YALE
UNIVERSITY LIBRARY

<y

GOD IN CHRIST.

THREE DISCOURSES,

DELIVERED AT

NEW HAVEN, CAMBRIDGE, AND ANDOVER,

PRELIMINARY DISSERTATION

LANGUAGE.
BY HORACE BUSHNELL. • • •
HARTFORD:
BROWN AND PARSONS.
1849.

Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1849,
By Horace Bushnell,
in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of Connecticut.

-JVWWWWW-

STEREOTYPED BT PRINTED BY
RICHARD H. HOBBS, CASE, TIFFANY AND CO.,
HARTFORD, CONN. HARTFORD, CONN.

CONTENTS.

I. PRELIMINARY DISSERTATION.
PAGE
Language as related to thought and spirit. Origin
of Language. Formation. of Grammar. Views of others.
Two departments in language. Applications of the doc
trine. Reason of types or figures. Words of thought
indeterminate. A false element in words of thought.
Etymologies to be studied. Opposing words necessary.
The logical method deceitful. Interpretation. Language
insufficient for the uses of dogma. Creeds and confessions.
How a writer becomes intelligible. Facilities of perverse
criticism: Effects of a right view of language. Intro
ductory  9-117
II. DISCOURSE AT NEW HAVEN.
The Divinity of Christ. Orthodox views of Christ
and the Trinity. Trinity involved in the process of
Revelation. God Absolute. Incidents of the revealing
process. The Logos or Word of God. Incarnation.
Trinity. Conclusion  119-181
III. DISCOURSE AT CAMBRIDGE.
The Atonement. Doctrine stated from the scriptures.
The Protestant views stated and discussed. Subjective

VI contents. PAGE
doctrine. Christ a perfect character. Christ as the Word
of God. Christ dissolves the law of social evil. Christ
brings light, opens eternity, assists our struggles. Justi
fication wanted. Assured to us in Chris^. Prepared in
us. How prepared. The double administration of law
and grace. Sin finally vanquished by the submission of
Jesus. The incarnation viewed in its objects. Subjective
view concluded. Objective view and its grounds. Judaism
externally objective. Christianity internally. Religion as
in art. The subjective view translated into the objective,
becomes a vicarious religion. The objective view instituted
by God. Christianity incomplete without the Altar Form.
Comprehensiveness of the doctrine. How to be preached.
Conclusion  183-275
IV. DISCOURSE AT ANDOVER.
Dogma and Spirit ; or the true reviving of Religion.
Christianity displaces the Pharisaic dogma. Enters the
world as spirit and life. Lapses next into dogma. Con
sequent discord and corruption. The Reformation a par
tial remedy. The reviving of revivals insufficient. Dogma
and spirit distinguished. Province and uses of Christian
theology. Causes of the lapse into dogma. Resulting
benefits of the same. Theological capacities of dogma.
The head and the heart. The Christian ministry. Plat
forms and Articles. Piety itself limited by dogma. The
Holy Spirit as the Spirit of Christ. Conclusion . . . 277-356

PRELIMINARY DISSERTATION

ON THE NATDRE OF

LANGUAGE,

AS RELATE!) TO

THOUGHT AND SPIRIT,

DISSERTATION, &c.

When views of religious truth are advanced, which
either really or apparently differ from such as are com
monly accepted, the difference will often be referable to
causes that lie back of the arguments by which they are
maintained — some peculiarity of temperament, some
struggle of personal history, unknown to the public, the
assumption or settlement of some supposed law or prin
ciple of judgment, which affects, of course, all subordinate
decisions. Thus, if Hume or Blanco White had come, at last, into
a settled belief in what is commonly called orthodox
or evangelical truth, any man, who understands at all the
philosophy of opinions, will see that he would have held
all his points or articles of belief under forms and rela
tions that had some reference, more or less palpable, to
his own spiritual history, and the struggles through which
he had passed. It must be so ; it lies not in his choice to
have it otherwise. This, too, most likely is, in the esti
mation of Providence, the real value of the man ; that
for which he exists, and for_which his mental struggles
have been appointed — which, if it were known, ought

10 PRELIMINARY
surely to secure him a degree of patience, or even a
respectful hearing. But, meantime, until the internal
relation between his spiritual history and his opinions is
known, he is very nearly certain to be a suspicious char
acter. He may seem, indeed, to be scarcely true or earnest
in his professed belief, because of the peculiar type and
form observed in his opinions. It may even be suspected
that in assenting to standards, he is only willing to find
some shelter of impunity for his aberrations. Perhaps
he will also be observed, since consciously he was not a
devil himself in the painful struggles of unbelief or misbe
lief through which he has passed, to have a certain warm
and even fraternal interest in persons or classes of men
similarly exercised; endeavoring, possibly, to accommo
date himself to their point of view : and this will be to
many, a sign yet more suspicious. Suspicious, not because
of any malignant purpose in them, but simply because
they have no such elements in their own personal expe
rience as will enable them to understand or conceive
the man. It is only to be hoped that possibly they may
learn enough of him at last, by their friction against him
and his opinions, to pacify their suspicions, and rectify
their uncharitable judgments.
In offering these suggestions, it is not my design to lay
open to the public, even by implication, facts of per
sonal history. I have, doubtless, had my own course of
mental and spiritual struggle, as other men have theirs.
I do not say that the opinions to be advanced in this
volume, on important theological subjects, are either to
be received, or to be endured, or even to be forgiven. I
only say, that to me, they are true — truths of the pro-

DISSERTATION. 11
foundest moment, such as I must violate my own well
being, and my spiritual integrity before God, not to em
brace, to profess, and, with what ability I have, to maintain
by appropriate arguments. At the same time, if the pub
lic will believe it, there really does not seem to me to be
anything so peculiar in these views, that any one need
be alarmed or stumbled by them. I seem to myself to
assert nothing which is not substantial orthodoxy, — that
which contains the real moment of all our orthodox
formulas unabridged. Indeed, I cannot see that there is
really more of diversity between the views here advanced
and those commonly accepted, than there is between
Paul and John, or Paul and James. And as it was right ~
that each of these sacred writers should present his truth
in the forms of his own life and experience^, and so as. to
accord with the type of his own thinking habit, so I only
seem to have asserted the great Christian truths held by
our churches, in forms truest to me, as they are likely to
be to all, who have been exercised by similar difficulties.
There is, however, apart from all such experimental
difficulties, of which it does not become me to speak, a
single subject, in regard to which I was long ago led, in
the way of self-extrication, to take up views somewhat
different from those which seem more generally to pre
vail ; and as I have been drawn, partly in this manner,
into what may seem peculiar in the doctrines and argu
mentations of the discourses that follow, I deem it my
duty to conduct my reader, if possible, into the views I
hold of that subject, that I may assist him thus to under
stand my position more fully. The subject of which I
speak, is language ; a very different instrument, certainly,

12 PRELIMINARY.
from what most men think it to be, and one, which if
they understood more exactly, they would use it more
- wisely. In the misuse or abuse of this instrument, a
great part of our religious difficulties have their spring.
We have misconceived, as it seems to me, both its
nature and its capacities, and our moral reasoningsjire,
to just the same extent, infected with error. Indeed, it
is such an instrument, that I see not how any one, who
rightly conceives its nature, can hope any longer to pro
duce in it a real and proper system of dogmatic truth.
He will doubt the capacity of language to serve any such
purpose. He will also suspect that our logical or deduc
tive processes under it, are more likely, in general, to be
false than true. And yet, in the matter of Christian doc
trine, or Christian theology, we are found commit
ting ourselves most unsuspectingly to language and logic,
as if the instrument were sufficient, and the method
infallible.

1 do not propose, in the dissertation that follows, to
undertake a full investigation of language. I freely
acknowledge my incompetence to any such undertaking.
What I design is, principally, to speak of language as
regards its significancy, or the power and capacity of its
wordj^tahga^as.. vehicles of thought and of spjritual
truth.. What I may offer concerning other topics
involved in the general subject, such as the origin of lan
guage ; the phonology of words, or the reason why certain
things are named by certain sounds, and not by others ;
letters and the written forms of words ; laws of grammar ;

language. 13
questions of ethnology, and the like ; will be advanced in
a purely incidental way, and with no other design than
to make my theory of the significance of words more
intelligible and clear. I cannot promise that I shall fall
into no mistakes which the learned philologists and gram
marians will detect, though I have little fear that they
will discover any important error in what I advance, in
regard to the philosophy of words, taken as instruments
of thought, which is the particular subject under discus
sion. To understand the precise power of words, or the true
theory of their power, without some reference to their
origin, will be difficult or impossible; for it is, in fact,
the mode of their origin that reveals their power. And
yet what we say of their power may be true, in general,
if what we say of their origin should not hold in every
particular. It is undoubtedly true, as many have asserted, that
human language is p ™ft ^f Ofd t" th» rQf*° though not,
I think, in the sense often contended for. It is by no
means asserted, in the scriptures to which they refer,
that God, himself pronounced the sounds, or vocal names,
by which the objects of the world were represented, nor
that He framed these names into a grammar. It is only
implied in what is said that He first called into action the
instinct of language in our father, by directing his mind
to the objects round him, "to see what he would call
them." He was, Himself, in this view, the occasional
cause of the naming process ; and, considering the nature
of the first man to have been originally framed for lan
guage, he was the creative cause ; still the man himself, in

14 ORIGIN OF
his own freedom, is the immediate, operative cause ; the
language produced is as truly a human, as a divine
product. It is not only for the race, but it is also of the
race — a human development, as truly as knowledge, or
virtue, or the forms of the social state.
But, if we believe the scriptures, there is far less de
pending on this particular history than many seem to
suppose. For, in whatever manner the first language
came into being, it is expressly declared, afterwards, to
be in existence no longer. Thus when it is affirmed in
the history of Babel and the dispersion, that God there
confounded the language of the race, that they might
"not understand" each other and might be "scattered
abroad over the earth," it is plainly testified, however
the first language came into being, that it exists no longer.
Accordingly, the attempt so eagerly prosecuted, in former
times, to ascertain what living language is descended from
the first language, is really an attempt, under counte
nance of the Bible, to prove the Bible untrue. And so,
when our modern ethnologists undertake, as they say, in
behalf of the scriptures, to establish the unity of the
human race, by tracing all human languages to some
common source, through a comparison of terms, or
names, found in them all, they would seem to controvert
the authority of the scriptures by their argument, quite as
effectually as they sustain it. No fair construction can
be given to the history of the dispersion, as recorded by
Moses, without understanding him to affirm the virtual
destruction of the one language of the race by a miracle.
According to the representation given, they are here
thrown back once more, on their linguistic instincts ;

LANGUAGE. 15
and we are to look for the development of new languages,
radically distinct from each qther, such as the free move
ment of small families or circles, instigated each by
peculiar circumstances and causes, may produce. Nor
have our ethnologists been able, as yet, with all their
supposed discoveries, to disprove, at all, the original dis
tinctness of many of the existing languages. Within
certain circles of language, they seem to have a degree
of success ; but when they pass to certain larger circles —
from the Indo-Germanic languages, for example, to the -
American or the Chinese — they find the matter offered to
their theories wholly intractable and unreducible. So,
I will even dare to prophecy, it always will be. I will
also venture, with as much deference to the great
learning of our investigators in this field, as properly
becomes one who is only a spectator of their works, to
suggest the inquiry, whether it is not likely, sometime,
to be discovered, that the very mode of the argument
hitherto used is involved in mistake. For if com
mon terms are found sprinkled through many languages,
and are taken to indicate a common origin in the lan
guages where they are found, do not the diverse terms,
made use of as names of things in the same languages,
indicate, quite as conclusively, and even more conclu
sively, the original distinctness of these languages?
There would be common terms, of course, in languages
radically distinct ; such as have been conveyed by emi
grations, wars, and the mixture of races ; such as relate
to objects, measures, numerals, and dates, employed in
the intercourse of commerce. On the other hand, .it is,
impossible to conceive how different names for the same

16 SUBJECT OF
thing, and that a thing every day spoken of by every
JjodyT could have come into use, after having once had
the same name — how oak became quercus, for example,
or quercus, oak ; how house became domus ; cloud, nubes ;
light, lux; or the contrary. What do such diversities
indicate, in fact, and that on the broadest scale, but that
some time or other, there have been distinct namings of
things ; or, what is nowise different, the existence ofdli?

tinct original languages ? It is often true, in the specu-
lations of the philosophers and literati, as in medicine,
and, I suppose I must add, in theology, that they go by a
fashion. Have we no reason to anticipate that a con
trary fashion will sometime come into vogue among them,
and that we shall sometime find them arguing for original
diversities of language, as strenuously as now for the origi
nal unity of language ? This, I judge, is the view, in
fact, of Adelung, and, in a less decided form, of William
Von Humboldt, two of the most competent and most
respected investigators in this field.
At the same time, it cannot be pretended, by those
who are most sanguine in the hope of sometime reducing
all existing languages to a common origin or parentage,
that the investigations hitherto made have yielded any
definite token of success, except within certain acknow
ledged limits of affinity. The fact that there are living
languages, between which no real affinity can be dis-
coveredT still exists in its integrity. And therefore we
must either admit the existence of races originally dis
tinct, or else we must refer these languages to the scri
ture solution of a miracle.

language. 17
And now the question rises, in what manner, were
these distinct langna.p-ps prndnnftri ? It is not a question
about language in general, or some one language in par
ticular, but about the languages. If we say that God,
by direct pronunciation of words, taught man language,
we must mean that he taught, in this manner, as many
distinct languages as there are, else our solution is too
narrow for the problem. And as probably no one will
imagine that God has, at any time, pronounced to the
different families of the race so many languages, we fall
back, most naturally, upon the view just given of the
formation of the first language, and take up the belief
that all these different languages are so many free devel^
laments of the race ; though all from God, in the sense
that. he has... created' in all humari beings a^ certain free
power of self- representation or expression, which is itself
a distinct capacity for language, and, in one view, lan
guage if,self-
Nor is there any so great impossibility or mystery in
this matter of originating a language, as many seem to
suppose. IJiope it will not of!briiLlhfi.j:ojn antic or mar-
velling propensity of my, readers, if I affirn) ffoai a. new
language has been created and has perished, in Connec
ticut within^bei^esen^ A very distinguished
citizen, whose name is familiar to the country at large,
himself a scholar and a keen philosophic observer, had a
pair of twin boys, who were drawn to each other with
such a mysterious and truly congenital fondness as to be
totally occupied with each other, and thus to make little
or no progress in learning the language of the family
Meantime, they were constantly talking with each other

18 FORMATION OF
in a language constructed between them, which no one
but themselves could understand. In this language they
conversed at their plays as freely as men at their busi
ness, and in a manner that indicated the most perfect in
telligence between them. At an early age one of them
died ; and with him died, never to be spoken again, what,
beyond any reason for doubt, was the root of a new original
diversity of human speech — a new tongue. Nor is there
any reason to doubt that incipient and rudimental efforts
of nature, in this direction, are often made, though in
cases and modes that escape attention. Indeed, to be
lieve that any two human beings, shut up wholly to each
other, to live tagetheruntil fhey are of a mature~age7"
Ygguld., not ^construct a language, is equivalent, in my~
estimation, to a denial of their proper humanity.
Let us trace the manner in a supposed experiment ;
for, in this way, the true conception of language as a
human product, and also as a vehicle of thought, will be
exhibited with more clearness and facility than in any
other. The experiment can be made only in a small
circle, as in a family, or between two or three indi
viduals ; for the sounds of a new language could never
settle into a current use and significance, where many
persons, or a large community, are concerned ; because
they do not exist together in terms of sufficient closeness
and mutuality to allow the growth of common uses.
Perceiving this, even Caesar confessed his inability, with
all the authority he had, to give currency to but a single
word. We suppose, then, two human persons to be thrown
together, who, as yet, have never heard the use of words,

language. 19
and, of course, have no language. Considered simply as
human, they have a certain ground or preparation in their
very nature for speech. In one view, language is in
them potentially beforehand, only it is not developed
into actual existence ; they are linguistic natures, so to
speak, only it is not yet clear what kind of tongue they
are going to create. This, in fact, is the opinion of
Humboldt, and also of many of the most competent
philologists. " Speech," he says, " according to my
fullest conviction, must really be considered as inherent
in man : language could not have been invented without
its type pre-existing in man." This being true, we are
then to see it formed or developed afterward, and become
a historical fact. As to the manner in which the process
goes on, I find.no conception -of it given which is satisfac-
toryi.or which adequately explains a universal fact per
taining to the significance and power of language, as an
instrument of thought and spiritual^ expression.
There is no difficulty in perceiving how our two un-
languaged men will proceed, when thrown together in
the manner supposed, as far as the naming of sensations
or physical objects is concerned. For the object is
always present as a mediator or interpreter' between
them, so that when a sound is uttere'd as a name for it,
or in connection with it, they may always know to what
the sound or name refers. Thus all sights, sounds, smells,
tastes, and touches, or feelings, or what is the same, their
objects, are easily named, and their names will come into
currency without difficulty, when sounded as representa
tives of the objects. As to the sounds adopted, they will
generally be determined arbitrarily, or, at least, by causes

20 FORMATION OF
so occult or remote that we must regard them as arbi
trary. There may have been reasons why one says tree,
and another arbor; one rock, and another saocum; one
star, and another stella ; one sun, and another sol ; but if
there are such reasons, they are too abstruse to be inves
tigated. Sometimes when sounds are the objects named,
they will very naturally be imitated ; -as in hoarse and
hiss. Still, no theory^of sound, as connected with sense,
in the names of things, will be found to hold extensively
enough to give it any moment. In the languages radi
cally distinct, we shall find that the sounds or names
which stand for the same objects, have generally no simi
larity whatever; whence it follows, irresistibly, that
nothing jn the laws of voice or sound has determined the
names adopiad.
We have now seen how our two language-makers will
get on, in the naming of things or physical objects. In
this manner they will make out a string of nouns or
names, which may be called a noun-language. It will
comprise the names of all physical objects and demon
strations, including, of course, the names of actions ;
-for verbs, prior to the formation of grammar, are only
the nouns or names of actions. Thus far we have
generated only a physical language, or terms of physical
import. And thus far, even, animals are capable of lan
guage : they can learn, though not as easily and on as
large a scale as we, to associate names or sounds with
outward things and actions.
There now remains to be formed another sphere of
language, wholly distinct, which the animals cannot learn,
viz.: the language of intelligence ; that which, under an

LANGUAGE. 21
outward form, carries an inward sense, and so avails to
serve the uses of mind. It has been easy Tor our lan-
nmn 11 m  ¦  i 11  «ii«niin»ir~— "
guage-makers to agree in the use of sounds standing for
outward objects and acts, because these outward objects
and acts can be so fixed upon, or the mind so directed
towards them, that a mutual understanding may be had
in regard to the object which it is designed to name,
before the name to be adopted is uttered. But if, now,
one of them has a thought or emotion in his mind, or
wishes to speak of a spiritual being or world, this, it will
be seen, is not capable of being snown orpointed at,
because it lies out of sense. The thought or emotion
cannot be taken out and exhibited to the eye : how, then,
can the two parties come to any such understanding as
wjn_jnabJg_Jthej3i>jo^ame_U? Here is a difficulty, and
it is the great difficulty to be surmounted, in the produc
tion of intellectual language. And if we are to under
stand the nature of language as an instrument of thought
and spiritual truth, or to judge of its capacity for uses
of this kind, it will be just here, in the solution of this
difficulty relating to the genesis of language, that we
shall get the desired key to its significance in such uses.
- How, then, shall our experimenters proceed? Obyj-
ously they cannot advance at all, save through the me-
diation of things ; that is, of objects and acts in the
^^m»V . ~*^.--i~*-—  aawri.MiiMl I.T  IWjlfVIHIHH.IMiiW.MaigWKJH  ¦¦¦¦iiiwii.wii.lhi ¦ 'Ninw^s^,,
sensibly w.orjd,. ^xhjcji^jnay come in to their aid as signs
of thought, or interpreters betv^n~fl%enT'''"y
^*»»mw ,rr^v^,WMM-^—<llWWlHMJIWW"'1M*'Wll'»»iiiWlaMW^WI»liHHlWlillH "-***«*«w«»*m«B«.
there is aLogos in the outward world, answering to the
logos or internal reason of the parties, that they can
. ,,°  ¦   „,iSu.i.ii.i.i»iiinn .11.11 f . n— A— «*-¦"-- *-MH&aM_H1
thought or_ spiritual state whatever. To use a more

22 FORMATION OF
familiar expression, there is a vast analogy in things,
which prepares them, as forms, to be signs or figures of
thoughts, and thus, "b^seTor ' types' "61 ' words. ""©uT'bodTTjr—
m^KanismT anT"tn^sen^Te"*wona^we'iive in, are, in
fact, made up of words, to represent our thoughts and
internal states; — they only want naming, and then,
passing into sound, to be re-produced or have their
images called up by sounds, they drop out, so to speak,
their gross material quality, and become words of spirit,
or what the poet calls " winged words ;" — cursitating
forms of life, that fly out in sound upon the air, as inter
preters and messengers of thought between the minds of
^nen. Thus, if 4he mind of one of our two strangers is
laboring with any thought or emotion, he will strike at
some image or figure in the sensible world, that is itself
a fit representation of his thought or emotion — a form
^prepared in nature to be its type. Turning the attention
of the other party upon this image, and signifying by
gesture, probably, that he is trying to mirror some inter
nal state in it, he puts the other party on generating that
internal state, or the conception of it. The image
becomes, in fact, a common sign or conception of the
same internal state — they understand each other. So
that, now, the name, when it is sounded, will 'stand, not
merely as the name of the object or image physically
taken, but the name, also, of that thought which it
represented. And thus an intellectual word is generated.
I do not mean by this to imply that our language-
makers will be acting as philosophers in this process,
reflecting on their own states, and then finding images to

L A N (i i' A i! F. . 23
figure them, or stand as words for them. On the con- "
trary, they will be struggling out into speech, in the sim
plicity of children, guided not by reflection, but more by
instinct. A very large share of the signs by which they
interpret their thoughts one to the other, will consist of
bodily gestures and actions — all as natural to the inter
nal activity as a blush, or any flush of passion, to the
inner state, represented and depicted by it in the face.
For the body is a living logos, added to the soul, to be
its form, and play it forth into social understanding. It
will also be found that a very large share of the words
which represent our emotions and thoughts, are, in fact,
as their etymology declares, derived from the psychologi
cal expressions or demonstrations made through the body.
Or when thoughts and emotions are represented by
figures drawn from the physical creation above us and
around us, the principle is the same : it is not done arti
ficially, but by the simple force of nature. The soul
that is struggling to utter itself, flies to whatever signs ;
and instruments it can find in the visible world, calling
them in to act as interOTetCTC"naming them at the same
time, to stand, ever after, as interpreters in sound, when—*
¦_.  (^_  .... i„WM,,UM,M  -r — '¦ — ¦ .-^^  iiwwi An  hb— www Milan jiiuMMWiuiaiiunr.'iww *.
they are themselves out of sight.
It is hardly necessary to suggest, that, when a physical
object or action has gotten a name beforehand, in the
noun-language of physics, our two experimenters will,
sometimes, recall the name or Word, using it now as a
figure, in a secondary sense, to represent a thought or
feeling. But here the process of manufacture, philo
sophically speaking, is the same. If the word becomes
devoted to the secondarv use, it will stand, as in trie

24 FORMATION OF
cases above described — a name of some physical form
or appearance, which form or appearance shadows forth
a thought or truth of the mind — then, by use, the regular
suggestive of that thought or truth, and its representa
tive in the current utterances of speech.
We find, then, that every language contains two dis
tinct departments : — the physical department — that which
provides names for things ; and the intellectual depart
ment — that which provides names for thought and spirit.
In the former, names are simple representatives of 'things,
which even the animals may learn. In the latter, the
names of things are used as representatives of thought,
and cannot, therefore, be learned, save by beings of intel
ligence — (intus lego) — that is, beings who can read the
inner sense, or receive the inner contents of words ;
beings in whom the Logos of the creation finds a corres
pondent logos, or reason, to receive and employ the types
it offers, in their true power.
For the benefit of the mere English reader, who is
wholly unexercised in subjects of this nature, it may
be important to say, that what is here advanced in
theory, is fully supported by reference to the actual his
tory of our words. We cannot always, or in every in
stance, show what physical object or act lies named in
our intellectual words to give them their power ; though
in a great majority of cases, the words carry their origin
in their face; and where they do not, it is only to be
supposed that the physical history of the word or name
is lost.
» Thus, the word spirit means, originally, breath, or air

LANGUAGE. 25
in motion ; that being the symbol, in nature, of a power
moving unseen.
The word religion is re, back, and ligo, to bind — the
conception being that man is made to be free, but bound
back in terms of obligation to his Maker.
In the same manner, expectation is a looking forth, and
hope a reaching forth, in which we see how accurately
the original physical meaning of the word governs and
distinguishes the. internal meaning ; for we look out for
[expect] the coming of things both good and bad, but
reach after [hope for] only those that we desire.
In the same way we have prefer, to set before ; abstrac
tion, drawing apart ; reflection, turning back ; obedience,
before-hearing, as when a servant stands before his
master, listening to receive his commands ; glory, bright
ness ; grace, outward beauty or coneinnity ; faith, a tie
or ligature ; right, straight.
Or sometimes a word takes a historical origin. Thus,
the word sincerity is supposed to be the same as. sine,
without, and cera, wax ; the practice of the Roman pot
ters being, to rub wax into the flaws of their unsound
vessels when they sent them to market. A sincere
[without-wax] vessel was the same -as a sound vessel,
one that had no disguised flaw.
The English reader is to understand that all the terms
in language, which are devoted to spiritual and intel
lectual uses, have a physical or outward sign underlying
their import, as in the cases here named. Of this the
scholar has never a doubt, although he cannot always, or
in every instance, trace out the physical sign or base of
the word, so as to be certain of it. AH things ouf of
3

26 GRAMMAR.
sense get their names in language through signs and
objects in sense that have some mysterious correspond
ence or analogy, by which they are prepared beforehand
to serve as signs or vehicles of the spiritual things to be
expressed. But as yet we have no grammar ; we have only nouns
to represent the objects, physical and intellectual, about
which we may wish to communicate. We have what
Klaproth calls, " the stuff or matter of language," and
" grammar is to be the fashioning or form."
I do not say that grammar, or the 'framing of words
into sentences, is to be a matter wholly subsequent in
time ; for we shall see, by and by, that the relations of
things in space, are such as must, by necessary conse
quence, give laws of grammar at last to the words by
which they are named ; and, of course, we are to suppose a
rudimental tendency to grammar, in the first efforts of
speech. But this tendency will complete its aim, or
produce a complete grammar, only under conditions of
time and use.
Thus a warm, that is, a sensation of warmth, being
always spoken of in connection with some object in
which the warmth resides, will become an appendant
word, or ad-jective.
Adverbs will be formed, out of original nouns or names
of things, in a similar way.
Prepositions and conjunctions," though indicating no
such fact to the mere English reader, are all, originally,
names of ¦ things or actions, and are reduced to their
present humble condition of servitude, by the process

GRAMMAR. 27
which constructs a grammar. Thus the word through,
and the word door, when traced historically, coalesce in
the same origin. • Nor could anything be more natural,
in stringing nouns together, before any precise grammar
is formed, to speak of going door any wall or obstacle ;
which, if it were continued, would shortly make the word
door into a preposition, as we actually see in the word
through. In the same way the preposition by is supposed to be
the relic of a verb or noun of action, which signified
pressing close upon, or rubbing.
So the conjunction if, is known to be the imperative
mood of the verb to give, and is written in the old
English, gif, with the particle that after it. "I will do
this gif that [if] you will do the other."
In the same way, it is discovered, to the satisfaction of
Home Tooke and other philologists, that the conjunction
and is the same as the imperative mood of add, or an-add
\on-add~\ contracted. "Love and [on-add] truth."
It would carry me too far, to go at large into illustra
tions of the process by which the original noun-words
are wrought into grammar. My object in adducing these
few examples, is simply to indicate the manner of the
process far enough to remove any suspicion of mistake
in the conclusion at which we had before come, that all
the terms of language are originally names of things or
sensible appearances. As regards the connection of
subject and predicate in sentences, or, what is the same,
the grammatical structure of sentences, it must suffice to
say that verbs_axe_Qriginally mere names of acts, or
phenomena ofaction, not distinguished from what are

28 GRAMMAR.
called nouns, or names of things, until use settles them
into place in propositions or forms of affirmation. A
shine and a run are names of appearances, just as a sun
and a river are names of appearances. And when these
names are strung together, in the use, the sun and the
shine, the river and the run, the idea of subject and
predicate becomes associated, and the grammatical rela
tion of subject and predicate is developed as a law of
speech between them. I speak not here of the order of
subject and predicate in sentences, for the order will
differ in different languages. I only indicate the manner
in which the relative qualities of subject and predicate
are developed in language. Nature having them in her
own bosom, existing there in real grammatical relation,
not only gives us the words, but shows us how to frame
them into propositions. And in the same way, it will be
observed, in the hints just given concerning other parts
of speech or grammatic elements, that they really have
their birth in the grammar of the world. The preposi
tions, for example, the over, the under, the through, the
by, are all so many actual relations ; and when the sub
jects and predicates are brought into speech, these come
ilso with them. And thenr when propositions are
advanced which relate to thought or spirit, where, in one
view, the over, the under, the through, the by, are totally
irrelevant, thought and spirit not being under the laws
of space, still there is a mysterious relation in these out
ward analogies of space to the workings of the mind,
such that the external grammar of creation answers to
the internal grammar of the soul, and becomes its vehicle.
As a further illustration of the same general view, 1

GRAMMAR. 29
would refer the reader to a beautiful theory, if it
should not, rather, be called discovery, of Professor
Gibbs, relating to case in grammar, or more particu
larly to "case in the Indo-Germanic languages." The
exposition of this theory will be found in the Chris
tian Spectator, Vol. IX. Here it is shown that, as words
themselves, or the bases of words, are found in space, so
they are declined or formed into grammar under the
relations of space. Thus it is ascertained that there is
one case which represents the where of a predicate, a
second the whence, a third the whither, a fourth the by,
or through what place. This, in regard to words taken
in their most external and physical senses. And then,
precisely as phvgi^alotvj^tg 1  |ji|h m li'T'T" nf
words having an intellectual significance, so, or in virtue
of the same kind of analogy, the relations of space under
which we find these objects, ascend with them to partake
in their elevation, and shape their fitness to the uses of the
mind. Thus, in the department of mind or spirit, four
cases are found answering to the four just named, em
ployed no longer to denote external relations, but the
internal relations of thought and action — an internal
where, whence, whither, and by or through what place.
Prof. G. does not undertake to verify these deductions,
except 'in the particular families of languages under
examination. Still, it is very obvious that such results
in -grammar do not take place apart from some inherent
law or system pertaining either to mind, or to outward
space, or to one as related to the other. Indeed, it is
impossible, with such a revelation before us, not to take
up at once, the sublime conviction just now named, that

30 GRAMMAR.
grammar itself is, in some sense, of the outer world — in the
same way as the terms or names out of which language
is constructed. In this view, which it is not rash to
believe will sometime be fully established, the outer
world is seen to be a vast menstruum of thought or intelli
gence. There is a logos in the forms of thingSjby
which they are prepareeHtr-serrer-as types-15rimages of
what is inmost in our souls ; and then there is a logos
also of construction in the relations of space, the position,
qualities, connections, and predicates of things, by which
/ they are framed into grammar. In one word, the outer
' world^whipjLja^power of all language. Day unto day uttereth speech,
and night unto night showeth knowledge; there is no
speech nor language where their voice is not heard,—
their line is gone out through all the earth, and their
words to the end of the world.
And if_the outer^v/orid is the vast dictionary and
grammar of thought we speak of, then it is also itself an
organ throughout of Intelligence. Whose intelligence ?
By this question we are set directly confronting God,
the universal Author, no more to hunt for Him by curious
arguments and subtle deductions, if haply we may find
Him ; but He stands expressed every where, so that,
turn whichsoever~way~we-pteia§e, w& Behold the outlook-
ing of His intelligence. No series of Bridgewater trea
tises, piled even to the moon, could give a proof of God
so immediate, complete, and conclusive.
In such a view of the world, too, and its objects, there
is an amazing fund of inspiration elsewhere not to be
found. The holding of such a view is, in fact, sufficient

GRAMMAR. 31
of itself, to change a man's intellectual capacities and
destiny ; for it sets him always in the presence of Divine
thoughts and meanings ; makes even the words he utters
luminous of Divinity, and to the same extenT,^ub]iects of
love and reverence.
The Christian public of our country are well aware that
the very distinguished scholar, whose theory of "Case"
I just now cited, has never been celebrated as a rhapso-
dist, or enthusiast ; and I knew not any stronger proof,
therefore, of the inspiring force derivable from a full
insight of this subject, than when he breaks out in the
midst of a dry grammatical analysis; in the following
truly eloquent paragraph : —
" There can be no exercise, in the whole business of
instruction, more useful to the mind, than the analysis of
sentences, in the concentrated light of grammar and logic.
It brings one into the sanctuary of human thought. All
else is but standing in the outer court. He who is with
out, may, indeed, offer incense ; but he who penetrates
within, worships and adores. It is here that the man of
science, trained to close thought and clear vision, surveys
the various objects of his study with a more expanded
view, and a more discriminative mind. It is here that
the interpreter, accustomed to the force and freshness of
natural language, is prepared to_£xplain GMTrevealecT
Word with more power and accuracy. It is here that
the orator 'learns" to wield, with a heavier arm, the
weapons of his warfare. It is here that every one, who
loves to think, beholds the deep things of the human
spirit, and learns to regard with holy reverence the
sacred symbols of human thought."

32 GRAMMAR.
This paragraph, taken in connection with the illustra
tions of the article just referred to, has the inspiring force
even of a lyric. Rightly spoken, is it, when language is
represented thus, as a " sanctuary of thought." For, in
what do we utter ourselves, what are the words and the
grammar, in which we speak, but instruments of a Divine
import and structure ? Such a discovery, received in its
true moment, were enough to make a thoughtful Chris-
¦ tian stand in awe, even of his own words.
We have now seen in what manner our two language-
makers will proceed to construct a tongue. It is not my
intention to say that the .process will go on in the exact
order here described — first, physical. terms--, sp-ccm^ in
tellectual ; third, a grammar. The several departments
of the~w6rk will be going on together, underjjiejjuidance
of the Word or Divine Logos, in the forms, images,
activities, and relations of the outward world. For He
is in the world, and the world was made by Him, though
it knows Him not. It speaks in words He gave, and under
a grammar that He appointed, and yet it knows Him
not. I have suggested the fact that a very large share of our
intellectual words are based on bodily gestures and
demonstrations. I know of no method in which I can
better indicate the simple, instinctive, inartificial process
of word-making and grammar-making, than by calling
upon the reader to conceive a human person charged with
thought and passion — many thoughts and many passions
— uttering himself instinctively by the voice, and at the
same time, by pantomime, indigitation of symbols, and

GRAMMAR. 33
changes of look. The voice will attend or follow the
action, naming Off its demonstrations as bases of words ;
the action will supply and interpret the voice ; or point
ing to signs in the inanimate world adjacent, summon
these to act as interpreters, and become bases of words ;
and then, as all this transpires in space, the laws of space
will be making a grammar for the words, and determining
their law. The resulting tongue will represent, of course,
hoth the man's own liberty and the world in which he
moves. And then, as one or more persons beside must
be concerned, at the same time, the process will be
doubled or trebled ; and between so many forces all
concurring, a tongue or language will, at last, be matured
that will represent the parties, their instincts, characters,
and temperaments ; all the circumstances and accidents,
too, of the outward state.
If it be objected to this view, that some existing lan
guages have no grammar, being nothing but a collection
of monosyllabic names or sounds, I must be permitted to
doubt whether any such language exists. It may be
that no laws of inflection, or conjugation, or even of
composition, have yet been discovered in the Chinese
language, for example ; nevertheless it must be clear that
some law of relation, some condition of subject and predi
cate pertains to that tongue, more exact than to have the
words somewhere in the Chinese empire, and that law
or condition, whatever it be, is in fact a grammar.
And^it will also be found, when philosophically investi
gated that this Chinese grammar, whatever it may be,
really represents the great universal grammar of the
soul and the creation, v

34 VIEWSOFOTHERS.
How far the views of language, here offered, coincide
with theories advanced by distinguished modern philolo
gists, I am scarcely able to say. They may have been
wholly anticipated, or they may be already exploded.
It would be singular, if the scholars who are spending
their lives in philological studies, should not detect some
mistakes or crudities in my illustrations.
The very distinguished scholar, Frederic Schlegel, if
I rightly conceive his theory, traces nrjFTnerely the
forms or bases of words to the creative Logos, .but also
the names or vocal sounds themselves.. Thus he speaks
of "words which in the unsearchable interior of Deity
are spoken, where, as in holy song expressed, depth calleth
untodepth." Descending, then, to the account of language
given in the second chapter of Genesis, he receives it as
teaching that God gave to Adam, literally and vocally,
the rudiments of speech. " But," he adds, " under this
simple sense there lieth, as does through all that book of
twofold import, another and far deeper signification.
The name of any thing or living being, as it^Js,. called in
God, and designated from eternity, holds in itself the
essential idea of its innermost being, the key of its exist
ence, the deciding power of its being or not being ; and
so it is used, in sacred speech, where it is, moreover, in a
holier or higher sense, united to the idea of the Word.
According to this deeper sense and understanding, it is
in that narration shown and signified that, together with
speech, entrusted; communicated, and delivered imme
diately by God to man, and through it, he was installed
as the ruler and king of nature."
But, unfortunately, this very transcendental theory

VIEWSOFOTHERS. 35
will account for but one language, and we certainly
know that there are more than one. Besides, what
reasonable man can suppose that "names" taken as
vocal sounds " are called in God," and that the discourse
of divine thought is transacted by means of internal pro
nunciations ! How plain is it, also, that " the name of
anything holds in itself, the essential idea of its innermost
being," and becomes " united to the idea of the Word,"
not as a sound, but simply as having in the sound, or
named by the sound, a physical type or base, which is
the real supporter and law of its meaning, and the reason
of its connection with the Logos. In other words, the
truth is here inverted by Schlegel ; what he supposes to
be from the name, is plainly communicated to the name.
Some of the Germans are endeavoring, in general
coincidence with the scheme of Schlegel, to elaborate a
theory of names, taken as sounds, by which they will be
seen to represent the most interior qualities of the objects
named. They go into philosophic experiments on sounds,
and find reason, as they think, to believe that all objects
express their true nature by means of the vibrations they
impart to the air — that is by their sound. That precise
sound, accordingly, is their name in language. This
most subtle and beautiful theory, however, will be seen
at a glance, to have no real countenance in facts What
endless varieties of name or vocal sound are employed in
the different languages of the world, to signify the same
objects ! How, then, do these vocal sounds represent the
interior nature, or proceed from the interior nature of
their objects ? Indeed, where the objects named are
themselves sounds, the names have yet, in most cases, no

36 VIEWSOFOTHERS.
agreement whatever. Thunder, for example, is the same
sound the world over, and it is such a sound as we might
imagine would almost certainly be imitated in the name
given it. And yet, if we turn only to the American
families of language, we are surprised to find that thun
der is called, in the Chickasaw, elloha; in the Creek,
tenitka ; in the Huron, inon ; in the Cadoes, deshinin ;
in the Nootka, tuta. Before such facts, filling, I may
say, the whole domain of language, all theories about the
representative nature of names, taken as sounds, would
seem to be idle, in the last degree.
Mr. Locke presents a view of language, which, if we
regard the mere words in which it is given, would seem
even to be identical with that which I have advanced.
He says, — " It may also lead us a little towards ihe origi
nal of all our notions and knowledge, if we remark how
great a dependence our words have on common sensible
ideas ; and how those which are made use of to stand for
actions and notions, quite removed from sense, have
their rise from thence, and from obvious sensible ideas
are transferred to more abstruse significations, and made
to stand for ideas that come not under the cognizance of
our senses, e. g. to imagine, apprehend, comprehend, ad
here, conceive, instill, disgust, disturbance, tranquillity,
&c, are all words taken from the operations of sensible
things, and applied to certain modes of thinking. Spirit,
in its primary signification, is breath ; angel, a messen
ger ; and I doubt not, but, if we could trace them to their
sources, we should find in all languages, the names which
stand for things that fall not under our senses, to have
had their rise from sensible ideas. By which we may

VIEWSOFOTHERS. 37
give some guess what kind of notions they were,
and whence derived, which filled their minds who were
the first beginners of languages ; and how nature, even
in the naming of things, unawares suggested to men the
originals and principals of all their knowledge ; whilst to
give names which might make known to others any
operations they felt in themselves, or any other ideas
that come not under the cognizance of the senses, they
were fain to borrow words from ordinary known ideas of
sensation ; by that means to make others the more easily
to conceive those operations they experimented in them
selves, which made no outward appearance."
It is remarkable that while Mr. Locke seems even to
set forth, in these terms, the precise theory of language
I have given, he is yet seen really to hold it in no one of
its important- consequences. He even denies, shortly
after, that there is any "natural connection between
words and ideas," and declares that the significance of
words is given " by a perfectly arbitrary imposition," — as
if there were no analogy whatever between the bases or
types of words and the thoughts they are seized upon to
represent. Doubtless the true solution of this mixture of
light and obscurity, in his notions of language, is to
be found in the fact that he was too much occupied with
his theory of knowledge as derived from sensation, really
to notice the true import and scope of his own sugges
tions. This also seems to be indicated as a fact, by the
clauses I have placed in italics.
The late Dr. Rauch, in his work on 'Psychology,'
gives an account of language that is sufficiently acute,
and is generally coincident with the view here advanced.

38 two department s-
On the particular point, however, which is labored in
this article, the significance of language, he is less satis
factory ; coming, in fact, to no results that are of any
great practical moment in determining the true method
of moral and religious inquiry. He grounds the possi
bility of language on the " identity " of reason and nature,
(p, 233,) not on the analogy or outward analogical rela
tion of the latter to the former. And that he has not mis
taken his English word, as some might imagine, appears,
I think, from the important fact that he makes no distinc
tion between the terms of mere sense, and terms of
thought or intellectual significance. Nature appears,
in his view, to be counterpart to reason, in such
a sense that the names of sensation and the names of
thoughts, or intellectual states, fall into the same category,
to be interpreted by the same law. Whereas, if there be
any importance in the view I would present, it consists
in showing that all terms of intellect or spirit come under
a wholly different law, both as regards their origin and
their interpretation, from the terms of sense or the mere
"names of things. This will appear more fully in the
illustrations that follow.
We pass now to the application of these views of lan
guage, or the power they are entitled to have, in matters
of moral and religious inquiry and especially in Chris
tian theology.
There are, as we discover, two languages, in fact, in
every language. Or perhaps I shall be understood more
exactly, if I say that there are, in every human tongue,
two distinct departments. First, there is a literal depart
ment, in which sounds are provided as names for physi-

INLANGUAGE. 39
cal objects and appearances. ' S^pnHly, thprf>.Jg_a_dp..
partment. nf ana]np;v.j)r figure, where physical objects and
appearances are named as images of thought or spirit,
and the words get their power, as words of thought,
through the physical images received into them. Thus,
if I speak of my pen, I use a word in the first department
of language, uttering a sound which stands for the instru
ment with which I write. But if I speak of the spirit of
a man, or the sincerity of a Christian, I use words that
belong to the second department of language, where the
sounds do not stand for the mental ideas as being names
directly applied to them, but represent, rather, certain
images in the physical state, which are the natural figures
or analogies of those mental ideas. How it was neces
sary, in the genesis of language, that it should fall into
this twofold distribution, has been shown already. The
man who knows his tongue only by vernacular usage, is
aware of no such distribution. Many, who are considered
to be educated persons, and are truly so, are but half
aware of it. At least, they notice only now and then,
when speaking of matters pertaining to thought and
spirit, that a word brought into use has a physical image
in it. For example, when speaking of a good man's
heart, they observe that the word has a physical image
connected with it, or that it names also a vital organ of
the body. Then they either say, that the word has two
meanings, a physical and a spiritual, not observing any
law of order or connection by which the physical be
comes the basis or type of the spiritual ; or, they raise a
distinction between what they call the literal and figura
tive uses of the word. But this distinction of literal and

40 APPLICATIONS OP
figurative, it does not appear to be noticed, even by philo-
1 logists, runs through the very body of the language itself,
making two departments ; one that comprises the terms
of sensation, and the other the terms of thought. They
notice, in the historical investigation of words, that they
are turning up all the while, a subsoil of physical bases ;
and, though they cannot find in every particular case,
the physical term on which the word is built, they attain
to a conviction that every word has a physical root, if
only it could be found ; and still the natural necessity, that
all words relating to thought and spirit should be figures,
and as such, get their significance, they do not state.
They still retain the impression that some of the terms of
thought are literal, and some figurative.
This is the manner of the theologians. They assume
that there is a literal terminology in religion as well as a
figurative, (as doubtless there is, in reference to matters
of outward fact and history, but nowhere else,) and then
it is only a part of the same mistake to accept words, not
as signs or images, but as absolute measures and equiva
lents of truth ; and so to run themselves, by their argu
mentations, with a perfectly unsuspecting confidence,
into whatever conclusions the logical forms of the words
will carry them. Hence, in great part, the distractions,
the infinite multiplications of opinion, the errors and
sects and strifes of the Christian world. We can never
come into a settled consent in the truth, until we better
understand the nature, capacities and incapacities of lan
guage, as a vehicle of truth.
In order, now, that I may excite our younger theolo
gians especially to a new investigation of this subject,

THE DOCTRINE. 41
as being fundamental, in fact, to the right understanding
of religious truth, I will dismiss the free form of disser
tation, and set forth, under numerical indications, a series
of points or positions inviting each their attention, and
likely, though with some modifications, perhaps, to be
finally verified.
1. Words of thought and spirit are possible in language
only in virtue of the fact that there are forms provided
in the world of sense, which are cognate to the mind,
analiCLed', Py^ftfttBOll oTVoine hidden analogy, !toTep*re§etrf
or express its interior sentiments and thoughts.
2. Words of thought and spirit are, in fact, names of such
forms or images existing in the outward or physical state.
3. When we investigate the rej&tioa-of the«4erm, or
etymological base, in any word of thought or spirit, to
the idea expressed, we are able to say (negatively) that
the idea or thought has no such form, or shape, or sensi
ble quality, as the word has. If I speak of right (straight,
rectus?) it is not because the internal law of the con
science, named by this word, has any straightness or lineal
quality whatever. Or if I speak of sin, peccatum,
aftapria, where, in so many languages, as I might also
show in a great variety of others, the image at the root
of the word is one of lineal divarication, (as when an arrow
is shot at the mark, and misses or turns aside,) it is not
because sin, as a moral state of being, or a moral act, has
any lineal form in the mind. Thoughts, ideas, mental
states, we cannot suppose have any geometric form, any
color, dimensions, or sensible qualities whatever.
4#

42 REASONOF
4. We can also say, (positively) in reference to the
same subject, that there is always some reason in every
form or image made use of, why it should be used ; some
analogic property or quality which we feel instinctively,
but which wholly transcends speculative inquiry. If
there is no lineal straightness in rectitude, no linear crook
edness or divarication in sin, taken as an internal state,
still it is the instinct of our nature to feel some sense of
correspondence between these images and the states they
represent. Milton, I suppose, could not tell us why he sets any
^form in connection with any spiritual thought. He could
j only say that he has in him some iniftDJaLlgnse of con-
i^cinnity which Requires it. And yet, when he speaks of
sin, he makes everything crooked as the word is, when
of law, everything straight as rectitude. Thus he writes :
" To make a regularity of sin by law, either the law must
straighten sin into no sin, or sin must crook the law into
no law." Something, doubtless, may be said which, in a
certain superficial and pathological sense, may be called
an 'explanation of the uses of these symbols ; for example,
that in sin, a man divaricates bodily, or goes to his
mischief in a manner that is oblique or awry ; and that,
when he is in the simple intention of duty, he lets his
"eye look right on," and follows his eye. I accounted
for the symbols chosen to denote hope and expectation, by
a similar reference to the pathology of hope and expecta
tion. But this, if we do not wish to deceive ourselves, is
only a mediate, and not a final explanation. Still the
question remains, why the form of outward divarication
has any such original relation to sin as to have been made

TYPES OR FIGURES. 43
the natural pathological demonstration of it, — why a
crooked line, which is the more graceful in itself, should not
have been the natural instinct, and so the symbol of the
right, as it now is of the wrong. Here we come to our
limit. All we can say is, that by a mystery transcending
in any case our comprehension, thrJPjyino I,n~nn. who j-
in the world, weavesjntc > nature Jyne,? -or- images, flh.gt
have an inscrutable relation t© mind and thought. On
the one hand, is form ; on thTother, is the formless."'* The
former represents, and is somehow fellow to, the other ;
how, we cannot discover. And the more we ponder this
mystery, the closer we bring it to our understanding, the
more perfectly inscrutable will it appear. If we say that
the forms of the reason answer to the forms of nature
and the outward life, that is true ; but then there are no
fonSJL in jthe_ ..reason, s »piJ}y ? %TOi,llflf..'ffie£flhj and the
difficulty still remains.
5- XhfiTfi are ¦n4- -wards, in the phyfiiflaidftpiixtpirnt of
language, that are exaetrepresentatives of particular
-'-J *-' — ...  -,, mm>m . . -infflir-*"r-" """ ' ¦''''*™~™~"-^— —  numl— »«mi„iiimi.jb
physical things. For whether we take the theory of the
Nominalists or the Realists, the words are, in fact, and
practically, names only of genera, not of individuals or
species. To be even still more exact, they represent
only certain sensations of sight, touch, taste, smell, hear
ing — one or all. Hence the opportunity in language,
for endless mistakes and false reasonings, in reference to
matters purely physical. This subject was labored some
years ago with much acuteness and industry, by one of
our countrymen, Mr. Johnson, . in a ' Treatise on Lan
guage, or the Relations of Words to Things.' The latter

44 WORDS OF THOUGHT
part of his title, however, is all that is justified ; for to lan
guage in its more comprehensive sense, as a vehicle of
spirit, thought, sentiment, he appears to have scarcely
directed his inquiries.
6. It follows, that as physical terms are never exact,
being only names of genera, much less have we any
terms in the spiritual department of language that are
exact representatives of thought. For, first, the word
Here used will be the name only of a genus of physical
images. Then, secondly, it will have been applied over to
signify a genus of thoughts or sentiments. And now,
thirdly, in a particular case, it is drawn out to signify a
specific thought or sentiment which, of course, will have
qualities or incidents, peculiar to itself. What, now, can
steer a word through so many ambiguities and complica
tions, and give it an exact and determinate meaning in
the particular use it is applied to serve ? Suppose,
for example, one desires to speak of the bitterness dis
played by another, on some given occasion. In the first
place, this word bitterness, taken physically, describes
not a particular sensation common to all men, but a
genus of sensations ; and as some persons have even a
taste for bitter things, it is impossible that the word, taken
physically, should not have an endless variety of signifi
cations, ranging between disgust and a positive relish of
pleasure. If, now, it be taken as the base or type of an
intellectual word, it will carry with it, of necessity, as
great a variety of associations; associations so unlike,
that it will be impossible to clothe it with the same pre
cise import, as a word of sentiment. Then, secondly,

INDETERMINATE. 45
men are so different, even good and true men, in their
personal temperament, their modes of feeling, reasoning
and judging, that moral bitterness, in its generic sense,
will not be a state or exercise of the same precise quality
in their minds. Some persons will take as bitterness in
general, what others will only look upon as faithfulness,
or just indignation. And, then, thirdly, in the particular
case to which the word is to be applied, different views
and judgments will be formed of the man, his provocations,
circumstances, duties, and the real import of his words
and actions. Accordingly, as one declares that he was
bitter, another will receive the declaration as no better
than a real slander. And so it must of necessity be. It
is impossible so to settle the meaning of this word bitter
ness, as to produce any exact unity of apprehension
under it. And the same is true of the great mass of
words employed in moral and spiritual uses, — such as
love, gentleness, contentment, patience, wisdom, justice,
order, pride, charity. We think we have the same ideas
in them, or rather, (which is more likely,) we think
nothing about it ; but we find continually that, when we
come to particular uses, we fall into disagreements, often
into protracted and serious controversies ; and whether
it be said that the controversy is about words or things,
it is always a controversy about the real applicability of
words. What, then, it may be asked, is the real and legitimate
use of words, when applied to moral subjects ? for we
cannot dispense with them, and it is uncomfortable to
hold them in universal scepticism, as being only instru
ments of error. Words, then, I answer, are legitimately \

46 WORDS OF THOUGHT
used as thesigns^of^jh^ugJtts^to^e^ejjjressgd. They do
not literally convey, or pass over a thought out of one
mind into another, as we commonly speak of doing.
Thev are only hinta, 1^'^™°, held up befbj&Jlie mind
of another, to put Aja^oa^aenerating or reproducing the
samethought ; which he can do only as he has the same
personal contents, or the generative power out of which
to bring the thought required. Hence, there will be
different measures of understanding or misunderstanding,
according to the capacity or incapacity, the ingenuous
ness or moral obliquity of the receiving party — even if
the communicating party offers only truth, in the best
and freshest forms of expression the language provides. ,
There is only a single class of intellectual words that
can be said to have a perfectly determinate significance,
viz., those which relate to what are called necessary
ideas. ... Thev are such as time, space, causeTTruth, right,
arithmetical numbers, and geometrical figures. Here the
names applied, are settled into a perfectly determinate
meaning, not by any peculiar virtue in them, but by
reason of the absolute exactness of the ideas themselves.
Time cannot be anything more or less than time ; truth
cannot, in its idea, be anything different from truth ; the
numerals suffer no ambiguity of count or measure; a
circle must be a circle ; a square, a square. As far as
language, therefore, has to do with these, it is a perfectly
exact algebra of thought, but no farther.
It will, perhaps, be imagined by some, indeed, it is an
assumption continually made, that words of thought,
though based on mere figures or .analogies in their
original adoption, gradually lose their indeterminate

INDETERMINATE. 47
character, and settle down under the law of use, into a
sense so perfectly unambiguous, that they are to be
regarded as literal names, and real equivalents of the
thoughts they signify. There -could not be a greater
mistake. For, though the original type, or historic base
of the word may pass out of view, so that nothing physi
cal or figurative is any longer suggested by it, still it will
be impossible that mere use should have given it an exact
meaning, or made it~!Ee"lrIef al name of any moral or
intellectual state. The word sin is of this description,
and most persons seem to imagine that it names a given
act or state, about which there is no diversity of under
standing. Contrary to this, no two minds ever had the
same impression of it. The whole personal history of
every man, his acts, temptations, wants, and repentances ;
his opinions of God, of law, and of personal freedom ; his
theory of virtue, his decisions of the question, whether
sin is an act, or a state ; of the will, or of the heart : in
fact, his whole theology and life will enter into his
impression of this word sin, to change the quality, and
modify the relations of that which it signifies. It will
also be found, as a matter of fact, that the interminable
disputes of the theologians on this particular subject,
originate in fundamental differences of view concerning
the nature of sin, and are themselves incontestible proofs
that, simple as the word is, and on the lips of every body,
(as we know it to be) there is yet no virtual agreement of
meaning connected with the word. The same, as just
now intimated, is true of hope, fear, love, and other like
familiar terms, which we fancy have a meaning so well
settled. They have a dictionary meaning that is settled ;

48 AFALSEELEMENT
but yet, hope, fear, love, is to every man what his own
life-experience, and his theories, and mental struggles
have made it, and he sees it, of necessity, under a color
quite peculiar to himself; so peculiar, that he will even
advance concerning it, what another cannot find the
truth of, or receive. And this is true of all the intellec
tual terms in language, with the exception of a class just
named, relating to necessary and absolute truths. Be
sides these, there is no word of thought, or spirit, that
exactly measures its ideas, or does any thing more than
offer some proximate notion, or shadow of the thought
intended. What I have here advanced, is confirmed by a very
judicious remark of Whately, who says, — "It is worth
observing, that the words, whose ambiguity is most
frequently overlooked, and is productive of the greatest
amount of confusion of thought and fallacy, are among
the commonest, and are those whose meaning the gene
rality consider there is least room to doubt. Familiar
acquaintance is perpetually mistaken for accurate know
ledge." 7. Words of thought or spirit are not only inexact in
their significance, never measuring the truth or giving its
precise equivalent, but they always affirm something
which is false, or contrary to the truth intended. They
impute form to that which really is out of form. They
are related to the truth, only as form to spirit — earthen
vessels in which the truth is borne, yet always offering
their mere pottery as being the truth itself. Bunyan

IN W0RDS0F THOUGHT. 49
beautifully represents their insufficiency and earthiness
when he says —
\ " My dark and cloudy words, they do but hold
\ The truth, as cabinets inclose the gold."
—only it needs to be added, that they palm off upon us,
too often, their " dark and cloudy" qualities as belonging
inherently to the golden truths they are used to express.
Therefore, we need always to have it in mind, or in
present recollection, that they are but signs, in fact, or
images of jhat which Jias _nq^shape or sensible quality
whatever ; a kind of painting, in which the speaker, or
the writer, leads on through a gallery of pictures or
forms, while we attend him, catching at the thoughts
suggested- by his forms. In one view, they are all
false ; for there are no shapes in the truths they represent,
and therefore we are to separate continually, and by a
most delicate process of art, between the husks of the
forms and the pure truths of thought presented in them.
We do this insensibly, to a certain extent, and yet we do
it imperfectly, often. A very great share of our theologi
cal questions, or disputes, originate in the incapacity of
the parties to separate truths from their forms, or to see
how the same essential truth may clothe itself under.
forms that are repugnant. There wants to be a large
digestion, so to speak, of form in the teacher of theology
or mental philosophy, that he may always be aware how
the mind -and truth, obliged to clothe themselves under the
laws of space and sensation, are taking, continually, new
shapes or dresses — coming forth poetically, mystically,
allegoric ally, dialectically, fluxing through definitions; /

50 AFALSEELEMENT
symbols, changes of subject and object, yet remaining
still the same ; for if he is wanting in this, if he is a mere
logicker, fastening on a word as the sole expression and
exact equivalent of a truth, to go on spinning his deduc
tions out of the form of the word, (which yet have nothing
to do, with the idea,) then he becomes a one-word professor,
quarreling, as for truth itself, with all who chance to go
out of his word ; and, since words are given, not to
imprison souls, but to express them, the variations con
tinually indulged by others are sure to render him as
miserable in his anxieties, as he is meagre in his contents,
and busy in his quarrels.
But it will be observed, that most men are wholly
unacquainted with the etymologies or forms of their
words; and, of those who are not, that very few have
seldom any mental reference to them, in their choice or
use of terms. How, then, is it supposable, when they
do not even go behind the intellectual signification of the
words enough to have any sense, at all, of their forms,
that the forms are yet conveying to the mind mistaken
or false impressions that belong to themselves, in distinc
tion from the truths they represent ? They do it, I
answer, with the greater certainty, because they do it in
a manner so subtle, as not to awaken suspicion ; for there
is a latent presence of the forms of words, which is not
less real because it is less palpable. It is even wonder
ful to observe, with what pertinacity the original form of
a word will stay by it, unobserved or hidden from ordi
nary inspection, to guard its uses, and preside over its
fortunes. It will even' be present, unawares, in sufficient
power to control the meanings and applications of those
who never heard of a type, or etymology, in their lives.

IN WORDS OF THOUGHT. 51
The Latin word gressus, for example, is one that
originally describes the measured tread of dignity, in
cTistinction from the trudge of a clown, or footpad.
Hence the word congress, can never after, even at the
distance of thousands of years, be applied to the meeting
or coming together of outlaws, jockeys, or low persons of
any description. It can only be used to denote assem
blages of grave and elevated personages, such as coun
cillors, men of science, ambassadors, potentates. The
original type of the word gressus, which denotes only a
matter as evanescent as one form of gait or carriage, in
distinction from another, stays by, causing it, in all future
uses, to stand upon its dignity, and assisting it, in spite of
all revolutions and democratic levelings, to maintain its
ancient aristocracy. And it controls the speech of the
ignorant not the less certainly, because it is itself
unknown to them. On the contrary, its sway is even the
more absolute, that it governs by a latent presence.
So, also, if a reader who is wholly ignorant of the
Latin type of the word humility, [ground-ness] were to
fall upon the incongruous jumbled line of Young —
" Zeal and humility, her wings to heaven,"
he would almost certainly be conscious of some defect, or
fault of concinnity in the language. Not that humility has
in itself any low, groundling quality ; for there is no virtue
more truly elevated in its own inherent properties. The
only reason why there would seem to him to be a want
of harmony in the expression, is, that there is a latent
quality of form associated with the word, even when a
classic education has not revealed it to his view. For

52 AFALSEELEMENT
the same reason, I suppose, that many persons of only a
common education, would be likely to have some sense
of discord in the expression, " I prefer [set before] being
behind." It might not seem to be a decided bull in
rhetoric, they might even use the expression, and yet,
for some reason or other, they would hardly be able to
like it — really for the reason that there is a latent power
of form present in the word prefer, which refuses assent
to the marriage.
In the same way, though unconsciously to themselves,
there is a certain power of form, I apprehend, associated
or intermixed with the meanings of their words generally.
When they use the words ap-prehend, com-prehend, op
posite, di+vulge, amb-ition, re-flection, though the original
images or types, are historically unknown to them> the
meanings do yet lie in their minds, not as formless, but
in forms or conceptions. Hence, in fact, the word con
ception {con-capio ;) because we take up, ever, with om-
thought, some image whereby to represent it to ourselves ;
for, in our thinking processes, or, in what the old writers
call our discourse of reason, we get on with our activity
only by the interior handling of these forms or images.
Thinking, in fact, is nothing but the handling of thoughts
by their forms. And so necessary is this, that, if we
make use of a word whose original form is lost or un
known, we shall be found, in every case, to give the
word, instinctively, an outward representation ourselves :
that is, we shall image it, or give a form to the thought, in
order to bring it into mental contemplation, or under the
discourse of the mind.
Therefore, we may lay it down as a truth, that the

IN WORDS OF THOUGHT. 53
forms of words, are always present, either as palpable or
latent powers. In every case, they are conceptions of
the truths signified, and not naked vocal names of those
truths. Being really images, therefore, of that which has
no sensible quality, they do always impute or associate
something which does not belong to tlie truth or thought
expressed ; viz., form. On which account, the greatest
caution is needed, that, while we use them,, confidingly,
as vehicles, we never allow them to impose upon us any
thing of their own.
8. But if we are liable thus to be carried away by
the forms contained in our words, into conclusions or
impressions that do not belong to the truths they are used
to signify, we are also to peruse their forms with great
industry, as being, at the same time, a very important
key to their meaning. The original type or etymology
of words is a most fruitful study. Even when they pass
into meanings that seem to be contrary one to another,
it will yet be found, in almost every case, that the repug
nant meanings are natural growths, so to speak, of the
same vital root ; as some kinds of trees are seen to throw
out leaves having several different shapes. The ety
mologists have been hard pressed, often, by ridicule,
and it is not to be denied that they have sometimes pro
duced fancies in place of facts. As httle is it to be de
nied that words do, now and then, present no aspect of
agreement in their senses, with the types out of which
they spring. They appear to have suffered some kind of
violence — to have fallen among thieves, and been left,
half- dead, from the injury they have suffered. A.nd yet
5*

54 ETYMOLOGIES
there is a wonderful light shed upon words, in most cases,
by the simple opening of their etymologies. Distinctions
are very often drawn at a stroke, in this way, which whole
chapters of dissertation would not exhibit as well. Some
times a dark subject is made luminous,, at once, by the
simple reference to an etymology ; and then we are even
amazed to see what depths of wisdom, or spiritual insight,
have been hid, as it were, in our language, even from
ourselves. The remark of Whately, touching this point, while it
indicates a proper caution in' accepting the light of ety
mologies, is yet far too negative to be justified even by
his own illustration. He says it is worth observing, as a
striking instance of the little reliance to be placed on
etymology, as a guide to the meaning of a word, that
" hypostasis, substantia, and understanding, so widely dif
ferent in their sense, correspond in their etymology."
But, admitting the difference of meaning, the Greek ele
ment (sraffi's) stasis, the Latin stantia and the English
standing, being all different inflections in the grammar of
the several tongues, are really not grammatical equiva
lents, and, therefore, have not the same directing forces,
as types of thought. Besides, it is not true that the ety
mology of these words is no guide to their meaning. On
the contrary, all their meanings, however diverse, stand
in exact harmony with their etymologies, and no one of
them could be sufficiently understood, without reference
to its root or type. The meanings, in fact, of these three
words are not as wide apart as the meanings we find
under the same word, in our own tongue, and yet, in the
latter case, every one of the meanings will be seen to

TOBESTUDIED. &f>
have a clear historic reference to its radical type, and to
grow out from it, by a perfectly natural process.
9. Since all words, but such as relate to necessary
truths, are inexact, representations of thought, mere types
or analogies, or, where the types are lost beyond recovery,
only proximate expressions of the thoughts named; it
follows that language will be ever trying to mend its own
deficiencies, by multiplying its forms of representation.
As, too, the words made use of generally carry something
false with them, as well as something true, associating
form with the truths represented, when really there is
no form ; it will also be necessary, on this account, to
multiply words or figures, and thus to present the subject
on opposite sides or many sides. Thus, as form battles
form, and one form neutralizes another, all the insuffi
ciencies of words are filled out, the contrarieties liqui
dated, and the mind settles into a full and just apprehen
sion of the pure spiritual truth. Accordingly we never '
come so near to a truly well rounded view of any truth,
as when it is offered paradoxically ; that is, under con
tradictions ; that is, under two or more dictions, which,
taken as dictions, are contrary one to the other.
Hence the marvelous vivacity and power of that
famous representation of Pascal : " What a chimera,
then, is man ! What a novelty ! What a chaos ! What
a subject of contradiction ! A judge of every thing, and
yet a feeble worm of the earth ; the depositary of truth,
and yet a mere heap of uncertainty ; the glory and the
outcast of the universe. If he boasts, I humble him ; if
he humbles himself, I boast of him; and always contra-

56 OPP O'S ING WORDS
diet him, till he is brought to comprehend that he is an
incomprehensible monster."
Scarcely inferior in vivacity and power is the familiar
passage of Paul ; — " as deceivers, and yet true ; as
unknown, and yet well known ; as dying, and behold, we
live ; as chastened, and not killed ; as sorrowful, yet
always rejoicing ; as poor, yet making many rich ; as
having nothing, yet possessing all things."
So, also, it will be found, that the poets often express
their most inexpressible, or evanescent thoughts, by means
of repugnant or somewhat paradoxical epithets ; as, for
example, Coleridge, when he says, —
"The stilly murmur of the distant sea
Tells us of silence."
Precisely here, too, I suppose, we come upon what is
really the true conception of the Incarnation and the
Trinity. These great Christian mysteries or paradoxes,
come to pass under the same conditions or laws which
pertain to language. All words are, in fact, only incar
nations, or insensings of thought. If we investigate the
relations of their forms to the truths signified, we have
the same mystery before us ; if we set the different, but
related forms in comparison, we have the same aspect of
repugnance or inconsistency. And then we have only
to use the repugnant forms as vehicles of pure thought,
dismissing the contradictory matter of the forms, and
both words and the Word are understood without dis
traction, — all by the same process.
Probably, the most contradictory book in the world is
the Gospel of John ; and that, for the very reason that it

NECESSARY. 57
contains more and loftier truths than any other. No
good writer, who is occupied in simply expressing truth,
is ever afraid of inconsistencies or self-contradictions in
his language. It is nothing to him that a quirk of logic
can bring him into absurdity. If at any time he offers j
definitions, it is not to get a footing for the play of his
logic, but it is simply as multiplying forms or figures
of that which he seeks to communicate-^-just as one
will take his friend to different points of a landscape, and
show him cross views, in order that he may get a perfect-
conception of the outline. Having nothing but words in
which to give definitions, he understands the impossibility 7
of definitions as determinate measures of thought, and
gives them only as being other forms of the truth in
question, by aid of which it may be more adequately
conceived. On the other hand, a writer without either ~
truth or genius, a mere uninspired, unfructifying logicker,
is just the man to live in definitions. He has never
a doubt of their possibility. He lays them down as
absolute measures, then draws along his deductions, with
cautious consistency, and works out, thus, what he consi
ders to be the exact infallible truth. But his definitions will
be found to hang, of necessity, on some word or symbol,
that symbol to have drawn every thing to itself, or into its
own form, and then, when his work is done, it will be both
consistent and, false, — false, because of its consistency. _•,-
10. It is part of the same view, that logic itself is ,..
a defective, and often deceitful instrument. I speak not
here of logic as a science, but of that deductive, proving,
spinning method of practical investigation, commonly

58 THE LOGICAL METHOD
denoted by the term logical. It is very obvious, that no
turn of logical deduction can prove anything, by itself,
not previously known by inspection or insight. And
yet, there is always a busy-minded class of sophists or
speculators, who, having neither a large observation, nor
a power of poetic insight, occupy themselves as' workers
in words and propositions, managing to persuade them
selves and others that they are great investigators, and
even discoverers of truth. It being generally known that
John, James, and Peter, are men, they advance, by a
strict logical process, to the conclusion that Peter is
a man ! — in which they seem to themselves, and, possibly,
to some others, to have added a valuable contribution to
the stock of human knowledge. They do not see that
their premise contains their conclusion, and somewhat
more, and that the only real talent of investigation lies
in a power of insight by which premises are seen or
ascertained. They impose upon themselves, too, the
more readily, because it is so generally true, that their
conclusion is not contained in their premise ; hence, they
seem to themselves to be really multiplying truths with
great facility and rapidity, — only it happens, that, inas
much as their conclusions were not in their premises, they
are false ! And so it turns out that these great investiga
tors and provers, the men who think that nothing is really
established until it has been proved, that is, deduced from
something else, are generally the worst propagators of
falsity in the world. If they had Julius Caesar's gram
mar, it would be a sad abridgment of their discoveries,
though not any very great subtraction from the world's
knowledge. " I have formed in my thoughts," he says,

DECEITFUL. 59
" a certain grammar, not upon any analogy which words
bear to eg,ch other, but such as should diligently examine
the analogy, or relation betwixt words and things."
It seems to be supposed, or rather assumed, by the
class of investigators commonly called logical, that after
the subject matter of truth has been gotten into proposi
tions, and cleared, perhaps, by definitions, the faculty of
intuition, or insight, may be suspended, and we may go
on safely, to reason upon the forms of the words them
selves, or the "analogy the words bear to each other."
And so, by the mere handling of words and propositions,
they undertake to evolve, or, as they commonly speak, to
prove important truths. They reason, not by or through
formulas, but upon them. After the formulas are got
ready, they shut their eyes to all interior inspection
of their terms, as in algebra, and commit themselves,
to the mere grammatic laws or predications of their
words — expecting, under these, by inversion, evolution,
equation, reductio ad absurdum, and the like, to work out
important results. And this is popularly called reasoning.
They do not seem to be aware that this grammatic, or
constructive method, while it is natural as language
itself, having its forms in what I have called the gram
mar of the soul and of the creation, is yet analogical only
to truth and spirit — a warp that is furnished out of form
and sense, for the connecting into speech of symbols or
types that lie in form and sense; on which account,
propositions are called formulas, or little forms. Or we
may represent the constructive method of logic and
grammar as the iron track of speech, along which the
separate cars of words, connected by iron copulas, are

60 THE LOGICAL METHOD
drawn out into regular trains, and determinate courses of
motion ; which iron track and copulas, however, we are
not to fancy, are at all more intellectual, closer to the
truth of reason, or less analogical than the separate cars
themselves. And, therefore, whatever is wrought out
by the combination of formulas, (of course I. do not
question the syllogism which really works out nothing,)
having only a certain analogical or tropical force, must
be received by insight, as all symbols are, not as any
absolute conclusion, or sentence of reason.
In the pure algebraic process, the result is wholly
different ; because the terms all stand for exact quanti
ties, and the predicates of addition, subtraction,, multipli
cation, division, involution, evolution, inversion, equation,
and the like, are all absolute ; so that if the worker goes
on to his life's end, producing his changes of formula, he
will never come into one that is not true.
But suppose the algebraist had no fixed quantities out
of which to make his formulas ; that his terms were only
tropes for certain ideas that have no definite measure,
affirming, of course, something not true, as well as some
thing true; suppose that definitions were impossible,
save that one trope may sometimes help out another,
and that paradoxes are quite as often needed to help out
the infirmity, or displace the one-sidedness of definitions.
Suppose that all his connective signs, his equations, his
evolutions of formula, were indeterminate, and his pro
cess never true, save in a certain analogical and poetic
sense — what figure, in such a case, would he make with
his algebraic process ? A glance in this direction suffices
to show that the only real and true reasoning, on moral

DECEITFUL. 61
subjects,..is that which never embarks on words and pro
positions, but which holds a constant insight of all terms
and constructions — " diligently examining the analogy or
relation betwixt words and things."
Observe, in a single proposition — the simplest affirma
tion that can be invented, I might almost say, pertaining
to the intellectual life — how indefinite any mere formula
must be. I assert that "man thinks." Here the sub
ject is man, of whom is predicated some causative agency,
and some form of result. As regards the agency, it may
be understood (1.) that the man thinks under a law of
mechanical necessity, as a machine works ; or (2.) that
he thinks under a law of plastic self-determinating neces
sity, as a tree grows ; or (3.) that he thinks under a law
of mental suggestion, which he can only interrupt by his
will ; or (4.) that he wills to think ; or (5.) that he thinks
spontaneously. And then as to the product, thought,
nothing is so difficult as to settle any definite conception
of that ; but we will suppose only five more ambiguities
here — combining which, in as many pairs as they will
make, with the five preceding, we have twenty-five dis
tinct meanings. If, now, going back to the subject, man,
it be asked whether the formula intends (1.) man as
created in his natural freedom and innocence ; or, (2.)
man as under the power and bondage of evil ; or (3.)
man as illuminated and suggestively directed or swayed
by the supernatural grace of God ; or (4.) man as regen
erated in good, and contesting with currents of evil
thought still running in his nature — all of which are im
portant distinctions — we have then just a hundred dif
ferent meanings in our simple formula — man thinks. Or,
6

62 THE LOGICAL METHOD
dismissing arithmetic as inappropriate, we may better
say that the language is only tropical, and the meanings,
of course, indefinitely variable. For all these, language
provides only a single form of predicate — a single gram
matic formula. And yet it seems to be imagined that
we can saddle mere forms of words, and ride them into
necessary unambiguous conclusions !
It will also be observed, that our mere reasoners and
provers in words, in order to get their formulas arrayed
for action, always rule out, or clear away, those antago
nistic figures, paradoxes, and contrarious representations,
by means of which only a full and comprehensive ex
pression of the truth is possible. They are great in the
detection of disagreements, or what they call contradic
tions ; and the finding out of such elements, or the
reducing of another to this bad dilemma, by their con
structive process, they suppose to be a real triumph of
intelligence — which is the same as to say that they can
endure none but a one-sided view of truth.
It will almost always happen, also, to this class of in
vestigators, that, when reasoning of man, life, self-active
being, God, and religion, they will take up their formulas
under the conditions of cause and effect, or space and
time, or set them under the atomic relations of inorganic
matter. Discussing the human will, for example, or the
great question of liberty, the writer jwill be overpowered
by the terms and predicates of language ; which being
mostly derived from the physical world, are charged,' to
the same extent, with a mechanical significance. And
then we shall have a sophism, great or small, according
to his capacity — a ponderous volume, it may be, of

DECEITFUL. 63
formulas, filled up, rolled about, inverted, crossed and
twisted — a grand, stupendous, convoluted sophism — all a
mere outward practice, however, on words and propo
sitions, in which, as they contain a form of cause and
effect in their own nature, it is easily made out that
human liberty is the liberty of a scale-beam, turned by
the heavier weights. Meantime, the question is only a
question pf consciousness, one in which the simple de
cision of consciousness is final ; — to which, argument,
whether good or bad, can really add nothing, from which
nothing take.
As great mischief and perplexity is often wrought by
raising the question of before and after, under the laws of
time. The speculative, would-be philosopher wants to
be able always to say which is first in the soul's action —
this or that. What endless debates have we had in the
ology concerning questions of priority — whether faith
is before repentance, or repentance before faith ;
whether one or the other is before love, or love before
them both ; whether justification is before sanctification,
and the like. We seem to suppose that a soul can be
taken to pieces, or have its exercises parted and put un
der laws of time, so that we can see them go, in regular
clock-work order. Whereas, being alive in God when it
is truly united to Him, its right exercises, being functions of
life, are of course mutual conditions one of another. Pass
ing out of mechanism, or the empire of dead atoms, into
the plastic realm of life, all questions of before and after we
leave behind us. , We do not ask whetherthe heart causes
the heaving of the lungs, or whether the lungs have
priority, and keep up the beating of the heart; or

64 THE LOGICAL METHOD
whether the digestive faculty is first in time, or the assimi
lative, or the nervous. We look at the whole body as a
vital nature, and finding every function alive, every fibre
active, we perceive that all the parts, even the minutest,
exist and act as mutual conditions one of another. And
so it is in spiritual life. Every grace supposes every
other as its condition, and time is wholly out of the
question. But, the moment any one of our atomizing and
mechanising speculators comes into the field, the question
of priority is immediately raised. Perceiving that love
seems to imply or involve faith, he declares that faith is
first. Then, as another is equally sure that faith implies
love, he maintains that love is first. A third, in the same
way, that repentance is before both ; a fourth, that both
are before repentance. And now we have a general
debate on, hand, in which the formulas will be heard
ringing as flails, for a dozen years, or a century. Mean
time, it will happen that all the several schools of wis
dom are at fault, inasmuch as none of the priorities are
first, or rather all are first ; being all conditions mutually
of one another. Might it not have been better, at the
first, to clear ourselves of time and the law it weaves
into words and predicates — to perceive, as by a little in
sight we may, that, in all vital and plastic natures, the
functions have a mutual play ?
In the speculative logicking use of formulas, it some
times happens, also, that the argument contains a law of
degrees, and thus constructs, when fairly carried out, an
infinite series. Thus, in the argument for a God, " an
effect," we are told, "infers a cause; a design, a designer."
The -doubter assents : "but," he adds, " the supposed de-

DECEITFUL. 65
signer is one who is adapted, in his nature, to the making of
designs, and therefore, I perceive, in this adaptation of
means to ends in him, that following the same law, there
is a designer back of him. Go with me, then, up an in
finite series, as the argument legitimately requires, or else
excuse me from the first step, as you excuse yourself from
the second." By just this kind of process it was -that
Shelley, immersed in the logic of Oxford, became an
atheist ; as also all the scholars of that great university
might properly be, and would, if they yielded implicitly
to the drill under which they are placed, and forgot all
the simpler wisdom of nature, in the learned wisdom that
is taught them. But if we can think it any thing to see
God — all formulas, inferences, degrees, out of the ques
tion — if we can say " God is expressed to us here on every
side, shining out as a Form of Intelligence in every object i
round us," it will not be difficult to find the God our logic '
denies us. This, in fact, is the real virtue of Paley's
argument ; only, to give it a more imposing logical form,
he has run it into a suicidal series by the statement.
In offering these illustrations of the value of the logical
method in religious and moral reasonings, I have only
hinted at some of the important issues involved. To set
the subject forth in all its momentous relations would
require a volume ; and such a volume the world intensely
needs. 11. In the reading or interpretation of an author,
writing on intellectual and moral subjects, we are to
observe, first of all, whether he takes up some given word
or figure, and makes it a) law to his thinking. If some
6*

66 INTERPRETATION.
symbol that he uses to-day stands by him also to-morrow,
rules his doctrine, shapes his argument, drawing every
thing into formal consistency with it, then we are to take
up the presumption that he is out of the truth, and set
; ourselves to find where his mistake is. Brown started a
new theory of cause and effect, demolishing these first
ideas, or we might even say, categories of the mind, and
reducing all events to mere conditions of antecedence
and consequence. It was a great discovery, and when
it was drawn out into full form or complete, system,
setting, as one may say, a whole book revolving
about these two words, it was too captivating to be
rejected. Never was the grave world of philosophy
more remarkably fooled, or at a cheaper rate. It did not
occur to many of the learned professors to question the
real import of these two famous words, antecedence and
consequence ; in doing which, it would have come to light
that they are the loosest and remotest of all rhetorical
figures applicable to the subject, having, in fact, no real
applicability at all. They did not ask whether the
antecedence spoken of is antecedence in space. Then,
when a man follows a wheelbarrow, the causative
agency of the motion is in the wheelbarrow. Or, not
satisfied with this, they did not inquire whether antece
dence of time is intended. Then, it follows, that if the
cause be antecedent in time to the effect, there is,
for just that length of time, a cause without an effect.
And so, or by this brief inquest, it would have been seen
that the whole scheme of antecedence and consequence is
nothing but a very insipid blunder, — that there is in fact
no real antecedence of any kind in the case — nothing to

INTERPRETATION. 67
give color to the words, save that when we are
going to be causes, or act causatively, we commonly
make approaches and preparatory motions. I bring this
illustration simply to say that a philosopher, taking up
this theory, and finding it hung about the one simple
figure of before and after, as being itself the very truth,
and sufficient to rule all .other truth, ought to have pre
sumed a falsity. And how miserable the falsity that ex
changed the word cause, naming an exact, eternal, and
necessary idea, for a figure of time or space that had
scarcely any intelligent relation to the truth whatever !
So, in general, we are to judge of all moral and religious
theories, hung about single words, or based on single
definitions, and carried through whole lives of specu
lation. 12. If we find the writer, in hand, moving with a free
motion, and tied to no one symbol, unless in some popular
effort, or for some single occasion ; if we find him multi
plying antagonisms, offering cross views, and bringing
us round the field to show us how it looks from different
points, then we are to presume that he has some truth in
hand which it becomes us to know. We are to pass
round accordingly with him, take up all his symbols, catch
a view of him here, and another there, use one thing to
qualify and interpret another, and the other to shed light
upon that, and, by a process of this kind, endeavor to
comprehend his antagonisms, and settle into a complete
view of his meaning.
What Goethe says of himself is true of all efficient
writers : — " I have always regarded all I have done, as

68 INTERPRETATION.
solely symbolical, and, at bottom, it does not signify
whether I make pots or dishes." And then, what Eck-
erman says of him in his preface, follows of course:
" Goethe's detached remarks upon poetry, have often an
appearance of contradiction. Sometimes he lays all the
stress on the material which the outward world affords,
sometimes upon that which is given to the inward world
of the poet ; sometimes the greatest importance is attached
to the subject, sometimes to the mode of treating it;
sometimes all is made to depend on perfection of form,
sometimes form is to be neglected, and all the attention
paid to the spirit. But all these seeming contradictions
are, in fact, only successive presentations of single sides
of a truth, which, by their union, manifest completely to
us its existence, and guide us to a perception of its nature.
I confide in the insight and comprehensive power of the
cultivated reader, not to stop at any one part, as seen by
itself, but to keep his eye on the significance of the
whole, and by that means, to bring each particular truth
into its proper place and relations."
Is it a fault of Goethe that he must be handled in this
manner? Rather is it one of the highest proofs of
his genius and the real greatness of his mind. Had he
been willing to stay under some one figure, and draw
himself out into formal consistency, throwing off none of
these bold antagonisms, he must have been a very dif
ferent character — not Goethe, but some dull proser or
male spinster of logic, never heard of by us.
What, then, shall we say of Christ and the Gospel of
John ? If it requires such an array of antagonisms to set
forth the true idea of poetry, what does.it require to set

INTERPRETATION. 69
forth God and redemption ? What should we expect, in
such a work, but a vast compilation of symbols and of
forms, which to the mere wordsman, are contrary to each
other ? And then what shall we do ? — what, for example,
with the trinity, the atonement, the bondage and freedom
. of sih ? Shall we say, with the infidel, this is all a medley
of contradiction — mere nonsense, fit only to be rejected ?
Shall we take up these bold antagonisms, as many ortho
dox believers have done, seize upon some one symbol
as the real form of the truth, and compel all the others
to submit to it ; making, thus, as many sects as there are
symbols, and as many petty wars about each truth as it
has sides or -inches of surface ? Or shall we endeavor,
with the Unitarians, to decoct the whole mass ojBtembol,
and draw off the extract into pitchers of our ^J^fine,
consistent, nicely-rounded pitchers, which, so far from
setting out any where towards infinity, we can carry at
pleasure by the handle, and definitely measure by the
eye? What critic has ever thought of handling Goethe
in the methods just named ? We neither scout his incon
sistency, nor drill him into some one of his forms, nor
decoct him into forms of our own. But we call him the
many-sided great man ; we let him stand in his own
chosen symbols, whether they be " pots or dishes," and
do him the greater honor because of the complexity and
the magnificent profusion of his creations.
There is no book in the world that contains so many
repugnances, or antagonistic forms of assertion, as the
Bible. Therefore, if any man please to play off his
constructive logic upon it, he can easily show it up as the
absurdest book in the world. But whosoever wants, on

70 INTERPRE TA TION.
the other hand, really to behold and receive all truth,
and would have the truth-world overhang him as an
empyrean of stars, complex, multitudinous, striving
antagonistically, yet comprehended, height above height,
and deep under deep, in a boundless score of harmony ;
what man soever, content with no small rote of logic
and catechism, reaches with true hunger after this, and
will offer himself to the many-sided forms of the scrip
ture with a perfectly ingenuous and receptive spirit ; he
shall find his nature flooded with senses, vastnesses, and
powers of truth, such as it is even greatness to feeL
^od's own lawgivers, heroes, poets, historians, prophets,
and preachers and doers of righteousness, will bring him
their a«mpany, and representing each his own age, char-
acte«B( mode of thought, shine upon him as so many
cross lights on his field of knowledge, to give him the
most complete and manifold view possible of every truth,
He has not only the words of Christ, the most manifold
of all teachers, but he has gospels which present him in
his different words and attitudes ; and then, besides, he has
four, some say five, distinct writers of epistles, who fol
low, giving each his own view of the doctrine of salva
tion and the Christian life, (views so unlike or antagoflis-
tical that many have regarded them as being quite irrec
oncilable)— Paul, the dialectic, commonly so called ; John,
the mystic ; James, the moralizer ; Peter, the homilectic ;
and perhaps a fifth in the epistle to the Hebrews, who is
a Christian templar and Hebraizer. The Old Testament
corresponds. Never was there a book uniting so many
contrarious aspects of one and the same tijuth.. The
more complete, therefore, because of its manifoldness ;

INTERPRETATION. 71
nay, the more really harmonious, for its apparent want
of harmony.
How, then, are we to receive it and come into its
truth ? Only in the comprehensive manner just now
suggested ; not by destroying the repugnances, but by
allowing them to stand, offering our mind to their impres
sions, and allowing it to gravitate inwardly, towards that
whole of truth, in which they coalesce. And when we
are in that whole, we shall have no dozen propositions of
our own in which to give it forth ; neither will it be a
whole which we can set before the world, standing on
one leg, in a perfectly definite shape, clear of all mystery;
but it will be such a whole as requires a whole universe
of rite, symbol, incarnation, historic breathings, and
poetic fires, to give it expression, — in a word, just what
it now has. Finding it not a Goethe, but as much greater
than he as God is greater than a genius of our own
human race, when we think of ourselves trying to give
out the substantial import of the volume in a few scant
formulas, it will probably occur to us just to ask what
figure we should make, in a similar attempt upon one
who is no more than a German poet ? And then, it will
not be strange if we drop our feeble, bloodless sentences
and dogmas, whether of belief or denial, and return, duly
mortified, into the faith of those august and magnificent
forms of scripture — incarnation ; Father, Son, and Holy
Ghost ; atonement as blood, life, sacrifice, propitiation,
ransom, liberty, regeneration, wisdom, righteousness,
sanctification, and redemption — the great mystery of
godliness.

72 LANGUAGE INSUFFICIENT
i 13. The views of language and interpretation I hare
here offered, suggest the very great difficulty, if not im
possibility of mental science and religious dogmatism.
In all such uses or attempted uses, the effort is to make
language answer a purpose that is against its nature.
The " winged words" are required to serve as beasts of
burden ; or, what is no better, to forget their poetic life,
as messengers of the air, and stand still, fixed upon the
ground, as wooden statues of truths. Which, if they
seem to do ; if, to comfort our studies of dogma, they
assume the inert faces we desire, and suffer us to arrange
the fixed attitudes of their bodies, yet, as little Memnons
touched and made vocal by the light, they will be dis
coursing still of the free empyrean, disturbing, and scat
tering, by their voices, all the exact meanings we had
thought to hold them to, in the nice corporeal order of
our science.
In algebra and geometry, the ideas themselves being
absolute, the terms or names also may be ; but in mental
science and religion, no such exactness is possible, be
cause our apprehensions of truth are here only proxi
mate and relative. I see not, therefore, how the subject
matter of mental science and religion can ever be
included under the fixed forms of dogma. Definitions
cannot bring us over the difficulty ; for definitions ' are,
in fact, only changes of symbol, and, if we take them to
be more, will infallibly lead us into error. In fact, no
man is more certain to run himself into mischievous
error, than he who places implicit confidence in defini
tions. After all, definitions will be words, and science

FOE THE USES OF DOGMA. 73
will be words, and words, place them in whatever shapes
we may, will be only shadows of truth.
Accordingly, it will ever be found, that in mental sci
ence, the investigators are, in fact, only trying to see if
they can make up a true man out of some ten or twenty
or forty words in the dictionary. The phrenologists
claim to have done it, and even to show us the localities
of these words in our heads, and how very man-like their
word-elements will work when put together. All the
systems are plausible — some, we are told, are infallible —
the last and completed results of mental science ! And
yet there seem to be questions coming after. And
probably it will be found, after all, that the only way to
make up a real man is to put the whole dictionary into
him ; and then, most likely, some spaces will be found
vacant, some members wanting. It will also be required, '
too, that the words be not packed together mechanically
in the man, but that they all be alive in him — one living,
plastic, organically perfect whole — ^acting, however, a
little mysteriously sometimes, as the life-power even of an
egg or a bean will presume to do ; or what is more con-
fusive to theory, acting diseasedly and contrarily, as if
life had let in death, and a quarrel for possession were
going on within. And. then, if our complete dictionary
man should be finally produced, alive, mysterious, acting
diseasedly, in what shape would the now completed sci
ence be as likely to emerge, as in those forms of life
which a Shakspeare, or some great universal poet of
humanity might set before us ? Poets, then, are the true
metaphysicians, and if there be any complete science of
man to come, they must bring it.
7

74 LANGUAGE INSUFFICIENT
Is it to be otherwise in religion ? Can there be pro
duced, in human language, a complete and proper Chris
tian theology ; can the Christian truth be offered in the
molds of any dogmatic statement ? What is the Chris
tian truth? Pre-eminently and principally, it is the
expression of God — God coming into expression, through
histories and rites, through an incarnation, and through
language — in one syllable, by the Word. The endeayor
is, by means of expression, and under the laws of expres
sion, to set forth God — His providence, and His govern
ment, and, what is more and higher than all, God's own
feeling, His truth, love, justice, compassion. Well, if it
be something for a poet to express man, it is doubtless
somewhat more for a book to be constructed that will
express God, and open His eternity to man. And if it
would be somewhat difficult to put the poet of humanity
into a few short formulas, that will communicate all he
expresses, with his manifold, wondrous art, will it pro-
< bably be easier to transfer the grand poem of salvation,
that which expresses God, even the feeling of God, into a
few dull propositions ; which, when they are produced,
we may call the sum total of the Christian truth ? Let
me freely confess that, when I see, the human teacher
elaborating a phrase of speech, or mere dialectic proposi
tion, that is going to tell what God could only show me
by the history of ages, and the mystic life and death of
Jesus our Lord, I should be deeply shocked by his irrever
ence, if I were not rather occupied with pity for his
infirmity. It ought not to be necessary to remind any reader of
the bible, that religion has a natural and profound alliance
with poetry. Hence, a very large share of the bible

FOR THE USES OF DOGMA. 75
is composed of poetic contributions; Another share,
equally large, is that which comes to us in a form of
history and fact ; that is, of actual life, which is equally
remote from all abstractions, and, in one view, equally
poetic ; for history is nothing but an evolution or expres
sion of God and man in their own nature and character.
The teachings of Christ are mere utterances of truth, not
argumentations over it. He gives it forth in living
symbols, without definition, without proving it, ever, as
the logicians speak| Well understanding that truth is that
which shines in its own evidence, that which finds us, to
use an admirable expression of Coleridge, and thus enters
into us.
But Paul, — was not Paul a dialectician ? the dialec
tician, som<Tsay ; for, confessedly, there is no other among
all the scripture writers. Did Paul, then, it will be l
asked, set himself to an impossible task, when he under
took to reason out and frame into logical order, a scheme
of Christian theology ? To this, I answer, that I find no
such Paul in the scripture, as this method of speaking
supposes. Paul undertakes no theologic system, in any
case. He only speaks to some actual want, to remove
some error, rectify some hurtful mistake. There is
nothing of the system-maker about him. Neither is he
to be called a dogmatizer, or a dialectic writer, in any
proper sense of the term. True, there is a form of
reasoning, or argumentation about him, and he abounds
in illatives ; piling " For" upon " For" in constant
succession. But, if he is narrowly Watched, it will
be seen that this is only a dialectic form that had settled
on his language, under his old theologic discipline,

76 LANGUAGE INSUFFICIENT
previous to his conversion ; for every man gets a lan
guage constructed early in life, which nothing can change
afterwards. Notwithstanding his deductive manner, it
will be plain to any one who reads him with a true
insight, that, under the form of ratiocination,, he is not so
much theologizing, as flaming in the holy inspirations of
truth ; speaking not as a logician, but as a seer. Under
so many illatives and deductive propositions, he is emit
ting fire, not formulas for the mere speculative under
standing ; rolling on, in the vehement power of a soul
possessed with Christ, to declare the mystery that hath
been hid for ages; conceiving nowhere that he is the
first professor of Christian dogmatics ; nowhere thinking,
as a Christian Rabbi, to prepare a Targum on the Gospels.
Besides, - it will be clear, on examination, that his
illatives often miscarry, when taken as mere instruments,
dr terms of logic, while, if we conceive him rushing
on through so many '' Fors" and parentheses, which
belong to his old Pharisaic culture, and serve as a con
tinuous warp of connectives to his speech — now become
the vehicle or channel, not for the modes of Rabbi
Gamaliel, but for a stream of Christian fire — what before
seemed to wear a look of inconsequence, assumes a port
of amazing energy, and he becomes the fullest, heartiest,
and most irresistible of all the inspired writers of the
Christian scriptures. But, in order to this his true atti
tude, we must make him a seer, and not a system maker ;
we must read his epistle as a prophesying of the spirit,
not as a Socratic lecture.
We find little, therefore, in the scriptures, to encourage
the hope o? a complete and sufficient Christian dogma-

FOR THE USES OF DOGMA. 77
tism, or of a satisfactory and truly adequate system of
scientific theology. Language, under the laws of logic or
speculation, does not seem to be adequate to any such
use or purpose. The scriptures of God, in providing
- a clothing for religious truth, have little to do with mere
dialectics, much to do with the freer creations of poetry ;
and that for reasons, evidently, which Ought to waken
a salutary scepticism in us, in regard to the possibility of
that, which so many great minds have been attempting
with'so great confidence for so many hundreds of years.
With due respect, also, I will venture to ask, whether the
actual results of this immense engineering process, which
we call dogmatic and polemic theology — as surely polemic,
as dogmatic — does not give some countenance to the
doubt I am suggesting?
And, perhaps, the saying of Lord Bacon will turn out
to have more of truth in it than he himself perceived :
" Philosophy has three, objects; God, nature, and "man;
as, also, three kinds of rays ; for nature strikes the human
intellect with a direct ray — God with a refracted ray,
from the inequality of the medium betwixt the Creator
and the creature — man, as exhibited to himself with
a reflected ray." Now, language, as we have seen, has
a literal character in regard to physical objects. It
" writes," as Bacon also says it is the true aim of philo
sophy to do, " a revelation and real view of the stamps and
signatures of the Creator upon the creatures." But,
when we come to religion and mental science, our terms
are only analogies, signs, shadows, so to speak, of thes)
formless mysteries above us and within us. Here we
see nothing, save in refracted or reflected rays; there
fore, with but a limited capacity of mental understanding.

78 LANGUAGE INSUFFICIENT
It accords, also, with this, that while natural science is
advancing with so great rapidity and certainty of move
ment, the advances of mental science and theology are
so irregular and obseure, and are wrought out by a
process so conflicting and tortuous. They seem, in fact,
to have no advance, save what may be called a cultiva
tion of symbol, produced by the multifarious industry of
debate and system-making. There is, however, one
hope for mental and religious truth, and their final settle
ment, which I confess I see but dimly, and can but
faintly express, or indicate. It is, that physical^science,
leading the way, setting outward things in their true
,• proportions, opening up their true contents, revealing their
genesis and final causes and laws, and weaving all into the
unity of a real universe, will so perfect our knowledges and
conceptions of them, that we can use them, in the second
department of language, with more exactness. There is,
we have also seen, in what we call nature, that is, in its
objects, an outward grammar of relations, which con
structs the grammar of language; or what is not far
different, the logic of propositions. In the laws of nature,
I suppose, there is, in like manner, an internal grammar,
which is certain, as it is evolved, to pass into language,
and be an internal grammar in that, systematizing and
steadying its uses. And then language will be as much
more full and intelligent, as it has more of God's intelli
gence, in the system of nature, imparted to its symbols.
For, undoubtedly, the whole universe of nature is a per
fect analogon of the whole universe of thought or spirit.
Therefore, as nature becomes truly a universe only
through science revealing its universal laws, the true

FOR THE USES OF DOGMA. 79
universe of thought and spirit cannot sooner be conceived.
It would be easy to show, in this connection, the immense
force already exerted over the empire of spiritual truth,
by astronomy, chemistry, geology, the revelations of
light and electricity, and especially of the mysterious
and plastic workings of life, in the animal and vegetable
kingdoms. We are accustomed to say, that this is not
the same world to live in that it was fifty years ago.
Just as true is it, that it is not the same world to think
in, that it then was, — of which, also, we shall, by and by,
take notice.
If, then, it please any one to believe, notwithstanding
the present incapacities of dogmatism, that when, through -
science, we are able to see things physical in their
true force and relations, having, also, within us, inbreathed
by the spirit of God, a comprehensive heart and feelings
sufficiently cleared of prejudice, to behold, in the univer
sal mirror of God, His universal truth, — if, I say, any
one please to believe, that now the Christian world
may arrive at some final and determinate apprehensions
of Christian doctrine, I will not object. But, if they
do, observe, it will only be that they have settled, at
last, into a comprehensive reception of the universal
symbolism, and not that they have invented a few propo
sitions, so intensely significant and true, as to dispense
with all besides.
14. It is important to notice, as connected with the
subject of language, that dogmatical propositions, such as
are commonly woven into creeds and catechisms of
doctrine, have not the certainty they are commonly

80 CREEDSAND
supposed to have. They only give us the seeing of the
"authors, at the precise stand-point occupied by them, at
the time, and they are true only as seen from that point,
— not even there, save in a proximate sense. Passing on,
descending the current of time, we will say, for two
centuries, we are brought to a different point, as when
we change positions in a landscape, and then we are
doomed to see things in a different light, in spite of
ourselves. It is not that the truth changes, but
that we change. Our eye changes color, and then the
color of our eye affects our seeing. We are different
men, living as parts in a different system of things
and thinkings, denyings, and affirmings; and,, as our
contents and our antagonisms are different, we cannot
see the same truths in the same forms. It may even be
necessary to change the forms, to hold us in the same
truths. I could name phrases that have been brought into the
creeds of many of our New England churches, within
the present half century, which are already waxing old,
and are doomed, within the next half century, to ask a
re-modification. Besides, in the original formation of any creed, cate
chism, or system of divinity, there is always a latent
element of figure, which, probably, the authors know not
of, but without which, it is neither true to them, nor to
anybody. \ But in a long course of repetition, the figure
dies out, and the formula settles into a literality, and then,
if the repetition goes on, it is really an assent to what is
not true ; for that which was true, at the beginning, has
now become untrue — and that, however paradoxical it

CONFESSIONS. 81
may seem, by being assented to. What I here speak of,
might be easily illustrated by a reference to the dogmatic'
history of opinions, concerning sin and free will. iThe
will is under no mechanical laws. Hence, in all the
reasonings, affirmations, and denials relating to the will
and its modes of responsible activity, language, being
mostly derived from the mechanical world, must somehow
be divorced, in the use, from all its mechanical laws, else it
imports a falsity .> But the difficulty is, to keep the lan
guage up to that self-active mechanical sense in which,
only, it was true in the original use ; for a dull, unthink
ing repetition lets it down very soon under the old
mechanical laws, and then the same, or closely similar,
forms of reasoning and assertion are false. Hence, in
part, the necessity, I suppose, that this particular class of
subjects should be reinvestigated every fifty years. Con
sidering the infirmities of language, therefore, all formulas
of doctrine should be held in a certain spirit of accommo
dation. They cannot be pressed to the letter, for the very
sufficient reason that the letter is_neyer true.. They can
be regarded only as proximate representations, and should
therefore be accepted not as laws over belief, or opinion,
but more as badges of consent and good understanding.
The moment we begin to speak of them as guards and
tests of purity, we confess that we have lost the sense
of purity, and, ¦ with about equal certainty, the virtue
itself. At the same time, it is remarkable with what ease
a man, whp is sensible of the fluxing nature and signifi
cance of words, may assent to almost any creed, and
that, with a perfectly sincere doubt, whether he does not

82 CREEDS AND
receive it in its most interior and real meaning ; that is,
whether going back to the men who made it, taking
their stand point, and abating what belongs to the form
of a truth, in distinction from the truth itself; he does
not come into the real senses or interior beliefs they
clothed in these forms. Perhaps it is on this account
that I have never been able to sympathise, at all, with
the abundant protesting of the New England Unitarians,
against creeds. So far from suffering even the least
consciousness of constraint, or oppression, under any
creed, I have been readier to accept as great a number
as fell in my way ; for when they are subjected to the
deepest chemistry of thought, that which descends to the
point of relationship between the form of the truth and
its interior formless nature, they become, thereupon, so
elastic, and run so freely into each other, that one seldom
need have any difficulty in accepting as many as are
offered him. He may regard them as only a kind of
battle-dooring of words, blow answering to blow, while
the reality of the play, viz. exercise, is the same, which
ever side of the room is taken, and whether the stroke is
given by the right hand or the left.
The greatest objection that I know, to creeds, — that
is, to creeds of a theoretic or dogmatic character, — is
that they make so many appearances of division, where
there really is none, till the appearances make it. They
are likely, also, unless some debate or controversy
sharpens the mind to them, and keeps them alive, to die
out of meaning, and be assented to, at last, as a mere
jingle of words. Thus we have, in many of our orthodox
formulas of trinity, the phrase — " the same in substance,"

CONFESSIONS. 83
and yet, how many are there, even of our theologians, to
whom it will now seem a heresy, to say this with a
meaning. And the clause following, " equal in power
and glory," will be scarcely less supportable, when a
yiew of trinity is offered which gives the terms an
earnest and real significance.
On these accounts,, the best creed is that which stays
by the concrete most faithfully, and carries its doctrine,
as Jar as possible, in a vehicle of fact and of real life.
This is the peculiar excellence and beauty of what is
called the "Apostle's Creed." If, however, creeds of
theory, or systematic dogma, must be retained, the next
best arrangement would be to allow assent to a great
" number of such creeds at once ; letting them qualify,
assist, and mitigate each, other. And a virtual allow
ance of this is, in fact, one of the best points in our
Saybrook Platform, which accepts the acknowledgment,
either of its own Articles, or of the "Doctrinal Articles
of the Church of England," or of the "Westminster
Confession," or of the "Confession agreed on at the
Savoy;" and if it be indifferent which of the four is
received, there can be no objection, certainly, if all are
received. And it is in just this way that the scripture
has its meaning filled out, qualified, fortified, secured
against subsiding into falsity, or becoming a mere jingle
of sounds. We have so many writers set before us, each
in his own habit, and giving his own form of the truth ;
offering the truth, some at one pole, and some at the
other, that, when we receive and entertain them all,
making, in fact, a creed of them all, they act as comple
mentary forces, and, by their joint effect, keep us ever in

84 HOW AN ORIGINAL WRITER
the fullest, liveliest, and most many-sided apprehension of
the Christian truth.
15. I have said nothing of the manner in which the
user of language imparts himself to it. Undoubtedly
every human language has, in its words and forms,
indelible marks of the personal character and habit of the
men by whom it was originally produced. Nay, it may,
even, be said that every language carries in its bosom
some flavor of meaning or import, derived from all the
past generations that have lived in it. Not more truly
does it represent the forms of nature, than it does within,
or under these forms, the contents, also, of history.
And, therefore, what is called usage, has a certain impor
tance, when we seek the import or right use of words.
But not any such importance as the lexicographers, and
the Blairizing critics, have given it. Usage is a guide to
use, but never a limit upon use. We have our -freedom,
as our fathers had, and as good a right to use words with
new meanings, certainly, as to have new thoughts.
And just here, it is, that we come upon a matter,
which, if it be too mysterious to be investigated, is yet
too important to be overlooked. In every writer, distin
guished by mental life, words have a significance and
power breathed into them, which is wholly peculiar —
whether it be in the rythm, the collocations, the cadences,
or the internal ideas, it may be impossible to guess. But
his language is his own, and there is some chemistry
of life in it that belongs only to him, as does the vital
chemistry of his body. This holds of every Writer, who
can properly be called a living soul. If he be a dead

BECOMES INTELLIGIBLE. 85
soul, or one that is coffined in mere logic and uses, then
his language, being dead, will be like all other dead lan
guage ; for death is always like itself. In what manner
it is, that words, in common, ordinary use — words that
have been staled in their significance, as raisins are pre
served in their own sugar, — receive a new inbreathing of
life and power, it is impossible, I have saidi to explain.
Pascal cites, for illustration, the different games that may
be played with the same tennis balls, which, in fact, is
only appealing to death and chance for the illustration of
life. Better, is it, to conceive the spirit of the author, as
living in his words, in the same manner as Coleridge con
ceives the spirit of his country living in its outward
sceneries and objects : — " I had found
That outward forms, the loftiest, still receive
Their finer influence from the Life within."
Accordingly, it is the right of every author, who
deserves attention at all, to claim a certain liberty, and
even to have it for a merit that he cannot be judged
exactly by old uses and formulas. Life is organic ; and
if there be life in his work, it will be found not in some
noun or verb that he uses, but in the organic whole of
his creations. Hence, it is clear that he must be appre
hended in some sense, as a whole, before his full import
can be received in paragraphs and sentences. Until then,
he will, of necessity, appear to be obscure, enigmatical,
extravagant, or even absurd. He cannot be tested by
the jingle of his words, or by auscultation applied to the
breathing of his sentences. No decree of condemnation

86 HOW AN ORIGINAL WRITER
must be passed upon him, because he does not make
himself understood, sentence by sentence ; for, if he
infuses into words a life-power of his own, or does more
than simply to recombine old impressions, he cannot
make himself intelligible, fully, save through a kind of
general acquaintance. It may, even, be to his praise,
that he is not too easily understood. For, in this matter
of understanding, two things are requisite ; first, a matter
which is understandable ; and, second, a power that is capa
ble of understanding ; and if there be some things offered,
hard to be understood, then there must be a power of
digestion strong enough to master them ; and if, in
fault of that, some crude, _and over- confident sophister
dangerously wrests the words, the blame is with him.
Nor is it enough, in such a case, that the reading man, or
public, be of a naturally sound mind, or even that they
bring to the subject, capacities of a very high order ; for
words, as we have seen, never carry, or transfer a
thought ; they only offer hints or symbols, to put others
on generating the same thought, which, in many cases,
they are not likely to do, unless they have been long
enough practiced in the subject discussed, to know where
it lies ; and not even then, if the writer is at all out
of the system of his day, without such a degree of
exercise in his forms of thought as will beget a certain
general insight of his method and symbol.
They cannot run to a dictionary, and' draw out the
shroud of an old meaning from that, by which to conceive,
or in which to clothe words and phrases that have their
vital force, in no small part, from the man himself; and
which, therefore, can be fully understood only by refer-

BECOMES INTELLIGIBLE. 87
ence to the total organism of which they are members.
The reading man, therefore, before he thinks to judge the
writing man, must first endeavor to generate the writing
man. And this, without supposing any defect of capacity
in himself, will sometimes be difficult. He may be too
young, or too old ; having too little breadth, or too little
flexibility, tp make a sufficient realization of the truth
presented. It costs me no mortification, to confess that
the most fructifying writer I ever read, was one in whom
I was, at first, able only to see glimspes, or gleams of
truth ; one whom it required years of study and reflec
tion, of patient suspension and laborious self-questioning,
to be able fully to understand ; and, indeed, whom I
never since have read, at all, save in a chapter or two,
which I glanced over, just to see how obvious and clear,
what before was impossible, had now become.
Shall I dare to go further ? Shall I say that of all the
"clear" writers and speakers I have ever met with, —
those, I mean, who are praised by the multitude for their
transparency, — I have never yet found one that was able
to send me forward an inch ; or one that was really true,
save in a certain superficial, or pedagogical sense, as
being an accurate distributor of that which is" known.
The roots of the known are always in the unknown ;
and, if a man will never show the root of any thing, if he
will treat of the known as separate from the unknown,
and as having a complete knowledge of it, which he has
not — pretending, still, to be an investigator, and to exert
an obstetric force, when he is only handling over old
knowledges and impressions— he may easily enough be
clear. Nothing, in fact, is easier, if one is either able to

88 FACILITIESOF
be shallow, or willing to be false. He is clear, because
he stands out before the infinite and the unknown ; sepa
rated, bounded off [de-finite] so that you see the whole
compass of his head, just so many inches in diameter.
But the writer, who is to help iis on, by some real
advance or higher revelation, will, for that reason, be less
comprehensible, and offer more things hard to be under
stood. He will be, as it were, a face, setting out from a
back ground of mystery ; a symbolism, through which the
i infinite and the unknown are looking out upon us, and, by
! kind significances, tempting us to struggle into that
holy, but dark profound, which they are opening. Of
course, we are not to make a merit of obscurity; for
nothing is more to be admired than the wondrous art
by which some men are able to propitiate and assist the
generative understanding of others, so as to draw them
readily into higher realizations of truth. But there is a
limit, we must acknowledge, even to this highest power
of genius ; it cannot quite create a soul under the ribs of
death. Whatever may be thought of these suggestions, for
some, I suppose, will give them little weight, it is obvious
that, since language is rather an instrument of suggestion,
than of absolute conveyance for thought, since it acts
suggestively, through symbols held up in the words,
which symbols and words are never exact measures of
any truth (always imputing somewhat of form to the
truth which does not belong to it, always somewhat
contrary to each other) — this being true, it is obvious that
a very little of perverse effort expended on his words,
can subject a writer to almost any degree of apparent

PERVERSE CRITICISM. 89
absurdity. And, what is specially to be noticed, there
is no other human work, in which so much of applause
can be gotten at so cheap a rate, and with so small a
modicum of talent. The work, indeed, is always half
done beforehand. The words are ready to quarrel, as
soon as any one will see them, and nothing is necessary,
in fact, but to play off a little of constructive ingenuity
on their forms, to set them at war with one another and
the whole universe besides. And, when it is done, many
will be sure to admire and praise what they call the pro
found and searching logic displayed. Now, the truth is,
that no many-sided writer, no one who embraces all the
complementary forces of truth, is ever able to stand
in harmony before himself, (such is the nature of lan
guage,) save by an act of internal construction favorable
to himself, and preservative of his mental unity. It
follows, of necessity, that without this favorable act
of construction extended to his words, no true teacher
can be saved from contradiction and confusion, — no one,
especially, who presents more than a half, or tenth part
of a truth. Therefore, every writer, not manifestly
actuated by a malignant or evil spirit, is entitled to this
indulgence. The mind must be offered up to him, for
the time, with a certain degree of sympathy. It must
draw itself into the same position ; take his constructions ;
feel out, so to speak, his meanings, and keep him, as far
as may be, in a form of general consistency. Then,
having endeavored thus, and for a sufficient length of
time, to reproduce him or his thought, that is, to make a
realization of him, some proper judgment may be formed
in regard to the soundness of his doctrine.
8*

90 FACILITIES OP'
I need not say how different is the method ordinarily
pursued. The decision is an off-hand decision. No
time is allowed to cross-question the writer's representa
tions, and see how one symbol interprets, qualifies, and
corrects another. First impressions are sufficient and
infallible. It is found that a very little pressure against
the harmony of words and phrases, produces woful dis
cords and absurdities, which it will be a pleasant proof of
superior acumen to exhibit. And then, as a vulture
lighting upon a lamb, tears out some member, and bears
it off, screaming over the prey, as if he were saying, —
See how absurdly that lamb was put together ! — so we
are to see a member torn out here or there, separated
from all the vital connections of reason, turned about in
the screws of constructive logic, properly so called, and
held up as a foolish thing, to pity or derision ! May we
not believe, that when the nature of language, as an
instrument of thought, is properly understood, this vulture
talent, which has so long violated the delicate integrity of
opinions, and the sacred rights of truth, will be estimated
according to its dignity ?
It needs also to be remarked, in this connection, that
a writer is not, of course, to be blamed because he is vari-
riously interpreted by his readers, or because the public
masses have a degree of difficulty in conceiving his pre
cise meaning. It should be so, and will be, if he has any
thing of real moment to say. There has always been
most of controversy, for this reason, about the meaning
of the greatest authors and teachers. Plato, for example,
and Aristotle ; Bacon, Shakspeare, and Goethe ; Job,
Paul, John, and especially Christ Himself. What, in

PER-VERSE criticism. 91
fact, do we see, in the endless debate, kept up for these
eighteen hundred years, over the words of Jesus, but an
illustration of the truth, that infinitesimals, though there
be many of them, are not the best judges of infinites.
And something of the same principle pertains, in the
judgment or inspection of merely human teachers.
They may be obscure, not from weakness only, which,
certainly, is most frequent, but quite as truly by reason
of their exceeding breadth, and the piercing vigor of their
insight. And when this latter is true, as it sometimes
may be, then to invoke a sentence of popular condemna
tion, because the writer has not made himself perfectly
intelligible, or clear to the whole public, is, in fact, to
assist or instigate the multitude in practicing a fraud
against themselves. And, what is worse, if possible,
it encourages an ill-natured and really unchristian spirit
in them, excusing their impatience with every form of
teaching that requires an effort of candor, or an ingenu^
ous spirit. /
16. That I may not seem to be offering to the public,
doctrines, the real import of which I have not considered
myself, something must be said of the consequences likely
to result to religion, from the admission of views such as
I have here presented. Only, be it observed, that their
truth depends, in no degree, on any expectations of good,
or any vaticinations of evil, which the faith of one,
or the panic of another may raise.
Unquestionably, the view of language here presented
must produce, if received, a decided mitigation of our
dogmatic tendencies in religion. It throws a heavy

92 EFFECTS OF A RIGHT" VIEW.
shade of discouragement on our efforts in this direc
tion. It shows that language is, probably, incapable of
any such definite and determinate use as we have
supposed it to be in our theological speculations ; that,
for this reason, dogma has failed hitherto, and about
as certainly will hereafter. Taking away, thus, the
confidence of the speculative theologer, it will limit, pro
portionally, his eagerness. It will, also, reduce the very
excessive eminence he has, at present, in the public
estimation, requiring a re-adjustment of the scale that
now pertains between this and the historical, literary,
and practical departments of Christian study. Or, better
still, showing that the advancement and the real amount
of true theology depends, not on logical deductions and
systematic solutions, but principally on the more culti
vated and nicer apprehension of symbol, it may turn the
industry of our teachers more in this direction, giving a
more esthetic character to their studies and theories, and
drawing them as much closer to the practical life of
religion. Without being at all aware of the fact, as it would
seem, our theologic method in New England has been
essentially^ationalistic ; though not exactly in the Ger
man sense. The possibility of reasoning out religion,
though denied in words, has yet been tacitly assumed.
Not allowing ourselves to be rationalists over the scrip
tures*, we have yet been as active and confident ration
alists under them, as it was possible to' be — assuming,
always, that they address their contents to the systematic,
speculative reason of men, into which they are to be
received, and by which they are to be digested into

OF LANGUAGE. 93
formulas — when they are ready for use. We have had
a certain negative way of declaring against the compe
tence of the natural man to understand spiritual things,
but it has been done principally in that way only, and as
a convenient method of cutting off speculative arguments
that could not be speculatively answered. It has not
been held, as a practical, positive, and earnest Christian
truth, that there is a Perceptive Power in spiritual life,
an unction of the Holy One, which is itself a kind of i
inspiration — an immediate, experimental knowledge of
God, by virtue of which, and partly in the degree of
which, Christian theology is possible. No real doubt has
been held of the perfect sufficiency of formulas; or of
natural logic, handled by the natural understanding, to •
settle them. The views of language, here offered, lead j
to a different ' method. The scriptures will be more ;
studied than they have been, and in a different manner — j
not as a magazine of propositions and mere dialectic !
entities, but as inspirations, and poetic forms of life ; ;
requiring, also, divine inbreathings and exaltations in us, ,
that we may ascend into their meaning. Our opinions
will be less catechetical and definite, using the word
as our definers do, but they will be as much broader as
they are more divine ; as much truer, as they are more vital
and closer to the plastic, undefinable mystery of spiritual
life. We shall seem to understand less, and shall actually
receive more. . No false pre-cision, which the nature and
conditions of spiritual truth forbid, will, by cutting up the
body of truth into definite and dead morsels, throw us
into states of excision and division, equally manifold.
We shall receive the truth of God in a more entire

94 EFFECTS OF A RIGHT VIEW
organic and organific manner, as being itself an essen
tially vital power. It will not be our endeavor to pull
the truth into analytic distinctions, as if theology were a
kind of inorganic chemistry, and the last end of discovery,
an atomic theory; but we shall delight in truth, more
as a concrete, vital nature, incarnated in all fact
and symbol round us — a vast, mysterious, incompre
hensible power, which best we know, when most we
love. Striving ever outward, towards the infinite, and not
inward or downward, upon speculative minima or atoms,
we shall be kept in a humbler, and far less positive state
of mind. Our judgments of others will be less peremp
tory, and, as we are more modest, we shall be as much
more patient and charitable. And our views of language,
as an instrument wholly inadequate to the exact repre
sentation of thought, will operate, immediately, to favor
the same result.
If any should be apprehensive that the views here
offered may bring in an age of mysticism, and so of
interminable confusion, they will1 greatly misconceive
their import, and also the nature of mysticism itself.
A mystic is one who finds a secret meaning, both in
words and in things, back of their common or accepted
meaning — some agency of Life, or Living Thought,
hid under the forms of words and institutions, and
historical events. Hence, all religious writers and
teachers, who dwell on the representative character of
words and things, or hold the truths of religion, not in
mechanical measures and relations, but as forms of life,
are so far mystics. Thus Neander gives it, as a charac-

OF LANGUAGE. 95
teristic of the apostle John, — " that a reference to com
munion with the Redeemer, in the inward life, and in
the present, predominates over the reference to the
future, and to outward facts ; he dwells upon the elements
of the inner life, the facts of Christian consciousness, and
only slightly adverts to outward matters of fact and
ecclesiastical arrangements. In accordance with this
spirit, he exhibits all the particular incidents in the
outward history of Christ, only as a manifestation of his
indwelling glocy, by which this may be brought home to
the heart ; he always avails himself of these narratives,
to introduce what the Redeemer declared, respecting his
relation to mankind, as the source of life. John is the
representative of the truth which lies at the basis of that
tendency of the Christian spirit, which sets itself in
opposition to a one-sided intellectualism, and ecclesiasti
cal formality — and is distinguished by the name of
mysticism." I make no disavowal, then, of the fact, that there is
a mystic element, as there should be, in what I have
represented as the source of meaning in language, and,
also, in the views of Christian life and doctrine, that
follow. Man is designed, in his very nature, to be a \
partially mystic being ; the world to be looked upon as a
mystic world. Christ himself revealed a decidedly mystic
element in his teachings. There is something of a mystic
quality in almost every writing of the New Testament.
In John, it is a character. In "the dialectic" Paul, ;
there are very many passages quite as mystical as any
in John.
Now, the very cautious and salutary scepticism I have

96 EFFECTS OF A RIGHT VIEW.
maintained, concerning the insufficiency and the partially
repugnant character of words, leaves as little room as
pdssible to apprehend any danger of wildness, or con
fusion from the entrance of a mystic element, thus
qualified and guarded. There is nothing, in fact, that
we so much need, as an apostle John among our other
apostles ; and I fervently hope that God will sometime
send us such a gift. The very last thing to be feared is,
that our loss-and-gain style of religion, the stern^ iron-
limbed speculative logic of our New England theology,
will receive some fatal damage from a trace of the mystic
element. It will produce no overturnings, sap no founda
tions, dissolve no formulas, run to no licence or extrava
gance. It will enter only as life came into the bones ;
which, though they rose up into a limbered and active
state, and were hidden somewhat from the eye, by an
envelop of muscle and skin, were yet as good bones
as before ; probably as much better and more systematic,
as there was more of the life-order in them and about
them. The two principal results, then, which I suppose may
follow, should these views of language be allowed to have
their effect in our theology, are a more comprehensive,
friendly, and fraternal state, than now exists between
different families of Christians ; and, as the confidence of
dogma is mitigated, a more present, powerful, and univer
sal conviction entering into the Christian body, that
^truthjjn its highest and freest forms, is not of the natural
understanding* but is, rather, as Christ himself declared —
i-spirit and life. We shall have more of union, therefore,

OFLANGUAGE. 97
and more of true piety enlightened by the spirit of God
— neither of which involves any harm or danger.

The ' Discourses' which follow, are already known to
the public ; for a somewhat evil notoriety appears to
have gone before them. In their publication, however,
I suffer no anxiety for the result. Lean only wish that
my readers may be candid enough to be just.and patient
enough; to withhold their judgment till they have become
fully possessed ofmy meaning ; or, if that be too much, till
they have sufficiently ascertained that I have no intelli
gent meaning. Whatever sentence they may pass upon
my views and arguments, they will look in vain, I am
quite sure, for any such substantial aberrations in Chris
tian doctrine as could properly excite the alarm, or pro
voke the sensitiveness, known to have been suffered by
many on my account. Indeed, I think it will be more
and more a mystery to them, how it came to pass that I
was able, in so innocent a way, to awaken so much of
painful concern — a mystery which, probably, they will
have little success in solving, unless they remember that
I dared to preach, on invitation, as I supposed my Master
also would, before the Divinity School at Cambridge.
I suppose it is proper to say, that I did not prepare
the occasions, on which these ' Discourses' were delivered,
and seem scarcely to have chosen the subjects them
selves. Indeed, I seem, too, as regards the views pre
sented, to have had only about the same agency in
9

98 INTRODUCTORY.
forming them, that I have in preparing the blood I circu
late, and the anatomic frame I occupy. They are not
my choice, or invention, so much as a necessary growth,
whose process I can hardly trace myself. And now, in
giving them to the public, I seem only to have about the
same kind of option left me that I have in the matter of
appearing in corporal manifestation myself, — about the
same anxiety, I will add, concerning the unfavorable
judgments to be encountered ; for though a man's
opinions are of vastly greater moment than his looks, yet,
if he is equally simple in them, as in his growth, and
equally subject to his law, he is responsible only in the
same degree, and ought not, in fact, to suffer any greater
concern about their reception, than about the judg
ments passed upon his person.
I say this, not as disrespecting or undervaluing the
good opinions of others ; for it would be more agreeable,
I confess, to have my thoughts received with favor,
especially by wise and candid Christian men. I only
speak in this manner, because of the very great happiness
and repose it gives me to feel that, in everything per
taining to these ' Discourses,' I seem to have exerted so
little choice for myself; to have been called for, to have had
my themes appointed, to have spoken what was in me to
say, and what alone I was able. If, in yielding thus to the
lead of some higher necessity, I have really been yielding
as to fate or destiny, it is not well ; if, as to Providence,
is it superstition to'hope, that the Being, whose way it is
to bring the highest things into combination, by the
mediation of the humblest, who appoints that even the
pith-ball, by its play, shall interpret the current of his

r n t muiiii t o u y 99
thunders, may have some comprehensive design prepar
ing, in reference to the sundered churches of New
England, as an introductory to which, the peculiar com
binations touched in these 'Discourses,' if not their
spirit or doctrine, may have some fit relation.2
The first two of the 'Discourses,' and, in a less
immediate, but more fundamental sense, the third, also,
relate to matters in issue between us and the Unitarians.
I am not aware that I have surrendered any truth to
them — that is, anything which is truth to me. If I have
surrendered some other man's truth, he must reclaim it
for himself. Notwithstanding the profound sympathy,
and the real respect I have always felt for the Unitarians,
a sympathy and respect grounded, I will add, in a par
ticipation of similar difficulties ; though I do not, for
the same reason, feel the extreme horror of their persons,
sometimes manifested ; I am, probably, as far from being
in any mood of surrender to them, as could be desired by
the stiffest champion of orthodoxy. It is my settled con
viction, a conviction not the less firmly held because it is
deliberately formed, that to escape certain scholastic and
dogmatic forms of orthodoxy, they have so far renounced,
or obscured many great Christian truths, pertaining to
the trinity, the person of Christ, depravity, regenera
tion and the Spirit of God as a supernatural grace, that
what I should call the tone or tonic energy of the gospel is
lost. And, were it not for the ingenuous spirit of self-
conviction they so often manifest, and especially for the
earnestness with which many are now applying them
selves, to discover the errors and readjust the principles
of their system, I should suppose they might be doomed

100 INTRODUCTORY.
to sink into a typhoid state, and, finally, to die. At first,
their movement could not reveal its inherent defects;
for both ministers and people, growing up under ortho
doxy, with a high religious tone produced in their
nature, by the resonarrt and somewhat brassy energies
of Calvinism, were likely to suppose a degree of
quality in their system, which it really had not. But,
as a true Cremona cannot be made out of green wood, or
any but some ancient timber curiously selected, and
found to have been rightly moved by the rythmic sweep
of winds and storms, so they are likely at last to find, as
they are withdrawn to receive more exclusively the
proper consequences of their system, that it fails to
impart to those who grow up under it from childhood,
that deep vibratory sense of religion, which is needful to
its volume and power. It may be found, that a third
generation is more deficient than the second. Possibly
it may, also, be found, as a general truth, on adverting to
the past, that their most earnest and stirring preachers,
those who have had the deepest convictions, and most of
that sonorous quality which rings conviction into others,
were persons who came out from orthodoxy, not those
who had been trained up in the vernacular of Unita
rianism. I may be wrong in the estimate indicated by these
suggestions ; it is, nevertheless, such as my own inquiries
and reflections have forced upon me. And as I speak in
this manner not to judge them, but simply to indicate my
own position, they will deem it no offence. Meantime,
let us be ready to accept, in good nature, any counter
convictions, by which they will expose, with equal

INTRODUCTORY. 101
frankness, their sense of errors and deficiencies existing
in us ; not objecting, if it should also be made to appear,
that Unitarianism was raised up as a necessary antag
onism and corrective to these precise errors and defects.
Actuated by views like these, it will be seen, clearly
enough, that I am in no mooo" of surrender to Unita
rianism. I suppose, indeed, observing the ordinary
method of such changes, that I am really less likely to
undergo the conversion I speak of, than nineteen twen
tieths of our orthodox teachers, including those, especially,
who are most alarmed, and who suffer, just now, the
deepest nervous horror on my account. It is proper,
also, to say, that I have no thought, in the discussion
that fpllpws, or in the views maintained, of proposing^ any
composition, or compromise, with the Unitarians*, I
have no confidence in any organic and combined effort
of pacification between us. If we are ever re-united, it
will be by a gradual and natural process, working in
individual minds. We must think ourselves together,
not as fixing our minds on some halfway place, where
we may meet, but simply as striving after the divine
verities of the gospel, and the unity of the spirit. This
only is my aim, in the 'Discourses' that follow. Not one
doctrine or sentiment, here offered, has been adjusted
with a view to conciliation. Nothing is advanced, which
I did not hold before the preparing of these ' Discourses ;'
nothing, in fact, which I had not held for substance, ever
since my entrance into the ministry; except that, under the
atonement, I had just been able to bring together into
one view, elements which I had before held separately,
and without perceiving the mode of their agreement,, If

102 INTRODUCTORY
I seem to be throwing doctrines into a shape that may
accommodate their difficulties, I had done it before to
accommodate my own. If I speak of them in terms of
patience and sympathy, if I handle their views with
candor, this may be my sin. When I discover it to be
so, I hope I may have grace to repent of it.
There is an intimate, or interior connection; it will be
seen, between all these ' Discourses,' and the views of lan
guage presented in this 'Preliminary Dissertation.' 1
must, therefore, be allowed to request, that this ' Disserta
tion' may receive a little more attention than is ordinarily
given to Introductions. For, if these views of language
have been historically introductory to me, it is hardly
possible that others will enter fully into my positions,
without any introduction at all.
I have given a view or solution of the Incarnation and
the Trinity, which puts them on" the same footing, in
fact, with all language of thought or spirit. They offer
God, not so much to the reason, or logical understanding,
as to the imagination and the perceptive, or esthetic appre
hension of faith. ] Then, also, their contrarious, or
logically insoluble matter is to be handled in the same
way, as that of all language, when applied to thought.
And if I seem, in this, to assert the unreality of the incar
nation and the trinity, or to make a mere shadew or
figment of it, the reality of language, I answer, is not in
the vocal names, or sounds, but in the solid things, or
physical images they represent ; and there, too, I ought
to add, not in their material solidity, but in the signifi
cances which the Divine Word has insensed in them, or
imparted to them. Accordingly, as the reality of the

INTRODUCTORY. 103
world is whaULisJaJi^u^LjmoL^
not what it is to mere hammers and axes, the incarnation
and the trinity are just as real and historical as the
world is.
Similar objections have been qffered to the represent
ation I have given of the atonement. To some Unita
rians, what I called the "objective view," seemed, I
believe, to be only a fetch, to save the orthodoxy of my
position. To some of my orthodox friends, on the other
hand, it seemed equally unreal, because it only made
a sacrifice, objectively, of that which, taken subjectively,
is simply a truth and a power ; neither party observing
that the life and death of Christ became most thoroughly
real, most truly powerful, only when they are offered to
the mind in this Objective Form. Whereas, it is, if I am
right, the very art and philosophy of God's redemptive
plan, that He prepares a language and objective form for
Christ, by a long historic process, instituted, in great part,
for this very purpose. The grace of Christ being wholly
supernatural, there were, of course, no sufficient bases of
words in nature, to represent or adequately to convey1
it. Hence, it was necessary to prepare, by an artificial
process, new types of words, that should serve this
sacred use. This is done in and through the sacrificial
system of the Old Testament. These sacrifices served
as a ritual, or liturgic exercise for the time then present,
and then, taken as forms wrought into the Jewish mind,
and, indeed, into the mind of the whole world, they were
ready for a higher use, in what I have called the second
department of language — ready to be employed as bases
of words, and vehicles, thus, of the spiritual truths of the

104 INTRODUCTORY.
New Testament. It is not, as we all know perfectly
well, that Christ was a physical sacrifice, offered by fire
upon an altar, not that he was a lamb, not tiiat his
blood was sprinkled by any priest, not that there was any
confession of sins upon his head, and yet all these terms,
which are names of mere physical act and proceeding,
are prepared with an art, none of us can perfectly
fathom, to be the Form of Christ and his truth. In
him they are "fulfilled" as he himself represented.
And, in that view, when presented to us in the forms of
the altar, he is a more real sacrifice than the sacrifice, a
more real lamb, than the lamb. Nor is anything more
clear to me, than that any class of Christians, who
undertake, as avoiding cant, or as being more philosophi
cal, to get rid of the Altar Form, and present the
Saviour's death in terms of more natural language,, will
make full proof, in the end, that the foolishness of God is
wiser than men.
In this matter of trinity and atonement, though I am
as far as possible from all mere phantasm or allegory,
adhering strictly to the historic verity of the scripture
representations, I seem to encounter the same difficulty
with poor Bunyan, .when he consults his friends in
regard to the publication of his ' Pilgrim.' Many prophecy
that his book will not " stand when soundly tried" —
(that is, I suppose, when tried by the dialectic methods
of speculative theology) — they are specially scandalized
by the light, imaginative air of his book, and tell him
that his words " want sulidness" — " metaphors make us
blind." But he rallies courage to say, and his reply is
even more to the point for me than for him : —

INTRODUCTORY. 105
" But must I needs want solidness, because
By metaphors I speak ? Were not God's laws,
His gospel laws, in olden time, held forth
By Types, Shadows, and Metaphors 1 Yet loth
Will any sober man be, to find fault
With them, lest he be found to assault
The highest wisdom ! No, he rather stoops
And seeks to find out by what ' Pins' and ' Loops,'
By ' Calves' and ' Sheep,' by ' Heifers' and by ' Rams,'
By ' Birds' and ' Herbs,' and by the blood of ' Lambs,'
God speaketh to him ; and happy is he
That finds the light and grace that in them be."
The world, I need not add, has finally verified his judg
ment to the full. No man complains of this Pilgrim's
Progress that it wants ' solidness.' By this wonderful
book, it has been proved to the judgment of all Christian
men, that right words and forms offered to the imagina
tion, have really more of solidity and true moment than
any which can be offered to the logical understanding.
And if this be true of a mere Allegory, how much more
of a History prepared with manifold greater skill, to set
forth God and His love in forms of life and feeling before
the imaginative sense of our race. Shall we judge that
there is no proper reality in it, till we have put out the
fire, cut short the freedom, brought down all the living-
forms to be handled and shaped into wooden dogmas by
the hand of our constructive logic ? Here, again, says
Bunyan, giving us even a vaster truth than he himself
supposed, and one that is worthy to be specially medi
tated by all abstractionists and system-mongers :
" All things solid in show, not solid be."

1 06 INTRODUCTORY.
Nothing, in fact, is so unsolid, many times — no fig
ment so vacant of meaning as that dead body of abstrac
tions, or logical propositions, called theology ; which, pro
fessing to give us the contents of God's truth, puts us off,
too generally, with the mere exuviae of reason ; which
extinguishes the living fires of truth to show us the
figures it can draw in the ashes.
I speak in this manner, not .as interposing a caveat
against the speculative objections that may be raised
against my ' Discourses.' I am perfectly well aware that
my readers can run me into just what absurdity they
please. Nothing is more easy. I suppose it might be
almost as easy for me to do it as for them. Indeed, I seem
to have the whole argument which a certain class of
speculators must raise upon my ' Discourses,' in order to
be characteristic, fully before me. I see the words
footing it along to their conclusions. I see the terrible
sylpgisms wheeling out their infantry upon my fallacies
and absurdities. Indeed, I have thought that I might
possibly win some laurels by an anonymous attack of this
kind upon myself.
I should take no notice, in such an attempt, of the
representation that trinity and atonement belong to the
sphere of expression, not to the sphere of logic. Though
the declaration is that they are forms of truth which
have their reality in and through the imaginative and
morally aesthetic powers — truths of form and feeling, not of
the logical understanding — I would silently change the
venue, and bring on the trial before this latter tribunal
somewhat as follows : —
" Dr. B. says that the trinity is involved in the process

INTRODUCTORY. 107
of revelation — that the Absolute Being becomes Father,
Son, and Holy Ghost, in the way of communicating him
self to knowledge. God, then, is really One, and appa
rently Three ; that is, the trinity is a false appearance !
God, also, is an impassible being. Christ suffers. If,
then, Christ is God, it follows that he suffers only in
appearance ; that is, that his suffering is a false appear
ance! In the great work of redemption, the Father is the
Son whom he sends — the Son, the Father who sent him.
Being both Father and Son, he prays to himself, submits
to his own will, offers an atonement to himself, and
ascends, at last, to his own bosom, to gather in those
whom he gave to himself, before the world began !
Meantime, as God cannot die, there is really no death
in the case ; it is all a vain show !
And, again, as Christ is not the Absolute God, save in
a representative sense, God is really not in the transac
tion any where. It is a transaction of nobody, or rather
between three nobodies !"
"A most legitimate answer! a most rigid and fatal
refutation!" I suppose many will say, "of the whole
doctrine of my ' Discourses.' " Very well, be it so.
Then it is, at least, clear that I know how to reason cor
rectly. Be it so, I say, but if only I can get my readers
to go down with me into the real view of my ' Dis
courses,' and of this 'Preliminary Dissertation,' I am
quite willing to risk their opinion of the puerility and
shallowness of all such constructive sophistries.
Or, if still they seem to be true and legitimate argu
ments, I will simply ask it of my reader — (1.) To invent

108 INTRODUCTORY.
some method by which the Infinite and Absolute can
appear in the finite, or the forms of the finite, without
involving all the logical absurdities here perceived-
(2.) To observe that all the terms of language, applied
to matters of thought and spirit, involved originally the
same contradictious results, and do so now to a very
considerable extent, only in a more latent manner.
(3.) To notice that there may be solid, living, really con
sistent truth in the views I have offered, considering the
trinity and atonement as addressed to feeling and imagi
nation, when, considered as addressed to logic, theye.is
only absurdity and confusion in them. (4.) To notice
that the more common orthodox views of trinity and
atonement, if any one can settle what they are, involve
all the contrarieties and absurdities just set forth, with
the disadvantage, that being held as truths of dogma, the
absurdities and contrarieties are real, and suffer no ex
plication. And here, exactly, is the field in which Unitarianism
has luxuriated. It had everything made ready ; it was
called for, sent for, to come up from the vasty deep, or
somewhere else, and clear away this dialectic rubbish
and confusion.
It began by saying, what is quite intelligible— that one
is one, and three are three. If, then, the Father, Son,
and Holy Ghost are each God in himself, and all God
together, then there must, of necessity, be two sorts of
Gods ; one sort, or grade, (of which there are three,) that
consist of a single person each ; another sort or grade
(of which there is but one,) that consists of three per
sons — three Gods who are Dei simplices — one God who

INTRODUCTORY. 109
is Deus triplex. We have, then, two sorts of God,
and four Gods — a real quaternity, instead of a trinity of
persons !
It would seem, too, that if the Father sends the Son,
hears the Son, raises the Son, and both dispense the
Spirit, there is a very marked subordination of one God,
in the first class, to another ; that is, of one Deus sim
plex to another. And, if so, the four Gods are all very
distinct Beings in nature, scope, and order — as distinct
as Caesar, Pompey, Crassus, and the Triumvirate !
But, instead of this, the actual supremacy of each and
all is strenuously asserted as a radical test of orthodoxy.
Then, as the Father sends the Son, God (the Supreme,)
sends God (the Supreme,) and, in the same manner, God
atones before God, God prays to God; God submits to
God, God ascends to God. God also suffers, and God dies !
But, to escape these absurdities, the Son empties him
self, it is said, of his proper majesty and glory. This
can be understood if it only mean that he does an act of
condescension. But if it be supposed to mean that he
empties himself of his real nature, as the essentially
Supreme Being, it -follows that he is no longer God — we
know not what he is. Where, meantime, is that part of
his nature that he has put away ; where, in what con
stellation or third heaven is this grand deposite of in
finity and deity laid by !
It is also said, to escape the same difficulties, that tbjj?
human nature only of Jesus suffers, prays, and dies.
Then, in this matter of atonement, there is no real im
plication of deity at all; it is only appearance, and
if more is pretended, false appearance ! After all, the
10

110 INTRODUCTORY.
atonement is made only by the man Jesus !- The man
Jesus turns away from the God in whose very person he
is, as if that person were not, to pray to the Father —
prays to him out of the Son, as Jonah to the Lord his
God, from the heart of the sea — appeals, in fact, from
the God who has taken possession of his humanity, to a
God who has not ! So the man Jesus suffers and dies,
and the suffering and death really touch not the Son.
It is only so arranged that the Son is in local proximity,
cohabiting in the same tenement, while, in reality, he has
nothing more to do with the fortunes of the man Jesus,
than if he were beyond the Pleiades — unless it be that
he implicates the man in griefs and disasters which do
not reach himself! To offer, therefore, what the man
only suffers, as a proof or expression of his own compas
sion, is only to blind the world's perceptions under pre
text of winning its love !
Now, by this kind of argumentation, which is perfectly
legitimate, as against our common orthodoxy, because it
is in the logical method of orthodoxy, but which, to me
and as against me, has no substance or verity whatever —
by this I say, it is that Unitarianism is ever at work to
clear away what it calls the scholastic rubbish and
absurdity of past ages, and reduce the Christian truth to
some less offensive and more credible shape. Thus
emerges a new liberal theology — very simple, perfectly
comprehensible, never difficult, a last fruit of reason, a
completed model of — inefficiency, perhaps time will say,
and therefore I will not anticipate the verdict.
If, now, we wish to be clear of scripture, made into
logical jargon on one side, and unmade or emptied of

INTRODUCTORY. Ill
divinity and grandeur on the other, I know no better
method than to accept these great truths of trinity and
atonement as realities or verities addressed to faith : or,
what is not far different, to feeling and imaginative rea
son — not any more as logical and metaphysical entities,
for the natural understanding. If any one can show me
a better way, I am quite willing to embrace it.
It has been customary, as all theologians know, to
allow a wide range of liberty, under these doctrines of
trinity and atonement. The essential matter seems to
be that some trinity shall be held, such as will answer the
practical uses of the life, and bring God into a lively,
glowing, manifold power over the inner man — Father,
Son, Holy Ghost, historically three, and also really one ;
— some scheme of atonement that upholds law, as eternal
verity and sanctity; delivering still from bondage under
it, and writing it as a law of liberty in the heart. I am
not aware that I have transcended the limits of suffer
ance or pardon in regard to either of these doctrines,
though I should not hesitate to do it if the truth required.
As regards the latter, in reference to which I seem to
have excited the most of apprehension, my only sin
appears to be, that I have discovered so much more in
the work of Christ than our common forensic theory of
justification presents, that the real equivalent I have
given for this latter is thrown into shade.
Thirteen or fourteen years ago, Professor Stuart trans
lated and published, in the Biblical Repository, a transla
tion of Schleiermacher's critique on Sabellius, adding
copious remarks of his own. The general view of the
trinity given in that article coincides, it will be dis-

112 INTRODUCTORY.
covered, with the view I have presented ; though the
reasonings are not, in all points, the same. I was greatly
obliged to Professor S. for giving it to the public, and not
the less because it confirmed me in results to which I had
come by my own private struggles. That article, I be
lieve, awakened no jealousy or uneasiness on account of
his orthodoxy, although it was frankly intimated by the
Professor that it had given him new light, and changed
the complexion of his own views. He sought, indeed, to
throw in a modification of Schleiermacher's view, which
seemed to him to be important, viz : that while " the
names, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, seem to be given,
principally in reference to the revelation of God in these
characters," "there was, from eternity, such a distinc
tion in the nature of the Godhead, as would certainly
lead to the development of it, as Father, Son, and Holy
Ghost."— Bib. Rep. vol. vi. p. 108.
Doubtless there is some reason or ground in the God
head, or in God, for every thing developed out of Him in
time, whether it be a stone or a fly. And if that is what
the Professor means by the word " distinction," I certainly
agree. But if the word means something more — if it
means that the names, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, are
incidental to the process of " revelation," and yet refer
able to some equivalent distinction back of it, then
Schleiermacher's opinion seems to be both accepted and
rejected ; for if, supposing the strict simplicity of God, it
is still discovered that His revelation will involve a three
fold impersonation, then to imagine that 'this latter indi
cates a threefold distinction in His nature, as its ground,
is, in fact, to abandon, or, by an inverse proceeding, to

INTRODUCTORY. 113
overthrow the solution accepted. I have said what is a
little different, but certainly not more remote from ortho
doxy, viz : that Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, being inci
dental to the revelation of God, may be and probably
are, from eternity and to eternity, inasmuch as God may
have revealed Himself from eternity, and certainly will
reveal Himself as long as there are minds to know Him. It
may be, in fact, the nature of God to reveal Himself, as
truly as it is of the sun to shine, or of living mind to
think. I am well aware that the exhibition I have made of the
atonement is not apprehended with as great facility as
could be desired, and I think we have some reason to
admit that the exhibitions of Paul and of John are open
to the same objection, if it be an objection ; for how else
have good men been obliged to spend so much of toil on
their representations, with results so unequal and diverse ?
The difficulty, however, belongs rather to the greatness
of the subject ; drawing into view, as it does, all the rela
tions of God on one part and man on the other ; involving
the deepest questions and profoundest mysteries of the
moral government of God.
I suppose it may require a little effort on the part of
those who are not versed in such forms of statement, to
'apprehend the precise import of the double view I have
given — the subjective and objective view, one as equiva
lent to the other — but, when it is apprehended, I think it
will be found to offer a comprehensive and satisfactory
conception of the whole subject. In this confidence, I
venture to ask it of the reader that he will exercise a
little patience with me here, and be willing to turn himself
10*

114 INTRODUCTORY.
about in such tentative efforts as may be necessary, till
he comes into the stand-point I hold. Since this discourse
was delivered, my attention has been called to Neander's
volume on the " Planting and Training of the Church,"
where I find also a subjective and objective view main
tained, as belonging to the true conception of the Pauline
theology. I take pleasure in referring the reader to so
high an authority. Indeed, I could wish that all who de
sign to investigate these subjects, would make a study of
the very able expositions he has here given of the char
acter, stand-point and Christian doctrine of each of the
apostles — the more so, that I am able so generally to con
cur with his views.
It was regarded by some, I believe, as a defect of my
'Discourse,' at Andover, that I did not make the dis
tinction between " spirit" and " dogma" more clear. I
have endeavored to do so. But I submit whether it is
exactly reasonable to require of me that I shall clear the
apostle Paul in the very deliberate statements he has
given of this distinction, in both his epistles to the Corin
thians. Is it more reasonable to require of me that I
shall perfectly settle a distinction which no intelligent
Christian has doubted since the relations of Faith and
Knowledge [Pistis and Gnosis^ began to be discussed,
but which no one before me has been able to state so
exactly as to exclude ambiguity?
It has been intimated to me, that what I said in refer
ence to the Apostles' Creed, is grounded in a false
assumption ; the German critics having shown that this
creed was really produced subsequently to the Nicene.
But what have not the German critics shown ? I have

INTRODUCTORY 115
not investigated this question, farther than simply to
refer to the authorities at hand in my own library ; for
this is one of those questions where the evidence of in
spection suffices, and without any other and against all
other, I am quite willing to risk the affirmation, that the
Apostles' Creed is not of a date subsequent to the Nicene.
It is not, for the very sufficient reason that it could not
be. The phrase "descended into hell" is known to
have been added at a later date ; — it wears, in fact, a
post-Nicene look — but the other parts of the document
appear to have been gradually collected in the first and
second centuries.
It is proper to add that I have taken the liberty to
re-cast this latter ' Discourse,' which had been some
what hastily prepared, and that I have so far modified its
form as even to vary a little the import of the sub
ject. Some persons anticipate, I perceive, in the publication
of these ' Discourses,' the opening of another great
religious controversy. There may be such a controversy,
but I really do not see whence it is to come ; for, as
regards myself, I am quite resolved that I will be drawn
to no reply, unless there is produced against me some
argument of so great force that I feel myself required,
out of simple duty to the truth, either to surrender, or to
make important modifications in the views I have
advanced. I anticipate, of course, no such necessity, though I do
anticipate that arguments and reviews, very much in the
character of that which I just now gave myself, will be

116 INTRODUCTORY.
advanced — such as will show off my absurdities in a
very glaring light, and such as many persons of acknowl
edged character will accept with applause, as conclusive,
or even explosive refutations. Therefore, I advertise it
beforehand, to prevent a misconstruction of my silence,
that I am silenced now, on the publication of my volume.
It has been a question whether my duty to the truth
would suffer the taking of this ground ; but I have come
to the opinion that replications are generally of little use,
and that, though the truth may be somewhat hindered or
retarded by adverse criticism, it will yet break through
at last, unassisted, and have its triumph. Furthermore,
the truths here uttered are not mine. They live in their
own majesty. Ought I not, therefore, to believe that
going forth in silence, having time on their side, and God
in company, they will open their way, even the more
securely, the less of human bustle and tumult is made in
their behalf.
This it is my happiness to think. Therefore I drop
them into the world, leaving them to care for themselves,
and assert their own power. If they create disturbance,
I hope it may be a salutary disturbance. If they are
received, and find advocates ready to assert them, as I
do myself, out of simple reverence to the truth, I shall
rejoice. If they are rejected universally, then I leave
them to time, as the body of Christ was left, believing
that after three days they will rise again. For there is
most assuredly to be a time, when the apostolic spirit of
religion will be restored, and resume its sway in the
world ; when our narrow and restrictive dogmas, our
forms of opinion elevated into measures of piety, our

INTRODUCTORY. 117
low views of faith, and our legal, uninspired charities —
in a word, the huge piles of wood, hay, and stubble,
we have accumulated, will be burned up in the original
fires of the apostolic age, re-kindled in the church. And
in the restored simplicity, the enlarged union, the quick
ened and quickening life of that day, which I hope may
not be distant, it may possibly be found that views, such
9 1 have here offered, have more of the Christian spirit
and power, than many are now able to believe.

CONCIO AD CLERUM:

DISCOURSE

DIVINITY OF CHRIST

DELIVERED AT THE

ANNUAL COMMENCEMENT OE YALE COLLEGE. \
AUGUST 15, 1848.

DISCOURSE, &c.

It is laid upon me, by the General Association of Con
necticut, to discuss before you, this evening, the Divinity
of Christ — a duty which I most willingly undertake,
because I think the time has now come when a re-inves
tigation of the subject will be more likely than at any
former period, to issue in a practical settlement, or
approach to settlement, of the questions involved. It
will be understood, in this discussion, that I speak ad
clerum, and not ad populum. I am not of course respon
sible for the difficulty of the subject, as I am not for the
subject itself. I am only responsible for the thoroughness
of the argument ; a responsibility which I must endeavor
to meet as best I am able. And if the reasonings neces
sary to a sufficient exhibition of the subject are some
times remote or distant from the range of popular thought,
I must not therefore withhold. On the contrary, I must
yield to the high necessities of the subject, and regard
nothing else ; least of all, any desire I might feel to accom
modate the ease and patience of my audience. How
ever, I will endeavor to make the argument as simple
and clear as I am able — only reminding you that the
subject we investigate is God's own nature ; which, to
11

122 divinity of chbist.
say nothing of ease or the entertainment of a leisure hour,
it were the greatest presumption in me, and the greatest
levity in you, to suppose it possible, by any human argu
ment, to render even comprehensible. God exceeds our
measure, and must, until either He becomes less than in
finite or we more than finite* If we can apprehend Him
so as to be dear of distraction, and of terms that are ab
solutely cross to faith itself, it is all that can be hoped.
The text that I have chosen for my theme, is : —
1 John i. 2. — " For the Life was manifested, and we
have seen it, and bear witness, and shew unto you that Eter
nal Life which was with the Father, and was manifested'unto
us." - If we raise the question whether Christ is divine, or
only a mere human person appearing in his proper
humanity, this passage of scripture furnishes the simplest
and most beautiful answer that can be given in words.
It declares that Christ was a manifestation of the Life of
God, that Eternal Life that was with the Father before
the manifestation. Accordingly, we are to see, in the
language, not merely that the reality of Christ is God, but
we have an indication in the term was manifested of that
which is the real end of his mission, and the proper sol
vent of whatever inquiries may be started by his person
as appearing in the flesh, or under the historic conditions
of humanity. In this view, my whole discourse will only
be a development of the text, and therefore I need not
stay upon it longer.
By the divinity of Christ, I do. not understand simply

DIVINITY OF CHRIST. 123
that Christ differs from other men, in the sense that he is
better, more inspired, and so a more complete vehicle of
God to the world than others have been. He differs from
us, not in degree, but in kind ; as the half divine parent
age under which he enters the world most certainly indi
cates. He is in such a sense God, or God manifested,
that the unknown term of his nature, that which we are
most ih doubt of, and about which we are least capable of
any positive affirmation, is the Duman. No person, I
think, would ever doubt for a moment, the superhuman j
quality of Jesus, if it were not for the speculative difficul
ties encountered by an acknowledgment of his superhu
man quality. Instead, therefore, of placing the main
stress of my discourse on the direct argument for Christ's
divinity, I shall barely name or catalogue a few of the i
proofs, and then proceed to the difficulties raised by suc^..
a view of his person. I allege, —
1. What is said of his pre-existence. "I came out
from God." " I came forth from the Father, and am
come into theworld." "I came down from heaven."
" Ye are from beneath, I am from above." " The glory
which I had with thee before the world was." If these
passages do not affirm the pre-existence of Christ in the
plainest manner conceivable, I mistake their import.
And, in this view, they are totally repugnant to the idea
of Christ's simple humanity.
2. The miraculous birth of Christ is either a fable, or
else it denotes the entrance into humanity of something
that is distinct from it. This argument holds only with
those who admit the truth of the history — a question
which cannot be argued here. I will only say that this

124 DIVINITY OF CHRIST.
event of history, so flippantly rejected by some, has, to
me, the profoundest air of verity ; setting forth, as it does,
in the most artless form, that which corresponds philo
sophically with the doctrine of a divine incarnation else
where advanced. If God were ever to be incarnate in
the world, in what other manner, so natural, beautiful,
and real, could He enter into the life of the race ?
3. The incarnation itself plainly asserted. " The Word
was made flesh." " That which we have seen with our
eyes, which we have looked upon, which our hands have
handled of the word of Life." "He that was in the
form of God, and was made in fashion as a man." Who
can imagine, without great violence, that language of this
nature is applicable to any mere man ? To make it even
supportable, the man, so called, must be different from all
ojher men, to such a degree that you may far more easily
i doubt his humanity than his divinity.
4. What is said of the import, or the contents of his
person, in passages like these : " In whom dwelt all the
fullness of the Godhead bodily." " The church which is
his body, the fullness of Him that is all in all." " The ex
press image of His person." " The image of the in
visible God." " Complete in Him which is the Head of
all principality and power." How expressions of this
nature, transcending so manifestly all human measures,
can yet be interpreted so as to consist with the simple
humanity of Jesus, I willingly confess my inability to
conceive. 5. What Christ himself declares concerning his rela
tions to the Father. " I and the Father that sent me."
" Ye neither know me nor my Father." " That which I

DIVINITY OF CHRIST 125
have seen with my Father." " The Father is in me and
I in him." " He that hath seen me hath seen the Father."
How can we imagine any mere man of our race daring
to use language like this concerning himself and God ?
Nay, he even goes beyond any one of the expressions
here cited. He has the audacity (for what else can we
call it, regarding him simply as a man ?) to promise that
he and the Father — they two — will come to men together,
and be spiritually manifest in them — " we will come unto
him and make our abode with him."
6. The negatives he uses concerning himself, as related
to the Father, are even more convincing still, if possible.
Thus, when he says — " my Father is greater than I," —
how preposterous for any mere human being of our race
to be gravely telling the world that God is greater than
he is ! So, also, it is often argued from those numerous
expressions of Christ, in which he calls himself the " Son
of Man," that he there concedes his humanity. Un
doubtedly he does, (for he does not appear to use the lan
guage in the lighter significance of the old prophets,) but
v^hat kind of being is this who is conceding his humanity?
Could there be displayed, by any human creature, a
bolder stretch of presumption than to declare that God
is superior to him, or to call himself " the Son of Man"
by condescension ?
7. Christ assumes a relation to the world which is most
offensive, on the supposition that he is a merely human
being. Nor does it mitigate, in the least, the egregious
want of modesty displayed in his attitude, to say that he
was specially inspired ; for, in all other cases, the inspira
tion of the man has made him humbler in spirit than he
11*

126 DIVINITY OF CHRIST.
was before — made him even to sigh before the purity of
God — " Woe is me, for I am a man of unclean lips !"
Imagine, now, a human being, one of ourselves, coming
forth and declaring to the race — " I am the light of the
world." " I am the way, the truth, and the life." " I
am the living bread that came down from heaven."
" No man cometh unto the Father but by me." What
greater effrontery could be conceived ?
8. Christ assumes his own sinlessness, saying — " which
of you convinceth me of sin ?" — never confessing a fault,
never asking pardon for any transgression. His sinless
ness, too, is generally conceded by those who hold his
simple humanity. But what is it to be human, but to
have a tentative nature — one that learns the import of
things, and especially of good and evil by experiment?
Accordingly, if the man Jesus never makes the experi
ment of sin, it must be because the divine is so far upper-
i most in him as to suspend the proper manhood of his
person. He does not any longer act the man ; practi
cally speaking, the man sleeps in him. It is as if the
man were not there, and, judging only from the sinless
ness of his life, we should make no account of the human
element in his nature. He acts the divine, not the
human, and the only true reality in him, as far as moral
conduct is concerned, is the divine. Set in connection
with this conclusion, the universal unqualified determina
tion of the race never to believe in a perfect man —
always to assume the fallibility and imperfection of every
human being — and the sinlessness of Jesus becomes,
itself, a stubborn evidence of his superhuman character.
9. We want Jesus as divine, not as human ; least of

DIVINITY OF CHRIST. 127
all, do we want Him as the human, still out of humanity
and above it, as held by many Unitarians. It is God
that we want, to know Him, to be near Him, to have
His feeling unbosomed to us. As to the real human, we
have enough of that. And, as to the unreal, superhuman
human, that is, the human acted wholly by the divine, so
as to have no action of its own, save in pretence, what
is it to us but a mockery ? What can we learn from it ?
True, we may draw from it the ideal of a beautiful and
sinless life, and, in that, there may be a certain power.
Still, it is an ideal, presented or conceived only to be de
spaired of. For this beautiful life, being sinless, is really
not human, after all ; and we cannot have it, unless our
nature is overborne and acted wholly by God in the
same manner which, alas ! is no longer possible, for we
are deep in sin already. No ! let us have the divine, the
deific itself — the very feeling of God, God's own beauty,
truth, and love. Then we shall have both the pure
ideal of a life, and a power flowing out from God to
ingenerate that life in us. God ; God is what we want, i
not a man ; God, revealed through man, that we may
see His Heart, and hide our guilty nature in the bosom
of His love : God so identified with our race, as to signify
the possible union and eternal identification of our nature
with His.
10. As a last evidence on this subject, and one that,
in my view, winds up all debate, I add, the holyj
formula of baptism — " into the name of the Father, Son,
and Holy Ghost." That the Father is God, is conceded,.
so, also, that the Spirit is God, and then, between these ;
terms on either hand, we have, dropped in, " the Son," — a

128 DIVINITY OF CHRIST.
man, we are told, a mere human creature, who is one of
ourselves ! This, too, in a solemn formula that is
appointed for the consecration of a believing soul to God.
I am well aware that one or two passages are cited to
countenance this very harsh construction, but they are
not parallel. If we read, for example — " to the general
assembly and church of the first born, and to God the
judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect,
and to Jesus, the mediator of the new covenant," — this
is only a case of mixed rhetoric, produced, in part, by
the order of ideas. But, in this baptismal formula, we
have nothing but a mere collocation of names, and one
that suffers no dignified, or endurable construction, unless
each term is taken to import the real divinity of the
subject. It appears evident to me, that our Unitarian
brethren impose upon themselves, in the construction
they give to this formula, by collecting about the person
of Christ associations that do not belong to his proper
humanity — associations which really belong to our view
of his person, not to theirs. Were they to read — " in the
name of the Father, A. B. the carpenter, and the
Holy Ghost," they would be sensible, I think, of some
very great violence done to the words by any construc
tion which holds the strict humanity of Christ.
Indeed, it has always seemed to me that any attempt
to get away from the proper divinity of Christ, as held
in this formula, must be taken to proceed from a most
disingenuous spirit ; were it not that the practical
difficulties thrown upon the souls of men, the bewilder
ment they have suffered, the confusion that has enveloped
their religious nature, under our supposed orthodox views

DIVINITY OF CHRIST 129
of the jtrinity, may have created such a necessity as
must be allowed to excuse almost any kind of violence.
And, were it not for this, I do not believe that any reader
of the New Testament, least of all, any true believer in
it, would ever have questioned, for a moment, the real
divinity of Christ. In fact, it never was seriously ques
tioned until after the easy and free representations of
the scripture and of the apostolic fathers had been
harde^e^Jnto-dogniat_or converted by the Nicene theo-
logues and those of the subsequent ages, into a doctrine
of the niereJmrnjBjMiderjt^nduig ; an assertion of three
metaphysical persons in the divine nature. I do not say
that such a mistake must not have been committed.
And then, when a trinity of this kind was once inaugu
rated, it was equally necessary that speculation should
rise up, sometime or other, to clear away the rubbish
that speculation had accumulated. A metaphysical
trinity must be assaulted by a metaphysical unity.
And then, coming after both, and taking up the suspicion
that, possibly, dogma is not the whole wisdom of man ;
seeing, in fact, that it is wholly incompetent to represent
the living truths of Christianity, we may be induced to
Jet go a trinity that mocks our reason, and a unity that
' freezes our hearts, and return to the simple Father, Son,
and Holy Ghost of the scriptures and the Apostolic
Fathers ; there to rest in the living and life-giving forms
of the spirit. To this, it is my design, if possible, to
bring you ; for, in maintaining the essential divinity of
Christ, there is no difficulty whatever, till we begin to
speculate or dogmatize about the humanity, or find

130 ORTHODOX VIEWS OF
ourselves in contact with the more commonly accepted
doctrine of trinity.
I speak of the more commonly_ accepted doctrine.
What that doctrine is, I im well aware IT would be
exceedingly difficult to state. Let us pause here, a
moment, and see if we can find our way to any proxi
mate conception of it.
It seems to be agreed by the orthodox, "that there
are three persons, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, in the
divine nature. These three persons, too, are generally
regarded as belonging, not to the machina Dei, by which
God is revealed, but to the very esse, the substantial
being of God, or the interior contents of His being.
They are declared to be equal ; all to be infinite ; all to
be the same in substance ; all to be one. But, as soon
as the question is raised, what are we to intend by the
word person, the appearance of agreement, and often of
self-understanding, vanishes.
A very large portion of the Christian teachers, together
with the general mass of disciples, undoubtedly hold three
real living persons in the interior nature, of God ; that is,
three consciousnesses, wills, hearts, understandings. Cer
tain passages of scripture supposed to represent the three
persons as covenanting, co-operating, and co-presiding,
are taken, accordingly, so to affirm, in the most literal
and dogmatic sense. And some very distinguished
living Jeachers are frank enough to acknowledge, that
any intermediate doctrine, between the absolute unity of
God and a social unity, is impossible and incredible ;
therefore, that they take the latter. Accordingly, Father,

CHRIST AND THE TRINITY. 131
Son,- and Holy Ghost, are, in their view, socially united
only, and preside in that way, as a kind of celestial
tritheocracy over the world. They are one God simply
in the sei se that the three will always act together, with
a perfect consent, or coincidence. This view has the
merit that it takes consequences fairly, states them
frankly, and boldly renounces orthodoxy, at the point
opposite to Unitarianism, to escape the same difficulties.
It denies that the three persons are "the same in sub
stance," and asserts instead, three substances ; and yet,
because of its clear opposition to Unitarianism, it is"
counted safe, and never treated as a heresy. However,
when it is applied to Christ and his work, then it breaks
down into the same confusion as the more common view,
reducing the Son to a really subordinate and subject
position, in which the proper attributes of deity are no
longer visible or supposable.
But our properly orthodox teachers and churches,
while professing three persons, also retain the verbal
profession of one person. They suppose themselves
really to hold that God is one person. And yet they
most certainly do not; they only confuse their under
standing, and call their confusion faith. This, I affirm,
not as speaking reproachfully, but, as I suppose; on the
ground of sufficient evidence — partly because it cannot.
be otherwise, and partly because it visibly is not.
No man can assert three persons, meaning three con
sciousnesses, wills, and understandings, and still have any
intelligent meaning in his mind, when he asserts that
they' are yet one person. For, as he now uses the term,
the very idea of a person is that of an essential, incom-

132 ORTHODOX VIEWS OF
municable monad, bounded by consciousness, and vitalized
by self-active will, which being true, he might as well
profess to hold that three units are yet one unit. When
he does it, his words will, of necessity, be only substitutes
for sense.
At the same time, there are too many signs of the
mental confusion I speak of, not to believe that it exists.
Thus, if the class I speak of were to hear a discourse
insisting on the proper personal unity of God, it would
awaken suspicion in their minds ; while a discourse
insisting on the existence of three persons, would be only
a certain proof of orthodoxy ; showing that they profess
three persons, meaning what they profess, and one
person, really not meaning it.
Methods are also resorted to, in the way of explaining
God's oneness in consistency with His existence in three
persons, which show that His real oneness, as a spirit, is
virtually lost. Thus it will sometimes be represented,
that the three persons are three sets of attributes inhering
in a common substance ; in which method, the three
intelligences come to their unity in a virtually inorganic
ground ; for if the substance supposed, be itself of a
vital quality, a Life, then we have only more difficulties
on hand, and not fewer; viz., to conceive a Living
Person having in Himself, first, the attributes of a person,
and secondly, three more persons who are attributes, in the
second degree, — that is, attributes of attributes. It can
hardly be supposed that any such monster is intended, in
the way of bringing the three persons into unity ; there
fore, taking the "substance" as inorganic, we have three
vital personal Gods, and back of them, or under them

CHRIST AND THE TRINITY. ' 133
as their ground of unity, an Inorganic Deity. I
make no objection here to the supposition, that the
persons are mere attributes of a substance not them
selves; I ask not how attributes can be real enough to
make persons, and not real enough to make substances ;
I urge it not as an objection, that our very idea of
person, as the word is here used, is that of a living
substance manifested through attributes — itself the most
real and substantial thing to thought in the universe of
God — I only call attention to the fact that this theory of;
divine unity, making it essentially inorganic, indicates/
such a holding of the three persons as virtually leaves no'
unity at all, which is more distinct than a profession of
mental confusion on the subject.
But, while the unity is thus confused and lost in the
threeness, perhaps I should also admit that the threeness
sometimes appears to be clouded or obscured by the
unity. Thus, it is sometimes protested that, in the word
person, nothing is meant beyond a "threefold distinc
tion ;" though it will always be observed that, nothing
is really meant by the protestation — that the protester
goes on to speak and reason of the three, not as
being only somewhats, or distinctions, but as metaphysi
cal and real persons. Or, the three are sometimes com
pared, in their union, to the soul, the life principle and
the body united in one person called a man — an illustra
tion, which, if it has any point or appositeness, at all, shoWs
how God may be one and not three ; for the life and the
body are not persons. Or, if the soul be itself the life,
and the body its external development, which is possible,
then, in a yet stricter sense, there is but one person in
them all. 12

134 ORTHODOX VIEWS OF
Probably there is a degree of alternation, or inclining
from one side to the other, in this view of trinity, as the
mind struggles, now to embrace one, and how the other,
of two incompatible notions. Some persons are more
habitually inclined to hold the three; a very much
smaller number to hold the one. Meantime,, and
especially in the former class of those who range. them
selves under this view of metaphysical tripersonality,
mournful evidence will be found that a confused and
painfully bewildered state is often produced by it. They
are practically at work, in their thoughts, to choose
between the three ; sometimes actually and decidedly
preferring one to another ; doubting how to adjust their
mind in worship ; uncertain, often, which of the three to
obey; turning away, possibly, from one in a feeling of
dread that might well be called aversion ; devoting
themselves to another, as the Romanist to his patron
saint. This, in fact, is polytheism, and not the clear,
simple love of God. There is true love in it, doubtless,
but the comfort of love is not here. The mind is
involved in a dismal confusion, which we cannot think
of without the sincerest pity. No soul can truly rest in
God, when God is two or three, and these in such a sense
that a choice between them must be continually sug
gested. Besides, it is another source of mental confusion, con
nected with this view of three metaphysical persons, that,
though they are all declared to be infinite and equal
they really are not so. The proper deity of Christ is not
held in this view. He is begotten, sent, supported, directed,
by the Father, in such a sense as really annihilates his

CHRIST AND THE TRINITY. 135
deity. This has been s"hown in a truly searching and
convincing manner by__ScJu&ermacher,, in his historical
essay on the trinity. And, indeed, you will see, at a
glance, that this view of a metaphysical trinity of
persons, breaks down in the very point which is com
monly regarded as its excellence — its assertion of the
proper deity of Christ.
Indeed, it is a somewhat curious fact in theology,
that the class of teachers who protest over the word
person, declaring that they mean only a threefold distinc
tion, cannot show that there is really a hair's breadth of
difference between their doctrine and the doctrine
asserted by many of the later Unitarians. They may
te'ach or preach in a very different manner, — they pro
bably do, but the theoretic contents of their opinion
cannot be distinguished. Thus, they say that there is a
certain divine person in the man Christ Jesus, but that
when they use the term person, they mean not a person,
but a certain indefinite and indefinable distinction. The
later Unitarians, meantime, are found asserting that God
is present in Christ, in a mysterious and peculiar commu
nication of His being, so that he is the living embodi
ment and express image of God. If, now, the question be
raised, wherein does the indefinable distinction of, one,
differ from the mysterious and peculiar communication of
the other, or how does it appear that there is any differ
ence, there is no living man, I am quite sure, who can
invent an answer.
Such is the confusion produced by attempting to
assert a real and metaphysical trinity of persons in the
divine nature. Whether the word is taken at its full

136 TRINITY INVOLVED IN
import, or diminished away to a "mere something called a
distinction, there is produced only contrariety, confusion,
practical negation, not light.
And now the question comes upon us — how shall we
resolve the divinity or deity of Christ, already proved, so
as to make it consist with the proper unity of God ?
To state the question as boldly and definitely as possible,
we have two terms before us. First, we have the essen
tial unity and supremacy of God. This we are to
assume. I am willing to assume it without argument.
Indeed, there is no place for argument ; fpr if any one
will say that he believes in three metaphysical or essen
tial persons in the being of God, there is no argument
that can set him in a more unsatisfactory position,
whether intellectually or practically, than he takes him
self. Or if any one endeavors to relieve his position, by
declaring that he only means distinctions by the word
persons, he only flies into darkness and negation for his
comfort, and there he may safely be left. We take, then,
as a first point, to be held immovably, the strict personal
unity of God — one mind, will, consciousness. Then,
seciS3ry7"we"h"ave, as a term to be reconciled with this,
the three of scripture, and the living person walking the
earth, in the human form, called Jesus Christ — a subject,
suffering being, whose highest and truest reality is that
he is God. Such is the work we have on hand, and it
must be performed so as to justify the language of scrip
ture, and be clear of any real absurdity.
To indicate, beforehand, the general tenor of my argu
ment, which may assist you to apprehend the matter of

THE PROCESS OF REVELATION. 137
it more easily, I here 'suggest that the trinity we seek
will be a trinity that results of necessity from the revela
tion of God to man. I do not undertake to fathom the
interior being of God, and tell how it is composed. That
is a matter too high for me, and, I think, for us all. I only
insist that, assuming the strictest unity and even simpli
city of God's nature, He could not be efficiently or suffi
ciently revealed to us, without evolving a trinity of
persons, such as we meet in the scriptures. These
persons or personalities are the dramatis persona of reve
lation, and their reality *s measured by what of the
infinite they convey in these finite forms. As such,
they bear, on the one hand, a relation to God, who is to
be conveyed or imported into knowledge ; on the other,
they are related to our human capacities and wants,
being that presentation of God which is necessary to
make Him a subject of thought, or bring Him within the
discourse of reason ; that also which is necessary to pro
duce mutuality, or terms of conversableness, between us
and Him, and pour His love most effectually into our
feeling. To bring the whole subject fully before us, let us
endeavor, firstof all, to form the distinctest notion possi
ble of God, as existing in Himself, and unrevealed.
Then we shall understand, the better, what is necessary
to reveal Him. Of course we mean, when we speak of
God as unrevealed, to speak of Him anterior to His act
of creation ; for the worlds created are all outgoings from
Himself, and in that view, revealments of Him. God
unrevealed is God simply existing, as spirit, in Himself.
12*

138 GOD ABSOLUTE.
Who, now, is God thus existing in Himself ? Has He
any external form, by which He may be figured or con
ceived ? No. Is He a point without space — is He
space without limit? Neither. Is His activity con
nected with any sort of motion ? Certainly not ; motion
belongs to a finite creature ranging in the infinite. Is
there any color, sound, sign, measure, by which He may
be known ? No. He dwells in eternal silence, without
parts, above time. If, then, we can apprehend Him by
nothing outward, let us consider, as we may without
irreverence, things of a more interior quality in His
being. Does He, then, act under the law of action and
reaction, as we do ? Never. This, in fact, is the very
notion of absolute being and power, that it acts without
reaction, requiring no supports, living between no con
trasts or antagonisms. He simply is, which contains
everything. Does He, then, reason ? No ; for to reason
in the active sense, as deducing one thing from another,
implies a want of knowledge. Does He, then, deliberate ?
No ; for He sees all conclusions without deliberation,
intuitively.. * Does He inquire ? No ; for He knows all
things already. Does He remember ? Never ; for to
remember is to call up what was out of mind, and
nothing is out of mind. Does He believe ? No ; the
virtue that He exercises is a virtue without faith, and
radically distinct, in that view, from anything called
virtue in us. Where, then, is God ? by what searching
shall we find Him out ? by what sign is He to be known
or conceived ? Does He think ? No, never, in any
human sense of the term ; for thought, with us, is only a
finite activity under the law of succession and time ; and

GOD ABSOLUTE. 139
besides this, we have no other conception of it. Has He
new emotions rising up, which, if we could see them rise,
would show us that He is ? No ; emotion, according to
our human sense, is a mere jet of feeling — one feeling
moving out just now into the foreground before others ;
and this can be true only of a finite nature. God, in
such a sense, certainly, has no emotions.
X What, then, shall we say ; what conception form of
God as simply existing in Himself, and as yet unrevealed ?
' Only that He is the Absolute Being — the Infinite — the
j I Am that I am, giving no sign that He is, other than
that He is.
"A very unsatisfactory, unpleasant, unsignificant, and
practically untrue representation of God," you will say.
Exactly so! that is the point I wish to be discovered.
j And without a trinity, and incarnation, and other like
devices of revelation, we should never have a better.
Having now come down hither, as it were, upon the
shore of the Absolute — that Absolute which has no shore
— let us pause just here, a moment, and take note, dis
tinctly, of two or three matters that will assist us to
open what remains of our subject with a better intelli
gence. And
1. Observe that, when God is revealed, it cannot be as
the One, as the Infinite, or Absolute, but only as through
media. And as there are no infinite media, no signs that
express the infinite, no minds, in fact, that can apprehend
the infinite by direct inspection, the One must appear in
the manifold ; the Absolute in the conditional ; Spirit in
form ; the Motionless in motion ; the Infinite in the

140 I N C I.D E N T S OF.
finite. He must distribute Himself, He must let forth
His nature in sounds, colors, forms, works, definite
objects and signs. It must be to us as if Brama were
waking up ; as if Jehovah, the Infinite I am, the Abso
lute, were dividing off Himself into innumerable activities
¦ that shall dramatize His immensity, and bring Him
i within the molds of language and discursive thought.
And in whatever thing He appears, or is revealed, there
will be something that misrepresents, as well as something
; that represents Him. The revealing process, that which
makes Him appear, will, envelop itself in clouds of
' formal contradiction — that is, of diction which is con-
' trary, in some way, to the truth, and which, taken simply
as diction, is continually setting forms against each
other. Thus, the God revealed, in distinction from the God
Absolute, will have parts, forms, colors, utterances,
motions, activities, assigned Him. He will think, delib
erate, reason, remember, have emotions. Then, taking
up all these manifold representations, casting out the
matter in which they are cross to each other, and repug
nant to the very idea of the God they represent, vge shall
settle into the true knowledge of God, and receive, as far
as the finite can receive the Infinite, the contents of the
divine nature.
2. To make this same view yet more evident, observe
that we ourselves being finite, under time and succession,
reasoning, deliberating, thinking, remembering, having
; emotions, can never come into the knowledge of God,
save as God is brought within our finite molds of action.
There are certain absolute verities which belong to our

THE REVEALING PROCESS. 141
own nature, and which, therefore, we can know as abso
lute, or which, I should rather say, we must know. They
are such as the ideas of space, cause, truth, right, and
the axioms of mathematical science. But these are
/simple ideas, and have their reality in us. God is a
Being out of us, a Being in whom the possibilities and
even facts of all other being have their spring. Taken
in this view, as the absolute, all-comprehensive being,
we can know Him only as being ; that is, by a revelation,
or rather by revelations, giving out one after another, and
in one way or another, but always in finite forms, some
thing that belongs to the knowledge of God. And then
we know God only as we bring all our knowledges
together. Thus we approach the knowledge of the
Absolute Being, and there is no other way possible, or
even conceivable.
Or, let me give the same truth under yet another form.
God, as the Absolute Being, is not under the law of
action and reaction, as I have said. He does not com
pare, try contrasts, raise definitions, in order to know
Himself. He has all the poles of self-knowledge in His
consciousness, and knows Himself by an absolute, eternal,
infinite, self-intuition. We, on the other hand, exist
under the law of action and reaction, and our minds are
worked under this law, as truly as our bodies. The only
absolute knowledge we have, relates to the few neces
sary ideas just alluded to. As regards all matters of
opinion, fact, being, we are obliged to get our knowledge
under the law of action and reaction — through finites
that are relative to each other, through antagonisms,
contrasts, comparisons, interactions, counteractions. And

142 INCIDENTS OF
yet in God, considered as Absolute, there are none of
these. Therefore, to set our minds in action, or to gener
ate in us a knowledge of Himself, He must produce
Himself in finite forms ; under the relations of space, as
above and below, on this side and on that ; by motion
towards, involving motion from. For instance, the
Saviour, in his exaltation, goes up, by a visible ascent,
into the heavens. That is, motion from and motion
towards indicate his divine exaltation. And yet, if he
had parted from his disciples on the other side of the
world, he would have moved in exactly the contrary direc
tion. Now, the reality of the ascension, as we call it, is
not the motion, but what the motion signifies, viz., the
change of state. So, when we pray for the Holy Spirit,
it is for the descent of the Holy Spirit — not that there is
any descent or motion in the case ; we only work our
thought under the great law of action and reaction,
which belongs to the finite quality of our nature.
It was under this principle, and no other, that the
special economy of the Jewish state was appointed.
The whole universe of God is a real and proper theoc
racy, but here a special theocracy is organized for the
•purpose of raising contrasts, and by that means revealing
God, or making His sway apparent. God was the God
of Egypt, Babylon and Philistia, as truly as of Israel.
But in a uniform handling of these nations, dark and
brutish as their minds at that time were, all would miss
of perceiving Him, — He would be only a lost idea. Hence,
for the benefit of all, that is, to make His sway apparent
to all, He selects one people of the four, to receive a
special discipline and have a special outward future

THE REVEALING PROCESS. 143
dispensed to them. He is to be called their God, and
they His people ; and it is to be seen, by the victories He
gives, and the wondrous deliverances He vouchsafes,
how superior He is to the other gods of the nations.
And so He will be known, at length, as the Great God
and King above all gods. In one view, this special
theocracy has a fictitious and even absurd look ; for,
when we scan the matter more deeply, we find that God
reigns in Philistia as truly as in Israel, and the contrast
raised is only God contrasted with Himself. Still the
truth communicated through the contrast — viz., God, is
the fundamental verity of the transaction and the Jewish
polity is only the means He appointed to make His
power known, and disclose, to all, that broader and more
comprehensive theocracy, which is the shelter, blessing,
and joy of all.
The scripture writers, too, are continually working this
figure of contrast, even setting God, if we compare their
representations, in a kind of antagonism with Himself.
Here, for example, is the great and broad sea — full of
His goodness. Here it is a raging monster, whose proud
and turbulent waves -it is the glory of His majesty to
hold in check. In one case, the sea represents Him.
In the other, He is seen triumphing over His repre
sentative. Just so in the heavens, which, at one time,
are His very garment ; while at another, it is half His
grandeur, that He sits upon the great circle above them,
to mold and sway their motions.
Now it is in this manner only, through relations, con- \
trasts, actions and reactions, that we come into the
knowledge of God. As Absolute Being, we know Him

144 INCIDENTS OF
not. But our mind, acted under the law of action and
reaction, is carried up to Him, or thrown back upon
Him, to apprehend Him more and more perfectly.
Nothing that we see, or can see, represents Him fully,
or can represent Him truly ; for the finite cannot show
us the Infinite. But between various finites, acting so as
to correct each other, and be supplements to each other,
we get a true knowledge. Our method may be compared
to that of resultant motions in philosophy. No one finite
thing represents the Absolute Being ; but between two
or more finite forces acting obliquely on our mind, it is
driven out, in a resultant motion, towards the Infinite.
Meantime, a part of the two finite forces, being oblique
or false, is destroyed by the mutual counteraction of
forces. Under this same law, I suggest that we look for a solu-
i tion of the trinity, and of the person of Jesus Christ.
They are relatives, to conduct us up to the Absolute.
3. Observe that, when Qpd is revealed, He will not,
if He is truly and efficiently revealed, be cleared of
obscurity and mystery. He will not be a bald, philo
sophic unity, perfectly comprehended and measured by us.
We shall not have His boundaries, He will, not be simple
to us as a man is. When we have reduced Him to that,
and call it our reason or philosophy, we have only gotten
up a somewhat larger man than ourselves, and set this
larger man in the place of the Absolute Being. And if
we perfectly understand Him, if we have no questions
about Him, the colder, and in real truth the more
unknown He is — the Infinite revealed away, not revealed.
No ; if He is revealed at all, it will be through infinite;

THE REVEALING PROCESS. 145
repugnances and contrarieties ; through forms, colors,
motions, words, persons, or personalities ; all presenting
themselves to our sense and feeling, to pour in something
of the divine into our nature. And a vast circle of mystery
will be the back ground of all other representations, on
which they will play and glitter in living threads of motion,
as lightning on a cloud ; and what they themselves do
not reveal of God, the mystery will — a Being infinite,
undiscovered, undiscoverable, therefore true. But if we
could see the last boundaries of God, and hold Him clear
of a question within the molds of logic and cognition,
then He is not God any longer, we have lost the con
ception of God.
Having noted these points, we shall be able, I trust, to
advance more securely and with a clearer intelligence,
in the development of our subject. We go back, now, to
the Absolute Being, to consider by what process He will
be revealed, and to see that revelation unfolded. And
here I must bring to view a singular and eminent distinc
tion of the Divine nature, without which He could never
be revealed.
There is in God, taken as the Absolute Being, a capa- ^
city of self-expression, so to speak, which is peculiar— a
generative power of form, a creative imagination, in1
which, or by aid of which, He can produce Himself!
outwardly, or represent Himself in the finite. In this
respect, God is wholly unlike to us. Our imagination is
passive, stored with forms, colors and types of words
from without, borrowed from the world we live in. But
all such forms, God has in Himself, and this is the Logos,
the Word, elsewhere called the Form of God. Now, this
13

146 THE LOGOS,
Word, this Form of God, in which He sees Himself, is
with God, as John says, from the beginning. It is God
mirrored before His own understanding, and to be
mirrored, as in fragments of the mirror, before us. Con
ceive Him now as creating the worlds, or creating
worlds, if you please, from eternity. In so doing, He
only represents, expresses, or outwardly produces Him
self. He bodies out His own thoughts. What we call
the creation, is, in another view, a revelation only of
"God, His first revelation.
And it is in this view that the Word, or Logos, else
where called Christ, or the Son of God, is represented as
the Creator of the worlds. Or it is said, which is only
another form of the same truth, that the worlds were
made by or through him, and the apostle John adds,
that without Him, is not anything made that was made.
Now, as John also declares,- there was light, the first
revelation was made, God was « expressed in the forms
and relations of the finite. But the light shined in
darkness, and the darkness comprehended it not. The
divine Word was here ; he had come to his own, but his
own received him not. One thing more is possible that
will yield a still more effulgent light, viz : that, as God
has produced Himself in all the other finite forms of
being, so now he should appear in the human.
Indeed, He has appeared in the human before, in the
same way as He has in all the created objects of the
world. The human person, taken as a mere structure,
adapted to the high uses of intelligence and moral action,
is itself a noble illustration of His wisdom, and a token
also of the exalted and good purposes cherished in our

OR WORD OF GOD. 147
existence. But there was yet more of God to be ex
hibited in the Human Form of our race. As the spirit of
man is made in the image of God, and his bodily form
is prepared to be the fit vehicle and outward repre
sentative of his spirit, it follows that his bodily form has
also some inherent, a priori relation to God's own nature ; ,
such probably as makes it the truest, most expressive
finite type of Him. Continuing, therefore, in a pure
upright character, our whole race would have been a ,
visible revelation of the truth and beauty of God. But
having not thus continued, having come under the
power of evil, that which was to be the expression, or
reflection of God, became appropriated to the expression
of evil. Truth has no longer any living unblemished
manifestation in the world ; the beauty of goodness
lives and smiles no more. Sin, prejudice, passion, —
stains of every color — so deface and mar the race,
that the face of God, the real glory of the Divine, is
visible no longer. Now, therefore, God will reclaim
this last type of Himself, possess it with His own life and
feeling, and through that, live Himself into the acquaint
ance and biographic history of the world. " And the
word was made flesh, and dwelt among us ; and we beheld
his glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of
grace and truth." " The only- begotten Son, which is in
the bosom of the Father, he hath declared Him." This is
Christ whose proper deity or divinity we have proved.
Prior to this moment, there has been no -appearance of
trinity in the revelations God has made of His being;
Dut just here, whether as resulting from thermcarnation
or as implied in it, we are not informed,, a three-fold

148 INCARNATION.
personality or impersonation of God begins to offer itself
to view. Just here, accordingly, as the revelation culmi
nates or completes the fullness of its form, many are
staggered and confused by difficulties which they say are
contrary to reason — impossible therefore to faith. I
think otherwise. In these three persons or impersona
tions I only see a revelation of the Absolute Being, under
just such relatives as by their mutual play, in and before
our imaginative sense, will produce in us the truest
knowledge of God — render Him most conversable/bring
Him closest to feeling, give Him the freest, least ob
structed access, as a quickening power, to our hearts.
To verify this view of Christ, which is now my object,
1 must apply it as a solvent to the two classes of difficul
ties created by the incarnation :
1. To the difficulties created by the supposed relations
of the divine to the human, in the person of Jesus.
II. To those which spring of the supposed relations of
His divine person to the other divine persons, or imper
sonations developed in the process of revelation. Under
the • I. The relations of the divine to the human, we meet
the objection, first of all, that here is an incarnation
asserted of the divine nature ; that God, the infinite God,
is represented as dwelling in a finite human person, sub
ject to its limitations and even to its evils ; and this is
incredible — an insult to reason. It may be so, and if it is,
we must reject the doctrine. But we notice, while re
volving this objection, that several other religions have
believed or expected an incarnation of their deity, or the

INCARNATION 149
divine principle of their worship ; and that these have
been the most speculative and cultivated forms of false
religion. If, then, whole nations of mankind, comprising
thinkers, scholars and philosophers, have been ready to
expect, or have actually believed in the incarnation of
their god or highest divinity, it would not seem to be
wholly cross to natural reason to believe in such an
event. On the contrary, we are rather to suspect that
some true instinct or conscious want of the race is here
divining, so to speak, that blessed visitation, by which
God shall sometime vouchsafe to give Himself to the
world. Then, again, it was just now made to appear that the
human person was originally and specially related to the
expression of God, specially fitted to be the organ of the
Divine feeling and character. It is also clear that if God
were to inhabit such a vehicle, one so fellow to ourselves,
and live Himself as a perfect character into the biographic
history of the world, a result would follow of as great
magnificence as the creation of the world itself, viz :
the Incorporation of the Divine in the history of
the world — so a renovation, at last, of the moral
and religious life of the world. If, now, the human per
son will express more of God than the whole created
universe beside, (and it certainly will more of God's
feeling and character,) and if a motive possessing as
great consequence as the creation of the world invites
Him to do it, is it any more extravagant to believe that the
Word will become flesh, than that the Word has become,
or produced in time, a material universe ? If so, I can
not see in what manner. Many persons, I know, do not
13*

150 INCARNATION.
believe that the world has been produced in time ; and
of course, the argument I state is not for them. But I
am speaking, mostly, to such as have faith to believe that
the worlds were made, and find no difficulty in believing
in God as a Creator. And, if a miracle, a putting forth
of God in time, so vast as this, is credible, why not
a miracle also that has a necessity as deep, involves
consequences of as great moment, and makes an ex
pression of God as much lovelier and holier as it ex
hibits more of His moral excellence and grandeur — His
condescension, patience, gentleness, forgiveness, in one
word, His love ?
I am speaking, also, to such as believe the scriptures ;
and, therefore, it should be something to notice that
they often represent the Saviour in ways that indicate
the same view of his person : He is Emanuel, God with
us — the Word made flesh — God manifest in the flesh
— the express image of his person — the Life that was
manifested — the glass in which we look to behold the
•glory of the Lord — the fullness of God revealed bodily
— the power of God — the light of the knowledge of the
glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ — the image of
the invisible God. In all these, and in a very great
number of similar instances, language is used in refer-
, , ence to Christ, which indicates an opinion that his
: : advent is the appearing of God ; his deepest reality, that
he expresses the fullness of the Life of God. Nor does it
satisfy this language at all, to conceive that Christ is a
good man, or a perfect man, and that so he is an illustra
tion, or image of God. Such a construction might be

INCARNATION. 151
given to a single expression of the kind ; for we use
occasionally an almost violent figure. But this is cool,
ordinary, undeclamatory language, and the same idea is
turned round and round, appears and reappears in dif
ferent shapes, and becomes, in fact, the hinge of the
gospel — the central light of the glorious gospel of Christ,
who is the image of God, shining unto men. It should
also be added that, probably, a very great share of the dif
ficulties that compass this subject, were originally created
by overlooking, or making no sufficient account of, the
very class of representations here referred to ; for we
throw away all the solvents of the incarnation and the
trinity that are given us, and then complain of our
difficulties. But the human person, it will be said, is limited, and
God is not. Very true. But you have the same objec
tion in reference to the first revelation, the Word in the
world. This also is limited — at least what you have
known of it is limited ; besides, you have a special delight
in seeing God in the smallest things, the minutest specks
of being. If, then, it be incredible that God should take
the human to express Himself, because the human is
finite, can the finite in the world, or in a living atom,
express Him more worthily, or do it more accordantly
with reason ?
But Christ, you will say, perhaps, is a living intelligent
person. Taking him, therefore, as a person, I must view
him under the measures and limitations of a person.
Very true, if you have a right to measure the contents
of his person by his body; which, possibly, you have
no more right to do than you have to measure God,

152 INCARNATION.
as revealed in any object, by the object that reveals
Him. For it no more follows that a human body
measures God, when revealed through it, than that a
star, a tree, or an insect measures Him, when He is
revealed through that. As regards the interior nature
of Christ, or the composition of his person, we perhaps
know nothing ; and if his outward nature represents an
unknown quantity, it may, for aught that appears, rep
resent an infinite quantity. A finite outward person,
too, may as well be an organ or type of the Infinite
as a finite thing or object ; and God may act a human
personality, without being measured by it, as well as to
shine through a finite thing or a world, without being
measured by that.
But this divine person, the Christ, grows, I shall be
reminded, or is said to grow in wisdom and knowledge.
There must, therefore, be some kind of intelligence in
him, call it human or divine, which is under a law of
development, and therefore of limitation. To this I
answer (1.) that the language may well enough be taken
as language of external description merely, or as only
setting forth appearance as appearance ; or (2.) it may
be said, which is far more satisfactory, and leaves the
question where it should be, that the body of Christ
evidently grew up from infancy ; and that all his actings
grew out, so to speak, with it ; and if the divine was mani
fested in the ways of a child, it creates no difficulty which
does not exist when it is manifested in the ways of a man
or a world. The whole question is, whether it is possible
for the divine nature to be manifested in humanity, and, as
it belongs to humanity to grow, I see nothing in that to

INCARNATION . 153
create a difficulty, more than when it is considered to be
the part of humanity to inquire, reason, remember, have
emotions, and move about in space ; for none of these
belong to the true Absolute Deity. Even to say that
Christ reasons and thinks, using the words in their
human sense, is quite as repugnant to his proper Deity,
as to say that he learns or grows in knowledge, after
the manner of a child ; for to reason and to think, are,
in fact, the same as to learn.
But the history of Christ, it will be said, compels us
to go farther. We cannot look at the external person
of Christ on the one hand, and the Absolute Jehovah
on the other, and regard the former simply as a repre
sentative or expression of the other. Christ, says the
Unitarian, obeys, worships, suffers, and in that manner
shows most plainly that his internal nature is under a
limitation ; therefore he is human «only. Then the com-.
mon Trinitarian replies, your argument is good ; there
fore we assert a human soul in the person of Jesus, which
comes under these limitations, while the divine soul
escapes ; and so we save the divinity unharmed and
unabridged. Answering the latter first, I reply that, in holding such
a theory of Christ's obedience and sufferings, he does an
affront to the plain language of scripture. For the scrip
ture does not say that a certain human soul called Jesus,
born as such of Mary, obeyed and suffered ; but it says in
the boldest manner, that he who was in the form of God,
humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even the
death of the cross. A declaration, the very point of which
is, not that the man Jesus was a being under human

154 INCARNATION.
limitations, but that he who was in the Form of God,
the real divinity, came into the finite, and was subject
to human conditions. Then, again, Christ himself de
clared, not that a human soul, hid in his person, was
placed under limitations, but more — that the Son, that
is, the divine person — for the word Son is used as relative
to the Father — the Son can do nothing of himself but
what he seeth the Father do ; for the Father loveth the
Son and sheweth him all things that himself doeth. He
also prays — " O Father, glorify thou me with thine own
self, with the glory that I had with thee before the world
was," — a prayer which cannot be referred to the human
soul, even if there was a human soul hid in his person ; for
that soul could speak of no glory it once had with the
Father. Hence the supoosition of a human soul existing
distinctly, and acting by itself, clears no difficulty ; for
the Son, the divine part, or I should rather say, the whole
IChrist, is still represented as humbled, as weak, as
divested of glory, and existing under limitations or con-
'ditions that do not belong to Deity.
Besides, this theory of two distinct subsistences, still
maintaining their several kinds of action in Christ, —
one growing, learning, obeying, suffering ; the other infi
nite and impassible — only creates difficulties a hundred
fold greater than any that it solves. It virtually denies
any real unity between the human and the divine, and
substitutes collocation or copartnership for unity. If the
divine part were residing in Saturn, he would be as truly
united with the human race as now. Instead of a per
son whose nature is the real unity of the divine and the
human, we have two distinct persons^ between whom our

INCARNATION. 155
thoughts are continually alternating; referring this to
one, that to the other, and imagining, all the while, not a
union of the two, in which our possible union with God
is signified and sealed forever, but a practical, historical
assertion rather of his incommunicableness, thrust
upon our notice, in a form more oppressive and chilling
than it has to abstract thought. Meantime the whole
work of Christ, as a subject, suffering Redeemer, is thrown
upon the human side of his nature, and the divine side
standing thus aloof, incommunicably distant, has nothing
in fact to do with the transaction, other than to be a spec
tator of it. And then, while we are moved to ask of what
so great consequence to us, or to the government of God,
can be the obedience and suffering of this particular man
Jesus, more than of any other, it is also represented, as
part of the same general scheme, that he is, after
all, scarcely more than a mere nominal man — that he is so
removed from the fortunes and the proper trial of a man,
by the proximity of the divine, as not even to unfold a
human character ! And thus, while the redemption even
of the world is hung upon his human passibilities, he is
shown, as a man, to have probably less of human signifi
cance than any other ; to be a man whose character is not
in himself, but in the custody that keeps him from being
himself !
There is, then, I conclude, no solid foundation for the
common trinitarian theory of two distinct or distinctly
active subsistences in the person of Christ. It is not
scriptural. It accounts for nothing. It only, creates
even greater difficulties. Indeed, it is a virtual denial,
we should say, of that which is, in one view, the summit

156 INCARNATION.
or highest glory of the incarnation, viz., the union sig
nified, and historically begun between God and man.
Replying, now, both to the Unitarian and the common
Trinitarian together, I deny that the obedience, worship,
suffering, and other subject conditions of Christ, do, of
necessity, create the difficulties supposed. To name God,
or even to speak of Him, is, in one view, to raise a diffi
culty ; for, in so doing, we are always seeking to repre
sent the infinite by the finite ; that is, by terms whose
symbols and significances are relative only — subject to
finite conditions and measures. But we are never
troubled by any sense of absurdity or incompatibility,
when we thus speak of God ; for we know that our words
have their truth or falsity in what they express, what
they put others on thinking of God, not in their measures
or boundaries, under the laws of space and time. Their
reality is in what they signify, not in what they are.
And, precisely so, the reality of Christ is what he ex
presses of God, not what he is in his physical conditions,
or under his human limitations. He is here to express
the Absolute Being, especially His feeling, His love to
man, His placableness, conversableness, and His real
union to the race ; in a word, to communicate His own
Life to the race, and graft Himself historically into it.
Therefore, when we see him thus under the conditions of
increase, obedience, worship, suffering, we have nothing
to do but to ask what is here expressed, and, as long as
we do that, we shall have no difficulty. But if we insist
on being more curious, viz., on understanding the com
position of the person of Jesus, and the relations of the
infinite to the finite in his person, we can create as much

INCARNATION. 157
of difficulty as we please ; though scarcely more than
we could, if we pleased to investigate, in the same manner,
the interior relations of words or the types of words to
thoughts ; for we can as easily perceive how Jesus is
constructed for the expression of God, as how a straight
line {rectus, right?) becomes the symbol of virtue. There
is a point of mystery and even of contradiction in both
— a something transcendent, which no investigation will
ever reach.
Therefore, to insist on going beyond expression, inves
tigating the mystery of the person of Jesus, when it is
given us only to communicate God and His love, is in
fact to puzzle ourselves with the vehicle, and rob our
selves of the grace it brings. It is killing the animal, that
we may find where the life is hid in him, and detect the
mode of its union with his body. It is taking the medi
cine that would cure us, and using it, not as a cure, but as a
subject of investigation. God certainly is able to assume
the human, to become incarnate in it so far as to express
His union to it, and set Himself as Eternal Life in his
toric and real connection with it. He tells us plainly
that He has done it. That we may know by what
law to receive and interpret His proceeding, His object
is declared ; viz., to express or manifest Himself in the
world, and thus to redeem the world.
We see at once, if it be so, that here is a matter pre
sented, which is not psychologically or physiologically
investigable, because it does lie within the categories of
ordinary, natural humanity. And yet, instead of turning
to receive simply what is expressed of the divine, we
immediately begin to try our science on the interior per-
14

158 INCARNATION.
son of Jesus, to ascertain its contents or elements, and
the mode of its composition ! Nay, we must know who
suffers, what worships, and all the hidden chemistries of
the person must be understood ! Then as to what is ex
pressed, why, that is a matter of so little moment that
many overlook it wholly.
It is as if Abraham, after he had entertained as a
guest the Jehovah angel, or angel of the Lord, instead of
receiving his message, had fallen to inquiring into the
digestive process of the angel ; or, since he came in
human form and spoke with a human voice, whether
he had a human soul or not ; and, if so, how the two na
tures were put together ! Let alone thy folly and thy
shallow curiosity, O Abraham ! we should say, hear the
Lord speak to thee; what he commands thee, do, what
he promises, believe ! Suspend thy raw guesses at His
nature, and take His message !
Or, it is as if Moses, when he saw the burning bush,
had fallen at once to speculating about the fire : Is this
real fire ? No, if it was it would burn the wood. Well,
if it is not fire, then there is nothing very wonderful
in it ; for it is nothing wonderful that that which is
not fire should not burn ! Nay, is it not a very dis
honest fire? he might have said; for it is not what it
pretends to be — it is no real fire at all. And yet it
was better, methinks, to take the bush as it was meant,
to see God in it, and let the chemists look after the
fire !
It is very difficult, I know, for a certain class of men,
whose nature it is to live in their logic and not in simple
insight, to stay content with anything which has not been

INCARNATION. 159
verified by some word-process. Instead of putting off
their shoes before the burning bush, they would put out
the fire rather — by such kind of constructive wisdom as ',
I have just now given. A poem is ill to such, if it does
not stand well in the predicaments. Receiving nothing
by their imagination or by their heart, the verities they
embrace are all dead verities. And as dead verities can
not impregnate, they live as being dead themselves — a
sterile class of souls, whom not even the life-giving mys- "
teries of the incarnation are able to fructify. See, they
say, Christ obeys and suffers, how can the subject be the
supreme ; the suffering man, the impassible God ! Proba
bly they toss off their discovery with an air of superior
sagacity, as if by some peculiar depth of argument they
had reached a conclusion so profound. They cannot
imagine that even the babes of true knowledge, the sim
ple children of Christian faith, who open their hearts
to the reconciling grace of God in Christ Jesus, are
really wiser and deeper than they. As if it were some
special wisdom to judge that the Lord Jesus came into
the world, not simply to express God, and offer Him to the '
embrace of our love, but to submit a new riddle to the
speculative chemistry and constructive logic of the race !
Indeed, you may figure this whole tribe of sophisters as
a man standing before that most beautiful and wondrous
work of art, the ' Beatified Spirit' of Guido, and there
commencing a quarrel with the artist, that he should
be so absurd as to think of making a beatified spirit out of
mere linseed, ochres, and oxides ! Would it not be more
dignified to let the pigments go and take the expression,
of the canvas? Just so are the human personality,

160 INCARNATION.
the obedient, subject, suffering state of Jesus, all to be
taken as colors of the Divine, and we are not to fool
ourselves in practicing our logic on the colors, but to
seize, at once, upon the divine import and significance
thereof; ascending thus to the heart of God, there to
rest, in the vision of His beatific glory.
I am well aware that we are never to believe, never
can believe anything that is really absurd or contradictory ;
but we are to believe, constantly, things that, taken in
their form, are contrary one to the other — contrary in
diction. The highest and divinest truths are often to
be expressed, or communicated only in this manner. I
could name a poem of fifty lines, in which as many as
four plain formal contradictions occur, all evolving truths
of feeling, otherwise not in the power of any language
to express. And so, the gospel of John is the most con
tradictory book in the world, one of which logic can
make just what havoc it will — and this, because it is a
book that embodies more of the highest and holiest forms
of truth than any other. Accordingly, the only way
to read this book is, first, to get the divine aim of Christ's
mission before us, viz., to express God, then to let all
the repugnant terms pour their contents into our thought
and feeling, suffering whatever of repugnance there is in
the vehicles to fall off and be forgotten — just as in the
viewing of a picture, the colors that are used to make
shades, and thus to develop the forms, are disregarded
and rejected when you consider the matter of complexion;
or just as the flatness of the canvas is not insisted on,
as contrary to the roundness of the forms ; or just as you
disregard everything else, when you come to the moral

INCARNATION. 161
expression, and offer your simple feeling to that, as the
living truth of all.
So in the matter of Christ's obedience, you are not so
much to consider the obedience, as what the obedience
expresses, or signifies. Man obeys for what obedience is,
but the subject obedient state of Christ is accepted for
what it conveys, or expresses. Ask, then, what his
obedience signifies, in the light and shade of his own
peculiar history. Possibly it signifies what is only a
highest and first truth in the character of God ; viz.,
that He Himself obeys and enthrones forever the right,
honors it, enjoys it, as His own Pure Law ; and so, or by
the expression of tins' most powerful and divinest truth, it
may be that Christ sanctifies the law that we have broken,
erecting it again, in its original sacredness and majesty,
before all mankind. Or, if we speak of the worship paid
by Christ, can anything be more clear than that Christ,
in expressing what is perfect in God through the human,
must use the human type according to its nature, and the
conditions to which it is subject ? God does not weep,
but it will be no absurd thing for Jesus to weep, and that,
too, in the way even of revealing or expressing God. So
if he renders worship, it creates no difficulty which does
not belong to his simple identification with the human,
as truly as to his worship. He is only absurd when he
acts the heathen, and refuses to worship in the way of
expressing God. To do this effectively, he must act the
human perfectly — that is, he must worship.
I do not pretend, however, to solve this matter of wor
ship. The mystery of the divine-human must remain
a mystery. I cannot fathom it. Reason itself will jus-
14*

162 INCARNATION.
tify me in no such attempt. And when we come to speak
of the sufferings and death, I would withhold, in like man
ner, and require myself to look only at what the sufferings
and death express. It is commonly held that God is im
passible, though we never hesitate to affirm that He is dis
pleased thus or thus, and this displeased state is, so far, of
course, an un-pleased or painful state. But, even if it were
otherwise, if God, in His own nature, were as unsuscepti
ble as a rock, that fact would justify no inference con
cerning the person of Christ. The only question is,
whether God, by a mysterious union with the human, can
|so far employ the element of suffering as to make it a vehi-
' cie for the expression of His own Grace and Tenderness
— whether, indeed, God can be allowed, in any way, to
exhibit those Passive Virtues which are really the most
active and sublimest of all virtues ; because they are most
irresistible, and require the truest greatness of spirit.
Therefore, when we come to the agony of the garden,
and the passion of the cross, we are not, with the specu
lative Unitarian, to set up as a dogma, beforehand, and as
something that we perfectly know, that God can set Him
self in no possible terms of connection with suffering; nor
believing with the common Trinitarian, that there are
two distinct natures in Christ, are we to conclude that no
sort of pang can touch the divine nature, and that only
his human part can suffer. We cannot thus intrude into
the interior of God's mysteries. We are only to see the
eternal Life approach our race — Divine Love manifested
and sealed ; the Law sanctified by obedience unto death ;
pardon certified by the ' Father Forgive ;' peace estab
lished and testified by the resurrection from the deaa.

INCARNATION. 163
And then, if we desire more, if we must practice our
physiology — why it is better to try a human subject.
Perhaps it may be imagined that I intend, in holding
this view of the incarnation, or the person of Christ, to
deny that he had a human soul, or anything human but
a human body. I jaaly deny—that his human soul, or
nature, is to be spoken of, or looked upon, as having a
distinct subsistence, so as to live, think, learn, worship,
suffer, by itself. Disclaiming all thought of denying, or
affirming anything as regards the interior composition or
construction of his person, I insist that he stands before
us in simple unity, one person, the divine-human, repre
senting the qualities of his double parentage as the Son of
God, and the son of Mary. I do not say that he is
composed of three elements, a divine person, a human
soul and a human body ; nor of these that they are dis
tinctly three, or absolutely one. I look upon him only
in the external way ; for he comes to be viewed exter
nally in what may be expressed through him, and not in
any other way. As to any metaphysical or speculative
difficulties involved in the union of the divine and the
human, I dismiss them all, by observing that Christ is not
here for the sake of something accomplished in his meta
physical or psychological interior, but for that which
appears and is outwardly signified in his life. And it is
certainly competent for God to work out the expression
of His own feeling, and His union to the race in what
way most approves itself to Him. Regarding Christ in
this exterior, and, as it were, esthetic way, he is that
Holy Thing in which my God is brought to me, — brought
even down to a fellow relation with me. I shall not

164 INCARNATION.
call him two. I shall not decompose him and label off
his doings, one to the credit of his divinity, and another
to the credit of his humanity. I shall receive him, in
the simplicity of faith, as my one Lord and Saviour, nor
any the less so that he is my brother.
' I am well advised of the fact, that very few persons
have their minds so far moderated by philosophy or rea
son as to be able to set any boundaries to their questions.
Those who can do it, those who can think it even unrea
sonable to investigate the interior of this divine mystery,
when it is framed only for its external significance, will
find the view here given, simple, intelligent, and full of
comfort. But those who cannot, must, of course, take
the penalty. If they must still investigate what was not
given to be investigated ; if they must speculate still
about this divine-human, its modes, its interior possibility
or impossibility, refusing the spiritual brotherhood of God,
till they can satisfy their questions about the rhetoric He
uses to express it ; in a word, if their most irrational
reason must sow to the wind, in its questions, it can hope
to reap nothing better than emptiness and whirlwind
for its answers. Enough that I have shown them a
better way.
Adhering, thus, immovably to the simple historic unity
of Christ's person, it will be seen that, in the reference
just now made to those remarkable divine exhibitions, or
presentations made to Abraham and Moses, it was not
my design to assert a general parallelism between them
and the person of Christ. They were cited only as illus
trations of the particular matter there in question.
These were mere theophanies — apparitions, if I may so

INCARNATION. 165
speak, of God. In one view, they were not historical
at all ; for they do not rise out of historical elements.
Christ is no such theophany, no such casual, unhistorical
being as the Jehovah angel who visited Abraham. He
is in and of the race, born of a woman, living in the line
of humanity, subject to human conditions, an integral
part, in one view, of the world's history; only bringing into
it, and setting in organific union with it, the Eternal Life.
The most plausible objection that can be made to the
view_J_ am._gi.ving. of Christ's person is, that he is too
exclusively divine to make an effectual approach to our
human sympathies. But it is only plausible. Obviously,
nothing is gained in this respect, by holding three meta
physical persons in the divine nature ; for if still the
real deity of the Son is maintained, (which I fear many
do unwittingly disallow, when verbally asserting it,) they
have precisely the same remoteness, the same too exces
sive divineness to contend with. Nor do we gain any
thing as regards this matter of sympathy, by supposing a
distinct human soul in the person of Christ, connecting
itself with what may be called the humanities of Christ.
Of what so great consequence to us are the humanities
of a mere human soul ? The very thing we want, is to
find that God is moved by such humanities — touched
with a feeling of our infirmities. And what can bring
God closer to our human sympathies than to behold — if
only we can believe so high a mystery — God manifest in
the flesh, and historically united with our race ? There
fore, if you find that Christ really comes down to your
sphere only when a half-tint is thrown over his deity, by
some confusion practiced on his person, I may reasonably

166 INCARNATION.
ask, whether it were .not better to add more faith in
yourself, and subtract less of the divine from him — thus
to make him, indeed and in truth, the express image of
God? I have thus endeavored to verify the incarnation. I
am well aware that one who discredits everything super
natural, will require something farther. But I can only
intimate, here, a settled conviction that, if this great
question of supernaturalism were once put upon a right
basis, such as a competent investigator might lay for it,
the incarnation, which now appears to be a prodigy too
violent or stupendous for belief, would be seen to
emerge as the crowning result of a grand, systematic,
orderly work, which God has been forwarding in the his
tory and heart of the race, ever since the world began —
that'the world, in fact, would be as chaotic and as wide
of the true unity of reason without an incarnation, as
without a sun. Happily, most of the later Unitarians
maintain the credibility of that which is supernatural —
indeed, they even hold that Christ is, in some very
special and supernatural sense, a manifestation of God ;
that the divine is, in fact, so far supreme in him, as to
prevent the development of a properly human, thus to
produce a really sinless character — and this differs, in
reality, from the view I have presented, only as a sub-
carnation, from an »i-carnation. God is here, behind the
man, or under the man, in such a way, that the man
does not act himself. We have a man without a man—
a perfect human character which is not unfolded by the
human. And thus we have as much of mystery and
contradiction, with the disadvantage that we have no

TRINITY. 167
countenance from the scripture, and a doctrine, withal,
that has too little body and shape to have any important
resulting use.
Having thus disposed of the difficulties growing out of
the relations of the divine to the human, in the person of
Christ received as an incarnation, I now turn, —
II. To those which are involved in the relations of his
person to the Father and the Holy Spirit ; and, of all, to
the Absolute Being.
It is a fatal objection to the Unitarian theories of this
subject, as viewed under the teaching of the scriptures,
that God is nowhere represented, or named, as the
Father, till after the appearing of Christ. It is also an
objection equally fatal to the SabeUian theory, which, as
commonly understood, represents that God is the Father,
in virtue of His creation and government of the world.
For if He is the Father simply as the one God, by what
accident does it happen that He never gets the appella
tion till after the coming of Christ ? Or, if He gets it as
the Creator and Governor of the world, the world was
created and governed long before that day- — why, then,
is He still unknown as the Father ? True, He is called a
Father, just as He is called a rock, or a tower, but never
ihe Father, as in the baptismal formula, and by Christ
ordinarily. There is; in fact, no real and proper develop
ment of the Father, which is older Jhan Christianity, and
here the designation is developed in connection with the
Son and Holy Spirit as a threefold denomination of God.
And this threefold denomination, again, (as I think must
be evident,) is itself incidental to, and produced by the

168 TRINITY.
central fact, or mystery of the incarnation, as an imper
sonation of God developed in time.
Thus, the Divine Word, or Logos, who is from eternity
the Form or in the Form of God, after having first
bodied Him forth in the creation and the government of
the world, now makes another outgoing from the Abso
lute into the human, to reside in the human as being of
it ; thus to communicate God to the world, and thus to
ingenerate in the world Goodness and Life as from Him.
To make His approach to man as close, to identify Him
self as perfectly as possible with man, he appears, or
makes His advent through a human birth — Son of man,
and Son, also, of God. Regarding him now in this
light as set out before the Absolute Being, (who he
representatively is,) existing under the conditions of the
finite and the relative, we see at once that, for our sakes,
if not for his own, he must have set over against him,
in the finite, his appropriate relative term, or imperson
ation. A solitary finite thing, or person, that is, one that
has no relative in the finite, is even absurd, — much more
if the design be that we shall ascend, through it, to the
Absolute ; for we can do this only under the great men
tal law of action and reaction, which requires relative
terms and forces, between which it may be maintained.
Besides, there may have been some subjective, or inter
nal necessity, in Christ himself, (for we know nothing of
his interior structure and wants,) requiring that, in
order to the proper support of his attitude, he should
have in conception some finite relative impersonation.
For one, or both these reasons, when he appears in the.
human state, bringing the divine into the human, there

TRINITY. 169
results, at one and the same time, a double impersonation,
that of the Father and that of the Son, — one because of
the other, and both as correspondent or relative terms.
As Christ himself appears in the finite, he calls out into
the finite with him, if I may so speak, another represent
ative of the Absolute, one that is conceived to reside in
the heavens, as he himself is seen to walk upon the
earth. This he does to comfort his attitude, or more
probably, to make it intelligible ; for if he were to say,
"Look unto me, and behold your God," then his mere
human person would be taken as a proof that he is only
a flagrant and impious impostor ; or else, being accepted
as God by those who are more credulous, they would, in
fact, "receive a God by apotheosis, and under human
boundaries. Therefore, he calls out into thought, as
residing in heaven, and possessing celestial exaltation,.
the Father, who is, in fact, the Absolute Being brought
into a lively, conversible, definite (therefore finite) form
of personal conception, and sets himself on terms of
relationship with him at the other pole ; so that, while he
signifies, or reveals the light and love of God, in and
through the human or subject life, he is able to exalt
and deify what he reveals, by referring his mission to
one that is greater and higher in state than himself, viz.,
the Father in heaven. And, in this way, double advan
tage is taken both of proximity and distance, in the pro
cess of revealing or expressing God. He does not say,
I came forth from the One, the Absolute ; from Him that
dwells above time, silent, never moving, without parts, or
emotions, but he gives us, above, the conception of an
15

1 70 TRINITY
active, choosing, feeling Spirit, and says, " I came forth
from the Father."
Now there is a set open, a relationship between
heaven and earth. To keep us from subsiding into a
regard of his simple person, as limited by human bound
aries, and referring all his works to a being thus limited,
he intimates a connection with one who has no such
boundaries, saying, " My Father is greater than I." And
then, again, that what he expresses may be referred to
that essentially divine nature represented in his person,
he exalts his attitude, saying, " I and my Father are one."
Now he says, " the Father loves me, " and now, " he
that hath seen me, hath seen the Father." And then,
again, determined to keep himself and the whole process
under a cloud of nrysteryJ_.so that no one shall ever feel
that he has gotten the measure, either of the Father or of
himself, and that all may be wading ever outward through
mystery, in both, towards the infinite, he says, " No man
knoweth the Son but the Father, neither knoweth any
man the Father, save the Son, and he to whomsoever
the Son will reveal him." It is a revealing process, but
yet enveloped in mystery — revealing even the more, by
means of the mystery.
Meantime, it is by setting ourselves before this per
sonal history of the Father in heaven, and the Son on
earth, both as representatives standing out before the
Absolute Being, watching the relative history they
unfold in finite forms, their acting and interacting, and
discovering what is expressed thereby,— cleared of all
the repugnant and contradictory matter that is attributa
ble to the vehicle, in distinction from the truth — it is

TRINITY. 171
thus that we are to ascend, as by a resultant of the two
forces, into a lively realization, and a free, spiritual
embrace of God, as our Friend, Redeemer, Peace, and
Portion. A mere philosophic unity, it will be seen at a
glance, is cold and dead, in comparison — altogether insuf
ficient to support the Christian uses of the soul.
But, in order to the full and complete apprehension
of God, a third personality, the Holy Spirit, needs to
appear. By the Logos, in the creation, and then by ther
Logos in the incarnation, assisted or set off by the Father
as a relative personality, God's character, feeling, and
truth, are now expressed. He has even brought down
the mercies of His Heart to meet us on our human level.
So far, the expression made, is moral ; but there is yet
needed, to complete our sense of God, the Absolute,
another kind of expression, which will require the intro
duction or appearance of yet another and distinct kind of
impersonation. We not only want a conception of God
in His character and feeling towards us, but we want,
also, to conceive Him as in act within us, working in us, ;
under the conditions of time and progression, spiritual
results of quickening, deliverance, and purification from
evil. Now, action of any kind is representable to us
only under the conditions of movement in time and
space, which, as we have seen, is not predicable of the
Absolute Being abstractly contemplated. God, in act,
therefore, will be given us by another finite, relative
impersonation. Accordingly, the natural image, spirit, that is, breath, is
taken up and clothed with a personal activity. The

172 TRINITY.
word signifies air in motion, and as air is invisible, ( it
becomes the symbol or type of unseen power exerted —
quite transcendently, however, as regards our compre
hension ; for there is really no motion whatever. The
word spirit had been used before, as in reference to the
agency of God, but only in a remoter and more tropical
sense, as the word Father had been ; the conception of a
¦ divine personality, or impersonation, called the Holy
Spirit, was unknown. We may imagine otherwise, in
one or two cases, as when David prays, " Take not thy
holy spirit from me," but I think, without any sufficient
reason. Now, the Divine Power, in souls, is to be
developed under the form of a personal Sanctifier, related,
in a personal way, to the Father and the Son, as they to
each other. He is conceived, sometimes, as sent by the
Father ; sometimes, as proceeding from the Father and
the Son ; sometimes as shed forth from the Son in his
exaltation ; always as a Divine Agency, procured by the
Son, and representing, in the form of an operation within
us, that grace which he reveals as feeling and intention
towards us.
And here, again, just as the Logos is incarnated in the
flesh, so the Spirit makes His advent under physical
signs, appropriate to His office, coming in a rushing
mighty wind ; tipping the heads of an assembly with
lambent flames ; evidencing his power in souls, by open
ing the lips of men, and playing those utterances which
are, themselves, expressions of the mind within ; endow
ing men with gifts above their human capacity. Now,
the Absolute Being, of whom we could predicate no
motion or proceeding, becomes a Vital Presence, resid-

TRINITY. 173
ing ever with us, to work in us all that we need, and
strengthen us to that which nnnp but a divine power can
support. W'luii „-,. S-I1...1I..I i,..i ,|lir,. f.'l.op,.. hi,(| c.ul.l
not ..rh.-rui.-v  n.-r-ivr — th,. Ki,-n,;.l i.iC,-. ,l,-.,-|:i,w. un*.
i-nani tested b\ ( 'liri.-t. livrifj in us.
Thus \\'<- liiive ihrei: pt.-rsous. ...r impeisuncttiuus, all \
existing under finite conditions or conceptions. They are '
relatives, and, in that view, are not infinites ; for relative
infinites are impossible. And yet, taken representatively,
they are each and all, infinites ; because they stand for,
and express the Infinite, Absolute Jehovah. They may
each declare, ' I am He ;' for what they impart to us of
Him, is their true reality. Between them all together, as
relatives, we are elevated to proximity and virtual con
verse with Him who is above our finite conditions, —
the Unapproachable, and, as far as all measures of thought
or conception are concerned, the Unrepresentable God.
The Father plans, presides, and purposes for us ; the
Son expresses his intended mercy, proves it, brings it
down even to the level of a fellow feeling ; the Spirit
works within us the beauty he reveals, and the glory
beheld in his Life. The Father sends the Son, the
Son delivers the grace of the Father ; the Father dis
penses, and the Son procures the Spirit ; the Spirit pro
ceeds from the Father and Son, to fulfill the purpose
of one, and the expressed feeling of the other ; each and
all' together dramatize and bring forth into life about
us that Infinite One, who, to our mere thought, were no
better than Brama sleeping on eternity and the stars.
Now, the sky, so to speak, is beginning to be full of
Divine Activities, heaven is married to earth, and
15*

174 TRINITY.
earth to heaven, and the Absolute Jehovah, whose nature
we before could nowise comprehend, but dimly know,
and yet more dimly feel, has, by these outgoings, waked
up in us, all living images of His love and power and
presence, and set the whole world in a glow..
There is, then, according to the view now presented, a
real and proper trinity in the scriptures ; three persons,
Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, — one God. If it be
objected that the word trinity is not here, neither is the
term free agency. There certainly can be no harm in
the use of such terms as mere terms of convenience, if
we are careful not to derive our doctrine from them.
That there is, in the scriptures, a three-foldness, which
contains the real matter of a trinity, is to me undeniable,
and, if I am right in the views now presented, it must be
of the highest consequence to religion, that this trinity be
admitted, cordially accepted, lived in as a power — a
vitalizing element offered to our souls, as the air to the
, life of our bodies. Every human soul that will adequately
work itself in religion, needs this trinity as the instrument
of its working ; for, without this, it is neither possible to
preserve the warmth, nor to ascend into the true great
ness of God.
Neither is it any so great wisdom, as many theolo
gians appear to fancy, to object to the word person ; for,
if anything is clear, it is that the Three of scripture do
appear under the grammatic forms which are appropriate
to person— I, Thou, He, We, and They ; and, if it be, so,
I really do not perceive the very great license taken by
our theology, when they are called three persons. Be-

TRINITY. 175
sides, we practically need, for our own sake, to set them out
as three persons before us, acting relatively toward each
other, in order to ascend into the liveliest, fullest realiza
tion of God. We only need to abstain from assigning to
these divine persons an interior, metaphysical nature,
which we are nowise able to investigate, or which we
may positively know to contradict the real unity of
God. Do you then ask, whether I mean simply to assert a
modal trinity, or three modal persons ? — I must answer
obscurely, just as I answered in regard to the humanity
of Christ. If I say that they are modal only, as the
word is commonly used, I may deny more than I am
justified in denying, or am required to deny, by the
ground I have taken. I will only say that the trinity, or
the three persons, are given to me for the sake of their
external expression, not for the internal investigation of
their contents. If I use them rationally or wisely, then,
I shall use them according to their object. I must not
intrude upon their interior nature, either by assertion or
denial. They must have their reality to me in what
they express when taken as the wording forth of God.
Perhaps I shall come nearest to the simple, positive idea
of the trinity here maintained, if I call it an Instrumen
tal Trinity, and the persons Instrumental Persons.
There may be more in them than this, which let others
declare when they find it. Enough, meantime, for me, that
there is this ; — that in and through these living persons, or
impersonations, I find the Infinite One brought down even
to my own level of humanity, without any loss of His
greatness, or reduction of His majesty. And if they

176 TRINITY
help me to this, I see not anything more of so great con
sequence for them to give rno. even if T rould read their
inost inferior nature, tiiul ivsolvt- ;ill problems i-OiK-eming
thein. I pi-'iveire. too. tliHl < lo.l in;i\- us well offer Himself
io mr. iii the'sp persons, ms through lives, or storms, or
stars ; — that they involve us little contrariety, as lew limi
tations, and yield as much more of warmth as they have
more of life. I discover, also, that this threeness helps me
the more, and lifts me the higher, because it baffles me. If 1
think it more philosophical and simple to conceive God only
as one person, tl|at person will really be a finite conception,
unwittingly, though very absurdly, taken as Infinite.
And then, as the God shrinks, the mind freezes. The
simplicity it so much admired, after all, brings disappoint
ment. The ease of this philosophic unity is itself a great
fault ; for it is as if we had God's measure, and saw His
boundaries. He is too clear to be Infinite ; and, what is
even worse, too clear to have His warmth in the soul.
We do not rise to the Infinite by simple thought or-direct
contemplation, we are borne up to that height only by a
resultant motion, between relative and partially repug
nant forces, such as we find in the three persons of scrip
ture. Through a certain feeling of multiplicity and vague
ness, we are able to realize God dynamically, as we could
through no definite conception of Him. Represented as
three, God is yet one — the more magnificently one, be
cause He is three. The soul has her sublimation, because
she is held in a maze, and God is warm, because He is a
mystery. Meanwhile, if our feeling is, at any time, con
fused by these persons or impersonations, we are to have it
for a fixed, first truth, that God is, in the most perfect and

TRINITY. 177
rigid sense, one being — a pure intelligence, undivided,
indivisible, and infinite ; and that whatever may be true
of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, it certainly is not
true that they are three distinct consciousnesses, wills, and
understandings. Or, speaking in a way more positive,
they are instrumentally three — three simply as related to
our finite apprehension, and the communication of God's
incommunicable nature.
But some one, I suppose, will require of me to answer
whether the three persons are eternal, or only occasional
and to be discontinued ? Undoubtedly the distinction of j
the Word, or the power of self-representation in God thus j
denominated, is eternal. And in this, we have a perma
nent ground of possibility for the threefold impersonation,
caUed trinity. Accordingly, if God has been eternally
revealed, or revealing Himself to created minds, it is
likely always to have been and always to be as the
Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Consequently, it may
always be in this manner that we shall get our impres
sions of God, and have our communion with Him. As
an accommodation to all finite minds in the universe, it
may be the purpose of Jehovah to be known by this
divine formula forever. That which most discourages such
a belief is the declaration of Paul — "When all things
shall be subdued unto him, then shall the Son also him
self be subject unto him that did put all things under
him, that God may be all and in all." I will not go into
a discussion of these very remarkable words ; for I do
not care to" open God's secrets before the time. Let the
future bring the future, and I know it will not be amiss
when it comes. Enough for me, now, that by these dear

178 TRINITY.
names, my God proves His warmth, and pours His full
ness into my heart — that, without them, torpor settles
on my religious nature, and the boasted clearness
of a God made level to reason, is the clearness of a
wintry day.
I suppose the position I have taken would be more
acceptable to some, were I to throw in the intimation
given by Neander, when ascribing a similar view to the
apostles. Thus he says that the trinity " has an essen
tially practical and historical significance and founda
tion ; it is the doctrine of God revealed in the humanity,
which teaches men to recognize in God, not only the
original source of existence, but of salvation and sancti
fication. From this trinity of revelation, as far as the
divine causality images itself in the same, the reflective
mind, according to the analogy of its own being, pursuing
this track, seeks to elevate itself to the idea of an original
triad in God, availing itself of the intimations which are
contained in John's doctrine of the Logos and the cog
nate elements of the Pauline theology." If now it be
inquired whether, beginning with a doctrine of trinity,
produced by the process of revelation, and adequately
accounted for as necessary to that process, I would then
turn to hunt for some " analogy" in myself, and try to
climb up thus, through myself, into a discovery of an
original triad in God — convincing myself, also, that John
and Paul give "intimations" of such a triad, I frankly
answer, no. The expression of such a hope might com
fort some who would otherwise be disturbed, but it will
only mislead a much greater number, who had better
keep their discretion. If God has given us an instrumen-

TRINITY. 179
tal triad, which is good for its purposes of revelation,
there can be no greater fraud upon it than to set our
selves to the discovery of an original triad back of it,
that has no instrumental character, and has nothing to do
with revelation. It is just the way to confuse and lead
us off from every proper use and construction of the
trinity God has given us. In just this way it is, too, that
the trinity has been made a source of so great controversy
and so little profit, in all past ages — it has been turned
into a metaphysical problem, and its instrumental charac
ter, as the representative development of God, has, of
necessity, been hidden from the view. Besides, what wis
dom are we likely to arrive at, better than the shadowy
vagaries others, in past ages, have conjured up, by hunt
ing our human spirit through, to find some Platonic triad
there, which shall solve the trinity of persons in God ?
Let us rather baptize our over-curious spirit into the
name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy
Ghost, and teach it quietly to rest in what of God's
Infinite nature it may there receive. We talk of simpli
city, often, when upon this matter of trinity — as we
rightly may. O, that we had simplicity enough to let
God be God, and the revelation He gives us, a revela
tion ! — neither trying to make Him a finite person after
our own human model, nor ourselves three that we may
bring our humanity up to solve the mysteries of His
Absolute, Infinite substance ! There is no so true simplicity
as that which takes the practical at its face, uses instru
ments as instruments, however complex and mysterious,
(for what is more so than a man's own body,) and refuses

180 * conclusion.
to be cheated of the uses of life, by an over- curious
questioning of that which God has given for its uses.
This view of Christ and the trinity differs, I am aware,
in some respects, from that which is commonly held ;
but I hope the difference will not disturb you. I have
known no other since I began to be a preacher of Christ,
and my experience teaches me to want no other. If it
has delivered me from agonies of mental darkness and
confusion concerning God, which, at one time, seemed
insupportable, it cannot be wrong to hope that God will
make the truth a deliverance equally comfortable and
joyful to some of you.
Observe, too, in closing, what an outlay God has made
to communicate or manifest Himself to our race. In
His own Absolute nature, God is a being so vast that,
when I drew out the conception of Him as existing in
Himself, I presume it was somewhat painful to you, so
remote was it from all your own personal modes of being
and life, as a finite creature.* And yet it will be
difficult for any one to dispute the necessity of such a
conception of God, when taken as Absolute, and as
viewed by abstract thought or contemplation. But
what have we seen ? This Transcendent Being strug
gling out, so to speak, into the measures of human know
ledge, revealing Himself through the petty modes and
molds of our finite nature ! He fills the whole universe
with actions and reactions, such as will bring us into
lively acquaintance with Him. He comes into the
human itself, and melts into the history of man through
agonies, sorrows, and tears. He kindles heaven and
earth into a glow, by the relative activities of Father,

CONCLUSION. 181
Son, and Holy Ghost. And for what ? Simply to com
municate Himself, to express His nature and His feeling.
What, then, does our everlasting God and Father plan for,
but to bestow Himself upon us ? And it is in this view,
that the Blessed Three come to me with a sound so dear,
and a burden of love so rich. I see therein how earnestly
my God desires to be known and possessed by me, — by
you as truly, by all, by every human creature. What
breathing man is there of you, around whom the Triune
is not circling here as a day of light and love ? The
Incommunicable is communicated, brought down even to
be fellow to you, that you may know Him and love
Him! He waits to be received, to clear away your
darkness, to purge you from your sin, and be in you the
fullness of Him that filleth all in all.
16

A
DISCOURSE \
ON THE
ATONEMENT,
DELIVERED BEFORE
THE DIVINITY SCHOOL
IN
HARVARD UNIVERSITY.
JULY 9, 1848.

DISCOURSE, &c.

You have called me to occupy, this evening, a singular
and, in the same view, difficult and responsible office.
Which office, hpwever, I most readily undertake, because
I seem to have a subject and a duty appointed me also.
It cannot be improper, in the circumstances, to say
that when your letter came, inviting me to perform this
exercise, I had just emerged from a state of protracted
suspense, or mental conflict, in reference to what is
called, theologicaUy, the doctrine of Atonement ; that is, of
the life and death of Jesus Christ, as the Saviour of the
world. The practical moment of Christ's work had been
sufficiently plain, but the difficulty had been to bring its
elements into one theologic view. The subject had for
many years bema hjkig up before me, and I had been
perusing it onjjJ|plfi; trying it by manifold experiments,
and refusing toalQiBe by the will, what could only be
cleared by light, till now, at last, the question had seemed
to open itself and display its. reasons. And when your
letter was laid upon my table, I was at that moment
engaged in projecting a discourse that should embody,
what I dared, somewhat enthusiastically, to hope might
16*

186 atonement.
prove a true solution of this momentous, but very difficult
subject. Instigated by the same incautious warmth, I
accepted the occasion offered, as offered not to me, but
to my subject, and forthwith set apar£ one to the uses of
the other.
If, now, a short interval of time and a formal prepara
tion of the subject have somewhat sobered my confidence,
if I no longer dream of the possibility that I may solve so
great a question to the satisfaction of any one, I do yet
cherish a hope that the view I may offer will lead to a
reinvestigation of the whole question, and thus, at length,
towards a reconstruction of our present theological affini
ties ; or, if this be too much, towards a reduction of our
present theological antipathies. Or, again, if this be too
much, it will at least be something, if I am able to go
directly down into the arena and take up, in manful
earnest, the old first question over which our fathers
panted in the dust of controversy, discussing it anew by
your permission, and without offence to your Christian
hospitalities. For it would be a public shame, even to
Christianity itself, if I were to come before you on such
an occasion as this, and in such a theologic relation, here
to speak as one that is cautiously imprisoned within the
limits of some neutral subject, nenHhfMisting you, nor
daring for myself, to hazard the me^ffl Bof any point in
litigation between us. I consider^^ilso to be only a
just compliment, in return for the very unexampled cour
tesies I am accepting, to assume that your spirit is as
broad as your invitation; that you have called me to
speak, because you desired to hear me speak my own

atonement. 187
sentiments, and not to see how well I can accommodate
any favorite opinion held by yourselves.
The text I had chosen for my discourse, at the time
referred to, was : —
1 John, i. 2. — "For the Life was manifested, and we
have seen it, and bear witness, and shew unto you that
eternal life which was with ihe Father, and was mani
fested unto us."
This particular passage of scripture has seemed to me
to offer one of the most comprehensive and most deliber
ate announcements of the doctrine of Christ, that is any
where given in the sacred writings; with the advantage
that it. is yet so far unoccupied as not to have become a
technic, under the wear of any theory. In the verse pre
vious, the writer opens by setting forth the fact, as I sup
pose, of a divine incarnation in the person of Jesus. By
the Word, or Word of Life, that peculiar power in the
Divine nature by which God is able to represent Him
self outwardly in the forms of things, .first in the worlds
and now in the human person, which is the liveliest type
of feeling possible, and closest to God — by this Word of
Life, God has'*how expressed Himself. He has set forth
His Divine feeling even to sense and as a fellow feeling
— He has entered into human history, as one of its
biographic elements. We have seen, looked upon,
handled what may thus be known of Him. Then, he
adds — throwing in a parenthesis which is to be a solution
of the whole evangelic history — for the Life was mani-

188 DOCTRINE STATED
fested, and we have seen it, and bear witness, and shew
unto you that Eternal Life, which was with the Father,
and was manifested unto us.
Observe three points in this very peculiar language.
First, there is a manifestation of something, the mission
of the Word is looked upon inclusively as a manifestation,
that is, a coming into visibility of something before
invisible. Secondly, it is the Life that was manifested —
not life generally speaking, but the Life. And, thirdly,
as if to distinguish it in a yet more definite manner, it is
called that Life, that Eternal Life, that Eternal Life that
was with the Father, and was manifested unto us.
Taking, now, these three terms, in connection with the
assumption, elsewhere made, that our human race, under
sin, are alienated from the life of God ; also, with the
declaration of Christ, that, as the Father hath life in
Himself, so he hath given to the Son, as the world's
Redeemer, to have life in himself; and, again, with
that deep utterance of joy sent forth by an emancipated
soul ; — " for the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus,
hath made me free from the law of sin and death" — taking
the text, I say, in connection with these others, 'as com
mentaries, we have a good synoptic view, it seems to
me, of the doctrine of the Messiah**'
It is not that Christ is a man, a human teacher, who
is sent to reform us by his words and his beautiful human
example, but it is to this effect : — All souls have their
proper life only in the common vivifying life of God.
Sin, being a withdrawal into self and self-hood, separates
them from the life, and, as far as their own freedom is
concerned, denies all influx of the Divine into their char-

PROM THE SCRIPTURES. 189
acter and their religious nature. Passing thus into a
state of negation, as regards the Divine all-sustaining
life, they become imprisoned in darkness, unbelief, idol
atry, and a general captivity to sense. And now the
Life is manifested in sense ; in Christ is life, and the
life is the light of men. Christ enters into human feel
ing, by his incarnate charities and sufferings, to re-en
gage the world's love and reunite the world, as free,
to the Eternal Life. To sum up all in one condensed
and luminous utterance, every word of which is power,
God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself. ¦
The apostle says nothing here, it will be observed, of
reconciling God to men, he only speaks of reconciling
men to God. Had he said, the Life of God was mani
fested in Jesus Christ, to quicken the world in love and
truth, and reunite it to Himself, he would have said the
same thing under a different form.
I am well aware that, in offering such a statement, as
the true doctrine of Christ and his work, I affirm nothing
that is distinctively orthodox, and shall even seem to
rule out that view of Christ as a sacrifice, an eocpiation
for sin, a vicarious offering, which, to the view of most
orthodox Christians, contains the real moment of his
work as a Saviour. It will be found, however, that I am
proceeding exactly in the line of the scriptures, and I
trust also it will appear, before I have done, that the
scriptures advance two distinct views of Christ and his
work, which are yet radically one and the same.
I. A subjective, speculative— one that contemplates
the work of Christ in its ends, and views it as a power
related to its ends.

190 DOCTRINE STATED
II. An objective, ritualistic — one that sets him forijh to
faith, instead of philosophy, and one, without which, as
an Altar Form for the soul, he would not be the power
intended, or work the ends appointed.
Thus, when it is inquired, as in the first form specified,
for what end did Christ come into the world, we have a
class of terms in the scripture which can scarcely get
any proper meaning, if what is said under the second
form is considered to be the whole doctrine of Christ.
/The converse also is equally true. The real problem is
to find a place and a meaning for all that is said concern
ing him — to effect a union of the two sides.
As examples of the manner in which the scriptures
make answer, when the question is, for what ends did
Christ come into the world, we have the following : —
" To this end was I born, and for this cause came I
into the world, to bear witness to the truth," — a passage
that is remarkable as being the most direct, specific, and
formal statement Christ ever made of the object of his
Messiahship ; and here he says, that he came to bring
truth into the world.
" I am the way, the truth, and the life ;" — " I am
the light of the world," — are declarations of a similar
import. " Unto you, first, God having raised up his Son Jesus,
sent him to bless you, in turning away every one of you
from his iniquities." " Who gave himself for us, that he
might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify un£o Him
self a peculiar people, zealous of good works," — where
the end of his mission is declared to be a moral effect,
wrought in the mind of the race.

PROM TIIE SCRIPTURES. 191
For this purpose, the Son of God was manifested, that
he might destroy the works of the devil" — a passage
declaring the precise object of the incarnation as affirmed
in my text ; and, as the work of the devil is not the pun
ishment, but the corruption of his followers, we are
brought to the same conclusion as before.
In all these citations, we have so many echoes of the
one just produced, as the grand, comprehensive doctrine
of Christ's work, or mission : — God in Christ, recon
ciling the world unto himself. And I affirm, without
hesitation, that whenever the question is about the end of
Christ's work, that end to which he stands related as the
wisdom and power of God, the answer of the scripture
will be, that he comes to renovate character ; to quicken
by the infusion of the divine life ; in one word, that he
comes to be a Saviour, as saving his people from their
sins. Then, again, to show that a view is offered of Christ,
in the writings especially of the apostles, which is wholly
different from this, one that speaks of him as a propitia
tion, a sacrifice, as bearing our sins, bearing the curse for
us, obtaining remission by his blood, is altogether
unnecessary. In the Epistles to the Romans, the Gala
tians, the Hebrews, those of Peter and John, this altar
view or form of Christ, appears even as the eminent, or
super-eminent truth of the gospel.
Omitting, therefore, because it is unnecessary, to offer
any particular citations to this effect, I will simply refer
you to a passage that is remarkable, as being an instance
where one view runs into the other, and the altar form
becomes, in the issue, a renovating power. The eighth

192 the protestant views
chapter of the Epistle to the Hebrews opens with a look
toward sacrifice, describing Christ as a " priest" " having
somewhat to offer," but still as " having obtained a more
excellent ministry" than the priests of the law, and
brought in for us a "better covenant." How better?
Because it has a more transforming power in me life,
because it fulfills a better and higher design, writing the
law in the heart — " I will put my laws into their mind,
and write them in their hearts." Here the objective,
ritual view passes into the subjective, and reveals the
fact that it has and was designed to have a renovating
power in character; — thus, becoming a "new" and
"better covenant." Accordingly, I design to show that,
if the first or subjective view of Christ, that in which I
state the end and aim of Christ's work, is true, that end
or aim could not be effectively realized without the
second, or objective view, in which his whole work is
conceived in the altar form, and held forth to the objec
tive embrace and worship and repose of faith.
I am well aware of the insufficiency and necessary
obscurity of these brief statements. I offer them only to
give a general indication of the course and scope of my
argument. And you will not require of me to be as
intelligible here, as at the close ; for it will be the princi
pal object, or work of my discourse, to set forth and
bring into unity this double, subjective-pbjective view of
Christ and his work.
But before I engage more immediately in the effort
thus undertaken, it may be useful to glance, a moment,
at some of the opinions that have been held or advanced,

stated and discussed. 193
at different times, concerning the nature and import of
the atonement. A historic review of the whole subject
would be useful, but this, the limitations I am under forbid.
The first churches appear to have had no theoretic view
of the^vork of Christ, — they only received him as the
love oi God, the sacrifice that brought them into peace,
and united them again to the life of God. Irenaeus
is said to have opened the dogmatic history of the subject,
or made a beginning of speculative theology in it, by
representing the death of Christ as a ransom paid to the
devil, to buy us off from the claims he had upon us.
From that time to the present, it has ever been held, on
the orthodox side of the Church, to be a redemptive offer
ing paid to God, — not, however, in any such form as
indicates the existence of a settled and uniform opinion
of the subject. There is a general concurrence in the
words vicarious, eocpiation, offering, substitute, and the •
like, but no agreement as to the manner in which they
are to get their meaning. Sometimes, the analogy of"
criminal law is taken ; and then our sins are spoken of as
being transferred to Christ, or he as having accepted
them to bear their penalty. Sometimes the civil or eom- ¦
mercial law furnishes the analogy ; and then our sins,
being taken as a debt, Christ offers himself as a ransom
for us. , Or, the analogy of the ceremonial law is accepted ;
and then Christ is set forth as a propitiatory, or expia
tory offering, to obtain remission of sins for us. Regard
ing Christ as suffering for us, in one or another of these
scripture forms or figures, taken as the literal dogmatic
truth, we have as many distinct theories. Then, again,
different as these figures are from each other, they will
17

194 the protestant views
yet be used interchangeably, all in the sense of one or
another of them. And then, again, to double the confu
sion yet once more, we have two sets of representations
produced under each, accordingly as Christ is conceived to
offer himself to Jehovah's justice, or as Jehovah is con
ceived Himself to prepare the offering, out of I« own
mercy. On the whole, I know of no definite and fixed point,
on which the orthodox view, so called, may be said to
hang, unless it be this, viz., that Christ suffers evil as evil,
or in direct and simple substitution for evil that was to
be suffered by us ; so that God accepts one evil in place
of the other, and being satisfied in this manner, is able to
justify, or pardon.
As to the measure of this evil, there are different
opinions. Calvin maintained the truly horrible doctrine
'that Christ descended into hell, when crucified, and
suffered the pains of the damned for three days. A very
great number of the Christian teachers, even at this day,
maintain that Christ suffered exactly as much pain as all
the redeemed would have suffered under the penalties of
eternal justice. But this penal view of Christ's death has
been gradually giving way, till now, under its most modern,
most mitigated and least objectionable form, he is only
said to have suffered under a law of eocpression.
Thus, God would have expressed a certain abhorrence
of sin, by the punishment of the world. Christ now
suffers only as much pain as will express the same amount
of abhorrence. And considering the dignity of the suf
ferer, and his relations to the Father, there was no need
of suffering the same, or even any proximate amount of

STATED and discussed. 195
pain, to make an expression of abhorrence to sin, that is,
of justice, equal to that produced by the literal punish--
ment of the race. Still, it will be seen to be a part of
this more mitigated view, that Christ suffers evil as evil,
whiclwevil suffered is accepted as a compensative
expression of God's indignation against sin. Accord
ingly, in the agony of Gethsemane, and when the Saviour
exclaims, in his passion, " My God ! my God ! why
hast thou forsaken me !" it will be taken for literal truth,
that the frown of God, or Divine Justice, rested on his
soul. '
It will probably be right, then, to distribute the views
of those who are accepted, now, as orthodox teachers,
into two classes ; one who consider the death of Christ
as availing, by force of what it is ; the other, by force of
what it expresses ; the former holding it as a literal sub
stitution of evil endured, for evil that was to be endured ;
the latter holding it as an expression of abhorrence to
sin, made through the suffering of one, in place of the
same expression that was to be made, by the suffering of
many. As regards the former class of representations, we
may say, comprehensively, that they are capable, one
and all, of no light in which they do not even offend
«some right moral sentiment of our being. Indeed, they
raise up moral objections with such marvellous fecun
dity, that we can hardly state them as fast as they occur
to us.
Thus, if one evil or pain must be repaid by an equiva
lent, what real economy is there in the transaction?

190 THE PROTESTANT VIEWS
What is effected, save the transfer of penal evil from the
guilty to the innocent ?
And if the great Redeemer, in the excess of his good
ness, consents, freely offers himself to the Father, or to
God, to receive the penal woes, or some sufficient part of
the penal woes of the world, in his own person^" what
does it signify, when that offer is accepted, but that God
will have his modicum of suffering somehow — if he lets
the guilty go, will yet satisfy himself out of the innocent ?
In which the divine government, instead of clearing
itself, assumes the double ignominy, first of letting the
guilty go, and secondly, of accepting the sufferings of
innocence ! In which, Calvin, seeing no difficulty, is still
able to say, when arguing for Christ's three days in hell,
— " it was requisite that he should feel the severity of the
divine vengeance, in order to appease the wrath of God,
and satisfy his justice." I confess my inability to read
this kind of language without a sensation of horror ; for it is
not the half-poetic, popular language of scripture, but the
cool, speculative language of theory, as concerned with
the reason of God's penal distributions.
And yet this objection is aggravated, if possible, by
another representation, that Christ did not suffer willingly,
or by consent, save in the sense that he obeyed the com
mand by which it was laid upon him to suffer ! Thus a
distinguished American writer, in his treatise on this
subject, written only thirty years ago, says, — "The"
Father must command him to die, or the stroke would
not be from His own hand," — carrying still the analogy
of punishment, so far as to suppose, that, like all penal

STATED AND DISCUSSED. 197
inflictions, Christ must die under " authority" of God, in
order that his death should have any theologic value.
It is of no moment to ask, in this connection, what
becomes of the deity of the Son, when he is thus under
the authority of the Father ; for he is not merely under it
as being in the flesh, as the scriptures speak, but it is
" authority" that sends him into the flesh. To profess
the real and proper deity of Christ, in such a connection,
is only to use words as instruments of self-deception —
his deity, after all, is not believed, and cannot be where
such a doctrine is held.
Then, again, according to the same view, Christ is
also God and ruler of the world, in his own person.
Would any king, then, be in a fair way to maintain jus
tice in his kingdom, if he took all the penalties of trans
gression on himself ? Or if it be said that the human
nature only of Jesus suffered, then we have the brief
pangs of one human person accepted, in strict justice, as
the equivalent of all the penalties of all human transgres
sion, since the world began !
Again, there can be no such thing as future punish
ment or retribution, in this view, without involving a
charge of injustice. For if justice be exactly vindicated,
and the terms of the law exactly satisfied, to punish after
that is plainly to exact double justice — which is injustice.
Again, it is a fatal objection to this view, that it sets
every transgressor right before the law, when, as yet,
there is nothing right in his character ; producing, if we
view it constructively, and not historically, (for historic
and speculative results do not always agree,) the worst
conceivable form of licentiousness. For, if the terms of
17*

198 THE PROTESTANT VIEWS
the law are satisfied, the transgressor has it for his right to
go free, whether he forsake his transgressions or not. As
far as any mere claims of law or justice are concerned,
he may challenge impunity for all the wrongs he has
committed, shall commit, or can commit, while his breath
remains !
In the second and more mitigated class of orthodox
opinions, a very important and really true position is, at
last, reached ; viz., — that the value of Christ's life and
death is measured by what is therein expressed. Only it
is needed, now, to go a step farther, investigating what
he expresses, how or under what esthetic conditions the
expression is made, and the object for which it is made
— whether it be to express God's character and bring the
Eternal Life into visible evidence and social relation ;
whether to sanctify and set in honor, before mankind, the
broken law of God ; whether to bring God as a renovat
ing power into union without human nature ; whether,
possibly, it be not rather to accomplish all these ends,
and that, too, without any imposition or endurance of
evil in the penal form of evil, any suffering or pain which is
undertaken for effect, as being a direct exhibition of God's
justice, or judicial abhorrence to sin.
The objections I have to this more mitigated theory,
are these : — ^
First, it assumes that, as punishment expresses.the abhor
rence of God to sin, or what is the same, his justice, he
can sustain his law and lay a ground of forgiveness with
out punishment, only by some equivalent expression of ab-

STATED AND DISCUSSED. 199
horrence — an assumption that is groundless and without
consideration, as I may cause to appear in another place.
Secondly, this latter seems to accord with the former
view in supposing that Christ suffers evil as evil, or
as a penal visitation of God's justice, only doing it in
a less painful degree ; that is, suffering so much of evil as
will suffice, considering the dignity of his person, to
express the same amount of abhorrence to sin, that would '
be expressed by the eternal punishment of all mankind.
I confess my inability to see how an innocent being
could ever be set, even for one moment, in an attitude of
displeasure under God. If He could lay His frown, for
one moment, on the soul of innocence and virtue, He
must be no such being as I have loved and worshipped.
Much less can I imagine that He should lay it on the
head of one, whose nature is itself co-equal Deity. Does
any one say that He will do it for public governmental
reasons ? No governmental reasons, I answer, can
justify even the admission of innocence into a participa
tion of frowns and penal distributions. If consenting
innocence says, "let the blow fall on me," precisely
there is it for a government to prove its justice, even to
the point of sublimity ; to reveal the essential, eternal,
unmitigable distinction it holds between innocence and
sin, by declaring that as under law and its distributions,
\i is even impossible to suffer any commutation, any the
least confusion of places.
All the analogies invented or brought from actual his
tory, to clear this point, are manifestly worthless. If
Zaleucus, for example, instead of enforcing the statute
against his son, which required the destruction of both

200 THE PROTESTANT VIEWS
his eyes, thinks to satisfy the law by putting out one of
his own eyes and one of his son's, he only practices a
very unintelligent fraud upon the law, under pretext of a
conscientiously literal enforcement of it. The statute
did not require the loss of two eyes; if it had, the. two
eyes of a dog would have sufficed ; but it required the
two eyes of the criminal — that he, as a wrong doer, should
be put into darkness. If the father had consented to
have both his own eyes put out, instead of his son's, it
might have been very kind of him, but to speak of it as
public justice, or as any proper vindication of law, would
be impossible. The real truth signified would be, that
Zaleucus loved public justice too little, in comparison
with his exceeding fondness for his son, to let the law
have its course ; and yet, as if the law stood upon getting
two eyes, apart from all justice, too many scruples to
release his sin, without losing the two eyes of his body,
as before he had lost the eyes of his reason.
According to the supposition, the problem here is to
produce an expression of abhorrence to sin, through the
sufferings of Christ, in place of another, through the
sufferings of the guilty. Now the truth of the latter
expression consists in the fact that there is an abhorrence
in God to be expressed. But there is no such abhorrence
in God towards Christ, and therefore, if the external
expression of Christ's sufferings has no correspondent
feeling to be expressed, where lies the truth of the expres
sion ? And if the frown of God lies upon his soul, as we
often hear, in the garden and on the cross, how can the
frown of God, falling on the soul of innocence, express
any truth or any feeling of justice ?

STATED AND DISCUSSED. 201
Thirdly, if Christ be himself, in the highest and truest
sense, the Eternal Life, God manifested in the flesh,
then every expression of justice or abhorrence to sin,
which is made by his death as a mere endurance of evil, is
involved in yet greater obscurity and confusion. He
says, himself, that all power is given unto him in heaven
and on earth. He is, in fact, the embodiment, as he is
the representation of God and divine government; he
must be taken, in all that he does, as doing something
which is properly referable to God. No theory of three
metaphysical natures, called persons, in God, can at all
vary this truth. The transactions of Christ must still be
taken as transactions of God. The frown, then, if it be
said to be of God, is quite as truly on God. The expres
sion of justice or abhorrence is made by sufferings
that are endured, not out of the circle of divine govern
ment, but in it. And thus we have a government real
izing its penal distributions or their equivalents, that is,
its justice, its significations of abhorrence, wholly within
itself and apart from all terms of relation, save as the
subjects, so called, are to be spectators ! Whatever
speculations we may hold, in regard to modes of expres
sion, can we hold such a view of divine government
without some uncomfortable suspicion of mistake in it ?
Once more, it is to be noticed, as a law of expression,
that when evil is endured simply and only for what it
expresses, it expresses nothing. If a man wades out upon
some mountain, in the snows of a wintry night, to carry
food to a perishing family, then what he encounters of
risk and suffering, being incidentally encountered, is an
expression of charity. But if he calls upon us to observe

202 THE PROTESTANT VIEWS
his charity expressed in what he will suffer, and, waiting
for a stormy night, goes forth on the same expedition to
the mountain, he expresses nothing but ostentation. So
if Christ comes into the world to teach, to cheer, to heal,
to pour his sympathies into the bosom of all humamsor-
row, to assert the integrity of truth, and rebuke the wick
edness of sin, in a word, to manifest the Eternal Life and
bring it into a quickening union with the souls of our
race, then to suffer incidentally, to die an ignominious
and cruel death rather than depart from his heavenly
errand, is to make an expression of the Heart of God,
which every human soul must feel. And this expression
may avail to sanctify the law before us, even though
there be no abhorrence expressed in his sufferings. But,
if Christ comes into the world invoking; as it were, the
frown of God, and undertaking to suffer evil as evil, that
he may express God's justice, or His abhorrence of sin,
then he expresses nothing. The very laws of expression,
if I understand them rightly, require that suffering should
be endured, not as suffering, or as evil taken up for the
expression of it, but that the evil be a necessary incident
encountered on the way to some end separate from expres
sion, — some truth, benefaction, or work of love.
Having stated frankly these objections to the common
orthodox views of atonement, whether resting the value
of Christ's death in what it is, or in what it expresses, it
may be expected that I should renounce all sympathy
and connection with them. This I have never been able
to do. For if they are unsatisfactory, if the older and
more venerable doctrine isTepugnant, when speculatively

STATED AND DISCUSSED. 203
regarded, to the most sacred instincts or sentiments of
our moral nature, and dissolves itself at the first approach
of rational inquiry, is it nothing remarkable, is it not
even more remarkable, that it should have supported the
spirit of so many believers and martyrs, in so many trials
and deaths, continued through so many centuries ? Re
futed again and again, cast away, trampled upon by
irreverent mockeries, it has never yet been able to die —
wherefore, unless there be some power of divine life in
it ? So I have always believed, and I hope to show you,
before I have done, where it is, or under what form it is
hid ; for I shall carry you into a region, separate from all
speculation, or theologizing, and there, what I now dis
miss, I shall virtually reclaim and restore, in a shape that
provokes none of these objections. All that is real and
essential to the power of this orthodox doctrine of atone
ment, however held, I hope to set forth still, as the
Divine Form of Christianity, assigning it a place where
it may still reveal its efficacy, standing ever as an Altar
of penitence and peace, a PiUar of confidence to believ
ing souls.
We come now to the double view of the atonement,
or work of Christ, which it was proposed to establish.
And, I. The subjective, that which represents Christ as a v
manifestation of the Life, thus a power whose end it is to
quicken, or regenerate the human character.
Here, as it has been already intimated, the value of
Christ's mission is measured by what is expressed. And
if so, then it follows, of course, that no dogmatic state-

204 SUBJECTIVE DOCTRINE.
ment can adequately represent his work ; for the matter
of it does not lie in formulas of reason, and cannot be
comprehended in them. It is more a poem than a trea
tise. It classes as a work of Art more than as a work of
Science. It addresses the understanding, in great part,
through the feeling or sensibility. In these it has its recep
tivities, by these it is perceived, or perceivable. Moving,
in and through these, as a revelation of sympathy, love,
life, it proposes to connect us with the Life of God.
And when through these, believingly opened as inlets, it
is received, then is the union it seeks consummated.
Were it not for the air it might give to my representa
tions, in the view of many, I should like, in common with
Paul, (Phil. i. 9, 10.) to use the word esthetic, and repre
sent Christianity as a power moving upon man, through
this department of his nature, both to regenerate his
degraded perception of excellence, and also to communi
cate, in that way, the fullness and. beauty of God.
Hence, it would not be as wild a breach of philosophy
itself, to undertake a dogmatic statement of the contents
of a tragedy, as to attempt giving in the same manner
the equivalents of the life and death of Jesus Christ.
The only real equivalent we can give is the represent
ation of the life itself. It is not absurd, however, to say
something about the subject, if only we do not assume
the adequacy of what we say — we could offer some theo
retical views of a tragedy, but our theoretic matter would
not be the tragedy. -No more can we set forth, as a
real and proper equivalent, any theoretic matter of
ours concerning the life and death of Jesus Christ, which
is the highest and most moving tragedy ever acted in this

CHRIST A PERFECT CHARACTER. 205
mortal sphere ; a tragedy distinguished in the fact that
God is the Chief Character, and the divine feeling,
moved in tragic earnest — Goodness Infinite manifested
through Sorrow — the passion represented. -
Beginning, then, with the lowest view our subject per
mits, it is obvious that the life of Christ, considered only
as a perfect being or character, is an embodiment inr
human history, of a spirit and of ideas, which are suffi
cient of themselves to change the destinies of the race,
and even their capabilities of good. Is it too much for
me to assume that Christ was such a character ? Is it
intimated that a very close, microscopic inspection has
revealed, as some imagine, two or three flaws in his life ?
Be it so ; I want no other evidence, that he was a perfect
and sinless being. Sin is never revealed microscopically,
but, wherever it is, it sets its mark, as we set our flag
on a new discovered island. Show me, therefore, a char
acter that is flawed only microscopically, and I will charge
the flaws to the microscope or even to the solar beam,
rather than to it. Christ, then, I assume, was a sinlessly ¦
perfect being. And how great an event, to have had one
such perfect life or biography lived and witnessed in the
world, and so deposited in the bosom of our human his
tory. Here we have among us, call him either human
only, or divine, what the most splendid gifts of human
genius had labored in vain to sketch — a perfect life.
What feelings, principles, beauties, ideas or regulative
ideals, are thus imported into the world's bosom ! Only
to have seen one perfect life, to have heard the words
and received the pure conceptions of one sinless spirit, to
18

206 CHRIST A PERFECT CHARACTER.
have felt the working of his charities, and ^witnessed the
offering of his sinless obedience, would have been to
receive the seeds of a moral revolution that must ulti
mately affect the whole race. This was true even of a
Socrates. Our world is not the same world that it was
before he lived in it. Much less the same, since the sin
less Jesus lived and suffered in it. Such a character has,
t)f necessity, an organiflfc power. It enters into human
thought and knowledge as a vital force ; and, since it is
perfect, a vital force that cannot die, or cease- to work.
It must, of necessity, organize a kingdom of life and
reign. The ideas it has revealed, and the spirit it has
breathed into the air, are quick and powerful, and must
live till the world itself is no more. The same sun may
shine above, the same laws of nature may reign about us,
but the grand society of man 'embodies new elemental
forces, and the capacity, at s<3me time or other, of another
and a gloriously renovated state. The entering of one
such perfect life into the- worfo/s* history changes, in fact,
the consciousness of the race ; just as the most accom
plished, perhaps, of all modern theologians assumes, when
he undertakes to verify the truths^ of the, gospel out of the
contents of -the religious consciousness of the Christian
nations, as compared with the ancient consciousness, or
that of heathen nations.
Again, the appearing of Jesus, the Messiah, has a much
[ higher significance and power when taken as the mani
festation of the Life— the incarnate Word, God expressed
in and through the human.
I am obliged here, as in the general treatment of my

CHRIST AS THE WORD OF GOD. 207
subject, to assume a view of Chrisl's person, which you
may not all be ready to admit. Any one, however, may
go with me, who earnestly believes that in Christ the
Life was manifested. I may use language that implies a
different view of Christ's person, but as far as the doctrine
of this particular subject is concerned, whoever can look
upon Christ as a proper and true manifestation of God, a-
peculiar being distinguished from ordinary men, by the
fact that a properly divine import is communicated by his
life, (which, of course, makes the mere human import a
matter of inferior consequence,) may well enough admit
whatever I shall advance, and harmonize it, for himself,
with his own particular view.
Regarding the world, then, even as an upright and
sinless world, how great an event is it that the Eternal
is incarnated in their history, that the King is among
them, expressing, by the mysterious identification of his
nature with theirs, a mystery yet more august — the pos
sible union of their nature with His ! How memorable
his words, teachings, works, and condescensions ! And
when he withdraws into the deep recesses of spirit
again, what name will be dear to them as the name of
their Christ ! His appearing is a new epoch in their his
tory. He will live in their hearts, life within life. A
divine light from the person of their Emanuel will stream
through their history. Their words will be sanctified by
his uses. Their works will be animated by his spirit.
A divine vigor from the Life manifested among them"
will penetrate their feeling, elevating their ideas and pur
poses, and even their capacity of good itself.

208 CHRIST DISSOLVES
But if we are to understand the full import of Christ's
mission, we must go farther. He is not merely a perfect
life embodied in history. He is not merely the Eternal
Life manifested in a good and upright history. We must
regard him as the Life manifested in an evil history, or
that of an alienated and averted race. He finds us un
der sin, captives imprisoned by evil, and he comes to be
our liberator. Accordingly, we are now to see in what
manner he addresses Ivimself to the moral wants and dis
abilities of a state of sin.
And here, glancing first of all at human society, we
discover the appalling fact that sin, once existing, becomes,
and even must become, a corporate authority — a law or
Ruling Power, in the world, opposite to God. Entering
into the fashions, opinions, manners, ends, passions of the
race, it molds their institutions, legislates over their con
duct, and even constructs a morality by standards of its
own. And thus, acting through the mass, it becomes a
law to the individual, crowning Lust and Mammon as
gods, harnessing nations to the chariot of war, building
thrones of oppression, kindling fires of persecution,
poisoning the fountains of literature, adorning falsehood
with the splendors of genius, sanctifying wrong under
the plausible names of honor and fashion. Thus, or by
all these methods, sin becomes a kind of malign posses
sion in the race, a prince of the power of the air,
reigning unto death. To break the organic force of
social evil, thus dominant over the race, Christ enters the
world, bringing into human history and incorporating in'
it as such, that which is Divine. The Life manifested
in him becomes a historic power and presence in the

THE LAW OF SOCIAL EVIL. 209
world's bosom, organizing there a new society or king
dom, called the kingdom of heaven, or sometimes the
church. For the church is not a body of men holding
certain dogmas, or maintaining, as men, certain theologic
wars for God; but it is the Society of the Life, the
Embodied Word. Thus it is expressly declared to be
the body of Christ, the fullness of him that filleth all in
aU. Hence our blessed Lord, just before his passion,
considering that now the organic force of evil was to be
broken, said, now is the judgment of this world, now is
the prince of this world cast out. The princedom of ^
evil is dissolved — the eternal Life, manifested in the
world, organizes a new society of life, breaks the spell
forever of social evil, and begins a reign of truth and
love that shall finally renew the world.
While the social authority of evil- is thus broken, there
is also a movement, on the individual, to clear the disa
bilities which sin has wrought in his nature, and with
draw him from the internal bondage of evil.
God is the light of our spiritual nature. Sin with- ._
draws itself from God. Hence the condition of sin is a
condition of blindness and spiritual darkness. The moral
conceptions are dulled. The man lives in his senses and
becomes a creature of sense. His religious ideas, sepa
rated from faith or by unbelief denied, still maintain their
activity as vagaries, after they have lost their verity ;
and, haunted by these vagaries, he finds no rest till the
God whose conception he has lost, is replaced by such as
he can invent for himself.. Hence the infallible con
nection of sin and idolatry. The glory of the incorrup-
18*

210 CHRIST BRINGS LIGHT,
tible God is necessarily lost. Actuated still by a dim
religious instinct, whose object and throne of worship are
no longer seen, he fashions gods through the smoke of his
own lusts — cruel and deceitful monsters, of course, for
a God of love cannot be conceived through clouds of
animosity and tempests of wrath.
What, now, shall cure this blinded condition of the
race ? How needful that God should meet them in the
element where their soul lives, that is, in their senses. It
is not so much an absolute religion — not doctrines or
precepts or arguments that they want, but a production
of the divine in the human, a living Presence, a manifest
ation of the Life. Therefore the Word is made flesh
and dwells with men. The true light now shineth.
God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness,
hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowl
edge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
God is here, in act, word, power, filling the molds of his
tory, and visiting the blinded world in the palpable forms
of life itself. The understanding that was darkened,
being alienated from the life of God, beholds once more
a light in the manifested life. Even the atheist feels a
Presence here, whose simple and pure shining, as it pro
vokes no argument, suffers no answer. While the under
standing is blockaded by doubt, a God streams into the
feeling, and proves His reality to the heart. The tor.-
pors of logic are melted away by the warmth of the
life, and he knows God as love, before -he finds him as
the absolute of the reason. Thus it has been also with
idolatry. No speculations or abstractions about God
have ever been able to correct or overthrow idolatry.

OPENS ETERNITY. 211
But how many idolatrous nations have yielded to the
wondrous power that has invaded their feeling from the
life and cross of Christ ! The Word made flesh is the
true light to them. The historic Christ fills them with
God as a higher sense. The divinity, in him, floods their
feeling, and they receive God as a Power, before they
conceive his philosophic Idea.
The manifestation of the Life also revives in man,
as a sinner, the consciousness of himself. It is one of
the paradoxes realized by sin, that, while it makes a man
every thing to himself, it makes him also nothing. It
smothers the spark of conscious immortality. This world
is practically all to him. The grave is dark, and he has
no faith to throw a light across on spiritual realities be
yond it. But when he that was in the form of God
comes into the human state, when we see one here who
visibly is not of us, when he opens here a heart of love,
and floods the world with rivers of divine feeling, when
we trace him from the manger over which the hymns of
heaven's joy are ringing, to the cross where his purpose
to save embraces even death for man ; and then, when
we see that death cannot hold him, that he bursts into
life again as a victor over death — following such a his
tory transacted, in our view, we begin also to conceive
the tremendous import of our own, the equally tre
mendous import also of our sin. If God, to renew the
soul moves a plan like this, what is it to be a soul, what
to desecrate and destroy a soul ? The conscious gran
deur of his eternity returns upon the transgressor,

212 ASSISTS OUR STRUGGLES.
and he trembles in awe of himself — himself the power
of an endless life.
ft Suppose, now, to advance another stage, that a man
under sin becomes reflective, conscious of himself and of
. evil, sighing with discontent and bitterness, because of his
own spiritual disorders. Conceive him then as under
taking a restoration of his own nature to goodness, and
the pure ideal of his conscience. What can he do
without some objective power to engage his affections,
and be a higher nature, present, by which to elevate and
assimilate his own ? Sin has removed him from God ;
withdrawing into himself, his soul has become objectless,
and good affections cannot live, or be made to Hve,
where there is no living object left to warm and support
them. He can rise, therefore, by no help from his
affections, or through them. Accordingly, if he attempts
to restore himself to that ideal beauty and purity he has
lost, he is obliged to do it wholly by his will ; possibly
against the depressing bondage of his affections, now
sunk in torpor and deadness, or soured by a protracted,
malign activity. Having all this to do by his will, he
finds, alas ! that if to will is present, how to perform is
not. He seems, to himself, like a man who is endeavoring
to lift himself by pulling at his feet. Hence, or to re
move this disability, God needs to be manifested as
Love. The Divine Object rejected by sin and practically
annihilated as a spiritual conception, needs to be im
ported into sense. Then, when God appears in His
beauty, loving and lovely, the good, the glory, the sun
light of soul, the affections, previously dead, wake

JUSTIFICATION WANTED. 213
into life and joyful play, and what before was only a
self-lifting and slavish effort becomes an exulting spirit
of liberty. The body of sin and death that lay upon the
soul is heaved off, and the law of the spirit of life in
Christ Jesus — the Eternal Life manifested in him, and
received by faith into a vital union — quickens it in
good, and makes it free.
But there is yet another difficulty, over and above the
deadness and the moral estrangement of the affections ; I
speak of the fearful and self-accusing spirit of sin.
Reason as we may about human depravity, apologize for
men, or justify them as we may, they certainly do not
justify themselves. Even in the deepest mental dark
ness concerning God, stifled, we may almost say, as
regards their proper humanity, under the sottish and de
basing effects of idolatry, still we see the conscience
struggling with guilty fears, unable to find rest. An in
describable dread of evil still overhangs the human spirit.
The being is haunted by shadows of wrath and tries all
painful methods of self pacification. Vigils, pilgrimages,
sacrifices, tortures, nothing is too painful or wearisome
that promises to ease the guilt of the mind. Without
any speculations about justification, mankind refuse to
justify themselves. A kind of despair fills the heart of
the race. They have no courage. Whether they know
God or not, they know themselves, and they sentence
themselves to death. If they have only some obscure
notions of a divine Being, then they dread the full dis
covery of Him. If He lurks in their gods, they fear
lest their gods should visit them in vengeance, or plague

214 JUSTIFICATION
them by some kind of mischief. The sky is full of
wrathful powers, and the deep ground also is full. Their
guilty soul peoples the world with vengeful images of its
own creation.
And here, now, if we desire to find it, is the true idea
of Christian justification. We discover what it is by
the want of it. Justification is that which will give
'confidence, again, to guilty minds ; that which will assure
the base and humiliated soul of the world, chase away
the demons of wrath and despair it has evoked, and help
it to return to God in courage, whispering still to itself —
soul be of good cheer, thy sins are forgiven thee.
And this result is beautifully prepared by the ad
vent of Christ, as well as by the crowning act of his
death. God thus enters humanity as the Word made
flesh, and unites himself to it, declaring by that sign,
'that he is ready to unite it unto himself. We perceive
also and hear that he has come, not to condemn the
world, but to save it. No storm wraps him about when
he comes. The hymn that proclaims him, publishes —
" peace on earth." He appears in a form to indicate the
gentlest errand and the closest approach to our human
lot ; one, too, that never appalls the guiltiest^-the form of
a child. In his ministry he sometimes utters piercing
words, still he is a friend, even a brother to the
guilty. He calls the heavy-laden to come unto him, and
promises rest. In short, he lives confidence into the
world. Apart from all theologic theories, we know, we
see with our eyes, that God will justify us and give us
still his peace. And then, when we truly come unto

ASSURED TO US IN CHRIST. 215
him, believing that Christ the Word is He, when, for
saking all things for him, we embrace him as our life,
then are we practically justified. It is impossible for us
to fear. No guilt of the past can disturb us ; a peace
that passeth understanding fills our nature. Being justi-
tified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord
Jesus Christ.
Or, if we advert, in this connection, to the sufferings
and death of Christ, we shall see how these, without the
imputation of any penal quality or frown of God upon
his person, have a special efficacy in fortifying our assu
rance or hope of justification with God. Dismiss all
speculation about the mode, possibility, interior reality of
this suffering ; understand that God, having proposed, in
this manner, to express His love, all logical, theological,
ontologieal, physiological questions are, by the supposi
tion, out of place. Come, then, to the spectacle of
Christ's suffering life and death, as to a mystery wholly
transcendant, save-in what it expresses of Divine feeling.
Call what of this feeling you receive the reality — all else
the machina Dei for the expression of this. With
deepest reverence of soul, approach that most mysterious
sacrament of love, the agony of Jesus ; note the patience
of his trial, the meekness of his submission to injustice,
and the malignant passions of his enemies ; behold the
creation itself darkening and shuddering with a horror of
sensibility at the scene transpiring in his death ; hear
the cry of the crucified — -" Father, forgive them, for they
know not what they do ;" then regard the life that was
manifested, dropping into cessation, and thereby signi
fying the deposite of itself in the bosom of that malign

216 JUSTIFICATION
world, to whose enmity it is yielded — who, what man of
our race beholding this strange history of the Word, will
not feel a new courage enter into his soul ? Visibly, God
is not the implacable avenger his guilty fears had painted.
But he is a friend, he is love. And so great is this
change, apart from all theology, that I seem even to see
another character produced by it, in the Christian nations.
They dare to hope. God is closer to them and in a way
to inspire courage. They are not withered, humiliated
even to baseness, under those guilty and abject fears that
take away at last the spirit of other nations. It is not
that they have all a theory of justification by faith, but
that their current conceptions of God are such as the
history of Jesus, the suffering redeemer, has imparted.
They have a feeling of something like justification, even
if they never heard of it — a feeljng, which, if it were to
vent itself in language, would say — Therefore we are
freely justified by grace. It is not that the suffering
appeases God, but that it expresses God — displays, in
open history, the unconquerable love of God's Heart.
But what, in this view, some will ask, becomes of the
law and justice of God ? First, we have Christ, inter
rupting the flow of justice by delivering men, or assisting
them to deliver themselves from the penal consequences
of transgression ; from the blindness, bitterness, dead-
ness, and other disabilities it produces. Secondly, there
is made out, or given to men, a confidence equally repug
nant to justice, that God will freely accept, embrace, and
even justify the transgressor who forsakes his sin.
Where, now, it will be asked, is government ? What

PREPARED IN US. 217
becomes of law ? And since God's love of right, or
what is the same, his justice, was evidenced by his law
and the penalties added to enforce it, what shall save the
obligation of the law ; what, indeed, shall displace the am
biguity that shades the divine character itself? Hence
the necessity, it is argued, of some vicarious suffering, or
expression made by suffering, that shall vindicate the law
as effectively as the penalties remitted would have done,
and thus shall save the moral rigor of God's integrity, in
the view of his subjects.
But, granting this, it does not follow that the new vi
carious expression of God must be made by a process
equally vindictive with punishment ; or that God's ab
horrence to sin must be poured out upon Christ's own
person. Neither does it follow, as our theories of vica
rious atonement generally assume, that the grand judi
cial and penal demonstration, supposed to be necessary,
is wanted before the high court of the universe to
answer the public ends of government there. We may,
doubtless, assume to know that all the transactions of
God, in all his worlds, constitute, when taken together,
a sublime and perfect unity ; and that, when they
.are mutually known in worlds now sundered, they will be
received as displays of His " manifold [that is, various,
diversified] wisdom," and the adorable fertility and
grandeur of His government. And so each part of the
universe, by the contribution of its own particular history,
will exalt and fortify the admiration of all towards the
common Lord and King. But as regards the effect of
Christ's death, taken as a central spectacle in the uni
verse, and designed to impress the minds of God's other
19

218 JUSTIFICATION,
subjects, and fortify His sway in other worlds, mani
festly we know nothing of it ; and all that is advanced
by our theologians in regard to it, is to be taken only as
evidence that the traditional effects of the Ptolemaic sys
tem continue for so long a time in theology, after they
have disappeared from the almanac. If a vindication of
God's law is wanted, in order to the offer of forgiveness,
it is wanted here, and for effect in this world. And if
we narrowly inspect the case presented, we shall be at
no loss in regard to the real ground of such a necessity.
For it is even a fundamental condition, as regards moral
effect on our character, that, while courage and hope are
given us, we should be made, at the same time, to feel the
intensest possible sense of the sanctity of the law, and
the inflexible righteousness of God. What we need, in
this view, is some new expression of God, which, taken
as addressed to us, will keep alive the impression in us,
that God suffers no laxity. In a word, we must be made
to feel, in the very article of forgiveness, when it is
offered, the essential and eternal sanctity of God's law —
His own immovable adherence to it, as the only basis of
order and well-being in the universe.
As to the manner in which this desired result is
effected, since it presents the hinge question at issue
between Unitarianism and orthodoxy, I will dilate upon
it here as the gravity of the question demands.
On one side, it is affirmed that God could not forgive
sin, either without an equivalent suffering, or an equiva
lent expression of abhorrence to sin made by suffering,
in the place of punishment. On the other side, since
this doctrine, in either form of it, seems to involve some-

HOW PREPARED. 219
thing offensive to our moral sense, or repugnant to our
ideas of God, it is affirmed that God, out of His
simple goodness or paternity, can forgive, and will
forgive every truly penitent sinner. Satisfied with
neither doctrine, for the reasons urged by one against
the other, and, perhaps I should say, with both,
for the reasons urged by each in its own behalf, I ven
ture to suggest, as the more real and reasonable view,
that, in order to make men penitent, and so to want for
giveness — that is, to keep the world alive to the eternal
integrity, verity, and sanctity of God's law — that is, to
keep us .apprized of sin, and deny us any power of" rest
while we continue under sin ; it was needful that Christ,
in his life and sufferings, should consecrate or reconse
crate the desecrated law of God, and give it a more
exact and imminent authority than it had before — this,
too, without anything of a penal quality in his passion,
without regarding him as bearing evil to pay the release of
evil, or as under any infliction or frown of God, and
yet doing it by something expressed in his life and death.
I will name, in this view, four methods in which Christ \
is seen to have brought the law closer to men's souls, j
and given it even a more sacred rigor and verity than -it '
had before his advent.
1. By his teachings concerning it. John the Baptist
had an altogether different conception of Christ, from
that which is entertained by our modern Christian world.
He looked upon the advent of Jesus as the advent of a
new and more fearful revelation of God. Now he was
coming to lay the axe to the root of every unfruitful tree,
coming with the fan in his hand to sift out the pure wheat

220 JUSTIFICATION,
of character, and burn up the chaff of religious pretense
and hypocrisy, as in a fire.
Accordingly, there is no chapter in the Old Testa-
; ment, where the law of God is held up in such terms of
' rigor and exactness, as it is in the sermon on the mount,
the very first exposition that Christ made of his mission.
Eternity was before seen only under a veil. It had been
revealed more by implication than by express teachings.
Here it is visibly set open by Christ, and the law of God,
so much occupied before with outward service, so exclu
sively, maintained by temporal penalties, is now spiritu
alized in every statute, rolled back upon the very
thoughts and motions of the heart, and uttered there,
under the sanction of eternal retributions. Christ even
declares that no jot or tittle of the law shall pass away
— that he comes, on the contrary, to fulfill the law; that is
to fill if out, bring it into spiritual application, and main
tain it by the distributions of a future state. I am well
aware that what I here advance is specially repugnant
to certain modern assumptions concerning Christianity,
as a scheme of mere humanities apart from government ;
a scheme all leniency and accommodation. I go into no
issue here on this question. I only say, what is obvious
to any one, on simple inspection, that the law of Chris
tianity is as much more stern in the form Christ gives it,
and its distributions as much more appalling, as the pre-
j cept is deeper, and the eternity of its reign more open to
; view. If any one ,has an explanation to give, whether
of this or the Old Testament severities, the way is open ;
only be it agreed that Christianity as set forth by Christ,
instead of pretending to be a looser, more accommodating

HOW PREPARED. 221
faith, is, in fact, a law-system more exact and appalling.
It expresses the mercy and love of God, the freedom,
tenderness, and impartiality of his compassions, and just
as much more intensely, the truth compels me to say, the
holiness, exactness and sacred rigor of his law.
This I say as by direction ; for I feel that nothing
could be more unacceptable to the judgments of this age
of the world. I say it also with some proper sense, I
frust, of the possible aberration of the judgments of the
age ; for every age has its own drift and fashion, in which,
though it be infallible to itself, it is often found, by those
that come after, to have seized upon assumptions that
God had never yielded, to have constructed a wisdom
which human society could not bear, and time refused to
audit. Believing, therefore, that Christianity is wiser than
the age, I prefer to let it stand in that stern aspect it
assumes for itself, and offer its mercy to man out of cloud
and darkness which I know not how to clear. Most
assuredly there is no look of laxity or inexactness in it or
its Jaw. It is nowhere in the vein of indifference, or
false pity to man.
But there is a deeper expression in the life and death
of Christ than any that is offered by his mere words.
And it is here, especially, that he fulfills the office of a I
sacrifice, of which so much is said in the scripture ;
which, if we investigate, we shall find that he sanctifies
the law before which he offers forgiveness, in three other
distinct methods, analogous to those by which the ritual
sacrifices became effectual — (2.) by obedience, (3.) by
expense and painstaking (4.) by the offering of his
Life, as a sacred contribution.
19*

222 JUSTIFICATION,
To each of the methods thus numerically indicated,
I will recur, in successive illustrations, after I have suffi
ciently examined the ritual economy of sacrifice to be
come possessed of the analogies it offers.
The institution of sacrifice is most reasonably regarded
as a positive institution, originally appointed by God.
We find the rite in use at a time when marriage, a far
less artificial institution, is represented as being re
ceived by God's appointment, and when he himself was
introducing, by his lessons, the culture of the ground and
even the dress of the body. It was most natural, too, that,
when he was teaching the guilty, fallen pair their severance
from him, by removing them from their paradise, he
should also teach them by what rites of penitence and
worship they might be purified and restored to union with
him. We also find a positive statute enacted, at- a very
early period, forbidding the eating of blood, the object of
which is to make it a sacred thing for the uses of the
altar. Afterwards, undeniably, the system of sacrifice
was carefully elaborated by the minutest and most spe
cific positive statutes. Besides, which to me is most
convincing of all, there is a certain fore-looking in this
ritual, and then, when Christ appears, a certain retrospec
tion, one answering to the other, one preparing words
and symbols to express the other, and a beautiful and
even artistic correspondence kept up, such as argues in
vention, plan, appointment, and indicates a Divine coun
sel present, connecting the remote ages of time, and
weaving them together into a compact and well-adjusted
whole. And if the redemption of man is the great work
of the world, that in which all existences here find their

HOW PREPARED. 223
highest moment, as most assuredly it is, then what may
better occupy the wisdom and the greatness of God, than
the preparation of so great a work himself ?
The matter and manner of the sacrifice are familiar
to us all — the going up to Jerusalem, driving thither, or
purchasing there, a choice, unblemished animal ; the con
fession of sin upon his head before the altar ; the solemn
formalities of the slaughter and preparation of the sacri
fice ; the sacred blood sprinkled before the vail that is
closed against unholy feet, the horns of the altar touched
with blood, and the remainder poured out before it on the
ground ; then the fire kindled and the smoke of the vic
tim, made a total loss for sin, rolling up before the eyes of
the worshipper to heaven. And then he returns again to
his tribe, thinking, on the way, of the journey he has
undertaken for his sins — as he went up thinking of the
sins that required him to go.
What, now, is the real meaning or value of this trans
action ? The ceremony is proposed to be connected
with the remission of sins — how thus connected ?
It is not that God has been appeased by the smell of the
sacrifice. It is called an atonement, or propitiation, but
it cannot be supposed that God is pacified in any way by
the sacrifice.
It is not that the worshipper has embraced the atone
ment of Christ, typified in his sacrifice, as we sometimes
hear. He had no such conception. Even the sacred
prophets themselves, we are told, were guessing what, as
well as what manner of time, the Spirit that was in
them did signify when they spoke of Christ and his day.
Nay, his own disciples, explicitly taught by himself,

224 JUSTIFICATION,
could not understand the import of his death till they
were specially Uluminated. Doubtless the worshipper
did sometimes, and ought always to have exercised faith
in God, as a forgiver of sin ; and, as God is Christ and
Christ is God, there was exercised, of course, a virtual,
but not formal faith in the Christ of the future,. .
It, is not true or supposable, as needs to be specially
noted, that the animal offered is punished for the. sins of
the worshipper. No hint or trace of any such impres
sion can be found. Nor can it be argued from the .con
fession of sins upon the head of the victim ; for, when
the scape goat is employed, the confession upon his head
is even more formal, and yet the animal is only driven
away into the wilderness to signify the. clearing of sin,
its forgiveness and removal forever. Besides, if there
were any idea of punishment connected with the sacri
fice, if the death of the animal had a penal character, be
cause of the sins supposed to rest on it, then something
would be made of the suffering inflicted ; which we
know was never thought of, and made no part of the
transaction. The animal was simply dispatched, as
when slaughtered for the table, and it nowhere appears,
in the whole range of Hebrew literature, that any one
ever thought of the sufferings of the animal, as entering
at all into the real moment, of the transaction.
We come now to that in which the real value of the
sacrifice did consist. The institution had, of course, a
historic value as connected with the future life and work
of the incarnate Redeemer ; for in it are prepared cor
respondences and, so, types or bases of language, in
which that more spiritual grace may be represented. It

HOW PREPARED. 225
had also a value, considered as part of a great national
religion, in which public remembrance of sin is made
every year. It was also, as a rite, to have a renovating
power over the character, somewhat as the manifested
Life in Christ Jesus is designed to have ; only in a vastly
feebler and inferior degree. And therefore, in cases
where it had no such effect, it was openly declared, on
the part of God, to be an abomination to him, and as
such to be rejected. The value of the sacrifice termi
nated principally in the power it had over the religious
character — the impressions, exercises, aids, and princi
ples, which, as a liturgy, it wrought in the soul of the
worshipper. And among these, as connected especially
with the remission of sins, was the impression it cher
ished of the sanctity of violated law ; for, as I have said
already, it is on the ground of that impression secured,
both that forgiveness will be wanted, and may be safely
offered. We come back, then, from our excursion, to the three
points above stated, to show how both Christ and the
ritual sacrifice do, in correspondent methods, sanc
tify the law, or deepen the impressions held of its sanctity,
in the minds of those who are exercised under them. Re
suming our course of argument, I observe —
2. That Christ, coincidently with the ritual sacrifice, i
fortifies and sanctifies the law through his obedience. \
God appointed for the Hebrew nation a great public rite,
one that required them, every year, to go up to the capital
city, and there, in a vast assemblage of worshippers, offer
their sacrifice for sin. The design evidently was that as
every man, by his sin, weakens the sense of obligation.

226 JUSTIFICATION,
and desecrates the authority of God, so by this grand
public; acknowledgment of God's authority, they should
give their testimony to the sacredness of His will.
What people, consenting, every year, at God's command,
in such an ordinance — men of all ranks and characters
leaving their homes and going up to the religious capital,
there to make a public confession of their sin — would
ever be in danger of holding a loose opinion of God's
authority, or the, sanctity of obligation, however freely
their sins are forgiven ?
The same impression is made, and far more deeply, by
the obedience of Christ ; for, considering who he is,
there is more of meaning in his obedience than there is
in the obedience of many nations. Regard him as
coming under the desecrated law — which he does in the
mystery of his incarnation ; then consider the import of
his life, taken in the simple aspect of a free, faithful,
loving, unfaltering obedience — obedience unto death.
And then, if the speculative instinct rushes in to insist
on the absurdity of obedience in a being whose nature is
essential deity, let it be enough to reply that there is no
being in the universe, of whom obedience can be predi
cated in so vast a sense as of God. For though God is
under no obligations to another, he is yet under obliga
tions to goodness to devise, do, bear, forbear, suffer, all
which the conception or idea of infinite goodness and
love contains. He is really under the same law of obli
gation that we were under and cast off, and it is the glory
and greatness of his nature that he delights eternally to
acknowledge this law. Christ is the manifested Life
revealing this everlasting obedience of the divine nature.

HOW PREPARED. 227
All that he does and suffers is but an expression of the
homage, rendered by God himself, to that which we
reject ; and the only object of his mission is to bring us
back into a like free obedience to the same lovely require
ment. His poverty and patience, his weary, persecuted
life, his agony, his cross, his death — exclude from these
all thought of penal suffering or vindictive chastisement,
regard him simply as supporting, thus, the call of duty,
and signifying to mankind the self-renouncing and
sublime obedience of the divine nature — what an ex
pression of love to the right, and homage to law ! How
sacred now is law ! — how sacred, yet how lovely ! Why,
the punishment of all mankind, even for eternity, could
not signify as much.
3. Christ, coincidently with the sin offering, sanctifies [
the law through expense and painstaking. The sacri-
ficer must come bringing the best and choicest of his
flock, a lamb or a bullock without blemish. He must be
absent from home, and leave his business behind, for whole
days — all in the way of expense and painstaking for his
sins. And, in one view, the expense he makes is wholly
useless — a dead loss. The victim, the choice animal that
was reared so carefully, is wholly burnt up, changed into
smoke before his eyes — all under the law and by the law,
desecrated by his sins. God will not even let him give it
to charitable uses, lest he should be thinking of merit,
when he ought to be thinking of his sins. It must go
to smoke and simple destruction, and then the sacrifice
will move his conscience. He will feel that the stern
mandate of God is upon him. It will be as if he came
to salve the violated law, by a willing loss of time and

228 JUSTIFICATION,
property, laying his humble acknowledgments and drop
ping his tears upon the breaches and scars his sins have
made. So, also, Christ, by the sorrow and suffering of his
painstaking life, accomplished a like result. Regarding
him, not as acting here before the law, in some abstract
way, or with a view to some governmental effect in other
and remote fields of being, but as being engaged simply
to win us back to newness of life, and restore us to union
with God, it results that, by his sufferings, he does
express the intense love of God to His law, and also
impress in our souls a most deep and subduing sense of its
value and sacrednels. And this he does, not by saying,
"see me suffer," or "see what sufferings the Father lays
upon me ;J' for by that volunteering of naked suffering,
according to the known laws of expression, nothing would
be expressed, as I haye already shown. This suffering is
expressive, because it is incidental to an effort to reveal
the love of God, and bring the eternal Life into the closest
possible proximity to our human hearts. And the suffer
ing we speak of has its power, not as answering to the
sufferings of the victim in the sacrifice, for nothing is
made of the sufferings of the victim, but as answering
rather to the expense and painstaking and solemn prepa
ration of the whole ceremony.
If we look upon it as the very end and aim of Christ's
mission, to recover man to God and obedience ; or, what
is the same, to re-establish the law as a living power in
his heart ; then, of course, everything he does and suffers,
every labor, weariness, self-denial and sorrow becomes
an expression of his sense of the value of the law  every

HOW PREPARED. 229
pang he endures, declares its sacredness. So that if he
offers pardon, free pardon, to every transgressor, we shall
never connect a feeling of license, but shall rather feel a
sense of the eternal sanctity of the law, and have a more
tremulous awe of it in our conscience, than we should if
every transgressor were held to punishment by the letter
of it. Indeed, if that were the doctrine, we should reason
away and reject the doctrine as incredible ; so that it
would have no verity, and, of course, no sacredness at all.
Whereas, having seen, in the paiastaking, suffering life of
Jesus, what God will do for the practical establishment
of his law, we are seized with a deep and awe-felt con
viction, that if we do not return to it according to his
call, there is yet something different that must assuredly
follow. All this, you perceive, without anything said of
a penal quality, in the sufferings of Christ. No evil is
laid upon him as evil, by the Father, to be endured retri-
butively. He only suffers the ills that lie in his way,
and endures the violence that human malignity and
cruelty heap on his head.
But this, it will be apprehended by some, destroys the
whole import of such scenes as the agony and the cruci
fixion. It may require a different construction of these
scenes, but I hope it will not be too hastily concluded
that a different construction robs thein of their sacred
import and power. It is imagined, by many, that what
is called the " agony" of Jesus, was caused by the penal
attitude in which he found himself before the Father, and
the consequent sense of desertion he felt. What account,
then, shall we make of this very wonderful and peculiar
passage in his history ? Evidently it is not from any
20

230 JUSTIFICATION,
human fear that he suffers ; for the pathology observed is
not that of fear — there is no pallor, the blood does not
fly the skin, retreating as in fear on the springs of life,
but it is forced even through the skin, as was never
observed, it must be granted, in any case of mere' human
suffering. It was not that the soul of the sufferer was
racked, by a sense of the withdrawment of the Father.
How could the Father withdraw from so great excellence
and purity, under so great a burden of sorrow — what
end could it serve, thus to falsify his character ? Be
sides, it was only just now that Christ was saying, —
" therefore doth my Father love me, because I lay down
my life for the sheep," — also, directly to the Father, — " 1
have glorified thee on the earth, now I come to thee." It is
also represented, by Luke, that an angel is sent to
strengthen and support him — sent by the Father to sup
port him under His own displeasure ! Sometimes the
exclamation, which he uttered afterwards, on the cross,
is made to assist the interpretation of the agony also —
" My God ! my God ! why hast thou forsaken me !" But
this is only the language of intense suffering, an inter
jection, so to speak, of anguish. Besides, it appears to
have had a current use ; for we find it more than once in
the poetic writings of the Old Testament. Thus, Isaiah
represents Zion as crying out in distress, — "the Lord
hath forsaken me ;" when God immediately responds, —
" I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands." To
take this language of passion, this common outcry of dis
tress, and hold it in a cool, historic, or dogmatic sense is
¦ to violate all dignified laws of interpretation. Besides
we are to observe that, between this agony and the trial

HOW PREPARED. 231
— probably before Christ leaves the garden— we hear him,
saying, " thinkest thou that I cannot now pray to the
Father, and he shall, presently, give me more than twelve
legions of angels ?" Was he, then, deserted of the Father ?
Rejecting this interpretation of the agony, we take up
the 13th, 14th, and 15th chapters of John's gospel, which
contain his farewell and his parting prayer, and there we
see that the whole day previous had been a day of unut
terable sorrow and sadness both to himself and his disci
ples. They had all been struggling in a kind of agony
from the early morning, it would be seen, down to the mo
ment when they entered the garden ; and the disciples
were so spent that they could not retain thejr conscious
ness ; — " He found them sleeping for sorrow." He only
could not sleep, for the cup that was before him and
might not pass from him. But why is he wrenched by
this so peculiar agony ? Consider, I answer, that, in the
outward humanity of Jesus, there is held, in some close
and mysterious union, a divine nature ; and then will our
physiologists or physicians teU us how long a vehicle so
slender is to support the tremendous reaction of compas
sions and struggles of feeling that are so deeply toned !
or, when the vehicle breaks under the burden, by what
pathological signs it will be discovered ! Besides, this
divine-human being, whose interior nature we are forbid
den to investigate, is unquestionably a sinless character,
a being in the exactest internal harmony, that of purity,
innocence, and life. He has never felt a throb of sinful
disturbance, or shaken with one chill of death, since he
came forth as a " Holy Thing," into our world. Now,
that which is itself the type and fruit of sin, bodily death,

232 JUSTIFICATION,
is at hand to be experienced. Will any psychologist or
theologian tell us exactly how he ought to feel, whether
he will suffer less than a man, or more ? If innocence
shudders at the thought of wrong, more than a soul that
is dulled and half disintegrated by the consciousness
of wrong, may it not, for the same reasons, shudder
with a more intense horror, before the prospect of that
complete disintegration or tearing asunder, which is the
natural doom of wrong ? If, too, a massive engine may
shake, or even sink a frail and poorly timbered vessel ;
or if a gigantic, masculine soul, knit to the body of a
feeble and delicate woman, and, in that, called to suffer
martyrdom, might possibly cause it to shudder and shake
with a more insupportable horror, than the delicate,
feminine soul appropriate to its measure would do, what
kind of demonstration shall be expected, when the Incar
nate Word is summoned to die ? I only inquire you,
observe — I assert nothing for the very sufficient reason
that I know nothing. Enough for me, that my Redeemer,
my most painstaking Saviour, falters not. Enough for
me, that in that bloody sweat, falling on the desecrated
earth, I see the love God has for love, the unspeakable
desire He feels to win us back from sin, to re-establish
the order of His realm, and hallow, for eternity, in our
hearts, the sanctity of His violated law. No concep
tion of a penal agony, or a penal cross could signify as
much. 4. The law of God is yet more impressively sanctified
by Christ, if possible, in the article of his death, considered
as counterpart to the uses of blood in the ritual. The
admirable ingenuity of the ritual, in this particular feature

HOW PREPARED. 233
of it, and also the intense force it had, as an artistic plan,
to impress on the mind a sense of the holiness of God's
character and the sacred authority of His government,
must appear, I think, to every one who rightly apprehends
it. The plan hangs on a sense produced of the essential
sacredness of blood. At the very first institution, proba
bly, of sacrifices, (for we trace it as early as the times of
Noah,) the eating of blood was prohibited on the ground
that the blood is the life, and that life is a sacred thing.
There was, in fact, no greater crime than the eating of
blood. It was capitally punished. Even a stranger was
put to death without mercy, who had been guilty of the
crime. Now the whole object of this prohibition was to
invest the element of blood with sacredness, for the uses
of the altar. Thus Moses, in the 17th chapter of Leviti
cus, which I wiU venture to suggest is the one text,
above all others, to open the true idea and import of sin-
offerings, says, " For the life of the flesh is in the blood-,
and I have given it to you, upon the altar, to make
an atonement for your souls ; for it is the blood that
maketh an atonement for the souls ; therefore, I said unto
the children of Israel, no soul of you shall eat the blood."
In this manner the element of blood was invested with
the intensest possible sacredness. Then, when the wor
shipper comes before God, at His altar, there to offer
blood and life, for his sin — to see the sacred drops that
contain the sacred life sprinkled for him, before the holy
of holies, and touched upon the horns of the altar —
what is he saying but that only the most sacred thing he
knows, even life, can suffice to resanctify the law, violated
by his sins'? Nay, more, a sacred thing is something that.
20*

234 . JUSTIFICATION,
belongs especially to the occupancy and right of God,
and the impression was that blood,' being the mysterious
principle of life, is somehow specially near to the Divine
nature — thus, and therefore, sacred. Accordingly, when
the man makes an offering of blood for the remission of
his sins, doing it by God's command, he professes, in the
act, that only something derivable from God, some sacred
element yielded by Him, can suffice to cover his sin
and hallow again the violated majesty of broken law.
Thus maintained, the sense of law cannot perish. The
sacred throne of law stands naked ever before the people,
and remission becomes a want, under the same process
which makes it possible, — possible, too, because the law,
still upheld and sanctified in the conscience, makes it a
want. Were they simply assured, instead, of God's
fatherly benignity and His readiness to forgive sins freely,
the assurance would be virtually a declaration of impunity,
and a half century of time would suffice to, obliterate
even the sense of religion.
After thousands of years, spent under this regimen of
sacrifice, have wrought into the Hebrew mind, and in
deed the mind of the race, this one great maxim — an
almost universally-accepted maxim of religion — that with
out shedding of blood there is no remission, Christ appears
and closes his sanctified and sublime life, by submission
to a violent death. He is not a sacrifice in any literal
sense, as we know. There is no altar in his death, no
fire is kindled, by no act of religion or priestly rite is he
offered up ; he is simply murdered by the malice of his
enemies. And yet, in another view, as I shall presently
show, he is not the less really a sacrifice. Only let it

HOW PREPARED. 235
suffice here to notice, that Christ himself called the atten
tion of his disciples, beforehand, to his own blood, as' now
to be shed, and hereafter to be remembered, as the blood
that was shed for the remission of sins. How, for the
remission of sins, if there was no altar, no form of sacri
fice or offering ? The analogy, I answer, is one remove
farther back, in that which rendered even the sacri
fices themselves significant, viz., that only some sacred
thing, something yielded by God, is sufficient to cover
the breaches made by our sin. That is, nothing else can
so dignify and exalt the authority of God's government
and law, as to remove the danger, that the free proclama
tion of forgiveness, will breed, in men, such a spirit of
license, that not even forgiveness will be wanted or ac
cepted. Thus Christ, we say, is the manifested Life. And the
blood that circulates in him, according to the accepted
modes of thinking under the ritual, represents, also, that
which is inmost in the vitality of his person. Catching
the suggestion of Christ concerning his blood, shed for
men, and learning, after his death, to conceive more
adequately the nature of his divine person, the disciples
begin also to see that God has yielded, in his death, some
thing more intensely sacred than they had conceived.
Nay, all the most sacred things they have ever known on
earth, even the blood of the altar itself, is rather profane
than sacred, when compared with the Incarnate Life of
Jesus. And this life they now look upon as distilling, in
sacred drops, from his cross ; falling into the desecrated
earth, to permeate and vitalize both it and us, and hallow
again before God, His polluted law and realm. There-

236 JUSTIFICATION,
fore they now say, with a meaning too deep for their
words, or for any other words — " Neither by the blood
of goats and calves, but by his own blood he entered in
once into the holy place, having obtained eternal re
demption for us."
Looking, now, at the death of Christ in this manner,
we are made, first of all, to feel, whether we can explain
it or not, that it has a marvelous power over our impres
sions, concerning ourselves and our sins, the law of God
and His character. It brings an element of divinity into
everything, sheds an air of solemnity and grandeur over
everything. It is even more awful to the guilty con- '
science itself, . than the thunders of Sinai. And, then,
secondly, we shall be able also, I think, to see that the
whole effect, contemplated under the laws of art, is pro
duced by the fact that the Life, thrice sacred, so dimly
shadowed before in the victims of the altar, is here
yielded, as a contribution from God, to the pacification
and reconsecration of His realm. The effect depends, not
on any real altar ceremony in his death, but it depends,
artistically speaking, on the expressive power of the fact
that the Incarnate Word, appearing in humanity, and
having a ministry for the reconciliation of men to God,
even goes to such a pitch of devotion, as to yield up his
life to it, and allow the blood of his Mysterious Person to
redden our polluted earth !
C" I have dwelt more at large on this particular feature of
the work of Christ, because it is here that most of our
disagreements and difficulties have their spring. My
doctrine is summarily this ; that, excluding all thoughts of
a penal quality in the life and death of Christ, or of any

HOW PREPARED. 237
divine abhorrence to sin, exhibited by sufferings laid upon
his person ; also, dismissing, as an assumption too high
for us, the opinion that the death of Christ is designed
for some governmental effect on the moral empire of
God in other worlds, — excluding points like these, and
regarding everything done by him as done for expression
before us, and thus for effect in us, he does produce an
impression in our minds of the essential sanctity of God's
law and character, which it was needful to produce, and
without which any proclamation of pardon would be
dangerous, any attempt to subdue and reconcile us to
God, ineffectual. Meantime, it may comfort some to add,
that he does by implication, or inferen tially, express in all
that he does the profoundest abhorrence to sin ; for, if he
will endure so much to resanctify his law and renew us
in the spirit of it, how intensely signified is the abhorrence
of his nature to the transgression of his law — more
intensely than it would be by the punishment evenly
of us all.
How very exactly these representations correspond
with the language of Paul, in what may well be called his
standard text, will readily appear. According to the
view I have given, whatever power is exerted here
vicariously as a ground of forgiveness, is seen to be in
the nature of manifestation, or expression, as represented
by him. " The righteousness of God, without the law, is
manifested." He does not say, you will observe, that the
righteousness of God is satisfied, or vindictively main
tained, but simply that it is manifested. Then, four
verses after, he amplifies the same idea — "whom God hath
set forth [made conspicuous in the flesh] to be a propiti-

238 THE DOUBLE ADMINISTRATION
ation [propitiatory, or mercy seat — made so, not by stand
ing in any penal attitude under God, but] by faith in his
blood [so that, believing in him as the Sacred Life yielded
for us, we may come into peace] to declare [sis eWsigiu,
more literally for the demonstration, expressions, or pub
lic show of] his righteousness, in the remission of sins
that are past, [not on adequate repayment of their
penalty, in sufferings borne by another, but] through the
forbearance of God. To declare [demonstrate or ex
press] his righteousness [not hereafter, not before un
known, unimagined worlds in his moral empire, but] at
this time [now and before us] that he might be just
[righteous — that is, might stand before us in the exact
ness of his integrity] and the justifier of him that believ
eth in Jesus," [acquitting and accepting, in peace, all who
forsake their sins, in a way of dependence on his gracious
interposition.] But there is yet one other feature of the life and death
of Christ, considered as related to our reconciliation to
God, which must be distinctly considered — I mean the
subduing power it had, in virtue of what is expressed in
it, over the human will. I have spoken of ideas, incen
tives, aids to liberty, justification, all provided in the in
carnate life and death of Christ, but we do not really
seem to ascend to the true grandeur of the Christian
scheme, till we see the divine government prevailing
and finally establishing itself in the willing obedience of
souls, by an act of submission.
The first stage of government is the stage of law.
But law, taken hy itself, can establish nothing. There is

OF LAW AND GRACE. 239
an a priori necessity, and, of course, a historic certainty,
that the training of an empire of free beings, and the
final and complete union of their will to God, will require
a double administration, or a change of administration,
such as we find exhibited in the scriptures, — law and
grace ; the letter that killeth and the spirit that giveth
life ; justification by works, and justification by faith ;
bondage and liberty ; the old covenant of outward disci
pline, and the new covenant written in the heart. Nor
is it to be thought that such a view involves the opinion
that God fails in one plan, and is, therefore, obliged to
try again — fails in severity and compulsion, only to suc
ceed, at last, by kindness and love. There is no viola
tion of the unity of reason, as it is called, in this double
administration ; for to Him it is all one work, equally
necessary in both the parts, to the one final result, a
freely chosen, but eternally established obedience in His
subjects. Under the first stage, that of commandment, the soul
makes her acquaintance with obligation, comes at the
terms, so to speak, of her existence, lays her hands upon
the iron fences of law that stiffen round her. Will she
keep within her inclosures ? If we speak of a naked possi
bility, she doubtless may. But it will be wonderful if she
does not sometime yield to the instigation of her curious
nature, and try the bad experience of evil. Or if she
does not, if she stays within her iron inclosure, only be
cause it is iron, she would seem to be governed in the good
she follows, by constraint ; which can hardly be regarded
as a state of perfected virtue— it is a prudential and even
cringing virtue, more than a yirtue of liberty.

240 SIN FINALLY VANO.UISHED
Accordingly, we look for a lapse, under this first disci
pline of law. Feeling its bars, as the bars of a cage,
about her, the soul begins to chafe against them, and so
she learns the law — first, by attrition against it, and then
by bondage under it. This is her fall. Having come to this,
law by itself can do no more. The cage cannot reconcile
the prisoner. Indeed, the law, taken as an appeal urged
home only by penalties, becomes even a hindrance to his
recovery. For it is the very misery and death of sin
that it enthrones self interest, and makes the man a cen
tre to himself. And, therefore, mere law, goading him
still by appeals to self interest, only holds him to that
which is the essential bondage and mischief of his condi
tion. To renovate him now in good, requires a new
motivity, one that will subdue him to love, and unite him
to the good as good, not as profitable — to God's own
beauty, truth, loveliness, and glory. To be balked in his
self-seeking, to be shown that loss only and death are in
the way that he pursues for profit, is not evil, it is means
to an end, because it stops him, moves him to reflection.
But there needs, just here, to be a captivating, or subdu
ing power displayed, one that shall break his wiU, take
him away from his self-seeking, engage his love, and
regenerate the liberty of his fallen affections.
Hence there needs to be a change of administration.
He needs, now, to be approached in a different manner.
Fighting out the war with him, by terms of force and
penalty, can do nothing for his restoration. What, then,
if the king, not renouncing his throne, nor silencing his
legal thunders, should, in some mysterious way, come
into the flesh and make ^iis approach to the repugnant

BY THE SUBMISSION OF JESUS. 241
and chafing spirit of transgression, through personal
feeling, on a level, even, of patience with wrong itself. Let
him steal upon the alienated man, by a life that is parallel
with his own — a life that is spent between a manger at the
beginning and a cross at the end. Let him fall into the
truest affinity with the lowest forms of humanity,
entering into the feeling of all through what is lowest and
most sorrowful in their lot — their wants, losses, and
bodily and mental diseases — raining no fires of penalty
on the head of their sin, but softening its dismal pains
and healing its sorrows.
May I, without defect of reverence, express the deeper
truth, that which is the appalling mystery of God in
Christ Jesus — mystery, yet philosophy, of this divinest
work of God, called redemption — the King Himself here
takes the attitude of submission to evil. Requiring of
us to vanquish wrong by a patient submission thereto,
he does it, not as duty or wisdom only for us, but because
it is a first law of power that a malignant or bad spirit
will soonest yield to endurance, and is least of all able to
endure the meekness of love. Observing this great truth
himself, the divine Word is incarnated in the form of a
servant, moving now upon the heart of evil from a point
below it — attacking sin, not by penalties only, but by
submissions rather. The malign spirit rises, bursting
forth in a storm of deadly violence against his person.
The only perfect being that ever lived in the flesh, he
becomes the most insulted and abused being. But loaded
as he is with insult, and dragged out to die, he bears
the concentrated venom of his crucifiers with a lamb's
patience, makes no answer, repels no taunt, complains
21

242 THE INCARNATION
of no severity. We see him, in fact, descending below
our malignity, that it may break itself across his Divine
Patience. He outreaches, by his love, the rifeasure of
our animosities — the wrong will in us, all the malignities
of our devilish passion feel themselves outdone. Evil
falls back from its apparent victory, spent, exhausted,
conscious, as it never was before, of its impotence. The
submission of the Word fairly broke its spirit, and ever
since that day has it been falling visibly as Lucifer from
heaven. Before this cross, we feel ourselves weak in
evil. Into our angry spirit, chafing against the rule of
law, there steals a gentler feeling — some secret centurion,
hid in the heart's inmost cell, whispers, " truly this was the
Son of God." And then embracing, as love, what we
had rejected as law, or commandment, we do, in fact,
accept all law. And now we have it, not in constraint
—it is written in the heart. The letter that killeth is
gone, and the spirit that giveth life, uniting us truly and
forever to God's own person, we receive back in love aU
we had rejected in transgression, counting it our freest
freedom to be one with Him forever ; therefore one, not
in thcstatutes only that He imposes, but in the princi
ples by which He rules.
Thus far I have spoken of Christ, as related to the
great end of his mission, viz : the reconciliation of our
race to God ; or, what is the same, the moral renovation
of their character. For this end he expresses God and
thus becomes a power — in scripture phrase, the power of
God, and the wisdom of God. Or, as the same writer
declares, in immediate connection and in terms yet more
specific — "Christ, who is made unto us wisdom and

VIEWED IN ITS OBJECTS. 243
righteousness and sanctification and redemption." Not
righteousness in one sense, and wisdom and sanctifica
tion in another — not imputed righteousness and real
sanctification ; but a power and spring of all in our
hearts — wisdom, righteousness, sanctification and re
demption. In one word, union to God, as the essential
life of our being and character is restored. And this
was the true end of the incarnation.
Accordingly, we are able, just here, to conceive more
exactly than before, the real import of the incarnation.
It is not that God simply makes a theophany or show of
Himself, though a human body. Neither is it that He is
one of two residing in this human body — a Divine Soul
dwelling with a human. In neither case would He really
come into sympathy with our human feeling at all ; or,
if at all, but feebly ; for in the former, the mere accident
of his connection with a human body, taken as a type,
would signify nothing to our human feeling, and, in the
latter, the human soul, being distinguished as a separate
nature, having a separate consciousness and suffering by
itself whatever is suffered, the Divine heart is even more
remote therein from any condition of sympathy with us.
All such efforts, therefore, at the interior conception or
analysis of Christ, are to be discarded, and we are to
accept him as the identification of the divine and the
human — 'the Word become flesh. Unquestionably the
whole matter of the transaction is mysterious, and will
be. Unquestionably the whole import of the transaction
is what it expresses. And, in order to the fullest and
most vivid "power of the expression made, we want no
mock solutions interposed; but we want, rather, to

244 SUBJECTIVE VIEW
behold the Divine brought into our human conditions of
sorrows and pain — to accept the Incarnate Word thus, in
simplicity, as a brother, looking never beyond what
appears. But if we must be wiser, if, penetrating the
matter of the transaction just an inch, we are pleased to
discover a God acting from behind a human soul, in
a human body, we have still as much of mystery left
upon our hands as before, and the eternal Life as much
more distant, from our feeling, as we have more im
pediments and inanities placed between us.
Besides, what we want, as beings alienated from the
Life of God, is to see the possible union of the divine
and the human signified to us ; for there is to be, and
must be a real life-union between the Spirit of God
and all the righteous spirits of his kingdom. It is to
be no mere coUection of good and well shaped atoms,
but an organic frame of Life — " I in them and thou in
me, that they may be made perfect in One." There
fore it is the total aim of Christianity to destroy the
life of self, bring us off from the self-centres about
which we revolve in our sins, and set us moving as in
God ; — that is, to take us away, at last, from our sepa
rate contrivings and willings and the life of prudenee,
and elevate us into a life of perpetual inspiration,
whose impulse and perfection are the pure inbreathing
of God. Hence the relevancy and sublimity of the in
carnation, always to be taken with simplicity as the real
union of the divine and the human — beyond which we
have no further questions to ask and nothing to say,
unless each can say for himself — Christ liveth me.
Here I close the subjective view of Chrisrs mission.

CONCLUDED. 245
Considered as a power moving the spiritual regeneration
and redemption of man, this is the conception we form
of it. Is it a true conception ? I have a degree of con
fidence that it is. But there is yet another question : is
it satisfactory — is it the gospel of Christ ? However it
may seem to others, for it certainly appears to be a plan
not wanting in magnificence, I am still obliged to confess
that, taken by itself, it is not satisfactory to me, and I
could not offer it as the full and complete gospel of
Christ. I observe, in the scriptures, a large class of represent
ations, such as speak of the atonement received by
Christ, his sacrifice, his offering, his bearing the sins of
many, the holiest opened by his blood, the curse he be
came, the wrath he suffered, the righteousness he pro
vided, which do not seem to have their proper, natural
place and significance in the view here presented.
I recollect, also, that around these terms of grace, the
whole church of God, with but a few limited exceptions,
have hung their tenderest emotions, and shed their freest
tears of repentance ; that by these the righteous good,
the saints and martyrs of the past ages have supported
the trial of their faith ; that before these they have stood,
as their altar of peace, and sung their hymn of praise to
the Lamb that was slain ; and remembering this, I cannot
convince myself that they were wholly mistaken, or that
they were not receiving here, in the living earnest of
their spirit, something that belongs to the profoundest
verity and value of the cross. Men do not live in this
manner, from age to age and by whole nations, upon pure
error. Spiritual life is not fed, thus interminably, upon
21*

246 OBJECTIVE VIEW,
a gospel that mocks all reality. If their supposed gospel
does not stand with reason or theory, it must somehow
stand with faith, feeling, and all that is inmost in eternal
life. This brings me to the —
II. Department of my subject, that in which I pro
posed to unfold an objective ritual view, answering to
the more speculative and subjective now presented, and
necessary, as such, to the full effect and power of Christ's
mission. Few persons are aware how intently our mental in
stinct labors to throw all . its subjects of thought and
feeling into objectivity. For we think, in the liveliest
manner, only when we get our thoughts put of us, if I
may so speak, and survey them as before us. Thus we
say of a scene, that it was pitiful, or joyful, or delightful,
not because the scene itself was really full of pity, joy, or
delight, but because we were so ourselves. Still we do not
say it, but we give objectivity to our feeling, passing over
our pity, joy, delight, into the scene, and having it for our
pleasure to see the feeling there. So we say that a thing
is grateful to us, when we mean that we are grateful for
it ; and, in the same manner, we call a man a suspicious
character, when we only mean that we are suspicious, or
may well be suspicious of him. We even throw our own
acts into objectivity. Thus the word attribute properly
denotes an act of attributing or imputing in us, but we
use it as having no subjective reference whatever. We
even make our own thinking processes objective, in the
same manner, saying, it occurs to us, it appears to us,
when, in fact, we are only describing what transpires

AND ITS GROUNDS. 247
within us. Human language, indeed, is full of illustra
tions to the same effect, showing how it is the constant
effort of our nature to work' itself, report its thoughts
and play its sentiments, under forms of representation
that are objective.
Accordingly, it will be found that all the religions the
world has ever seen, have taken, as it were by instinct, an
objective form. No race of men, so far as I know, have
ever undertaken to work their sentiments towards God
or the gods artificially ; that is, by a reflective operation,
or by addressing their own nature, under the philosophic
laws of moral effect. The religion has been wholly an
outward transaction, not in form a transaction of the
soul. It has worked the soul only in a manner some
what unconscious, or by a kind of silent implication.
Ask the worshipper what is the religion, and he will say,
it is the sacrifice offered thus or thus, the procession, the
vow, the priestly ceremony — some objective pageant or
transaction. He probably conceives no such thing as
a subjective effect, distinct from what he sees with his
eyes ; still there is such an effect, and it is only in virtue of
this, received in a latent or unconscious manner, that the
transaction seen by the eyes has any significance to him.
Such, as we may see at a glance, was the religion of the
Jewish people. It stood, not in subjective exercises
carefully stated and logically distinguished, but in a care
fully exact ritual of outward exercise. Their religion,
if closely studied, will be found to consist of artistic
matter wholly above their invention — a scheme of ritu-
alities so adjusted as to work sentiments, states, and
moral effects in the worshippers, which, as yet, they

248 JUDAISM EXTERNALLY OBJECTIVE,
were unable to conceive or speak of themselves. It had
a mystic power wholly transcendent, as regards their own
understanding, and one that involved an insight so pro
found, of the relation of form to sentiment, that God
only could have prepared it. Manifestly it was impos
sible for a people so little exercised in reflection, to make
any thing of a religion which consisted in reflecting on
themselves, conceiving, then addressing their wants, by
intellectual motives. Working thus upon themselves, in
the manner of ' Edwards on the Affections,' what could
the men whom Moses led out of Egypt have done ?
But they had their ' Edwards on the Affections' in altars,
unblemished bullocks and lambs, bloody sprinklings,
smokes rolling up to heaven, and solemn feasts; and
counting these to be their religion, beyond which they
could hardly manage a religious thought of any kind,
there was yet an artistic power in their rites, such that
in being simply transacted, they carried impressions, so
efficacious in the production of a religious spirit,
that many, without the least conception of religion as a
subjective experience, were undoubtedly brought into a
state of real penitence and vital union with God.
Having no philosophy of the moral government of God ;
without any conception whatever of law, in the higher
sense, or of sin, justification, faith, and spiritual life ; the
ritual came into their feeling when transacted, with a
wisdom they had not in their understanding, and their
soul received impressions under the artistic objectivities
of the altar, which, by reason or intellectual contempla
tion, they were wholly unable to comprehend. In the
progress of their history, they visibly become more re-

CHRISTIANITY INTERNALLY. 249
flective, speaking oftener of that which lies in the state
of the heart, and the internal aim and principle of the
life. Still they had never gone so far, previous to the
coming of Christ, as to conceive a purely subjective
religion. Nor is that any proper and true conception of Chris
tianity. Some persons appear to suppose that Christianity
is distinguished by the fact that it has finally cleared us
of all ritualities or objectivities, introducing a purely sub
jective and philosophic or ideal piety. This they fancy
is the real distinction between Judaism and Christianity.
They do not conceive that Christianity rather fulfills
Judaism than displaces it — that, while it dismisses the
outward rites and objectivities of the old religion, it
does, in fact, erect them into so many inward objectivi
ties, and consecrate them as the Divine Form of the
Christian grace for all future time. Thus, instead of a
religion before the eyes, we now have one set up in lan
guage before the mind's eye, one that is almost as in
tensely objective as the other, only that it is mentally so,
or as addressed to thought. The sacrifices and other
Jewish machineries are gone, yet they are all here — in
deed they never found their true significance, till Christ
came and took them up into their higher use, as vehicles
of his divine truth. The scheme of God is one, not
many. The positive institutions, rites, historic processes
of the ante-Christian ages are all so many preparations
made by the transcendent wisdom of God, with a secret
design to bring forth, when it is wanted, a divine form
for the Christian truth — which, if we do not perceive,
the historic grandeur of Christianity is well nigh lost.

250 RELIGION AS IN ART.
Then, also, and for the same reason, is the sublime art
of Christianity concealed from us. We do not conceive
it as art, but only as a didactic power, a doctrine, a divine
philosophy. Whereas a great part of its dignity and
efficacy consists in the artistic power of its form as an
objective religion — a religion for the soul and before it,
so intensely efficient to operate a religion in it. And
this, precisely, is the defect of the subjective view I have
presented. It offers no altar Form for the soul's worship,
but only something to be received by consideration —
such a kind of remedy for sin that, if we had it on hand
always to act reflectively, and administer to our own
moral disease, it would be well. But that is not the
remedy that meets our case. Just as the sick man wants,
not an apothecary, but a physician ; not a store of drugs
out of which he may choose and apply for himself, but
to commit himself, in trust, to one who shall administer
for him, and watch the working of his cure : so the
soul that is under sin wants to deposite her being in an
objective mercy, to let go self-amendment, to believe, and
in her faith to live.
I shall recur to this point hereafter, when I hope to
make it appear that, without this objective side, Chris
tianity would in some points even frustrate itself. But,
before attempting this, it will be necessary to go into
some illustrations that will show, more exactly, what is
meant by the objective form of Christianity.
Many persons are not aware of the manner in which
subjective truths; thoughts, sentiments, and changes, often
find objective representations, which, though wholly un
like in form, are yet their virtual equivalents. Thus it

RELIGION AS IN ART. 251
may be represented, as a subjective truth, that every soul
contains in itself a perfect memory, one that garners up
every thing of the" past, and will, at some future day, be
roused to report to us all the acts and thoughts of our
past lives. Now, for this, we have a good objective
equivalent, when it is represented that God keeps a judg
ment book, in which he records all our actions. No two
representations could be more unlike, and yet they are
good equivalents. So we may describe the unquiet and
subjectively discomposed state of a transgressor, as being
the natural and proper effect of his transgression ; but
he is very likely, himself, to represent the disturbance he
feels objectively, as being the wrath of God. And then,
when he is restored and brought into the peace of Christ,
he is very likely, for similar reasons, to conceive of Christ
as having conciliated God ; not of himself, as being
reconciled to God. I do not undertake to say that sub
jective and objective representations, like these, are rigid
and exact equivalents one for the other — no two repre
sentations of any kind were ever exact equivalents. I
only say that one form is a valid and sufficiently accurate
substitute, in certain uses, for the other. Both forms
will have their advantages. The subjective is com
monly more philosophical and literal ; the other oftefi
carries the true impression, or thought, only by implica
tion ; and sometimes the more powerfully, for the very
reason that the person using it is wholly unconscious
that any such impression or effect is in him. The ob
jective representation is often taken literally, occupying
the mind with a form of supposed truth, which is not
true, (so also does the subjective) but which envelops a

252 RELIGION AS IN ART.
truth or true impression of the highest validity and
power. And this will be found to hold, most especially of those
objective forms which are employed artistically, or as
elements and terms of moral expression or moral effect.
There is no doubt that the Hebrew people, whose
religion was so intensely objective, held it in a manner
of literality that involved real misconception. They
saw nothing in it but the altars, priests, confessions,
sprinklings and smoking fires, and these they called their
atonement, or the covering of their sin, as if there were
some outward moment in the things themselves — taken
outwardly these were the religion. But, meantime, there
was a power in these, by which subjective effects were
continually transpiring within them, and the outward
moment of the rite, which was a fiction, had yet an in
ward moment correspondent thereto, which made the
fiction truthful. There was a re-acting power, a
power to produce reflex impressions in the rites, by
which the law was sanctified ; by which they testi
fied and were made to feel repentance for sin ; by
which they were exercised in faith to receive the re
mission of sins. They had their religion, as they thought,
in their altar, which conciliated God to them; and what
they had, as they thought, before their eyes, was a
religious experience in their hearts. This, at least, was
the plan, though it was possible for them to fail of the
true result, as it is for us, under a more reflective and self-
regulative form of piety. They were to deposite their
soul in the outward rite, and there to let it rest ; and
then the outward rite was relied upon to be a power in

RELIGION AS IN ART. 253
the heart. The plan was, to frame a religion that would
produce its results artistically; that is, immediately,
without reflection, by the mere liturgic force of forms.
Endowed with an artistic power, these forms were to
work their impression, in the immediate, absolute way
that distinguishes art, and without the interposition of
thought, debate, choice, and self-application. Thus the
Jew had, in effect, a whole religion present to thought,
when he simply looked upon the blood of his victim ;
and yet in a manner so transcendent, in one view so
mystical, that when we endeavor to analyze the import of
the word blood, and tell by what element or elements it
becomes thus expressive, we find it difficult, by any cir
cumlocutions that avoid the altar and the sacrificial
images, to say any thing that shall exactly represent our
impressions. This same artistic force or immediateness
of impression, is obviously as much more to be desired
in Christianity, as the subjective truths and powers it
contains have a vaster moment.
Passing, now, into the domain of Christianity, let us
try an experiment on the subjective doctrine already ex
hibited, and see how far it may be represented in objec
tive equivalents drawn from the ancient ritual. Christ,
we have seen, is a power for the moral renovation of
the world, and as such is measured by what he expresses.
Thus we have seen that by his obedience, by the ex
pense and painstaking of his suffering life, by the yielding
up of his own sacred person to die, he has produced in
us a sense of the eternal sanctity of God's law that was
needful to prevent a growth of license or of indifference
and insensibility to religious obligation, such as must be
22

254 RELIGION AS IN ART.
incurred, if the exactness and rigor of a law-system
were wholly dissipated, by offers of pardon grounded in
mere leniency. The moral propriety, then, or possibility,
nay, in one view, the ground of justification, is subjectively
prepared in us ; viz., in a state or impression, a sense of
the sacredness of law, produced in us, by Christ's life and
death. But we cannot think of it in this artificial way;
most persons could make nothing of it. We must trans
fer this subjective state or impression, this ground of jus
tification, and produce it outwardly, if possible, in some
objective form ; as if it had some effect on the law or on
God. The Jew had done the same before us, and we
follow him ; representing Christ as our sacrifice, sin-
offering, atonement, or sprinkling of blood. Now in
all these terms, we represent a work as done outwardly
for us, which is really done in us, and through impres
sions prepared in us, but the more adequately and
truly still, for the reason that we have it in mystic
forms before us. These forms are the objective equiva
lents of our subjective impressions. Indeed, our impres
sions have their life and power in and under these forms.
Neither let it be imagined that we only happen to seize
upon these images of sacrifice, atonement, and blood, be
cause they are at hand. They are prepared, as God's
form of art, for the representation of Christ and his
work ; and if we refuse to let him pass into this form,
we have no mold of thought that can fitly represent
him. And when he is thus represented, we are to
understand that he is our sacrifice and atonement, that by
his blood we have remission, not in any speculative sense,
but as in art. We might as well think to come at the statue

THE SUBJECTIVE, TRANSLATED. 255
of Aristides speculatively, interpreting its power by geo
metric demonstrations, instead of giving our heart to the
expression of integrity in the form, as to be scheming and
dogmatizing over these words atonement, sin-offering, sac
rifice, and blood, which are the divine form of Christianity.
It is only another aspect of the same truth, when Christ
is represented, objectively, as our righteousness. As the
sacred blood, yielded for sin, stood in place of a right
eousness, in virtue of the impressions produced by it, so
also does Christ ; and as the offering was a liturgic exercise
of faith and penitence, so likewise Christ is a power to re
generate character and restore us to righteousness of life.
What, then, shall we call him, if not our righteousness ;
transferring, again, what is only subjective, in us, and
beholding it in its. objective source — that is, in the form
of divine art and expression, by which it is wrought ?
This is the true attitude of faith ; for if, in the utmost
simplicity, we thus believe in him, if we take him, objec
tively, as a stock of righteousness for us, and hang our
selves upon him for supply, we can scarcely fail to have
his life and character ingrafted in us. We may
take his obedience as accruing to our benefit, we may
see our righteousness in him, just as we see our pity in
things that we say are pitiful. If we go farther, if we
speak of his righteousness as imputed to us, it will not be
ill, in case we hold the representation as in art, and not
as a dialectic or dogmatic statement.
Or, adverting to the affecting truth that Christ has
come between, us and our sins in his death, we shall see
our sins transferred to him, and regard him as loading
himself with our evils. And then, as if we had put our

256 INTO THE OBJECTIVE VIEW,
sins upon his head, we shall say that he bears our sins,
suffers the just for the unjust, is made a curse for us.
All those terms of vicarious import, that were generated
under the ritual sacrifice, will be applied over to him, and
we shall hold him by our faith, as the victim substituted
for our sins. And so, with the humblest and most sub
duing confessions, we shall deposit our soul tenderly and
gratefully in his mercy.
Or we may take the general doctrine affirmed as the
subjective verity of the gospel, viz., that God is in Christ
reconciling the world unto Himself. Then all the sacri
ficial terms, that represent pacification with God, will
come into application at once ; Christ will now be called
our priest answering for us, our sacrifice, passover, lamb,
blood of sprinkling. Here, too, the word propitiation, as
used (1 John, ii. 2,) — a different word, in the original, from
that which we found in the third chapter of the epistle to
the Romans — will get its proper objective sense. Viewed
thus objectively, Christ will be a propitiation, a piacular,
expiatory, vicarious offering, and, embracing him in this
altar form, there will be a simplicity in our moral atti
tude, such as will favor the transforming and reconciling
power of his life, as no attempt to apply him artificially
and reflectively would do — therefore with a more certain
and deeper effect.
Or, if we are occupied more especially with the desire
of purification, or with present, actual deliverance from
evil and the new purity and cleanness of our heart.before
God, we shall speak of Christ as a lustral offering that
removes our defilement, and declare that the blood of
Christ cleanseth from all sin. All things, we shall say,

BECOMES A VICARIOUS RELIGION. 257
in our deep gratitude, are purged with blood, and without
shedding of blood there is no remission.
You perceive, in this manner, and as a result of our
experiment, that as soon as we undertake to throw the
elements of our subjective doctrine into an objective
representation, it passes immediately into the view
commonly designated by the phrase vicarious atonement,
only it rather becomes a vicarious religion. And thus,
after all, it proves itself to be identical, at the root, with
the common Protestant doctrine — identical,. I mean, not
in any rigid and exact sense, but in such a sense that
one is a more didactic and reflective, the other a more
artistic representation of the same subject matter.
There is no conflict, until we begin to assert the former
as the only truth of the gospel, or to work up the latter
by itself, into a speculative system of dogma, or of moral
government. If we say that Christ is here, reconciling
men to God, it is, for just that reason, necessary to have
a way of representing that God is conciliated towards us.
If we say that Christ is a power, to quicken us into new
ness of life, and bring us out of the bondage we are under
to evil, for just that reason do we need to speak of the
remission of sins obtained by his blood ; for the two seem
to be only different forms of one and the same truth, and
are often run together in the scriptures — as when the
blood of Christ, " who offered himself without spot to
God," is said " to purge the conscience from dead works,
to serve the living God." The two views are not logically
or theologically equivalent, but they are not the less
really so on that account. An objective religion that
shall stand before me, and be operated or operative for
22*

258 THE OBJECTIVE VIEW
me, excluding all subjective reference of thought, must
take such forms, most obviously, as are no logical equiva
lents of the same, considered as addressing and de
scribing our internal states ; for, by the supposition, an
objective artistic power is substituted for those methods of
address which appeal to consideration, reflection, and
self-regulation. But it will be imagined, I suppose, by some, that the
objective religion, the view of vicarious atonement, which,
as we have seen, may be generated by a transfer of the
speculative doctrine, is only a rhetorical accident — that
the apostles and evangelists only took up certain Jewish
figures, made ready at their hands, using them to convey
the Christian truths. Contrary to this, it is my convic
tion, and I shall now undertake to show, that God pre
pared such a result, by a deliberate, previous' arrange
ment. It is the Divine Form of Christianity, in distinc
tion from all others, and is, in that view, substantial to it,
or consubstantial with it. It is, in fact, a Divine Ritual
for the working of the world's mind. It was not more
necessary, indeed, that the Life should find a body, than
it is that the power Christ deposits in the world should
have an operative vehicle. The Christ must become
a religion for the soul and before it, therefore a Rite
or Liturgy for the world's feeling — otherwise Christianity
were incomplete, or imperfect.
Let me offer, now, as the proper conclusion of my
argument, a few considerations that seem to lead us into
such a conviction.
1. It is obvious that all the most earnest Christian

INSTITUTED BY GOD. 259
feelings of the apostles are collected round this objective
representation — the vicarious sacrifice of Christ, for the
sins of the world. They speak of it, not casually, or by
allusion, as an apostle converted from under the Roman
religion might have alluded to the rites of Mars, or the
Vestals ; but they do it systematically, they live in it,
their Christian feeling is measured by it, and shaped in
the molds it offers. And, if we consider how Christ their
Lord had himself been crucified by the nation, and in
the very name of the national religion ; if we recollect
that they themselves had renounced the ritual law of
Moses ; what temptation had they to set Christianity in
a form so intensely Jewish ? above all, what to set their
own most sacred feelings in the molds of an abjured
faith ? Indeed, it was a part of their very doctrine, that
Christ was liberty, and the law a bondage — a compost of
beggarly elements. Why, then, does their Christ take the
molds of the law, unless there was, after all, some pro
foundly sacred relationship between the outward rites of
one and the spiritual grace of the other ?
2. It is expressly declared, in the epistle to the He
brews, and is tacitly assumed elsewhere, that the old
system had a certain relationship to the contents of the
new. It was an example and shadow of heavenly
things, a figure for the time then present. Not, as the old
theologians somewhat childishly conceived, that the types
of the Old Testament ritual showed the saints of that age,
the Christ to come ; but that, by means of this ritual,
the national mind was impregnated with forms, impres
sions, associations, not derivative from nature, which,
when the Christian ideas are born, are to become types

260 " THE OBJECTIVE VIEW
or bases of a language to convey them. And, since the
ideas to be expressed or embodied, were themselves out of
nature ; since God, also, is a being who holds his ends in
contact, ever, with His beginnings, and His beginnings
with His ends, what forbids the belief that the old ritual
was appointed, in great part, for a use so sublime — to
prepare a sacred language for the sacred and supernatu
ral grace of Christ? Which, again, is rendered very
nearly certain, by the manner in which Christ himself
speaks of the Mosaic ritual and law. In one view, he
came to repeal it and forever displace it. In outward
historic fact, he has done so, and yet he solemnly pro
tests — " I come not to destroy the law or the prophets —
I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill." In which we
plainly see that he regards the old system as having, be
hind its outward formalities, a deep Christian intent.
Therefore, he declares that he came to fulfill this intent,
to bring a grace to man, which this only foreshadows,
and for which it is appointed by God to be the sacred
Form and vehicle.
3. It is conclusive to the same effect, that Christ-
is represented in terms of the old ritual,. before his pas
sion. Passing by the fifty-third chaptea? of Isaiah, and
other similar prophecies, called messianic, John the Bap
tist breaks out on the very appearance of Jesus : — " Be
hold the Lamb of God that taketh away the sins of the
world !" Why the Lamb of God, why this very singular
relation to the sins of the world ? If such figures may
have been caught up, after Christ's death, to express the
gratitude of the heart, why is Christ accosted in them,
when appearing as a mere human stranger, before his

INSTITUTED BY GOD. 261
passion, and even before his ministry is begun ? John
the Evangelist, saturated with the same impressions, finds
a remarkable coincidence, in the fact that no bone of
Christ is broken on the cross. Nor is there any so
remarkable want of dignity in noting such a coincidence,
if it be set forth simply as a finger-mark pointing to the
great comprehensive truth — Christ our Passover, the old
ritual fulfilled in the offering of the Life. Still less, when
we come to observe that Christ himself, as if to seal the
certainty of a divinely appointed relationship between his
sacrifice and the ritual of the nation, brings his ministry
to a close, by re-enacting the Passover supper as a Chris
tian rite. In his own flesh and blood he finds the Lamb
of the feast. " This is my blood of the new testament,
which is shed for many, for the remission of sins." Re
garding Christ, now, as being simply a Jew, (which he is
in his outward person,) a pious Jew, just about to suffer
martyrdom, what could move him to declare that he is a
lamb offered for the remission of the sins of the world,
and actually to insert himself in the solemn passover sup
per of his nation, in place of the lamb ! We do not
understand, this very remarkable institute of Christ, until
we see that God has been planning, from the first, for an
objective religion ; that the old rites exist, in part, for
this purpose, to be fulfilled, at last, in Christ, and become
a holy ritual of thought and feeling — a sacred body, of
which Christ is the life and spirit. Embodied thus, in
a form of divine art, Christ is set before mankind, to be a
religion for them, and become, in that manner, a religion
in them.
4. Once more, there is a profound philosophic necessity

262 CHRISTIANITY INCOMPLETE
that a religion, which is to be a power over mankind,
should have this objective character. Christianity, set
forth as a mere subjective, philosophic doctrine, would fail,
just where all philosophies have failed. Instead of bring
ing us into the bosom of a divine culture, it would throw
us on a work of mere self-culture, producing, it may be,
another sect of Pythagoreans, or another Academy some
what more illustrious than the old, but scarcely a religion ;
for it is the distinction of a religion, that the soul adheres,
by faith, to being out of itself, and lays itself recumbently
on causes which are not in its own superintendence.
Self-culture, indeed, has nothing to do with religion,
whatever be its aim, however sacred the causes we apply
to ourselves, until we begin to deposit our soul, so to
speak, in God and in forms of exercise and feeling which
are offered us by Him. Or, if we say that Christ has
undertaken by his mission to bring us a spiritual remedy
for our sin, how can it be a sufficient remedy, if it re
mains for us to apply it to our particular wants and
diseases ? What man can understand, or detect his own
evils by reflective action ? For, just as his consciousness
cannot hunt his body through, detecting with mesmeric
insight the diseases working in each organ, duct, fibre,
and secretion ; so much less, by conscious reflection,
can he read the interior secrets and subtle perversities of
his character. The only sufficient remedy for a chroni
cally diseased man, is one that is comprehensive, and
will, of itself, feel out his complaints — some new clime,
for example, where the air itself, more searching and
subtle than consciousness, will find out his diseases, and
apply its own remedial force to them all. So if we are

WITHOUT THE ALTAR FORM. 263
left to apply a Christ to the soul reflectively, as a philo
sophic cause, or remedy, we shall accomplish little, per
haps only nourish a conceit of health, which is worse than
any other of our diseases.
It will not be understood that I propose to dismiss, or
that I deprecate the use of reflection in matters of reli
gion. In one view, it is the great work of the Christian
preacher to bring men to reflection. It is only thus that
they are made to understand themselves and the wants
of their immortal nature. The sense of sin, the unrest
of a mind separate from God, the deep hunger of a soul
denied .the life of religion— none of these are consciously
felt, save under the sober influence of reflection. Still,
there is nothing in this of true religion. No man is in the
Christian state till he gets by, and, in one sense, beyond
reflective action. And precisely here is the fundamental
necessity of an objective 'form or forms of art, in the
Christian scheme. While a man is addressing his own
nature with means, motives, and remedies, acting reflec
tively on, and, of course, for himself, he is very certainly
held to that which he needs most of all to escape, viz.,
the hinging of his life on himself, and the interests of his
own person. This, in fact, is the sin of his sin, that his
life revolves about himself, and does not centre in God.
His redemption, his salvation, therefore, is, to be delivered
of himself; which he can never be, while tending and
cherishing and trying, by subjective applications made t
to himself, to foment new and better qualities in his
heart. What he needs just here, while struggling vainly
to lift himself by his own shoulders, is the presentation of
a religion objectively made out for him ; so that, when

264 CHRISTIANITY INCOMPLETE
he is ready to faint, he may drop himself, by an act of faith
and total self-renunciation, into the objective grace pro
vided, there to deposite himself and cease even to be,
earae in his Saviour. Precisely here it is that Christian
liberty begins, and here is the joy of a true Christian- ex
perience. It is going clear of self to live in the objective.
It is the passing out of self-love into the love of God ; or,
what is the same, into a state of faith and devotion, the
fundamental distinction of which is that the man is mov
ing outward, away from his own centre towards God, to
rest on God, and live in God. I do not say here, it will
be observed, that no one can have a true Christian expe
rience, who does not find it in the embrace of Christ as a
sacrifice, or a vicarious religion. I only affirm, that no
one ever becomes a true Christian man, who does not
rest himself in God, or give himself over to God, in objec
tive faith and devotion, somehow. He may do this,
regarding simply the essential truth and goodness of God
as revealed in Jesus Christ ; he is only liable here— since
he knows that God is thus approaching him, to move as a
power upon his love — to fall back, or rather stay, upon the
old hinge of self and self-devotion, which is the radical
evil of his character. Hence, while he is. softened to
feeling, by the love of God thus expressed, he wants
a place where he can give himself away, without meeting
any suggestive that shall carry him back into himself—
an altar form whose art is so transcendent, so essentiaUy
mystic, that all art is concealed, and no occurring thought
of working on himself, propels him backward on his old
centre. And here it is that the objective view of Christ
holds a connection so profound, with all that is freest,

WITHOUT THE ALTAR FORM. 265
most unselfish and most elevated in Christian experience.
There may be a Christian experience where it is rejected,
but it will be composed, to such a degree, of self-culture
and self-watching, as to constitute a legal, restricted,
often most uncomfortable, always feeble state of disciple
ship. Nothing is more painful and discouraging than any
style of piety in which the human predominates, and the
elements of devotion and divine inspiration are obscured,
or subordinated. On the contrary, any experience which
drops out self, to be filled, guided, animated by God, is
sure to be happy, free, and triumphant.
It must also be noted that there is a beautiful agree
ment, between the attitude of mind induced by the resting
of the soul on an objective and vicarious mercy, and the
great truth of the Holy Spirit, as a sanctifying power.
In order to the effective working of God within us, we
must not be always shaping or molding ourselves by our
own art and will. But we need to be wholly pliant to
the will of God, so suspended as regards all thought of
ourselves, that he shall have us completely in his dominion,
and be obstructed by no preconceptions and mere will-
works of our own. And exactly this is the state in which
we are held, when we are hanging upon Christ as our
altar, resting in his sacrifice, yielding up our soul to him
as one whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation for
our sin. This is the attitude of perfect simplicity — an
attitude also of faith, in which we are given trustfully up,
to be turned as God will turn us. We are carried off our
own centre that God may fix our orbit for us about Him
self. And if we consider the infinite love of God. to
character, how His spirit waits to breathe it, as the air to
23

266 CHRISTIANITY INCOMPLETE,
fill every crevice and pore of matter, we may dare to say
that, if He could have the bosoms of our race thus open
to His power, He would sweep, as a gale of life and love,
through them all.
It is also necessary to say, as a guard against miscon
ception, that reflection or reflective action, must be
blended, more or less, with the general course of the
Christian life, and especially with its earlier stages.
We must advert to ourselves frequently enough to know
and correct, ourselves. We must form ideals and aims
of life. We must subject ourselves to the stern discipline
of self-renunciation and the cross. Only we may be con
fident that, as our spirit becomes more sanctified and
assimilated to God, we shall become more spontaneous in
good, and have less need to be acting reflectively. But,
in order ever to become thus spontaneous, we need, when
we are least so, to be exercised objectively, thus to forget
and go clear of ourselves ; otherwise our piety, so called,
settles into a mere dressing of the soul before her mirror.
It is millinery substituted for grace. If the soul, then, is
ever to get her health and freedom in goodness, she must
have the gospel, not as a doctrine only, but as a rite
before her, a righteousness, a ransom, a sacrifice, a lamb
slain, a blood offered for her cleansing before Jehovah's
altar. Then, reclining her broken heart on this, calling
it her religion — hers by faith — she receives a grace
broader than consciousness, loses herself in a love that is
not imparted in the molds of mere self-culture, and, with
out making folly of Christ by her own vain self-applica
tions, he is made unto her, wisdom, righteousness, sancti
fication, and redemption.

WITHOUT THE ALTAR FORM. 267
I might speak, also, in this connection, of the sad figure
that would be made by the rude masses of the world, in
applying a gospel of philosophic causes to their own
nature; for they hardly know, as yet, that they have
a nature. How manifest is it that they want an altar, set
up before them, and if they cannot quite see the blood of
Christ sprinkled on it, they must have it as a Form in
their souls ; he must be a stock of righteousness before"
them ; he, must bear their sins for them, and be, in fact,
their religion. Then, taking him, by faith, to be all this
before and for them, the Divine Art hid in it, transforms
their inner life, in the immediate, absolute manner of art ;
and seeing now their new peace, not in themselves
where it is, but in God, they rejoice that God is recon
ciled, and His anger smoothed away.
However, there is no such difference of class, among
men, that the most cultivated and wisest, disciple will
not often need, and as often rejoice, to get away from all
self-handling and self-cherishing cares. To be rid of a re
flective and artificial activity, to fall into utter simplicity,
and let the soul repose herself in a love and confidence
wholly artless, is not only to be desired, but it is neces
sary, as I have said, even to the quality of true goodness
itself. To be ever lifting ourselves by our will, to be
hanging round our own works, canvassing our defects,
studying the pathology of our own evils, were enough, of
itself, to drive one mad. The mind becomes wearied and
lost in its own mazes, discouraged and crushed by its
frequent defeats, and virtue itself, being only a con.
scious tug of exertion, takes a look as unbeautiful as the
life is unhappy. Therefore we need, all alike, some ob-

268 COMPREHENSIVENESS
jective religion ; to come and hang ourselves upon the altar
of sacrifice sprinkled by the blood of Jesus, to enter into
the holiest set open by his death, to quiet our soul in his
peace, clothe it in his righteousness, and trust him as the
Lamb of God that taketh away our sin. In these simple,
unselfish, unreflective exercises, we shall make our closest
approach to God.
I have thus endeavored to set forth, in as brief and
condensed a form as possible, what may be called an out
line view of the doctrine of Christ. That which most
especially distinguishes the view presented, is the identi
fication accomplished, or attempted, between the subjec
tive and objective, the speculative and ritual forms of the
doctrine. At-one-ment and atonement are shown to be,
not antagonistic, but fellow truths answering to each
other, and only false when they are separated. May I
not regard it, indeed, as a beautiful evidence of the cor
rectness of the view presented, that it finds a central
truth, in all the principal forms of doctrine that have
hitherto prevailed in the Christian church ? Generically
speaking, these forms are three : —
First, we have what may be called the Protestant
form, which takes the ritualistic side of the gospel, the
objective side, turns it into dogma and reasserts it as a
theoretic or theologic truth. And then, though it be no
longer a truth, the form of a truth, and, so far, a divine
power lingers in it. I say a divine power, for this holy
form of sacrifice is no child of human art or reason, but
the body prepared of God to be the vehicle of His love
to men. But, alas! the Protestant world have not

OF THE DOCTRINE. 269
been able to content themselves in it, or to think it suffi
ciently wise, till they have changed it into dogma, and
made it human; in which they have done what they
could to set themselves between God's wisdom and man's
want. Still there are beams of light shining by them,
and some, I trust, shine through.
Secondly, on the left of this Protestant form, we have
the speculative or philosophic form, 'asserting that Christ
only comes into the world to bring men into union with
God, to reconcile them unto God. Under this, as one of
its varieties, the Unitarian doctrine is included. Nor is
there any doubt that we declare a great and real truth,
when we say that the reconciliation of man to God is the
sole object of Christ's mission. But this truth supposes
a power, and that power is, in great part, only the power
of an objective religion. If, then, we insist on explaining
away, as mere Iudaistic figures having no value, the
blood, the sacrifice, the offering of Jesus, Jesus the
curse, the Lord our righteousness, Christ our passover,
the lamb of God that taketh away the sins of the world
—if we pump out the contents of these holy forms, which
God has offered to faith and feehng, and get them all into
the molds of natural language and reason, then we are
only found asserting, in our wisdom, that Christ has
come to reconcile the world, and taking away, in the
same breath, that which is itself a principal vehicle of his
reconciling power. Reason is not confused and baffled
here, as in the Protestant dogma, but the altar of self-
renunciation and faith, she has taken down. She has
cleared away the sun that she may see the stars. And,
though there be a finer show of reason and of astronomic
23*

270 HOW THE DOCTRINE
system in the stars, and though some of them be lighted
by the sun itself, there is yet a great defect here of solar
warmth — a defect so great that to be saved by star-light,
is far less plausible and easy than to bask in the sun of
righteousness and live.
Thirdly, on the right hand of the Protestant view, we
have the Romish form, or the form of the mass. Here
the ritual, objective view, is all in all — nay, somewhat
more than all. Instead of a divine ritual for the mind or
heart, we go back, we Iudaize, or paganize, whichever it
be ; we set an altar before the eyes, and there we offer up
a Christ daily. We deal with blood, not as a symbol to
faith and feeling, but as a real and miraculous entity.
But here, again, a light will sometimes stream by the
miracle, into the worshipper's heart — genuine light, from
Christ our peace, and the lamb that taketh away our sin.
Reason, meantime/is dead within him. The man, most
likely, has no questions, no opinions, no conceptions of
character, save those which his superstitions yield him.
He can never be a full and proper Christian man, till he
knows Christ in the grand aim of his mission — Christ as
the manifested Life — and has some account to offer of
the reasons why he came into the world.
Seeing thus how at-one-ment and atonement and the
mass, all, lie about the Christian truth, receiving something
from it which belongs to its verity, rejecting much that
is essential to its value and power, is it better to busy our
selves for the next eighteen centuries, in quarreling, each
for the particle of truth he has, because it is a particle ;
or, to come back, in shame and sorrow, and receive

IS TO BE PREACHED. 271
enough of God's truth to enlarge our consciousness,
universalize our feeling, and make us brothers ?
( An interesting question remains, which I can only
reply to just far enough to save from misapprehension,
viz., how ought Christ to be preached ? Not, certainly,
as a theory, nor in the half scholastic manner in which
I have here exhibited the Christian doctrine. I only
think it will add greatly to the comfort and true self-
understanding of the preacher in his work, if he has, in
his own mind, some such solution as this. Meantime, he
is to preach much as the scriptures themselves speak,
blending the two views of Christ together. Sometimes
he will be more in one, and sometimes more in the other.
Probably the philosophic, or subjective view may be
allowed to come into a somewhat more prevalent use,
among a cultivated, philosophic people, and in a philo
sophic age of the world. But it must never exclude and
displace the sacrificial or ritual view ; for even the
Christian philosopher himself will need often to go back
to this holy altar of feeling, and hang there, trusting
in Christ's offering ; there to rest himself in the quietness
of faith, getting away from his care and reflection, and
his troublesome self-culture, to be cared for and clothed
with a righteousness not his own.
To be a little more specific, there are three points
which, in preaching Christ, will claim attention. (1.) In
setting him forth as a sacrifice ; always to hold in view,
or often to exhibit, lines of contrast between him and the
ritual sacrifice. It will be right to produce an impression
similar to that which is given, Heb. x. 5—10, a passage
which sketches three or four bold points of contrast

272 HOW THE DOCTRINE
between Christ and the sacrifices, seeming almost to say
that "sacrifice* and offering" are to be no longer; and
which, yet, concludes : — " through the offering of the
body of Jesus once for all." First, Christ is represented
as saying that a " body is prepared" him, because sacri
fice and offering are wanted no longer ; that he is incar
nated, in other words, for the discontinuance of all sacri
fice. Next, that since God has " no pleasure in sacrifices
for sin," he comes to " do the will of God," and by his
own obedience, to displace them. Then that they are
actually " taken away," the first removed, and the
second established. Then that " by the' which will,"
that is, by the obedience of Christ, " we are sanctified."
It is perfectly evident, here, that he has no conception of
Christ, as a literal sacrifice, though he goes directly on to
speak of the obedience of Christ as testified " through the
offering of himself." (2.) Christ must be preached, not as
an ambassador of pardon simply, but as justification.
The rigor of God's integrity, and the sanctity of his law
must be maintained. It is not Christianity, as I view it,
to go forth and declare that God is so good, so lenient,
such a fatherly being, that he forgives freely. No ; God
is better than that — so good, so fatherly, that he will not
only remit sins, but will so maintain the sanctity of His
law as to make us feel them. The let-go system, the
overlooking, accommodating, smoothing method of mere
leniency, is a virtual surrender of all exactness, order,
and law. The law is made void, nothing stands firm.
God is a willow, bending to the breath of mortals. There
is no throne left, no authority, nothing to move the con
science— therefore, really no goodness. Any doctrine of

IS TO BE PREACHED. 273
pardon without justification, must of necessity weaken,
at last, the sense of religion, and it is well if it does not
even remove the conception of Divine government itself.
(3.) Christ must never be preached antinomially, or as a
substitute for character. No such impression is to be
endured. There must be no such jealousy of self-right
eousness produced, that our hearers will hardly dare to
be righteous at all. The very object for which Christ
comes into the world, nay, the object of justification
itself, is character, righteousness in the life. The inten
tion is, that the righteousness of the law itself shall, at
last, be fulfilled in us ; that our robes shall be washed and
made white in the blood of the Lamb. This mercy is
mercy because it ends in character, — character renewed,
purified, sanctified, made white! Therefore, we are to
say, with our Master himself, — •" Blessed — blessed — only
are ye that hunger and thirst after righteousness."
But the best of all directions that I know for the
preaching of Christ, and one that supposes everything
right in the preacher, as it does in the disciple, is to live
in him. And, when I speak of this, I am almost ashamed
to have been spelling out, in syllables, this dull theory,
and withholding you so long from the lively doctrine of
Jesus and his cross. To know Christ Jesus and him only,
to die with him in his death and rise in the likeness of
his resurrection, to have Christ living in us, life within
life, to have his pure spirit breathing in us, to love with
his love, to be consciously and eternally united to God
by our union with Him, to know that nothing shall be
able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus
our Lord, in that confidence to be ready even to partake

274 CONCLUSION.
joyfully in his passion, and become obedient, with him*
even unto death — this, I say, is to know how to preach
Christ unto men. For it is not a rhetoric, not a doctrine
or philosophy ; it is nothing that the schools can teach, or
the natural understanding learn, but it is the living, life-
giving experience of Christ himself ; study cleared - by
communion, knowledge grounded in faith — this it is
which prepares insight, character and love, and forms the
true equipment of an earnest, powerful preacher. Hav
ing this, a man will preach; not by words only, but some
times quite as effectively by silence. His very life will
be luminous, because there is a Christ in it. And with
such abides the Lord's good promise — not in some exter
nal, official, occasional manner, as some appear to fancy,
but in the heart, in depth of feeling, in clearness of light,
in patience, wisdom and power — "Lo I am with you
always, even unto the end of the world."
O, how manifest it is, my hearers, as we go over this
great subject, that God is full, and His grace free, to us all.
! What infinite pains does he take, to bring down His love
to us. And yet, how does our poor human under
standing labor and reel before this great mystery of god
liness—height, depth, length, breadth, greater, all, than
we can measure ! God's loftiest work, in fact, that in
which He most transcends our human conceptions,
is the work in which he is engaged to save us. Creation
is a mystery, the universe is a great deep ; but, O ! the
deepest deep, in all the abysses of God's majesty is here
—in the work He does to unite us unto Himself. Herein
is love. Herein we see that His strongest desire is to
have us come unto Himself, and be one with Him forever.

CONCLUSION. 275
O, let us believe this amazing truth, this truth so full of
divinity, that God's bosom is indeed open to us all. Let
us hear Him say, " Come and be forgiven." "Come, O, ye
darkened and humiliated souls, come up out of your guilt,
break your bondage, lay off your shame, and return
to your Father. "

A
DISCOURSE

DOGMA AND SPIRIT;

TRUE REVIVING OF RELIGION

DELIVERED BEFORE

THE PORTER RHETORICAL SOCIETY,

AT ANDOVER, SEPTEMBER, 1848.

DISCOURSE, fro.

It is a hope, cherished by many of the most thoughtful
and earnest Christians of our time that God is preparing
the introduction, at last, of some new religious era.
Here and there, in distant places and opposing sects, in
private individuals and public bodies of disciples, we note
the appearance of a deep longing felt for some true reno
vation of the religious spirit. As yet, the feeling is
indefinite, as probably it will be, till its ideal, or the gift
for which it sighs, begins to shape itself to view, under
conditions of fact and actual manifestation. In some
cases, expectation seems never to go beyond the repro
duction of old scenes, familiarly known as revivals of
religion, and the reviving of revivals is regarded as the
only admissible, or highest possible hope to be entertained.
But, more generally, there appears to be a different feel
ing. A degree of dissatisfaction is felt with benefits of a
character so partial, so mixed with defect, and especially
so little efficacious in producing the fruits of a deep and
thoroughly established piety. Hence there is a secret
hope, cherished by all such, that something may transpire
of a different character and of far higher moment to the

280 CHRISTIANITY DISPLACES
cause of God in the earth — something that will set us on
a firmer ground of stability, produce a more acknow
ledged and visible Christian unity, and develop a more
consistent, catholic, permament, free and living exhibition
of the renovating power of Christ and his truth.
This is the subject which I now propose to discuss : —
The True Reviving of Religion. I meet you here as
a body of Christian ministers and candidates for the
ministry, proposing, not some theme of a merely occa
sional interest, but one that is dear above all others,
I am persuaded, not to me only, but to the heart of God
Himself; therefore one which it is my pleasure to believe
will be as much more welcome to you, as it is closer to
Christian feeling and the practical reign of Christ in
the earth.
I know not how to open the subject proposed, from a
better point of view, than to begin where Christianity
descends into the world — the point that is given us, for
example, in —
1 John, i. 2.— .For ihe Life was manifested, and we
have seen it, and bear witness, and show unto you that
Eternal Life, which was with the Father, and was mani
fested unto us.
Thus it was that Christianity fell into trie world's
bosom as a quickening . power, as Life and Spirit from
God. It came into a world dead in trespasses and sins
to make it live again — this, also, by depositing in it and
uniting to it, as a regenerative and organific power, the
Life of God. At the time when it appeared, death and

THE PHARISAIC DOGMA. 281
blindness had enveloped the national religion. A few
souls, spiritually enlightened by God, lingered about the
temple, waiting, like old Simeon and Anna the proph
etess, for the Lord's appearing. In the desert wilds of
the Jordan, and the caves of the South, there were also,
possibly, a few pious eremites, similarly exercised in the
things of the spirit. The religion of faith, that which
makes a life, and brings a soul into the light and freedom of
God, was, for the most part, a lost idea. The speculations
of the Sadducees and the interpretations of the Pharisees
had developed so much of human light, that the light of
God in the soul, was no longer wanted or thought of.
Religion had been fairly interpreted away. Debates,
traditions, opinions of doctors and rescripts of schools, in
a word, such an immense mass had been accumulated of
what an apostle calls dogmas, (translated " ordinances")
and also, "commandments and doctrines of men," that
there was no longer any place for faith, and the light of
faith in the world. The law was held as letter, and had
thus no real power but to discourage and kill ; for it was
the manner of this Jewish theology and its masters or
Rabbis, to hang upon words and syllables, and try what
wondrous lights of opinion they could produce by their
learned ingenuity. Studied thus, in the letter, and with
out spiritual illumination, or even a thought of it, Moses
and the prophets had become so overlaid with school
wisdom, and the rescripts of Rabbis, that no true light of
God was visible any longer. Spiritual life was extinct,
and only a wearisome drill, under legal rites and fleshly
burdens, remained.
Just here Christ makes his appearance, declaring of
24*

282 CHRISTIANITY DISPLACES
the Pharisees and their Rabbis, that they open not, but
rather shut the kingdom of heaven against men. There
fore he is obliged to separate himself from their doctrine
and from all the learning of his day. It is so perverse,
so fortified by numbers, by conceit and the respect
of the nation, as to be even hopeless. Giving, therefore,
the plain testimony of God against it — " in vain do they
worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments
of men" — he turns to the uneducated, humble class of the
people* and out of these he takes his apostles ; simply
because they are able, it would seem, to come into the
knowledge of spiritual things, hindered by no learned
preconceptions or commandments of men, and with
minds ingenuously open to the spiritual teachings of
God. The sublime doctrine of the kingdom, which is
hid from the wise and prudent, and which no school
wisdom, or wisdom of dogma, can ever apprehend, God
will be able to reveal to these sons of obscurity, these in
genuous "babes" of Galilee. To them, therefore", he turns,
making it his first object to attract their faith by "his
friendly ministries, and fix it on his person. He gives
them to understand that he is such, and such the message
he brings, that he can be truly apprehended only by
faith — that, as the swine have no capacity to conceive
the value of pearls, so the unbelieving of the world will
never, out of their mere natural wisdom, receive and
appreciate the Christian truth. He declares that he
comes as the Life, comes to form a life-connection
between the world and God ;— " As the Father hath sent
me, and I live by the Father, so he that eateth me, even
he shall live by me. This is that bread that came down

THE PHARISAIC DOGMAS. 283
from heaven--he that eateth of this bread shall live for
ever." And then he goes on immediately, while his dis
ciples are debating his words, to show that his doctrine
is not for the flesh or for any mere speculative wisdom ;
that faith only can so far seize it or enter into it, as to
produce it internally, and prove its heavenly verity ;
that it requires a congenial spirit co-existing or dawning
in the soul with it, so that it may flow through the soul
as spirit, nay, as God's own Spirit, and not be tried
dialectically or scientifically, by mere natural eognitions
and judgments^-" It is the spirit that quickeneth, the
flesh profiteth nothing ; the words that I speak unto you
they are spirit and they are Ufe."
This is the conception of Christianity, as held by
Christ himself. And for this reason it was, as he well
understood, that his disciples could get no sufficient ap
prehension of the Christian truth in his life-time and
while he was visibly present among them. Therefore it
was expedient that he should go away from before their
eyes, and a plan be adjusted for calling their simple
faith into exercise. Accordingly, they were to wait at
Jerusalem, after his departure, for the descent of the
Spirit upon them, and he, taking the things of Christ and
shewing them internally, that is, breathing an inspi
ration of Divine Life through their soul, to quicken
them internally to a right apprehension of Christ and his
work, would bring them into such a knowledge of the
truth of Christ and the new scheme of salvation, that
they would be ready to go forth and preach him to
mankind. They did as he commanded — the result is known.

284 ENTERS THE WORLD,
- Suffice it to say that just there, Christianity is inaugurated
as Life and Spirit in the world. There it bursts in as a
gale of Life and a quickening power from God, and we see,
in the preaching of Peter and in the whole scene which
follows, that a new conception of Christ as the Prince of
Life — his death and resurrection, his final exaltation and
his present reigning power — is at this moment seized
upon. Before Christianity had been dark to them, they
knew not what to think of it; now it is light — they have
it as spirit and life in their hearts. God, who commanded
the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in their
hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of
God, in the face of Jesus Christ.
Accordingly, the first age of the Church, or of Chris
tianity, which opens at this point, is to be distinguished as
an age of life and intense spiritual vivacity. It is an age,
not of dogmas or speculations, but of gifts, utterances, and
mighty works, and, more than all, of inspiration, insight,
freedom, and power. Looking back upon it as revealed
in the New Testament, and in the first chapters of the
subsequent history, this one thing appears, predominant
above all others, that the Church is alive — simple, inarti
ficial, partially erratic, but always alive. He that was
crucified and rose again, liveth visibly in them — not in
their heads, but in their hearts. They have an unction
of the Holy One that teaches and leads them. The
preaching is testimony, publication, prophesying — not
theology. The doctrine has no dialectic or scholastic
distribution ; it is free, out of the heart, a ministration of
the Spirit. It is luminous by a divine light within ; it
streams through a character congenial to itself, taking its

AS SPIRIT AND LIFE. 285
mold, not from any discipline of theory or of rhetoric, but
from a nature and working that God has visibly con
figured to Himself. The effect is known to all. Incredi-
ble as it may seem, it is yet indisputable, a fact of history,
that, within three centuries, the fire that is thus kindled,
catches and spreads, till its light is seen and its sanctify
ing power is felt, throughout the Roman Empire.
Many speak of this event as a wonder. In one view
it is. But something like it will always appear, when
religion casts off the incrustations of dogma, and emerges
into life. Christianity was, indeed, a new truth, but in
nothing so new as in requiring faith of its disciples, in
sisting that they draw their light from God, and have it,
not in their natural reason, but in and through a charac
ter that is itself newness of life. Considering the dead-
ness of the religious element in his nation when our
Lord came into it, and the utter imbecility of the Rab
binic theories and ordinances, who could have imagined
that a man, crucified as a malefactor, was to begin such
a reviving of the religious spirit in the world that, within
a few generations, he will have the imperial city of
the earth under his power, princes and principalities
owning his dominion and laying their gods at his feet.
But it is done, and something like it will always be done,
when men are brought close , enough to God, to be sepa
rated from the law of their mere human opinions and
judgments, and brought to receive their light from God
as an inspiration, or internal realization of faith.
Observe, especially, as regards these first centuries of
the faith, that it was a faith. They had no theology at
all, in our modern sense of the term. Not even Paul, so

286 LAPSES NEXT
much praised as the "dialectic" apostle, was anything of a
system maker, and I shall show you, presently, that, if he
had any theoretic system, the first and fundamental
truth of it was, that spiritual things must be spiritually
discerned. Accordingly, if we examine the history of
these first ages, we find them speaking, in the utmost
simplicity, of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost ; but hav
ing still, confessedly, no speculative theory or dogmatic
scheme of trinity. The word, in fact, is not yet invented.
When they speak of Christ, it is of Christ as the Life,— -
Emanuel, Saviour, Redeemer, Son of man and Son of
God, crucified and risen, wisdom, righteousness, sanctifi
cation and redemption. They had not begun, as yet, to
busy themselves in setting forth the internal composition
of Christ's person. They had no forensic theory of
justification, made out in terms of the civil law, and
defended by speculative and dialectic judgments — they
only saw the law confirmed and sanctified by Christ's
death, and a way thus opened to peace with God. They
had no theory about regeneration, assigning the parts,
determining the how much on one side and on the other,
and settling the before and after, as between God's work
ing and man's. They had the word of God in power,
but not as yet in science — Christian dogmatics were yet
to be invented. If you desire to see the form in which
they summed up the Christian truth, you have it in what
is called the Apostles' Creed. This beautiful compend
was gradually prepared, or accumulated, in the age prior
to theology ; most of it, probably, in the time of the
Apostolic Fathers. It is purely historic, a simple com
pendium of Christian fact, without a trace of what we

INTO DOGMA. 287
sometimes call doctrine ; that is, nothing is drawn out
into speculative propositions, or propounded as a dog,
ma, in terms of science.
Now begins a change. After Christianity as spirit
and life, uttered in words of faith and sealed by the tes
timony of martyrs in every city, has taken possession of
the world, it finds another class of Rabbis, whom Christ
never saw, viz., the Rabbis of the Greek philosophy ; and
these begin to try their hand upon it. Some of the
Christian teachers are disciples of the Greek learning,
and the scientific instinct of the Greek schools begins to
meditate the preparation of some new form, for the Chris
tian truth, that shall finally establish its sway over the
world of thought and learning. Thus begins theology.
With it, of course, enters controversy, and controversy
being wholly out of the Spirit and in the life of nature,
whittles and splits the divine truth of the gospel, and
shapes it into propositions dialectically nice and scientific,
till, at last, the truth of Jesus vanishes, his triumphs are
over, and his spirit even begins to die in the world.
The change that is to come is sufficiently indicated by
a comparison of the Apostles' Creed and the Athanasian,
or the Nicene. Passing from one to the other, we con
sciously descend from a realm of divine simplicity and
Ufe, into a subterranean region, where the smoke of
human wisdom, hereafter to stifle the breath of religion,
is just beginning to rise, and the feeble cant of dogma
tism is trying its first rehearsal. In both, you hear the
disciple saying, it is true, — " I believe ;" — but in one, he
believes the grand, living, life-giving history of Christ ;
in the other, he believes his own scientific wisdom con-

288 CONSEOUENT DISCORD
cerning it — his mental cognitions, judgments, and theo
ries. In one, the faith professed is truly a faith. In the
other, it is only such faith as follows sight, or opinion, or
scientific reason. The process of descent from the spirit
into the flesh is easy, and goes on rapidly. That histori
cal and vital Christianity, which Christ presented in his
life, is replaced, ere long, by what some call a doctrinal ;
that is, by a Christianity made up of propositions and
articles. The teachers think they are shedding great
light upon the new religion, but we, looking back, per
ceive a dark age just there gathering in upon Christen
dom. Dogma has eclipsed .the sun. Even the religion
of Jesus itself begins to wear the look of a work of dark
ness. It is as if the discords of hell has broken loose.
Councils are called against heretics, and against councils.
Bishops levy arms one against another. Excommunica
tions are dealt back and forth. Whole provinces are
deluged with the blood of Christian persecution. Princes
mingle in the confusion, as exterminators, or patronizers
of one or another dogma. The freedom of the spirit and
of faith is even ruled out of the church itself, and no
disciple is allowed to have any light that comes of spirit
ual discernment, or even to think a thought which trans
cends the dogma of his time. Finally, as all bishops
have exalted themselves above truth, the bishop of Rome
exalts himself above the bishops, and assuming thus
the headship of the church, the work, long ago begun, is
complete — the church becomes a vast human fabric of
forms, offices, institutions, and honors ; a store-house of
subtleties and scholastic opinions, a den of base intrigues

AND CORRUPTION. 289
and mercenary crimes, as empty of all mercy and human
ity as of Christian truth itself.
Here it is that Luther appears, bursting up through the
incrustations of ages, to assert, once more, Faith, and
the rights of faith — justification and salvation by faith
in Jesus Christ. A great reformation and reviving of
the religious spirit follows, which is felt throughout
the Christian world, not excluding the Roman Catholic
portions. Many supposed and, I believe, still suppose,
that Luther righted everything — that he even set the
church back into her original position. Others have had
a different impression, among whom I may instance our
own immortal Robinson. In the ever memorable ad
dress he gave to the Pilgrims, on their departure to the
new world, the prophet father of New England had
grace given him to " bewail the condition of the reformed
churches, in so soon having come to a period in religion,"
refusing to go beyond " the instruments of their refor.na-
tion." " Luther and Calvin," he said, " were great and
shining lights, in their times, yet they penetrated not into
the whole counsel of God. I beseech you, be ready to
receive whatever truth shall be made known to you
from the written word of God." He was right in these
convictions. Luther had made a good beginning, but
only a beginning. He left so much undone that the
church has not been' able to hold the vitality he gave it ;
but, as if some element of fatal obstruction were still
retained in its bosom, has been gradually sinking into such
divisions and infirmities, such deadness to truth and faith
and spirituality of life, that the truest friends of God, in
every part of the Protest t world, burdened by. a

290 THE REFORMATION
common sorrow, are sighing, at this moment, for some
deeper renovation, some more thorough reviving of
religion. Luther left the church connected with the state, sub
ject to the corrupting influence of courts and of state
patronage. Here we have advanced upon him already,
and with every reason to rejoice in the results. But the
great and most fatal defect of Luther's reformation was,
that he left the reign of dogma or speculative theology,
untouched. He did not restore the ministration of the
Spirit. Opinions were left to rule the church, with just
as much of consequence as they had before. He delivered
us from the Pope and the councils, but that which made
both Pope and councils he saved, viz., the authority of
human opinions and of mere speculative theology. The
man of sin was removed, but the mystery of iniquity, out
of which he was born, was kept. Opinions, speculations,
scholastic and theologic formulas, were still regarded as
the lights of religion. All judgments of men, as Christian
or unchristian, continued, as before, to be determined by
their opinions, and not, in any degree, by their fruits or
their character. Love, mercy, faith, a pure and holy
life, was still left a subordinate thing — important, of
course, but not the chief thing. Christianity remained
in the hands of schools and doctors, and that was called
the faith, here and there, which, here or there, was
reasoned out as the veritable theologic dogma. Formu
las still reigned over faith, as the Pope had done before.
The natural reason was the keeper of God's supernatural
truth. Indeed, we may say that Aristotle was the doctor
still of doctors, and that Christ was dispensed by the

A PARTIAL REMEDY. 291
Peripatetic method. The unction of the Holy One was
virtually subjected still to the scholastic sentences, and
graduated under the predicaments.
In short, the second chapter of the first epistle to the
Corinthians was really not restored, and has not been, in
the true spirit of it, to this day. We manage, indeed, to
say, that the things that are freely given to us of God,
in Jesus Christ, are spiritual, and can only be spiritually
discerned ; sometimes, also, that we speak, not in the
words man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy
Ghost teacheth, comparing spiritual things with spiritual,
— we say this, because we have it, as one of our articles,
that what the scriptures affirm, must be held by us ;
but we do not really mean it in the apostolic sense. On
the contrary, we judge as the schools judge, speak what
the formulas tell us, and will not even tolerate the behef,
that God can ever lead a disciple to discern what is
different from these. We do not really understand, as
Paul here declares, that Christian truth can be in our
soul only as it is of it, begotten there by the indwelling
of Christ, and the private rehearsal of the Spirit. We
suppose that learning and debate can settle on the Chris
tian truths, and handle them as it can questions of gram
mar and archeology. We do not put our theology to
school to faith, but our faith to school to theology. The
head is to be made wise in formulas, and then the head is
to take care of the heart. " Private judgment" is the
word. The natural man receives the things of the spirit
of God, and he that is natural, judgeth all things.
These things I affirm, not in a sense so literal as to
imply that we are not Christians. Enough, doubtless,

292 THE REFORMATION
of divine truth leaks into our conceptions to save us, but
not enough to feed the true apostolic devotion in our
lives. We really have not, and cannot have, the minis
tration of the Spirit in its power. Four important and
most deplorable consequences follow. (1.) Endless di
visions, subdivisions, schisms, denunciations, simply be
cause we are living, not in spiritual insight, not in our
heart as united to Christ, but in our head ; that is, in arti
cles that are only opinions of the head. Not being in
the ministration of the Spirit, which is unity, love, gen
tleness and peace, and would thus melt us into a com
mon circle, through a common brotherhood of character,
we are in the ministration of opinion ; that is, of for
mulas, schools, and doctors, who have many heads, and
of course can make nothing but diversity and division.
(2.) We are unspiritual for the same reason. We do
not expect to live momentarily under the immediate
guidance of God. As we measure piety by formulas
and opinions, and put religion itself under their keeping,
so we expect, most of the time, to live in the life of
nature. We only expect to relapse, or fall back a little
into the dominion of the Spirit, on Sundays, and yet a
little further, when there is some special movement called
a revival of religion. I desire not to be uncharitable,
but it must be evident to all thoughtful observers, that
our modern piety, considering especially what works of
beneficence we have on hand, is marvelously unspiritual.
It has little depth or unction — no real intimacy .with
God ; but an air of lightness and outsideness rather, as
if it were wholly of ourselves, not a life of God in the
soul. Even in the highest scenes we have of religious

A PARTIAL REMEDY. 293
attention or excitement, there is a show of rawness
and passion, as if we had more of ourselves in exercise
than we know how to manage. Then, again, (3.) this
subjection to dogma is quite too visibly a subjection, not
of ourselves only, but also of the Spirit in us. It is mar
velous, that in the highest tides of spiritual exercise
we know, our demonstrations are molded still so exactly
by our formulas and those of our sect. Thus a Meth
odist revival will go on visibly in the method of
Wesley ; a Congregational under the Cambridge, or
Saybrook Platform. In both, the Spirit will ere long
give way, and Wesley and the Platforms will be all that
is left. These will be constant, the Spirit occasional ;
for to be in the Spirit is not our law, but to be in our
school ; and it will be this, (not the Spirit,) that will be
accepted always to teach us the things that are freely
given to us of God. Again, (4.) note as another con
sequence of mischief, the desolating sweep of scepti
cism, connected with the Protestant church, and moving
in parallel lines with it. If religion is, first of all, a doc
trine, a formula, something worked out by the school,
then, of course, let the school work, and the doctors man
ufacture opinions as industriously as possible. Learning,
logic, ingenuity, audacity, here is a field for all. Hence
rationalism, filling the sky of Germany with darkness,
and hiding the sun Luther once looked upon, so that it
can scarcely be seen longer. And as the same causes
have the same effects, so we are destined to experience
the same shade of obscuration here, unless we can let
go the reign of dogma and ascend into the life of the
Spirit. Then we may dare, with Christ, to declare that
25*

294 THE REVIVING CF REVIVALS
these pearls are not for swine, and if they are truly
pearls to us, the world can never destroy their value.
Natural reason is impotent against a Christianity that is
spirit and life. But, if the defenders of the gospel offer
it, first of aU, as a book of articles, it will not be strange
if, when they have separated the Life, it is unable to
live. I bring you thus to the very point where we now are,
and where Protestant Christendom is. And here I rejoice
to find a great many of our truly Christian ministers and
brethren questioning, sighing, praying for the reviving
of revivals. Conscious of the mournfully low state of
religion, the growth of worldliness, the want of godliness,
the decay of ministerial force, and the afflicting signs of
a delicate and earthly spirit in the ministry — afflicted by
this, as every Christian heart properly should be, they lift
their voices in the pulpit, on the platforms, and in the
religious newspapers, calling upon us to arise and seek
unto God for the renewing of those scenes of fervor and
Christian power which they remember in former years.
They see no hope, save in the restoration of those opera
tions which have had effect heretofore. They reprove
us for the delicate or fastidious spirit we manifest. They
tell us, kindly, that God will not do things according to
our tastes and fashions, that we must have protracted
exercises, and not scruple to enlist evangelists, and set on
foot those religious measures which the distinguished
operators of former times found to be so effective.
I accept these remonstrances, with that respect which
is due to the Christian anxieties in which they emanate,
but they seem to propose a remedy quite too slight for

INSUFFICIENT 295
our disease. A mere reviving of revivals does not reach
our case, and I do not expect that they ever will be re
vived, unless it be with such modifications of manner
and spirit as to produce a different class of manifesta
tions, and fill a different place in the practical dispen
sations of religion.
God never restores an old thing, or an old state. If
he produces something that has resemblance to an old
state, it will yet be different. If he brings us up, at last,
out of dogma, and sect, and mutual judgments of each
other, and worldly living, into the ministration of the
Spirit, we shall not be there as the apostles and first
Christians were, but we shall carry back all the wealth
of our bitter exercise with us. We shall be men of the
nineteenth century, not of the first — republicans, men of
railroads and commerce, astronomers, chemists, geolo
gists, and even rationalizers in the highest degree ; that
is, men who have reason enough to discover the insuffi
ciency of reason, the necessity of faith, and the certainty
that a soul must die into darkness when it is not in the
life and light of God. Let us not expect, then, that God
will restore revivals just as we have seen them. It is a
dull patient that expects always to be cured by the same
medicine. And why is it that these revivals are so long discon
tinued ? Have we not some evidence, in this fact, that
their force is spent ? Has not such a conviction come
upon us, in spite even of ourselves ? Did we not see them
go down, by gradations, into lower forms of exercise, and
show, both in the means devised to carry them on, and

296 THE REVIVING OF REVIVALS
also in their fruits, what we could look upon only as signs
of exhaustion ?
Besides, they manifestly do not belong to a really ripe
and true state of Christian living, but rather to a lower
state, which we ought even to hope may, at last, be dis
continued. They were throes, in one view, of disease ;
just as God works a diseased body into health by inter-
mittences of pain or fever. If the church were to abide
in the Spirit, as it certainly ought, for the promise of the
Comforter is that he shall abide with us, still I suppose
there would be changing moods and varieties of exercise,
though not any such alternations as these — alternations
between death and life, the spirit and the flesh. I make
no question that there will always be displayed in the
church scenes of variety or diversified impulse, times of
social movement and public exaltation, times of stillness
and privacy, times when the word preached will have its
effect more in one direction or more in another. We must
not require that the demonstrations made in religion
shall even be unexceptionable ; for when we come to
that, and are able to act without any symptom of
disease, it will be proved that we no longer want medi
cation under any system of exercise. But have we no
right to complain of these sharp alternations between
vitality and utter deadness ? Is it not plain that, under
this kind of regimen, we are even instigating disease ?
Are not the fruits we realize too visibly diseased them
selves, and is it not precisely this that we are now be
wailing ?
What, too, are we declaring, by our very sighs, unless
it be the fact that our revivals have brought us no such

INSUFFICIENT. 297
frilits of character, stability and spirituality, as we may
reasonably desire and ought, for the honor of the gospel, to
exhibit ? Is it wrong to believe that even these sighs them
selves are divinely instigated, and that, rightly interpreted,
they are yearnings, produced in us, after some better gift
which God is preparing to bestow ? For what, possibly,
has he allowed this long suspension, which many are now
deploring, but for this very purpose — to awaken in us
higher thoughts and prepare us for a new Christian era ?
What, possibly, is he now offering, if only we are ready
to receive it, but a grand inaugural of the Spirit through
out Christendom — an open day of life and love and spir
itual brotherhood, in which our narrow confines of
bigotry and prejudice shall be melted away, and all the
members of Christ's body, holding visibly the Head, shall
visibly own each other ; shining in the light, revealing
the spirit, co-operating in the works of Christ, and living
for the common object of establishing his kingdom ?
It is not for me to prophecy, nor do I pretend to pub
lish the secrets of God. But I think I see, by signs
which others may inspect as freely as I, that there is a
gift waiting for the church, If only she had room to re
ceive it. I can also see what most visibly we want.
We want, as the great Robinson believed, " more light to
break forth from God's holy word" — not from the for
mulas, or the catechisms, or the schools, or the doctors,
but from God's holy word; and especially from those
parts of the word which represent the Christian truth
as spirit and life, attainable only as our heart and spirit
are configured to it, and able to offer it that sympathy
which is the first condition of understanding — attainable

298 'THE REVIVING OF REVIVALS
only by such as are in the Spirit themselves. This will
bring a true reviving of religion— not sporadic manifest
ations of the Spirit here and there, now in one village or
town, now in another; not revivals, possibly, in the
plural, such as our friends and fathers stir us up to look
for, apparently not observing that, in this plural word,
they carry the implication that we are to look for suc
cessions here and there, in time as well as place, and, of
course, that we set out with the expectation of resting
ourselves by another relapse into deadness and sin, when
it is convenient. No, it will bring us what is more and
higher, an era of renovated faith, spreading from circle to
circle through the whole church of God on earth ; the
removal of divisions, the smoothing away of asperities,
the realization of love as a bond of perfectness in all the
saints. It will bring in such an era as many signs begin
to foretoken ; for it comes to me publicly, as relating to
bodies of Christian ministers, and circles of believers in
distant places, that they are longing for some fuller mani
festation of grace, and debating the possibility of another
and holier order of Christian life. It comes to me also
privately, every few days, that ministers of God and
Christian brethren, called to be saints, having no concert
but in God are hungering and thirsting after righteousness
in a degree that is new to themselves, daring to hope and
believe that they may be filled, testifying joyfully that
Christ is a more complete Saviour, and the manifestation
of God in the heart of faith, a more intense reality than
they had before conceived. Meantime, as we all know,
a feeling of fraternity is growing up silently, in distant
parts of the Christian world. Bigotry is tottering,

INSUFFICIENT. 299
rigidity growing flexible, and Christian hearts are yearn
ing, everywhere, after a day of universal brotherhood
in Christ Jesus. These are the signs we have before us.
It is in view of these that we are to form our expecta
tions ; also,- in part, that we are to shape our plans and
settle our Christian aims. Indeed, it is even a great
maxim of philosophy, that, when we see men wide
asunder, beginning to take up the same thoughts and fall
into the same sentiments, and that without concert or
communication, we are generally to believe that some
thing decisive, in that direction, is preparing ; for it is
the age that is working in them, or the God rather,
probably, of all ages ; and, accordingly, what engages so
many, at once, is only the quickening in them of that
seed, on whose stalk the future is to blossom.
Should we not, therefore, expect a gradual appearing
of new life, which years only can prepare ? Shall we
not even dare to spread our Christian confidences by
the measures of Providence, and, in this manner, take
up the hope that, when so many signs and yearnings meet
in their fulfillment, we may see a grand reviving of re
ligion, that shall be marked by no village boundaries, no
walls of sect or name, but shall penetrate, vivify, and
melt into brotherhood, at last, all who love our Lord
Jesus Christ on earth ?
In this protracted statement I have set forth what I
conceive to be our position, both as related to the past
and the future. If, as I have intimated, results of so
great consequence are hanging on the reduction or dis
placement of dogma, it becomes my duty, in the next

300 . DOGMA AND SPIRIT
place, to verify that conviction. And in order to this, I
must, first of all, endeavor to distinguish, as accurately as
possible, the true idea of dogma.
The word dogma literally means an opinion, but it is
almost uniformly understood to include something more,
viz., an authoritative force. We see this element con
spicuous in the word dogmatize, and it belongs historically
to the word dogma itself. Thus it was anciently used to
signify a decree, as when Csesar decreed the taxing.
The epistle sent out to quiet the churches, by the
meeting of the brethren at Jerusalem, was also called a
dogma, (Acts, xvi. 4.) where the term is used in a milder
sense to denote a basis which had been agreed upon
for the pacification of difficulties, and which, it was
hoped, would be generally respected. Paul uses the
word three times in his epistles, where it is translated
"ordinances;" — for example, when he speaks of "the
law of commandments contained in ordinances" — the
reference being, in this and the other cases, to that over
growth of opinions, speculations, and religious rescripts,
under which the doctrine of Moses had been hidden, and
in sweeping which away, Christ brought in, as we have
seen abeady, a new era of religious freedom and power.
When we speak of Christian dogmatics, or of dogmatic
theology, we associate the same idea of authority, in a
little milder sense, understanding some scheme or system
of religious opinion, propounded as a guide to others,
who are theologic pupils or Christian disciples. And
when we come to the testing of Christian character, or
to terms of fellowship, then it will be seen that our

DISTINGUISHED. 301
dogma, by whatever' name we call it, is taken to be a
fixed rule of authority, to all who are concerned.
Two elements, then, as I conceive, enter into the no
tion of dogma — first an opinion, which is some de
cision of natural judgment, or some merely theologic
conclusion. Secondly, the propounding or holding of
that opinion as a rule to the opinions, the faith, or the
Christian experience, whether of ourselves or of others.
It is also to be noted, in regard to the first named ele
ment, the opinion that enters into dogma, that it holds a
decided contrast with faith, heart, spirit, and life ; which
contrast also belongs, of course, to dogma.
An opinion is some result, which is prepared out
of the mere life of nature ; some perception, cogni
tion, or judgment, that we produced out of our natural
activity, as intelligent beings. But faith carries us
above nature, into apprehensions that transcend the reach
of mere natural judgments. Being that act in which a
man passes off his own centre, to rest himself practically
in God, it unites the soul to Him, and becomes, in that
manner, an experience of Him. In one view, faith is
grounded in evidence, but it also creates evidence, by
the realizations it makes of spiritual things. Hence it
is declared to be the evidence of things not seen, the sub
stance or substantiator of things hoped for. It is, in this
way, more than by all opinions, that we are able to give
reality to things invisible.
Opinion, too, is of the head ; it is the knowledge gotten
by thought and reflection. But there is also a knowledge
of God and Christian truth, which is of the heart ; for a
right sensibility is as truly perceptive as reason, and
26

302 DOGMA AND SPIRIT
there are many truths, of the highest moment, that can
never find us, save as we offer a congenial sensibility to
them. What is loftiest and most transcendent in the
character of God, his purity, goodness, beauty, and gentle
ness, can never be sufficiently apprehended by mere intel
lect, or by any other power than a heart configured to
these divine qualities. And the whole gospel of Christ
is subject, in a great degree, to the same conditions. It
requires a heart, a good, right-feeling heart, to receive so
much of heart as God here opens to us. Indeed, the gos
pel is, in one view, a magnificent work of art, a mani
festation of God which is to find the world, and move it,
and change it, through the medium of expression.
Hence it requires for an inlet, not reason or logic or a
scientific power, so much as a right sensibility. The
true and only sufficient interpreter of it is an esthetic
talent, viz., the talent of love, or a sensibility exalted and
purified by love. The expression is made, in part, to
mere natural feeling, such as is common to the race.
Hence it has a power to work on man at his lowest point
of character, and then, when his heart is engaged and
propitiated by the secular charities of Jesus, it is to be
transformed, regenerated, carried up into goodness,
and there introduced to the higher revelations and
knowledges of God, as set forth in his Divine Life.
Then it knows him. Blessed are the pure in heart for
they shall see God. It is not by opinion, but by love
that we most truly know God. If any man love God.
He is known of him. And he that loveth not, knoweth
not God, for God is love.
Opinion, also, is dark and feeble in the contrast of

DISTINGUISHED. 303
i
spirit and inspirations Christianity is called "spirit,"
partly because it can truly enter us and be apprehended
by us, only as we are in it and of it, and have its spirit
in us. The letter cannot teach it, words cannot tell us
what it is. We can never find it, or be found of it, tiU
we come up out of questions and constructions, into the
living spirit of Christ himself. It is also called ' spirit,'
in part and perhaps chiefly, because it is received and
receivable only through some concourse of God, or the
Spirit of God. The human soul under sin, or considered
simply as unreligious, is necessarily dark, because it is
divorced from God, by whose inbeing it was made to
have its light. It cannot make light, by opinions gotten
up in itself. Revolving God's idea, systematizing exter
nal cognitions, derived from his works, investigating the
historic evidences of Christ, his life, his doctrine — busied
in all such ways, it is rather creating darkness than light,
until it receives God, as an inner light, and knows him
by that spiritual manifestation within, which Christ
promised. This great truth is continually present in the teachings
of Christ and his apostles. If only Peter takes up the
beUef that he is the Messiah, the Saviour sees a discern
ment in him which is not of the man himself — a revela
tion. " Blessed art thou, Simon Bar Jona ; for flesh
and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father,
which is in heaven." Whenever his doctrine or parable
is understood, he sees an inner light of God in that un
derstanding. " Thou hast hid these things from the wise
and prudent, and revealed them unto babes." In the
same view, he promises the Comforter to his disciples,, as

304 DOGMA AND SPIRIT
an abiding teacher, who shall make what is now dark in
respect to him, as viewed by their mere understanding,
luminous and clear. They waited for him at Jerusalem
according to their Master's direction, and there it would
seem as if Christianity first dawned upon their concep
tions. Just there, we may say, Christianity, which
opinion could not reach, comes into sight, and Christ is
known as the Redeemer and Saviour of the race — the
Life of God manifested in the world.
Paul is continually setting forth Christianity, as a min
istration of the Spirit, in the same way. It is no judg
ment of the flesh, it is no wisdom of this world, it is not
the letter, but it is spirit and life — Christ dwelling in us.
In the second chapter of his first epistle to the Corinthians,
he is fuller and more definite than elsewhere, asserting
the great, and, as it seems to me, universal truth, that in
order to be known by us, God must live in us. He
does not mean to say that, up to a certain time, we are
incapable of knowing God, or understanding Christ, and
that then, being converted or having a new function
communicated, we are ever after able to understand him.
He only means to say that we never do, in fact, receive
the true sense of Christianity, save as we are spiritually
illuminated, and in the degree of that illumination. Our
theologians would have his true meaning, if they took
his words as intended for themselves ; to show them that
they will have the knowledge of Christ, not in debates
alone, not in articles, systems, and opinions, such as they
get up in the life of nature, but by the constant indwelling,
rather, and teaching of God's own Spirit. Would to
God he might be thus received ! and that we might all

DISTINGUISHED. 305
be able to say, with Paul, " Now we have received not
the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God,
that we might know the things that are freely given to us
of God." If, ceasing to be merely natural, we become
spiritual, in the true apostolic sense ; we shall discern, I
am sure, if not all things, many things that have as yet
been hidden from us.
There is yet another remarkable contrast between
opinion and life, which is seen in the fact that opinions
may be written down, or retained in the memory, while
the realizations of faith and love and spirit cease and dis
appear, as they themselves do, unable either to be retained
in the memory, or to be recalled, in any manner, after
wards. Spiritual truth dies with spiritual life. It is vital,
it is essential life in its own nature, and therefore must
be kept alive as it began to live, by an inward and im
mediate connection with God. Perhaps I shall come
nearest to an exact representation, if I say that spiritual
truth is God Himself, dwelling in the soul and manifested
there. This, it seems to me, is the clear implication of
John, when he represents the same truth just now asserted
from Paul, under the figure of an unction. " Ye have
an unction from the Holy One, and know all things — but
the anointing which ye have received of him, abideth in
you, and ye need not that any man teach you, but as the
same anointing teacheth you of all things, and is truth,
and is no lie, and even as it hath taught you, ye shall
abide in him." Here the implication is, that the know
ledge will abide, because the unction abides ; therefore,
no longer than the unction abides. And this, exactly, is
the experience of every unfaithful disciple. His light
26*

306 DOGMA AND SPIRIT
perishes with his love. AU his clear perceptions and
vivid realizations of God depart, and cannot be recalled.
Even the scripture that was light, grows dark again.
His opinions remain, but his soul, like a chamber shut up
at noon, is forthwith darkened, as soon as the daylight
of God is shut away.
It is thus made plain to us that the highest and only
true realizations of God are effected, not through
opinion, but through faith, right feeling, spirit, and life.
With these, mere opinion holds a very clear and distinct
contrast, and should manifestly occupy, under them, a
very inferior place. Now, opinion is one of the elements
of dogma, and therefore, dogma holds the same contrast,
and should hold the same place. But the other element
is authority, or a ruling power. Conceive opinion, then,
exalted to become a rule to faith, to the perceptive power
of love, to the teachings of the Spirit, and the realizations
of the life, — a measure, a guide, a standard, a rule of
judgment, a test of character, a term of fellowship — then
you have the proper conception of dogma. This, too, I
conceive, to be its proper meaning ; also, in common use,
its virtual meaning ; and, in this view, as it is found
exalting itself above faith and the Spirit, it must, in rever
ence, be rejected.
I said its virtual meaning. Perhaps 1 ought to raise
an express distinction here between its virtual and its
conscious or intended meaning ; for we certainly speak
of scientific and dogmatic theology, when we have no
thought of setting human speculations and opinions above
the liberty of the Spirit and the light of faith, and when,
in fact, we should heartily disclaim any such thought.

DISTINGUISHED. 307
Only it will generally turn out, after all, that we actually
have it ; for so deeply fixed is our traditional impression
that systematic divinity, school theology, or whatever we
call dogma, is to be the rule of our judgments and the guar
dian of our purity, that we never hesitate, in the church
or in the council, to try all subjects of belief, practice, or
character, by this standard— admitting no possibility that.
divine illumination may have assisted any disciple to
transcend it, and really assuming that we want no such
illumination ourselves, unless it be in the application of
our dogma to the question in hand.
Were it not for this virtual assumption of authority in
our school divinity, which makes it dogma, when really
no such thing is thought of as the subjection of faith and
spirit to the measures of opinion, it would be wholly
unnecessary to take any stand as against dogma. Un
doubtedly we have a right to investigate and form
opinions in matters of religion, as in reference to all
other subjects — a right, also, to assert and teach opinions
' — we only have not a right to make the life of nature and
our natural judgments a law to the inspirations of faith
and the realizations of God, in the hidden life of the
Spirit. Manifestly, opinions, taken as mere actings of
our intellectual nature, cannot compass matters of so
high a quality. We cannot, by any mere phosphores
cence of thought, throw out from within ourselves that
daylight which our soul desires, and which, in the mani
fested radiance of God, it may ever have. Neither is
that possible, which is continually assumed without, ap
parently, even the suspicion of a doubt, that theology1,
taken as a work of analysis and speculative generaliza-

308 DOGMA AND SPIRIT
tion, is competent to produce a body of judgments that
will be a true and proper science of God. If there is
ever to be anything produced here that can reasonably be
caUed a science, it will more resemble an experience than
the dry judgments and barren generalizations hitherto
called theology. To have science of a matter is to
know it, and there are many of the humblest babes of
faith, in corners of obscurity here and there, who really
know more, and have a truer science of God, than some
who are most distinguished among the Christian doctors.
- Besides, if we are ever to have any sufficient or
tolerably comprehensive theology, it can never be ma
tured, save through the medium of an esthetic elevation
in the sensibilities of our souls, which only the closest
possible union of the life to God can produce. For the
scriptures offer us the great truths of religion, not in
propositions, and articles of systematic divinity. They
only throw out in bold and living figures, often contrary or
antagonistic in their forms, the truths to be communicated,
Language is itself* an instrument, whoUy incapable of
anything more adequate. Therefore, what we want, in
the receiving of light from the seripture, is a living, ingen
uous, patient, pure sensibility — a heart so quickened by
the Spirit of God, as to be even delicately perceptive of
God's meaning in the readings and symbols he gives us.
And then, having gotten the truth, we want modesty
enough not to take our spiritual discernings into our
natural judgment, to be shaped and manipulated there^-
modesty enough not to assume that we can go beyond
the scriptures and body into science and fixed articles of
divinity, what they, for want of any sufficient medium,

DISTINGUISHED. 309
never attempted. So that, after all, our ripe comprehen
sive theology, when we find it, will be so convoluted
with spirit, and so mixed with faith, that it will be as
much a life, a holy breadth and catholicity of spirit, as a
theory. It will be as far from possible representation, in
any of the niggard forms of abstract science, or the
debated articles of school divinity, as can be conceived.
It is not my design, then, as you perceive, wholly to
discard opinion, science, systematic theology, or even
dogma in the best possible sense of the term. I would
only set the judgments of the natural life in their proper
place — or rather in a place that is not most improper ;
for, in proper truth, all the thinkings, judgments, ana
lyzings, opinions, and the faculties by which they are
wrought, should themselves be filled with the same quick
ening Spirit, and exalted by the same faith which animates
the heart ; with that, also, bathed in the radiance and in
dwelling light of God, so as to be themselves organs and
vehicles of essential truth and life. Then every faculty
is promoted, and the whole man becomes spirit, acting
not as in mere nature, but as in the life of God ; without
eagerness, partiality, prejudice, or care — acting as in
rest. And then it will be, not science, stretching itself
as before, to compass the unimaginable and infinite
worlds of faith, but science indeed, the quiet reading of
God through the heart. The noise and commotion
before made, in the busy clatter of opinions, ceases, and
the tumult is heard no more. We dwell in the light, in
the stillness, so to speak, of the light of God ; for light is
a silent element — all vivacity, another name for motion,
but silent.

310 THE PROVINCE AND USES
But it is not in this highest, truest state of spiritual
life and union to God, that the gospel finds us. Our
faith is imperfect, only initiated, possibly not even' that;
and since the world we live in, too, is full of false learn
ing, corrupt opinion, and deceitful pretenses of know
ledge, we must be allowed to cultivate theology, with
what measures of grace we have, and struggle up through
our imperfect mixtures of natural judgment and spiritual
discernment, into the full day of light and love. Though
our theologies and opinions and supposed scientific con
clusions, in as far as they are of the mere life of nature,
have no more of authority, and are no more entitled to a
Christian standing than our speculations in geology, they
have yet a far higher consequence, because they are re
lated to matters of graver import, and are sure to be
connected with results of deeper consequence.
That I may produce a just impression of my subject,
and deliver it of any appearance of partiality or extrava
gance, let me enumerate, here, some of the uses that are
served by Christian theories, and the scientific forms of
truth elaborated by the Christian symbols, and teachers.
In the first place, they have an immense pedagogic
value. I mean, by this, that, like the old system of
Moses, they are schoolmasters to bring us to Christ.
Doubtless they often deserve, and with much greater
emphasis, to be called " beggarly elements," yet there are
uses to be served by them still. The world is not in- the
spirit, but in the life of nature. There it must be met,
and somewhat on its own level. If it were addressed
only out of the inner light, and in terms of the highest

OF CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY. 311
and purest Christian experience, it would be no better
than if it were called in an unknown tongue. But Chris
tian theology comes to it, with a view or theoretic out
line of the gospel, which is itself made up, for the most
part, speculatively, within the life of nature. It enters
into their thinking power, and begins a motion there.
If it is lame, in itself, as all systems are, still it will have
a value. Probably it will have some connection with
the age, and will set forth Christ, in a scheme of thought
that has some reference to the present habit and want.
In this way, Christianity gets into the mental system of
the world, and, through that, into the heart. A good
scheme is far better than a bad, but even a bad will be
better than none at all ; for if Christianity were known
and presented only from the point of highest spiritual
experience, it would never find a place of contact ; there
fore, no place to begin its regenerative work. And yet,
there is more of the true light of Christ in one hour of
highest communion with him, than the best scheme of
theological opinions has ever been able to offer.
A similar and very important influence is exerted by
the catechetic discipline of children, or their exercise in
Christian doctrine. Here might seem, at first view, to
be one place, where dogma, in its proper sense of au
thority, is appropriate. But it will be found, after all,
that the soul of a child will not be fastened to Christ by
spikes of dogma driven by parental authority. The
truest power of discipline is that which is most divine,
the fragrance of a divine life filling the house. Still
there is wanted a human view of Christ and his truth, a
conception of principles, opinions, and, to some extent, of

312 THE PROVINCE AND USES
theoretic matter, which, if they are catechetically given,
will work in the childish mind as moving powers of
thought, and so, as preparatives and grounds of a true
Christian faith.
Secondly, there is an instinct of system in our nature,
which must have its liberties and opportunities in religion
as in all subjects. Our mind adheres to unity, demand
ing that aU events and opinions shall conform to system
and support, as a whole, what we sometimes call the
unity of reason. Hence we are continually drawing our
knowledges, consciously or unconsciously, toward unity;
and if we succeed but poorly in our attempts, the little
success we have comforts us, and our endeavor comforts
us much more. Manifestly it is wholly impossible for us,
in the mere life of nature, and by force of opinion, to
grasp the universe of religion, and mold it into the
system of a science. Still, if only we set the world
pulling at these high themes by guesses and yearnings
after knowledge, they may possibly draw themselves up,
at last, by God's help, into those higher realizations which
are fitly called science. I suppose it has been generally
observed, that curiosity abates when faith enters, and that
the instinct of system lulls in its activity, as spiritual life
quickens in the soul. And the reason seems to be that,
when it is connected thus with the life of God, and receives
him in his power, it virtuaUy receives all system— even
the true system of God Himself, and has it, by a sense
deeper than consciousness, or at least, in a manner that
is beyond definite conception. It has the sympathetic
touch, if I may so speak, of all things, and blesses itself in
the sense of a unity vaster than thought can reach.

OF CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY. 313
And it will be seen that, in this view, scientific theology
stimulates the soul in reaching after God. It is the
alphabet in which nature begins to stammer; which
exercises and also exasperates her curious impulses, pre
paratory to a true knowledge of God in His fullness.
Thirdly, there is a value in scientific theology, consid
ered as a speculative equipment, for meeting the assaults
of unbelief, false learning and scepticism. I am well
aware of the unfruitfulness of mere polemic argumenta
tions with infidels and sceptios. Few are the cases
where such argumentations have produced conviction,
and led to a hearty embrace of Christ. And yet there
is an effect of inestimable value, one remove farther off,
and more general, viz., in the impression produced, that
Christianity has something to say, that it can take its
place on a level even with science, and stand scrutiny
there, holding its ground invincibly against all opponents.
Were it not for this, had it nothing to speak of but expe
riences and spiritualities, it would be disrespected by the
uninitiated, as a scheme that, begins and ends in unintel
ligible vagaries.
Fourthly, Christianity must be handled under forms of
science and speculation, because in that manner only can
it form a valid connection with truths of fact and
philosophy. Christianity does not come into the world
armed against all other knowledge, to destroy it. It
claims, on the contrary, its right to possess and appropri.
ate and melt into unity with itself, all other truth; for
whatever truth there is in the universe belongs to the
Lord of Christianity, and holds a real consistency, both
with him and it. Therefore Christianity must open its
27

314 PROVINCE AND USES
bosom, bring its holy affinities into play, repel the false,
attract the true, and gather to its poles all particles of
knowledge and science, as the loadstone gathers the
particles of iron. Hence Christianity feU.into immediate
contact with all human philosophies and opinions, and a
process of attrition began, in which it was, at last, to wear
itself into union with all real truth. The same process is
now going on between Christianity and the revelations of
science. Thus, for example, it was seriously apprehended
that the modern doctrines of astronomy would make as
great havoc of Christianity, as they certainly did of
many of the church dogmas. But the God of Calvary
and of the firmament, the love of one and the grandeur of
the other, are gradually melting into union. We have
-still immense masses of theologic rubbish on hand, which
belong to the Ptolemaic system, huge piles of assumption
about angels that have never sinned and angels that
have, about other worlds and the reach of Christ's
atonement there, which were raised up, evidently, on
the world, when it was flat, and must ultimately disap
pear, as we come into a more true sense of the astro-
"nomic universe. So, also, geology, opening to view new
conceptions of the cosmogony of the universe, is destined
gradually to assimilate with the Christian truth and be
come a part of it. For, as God is one, he is sure, at last,
to be found in agreement with himself. And then we
shall know the Christian truth as much more perfectly,
as we better conceive the truth of things. Science
without, will favor simplicity and rest within. As the
idols of superstition or false science are displaced, as the
range of intellection is broader and more clear, Chris-

OF CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY. 315
tianity will better know her place, her office, and her
nature. And if she has many times been corrupted and
shackled by the false wisdom of man, she will emerge, at
last, in the strength and freedom of her youth, as much
more at home in the broad universe of her Lord, as much
readier to fulfill a mission of victory and grandeur, as she
better knows herself and the orbit in which she moves.
Once more, considering that Christian character is
imperfect, liable to the investigation of passion, to be
overheated in the flesh and think it the inspiration of
God, Christian theology and speculative activity are
needed as providing checks and balances for the life, to
save it from visionary flights, erratic fancies, and wild
hallucinations. It was partly for the want, I suppose, of
some such influence as this, that Papias, Tertullian,
Irenaeus, the sober Clement, even, and a large class of the
early teachers ran into so many absurd and fanciful
errors. The intellectual life needs to be kept in high
action, else, under pretense of living in the Spirit, we are
soon found living in our fancies and our passions — just
as the kite rises gracefully and sleeps in equipoise on the
upper air, only in virtue of a pull upon the cord below ;
and if it be maintained that the cord only pulls downward,
and not upward, it does yet hold the bosom of the paper
voyager to the breeze, without which it would soon be
pitching in disorderly motions to the ground. It appears,
in other words, that we have two distinct methods of
knowledge, a lower method in the life of nature, and a
higher, in the life of faith. Therefore, we are not to set
them in mutual opposition, as has generally been done
heretofore, by the rationalists on one side, and the mys-

316 THE PROVINCE AND USES
tic on the other ; but we are to assume that a healthy
working of our religious nature is that which justifies
uses, exercises, all. Regarding the realm of reason, and
the realm of faith, as our two Houses of Assembly, we
are to consider nothing as enacted into a law, which has
not been able to pass both houses. For if a man will
reduce all religious truth to the molds and measures of
"the natural understanding, receiving nothing by faith,
which transcends the measures of the understanding, he
acts, in fact, upon the assumption that he has no heart ;
and as he cannot perceive, by the understanding, what
lis perceivable only by the faith ¦ of the heart, he
/ignores all living truth, and becomes a sceptic or a
J rationalist. If, on the other hand, what power of reason
or science he had is wholly disallowed and renounced, so
as to operate a check no longer on the contemplations of
faith, or assist in framing into order the announcements
of feeling, then faith and feeling are become a land of
dreams, and the man who begun as a Christian, ends as
a mystic. Faith must learn to be the light of nature,
nature to apply her cautions and constraining judgments.
The heart and the head must be as two that walk
together, never so truly agreed as when they agree to
help each other.
Accordingly, it is one of the chief problems of Chris
tianity to settle the true relationship of reason and faith,
the truth of reason and the truth of the life — great and
truly magnificent problem, in the working of which all
the past ages of the church have, under God, been
engaged. To settle this, and bring us out, at last, into a
true and healthy conception of the natural and the

OF CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY. 317
spiritual, as related one to the other, seems to me to be
the real burden of the past history of the church. For if
the descent into dogma, of which I have spoken, has
been .a most sorrowful experience, which few will be
able to deny — if it has even been a faU, answering, in one
view, to the first fall of" the race, still this experience, this
fall, it were even wrong not to believe, will at last turn
out for the furtherance of the gospel. God suffers no
barren experience — this will not be such. On the con
trary, if we are to return, as I fervently hope, to the
simple life-giving truths of the first teachers, we must ex
pect to go back enriched by this dark experience. Indeed,
those eminent disciples who have risen up, here and
there, to recall us to the simple, original truth of Christ,
seem to me to have failed, on this very account, that they
have had no sufficient perception of the benefits to be
received from this exercise of man upon the Christian
truth. And so, beginning an unreasonable war upon the
uses of reason, they have failed, of necessity. Contrary
to this, it is my hope, that God is about to bring us back
to the original, simple age of spirit and life, and yet, in
such a way, that we shall have our benefit in what we
have suffered, and shall see that all the sorrows we have
passed through, and the confusions we have wrought,
were necessary, in a sense, to the complete intelligence
and final establishment of the church.
Let us turn our thoughts, now, for a few moments, in
this direction, inquiring how and why it was that the
church made her lapse into dogma, and glancing at some
27*

318 CAUSES OF THE
of the happy results that are to follow, when she emerges
and resumes her true position.
The discontinuance of the spiritual gifts and prodigies
of the apostolic age, necessitated a remarkable change
in the action of the church. While those gifts continued,
the external life of religion was so strikingly set off by
wonders as to hold the mind to itself, and detain it, in a
great measure, from speculation, as well as from the
more reflective and philosophic forms of thought. In
deed, the church was beginning to regard the outward
gifts, not as the signs only of an inward agency, for-
which purpose they were added, but as being in them
selves the substantial import of the Spirit. Hence
it was necessary that they should be discontinued.
Now, therefore, begins a struggle. Henceforth the disci
ples know nothing of the Spirit but by his invisible work
in the heart. Accordingly, their minds are invaded by
endless questions. They begin to reason. They invent
opinions. They mix in theories. They draw out propo
sitions. They run the Christian truth, in short, into aU
the shapes suggested to their thoughts, or gendered by
their prurient fancy. It could not weU have been other
wise. For a pure doctrine of spirit and life, dropped
into the mind of a creature half in the spirit and half
in the flesh, manifestly could not, be held, so that nothing
from the side of the flesh should mix with the side of
the spirit, to corrupt its simplicity and deform its truth.
As the gospel extended its sway and became familiar
ized to men, a more worldly and less intensely Christian
spirit began to appear in the church; and it will
always be observed that, as the activity of faith and

LAPSE INTO DOGMA. 319
spirit declines, the activity of the flesh and of dogma
increases. When the disciple is filled with love, he
hardly knows what to do with dogma ; but if the fund
of love is spent or exhausted, he wants a large supply
of it, and probably some very stiff wars to maintain
for it besides ; for when the activity of spirit fails, the
activity of nature, including the will and the passions
and even the muscular parts, is needed to supply the
defect. Just here, too, Christianity was coming into contact
with the Greek philosophy, which exasperated the same
evil tendency ; for the Greek philosophy was a wisdom
in the life of nature — all opinion, doctrine, dogma — uni
versally admired, a name for scholarship itself, and all
elegant learning. Many persons have wondered why, or
in what manner, Christianity became so intensely doc
trinal or dogmatic ; for they discover no such character in
the teachings, whether of Christ or his apostles ; but the
fact is easily explained, when once it is recollected that
the Greek learning or wisdom, which is nothing but a
body of natural judgments and opinions, emptied itself
into the bosom of the Christian church, and gave it a
character. Nothing met the Greek mind which was
not doctrine. Opinions, dialectic arguments decided
all questions. Christianity, therefore, to meet such a
disposition, must take on the Socratic method, draw out
her contents into dialectic articles, and set herself be
fore men to be accepted, not as Christ, not as the in
carnate Life, but as doctrine.
Precisely here, too, Christianity rises into power, and
becomes a state religion. The -bishops go up into dio-

320 R E S U L T ING BENEFITS
cesan eminence, as piety and truth go down. Under
standings are formed between them and the civil power,
and mutual stipulations are entered into* these to
support the state, the state to support their ecclesiastical
pretensions, and enforce their favorite dogmas by the
civil arm. Christianity spirit, and life, the mild and
peaceful message of God's love to men, hardened thus
into dogmas, dogmas into swords, and the swords, having
each a cutting edge, hewing its way into the necks and
the blood of human beings, became fit symbols of the
awful transformation that must follow, when the natural
life displaces the spiritual, and opinion, sharpened by the
stern sanctions of religion, is exalted into law. Thus it
was that Christianity became so intensely doctrinal — this
was the fall of the churclvinto dogma. . It is a melan
choly sight ; but in what manner it could have been pre
vented I do not see. Most Christians of our age sup
pose, I believe, that we are quite cured of this disaster — in
which they mistake as badly as it is possible.
But the cure is to come — it is partially wrought
already. We no more look upon it as Christian to make
opinions draw blood, but we hold them still as rules of
judgment and terms of fellowship, in a sense almost as
absolute as ever. This error also must be cleared, and
then, when the church ascends again into the realm of
love and life, it will be seen, as I firmly believe, that
these long ages of trial and darkness have peaceable
fruits of righteousness to yield us at the last.
Most obviously it was necessary, not only that the
gospel should be set forth positively, as spirit and life, but
that all the negatives round about should also be set forth.

OF THE SAME. 321
In order to have an exact, definite conception of the'
Christian truth, we must know as well what it is not, as
what it is — know it in contrast with what it is not.
Thus we have, in the first age, not a trinity, but simply
Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. But how can we ever
conceive, at all, what this means, until we are shown
what it does not mean ? And then, to show us this, it is
necessary that somebody should rise up in the world and
assert that it means something which it does not — three
metaphysical persons, three beings, for example, existing
on terms of society. Then, perhaps, another somebody
— some Patripassian, or Arian, for example — not satisfied
with this, must be allowed to come forward with his
better view. And then, after speculation has fully ex
hausted her resources, we may be able to come back, and
say, Father, Son and Holy Ghost, knowing, not only,
that we mean something by the words, but (which is a
great deal,) exactly what we do not mean by them.
And that will be enough, it may be, to steady and com
fort us in the great and Holy Three, as the God of our
worship, forever. That we can ever exactly measure
God, or the divine three, so as to comprehend them in a
positive knowledge, is obviously impossible. Therefore,
to have settled what is not the truth, may quiet our spec
ulative difficulties, and set us, ever after, in a condition
of intelligent repose. So, in regard to the doctrine of
atonement, of the Holy Spirit, of depravity and regener
ation, it is of immense consequence to have found out
exactly what is not true. And here it is that ration
alism, is found to be doing a work of mournful, yet im
mense practical consequence to religion. It produces

322 RESULTING BENEFITS
continually, new forms of thought— in one view, new
religions. These are generally more negative than posi
tive ; still, they are claimed to be positive. Then, being
set on foot, we are to see what is in them. Thus, if any
false doctrine of Christ, or atonement, is advanced, a
difficulty will at last be encountered, the machine will
not go. It may be a very plausible, very reasonable
looking machine, but it will not go. Churches will not
live to hold it or ministers to preach it ; therefore it dies.
Then we know, by experiment — a very important experi
ment it is — that this is not the living truth. Now, all
these knowledges of what the truth is not, were undis
covered to the men of the first age. " It was necessary
that the human understanding should go to work, try its
hand upon the truth, bring out its dogmas or opinions,
and let the world see them die. Then it is visible to all
men what the truth is not ; and then the simple living
truth of God, offered to our faith, surrounded by the dead
births of folly, looks more divinely clear and lovelier to
our hearts.
We receive the same truth, under a somewhat different
form, if we contemplate Christianity as ordained of God
for the expurgation, at last, of all error — entering the
world, therefore, as a power antagonistic to all error, and
armed at all points for the deadly grapple. Only, when
we speak in these warlike figures, we must not imagine
a certain army, called the truth, drawn up fronting a cer
tain army, called error. The battles of truth are not
waged in this manner. The difficulty is to find out.
error — that, in fact, is the war ; for when error is once
revealed and known, it dies itself. Hence, it was the

OF THE SAME. 323
great problem of God to make all error reveal itself;
that is, to make all the oblique and false seeing opinions
of man disclose themselves. And this they would best do,
only as we took the gospel into our own hands, to handle
it in our own way, and try our own wisdom upon it.
First, God reveals the Christian truth ; then man, begin
ning to work upon God's truth, bringing it under his own
theories, measuring it in dogmas shaped by his natural
understanding, makes the revelation of error. Every
infirmity of reason is displayed, every perverse temper*
colors some opinion to be its visible representative. The
ambition, the pride, and even the devilish cruelty of man
— all are brought forth into dogma, and are seen assuming,
one after another, some theologic shape, ugly enough to
represent their detestable origin. And thus it is that all
error is to appear and die out in the handling of God's
truth. Thus men shall try at the gospel, and try out the
poisonous errors by which their human wisdom would
mend it. It goes into mixture and solution with all
their human thoughts and theories, to form its own
nucleus and crystalize, at last, all truth and science
about itself. And so, every controversy, council and
burning, down to the present moment, has been either
the winnowing out, or what is not far different, the
revealing and acting out of some error. Heresies are
most commonly the counterpoints of heresy, and the
resulting motion, generated between them, is an almost
certain approach towards the Christian truth. Accord
ingly, the eyes of men are now being turned, as never
before, towards the hope of some new catholic age, where
spirit and faith, having gotten their proper realm, clear

324 RESULTING BENEFITS
of adverse possession, shall be able to abide there in God's
simple light, to range it in liberty, and fill it with love.
Nor let any one doubt the possibility of such an issue
to the agonies of the church. AH such distrust is carnal,
and pusillanimous. Truth is omnipotence — a slow om
nipotence, I grant, but yet omnipotence. It runs through
churches, men, and empires, with a galvanic current,
only with a different celerity — sometimes, too, as we have
seen of late, with an almost galvanic eelerity. No power
of man can raise an impassable barrier against it, or do
anything more than to offer some false argument, whose
point shall receive the charge, and be shivered in its
passage. Bayonets it will as easily shiver. Some think
despairingly of truth, because she seems, at times, to
have been so long disarmed and trampled on. Never
was she disarmed, never was there an hour in which she
has not been hastening to victory. Her dark ages, as we
call them, were only her dark arguments. Her penal
fires and dungeons have been the victory of her patience.
And now she is coming forth, I trust, out of her tribula
tion, to speak to a world, whose centuries of woe have, at
last, opened its ears. The long night we have passed
was itself but the death-scene of error, in which truth,
behind her veil, stood jubilant, in the brightness of an
angel. Such, I conceive, are some of the uses that have been
served by Christian dogmatism. Most bitterly has the
church suffered, and yet her pains have been salutary 
pains, I may say, of birth. She forsook her simplicity,
and went after wisdom ; she tried to get the spirit into
the letter ; she asked the natural man to tell her of Christ,

OF THE SAME. 325
and explain the life of faith in the terms of reason.
Dreadful was the confusion that followed. She took hell
into her bosom, and fanned the fire with her prayers, till
the fuel was exhausted. And now, at last, when the
fires are going out, and she begins to find herself
encrusted all over, in the cooling, with a dry cinder of
dogma, she thinks again of the Life, and the times of
her first liberty, and hears a gentle voice of chiding at
her heart, — " O, foolish Galatians, who hath bewitched
you ! Having begun in the spirit, are ye now made per
fect by the flesh !"
Reviewing, now, the ground over which we have
passed, you will see that in the opening of my discourse,
I set forth the hope of a new religious era, or great and
true reviving of religion, to be produced by a general dis
placement of dogma and the restoration of the church
to the simple, life-giving spirit of the apostolic age.
Next, I endeavored to exhibit the distinction existing be
tween dogma and spirit, or science and faith. Then I
spoke of the uses of religious opinions and systems, or
of theological science. Lastly, to fill out the true theo
retic conception of the subject, I spoke of the causes
under which the church lapsed into dogma, and the
advantages she will have gained when she emerges from
it. It now remains, neglecting logical distribution, to
offer some thoughts on a series of promiscuous topics,
practically related to the subject ; such as will show us
where we now are, also by what method we may best.
escape the oppressive dominion of dogma, and find our
28

326 THEOLOGICAL CAPACITIES
way back into the genuine apostolic liberty of spirit
and life. And —
1. It needs, at the present time, to be a leading topic
of inquiry among religious teachers, and especially in
our schools of theology, what are the capacities of scien
tific or proposltional theology, which, for the sake of
brevity, and without any reference to the matter of
authority, we will call dogma ? There is no other point
in the whole field of Christian inquiry, where so much
light is to be expected, and so much impulse given to
the cause of Christ in the earth, as here. The questions,
too, that are here at hand, waiting for light, are some of
the deepest and gravest ever offered to human considera
tion. They are such as these : —
_ (1 .) Whether the scriptures embody any proper sys
tem of dogmatic theology ; and, if not, whether it is be
cause this particular work, regarded now as a work of
highest moment, was necessarily reserved, or kept back
from inspiration, that it might be more adequately done
by the science of the natural understanding, and the
higher constructive wisdom of Christian philosophy?
(2.) Whether human language is an instrument capable of
embodying, in propositions and forms of definition, any
proper system of Christian truth ? (3.) How far religion
is poetic, addressing itself to the imagination, in distinction
from the understanding — requiring, of course, a sancti
fied and spiritually elevated imagination, to conceive if. ?
(4.) How far it is a matter of feeling, addressing itself to
an esthetic power in the soul — perceived and perceivable
only through a heart of regenerated sensibility ; one that
is quickened into vitality, and even rendered delicately

OF DOGMA. 327
pure, by a life of protracted, secret intimacy with God ?
(5.) Whether truths that come to us in the realms of im
agination and feeling, and so enter as powers of life into
our religion, can be presented in the forms of logic, or in
speculative propositions ? (6.) Why dogma has hitherto
been so remarkably unsuccessful, and whether, if we
admit some progress in theological science, it has not
been very exactly proportioned to the relaxations of
dogmatic rigor, and the approaches made toward spir
itual freedom in the church at large ? (7.) How much
dogma is worth as a test of character ? (8.) Whether true
science is not experimental, whether prayer is not more
experimental than speculation, and whether it is so be
cause we are most logical and most dogmatic in prayer ?
(9.) Whether dogma has been, as we continually hear, a
bond of unity, and a safeguard of purity in religion ?
(10.) Whether it is not possible to be very much dis
tinguished in systematic theology, and yet know very
ittle, have but a. very faint conception of Christ and
Christian truth? Other questions of equal pertinence
and importance will be found lying in the same field.
But in the proper handling of these ten, there is work
prepared for a life. And if any young candidate for the
ministry could sufficiently answer these questions, I am
free to confess that I should take it as a better proof of
his fitness to preach Christ to men, than I should if he
were fluently prepared in almost any scheme of school
divinity. 2. It appears evident to me that we embrace a very
great and truly unchristian error, in holding the relative
estimate we do of the head and the heart. When we

328 THE HEAD
speak of talent, ministerial talent for example, how gen
erally is it estimated by the head. How extensively is
our judgment of Christian character itself suspended on
the question of mere opinions and theoretic beliefs. We
seem also to imagine, which is worse than all, that the
head is to take care of the heart, the opinions to regulate
the faith — that we are first to fill the head or natural un
derstanding with articles and dogmas, and then that the
head is to shape the experience of the life, and even to
N be a law to the working of the Spirit. Exactly this, in
deed, when baldly stated, is the theory of Christian edu
cation held by many parents. True Christianity holds a
very different opinion. It teaches that out of the heart are
the issues of life ; that God hath given us light in the
face of his Son, by shining into our heart ; that heresies
themselves belong to the natural understanding ; and
that only the pure in heart can behold the face of God.
Let the second chapter also of the first epistle to the
Corinthians be studied, and it will open a deeper and
vaster revelation still. Holding these representations in
view, it is very clear, I think, that there is something
great in the world besides understanding — another
talent, a higher and more Christian. And so much is
there in this, I am free to say, that if I were to choose
a preacher for myself, holding the question as a mere
question of talent, I should first of all inquire into the
talent of his heart, whether that light is in him which
shines only into the heart ; and then, a long time after,
I would begin to inquire after his capacities of science,'
speculation, understanding, in a word, his head.
In this matter of head and heart, you may figure the

AND THE HEART. 329
head or understanding, it seems to me, as being that
little plate of wood hung upon the stern of the vessel, that
very small helm by which the ship is turned about
whithersoever the governor listeth. But the heart is the
full deep body of the ship itself, with its sails lifted to the
breath of a divine inspiration, containing in itself the
wealth, the joy, and all the adventuring passions, wants,
and fears of the soul. In a certain superficial sense,
you may say that the helm is everything, because, by
that, so great a body is so bravely steered and turned
about in the sea. And the man at the helm may fancy,
too, that he is the moving and directing cause of all.
But look again, and you shall see how foolish a thing this
little piece of wood may be ; for when the wind sleeps,
when the great heart of the ship receives no inspiring
breath, then how idly does it swing from side to side,
as a vain and silly thing. It is by the love of the heart
only that we know God. Here is all inspiration, all true
motion and power. And when the great heart of faith
is not parting the waves of life before it, and rushing on
to its haven, the busy understanding is but a vain and
idle thing, swinging round and round with an addled
motion, whose actions and reactions are equal, and
which, therefore, profit nothing.
O, what momentum, and power, and grandeur will
Christianity reveal when a true Pauline devotion to
God is kindled in the whole church, when the opinions
of the head cease to be supreme, when the petty tyranny
pf formulas and dogmas falls back, dethroned, and the
full living heart of the church is offered, without sub
traction, to the occupancy of Christ and the power of
28*

330 THE CHRISTIAN
his cross ! Every thing Christ-like is made little in us
now — chilled, straitened, pinched by the usurpations
of the head ; or, what is the same, by the debating,
judging, rationalizing industry of our human wisdom,
which, in God's opinion, is only foolishness. This brings
me to speak —
3. Of insufficient views now held concerning the
Christian ministry, which manifestly need to be cor
rected, and must be, before the full power of preaching
can be realized. It is not to be disguised, that, with
the immense benefits resulting from theological semina
ries, and from none more emphatically than from this,
there have also been connected some pernicious results,
which time only could develop. They are such, in
great part, as result from the assembling of a large body
of young men in a society of their own, where they
mingle, exhibit their powers one to another, debate
opinions, criticise performances, measure capacities,
applaud demonstrations of genius, talk of places filled
by others, and conjecture, of course, not seldom, what
places they may be called to fill themselves. They are
thus prepared to exhibit Christ scholastically, rhetorically,
dogmatically — too often ambitiously, too seldom as spirit
and life. Perhaps it is only by sore mortification and
the stern discipline of defeat or diminishing repute, that
they will, at last, be humbled into the true knowledge
of Christ, and prepared to bear his cross.
I may speak the more freely on this subject here,
because there is no reason to suspect that what I may
say has any special application. I am also moved by
the conviction that, if any great reviving of religion is

MINISTRY. 331
to be prepared, any more fruitful era of Christian piety
introduced, it will be seen, first of all, as I trust it
begins to be already, in the kindling of a new fire in
our schools of theology. Rejoicing, also, as I do, in the
more perfect intellectual discipline, the more elevated
scholarship, the personal refinements of taste and char
acter produced in our schools of theology, and deeming
these improvements necessary even to the advancing
Wants of American society, I am the more encouraged
to speak of defects that appear in connection with these
benefits. Two great truths of the highest practical import, need
to be set in the mind of all students of theology and all
preachers of Christ, as probably they never have been,
since theology began to be attempted.
First, that no man really knows Christ, or can learn,
or be taught the Christian truth, who is not in the spirit
of Christ. If he cannot say, " Christ liveth in me," not
even a thousand years of study will give him any proper
conception of the Christian plan. Words cannot bring
it into the heart, dogma cannot give it in the dry light of
reason. The mere natural understanding, fruitful as it
may be in formulas about God, can as little see Him, as
a telescope can overtake Him in the sky, or a microscope
detect His retreating into the mites of the world. He
must be in the soul, in His own self-evidence ; present to
faith, embraced by love. Or, if we speak of Christ more
especially, or his work, here again, he that believeth hath
the witness in himself— only he. We must be crucified
with him, rise with him, abide in his peace, feed upon
him as our bread, or else we know him not. All these

332 THE CHRISTIAN
high matters belong to the life, and it is the pure heart
only, the simple, beheving, divinely illuminated heart,
that can ever know them. Spiritual things must be
spiritually discerned. We can know the things that are
freely given to us of God, only as Paul knew them—-
by the Spirit that is of God. Therefore it is not in
lectures or in books, not in exegetic or dogmatic disci
pline, not in any and all other methods, so truly as in the
elevations of prayer, and the inbreathings or inspirations
of God, that a human soul may be truly initiated into
the life and doctrine of Christ. Theology, so called, can
really import into the soul none of the things of Christ,
or anything more than simply the shadows and images
of them.
Instead, therefore, of spending the time, or so great a
part of it, in collecting knowledges, trying opinions, and
storing the mind with cognitions and judgments, it would
often be far better, as a mere point of economy, to
occupy many hours in contesting with the sins that
make a Saviour necessary, and in those sublime realiza
tions of his power, which reveal him as the inner light
and peace of the soul. Nay, it were better, if necessary
to forego all instruction, shut up the libraries, give the
weeks to prayer, shave the crown, put on hair girdles,
ordain a year of silence — better, I would say, to practice
any severity, rather than to attempt the knowledge of
God by the mere natural understanding. Or if it be
wise in teaching the mflitary art to spend a full three
months each year in the encampment, or service of the
field, would it be wider of reason, in the training of a

MINISTRY- 333
Christian ministry, to spend as long a time, each year, in
the holy drill of charity, patience, and devotion ?
Inspirations are wanted to prepare the Christian
preacher, as truly as the gymnastics of study. And is
there nothing here to be learned from the schools of the
prophets ? In these we see the youthful candidates «for
prophecy led into retirement ; practiced there in songs,
processions, and impassioned acts of devotion ; exercised
in symbols and the senses of mystic forms ; kindled by
the lofty improvisings of the seers and prophet fathers —
all that they, too, may be brought into the free intuition
of God, and become seers themselves. They had no
dogmatics. The plan was simply to bring them up out
of nature into the " Spirit of the Lord," and open, within
their souls, original sources of knowledge ; immediate and
free visions of light. True, the Christian minister, who
is the prophet of Christianity, has books to receive and
interpret, secondary knowledges to study and digest, but
he can never take the senses of these holy documents,
till the inner light of the seer, that is, of true insight, is
kindled in him — on which account he needs to be trained
in a holy element, and be led along as a pupil of the
Spirit, into that deep knowledge of the secrets of God,
that pure and hallowed union of spirit with Jesus himself,
which is the fountain of all Christian light.
Another and second suggestion, which I proposed to
offer, is that we need to distinguish more accurately than
is generally done, between the idea of a Christian minister
and that of a Christian preacher. A preacher is a public
Speaker, and a public speaker in the pulpit is estimated
in much the same way as a speaker at the bar. Has he

334 THE CHRISTIAN
a well-trained understanding, a good rhetoric, a well-
toned, flexible voice, a capacity of fire and a graceful
action ? — these are the questions raised. And it seems
to be supposed that a man will carry effect, and be a
powerful minister of the New Testament, just in propor
tion to the degree of his personal talents and accomplish
ments, when judged in this manner. Contrary to this,
how often do we see that a very ordinary preacher, as
regards what men call eloquence, is yet a great and
powerful minister of God. I cannot tell how it is, but a
few plain words, spoken out of a present, living faith and
union to God, gently spoken, mere child's words in the
form, equally distant from ambition on one side, and
cant on the other — these will have more of true power
to awaken thoughts of God and stir up desires after Him,
than the most eloquent harangues. Here is a something
which no drill in rhetoric can teach, no talent execute,
Paul tells how it is done, when he sets forth his concep
tion of the Christian teacher, as a minister of God : —
" Whereof I am made a minister," [how ? by his skill in
exegesis, his power in dogmatic theology, his rhetoric,
his fine speaking, his human eloquence ; no, but] " accord
ing to the dispensation which is given to me for you."
Again, we have terms yet more precise and significant :
" Whereof I was made a minister, according to the
gift of the grace of God given unto me, by the effectual
working of his power." Again — " Whereunto I also
labor, striving according to his working that worketh in
me mightily." And again — " But I labored more abun
dantly than they all — yet not I, but the grace of God
which was with me." I believe it is common to resolve

MINISTRY. 335
these striking declarations into a mere assertion of
spiritual aid or co-operation. I do not so understand
them. On the contrary, it is their precise design to
represent that the man, in his human person, is to be the
organ or vehicle of God ; thus to have his power not
under the laws of mere natural effect, but as an expres
sion of God's own Spirit. He is to be luminous by the
suffusion of a divine light, thus a minister of God. The
treasure is not to be the earthly vessel itself, but in the
earthly vessel. The man is to be so united to God, so
occupied and possessed by the Eternal Life, that his acts
and words shall be outgoings of a divine power. And
exactly this Paul himself declares, when he says — " And
my speech and my preaching was not with persuasive
words of man's wisdom, but in demonstration [a.<Kobsi%e{\
of the spirit and of power." And this is the proper, the
truly sublime conception of the minister of God. He is
not a mere preacher occupying some pulpit, as a stand of
natural eloquence ; but he is a man whose nature is
possessed of God in such a manner that the light of God
is seen upon him ; a man whose life and words are
apodictic — a demonstration of the Spirit.
To make us ministers of God, in this high and truly
Christian sense, is the object of all theological training.
It is to be a spiritual cultus in the things of Christ,
wherein we are to learn the life of faith, the meekness
and patience of Jesus, die unto ourselves, drink the
spirit of Christ's passion, become pure as he is pure,
learn to walk as he also walked, and receive the unction
of the Holy One. In a word, we are to acquire that
knowledge of Christ which is immediate, and which only

336 PLATFORMS
1 \ the Father and the Son, manifested in us, can impart ;
| the only true and really vital knowledge. And then we
i are to go forth and testify of him as they that have been
' with him, to be a demonstration of him and his spirit.
O, if we had such a ministry, if we who now are serv
ing in this gospel, and all who are to join us, ceasing to be
system-makers and preachers and place holders, and
becoming ministers of God, were to go forth thus, and
prove our fellowship with God and his Son, how soon
would that great reviving of which I have, spoken begin
to appear. Doctrine would no more be the same as
dogma. We should not preach a catechism, but a
gospel. Dialectic quarrels would subside, or be drowned,
rather, in the freedom of spirit and life. Panics raised
over misspelt syllables, excommunications dealt upon those
who venture on some disagreement with the church, in
matters that belong only to the natural understanding,
would be heard of no more. Then it will be something
to love God, to walk in the Spirit, and bear the fruits of
righteousness. And, as the scandals of past ages are
wiped away, the word will run swiftly again, as in the
days of the apostles, and be fulfilled with power.
4. There needs to be a revision of our current impres
sions, in reference to the value of doctrinal platforms and
articles of scientific divinity, taken as bonds of unity and
defences of purity. Christ and his apostles manifestly
had no such conception of unity, as that any external
ligament of opinion or science may compass it and fasten
it. Christian unity, in their view, is not a fascicle, but a
tree, vitalized^ by a common life — " I in them and thou
in me, that they may be made perfect in one." It is

AND ARTICLES. 337
" holding the head," and, under it, being " fitly joined
together." It is moral, not logical ; of the heart, not of
the head. It is precisely what an apostle means when
he speaks of " the unity of the Spirit ;" under which
there is, of course, one body or embodiment as there is
" one Spirit," — " one Lord" above, " one faith" ih the
heart to embrace him, " one baptism" as the outward
profession of that faith, and then, as the soul, the internal,
vivifying principle of all, " one God and Father of all,
who is above all, and through all, and in all." Discard
ing this magnificent view of internal brotherhood in the
life, dogma early undertook to build an external, scientific
unity ; and then exactly that followed which only could
follow, viz., that, as the heads which propagate dogma
are many, not one, so the church, ceasing to be one,
became, externally viewed, as many as the heads. Man
ifestly no human opinion could have scope and force to
unify all thought or belief under it, and the more strin
gently it insists on containing the world in its human
measures, the more certain is it that dissent, disruption,
and all manner of discord will follow. So it has been, so
it ever will be. These attempts to settle the world into
unity under the external bonds of opinion, continually
defeated, have been continually insisted on, and so the
divisions and subdivisions have been constantly growing
finer, till now, at last, the imposture is discovered — the
articles of opinion that were to be the bonds and bases of
a unity externally constructed, in place of the vital unity
of the Spirit, have fretted away, at last, even the appear
ance of unity.
Nothing is plainer, whether as a matter of theory, or
29

338 PLATFORMS
of fact, than that dogmatism is and should be the most
fruitful of all causes of division. If faith has to do with
the infinite, if life is the presence in the soul of the infi
nite, how clear is it that opinions can compass no such
matter. And then how evident is the reason why
opinions divide, and sects arise, and wars rage. O, this
wretched babble of opinions, this mutual barricading of
opinions, by which Christian souls are fenced away from
each other, and, ifpossible, from the Life of God ! — as if
the known, acknowledged fact, that God is manifested in
the world, and wants the world's love, were nothing ; to
receive it, nothing ; to meet in receiving it, no unity !
Therefore, we must bring this astounding, untheorizable
fact into theory, install it, in consequence, under the name
of some school, or in some article of theology, and then,
to unite in it, we fancy, makes a brotherhood. And
thus we go on to talk, debate, measure and judge one
another, and quarrel religion, from age to age, without so
much, it may be, as one spiritual apprehension of God or
of Christ as the life of the world ! Opinions, deductions
of mere logic, dogmas impotent and dry, discussed,
debated, stood for by some, rejected by others, yielding
to none the true food of life — these, with such intermix
tures of strife and fire as are naturally to be expected,
constitute the history of religion.
The manner in which dogmatism necessitates division
may be well enough illustrated by the mournful separa
tion which has taken place in the New England churches.
Had we been embodied in the simple love of God under
some such badge, for example, as the Apostles' Creed, it
is very probable to me that the causes of the division

AND ARTICLES. 339
would never have existed. But we had an article which
asserted a metaphysical trinity, and this made the asser
tion of a metaphysical unity inevitable ; nay, more, even
desirable. So we had a theory of atonement, another of
depravity, another of regeneration, or the ingeneration of
character, which required the appearance, so to speak, of
antagonistic theories. Our theologic culture, meantime,
was so limited, on one side, that we took what was really
our own opinion only, to be the unalterable truth of God ;
on the other, the side of the revolt, too limited to perceive
the insufficiency of dogma as a fruit of the mere under
standing, too limited not to take the opposite, with the
same seriousness and totality of conviction. On this side
they assumed the sufficiency of opinions and of specula
tive comprehension, in a more unrestrained sense than
had been done before. They even fell to the work of con
structing a religion wholly within the molds of natural
reason itself, admitting nothing transcendent in the reach
of faith, or the" manifestation of the Life of God. They
asserted liberty, as they must to vindicate their revolt,
producing, however, meantime, the most intensely human,
and in that sense, the most intensely opinionative
religion ever invented, under the name of Christianity.
Have they no reason, together with us, to take up now,
at last, some suspicion of the insufficiency of dogma
and of all mere speculative opinions formed within the
life of nature ? May we not all begin to see that the
ministration of life is somewhat broader, deeper, more
sufficient, more divine? And what if we all, feeling our
deep want, and sorrowing over the shame our human
wisdom has cost us, should come back together to the

340 PLATFORMS
simple Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, one God, there to
enter into peace through the blood of Jesus, and there to
abide in the fullness of love and brotherhood. Or if we
should kneel down together before Him, and say — " I
believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven
and earth," and go on thus, to — " the life everlasting,"
what invisible minister of God, hanging as a listener
about us, would not join us, at the close, and say
" Amen."
Perhaps it may be too soon to look for any so beauti
ful result as this. But it is not too soon for us to be
setting the human in the place of the human, the divine
in the place of the divine ; to be drawing, all, towards
simplicity ; to pray more, and expect more light to come
of the Life ; to be more in love, and less in opinion ;
oftener to bless, and as much less often to judge.
One limit, I rejoice to believe, is already reached, as
regards this process of division, and a consequent reaction
may, accordingly, be hoped for. No longer is it possible
for any man to think it a matter of ambition to become
the founder of a sect. For this business of sect-making
is already quite overdone, and the products turned out,
in later times, are so indifferently small, because of the
number, that when the busy leader gets his name stuck
upon a small platoon of adherents, it seems to be a judg
ment of God upon him thus to expose him to ridicule.
Henceforth the once powerful motives of ambition are
taken away from the activities of dogmatism, and now
there is nothing left us, in fact, but to strive after the
Head ; to draw the bleeding members, if we may, of
Christ's lacerated body together, and have it for our

AND ARTICLES. 341
most blessed and pure reward, to see them coalesce and
live. And to hasten such a result, we must disallow, as un
christian, all human schools and names of men. The
time was when it was a somewhat brave demonstration
for a man to declare that he was not a Calvinist, or not
the disciple of some other human name. Possibly there
are men who would think it a little heroic to do so now.
But the day is at hand, I trust, when men will want
their courage on the other side ; when their conscience
will forbid, and they themselves will not dare to be called
by any other name than the name of God and of his
Christ ; when that pungent, cutting question of the word,
" Is Christ divided ?" or that other, " Who is Paul,
and who is Apollos ?" will be something more than a turn
of rhetoric. The sin, the idolatry of man, that suffers
any name but the blessed name of the Crucified, will be
felt, forsaken, and, I hope, forever displaced from the
world. Do I then propose, it may be asked, to make nothing
of opinions, to abolish all our platforms and articles, and
embrace every person who pretends to be a disciple ?
Far from this. The recent experience of the Unitarians
themselves may yield us a lesson of caution here. I pro
pose no violent or abrupt change whatever. That our
platforms and church Articles are generally too minute
and theoretical, I certainly believe ; but we must feel
our way in the preparing of changes. It will suffice to
relax, in a gradual manner, the exact and literal interpre
tation of our standards ; to lean more and more, as we
have been doing for the fifty years past, towards the side
29*

342 PLATFORMS
of accommodation, or easy construction. This, too, in
the hope, which we may lawfully cherish, that it will, at
last, be found amply sufficient as a term of fellowship, to
unite in formulas far more simple and untheoretic, than
any which we have at present.
I will go farther ; I will venture to suggest the doubt,
whether a state of spiritual elevation, light, sobriety, and
freedom from passion, may not finally be reached, in
which the "unity of the Spirit" wiU suffice, without
any human formulas, to preserve the purity of the church.
Manifestly we preserve no true semblance of purity now,
by our formal standards ; for the worst kind of impurity
is practical, not theoretic, the impurity of a selfish, un
spiritual, undevout life ; and this will shelter itself as
quietly under the platforms of orthodoxy, as if it were
even acceptable to God. How often, indeed, is it the
shame of religion, that a confessedly true disciple is
hunted out of the church, for some gentle aberration of
opinion, when many are endured in it, who neglect every
duty, and are known to live in a manner that disavows
every spiritual relation, whether to God or man, — simply
because there are so many persons assuming to be
pillars in the churches, who make a religion of orthodoxy,
and find it so much easier to be exceedingly mad for this,
than to be humble, gentle, and patient for Christ's sake.
Is it noj possible, under the double action of a twofold
process, named by the Apostle John, to have a pure
church kept in preservation by mere spiritual affinities ?
First, in virtue of the fact that those who are not of the
church, will go out from it themselves, because they are
not of it ? And, secondly, by the intuitive discerning of

AND ARTICLES. 343
spirits, enabling those who are truly in the Spirit, and
who, according to another apostle, " judge all things," to
perceive the spirit of other minds ? It certainly was not
the design of John to affirm that every one is of God
who " confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh,"
regarding him simply as receiving this mere formula.
He gives the test as practical, and relating to the existing
state of things. He goes on, accordingly, occupying the
whole chapter that follows, as I understand him, with an
exposition of the signs by which a true heir of God may
be distinguished. Much ridicule has been heaped, in
modern times, on human attempts to judge spiritual char
acter. But however presumptuous, in one view, it may
be, a far better and truer judgment, I am confident, may
be formed of character than of opinions. We do, in fact,
judge character more truly than we do opinions. It is
more palpable. We are accustomed to read character.
We do it almost unconsciously, and by an affinity deeper
than we understand ourselves. It only requires a truly
simple, unprejudiced heart ; and, having that to offer to
any character, it is drawn or repelled as by a certain
divine polarity in us. Should that true reviving of the
religious spirit, of which I have spoken, come to pass, and
a heart spiritually enlightened and purified be found in
the Christian body generally, may it not then be found
also that the Life of God, in the Christian brotherhood,
will sufficiently separate them from the unbelieving and
Unspiritual by its own transcendent affinities ? Again —
5. I must call your attention more directly to the
mournful effects of dogma, as a limitation upon piety

344 PIETY ITSELF
itself. It is so much easier to think than to slay our sins,
to judge others than to live to God ourselves, to be ortho
dox than to be holy, that we are very prone to set one
kind of activity in place of the other, and please our
selves in the pious and respectable look of it. If, too, we
once pass into dogma and become active in it, we begin,
at once, to over- value it, mixing our pride with it, adding
to our pride our will, to this our passions, and to these
our prayers, till, finally, we become at- once thoroughly
religious in our way, and, at the same time, thoroughly
abominable and wicked in our spirit. This class of
characters are about the worst and most mischievous
that are ever to be found in the church.
I know of no illustration of the effect of dogmatism,
taken as a limit upon piety, which needs to be pursued,
at this time, with more attention than that which is fur
nished by the theory, extensively held, of Christ's work.
He is regarded not as a power, in the manner of the
New Testament, but more as a paymaster ; not as
coming to bring us life, and take us to his bosom, but in
literal dogmatic verity, to suffer God's displeasure in our
stead, and so to reconcile God to us. Taken as he
stands, theologically represented, there is nothing given
to us of Christ, which is closer to feeling, often, than
that he fills out a judicial machinery, and is good as a
legal tender for our sins. Diminished thus, by dogma,
Christ ceases to be the Life. We only look to see how
he brings us by the law. He is a mere forensic entity.
Then follows what only could ; — a doctrine of justification
by faith, is held by many so literal and forensic in its
form, that the gospel of heaven's love and light is nar-

LIMITED BY DOGMA. 345
rowed almost to a superstition. They scarcely dare
entertain the thought of a personal righteousness, or to
look upon any such hope as permissible. It implies, they
fear, some expectations of being saved, not wholly by
the merits of Christ. They cannot even read or hear,
without a little jealousy or disturbance of mind, those
texts of scripture that speak of assurance, liberty, a
conscience void of offence, victory over sin, a pure
heart, a blameless life, and a perfected love. They are
so jealous of merit that they make a merit of not having
any. They are so resolved on magnifying the grace of
God, as almost to think it a crime to believe that the grace
of God can make them any better. They come before
God in confessions of sin, so extravagant, so wide of their
own consciousness, that if a fellow man were to charge
upon them "what they confess, they would be mortally
offended. And though there be no sincerity, no real
verity in such confessions, they think it altogether safe to
inchide enough, because it strips them of merit ! Mean
time their standards are let down to the lowest point of
attainment ; for if they deem it an essential part of their
piety to keep up their confessions, it will be somewhat
natural, at least, to live in a manner to do them some
tolerable degree of justice. And, if an air of falsity or
affectation is thus thrown over their piety, what, mean
time, becomes of Jesus the Saviour — God in Christ
reconciling the world to himself? What element of life
and divine eloquence is left ? Where is Christ, the wis
dom and the power ?
But you will best understand the stringent power
of dogma as a limit upon spiritual character, if you

346 PIETY ITSELF
advert to the common fact, everywhere visible, of a
dogmatic piety. What a picture do I call up by
these two words — ' dogmatic piety' ! It rises clear
before you, and your heart sickens at the view of
it. You behold, not a Calvinistic confession, but a Cal
vinistic piety ; rigid, stern, standing for the letter, inflex
ible as the decrees of God — an Episcopal piety ; mod
erate, complaisant, unaccommodating only in that which
human opinion and custom have sanctified — a Presbyte
rian piety, a Quaker, a Methodist, all wearing a stamp
from their human origin and polity so distinct that you
could tell the religious communion of a stranger, under
any one of these names, by a half hour's presence with
him. You would see his dogma pricking through his
skin, setting his postures, turning the angle of his mo
tions, or tattooing itself in his face. What sight more
sad than to behold these poor, unsuspecting disciples
labeled off in this fantastic fashion, and standing up before
both God and man, as illustrations of the extent to which
mere human notions and conceits of the human under
standing may limit the freedom of grace, and distort
the beauty even of spiritual life.
I cannot pursue this topic further, save to suggest one
simple remedy that seems to be provided, in a certain
degree, out of the mischief itself, viz., that in every school
and sect, the disciples give themselves to an attentive
study of the best and most deeply devotional Christian
writers in different ages, and under forms of worship and
opinion most remote from their own. Let them read for
instruction, not for criticism. Here they will see the
Life struggling -out through other forms of dogma, and

LIMITED BY D O ti M A . 347
while these other "forms are meeting, and, perhaps,
neutralizing their own, the image of Christ will shine out
more clear and simple than they ever saw it before.
They will see him as he lives in all his followers, and
loving them with a new spirit of catholicity, will worship
him with a new sense of oneness with him and his re
deemed. And I anticipate no danger in this free com
muning with the devotional spirit of the disciples of our
Lord, under other and repugnant forms of opinion. To be
hold the inner light with a Fox and a Gurnall, and with
them to be in the Spirit ; to look into that deep well of
spiritual thought, which God has uncovered in the sainted
pages of Tersteegen ; to steal into the cell ofthe old monk
Thomas a Kempis, and weep with him ; to follow to his exile
the great archbishop of Cambray, that most luminous and
loveliest of teachers, that most beautiful, most Christ-like,
and, to human judgment, purest of all living characters
since the days of the apostles — O, if this be dangerous,
likely to unsettle our opinions, or dissolve our formulas,
still may God grant that the effects of such kind of
license may appear as soon as possible, and in the
largest possible measure.
I would even go so far as to recommend, especially to
Christian ministers and students of theology in New
England, that they make a study, to some extent, of the
mystic and quietistic writers ; inquiring, at the same
time, how far Christ and Christianity partake in these
elements — also, whether it be not a fault of our own
piety and character, that it partakes of neither ? We
have no reason, at present, to cherish any fears of mysti
cism. It can do us no harm until we are much farther

348 THE HOLY SPIRIT,
off from the busy, speculative, dry, and almost total rule of
dogma than we ever yet have been, or than it is, at
present, in our nature to be. And as to quietism, it will
be soon enough to apprehend Ul consequences from that
in New England, when the bees are found sleeping in
summer shades, or the lightnings stagnate in the sky.
In fact, there is nothing but spiritual life itself that is so
much wanted in our American piety, as a larger infusion
of the quiet spirit — to be less in commotion, and more in
God, to learn the grace of silence and of secret alms, to
acquaint ourselves with God, and be at peace.
6. It remains to be suggested, that our modern piety
appears to have been limited and partially dwarfed,
almost universally, by the admission of certain opinions
or impressions of the Holy Spirit, which are referable
wholly to scientific theology, and which need to be revised.
It has been remarked, I think by others, and truly
nothing is more remarkable, than that individuals and
communities are often deeply moved, as in revivals of
religion, by the Spirit of God, and yet that the sect-spirit
is, in general, rather exasperated than softened. There
is visibly more of love, and yet the antagonisms of sect
appear to be more active. A result, manifestly, which is
not of God, but rather of some bad limitations, which
are really hostile to the proper unity of the Spirit in us.
Nor have we any doubt where this limitation is to be
sought. Our own consciousness tells us where it is ; for
what man ever finds it in him to expect that the Spirit of
God will melt down a platform, or dissolve one dogma ?
It is even taken for granted, that he will let alone our
opinions and disturb no articles we have adopted ! We

AS THE SPIRIT OF CHRIST. 349
secretly, though doubtless unconsciously, impose our
dogma as a limitation of the Spirit.
What a revelation, then, have we here ! Were there
no other cause to differ our piety from that of the
apostles, this would suffice. The Pauline character can
never appear again till we are so disencumbered of
restrictions, that we can offer our whole being up to the
pure and total guidance of God. This is the first con
dition of a complete Christian life, that God shall have
free course in us. We cannot wall him about with our
wisdom, and then require of him to finish the spirit of
Christ in us.
The reality and power of this limitation is displayed in
other methods. In how many minds is the Spirit viewed or
received, through their speculative theology, not as main
taining any social, moral, endearing relations in us, but
simply as an abstract and dry agency — mere efficiency,
running out from God's decrees, to execute them in us by
an ictic force ; or, at best, as an effluence or influence
streaming through us, which does not shape itself, has
no social consciousness, but only works in the way of
mere causation, like a stimulant or an opiate. This,
manifestly, is not the Holy Spirit of the scriptures, but
the Holy Spirit, rather, of the schools. And the differ
ence is the more remarkable, that our dogma even goes
beyond the scriptures in asserting the metaphysical per
sonality of the Spirit. We call him a person, insist on
his personality, raising, at the same time, a scheme of
dogma, which reduces him to a something literally pur
chased for us, and dispensed as a gift to us ; or to a mere
causative agency that works in us without feeling,
30

350 THE HOLY SPIRIT,
sociality, character, or anything which properly distin
guishes personality. Hence, there is scarcely produced
in us at all, the sense of mutuality, love, or inwardly
abiding friendship. •
In the scriptures, on the other hand, he is even repre
sented as being the spirit of Christ— nay, Christ himself.
This also by Christ himself; for he says, in his promise
of the Comforter, " I will come to you," — and to his
apostles, " Lo I am with you always." And this is
said, evidently, that we may conceive the Spirit socially,
as being in some proper sense Christ himself, with us
always, in all the feeling of Jesus — breathing his feeling
as love and life into every fibre of our inner man. The
word is nigh us, even in our mouth and heart. The
Christ of the garden and the cross is with Us, suing at
our heart, and striving to communicate all that we could
hope from the love of Gethsemane and Calvary socially
present in us. If, then, we can give up our soul to his
occupancy, and let him abide in us, according to his
promise, what attainments, what elevation, what purity
and peace of spirit may we not believe he will work
in us !
We have also raised a theologic distinction, under the
word inspiration, which, it is very clear to me, is opera
ting a sad depression in our modern piety, even if origi
nally there was nothing false in the distinction ; for we
have now taken it, practically, ih such a sense as cuts us
off from the holy men of scripture times, and works a
feeling in us that God is now more remote, and, of course,
that it is no longer permissible to realize the same graces,
and expect the same intense union of the life with God.

AS THE SPIRIT OF CHRIST. 351
Thus, out of our own opinion we judge, and from our
pulpits declare that there is no inspiration in these latter
times. It was confined, we say, to the times previous to
the canon of scripture. At that time it was discontinued.
True, it may only be intended that prophetic inspirations,
or the inspirations of evangelists and apostles was discon
tinued, and yet, by thus appropriating the word, we carry
a deeper impression, which is certainly untrue ; for all
the workings of the Spirit are inspirations as truly as
these. Christian character itself, and all its graces, are
forms of inspiration. It requires an inspiration, accord
ing to the second chapter of the first epistle to the
Corinthians, to understand or really to come into the
truth of Christ at all. Nay, it is even required of us
that we shall, as disciples, be led of the Spirit, so that he
shall be the practical guide of life ; which is nothing less
than to say that there is an inspiration for everything
right in life — as there was for the good goldsmith Beza-
leel, when " filled with the Spirit of God, in wisdom, and
in understanding," " to devise cunning works, to work in
gold, and in silver, and in brass, and in cutting of stones."
In short, the true idea of Christianity, as a ministration
of the Spirit, is that the disciple shall be led out of one
moment into the next, through all his life, by a present
union to God and a constant guidance — that he shall be
the child of the Spirit. Thus, whether he be a cultivator
of the soil, an artisan, a teacher, a magistrate, or a min
ister of God's truth, he shall live, not in himself, but in
God, and have just that kind and degree of inspiration or
guidance which his calling demands.
Rectifying thus, and enlarging our ideas of the Spirit

352 * CONCLUSION.
and his relations to us, how clear is it that a new intimacy
of faith and love will be visible between the church and
God — that the old incrustation, or dogmatic shell of our
piety will be melted away, and that, ceasing to see in the
sparks of our own kindling, looking to God in the whole
course of life, there will be unfolded a style of piety
wholly unknown, at present, in the world. Then the
church of God will be again, what an apostle said it was,
the inhabitation of Christ — his body, the fullness of him
that filleth all in all.
There are, still, many things waiting to be said, in
connection with this very momentous subject, but I
must draw my remarks to a conclusion. I have spoken
of dogma as a limitation upon piety ; or, rather, even as
a lapse in the Christian spirit itself. This I most firmly
believe to be true, and, I think, I have given you suffi
cient reason, if not to embrace, at least, to consider with
profound deliberation, the view I have stated. If I am
right, nothing is wanted now, in order to realize a grand
renovation of the religious spirit throughout Christendom,
more glorious, probably, than the Reformation itself, but
simply to recover from this ancient lapse into dogma — not
to uproot opinions, not to stop the intellectual and scien
tific activity of the church, but simply to invert the
relations of dogma and spirit, ,so as to subordinate every
thing in the nature of science and opinion~to the spirit, .
and thus to elevate everything in the nature of science
and opinion into the region of spirit and life.
As regards revivals of religion, it is not any purpose
of my discourse to object against them. I only have a

CONCLUSION. , 353
conviction that God is calling us to look farther, and
comprehend more. To do so is, in fact, the best method
of preparing revivals, if that were our object — the only
method in which it can be done effectually. The true
doctrine seems to be that we are to labor, not for a
reviving of revivals, but for a reviving of the real life
and deepest and most earnest power of religion itself.
And then, if it please God to bring us into some state
that we may call by the ordinary name revival, we shall
be in it healthily, in it as being in religion, permanently
given to God, and not as in some casual flame that is got
up, in part, by the friction of human effort and expecta
tion. We certainly cannot miss of revivals, if they are
wanted, by means of a new spirit of piety from God, such
as we have never before realized. If we are after the most
spiritual habit, the most complete devotion, the deepest
union to God, the fullest liberty and the most established
and permanent life of religion, we shall not miss, I am con
fident, of any casual blessings on our way. What do we
require, in fact, but that every disciple shall be revived for
his whole life — that he shall undertake, not for a scene,
but for a life ; that he shall die to self, come into the true
liberty and rest of faith, achieve his victory, live the
secret life, and prove the fullness and sufficiency of Christ
as a Saviour. This I am sure will be, in the truest, fullest
sense, a reviving of religion ; only it cannot come up in a
night, in some social meeting, but must come gradually,
as the day dawns. It will require patience, holy applica
tion, and a capacity, I think, to bear some reproach from
disciples who cannot enter at once into a view so remote
from their apprehensions, or opposite to their prejudices.
30*

354 . CONCLUSION.
One thing is clear, that the highest form of piety can
never appear on earth until the disciples of Christ are
able to be in the Spirit, in some broader and more per
manent sense than simply to suffer those local and casual /
fervors that may be kindled within the walls of a church,
or the boundaries of a village. The Spirit of God is a
catholic spirit, and there needs to be a grand catholic re
viving, a universal movement, penetrating gradually and
quickening into power the whole church of Christ on earth.
Then and then only, in the spiritual momentum of such
a day, when the Spirit of God is breathing inspirations
into all believing souls, and working graces in them that
are measured, no longer by the dogmas of sect, but by the
breadth of his own character — then, I say, feeling the
contact, every man, of a universal feUowship, and rising
with the flood that is lifting the whole church into free
dom and power, it will be seen what possible heights of
attainment — hitherto scarcely imagined — what spiritual
completeness and fullness of life the gospel and grace of
Christ are able to effect, in our sinful race. Partiality of
movement involves a limitation of power. By this cause
Christianity has hitherto been dwarfed in all its results
and manifestations. Nothing better can ever be realized,
till, ascending into Christianity as spirit and life, in the
fullest and freest sense, we submit our souls to God's uni
versal movement. We are to receive the Spirit in his
own measures, not any more in ours, and prepare our
selves, gradually, for an outspreading era of life, that shall
be as the manifested Life of God.
It is also to be noted, that we are the only people who
are prepared to lead in so great a work ; for the manifest

CONCLUSION. 355
reason that, in every other Protestant nation, dogma
remains, even to this hour, intermixed with and supported
by civil statutes. From these we have made our escape,
and now it remains to use the advantage gained — to
assume the work Luther left incomplete, and go forward
to re-inaugurate that ministration of the Spirit which
Christ ordained for the world.
If any apprehend that, in such a movement for the
reduction of dogma as I have proposed, we are likely to
fall into confusion and run loose into all the wild ex
travagances of the mystics, let them observe that the
apprehensions they suffer are excited by the experience
of past ages ; which experience will avail to make other
men cautious, as it does to make them apprehensive, and
will thus operate as a check to extravagance ; also, that
I give ample room for a strong theological activity, raising
a demand for it even by requiring that nothing shall be
accepted as truth, which is contrary to reason or true
learning, as exercised on the scripture ; also, that I pro
pose no abrupt change — no change at all, in fact, but
such as consists in being more simply and absolutely
united to God.
If I have suggested the possibility of a reunion of the
separated churches of New England, who' can estimate
the effects that would follow such an event, the influence
it would exert on the religious well-being of the nation,
and also of the world? If. then, we surrender to our
adversaries no truth, if we simply cast out repugnant
forms of opinion that are human, and disencumber the
words of spirit of those loads of unwisdom which the
past ages have heaped upon the truth, should we not

356 CONCLUSION.
for Christ's sake do it ? And, if we meet them in the
Father, Son, and Holy Ghost — one God ; if we meet
them in Gethsemane, or on the hill of Calvary, there to
kneel and weep away our sins together — which we do, or
else we meet them nowhere — who shall suffer, who will
be offended ? Shall we not, rather, stand ready to meet
the world here also ? And what if we all, in every
name and kindred and family, relaxing, a little, the
bondage we are under to our dogmas, should come up
into spirit and life as the freemen of the Lord, and begin
to claim our common property together in the old Apostles'
Creed. Most sure, I am, that no spectacle more sublime,
or more truly pleasing to God, will ever be witnessed on
earth, than if taking up this holy confession, sanctified
by the faith and consecrated by the uses of so many
ages, all the disciples of Jesus on earth, may be heard
answering in it together, sect to sect, and people to
people, and rolling it, as a hymn of love and brotherhood,
round the world : — >
t
I believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of
heaven and earth : And in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our
Lord ; Who was conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of
the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was
crucified, dead, and buried. The third day he rose from
the dead ; He ascended into Heaven, and sitteth on the
right hand of God the Father Almighty ; From thence
he shall come to judge the quick and the dead.
I believe in the Holy Ghost; the Holy Catholic Church;
the communion of Saints ; the forgiveness of sins ; the
resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting. Amen.