b'LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. \n\nThV^J^ \n\n\xc2\xa9N- Gmm\\^\'^o^ \n\nSliell-....l(2^...4* \n\n\n\nUNITED STATES OF AMERICA. \n\nV \n\n\n\nTHE NEWER RELIGIOUS THINKING. \n\n\n\nThe words that I have spoken unto you are spirit^ \n\nand are life. \n\nI came that they may have life, and may have it \n\nabundantly. \n\nThe Lord Jesus. \n\n\n\nTHE NEWER \n\n\n\nRELIGIOUS THINKING, \n\n\n\nBY \n\n\n\nDAVID NELSON BEACH. \n\n\n\nBOSTON: \n\nLITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY. \n\n1893. \n\n\n\nH- \n\n\n\n;y/ \n\n\n\n\n<; \n\n\n\nCopyright, 1893, \nBy David Nelson Beach. \n\n\n\nJohn Wilson and Son, Cambridge, U.S.A. \n\n\n\nTO THE MEMORY \n\nOF \n\nPRESTON SHELDON, M.D. \n\n1854-1891. \n\n\n\n^ Perplext in faith, but pure in deeds, \nAt last he beat his 7nusic out." \n\n\n\nOld things are passed away. \nAll things a?\'e become new. \nAll things are of God. \n\nSaint Paul. \n\n\n\nPREFACE. \n\n\n\nT^HE newer religious thinking here spoken \nof is not mine, nor any other man\'s, nor \nthat of any institution, or school, or division \nof Christendom. It is a world movement. \nIt is the lineal descendant of world move- \nments older than Abraham. I have not \nattempted to define it except in the most \ngeneral way, nor to compass it, but only to \nspeak sympathetically and suggestively of it. \n\nI have not spoken technically, but in plain \nlanguage. This is not a monograph. It \nis not specialist work. It is a talk about \nmatters in everybody\'s thought. If I should \ncharacterize it at all, I should call it an inter- \npretation, a trying to put new things and \nfeared things \xe2\x80\x94 "they feared as they entered \ninto the cloud " \xe2\x80\x94 in their simple and divine \nlight. \n\n\n\n8 Preface. \n\nSuch touching evidences of its oral help- \nfulness have reached me that I commit it \nto type. In so far as God\'s mind is in it, \nmay it reach men\'s minds. For there is sore \nneed of light. And there is need that the \nlight have in it warmth and vision. If even \na little of this is here, may it gladden eyes \nand stir hearts. \n\nCambridge, Massachusetts, \nApril 29, 1893. \n\n\n\nCONTENTS \n\n\n\nPage \n\nI. This Thinking Characterized 13 \n\nII. Its Hunger after God 39 \n\nIII. Its Passion for Men 71 \n\nIV. Its Thought of Nature, History, Life . loi \nV. Its Idea of the Bible 131 \n\nVI. Christ its Centre 161 \n\n\n\nAPPENDICES. \n\nA. One Type of Nature Teaching . . . . 189 \n\nB. Omitted Part of Discourse VI 199 \n\nC. Some Plain Questioning 213 \n\nList of Principal Notes 229 \n\n\n\nGod is love. \n\nIn him is no darkness at all. \n\nIt doth not yet appear what we shall be. \n\nWe shall be like hhn. \n\nSaint John. \n\n\n\nTHIS THINKING CHARACTERIZED. \n\n\n\nSYNOPSIS. \n\nMen are under a divine impulse. \xe2\x80\x94 It is from without, and \nyet from within. \xe2\x80\x94 This is what religion is. \xe2\x80\x94 Being thus life, \nit is ever renewing itself. \xe2\x80\x94 There always has been a newer \nreligious thinking: In the Old Testament; In the New; \nThroughout the Christian ages ; Now (examples). \xe2\x80\x94 This \nimplies no instability in the facts of religion, but only an \never-enlarging apprehension of them. \xe2\x80\x94 The latter is ground \nfor unspeakable joy. \xe2\x80\x94 Interesting fields of study opened by \nthis fact. \xe2\x80\x94 What business have we to go heresy-hunting ? \xe2\x80\x94 \nCertain indications of newer religious thinking at the present \ntime: (i) Among men of unfaith ; (2) Among " Unevan- \ngelicals;" (3) In the Church of Rome; (4) Among " Evan- \ngehcals." \xe2\x80\x94 Certain characteristics of this thinking : (i) Its \nscientific temper; (2) Its practical bent; (3) Its purpose to \ninclude in its concept the entire religious impulse of the \nworld; (4) Its obedience unto the heavenly vision. \xe2\x80\x94 Some- \nthing of eternity already shines in its face. \n\n\n\nTHE \n\n\n\nNEWER RELIGIOUS THINKING. \n\n\n\nI. \n\nTHIS THINKING CHARACTERIZED.^ \n\nWherefore, O king Agrippa, I was not disobedie7it unto \nthe heavenly vision. \xe2\x80\x94 Acts xxvi. 19. \n\nA DIVINE compulsion is here acknowl- \n"^^ edged. It becomes the law of a great, \naspiring, epoch-affecting life. And the com- \npulsion, the law, are of the sort which alone \ncan be most potent over human life. They \nspring from vision, from an illumination of \nthe inner nature. They are thus a part of \nthe man. They are from without him, and \nyet from within him. They demand great \n\n1 Preached at Prospect Street Church, Cambridge, Mas- \nsachusetts, Sunday night, October 30, 1892. Somewhat \namended here, but the spoken fo7\'m retained. So of the \nlater discourses. \n\n\n\n14 The Newer Religious Thinking. \n\nthoughts, feelings, revisions, renovations. \nSlowly, perhaps reluctantly, they command \nhis assent. But being of him as well as \nfrom beyond him, they move and transform \nhim. They are life. In the obeying of \nthem there is life. The living spirit cannot \nbe disobedient to them. \n\nThis is what religion is. It is a some- \nthing from outside, and 3^et from inside. It \nis the life of a man, of men, of peoples, of \nepochs ; a part of them, and yet not of them \nso much as a reciprocity between them and \ntheir correlative in the nature of things, in \nthe heart of the world, \xe2\x80\x94 in, for short, God. \nBeing thus life, it is always renewing itself. \nIt is ever young. There is always a newer \nreliofious thinkino^. \n\nThere always has been such thinking in \nthe past. Noah is farther on than Enoch ; \nIsrael than Abraham ; the Moses of Deu- \nteronomy than the Moses of .Exodus ; Sam- \nuel than Joshua; David than Samuel, with \nthat great discovery of his, " Thou desirest \nnot sacrifice," and with that new face on \nnature, life, and religion, which ever in him \n\n\n\nThis Thinking Characterized, 1 5 \n\nappears. Isaiah is farther on, too, than \nEHjah ; and the late Isaiah than the earlier. \nThe Christ of the Peraean ministry is an ad- \nvance over the Christ of the Galilean min- \nistry.^ Saint Peter at Caesarea, ten years after \nPentecost, confesses that God has made clear \nto him a truth until then unperceived, \xe2\x80\x94 a \ntruth around the question of the correctness \nof which the apostolic history thenceforth \nturns. The Saint Paul of First and Second \nTimothy is farther on, not only by a decade, \nbut in his intellectual outlook, than the \n\n1 Whether or not the Evangelists indicate an advance in \nthe thinking of the Saviour during his public ministry, cor- \nresponding with his advance in method, is a question of \ninterpretation ; and since their testimony is indirect, the \ninterpretation will be colored by one\'s insight and concep- \ntion of developing character. It will also be colored, per- \nhaps, by one\'s view of the person of Christ. My own view \nof his person is very high. Nevertheless, as his method ad- \nvanced, so, it seems to me, did his mental outlook. Neither \nam I able to see why its earlier advance (Luke ii. 52) should \nhave been stayed when he reached the period of intense \nactivity which would most have furthered such advance. \nAnd since there is no finer test of character than its behav- \nior under access of fresh light, particularly when one is \namidst life, I should be sorry to think of the Saviour as not \nknowing the fellowship with us of such character- testing. \n" It behoved him in all things to be made like unto his \nbrethren " (Heb. ii. 17). \n\n\n\n1 6 The Newer Religious Thinking, \n\nSaint Paul of First and Second Corinthians. \nThe Saint John of the Epistles sweeps a wider \nhorizon than the Saint John at the Beautiful \nGate of the Temple. On the open vision \nof the Greek Fathers succeeds the dogmatic \nrigidity of the Latin Fathers. Anselm treads \nbroader fields than Gregory the Great. \nLuther, Zwingle, Calvin, exploit new fields, \nand dissentiently. Jonathan Edwards leads a \nnew movement in the religious thought of \nNew England, as well as that revival of its re- \nligious life known as the " Great Awakening." \nThe history, in short, of the Old Testament \nand of the New, that which gave signifi- \ncance and permanence to the writings there \ngathered, is progress, clearer and yet clearer \napprehensions of truth. The history, too, of \nthe Christian Church, as Professor Allen, of \nour city, has so admirably outlined in his book, \n" The Continuity of Christian Thought," is \na history of the unfolding of Christian ideas. \nAs I said, there always has been a newer \nreligious thinking. Those ages which seem \nto have been motionless, and their thought \ndormant, were moving. There was many a \n\n\n\nThis Thinking Characterized. 17 \n\nmorning star of the Reformation in the \nMiddle-Age night. \n\nAnd as there always has been a newer re- \nligious thinking, so there is to-day. A book \nhas been shown me, which belonged to the \nlate Rev. Asa Bullard. It is marked, " To \nbe preserved, as it is my only copy." It is \nwithout titlepage. It is Horace Bushnell\'s \n" Christian Nurture." It never got far \nenough in the hands of the Massachusetts \nSabbath School Society, of which Mr. Bullard \nwas the executive, \xe2\x80\x94 now our Congrega- \ntional Sunday School and Publishing So- \nciety, \xe2\x80\x94 to have a titlepage or an imprint. \nWhy 1 Because certain men who saw its \nadvance sheets pronounced it heresy, and \nraised such an alarm about it that it was \nsuppressed. That book, issued by other \npublishers, is now a classic. Nobody is \nafraid of it. Mr. Bullard rejoiced in it, as, \nfor aught I know, he did from the start.-^ \n\n1 Mr. Bullard died April 5, 1888, aged eighty-four years \nand ten days. He had been a member of Prospect Street \nChurch since 1857. A window to his memory was put into \nthe church at Easter, 1892. Its subject is, " Christ Bless- \ning Little Children," after Hofmann. It is inscribed: "In \n\n2 \n\n\n\n1 8 The Newer , Religious Thinking, \n\nWhen Professor Park was transferred from \nthe chair of Homiletics to that of Theology \nat Andover, he was considered by man}^ a \nvery dangerous man. Controversy regarding \nhis teachings waxed hot. Pamphlets, reviews, \nnewspapers, assailed him. Now he is re- \ngarded as a bulwark of orthodoxy. When \nProf. Nathaniel W. Taylor was teaching at \nNew Haven, sixty years ago, matters now \nof commonest acceptance, Connecticut was \nconvulsed to its centre with religious alarm \nagainst him, and the Seminary at East Wind- \nsor, now Hartford Seminary, was established \nto save the faith from his ravages. An elderly \nEnglishman has recently contributed to one \nof our reviews, from personal recollection, \nthe story of three religious panics in Great \nBritain, of a similar type, about matters \nthat have ceased to give men anxiety. But \nlet me summon you yourselves as witnesses. \n\nLoving Memory of the Children\'s Minister, Rev. Asa Bul- \nlard: Born, 1804; Died, 1888: From Prospect Street Church- \nand Sabbath School." Mr. Bullard did not agree in all \nrespects theologically either with Dr. Bushnell or with the \nwriter. The allusion here is only to his attitude toward Dr. \nBushnell\'s book on the Christian upbringing of children. \n\n\n\nThis Thinking Characterized, 19 \n\nProbably all of you whose lives have cov- \nered as many as twenty-five or thirty years \nhave, consciously or unconsciously, some- \nwhat changed your thought on religious \nmatters. If you have not, I condole with \nyou. Twenty-five or thirty years in such a \nworld as this ought somewhat to modify the \nablest thinking even on religious subjects. \n\nNow what does this mean ? Does it im- \nply that the facts at the basis of religion are \nnot trustworthy 1 Does it insinuate that \neverything in religion is relative, and a mere \nmatter of point of view ? Not at all. Such \ninferences were as absurd as to have inferred, \nwhen men were gradually accepting the \nCopernican astronomy, or modern geology, \nthat sun and stars and earth were not trust- \nworthy, and were only relative, and matters of \npoint of view. Sun, stars, earth, in common \nwith the facts at the basis of religion, change \nnot. But man\'s measure of them, grasp of \nthem, knowledge of them, and impressible- \nness by- them, change with the growing mind \nand heart of man. \n\nSo far is such a state of things as I have \n\n\n\n20 The Newer Religious Thinking, \n\nbeen describing from being ground for \nalarm, that it is ground, the rather, for \ndevout and unspeakable joy. As Kepler \ncried out, on discovering the clew to the \ncomputation of the orbits of the heavenly \nbodies, " I think God\'s thoughts after him ! " \nso does Saint Paul speak of the mystery hid \nthrough the ages, but now made known, and \naffirm that the chiefest of the apostles only \nsees as yet " in a mirror, darkly," but shall \nsee " face to face." Every man, by reason \nof such a state of the case, becomes a discov- \nerer of truths divine, and a medium through \nwhom others may receive the knowledge of \nsuch truths ; and the way is thus left open \nfor an infinite progress in knowing, appre- \nciating, and using the facts of religion. Any \nother state of the case would make future \nhistory a blank, and eternity a horror. For \nthe world to go on, with progress in the ap- \nprehension of religious truth at an end, \xe2\x80\x94 \nseeing that religious truth is the deepest, the \nsweetest, the most transforming, \xe2\x80\x94 and for \nmen, out of this world\'s toil, sweat, travail, \nweariness, and defeat, to be hurried on into \n\n\n\nThis Thinking Characterized, 2 1 \n\nan eternity in which our earth thoughts and \nearth measures of God were a finality, would \nbe a fate of history and of humanity too fear- \nful to contemplate. But such is not the fate, \nas these phenomena, from the earliest He- \nbrew history until this hour, abundantly and \ngloriously prove. \n\nIt would be interesting to make even a \ncursory study of the progress of religious \nthought in the Old Testament ; of the \nsame progress during the perhaps four \ncenturies between Malachi and Christ ; \nand of the same in the New Testament. \nThis is a distinctively modern study, and \nis yet in its infancy. Toward it the new \nchairs of Biblical Theology, in various in- \nstitutions, are contributing. With it, for \ncomprehensiveness and balance, the study \nof other, and especially of contemporaneous \nreligions, needs to go, \xe2\x80\x94 " comparative re- \nligions," as that study is often called. The \nsame sort of study, similarly paralleled, for \nthe Christian ages, would also be of great \ninterest. \n\nFresher, because more recent, accessible, \n\n\n\n22 The Newer Religious Thinking, \n\nand in touch with current thinking, would \nbe a study of this progress during the \npresent century, and particularly in Great \nBritain ; because the study of that portion of \nit would include a relatively compact terri- \ntory, history, and group of men. For this \nlast, as I referred to Professor Allen\'s " Con- \ntinuity of Christian Thought," in reference to \nthe Christian ages, let me commend TuUoch\'s \n" Movements of Religious Thought in Brit- \nain during the Nineteenth Century." In \nthese movements, the poets, of some of \nwhom we have been thinking together re- \ncently, have had a far greater hand than \nProfessor Tulloch indicates, \xe2\x80\x94 he having in \nthat book treated only of distinctively reli- \ngious writers. Tennyson\'s " In Memoriam," \nfor example, marks a great " divide " and \nnew upland in our century\'s outlook toward \nimmortality. That service to human think- \ning would have been, of itself, an immeas- \nurable gift to the world, had the Laureate \nwritten nothing else. \n\nWe cannot, however, go into these matters \nnow. But there is a practical question we \n\n\n\nThis Thinking Characterized. 23 \n\ncan go into. The question is this : What \nbusiness have we to mutiny against this law \nof our being, the law of the Bible, the law of \nreligious history, the law which hinders the \nfuture from being a blank and eternity a \nhorror, and go heresy-hunting ? They stoned \nheretics in the Old Testament. They cut \noff their heads and crucified them in the \nNew. They invented the horrors of the In- \nquisition for them in the sixteenth century. \nWe build the sepulchres of those heretics. \nWe are always quoting them and praising \nthem. We know that they discovered truth \nfor us, and made the world better for us. \nWhy, then, do we start off to be the ruin of \nheretics now } Why do we hold the clothes \nof them that stone them } Have we not a \nmeasure of common-sense ? Do we care to \nrepeat the folly of trying to suppress the \nHorace Bushnells, the Nathaniel W. Taylors, \nthe Professor Parks, of nowadays? Surely \nwe shall be laughed at some day for doing \nthis. ^ Perhaps we shall live long enough to \nlaugh at ourselves. Mr. Bullard, with his \nsense of humor, must have edged off into a \n\n\n\n24 The Newer Religious Thinking, \n\nsmile and then into a laugh, when he saw \nthat poor thin little Bushnell book, without \nany titlepage or imprint, and with its " To be \npreserved, as it is my only copy." There \nwere soon copies enough. \n\nTurning, however, from these reflections, \nlet us notice, first, certain indications, and \nthen certain characteristics, of the newer re- \nhgious thinking at the present time. \n\nI. Certain indications. \n\n1. And, to begin with, even unbelief, in \nits truer, more typical phases, is in a hopeful \nstate of newness and progress. It does not \nscoff; it is sorry not to believe. Its quarrel \nis with extreme partisans of faith, not with \nthose humble, teachable souls who live their \nfaith. Witness divisions xxxi., xxxii., and \nXXXIII., of " In Memoriam " as an expression, \nindeed from a somewhat different point of \nview, of this new attitude. \n\n2. Those Christians, moreover, commonly \ntermed " unevangelical " are likewise in a \ncertain refreshing newness and progress of \nthought. Those of them often called " radi- \ncals," while moving away from some of the \n\n\n\nThis Thinking Characterized, \xe2\x80\xa2 25 \n\nsimpler facts of religion, are in many in- \nstances taking the most commendable steps \ntoward the practical aspects of the religious \nlife ; while the so-called " moderates " are \nadopting thoughts and methods which bring \nthem nearer to the so-called " evangelical " \nreligionists. They hunger for a warmer, \nmore pronounced religious experience; for \nmeetings for prayer ; for mission work ; for \nsuch work even among the heathen ; and \nfor some ground of unity which may bring \nthem into closer touch with the Church \nuniversal. \n\nThis might be abundantly illustrated were \nthere time. The odium theologicum, if not \npassed, is passing. And as a liberal spirit \namong so-called " Evangelicals " is often the \ncause of much reproach to its possessors, so \namong the classes already referred to, those \nwho are moving in this newness and prog- \nress are often maligned for doing so. The \nsuperintendent of the non-sectarian East \nEnd Christian Union, of our city, tells of \nmeeting a Trinitarian who did not want to \ncontribute toward it because it was too lib- \n\n\n\n26 The Newer Religious Thinking, \n\neral, and then a Unitarian who found fault \nwith it because it w^as too orthodox. And \nwith the thought underlying the superin- \ntendent\'s plain rejoinder, " I told both of \nthem that I had no use for such men," the \ntruer spirits of both wdngs will tend more \nand more to agree. \n\n3. Think, again, how^ in the Church of \nRome there are also the progressives ; how \nthe present Pope is in this respect an ad- \nvance on the last ; how men like the revered \npastor of one of our Cambridge Catholic \nchurches, while no less Catholics, are push- \ning forward \xe2\x80\x94 often at the expense of that \nobloquy from their associates which the \nprophets and apostles of progress have gen- \nerally to encounter \xe2\x80\x94 into a practical fellow- \nship with religious men outside their ancient \ncommunion. \n\n4. Once more, in the religious bodies \nnearer ourselves than any of these, reflect, \nfor example, on the coming of the Episco- \npal Church toward Phillips Brooks ; on the \ntightening fellowship of the Presbyterian \nChurch, which revolts from schism in the \n\n\n\nThis Thinking Characterized. 27 \n\ncase of Union Seminary and of Professor \nBriggs, whom such organs of conservatism \nas the " New York Observer " have long \nbeen scourging outrageously ; and on the \ndisposition of our own denomination to in- \nclude rather than to expel men, churches, \nand institutions of learning, on which a sec- \ntion of the religious press has waged war for \nyears.^ \n\nIn the light of facts like these, it may be \nunhesitatingly affirmed that there is a greater \nunity amidst diversity, a greater respect for \ndifferences of opinion, a greater bringing of \nall questions to the test of life and of spirit, \nand a larger, truer thinking about God, and \n\n1 On the primary movement now going on in human nature \ntoward inclusiveness and .soHdarity, see Professor Tucker\'s \nmemorable Phi Beta Kappa Oration at Harvard, June 30, \n1892. These sentences in it bear on that portion of the sub- \nject here alluded to : \xe2\x80\x94 \n\n" Questions are arising in our time, and passing into heat- \ned discussion, of the most fundamental and vital kind, which \nin other times would have split the most compact body, \nbut thus far they have not divided a single communion. The \none ecclesiastical sin of our age is schism. Of that alone \nwe are intolerant" (pp. 18, 19). \n\nThe Oration is entitled, " The New Movement in Human- \nity from Liberty to Unity." Houghton, Mifflin, and Com- \npany, Boston. 1892. \n\n\n\n28 The Newer Religious Thinking. \n\nlife, and truth, to-day, among religious people \nthe likest to ourselves, than there has ever \nbeen before ; and that we, in this respect, \nare, as I have intimated, wittingly or un- \nwittingly, in the current of a great world- \nmovement in similar directions, embracing \n" Unevangelicals " as well as "Evangelicals," \nCatholics as well as Protestants, and the \ntruer types of unbelievers as well as believers. \nThus is the prayer, " Thy kingdom come," \ngetting its answer, \xe2\x80\x94 \xe2\x80\xa2 slowly, with many a re- \nverse, with sore travail still, but surely. He \nwhose right it is already reigns, and is mar- \nshalling events, movements, men, opinions, \ninto compacter, truer lines of tendency, ex- \npectation, and promise ; all of which shall \neventuate according to that " heavenly \nvision" which, whether we will or not, we \ncannot choose but obey, and the ending \nwhereof the wisest and the most far-sighted \nonly sees as " in a mirror, darkly." \n\nII. Next, and in conclusion, let us try to \nfix in our minds certain characteristics of \nthe newer religious thinking of our time. \n\nI. One of them is its scientific temper. \n\n\n\nThis Thinking Characterized. 29 \n\nThe thinking of which I speak is not \ngoing on in this century of the vastest ex- \npansion of the boundaries of knowledge \nthat the world has ever known without \nbeing affected at once by the knowledge, \nand by those processes of induction and of \ndeduction by which the knowledge has come. \nIt grows tired of theories. It wants facts. \nAfter these it is groping everywhere, \xe2\x80\x94 in \nthe world of nature, in the field of archaeol- \nogy, in that mighty research for a true \naccount of the origin of the human species, \noften caricatured as a trying to prove one\'s \ndescent from apes, but a far deeper and \nwider reaching investigation than the cari- \ncaturists dream ; in heredity, too, in animal \npsychology, in sociology, in the history of \nopinions, and in those seers, the prophets, \npsalmists, and poets of all time. \n\nIt wants the truth, nothing but the truth, \nand will have it at all hazards ; and is un- \nalterably purposed to count nothing finally \nsettled, until it matches in with God\'s whole \nbook of nature as well as of grace, and of \nthe human heart as well as of metaphysics. \n\n\n\n30 The Newer Religious Thinking. \n\nAnd since there is no schism in the truth, \nbut truth agrees with itself, verifies itself, \nand is a unity, we ought to be devoutly \nthankful that such a purpose marks the \nnewer religious thinking. \n\n2. Another characteristic of this thinking \nis its practical bent. \n\n" What can religion do for a man ? " it \nseems forever to be asking. That which, \nmore than anything else, has sickened it of \nover-confidence in certain systematic ways \nof looking at truth is the miserable fruit \nof such systems. It does not want a reli- \ngion professing to follow the forgiving Jesus, \nif that religion does not make men forgiv- \ning. It does not want a religion of love \nwhich does not make men loving. It does \nnot want a religion which teaches that all \nmen are brothers, if it produces the class \ndistinctions, the outrageous disparities be- \ntween wealth and poverty, and that luxuri- \nous selfishness so common, hardly less in \nthe Church than out of it, in our time. \n\nFurthermore, when it accepts religion, \nalbeit never so devotedly, it is not content \n\n\n\nThis Thinking Characterized. 31 \n\nwith prayers, sacraments, sound doctrine, \nand religious routine. In these it believes. \nBut it wants something adequate to show \nfor them in deeds. It is willing to invest \nheavily in religion, but demands dividends \nin bettered lives, ennobled communities, and \ntruer political, economic, intellectual, and so- \ncial conditions. \n\n3. Yet another characteristic of the newer \nreligious thinking is its purpose to include \nin its concept the entire religious impulse of \nthe world. \n\nWhen " they therefore that were scattered \nabroad upon the tribulation that arose about \nStephen travelled " far, " speaking the word \nto none save only to Jews," until an almost \naccidental experiment taught them better, \nthey did what religion has characteristi- \ncally done until our time. That God was \nwith and in the religious life of the Egyptians, \nAssyrians, Greeks, Romans, etc., as well as \nwith and in the religious life of the Hebrews, \nhas be.en little recognized until recently. But \nhe was. No race, no people, no history, has \na monopoly of religion. Religion is a great \n\n\n\n32 The Newer Religious Thinking. \n\nfact. It is a part of the race of man. It is \nthe correlation of man and what is above \nand beyond him. \n\nThe newer religious thinking recognizes \nthis comprehensiveness. It is trying to un- \nderstand all religions. It hopes, through the \nreligions and religious impulses of all peo- \nples, to bring in the simpler, clearer, and \nfinal religion. Hence the men of faith are \nreaching out and striking hands with the \nmen who, until recently, would have been \ncalled the men not of faith, to help them and \nto receive help. To illustrate what I mean : \nAlmost no man ever helped me more in \nspiritual things \xe2\x80\x94 I say, please note, " helped \nme," not I him \xe2\x80\x94 than a friend of mine, now \npassed on into the infinite light, who was to \nsuch an extent an agnostic that, for a long \ntime, he could not so much as pray. But \nhis life was a faith, a prayer, a holiness, such \nthat he was a new manifestation of God to \nmy life, and to the lives of all who knew \nhim.^ In such a sense as this, the men of \nfaith are striking hands with men hitherto \n\n1 It is to his memory that this book is inscribed. \n\n\n\nThis Thinking Characterized, 33 \n\ngenerally counted not of faith, for mutual \nhelp. \n\nSimilarly the newer religious thinking \ndespairs not that the different divisions of \nChristendom, heretofore seemingly hope- \nlessly estranged, and all theistic religions, \nand indeed all religions, have contributions \nto make toward, and in some sense a place \nto take in, the ampler and more adequate \nreligious life that is to be. This is the \nsame thing as to say, not only that the \nnewer religious thinking has a scientific \ntemper, but that it has at length come \nto recognize religion in its every form as \na great, scientific, and mightily instructive \nfact. Please observe that, in making this \nstatement, I have no time to define and \nclarify it. Because I do not do so, it may \nbe that I shall be misunderstood. But when \n" men of every tribe, and tongue, and people, \nand nation " are represented as contributing \nto the apocalyptic glory, it is impossible for \nme to believe that the religions, and religi- \nous capacities, receptivities, and aptitudes of \n" every tribe, and tongue, and people, and \n\n3 \n\n\n\n34 The Newer Religious Thinkin \n\n\n\n^\xe2\x80\x94 \' ^\xc2\xa3\'\' \n\n\n\nnation " are not also taken into the account, \nand given their range and use. " God," we \nread, "is no respecter of persons;" and I \nbeg leave to doubt if, any more, he is a \nrespecter of religions. \n\n4. Finally, while the newer religious \nthinking is scientific in temper, practical in \nbent, and is enlarging its concept of religion, \nlet no man say, or even imagine, that this \nthinking is other than inspired by, and \nobedient unto, a " heavenly vision," which \never hovers in its foreground, and beckons \nit on. \n\nThe boundaries of its belief may be les- \nsened, for it doubts much ; but the depths \nand heights of that belief are infinite. Out \non a simple, real, honest confidence it ven- \ntures, like Abraham scarce knowing whither \nit goes, but sure that it must leave not only \nUr of the Chaldees, but Haran, and come \ninto a place which it is after to receive for \nan inheritance. \n\nGod, for it, is no longer in a creed, how- \never true the creed may be ; nor in any \nbook, however priceless; nor in any or- \n\n\n\nThis Thinking Characterized. 35 \n\nganization, however venerable and sacred ; \nnor in any form or observance, however \nhelpful in itself; nor here, nor there, nor \naccessible in thus and such a manner; but \nGod is with the man, \xe2\x80\x94 in him, about him, \nbeyond him, his Father, Helper, Friend, and \nAll-sufficiency. \n\nAnd he himself is in God\'s universe, nor \never can get out of it ; so that even mys- \nterious heaven grows simple, being God\'s ; \nand he does not crave so much to be in \nheaven, even, as to be in such a mind as \nGod is in, and as to be helping some other \nGod\'s-child, his brother, though he were \nfathoming hell to find him. \n\nAnd for him fear is done; for has not \nperfect love cast it out } And hope is ever \nfresh ; for can he ever wholly find out God, \nor sound God\'s love\'s-depth ? And as for \nmotive, of the want or badness whereof so \nmany complain, that is no longer his solici- \ntude ; for has not the same marched on \nhim, seized him, and possessed itself of him \nforever, even the movement of none other \nthan the living God motive henceforth in \n\n\n\n36 The Newer Religious Thinking. \n\nhim ? True, he expects nothing other than \nto descend again and again into the depths, \n\xe2\x80\x94 cast down many a time, defeated, spent; \nbut went there not One before him thither ? \nShall he not follow so kingly a Forerunner? \nAnd has not all this a purpose ? \n\nBut, truth to tell, he is reluctant so much \nas to think of himself. Self, in fact, is get- \nting out of him. Truth, reality, God, are \ngetting in. Herein, too, he is " not diso- \nbedient unto the heavenly vision," and there- \nfore wots not that that vision is even now \ntransfiguring him, and that something of \neternity already shines in his face. \n\n\n\nITS HUNGER AFTER GOD. \n\n\n\nSYNOPSIS. \n\nHunger after God the propulsion of newer religious think- \ning. \xe2\x80\x94 Jacob and Moses illustrate this. \xe2\x80\x94 Why it is neces- \nsarily so. \xe2\x80\x94 The receivers and revel ators of larger religious \ntruth have become such by reason of their hunger for it (exam- \nples). \xe2\x80\x94 Sketch of the upgrowth of the newer religious think- \ning of our time. \xe2\x80\x94 The newer literature contained it, in \nprinciple, but religious thinkers were specially its channel. \n\xe2\x80\x94 Coleridge and Bushnell ; their wide influence. \xe2\x80\x94 The \nTractarians: \xe2\x80\x94 Necessarily, over against the two tendencies \nrepresented by the foregoing, came Arnold, Robertson, \nMaurice, Kingsley, etc. \xe2\x80\x94 Their application of religion to \nlife. \xe2\x80\x94 The Germanic contribution ; contrast between it and \nthe Anglo-Saxon. \xe2\x80\x94 The thinking of this decade an advance \non that outlined above, by reason of ampler data through \nlong inductive work. \xe2\x80\x94 America, until recently, provincial \nin this matter. \xe2\x80\x94 The sketch suggests how hunger after God \nhas impelled the movement. \xe2\x80\x94 Personal testimony. \xe2\x80\x94 This \nhunger necessitates image-breaking in theology. \xe2\x80\x94 Mr. \nBeecher\'s remarks in connection with his " Background of \nMystery." \xe2\x80\x94 Some idols needing overthrow : (i) The machine \nthought of God ; there is a Biblical pantheism ; (2) Exag- \ngeration of the idea of God as ruler ; God not mainly that ; \n(3) Undue insistence on the philosophy of the Trinity ; how \nfar that doctrine may rightly go ; (4) God in Christ as \nmainly governmental or forensic; the facts can never be \nincluded under this category ; Christ a vital, living, present \nSaviour. \xe2\x80\x94 Other idols suggested. -;- The Good Tidings \nunspeakably hurt by such misrepresentations of God. \xe2\x80\x94 The \nChurch, the clergy, the laity, in fact all true souls, have \nherein a heavy responsibility laid on them. \n\n\n\nII. \n\nITS HUNGER AFTER GOD.i \n\nAnd yacob asked him^ and said, Tell me, I pray thee, \nthy name. \xe2\x80\x94 Genesis xxxii. 29. \n\nAnd Moses said unto God, Behold, when I come unto \nthe children of Israel, and shall say unto thein, The \nGod of your fathers hath se?it me unto you ; and they \nshall say to me. What is his najne ? what shall I \nsay unto the7n ? \xe2\x80\x94 Exodus iii. 13. \n\nAnd he said, Show me, I pray thee, thy glory, \xe2\x80\x94 Exodus \nxxxiii. 18. \n\n\n\nT \n\n\n\nHE newer religious thinking of the \npresent proves its kinship to the newer \nreligious thinking of all time in finding its \npropulsion in a profound hunger after God. \n\nJacob, who wished to know the name of \nhis mysterious visitor, and Moses, who put \nthe same question, and desired to behold \nGod\'s glory, epitomize the natural history \nof all truly unfolding religious thought. \nHere is the man ; somewhere, in him, be- \n\n1 Prospect Street, Sunday night, November 6, 1892. \n\n\n\n40 The Newer Religious Thinking. \n\nyond him, is infinite reality, \xe2\x80\x94 in one word, \nGod. Religion is that verity, partly concep- \ntual, partly factual, which correlates the two. \nAnd because life is life, because the living \nman thinks, feels, and grows, his thought of \nthis verity, his conception of religion, grows. \nBut the object of his conception, namely, \nreligion, being a correlation, being a some- \nthing from within him as well as from be- \nyond him, he is not passive in his growing \nreligious thought. He is active ; he thinks ; \nhe feels. He strives to clarify his thinking \nand feeling; he hungers after knowledge \nof the infinite ; he yearns toward God. \n*\' Tell me, I pray thee, thy name," he cries ; \n" Show me, I pray thee, thy glory." And \nthe hunger, the cry, the attitude of interest \nand inquiry before that bush, burning but \nnot consumed, which the universe is, and the \nstruggle, as of one wrestling in the night, \nwith the mysterious problems of life and of \ndestiny, predispose a man to receive impres- \nsions, light, and new religious life. " He \nthat seeketh, findeth." \n\nIt is not, therefore, by accident or partial- \n\n\n\nIts Hunger after God. 41 \n\nity that the wrestling Jacobs, and the inquir- \ning and seeking men like Moses, receive, \neach in his fashion, new thoughts, ideals, \nand principles in the range of religion. \nIndeed, it might be summarily said, without \nfear of successful contradiction, that the \nreceivers and revelators of larger truth, par- \nticularly in the realm of religion, \xe2\x80\x94 whether \nthey have been such receivers and revelators \npublicly or privately, in a w^idely recognized \nmanner or not, or within the bounds of one \nform of religion or of another, \xe2\x80\x94 have become \nthe channels for receiving and revealing such \nlarger truth, through their own hunger for \nit, their own impressibleness by it, and their \nown receptivity and responsiveness to it. \n\nThus all the newer religious thinking, \nworthy the name, whether in the past or in \nthe present, has had its spring in hunger \nafter God. Jacob and Moses, Samuel and \nDavid, Elijah and Isaiah, Saint Paul and \nSaint John, Origen and Augustine, Gregory \nthe Great and Anselm, Luther and Knox, \nJohn Bunyan and Jonathan Edwards, John \nWesley and John Henry Newman, Maurice \n\n\n\n42 The Newer Religious Thinking, \n\nand Bushnell, Phillips Brooks and Father \nHall, \xe2\x80\x94 these, in common with the lowliest \nwaiters on truth divine, have received and \ngiven out the divine impulse, as hungering \nfor it, seeking it, filled with it, transformed by \nit, and as thereby the mediums through which \nit has passed into the possession of mankind. \nWhat a lesson is there not for us here, to be \nopen, receptive, hungering toward God, and, \nas freely receiving, so to be freely giving ! \nFor of this trul}^ sacramental privilege, as of \nthat other spoken of by Lowell, it remains \ntrue that \xe2\x80\x94 \n\n"The Holy Supper is kept, indeed, \nIn whatso we share with another\'s need ; \nNot what we give, but what we share, \xe2\x80\x94 \nFor the gift without the giver is bare." \n\nBut, to be more specific : \xe2\x80\x94 \n\nI. Let us, in the first place, bring rapidly \nbefore our minds a little of the way in which \nthis century\'s newer religious thinking has \ncome down to us ; and let us be asking our- \nselves meanwhile whether, looked at as re- \ngards the men identified with it, this thinking \nis not akin, as I observed at the outset, to the \n\n\n\nIts Hunger after God. 43 \n\nnewer religious thinking of all time, in find- \ning its propulsion in a profound hunger after \nGod. \n\nThis thinking, with its corresponding \nhunger, then, let us not forget, was already \nabroad, in less definite manifestation, in \nthe newer literature which ushered in this \ncentury, \xe2\x80\x94 in Burns, for example, and Cole- \nridge, and Wordsworth, yes, even in Shelley. \nIt was caught up and developed in our epoch- \nmarking poets, in Tennyson, in Lowell, in \nBrowning. \n\nBut in men approaching with an especially \nreligious wistfulness the burning bush of the \nuniverse, the Peniel of human existence, it \nmost strongly appeared. Coleridge, now \nthought of as religious thinker rather than \nas poet, made a way for it in England ; \nBushnell, in America.-^ It is difiicult for us \nof the immediate present to understand how \n\n1 No study of the history of this subject, in America, \nshould omit the relation to it of Dr. Channing, Theodore \nParker, and Ralph Waldo Emerson. Nor, on both sides of \nthe Atlantic, should the impulse toward earnestness, reality, \nand moral enthusiasm which was afforded by Thomas Car- \nlyle be overlooked. \n\n\n\n44 l^he Newer Religious Thinking, \n\nvast was the influence which Coleridge ex- \nerted on the religious thinkers of the genera- \ntion now aging and aged on both sides the \nAtlantic. One of that generation, a leader \nof that branch of the Christian Church of \nwhich he was a clergyman, and now long \npassed on into eternal light, told me, in the \nfirst year of my ministry, that Coleridge was \nas real a personality to him as if he had been \nhis companion and intimate friend. He had \nentered as living power into that man\'s life. \nBushnell had a like influence. He was read \nabroad with hardly less interest than in \nAmerica. He was particularly powerful \nin the pulpit. His prayers were as if \nhe stood in the presence-chamber, not only \nof infinite majesty, but of infinite truth and \nclearness of vision and power of illumina- \ntion. In advanced age, in the chapel of \nYale College, preaching as I never heard \nother mortal preach, he first gave me \xe2\x80\x94 in \ncrude beginnings \xe2\x80\x94 some grasp on things \neternal. Both men were John the Baptists, \nforerunners of our new temper in religion. \nThey were dwelling ever on the spirit and \n\n\n\nIts Httnger after God. 45 \n\nmeaning of nature, of events, of mind, and \nof life. They were tracing the analogies of \nthings natural and things spiritual. The \ntitle of one of Bushnell\'s books, " Nature and \nthe Supernatural," typifies both men. \n\nBut between the men of Coleridge\'s tem- \nper and the literal religionists of England, \nthere sprang antagonisms ; and amidst the \nuncertainties and contentions consequent \nthereupon, and due also to other causes \nwhich were likewise at work, there started a \ntype of newer thinking which concentrated \nattention on institutional Christianity, on the \nChurch, on its traditions, usages, and au- \nthority. This was the Tractarian movement. \nSome men in it, like Newman, went to \nRome ; some, like Pusey, into the high- \nchurch side of Protestantism. Mightily \nstimulating to thought, study, and the per- \nsonal religious life, were these men. They, \ntoo, were helpful builders of the spiritual \ntemple. \n\nIn ^uch a state of affairs, because men in \nreligion could neither be mainly idealists, as \nColeridge was, nor mainly Churchmen as the \n\n\n\n46 The Newer Religious Thinking. \n\nTractarians were, but must be in life, and \nhold a living faith that could shape England\'s \npolitics and help England\'s poor, that could \nrecover a foothold of trust again for men \nfar gone toward unbelief, and could satisfy \nminds as penetrating as Tennyson\'s and \nBrowning\'s, \xe2\x80\x94 there began to come forward \nmen hard to classify, so new, fresh, strong, \nwere their utterances and their thoughts : \nThomas Arnold, Frederick W. Robertson, \nFrederick Denison Maurice, Charles Kings- \nley, and many others of a like temper on \nboth sides of the Atlantic, though few in- \ndeed comparable to these. \n\nIt was the magnificent service of such men \nthat they recovered for religion its hold on \nlife : Arnold, for example, on the men of \nRugby and of the universities ; Robertson \non such a populous and frivolous watering- \nplace as Brighton ; Maurice on the students \nof Lincoln\'s Inn, and on the London work- \ningmen ; and Kingsley on town and country \nliving, on scientific pursuits, and on the burn- \ning questions of a practical nature which \nwere agitating England. It was their mag- \n\n\n\nIts Hunger after God. 47 \n\nnificent service, likewise, to show that doubt \nmay be the doorway of faith ; that reason \nhas its place in religion, indeed that religion \nis the highest reason ; that, moreover, beyond \nformal reason there is a reason intuitional, \nof insight, of vision, and of the living \n" Word " of God in men\'s souls ; and above \nall, that Christianity is a present, living, and \nconstructive force in society and in the life \nof individuals, in distinction from being a \ntradition, an observance, or a pious piece of \npartialism. \n\nOther lands, other faiths, and indeed, as I \nsuggested in the last discourse, unfaiths, had \ntheir parts to contribute to the newer reli- \ngious thinking. On them I cannot dwell \notherwise than to testify how greatly the \nTeutonic mind, in point of research, of sys- \ntematizing, and of insight, has stimulated \nscholarship, has accumulated intellectual \nmaterial, and has moved philosophically \ntoward the spirit and unity of all religions. \nTo this mind, to the land and race of \nLuther, the newer religious thinking owes \nmeasureless obligations. Nevertheless, for \n\n\n\n48 The Newer Religious Thinking, \n\nreligion in application, for it in its relations \nto the nation, to society, to home, and to \nthe heart, \xe2\x80\x94 for, in short, religion in its more \nconcrete aspects, \xe2\x80\x94 Germany has not in my \njudgment, done for the world that peculiar \nliving service which has characterized in \nparticular the constructive minds of Great \nBritain, and, to a less degree, of their kin \nthis side the sea. \n\nWe of this decade belong in a distinctly \ndifferent stage of the newer religious think- \ning from that to which Robertson, Maurice, \nand their group belonged. We have a vast \naccumulation of facts now well ascertained, \nwhich was not within the reach of those \nmen, and which was, as it were, only divined \nby them from afar. We have in general a far \nricher archaeology than they ; in particular, \na more adequate grasp of remote history, \nand of the processes at work in prehistoric \ntimes ; a wider acquaintance with religions \nand with race tendencies ; great gains in \ncritical knowledsfe of how the Bible came \nto be, and of Hebrew history ; and, compre- \nhensively, an exacter science alike in regard \n\n\n\nIts Hunger after God, 49 \n\nto the forces at work in nature, in society, \nand in human life. All these, with their \ninevitable modification and enrichment of a \nthinking much cruder then than now, have \nbrought the men of the present to positions \nand tendencies in thought which were not \nto have been expected then. \n\nIndeed, when some sense of all this comes \nin on the mind like a flood, how can one \nrepress a cry to God that we may not be \ndull and unwitting, but may understand \nour time, sympathize with it, appreciate its \nmighty meaning, get at least a little way \ninto that meaning ourselves, and make it \npotent in ourselves and in all about us ? \nBut on the spirit of those men, on their \nsplendid courage, on their insight into spir- \nitual things, and on their unshaken resolve, \ncome what might, that religion should lay \nhold on life, \xe2\x80\x94 on these elements in them \nwe have not advanced, nor shall we in many \na day. \n\nIt ought further to be remarked that we \nin America, having been engaged in build- \ning up this great country of ours, in fighting \n\n4 \n\n\n\n50 The Newer Religious Thinking. \n\nour war through, in grappling with the ques- \ntions thence issuing, and withal, by our tar- \niffs, our trusts, our speculations, and our \nshrewdnesses, in getting money faster than \nany other nation, and in spending it faster, \nhave until recently stood aside somewhat \nprovincially from the great, hard, thorough \nreligious thinking be3^ond the seas ; so that \nsuch gatherings as the general Congrega- \ntional Council in London in 1891, where \nreligious leaders of the same communion in \nAmerica meet those of England and the \nContinent, bring forcibly to mind the fact \nthat, theologically, many of us need to set \nour watches considerably ahead in order to \ntell Greenwich time. \n\nGetting and spending money, if done in \nrighteousness, and developing a great coun- \ntry such as ours, are good. One ma}^, in- \ndeed, be permitted the inquiry whether they \nare the highest good, \xe2\x80\x94 whether a people \nmay not be too rich, and whether a country \nmay not, like a spindling child, develop \nfaster than is for its permanent advantage. \nCertain at any rate it is that our brethren \n\n\n\nIts Hu7iger after God, 5 1 \n\nbeyond the sea have surpassed us in the \ngetting and practical expenditure of the \nriches of Godward and manward thinking, \nand in developing a country consisting, not \nof granite and of prairie loam, but of reason- \nableness, righteousness, and truth. To them \nwe may well turn with teachable minds, \xe2\x80\x94 \nnot necessarily to agree with them in all \nrespects, but to emulate their noble studies \nand lofty thoughts. \n\nIn this rapid survey of the way along \nwhich the newer religious thinking of this \ncentury has travelled until it has reached \nus, I hope has appeared, at least impliedly, \nwhat I now affirm, that the persons, known \nor unknown, who have been most hospitable \nto it, and have most furthered it, have been \nmoved, like Jacob or Moses, with great and \nearnest hungerings after God. His true, \nreal, meaning-full name, his glory and him- \nself, have been the objects of their quest. \nNot longer the Holy Grail, but very God, \nhas allured them on. \n\nNo one who knew Arnold of Rugby, with \nwhom religion was the heart of everything; \n\n\n\n5 2 The Newer Religious Thinking, \n\nor Maurice, whose very face, manner, and \nbearing became a holy benediction, often \nremarked upon as he walked the streets ; \nor Kingsley, for whom the whole world was, \nlike his own Chester, God\'s wonderful cathe- \ndral, \xe2\x80\x94 no one, I say, who knew these men \ncould well avoid likening them to typical \nmen in Bible times. And as for Robertson, \nEngland has not seen, nor shall see, one \nhungering more for God. Such a tem- \nper, too, was in the Tractarian movement. \nNewman, as much as Robertson, sought \nGod. A friend of mine who visited him \ntoward the close of his life, could not give \nan account of the interview without con- \nveying the most vivid impression of his \nsaintliness. Such a temper, differently man- \nifesting itself, animated Wordsworth, Ten- \nnyson, Browning. The Germans, in their \nprodigious labors for a better religious think- \ning, have, in their truer representatives, been \ndevout too. So have our own people. So \nhas many a man outside religious lines, and \nmany a man seemingly outside of all faith. \nIt is right, on such a point as this, that \n\n\n\nIts Hunger after God. 53 \n\nI should bear my personal testimony. If \nyou have ever seen In me any unselfishness, \nany love of men, any grasp of affairs, any \npublic spirit, any courage of conviction, any \nanything that is true, then let me say to \nyou that the mightiest incentive thereto \nwhich I have ever known has been that \nvision of God, more simply and as I believe \nmore truly conceived of, which in an ever- \nincreasing degree commands me. It was \nso in the long ago of which I just now \nspoke, when God, through Horace Bushnell, \n.awakened my soul. It was so seven years \nsince, when, led as I believe of God, I \nunfolded to you my simpler conviction re- \nspecting our Lord\'s work.^ It is so, if I \nknow my own heart, as I speak to you in \nthese discourses. And if I, who am so de- \nficient, find God, more simply thought of, so \nmuch more to my life, and such a propul- \nsion to truer thinking, how much more may \nwe suppose this to be true of the veritable \n\n^ The two sermons, with some notes and additional mat- \nter, form the little book, "- Plain Words on Our Lord\'s \nWork." Cupples, Upham, and Company, Boston. 1886. \n\n\n\n54 T"^^ Newer Religious Thinking. \n\nleaders of religious thought, the holy proph- \nets and seers of our time. \n\nII. If now I have succeeded in making \nevident, by way of narrative and from indi- \nvidual illustrations, the fact to which I have \nalso felt constrained to bear my personal \ntestimony, namely, that hunger after God \nactuates the newer religious thinking, let me \npoint out, in the second place, and as com- \npleting this discourse, some ways in which \nthis hunger works practically. \n\nDr. Lyman Abbott, in the sermon preached \nin Plymouth Church the Sunday morning \nafter Mr. Beecher\'s death, made this state- \nment : " When your pastor preached that \nfamous sermon on the \' Background of Mys- \ntery,\' which created so much excitement and \nproduced so much criticism, I went to him \nwith the proofs of it. It was to be published \nin \' The Christian Union,\' and I said to him : \n\' Mr. Beecher, this sermon \xe2\x96\xa0 you must revise.\' \nI think it was the only time I ever had. \na controversy with Mr. Beecher and came \nout best, but he yielded that time. . . . And \nthen I remember his turning to me, his great \n\n\n\nIts Hunger after God. 55 \n\nform growing greater, and the great brow \ngrowing higher, and his great eyes flashing \nfire, as he said something like this : \' There \nare times, in preaching, when I have a con- \nception of the greatness and the goodness \nand the mercy and the love of my God, and \nthen see by the side of it the hideous idols \nthat are put up in Christian temples and \nrepresented in Christian literature, that are \nmaligning my God ; and I hate them, as the \nold Hebrew prophets hated the idols of old \ntime, with an unutterable hatred ; and \' \xe2\x80\x94 \nthen, with one of those sudden transitions, \nhe dropped back and said \xe2\x80\x94 \' something \'s \ngot to give way.\' " \n\nIn this connection one remembers the zeal \nof the old image-breakers, say in Antwerp \nCathedral in the time of William the Silent, \nor on many an occasion in the life of Israel. \nThe image, or the idol, seemed such a trav- \nesty of God that the moral indignation almost \npassed bounds. But not all the idols are of \nwood, or of stone. Some of them are of the \nmind, \xe2\x80\x94 ideas, conceptions, doctrines. We \nworship sometimes the Bible more than \n\n\n\n56 The Newer Religious Thinking. \n\nthe Holy Spirit, speaking within us as it \nspake to holy men of old. We worship \nsometimes our ideas of Christ\'s work more \nthan we worship Christ. We worship some- \ntimes human names and human authority \nmore than we worship the living God. \n\nNow the newer religious thinking, under- \nstanding by the light of history when it was \nthat more or less of these images were set \nup (even as Christ did when he said, "Moses \nfor your hardness of heart suffered you to " \ndo a certain thing, " but from the beginning \nit hath not been so"), hungers to such a de- \ngree after God, and to have God no longer \nobscured and misrepresented by these images, \nthat, like the old image or idol breakers, \nthose to whom the clearer vision has come \ncannot but do what in them lies to break the \nidols down. Their course looks, to those \nnot understanding it, like sacrilege. It \nseems inexplicable. But in reality it is \nhunger after God manifesting itself in this \nform. \n\nMay all such not feel " hate," except in \nMr. Beecher\'s beneficent sense. May they \n\n\n\nIts Hunger after God, 57 \n\nhave, the rather, a loving and pitying spirit, \nalthough firm and thorouo^h in their work. \nAnd when it costs them much, as many a \ntime it will, may they have the spirit of the \nLord Jesus, who broke down idol after idol \nof Jewish prejudice, but wept over Jeru- \nsalem, and prayed, " Father, forgive them," \nfor those who avenged the broken idols by \ncrucifying him. \n\nWhat, let us ask, then, are some of the \nidols which the newer religious thinking, in \nthis its hunger after God, would fain throw \ndown } \n\nI. One of them I may characterize as a \nmachine or mechanical conception of God, \xe2\x80\x94 \nGod as making the universe out of hand, like \na machine ; God as dwelling apart from the \nuniverse, as the makers of a gigantic ocean \nsteamship, having built it, turn it off to ply \nback and forth without them on the stormy \ndeep ; and God as about to break up the \nuniverse, very much as if it were only so \nmuch junk. \n\nNow, that there are expressions in the \nBible regarding his forming the universe, \n\n\n\n58 The Newer Religious Thinking. \n\ndoing what he wishes with it, and destroying \nit, admits of no question. But from these it \ncannot follow that such is an adequate repre- \nsentation of his relation to the universe. \nThere are other and different expressions, \nwhich represent him as in his works, as de- \nlighting in them, as clothing himself with \nthem. But the former type of representa- \ntions, and the natural tendency of ages pre- \nceding this to look at matters mechanically, \nhave brought it about that the ordinary \nconception of the relation of God to the \nuniverse is of the inadequate type which I \nhave described. \n\nThis is a heavy reflection on God. It \nruns counter to our deepest instincts. It is \ncontrary to reason that so vast, intricate, and \nmysterious a world, so athrill with thought \nand life, should be mechanical, a thing thrown \noff, a mere machine. It is contrary, also, to \nthe teachings of science, which more and \nmore are deepening the mystery of the uni- \nverse. It is opposed, moreover, to the ruling \nexpressions in the Bible. Not so do the \nminds which appear in the opening chap- \n\n\n\nIts Hunger after God, 59 \n\nters of Genesis conceive of the world. His \nSpirit, as they suppose, broods it. He finds it \nvery good. Men cannot get to the best of it, \nbecause they will not live truly enough, but \nGod\'s angels can. Within it he himself \nwalks in the cool of the day. So reverent \nof this earth are those far-off men ! Not so, \neither, does Saint Paul conceive of the world. \n" The invisible things of him since the crea- \ntion of the world are clearly seen, being per- \nceived through the things that are made, \neven his everlasting power and divinity," \nexclaims the Apostle ; and he represents the \nuniverse as sympathetically in a groaning \nand travail with the world-long birth of \nmental and spiritual life. \n\n*\' But," says some one, " a thought of the \nuniverse contrary in this respect to the tra- \nditional one would issue in pantheism." \nAh, my friend, you are at the usual tactics ; \nemploying deduction from imperfect con- \nceptions, instead of induction from the fullest \npossible data, and sounding an unwarrantable \nalarm. Let us not be frightened at a name. \nPantheism, by itself, is inadequate enough; \n\n\n\n6o The Newer Religious Thinking. \n\nbut there is a divine, yes a Biblical pantheism, \n\xe2\x80\x94 all things in God, by him, through him; \nall things standing together in him ; he in his \nworld, not apart from it ; his world uttering \nhim, expressing him, bodying him forth. \n\nNo epoch since Hebrew and Greek poets \nsang, except that period which has suc- \nceeded, though the least spiritual, in fasten- \ning upon us a large part of our religious \nideas, namely, the Middle Ages, could have \nhad the Bible in hand, and propounded in \nthis respect a view of the universe utterly \nrepugnant to the spirit of the Bible. This \nmechanical thought of God in his relation \nto the world must go; the more spiritual \nthought of him as immanent, as pervading \nthe world, and as of it, though more than it, \nmust come. The world is sacred. Exist- \nence is divine. There is nothing in which \nGod is not. Ah ! the beauty, the glory, the \nmeaning, the comfort herefrom ! How ma- \nchine-like, with the lathe-marks still showing, \nis the counter graven image ! \n\n2. Another idol, or misrepresentation of \nGod, is the conception of him as mainly \nruler. \n\n\n\nIts Hunger after God. 6i \n\nHe rules, no doubt; but even in that \nthere is nothing arbitrary, wilful, or absolute \nin temper. He rules by virtue of righteous- \nness and of love. He is God because he is \ngood. Moreover, the idea of him as ruler, \nwhen most correct, is only one of many \naspects of him. And yet almost our whole \ntheology is keyed to this idea, \xe2\x80\x94 his sover- \neignty, his laws, his jealousy for them, his \npunishments for those violating them, his \nwrath, his being unable to do this and that \nbecause he could not do it and be just, \nand very much more to the same effect. \n\nPerhaps you know a great and noble man, \na parent perchance, a magistrate, a college \npresident like Mark Hopkins. He rules .f* \nCertainly. But is not his ruling the smallest \naspect of him } Are you thinking, any great \npart of the time, that such a one is a ruler, \n\xe2\x80\x94 he being so much else, and so wonderfully \nso much else ? So our Saviour has not \nmuch to say of God as ruler. He says some- \nthing of that; but mainly he speaks of him \nas Father ; as exercising a providential care \nover even the hairs of our heads ; as yearn- \n\n\n\n62 The Newer Religious Thinking, \n\ning for the\' prodigal\'s return ; as, like a true \nshepherd, having more joy of the lost sheep \nfound than of the ninety and nine that went \nnot astray. God, to the Saviour\'s thought, \nis one near us, with whom we may commune \nand become one, far more than a ruler. \n\nThis primary proposition, then, of medi- \naeval theology, which has colored nearly \nevery article of our creeds, must, I will not \nsay go, for there is some truth in it, but \nmust drop to its subordinate and normal \nplace, and yield to other as the predomi- \nnant aspects of God. \n\n3. Still another idol, or misrepresentation \nof him, is one which I hesitate to mention, \nbecause my meaning may readily be mis- \nunderstood. But I cannot conscientiously \navoid doing so. I refer to our philosophy \nof the Trinity, in so far as it is put in the \nplace of God, \xe2\x80\x94 and it is put there a great \ndeal, as I cannot help believing. \n\nAs a philosophy, although bunglingly ex- \npressing itself, it is in my judgment true. \nI believe, that is to say, in the reality and \neternity of those distinctions in God\'s being \n\n\n\nIts Hunger after God. 63 \n\nwhich the terms Father, Son, and Holy \nSpirit answer to. I am, in short, philosoph- \nically a Trinitarian ; and by this philosophy \nI most readily explain to myself those Bib- \nlical expressions, \xe2\x80\x94 so that, to this degree, \nI may add that I am Biblically a Trinitarian. \nHegel\'s philosophy, unless I mistake, would, \nif it went so far, turn out to be Trini- \ntarian. Much of the strongest thinking since \nNicaea, early in the fourth century, has been \nTrinitarian. All this should weigh with a \nthoughtful person. \n\nBut one must distinguish between his \ntheory or philosophy of certain facts, how- \never venerable it may be, and the facts \nthemselves. The facts are there. They \ncannot well be set aside. But our philos- \nophy of the facts may be imperfect, or even \nmistaken. God, as Father, Son, and Holy \nSpirit, is in the Bible, and is to a large \ndegree in human experience. That is fact. \nBut our fourth-century and Hegelian philos- \nophy of it is quite another thing. It may \nbe correct, \xe2\x80\x94 I think it correct ; but when I \nsuppose that philosophy to compass God, \n\n\n\n64 The Newer Religious Thinking, \n\nand when I make representations accord- \ningly, I attempt to measure him by the yard- \nstick of Athanasius, or of Hegel, or of my \nown mind ; and therein I am guilty, very \npossibly, of setting up an idol ; and all idols \nmust come down. \n\nTo the simple Biblical indications, and to \nthose same indications in human experience, \nwe cannot but adhere. But to a philosophy \nof them, which may or may not be correct, \nwhich certainly is extra-Biblical, and which \nhas this ominous fact attending it, namely, \nthat there have always been devout souls \nwhich could not accept it, \xe2\x80\x94 we may adhere \npersonally, as I for one do ; but we have no \nright authoritatively to impose it on others. \nWe are, in other words, for liberty\'s sake, \nand for the truth\'s sake, to stop representing \nthat God is necessarily expressed by our phi- \nlosophy of the Trinity ; but are, so far as we \ntouch upon the subject, to represent that \nGod is God, spoken of in the Bible as \nFather, Son, and Holy Spirit, and to a \nlarge degree so apprehended in human ex- \nperience. This is Biblical, factual, and \n\n\n\nIts Hunger after God. 65 \n\nenough. What exceeds this verges toward \nimage-making. It ought, moreover, \xe2\x80\x94 what \nis a burning shame, \xe2\x80\x94 no longer to separate \nChristian brethren. \n\n4. One more idol, or misrepresentation \nof God, lies in our too frequent insistence \nthat God in Christ is mainly governmental \nor forensic in his purpose. \n\nChrist, according to this view, is almost \nentirely compassed by the idea that he be- \ncame man, lived, suffered, and died, to get \na law adjustment between sin, which God \nwished to forgive, and justice which pre- \nvented God from forgiving it. \n\nThis idol was set up in the eleventh \ncentury ; for until that time the Church \nmade Christ, the rather, to have been a \nnegotiator with Satan for man\'s escape \nfrom hell. Since the eleventh century it \nhas met with a variety of fortunes. \n\nIt is, indeed, a sort of corollary from the \nexaggerated emphasis laid in earlier ages \non the idea of God as ruler. It gets some \nsupport from certain passages in the New \nTestament; just as the earlier idea of Christ \n\n5 \n\n\n\n66 The Newer Religious Thinking. \n\nas negotiating with Satan gets some support \nfrom certain other passages. But these \npassages are far from coextensive with the \nsubject. There is a much wider range of \nBible teaching. And the facts can never be \nincluded under this category. This its in- \nsufficiency was what compelled that investi- \ngation which led to my abandoning it, as \nintimated a few moments ago. \n\nChrist is a vital, living, present Saviour; \nnot a law expedient. The latter interpreta- \ntion of him presupposes in God an attitude \ntoward sin in his children for which, if you \nor I had the same toward sin in our childrenj \nwe should loathe ourselves, or ought to. As \nyou know, I depend wholly on Christ for \nsalvation, that is, as the medium of spiritual \nlife; but I should deny the truth as God \ngives me to see it if I explained his work \nforensically, and should, I am persuaded, be \nmisrepresenting God likewise. \n\nAgainst, thus, a machine or mechanical \nconception of God ; against a conception \nof him which exaggerates his rulership out \nof all proportion to larger aspects of him ; \n\n\n\nIts Hunger after God. 67 \n\nagainst a conception which limits the thought \nof him to a philosophy, approximating the \ntruth, as I personally believe, but which may \nor may not be correct, which is extra-Biblical, \nand which is incapable of being received by \nnot a few devout minds ; and against a con- \nception of him which mainly interprets the \nglorious and life-affecting manifestation of \nhimself in Christ by terms better suited to \nthe law courts of the tyrannous Middle Ages, \nsuch as the " Merchant of Venice " brings \nbefore our minds, than to this age or to the \nfacts, \xe2\x80\x94 against such conceptions of God, as \nmisrepresentations of him, and as idols of \nthe mind, the newer religious thinking utters \nits protest. \n\nI might instance others. In particular, I \nshould like to speak of our ordinary thought \nas not giving God time enough, nor scope \nenough, to come down to now, or to go on \nfrom now, or to include his whole great uni- \nverse and his whole great family. But to do \nthis to-night is impracticable. Besides, as \nexamples, the idols already mentioned will \nsuffice. \n\n\n\n68 The Newer Religious Thinking. \n\nLet me say, in closing, that the "gospel of \nthe glory of the blessed God " has been un- \nspeakably hurt by such misrepresentations. \nBecause it has been so misrepresented, mul- \ntitudes have wandered off into unbelief. \nOther multitudes have groped blindly after \nGod, with sick hearts. The enemies of \nChristianity have made the most of such \ncaricatures, and have summarily bowed it \nout of court. These caricatures, and others \nlike them, are the stock in trade of rank and \nnoisy infidelity. \n\nBrethren, the Church, the clergy, the laity, \nin fact all true souls, have herein a heavy \nresponsibility laid on them. They are to \nthink rightly of God, and speak rightly, and \nwitness by true lives rightly for him. God \nhelp us all to do this! May open eyes, \nteachable minds, and receptive hearts be \nours for that wideness and richness of truth, \nnow discernible, for which prophets, apos- \ntles, and Christians from age to age waited, \nbut received it not, " God having provided \nsome better thing for us, that they without \nus should not be made perfect " ! \n\n\n\nITS PASSION FOR MEN. \n\n\n\nSYNOPSIS. \n\nThe passion for men of Moses and Saint Paul. \xe2\x80\x94 This \ncharacteristic of fresh thinkers : Throughout the Bible ; \nIn Christian ages ; In the modern time (examples). \xe2\x80\x94 The \nconnection between such thinking and this passion not \naccidental but necessary. \xe2\x80\x94 Consequent war of the newer \nreligious thinking on certain traditional religious ideas in- \nconsistent, as commonly understood, with an adequate view \nof man, namely : (i) Election and reprobation ; the self- \nsacrifice of the true, Biblical election ; (2) Man\'s sinful state ; \nonly most figuratively a " child of wrath ; " (3) Worthless- \nness of works when expressive of character; failure to \napprehend the struggle of Christ and the apostles with \nthe Jewish spirit underlies this perversion of Scripture ; \n(4) Man\'s access to God ; this vital^ rather than analogous \nto access to the Queen of England ; (5) Man\'s destiny ; mag- \nnitude of this question ; wanted upon it, more light, ampler \ndata, and its re-study. \xe2\x80\x94 Consequent war, also, of the newer \nreligious thinking on certain ideas and practices prevalent in \nsociety, namely : (i) Merely ease-producing remedies for \nthe evils of society ; (2) Superficial remedies ; (3) Laissez \nfaire; (4) Inordinate wealth and luxury; (5) Asceticism; \n(6) Unscientific living ; (7) The individualistic tendency. \xe2\x80\x94 \n" I will not cease from mental fight." \n\n\n\nIII. \n\nITS PASSION FOR MEN.i \n\nYei now, if thou wilt forgive their sin \xe2\x80\x94 / and if not, \n\nblot me, I pray thee, out of thy book which thou hast \n\nwritten. \xe2\x80\x94 Exodus xxxii. 32. \nFor I could wish that I myself were anathema from \n\nChrist for my brethren\'s sake, my kinsmen according \n\nto the flesh. \xe2\x80\x94 RoaiANS ix. 3. \n\nTN these words two great typical representa- \ntives of newer religious thinking in their \ntime utter the passion of their souls. It is \nfor men. \n\nMoses, stirred by larger religious thought, \nessays to free his people. " Sirs, ye are \nbrethren," he pleads. Prevented from ac- \ncomplishing his object, long delayed, but at \nlength entering upon and now amidst his \ngreat work, he finds that his people cannot \nrise to. his spiritual ideals, but revert to idol \nworship and to gross sensuousness. In such \n\n^ Prospect Street, Sunday night, November 20, 1892. \n\n\n\n72 The Newer Religious Thinking, \n\na case they are repugnant to high moral law, \nand to God as conceived of under the alto- \ngether inadequate category of moral law. In \nsuch a plight, when destruction seems await- \ning them, and when he himself is tempted to \nlet them perish, and to become in his own \nperson the founder of a truer nation, the \nGod within him offsets the God of his pre- \nconception and pleads for his people with \nthis sublime climax, " If [thou forgive them] \nnot, blot me, I pray thee, out of thy book \nwhich thou hast written." \n\nSimilarly, Saint Paul, the great new re- \nligious thinker of early Christianity, would \ndesire to be " accursed," or " separated," or \n" anathema," for his brethren\'s sake. \n\nThis is one marked characteristic of fresh- \nening religious thought. It freed Israel from \nEgypt. It rescued her anew and anew from \nher enemies. It led the Hebrew prophets, \nmany of them heretics in their day, to be the \nmost democratic of men, pleading for the poor, \nthe oppressed, the outcast, against wealth, \ntyranny, and obloquy, \xe2\x80\x94 so that they became \nthe forerunners of the liberators of succeed- \n\n\n\nIts Passion for Men, \'j^) \n\ning ages, and by their utterances (together \nwith those of the Hebrew lawgivers, who \nwere actuated by the same spirit) laid as \nfoundations those just principles of human \nconduct which many centuries later became \nthe basis of the common law, and which \nhave thus come to obtain for the modern \nworld. \n\nSimilarly, freshening religious thought \nbroke into the petrified tyranny and cruelty \nof the Roman Empire, and deferred the over- \nthrow of that empire by Christianizing it ; \nmade a way for the tentative rise of free in- \nstitutions prior to the Reformation ; rendered \npossible, coincidently with the Reformation, \nfar ampler freedom alike for Protestants and \nCatholics ; and is to-day the great humaniz- \ning factor in a humanizing tendency which \nhas become so universal that it characterizes \nmany even of those who deny the very \ngrounds for the existence of religion. \n\nIn the past century and a half, for exam- \nple, the fresher religious thinking under \nEdwards prepared the way for the indepen- \ndence of the American Colonies; and the \n\n\n\n74 The Newer Religious Thinking, \n\nfresher religious thinking of " Unevangeli- \ncals," so-called, like Channing and Parker, \nand of " Evangelicals," so-called, as seen in \na fresher Andover theology^ New Haven \ntheology, and New School Presbyterian \ntheology, prepared the way for the over- \nthrow of American slavery, in one of the \nmost gigantic moral struggles of history. \nSo in the mother country, Arnold, Robert- \nson, Maurice, and Kingsley, with many \nothers, some of them passed on, and some \nof them still living, have been in the fore- \nfront of those modifications of the English \nCommonwealth which have so mightily \nuplifted and benefited its congested popu- \nlations. \n\nAnd to-day the men who are least satis- \nfied with things as they are ; who are plung- \ning deepest into social questions ; whose \nlife-hold on political economy and on politics \nis most tenacious, are the men who see a \nnew heavens and a new earth of religious \nthought and feeling, \xe2\x80\x94 some of them within \nso-called " evangelical " lines ; some of them \nliberals or radicals religiously ; and some of \n\n\n\nIts Passion for Men. 75 \n\nthem agnostics or unbelievers, but with a \nfreshened and changed religious feeling, \nwhatever their classification. In fact, the \nmen are all about us, who conjoin with \nfresher and better thoughts of God fresher \nand better thoughts for men, \xe2\x80\x94 Catholic and \nProtestant, " Evangelical " and " Unevangel- \nical," religious and (as they would call them- \nselves) non-religious, but, in the range that \nbelongs of right to religion, new men, in the \nnew time. " Ring out," they cry, in the \nlines of Tennyson, \xe2\x80\x94 \n\n" Ring out the feud of rich and poor, \nRing in redress to all mankind. . . . \n\n" Ring out false pride in place and blood, \nThe civic slander and the spite ; \nRing in the love of truth and right, \nRing in the common love of good." \n\nThe High Church is working for the poor, \nand so is the Low Church ; formal Non- \nconformist, and informal Salvation Army \nman. There are the Saint Andrew\'s Brother- \nhood .man, and the Christian at Work ; \nToynbee Hall, and Rivington Street Col- \nlege Settlement, and Prospect Union, and \n\n\n\n76 The Newer Religious Thinking. \n\nthe Andover House. Fresher religious \nthinking, whatever its type, is plunging in, \nbound to rescue men ; while unfreshened \nreligious thought, gathering its skirts about \nit, too often only offers a prayer, and \npasses the contribution box. The voice \nof the latter has too frequently put into \npolite phrase Cain\'s question, " Am I \nmy brother\'s keeper 1 " The voice of the \nformer, with Moses and Saint Paul, cries \nto God that it may be blotted out, or ac- \ncursed, if it cannot do something for its \nerring, sinning brothers. \n\nI. The first point to which I desire to call \nattention in this matter is that it is not by \naccident that a mighty passion for men has \nattended the newer religious thinking in \ntimes past and now, but that there is a \nnecessary connection of cause and effect \nbetween them. \n\nReligion is the correlation of man and the \nInfinite. As, then, men enlarge their thought \nof the Infinite, the enlargement necessarily \ngoes into the domain of man, as well as of \nGod. God being more freshly, strongly. \n\n\n\nIts Passion for Men, jy \n\ndeeply conceived of, man Is by consequence \nmore freshly, strongly, deeply conceived of. \nThe correlation carries them both. If so \ngreat, noble, and more and more largely con- \nceived of a being as God is in a relation to \nmen of which religion is the expression, how \ngreat, noble, and more and more largely to be \nconceived of is man also. The one involves \nthe other. Or, to express it more simply: \nGod, we will say, is Father, and men are his \nchildren. With the Father goes the child. \nThe child gains in nobility from the Father. \nNew, fresh, strong thoughts of God, then, \ncarry with them new, fresh, strong thoughts \nof men. \n\nHence, necessarily, did he who had seen \nthe bush burning but not consumed, and the \nSinai glory of God, and he also who had been \ncaught up into the third heaven, yearn alike \nfor the children of so glorious and good a \nGod, and wish to be blotted out, or accursed, \nif their brethren might not also share the \nblessin-g. Or, as Saint John the Revelator \nput it, reversing the statement, " He that \nloveth not his brother whom he hath seen, \n\n\n\n78 The Newer Religious Thinking. \n\nhow can he love God whom he hath not \nseen ? " And hence necessarily also did \nthose newer religious thinkers, the Hebrew \nlawgivers and prophets, become the fore- \nrunners of the liberators and of the enlarged \nlaws of mankind. \n\nHence, too, necessarily did the newer \nChristianity defer the doom of the Roman \nEmpire, and, yet more and more freshly \nconceived of, prepare the beginnings of lib- \nerty before the Reformation, and give the \nsame in larger degree to Protestants and \nCatholics after the Reformation, and free our \nColonies, and unshackle our slaves, and make \nthe larger liberty of the England of to-day, \nand spread itself as a reforming and human- \nizing influence, pervasive as the atmosphere, \nin this last decade of the nineteenth centurv. \nThe one involves the other. The enlarging \nand deepening thought of the correlation \nembraces the conception of man as well as \nthe conception of God. And so is verified \nthat profound saying of Saint Paul, " Where \nthe Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty." \n\nII. But, in the second place, the fresher \n\n\n\nIts Passion for Men. 79 \n\nthought of man, consequent on the fresher \nthought of God in the newer religious think- \ning, puts that thinking at war not only with \ncertain current ideas of God, as we saw in the \nlast discourse, but also with certain current \nideas of man. \n\nI. The current theology regarding man \nruns, for example, among men a line of elec- \ntion and reprobation. \n\nTrue, this is very little spoken of now; \nbut it is unretracted, and lingers as an influ- \nencing element in men\'s thinking. Accord- \ning to this view, the elect are chosen of God \nfor blessing, and the non-elect for cursing. \nIn apparent favor of this view are some Bible \nexpressions, like that about the vessels made \nby a potter, some to honor and some to dis- \nhonor. But from an ampler thought of God \nit follows that man, his child, is not to be \ntreated in that way. You could not treat \nyour child in that way without running \ncounter to human law, and much more, to \nthe law of God. \n\nThat passion for men which characterizes \nthe newer religious thinking presses, there- \n\n\n\n8o The Newer Religiotis Thinking, \n\nfore, a more adequate study of this doctrine \nof election and reprobation. From this it \nappears that the doctrine, as presented in the \nBible, occurs there mainly in consolatory \npassages, as in the eighth of the Romans, \nwhere it is urged for comfort and reassurance \nthat God has chosen the reader, and is on \nhis side. From this study it also appears \nthat the chief elect one in the Old Testament \nis Abraham, chosen that in him all nations \nmight be blessed; and that the chief elect \none in the New Testament is the Lord Jesus, \nwho is chosen that men may be saved, and \nall men drawn to him. \n\nThe elect, in short, as another has phrased \nit, " are elect for the non-elect." Not partial- \nism, but benevolence, self-sacrifice, as in the \ncase of Abraham and the Saviour, and yearn- \ning for the good of all, are in this truth. \n\n2. Again, the newer religious thinking \ncannot regard man so ill as did the older \nthought. \n\nIt thinks as ill of sin as ever. Evil, it is \nsure, is evil and nothing else. But it con- \nceives of sin more justly. It considers that \n\n\n\nIts Passion for Men. 8i \n\nsin has come from outside influences in part ; \nthat blindness is in greater or less degree its \ncause ; and that that part of it \xe2\x80\x94 and it is \na large part \xe2\x80\x94 which is wilful and designing, \ngrows out of a mistaken or insufficient idea \nof God and of right, even as a wilfully sin- \nning child is such, generally, through not \nhaving had its heart touched by love into \nnobler and better things. \n\nLove, the newer religious thinking knows, \ncan penetrate the hardest heart, afford it \nvision, stir its aspirations, and mould it, it \ntrusts, into nobler life. Love, in other words, \nchanges the point of view. What law can- \nnot do, a new spirit called into exercise can. \nSaint Paul has the philosophy of it : " The \nlaw of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus made \nme free from the law of sin and of death." \nAccordingly, man being such, and so redeem- \nable, the newer religious thinking realizes, \nwith Scripture, how much that is noble and \nlovable resides in every human soul. As the \nSaviour could find it, so this thinking finds \nit. Fallen indeed is man from the heights \nhe might have attained, of truth, right, and \n\n6 \n\n\n\n82 The Newer Religious Thinking, \n\nlove ; but he is still God\'s child, and only in \na most figurative and exceptional sense a \n"child of wrath." \n\nIn brief, the newer religious thinking \nbelieves that man, fallen in such a sense, is \nstill nigh to God, dear to him, and in some \ngenuine sense still not fallen, but true, and \nwith something of God in him. This some- \nthing it sets itself to seek, to love, to develop, \nand to thank God for. \n\n3. The newer religious thinking deplores \nalso the exaggeration of truth in the old \ndoctrine of the worthlessness of works. \n\n" Not of works, lest any man should boast," \nsays Saint Paul ; and his caveat ought to \nexplain his meaning. It is a Jewish mean- \ning. The Jew was seeking works as he was \nseeking gold, to be proud of, and to felici- \ntate himself and indulge himself withal. The \nmore gold, the more pride and ease. The \nmore works, the more pride and ease like- \nwise. Of that kind of goodness, then, the \nmore the worse, since it was assumed for \neffect, a mere matter of boasting, a thing \nof the outside and not of the heart. It was \n\n\n\nIts Passion for Men. ^\'^^ \n\nupon this false Jewish idea of righteousness \nthat Christ and the apostles flung their lives \nin protest. The real thing, they contended, \nwas utterly other than this. " Except your \nrighteousness shall exceed the righteousness \nof the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no \nwise enter into the kingdom of heaven." \n\nWhat a perversion, now, it is to take this \nevil, which was peculiar, in great measure \nlocal, and the conspicuous trait of a deca- \ndent national religion, and formulate from \nit the doctrine that good conduct counts for \nnothing ! It counts, being real and from \nthe heart, for everything. As clothes put \non, as something assumed, it is insincerity, \nhypocrisy, an object, not for boasting (" lest \nany man should boast "), but for contempt. \nBut as a real thing, as springing from the \nheart, as an expression of character, and \nas in that sense an embodiment of faith, it \nis precious alike with God and with men. \n" Thine alms are had in remembrance in \nthe sight of God," exclaims the angel to \nCornelius. " I will show thee my faith by \nmy works," writes Saint James. \n\n\n\n84 The Newer Religious Thinking, \n\nThe newer religious thinking, therefore, \nwhile depending in all things on God, and \nwhile valuing as beyond price those Christly \nmotives which issue in the noblest living, \nbegs leave at the same time, as it thinks \nbetter of God, so also to think better of \nman, God\'s child, than longer to undervalue \nor think lightly of true, heart-inspired good \nconduct. \n\n4. Nor can the newer religious thinking, \nthough resting alone, in the case of many \nof its representatives, on Christ as the chan- \nnel or medium, realized or unrealized, of \naccess to God, any longer believe that access \nto God is exclusively, as a matter of terms, \nthrough Christ. \n\nGod is too real, too omnipresent, too imma- \nnent in man, for there to be any such literal \nmediating as the old doctrine assumed. \nRather, as many believe, does God in Christ \nso seek men, whether they realize it or not, \nthat he finds them ; and, in their sincere \nresponse to his seeking, whatever the form \nof their response, they have access to God. \nIn some such sense as this, through Christ, \n\n\n\nIts Passion for Men. 85 \n\nwhether known by them or not, men find \nGod ; but not necessarily through Christ \noutwardly, in terms, and by way of formality. \nIt might be expressed thus : Christ is the \nmanward side of God. Through him access \nis thus had. But not formally, diplomati- \ncally, forensically, or even, necessarily, as \nmatter of knowledge, but rather vitally. \n\nThe newer religious thinking ventures, in \nother words, not to think so ill of man, as \nGod\'s child, as to suppose that his access \nto God is analogous to access to the Queen \nof England. " I was found of them that \nsought me not," says Scripture. \n\n5. Once more, regarding the destiny of \nman as God\'s child, the newer religious \nthinking begs leave to accept no dictum of \nmediaeval theology, no dictum of a super- \nficial interpretation of Scripture, no dictum \nnot consonant with the whole conception \nof man derivable from nature, from history, \nfrom that charter of religious freedom, if \nrightly -used, the Bible, and from the heart \nof man under the influence of God\'s Spirit. \n\nAccording to the most conservative sci- \n\n\n\n86 The Newer Religious Thinking. \n\nentific estimates, man has been on the earth \nvastly longer than six thousand years, the \nperiod set by the old chronology. What \nwas he doing ? What was God doing with \nhim ? He was unfolding, by slow degrees, \non both hemispheres, into being man as we \nknow man. Was God hurling him into \nhell for that beneficent work, savage though \nhe was ? At an analogous stage of unfold- \ning are some peoples now living on this \nplanet. What is God doing with them .? \nHurling them into hell likewise } Then \nshould good men wish, with Saint Paul, to \nbe accursed with them, to follow them, \nlove them, and, if it might be, to bring \nthem back. \n\nOh ! these questions pressed on us by our \nenlarging knowledge ! What is the destiny \nof man as a race on this planet ? What is \nthe destiny of man, individually considered, \nafter leaving this planet ? We can neither, \non the one hand, answer these questions \nwith a benevolent optimism, hoping for the \nbest, \xe2\x80\x94 because, unfortunately, there is much \nin the survey which looks by no means \n\n\n\nIts Passion for Men, 87 \n\ntoward the best, but toward the worst, \xe2\x80\x94 nor, \non the other hand, with the theologians of \nan age which, for frequent offences, burnt \npeople, flayed them alive, and tortured them, \ncan we hasten to remand them to hell \ntorments. \n\nWhat we want, on this subject, is more \nlight, a re-study of the whole matter, ampler \ndata and more comprehensive generalization. \nMany are now engaged in this. For myself, \nwhile this pursuit is outside the range of my \nown special studies, I frankly confess that I \nam unable to resist the hope that God\'s love \nwill yet find all souls ; nor the hope that, \nhere and hereafter, I, in common with all \nwho love him, may be used as a means for \nhis love to find all souls. But neither can I \nresist the impression that it may be possible \nfor a soul always to withstand God\'s love. I \ncannot, consequently, be a Universalist in \ndoctrine. At the same time my hope for \nthe future of every spirit that God ever \ncreated is as infinite as God is infinite. \n\nOf the newer religious thinking, then, I \nmay summarily state, that it is devoutly re- \n\n\n\n88 The Newer Religious Thinking. \n\nstudying this whole subject, impelled thereto \nby that larger thought of man which the \nlarger thought of God necessitates; and that, \nwhile it is teachable, and feels that it has \nmuch to learn, it is at the same time at war \nwith ideas on this subject, long prevalent, in- \ndeed, but alike dishonoring to God and man. \n\nThus in respect to the doctrine of election, \nof man\'s sinful state, of conduct when expres- \nsive of character, of man\'s access to God, and \nof man\'s destiny, not to mention others, the \nnewer religious thinking is at war with the \nhard and fast conclusions of an earlier theo- \nlogy; and, while it recognizes much truth in \nthe old positions, and in respect to them, \nrightly apprehended, is not destructive but \nconstructive, it claims at the same time the \nright to re-study them, and more justly, \nreasonably, and honorably alike to God and \nman, to interpret them afresh. \n\nIII. In conclusion I can state hardly \nmore than in propositions some particulars \nin which the newer religious thinking, be- \ncause of its passion for men, is at war with \nsociety, cries aloud, and spares not. \n\n\n\nIts Passion for Men. 89 \n\n1. The newer religious thinking does not \nbelieve that man lives by bread alone. \n\nAny proposed renovation of society, there- \nfore, by contrivances, like Mr. Bellamy\'s, to \ntake the hardness out of life, to make every- \nthing easy, to have done with the struggle, \nto have reconstructed society into an organ- \nism working with precision like a factory, is, \nin its judgment, like the holiness scheme in \nreligion, while worthy in more or less re- \nspects, substantially a device to construct \nmoral weaklings. Not what we have en- \njoyed, but what we have suffered, \xe2\x80\x94 even as \nOne of old was made " perfect through suf- \nferings," \xe2\x80\x94 has probably most benefited you \nand me. \n\nThe remedy must not involve the sacrifice \nof anything truly educational, tonic, and \ncharacter-affecting in the present order. \n\n2. Similarly, the newer religious thinking \nis shy of any proposed remedies for the evils \nof mankind which ignore the very great \ncomplexities of the problem. \n\nThe problem is vast. The wisest knows \nlittle about it. Man and man\'s good, which \n\n\n\n90 The Newer Religious Thinking, \n\nunnumbered ages have only brought to the \npresent stage, are too nearly infinite, having \nan infinite parentage, and are too little as yet \nwithin the range of our comprehension, to \nbe fathomed in a day, a year, a century, or \nan epoch. That is one of the mighty \nteachings of the "Idyls of the King": \xe2\x80\x94 \n\n" And slowly answered Arthur from the barge : \n* The old order changeth, yielding place to new, \nAnd God fulfils himself in many ways, \nLest one good custom should corrupt the world.\' " \n\nThe newer religious thinking, therefore, \nis lowly, cautious, tentative, teachable, recep- \ntive in these matters. \n\n3. But, on the other hand, it is not so \nvery meek after all. It has declared war on \nsome things, and will not capitulate. One \nof them is laissez faire. \n\nEvery man for himself and the devil take \nthe hindmost is not its doctrine. The \nolder thinking might live along with such a \ntheory, having, under its category of justice, \ndone no wrong; but the newer thinking can- \nnot abide it. Let it, on the contrary, go to the \ndevil with the hindmost, and be blotted out \n\n\n\nIts Passion for Men, 91 \n\nor accursed with the same, rather than en- \ncounter the self-condemnation of having had \nno pity on the hindmost, and of letting him \ngo to the devil with none to help. \n\nIt believes that capital has rights ; also, \nthat labor has rights. The indifference of \ncapital to labor, in multitudes of cases, it \nbelieves to be as wrong in principle as the \nindifference of labor to capital when it sets \ncostly buildings on fire. When labor destroys \ncapital it does a great wrong, for which it \nshould suffer the severe penalties of the \nlaw. But it only does, bluntly and out and \nout, against capital what capital, by indirect \nand legal methods and by indifference, fre- \nquently does against labor, impoverishing it, \ncrushing it, \xe2\x80\x94 yes, and through want and \nmisery often slaying it. The murders \nwrought, all legally by capital, will, in the \neyes of the just Judge, far outnumber the \nmurders by riot and violence which labor \nhas committed ; and every one of them will \nbe wicked in the eyes of that Judge. \n\nThe destruction of New York Central \nproperty at Buffalo last summer by labor. \n\n\n\n92 The Newer Religious Thinking, \n\nand particularly the interruption of travel \nover a highway of national importance, are \nto me simply abominable. But so to me \nalso is that vast railway system simply abom- \ninable. Grind the poor, proceed by laissez \nfaire, let God\'s child, your brother, sink \nwhither the miner under the coal combina- \ntion, and the over-worked railway employee \nunder the railroad monopoly sink, and con- \ndemn them for fire and bloodshed ? Yes. \nAnd if necessary, shoot them or hang them. \nBefore God, they deserve it. But you, \nye rich men, ye mighty combinations of \nmoneyed tyranny, proceeding all legally, \nas our statute books allow, to oppress the \npoor, \xe2\x80\x94 ye, too, are guilty, sinning, more- \nover, under great light, great opportunity, \nand great self-aggrandizement. " He that \nis without sin among you, let him first \ncast a stone." ^ \n\n^ What is here said regarding capital and labor needs \namplification. The spirit of such amplification would be \nunderstood by those who heard me. For the reader, I \nadd: \xe2\x80\x94 \n\n(i) The corporation referred to is not a sinner above \nmany others. Nor is it, in common with many others, at \n\n\n\nIts Passion for Men. 93 \n\n4. The newer religious thinking is also \nat war with the inordinate getting of wealth, \nand the luxurious enjoyment of it. \n\nWealth is good, gotten within bounds, \nrightly acquired, and rightly used ; but to get \nit beyond bounds, to acquire it by question- \nable methods, and in any case self-indulgently \nto roll in its luxury, \xe2\x80\x94 this is to sin against \nwhat wealth means, namely, untold toil, sweat, \nand often blood ; and it is to sin against the \nmillions who are either starving, or know \nnot whither to look for the next meal. \n\nfault throughout, for it is lacking neither in commendable \npoints of administration, nor in admirable managers. \n\n(2) On the other hand, as regards organized labor, \nexigencies might arise where violence on its part would be \njustifiable. The tenet of non-resistance is hardly of univer- \nsal application. \n\n(3) Having said thus much in qualification of the vigor- \nous language used above, I reaffirm it in the spirit in which \nI intended it, and as vehemently. For, in this age of the \nworld, and in the light, I will not say of the Gospel, but of \nthose economic principles with which the Gospel is replete, \ncapital has no right, as a matter of economics, other than to \nwork intelligently, obviously, and devotedly for the good of \nlabor ; and a reciprocal obligation, on the same grounds, is \nlaid upon labor. Without their marriage the world cannot \ngo forward. The household which they constitute has no \nright to be divided against itself. " No man ever yet hated \nhis own flesh." \n\n\n\n94 The Neiver Religious Thinking. \n\nAnd that is what this land is doing, \xe2\x80\x94 \nhaving the most favorable country and gov- \nernment in the world, yet stretching every \nnerve to outdo the other nations, to see that \nthe products of the skill of the poor laborers \nof other lands shall not come hither, and to \nget, get, get, and keep, keep, keep, adding \nfield to field, property to property, trust to \ntrust, monopoly to monopoly, \xe2\x80\x94 while the \npoor man grows poorer, and it is harder and \nyet harder to get on, and the wretched vic- \ntims of such a spirit blaspheme the God \nwhom extortioners, in too many instances, \nprofess to worship in gilded temples dedi- \ncated to his name. Of this there will be an \nend and a judgment. \n\n5. It is only just to say that, as the newer \nreligious thinking is at war with luxury, it is \nalso at war with asceticism. \n\nAsceticism is a running away from manful \nmoral conflict. It is bad for the body, which \nis made for right joys. It is bad for the \nmind, which needs relaxation. It issues \noften in calamity to the spiritual nature. \nNor is it necessary as a discipline ; for this \n\n\n\nIts Passion for Men. 95 \n\nworld is hard enough at best, has pain \nenough, heart-ache enough, trouble enough. \n\nThe right and pure use of every good gift \nof God, and the real self-denial involved in \nunselfishness, nobility of character, and brav- \nest, truest thought, \xe2\x80\x94 these should take the \nplace so long usurped by the artificial self- \ndenial and discipline of asceticism. \n\n6. The newer religious thinking, too, is at \nwar with unscientific living. \n\nIn the rich this brings pampering, and too \ngreat comfort, and the limiting of families, \nand presently deterioration. And in the \npoor this leads to conditions utterly un- \nhealthful, wasteful, and often fatal. \n\nTo regard the human body, mind, and \nspirit, and to regard the environment and \nconditions of life of these, as a manifestation \nof a divine wisdom, and discreetly and intel- \nligently, or, in one word, scientifically, to use \nthem, \xe2\x80\x94 this is duty ; and the contrary, how- \never well-meaning it may be, is sin. \n\n7. To name only one other point, the \nnewer religious thinking is at war with the \nindividualistic tendency. \n\n\n\n96 The Newer Religious Thinking, \n\nIt was, I think, Maurice, who said, at the \ntime of Wordsworth\'s death, that he was \nthe last great man of the age that was pass- \ning away, \xe2\x80\x94 the age of individualizing, intro- \nspection, and self-elaborating, however well \nmeant, as in Wordsworth\'s case, these might \nbe. And he was right, and wrong: right in \nthat with more recent great men the drift is \nin the other direction, as it is with the time \nitself ; and yet wrong, for the tendency, \noften indeed beautiful, lives on still. \n\nThe newer religious thinking reveres the \nindividual, wishes it all most harmonious \ndevelopment, but knows wtII that there is \nonly one law of life in this respect ; namely, \n" None of us liveth to himself, and none \ndieth to himself." Only in realizing and \nfulfilling this law, in merging one\'s life into \nthe lives of others, and into, as it were, the \ncorporate life of the community, the State, \nand the age, can one individually come to \nthe most, or be the most for others. " He \nthat is greatest among you shall be your \nservant." \n\nThus in putting little faith either in ease- \n\n\n\nIts Passion for Men. 97 \n\nproducing, or in superficial remedies for \nthe evils of society ; and in withstanding \nlaissez faire, inordinate wealth and luxury, \nasceticism, unscientific living, and the indi- \nvidualistic tendency, not to mention other \nparticulars, the newer religious thinking is at \nmental war with society. It makes its own \nthe sentiment of one of this temper beyond \nthe seas : \xe2\x80\x94 \n\n" I will not cease from mental fight, \n\nNor shall my sword sleep in my hand,. \nTill we have built Jerusalem \n\nIn England\'s green and pleasant land." \n\n\n\nWhere\'er a htunan heart doth wear \nJoy\'s myrtle-wreath or sorrow\'\' s gyves. \nWhere\'er a hu77tan spirit strives \nAfter a life more true and fair, \nThere is the true 7nan\'\'s birthplace grand^ \nHis is a world-wide fatherland I \n\nWhere\'er a single slave doth piiie, \n\nWherever 07ie man may help a7tother, \xe2\x80\x94 \nThank God for such a bi7\'thright, brother, \xe2\x80\x94 \n\nThat spot of earth is thi7ie a7id 77ti7ie I \n\nThere is the trtie 7nan^s birthplace grand. \n\nHis is a world-wide fatherla7id / \n\nJames Russell Lowell. \n\n\n\nITS THOUGHT OF NATURE, HISTORY, \nLIFE. \n\n\n\nSYNOPSIS. \n\nThreefold category of the world, as Nature, History, and \nLife. \xe2\x80\x94 These a means of perceiving " the invisible things \nof him." \xe2\x80\x94 The newer religious thinking called to confront, \nnot only truth as manifested in the Bible, but truth as mani- \nfested in these. \xe2\x80\x94 It must listen to the whole oracle, to the \nwhole truth, not to a part of it. \xe2\x80\x94 This solemn and momen- \ntous, (i) As counter to tradition, and therefore sure to \nmeet with opposition, working various ills, but particularly \nwithin a man ; (2) As tentative, therefore liable to err, and \nthat in matters of the utmost moment ; (3) In view of the \nhigh qualities of mind and heart which it requires. \xe2\x80\x94 But it \nhas received its call and must obey. \xe2\x80\x94 Sympathy, love, prayer, \nfitter to be given it than revihng. \xe2\x80\x94 Its reverence for the \nworld under this threefold category. \xe2\x80\x94 Bible in hand, it will \nlisten thereto, compare, learn, and derive, no matter by how \nslow processes, the ampler, better balanced, more rational, \nmore heart-affecting truth. \xe2\x80\x94 The Bible enjoins this ; its an- \nswer to the question, Whither is all this tending 1 \xe2\x80\x94 Attitude, \nin particular, of the newer religious thinking toward, (i) The \nwidening apprehension of the boundaries of space and time ; \n(2) The widening thought of how life and how man came to \nbe ; (3) Other studies, especially those of force and psychic \nenergy ; (4) The means, now at hand, for approximating \naccurate historical knowledge ; thus {a) What impelled the \ngreat migrations ? What are the race impulses, Semitic, \nLatin, Germanic, Celtic, etc. ? and {b^ What testimony for \nthe world has all truly creative literature ? (5) Life ; this last \nthe ultimate, the test. \xe2\x80\x94 " I came that they may have life." \n\n\n\nIV. \n\n\n\nITS THOUGHT OF NATURE, HISTORY, \nLIFE.i \n\nThe invisible things of him since the creation of the world \nare clearly seen, being perceived through the things that \nare ?fiade. \xe2\x80\x94 Romans i. 20. \n\nT^HERE lies all about us a threefold, \nwonderful world. In its first aspect, \nit is the world itself, with its surrounding, \nshining worlds, with its infinite vast of space, \nwith its cloud-banks of stars, with its awe- \nfull distances and silences. These speak \nto the soul of man with a voice fuller of \nmeaning than any articulate speech. They \nare the ground facts of our being. They \nare the background and foreground of exist- \nence. In the words of a poet of old : \xe2\x80\x94 \n\n" There is no speech nor language ; \nTheir voice cannot be heard. \nTheir line is gone out through all the earth, \nAnd their words to the end of the world." \n\n1 Prospect Street, Sunday night, November 27, 1892. \n\n\n\nI02 The Newer Religious Thinking. \n\nBut this is only the first aspect. The \nthoughts which you and I have had of the \nworld, others have had before us, and others \nwill have after us. The universe is such \nthat it begets thought, feeling, impulse, ac- \ntion, the ongoing of events, the march of \nhistory. The most interesting thing about \nthe sun is not the sun itself, nor its light \nand warmth, but how it affects the men who \nbehold it. The most interesting thing about \nthe stars is not their distance, their splendor, \ntheir value to navigation, their place in the \nnautical almanac, but how they stir thought. \nA mountain, a sea view, a winding river, a \nbrook sparkling and laughing through for- \nest and meadow, the glory of a peaceful \nsunset, all red, and golden, and purple, and am- \nber, the grandeur of dark, frowning clouds, \nof forked lightning, and of deafening and \nblinding tempest, \xe2\x80\x94 these are not so fine as \nthe emotions which they awaken in the \nsoul, as the impulses which they impart to \nmen, and as their formative influence on \nindividuals and on peoples. What adds an \ninexpressible tenderness to sea-bordered Ayr- \n\n\n\nIts Thought of Nature, History, Life, 103 \n\nshire, to the mountains and tarns of Cum- \nberland and Westmorland, and to the weird \nScottish border, is the fact that here were \nborn, and here were developed, men who \nhelped restore thinking peoples, warped off \nin other directions, to a normal attitude of \nexpectancy and teachableness toward the \ninfluences of the world about them. Burns, \nas another has said, " the greatest lyrist \nsince Pindar," Wordsworth, the high priest \nof this reverence for nature, and others \nwho moved with them, wrought this for the \nmodern time. \n\nWe have, thus, nature itself ; and then the \nthinking and conduct of men, nature-im- \npelled, as they have come down through \ntime, \xe2\x80\x94 that is to say, we have history. \nBut there is yet a third aspect of the \nworld ; not it itself, nor its unfolding pro- \ncess through men, but present and now, \nthrobbing and responsive, yearning, hunger- \ning, aspiring, full of fresh traits, new differ- \nentiations, and still awaking powers, \xe2\x80\x94 the \nlife of the world. This is the newest thing, \nnewer this year than last year, this Sunday \n\n\n\nI04 The Newer Religious Thinking, \n\nthan last Sunday, this moment than the last \nmoment, \xe2\x80\x94 life. Life is more than nature ; \nrather, it is nature breathing, feeling, think- \ning, doing. And life is more than history; \nrather, it is history brought down to date, \nand in process of making. And nature, his- \ntory, life, are the threefold, meaningful sub- \nstance of the world ; so that when the \nApostle states for us our principle, saying, \n" The invisible things of him since the cre- \nation of the world are clearly seen, being \nperceived through the things that are made," \nhe means more than the world itself, or \nnature ; for with nature, and inseparable \nfrom it, is what nature comes to, namely, \nthe march of events or history ; and with \nnature and history, and inseparable from \nthem, is what we may call nature alive, or \nhistory brought down to date, namely, life. \n\nThus it comes about that nature, history, \nand life are the world expressed in adequate \nterms ; and it is these which, as the Apostle \ndeclares, manifest forth, as things made \nsince the creation of the world, the invis- \nible things of God, \xe2\x80\x94 that is, his thoughts, \n\n\n\nIts Thought of Nature, History, Life. 105 \n\nfeelings, purposes, character, " even," as the \nApostle adds, " his everlasting power and \ndivinity." \n\nNow the solemn and momentous fact \nabout the newer religious thinking is that \nit deems itself charged, as the newer re- \nligious thinking of no preceding period has \ndeemed itself charged, with the responsibility \nof confronting not only truth as manifested \nin the Bible, but truth as manifested in na- \nture, history, and life. \n\nIt is sure that truth is truth ; that there is \nno schism in it ; that it matches all around ; \nthat there can be no authority, even in the \nBible, to contravene the authority of God\'s \nmanifestation of himself in the world. As \nthe prophet who felt himself impelled by a \ndivine command to return at once out of \nIsrael after delivering his prophecy, is rep- \nresented to have lost his life because he \ncredited a contradiction of the divine com- \nmand uttered to him by a brother prophet, \nthen lying, and tarried ; and as the Saviour \nrescued from the divine authority of Moses \nthe diviner authority of nature, saying, \n\n\n\nio6 The Newer Religious Thinking. \n\n" Moses for your hardness of heart suffered \nyou to put away your wives : but from the \nbeginning it hath not been so," \xe2\x80\x94 similarly, \nin principle, does the newer religious think- \ning feel called upon to listen to the whole \noracle, not to a part of it ; to the whole truth, \nnot to a part of it ; to the Book of Nature as \nwell as to the Book of Grace ; to the whole \nhistory of man as well as to the history of \nIsrael ; to the present life of the world as \nwell as to that life as it inspired prophets \nand apostles ; and to interpret them respec- \ntively in their blended light. \n\nOf the Book of Grace, of the history of \nIsrael, and of the inspired life of prophets \nand apostles, I shall speak next Sunday \nnight. Of the Book of Nature, of the whole \nhistory of man, and of the present life of the \nworld, as they lie before the newer religious \nthinking, I am to speak this evening. \n\nI. Let me say, in the first place, that this \nduty of listening to the whole oracle and of \nhearing the whole truth, which I have char- \nacterized as solemn and momentous, is so \nfor several reasons. \n\n\n\nIts Thought of Nature history, Life. 107 \n\nI. One of them is that it runs counter to \nthe traditions of many centuries. Galileo \nsuffered for affirming planetary revolutions. \nCopernicus dared not print his astronomy \nuntil about to die. Both were deemed guilty \nbecause they would hear the whole truth in \ntheir lines of research, not a part of it. One \nhas only to keep his eyes open as he scans \nthe papers, and his ears alert as he walks \nthe earth, to learn that a like guilt is still \nadjudged the men who will hear the whole \ntruth. \n\nIt is solemn and momentous to take such \na step. Not only is it not pleasant, but it \nlimits one\'s usefulness. It keeps a man in \nAmerica, who ought to be a foreign mis- \nsionary, \xe2\x80\x94 even as I, this week, have received \na letter from the mother of such a one, \nrejected, though from a conservative point of \nview worthy to go, and though his mother, \nherself an indefatigable worker for foreign \nmissions for many years, wished to give him, \nher only son, to the work; the ground of \nrejection being technically of another sort, \nbut having an inseparable connection with \n\n\n\nio8 The Newer Religious Thinking, \n\nthe purpose to hold back men of the newer \nthinking from the Christly work of bringing \nthe " Good News " to the heathen. \n\nIt renders a man working at home the \nobject not only of ill speech, but of vague \nsuspicion and more or less general distrust. \n\nWhat is far worse, such is psychic action \nthat the person thus limited and hindered, if \nnot well balanced, is apt to be impelled to \ngreater lengths of opinion than would nor- \nmally be the case, even as persecution begets \nfanaticism in those capable of it. On the \nother hand, if the person is well-balanced, so \nthat he keeps a poise and symmetry of \nopinion, he is apt to be depressed in spirit, \nand not to develop joyously in his work, as \nought to be the case in order to a man\'s best \nserviceableness. \n\nIn short, not only the guilt judged upon \nthose who dare to hear the whole oracle, and \nlisten to the whole truth, but the unfortunate \nconsequences of it outwardly in limitation of \nwork and restriction of influence, and in- \nwardly in its psychic effect, render this duty \nof the newer religious thinking solemn and \nmomentous. \n\n\n\nIts Thought of Nature, History, Life, 109 \n\n2. Another consideration in the same \ndirection is the tentative nature of these new \ninterrogations of truth. \n\nWe are only in the beginnings of our \nampler knowledge of nature, of history, and of \nlife, and there is large consequent liability to \nmistake as we study them. So, too, the \nrelative weight, or the correlation, of the two \nlines of truth is a tentative science, liable to \nerror. Great, moreover, must needs be the \nill-consequences of mistakes in matters of so \ngrave a nature. One breaks new ground, \nsails a sea not yet duly provided with charts, \nmay readily err, and finds himself conse- \nquently in tremendously serious business \nfrom this point of view. \n\n3. It is tremendously serious business, \nalso, in view of those prodigious studies, of \nthat careful and unbiassed thinking, of that \ncourage and persistence, of that tact and \nfearlessness, of that thoroughness, and of that \ncombined mental coolness and heart warmth, \nall of which are required of the newer reli- \ngious thinking in this aspect of the case. \n\nHow little do those who lightly animad- \n\n\n\nno The Newer Religious Thinking, \n\nvert upon the consecrated Christian scholars \nengaged in various departments of this one \ngeneral work realize what qualities must be \nin these men to start with ; what toils, what \nstresses of mind, and what fortitude amidst \nevil report, must be constantly exercised by \nthem ; and how they are, in this respect, like \nthose who through much pain, loss, and \nopprobrium have won for the world some \nof its most precious discoveries, and most \ngracious emancipations! What an awaking \nby and by it will be for the maligners of such \nmen to find that, as their fathers slew many \na prophet, they have practically been doing \nthe same thing to these ! May they be \naccorded greater mercy then than their es- \nchatology allows ! \n\nBut there is only one thing for the newer \nreligious thinking to do. It has received \nits call. It must obey. Counting no cost, \nshrinking from no peril, dismayed by no ar- \nduousness of the task, it must gird up its \nloins and march out into the untried. To the \nstruggling present, to the unborn future, to \nthe God after whom it hungers, to the men. \n\n\n\nIts Thought of Nature, History, Life, iii \n\nhis children, who are the objects of its holy \npassion, it must not be found wanting. \nThink of it, friends, as it prosecutes its task, \nnot with ill will against it as destructive ; not \nwith uncharitable thoughts of it, as if it were \nwilful, wayward, and going forward for the \npleasure of it; but rather, with thoughts of \nsympathy and of love, as for that which is \ncalled to solemn, momentous, character-test- \ning responsibility, and is seeking to discharge \nthat responsibility, in the fear of God. Such \nit is. Let us treat it accordingly. May it be \nin our prayers. May God bless it ! \n\nII. Let me say, in the second place, with \nregard to the world as comprehended under \nthe categories of nature, history, and life, that \nthe newer religious thinking faces it with \nreverence and expectation. Here are the \nfacts. Here are the data. It is of God as \nrelated to these that the Bible speaks. It is \nof these as related to God that the world \nspeaks. The two are one book; each is \nkey to the other ; each is supplemental to \nthe other; each interprets the other. \n\nWhat nature is, how it unfolds, what its \n\n\n\n112 The Newer Religious Thinking, \n\ntypes are, what its spirit is, whence it origi- \nnates, whither it tends, \xe2\x80\x94 these are questions \nbest answered by interrogating nature itself. \nIt has a right to testify in its own behalf. \n\nSimilarly of the progress of events, or of \nhistory. When did man appear on the \nearth, where, and under what conditions } \nHow did he unfold \'t Was his original con- \ndition that of infantile innocence, followed \nby a great catastrophe of his moral nature; \nor is the Genesis account of this matter a \nspiritualized representation of crises in the \nindividual life ? How did institutions origi- \nnate? Was the order patriarchal, then the- \nocratic, then despotic, then individualizing, \nor what was the order } Was Israel first \nunder priests and then under prophets, or \nvice versa 1 In short, of men, of nations, of \ntendencies, what are the facts ? And on the \nfacts what light does the Bible throw .f* And \non the Bible what light do the facts throw t \nAll these are parts of a whole. What is the \nwhole ? And what does it testify to us } \n\nSimilarly of life now. What is this great \nload of it which the globe is carrying } \xe2\x80\x94 \n\n\n\nIts Thought of Nature, History, Life. 113 \n\nthe blubber-eating, ice-hut-Inhabiting Esqui- \nmaux, the degraded cannibals, the sombre \nmasses of semicivilized nations, the throng- \ning populations of Christendom, the passions, \nfaults, virtues, hungerings, aspirings of them \nall ? Is our thought large enough, compre- \nhensive enough, teachable enough for all \nthis ? Is God manifesting himself in all \nthis, or only in a part of it? And what \nis life, this flood of energy that emerges \ninto consciousness, that thinks, experiences, \nfeels, loves, hates, and reaches out after some \nunknown satisfaction, seemingly as various \nas the individuals are various ? Is it an in- \ntrinsic thing, individual and immortal, or is \nit a something that characterizes the mass, \nand passes away with the mass as that de- \nscends to the grave ? You and I have each \nour answer to all this. The Bible affords \nus strong indications and presumptions re- \ngarding all this. But all this, duly studied, \nanswering for itself, and full of meaning and \nenlightenment for us, is what we want. \n\nNow the new^er religious thinking is rever- \nent toward all this, as the w^ork of God ; and \n\n\n\n114 The Newer Religious Thinking, \n\nis full of expectation toward it, as manifest- \ning forth God; and proposes to neglect \nnothing of it, lest in doing so, it should miss \nsomething of God, even as naught was to be \nomitted from Holy Writ. God, it is sure, \ncannot disagree with himself. The God in \nthe world and the God in the Bible cannot \nbe two, but must be one. And the newer \nreligious thinking lays its ear close to the \nheart of nature, close to the phonograph of \nhistory, close to the throbbing bosom of life, \nBible in hand, to listen, compare, learn, and \nderive, no matter by how slow processes, the \nampler, better balanced, more rational, more \nheart-affecting truth. And it does so, not \nonly because, like Luther, it " cannot other- \nwise," but because the Bible bids it to, say- \ning, " The heavens declare the glory of God ; " \nsaying, " Consider the lilies of the field, how \nthey grow;" saying, "The invisible things \nof him since the creation of the world are \nclearly seen, being perceived through the \nthings that are made." \n\nAnd if the heart falters; if one asks, \n" Whither is all this tending? " if it seems as \n\n\n\nlis Thought of Nature, History^ Life. 115 \n\nif the old were passing away, and the new \nwere all in uncertainty, then are heard the \nwords, " I have yet many things to say unto \nyou, but ye cannot bear them now; " and the \nwords, " When he, the Spirit of truth, is \ncome, he shall guide you into all the truth." \nFor each age has seen only in a mirror, \ndarkly ; the thinking of the past has largely \nyielded to far better thinking ; and as there \nwere ages and orders in geology, each imper- \nfect, each preparative to another, and each \npassing away, so there are ages and orders \nof thought, and of religious thought. We \napprehend very imperfectly, and the one \nthing to do is to get all the truth we can, \nand live it out into golden deeds, and ex- \npect ampler truth to break forth, by means \nof the golden deeds of the present, for the \nmen that shall come after us, and shall be \nsurprised at our limited vision, even as we \nare surprised at the same limitation in those \nwho have gone before us. " Behold, I make \nall things new," saith God ; and he is ever \nverifying that word. Let us, then, be well \ncontent that this is so, and not borrow \n\n\n\n1 1 6 The Newer Religious Thinking, \n\ntrouble, but press fearlessly, truthfully, livingly \nforward. Not in what is now present, but \nin that which is to be, shall perfection and \nfinality reside ; but it is for us to further that, \nand to be sharers in its glory by and by. \n\nIII. If I have now sufficiently indicated \nthe solemn and momentous nature of the \ntask laid upon the newer religious thinking, \nnamely, to listen to the whole oracle, and \nhear all the truth ; and if I have sufficiently \nsuggested with what reverence and expecta- \ntion the newer religious thinking is interro- \ngating nature, history, and life, or, in one \nword, the world, as the work of God, as \nmanifesting forth God, and as able to illu- \nminate the Bible, even as the Bible illumi- \nnates it, \xe2\x80\x94 permit me to name, in conclusion, \ncertain specific points as characteristic of \nthis newer approach to nature, history, and \nlife. \n\nI. And, first, if we are to admit the objec- \ntive reality of the universe, \xe2\x80\x94 that is to say, \nif we do not conclude that the universe is \nonly an objectivization of thought or of \nmind, \xe2\x80\x94 space must speak to us in a Ian- \n\n\n\nIts Thought of Nature, History, Life, 117 \n\nguage far more impressive than has been the \ncase in the past; and so must time. \n\nFor, on the one hand, the progress in as- \ntronomy, the revelations of the great tele- \nscopes, the more accurate mapping of the \nheavens, the better apprehension of the \nmovements of the so-called fixed stars, the \nstory told us by star-dust and nebulas, and \nthe more adequate apprehension of the origin \nof such groups of celestial bodies as our \nsolar system, \xe2\x80\x94 all these impress the mind \nwith the vastness of space, with the fulness \nof it, with the seemingly endless cycles of \nits stellar movements, and with the small \npart our planet has to play in so great an \norder, and yet with the mighty persistence \nof our planet\'s part in it. And, on the other \nhand, all this is becoming so much better \nknown, and is so entering into the ordinary \ncomprehension even of children, that its \neffect on the mind is being greatly extended. \nThe facts, and the apprehension of the facts, \nin short, cannot but affect our thinking. To \nthe universe, one must believe, there is a \nunity. One thought is in it; one directing \n\n\n\n1 1 8 The Newer Religious Thinking, \n\npurpose. Of it, as a part, our planet must \nhave been during an unimaginably long past, \nand, as would seem, must be during an unim- \naginably long future. The widening boun- \ndaries of space thus call for widening \nboundaries of time, \xe2\x80\x94 a thing also suggested \nby such extremely slow land-making as must \nhave marked the emergence from the ocean \nof such territory as the peninsula of Florida ; \na thing suggested by the periods of glacia- \ntion on the earth\'s surface ; and a thing \nsuggested, also, by the obviously great an- \ntiquity of man. \n\nIf, now, space is so great, and time so long, \nand our earth so little and yet so linked \nto the greatness and the long continuance \nof the universe, must it not be evident that \nthe Bible men are speaking to us out of \ninadequate space and time categories, even \nas the Saviour warned the Apostles when he \nsaid, " But of that day and hour knoweth no \none, not even the angels of heaven, neither \nthe Son, but the Father only " ? Has not the \ntime been long ? And will it not, by all \nuniverse and planet indications, be long ? \n\n\n\nIts Thought of Nature, History, Life. 119 \n\nAnd is not the plan, therefore, by so much \nthe greater? And is it not as extensive as \nspace, and as inclusive ? And yet wherein \nhave our systems, shut into the old, imper- \nfect time and space categories, recognized \nthis ? These are questions which the newer \nreligious thinking, laying the world Bible \nand the pen-and-ink Bible side by side, and \nreverently scrutinizing both, cannot help \nasking. And with the ansvv\'er to these \nquestions much else is associated. \n\n2. Then, too, regarding the origin and \nunfolding of life on this planet, the newer \nreligious thinking "cannot otherwise" than \nrepair to the Museum of Comparative Zool- \nogy, which its great founder, in his modesty, \nspecified should not be called by his name, \nbut which everybody speaks of as the Agassiz \nMuseum ; and " cannot otherwise " than re- \npair to the Peabody Museum of American \nArchaeology and Ethnology, and to like \nplaces, to learn how gradually, by what pro- \ngressive stages, and in what long cycles, \nanimal life led the way to the life of man, \nand man, in turn, has come to be man as we \nknow him to-day. \n\n\n\n1 20 The Newer Religious Thinking. \n\nAh ! there was an evolution. It is a mere \nquestion of detail, relatively, what its stages \nwere. Slowly, gradually, type succeeding \ntype, intelligence more and more predomi- \nnating, and heart more and more interplay- \ning with intelligence, did life come, and man \ncome, and the man that now is, come to be \nwhat he is ; and how can we infer, off-hand, \nthat the clock has struck, that we are the \nculmination of being, that other, larger life \nis not to succeed t At this great question \nthe newer religious thinking dares to look. \nIt places the two Books, both of God, side \nby side, \xe2\x80\x94 the world Book and the pen-and- \nink Book, \xe2\x80\x94 and interrogates both and waits \nfor light. And while it lingers thus, awe- \nstruck, amidst its studies, determined to listen \nto the whole oracle, not to a part of it, it \nhears again the words, " Of that day and \nhour knoweth no one, not even the angels \nof heaven, neither the Son, but the Father \nonly ; " and it hears that disciple whom Jesus \nloved chanting, in old age, as a newer world \non this earth was in like manner confront- \ning him, " It doth not yet appear what we \nshall be." \n\n\n\nIts Thotight of Nature, History, Life. 121 \n\n3. The newer religious thinking con- \nfronts in the same spirit other aspects of \nnature, into which it is impossible now to go, \nthough I cannot but refer to two of them. \n\nOne is force, or life, or whatever it is to \nbe called, \xe2\x80\x94 the thing alive in nature, the \nactive principle, forceful in gravity, forceful \nin cohesion, forceful in capillary attraction, \nforceful in chemical affinity, forceful in elec- \ntricity, heat, and light, forceful in vegetation, \nin animal life, in brain life. What is this \nforce ? What is this energy ? Is it one \nthing and the same, or is it many things t \nHas it consciousness in any sense ? By what \nmedium is it directed ? Is the old category \nof law enough for it ? Has it some sort of \nvolition and power of initiative ? Studies in \nenergy, in force, how they stir the soul ! \nHow they seem to pierce the veil and show \nus the invisible ! \n\nThis is one direction. The other which I \nwill mention is psychic energy. From this \nplatform, not long since, that great psychol- \nogist. Professor James, told us some of its \nwonders. Through what medium does it \n\n\n\n12 2 The Newer Religious Thinking, \n\nwork ? By what processes ? What is mem- \nory ? What are associations of ideas ? What \npart has heredity in it all ? The mind, con- \nsciousness, processes of thought, powers of \ninter-mental influence, \xe2\x80\x94 toward these, too, \nas well as toward force or energy, does the \nnewer religious thinking face, Bible in hand, \ninterpreting each book in the light of the \nother, and bent on hearing the whole oracle, \nthe whole truth. \n\nI have mentioned specifically, thus far, \ncertain aspects of nature only ; namely, space \nand time, the unfolding of life and of the life \nof man, and, as samples of much more, force \nor energy, and psychic energy. What is \nstill further to be said relates, first, to history, \nand, after that, to life. \n\n4. The newer religious thinking hungers, \nthen, for accurate historical knowledge ; that \nit may know how, nature-impelled, life, but \nparticularly human life, has\' unfolded itself. \nThis, of necessity, must be a mighty com- \nmentary on nature as well as on life. And \nthe newer religious thinking is well aware \nwhat a shock almost all historical inquiry \n\n\n\nIts Thought of Nature, History, Life. 123 \n\nmust needs be to conventional ideas. For \nonly recently has history been so studied \nas thoroughly to distinguish between the \nloose, popular, and often entirely erroneous \nform which history has taken, and the facts \nof history itself ; so that accurate historical \nknowledge must often be at variance with \npopular conceptions. On such studies the \nnewer rehgious thinking waits for an ade- \nquate account of nature brought down to \ndate, and particularly of man. What, it \nasks, has been the order of events, what the \ntrue relations of cause and effect, what the \ninherent possession of man, and whither his \ntendency } \n\n(a) In this inquiry \xe2\x80\x94 strongly suggested \nto us by the continuous historical impulse of \nthe Old Testament, and by the tendency to \nhistorical summary in the speakers and \nwriters of the New Testament \xe2\x80\x94 there are \ntwo matters of which the newer religious \nthinking takes special account; namely, the \ncontributions to thousfht of the different \npeoples, and of the great spokesmen of the \npeoples. What, for instance, was it that \n\n\n\n124 ^^^ Newer Religious Thinking, \n\ninspired the great migrations coincident \nwith the migration of Abraham ? What \nimpelled the great Indo-European march \nfrom the Aryan table-lands of Central Asia, \ntoward the West, until Europe was possessed \nby it, and it passed on to the New World ? \nWhat was it, characteristically, that Egypt \ngave to the world, that Assyria gave, that \nPalestine and Greece and Rome gave ? \nWhat is the Teutonic impulse, one side of \nit forceful through Anglo-Saxons, another \nthrough Germans? So of the Celt, the \nSlav, the Red Indian ? All these have a \nplace in that revelation of God which the \nworld is, and, Bible in hand, the newer reli- \ngious thinking presses these questions.^ \n\n(<5) But especially significant in the eyes \nof the newer religious thinking is all this, \nas expressing itself in national impulse and \nin creative literature. The Hebrews came to \nthe front from a national impulse, guided \nof God. So must all nations have come \nforward. Therefore, analogously to the \n\n1 For something further on the subject of this paragraph \nand the next, see Appendix A. \n\n\n\nlis Thought of Nature, History, Life. 125 \n\ncontributions to thought which the Hebrews \noffered, though of a different importance, one \nawaits the testimony of all national impulses, \n\xe2\x80\x94 for instance, of that national impulse which \nfound expression in the Arthur legends, and \nwhich Tennyson has idealized for all coming \ntime. It is not true alone of men, but also \nof nations, that there is a spirit in them, \n" and the inspiration of the Almighty giveth \nthem understanding." In the same spirit \nthe newer religious thinking listens teach- \nably to all truly creative literature. Homer \ncan teach it; the hymn-makers of India; \nthe tablets of Nineveh ; the Latin poets ; the \ncycles of the Nibelungen Lied and of King \nArthur ; Dante and Shakespeare and Mil- \nton, and the poets in prose and rhythm of \nour own age. In a certain quality, none of \nthem touches the high-water mark of the \ngreat, constructive Hebrew writers, but all \nof them have a part to contribute to the \nexpression, emphasis, idealization, and actu- \nalization of truth. Therefore, Bible in hand, \nthe newer religious thinking addresses itself \nto these imperishable aspects of history, bent \n\n\n\n126 The Newer Religious Thinking. \n\nhere, as elsewhere, on hearing the whole \noracle and the whole truth. \n\n5. Finally, before life, the newer religious \nthinking, Bible in hand, sits docilely. \n\nThere is nothing like it. One touch of it, \nas our great dramatist said of nature (using \nit in the sense of life), " makes the whole \nworld kin." Life, life, life, seen in the smile \nor the tears of an infant ; seen in the laugh- \nter and new discoveries of boys and girls ; \nseen in that strange apocalypse, the oncom- \ning of maturity and the dawn of love in \nyoung men and women ; seen in maturity as \nit advances through ever fresh stages, new \nyouths, as it were, till the head is white, and \nthe strong limbs totter, and man goeth to his \nlong home ; seen in the ever new combina- \ntions of the family, of the community, of the \nState, of the nation; seen in the movements \nof population ; seen in the controversies \nwhich agitate society ; seen in the mighty \nenthusiasms which ever and anon seize the \nworld ; seen in the march of armies to battle, \nand in those peaceful triumphs which issue \nin international arbitrations, in peace con- \n\n\n\nIts Thought of Nature, History, Life. 127 \n\ngrasses, and in the great world\'s fairs ; seen, \nin short, on every hand, and felt in every \nheart, and only apprehended by our being \nourselves alive, \xe2\x80\x94 life, life, life, this is the \nultimate, the test, the arbiter, the luminous \nthing on this globe. \n\nHence, at its feet, the newer religious think- \ning sits, Bible in hand still, which tells of \nOne who said, " I came that they may have \nlife, and may have it abundantly." The \nthoughts which come rolling in upon this \nthinking it proposes to reduce to life, to test \nby life, to put to the proof in the conflict of \nlife ; and, while it studies the pen-and-ink \nBible, also to study the world Bible, in \nnature, history, life, \xe2\x80\x94 sure that he who was \n" the Life," and is it, wishes the whole of it \nto be apprehended, appreciated, obeyed, and \nmade alive in Christly living. \n\n" In him was life ; and the life was the \nlight of men ; " and in like manner all the \nlife which he has touched and inspired \xe2\x80\x94 \nand his touch and inspiration are on and in \nall life \xe2\x80\x94 is also, in larger or smaller degree, \nthe light of men. So believing, the newer \n\n\n\n128 The Newer Religious Thinking. \n\nthinking presses on in the path, the infinite \npath, stretching before it forever. Shall \nnot we be of it ? Ah ! but we cannot help \nbeing of it ! No man can quite escape from, \nhis time. No man can quite shut out the \nlight of God. \n\n\n\nITS IDEA OF THE BIBLE. \n\n\n\nSYNOPSIS. \n\nPhenomenal antiquity, survival, and world-affecting influ- \nence of the Bible. \xe2\x80\x94 Greatly diverse, and yet a unit. \xe2\x80\x94 Effec- \ntiveness of its form ; its finding power. \xe2\x80\x94 Universality of \nits hold on men. \xe2\x80\x94 It is The Book. \xe2\x80\x94 Its influence steadily \naugmenting. \xe2\x80\x94 Anxiety regarding it superfluous and wasted \n(historical examples). \xe2\x80\x94 Reverence of the newer religious \nthinking for it. \xe2\x80\x94 Certain inquiries about it now much at the \nfront: (i) How are the Genesis forewords to be understood? \nEcclesiastical ill treatment of them in the past ; also in the \npresent ; why the belief is growing that the forewords are a \npoetic treatment, inspired, and for moral and spiritual ends, \nof matter derived from a common stock of ancient tradition. \n(2) Was the order of Israel\'s life from priests to prophets, \nor vice versa f Why belief is tending in the latter direction, \nwith the recognition of needful consequent re-arrangement \nof historical details. (3) The New Testament documents \nlargely original and nearly contemporaneous. But: {a) Not \nenough allowance is ordinarily made for the immediate use \nfor which they were intended ; also {b) Should they prove \nless largely original and less nearly contemporaneous, their \npower for moral and spiritual helpfulness would not be \nimpaired thereby. \xe2\x80\x94 The Bible bound hand and foot in the \npast in certain respects, and needing deliverance. \xe2\x80\x94 Its free \ninvestigation imperative, and conducive to its highest useful- \nness. \xe2\x80\x94 The book is from God ; its .light and warmth are \neternal. \n\n\n\nV. \n\nITS IDEA OF THE BIBLE.i \n\nEvery scripture inspired of God is also profitable for \nteaching, for reproof, for correction, for instruction \nwhich is in righteousness : that the man of God \nmay be complete, furnished completely unto every good \nwork. \xe2\x80\x94 2 Timothy iii. i6, 17. \n\nnPHERE is a book containing fragments \nof literature probably older than any \nother literature ; a book, in itself and as a \nwhole, among the oldest of books ; a book \npreserved with a care so scrupulous that the \nvariations in its exceedingly ancient manu- \nscripts, though numerous in minor respects, \nare far fewer than in any other ancient \nwriting of like extent and often transcribed; \na book regarded for many ages as sacred ; a \nbook the embodiment of that wonderful \nreligious life which marked the Hebrew \npeople, \xe2\x80\x94 the embodiment of that thinking \n\n^ Prospect Street, Sunday night, December 4, 1892. \n\n\n\n132 The Newer Religious Thinking. \n\nand history which, in the fulness of time, \nmade a sharp break with the Hebrews, and \nwhich retaining what was germinal in the \nIsraelitish religion suddenly emancipated \nthe same from narrowing Hebrew bounds, \nenriched it marvellously, and gave it, with \nexulting joy, to become the possession of \nall mankind. \n\nThis book had a most diverse authorship, \nsome twoscore hands at least appearing in \nit. It sprang likewise out of many ages, \nand out of vastly different environments \nand thought-currents. Much of its upspring- \ning, moreover, was out of heated conflicts \nof opinion, when, from time to time through \nages, the old was dying, and the new was \nstruggling to be born. There were great \ndiversities of specific purpose for which \nits different parts were respectively com- \nposed. And yet its many hands, its varied \nsettings and varied age-niarks, the succes- \nsive intellectual and spiritual conflicts out \nof which it sprang, and the diversities of \nspecific purpose for which its parts were \nwritten, \xe2\x80\x94 all these have not caused in it \n\n\n\nIts Idea of the Bible, 133 \n\nconfusion, but rather unity, as if still, in dif- \nferent aspects, one and the same thought, \npurpose, inspiration, was getting for itself \nexpression. \n\nThus wonderfully a unit, it is nevertheless \nliterature multiform, \xe2\x80\x94 history, biography, \npoetry, parable, philosophy, proverb, law, \nmaxim, and much besides. As regards finish, \nit is not, in most parts, elaborated to the \ndegree which some literature exhibits ; but \nthe plainness, directness, and simplicity \ngained thereby more than offset any loss \nin literary form, while it contains many \npassages as exquisite in this respect as \nanything even in the Greek tongue. It is \nstrangely able, out of these characteristics, \nto find its reader, to touch his heart, to stir \nhis mind and conscience, to illumine his \nunderstanding, and to make him truly wise. \nHereby it has entered into the lives of whole \npeoples, has moulded them, swayed them, \nand given them laws, liberty, and spiritual \nmomentum. \n\nIt has, moreover, been able to affect equally \nall classes and types of men, \xe2\x80\x94 the doubter \n\n\n\n1 34 The Newer Religious Thinking. \n\nand the man of intense faith ; the man coldly \nintellectual and the man of great heart fer- \nvors ; the cultivated and the illiterate ; the vile \nand sinning and the pure and holy ; great \npatriots and great scientists ; great statesmen \nand great inventors and discoverers ; women \nequally with men ; the aged equally with \nlittle children ; those marching into the \nleaden hail of battle and those studying in \nthe quiet cloisters of universities ; those keep- \ning step to marriage music and those bearing \nthe dead to their last home. It has been \na comfort alike to sovereigns and to slaves, \nin palaces and in prisons, to laborers and to \nthe luxurious, to those toiling, sorrowing, \ndespairing, and to those hoping, thriving, \nsuccessful, \xe2\x80\x94 in short, to every human being \nwhom, in whatsoever circumstances, it has \nreached, and who would let it reach him. \n\nFor reasons such as the foregoing, it is \nThe Book, and accordingly it has come \nabout that it bears the name for " book " in \nthe Greek tongue, with the definite article \nprefixed, and is called, in our dear English \nspeech, with almost the letters corresponding \nto those in Greek, The Bible. \n\n\n\nIts Idea of the Bible. 135 \n\nNor is the power of this book waning. \nIt is rather steadily augmenting, as it is \nmore and more spread abroad, more and more \nfreed from misconceptions, and better and \nbetter understood. Its force is moral, and, \nas the moral sense is developing, it is more \nand more finding m^en. It was never read \nby so many people as are reading it to-day, \nand never was bearing fruit in so many lives \nas it is bearing fruit in to-day. \n\nAnxiety is often expressed for its future. \nNever was anxiety more utterly superfluous \nand wasted. The Bible has survived crises \nto which, at present, there is no parallel. \nIt has been almost destroyed from the earth \nliterally, more than once, as, for example, in \nJosiah\'s time. It has been buried in inade- \nquate translations, for example, the Latin \nVulgate, for centuries. It has repeatedly \nbeen hid from the common people, as during \nthe Dark Ages. It has been loaded down \nwith paraphrases and commentaries in past \ntimes to an extent which nearly extinguished \nthe book itself. It has been embarrassed by \ngood men\'s making claims for it which it \n\n\n\n136 The Newer Religious Thinking. \n\nnever makes for itself, and by suffering \nattacks upon it in consequence, for the mak- \ning of which there was no just ground. But \nit lives. Its influence is steadily widening \nand deepening. It does not need any of our \nanxiety; it is abundantly able to take care \nof itself. \n\nThe newer religious thinking responds to \nall this. It reverences the Bible. Those men \noutside the lines which include you and me, \nthe men who would call themselves of unfaith \nand of no faith, freely and often express their \ngreat regard for it, and, in their way, bear \ntestimony to its benign influence upon them. \nSo of the so-called " Unevangelicals." So \nof the men outside the boundaries of Prot- \nestantism. Men of these different classes, \nas I pointed out in the first of these dis- \ncourses, are themselves also in a newer \nreligious thinking ; and their types of such \nthinking are steadily making, in their respec- \ntive manners, more, not less, of the Bible. \nOf the newer religious thinking within so- \ncalled " evangelical " lines, in its manner also, \nthe same is true. The Bible was never so \n\n\n\nIts Idea of the Bible. 137 \n\nmuch to its men as now. It was never \nso much to me as now. \n\nFrom this preliminary statement, I ask \nyou to pass to the consideration of two \npoints : first, certain inquiries about the \nBible now much at the front ; and, secondly, \nthe sense in which, to the newer religious \nthinking, the Bible is so much ; yes, more \neven than ever before. And, \xe2\x80\x94 \n\nI. Certain inquiries about the Bible now \nmuch at the front. \n\nI. The first of these is about the prole- \ngomena, or forewords, of the Bible ; those \nsententious, wonderful passages which brood \nfor us amidst the beginnings of things, and \nafford us a tender, simple, luminous setting \nfor all that follows after them. How impor- \ntant, for comprehensiveness, background, and \nsymmetry, it is, that the Bible should get \nsome such introduction to its readers, it is \neasy to see. The question is, How are we \nto understand these forewords, \xe2\x80\x94 Creation, \nMan and Woman, Eden, The First Sin, The \nFirst Murder, The First Civilization, The \nFlood, The Origin of Diversity in Lan- \nguages, etc. } \n\n\n\n138 The Newer Religious Thinking. \n\nBut, first, let it be premised that, among \nother ill treatments of the Bible, there has \nbeen one centring at these very forewords, \nwhich the newer religious thinking can never \nforget. The study of astronomy was long \nhampered by the old Church interpretation \nof these passages. This was why Copernicus \ndelayed the publication of his astronomy \nuntil he was about to die, and why Galileo \nwas persecuted for affirming planetary revo- \nlutions. Similarly, within years more recent, \nthe studies, first of geology, and then of \nglaciation (so recently as the lifetime of \nAgassiz), have been hindered by the same \nunderstanding of these passages. The earth, \nit was claimed, could not have been strati- \nfied by the causes which geology affirmed, \nbecause the six days of creation gave no time \ntherefor ; and glacial epochs were alleged to \nhave been superfluous, because the Flood \ntook care of all that. But Copernicus and \nGalileo, and Kepler and Newton, had their \nway ; and then the great geologists had \ntheirs ; and the utterly unwarrantable claims \nwhich holy men had put forth for the Bible \n\n\n\nIts Idea of the Bible, 1 39 \n\nhad to be withdrawn, after all the hard \nwords, and the trembling of devout souls, \nand the humiliating position for a great, \ncomprehensive book like the Bible to be put \nin, \xe2\x80\x94 namely, the position of defence. \n\nAnd while the newer religious thinking \nis recalling this, it sees before its eyes the \npresent prodigious studies in zoology, in \nethnology, and in the gradual unfolding of the \nrace of man on this planet, \xe2\x80\x94 studies more \nrecent than those to which I have referred \nin astronomy, in geology, and in glaciation, \nwhich raised such a hue and cry, and against \nwhich Scripture texts were hurled ; but \nstudies pursuing those same slow, plodding \nmethods of induction by which we came to \nour present views of astronomy, geology, and \nglaciation ; and as seemingly likely to prove \ntrue as they proved true. And here again \nthe newer religious thinking sees the Bible \nput in the same false and humiliating posi- \ntion, of trying to conquer Darwin by proof- \ntexts, and the godly McCosh by creed-bound \nprofessors of Hebrew. \n\nAnother fact under the eye of the newer \n\n\n\n1 40 The Newer Religious Thinking, \n\nreligious thinking is the Hebrew itself, and \nits cognate languages ; and what the monu- \nments of Egypt and of Assyria, with a great \nvariety of other ancient memorials, have to \ntell us. From these and other studies it \nappears that counterparts of these forewords \nof the Bible were numerous in the early \nages, and in a great variety of forms, \xe2\x80\x94 Crea- \ntion, and The Flood, for example. Almost \nevery ancient people had accounts like these, \nbut with diversified details. Which were \noriginal ? Did the Bible borrow from them ? \nDid they borrow from the Bible } Or did \nthey and the Bible alike draw from a com- \nmon store of tradition in the possession of \nantiquity \'^, Of these three suppositions the \nlast \xe2\x80\x94 namely, that the Hebrew writers drew, \nas did the writers of other nations, from a \ngeneral and common store of tradition \xe2\x80\x94 \nseems to many in the newer religious think- \ning as the most probable. \n\nMoreover, a comparison of the Hebrew \ntreatment of a particular tradition, and the \ntreatment of the same tradition by the \nwriters of other peoples, reveals the fact that. \n\n\n\nIts Idea of the Bible, 141 \n\nin each instance, the Hebrew treatment \ndiffers from the rest in the accentuation of \nthe moral aspect of the story. For instance, \nin the very common story of The Fratricide, \nthe other writers make a hero of him, or \neven a demigod ; but the Hebrew account, \nwhile indicating his city-building, etc., points \nout the shame and crime of his bloody deed, \n\xe2\x80\x94 the mark of Cain. These comparisons, \ntogether with the seemingly conclusive infer- \nence that the Hebrew and the other writers \nwere not drawing, the one from the other, \nbut all from a common store of tradition, \nlead naturally to the inference that these \nBible forewords, instead of being historical \nand literal accounts of the First Things, were \nthe attempt of holy men of God, " moved by \nthe Holy Ghost," to redeem the common, \nand often gross and impure, traditions of \nearly antiquity, from such grossness and \nimpurity, and to make them vehicles for \nconveying moral and spiritual truth. \n\nThis inference becomes almost impera- \ntive in the attempt of these writers to handle \nthe old traditions about the illicit marriages \n\n\n\n142 The Newer Religious Thinking, \n\nof demigods to women. This was the com- \nmon ancient belief. The Hebrew writers \non the ancient beliefs could not bring them- \nselves to look at such marriages as anything \nother than in the highest degree immoral, \nand yet could not prevent the wide credence \nof these celestial-earthly unions. What, then, \ndid they ? They took, very wisely, the old \nstories and wrought from them that myste- \nrious narrative in the first eight verses of the \nsixth of Genesis, where, as they taught, such \nconduct was so abhorrent to the God of the \nHebrews that he repented himself that he \nhad made man upon the earth, and was \nmoved thereby to bring on the Flood. How \nnatural, reasonable, and morally tonic it thus \nis to see the whole cycle of such tales on the \npart of the Jupiters of the skies, and the mis- \nguided fair ones of earth, dismissed in eight \nsolemn verses, not attempting to controvert \nthe common stories, \xe2\x80\x94 an attempt which could \nnot then have been successful, \xe2\x80\x94 but brand- \ning them as abhorrent to Deity, as causing \nhim to say, " My Spirit shall not always \nstrive with man," as making him repent that \n\n\n\nIts Idea of the Bible. 143 \n\nhe had created man at all, and as issuing in \nthe Flood ! \n\nThe newer religious thinking, then, while \nits representatives by no means concur on \nthis subject, and particularly in matters of \ndetail, is greatly inclined, nevertheless, \xe2\x80\x94 \n(i) in view of the great mass of such matter \nin the early traditions of our race ; (2) in view \nof the improbability, either that the Bible \nnarrative was what the traditions sprang \nfrom, or that the Bible narrative sprang from \nparticular versions of the traditions ; and \n(3) in view of the method of treatment in \nthe Bible writers, as for moral and spiritual \nends, \xe2\x80\x94 is greatly inclined, I say, to believe \nthat these Bible forewords, instead of being \nhistorical and literal in the sense of annals, \nare spiritual and moral, like poems. Similar, \nthough in a far less important connection, \nis the treatment by which the more or less \ngross matter in the Arthur legends has \nbeen purified, and made didactic of moral \nand spiritual truth, in Tennyson\'s " Idyls of \nthe King." \n\nIf this supposition is correct, not only \n\n\n\n144 The Newer Religious Thinking, \n\nmay Copernicus and Galileo, and Lyell and \nAgassiz, go on with their astronomy, geol- \nogy, and glaciation, but Darwin and John \nFiske may go on with their studies in and \nphilosophizings concerning the origin of \nman, unmolested. A simple, noble, spiritual \naccount is given, and purpose shown, in these \nforewords ; they make a natural introduc- \ntion, poem-wise, to the history which succeeds \nthem ; and holy men of God are still speak- \ning as they are " moved by the Holy Ghost," \n"for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for \ninstruction which is in righteousness." \n\n2. There is another question now much \nat the front. It, and the inquiry about the \nforewords, are the primary Old Testament \nquestions. It is much the more complicated \nof the two. But the same simple principle \nof growing life seems to underlie it. Ah ! \nlife is such a touchstone ! The question to \nwhich I allude is this : Which was prior in \nthe order of time in the life of Israel, the \npriestly and legal impulse, as has been the \ntraditional view, or the prophetical ? \n\nAccording to almost all historical analo- \n\n\n\nIts Idea of the Bible. 145 \n\ngies, the religious life of nations is marked, \nfirst, by mighty moral and spiritual impulses, \nand then by their taking form in law and \nritual. But the Old Testament, in the order \nof its present arrangement, reverses this pro- \ncess. There is, first, very elaborate law and \nritual, and then a passing from these to the \ntrue inspirers of a people, their prophets and \npsalmists. \n\nMoreover, enough is now known about \nthe origin of religions ; and, in particular, \nenough is now known about the great Semitic \nlife of which the life of Israel was the most \nconspicuous part, as well as about the life \nof Israel itself, \xe2\x80\x94 to render it, inductively, \nhighly probable that the order was from spirit- \nual impulse in men like Abraham, Moses, \nSamuel, and David, to ritual and legal form, \nfrom about the general period of Ezra, \nthough having its beginnings much earlier, \n\xe2\x80\x94 a view of the case with which the fearful \ndevelopment of the formal and legal spirit \namong the Jews in our Saviour\'s time seems \nto agree. \n\nThis general probability in the case \xe2\x80\x94 \n\n\n\n146 The Newer Religious Thinking, \n\nnamely, that spirit would precede form, and \nthat the mighty spiritual impulse would pre- \ncede the elaborations of ritual and law, in the \nshape in which we now have them \xe2\x80\x94 is \nvastly augmented by the relief which such a \nview at once brings to difficulties that are \nconstantly coming up on the ordinary view. \nFor instance, there had been, we are told, no \nsuch Passover as Josiah\'s since the days of \nthe Judges. But why not, if this was the \nformal law for all the years intervening? \nAgain, Samuel, not a priest, probably not \neven a Levite, offered sacrifices. Why did \nhe do that, if the formal law as we have it, \nwhich assigned that duty to the priestly class, \nwas then in existence ? So, too, numerous \nreformations in the history of Israel throw \nup items of detail which are most explicable \non the contrary supposition. \n\nI am aware that efforts are made, by one \nmethod or another, to explain away all these \ndifficulties, in order to maintain that view \nwhich is traditional, and which the surface \nof the Old Testament seems to justify. \nBut the attempt reminds one of the cycles \n\n\n\nIts Idea of the Bible, 147 \n\nand epicycles of the Ptolemaic astronomy, by \nwhich, on the supposition that the heavenly \nbodies revolved in a hollow sphere around \nthe earth, it was sought to explain the diffi- \nculties in the way of this view occasioned \nby the seemingly irregular and arbitrary \nmovements of the planets. The moment the \nCopernican astronomy came in, the cycles \nand epicycles vanished ; the planets were \nseen to revolve, not in peculiar but in normal \norbits ; and a whole system of irregularities, \nuntil that time ingeniously and variously \nexplained, became no longer irregular, but \nparts of one vast, simple, and comprehensive \nworking of astronomical principles. \n\nSo of the seeming anachronisms and arti- \nficialities of the life of Israel. They are \ncapable, indeed, of a great variety of inge- \nnious explanations; but first become entirely \nthinkable if the writings, as now collected, \nwere, by holy men of God " moved by the \nHoly Ghost," from time to time rewritten, or \nre-edited and elaborated, out of a yearning \nand burning passion to adapt them to the \nsuccessive needs and exigencies of the moral \nand spiritual life of Israel. \n\n\n\n148 The Newer Religious Thinking, \n\nThere would be nothing dishonest, neces- \nsarily, in such a course. The people who \nfirst heard or read the writings in their \nnewer form would understand it, as we under- \nstand a poem or a sermon now, and as a \nsimilar treatment of the forewords was \nprobably understood. So far as there were \nfictions in the process, they would either \nbe legal fictions, like many in constant use \nto-day, which are neither deceits nor are \ncapable of deceiving anybody ; or they would \nbe the analogues of certain writings in the \nearlier history of Christianity, put forth by \nmen sincerely seeking to serve God, and that^ \ntoo, not under Old Testament, but under \nNew Testament light. \n\nSuch a course would also be true to that \nlaw of spiritual life by which knowledge and \ngrowth in things spiritual ensue upon effort, \nand especially effort for others. The disci- \nples who go out to teach in the Saviour\'s \nname and to do helpful works, learn and \ngrow as they cannot even by staying with \nhim. He wisely tells them relatively little, \nand leaves some of the greatest apostolic les- \n\n\n\nIts Idea of the Bible. 149 \n\nsons to be learned in the stress of later work, \nas Saint Peter\'s at Joppa, and Saint Paul\'s \nin the obscure years in Arabia and Cilicia, \nand in the failure at Athens which prepared \nthe way for the success at Corinth. \n\nSuch a course is called for, as I have \nintimated, by any quantity of phenomena \nbrought to light in a critical study of the \nOld Testament. They seem to compel the \nconclusion that its present state is that into \nwhich it was gradually brought through suc- \ncessive attempts of holy and inspired men to \nadapt its matter to current national needs. \n\nWhat suffers, if this conclusion stands? \nNothing, except our preconceived notion of \nhow the Old Testament came into existence ; \na notion which the Old Testament nowhere \naffirms. \n\nWhat gains ensue, if this conclusion \nstands ? A general induction is confirmed. \nDifficulties, met as it were by interminable \nPtolemaic epicycles, vanish. The growth of \nthe Old Testament becomes reasonable, like \napostolic growth. No essential fiction is in \nthe process, but life, warm and unmistakable. \n\n\n\n150 The Newer Religious Thi7iking. \n\nWe have first spirit, then form ; in short, \ncorrespondence to the well-nigh universal law \nof national and religious unfolding, \xe2\x80\x94 this \nwhole vast matter becoming thus amenable \nto the operations and reign of spiritual law, \ninstead of their inversion. \n\nHere again the representatives of the \nnewer religious thinking are not altogether \nconcurrent, and particularly in matters of \ndetail. They are, however, moving in this \ndirection. They incline to the belief that the \nlife of Israel, as it appears on the surface of \nthe Old Testament, needs re-arranging to \nagree with facts now ascertained, and in \naccordance with the laws of spiritual life.^ \n\n3. Coming to the New Testament, those \nof you who have perhaps been demurring at \nwhat I have said about the Old, will be glad \n\n* " Needs re-arranging." Not the Old Testament. That \nis inspired literature, and should remain substantially as it is. \nSome editions, however, as is beginning to be done, should \nbe so printed as to exhibit the real order of the writings, \nand, in the case of those books which are composite, the \nrespective elements entering into them, so far as they can \nbe ascertained. " The life of Israel," the rather, " needs \nre-arranging." That is, it needs to be written, studied, and \nthought of in its real, rather than in its apparent, order. \n\n\n\nIts Idea of the Bible. 151 \n\nto hear me say that prodigious critical \nstudies, relatively new in the Old Testament, \nhave been concentrated on the New for \nnearly a century, with the result mainly to \nconfirm the historical and detailed accuracy \nof the New Testament writings. That is to \nsay, these writings are largely original, and \nnearly contemporaneous. I say, " mainly to \nconfirm;" for there are points on which the \nliighest scholarship still hesitates. \n\nThe general result here indicated was to \nhave been expected. For the years covered \nby the New Testament story were relatively \nfew ; the events occurred at the blazing fore- \nfront of history ; they occurred in what was \nitself a not altogether uncritical age ; and \nthey immediately, as narrated in the New \nTestament documents, fell into the hands of \nthe great scholars of the second and third \nChristian centuries, who must have verified \nthem in greater or less degree. On this part \nof the subject there are only two remarks \nwhich I desire to make. \n\n(a) The first is, that, while we prob- \nably have in the New Testament either \n\n\n\n152 The Newer Religious Thinking, \n\ndocuments in substantially their original \nform, or documents which for substance \nreproduce original matter, so that, speak- \ning critically, we are treading on somewhat \nsolid ground, we have never enough allowed, \non the other hand, for what the Apostle Paul \nasserts in the text, and implies elsewhere, to \nhave been the purpose of these writings ; \nnamely, immediate usefulness. \n\nThe Apostle expects the world soon to \nend. He is writing hurried letters to his \nconvert churches. He so writes as to go \nback and correct himself without erasure, as \nin the matter of the persons he baptized at \nCorinth. He expressly says, in one instance, \nthat he is using his own judgment about a \nparticular case, and thinks he has the mind \nof Christ.^ In short, the writing is not for \n\n1 For a brief, clear, and searching exposition of difficulties \nattending our traditional approach to the Bible, written by a \nrare scholar and a rare Christian, see "The Change of Atti- \ntude towards the Bible," by Prof. Joseph Henry Thayer, \nD.D. Houghton, Mifflin, and Company, Boston. 1891. \n\nFor an excellent discussion, in some detail, of this whole \ngeneral subject, see (same publishers and year) Dr. Wash- \nington Gladden\'s " Who Wrote the Bible ? A Book for the \nPeople." \n\n\n\nIts Idea of the Bible. 153 \n\nabstract and scientific purposes, but for imme- \ndiate and practical use, "that the man of \nGod may be . . . furnished completely unto \nevery good work." He also speaks of his \nown limitations of knowledge, knowing, as \nhe says, in part, and prophesying in part. \n\nAll this suggests to us, what Christ says, \nthat the words he speaks are "spirit and \nlife." Are they not, then, to be taken in \ntheir spirit and life, for constructive moral \npurposes, rather than as arbitrary and hard \nand fast proof-texts } \n\n(b) My second remark is that if the criti- \ncal studies of nearly a century had turned \nout the other way, or, by the arrival of fresh \nhistorical light, should turn out the other \nway; that is to say, if it had turned out, or \nshould turn out, that these precious docu- \nments belonged to the second century, or the \nthird, rather than the first, the same rewrit- \ning and readjustment to the new needs of \nthe Church taking place, as would seem to \nhave taken place in the Old Testament, \xe2\x80\x94 \nif, I say, this had been proved (as has not \nbeen the case), or if it should be proved in \n\n\n\n154 ^\'^^ Newer Religious Thinking, \n\nthe larger light of the future (which seems \nhardly likely), still this discovery would not \ninvalidate the New Testament documents \nin the matter of their appropriate moral and \nspiritual teaching, any more than those of \nthe Old Testament on the corresponding \nsupposition. \n\nThese writings, in any case, breathe a \nlofty moral and spiritual life, and that life \nbegets life in men. " The letter killeth, but \nthe spirit giveth life." That spirit, in any \nevent, the New Testament contains to an \nunequalled degree. And so long as men \nshall continue to hunger after and be impres- \nsible by such a spirit, the New Testament \nwill retain its peerless authority over life. \nIt is not authoritative because certain theo- \nlogical claims can be substantiated for it. \nAs they have all come, so it would matter \nlittle if they should all go. It is authorita- \ntive, rather, because it has succeeded, as no \nother literature, in commanding the spirits \nof men. \n\nII. We now come, in closing, to the sec- \nond division of the subject, namely : The \n\n\n\nIts Idea of the Bible. 1 5 5 \n\nsense in which, to the newer religious think- \ning, the Bible is so much ; yes, more even \nthan ever before. \n\nThe Bible has been bound hand and foot, \nfor several centuries, by what is a compara- \ntively modern doctrine, namely, that of the \nliteral and verbal inspiration of Scripture. I \nsay this is a comparatively modern doctrine, \nfor the apostles quoted the Old Testament \nloosely, as they could hardly have done, had \nthey regarded its very letters as inspired. \nThey themselves, also, wrote as I have \ndescribed, which they could hardly have \ndone, had they thought of the letters of the \nalphabet, and the phraseology which they \nused, as inspired. Moreover, the writers of \nthe early Church quoted with the same loose- \nness, and, like the apostles, were driving at \nthe point, not the words. \n\nBy this doctrine, \xe2\x80\x94 comparatively modern, \nbecause unknown to the apostles and their \nimmediate successors, \xe2\x80\x94 the doctrine, namely, \nof literal and verbal inspiration, the Bible \nhas long been hampered and mistreated. \nIt was set up to fight Copernicus and Gali- \n\n\n\n156 The Newer Religious Thinking. \n\nleo ; later, to fight Lyell and Agassiz ; at \nlength, to fight Darwin and John Fiske. \nThese positions into which, entirely with- \nout warrant, it has thus been forced, have \nproved, unless we except the last, \xe2\x80\x94 and \nprobably the substance of that should be \nincluded, \xe2\x80\x94 utterly untenable. Similarly, \nunder this same theory of literal and verbal \ninspiration, it has been set up to fight, with \nproof-texts, nearly every advance in a pro- \nfounder, simpler, truer thought of God, \nwhich has been suggested since Anselm in \nthe eleventh century, \xe2\x80\x94 positions which, in \nmost instances, as in the matter of astron- \nomy, of geology, and of glaciation, have \nlikewise proved untenable. \n\nNow the newer religious thinking does not \nwant the Bible to be subjected any longer \nto such humiliating work. It is good for \nsomething better than the fighting of need- \nless and losing battles. It is inspired, the \nnewer religious thinking believes, in a far \nnobler way, namely, in spirit rather than \nin letter. It is inspired for ends spiritual, \nmoral, and practical. Holy men of God, \n\n\n\nIts Idea of the Bible, 1 5 7 \n\n"moved by the Holy Ghost," spake in it "for \nteaching, for reproof, for correction," and \n"for instruction which is in righteousness." \nIn the matter of its forewords, of the order \nof unfolding in the life of Israel, and of the \nNew Testament documents, \xe2\x80\x94 in fact, in \nevery respect, \xe2\x80\x94 it should be subjected to \nthe same criticism, the same research, and \nthe same interpretation as any literature. \n\nSo the newer religious thinking believes, \nand of this it is not afraid. It welcomes all \nnew light. Just as the new astronomy and \nthe new geology have vastly expanded and \nilluminated the human mind, so, as these \nstudies advance, it anticipates that the new \nunderstanding of history, and the true ap- \nprehension of the order and meaning of \nthe Bible documents, will vastly expand \nand illuminate the human soul. When the \nBible is thus freed, when it is stripped of a \nfalse mediaeval authority and clad in its own \npristine authority of spirit and life, it be- \ncomes, more even than ever, a new and life- \ngiving book. \n\nAnd that it is an inspired book, \xe2\x80\x94 inspired \n\n\n\n158 The Newer Religious Thinking, \n\nby the same Spirit which has inspired all \nother literature, and has inspired you and \nme, but inspired in a more conspicuous and \nlife-giving degree than is ordinarily the case \nwith literary or individual inspiration, \xe2\x80\x94 the \nnewer religious thinking fully believes. The \nbook is from God. Its light and warmth are \neternal. Side by side it stands with that \nother book, of nature, history, life, of which I \nspoke last Sunday night. Each throws light \non the other. Each supplements the other. \nBetween them, rightly interpreted, there is \nno schism. Their truth is one. And that \ntruth, it is given you and me reverently to \nseek after, to receive into our hearts, and to \nmake the lamp of our feet, and the light of \nour path. \n\n\n\nCHRIST ITS CENTRE. \n\n\n\nSYNOPSIS. \n\nImportance of indicating the fact of the newer relig- \nious thinking. \xe2\x80\x94 Obedience unto the heavenly vision its \nforemost trait. \xe2\x80\x94 Its other characteristics have underlying \nthem the principle of a thoroughly enlisted intellect, as well \nas of a thoroughly stirred heart ; the appeal, in short, is to \nthe whole man. \xe2\x80\x94 This true even of the practical bent of the \nnewer religious thinking (illustrations). \xe2\x80\x94 Hunger after God \nand passion for men its inspirations ; their fine reciprocal re- \nlation ; their image-breaking but pacific purpose: \xe2\x80\x94 The \nworld Book and the pen-and-ink Book its material to work \nin and grow by ; this the highest appHcation of the inductive \nmethod ; it constitutes an epoch in religion. \xe2\x80\x94 Christ its \ncentre : (i) For men outside the faith ; in what sense ; \n(2) For " Unevangelicals ; " two illustrations ; (3) For conser- \nvative " Evangelicals " (examples) ; (4) For hberal " Evan- \ngelicals " (examples). \xe2\x80\x94 The law of eternal sacrifice. \xe2\x80\x94 This \nthe true Ifi hoc signo vinces. \xe2\x80\x94 This is not getting salvation, \nbut salvation getting us ; this is not gaining heaven, but \nheaven gaining us. \xe2\x80\x94 This the divine handwriting on the \nnewer religious thinking. \xe2\x80\x94 There is only one thing for you \nand me to do, namely, to throw ourselves into this infinite \nChrist principle. \n\n\n\nVI. \n\nCHRIST ITS CENTRE.i \n\nWhOf being in the form of God, counted it not a prize \nto be on an equality with God, but emptied himself, \ntaking the form of a se? vant, being made in the like- \nness of 7nen ; and being found in fashion as a man, he \nhmnbled himself, becoming obedient even unto death, \nyea, the death of the ci\'oss. Wherefore also God highly \nexalted him, and gave unto him the naine which is \nabove every name ; that in the na7ne of Jesus every \nknee should bow, of things in heaven and things on \nearth and things under the earth, and that every \ntongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the \nglory of God the Father. \xe2\x80\x94 Philippians ii. 6-11. \n\nT UNDERTOOK, in the first of these dis- \ncourses, to indicate the fact of a newer \nreligious thinking, and to characterize that \nthinking. \n\nIt is important to indicate the fact, \xe2\x80\x94 not \nunduly, not out of proportion, especially not \n\n1 Prospect Street, Sunday night, December 18, 1892. \nDown to the paragraph beginning, "It is to this point, then, \nthat we now come," on page 171, I have substituted a differ- \n\n\n\n1 62 The Newer Religious Thinking. \n\nin neglect of much else of large importance, \nand, particularly, not in neglect of simple, \nevery-day duty, thought, and devotion. But, \nassuming that due proportion is maintained, \nthis great, present-day fact needs making \nknown. The ostrich, hiding her head in the \nsand upon the approach of peril, is not a wise \nbird. Neither, unless in appearance, is that \nbird wise which, when all the woodland is \ncarolling the glory and joy of the dawn, hides \nfrom it in some cleft of tree or of rock. To \nknow one\'s time, to apprehend its perils and \npossibilities, to feel wdth quick and tender \nsympathy the heart-throb of its great aspira- \ntions and inspirations, \xe2\x80\x94 this is to live. Its \ncontrary is to fall under our Saviour\'s sur- \nprised and pained rebuke, " Ye cannot dis- \ncern the signs of the times." \n\nIn characterizing the newer religious \nthinking I spoke of its spring in " heavenly \nvision," and its obedience thereto. That is \n\nent opening of the discourse from that used in preaching it. \nI have also permitted myself an anachronism of two days in \nthe illustration taken from my own parish on pages 165 and \n166. For the original opening, with the reasons for the \ntransposition, see Appendix B. \n\n\n\nChrist its Centre, 163 \n\nits most important trait. No prophet of old \nwas ever more truly moved of God than the \nbest spirit in this thinking. And the very \nobloquy which it is sure to encounter, chas- \ntens and makes higher than of this earth \nthe holy resolution with which it presses for- \nward. I can only repeat what I stated as I \ndrew attention to the point : *\' Let no man \nsay, or even imagine, that this thinking is \nother than inspired by, and obedient unto, a \n\' heavenly vision,\' which ever hovers in its \nforeground, and beckons it on." \n\nThe other characteristics which I named \nwere : " its scientific temper ; " " its practi- \ncal bent;" and "its purpose to include in its \nconcept the entire religious impulse of the \nworld." \n\nOne principle underlies all these. It is \nthe principle of a thoroughly enlisted intel- \nlect, as well as of a thoroughly stirred heart. \nThis is the glory of the religion of the new \ntime. It appeals to the whole man. There \nis no servility of a half or two thirds of the \nman to the other half or third. \n\nTake, for example, what might seem an \n\n\n\n164 The Newer Religious Thinking. \n\nexception to this, namely, the "practical \nbent " of the newer thinking. One might \npoint, with this in mind, sneeringly at the \nthinking, and say, " It may do for professors \nand essay-preachers, but practical men don\'t \ncare for it." But he would have reflected \nlittle who should so employ this trait. The \nfact is that many of the most practical Chris- \ntians, to-day, are practical, as a sheer intel- \nlectual necessity. They cannot abide the \nidols still standing upright in the imagery \nchambers of traditional theology. Neither, \non the other hand, can they give up their \nhold on God. Therefore they turn, almost \ndesperately, to work. Here they will find, \nthey are sure, light. " If any man willeth \nto do his will," they console themselves, " he \nshall know of the teaching." I adduce two \nillustrations of this. \n\nWhen the profoundest theologian of our \ncentury, Maurice, was spending his days and \nnights for the London workingmen, and \nin that work discovered Charles Kingsley, \nThomas Hughes, and many another, it was \nthe intellectual necessity of something prac- \n\n\n\nChrist its Centre, 165 \n\ntical, not less than sympathy for the men \nneeding help, which became the key to that \nremarkable chapter in our century\'s history. \nThis, and, so far as we can see, this alone, \ngave Charles Kingsley and Thomas Hughes \nnot only to literature, but also to the intel- \nlectual enrichment of our century\'s religious \nlife. \n\nBut to come nearer home. There listened \neagerly to the earlier of these discourses a \nphysician, second to few in this Common- \nwealth as a general practitioner, who, the \nlast two nights he was out, spent them devis- \ning ways for increasing the practical efficiency \nof this church; who, with pneumonia upon \nhim, answered, nevertheless, a night call the \nsecond of those nights, and desired to start \nout in the morning ; and who, ten days there- \nafter, was with the great Physician. His \nhands and his heart were ever full of all sorts \nof practical helpfulness to men. And his \nlast testimony in our meetings was in a vein \nof rejoicing that creed-wars were waning, and \nthat the Christian Church was getting to \nwork. And what was he 1 A man of deep- \n\n\n\n1 66 The Newer Religious Thinking. \n\nest, tenderest sympathies ? Yes ; but also \na man of doubts, questionings, perplexities, \nwho at once conquered them, used them, \nand became a humble servant of the Lord \nJesus through practical work.^ \n\nThe practical bent, then, as well as the \nscientific temper, and the purpose to com- \nprehend and utilize the truer impulses of all \nreligions, noticeable as traits of the newer \nreligious thinking, indicate, all of them, as \nI said, the thoroughly enlisted intellect, as \nwell as the thoroughly stirred heart. The \nwhole man, in short, is coming to the front \nin religion. Is not this significant? Does it \nnot betoken a new time ? Ought it not to \nmake our hearts sing? \n\nBut the measure of a movement is in its \ninspirations. We saw the fact and some \ntraits of the newer religious thinking in the \nfirst discourse. It was in the second and \nthird that we saw what its inspirations are. \nThey are the highest, the noblest, \xe2\x80\x94 hunger \nafter God, and passion for men. Not since \n\n^ Dea. David Marks Edgerly, M. D., truly a " beloved phy- \nsician." Born, August II, 1839; died, December 20, 1892. \n\n\n\nChrist its Centre, 167 \n\nChrist was in the flesh has a movement in \nreligious thought been more thoroughly im- \nbued with either of these impulses ; and the \nmost blessed aspect of the present move- \nment is that they are in such fine balance, \neach equally present, and each giving sym- \nmetry and glory to the other. \n\nWe saw, also, how these impulses lead \ninevitably to a certain image-breaking, in \nGodward and manward theology not only, \nbut also in the life of society. For the " stone \ncut out of the mountain without hands " is \nto " break in pieces and consume " not only \nthe image of Nebuchadnezzar\'s dream, but \nall images. It has not come " to send peace, \nbut a sword." It ought not, however, to be \nthought of as a conquest, but as, the rather, \na measureless love, with its end peace. \nHappy will it be for us if we shall capitu- \nlate with it early. \n\nHaving these noble and so reciprocal in- \nspirations, and this at once destructive and \nconstructive work in hand, has the newer \nreligious thinking adequate material to work \nin and grow by, or is it a kind of wild pas- \n\n\n\n1 68 The Newer Religious Thinking, \n\nsion of the age, like the crusades, which \nwere utterly barren, except in their indirect \nresults ? You remember how the wise Ar- \nthur deprecated for most of his knights the \nquest of the Holy Grail : \xe2\x80\x94 \n\n" Go, since your vows are sacred, being made : \nYet \xe2\x80\x94 for ye know the cries of all my realm \nPass through this hall \xe2\x80\x94 how often, O my knights, \nYour places being vacant at my side, \nThis chance of noble deeds will come and go \nUnchallenged, while ye follow wandering fires \nLost in the quagmire ! Many of you, yea most. \nReturn no more." \n\nIs the newer religious thinking such a quest, \nor has it adequate material to work in and \ngrow by ? \n\nThe fourth and fifth discourses afforded \nus the answer to this most serious question. \nWe saw that the unique distinction of the \nnewer religious thinking of the present is its \nbeing set to read two books, not one ; to listen \nto the whole oracle, not to a part of it. \nWhereas, before, mainly only one book has \nbeen read, and only one philosophical method \nfollowed, namely, deduction, we saw that in- \n\n\n\nChrist its Centre, 169 \n\nduction is now to take its appropriate place \nalong with deduction in the work of this \nthinking, and that that other God\'s Book, \nnature, history, life, or, in one word, the \nworld, is now to be laid side by side with the \npen-and-ink Book, the Bible, and each made \nto interpret the other. \n\nThis change in philosophical method ; \nthis recognition of the larger handwriting \nof God, \xe2\x80\x94 \n\n" And Nature, the old nurse, took \nThe child upon her knee. \nSaying : \' Here is a story-book \nThy Father has written for thee.\' \n\n" \' Come, wander with me,\' she said, \n* Into regions yet untrod ; \nAnd read what is still unread \nIn the manuscripts of God ; \' " 1 \n\nthis sublime purpose to find God in his \nwhole universe, and to let him speak to men \nout of his whole universe ; and this arduous \ntask of rethinking everything into the larger \nterms of God as so manifested, \xe2\x80\x94 constitute \nan epoch in religion not less momentous \n\n^ Longfellow, " The Fiftieth Birthday of Agassiz." \n\n\n\n1 70 The Newer Religious Thinking. \n\nthan was constituted for science when it \ngave itself to the Baconian method. In fact \nit is that method, given its highest applica- \ntion. The other method in religion, in point \nof fact, was too often only a kind of quest \nof the Holy Grail, following " wandering fires \nlost in the quagmire." Employing this better \nmethod the quest is becoming substantial and \nreal, with promise of results more reasonable \nand permanent. \n\nThus, from the indicating and character- \nizing, through the splendid inspirations and \ntasks, and then through the new and mag- \nnificent material and method, we are come, \nfor the newer religious thinking, to this \ncrucial inquiry : What is its centre ? Indeed, \nhas it a centre ? Is there any Arthur, in his \nHall of Camelot^ (for this seems the mean- \n\n1 This was how Camelot looked as men approached it, \neluding and yet winning them, and drawing them within \nitself: \xe2\x80\x94 \n\n" Far off they saw the silver-misty morn \nRolling her smoke about the Royal mount, \nThat rose between the forest and the field. \nAt times the summit of the high city flashed ; \nAt times the spires and turrets half-way down \nPricked through the mist ; at times the great gate shone \nOnly, that opened on the field below : . . . \nAnd there was no gate like it under heaven." \n\n\n\nChrist its Centre, 171 \n\ning of the " Idyls "), for it ever to come back \nto, and ever to start out afresh from, and \never to live under the vow of? \n\nBlessed be God, there is ! It is that mys- \nterious Person, of whom the mystery of \nArthur\'s " Coming," and " Passing," and \nwondrous defeated and yet triumphing life, \nseems to be speaking to us. And we grossly \nwrong the mystery, \xe2\x80\x94 mysterious from any \npoint of view, \xe2\x80\x94 if we seek too deeply to \npenetrate, or too precisely to define that Per- \nson. That was how they treated Arthur, \xe2\x80\x94 \nsome denying that he was what he claimed \nto be ; others maintaining that he was more \nthan he claimed to be ; none compassing his \npractical meaning for life ; and even his last \nknight fain to deceive him in the matter \nof his dying request. Ah ! what an epic \nis that of Tennyson\'s! Would it might \nteach us ! \n\nIt is to this point, then, that we now come \nin closing ; namely, to note that Christ is the \ncentre of this movement. \n\nI. I wish to indicate this, first. In regard \nto many men outside the Church altogether, \n\n\n\n172 The Newer Religious Thinking, \n\nthe earnest doubters and unbelievers, who, \nas we saw in the first discourse, are also in \na movement, an advance, which differen- \ntiates them from the like type in earlier \nperiods, so that the true men among them \nare more earnest and reverent, and are \npained not to believe. \n\nWe are told that, as Jesus hung upon the \ncross, it was where many passed, and that \nthey looked on him, and that some, even \namong those farthest from the faith, were \ntouched ; for example, the Centurion. I \nshould like to follow the lives of those who \nsaw him, and observe if they were not per- \nmanently affected by the sight. Christ said \nhe would, if lifted up, draw all men unto him. \nI wonder if this saying of his did not begin \nto be fulfilled while he hung there on the \ncross. It is so, at any rate, with the men \nof whom we are now thinking. Jesus of \nNazareth, whom they do not confess to be \nJesus also of the skies, has his hold on them. \nOf course it is not iust the hold he has, I \nhope, on you and me. Would God it were \nan ampler hold on them ; yes, and on us, \n\n\n\nChrist its Centre, 173 \n\nlikewise ! But, of its kind, it is as real as \non you and me, \xe2\x80\x94 if not as adequate, at any \nrate as real. Let us see how this is. \n\nThere have been certain figures in history \nfrom which the world never has been able to \nget aw^ay. One of them is composite, the \nfigure of the old Greek life, shown us by \nwonderful Homer. Whatever person, and \nwhatever civilization, has beheld this com- \nposite portrayal of antique life, will never be \nthe same, after the sight, as before. So, too, \nspecifically, of the figure of Socrates, or the \nfigure of Dante, or the figure of Martin \nLuther, or the figure of William the Silent, \nor the figure of Shakespeare. \n\nNow like these, only vastly deeper, more \nacute, more potent in influence, more con- \nstructive of life, is the figure of Jesus, with \nthese men. Homer gives a composite, uni- \nversal expression of the antique ; Socrates, of \nthe moral, \xe2\x80\x94 of truth-seeking, inward-voice- \nobeying, spiritual intelligence ; Dante, of \nlofty spirit, betwixt the old world and the \nnew ;" Luther, of the Germanic impulse, and \nof its emancipation into spiritual liberty; \n\n\n\n1 74 The Newer Religious Thinking. \n\nWilliam the Silent, of the spirit of tolerance \nand freedom and comprehension ; Shake- \nspeare, of the heart of man in all time. \n\nBut not one of these approaches the signifi- \ncance of the figure of the Lord Jesus, nor do \nall of them. There he is. There he depends \nfrom the cross. One cannot say ancient or \nmodern of him, for he is of all time, as ap- \npropriate to Homer\'s age as to the age of \nAugustus, as appropriate to the age of Vic- \ntoria as to the age of Dante ; in fact, dateless, \ntimeless, a being belonging to the forever. \nOne cannot associate him with Socrates, for \nhe is morally much vaster than Socrates ; nor \nwith Luther or William, for they are only \ntapers from him ; nor with Shakespeare, for \nhe knows all that Shakespeare knows, is \nvastly more universal, being Semitic as well \nas Indo-European, and, where Shakespeare \ngropes in the dark, as in the Sonnets, he is \nall light, as in the fourteenth to the seven- \nteenth of Saint John. \n\nNow this universal figure, this Man of \nsorrows depending from the cross, is there, \n\xe2\x80\x94 there and unremovable ; and, being now \n\n\n\nChrist its Centre, 175 \n\nuniversally diffused abroad, through the lives \nof him, the comments on him, the universal \nimpression of him, he is swaying these men, \n\xe2\x80\x94 swaying them by the power of his tran- \nscendent character, his unequalled sayings, \nand the tout-ensemble of his personality. To \nhis thoughts these men bow. To his con- \nceptions they more and more adapt their \nlives. He has softened their scoffing. He \nhas made them tender and earnest. They \ndo not acknowledge, as we do, his Deity, \nbut they bend to his character. \n\nAnd thus it comes about, in peoples that \nknow Christ, even though many among them \nare ungodly, that the Christ-thought gets the \nupper hand ; that complicated elections sim- \nplify themselves ; that an aroused public \nconscience registers the verdict of the Lord \nJesus; that great tyrannies fall down; that \ngreat wars come to the right end ; and that \nthe King of kings, in the person of our \nLord, goes forth to every conflict with \nno uncertainty what the ultimate outcome \nwill be. \n\nIt would be easy to establish what I have \n\n\n\n176 The Newer Religious Thinki^ig. \n\naffirmed from the sayings of men of this type, \nbut I have enough suggested the proof. Of \nthe truer spirit outside the faith, Christ is the \ncentre. Already it is under his resistless \neye. Already it swings, however unwit- \ntingly, to his bidding. \n\n2. The same is true, with augmented \nforce, of those in the Church, but outside \nso-called " evangelical " lines. And the aug- \nmented force lies in this, that, while, in \ndistinction from you and me, they deny the \ntrue Deity of the Lord Jesus, they regard \nhim as very specially related to God. \n\nIn him, they say, God has most perfectly \nmanifested himself. There is a divine mys- \ntery, they affirm, about this wonderful being. \nHim they count their Saviour, their leader, \ntheir glorious exemplar. They do not go as \nfar as we. We are sorry they do not. But \nthey go a good distance. They accept him \nas Master. He marshals them. He directs \nthem. Now these men, as I have earlier \npointed out, are in one section of the newer \nreligious thinking ; and, in their newer \nthought, Christ is central, \xe2\x80\x94 his character, \n\n\n\nChrist its Centre, I\'j\'j \n\nhis way of helping men, his simplicity, his \nincisiveness, his lofty and tender spirit. If \nafar off, as some of us would say, they never- \ntheless follow Jesus. Yes, and perchance, \nmany a time, nearer than we. \n\nI have met personally with two affecting \nillustrations of this within a few days. A \nyoung minister of a " non-evangelical " body, \nconsuming with zeal, love, service, introduced \nme to an aged parishioner of his, and left us \ntogether. Then began this old man to testify, \nalmost with tears, to what this young man \nwas doing for him and for his church. " We \nnever had," he said, " such a minister. There \nwas never a minister that did so much for \nme." Why 1 I knew why. He never had \nhad a minister who so completely, however \ndefective his doctrine, lived as in the pres- \nence and power of the Lord Jesus. \n\nThe other illustration was in a well- \nstocked private library. I took down a \nbook bearing on the life of the Lord Jesus. \nStruck by it, I asked my host what he knew \nof its author. *\' He is an Englishman," \nreplied my friend, " \' non-evangelical,\' an \n\n\n\n178 The Newer Religious Thinking, \n\nadvanced man. I visited him when I was \nabroad. He is a great scholar, a great \nthinker, but, like Martineau, most devout. \nHis home suggests an oratory, redolent of \nsanctity and prayer." \n\nHere, then, were a young New England \npastor, of one " non-evangelical " denomina- \ntion, and a great English scholar of another, \nthe doctrinal deficiencies of both of whom \nyou and I would regret; but both of whom \nwere not only under the general moral influ- \nence, as in the case of men outside the faith, \nbut also under the personal and spiritual \npower of the Lord Jesus Christ. The exam- \nples are typical. They suggest, out of life, \nmy point.-^ \n\n3. Without going into other divisions of \nthe Church, I come now to " Evangelicals," \nsuch as we. And, first, those of them who \n\n1 One has only to think of Dr. Edward Everett Hale, the \nauthor of " In His Name," and of Dr. Andrew P. Peabody \n(passed on March 10, 1893), who was as devout and tender a \ndisciple as the Saint John he loved so well, to understaad \nhow truly Christian, in the New Testament sense of that \nword, are multitudes whom those who claim to be more ac- \nceptable Christians than they, have so far forgotten the spirit \nof Christ as to pronounce "unevangelical." (See pp. 208, 209.) \n\n\n\nChrist its Centre. 179 \n\nhave little responsiveness to the freshened \nreligious thinking of our time. \n\nConservatives, we should call them. But \nsome of them are, along practical lines, \nmightily parts of a progressive movement. \nThe dead Spurgeon is an example. Very \nconservative in theory, in practical directions \nhe was radical, \xe2\x80\x94 pushing for new methods, \nnew appliances, new instrumentalities, build- \ning up his great Metropolitan Temple work, \nhis Lay College, his Orphanage, etc. The \nliving General Booth, of the Salvation Army, \nis another example. Book after book falls \nfrom his pen. The drum-beat of the army \nassociated with his name, like the drum-beat \nof the army of England, follows the rising \nsun around the world. Dwight L. Moody \nis another example, \xe2\x80\x94 fearless, hospitable, \nasking Professor (now President) Harper, \nwho so much disturbs some people about \nthe Old Testament, to speak at his Sum- \nmer School. \n\nConservative men are all these, and \nmany another, yet advancing men ; mainly \nadvancing in practical directions, it is true, \n\n\n\n1 80 The Newer Religious Tki^zking, \n\nbut parts of the great world movement. \nNeed I ask who inspires them ; who is \ncentral to their progress ; who is the \nLeader, Captain, All-in-All of the Spur- \ngeons, Booths, Moodys, and those of like \ntemper, in the great marching army of \nChristian workers of this type? It is he \nwith the thorn-marks in his brow, the nail- \nprints in his hands, the spear-thrust in his \nside. \n\n4. And next, and finally, we come to those \nmembers of " evangelical " bodies, to whom \nI have made repeated reference, who, in in- \ntellectual as well as p\'ractical lines, are parts \nof the newer religious thinking. \n\nThey are the Coleridges, the Arnolds, \nthe Robertsons, the Maurices, the Kingsleys, \nthe Bushnells, among the dead. They are the \nFarrars, the Phillips Brookses,^ the Heber \nNewtons, the T. T. Hungers, the Wash- \nington Gladdens, the Lyman Abbotts, the \nEgbert C. Smyths, among the living. They \n\n1 Dead, alas ! January 23, 1893. But never so alive as \nnow, on the earth as well as in heaven. " It is expedient for \nyou that I go away." \n\n\n\nChrist its Centre. i8i \n\nare, at once as practical men and as intel- \nlectual men, in the newer religious thinking. \nThey have their faults, perchance their errors. \nBut to their voices the voice of the souls of \nsinning, fallen, needy humanity responds. \n\nAnd there is but one centre to their think- \ning and their work, \xe2\x80\x94 namely, the Crucified \nOne. Believing that he was in the form of \nGod, but counted it not a thing to grasp \nafter to hold equality with God, but, the \nrather, emptied himself, took the form of a \nservant, was made in the likeness of men, \nhumbled himself, and became obedient to \ndeath, even the death" of the cross, \xe2\x80\x94 they \nhold him therein to have impersonated, as \nin no other way it could be done, the great \nheart of God; and that therefore, not so \nmuch because he was God, though he was \nGod, but because in flesh and blood he \nembodied the infinitely sacrificial heart of \nGod, " God highly exalted him, and gave \nunto him the name which is above every \nname;" and "that in the name of Jesus \nevery knee " shall " bow, of things in heaven \nand things on earth and things under the \n\n\n\n1 82 The Newer Religious Thinking. \n\nearth, and that every tongue " shall " con- \nfess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory \nof God the Father." \n\nThis is their conviction, this their faith, \nthis their inspiration. Along this line they \nare moving. God is God, they believe, and \nChrist is God, not so much because they \nare God, though they are that, but because \nthey are God-like, \xe2\x80\x94 self-emptying, sacrificial, \nspending and being spent for others, for \nmen, and for the spirits above and beyond \nmen. Here they see God resting his high- \nest claim, and Christ his highest, not in \nDeity per se, though they are that, but in \nGod-like love, sacrifice, self-emptying. \n\nA universe could not be called into being, \nthese men remember, without infinite suffer- \ning. This infinite suffering, God, \xe2\x80\x94 this \ninfinite suffering, Christ, \xe2\x80\x94 these men re- \nmember, was ready to undergo, and thus to \nbe, as it were, " slain from the foundation of \nthe world." Human beings, and other spir- \nitual existences, could not be called into \nbeing \xe2\x80\x94 any more than the coming into \nbeing of a family of children is possible \xe2\x80\x94 \n\n\n\nChrist its Centre, 183 \n\nwithout immense suffering, and immense \nsin as the sequel. These, too, God, \xe2\x80\x94 these, \ntoo, Christ, \xe2\x80\x94 was willing to undergo and \nendure. This self-emptying and self-forget- \nting \xe2\x80\x94 as is slightly suggested by the self- \nemptying and self-forgetting of a parent \xe2\x80\x94 \ndid God, and especially God in Christ, \nmake the law of the Divine Being. There- \nfore, by highest right God is God ; therefore \nChrist is highly exalted, and given " the \nname which is above every name." \n\nDo you catch the thought } Do you see \nhow far-reaching it is \'^, " God is love." \n" God so loved the world." God\'s claim is \nbased there. God\'s command of us is ful- \ncrumed there. Not on sovereignty, though \nthere is sovereignty enough ; not on law, \nthough there is law enough ; not on right, \nthough there is right enough ; not on jus- \ntice, though God is just; but on love, \xe2\x80\x94 the \nlove of an infinite and eternal sacrifice, pene- \ntrating the world, pervading it, conquering \nit, lowering its proud look, bringing down its \nlofty head, turning it as the rivers of water \nare turned. Love is the clew: love is the \n\n\n\n1 84 The Newer Religious Thinking, \n\nkey, \xe2\x80\x94 and love running through everything: \nthrough nature, making it sacred ; through \nhistory, hallowing it ; through life, imparting \nto it a new meaning, so that light comes, \nfreedom comes, growth comes, yea, the new \nheavens and new earth, wherein dwelleth \nrighteousness. \n\nConstantine, on the eve of battle, seemed, \nas everybody knows, to see in the sky a \ncross, and the legend, " In this symbol con- \nquer,"^ In it he did conquer. But little did \nhe guess, or did the Church of his age, or of \nthe succeeding ages, guess the full import \nof the symbol. The full import is the eternal \nsacrifice in the heart of God. Of this im- \nport our age, enabled thereto by its mighty \nenlargings on every side, is, for the first \ntime, getting some adequate glimpses. To \nits power this age is bending, \xe2\x80\x94 love, the \ncross, the infinite sacrifice in the heart of \nGod, emulated in the hearts, the thoughts, \nthe lives of men. And, as if it blazed \nbefore the sight of men in every sky, it is \nsaying, " In this symbol conquer," \xe2\x80\x94 breaking \ndown all oppressions, righting all wrongs, \n\n1 Strictly, " thou slialt conquer." \n\n\n\nChrist its Centre. 185 \n\nbettering steadily a world so in need of bet- \nterment, lifting life into higher thoughts, \nnobler ideals, loftier conceptions, more ade- \nquate realizations and completions, under \nthe lead of the Crucified, \xe2\x80\x94 he the centre, \nhe highly exalted, and, in some sense, all \nknees bent to him, and all tongues confess- \ning him. \n\nThis is more than getting salvation, though \nit is salvation. It is salvation getting us. \nThis is more than gaining heaven, though it \ngains heaven. It is heaven gaining us, \xe2\x80\x94 \ngaining us over to its ruling idea, filling us \nwith it, transfiguring us by it, and making \nit to be true that we, his servants, both here \nand there, serve him, and have his name in \nour foreheads. \n\nHere it is that the newer religious think- \ning, \xe2\x80\x94 not mine, not yours, not any man\'s, \nnot perfect either, but still faulty and inad- \nequate enough, \xe2\x80\x94 along the pathway of which \nGod is leading the world, and of which I \nhave sought to say something to you these \nclosing Sunday nights of the year, shows \nupon it the divine handwriting, being from \n\n\n\n1 86 The Newer Religious Thinking, \n\nChrist, and centred in him, and moving \ntoward him. \n\nAnd there is only one thing for you and \nme to do, \xe2\x80\x94 a thing which, at the best, w^e \nnever have enough done yet, \xe2\x80\x94 namely, to \nthrow ourselves into this infinite Christ prin- \nciple, into this infinite law of the spiritual \nkingdom, into this divine imperative of the \nuniverse, and to become the very children \nand personal presentments of the cross. \nHe who therefrom depends, leads, and ever \nwill lead, turning and overturning, conquer- \ning and to conquer, and renewing evermore \n\xe2\x80\x94 even as it is written, " Behold, I make all \nthings new " \xe2\x80\x94 thought, feeling, life, yea, \neven you and me. To him be the glory, \nboth now and forever. Amen. \n\n\n\nAPPENDIX A. \nONE TYPE OF NATURE TEACHING. \n\n\n\nNOTE. \n\nAt the point in Discourse IV. (page 124) whence reference is \nmade to Appendix A, I have spoken not only of the testifying \npower of nature indirectly and in general ways, but of its more \ndirect voice. What, it was asked, are those impulses of peoples, \nthose movements of them, those peculiarities which give them \neach, as it were, a vocation and a distinctive message for the \nworld? "All these," as was there said, "have a place in that \nrevelation of God which the world is." \n\nTo illustrate this subject in a single direction, I append the \nclosing observations in an address of mine before the New Eng- \nland Water Works Association, given in Boston, December 12, \n1888, entitled "Water in Some of its Higher Relations," and \nprinted in the Association\'s "Journal" for March, 1889. The \nlast paragraph, not in the address, but added as a note when it \nwas printed, is here brought into the text. \n\nNature being of God not only, but God being in nature, and \nspeaking through it, when shall that great heresy be arrested by \nwhich the two are put in antithesis, and by which nature is so \ndemeaned as at best only now and then to be summoned into \ncourt " evidentially " ? When shall its holy voice on all sides of \nus be simply and livingly heard ? Children so hear it, \xe2\x80\x94 " the \ngreatest in the Kingdom of heaven." So do the poets, \xe2\x80\x94 suc- \nceeding, as they know how to, in remaining children always. We \nmust come to their place, or miss much of the sweetness, depth, \nand glory of God. \n\n\n\nONE TYPE OF NATURE TEACHING. \n\nIF this seems fanciful to you, this mighty impulse \nof descending streams, of great rivers, of spark- \nling archipelagoes, and of bordering seas, in giving \na type to national life, and in helping set forward \nworld-historical movements, I ask you to think of \ntwo or three more modern instances. \n\nWhat, then, let me ask, was the Anglo-Saxon \nfatherland? It was Teutonic. Why, then, do our \nbrothers of Germany, and of the Low Countries, \nstay mainly on their own soil, or colonize only \nfeebly, while v/e ourselves, having been first trans- \nferred to the mother Islands, have colonized the \nworld, are erecting mighty nationalities on three \ncontinents, and are giving to the whole world our \ninstitutions and our speech? Before you answer \nthis question I ask you to sail along the shores \nof the Continent, opposite Great Britain ; to note \nthat there is hardly a respectable natural harbor \non the French coast; to note how remote and \ndifficult of access are the better harbors of the \nNorth Sea and of the Baltic; and then, crossing \n\n\n\n190 Appendix A, \n\n\n\nthe Channel, to observe that our mother Islands \nare fairly fringed with bays, inlets, safe harbors, \nand inviting river mouths. Sail up the Irish coast, \nfor example, with this distinction in mind. The \nwhole coast configuration, the whole maritime \nquality of these islands, were a perpetual predis- \nposition to the sea, to its hardy employments, to \nits openness of mind, to its far-reaching adventure. \nWater, and the water impulse and opportunity, are \nthe answer, physically, to the question why the \nAnglo-Saxon civilization, which, indeed, had within \nitself elements mightily adapted to the same end, \nis erecting great nationalities on three continents, \nand is imparting its spirit to the world. \n\nBut let us keep within the lifetime of our own \ngeneration. Go back, in our own country, to i860. \nWhy was it, in all the stress and conflicting senti- \nment of that stormy period, that North and South \ndid not separate, like Abram and Lot dividing the \nland? One great reason, one conclusive practical \nreason, one unanswerable argument to multitudes \nwho would not have stood upon theory, was the \nsimple natural fact that a mighty river coursed \nfrom north to south through the alienated sec- \ntions ; that the natural flow of waters, and the \nnatural dip of water-sheds, pointed out that this \nought to be one land, not two; and that it was \nimpracticable for it to maintain itself as two. \n\n\n\nOne Type of Nature Teaching, 191 \n\nOr go back to 1870. There is a magnificent \nriver, almost a second Rhine, descending from the \nsouthwest by a northeasterly course to the Rhine, \nand joining it at Coblenz, namely, the Moselle. \nThe two streams are, for all practical purposes, \none. The country drained by them is the same in \ncharacter. The Moselle belonged within the old \nGerman frontier. All the Rhine love was shared \nby it. But France had claimed and held the \nMoselle. The struggle of 1870 came. Then \nthe old river passion awoke. That fair valley was \nwrested back. In the great German national \nmonument, far up on the heights overlooking the \nRhine at Bingen, where colossal bronzes have been \nerected as a memorial of the uprising and uni- \nfication of the German peoples in that war, one \nmember of the group is a figure representing the \nMoselle, won back to its sisterhood with the Rhine. \nBut the river love and the river spirit, expressed \nthus in bronze, were even realer and more con- \nstructive than the statue indicates in that fierce \nnational struggle. \n\nThe final higher relation of water which I men- \ntion is one difficult to be defined, and of which \nI can take time to give only two illustrations ; but \nit is .as real and mighty as any of the others. \nI refer to the power of water on the human imagi- \nnation. And I think I need hardly contend, before \n\n\n\n192 Appendix A. \n\n\n\na company as intelligent as this, that genuine \nand profound influences on the imagination are \namong the most powerful springs of human \nconduct. \n\nI ask you, then, first, to think of the Arthurian \nlegends. There is a great mass of them. Their \nprincipal home is the British Isles. Their con- \nstructive thought is, the reappearance of Arthur, \nin the ages to come, to bring in days better even \nthan the old days of that king and of his Table \nRound. They have been cast into perhaps their \nbest practical, as certainly into their most poetic, \nform in Tennyson\'s " Idyls of the King." Any \none who has studied them, and who is at all \nfamiliar with the spirit of Anglo-Saxon history, \nwill, I think, admit, that they well typify the best \nmovements of that history ; that they are true race \nlegends ; and that much of their promise bids fair \nyet to be practically fulfilled. Now the point \nwhich I ask you to notice is, the play of springs, \nwaters, and inland lakes in them. They are water \nand insular legends. Their delicacy, their purity, \ntheir freshness, their promise, their sense of mys- \ntery and of fate, their sense, too, of goodness, of \ntrust, and of love, are water born. They are \ngenuine idyls. But they are insular, they are of \nsprings, streams, and inland lakes. These begot \nthose. From the waters, that is to say, came the \n\n\n\nOne Type of Nature Teaching. 193 \n\nthoughts, the ideals, the aspirations. The whole \nintellectual and moral fabric, so true to our \nhistory, and so prophetic of its issue, is insep- \narably connected with the power of water over \nthe imagination. \n\nBut, as you may consider this too vague and \ngeneral, I ask you to think of a phenomenon of \nour own century. Just at its dawn two young \nmen, warm friends, took a journey together into \nthe region of the English Lakes, then little fre- \nquented, \xe2\x80\x94 and now, by the bye, about to be \nutilized for the supply of water for the great city \nof Manchester, perhaps seventy-five miles away. \nThe young men were more than charmed, they \nwere fascinated, by the seclusion of those vales, \nby the beauty of the wild glens, by the fantastic \nshapes of the mountains (themselves water-carved), \nby the humidity of the region which the perfect \ndrainage of the soil hindered nevertheless from \nbeing wet, by the play of cloud, mist, and sunlight, \nbut especially by the lakes themselves, and par- \nticularly by Grasmere and Rydal Water. One of \nthe young men, by far the greater genius of the \ntwo, was enamoured instantly, and kindled the \nslower susceptibilities of the other. The former of \nthese young men was Samuel Taylor Coleridge. \nThe latter was William Wordsworth. Within a \nyear Wordsworth settled by Grasmere, and in its \n\n13 \n\n\n\n1 94 Appendix A . \n\n\n\nneighborhood he spent a long life. Coleridge set- \ntled by Derwentwater, not far away, but after some \nyears removed to London. It would be easily \npossible to show that the lives of both these men \nwere definitely affected by the then wild lakes; \nthat the lakes entered into their thinking and \ntheir theories ; that, in the case of Coleridge, his \npower over English and American thought in the \nfirst half of this century \xe2\x80\x94 a power so great that it \ncan hardly be estimated \xe2\x80\x94 was largely contributed \nto by the lakes ; and that, as for Wordsworth, who \nlived by Grasmere and Rydal all his life, and now \nlies in Grasmere churchyard, and who marks a \nnew epoch in English poetry, the lakes were as the \nwater of life to him. Of Southey, De Quincey, and \nScott (whose own lakes were, however, those of \nthe Scottish Highlands), of Wilson, and of Thomas \nArnold, much might be said in the same direction. \nThere was never really any ** Lake School," except \nin fancy, but there was a mighty, deathless lake lifcy \nwhose powder in English literature and in Anglo- \nSaxon living will not soon die. And here was \ndone for a few rare minds by these inland lakes \nand streams, visibly, palpably, and in a way vastly \naffecting our age, what less palpably, but not less \nreally, was done by the operation of the same \ncauses, through the Arthurian legends, for our \nAnglo-Saxon people during many centuries. \n\n\n\nOne Type of Nature Teaching, 195 \n\nThe reader will observe that the two illustra- \ntions are drawn from within the ancient northern \nglacial belt. It would have been interesting to \ndraw a third from within the same belt on our side \nof the Atlantic. What Lake Walden and other \nNew England lakes similarly formed, and their \nassociated streams, did for Thoreau, Emerson, \nand Hawthorne, there is no estimating. Indeed, \nperhaps Hawthorne is never so much at home in \nany of his foreign writing as in his English Lake \nNotes. The waters of the old ice lands, having \ntheir own peculiar setting and character, need \nto be studied in relation to the history of the \nimagination, and of national spirit, by some one \nexpert both in glacial action, and in literature \nand folk-lore. Were all the facts known, it would \nprobably appear that the lakes and streams of \nthis belt, presenting as they do a singular com- \nbination of thought-impressing elements, have, \nfrom the times when man began to think, over \nand over again induced such personal expe- \nriences as the Arthurian legends seem to imply, \nas the Coleridge-Wordsworthian lakes passion has \nput into biography, and as Thoreau, the New \nEngland solitary, lived out. There seem to \nhave .been analogous experiences among our \n[American] aborigines. It is doubtful if Scandi- \nnavian literature can be explained without them. \n\n\n\n1 96 Appendix A . \n\n\n\nThe Tell legends spring ashore, as it were, from \nthe Lake of the Four Forest Cantons. How \nwell the ice wrought ! How much mightier than \nMerlin\'s is the water\'s enchantment in the old ice \nlands ! \n\n\n\nAPPENDIX B. \nOMITTED PART OF DISCOURSE VI. \n\n\n\nNOTE. \n\n"Ye cannot bear them now," said Christ of "many things" \nhe wished to utter, and refrained himself. He is doing so still. \nAnd, friend, he is doing so by you and me. This should humble \nus. It should also give us quick insight and tact what to say to \nothers. For one man\'s noonday is another\'s midnight ; one man\'s \nholiest truth of God, another\'s heresy or blasphemy. " He hath \nspoken blasphemy," they said of him, the blameless, to whom be- \nlonged perfect vision. Here is one range in which ministers need \nChristliness. What to say, what not to say, and how to express \nthe message given them, only Christ can teach. \n\nWhen we had come to the last discourse of this series, I could \nnot go right on, but must pause. The substance of what I said \nin the pause, follows. It is not included in the discourse as \nprinted, because matter more pertinent to the close of the dis- \ncussion had a right to be substituted for it there. (See note, \np. i6i.) It appears here for the same reason that caused it to be \nspoken, namely, to help any persons who, having come thus far, \nmay need its help. God bless them, every one 1 \n\n\n\nOMITTED PART OF DISCOURSE VI.^ \n\nTHERE is in this age, as in every thinking age, \na movement, or progress, of reHgious thought. \nThis is not a movement of any man, or of any \ninstitution, or of any sect or denomination, or of \nany great division of the Church, such as Pres- \nbyterian or Anglican or Lutheran, or such as \nProtestant or Cathohc or Greek, or, indeed, of any \nyet wider division among men, hke that between \n\n1 Synopsis. \xe2\x80\x94 There is in this age a movement, or progress, \nof religious thought. \xe2\x80\x94 This not of a man, or institution, or sec- \ntion of the Church, or of the Church itself, exclusively, but of the \nworld. \xe2\x80\x94 Multiform, doubtless in error in part, but God-inspired \nand Godward-moving. \xe2\x80\x94 Illustrated by the analogy of the literary \nmovement of the past century within the languages of Europe. \xe2\x80\x94 \nAble to be perceived by us contemporaneously. \xe2\x80\x94 Profitable for \npreaching. \xe2\x80\x94 Our Saviour\'s desire that men should note the signs \nof the times. \xe2\x80\x94 His Spirit to guide into all the truth. \xe2\x80\x94 This, \nproperly, the temper of Protestantism, and particularly of Con- \ngregationalism. \xe2\x80\x94 The preacher had been understood hardly \nrightly by some, conscientiously, however. \xe2\x80\x94 Why he had spoken, \nwith what shrinking, and in what attitude toward the subject. \xe2\x80\x94 \nA personal Credo. \xe2\x80\x94 Short summary of these discourses. \xe2\x80\x94 Christ \nthe centre of the present movement, or progress, \xe2\x80\x94 (i) For, etc. \n[as on page i6o]. \n\n\n\n200 Appendix B, \n\n\n\nChristians and those who are Theists merely, or \nlike that between the men of faith and the men of \nunfaith. It is a movement, rather, of our whole \nrace, in the realm of the religious faculty. It \naffects different individuals, different classes of \nmen, different divisions of the religious world, \nvariously, according to their characteristics and \npoints of view, but it is one movement, in different \nparts and in different manifestations. \n\nI hope I make my meaning clear. I am not \nspeaking now of particular religious behefs. I am \nspeaking of the religious heart of men. This heart \nis moving. God is touching it. Sometimes it is \nmoving under forms of error, feeling after God. \nSometimes it is moving under simple, clear \nthoughts of God, in holy men as it were seeing \nhim. But it is one movement. And that Infinite \nBeing who lives and moves in all things, lives and \nmoves in it. \n\nPerhaps I can illustrate what I mean from an \naltogether different subject, namely, literature. \nWe have long known that there was a distinct \nmovement in English literature, beginning late in \nthe last century, blossoming forth early in this, and \nunfolding with the century. Now those who have \ngiven themselves to the comparative study of the \nliterature of the same period in other languages on \nthe Continent of Europe, have discovered, and are \n\n\n\nOmitted Part of Discourse VI, 201 \n\ngradually tracing out, a corresponding movement \nin the literature of those languages. The lan- \nguages were different; the races were different; \nthe points of view were different. But the move- \nment was one, and marked by almost identically \nthe same impulses. This has been specially im- \npressed upon me by a conversation lately had on \nthe subject with a gentleman of high attainments \nwho is making this comparative study his specialty, \nand who, I hope, will by and by write on it. \n\nConsider, I pray you, what an impressive thing \nthis is, \xe2\x80\x94 to know that, while our English literature \nwas taking a new form and bent, almost unwit- \ntingly the literature of the Continental languages \nwas taking, intrinsically, a corresponding form and \nbent. What does such a fact say to us? Does it \nnot say that the men speaking the different lan- \nguages of Europe, having been for ages under \nthe same general tutelage of civic struggle and of \nChristian influence, were responding under one \nand the same guidance of God, to the touch of his \nbreath and mind, and through representative \nwriters, each unknown to the others at the start, \nwere breaking forth into new and higher literary \nexpression? I cannot look at it in any other way. \nAnd* this circumstance I regard as yet another evi- \ndence that the God and Father of us all has not \nleft the world alone, either in religious or in secular \n\n\n\n202 Appendix B, \n\n\n\nmatters, but is moving in it, and bending it to his \nthoughts. \n\nNow, similarly, in the matter of the religious \nimpulse and thought in men, there is a movement, \npervasive, world-wide, diverse in form, diverse \nin expression, often faulty, perchance repeatedly \nin error, but, in one way or another, feeling its \nway or thinking its way nearer to God. In ages \npast, so isolated were men, and so inadequate was \ntheir interchange of thought, that such a move- \nment could not be discerned as of wide extent in \nits time, but was so revealed later to the student \nof the history of the respective times. But to-day, \nso near is the world, in its parts, brought to itself \nas a whole, by steam, electricity, and the printing- \npress, that we can see on its many sides this \nmovement going on, and, contemporaneously, can \nwatch it. \n\nIt has accordingly seemed to me that this im- \npressive thing, the movement of religious thought \nat the present day, discernible by us contempora- \nneously, and of as much vaster moment than any \nmovement of literature as religion itself is of \nvaster moment than literature, would be a profita- \nble subject for our meditation these closing Sunday \nnights of the year, so far as absence of other Sun- \nday-night appointments left us the evenings free \nfor such meditation. We were to climb, so to \n\n\n\nOmitted Part of Discourse VI. 203 \n\nspeak, into a lofty lookout, and gaze over wide \nextending land and sea, to observe how the \nthoughts of men were moving, and how freshly \nthey were thinking of God. \n\nOur Saviour criticised the children of light for \nnot being wise enough in their generation. He \nindicated that it might be a mark of hypocrisy to \nhave insight about such signs in the outer world \nas those of the weather, but not to be able to dis- \ncern the signs of the times. By this, I suppose he \nmeant that the persons addressed, being discerning \nenough to detect the indications of the face of \nnature, but wilfully shutting their eyes against the \nnew spiritual light which was breaking upon the \nworld in their time, were not candid ; and that, \ntherefore, since they professed to be holy men, \nthey were, in so far, untrue to their profession, \nor, in other words, hypocritical. And if ever I, \nfor one, find myself unwilling with open eyes to \nbehold the light on religious matters which God \nis bringing to our time, I shall fear that it is \nfrom some timidity or prejudice or self-interest \nin me ; and that thus, professing to be a child of \nGod, I am to this degree hypocritical in it, that I \nwill not let God teach me, his child, the lessons \nhe is trying to teach me. \n\nOur Saviour also affirmed that he had many \nthings to say which men could not then bear, and \n\n\n\n204 Appendix B, \n\n\n\npromised the Spirit of Truth to guide men into \nall the truth. The same has been the characteris- \ntic attitude of Protestantism, \xe2\x80\x94 not to fear the truth, \nbut to seek it and be ready for it. The same, \nparticularly, has been the temper of our Congrega- \ntionalism, Robinson urging the departing Pilgrims \nto expect fresh light to break from the Bible, and \n\xe2\x80\x94 as an early New England writer reports \xe2\x80\x94 de- \nploring the tendency of the Reformation to stick \nwhere Luther or Calvin or Knox stopped, instead \nof, in their spirit, going on into the whole truth \nas God should continue to make it clear. \n\nI would not say an unkind word of any one, \nnor judge any one. I would only criticise myself, \nand judge myself, and I do that severely. But I \nam at a loss to see how I could have been under- \nstood in some instances quite as I have, in the \nmatter of these discourses, \xe2\x80\x94 I doubt not conscien- \ntiously, and from true motives, so that I entertain \nfor any so understanding me not only respect, but \na tender and sincere love. Such are, indeed, \namong the truest people that I know. \n\nIn this spirit of respect and love let us look at \nthe matter for a moment. And, first, speaking \ngenerally, think you, dear friends, it is a right \nthing, or not a right thing, for a Christian preacher \nto attempt to describe a general age movement \nof religious thought in this the most wonderful \nperiod since Christ left the world? \n\n\n\nOmitted Part of Discourse VI. 205 \n\nAnd, next, speaking personally, do you think \nthat I, who love you, could lightly give you one \ntroubled or anxious moment? I trust what you \nknow of me will lead you to believe otherwise. \nThe fact is, \xe2\x80\x94 I may as well confess it, \xe2\x80\x94 that when \nthe question arose in my own soul whether I should \nattempt to do this or not, \xe2\x80\x94 and I consulted on the \nsubject with no human being, \xe2\x80\x94 I shrank from it \nalmost with trembling. Having put the title of \nthe sermons in the printer\'s hands for announce- \nment, I came pretty near resolving to draw my \npen through the proof, and to have the type dis- \ntributed before it went to press. And I only re- \nfrained from doing so under a solemn conviction \nof the duty of speaking to my people, and to \nany who cared to come and hear, of this move- \nment of religious thought in our time, \xe2\x80\x94 not as \nindorsing it in all respects, for in some respects I \ncould not indorse it, but as describing and char- \nacterizing it for our information and help; and \nunder a solemn conviction, likewise, that not to \nspeak would be to fail to act the part of the house- \nholder spoken of by our Lord, who " bringeth \nforth out of his treasure things new and old." \n\nAnd this was all that I was doing. I was not \nexpressing, except where I indicated it, my own \nopinions, or those of any other man, or of any set \nof men, or of any institution, or of any wing of \n\n\n\n2o6 Appendix B, \n\n\n\nthought; but I was characterizing a movement, a \ntrend and march of current history, of which, in \none form or another, whether we will or not, we \nare all a part. And I expressly stated that this \nmovement might err. We are liable to err in \neverything, particularly in everything new or un- \ntried ; and I said that it was one of the perils of \nour time that its newer religious thought might \nstray in this or that particular.^ \n\nBut what, then, are we to do ? Are we to shut \nour eyes? Are we to stop thinking? When the \nage is thinking, are we to refuse to consider its \nthoughts, and learn from them? I cannot do so. \nNor can I, as a Christian preacher, think it right \nto do so by my people. Especially I cannot when \nI see our Lord, who, had he remained quiet on \ncertain subjects, might have received a wide pop- \nular following, refusing to do so, but truly speak- \ning his thought, though death in consequence was \ncertain; and when I see Saint Paul, all through \nthe Acts, while conciliatory and charitable, bear- \ning witness to unpopular truth, and suffering for it. \nI must follow in our Lord\'s steps and in Saint \nPaul\'s in like exigencies, should they arise. \n\nIt has seemed to me right, in this discourse, \xe2\x80\x94 \nwhich, in closing the series, is partly of the nature \nof recapitulation, \xe2\x80\x94 that I should allude, lovingly, \n1 See, for example, p. 109. \n\n\n\nOmitted Part of Discourse VI. 207 \n\nto this matter. I again testify to the conscientious- \nness and true motive, as I trust, of any dissent, and \nto my love for those who may be in such a case. I \ncan well understand that approach to truth which \nis theirs, and which seems to compel dissent. And \nI ask you who, in such numbers, have followed \nthe discourses with eager interest, to have for any \nsuch the same respect, love, and sense of point of \nview. For if any of us have larger light, the \nproof of the true heart in that light will be love, \nand love\'s power to appreciate and understand \nthose who have not the same light. \n\nI ought to add that, while I have not been ex- \npounding my opinions, but describing a move- \nment, it is true, nevertheless, that my heart joys \nand sings with the movement. Not able to agree \nwith it in every particular, I believe its trend to be \nin the right direction, and it stirs and thrills my \nwhole being. But, lest any misunderstand, I give, \nwhat will perhaps be reassuring, this my personal \nCredo: \xe2\x80\x94 \n\n/ believe in the living God, Father^ Son, and \nHoly Spirit, one and yet three: the Son and the \nSpirit with the Father very God: the Son eternally \nbegotten : no man saved except through the Son : no \nman saved except born into a new life through the \nSpirit: the Bible, rightly interpreted, the one tran- \nscendent literature, pointing lis to God, authoritative \n\n\n\n2o8 Appendix B. \n\n\n\nover life: sin awful, its consequences terrible , its \npunishment inevitable, perhaps without end: man \ndeathless, to be clothed upon with a spiritual body, \nhardly so much to be judged as forever being judged \nby holy, and yet pitying and helping, God, and for- \never going, under such a God, to his own place: \nand eye 7tot haviftg seen nor ear heard nor heart of \nm.an co7iceived the things prepared, of good for the \ntrue and of evil for the false, i7t the larger life. \nAmen. \n\nI should need to say much more, fully to round \nout what I have put into so few words ; and my \nuse of these words might, in turn, easily be misun- \nderstood : but so I believe, sincerely, and not hand- \nling the words in any other than their obvious sense. \nAnd, so believing, I do not belong under certain \ndenominational names which have been at one \ntime or another spoken of as if they might be \nmine. I must, however, confess this, that I respect \nthose denominations, love every true soul in them, \nwish I might go out in outward as well as in spir- \nitual fellowship to them, and believe that they, \nthough I must dissent from them in certain par- \nticulars, are, nevertheless, true parts of Christ\'s \nChurch, are bearing witness to aspects of truth, \nwhich we are prone to overlook, and are only disfel- \nlowshipped by us through what, in the broad light \nof eternity, will be looked back to as a denying \n\n\n\nOmitted Part of Discourse VI, 209 \n\nof the very spirit of our Lord, \xe2\x80\x94 done, however, \nthrough our having honestly mistaken what that \nspirit was. \n\nI now turn to our subject proper, namely, Christ \nthe centre of the newer rehgious thinking. But \neven here, I must delay for a brief recapitulation. \n\nIn the first, then, of these discourses I showed \nthat, as there has been in the past, so there is now, \na movement of religious thought, \xe2\x80\x94 not your \nmovement, or mine, or that of any set of men, or \ndivision or denomination of Christendom, but a \nmovement, \xe2\x80\x94 and I indicated some of its charac- \nteristics. \n\nIn the second and third of these discourses I \nasked you to think of the mighty spring, or \nmotive, underlying this movement. I pointed out \nhow, both in its nature, and as regards the men in \nit, it is impelled by hunger after God and passion \nfor men ; and, also, how this hunger and passion \nare leading to the re-study \xe2\x80\x94 not necessarily the \nrejection, but the re-study \xe2\x80\x94 and more adequate \ninterpretation of some Christian doctrines and \npractices, with the consequent overthrow of certain \nidols of the mind in these directions. \n\nIn the fourth and fifth discourses I asked you to \nthink of the material, or data, out of which, induc- \ntively, this movement is going forward into larger \nand, as I believe it will ultimately prove, juster \n\n14 \n\n\n\n2IO Appendix B, \n\n\n\nand more adequate conceptions of religious truth. \nI pointed out how it studies two books : the un- \nwritten book, consisting of nature, history, and life, \nor, in one word, the world ; and the written book, \nthe Bible. I pointed out how it seeks to let each \nbook throw light on the other, and help interpret \nthe other ; but that it has an undiminished rever- \nence for, and submission to the Bible, rightly \nunderstood and interpreted. \n\nIt is to this point, then, that we now come in \nclosing; namely, to note that, etc. [as on page \n171]. \n\n\n\nAPPENDIX C. \n\nSOME PLAIN QUESTIONING. \n\n\n\nN O T E. \n\nThere are aspects of discussion which are incapable of system- \natic treatment. They are matters of point of view, of antago- \nnistic or sympathetic approach, of objections or confirmatory \nconsiderations suggested by the mind, etc. They require per- \nsonal conference, question and answer, and downright, thorough \ntalk. Three supposed persons are accordingly suffered to do \nsome of this hereinafter. One should not forget the dear resur- \nrection dialogue. The voice even of angels suffices not. The \nquestioning mind insists on feeling its own way toward the light. \nAnd so it is written : \xe2\x80\x94 \n\nI. \n\nThey [two angels] say unto her, Woman, why weepest thou .? \nShe saith unto them, Because they have taken away my Lord, \nand I know not where they have laid him. \n\nII. \n\nShe turned herself back, and beholdeth Jesus standing, and \nknew not that it was Jesus. \n\nJesus saith unto her. Woman, why weepest thou .\'\' whom \nseekest thou .\'\' \n\nShe, supposing him to be the gardener, saith unto him. Sir, if \nthou hast borne him hence, tell me where thou hast laid him, and \nI will take him away. \n\nJesus saith unto her, Mary ! \n\nShe turneth herself, and saith unto him, Master I \n\n\n\nSOME PLAIN QUESTIONING. \n\nI. \n\nUNDER this ** newer religious thinking," \nwhich, you say, is not yours, \xe2\x80\x94 though I \nshould consider it a tolerably faithful reflection of \nyour ideas, \xe2\x80\x94 but which is, the rather, of the time, \nand, indeed, of all of us, \xe2\x80\x94 a statement from which \nI beg to dissent, \xe2\x80\x94 what becomes of the religion of \nthe lowly Jesus? \n\nB. It seems to me, friend, that the religion of \nJesus is for the first time beginning to get ade- \nquate expression in this thinking. \n\nA. What! in such a worldly time as this? This \nis not such a time as Edward Payson\'s, or as Jona- \nthan Edwards\'s, or as that of the Reformers, to go \nno farther back. \n\nB. I should hope it might in some ways im- \nprove upon those times. \n\nA, But I mean in spirit. We do not pray as \nmuch, nor fast as much, nor do we eschew the \nworld as they did. \n\nB. Nor, let me add, as John the Baptist did. \n*\' He that is but little in the Kingdom of heaven \n\n\n\n2 14 Appendix C, \n\n\n\nis greater than he." \'\' The Son of man came \neating and drinking." \n\nA. But tell me, if you please, how the religion \nof the lowly Jesus is, as you have just said, \'\' for \nthe first time beginning to get adequate expression \nin this thinking." \n\nB, In the matter of God. \n\nA. How? \n\nB. Jesus was in a living touch with his Father. \nHe did not get it roundabout through Moses or \nIsaiah, but in direct consciousness. So getting it, \nhe swept aside various traditional thoughts of God, \nto the scandal of many. The newer thinking is in \nan analogous temper. It, as it were, sees God, and \nhates the idols which have usurped his place. \n\nA. I call that very irreverent, to say the least. \n" No man hath seen God at any time." Besides, \nhow can this human thinking, or any other, be \nlikened to the thinking of the omniscient Jesus? \n\nB. " The pure in heart . . . shall see God." \n\nA. In heaven, it means. \n\nB. Yes, and also, in beginnings at least, on earth. \nWe are bidden, moreover, to have the mind in us \n" which was also in Christ Jesus," and does not \nthat mean that human thinking may \xe2\x80\x94 nay, should \n\xe2\x80\x94 be like that of Jesus? He, by the way, has \ntold us that, at least in one particular, he is not \nomniscient. \n\n\n\nSome Plain Quesiioning. 215 \n\nA. Well, go on. \n\nB, In this thinking, also, the passion of Jesus \nfor men is waking up. \n\nA. I don\'t call these university extensions, these \nboys\' clubs, etc., the passion of Jesus for men. \nHe was seeking to save their immortal souls. \n\nB, Did he ever use the expression \'\' immortal \nsoul"? In his personal handling of men did he \nordinarily thrust forward that idea? Was he not \nfeeding them, telling them where to cast the net, \nand becoming the friend of publicans and sinners? \n\nA. Go on. \n\nB. In this thinking, too, to a degree never \nequalled before, we are getting the approach of \nJesus to nature. He was in the most perfect in- \ntimacy and harmony with it, no naturalist or poet \nso much so.^ In this spirit the newer thinking \n\n1 With the Saviour, let us not forget, it was all vision. He \nhad the second sight. The hen brooding her chickens; the \nsparrow fallen by the hedgerow ; the woman making bread ; the \nmason slowly raising the four walls of a house on rock or on \nsand ; the lily tossing on its stem ; the azure or murky sky ; the \nsower going forth to sow ; the fishers drawing their nets ; the mer- \nchantmen passing up and down along the Galilean caravan route ; \nthe self-mastered centurions, under authority, and therefore keep- \ning a peace and winning a love among a turbulent population, \nwhich proconsul, king, and emperor alike were unable to win ; the \nnew Roman coinage finding its beneficent way into Palestine ; \npriest, Levite, and wretched Samaritan ; phylacteried and admired \nPharisee, and native-born farmer of taxes for the foreigner, uni- \nversally hated; the wind blowing where it listed; the fig tree \n\n\n\n2i6 Appendix C, \n\n\n\napproaches nature, history, and hfe, \xe2\x80\x94 that is to \nsay, the world, or nature in its larger sense. \n\nA. "The approach of Jesus to nature"? He \nlived above nature, and only used an occasional \nillustration from it, and \xe2\x80\x94 \n\nB. More than *\' occasional," friend. \n\nA. That does not make any difference. His \nonly use for nature was to illustrate spiritual truth \nby it. \n\nB. Did he not say that his Father, with whom \nhe was one, fed the birds, and so clothed the grass \nof the field? Was not a divine intimacy with \nnature implied? \n\nA. We can\'t stop to dispute every point. I \nwas about to say that he only used an occasional \nillustration from nature, and that his strong hold \nwas with Scripture. \n\nB. And there, again, we have, in the newer \nthinking, an approach to the spirit and meaning \nof Scripture such as has not been had since Christ. \nIt is for the real life of the Bible, for its very heart, \nthat the newer thinking seeks. The Saviour was \n\nputting forth her leaves; the eagles gathering themselves to- \ngether, both zoological and Roman ; Herod\'s marble wonder, not \nyet builded after forty and six years, \xe2\x80\x94 all, everything, spoke to- \nhim, and through him to men. " Never man so spake," they \nfreely said. \'T was because he saw so much. Out of the abun- \ndance of the heart the mouth spake. \xe2\x80\x94 " Primary Qualifications \nfor the Ministry,^ in \'\xe2\x96\xa0^ Andover Review,^\'\' May-Juney 1893. \n\n\n\nSome Plain Questioning, 2 1 7 \n\ndoing that. Because he was doing it, his coun- \ntrymen thought him destroying law and prophets ; \njust as many good people think now regarding \nsome of the most thorough and devout Bible \nstudents. And as it is the real life of the Bible, \nits very heart, that the newer thinking seeks, \nso, as never before since Christ, it is finding it. \nCompare, for example, George Adam Smith\'s \nIsaiah with even so modern and strong a work as \nAlexander\'s on that book. \n\nA. \'\'George Adam Smith\'s Isaiah".? It is all \npolitics ! \n\nB. Which are God in the world. You thought \nso when the Emancipation Proclamation went into \neffect. \n\nA. But politics when Lincoln freed the slave \nand politics now are two very different things. \n\nB. God not in them now? \n\nA. I should sooner call it the Devil in them. \nBut I will ask you one question. What you have \nsaid may be all very well in theory, \xe2\x80\x94 though, to \nbe frank, I don\'t believe one syllable of your \ntheory; it seems to me a mere playing with \nwords, \xe2\x80\x94 but what becomes of the Bible on such \na view of it? \n\nB. Precisely what became of it before. It \nspeaks to life just as then ; only its meaning is \ngreatly deepened, because its spirit more than its \nletter speaks now. \n\n\n\n2i8 Appendix C, \n\n\n\nA. But who is to determine what its spirit is? \nBefore these new theories came along, we had a \nplain \'\' Thus saith the Lord " about everything. \n\nB. Yes, "Thus saith the Lord, Send back the \nfugitive slaves as Saint Paul sent back Onesimus." \n\nA. I deny that. The pro-slavery men never \ntook the spirit of the Bible. That little epistle to \nPhilemon, only twenty-five verses of it in all, a \nmere note going back with the man\'s slave, they \nmade more of than of all the rest of the Bible put \ntogether. For my part, when I used to hear the \nsermons from it, I often wished that Paul had never \nwritten it, or Onesimus had lost it, or Philemon\'s \nbaby had thrown it into the fire. \n\nB. That is the very point. There are other \npassages, here and there in the Bible, which many \na devout soul has wished had never been written, \nor had been lost, because they have been so \nmisused. \n\nA, Hold ! I was only talking about Philemon. \n\nB. But I was talking about some other passages. \n\nA, Then I count what you say heterodox. \n\nB. It is not the first time I have heard that. \nLet us go back. The anti-slavery people insisted \non the spirit of the Bible, and their opponents on \nits letter; and the latter asked, in effect, precisely \nthe question which you were asking a moment \nago, "Who is to determine what its spirit is?" \n\n\n\nSome Plain Questioning. 219 \n\nAh ! my friend, only the living Spirit of God, in \nthe living spirits of men, can determine vi^hat the \nspirit of the Bible is. \n\nA. You mean that nothing is stable? \n\nB, Matters are stable in one sense. They are \nworking ever toward the truth. But nothing is \nstable in another sense, if it be alive. Growth, con- \ntinual advance, as you grew from a boy to a man, \nand as slave days advanced into days of freedom, \n\xe2\x80\x94 this is the order of life. \n\nA. But we have those things now. \n\nB. And would you leave no future for you, and \nme, and our race? \n\nA. A future in heaven. \n\nB. But what shall we do there, with growth at \nan end? \n\nA. We shall not get there, if nothing is stable \nhere. I want everything exact, fixed, and man- \ndatory. \n\nB. The craving for that \xe2\x80\x94 the craving, that is \nto say, for outward authority \xe2\x80\x94 has taken many a \ngood man to Rome. \n\nA. I am not that kind of a person. I take my \nstand with the Reformers, and demand a " Thus \nsaith the Lord " for everything. \n\nB. Not apprehending what the spirit of the \nReformers was, my friend. But let us see. Was \nnot that what your son desired last night? Per- \n\n\n\n220 Appendix C, \n\n\n\nplexed on a certain question, did he not ask you \nto tell him just what to do? But you did not tell \nhim. You were too sensible to do so. You said, \n" My son, you have arrived at years of discretion, \nand while I will give you any light on this matter \nwhich I can, you must be a man now, and decide \nyour own questions." You did not give him, in \nother words, for reasons which seemed to you \nwise, what he wanted, namely, a \'\'Thus saith my \nfather." \n\nA. But that was only on a business matter. To \nlearn business, a man must use his own head, not \nsome other person\'s. But, for the infinite concerns \nof the immortal soul, a " Thus saith the Lord " is \nneeded ; not a \'\' Thus saith President Harper, or \nProfessor Briggs, or these new departure preach- \ners that are getting into the pulpits nowadays." \n\nB. Do you mean to say that, in order to train \nyour son for business life, finer methods are needed \nthan to train him and you and me for our being \nabout our Father\'s business forever? \n\nA. That is how you play with words. There \nis no logic in theology nowadays, no major prem- \nise, minor premise, nor conclusion. I have been \nwasting your time and mine, too, in so long a \ntalk. Here comes Mr. C. He is one of your \nkind. I don\'t mean you any harm, remember. \nGood-day. \n\n\n\nSome Plain Questioning. 221 \n\nB. I had rather you would harm me than harm \nmy influence. But God will take care of that. \nGood-day, and may he be with and bless you ! \n\n\n\nII. \n\nC. Good-morning. \n\nB. Good-morning. \n\nC. I am so glad I have found you. I take the \ntrain to-night for my little mission among the \nmountains. We shall not have a chance to do \nchurch work together again, perhaps ever, nor \nshall we meet for a long time. I want to ask you \nsome questions. Put the answers in pat. \n\nB, I have not much wisdom. Let us have the \nquestions. I will do the best I can with them. \n\nC. Is there, to begin with, any truth in the \nsneering remark that the newer religious thinking \n** is a theology without a theologian"? \n\nB. We have the same state of things in that \nmatter which always ensues when general work, \nwhich has probably inclined to a priori^ yields \nplace to induction, with detailed work. The latter \nsets everybody a task. There are fifty or five \nhundred scientists, or theologians, where there used \nto be five. They subdivide the subject. Each toils \nin his own field. There is, thus, not the chance \nfor individual prominence which there once was. \n\n\n\n222 Appendix C \n\n\n\nThe popular imagination, therefore, is not so much \nappealed to, and the remark you quote is readily \ncaught up. " Make us a king to judge us," the \npopular imagination is always demanding, no longer \nof Samuel, but of theology. But the remark is \nvery superficial. It would imply, in principle, \nthat natural history in America is going backward \nbecause no man among us has succeeded to the \nprecise eminence of Agassiz. Agassiz, on the con- \ntrary, strove to pass the blessing on to thousands. \nThis was the meaning of his summer schools. It \nis inconceivable that he could make such a re- \nmark of the newer science, were he still with us, \nas this about the newer religious thinking. \n\nC. What you say leads to my second question : \nIs our instruction in theology up to the necessi- \nties of the hour? \n\nB. On the whole it is doing well, \xe2\x80\x94 in some \nof our institutions very well. There does not \nalways go with the necessary subdivision of work \nso much of a unifying spirit as there should. \nThere is lack, sometimes, of a temper, in this \nrespect, like Agassiz\'s in natural history, or Mark \nHopkins\'s in ethics. Neither has theology proper, \nas it seems to me, enough broken with the old \ntopical divisions, subdivisions, etc. The Linnaean \nclassification in Botany had its uses, but was \nobliged to yield to a better. Courage and con- \n\n\n\nSome Plain Questioning\' 223 \n\nstructive genius are needed in this respect. All \nthings considered, however, \xe2\x80\x94 for we must not \nforget that we are in a change of outlook almost \nrevolutionary, and that the conditions of work are \ntherefore difficult, \xe2\x80\x94 the situation is gratifying, \nthough there are some things yet to be desired. \n\nC. I am glad to hear you say so. Is there not, \nhowever, danger that the newer approach to truth \nwill constitute yet another dogmatism? \n\nB. Certainly. In individuals it surely will. \nFew men have the calibre and heart to remain \nalways teachable and learning. Against this peril \nin ourselves let us both strive. But I think, under \nthe inductive spirit, dogmatism can never again \nreign. When I spoke of "\xe2\x96\xa0 constructive genius," I \ndid not mean constructive of dogmatic systems. \nTheir day has passed. \n\nC. Bless God, if it shall prove so ! I think I \nhave heard you say that there is an advantage \nfor the Old Testament in the new view of it? \n\nB. A very great advantage. Before, its uses \nwere fragmentary. Certain passages, certain \nphrases, and here and there a portion of it, were \nspecially comforting or helpful, but, as a whole, \nparticularly in the prophets, it was a sort of terra \nincognrta, however well traversed by the reader. \nEverything in it, on the contrary, now leaps into \nmeaning. The life within it speaks. We see it \n\n\n\n2 24 Appendix C, \n\n\n\ngrowing, advancing, struggling in the process, but \nvictorious. Some one has Hkened this to the \ndifference between knowing the perorations of \nBurke or Webster, and knowing the men them- \nselves and the national crises through which they \npassed. \n\nC. That is what I so much like about the new \nidea of the Bible. God\'s living Spirit and men\'s \nspirits are brought to the front. There is a voice \nnow as truly as to Moses or Isaiah. For this the \nBible is finger-board, indicates directions, suggests, \nstirs the heart. It is an indispensable auxiliary. \nBreathing with intense life, it is a kind of Mar- \nseillaise Hymn to which the soul marches. But it \nis no longer put forward as if it were itself life. \nIt does not bind thought and truth fast forever. \nIndividual men, the human race, and the heav- \nenly life, are left their chance to expand evermore. \nThe crustacean stage is over. \n\nB, You catch the thought. \n\nC. I am so thankful that you magnify Christ. I \nhave two perplexities there, however. One of \nthem is practical. How can so broad a Christian \nunion as you yearn for come\' while some whom \nyou would include in it believe Christ to be far \nless than most who are to be included in it believe \nhim to be? \n\nB. Saint John had that difficulty. It was he \n\n\n\nSome Plain Questioning. 225 \n\nwho spoke where we read : " Master, we saw one \ncasting out devils in thy name; and we forbade \nhim, because he foUoweth not with us. But Jesus \nsaid unto him. Forbid him not : for he that is not \nagainst you is for you." Our Lord seems also to \nhave had in view and been hospitable toward the \ntwo types of mental outlook when he said, " Be- \nlieve me that I am in the Father, and the Father \nin me : or else believe me for the very works* \nsake." There exist necessarily these two types. \nTheir existence should be a perpetual caution to \nus not to be too certain that we have compassed \nthis great subject. But, in any case, the irrepres- \nsible yearning of Christendom in our time to be \none is a voice of God, if ever God spoke in the \nsoul of an age. \n\nC. So it seems to me, though there are complex- \nities about the problem. But, again, you speak of \nthe infinite Christ principle, the Lamb slain from \nthe foundation of the world. Is this concept \nenough? \n\nB. No. No concept is enough. There are as \nmany sides of Christ as there are of this round \nglobe. We must be open and alert for all of them. \nBut this concept is primary. It will last us a good \nwhile. \xe2\x80\xa2 The skipper\'s boy, you remember, having \nbeen told to steer the sloop by a certain star, woke \nhim up after a little, saying, " Father, give me \n\n15 \n\n\n\n226 Appendix C. \n\n\n\nanother star, I Ve got past that one." We shall \nnot soon get past this. \n\nC. Indeed we shall not. Do you not think, to \ntouch on another subject, that there is a practical \nperil about what is called the " larger hope "? \n\nB. Yes. And there was practical peril about \nthe old eschatology. It was the wrecking of many \na man\'s faith. It hardened men. The " larger \nhope " has, no one should forget, a sense, almost \nawful, of the evil of sin and of its sure punishment \nin any event. With this, on the other hand, it \ncouples thoughts of God worthier, as it believes, \nthan those of the other view. \n\nC. I think that a fair way to put it. Only one \nquestion more. Does the newer thinking make as \ngood Christians? \n\nB. How good Christians? \n\nC. As good as the old made. \n\nB. How good did the old make? \n\nC. Well, I admit that it did not always make \ngood ones ; it made, for instance, Judas, and Car- \ndinal Wolsey, and \xe2\x80\x94 well, me. \n\nB. Have you not known Christians holding \nobvious errors who were shining Christians, \nnevertheless? \n\nC. Yes. \n\nB. And Christians holding ideal views who, not- \nwithstanding, belied the name of Christ? \n\n\n\nSome Plain Questiojiing. 227 \n\nC. Yes. \n\nB. While we recognize, then, that a transitional \nperiod in thought, like that in which we now are, \nmust affect temporarily some Christian life for the \nbetter and some for the worse, shall we not say, \nnevertheless, that it is not the thinking that makes \nthe Christian, but the following Christ that makes \nhim? \n\nC. That is it. \n\nB. And you and I will do it? \n\nC. God helping us, we will. Good-by. \n\nB. Good-by, and may God bless the little mis- \nsion among the mountains ! \n\n\n\nIn how many and what uncertain words do men strive \nto express the simplest truth when that truth is 07ily dawn- \ning on themselves and on others / // is like the shrilly \ndisordered jargoning of birds when morning first flushes \nthe east. Presently the whole firmament glows, the sun is \nup, the mists flee away, jargon is do?te, and day reigns. \n\n\n\nLIST OF PRINCIPAL NOTES. \n\nPage \n\nConcerning these Discourses 13, 161, 198 \n\nHad Christ Mental Advance during his Ministry? . . 15 \n\nMr. Bullard and Dr. Bushnell 17 \n\nProfessor Tucker\'s " From Liberty to Unity " . . . . 27 \n\nDr. Sheldon (and see text) 32 \n\nChanning, Parker, Emerson, Carlyle 43 \n\n" Plain Words on our Lord\'s Work " 53 \n\nCapital and Labor 92 \n\nRestoring the Order of I sraelitish History 150 \n\nProfessor Thayer and Dr. Gladden on the Bible . . . 152 \n\nDr. Edgerly (and see text) 166 \n\nHow Camelot looked as men approached it . . . . 170 \n\nDisfellowshipping Drs. Hale, Peabody, and Others . . 178 \n\nDeath the Enhancing of Phillips Brooks\'s Influence . 180 \n\nHeresy of the Antithesis between Nature and God . . 188 \n\n" Ye cannot bear them now " 198 \n\nThe Resurrection Dialogue 212 \n\nWith the Saviour it was all vision 215 \n\n\n\n/ saw a new heaven a?id a new earth, \nI saw no temple therein. \nHis servants shall serve him. \nThey shall see his face. \nHis name shall be in their foreheads. \nThere shall be no night there. \nI Johii saw these things^ and heard them. \nLove is of God. \nEvery one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God. \n\nSaint John. \n\n\n\nDeacidified using the Bookkeeper process. \nNeutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide \nTreatment Date: April 2005 \n\nPreservationTechnologies \n\nA WORLD LEADER IN PAPER PRESERVATION \n\n1 1 1 Thomson Park Drive \nCranberry Township. PA 16066 \n(724)779-2111 \n\n\n\ni5^ \n\n\n\n( I^ \' \n\n\n\n'