1 THE

DI VI FE SORROW;

A SERMON
¦ i !

PREACHED IN GEORGETOWN, MASS.,

;¦ *'- MARCH 1 8, 1860.

BT

CHARLES BEECHER.

¦ >
ANDOVEK: ;
PRINTED BY WARREN F. DRAPER.
•.I86 0.

THE

DIVINE SORROW:
A SEEM ON
PREACHED IN GEORGETOWN, MASS.,
- MARCH 18, 1860.

GHARLES BEECHER.

And this is life eternal, that they may know thee, the only true God, and Jesus
Christ whom thou hast sent. — John 17 : 3.

ANDOVER:
PRINTED BY WARREN F. DRAPER.
1860.

Dear Sir:
The undersigned, members of your Church and Society, being a part
of your audience on Sabbath afternoon last, and feeling the importance
of the subject then and there discussed, and desirous, in common with
many others, of examining more leisurely the points presented, and also
wishing to give to the public the opportunity to judge of your position,
respectfully request a copy of the sermon above referred to for publica
tion. Yours, affectionately, John Bagley,
Robert Boyes,
John P. Cokeb.
Georgetown, March 21, 1860.

Georgetown, March 26, 1860.
Gentlemen: Herewith I transmit to you a copy of the sermon refer
red to in your note, with such revision as I have considered needful to
fit it for the press. Respectfully yours, Charles Bef.cher.
Messrs. John Bagley,
Roeeet Boyes,
John P. Coker.

THE DIVINE SORROW.

JOHN 17: 3.

" And this is life eternal, that they might know thee, the only true God,
and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent."
As eternal life depends on knowing God, it is certain
that he can be known. We can know him in his intel
lect, because ours is a miniature likeness of his ; in his
will, because we exercise voluntary power over matter;
still more in his emotions, because our emotive nature
is modelled after his, and, except as perverted by sin,
corresponds to his, as strings of one harp to their coun
terparts in another. Hence it is written, " Every one
that loveth, is born of God and knoweth God ; he that
loveth not, knoweth not God, for God is love."1
The knowledge that we have of God through our
emotive likeness to him, is more reliable than that from
any other part of our nature. To our heart God speaks
as his interpreter. And as, to the wife, a sure knowl
edge of her. husband's heart is more important than of
his opinions or his mere will, so of God to us. In his
intelligence, and will, we may never be able fully to
find him out ; but in his heart we may know him, even
unto perfection.2
i 1 John 4 : 7, 8. » See John 17 : 21—23.

4 THE DIVINE SORROW.
It is in this view that I deprecate the axiom that God
cannot suffer, simply because it renders this part of the
divine character unintelligible, and the cross, its high
est expression, an enigma.
In ourselves, every feeling implies, when violated, a
degree of pain. On this principle language is founded.
"We know what love in another breast is, by feeling it
in our own ; and we know in the same way what aver
sion, or dislike is, and that these states of feeling are
in contrast. We know mental pleasure and displeas
ure, joy and sorrow, hope and fear, complacency and
anger, praise and blamed and that- these are contrasted
emotions. Now, if we say there is no such contrast in the emo
tions of God, — that with him pleasure and displeasure
are alike pleasing, joy and grief, praise and blame, alike
agreeable, — we render him unintelligible. This I ear
nestly deprecate, and make my appeal to the Bible.1
1. The Bible nowhere asserts the maxim, that God
cannot suffer. After the most careful and pains-tak
ing search, I can find nothing that seems to say this.
Neither is infinite happiness anywhere ascribed to him
in any such sense as fairly to exclude the principle of
contrasted emotion, to which I have referred. On the'
contrary, God everywhere uses the customary language-
of feeling, without a word of caution against interprets
ing it according to ordinary laws.2
i For a more full presentation of the scriptural argument on thi*
interesting subject, I would refer the reader to the "Concord of
Ages," Book II. pp. 87—204 — a discussion well worthy the prayer
ful study of every child of God.
2 Almost every argument against the idea of God's suffering I have
ever met with, has resorted to a fallacy. Thus, "If God suffers,
he is unhappy. But God is infinite ; therefore he is infinitely un-

THE DIVINE SORROW. 0
2. God freely uses the language of contrasted emo
tions, in the realm of the affections.
As to joyful affections, it is scarcely necessary to cite
examples; for those who deny the possibility of a divine
suffering, do so because they wish to cherish the idea of
an infinite and absolute happiness. They seem to
forget, however, that this very denial, if logically car
ried out, renders God's joy also unintelligible. For
what kind of joy is that which is not enhanced by the
presence of the desired object, nor diminished by its
absence ? That is a conception of joy quite impossible
to us ; and if God's infinite happiness be of that de
scription, it is but a splendid wintry aurora.
God is not wont to philosophize about himself in the
Bible. He does not chiefly use the third person. He
does not say, " Deity cannot do this," and " Deity can
not do that." There is no such cold word in the Bible
as Deity.1 That is a dry, scholastic word, out of which,
as out of a flower in a herbarium, all life and freshness
has been pressed.

happy; which is absurd." The fallacy is detected by simply
remarking, that though God suffers, he is not unhappy, not miserable.
All that we contend for is, that God is intelligible, and that as a man
may be, on the whole, happy, though suffering severely in some re
spects, so God may be God over all, blessed forever, though suffering
severely in some respects, viz., from the sins of his creatures.
Let it be carefully borne in mind, then, throughout the discussion,
that to be able to suffer, is not an imperfection, but a perfection ;
and that, while God's sufferings are real and great, the balance
of his experience is on the side of joy; because the majority of the
universe is on the side of holiness.
1 Of all the hundreds of times God is mentioned in the New Tes
tament, the nearest approach to it is in the use of " Godhead" three
times (once to beiov, once &e.<,T7)s, and once ^6ttjs).
1*

b THE DIVINE SORROW.
Our God, Emmanuel, indicates his feelings by living
among us, taking part in our affairs, and speaking our
language. He comes upon the stage as Redeemer of a
lost race. That is almost the first glimpse we get of him
in Eden, clothing our nakedness in fleecy robes, and say
ing, " The seed of the woman shall bruise the serpent's
head." J That is his first promise, and the key of all
history. In all those opening scenes, no one would ever
suspect from the narrative that God was above the law
of contrasted emotion. On the contrary, after Adam's
¦transgression, God says, " Behold, man is become as one
ef us, to know good and evil;"2 as though some princi
ple of contrast were fundamental to his own being.
When, subsequently, violence covers the earth, we
read, " It pained God, and grieved him at his heart to
witness such results of his creation of man on the
earth."8 And then the contrast of feeling showed itself
by the action : the believing family saved in the ark,
the ungodly overwhelmed.
Afterwards God made a covenant with Israel, and for
fifteen centuries employed that nation, as a type of the
spiritual Israel, revealing his feelings in his actual deal
ing with them.
Is Israel in bondage in Egypt? — We read, " God
heard their groaning ;" " God had respect unto them."
Unto Moses he says : " I have surely seen the afflic
tion of my people." " I know their sorrows."4 Are they
oppressed during the era of the judges? — We read,
" His soul was grieved for the misery of Israel."8 Do
great calamities befall them after the age of David ? 
'Gen. 3:15. 2<Gcn,3:22.
3 " Such," Dr. Beecher remarks, "is the import of the original,"
Gen. 6:6. — Concord of Ages, p. 140.
4 Second and third chapters of Exodus. 5 J«dg. 10: 16.

THE DIVINE SORROW. 7
Isaiah reminds them that " in all their affliction He was
afflicted."1 Are they carried away captive, appar
ently swallowed up, and tempted to feel as if God had
lost all concern for them ? — A prophet is sent to say,
" Whoso toucheth you, toucheth the apple of his eye."2
Still later, to the dispersion, Peter writes : " Cast all your
care on him, for he careth for you."3 And Paul affirms,
of the spiritual Israel, that we are " members of His
body, and of his flesh, and of his bones."
All this is the natural language of love. So a mother,
so a father feels. So a husband or wife. This seems
to be of the very nature of love ; so that we instinc
tively pronounce a person not so affected, unfeeling, and
it is ever a term of reproach. Why should it, then, be
thought an honor to God ?
By the same rule of language, God expresses joy in
the love of his people, especially in anticipation of their
final union to himself in glory. " The Lord thy God
will rejoice over thee with joy ; he will rest in his love ;
he will joy over thee with singing."4 " As the bride
groom rejoiceth over the bride, so shall thy God rejoice
over thee." 5 In the parable of the Prodigal Son, God
is represented at last as saying : " It is meet that we
should make merry and be glad, for this thy brother
was dead and is alive again."6 And in the Apocalypse,
God is pictured as the centre of the rejoicing universe,
under the form *now of a Husband rejoicing in his
bride, now of a Father rejoicing in his children, and
wiping away all tears ; now of a Creator making all
things new, and filling a resplendent universe with
floods of glory.
1 Is. 63 : 9. 3 1 Pet. 5:7. 6 Is. 62 : 5.
2 Zech. 2:8. » Zeph. 3:17. 6 Luke 15 : 32

8 THE DIVINE SORROW.
But if God's joy is real in the restored affections of
his people, his sorrow must have been real in their alien
ation. This is to us the nature of joy, the very essence
of affection. Accordingly, God freely uses all the lan
guage of sorrow, without seeming to think he compro
mises his dignity or majesty in the least. Does Israel
go aside to idolatry? — Then, under the form of a hus
band, God exclaims : " They have moved me." And
to what style of emotion ? " They have moved me to
jealousy ... a fire is kindled in mine anger that shall
burn to the lowest hell." l Love is jealous of the affec
tions of the beloved object. How could it be love if it
were not jealous ? Love cannot bear indifference even,
or coldness ; hence to Laodicea the Spirit says : " I
will spue thee out of my mouth ! " and why? ''Because
thou art lukewarm." 2 All this is the language of deep
emotion. By what authority shall we question its real
ity ? Where has God authorized such liberties to be
taken with his words ? Can anything be more painful
to true love than a pretended and hypocritical sem
blance of affection ? This from child to parent, or wife
to husband, is unendurable. But God says to Israel,
sunk in formalism, " Bring no more vain oblations ;
your appointed feasts my soul hateth ; they are a trou
ble unto me, I am weary to bear them." 3 "I hate, I
despise your feast days." 4 Let any one read the whole
of the sixteenth chapter of Ezekiel, ill its spiritual im
port, as directed against idolatry, and see, if it is possi
ble to resist the impression of deep suffering on the
part of God. Hear liim exclaim : " I will judge thee
as women that break wedlock, and shed blood, are
1 Deut. 32 : 21, 22. 8 Is. 1 : 13, 14.
2 Eev. 3: 16. " Amos 5 :' 21, 22.

THE DIVINE SORROW. 3
judged; and I will give thee blood in fury and in jeal
ousy." It will not do to say that these are figurative
expressions. It will not avail to tell us of Anthropopa-
thy.1 Figurative language is least of all unmeaning
language. If figures mean nothing, what becomes of
the doctrine of future retributions, which is chiefly
clothed in figurative language ? Besides, God does
not restrict himself to the figurative. Idolatry, he de
clares, is an " abomination." The ruin of his children,
he expressly states, is in no degree pleasing to him.
" Have I any pleasure at all that the wicked should die ?
As I live, saith the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the
death of the wicked."2
If God, foreseeing that pernicious maxim we are
opposing, had intended to give it his most unqualified
contradiction, I do- not see how, inhuman language, he
could have done it more forcibly.
3. But the same contrasted use of language is em
ployed in expressing the divine sense of justice.
Conscience, or a sense of justice, is one of the deepest
faculties of our nature. Without it, organized society
1 Anthropopathy, " the 'application of human passions to the Su.
preme Being." — Webster. The true rule of interpretation is, to sep
arate from our conception of the divine emotion whatever savors of
sin, or defect, or ignorance, or infirmity, but not the very idea of feel
ing itself. On this Dr. Knapp has a very pertinent remark:
" God, as he appears in the discourses of many modern teachers, is
mere metaphysical being, who, in all his intercourse with men, acts
in a manner wholly unlike what we witness among ourselves. How,
then, is it possible that we should feel love for, or confidence in
him ? . . . . On this subject the teacher of religion may learn
» useful lesson from that neglected book — the Bible. He will there
find nothing of this abstraction." — Knapp's Theology, Art. II. § 18,
Note. 'Ezekiel 18: 23, 32. 33: II.

10 THE DIVINE SORROW.
could not exist. To it, as the foundation of his eternal
kingdom, God constantly appeals. That it is essenti
ally the same in us as in God, is conceded, even by
some who deny any suffering of God from this source.
Now, injustice strikes, as it were, at the life of God, at
the foundations of his throne. Hence, when injustice
is punished, there is a sense of relief. Just penalty
inflicted, relieves a certain feeling excited by witness
ing injustice. And this painful feeling at the sight of
unpunished wrong God has, far beyond any degree
possible to us. Injustice is, in its own nature, painful
to him.2 His feeling towards it he expresses by such
1 Thus Professor Shedd truly observes : " A careful examination of
what we find in the workings of this part of the human constitution
will compel us to transfer in the same species to God what exists in
man in only a finite degree. In other words, the emotion of the
human conscience towards sin will be found to be the same in kind
with the emotion of God towards sin."
In another place he says : " This side of human nature is a part
of that 'image and likeness of God' after which man was originally
created  The moral reason and conscience are the intel
lectual media whereby, if we may so speak, man and his Maker are
put en rapport." — Bibliolheca Sacra, Oct. 1859, pp. 730 — 733.
5 I am aware that this is denied. Thus Professor Shedd affirms that
" God himself carries eternally, in his own blessed nature, a righteous
indignation against moral evil that is no source of disquietude to
him, because there is no evil in him.*' . . .
" On the contrary, the Deity is blessed in this displacency at that
which is vile and hateful. For pleasure is the coincidence between a
feeling and its correlated, object. It implies intrinsic congruity and
fitness" . . .
" When God hates what is hateful, and is angry at that which
merits wrath, the true nature and fitness of things is observed, and
that inward harmony which is the substance of mental happiness is
maintained." — Bib. Sac. 734 — 5.
But to us it seems that the divine justice calls only for purity.
That alone is correlated to it by " congruity and fitness of things."

THE DIVINE SORROW. 11
words as anger, wrath, indignation, resentment, fury,
fiery anger. Thus : " The Lord saw it, and it displeased
him that there was no judgment. Therefore he put on
garments of vengeance, and repaid fury to his adver
saries, recompense to his enemies."1
Now, excluding from our conceptions all elements of
sinful emotion, we have here the recoil of infinite
purity, truth, and justice from their opposite qualities,
with painful abhorrence. And if the full expression
of justice gives relief, so much the more does restraint
and forbearance imply pain. This is why God is said
to " endure with much long-suffering the vessels of
wrath fitted to destruction."2 Thus men are regarded
as " treasuring up wrath against the day of wrath ; " as
"filling up the cup of iniquity."
Mingled with these emotions of outraged justice, are
others of a more pathetic cast " If I am a Father,
where is mine honor ? " s is an exclamation containing
volumes of meaning. "Will a man rob God?"4 is
another. "Hear, O Heavens!" he exclaims, "and
give ear, O Earth ! I have nourished and brought up
Injustice is incongruous and unfit. Injustice is anomalous. There
fore, the sight of sin gives God pain, because his sense of congruity
and fitness of things has been violated by the occurrence of sin. It
is only by punishment that the sense of congruity and fitness of
things is restored, and the painful emotion assuaged.
All the language which Professor Shedd employs, in speaking about
satisfying this ethical feeling of the divine nature, implies this, if it
implies anything at all. If there is a state of feeling to be satisfied,
then, until it is satisfied ifis unsatisfied. And an unsatisfied feeling
is of the nature of pain. This is indicated by the element dis in such
words as displacent, displeasure, etc., as applied to God.
If there be no painful element in His experience, the dis is un
meaning, and the contrast falls away.
1 Is. 59 : 15—19. 8 Rom. 9 : 22. « Mal. 1:6. " Mal. 3 : 8.

12 THE DIVINE SORROW.
children, and they have rebelled against me I"1 Is
there, then, no mingling of painful emotions in the
divine bosom? Do not insult and ingratitude wound
as much as they offend Him ? Bead the 88th Psalm,
and answer the question on bended knee. Hear that
most touching of all complaints, God mournfully re
membering what might have been : " O that my people
had hearkened unto me ! " 2 " O that thou hadst heark
ened to my commandments, then had thy peace been
as a river!"8 "How shall I give thee up? How
shall I make thee as Admah?"4 Is not this- the lan
guage of a lively sense of justice, held back by a
deeply affectionate heart? Hear him expostulate:
" O do not this abominable thing that I hate ! " 5 By
what startling comparisons does he denote the offen-
siveness of sin : " Their mouth is an open sepulchre ;
the poison of asps is under tbeir tongue " ! ? Is the
stench of a charnel-house agreeable? — So offensive to
God was the persecuting spirit of those defenders of
pharisaic orthodoxy to whom this metaphor is applied ;
so deadly and venomous the habitual conversation of
an " accuser of the brethren." Habitual self-righteous
ness and pride engender anger, cruelty, revenge, and
fraud, even in the nominally devout. They uncon
sciously breathe out threatening and slaughter. In so
doing they grieve the Holy Spirit of God. And God
has nowhere defined grief to be a pleasurable emotion.
" Forty years long was I grieved with this generation." 7
He says of Israel : " How oft did .they provoke him in
the wilderness, and grieve him in the desert!"8 Is
'Is. 1:2. 3 Is. 48:18. 6 Jer. 44:4. ' Ps. 95:10, 11.
" Ps. 81 : 13. * Hos. 11:8. « Eom. 3 : 13.
8 Ps. 78 : 40 ; compare Neh. chap. 9, also Heb. chap, 3.

THE DIVINE SORROW. 13
not repentance itself an awakening of the soul to the
sinfulness of sin as against God, and afflictive to him,
saying, "Against thee, thee only have I sinned?"1 Is
it not the grand object of God throughout the Bible to
convince men that their sins do affect him painfully,
so that they may experience a disinterested, an unself
ish sorrow? — so that they may "look on Him whom
they have pierced, and mourn for Him?"2
And yet, how few, comparatively, in all ages, have
felt this ! How, while sin has abounded, has repent
ance been mean and meagre, scarce rising above the
grossness of slavish fear, or frantic remorse ! Sin has
risen like the tides of ocean. Sin has reigned, except
where special regenerating grace has interfered, with
unbroken sway. God looked down on the earth as if
to search for exceptions. " They are all gone aside;
they are altogether become filthy; they are corrupt;
there is none that doeth good, no,, not one Vs
The history of the antediluvian period may almost
be written in one word — Violence. " Every imagi
nation of the thoughts of their heart was only evil con
tinually."4 Consider, then, the weary length of ages
and dispensations through which God's pure mind has
endured this spectacle.
Hear him lament over Pharaoh : " In the day when
he went down to the grave, I caused a mourning!"
Hear him, tell the prophet to take up a lamentation
upon the King of Tyrus.5 Collect the various utter
ances of God in regard to the sorceries and sins of
Babylon and Assyria ; follow him in his thoughts of
*Ps. 51. *Zech. 12: 10. 8Ps. 14:1— 3. * Gen. 6:5.
5 And let any one read the whole 28th of Ezekiel, and mark the
feeling expressed. 2

14 THE DIVINE SORROW.
Elam, of Greece, and Rome ; follow his e"ye as it ex
plores the dark stream of human development, as it rolls
uncleanly through the middle ages ; reflect on the pres
ent leprosy of the nations, even those named Christian,
yet obstinately rebellious against the claims of Christ;
— combine the whole, and think what God must mean
when he says he endures it all, with much long-suffer
ing ! Pass onward, also, to those signal epochs of
divine disclosure, the harvest, the vintage, the treading
of the wine-press,1 and remember that it is by the very
magnitude of that vengeance, and its relief, that we
are to measure the intensity and volume of the preced
ing suffering. It is because sin has gone on ripening,
from one degree to another, under the gaze of those
pure eyes in whose glance scarce the heavens are
clean. It is because excuse, palliation, apology have
passed away. The essential iniquity of evil stands
confessed, in all its loathsome nakedness, so that now
the endurance of God need be taxed no longer. The
man of sin is adult, throned,2 and crowned. It needs
but that he be consumed. Long, long has God beheld
him, and kept silence.3 Or, if he has spoken, it has
only been to be misunderstood, despised, neglected. He
has caused suns to rise and to set, the seasons to know
their appointed round, and heaped countless favors on
prodigal and profligate nations. Men have abused the
whole, and rushed into wickedness, with a ferocious
and frantic avidity. They have rioted and revelled in
turpitude, filling the earth with fraud, oppression, su
perstition and bloodshed. The divine emotion of jus-

1 Read, in this light, Rev. chaps. 14 and 19.
8 2Thess. 2:4. » Ps. 50:21.

THE DIVINE SORROW. 15
tice is more and more acutely sensitive of the enormous
wrong. At length the hour arrives for the manifesta
tion of his righteous judgments. A trumpet sounds.
A vial is poured. It is done. Their smoke rises for
ever, and Heaven shouts, Alleluia! And is there no
reality in the divine emotion of relief, when justice is
executed, contrasted with the divine emotion of long-
suffering when it is not?
And yet the argument is not brought to its height
until we understand the true doctrine of the cross.
The sufferings of Christ are described by the same
kind of language with the sufferings of Jehovah, all
through the Bible. All through the preceding dispen
sations God endeavored to impress on hard-hearted men
that their sins grieved, afflicted, and offended him.
But they did not heed him. At last, he became flesh,
and let sin act itself out in putting him to death. As
sin to God's heart, so the nails to his flesh, the spear
to his side, the thorns to his brow. God did not take
flesh that he might be able to suffer, but that he might
show forth his sufferings. He had suffered, as his
plainest declarations show, ever since sin began, but
could not say it plainly enough to be believed. The
more he said it, the more Satan denied and men disbe
lieved it. So he assumed a body, and let sin do its
work upon him to the utmost, thinking, " And I, if I be
lifted up, will draw all men unto me." *
From that cross he could say to hard-hearted rebels,
whose attention nothing else could fix, " This is what
you are doing to me ! This is what sin, all sin, at all
times since sin began, has been to me. Your ingrati
tude has made my crown a crown of thorns. Your
1 John 12 : 32.

16 THE DIVINE SORROW.
hostility has pierced my hands and feet, and torn my
side. All that this poor broken body, on this tree of
ignominy, suffers, is but an outward emblem of what I,
Jehovah, your God, have suffered in my heart, my
honor, my rights, from your perfidy." Then the argu
ment is complete; then the true character of God
as affectionate, yet holy, as capable of joy and sor
row, as delicately susceptible to the good or evil be
havior of his children and subjects, is demonstrated
with an accumulation of evidence Eternity can never
gainsay nor forget.
A few objections and practical remarks, and I have
done. 1 . It is objected that this doctrine of the Divine suf
fering is a speculation.
But, from the appeal now made to the Bible, you will
perhaps sustain me in saying that the charge of specu
lation rests elsewhere — rests exclusively with those
who deny the doctrine. I appeal to the plain and ob
vious meaning of the Bible, as set forth in both literal
and figurative language. God is grieved to the heart.
He is troubled. He is moved. He is afflicted. He
endures with much long-suffering. He has no pleasure
at all in the death of sinners. In almost every form,
direct and indirect, painful emotions are expressed by
God, on almost every page of the Bible, by God the
Father, by the Word, by the Holy Ghost ; and nowhere
is there a caveat lodged, to warn us against taking the
language in its most obvious import. On what author
ity, then, is the doctrine denied? On the authority of
Scripture ? Not in the least. It is purely for specula
tive reasons; as, for instance, that it is inconsistent
with our notions of what is possible or proper for an

THE DIVINE SORROW. 17
infinite Being. Is not such reasoning eminently specu
lative ? Is it not one of those " oppositions of science,
falsely so called," against which the apostle warned
Timothy I1 Is it not part of that " philosophy and vain
deceit after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of
the world, and not after Christ," by which the church
was in danger of being "spoiled"?2 How strange,
that he who takes the testimony of God in the only
sense that could ever occur to a child, or to an unso
phisticated reader, should be accused of speculation !
and that those who do nothing but speculate, wresting
the Scripture at every step, should be the accusers !
To such a charge, I can only say, " The Lord judge
between me and thee." I will not appeal to man ; I
will not appeal to the public sentiment of the past, of
the present, or of any coming age ; — but I appeal to
God, in whose word and spirit alone I put my trust.
2. It is objected that this doctrine is degrading to
God. To this I answer, that it seems so, for the same rea
son that it seemed degrading to the Jews that their
Messiah should come out of Nazareth — be a man of
sorrows, hung on the cursed tree. They were carnal
in their views then ; the Christian Church is carnal in
her views now. Will anybody deny that the churches
are deeply corrupt and carnal? That denial would
only show a still deeper spiritual blindness, — a blind
ness incapable of distinguishing Antichrist from Christ,
Babylon from Jerusalem, the mystery of iniquity from
the mystery of God. For churches divided, disputing,
quarrelling, full of mammon, having a name to live, but
dead, unable to cope with infidelity, debauched by
l 1 Tim. 6 : 20. * Col. 2 : 10.
2*

18 THE DIVINE SORROW.
slavery, torn by intestine feuds, to deny being carnal,
is the very picture of Laodicean self-delusion.
Private Christians must, indeed, be humble ; but pub-
he corporations may be proud and overbearing. The
laity must be careful about lying and slander, but the
religious press may freely; admit both for the glory of
God. Obscure village saints and village pastors, nay,
even metropolitan bishops, must be careful not to speak
¦heresy ; yet, aside from their own selfish schemes of
denominational aggrandizement, none can be more
contemptuously indifferent to orthodoxy than the de
fenders of orthodoxy. To such churches the words of
•Christ should come like a thunderbolt : " Thou sayest
I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of
nothing ; and knowest not that thou art wretched, and
miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked."1
Now, it is because of this deeply carnal, self-indul
gent, worldly spirit, that the churches misjudge God, as
the Jews misjudged Christ. When Christ took the
twelve, and began to tell them of his fast-approaching
sufferings, they could not .beHeve him. It was hid from
them. They understood him not. So shocked was
Peter's carnal spirit, that he began to expostulate : " Be
it far from thee, O Lord." Yet Peter had but a short
time before confessed his Master's divinity, and Christ
had confessed Peter's piety, saying : " Blessed art thou,
Simon ; flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee,
.but my Father in heaven." Regenerate, then, and
taught of God though he was, in some things, yet so
carnal was Simon in other respects, that Christ, speak
ing more in sorrow than in anger, said : " Get thee be
hind me, Satan ; thou savorest not the things which be of
1 Rev. 3: 17.

THE DIVINE SORROW. 19
God, but the things which be of men." So good men
now, sanctified though they be in part, are yet so carnal,
so low in the scale, that when God tells them, in the
plainest words human language contains, that he suf
fers, that they reply : " Be it far from thee, O Lord."
To such a carnal estimate of the subject, as an am
bassador ot Christ, I would say: " Get thee behind me,
Satan, for thou savorest not the things which be of
God."1 3. It is objected that the inculcation of this doctrine
prevents the conversion of souls. I reply, it is the de
nial of this doctrine that prevents ; and I appeal to God
to decide whether the blood of souls be in my skirts, or
in thine, O unfaithful spouse of Christ ! proud, puffed
up, carnal, unwilling to be taught. I appeal to Him,
whose servant I am, to judge me and plead his own
cause, when his own professed people reject my mes
sage, and Him that sent me.
4. It is objected that, however specious the argument
may seem, it is waste breath, because the church has
settled the point. Impassibility is a cardinal tenet of
orthodoxy.2 To this I answer, not of orthodoxy in particular, but
of Unitarianism, Universalism, and Paganism as well.
1 Matt. 16 : 23 : compare 1 Cor. 3 : 1 — 3.
2 To my surprise, since the above was in type, the argument has
been superseded for an opposite reason. " There has been no such
general d< nial on the part of Christians of all emotional svffering on the
part of God." For Dr. Beecher to say so is " preposterous." — Con-
gregationalist, May 30. This is welcome news. To test its truth, let
ministers generally preach on the point as plainly as I have done, .
and see what the effect will be. Also, let the Congregationalisms
etatemi nt be endorsed by the Recorder, the N. Y. Observer, and other
vigilant guardians of a sterner orthodoxy.

20 THE DIVINE SORROW.
This doctrine is not a badge of election, but a spot of
infection. " Their spot is not the spot of his chil
dren." *
If the question be asked why the Evangelical system
has not had more power, and why Unitarianism has
continued to divide with it the dominion of New Eng
land, the answer is, that it denies in theory the suffer
ing of God as much as its rival. If it be demanded,
why it has had so much higher power than its antago
nist system, the reply is, that to popular ears it has
seemed to speak as if God suffered, which Unitarianism
could never do. But for this inconsistency, there would
be no great difference between the systems. Compel
the people strictly to believe, with Athanasius, that it is
impious to say even that " God the Word suffered in
the flesh ; " bind them fast to this Catholic negation ;
forbid their imagination to slide out inconsistently to a
warmer view, and you have made them practically
Unitarians. You have taught them to exclaim, with
Channing : " Thus the vaunted system goes out in
words. The Infinite victim proves to be a frail man,
and God's share in the sacrifice a mere fiction."
It has been because orthodoxy, by a happy inconsis
tency, has forgotten this tenet, and grown inspired to
sing, " Forbid it Lord that I should boast,
Save in the Death of Christ my God ! "
that she has retained superior power. The people have
somehow received the impression that broken-hearted
sinners might without impropriety cry —
1 Deut. 32 : 5.

THE DIVINE SORROW. 21
" Well might the sun in darkness hide,
And shut his glories in ;
When God, the mighty Maker, died
For man the creature's sin ! "
Nor have they supposed it was a violation of strict
dogmatic truth to say —
"Behold, fast streaming from the tree,
His all-atoning blood !
Is this the Infinite ? 'T is he !
My Saviour and my God ! "
Hundreds of such verses may be collected.
Would the power of these hymns be enhanced by
the scientific reflection that God cannot possibly suffer?
Would it not silence the whole glorious company ? Do
you say it is mere poetic license ? If so, if that license
be false, then it is awful; and such hymns should be
ruled out of our collections, as they have been, consist
ently, from those of Unitarians.
The same observation may be made respecting
orthodox preaching. Turn to those masters of pulpit
eloquence, the old English divines, and see what effect
the scientific erasure of God's sufferings would produce.
Says Jeremy Taylor : " What is the secret of the
mystery that the Eternal Son should take upon him
our nature, and die our death, and suffer for our sins ?
 He that did this is God ! " " We care for
no knowledge in the world but this," says the judicious
Hooker, " that man hath sinned, and God hath suf
fered." Similar expressions from Tillotson, Pearson,
Barrow, Wesley, Robert Hall, and others of equal
name, are abundant. And does not every one see that
their power depends on their strict truth ? Would not
a general suspicion in the popular mind that these

22 THE DIVINE SORROW.
appeals were mere rhetoric, and that in severe truth
God is absolutely impassive, be like the shield of
Medusa, on which whoso looked was turned to stone ?
Would not orthodoxy at once find its level, side by
side not merely with Unitarianism, brilliant but chilly,
but with Buddhism and Brahminism, with its deity of
Infinite Nothingness ?
5. Finally. To you, my hearers, who are consciously
living without God and without hope in the world, I
have a word to say. I know that it is hard to expect you
to believe me, when those you have been wont to regard
as God's people reject my doctrine, and treat it with
disrespect. I know how fatal the influence a mistaken
and partially sanctified church can exert over a populace
but too willing to be excused from conviction of sin. I
know what advantage Satan can take of the opposition
of some of God's people, whom I love in spite of their
mistakes, and how he can use them as stumbling-
blocks in your path. But I am not responsible. I
must preach the cross, and God in Christ on the cross,
dying in agony by your sin. I must preach the Bible,
which from one end to the other is full of God's mourn
ing and of his wrath, of his pity and of his indignation
''for your sins. I know not who will believe, or who
will not, I must speak the word of God as I find it. It
is as fire in my bones. It is in my very soul. Woe
is me if I preach not the gospel ! And no matter who
steps between us, to stop my voice, I must be faithful
to your soul. And I tell you, sinner, that the suffering
of God through your sin, is the beginning, middle, and
end of the whole plan of salvation. Without it the
gospel cannot be preached. Always, those who have
denied it, have had to contradict themselves, and in-

THE DIVINE SORROW. 23
vent a way to show a suffering God, before they
could preach any gospel at all. All the good they
have ever done, has been by that showing; all the
vastly greater good they might have done and did
not, has been lost by their speculative denial.
Sinner ! You cannot begin to know what sin is, if
you deny that sin is distressing to God. What you
call repentance, is nothing but natural fear, or hope of
reward, alike personal to yourself, and not disinter
ested. You can never have a strong and genuine element
of true repentance till you see and feel that your sins
inflict a real sorrow on the heart of God, as well as a
painful shock upon his sense of fitness and purity, of
which on the cross he gave public evidence and illus
tration. Therefore hear me, I beseech you, O, ye who
cast off fear and restrain prayer before God ! You have
both pained and insulted him. You have injured both
his feelings and his sense of justice. You are doing it
continually, especially when, Christ being set forth, you
do not repent, but deride. Yet though deeply grieved
and offended, God is patient with you. He suffers
long, he forbears, he holds you up, reasons with you,
strives, multiplying mercies, mingling chastisements ;
but you will not believe that you hurt him. You trifle
alike with his anger and his anguish; you despise
equally his vengeance and his grief. You provoke,
provoke, provoke his meekness and his majesty.
You grow worse by so doing. Your heart hardens.
You are more unreasonable, imperious, ungrateful.
You are more fickle, disingenuous, infected with the
leprosy of self-indulgence. You are ripening in sin.
You are filling up the cup of iniquity.

24 THE DIVINE SORROW.
Oh ! when that moment comes, that God can bear no
more ; when God's patience with you ends ; when
God, wearied at last, gives you up, and, not against
you only, but against all such as yon, reveals his
righteous judgment, — what will become of you ? Re
pentance will then be out of the question ; for repent
ance arises not from a sense of your sufferings, but of
God's sufferings. Noio God suffers. Then you will
suffer. Now you can see and feel God's sufferings,
which is repentance. Then you can see and feel only
your own, which is remorse and despair.
Now, then, while it is to-day, while you are shielded
and defended from anguish, I implore you, believe what
I tell you from the Lord ! Look at Him, the Ancient
of Days, whom you have pierced. Believe that your
sins do pierce your adorable God. Away with philoso
phy, speculation, science, falsely so called. Away with
orthodoxy, if it come in as an obstacle of your salva
tion ; yea, though an angel from heaven preach any
other gospel unto you, let it be accursed ; take the sim
ple fact spoken to you from every page of the Bible,
that your sins have grieved God to the heart, and let
that fill you with a true, filial, intelligent, and manly
contrition. Come to your better self, and fall at His
feet who only wishes a return of your spirit to its native
honor, its celestial loyalty, to replace the crown that
has fallen from your brow.
Then at length, when, truly knowing God as he
really is, you begin again to- live in him, no more to
die, will you hear him say :. " It was meet that we
should rejoice, for this my son was dead, but is alive
again, — was lost, but is found."

%

V

s