts, that which is necessary to
make them sincere, and keep them sincere. I do not
doubt that the greater part of Unitarians, even those
who retain Dr. Priestley's dogma of Necessity in their
speculative creed, contrive to separate the idea of Him
they call Father, from that Necessity. They confess
a Will ; they do not worship a mere God of Nature.
And they can believe that this Will may govern them,
in some different way from that in which He governs
the trees, and flowers, and streams. This belief implies
the possibility of some intercourse; yes ! they must use
that name, however much it savours of what they have
been wont to call fanaticism ; no other will avail. But
again the doubt occurs. ' How can this intercourse take
' place? Am I sure that I have any relation to this
' mysterious Will ? Are the words " speech and hear-
' ing " applicable to this subject ? ' Consider these ques
tions in all ways. You are afraid of traditions. I do
not ask you to receive mine. You long to be rational.
Use your reason upon this subject. And see whether the
doctrine of a Mediator, one with the Father, one with
you, does not meet it, — whether anything else can.
But think again ; some anguish drove you to prayer.
I do not ask what it was. It might be the loss of

A MEDIATOR; SENSE OF EVIL. 437
reputation; it might be the loss of a friend or child.
Whatever it was, I am certain a sense of wrong, of
remorse, of repentance, mingled with your sorrow : you
had been hardly treated, but you were not quite blame
less; the friend was very dear, but you might have
done more for him. That misery drove you to God ;
but did it not also keep you from Him ? There was a
feeling of separation, not merely from the human being
that was gone, but from Him. Was it overcome?
I do not say that it was not, for I believe that God has
given the Son in whom He sees us, and in whom we
may see Him, to be a ransom for all, to be testified in
due time. But if you acknowledged that ransom, — if
you accepted Christ's Sacrifice, as the assurance of His
reconciliation with you, — would not that explain the
sense of strife; the union which is mightier than it;
the possibihty, the infinite truth of prayer? And will
not the thought, ' Such an one is ever presenting His
' Sacrifice not for me, but for the whole family ; it is
' binding me to men as well as to God,' — put an end
to the struggle and selfishness of your prayers in time
to come, without making them less earnest, less indivi
dual? For you must know, then, that you are not
striving to get something which God is unwilling to
give; that you are crying out for the victory of His
Will over your own and over all others. And if you
believe this WiU is that all should be saved, and should
come to the knowledge of the truth, and that Christ
has fulfilled this Will on earth, and is fulfilling it now,

438 A SPIRIT OF GOOD.
is it not an infinite comfort that your wishes are but the
feeble echoes of His ?
Yet there is something more wanted still to make
your prayers real, and to explain that ' reaction on your
own minds ' which you have talked of. Are not you
conscious very often of utter powerlessness, of a mind
anything but disposed to good, anything but disposed
to love or aid your fellow-men as you think God is
loving and aiding, them? Would it not be a satis
faction, — not to your feelings only but to your sincerity,
— to believe that there is a Spirit who is urging us to
those higher impulses to which we are so indisposed,
who is lifting us above ourselves, who is drawing us to
the Father of our Spirits ? I ask you to ponder these
thoughts. If you entered into them you would not at
all be adopting the doctrines of this book. You might
be leaving them and me, far behind you. You might
be entering into a knowledge of God which I have
never attained; might be contemplating Christ's sacrifice
as I have been unable to contemplate it ; might be
seeing the future condition of the world and God's
judgment of it under aspects altogether different from
mine. But you would be realizing all that I desbe for
myself, for you, for my brethren, because you would be
committing us and yourselves to God.
I should, indeed, be contradicting all I have said
hitherto, and the deepest testimony of my soul, if I per
suaded any Unitarian to pray as if that was true which
as yet he does not believe to be true. Let him cbng to

PRAYER TO THE FATHER. 439
his belief in a One God ; let him hold fast to the name of
Father. I do not dread his zeal, but his indifference ;
not his grasp of his own convictions, but his inclination
to use them as weapons against other men. While
we use the doctrine of the Trinity in . that way, I am
certain we shall not believe it, whatever we may pre
tend. While they think they know what that awful
name ' Father ' means, because they can pronounce it, or
what that wonderful word ' Unity ' means, because they
can fight for it, they will not only not enlarge the circle
of their convictions, but they will lose those that they
have. Let them pray the Lord's prayer, determining
that the first words of it shaU not be mere words to
them, — that they shall be such as sick people want who
sigh for the morning; as poor men want who toil in
mines; as captives want who are chained together in
loathsome prisons ; and I have no fear of their coming
to acknowledge the whole name which we confess. Let
them sigh for that Unity which aU the strifes and
divisions of the world are rending, and I have no doubt
they wUl learn to pray to as weU as for a Spirit of
Unity, or that their prayer wiU take the form of the old
hymn of which we have this simple and noble version : —
Teach na to know the Father, Son,
And Thee of both, to be but one ;
That through the ages all along
This may be our endless song, —
Praise to thy eternal merit,
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

440 MILTON ON TIME.

Note. — As the remark-in this passage on Romanist arguers applies
directly to some Sermons of Mr. Manning's, on John, _. Vt, v. 3, 1 cannot
let it go forth without saying, that I entirely acquit him of that which
would be a great sin, the intention of interpolating our Lord's words.
I can quite conceive that vehement opponents of Rome have read his
Sermons without discovering that flaw in fhem. For the truth is, that
we adopt this paraphrase as much as the Romanists do. Mr. Manning
probably learnt it among English divines, and is making fair use of it
against them now. What I hoped and believed was, that he had risen
out of such a low notion of orthodoxy, to whatever society it belongs.
In the fourth volume of his SermonB, published Bhortly before he left
the English Church, there waa such a vein of true Catholicity, such an
assertion of the highest Theology as the possession for all men, such a
vindication of the truth that the knowledge of God is Eternal Life, as it
did one's heart good to meet with anywhere. Though there were suffi
cient indications in that volume, that the writer might not stay very
long amongst us, I could not help hailing it as a far nobler addition to
the stores of English divinity, than those very exquisite, probably more
popular, but it seemed to me less masculine, discourses which Mr.
Manning had put forth previously. I ventured to hope, — almost to
prophecy, — that he might only be breaking the fetters of our Anglican
system, and that even the new fetters of Romanism would not hinder
him from being Catholic. Nor will I abandon that hope now. In a
still more recent Sermon he has asserted the doctrine which I have
maintained in these Essays, that Love is the groundwork of all
Divinity, with a breadth and fulness which I should rejoice to find ia
the Discourses of those whom he has forsaken. I trust that he
believes himself, and will teach others, that the Spirit of Love is also
the Spirit of Truth, and that no lie is of the Truth : when he and we
are possessed by that conviction, we cannot long be separate.
In Illustration of what I have said on the generical distinction
between Time and Eternity, I should wish my readers to meditate
these lines of Milton.
"Fly, envious Time, till thou run out thy race;
Call on the lazy, leaden-stepping hours,
WTiose speed is but the heavy plummet's pace;
And glut thyself with what thy womb devours,
Which is no more than what is false and vain,
And merely mortal dross :
So little is our loss,
So little is thy gain.

MILTON ON TIME. 441
For when, as each thing bad thou hast intomb'd,
And last of all thy greedy self consumed,
Then long Eternity shall greet our bliss
With an individual kiss;
And joy shall overtake us as a flood,
When everything that is sincerely good
And perfectly divine,
With Truth, and Peace, and Love shall ever shine
About the supreme throne
Of Him to whose happy-making sight alone
When once our heavenly-guided soul shall climb
Then, all this earthly grossness quit,
Attired with stars we shall for ever sit
Triumphing over Death, and Chance, and thee, 0 Time."

CONCLUDING ESSAY.
ETERNAL LIFE AND ETERNAL DEATH.
Here I might stop ; for the Trinity is, as I believe,
the ground on which the Church stands and on which
Humanity stands ; Prayer and Sacrifice are, I believe,
the means whereby the Trinity is made known to us :
in the Trinity I find the Love for which I have been
seeking ; in Prayer and Sacrifice I hold that we may
become partakers of it. But here I cannot stop, for the
Unitarians and multitudes who are not Unitarians, declare
that all I have said is futile, for that there is another
doctrine which contradicts the principle of my whole
book, and yet which is as much an article of my faith as
the Trinity itself. ' Your Church,' they say, ' main-
' tains the notion of everlasting punishment after death.
' Consider what is included in that notion. You cannot
' thrust it into a corner as you might naturally wish to
' do. You cannot mention it as something by the way.
s If it is anything, it is fundamental. Theologians and
' popular preachers treat it as such. They start from it ;
' they put it forth as the ground of their exhortations,

ETERNAL PUNISHMENT. 443
' The world, according to them, lies under a sentence
' of condemnation. An immense — an incalculable —
' majority of all that have been born into it, must, if
' their statements mean anything, if they are not merely
' idle frivolous rhetoric, be hopelessly doomed. Their
' object is to point out how a few, a very few, may be
' saved from the sentence. All their doctrines there-
' fore have this centre. Let them speak of Atone-
' ment, Justification, Regeneration; — these are only
' different names to denote the methods by which certain
' men may have the comfort of feeling that they are not
' sharers in the condition to which God has consigned
' our race.'
' What is most appalling,' the objector continues, ' to a
' person who takes the words of Scripture literally, is
' that the passages from which the proofs of this doctrine
' are derived, are found in the New Testament, in the
' discourses of Christ himself. Dr. John Owen espe-
' cially draws the attention of his readers to the fact,
' that here, and not in the Old Testament, which is
' supposed to contain the severer and sterner religion
' of the Law, the sentences concerning eternal perdition
' occur. There can be no doubt, that his observation is
' true, whatever reason may be given for it. Our fathers
' used to think that they could explain away such
' passages by giving a different force to the word
' Eternal, when it is connected with blessedness, and
1 when it is connected with punishment. But such

444 THE NEW TESTAMENT; PROTESTANTISM.
' philological tricks will not answer in our day. We
' feel the necessity of giving up the passages, of supposing
' that they were not spoken by Him to whom they are
' attributed, or that He was mistaken. But you dare
' not take that course.'
' It is a discouraging circumstance also,' they say,
' that in respect of this tenet, theology has not gained
' by the Reformation, but has lost considerably. The
' belief in hopeless punishment belongs, no doubt, as
' much to Romanism as to Protestantism. But how
' much are its extreme horrors mitigated by the admis-
' sion of a Purgatory for a great multitude of human
' souls ! To whatever abuses that notion may have been
' subjected by superstition or cupidity, it is surely milder
' and more humane than the decree which goes forth
' from so many pulpits in our land ; Understand, sinners,
' whatever be your offences, whatever your temptations,
' ihe same irremediable anguish is prepared for you
' all. Even in the Inferno of the Florentine poet,
' though all hope was to forsake those who entered it, '
' what traces there are of recollection and affection, what
' hints of a moral improvement through suffering ! With
' us, there is only one dark abyss of torment and sin for
' all who, in the course of threescore years and ten,
' have not been brought to believe things which they
' could not believe or have never learnt, who have not
' abstained from acts which they have been taught from
' their youth up to commit.'

LATER THEOLOGIANS. 445
' Once more;' they proceed, 'experience, which is said
' to teach individuals a little — nations almost nothing —
' has taught theologians, it seems, to be more outrageous,
' more contemptuous to human sympathies and con-
' science, than they used to be when all men bowed
' the neck to their yoke. This tenet must be accepted
' with greater precision now than in the days gone by.
' The Evangelical Alliance, longing to embrace all
' Protestant schools and parties, makes it one of its nine
' articles of faith, one of those first principles which are
' involved in the very nature of a comprehensive Christi-
' anity. It is clear, that they are not solitary in their
' wish to give the doctrine of everlasting punishment
' this character. Your orthodox English Churchmen,
' though they may dissent from some of their opinions
' as too wide, will join heart and soul with them, when-
1 ever they are narrow and exclusive. They may suffer
' doubts and modifications in some points ; on this, be
' sure, they will demand simple unqualified acquiescence.'
These statements may be heard in aU circles, from
young and old, from men and women, from persons long
ing to believe, from those who are settled down into
indifference. Those who know, say that they are pro
ducing infidebty in the highest classes ; — hard-working
clergymen in the Metropolis can bear witness that
they supply the most staple arguments to those who
are preaching infidelity among the lowest. How
impossible it is that I can pass them by, every one must

446 CONCESSIONS TO THE OBJECTOR.
perceive. They affect not one, but each of the prin
ciples which 1 have been discussing. If all these
assertions are true, all that I have written is false.
I am bound, therefore, to examine which of them have
a foundation and which have not. For no one can
doubt that there is a truth in some of them which can
not be gainsaid.
I. I admit, without the slightest hesitation, that there
is very much more about Eternity and eternal punish
ment in the Gospel than in the Law, in the words of
Christ than in the books of Moses and the Prophets.
Let that point be well recollected and carefully reflected
upon, in connexion with the opinion which all in some
way or other entertain, in some language or other ex
press, that the New Testament is more completely a
revelation of the Love of God than the Old is. The two
assertions must be reconciled. We cannot go on re
peating them both, dwelling upon them both, drawing
arguments from them both, while yet we feel them
to be incompatible or contradictory. Let it be further
conceded at once, that we cannot honestly get rid of
this contradiction by attaching two different meanings
to the word almvioi in different applications. The
subjects which it qualifies cannot affect the sense we
put upon it. If we turn it the least awry to meet our
convenience, we deal unfaithfully with the book which
we profess to take as our guide.
Starting from these premises, let us consider why it is

ETERNITY IN REFERENCE TO GOD. 447
that the New Testament has more to do with Eternity
than the Old. I think no Christian will differ very
widely from me when I answer, ' it is because the living
' and eternal God is more fully and perfectly revealed in
' the one than in the other.' In both He is discovering
Himself to men; in both He is piercing through the mists
which conceal Him from them. But in the one He is
making Himself known chiefly in His relations to the
visible economy of the world ; in the other He is exhi
biting His own inward nature, and is declaring Himself
as He is in Him who is the brightness of His glory,
the express image of His person. Whenever the word
Eternal is used, then, in the New Testament, it ought first,
by aU rales of reason, to be considered in reference .to
God. Its use when it is applied to Him, must determine
all its other uses. There must be no shrinking from
this rule, no efforts to evade the force of it ; for this is
what we agreed to condemn in the Unitarians and
Universabsts of the last age, that they changed the force
pf the adjective at their pleasure, so that it might not
mean the same in reference to punishment as to life.
How can we carry out this rale ? Shall we say that
Eternal means, in reference to God, ' without beginning
or end'? How then can we affix that meaning to
Eternal, when we are Speaking of man's bliss or misery?
Is that without beginning as well as without end ? ' Oh
' no ! you must leave out the beginning. That of course
.'.has nothing to do with this case.' Who told you so ?

448 RIGHTEOUSNESS, LAW, TRUTH.
How dare you play thus fast and loose with God's
word? How dare you fix the standard by which the
signification of a word is to be judged, and reject that
very standard a moment after ?
But are there no better reasons why we should not
affix this meaning, ' without beginning and end,' to the
word almvio? when it is applied in the New Testament
to God? I quite agree that such a meaning might
have seemed very natural to an ordinary Greek. The
word might have been used in that sense by a classical
author, or in colloquial language, without the least im
propriety. But just the lesson which God had been
teaching men by the revelation of Himself was, that
mere negatives are utterly unfit to express His
being, His substance. From the very first, He had
taught His chosen people to look upon Him as the
righteous Being, to bebeve that all their righteousness
was grounded on His. He had promised them a more
complete knowledge of His righteousness. Every true
Israebte had looked to this knowledge as His reward, as
the deliverance from his enemies, as the satisfaction of his
inmost longings, as the great blessing to his nation and
to mankind, as well as to himself. His Righteousness,
His Trath, His Love, the Jew came more and more to
perceive, were the substantial and eternal things, by
seeking which he was delivered from the worship of
Gods of Time and Sense, as well as from the more
miserable philosophical abstraction of a God who is

ST. JOHN'S LANGUAGE. 449
merely a negative of time; without beginning and without
end. Therefore, when the Son was revealed, this is the
language in which -the beloved disciple speaks, ' The life
f was manifested, and we have seen it, a/nd we declare unto
¦ you that eternal life which was with the Father, and
' which has been manifested unto us.' This is but a
specimen of his uniform language. Yes, and I will be
bold to say that his language interprets all the language
af the New Testament. The eternal life is the right
eousness, and truth, and love of God which are mani-J
tested in Christ Jesus ; manifested to men that they may
be partakers of them, that they may have fellowship
with the Father and with the Son. This is held out as
the eternal blessedness of those who seek God and love
Him. This it is, of which our Lord must have spoken
in His last prayer, if he -who reports that prayer did not
misinterpret His meaning.
Is it inconsistent, then, with the general object and
character of the New Testament, as the manifestation of
His love, that Eternity in all its aspects should come
before ns there as it does nowhere else, that there we
should be taught what it means ? Is it inconsistent
with its scope and object that there, too, we should be
taught what the horror and awfulness is, of being without
this love, of setting ourselves in opposition to it ? Those
who would not own Christ in His brethren, who did not
visit Him. when they were sick and in. prison, go away,
He jsaid,- into eternal or everlasting punishment. Are
G G

450 INFERENCE AS TO PUNISHMENT.
we affixing a new meaning to these words, or the very
meaning which the context demands, the only meaning
which is consistent with the force that is given to
the adjective by our Lord and His apostles elsewhere, if
we say that the eternal _punishment is the punishment
of_being without the knowledge of God, who is love,
and of Jesus Christ who has manifested jt ; even as
eternal life is declared to be the having the knowledge
of God and of Jesus Christ ? If it is right, if it is a
duty, to say that Eternity in relation to God has nothing
to do with time or duration, are we not bound to say
that also in reference to life or to punishment, it has
nothing to do with time or duration ?
II. What I have said respecting the New Testament
will explain some phenomena, which have puzzled obser
vers, in the opinions of the early Church upon this
subject. Uniformity is not to be looked for. If any one
expects to find that, he will be woefully disappointed.
He will probably discover in all the Fathers a very
strange, almost overwhelming, feeling that Christ had
revealed eternity, the eternal world, the eternal God, as
they had never been revealed before, that a quite new
blessedness had been disclosed to men, that there was
a tremendous disclosure of evil correspondent to that.
But as in every case the wisest teachers of these centu
ries were but trying to catch the meaning of our Lord
and His Apostles, some seeing it on one side, some on
another; — some through the refracting medium of a

THE FATHERS; THEIR DIVERSITIES. 451
heathen education, some through the Jewish Scriptures,
some through their own conflicts and the conflicts of
their time ; — so was it here. One caught at this
aspect of eternity, one at that. Here was an eloquent
preacher who drew pictures of miseries to come, and
mixed together material images with spiritual ideas.
There was a Universabst who dwelt on the possibility
of men being restored after ages of suffering to the
favour of God. There was one who dreamed of alter
nations of misery and blessedness. There were those
who learnt in the dreadful strife with Manicheism the
real distinction of time and eternity, of life and death-
There were those who, troubbng themselves less with
questions respecting the future state of men, dwelt on
the eternity of the Father and the co-eternity of the
Son, and showed how needful it was that no notions of
time or duration should intrude themselves into such
mysteries. The influence of these last men upon the
Church was great ; so far as fixing the language of her
formularies in questions respecting the distinction of
temporal and eternal things, it was paramount. Even
their anathemas against opponents, however reckless,
as they pointed to a disbelief which concerned the
knowledge of God, kept up the feeling in the Church
that that knowledge- constitutes Eternal Life, and that
the loss of it is Eternal Death. But the practical
teachers naturally gave the form to the popular divinity.
It is only wonderful that - that divinity should have

452 .:. CHRYSOSTOM; THEODORA.
preserved so spiritual a tone as it did; that a preacher like
Ghrysostom, for instance, should have spoken of the
seCond. death as the death of Sin, the loss of the moral
being, when he must have been continually tempted to
thiuk that the coarse reprobates of Antioch and Con^
stantinople needed only, and could only understand,
threats of material brimstone. But God did not suffer
the champion whom He had educated to be thfe opposer
of courts and empresses, habitually to adopt the low
policy which is so suitable to them, so shameful in the
minister of Truth.
Very different was the behaviour of the bishops in the
city which he ruled so righteously, a century and a half
after his death. Yielding to the intrigues of a successor.
of Eudoxia, — in comparison with whom she was an angel,1
—a woman who had the greatest interest, oUe would
have thought, in believing that the love of God might
convert, even the lowest victims of lust and hatred into
His servants and children, — these reverend Fathers con
signed Origen to endless perdition because he had held
the opinion that his fellow-beings were not intended
for it. This example how far morality was interested in
Such decrees, — how much of grovelling submission on
the part of ecclesiastics to dvil rulers was the cause of
them,— might have led the Western Church, which had
other reasons for not esteeming very iighly ,the orthot
doxy of Justinian and Theodora,, to pause before they
advanced -in the same course. But barbarians were

THE LATIN CHURCHES. 453
crowding into the fold of Christ, who brought with them
aU the dreams of a Walhalla.. To govern was the
function of the Latin Church ; theology was to be used
as an instrument of government. Distinctions, once esta
blished, were to be carefully defended and enforced*
But where none existed, the Church was to prove its
Capacity of embracing the nations, by adapting herself,
with wonderful facility, to the superstitions which she
found among them, by incorporating them into her own
body of doctrine, by stooping to material influences and
artifices, for the sake of moving those who were supposed
to have bttle or nothing in them which could respond
to a spiritual message. To a superficial and yet an
honest observer, the whole course of Papal history looks
merely bke a series of these politic appeals to the
appetites of the lower nature, for the sake . of bribing
them not to instigate crimes, or of enlisting them in the
service of the Church, — nothing but a series of testimo
nies what crimes must be the result of such bribery,
What a service that must be which secures the aid of such
mercenaries. The efforts to. materiabze the terrors of
the future world, and to make those terrors the . great
motives to obedience, — with the obedience which was
actually produced by them, — at once suggest themselves
p>s the most startbng and decisive points in the evidence.
The vision of a purgatory from which men might, be
delivered by prayers or by money, coming so much
more near to the conscience, suggesting so much more

454 PERDITION; DAMNATION.
practical methods of proceeding than the mere distant
background of hopeless torment, offers itself as the
natural product of a scheme, devised to act upon the
fears and hopes of man, not drawn from the word of
God. But a more careful student is not satisfied with
this statement ofthe case, though he is forced to confess
that it is true. He perceives that there were words
belonging to the popular language of the Latins, not
derived from the Greek, which showed that the doctrine
of the New Testament respecting eternal life and death,
had still a hold upon the conscience of the Western
Church. What is Perdition but a loss ? What is eternal
damnation, but the loss of a good which God had
revealed to His creatures, of which He had put them in
possession ? What a witness there lay in these words,
even when thrown about by the most random rhetorician,
against the notion of a mere future prize to be won by
men who could purchase it by sacrifices, of a future
misery which God had designed for His creatures ! And
the witness was not inoperative. The noblest Doctors
of the Middle Ages did believe this to be the meaning
of all which they dreaded for themselves and for man
kind. They did believe that Love was at the root of all \
things, and that to lose Love, was to lose all things.;]
This was the ground of their most passionate exhorta
tions, whatever forms they might take. Whatever were
the crudities of their intellects, this was the undoubting

DANTE. 455
testimony of their hearts. It was this inward conviction
which made them tolerant of the idea of Purgatory —
which allowed them to wink with a dangerous ' ceconomy '
at what they must have known were the abominations
connected with it. They were afraid to limit the love
which they felt had been so mighty for them and for the
world. They did not dare to measure the sacrifice of
Christ and His intercession by their notions. The deep
conviction which they had of Evil as opposed to the
nature of God, made them shudder as they looked down
into that abyss. They would rather think of material
punishments which might, elsewhere as here, be God's
instruments of acting upon the spirit to awaken it out of
death. The great poem of the Florentine brings out
this deeper theology of the Middle Ages, in connexion
with all the forms in which it was hidden. The loss of
intellectual life, of the vision of God, is with him the
infinite horror of heU. Men are in eternal misery,
because they are stiU covetous, proud, loveless. The
evil priest or pope is in the worst circle of all, because
he has been brought most closely into contact with
spiritual and eternal things. Even here, there are all
varieties of evil, approximations to penitence and good.
The purgatory is the ascent, not out of material torments,
but out of moral evil, into a higher moral state. The
Paradise is the consummation bf that state in the vision of
perfect truth and love. Those who dwell there, are
ever looking down upon the poor wanderers below,

456 PERIOD BEFORE THE REFORMATION.
aware of their strifes, choosing guides for them, — it may
be some poet of the old world, — who shall be helpers in
their perplexity, who shall enable them to have a clearer
vision of the order which lies beneath the confusions of
the world, of the divine government to. which all human
governments must submit, and by which they must be
judged. There may be all material accidents about the
poem, derived from the age in which it was written; but
that this is its theological substance, I do not think
any considerate reader has ever doubted.
But whatever right we have to detect that theology,
through its external coverings, in the writings of divines
or of patriots, the two were inextricably blended in the
popular as well as the scholastical teaching, and the
darkness was endeavouring more and more to draw down
the light into .itself In the period between Dante and
the Reformation, there were many in Germany, in
England, in France, — one noble Dominican at least in
his own Florence, — who were labouring to disentangle
the threads, and to teach Christendom that moral evil is i
the eternal misery from which they need to be delivered,
the righteousness of God the good which they have to
attain. But dilettanti popes, who believed nothing and
therefore were desirous that the world which they ruled
should believe everything, who promoted letters by
-denying all knowledge to the people, who built churches
{to,him who they said was the rock of the Church, by
^he help of missionaries who proved that it. stood

LUTHER. 457
upon no rock but money,— these popes were consum
mating all the confusions that had been in the theology
of the Church before; were establishing, once for all, the
doctrine that the thing men have to dread is punishment
and not sin, and that the greatest reward which the
highest power in the Church can hold out is deliverance
from punishment, not deliverance from sin. Let us
understand it well; it was against this doctrine that
Luther protested in his theses at Wittenberg. Every^
thing in these theses, everything in his subsequent
career, turns upon the assertion that a man requires and
desires punishment, not indulgence, when he has done
evil; that, if you cannot free him from evil you do
him no service ; that . Tetzel had therefore not only
been robbing people of their money, had not only been
uttering wild and blasphemous words about his own
powers and the powers of those who sent him, but that
he had been promising that which it is not good for a
man to have, which a man should most earnestly pray
not to have, but to escape from, if it could, be given him
for nothing. That which we call the great proclamation
of the. Reformation, that a man is justified by faith alone,
becomes intelligible through this principle, and is not
intelligible without it. Luther declared that what man
wants is freedom from sin and not freedom from punish*
ment, that righteousness is the reward we crave for.
And. then he said, ' This freedom, which no pope can
' give you, this reward Which you can acquire by no

458 EVIL AND GOOD.
' efforts and labours of yours, God has given you freely
' in Christ. . Believing in Christ, the righteous One,
'you rise out of your own sins, you become righteous
' men, you are able to do righteous acts.' And this
doctrine, which we are told in our days is so fine and
abstract, that no men can listen to it or care for it,
except some people of delicate and tender consciences,
went through the length and breadth of Europe, spoke
to the hearts of the commonest handicraftsmen- and
labourers, was recognised by them as the message which
they were waiting to hear, because it enabled them to
obtain a moral standing-ground and a moral life, which
threats of future punishments and hopes of outward
rewards had never won for them.
The consequence of this doctrine where it was be
lieved, was unquestionably to bring out the contrast
between the good and evil state so distinctly and sharply,
that the notion of any intermediate state between these,
was vehemently rejected. Hell as the state of un
righteousness, Heaven as the state of righteousness,
Earth as the battle-field between the two, filled and
possessed the mind. Even if purgatory had not been
so connected with the system of indulgences, it could
scarcely have found its place among the thoughts which
were then driving aU others before them. In the great
Jesuit reaction of the sixteenth century, it recovered its
hold upon numbers who had been dispossessed of it,
because the social feebngs and sympathies of men, and

THE ENGLISH ARTICLES. 459
their sense of an intimate connexion between the visible
and the invisible world, for which the Middle Age
theology, amidst all its confusions, had borne witness,
had met with a very inadequate recognition in the
different schools of the Reformation. But though this
was the case, it is not true that Protestantism has pro
nounced more positively than Romanism did upon the
future condition of men. So far as our own Church is
concerned, the assertion is not only wide of the trath,
but is directly in opposition to it.
In the first draft of our Articles, in the reign of Ed
ward VI., one was introduced, the forty-second, which
contained a decree upon this subject. It was expressed
in the most moderate terms. It merely declared that
' They also are worthy of condemnation who endeavour
' at this time to restore the dangerous opinion, that all
' men, be they never so ungodly, shall at le__gth be
' saved, when they have suffered pain for their sins
' a certain time appointed by God's justice.'
After what I have said of the character of the Refor
mation, it cannot be wonderful that those who had en
tered most into the spirit of it, should be most anxious to
show that pain did not make amends for sin, and that
the misery of sin does not consist in an arbitrary penalty
affixed to it by God, who has sent His Son to make
men righteous. On these grounds the Divines of Ed
ward VI.'s reign might easily have excused themselves
to their contemporaries, and even to their successors, for

460 THE FORTY-SECOND.
adopting an Article which had abeady been sanctioned
at Augsburg. Nevertheless.it has been contended, with
great reasonableness, from the expression ' at this time,'
and from two other Articles which are found in the sann
draft, that this sentence was devised to meet a special
emergency. The Anabaptists, among a number of other
tenets, all of which had taken a sensual and a revolu?
tionary form, had propounded, some theory like that
which the Reformers here denounced. Every one knows
how eager Lutherans, Calvinists, and English Reformers
were to disclaim sympathy with those who had done so
much to make the new doctrines odious in the eyes of
Europe. It was very likely indeed that this eagerness
should be exhibited in any careful digest of their own
doctrines. But the dread of the danger had subsided in
the time of Queen Elizabeth. It had not, indeed,, so
subsided that the framers of the Articles in that reign
thought it safe to omit a special denunciation of the
doctrine of community of goods. But they could venture^
and they seized the privilege, to strike out the forty-
second Article.
This statement is not mine. It is the justification
which is offered for the compilers of our Articles,- by
those who would have wished them to dogmatize most
peremptorily on the subject. Taking their explana-;
tion, the evidence that the members of .the Church of
England have perfect freedom on this subject, is irre
sistible. It is scarcely possible to invent a case in one's

• THE OMISSION OF IT. 461
mind;which would be equally strong. Mere silence might
be accounted for. But here is omission, careful consi
derate omission, in a document for future times, of that
which had been too hastily admitted, to meet an emer
gency of that time. The omission was made by persons
who probably were strong in the bebef that the punish
ment of wicked men is endless, but who did not dare to
enforce that opinion upon others ; above all, who did not
dare to say that the words Eternal and Everlastings
which they knew had such .a profound and sacred mean
ing in reference to God Himself, and to the' revelation of
his" Son, could be shrivelled and contracted into this
signification. III. I have answered two of the objections at some
length. I have considered how it is -that, the New
Testament speaks more bf eternal life, and of eternal
punishmept than the Old ; how the usage of the words
in the New Testament explains that fact, and is ex*
plained by it; how, instead of interfering with the
assertion of St. Paul, that it is the will of God, that' all
men should be saved, and of St. -John, that God is love;
without these words, the others would be inexplicable;
Next, the charge that there Jaas been a tendency
throughout the history of the Church to determine
the limits of God's, love, to men, and to speak, of all
but a few as hopelessly lost, but that this tendency
_4_s been much more marked and strong in Protestants
than in Romanists, so that we. are much more

462 THE THIRD OBJECTION.
bound by the opinion than they were, — I have met
by a sketch of the history of opinion upon . this subject,
which, however slight, I believe is accurate,: and wiU
bear examination. And I have come to the conclusion,
that the deepest and most essential part of the theology
previous to the Reformation, bore witness to the fact
that eternal life is the knowledge of God who is Love,
and eternal death the loss of that knowledge ; that it was
the superficial theology, — that which belonged to the
Papal system as such, — whicii interfered with this
belief; that it was the great effort of the Reformation
to sweep away that superficial theology, in order that
Righteousness and Evil, Love and Hatred, might stand
out as the two eternal opposites ; the one as the eternal
life which God presents to men, the other as the
eternal death which they choose for themselves, and
which consists in being at war with His love. I have
now to consider the third»statement, that, whatever may
have been the case at the time ofthe Reformation, theo
logians have in our age become eutirely positive and dog
matic upon this subject;, that upon it they can brook no
doubt or diversity of opinion ; that in fact, they hold that
a man is as much bound to say '. I believe in the endless
' punishment of the greater portion of mankind '.as 'I
' believe in God the .Father, in God the Son, and in
'God the Holy. Ghost.'
I wish that I felt as able to controvert these proposi
tions as the others. But I am bound to admit that the

METAPHYSICS. 463
evidence for them is very strong. Perhaps I may be
permitted to trace some of the causes which have led to
this state of feeling. They will account, I think, for the
existence of it, at least under certain modifications, in
very good men. They will explain what are likely to
be the issues of it if it is not counteracted. They may
help to show English Churchmen, and especially English
Clergymen, what their standing-ground is,- and what
their obligations are, if they are really stewards of the
everlasting Gospel.
1. Every one must be aware how much the philoso
phical teaching under which we have grown up, uncon
sciously modifies our thoughts and opinions on a
multitude of subjects which we suppose to be beyond
its range. Luther's first battles, as his letters show us,
were with Aristotle : he found how much the habits of
thought learnt from him, and^consecrated in the schools,
interfered with the understanding of St. Paul. He
wanted his pupils to look directly at the sense of
Scripture ; they came with certain preconceived notions
which they imputed to the Sacred writers; any one
who construed them without reference to these notions
w<j.s supposed to depart from their natural, simple
meaning. It was not that Aristotle might not be an
exceedingly useful teacher for certain purposes; but
what Bacon discovered to be true of him in the investi
gation of Nature, Luther discovered to be true in the
investigation of Scripture. His logical determinations

464 AEISTOTLE J LOCKE.
and arrangements, even his accurate observations, hin
dered tbe student, who was not to bring wisdom but
to seek it.
What, Aristotle was to the German in the sixteenth
century, John Locke is to an Englishman in the
nineteenth. His dogmas have become part of our
habitual faith; they are accepted without study, as
g tradition. In this respect he resembles his prede
cessor. Proscribed at first by. divines for the Essay on
the Understanding more than for his politics or his inter
pretations of Scripture, just as Aristotle was proscribed
by popes in the twelfth century,* — divines now assume
that .Essay to be the rule and measure of thought
and language, even as in the thirteenth century the
Stagirite Metaphysics became the rule and measure of
thought and language to all orthodox schoolmen. But
there is this difference. Aristotle belongs merely to
the schools ; Locke connects the schools with the world.
He found a number of mystifications which doctors
were canonising. He courageously applied himself to
the. removal of them. The conscience of ordinary men
jsecognised him as their champion. He spoke to the
love of the simple and practical, in which bes the
strength of the English character. He asked men who
were -using phrases which they had inherited, and to
which they attached no meaning, to give an account of
them, and if they could not, to surrender them. It was
evident that he had an immense advantage over his

HIS AUTHORITY IN ENGLAND. 465
opponents, because he understood himself, and because
he had determined to be faithful to his own convictions.
He succeeded in persuading those who believed very
little, not to pretend to believe more than they did.
Who can doubt that this was a good and great service
to mankind? But it involved this consequence. If
men should chance hereafter to discover that some of
the principles held by their ancestors, had a substance
and meaning in them, however little that substance and
meaning might be represented in the dialect of the day,
there would be considerable difficulty in recovering
the possession. It would be supposed that the good
sense of a great man had settled the question for
ever, and those who knew little how it had been settled
or what there was to settle, would be just as zealous
in discountenancing and ridiculing any further investi
gation, as if they were bowing to a dictator, not accepting
help from one who had protested against dictation.
When any one ventures to say to an English audi
ence, that Eternity is not a mere negation of time, that
it denotes something real, substantial, before all time,
he is told at once that he is departing from the simple
intelligible meaning of words ; that he is introducing
novelties ; that he is talking abstractions. This language
is perfectly honest in the mouths of those who use it.
But they do not know where they learnt it. They did
not get it from peasants, or women, or children. They
did not get it from the Bible. They got it from Locke.
H H

466 EFFECTS OE IT.
And if I find that I cannot interpret the language and
thoughts of peasants, and women, and children, and
that I cannot interpret the plainest passages of the
Bible or the whole context of it, while I look through
the Locke spectacles, — I must cast them aside. I am
sure Locke would wish me to do so, for I believe he
was a thoroughly honest man, and one who desired
nothing less in the world, than that he should become
an oppressor to the spirits which he supposed he was
setting free.
Here then is one cause of our present state of feeling
respecting the question which I am now considering ;
here is a proof how much that state of feeling must
affect a multitude of subjects, besides that of everlasting
punishment. ' When the Scriptures speak of Eternity
' they must mean endlessness ; they can mean nothing
' else. To be sure they do mean something else, when
' they speak of God's eternity ; but we have only to put
' in also " without beginning " to that, and all is right.'
The divines who use such language, are supported by
those who most object to the conclusion which they
deduce from it. The old Unitarian cannot give up
Locke. The orthodox Dissenters have always supposed
that he must be right, because Churchmen disliked him
for his notions of government and toleration. Practical
men suspect that some German mysticism must be
near, when his decrees are disputed. And those who
have no dread of this mysticism, and who know that

ROMISH COMPREHENSIVENESS. 467
the explorers of other nations have passed beyond
the Hercules pillars, within which our navigators con
fine themselves, and have even affirmed the existence of
islands and continents where Locke supposed there was
nothing but ocean, yet ask ' what that has to do with
' old Hebrews like Paul or John ? of course they knew
' nothing about these islands and continents. The
' coarsest, most material view of things is most suitable
' to them.' Nearly all people therefore in this country,
who speak on such matters, are agreed that the words
of the Gospel, if they were taken strictly and fairly,
must have the hardest (I do not say the most awful,
for I believe the sense I contend for is much more
awful) meaning which has ever been given them. Only
the tens and hundreds of thousands who cannot speak,
dissent from that decision.
2. However hard and exclusive the Romish Church
may have been, — though the great complaint we make of
her is, that she excommunicates those who are members
of the body of Christ as much as she is, — it is impossible
not to see that she takes up a position which looks, at
least, much more comprehensive than that of the Pro
testant bodies. She assumes the Church to represent
mankind. The day before Good Friday, the Pope
blesses the universe. The sacrifice which she presents
day by day, is declared to be that sacrifice which was
made for the sins of the whole world. We believe that
the strongest witness we have to bear is, that the sacrifice

468 PROTESTANT EXCLUSIVENESS.
was made once for all ; that our acts do not complete it,
but are only possible because it is complete, that they
are grounded upon our right to present that continually
to the Father, with which He has declared Himself
well pleased. We ought, therefore, to assert the redemp
tion of mankind more distinctly than they do. But it
is clear that in practice we do not seem to the world to
do so, nor seem to ourselves to do so. The distinctive
ness, the individuality, of Protestantism is its strength,
as I have maintained before in these Essays. But close
to that strength is its greatest weakness, that which we
all feel, — which all, in some sort, confess, — which is
the root of our sectarianism — which is continually kept
abve by it; and yet, which is destroying the very
bodies that it has created. What is the consequence
to theology ? The religious men, the saved men, are
looked upon as the exceptions to a rule ; the world is
fallen, outcast, ruined ; a few Christians, about the signs
and tokens of whose Christianity each sect differs, have
been rescued from the ruin. I have had to speak in
ahnost every page of this book, respecting tbe habit of
mind to which this opinion appertains ; and to show
how it is at war with all the articles of the Christian
faith. I only wish to point out here, how it bears upon
the subject of everlasting salvation and damnation.
Damnation does not mean what its etymology would
lead us to suppose that it means, what it certainly did
mean to the Church in former days, amidst aU its per-

PERVERSION OF OUR LORD'S WORDS. 469
plexities and confusions. It* is not the loss of a mighty
gift which has been bestowed upon the race. Men are
not regarded as rejecting the counsel of God against them
selves. God is represented as the destroyer. Nay,
Divines go the length of asserting — even of taking it
for granted, — that our Lord Himself taught this lesson
to His disciples when He said, And I say unto you my
friends, Be not afraid of them which kill the body, and
after that, have no more that they can do; but I will fore
warn you whom ye shall fear: Fear him which, after he
hath killed, hath power to cast into hell, yea, I say unto
you, fear him. Are not five sparrows sold for two
farthings ? and not one of them is forgotten before God.
But even the very hairs of your head are all numbered.
Fear not, therefore; ye are of more value than many
sparrows. We are come to such a pass, as actually to
suppose that Christ tells those whom He calls His
friends, not to be afraid of the poor and feeble enemies
who can only kiU the body, but of that greater enemy
who can destroy their very selves, and that this enemy is
—not the devil, not the spirit who is going about seeking
whom he may devour, not him who was a murderer
from the beginning,— but that God who cares for the
sparrows ! They are to be afraid lest He who num
bers the hairs of their head should be plotting their
min ! Does not this interpretation, which has become so
familiar that one hears it without even a hint that there
is another, show us on the edge of what an abyss we are

470 - CRAVING FOR DEFINITENESS.
standing, how likely we are to confound the Father of
lights with the Spirit of darkness ?
While this temper of mind continues, it is absolutely
inevitable that we should not merely look upon the
immense majority of our fellow-creatures as doomed to
perdition, but that we should regard the Gospel as itself
pronouncing their doom. The message which, according
to this view of the case, Christ brings from Heaven to
earth is, ' Your Father has created multitudes whom He
' means to perish for ever and ever. By my agony
' and bloody sweat, by my cross and passion, I have
' induced Him in the case of an inconceivably small
' minority to forego that design.' Dare we state that
proposition to ourselves, dare we get up into a pulpit and
preach it ? But if we dare not, seeing it is a matter of
life and death, and there must be no trifling or equivoca
tion about it, let us distinctly tell ourselves what we do
mean, and if we find that a blasphemous thought has
mingled with our belief hitherto, let us confess that
thought to God, and ask Him to deliver us from it.
3. I cannot wonder that Divines, even those who
would shrink with horror from such a view of God's
character. and His Gospel as this, should crave for some
more distinct apprehensions, nay even statements respect
ing eternal punishment, than might perhaps be needful
in former days. It is quite clear, that the words which
go forth from our pulpits on the subject, have no effect at
all upon cultivated men of any class, except the effect of

. OPINIONS OF THE LAITY. 471
making them regard our other utterances with indif
ference and disbelief. They do not think that we put
faith in our own denunciations. They ask, how it is
possible for us to go about and enjoy life if we do ; how,
if we do, we can look out upon the world that is around
us and the world that has been, without cursing the day
on which we were bom ? They say that we pronounce
a general sentence, and then explain it away in each
particular case ; they say, that we believe that God
condemns the world generally, but that under cover of
certain phrases which may mean anything or nothing, we
can prove that, on the whole, He rather intends it good
than ill. They say, that we call upon them to praise
Him and give Him thanks, and that what we mean is,
that they are to testify emotions towards Him which they
do not feel, and which His character, as we represent it,
cannot inspire, in order to avert His wrath from them.
Cultivated men, I say, repeat these things to one another.
If we do not commonly hear them, it is because they
count it rude ever to tell us what they think. Poor men
say these same things in their own assemblies with
more breadth and honesty, not wishing us to be ignorant
of their opinions respecting us. And though these consi
derations, so far as they concern ourselves, may not move
us, how can we help being moved by their effect on those
who utter them ? If we believe that the words Eternal
Damnation or Death have a very terrible significance,
such as the Bible tells us they have, is it nothing that

472 THE EVANGELICAL ALLIANCE.
they should . be losing all their significance for our
countrymen? Is it nothing that they should seem to them
mere idle nursery-words that frighten children, but with
which men have nothing to do ? Is it nothing, that a
vague dream of bliss hereafter into which righteousness
and goodness do not enter, which has no relation to
God, should float before the minds of numbers, but
that it should have just as little power to awaken them
to any higher or better life, as the dread of the future has
to keep them from any evil ?
The members of the Evangelical Alliance perceive,
more or less clearly, that this is the state of things which
has increased and is increasing, among us. They hear-
of a vague Universalism being preached from some
pulpits in America and on the Continent. They think
that notion must encourage sinners to suppose that a
certain amount of punishment will be enough to clear
off their scores, and to procure them ultimate bliss.
' You are relaxing the strictness of your statements,'
they say, ' just when they need to be more stringent,
' because all moral obligations are becoming laxer,
' because people are evidently casting off their fear,
' without obtaining anything better in the place of it.'
Therefore they conclude that such freedom must be
checked. It cannot answer, they think, now, however
it may have answered heretofore, to leave any loop-hole
for doubt about the endless punishment of the wicked.
I have stated the arguments which I think may have

REAL FEARS OF MEN. 473
inclined worthy and excellent men to arrive at this con
clusion ; though I believe a more fatal one, one more
certain to undermine the truth which is in their hearts,
and which they are seeking to defend, cannot be
imagined. We do, it seems to me, need to have a more
distinct and awful idea of eternal death and eternal
punishment than we have. I use both words, Death
and Punishment, that I may not appear to shrink from
the sense which is contained in either. Punishment,
I believe, seems to most men less dreadful than death,
because they cannot separate it from a punisher, because
they believe, however faintly, that He who is punishing
them is a Father. The thought of His ceasing to
punish them, of His letting them alone, of His leaving
them to themselves, is the real, the unutterable horror.
A man may be living without God in the world, he may
be trembling at His Name, sometimes wishing that He did
not exist; and yet if you told him that he was going where
there would be no God, no one to watch over him, no
one to care for him, the news would be almost intole
rable. We do shrink from this ; all men, whatever
they may fancy, are more appalled at the thoughts of
being friendless, homeless, fatherless, than at any out
ward terrors you can threaten them with. I know well
how the conscience confuses this anticipation with that
of meeting God, with being brought face to face with
Him. The mixture of feelings adds infinitely to the
horror of them. There is a sense of wrath abiding on

474 HOW TO MEET THEM.
the spirit which has refused the yoke of love. This is
one part of the misery. There is a sense of loneliness
and atheism. This is another. And surely this, this
is the bottomless pit which men see before them, and to
which they feel that they are hurrying, when they have
led selfish lives, and are growing harder, and colder, and
darker, every hour. Can we not tell them that it is even
so, that this is the abyss of death, that second death, of
which all material images offer only the faintest picture?
Will not that show them more clearly what life is, the
risen life, the eternal life, that. which was with the
Father and has been manifested to us ? Will it not
enable us to say, ' This life is that for which God has
' created man, for which He has redeemed man in His
' Son, which He is sending His Spirit to work out in
' man ?' Will it not enable us to say, ' This eternal death
' is that from which God sent His Son to deliver men,
' from which He has delivered them ? If they fall into it,
' it is because they choose it, because they embrace it,
' because they resist a power which is always at work to
' save them from it.' By delivering such a message as
this to men, should we not be doing more to make them
aware how the revelation of God's righteousness for the
redemption of sinners is at the same time the revelation
of the wrath of God against all unrighteousness and
ungodliness ? Would not such a message show that a
Gospel of eternal love must bring out more clearly than
any mere law can, that state which is the resistance to it

EFFECTS OF THE OTHER METHOD. 475
and the contradiction of it ? But would not such a
message at the same time present itself to the conscience
of men not as an outrage on their experience, but as
the faithful interpreter of it, not as disproving every
thing that they have dreamed of the willingness of God
to save them, but as proving that He is willing and able
to save them to the very uttermost ?
Suppose instead of taking this method of asserting
the truth of all God's words, the most blessed and the
most tremendous, we reject the wisdom of our forefathers
and enact an article declaring that all are heretics and
deniers of the trath, who do not hold that Eternal means
endless, and that there cannot be a deliverance from
eternal punishment. What is the consequence ? Simply
this, I believe : the whole Gospel of God is set aside.
The state of eternal life and eternal death, is not
one we can refer only to the future, or that we can in
any wise identify with the future. Every man who
knows what it is to have been in a state of sin, knows
what it is to have been in a state of death. He cannot
connect that death with time ; he must say that Christ
has brought him out of the bonds of eternal death.
Throw that idea into the future and you deprive it oi
all its reality, of aU its power. I know what it means
all too well while you let me connect it with my present
and personal being, with the pangs of conscience which
I suffer now. It becomes a mere vague dream and
shadow to me, when you project it into a distant world.

476 THE QUESTION STATED.
And if you take from me the belief that God is always
righteous, always maintaining a fight with evil, always
seeking to bring His creatures out of it, you take every
thing from me, all hope now, all hope in the world to
come. Atonement, Redemption, Satisfaction, Regene
ration, become mere words to whicii there is no counter
part in reality.
I ask no one to pronounce, for I dare not pronounce
myself, what are the possibilities of resistance in a
human will to the loving will of God. There are times
when they seem to me — thinking of myself more than
of others — almost infinite. But I know that there is
something which must be infinite. I am obliged to
believe in an abyss of love which is deeper than the
abyss of death : I dare not lose faith in that love. I
sink into death, eternal death, if I do. I must feel that
this love is compassing the universe. More about it I
cannot know. But God knows. I leave myself and
all to Him.
It is of this faith that some are seeking to rob us.
Have we made up our minds to surrender it ? Have we
resolved that the belief in Endless Punishment shall be
not a tenet which any one is at liberty to hold, — as any
one is at liberty to hold the notion that the elements are
changed in the Lord's Supper, provided he does not force
the notion upon me, and will come with me to eat of a
feast which is beyond aU notions, — but the tenet of the
Church to which every other is subordinate; just as

OUR LORD'S METHOD. 477
Transubstantiation has become in the Romish Church
since it has been declared essential to all who partake of
the Eucharist ? Let us consider, not chiefly what we are
accepting, but what we are rejecting, before we tamely
submit to this new imposition.
There is one other consideration which I would impress
very earnestly upon my brethren — especially upon the
Clergy, before I conclude. The doctrine of endless
punishment is avowedly put forward as necessary for the
reprobates ofthe world, the publicans and harlots, though
perhaps religious men might dispense with it. Now, I
find in our Lord's discourses, that when He used such
words as these, ' Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how
shall ye escape the damnation of hell? ' He was speaking
to religious men, to doctors of the law ; but that when
He went among publicans and sinners, it was to preach
the Gospel of the Kingdom of God.
Does not this difference show that our minds are very
strangely at variance with His mind? Ought not the
discovery to make us think and to make us tremble ? I
am certain that we who are in continual contact with
eternal things do require to remind ourselves what
danger we are in of losing these things. Spiritual pride
is the essential nature of the Devil. To be in that,
is to be in the deepest hell. Oh ! how little are all
outward sensual abominations in comparison of this!
And surely to those who are sunk in those abominations,
no message will avail but that which He who knew

478 OUR METHODS.
what was in man delivered. Freedom to the captives,
opening of sight to them that are blind, a power near
them which is mightier than the power of the Devil, a
Father and a Son and a Spirit who are willing and able
to bring them out of darkness and the shadow of death —
this was the news which turned the circumcised and the
uncircumcised, the children of God's covenant, those who
were afar off, the corrupt men and women of the most
corrupt period in history, into saints and martyrs. We
deliberately proclaim that this method will not avail for
us ! What is this but saying that we have not faith in
that which the Apostle declares to be the power of God
unto salvation ; that we have substituted for it an earthly
and Tartarean machinery of our own ? May God pre
serve us from such apostasy ! May He teach us again
by mighty evidence that when we preach the name of
the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, we invade the
realm of Death and Eternal Night, and open the king
dom of Heaven !

THE ATHANASIAN CREED. 479

NOTE ON THE ATHANASIAN CREED.
Thebe are those who will say, ' Your explanation of the word Eternal
' in the New Testament may be the true one. It certainly accords
* with what we have been wont to think its peculiar characteristics,
' better than the one which iB given in popular sermons. It even seems
' to throw a light on a phrase which is very common in those sermons,
' the loss of the soul, which ought to have a spiritual sense, one would
' suppose, and which continually receives a very carnal and material
' one. And it is at least possible, that if Eternal punishment denotes
' in Scripture, Spiritual punishment, portions of its language which
' seem to contain threatenings of outward sufferings may, without
' losing their literal force, receive a new character by being referred to
' this leading principle. We can understand this ; we may be glad at
' least to try your method, and see whether the words of Apostles and
' Evangelists will bear the application of it. But can you accept it
' honestly ? Are you not tied by formularies which bind you to an-
' other maxim ? Must not these be thrown aside before you can freely
' and fairly give a force to the words Eternal or Everlasting Punish-
' ment, Fire, Death, or Damnation, which they do not convey to the ears
' and eyes of ordinary hearers and readers ?'
It will be perceived that I have already given _, partial answer to
this question. To the Articles one naturally turns for definitions of
words, for assertions of doctrines. In the Articles we find no definition
of the word Eternal or Everlasting. They are not merely silent on
the doctrine of everlasting punishment. The framers of them have
refused to pronounce upon it. But the Articles are only one part
of our formularies. We have Prayers which we are expected to use

480 THE ATHANASIAN CREED.
daily; we have Creeds which have descended to us from the early
ages — the ages of anathemas. What do these say ?
First as to the Prayers. It is assumed that I am teaching a meaning
of the word Eternal, which the ordinary person, the peasant or woman
cannot take in, which can only be understood by the most learned
theologian or metaphysician. I utterly deny the charge. I say that
I have been forced into the belief of an Eternal world or kingdom,
which is about us, in which we are living, which has nothing to do
with time, by prayers. These common prayers which I offer up with
peasants, and women, and children, have taught me that there is
an Eternal Life which is emphatically a present life, (not according to
a doctrine which I have listened to lately with astonishment, alike for
its logic and theology- — a future life begun in the present ;) and that this
Eternal Life consists in the knowledge of God; and that the loss of the
knowledge of God is the loss of it. And I Bay that simple people do
believe in this life, do grow in the perception of it as they pray, do cast
aside, as they pray, that other notion which is so plausible to the
senses and the carnal understandings, and which doctors find it so
hard to escape. Negatively then, the Prayers define nothing about
Eternity, for definition is not the office of prayer. Positively, they are
the great means of leading thousands into a practical apprehension of
that meaning of Eternity, which I have deduced from the New Testa
ment. But these prayers carry us further still. We have no prayers,
thank God ! for the dead as such ; how can we, when Christ says
that all live to God ? We have no masses for the dead. How can we?
The sacrifice is complete ; we cannot make it more perfect than it is.
But prayer does break down the barriers between the visible and in
visible world, and in prayer we cannot set it up again, however in our
theories we may. Christ's sacrifice compasses the whole universe; wu

THE ATHANASIAN CREED. 48l
cannot limit the extent of its operation by measures of space or time.
When we pray for r all rtien,' how dare we limit the Spirit who is
teaching us to pray, and affirm that we will not pray for any but those
who are in certain conditions with which we are acquainted ! When
we meet to hold communion with Him who has given Himself for the
world, how dare we declare for whom He shall or shall not present
His all-embracing sacrifice ! Are we wiser or more loving than He is ?
Do we wish better things for mankind than He does, from whom all
our good and loving thoughts proceed ?
Next as to the Creeds. The negative evidence for the Apostles' and
the Nicene — our daily popular Creeds — is decisive. They speak of a'
Judgment of quick and dead. They speak of Eternal Life. They
contain no sentence about future Punishment. But the positive evi
dence, from their effect on those who utter them, is stronger still. They
are expressions of Trust ; Trust in a Father, a Son, and a Spirit.
Augustine taught them to the Heathens in Africa, as witnesses that
there is a God of Infinite Charity, utterly unlike the gods whom they
worshipped. Our missionaries, I hope, use them for the same purpose.
All who say them with their hearts feel that they are flying to God from
their enemies^-Death, Hell, the Devil.
But the Athanasian Creed ? Does not that settle the question ? I
think it does. There, indeed, we find no more definition of Eternity
than we do in the other Creeds. But we do find sentences about
Punishment to which there is nothing corresponding elsewhere. They
are such sentences as I affirm could not have been introduced and
could not be repeated by any honest or Christian man, if the idea of
Eternal Life, as consisting in the knowledge of God, and of Eternal
Death, as consisting in the absence of that knowledge, were not prac
tically the idea of the old time as well as of our own ; however in
our formal writings we may deny it
I I

482 THE ATHANASIAN CREED.
Eleven years ago I expressed what were then my opinions on this
subject, in a book not addressed to Unitarians. I said that I could not
agree with Mr. Coleridge in thinking that this Creed contradicted the
Nicene, on the subject of the subordination of the Son to the Father ;
that, if it forced me to pronounce judgment on any person, I would
not have laid myself under the obligation of reading it, — whatever
Church might adopt it, — because I should be violating an express com
mand of Christ ; that I never had felt myself encouraged or tempted
by it to pass sentence on those who differed with me most on the sub
ject of the Trinity ; that, on the contrary, I had felt it was passing
sentence on my own tendencies ' to confound the Persons, and to divide
the Substance ; ' that these tendencies in me, I knew, had nothing to
do with intellectual formulas, but with moral corruptions, from which
many who are called heretics may be freer than I am ; that I doubted
whether we should gain in Truth or Charity by casting away this
Creed, because I looked upon it as a witness, that eternal life is the
knowledge of God, and that eternal death is Atheism, the being
without Him.* I have not seen any cause to alter these opinions. I
feel, indeed, that every year of fresh experience, as it should ground us
more in principles, should make us more diffident of our own judgment
on questions of expediency. Though the Creed, instead of tempting
us to condemn others, has, I think, often overcome our inclination to
condemn them — (for the more tremendouB its language, the less we can
dare to bring any individual within the scope of it), though some
sentences of it, those especially concerning ' the taking of the Manhood
into God, the reasonable soul and flesh, the personB, and substance,'
have thrown a clear broad light into dark passages of my mind, and I
doubt not, have taught my brethren more ; yet if it does cause any
of those for whom Christ died to stumble, if it hinders any from enter-
* ' Kingdom of Christ, or Hints to a Quaker,' vol. ii. p. 548.

THE ATHANASIAN CREED. 483
ing into the mystery of God's love, I hope He will not suffer us to
retain it. For that which is meant as a witness of Him, muBt be given
up, like the brazen serpent, if it ceases to be so, or is made an instru
ment of turning men's eyes from Him. Still I cannot help thinking
that the reasons generally urged for abandoning it are not charitable,
and that submission to them will not conduce to charity. I find persons
objecting, first, that the basis of our fellowship should not be laid in
Theology, in principles concerning the nature of God. Secondly, that
Eternal Punishment or Death may be denounced against those who
hold certain opinions on certain subjects, — probably on the subject of
the Trinity, — but should not be denounced against those who do not
think 'thus ' or ' thus' concerning it.
On the first proposition I have spoken much in these Essays, and
have endeavoured to show that any basis of fellowship, but a Theolo
gical one, — any basis of human consciousness, or of mere materialism, —
must be narrow and exclusive, one on which an edifice of superstition
will certainly be reared, one which must be protected by persecution.
On the second point I would observe, that if the Creed had meant that
the not holding certain intellectual notions concerning the Trinity in
volved the penalty of everlasting death, it would consign to destruction,
not heretics, — extreme or moderate, — but every peasant, every child,
nearly every woman in every congregation in which it is read, seeing that
these (thank God !) have formed no such intellectual conceptions, that
the majority are not capable of forming them. And the few persons
it would count worthy of eternal life, are a set of schoolmen, the best
of whom pray every day and hour that they may become as little
children, and have the faith which those have, who do not look upon
the subject from a logical point of view at all. Lastly, it would di
rectly contradict its own most solemn assertions. If we could compre-

484 THE ATHANASIAN CREED.
hend this truth in an intellectual statement, the Father would not be
jjacojuprehensible, the Son incomprehensible, the Holy Ghost incom
prehensible. But since there js'no alternative between this utterly
monstrous imagination, and that which supposes the Creed to affirm the
knowledge of God and eternal life to be the same; and therefore the
denial, — not in the letter, but in the spirit, — not intellectually and
putwardly, but morally and inwardly, — of the Father, Son, and Spirit,
to be eternal death, — I cannot help thinking that, with all its fierce
language, it has a gentler heart than some of those who get themselves
credit for Toleration, by wishing the Church well rid of it. They leave
us free to judge occasionally, to assume a portion of God's authority,
only protesting against any excessive intrusion into it. The Creed
obliges us to give sijph a meaning to eternal life, — or rather to adhere
so closely to our Lord's explanation of it, — that we have no ppwer of
saying, in any case, who has lost it, or incurred the state which is
opposite to it.
If I am asked whether the writer did not suppose that he had this
power, I answer ; When you tell me who the writer was, I may pos
sibly, though probably not even then, be able to make some guess
¦^-hether he supposed it or not. At present, I am quite in the dark
about him and his motives. If I adopt the theory, which is as reason
able as any other, that he lived in the time of the Vandal persecution,
I think it is very likely, that along with a much deepened conviction
pf the worth of the principle fer which he was suffering, he had alse a
mixture of earthly passion and fierceness, and that he was tempted
to shew his opponents, or those who were apostatising, that there
were more terrible penalties than those of scourging the back or cut
ting out the tengue. In that case, I should say I was giving up that
part of his anwms which he would wish me to give up ; that part

THE ATHANASIAN CREED. 485
which was not of God, and could not be meant to abide ; and was
clinging to that which made his other words true and consistent with
themselves, when I interpreted his Creed in conformity with our
Lord's sentence. I should not be imitating the treatment which
Mr. Ward (in his Ideal of the. Church) applied to our Articles, (Ihave.no
doubt he is one of those on whom Romanism has conferred a benefit
by making him at least respectful to the formularies by which he is
bound,) when he maintained that a non-natural sense might be put
on them, because the compilers of them meant to cheat Catholics, and
Catholics might pay them in their own coin. I should apply just the
opposite rule. If I found a general scope of meaning which was
important and precious, and which belenged te all times, I sheuld not
sacrifice that for the sake of a portion which belonged to the circum
stances and feelings of a particular time or a particular man. To use
Mr. Canning's celebrated simile, I should not follow the example of
those worshippers of the Sun, who chose the moment of an eclipse to
come fprth with their hymns and their symbels.
This rule is necessary, I suspect, that we may dc justice te the
Church cf the Fathers generally, and prpve our reverence for it. I
cannot honour that age too much, for its earnestness in asserting and
defending theological principles. I believe no other age has had
precisely the same task committed te it. Of course, I have most sym
pathy with those (like him to whom this Creed is erroneously attributed)
who fought at fearful odds for that which was dear to them, who ex
posed themselves to imperial, episcopal, and popular indignation, for
the sake of it. It is not only more pleasant to contemplate them than
the prosperous men, — and them in their adversity than when they were
threatening and excommunicating others ; but their weak time was
certainly the time in which all their chief work was done. Nevertheless,

486 THE ATHANASIAN CREED.
I cannet say that their anathemas were indications ofa cruel spirit, that
these did not show, like their endurance of persecution, how much they
were in earnest,* and how precieus the truths which they had realized
were te them; er that the distinctiens which were the excuses fcr them
were not very valuable for Theology and for Humanity. T here, I believe,
they were wiser than we are, unless we are wiUing to profit by their
wisdom. But there are points on which I know we ought tp be wiser
than they were. They ceuld npt fpresee how Ged wpuld gpvern His
werld, what metheds He weuld see fit te use fer bringing His truth
to light. We ought to see that doubts, questions, partial apprehensions,
denials of one principle for the sake of affirming another, have been;
through His gracious discipline, means of elucidating that which
would otherwise have been dark. Would the sentence of the Nicene
Council have sufficed to illustrate the faith of Athanasius ? Was not
a century of strife in the Empire, — three centuries of Arianism among
the Barbarians, — needful for that purpose ? And if I find this to be so,
and find also much horrible sin among the orthodox mixed with their
excellences, many virtues among the heretics mixed with their denials
and contradictions, I am bound to believe God was using both. I dare
not deny History any more than the Theological truth, which, I believe,
History has expounded. That truth will suffer if I do. How was the
noble heart of Dante crushed by the thought that his dear master, and
all the men whom he reverenced in the old world, were outcasts, for
not believing in the Trinity ! That thought evidently shpok his
faith in the Trinity. And it would shake mine, beeause it would lead
me to suppose, that Truth only became true when Christ appeared,
instead of being revealed by Him for all ages past and to come ; so
that, whoever walked in the light then, whoever walks in it now,
seeking glory and immortality, desirous to be true, has glimpses of it,
and will have the fruition of it, which is Life Eternal

THE ATHANASIAN CREED. 487
I have spoken of the possible animus of the writer of this Creed ;
but' I must repeat that I know nothing of him, and therefore my
guesses are good for very little. The animus imponentis concerns us,
as all casuists admit, much more ; and of that we have no right to pre
tend ignorance. Our Church has given us great helps for understanding
what her meaning is, and what spirit she wishes us to be of. So long
as I am commanded to repeat her prayers, no one shall compel me to
put a construction upon this formulary which contradicts them, and
makes me consciously false in the use of them. And I will add once
for all in reference to those who wish to bind us by the current and
floating opinions of this age, on the topics I have discussed in these
Essays ; I hold to that which I have confessed already ; I hold to the
prayers in which I find that confession made living and effectual for
me and for all my brethren. If you say my faith is not distinct
encugh, bring forth your substitute for it. Do not talk about a perfect
Atonement, or a divine Satisfaction, or an Eternal Death; these I
believe in as much as you can do. Put forth distinctly before your own
consciences, and before the conscience of England, the meaning which
you attach to these words. See whether what you intend is not either
that assertion of God's infinite Charity, which is contained in St. John's
express words, in the whole Bible, in our forms, or something so fla
grantly in contradiction with that, as to make the duty of rejecting it,
and protesting against it, one from which no Churchman and no man
ought to shrink.
THE END.

». CLAY, rHIKTEIl, I08D0».

A Second Edition, with a new Preface and other Addition/,
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