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18

THE INCARNATION.

SERMON
PREACHED AT THE
ORDINATION OF REV. CALVIN S. LOCKE
OVER THE
UNITARIAN CHUECH AND SOCIETY IN WEST DEDHAM,
Wednesday, December 6, 1854.

REV. OLIVER STEARNS,
MINISTER OP THE THIRD CHUKCH IN HINGHAM.

WITH THE CHARGE, RIGHT HAND OE EELLOWSHIP, AND
ADDRESS TO THE PEOPLE.

BOSTON:
CROSBY, NICHOLS, AND COMPANY,
ill Washington Street.
1855.

THE INCARNATION.

SERMON PREACHED at the
ORDINATION OF REV. CALVIN S. LOCKE
OVER THE
UNITARIAN CHURCH AND SOCIETY IN WEST DEDHAM,
Wednesday, December 6, 1854.

REV. OLIVER STEARNS,
MINISTER OF THE THIRD CHURCH IN HINGHAM.

WITH THE CHARGE, RIGfIT HAND OE EELLOWSHIP, AND
ADDRESS TO THE PEOPLE.

BOSTON:
CROSBY, NICHOLS, AND COMPANY,
ill Washington Street.
1855.

CAMBRIDGE:
METCALF AND COMPANT, PRINTERS TO THE UNIVERSITY.

SERMON.

EOR UNTO YOU IS BORN THIS DAY, IN THE CITY OP DAVID, A SAVIOUR,
WHICH IS CHRIST THE LORD. — Luke ii. 11.
The beautiful prayers and collects ofthe ancient Church,
in all this month of December, point to the Incarnation.
They very appropriately, as it seems to me, turn the
thoughts of believers to the moment which marks the be
ginning of the New Despensation, to the Saviour's birth,
to the shepherds watching their flocks by night on the
Judsean plains, to the angels choiring peace and good-will,
and to the mother bending with new-born interest and
inexpressible hope over the unconscious babe. He who-
took little children in his arms and blessed them, with
words which are his eternal benediction to childhood, him
self lay a little child in the manger at Bethlehem. In that
infant form was inclosed a spirit which should look through
the windows of sense as with the eyes of God upon the
life it came to exalt and the world it came to redeem, and
be the medium of disclosing in its full brightness the
Father's grace and truth. In that helpless babe lay wrap
ped the germ of a love which would infold the race of
men in its embrace, and devote its unabused body to the
bitter cross for their deliverance from sin. In the wailing
child trembled a voice whose articulate speech, the word
of God, would be echoed from the most distant ages of
future history, and from men's immortal destiny.
I shall attempt to speak of this Incarnation. And I ob-

serve, first, that the ministry of the Holy Spirit by this In-
carnation'commenced with Jesus's birth. The mother and
the child 'of Bethlehem have become the sacred images of
maternity and infancy throughout Christendom. As men
in rude times looked upon the picture with a simple faith,
albeit mingled with something like adoration, they felt
more the dignity of the maternal office, the worth of child
hood, and the sacredness of the mystery of a soul's birth
in a form of flesh. Wherever the history of redemption is
known, it has honored the maternal relation, that Mary
bore and nourished the infant Jesus, the Emanuel. It has
shed something of a holy radiance upon infancy, that the
Christ rested his head as a helpless babe upon a mother's
breast. It has made birth a more sacred event, that the
Son of God was born of woman. The superstition of
ignorant times gathering around his early history, and not
yet dispelled, has gone so far as to call Mary the mother
of God, to esteem her a divinity, and to address to her
petitions for her intercession.
" So mighty art thou, lady, and so great,
That he, who grace desireth, and comes not
To thee for aidance, fain would have desire,
Ely without wings,"
are words which Dante puts into the mouth of St. Ber
nard. In renouncing this, we do unwisely, if we throw
away, too, all the power of the peculiar circumstances
attending the advent of the Messiah to consecrate mater
nity and childhood in our associations. We need their
influence to hallow the advent of souls.
It seems to have been one of the functions of the Re
deemer to shed a new light, by his history from his birth
to his ascension, upon the origin, uses, relations, and end
of human life. All this was wrapped in darkness to most
of the world, when his earthly course began. \ Men were
sunk in brutality, notwithstanding all their artificial refine
ment, as they are now except as the Gospel has lifted them

out of it. They looked upon the child too often as but a
toy, a sweet plaything ; at best as but the heir of some
earthly riches or honor ; nay, very often, as only fit to be
the tool of a conqueror or the serf of a lord. The child
was too much regarded as born only of human parents to
an animal life. The soul was scarcely recognized as the
breath of God. Rarely could the mother anticipate any
thing exalted for her offspring. Rarely could the child, as
his consciousness unfolded, find a cheering or quicken
ing infiuence in the thoughts of his destiny. Human trial,
which Christ turns into an angelic ministry, was a blinding
mystery. Human life was degraded. Human relations
were dishonored. So they are" now where the supernatural
light has not beamed. * So they are now where Christ is
despised and rejected. It was one of his functions, in de
livering us from sin and the power of the senses, to rid
human life and its prominent stages and experiences from
trivial and debasing assocmtions:_\At Cana he owned the
divine bond of the wedded pair, by his presence and his
gift. Man's probation he hallowed by meeting and con
quering temptation at the threshold of full manhood. To
the mystery of human trial, his sorrows, revealing the
divine heart, and his own perfection, gave the only solu
tion. He consecrated human tears at the grave of Laza
rus. He hallowed human agony in Gethsemane. On the
cross he was crucified to the world, as we must be to pass
the gate of the divine kingdom ; and taught us to con
quer fear and false shame ; and showed us how the Father
lavished the divine wealth of mercy, while we were yet
sinners, to forestall the prodigal's return. I So I think the
miracle of his introduction into the world was designed in
part to give to the sceptical or grovelling minds of men
higher suggestions respecting all -human origin. It was,
perhaps, needed, to lift men's thoughts directly to the Crea
tor ; to teach that, as his unsullied soul was the direct cre
ation of the Divine Spirit, and thus fitted to be the instru
ment of the Divine Word, to express God, so all souls

are divine offspring, breathings of 'the effluent, spirit,
even if corrupted by descending through ancestral chan
nels ; that all are impressed with the Divine image,
however worn dim with the streams of human offence.
"the Beloved of the Father, born of woman, lying an
infant in the manger at Bethlehem, suggests a divine
origin for every soul, of whatever parentage. Through the
influence of the Divine mind and heart addressing hu
man minds and hearts, by the life and word of that holy
child Jesus, believers see the immortal destiny begun with
the advent of every spirit in an earthly body ; and kind
men and women pick up neglected boys and girls in the
filthy lanes of corrupt modern American cities as lost
kindred of the infant Jesus, that need to be taken to the
welcome and the holy nurture of a Christian home. The
Redeemer's salvation was to belt the globe, — and that
light in the East, followed by some true worshippers of
God and martyrs of the Crucified, has crossed the sky to
the Western dome ; and now, in a world which the wise
men never dreamed of, the little pauper immigrant, or the
ragged street runner, or the babe in a slave-cot, equally
with the infant cradled in ease and lapped in luxury, is to
jnany hearts a brother or sister of the Christ-child.
The Incarnation has consecrated human birth. Every
child springs from a divine lineage ; it is not only a son or
daughter of Adam, but of God. It has the impress of the
Father, which, however overlaid it may seem, can be re
newed and made distinct. It has the essential human
faculties, the one original constitution which makes a hu
man soul, by whatever peculiarities modified in the indi
vidual. This is a capacity to become the servant of the
Most High. This makes it a subject for Christian nurture
and for divine grace. This makes it capable of redemp
tion from the tendencies and forces hostile to its integrity.
The Christian child is born within the bosom of Christian
beliefs and sanctities. It comes to pass through some or all
stages of this life as preparatory to another. It comes to

take life's events and relations as a ministry of God. It
comes to meet tempters, to love, to rejoice, to weep, and
if it grow up a disciple ofthe Crucified, to take up the cross,
to conquer self, and to ascend at last into a higher being.
It is born to be instructed in God's providence, and
to grow in the knowledge of human and divine things.
It is born to teachers and guides refined by holiness,
schooled in the faith to hallow as they tempt forth its
soul, and to minister to it as unto an heir of salvation. VTt
is born to all which is symbolized by baptism. It comes
to be baptized into those influences of the effluent spirit,
which, as water flows in all countries, flow in the vicinity
of every soul. It comes to have its plastic nature bathed,
penetrated through religious education with that remould
ing and corrective life from God, which dwelt in Jesus,
which dwells in every society of redeemed souls ; and thus
to be led, reconciled and happy, to the bosom of its Fa
ther's love. This is the significance of human birth under
the Christian dispensation, and Christ's birth may teach
it still. The birth of a soul in the corporeal form and life,
amidst means of grace and religious opportunities, is the
prelude to the spirit's birth into an inward life of holiness.
It is the vestibule to the religious life, which is hid with
Christ in God. Yet it is only the portal ; it is not the
very birth in the spirit of holy principles and affections ;
that comes we know not how nor whence, except that it
must come from the fountain of original energy. We are
not to confound occasions with the Omnipresent Spirit
which works by them. Using [opportunities, we are yet not
to ascribe to human agencies that which is wrought by
the Divine power. Train the child in the nurture of the
Lord, but remember that its spirit cannot be redeemed
from the besetting presence of evil, and born to holiness,
without the inspiration ofthe Almighty breathing through
its nature ; and pray for that to work through your agency.

Christ's supernatural advent instructs us to look above
nature for the coming of spirit in nature, and to see God
in the spiritual as well as in the natural birth. The
holiest leadings and most blessed exercises of our souls,
intelligible in experience, are mysterious in their causation,
and we can rest only in the thought that all good desires
do proceed from the Central and Underived Being ; and
the ripe saint who has done most with opportunities, and
put to best uses nature and life, will bend with awe and
humility before an inward Redeemer, and say with Paul,
" By the grace of God I am what I am."
II. The course of our meditation has brought us to the
great fact of redemption, the birth of Christ in conscious
ness and the soul. There follows necessarily the regen
eration of humanity, the coming of Christ's spirit in soci
ety, in human laws, ideas, usages, and institutions. But
first in order is the birth of the Redeemer in the individual
soul. " Unto you is born a Saviour, who is Christ the
Lord." This Saviour must be in us, generating a life op
posed to the life of self. He must be the inward Lord and
Sovereign of our affections and desires.! As at Bethlehem
the Divine word came in a shape of flesh, and was man
ifest through infancy, childhood, and adult life, the Christ
who lay there a weak babe achieving a ministry which
has become the mightiest power to cleanse and deliver the
human race from its corruptions; so must that Divine
word come in us too, it may be at first in some faint de
sire after better things, in some resolution partially kept,
that with Divine help we will deny self, but growing to
the mastership over body and mind, until we live the lives
we live. in the flesh by faith in the Son of God, who loved
us and £ave himself for_usJLJ'This is the great fact of re
demption. This meets the deep, central, indestructible
want of the soul. As soon as it becomes tn some degree
conscious of its spiritual relations, the soul finds itself in
spiritual helplessness. The deepest religious experience is

9
marked at some time by a profound sense of deficiency.
The Divine will has not been done. The Divine law
utters its condemnation of us. Abuse has crept into our
being. A life of self lies hidden at its centre, as a power
of sin holding us at its mercy, and balking our better as
pirations. Natural inclinations, grown tyrannous, may
have intrenched themselves as hurtful passions and lusts
in our souls. The evil spirit of the world may have
passed into us. The evil spirit of those who lived before
us may reappear in us. The moment the holiness of God
and the Divine requirement shine in upon the soul in
full radiance, sin, seen to be a fearful tendency, is felt to
be our chief enemy, — our only danger and misery. How
it came we may not know. But its power is felt. It
seems to beset us behind and before. When this convic
tion of sinful tendency and spiritual weakness is wrought
in the soul, to be delivered from it is the greatest joy.
Human nature, arrived at this stage of the consciousness
of its relation to the spiritual order of the universe, craves
a more than human help. It wants more than human wis
dom, affection, or pity can do for it. It wants harmony with
its own highest law written upon itself. It wants recon
ciliation with offended holiness. It wants atonement be
tween itself and the spotless rectitude. *\ It wants express
tokens of interest in its struggle and destiny from the
spiritual realm. It wants a lifting up of its affections,
a revival and elevation of its hope, a sanctification of
its motives, all lending a new moral power to the
will, fit turns to consciehce7~an3 conscience cries, One
thing thou lackest. It turns to the natural creation : that is
beautiful ; but its beauty does not meet this deepest need ;
its order chills the spirit longing for Divine pity. That
order feeds and protects, but sometimes it famishesland
destroys. It is inexorable law. Wisdom and mercy, we
may come to trust as Christian believers, are its rule. But
to us in its natural aspect it is inexorable 'law. It goes
2

10
on with its ceaseless and mighty retributions. Its wheels
never turn out of the eternal ruts. It sheds bounty and
scatters flowers ; but it crushes us at last bodily in its fin
gers, as the moth perishes in the blaze of your evening
lighj^Jln his longing for approach to the Infinite, man
turns to nature's grandest displays of power. I wander by
the beach, and listen to the ocean's solemn and majestic
hymn, which it poured into the Indian's ear, and which now
periodically lulls the drudges of civilized cares into an obliv
ion ofthe artificial and conventional. The surges with their
everlasting roar do not tell of pity. Its gurgling, swallow
ing waters tell of destruction as much as of life. They do
not whisper of immortality, until Christ, dwelling in and
filling the soul's intuitions, lends a softer under-tone of
hope to its everlasting rhythm. Before this emblem of
power] man, bowed by the consciousness of weakness and
sin, if he could turn nowhere else, might stand in prayer,
in almost the cry of despair, " Speak, Almighty Power !
in some accents of compassion. Break through this dread
order, and say if thou lovest my soul. Declare thyself
mercy as well as law. Solve for me this mystery in
which I am encompassed. Tell me of forgiveness and
eternal life and help for my spiritual conflicts." And
that cry from the depths of the want like no other,
and of an anguish like no other, that of a weak and
wounded spirit, has been answered on the shores of the
Galilsean lake, by the voice which broke upon its storm,
the voice of the Father in him who walked upon its waves,
" It is I, be not afraid." I am with you always, the Pa
ternal Spirit, in and above the natural order, adjusting your
discipline, cognizant of your trials, and instantly present to
your prayer. The Almighty has broken through the natu
ral order to reveal the spiritual order. While we were yet
sinners, that cry of the soul's great want had been already
answered ; for Christ had been born and had fulfilled his
ministry ; his story had been written in light in the world's
history ; mercy had anticipated the crisis of the soul. It

11
was answered by the word incarnate! in Jesus, at Beth
lehem and Bethany, and at Olivet and Calvary. It is
answered now, by Christ born in the regenerated soul,
dwelling in the heart by faith, its purifier, its forgiver, its
Comforter, the life of its holiest affections, its assurer of
immortality, the indwelling pledge and fulness of the
Father's power and love.
III. As the fact of redemption first in order is Christ
spiritually united with the individual believer, so the fact
consequent upon it is Christ dwelling in many united in
him. The Word first has form in the single disciple, and
then it takes form in worship, laws, and social life. All
advance in the social spirit and condition of man is the
embodiment of Christ in social institutions and dealings)
the incarnation of the Divine Word in mankind. A perfect
Christian society or state would be the realization on earth
of one of the grandest thoughts of God.f It would announce
and show, as the soul of its operations, the law of regard
ing others' rights and interests equally with one's own ; and
as the genuine faith pervading it, that he is greatest who
is of most service. Such a state would be a temple in
which the citizen might gratefully worship, — a God's
house in which the child, as his powers unfolded, would
see the Divine attributes, not through a medium obscur
ing the Father's glory, but in Christ, its brightness shin
ing through windows opening at all points to heaven.
From the ascension till now, men have looked for a form
of social life, which should be the Shekinah assuring them
of marching under the leadership of Jehovah. And in
a time of universal ferment and undefined expectation
like ours, many share the impatience of the first disciples,
and ask if the Lord will now descend, and the reign of truth
and righteousness come with some decisive transforming
stroke upon the kingdoms of the world. And the answer
of Jesus has been ever, " Ask not of times, but watch for
the duties which the Spirit shall disclose, and do them in
their order, and power shall go with you." There is the

12
sole power for the social regeneration of man, in the Lord
Christ descending into upward-looking souls. I say not
that one civil constitution is asigood as another ; but evil
will creep in under any constituiion, if Christ be cast out
from those who under it constitute a state. Representa
tive legislatures and elective magistrates will not enact
and execute justice, if Christ be not in the heart of the
people. Liberty, equality, and fraternity, the watchwords
of the people, mean no good, out of Christ ; for liberty is
but animal passion at large, equality but the equal chance
of brutes in confused scramble, and fraternity but the as
sociation of robber bands. Christ renewing men reforms
society. The Church — the invisible Church — must keep
or deliver the State. Not that any formal union of Church
and State is expedient. But Church and State are always
vitally united, — the heart and arm of one organizing life ;
and the limb will wither as soon as it ceases to throb with
pulses thrown into its arteries from the centre of a vitality
replenished from God.
The call of the Gospel to each soul must ever be, Repent,
live anew, live to-day, with a new devotion of all thy being
to God, the same now as when the Baptizer sent it forth on
the breeze of the Jordan ; but there has been going on since
a regeneration of man, to which every one spiritually born
has contributed his strength. And yet to this regeneration
the perfect spirit-birth of all who live in any community or
time is not essential. Long before the evil which supports
a wrong is eradicated from every individual of a society,
that wrong will disappear, because a sufficient part will re
fuse longer to uphold it. How soon that sufficient number,
spiritually severed from the wrong, will exist, we know
not ; it is one of the times known only to the Father, but
which may always be hoped for. We know that when
life in a sufficient number is withdrawn from an evil doc
trine, custom, or institution, it must die. Those who
separate themselves from it, being on truth's side, have a
weight disproportioned to their numbers. Each is a

13
power working with and worked by God. They mould
opinion, feeling, taste, even where they do not change the
heart. This is moral civilisation. He who, begotten of
God, was born a Saviour into our human life, is its effi
cient cause ; the deliverer from evil, bruising in the most
vital part the serpent coiling around the form of humanity ._
IV. The incarnation of a Divine Word to communi
cate large measures of the Holy Spirit to the human fam
ily, was a demonstration of supernatural grace. It stands
in the centre of all the Divine Providence, and stands out
from it, supernatural in its method, and special in its
intent. It was costly to the Divine mind and heart. It
involved necessarily a sacrifice of the Mediator; and this
involved a sacrifice on the part of the Father, of whom he
was the voice and image. In the fact of that sacrifice re
sides the chief power to convince the world of sin, and to
prepare man's heart for the renewing contact of the Divine
Spirit. It was not substituted punishment. It was sacri
fice inevitably incident to a Divine mediatorship. It was
essential to God's expression of himself, to bringing on
earth the Gospel of truth and forgiveness. The per
son who should institute this redemption by a life on earth
must unite in himself, perfectly, the Divine and the human.
The Father must dwell in him ; how, we know not ; but
it is a rational conception that the Father should dwell in
him, so that he and the Father should be one in the im
pression made on man ; so that his word and act should
be his own, and yet should exactly express God, and as
fully as God can be expressed to finite apprehension. He
must also be truly human, in human form and with sus
ceptibility to human feeling. The Divine fulness in him
must make him, not more impassive, but more alive to
the proper impressions of things. It must be an inlet of
vast joy. It must be an inlet of vast suffering. This was
the fact. The marvel of the evangels is the blending in
him of the supernatural and the human with a perfection

14
of which the prototype must have been a real person ; and
which puts the question of the mythical origin of what is
peculiar to them almost out of the pale of argument ; for'
the conception of it seems impossible to any mind but
that which conceived it before the world was. A sinless
man, who, let me ask, would suffer from proximity to
human sin and collision with it, like him whose immacu
late nature reached into the depths of the indwelling
Father ? In the form of God, he could not jealously as
sert his Divine dignity, nor selfishly claim any exemption
from the stroke of evil; he must rather, as it were, empty
himself of divinity, that the suffering of a genuinely
Jmman condition might come injuoon him, j He wielded
a Divine power c ver nature and man ; yet at Cana he
would perform his first miracle with no alacrity, but with
reluctance, resisting a mother's importunity, unwilling to
hasten the hour when that mother with pierced soul
should stand in the shadow of the redeeming cross. And at
Bethany he wrought his last and greatest miracle, forecast
ing the hour it expedited, — wrought it in no elation of
mind, but in the spirit of sacrifice, and in such sadness of
soul that a few words of appeal to his affections and his
help caused him to groan and weep. The fulness of God in
him made more vast and deep his longing for holy, human
sympathy ; yet he stood at that grave of Lazarus in lonely
grandeur, too high for any but the Almighty to reach, and
too deep for any but infinite love to fathom ; and in his
conscious want of sympathy, there rushed in upon him a
feeling of the trials and darkness of man such as never
had come into any breaj3k_/He who should bring a re
deeming power down"to mankind, — who should become
man's hope, his object of contemplation, his standard of
truth, his leader for all generations, the trust of his weak
heart, and its uplifter to a forgiving God, — must be on the
one side a representative of human life victorious and
pure, and on the other the representative of God to men,

15
— Son of Man, and Son of God, a special and beautiful
creation. Through his celestial spirit and his divine in
sight he must be capable of unfathomable suffering, and
sink in Gethsemane under an agony which has amazed the
world with its mystery. Should God decree that incarna
tion ? Should God expose an immaculate soul, his be
loved Son, to the stroke of evil ?
The tone of the introduction of the Gospels, the tone of
amazing expectation, and of wonder at the Divine grace,
as if the destiny of our race hung upon that moment, is
a fit prelude to the sequel. " Unto you is born this day a
Saviour." It was a crisis in man's history. There was
need of a being who, under the forms of a human presence
and condition, should manifest God, — who should draw
men's minds to himself with a new veneration, and give
them higher thoughts of Divine pity and Divine purity.
There was need of interposition, as we express it. Not
that a point of time had arrived in history unforeseen by
Divine prescience, an emergency to be suddenly provided
for. Not that the order of the universe so far had failed, and
something originally forgotten must be appended as sup
plementary. The provision for the crisis was a part/of the
eternal order. It was the predestined complement'of the
creation up to that point. We may call the fulfilment of
this provision an interposition, to give it a proper relief on
the plane of Divine operations, to express the speciality of
the Divine purpose in adapting it to its place in the Divine
order. Why God chose to create a race with spiritual
faculties, yet to grope so long in a dim apprehension of
their objects, and at length to reveal those objects fully in
one person, — why He so slowly pushes this lamp of truth
into the dense pagan darkness, — is one of the secrets of
his incommunicable being. But the actual method of the
Divine procedure we see and know. It is unfolded in
the history of the world, which may be looked at as the
history of God's thought. That procedure and that thought

16
we think and speak of in human modes of conception
and in forms of human language. God has addressed,
in history, and especially in Christ, our human modes
of thinking and feeling, to convey to us some portion of
his thought and character which is otherwise incommuni
cable. And as we humanly apprehend the matter, there
was need of interposition, of a way in which Divine love
should make itself more felt in sinful human hearts, and of
a life adequate to represent Divine truth toman. That
love and that truth must be embodied in the purest person.
And that person must fall a victim to human cruelty.
For Divine truth could not be incarnated on the stage of
human action without coming into conflict with sin. That
conflict was indispensable, also, because the Divine mercy
or spirit of sacrifice in God, to be imaged to all thejgenera-
tions of men in that person's love, could find such expres
sion as the case needed only by meeting contumely and
death at the hands of the Spirit of Evil. Should such a
person be sent? Thus we may humanly represent the
matter as a question of the Divine mind to itself. And in
the eternal thought there was no other way of communica
tion between the wandering child and the Father's feeling.
This way God chose, because it alone satisfied his per
fection. Thus, we may say, Christ alone satisfied God's
hatred of sin, and his holy nature ; Christ alone expressed
the yearning of the Divine heart. God spared not his
beloved Son. This is a form of human speech and human
conception. But it states a fact in providence and history,
and a fact which is a standing revelation of something —
the spirit of sacrifice — in the Divine character, incommu
nicable in all other modes.
There was a crisis in the history of our race at Jesus's
birth. Man had not the sufficient, all-reconciling truth, and
he could not work his way to it alone. The " word made
flesh " was the demonstration of that truth ; Christ cruci
fied was the price of it. I see little danger of. exaggerat-

17
ing the world's debt to the Gospel as a medium of re
ligious truth. We can scarcely imagine that debt, fit is
very difficult to conceive of ourselves as so destitute in
this respect as were our ancestors in Britain and on the
continent of Europe at the introduction of Christianity
among them ; or, to take a different case, as destitute as
were the contemporaries of Tacitus and Cicero, in the
palmy period of Roman culture. flFTs^easief To "see "low
unworthy we are of this light of the world, than to show
what would be our-condition now without the Incarna
tion and its fruits.C I see no probability that natural and
moral science would have given us the essential truth.
Even if natural science could have taught the people the
unity of the creative power, it alone could not have taught
a spiritual Providence, nor made the beljef of immortality
an elevated and efficient conviction. And moral science
would not have kept pace with natural ; for it had not the
requisite facts. The natural world is a perfect embodi
ment of the laws of natural seience, and stimulates and
guides the faculties adapted to know them. But human
life was not an embodiment of the Divine truth. No life,
until Jesus lived and suffered, offered a perfect object to
man's spiritual faculties. ^In anclelur"liteTatuTe"lnerels no
recorded sentiment, no strain of conversation, whichwises to
the level of the Evangelist's doctrine of a spiritual Father, or
Paul's bold lyric announcement of the resurrection. Why
was it ? Because Christ embodied these truths in himself,
and brought them to man's spiritual perception. If that
accomplished Roman who in the midst of public affairs
found time for philosophy had sat with the band around
the paschaL board, and had asked, " Show us the Father,
— tell us whither thou goest," Christ could have answered
him only as he answered Philip and Thomas, " I am the
way," — " He that hath seen me hath seen the Father."
And if Cicero had communed with Jesus personally in his
ministry, had seen him suffer on the cross, and then had
3

18
pondered the words and deeds of that One, and by the
touch of that spiritual power his intuitional faculties had
been waked, a new object would have been presented to
his thought and love ; Christ would have stood forth to his
anointed vision a representation of Infinite Holiness and
Love ; and that new object would have shed on every rela
tion and act, and on the issues of things, a light for which
he longed. Conviction of sin would have crucified vanity.
Love would have widened into more than Roman patriot
ism. Humanity would have superseded glory. Loose
thoughts of providential powers would have concentrated
into the burning thought of God as a benign and holy
Father, and of himself as a child sustaining through love
and duty a relation to that Father, of which only eternity
could fulfil the obligations and hopes. Thus the mortal
gulf would have been spanned by a spiritual arch, and the
unseen Divine hand felt extended for him to grasp and
hold by as he walked through the shadow of death.
' It was not Jesus's speech only which taught man Divine
truth, not his outward miracles alone which proved it, not
his resurrection alone, but all together, all that he was.
The life and sacrifice which he wrought through a human
body lifted the Divine character and human destiny into the
world's view. They made this character, this destiny objec
tive, and thus informing and quickening to man. They still
do this. And it is the office ofthe Church and the ministry
to give prolonged effect to this mediation ; to repeat in ritual
and in speech this voice of Jesus out of the Divine heart,
beseeching the sinner to be reconciled to God. Therefore
neither mountain nor ocean, no aspect of nature, — no crys
tal palace or monumental pile, or victorious battle-field, or
eloquence in high debate at the organizing of a nation's
life, — no work, act, or art of man, — is the token of any
thing so grand and affecting as that of which the lowliest
Christian temple is the symbol.) It stands in the busy street
where men are hurrying to and fro on the errands of

19
human interest, amidst clustering homes where birth and
death come, and sin and change are felt, to remind them
of a God to be hoped in, and a mercy to he prayed and
hoped |or^There is no work which reaches to the height
and depth of the preacher's, — that of him who is an am
bassador to men in Christ's stead. \|_Such an ambassador
we ordain to-dayT) He is to be the tongue of the Incarna
tion, the medium Dy whom the Comforter will come and
bring earth's child and heaven's Father together. If he
have felt the proper power of the Word made flesh, that
power will go out on his word ; for the Son of God will be
with such preachers until time shall be no more. Let him
never attempt to reduce the Gospel to a mere result of the
operation of natural laws. Let him preach the super
natural grace? Let him preach Christ, with whom the Fa
ther was one.
And let' him preach, and let others reverently hear, of
the Christ who was not ashamed to call men his brethren.
Our subject suggests one or two thoughts of general ad
monition. Honor all men for Christ's sake. Honor man,
in however darkened or fallen a condition, for the sake of
him who being in the form of God came in the form and
condition of man. Honor every being who wears that
human form which Christ wore. Its glory may be eclipsed
by the brutalizing effect of sin ; its power of expression
may be unillumined, lost under a rayless and torpid spirit ;
its shape may be bowed by hardship and oppression ; but
honor it as human ; honor it as capable of being trans
formed by an awakened and redeemed soul ; honor it as of
the same human type with the ,body which Jesus glorified
with obedience and suffering, and through which he repre
sented the merciful Father to earth's child. It stamps its
possessor as human, as born with the germs of spiritual
capacity, as a subject for redeeming love. The Gospel is
the pledge of man's emancipation from legalized despo
tism and abuse, by showing that all who wear the human

20

form are brethren of the Mediator, the man Christ Jesus.
While some students of the Scriptures have sought to lend
to the doctrine of property in man the sanction of the super
natural Word, some students of Nature pretend to show
her stamp of chattelhood on the form of certain varieties or
races of the human family. Let the question come. But
remember, it is no question about varieties of race, neither
is it a question about the strict unity of human parentage.
It is a question about what is human. A brute we cannot
punish for human crimes. We cannot demand of him hu
man duties, nor pray for the forgiveness of sin for a chattel,
existing forthe will, profit, and servile pleasure of a human
owner. In spite of cavils, there is a human form. And
whoever wears it can be no subject of ownership ; he. is
capable of redemption and sanctification ; and correspond
ing to human duties he may demand unimpaired human
relations. Meanwhile, in the discussion, let the Church be
careful what doctrine she countenances. It is as great a
heresy to deny Christ's humanity and its consequences, as
to deny his Divinity and its consequences. The denial of
the first makes the last a nullity. It is putting the Son of
God on the slave-cross again. The mediatorship has two
parts. The redemption, the disenthralment, the elevation
of every variety and grade of human beings, is involved in
the just honor of God's dear Son.
Again, honor woman for Christ's sake, who was born of
woman, that you may be led to honor her fitly for her
own sake. Honor the maternal office. For the sake of
Mary, the mother of the Redeemer, let the mother's appeal
be eternally sacred to man. And ye, who are happy to
day in the joy of gratified affections, think of all the
domestic happiness you owe to Mary's Son. Repay the
obligation by seeking to honor, to elevate in real dignity,
your own sex. Keep your ear ever open to the wife's
and mother's wrongs. Besiege the sterner sex, beseech
Heaven for the reform or destruction of all laws, customs,

21
doctrines, tyrannies, oppressions, under whatever name, in
your own land or other lands, which dishonor sacred rela
tions, which despoil the mother of the best part of her
trust and joy. It is a wife's and mother's and sister's voice
which has sent its plea against the violation of the most
sacred rights into so many kindreds and tongues of hu- ,
manity. It was the remonstrance of woman's heart
against cruelties r heaped upon her sisters as well as upon
man. Honor to genius doubly consecrated by the spirit of
Mary's Son and by the spirit of Mary's maternity. Yes,
honor woman. But rebuke for those who dishonor her.
For him who denies her the best culture of her powers,
who contemns her peculiar offices, relations, and graces ;
for him who thinks woman made only for dalliance and a
toy ; for him who puts on airs, and hopes to atone for his
want of manliness by ridiculing his , sister's sisters ; for the
worldling whose heart, withered in the arid atmosphere of
policy and calculation, feels nothing for her wrongs, — the
Incarnation has no blessing. He is a shame to his race.
He is a living, walking insult to him who was born of
woman at Bethlehem.
Honor the child for the Christ-child's sake. Honor it by
Christian culture, by tempting forth its spirit to Christian
deeds and aspiration. Honor childhood in rags and igno
rance, for the jewel which the rough casket incloses. Honor
the neglected child, the child with perverse habits, the pro
fane little boy, the rude little girl ; respect their better na
ture, and teach them to respect it in their words and actions.
Finally, in these and all ways honor the Redeemer him
self. Honor him by professing him before men, and by
standing fast through every conflict in defence of his truth
and his divine principles. Honor him by laying down
your unbelief and sin at the foot of his cross of love. It is
not a human voice only that calls you to be reconciled to
God;, it is the Holy Spirit's voice, it is the call of the
Father through the Incarnate Word. See that ye despise
not him that speaketh.

CHARGE.
BY REV. DR. LAMSON, OF DEDHAM.

In performing the service assigned me on this afternoon of a
short winter's day, my brother, I feel that I must be brief. I shall
not ask you to accompany me through the whole circle of your du
ties and responsibilities as preacher and pastor. I have a right to
presume that they have been deeply meditated upon by you, and
that, as you stand at this altar to-day, to take on you the work of
the ministry here, the most earnest wish and prayer of your heart
is that you may be found faithful. ' It is a solemn season with
you, — a solemn event, — this beginning of the ministry. May
the God of all wisdom and peace guide and keep you to the end.
To the many grave precepts and counsels contained in St. Paul's
Epistles to Timothy and Titus, in their spirit still applicable, I need
barely refer. You will, I trust, from time to time, make them the
subject of thoughtful attention.
The relations of the ministry have become somewhat changed
of late years, and to discharge its duties acceptably, and meet the
exigencies of the times, requires wisdom and a devoted heart.
The latter will do much, though not everything. It is indispen
sable, however, to an effective ministry. I would say to you, then,
in the first place, Give your whole soul to your work ! Devote
yourself to it heart and hand. Give to it your best thoughts, your
diligence, your prayers. Let your ministry be an earnest one.
This, its great end and the spirit of the age alike exact. A min
istry that is not earnest must be a feeble ministry. See, then, that
you enter on your work with a full heart, in singleness of purpose,
and a deep love of souls. Propose to yourself a high aim ; cherish

23
an exalted conception of the nature of the trust committed to you
as a Christian minister,- and resolve to discharge it in all honesty
and truthfulness, with affectionateness and zeal, and in an untiring
spirit. In your words and acts, in all you do, let there be life,
spirit, energy, power. Be fervent. Feel the greatness of your
work, the worth of souls, and the transcendent value of Christ's
Gospel of reconciliation, and be true to yourself, and the blessing
of Heaven will be with you.
The times demand much of the pulpit, and he that would have
a successful ministry must not think lightly of a preparation for
its duties. His sermons must give evidence of thought and care.
He must put life and substance, muscle and sinew, into them. His
great work, that which most tasks his faculties, surely, is in the
pulpit. The " pulpit is his throne." There he must make his
power felt, or it will not long be felt anywhere. From that he
must send the arrow home to the conscience of his hearers ; from
that mould the convictions and sway the hearts of the people.
Whatever be the merits of a minister in other respects, no congrega
tion, in these days certainly, will long remain satisfied, if the pul
pit fail of its duty. People will overlook or excuse anything, al
most, sooner than " stale, flat, and unprofitable " sermons, or mere
frothy harangues. A man may be assiduous elsewhere, may be
open, free, sympathizing, and conscientious, but if he give chaff
for wheat in the pulpit, he will himself soon be driven away as
chaff before the wind.
I do not allude to the unfaithfulness or unskilfulness of the pul
pit as though it were a crying sin of our times. The only matter
of surprise is, that, with all the demands which, in this age and
country, are made on the minister from without, — the amount of
which no one but himself knows, — he can from week to week
take into the pulpit sermons containing so much evidence of
power, so much freshness of thought, and so much variety. But
remarks are sometimes heard, to which a young man should be
cautious in listening, intimating that, if a preacher perform well
certain other duties, the people will pardon some feebleness, or
want of careful preparation, in his pulpit ministrations. It may be
so for a time ; but the experiment is, always hazardous, and in the
end usually fails. Look at the cases of a short or unsuccessful

24
ministry. You will find, after all, that the objections, not in all
instances, but most frequently, urged or felt, are want of life, in
terest, power, wisdom, or soundness in the pulpit. It is defective,
bad, or unedifying preaching.
I would not be understood to say, that I think the views enter
tained of preaching, at least often practically acted upon, at the
present day, in all respects sound and just. Too many come to
church, not to worship, but to listen to splendid oratory; and they
go away to criticize, admire, or condemn, much as they would
from the lecture-room, the theatre, or any place of professed en
tertainment. This error we would see corrected. I would have
it felt, that the church is a place of worship, — a place to be vis
ited in a religious spirit, and for a religious end, and not for the
sake of an intellectual feast. The want of this spirit it is which
often lays a heavy burden on the preacher, and causes him to en
ter his pulpit wifh a sinking heart. Strive, then, to make your peo
ple religious, in the strict sense of the term. Encourage in them
right views of the office of the church and pulpit, and endeavor, by
" sound speech that cannot be condemned," to produce in them
Christian seriousness. Accomplish this, and though your task of
preparation for the pulpit will still be no light one, though it will
require meditation, thought, study, as well as an earnest and right
spirit, your deadliest foe will have been vanquished.
The selection of topics to be treated in the discourses of Sunday
may well be supposed to be attended with some embarrassment in
these times. I would not have the pulpit polemic. Its main busi
ness is with personal religion, with sin and holiness. Yet there are
questions from time to time coming up in the theological world,
on which the preacher, if he is faithful, must have something to
say. Some reference to them, direct or indirect, can hardly be
avoided. We build on the " foundation of the Apostles and Proph
ets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner-stone." He
will, therefore, occupy a prominent place in all Christian preach-
ingi.as the Christ both of history and of consciousness. You will
preach Christ crucified and risen, the Sent of God, the Saviour of
souls. The Christian rites, in their emblematic significance and
hallowed uses, you will urge on the attention, and endeavor to put
life into them.

25
In reference to the reformatory movements and great agitating
questions of the day, the pulpit most certainly has a duty to per
form, and a very solemn, one too, and in some respects difficult.
Whatever course it pursues, it cannot hope to escape censure.
One and another has his pet idea, or pet reform or measure, and
he is dissatisfied, and thinks the pulpit false to its trust, — perhaps
pronounces it cowardly, if it do not from Sunday to Sunday, year
in and year out, make that its great, absorbing theme. In regard
to the introduction of topics of the kind referred to, I know of
but one rule to be given, and that is, the occupant of the pulpit
must act conscientiously, according to the best light he has or can
obtain. He cannot be dictated to ; he cannot surrender his inde
pendence ; yet he may be expected to avoid rashness, one-sided-
ness, and extravagance, remembering that the Gospel is not a spirit
of " power " merely, but also of " wisdom and a sound mind," and
he is to discern things that differ. He will not assume a defiant
tone ; nor say provoking things simply to show his daring. He
will speak the truth in love, not in temper, passion, or wrath.
There are proprieties of the pulpit, a calm dignity, a tenderness
and delicacy, a respect for common rights and feelings, which
he will not deem it a part of Christian fidelity to discard. After
all, more depends on manner, language, and tone, than on matter
and thought. It is not so much what is said that irritates, as how
it is safd. There are few, if any, topics on which the occupant of
the pulpit may not freely speak, if he observe due modesty, and
do not lose his temper ; if he allow others their rights ; if he do
not dogmatize, adopt an arrogant, overbearing tone, nor resort to
abusive epithets or bitter sarcasm, — always out of place in the
pulpit. Few congregations will feel any desire to limit his free
dom, or control his independence, as long as he makes it evident
that the meek, loving spirit of the Saviour rests upon him, and
breathes in all his thoughts, words, and acts. His people will en
courage and wish him to use this freedom ; and will cease to re
spect him if he do not. I doubt whether there is any- disposition
in any large number to restrain the reasonable exercise of liberty
in the pulpit. The pulpit is not impeccable ; and if there is' fault,
it may be sometimes there, — not always in the pews.
I say, then, in conclusion of this part of my charge, — in select.
4

26
ing topics of discourse, and in treating them, use your own judg
ment ; act independently, but always in a spirit of Christian kind
ness, and with due consideration of others' rights and feelings,
avoiding needless offence. Be honest, be candid, be upright;
utter your own sentiments with frankness, not timidly, but in
" meekness of wisdom " ; and from what I know of this people, I
can assure you of their love and respect, and a disposition to allow
you all the freedom you can desire.
The pulpit has great duties to perform, disconnected with the
exciting topics of the day. Counsel, reproof, encouragement, con
solation, — the preaching of Christ, the unfolding of the great,
spiritual truths of his Gospel, and their application to conscience, —
the momentous retribution of sin and holiness, — repentance, for
giveness, death, judgment, — here are exhaustless themes, no one
of which is to be neglected, but each one is to be treated with a
frequency and earnestness proportioned to its importance. So
Christian faithfulness demands.
I have left myself time but barely to allude to pastoral duties.
During the ministry of your predecessor they were discharged in
this place with great fidelity, and you will be expected not to neg
lect them. Visit, encourage, and console. Let your counsels and
prayers in the house of mourning, and by the bedside of the dying,
be felt to be a blessing. Neglect no legitimate mode of influence.
Give special attention to the young. You can benefit them as you
cannot benefit others whose characters are fixed and stereotyped.
Be in the midst of them, and, if you can, acquire their confidence,
their love ; and lead them to Jesus, that through him they may be
led up to the Father, and they shall be your joy and crown in the
great day of account.
Be not easily discouraged ; but proceed on your way with a
strong and resolute heart, and leave the result to Providence.
And may the God of all power and might, all wisdom and love,
go with you, my brother, enlighten you by his spirit, guide you in
perplexity, sustain you in your trials, and crown your ministry
with his blessing.

RIGHT HAND OF FELLOWSHIP.

My Friend and Brother, — Institutions, as you are aware,
sometimes outlast their day, and outlive their meaning. Many
forms which at first had a right to be, because they had a soul in
them, lose the soul, but do not go out of sight as forms till long
after their spirit has fled.
A form comes into use at first as the, expression of a thought, —
the embodiment of some idea. But the thought expands to some
thing better, or shrinks to something poorer; and still the form,
often lives on its formal life, in shape, and size, and external
seeming, unchanged. No, it cannot be said to live on, — it is
embalmed rather, and preserved as a dead form. And it is usual
ly difficult to get rid of a dead form, and bury it, when men have
done with it. The tendency is to keep it after life has gone out of
it, rather than to lay it by while life remains in it. To drop any
form which we have been accustomed to, is to confess that its life
has departed, and nobody, perhaps, likes to be the one to take the
responsibility of making that confession. When the spirit declines
and dies away from any form, it is a change which goes on so
gradually and secretly, that it does not excite observation. But it
is a change which all remark when the form itself is taken down
from its usual place, and put away from sight. For the most part,
men like to believe as long as they can, that the spirit is not gone
from any time-honored and cherished form, or that, if gone, it will
come back again ; and so they keep the house, that the tenant
may find it again when he wants it. They continue to repeat the
good word which has long been in use, and which once had a
meaning, that it may be ready for a meaning to inhabit again,
should there fortunately come a meaning by and by to fit it, and
claim it.

28

You do not see whereto all this tends, my friend ? Perhaps it
tends no whither. Perhaps it makes no proper part of these ser
vices. The way it came in was this. When I found myself
nominated to offer you the " Fellowship of the Churches " on
the . occasion of your ordination, I asked myself, as I think was
not unnatural, whether I could offer you that ; whether anybody
could ; whether fellowship was a thing that one could give or
promise to another. I could see well enough how the sign of
fellowship might be introduced here. I could see how we —
these ministers here, and delegates from the churches — could
agree to act as if we had fellowship with you; that we might.
promise to conduct towards you, exteriorly, as fellow-Christians
should conduct towards one another ; that we might mutually
pledge ourselves to the interchange of ministerial courtesies and
Christian offices. But the essence of fellowship is not in an act,
or in any series of acts. Outside behavior cannot include it. It
will reside in no arrangement which we of this council, on the one
part, and you, on the other, may consent to enter into. It was not
singular, then, that one who was to meet you to-day with the as
surance of the " fellowship of the churches," should ask himself
wjiat he would mean, when he should come to this office, — when
he should rise to tell you that you had such fellowship, and should
hold out the hand of welcome. He inquired of himself, What
would the sign signify ? A welcome to what ? And the inquiry
compelled him to see that this rite, this giving the hand of fellow
ship, is one of those forms which has lost in great measure its
original significance. You will mind that I do not say a rite which
has lost significance, but one which has lost the peculiar signifi
cance which it had at first.
The fellowship of the churches is, with us, pretty much a thing
of the past. The independence of the churches has been carried
to such an extreme, that it has come to be little short of the isola
tion of the churches. Nor is this surprising, when individualism
has been carried so far within each fold, that fellowship sometimes
exists only in name, even among those persons who constitute one
church. The time was, and not far back, when the independency
of the Congregational churches of New England did not prevent
their being banded together in close relationship. If this fellow-

29
ship consisted something too much in external forms, it was real of
its kind ; it did not profess to make little account of the external ;
it expressed what it was meant to ; as a form, it was kept up with
a spirit and vigor which proved that, to those who employed it, it
was not altogether formal. When no church settled or unsettled
a minister without calling in advisers from the neighboring
churches ; when every dissension arising within a church led to the
summoning of numerous counsellors from among the pastors and
brethren of the churches round about to hear and advise the matter ;
when every drought and flood, every fire and epidemic, every ex
traordinary calamity and unaccountable phenomenon in nature,
were made the occasion of local fasts, in the improvement of which
several of the nearest pastors were expected to lend their assist
ance, by taking part in the appointed solemnities ; when, often, a
church without a pastor elected the pastor of some bordering
church to be its ^presiding officer, and to aid in all its deliberations
and acts, — then it meant something, when an accredited member
of an ordaining council stood up before an anxious and inex
perienced young man, just assuming a pastoral charge, and
pledged to him the support, confidence, and sympathy of his min
istering brethren around, and of the churches of his vicinity.
Though Congregationalism vindicated the right of every church
to choose and ordain its own teacher in its own way, it was prac
tically found by the candidate as necessary that he should be ac
cepted and approved by the Church general, as by that particular
church to which he was specially to minister. Until he was passed
upon and recognized by the great body of Christians as sound in
doctrine and well furnished for his ministry, his own flock might
hold it an unsettled question whether he were wolf to be dreaded,
or shepherd to be followed.
But though circumstances are somewhat changed with us, my
brother, and our ecclesiastical forms and organizations seem to
indicate less denominational coherence and less co-operation and
interaction among our religious bodies and among individual
Christians than once were known, it is far from certain that there
is any less true fellowship. Never was this rite, representative of
Christian fellowship, more appropriate than now. Fellowship is
not in modes of intercourse. It is not something which we will to

30
have, and therefore have it. The will cannot enact it. One can
not promise another that he will have fellowship with him. It
depends upon whether he can. The two cannot decide that it
shall be between them, and thereupon a real fellowship springs up
according to their plan. It depends upon whether the conditions,
on which alone it can be, are found in them. I can give no
pledge that, for the future, there1 shall be fellowship between you
and these ministers and their churches. It may not be possible.
But I can remind you, — (and that is what I am here for, — nothing
else, — and indeed there is great encouragement and cheer for you
in that,) — I can remind you that you do have fellowship, and
necessarily must, with all between whom and you there is unity
of purpose and motive, affection and meaning. So far as moral
and spiritual affinities lay a foundation for it, or make it possible,
it is, it must be. We cannot arrange a fellowship,' but we can
declare that it is already just so far as there is a common life and
love and worship, and loyalty for it to grow out of; and except as
there is such a basis for it, we must declare it to be wanting, not
withstanding any show of it there may be. You and I may grasp
hands here, but there is not necessarily any fellowship in that.
We may not have a single fellow-feeling to bridge the space be
tween our minds and souls, and, so long as we have not that, the
clasped hands are nothing. Our souls will never flow together
through our arms and joined hands. There must be concurrent
affections, assimilated spiritual moods, coincident religious ex
periences, community of moral aim and purpose, to enable us to
go over, the one to the other, to pass and repass the interval which
separates our individualities. A gulf as wide, as impassable, as
that which kept Lazarus and Dives asunder, may divide any two
who stand hand in hand. To agree that once a twelvemonth we
will exchange pulpit services, would not imply Christian fellow
ship between us. You may preach one Gospel, I another. That
which I preach, you may be ashamed of. Him whom you con
fess, I may deny. You may be of one spirit, I of another, and
between the two may be no possible communion.
On the other hand, no distance, no vote of exclusion, no want of
acquaintance, no inequality of station or'difference of tongue, can
prevent or terminate fellowship among such as are filled with

31
fellow-feelings, prompted by fellow-motives, lifted up by fellow-
aspirations, anchored upon fellow-hopes, and consecrated to fellow-
labors. In true Christian fellowship there is a oneness of inner
most motive, a correspondence of lowermost convictions, a
unanimity in the choice of ultimate ends of life, a blending of the
central loves, a consentaneous flow and movement of that life
which is liveliest within. There is a felt assurance of kinship in
the hidden man of the heart. This is true fellowship ; and there
can be few hours in your life, my dear sir, when the thought of
this communion of all saints could come to you more timely, more
gratefully, more cheeringly, than in this hour. Your hand already
touches your work. You begin to feel that there is to be no turn
ing back, at the same time that you feel as you never did before
the greatness of the charge you are undertaking. It would not be
strange if you had experienced some solicitud,e and misgiving as
to your sufficiency for these things before you. To any feeling of
self-distrust that may be in you, I may not address a word calcu
lated to make you think that the importance of the work of the
ministry, or even the discouragements you will encounter in it,
have been exaggerated. I think you will find the labors of your
profession fully as great and as difficult, its trials as many and as
hard, your discouragements as disheartening, as you now apprehend.
The trying passages of your way probably will not be the very ones
you now anticipate, but there will be others which you do not an
ticipate ; and I have nothing to say by way of reducing your
estimate of the toils and trials that are before you. But what
then ? You have looked all this in the face ; and knowing who is
your Helper, you are resolved to proceed. And now, although it
will never do to match the workman with his work by bringing
the work down to him, we may do it, if we can, by raising him to
the measure of its demands. There is no work for you here, —
for me elsewhere, — for any man anywhere, — for which he is
not, through the almightiness of the Almighty, sufficient. The
Christian theory is, that there are no impossibilities of a moral
nature to the true disciple of Christ. I would spend no time in
convincing a minister that he has not mountains to remove. I
think he has that to do. But I may remind him out of the Gospel,
that mountains are removable, when Christian faith essays to pluck

32

them away. And what more encouraging word can be said to one
standing, as you do, at the door of this ministry, than to bid him
remember in what fellowship he will work and bear ? Whatever
he does, he is sure of the fellowship of all who do the like ; what
ever he is, he is sure of the fellowship of all who are like. And
you, my brother, can go forth to no work of love, can lift no cross
of self-denial, can pray no prayer of faith, can struggle no struggle
with the flesh and the Devil, but you may have strength from the
thought that you are in fellowship with all such as have wrought,
and prayed, and denied themselves in like manner. You will re
member that all who are one-minded and one-hearted constitute
an indissoluble communion, — a communion of saints, if they are
saintly-minded and saintly-hearted. You will feel an inspiration
of hope and strength from the thought of the company to which
you belong. Better than that. Be about your Father's business,
and evermore shall you be able, with an infinite joy, to use the
Apostle's words, " Truly our fellowship is with the Father,
AND WITH HIS SON JeSIIS ChRIST."
I offer you, then, — and I do it with all my heart, — this token
of the communion and fellowship which make one all Christian
disciples.

ADDBESS TO THE SOCIETY.
BY REV. F. D. HUNTINGTON.

I suppose that the best possible " Address to the Society," at
an Ordination, would be the most earnest exhortation to repent-
-ance and newness of spiritual life; inasmuch as the best parish
will always be a parish of the best people. There is one condi
tion of your future prosperity comprehensive enough to include all
others, — faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. For if your devotion to
him is real, and warm, and constant, it will expel all causes of
disorder from your spiritual body ; it will create internal health ;
it will make mutual dissensions among the members impossible ;
it will turn weakness itself into strength, dissatisfaction into con
tent, and, in the " foolishness of men " and preaching, illustrate
the " wisdom of God." Perhaps there could be no surer test of a
Society, than a capacity to exist, and hold its own, independently
of sermons, — haying, for its organizing and vitalizing force, a
secret fellowship with the Head ofthe Church, and a love of God's
worship. But it is commonly expected of this part of the ordaining cere
monies, that, in its direct specifications of duty, it shall balance the
Charge to the minister. And as that is meant to open upon him
certain claims on the part of the people, which they would hardly
feel at liberty to express to him in their own persons, so this brings
to the notice of the people some obligations due from them, which
he might not feel it quite delicate to challenge for himself. Un
der this construction, considerable plainness would seem to be a
natural prerogative of both performances, and not needing apolo
gy. I accept this freedom the more cheerfully, because I have
reason to know the parish I am addressing to be full of right pur-
5

34
poses and an honest zeal for joining their new minister in every
pure and legitimate enterprise for the Gospel.
You have, once more, my friends, a messenger of the New
Testament, elected by your affections and your judgment. The
place providentially made vacant, Providence has permitted to be
filled. I earnestly congratulate you both on the consolations and
the promises that are gathered into this hour, and uttered in this
service. I am sure of your hearty assent, when I say that I could
offer you no more impressive exposition of your duties, than by
calling up the image of that venerable and apostolic man, whose
whole life and conversation among you, for so many years, were
a tender and wise teaching of whatever pertains to the relations
between a good shepherd and his flock.
In the ardor of your affection for your newly acquired minister,
you are doubtless anxious to give proofs of your attachment to
him. Understand, once for all, that no visible token of it can be
so satisfying to him as for you to be in the pews while he, or his
substitute, is in the pulpit. It will be worth incalculably more to
him, for the refreshing of his fatigues and the cheering of his spirit,
than any smooth or ingenious compliments. He will spare your
flatteries, if you will let him see that you are nt>t to be frightened
from his instructions by a cloud in the sky or a snow-drift in the
street. Strictly speaking, you are all making public proclamation
here to-day that social worship deserves a regular attendance,
every Sabbath, and both halves of it ; and, by common honesty, if
you have come together this afternoon, intending to let small oc
casions prevent your thus coming regularly hereafter, you are
guilty of getting a minister on false pretences.
But there is a hearing heart, as well as a hearing ear. If you
go to church to act the critic on the sermon on Sunday, the sermon
will hardly help you to act the Christian through the week. It is
better to be believers than critics.
On the other hand, while you offer to your minister a teachable
spirit, that he may fairly achieve his own work upon you, be care
ful not to slide into the fatal misconception that he is to take your
work out of your hands. We have dropped the theory of vicari
ous righteousness, and we cannot fall back upon any substitution
of official piety. Luther describes a picture representing a ship

35
called the Christian Church, wherein the only passengers were the
Pope and the clergy ; ' the laymen were all in the water, depend
ent altogether on ropes thrown out to them by the holy fathers.
Hierarchies are dead, past resuscitation. But the form of clerical
usurpation which the Church has now to fear is that which comes
of the voluntary abandonment of their spiritual functions by the
laity, leaving the whole labor of maintaining piety in the com -
munity to the minister, who is paid a salary for the job. Some
parishioners seem to fancy that, if they show civilities to the cler
gyman, it will somehow so pass to their account, that Heaven will
send comforts to them. The man you are ordaining has not
come here to stand as a daysman between you and God, but to
tell you truths, and to live a life, that shall awaken your own en
ergies to action, to growth unlimited. You enter, with him, afresh
upon a study of religion ; and, at the Judgment, his presence will
prove not to have shifted burdens of responsibility from your
shoulders to his, but to have intensified every solemn stress upon
your frame unspeakably.
It is largely the fashion to discuss preaching and preachers.
Parlors, shops, markets, rail-cars, all have their comment on the
sermon. When you talk of the discourse, talk of its matter, and
not of its merits as a performance ; of the spiritualities the pulpit
inculcates, and not of the petty accidents that foster its secular
ambition, and ornament or disfigure its incumbent.
Need I remind you to respect your minister's independence ?
I might rather join my wonder to yours, that self-respecting per
sons can ever consent to sit under a chained pulpit and a fettered
preacher. It is often said there are parishes in New England that
will not allow their ministers to speak what they believe, — thus
keeping them literally their ministers and not Christ's. You will
not be willing to have it understood, I think, that in West Dedham
is a preacher whose conscience is under mortgage, — and that you
are his people. You would rather have your opinions frankly
contradicted, and your feelings kindly wounded, and your politics
considerately crossed, every week, than to take any part in erect
ing a new moral inquisition, or procuring a test-act for making
cowards and slaves of the successors of the Apostles. Imagine
Paul and Peter taking cautious and expedient counsel together.

36
whether their sentiments on righteousness, temperance, and judg
ment to come, will suit their congregations ! Reject your minister
the moment you find him accommodating his deliberate convic
tions to the popular demand, but not when he utters careful and
good-tempered, but unwelcome words ; for in the latter case he
may hold mistakes in his judgment, but in the former he carries a
lie in his heart. And do not expect him always to wait, before he
smites a sin, till it is manifestly dying of itself. That would make
the church a prison of thought, the meeting-house a spiritual lazar-
house, and your minister himself a piece of movable church fur
niture, scarcely worth the storage. Ye are called unto liberty, be
not entangled again with any yoke of bondage.
In your houses, and in his, do not forget that Mr. Locke is a
man, with a man's heart in his bosom, and a student, with a stu
dent's tastes, as well as a public speaker and pastor. There is
such a thing as a cruel politeness, and an oppressive etiquette. If
he should sometimes prefer to stay at home with his authors and
his family, that he may the better strengthen and qualify himself
for his office, have the magnanimity to let him be still. Without
considerate allowances, there can be no right dealing between you
and him ; without thoughtful delicacy, no progress in friendship ;
and without lofty candor, no intercourse that is cordial, manly, or
profitable. Let me mention two or three of the elements that do not seem
to me desirable in a parish, either for the sake of its own internal
interests, or for its minister's encouragement and efficiency.
Have among you as few as possible of those men who regard
religion as something to be done for the family by the female part
of it. I know of some husbands who are able to designate their
ecclesiastical relations only by mentioning what church their wives
belong to ; as if piety were worthy of no other than feminine con
fidence. It is greatly to our shame that the actual available force of
the most vital, most essential, and most commanding institution in
our Christendom, — that for which all others do really exist, from
which all others take their security and dignity, and the nearest, in
its shaping, to the heavenly pattern of society, — the Christian
Church, — should show such a constant disproportion between its
male and female elements. The Church of the living God wants

37
the strong shoulders, the masculine energy, and the honest enter
prise of men. Nor will the conjugal bond be found, at last, to in
clude any vicarious virtue by which a church-going wife's religion
saves her absenting husband's soul.
Have among you, again, as few as possible of those men or
women whose only rule of church-going seems to be drawn from
some rare and solemn occurrence at their houses ; as that they shall
appear at God's worship one Sunday after a pastoral call, and
two or three after a bereavement and a funeral, and then fall back
into a normal state of neglect. A congregation dependent on these
fitful stimulants to attendance follows the grave-yard's law of pop
ulation in more ways than the one I have mentioned.
Have among you, again, as few as possible of those turbulent
spirits, — the thorns and bramble-bushes of the Christian vine
yard, — whose only function is to goad and vex the rest ; who thrive
on parish dissensions ; men who snuff incipient provocations, as
Job's war-horse snuffeth the battle, or Jeremiah's wild asses the
wind, afar off; men who find no more wholesome exercise of their
influence than by breeding contentions between the pews, or pain
ful suspicions in the pulpit; men who are ready to go to any
meeting of the parish rather than the one that is held on Sunday,
and, when there, only agitate the materials of strife; or women,
who will be active in the charities of the congregation only out of
a headstrong will, and would rather turn the social kindness of a
whole sewing-circle into gall, than have good done to Christ's poor
in any way but their own.
And since, in a community and a day like ours, things are apt
to be tested by a pecuniary valuation, and since the willingness to
give money may be taken as a tolerably fair thermometer of ec
clesiastical zeal, so it will not be strange, if, in the livelier interest
created by this new chapter in your affairs, you will find it impos
sible to deny yourselves the privilege of some fresh outlay on your
church accommodations. So that we who love you and desire
your good shall be neither surprised nor sorry to hear that pres-
ently, having made liberal provision for your pastor, you have
given a more convenient form to your meeting-house, and provided
that indispensable auxiliary to a thorough and enterprising parish,
a good vestry. By this means you will not only encourage your

38 '
minister, but you will put a new power of benefiting you into
his hands, and make the wisest of all investments for yourselves
and your children.
Another class that you will be rich in proportion as you miss is
composed of those whose increasing prosperity in business engen
ders an increasing indifference to all religious institutions and ser
vices ; whose growing means are at once indicated and desecrated
by growing worldliness, as if their honor could afford to forget the
God that has prospered them, by less interested attention to the
worship, by resigning their places as Sunday-school teachers,
on some poor plea of having served long enough, or finding small
fruits, and by a diminished heartiness, or else a lighter tone, in
their intercourse with their spiritual guide. I have no doubt the
minister we are ordaining over you will be just as faithful in all
his official and personal attentions to these sad instances of spirit
ual declension, as to any other members of his flock ; he will come
and sorrow with them in their sorrows, he will pray for them
with double earnestness in his study, he will count no sacrifices
hard to serve and help them ; but it is for them to consider with
how heavy a heart he will do it, how painfully their changed
faces will affect him, and how wrongfully the pledges of this hour
of mutual promises will be broken.
A parish situated as this is has at least this advantage" over our
city congregations, that the minister is hot disheartened by seeing
his parishioners on Sunday driving into the country. Let us hope
that, if your city friends should call at any of your houses in church
time, they will be rebuked by finding none ofthe family at home.
You desire parish success and increasing numbers. But acces
sions from either of the classes I have mentioned would be worse
for you than empty seats.
You desire parish success, I say, and increasing numbers. If
you will give your minister freedom, give him time, give him your
ears and hearts, and form yourselves about him into a consecrated
phalanx, however small, of devout, working, harmonious parish
ioners, thoroughly baptized into his own spirit and the spirit of
Jesus his master, you will find that his gifts will surely draw to his
ministration enough of the only material of which strong societies
are built. Be content to take the truth your minister brings to

39
you, to enjoy his labors and friendship, to tax yourselves liberally,
and then bide God's time. Abstain altogether from the poor prac
tice of counting your minister's hearers when you ought to be di
gesting his doctrine.
All these are but subordinate and minute particulars. Such du
ties of detail are sure to fall into place, whenever the soul is quick
ened by the devotions and the sympathies of a living faith. The
grand business of a Christian parish is to ordain and edify within
its body a true church life. By a zealous carefulness for things
invisible and eternal which shall more than match your busy in
dustry and your active enterprise, — by brotherly and sisterly help
fulness between the members, — by the righteousness that tran
scends barren rules of decency, — by principles deeper than pro
fessions, — by a piety that is greater than morality, — by a faith
that inspires works, — and by prayers that at once lift earth into the
light of heaven and bring down the glory of heaven to earth, — you
are to build yourselves up, a living temple in the Lord, on the
foundation of prophets and apostles, " Jesus Christ himself being
the chief corner-stone."
You have appointed, and witnessed, and confirmed, the ordina
tion of your minister. This is the ordination vow which is laid
upon you.

ORDER OF SERVICES.

1. Voluntary Anthem.
2. Prayer. By Rev. Mr. Sanger, of Dover.
3. Reading of Scripture. By Rev. J. M. Merrick, of Walpole.
4. Hymn. By Mrs. S. F. Clapp.
God of all churches here below !
With needed blessing now draw near,
And let thy holy spirit flow,
Filling our souls with love and fear ; —
Love for the truth thy Son has taught,
And fear to break thy just command ;
Love, working righteous deed and thought, —
Fear, keeping watch o'er heart and hand !
O bless thy servant, who to-day
Apostle's armor putteth on ;
Gird him with strength and purity,
With zeal and truth to preach thy Son !
And make all hearts more fervent, Lord !
Renew our love for righteousness !
Grant open ears to hear thy word,
And answering lives of holiness !
From devious paths preserve our feet !
Lead us, in love, by " waters still " !
O give us " living bread " to eat,
Through faithful doing of thy will !

' 41
5. Sermon. By Rev. Mr. Stearns, of Hingham.
6. Hymn. By Mrs. M. L. B.
God, who dost dwell alone, apart,
In thine eternity sublime,
Yet visitest the human heart,
And dwellest with the sons of time ; —
Most Holy, do not thou refuse
To meet below with us to-day ;
Blest is the man whom thou dost choose
For ever in thy courts to stay.
Come, and thy servant shall be blest,
Who tremblingly himself doth gird,
Putting thy sbield upon his breast,
Taking the strong sword of thy Word.
Come, and anoint, and consecrate,
Lay thine own hand upon his head ;
So shall he cheer the desolate,'
And for the hungry break thy bread.
7. Prayer of Ordination. By Rev. J. H. Morison, of Milton.
8. Charge. By Rev. Dr. Lamson, of Dedham.
9. Fellowship of the Churches. By Rev. Mr. Willson, of West
Roxbury. 10. Address to the People. By Rev. Mr. Huntington, of Boston.
11. Hymn.
12. Benediction.

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