£ ,S,2"i JUrnm ttje Htbrarg of frflfraaor Hfenjamttt Srnrkittri&ijr Ifarftelfc HeqMatfjpb by Ijtm to tt|p iCtbranj of Prtnreton Qtyuilogtral Seminary BT 75 .K2 v. 2 Kedney, John Steinfort, 181< -1911. Christian doctrine ■_ _____ . . r 4 » '* 4 f * ' _. >t ■_•■•>' ^ A' #-^,_^_n^^>^_f> ____■ T» .* l_» 'tlSE^vr _£_£»p~ b_ i^;^-.' &_^^_¥_„>_V<__T_ 'm& 4-* H m ©? ^^H >*" Wo ^M <* BY THE SAME AUTHOR The Beautiful and the Sublime. The Analysis of the Emotions and the Determination of the Ob- jectivity of Beauty. i2mo, cloth . . $1.25 " It is a closely-reasoned treatise, clothed in graceful sentences, and is of chief interest, of course, to metaphysicians. He is in sympathy with Christian truth, and he applies his conclusions in some degree to art, while refraining from any extended develop- ment of the subject in that direction." — Congregationalist. " At all times Dr. Kedney is free from pedantry, and is easily followed in his clear reasoning on difficult points." — Observer. G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS, New York and London. Christian Doctrine Harmonized AND ITS RATIONALITY VINDICATED JOHN STEINFORT KEDNEY, D.D. PROFESSOR OF DIVINITY IN SEABURY DIVINITY SCHOOL; AUTHOR OF " THE BEAUTIFUL AND THE SUBLIME," " HEGEL'S .ESTHETICS," ETC. • • NEW YORK AND LONDON G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS ®jxe Jinfrktrbottar |)r£gs 1889 COPYRIGHT BY JOHN STEINFORT KEDNEY 1889 Press of G. P. Putnam's Sons New York CONTENTS. CHAPTER PAGE I — The Extension of the Results of the Incar- nation ....... i II — The Function of the Holy Spirit . . n III — The Metaphysical Elements of Faith . . 19 IV — The Analysis of Faith as a Possibly Univer- sal Relation, and the Increments which Constitute it Christian Faith ... 28 V — The Ground for the Christian Revelation, and the Possibility of Christian Faith . 42 VI — Justification 54 VII — Sanctification, and the Intimations of the Christian Church 62 VIII — The Doctrine of Providence ... 75 IX — The Scheme of Providence as Extended into Post-Mortal Experience .... 94 X — The Christian Election, as Constituting the Church — How Related to the Eternal Election, or Predestination . . . 101 XI — The Christian Church as a Visible Organiza- tion 108 XII — Christian Baptism 118 XIII — Infant Baptism 130 XIV — The Administration of Baptism . . -139 XV — The Lord's Supper — The Eucharistic Sacri- fice and Feast 145 Vol. II. :,-: iv CONTENTS. CHAPTER PAGE XVI— Christian Prayer 170 XVII — Jesus' Baptism,— The Christian Ministry . 188 XVIII — Inspiration 209 XIX — Inspiration of Selected Men, — Prelude to the Inquiry ...... 221 XX — The Inspiration of Selected Men . . 229 XXI — The Means of Preserving and Testing Chris- tian Truth, — The Notion of Infallibility, 242 XXII — Contrast of the Primitive Christian Period with the Subsequent Period . . . 254 XXIII— Question as to the Mode of the Holy Spirit's Activity, — The Philosophy of Prayer . 267 XXIV — Eschatology, — The Resurrection and Glori- fication of Jesus Christ .... 279 XXV— The Intermediate State . . . .286 XXVI— The Future of the Election,— The Day of Judgment 303 XXVII — Heaven, — The Regeneration of the Kxiaii . 328 XXVIII— The Destiny of the Morally Evil,— Prelude and Difficulties 341 XXIX— Pure Evil, if Possible, What its Destiny, as Speculatively Thought . . . 352 XXX— The Personal Relation . . . . 363 XXXI — Supplementary, — Argument for an Opti- mistic Philosophy 371 Appendix E 385 Index 413 CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. CHAPTER I. THE EXTENSION OF THE RESULTS OF THE INCARNATION. If, as we have seen, the results of the atoning work of Christ are primarily manifested and, in a sense, summed up and completed in his person, and thus is exhibited the only possible way in which human nature is to be restored, and is furnished the absolute and soli- tary method now remaining for the realization of the human ideal, — the process must be repeated in each individual who is or can be grafted into this new stock, and thus connected with the fount of the regen- erative forces. Man's heart, mind, and body are to be reached, and thus his will, the focussing of the three, to be purified and strengthened, and his perfec- tion ensured. And the organism, — the totality, — the Church, is to exhibit the same process, whether or not it be identical with the primal human stock, or a providential election from it. The story of Jesus Christ must then be repeated in every Christian disciple, and be capable of description, as was his. The factors of this were : first, the Di- vine love or self-limitation showing itself, in conse- quence of the contradiction of sin and its results, as 2 CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. sacrifice ; second, human innocence restored by a new creative act, and a true human development springing from this new centre, exhibiting and bringing to pass the utmost moral strength, the very essential fibre of all eternal being, and thus the perfection and the sub- limity as well as the purity of the human will ; third, the glorified body, or the reversal of the present human relation to the universe, the manifested Glory, and the ultimate subsidence into the pure and primal Glory, in which new relation the universe becomes pliant and subservient, insomuch that there becomes possible any change in it, or manifestation by means of it, not inconsistent with the holy will and the Di- vine purpose ; and, lastly, the liberated mind, which now sinks to the centre of thought, sees every thing in right relation, and busies itself everlastingly with the infinite riches which may spring forever from the inexhaustible fountain. All this is, and is to be repeated in Christian expe- rience ; and in what manner and by what providen- tial provisions we shall presently show. This is said here, even though we have not yet followed out to the full the results of Christ's atoning work as exhib- ited in his personal history. For, we might expect, since the redemptive act seems complete, that immediately after the passage of death, He should blossom at once into the glorified body and the perfected mind. Since the liberating forces are now set free, we might look to see them at once operative. But a little reflection may convince us that this would be a hasty conclusion. Since we can think only under time conditions, and the process of Jesus' human development was a time process, this RESULTS OF THE INCARNATION. 3 part of his career cannot be reduced to a mere abstract relation, for the whole transaction would thus be re- moved beyond the sphere of human imagination, and no new motive force could be made to act upon the human mind and will yet lingering in the shadows. He must be known as dead ere it can be known that He has died, and the attraction of the cross be felt. And besides, what death is to him who dies, or the nature of the changed relation to the universe, cannot be known as such but as contrasted with the new re- lation. Jesus must experience this mental contrast, not only that He may be known by men as having experienced it, and thus as having run through the human career, but as an essential moment in his own development. He must not only know and sympa- thize with the human consciousness after death, what- ever it may be, but must and can only after death experience that symmetrization of the consciousness for which the lifting of the clouds, the passing away of the brain-perturbations, is needful. If for this any in- terval of time is required, its extent is merely a matter of economical provision. It must on that account, however, still be sufficient to bring it within the ca- pacity of human thought, and enable any predications concerning - it. Enough of it must be made known not to satisfy the mind merely, but to gratify the heart. Christ's Love must be seen to extend into the interval between his death and his resurrection, as well as to have been displayed before and after. These departed ones He has not hitherto humanly known. As He is bound up with them, they must come within the sphere of his human mind and heart, as the connecting link whereby they come within the 4 CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. sphere of the Divine Love. This, we may say, is the first known result of the atoning work, that He comes into conscious relation with the whole realm of the departed and is active in his Love then and there, as before and after. This fact of an intermediate human experience can- not be thought away. We figure heaven as a place, for our own mental aid, as the Scriptures do in conde- scension to human limitations ; but its essential idea and meaning is the perfected relation of each recov- ered soul to God, to all other intelligence, and to the universe ; and hence it can only be after bodily glori- fication is completed. The growth into the Divine Glory is indeed a process, and it may appear, on occasion, through the earthly obscurations, but it is manifested and experienced to the full only after ethical perfection is reached. The naive New Testa- ment narratives assure us that Christ is not to be thought of as in the heavenly state until after the full round of relations with his own, which are to extend into the future, is established. Therefore must He be brought into connection with the departed, and there- fore and thereby confirm the faith of his own on the earth, in order to arouse their enthusiasm. All the history of Christian thinking shows that it is and ever was under time-conditions. Even after the Ascension and the day of Pentecost, the consciousness of the Apostles is susceptible of religious improvement and rectification, and St. Peter is by degrees disabused of his prejudices. Therefore the interval between Jesus' resurrection, and his ascension is needed for the hu- man wants of his disciples. Not till provision is made whereby their faith may be triumphant, can they be RESULTS OF THE INCARNATION. 5 trusted in the region of faith, and all sight be re- moved. Thus both for himself, and to realize to the full his own loving purpose, were these intervals needful. The reluctance, in some Theologies, to admit any such relation or communication of Jesus, after his death, with the departed ones, is something strange, seeing that it cannot be thought away without violence to our spiritual instincts. In such case we must think him after death, as without con- sciousness, or as solitary, or as having already attained the heavenly relation : all which violates the Scrip- tures as well. This reluctance may have its explana- tion from the fear that the doctrine would be abused and turned into falsehood, or from the belief that such has been the case ; but it has also existed on account of the exegetical difficulties of the passage in the first Epistle of St. Peter which seems to speak of Jesus' experience after death, and because this passage speaks of communication with only a certain num- ber and description of departed ones. Upon this passage the present author has bestowed much thought and study, and an Exegesis of it will be found in an appendix, 1 which he thinks will explain this peculiarity of the narrative, and diminish, if not abolish, the diffi- culty. But however that may be, and even if there were no Scriptural ground to support the doctrine of such communication with the departed after Jesus' death, it may be deduced a priori as above, and cannot be thought away. We cannot then refuse to think of Jesus after his death as having relation to the departed ones, and a 1 See Appendix E. 6 CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. human relation to the universe. Otherwise he retires, for imagination, into the abyss of utter loneliness, or as absorbed into the Divine relation solely. To the first supposition we might reconcile our thought in the case of any other one of the human race, as need- ing this solitude in order to come to perfect self- knowledge (though even here difficulties spring up, as has before been indicated), but we can think no such necessity in this case. And the second supposition introduces an inexplicable hiatus in his human experi- ence, a suspension of it without meaning. What was the nature of such relation of him to the departed, and how affecting their history and destiny, is a question we shall discuss to the full in its proper place. Now we only think of it as a necessary stage in his own career. It is not the strengthening G f his human love. That reached its utmost increment upon the cross. But this experience, as well as the surviv- ing relation to his own left upon the earth, is needed to establish the means of communication between himself and the whole of human kind, so that it can veritably be said that He died for all men. It is needed that He should be known as the triumphant One to the departed, and as the risen and glorified One to the surviving, to the infant Church, in order that the channels of intercourse and activity may be established which are to bring about man's recovery and regeneration, the perfection of the soul, body and mind. Forces must now be set in motion, ethical forces, physical forces, intellectual forces, or variant modes of Divine activity, and these in right relation, and all in a grand providential scheme. To under- stand these in right relation is our next endeavor. RESULTS OF THE INCARNATION. 7 To isolate any one of these forces, influences, or processes, whether ethical, intellectual, or vital, will accomplish an imperfect Theology. They must be exhibited in equal necessity and in right relation and order. Man is not to be restored ethically or re- ligiously, and then his physical perfection imparted per saltum and arbitrarily, as though by no necessity ; but the one flows from the other by an absolute and immutable law, — is involved in the very idea of human creation. He is not to be restored physically or vitally by a miracle, irrespective of his moral freedom, and as by magic, for this is to make the physical pro- cess supreme over the ethical one. It is to degrade our notion of man, and to degrade or impair our idea of God. He is not to be restored mentally, and gifted with cloudless insight, and tne ethical and re- ligious perfection reached through some logical pro- cess not to be vindicated by human understanding, for this is to fall back upon a realm of abstractions, and give us a scheme in which Love has no necessary place. If then the mental emancipation of Jesus, and his physical glorification sprang from his perfected Love, and his ethical strength, the same must be the order of thought and the order of the process in each human subject ; yet neither of these can be thought correctly and exhaustively, but in right relation to each other. The ethical process itself can only be rightly thought as implying a mental and a physical process. For, let us remember that the act of self-limitation of the Eternal Son, which becomes Incarnation, is only actual, and only known and felt as sacrificial and loving, by its involving also a physical process. The 8 CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. love of the Father is shown in his sending the Son. The love of the Son is shown in his becoming that " Holy Thing " in the womb of his mother, and enter- ing upon human development. This, though the central and real force is the loving Divine will, shows itself as a physical process, and as a mental process as well, for the rudimentary consciousness of the child contains the conditions for all mental development. It is the appropriating, assimilating power, which deals with the relations furnished by the realms of matter and of spirit, and works them up into knowl- edge. There is no separation of the mental and the physical in the concrete, or even in the abstract. We can only think the physical under mental forms. We can only think the mental as already determined by the physical, and we can only think either, or both, as involving complacency or enjoyment, which is simply love, in its passage from its incipiency to its perfec- tion. Abstraction here has been the vice of Theology as well as of Philosophy, and has led into many delusions. But it still remains true that, in order to understand the complex process, the governing thought is the ethical, which must, therefore, first be considered. We must treat of the ethical or subjective relation with such implications of the others as are indispensa- ble. The Divine Love \sprius when we think of the Incarnation, but this Divine Love itself implies thought or purpose, and these are grounded in the essential constitution of the Godhead, in which too are found the conditions for the manifestation of the Divine Love, viz. : the Divine Glory. The moment we ab- stract for thought any one of these elements of all RESULTS OF THE INCARNATION. 9 concrete being, we find that in dealing with it we are implying and including the others. But to think the entirety rightly we must consider first the ethical relation. The first endeavor of the believers whom Christ left on the earth was to create in others such an ethical relation, to make other believers. But such belief implies knowledge, and thus the required faith must include both an ethical and an intellectual relation. These, as shown in the experience of the Christian neophyte, must have a history, and can be explicated for the understanding. Nor can we dismiss from our thought the physical relation, for each sub- ject from whom this faith is asked is an idiosyncratic concretion of inherited tendencies coming- through the physical organic continuity. Each is a distinct struc- ture to be harmonized. Each has more or less fetter upon his freedom. That a force and a light are sup- plied, counteracting the bondage sufficiently to restore the moral freedom, and hence the responsibility, which force must act upon the physical proclivities, we have seen is indicated by the philosophic doctrine of grace — i. e., that man, as a universal, is related to the un- known universe, or the universe as passing under- standing, as well as to the known universe. In theological language derived from Scriptural intima- tions, this becomes a doctrine of the Holy Spirit, or the universality of preventing grace — i. e., mystical activity and conditions making human moral freedom possible, and establishing human responsibility. We have then to make explicit a doctrine of the Holy Spirit, ere we can explicate fully Christian faith, see- ing that it is the result of and describes not only an ethical relation, and an intellectual one, but also a io CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. mystical or vital one, which therefore affects the physi- cal being as well. The most profound as well as the most complex act or state possible for man is Christian faith, and yet it is something of which the simplest human capa- city is capable. We may endeavor a subjective an- alysis of it, and discover that all the conditions above described are needed for its explication ; or we may by an a priori process as above show that from only the sum of conditions described can Christian faith arise. CHAPTER II. THE FUNCTION OF THE HOLY SPIRIT. All relation to the universe, thought under what- ever name, creation or sustentation, purpose or ideal end, activity or change, is referable to the Godhead as such. The Absolute Being, the eternal ground, of whose essence it is to objectify himself, the substan- tial principle, is the Eternal Father, from whom all thought a priori proceeds by the mediating step of eternal generation, — to whom all thought and experi- ence a posteriori lead back. Whatever belongs to thought and can be known by intelligence, and hence the form of all experience, is referable to the Divine Logos, the inexhaustible sum of the Divine ideas. And since no idea can be thought unaccompanied by complacency, He is fig- ured also as the Eternal Son, in perfect filial relation, regarded by and regarding the Eternal Father with supreme delight. But this reciprocal relation is constitutive. The possibility of activity is now thinkable, and not till now ; and all activity is referable to a third hypostasis, or consciousness, for if accompanied by complacency, it must be personal ; yet it can only be thought under the conditions supplied by the two preceding. We can now see love as other than a timeless relation, as in act, and manifested in a process. The Holy Spirit 12 CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. is the principle of all activity, the ground and pos- sibility of which escapes human intelligence, and which hence is called mystical. The Spirit of God brooded over the primal chaos, informed it, and changed it by his own energy so as to display the Divine thought. This chaos, referred to in the Scrip- tures, indeed is not the pure primal Glory, but is already the Divine Glory determined, and into which, possi- bly, the contradiction has entered. The Holy Spirit is the Lord and Giver of Life, though the Divine Logos be the mediating principle of all life-processes. He " quickeneth whom He will," but as Father and Son also, in the one will, quicken. His function is, for our understanding, that to him are referred all life- processes, so far as they require an energy in its purity escaping our consciousness. There is ever something in their explanation which eludes our in- tellect. Even the chemical and mechanical forces, however far they can be analyzed or traced back, con- duct us to an unintelligible point, which can be thought only as connecting the spiritual will with the sphere of its activity. This fact alone renders probable that nature, notwithstanding her seeming passivity, is not dead but living, exhibits in all her changes not only the Divine thought, but the Divine Love, and hence the Divine complacency. The flowers that " blush unseen " are attended by the Divine pres- ence and are within the sphere of the Divine Love. This is needed to think to exhaust our conception of the Divine Omnipresence. God finds joy in all his works. Nature then is rightly thought as living, and that the recuperative and exalting forces and move- ments are busy and present in her. FUNCTION OF THE HOLY SPIRIT. 13 All energy or mystical activity whatever is then by Christian thinking referred to the Holy Spirit. This thought was familiar to the Old-Testament writers, to whom the words " The Spirit of God " meant the dvvafxi? vipwrov, the Divine power working mystically. All life-processes then are the activity of the Holy Spirit, realizing and manifesting the Divine thought in a hierarchy of ideas — plant, animal, man (whether simultaneously or in succession is indifferent). Each new idea then may be thought as in its realization displaying a distinct mode of activity (though no im- mediate purpose is distinct and exhaustive, but runs into another and has its full significance from the en- tirety). It is a manner of speech not misleading, then, to say that the Holy Spirit came, when the chaos be- gan to bud and blossom ; and again when enjoyment was superadded to the life-processes, and the animal appeared ; and again when man, however developed or created out of the existing material, was irradiated from the spirit realm, so as to exhibit the complete image of God. Thus the creation of the progenitors of the human race must be thought as the work of the Holy Spirit, so far as concerns the category of mystical energy, as well as of the Son, as supplying the Divine idea, of which He himself is the archetype, and which itself is the Father self-dirempted into the paternal- filial relation ; and this three-foldness, realized in the field of the Divine Glory, which as thus determined is the universe, is imaged in man. And also, if the Divine energy is thus recuperative and exalting from its very conception as such, it must reach not only nature, not only the vital processes, but man in his spiritual being, which too has come to 14 CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. share in the contradiction. This, as we have seen be- fore, is the philosophic vindication of the doctrine of grace, and means that the human being is under influences that elude his consciousness and under- standing, not only in the physical, but in the purely spiritual relations and history. That, in the Divine plan, the restorative forces are to reach his entire being requires that (unless we think a reversal of the absolute law of all concrete being) absolute perfection must and can spring only from the pure principle of love, and therefore that the Divine influences to bring about man's recovery shall be at once and with- out cessation operative. However little we may trace the evidence of this a posteriori (and here we are not entirely without evidence, as we shall see hereafter), we are obliged to think it on a priori grounds. This, in theological language, is the doctrine of the univer- sality of preventing grace, and means that mystical influence sufficient to restore man's moral freedom, which otherwise would seem to be lost by his moral defection, is at once supplied, as well as the providen- tial environment which is to accomplish his discipline. The narrative in the book, Genesis, asserts or implies this. The Holy Spirit can never be lost from man, or man would cease to exist as such, but He can enter into a new mode of relation, one only exalting as it is first restorative, and both still under the condition and the limitations of human freedom. That the right moral choice made possible by the grace of the Holy Spirit, and which indicates man's responsibility, and that he determines, in this sense, his own destiny, is not identical with, or of itself alone sufficient to ensure his salvation or perfection, FUNCTION OF THE HOLY SPIRIT. 15 but only supplies an indispensable condition for it, will be exhibited at length hereafter, and may already be seen to be implied in what has gone before. To realize the new idea, to start the new human race, the Holy Spirit, of course, is the active principle, and through his mystical energy is accomplished the conception of Jesus Christ. Jesus himself is the Divine thought, the Logos, the Eternal Son, who thus through the activity of the Holy Spirit realizes the Father's will. Thus it may be legitimately said that He created his own humanity. To assume it in its essential idea, defecated of the contradiction which has entered the concrete, is to create it. (This was perceived by Justin Martyr, and accounts for his strenuous assertion that the Logos created his own humanity, as possibly foreseeing afar off such a mis- conception as the so-called Nestorian heresy.) But this humanity was at the same time the creation of the Father, or of the Holy Spirit, seeing that it can only be rightly thought as involving a relation to each hypostasis, and hence to the Godhead as such. Now, since in the person of Jesus Christ innocence is restored, the operation of the Holy spirit may be normal. No impediment exists, and He can be given "without measure," — i. e., according to the require- ments of the normally advancing development. The whole moral and religious career of Jesus must be thought as mediated by the Holy Spirit. To miss this truth is to make a painful hiatus and a needless difficulty. If his prayers to the Father mean any thing, it is that they indicate not only the personal communion with the Father, which is the timeless ground and changeless description of all Christian 16 CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. prayer, but also that providential changes are possible, and that the mystical influence of the Holy Spirit may be supplied according to the conditions of the moral and religious development, of the stages of which development these prayers are an indication. No new relation of the Holy Spirit, or no relation different in kind from the already existing one, is thinkable for his disciples during the earthly career of Jesus. Not until Christian faith in the fulness of its definition becomes possible, is this thinkable. That could only be after his resurrection, and the harmon- ization of their consciousness, which, as we have seen, was a time-procedure and the termination of which was indicated by their Lord's departure and ascension ; — not till then could the Holy Spirit come to establish a new relation. However a marked step forward in re- ligious consciousness was indicated by St. Peter's ex- clamation and recognition of his Master's Divine Son- ship, it was not yet the full Christian consciousness. The spiritual strength was not there, or he could not have felt his faith so readily give way, he could not have denied his Master. The resurrection itself, which completed the supply of the requirements of the complex human nature, its sense and imagination as well as its thought, and hence the completeness of its feeling, was needed for Christian faith to be what it is, to superadd to its metaphysical definition the con- ditions for the profound personal tie which is the unique motive-spring of its obedience. Then, for the first time, do we find faith in its fulness, which shows itself as rendering possible a new relation to the uni- verse, and an elevated relation to the Holy Spirit. Hence the charismata, as the indication that through FUNCTION OF THE HOLY SPIRIT. 17 this mystical influence new triumphs over nature, new providential arrangements, had become possible. When the New-Testament writers speak of the com- ing or reception of the Holy Spirit, they refer to these manifested signs of a new relation accomplished, and it is not meant to deny that theretofore no relation of the Holy Spirit to humanity was existent or possible, and that He, as such, was without any function or sphere of activity in the human race. But his normal, ideal, and permanent relation to humanity as such could only be when the Redeeming One should have ascended ; then the Paraclete might come to be the mediating principle in the contemplated work of Christian activity ; then, when Christian faith could exist, and be strengthened by its trials, and require this mystical comfort, the " peace which passeth un- derstanding," — when the mystical regenerative forces might be started, reaching man's entire nature, and which were to have their sacraments and channels in the rites which the Master had instituted ; then, when the intellectual advancements, which were to be for- ever and from absolute needs correspondent to the ethical and religious growth of Christians, as individ- uals or as the Church, should require the clarifying and harmonizing efficacy of the Holy Spirit ; and when the objective conditions for the preservation of such truth as could create the Christian conscious- ness should be supplied and preserved. The special function of the Holy Spirit in the new creation in Christ Jesus may be thought then as four- fold. First. — His activity in accomplishing Christian faith. Vol. II. 1 8 CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. Second. — His activity in the regenerative process, and hence the meaning of the Christian sacraments. Third. — His activity as guiding into all truth, and making, as time advances, the subjective apprehen- sion of the same harmonize more and more with its objective and absolute significance and nature. Fourth. — His relation to humanity in its interme- diate condition, and to the perfected humanity in heaven, — or his function in the problems of Escha- tology. These four will indicate the remaining divisions of our work. CHAPTER III. THE METAPHYSICAL ELEMENTS OF FAITH. The primal fault of man is represented in the book, Genesis, as springing from doubt, irresolution be- tween the alternatives of belief and unbelief, which, when the temptation is yielded to and the experiment resolved upon, reaches expression in an overt act of will and becomes disobedience or sin. Temptation was possible, but the yielding to it was not inevitable, or it could not meet our conception of sin, and involve responsibility. That external suggestion and possi- bly mystical influence were superadded to the subjec- tive presentation of temptation, seeking to bewilder and bias the thinking mind of the progenitors of the human race, is also indicated. The possibility of such interference opens the problem of the origin of spirit- ual evil, which the present author thinks to be insolu- ble for the human intellect under its present limita- tions ; and it will hereafter be maintained that insight here would be no boon to humanity, would not further human recovery, but would rather retard it, or make it impossible. From the very necessity of the case this insight eludes the penetration of any rational being yet falling short of ethical perfection. The sin of the first human ones cannot be spoken of as selfishness, however it be a mistake of self- love. Such selfishness is the very contradiction of in- 19 20 CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. nocence or moral indifference. It could not spring out of their then existing relation to the universe made provisionally correspondent to a state of innocence. Such supposition would carry evil back to a physical ground, and deny its moral quality. To think them already selfish supposes a dualism, and that evil has already entered into their structure, and become a part of the definition of their being. Their primal tendencies, however limited in sphere, are in harmony with each other, and all tend Godward. But to fulfil their sublime idea they are to be self-creative as to their moral structure, and hence are free, and may manufacture subjective ideals. To resist and subor- dinate these gives them moral strength, spiritual fibre. To yield to them is to lose the harmony of their struc- ture, and add new force to the primal temptation, and thus they become selfish, not uniformly and monoto- nously such, but in increasing or diminishing degrees according to the now necessary contest between con- flicting tendencies, each particular individual being a unique synthesis of the same. Henceforth to remain true to their allegiance requires effort and sacrifice ; and each one moves forward one way or another, yet in no case can regain the lost innocence. How far explicable, in the case of the members of the human race now set forth in their career, is this movement in one direction or the other ; i. e. what is the last ground of their differing moral choice, is the problem called " the problem of their eternal election," and is one which we shall consider hereafter. But in the case of the sin of the first mem- bers of the race, they do not thereby become utterly selfish or depraved, as has been asserted by a seeming ME TA PH YSICA L EL EMENTS OF FA ITH. 21 logic, which, however, all facts contradict, and which is not even legitimate. They do not deliberately make evil their good, but try in doubt, which is the true good, to be at once convinced of their mistake. If thought thus utterly selfish and depraved their recov- ery cannot be thought possible, except by some over- powering physical process, which would render en- tirely needless any ethical process except as manifes- tation of the same. At once, to be sure, after trans- gression the human soul comes under the influence of the deranged nature, now, by the law of correspond- ence, maimed and fallen into confusion. New visions of possibilities appear. Temptation acquires force, and divides itself endlessly, and thus the vision be- comes obscured of the supreme end to which the primal and spontaneous tendencies of their being move, and thus the natural will receives a bias and struggles under a heavy load. But, as we have seen, there is reason to think that a make-weight to this counteracting tendency is at once supplied, so that moral freedom and responsibility still exist. This is the preventing grace of the Holy Spirit. Recuperation is possible, and its forces enter at once into activity. The still loving will of the Father shows itself in the initiation of a vast providential scheme which is to culminate in the death of Jesus Christ. This, its con- summation and liberating point, which is to explain as well as confirm and secure all of that scheme that went before, and was itself necessary as the cohering principle of the whole process, was in the Divine thought. Hence Christ is called "the Lamb slain be- fore the foundation of the world." Thus all human sin springs from moral weakness 22 CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. under possibilities of doubt, and we can trace it back, at present, no farther. It shows itself as a predom- inant selfish tendency before alternatives, existing side by side with conflicting tendencies, the debris of the original predispositions of the human being. The proportion between the two tendencies, the one towards the realization of the supreme ideal, the other towards that of the countless manufactured ones, is vari- ant in the members of the human race ; and no human judgment of the same is trustworthy. This is God's insight only. So far as we can discover, in no case does the one become so predominant as entirely to obliterate the other. We maintain the following theses to be incontro- vertible : That God is existent ; that moral distinc- tions are absolute ; that power is the servant of love, which may and does become justice ; that well-being can only come from a right personal relation to the fountain of all being ; and that all this, however ob- scurely or dimly felt and thought, is implicit in the consciousness of every member of the human race, and may be discovered by analysis of the same. The phenomenal world, its needs and activities, suggest other possibilities, and sometimes nearly obliterate, but never entirely, the ideal of his destiny which is inwrought in the very structure of his being, — never entirely, never so as to abolish his sense of and hence the actuality of his responsibility. Concretely, the contest becomes one between the seen and the un- seen, and the question for each is — which is the real and permanent, and which the evanescent, — that which the world teaches, or that which these elements of the moral and religious consciousness suggest. It is METAPHYSICAL ELEMENTS OF FAITH. 23 the contest of faith and unfaith, and from the latter comes all sin and short-comingf. From the former alone can come the possibility of restoration. Thus faith is adhering to our native spiritual al- legiance in spite of all drawings astray. If it be phrased as confidence in "the moral order of the universe," or in " the power that makes for righteous- ness," this too means that such order has power at its service, or that such power is according to order. Thus each expression, or the combination of the two, supposes an ideal, i. e., an end apprehensible by the intellect, and that could have its origin only in in- tellect. Confidence that good is the essential prin- ciple of the universe, and will and must triumph over every thing but pure spiritual evil (if that can be maintained to exist and persist), and has absolute command of all resources, is really what is meant by these expressions, and is only a roundabout way of saying, what perhaps the words may have been in- tended to deny or render doubtful, that the universe is ruled by a benevolent God. However absorbed by worldly activities, however enmeshed in sense, this conviction or suspicion of the reality of the unseen is never utterly banished, as is shown by the testimony of conscience ; and if in some specimens of the human race such conscience seems to be lacking, we must either hold that they have be- come purely evil, and hence are irrecoverable, or else that conscience is only slumbering, and in conse- quence of the very depression is capable of a more terrible outburst. Thus all moral obedience and disobedience involve a conflict of faith, and we have seen that the personal 24 CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. relation cannot be banished from it, but must be one of resistance or acquiescence. Hence all moral obedi- ence is implicitly religious obedience, which must be admitted, to maintain that all moral disobedience is sin. However much we may emphasize the abstract law which comes between the Fountain of power and the individual subject, it is still only the form which the Divine will takes, the adaptation of the supreme law of love to the changing conditions of the creature. Hence, as we shall see hereafter, all applied morality, or the application of the formal law to actual human conditions, is only a complete science when it becomes and includes Christian morality. Faith in the validity of moral distinctions is then implicitly faith in God as a loving and almighty Person, and all attempts to ex- clude this implication have been vain and meaning- less. There is implied that the unseen is the real, the permanent, the eternal ; that the seen is the changing, provisional, transitory ; not mere shine, but an ever- opening process. But there are all degrees of explicit- ness which the human mind can make of this un- seen reality. Objectify in and for human thought the matter of faith, and without some corrections sup- plied it would differ greatly, though not essentially, for every human subject. So far as faith is a moral and religious relation, it is simply and forever the same, but so far as the object of this relation can come within the sphere of human thought, it is end- lessly changing. Hence the need, if possible, of some aid or interference to clarify and amplify the object of faith. Even to the most enlightened conscious- ness the object-matter of this faith, however expressi- ble in propositions, becomes dim or clear, waxes or METAPHYSICAL ELEMENTS OF FAITH. 25 wanes, for the feeling, and hence for the activity. Thus, starting from the postulate of God as loving, we have, on a priori grounds, displayed the possibility of Divine interference to clarify the object of faith. And if such interference has been actual, it must have been by steps and degrees, and have salient appre- hensible points for the mind, visible crises, all adapted to the progressive development of mankind. That God has thus manifested himself in various degrees of nearness and clearness, till at length making the perfect manifestation of himself in Jesus Christ, is what Christians hold, and this on a priori grounds which cannot be successfully assaulted. And if so, the object-matter of faith must have undergone a pro- cess of clarification, explication, and confirmation, and human faith has a history, and reaches its true intent and meaning in Christian faith. And the con- sequence of such amplification in the object-matter of faith must have been the accomplishing of corre- spondent change in the subjective apprehension of the same. New enrichments of thought must have ac- o crued, new intensification of feeling, and hence new motive-springs. Christian faith regarded as a sub- jective state, having an objective truth on which to rest, must share in the complexity as well as in the simplicity of this last. We have therefore to analyze it in order to discover its constituent elements, to dis- entangle and show the connection between the factors of the synthesis, and we shall discover in it a four- fold relation, a personal or religious one, an intel- lectual or subjective-objective one, a moral one as a spring of conduct, and an emotional one, as involv- ing and implying a complex congeries of feelings. 26 CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. The object-matter of Divine revelation is called " the faith," because it is to come within the sphere of these various subjective relations, and because it elicits or conditions them. As the eternal truth, as held in the Divine mind, is unchangeable, the subjec- tive appropriation of the same must be a continuous approximation of the enlightened Christian mind towards an identity with the absolute meaning, and Christian faith in its intensity and perfection will lapse into sight, and be the beatific vision itself. The mass of mankind have been seemingly left without external interference and aid from a directly Divine source. Why this is so is part of the mystery of Providence, to unriddle which a speculative endeavor will be made hereafter. But, according to the Old-Testament nar- ratives, to selected ones of the human race there has been vouchsafed such aiding Divine manifestation. If any such was normal and frequent in the early stages of the career of mankind, as some think, it soon became dim for the mass of the same. That such manifestation was general, or other than extremely limited, cannot be historically made out. The testi- mony seems rather to diminish the probability, and we have, if we can, to find a reason for this exclusiveness of the Divine dealings with man. But of this hereafter. Our a priori method hitherto leaves us, however, at the conclusion that the internal conflict in every responsible human being has been a different syn- thesis of tendencies, the preponderating one of which represents the will for the time being ; which state of things it is manifest would necessitate a different providential treatment in every case ; yet that the preponderance of the primal predispositions Godward in some cases, in individuals, in families and tribes, METAPHYSICAL ELEMENTS OF FAITH. 27 has been sufficient to render possible a unique provi- dential treatment, i. e., one in which the Divine con- descension and guidance become visible and knowable. Our first enquiry, therefore, into the nature of faith as a universal possibility, must be of such as was and still is possible for the mass of mankind unenlightened by any such Divine interference. Here would be the place, perhaps, for the study of comparative religions ; but this is an historical field into which it is beyond the province of this particular work to enter. What remains is to show that the analysis of man's moral experience furnishes a contri- bution to the philosophy of religion itself, and that all right moral relation is, when rightly looked into, religious. We are not concerned to show how this has produced or issued in the various cultus that have marked human history, become alternately corrupted and degraded, or purified, — but how, even amid the various degrees of moral knowledge, the essential elements of the religious relation, whence only any cultus can spring, have been preserved. It may turn out, on examination, that faith in the reality of the unseen, and the implications which constitute religion, are quite as detectable in the rude savage as in the most cultured pagan, in the simplest as well as in the most developed intellect. It may also appear that moral grades are not absolutely subservient to intel- lectual grades, but rather the reverse, — that to have hold of the central truth is a higher mental attain- ment than to wander with whatever accumulation among the bewildering perplexities of the circum- ference. What, then, is the object-matter of man's natural and simple consciousness, his relation to which constitutes faith ? CHAPTER IV. THE ANALYSIS OF FAITH AS A POSSIBLY UNIVERSAL RELATION, AND THE INCREMENTS WHICH CON- STITUTE IT CHRISTIAN FAITH. Faith includes and is founded upon a naive and spontaneous recognition of the law of causality which rules all human thinking. This abstractly and uncon- sciously is the primum of human thinking. All cat- egories whatever are resolvable into causality, and are syntheses of It and something empirically apprehended. Concretely and consciously causality is the ultimate of human thinking, and is reached by analysis. The unseen power felt in the rudimentary consciousness becomes, for the determined and developed conscious- ness, a power involving thought, i. e., method or law, and becomes at once a determining, guiding, or ruling element in all conduct, even though no attempt be made to fix it in a definite thought or concrete propo- sition. The very sensations which are the condi- tions of perception and knowledge speedily come to be known as not exceptional and arbitrary, but fixed and uniform ; and this knowledge is soon resolved into the recognition of law. New sensations bring in their train knowledee of new laws or fixed methods. The power which thus objectively reaches the subject has therefore meaning, or no knowledge were possible. All mental activity and all experience add to the 28 ANAL YSIS OF FAITH. 29 accumulating evidence that the modes of manifesta- tion of this power, at first obscurely felt, are pre- adapted to our capacity of apprehension, and can come only from thought and will. Though the first efforts of deliberate thinking may mislead, and fall into the mistake of regarding this power in the form of a multiplicity of forces or activities, these sooner or later concentrate and coalesce, and the conception of unity is definitely reached. Further thinking may still further bewilder, but sooner or later winds its way back to its primitive and naive inference, to the result reached by the first and spontaneous processes of reasoning. All fact falls of itself into the category of causality. It is really impossible to think the power which manifests itself everywhere to the human sub- ject as mindless. The uniformity of nature, which makes knowledge possible, is itself the irrefutable evidence that it is the activity and mode of manifesta- tion of mind. This object-matter of human percep- tion and thought, which is at first apprehended as matter in motion, and which in various degrees mod- ifies and forever rules human activity, contains thus a spiritual element, which man cannot leave out of his apprehension of the same, if he would. This rela- tion, then, is the substratum on which is founded the relation of faith. There is an objective power and thought, and a subjective recognition of the same, capable of great modification, amplification, or obscu- ration, but never of extinction. As influencing activ- ity through consciousness, it may have all degrees of presence and determining effect ; and being some- thing superadded to the inherited animal tendencies, and already involving spiritual pre-suppositions, it 30 CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. originates a varying conflict between these, and thus we have prudence in its various degrees. Thus far, however, we have only been dealing with the intellectual element in the relation of faith. When the moral element is added it becomes faith proper, and in its simplicity or lowest degree. If any dis- tinction is made between actions or decisions of will, on other grounds than their prudence or imprudence, their immediate or remote expediency for the indi- vidual subject, we have such a moral element super- added. The connecting link between these pruden- tial decisions, habits, tendencies, and the moral relation, or conformity to an ideal and universal end more or less clearly recognized, is to be found in the benevolent instincts and sympathies, which too enter into the human structure, and show the human race to be an organism. That one's own delight shall be paramount as a governing motive-spring, or that some rule having for its end the welfare of the whole in which one's individual welfare shall be included — these two alternatives are mediated by the benevo- lent tendencies, which make sacrifice possible, and thus lead towards the full recognition of the latter as the supreme end. All thought, power, or will can be acknowledged by the human mind only as involving feeling, and as having beneficence or its opposite as its purpose, and hence as part of its concrete definition. The objective will which shows its methods in the motions of matter must be thought as benevolent or hostile, or human feeling may vibrate between the two kinds of recogni- tion. From this came the propensity into which men early fell, of inventing a cultus, intended to sway the ANALYSIS OF FAITH. 31 determinations of the invisible power, to induce it to ward off, or mollify calamity, or to be merciful to human weakness or faultiness. Here we have meas- urably the religious relation freed from the moral one, though the latter is never extinguished, but ever sooner or later corrects the former. Only, however, so far as the moral element is existent do we give the name of faith. And if the former, the religious rela- tion, is never absent, however mutilated or obscured, — the latter, the moral relation, is never absent, but de- tectable in every form of superstition. That the power and thought which rule, or rather constitute the forces of nature, and originated the thinking sub- ject himself, are the same as those which suggest love or benevolence, expanding according to intelligence, as the supreme object of life, — the various degrees of conviction of this, and of activity thence resulting, are the various degrees of faith. However much for thought or fancy the object of this faith may be cari- catured or distorted, whatever synthesis be made of the various elements which make up its full notion, the moral element is never entirely in abeyance. The fact that we hold men as such, and on other grounds, to be responsible, and accuse them universally of sin, should dispose us to admit that there is and can be no exception to this in the human race. To do so would be to divide its members by an impassable wall of sepa- ration. If there be moral responsibility and proba- tion there must be the presence, however dim, of the moral ideal, rendering possible a distinction between actions on other than prudential grounds ; and the iden- tification of this moral ideal with the will, or thought- power of the universe, constitutes the object for faith. 32 CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. Thus, at the last and as the result of our analysis, God, in his relation to the universe, is the only object- matter of faith, however much He be misconceived, however dimly his Will be recognized, however feebly his Love be felt. Samuel Taylor Coleridge says that faith is the syn- thesis of reason and will, that as a light it implies an energy, and that as an energy it requires a light. The moral ideal stamped upon human nature as such, in which ideal the idea of God is implicit, meets the con- tradicting stream of human tendency and enters into conflict with it. When it overcomes it we have faith in the completeness of its metaphysical definition, and indeed the synthesis of reason and will. But even when it is overcome by it and put back into dimness, it is not obliterated, and faith in its incoherence still exists, and struggles, though to appearance often in vain, to complete itself. Into this struggle, as before said, the mystical influence of the Holy Spirit may come and arrest the overflowing torrent, the moral ideal be accepted as the rule of life, and faith, in the completeness of its metaphysical definition, be born. But even from this point it is susceptible of all degrees of strength, and of clearness, — of strength, as habits of moral conformity strengthen the will, and thus clarify the mental insight ; of clearness, as reflection, and culture, and external aids clarify or amplify its object. But, as was said before, he who feels and hence in degree knows this object of faith to be loving, may regard it more truly than he whose recognition of this is less keen, even though other knowledge of the object in the latter case vastly preponderate. Faith then is the voluntary act or state, consti- ANALYSIS OF FAITH. 33 tuting the relation by which God, as the author of the law of love, becomes a reality, i. e., affects con- duct, and becomes a ruling principle in human action, whatever mistakes may still be made as to the actions required by such law of love. It is thus at the same time an ethical and an intellectual relation. In the latter it is susceptible of all degrees of clearness, and thus in the former it becomes susceptible of all degrees of strength. The two elements of the defi- nition can never exist apart in the concrete, cannot by thought even be perfectly abstracted each from the other. Further conclusions or deductions from the apprehended intellectual relation may be made, bring- ing it by degrees within the sphere of comprehension ; and various feelings or emotions, which are corrol- laries from the ethical relation, may spring up. But this is the substrat?tm to which is to be superadded whatever increments or modifications are needed to elevate it into Christian faith, which last only is the principle which can issue in what we call salvation or perfection. Human reflection and culture may do much to clarify the object of faith, but only, we may say, when faith in its ethical quality already exists. This is proven by the thought of the Greek and Roman philosophers, by that of Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, by that of Seneca, Marcus Aurelius, Epictetus. When the human heart is fixed upon the moral ideal the mind moves healthily and is productive of true re- sults. But it is no part of our endeavor to show how far these thinkers had proceeded towards the Chris- tian idea of the object-matter of faith. Yet their his- tory shows how supremely corrective of all mental Vol. II. 34 CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. aberrancy is all right moral choice. The natural progress of the human mind, through the labors of these thinkers, has been on the whole pari passu with the progress it has made through the stimuli of Divine interference ; and all seeming contrariety or defect must be susceptible of rectification, or supple- ment. Certainly the former by the latter when the Di- vine revelation is rightly understood, and sometimes even the latter by the former as suggesting possible misinterpretation. This is simply saying that the Divine revelation will bear every test, is profoundly true and absolutely rational. This clarification of the object-matter of faith has been a process proceeding all the while, and easily detectable and describable in all human history. To find this thread is to find the key to interpret history. That it is so detectable in the stranded civilizations, or utterly degraded and seemingly stationary races, may be a more difficult conclusion to reach historically, but even here there must have been a movement, a progress, as well as a retrogression, but never stag- nation or changelessness. Nature herself is in perpet- ual change, and humanity as well ; and changes slow in the making are often most real and permanent. Here is occasion for endeavor in human investigation to trace even in dim outline the mental and moral modi- fications of the races that at first seem to have been so stationary. On a priori grounds we can by no means admit that God has neglected them, and evidence a posteriori is sure sooner or later to be found that this is so. This different treatment on God's part of the races of mankind belongs to the same problem with the different treatment of individuals of the same race, ANALYSIS OF FAITH. 35 and is part of the mystery of providence, to throw some light upon which there will be a speculative en- deavor hereafter. But following the narratives which we trust, con- taining the record of the Divine interpositions, we can trace the gradual clarification and amplification of the object-matter of faith. No doubt it has often happened in human history that the conception or idea of the First Principle ruling the forces of nature, naively or spontaneously reached, has been truer than its subsequent modifications, and that many of man's tentatives have distorted or obscured it, instead of symmetrizing and clarifying it. These variations in the idea subjectively apprehended have been owing, of course, to varying providential conditions. That there has been method and meaning in thus variantly apportioning the external conditions, we may hold on a priori grounds, the argument of which will be drawn out sufficiently hereafter. But on grounds equally valid a priori we may hold that for ultimate providen- tial ends there have been special stimuli and correc- tive influences afforded to particular individuals or races. That the revelation of himself by God in na- ture and in the moral law is not sufficient, and is destined to have superadded other openings and glimpses into the Divine mind, and hence that may be enlarged the Divine idea, is entirely in analogy with all else that we know of the creation and the de- velopment of the universe. Science is confirmative of this conclusion a priori, and shows us the hierarchy of ideas, and that when any new one became apparent, there is discoverable intimations of it in the one pre- ceding. This is the solid truth in any theory of 36 CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. evolution, and is what we are concerned not to deny, but readily to admit ; and it is none the less a crea- tive process, rather more manifestly such, than if no connection were discoverable between the new idea and all that went before. Indeed it is an additional evidence that one purpose runs throughout all the movements of the universe, and that therefore it is only explicable in the light of its ultimate idea and end ; and that the forecast of faith rather than the re- trospective glance can alone give us hints of the idea which is to unify and explain all that went before. Any new idea thus forecasted must respect man in his possible progress. As the highest and richest Divine thought, summing up in himself all previous thought, any advance must be in and through him, and through him only reach all existence outside of him, or prior to him. Any new progress must also lay hold upon what is highest in him, and thus affect what is lower. His physical advance is to be attained through his mental advance, as all his experience shows, and both in their permanent elements through his ethical and religious advance. If any new possibility for his physical and mental being is open for him it must come from his ethical elevation. Thus that there have been external stimuli and providential arrange- ments for this end is validly thinkable ; and any his- tory which confirms such a conclusion is, by strict analogy, if authenticated, in itself trustworthy. We find, therefore, that in the history of the He- brew people the naive and spontaneous movements of human thought and feeling have been aided and cor- rected, and their legitimate results anticipated. The conclusion slowly and painfully reached, and at length ANALYSIS OF FAITH. 37 attaining clear expression only in the minds of the philosophers whose moral instincts were true, that the forces of nature are reducible to unity, or the more vague notion reached in the old Polytheism, referring all change to a supreme Fate lying in the obscure, receives correction, or amplification, or confirmation, in the story of the Hebrew people, and that too in a slow and not sudden process, elevating their notion of a tribal divinity to that of the Supreme Jehovah, in whose mind is all thought, in whose hand is all power ; — so that this conception of the unity of the First Principle, held clearly in Heathendom only in the mind of the philosophers, comes to be a common possession of the Hebrew people. Here is a cor- rective to the methodless vagaries in the search for unity, which has been somehow supplied. The notions of the attributes, omniscience, omnipotence, and omnipresence are at first secured, and referred to one Principle. The ethical element that must in the end be seen necessarily to accompany these is in their conception gradually supplied. The guiding inter- ferences, if allowed to be such, run pari passu with the natural and progressive moral development, cor- recting it when needful, but not incomprehensibly running- ahead of it. The selected race, was treated as the child is treated by the human parent. The moral law, or the principle of love, is broken into maxims adapted to the existing stage of the human progress. At first we have prohibitions simply, con- firming the conclusions reached by human prudence, and implying that the welfare of the social structure requires subordination of the individual to the totality, and obliges sacrifice, affirming too that no social law 38 CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. can be violated with impunity, any more than any physical law, and that its violation is to be met by retribution. These negative maxims imply a positive principle, which is at length clearly descried, the royal law of love to God and man receives expres- sion, and new maxims adapted to the situation are required and given, till at length the whole applica- tion of the Divine law, with more or less clearness and correctness becomes the property of the common mind of the race. The object-matter of faith thus undergoes clarification, and in its increasing large- ness is more and more firmly laid hold of, and be- comes a more and more powerful stimulus to action. The culminating stage of Jewish thought thus at- tained, and through this external aid providentially adapted to the conditions of possible human progress, is that idea of the First Principle which is impregnable to all assaults, annihilating all Polytheism and Dual- ism, — that God is one, that the forces of nature are the expression of the Divine will, that the movements of the universe are an harmonious system adapted to human thought, and that a benevolent purpose runs throughout the whole, as the native instincts of men longed for and may have divined. So satisfac- tory is this object of faith to the human mind and heart that new religious feelings and emotions were rendered possible. We find trust in the benevolence of the ruling power (at least for the selected people), confidence in the Divine wisdom in spite of the doubts of both suggested still by experience, submission to the Divine direction. We have such faith as was shown by Abraham, whose whole story, while yet human and not faultless, still shows the ultimate of " ANALYSIS OF FAITH. 39 moral and religious attainment at that point of human progress, and warrants the praise bestowed upon him. We find too the devout utterances of David and the other Psalmists, which, in spite of their imprecations, furnish a vehicle of devotion approved ever since by the religious mind. In the writings of the Hebrew prophets the religious and moral elements of faith more markedly coalesce with each other, and with the metaphysical element ; and there are likewise hints and intimations of a still further expansion and correction. These three elements of faith, as I have said, are never separated in the concrete. Each modifies and corrects each other, and any new progress amplifying the object of faith may be found to spring from either of these sources. The idea of God may be improved by advancing human thinking, or by illumining the moral requirement, or by making more definite, easy, and emphatic the religious or personal relation. In this direction there is no limit to human progress. The ethical relation may be made clearer by develop- ing the content of the moral law as adapted to pro- gressive human situations. The religious relation may acquire strength and receive surety not only from the profound human instinct, more and more freed, by which person seeks person, and adequate Person, thus illustrating the secret of absolute Being, love responding to Love ; — but also from the manifold thought of God exhibited in his works, and found by human study, which likewise may react upon and ren- der more secure the ethical relation, as well as make richer and firmer the religious one. But there were grave defects still in the subjective 40 CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. holding of the object-matter of faith, as well as in such object-matter itself. Through such defects the He- brew life so often poorly illustrated what their own belief required. The object of faith, and hence the subjective holding, may be elevated to a still higher plane. At the stage of human progress under inspec- tion, questions are sure to suggest themselves that will require an answer, and make possible a farther ad- vance, or a lapse backward, and which, to secure the advance and render more wilful the lapse, require a new Divine interposition, which again on these a priori grounds becomes thinkable. This whole fab- ric, erected thus for human thought, feeling, and activity, may be sapped by doubt, may be assaulted and possibly crumble before the flood of the disor- dered tendencies concentred by human thought, un- less a new corrective be supplied, and a further insight into the Divine Being, who is still to be an object of faith, be afforded. Questions will begin to stir requir- ing a new answer ; and, as before, if any new upward urging of mankind be possible, there will be seen to have been hints and obscure anticipations of it in the previous stages of progress. As when the plant comes to be known there is found to have been hints of it in the phenomena of crystallization ; — as when the animal appears, there is seen to have been hints of its beauty, its motion, and its enjoyment in the vegetable kingdom ; — as when man appears there are found hints and anticipations of him in the lower ani- mal, sacrifice shadowed forth, and a commonwealth suggested ; as man himself thinks of and craves a higher existence for himself, in which he will rule the lower forces and not be mastered by them ; — so the ANAL YSIS OF FAITH. 41 idea of himself relative to the universe which God has manifested hitherto ; — this synthesis of metaphysical, ethical, and religious relations, is found to hint of what the Divine Being is in itself, which knowledge is needful to render secure the confidence that these economical relations are permanent and forever to be trusted as actual and true. CHAPTER V. THE GROUND FOR THE CHRISTIAN REVELATION, AND THE POSSIBILITY OF CHRISTIAN FAITH. When by human thought the stage in the appre- hension of God as the object of faith exhibited in the foregoing chapter is reached, such questions as these arise, dimly suggested indeed before, but now receiv- ing clear expression. (i) Is the existence of the universe necessary in order to furnish a field in which the First Principle can display the love which his beneficence suggests ? Can love exist, or is it thinkable without having an object? Can it exist without reciprocity? If such object comes to be by a creative act, does it not argue a defect before ? If a universe is needed to furnish a sufficient object, must it not have existed as a. plenum ab initio, i. c, have exhibited in its perfection the Divine paternity? If the universe is a developing process, was it cyclical and did it repeat itself eternally, or did it have a beginning ? And if so, and such be- ginning breaking into change displays a benevolent purpose, is such a purpose arbitrary and indifferently free, or is it grounded in an absolute necessity, and thus as originating in a Person, free in a profounder sense ? Is love then an element, or an immanent relation in the First Principle itself, and therefore a necessary 42 CHRISTIAN REVELA TION. 43 element of its eternal definition, aside from any man- ifestation in a developing process ? (2) The moral law is what it is in reference to an ideal end — a commonwealth of loving, thinking, ex- panding subjects, with environment correspondent, and shows itself in maxims or rules adapted to the progressive stages of human development ; — is it grounded in the absolute nature or structure of the Divine Being, or is it simply a contrivance to keep his own creation in harmony, and save it from derangement, failure, or destruction ? (3) The power displayed in the universe, matter in motion, does it require a Monistic or a Dualistic ex- planation ? i. e., is the "power which makes for right- eousness," the recuperative movement, paramount, or is there nowhere perfect peace, no token or symbol of progress that can have no successful contradiction ? Must moral evil of necessity everlastingly exist ? And if its prolonged existence is still thinkable, what must be its relation to any environment ? (4) If it be impossible to think away mind from the universe, which the human mind acknowledges, is such mind thinkable except under the conditions of personality ; and is mind as subject, relative to a mind- less universe, or aggregation of matter, as object, a sufficient definition of personality ? Does not this require likewise the notion of reciprocity and recogni- tion ? (5) If it be impossible to think away matter, since we only know mind as determined by it, and since the consciousness of it as thus determining is as valid and trustworthy as any consciousness of pure spirit, if such be at all possible, and if matter, changing by temporal 44 CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. movement and development is variously apprehended by the human subject according to his progressive development, which apprehension is conditioned by the human physical organism as the mediating link, what is matter to the perfect vision, what is it to the Divine mind? — something alien, an eternal vA?j? or has it pure and essential form, which we can think as such, but cannot imagine, since undetermined ? All these questions, thus or otherwise stated, must sooner or later arise not only in the mind of the Greek or Hindoo philosopher, but of the Hebrew prophet or sage ; and the object of faith as a loving, all-wise, and almighty Person, is struck into doubtfulness, or dimness, permanent or fluctuating, unless some cor- rective be reached or supplied. The unaided intel- lect may indeed narrow its own field of speculation, and reach such a corrective, indeed must reach it of itself, to have it become a corrective indeed, but it is by a slow and painful process, beset by formidable occasions of doubt, and subject to retrogressions. A new stimu- lus and corrective to human endeavor is surely needed and here indicated, saving toil, strife, doubt, despair, but not freeing from these entirely, for that would be to lift the object of faith beyond the region of faith, and deprive the mental recognition of moral virtue, since rendering needless or impossible any growth in spiritual strength. A corrective and stimulus sufficient to repress these doubts, and ever to throw doubt upon the ground of these doubts, for the common mind as well as for the thinking mind, and which can furnish for it ground for the object of its faith sufficiently im- pregnable, yet not to supersede the necessity for faith, is thus indicated, as a valid conclusion for one acknowl- CHRISTIAN REVELATION. 45 edging Divine manifestation theretofore. And the thinking mind, too, may find its tentatives corrected and aided, and test its conclusions by the naive and simple faith of the unreflecting, or rather spontaneous- ly reflecting, mind. The Divine purpose for the world cannot put its own acknowledgment to risk when entrusting it only to the deliberate attainments of the human intellect. If there has been interference and revelation before, it is superlatively needed now, in such shape as to reply to these enquiries, as to allay these anxieties, as to urge the race forward in its career with a new impetus, as to illumine the ultimate purpose, as to magnify, clarify, and make penetrable the object of faith, and thus intensify the personal or religious relation. God, who has thus far taught us much of himself, may now let us farther into the secret of his being, may show us his heart, and in doing that enable us rightly to think his mind, may become an object for the imagination, and for the heart, as well as for the intellect, and appealing thus to all the human faculties, awaken anticipation of farther progress and enrichment. All which was done by God's revelation of himself in Jesus Christ, which opens for us a glimpse into the intrinsic being of the Godhead, its necessary structure, or round of relations, the Unity in Trinity. Here we have new, higher, sufficient, and satisfying notions of personality. The complete condition for this, and its true definition is seen to be reciprocity. Man's heart responds to this as the highest truth, any thing short of which would be still imperfection. Here only is found absolute harmony. There are not three wills. That is the Tritheistic misconception. But the one 46 CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. will, in the complete definition of will, can exist only by this threefoldness. Each hypostasis is necessary to the being of each other, and the necessity of our thought is recognized as the necessity of absolute Being. There is and can be nothing simpler than this Trinity in Unity. All being is seen to be com- plex, and therefrom a fount of activity, with resources of thought inexhaustible. In the universe, indubi- tably, activity, thought, and love exist, and presuppose this Trinity in Unity as their eternal ground. From such a source alone, following the law of causality, is a universe, manifesting change, thought, and love, thinkable and possible. In such scheme Christian thinking claims to have found the only possible satis- faction for the intellect, and all doubt of it is seen to turn back upon and contradict itself. Such scheme defecates itself surely of all troubling doubts, thus undergoes slow but constant illumination ; while all other schemes appear and disappear as furnishing no secure intellectual stay. This revelation, which the human mind can follow and vindicate (and unless it could vindicate it, it could not appropriate it), replies to all the above questions. The object of faith, be- fore only dimly and imperfectly apprehended, now displays, not its entirety (for that is infinite according to the human mind's own absolute requirement), but its innermost secret. God is seen and known to be loving . in his essential constitution and idea, and becomes an object for faith having the most powerful ethical influence, and yet never ceases to be an object of faith, for the obscurations of the world of sense and the mystifications of the adventurous human mind still continue. These still assault both the un- CHRIS TIA N RE VELA TION. 47 thinking and the thinking portions of the human race. How to account for their differing attitudes towards the two attractions, to belief and to unbelief, is a prob- lem of exceeding difficulty. It is one which will forever haunt the human mind, and is probably insoluble, since by analysis it is found to include the interior problem of the origin and nature of moral evil, insight into which, as I have said, is unattainable at the present stage of human progress, and would be no boon, since it would quiet all the struggles of faith, and deprive it of the conditions to show and acquire the strength needed for perfect moral recovery. From all this it appears that the new light thus im- parted has not changed the nature of faith as a subjec- tive relation. The metaphysical, ethical, and religious elements of its definition still remain. What has been accomplished has been the illumination and expansion of its object, whereby it becomes not only perfectly satisfactory for the intellect, but meets the instinctive want and longing of the heart, furnishing thus a new religious bond, and hence eliciting a new and the most powerful motive-spring. Man does not, indeed cannot, aim to be any thing higher than he thinks the First Principle of the universe to be. If this is thought as a mere arbitrary will, however wise and mighty, man will worship only this synthesis of might and wisdom, and regulate his conduct accordingly. That his own instincts strain sometimes after something other, shows that the First Principle is not and cannot be permanently thought as this and no more. If man thinks him, then, as loving in his essential be- ing, his response will be likewise loving. If He shows himself as limiting himself, and that sacrifice has 48 CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. come to be the form of that love, because of the contradiction, man's response will be also sacrificial. We may say, then, that through the revelation of Jesus Christ, the Godhead in its essential constitu- tion or true being, is now presented as the object of faith, and hence that Christian faith is the ultimate form of faith, beyond which is no further illumination or expansion, as any further step would elevate it into knowledge. Only as such object of faith, and not yet of sight, can it call forth a sufficient response, does it supply the most efficient motive-spring, and such as can issue in human recovery. We cannot think any secret of the Divine Being deeper than this sacrificial love. We may study the Divine works, and thus am- plify our conception of him, deepen our conviction of his benevolence, and be enabled to descry more and more clearly his ultimate purpose ; which process may go on ceaselessly, and which endless time would never exhaust ; but the personal relation subsists the same through all the increments or diminutions of knowl- edge, and affects conduct as completely be they much or little. This revelation of himself as essentially lov- ing comes in such a shape as appeals to the simple mind and heart, — not in the shape of an intellectual proposition (however it may do that thereafter), but by appeals to its own possible love, and by exhibiting to sense and imagination a concrete illustration and proof of the Divine Love. The Incarnation and sacri- ficial Atonement of Jesus Christ can be so stated as to reach the simplest capacity, and God thus be reached and grasped. To preach the gospel is to call upon men to do this. To believe in the Lord Jesus Christ is to do this. As an act of responsive love CHRIS TIA N RE VELA TION. 49 it makes God a reality, affecting conduct as not before, creates thus a new mental relation, and gives birth to a host of new feelings — gratitude, trust, and the im- pulse to worship. There is implicit in this faith the holy will, for there is nothing holier than responsive love, which because the love that called it forth was sacrificial meets it in the form of sacrifice, and all things are forsaken to follow Christ. " As I have loved you, so ought ye to love one another." The world with its attractions is given up as a supreme ob- ject, is no longer an end but a means. This personal tie fastens the whole complex relation amid the temp- tations astray, and shows itself as trust or confidence. The deep conviction that now the normal relation be- tween God and the human subject is at length reached, causes the Christian mind to be jealous of all attempts to distort, and thus subtly to change the object-matter on which it rests and depends, and so it becomes zeal- ous and careful for the truth, and seeks ever to fix it in such objective formulas as will furnish a guide and corrective for the human intellect still abiding in the strife, and subtly tempted to derange the ob- ject-matter of faith. Here is the explanation of the much-decried attempt at Dogmatic formulation ; which arises thus from an honest and true instinct. This attempt is felt to be a need in our imperfect state, however much it may have been abused. There must be a definite object for the mind as well as for the heart, and the thinking must still endeavor after its complete attainment. It is as illegitimate and shal- low to resolve the complex relation which is Christian faith into a purely ethical one, or a purely religious one, as into a purely intellectual one. There is no Vol. II. 50 CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. separation of these three, as we hope we have suc- ceeded in showing. Such attempted separation gives an imperfect and unsatisfying definition, as does like- wise any statement of these in other than right rela- tion. Because faith is a religious act, it is a moral act in its perfection, and a mental relation in its truth. To the common mind and heart it is a personal tie, and it is no other for the thinking mind, however much be superadded. Nay, should even that which is superadded be confusing, bewildering, erroneous, or contradictory, the personal tie which has coalesced with the ethical relation may still remain in its integ- rity and vigor ; and one whose whole system of think- ing about Christian truth is faulty or wrong, may still have the essential elements of Christian faith, viz., the personal tie with God as revealing himself in the form of sacrificial love, through Jesus Christ, even though Jesus Christ be otherwise wrongly thought. But this does not render it less necessary that He be rightly thought, if the tendency to doubt and error is to be arrested, if the motive-spring of responsive love is to exist in its purity and strength, and human con- duct be directed into right channels of activity, such as will not furnish contradiction, to be overcome by Divine providence, but harmonize with it, and thus hasten on the consummation. The old controversies about the relation of faith and works hardly exist any longer, and need not de- tain us. Faith as implicit love must as such manifest activity of a new kind, not only in overt actions, but as having new ends and motives. Whatever resolves and deeds flow from these may be called Christian works, instinctively and subjectively right, but objec- CHRISTIAN REVELA TION. 51 tively capable of correction and needing light and guid- ance. The ultimate end is the same as that set be- fore faith, before or aside from the advent of Christ. The moral effort, when rightly analyzed, has every- where the same purpose, the commonwealth of love, which alone constitutes right moral action ; but to at- tain this end, there has been furnished a new motive- spring, no longer merely the moral judgment and sense sanctioning the rules which human moral expe- rience has put forth, but this judgment and sense transfigured into a personal tie rendered possible by God himself coming within the sphere of sense and imagination. Thus in one sense Christian morality is identical with all other true morality, yet in another sense different from it. It is the same as the end is the same, yet in Christian morality this is clearly seen, and becomes explicit, while before it was mainly im- plicit. The rules and maxims are in many respects the same ; yet the whole plan of life which governs and unifies human action is widely different, since it respects the declared Divine plan and purpose. No Christian life can be planned irrespective of the aim of Christ's Church. The subjective relation is the same so far as it is acquiescence in a law seen to be Divine, but it becomes something other than rever- ence for an abstract law, and ever tends to rise above the need of law, and resolve wilful acquiescence into spontaneity. " Hitherto I have called you servants, but henceforth I call you friends." It is evident that when the New-Testament writers speak of faith in Christ, or faith in God as having manifested himself in Jesus Christ, what is uppermost in their minds in such manifestation is the supreme, 52 CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. decisive, and liberating triumph of love, the sacrifice of the Cross, Jesus' death as the culminating proof of the Divine Love. They illustrate in such speech their Lord's own words : " And I, if I be lifted up, will draw all men to me." This is the most powerful appeal ever made, or that could be made to the human will. It appeals primarily to human sym- pathy, to the heart's profoundest longing, to be loved and to love, and imagination is at the service of such sympathy. It appeals to the human intellect as the alone satisfying solution of the problem of existence, and makes human convictions square vibratingly with human hopes, that the unseen power is not only force and mind but heart. It appeals to the ethical element, and makes sacrifice not only willing but glad. That the human heart does not everywhere leap up with welcome to meet this reaching out of the Divine heart is the saddest yet most incontestable proof of the ravages of the contradicting principle. That men strive to be content with the solution that an iron mechanism, or an arbitrary will, or a logical process is abstractly the explanation of the riddle of existence, and not a loving heart, severe though benevolent, is the profoundest reality and evidence of the doctrine that unbelief is the right description and cause of human aberrancy, and that in belief alone is its cure. But if the philosophical doctrine of mystical influence, which is identical with the Christian doctrine of grace, be truly grounded, these even can be reached and corrected. And our knowledge of it can by no means be thought to exhaust the possibilities of providen- tial influence or interference. Man is never at such risk of error as when he presumes to make moral CHRIS TIA N RE VELA TION. 5 3 judgments, and to condemn and pronounce sentence before he knows. This has been the great Christian weakness, and has brought Christian dogmas into dis- repute — that men have usurped the function of judg- ment, which, above all things, requires the Divine omniscience. "Judge nothing before the time." This rash and arbitrary dealing with the Divine rewards and punishments, as though their key and their method were discoverable for human knowledge, has not rendered the preaching of Christ more, but rather less, attractive. This is the feebleness of dogmatism, which has, however, on the other side its secure strength. But this matter will be dealt with at length hereafter, when we come to treat of the Divine Judgment. Christian faith, as thus now analyzed and defined, has come to exist, through the addition to the essential elements of all faith of the new element rendered possible by the Incarnation and the Atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ ; and has made possible and actual a new and unique relation between the human subject and God. The theological name of this relation is Justification, a word whose meaning has been much disputed. But let us go back and, without using the word, resume the history of the liberating process, as indicated by what has gone before, and see thereafter to what act, or relation, or process, or whether to all these combined, this word may be wisely applied, and was applied by the New-Testament writers. CHAPTER VI. JUSTIFICATION. Christian faith, by whatever prevenient grace and providential arrangement conditioned, is an act and relation of the will, and as such originates in man himself. Responsibility presupposes freedom. As was said before, the last ground of the difference in human choice cannot be traced out by the human in- tellect. It requires no explanation that man should make the choice for the good. That is but rising according to the central instincts and attraction of his being, the tendency Godward, the return of the radiated particle to the radiating sun. The inex- plicable thing is that any should choose otherwise ; not that the human being should often do what is objectively wrong and contradictory, for that is but a mistake of the judgment and comes from insufficient foresight ; but that he should deliberately reject the universal end, and connect himself to an individual end, — seeing that this narrows the whole scope of his being, and begins a process of spiritual shrinking to end in utter poverty of resources. And yet, while Christian faith must be thought to be a human act, in and by which, as giving a new rule to life, all overt activity is thenceforward determined, it may also be thought as a Divine act, seeing that therein and therefor God concentrates the providen- 54 JUSTIFICA TION. 5 5 tial environment, and the mystical grace upon the selected subject. It may thus be said to be a joint act of God and man, which accomplishes a new rela- tion between them. If this new relation is to issue in human recovery, it must be by its setting in activity all the recuperating forces, which thenceforward must act upon the human subject in the entirety of his structure, upon every element or aspect of his being, religious, ethical, intellectual, physical. These forces (so called) have already accomplished their intended result, perfection, in the person of Christ, the new starting-point, the beginning of a regenerated hu- manity. To this, then, the individual subject must be so connected that the recuperative forces may reach him therefrom thus in his entirety, and their process be discoverable, thinkable, and describable as reaching every such element of his complex being. The will must be reached, and in faith has been reached, and set right in the ethico-religious relation, and influences from Christ must come to strengthen it in its new attitude. The intellect has been set right as having seized now the central element of the Divine idea, and influences from the same source may further enlarge and clarify this object of faith. This corrected idea conditions all other knowledge, and without it the cohering principle of all truth is not seized. And man's physical being, likewise, must begin to be loosened from the contradicting and downward tendencies, and have begun the process of its liberation and perfection. Regeneration respects the entire synthesis which constitutes the human being, and no one element of it alone, or it could not rightly be so named. It is a literally true and not a 56 CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. figurative expression. A new birth must issue in a new creature, in all the combined elements of his complex being. And the whole environment, which furnishes the material to be assimilated and wrought up into character, must be adapted to accomplish the end of such regenerative process. Whether or not for grand economical ends man has not been and should not be taught not only to signal- ize and confess his faith by an overt act ; — but also to look for the commencement and continuation of the regenerative process to such overt act and similar acts (which is the occasion for the Christian sacra- ments), is a question that will be considered at length hereafter. But we see that while the new relation between God and man may thus be thought as a permanent or timeless one, and as an abstract one may require a name, it is realized in a time-process, for though the subjective condition be presented, the substratum laid, and the central fountain of the regenerating cur- rents be started in flow, human recovery, concretely, is not instantaneous. The consequences of sin, the result of the former abnormal relation, are to be an- nulled, and go on to their extinction, and this pari passu with the harmonization of the entire being, the bringing around of all spontaneous tendencies and habits into agreement with the holy will. Thus this new and abstract relation is made real in a process, which by abstraction may be regarded as either nega- tive or positive, but which is concretely both, each conditioning the other. The name of this new relation is Justification ; the name of the negative process is the Remission or Par- J US TIFICA TION. 5 7 don of sin ; the name of the positive process is Sancti- fication ; and the name of the whole process regarded as vital and reconstructive is Regeneration. If this relation and these processes be rightly- thought as conditioning each other, it is a matter of doctrinal indifference whether the names be or be not rightly bestowed. One may have been trained to call either relation or process by the name which properly belongs to some other, and controversy here be mere logomachy. But while to fix the meaning of these words according to their use in the New Testament belongs primarily to Exegesis, it is incumbent upon Doctrinal Theology to harmonize with the same in their use. But even though here dispute may con- tinue, it is a point gained to find the doctrinal use of these and such words self-consistent and suggestive of clear thought, even though men continue to argue upon the Scriptural use of the same. The present author thinks that the interpretation of these words given above is not only helpful to clarify thought, but is needed to harmonize the utterances of the New Testament ; that this was the scheme of thought in the mind of the Scripture authors, even though they may have used the words, at times, with more laxity or latitude of meaning. That Regeneration, if it be really descriptive and not a misleading figure, is a process having a begin- ning and a termination, seems self-evident, and thus the word may be legitimately applied either to this process itself, or to its beginning, or to its end. As something occurring in the human subject it is a pre- cise analogue or repetition of what took place in the human nature of Jesus Christ. The conception of 58 CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. Jesus by the special activity of the Holy Spirit has its analogue in the new birth by water and the Spirit. The progressive illumination of the mind of Jesus has its analogue in the growth and unique character of Christian experience and knowledge. The progres- sive glorification of Jesus' body, culminating in the resurrection and ascension, has its analogue in a similar process being accomplished in the faithful Christian. The regenerative process may also be thought to reach and include the whole uricis, since the glorification of the whole body of the redeemed can only be thought as a new relation to the environ- ment, which thus assumes its normal relation to the purified and perfected organism, or commonwealth of spiritual souls. In like manner, giving the name of Justification to the abstract relation, which is actualized in the double process of extinguishing the consequences of foregone sin, and assimilating the character to God's own character, this double or two-sided process may be regarded as potential in the stirring of the new forces set in play when the believer comes into religious and sacramental union with Christ ; and the expres- sion, " pardon of sin," be used in reference to this primal act on God's part, and the believer be called " holy " at the start, since the central principle of his further development is now holy. The New-Testa- ment writers use these words in all these senses, which do not contradict each other, but can be readily harmonized in thought when once we have the right key. To say, then, that faith justifies, — that faith alone justifies, — that faith and works justify, — that baptism justifies, — that God justifies, are not contra- JUSTIFICA TION. 59 dictory or inconsistent expressions, but all can be readily harmonized, and each one expresses rightly one aspect of the entire complex truth. All is of God's work, who alone has prepared the conditions, therefore, and, most strictly speaking, God alone justifies, i. e. t treats as -just, in the carrying out of his entire benevo- lent purpose. But God does not degrade his highest creature into passivity, but respects his freedom, there- fore faith, as a human act, is the conditio sine qud non y on the part of the human subject, which faith brings in its train holy conduct, and conditions the pardon- ing and sanctifying processes ; — thus it may be rightly said that faith alone justifies, i. e., presents the sub- jective condition for new treatment on God's part. And when faith is regarded as a spiritual act of re- sponsive love, which meets the Divine Love, grasps the outreaching hand of God, and heart flows into heart, it may be rightly called " the instrument of Jus- tification " (another phrase in use). And as all holy deeds are potential in this new love, and since human endeavor after systematization, or even human per- versity, may abstract the religious and ethical elements of Christian faith, and choose to regard it as only an intellectual relation (which was the propensity St James had in mind), it may be wise to insist upon the phrase that " faith and works justify," or that " faith working by love justifies." And as Justification is made real in a concrete process, which process is summed up in the notion of regeneration, which re- generation to be complete must respect the entire organism, the whole body of sanctified ones ; and since this process of leavening the new human stock must be carried on visibly and providentially as well V 60 CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. as mystically, — since the very principle of love is ex- pansion and assimilation, and it is impelled by inhe- rent sympathy into consociation, and there must in consequence be a visible election, a Church, drawing all its members by one bond to a common centre ; and as this body, to be visible, must have marks or tokens not changeable according to human caprice or mistake, and since Christian believers have been there- fore commanded so to consociate, and to confess their Master before men in a prescribed way ; since thus the initiatory rite of Christianity may thus, for its economical ends only, have its vindication, and to be thus binding and likewise attractive must have its benefit and result indicated ; — if while indeed God only can regenerate, man may be taught to look to some act as the condition for and the means to start his regeneration, therefore it becomes legitimate also to say, — that Baptism justifies. To be justified means to be considered and treated as just, i. e., righteous. If man is radically and po- tentially righteous by virtue of Christian faith, having now the only spring of true righteousness, he is thenceforward so treated. The consequences of hu- man sin are by steps and degrees annulled. His par- don is sealed indeed through his act of faith, but his pardon is shown not by his sudden but by his gradual emancipation from the retributive consequences of his past sin. All suffering whatever is such a conse- quence ; and his suffering does not immediately pass, but continues even after his pardon, but it is robbed of its poignancy, make-weights are supplied, and it goes on to its extinction. And while it continues it subserves a benevolent purpose, becomes chastise- JUSTIFICATION. 61 ment, and is felt and acknowledged to be the severity only of Love, the means of purification and strength. The whole providential environment may then be thought to be so adapted and fitted to the needs of the character as to be a benevolent urging towards the required perfection. Thus and thus only does God pardon sin, and Christians are accustomed to trace and to welcome this his method in their own experience. To pardon sin is the Divine prerogative only, since it requires omniscience and omnipotence, not only to know the inmost recesses of human character, and the recondite individual needs, but to have all the resources and powers of the universe at command. That all this complex of natural forces, that seems so blind and bewildering, is yet ruled by a loving purpose, and adapted to the particular needs of every soul, whether showing itself in bless- ing, or in punishment or chastisement, this is a truth a priori seen to be undeniable and impregnable ; but which so eludes the imagination and the understand- ing that it furnishes the main conflict of faith for the Christian soul, which is, however, reconciled to such conflict, since it finds its faith strengthened by such trial. But this negative process, called the Remission of sin, and accomplished by these providential ar- rangements, can only be rightly thought by regarding also its positive side, or the sanctification of the char- acter, to understand which we must consider not only the providential and in a degree intelligible influences, but the mystical ones as well — which thus becomes a much profounder subject for meditation. CHAPTER VII. SANCTIFICATION, AND THE INTIMATIONS OF THE CHRIS- TIAN CHURCH. To sanctify is to make holy. Holiness is free obedience, therefore only predicable, primarily, of a rational being, and in its perfection or absolute truth is pure spontaneity, or righteousness without effort or struggle. Hence God alone is essentially holy. All other holiness has required effort and the acquisi- tion by steps and degrees of the needed spiritual strength. As all being, thought, and power are lodged in God from the absolute and eternal syn- thesis which constitutes the essence of the Godhead, no creature as such can be at once perfectly holy. He may be simply good by following the implanted tendencies of his being, arranged thus in conformity with the absolute ends of God. But such a creature would be a lesser being than man, whose idea is a self-determining being, and so only is he an image of God. Holiness therefore expresses the normal, ideal relation of the highest creature to God, and requires that it shall have been reached by self-determining effort. This is true whatever conditions of grace or favor, providential and mystical, be thought necessary. To determine himself thus the creature must have a sphere, an environment supplying material for the growth, enrichment, and expansion of his being. 62 SANCTIFICA TION. 63 And the entire environment we have shown includes mystical relations, or the activity of the Holy Spirit, in perpetual adaptation to and correspondence with the providential conditions, thus perfecting the syn- thesis. To think man as made holy in spite of him- self, to suppose mere passivity here, is to avoid the meaning of the word, is a contradiction. So to think the human being is to degrade him and not to elevate him. He would no longer correspond to our highest idea of a creature. That his holiness is to be acquired by spiritual strength requires the possibility and pres- ence of alternatives, of adverse solicitations, of tempta- tion, and the deliberate rejection of individual ends, and gradual conformity to the universal end, not only by finding its idea more and more attractive and beautiful, but by the strengthening by habit the spon- taneous tendency which harmonizes with it, and leads towards its realization. To make the seeming in- voluntary trend of the entire being correspond with the voluntary and conscious end and means, de- liberately chosen, so that the conscious and uncon- scious coalesce in a higher consciousness, is the per- fection of freedom, is real freedom, which is thus identical with pure will or moral necessity. Christian holiness must primarily be thought as respecting the will in its narrower signification. It is in its inception faith in Christ, or love yielding to the attraction of love, which therefore, so far as it knows, here sets itself the same end as that of the Creator and Redeemer, which thus unifies all the means. But as this faith or love has to struggle with contradicting appetencies, it cannot entrust itself or be trusted to its own spontaneity. Its guide is indeed the law of Love, 64 CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. i. e., no law, but an ideal. But this cannot be realized under the disordered conditions which derange and sway the thought-processes, unless it be stated in the form of prescriptions, or laws proper, adapted to man's progressive state. This is true both in the sphere of morality and in that of religion, when thought apart, the absolute ends of which are, how- ever, identical. The Christian believer takes as his guide the principle of Love indeed, and uses this as a test and corrective of all prescriptions ; but, knowing the imperfection of his own foresight, respects not only the maxims of morality which the deliberate thought of the wisest of mankind have put forth, often as merely prudential, but sometimes also in consequence of the instinctive sense or judgment that they are true deductions and applications of an absolute law, or ideal end ; but he respects, likewise, the religious pre- scriptions, which not only indicate that He who re- deemed mankind has vast providential designs which his disciples can only imperfectly descry and under- stand, but also that for the Christian's individual development and perfection he is in need of influences and changes other than he can understand. His will being thus set in right relation to the Divine will, his spiritual soul being so far a reflection of the Father of spirits, he may be regarded as holy at the start ; and thus the Christian believer is spoken of in the New Testament. However various the careers before him, however easy or difficult, faulty, or seemingly fault- less his obedience, the end or purpose of the pure spiritual will remains the same. However wrenched away betimes from the Divine attraction, he is not withdrawn from it utterly. The centripetal force SANCTIFICA TION. 65 asserts itself, and conquers sooner or later all that are centrifugal (although, indeed, the possibility of an utter severance is asserted by the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews, and indicated by the words of Jesus himself. Whether this is only a possibility for thought, or one that has been, as well as can be, made actual, is a question we shall discuss in the proper place). It is beyond the power and scope of the human mind to know how far one having the holy will, i. e., the holy motive-spring and the holy end, has progressed in the conquest of his nature, for this is the function of Judgment, and errors are so probable here, that men are warned against judging "before the time." This progressive harmonization of the nature, or congeries of involuntary tendencies, to the spiritual will, this symmetrization of the same as relative to each other, and hence the strengthening by such adaptation the whole structure, is Sanctification, and is the positive side of the process, running pari passu with the neg- ative side, the progressive Remission of sin, in which double process is made concrete the abstract relation of Justification. We have spoken of the spiritual will, only here to part with the expression as possibly misleading. The will, as said long before, is not something superadded to the human nature, nor the man himself in his purely spiritual relations. He is not, never was, and never will be or can be a pure spirit ; but is a spiritual soul, having relations, and those essential, as well to the physical universe which has entered into his devel- opment and made him what he is. His will therefore respects his entire being. It is focussed, indeed, in his consciousness, but that consciousness is but the Vol. II. 66 CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. present aspect of his character, and is the result of all these combining - elements. His will is his whole soul with the relations spiritward and bodyward, quoad any possible activity or change, within itself or beyond itself. Therefore the will is the entire being, as having determined, and having been determined in its character, and shows itself in the fluctuating con- sciousness now and then concentrated for deliberate action ; and it, notwithstanding any internal strife or fluctuation, has its own tendency more or less fixed, and which, in the last resort, notwithstanding any previous slip or vacillation, decides the habitual activity. If this seem like yielding too much to Determinism, we can only say : Better so, than to fall back upon a Psychology which cannot maintain itself, or into mere Indifferentism. For indeed we only know freedom as moral choice under conditions not of our own making, and beyond our control. The difficulty for thought is not that evil is possible, but that it is actual ; and the form which the conscious- ness of it takes as involving guilt and hence responsi- bility proves the existence of moral freedom, beyond and beneath which our thoughts cannot go. There is neither guilt nor sin unless man be morally free ; and yet we see that the perfection of freedom admits of no alternatives, of no choice, and so takes the form of Determination, but is Self-determination. There is no human being but knows that it is his preroga- tive (sublime and terrible indeed, yet which gives the highest notion of the elevation of his idea), if he will, to isolate himself, to be a law to himself, to with- draw from the universal harmony. Whether, indeed, he can isolate himself from all environment, and con- SANCTIFICA TION. 67 stitute a world within himself ; or whether, if he can- not, such relation to the environment can be thought as still supplying the conditions for his recovery, is again a problem of Eschatology, which will be con- sidered hereafter. The Sanctification of the will is not thought rightly, then, as respecting a part of our being, but the whole of it. We may call it holy, as having the holy end, and having the only true, sufficient, and permanent motive-spring, but it is still in the midst of influences which solicit it astray ; to quell these and to harmonize all solicitations, so that the will shall represent the rectified and symmetrized nature, is the work of our Sanctification. These tendencies of our being which constitute character, and determine the grades of actual holiness, spring from all its relations, mental, emotional, physical, and from all these in subtle and intricate combination, and the sanctifying recupera- tion must reach each of these elements. The provi- dential arrangement and the mystical influence must act upon mind or thought, upon heart or feeling, and upon body likewise, since it supplies determinations to thought and feeling. We know that to resist fleshly temptation weakens the solicitation of the flesh. They must also be such as we can understand, and such as we cannot understand or trace. But so far as they come within the sphere of knowledge, the men- tal influences are chief, and primary in our thought. Thought furnishes the motive-spring for action and the object of emotion, and the Divine remedy reaches the subject first through mental apprehension of the same, and the process of Sanctification begins with the recognition of the central truth. " Sanctify them 68 CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. through thy truth." God's truth alone, the revelation of the innermost secret of his being, can arouse the pure, strong, and permanent motive-spring, and initi- ate all the process which is to result in the liberation and perfection of the creature. Hence the conditions must be providentially supplied for the preservation, statement, and apprehension of that truth, and hence the Christian endeavor to respond to and make use of these, — to do what can be done to correct and improve all tentatives. Thus is exhibited a valid founda- tion for Christian dogma, and the need and vindica- tion of the Christian creeds. A dogma is but an attempt to fix in intelligible words the object-matter of faith, and is as much needed as laws and prescrip- tions are for objective morality ; and that the Chris- tian consciousness is for the most part agreed as to the chief dogmas is indubitable, even though to weave the whole into a coherent and self-consistent scheme be still an object of theologic endeavor. This is a process which, though it moves slowly, still moves, and thus Theology is a progressive science, adding new truth only, however, by making explicit what is already implicit. The result of Christian endeavor to keep the truth pure and unimpaired and to make its statement satisfying is productive, indeed, often of very poor results in Christian conduct, and this is the Christian's weakness and shame. The strengthening of the loving and sacrificial spirit beyond a few seems as slow as the clarification of the truth, but it is none the less real, and we can trace the steps of the prog- ress, and never more clearly and hopefully than in our own time. The rectification of Christian feeling, the purification and strengthening of brotherly love, SANCTIFICATION. 69 while still pre-supposing the secret guidance of the Holy Spirit, is seen to have been aided and hastened by the progressive clarification of Christian truth ; and thus Theology, in its advance, can react upon Christian conduct, and have practical worth. It may make the object-matter of faith more attractive, and thus strengthen the emotions, which become powerful sustentations in the religious life. Since the truth thus influences feeling as well as thought, and gene- rates habits, or confirms them, the impulses astray are in this way weakened or annulled, and those in har- mony with the providential end are strengthened, the very solicitations of the carnal mind are quieted, and thus the body itself becomes more and more an organ through which mystical influences may work. The vital processes assume more and more their right relation to the voluntary or conscious ones, and noth- ing is left behind, unthought of, or uncared for in the work of Sanctification. The body is the " temple of the Holy Spirit." The untraceable channels and bonds between our complex humanity and its source are purified and strengthened, and processes go on within us of which we are unaware, or of which we only have occasional and vanishing glimpses, all to issue in a result to which we shall wake up with sur- prise and wonder. We shall know ourselves. We shall see ourselves as God sees us. Our judgment will coalesce with his. We shall see God in Christ as an object of knowledge rather than of faith. We shall share the Divine Glory. I need hardly say that in the mind of the Apostle Paul Sanctification is thus thought to be complete, and of body, soul, and spirit. It is easy to see that any consequences of sins of 70 CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. infirmity or ignorance (the latter subjectively right though objectively wrong ; the former still subjec- tively as well as objectively wrong and coming from dizziness, and weakness remaining still, but followed at once by repentance, which thus shows that such sins have not sprung from the inmost heart or ar- rested the predominant upward tendency) must be consumed and disappear in the blaze of this sanctify- ing process. While they continue they react upon Christian motives and become purifying, but they go on to their extinction, and thus the Divine pardon is made real. The Christian is still held and treated as the just one, having alien elements to be eliminated. All Christians know that their tribulation work- eth patience, and that this contentedness to suffer and contentedness to wait is an exercise of faith which is strengthening and sanctifying, and accom- plishes at length experience, or insight into the Di- vine meaning and immediate purpose, which is a boon to faith and confirms it not by trial, but by the reward of success under trial, by blessing rather than by chastening, and that as the result of this harmony of thought with feeling, hope takes wing and soars in the upper air. To sum up then : Justification is the name of the timeless or ideal relation between God and the Chris- tian believer. It becomes real and knowablc in the time-processes of the Remission of sin, or the vanish- ing of the consequences of the same, and of Sanctifi- cation, or progressive holiness, — which, too, condition and imply each other, and, so far as the Divine activi- ty is concerned, may be regarded as one process. And all is due to the work of Christ, reaching on the SANCTIFICA TION. yi Cross its perfect liberating and exalting efficacy ; and Faith, as the joint act of God and man is the media- ting principle between the Atoning sacrifice and these results. There is a secondary or relative sanctification which it may be well to consider. Nothing but a spiritual being can be holy in the strict sense, but whatever is prescribed or set apart as means to the grand provi- dential end, the commonwealth of holy souls, may be said to be consecrated, and thus relatively holy. We thus speak of the Holy Church, regarding it as a visible organization rather than as an organism truly living, united and animated through the mystical bond of union with Christ, even though this visible organi- zation may be full of imperfection, and but partially represent the requirements of the organism. We speak of the Holy Sacraments as rites thus prescribed to be means and media, and one of them a mode of worship. And so inanimate things, thus consecrated, may be called holy. No mistake as to the meaning of the term in such connection is likely, as long as the primary signification of the word is understood. It even comes to pass that the whole body of the selected ones is called holy simply from their provi- dential selection, and even the unworthy individual, as included in it, may receive the epithet. The Apos- tles evidently did not undertake to discriminate, ex- cept in instances of manifest apostacy, and called all believers holy. For, as I have said, it is out of the scope of human knowledge to judge of the degrees of progress of the Christian believers with trustworthy accuracy. The Divine judgment would probably re- verse or modify half the human judgments in this 72 CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. particular. Even in our common experience great emergencies bring us great surprises, and the man of seeming integrity shows himself a failure, and the unsuspected one often a hero. To pronounce, then, that any Christian has progressed so far in the Divine life as to be absolutely indefectible, or that any one is beyond all hope of recovery, is to usurp the Divine judgment. The Roman Church is logical in claiming that the evidence of such indefectibility is power over nature, and to work miracles ; and so she asks for evidence, and does not claim intuitive insight. How cautious she has been in this respect we know not. But only by admitting the claim thus rightly to decide, can we think that this separation of Christian believ- ers into two classes, of saints par eminence, and saints by courtesy, or saints in embryo, has any validity. The New-Testament writers do not use the word in these differing senses. With them all believers and professors of Christ are holy, with no exception made except an abstract one. No individual receives from them absolute condemnation and rejection. Even Simon Magus has held before him the possibility of repentance and forgiveness. They, like their Lord, ever prefer to contemplate Christian believers as one body, as members of the same ministering each to the health of each other and the perfection of the whole. Any thing like individual salvation even does not enter into their thought, and the ultimate perfec- tion waits to be bestowed till the whole number of the elect is made up. And thus is suggested the topic of such a selected body, — of individuals chosen out of the mass of man- kind to receive here on earth the gospel, and to con- SANCTIFICA TION. 73 stltute the Christian Church. This providential selec- tion, however, can only be thought rightly as part of a larger question, viz., that of the whole providential scheme for mankind as such. This is a problem quite distinct from that of the " eternal election " (so to phrase it), or the last ground of differing moral choice. The two must be considered, first, separately, and then be shown the relation, if any, between them. This then will be the order of the topics yet to be treated of, viz.: (1) The general doctrine of the Divine Providence, and the particular branch of it, the Providential selec- tion of those who are to constitute the Christian Church. (2) The relation of the same to the eternal election, or Predestination. (3) The Church, the body thus selected and organ- ized, and its essential marks. (4) How far the visible connection with the same accomplishes a true objective union with Christ, — or the Christian Sacraments. (5) The positive meaning, use, and obligation of other rites of worship, sacramental in a lower or larger sense. (6) An inquiry into the question of the need of a Ministry, and the further one of its constitution and mode of perpetuation. (7) The function of such ministry as administering the objective rites of the Church, and as having the cure of souls. (8) The function of the whole Church in preserving or clarifying the truth ; or, The Rule of Faith. (9) The design and issue of all this scheme, how 74 CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. far to progress visibly and here on earth, — one problem of Eschatology. (10) Other questions of Eschatology proper, the doctrines of Hades, of the Judgment, of Hell, and of Heaven. CHAPTER VIII. THE DOCTRINE OF PROVIDENCE. It has always been a difficulty for the mind, having reached a certain depth of reflection, that the alleged remedy for man's disorder was not extended nor uni- versal, was limited to a small number, and has even yet reached but a portion of humankind. If of Divine origin and springing from the Divine benevolence, why not have made it known to mankind in some un- mistakable way, or at least have provided the condi- tions for its rapid spread. But since all duration is relative, if any thing short of immediate intuition were the method, there would the same objection lie to any period whatever, relatively brief or long. But again it may be thought that the gospel offer might have come within the compass of every human life at such time as was best adapted to its moral recovery. Some have thought to annul this objection by reflecting that earthly life does not comprise the sum of human ex- istence, and that the gospel offer may indeed be made at the best point of every human career, either before or after death. This scheme will presently be care- fully examined. But indeed the question, being what it is, has given rise to many opinions, hastily formed, as affording an immediate solution. Thus some have identified the providential selection with the absolute or eternal election, as God's work bound to issue 75 76 CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. successfully, and we have a doctrine of absolute, arbitrary, and unconditioned Predestination ; as the result of which the rest of the human race have been swept into an indiscriminate category of condemnation and reprobation. But since this can only be held as a logical deduction a priori, from premises isolated from all relation, and themselves conclusions from im- perfect a posteriori induction, others have sought to make a distinction between those seemingly neglected, exempting from this condemnation all such as God's interference had reached in anticipatory and imperfect form, and besides these, all such as, under purely natural conditions, have attained moral rectitude ; but still, in either case, leaving a residuum, who seem to have been uncared for, and who therefore have no opportunity of escaping from the condemnation which exists already. Thus the universality of the atoning work of Christ has been made to consist in a mere abstract relation, a possibility for thought merely, but having no concrete reality. Others again, shocked by the assertion that those who have made, under limited knowledge indeed, but still a right moral choice, should still through ignorance of Christ have missed their salvation, have avowed such salvation possible for them, but have severed it from any knowledge of him or connection with him ; thus leaving for thought two modes of human recovery, and two or more species of emancipated souls. It seems to the present author that it is not difficult to unify these differing schemes, by discovering the truth in each, and setting them in right relation, — to find secure ground on which to tread, or if there be an hiatus for thought insoluble, manifestly and clearly to bound it. THE DOCTRINE OE PROVIDENCE. 77 Indeed, the whole question of the limitation of the gospel offer is merged in the larger one of the Divine Providence. Besides this particular limitation, it is unquestioned that there are other inequalities of human conditions quite as difficult of explanation, other modes, hence, of Divine treatment which are seemingly arbitrary and without meaning, and that the minute adaptation of this treatment to the moral needs of the individuals concerned is undetectable, except by such occasional and transitory glimpses as still keep faith in it alive. Some, indeed, profess that they can find no such adaptation, no moral meaning to human life, and regard men, as they regard the stocks and stones, as under the sway of physical forces only. They think that nature is a Juggernaut, crush- ing or sparing her victims only as they have not or have wit enough to elude her, or* by some diversion of force entirely accidental escape her infliction. Such a philosophy issues necessarily in a Pessimism, and man is of all creatures most to be pitied, since he knows his mournful lot, as other creatures do not, and all his struggles to escape it are necessarily vain. And others again, noticing that moral ends furnish the motives from which man endeavors after and ob- tains his imperfect and transitory domination over nature, hold to some dimly seen result to which the stream of tendency runs, and reach in thought and imagination some sort of a moral commonwealth, the outcome of improved inherited instincts, but still existing in the midst of hostile nature, and still there- fore requiring sacrifice. But no imagination of moral perfection can be reached by this scheme of thought while nature remains still not correspondent, since 78 CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. her imperfection issuing in disordering and destroying influences must act upon the instincts, and start again the selfish and self-preserving tendencies, so that moral perfection still remains far off. Did this scheme superadd and find ground for the making of nature also changeful, and correspondent to the moral attain- ment, it would have taken a step towards the removal of the still remaining contradiction, — but there would still remain for thought and imagination the terrible holocaust of human victims, by whose failure and misery this ultimate immunity would have been pur- chased and reached. These would still have been immolated for no other result than to furnish occasion for more undisturbed enjoyment for certain genera- tions of no more absolute worth than their own ; and these still liable to retrogression, and the rein- statement of the same disordered conditions, — being thus but the smoother part of a cyclical movement. The principle that underlies and binds together the moments of both these schemes of thinking is either logico-physical, or purely physical. If any thing more be admitted, there is no rest for the retreating mind till it reaches the conclusion that man is not to be ex- plained and his destiny forecasted by studying nature and her forces, and himself as a part of nature, but by studying him in his higher aspect, as a spiritual soul with aspirations boundless, thus with spiritual in- stincts, so to speak, as real as the instinct of hunger. This hesitancy to hold a moral meaning to human life, and a moral intent in the movements of nature, thus a providential scheme, is the result of a phi- losophy founded on a partial induction, and confining itself to the a posteriori processes. But if there are THE DOCTRINE OF PROVIDENCE. 79 synthetic judgments a priori (as Kant contends), then a posteriori processes cannot be thus abstracted, indeed as purely such do not exist. If all experience contains an a priori element, this too might be ab- stracted as a starting-point, and on it founded a philosophy. But this too concretely is never purely such, as we have shown, and experience as a synthesis of both determinations is alone a valid starting-point for deduction and further knowledge. It has been in this work claimed, and endeavored to be shown, that in human consciousness, thus and always a complex synthesis, there is implicit in pure form the principle of causality, and that too accompanied by, or rather enveloped in, the feeling of complacency ; thus that the idea of origin, of thought, and of love, is one idea, incapable of separation — or the idea of God, — and is implicit in the essential structure of the human mind, needs only to be disentangled by analysis, and ever persists, though multifariously disguised. It belongs to this idea from its very definition and constitution to show in itself the possibility, and to contain the explanation of all existence. In no human con- sciousness is this Principle non-existent. The ma- terialist seizes some elements of it, and thus acknowl- edges these as valid, while conveniently neglecting the others, and so fails therefrom to account for that which is highest and best in himself. The pure idealist seizes other elements of it, and fails there- from to account for, or fritters into nonentity, the visible, tangible universe. When man begins to think logically, of necessity he posits his First Principle, and the validity of this must be tested by the results, the truth of it by the coherence and self-consistency of 80 CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. the entire round of alleged knowledge. There is no other proof than this possible, — that all knowledge, nothing omitted, can be woven into a self-coherent whole, and so long as any loose connection inheres, or there is any hiatus, proof is imperfect. Logic, in the common meaning of the word, is untrustworthy. It deals with propositions only. An antecedent dia- lectic is the summit of human attainment, that which deals with concrete existence, and aims to discover its essence. As long, therefore, as there is any unsolved residuum, the proof, and all proof is imperfect. If the mystery of moral evil be in itself insoluble for human intellect at the present stage of its progress, it is such a residuum, and in consequence all proof what- ever is imperfect, and not secure from assault, which all man's mental history shows. Therefore faith is still the indispensable thing, upon which every mind is forced to fall back ; and man adopts his First Princi- ple, not as the result of any demonstration, but according to processes not fully discoverable yet grounded upon subtle moral conditions. As long as the differing moral choice exists on the earth, deter- mining the mental trend, there will be mental differ- ences and disputes among mankind. " An evil heart of unbelief " does not consist simply in denying the Christian revelation as such (that may be done by a heart not evil, and having the essential elements of faith, yet recoiling from a faultily presented Christian- ity), but in denying the validity of moral distinctions, and that not by mental avowal merely, but in conduct. Having thus posited our First Principle, and lodged in it for our thought the possibility of and the condi- tions for all existence, — for nature, or the physical THE DOCTRINE OF PROVIDENCE. 81 process ; for thought, or the spiritual one ; for love as the mediation of the two, — then in following out de- duction from the same a priori, we reach a doctrine of Providence, with which a posteriori indications may not for our present understanding accurately coalesce, but which they cannot controvert. It must follow that one purpose runs through all created existence. There is nothing arbitrary or groundless, and such a word as chance is meaningless and unthinkable. Of all which science is confirmative, in its conclusion of the unity of all force, and correlation of its forms. To a certain extent we can follow the manifestation of the hierarchy of ideas, or succession of mechanical, chemical, and vital forces. We see that there has been no waste in the physical realm, but that all is orderly and connected. At a certain stage of the evolution we find the moral element which has to be unified with what went before. It is made possible by spiritual relations, of all creatures man's sole pos- session and prerogative, and through which we dis- cover a new relation to the physical, which thus is found to have spiritual adaptation. It is adapted to his thinking power, and his thought to it, and thus acquires a new meaning. Regarded as physical merely the universe cannot explain him, but he must explain it. He is a complex and wonderful creature, full of aspirations and hopes. It belongs to a rational doctrine of evolution that it can only be understood in its ultimate stage, in its highest outcome, and man, with all his imperfection, is the ultimate yet reached, and has in himself indications and possibilities of still higher modes of existence. Whatever other ends the universe may have, possibly to be discovered, it now Vol. II. 82 CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. serves humanity, conditions his development, fur- nishes his enjoyment, and, since it is thus adapted to the lowers wants of his being, we may rightly infer that it is adapted to the higher ones as well, and that his environment is correspondent to the degree of his spiritual elevation, and may or must change with any change in the kind of the same. But as men are not like minted coins, monotonously alike, but each one is a distinct and unique combina- tion of powers, impulses, and proclivities, in every par- ticular case so complex as to escape accurate knowl- edge, and even self-knowledge ; since the more the in- dividual soul is searched into by thought, unsuspected traits and possibilities are discovered, unknown depths past all sounding ; as thus human conduct eludes human prediction, and human character often disap- points, — therefore it must follow that the adaptation of the environment to the needs of the subject must make it different in each particular case. So intricate a creature is man, that if indeed the environment were accurately adapted to the spiritual needs of each indi- vidual subject, to accomplish his elevation, it could not be seen and displayed to the human mind, except in such occasional glimpses as sufficed to save the belief in it from extinction. But that the total environment is perfectly and exquisitely adapted to the needs and progressive elevation of every human being, and that all human interference with the same amounts to naught, but is overruled, and its consequences caught up into the stream of Providence, and therein har- monized, is a valid deduction from the idea of the First Principle which has been posited. This is cer- tainly the teaching of Jesus Christ, and of the New- THE DOCTRINE OF PROVIDENCE. 83 Testament writers ; than which philosophy nowhere shows any thing more logical, profound, and trust- worthy. " The very hairs of your head are num- bered." " Not a sparrow falleth to the ground with- out your Father." " All things work together for good to them that love him." It will follow strictly from these premises, then, that in spite of all appearances the treatment which every human soul receives at the Divine hands is precisely and accurately suited to his particular needs, and to the Divine universal purpose. God has indeed loosened from himself the spiritual soul, and committed to him the task of his determina- tion, and does not control his moral choice, but fur- nishes every condition that it maybe the right one, and made at the right time. But He has not loosened from himself any thing else, or man in any other element or relation of his being ; and whatever man does, be it morally good or evil, He makes to blend into and ac- complish his designs, as truly as He controls the out- bursts of the great physical convulsions. There is no difficulty for thought in all this, and even experience furnishes confirmation, and evidence for the conclusion that the recuperative powers of the universe were primal, are, as a rule, paramount, and that in these rather than in the retrograding and destructive ones is its explanation. Any difficulty for thought arises only when we attempt empirically to vindicate the thesis and square the treatment of Providence to human needs. Here inequality and injustice seem to prevail. Irrespective of moral char- acter, some are so favored with conditions for enjoy- ment, for culture and growth, for the starting and progress of religious and moral influences, — and others 84 CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. seem so neglected, degraded, and wretched, that if there is any discrimination, any meaning or fitness in all this, the understanding and imagination fail to discover and behold it, and one is tempted to think that after all physical and blind forces are paramount, that all is an accident, and that there is no connection between them and man's moral life. Here arises the conflict of faith ; here is most frequently assaulted the steadfastness of Christian belief. It seems that indeed " His ways are past finding out," or else that there are no ways, and that man is simply a cowering creature in the midst of physical tempests, from which some few only have escaped, and secured a temporary im- munity ; and so an ethic of expediency becomes the rule of life. But we have seen that trustworthy knowledge of human character is unattainable, that facts often scatter our theories and our judgments, that man proves to be a creature with undiscoverable relations ; and if so, how can we confidently and safely judge of the suitableness for him of his environment ? Surely if each human one is a unique combination of traits, impulses, tendencies, and possible deliberate resolves, and these too in contest with each other, with fluc- tuating victories, — if the contradiction of moral evil has variously strengthened the selfish and carnal im- pulses, and suggested remote purposes, — if thus, when we strive to understand this arena of conflict, all runs into confusion and dimness, like the view of a battle beneath the smoke, — if thus we despair of understand- ing the outbreaks of the disease, though we know what that disease is, how can we expect to under- stand the apportionment of the treatment, the mode THE DOCTRINE OF PROVIDENCE. 85 of application of the remedy, though we know what that remedy is and must be ? If our idea of the First Principle be true and validly held, there can be no valueless human soul, no meaningless human life. The possibilities of growth and elevation of the Australian savage make him of greater worth in our regard than any burnt out orb, or undeveloped planet, thought of in itself alone. These are ineradicable and profound instincts, beliefs, or conclusions which man does not repress and cannot extirpate, that as a thinking and enjoying or suffering soul he has value above any material combination, that his life has meaning, that he is more than a mote in the sun- beam, living its little moment of enjoyment, that even his agony is not without meaning, and shows him in its exquisiteness to be intended for other ends than the mote. The very efforts of those who con- tend for a Godless philosophy imply their conviction of their own higher use and intent, otherwise their efforts would not be worth their own regard, would not indeed be prompted. In this conflict of faith and unfaith, of a priori de- duction with a partial induction, there is relief found for some by regarding man's earthly life as only the first stage of his career, but with other conditions of experience in prospect ; and hence that his meaning cannot be discovered by studying only his earthly career. This resort, however, can be so dealt with as to deprive his earthly career of meaning. Though each man be indeed a unique synthesis of the same elements, all men are still essentially alike. The uniqueness is in the combination and the creative schema, but the elements or factors are alike in every 86 CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. case. If then, life has meaning for some, it must have it for all. If some are morally responsible, all are. If some have sinned, all have sinned. If recov- ery be possible for some, it must be possible for all. Man's immortality cannot be conditional, or he could not be held responsible, and could not be convicted of sin, as we have heretofore shown. Therefore not only has his earthly life intent and meaning, but this meaning cannot be fully discovered and related, ex- cept by considering the possible stages of his career after death. And here may be found some relief for our thought from the painful perplexity we fall into when dealing with the doctrine of the Divine Provi- dence. But here, while we have avoided on one side the Scylla of conditional immortality, we find yawning on the other the Charybdis of the notion of probation after death. This seems to resolve the problem, at first glance, but a second one convinces us that it is too easy a solution, and had at too great a cost. If man be an immortal being he must be capable of endless development and expansion. But this devel- opment is, for our thought, necessarily marked into three distinct stadia. First, that of existence on the earth, in which, through connecting media, he receives determinations from the material universe, and from the realm of pure spirit, and determines himself through them, and his consciousness is ever more complex, and his character progressive. Second, that of existence after death, which implies continued con- sciousness, but consciousness from another centre, and through other media, in which is implied a change of relation to the physical universe, as well as to the spiritual realm, but not an abandonment of either. THE DOCTRINE OF PROVIDENCE. 87 And third, the ultimate existence, with its related consciousness, having in it the sum of essential rela- tions, and these harmonized, ideal and normal. As such it is still progressive, and there must be found for it a sphere of activity, and the conditions for end- less expansion. The essential idea and meaning of the first stadium, if it be any thing more than physical growth and decay, any thing more than animal existence, or any thing more than mental acquisi- tion which has only immediate worth and no perma- nent use, must be that it is the occasion and the sphere of putting such acquisition to use, i. e., relating it to an end, which end can be nothing other than one or the other moral alternative, and thus its intent is his moral probation, otherwise his moral consciousness exists in vain, and there are before him only pruden- tial alternatives ; and in such case no absolute and eternal law is violated by him, and he cannot be con- victed of sin for preferring the immediate and certain delight to the remote and problematical one ; — or else the moral consciousness must be thought as never presenting an alternative, as undergoing immediate or slow yet inevitable obliteration. This scheme issues in or implies the denial that the moral con- sciousness is universal, and introduces a sharp-dividing line between the individuals of the human race, quite other than the Christian and heathen. We have be- fore sought to show that such moral consciousness is universal, that moral alternatives are possible for all, that this is the meaning of human life and environ- ment, moral probation, whatever else it be. The moral decision, consciously or unconsciously made, marks the beginning trend of the creature either 88 CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. towards the perfection and harmony of the common- wealth, or towards isolation and independency, thus towards pure evil. It is not satisfactory to think that man's life on the earth may be a mere vacillation be- tween these two conflicting tendencies, never decided in favor of one or the other, for this supposes that the environment is not sufficient to make one responsible for the moral choice, and responsibility disappears as a universal predication. We can in that case argue for a portion of mankind only alternatives of expedi- ency. This arbitrary division of the human race is a superficial expedient. Rather, the conviction is in- wrought in human nature, and, however dimly, it is still really felt in every case that selfishness and in- dependency contradict the idea, the law, and the in- tent of the human life. However limited in knowl- edge, the human subject cannot remain stationary, but connects himself sooner or later to one or the other alternative ; the character forms and strengthens in one direction or the other, and, in spite of retrogres- sions moves forward accordingly. This was indubita- bly the opinion of the Apostle Paul, who regarded the heathen as having a law in themselves, and to be judged by a purely moral standard. The right moral choice does not indeed necessarily issue in perfection or salvation, any more than Chris- tian belief does in every case, but it ensures that the conditions of grace will be supplied that it may so issue. Hence it will still remain true that none can be saved but through the sacrifice of Christ, through the knowledge of Christ, and by the power of the Holy Spirit. It is implied in this thesis that none pass out of THE DOCTRINE OF PROVIDENCE. 89 this life without having, however obscurely and un- discoverably, determined their relation to the moral law, whether it take the shape of moral prescription or moral instinct. This is held on grounds both a priori and a posteriori. It avoids the dilemma of thinking human life to have no meaning, and lifts us beyond an ethic of expediency. The moral character shows itself so unmistakably as soon as the soul is sufficiently developed to furnish indications of it, as to induce even the suspicion that it had been pre- determined. Here indeed is a blank wall, a mystery, to account for the wrong and deliberate moral choice, the reversal of the primary and profoundest instincts of our being. It is an act so irrational, that to hold that it never takes place is not without ground and plausibility. Yet it is a corollary of human freedom, and seems to have sufficient a posteriori evidence. What further conclusions may be reached, if we re- gard this choice of evil as not only possible but actual, we will consider hereafter. If we run back in our mental history we shall convince ourselves more and more how very early we suffered the temptations to selfishness or the impulses to sacrifice to prevail, even though later, when terrified by the former, we threw ourselves deliberately into the latter. So early seems sometimes to have been this yielding as to start even the thought that the decisive point in our moral his- tory belongs to that remote period when self-con- sciousness became first fully manifest, or to some time not remotely subsequent, when the impulsive period was over, and ends and motives were formed, either prudential or sacrificial. In early life we do not re- flect upon our own choice, and thus forget or are hardly aware that we have made a choice. 90 CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. The real difficulty still remains, however, which is, what to think of souls cut loose from the earthly en- vironment before the period of self-conscious choice and responsibility arises. If these are thought as entirely and essentially human, and not as constituting another order of souls (which notion violates the idea of an organic humanity), it must follow that the moral perfection of such is still to be, through their own act and the conditions for moral choice supplied, hence that the environment after death must be such as to awaken self-consciousness. The principle of freedom or self-determination would be violated to think that moral perfection and blessedness are thrust upon them as purely passive. In such regard they could not be thought as human. Rather the conditions and the impetus for endless self-development are in every infant human soul as such. No physical development, even the earliest, goes on as a purely physical process. It is determined ab initio from the spiritual element implicit in it. This germ has vitality which cannot perish, as does every other germ not irradiated from the spirit realm. There must then be development before it still, after the brief earthly passage, though under another environment. Following our a priori method, there must be for such also an environment wisely and precisely adapted to the unique synthesis of traits or inchoate character derived through heredity and brief earthly experience. Can we think for such, then, that the moral relation is to be de- termined after death, and that for such only there is a future probation ? If so, we should have sufficient warrant in thought for extending such probation, and making it comprise not only the undeveloped infants, THE DOCTRINE OF PROVIDENCE. 91 but the imbeciles and the lowest savages. But here would recur again the former difficulty for thought, viz.: that for such earthly life has no meaning. They cannot be regarded as mere animals, under a scheme of conditional immortality, and sure, like the animal, to sink into extinction, — for the spiritual soul, how- ever clogged, still exists, and shows that it existed whenever any clog whatever is removed. In it and before it is still the possibility of endless development. If then there were any a posteriori evidence at hand and confirmatory, there would be no hindrance to still holding to our a priori conclusion, that even in such cases the moral trend is in this life determined, and, through mystical influence, as in all cases whatever, such determination sure to issue in self-determina- tion, foreseen by God and the environment adapted accordingly. This simply locates the will back of the point of clear self-consciousness, and uses the word to represent the rudimentary consciousness, which last has spiritual elements. Hence the inference that infants dying are on the way to perfection, since the knowledge of God's love in Christ is sure to reach them, under the coming environment, and that, not to be possibly rejected, but sure to be welcomed, and to carry them to the ideal end. This supply of the highest possible motive-spring, in every case needful for perfection, is not probation, but elevation. The evidence a posteriori for this position is indeed wanting, since the conditions do not exist for the analysis by human thought of the infant-conscious- ness. Yet it is not impossible to detect essential differences between it and the purely animal con- sciousness. Here is a field for future study. Such a 92 CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. speculation as the above lands us in no contradiction, but is helpful in harmonizing the entirety of our thought. We have not so much a logical difficulty to surmount as imperfect knowledge to confess. The general conclusion is, that if human life has a meaning, and this be that it is the occasion of moral probation, or determining the moral trend, then, since God is all-wise and all-loving, the treatment of every spiritual soul by him is that precisely adapted to his particular needs ; and we have thus the providential scheme. Then, the inequality of human conditions is not the result of accident, that is, brought about by physical forces only or purely such, but these are still means and media to spiritual ends. Thus every individual soul has its place and intent in the Divine scheme. The moral scheme conceals no more mystery than the abstractly physical one. If they exist in relation and the latter is the subordinate, the con- clusions reached above are irrefragable. They can only be successfully avoided by abandoning the principle, and in despair exalting the physical to supremacy, in which case hope, and all clear and con- soling thought even, plunge into the pessimistic abyss. That there is such a wise and loving adaptation of the environment to the needs of the Christian believer is, undisputedly, the teaching of Jesus Christ and his Apostles. By parity of reasoning, having admitted his claim, and by extending into concrete humanity the efficacy of his sacrificial Atonement, the same must be true of every human being, — that he is the object of the Divine Love, and no alien, — a possi- ble member of the ultimate organism, and not uncared for meanwhile. Observation, imagination suggest per- THE DOCTRINE OF PROVIDENCE. 93 petual doubts of all this, and thus leave it still insecure for thought, except in the grasp of faith. Because of these doubts we have other explanations aiming to bring the question within the sphere of understanding. But they fail to satisfy. Through them the unity of thought, which seemed to be gathering into fixedness, is loosened again, and hence they are less rational than the above a priori scheme, which harmonizes with Christian faith, and the dogmatic utterances of Christendom which have maintained persistence. These hold men universally responsible and charge them with sin. These hold to a universality in the application of the Divine remedy. These deny an in- evitable reprobation, and make salvation possible for all. These decline to assert any condemnation for infants or imbeciles. These assert that there is no salvation but through the work of Christ, and from the knowledge of Christ. These declare an all- wise Providence. These make faith still essential, and do not admit such knowledge to be possible as will make it needless. All which declarations persistently maintained by the preponderant Christian thought, yet often inconsistently or obscurely related, it is contended, are harmonized by the scheme thus far set forth; which thus, it is claimed, has speculative support, and is intrinsically rational and trustworthy, according to the only valid method of proof ; and which, it is believed, was implicit in the mind of the New-Testa- ment writers, and might have exegetical support. And still further light upon and confirmation of such scheme may be had by considering speculatively the second stadium of human development — existence after death. CHAPTER IX. THE SCHEME OF PROVIDENCE AS EXTENDED INTO POST-MORTAL EXPERIENCE. We have maintained that the significance of human earthly life is that it is the sphere of moral probation and the initiation of moral development. It is now maintained that the significance of the succeeding stadium is that it becomes a further and necessary stage of such development by being the occasion and the condition of se If- k7iow ledge ; that the environment is such as to remove the obscurations which exist for such self-knowledge in the earthly life, (which have their use, as being needful for the production, disci- plining and strengthening of faith,) and to make the clear vision possible. That the existence after death for the individual soul, and for the aggregate of souls, is a mere repetition with modifications of earthly ex- perience, as crude thinking is prone to regard it, is a conclusion for which there is no evidence. The con- necting link, which only we know, between the soul- consciousness and the material universe, the bodily organism, exists no longer. And if we think the soul to fashion for itself some other organism, (since we cannot regard it as utterly out of relation to the uni- verse,) we must infer radical difference in this medium, and not without warrant import into it any of the rela- tions which have been discarded. Speculation needs 94 THE SCHEME OF PROVIDENCE. 95 to move here with very cautious tread to maintain secure foothold. There is comparatively little diffi- culty in thinking and imagining existence after the resurrection and bodily glorification, which is the attainment, and the instatement, of the ideal relation between spirit and matter, when the morally perfected soul fashions for itself a body " like to his own glorious body," and finds all the material of the universe fluent and subservient. But the intermediate relation is one upon which imagination can lay no hold, and we are left to the results of pure thinking, aided, however, by statements of facts, possibly contained in the Christian Scriptures, which may confirm our inferences. That consciousness after death is measurably freed from time limitations, and mounts, at least, above the slowness of brain-movements, many things in our actual expe- rience render probable, as in the alertness of psychi- cal movement in dreaming, when time seems so far reduced to a minimum, as to arouse even the suspi- cion that it may not exist at all for the post-mortal consciousness, — and from the fact that in dreams events take the form of visions, and occur in spatial rather than in temporal succession, and thus lapse into a kind of intuition. However this may be, if the post- mortal consciousness is freed from the perturbation and perplexities of the phenomenal world, and has sunk nearer to the centre whence alone every thing is known in its true idea and essential relations, then thus the conditions external for self-knowledge exist ; — then time-limitations may be thought to be so far removed as that the entire flow of earthly experience is held in one vision, in a present consciousness, in which all the earthly past is discoverable and knowa- 96 CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. ble, so that the subject can come at length to under- stand himself. Here then, if time is still retained in thought as the condition of created existence, and as involved in the idea of development, the experience of the subject is no longer the experience of an outer and phenomenal world, but of an interior and real one. Not that the phenomenal has not reality, but as sub- jectively apprehended it is only imperfectly real. The full knowledge of it as real requires the knowledge of it as ideal ; and we may think that such knowledge can be had only under such condition of serenity wherein the outer disturbance has been hushed, and its changes and alternations have retired from the experience. Thus we can think no possibility of such action as is required of us now, no spheres to choose between, no set of relations to the external which can become habits, and thus react upon the moral status. Moral growth will derive from the internal, and will be had by contemplation, and not by action. Motives will have sunk back to their spiritual form, and will not respect the outer world, but the soul it- self in its character, and other souls in the same. Love for other conscious souls, and desire for their sake, as well as for one's own sake to coalesce with them, or repulsion from them, must still exist, and determine the consciousness, but will not take the shape of such activities as the phenomenal world renders needful. They may long for each other's perfection, and know- ing that results are still in the Divine hand, usurping no judgment of others, and knowing themselves to be progressive still, may pray for each other, and for the souls still abiding in the world, — or else we must think the sense of fellowship, and the desire for it, or THE SCHEME OF PROVIDENCE. 97 for any other than the mere negative attitude, to have expired, and that the soul must shrink back upon itself, and experience in itself the desired indepen- dence, which is the essential idea of spiritual evil. Under such conditions we do not see how a moral or religious probation is any longer possible, since there are no alternatives of action, the choice of which may create the good or the evil relation. That a soul removed from earthly experience, or having had no earthly experience, and knowing of no consequence of its choice, can be called upon to love or not to love, is not only unthinkable for the reasons above given, but the offer is needless, since it has determined itself, or has been determined already upon the earth, and the moral relation consciously or unconsciously cre- ated. It is already loving or unloving from the fore- gone conditions. If the knowledge of Christ comes, and the Love of God appeals as a new spring to its moral energy, and new light for its moral growth, the free acceptance of the same is already secured, either by its having already in the earthly career responded to the fainter intimations of the Divine Love and the Divine Will, or because its native structure is such that it will surely so respond, — or else it has by its own will and previous determination lost the desire and the power so to respond. In this latter case we can only think its moral recovery possible by supposing other and unknown influences ; in which supposition we run the risk of implying that it is rescued in spite of itself, and by the annihilation of its freedom : all which constitutes an arbitrary classification of the members of the human race, and forfeits its organic unity. The difficulties for speculation here are very Vol. II. 98 CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. great, and notions of transmigration intrude them- selves (as they have done plentifully in human thought), but these are slippery stays and have no evidence (and in Eastern thought the proof is not speculative but alleged to be empirical). What diffi- culty remains unsurmountable we see reduces itself in a last analysis, to the old problem, the origin and nature, and hence the destiny, of moral evil. And secure speculation here is not to be hoped for, and we have pushed it to the farthest possible limit, be- yond which is the utter darkness. The knowledge of Christ and the Divine Love shown in the sacrifice of Christ is indeed necessary to call forth the sufficient response, the alone motive- spring, which can arouse all the potentialities of the soul, and urge it to its perfection. Hence it is not arbitrarily true, or true by an arrangement that can be changed, that any soul can be saved only through the knowledge of Christ, but absolutely true, and that as a result of the unalterable constitution of the uni- verse, the condition for all created existence, which is no other than the constitution of the Godhead itself reflected in the created universe, whose design and intent is the highest possible creature. But the result for the soul of this knowledge is determined by its foregone moral decision. For all these reasons, probation after death cannot be allowed to enter into our scheme of thought, as not only rendering the earthly life meaningless, and introducing an arbitrary division in humanity, severing it, and losing the idea of it as an organism, but as in itself unthinkable and unimaginable except by pro- longing without warrant the conditions of the earthly life into the life after death. THE SCHEME OF PROVIDENCE. 99 All this has a bearing upon our doctrine of Provi- dence. In the midst of this seeming play of physical forces, and human interference with the same, God has his own plan, which He is securely and certainly accomplishing. The diversions of physical force for human subjective ends He can control, and does control as completely as He does the unmolested forces themselves. They are made to blend into and subserve the Divine design. This design is the per- fection of each and every individual soul, yet still by the respect of human freedom, — the completion of the moral organism, the commonwealth of love, and a universe correspondent. This design requires that the conditions for the moral recovery of every spirit- ual soul be supplied, so that it is possible ; and also that the environment be adapted in each particular case to accomplish this end, to secure, if possible, the right moral decision. It requires that the environ- ment be so adapted that the particular combination of traits in each individual which constitutes character shall be harmonized, yet so that when morally per- fected it shall still be unique and like no other. It requires also that the environment be so adapted as to bring into reality during the entire career all the potentialities for the utmost development and eleva- tion. It requires that the mystical influence to adapt the vital and physical changes to this progressive moral and religious development be incessant. In this various adaptation the earthly career in its fulness is selected for some. In others a career less complete, to be supplemented by post-mortal influences. All that can be done by Divine Love for every soul is done. All which is only saying in other words what ioo CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. Jesus Christ himself said, or is implied in what was said by him or his, — and thus we have the Christian doctrine of Providence, to hold to which, amid tempta- tion to think otherwise, and to act correspondingly, is the trial of faith. Such doctrine of Providence also explains, and rec- onciles us to the late beginning and slow spread of Christianity. In these respects it simply follows the analogy of God's manifest doings, which are every- where progressive. This is the unalterable fact, that the idea is only realized as man can follow and appre- hend it ; and man's own achievements in conquering nature and discovering her secrets is a necessary con- dition. We see how wondrously during the past three fourths of a century this human dominion over nature has been extended, increasing the speed of human progress a thousand-fold by the new channels of communicating thought. This is the distinctive peculiarity of our age ; and through it are provided the conditions for new speed and success in mission- ary enterprise. This could not have been before. Our very impatience over the slowness of Christian progress, and desire that all the Divine work should be summed up in some brief space of time, if it could be gratified, would cause it to run beyond our compre- hension, would deprive man of his proper share of it, and degrade him in the estimation of himself as an instrument, would dislocate the relation of the moral and physical, would indeed be a bar to human recovery, as lifting it above the necessity of faith, and furnishing no trial to strengthen it. CHAPTER X. THE CHRISTIAN ELECTION, AS CONSTITUTING THE CHURCH HOW RELATED TO THE ETERNAL ELECTION, OR PREDESTINATION. The providential selection or election of those who constitute the Christian Church is then no chance matter, but has its purpose and propriety. Its seem- ing limitations have benevolent significance. Only thereby can the loving zeal, the outcome of faith and the means of strengthening it, to extend Chris- tion knowledge and privilege, exist. Those who are not selected are not neglected, but it is incumbent upon the elected ones to give the knowledge of their own wealth, seeing that all these others must come to share it for their own perfection, — and to stop the ravages of evil on earth by infusing the principle of recovery, which is alone sufficient. Their effort to reform mankind from this interior principle is of the highest obligation, and they never desist in it, how- ever they are sometimes tempted to rely upon exter- nal, mechanical, and repressive means, which may or may not fall in with the Divine providential scheme. This last, so far as it can be wisely undertaken, is the province of the State and not of the Church. Time is only relative ; and if we find fault with the slowness of the spread of Christianity, we might on grounds as just find fault with it if it was not comprised within 102 CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. the limits of a single generation, or indeed accom- plished simultaneously for every human soul ; we might on grounds equally valid complain of the slow- ness of the improvement in the individual character. The present speed is comparatively as great for the larger man, the race, as it is for the lesser one, the individual ; and if in this latter case we find inequality in the speed of growth, we should expect to find it in the different races of the earth. In each case it is depen- dent upon external conditions, which we can in thought measurably supply, and upon secret influences which we cannot trace, yet often subsequently find to have been real and powerful. These ones, selected to constitute the visible body of believers in Christ, are the election of God, the Church, which is or should be a visible organization, abstractly and ideally identical with, though not yet concretely representing the organism of the new humanity in Christ. Therefore the visible election is not the same with the absolute and eternal election, or those who will be found to be perfected at the day of consummation. It must follow from all this that there must have been subjective fitness in those whom the gospel reaches, and who accept it, and also that there has been subjective fitness that the gospel offer shall have been made here on earth to those who reject it. The doctrine of absolute predestination, or eternal election, must then be so thought as to recon- cile any seeming contradiction between moral free- dom and Determinism. The first must be strenuously adhered to in order to maintain responsibility and the validity of the moral distinction. But likewise the predestination of the holy ones to their holiness and THE CHRISTIAN ELECTION. 103 their perfection is to be maintained, and is no denial of their freedom ; rather the method whereby formal is transmuted into real freedom. But the predestina- tion of the persistently evil ones to their inevitable unholiness and consequent failure to reach the ideal end cannot be maintained without contradicting the primum of moral freedom, without destroying the conception of guilt and leaving the sense of it unac- counted for, without making God the author of moral evil, and thus denying the absolute distinction, and enthroning as the First Principle a concrete power, to whose constitution love is not essential. The whole question of the actuality of moral evil and its destiny, if it can be thought to maintain itself in perpetuity, must be left in the obscurity in which we found it ; man only wastes his effort in attempting to solve it, and is mistaken in thinking its solution, if it could be had, would be a gain, not purchased by a greater loss. What speculations as to its destiny, if it can maintain itself persistently, can be made plausible, will be con- sidered in the proper place. What more can be said in this connection is this : All the difficulties and obscurations upon these topics have come from two sources, — either by hav- ing adopted some theory purporting to explain the existence of moral evil, or else from a false psychol- ogy, which regards the human will as something morally indifferent. Against which latter notion Determinism can always make its position good. The will is not indifferent. It is already, in the Divine idea, and in its innermost and structural pre- disposition, determined, and that Godward. This is the Divine Predestination, and the only form of the 104 CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. same which can be maintained without denying hu- man freedom. Thus the nature, in its idea and origi- nal trend, would flow, and that freely, towards good, were it not thwarted and turned aside by an alien or at least contradictory influence. Its flow towards good, becomes its own flow, and is made secure by its being placed in a sphere in which temptation and resistance are possible, thus affording the conditions for self-determination and the acquisition of spiritual' strength. This possibility of moral evil must exist for every human soul, but it may take for some the form of actual temptation, as for the progenitors of the human race and for a portion of their descendants ; or it may take for some the form of mere ideal presenta- tion, as for infants when awakening to self-conscious- ness, or as for angels, if we suppose probation for them. In such case the alternatives are purely spirit- ual, are dependence and independence, i. ^.,good and evil presented in pure form, and not mixed and disguised as in earthly experience. In one sense evil is meta- physically thinkable as possible for a free soul, but in another sense it is, when sufficient spiritual fibre has been attained, morally unthinkable. Freedom again is not indifferent. Formal freedom belongs only to the earthly sphere, and deals with mixed and actual temptation, while real freedom may be thought as in the post-mortal existence necessarily rejecting any ideal presentation of independence or unlovingness. Its real freedom, or its indefectible coalescence with the good principle, is made secure by the absolute law and method of all existence, the law of correspondence ; and is the Divine Predestination. But as mem- ber of the human stock, and as having shared in the THE CHRISTIAN ELECTION. 105 universal disease and its consequences, this law and method require that the remedy shall have been ap- plied, and been operative and sufficient, — the remedy purchased by the death of Christ, i. e., the setting in play the moral, mental, and physical forces which bring about the inward cure, and the outer corre- spondence. To hold a probation for infants after death would be to hold that rejection of good, and hence rejection of Christ, is still possible for them ; i. e., that they may choose evil without knowing of any attractiveness of it, except pure spiritual inde- pendence. It would be to think that no result of the Atoning- sacrifice of Christ has reached them, or that it has been inoperative and ineffectual, thus that no connection with him has ever issued ; — or else that they are so intrinsically and purely evil, that any holy influence could not reach them, that they are not afforded even the conditions of recovery which this life furnishes, and can only choose evil, and may choose evil in its pure and intensest form, of spiritual independence. Thus to think a post-mortal probation for infants implies a possible doctrine of reprobation, or predestination to evil, against which again is objected that thereby the foundation for all moral distinctions is undermined. We cannot therefore exempt such from the predestination to good ; and regarding the will as not indifferent, but as the focus- sing of the inborn character in consciousness, must regard such as having the right choice inchoate and involved in their very structure. On grounds, there- fore, as valid as human thinking can sink upon, while still admitting the insolvability of the problem of moral evil, (which obliges us to hold all truth whatever in 106 CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. faith, and makes all knowledge incomplete, as not uni- versally related in itself,) we may hold — that all men are predestined to good, to be attained, however, by their own spiritual effort, which is still, however, a form of the Divine activity ; that the impediments in the way of the success of such effort have been re- moved by the work of Christ, so that they are free and responsible still ; that for a portion of the hu- man race a conscious probation here on earth is chosen, involving a resistance to actual temptation, and rendering possible the right moral relation ; that such decide for themselves here on earth their moral tendency, and when the knowledge of Christ reaches them (as it must, or they can mount no higher in the scale of being), either welcome and feel the force of the motive-spring which it elicits, or else, and as result of their foregone earthly decision, find it uninflu- ential and inoperative. We are not forbidden (rather the New-Testament Scriptures on the whole warrant it) in our thought and imagination to reduce the num- ber of these to the lowest thinkable limit, knowing the untrustworthiness of human judgments ; though the possibility and hence the actuality of such a residuum, which has escaped the reformative influence, must still be retained in our thought. We may hold, also, that for another portion of the human race an earthly probation, in the form of de- liberate will choice has not been made needful. Rea- son being undeveloped and the conditions for such deliberate choice non-existent, the trend of their being through the original predisposition to good is main- tained, the result of the evil principle, working through their physical being and by the principle of heredity, THE CHRISTIAN ELECTION. 107 having been warded off and annulled by the mystical activity of the Holy Spirit, which too accomplishes their regeneration, or incorporation into Christ. Thus evil can be known to them only in its pure form, as an ideal presentation of a possible spiritual indepen- dence, and their rejection of it is spontaneous and already secured. This whole thesis, therefore, is founded on the belief, which experience rather than logic confirms, that human nature, however deeply diseased, is not so radically corrupt but that the recu- perative tendency is stronger than its contrary, and has been fostered by the whole scheme of Providence, the success of which was, however, secured, by the culminating exhibition of the Divine love, in the death of Christ. CHAPTER XI. THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH AS A VISIBLE ORGANIZATION. That the ultimate revelation of God in Christ should be signalized by the founding of a visible in- stitution is entirely in analogy with what had gone before. The human family, expanding into social life and government, and in which the state is implicit, is such an institution. It exists for physical security and comfort, to cultivate the benevolent sympathies, to secure beneficent undertakings and results, thus to multiply enjoyment, to hasten the subjugation of nature, to supply material for knowledge, to discipline the human will. Thus the family and the state have purposes which are in harmony with, and lead towards, moral ends. They tend, if not interfered with by hu- man selfishness, to secure, through mutual limitation, concession and sacrifice, a commonwealth of love and a favoring environment. But this interference from human perversity occurs, and thus society has perpet- ually to heal its own wounds, and the desired com- monwealth comes to seem far off, if not unattainable. Some positive principle, some new and stronger motive-spring, some unseen influence beside, must be supplied to secure success. We have the revela- tion of God in Christ as furnishing the motive-spring, and the new correspondent activity of the Holy Spirit. Thus between the Christian believers there 108 THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. 109 comes to exist a new bond and there is before them a new experience. There is needed thenceforth not only the sacrifice required for earthly comfort and improvement, but the sacrifice required for spiritual perfection and to propagate the new idea and the new influences. Those bearing the same relation to Christ must needs consociate, not only from sympathy in a common possession, but from the necessity which love has to satisfy itself by extending its objects, and that without waste of energy they may work together for the same end. The new human family has a new impulse, and its members need each other's support to be confirmed in the new relation. Thus emerges the idea of the Christian Church, which exists not only to extend itself, but to edify and elevate all within itself, not only by keeping fresh in their consciousness the new relation of mutual love, but the profounder tie of love to God, which symbolizes itself in adoration or worship, and is a further step towards the ultimate assimilation. As such a visible society, with manifold activity be- fore it, the Church needs organization, in order that its zeal may be wisely directed. It needs means to keep its treasure of truth essentially unimpaired, in order that its consciousness may be healthy and true, and thereby be ensured its own success. It needs means to build up the holy character, in order that this may become an attractive thing to the world regarding it, and secure its own extension. As moral truths guiding activity are kept fresh through the family, society, and state, so religious truths, moral in the deepest sense, are kept fresh and energetic through the Christian Church. If this be, as the others, a Divine institution, no CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. all practical morality must in consequence of it be re- thought ; since, if the ends and purposes of the Church respect all mankind, all life-plans for any individual must be made respective of these ends, and the whole career of activity thus determined. Man has not only, as before, to be honest and truthful and compassionate and beneficent, but he has to sacrifice much that the ends of the Church may be attained and the Divine will accomplished. If such a consociation is to have visibility and obli- gation it must have fixedness. It must be known to be what it is. Therefore it must have visible marks. It must be evidenced as existing to human sense and imagination as well as for human thought. It must be seen and known to exist not only ideally but really. Could its marks and tokens disappear or be changed at the caprice of men, it could not be identified. They must have such authority behind them as to secure their own permanence. Something more than pres- ent and individual human claim to represent it is needed to appeal successfully to human scrutiny. There must be historic continuity enough to evidence the fixedness and identity of what claims to be the society of believers in Christ, and having the Divine commission. But, on the other hand, there are reasons, spring- ing from the very nature and idea of the Christian re- ligion itself, why these visible marks and tokens should be as few as possible. This seems capable of demon- stration. The root idea of Christianity is love ; t. e., spontaneity, or activity from a pure and changeless yet free fountain. Because of the introduction of op- posing propulsions, and the resulting obscuration and THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. in bewilderment of the human mind and will, love needs for its regulation to have prescribed for it as its form, law, i. e., rules and maxims framed in accordance with the ultimate end, and the immediate end as relative to that. In default of human foresight, these maxims must either be prescribed ab extra, or else must be slowly and carefully reached and agreed upon. The farther mankind, or any individual of it is, through these contradictory propulsions, from the spontaneous fulfilment of what love requires and dictates, the more need is there of law ; the nearer one is to such free fulfilment, the less need of law. Mankind in its early stage of development, like the child, needs abundant prohibitions and prescriptions. These, if the develop- ment is healthy, become less needful, fewer, relax themselves, and by degrees become needless. The habit of obedience has become second nature, and by and by the time may come when the man can be trusted to his harmonized tendencies, having been in- wrought into a consistent synthesis. Thus love is the fulfilment of the law, and any prescription whatever is only legitimated as springing from the requirements of such love and its ideal end, and tending to issue in the realization of the same, the harmonized common- wealth. Thus the ordinances which in the infancy of society are required and are beneficial, by degrees be- come burdensome and needless. The Hebrew law, — that code of prohibitions and minute prescriptions, had its own purpose and use in training the people in obe- dience. It was a schoolmaster having care of his pupils till they should graduate into a higher insti- tution, where they might be freed from his multifarious rules and be measurably trusted to themselves. But ii2 CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. no such transition for the existing human being can be made suddenly or extensively, and law must still exist, though in a form of diminished complexity, and grow- ing simplicity. The moral law, more profoundly based now. since Jesus taught and died, and in conse- quence of the new personal relation to God now be- come possible, requires that a new adjustment of the concrete situation to the recipients of the gospel be made. Yet while maxims and ordinances are still needful, they too must undergo, as the principle of love strengthens and becomes more trustworthy, dim- inution and relaxing change as mere prescriptions. The welfare of Christian society, ideally, is to depend less upon these, and more upon its own loving im- pulses. This gradual diminution and relaxation, this merging into spontaneity, must attach also to the Church as an organization, so far as it makes real pro- gress in assimilation to its guiding principle ; while any retrogression is sure to be marked, and should be, by greater complication of law. To rule such change in one way or another is so delicate a task, that it is not to be wondered that Christian people and their guides should make many mistakes. Yet the principle holds good that any ordinances, maxims, advices, which are of human origin, and the result of necessa- rily imperfect foresight, no matter how wise and adapted to present needs they may be, can have in themselves no necessary permanency. The same human authority which at one time devised them and found them useful, may at another time find another set of ordinances indicated and more useful. The wisdom of any such change, however, may be questioned beforehand ; since it may have been rashly made, and THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. 113 from motives not free from suspicion ; and since by breaking or confusing the historic continuity of the organization, it may weaken the confidence of many and render identification more difficult. But still the principle holds true, that in the progress of Christian growth in the holy character the more and more law requires to be simplified. If ever the law of ordi- nances is by authority made to continue, when such simplification or greater laxity is indicated, it is sure to meet with resistance, to gender strife, and often is followed by rash disintegration or separation. Admit on the one side the progressive principle that all ordi- nances of human origin merely may require to be changed, or discarded when the occasion is sufficient, — and the strength of the conservative principle comes to be seen, that such change or rejection should be careful and deliberate, and ordinarily slow and grad- ual. It is most unwise to break with the past, or to undervalue what it thought and what it did. And it is equally unwise and more shallow to underrate the present and the future ; and not to see that the Chris- tian consciousness, having a Divine impettis, must needs have been progressive, and that the insight of the present is in many ways deeper than the insight of the past. In what respect either had or has the advantage over the other is an enquiry that will be made later on. But, we have said, the Christian Church must have fixed marks by which it may be identified ; yet in ac- cordance with the principle by which law or prescrip- tion gradually merges into spontaneity, these marks must not go beyond what is needed for such fixedness, and must be as few as possible. Any thing more Vol. II. H4 CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. than these is liable to change, but these must be res- cued from any possibility of change or abandonment by being presented by an undisputed authority. And that ordinances which are to be the visible tokens of the Christian association may not be felt to be a bondage, they may be lifted up into a higher plane, and be not merely " signs of profession," but symbols of mystical influence. The whole Jewish ceremonial was swept away by the early Christian society. We read in the New Testament of the last parting pangs of the separation. What little was for a time con- ceded to Jewish ways of thinking, gradually dislocated from its previous standpoint and disabused of its prejudices, was soon parted with. That it was done so speedily shows the might, truth, and attract- iveness of the new conceptions. In the stead of this ceremonial, the apostles, who seem to have had, pro- fessed to have, and were acknowledged as having, plenary powers, retained only the two rites, whose institution was due to Jesus himself, Baptism, and the Holy Supper. These, as tokens of the Christian con- fession, must be unchangeable, or the identification of the Church is put in peril. The one fact to be no- ticed likewise, superadded to the fact that these two rites were prescribed, is that Jesus, before his depart- ure, gave commission and plenary powers to certain ones to carry on his work, declaring that their work should be his. Thus would seem to be constituted a third mark of identification, a ministry. How far the wisdom of these thus commissioned was perfect and infallible ; whether their power was in the fullest sense plenary ; whether it was only provisional or transitory, or to be extended to successors, and if THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. 115 so extended, with what modifications and changes ; whether there is any fixed rule for the transmission of their authority and power ; whether there is any substitute for their superhuman wisdom ; whether in- deed their wisdom was superhuman, and if so, by what means ; — all these are questions upon which there has been abundant controversy, and upon which the opinions of men seem almost hopelessly divided. They may be, as they have been, treated of as an his- torical or exegetical enquiry, or in a combination of the two. To undertake either of these is beyond the intent and scope of this treatise. How far, with only necessary reference to history, either within or beyond the New Testament, the enquiry may be guided and a solution reached, following the lines of the a priori method hitherto adhered to, will in due time be seen. The key. to Christian truth, the central and radiating principle of Theology, ought in due time to unlock these difficult questions. If they have not been so manifestly unlocked as to win assent, it must have been that the wrong key has been applied, or the true key applied unwisely. Too speedy a triumph of any theory here might be a misfortune, as sapping the faith of some who cannot readily desert their accus- tomed pathways. God's slow methods may or should be ours also, and we cannot outstrip them. Now we have to consider the undisputed marks or tokens of the Christian Church, Baptism and the Holy Supper, and to consider them exhaustively, and as issuing from the Theology thus far explicated. From this enquiry the transition will be more easy, natural, and hopeful to the enquiry, Who are their authorized administrators and guardians ? Yet the two enquiries n6 CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. must run together for a little. That the authorized administrators and keepers of the Christian Sacra- ments, if there be any such at all, are identical with the preachers of the gospel, cannot be maintained, for all Christians are such by native right and privilege. To make known the love of Christ to his fellow-men is the Christian's inalienable prerogative, and irrepressi- ble impulse, and this is preaching the gospel. But the preaching of Christ may come to a hearer with different degrees of correctness, clearness, and attract- iveness ; and there may be good reasons to provide that it may be thus wise, and hence more authorita- tive, hence to limit and regulate its exercise, but no one can be faulted for telling to his human brethren what Christ did, though he may be faulted for claiming any authority beyond himself. Many are still led to Christ by such preaching the gospel as this ; and there is little doubt that in the early days many were led to Christ through the efforts and persuasion of the ordi- nary disciples, women included, as well as by the preaching of the apostles themselves. We shall see that this universal preaching, for economical reasons wisely limited and made more emphatic, has its ana- logue and expression in the freedom of administration of Christian Baptism, in itself equally free, open, and general, yet for similar economical reasons wisely limited in administration, and made more emphatic. The early Christian converts were baptized after St. Peter's first preaching, in such numbers as to make it historically probable that all the recognized disciples were efficient in administering it, and that St. Peter had abundant aid, or probably did not, as St. Paul usually did not, baptize any himself. THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. 117 And we shall see also that the more limited, wiser, and thorough preaching of and instruction in Chris- tian truth, by teachers specially fitted and appointed (which speedily came to be the fact), has its analogue in the administration of the other Sacrament, for simi- lar reasons limited ; — the one practice illustrating and symbolizing the mere initiation into the Christian life, the signs of and fitness for which can be readily detected by any one whose heart has been touched by the knowledge of Christ's work ; — while the other symbolizes the whole Christian life and experience itself, and thus that the utmost of knowledge is re- quired to administer it wisely. So it has come to pass that instinctively the Church has not limited the administration of Baptism, or declared such limitation essential, while it has uniformly, strictly, and consist- ently limited the administration of the Holy Supper. CHAPTER XII. CHRISTIAN BAPTISM. In selecting some visible ordinance to be the token that one has accepted Christ, and become member of the visible society ; to be thus a vinculum to bind the disciples together, not only in the regard of the out- lying world, but in their own regard, since a perpetual reminder to themselves of their own brotherhood, and its obligations, — it was, of course, a matter of indif- ference what such ordinance or token should be, except so far as it might have ulterior meaning, symbolic significance, and hence teaching power. But we recognize the wisdom of selecting a rite already associated in the minds of those likely to be the first disciples, with the notion of initiation or consecration. Hence the selection of Baptism, or the washing of water, the great purifying element of nature, and already in use as a symbol. The first effort of the holders of the new treasure was to make known the love of Christ, reaching the culmination of sacrifice in his death, and to those re- sponding to this appeal was prescribed, as authorized by their Lord himself, the baptism of water. Such submission constitutes the new election, and they are thus known to be Christians. That they should value and make much of this rite was to be expected. Nor, human nature being what it is, prone to superstition 118 CHRISTIAN BAPTISM. 1 19 through its inherited tendency, was it unlikely that they might make of it something other than what it was intended to be, and come to regard it as having some magical virtue, severing it thus from any proper ethical relation, or religious attitude. The corrective to this tendency lay in the Christian consciousness itself. Just in proportion as the ethical requirement of love, or perfect moral obedience from the religious motive-spring, was kept fresh, vivid, and powerful, was the rite likely to be kept in its proper estimation ; and just in proportion as moral effort relaxed, and the sac- rificial mind was weakened, was the rite likely to be separated from its ethical connection, and to be ex- alted in their estimation, or, more correctly, degraded into a mere physical and arbitrary token of profession, or into a magical charm. These dispositions were lia- ble to increase or diminution of strength by the rite being from the first associated with the remission of sins, which was promised to those baptized in faith, in- somuch that the symbolic language was used from the first, " Arise and be baptized and wash away thy sins," or on the other hand with the need of sanctification. The symbol was natural and comprehensible. Just as the washing of water cleanses the body, the Holy Spirit in his mystical activity cleanses the essential soul, the root-centre of the vital processes, insomuch that the disciple may in consequence be regarded as ideally and potentially holy. Thus the change in the human structure wrought by the Holy Spirit might be regarded in its negative efficacy as the remission of sins, or in its positive efficacy as the beginning of sanctification, processes which, we have seen, imply and condition each other, or rather indeed are but 120 CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. positive and negative aspects of the one process. But if the former and negative process be separated in thought from the latter, and thus inadequately thought ; if the remission of sins be thought as possi- ble to proceed independent of progressive sanctifica- tion, and come to be thus isolated ; if the abstract re- lation between God and man, of justification, be alone kept in mind, and it be forgotten that this is made actual in a process, it is not unlikely that Christian Baptism should have come to be regarded as a fin- ished something, as complete in itself, be looked upon as on God's part an act of power effecting changes entirely severed or severable from the conscious pro- cess of sanctification, in which the will or activity must be consentient, and which in itself conditions and de- termines the manner and the speed with which the consequences of sin are annulled. Thus Baptism may in thought be reduced to a magical rite, and have no connection whatever with the Divine Love, which requires free responsive love. We can easily separate in thought these two pro- cesses : First, the intensification of the loving spirit, the strengthening of all benevolent and sacrifi- cial dispositions, the habit of true obedience, — all which is sanctification, and, second, the passing away of the suffering which has come from foregone transgression by one's self or others, by steps and degrees, and meanwhile its transmutation into chas- tisement or purification, which also is felt to be vicari- ous. These two processes carried on by the Holy Spirit, abstractly regarded, are our justification ; con- cretely, our regeneration ; though our conception of the latter must receive synthetic amplification, and be re- CHRISTIAN BAPTISM. 121 garded as affecting all the elements of human nature. So thought it has its beginning or germ, and its termi- nation or result, the perfected creature. All these words are abstractions, figurative expressions, or analo- gies, only by a synthetic procedure made exhaustive definitions. The one concrete, dialectic and real fact which explains them all is the harmonization of the elements and relations of human nature, and hence its reconstruction, by the activity of the Holy Spirit. This fact, variously regarded, comes to have either of the above names — justification, remission, sanctifica- tion, regeneration, glorification, and that without any contradiction existing between them. The connection of Baptism with this fact is, of course, arbitrary, yet none the less real and important. For the economical ends already spoken of some initia- tory rite is needed, and that it may have intenser obli- gation is vindicated the farther provision that it has by Christ's appointment superadded to it, and associated with it, the activity of the Holy Spirit, as in either as- pect accomplishing the above complex fact. It is, in some sense, the symbol of any one of the above rela- tions, and strictly, of the beginning of either of them regarded as a process. God, of course, can remit sins upon true repentence, can sanctify, and can regenerate independently of any appointed rite. He has not said that He will not do so. That He will and does do so flows a priori from the very Divine character which has devised the Redemptive process itself. But it is no less true that, since the intent was to found a kingdom upon earth, He has promised these results, these two processes which are within the sphere of consciousness and which condition the third 122 CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. process which lies beneath its sphere, to submission to the prescribed terms. Thus he who has come to be- lieve in and to love the Lord Jesus Christ feels bound to be a subject in this visible kingdom, a soldier in this army, to wear its badge, and use its weapons ; and looks for the promised boon only to acquiescence in the Divine plan, which respects others than himself. By natural generation, which is a mystical activity entirely eluding our understanding, our natural human life commences. By another generation equally mys- tical a new human life may be started. It is new, because, though the concrete material be the same, the idea, or schema, is new. Either is a true vital be- ginning of a process, and is accomplished by the Holy Spirit. As by the former we issue from the old hu- man stock, by the latter we spring out of the new human stock. This new stock is Jesus Christ, no longer untried and undeveloped humanity, but hu- manity tried, victorious, developed, and perfected. If the essential characteristic of organic existence be that like produces like, then he thus springing out of the new humanity must be essentially like it, — as he, however remotely issued from the first human pro- genitors, is like them. The individual variations, in either case, are but differing combinations of the same essential elements. In either case the spirit- ual will and mystical energy realizing the particu- lar idea, which is but a variation of the generic idea (which is the only possible definition of vitality), is connected with a physical act or process arbitrarily chosen (if indeed it be not at length found to spring out of some recondite necessity which will secure it from arbitrariness). This physical act is simply the CHRISTIAN BAPTISM. 123 needed symbol to make known what it veils to the created and limited mind. We cannot limit the pos- sibilities of the Divine mind, as long as they are thought harmoniously self-consistent ; and it is noth- ing more wonderful that the central spring of human life should undergo change, and become eternal life by contact with Christ through the mediation of the Holy Spirit, than that any concrete human life should be started from physical contact through similar medi- ation. And if the new humanity is to be the ideal one, and exalted at length above the existing human needs and infirmities, it seems intrinsically fitting that the symbolizing rite of the regeneration thus mysti- cally accomplished should be as simple as possible, if only apprehensible. And such is water Baptism. The purifying process and the pure result are symbol- ized by it. The motive thereto is not, as in the other case, a physical instinct, or merely a mental resolve, overruled by God for his own purposes, but a moral and spiritual one, love answering love, mind propos- ing to fulfil the behests of the Divine will. It is then in strict analogy with natural generation that God should in or along with water Baptism accomplish a new generation ; that it should be the symbol and authorized token of the Divine Justification, the be- ginning of the process of the Remission of Sin, and of Sanctification. But all this is not by any overpowering physical or spiritual activity or influence, and irrespective of the human will as to its moral and religious relation. Rather this last conditions throughout the entire efficacy. God has so far limited his own sovereignty as to set in some sense aloof from himself a self- 124 CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. determining being, predestinating him indeed to per- fection, glory, and blessedness, and making the pro- foundest trend of his being thitherward, but all this while still respecting the freedom of the creature. So then this Divine predestination must make itself apparent in the self-conscious will, by whose acquies- cence in the Divine moral and religious determination does its formal freedom begin to move in the career which is to issue in real freedom or moral necessity. That this right moral choice may be from the most powerful motive-spring, and need no after-supplement, the good news of Christ is preached, and moral recog- nition of the Divine law, or acquiescence in the prin- ciple of good, takes the form of a personal tie, and becomes a conscious as well as (possibly the only one before) an unconscious religious relation. That this new religious attitude, which we call faith in Christ, contains as its potential result regeneration, is indeed true, and hence it may be said that we are saved by faith only. But such faith, as we have seen, includes in its definition both wisdom and love, and must hence propose to manifest itself only by acquiescence in the Divine plan. As love it recognizes its fellow- ship with its brother souls, and proposes perfection and blessedness not for itself alone, but for all such, and for the entire organism. As love, nothing less and nothing else would satisfy it. Hence it acquiesces in the requirement to confess Christ before men in Baptism, and to look to it as the assurance of the remission of sin, of the sanctifying influence of the Holy Spirit, and as the initiation of the process of its reconstruction and glorification. All these, separable as processes in thought, are as CHRIS TIA N BA PTISM. 1 2 5 we have said, various aspects of the one Divine move- ment, and condition each other. When through weak- ness of will sins of infirmity occur, and are still unre- pented of, the process of extinguishing the conse- quences of sin is suspended, forgiveness needs to be prayed for, and to be had, or these consequences threaten to return, — a bar is put to the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit, and the regenerative process is stationary. Therefore the results of Christian Baptism are still dependent upon faith, upon the movements of the self-conscious will, and the high honor is given to the creature that his freedom is forever respected. No otherwise could true sons be made. From all this it is apparent how it may come to pass that the same concrete process may be in the minds of different thinkers, yet because they bestow these names differently, they may seem to differ in doctrine. If any element of the process be missing from the thought, if there is had only an imperfect view of the Divine design, if this is not thought pro- foundly and exhaustively, then the actual mentally received doctrine will truly differ, even though there be acquiescence in the same formulas. In the latter case, it is sure sooner or later to be scrutinized and to reveal contradictions, and multiply enigmas. It is believed that the scheme set forth in the verbiage above will reconcile and unify views apparently but not really differing ; and that it is the one expressed or implied in the phraseology of the New Testament* But it may still be borne in mind that it is entirely in analogy with all else that is human, that words gradu- ally change their significance, and in that case can. 126 CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. with difficulty be brought back, and sometimes never, to the original one. It is still, however, possible to account for and make simple much of the phraseology of the New Testament that looks difficult and recon- dite, e, g.; In Baptism we are said to be " buried with Christ " and " risen with him." These expressions have not only an obvious figurative meaning, but a literal and subtle one. If in Baptism we are grafted into the new stock, and, while preserving our individu- ality, are thenceforward nourished from a perennial source, so that the life may receive a new name, " eternal life," and overcome and eliminate all the im- perfections and perishable elements of the natural one, then this concrete fountain of life was both buried and risen. It is now indeed risen and glori- fied, but it has become such through the sacrifice of the appetencies of the old life which is thus buried. Our own old life goes on to its extinction as before ; yet the new life, to lay hold of the material of the former, to radiate throughout it, and transform it. And thus Baptism, regarded in its intent and ideal results, is not only a figure, but a concrete reproduction of the redemptive process itself. The life struggle and the preservation of the holy will are indeed necessary, as they were in the career of Jesus Christ himself. The gift of the Holy Spirit is also promised to those submitting to Christian Baptism, as something later to be imparted. But since the Holy Spirit has already been the energizing principle in the regeneration, the initiation of the restorative process ; since also the mystical influence of the Holy Spirit, or preventing grace, has conditioned one's acceptance of Christ, and was needed to make faith in him actual ; — it is not un- CHRISTIAN BAPTISM. 127 likely that this further promise may have mainly re- ferred to the charismata. These were effects of the Holy Spirit's influence, or believed to be such, so won- derful as to be predominant in the minds of the early Christians, and likely to be understood by them to be particularly meant when reference was made to this promised gift. These charismata were granted for economical reasons, and however repudiated by many on historic grounds, cannot be successfully repudiated on grounds a priori. They were but a premonition and foretaste of that domination of nature which inheres in faith when perfected. When the will as the expres- sion of the entire nature has become consentient with the Divine will, and can never make mistakes, its very impulses are at one with the Divine mind, and can- not divert the Divine force ; so that it is literally and profoundly true that faith in its perfection can remove mountains, and only halts and is inadequate from its imperfection, which is a moral and not a physical or mental deficiency. But when consonant with the Divine plans, even in its imperfection it may have points and periods of coalescence with the Divine will, and exhibit the ideal relation of spirit to matter, and mould the latter for such ends as subserve the Divine purpose. But since the promise was not only to the then existing believers, but to all who should believe through them, and to the generations yet to come, we need not exclude from its meaning the ordinary sancti- fying efficacy of the Holy Spirit. He is ever ready to unite his mystical influence with the external and providential influences which affect the character, and are efficacious in proportion to the believer's own spiritual strivings, and come in response to Christian 128 CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. prayer ; and hence this mystical influence may be regarded as especially active and efficacious at such periods as confirmation and ordination, when the sub- ject consecrates himself to the Christian life, or to the work of the ministry. The particular meaning of these crises in the Christian career will be enquired into hereafter. % In all that has been said hitherto, Baptism has been regarded as the token of Christian profession, volun- tarily undergone as such, in view of the promises made to it, and with more or less intelligence of its ulterior intent and meaning, — i. e., we have regarded only Adult Baptism. Such was the first form and practice of this Christian rite. It was administered after the preachers of the word had convinced them- selves of the faith and sincerity of those desiring it. We have no record in the New Testament of any Infant Baptism. That is a very doubtful inference. But the custom of Infant Baptism sprang up in the history of the Christian Church spontaneously, and without any discoverable objection. It is very un- likely that any thing contradicting the Christian con- sciousness, or impairing the integrity of Christian doctrine, would not have been promptly and ener- getically objected to. All history shows the sensitive- ness of the Christian mind in this respect. But as to this practice we have no record of any controversy. Therefore the practice must be harmonized with known doctrine, be found to spring from the naive Christian consciousness, and be capable of convincing justification. In later times it has indeed been amply objected to ; and about it, and its obligation and sig- nificance, have the controversies about Baptism for the CHRISTIAN BAPTISM. 129 most part been waged. It is thus needful, in and for our time, that the philosophy or true significance of Baptism, which underlies this practice, should be elicited and brought to light. It is apparent, how- ever, that this cannot be done till the full significance of the ordinance in the case of adult believers, is exhibited ; and the two questions should never be mingled. Vol. II. CHAPTER XIII. INFANT BAPTISM. If the cardinal idea of Christianity be the revela- tion of the Divine Love, or essential character, in and through Christ, taking as a necessity from the contra- diction of sin the form of sacrifice, and calling out re- sponsive love on the part of the creature, which, too, from the bewilderments of the contradiction, must take the form of sacrifice, and hence be denominated faith ; and if all mental and physical change results from such sacrificial act and ethical triumph, whether in the case of the humanity of Christ or in the case of the Christian believer, and cannot be thought to proceed independent of the same without neglecting in our thought the absolute law of the universe, and degrading our idea of the First Principle by exalting in it power or arbitrary will above love and blessed- ness, and likewise degrading our idea of the human being by making the physical relation the prius in our thought ; — then it would seem, at first reflection, that there is no place in the process of human recov- ery for any such practice as Infant Baptism, except as a mere human mark of possible future discipleship, since no mental or physical change can be thought as prior to the establishment of the right ethical or reli- gious relation, which requires the self-conscious will. Thus in formulating a doctrine of Infant Baptism, 130 INF A NT BA PTISM. 1 3 1 there is before us at once a Scylla and a Charybdis, and a narrow sword-edge along which to tread. It is natural, then, that human thought should be often slipping off this edge on the one side or the other. Such baptism of infants may be thought (1) as in- itiating a vital process to be carried on independent of the will, or any ethical relation whatever ; or (2) as affecting, through mystical influence accompanying it, absolutely and irresistibly, its determinations yet to be ; or (3) as mystically affecting the same, not irre- sistibly, but by increasing the likelihood of the right determination of the will. In the first regard it be- comes a purely magical rite, and implies a doctrine of irresistible decree and inevitable perseverance, in which view, again, man's prerogative as a self-creating being, as such alone reaching his full height, is denied or held of no account. In the second regard is implied a mystical influence upon the will -and its subsequent self-determination, independent of any environment or culture, which again lands us in a doctrine of abso- lute election, or a doctrine of Providence so limited as to make the environment or education a matter of indifference. Moreover, we have here again a Psy- chology which divorces the will from the nature, and is not the expression of the same. This last becomes a mere passive field upon which the securely deter- mined will triumphantly works. All empirical evidence, all known facts contradict either of these views. Infants baptized and neglected exhibit no difference in character and moral behavior from those unbaptized, such character being evidently determined by the same influences in either case. As to the third regard, we may first say, that if the ordi- 132 CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. nary rule be that preventing grace, the mystical ac- tivity of the Holy Spirit, correspondent with, and adapting itself to, the various providential environ- ment, is the condition precedent to the acceptance of Christ, and thus distinguishable in thought from any subsequent influence or operation of the Holy Spirit in and after adult baptism, then in the case of the baptism of infants there may be thought an excep- tion to such rule, and a special activity and influence of the Holy Spirit, antecedent to and taking the place of the ordinary influence, and rendering more likely the subsequent acceptance of Christ in faith in such a case. The law of parsimony may avail us here. There is no need in our thought for making the operation of the Holy Spirit in Infant Baptism thus exceptional and a retroversion of the absolute law by which the ethi- cal relation precedes and conditions all other relations whatever. There is nothing gained by it to harmo- nize our thought, but it only raises new perplexities, and throws all theology into confusion, obliges a re- thinking of the whole Divine plan, which can no more be successfully harmonized. Besides, it has no support in the New-Testament Scriptures, and the Christian instinct has been against it, and its naive practice virtually denies it ; for the Church has always baptized infants with respect to their subsequent cul- ture, has taken great pains to make such culture wise, complete, and efficacious, and has regarded the ad- ministration of baptism, when no such culture was possible, as superstition. But again, if we have limited views about such cul- ture, and regard it as the training of the self-conscious INFANT BAPTISM. 133 mind and will only, then it would still seem that bap- tism should be postponed till sufficient mental pro- gress were made to make moral determinations of the will possible, if not till we have some manifestation of religious experience. But here again a faulty Psy- chology may be misleading, and conduct to mistake. If the will be thought as a spiritual element super- added to human nature, with its congeries of proclivi- ties inherited or acquired, then either may be thought as susceptible of culture and change independent of the other. But if the will be the entire soul, with its spiritual and physical relations, expressing itself in act either upon or beyond itself, then the culture of the nature is the culture of the will, and vice versa. Then the human soul may express itself as undeveloped will, as will not yet self-conscious as such, yet still will, and thus susceptible of culture. If the human being is born not morally indifferent, but already with de- terminations, then such determinations may continue through the environment during the period of con- sciousness which is not yet self-consciousness, but moving- thereto, and in such self-consciousness reach- ing responsibility. Such determinations then may be guided, and such guidance is culture. The child from birth may be trained to such actions as are in accord with the absolute moral end, or in contrariety thereto. These actions are prudential self-government, and are by and by to be perceived as moral self-government. Nay, before birth, the mother is not irresponsible, nor even the father, as all medical science may attest. The formation of a habit, the avoidance of a forbid- den act, are already manifestations of will. Self-deter- mination exists in rudimental form ; and early in life, 134 CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. through the spiritual relations implicit in the human structure, may be seen to be toto ccelo different from the merely animal determination. By degrees it gath- ers itself into full and explicit self-consciousness. And in this early period the main elements of the future character are formed. So much, and nothing less must be allowed to Determinism ; but this determi- nation works not through blind physical media, but through the direction of the same from the free mo- tive-spring of Love, a form of the absolute determi- nation, moral necessity, or real freedom. That the will is thus the focussing of the entire nature, or essential elements of the human being, and is thus predetermined variously through the principle of heredity, and is capable of culture from birth, and even of influence in the ante-natal period, — this is the Psychology which underlies the Christian practice of Infant Baptism. That, through the Divine Predestination, the profoundest, innermost, and essential predispositions of the human being are for good, for moral perfection and religious blessedness, yet that the contradiction of evil variously showing itself has entered into the development of humanity, and hence of the individual, which contra- diction has to be annulled, which predispositions have to be strengthened ; — from the recognition of this arises that the Church has thought her children to re- quire religious care, and to be susceptible of educa- tion and culture from their birth. And if through the solicitous care of parents or those entrusted with such culture the environment may be adapted, and all pains taken from the very start so to guide the na- ture as that the will, when it reaches self-conscious- INFANT BAPTISM. 135 ness, shall show itself predominantly on the right side, and if the mystical influence of the Holy Spirit be thought as correspondent with such adapted environ- ment, or providential conditions ; if the elements of character, thus providentially and mystically deter- mined, are arranging themselves, and drawn up step by step towards the proper religious relation ; if this religious relation respects the conscious will in the process of its formation, as well as when fully formed, then the baptism of infants may be and should be synchronous with the commencement of their culture. Thus there is for our thought no severance needful of the two. Each thought, or the process implied therein, supplements, requires, and conditions the other. That the system of thought thus drawn out was implicit in the religious consciousness of the early Christians, accounts for, and alone suffices to account for, the early, naive, and uncontradicted practice of Infant Baptism, which is thus legitimated whether there be any evidence of such practice found in the New-Testament history or not. And if so it renders it somewhat more probable, though the confirmation is needless, that there were children in the household of the jailor, when he and his were baptized. While ordinary experience and testimony fail to show that baptism unaccompanied by or unsupplement- ed by any pains or culture accomplishes any result in the character, they also testify that, by the combina- tion of the two, such result is apparent. They con- firm the thesis, established as above on a priori grounds, that the moral and religious character can begin its right formation in the merest infancy, and that the fact of baptism renders it more likely, when 136 CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. supplemented by culture, that when the period of re- ligious consciousness arrives the child will cast in his lot with the Christian Church. The very principle of Christianity requires in thought and fact that no one can, as an individual, be developed rightly alone. He must seek to develop others, and requires the love of others to be himself developed. It is implied in this that the new hu- manity is an ethical organism, no one member of which is there which has not its function in minister- ing to the perfection of all the rest. No individual soul can be thought to be so large and rich in re- sources as not to be capable of being amplified and enriched by any and every other. Therefore the loving care of the Christian is for every human brother as a possible Christian brother, and for the perfection of the Christian brother in particular. From this loving anxiety and influence the infants cannot be excluded, and just as truly as the Holy Spirit can carry on influence within ourselves of which we are unconscious, just so truly may He carry on influence within the immature children. That a true religious life and Christian experience can exist in children at a very early age is something often observed. Such experience can be no sudden acquirement, but is the result of determinations inherited and imparted. The time when, under any conditions of culture, such a religious consciousness will show itself may greatly vary. Sometimes it may be very early, sometimes later on, sometimes very late in life, and sometimes apparently not at all. In the last case we have one form of the problem of moral evil, and explanation cannot be had ; but in the other cases, although we cannot follow and describe the processes, we know INFANT BAPTISM. 137 that the result is due to the sum of determining influences, — to the Divine predestinating love, to the love of ancestors modifying the proclivities of their offspring, and to the love of parents and contempo- raneous brethren guiding the culture. And thus we are at all points dependent upon God and each other, yet none the less self-creating beings under such favorable environment. When the period, early or late, arises when the religious and Christian consciousness shows itself, and the religious character is seen to exist in integrity though still in degree undeveloped, such a period is a marked one, if not a critical one, in the career of the individual subject, which would be likely to attract the attention of all those regarding him with Christian solicitude. It would mark that a soul had been gained for Christ in such security that its defection could be regarded as a mere far-off possibility. Such an one is ready now for such further privileges and aids as are adapted to the Christian character only when essentially formed, and which are to carry it to its ideal height. Thus is already indicated the need and use of the other rite, with its profound and ample influence and significance, the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper. This critical and emphatic period in the Christian career, which comes thus early or late, must, as we have said, be anxiously marked in the mind of the Christian brotherhood, and it is fitting that it should be signalized by some external act or visi- ble ordinance. Such an act the Apostles devised in the rite of Confirmation. These are the ones who, in the judgment of the Church, have removed every bar to the full influence and efficacy of the Holy Spirit, who now may begin, or continue more completely, the 138 CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. work of Sanctification, may come with his seven-fold gifts, i. c, accomplish such results in the character as constitute the normal Christian life. To determine whether such a period had been reached, required such wisdom and insight that the Apostles were disposed to entrust it to no inferior judgment, but only to the wisest and those having plenary responsibility. Hence it was entrusted only to the highest officers of the Church, though not absolutely and necessarily to be decided upon only by them. In the early Christian days, no doubt they did exercise such supervision and judgment, and only when their cares became larger did they commit the really discriminating decision to others, and satisfy themselves simply with the con- firmation of the same. That it looks more like a degradation than an exaltation of their high office to content themselves with the mere formal consent to the judgment of their subordinates, and the perform- ance of an outward act with prayer and blessing in- voked, may be true, but it seems to have come about in the history of the Christian Church. Nor is the rite thereby robbed of its significance. Since to the loving care and prayers of parents and friends and pastors is superadded the prayer and the blessing of the ideally responsible one, there is still ample secur- ity that these are likely to be recipients of the mysti- cal influences, and further gifts which are to follow ; and such laying on of hands may be thought to mark the condition when the Holy Spirit may act without bar or hindrance upon the Christian neophyte, as well as that the same rite in the early days was seen to mark the extraordinary influence which showed itself in the charismata. CHAPTER XIV. THE ADMINISTRATION OF BAPTISM. That as soon as one comes to be a Christian be- liever and the sense of fellowship to exist, this should be immediately signalized by some such act is natural and desirable. That the surrounding brethren, by whose ministrations and by the silent teaching of whose example the neophyte has been led to this step, should welcome him and have the privilege to mark him as their brother, is an additional reason why there should be no delay in imparting the needed to- ken. Thus this external and visible bond of union, symbolizing the internal coalescence of thought, feel- ing, and aim, takes the form of a positive step on the one side, to which the neophyte is consentient. This needed ministration on their part, thus spontaneously rendered, constitutes and describes the universal Christian priesthood. Such universal reciprocity alone is adequate to meet the requirements of the ideal state. That each brother should impart to each other of his own fulness, and have the same in return, is the very definition of the commonwealth of love, which is the ideal end and aim. There is no separate priest- hood in the perfected state, no hierarchy, no classifi- cation but such as grows out of the idiosyncrasies of structure and character. Each is a perfected member of the new humanity, though like no other, and 139 HO CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. through Christ and by the activity of the Holy Spirit linked to the Godhead itself. All this is true, al- though in the progressive and militant state such lim- ited priesthood be needful. Thus in the incipiency of Christian experience the ideal end is foreshadowed ; just as in the pattern Church of Jerusalem the ulti- mate earthly Church was foreshadowed. The Church is founded upon and starts with the idea of universal mediation or priesthood, needfully thereafter limited for high economical purposes. It would seem, then, approaching the topic in this way, that the administration of Christian Baptism should belong to all Christians as such. But since, as time goes on, it becomes more and more needful that wisdom and discrimination should be exercised in deciding who are worthy to receive this ordinance, and if a ministry of selected ones is required at all for other ends, this would come naturally to be a part of their function. That the multitude of new converts from the preaching of the Apostle Peter on the day of Pentecost were baptized by the brethren in general without any minute scrutiny on his part, or even on theirs, is likely. Much must have been taken for granted as to the sincerity and fitness of the new believers. But as time went on, and the knowledge of unworthy recipients came to pass, more and more care would be observed till, when haste was not indi- cated, the administration of Baptism should come to be confined to the ministry proper, though no ques- tion was ever made, or successfully made, as to the validity of its administration, on emergency, by the lay brethren. Nor, supposing that such permission were sometimes unwisely availed of, and persons bap- THE ADMINISTRA TION OF BAPTISM. 141 tized whom the ministry at the time would have rejected, was there any need to repeat the rite. The objective mark would still have been given, and there would be only need to wait for the proper subjective condition of repentance and faith to be reached for the full promises to Christian Baptism to be fulfilled. Unless the rite should have been submitted to in malignant hypocrisy, it need only be concluded that the rudimental faith, even though the exact form of Christian faith be not yet fully had, is met by the mystical efficacy of the Holy Spirit in starting the progressive accomplishment of the purposes indicated in, and promises made to, such baptism. And if the rite be received in blasphemous scorn, such baptism is the reverse of what overtly it appears to be, it is a re- jection of Christ instead of an acceptance of him, and that in an emphatic form which adds sin to sin. And as to the vital relation, it is but a graft mechanically adjusted to the vine, which withers before the life cur- rent can reach it. Thus the refusal of God's love in Christ is at the same time a refusal of the regenera- ting current, which in such case and for the time being, has nothing upon which it can work, or which it can gather into itself. That these high promises of the Divine Love should be attached to any rite whatever is a con- descension to human needs, and no substitution of any thing else for the prescribed ordinance can be made, or avail itself of the promise. The terms of the institution must be met, otherwise its purposes are in peril, and the end problematical. There can then be, at human caprice or discretion, no mutilation of the ordinance, — and that cannot claim to be Christian i 4 2 CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. Baptism, which is not the application of water to the subject in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, with intent to signalize Christian profes- sion, or admit to Christian privilege. The mode of this application of water would be likely to vary ac- cording as one or another aspect of its symbolism was prominent in the habitual thought. The washing of the entire body would symbolize the remission of sin. The pouring of the same element upon the head would symbolize the gift of the Holy Spirit, reaching primarily man's spiritual being, of which the head is the symbol. Its teaching power might thus vary. Nor is there any excuse ever for changing essentially the words prescribed to accompany this application of water. Christ commanded baptism in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, not as an arbitrary and meaningless formula, but because the believer was to be admitted now to a fuller knowledge of the Godhead, and to be the subject of new relations to each hypostasis of the same. A new filial relation to the Eternal Father is now not only possible but actual, and through this new brotherhood to the Son by the attainment of the sacrificial mind a new light from the Divine Logos may irradiate the twilight of human intelligence. A new life is given and nour- ished by the Holy Spirit which is proof against all that conquers the old life. The Divine Glory may now be shared, which is to transmute the physical organism, as part of the uriei?, to its elemental form, to its own pure effulgence. This wonderful trans- formation of the creature is the act of the Father, through the Son, and by the Holy Spirit, each of whom has thus his function, necessary to each other THE ADMINISTRA TION OF BAPTISM. 143 function, complementing each other, and seen by our intelligence to be thus inter-related. This act and the process subsequent may, indeed, be begun and carried on, irrespective of any outward symbol or ordinance. No one presumes thus to limit the Divine activity, and to think he has exhausted the Divine mind. But the belief that such is the Divine intent for man is preserved and strengthened by such ordinance ; and the high economical uses of the Chris- tian Church, to make inroads upon the kingdom of evil, and to build up itself as a holy temple, are there- by subserved. That the significance of this rite should share in the propensities of human perverseness and sometimes degenerate into superstition is inevitable, human nature being what it is, — a conflict, and not wholly restored at once by the Christian profession. But the protection against such degeneration, or its cure, is in the Christian consciousness itself, whose inner- most principle, being love, sooner or later in its healthy growth sloughs off every excrescence, and comes to reject any distortion of this or any other Christian doctrine which implies that the Supreme One is an arbitrary power, or unethical force, and insists that every such doctrine must be reconciled with what the human heart requires him to be, a loving Father. Any error in the doctrine of Baptism will be found to consist, not in making too much of the objective rela- tion, but by making too little of it, as not reaching the entire humanity, — or by making too little of the sub- jective relation. While the ethical and properly re- ligious one is still held paramount, and to condition every other, there is all the safeguard that can be had 144 CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. on the one side. And (as is found to be the case pos- sibly in some schemes) to ignore the objective relation altogether shows that the transcendent purposes of God for human kind have not found place in the thought, or have been superficially thought. CHAPTER XV. THE LORD'S SUPPER — THE EUCHARISTIC SACRIFICE AND FEAST. We have said that the essential idea of Christianity or the absolute religion includes, and its intent re- quires, emancipation from all prescriptions whatever, since in the perfect state human spontaneity can be trusted, divines the Divine will, and finds itself ever in accord with the same, and hence has no need of law. Any power over the universe the perfected soul may have can never be abused. But in the mixed and im- perfect state of militancy and transition such prescrip- tions are required, and as having Divine sanction are obligatory. The disciples of Christ were indeed freed from the Jewish ceremonial, — yet the Lord Jesus, while enunciating the principle of love, which is the fountain and idea of all law, and which gives validity to all moral prescriptions, in condescen- sion to our imperfect knowledge, broke up this law into maxims adapted to the existing social condition of his hearers, giving in the principle of love (which also He amplifies into sacrifice) the key to guide any change in the letter of such prescriptions as might be required in any altered state of human society. 1 These prescriptions thus tested by the principle of 1 This truth obliterates at once the whole argument sometimes elaborately drawn out, objecting that Jesus' moral precepts are not forever obligatory, e. g. " give to him that asketh of thee," etc. Vol. II. I45 146 CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. love, which may oblige some alteration in their form, are obligatory as long as the imperfection of the human condition exists, although they are reducible to unity ; and in the progressive Christian conscious- ness some of them may become needless, and their number, if there be a true and general religious ad- vance, should diminish rather than increase. When complexity and minute rules in applied Christian morality are indicated and needful, it is a sign of religious retrogression rather than of advance. And as for the prescriptions not moral, they too, in accordance with this same principle of spontaneity, if to be of perpetual obligation, should be as few as pos- sible, and such only as must be needed in any possible state of the Christian Church attainable during the militant period. Hence, we have seen, we know of but three such prescriptions, the rites of Baptism, and the Holy Supper, and a Ministry for the growing and militant kingdom. Jesus made Baptism the token of initiation after the confession of faith, but did not prescribe any supplementary rite when this baptism should have been administered to infants. He left that to his chosen Apostles, as well as any other provision that should be needed for adaptation to ex- isting circumstances. Therefore all such might be changed upon sufficient need by sufficient authority. But the ordinances of Baptism and the Holy Supper might not be changed or dispensed with, and his Min- istry would be needed to the last. To be adjusted to what has gone before, the intent of the rite of the Holy Supper can be nothing less than (1) to be a means of edification, to confirm, freshen, and amplify Christian knowledge, to arouse THE LORD'S SUPPER. 147 and intensify Christian emotion (all this belonging to the conscious and intelligible processes) ; and (2) at the same time to have mystical efficacy in carrying on the process of regeneration and glorification. We may readily conclude that Jesus, before the institution of the Holy Supper, had summed up his instructions to his disciples, so far as it was possible for them to receive such before his death. These had been extended throughout his whole ministerial career, and were completed in those wonderful dis- courses gathered together in the gospel of his most intimate disciple and friend. They probably reached their consummation and contained their quintessence in the profound and prophetic prayer to the Father recorded in the seventeenth chapter of the fourth Gospel. Therefore the key to any teaching intended in this new rite must be looked for in his previous in- struction, all of which may possibly enter into and be required for the full understanding of what was to be symbolized and taught in and by this new rite. His active ministry we may thus regard as ended, so far as visible relations to his disciples were concerned. Henceforth He is to be a passive victim in the hands of his enemies. Before this separation He instituted this ordinance, and by his words and symbolic action gave them a pattern of what they should do thereaf- ter. Their observation of the rite was to be pros- pective, and not immediate. This we learn not only from the fact that it was not observed until after his resurrection, ascension, and the day of Pentecost, but it is obvious from the very nature of the rite itself. It was to be done " in remembrance of me," not by the mere memory of him as a man and companion, 1 48 CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. but in remembrance of that which was figured by the breaking of the bread and the outpouring of the wine, i. c, of his death, which was itself the symbol of and an essential element of his spiritual sacrifice. Thus the Apostle Paul regarded this ordinance as " showing forth the Lord's death till He come." Moreover the ordinance could not have its full meaning and in- tended efficacy as the sacrament of continued regen- eration till after his resurrection and ascension. If it was to be a means of nourishing life from his perfected humanity, it could not be such till that humanity was perfected and glorified, which was not and could not be till the sacrifice of the cross, which alone did and could bring about such transcendent results. Just as, in the similar case, Christian baptism, re- garded as the starting of the new life by the imparta- tion of the regenerating principle, could not be and was not practised till the whole redemptive and re- generative process was completed in his person. But He outlined this new ordinance for them, and the essential acts seem to be, — the consecration of the selected elements by prayer, the symbolic acts of break- ing the bread and pouring out the wine, and the par- ticipation of these elements so consecrated by eating and drinking the same. But all this, it were dishonor to him otherwise to think, was intended to be, on the part of those to whom it was prescribed, what it was in his own outline, something more than a mechanical act ; and likewise, and as alone giving value to these words and physical gestures, a profoundly ethical and religious one. Therefore it must ever be done in the same sacrificial mind which characterized all that He did. That this was essential in the administration THE LORD'S SUPPER. 149 of the rite, and for the reception of the intended bene- fit, has been overtly or covertly maintained in all Eucharistic doctrine whatever. Hence the Lord's Supper, thus observed, is an act of worship in the highest sense, and a channel of life nourishment, and its benefits are both intelligible and mystical. It is the sole act of worship which Jesus prescribed, unless it be the universal human worship of prayer, (which implies also thanksgiving and praise,) which needed not any new prescription, but only guidance, and whose essential basis and motive- spring are perennial and irrepressible, being nothing less than the spiritual gravitation by which the crea- ture seeks the source whence he is derived. This then is the one and unchangeable act of Christian worship, the nucleus around which any thing else might cluster which should be found meet for edification or benefit, which Christian feeling would spontaneously make much of and surround with all its offerings of the best it had to give. As summing up in its intent and meaning the entire truth of the gospel, in its synthesis of religious, ethical, intellectual, and physical relations, it would repay any amount of study, and be appre- hended in all degrees of completeness and accuracy. And, as in the case of the sister rite of Baptism, it too would be likely to be contorted' by human supersti- tious propensity, and degraded at times in thought into a mere magical rite ; — or the interdependence of all the moments and relations involved would be not unlikely to be lost sight of; and thus the whole be in- completely and hence inaccurately apprehended and taught. This would be the case, if either its edifying or its mystical efficacy should be overlooked, or if the 150 CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. interdependence of these upon each other should be wrongly thought. Or, the curiosity and systematizing propensity of man might, for alien ends, take it to pieces, and apportion particular benefits to particular parts of the whole prescription ; forgetting that we would have no right to predicate any unique and uni- versal result at all to any maimed rite, (for this would be only a human rite, and not the Lord's own,) to any thing short of the entire observance according to the pattern set by Jesus himself. The corrective to these tendencies can be had only by exhibiting to the full the teaching and edifying significance, the mysti- cal influence and its intent, and the connection and dependence of these upon each other. In the correct appreciation of these alone can its full meaning and efficacy as an act of worship arid a channel of grace be understood. That which first impresses us when we regard this ordinance as contained and explained in Jesus' own acts and words, and in those of his Apostles, is that it shows forth his broken body and his blood shed, z. e., his death. That two elements should be chosen and acted upon to symbolize this, when one would seem at first thought to be sufficient, is by no means an arbi- trary and needless procedure, but is itself a part of the entire symbolization, as we shall presently see. But if by a false abstraction this death be regarded as a mere physical change, if sacrifice be regarded as a mere me- chanical act, separated from its ethical or religious spring and intent, then the rite will be correspondingly regarded as a mere mechanical act, and formal repeti- tion of words, and as having magical virtue, i. e. t phy- sical efficacy primarily or only. If such ethical and THE LORD'S SUPPER. 151 religious meaning be retained as essential, then that only is a true offering which derives from such spring. Otherwise it is not really offered. This would be to deprive the ordinance of all intrinsic fitness, since any other mechanical act might have been arbitrarily pre- scribed, to have the same magical efficacy. The blood of bulls and of goats might be made to put away the consequences of sins as well as the blood of Jesus. To be an offering, in the ethical and religious sense, it must be made in the sacrificial mind, in the mind the same in kind with Jesus' own sacrificial act, though feebler in degree. The Lord's death can only then be shown forth religiously by similar spiritual sacrifice, and cannot be by mechanical acts and perfunctive words only. This would be to degrade this ordinance to a level with the Jewish rites. Yet still, by the terms of the institution, this sacrificial mind must be expressed by the prescribed actions and words only, and has no right to claim the promised benefit if these are neglected or infringed. To celebrate the Lord's Supper, to show forth the Lord's death, is then a sacri- ficial act, in the depth of its meaning, — a renewed act of self-consecration, which implies a foregone search- ing of the heart, repentance over fault, and the aban- donment of whatever must be left for religious coa- lescence with the Father of spirits, and hence an act of faith ;— not in the sense of having a correct opinion about the meaning and virtue of the sacrament, but in the sense of love responding to love, whereby the ob- ject of love becomes a reality. Thus it becomes an act of worship, not in the sense of a mere external cultus y (Christianity ever tends to elevate above that,) but in- the sense of a spiritual effort to rise into fellow- 152 CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. ship with the Highest, — an act of adoration indeed, in which all things else are swept out of the con- sciousness, and the personal tie to God in Christ is purified and intensified. The Divine Love is made vivid by being symbolized and pressed home upon human thought, imagination, and emotion, and calls forth a corresponding response. Thus the celebration of the Holy Supper requires an imitation and a sharing of the Lord's own sacrifice, though still far short of it, and inadequate to loosen the consequences of sin. It is the holding up of one's self to the Almighty Father for religious coalescence ; and the clasp is tightened in proportion as the offer- ing is pure. But it is the holding up of one's self, not as an isolated individual, but as in organic union with all Christian believers and with Christ himself. Hence no such individual consecration is inoperative upon the entire organism. Its virtue is still vicarious, and it becomes thus a communion, not in any superfi- cial sense, but in profound vital significance. What is the function and relation of the separated elements in this sacrificial offering will be considered hereafter. Thus the Holy Supper celebrated is primarily a sacrificial act, whatever else it may be, — therefore the highest act of worship, the central relation of which may be called Adoration ; and this is the key to reach in intelligence whatever other meaning and efficacy it may have. One may be content, indeed, with super- ficial meanings of these words — Worship, Adoration, — as though their significance were met by mere ges- tures and outward acts, or as though it were a mere exercise of memory and imagination bringing Jesus' person, career, or death into consciousness more or THE LORD'S SUPPER. 153 less vivid according to ability for representation, but one would think Christian men would almost disdain to be content with such meanings as these. Indeed, they never are, but they connect these with proper religious acts and relations by an arbitrary arrange- ment and not by a necessary and absolute law. That it is this latter derives from the whole argument of this treatise, which subordinates all physical and men- tal change to the ethical and religious one. Adora- tion, or worship in the purest sense, is profoundly religious ; — as mechanical or outward it is either spu- rious or only symbolical. We think it as the isolation for thought of the pure spiritual element of worship, — the bringing of itself by the purified and forgiven soul, the soul being sanctified and regenerated, into such conscious contact and coalescence with the Di- vine heart, as is possible at the existing point of its religious history. It is an act of the will, therefore, i. e., of the entire humanity, and that spontaneous, when the influences which drag the composite being away from its Father and Source are for the time being arrested and suspended. Hence it is a tempo- rary triumph of faith, and an earnest of the sight into which faith is by and by to lapse. That Christ's sacrifice, to which we respond and which we follow, is set forth in the Holy Supper under two forms has its own propriety and significance. Jesus' discourses, during the latter part of his life, are interspersed with allusions to his death, which He seemed to know would be by force required of him, and to meet which He also knew would require the utmost exertion of spiritual strength, and be, thus, the 154 CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. culmination and completion of his sacrifice. Its effect as a moral or religious force upon human motives is also alluded to. " And I, if I be lifted up, will draw all men to me." His death is both directly and indi- rectly alluded to, and sometimes in expressions that seemed strange to his auditors, and which would have no sufficient explanation, unless He had fore- sight of the consequences of that death upon his dis- ciples, and unless He had in mind also the institution of the Holy Supper as a sacrament of that death, to commemorate that death, and to be the medium to accomplish its life-giving results. Otherwise this in- stitution must be regarded as a sudden afterthought, and the previous discourses as independent, and be- longing to another plane. That life in the fullest meaning of the word, Eternal life, which can never be vanquished but which vanquishes every thing, was to be possible and actual as the result of his sacrifice, is not only explicitly said, but is couched also in the expressions which at the time seemed so strange, — that to have this life his flesh should be eaten, and his blood drank, — thus confining the life-giving effect of his sacrificial death to whatever was meant by these terms. To find the key to this significance we have no other resort than to the expressions used at the institution of the Holy Supper, in which their mean- ing is amplified, and more completely determined ; and also to the explanatory after-utterances of his Apostles, which show how they understood them. We learn thus that the " flesh " to be eaten was the body " broken " or " given," and that the " blood " to be drank was the blood to be " shed." Thus these elements of the human structure are not regarded in THE LORD'S SUPPER. 155 their material, or even vital aspect simply, but as having ethical, z. e., sacrificial relations. The partici- pation of the flesh and blood is to be of them broken and shed, and the relation indicated is not a physical, but a religious one. To participate of these requires then that one shall participate of the sacrificial spirit with which they were broken and shed. It was not the physical vitally healing virtue of his broken body that was alluded to, though that might be as result when that body was fully glorified ; but it was the might of the sacrificial love that was to be responded to, calling forth the responsive love, — the inward act of worship that was to express itself in this prescribed way. These symbolic acts were henceforth to be accomplished, not in mere remembrance of him as a companion, friend, or teacher, but of him dying for the recovery of man. This remembrance and thought would seem to be expressed alone and sufficiently by the figure of his body broken, and the sharing of the benefits of such breaking or giving. But He super- adds another figure, and speaks of his death as the shedding of his blood. This cannot be looked upon as simply a correspondence and acquiescence in the terms and methods of the Jewish sacrifices. Rather they took their prescribed form, not from any absolute need, but because they were prefigurations of the only efficacious blood-shedding yet to be. Yet this term expresses more clearly than the term of the broken body that his death was to be by violence, and brought about by human malignity, which thought must enhance the conception of his loving sacrifice, and teaches that the sacrificial response must be strong enough to submit to death externally inflicted, if need 156 CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. be. But besides, as the bread symbolizes the body, the visible and intelligible element or aspect of human existence, the wine symbolizes the blood, which is in- visible and the medium of the vital force by which it operates upon the passive material, — symbolizes thus the mystical element or aspect of the concrete exist- ence. Upon this the Holy Spirit, ruling the vital processes, mediately works, and thus the regenera- tive process is by one link nearer connected with the loving sacrifice which showed itself in such blood-out- pouring. Thus the one element connects more readily in thought with the material aspect of human ex- istence, that which is to undergo glorification, and the other element with its spiritual aspect ; i. e., with its relation to God as spirit, and the source of life. The regenerative process is incompletely and therefore incorrectly thought, if it be regarded as abstracting and affecting solely either the physical or the spiritual element of the complex human being. It is not only an ethical or religious change, not merely a physical change, but .both, and these medi- ated by a conscious or mental change. It affects the entire synthesis which constitutes humanity, just as its analogue in natural generation respects such entire synthesis. Man is neither body, nor soul, nor spirit, but the synthesis of the three ; or, if the phraseology be preferred as more accurate, he is a soul not undeter- mined, but determined through relation to the material universe, the Divine Glory obscured, and at the same time through relation to the spirit realm, to the pure spiritual Cxodhead. Regeneration as such, then, must affect man's entire being. Even though such use of the word be declined, the process is the same in THE LORD'S SUPPER. 157 thought, otherwise the physical and spiritual elements of existence are thought as existing apart, and as hav- ing only arbitrary and no necessary connection. But as the disease of humanity had its origin in an ethical lapse, whereby the mind underwent obscuration and the body degradation, so the recovery must primarily affect him ethically, i. c, in the restoration of love in such form and under such conditions that it may be described as faith, and as flowing from which the ob- scuring clouds may at length dissipate from the mind, and the body be restored to such life as is worth the name. The end and aim of the Divine scheme is human perfection, which includes primarily the perfect love, pure and strong, whence comes bodily glorifica- tion, and mental restoration and infinite expansion. Such was the pattern shown in Christ's own history, whose sacrifice in death accomplished his glorification as secure (though the process had begun before), and his mental illumination (though his mind had dwelt before in the light gradually nearing the perfect light). With his disciples, too, we may think that the bodily glorification is not something reserved, sudden, and immediate, but a process carried on beneath the shows of phenomenal existence ; and also that the Christian disciple is approaching continually nearer and nearer to the central principle of true knowledge ; all this provided that the ethical or religious relation is true, direct, and healthful, that Christ is loved even as He loved. Therefore, if in the Holy Supper the work of Christ is symbolized, it is in its entirety, as sacrificial and as life-giving, as one affecting the entire humanity ; and if it veils the result of that work, if it be a chan- 158 CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. nel of any benefit at all, it must be a channel of the entire benefit, of that which is mystical as well as of that which is intelligible, it must affect humanity in every element which is essential to it, and that in the order revealed in the absolute law of all concrete existence. That human life, thus essentially complex and a system of relations that can never be torn apart, should be nourished by media, as well as initiated through media, in either case the energy being the only known force, the Holy Spirit, is we know true in natural generation and growth ; and if there is to be indeed a new humanity, and the entire nature har- monized in its immanent and transcendent relations, and thus newly created, we need have no reluctance to think that it should be begun and nourished by media, and have a visible sacrament of its birth, and also of its food. As God is not confined to his own prescriptions, unless they have moral necessity immediately, but gives them for economical ends (which thus have moral necessity only remotely and not exhaustively), we cannot but think that this mystical initiation and process of nourishment may be carried on and these transcendent results attained independent of any media; but since the kingdom of Christ is to exist on the earth and win its way among the children of men, and if its own subjects are to be urged rapidly tow- ards perfection, not only for their own sakes, but for other's sakes, and that the Divine plans may be ac- complished, we see propriety that the Lord's Supper should be a vehicle of conveying such nourishment, and therefore be of perpetual obligation. That it THE LORD'S SUPPER. 159 should sometimes degenerate, in the estimation of men, into a superstitious rite was inevitable, and is itself a proof of the depth of the disorder to be cured ; but its benefit does not depend upon exhaustive or even true opinions about it, though these must en- hance the entire benefit, and remove hindrances to the unity of Christ's kingdom, and help to hasten the consummation. Its benefit is graduated by a religious and not by an intellectual scale, except as these imply each other. That which is accomplished in and for the Christian believer, in the celebration of the sacrament of the Holy Supper in such complete form as Jesus pre- scribed, if it is approached in the proper ethical con- dition, i. e., if the soul is unclogged by unrepented sin and reaches towards Christ in faith, is (1) the tighten- ing of the clasp with which it is embraced by and embraces him, the strengthening of the religious or personal tie ; and (2) the influx of life and vigor into the new and Christ-life already begun, whereby the entire new humanity receives new nourishment, growth, and impetus, — the vital relation to Christ is intensified and made more secure, and hence through him extends to every other Christian believer or member of him, whereby it becomes a communion, or a common participation of the influences which are to bring about the ultimate commonwealth of love with its correspondent environment of the glorified body, and the renewed uriai?. Like Christian prayer, the benefit of the Holy Supper is not only individual, but vicarious, and extends beyond its immediate recipients. And this is what is meant when it is sometimes spoken of as the extension of Christ's own sacrifice ; for it re- 160 CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. fers every thing back to him, and nothing to the creature, but the supply of the sine qua noti, the need- ful ethical condition. Of these results we are measurably conscious of the one, and entirely unconscious of the other, as we are similarly conscious and unconscious of the two pro- cesses carried on in our natural human life. With these results in mind more or less, the cele- bration of the Eucharist is an act of worship — a reli- gious, therefore a sacrificial act, in which there is not only a discarding of the appetencies of the old man, but a fresh consecration of the new man. God and man meet knowingly, as well as in manner unknown, and this coalescence, more or less clearly appre- hended, is adoration. This self-consecration, how- ever, is in the spirit of sacrificial love ; therefore it is not of one's self as an individual merely, but of one's self as included in the organism of the new humanity. The perfection of these, one's brethren, is needful for the perfection of the individual believer. The perfec- tion of all his members is needful for the perfection of Christ's own humanity regarded as the head and source of this organism. Not until it is perfected will He in the fullest sense be " subject to the Father " and " God be all in all." The Divine Glory may be enhanced, besides. He may be " glorified in them," and not only the bodies of the saints be trans- figured, but the whole xrfois liberated, and (for their subjective regard, at least) be reduced to its pure elements. It too is in no fixed and passive state, but subject to movements which we cannot yet a posteri- ori fully interpret. It is changing and moving on to a state which will be correspondent to the needs of THE LORD'S SUPPER. 161 the perfected souls who are to use it, and find in it the material for their own varied delight, and their own creative impulses. If, then, self-consecration be followed out to its full meaning, it is the offering to the Almighty Father, for his own acceptance, of the whole universe, now in process of redemption, by those who are charged with its recovery. Thus the sacrament of the Holy Supper, symbolizing and feebly imitating the one perfect and alone fully liberating sacrifice of Christ, is many-sided in its significance, intent, and results. Some of these last are negative and involve the disappearance of the old deranging tendencies, while others are positive, accomplishing growth, progress, and increasing security for the per- manence of the entire new human nature, in every element of its complex structure. Men have objected to calling it a " sacrifice " by tak- ing for granted an imperfect or inadequate meaning of the word. Such untrue meaning has come to pass from failure to analyze it and penetrate to the essential idea of sacrifice, by isolating its external and mechanical aspect from its ethical one. If all the elements of such meaning are had in mind, a supersti- tious meaning is no longer possible, nor any diminu- tion in regard of the supreme worth of Christ's sacri- fice, since the feebler one of his followers is his own shown forth measurably in them. Nor is the shallow view which confines itself to intelligible results, and forgets that life is a mystical process, any more pos- sible. The very interesting question now recurs,- — in what estimation should we hold these elements of bread and wine thus set apart and consecrated ? Vol. II. 162 CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. We hold it as axiomatic that any special or unique benefit or result promised to the observance of this instituted rite cannot be claimed except by meeting the entire terms of the ordinance as prescribed by Jesus himself ; hence that it cannot be taken to pieces and particular results apportioned to the respective parts. It is not the one and singular act of sacrificial worship commanded, if thus mutilated. If the prayers which are a part of the rite are thus separated from this connection, they fall into the plane of common prayers, and are ruled as to their result by the law governing them. An effect so extraordinary, involving the innermost secrets of life, as an influx of eternal vigor from Christ's perfected and glorified humanity, cannot be claimed as resulting from any thing less than the fulfilment of the entire terms of the prescription. All the essential moments of such prescription have their worth solely from the final cause. The elements of bread and wine are not consecrated except to be eaten and drank, nor are they truly consecrated except as they are eaten and drank, and become elements of spiritual strength in proportion to the depth and purity of the sacrificial mind with which they are received. To think otherwise is again to ex- alt the physical above the religious, and to undermine the whole theological fabric Any possible adoration, thought out of relation to the final cause, the nourish- ment of the new humanity, will be found, on analysis, to differ no whit from such adoration as is possible in ordinary prayer, or might be stimulated by the pres- ence of any thing stimulating the imagination. Not that this last may not be of worth, but it falls far short of the idea of the coalescence of God and man through THE LORD'S SUPPER. 163 Christ, possible and promised in the Holy Eucharist. These mutilations of this sacrament, of which men have been so fond, have not elevated but rather low- ered the conception of it ; and on careful examina- tion it will be found that the results of this seemingly high view belong to the same category with the results which alone are claimed by those holding the lowest view : i. e., they belong to the sphere of the intelli- gible, and exclude that of the mystical. The unscriptural word " presence " is a poor and in- sufficient one to indicate the profound coalescence of Christ with his own, effected through these media. The word has various meanings, either distinct, or expressing gradation in degree. It is too indefinite to be very useful. That Jesus or his Apostles never used it in reference to the Holy Supper might instruct us to formulate our doctrine without its use : yet if the word is adhered to, any meaning of it whatever is harmless, if the safeguards above detailed are kept in mind. The formula of words, used by Jesus, whose mean- ing bears the nearest approach to that usually given to the word pi'esence, is his saying : " Wherever two or three are met together in my name, there am I in the midst of them." But as these words were spoken during the period of the humiliation, they cannot have exactly the same meaning they might have had they been spoken after his glorification. They are in the present tense, and, if having phenomenal sense, such sense must be in accordance with the laws of the phenomenal world. His body was not yet emanci- pated from spatial and physical limitations. Indeed, those whom he was addressing were met together in 1 64 CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. his name, though not yet in the profoundest sense of these words, and there he was in their midst. But we cannot suppose that he was intending to utter such a truism as this. Neither is it likely that he was allud- ing to such omnipresence as might be predicable of him in his Divine nature, as when he spoke of " the Son of Man " who was " in heaven" It would not require the meeting of the " two or three " to accom- plish this. The stress is evidently laid upon these words, and in this meeting is to be found the key to their meaning. The allusion is both immediate and anticipatory, to the fact that by such outward action, with intent to worship, they were fulfilling one pur- pose of his coming. They were illustrating the law of love, which he had revealed in a concrete example by his sacrificial life, and hence were in a condition for a fuller coalescence with the Divine Principle itself through his mediation. They could then or thereafter only love each other rightly, if they first loved him. He was even then the channel (though not yet fully apprehended as such) through which their love pas- sing became purified and reached each other, and would reach the world in full strength and effect. This was measurably true when he spoke the words, and would be more completely true when his perfect sacrifice and its -results should have taken place, and become known. Thus the union of his disciples with him, and through him with each other, is primarily an ethical one, lapsing into a religious one ; and only through the last can it have ontoloofical truth. Thus the words he uses are not to be taken in a superficial and phenomenal sense, but in one more profound and real, and as including mystical relations. THE LORD'S SUPPER. 165 And it is not unlikely (since there was manifest unity in the plan of his kingdom, and his words and deeds are bound together, and constitute a philosophic system, more rigid and impregnable than any ever excogitated by the human intellect, which fact causes the trust in his words to which all the sons of men who have known of him fly for partial or completer refuge and rest) that when He spoke these words there was anticipation of those future gatherings in his name, which should occur after his death, when his disciples should meet for common worship, and especially after the manner which He should prescribe in the appointment of the ordinance of the Holy Sup- per. In this the significance of these words above given would be fully brought out. The commtinion earlier indicated now has become purer and more complete. The restraints of imperfect knowledge, weak faith, and insufficient feeling are now removed. He who could once deny his Master could not do so again. There is a sharing of the sacrificial mind, not held off and contemplated as a possibility and doubt- fully attractive, but the taking it to one's self as the supreme law and governing principle. There is, in the religious relation now possible, an approach to his own coalescence with his Father. There is a par- ticipation, as their religious growth proceeds, in the regenerative results of his sacrifice. Thus comes to pass a commtinion so profound and extensive, so real, that the word " presence " derived from the phenome- nal world becomes but a feeble word to express it, and a possibly misleading one, since calling away the mind to busy itself in merely physical or metaphysical enquiries. This word would be wisely used only in 166 CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. the phenomenal sense, in which case it would have several grades of meaning ; or in the sense of the Divine omnipresence, which means that the Divine consciousness and life pervade every thing, or that all things are present in it ; a truth that may be set forth in a thousand forms ; of which presence there are no degrees, but it is perfect everywhere. The Lord's Supper (only such in its entirety) be- comes, then, a medium, or channel of life, and as such requires the mediation of the Holy Spirit. But these elements of bread and wine thus set apart have secondary or relative holiness, as visible means tow- ards a mystical result. When eaten and drank in the sacrificial spirit they are media, to which God connects nourishment and growth, as He connects the susten- tation and strengthening of our natural life with the reception of our common food. But as this last, in the disordered state of the human body, may some- times not nourish, but only poison, so the reception of these consecrated elements, if the receiver be organically disordered by unrepented sin, however they may feed the mortal frame, can convey no strength to the " eternal life," but may enfeeble it, or figuratively poison it, in extreme cases, by adding the sin of irreverence or blasphemy, thus aggravating the disease. But when the receiver is thus for the time purified they are the means of the normal nourish- ment. To be sure it is by Divine appointment only that our common food nourishes. So is the universe constituted that the life principle operates through it, flows into the subject when the normal relation is established, whereby the food is assimilated to the organism, and sustains its life. But this organism, THE LORD'S SUPPER. 167 through ethical defect, cannot hold this life, and at length what has been food becomes no longer food, and does not and cannot maintain it in organic ex- istence. Science may alter the phraseology of all this, but the truth intended will remain the same. But the new organism, invisibly articulating beneath the mask of the old, can maintain itself against the disinte- grating and destroying forces The name of its life is * eternal life." Life indeed ; and (as all dependent life has its sacrament, and man is only independent ethically) the life current which perennially sustains and invigorates it must needs have its visible medium (for the Regeneration is not the substitution of the new for the old, but the transmutation of the old into the new), through which the Divine Life may operate. Thus the bread and wine received in the Lord's Supper, while still remaining food for the natural life, become other than such food. As the new body may be formed beneath the mask of the old, so the life which is eternal life may operate through the conceal- ment of ordinary food. As such sacrament of food for the new humanity growing and developing, the symbols which teach it, or the media which convey it, obtain secondary or relative sanctity, and thence may be desecrated by irreverence, a fault for which St. Paul rebuked the Corinthian disciples. Besides, — through the new life principle lodged in it, the htigiz itself is undergoing progressive glorifica- tion, correspondent to the progress of the ethical principle, and these elements are part of this nriai?, — elements too which have become possible media, and when received actual media, between Christ and them to whom the new life is first and immediately extend- 1 68 CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. ed, viz. : the body of Christian believers. Thus these elements, effecting as media the new and eternal relation, are the connecting link between this body of believers and the outlying universe, and share in its glorification. Such thought may influence one's re- gard of them, as veiling mystical processes and results, and even the superstitious regard of them be but the perversion of a healthy instinct. But, as was said be- fore, in our regard of them the sacrificial act which avails of them as symbols and media, and the acquies- cent mind which reverently receives them must not be lost sight of. They must not be thought to have independent virtue separated from these relations ; though, since elevated to such high function, the Christian instinctive feeling will pay them honor. Hence it follows that, in the complex sacrificial act which offers the subject in organic union with Christ and his brethren, — which is vicarious, and reaches in its efficacy the whole organism (for no Christian can be- come more holy or more sinful without enhancing or retarding the perfection of the whole body), these ele- ments too have their share, as connecting the whole universe with the body of Christian believers, for this cannot be left behind, as though it were not needed in the consummation.' Thus, when the profound significance of the Holy Eucharist is brought out and rightly thought, we are guarded from any superstitious estimation on the one hand, and on the other from any shallow, imperfect, and merely ethical view. But the tendency to these extremes is perennial, and has been amply illustrated in the history of Christianity. That the celebration of the Holy Supper should be THE LORD'S SUPPER. 169 confined to the ministry, the appointed guardians of the purity of the Church, and conservators of the in- tegrity of Christian truth, (if we find we have grounds to regard them such,) would seem to be obvious. If their wisdom is needed to discover who are fitted for the initiatory rite, it would seem to be still more needed to find those who approach the Lord's table in fitting mood, not to desecrate it, but to receive its benefit. As having then committed to them the ob- servance, the task of consecration and administration, we find constituted a priestly relation similar, though on a higher plane and for finer results, to the uni- versal priestly relation between all Christian believers as such. But this priestly relation is not a mere per- functory one, as for the most part under the Jewish dispensation, but an ethical and religious one. Hence it is not rightly or wisely characterized as sacerdotal, which word is associated with a far lower and coarser relation. No one need be afraid of this word "priestly " as meaning simply lower or higher kind of human mediation : and those who reject the word will be found still to have retained what it means. Here, however, is indicated a careful inquiry into the constitution and function of the Christian ministry, which topic we shall very soon approach. But before the doctrine of the Eucharist can be dismissed, there is needed a dissertation upon the function and efficacy of Christian Prayer, since this, though pervading all religious acts, and all Christian experience, is, in the case of the Eucharist, the mode of consecration. And this will carry us, before we can part with it, into depths as profound as any in which thought can move. CHAPTER XVI. CHRISTIAN PRAYER. If the First Principle of the universe, the central spring of its movement, be thought of as impersonal, hence unconscious, such a thing as Prayer is unjustifi- able and absurd. As a practice, however, it cannot be said to be unlikely or impossible ; for when in pain or terror man may make a conscious or unconscious appeal to the mystical force which starts and rules the motions of the outer world, as though his appeal might be known and be of possible effect. This he may do in spite of his thought, and upon the impulse of his feeling. This shows that feeling is prior to and deeper than thought, and becomes thought when spirit light pervades its darkness, when the category is supplied which brings order and method into it. This involuntary and rudimental supplication may be .regarded as the debris of past superstitions, and be explained after the manner of Herbert Spencer and others, or it may be thought as man's profoundest instinct, and as showing that, in spite of his mental denials, the obscure consciousness that all force has a personal origin is implicit in all his ratiocination. By the rude and undeveloped man all force is figured as personal effort, and hence his early superstitions, his invocations to the intelligences which are supposed to reside within and to govern the powers of nature. 170 CHRISTIAN PRA YER. 1 7 1 This is Religion, in its broadest definition : the state of consciousness derived from the conviction, the suspicion, or the instinctive belief that personality underlies all manifestations of power, and the en- deavor to come into some sort of communication with the same. Thus at the centre of all polytheistic superstition the idea is existent, though caricatured, distorted, broken into centres of power more or less independent ; and it remains for thinking to reduce these powers to unity, and thus to purify and simplify the idea. Such thinking was done by the philoso- phers of old, and they, even in the acquiescence in or adoption of the prevalent worship, may have had in their minds the idea in its purity, and regarded these named divinities but as modes or manifesta- tions of the One Intelligent Power. If, however, man's naive instincts can be thus cor- rected by thinking, by philosophy, they can (if the force in the universe has a personal origin and thus is guided by intelligence, possesses foresight, and has probable benevolence, thus has within itself unity and harmony) be protected measurably from aberrance at the start ; or be at any time confirmed or corrected by intelligible action from the same personal source. Such particular action we may call revelation, involv- ing providential arrangements operating externally, and the correspondent mystical influence upon the subjective apprehension. If such revelation be indeed from the creative Source, its results must be identical with those attained by correct and exhaustive think- ing, may aid and beckon on the latter ; as the latter, too, may and must test the former, and insist upon its right and ability to determine whether the alleged 172 CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. revelation be such indeed. Thus we may think that for providential ends certain individuals, families, races of mankind have been protected and aided : and the pure and true idea of the First Principle (so far as it went), and man's relation thereto, given and estab- lished at the start. And we may also see it to be possible in such case, that this correct idea with its relation may undergo distortion or obscuration from human source, and thus be degraded by degrees, as before it by degrees had been purified and exalted. Prayer, then, being the endeavor of the personal subject to come into mystical coalescence with the personal object, will be true in proportion as the idea of such person is true or complete. If such Divine Person be thought as mere arbitrary will, having no essential, unchanging, and necessary nature, the idea can inspire only terror, and superstitious observances become inevitable. If He be thought as weakly benevolent, and having in himself no moral distinc- tions, hence as devoid of any such attribute as Justice, and that his indulgence or interference can be pur- chased by gifts, we still have superstition, though in somewhat higher form. The Supreme One is here regarded as having character, but this character is but the objectification of man's own in all its weakness. These two notions of the Supreme lie, one or the other, beneath all idolatry, which thus conceives the Power falsely, as arbitrary, or cruel, or indifferent, or weakly benevolent, and orders its worship in accord- ance with this conception. The corrective to this ten- dency is reached by human thinking when it discovers that the moral distinction within us is necessary and eternal (thus bringing to clear light the moral instinct CHRIS TIA N PR A YER. 1 73 that has been overlaid and obscured), and that physi- cal results follow the observance or the neglect of the moral law. Thus the principle of Justice comes to be thought as an element of the Divine idea ; or a correc- tive having the same result may be supplied by revela- tion, by the giving of edicts with rewards or punishments promised to observance or violation. Thus prayer comes to be still further purified and elevated, when the Source of power is identified with the Source of the moral law ; and in the complex idea of the Supreme One the notion of severity is contained as well as the notion of beneficence. But if this same principle of Justice be thought as supreme over every other predi- cation of the Divine Person, as absolute, and ruling over the manifestations of the Divine beneficence by an alien and metaphysical necessity, and not as the attitude of the Divine Love itself towards its own congener or its opposite, and therefore as a form of freedom or moral necessity, — prayer to the Supreme One so thought still thinks falsely the Ruler of the universe, and must still approach him with misgivings and with fear and not in love. Beyond such conception it is questionable whether human thinking, unguided and unhelped would ever have carried the general human mind. For the a posteriori evidence is so pressing and cumulative of the Divine severity, that no a priori thinking could have emancipated more than the philosophic few, and not even them perma- nently. Man is still inwardly repelled from God by the sense of his own unworthiness, however he may endeavor to approach him. " Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord," said St. Peter, not yet knowing that this repulsion was the true condition for 174 CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. a real advance, and revealed the strength of the in- most attraction, clamoring that what made this repul- sion should be removed. This moral shrinking from God shows that not yet has the Divine Love been made clear to human thought, and strong for the human heart. The struggle of faith exists indeed, but it is painful and despairing. The heart sinks and craves the outstretched hand to be raised and made cheerful and glad. Man approaches and shrinks from God alternately. The Divine Love is not seen nor felt so securely as to free the fetters of his own love. The special Divine protection, shown in the superabun- dance of temporal rewards and punishments promised and bestowed upon religious obedience or disobedi- ence, may carry him a step farther towards the true and full idea, and the normal religious relation, as in the case of the Hebrew people and chosen individuals of the same ; and supernatural influence may have carried these still farther, in whose case the prophetic visions may have illumined still more the Divine idea, so that it might be intuited as Love ; and thus we might find the religious life and experience more nearly perfect. From such source too might come forms of expression which need not be discarded, and prayers which Christians can use. It is not, however, till the Divine Love takes for mankind the sacrificial form, and till it is not only thought to be such, but seen and felt to be such ; till it appeals to human sense, imagination, and convic- tion ; till it is seen to meet and transcend our highest conception of active Love, and that without dropping off its attribute of Justice, — it is not till God manifests himself in Jesus Christ, that the idea of the First CHRIS TIA N PR A YER. 1 75 Principle becomes perfect and pure, that the personal relation or bond becomes normal and strong, and that prayer reaches its perfection. Christian Prayer is more and higher than all other prayer, because it relates the subject to God in his essential idea, — and that is, a Unity breaking into Trinity, thus satisfying the rational requirements of the human mind, and through the Incarnation of the Eternal Son and the sacrifice of Christ meeting the utmost requirements of the human heart. It superadds something more to all in human prayer that went before, and that might legitimately be retained. It allows itself to long for relief from pain, and for en- joyment, for health and prosperity and peace, — to supplicate for temporal blessings, — but it acknowl- edges the wisdom of Divine Providence in apportion- ing these to human subjective requirements ; it ac- knowledges the Divine Justice, and submits to suf- fering, yet turns it into means of purification. It betakes itself to self-denying zeal, and the suffering needed therefor, because it knows and feels it to be vicarious. It goes to its Eternal Father through the mediation of its Divine-human brother, in unfettered filial spirit, and acknowledges the mystery beneath the shows of phenomenal existence by supplicating the grace of the Holy Spirit. We have personified it thus, as completely possessing the human subject, and representing the personal relation solely, and in its purity and intensity, and therefore descriptive of the profoundest fact and relation possible for any created existence. Christian Prayer may be absolutely and perfectly " in faith," or imperfectly and provisionally such. It 176 CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. is perfectly in faith when what it supplicates is known to be in absolute accordance with the Divine will, as when it asks for aid to resist temptation, or to be strengthened in the loving spirit. In such supplication its maxim is that God's will and its own are identical. It is in faith still, but imperfectly, when its maxim is " Let God's will be mine." Here its own will (repre- senting the entire self, and not the transitory long- ing) is known to be not in secure accordance with the Divine will, and it craves the needed light to discover whether or how far it is such, and the mysti- cal influence of the Holy Spirit that it may be strong enough to be such. Thus it asks for resignation to the dispensations of Divine Providence, for cheerful- ness and joy in its self-denials, for light and guidance and support in its zealous undertakings. It is only provisionally in faith when it asks that its own will may be God's will, that its irrepressible longings be in accordance with the Divine plan. There is implied in such prayer a possibility that the Divine will and the Divine treatment may be changed in consequence of its asking. To such supplication, while it remains in doubt, it ever appends the supplement, " But not my will but thine be done." Still it is not discouraged but rather encouraged to make such request, even though in doubt whether the response will be in accordance with its own longings, and in resignation to its being answered in some other way. It will not be denied its privilege, and there is no forbidding of this privilege, to lay its own heart open to the Divine heart, to feel that there is sympathy for its wants and longings, intelligence of its finer needs, and com- passion for its infirmity. God is not all that the mind CHRISTIAN PRA YER. 177 thinks and the heart craves unless this be. It may be that its own importunity and urgency may have such effect upon its own subjective condition as to bring the Divine will and its own into accord, and accom- plish the very reply that it desires. ' No repulse, no theory shall forbid my heart from displaying itself to the Divine heart, and telling him what He knows before,' is the very deepest element of its self-con- sciousness. The religious relation is just as true and trustworthy as the physical one. ' I will not let thee go unless thou bless me, in thy own way, if not in mine,' is still the utterance of faith. But, knowing the diffusiveness of the Divine Love, the Christian's own love is similar. If it responds to and reflects the Divine love, its love is for all that God loves, for all that is worthy of loving, and in proportion as it is worthy of being loved. Hence his prayer becomes intercession, and his prayer for him- self is directly or indirectly for his brethren. His prayers are for the new organism in Christ Jesus, for the household of faith, and therefore he cannot if he would, recognizing this unity, exclude the departed ones from this intercession. " They, without us, cannot be made perfect." When Christian prayer becomes other than individualistic, it cannot stop short of the whole commonwealth of love, on earth and in Para- dise, yet needing its completion. As in the case of the Christian Sacraments them- selves, Christian Prayer may degenerate into a mere superstitious observance, when it is thought to have virtue from its mere perfunctory " repetitions," or when it is regarded as having magical virtue indepen- dent of all ethical condition or relation, when its idea is Vol. 11. 178 CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. thus religiously false. In such case it is prone to break into a multiplicity of formal observances and mechani- cal acts (not that these cannot be rescued and made of worth and have their use), beneath all which is an untrue or disturbed conception of the Divine Prin- ciple, — all which contains the essential notion of idolatry, the worshipping the force of the universe under a false idea. The corrective to such tendency is, as before in the case of the sacraments, to be found only in a healthy Christian consciousness, in a consistent theology, in short, — for which again the watchful guardianship and the special culture and experience of a selected ministry are needed. As a class the prayers of such a ministry, if not devouter and more loving than the prayers of other classes, are at least wiser and more intelligent ; though even here, alas, if an erroneous philosophy or an incoherent theology be in the mind, the abnormality of such practices in prayer will be more fixed and frozen, and be more difficult of correction than in any other case. But we have yet to enquire into the method and manner of the Divine answer to prayer ; and particu- larly as to the meaning and efficacy of such prayer as accompanies the Christian prescriptions, the adminis- tration of the ordinances of Baptism and the Lord's Supper, or of the apostolic ordinance of the laying on of hands in admitting to the Christian ministry. In all other rites, beyond controversy, Christian pray- ers and their results are the same in kind, and are ruled by the same law as all Christian Prayer what- ever. They only differ in their object-matter, and the response is always the external or providential over- CHRIS TIA N PR A YER. 1 79 ruling, and the correspondent influence of the Holy- Spirit, or this last alone, when the former is not required. To pray at all implies the belief, in variant degrees, that God can and will respond favorably to such prayer. But in this is implied a philosophy of the universe, and that its physical movement and history are subordinate to and adapted to moral and spiritual requirements ; that its actual or possible physical change is not an independent sphere by itself, and having only physical meaning. That it is more is the main contention of philosophy, which is content with induction only from the entire and not from partial material. This contends that the physical universe displays intelligence, sprang from intelligence, and is made for intelligence ; that it would have no worthy meaning, no value for the mind as a purely physical process ; that the highest which it now accomplishes is to furnish conditions for the development and en- richment of spiritual subjects ; that it and the facul- ties of such are preadapted to each other ; therefore, that the key to its meaning is to be found in this its highest attainment, and can be in no lower. Thus it comes to be regarded as the Divine wealth, rejoiced in by God himself, and to be rejoiced in by his image. Here is the conflict of faith: for the a posteriori evidence seems to preponderate that the forces of nature are a realm apart, and go in their own ways in- dependent of all humanly required interference, and with no respect to human needs ; that man, discover- ing how far he can use them for his own ends, obtains a temporary and insecure dominion, but in the end is surely crushed by them : while the conclusion reached 180 CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. a priori, or a posteriori from a wider induction, leads to the conviction that man is higher than nature, that nature then can subserve not only his lower and physi- cal needs but his higher mental and moral ones, that her power and victory stop short of his innermost fort- ress, which her seeming triumphs have only strength- ened and enriched. This conviction, thus reached by thought, never, however, so far triumphs over the impressions derived from the phenomenal world, which appeal to his sensitive animal nature and to his im- agination, as to lift the thinking subject above all mental conflict and beyond the region and the need of faith. This latter conviction, too, may be supple- mented and confirmed by the belief in a Divine rev- elation, and faith thereby reach such height and purity as no longer to be assaulted by such a posteriori con- flicting impressions, and to be subjected to other and more purely spiritual trials ; in which latter case, while it seems simply absurd not to admit the doctrine of an all-knowing Providence, to become a trial this Providence must seem so inexplicable as to start the doubt whether it be also loving. The habitual thought underlying and justifying Christian Prayer is, then, that all the movements and changes of the physical universe are adapted to the needs and ends of the intelligences, between whom and God they mediate ; that the Divine Providence is omniscient as well as omnipotent, minute, and far- reaching; that human freedom is limited to giving the moral form to human action ; that the material content is altogether in God's hand, and subject to no possible interference, is forever in harmony with the whole comprehensive scheme. What is called a special CHRIS TIA N PR A YER. 1 8 1 providence can only be, under such a scheme of thought, when the adaptation of the physical processes, which move by fixed laws but are nevertheless adapted to human subjective needs, is seen or suspected to be such. When such connection or fitness seems appa- rent, it is a boon and a support to faith ; and the Christian has full right so to regard it, though it can never amount to absolute conviction, unless produced by some supernatural mental elevation allowed or pro- duced for special providential ends. The Christian life is full of such experiences. They come sometimes im- mediately when the favorable response to prayer is quick in coming. They come — these insights — oftener afar off, when the " patience " attained has made such " experience " or insight possible and profitable. And this is no contradiction of a doctrine of General Prov- idence moving by fixed laws and preadapted to the needs of the aesfreofate human race, to hold and to gladly think that such adaptation to individual needs, may at times be inferred, or seen, or felt, and have connection with the fitness for such adaptation induced by particular prayers. The highest law of the universe, highest because resulting in the highest attainment, is that it minis- ters to human knowledge, enrichment and delight, to moral and spiritual perfection. That the relation of the Divine consciousness to the consciousness of the spiritual human subject shall be normal, that the latter shall move towards the truth and purity of the former, is a worthier Divine end, a higher reach of the Divine power, than any physical convulsion that dissipates itself in physical results merely. God is nearer in the " still small voice " than in the " thunder " or the 1 82 CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. " earthquake." Man in his deepest soul knows him- self to be above nature, and destined to rule her, as God rules her, as soon as he can be trusted with such dominion. Physical magnitudes are as nothing when tested by spiritual measurements. They merely trouble and bewilder the imagination, and crumble in the crucible of thought. Grandeur of physical results is no true measure of force. These only dissipate it, and it is intensest in its concentration and before its dissipation. Even now it is most concentrated in the brain of the philosopher, who comes to utter and make appreciable a thought which by and by con- vulses the social world. In the Divine self-limitation, whereby was accomplished the Incarnation of the Eternal Son, all force is concentrated, which reaches all that the illimitable space contains. That man's physical littleness in comparison with the great mag- nitudes should have troubled the human mind, and assaulted its faith, is a strange instance of narrow and one-sided thinkingf. But much as we know of nature, there is more yet to be known. She is full of subtle powers and possi- ble relations only as yet partially reached by human intelligence. Man's growing knowledge here is sim- ply a delight. But much as he may yet discover, the realm of pure spirit can never in this life, and with our present faculties, come within the terms of knowledge. And as man is stirred from this source, as a true uni- versal, and finds that his knowledge cannot account for all that passes within himself, nor for himself, there is no bar to the conviction in Christian Prayer, that the influence of the Divine Spirit, the source of all life, as well as of all chemical and mechanical move- CHRISTIAN PRA YER. 183 ment, can be secured to further its aspiration, to heal the life fountain, to harmonize the appetencies of the nature, and to sanctify the character. So far as the answer to Prayer is a providential change, or an adap- tation permitted to be seen, it may come within the sphere of knowledge ; so far as it is mystical, it must elude it. The ordinary object-matter of Prayer — light, guidance, strength, or comfort — is imparted thus mystically. What can be thought, through specula- tion, of the modus through which these results are effected, will be inquired into hereafter. But here we content ourselves in saying that the influences of the Holy Spirit are in proportion to the degrees of faith and spiritual striving. Thus the Christian works, and God the Holy Spirit works in him and by him, with holiness and ultimate perfection as the end and aim. We may classify the results of such spiritual influence according to our analysis of human character ; and the influence of the Holy Spirit in accomplishing these is figured by what is called his seven-fold gifts. These, as was said before, may be thought to come in fullest measure and with many-sided potentiality, when the conditions are laid, i. c, at that period of the Christian career when there is self-consecration in earnest, when inchoate faith becomes Christian faith, and results in overt action, i. c, at Adult Baptism, or at Confirmation as marking such self-consecration. There is no proper prayer prescribed by Jesus Christ for the ordinance of Baptism. What is prom- ised is to the subjective faith and the objective applica- tion of water in the name of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit ; and the promise is fulfilled in the manner here- tofore displayed. Yet this transaction, if sincere, con- 184 CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. tains, both on the side of the subject and of the ad- ministrator, the essential elements of Prayer, — the sense of dependence, the craving for the Divine favor, the submission to the terms of its bestowal, and the recognition on both sides of the true and revealed idea of the First Principle, the Unity in Trinity. Yet the absence of this just estimation on either side would not impair its validity, or its objective worth, which still reaches the subject according to the degrees of his capacity. The internal imperfections of intelli- gence or intent on the part of the administrator do not bind and fetter the Divine intent ; though no claim to the benefit as promised can be made, if there is neg- lect of the objective formula. In the case of the Holy Supper the prescription is more complex. If Jesus' acts in the institution of this sacrament be a pattern to be followed for all time, which his words imply and which his disciples have ever taken for granted, the outline is : (i) the blessing of the elements, which accomplishes a setting apart for holy use, or consecration ; (2) the breaking of the bread, the outpouring of the wine ; and (3) the giving of the same to the intended participants, with the accompanying declaration of the mystical virtue of such reception, viz., the conveyance of the results of the broken body and shed blood over to them. The essential elements of this entire formula may still be preserved, even though there be minute varia- tions, and the promise holds good to the objective observance, even though the subjective mind accom- panying be still defective ; for, as in the case of Bap- tism, God is not fettered by the unwisdom or the weak- ness of the administrators ; and the benefits flow out upon the recipients, as heretofore displayed. CHRIS TIA N PR A YER. 1 8 5 In all this there is contained, as in the other case, the essential elements of Prayer. The whole trans- action may be regarded as a symbolic prayer, and what is accomplished is the prescribed ordinance and its benefit, all of the factors of which are inter-de- pendent and condition each other. The elements thus consecrated are, (not phenomenally, but in the vital nourishment which they convey,) the broken body and the blood shed, whereby the new life comes to be, to the faithful recipients. The regenerative virtue of the great sacrifice reaches them through these elements thus in faith received, which faith has reached its ultimate and its expression, when the ad- ministrator and the recipients have joined together in the sacrificial offering made in the prescribed form, and with its entire observance. There is little or nothing gained for thought, at least for the common mind, by attempting to expli- cate further this fact thus revealed as passing beneath the shows of phenomenal existence, — by setting im- agination to work to do what it can do as well at any time whatever, by speculating upon changes wrought in the immanent structural relation of these elements, by calling in thus the aid of a doubtful science and metaphysic. These are mere and successless tenta- tives of the curious intellect, and tend to impair rather than to increase the moral effect or religious efficacy of the ordinance. They call one away from the ex- ercise of faith, which involves self-scrutiny, and a reaching out for the Divine heart, to engage in a mental endeavor to find meaning in propositions, or to occupy imagination with an impossible task. In this ordinance which Jesus prescribed to be of universal obligation, the most essential subjective estimation 1 86 CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. ought to be within the power of the simplest soul ; while from its manifold relations it ought to be such as to repay the utmost thought-labor of the theo- logian, and from its clearness be satisfying and not bewildering. That so much controversy has been ex- pended upon the sacrament of the Eucharist with so little result shows that some divergence from the pathway which becomes clearer and leads to an illu- mined end must have been earlier made ; and the present author thinks that this divergence has arisen from an insufficient and inconclusive conception of the doctrine of the sacrificial Atonement of Christ, which too depends upon a right view of the self- limiting act in the Incarnation itself; and that Eucha- ristic enquiries must follow the lead and share the fate of these earlier ones, and that regardless of these all enquiry is fruitless. And in the third instance, when selected ones are consecrated to the uses of the ministry, though no prayer is prescribed, all on both sides is done in the prayerful spirit, and the whole transaction, with what- ever outward observance accompanying, is a symbolic prayer ; and the reply on God's part is the Holy Spirit to enlighten and aid the recipient of such conse- cration in these the finest uses to which humanity can be put. The gift of the Holy Spirit is perennial then, and not something complete and finished, and is graded by the subjective condition of the one thus consecrated, in all his ministrations, except in the ad- ministration of the sacraments, the virtue of which does not vary with the degrees of his worthiness. But of this more at length hereafter. The Apostle Paul gave the precept : " Pray without CHRIS TIA N PR A YER. 1 87 ceasing." This is fulfilled not by frequent repetitions of words audible or inaudible, nor is dependent upon words at all, except as they are the habitual symbols of thought ; — but by possessing constantly the prayer- ful spirit, by doing every thing beyond one's self and upon one's self in subjection to the Divine will, and with the sense of dependence upon the Divine bless- ing. This need never be lost. In proportion as the sense of the Divine sustentation is fresh and continu- ous do we pray without ceasing. Thus the whole life-consciousness of the Christian may be a prayer. Thus no action whatever, no mood of mind is morally or religiously indifferent. If not sinful it is ever sub- jectively right and holy, and growing into more and more conformity with the objectively right and holy. " Every thought " may be " brought into captivity to the obedience of Christ." There still remains, however, the need of an en- deavor to reach the limit of our thought, and dis- cover, if possible, the mode of the Holy Spirit's working, or at least within what bounds He works. But we have waited, and will wait still farther, till all the questions are opened which may be illumined by such enquiry, so far as it may be successful, and whose full elucidation is measurably dependent upon it. This will be found, then, in the proper place. CHAPTER XVII. JESUS' BAPTISM, THE CHRISTIAN MINISTRY. The preaching of John the Baptist seems to have had for its intent, to arouse the conscience of his audi- tors, to illumine the moral law or the Divine will, whether intuited or revealed, and to freshen the judg- ment and feeling of obligation to the same. The moral distinctions grow sharper for the mind, as the facts are brought home that the law of love, on the one hand, is or may be more entirely and gladly ful- filled, and on the other more neglected, and wilfully departed from. To come to John's Baptism was to signalize one's acquiescence in the truth of such preaching, and the consequent obligations. This was making apparent to all on-lookers that their religion was more than a mere cultus, and that any cultus was only declarative or symbolical. That Jesus should have submitted to, indeed have asked for, this Baptism, was to give his imprimatur to the truth and intent of John's preaching. To testify to the surrounding world that one recognizes the validity of these distinctions, and proposes to live ac- cording to the requirements of the moral law is part of man's duty, and thus belongs to the fulfilling of righteousness. But in the case of Jesus, instead of being, as with others, a recognition of the obligation of repentance in one's own case, and a sign that such 188 JESUS' BAPTISM. 189 repentance has been begun, this submission to John's Baptism was rather a declaration that the law of love is the Divine law for man, and that He, Jesus, is a member of that human brotherhood, of that ideal commonwealth which such law is intended to make real. This coming to John's Baptism was the second act of Jesus of which we have any record. It is men- tioned in nearly the same words by the authors of the synoptical gospels, and alluded to in the fourth, which indicates that in the mind of the Evangelists it was an important and significant occurrence. The first recorded words of his are those He spoke when a child in the temple, which are a recognition of the personal tie, the religious relation, on which is grounded all moral obligation, and which furnishes for the fulfilment of this last the true motive- spring. And the second recorded words and act of his are a recognition of the universality of the obliga- tion of the moral law, and that He has entered into the brotherhood whom it binds. Thus, we may say, by his first act He claims his fellowship with the Father, — by the second his solidarity with the human race, in which two relations He appears as a media- tor, and seems ready for his active Ministry. This is his true Ordination. The Holy Spirit, who has mediated thus far his moral and religious develop- ment, now enters upon a new function, accompanies him in the work of his Ministry, and adapts him to its progressive requirements. His love, which hitherto has been contemplative, and active in a limited sphere, now overflows these bounds and reaches after the whole human race. We have here displayed (and for igo CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. the first time on this planet) the moral ideal of humanity in this world of limitations. Love must needs gather all things to itself, and will be crucified, if need be, to gather all or any to itself. (Love in its activity here appears as a dialectic, concrete necessity, having its origin, might, and permanence in the im- mutable constitution of things, higher and more real than any metaphysical, physical, or logical necessity, which exists only in and for the human mind, and has no existence beyond it.) Here now steps forth for our regard and imitation the pattern man, whose career is to be so wonderful. He is declared to be the Beloved Son, not as the Son of God simply, but as the Son of Man, as showing the form of a servant, the filial obedience which is to lose the name of ser- vice in its perfection. And through the symbolic sights and sounds accompanying (whose physical pos- sibility and method are here a matter of indifference), and which indicate the mind of the Father, we have the seal of the absolute Holiness stamped upon this ideal career, and the mystical influence needed for his Minis- try promised and begun to be supplied. In all this is a Divine act, in the triplicity of its relations. But the act of the Son is the act of him incarnate, and there- fore is an act of self-consecration. This then is the true Ordination, and the model for all subsequent ordination. But the same Holy Spirit, whose mystical influence is to be with him in his work, now withdraws him into solitude, where, all other solicitations being removed, He may enter into self-scrutiny, may commune with the Father in spirit, and with the Father as seen in the virgin world, undefaced or undetermined by JESUS 1 BAPTISM. 191 human change. Thus even Jesus, who would devote himself to labor for humanity, needs this period of self-communion to measure his own strength, to pon- der his purposes, to accumulate vigor, and be guarded against all surprises. Here, however, the old uni- verse, and the old humanity which He has come to share and to transmute, asserts itself, and shows its hostility. Temptation befalls him in the character- istic forms in which it reaches all the children of men ; — the bodily appetites, which lead men to carnal sin ; ambition, which leads to spiritual sin ; and covetous- ness, which mediates the two. Thus He feels the force, essentially, of all temptation that befalls human- ity, of all temptations but one, — and that he cannot feel as yet, — that which finds him in Gethsemane, and on the Cross, the temptation to draw back from death. And in the successful resistance to this is such moral fibre gained that his obedience thenceforth seems easy and spontaneous. The sacrificial charac- teristic of it becomes milder, or almost drops off now, until it returns in full force in the terrible conflicts which befall him near the end. That the self-consecration of Jesus to his ministerial work is met by the declared approbation of the Father, and by the sign of the needed spiritual influence, and that He is thus objectively separated, is then Ordina- tion in its primitive idea and perfect reality, — and thus and therein is the idea of Ordination vindicated, the need of a sacred Ministry to do the Lord's work on earth declared, and the obligation indicated, in- cumbent upon some, to follow his example, — so to consecrate themselves and to be consecrated. He offered himself, and the Father accepted him, and 192 CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. signified his acceptance, and the Holy Spirit filled him and was with him in his work. Thus afterwards He chose his disciples and they acquiesced, or they offered themselves, and He accepted them, and He educated and fitted these, and let them pass at times into their own wilderness, and in due time He sent them forth, illumined by the Holy Spirit, to do his work in the world. There will always be the same need of such a Ministry to spread his dominion and build up his kingdom ; and what is essential to con- stitute it seems to be what was indicated in the pattern, — self-consecration, and acceptance by God or his representatives, and some objective consecra- tion veiled in appropriate symbol ; a meeting of the inward and outward acts, and the promise and the bestowal, as need arises, of the spiritual light and aid. Thus, in the evolution of the Christian process, the idea of the Ministry seems to precede the idea of the Church, and Jesus and his disciples appear as preachers of the gospel before the Church is more than an idea, before its marks and tokens in the sacraments have been instituted, or indeed, in the fulness of their meaning and virtue, have become possible. To be sure all Christians, as such, may and should regard themselves as preachers of the gospel, bound to im- part and extend it wherever they can, and are for- bidden to order their lives without regard to this obligation ; and by parity of reasoning they are and should be entitled to administer the rite of Baptism, to receive the recognition and acknowledgment of every new disciple by this symbolic act. In this con- sists the universal Christian priesthood, a doctrine of JESUS' BAPTISM. 193 which grows out of the very idea of Christianity itself, and upon which any doctrine of a particular and limited priesthood is founded. Hence while con- senting to the propriety of a wiser and more authori- tative preaching, and to the ordinary limitation of the permission to administer the rite of Baptism, that it might be safely and wisely done (a limitation rendered necessary by the incoming of immature and unwise disciples into the Christian fold), the early Christian consciousness still held the instinct that it was a right belonging to every Christian believer as such, limited yet not abolished, to make known the good news of Christ, and to receive into fellowship any new disciple. And that this rite was administered by the disciples in general, and without any such prolonged examina- tion as in later times has been thought necessary, accepting the evidence of sincerity given by the abandonment of Pagan privileges, is likely, if not entirely evident from the occurrences on the day of Pentecost, and by the summary baptism of the house- hold of the jailor. It must by all means be held that any limited priesthood grows thus out of the limitations of the universal priesthood. The end of Christianity is summarized in its principle, universal love. It re- forms mankind from within and not from without. It is a living growth and not a mechanism. The Church is ideally perfect, and its actual imperfections are to be sloughed off, and not externally removed. All which does not render any less needful the outward appliances whose intent is to remove the impediments to healthy growth. A limited 'priesthood is a neces- sity for the militant state ; and will not, like the uni- Vol. II. i 9 4 CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. versal priesthood, survive the consummation. Its obligation is only the stronger by making it grow out of the limitations of the latter. Like the old law, it exists in a parenthesis, and is only rightly understood by relating what went before, and is to come after. Its obligations are not the less binding because they are transitory, any more than the precept to be honest is none the less binding because in the ulti- mate set of relations such a precept cannot exist. A further and more unyielding limitation of this universal priesthood is rendered needful and became actual from the requirements of the other sacrament. The conditions for the proper administration of this were such as to require more care and caution. Not every Christian believer, signalizing by his acceptance of Baptism his entrance upon an untried career, was at all times in such a condition of genuine repentance and innocence as to receive the influx of Divine- human nourishment, which could only flow into and through an unimpeded channel. The scrutiny of wiser ones than ordinary, of those specially trained and fitted for such a function, was needed for this, and their judgment was required to determine this ; and hence, by an instinct as profound as the other, it was felt that their intervention was required to deter- mine that the virtue of the rite might be really im- parted ; and hence grew up the judgment that only such administration was secure and valid. While indeed the historic evidence is lacking that any such limitation was required by Apostolic authority, the universal practice, and consent to the same without questioning, furnishes presumptive evidence that this was the case. JESUS' BAPTISM. 195 That the celebration of the Holy Supper as a com- plete rite, including consecration and administration, is confined to a proper priesthood, has then intrinsic fitness ; and it is thus related to the whole question of discipline, and the need to keep the Church pure and fair as may be. It thus comes to be regarded as something more than a perfunctory performance, and as having the highest and finest moral and reli- gious uses. The idea of the priestly function is only degraded to the lower level of the priesthood of other religions, if it becomes a mere soulless mechanism, a " vain repetition," if that which is prominent and most essential in it is not the religious and loving act. Priest and people should in the Eucharist meet in the very finest relation, and not in any coarser one. But, as was said before, the Divine power is not fettered by human imperfections, and it can act upon those God would bless, even though the media be lowered in conception or performance, even though they be im- perfect or even maimed. Whatever ritual be made to surround the celebration of this ordinance, has its worth from its ability to feed the flame of religious emotion, to intensify the religious relation. It may dissipate and weaken it, or it may enrich and strengthen it. No objective guide is possible, and such observances must vary with times and places, and have their own method ; like all other human tentatives, will, probably, vibrate between extremes, and will never, in the imperfect state, reach a fixed equilibrium. We may add that if, as does seem historically evi- dent, the division of the functions of the Christian Ministry into different classes, and the Ministry itself 196 CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. into different orders, grew out of the needs and re- quirements of the situation, and if it was guided by the judgment of those who, on other grounds, we have reason to think were specially enlightened by the Holy Spirit, and claimed to be, then the burden of proof that the celebration of the Eucharist was not thus limited to the particular priesthood lies with those who deny it ; otherwise no such division of functions could be made out to have existed. And the practice of Christian professors, no matter what has been their theory of the constitution of the Chris- tian Ministry, has been an almost universal recogni- tion of this. The administration of the Eucharist by laymen as such has been a rare exception and, if or when begun to be practised, almost immediately, and for economic reasons, limited or abandoned ; which shows that such division of function grows naturally out of the needs of the situation ; and the whole question is narrowed down to whether this shall be made by an unchangeable method, having sufficient sanction, or left open for human caprice, not yet to be trusted. The need of selected ones, to give themselves entirely to the task of spreading the knowledge of Christ, and edifying and uniting the ends and energies of Chris- tian believers, and to plan their whole lives in accord- ance with such lofty function, must exist for all time, or during the militant period, as strongly as it did in the early days. The idea of Ordination, or self-con- secration and acceptance by authority, thus illustrated by the Ordination of Jesus Christ himself, and that of his Apostles, was not then a provisional necessity, but, as thus realized, must be patterned after till the end of the earthly dispensation. Jesus thus gave himself to the JESUS' BAPTISM. 197 ministerial work, and was accepted by the Father, and enlightened by the Holy Spirit. His chosen disciples thus consecrated themselves, and were appointed by him, and received the Holy Spirit for the needs of their function, and till such gift was outwardly sym- bolized their mission did not commence, nor were their powers full. Thus the idea of Ordination is for Chris- tianity as aboriginal as the idea of regeneration itself; and that it should continue ever to be realized and made permanent was required, since the religion of Christ had to make its way through and to conquer a naughty and rebellious world, which would carry its naughtiness measurably into the Christian body, and make, in consequence, the requirements of law more strict and rigid. That the primal Apostolate was, sooner or later, elaborated into a three-foldness of function, no one denies, however they may differ in opinion as to whether it was legitimately done, and as to the method of the transition. In the New-Testament story we read that the Apostles parted first with such functions as could most safely be spared to them, and committed to others the brotherly work of caring for the poor and the sick. These, besides this new duty, continued to do, what doubtless they had done before, to preach and to baptize. This was the institution of the prim- itive Diaconate. And thereafter, as the Apostles' cares and work accumulated, they parted with higher func- tions, the task of teaching and upbuilding in the faith, and the wise celebration of the Eucharist. They ordained elders in every city. And as the work still grew upon their hands, and their periodical and recti- fying visitations grew rarer, they committed to care- 198 CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. fully chosen ones the task of such provisional over- sight and general superintendence. Thus, whatever be the origin and changes of the names, and whatever other mere temporary distinctions were made from time to time, there appear, thus early, the three classes of functions which have prevailed, and been more or less carefully preserved, in the Christian Church ever since. With such a Ministry, to all ap- pearance, was the Christian body left when the Apostles had finished their allotted work and de- parted to their rest : though the precise order of the development of the same may not have been in every case similar, other and mixed functions must have been parenthetical. We find all possible offices really comprised in the notions of these three. No distinct and concrete function besides these appears in the New Testament. None but these appear afterwards when the current of history becomes clear ; whatever other partial or mixed ones may have come and gone in the intervening time, and whatever flexibility these three themselves have shown. Those who think they have sufficient ground to re- gard the Apostolic writings as authoritative, because containing the mind of the Spirit, have the same ground to think that these men, in elaborating the Christian Ministry, were divinely guided, and were acting from something more than their human judg- ments. Whenever any prescription springs from these, it is well known that St. Paul gives it in doubt- fulness, or with qualification, and though in such cases he is not sure he has " the mind of the Spirit," in most of his teaching and action he seems thus " sure." That the early Christians regarded the Min- JESUS' BAPTISM. 199 istry as elaborated by the Apostles binding, seems almost certain, for when there was any doubt about what was obligatory, they were ready enough to make expostulation ; and since any historic evidence of this is wanting, we may again urge that the burden of proof is with those who maintain that this action of theirs was not authoritative in perpetuity. If such proof is not forthcoming, then the ground for holding the constitution of the Christian Ministry, thus come to be, binding and unchangeable is the same as the ground for holding the Apostolic writings to be au- thoritative, and the validity of such ground, in both cases, will depend upon our doctrine of Inspiration, or Infallibility, a question to be hereafter considered. But as the Christian Ministry, thus constituted, grew out of the needs of the situation ; and was the adaptation of the task of the propagators of the new religion to the religious and social conditions of the time ; it is obvious that when such conditions should materially change, the Ministry thus constituted might need to undergo some modification to adapt itself to the new conditions, and to be of universal worth. Thus it must have a kind of elasticity. Human situ- ations cannot be crowded into it as into a Procrustean mould, but it must have power to fold itself into the needs of any and whatever concrete situation. And so we find in fact has been the case ; and that the re- laxation sometimes is so great as to make it look out- wardly other than it originally appeared, so that it might be questioned whether it still existed as first framed ; whether, in short, while the names remained, the titular offices, the functions should not have so changed as to have dropt their original idea and sig- 200 CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. nificance. Such, at first glance, appears indeed to have been the case. The Diaconate is now merely nominal, and for many years has been only so. Mod- ern attempts to revive it have been failures, which shows that it must have naturally and legitimately changed in accordance with changing social condi- tions. We have the name left, but the thing, the dis- tinct class of functions requiring a separate order, is gone ; and men are consecrated upon an idea which is realized no longer more than exceptionally, and to a work which is not done by them any more than it is by others on either side, by the elders on the one hand, and by the laity, by women in particular, on the other, under the supervision of such elders. The Diaconate is now, in those Christian bodies which retain it nominally, merely a period of trial and pro- bation for the functions of the order of Presbyters. But in this it has its use, and is entitled to be pre- served. The conditions for its true revival may yet occur again, and so it could not be safely dispensed with to be created afresh. To do this would be peril- ous, would trouble, if not break the historic continu- ity, which is too valuable a thing to put in peril. We may think that in its institution the " mind of the Spirit " was far-sighted, and pierced beyond our time. So also the Episcopate has greatly changed with the changing social and political conditions. Its in- cumbents have been at times secular princes, and their energies have been diverted to alien ends, only indirectly subserving the welfare of Christ's kingdom. The tendency very early commenced, and has been continued, to limit and narrow its functions, except in the case of fresh missionary work, till in our own day JESUS' BAPTISM. 201 we see here and there the beginning of the return movement to the primitive set of functions. In the early days the napoinia was of such size only that its head could have entire oversight of it, and responsi- bility for what was done in it. The primitive idea of the office seems to have been that its incumbent could not or ought not to shift or delegate his responsibil- ity. Hence the custom of confining the administra- tion of the rite of Confirmation to the Episcopal order. These were the ones entrusted to decide whether such Christian faith existed as to warrant admission to the privilege of the sacrament of the Holy Supper, to watch for the full blossoming of the new life-principle imparted in Baptism. Not till such a period was reached could the Holy Spirit in required measure be imparted. This mystical influ- ence for life's duties, whatever they should be, might now be given, and its impartation be signalized by the symbolic action of the chief and responsible minister, by the laying on of hands with prayer. In some form, and with, perhaps, another immediate intent, this rite was of Apostolic origin, and was ac- companied by the charismata, special powers by God bestowed as needful for the spread of the religion in the early days. But when the need of these passed away and they actually ceased, and any extraordinary manifestation of spiritual influence existed no longer, the rite was still retained to mark the incoming of that perpetual mystical influence, as life and its trials needed it, yet which could not be said to be fully given till Christian faith, the ethical sine qua non for regeneration, existed, of which the responsible order was the judge. But in this respect the function of 202 CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. the Episcopate has been greatly changed. The duty of so deciding has been committed to others, to the Presbyterate, or even the Diaconate, and the Bishop, accepting their decision, confines himself to the per- functory work and the mechanical action of laying on of hands, his accompanying prayer hardly coming up to the complete idea of intercession. Thus the rite, at times, may have degenerated into a mere opus operatum significance, undergoing the same modifica- tion of estimate with the two sacraments themselves. This change in the function of the Bishop has oc- curred from the increased size of the Ttapoixia, his time and his energies having been needed for other and (questionably) more important uses. Over the task of Ordination, however, he is still supposed to keep careful oversight. Thus the order of the Presbyterate has absorbed much of the finer work of the Episcopate, and is the only one of the three orders which has gained and not lost in its function with the changing social conditions of the Christian world ; so that really, if not nomi- nally, but for the solitary function of perpetuating the Ministry, that Ministry, for its chief ends, has been reduced to one order. But, as before in the case of the Diaconate, a return movement towards the primi- tive idea has set in ; and no flexibility in either office can ever amount to an entire rupture. The idea of this office is something very high and noble. That a body of men lifted above all earthly ambition should exist, thus with greater dispassionateness to watch over the movements of the Christian body, to provide for it a devout, well equipped, and zealous Ministry, to see from their eminence needs that others lower JESUS' BAPTISM. 203 cannot see, is an idea so fascinating, and has such intrinsic worth to commend it, that the office would be worth preserving even if we did not think it would be a perilous departure from the Christian tradition to abandon it. Its uses, even if they have become in the main less finely spiritual than those of the order of elders, are yet of such dignity and importance, requiring so rare powers (for the possession of which its incumbents should be chosen), such judgment and wisdom, such a comprehensive outlook, that even for its intrinsic fitness they must be fewer in number, since this combination of capacities and powers is rarer. Not always indeed have the occupants of this office possessed, or been selected for their intrinsic fitness : but this imperfect realization does not impair the truth and beauty of the idea. Indeed, to be fitted for it, one must needs have passed through the disci- pline of the lower orders and become familiar with their commoner and with their finer spiritual uses, in order to understand them and rule others wisely. And the abandonment of the more delicate function, the care of souls, for the seemingly coarser one, does not necessitate that this last should be a merely per- functory one, since occasions arise when the bishop must recall and reproduce all his former experience, and regard the case in its manifold relations from a higher and more dispassionate point of view. Still it has come to pass, and naturally, perhaps inevi- tably, and therefore providentially, that the care of souls, the mediation between Christ and his im- perfect and struggling members, is now confined mainly to the order of elders. These determine the fitness of those who offer for Baptism and for 204 CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. the Eucharistic sacrifice. These watch over souls in their weakness, and their disorders, and administer to the subtlest needs and ailments. This is, indeed, the highest and most far-reaching use to which any human being can be put ; higher indeed than any an- gelic ministration can be, for these serve us, if at all, with a lower kind of service, and enter not into our penetralia. It is of all functions that which most nearly resembles the rarest and most Divine function of Christ himself ; and we have warrant to think that the spiritual vision of the holy priest is sharpened, when there is need, by the Holy Spirit to look more deeply into the human heart than other men can look, to discover its secrets, and that he is at times enabled to speak and to minister in words more than his own. It may be said even of him that it is given in "the day and hour what " he "shall speak." And as the finest spiritual use must needs be accompanied by the finest feeling and the most exquisite holy emotion, it is probable too that in the fulfilment of the pastoral use we have the profoundest blessedness possible here on earth, and a sharing for the time being of the eternal peace that sustained Jesus Christ himself during his earthly career, and which only had its occasions and periods of subsidence to enable him to ascend from the depth again into a new increment of blessedness, and a closer conscious sharing of the mind of the Eternal Father, — an ineffable union of love that no human language can describe. Thus we have outlined, according to the require- ments a priori of the scheme of Christian doctrine we have thus far elaborated, the idea of the Christian JESUS' BAPTISM. 205 Church, as a visible kingdom, an organization, which it measurably realized in its actual history, so far as the accounts thereof are entirely trustworthy. These then are the indispensable marks : (1,2) two pre- scribed rites, which are also sacraments both in the lower and in the higher sense, and exhaust all doc- trine which precedes them in their symbolic signifi- cance ; and (3), a Ministry to guard their administra- tion, to watch over the preaching of the gospel, to make plans for extension of the religion, to upbuild Christian believers in knowledge, and in the Christian virtues and graces, to take note of and mollify or cure soul-disorders, and to supply, as there is need, such other ceremonies and modes of worship as are required by the existing or changing social conditions of the place or time. These three tokens are thus indispen- sable for such an organization, not only as appointed by Jesus Christ himself, but as required in any organ- ization or society which is to be permanent and be always known to be itself. They are consequently unchangeable, or can be changed only at the peril of the highest interests, since thereby would be broken both the symbolic unity and the historic continuity. Although the work done by a maimed or less perfect organization, lacking any one of these marks, may and does still result in the attainment for the individ- ual believer of the essential Christian character, any defects in which God can providentially and mystically supply, and resultant salvation of the individual soul : yet in consequence of this impairment of visible unity the Christian idea loses something of attrac- tiveness, and, since inconsistent with its realization, appeals with less force to the outlying world, and 206 CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. assaults often the faith of the believer himself, thus weakening the militant strength, and putting off the day of consummation. All beside these marks, having such high authority and reasonableness, may indeed be changed on sufficient occasion. But no difference of opinion as to matters in themselves changeable can warrant the infringement of the unity dependent upon these essential things. But indeed, from the very conditions of this dis- ordered world, and during this period of strife, no organization can perfectly fulfil the idea of the organism, and be commensurate with it. The Church, as it exists in time, can only imperfectly represent the Church as it will exist in eternity ; and the possessors of the " eternal life " are not necessarily and exactly those who are members of the visible Church (which indeed few, if any, have ever thought). There are decayed branches upon the tree, into which the life- current does not flow, though no one should venture to say that it may not again flow. They, indeed, into whom it will never flow may be few, but we can- not escape the conviction that there are such. But God only knows them, and men cannot pronounce who they are. They are branches only in outward seeming, in visible juxtaposition, and not by vital union. They have ceased to live by their own act and by God's correspondent act. " Every branch in me that beareth not fruit, He taketh away." This taking away occurs at once, when the attenuated thread of love is finally snapped. And, in the other direction, while to us, and to those to whom the knowledge of God's love in Christ comes, there is no other way appointed by which to JESUS' BAPTISM. 207 •become united with Christ and his brethren, vitally and in the organism, but through the organization ; God is not so bound by his own economical prescrip- tion, but may still impart the new life and the mys- tical influence, the presence and efficacy of which we can detect. " By their fruits ye shall know them." Thus, turning either way, the Church as an organi- zation does not accurately represent the ideal and final organism ; and it has to pass through a process of purification and illumination ere it can be presented "without spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing." Its aim should be, however, to represent it as nearly and as perfectly as it can, in its purity and in its unity. Hence the occasional need, and sometimes frequent need of discipline to keep it pure, to wipe out any staining that may befall it, and to make it as attrac- tive as possible to all beyond it. Hence, too, the obli- gation to be at unity with itself, not only by preserving unmodified its essential marks, but by concert of action, economy of expenditure, and concentration of zealous effort, — that it may be a disciplined and well- ordered army, and not a series of independent bands working for the same hostile end, but without con- cert, and liable to frequent clashing interference and consequent waste of energy. With all the discre- tionary power lodged with its subordinate command- ers, and the inevitable variation of methods required by different conditions, it yet should have some out- ward symbol of its own unity. What that symbol should be is a most interesting question, that will fur- nish matter for enquiry further on ; but here we may say that without some such symbol we cannot think that we have fulfilled as completely as might be done 208 CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. the idea of the Christian Church, as an election from the outlying world, imaging as perfectly as it can the ideal and ultimate commonwealth. But we have not yet considered all the conditions required for such external unity. Another enquiry remains, and that a most profound and difficult one. The gospel of Christ has to be so held and taught as to lose nothing of its integrity, as to be unimpaired in its essential idea. Christian truth is liable to assault, modification, and corruption from the outer world, and to unhealthy or false development from within the Christian body itself. Its members come to it bringing with them pagan traditions not yet expired, native superstitions, abnormal mental proclivities, and moral disorders, all which tend to affect the Christian consciousness, and which have to be attenuated, or extirpated in and by the Church itself. The Christian Church must by all means preserve and maintain the essential truth. If it ever wander astray, it must have within itself the impulse and the force to return. Hence the need of a Theology, the gathering into fixedness the truth loosely held in the general con- sciousness. Hence the Christian dogmas, out of which comes Christian practice, and which determine its method. What means, if any, have been or can be provided to make this evolution of dogma healthy and trustworthy, what means devised to attain and hold in its integrity and self-consistency the truth re- vealed and to be taught ? CHAPTER XVIII. INSPIRATION. Inspiration is a word still lacking such a definition as all who use it would agree upon. If it were allowed to mean no more than a natural and by no means un- common, and at any time or place possible exaltation of the human faculties whereby they move more freely and vividly, and results of unusual value are thereby attained, there would be little dispute as to the mean- ing of the word among Christians. The enquiry would then simply be into the conditions objective and sub- jective for such exalted activity ; and whether an analysis of the same may be made, and its movement or method described. It may be that the full content of the idea, as used and contended for by Christians, cannot be reached, without referring to and includ- ing this natural inspiration. Indeed the endeavor to understand this mental state is so fascinating, and the experience of those who have had it something so wonderful, as to call for all the resources of our physi- ological and psychological knowledge, and will be found to carry us to that limit where we seem almost prepared to leap in thought over the bound which separates the natural and temporal realm from the spiritual and eternal one. Of this possibly hereafter. But the word as used by Christians, and even others, suggests another meaning, and hints of some- 209 210 CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. thing beyond this. It implies that wherever the un- usual exercise of the faculties is reached, it is through an afflatus, or inbreathing from some unseen and un- comprehended source. With the properly Christian mind, however, educated in Christian dogma, it means an inbreathing of the Holy Spirit, implies an influence upon the human mind from this Divine source acting mystically, i. c, beneath the understanding, as all life- processes do act. Much or most that happens in human experience is through known relations and can be followed by the intelligence and to some extent by the imagination. But much likewise that happens cannot be so followed. In endeavoring to ascertain the conditions and the law or method of any life-pro- cess, however far we may succeed in discovering and tracing them, we are always met by a mystical residuum. And however farther than now science may push back the inquiry and illumine the process, it will be met still by such a mystical residmim. The con- fession that this ultimate failure must ensue is com- mon among the higher class of scientific men them- selves. Indeed it can be made evident on a priori grounds that such must necessarily be the case. For, not till all the facts of the universe are had can there be an exhaustive and entirely trustworthy induction from the same. And nature, probed into, is reveal- ing new facts and relations and hidden powers, with such accelerating speed, and in such multiplicity, that we are led to the conclusion that she is inexhaustible, and must always retain more within the sphere of possibility than can be held and systematized by our present faculties, and become knowledge. For the unknown must necessarily limit our true knowledge of INSPIRATION. 211 the seemingly known. Moreover nature, and human- ity too, as a part of nature, yet transcending nature, is in continual flux and development, which we cannot forecast, or can forecast but little way ahead. We can only read it when it has retired into the past. Hence the secret of the movement is not in the past, but is yet to be disclosed. Thus while much that happens in human ex- perience is explicable by known relations to the uni- verse, much likewise that happens is not so explicable, though slowly unravelling itself to our apprehension. Could man see to the end of this process he could govern it, or adapt himself to it, and his consciousness would be identical with the Divine consciousness so far as it is manifested in the actual universe. Certain happenings in human experience we are forced, for the time being at least, to refer to such unknown relations. The Divine power working mystically, the fundamental secret energy beneath all natural law, which to bound sharply from the sphere of our actual or possible knowledge is the summit of human scientific attainment, — this is what Christians think when they name the Holy Spirit, and is an es- sential element in all gi'ace or favor, whatever prov- idential change that may also include. Philosophy thus brings us to a doctrine of the Holy Spirit ; and the Scriptural assumption and verbiage has here rational vindication. The need of thinking such mystical influence is equally valid, whether we regard it as reaching man through his physical-psychical being, and as related to the universe through his sensory ; — or through his psychical-spiritual being reaching him from the prop- 212 CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. er spiritual realm, the source of pure thought and feeling ; or as it reaches him in the concrete, in the synthesis of these two relations. His experience may be thought to be determined immediately by the mystical power veiled in the physical forces which reach his organism, and by it affecting mediately his thought, feeling and emotion ; or as acting directly upon this last, and mediately upon the other ; but upon the one never without respect to the other. Hence it follows in the line marked out by the Christian doctrine hitherto explicated, that there is a sense in which all Christians, all believing and bap- tized, are inspired of the Holy Spirit, and are subject to influences from him not traceable by the under- standing. The questions will then arise (i) whether such mystical action is utterly apart from any provi- dential action which can be followed by intelligence ; or (2) whether it operates in it and through it, and identifies itself with it ; or (3) whether it is co-ordinate with it, and that thus related, both together consti- tute the actual activity. Before the enquiry into any special inspiration of men, governing their utterances and their deeds, can be satisfactorily made, these questions must first be answered. The problem per- haps may be more concretely stated and more readily understood by examining Christian prayer as to its conditions and the mode of response. Such prayer may be, either that the Divine mind will so adapt its providential treatment as to fit the particular case In the way of response, as when one prays to have an impending calamity averted ; or, in a case widely dif- ferent, that the Divine Spirit will give us light to see INSPIRATION. 21 3 the right way in a question of duty, and the strength to follow it. How is such a prayer as this latter responded to? How does the Holy Spirit enlighten and strengthen us ? We may indeed conceive that light and insight may reach us through providential means, by some aid applied ab extra, by means of which the clouds are dispelled, and the mental vision clarified. But the question is, if there is any mystical influence beside and apart from this, how does it operate ? Could we understand it, indeed, it would cease to be mystical, and was only provisionally so called. It is because by the former method what oc- curs cannot be fully explained that we believe that the pathway of the intelligible terminates and lands us in the mystical, where we believe but know not ; the internal faith thus coalescing with the external and together with it becoming assurance. Many, indeed, assert this alleged inward assurance to be a delusion, and that our experience is explicable without any such supposition of the mystical ; while others again, and Christians as such, assert the fact of a unique experi- ence, and that light and strength have reached them through a pathway which their intelligence cannot follow. The question will then arise, — Is this spiritual in- fluence direct upon the will imparting energy, or direct upon the feeling or emotion affording stimulus, or direct upon the thinking principle, intensifying its vivid action and bringing into play powers ordinarily dormant, and through this process giving to the ideal end such attractiveness as supplies stimulus and arouses energy, in which latter case both thought and action have their accompaniment of feeling ? Which- 214 CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. ever be the method, the mystical activity of the Holy Spirit is assumed. This is a very delicate psychological inquiry. But we may readily discard the first form of the question, for we know of no such thing as the human will apart from thought and emotion ; — the will being simply the name of the entire synthesis which constitutes the human being, quoad any possible activity, i. e., inter- nal resolve and external movement. It is the focus- sing of the entire background of human character, the concentration of the entire groups of involuntary proclivities and ideal presentations, intricately related, and the mark for the time being of some upturning phase of the character, and sometimes the mark of the strongest element in all this group. It is an energy, indeed, and the spring of force, but it does not act, or is not acted upon, as an abstraction. It has no definition, except as the expression of this same con- geries of tendencies and presentations, and therefore can only be reached through them. Otherwise it would have no alternatives and no freedom, and must fall into the same necessity as reigns among the purely physical forces. The question then arises, — Is the mystical influence exerted upon it through any pure feeling or emotion, or upon such feeling or emotion existing in combina- tion with these same involuntary tendencies and ideal presentations ? And the first alternative of this ques- tion, too, we may on the same grounds reject, for we know nothing of any such pure feeling or emotion that can be thus entirely abstracted. These only arise in combination with and by virtue of these same spontaneous tendencies and ideal presentations. Any INSPIRATION. 215 emotion must have an object which has been framed by the mind, or exists already in habitual conscious- ness. The simplest feeling we have, of physical com- placency, (we are not alluding to sensation?) depends upon the state of the organism, whose healthful flow or change accomplishes this feeling of pleasure. And the purest and highest form of emotion, that of love to God, depends upon a complex process through which the mind has consciously passed, and reached a certain idea of God, making him an object of love ; or else upon a naive process, which, when analyzed, is shown to be also complex. Any mystical influence of the Holy Spirit upon the will must reach it, there- fore, in and through this group of physical proclivities, some of which have crystallized into habits ; or in and through the mental or thought movement by which ideal presentations, which are motives, are framed, and can only reach feeling or emotion through one or both of these media. Ordinarily we can follow with our understanding, and explain the means by which our physical proclivi- ties are reached from without, and although we may not yet be able to trace them exhaustively, yet we do not think it to be beyond the power of the under- standing so to trace them. To be mystical, however, they must, by the definition, elude such power, not only now but ever, while we are related to the physi- cal universe through our present organism. We may think, then, that such proclivities may be weakened or strengthened by the Holy Spirit directly, or indirectly, — indirectly, when through and by means of changes wrought upon our mental movements, through which the ideal presentations come. If directly, then the 2i6 CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. spiritual influence must be thought as acting upon us irrespective of our moral freedom ; which is against the analogy of all spiritual, ethical, and religious change, hitherto maintained, and we must think the will to be reached through our lower nature purely, rather than through our higher and finer spiritual ca- pacities. (The physical and the ethical are here divorced : and our philosophy has become materialis- tic or purely idealistic, which amounts to the same thing.) For illustration : it is no conquest over a perverted physical appetite which is reached through the weakening of that appetite through some mystical influence ; while it is a conquest, in a true sense, which is reached through some vivification of an ideal presentation, having higher attractiveness, whereby we draw away from and resist the physical appetite. It is in this region, then, that the influence of the Holy Spirit is to be sought ; and the will is reached, influenced, and strengthened through an illumination made in the realm of ideas. And, as before, any such illumination, or contrary darkening, is always, from the law of all existence, accompanied by feeling or emotion, more or less vivid, clear, and definable. Even in the case of the impartation of the cha- rismata, so far as it is definable, the influence upon the men so wrought upon was not upon their physical being direct, making them mere mouth-pieces, or pas- sive channels ; but operated upon their higher nature, and by some exaltation of the mental faculties above their normal state. We cannot but think that what they said or did was accompanied by intelligence, delight, and thankfulness. How then can we distinguish between the not un- INSPIRATION. 217 usual exaltation of the mental powers, to which we give, figuratively, the name inspiration, and this ex- traordinary influence which we refer to the Holy Spirit ? What new element is present in the last, not necessarily found in the first ? Or is it a difference only of degree ? Man's is an animal soul which has become a spiritual soul. By some impartation, which we may figure as an inbreathing, it has been irradiated from the realm of pure spirit. We trace in it the higher ideas, — the absolute moral distinction, — the outline of the harmonious commonwealth, to reach which is the perennial motive-spring of its free spiritual activity, — the causal relation governing all its inner movements, — and the passion of love seeking ever the supreme and sufficient object. All these are inexplicable but from the idea of God, or rather, in their synthesis constitute or imply such idea ; and man, in spite of all disavowals, acts as though God exists. Not all his movements, then, are explicable from determinations from the physical universe reaching him through his sensations, and wrought up into knowledge by a syn- thetic process. He has already in these irradiations a mystical ground for his knowledge. Our materialis- tic philosophers have faltered and failed to explain his movements, ignoring such mystical ground. He is through this related to a realm above nature, and which nature's figurative language fails to describe. These ideas then, regarded as illuminations in and of the animal soul, exist for human consciousness in dif- ferent degrees of clearness, and hence in the same individual may be made more distinct, may be fresh- ened, and as furnishing motives, intensified. Some- 218 CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. times they are so freshened by means which, to a certain extent we can follow with our understanding, and sometimes, in our experience, they are freshened by means which we cannot so follow. If they cannot be so followed they must be referred to unknown re- lations, to the SvvafAiS vifnffrov working undiscoverably, or the Holy Spirit. And even in the former case, in tracing them back to their source, we may still find something inexplicable, and hence that even they have become part of our structure through the Holy Spirit (which is virtually asserted in the narrative in the book Genesis). Thus a prayer for light and strength may be an- swered through the influence of the Holy Spirit upon these higher elements of the human structure, these ideas, in which the spiritual element is paramount, even though they have been conditional and aroused into consciousness by physical determinations. We may think them wrought upon immediately, and thus their attractive power enhanced ; or else as wrought upon mediately through a similar illumination which has reached the minds of other men, whereby these become mediating influences which react upon our own mental movements, freshening these ideas, and making them more powerful determining principles. The former and immediate process is the ordinary ac- tion of the Holy Spirit upon the spiritual soul direct. The latter is through an illumination of the minds of other men. We have then to consider if and how this last is extraordinary, in order to vindicate for it the higher use of the term inspiration, and claim trustworthiness or authority for their utter- ances. In either case the influence is thought as mys- INSPIRATION. 219 tical. Is, then, the distinction one of kind or degree ? This influence upon the mind of the ordinary Chris- tian results in no mistake and is infallible so far as it freshens the idea of God, and makes him an object of love, or as it makes more vivid the distinction between moral good and evil. But the same faculties by which we apprehend these may be so elevated into a greater light, and their internal insight so sharpened as not only to intensify the brightness of the main and essen- tial outline of Divine truth, but to fill up the same with ramifications and relations unseen by the ordinary vision, yet possible to be recognized by it, and enab- ling it to understand the whole more rightly ; and in some cases with elaborations of the eternal truth, whose relations to the rest the ordinary vision can only dimly descry. Such illumination of the field of vision, and correspondent opening of the insight, Christians are accustomed to think, have taken place in the minds of prophets, evangelists, and apostles, whereby they have seen Divine truth with closer vision than the rest of us ; and so we think that their authentic utterances are the fruit of such vision, and hence are looked upon as inspired of the Holy Spirit. That such a thing should be, we have seen, is not out of analogy with God's ordinary means of revealing himself, is only another step in advance, after those previously made, urging his creature towards the ideal perfection, and is absolutely needful for it. But further questions are at once disclosed. We have still to inquire (1) into the subjective conditions which make such extraordinary illumination possible for any man ; (2) still more closely into the method of the mental movement so accomplished ; and (3) 220 CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. into the degrees of susceptibility and ability on the part of ordinary Christians to follow this mental movement of the inspired ones, and rightly to appre- hend its outcome and meaning. We hold that no dispassionate student can study the writings which constitute the Christian Scriptures without concluding that, in the main, they differ so greatly from all other human productions as to require distinct explanation. This difference grows so marked, the more they are looked into, as to give new reason to suppose that an unusual influence of the Holy Spirit was needful for their composition. To vindicate this thesis and bring out these riches is beyond our present task. 1 We only make use of these writings here to find aid in discover- ing the nature of the extraordinary mental condition which they display or prove, and also how it must be regarded by and influence ourselves. 1 We venture, however, in this connection to note the following : — Some of the authors of the New Testament were men of only ordinary mental capacity, judging by what they have left ; yet we find, sometimes, utterances whose full meaning tasks the powers of the trained intellect, and is reached by a pro- longed mental process. We can hardly think that such men could have reached a depth of thought so profound by their own natural powers simply. These expressions, so naive, suggest that the mental vision has been preter- naturally sharpened. If such result had been reached by natural thought- movement, simply, they would have entered upon an explication of it. For instance, — St. James' works (Ch. i., v. iS), " that we should be a kind of first- fruits of his creatures," in which is contained the whole Dhilosophy of regen- eration, — that the xri6i$ itself is reached through the ethical perfection of chnstianized humanity. CHAPTER XIX. INSPIRATION OF SELECTED MEN, PRELUDE TO THE INQUIRY. Antecedent to and apart from any special en- lightenment afforded to particular men, giving knowl- edge of himself, by the Ruler of the universe, the tokens of his existence and character are ever such as to be variously interpreted, and thus He is kept within the region of faith. The human mind in its naive procedure passes through various phases, and that, too, in an order not uniform, indeed, but sufficiently so to admit of characterization. This is the truth of Compte's celebrated classification, into the religious, metaphysical, and positive methods. In the first, the thinking subject, judging from his own constant experience that any change wrought in exter- nal nature is referable to some purpose, and requires previous formation of this purpose, refers all the opera- tions of nature, producing results which he can feel and understand, to an intelligent designer like him- self, to self-conscious will, or personality ; and being as yet unable from his faulty knowledge or inadequate reflection to unify these movements of nature, imagines a multiplicity of conscious personalities, more or less complete abstractions from himself, and endowed with various powers, and having distinct functions. This is the religious stadium ; and the objects of worship 221 222 CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. in this are thought as personal, hence attract or repel, and may be conciliated. In this stadium some acuter intellect may have the impulse and some power of uni- fication, and endeavor or attain a Monistic solution, but this affects but feebly the popular mind, which ever runs back to the naive Polytheistic inference. With advancing knowledge and deeper reflection filtrating to the multitudes, the Polytheistic solution at length gives way : the thinking mind either passes con- sciously through stadia of scepticism, (and the common mind following practically does the same), or else holds to or amends its own unifying philosophic scheme. Its solutions formulated are often and naturally imma- ture, being founded upon imperfect science of nature, and incomplete introspection ; yet, impatient after seif- consistency, it supplies speculatively and tentatively whatever is still needed to fill any hiatus in its scheme: and we have a theory of the universe ap- parently self-consistent and for a time satisfactory. This is the metaphysical stadium. With the advance of knowledge, and as the result of acuter thinking, the weakness of the Polytheistic scheme is clearly seen, it is inwardly disintegrated and ready to crumble. In the place of this is forming meanwhile a thought- scheme, which has hypothetical elements, however, and whose method is a priori, even though the facts to be unified multiply and are observed more closely, and thus is anticipated in degree the positive method. Thus we have, for instance, the schemes of the Greek philosophers. The method of Aristotle particularly is neither purely metaphysical, nor positive, but a mingling of the two. A third class of thinkers arises in due time, who find that these schemes, however INSPIRA TION OF SELECTED MEN. 223 seemingly self-consistent, are no stronger than their hypothetical links, who note that facts are indubitable, and when rightly understood are truths, and who re- fuse to fill in these hiatus with hypotheses, and prefer to build upon these facts alone. They question na- ture, human life, and human acts incessantly, and declare that they will accept nothing as true that is not a valid inference from these. This is the positive stadhim. It is beyond the province of this treatise to criticise these schemes, to show that each is faulty as a pure method, and that the ultimate philosophy will rescue the element of truth in each. But we may observe here that in all these methods the human observing and thinking powers are regarded as trustworthy, and hence that any sceptical stadium discovers its own self-contradiction and is quickly abandoned. Since in all three the same implements of investigation are used, and the same object-matter is regarded, the coalescence and agreement of these methods are possible and inevitable, and sooner or later their combination will reach a satisfying result. Already the positivists have found out that they have as- sumed metaphysical principles, — the metaphysicians avail themselves more and more of the positive method, and have an increasing respect for science ; and both find that the religious inference is entitled to respect, and has to be dealt with and incorporated into their schemes. That an analysis of human consciousness discovers the idea of God, or a Personal First Principle, implicit within it, is held without a minimum of rational doubt by many thinkers. Probably no fact, no conclusion is 224 CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. so secure. The very assaults upon it confirm it, since they move according to the law of causality upon which it is founded. That a scrutiny of nature con- firms instead of weakens this conclusion, and the more as nature becomes more thoroughly known, is just as firmly held. For many minds, no rational doubt of this is possible. But doubts do come, from sources other than rational, and the inborn conviction of the human mind, when expressed in words, comes to be frequently and for a time suspected, though it never can be utterly and permanently rejected. Doubts come through the region of feeling, or of imagination, even when the conviction of the pure thinking principle is unweakened in the least. And moral causes supply doubts and weaken faith. The fear which comes from the sense of moral delinquency starts the wish that the conviction may not be true. And thus belief, or the conviction relative to action, fluctuates in its degrees. The stronger it is, and the more unmolested as a rational conclusion, the more in accordance with it is all action and all life-plans ; and conversely the more in accordance with the requirements of the moral ideal is the activity, the stronger in reality, even though unavowedly, is the faith, — the faith that the power of the universe is righteous. Faith as a moral and religious spring of action illumines and strength- ens faith and its object, as a mental relation. In this way the knowledge of God is made clearer, and men are more readily lifted above the assaults of doubt, though never escaping them altogether, for they come in their subtlest forms only to the soul far on in the perfecting process, and through them does faith have formed its finest fibres. Faith in the eternal truth is INSPIRA TION OF SELECTED MEN. 225 thus increased by knowledge, and by obedience, by man's study of nature and of himself, and by the habitual holding for true and acting upon his moral and religious convictions. It is all-important that the idea of God should be rightly and clearly, and, if possible, exhaustively apprehended ; — what the First Principle is in itself, and what it is in relation to the universe. Only as man's idea of God is truest and highest can he set the truest and highest aim for himself ; and since God does reveal himself in nature, exhibiting his thought, and in the human soul declaring his will, and since both these knowledges, thus far, are seen to have been progressive, we should be able to study the method of such progress, and see whether its seeming conditions a priori have been met by actual correspondent progress ; whether, in plain words, God has actually done what his character must seem to require ; and, if there is anywhere that which defies our power of adjustment and abides in the region of mystery, clearly to define it, or rather sharply to bound it from what is securely known. We have seen already that man's actual progress as a thinking being, and as a moral and religious being, has been under conditions which we can retrace with our understanding, and also under conditions which we cannot so trace ; that he thus appears as a true universal, having as well mystical relations to the spheres of existence beyond knowledge, — in other words, that his development has been mediated by the Holy Spirit ; and we have reached the conclusion that this mediating influence has reached his will through his self-conscious mind when it has been a moral and righteous one : while, so far as his conscious- Vol. II. 226 CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. ness yet falls short of the moral stage, it has reached him through his psychical-physical structure, in which lies his rudimentary self-consciousness, and thus may at length reach his self-conscious mind when the ex- terior conditions are supplied. Man's moral condition and progress, to be of worth, to be moral at all, must be free, and can only be such by the superior attract- iveness of some ideal presentation which not only satisfies the thought, but gratifies his strongest and most blissful feeling. The Holy Spirit, then, reaches man's willad extra and ab intra (i) by illumining the truth, and providing for its external presentation in its comparative integrity, and (2) by preparing the receptivity for its apprehension in purifying and invig- orating the faculties which are to apprehend it, — which two processes presuppose and condition each other. When Christians pray to be guided into all truth, they mean not only that the external conditions for its presentation shall be provided, but that inward supervision and guidance may take place whereby they may more readily apprehend it. The subjective conditio sine que non for such inward guidance when one prays is faith, or moral and religious obedience, which removes the impediments in the way of the vision which is to become clearer. But the knowledge of God is not reached by pure intuition, though all knowledge supplied ab extra may have for its final cause to bring about such intuition. It is fed by the knowledge to be had at the time and place. And special knowledge, or opportunities for knowledge, may be providentially provided. We may grow in such knowledge not only by the study of nature and of ourselves, but by the study of the movements INSPIRA TION OF SELECTED MEN. 227 and the results of the movements of other minds ; and it is not against analogy, and may be thought to be needful at critical times for man's further progress, that other minds should be especially enlightened, and bring their results to bear upon our own. If there be a mystical influence upon the human mind at all, it must admit of degrees. The evidence of its ordinary working is, Christians declare, a particular, experience, over and above their common experience ; and if this conclusion be valid, we can draw no sharp line limiting the possibility and extent of such mysti- cal influence. It must depend upon the needs of the situation as envisaged by God and included in his providential plan. The guidance of the Holy Spirit in ordinary Christian experience is such, notwithstand- ing all fluctuations, as to illumine the truth and pre- serve from error in a certain limited range and de- gree ; and it is entirely analogous that, if the need of it exists for man's onward progress, it should at times transcend this ordinary range and degree, and protect from error so far as is required for the immediate pur- pose. This, Christians think, has been done for se- lected ones, so that their utterances are telescopes through which we reach a nearer vision of the truth, many of whose outlines we have already clearly seen, and which conducts even these to their unifying cen- tre, and fills the whole field of vision with ramifica- tions. This illumination by the Holy Spirit may thus exist for certain ones in such degree as to free them, so far as is the providential intent, from the mis- takes into which, otherwise, the human mind is not protected from falling. If, then, God's closest, clearest, and dearest manifestation of his innermost being be 228 CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. through the Incarnation of the Eternal Son and the knowledge of his earthly career, this knowledge must come to us in a trustworthy manner ; and whatever other truth is needed to establish the new relation to the Divine Principle now rendered possible, must in like way be supplied. By what means this may come to pass, and what operation is wrought upon the consciousness of these selected ones, whereby such immunity from error becomes possible, is now the problem for enquiry. CHAPTER XX. THE INSPIRATION OF SELECTED MEN. An inquiry into the nature and the method of this special elevation of the mental faculties, and conse- quent illumination of the truth, will require that we shall consider, first, the end that is to be attained ; and secondly, that we shall examine the utterances of the men of whom this is claimed, to discover what is distinctive and peculiar, in order to determine, thirdly, what modification of human consciousness must be thought to make this possible. The object in view, as displayed by our method, is the accurate presentation of the truth, — not of all truth, but of such as is needful for the unique revela- tion of himself which God has made, or may make, in addition to all previous revelation. It cannot be of all truth, of all existing relations, for this it is need- less to claim, and it is manifest that it has not been accomplished. This would be no less than to trans- fer the Divine consciousness of the objective universe into the human, or to make the human organ to transcend its methods and the manner of its evolu- tion, and competent to reflect entirely the Divine mind. And it must be taken for granted that there is an exhaustless reserve of possibilities in the Divine mind which may by successive steps become realities or new relations. Besides, not all the secrets of the 229 230 CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. Divine relations to the existing universe as a system can be thus forecasted, since these, not to transcend the human faculties, unravel themselves in a series to human apprehension. And there is nothing in the utterances of the men concerning whom this inspiration is claimed which indicates their possession of universal knowledge or their claim to possess it. At times they confess the imperfection of their own enlightenment, showing thus that what they have is limited and de- termined by the particular end in view. The illumi- nation, therefore, must respect such end and be guided by it. Primarily the end of the Christian revelation is that of the Divine character, of the Divine heart. It is not of the Divine existence, for the revelation of that is perennial, and nothing subsequent could add to the clearness or the force of it. It is, rather, so to define that existence as to show that it contains within itself the possibility of the Divine Love, and to give assur- ance of the same to the simplest capacity by bringing an illustration of it within the sphere of sense and im- agination. The self-limitation of the Divine by taking the form of the human, the identification of the Divine with the lot and the welfare of the human, are to be taken as illustration of the Divine Love. Secondarily, the end in view is the extension of this knowledge beyond the first form of apprehension ; in order to which means must be provided whereby this knowl- edge shall be preserved unimpaired in its integrity, and made practical by influencing human character and human activity. The illumination therefore must be determined by these purposes. To use other language, — the object of the Divine INSPIRA TION OF SELECTED MEN. 231 inspiration of prophets, evangelists, and apostles is to prepare the conditions for the revelation to the human minds which may follow of God in Christ, and of such further relations as shall make this knowledge sub- serve its purpose upon the individual and upon the human race. This requires that the minds thus en- lightened shall utter themselves in such form as will convey and hand down a trustworthy testimony to the facts which constitute the foundation of this revela- tion, and also show what is built upon it, and what may be safely built. Through whatever human vehicles this information may pass, and whatever modifications it may receive, the end in view would be missed were there not some providential guiding to ensure the correct presentation of its essential features. The life of Jesus Christ, and his own utterances con- cerning himself, must be preserved with such accuracy that the intended revelation of God therein shall not be dissipated and fail to reach its mark. And we may also think it to be required that these minds so enlight- ened shall also possess the wisdom and foresight to devise means whereby this knowledge, with a minimum danger of impairment, may be extended to the coming generations ; and also to carry out their Master's in- tent in founding an Institution, with symbolic rites, and itself a symbol, — to frame the Christian Church and start it forward in its career. And we may think, likewise, that all this would require special illumina- tion to see clearly the application of the law of love to the existing situation, to enshrine in appropriate maxims the details of moral and religious duty. To give them the true knowledge of Christ, to elab- orate such doctrine as is implicit in the fact of the 232 CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. Incarnation, to round it out into such a system that its self-consistency may be discovered, or to sup- ply the material for such after-procedure, to elaborate and start forward the Christian Church, to give such precepts for Christian duty as are required now that the whole plan of any individual life must be deter- mined by the end which God in this new revelation of himself has set for human conduct and endeavor, — these are the ends, purposes, final cause of the special enlightenment of these men. In setting forth all this as the purpose of such In- spiration, there at once arises the enquiry how to en- sure that the objective presentation of the truth thus secured shall be rightly apprehended, seeing that we can never, in the concrete, divorce such objective presentation from the subjective holding. It is only truth as held in and by some mind, and has no ex- istence out of such mind ; and the question arises whether any objective formula is adequate to arouse a similar apprehension and comprehension of the same in all minds approaching it ; and if not, what, if any, provision exists or can be had for correcting any such idiosyncrasies ? But this question will be more conveniently and adequately discussed after we have considered the nature of the Inspiration itself. It seems apparent that the kind and degree of the spiritual influence will be determined in each case by the immediate purpose ; and that if we could separate clearly these purposes we could more easily define various kinds of Inspiration. For instance, were the purpose only and simply to give and convey a correct narrative of facts, it would only be needful that the faculties should be so sharpened as to bear perfectly INSPIRATION OF SELECTED MEN. 233 correct witness of the facts, so far as they were in- tended to influence ; and to be a perfect memory to give them to those who are to receive information of them at second-hand. Even for such an end alone, considering the unreliability of human observation and testimony and the treachery of ordinary memory, a stronger and more immediate mystical influence upon the faculties than the ordinary one would be required. In such influence, however, minute dis- crepancies, affecting other than the main intent, would be still possible, and need not be guarded against. Again, were the end clearly separable from any other end to elaborate a coherent system of doctrine of the Incarnation, it would be only needful that the ordi- nary mental grasp should be so widened and strength- ened that no essential relation should escape it, and that the whole dialectic should appear in its unity. Here the task is harder, the requirements severer, and it becomes obvious that such scrutiny as would miss nothing, nor see any thing dimly, and distort nothing, would require such vigilance that we should be loth to think it of any natural intellect, however comprehensive. Here the elevation of the faculties and illumination of the truth, which in an inferior degree exist in all Christians, must for the end re- quired receive special increments, and be a new gift and guiding influence of the Holy Spirit. So far these two kinds of illumination are analogous to ordi- nary human mental processes. The faculties of ob- servation, memory, imagination, understanding, and reasoning are in use : yet, were our notion of the ends of Inspiration confined to these alone, we should still claim that a Divine guidance and overruling of these 234 CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. human faculties, which still need not transcend their proper methods, is required for the intended result, seeing that this must not be rendered problematical, as it would by their ordinary use alone ; and seeing, likewise, that the examination of the utterances of these men cnves evidence that their mental movement and method have been unusual, and only explicable upon the hypothesis of such special overruling, which indeed they claim for themselves, and which by almost universal Christian consent has been accorded them. But the evidence is said to be before us that theirs was a still more exalted state of mind than was re- quired for all this. The two purposes and require- ments above alluded to cannot be treated thus sepa- rately, since they exist more or less in combination. The narrative of facts is mingled with the presenta- tion of doctrine, suggesting thus that the mystical in- fluence and illumination are not of special faculties merely, leaving the others to work in their ordinary method and degree, but of the whole mind and atti- tude of consciousness. We see the tokens here and there of some profounder change, — the tokens of what may be called the prophetic consciousness, in which the mind seems to have passed beyond the mere memory of facts and the logical evolution of doctrine, and to range over a wider region ; or more correctly, perhaps, to have sunk to a deeper point of view, in which the whole method of the mental move- ment is changed, in which the relations of space and time give place to more purely spiritual relations, in which past and future dissolve into one present, and what is intuited is not the chronological sequence of events, or the logical sequence of doctrines, but the INSPIRA TION OF SELECTED MEN. 235 dialectic of the idea, the ever-present law of the evo- lution of events and their spiritual and unifying sig- nificance. To express this, language furnishes only figurative expressions, and the mind struggles after images, the inadequacy of which it is itself conscious of, and which only imperfectly convey its meaning, and changes often one set of images for another as possibly more successful. Unless we could seat our- selves at the point of view of men in this state, there must often seem a kind of incoherence in what they saw and what they say, since its law is neither associ- ative nor logical ; and criticism pauses in doubt. In nearly every one of the writers for whom Inspiration is claimed there are occasional tokens that they are or have been in such a state of mind, and in some cases, perhaps, permanently so. Such an unusual state of consciousness requires, if possible, to be ex- plained, so far at least as to see whether it is in itself other and higher in kind than that which otherwise has been or may be reached. What is meant here may perhaps be rendered plainer by an illustration. We have recorded a discourse by Jesus Christ, in which He describes in the same continuity the coming destruction of the city of Jerusalem, with accompany- ing events, and also the physical and other events to constitute or be attendant upon the great change that is to come over the earth and its inhabitants at some critical period in the future. The connection of the two seems almost arbitrary, and the transition so ab- rupt as to lead to think the case a mere one of anal- ogy ; yet the unity of this discourse may be recog- nized and admitted by considering his mind at the time to be in this exalted state, which we have de- 236 CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. nominated the prophetic consciousness. What his mind is filled with is the evolution of the idea of Judgment, which he sees in its timeless relations, yet illustrates by concrete imagery. This Judgment, or discrimination and separation, is something that is going on perpetually. The contrast between moral good and evil is forever manifested in overt actions and events, and sometimes so diametrically as to ex- hibit all the beauty and deformity. In the history of the individual the fluctuations pass, the alternate vic- tories and defeats, till the trend or assured movement of the will in the entire synthesis of its motives is de- termined and fixed. This final crisis is foreshadowed by previous ones less marked and entire. And so likewise the process passes in the larger sphere of communities, nations, peoples, races, and the entire humanity. The current has its periods of crisis or culmination, when one tendency or the other sweeps aside the opposition of its adversary, terrible events occur in the conflict and in the triumph, and for a time the two retire more or less entirely apart, and exhibit in greater purity their spiritual characteristics. This is the meaning of the final Judgment, when good and evil, having each wrought itself up to its fullest inten- sity, display themselves in such contrast and purity that discrimination and mental separation of the same become possible. At that final crisis the combatants will not be allowed to retire back into repose and strengthen themselves for a new conflict, but are fit to be permanently separated. The good will no longer require any militancy. As in the case of the individual Christian sometimes, all internal conflict and the need of it are over, and the character is healed INSPIRA TION OF SELECTED MEN. 237 and perfected in some particular by its own inner virtue. This final Divine Judgment may be accompa- nied or followed by correspondent physical changes, the possibility of which is then for the first time indicated. Of this, more hereafter. But this final Judgment is foreshadowed at periods and occasions, and its idea illustrated, though the conflict be but temporarily lulled ; and the providential dispensations are corre- spondent. Thus the key to the Divine method in governing the world may be possessed more or less perfectly, and the march of events be more or less accurately read. To have the faculties so exalted, and their object-matter illumined, as to be able to occupy this profound view-point, is the prophetic consciousness, which may be rightly called a Divine revelation, since it is owing to a mystical influence intensifying and, if need be, transcending the Holy Spirit's ordinary influence. There is no need to think that any new faculty is superadded for the occasion to the ordinary congeries of human faculties. This claim, sometimes made by the mystics proper, cannot be maintained. This would really amount to a new creative act, to suppose which there is no necessity for thought, nor any authoriza- tion in the Christian Scriptures. It is rather bringing into action the native and hidden powers of the hu- man spiritual soul itself. These are of themselves, when sufficiently purified and exalted, competent to grasp all the Divine ideas. It is too low a notion of humanity to think otherwise. Hence, even in the highest degree of Inspiration, the idiosyncrasy of the particular mind, so illumined, may be preserved, and in 238 CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. its highest flights may still exhibit its native schema, the class to which it belongs, and the peculiarities of its culture, including the determination of its heredity ; yet it will be still evident that these men are sharing in a common possession, whose uniqueness may be made apparent. Thus throughout the Christian Scriptures there are marked peculiarities, which sepa- rate them, as a whole more or less accurately ascer- tained, from all other human writings, which cannot be naturalistically explained, and which, when ex- plained as we have done, have their philosophic vindi- cation. The proof of this by concrete illustrations is a most interesting yet extended undertaking, and very fascinating ; but is beyond the purpose of this treatise. The notion of Inspiration, as thus far exhibited, is one to which science can offer no contradiction, but with which, probably, it will ultimately harmonize. It is still something to be attained, — the analysis of the human mind to discover its finer capacities and move- ments, and their method. Our psychologies are being reconstructed and show signs of promise. New possi- bilities and powers are yet to be found there, just as in physical nature are discovered, perpetually, new forces and relations. It is not necessary to think that the inspired proph- ets understood the method of their own Inspiration. The state of their own minds seemed to them an ab- normal one, they not knowing, perhaps, that in it they had approached nearer to the truly normal one. Naively they referred it to some whisperings and im- pulses of the Holy Spirit, just as Socrates referred his wisdom to his peculiar demon, — and with better reason. Moreover this their mental illumination, in INSPIRA TION OF SELECTED MEN. 239 the case of the Christain writers, was associated in their minds with the charismata, which was evidence to them that it was from a Divine Source. The Svvapi? i'lpiarov working mystically was not an unfa- miliar thought to them, and these new manifestations and the new phase of their own consciousness were referred to the same source. We may think then that as the result of this illu- mination each mind finds itself at a new centre, whence the truth is perceived in its manifold relations, so far as the present stage in the development of the Divine ideas will permit. There is no need to think that it went beyond this, that it penetrated the Divine secrets and left no reserve of mystery. If Jesus him- self could acknowledge ignorance of what went be- yond the present dispensation, we may acknowledge a like ignorance on the part of his disciples. The future was not chronologically mapped out, nor the entire evolution of the idea always seen, and that their human conjectures should sometimes be mingled with their clear vision, obscuring the words of its utterance, is by no means unlikely. St. Paul some- times distinguishes between the two. So both he and St. Peter may have thought, (what however they do not explicitly teach,) that the final day was nearer at hand than it proved to be. The outlines of the inter- vening conflict may have been more or less apparent to them, but they were not allowed to adapt it to the terms of chronological sequence ; and hence all subse- quent endeavors, of which some have been so fond, to mark this by time divisions must be regarded with no confidence. And while each one of them must be thought to 2 4 o CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. have been allowed to occupy this profounder view- point, and to be able to report of Christian truth, yet it is not necessary to think that equal ability so to re- port of it as to clarify it, or win assent to it, was pos- sessed by all. One might be able to reproduce in words, as another could not, its profounder features. St. John, with his meditative intellect, could put in words and make explicit for minds like his own what others were not able to do, who wrote for those on their own mental plane ; and which St. Paul, while showing that he had appropriated it, yet did not fully explicate, being more imperatively led by his own tastes and purposes. It is thus an advantage for Christian people that Christian truth has reached them through differing minds : yet the profound agree- ment of whose utterances is so wonderful, so detect- able beneath their minute and unimportant discrep- ancies, that any naturalistic accounting for the same fails. The sceptical and critical mind occupies itself with these, while the believing mind finds new har- monies perpetually, and it becomes more and more real and true for such that the Divine voice has reached them. In this one way, then, it has been provided that God's revelation of himself at this period of his gov- ernment of the world may be rightly disclosed and re- ceived. But it is manifest that Scriptures are not the only possible vehicle of historic transmission, though incontestibly the most trustworthy. Facts and thoughts can reach us by oral traditions, which, how- ever, are liable to more dangers than written ones, to corruptions from which these are not wholly exempt. Such need the most careful authentication to author- INSPIRA TION OF SELECTED MEN. 241 ize us to ascribe them to an inspired origin. And facts and thoughts can be enshrined also in forms somewhat securer, and very permanent, — in symbolic rites, and in institutions. All these, however, being still dependent upon the subjective estimation, we may think, on a priori grounds and after the analogy of all human things, as liable to disaster, or slow change ; and historic investigations, sincerely under- taken, show abundant evidence that this has been ac- tually the case. Rites have been modified, maimed, or rejected. Alleged oral traditions carry us back to a region of mist and uncertainty. Institutions have lost features that may be essential, or have been made so complicated and cumbrous as to conceal from view what in them is most essential. The Scriptures have undergone interpolations and changes, and to ascer- tain their authentic text is a mountainous labor. The conclusion from history is unavoidable that all these are not exempt from the danger of change which besets all human things. The question then arises whether any provision has been made for the preser- vation of Christian truth in its essential elements ; and any means provided to recover it, if at any time or place its integrity has been impaired. How, then, (1) is the right objective presentation of essential Christian truth always possible ? and (2) what security is there for the right subjective holding of the same ? These two questions so relate each other that it may be difficult, and perhaps not needful, to keep them apart. Vol. II. CHAPTER XXI. THE MEANS OF PRESERVING AND TESTING CHRISTIAN TRUTH, THE NOTION OF INFALLIBILITY. It is a well-known fact that words, by a slow pro- cess of disintegration or accession, fluctuate in their meaning, and any set of propositions may thus require from time to time to be examined, and, if need be, amended, in order to arouse the same conceptions in the later auditors that they did in the earlier ones. And when this is not the case and the common inter- pretation has undergone no change, the words, as re- lated to the minds to which they are addressed, are still determined in their meanings by their preposses- sions, prejudices, education, and chiefly by the philoso- phy or psychology which is implicit in such minds. There is, then, no perfect security that the words will arouse in every case exactly the same thoughts. Am- pler knowledge and careful reflection in any individual mind may change or even reverse the definitions for- merly given when hearing any set of words, and re- quire a new internal combination of conceptions. Thus the entire synthesis of Divine truth externally presented may, in the subjective holding, undergo modification, diminution, or enlargement. What se- curity is there that its essential features, in which alone lies the possibility of ultimate harmonization and agreement, shall be preserved, and how are any 242 CHRISTIAN TRUTH. 243 wrong conceptions or aberrancies in thinking to be corrected ? The word " God " uttered to different minds by the same sound or the same letters may- mean one thing, or another, or yet another. Proba- bly the idea of personality is never absent from it, but personality may be untruly or inadequately thought. The word may mean to one an arbitrary and immoral power and will which rules the universe by physical laws or through metaphysical processes. To another it may mean the same power and will as the expression of a holy nature with which it cannot be inconsistent. The word may be monotheistically apprehended, or tritheistically, or as a Unity in Trin- ity ; and the immanent relations of the hypostases may be variously thought. What is the constant quantity or element in the more or less complex con- ception subjectively held, which must by all means be preserved to render it essentially Christian ; and how is the idea to be rightly amplified into the whole truth with which it is affiliated ? Is there any princi- ple in the Christian mind itself which is corrective, and which may or will ultimately eliminate any con- tradiction, and correct any misconception ? Or are there any means externally and providentially provided whereby the expression of Christian truth may be from time to time examined and more carefully and cor- rectly defined ? If there be any such, still the revised or developed statement has to meet the same possi- bility of misconception ; and if the acceptance of the formula be any thing more than a blind acquiescence in a form of words irrespective of its meaning, that is, a mere acquiescence in some outward authority, (thus a negative attitude of the mind towards the truth 244 CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. and a confession of inability to appropriate it as truth, in which case it must be inoperative as a moral motive-spring upon the conduct, since it merely transfers to another the ground of holding for true) ; if it is accepted as truth, and the subjective holding be capable of correction, then the means and method of such correction, if they exist at all, must be in the progressive Christian consciousness itself. No one can transcend this, if it be a moral and religious con- sciousness. Thus in the one case we have a merely outward and visible sameness, with an inward and real discordance, and an endless variety ; while in the other case, notwithstanding any apparent outward discrepancy, there may be essential or comparative agreement, and that growing more and more perfect. Here now is room and occasion for the Christian doctrine of the Holy Spirit, which may be thought as operating in both ways, — by illumining the Christian consciousness and guiding a harmonizing and unifying process, — and also by governing and guiding the out- ward means of correct expression, if there be such. The entirety of Christian doctrine may be thought to be implicit and deducible a priori from the unique Christian revelation of God becoming man, and its necessary postulates. By human endeavor this has been elaborated with the Christian Creed. The his- tory of such elaboration shows that no statement of the same could be regarded as exhaustive and final, but that it was susceptible of further definition, emen- dation, and amplification. And it is obvious that this process might go on till the end of the dispensation, and yet never be finished and perfect. Such elabora- tion, if it be legitimate and confessedly governed by CHRISTIAN TRUTH. 245 the Holy Spirit, must make the task of the subjective holder-for-true easier all the while, and the likelihood of mistake less, the mediating influence of the Holy Spirit in the mind of the same being correspondent all this while. What security, then, is there, that such elaboration shall be rightly and faultlessly carried on ? Is any absolute immunity from mistake, even for such an end, actual, thinkable, or possible ? If so where is it, how lodged, how reached, how to be demonstrated or acknowledged ? If in such progressive elaboration any utterance seems to contradict the soul's inward and most sincere convictions, by the violation of which it would be untrue to itself, what counter argu- ment is possible, and what is its strength ? If it be claimed that such infallibility belongs to the utterances in faith or morals, ex cathedra, of some officer of the Church, or of any General Council, we are met at once by the difficulty, in the first case, of determining what are utterances ex cathedra, to decide which there are no means Divinely revealed or provided, and the pro- cess to determine which must be liable to the uncer- tainty of all human mental movements ; or else the alleged authority must assume its ability to determine that it is itself authoritative — that is, beg the very ques- tion to be proven, and thus think in a vicious circle. The logical fallacy is so evident here, that it is strange that the so-called argument should be so constantly reiterated. And in the other case, there is a similar difficulty in determining what is a General Council. Any mode of deciding it is a process de- pendent upon human judgment and arbitrary defini- tions. In this case, too, the possibility of mistake has 246 CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. been acknowledged by referring any question so adju- dicated to the whole Church for examination and confirmation ere it should be deemed authoritative. Theoretically this is an appeal to the general Christian consciousness, but factually, it is a call upon the learned and thoughtful men in the Church to give the question deliberate and dispassionate examination to see whether it is a part of the original deposit of the object-matter of faith. Any thing so sanctioned has indeed the highest ascertainable authority, which it is presumption to disregard ; but infallibility belongs to no set of propositions whatever, unless and so far as evidenced to have been guided by the Holy Spirit, who also must provide for and determine the right subjective holding. Thus absolute certitude is still problematical, yet the approach to it may be closer and closer. Chris- tian thinking, the deeper it goes and the humbler it grows, finds more and more difficulty and objection to any claim of immediate infallibility anywhere ; and is sure that the question must be re-thought from the start, and more profoundly. The objections to this doctrine are also a priori, and grow out of the very idea of Christianity itself. The fatal objection is that the notion contradicts its central principle, and di- vorces intellectual insight from moral and religious rectitude and progress ; involving, in short, the same misapprehension which makes faith and love indepen- dent virtues and graces, and ignores their radical affiliation and profound identity. The very influence of the Holy Spirit illumining the field of the mind and sharpening the spiritual vis- ion is not independent of moral and religious pre-con- CHRISTIAN TRUTH. 247 ditions. Not until faith has confessed its sincerity by an overt act is the Holy Spirit promised for its new functions ; and the growing mental insight is propor- tioned to the growth in holiness. Jesus Christ's own career, even, is an illustration of this, whose perfect mental illumination depended upon and resulted from his sacrificial triumph. " Do my will, and ye shall know of the doctrine," is his own word. Not until God's will is done, can the Godhead, the centre and spring of all Christian doctrine, be rightly known. All misbelief involves a false conception of the First Principle, and hence its worship, if any, is a form of idolatry. Thus the illumination and insight wrought by the Holy Spirit do not come mechanically. He does not enter the passive intellect, but avails himself of the whole spiritual structure, operates upon and through the holy and ever-growing holier conscious- ness ; and the degrees of insight must be an ever ad- vancing growth both in the individual and in the Church at large. According to this analogy, as fol- lowing this rule, we may think that the mental illumi- nation of prophets and apostles was not independent of but proportioned to their religious condition, as well as adapted to their native mental powers ; and that some of them had reached a deeper centre, and saw the truth more in its fulness than others ; thus that the kind and degree of mystical influence upon them was not arbitrarily given and proportioned ; but that even here man's freedom as a self-creator was respected. The Old-Testament and the New-Testa- ment Scriptures warrant us in thinking that the call- ing of Abraham was not arbitrary, but was a reward for his faith, and had intrinsic fitness. We may think 248 CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. St. John's pro founder insight into the depth of mean- ing in his Master's discourses to be the result of his more entire assimilation in character to the Divine principle of love. The seemingly arbitrary selections, and apparently mechanical inspiration, are so few as not to contradict the prevailing analogy, and to throw the burden of proof upon those who regard them as purely arbitrary and without intrinsic fitness and meaning. So pervasive throughout the Christian Scriptures is the doctrine that the Divine government of the physical forces is not independent of but ad- justed to the moral and religious government, that no apparent exception to this can be admitted as actual, for this would contravene the whole philosophy which underlies these writings. As long then as human holiness falls short of per- fection the fullest mental insight cannot be possessed ; and the degree of this insight must have its fluctua- tions both in the sphere of the individual and in that of the whole Church ; and if the mystical influence of the Holy Spirit respects human nature as active, and not as purely passive, it must be graded by these moral and religious pre-conditions. Thus it follows that a doctrine of mental infallibility can- not be legitimated without supposing this law dis- regarded ; and that the notion contradicts the idea of Christianity and the absolute philosophy upon which the Christian revelation is based. Indeed, if we allow the possibility of any exception to this law, we separate in thought the Divine will from the Divine nature, and there is a covert Tritheism in all this. Besides, if God did thus occasionally reverse the order and method of his own activities, and over- CHRISTIAN TRUTH. 249 rule human freedom, making of man a mere passive organ, there would be need that the procedure should be unmistakably such, and show itself, what it would be intrinsically, as a purely oracular one, and not that it should bear a semblance capable of other interpreta- tion, i. e., as operating through the normal exercise of the human faculties. It would be analogous to the Pagan methods. This is the very essence and definition of superstition, to make the movements of the First Principle arbitrary, or to interchange the order and supremacy of the moral and religious on the one hand, and the physical and metaphysical on the other, making the latter mount above the other, as rule or as exception. But in the history of Chris- tianity it appears that the mode of reaching any con- clusion or statement of truth, by an individual or an assembly, has been through the use of the ordinary human faculties and their normal methods, following the ordinary procedure of memory and understanding. Even if the procedure be regarded as an exercise of memory mainly, and the purpose be, not to think out a system of doctrine, but to declare and testify to what -has been already delivered, still the same methods are manifest, — the comparison by each one of his own subjective understanding of the proposed doctrine, with the subjective understanding of others, past or present, in order to reach agreement. It seems never to have been done from individual impulse, but after reflection and consultation with others. The object and effect of mutual conference has been to correct by discussion and reflection individual aber- rancies. Truth cannot be held in portions entirely separated, but only in an articulated synthesis. And 250 CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. in such conference, probably the synthesis in each mind has undergone modification ; and all have come nearer to assimilation, and thus agreement upon some form of expression has become possible. At the least a majority have reached willingness to adopt some form of words as entirely adequate, and the minority a willingness to accept it as provisionally adequate ; though some may have to force their assent for peace' sake, and in order not to sacrifice their unity. With many the work of reflection ceases, and they subside into a practical unity ; while a few minds, predomi- nantly thoughtful, may still ponder in an interior and unconfessed uncertainty, and so remain until some one more adventurous discovers a flaw or an inadequacy in the formula agreed upon ; or some new denial or misapprehension of its meaning becomes formidable, and thus a new conference, and a developed definition comes to pass. No conclusion was ever reached by Papal or Conciliar utterance that has not been medi- tated upon by the most thoughtful and trustworthy minds that could be availed of ; and so it has not been by an effort of memory merely, but of deep reflection as well. No elaboration of truth into a self-consistent synthesis can possess absolute certitude, and be char- acterized as infallible, except by supposing this mental procedure to be transcended. It would be then lifted beyond the region of faith, i. e., be deprived of all proper ethical and religious quality. It would take its place among mechanical or physical processes. It supposes that the mind may be enlightened indepen- dent of any heart characteristic ; or else be passive and overruled ; and thus an exception to Jesus' own rule is possible, and it is not necessary to do his will CHRISTIAN TRUTH. 251 to know of his doctrine ; or else it concentrates the entire obedience into submission to an external and unproved dictum, irrespective of the character in all other respects. And concretely, in the case of a Con- ciliar decision, the correct result is made dependent on the accidental, or providential bringing together of a sufficient number to dominate the minority, who cannot be supposed, as are the majority, to be super- naturally illumined. And a host of unproved hypothe- ses are required to maintain that one thing and not another is an Ecumenical Council. The function al- lowed here to secular influence is full of suspicion. The function of such an assembly is indeed something grand, but it need not be overrated, or rather under- rated, by regarding it as a magical process. We may not, indeed, disregard the promise that He "who has begun the good work will continue it till the day of Christ," or that the Holy Spirit will " guide into all truth." We have valid ground for thinking that God's revelation of himself appeals to what is deepest in man ; and that there is no danger of a widespread or permanent misapprehension of Divine truth. But we think all this on other grounds ; and the present question is simply as to the mode and process by which this truth is illumined, ampli- fied, and appropriated. We hold, then, that a doc- trine of infallibility, as commonly stated, is founded upon a shallow view of the Divine government, too low a view of human and Christian capacities, and ignores the profound harmony of the Divine attri- butes, discovered, as time proceeds, to be more and more wonderful. It is reducible, when analyzed and sifted, to the same philosophy which underlies 252 CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. all Pagan or other superstitious systems, and is indeed only the product of an inferior and transient phase of human mental history. The illumination of the truth by the Holy Spirit is reached, then, under the condition, both for the in- dividual Christian mind, and for the whole Church, of more and more intelligent progressive obedience. The holy will being supposed as a constant quantity, there is room for constant growth in the knozvledge of what the Divine will requires to be thought and done. Improvement in the knowledge of duty is dependent upon progressive illumination of truth, in the sum of its relations ; and all history shows that moral knowl- edge has been a constant growth. The convictions of the details of duty, along with progressive social development, have undergone constant change and improvement, while the motive-spring, the personal relation to God in Christ, has remained the same. The conscience of the Christian world, by its own ad- mission, has been continually corrected and improved. Many things once thought to be right have been found to contradict the requirements of the ultimate ideal, which must explain and justify all the details of duty. Indeed, if there be development in the physi- cal, social, and intellectual life of mankind, there must be a correspondent development in its ethical knowl- edge. Thus, though the sacrificial spirit be no stronger now than at any period of the Christian past, we are wiser to understand into what sort of activities this spirit should flow. God's work goes on without ceasing, and has no real but only apparent retrogression. Just as, in the life of the individual Christian what look like retro- CHRISTIAN TRUTH. 253 gressions are discovered to be preparations for new advance, and part of the separating and sifting process which God, through his providential adaptation and discipline, is carrying on ; so, in the history of any Christian Church, or in the whole of Christendom, any seeming retrogression is but the preparation for new advance, is but a bringing to the surface and within the sphere of knowledge what was hidden, cor- rupting, and disorganizing before, — in order that those regions of knowledge over which a temporary gloom had gathered may be likewise illumined. And the more rapid growth in moral and religious knowledge supposes a more rapid and complex activity on the part of the Holy Spirit. These relations within the compass of knowledge, thus growing more complicated, have to be adjusted to the relations beyond its compass, that all the elements of perfect being may mount more and more into perfect harmonization and integrity. The process of sanctification, which we may follow with our minds more or less correctly, must be accompanied by the process of regeneration, which we cannot at all follow, and which adjusts our entire structure, in the synthesis of its essential and eternal relations, to the absolute being, and to whatever is to be eternal in the universe of God, to the pure Glory out of which it came and the intensified Glory to which it tends. CHAPTER XXII. CONTRAST OF THE PRIMITIVE CHRISTIAN PERIOD WITH THE SUBSEQUENT PERIOD. We have not yet exhausted all that it is necessary to note concerning the method of the Holy Spirit's activity and influence. It may be helpful, just here, to consider the distinction between the condition of the Christian Church in the very early days and its subse- quent history. This first period is marked by certain tokens which have ceased during the subsequent one, — the various charismata, and the inspiration then claimed and acknowledged. For a time the history of the Church proceeded under exceptional condi- tions. These were changed when the unusual gifts ceased, gradually or abruptly. There is, perhaps, no sharp line of separation, but very soon the career of the Church went on by the same means and methods which have prevailed ever since. Whether slowly or suddenly, the one set of conditions subsided into the other, and the contrast is marked, and requires recon- ciliation. The contrast must be emphasized and will be found very instructive. There is nothing gained but much lost by seeking to blend and identify the two periods, by claiming that the characteristics of the former have been prolonged into the latter, and that inspiration and miracles are not merely possible, but have been actual, and still occasionally and spo- 254 THE PRIMITIVE CHRISTIAN PERIOD. 255 radically occur. If we have explained rightly the method of the later period of the Divine government which has prevailed throughout it, and prevails now, then we have still to seek for the intent and explana- tion of the former one, and to justify its exceptionality. It would seem that the full possibilities of the Christian idea and the correspondent activity of the Holy Spirit, operating upon human character, were elicited in these early days, and their ultimate realiza- tion in the commonwealth transiently anticipated, in such measure at least as to hint of the final social state. The passionate response to the love of Christ here exists in its full intensity. Faith is allowed evi- dence so almost overpowering as to tremble on the verge of sight. Inspiration produces within a certain range certitude as nearly absolute as is possible, still keeping the consciousness within the region of faith. So dwindle in importance for subjective estimation the doings of the world, and the whole temporal sphere, with its transient and conventional distinctions, that the imagination leaps forward to the ultimate, perfect, and real-ideal universe. Time-limits shrink, and the day of consummation seems near at hand, so potent seems the new force that has entered the world. Martyrdom is not only endured, but wel- comed and entered into joyfully. Human selfishness is struck at the root, the commonwealth of love is attempted, and a common possession of earthly goods exists, as in the primal innocence. Domination over the powers of nature in some degree and for provi- dential ends is allowed, and thus the final relation of the perfected spiritual soul to the physical universe is in some particulars anticipated. Faith cures physical 256 CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. disease. The adverse forces give way before the vast increment of vitality which follows the spiritual being thus urged upward. Individual aberrancies in the holding-for-true are immediately corrected. The de- tails of duty are adjusted with exactitude to the whole environment. If all this be historically trustworthy, evidently the Holy Spirit is accomplishing immedi- ately upon the individual soul, and mediately through the intervention of kindred souls, all that is possible without wronging human freedom. But such a state of things did not continue ; and since it was once possible, we may well ask why should it not have continued. Why must it subside into, or give way to, the method of the Divine gov- ernment that has ever since prevailed ? Is the change arbitrary ? Were the conditions of human nature violated and the whole life of the Church lifted up by Divine potence into the outskirts of the ideal state, in which miracles are the law and cease to be won- ders, and then allowed to drop back again ? Or does the method of the Divine procedure remain ever the same, and may we learn from this history, so won- drously illumined, how to interpret and understand the life of the Church ever since ? A providential purpose in producing or allowing this early and transient condition is discoverable. The ideal possibilities of the religion of Christ, thus exhibited temporarily and by a vanishing glance, en- able its power to be fully understood ; and this be- comes a stimulus and a boon to the faith of the sub- sequent periods. We have in miniature that picture of the perfect Church on a small scale that is to be realized at length on a grand scale, and to which THE PRIMITIVE CHRIS TIA N PERIOD. 2 5 7 through the weary centuries, it has to slowly work its way. The conditions for, and the rights of human freedom were not, then, in this early period overborne or transcended ; and it only remains to convince our- selves that it was best for humanity that this transitory state of things should not have continued, or perhaps that it was impossible that it should have continued. We may not decline this enquiry, which seems at first so difficult. Let us not, however, exaggerate the contrast. At every period in the existence of the Church there have been, more or less plentifully or sparsely, in- stances of faith rivalling in intensity the faith of this early period. In our own day we may find such, here and there, and in God's knowledge they may be more numerous than they seem. But we are able now and then to note them, — cases in which faith is exhibited in its transparent simplicity, and in its unbounded self- sacrifice. Indeed, we are led sometimes to suspect that in all sincere followers of Christ, notwithstanding their faultiness and the inconsistency of much that they do with their profession, and beneath the super- ficial covering of their ordinary behavior, faith exists in degree sufficient to bear the ultimate test, and that the real problem is to discover the conditions for its concealment. For in the present mixed and complex social life of mankind, such cannot, as in the early days, exist as a community apart, and hence lack the full stimulus and encouragement of contact, com- panionship, and sympathy. Whatever be their will they are unable to comprehend and mend the social condition manifestly wrong, and so their religious life is measurably concealed. Sporadic attempts, all Vol. II. 258 CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. through Christian history, have been made to repro- duce or to rival the primitive Christian community. These have sometimes seemingly attained their pur- pose, or transiently so, but more often have been cari- catures or contradictions of what a Christian com- munity should be, and have been abused for selfish or sensual purposes. In all this the true ideal end of Christianity has been neglected or lost sight of ; — which is not a group or series of small communities, isolated and autonomous, but one grand community, one human brotherhood, transcending even the bounds of nationality or race. The idea underlying these small associations has been individualistic rather than truly communistic ; rather exclusive than inclu- sive. Slowly, indeed, has progress towards the true ideal end been made, and the attainment seems still very far off, but the progress towards it is not doubt- ful, and is incessant. It is the main social problem of our time, and men are wandering in the dark, to all appearance, but are Divinely guided, and will one day find that they have been so led. While, then, the faith of the very faithful ones is very heavily tasked often for lack of human sympathy and companionship, still we find it now and then mani- festing its strength, and the characteristics of the early days scatteringly reproduced. In two respects only it seems to fall short of these characteristics : (^In- spiration such as then existed has manifestly ceased, and the safeguards of the holding-for-true are other- where to be sought after ; and (2) the domination in any extent over the forces of nature, such as to pro- duce the miraculous, though claimed, either does not exist at all, or is seen only so rarely and under such THE PRIMITIVE CHRISTIAN PERIOD. 259 conditions as not to be able to triumph over incre- dulity. It would seem not to be impossible, a priori, that a true faith, deep and strong, should still be com- petent to conquer the physical forces, but in order to be such faith it must know that its purpose is provi- dentially permitted. Otherwise it has not the essential mark of the faith that works miracles, inasmuch as its maxim and prayer is not " Let God's will be mine," but " Let my will be God's." In the alleged instances of faith accomplishing for its subject the cure of physi- cal disease, we are shut up to the necessity of account- ing for it by natural processes, known or sought for, and to think that the powers of nature are not transcen- ded but availed of : and this, not only for the reason above given, but for the other reason that the alleged faith is not Christian faith, and measured in its inten- sity by the degrees of holiness and the sacrificial spirit, but is merely mental concentration and positiveness. It may retain the intellectual element of faith, but is without its moral and religious constituents, and thus is not Christian faith. But the abstract possibility still remains, — that, were it in accordance with the ends of Divine providence, the faith of a Christian believer might reach the ideal relation of the holy soul towards the physical forces, and be able to cure disease, or to work any other physical miracle. But as to any alleged actual instances of this we still remain incredulous, not only because the evidence is doubtful, — the occasion, the need, and the method wanting in simplicity and dignity, rivalling the un- moral characteristics of the apochryphal wonders, or of necromancy, — but on deeper grounds, and because we are convinced that it is best that the life of the Church 260 CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. should be urged forward and sustained without these external props. The early Christian miracles reacted upon the entire Christian community. These alleged modern ones radiate but little way, and do not seem to deepen the sacrificial spirit. They produce passive obedience to the authority which desires it, and run into permitted superstitions, rather than purify and strengthen sacrificial love or the spirit of martyrdom. That during this early period, when faith so intense existed in the Christian body in general, it should have been protected in its holding-for-true by admitted inspiration seems obvious and necessary. The transi- tion from Jewish and Pagan ideas was so abrupt and violent that an unusual array of mental forces was needful to fasten the subject to his new intellectual centre. But as Jewish or Pagan systems grew sub- jectively weaker, as the Church and the world ran more and more into each other, and each assimilated some elements of the other, as the outlook grew larger, and the date of the consummation receded, as the conditions for the spread of Christianity through- out the world were made apparent, and the attain- ment of the ultimate ideal seemed more difficult, — in such a state of things faith became in its diffusion at- tenuated and weakened, though still having its points of concentration ; and inspiration, too, ceased and was no longer claimed. What broke up the primitive state made it needless, if not impossible. It can only be, if ever again, when the whole body of Christian believers is cleanly separated from the party of Anti- christ, and exhibits itself as a commonwealth of love, spiritually tied together, with physical environment disparate ; in which condition faith may be made the THE PRIMITIVE CHRISTIAN PERIOD. 261 strongest, and show its strength the most when its trial is greatest. Present inspiration would be no boon to the religious life, since it would weaken faith by depriving it of its needed discipline. Some other safeguard in the holding-for-true must be sought or had, until it come again. The early Church underrated the strength of the immense mass of evil which characterized the outer world, and which it was its task to penetrate. It gathered its first disciples readily from those who were in some degree already assimilated, not only by what was held by the Jewish and Christian religions in common, but in the more diffused sense of moral dere- liction, of the misery springing from it, and the long- ing to be liberated. The opposition of heathendom was not at once understood as to its strength and mag- nitude. The first converts were made so speedily that hopes were raised which proved to be unfounded, that the whole world would be soon conquered, or at least the election brought out, and thus made ready for the final day. For a time enthusiasm was not dampened, and their passionate zeal wrought forward with only such opposition as it was their delight to overcome, or triumphantly submit to in the martyr spirit. Thus and otherwise were the conditions had for the characteristics of the early Church. Faith, in one sense strong, so strong as to triumph over the immediate difficulties, in another sense was weak, as not yet disciplined by trial and the subtler doubts. The seductive qualities of evil in its Protean forms, and the attractiveness hence of unbelief, were not felt, or were disregarded. They had not leisure to reflect upon and measure the strength of the opposition to 262 CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. be overcome. The confidence in the inspired ones, their religious guides, was nearly unlimited ; and while they were associated with men who had talked with their Lord Jesus, and had seen his risen body, faith had little trial, — not such as it had when all these things had faded away into the past. The faith that could conquer the world must be able to triumph over the opposition that only slowly gathered strength, and be steady against all the fascinations of error and the most recondite forms in which the principle of evil should show itself. The necessities of this con- flict make the task and trial of faith harder and severer as the generations pass ; and if it is to be urged to its uttermost, and out of itself realize on a grand scale what was real in the little and limited one of the early days, then the trials of faith must grow extreme towards the end, and at last be so painful as once more to require and be worthy of the boon of Divine interposition to relieve it. " When the Son of Man cometh, shall He find faith on the earth?" Before the signal which winds up the cycle, it may be that miracles and inspiration will appear once more, though in our thought we recognize no necessity for them. Now, not only have Christian people to attain their utmost of holiness without these external aids, if they be thought such, and still through the secret influence yet normal activity of the Holy Spirit, but they have to attain insight of the truth without them ; and not through any hypothecated oracle, but by the sharp- ening of their spiritual insight, to result from their faith made strong by their trials. The Christian con- sciousness has in itself the principle corrective of all wanderings from the truth, since it has laid hold upon THE PRIMITIVE CHRISTIAN PERIOD. 263 God's revelation of his central self. The recognition that the First Principle is loving from its essential structure, and that this Love has manifested itself in the Incarnation of the Eternal Son, is the key to un- lock all mysteries and to harmonize all truth, sooner or later. To no single mind is it given to make a perfect analysis of this, to discover all its implications, or to make a faultless synthesis of all existing relations between this and the universe ; but all aberrancies are sure, sooner or later, to come back to this test and be condemned or corrected by it. Even those who assert any other and subordinate test must and do, necessarily, avail themselves of this to legitimate it. Thus slowly is the system of Divine truth, already possessed in its main outlines, filled up in its ramifica- tions, and coherency gradually reached. This work is guided by the Holy Spirit, whose mystical influence, leading into all truth, is confined to no man, or class of men, but operates upon all who have committed themselves to Christ, and possess faith in its essential and indispensable elements. The clear apprehension of Divine truth is by no means commensurate with the ability to express it and communicate the individual subjective apprehen- sion of it to others. This ability comes from special gifts, endowments, and culture in the means of ex- pression. It is hence that Theology as a science exists, and that men have to be trained to meditate upon Divine things, who can report the Christian consciousness correctly, and bear accurate testimony as to the " truth once delivered to the saints." Slowly and through much discussion are the pathways of error discovered and fenced off, and the task for each new 264 CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. generation made a little easier. The main outline of Christian truth may not be as naively and without counter solicitations apprehended as in the early days, and hence by many not as clearly seen and as indis- putably held, and so even around this discussion and enquiry must, to some extent, range. This is the vantage which the Theologians of the early Church possessed over ourselves, and we rightly go to them to discover the primitive tradition ; yet never without subjecting the report of any individual one to the test of the common possession, to the fundamental prin- ciple itself. By means of this did some in the early days correct the mistakes of others. The heresiarchs were brought to the bar of the primitive tradition as subjectively apprehended by the healthy Christian consciousness. Thus no full theologic knowledge is likely to be had, without knowing its historic develop- ment. Every now and then some one ignorant of this starts upon a pathway which has been long since followed, and found to be a cul de sac, or to lead around to a contradiction. But, in the subordinate elements of the truth, in the minute ramifications of the same, which too must be wrought into self-consistency with themselves and with the main outline, and thus help to constitute a per- fect and trustworthy synthesis, — in the apprehension of these and in the ability satisfactorily to systema- tize the whole, the vantage is clearly with our- selves. Into the pathways of fundamental error Theologians now seldom or only transiently wander. Even though the ordinary Christian mind has never followed through the centuries the history and the evolution of Christian doctrine, it possesses its result insensibly. Our enquiry, in these latter days, is more THE PRIMITIVE CHRISTIAN PERIOD. 265 limited, or is busied with new questions, and we have larger material for a complete and harmonious synthe- sis. Essential unity in Christian doctrine is no chi mera, and is still to be attained. The progress to it has been wonderful, and we are nearer to it than we know. It is wronging the Christian intellect to think that we cannot reach such a synthesis of doctrines that its harmony and its inner coherence shall be evidence of its truth, and that it may be said to be The Truth. Those minds which are busy in the quiet depths be- neath the waves of superficial controversy have been during the present half century, and are now, think- ing in converging and not in diverging lines, and that independent of all ecclesiastical allegiance. This is the most hopeful sign of the times, more important than all the noisy cataclysms in the political and social worlds. Whenever this blissful period may come, at no time will or can Christian thinkers lay down their mental implements and arms in discourage- ment. The day when such agreement will be may be far off, or nearer than we think. Like the day of the Lord it may be hastened forward by the " prayers of the saints," and its arrival is a pre-condition for that day. That which makes it seem far off is not any ill success, or want of fertility in mental work, but it is the faulty holiness, and because the sacrificial spirit which triumphs over worldliness is so little pervasive. But after all, this may not be the truest measure of Christian growth, for the faith which is subjected to the severest trials is necessarily introverted, and is called upon for internal and invisible sacrifices rather than for external ones. It lets the world rush on around it, and falls in with its ways, and goes through its inward struggles and triumphs, and thus clears the 266 CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. way to emerge into activity perhaps, or at least for others to follow in more manifest sacrifice and more evident holiness. Any attainment of agreement in Christian doctrine, after subsidence of controversy, anywhat widespread, and the consequent lightening of the struggle of faith, is seen to be followed by a period of outward activity, of Christian zeal, of mis- sionary or philanthropic enterprise, and more numer- ous tokens of self-sacrifice, and the easier solution of all social problems. And thus too is legitimated the hope and the thought that Christian unity is to be sought, and can only be attained through unity in doctrine. It is the disagreements and disputes among Christians which deaden zeal and abate enthusiasm as a general characteristic of Christian professors, and make missionary work slow in success, and bewilder the premises from which we struggle after practical measures. Let agreement in doctrine, exclusive of the range still open for speculation, be attained, and any extravagances in worship or ritual, or equally ex- travagant rejection of worship or ritual intrinsically proper, will find ready correction, and all legitimate variations, coming from individual or temporary tastes, be complacently indulged and allowed. Let it never be for a moment forgotten that God is at the centre, and will carry on his work till the day of Christ, through means undiscoverable by us, or only dimly descried, yet still and for the most part through means that we know and will at length recognize, — through the illumination of the common Christian mind by the Holy Spirit, consequent upon and condi- tioned by the intensification of the sacrificial spirit, of the same spirit that marked the great martyr, in Gethsemane and on Calvary. CHAPTER XXIII. QUESTION AS TO THE MODE OF THE HOLY SPIRIT^ ACTIVITY, THE PHILOSOPHY OF PRAYER. We think that we have now opened all the problems which require for their explanation the doc- trine of the activity of the Holy Spirit. A final en- quiry is now needed to ascertain the modus of this activity ; and thus to supply the sustaining principle of the whole doctrine, the keystone of the whole arch of truth cohering to it. We must at the start bring up again for reflection, what we have established before, the doctrine sup- ported by philosophy and true science, and confirmed by revelation, — that the universe, as comprising physi- cal, mental, and moral elements and relations, is a unit, and not two or three unrelated, or arbitrarily related, spheres ; therefore that the Divine govern- ment of it may be and must be unified to be under- stood. We have sought too to establish that the key to understand this government is to be sought in the moral realm ; that its end is supreme, and the other two subordinate ; that the universe is only a true con- crete and has intelligible reality, as thus thought. A universe of physical material and forces merely, into which thinking and enjoying creatures are thrust, is without meaning, and the contradiction is unsolvable. No physical movements can explain the thought or 267 268 CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. the enjoyment as we find them. An imperious logical method which disregards the capacity to love and en- joy is equally impotent, and a similar duality. Unity in thought can only be reached by taking love and bliss as the highest, central, and unifying element, of which the physical universe is the means of develop- ment and enrichment, and between which two thought is the medium* If we reject Dualism in any form, we cannot separate physical movements from moral ends. If the former act upon and are determined by the needs of the latter, then there is no more difficulty in thinking a remote or ultimate result than one immedi- ate or proximate, and the latter must take its place within the requirements of the former. Physical movements do, by universal acknowledgment, ac- complish moral ends immediately or proximately, and the entire physical movement may and must accom- plish the ultimate moral end. If then the source and spring of all physical movement be not abstract potence merely (and its very self-consistence and harmony with itself is precisely the definition of pur- pose, since it has thus all the elements of the idea), but is under guidance, and has its impetus and expla- nation in love, — then, since this love is Divine, it has all energy at its command, it is omnipotent, exhaust- less, and sufficient, and, regarded in this abstract way, seems incapable of any increment. But in this ab- stract way love is only superficially thought ; for from its very nature it demands a return, and is only love as it can be returned. Within the absolute Godhead itself are the conditions of reciprocation, otherwise its love could not be changeless and eternal. But this love has overflowed into temporal existence, THE HOLY SPIRITS ACTIVITY. 269 and the universe cannot be regarded as displaying the Divine Love except as it has in it, or to be in it, that which can give the reciprocation. Therefore the Di- vine Love, though abstractly thought incapable of intensification, as concreted in -the universe would fall short of its definition and fail of its end, if it were not to receive this return, which alone opens out its fountains. It can only flow forth in its purity and intensity as the objects are or become capable of re- ciprocating it, and thus enlarge their own capacity to receive it. Like the electric current, the circuit must be complete ere the full power can be felt. If, then, the Divine Love has potence or energy as its minister, this potence must be susceptible of degrees of activity and direction of movement, ruled by the degrees of such reciprocity. The more completely the Divine Love is met, the more the power exercised fills the purpose of the Divine will, and the evolution of the idea is quickened. This power may and must reach the souls reciprocating in the entirety of their concrete being, and act upon every element of the same, physical and mental as well as moral ; which saying is more or less identical with the Scripture declaration that the Divine Glory receives incre- ments from the glorification of the creature. Thus only through and by means of this reciprocation is the fullest moral force created, and the physical move- ments are thereby determined and flow more and more in correspondence. They are ruled by the needs and the speed of the ethical and religious pro- gress. The moral condition of the created spiritual souls in the universe (whether they be comprised within the limits of this planet or not) thus conditions 270 CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. the whole physical movement of the same. There is no avoidance of this conclusion, without losing in thought the unity of the universe, and separating the moral and the physical into two independent spheres ; or else without degrading all moral into mere physical movement, and thereby denying altogether the ex- istence of the moral ; the weakness of which latter philosophy has been heretofore displayed. Thus the possibility of response to Christian prayer, and to all other prayer so far as it is truly such, is legitimated. Prayer, in the true spirit, being a loving response, implying an elimination of all alien elements, and a concentration of the pure spiritual religious elements, so as to constitute, in variant degrees of closeness, the personal relation, is thus an affluent in the returning current, a contribution to the incense cloud which rises from the entire created universe, and adds an increment to the moral force of the same. The love of the Creator can flow forth more freely and fully as the praying one becomes capable of re- turning it. And the ends and purposes of this Di- vine loving outflow enable a correspondent change in the physical movement. The purpose being the in- tensification of the loving spirit, the healing, chasten- ing, and blessing of the same, and the relating it to the vast circle of spiritual needs which have the ulti- mate consummation as their purpose, the currents and direction of physical force must follow the guidance and meet the requirements of the ethical force thus undergoing and exhibiting increase. A priori this position is impregnable ; and though a posteriori facts do not demonstrate it, they do not contradict it, but occasionally confirm it, and the vibration between THE HOL Y SPIRIT 'S A CTIVITY. 271 the confirmation and the apparent contradiction is the conflict of faith, and the means for the acquirement of human virtue or spiritual strength. As ethical changes are ordinarily not abrupt, so the correspondent physical change and adaptation are not abrupt and at once discoverable ; and are some- times discovered only afar off, and after long disci- pline. If the ethical change should ever be abrupt, an abrupt physical change becomes thinkable and pos- sible, and history shows us some such as actual. Thus it appears that the response to prayer comes not by violation of natural law, nor by counteracting the physical forces, but by removing impediments in the way of their free and legitimate movement. The ethical force in the entire organism has its multitudi- nous points of temporary concentration ; and the physical movement is correspondent and adaptive thereto. It follows it by a law as imperious as the attracted thing follows the magnet. This is not in- terfering with natural law, as may be superficially thought, but simply the evidence that natural law is not meaningless, unworthy of regard, and that it could not, if separated from the spiritual ends, give us any true knowledge. The energy in the universe, of which the physical forces (so called) are variant forms, is the activity of the Holy Spirit. This energy we think, however, as limited, and that there is no increase or diminution of the sum of force. This requires to think the phys- ical universe, as within our actual or possible knowl- edge, as also limited. But the idea of infinity (of which space is the symbol, and brings the idea within the exercise yet the failure of imagination, which ex- 272 CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. ercise and failure is the emotion of sublimity) is as imperious a mental requirement as the idea of causal- ity, and requires to think in the First Principle an in- exhaustible energy. But into such possibilities of exis- tence our knowledge does not pass ; and our actual knowledge requires to think the universe as limited. All forces then are variant forms of one, by mutual correlation accomplishing the concrete results, and they are classifiable only according to the ends immediate or hypothecated, and as they are immediate or remote in their effects. As then each form of force has its immediate, proximate, and remote end, and these ends are correlated, so the entire sum of energy has its ulti- mate end. To think this to be a mere cyclical move- ment in the physical realm, an alternation of solidifi- cation, attenuation, and solidification and attenuation aerain, of cold and heat, and that the force in the uni- verse may die out and all come to rest and begin again, is out of all analogy, and destitute of proof. Moreover, it has its own a priori difficulty, for if this movement or force had a beginning, it may be resup- plied ; and if it had no beginning, it can have no end. All this merely physical career, however following law, has no real method. It is unworthy of human thought except as it serves to enrich the human mind, to furnish it the means for interaction, and supply it with beauty and enjoyment. Physical movements only inter- est us as related to mental apprehension, and in this is their final cause. The very beauty discovered in them shows that they must be regarded as free, therefore as related to thought, and in themselves full of enjoy- ment. That all conscious souls shall share this enjoy- ment is the end of all physical movement and change ; THE HOLY SPIRITS ACTIVITY. 273 and this requires that the environment shall be ulti- mately correspondent to these subjective aspirations, and be fluent for the ideal commonwealth of love. All physical movement is then the activity of the Holy Spirit and respects the far-off purpose. This activity is only so far mystical, then, as it eludes our present understanding. With the increase of knowl- edge the region of the mystical shrinks. Our attain- ments, scientific and psychologic, are continually re- moving many things from the region of the mystical into that of the intelligible. So then, in the perfect state, whatever is now mystical in the universe will be understood. All between the actual facts and the ab- stract energy will be illumined. This energy cannot be analyzed, nor needs to be. It can only be thought as simple self-consciousness, under the conditions which are required to regard the First Principle as existent. Its reflection is our created-self-consciousness, in which while our own force is but a form of this ener- gy, we determine the end of it as individual or uni- versal ; and thus, as before said, the content of our use of it is all God's, while the moral form is all our own. The Divine Energy is only imaginable as conscious freedom and unlimited liberty, based upon love and moving in the sphere of the Divine Glory. To know more of it would be to pass beyond the bounds of creaturehood, to lose the finite in the infinite, to re- produce in ourselves the Divine consciousness. We may, indeed, grow more and more into this, but there is an infinite reserve in it which we may penetrate to all eternity yet can never exhaust. It is exhilarating to the human mind to think that it is allowed to push back its knowledge to this verge, to trace all changes Vol. II. 274 CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. back through their media, to the Divine activity. This meeting of its aspiration exalts, yet humbles as the result of its exaltation. Many knowledges that we are now struggling after we shall reach. Even all the conditions of life may yet be discovered. Even now, having the material, and knowing the required relations, we can produce livine creatures at will. But it matters not whether we shall ever smooth over the step from the chemical to the vital. Should we do so, we are met still by the Di- vine Energy producing one class of existences under one set of conditions, and another under another. So far then as the end is discoverable for knowl- edge, the needed activity of the Holy Spirit may cease to be mystical, or rather be reduced to its form of pure energy, which is unsusceptible of further analy- sis. So far as the end is remote and not illumined for knowledge, the process between the pure energy and this result is still mystical. For this reason the acceptance of this truth is still within the province of faith, — which is nothing else than the deep convic- tion, unseduced by all shows to the contrary, that moral ends are paramount. When then the soul, acting upon this instinct, drawn by this spiritual gravi- tation, endeavors the personal relation, and concen- trates its loving response in prayer, the object and intent of this prayer upon the praying subject himself, (whether he so think it or not,) is related to the end to be attained for the entire human organism, and the universe to which it is related. The mystical move- ment, so far as needful to be hypothecated, and the providential movement coalesce, and prove to be one and the same, not capable of abstraction, but only by THE HOLY SPIRITS ACTIVITY. 275 mutual relation concrete. But the mystical activity and its result upon the subject himself is first in thought, and the physical adaptation subsequent. But we have before endeavored to show that any change wrought upon the moral being, or the will, and any consequent change wrought upon the physi- cal structure, and all correspondent adaptation of the environment, depend first upon some change wrought in the conscious mind, or at least in the rudimental consciousness, — in the first case giving or clarifying some mental presentation, and illumining the truth, — in the latter case producing in the rudimental con- sciousness the conditions for the purer and truer self- consciousness. The question then remains, — how is this accomplished ? Is it through physical media, freeing from clogs the brain movement, and quicken- ing its activity, or is it by action upon the pure psychi- cal consciousness beneath the brain movement ? The former would seem to be a reversal of the required method, and is rather a cyclical process, i. e., certain changes are wrought upon the physical being where- by the mental presentation becomes clarified, and an increment of moral strength ensues, to which physi- cal change, ab extra, is afterwards adapted. The latter is the simpler solution, if on any grounds other than these, or on these alone, we think such a con- sciousness independent of brain-conditions to be actual or possible. The thought emerges a priori, but still awaits a posteriori confirmation, and here is still a field for scientific investigation. 1 If the latter 1 This is not the place for the accumulation of facts to establish this thesis, which are many, yet the author begs leave, in this connection, to refer to the chapter on " Dreaming," in his work on " The Beautiful and the Sublime," where some evidence is afforded for it. 276 CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. then be the method, and the activity of the Holy Spirit is upon this pure psychical consciousness, then it is still mystical, and must ever remain so while we are in this militant state. We can never illumine the connection between the pure Divine energy and this pure psychical consciousness. Yet any change wrought in this must subside into the brain con- sciousness ere it can find expression. It seems to be taken for granted in the Christian Scriptures that the movement of the Holy Spirit must ever be mystical. Our knowledge may, indeed, be pushed so far as to show that human consciousness is capable of relation, change, and influence through other than intelligible media. Much of our experience, when carefully scru- tinized, leads to this conclusion. The clarification of the truth, its attractiveness and power, and resultant increment of strength to the holy will, seem not so much a process of adding any thing, as of clearing away of impediments, of clouds and perturbations, and the subsidence of the world in which imagination plays. After earnest prayer we find that the disturb- ing considerations have subsided and left the mind free to escape the temporal, and abide in the eternal. Again, that the latter explanation given is the true one, receives additional force for our thought, when we consider the utterances of the men inspired. We think them inspired, because here the whole mental movement is so unique as to be hardly susceptible of explanation by supposing an improvement in the ordi- nary brain-consciousness. These minds seem to look from a centre which we cannot reach, and to look through a clearer air into a larger field than ours. What they report we can indeed follow, but cannot THE HOLY SPIRITS ACTIVITY. 277 weave into a synthesis at all points harmonious. In all truth needful to constitute their system they agree with each other, and we cannot think a controversy between them, in essential matters, to have been pos- sible. This profound interior agreement cannot be naturalistically explained. We slowly endeavor after the same state, but in the progress pass through a period of toil and controversy, showing that our sub- jective apprehensions of the truth are not entirely identical with theirs. This may indeed be so, because we receive at second-hand what they received at first- hand ; and because of the confessed imperfection of all human means of expression. For this they, as well as we do, had to avail themselves of the imple- ments of the brain-consciousness. They saw the truth clearly, and in its timeless relations beheld the evolu- tion of the idea, but could only express it figuratively and through humanly invented language. Hence we often think of them that they were wiser than their words indicate. But towards the possibility of this intuitive consciousness the life of the Church must be continually urging its way, and our inspiration, though of the same kind as theirs, and differing so greatly in degree, will be till the end diminishing the degrees of difference. In ordinary Christian consciousness we are through the influence of the Holy Spirit enabled to see clearly within a certain range, and for the im- mediate individual need and providential purpose. In the case of the inspired men the range is wider, yet not infinite, and respects the wider and remoter pur- pose. We appropriate bit by bit their knowledges. Sometimes they hint that they possess knowledge which they cannot express, or are not permitted to 278 CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. express ; or if they attempt it they do it by symbols which puzzle us still. If the Christian Church is ever to understand the Apocalypse of St. John, it will show by such understanding that it has grown into the prophetic consciousness. And this is an additional reason to think that all Inspiration is the same in kind ; and that even in the prophetic consciousness no new faculty has been superadded to human nature, to be afterwards taken away or not, but that the ordi- nary though latent capacities and powers of the religious soul have been availed of and quickened, to produce these extraordinary results. It had not been worth their while to utter what seems to us obscure, if it were to remain forever obscure ; nor can we think it of God's devising, could we not at length by patient study discover the fulness of its meaning. These writings are then a fountain of knowledge, as yet very far from exhaustion. The understanding of them will follow pari passu with the growth of the sacrificial spirit, and also with the knowledge of na- ture and of man himself. The knowledge of God's word will follow the knowledge of his deed, and the knowledge of his deed may follow upon the study of his word. They are not two knowledges, but one. CHAPTER XXIV. ESCHATOLOGY, THE RESURRECTION AND GLORIFICATION OF JESUS CHRIST. It is indispensable to the doctrine of the humanity of Christ that He should be thought to have died and to have risen from the dead ; but it is not sufficient to regard this resurrection as the arbitrary or super- induced reward for his sacrificial obedience termi- nated upon the cross. This mode of expression is permissible, and is one way of stating the truth ; but it does not do it profoundly or exhaust- ively. The sacrifice, being the uttermost attain- ment of the loving spirit, not only in purity but in intensity, stands in a causal relation to the revival and physical change. It is not merely a temporal sequence, but an illustration of the dialectic order required by the idea of mankind involved in the primal creative act, and to be accomplished by the evolution of the human soul, and the realization of this idea. Such is the absolute, necessary, and unal- terable constitution of the universe ; and this is the ideal relation of a free self-consciousness to it, that mental and physical evolution should proceed pari passu with moral evolution and progress, this latter including as its eternal and preserving principle the religious or personal relation. Thus, when moral perfection is reached, the relation to the outlying 279 280 CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. physical environment becomes the normal and ideal one ; and the mental outlook towards all truth, all the Divine thoughts perpetually and inexhaustibly mani- festing themselves, is from the right centre, from which regard all things harmoniously arrange them- selves, and the vision becomes forever more and more penetrating towards the forever receding circumfer- ence. Thus the domination of nature, in her lower and disintegrating forces, slowly encroached upon by hu- man activity and advancing knowledge, through the individual human life and through the career of the human race, is at length, and seemingly per saltum, put back and conquered. The relation is reversed, and he who was overcome now rules. Nature is pliant and subservient, and presents no more impedi- ment to the free spiritual soul ; nay, furnishes mate- rial for creative powers with which the perfected soul may now be entrusted. This is what St. Peter meant by saying that his Christian brethren should be par- takers of the Divine nature ; that they should share the Divine cpvak (not the Divine ouffia), viz. : those attributes which are transcendant and relative to this actual universe in any possible phase of its develop- ment. Thus humanity, in the person of Jesus Christ, dis- plays its idea as realized, and we see in the Glorified One what man was intended to be, had moral evil not entered the human race. The power of the free hu- man soul of Jesus has become unlimited, and nature is no longer hostile, or obstructive, or unbeautiful, but subservient and everywhere beautiful. Beauty and sublimity may enroll themselves into more complicated harmonies ; and where before man found terror, he ESCHATOLOGY. 281 will find only grandeur and loveliness. This is the idea of Resurrection, or bodily Glorification, that he whose will has become forever coincident with and intelligent of the Father's will may now use nature, the sum of material forces and laws, for any subjective purpose, may do any thing with her, except to annihi- late her ; for this, if it were thinkable, would be to prove false to his own idea, would be to sweep away all the manifestations of thought and the manifold varieties of enjoyment. Therefore the free and per- fected soul is not by its perfection out of relation to nature. She still is the medium of the Divine thoughts and of the intercourse between spiritual souls. Hence every soul has its own body still, through which it may express its true self, a body, too, which is not severed from its past, but bears the marks of it, by which its physical story may be read ; a body, however, whose lines and features and whole constitution is now the harmonized expression of its true character, — though perfect, idiosyncratic still. Thus the spiritual soul of Jesus had its own body, and bore the marks of the nails and the spear wound. This is still the medium of his communication with his brethren and his fellow-men. Reciprocation and the possibility of mutual consciousness will still be through these media, and thus they will prove to have been not wasted or only of temporary, but of everlasting use and worth. Yet neither Jesus now nor any per- fected soul after its glorification, need be thought as limited to this by any spatial requirement or natural laws, but to be able to fuse himself into nature at any and every part, to live in and enjoy all the play of her forces. A " spiritual body " is not, then, a body made 282 CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. of finer and more tenuous matter, for this, however far carried, would not give it any better title to the epithet than matter in its grossest form possesses. It is rather a body whose natural laws are at the service of spiritual laws, and which presents no impediment to the spiritualized will, a body adjusted to and har- monized with the needs and requirements of the holy, expanding, and aspiring mind-soul, and affording no limitation to its thought and enjoyment. Pure abstract spirit nowhere exists. It only exists as concrete ; hence as involving immanent relations, as loving and having its love reciprocated, as active and therefore as having field for activity, in which are the possibilities of increment, variation, enrichment, and exhaustless enjoyment. God is not pure abstract spirit, but exists as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, mu- tually loving, and sharing the Glory out of which by determination the universe has been developed. God is not spirit as an abstraction of the sum of ideas, but spirit as active in realizing thought under the impetus of love ; and thus only is concrete, real, and existing. Man's natural body potentially and ideally exists in the germ and is developed therefrom. This germ is not merely physical. Its vitality is not out of relation to spirit. It carries with it the thought and the idea of its ancestry as determining influences. It has al- ready spiritual characteristics and tendencies. But it is a natural body still, for it cannot transcend its own limitations. The spiritual soul which deals with and informs the material it assimilates is not perfectly spiritualized, i. e., does not and cannot lift itself out of its own imperfection and bondage. When its central principle is reached and purified, which we have seen ESCHATOLOGY. 283 is done by the love of God in Christ eliciting its pure response of love, its inner potentialities may be real- ized. Through the accompanying and regenerating influences of the Holy Spirit a change is wrought in its physical structure, and the spiritual body weaves itself from this germ into articulation. The natural body must die, i. e., cease to exist as a set of relations, that a new synthesis may be made ; i. e., that the vital principle now spiritualized may relate the physical realm in a new manner and at length accomplish the spiritual body. In the story of Jesus Christ we have the ideal ca- reer of man outlined. We see that after his resurrec- tion nature presents no impediment to him ; that He manifests himself to his own when He will, and as He will ; that He has his own body still, with the marks of his history upon it, though wonderfully transfigured, harmonized, and beautified, to accord with the soul which can suffer no longer, can doubt and hesitate no longer, — and, though not in consequence of this change immediately, yet recognizable still. While the economy of his Church demands it He shows himself to his disciples and then withdraws himself from them. If we regard him as in the heavenly state immediately after his resurrection, i. e., to have assumed the ulti- mate relation to his Father and to the universe, then his visible departure or ascension may be regarded as only the token that He was no longer to communi- cate with his own by sight and hearing, but otherwise and through mystical relations accomplished by the Holy Spirit ; yet his freedom and unrestraint in this particular is evidenced by his twice overpassing this method, and making himself visible to Stephen and 284 CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. audible to Paul. But if, after the resurrection and before the ascension, He be not regarded as in the heavenly state, though his words to Mary do not neces- sarily imply this, then we have before us the need of thinking some meaning and necessity for this in- terval other than the economic one of adapting the required instruction to the humanly limited capacities of his apostles, of thinking some process which his humanity still needed for its perfection. The solu- tion may be found by regarding him not as the per- fected individual man, but as the head and centre of the new organism ; and that the current between it and him may be free in its flow He needs to be brought into full ethical and mental connection with his brethren, or offspring. Not till such is accom- plished is He as human in the heavenly state. This thought, too, as has been observed, furnishes the ex- planation of St. Paul's words. " Then shall the Son also himself be subject to him that put all things under him," i. e. } when the process begun during this inter- val before the ascension is extended to the whole body of the redeemed and regenerate. Thus the conditions for time-development are still operative, and are imperious ; and He, who has already ob- tained complete victory over every natural force, and over space, is still time-fettered, and only by enduring time can conquer it. What relation is still and con- tinuously possible and actual between him and the believer will be considered hereafter. But in order to learn from his story and example what is the ideal career of man, we have still to con- sider the need and the significance of the interval between his death and his resurrection. We have ESCHATOLOGY. 285 already said something upon this topic, which it may not be amiss, in this connection and to some extent, to repeat. We can only learn our own destiny by regarding his career, and this part of it is not the account of an act and process purely Divine, but is a part of his human history, and necessary to the com- plete development and the perfection of his humanity. CHAPTER XXV. THE INTERMEDIATE STATE. We have seen that in the person of Jesus Christ, and as the result of the ultimate of sacrifice in his death, the relation of the human spiritual soul to nature as the complex of physical material and forces, is reversed ; and that He can no longer find impedi- ment in and succumb to these, but that they are subservient to his will. In his person alone is this reversal completely attained. In every offshoot from the human stock, naturally propagated, the common disease and derangement stand in the way of such victory and reversal. In each individual case the ethical fault remains ; and inasmuch as the full poten- tialities of the individual can only be elicited through his relation to the totality, this victory and reversal can only be attained by the individual when they are attained in and by the totality, or the new crea- tion in Christ. " Christ the first-fruits, — afterwards they that are Christ's at his coming." But this career, which belongs to and describes the totality, is antici- pated in his person, which thus becomes the source of all the needed development to be reached through the activity of the Holy Spirit. In this, his history, we have outlined the ideal and normal lot of the new humanity. We have seen that through the triumph accomplished in his death not only are all physical 286 THE INTERMEDIA TE ST A TE. 287 limitations removed, but all limitation to mental activity and insight. The human consciousness has become, so far as its idea permits, in its content and in all objective relations, identical with the Divine consciousness, and regards the sum of the Divine thoughts, and the evolution of the same, from the same centre. This again is to be realized for the totality, the new creation, and for each individual as member of the same, yet through a never ending pro- cess. The relation of the spiritual soul-consciousness to the universe before death, and that after resurrec- tion, glorification and illumination being thus con- trasted, — the difficult enquiry now remains, what is the relation of the spiritual soul to the universe in the interval between ? Here speculation wanders along very narrow lines, and needs to avail itself of any and every aid, whether from revelation, philosophy, or science. To think the spiritual soul out of all relation to concrete existence, and dwelling in a realm of ab- stractions or of naked thoughts and remembered images merely, has no support from science, phil- osophy, or revelation. The latter represents inter- course between spiritual souls as possible, — intimates companionship, sympathy, and emotion. Moreover, to relegate it to the mass of existing thoughts and past images merely is to sever it from the onward progress of the universe, to shut it out from all devel- opment and any new elements of knowledge. Its task then would be to understand the past without the light shed upon it from the present and the future. And thus to think it is to create a chasm and clean separation between the elements of human nature. 288 CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. 1 1 is no longer a soul related by its body to the physi- cal universe, but a soul abiding only in the vanished phantasmagorias of the past. It is without organs, and each soul is either shut out utterly from contact with every other soul, for want of media, or else is in such contact by direct intuition ; and this, the summit of mental perfection, is attained while yet ethical perfection is not reached. And besides, on such sup- position, the sacred adytum which constitutes indi- viduality disappears, since every soul is in possession of the content of every other soul. Also, no activity is possible, for there are no organs for it, and no media y no material for use, and which is susceptible of change. Love can do nothing for responsive love. No task is before it but to run over the bewilder- ments of the past, and clear up its mysteries, and resolve its dissonances into harmonies. This may be indeed its task, and a part of the intent of this stadium of existence. But for this it is not needful that it should be cut off from all knowledge of the passing present, and denied any outlook into and anticipation of the future, except as it may infer it from its knowl- edge of the past. In what is related in the Christian Scriptures some aid is given to throw light upon these enquiries. Companionship is indicated by Jesus' words to the malefactor, his companion in crucifixion ; and by St. Paul's anticipation of the company of Christ. And if our exegesis of the famous passage in St. Peter's first epistle can be maintained, 1 there is here indi- cated that active intercourse with and between the spiritual souls in safe-keeping is possible, — a knowledge 1 See Appendix E. THE INTERMEDIATE STATE. 289 of the immediate past, of the passing, and a glimpse of the future, — all accomplished through a faultless re- statement. The mystical references in the Apocalypse of St. John indicate for the departed ones knowledge of the present, and the conditions for changing emo- tion. All this, and the frequent use of words indi- cating place, and pre-supposing space, show that these need not be abstracted, any more than time can be abstracted ; and that some relation to the universe as a developing process still remains, — that the realms of the material and the spiritual are still unified in the soul, and cannot in thought or in fact be separated, any more than God and his Glory can be separated, except in a doubtful abstraction. Imagination here can give us no aid. It, entrusted with this task, would simply give us a more subtle and refined reproduction of our present organism. History is full of its vagaries in this particular, and we have stories of ghosts, visible and audible yet not tangible ; all which is a contradiction, and at which science laughs. We know, in a measure, what is the evolution and the description of our present mode of consciousness, and that it comes to be through physical organs adapted to the material realm. To these, fitted to moulds and complementary elements which spirit sup- plies, we owe all our ideas, and God communicates his thoughts to us only through this apparatus ; and does not transcend but uses and elevates our present faculties (for to transcend them would be not to ele- vate but to degrade humanity). We have absolutely no knowledge in which some determination from the physical universe is not an element. We have no Vol. 11. 290 CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. thought which we can put into words and make known to others, or clear to ourselves, except by availing ourselves of the a posteriori processes. Our remembered dreams are made up of the loose debris of our past experience ; and even if it be true that the mind is most active in deep sleep, and works with little or no time-limitation, it still combines the ma- terial of past knowledges. All this does not deny that knowledge may be determined through mystical influences ; but that, to become concrete and intelligible to others and clear to ourselves, it must pass through and incorporate itself with and adapt itself to the forms of our em- pirical knowledge. Some dreams indeed are not clearly explicable in the ordinary physiological way, and cannot without protest be reduced to automatism T ; and if not, this helps to support the thesis heretofore maintained, that even now we may think otherwise than through brain activity. In these dreams, volition, defined as the spring of mental energy for an ideal end, is not absent, as is evidenced by the combining power shown in the result, which may sometimes be de- scribed before it vanishes. The will, as representing the sum of all the faculties quoad any result, does indeed seem to be in abeyance, yet is apparent in perhaps a purer form. In these dreams more than memory and fancy are shown. The unifying power of imagination is apparent, and thus that there is an ideal purpose. This is volition and not automatism. It would seem even that in the mental activity of deepest sleep, 1 See again the chapter on " Dreaming " in the author's treatise on " The Beautiful and the Sublime." THE INTERMEDIATE STATE. 291 which sometimes intrudes into the more mixed activ- ity of automatic brain-movement, there are availed of contributions other than memory can furnish, or than brain-action can explain ; and that the soul has de- scended into the depths of universal consciousness, deals with the ideas and essential forms of things, and disports itself with larger material, much of which vanishes the moment that brain activity and connec- tion with the phenomenal world are resumed. But there is an objection to this view that, if it can be maintained, is fatal to it. It is, as is asserted, that in all dreams whatever, and particularly in those which are nearest to the dark side of the border-land, there is an entire absence of the moral distinction, and that the conscience is entirely extinct. If the presence of conscience were continually manifest, or notably in the dreams of deepest sleep which fall into memory only as they mingle with automatic ones, it would greatly strengthen the argument that these are not explicable simply as automatism. The present author has carefully scrutinized his own dreams, since this objection was suggested to his mind, and has obtained some testimony from others, and is convinced that the assertion has been hastily made, though by high scientific authority, and supported by many cases in illustration, 1 that the moral distinction is entirely ab- sent in dreams ; and thinks rather that it is manifest there, but not in the ordinary form ; that it does not characterize actions as overt, and by the rules and maxims of conventional origin and the fruit of expe- rience and generalization, but that the dreaming soul 1 See "Visions, a Study of False Sight," by Edward H. Clark, M.D. Houghton, Osgood & Go. 292 CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. regards rather and only the motive-spring and the end, and thus in those elements and relations which are eter- nal and not temporal ; that the co7itcnt of the action is unthought of or regarded as indifferent, while the moral form remains and is detectable ; in short, that the or- dinary moral distinctions which depend upon the physical realm to which we are related by our organ- ism disappear or are disregarded, while those which characterize the relation of spirit to spirit remain and flash through the mixed presentation. The author has it upon testimony as valid as human testimony can be, that in dreams moral questions are sometimes elaborately argued ; and that remorse, or great per- turbation of conscience attends the conviction that one has mistaken his duty. When it seems other- wise, the explanation given above may hold true. No individual testimony is sufficient here, but here is a field for observation, and for analysis, and for psychological investigation which is yet to be fully worked. If, however, moral distinctions in this pure form in dreams can be discovered, it is an additional argument for the existence of a pure psychical con- sciousness beneath our brain-consciousness. This would then, and must be regarded as fundamental, and as the universal basis of our particular brain- consciousness. This is the nucleus in which moral distinctions appear in pure form and which affects the concrete development. If the spiritual soul is such a nucleus, it may then be able to organize itself from the Divine Glory in its pure form, or at least other- wise determined than as we have it in the actual uni- verse, and establish for itself media, and create organs for mutual communication, sympathy, and advance. THE INTERMEDIA TE ST A TE. 293 (If we utter as a proposition that, — time exists not after death for the released soul, we use words with- out meaning, which we contradict in our very next utterance about it. Time cannot be thought away, for it is the form of created spirit life, yet the domina- tion over time is possible since it is divisible infinite- ly, and like space extends as interminably inward as outward.) The contrast is so great between the cal- culable and ascertainable time-movement of dreams resulting from the automatic action of the brain, and the seeming emancipation from time-limitations sug- gested by some dreams, as to lead towards the notion above given that the spiritual soul as such is not an abstract unit, but a true concrete, and hence of its own inner necessity develops into an organism ; that, as a soul, it is related to the Divine Glory in some of its determined forms : not identical with its form in the present stadium of human development, nor in its pure form as it existed from eternity for Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, but in a form and set of relations intermediate between the two. Some such relation it is absolutely needful to think to meet the Scriptural declarations ; and so to think can be contradicted neither by philosophy nor science. This mode of human existence and consciousness, being what man must pass through, was passed through by Jesus Christ. How it is thinkable and possible that the last generation of believers on the earth will not pass through the article of death, nor have this intermediate mode of consciousness, nor need such, is a matter for independent enquiry, and will be considered in the proper place, and is not so dif- ficult a problem as it seems. 294 CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. Aside from any economic uses of the interval, such as, e. g. f his preaching to the spirits under guard, it must have been needful for Jesus' own human devel- opment, at that period of the world's history, that He should humanly understand his own death by con- trasting the two modes of consciousness. And as He was still under time-conditions it is not amiss to think that the passing away of the distractions and pertur- bations of earthly experience was not instantaneous upon the article of death, but required this interval, which thus was not needless nor without significance for his own human development. That immediately upon his triumph upon the cross, Jesus did not at once blossom into the glorified body, and thus assert the normal and ideal relationship to nature is ordi- narily explained by the needs of the economy, that his disciples and others might be convinced of the reality of his death, and that He might assert his fel- lowship with the departed souls. But for these ends alone it was in itself needless for his own human development, and his experience in the intermediate state was only arbitrary and exceptional, and throws no light upon that state as experienced by all other souls. But, indeed, the humanity of Christ thus per- fected is not rightly regarded as independent, and in no necessary connection with other human souls. He enters the race to regenerate it, and is our brother forever. The perfection of the election, of the new human stock, is needful for the perfection of his hu- manity according to its idea, as well as that his perfec- tion was needed for the perfection of it. This is what is meant when St. Paul tells us that, when the period of militancy is over, the Son shall " himself be subject THE INTERMEDIATE STATE. 295 to the Father, that God may be all in all." It is the Son regarded as the centre and spring, as well as the crown and issue of the new humanity, and not as a human individual organically separate. Therefore, his ethical relation to the new human race, actual and possible, must be real and discoverable at every point of its career, and in the whole compass of its ideal and sinless experience. His abiding in the intermedi- ate state, and coming into such conscious connection with the departed as is possible, was needed for the perfection of the totality, and of himself as the organic centre of such totality. Thus only is realized to the full the idea of Incarnation, of the Divine re-creative act. For all departed members of Christ's mystical body conscious communion with him is still possible, as well as for those with whom He came into con- scious communion in the interval after his death, if, indeed, these were limited, — as is indicated by St. Paul's expressed desire to " depart, and be with Christ." But this is still not identical with the rela- tion which will prevail, and which is only possible after the general resurrection. The method of such intercommunication must, to be made intelligible, be expressed in ordinary human language, and the word " preached," though it cannot be taken in its technical meaning, still indicates that through possible media the gospel, the knowledge of the Divine act of love initi- ated in the Incarnation, and completed by reciprocation in the human response upon the cross, was made known. It follows that solitariness (which would be misery) and the absence of the conditions for loving intercourse and blessed companionship cannot be thought, any more consistently than unconsciousness can be 296 CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. thought. As we have seen, the intercourse between departed souls cannot be by direct intuition, other- wise the idea of individuality is abandoned, and its conditions violated, but must be through media; — which implies that each soul may still organize itself anew, and from the Divine Glory, and thus be brought into conscious communication with other souls. But the domination over nature, and the outlook into the vast domain of possible knowledge, and hence the va- riety and fulness of enjoyment, are still reserved, and can only be when perfection is reached for the totality of the new creation, and for each individual member of the same, when indeed the xriffi? itself is also re- generated and made correspondent to the ethical perfection of the new organism, when the " new heavens " (in the phenomenal sense) and the " new earth " shall be. What in this connection is the sig- nificance of the " Day of the Lord," the " Day of Judgment," is an enquiry to be taken up in the proper place. But now under these required conditions a priori and with the light thrown upon the enquiry by the Scriptural suggestions, let us consider more minutely the Intermediate State, as it was, is, and will be for all departed souls who have met their probation rightly, for the holy ones of the old dispensation, for the faith- ful ones in Christ, and for all the morally obedient. The enquiry as to any portion of humanity in this list excluded, the morally disobedient, or concerning those who belong to the kingdom of evil, if there be such, must be taken up independently, and approached from a different direction. In our present mode of consciousness we are per- THE INTERMEDIA TE ST A TE. 297 petually reminded that we are under time-conditions, and limitations obstructive to true knowledge. One impression from the environment is succeeded by, or is interfered with by another, and partially obliterated by it. We know the difficulty of chaining attention to any one thing or thought. Constant perturbations occur. There is a perpetual indraught of impressions upon the brain, and the sum of sensations, recollec- tions, influences, ideas, is always a complex more or less bewildering. When through some firm resolve, or successful endeavor, or in consequence of powerful mental enchainment, or from the ease of habit, this pressure is measurably lightened, or for a time almost removed, we know with what ease and success the mind will work, and how, in completely seeming ab- straction, it seems almost freed from time-conditions, that no limit can be set to its speed, and that in a mo- ment just appreciable, it can flash through processes that at other times it can only lingeringly follow. Probably, except in deepest sleep we are never un- loosed from many points of connection with the outer world and never entirely, and our remembered dreams are a synthesis of the debris of memory, of past brain impressions, with present incoming sensations. Per- fect health alone would seem to enable perfect sleep, and make a clean separation between the automatic and the voluntary processes. Thus even in sleep we are rarely or never reduced to our rudimental con- sciousness, or the universal elements of all con- sciousness, and there is always this interplay of indi- vidual brain-impressions past and present. Con- sciousness, concretely, is thus an ever-changing flow, and at no point of its change represents the entirety 298 CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. of the soul's content, and is no trustworthy indication of the paramount and absolute character. Could the conscious soul be unloosed from this bewildering con- tact, and withdrawn from these automatic processes, which depend upon physical relations and space-con- ditions, we should have another mode of conscious- ness ; and for the first time, the conditions for intro- spection and profitable self-scrutiny become possible. The soul could then be, and would then be self- regarded, as it had been determined by its previous history, — would be left in its actual character, un- disturbed from without. It would exist in its past history summed up in its result, and there might be a review and understanding of the same. But even in this time-conditions are still existent ; but it is no longer time measured by external progress and change, and occurring events, and more or less speedy brain action, but time only as a condition for thought, for soul changes spontaneously or deliber- ately wrought upon the self. And if, as we have seen, some relation to an environment must still exist, there is implied in this that space and time still exist as the conditions of a determined and developing universe, and that this condition of the soul is not independent of the same. But its relation is no longer to the uni- verse as we know it, as developing under existing physical laws, but with the universe as a field for the display of the Divine ideas, — with the universe in its ethical and aesthetic significance, to which its physical movement and change are pre-adapted, or which it illustrates. Thus all truth is regarded through an atmosphere no longer clouded but clear, and the regard subsides towards the centre of outlook, whence THE INTERMEDIA TE STA TE. 299 all truth is unified. Here now, we have for the first time the conditions for a true self-knowledge, for the right understanding of the past, for the clarification of the mind's imperishable content, for the harmoni- zation of the same, and the soul's self-symmetri- zation. In this condition no moral change seems any longer possible, for there are no acts possible as alternative modes having differing results. Any solicitations to the same have died out, and the soul yields to its gravitation now acquired and fixed. Increments of moral strength, and more intelligent understanding of its own moral fixedness are possible, as the result of this harmonized knowledge of the past, this scru- tiny of the self in its previous history and present attainment. In contrast with the existing mundane life and experience this is well characterized as a period of quietude, of rest and peace, of freedom from these perturbations which trouble and alloy all enjoyment. Such a period is a need of the soul to come to itself. It wants no surprises, but to measure itself ere it would spring into new experiences. Even now the human heart perpetually craves such a condition. It seeks it in its devotions, which are found, more than all other earthly experiences, to be restful. It seeks it in its Sabbaths, in its retirements, and struggles after the perfect peace which it fails in attaining. But all these are but feeble and short-lived anticipa- tions of the " rest " which remains for the " people of God." This, then, is the significance and the intent of the Intermediate State, which is thus no phase of the hu- man career arbitrarily contrived and interposed, but a 300 CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. necessary phase of human development, and the pro- found object of the soul's longing. It would seem that no human soul, however holy, would, should, or could long for the beatific vision immediately after death, but must wish first for the Paradise of Rest, in order to understand itself, as it cannot while in the earthly body, and to prepare for the coming glorifica- tion, to forget its individual salvation, and think of it only included in that of the rest of those who have finished their course in faith. And besides, so to think and desire its immediate beatification would be to forget the " Day of the Lord," to render this " Judgment " needless for itself, — for which exception there is no warrant. It would thus lose sigdit of the need and significance of this august occurrence, and must regard it as a mere outward spectacle, having no necessity, and no connection with human character ; with which, as we shall see, it does have important and indispensable relation, such as warrants the emphasis laid upon it in the Christian Scriptures. In this attainment of self-knowledge, and harmoni- zation of all knowledge as yet rendered possible, it is by no means necessary to think that it is a solitary process, but that companionship and sympathy are aids to the same. Conflicts and misunderstandings between the loving ones are no longer possible. To know one's self as member of the human organism it is necessary to know others ; and hence we see that the attainment of this required self-knowledge must be progressive. Any philosophy which withdraws time from our system of thoughts withdraws these thoughts away with it, and makes progress meaning- less or contradictory, leaves it at a blank wall whence THE INTERMEDIA TE STA TE. 301 no paths issue. And that the time-conditions for the progress of departed souls are not independent, and unrelated to the time-conditions of the development of the souls yet on the earth, of the Church, but are adapted and adjusted to these ; that they are not two currents apart, but depend upon each other ; that unification in our thought is possible here, we shall endeavor to exhibit hereafter. To die then is for the Christian believer neither entirely an elevation nor altogether a depression in the mode of existence. That it is in some sense a depression seems to be indicated in the figurative language of the New Testament, which speaks of it as a descent, els ra uar^repa juepr/. It is a depres- sion, since therein and thereby the soul is withdrawn from the existing relation to nature, the scene of its probation, development, intellectual and moral forma- tion, and enjoyment, in order to prepare for the ideal and real relation. It is limited in the sphere of its activity, and the part it plays in the militant life of the Church is narrowed. Its sense of fellowship is not abandoned, rather its sympathy has become purer ; and intercession, which is the bond of moral life, as the nervous system is of physical life, is natural and inevitable. It can love and pray for those it has left behind, but it can launch out into no activities for them, for this would be to merge into the earthly per- turbations again, to abandon its proper task. It is depression, because its longing for the ultimate per- fection, being undisturbed, is purer and stronger, we had almost said, more impotent. The souls " under the altar " still cry, " how long, how long." But for all the other reasons we have given, it is an elevation, 302 CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. as a progressive stage towards its ultimate destiny. The figurative language of Scripture countenances both views. It is going down to the depths, it is going to a place of safe-keeping, yet this is a Paradise. It has blessedness from negative conditions mainly, from positive conditions in part, from rest and peace, and withdrawal from all that is painful and disturbing, rather than from any soaring into new activities and cleaving the universe with freedom like the Divine freedom, penetrating its exhaustless significance, and availing of all its capacities of delight, — yet it has more intelligent and keener anticipation of all this. It has supreme comfort (to use no stronger word to express what St. Paul anticipated) in that the perfecting ones may be " with Christ," who as perfectly human is master of the media needful for communication. But imagination cannot be trusted when it attempts to deal with this fellowship. But, — some souls have been long in Paradise, and some will never enter there, and there is to be a Day of Judgment. All these things do not exist apart, or have an arbitrary connection merely, but depend upon each other for the full understanding of each ; and together constitute one topic, that hitherto has hardly had full justice done it, and upon the consideration of this we now enter. CHAPTER XXVI. THE FUTURE OF THE ELECTION, THE DAY OF JUDGMENT. To suppose the human race, regarded as a totality or an organism, to be stationary, or retrogressive in its development, is to think it out of analogy with every other Divine idea, and all Divine activity. In the physical realm retrogressions are only apparent, and may be predicated of particulars which recede only to prepare for another onward movement. The Divine thought for the physical universe is inevitably to be worked out. It is not a phantasm, beginning in nothing, and ending in nothing, but is the Divine Glory determined, — the movement is steady, and the result is sure. It cannot lapse into nonentity and there be a new beginning. That it is permanent in its ideal realization, or rather as an endless process, is indicated in the Scriptural doctrine of physical glorifi- cation, — of the new heavens and the new earth. It is a Divine and imperishable seed, in which the ultimate growth and perfected beauty and grandeur are germi- nating, and in which structural changes are wrought. This is the regeneration of the nriai^, dependent upon the regeneration of humanity, and its attainment of ethical perfection. In like manner, and on a priori grounds, the human race must be thought as progressive and as undergo- ing development. This may be difficult to demon- 303 304 CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. strate from a posteriori evidence, yet has the vast weight of probability for it ; and the conviction exists probably in the scientific, or the agnostic mind, as it does in the religious mind, that in the main human history is progressive, and that the retrogressions are only apparent, or partial, or temporary, and preparative for new advance. To discover the key by which to read human history has been a favorite attempt for thinking minds, in which some have sought to be guided by interpretation of prophecy. But no scheme as yet has won general adherence, and God still re- tains his own secret. That He should withhold the conditions for manifold knowledge and common in- sight seems to be required by the ethical conditions for human recovery, and to preserve a field of diffi- culty in which faith may grow strong. Hence faith, though not independent of external presentation of its proper object-matter, still rests upon a priori grounds, upon its confidence in the Divine promise, or the Divine character, and grows strong by having to meet and vanquish the doubts and difficulties which emerge a posteriori. But to read human history aright we must remember that the final cause of its career is not physical development as such, nor intel- lectual advance as such, but these only as dependent and consequent upon moral growth and development, or as providential means thereto. The only end satisfying to the reason and the aesthetic sense is a humanity which shall be ethically perfect, and in its internal harmony shall image the harmony of the con- stitution of the Godhead itself. To this when at- tained mental illumination and physical glorification shall be adjusted, whence too will proceed the corre- THE FUTURE OF THE ELECTION. 305 spondent changes in the ktigi? (though the question will still remain whether any change in the structure of the HTieis itself, or its governing laws, shall be need- ful ; whether the change in the subjective relation of the spiritual soul to the universe will not be entirely sufficient). A kingdom and a commonwealth of love, which shall assimilate whatever in existence is kindred to itself in any existing or possible worlds, free to range through the outer expanse, and from the un- moved and unifying centre and bond of all relations regarding the ever receding circumference of the Divine thought, — this is not only what the Chris- tian revelation holds out as the ultimate attain- ment, but what human aspiration longs for and strives for, and with no less than which it can be content, — nay, is what human nature itself, when an- alyzed, displays as its innate pre-disposition and its creative idea, which underlies all ethical judgment and legitimates the moral distinction. This latter thought was reached and stated in other connection both by Kant and by Bishop Butler. But here at once, in the endeavor to read the moral history of mankind, in- trudes itself the fact of the existence of moral evil. This too was recognized as a fact by Kant in his notion of a " bias of the will," however to be accounted for ; and is of course implied in Bishop Butler's treatment of conscience. Not only is nature hostile to man's normal develop- ment and often ministers to the disease of humanity by imparting, through heredity, corrupted instincts, but moral evil is acquiesced in and deliberately chosen, thus showing that the disorder is not merely physical but spiritual as well. We are not concerned here Vol. II. 306 CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. with the question of the origin of this, or explanation of the possibility of this fact, but simply with the vindication of it as a fact. Schemes are abundant enough which seek to show that moral evil is not voluntary or spiritual, but simply the result of in- stincts inherited, or created or fostered by the envir- onment. But in the way of this explanation is the deeper conviction of responsibility, which is naive and spontaneous, which can only be got rid of by labored efforts of thought, and then but transiently, for at times it is sure to break through this superficial mesh which the mind has woven around itself. Jud- ging as leniently as we can, and explaining as much of the outbreak of moral evil as we can, as temporary, or superficial, — regarding it often as an envelope to be sloughed off and leaving the inmost character pure in its innate predisposition, or acquired tendency, still the fact often eludes utterly such conjectures, and it remains undeniable that, within the sphere of our knowledge, moral evil still seems to be deliber- ately chosen, to be persisted in through life, and to grow more intense to the very end. This can no more be regarded as unspiritual than moral good can be regarded as unspiritual. It is an attitude as posi- tive as the other. To think either is to relegate us to a philosophy of necessity, to deny human freedom, to resolve every thing into a physical or logical nexus. In the endeavor to exalt, or amplify and perfect the conception of the First Principle, this scheme has lowered, diminished, and impaired it so that it no longer satisfies the unbiased thought. Instead of removing all limit to the Divine power, it has given an impassable limit, and all the Divine creations are alike ephemera. THE FUTURE OF THE ELECTION. 307 There is then this element of moral evil in the world, affecting the whole race in the perverse and disordered instincts which are inherited, and becoming purely spiritual in a portion of the race. As a sum of hostile proclivities it exists in combination with altruistic instincts and proclivities, concretely in each human individual ; as a spiritual characteristic purely, or more or less abstractly, it marks a portion of mankind, how large no one can know. So intricate is human character that in no endeavor are our judgments more likely to be superficial or to be reversed. We are disappointed often in either direc- tion. Heroism and the utmost of self-sacrifice now and then appear in one whom we had morally con- demned, and sensuality, greed, or cruelty in one whom we had regarded as pure or loving. Jesus himself often reverses the estimate of others' moral and religious worth made by those about him. " Judge nothing before the time " is the apostolic caution of one who had meditated much upon this uncertainty. Christian love, sympathy, and hope are inclined to think as favorably of human characters as one can, and in every way in thought to reduce the number of the spiritually evil ; and Christian zeal regards no one as irreclaimable, though it may have reason to think that in the Divine knowledge there are such ; and this suspicion often discourages, and impairs the variety, the enthusiasm, and the hopefulness of its efforts. Assuming then that the spiritually evil do exist, there has been no effort by them as yet, or but faint and transitory or greatly limited effort, to combine and organize in order to strengthen and propagate the evil principle. Nay, the very definition of pure 3o3 CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. evil is inconsistent with any such organizing effort, except for a negative purpose, which thus is short- lived. Pure evil is the revolt of the individual against the totality, and is therefore disintegrating. While it craves fellowship for other than a negative purpose, it confesses a want which the principle of recovery can lay hold of, and can hardly be regarded as pure. It is a rash judgment, however, too often hastily made, and by no means follows, that all that shows itself as unbelief in the Christian realms can be regarded as spiritual evil. Much of it is rather altruistic instincts and convictions misguided, and which may be rectified. Much of it exists because that is thought to be Christianity which is not, or is but a caricature of the same. The analysis of the consciousness superficially regarded as unbelieving would often show the presence of the essential ele- ments of faith, though faith resting upon wrong or imperfect object-matter. That the spiritually evil will, at some period in the world's history, organize themselves in order to weak- en the altruistic principle and strengthen the egoistic, seems to be obscurely intimated in the New Testa- ment Scriptures, and has some intrinsic probability, but the conditions for it seem as yet very far off. But the spiritually good have been already organized in the Christian Church, which is the outward though imperfect representation of its idea, or of the real organism. But this organization is, and has been for a long time maimed, broken, and imperfect. It is as yet a very poor representation of the Christian Com- monwealth. At the utmost, since it will ever have to adjust itself to different and changing social condi- THE FUTURE OF THE ELECTION. 309 tions, it must ever on earth fall short of its ideal perfection. The glowing language concerning it, though sincere and legitimate, is rather for its idea than for its actuality, for what it may be imagined or is hoped to be, than for what it is seen to be. But confidence that it is ever moving towards whatever perfection is possible for it during its militant period is never lost, and enthusiasm for its idea and its destiny, and for the certainty of its success in accomplishing its purpose, is warranted. What now stands in the way of the attainment of its uttermost seems to be deficient knowledge or unclear apprehension. There may be at the centre of all faithful Christian souls moral accord, shown in absolute devotion to the Di- vine will as displayed in the moral law, and religious accord, from recognition of the personal tie to Jesus Christ as the moving spring and sustaining and nour- ishing principle of all obedience ; but the sum of Divine truth, variously revealed, is not clearly and consistently apprehended and comprehended, and hence various and conflicting modes and channels of activity emerge, and energy is wasted. Wonderful as has been the advance in Christian knowledge, clearing up in portions here and there what was obscured or hidden, still the thoughtful minds of Christendom, which lead and guide all the rest, are still seeking the centre whence alone the outlook will resolve itself into a harmony measurably unclouded. But the main condition for this clearer outlook, whose report will attain general recognition, is to be had only by the diffusion and intensification of personal holiness, and the strengthening of the sacrificial spirit. Mental advance is to be had by the victories of faith, and 310 CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. these are had rather secretly than visibly. As we have before said, to infer from existing circumstances that faith is weaker than it once was, — to characterize this doubting and examining age as a faithless one, in comparison with the naive and undisputed admission of what purported to be truth externally presented, such as was the case at divers periods in the past, is probably a superficial and erroneous judgment. It regards faith rather in its mental than in its moral element. The moral worth of faith is not measured by its freedom from conscious doubt, by its calmness and innocence, by its clearness and its beauty, but by its facing and vanquishing all doubt, by its constancy in its struggles, by its holding its vision true amid the darkness, by holding to the invisible hand though the waves go over its head. Its sublimity is hard to measure and may be concealed, while its beauty at other times may be apparent. It is as difficult to judge of the strength of faith as it is to judge of human character. " When the Son of Man cometh, will He find faith on the earth ? " has a double mean- ing : — that, first, it will be so tried as to be almost yielding, so bewildered by the plausibility and the pressure of opposing evidence that its object will fluctuate and pass within and out of, and again within the clouds, — that it will itself almost break into de- spair ; yet in this apparent weakness will be its real strength. It falls back upon its profound religious instincts, still feels the attractiveness and beauty of good, and of the loving principle, and clings to God in its gloom as the only satisfying object. Its relief will come, not as theretofore by its own escape from difficulty and mental vindication of its own position, THE FUTURE OF THE ELECTION. 311 but by the relaxation of the trial, by the manifestation of the Lord himself, quieting its perturbation, and restoring its serenity and its joy. While thus our backward and forward regard may convince us that for the Church there has been and will be a steady onward progress, that Christian faith has been becoming stronger by trial, Christian obedi- ence more intelligent and therefore uniform, and that Christian knowledge is undergoing clarification, thus making agreement and harmony possible, that the alternatives of belief and unbelief are at length, as the smoke of the battle subsides, to become simpler; — there is implied likewise that there has been, is, and will be a correspondent advance in the evil principle, that it is slowly fortifying itself by a system which permits the spiritual disintegration, and yet such combinations as are needed for a philosophy of expe- diency and earthly good solely. This will have plaus- ibility, since it will promise more for this life than the Christian philosophy promises ; — yet that its in- stincts, through the currents ruled by heredity, will not have become altruistic, will be shown by its impa- tience with the rival Christian philosophy which re- quires sacrifice of earthly good for moral ends. Any historic prediction resting upon such grounds as these, however, could be ventured upon with little confi- dence as to its details, and could give us but the mer- est outline. But the prediction is confident, and rests upon valid grounds, which declares that human prog- ress will make clearer the distinction of moral good and evil, between the contrasted modes of activity which result from the Christian principle rightly un- derstood as an ethico-religious one, — and any prin- 312 CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. ciple, however simple or complex, which looks not beyond earthly life, and regulates its activity by its requirements solely. Nature herself, under her pres- ent laws, will always plant the germs of egoistic in- stincts, and hence the involuntary proclivities can never become altogether altruistic, as is the dream of some philosophers ; and thus the human hive under this philosophy would not be homogeneous, would be honeycombed by inward contradictions and hostilities, and be ultimately self-destructive. The ul- timate of Christian attainment to be reached on the earth will not consist in having escaped such disor- dered instincts, but in the triumphs of the believing principle amidst them. The sole object of these arguments, if they be such, for which alone they have been adduced, and on which no other stress is here laid, is to show and insist that the moral and religious progress of the Christian peo- ple has an issue, which we may descry, if but dimly ; and this is, first, — the attainment of the utmost possi- ble strength for faith, whereby it will become possible for it to lapse into sight ; and this faith not confined to individuals here and there, but the characteristic of the whole Christian body, which thus will have become unified so far as is possible while yet the indi- vidual consciousness shall preserve its particularity. No more earthly trial will be required, or be needed. Secondly — there will have been a correspondent in- crease, or rather rectification and arrangement, of knowledge, and no such variations or aberrations will exist as will impair the harmony of the Christian commonwealth, or the concentration of its energies. The intellectual conflict in the entire world will have narrowed down, will be simpler, though more pro- THE FUTURE OF THE ELECTION. 313 found. But there never can be clean spatial or physi- cal separation of the advocates of these rival philoso- phies, so that each can be thrown solely upon the im- provement or development by heredity of its own sum of instincts ; — for intermarriages will still take place, and the instincts of either class be imparted to the other. Thus the separation will not be outward and visible, but still, as now, hidden, clearly known only to God, yet more clearly known by men than now. Such a result seems indeed still very far off, so far off that imagina- tion wearies in the endeavor to thread its way to it, as it wearies when it endeavors to penetrate the infinite space. But this presents no real difficulty for thought. We have only to convince ourselves that there has been progress in the past, that this progress has had method and meaning, and that there is some attain- ment in the future, some end that must be reached, which we have from Divine revelation, or from our philosophy, or from our science, been enabled dimly to descry, — and time, however prolonged, and changes, however numerous, and seemingly now unlikely, present no difficulties. But this far future, however dimly outlined as yet, and the pathway to it, does not grow darker but a little clearer as we look closely. The world moves forward so rapidly now, accom- plishing as much of its history in a year as it once did in a century ; — the economical conditions, material and social, for the penetration of Christianity into the outlying masses of the world grow so much more en- couraging and hopeful ; the activity of thought among the cultured peoples is so vivid and incessant ; and among Christians the thoughtful minds seem so mov- ing along parallel or converging rather than upon diver- ging lines ; there is so intense and breathless anxiety 314 CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. to attain the truth, — that in our thought and even in our imagination the slow progress of the past gives way before the likelihood of a more speedy progress in the future, and we grow more hopeful and encour- aged. This speed will accelerate till the end, and thus the far future is brought by degrees within the sphere of more confident and promising conjecture. In the end Christian thought will be prepared for the ultimate clarification, as faith will be prepared for the ultimate relief. Beyond this knowledge cannot go without further light, without a new revelation ; — and thus opens for our thought the need of what the Scriptures declare will be the Day of discrimination, the Lord's second coming, But this " Day of the Lord " will have interest for the dead as well as for the living. The two streams of progress, on the earth, and in the realm of the de- parted, must meet and become coincident, and require the same consummation. The significance of this event, this Day, act, or process of Judgment, (which is not an arbitrary intervention, or a symbol of some- thing occurring beneath knowledge, or a mere out- ward spectacle, but, though these last, still something more, and a necessary crisis in human development), requires, however, for the full exhibition of its mean- ing, still one other enquiry. And this, into the mystery of Providence, and the different treatment which the individuals of the human race, physically, intellectually, and religiously receive from the Divine Ruler. This, too, may throw light upon the direction and the intent of these confluent streams. 1 This dis- 1 It is necessary here to recall, and therefore we take the liberty of repeating, to some extent, what has been already said in another connection. THE FUTURE OF THE ELECTION. 315 parity is most marked, and the contrast most violent, between the advantages physical, mental and moral of the favored races and individuals, and those who seem neglected, or rejected from the Divine notice. This furnishes, perhaps, the most difficult and per- plexing problem and trial of faith which besets the Christian thinker in our day, and his belief is as- saulted more violently from this direction than by any attack from the more open and avowed enemy, of philosophic unbelief, by which only here and there is any Christian seriously disturbed or shaken. The doubts which come from the mystery of Providence find their way into every mind, and with strength in- creased according to culture, yet variously in individ- uals, and probably more seriously in those of vivid imagination, acute sympathies, and strong emotions. Coming from a posteriori sources, they afford only trial, and little or no comfort. This comes solely upon a priori grounds, and from the basis of our faith. Indeed but for these doubts and this conflict there could be little trial of faith. The religious life would be nearer simple innocence and would hardly be victory. Indeed, in many, faith has this naive and innocent character, and its trials are individu- alistic, and require in each case separate ex- planation. So seemingly without meaning seems this variation in treatment, so unjustifiable the dis- tinctions or disparity, that it looks as though the whole environment were ruled by physical laws merely, doubt is raised and there is lodged in the mind the conclusion, or the suspicion and fear, that these proceed of themselves, and in entire indepen- dence of any moral government whatever. This may 316 CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. be carried to a denial of the latter, and thus we are relegated to a philosophy of physical necessity solely, — in which case all that is called moral is simply a form of the physical delusively held to be something other. Or, if a moral government of some kind is admitted, these are thought as two independent systems un- related, or arbitrarily related and hence possible of change ; — all which is to introduce a superficial du- alism which presents more numerous difficulties than it allays. If the two are related at all, one must be primary and paramount, and the other sub- ordinate. To hold the physical system as primary is, as we have said, to reduce us to a philosophy of physical forces merely, and the moral as something other does not exist. But it has again and again been shown that human consciousness and human action are not explicable upon these physical assumptions merely, that all interference whatever with nature's forces is upon ideal grounds, into which spiritual elements have entered, and which pre-suppose the absolute character and eternal validity of moral distinctions. Thus by a strict deduction it appears that the moral has inde- pendent origin, and as to \ts form is related to the ab- stract spiritual, to the absolute intelligence, final cause, will, and blessedness ; while as to its content it is related to the abstract physical. Therefore physi- cal laws exist, and physical development, for the indi- vidual and for the universe as including and as deter- mined by the individual, proceeds, — not irrespective of the requirements of the spiritual ; and indeed en- tirely respective of it, since without spiritual ends all physical movement is aimless and meaningless, and is not worthy of study. To discover this adjustment is THE FUTURE OF THE ELECTION. 317 the problem of science and philosophy. Its method is only by glimpses apparent, yet sufficiently so to sus- tain our faith, which, however, rests securely only upon a priori grounds. Strictly arguing then, it must be that the movement of the universe is adapted to the needs and ultimate end of the rational and moral beings who inhabit it ; not only to the needs of the to- tality, but of each individual as member of the same ; all which is enunciated in the words of Jesus, " Not a sparrow falleth to the ground without your Father," and " The very hairs of your head are all numbered," and in the apostle's declaration, " All things work to- gether for good to them that love him." But to assert this as a fact, inducible from observation, is impossi- ble ; and the enunciation is received with an incred- ulity from which Christians are not exempt, and they vibrate between doubt and faith. But it is not difficult to show that we are entirely unfitted to judge of the appositeness of the treatment of the individual soul to its moral needs and develop- ment. We need not so much to vindicate a posteriori, and to justify the stream of providence, as to show the unworth of any denial of it. We have before spoken of the difficulty of forming estimates of moral worth and unworth which are entirely trustworthy. And no wonder. The most complex of all existing concretes is the human soul. It is the child of an unnumbered ancestry, and has received determinations from millions of millions of sources, each one modified by, and in turn modifying each other and it. It is the subject, in each individual case, of a unique environment, still further modifying its instincts and proclivities ; and besides, from its character as a true universal, it has been the 318 CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. subject of mystical influences from the unseen and un- known realms of existence, wrought by the Holy Spirit. It has not existed aloof from such Divine grace. Therefore each soul is a new synthesis of these endless determinations, and the result is so com- plex that it is hopeless to attempt to unravel and un- derstand it. The Christian Scriptures teach that we are not conditioned to form true judgments here, and that it is unwise to attempt them. " Judge noth- ing before the time." The difficulty of this insight into the idiosyncrasies of human character would have existed, even if moral evil had not intruded into the universe, even if humanity had been normally devel- oped ; for each soul is still essentially a unique schema, and a unique synthesis of determinations ; from which endless variety, we may see, there would, in the normal development, have proceeded the conditions for activity and enjoyment. How much more complicated must the result be, when the deranging and disorganizing determinations of the principle of evil have been su- peradded, making the development abnormal, and full of contradictions perpetually enhanced or undergoing partial or complete annulment ! What each soul would be in itself when removed from the perturbations of the natural sphere, and of our present physical life, what allowance should be made for the countless influences which have weak- ened, destroyed, or increased responsibility, — all this must be for human judgment a hopeless task, and one requiring the omniscient insight. If then the inner structure of the soul is so hidden, and its character cannot be accurately judged, how can any human wisdom pronounce upon its needs, and characterize THE FUTURE OF THE ELECTION. 319 as unadapted the treatment it receives from the Divine Ruler through any modification of the en- vironment ? Admitting the Divine Science and Po- tence, and an end which we must pronounce worthy, it must directly follow that through all the seeming confusion a clear purpose runs, and that each soul receives the treatment which it needs, for its own recovery, and for the attainment of the all-compre- hending end. To hold that any rational being capable of moral distinctions and of moral life, whether or not developed into moral activity, is unregarded, and neglected by the Divine thought and love, is to assault the very foundation of our faith, is suicidal, and cuts away the root of all religion, revelation, and morality itself. Many do not, or cannot bear this trial, and deliber- ately prefer, or think they are forced into the latter alternative ; and thus Atheism comes to exist ; and thus, too, Atheism may be less blameworthy than is alleged, and be only a form of moral trial ; for in spite of the commitment of the mind to this sad and pessi- mistic alternative, it may show, manifestly still, that it retains as part of its consciousness the validity of moral distinctions ; it may still feel the beauty of sacri- fice, and thus have the elements of faith in spite of its denial. It may still hold grasp upon the reality, even though it reject any proposition about it, and turn itself away from any symbol of the same ad- dressed to the understanding; or the imagination. And if so it can be conducted logically back to the very proposition that it has denied. From the Divine thoughtfulness and care, there- fore, none can be excluded. The uncultured races 3 2o CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. who have seemed to be stationary for many genera- tions have made progress. Given time enough and careful examination, even we could see that. If prog- ress in the individual, then necessarily modification in the race. If progress in the race, then necessarily modification of the individual. Character is formed, in this narrower set of conditions, still in variety, and its moral status determined. It seems plain enough, and we run no risk in saying that for the mass of man- kind here on earth moral perfection is not the imme- diate Divine intent, and set as the end of activity, and therefore that this is not the key by which to un- lock the mystery of providence. The intellectual conditions are not supplied for such an end. These latter have been given only to a portion of the human race, who are to lead the rest, by what seems to us a very slow process, into and along the pathway of knowledge. The moral and religious conditions are wanting, and have been supplied to a (possibly more limited) portion of the human race, that these may lead and leaven the remainder, and that the loving and sacrificial spirit may have field to work upon, and the opportunity to intensify itself. And if so, then the Divine intent, which alone is universal, i. e., for the whole human race, not being moral perfection, or even the utmost moral and religious growth, is simply moral probation : and thus again, negatively and through the principle of exclusion, does it appear that there is no moral probation after death. The conditions for religious growth, and the attainment thereby of moral perfection, are the actualities of the Intermediate State. The providential treatment of the individual, or of any race or portion of mankind, THE FUTURE OF THE ELECTION. 321 is conditioned by the needs of the totality, who are to be redeemed and regenerated, and the Divine plans and processes are ruled accordingly. The ad- vance in scientific knowledge is sure to add proba- bility and confirmation to this Biblical doctrine, as the subtle influences which change humanity are brought more and more to light. However, it is apparent, even now, that the grand providential scheme includes two currents of progress, under differing physical, mental, and religious condi- tions, involving in each case a differing set of relations to the universe, each having its own laws, and which are not contradictory but supplementary to each other, yet each having the same end ; two streams now flow- ing, the one before our partial sight and knowledge, the other passing below our consciousness, and wisely excluded from the same, yet each having or to have the same issue and termination, viz., the attainment for the morally perfect of self-knowledge, and the con- ditions for all knowledge ; therefore the vindication for human thought of the Divine justice, truth, and love. This is Judgment indeed, and is the culminat- ing point of the process now proceeding, and has its own Day. It is not needful that we should be able to distin- guish and describe the kind of knowledge, or the degree of attainment, that will be reached by the last generation upon the earth. The discovery of nature's structure and laws is proceeding in our own day with marvellous rapidity and success, and she is step by step so conquered, that men have become very hope- ful, and perhaps too sanguine, — for there must be a limit to these victories, since nature's forces still show Vol. II. 322 CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. no sign of abatement in their hostility. Through the ordinary methods of the attainment of knowledge death can never be avoided, though the duration of human life may be greatly lengthened. The sum of individual mental attainment can never be transmitted in toto to another, and every thinker must make a new beginning. Psychological knowledge may pro- ceed indefinitely, and be so adjusted to that which comes ab extra that a satisfactory philosophy of the universe may be reached, which, however, will have to contend with its rivals. But the moral and reli- gious pre-requisites for the attainment of true synthetic knowledge will at length be possessed by the Church, the body of the believing, whose faith will have been strengthened by trial, and purified, and whose insight will be piercing when once the clouds are removed. Thus the ethical pre-requisite for what may seem a new Divine gift, but which is the instatement of the ideal relation, the victory over nature, the reversal of the present relation to her, will at length be had ; and there will be a generation in which the faithful ones will still be affected by the alien and opposing prin- ciple of disorder, through heredity and intermarriage, yet will hold all truth in harmony either by conscious or potential knowledge. This latter must be true of all undeveloped souls, of all children, whose moral probation must still have been possible, even though it be referred back to the rudimental consciousness. The principle of faith, having spiritual origin, may be inherited as well as any physical proclivity. This profound truth, which has been toilsomely reached by science and philosophy, the Christian Church naively held and acted upon, as is shown in her baptism of THE FUTURE OF THE ELECTION. 323 infants and nurture of children. The existence of souls mentally and morally undeveloped will furnish no difficulty then for thinking the existence of a gen- eration ethically advanced towards the perfection of faith ; for the religious basis of the same will have been laid ; and we may hold that such souls, when the external conditions of knowledge are presented, would blossom spontaneously into faith. What will be needed then for such a generation will be simply the passing away of the phantasmagoria, the obscura- tions which have come from knowledge reached through brain action and the physical organism. The centre of outlook will have been reached, and what more will be needed will be the clarification of the external atmosphere. The tried and faithful soul will know itself when it is permitted to know God and his relation to mankind and the meaning of the process through which He has led the human race. The key-stone of the arch of knowledge now only dimly seen, will then be supplied, and the whole fabric will flash into illumination and integrity. This must needs be a sudden occurrence. The preparations have been made in secret, but in one burst the eye of the soul will cleave its outer film, when its vision shall have become keen enough to penetrate what will then be disclosed. Meanwhile the souls of the faithful departed will have been undergoing a parallel preparation. They will have harmonized their knowledge of the past with all present incoming knowledge, this knowledge being not of mere succession of events, but of the essentially changing relations, the evolution of the idea ; and along with this their faithful allegiance to 324 CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. their Divine parent and their Divine-human brother will have been strengthened. But they too will be awaiting the harmonization of all knowledge, and the fulfilment of their aspiration. They have known the trial of death, and the withdrawal of the field of their manifold activity, and the shrinking of energy to its pure spiritual form ; and they too must long to leap out into the field of its physical exercise, and its varied activity, and to measure the fact, and experi- ence the joy of the universal brotherhood. The in- terval between death and the final escape will not have been arbitrary, will have been required by and adjusted to the growth of the entire organism, and hence to the needs of each member of the same. The identical result in spiritual preparedness will have been reached by the first generation which died upon the earth, by each intervening generation which will die, and by the generation which will not die, and all at the same moment. The streams will be ready to commingle, and they will flow together when God shall burst the barrier which divides them. This will be the completion of the process of discrimination, the end of and manifestation of Judgment. This will be the clean separation of good and evil, of truth and error, as subjectively determining, to be followed by an external separation, and the termination of all militancy. The obscuring mists will sink from all mental vision, and the atmosphere upward be pure and radiant. That great physical changes will accom- pany and follow upon this is in strict analogy with what we have observed has gone before. This will be the first aspect of the regeneration of the xriai?. This then is the explanation of the declaration THE FUTURE OF THE ELECTION. 325 that the last generation of believers on the earth will not, and need not die. It will have reached through earthly trial and development the same stadmm of preparedness for the crisis that will have been reached by those who have passed through the article of death. There will be nothing arbitrary or exceptional in the Divine procedure, in the change and adaptation of the environment. All this is only rendering ex- plicit what is implicit in the declaration that " He who has begun a good work upon us will continue it till the day of Christ." It is only enabling the un- derstanding, the imagination, and the emotions to find satisfactory meaning in, and with some degree of confidence to find rest and hope in, these apostolic words. And, as we have said, the coming of this crisis of Judgment will and must be sudden, and when men do not look for it, and have almost given up the hope for it. The very preparedness for the change itself requires that the signs of it should be hidden. All boons to faith must be withdrawn, that it may bear the trial and the test, and acquire its immortal fibre. "Where is the promise of his coming?" will men say ; and the apostle commends those who live, not- withstanding this paucity of tokens, with reference to the final day, — who still long for " his appearing." The idea of Judgment is of an illumining process, wherein God's ways are seen and vindicated, in which all error and misconception disappear, where doubt and faith are no longer needed and become no more possible, where the Divine Judgment and all human judgments of the moral and religious status abso- lutely coincide ; or rather, perhaps, when the sacred 326 CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. presence by its own enlightening- power shall dissipate the last remaining remnant of such misconception ; — when too the shame of the Christian believer, the down-weighing of all self-reproach, shall be arrested and dissipated by a glad surprise, and the mistakes and sophistries of the evil and faithless one by a sad surprise : all which is indicated in the glimpses which Jesus, in his parable, gives us of that day and its oc- currences. And yet, since mankind thus spiritualized will therein lapse into a new relation to the physical universe, and man will resume through his bodily organism his more intimate connection with it, the Judgment must also be an event occurring in space and time, be something visible and audible, be in its physical aspect a symbol and a correspondent of what is passing in the psychical realm. It is not for- bidden to imagination, then, to busy itself with the outer magnificence. The resources of the material universe will be availed of, and men will see that it is no passing phantasm, coming out of nothing and pass- ing into nothing, but the manifestation of the Divine Glory, now made apparent, not in its aboriginal sim- plicity, but determined and enriched. If there be any thing yet needed to quicken the penetration of the soul into all truth, and likely so to quicken it, it will be this manifestation of God's reality, and of the reality of all that He has revealed for faith. It would appear for our distant thought and regard almost a shock, something like such a shock as befell St. Peter when, seeing the Divine character of his Master disclosed, he said : " Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord," causing the THE FUTURE OF THE ELECTION. 327 believing soul to sink back for one moment into the sense of unworthiness, — the last poignant touch of shame, the completion and yet the expiration of its penitence, ere it should spring up into a joy that will be perennial. This is the last crisis in the career of the Christian soul, the disappearance of the last rem- nant of its imperfection, the beginning of an endless flight in which the wings will never tire. What sometimes occurs to us, in the experience of our earthly life, — the wonderful quickening of our faculties when under emotion strained to the utmost — may give us some notion of the possible quickening of our faculties when the clogs of ordinary brain action are removed, and when we have beating upon us the stimulus of this Divine disclosure, — when the great- est of all events shall be happening, — when the su- preme centre of knowledge and power and the out- pouring and return-welcoming fountain of Love shall be thus suddenly disclosed. In this rapture the soul must expire as to its earthly life, and be born again into the life of heaven and a new universe. CHAPTER XXVII. HEAVEN, THE REGENERATION OF THE XTlfflS. If we use the phrases " liberation of the HTiffis," " regeneration of the xrtoie" there starts the inquiry whether any, and if so, what, structural changes in the universe, or modification of nature's laws, are required to be thought to authorize and give meaning to these expressions. At first thought it might be concluded that no such change was necessary, that all that would be needful would be the change of the relation of the spiritual soul to the universe, — that having acquired perfect liberty as a consequence of its real freedom, all the hostility of nature would have disappeared, that she would no longer be terrible to one who could not be injured by her movements, and who could rule her forces and make use of her capacities. Nature would no longer be deformed nor ugly, for what now looks like that would be appreciated as the recuperative structural movement running after some result of beauty. Her magnitudes would no longer be sub- lime and awe-inspiring, for since all size is relative, its distinctions would disappear for the soul that could pierce at will all the recesses of space, and fold itself around the present vast as readily as it could thread the sinuosities of the present little. All present known sublimity, mechanical or dynamical, would have melted into a higher beauty ; though the emo- 328 HEA VEN. 329 tion would exist still, but only from new unfoldings and outgushings ever from the Divine creative foun- tain. The liberated and regenerated soul might be satisfied with nature as she is and is to be, might re- joice in all animal enjoyment, and delight in all animal beauty, whether of form, color, or motion, as now. But the universe could still hardly be said to be lib- erated, regenerated, and made correspondent to the perfected soul by this change of the subjective rela- tion, unless animal pain should also disappear, and, perhaps, unless nature should cease entirely to hint of the strife between good and evil, and afford only beautiful symbols. If this struggle is to cease, and the warring elements be drawn apart, if the good is to rise in a positive up-springing, and evil to subside to its own place, or disappear at the negative pole, — then it would seem that either nature's symbols must be capable, without any structural change, of new in- terpretation, — or she must cease to afford symbols of the militancy of the moral conflict, — then animal pain must have ceased to exist. It would by no means be needful that animal death should cease. Human death, being a crisis in the career of an immortal and responsible soul, capable of knowing and reflecting upon its own death, is something other than animal death. There is no reason to think that any animal contemplates its own death, or has any mental pain at its physical premonition. In obedience to an instinct, when the vital forces ebb, it seeks its repose to expire. So then, our aesthetic sense is not violated that aggre- gations of matter are endowed with the power of motion and the sense of enjoyment for a time, and then yield to give place to other nuclei, or centres of 330 CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. motion and enjoyment. So far as the animal has been developed and caught some human characteris- tics of soul beauty, it is entirely allowable to think that it may be held in life by the human soul that loves it. All that would be needed not to shock the aesthetic sense would be the removal of animal pain ; and for this it would seem that nature's laws must be modified and structural changes occur. To have ani- mal life disappear from the renewed nature would be to rob it of much that beautifies and enriches it. This would be a shrinking rather than a development, abortive rather than rudimentary, a degradation rather than an elevation. The thought is a disturbing and needless surplusage. The same must be true of all plant life. This too forms much of the beauty of our present earth, and we are chilled and disappointed in the anticipation of a world from which it should be absent. And, as before, the presence of death here would not shock our aes- thetic sense, since endless reproductions of the beau- tiful thing would be forever upspringing. The ex- pressions of Scripture which speak of the " immortal fruits," and that " the lion shall lie down with the lamb," etc., — may be taken as symbolical, and in their literal sense must be so taken ; but if vegetable and animal life are not to be missed in the " new heavens and new earth," they are something more than symbolical. The plant and the animal, each in its idea and its manifestation, exist still. But the one difficulty still remains, the needed ces- sation of animal pain. Nature now shows an effort after economy in this, and contrives to reduce it to a minimum. She shuns and does not riot in animal HEAVEN. 331 distress, but she does not extinguish it. A fetter is upon her still, and our aesthetic judgment, which is entirely a rational requirement, cannot abide the contradiction. To extinguish utterly animal pain the camivora must change their nature, or must disap- pear. The lion must eat grass like the ox, or lions must cease to exist. We acknowledge then that we are here face to face with a dilemma quite impossible of solution by our present science and philosophy. There are other difficulties too, but hardly dilemmas, and not formidable. Our solar system shows us here and there a burnt out world, as our own moon, which seems to have no function in the economy of that system, ending in itself, but to be of use only to its governing planet, and to keep the whole system in order by its contribution of attraction. It shows us, too, orbs in the preparative stages, seemingly not yet fitted for animal or human life. And our sun will one day burn itself out and end so the present cycle. Whence are to arise the physical forces which shall renew all this, cause it to start afresh, — in what new forms the sum of energy will manifest itself, into what new modes of motion it will break, our present science cannot show. There are other systems indeed, and other worlds, in which the liberated soul might expa- tiate, and the Divine resources here are inexhaustible ; but this is not fulfilling the promise of new heavens and new earth. " New earth " is the earth still, and " new heavens " undoubtedly refers to the heavens in the phenomenal sense, as relative to our earth, and probably includes our solar system, which is a true unit in space, though not unrelated to other units. The subtle chemistry of light and heat, which origi- 332 CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. nates all changes in our system, phenomenally pro- gressive or retrogressive, must start afresh from its original fountain ; the mystical life-giving energy of the Holy Spirit, with a new end in view, must break into a new system of forces and laws, to make the system or the universe correspondent to the perfected ethical commonwealth. Or, — more proba- bly still, — just as the psyche is secretly and invisibly forming in the chrysalis, defying microscopic scrutiny, the new earth and the new heavens are already form- ing beneath the mask of the old, — as the new body of Christ was forming, even during the period of his hu- miliation, and acquiring the Glory that shone through on the " holy mount." It may be still a question whether the nriai?, in the mind of St. Paul, meant the total universe as we think it, or, as it was known in his more limited astronomi- cal knowledge, the solar system merely, and the starry expanse as relative to human needs. To think the former as the truth, is to regard all this congeries of innumerable stars and planets as ministering solely to the human race on this planet, and to furnish a field for it to revel in. To think the latter is to regard the Divine revelation in Christ Jesus to concern our own world, and the system of which it is a part, and allows us to think that whatever is beyond is God's own secret still, about which we are rash, either nega- tively or positively to dogmatize. It is, on strictly scientific grounds, improbable that the sun, or any of the orbs which it enlightens and controls, is habitable, except our own planet, and hence the conjecture is allowable that these other orbs, if not to become hab- itable, are reserved for the future uses of the perfected HE A VEN. 333 human race. There is no reason a priori not to think that there may be in the outlying systems of the stel- lar expanse, the conditions of animal life, and races of rational beings. Of this we have no evidence from science, and no assurance from revelation, but so to think offers no contradiction. It does not affect our system of truth to think it or not to think it. Yet our very conviction of the exhaustless resources of the Divine wisdom may encourage us in including even this in the declaration that " it hath not entered into the heart of man to conceive what God hath pre- pared for them that love him." It opens for hope and imagination new sources of enjoyment, new pos- sible fellowships, and makes the fountains of bliss seem exhaustless and endlessly variant. Thus the difficulties, even the dilemma afforded by animal pain, are not insuperable. Our present science conducts us back to a mystical force, which we Chris- tians call the energy of the Holy Spirit. It never works blindly, but for an end and to realize an idea. We recognize it as an idea. Therefore it exists, inde- pendent of ourselves, in some mind. As potence realizes it, we refer it to the Divine mind, avowedly or not. We cannot escape the reference. These ideas are inter-related. Their sum we call the Divine Logos. Out of the Divine Glory, in its pure and aboriginal form, to which science seeks to conduct us back, yet leaves us, the present universe has been de- veloped, determined by the Divine thought and energy and become existent in the multiplicity of its thoughts, yet in the unity of its idea. It is moving forward to its ultimate form, the aboriginal glory enriched by the perfection of the creature. The contradiction will 334 CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. have vanished, and if God's freedom be not a form of physical or metaphysical necessity, — if that seeming necessity or complex of laws is but the known form of the Divine free activity, self-necessitated only by the requirements of Love, then the new universe, or the new system, may issue from the old at the fiat of the Father, and the Holy Spirit move in a new activity to realize the new earth and the new heavens, of which the Incarnate One has become the ethical centre. But it will be our own earth and heavens still, with the marks of its past career upon it, just as the glorified body will be our own still with the marks of its past upon it. There will be no severance, but complete continuity, and the Divine creative thought will be manifest in its issue. We shall have a new chemis- try of light and heat, governed by the laws which have been hidden in the old, and required for the realization of the perfected miais, and this will include no animal pain. Food is now the sacrament of dependence for all animal life, and food will be still necessary for the re- generated human race. Some medium of sustenta- tion between the Creator and the created must still be, otherwise the created would be independent, and so essential Divinity ; but the freedom which will avail itself of this is the self-necessitation of love ; and so, to decline or neglect it is unthinkable, or morally impossible. Ethically the new race will be bound in closest union with God. Its perfection will consist in the infrangible strength of the personal tie. Love is stronger than death or any change. This tie, requiring manifestation, will seek its own food, which through reciprocal love will be food indeed. We may HEAVEN. 335 call it worship, and it may have physical symbols, but here there is no material with which imagination may deal, and all symbolic utterances hitherto must be merely provisional and tentative. This adoration, or endeavor to melt into the Divine heart, will be the highest conceivable, and hence the acutest and in- tensest of all emotions, and will constitute the highest bliss of the perfected creature. What action will or can symbolize it, this complex of gratitude, love, wonder, the appreciation of the beauty and amaze- ment at the grandeur of the Divine works, may seem a matter of indifference, but will be found to have its own intrinsic fitness. The expressions in Holy Scrip- ture, couched in the imperfect form and material of human language, may, when literally understood, be misleading, but are not harmful. They are but the poor endeavor of the finite mind to express what is unimaginable in itself. The play of the vulgar im- agination, and even of some cultured imagination, in the endeavor to depict heaven, its scenery and its oc- cupations, is sometimes such, indeed, as to provoke a smile, and its conspicuous failures have often given occasion to the mockeries of unbelief ; but the most cultured imagination, when let loose to its spontane- ous play, can do no better, except when guided by severe thought. We have given, in a scattered way, all the elements which must constitute the heavenly state that can be reached by our pure thinking. These may be summed up as exhibiting the normal, the ideal rela- tions of concrete existence, and are : — First, individual ethical perfection, on which all depends. This has for its motive-spring, religion, the personal bond, the 336 CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. responsive and spontaneous love of the individual soul to the Divine Love, which can have the form of sacrifice no more. Second, the mirroring in the inter- relations of the human commonwealth the harmony of the immanent relations of the Godhead, uniting thus the members of the same into one organism, of which Christ will be the unifying centre. Third, physical glorification, or the domination over nature, over the material of the universe, now adapted in its recuperated state to the activities, the desires, we may say to the caprices, of the purified and perfected souls, now to be trusted in sharing the Divine potence and presence, and sure never to misuse them, — en- dowed even with creative powers able to bring forth endless combinations and new beauty. Fourth, men- tal illumination, — the disappearance of all that is con- fusing and bewildering, and that can produce error, the possession of the true centre of knowledge, whence every thing in the scope of mental vision is harmoniously related, yet which vision can be forever extended towards the forever receding circumfer- ence, — the discovery and enjoyment of the Divine thoughts, the penetration of the secrets that now elude us, the wonders of the spatially little, as well as of the spatially great, — the extension of the vis- ion beyond the present bounds of knowledge into the manifold or numberless disclosures of the stel- lar universe. Fifth, the extension of the sphere of fellowship and love, in which the penetration into each new soul and discovery of its content will be satisfying from its loving perfection, and full of delight from its uniqueness, — in which sphere new ties can be formed, guided by special sympathies ; — HEA VEN. 337 for there can be no monotony or repetition among the perfected souls, as there is none among the souls un- dergoing purification ; and the classifications of which human characters are now susceptible, as to the pure and sinless elements of the same, will still exist ; — which, too, is indicated in the Christian Scriptures, in their vague classification of angelic beings into spirits of power, service, love, and wisdom, — so that even the varieties of the human mind will have no transitory but an eternal meaning and use, and will furnish an exhaustless field in which love may range. In all this, indeed, we use language implying the objective existence and continuance of space and time. For such as deny this these inferences are only speculations, and are of little worth. They are unau- thorized transfers of the phenomenal into the nou- menal. This is no place for the full discussion of this problem ; but this much in defence the present author will say : To assert that space and time have no objec- tive existence, is to say that every thing in space and time has no objective existence. To say that eternity is the denial of time, is to use words that have no meaning for the human mind. The Scripture utter- ance, " With God a thousand years are as one day, and one day as a thousand years," was not meant to deny the objective existence of time ; but rather in its very verbiage presupposes time and its divisions, and declares that these are no bar to the Divine mind, which sees the end from the beginning, and lives in the contemplation of the idea. The evidence for the objective existence of space and time is as trustworthy as that for any conclusion reached by the human intellect. The human mind Vol. II. 338 CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. exists only under the conditions of space and time, and to deny these is to deny itself. Its logical pro- cesses proceed from postulates which it has owed to the determinations possible only under conditions of space and time. To think them away is as impossible as to imagine them away. We may fancy that we have gained the realm of pure ideas only, but we owe our discovery of the ideal only to our knowledge of the real and actual. Besides, in this attempted ab- straction we have lost the most important factor of our consciousness. The conditions for enjoyment have disappeared, or it is reduced to mere abstract contemplation of what interests us only as it has reality. Here is a dead sameness, — no sphere of ac- tivity or change, no development to be watched, no infinity. Enjoyment has a right to insist upon the conditions for activity and variety. If then space and time are delusions, the universe is a delusion, and we are reduced to a purely subjec- tive ideal philosophy. If they are subjective forms, these subjective forms are an element of the abstract objectivity, and neither these forms nor their content can be thought as existing apart. The idea of devel- opment is beneath all change, subjective, or seemingly objective, and if the latter is only seeming, we are in a delusion that can never be lifted. This idea alone gives us the highest and most satisfying conception of ourselves, of our capacity and dignity as self-cre- ating beings. Abstract time is still time, though appreciable for developing beings only from its deter- minations. Abstract space is still space. The very relativeness of locality requires the assumption of an absolute beneath it. Both time and space become HEA VEN. 339 apprehensible only from the determinations of the Di- vine creative thought and act, in which the universe appears, and the finite minds to apprehend it, and to which its determinations are adapted. Science shows us no beofinninof and no end of time, and no bounda- ries to space. They are the eternal forms of the Divine Glory and of the Divine Activity. Philosophy cannot think away space and time, and revelation does not exclude them. Both conduct us back to their pure form, in which imagination has no material with which to disport, to the Divine Glory in which they are implicit, and which the Divine thought and energy have made explicit. And it is beyond the province of Philosophy or Theology to say dogmati- cally that space and time have not been ever explicit, and that the Divine activity ever slumbered, and went not beyond itself. We adopt, then, on philo- sophic grounds, the implications of the Christian Scriptures, and find in the latter confirmation of the former, an aid to Philosophy, and a corrective to its meanderings and aberrancies. 1 1 The celebrated controversy between Dr. Samuel Clarke and M. Leibnitz concerning space and time does not issue in a result clear, convincing, and secure, though the analysis of Leibnitz is more thorough. Later speculation has confirmed some of the conclusions reached by either author. Allowing space to be, for thought, the ideal form or possibility of determined existences, and time to be the ideal form or possibility of the Divine activity, — if, from the self-necessitation of Love, God in his essential being is eternally active, and cannot otherwise be thought, then — space and time constitute an element in the only true objectivity. As pure, indeed, they have no separate existence. Thought can make no predications whatever concerning pure space and time. Here is another illustration of the fault of the human mind in endeavoring to draw conclusions from, or make assertions concerning the abstracted ele- ments of the concrete, which have no existence apart. This is the vice of a merely formal logic, herein shown to be an insufficient or untrustworthy method. j 4 o CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. The human heart cannot be left without its food and the satisfaction of its longings any more than the human mind can be, in the Divine intent. A Philos- ophy too ideal is too dry and cold to be true ; as any materialistic philosophy is too gross and degrading, too regardless of the finer needs of humanity to be true. What love requires is possible and actual. It only is the regulator of our thoughts, as it has been the regulator of the universe. Nothing that it re- quires can be impossible, nothing that it longs for. " Love is of God, and he that loveth knoweth God." Yet all this, to which we seem to have been led by a strict dialectic, is cast into the shadow of doubt from one source, but from one source only. Could we exclude this darkness the mind might abide in the Supreme Light, but moral evil casts its gloom upon us, contradictions and difficulties spring up, the human mind falters, and the human heart weeps, and rushes to its anchor amidst the tempest. And thus we ap- proach and cannot turn away from the most difficult of topics upon which to think, the destiny of moral evil, rather of the souls who may be chargeable with it. CHAPTER XXVIII. THE DESTINY OF THE MORALLY EVIL, PRELUDE AND DIFFICULTIES. Our effort hitherto has been to discover what from a priori grounds and from a posteriori evidence has been the Divine plan for human recovery, for the extirpation of the disease and consequent disorder which afflict the human race ; and to show that by either method the same result in thought is reached. This has been in the main a speculative enquiry, and the Scriptural account of the revelation of God in Jesus Christ and his career has been used as an aid and corrective, and for parallel confirmation. The- ology as a science is not independent of the former method, for however induced by exegetical procedure, it starts with speculative assumptions. It has its Phi- losophy, its pure Theology, and its Anthropology as the ground for the possibility of the Christian revela- tion itself, and if these established as rational are found to be implicit in the alleged revelation, this is an additional evidence that it is such, and thus the speculative and exegetical procedures confirm each other. We have endeavored to show that the plan for human recovery as outlined in the Christian tradi- tions, written and unwritten, has inner coherence and absolute rationality : and thus that there is no firm and sufficient ground for unbelief. This result would 341 342 CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. receive additional confirmation could it be maintained on either speculative grounds or from exegetical results, that the Divine plan would be accomplished, and the idea realized, for the whole human race, — that, ac- cording to the latter, the Divine scheme was to accomplish a universal restoration ; — or if, according to the former, any way could be exhibited for thought by which moral evil and its results could disappear from the universe. On exegetical grounds the evolu- tion of the ideas of redemption and regeneration has equal self-consistency and truth whether or not it is to be realized for the election, the new creation in Christ, or whether for the entire human race. No wonder that the latter view, which possesses so much relief for the mind, has had fascination for many, and that arduous efforts have been made to find it or confirm it in the New-Testament writings ; or that philosophies have been adopted which so define moral evil as to make this universal recovery from it think- able and possible. The notion of conditional immortality we have heretofore endeavored to show is untenable, intro- duces more difficulty than it allays, is indeed suicidal, as weakening, if not cutting away entirely, the grounds for holding sin and responsibility as facts ; that, in short, it requires simply an ethic of expediency and cannot maintain the absolute character of moral distinctions. The notion of an universal restoration, however desir- able it may be to hold it, has immense exegetical difficulties, and speculative ones perhaps insuperable. Certainly the Church, the Christian brotherhood, has never held it as a tradition. It has thought, spoken, written, and acted upon the alternative notion, and THE DESTINY OF THE MORALLY EVIL. 343 assumed that the Divine plan has been to bring out the election and elevate it to its perfection and glory, leaving a residuum of evil still concreted in human souls, as to the fate of which it has either dogmatically or falteringly speculated. The writers of the New Testament in general go upon the same supposition and speak, in language perhaps altogether figurative, of the fate of this evil residuum. Only here and there occur passages which can be drawn or tortured into confirmation of the notion of a universal restora- tion. There is just enough that is obscure and strange about them to keep alive the hope that within the possibilities such a thing may yet be, and to encourage the opinion that the Scripture writers were withheld from fuller disclosures, and allowed to give only these dim and dark hints. If this be so indeed, there is an apparent antinomy, as some have concluded and declared it to be incapable of resolution. 1 This vibra- tion, then, these alternatives, each having some Scrip- tural support, may be intended as a discipline for faith ; for if a universal restoration is indeed the Divine plan and sure of accomplishment, there seems no reason why it should not have been explicitly avowed and more clearly stated, as the ground for mental relief, hope, and zeal among the body of Christian believers and workers. The ground should seem at least as firm as the alternative notion. But this can hardly be held. The Scripture texts com- monly alleged as supporting the doctrine of universal restoration lend themselves readily to the require- ments of the other scheme. The predications about the Christian brotherhood are in themselves equally 1 Vide Martensen's "Dogmatics." 344 CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. consistent, whether or not this brotherhood is to be co-extensive with the human race ; but if it is not to be, we have before us the difficult exegetical and speculative task of so thinking and describing the destiny of the morally evil as to do no violence to thought, to tear away the figurative mask, and leave the naked truth, reconciling it with our philosophy if we can, or, if we cannot, bounding it rightly as an insoluble mystery. That this seeming antinomy will remain unresolved during the entire militant period, we may hold and reconcile ourselves to on other grounds. The solution of this problem of the destiny of moral evil could only come from the disappearance entire of the mystery of its origin and nature ; and were this granted, or to be attained at the present point of human development, it would so lighten the task of faith as to deprive it of all virtue. Insight into this would be no boon to man as a moral being. His obedience thenceforth would be compelled and slavish, and could not penetrate to the roots of character. Faith could have no discipline, and the soul acquire no spiritual strength, no fibre that should be adamantine. Man could hardly be looked upon, then, as a self-determining being. His whole task hitherto of holding to the Divine hand while wandering in the darkness would have been needless. For such reasons we cannot hope to have this mys- tery explained during the period of militancy, nor until the trials of the last earthly generation are over. It seems likely, if not certain, that the practical re- sult of allowing the belief of a universal restoration to take possession of the common mind, by removing all grounds for holding the alternative notion, would be THE DESTINY OF THE MORALLY EVIL. 345 to weaken in it the sense of the exceeding sinfulness and perilousness of sin. If evil is explained, as it must be in this scheme, as something accidental, or transitional, and sure in some way to disappear through the Divine efforts, the motive for thrusting selfishness out of the soul for one's self is weakened. That God will take heed of it, and wring it out of the soul by disciplinary suffering is indeed true ; but self- effort, as before said, alone can accomplish the re- quired spiritual strength ; and any way of thinking by which self-indulg-ence is condoned and moral effort sapped is liable to suspicion. For those who readily abandon themselves to altruistic instincts, this notion and this hope may not be detrimental ; but for those who are assaulted and carried away by selfish, sensual, cruel, or ambitious impulses, this notion affords a con- venient excuse for allowing them to have their way for the time, and relegating the work of their extirpa- tion to the Divine providential treatment alone. As in the case of a doctrine of Purgatory too crass, the effect is to lower the aim of religious attainment and to weaken the moral stimulus. Yet, as regards this, the Christian Church has used much caution ; and while acting upon the scheme of bringing out the election solely, has restrained itself, for the most part, in dogmatizing as to the extent of the Divine power, and fettering itself with difficul- ties that may hereafter appear. The Christian Scrip- tures, and the Church, then leave us the task of thinking upon the destiny of the morally evil after death, and are not without aid to us in the endeavor. For the philosophic speculator the scheme of a universal restoration is fettered by difficulties still 346 CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. greater than for the exegete. The latter may find some slight basis for his hope, and think that time will make it more firm. The former can find none for it in his thought, except by revising his ethic, explaining evil away as moral, making it a necessity, or a form of the good, and thus have to meet a polemic more fundamental. But if, assuming the absoluteness of moral distinctions, human freedom and responsibility, acknowledging the fact of sin and its spiritual charac- ter, availing itself of all scientific knowledge as to the working of the principle of heredity, the philosophic mind has arrived thus far securely, without prejudice or fear as to results, — it can find for its thought no method by which one who commits himself to the principle of evil, and adheres to it through life, and passes without moral change out of the present set of relations to the universe, can thereafter be restored and regenerated. The utmost that it can do is to make us doubt the accuracy and show the possibility of ultimate reversal of our judgments of character here on earth. Here indeed is a legitimate field for cautious thinking, into which venturing we may find reason to form adverse judgments with less dogmatic confidence, and thus in our estimation to reduce the number of those who seem committed to the principle of evil. To such a leaning of his thought the loving Christian readily commits himself, has committed himself more and more readily, and will hereafter grow more and more into the habit of merciful judg- ments. The savagery of Christian estimates of the apparently disobedient is slowly yet really abating, and that on valid grounds. The conditions for abso- lute responsibility are yet to be worked out by science THE DESTINY OF THE MORALLY EVIL. 347 and philosophy ; and though we may never be able to abstract the purely spiritual quality from physiological conditions and compelled action, we have already learned to hold in reserve much adverse human judgment ; and while still maintaining that the morally evil do exist, and must have their own des- tiny, find ourselves willing to acknowledge that the number of such is far less than it seems. But while the exception remains, the problem still remains with its difficulty unabated. History shows us facts which indicate the existence of the persistently evil so mark- edly, that it seems almost affectation to express a doubt. Jesus Christ himself, in declaring the possi- bility of the existence of such, in what He says as to the sin against the Holy Spirit, may be thought to assume the actuality of the same. Admitting then as a fact, the existence of the persistently evil here on earth (and if it were not for this question of their destiny no one would doubt it), speculative thought, proceeding from the basis before given, can show us no method by which they can be recovered hereafter. Ex hypothese, the utmost moral force has been tried upon them, and in vain. If they have not been carried away in the flood of brain action, but are still responsible, they would seem to have been guilty of an absolute reversal of the pro- foundest predispositions of their being, and to have immolated their ideal selves. The will has become, through earthly life, stronger in its bias. The innate egoistic proclivities have purified themselves of all altruistic instincts and tendencies, and concentred themselves upon the narrow point of selfish isolation. Whence is to come the spiritual force which is to 348 CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. reverse the movement ? If the knowledge of God's love in Christ has been uninfluential ; or if it has been repudiated, not on evidential or philosophic grounds, but from moral perversity merely ; if holiness has lost all beauty, and sacrifice all attractiveness ; if the ideal destiny of the human race, which legitimates the moral distinctions and constitutes the sense of respon- sibility, has been obliterated from the conscious- ness, — what mental enlightenment hereafter, or what possible environment can afford the conditions for a reversal of its spiritual quality ? Whence is the good will to come which is to blossom out into the altruistic tendencies which have been extirpated ? Here is indeed a task for speculation, beside which all other tasks dwindle in difficulty. Still indeed the hope for such possibility may remain, but philosophy deals not with hopes, which are but subjective longings, and are in themselves ephemeral and without moral quality. That the evil soul removed from the sphere of activity which intensified its evil character may retire upon itself for self-scrutiny after death, is indeed possible and probable. That it can recognize its moral decision and consequent spiritual quality as a mistake is not probable, for so to do would imply that the Sfood had still attractiveness, which would be a nucleus upon which Divine influence might work. Repentance would then be possible, and if repentance, then ulti- mate recovery. Indeed those who hold that the evil ones hereafter repent of their misdeeds make thereby their recovery thinkable and possible, and show that their conception of evil is but superficial. Such indeed think a second probation after death, and deprive the present life of its significance. The very idea of evil THE DESTINY OF THE MORALLY EVIL. 349 as a spiritual quality is that the good has lost all attractiveness ; and if there is no sphere of activity, there are no conditions for the revival or recreation of the altruistic tendencies which have undergone extinguishment. Any tortures of the soul which could come from the sense of lost opportunities are not thinkable. Such suppositions carry us too far, and in leaving us to imagine a soul, still longing for the good and therefore having the possibilities of good within it, discarded, rejected, or neglected by God, oblige us to re-think the very notion of God out of which alone our conception of any Divine scheme for human recovery can legitimately come. No, the hope- lessly evil are absolutely such, and souls which are not absolutely evil, cannot be held as hopelessly such. This too opens for us a pathway by which we may legitimately think that the number of the hopelessly evil is less than seems ; that we are mistaken often in thinking that moral probation here on earth has resulted in the wrong choice ; that what seems such is not a declination of the principle of good, but a mistake in judging of the activity which that principle requires ; that many a soul longs to love, and reaches out towards God, yet in the darkness lays hold upon something else, some false idea of him, and some substitute for him that human ingenuity has contrived, or its own blindness has not enabled it to detect or avoid. But all this does not lessen the difficulty. The problem still remains : assuming the existence of the persistently evil ones, which we cannot find sufficient reason for denying, what is their destiny ? Here now speculation gropes in almost total darkness. The 350 CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. problem, to be soluble in part, must be soluble as a whole ; and till we can think satisfactorily the origin we cannot think conclusively the end. The language of the New Testament is ordinarily and rightly regarded as figurative, when dealing with this topic. Its purpose seems to be to convince men of the dread- ful consequences of persistent sin, of the misery which comes in its train, of the period of anguish which it must pass through. All this is veiled in figures more or less crass and physical. Much of this language may be thought to apply to the characteristics of the intermediate state, — to the anguish figured to come from the fading away of the earthly sphere and its possibilities of activity and gratification, — the inward gnawing, or combustion, that must come when the environment has deprived the soul of all, even nega- tive activity, when its hostility must cease, and the very satisfaction which evil found in itself as a negative, opposing principle be no longer possible. The Scriptures content themselves with this general and figurative language, and decline to follow the problem farther. And this may be a warning to us not to follow it farther. But speculation does and will, and hence the need to show how far it may with safety and without contradiction go. The Scriptures leave these souls in the condition thus obscurely described, and hint not of any change or progress ; and yet since these souls exist in time there must be change and progress. The Scriptures speak of an environment, for if the evil ones are raised, we have to think their reinstatement in their composite nature, and in some relation still, through this, to the universe. All this increases the difficulty, and obliges us to THE DESTINY OF THE MORALLY EVIL. 351 recall the doctrine of the liberation of the xriffiS; and gives some reason to think it merely a change in the subjective relation of the morally perfected souls to- wards it ; or if admitting of structural changes, so far as the relation of the perfected ones requires, yet still leaving possible a relation to it of the spiritually evil, which too, in its way, must be susceptible of change and progress. We do not decline to descend into these dark depths, yet we do it with no secure confidence, and shall tread cautiously, in order to correct many speculations upon this matter, very rife in our days, which strike us as crude, unfounded, superficial, or untenable. CHAPTER XXIX. PURE EVIL, IF POSSIBLE, WHAT ITS DESTINY, AS SPECULATIVELY THOUGHT. The idea of evil in general can be most correctly and clearly apprehended by contrasting it with the idea of the good, and regarding it as its absolute con- tradiction, or negative pole. Not that it is a mere defect or a pure negation, for while it is a complex and admits of relations, nevertheless its chief element, which is primary and causal, and from which physical evil springs, or which it accompanies, is moral evil, and this is a positive movement of will and energy in one direction, as moral good is a positive movement in the other. Were there no freedom to determine the end of activity, and no responsibility, there could be no moral evil, and what is now called physical evil would be a part of the flow of necessity, of which the move- ments of conscious creatures would be a mere element, and all comprised in the same nexus. But moral evil belongs only to concretes, and is a quality of self-conscious souls, and hence, as a quality or ten- dency of the same, is as positive as the quality of good, and expressive as the other of a certain relation. Whether as such a quality of concretes it has any character of absolute permanence is indeed a mooted question. A posteriori we can find no sufncent war- rant to deny it. The a priori objection to so thinking, 352 PURE EVIL. 353 which has great force for the philosophic mind, is that so to think lands us in an eternal dualism. But the human mind has found no way to escape, or successfully think away, this dualism. To weaken, or mitigate, or simplify it is the intent of the present disquisition. In all philosophic thought whatever, there is one weak spot, where light fails, and faith must bridge the hiatus ; and we contend that it is located precisely here and nowhere else ; and that the residuum of darkness, in this scheme, may be pushed back to total darkness ; while in every other scheme there is a twilight region between, in which the mind wanders bewilderingly. But, as before said, we shall understand what can be understood of evil by regarding it as, in its pure form, the absolute opposite of the good. The good too is a complex idea, and contains moral good as its chief element, and hence belongs primarily and properly only to concretes, — to the free self-consciousness of such. Its fundamental idea or definition is Love. This we have shown on a priori grounds is the essen- tial Divine character, and the Christian revelations confirm the statement. This alone makes the God- head apprehensible as meeting our highest conception. This alone meets the requirement of the human heart. Love as existing in the First Principle requires the conditions for reciprocity, and that each hypostasis of the Godhead has his all-sufficient object, and the Tri- unity is constituted by this personal tie. It is not a mere Tryad, for each hypostasis presupposes the other for the completeness of its own definition, and as there is an absolute accord, there is but one will, and all activity beyond itself is threefold yet in absolute harmony. The consciousness is one, yet several, and Vol. II. 354 CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. Love is the key by which to think it, though it defies imagination. There is and can be nothing simpler than this, and all being is not but as it exists. The environment to this Trinity is the Divine Glory in its pure form (which too we think but cannot imagine), by means of which the Divine ideas, whose fountain is exhaustless, may be realized. This Divine Glory is determined and becomes the universe by the energy and activity of the Holy Spirit, accomplishing the thought supplied by the Logos ; and the Absolute Fount of Being, discoverable only as in thought it breaks into the relations of Son and Spirit, is the Eternal Father, to whom all spiritual and physical relations are primarily or ultimately referable. This Godhead in its immanent relations, which Love is the only word that can describe, is the Absolute Good, and is thus constituted, we might say, of eternal neces- sity, had that word any meaning other than that Love is self-necessitated. To our human thought Love is freedom, and its perfection necessity. We see and know that we rightly think it as freedom from the possibility and experience of its opposite, and if that possibility should disappear, it would still be freedom in its highest or pure form, or spontaneity. Any necessity other than this perfection of freedom must mean being limited by something without, and that not an abstraction, (for abstractions have no force,) but must exist in a concrete, and thus we have the dualism which we have already characterized and criticised as Semi-Pantheism. The highest form of freedom, even for our human thought, is self-necessi- tation, consistency with itself, in which no contradic- tion is possible, and Love is only another PURE EVIL. 355 name for this. But Love, from its very defi- nition and from the necessity of its freedom, is also activity, and seeks to extend itself, and multiply its objects, and enrich itself by enriching its objects and receiving their love in return ; and hence we have the created universe, which sparkles with reflections or reproductions of the Divine self-consciousness. Hence no solitary reflection of the same meets the requirements of the idea, and is thinkable or possible, for thus there would be no object upon which to exercise love, and no field for activity and reciprocation. Hence created free spirits exist only as souls, as more than particulars and individuals, and with environment and media for inter-communica- tion ; and we have the human race, whose idea is a commonwealth, realizing freely and reflecting fully the Divine immanent harmony. This then is the idea of reflected or created good, an organism, articulated, whose members are bound together by the ethical tie, and whose interests are identical, and whose conscious- ness is one, yet several. As issuing from the Divine Love, its highest characteristic is responsive love, and hence the ethical tie between its members merges into the tie between it and God, into the religious tie ; and from this source the return again is exhaustless, and issues in the fullest development and completest bless- edness for its object. To this moral element of its complex being, elevated into the religious element, all other constituents of complex and concrete being are or become correspondent ; and hence its physical con- stitution and relation to any environment will offer no impediment to the realization of its thoughts and its longings, but offer itself readily to enrich its being and 356 CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. its bliss. To it likewise the way is open to pierce the recesses of the Divine thoughts, and as these are inexhaustible, it may grow richer and fuller to all eternity. This then is the idea of the created good, a reflec- tion and an extension of the Absolute Good. For the free soul to set this as its end, more or less clearly seen and more or less intelligently followed, is to be morally good. And of this good, moral evil is the diametri- cal contradiction, in its moral quality, and in its rela- tion to its environment. It is, morally, the with- drawal from this harmony, and the setting up of an independent end. Hence its idea is that of spiritual isolation, the refusal to find its perfection, and seek its satisfaction from its ideal relation to the totality, to the commonwealth, — the plunging one's self out of the current of its native predispositions, — the effort after supremacy, from which it seeks to disentangle all fetters. The soul thus diverging, though revoca- ble still, is moving towards irrevocability. It uses for a time, or for all time, whatever is external to minister to its self-formed designs. It is blind, in- deed, in not seeing that the very material out of which it forms its ideals it owes to the Divine hand, and hence that the material for and the field of its activity can have no permanence. But while it is permitted it makes use of it for its transitory enjoy- ment, seeks to repress its altruistic instincts, careless or blind as to the result. It rids itself of the uneasy sense of responsibility by weaving for itself a cloud of mental delusion. It refuses to yield to the inherited propensities to good, till they become extinct, — extin- guishes by constant shunning any fear it may have PURE EVIL. 357 of retribution hereafter, and sucks what enjoyment it can out of life while it lasts. We are not here, it must be apparent, describing any particular instance, or concrete illustration, but what the idea of evil is, and what would be the career of the self-conscious soul were it purely evil, or going on to be such. Such a career may be regarded as possible, on the grounds before given. But the idea of absolute evil is not yet made real, for though the moral quality be there, the strain after pure selfish- ness or isolation, the other and correspondent ele- ments of evil regarded as absolute, are still wanting. Nature still nourishes, and blesses, and furnishes the food for enjoyment. This soul cannot repress its physical instincts, or psychical sympathies entirely, though it may seek to do this, when they are in the way of its main design. Physical needs, and social life still solicit it to abandon its headlong career, and return ; and no human brother, at any point of the earthly career of another soul, has the right to say that it is impossible that it should return. What it seeks to accomplish, however, is its own starry aloofness, either reluctant to be under obligation to any other soul, or intending, if it finds it convenient for its purpose, to disregard all reciprocal good-will. It cannot withdraw itself from the domain of natural laws, though it may become measurably independent of social laws. It must still feel and fret under the sense of its dependence, and the limitations Divine providence sets it. Whether any human soul succeeds in becoming thus purely and irrevocably evil here on earth, is a question we can only abstractly and never concretely 358 CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. answer ; but the movement of such may be thought to be unquestionably in this direction ; and so far as we can see, this movement, in many cases, seems to be unarrested. Our enquiry is not whether or how, if there is any spark of good left, it can be fanned into a blaze, and thus recovery be accomplished ; but what, the tendency being thus set against the univer- sal harmony, and the effort after spiritual isolation being incessant and growing stronger, must be the condition of such a soul when removed from the earthly environment and introduced into the new set of relations alone possible after death. The presence of good instincts and tendencies it owes to the earthly environment. These, by the constitution of its compo- site nature, continue to solicit it ; and thus nature herself, even though regarded as fallen and degraded, struggles against the existence of pure moral evil, and to the last draws in the opposite direction. But when the earthly environment passes, then what is the case ? We could speak more confidently did we know what the future environment was to be. We have seen, however, that we must think it as fur- nishing no field for physical activity or external change. In that realm the soul is thrown back upon itself. Its enjoyment, if any, must come from its relation to God, and to other souls, and to the envi- ronment ; and if love describes this relation, it can minister and be ministered unto through whatever refined media the environment supplies, and thus it can intensify itself, and have its consciousness diversi- fied and enriched. But the evil soul, being ex hypo- these without this love, must prey upon itself. Whatever in the outlying field of activity in the PURE EVIL. 359 earthly life made evil pleasant is gone. It has suc- ceeded in its quest of spiritual isolation, has become morally independent, but finds itself powerless and resourceless. The conditions for any expansion of being are not there. It cannot love other souls like itself, since both are alike unlovely, and the tendencies of love, which are outward, have been introverted and extirpated. Whether there be any external environment hostile, and imparted torment ab extra, may be questioned, although the Scripture language, like all other lan- guage addressed to human understanding and imagi- nation, and not to the abstract thinking faculty, must necessarily make use of figurative expressions to make itself understood, and thus so far countenances the notion that there is such. But this notion, literally understood, will not bear the scrutiny of thought ; for thereby we have to re-think the Divine idea, and regard it as something other than that which has been the basis of all our conclusions hitherto. It supposes God to be vindictive, and to impart torment when it is needless. Moreover, it is out of all analogy. All punishment here on earth is indirectly remedial, and is intended either to arrest the the downward path to evil, or to ward off its outbreaks of mischief. There is nothing gained for thought, but a subtle contradiction intro- duced, by regarding God as vindictive. It impairs the idea of Love as supreme and pure, and supposes it to be limited by some interior principle higher than itself. It is entirely sufficient for our thought to regard the evil soul as left to itself, to the condition it has voluntarily chosen. God respects its freedom still, though that freedom has likewise become a necessity at the opposite pole. 360 CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. Thus it appears, that living only within itself, and dwelling only upon itself, there are no conditions for expansive growth, but only for gradual impoverish- ment. Its experience is no more an objective activity, but a subjective tumult. Imagination may do little here : but it may represent in some degree the weari- ness that must come from this aimless internal strife, and even present to itself a condition in which the very mental struggles themselves must abate. Thus we have a perpetual shrinking or dwarfing of being. It is becoming narrower and narrower, fading to the infinitely little, yet never reaching extinguishment. Imagination can no more follow this movement tow- ards the minute and poor than it can towards the infinitely great and interminably rich. We have to be content here with the naked thought, about which there is precisely the same inexplicability and defiance to imagination that there is about the infinite divisi- bility of matter. We cannot think, any more than we can imagine, utter extinguishment, any more than we can think the disappearance into nonentity of the ultimate particles of matter. And, as before expli- cated, to think annihilation is impossible because it is contradictory, since it destroys the fundamental idea of the soul as morally responsible. Thought stops when it has reduced the consciousness of the purely evil one to its rudimental form. Here indeed is infinite loss, and there is nothing whatever gained for thought by dwelling upon whatever agony may strew the pathway. In this way the dualism is mitigated, but it does not entirely disappear, and alas ! by no ingenuity of thought can we make it disappear. We are left with PURE EVIL. 361 a longing still that something may revive our hope of escape from this darkness, though we see no pathway to follow. This is the impassable limit for human thought, in the present stadium of our existence. While this endeavor to penetrate the dimness reaches still only the absolute dark, yet it is claimed that this darkness is the least terrifying, though to be rid of all terror is impossible. Any scheme of thought which professes to rid us of it does not succeed. It wanders only in a circle, and comes round at length to the very darkness it seeks to avoid. But, as was said before, we can assert this fate of no individual human soul ; but must avow its possibility, and can see no way to deny its actuality ; and the number of such must ever be indeterminate and will fluctuate in our regard, ac- cording to the phases of our feeling. This way of thinking always issues in a kind of mental despair ; and as displaying the insufficiency of our faculties to fill up every hiatus in a seemingly harmonious whole of knowledge, is more humbling than any other men- tal attitude. To hold, as a mental relief, in the im- agination some picture of a harmonized universe, brought about by Divine Omnipotence, from which all evil shall have disappeared, is simply shutting the vision temporarily to the difficulties to which the mind must needs return. For if this sin and misery can thus be swept away by violence, it has been needless, is surplusage and waste, and has served no purpose and had no meaning. All things become morally indifferent. If sin and misery, brought in by moral defect, can only be overcome by moral forces, the present ones must be shown to be adequate, or new ones must come out of the Divine depths ; and we 362 CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. have no data from which to think the possibility of such : for the Divine Love has already taken its highest conceivable form. If, again, evil has existed only as a foil for the good, then its definition as that which — God being what He is, and man what he is — ought not to be disappears : and its true definition is what ought to be. And one cannot be asked to for- sake sin, except as it may possibly prove to be impru- dent. And so we pass from one cloud to another, none with power to buoy us up. But all despair is never pure, but has an inner element of hope ; and hope and despair are feelings and not thoughts, rooted in the depths of being which are unknown ; and therefore no thought whatever can ever utterly extinguish them. In these depths music only wan- ders, and endeavors to express what words cannot utter. But let us turn our thoughts once more, before we leave our undertaking, and dwell in a final regard upon the possible escape from this darkness : for God, while in one direction He has shut us in by an adamantine wall, in the other opens an avenue of light which conducts us to the limitless skies. CHAPTER XXX. THE PERSONAL RELATION. It is apparent by this time that the thought which penetrates and unifies this whole treatise, and expli- cates its meaning in every part, is a philosophy of the universe ; and means that it is so framed essentially, eternally, and immutably that its law can be discov- ered. This is that Love is first and highest ; that all limitations of existence, of power, and knowledge come from its defect ; that in its perfection it is necessarily followed by the withdrawal of all limita- tions of these ; and that not arbitrarily, and as though any thing else were thinkable and feasible ; that thus is revealed the ideal constitution of the universe : which is a reflection of the Godhead itself in its im- manent relations. In the history of Jesus Christ we have a concrete illustration of this eternal constitu- tion. Here the Divine Love becomes appreciable by the creature, by the self-limitation of the loving One, by its taking the form of sacrifice. It thus accom- plishes and transmutes itself into the highest respon- sive love : and in the depths of love God and man meet, and become spiritually one. As the necessary result of this all limitation of power and knowledge passes. Thus there is no new mystery in the atoning work of Christ : but only the extension of the mys- tery of the Incarnation itself. As the triumph of Love 363 364 CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. followed by bodily glorification and the dispelling of all mental clouds, it is of all things the least mysteri- ous, and the most readily apprehensible by the human mind and heart, as that ought to be which is presented as the strongest impelling motive. The mystery and the difficulty consist in the Divine self-limitation re- quired and seen in the magna opera of the Incarnation and the Death. These are physical and metaphysical rather than moral and religious, and we have already said all that we can upon them. The proof of this Philosophy, which is both Biblical and speculative, is that it unlocks the problems of ex- istence as no other can, leaving but the one dark hiatus for faith to bridge over in the hope that its eye will be opened by the successful passage of the gulf. In order then that the present limitation of power and knowledge may pass for any individual soul, the complete realization of the personal relation in Christ must be reproduced in it. This is the fundamental and distinguishing idea of Christianity, avowed and made clear ; though indeed that the personal relation must be sought is the essential characteristic of all religion whatever. Christianity is based upon the mental postulate, the implanted instinct, and the revealed illustration, that what is first and highest in all existence is Love ; and Love is a personal relation. However, the idea of the Godhead may be analyzed, and elements for thought discovered, and a system of relations which is necessary and absolute and its im- mutable constitution, these elements are only abstrac- tions, and have no existence apart from each other and except in their synthesis, insomuch that neither Father, Son, nor Spirit can be thought as existing THE PERSONAL RE LA TION. 365 apart by himself. To be existent for human thought and feeling there must be an active or loving relation. For mental use merely the Godhead is a set of abstractions. It becomes concrete and living only in its activity, which on the grounds given above is taken as loving. As such activity God's existence cannot possibly be denied, whatever the mind may do with the abstract elements of the idea. He is to man loving, we may say, in spite of all mental dulness or denials. When this is recognized as a fact, having practical issues, then a dialectic becomes possible to show how Love is thinkable within the Godhead itself, and is its eternal characteristic. That the Providence which has brought us into the world and set us on our planet is beneficent, is man's ordinary feeling. Normally nature ministers to enjoy- ment, and when she provides suffering, and man is bewildered and doubtful in consequence, the suffering still seems transient and*provisional, and the possibility of removal is never lost from the thought. Suffering is seen, more or less clearly, to come from the viola- tion of nature's laws, and thus appears as a contradic- tion to the loving Providence which man himself can remove. Or, it reaches him through the principle of heredity, and thus is necessitated a profounder medita- tion by which is reached the idea of the organic unity of the race, whence is the vicariousness of suffering, and the possible cure of the diseased member by the vigor of the healthy ones. And when nature shows herself directly hostile, and wounds or kills, this presents no new difficulty, or any other than that which comes from the fact of death itself. That this Providence contains the element of severity as well as 366 CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. of pure beneficence, proves that each is an element of the Divine benevolence, and that such Love is ruled by moral requirements. If Love be Divine then, one must judge and esti- mate it by our highest conception of the same. To recognize it as ministering to one set of wants and lonofinors, and not to all, is insufficient. It must do more than provide food which nourishes and delights, and clothing and shelter which are grateful, and a field for physical and mental activity, and a various and inexhaustible beauty. It appears as a finer quality when satisfying a deeper longing than for all these ; when it becomes personal, and is the interfu- sion of heart with heart. This personal relation is illustrated in the tie which binds man and wife, parent and child, friend and friend. These are longings and delights higher and more during than all physical pleasure and aesthetic rapture. As personal relations, they hint of, lead to, and reflect the religious relation, to which all moral relations are subservient. Because of love, the father toils, the mother bleeds herself, the child obeys, and man and wife have common inter- ests. Love enriches itself the more, the more it overflows, and it can never exhaust its own capacities, nor the supply of reciprocation. It is limited in its degrees only by the imperfection of its object, though sustained by the hope or belief that such imperfection may diminish : and it does not know its own resources nor its own capacity for delight till that object be- comes faultless and sufficient. All human love has this element of imperfection, and creates the longing for perfect love. Love for man is the surest way to reach love for God ; and thus it may be on the way to THE PERSONAL RE LA TION. 367 its own highest exercise and return without knowing it, or avowing it, and be already near to the Divine disclosure. That to realize a personal relation with the Foun- tain of our being is the profoundest tendency of our whole complex structure, is shown by the universal instinct of prayer, never wanting, always existing however disguised, that which shows itself bursting from the heart of the avowed unbeliever in moments of peril or strong emotion. All feticism or idolatry is a feeling after a personal centre in the inanimate, and has its own logic. This stock or stone, it feels, is more than it seems. There is power behind it which can bless or injure. Let it by all means be appeased, or rendered benignant. This is not the criminality of idolatry, which consists not in worship- ping the symbol, but in making it the symbol of an unethical divinity, by severing its imagined power in thought from the moral element, and by seeking to excuse, through some surplus service or otherwise, its moral derelictions. Prayer becomes purified when it recognizes the unity of the governing powers, and identifies the external Providence with the inward law. Slowly does the human race come to recognize this unity, passing to maturity only through its infancy and childhood. But it comes at length to long for and to find a true and close relation to the governing and loving Power. It cannot be satisfied till there is full warrant for regarding this relation as personal, till the heart feels the Divine heart in the darkness, or recognizes it in the twilight, nor be entirely satisfied in its love and aspiration till the disclosures of the high noon. 368 CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. Of this fact and truth, which describes the human being in his innermost, Christianity lays hold. It shows us how, step by step, period by period, God has revealed himself, in his force, in his wisdom, in his grandeur and beauty. Of all this revelation the world is full. And pari passu with this He has revealed his Love, by the requirement of love in the moral law, whose motive-spring is love and whose final cause is the commonwealth of love. These are intended to conduct the human race at length to the understand- ing of its deepest longing, for a closer relation still. When a few, even two or three, have reached this point, there is a possibility of this longing being grat- ified, and the conditions for it displayed. It could not be for one only, for, that the loving principle may be strengthened, the conditions for reciproca- tion must be supplied. But any more than one is all that is needful to become the nucleus of the kingdom of God on the earth. As Christians at the last day will long for the ultimate disclosure, so, once, longed some for such Divine disclosure as would revive hope for humanity and generate a new enthusiasm. Hence Jesus Christ, hence the Incarnation of the Eternal Son, in which was found the utmost display of the Divine Love that the human mind can follow and the human heart appreciate. God can come no nearer to man, seeing, hearing, thinking, feeling, than to show himself in human form, and the longing for the per- sonal tie receives its utmost possible increment of gratification. Wonderful privilege, to look upon that face and form, to hear that voice, to feel the touch of those hands ! It was matter of faith still, (for to have been THE PERSONAL RELATION. 369 more would have been no boon,) that God was thus veiled yet exhibited. That his disciples so believed is enough to account for all their enthusiasm, and the cheerfulness of their martyrdom. It is not to be iden- tified with the final disclosure, for it is God with the power and majesty still veiled, with wisdom fallen back upon its reserve, and displaying itself through human limitations to human capacities : yet by this very veiling and reserve showing God as loving most appreciably. There must be the desire still that the loving and beloved One shall resume the display of all his attributes, ere the personal tie can be all that its idea involves, but for this they must wait till they acquire their own fitness for the ultimate revelation, till the whole brotherhood of sons can be presented to the Father. This must, through the coming career, be disciplined to a perfect patience, must follow in the footsteps of the Lord's sacrifice, and gather its own congeners by speeding upon the loving impulse which started it. The perfection of the personal tie requires something more than is vouchsafed to us Christians here on earth, something more still than was vouch- safed to his friends by him who blessed and brake the bread, something more than was allowed for those who touched the wounds given on Calvary, and saw him vanish from the mount of the Ascension. These last were boons to faith, indeed, but so transitory as to leave the longing for secure possession still unsat- isfied. And when that possession shall be ultimately yielded, they and we, who are to exist in the body still, though glorified, and with an organism through which we can forever find delight in the beautiful universe, will be near to God, not by abstract spiritual Vol. II. 370 CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. contemplation, but to God as revealed in Christ, and through the symbolism of the body. That we shall see God face to face, whatever spiritual meaning such words may likewise have, will be literally true. Now the human face, and the human voice, and the human gesture and touch disclose to us the inner soul of one we love. In the heavenly state these will still sym- bolize the spiritual relation. Though the adytum, the sanctuary of our individuality will still be inviolate and unviolable, it will never fear violation, and will let its content be seen with no misgiving or need of withholding. So the Divine heart will still show itself through the human symbolism. We shall see the face of Christ, and hear his voice, and feel the touch of that hand, and know that beneath us are the everlasting arms. We shall not apprehend any with- holding of mystery. The Divine smile will beckon us to follow into the recesses of the Divine thought. It will disclose an open field for our endless endeavor : and to know that that field has no termination will be the inspiring spring of an everlasting activity, accom- plishing new surprises of joy forever and forever. Human aspiration, while based upon adoration, and the knowledge of its own creaturehood and depend- ence, cannot go beyond this. To do so would be to return to the principle of evil. O Father, take us to thine heart, thus and thus, through Jesus Christ, our Brother and thy Son. CHAPTER XXXI. SUPPLEMENTARY, ARGUMENT FOR AN OPTIMISTIC PHILOSOPHY. The philosophy of the foregoing treatise may rightly be called Optimistic. That as such it will be regarded favorably by the Christian believer, the author has no doubt. But that by some it will be looked upon with incredulity, or hesitation, is also possible or certain. Their minds will suggest with varying force or clear- ness the objections which arise at times in all minds whatever during this not yet fully illumined dispensa- tion of faith. So far as such are merely spontaneous feelings intensified by the glamour of imagination they require no scrutiny. But as these, even, imply incoherent thought, they are still and so far mental difficulties, and must be examined, — to show that they are not rational, i. e., that the conclusions they urge towards cannot take place in any unified system of thought, — and that the view from which they shrink, or before which they hesitate, is indeed rational, and an element of the only possible dialectic. Perhaps the essential element in every form which such objection can take may be stated as a con- crete question as follows. The function of imagi- nation is in any case discoverable, the mediating principle between all feeling and the material of knowledge. There is then formed a mental repre- 371 372 CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. sentation of this state of the universe to which, according to this philosophy, so far optimistic, it is tending, viz., a commonwealth of perfected and glorified human souls, each member of it loving each other, and the All-loving Father, with supreme, boundless, and unchanging love, having the physical material pliant and subservient to any of their subjec- tive purposes, and perpetually penetrating the exhaust- less depth of the Divine thoughts, as they come to be progressively realized or intimated. Then, turning away from this representation, and regarding, on the other hand, the factors from which this commonwealth is to be created, the impulse to be incredulous, or to reject it as possible or probable, be- comes very strong. There is brought up in imagina- tion, or regarded actually, some or any one of the poorest specimens of the human race, — the Australian, or other savage, almost a brute, — or some one of the corrupted products of civilization, stupid and sensual, or wilfully cruel and devilish, — and to think that such a one can be developed into a member of the imma- culate commonwealth, and set forward in a career of endless expansion, is a task to which the mind seems inadequate, — a trial of faith too great to be surmounted. No token seems obvious that any pro- cess has commenced, or is progressing, converting the one into the other, — no evidence that it is possible, or probable. But, arguing a priori, we may say that, if all men are essentially alike, the principle rendering develop- ment possible must exist in every member of the human race, as such. Confessedly the finest and worthiest product of civilization has been developed SUPPLEMENTARY. 373 from a state similarly low, but — only by the improve- ment of a succession of generations ; hence, in the individual, with a vantage already gained through heredity, which, also, has modified and rendered more favorable the immediate environment. In the endeavor to make, in thought, the possibility of such development universal the difficulty would, of course, be insurmountable did we exclude the possi- bility of the prolongation of such development after death. In that case we should be obliged to hold that all antecedent individuals and races have been or will be so far carried on in their progress, and been sacri- ficed, for the improvement and possible perfection of future generations, or of the ultimate one. Admitting the possibility of such prolongation after death, the objection disappears, and we fall back upon the con- clusion that the principle of development in the individual has permanent worth. And even in the mundane career the fact that, in certain individuals, development has progressed so far, is evidence not only that it is ideally possible for all, but that actually the principle of it has not been un- progressive. In every case it proceeds from the principle already lodged in the infant, showing that the rudimental consciousness was more than animal, and had spiritual characteristics and possibilities. All that has been needed was a fitting environment. This, though variously adapted, exists in some form ade- quate to move forward the developing subject partial- ly, to some extent, and with variant degrees of speed. The abstract possibility of such development is there- fore thinkable for every individual of the human race. All that is needful is to discover, in fact, the develop- 374 CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. ing principle, and the various adaptations of the environment take their place in the whole providential scheme. From analogy we may argue that, — as there is no waste anywhere in the physical universe, and since energy is a moving circle perpetually returning into itself, — there is no waste anywhere, and therefore that the developing principle, if discoverable, must neces- sarily stir and proceed in the direction towards the realization of the idea implicit in it (or, possibly, in another direction. But of this hereafter). It must then somehow, at some time, and somewhere, have an environment suitable to it, that it may fulfil progres- sively its purpose in the Divine intent (or, possibly, reverse itself and endeavor its own extinguishment). What we have to do, therefore, is to vindicate for every human being as such the existence of such a principle to be developed, and that not merely mental (which no one would deny), but ethical. If this can be done, then the further conclusion, that the environ- ment might also be adapted and rendered favorable to any required physical development, might readily be held or granted. To refuse to admit that any such principle of ethical development exists in every human being as such, can only come from a superficial examination and imperfect analysis of the content of any human soul. The distinction between the brute and the man, even the savage man, wherefrom exists in the latter such a principle of ethical development, which can blossom into all that the most optimistic view requires, is found, on such analyzing scrutiny, to be that in the human being alone is the presence of a SUPPLEMENTA RY. 375 universalistic idea, or ideal end, — which may be elucidated and brought home to the simplest capacity in this way. When one brute assaults or threatens to assault an- other, the impulse in the one assaulted or threatened is to do one of three things : (1) to avoid and thus escape the designed infliction ; (2) to be beforehand in the assault in order to ward off the infliction, and render the attempt abortive or innocuous ; or (3) to resent and return the attack, not to avoid the at- tempted injury, but from a reciprocal hostile impulse thus aroused, submitting meanwhile to any possible pain or damage. The human being may also, and does often, from his impulse as an animal, do either of these three things. But he may also do something other, — something we cannot discover that the brute ever does, — one or the other of two things. He may, first, so resent the attack, whether inflicted or threatened, as to return by way of revenge the intended injury. This implies a mental disapproval of the disposition which prompts the attack, and that he constitutes himself the agent to punish it, and to show that such a disposition can- not be carried into action with impunity, and is itself a violation of a principle. This is none other than the principle of Justice, which, in its pure and primal form, we have shown to be none other than the prin- ciple of Love. However he may err in presuming to be the vicegerent of this principle in its form of severity, as not having foresight of consequences suffi- ciently ample and far-reaching, there is still implicit in such revengeful return the conviction, that the dispo- sition to put to pain, except for remedial purpose and 376 CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. loving end, is irrational. Here, already, we find a law, inwrought in his structure, which presupposes an ideal. There is a spontaneous recognition that it is absolute in its character : than which human thought and feeling can go no deeper, — i. e., that no profounder law governing this law is discoverable. Or, secondly, he may do something to weaken or annul the inclination of the adversary to make any such attack. A gesture, a word, an expression of the face, may have this for its interpretation. Thus is displayed in his mind the thought that the enemy may be induced to rethink the matter and abandon the intention, that the unkind impulse in that case would subside, and the normal wave of feeling flow back in its stead, — the feeling of sympathy and good- will required by the self-preserving needs of the social state. The same possibility must be in the mind of each, and the manifestation of the thought by the one may awaken it in the mind of the other. It is pre- sented as that which is or may be more attractive than the divellent tendency, and as the habitual im- plicit conviction to which the mind must return when the physical cloudiness has subsided, and thought re- turns to its pure air. Thus the normal flow of human feeling, temporarily disturbed, may be restored, and thereby is furnished evidence that the sympathy which draws together is the habitual and profoundest one, and that to which, in the constitution of the universe, every thing tends to return when the negating inter- ruption has subsided. The recuperative movement is herein shown to be paramount, that which returns to harmony ; and the original and permanent instincts of humanity thus show their tendency towards the ideal 5 UPPLEMENTA RY. 377 end, which alone can put to rest the disturbance of the thought-faculty, and afford full satisfaction to the aesthetic sense. Thus in all this is contained the philosophy, how- ever obscured or temporarily distorted, that the law of love, of reciprocal good-will and blessing, is the secret of the human soul ; that the benevolent sympa- thies exist not for the preservation of offspring merely, or for any limited extent whatever, but for the welfare and organic union of all human beings as such. The only thing in brute nature which seems strongly to resemble this human characteristic is the behavior of the dog sometimes when put to pain by his angry master. We find submission, no disposi- tion to resent, or even to escape, no negating attitude except, perhaps, a look of reproach, — but, instead, the fawning and loving gesture. Here indeed the need and the desire to be loved, and the disposition to love, are so strong, all-absorbing, and exclusive, that no inferior impulse is allowed to overcome or to assault this, and, probably, is not even felt. But that this is not a true analogue to the human experience is manifest, since such patient endurance of suffering, and abandonment of all hostile return, is exhibited only in his relation to his master, or in a very limited scope. We lack the evidence to show that this rela- tion of good-will has, or could have, universal extent ; and it would be a conclusion from a too limited induc- tion, that the ideal end of all physical action was ever, or could be made, clear to the purely animal under- standing. Nevertheless there is a hint and premoni- tion of its possibility, which thus corresponds with previous analogies. This fact in natural history is 378 CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. full of instruction. It shows on the part of the brute that faith in the good-will and the wisdom of the one supreme over him has been made impregnable to any assault ; and that the need to love and to be loved is that into which the brute experience may shrink ; that thus, even in the sphere of nature, the principle of sac- rifice is shadowed forth, and may exist in intense degree, though within a limited range. Such exhibition of faithful and tender love is so touching as to appeal to the profoundest feeling of the human heart, and to arouse in intense degree the emotion of the Beautiful. It arouses even genuine and pure grief for the death, and starts even the wish for the prolonged existence, of one so purely loving. It impels, even, to look for justification of the belief that such may be the case. Nor is it at all contradic- tory to think that the perfected human soul may re- create the beloved and sacrificing one ; nay, no con- tradiction to think that the continuity of its existence may not have been necessarily lost. Conditional im- mortality is therefore thinkable for the brute, though not for man. In the characteristics of human soul-experience above alluded to, is the conclusive evidence that the moral ideal exists, however obscurely or incoherently, in every human consciousness. On account of this, therefore, during the increase of empirical knowledge, and the consequent mental progress, moral alterna- tives become possible ; moral distinctions acquire increasing clearness, moral convictions receive force, and are at length recognized as rational, and take the form of the judgment of obligation with its accom- panying feeling. SUPPLEMENTARY. 379 Here, then, is the ethical germ we are seeking to discover, and the principle of an endless development. For the lack of this the development of the brute is comprised within a limited range. There is nothing discoverable in it which shows the need of a prolonged existence to explain it. It has fulfilled its idea. The infusion of this ethical element into the animal con- sciousness, or its irradiation from the spirit realm, (and that this expression, or any other terms, fail to describe it, shows that it is a mystical procedure, and eludes the understanding,) is a proper creation, and makes it distinctively human. Thus the scientific allegation, that man is developed from the lower ani- mals, may be admitted without any risk to spiritual truth. The appearance of the human characteristic is still a creation, in any valid sense of the word. It may be that more is gained than lost for thought by the admission, (though the scientific evidence for it as a fact is by no means yet sufficient),— in the discovery or confirmation of the thought that an ideal purpose is wrapped up in the entire development of the uni- verse, always obscurely progressive, but sometimes coming to the surface for recognition. The con- stantly intensifying conviction of this unifying move- ment gives clearer and clearer hints of its end, or final cause ; from which alone we might validly infer that the human race, as we find it now, is not stationary, but moving in an elevating progress to which we can see no termination ; the idea of which it already pos- sesses, and which alone can explain its profoundest instinct, — that of aspiration. That such ethical development should proceed securely and successfully is alone satisfying to the 380 CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. reason and the aesthetic sense ; and the conviction that this was truly the case would be constant and growing stronger but for the existence of the contra- diction, the actuality of moral evil, and the apparent reversal of the developing ethical process. We cannot turn away from this fact, for then we should be resting in a conclusion drawn from a partial induction only. And this fact introduces an element of doubt, weakens at times our aspiration and limits our hopes. Here, then, without repeating the argu- ment of this treatise, that the insolubility of the prob- lem of evil is a necessary condition for faith, and hence for the removal of the contradiction itself, we find ourselves obliged to say, — that the existence of the contradiction, in a self-determining being, makes it possible to think that the ethical movement may be reversed, and bring about endless shrinking and im- poverishment of being, as well as that it may issue in an endless growth and expansion. That the former process may go on and result in the utter extinction of the human soul, (or resolution into its abstract elements, so that it will cease to be a concrete,) is a tempting thought-expedient ; against which, however, we need only urge the objections formerly made, — that such conclusion assaults the ab- solute distinction of moral good and evil, renders ille- gitimate the sense of responsibility and guilt, and even banishes any notion of sin, or degrades it into the choice of a merely prudential alternative. It obliges to rethink the whole philosophy, and to subside into one in which the true ethical element is wanting. The mental movement, under this scheme, is away from and not towards a unified system, and its termination is a despairing Pyrrhonism. SUPPLEMENTARY. 381 With this dark shadow casting its gloom, at times, over the increasing light, yet trusting that for our ultimate consciousness it may be lifted, we still abide in our optimistic philosophy, as having rational foun- dation, and one for which the evidence is constantly accumulating. The principle of self-development, in which the mental progress is determined by the ethical move- ment or fluctuations, requires time as its pre-condition. Under this the adult human is developed from the in- fantine consciousness, with variant speed and degree, according to environment more or less favorable. The same process may go on more slowly, but still actually, in the savage individual or race, in which, as before, the ethical principle must modify the growing mental experience and changing purposes. Observation here has been too superficial to allow any plausible objection to this. The ethical ideal must in every case be ob- scurely or implicitly held, if never clearly and explicitly recognized. Its tendency from the original predisposi- tion of humanity is towards clearness, and it can only be darkened wilfully, and after the moral alternatives come to be more intelligently perceived. From this it follows that the savage man cannot become as purely and spiritually evil, as may the product of cul- ture, since not perceiving so clearly, either in form or matter, the moral distinction ; and that the larger part of his actions will still come from the animal instincts, and while judged by us as brutish, still do not argue the deadness of the ethical principle, or the retrogres- sion of its development (except, as before, it be wil- ful) ; and thus that conclusions as to his moral status may be hasty and untrustworthy. Thus that the Di- vine intent and idea for man is such as authorizes an 382 CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. optimistic philosophy is not contradicted by any con- clusion hastily drawn from the contemplation of savage life. The delays and apparent slowness in human ethical progress, we have heretofore in this treatise endeav- ored to show, are needed to retain us still in the region of faith, and that their purpose is the intensifi- cation of the spiritual element in man. We never find the deliberate denial of moral distinc- tions, and hence of the possibility of moral develop- ment, except in men of extreme culture ; and that, too, not spontaneous but wilful, and as the result of a resolute mental effort. But if the ground of any rec- ognition of the same be the spontaneous sympathies in human nature, we may rightly look for the unifica- tion of human consciousness, and expressed opinion, in this particular ; and hence is rendered possible for human thought, in a forecasting effort, that the clear distinction of moral good and evil, as universalistic and individualistic, will come at length to be the common consciousness of the human race, rendering- thus every moral choice absolutely deliberate ; in which case the holy ones will spring forth in an impetus which will have no repression or termination, yet can never ex- haust the eternities. That in that day none will make the contradictory choice is what we hope, yet the possibility of which we cannot deny. Thus our phi- losophy, while rightly described as optimistic, may still for its most ardent adherent be assaulted by this pessi- mistic gloom ; which however does not impair its ra- tionality, or weaken it from any possible comparison. That the irrational will ever cease to exist is a conclusion for the thought-faculty, under its present SUPPLEMENTARY. 383 limitations, only consistent by concluding also that it does riot now exist ; and thus to think would be to subside into the most hopeless of all dilemmas, — thus to avow is itself a confutation of the thesis itself. Let us have faz't/i that that which is highest in us is the absolute highest, the first and the last, the Alpha and Omega, — for faith in Love is itself love : and Love is life eternal, with infinite capacity and surety of efflorescence. APPENDIX E. I. Peter, ch. iii., v. 18-2 r. On xai Xpiffroi anaB, mpi afxapricbv shads, Sixaio? vnsp adixcov, i'va rjfj.aS npoaayayi) tg5 Qec5, davaroodsli j£v 6apxi y ZaooTtoirjdei? 6s 7tvsvp.arv sv g3 xai toi? sv '♦ .. V *> Wtt *#v A >•" *i' [■m\¥ ^FAgK lv # w. 4? <'..■*' 15»v? • •» • Ml VV *&r,B