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YALE UNIVERSITY
LIBRARY

CHRIST IN THEOLOGY;

BEING THE

ANSWEE OE THE AUTHOE,

BEFORE THE

HARTFORD CENTRAL ASSOCIATION OF MINISTERS,

OCTOBER, 1849,

FOE THE DOCTRINES OF THE BOOK ENTITLED

"GOD IN CHRIST."

BY HORACE BUSHNELL.

HARTFORD:
BEOWN AND PARSONS.
1851.

Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1851,
By BROWN AND PARSONS,
in the Clerk's office of the District Court of the United States, for the
State of Connecticut.

STEREOTYFED BY
RICHARD H. HOBBS,
HARTFORD, CONN.

PREFACE.

This volume contains the matter of an answer made to the
Ministerial Association of which I am a member, for the doctrines
of my book, entitled " God in Christ ;" a book in which, it was
rumored and extensively believed' that I had published dangerous,
or even fundamental errors. This answer was made, and the
inquiry itself formally terminated, more than a year ago. Since
that time I have been frequently importuned by my brethren,
sometimes by letter, sometimes personally, to give it to the public.
It has more than once been declared, in the religious prints,
- that I was about to do so.
For two reasons I have not been in haste to make the pub
lication, though I will not disguise the intention I had in pre
paring it, to give it to the public at some future time. First, I
had expressed my determination not to be drawn into a con
troversy ; and, for a time, it was hardly possible to publish any
thing, without being charged with receding from my purpose.
But the condition of things appears to be changed. If still there
is a degree of agitation continued in respect to my book, the
public, I think, will not judge that it is of such a kind as compels
me to break silence ; which, if I now do, (for this is the first
word I have printed regarding my book since its publication,)
I think it will generally be seen that I am not descending at
all to controversy, but simply performing a duty which I owe
to the truth. It will be seen, too, by my readers, that the
matter of this volume could' hardly have been classed among
writings of controversy at any time. It is not a handling of my
1*

IV PEEFACE.
adversaries or critics, to any such extent as involves controversy,
It is simply an ecclesiastical defense ; and still it is rather a dis
sertation than a proper defense. Indeed, my intention was not
so much to defend as to complete my doctrine by a fuller exposi
tion of certain points, and by a reference to the opinions of others
and of the church in this and other ages. My principal endeavor
in it is to make my positions more intelligible?; in accomplishing
which, I rely, to a great extent, on tracing their import com
paratively ; which, in my book, I had scarcely done at all. My
experience has led me to expect a good deal of unfairness ; but I
can not anticipate that any one, who cares to maintain even a
show of justice, will impute a violation of my engagement.
The time appears to have come when the heat of controversy
and the pressure of assault are exhausted, and I publish now
simply as regarding the truth. I hope my argument may be
read and considered in the same manner. J have no victory to
gain, and I see not that I have any to fear. As little have my
brethren, who have been disturbed by my heresies. Whatever
is now to be gained must be gained by truth and lost by error,
and with that we may all be content.
I have also shrunk from the publication of this volume, so
often requested, for a more private reason, which will be suffi
ciently suggested by citing the true maxim which a servant of
God drew from his own experience, when he said, — " I am now
satisfied that the main cause of man's spiritual blindness is his
letting his will into somewhat, or into that which he hath wrought,
of whatsoever nature it be, and setting his heart and affections
upon the work of his own hands or head." It is possible, I think
and even easy, to bear the most violent public assaults, from un
reasonable and bitter multitudes of men, without disturbance •
yea, to have one's peace consolidated by their pressure, and
purified by the fifes they kindle. But it is a very different thing
to espouse, voluntarily, the work of one's "own head" before
them, even though it be to speak for the truth, and for that only •
for there is like, in that case, to be somewhat of one's will speak
ing through the interstices of the truth ; or, what is worse, through

PREFACE. V
the interstices of a shattered peace and a corrupted simplicity.
Really to cease from one's own works, as God did from his,
while maintaining the truth of them, is possible ; but only by a
most nice and subtle possibility, in which, if there be a failure,
the rest of faith is lost and the sabbath of the spirit is broken.
If still, despite of much self-distrust and some caution, the evil
has been stealthily suffered, may God pardon so great infirmity ;
as also the infirmity of others, who, mixing their will with the
truth, have been harsher judges, possibly, against me than he.
Perhaps it is required of me to state that I have taken what
liberties I pleased with my manuscript since it was prepared.
Only about half of it was read to the Association. In preparing
it for the press, I have altered modes of arrangement and ex
pression where it suited my convenience. Some parts I have
omitted, some I have added ; careful only to preserve the sub
stance of the argument, and assuming the right to give it greater
clearness and effect. Suffice it to say |hat nothing has been
altered in such a way as to involve a change of position, or in
such a way as to present a different case to the public from that
which I presented to my brethren.
As my former volume was called " God in Christ," I have
called the present " Christ in Theology," with a design that
will be sufficiently obvious. To complete the descending series be
gun, there is wanted another volume, showing the still lower and,
as it were, sedimentary subsidence of theology itself, precipitated
in the confused mixtures of its elements ; a volume that shall do
upon the whole body of theological opinion, in New England,
what my anonymous friend C. C. has done, with such fatal effect,
upon the particular strictures of my adversaries. To see brought
up, in distinct array before us, the multitudes of leaders and
schools and theologic wars of only the century past, — the Supra-
lapsarians, and Sublapsarians ; the Arminianizers, and the true
Calvinists ; the Pelagians, and Augustinians ; the Tasters, and
the Exercisers ; Exercisers by Divine Efficiency, and by human
Self-Efficiency ; the love-to-being-in-general virtue, the willing-
to-be-damned virtue, and the love-to-one's-greatest happiness

VI PEEFACE.
virtue ; no ability, all ability, and moral and natural ability dis
tinguished; disciples by the new-creating act of Omnipotence,
and by change of the governing purpose ; atonement by punish
ment, and by expression ; limited, and general ; by imputation,
and without imputation ; trinitarians of a threefold distinction,
of three psychologic persons, or of three sets of attributes ; under
a unity of oneness, or of necessary agreement, or of society and
deliberative council ; — nothing I think would more certainly dis
enchant us of our confidence in systematic orthodoxy, and the
possibility, in human language, of an exact theologic science,
than an exposition so practical and serious and withal so indis
putably mournful, — so mournfully indisputable.
I very much desired, in my exposition of the Trinity, to pre
sent some illustrations from a manuscript dissertation of President
Edwards, on that subject. Only a few months ago, I first heard
of the existence of such a manuscript. It was described to me as
" an a priori argument for the Trinity," the " contents of which
would excite a good deal of surprise," if communicated to the
public. The privilege of access to the manuscript is declined to
me, as I understand, on the ground of " the nature of the con
tents." As this manuscript has just now come into the posses
sion of Dr. Dwight of Portland, it is to be hoped that, unless
some restrictions on the use of it have descended as a trust from
the author, he will disburden himself, as soon as may be, of the
very important responsibility, so faithfully exercised, for a whole
century now past, by persons not more competent, certainly, than
Jonathan Edwards, to guard the orthodoxy of this very dis
tinguished name.

CONTENTS.

Paob.
Introductory,  9-14
LANGUAGE AND BOCTRINE.
Statement of the true method. Illustrations of the logical
method. Ancient orthodox method. Opinions of Baxter.
Opinions of Taylor. Language still sufficient. True nature
of language, how to be discovered. Universal analogy of
matter and mind. Distinction revised, of literal and figura
tive. Form discovered in sentences. The study of contro
versies. Concessions to be observed. The logical writers to
be observed. How this exercise will result. What becomes
of theology. How the church is to be organized. How the
church has been organized. Can not be organized by the
ology. The incarnation, the true organic power. The uses
of theologic study. Difference between divinity and the
ology. Dr. Rothe's ground for speculative theology. God
organizes all by all,  15-89
THE PERSON OF CHRIST.
No new dogmatism here attempted. Who is Christ ? Had
he a human soul ? Orthodox answers and opinions. Devia
tion unimportant. Glorified humanity. How Christ will
be preached,  90-116

Vill CONTENTS.
THE TRINITY. Page.
Not to be solved or attempted. Advantages of position
taken. False constructions removed. Personality of God.
Unity of God. Manner and need of the plurality. The truth
of what is expressed. The eternity of the persons. New Eng
land Trinity, unorthodox and untrue. Trinity of the Nicene
Council. Trinity of the Reformers. Modern opinions, Prof.
Twesten ; BibUcal Repertory. Difference unobservable when
preached,  117-211
THE WORK OF CHRIST.
Misconceptions removed. Four views stated. Objective
view. Objective-subjective view. Subjective •view. Sub
jective-objective view, how different. Christ a sacrifice, in
what manner. Propitiation. Propitiation a substantial truth.
Other terms of the altar. Atonement. Remission. Cleans
ing, subjective. The Christian uses correspond. The eternal,
universal priesthood of Christ. The question of justification.
Not true that God must execute penalty. Justice and mercy.
Law and grace, natural and supernatural. Grounds of justi
fication. Justification, subjective-objective. In the final re
sult, evangelism safe. How related to historic orthodoxy.
Virtually coincident with imputation. Frequently asserted
by orthodox writers. The practical result,  212-330

Conclusion,  331-348

CHRIST IN THEOLOGY.
ANSWER BEFORE THE HARTFORD CENTRAL
ASSOCIATION, ETC.

Brethren of the Association :
It was to be supposed that the charges of dangerous
and fatal heresy, preferred in so many ways, and with so
great emphasis, against my recent publication, entitled
" God in Christ," would excite your serious attention.
It would even be strange if some of you had not been
painfully disturbed on my account. What your precise
design may be in raising a committee to examine my
book and confer with me in regard to it, I am not sure
that I understand. I suppose, however, that your design
is to obtain, if possible, all the advantages or results of an
ecclesiastical trial for the extirpation of heresy, in a way
that is most fraternal, and one which, if no extirpation
should be found necessary, would be less likely to disturb
or permanently mar the cordiality of our brotherhood.
In this view I consent to waive all formal objections, and
meet you cordially in the proposed inquiry.
Indeed, I ought to say that, when you proposed to
undertake this inquiry, I was rather obliged to you for it
than otherwise ; for I perceived that, having made your
selves responsible for some just and practically reliable
conclusion, your very engagement would hold you to a
closer inspection and a more exact apprehension of. my
doctrine, than, as yet, I have been able to secure.

10 INTRODUCTORY.
The contents of my book were of a nature to require
suspense and re-investigation, even to the full extent of
Christian patience. It could not, as I well knew, approve
itself to passion, or abide the test of extempore judgments.
Accordingly, almost no one of my representations has,
to this moment, been set forth by the assailants of my
orthodoxy, in the meaning intended by me, to be dis
cussed according to its merits in that meaning ; but, con
trary to this, they have been almost wholly occupied in
passing sentence on opinions manufactured by them
selves, and which I as heartily reject as they, In this I
am not disappointed. I even advertised the expectation
of just such a result beforehand, and showed in what
manner it would come to pass. Now, I am equally con
fident of a different result ; for you have set yourselves
to this inquiry, not as being separated from all respon
sibility to me, or as having nothing more serious to do
than just to frighten yourselves and the public by your ex
tempore constructions. You have undertaken to find my
true position, — to see things not under your constructions
only, but under mine; in a word, to understand me.
Which, if you do, I shall finally get what most I want
and have seemed most likely to fail of. And then when
once you have come into my position, or only into some
tolerably correct apprehension of it, I shall be as little
anxious as possible, in regard to any judgment you may
form of my soundness. Indeed, I think your own
anxieties, also, will be as comfortably disposed of as mine.
Since you have undertaken the investigation of tny
book in this responsible and, I hope, unprejudiced
manner, it has become a question with me in what way

INTRODUCTOEY. 11
I can best facilitate your undertaking ; and especially, by
what method I may render my intended meaning in the
book more easy or inteHigible. In this view, I have
occupied the leisure hours of my summer in preparing,
what may be called, a re-statement of the points in issue ;
differing from the former statement, in the fact that I am
able to make it with all the objections and confutations
offered to that in full view ; and especially in the fact
that I endeavor, not so much to present my own senti
ments in the simple, absolute way, as to exhibit them
comparatively, under historic references. As my book
is a simple giving out of my own convictions from my
own center of thought, I propose now to change the atti
tude of inquiry, and offer, what, perhaps, will be more
intelligible to some, a more relative view of the same
things. It is not my design or wish, in this article, to
modify any of my positions ; though I should rejoice to
give that evidence of devotion to the truth, if any thing
had occurred to modify my convictions. Neither is it
my design to go into any argument or controversy, how
ever indirectly, with my reviewers ; though it costs me
no mortification to allow the hope that, taking advantage
of the strictures and adverse criticisms somewhat plen
tifully supplied me,- I may be able now to present a
sharper and more explicit statement of my views of
these great subjects. However this may be, I am quite
sure of clearing my positions more effectually, and sur
rounding them with stronger lights of evidence, by pass
ing into the field of historical inquiry and comparison,
to investigate and settle their relations to what others
have held in regard to the same subjects.

12 INTRODUCTORY.
No doctrine can sufficiently reveal its truth, until it is
set off by the reliefs of history and shown to hold a legiti
mate, normal connection with historic causes, of which it
is, in some sense, the natural growth and issue. For, as
no real, and sober truth is the want of any single man, so
no pretended truth is likely to be regarded as any thing
better than a personal caprice or eccentricity, until other
minds are seen to have been exercised in a similar way,
and, by rudimental efforts of one kind or another, reach
ing after the same thing. I hope, therefore, it will not
be suspected that I am anxious, in the historic references
I make, to establish a repute of orthodoxy. I will even
declare to you beforehand that I am not orthodox, accord
ing to any precise type of orthodoxy that I know ; and
when I come to points of deviation from what I suppose
to be the most authoritative and proper orthodoxy, I shall
frankly show where the deviation is, and give you its
measure. I have been examining my relations to proper
orthodoxy more carefully of late than I had done before,
and the result is a double surprise ; in the discovery,
first, that I am so much nearer to real orthodoxy than I
supposed, and secondly, that the New England theology,
so called, is so much farther off. Indeed, I am ready, for
once, to venture a prophecy, — one, too, which I suppose
will seem to many quite incredible, viz.,— that when the
smoke of this present commotion is blown away, and the
noise of it is succeeded by the silence of , reason' I shaU
! be found, in the book you are examining, to stand in
much better keeping with the orthodoxy of the Eeforma-
tion, connected with the previous times reaching back
to the Nicene era, than do the teachers generally and the

INTRODUCTORY. 13
current opinions of New England. I only hope that the
deviations I profess will suffice to prevent my being
enrolled as one of the champions of orthodoxy ; for I
distaste even the word, as a word that is characteristically
unchristian. It presents an issue, not of truth but of
opinion, representing, as the word signifies on its face,
that opinion may be a fit standard of Christian straitness
or correctness ; which, I do not hesitate to say, is a plain
affront to that first and fundamental principle of the
Christian doctrine, whieh disallows the test of mere
natural judgment or opinion, and refers all truth to its
final adjudication before the higher court of faith' and
spiritual discernment.
It can not be denied that religious opinions, apart from
the realizations of faith, are a matter of grave importance.
But there is like to be little straightness in them, till the
obliquities of sin begin to be straightened by a regenerate
experience. And for just this reason, I suppose it is,
that the Scriptures omit even to name orthodoxy or
straight opinion at all; deeming it enough to insist that
we walk straight-footedly in the gospel of truth, (Gal. ii.
14,) and make straight paths of self-sacrifice and duty
to accommodate the lameness of our feet, (Heb. xii. 3 ;)
on the wise principle, I suppose, that, being cleared of
our prejudices and the obliquities of passion, having a
single eye that looks right on, and living in a life of
simple trust and devotion to the will of God, we have
that which is better, in fact, than argument, to straighten
our opinions ; for the head will never stumble if the feet
do not.
Doubtless it were pleasant enough to be accounted
2

14 INTRODUCTORY.
orthodox by my brethren, if by that means I may have
their confidence; but I think God will assist me, for the
few years that remain, to suffer any judgment they are
pleased to hold, if only I can find and maintain the truth.
In this matter of orthodoxy, Baxter holds, I think, the
true doctrine, when he says :
" The reputation of it is a thing that we must deny
ourselves in. For it commonly falls out in most of the
world, that the thing itself and the reputation of it are
inconsistent, and no man can be orthodox, and of the
right religion, but he must be taken to be heterodox, and
of the wrong religion. * * * The name of heresy wiU
stand with the special love of God, yet heresy itself he
utterly abhors. And whether do you think it better to
part with truth and the favor of God with it, or with the
name and reputation of truth, while we keep both truth
and the favor of God ? Deny yourselves, then, even as
to the reputation of faith and orthodoxness." — (Practical
Works, fol. III., pp. 409-10.)

LANGUAGE AND DOCTRINE.
A single principle, distinctly apprehended and care
fully traced, will be found to comprise all that is peculiar
in the views presented in my book. In this principle
you have a key to my real meaning, and without this
principle constantly held in mind, and applied as a key,
my language will only lead you into impressions which
are totally remote from my real sentiments. The prin
ciple is this :
That all religious truth, as well theological
AS practical, is and must be presented under condi
tions OF FORM OR ANALOGY FROM THE OUTWARD STATE;
The truth-feeling power of the soul may have truth
present immediately to it, or may directly intuit truth,
without symbols or representations of language. But
the moment it will think discursively, or represent to
another any subject of thought, that, subject must be
clothed in forms that are only signs dF-anal©gies, and not
equivalents of the truth. Even definitions and the most
abstract modes of terminology will be true only in a
sense more or less visibly formal and analogical. They
will carry their sense, not by simple notation, as in arith
metic or algebra, but as offering it to the critical power
of the eye and heart in symbols naturally expressive.
Assuming, or having established this position concern
ing language, the person of Christ, the trinity, the atone
ment, and other great truths of revelation, must be taken

16 STATEMENT OF
as offered to us under the conditions and laws of ex
pression or simple presentation, as a soul is expressed or
presented in a face, and not as in the formula of a merely
logical calculus, — interpreted and not overlaid by con
structive judgments. My conviction is, that all our diffi
culties and controversies, in respect to these great truths
of revelation, are caused by a misuse of the material
offered us. The truth is given us in forms or images
naturally expressive ; we take these forms to be the very
truths themselves, and immediately begin to reason upon
them by constructive, or by what are sometimes, called,
though improperly, a priori judgments. They are a
priori in pretense or appearance, but in fact are only
mock uses of this method of reasoning, having no basis
in the real truth of the premise, but only a plausible
show of reason in the form of the premise.
This, I conceive, is the almost universal sin that infests
the reasonings of mankind concerning moral and spiritual
subjects, and it is this at which I aimed in the depreca
tions of logic, or the logical method, that are offered here
and there in my book. It was not my design to make an
assault upon logic itself as a science. I was not ignorant
that all the sublime results of the calculus are fruits of
genuine logic. I only meant that, as soon as we carry
this method into moral and religious philosophy, and
3ubject our mind to it as a dominant influence there, we
are sure to be enveloped in sophistries without end or
Limit ; for words, in this case, have a wholly different
relation to their truths— a relation of form or symbol and
not of mere notation. We must hold them in a way of
Inspection ; we must read them by looking in their faces

THE TRUE METHOD. 17
as we do our friends. We can not take them into our
logical understanding and use them as the terms of a
calculus. What they carry into our soul's feeling or per
ception, or awaken in it by expression, is their only truth,
and that is a simple internal state of the soul itself;
which if we undertake to handle in any'merely logical
and a priori method, we are sure to abuse both our
selves and it. And it is by just this abuse of Scripture,
reasoning out of its forms, and supposing that we reason
out of the truth itself, that theology is made to wear a
look of confusion so unrespectable.j The free symbols
of expression clash, as symbols, with each other, and then
we take them all as so many centers of logical systems,
piling up, age upon age, our Babels of wisdom, confound
ing worse and worse the language of the skies, till the
power of mutual understanding, and even the sense of
community in the truth, appear to be lost.
Let me illustrate what is intended in these suggestions
by a few examples. See how the Romish church estab
lishes one of her infallible world-renowned dogmas. " Is
not Jesus," she asks, "God?" "Yes, certainly." "Is
not Mary the mother of Jesus ?" " Yes." " What, then,
is Mary but the Mother of God ? — Ave Maria ! Be it
henceforth a doctrine of the church, publish it, require it
of all people to worship Mary the Mother of God 1" Now,
in just this manner, a great part of the scholastic theology,
nay, of all theology, down to Liberal Christianity itself, is
created. By the same false method, we are continually
trying all the great questions that pertain to God's being
and the work of human salvation.
Do you ask why false, — where is the fault of the argu-
2*

18 * ILLUSTRATIONS of
ment? There is no fault in the argument, I answer, re
garding simply the logic of it. The premises are true,
and who will say that the result does not follow? It
only happens that the premises are not true, save in a
sense so far qualified as to take away the conclusion.
Mary is not the mother of Jesus in the same sense that
the word mother has in its .ordinary use. She is only the
visible instrument of a Transcendent Power, who is em
ploying her as the medium by which He will graft into
human history what is not of it, and will be really grafted
into it only so far as to answer certain purposes of ex
pression. Neither is Jesus God in any such sense that
the name Jesus measures God; he is the Word made
flesh. His person is representatively God, and not God
in the inclusive logical sense that he is the All of God.
And so the infallible conclusion, that Mary is the Mother
of God, vanishes, the moment we look into the simple
truth of expression that lies in the premises. It turns
out, after all, that she is simply God's instrument in the
very mysterious matter of the incarnation — a mother just
so far as the mysterious person, called Jesus, is of her.
Our Unitarian- Jrignds sometimes drag us into a re
volting conclusion, derived from the death of Christ, in
the same manner. " Christ," you say, " is God. You also
say that Christ died. What, then, do you believe and
teach but that God died ?" A most stringent argument,
we sometimes acknowledge on our side, (as our accepted
theologic method too generally requires,) and therefore,
to show that we can take the conclusions of logic man
fully, we translate them directly into verse ourselves
and sing — " When God the mighty Maker died."

THE LOGICAL METHOD. 19
And yet there are few, I suspect, who do not feel, how
ever confident of the good logic they are singing in this
line, that the words do still grate a little upon the nerves
and have a rather unpleasant sound to the ear. Hence
they are more generally denied as being no part of
orthodox truth. For, continuing still the same logical
method, most of our theologians say that, in the death
of Christ, it was only the man or human part that died.
Yes, and other men have died in great numbers. If the
person of Christ is thus to be divided, and the death
thrown upon the human side, in order to slip a logical
difficulty, then let the conclusion be logically taken that,
as the world is redeemed by the death of Christ, it is re
deemed by the death of a man !
Would it not be as well to let go the method of the
calculus here, and look simply to what God will express
to us in and through these forms of mystery — to follow
the incarnate Word in the charities of his life and the
patience of his suffering death, and drink, in all, that
which is the truth of all, the manifested love and patience
of God — a Spirit incomprehensible, and so entirely re
mote fr^m any terms of sense, that to be set forth or in
carnated in such terms, involves a union of the incom
patible, and a defiance of all logical constructions ?
Again : the " begotten, not made," of the Nicene
Council, or what is commonly called the doctrine of
" eternal generation," may be given as an illustration or
example of the same false method. Holding, as it seems
to me, a generally and radically true idea of the Sonship
of Christ, the method of the Council was itself a virtual
or potential falsity, apart from their meaning ; and the

20 ILLUSTRATIONS OF
manner and form of their doctrine represented the falsity
of their method. They laid hold of the Scripture phrases,
"Son," "begotten," "only begotten"— figures of rhetoric,
even transcendently poetical— and squared them down
into a solid block ^ of science, requiring them, for the
ages to come, to support the dull questions of the school,
and be handled, as they*must, by those who know how
to draw inferences about Begetting and being'oegotten.
Then followed what only could ; for there is this happy
fatality, if it should not rather be called virtue, in the
dialectic or false method of which I speak, that it is under
a doom of the Almighty, which requires it to be the in
evitable and faithful avenger of its own sins. Never has
it set up a doctrine, never has it imparted any element,
whether of substance or form, to a doctrine, which it was
not also doomed to assault and exterminate. It per
petuates the fable of Thyestes feasting on the body of
his son.
There must have been some feeling, I think, in those
who first conceived and asserted the doctrine of eternal
generation that, however well reasoned or true it might
be, as regards the matter, the form of it was yet a vio
lence put upon the language of Scripture. The Scripture
figures, " begotten," " only begotten" — representing to us,
in a way of poetic life and expression, the mutual inbeing
of Christ in the flesh and the unseen God, suggesting the
essential divine eminence and underived derivation of the
Son, and commending his dearness to us by the sign of
his filial dearness to the Father, — these living words they
are found converting into a dead timber of dogma ; which
dogma, though it be true, as it is really meant, they must

THE LOGICAL METHOD. 21
yet have some suspicion is only as good as false, because
of the form. And this the slow but certain vengeance
of history will, at last, make evident. By and by some
one will dare to ask what feeling is freshened, or thought
fructified, or desire of wisdom comforted, by the perfectly
barren information that Christ is the Son by the eternal
generation of the Father ? The original idea or meaning
of the dogma, unable to live in a form so badly violated,
will have gradually perished, and its truth will begin to
be tried, not by its meaning, but by logical inferences
put upon the words ; and so it will, at last, be quite over
turned by the same false method under which it was
originally shaped.
In just this manner it is, I conceive, that the dogmas
of "eternal generation" and "eternal procession" have
so generally fallen out of the world's faith. Even where
they are professed, they seem to be only timidly held, or
half believed. And, what is a yet more convincing token
of their complete discontinuance of life, they are rejected
with as little insight as they are held. Thus our own
Dr. Emmons, for example, reduces them, at once, by his
infallible logic, to a plain absurdity, as affirming a derived
existence in the Son and the Spirit. " They set the Son,"
he declares, " as far below the Father as a creature is
below the Creator ; and the Holy Ghost as far below the
Son as he is below the Father; or rather, they make
the Holy Ghost the creature of a creature." — (Emmons1
Works, Vol. IV., p. 114.)
Now, the only force in this argument consists in the
fact that it does not go behind the words " generation"
and " procession" to ask what they mean. It takes them

22 ~ ILLUSTRATIONS OF
as a calculus, and reasons on their forms apart from their
meaning, returning the false method by which they were
originally converted into logical abstractions upon its
own head. Had this venerable teacher been as careful
to ascertain what is meant by words as he was keen to
draw inferences from them, he might often have lost, as
here, the opportunity of his inferences altogether. For,
as a matter of history, nothing is more clear than that
the terms, "generation" and "procession," were resorted
to for the very purpose of preparing a scheme of trinity
that should exclude the Arian notions of a created or
derivative existence in the Son and the Holy Spirit.
And here, in the fate of this particular doctrine or
dogma, you have, in small, a good illustration of all the
wars of theology. We can not allow the Christian truth
to hold those forms which are necessary to its expression ;
we must be more scientific ; we must convert the forms
into abstractions, overlay the abstractions with logical
inferences, build the inferences into schemes and systems,
aiid these we call doctrine or theology. Nothing was
ever able to stand that was built in this way ; but there
is one remarkable advantage accruing to comfort us, that
in so many dialectic buildings and destructions, our mind
is sharpened, by what we suffer, to a closer, keener in
spection of the forms of truth, and gradually convinces
itself, by its own miscarriages, that real truth is to be
found only by insight, and never by the extempore
clatter of logical judgments. We seem, in this manner,
to be gravitating slowly toward the true position. Per
haps we shall sometime reach a point where God can
teach us.

THE LOGICAL METHOD. 23
By these illustrations, the ground I wish to vindicate,
in respect to language and doctrine, will be somewhat
cleared, I trust, to your apprehension. I mean to say
that words, and especially the words of revelation, which
represents the invisible to us under conditions of form
and symbol, (this is the very idea of revelation,) must
be taken as the images or investitures of truth, offered to
us in a way of expression simply ; that when they are
taken as terms of absolute notation, and reasoned from or
with, no respect being had to their expression, — as when
it is proved that Mary is the Mother of God, or that God
died in the crucifixion of Jesus, — they only delude us the
more certainly, the more confidingly, and even the more
correctly and logically, they are used ; also, that when
we set forth a real truth in Scripture terms that do not
properly contain it, save as we argue them into it by an
abuse of their nature as instruments or images of simple
expression, the mistake is, at bottom, the same, and a
similar delusion will follow, as in the dogmas of the
" eternal generation" and " procession.'^
What I have advanced on this subject of language and
doctrine, in my book, appears to have disturbed the
confidence of many, as indicating a licentious spirit, or a
willingness to break down the outworks of theology.
They do not seem to be aware that others have been
equally licentious, without incurring any similar suspi
cion. There may be something peculiar in the manner
by which I have traced the origin and illustrated the
necessary defects of spiritual language; and yet the
general view that I have given of language as an instru-

24 ANCIENT ORTHODOX METHOD.
ment of doctrine,— its formal character, its liability to
abuse, the certainty that any revelation in the outward
forms of things, whether in verbal language or not, must
involve apparent contrarieties, which a merely formal
and constructive logic will be sure to carry into conclu
sions as various and repugnant as the forms, raising up
as many hostile sects or parties, — this truth has been em
braced by others, in the past ages, as decidedly as by me,
and has entered into their forms of doctrine in the same
manner. It was precisely this, according to Neander,
that distinguished the Nicene school from the Arian.
The latter was logical and metaphysical, going directly
into the essence of God and Christ as subjects of human
investigation. But, in the view of the former, "all
human expressions of God were of a symbolic nature,
taken from temporal things, and therefore liable to be
misconceived, unless the idea lying at the bottom were
freed from the elements of time and sense." — ( Vol. II.,
p. 381.) Neander even gives it as a distinction pertain
ing to the whole class of " doctrinal writers, whose views
were shaped by the Platonic philosophy, that there was
no possible form of knowing which comprehended the
essence of divine things, but only a symbolical knowledge of
them for the human understanding." — (Vol. II, p. 400.)
And this, which, in his view, had force enough to dis
tinguish one great class of teachers from another,' — the .
spiritual and true, in great part, from the merely specu
lative and heretical, — is precisely what I have asserted in
my doctrine of language. It is, in fact, the radical sin
of all my heresies.
But we have examples closer at hand, under names

OPINIONS OF BAXTER. 25
greatly revered by us all, and never suspected of radical
unsoundness in doctrine. I find many passages, for
example, in Baxter, which indicate an opinion of the
insufficiency of dogma, or of language as the instru
ment of dogma, entirely coincident with the views I
have advanced. He does not appear to have under
stood, as accurately as he might have done, the grounds
and causes of this insufficiency ; but the fact itself, and
even the necessity of multiplied and formally repug
nant terms to help out the insufficiency of language,
he well understands, and states in the most explicit
manner. This will appear in the passage that fol
lows. " And the narrowness of man's mind and thought is
such, that usually there must be many partial concep
tions to one thing or object really indivisible. So that
few things, or nothing rather, in the world is known to
us with one conception, nor with a simplicity of appre
hension answerable to the simplicity of the thing. And
hereby it cometh to pass that inadequate conceptions
make up a great part of our learning and knowledge.
And yet worse, our words being narrower than our
thoughts, we are fain to multiply words more than con
ceptions, so that we shall have ten conceptions, perhaps,
of one thing, and twenty words, perhaps, for those ten
conceptions. And then we grow to imagine the things
to be as various as our conceptions, yea, and our words."
—{Practical Works, fol, Vol. IV, p. 500.)
In his " Dying Thoughts," where his soul is laboring
much to conceive the better state of the glorified, he ad
verts, again and again, to the want we suffer of some fit

26 OPINIONS OF BAXTER.
medium for truth, in the use of which our half-seeing and
the sickening controversies of our childish state will
come to a full end. He does not reject systematic
theology, but he perceives, in the clearest manner, how
very little real truth there may be in it, in its most
orthodox forms, and how easy it may be to place it be
tween the soul and every thing that can be called true
knowledge. He says :
" There is a great difference between that light which
sheweth" us the thing itself, and that artificial skill by
which we have right notions, names, definitions, and fan
cied arguments and answers to objections. This artificial,
logical, organical kind of knowledge, is good and useful in
its kind, if right, like speech itself. But he that hath
much of this may have little of the former, and unlearned
persons, that have little of this, may have more of the
former."— (Practical Works, Vol. Ill, p. 862.)
In the passage that follows, he declares the sense he
has of the indeterminateness of language ; his belief that
language most familiar and supposed to be most exactly
literal and definite is commonly least understood; and
also that a thorough investigation of controversies, de
scending into the terms in issue, would show them to be
really idle, for the most part, and insignificant quarrels
about forms and shadows.
" And so lamentable is the case of all mankind, by the
imperfections of human language, that those words which
are invented for communication of conceptions are so little
fitted to their use as rather to occasion misunderstandings
and contentions ; there being scarce a word that hath
not many significations, and that needeth not many more

OPINIONS OF BAXTER. 27
words, to bring us to the true notice of the speaker's
mind. * * * Some readers or hearers, yea, almost
all, are so used to unapt words and notions obtruded
on mankind by the master of words, that they can not
understand us if we change their terms and offer them
fitter, and yet least understand those which they think
that they best understand. * * * A man that resolv-
eth not to be deceived by ambiguous words, and maketh
it his first work, in all his readings and disputings, to
difference between words and sense and things, and
strictly to examine each disputed term, till the speaker's
meaning be distinctly known, will see the lamentable
case of the church and all mankind, and what shadows
of knowledge deceive the world, and in what useless
dreams the greater part of men, yea, of learned men, do
spend their days. Much of that which some men un-
weariedly study and take to be the honor of their under
standings and their lives, and much of that which mul
titudes place their piety and hopes of salvation in, being
a mere game at words and useless notions, and as truly
to be called vanity and vexation, as is the rest of the
vain shew that most men walk in." — (Practical Works,
Vol. Ill, p. 882.)
In the passages that follow, he perceives the imperfec
tion of all abstractive knowledge ; how it lies, when we
think not. of it, in "forms," "images," or "secondary
notions," which are only shadows of the truths signified;
how, also, by a logical handling of such pterins, we are gen
erally drawing ourselves quite away from the truth, when,
if we were less ambitious of science, and more ready to
offer the " intuiting" eye of faith to the same themes, we

28 OPINIONS OF BAXTER.
should know them more perfectly, and in a manner of
virtual agreement. He is only mistaken in referring the
difficulty that besets our abstractive knowledges and
logical deductions to our being in the body. It lies
rather in the fact that our words are in the body
themselves. " It is not improbable that there is more imperfection
in this mode of notional, organical, abstractive knowledge
which the,, soul exerciseth in the body, than most con
sider of. ' * * * I am very suspicious that the body
is more a lantern to the soul than some will admit, and
that this Lusus notionum secundarum, or abstractive
knowledge of things, by organical images, names, and
notions, is occasioned by the union of the soul with the
body utformce-, and is that childish knowledge which the
apostle saith shall be done away. And how much man's
fall might consist in such a knowing of good and evil
I can not tell, or in the over- valuing of such a knowledge.
And I think that, when vain philosophy, at Athens, had
called the thoughts and desires of mankind from great
realities to the logical and philological game at words
and notions, it was Socrates' wisdom to call them to
more concerning studies, and Paul's greater wisdom to
warn men to take heed of such vain philosophy, and to
labor to know God, and Jesus Christ, and the things of
the Spirit, and not to over- value this ludicrous, dreaming,
worldly wisdom." — (Practical Works, Vol. III., p. 891.)
"As to the kind of knowledge, how excellent and
more satisfactory a way will that of intuition or intellective
sense be, than is our present way of abstraction, similitudes,
and signs. We often get but a set of words to take up

OPINIONS OF TAYLOR. 29
our time and" divert us from the matter. Even as carnal
men use the creatures which signify God and are made
todeadt them up to him, to entangle them and be the
greatest and most pernicious diversion of their souls
from God, so do too many learned men do by their
organical, signal knowledge. * * * Men take their ¦_
s-$5ctacles instead of eyes.
" And hence come the greatest part of the contentions
of the world, which are hottest among men that most
pretend to wordy knowledge. * * * This game at
words is but a knowing of images, signs and shadows, and
is but an image and shadow of true knowledge." — (Prac
tical Works, Vol. III., pp. 892-3.)
Baxter's views of language, and of abstractive knowl
edge or theory, as given in these numerous extracts,
might be confirmed by many references. I give but one.
A writer of our own time, who is held in the highest
repute as a teacher of Christian truth, undertakes a sub
ject lying in the same field, viz., " The Physical Theory
of Another Life ;" and advances sentiments yet more
.closely coincident with the views of language I have
suggested. He speaks, in the same manner, of language
as being only a physical medium, and^ expresses the
same conviction of its utter incompetency to answer any
purposes of exact science, in matters of spiritual philoso
phy and Christian theology. He says :
" The vocabulary of a highly civilized people, as of
the Greeks, Eomans, Italians, Germans, English, includ
ing the inflexions employed in its combinations, and
including also technical terms and proper names, must*
at an average, be estimated as comprising two hundred
3*

30 OPINIONS OF TAYLOK.
thousand arbitrary signs, [arbitrary mostly in the sounds,
but, as regards the types of the words, built on correspon
dences or analogical forms that are native in the creation
of God, perhaps eternal in the Word,] and a large propor
tion of these are susceptible, in construction, of very
many variations in meaning; so as, in fact, nearly to
double [more likely to quintuple] the number of soundk
to which distinct ideas are attached. And yet this vast
apparatus, taken in its most refined form, is found, in
relation to the occasions of the mind, to be scanty, rude,
impliable, inexact, and poor — it is nothing better than a
material machinery ; but matter falls vastly short of being
commensurable with mind. Whether regarded as the
instrument of silent and solitary thought, or as the
medium of communication between mind and mijgl^
language proves itself so inadequate to some of the pur
poses to which it is applied, as to forbid the hope that
those sciences will ever reach a permanent and indis
putable state, which depend upon it as their only means
of expression." — (Physical Theory, p. 96.)
He anticipates accordingly a new and more immej
diately " intellectual" language in the future life, which
is not derived^from " sensible objects," and then, as a con
sequence of this more perfect medium :¦ — •
" The superseding of all fluctuating systems of meta
physics and theology, the exclusion of needless and
fruitless altercations on such subjects, and the gradual
accumulation and consolidation of an absolute phi
losophy — metaphysical, theological, and moral." — (Phys
ical Theory, p. 100.)
Now, the most remarkable difference between what I

LANGUAGE STILL SUFFICIENT. 31

t»;.:.<

have said on the subject of language and scientific or con
structive theology, and what appears in the writings of
Baxter and Taylor, thus referred to, is that I am endeavor
ing to effect some just and practical recognition here of the
same defects which they discover so clearly, when they
look away and begin to imagine the sublime advantages of
a better state of being ; and that they are able to predict,
with so great confidence, a new kind of medium, or lan
guage, that will be provided for the glorified hereafter.
I am not sure of this. To speak frankly, I suspect the
soundness of such anticipations. Is it even a reasonable
supposition that we are passed through this life-long drill
in forms and images, to have all our exercise superseded
or quite thrown away ; or shall we rather believe that we
are practiced in this manner, as in others, for the future
benefits and uses of the practice ? Perhaps it is one of the
highest errands of our life to learn the method of finding truths
in their forms ; to learn how easy it is, by a false use of
words, to fill our minds with the most contradictory and
mischievous errors; to be practiced and established in
that simple and deUcately ingenuous use that reads all
truths in the faces and signs of things that reveal them.
Possibly this will be the crowning distinction of heavenly
minds, that they are able to read God's eternal language
without mistake or hindrance ; for I can not but suspect
that there is an eternal and necessary connection between
the forms God has wrought into things, — thus into lan
guage, — and the contents, on the one hand, of his own
mind, and the principles, on the other, of all created
mind. However this may be, would it not be more
modest, and far more practical, instead of flying to the

32 LANGUAGE STILL SUFFICIENT.
heavens to be emancipated from what God has given us
here, to return again to our words and our signs, and ask
if, possibly, there may not be some better, more legiti
mate and honest use of them, by which we may know
more and pretend less, have more to communicate, and
less of strife and judgment?
This certainly has been my conviction. I had no such
thought as that I was making light of truth, and reflecting
distrust and discouragement on reasonable and proper
efforts to find the truth. I supposed, rather, that I was
showing how we may open a wider heaven of truth than
our own or all mere formulas and abstractions could
possibly contain. I supposed that I was showing how a
suspension of our intensely dogmatizing habit ; how the
ceasing to De busied about and upon truth, as a dead body
offered to the scalpels of logic, and the giving ourselves
to truth as set before us in living expression, under God's
own forms, yielding them a pure heart in which to glass
themselves, would fill us evermore with senses of God
and his truth otherwise unattainable. I supposed that,
if we can but quit our over-theoretic and abstractive
wisdom, make a great deal less of the plausible ingenui
ties of system, be simple enough to think more of re
ceiving and less of constructing, and to offer a living in
genuous heart to what God expresses to us, we should he
no longer drawn off into petty formulas^ to fight for the
mere minima of truth, arrayed as in starvation against
each other, but should receive so much more of God's
fullness, and spread ourselves in such a breadth of com
prehension as to find the unity, whose loss we deplore,
in simply receiving truths whose loss was unknown.— <

LANGUAGE STILL SUFFICIENT. 33
hidden from us, by the party zeal we had for systems
that contained only a few small segments or specks of
truth. Language is not an instrument so imperfect, when
rightly accepted, or used according to its real nature. If,
instead of occupying our " dying thoughts," and our con
ceptions of " another life," with conjectures of some better
medium that will deliver us from the obscurity and limi
tation of this, we could simply turn ourselves to the
practical question, by what abuses and perversions we
become involved in so great confusion of doctrine, and
reduce ourselves to so great poverty in the truth, we
should discover that there is truth enough to be known
here, and truth enough expressed, — only provided we
had eyes to see it. Nay, if there be any advantage to
accrue from a change of worlds, we should begin to
suspect that it will be found, not so much in better
media, as in a more sensible and proper use. The prin
cipal difficulty we have with language now is, that it will
not put into the theoretic understanding what the imagi
nation only can receive, and will not open to the head
what the heart only can interpret, j It is a great trouble
with us that we can not put a whole scheme of redemp
tion, which God could execute only by the volume of
expression contained in the life and death of his incar
nate Son, into a theologic formula or article of ten words.
It is as if, being unable to compress the whole tragic force
of Lear into some one sentence of Edgar's gibberish, we
lose our patience, and cry out upon the poverty of lan
guage and conception in the poem. Let us only take
the attitude of reception ; let us cease from our foolish

34 TRUE NATURE OF LANGUAGE,
endeavor to make universes of truth for God out of a
few words and images that we have speculated into wise
sentences ; and then turning to his own living forms of
expression, brought forth in Scripture and the world and
Providence, set ourselves before them as interpreters and
learners, with an imagination that is open, and* a livings
and believing heart; we shall then begin to feel that
there is abundance of language here, and that, too, which
is abundantly significant. If our theology is dull and
partial, if we long after a future state where "intui
tions" will give us something better than " notions," and
" names," and "shadows," we need the transfer after all,
not so much to get a new language, as to get away from
our own abuse of the language we have. To see God
in those things wherein he sets himself before us is the
way of intuition, and we need hot go to heaven for that|f
for it is the essential beatitude of " the pure in heart
that " they shall see God" here, as often as they look for
Him, and without a change 'of worlds.
I was well aware that the views of language expressed
in my book would be generally looked upon as fantastic
and extravagant. .¦• And now that I am called to answer
for them, what shall I say ? That I can not verify them
to you by a re-statement, or by any mere argument or
exposition that will operate conviction as an immediate
present effect, I certainly know. I do not see that they
can prove their truth to others in any different way,
or by any more summary process, than that under whieh
they were gradually, and, by imperceptible degrees, veri
fied to me ; that is, by an habitual study and close obser-

HOW TO BE DISCOVERED. 35
vation of the nature and phenomena of language con
tinued* for a course of years. It is my misfortune that I
can offer you no justification that is more immediate, than
to put you off thus upon time, for that which is the
necessary matter of your present judgment ; and yet I
"have a Certain confidence that, as I go on to sketch the
process by which these views of language were verified
to me, a suspicion, may, at least, be fastened, • that the
process described is likely to result in the same manner
with others. You will find that it has, to a certain ex
tent, resulted thus with you all, and, with some of you,
nearly or quite to the extent, perhaps, even of my heresy
itself. Or, if it be otherwise, let it not be deemed arro
gant in me that I assume so much, in proposing to be a
_ guide and teacher to others ; for it commonly happens
that we, Kke other children, have each of us our special
fields and ways of exercise, and it is no very offensive
assumption, that one childb seems to be forward in the
play that other and stronger children have neglected. I
suggest, then, as a «
First condition, if any one will come into, or effect
ually test the views of language I have published, that
he make large and patient observations of the analogy
that holds between the two worlds of matter and mind ;
not omitting to notice, also, and record what impres
sions of this analogy haveheen forced upon the observing
and thoughtful spirits of mankind in the former ages.
When I affirm that moral and spiritual truths are com
municated and communicable, only under conditions of
form or analogy, the declaration supposes a certain cor
respondence between objects and terms of the outward

36 UNIVERSAL ANALOGY
state, and whatever subjects of thought, feeling, and
spiritual being, we may speak of; that the worldof spaee
and time is a medium to the world of mind ; that what
exists, in form, is prepared, by a certain mysterious and
perfectly uninvestigable relationship, to represent .what
is out of form. We live in the visible ; we speak, reason^
worship, in terms that are of the visible. And if any
revelation is made to us, it is made, of course, in terms
or images of the outward state ; which, in virtue of some
law of correspondence or analogy, are suggestive or ex
pressive of the truths revealed.
. Thus Paul, taking notice of this same analogy, says :
" For the invisible things of Him, from the creation of
the world, are clearly seen, being understood by the
things that are made, even His eternal power and God
head ;" in which, as I understand him^he not only ex
presses his conviction that the forms of the world do, in
fact, represent the nature and power of God, but he also
argues to that fact from the -manifest necessity that, if the
creation of the world be issued fromGod, it must repre
sent the mind by which it is conceived, and must, in all
its particular forms or objects, reveal those archetypes
of thought in God which shaped them in their birth
He discovers, also, the same analogy pervading the out
ward Providential history of past times, and especially
that of the Jewish state, as a frame of supernatural order
and appointment: "Now, all these things happened
unto them," he says, " for ensamples, [types in the
original,] and they are written for our admonition,
upon whom the ends of the world are come." Not that
we are to look for the same outward discipline, but for

OF MATTER AND MIND. > 37
one that is spiritually correspondent ; to see, in the terms
of then? history, types or analogies of that spiritual dis
cipline, by which God is exercising us. So the taber
nacle and the rites of the altar are declared to be copies
of " patterns seen in the mount," which, being familiar
ized in lihe outward state, are ready to serve as types or
figures of the spiritual grace or work of Christ, which is
" the true tabernacle." In like manner, the unseen feli
cities of the future life are set forth, or pictured to us, by
means of visible images, drawn from the worlds above us
and the world about us, which, as types of paradise, are
set to overhang and surround every moment of our
mortal life. ' Holy Scripture, in fact, is only a gradual
unrolling or spiritualizing to us of figures^ and' forms
that envelop and represent the deeper truths of the spir
itual life. j.
Nor is it only the extreme mystic interpreters, such as
Swedenborg and Origen, that discover this correspond
ence or analogy, and who bring it into discredit, by as
serting a precisely' threefold meaning in the words of
Scripture, and other like^fancies. It is apprehended,- also,
by the insight of poets and philosophic observers, not
only as pertaining to the Scripture forms, but to every
thing in the outward state. " The severe schools," says
Sir Thomas Brown, " shall never laugh me out of the
philosophy of Hermes, that this visible world is but a
picture of the invisible, wherein, as in a portrait, things
are seen, not truly, but in equivocal shapes, and as they
counterfeit some more real substance in that invisible
fabric." And it is remarkable that this Egyptian Her
mes, to whom he refers, and who is computed to have
4

38 ' UNIVERSAL ANALOGY
lived even twenty centuries before Christ, was able, in
the depths of nature, and apart from the aids of revela
tion, to verify it as a truth, that " all things which are in
heaven are in the earth, after an earthly manner ; and all
which are in the earth are in heaven, [the world of
thought and spirit,] after a celestial manner." The same
general truth, under a different form, was maintained by
Plato, when he represented that all visible things are the
outward birth of intellectual types or thoughts repre
sented in them. So when Kepler, gazing at the sky and
beholding the starry motions fulfilling his conjectured
law, exclaimed, in the sacred furor of his enthusiasm,
" 0 God, I think thy thoughts after thee !" — it was only
a more inspired utterance of the same conviction ; for
there is an inner light of divine thought, which informs,
not only objects, but laws, and which, if we can find n,
is expressed in all things. This sublime conviction it
was, too, that had penetrated the soul of Milton, when he
wrote — ¦ " What if earth
Be but the shadow of heaven and things therein,
Each to other like, more than on earth is thought."
The distinguished teacher of natural history, Mr.
Kirby, is led into the same conviction, by an approach
also from that quarter, declaring his conviction that
nature is a " system of representation ; * * * the Great
Instructor of man placing this world before him as an
open, though mystical, book, in which the different'
objects are words of a language, from the study of which
he might be instructed in such truths, relating to the
spiritual world, as God saw fit to reveal."

OF MATTER AND MIND. 39
Now, in what I have advanced on the subject of lan
guage and the revelation of God, I have simply said that
both are possible, only on the ground of this vast, original
and truly Sacred Analogy between things visible and
invisible ; and that all the terms of language, in which
thoughts and spiritual truths are presented, all the
instruments of expression by which God is set before
men, must be taken out of the world of form, and will
offer truth and God to us only under analogies or condi
tions of form. The revelation, I have said, whether it
be a proposition of language, a vision, a burning bush,
or a divine life in the flesh, will have something in it
which puts it under the conditions of form, and some
thing which pertains to its intellectual and spiritual
significance. And then the account must ever be liquid
ated between what belongs to the form and what to the
significance; also, between different or antagonistic forms ;
constant care being had not to manufacture truth by infer
ences drawn out of the forms, but to find truth in them by
a simple and delicately receptive contemplation of them, or
insight of what they express. For the forms will probably
support or suffer many hundred inferences that have nothl
ing to do with the truths they are intended to signify, and
which only a sharpened insight will accurately distinguish.
Accordingly, it follows that the best and truest doctrine
will not be that which is settled by the logical faculty,
exercised in building single forms into systems — which,
in general, are only single forms swollen in dimensions,
by absorbing or swallowing all the contiguous forms that
were given to qualify, limit, fill and settle their meaning,
¦ — but it will be that which a souL purified and cleared by

40 DISTINCTION REVISED,
love, discovers under manifold terms of analogy, when
it turns itself to the receiving of God through simple
contemplation, perusing the faces of those words and
symbols by which he is expressed. Christian truth is
received, not constructed ; spiritually discerned, but
judged of no man. It is found, not by things done over
and about it, or by the logical drawing and quartering
of its dead body, but by being found of it and having it
enter into us alive, in its divinity, to be our life. The
true interpreter is love — the love, that is, which is shed
abroad in the heart by the Holy Ghost : "he that loveth
¦ knoweth God, for God is Love, j
Secondly, there needs to be a careful revision of the
'distinction between literal and figurative language. I
have virtually denied this distinction as commonly held,
insisting that we have no properly literal language, save
in reference to matters of the outward physical state.
When we come into the world of mind or spirit* words
get their significance, I have insisted, under conditions
of analogy, and never stand as a direct and absolute
notation for thought.
This truth, I was well aware, could not be assented to,
save by the few who have found it, or made a gradual
and complete verification of it, by a course of protracted
exercise ; for it is only by years of patient exercise in the
study and observation of words, having the attention al
ways directed to this one point, that the universal presence
of the form-element can become an accepted, obvious, and
natural truth. The first impression of intelligent persons
is likely to be that of the rhetoricians, viz., that we have

OF LITERAL AND FIGURATIVE. 41
two departments of language in reference to spiritual
truths, a "literal" and a "figurative;" or, if the view I
have given of the origin of language, as based in physical
terms or images, is acknowledged to be true, still it will
be said that words have lost the recollection mostly of
their original symbols, and have settled down, under
long use, to be exact names of well-known spiritual
ideas. And thus, it will be imagined that we have a
language provided for spiritual ideas, which is as truly
literal as that which we employ in the naming of physical
objects. Now, it is very true that the original base, or etymon,
of many words is lost, and that of others doubtful. It is
equally true that familiarity has given us a certain
fluency in the use of many words of thought, which, if
we do not pause too long upon them, or question them
too deliberately, are very likely to seem even literal
names t and exact measures of the thoughts they are
used to convey. But all such impressions wear away by
degrees, and disappear, when we set ourselves to a closer
observation of the phenomena of words ; till finally we
discover that the words, in respect to which there seemed
to be such a definite and precise understanding, and
which therefore we had taken to be literal names of the
thoughts signified, are in fact only more, because more
latently, indeterminate.
Thus you will observe, for example, that a theologian,
strongly confident of the certainty and real science of his
operations, will gather up a glowing mass of popular,
half-contradictory figures in the scripture, relating to or
lying about some common subject, and bringing them
4*

42 DISTINCTION REVISED,
into a single abstract proposition, will say, ' their mean-
ing, or the sum of their meaning, is exactly this.' His
conception will be that he has reduced all their ambigui
ties, and given their precise literal import. And yet a
closer examination will discover what is exactly contrary,
viz., that his proposition is as really and more abstrusely
figurative, and far more uncertain in its meaning than
any of the figures condensed and represented in it. Nay,
the truth itself of his proposition will be found to consist
in the fact that it is just ambiguous enough to let in all
the real ambiguities of those figures and phrases taken
together. Just here is the fruitful source of imposture in theology.
Eeducing the truth of scripture into forms of abstract
statement, under figures so effectually staled by time arid
familiarity that they seem, instead, to be literal and exact
names of the ideas intended, it calls the product certainty;
not perceiving that the appearance of certainty in which
it rejoices is produced by simply doubling the uncertain
ty ; that is, by having still on hand all the original un
certainty, and having it hidden from its own discovery.
It supposes that generalities are most definite, because
poetic form and figure are less palpable in them; where
as, the language that is most palpably figurative is gen
erally more determinate and clear, and, as a matter of
fact, far less frequently misunderstood than that of ab-
' stractive propositions.
Thus, if you take up the abstractive language of cate
chism and theologic system, you will find that the staple
words of which it is principally built are such as these :
Character, necessity, will, ability, dependence, influence, end,

OF LITERAL AND FIGURATIVE. 43
means, efficiency, &c. Thus, for instance, the scripture
text, "No man can come to me except the Father which
hath sent me draw him," will be set forth by some ortho
dox preacher as yielding the following doctrine : ' that
holy character in us depends on a divine influence.' Having
cleared the palpable figures, 'come,' 'can,' and 'draw,'
he will imagine that he has brought his proposition to a
form whose import is perfectly certain, absolutely defi
nite, and literal. He does not perceive or take notice, it
may be, that the words character, depends, and influence,
are as truly figures as the others, and, what is more, that
these three words are among the most indefinite or inde
terminate words of human language.
" Chabacter," — distinctive impress, mark, or seal, —
what is the precise meaning of this image or figure, in its
application to the soul? What is character of? the
will, the affections, the separate acts of the soul, the out
ward conduct, or the inward principle ? that principle a
purpose, or a love, or a state ? Is character shaped by the
understanding, or by the inward law of its principle? Is
it spontaneous, or consciously operated by choice, under
motives of interest ? How is it changed ; by action, or
faith, or both ? How evidenced and tested ? This word
' character' is one of the most difficult words in human
language to settle any precise understanding of, and one
in regard to which every ingenuous disciple will be con
sciously rectifying his impressions to the end of life.
How great a part of the unreducible misunderstanding
between us and the Unitarians, how much of the disso
nance of the Christian sects all over the world, centers
just here, in the inability to conceive character in the

44 DISTINCTION REVISED,
same way. No two individuals perfectly agree in it, ho
individual agrees with himself.
" Depends," — a word whose radical figure is a hanging-
from, and which represents men as hanging from or upon
God, in regard to the interest of character. This is the
figure; what is the exact idea or meaning in the use
now before us ? How, in what respects, are we thus
dependent ? Is it that we simply want the will to help
ourselves, or is there some disability of habit, or is there
some breach of faculty under the consequences of sin?
Is the disability absolute, or conditional, depending on a
concurrence of God and the creature ? Here, in fact, we
open all the controversies of grace and free will, natu
ral ability and moral inability — Augustine and Pelagius;
Luther and Erasmus ; Calvinism, Arminianism, and Eo-
manism. To settle this idea of Christian dependence
has been a tiresome and long work, and I do not perceive
that it is done.
" Influence." But what do we mean, clear of am
biguity, by this figure of in-flowing or flowing upon f In
the uses of common life, the word is a word of endless
fluctuation, carrying all shades of meaning, between
simple request or argument on one side, and those mys
terious and absolute forms of control, real or unreal, on
the other, denoted by the words, society, sympathy,
fascination, spell, sorcery, witchcraft, magnetism. What
then do we mean by divine influence? Some say at
once, a divine efficiency. Some, a persuasive power.
Some, an efficiency that works, in the last degree, through
persuasion. Some disclaim all knowledge of what is
meant by the term, save as they see the power in the

OF LITERAL AND FIGURATIVE. 45
result — quoting always that very intensely figurative
illustration — "the wind bloweth where it listeth, and
thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence
it cometh and whither it goeth." Some will imagine
that there is a literal inflowing of God upon us, not
remembering that this word must be a mere figure, and
can be nothing else — God being in us already, in our
mouth and heart, so near that he can not approach us by
motion. Is it put forward then, as it properly should
be, that the word ' influence,' in the sentence discussed,
includes all that God has done, or is doing supernaturally,
in Christ and the Holy Spirit, to regenerate mankind ?
But what has Christ done ? What will the Holy Spirit
do? Here opens, in fact, the whole subject of trinity,
incarnation, atonement, spiritual agency, all the trans
cendent mysteries of the gospel. Are these mysteries
cleared by the word ' influence,' or is it rather a word as
unfathomable in its meaning as all they together ?
Now, it is true enough that I should readily assent to
the proposition we are discussing; because there is a
certain general understanding which time has been able
to produce in the members of a religious community,
back of any and all mere formulas like this. And yet
there are a hundred points involved in the terms of this
proposition, some of them of the highest importance, in
regard to which I should be altogether uncertain what
the author means to say. The same would be true, only
in a far more limited degree, if we had occupied the
same study and lived at the same table from the time of
our early youth. How much more ambiguous to Chris
tians out of social and ecclesiastical connection, under the

46 DISTINCTION REVISED,
drill of a different theologic method and different modff
of practical life and worship.
* This is a theologic illustration. Let me refer you nexj
to one that is practical and will be equally convincing,
A man brought up in orthodoxy passes, on a sudde^
into the circle of Unitarianism co-existing with him in
the same city. He raises the question, with a design
perfectly ingenuous, " what is your religion ?" Words
are given him in reply that have a right sound, and yet
they do not seem to stand exactly in the modes of use he
is familiar with. They are the most literal and common
words we have in the department of thought or spirit,
such as he has taken to be the simplest names of ideas;^
but he doubts whether he understands them. What can
be more familiar than such words as right, truth, sin,, love,
faith, hope, duty? But, for some reason, the words do
not come into the same places, or stand in the same
ranks. . Something is said, every few moments, that
gives the mind a shock and awakens the apprehension
that a new atmosphere of meaning envelops the words.
And it is even so. There is a form-element in every
system of thought or doctrine, which assimilates all the
words employed, insinuating into them, or imposing
upon them, a character partly from itself; much as foq<|
is changed in form, when the nisus formativus of a living
body imposes its own chemistry and requires it to fill
and support its own type of growth and structure.
In the same way, every individual mind generates to
itself, unconsciously, a certain general form, or wholfj
sphere of thought ; which whole, by a necessary law of
the mind, called reason, [ratio,] exerts a latent power

OF LITERAL AND FIGURATIVE. 47
over all the ratios of meaning, or relative forces of words,
by which they are made to fall into their places, in the
sphere or whole to which they are subordinate. Hence
it frequently happens that two persons of high intelli
gence and vigorous activity, but working under the laws
of different or dissimilar spheres, are consciously not able,
when they meet, to be sure of understanding each other, j
The most common words seem to stand for something
that can not be exactly measured. Definitions are an
assistance, but only a partial one ; for they themselves,
also, want defining. TsTo real and satisfactory under
standing can be had between the parties, until they have
felt out, each the other, so as to get possession of his
whole or sphere, and come into the power of his particular
words and items in the unity of his sphere. And this
will never be done or effected, except under the previous
condition of sympathy .j No two strangers, formed in
different types of life and religion, ean ever understand
each other, in regard to matters of spiritual thought,
through the medium simply of words. There must be
sympathy enough, yielded patiently enough, and for a
time long enough, to bring one into the inward life and
sphere of the other.., Two mathematicians can force an
exact mutual understanding ; for their words and signs
are an exact notation of the things signified. But in
moral and spiritual language, however carelessly we may
speak of the 'literal' senses of terms, they have nothing
of the power of a notation. They are plastic, ebbing and
flowing continually in the ratios of meaning they are set
to fill, and the more implicitly we assume their exactness,
the more certain we are to be deceived.

48 DISTINCTION REVISED,
There is no limit to the illustrations that might be
offered, to show that the assumption of a literal and per
fectly fixed meaning, in the common words of language
and those most fluently used, is baseless. And if any
one is willing to look for it, the fact will as constantly
offer itself to his discovery. Indeed, he will find that the
words of thought (for I am speaking only of this depart
ment of language) most difficult to bring into any terms
of definite understanding, are precisely those which have
lost their bases, and become what the rhetoricians call
' literal,' in distinction from those which are ' figuilr
tive.' Hence also it is, that nothing so much comforts our
intelligence, as to see the ' literal words' married again to
their types or bases, by a discovery of their etymology,
and transformed back into ' figures.' We employ them
now with a confidence and conscious precision, just as
much advanced, as they are become less 'literal' and
more ' figurative,' — reversing, in experience or expert
mentally, the very opinion so peremptorily set up against
me, that language settles gradually into meanings that
are 'literal and exact' names of thoughts. Precisely
contrary to this, the more one discovers of the form-
element in words, learning, meantime, to separate the
form or vehicle from the truth, the more exact and con
sciously intelhgent will his apprehensions be. He will
be struck, also, by observing, at every stage, how the
form of a word just discovered seems to have been with
him before, by a kind of latent presence, presiding im
perceptibly over the uses he made of it, — only he is now
more .confident than he was, and more precisely intelli-

OF LITERAL AND FIGURATIVE. 49
gent in the use. Thus, if it were now, for the first time,
made clear to him that the words joy and exultation denote
a leaping forth, and the word happiness a hap, or befall
ing, as if some agreeable fortune, or gift, had fallen to
one's possession, — one a triumphant going forth of the
soul, therefore, out of its own full center ; and the other
a passive benefit or good luck falling in toward that
center, to waken a pleasure in it that is not properly of it
— he would see the distinction of these words beautifully
made out, in this manner, and feel, at the same time, a
certain conviction that the forms of the words had always
been present, in a degree, to his uses, even when he used
them more confusedly than he will hereafter.*
* I referred to the word congress, in my book, as an example ; a word
that is derived from the Latin word gradior, gressus, and denotes, origin
ally, a measured step, or step of dignity. Therefore, being a word of dignity,
at its very root, the word congress, I suggested, can not be applied as the
regular name of any mob or low assemblage. Being of a high-born family, the
family will have power to forbid its degradation. Not that words can not bo
abused or corruptly used, — they often are, especially in single cases. Some
times they are used as epithets and not as names. Sometimes an elevated
word is applied to a low subject, to raise it into decency or poetic dignity.
Sometimes the very design is to excite laughter by the incongruousness of
the application. What I meant was this — that the growths and compounds
of a word will be so interlocked by associate meanings as to hold one another,
more generally, to some perceivable connection with the original base or root.
Referring to the word grade in the English dictionary, we find the deriva
tives gradual, gradation, graduate, in all of which, and especially the last,
(as when applied to the regular spacing of a thermometer,) we distinguish
the presence of the measured step, which is the original type of the word.
Then, as the measured step carries or associates an esthetic element of dig
nity, we have the word graduate, used in reference to the honors of a univer
sity. Next, the word de-grade will appear as a word of ignominy ; for since
there is a latent power of dignity in grade, the original type, the being put
out of grade, or de-graded, is not ambiguous, possibly an honor, possibly a
disgrace, but certainly and necessarily the latter. Then follow the words
5

50 FORM DISCOVERED
Thirdly : while observing, in this manner, the forms
of single words, our attention may be directed, with equal
profit, to a discovery of the element of form in sentences.
The bases of many words are irrecoverably lost. But
when this is true of all the principal words in a sentence,
there will yet be some particle of relation or transition,
which carries the whole idea of the sentence into a setting
of form that is palpable, and through which, or under the
conditions of which, it is apprehended. Thus we speak
of ' faith in God,' and if it be agreed, for illustration,
that the words 'faith' and 'God' have sunk, and will
never discover their etymology, or the bases on which
they stand, still the particle in is a word of palpable
form, and we shall find, if we . narrowly inspect our
consciousness, that our thought in the expression is com
pletely immersed in form, under and by means of this
little particle. We seem to go over, by a line of motion,
to place our keeping in God, as a medium of rest or trust
out of ourselves. So the particle with, in the first verse
of John's gospel, places the whole sentence under a con
dition of form, and leaves the question of interpretation—
a question here of so vast import-changing mainly on
the figure of outward local concomitancy, or juxtaposi-
egress, ingress, ingredient, and others, all with a certain quality of dignity
which forbids their application, as names, to low subjects ; or, what is the
same, imparts an air of inflation to the style when it is done, which is itself
the effectual and irresistible protest of nature. What I mean, then, is this:
that the original element of form in a word, or femily of words, commonly
stays by, as in this word congress, regulating, though unseen, the uses to
which it is applied. So that when we discover this latent form, and get pos
session of the original physiology of a word, we see at once what has been
controlling our uses heretofore, and how the whole family of words may be
used hereafter, with a more confident and conscious intelligence.

IN SENTENCES. 51
tion in space. How much, too, of what is called theology,
depends on the four particles by, through, in, to, as used
in the epistles of Paul, — words that set all the matters
they connect, however spiritual, in figures of spatial re
lationship. To settle into these figures, so as to find their
exact force, requires a spiritual training of years ; and so
delicate is the process that, if any one begins to act the
grammarian in them, suspending his exegesis wholly on
a comparison of uses ; or the logician, drawing what in
ferences are possible or meet his convenience, from the
sentences to which they impart their forms, it may gen
erally be set down that he is preparing some trick of
imposture on himself or others.
There is no such thing, in short, as getting clear of
form in human language. Whoever attempts to bring
any truth out of form, into an exact, literal, abstractive
language clear of form, begins in a delusion at the outset,
and is very certain to be deeper in delusion at the end.j
And yet what immense quantities of theology are manu
factured in just this way ! What are called definitions
in theology and metaphysics are generally nothing better
than preparations for a plentiful harvest of errors — not
because definitions may not be useful and are not a
natural resort of intelligence, but that being commonly
drawn in the most abstract language possible, they are
supposed to have absolute meanings clear of form and
figure ; when yet they are just as truly under form and
figure as the wildest rhapsodies, only that the figure has
been staled by time, and is therefore less palpable. And
then, after the definitions have been accepted as absolute,
how many deductions, spun out of the mere forms of the

52 THE STUDY
words or sentences, will be taken as the veritable" sons
and daughters of the truth defined/) Ten or fifteen yeafS
of observation in this field will open to almost any one,
I am sure, important discoveries.
Another and fourth mode of exercise, the study of re
ligious divisions and controversies, will lead to the same
general impressions. Let the intelligent Christian teacher
Set himself to this investigation as deliberately as the im
portance of the subject requires; let him open up the
repugnant forms under which Christian sects or churches
are fighting, each on some one side of the truth repre
sented by his form, — angry, denunciatory, bitter, each
in the compound ratio of his honesty and his ignorance
of what he is doing, — then let him go into an experiment
on all the forms or formulas maintained, considering what
of the repugnance belongs to the mere form of the words
and sentences, and what to the peculiar ratios of symbols
in the mental spheres or systems of the parties ; discover
ing in this way how generally their real or intended mean
ings are compatible ; how necessary, often, all their con
flicting, representations are to a full and well-rounded
Christian doctrine, — practiced in this way, he will begin
to have a more exalted sense of truth, because of the
controversies and contradictions maintained in its name;
the boundaries of his charity will be extended, and he
will be comforted in the sense of a more general fellow
ship and co-operation ; he will think of truth with more
true heart and courage, and less of that feeble anxious-
ness, akin to jealousy and panic, which breaks the con
fidence and firmness of the mind ; in short, he will be

OF CONTROVERSIES. 53
so effectually tranquilized and assured in this direction, as
to regard with unaffected pity any Christian soul from
whom a discovery so comfortable and fruitful is hid.
It was in this general connection that I spoke of para
dox, as necessary to the full expression of truth, and in
view of the same general fact that contrary forms are
needed as complemental representations of truth, I also
ventured, in my simplicity, to speak of being able to
assent, without difficulty, to about as many creeds as
chance to fall in my way. I supposed that all such, at
least, as are endeavoring, in this age, to compose the
strifes of the church, would receive my suggestions
patiently and thoughtfully, if not with a ready assent.
But I seem, instead, to have raised no thought beyond
the mere outcry of alarm and judgment. I am charged
with indifferentism, a willingness to trifle with the serious
interests of truth, a want of intellectual integrity, and I
know not what beside. It seems to be imagined that
one's head must be turned by some egregious vanity, or
excess of vain philosophy, to utter such licentiousness.
Precisely contrary to this, I only spoke what the simplest
disciples and those deepest in love have always been aptest
to say, and with greatest boldness, out of their. mere
Christian experience. Thus, the late Dr. Simeon, than
whom no man was ever more unsophisticated, or farther
off from rationalism and vain philosophy, writes, in one
of his letters : —
" Perhaps you little thought that, in what you have
said about extremes, and against the golden mean, you
would carry me along with you. But I do not only go
along with you, I even go far beyond you ; for to you I
5*

54 THE STUDY
can say in words, what for these thirty years I have pro
claimed in deeds, (you will not misunderstand me,) that
the truth is not in the middle, and *not in one extreme;
but in both extremes. I see you filled with amazement,
and doubting whether I am sober.
" Here were two extremes ; observing days, eating
meats, &c. ' Paul, how do you move ? In the mean
way?' 'No.' 'To one extreme?' 'No.' 'How then?'
' To both extremes in their turn, as occasion requires.'
" Here are two other extremes, Calvinism and Armin-
ianism, (for you need not be told how long Calvin and
Arminius lived before St. Paul.) ' How do you move
in reference to these, Paul? In the golden mean?'
'No.' 'To one extreme?' 'No.' 'How then?' 'To
both extremes : to-day I am a strong Calvinist ; to-mor-
irow a strong Arminian.' ' Well, well, Paul, I see thou
lart beside thyself; go to Aristotle, and learn the golden
mean.' " But, my brother, I am unfortunate ; I formerly read
Aristotle, and liked him much ; I have since read Paul,
and caught somewhat of his strange notions oscillating
(not vacillating) from pole to pole. Sometimes I am a
.high Calvinist, at other times a low Arminian ; so that
if extremes please you, I am your man ; only remember,
it is not one extreme that we are to go to, but both
extremes." — (Memoirs, pp. 351-2.)
Such is the verdict of a man who. lives in the sim
plicity of love arid finds his wisdom there. On the con
trary, there is no so disingenuous and untrustworthy
soul, none so irreverent to truth, or incapable of truth, as
one who is rigidly confined to the little credo or thimble-

OF CONTROVERSIES. 55
measure of his own formula. What he calls consistency,
means the same as a small sense of truth ; for if he had
a larger sense of truth, such as a full Christian experience
ought to give him, he would even want several thimbles
to contain it.
Again, fifthly, it will greatly instruct any one who
seeks to arrive at a proper impression of language, or of
the justice of the view I have stated, simply to observe
the concessions made by different writers in regard to it,
when laboring earnestly in any abstruse or difficult sub
ject. A simple hint of this nature will recall it as a kind
of universal practice of writers, to deplore the indefinite-
ness of language in respect, each, to his particular subject
or question. They have no doubt of its general exact
ness and sufficiency, but voting, each in his own special
field of inquiry, that it is inexact and insufficient there,
they are found, taken all together, voting that it is in
exact and insufficient in all.
One teacher, for example, will occupy whole years in
the investigation of the single word baptism, digging
through libraries, issuing replies and rejoinders to the
amount of a volume, having it, in fact, as one of the
great purposes of his life, to settle the meaning of this
word. But while toihng thus in heroic determination
to clear the ambiguity of a word wholly external in its
meaning, and relating to nothing but the mode of apply
ing a little water to the person, he will probably be as
confident of all words that relate to the infinite being and
trinity of God, and to the unseen state of angels and
devils, and to the effects of the cross, as a transaction of

56 CONCESSIONS
this metropolitan speck of earth, on the moral govern
ment of God in the stellar universe of worlds, as if bap
tism were the only word of religion, or of the dictionsrj,
that suffers a possible ambiguity.
Not to multiply examples of this kind, which are
without number, I take pleasure in referring you to one
that, with a singular felicity, touches^all the essential
points of the doctrine of language I have endeavored..to
establish,' — ¦its essentially formal nature and quality; its
necessary insufficiency, when applied to God and the
transcendent mysteries of the divine nature; and the
impossibility here of definitions that will not run, when
logically treated, into conclusions that have no agreement
with the truths signified. This example will be found
in the introduction to an article on the "Sonship of
Christ," in the "Princeton Theological Essays," re
published from the Biblical Eeppeitory of 1829. The
writer has here no antagonist to demolish. He has
nothing on hand but a subject. The difficulties of the
subject he feels, and, when he undertakes to open the
truth of it, he finds himself oppressed by the essential
infirmities of language. In such a case, he makes no
secret of the oppression he suffers. He says :
" It will not be denied that much evil has been pro
duced by the attempt to reduce to distinct formulas the
general truths of the Bible, nor that many have been led
to reject this, [the eternal Sonship,] as well as other doc
trines of the word of God, from. the difficulties with
which they conceived the definitions of them to be en
cumbered." ;>. If.Sf
He had just quoted with approbation, too, a German

TO BE OBSERVED. 57
writer, who denies the possibility of any definition of the
relation of Fatherhood and Sonship, that goes beyond
" the idea of sameness of nature, — every thing else in it,
being merely human, can not be transferred to God." In
which I ought most certainly to agree, and also when he
concedes that " a nearer or more definite explanation of
the nature of this relation can not be given, because there
is nothing analogous to it among men ;" or because, " at
best, our analogical knowledge of God extends but a little
way ;" for this, it will be seen, is only another way of
admitting that all the language we have for subjects
of this nature is based in forms or analogies. The writer
of the essay then goes on to say that all our arguments
against the Sonship of Christ, however invincible in
logical consequence, will be at fault, for the reason that
our definitions are only feeble and obscure terms of
analogy. " It is said that the doctrine contains a contradiction
in terms, that it is utterly incomprehensible how the di
vine essence can be communicated to the Son and yet be
retained by the Father. But * * * if it be allowable
to demand how the divine essence can be communicated
from the Father to the Son and yet retained by the
Father, the objector [a Trinitarian] must submit to a
similar demand, — how three distinct persons can have the
same numerical essence, — how God can be in heaven and
on earth at the same time, and yet not partly in the one
and partly in the other ? It is evident that, when we
speak thus, we use words nearly without meaning [say
rather in glowing healthful terms of paradox] — human
language is so little adapted to the things of God, and our

58 CONCESSIONS
knowledge is so limited, that we may be said not to know
what we say, nor whereof we affirm. When speaking of
God's essence, his omnipresence, his unsuccessive, eternal
existence, or mode of subsistence, our ideas are, at best,
merely negative. We endeavor to deny every thing in
consistent with absolute perfection, but we are unable te
state affirmatively what we mean by any of these terms ''If if o
It will be difficult, I think, for you not to pity a writer
who has fallen into such an abyss of negations concern
ing God. He is so oppressed with the sense he has of the
poverty of language in respect to the matters in question,
as to imagine, since he can not define and dogmatize in
it, that he really does not use it with any positive or in
telligent meaning, — it affirms nothing, it is all negation.
fCould he go a little farther, and perceive a little more
adequately what language is in its true symbolic force,
he would be comforted in the discovery that he really
knows the more of God, and knows Him the more affirm
atively and adequately, because he knows Him in terms
that can not be defined, and in paradoxes that defy all
the petty solutions of logic, or of what is called theologic
science^ The objection to Christ's eternity, grounded in the
supposed derivation of the Son from the Father, as im
plied in the doctrine of eternal generation, is answered
by a similar protest against the possibility of definitions
and logical deductions, and the same unforcible excusing
method of reference to other difficulties, which it is in
sisted are just as bad. " The root," he says, " of all such
objections lies in pressing the analogy between divine
and human things too far. It is plain that, if it be per-

TO BE OBSERVED. 59
mitted to apply to God forms of expression in the same
sense in which they are used among men, [that is, in the
primary physiological sense of the terms,] there is no one
subject on which we may not be involved in contradiction
and absurdity. We say that the Father and Son have
the same numerical essence, and yet we say that the Son
became incarnate and the Father did not ; that is, that
the same numerical essence did and did not become in
carnate. Is it not something worse than useless for us to
speculate so confidently on subjects at such an infinite
remove above our conceptions, and to avail ourselves,
with so much confidence, of the most dangerous of all
arguments, the reductio ad absurdum, when applied to
subjects like the present? We are, however, no advo
cates for the definition under consideration ; not because
we consider the a priori arguments against it as just and
conclusive, but because we can not find that it is founded
on the clear statements of the word of God, and because
we regard it as one of the vain attempts to bring down, by
formulas and definitions, the infinite mysteries of the
Godhead, within the grasp of man's finite intellect." l/l,zf
Now, if there is "no one subject" pertaining to God,
which does not lie within the domain, to us, of form or
analogy, therefore none where, as before said, we are
" able to state affirmatively what we mean ;" that is, in
" formulas" or " definitions" that accurately measure the
truth ; it is most certainly true, that there is " no one sub
ject" of Christian theology, where the reductio ad absur
dum is not a dangerous weapon, or where the " a priori
argument is just or conclusive." Exactly this is what I
have asserted in protesting against mere logic, as a test

60 THE LOGICAL WRITERS,
of Christian truth. The only proper use of this kind of
argument, is when it is applied as a test of method itself,
as it is in my discourses on the Trinity and Atonement.
There was no justice, as I well understood, in the logisal
ad absurdum argument I applied to these doctrines, save
as they are supposed and taken to be doctrines out of
analogy, literal and thoroughly definable dogmas. Then,
having made them reveal their absurdity in this char
acter, I immediately sought to re-produce them in an
other ; that is, under the acknowledged conditions of form
or analog}r.
You will see by this rather extended reference to the
Review, how readily and fully my heresy in regard to lan
guage and doctrine will be accepted, under the pressure
of any great theme of religion, when no influence is
present, but that of the theme itself and the demands of
simple truth, to direct the action of the mind. I have
never inquired and do not know who is the writer of this
essay on the " Sonship of Christ," (an article, I shall by
and by show you, that is involved with me also in all
my principal heresies respecting God and the Trinity,)
but it would not in the least surprise me to be informed
that it was written by the same hand, which penned the
article against my book in a recent number of the same
publication. Again : it will greatly instruct any person, as regards
the true nature of language and of theologic reasonings,
to be in a habit of observing the logical characters, their
modes of proceeding, and the measure of their successes.
I could instance many examples, more or less striking,

TO BE OBSERVED. 61
' but a single one must suffice. We have, in New Eng
land, a writer who has been a problem, I suppose, with
others, as he certainly has been to me. He is generally
regarded as a man wholly separate from law, making his
transitions from one post to another, subject to no as
signable or even existing reasons ; a man of intense force,
with nothing to back his activity ^ or direct his energy,
but simple caprice. And yet a single observation will
make him perfectly intelligible, and reveal the fact that,
in all his changes, he is subject to a law as truly as
other men. Let it be perceived that he is a man of in
finite logic, who holds premises by their forms without
real insight, and he becomes a perfectly calculable force.
He will now be seen taking up or assuming first one pre
mise and then another, building infallible systems on
each, and finding no food or rest in any ; demonstrating,
to-day, what the deep wants or the spiritual starvation of
to-morrow will refute, as being no true bread ; and so he
will pass on through all phases of politics and religion,
till, at last, as the miser's passion comes to its ripe state
in the pursuit of money for its own sake, so he will come
to his limit in the old scholastic theology, and there lie
down in the true pasture and paradise of logic, to have it
as the final good and last end of existence. Had it
been his way to seek intelligence in simplicity and dis
cover the truth in its own pure light ; had he ever con
ceived the possibility that a truth should exist not con
tributed by himself, or prepared by his logic, it would
have been otherwise. But taking it for his maxim that
" consequence" is the only real and sufficient verity, he
has proved the possibility of chasing after consequence
6

62 HOW THIS EXERCISE
through all that man has believed or God has taught, and
finding never any solid basis of truth.
I could name other examples equally familiar to us all,
where the- science of self-delusion has been carried to
nearly the same perfection, and where almost the same
degree of talent for missing the truth has been displayed.
But I only wish to direct your attention to this whole
class of writers as a study. Sufficiently exercised in this
study to allow the impostures of their false method to
reveal themselves rapidly sentence by sentence:, and
without labor as you read, you will often find that what
is in repute as being a most logical production is, in fact,
only a string of scientific sophisms. To read almost
any dozen pages of any great reasoner, (as the word is
commonly applied,) in metaphysics or theology, will often
be enough even to affect you with sadness. And the
more, that this class of writers is the one generally desig
nated by the epithet profound, and is really supposed to
comprehend the spiritual miners of the race. Why else
than because they are farthest off from the simplicity of
truth, and have labored most perseveringly to beget a
wisdom between words which is not in them ?
You will see in these suggestions, which I will not far
ther multiply, by what method of exercise and observa
tion I was led into the views of language and doe-
trine, whether false or true, which are set forth in my
book. It is natural for me to suppose that other minds,
exercised in a similar way, will come to a similar result;
and since all my heresies originate just here, it is quite
as natural to wish that others might be similarly exer-

WILL RESULT. 63
eised. I wish it the more, because it is the only way in
which I can hope that you will ever be set in a position
really to verify, or properly discover the error of, my
representations. For it is my misfortune, "or would be
if it cost me any anxiety, that I can open to you the real
intent of what I have wished to say concerning language
and doctrine, by no process more immediate. And yet
you are likely to be withheld from this, by the suspicion
that I am only recommending a way, in which you may
come into the same hallucination with myself. Allow
me, then, to ask of you that you will balance the suspi
cion I speak of, by simply observing how exactly my-
hallucination corresponds with the known facts, both of
the philosophic and religious history of the race, — where
all the progress that has ever been made will be found to
resolve itself into a gradual culture in the meaning of
words and symbols.
Whatever may be the effect of these suggestions, I am
confident of this, that if any person will so far consent
with me, as to give them a protracted and patient experi
ment, they will carry him into a different world of thought
from that which very many occupy. It will become a
most simple and perfectly evident truth, that we have no
properly literal terms for the expression of spiritual ideas.
When he writes, it will be as finding images, or putting
truths into forms, and representing them to others under
conditions of form. His mental workings themselves
will gradually reveal the presence, more or less subtle, of
types and grammatic laws that are of the outward state.
When he reads, the sentences will start up all in forms,
and he will see a world of images gathering into group

64 WHAT BECOMES
and assortment, acting and re-acting on each other in the
relations of space. Nay, it will finally become a convic
tion with him that it is the great matter with men, what
figures get into their faith, what forms are allowed to
shape their convictions and stand before their feeling;
and that formulas, so called, have their value only in this,
that they are good, sound-bodied, health-inspiring forms,
not that they are out of form and clear of it — that trinity,
atonement, all the grand revelations of the gospel, are
powers of truth and life in just this way.
Now, if this be extravagant, — if any one chooses, by a
mere extempore judgment, to pronounce a sentence of
absurdity against it, or to mock it as a vain conceit, he
takes ' what is doubtless the privilege of ignorance, and
with it, also, he will have the penalty.
But the question will now be raised, what place have
we left for Christian theology, or for any reliable con
ception of the Christian scheme of salvation ? That I
have little respect for pure dogmatism, or for merely
speculative theology, is sufficiently apparent ; I have not
made any secret of the fact. And yet I have a certain
conviction, whether I can show the reasons or not, that
we must have something, somehow held and exercised,
that maybe called theology. We must define, distin
guish, arrange and frame into order the matter of our
knowledge. System is the instinct of intelligence, and to
crucify the instinct of system is, in one view, to crucify
intelligence. I was careful, in my discourse at Andover,
(pp. 310-17,) to specify some of the uses of abstractive
and systematic doctrine, that I might not seem to over-

OF THEOLOGY. 65
loos its necessity, or to be insensible to its value
and power, as an element in what may be called the
economy of Christian truth. I know not whether I
can now say any thing that will be more satisfactory or
explicit. If all human language is found to be under conditions
of form, while truth itself, being spiritual, is out of form,
or has no form, it does not follow that Christian doctrine
is to be despaired of, or treated with indifference. It is
only to be sought with greater patience, a more delicate
candor, and a more ingenuous love. And for just this
reason, Christian doctrine may be worth a great deal
more to the world than it would be, if it could be bolted
into the mind by terms of absolute notation, apart from
all conditions of candor, justice and sympathy with God
or man. If words are insufficient, as I have said, to con
vey spiritual things in literal senses and exact measures,
they are only the more sufficient on that account, when
taken as signs offered to candor and the interpreting
power of sympathy and spiritual insight. We have
words enough, and those which are good enough, if we
can use them rightly or according to their tnie nature.
If it requires a degree of sympathy, generously extended
and for a length of time, to allow us to come into the
whole or sphere of another, and feel out, in that manner,
the real import of his words, before we can be sure that
we understand him, it ought not to be a hard necessity
that a like sympathy with God is requisite to make any
true doctrine of God, whether in the words of man or of
Scripture, intelligible and clear to the mind ; or again,
that this condition of sympathy requires a large infusion
6*

Q$ WHAT BECOMES
of the Divine Spirit, which is itself a divine experience
and an. immediate knowledge.^
What, though language can tell us nothing true con
cerning him, save as in forms that need to be interpret
by feeling and can open their light only to a spiritually
discerning sympathy ; what, though there be in them no
real notation for truth, in which, by definitions, equations,
inversions and such like operations, we may pile up a
scheme of theology or divine knowledge from belo^
that shall stand and be true, like a treatise in mathematics,
simply as being what it is; is it therefore nothing that
we can know God as being with us and in us, filling our
argumentations, opening to us the senses and powers of
words^ imparting himself to our secret experience as the
light of all seeing, and molding us ever to that state of
divine consciousness, which is, at once, the condition and
principal substance of knowledge? I certainly think
otherwise. Indeed, if it were possible to get religious
truth into shapes and formulas having an absolute mean
ing, like the terms of algebra, as clear even to the wicked
as to the pure, and requiring no conditions of character
in the receivers, it would very nearly subvert, it seems to
me, all that is most significant and sublime in the disci
pline of life.
The Scriptures, it seems to me, are most divinely wise
in the fact that they attempt no such thing, but prefer
to offer God and his mystery to the spiritual heart to be
spiritually discerned, — discerned by love and pure do*
cility and patient experience. They are most perfect as
a gift, simply because of what, in one view, may be called
their imperfection ; that they do not offer God as a

OF THEOLOGY. 67
market-place currency, in coins of words that coarse and
brutish men may handle as knowingly as they who are
most like him in spirit ; throw him not about upon the
ground as pearls to be trodden and champed by the
swine of speculative reason; but present him to us
glassed in images and forms, to be responsibly interpre
ted, with a delicate reverence and a spirit waiting for the
discovery of God. Then he is to be the prize of industry,
the reward of purity and love. Then the word is, " ye
shall seek me and find me, when ye shall search for me
with all your heart."_,
The student then will be a student, not of theology,
but, in the proper sense, of divinity. The knowledge he
gets will be divinity, filling his whole consciousness, — a
Living State, and not a scheme of wise sentences. He
will be a man who understands God as being indoctri
nated, or inducted into God, by studies that are them
selves inbreathings of the divinelove and power.
Holding impressions hke these, it was not my design
to offer any disrespect to creeds or church articles. They
are good, we rightly say, as terms of conformity, being
the forms in which we coalesce and are comforted
together. But they are never, on that account, to be
held in a manner so stringent as to disallow the similar
truths held by other disciples under different symbols
and subject to different articulations of system ; for, the
moment we suffer this error, our creeds and articles
become, in fact, instruments of schism, tearing us away
from the body of Christ, in just the same degree as they
aondense and straiten our unity with each other, in the
3maller circles to which we belong.

68 HOW THE CHURCH
At the same time, it needs to be held in mind as a
caution, more generally than it has been, that we are
likely to over- value theologies and church articles, simply
because we have but a feeble and small knowledge of truth.
Hence the great amount of intolerance and wicked passion
displayed against those who deviate, in some way, from
accepted forms or formulas. Panic and passion belong
to the worship of an idol, never to the worship of God.
If we have accepted the commandments of men for doe-
trine and sworn ourselves by them, then it is only a
matter of course that we hedge them about with wrath
and ugly passion. But if we have come into the open
realm of truth itself, knowing it as God's own realm, we
are not likely to be profoundly disturbed because some
favorite scheme of theology, or synopsis of theoretic doc
trine, is disallowed in some one or more syllables. Wc
shall be calm, trustful, patient. We shall even try to
hope that more truth is going to be received than has
been. It will not be necessary, in order to respect our
selves, as being earnest for something, that we should
raise a fume of passion about our idol ; but being ourselves
in the truth as truth, theologies and church articles will
be held simply as conveniences of organization, and we
shall be as little disposed as possible to cut our flesh in
their behalf, or to burn the flesh of others who are not
able to offer a literal and perfectly unqualified assent to
them. But there must be some principle and power of organi
zation, it will be said. If ground is taken that simply
accommodates the individual, and no binding terms are

IS TO BE ORGANIZED. 69
found to include and organize a social order in the truth,
there is then no growth in it because there is nothing to
grow ; it has no permanence, because it does not frame
to itself a church or social body, in and through which it
may five and be glorified. No religious truth therefore
is valuable, or is really true, that is not organific. If,
then, we bring in the doctrine that no literal and exact
truth is possible in language, but is there expressed only
in figures and forms, or under conditions of analogy ; if
we soften the rigor of creeds and church articles in the
way just suggested, holding them in a spirit of accommo
dation, such as allows the possible sufficiency of other
schemes differently framed, it would seem that nothing
fixed or determinate is left. All the .outposts of system
are gone. TheTe is really no theology to organize and
keep the growth of the Christian body. Each man is to
have a kind of spiritual freedom, which is very nearly
the same as dissipation — to see visions and dream dreams,
and offer his licentious vagaries as the veritable inspira
tions of God. Or, if the sounder and more competent
teachers have too much inherent discretion for this, the
weaker and less capable will only offer the excesses and
crudities of their dull imaginations as the essential truth
of Christ; and so the church will find herself at sea with
out either chart, or compass, or science to guide her way,
foundering and sinking in the vast inanity she has ven
tured upon so rashly.
What shall we say to this ? We can not deny that
God has erected a church, and if that be true, there must
be some organic power provided for its maintenance. If
it be not organized by sacraments and ceremonies, or by

70 HOW THE CHURCH
a mysterious priestly unction, then it must be organized
in and by the truth. This latter, is the Protestant doc
trine. And it will be found, as a matter of fact, that all
the strong bodies of Protestant believers — the Lutheran,
the Reformed church, the -Scotch, the Methodist and, in
fact, the Independent connection — have been organized
in and by the strong ligaments of formulas, taken as
being the very essence and literal being of the truth. In
their formulas, these bodies or churches have all their
distinct characteristics, and, as it would almost seem, a
vital force equally distinctive and peculiar to themselves.
They seem, in fact, to be different organizations, and
many will even praise the stern uncomplying- rigor
of their doctrine, for the very reason that it is seen to
have an organizing power so efficiently and broadly
characteristic. Now, if there be something agreeable in this, which I
will not deny, it does not seem to me to be any thing that
is properly Christian. On the contrary, though we love
to see organic vigor and lively characteristics, it is not
pleasant to see Christian bodies animated by distinct
varieties of life. Such appearances awaken the painful
suspicion that what we call our Christianity is a product
only of the organizing force of human dogmatism. It
will also occur to every thoughtful person that the con
structive energy of formulas, thus evinced, is not caused
by their definite hold of the literal truth ; for then they
could not differ so remarkably from each other ; but by
the fact rather that they are impostures of precision; so
effective in blinding or limiting the vision both of their
authors and their disciples. Indeed, it can be no secret

HAS BEEN ORGANIZED. 71
that the solid, scientific look of dogmatism, by which we
are so apt to be impressed, is due simply to the fact that the
dogmatizer solidifies the smoke he is in, by the concen-
trative force of his dullness ; ' becoming the most
precise of teachers, because he is so mystified by his own
vagueness, that he hews it into solid blocks of knowledge
— which, then, others accept, in the certainty that they
must be solid, because of the exactness of their
shapes. Besides, it is now beginning to be found that the
organizing power of dogmatism may be over-valued. If,
beginning at the Reformation, we see the different fami
lies of Protestantism going forth, under their articles, to
make a vigorous show of life and energy in the centuries
that follow, and there take it up as our song that
" sound doctrine," meaning by the term a hard, stone-
table theology, is the first condition of Christian health
and progress, it would be well to note also the fact that,
for some reason, the sound doctrine, after all, was able
to maintain its organizing power only for a certain length
of time. How many systems of new theology, so called,
have we had in New England, within our own short
memory. We complain that the Protestant world is
falling into endless subdivisions, and that now, at last,
the authority of catechisms and the organizing power of
church articles are so enfeebled, as to indicate a general
dissolution of ecclesiastical order. This we lay to the
evil manner of the times ; but really it is due to the
original defect of the organizing power itself. A pure
dogmatic organization has a necessary law of limitation
in its own nature. It can run, like a watch, only for so

72 CAN NOT BE ORGANIZED
long a time ; for the sound doctrine, appealing- as it doe:
to each man's judgment, must of necessity go on to mtil
tiply systems of sound doctrine, till even the appearand
of unity is gone.
However this may be, the possibilities of system are
not yet exhausted, and they never can be ; for they are
infinite. Purely theologic systems are structures raised
by the logical understanding, when it undertakes to he
the architect, in the forms and measures of words, of tk
Divine System — articulations of symbols, organized bj
one or another, to represent his universe and be the
infinite he proposes to men. And as there is no limit tc
the possible systems that may be framed or composted
in this manner, one system is continually rising up, and
will be, to chase another and claim, in turn, the assenl
of the world. On one hand, are God and eternity as an
infinite material, out of form. On the other, is the forma]
understanding working at or upon this material, or pro
fessing to do so; trying new resolutions of the conceptions
or figures by which it is represented, taking one figure
instead of another and repaying what is scant in that by
what, is fuller in another ; and so, having gotten a fevi
forms of words mortised together by the carpentry oi
logic, it offers them to the world as another and bettei
account of the Infinite Material — that is, of God anc
divine government. And so it comes to pass that, while
there is but one truth, we have many theologies — little
finite universes all, soap-bubble worlds rising by thei
own levity, .whirled away by all cross winds of philoso
phy and Providential history, bursting in tiny collisions
-or without collision, by the mere thinness of their films

W THEOLOGY. 73
and not leaving moisture enough, at the point where they
vanish, to show where they were.
In this manner it begins to be felt, and will be more
and more felt, as the speculative systems are multiplied,
that the solidities of dogmatism grow flashy and thin.
It will be so, not because they deteriorate in quality, as
many are trying to believe, but because their quality is
revealed. It is made clear enough already in this process
that, in the matter of organization itself, they are not all
which they have been taken to be ; that the efficiency
and constructive energy they seemed, for a time, to have,
was due, in no small degree, to historic causes in the
Christian body of the world, which time would necessa
rily exhaust. Indeed, we are just now opening our eyes
to see, what Ought to have been clear enough at a glance
always, that man can not organize the Church of God,
and that no sound scheme of organization can depend on
frame-works of science or theory erected by him. This,
we now see, is the very principle of necessary disintegra
tion ; and if the atomizing process, now going on, is to be
arrested before it comes to its last fruit, in a state of com
plete dissipation, both as regards the bonds of fellowship
and the authority of truth itself, we must turn our
selves again to the question, how or by what more suffi
cient method God will have his church to be organized.
What is the true organific principle of Christianity; that
in which it will settle toward unity and a condition of
permanent growth in the truth ?
Here we open the Scriptures, first of all, and discover
that, while the church is to have officers, and sacraments,
and public worship, the organific power is always
7

74 THE INCARNATION
represented as Divine — "one God and Father of all, who
is above all, and through all, and in all" — the body of
Christ, " the fullness of him that filleth all ; in all"— Christ,
the head, " from whom the whole body fitly joined
together and compacted." Or sometimes another repre
sentation of the same truth is given, when the "unity of
the Spirit" is spoken of, and all are declared to he
members of one spiritual body. In all these repre
sentations, it stands out to view that the true organific
principle is God himself — the Divine Nature incarnate
outwardly, and so inserted inwardly in human faith and
consciousness. It is nowhere intimated that Christianity is a specula
tion, or a theory, or that any terms of human thought
scientifically employed can organize it. Nothing igjsaid
of theologic confessions or articles, or of scientific efforts
in Christian doctrine. The texts constantly cited in
commendation of " sound doctrine," and supposed to be
injunctions that maintain the necessity of being grounded
in theologic articles, are found, when narrowly inspected,
to be only scholastic misapplications or mistranslations-
tokens of the universal imposture regarding this matter
of doctrine that, long ages ago, had gotten possession of
the Christian mind. After twelve or fourteen whole
centuries had been spent in debating, and fighting, and
burning, for theologic doctrine, it was to be supposed
that the scripture would be full of texts that magnify
the idol consecrated by so expensive an offering.
Thus, we have the epithet "sound," which occurs many
times in application to "words," "speech," "faith," "doc
trine," and is understood to commend the study of a

THE TRUE ORGANIC POWER. 75
rugged, solid, and sturdy system of speculative theology.
Whereas it only means " wholesome," as it is once trans
lated ; that is, health-giving, in the original, hygeian. So
also the famous all-text of Paul, a text which seems even
to have worn itself into the tongues of many teachers,
becomes what it is only in the manner above described.
It reads in the translation — " Hold fast the form of sound
words, which thou hast heard of me." In the original —
" Hold fast the impression of the health-giving words
thou heardest of me, &c," — having no reference at all to
any matter of theoretic doctrine, or church article, any
more than to the Copernican doctrines of astronomy.
The text in Jude — " Contend earnestly for the faith, which
was once delivered to the saints " — has suffered a similar
hardship. Literally and properly translated, the call or
exhortation is — " Strive [agonize] for the faith, once for
all delivered to the saints." " Contend," a word of
churchly pugnacity, is not here. By " the faith," too, is
meant no scheme of speculative or theolpgic doctrine,
but the practical doctrine of a godly life, as grounded in
the living faith of Christ. The current of the epistle
shows that the errors in view are not errors of opinion,
but licentious manners and wicked practices. And the
phrase "once for all," too, indicating a certain sense of
completeness in what is called the faith, at a time prior
even to the beginnings of speculation, shows howfar off the
apostle is from any conception of that which is, hereafter,
to make so great a figure in the church, viz., theoretic
doctrine, articles of church theology.
The hard fortune of these texts may be well illustrated
by the use to which another from the Old Testament is

76 THE INCARNATION
subjected, in a manner exactly parallel. It is one of the
distinctions of the ancient religion that it had no theokg$'
or any thing approaching theology, until the speculative
element began to appear in the incipiently theosophic
writings of the Apocrypha. The idea of church articles,
confessions, or schemes of doctrine, was not even con
ceived before that time. And yet the text-—" Stand ye
in the ways and see, ask for the seld paths, where is the
good way, and walk therein, and ye shall find rest to
your souls," — how often do we hear it reiterated, and
with what solemnity of emphasis, as a call from God, not
to return to the old paths of piety and duty in which the
good men of former ages walked, but to the doctors of the
old theology and to the old church articles. Furthermore,
it will be seen that the apostles are continually protesting,
in one form or another, against exactly that which most
resembles a speculative and theoretic activity — the
" gnosis" or " knowledge" of one ; the " wisdom" of an
other; "foolish and unlearned questions that do gender
strifes;" "oppositions of science, falsely so called;"
"vain janglings;" "profane and vain babblings;" the
being spoiled " through philosophy and vain deceit, after
the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world,
and not after Christ ;" "doting about questions and strifes
of words." They discourage, in a word, all the attempts
of inquisitive and would-be wise men to work out a theory
or philosophem of the gospel, by activity in and about
their own human center. Christ, they say, is the doctrine,
and the method of reason is faith. " Be not carried about
with divers and strange doctrines, [i. e., doctrines of mere
speculation, that do not minister to godly edifying, and

THE TRUE ORGANIC POWER. 77
are therefore "strange," i. e., foreign, or outside of the
Christian truth,] "for it is a good thing that the heart be
established with grace" — implying a conviction, as we see,
that it is the heart, or grace in the heart, and not any plat
form of articles, that will anchor a soul in stability. And
for just this reason, I suppose, the same apostle declares
that the grand test of orthodoxy is in what the heart
receives, and not in what the head thinks — " Now the
end of. the commandment [that which includes every
thing] is charity, out of a pure heart, and of a good con
science, and of faith unfeigned."
It is remarkable, also, in the same general view of the
apostolic teachings, that Paul, in his two epistles to Tim
othy, which are in fact ministerial charges, and where,
of course, if ever, the syllabus of church articles would
be insisted on, makes no allusion to any such thing ; but
instead of this, he presents, in each epistle or charge, a
purely historic compend of the facts of the incarnation,
separated from all conception of theory, as being the
only real summary of doctrine that he knows.
First Charge. " Great is the mystery of godliness.
God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the spirit, seen
of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the
world, received up into glory."
Second Charge. "But is now made manifest, by
the appearing of our Savior Jesus Christ, who hath abol
ished death, and brought Hfe and immortaHty to Hght
through the gospel ; whereof I am appointed a preacher
and an apostle."
His creed, you perceive, is a creed of simple fact;
his gospel, the gospel which his very apostleship is
7*

78 THE INCARNATION
instituted to publish, is the world-astounding mystery ^f
the incarnation, as completed in the subsequent matter
of the Hfe and death of Jesus Christ.
And it accords with this, that the nearest approach
any where made in the scripture to the proposal of a
confession of faith, is^when John propounds the incarmis
tion itself as a creed of fact — "Hereby know ye the
spirit [which is] of Gpd. Every spirit that confessed .that
Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God." The "Apos
tles' Creed," so called, is scarcely more than a reproduc
tion and expansion of this. And if we ask for, the begt
and healthiest and least uncertain forms of truth, under
which (in connection with the divine presence in the
consciousness of the disciples, and by that consciousness
interpreted) the organizing power of .the Christian grace
may become most effective, indestructible, .and har
monious; I would say that we ought to adhere as closely
as possible, in all catechisms and confessions, to the
simple historic matter of the gospel. This is the re4
substructure, the pillar and ground of all truth — it is the
gospel as God shapes it. True, it can be misinterpreted ;
and so can any thing. The most abstract and theoretij?;
confession can be misinterpreted far more easily, and has
the disadvantage that, being without authority, as a
merely human product, it provokes dissent and rejection,
and holds a natural connection, thus, with all manner of
eccentricities and misbeliefs.
At the same time, there is no harm in articles more
theologic, if rightly employed. I only' think there is
much less virtue in them than is commonly supposed,.
The church has had a long, and, alas ! too literally fiery

THE TRUE ORGANIC POWER. 79
ftial in them, and God, we may be sure, has some use to
serve, by a history of so great bitterness. Perhaps it is
that we may learn what to think of our own thinking, as
well as of his infinite truth ; how to embrace each other
in that truth ; how to rest there in a conscious amplitude
of faith, that answers to the fullness of God. Simply to
have learned that words are words, and how to hold
them as such, is to have gotten an immense advantage,
as regards the future sobriety, stability, unity, and order
of the Christian body. But it is high time to give up
the reaUy childish thought that man is going to erect
himself -into such a position of wisdom, as to give out a ¦
theoretic form of Christianity that wiU organize the
Church of God. No such thought should connect, for a
moment, with our theologic articles and confessions. If
we comfort ourselves in a general sense of agreement
under them, they must be held for comfort, not for judg
ment. Still, the crystal wiU not shape itself by the book
of mineralogy, but by its own secret laws; and the
Church of God will not any more shape itself in church
articles, but in the incarnate mystery of the Life. The
soundest doctrine for this purpose, that we can furnish,
will, in God's opinion, be the doctrine of the heart ; " For
it is a good thing [an excellent cure for strange doctrine]
that the heart be established with grace."
Such, in general, is the result obtained by a reference
to the scripture. And now the question returns, what is
theology? what place have we for it? what good place
can it fill, or good service render ?
Of course every right answer to this question will

80 THE USES OF
admit that it can not be a law for any thing, not being*
itself infallible. It is even conceivable that one article
of its value consists in the faet that it is not true, or at
least not sufficiently true ; for every system conceived by
man partakes the limitation of man ; and yet the system-
may be wanted to collect his knowledges and frame them
into some intelligible order. This will comfort his intefc
ligence. It will give him the method, also, by which to
teach what he knows, and learn what he does not. If
our generalizations are only General Thumbs, if our sys
tems are only pocket systems of the infinite, they are yet
necessary as accommodations to ourselves, and, possibly,
are good for what they exclude, as well as for what they'
contain. They are to the disciple what the iris is to the
eye, drawing its opaque and variously-colored curtains
round the aperture of sight, that only just so much of the
light may enter as will make the tiny picture within dis
tinct and clear.
It is also conceivable, and is probably a serious and
momentous truth, that the exercise of system or the en
deavor after system, is commonly a greater benefit than
the actuaHy resulting systems prepared. Instigate^jf
in this effort or exercise, by the natural instinct of sys
tem, the disciple is made stronger and more competent
by his exercise ; though he reaches no veritable system
of God at all. He is drawji toward a closer coherency
and compactness of thought ; his religious convictions are
comforted and fortified ; he is better guarded, also, against
fantastic experiences and wild illusions, that might other
wise confound the dignity of his life, and separate even
his duties from the respect that is necessary to their value.

THEOLOGIC STUDY. 81
No person will ever become, therefore, a good and suffi
cient teacher or preacher of the gospel, without a strong
theologic discipline. But here, it will be seen, the benefit
gained pertains principally to the building exercise, and
not to the structure built. Possibly another system,
differently shaped and colored, may temple as much of
God's truth as mine ; possibly other men want the exer
cise of building, too, more than a ready -built temple from
me. Therefore, since God has given to his children so
many blocks and timbers of words to be used in this
good exercise, I will not complain that others of my
friends are piling up very different looking structures
from mine ; but if they are built, as I can see, of the same
material and so as to meet the same general use, I will
then try to enjoy both theirs and mine together. Or, if
they come upon me in anger, because my house is differ
ently built from theirs, and call down fire from heaven
to bum it, I will try to comfort myself in the confidence,
that heaven has no fire, such as they ask for.
It is easy, also, to see that the ¦ instinct of system and
a certain actual determination toward it are, in one view,
necessary conditions of insight and true interpretation.
We are forbidden thus to stop in the letter, and receive
as truth a medley, or mere catalogue of symbols uninter
preted. We are required to observe and reduce their
antagonisms, and, in order to this, to penetrate their
forms and find the unity of truth in which they coalesce.
Only .we are in constant peril of setting one symbol, or
class of symbols, above the others, and reducing these to
system under the former, taken as being the literal truth ;
in which case they are virtually disallowed and rejected.

82 , DIFFERENCE BETWEEN
But if we speak of the actual results of theologicsstudy
and exercise, — the forms of truth, or opinion, or system
prepared by it, — we need to distinguish between a close
or merely reasoned system, and an open free system
that waits for the discovery always of God ; between an
incrustation on the outside, to keep and imprison the life,
and a cell or . point of embryonic tissue begun at the
center of life itself. They tell us that when the Crustacea
have grown a sheU so thick and old that the life can no
longer pierce through it and keep it on the footing of a
living substance, it begins to be a foreign matter con-
stringing the vital action, and the animal dies, suffocated
by the tomb he has built. So it is when our theological
Crustacea are coffined in the close system we speak of.
Since it is no longer of them, but a cerement of dead and
strange matter about them, not quickened by their faith,
they die of strange doctrine in it.
This distinction of a close system and one that is openj
between an incrustation and a vital embryonic center,
wiU be farther cleared, perhaps, if it is stated as a dis
tinction between mere theology and divinity.
Divinity has its basis in fact and being, — God as in the
creation, God in history. It meets us in all outward ob
jects ; and again in the Scripture, in the form of political
and religious annals, the biographies of distinguished
saints, the teachings of prophets, the incarnate life and
death of the Word made flesh. Here opens a vast realm
of divine fact, radiant in every part with the Hght of
God. But this all is body, not spirit ; the face of di
vinity, but not the power. By divinity we mean what
may be derived to us from this and made conscious

DIVINITY AND THEOLOGY. 83
within us, by an immediate experience of God, in con
nection with this. It is what of God a regenerate man
may receive, in virtue of the new inner sense awakened
in him. It is that influx and intergrowth of the divine
nature that is consciously experienced, when every inlet
of the soul is opened by love, and faith, and prayer, and
holy living, and patient waiting upon God. It is inter
pretation made by experience, — a knowledge had of God,
through the medium of consciousness, and resembling
the knowledge we get of ourselves in the same manner ;
or, as I have said already, it is not a doctrine or system
of doctrine, but a Living State, the Life of God in the
soul of man. Of course it is an open state, and not a
confined or closed state, — a condition of germkiative
force and ever extending growth.
Theology, on the other hand, according to the proper
force of the word, in Greek, is what results, when the
subject, God, is logically expounded or reasoned. What
the result will be depends, of course, on the state or
point where the exposition begins. If the operator stands
in the position of a simply natural consciousness, then he
expounds what he has included in his consciousness.
This may be called mere theology, a science built without
divine experience, as one might give a theoretic account
of the moon's atmosphere without having breathed it.
Or, if the operator begin at the point of a living con
sciousness of God, which is the state of real divinity, then
his effort will be to expound that in speculative order,
just as the intellectual philosopher expounds his intel
lectual consciousness. This may be called Christian the
ology, or evangelical theology ; or it is sometimes called

84 DR. rothe's ground
divinity ; though it will be undivine, just according to
the degree of human defect or mistake there is in it,
which is probably a large subtraction.
Christian theology, then, is grounded in divinity, ac
cording to the old maxim, Fides precedit intellectum. Then,
again, it rests on the Scripture body of fact, because, in
that, the divine is bodied and expressed, and offered to
experience; according to the apostle's notion, when he
says: "If any -man build upon this foundation [Jesus
Christ] gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble."
And then, if the question be how much of Christian the
ology, man's building on Christ the foundation, is one or
the other ; how much is gold, silver, precious stones ;
howvmuch wood, hay, stubble, the answer must be
various. It will never be pure gold, or any thing like
it, and generally the proportion of hay and stubble, will
be abundant.
The ablest exposition I have seen of this subject is that
of Dr. Rothe, translated in the Postscript to Mr. Morell's
" Philosophy of Religion." His object is to find a place,
or show a true ground for speculative theology^ .'< And,
though he does not intimate, what I believe to be just,
that the true line of direction in all fruitful study, is that
which proposes rather divinity than theology, he yet lays
down the distinction under other terms, and makes it the
center of his exposition. And he brings his exposition
thus to the true conclusion, that Christian theology is the
speculative or logical exposition of the Christian con
sciousness, considered as containing the divine ; just as
philosophy is of the natural and personal self-conscious-

FOR SPECULATIVE THEOLOGY. 85
ness*; and that one has the same kind of validity and
verity as the other^J But he omits the notice of two
considerations whidn, at this point, are of great im
portance. 1. The fact that both philosophy and theology, being
expositions of consciousness, or of what is in it, are con
cerned in bringing into form, what is out of form, and
can be only figuratively represented in it ; also the fact that
the logical faculty is a faculty whose element is the mat
ter of -perception, — the world of form, and language as
being of that world, — and, of course, can never approach
the higher truths of the natural or spiritual conscious
ness, closer than by handling analogies before it ; hence
that, both in philosophy and theology, the logical ex
pounder can make it certain, by almost no degree of cau
tion, that he is not imposing on himself by spinning a
theory that is really of some word, or latent form of
grammar in his language, and not of the consciousness
itself. Hence the eternal changes noted in the history
of philosophy ; which, though it is ever deaHng with real
truths of consciousness, has never yet been able to fix
immovably any one doctrine, and never will be ; for the
manifest reason, that no one form is so related to any one
truth, that another may not be conceived for it which
has not some advantages, and will not better accommo
date some other speculative system. I only except in
this the absolute truths, the expressions for which class
with algebraic notations. Is it probable that theology,
being one in its method with philosophy, and under the
same speculative conditions, however distinct in the
matter of it and the Scripture ground of fact in which it
8

86 DR. rothe's ground
is based, can ever become a science, or attain to a fixed
and properly authoritative statement?
> 2. That the Christian, or divine consciousness, of which
speculative theology is to be the expounder, differsifrom
the natural consciousness in the fact that it is no constant
quantity ; that it fluctuates with the fideHty -of the man
and the spiritual temperament of his Hfe; that it is
always a mixed and never a pure state, mixed with lies,
sensuaHties, and all manner of undivinities, and these <so
cunningly inserted as not to reveal their presence ; that
sometimes the investigator comes under the power of the
world, stolen away from himself, and then, as the divine
can not be held in the memory a moment after it is gone
from the heart, he swings to a new center of motion, ac
cording to the balance of matter left in his consciousness.
This being the true state, out of which a science or
theory is to come, and which it is to represent, what is
that science like to be ? Is not every theologian, though
it may cost him some mortification to confess it, moved
to a very different way of speculation, at one time, from
that which seems truest at another. Such is our infirmity!
Will the infirmity of our theology be less ? What «dc-
cess would philosophy hope for, if the natural conscious
ness, it expounds, were mixed in the same way with
contrary currents, partaking, by turns, the nature of
stones and animals, and holding in its contents no fixed
quantity ?
At the same time, it does not follow, either that phi
losophy or theology is worthless. They have an im
mense value as exercises and cultivating powers, although
so little able to fix and settle in words the import of our

FOR SPECULATIVE THEOLOGY. 87
consciousness, or to produce the system of the infinite, in
which alone our consciousness can have its full interpre
tation. There is a progress in theology, due as much to
its varieties, as to the excellence of its particular deter
minations. It is even useful or necessary, as a re-acting
basis for the mind, in climbing into a divine experience.
If it is so blended with that experience, as to have its
light therein, and be corrected and amplified thereby as
an open system ; if it is cathoHc in the same, as acknowl
edging aU other systems based in the same divine, evan
gelical experience, and built upon the same Scripture
foundation ; in a word, if it is saturated with divinity, so
as to be divinity according to the true force of that word,
formerly so current, but latterly so far displaced, then it
is the true wisdom of God. Not all wisdom, but true;
for still there is a HveHer and more competent medium of
truth than any that classes in the modes of speculation ;
I mean the medium of simple expression. The poetic
forms of utterance are closer to the fires of reHgion within
us, more adequate revelations of consciousness, because
they reveal it in flame. Parable, symbol, description, il
lustration, emphasis and tone, the look of a divine charity
and the conduct of a soul in the divine beauty, — these, I
hope you will agree, are better and more adequate reve
lations of truth than theology, in its best form, can be. -J
Now, if it seem to any of you that, in such an estimate
of theology as I have given, aU organization is likely to
perish, let me suggest for your comfort that, when God
organizes, he wiU do it, not by a part, but by all, — not
by theology alone, but by all the outgoings, aims, actions,

88 GOD ORGANIZES
instrumentalities, and functions of the spiritual body^
He does not organize the solar system by gravity alone,
but by all the other powers acting with it, — nay, by.eaeJi
and every dead particle and Hving atom acting with it.
I can not, therefore, see that he wiU call on the theolo
gians to organize and keep up the church for him. But
he will be the organizing principle and Head of the body
Himself, v And being the head, he will have many sorts
of members, all various functions under him. He will
have theologies, (probably more than one,) confessions,
offices, sacraments, days and rites of worship, sermons,
and homiHes, and living voices, holy charities and
Christly aims, drawing all the faithful together; and,
with all these, martyred men and women, who, being
dead, wiU yet live in the times foUowing ; and by all
these he will organize the church. And this wiU be an
organization solid and true. I can trust it without a par
ticle of anxiety ; though, if I were obhged to join some
theologic council, or chair, in preparing the scheme of
speculative doctrine that should keep all safe and be the
containing law of the future church, I think I should
never sleep again. Let God organize all by all. Nothing
is more clear, at this moment, than that this is the only
hope ; for the reign of dogma, and state power, and cere
mony, and priestly orders, — every thing that has held
the organizing power, in past ages, is now breaking down
into impotence and passing away. And what shall we
see, in this, but a preparation for the reign of the Spirit
as just now suggested ; which, if it comes into this valley
of bones lying apart, and breathes into them, as the Life
itself of God, will they not come together and live?

ALL BY ALL. 89
This, it seems to me, is the sound method of organiza
tion ; and if this wiU not make a strong compact of growth
and unity in the truth, I see not that more can be hoped
from theologic articles. Either Christ will organize the
body for all time in his own Incarnate Person, or else it
never can be organized.
On the whole, my supposed heresy, in regard to this
matter of theological system or speculative doctrine, may
be very well summed up in the language of Luther ;
(Sears' Life, p. 223 ;) only it requires that language to be
tempered by many qualifications, and then, being true, to
be carried out more effectually in its practical applica
tions : — " You ask me how far I think dialectics useful to
a theologian ? I see not how they can be otherwise but
hurtful. In the beginning and exercising the minds of
the young, they may have their use ; but in sacred learn
ing, where faith and heavenly illumination alone are
sought after, they ought to be left behind, as Abraham,
about to offer sacrifice, left the servants and asses behind."

THE PERSON OF CHRIST.
Passing now from this general view of language&nd
doctrine,, or of theologic method, to some of the particular
topics of my book, — the Person of Christ, the Trinity,
and the Work of Redemption, — it will be seen that all
my supposed heresies, in reference to these great sub-
. jects, are caused by the arrest of speculation and the dis
allowance of those constructive judgments, or a priori
arguments, by which terms that are only analogies, and
mysteries that are most significant when taken only as
symbols, are made to affirm something wiser and more
exact than what they express. It is very easy for a critic,
who wishes to be sharp against me at the smallest ex
pense of steel, to please himself in the discovery that I
am only trying in fact, without knowing it, to introduce
a new dogmatism. This, I believe, is the turn that
several have given to their strictures. And about an
equal number have charged, directly opposite to these,
that I propose to throw down all the pillars of theology,
break up all the solid foundations of truth, and commend
every one to the liberty of his own passions, and the
vagaries of his own imagination. It will be found that
I am doing exactly neither, — that I am simply cutting
short speculation at the point where it begins to create to
knowledge by inference, and transferring the matter that
was going to be preyed upon by logic, directly into the
care of spiritual discernment, the only qualified inter-

NOT ANOTHER DOGMATIC. 91
preter, — there to be felt, experienced, fed upon, as the
true bread, before it has become so mixed with dialectic
quibbles and scientific unwisdoms, that it has no longer
any bread or nutriment to yield. It will be found that,
instead of trying to get all the great truths in question,
out of their symbols into others, and build them into
sciences that are independent of the symbols, I am rather
showing how to stay by the symbols or in them, as the
best and holiest expressions of truth ; on the ground that
Christian doctrine is most adequately distinguished in the
forms of the word, by a devout inspection or perusal of
them, taken as simple presentations ; just as the souls
of our friends are presented in, and expressed by, and not
argued inferentially from, or out of their bodies.
It wiU be seen that I have managed, in this way, to
find a place for faith that is freer and more simple, and
just as much more intelligent. In regard to each of the
three subjects, it will be seen that nothing is done save
simply to show how the forms in which God is offered to
our faith may be used so as to get their true meaning and
be themselves the truth to us. The fundamental prin
ciple assumed is this and no other, — that the value of the
word rests in the impressions it is to produce in us, and
not in the theories or scientific versions we are to pro
duce of it.
To maintain a view so modest and practical, I was
called upon, of course, to protest against the mere logical
figments that are so often set up in the name of theology.
It was necessary that some cargoes of contraband wisdom
should thus be forfeited. Accordingly, I did not hesitate
to make free use of logic as a negative and destructive

92 WHO IS CHRIST?
instrument, (which I lawfuUy might,) to sweep away the
piles of rubbish heaped upon God's truth, by scholastics
and amateur disciples, who could not observe the dis
tinction between constructing and receiving a gospel
If I seemed, in these negative arguments, to be more ad
venturous or destructive than I should be, or could, with
safety to our rehgious foundations, still it wifl be found
that nothing is destroyed, save as death, the last enemy,
shall be ; and that the grand result of the clearance made
is, that we are set in a condition more simply positive
than before, to receive and re-assert all that constituted
the positive meaning and value of our former beliefs.
We are only required to receive the truth of God, more
through our love and the unquestioning docility of a
simple and trustful heart, and less through the over-wise
and perversely ingenious industry of the head,— -to look
on the stupendous mysteries in which God is expressed
to faith, and embrace what is expressed in them by faith ;
not to plunge into the very heart of the mysteries them
selves, as if they were only riddles given to be solved by
the curious; or, at best, a gospel of dialectic subtleties, to
amuse the blindness and while away the guilty years of
the perishing.
This will now be seen, as I proceed to exhibit, more
fully and carefully, the doctrine I designed to assert, in
reference to the three principal subjects of revelation just
named. I begin with the Person of Christ.
Who is Christ ? The incarnation of the divine nature.
For what purpose ? The manifestation of God— there
fore he is called the Life manifested— God manifest in

WHO IS CHRIST? 93
the flesh — the Word made flesh, that we may behold in
him the Father's glory — the express image of God — •
God in Christ reconciling the world unto himself. In
his miraculous birth, too, he is seen to be of a double
nature, at once divine and human, the Son of God and
the Son of Mary.
Two things then are evident. First, that he is a very
peculiar being, who can not be classed in the simple genus
humanity ; in one view a union of the incompatible, the
divine and the human, the infinite and the finite ; and
being thus a person wholly abnormal and mysterious,
we manifestly can not interpret the language applied to
him by a reference to our own merely normal experience 1
or consciousness, and so make out the internal mystery ,
of his nature. If sometimes acts are attributed to him
that seem to be divine, sometimes others that seem to be
human, we can not say, ' this infers deity,' ' this a human
soul ;' we can only refer them ail alike to the one abnor
mal person, and the secret mystery of his consciousness.
Secondly, it is to be seen beforehand that he is not given
as a riddle to our curiosity, or that we may set ourselves
to reason out his mystery, but simply that God may thus
express his own feeling and draw himself into union with
us, by an act of accommodation to our human sympathies
and capacities.
' But the question remains, who is Christ, what is there
in him? The true answer is, that he is, externally
viewed, a union of God and man, whose object is to
humanize the conception of God, and so to express or
communicate God, j But is there any distinct human soul
in the person of Christ? What are the contents of his

94 HAD HE A
person ? Here begins one of my heresies, when I answer
that the question is impracticable, unphilosophic, dictated
only by false curiosity, and of course not answered by
scripture. Christ is here to express God, not to puzzle
us in questions about the internal composition of his
person. Besides, the human element is nothing to me,
save as it brings me God, or discovers to me, a sinner,
the patience and brotherhood of God, as a Redeemer
.from sin. As to the man, the human soul, I see men
enough and meet with human souls enough elsewhere.
The tenderness we rejoice in, as testified in the person
of Christ and under the type of a human feeHng, is thfi.
tenderness of God, not the tenderness of the human soul,
or of the distinct human substance of Jesus. What we
feel so deeply is that God is with us, on our human level
and is drawn so close to our sympathy — not that a man
is. And the moment we find a human soul in him, dis
tinctly conscious and distinctly active, we shall immedi
ately draw ourselves to that, in -the manner of the mere
humanitarians, and having our sympathy with that, we
shall be turned quite away from what is the sole, or, at
least, principal object of the incarnation; viz., the mani
festation of the Life, or the expression of God.
But the human soul, it will be said, may be here,
though not distinctly active. Doubtless it may, suppose
we judge that it is. Now .we are letting go the expres
sion of God, to play our curiosity on a perfectly idle
question — opening, in fact, a whole world of idle specu
lation, where the most we can do is to be busy with our
own nothings and forget God. For if we can dare to
thrust ourselves into the very bosom of this mysterious

HUMAN SOUL? 95
being, and play our constructions there unintimidated,
if we have found a soul there that has no distinct activity,
and written it down as our fixed opinion, what then is"
this soul to us ? Is it any thing ? Can we sympathize
with a soul that has no distinct consciousness ? Indeed,
have we not much to do, after all, to keep it from non
entity? And then, if we succeed in finding a place
where non-entity will not overtake it, we shall want to
know very much what becomes of it — whether it has any
moral character of its own ? whether it rose with Jesus
in his resurrection ? what place it will hold in a future
world ? whether it is ever to be more distinctly active
than it was here, or ever to have a distinctly human
character? And suppose, after we have gone this round
of problems, confusing thus all thought and feeling, so
that, for a great part of our Hfe, the manifestation of God
in Christ and his passion is virtuaUy lost, we come at
last to the clear and fixed opinion that a human soul
was in the person of Jesus, but was never distinctly
active and never will be — what then have we done?
Why, we have discovered with infinite labor that a cer
tain drop is in the sea — nothing more ! The sea is not
any larger, or purer, or stronger ; for if the reality of
Christ be God, and God is infinite, what more or betterj
is he for this drop of humanity that is merged thus eter-j
nally in the boundless ocean of his nature ? — so merged
that, as regards its human existence, it shall never be
distinctly, active, or distinctly known ?
Was it not better and wiser, I now ask, first of all, to
settle what God's object is in this wonder of the incarna
tion, and let His object be the law and limit of our

96 HAD HE A
inquiries ? The union of the divine and human,, being
only for expression, what is there in it for us beyond the
Jexpression ? There may be a human soul here or there
[may not — that is a matter with which we have* nothing
!to do, and about which we have not only no right to
"affirm, but no right to inquire. AU that we have to do
is to take the person of Jesus at its face; speak of the
human and the divine, assume their union, and receiving
them in this perfectly trustful, incurious manner, let
them enter our spirit as a new principle of life from God
— so to put on the new man which after God is created
in righteousness and true hoHness.
If there be passages of scripture which go beyond
external expression, opening to us the interior psychol
ogy of Christ's person, that is a distinct matter. I know
of none that do it, or can even be supposed to .do it.
There are such as speak of his infant state and his " in
crease in wisdom." But this most certainly is language
only of external description ; for it is also declared, in
the same breath, that he increased "in favor with God,"
which can not be taken in any other sense than the sense
of external description. The meaning of the language is
exhausted when we understand the writer to say that the
infant Christ grew up, as outwardly regarded, in a course
of regular development in knowledge and character;
increasing, as we say of other children, in wisdom and
stature, and in favor with God and man. If we say that
this language refers to the distinct growth of his human
soul in wisdom and in favor with God, then manifestly
we do it by an inference of our own, for the words affirm
no such thing. Besides, the conclusion itself is not

HUMAN SOUL? 97
orthodox ; for the unfolding of wisdom and character
are the truest and most fundamental incidents of distinct
personality, and orthodoxy asserts, not two distinct per
sons in Christ, but " two natures and one person."
Now it seems to be a very simple thing to infer, in a
logical way, that when Christ is said to grow in wisdom
and favor with God, there must be a distinctly active
and distinctly conscious human soul in his composition —
at any rate a human soul. Almost any body could draw
such an inference. Just as easy is it also to infer, with
the Unitarian objector, when the Savior himself says in
his age of maturity,. " the Son can do nothing of himself," '
that the Son has no power but such as is derivative ; for
if he were essential deity, or an omnipotent co-equal
person with the Father, then he could do something ' of
himself as well as the Father; and since he can not, he
is confessed to be no more than a creature. AU such
inferences, I say, are easy. It requires the smallest pos
sible insight to draw them, and the less of insight one
has, the more Hkely he is to draw them. But the reason
why they should not be drawn is sufficiently evident."
For it is given us beforehand that God, or the Divine
Word, for the sake of manifestation, or to communicate
of himself to man, is going to do, as it were, an impos
sible thing : viz, to enter into and be in the subject state
—that is, so far subject as, by means of his subjection, to
meet us on our human level and through or under con
ditions of human brotherhood. Of course it is impHed
that he will appear and speak and act as being under
human hmitation, far enough at least to get the effect
he desires; viz., to communicate Himself. But the whole
9

98 HAD HE
movement is violent and abnormal, and if we go to work
to draw our deductions or inferences from it, as if it weje.
wholly normal, — one to prove that there is a distinct
human soul growing upin him, with a distinct human
character ; the other to prove that there is nothing, but
such a soul, with such a character, — then we have only
gotten up a man, in one case, to stand between us and
the Word caUed incarnate ; and in the other, quite rea
soned away the incarnation itself. . ,
Now, there was to be done what no human thought
can penetrate — what, in one view, can not be ; the infinite
to assume limitations, the Word to become flesh— only
through this formal impossibiHty achieved, God is to
open to us visions of love and truth, and communicate, as
in no other way He ean, the knowledge of all that is most
transforming in His Love and glorious in his character.
But instead of receiving what he would give us in true
simplicity, we begin to speculate on the limitations, in
fancy, growth, obedience, passibiHty, referring all these
limitations to a man or human nature wrapped up in
him, as if we had a perfect perception or understanding
of the grand historic wonder of his person, and as if the
incarnation were a perfectly normal affair. And then,
when we have concluded that what is humanly done is
done by a human creature, exactly all that was proposed
to be accomplished in the incarnation is so far defeated;
for, instead of having God himself presented or expressed,
a man is found hid in the miracle, who is doing and
suffering, in his distinct humanity, precisely that which
God assumed to be the medium of His own manifesta
tion ! It is just as if it were insisted that the word "fire,"

A HUMAN SOUL? 99
applied to the burning bush, must be taken in its properly
normal sense, as having a property that burns wood !
Instead of reasoning in this way, we should, first of
all, acknowledge the miracle, and then begin to ask what
God wfll teach us in it. We should take it as being just
what it pretends to be, the Word made flesh, and so the
vehicle of God to men ; and then, instead of raising a
great problem in psychology, we should turn ourselves
at once to look for that which the vehicle brings. Mani
festly Christ, being in his person out of and beyond all nor
mal conditions, must, of consequence, be psychologically
uninvestigable. We can know nothing concerning him
save precisely what externally appears, or is expressed.
However, the orthodox formula — "two natures and
one person" — is correctly worded, if only it be taken in
the more exterior, and not in the analytical and specula
tive sense. We are to regard him as a person repre-
sentable to thought only by means of two poles, or de
nominations, the divine and the human ; which, however,
we can no way investigate, as regards the mode of their
interior relation ; which, in one view, are wholly incom
patible. The object of the mystery is not to raise a
scientific problem, but to express God. Our wisdom,
therefore, is to receive him, in perfect simplicity, as a
twofold nature, a person who is God with us, Son of God
and Son of Man ; and holding him before us, by these
two poles of thought, to let him have just that power in
the soul and bring in just that sense of God and union to
God, which he will, when thus regarded. That he is di
vine, the Word made flesh, we know; for that is re-

100 HAD HE
vealed. That the transaction is properly described, not
as a coming together and spiritual coalescence of the
Word and some man, but as an assumption of humanity
or the flesh, we also know. But whether the assumption
includes the assumption of a human soul ; or whether,
if it does and that soul lapses into the divine person so
as to have, no more, any personality or character. of its
own, it would really be ; or so far different from the stale
of not being, that a true account of the one person would
require us to notice at all the presence, or trace the his
toric fortunes of an entity so ambiguous,— what, in a
word, the assumption involves, how the one person thus
resulting is interiorly constituted, what part the human
occupies in him or is, who speaks, obeys, suffers, dies,--—
these are questions we are never to raise. They are by
{the supposition excluded, both as being impossible and
irrelevant. We have nothing to do but simply to look
''upon the incidents of the life of Jesus as belonging to
the one divine person and, through these incidents, taken
all as media of divine expression, come, as directly as
possible, into the import and power of what is expressed.
But if we must be a Httle more wise than receiving of
the fuUness of the Word, grace for grace, will make us ;
if we must know more than God teaches, nothing is more
easy than to multiply the kind of wisdom we are after,
at a rapid rate, by the inferences we may draw from the
terms involved in the history. As Mary was the mother
of Jesus, we can prove, beyond a question, that she
was Mother of God. As Jesus is called a "man," we
can prove, as certainly, that he had a human soul ; for
what is a man without a soul? And, what is more, we

A HUMAN SOUL? 101
can prove, by as good an argument, that this soul was a
person ; for what is a soul that is not a person ? And
then it will be proved that there is no incarnation, but
only a bi-personal and partnership transaction carried on
between the man Jesus and the Word !
Indeed, it will be observed that a result very nearly
equivalent to this always foUows, as a matter of fact,
when the formula, "two natures and one person," begins
to be taken as affirming, in one nature, a substantial hu
man soul or spirit ; for the mind that has argued so far
into the mystery wUI not be in a mood to stop, but will
begin immediately to play the human soul into a distinct
activity ; conceiving that the human does this, the di
vine this, and so, in real truth or practically, running
the two natures into two persons, directly contrary to the
formula. Or, if this be avoided, the whole matter of the life and
passion of Christ wiU be tortured out of its value and
even its dignity, by questions and arguments and dia
lectic quibbles, that are only continuances upon his
gospel of the crucifixion perpetrated on his body. Thus,
to give an example, we find Mr. Symington asserting,
first, in his work on the Atonement, (p. 154,) that " Jesus
had no personal existence as a man" which is proper
orthodoxy; and then, shortly after, when the question
rises, who suffers in the suffering death of Christ? we
have the following dismally wise solution or answer :
"Although the human nature was alone capable of
suffering, it was nevertheless the person, to whom this
nature belonged, who suffered. It may be thought that,
at this rate, as the person was divine, such an assertion
9*

102 HAD HE
involves the blasphemy that Deity suffered. By no
means. When a person suffers, it does not foUow that
he suffers in all that pertains to him. He may suffer in
his property^ and not suffer in his honor ; he may suffer
in his happiness, and not in his character ; he may suffer
in his body, and not in his soul ; still it is the person who
suffers. So in the case before us, while the Son of God
suffers in his human nature, it is still the person that
suffers." — (Atonement, p. 164.) . '
It is really mournful to see what shifts a mind must
descend to, what inanities it must set up in the name of
a gospel, when once it has gotten beyond the boundsof
knowledge and begun to solve the impossible. It would
not do to say that, the suffering is in the human soul ; for
then the act of redemption would be of the human
nature of Jesus. It would not do to say that the suffer
ing is in the divine nature ; for that would be a blas
phemy against the impassibiHty of God. So it is ima
gined that the personality of Jesus is wholly divine, and
then that this personality suffers, but only in the human
nature, — just as a man may suffer in property not in
honor, in happiness not in character, in body not in soul.
The discovery that a person may suffer in body and not
in soul, is one that quite supersedes the use of chloroform.
The discovery that Deity the less really suffered, because
Christ suffered only in the human nature, is not less re
markable. How plain, too, is it that the question as
regards the impassibility of God, depended not on show
ing where the divine person suffered — whether in the
human nature, or the moon, or some where else — but
whether he suffered at all, or could, or can suffer any

A HUMAN SOUL? 103
how ? ; To solve a difficulty by throwing it into a shuffle
where no one can catch it ; to argue that the one divine
person suffers without divine suffering ! because he suffers
in the human nature ! which is impersonal and can not
suffer ! and then to offer to the world, as the very essence
of the gospel, a salvation purchased by the vicarious penal
sufferings of the Son of God ! — is reducing the gospel
to a residuum of scholastic subtleties, which is likely
enough, doubtless, to be hid in the world, but as un
likely as possible to be an active leaven of grace after
it is hid.
How much better to say, 'Jesus, the God-man, is a
mystery ; as such, I perceive beforehand that no argu
ment of mine, upon the mere terms of his person, will
open their mystery to me. Be it mine simply to receive
what he shows me. When he suffers, it is only a part
of the mystery that he is man, and his form contradicts
the deity of his nature as radicaUy as his suffering does
the divine impassibUity. And why should I be staggered
by these difficulties, when I see, beforehand, that God
is going to prove himself in a way that includes them all ?
He will take care of his own relations to form and of his
own impassibUity better than I can. Possibly I know
very Httle of either. Possibly it is the true idea of his
impassibility, not that he is a rock, not that he knows aU
things and feels nothing, as a diamond receives the light
without any sense of its touch ; but that he feels intensely
and, according to the depth of his own purity and tender
ness, every thing done or thought in the universe; that
when he is displeased he is reaUy unpleased ; that when
he looks upon evil, he abhors it ; when upon wrong, is

104 ORTHODOX ANSWERS
indignant against it; when upon real baseness, is moved
by a real disgust, as true purity should be. And then it
may be that, being passible thus to so many evils, there
is in his goodness (is there not the same in all goodness?)
a law of necessary self-compensation, such that infinite
subtractions from his enjoyment are repaid by infinite
additions, or conscious increments of joy, to which they
are the occasions ; and that so, what we caU the impas
sibUity of God, is based in an infinite passibiHty whose
equiHbrium of joy is maintained by the compensatioas
of an infinite goodness, weUing up evermore within, as
waters of eternal life. And then, if it should be a
real truth exemplified in the Hfe and passion of Jesus,
that God is subduing evil as he teaches me to do it, viz.,
by submission to its injuries, shall I refuse a lesson of so
great value and sublimity? Is it nothing to me that,
possibly, God is endeavoring here, in this mystery of
Jesus, to accompHsh what is scarcely done at all in the
revelations of nature and Providential history, viz., to dis
close to my feeling His own Passive Virtues, and bring
me under their power ?'
I am quite free to admit that, when the question has
been up for settlement before the church, whether Christ
had a human soul or not, the weight of opinion has been
upon the affirmative side ; and if one or the other must
be held or decided, the decision has been rightly, or at
least advantageously, turned on this side. For, if we say
that there is no human soul in the person of the Savior,
then we shall not use or find any place for using a large
class of representations that present him on 'the human

AND OPINIONS. 105
or subject side of his mystery ; and so the incarnation
itseh0 will vanish as a fact. While, on the other hand,
if we say that he has a distinct human soul, all these
terms will be used only with a violent over-speculative
meaning. But whfle the current of authority has been
upon this side, no other alternative being presented than
whether he had a human soul or not, I am not aware
that the question has ever been raised, in the past ages,
whether, since Christ is whoUy abnormal in his person,
we are not on that account forbidden to undertake the
decision of any such alternativ.e, by arguments on words
normaUy interpreted? If we decide that the question
itself is an impossible question, forbidden by the condi
tions of the subject, then we shaU go on to use and apply
all the terms of the incarnate mystery, or those of both
poles, (as to make out a real incarnation we must,) only.
we shall do it under a constant sense of the abnormal and
uninvestigable nature of the fact. Thus it might have
been decided very well, or with better effect, that tiie fire
of the burning bush was real fire and not phosphorus ;
and yet the disciples of some foUowing age might think
it wiser not to meddle with that kind of question, but
rather to see what it professes by so great a wonder to
show, the presence of the God of Israel.
It appears also to have been decided, at the council of
Constantinople, A. D. 680, that while there are two na
tures and one person in Christ, the two natures involve
'* two wills." But what is meant by two wills and one
person I find some difficulty in conceiving. If it means
that the two wills are active, choosing powers, then I see
not how a better assertion of two persons can be made.

106 ORTHODOX ANSWERS
If it be meant simply that the creature wUl goes into
composition as mere timber, or a part of the timber called
nature, but has no action as a center of life and choice ia
itself, then it would seem to be a matter of very trivial
consequence what it is, or what becomes of it ; for it is
lost in the infinite abyss of the divine nature into which
it is fallen. Something like this appears to be the or
thodox opinion ; for it is distinctly maintained, as we
just now saw, that the one personality of Christ is wholly
divine, not partly divine and partly human, — this latter
is expressly denied.
And yet, since the phrase " two wills" is admitted, it
follows, by a kind of necessity, that many will be accom
modated by seeing them in distinct action ; and as soon
as they begin to be spoken of in that manner, nothing
can preserve them from being erected practically into two
distinct persons, directly in the face of the older formula,
" two natures and one person."
This exactly has been the practical result in New Eng
land. Indeed, I have no doubt that a great part of the
hostility encountered or excited by what I have said
concerning the person of Christ, is due to the fact that I
hold the formula more faithfully and truly than it is
commonly held in our churches. There had been no
discussion of the subject for a long time, such as was
necessary to sharpen the mind to a remembrance and
true apprehension of the formula. The manner had been
to speak of one thing in the life of Christ as referrible to
the action or choice of his human, and of another to that
of his divine nature ; till finally, all guards and correctives
being omitted, the churches had begun, really and prac-

AND OPINIONS. 107
tically, to hold a bi-personal Savior. Impressions thus
taken up, directly against the orthodox formula, were
crossed by the strong assertion I made of Christ's per
sonal unity, in exact coincidence with it, arid so I fell
into an accusation of heresy, for no other reason than be
cause I was more orthodox than I should be. Meantime
what has befallen my accusers ? Something far more de
plorable, I answer, than a defect of orthodoxy. Having
lost out of mind the distinction between a twofold nature
and two distinct personal activities, their Savior is two,
and not one any longer. Then all the strictly human inci
dents of chUdhood, obedience, poverty and suffering, they
refer to his human side, as a distinct human experience ;
which being done, how Httle do they get afterward of all
which God meant to communicate of Himself, through
the incarnate life and death of his Son ! They have lifted
up their Httle taper of human reason to say of this, and
this, and this, 'God can not be subject to any such thing ;
therefore it must be referred only to the humanity!'
And so every thing most significant of God, every thing
that unbosoms the divine feeling, is put away, sacrificed !
The mystery itself is divided up and gone, — the man has
taken one part to himself, the Word has taken the other"
back into the secret of God's pavUion, and God manifest,
the Word made flesh, is not any longer here !
This result will always follow when the formula " two
natures and one person" is taken speculatively ; but if it
be taken only in that instrumental and merely exterior
way of which I have spoken, and the practical reality of
all be considered to He in what is expressed through the
incarnate mystery, no such result will follow. Christ

108 DEVIATION UNIMPORTANT.
will then be one persOn — only one. He can not be
divided. That the original authors of the formula held it in this
untheoretic and practical way, I do not say or pretend,
or even care to show. It is certainly my right to stop
short of a merely theoretic and constructive judgment,
which others have seen fit to pass upon the interior
structure of the person of Christ, if I truly believe in
the historic fact of his incarnation as presented in the
gospels. I will not undertake to sketeh the history of the
Christian doctrine on this subject. I will simply refer
you to the doctrine as stated by two or three writers of
accepted orthodoxy among ourselves, who do undoubt
edly hold the formal belief of a real human soul in the
person of Jesus Christ, but yet in such terms as to make
the divine element of his person the all in all, even more
absolutely than if they had taken the position of my
book. Dr. Griffin says :
" Not a single official act can be ascribed to the mere
man or to the mere God, but to the Mediator. Those
acts in which the man most appears draw dignity and
efficacy from the God, and those acts in which the God
most appears draw influence from the man. The divinity
of that person goes through and qualifies all the acts and
sufferings of the Mediator, and when it has done that, it
does no more in the economy of redemption." — (Griffin
on Atonement, p. 44.)
" The personality of Jesus Christ," says Dr. Hopkins,
" is in his divine nature, not in the human. Jesus Christ

DEVIATION UNIMPORTANT. 109
existed a distinct divine person from eternity, the second
person in the adorable trinity. The human nature
which this divine person, the Word, assumed into a per
sonal union with himself, is not and never was a distinct
person by itself, and personaHty can not be ascribed to
it,- and does not belong to it, otherwise than as united to
the Logos, the Word of God. The Word assumed the
human nature, not a human person, into personal union
with himself, by which this complex person exists, God-
Man. Had the second person of the trinity taken a
human person into union with himself, and this were
possible, Jesus Christ, God and man, would be two per
sons and not one." — (Hopkins' Divinity, Vol. I, p. 348.)
Now let the question be raised, whether I or these two
writers have made less of the human person of Christ ?
I in refusing to know any thing at aU concerning it,
other than that God is mysteriously incarnate in it ; or
they who, professing to open his mystery, discover there
a "human nature," but "no human person," and that in
such a way or under such conditions that the personality
ef Christ is " in the divine nature and not in the human."
What a discovery now is this for theology! that Christ
took a human nature that had no personality and is not
any constitutive part of his own personaHty when taken,
and never wUl have any humanly personal existence or
character to aU eternity ! What is this, in fact, but to
discover that the matter of a human creature has been
somehow absorbed or hid in Christ's person, with which
we can of course have no one feeHng of personal sym
pathy, because it exists in the impersonal way, as being
simply the matter of a man, and not a man ? Which of
10

110 DEVIATION UNIMPORTANT.
the two views gives our mind the liveliest human sym
pathy with the Savior's person ? which brings him closest
to our human feeling? — to receive him as containing in
himself an impersonal man, the mere timber of a man,
referring aU he suffers to that unconscious, wooden
humanity he has taken up to bear the cross and die as
an impersonal sufferer ; or, refusing aU such vain philos
ophy, to receive him as the incarnate Word, one person,
the great mystery of Godliness, and to say in simple
childHke trust, at the foot of his cross, Herein is love—
our God is love?
I am not ignorant how much importance has been at
tached to the belief in Christ's real humanity. It has even
been regarded as a fundamental article of the Christian
faith. For if Christ be taken as a mere show or the
ophany, having no real and historic place in humanity,
then the gospel has no longer any solid import. It
becomes a phantasm and nothing more. Do I then deny
the real humanity, because I refuse, either to affirm or to
deny, or to know any thing in regard to his interior com
position ; insisting that the incarnation shall be taken at
its face, as a real historic fact, valuable for what it reveals
of God, and not for the riddle it offers to metaphysical
science ? Is the gospel reduced to a phantasm because I
am not able to show in Christ's person the matter of a
man, who is not a man, and never wiU be, and who, at
the best, is only an inconceivable something? Baxter
had a better and more dignified conception of what is
necessary to orthodoxy on this subject. Holding the
belief, as he certainly does, that Christ assumed both a

THE GLORIFIED HUMANITY. Ill
human soul and a human body, though only " as sub
stances," but not as " another person," he has still the
dignity to say —
" This is a question [the question of three natures, a
divine, a human soul and a human body,] about mere
names. He hath only the nature of God and man. But
if you go to anatomize man you may find in 'him, perhaps,
more natures than two, spirit, fire, air, water and earth.
But this is a frivolous dispute." — (Practical Works, foil.
Vol. IV, p. 77.)
I think it must be clear to you then that I have fallen
into no fundamental error, neither into any serious and
important error concerning the person of Christ, whether
in respect of what I have denied, or what I have asserted,
concerning his humanity. On the contrary, I hope it
will be seen that the attitude into which I bring the
hearer and disciple is that of simple unquestioning faith
itself, and precisely that which most favors the spiritual
effect of the life and cross of Christ, as a medium of
reconciliation with God.
But the report offered by the minority of your com
mittee complained, as you may have observed, of a
different kind of error in my view of Christ's person,
and not the error of which I have been speaking ; viz.,
that I rejected the " eternity" of his person. But this,
you will perceive, was not any distinct error from that
which the same report imputed to me, in charging a
rejection of three eternal persons in the divine nature.
It is only a multiplying of verbal charges against the
same heresy, and a good illustration, in that view, of the

112 THE GLORIFIED HUMANITY.
propriety of going deeper than the mere forms of words,
in the investigation of truth.
There was a charge lying in the region of this which
they have stated, which is reaUy distinct from that of
denying the trinity, and which might have been, as it
actuaUy has been, urged against me ; viz., that my view
involves a denial of the eternity of the human nature, or
the glorified humanity of Jesus. I suppose this charge
may have been provoked by the unsatisfactory reference-
I made (" God in Christ," p. 177) to certain language
used by Paul in regard to the subject in question.
I can not say that I have no difficulty in framing a
satisfactory conception of the doctrine of the glorified
humanity, though I do not perceive that the difficulty
experienced connects with any views I have taken up in
regard to the incarnation, or the person of Christ, more
than with the views of others. That theologian must be
gifted with a remarkable faciHty of faith who has never
yet found a difficulty in supposing, 'either that the one
God, or that an eternal person of the Divine Three, the
Son of God, underwent a permanent change of state
before all worlds, in the year 1 of our Christian era ; that
in this particular speck of the system of the universe, at
a certain date in the parish register, if I may so speak, of
the town of Bethlehem, he entered into union with
humanity, and is hereafter and forever to reign over the
known universe of angels and aU the populations of the
sky, in the humanity then assumed and shortly after
glorified. Another difficulty in this doctrine of the glorified
humanity is, that if by " glorified body" we mean a defi-

THE GLORIFIED HUMANITY. 113
nite form under the terms and limitations of space, which
is the very meaning of the word body, unless it be taken
in some highly figurative sense, then it is manifestly
impossible that so vast a multitude of souls, themselves
also in bodies, can find an access to him, near enough to
suffer a feeHng of society, once in a thousand years, f To
avoid this difficulty, Baxter and others of the old writers
imagine that Christ will inhabit a kind of AnArrAZMA, or
sun-body — a human body so lustrous that it will be self-
diffusive and fill heaven with its radiance. So in the
hymn — " There the blest man my Savior sits,
The God how bright he shines !
And scatters infinite delights
On all the happy minds !
But this, I confess, unless it be taken in some highly
figurative sense, wears too much the appearance of a
phantasm. » And yet the scriptures seem to affirm, and
of the truth itself I have no doubt, that in some proper
and virtual sense, the Christ is to be eternal and be
known to us as the glorified man or humanity. As
to the precise manner, it is better to hold a position of
modesty. It may be in some external sense, but we
know so little of the matter of externals in the world of
spirits, what " body" means, and " glorified body," and
"glorified humanity," that it is better not to rush too
boldly into those things we have not seen, lest we do it
as they that are vainly puffed up in their fleshly mind.
It may be in a way more subjective ; for in one view
God is a purely subjective reality in his manifestation to
souls. Thus we may conceive that Christ, perfectly
10*

114 , HOW CHRIST
formed within, is at once a character and a mold; or
retina of thought for God ; so that in all we may know
of God, he wiU be to us a Christ. Somewhat as now,
educated by science, we behold the sun as a rounded
ball ; when, in fact, the light paints him in our eye as a
circular plate only. But in whatever way it may come
to pass, I have no doubt that in some most real and vir
tual sense, we shall see Christ and be with him. It will
be, not as if we had some better and more complete
abstractive notion of God, but as if he were humanized
to us, known as the Christ, conversible with us, our
Lord and brother, the Son of Mary glorified. And there
fore, when we assert the glorified humanity of Christ's
person, and do not press the language into a sense deeper
than our understanding can penetrate, we assert, I cer
tainly .believe, a most real truth, and one that is justly
dear to his disciples.
It may not be amiss to add, though it would seem to
be quite unnecessary, that while the doctrine I have
asserted refuses, either to deny or to affirm, to know or
to attempt to know, any thing which the church doctrine
estabHshes, concerning the human soul of Christ, by infer
ences drawn from the words " chUd," " man," " growth,"
and the like; the difference is not one that will be
observable at all in preaching, save when this particular
point of dogma, is immediately in question. Or, if there
be a difference that might be observed, it will be simply
that no distribution of the Savior's life is made, such as
we sometimes hear — no reference of this to his human
part and this to his divine ; but that all is referred, in

WILL BE PREACHED. 115
the manner of scripture, to his one mysterious person.
He will be preached, not as " Christ divided," but as
«* God-with-us." And yet, in order to this, the two poles that represent
his one person, the divine and the human, will be always
visible. Assuming that his character is one only, (which
is the admitted truth of orthodoxy,) that one char
acter will be set forth, under the paradox of a double
character, instrumentally necessary to the right concep
tion of it. The two elements, the divine and the human]
will never be separated, but used simply as terms by
which to represent a perfectly abnormal and mysterious
unity — a being who was in the Form of God, but made
himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of
a servant, and was made in the Hkeness of men — where
you see not two, not a God and a human soul, but one,
who descends mysteriously in his own unity below him
self, and is found in fashion as a man — the Word made
flesh. And it is in this view that the humanity of Christ is a
truth so dear to men. It is not that a human soul is
human, for all human souls are that, but that a nature
transcending humanity is humanized and become one of
us. And this is the truth that a preacher of Christ wUl
magnify. He will begin his holy evangel at the infancy
and childhood of Jesus ; and instead of explaining ¦
away the beautiful wonder, by dividing the person
and taking the childhood as pertaining separately to the
humanity, he will rather preach the Divine ChUd him
self, in the unity of his person, and pray, with Fenelon,
that he and all men may be stripped of their wisdom

116 HOW PREACHED.
and become little children, before " the childhood of the
Word made flesh."
In the same way Christ will be represented as a person
temptible and tempted with us ; endeared to us by his
participation of our human state with all its infirmi
ties and sorrows ; made perfeet through sufferings, and
touched with a feeling of all that pertains to our lot of
weakness and trial. The union perfected in him, too, of
the human and divine, wUl be the more significant of the
possible union of humanity with God, because the mind
is not allowed to confuse itself in speculations about the
interior duality of his constitution, which so nearly sun
der his personality and dissipate our conviction of the
reality of the union asserted.
Meantime, the duaHty of the terms or elements on
hand will produce no necessary distraction of mind ; for
they are employed simply as an instrumental duality,
and aU questions about the interior relations of the
divine and the human, as about the interior relations of
the Trinity, will be put aside as philosophically forbidden.
He may pay his worship, therefore, to the infant Jesus,
with Fenelon, and suffer no misgiving or confusion of
mind. Just as the large class of Unitarians who hold
that Jesus is a being distinct from all other men, as
being the pure manifestation of God, ought themselves
to do, on their own principle, without hesitation or com
punction. For if he is, in this manner, God manifest in
the flesh, then certainly what is deific in him is principal
above what is human — the highest, or we should rather
say, the only reality for thought — and he ought to be
unscrupulously worshiped. -

THE TRINITY.
It seems to be supposed by many that what I advanced
concerning the trinity, in my discourse at New Haven,
was designed to be a solution of this great mystery.
Precisely contrary to this, my attempt was to find a way
of intelligent repose in it without a solution, and even
subjeet to the conviction that no proper solution is
possible. I did indeed seek to account for the external
fact of trinity, showing that when God, the Absolute
One, is revealed to us — the infinite in the finite, spirit in
form, or subject, as the nature of language itself requires,
to conditions of form — the process involves a necessity of
antagonistic symbols and, if there be an incarnation,
pluralities of person, such as meet us in the trinity of
the New Testament. But having thus accounted for the
external fact of a trinity, taken as instrumental in respect
to the revelation of God, I insisted that we have now
come to the last limit of possible investigation ; that we
can not pass over into the divine nature itself and show
how the instrumental three of revelation are related to
its interior distribution, or precisely what they affirm con
cerning it. Probably their object is, under and by
means of the manifold, to give us the One, or to show
us the One as engaged in forms of action needful to our
redemption from sin ; not to inform us concerning the
transcendent properties and distributions of the divine
substance as related to problems of metaphysical science.

118 TRINITY NOT TO BE
Probably the revelation thus offered us in the Christian
trinity has a considerable part of its value, in the fact
that it can not be definitely solved, and sets Him before
us under a veil of mystery; for, as nothing that is
infinite can be definite, so mystery is a necessary dy
namic of expression for the infinite. — (God in Christ,
pp. 175-7.)
Just here, too, in withholding from any attempt to
solve the trinity, and refusing either to affirm or to deny
any thing concerning it, as pertaining to the substance
or the immanent properties of God, is the peculiarity — •
the merit if there is any, the heresy if there is none — of
the exposition I have ventured to offer.. It differs, in
this view, from Sabellianism on one side, and common
orthodoxy on the other, in the same manner, being an
attempt to forestall the controversy between them; a
controversy that is endless, for the simple reason that
the subject of it is impossible. In the same way, it pro
poses to anticipate and cut off nearly all the opposing
theories of trinity, heretical and otherwise, that have
agitated so deeply the peace of the church ; for they all
arise from the attempt to settle a conception of trinity as
pertaining immanently to the interior nature of God — an
attempt, the eertain futility of which, it would seem that
a very little reflection might assist any one to discover.
I spoke, in my Introduction, of a certain coincidence
between the view of trinity I advanced at New Haven,
and that of Schleiermacher, in his exposition of Sabellius;
and some have supposed, I perceive, that I meant to
accept, with him, the doctrine of a modal trinity. I ought
to have traced the limits of the coincidence and shown

SOLVED OR ATTEMPTED. 119
precisely where my doctrine escapes the charge of modal-
ism. Thus, if it is set in comparison with Schleiermacher 's
on one side, and the orthodox modification of it demanded
by Prof. Stuart on the other, it wiU be found that we
have three different schemes of trinity, which begin to
gether, at the assumed fact of God's original unity, and
then, by a consideration of what is involved in revealing
Him to men, or working the redemption of men, arrive
at the resulting fact of a trinity — three grammatic persons,
Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, representing, aU, to our
human conception, the Homoousion, or One Substance.
Meeting at this point, we immediately fall asunder into
results that are mutually repugnant.
Schleiermacher and his translator both assume the pos
sibility of entering into the interior nature of God, and
forming an authorized judgment concerning the trinity
as predieable of it. This I deny, and am thus left behind
by them both. The judgment of the German critic is
that the One becomes Three in the process of revelation,
and that the Three are only media of revelation. This
is modalism. His translator, on the other hand, argues
that, since God is revealed as being three, he must be
essentiaUy or immanently three back of the revelation ;
else the revelation would not be true. This is admitted
orthodoxy. Twesten, I may add, handles the doctrine
much in the same way, only that he arrives at the point
of threeness by a more transcendental method, consider-
¦ ing not so much what is involved in the revelation of
God to us, as in his revelation to Himself.
Left behind thus by them both, I am found simply
protesting against all judgments and inferences that un-

120 ADVANTAGES OF
dertake to leap the gulf between- us and the inscrutable
mystery of God, insisting that we stay by the Scripture
and trust ourselves to no constructive reasonings on the
subject,— -that the trinity of revelation is given us for
use and not for theory ; that we can not know exactly
where form ends, or how much to refer to form, in a
matter so transcendent; that any attempt to solve or
conceive God's interior mystery, by reasonings cast in
the molds and categories of our human consciousness, is
presumptuous, possibly even absurd ; an attempt also,
to clear that mystery, which it may have been one of the
very objects of Scripture to present, as being itself the
medium and highest power of expression for the infinite.
Therefore, I said, let us stay by the simple Three of
revelation, receiving them, not as addressed to our scien
tific instinct, but under the simple conditions of ex
pression ; sending and sent, acting and interacting, so,
by their discursive method, meeting our discourse of
thought, and communicating, by their accommodation to
our capacity, what they may of the divine glory and love.
You perceive, in this manner, that my supposed heresy
is distinguished, in the same way, both from modalism
and immanent trinity. / One enters into the field of God's
interior nature and denies, the other enters and affirms.
I have supposed it to be a demand even of reason, and
certainly to be more modest, to withhold altogether ; seek
ing after God in the simple use of that' by which he is
offered to knowledge.); The incurious method I have sup
posed to be more intelligent here than the curious, the
practical than the speculative] that feeHng and imagina
tion are sometimes good interpreters and proper inlets

POSITION TAKEN. 121
of knowledge ; and that we are never so likely to miss
the true import of this transcendent mystery, as when we
are thrusting ourselves into God's interior distributions,
and preparing a psychology of his Infinite Spirit in the
tiny molds of our discursive understanding.
The advantages pertaining to such a disposition of the
subject are many.
First, it is a solution, just so far as a solution is wanted.
It finds reason to believe, assuming the strict unity of
God, that He will be revealed under conditions of form
and number ; the Absolute by relatives, or, in case of an
incarnation, by relative persons. Then, when the scrip
ture trinity appears, the disciple is not shocked by a raw
absurdity thrust upon Him. This trinity, coupled with
so many speculative difficulties, is at least no proof
against the fact of a revelation ; for it is just what might
be expected, in case a revelation is made. He has also
perceived that a trinity of persons thus appearing is de
veloped, one side of mere logical conditions, and is not
to be handled by logical deductions. As soon, therefore,
as men cease to be occupied with the relative subjects, or
persons, as media of expression, — presentations of God
to simple faith and love, — and begin to raise a priori
constructions on their formal relations of act, and work,
and number, he clearly perceives that there should be
and will be no end to the conflicts and resulting contra
rieties of doctrine that appear, and wUl not be troubled,
of course, by them, when they do appear. The unity of
God is to him a truth fixed and immovable, and he- is
not concerned lest, in receiving as much of God as he
11

122 ADVANTAGES OF
can through the revelation given, he should somehow
accept a logical absurdity. He has only to receive4he
Divine Three in terms of love and worship, using them
freely as media of thought concerning God and the way
of His redeeming mercy, and so to ascend, through for
mulas of blessing and doxologies of praise, to the fullest
embrace possible of the incomprehensible One.
Secondly, it is another advantage of the view I have
suggested that, while it holds the mind to a practical: use
of the trinity, it allows and provokes to the highest ac
tivity of thought concerning God. Nothinejstrains the
human mind to such tensity as a riddle ] or mystery,
when that riddle or mystery is not a fiction, but is based
in the depth of some stupendous reahty. And for just
this reason it is that the trinity of Scripture has availed
to make the nature of God a problem of so great interest
to the human mind for the last eighteen centuries. Such
a strain of human thought after God and his transcendent
mystery could have been kept up by no other means.
And the result has been that, whUe nothing has been
gained as regards the real comprehension or solution of
the mystery — that while so many heresies and confuta
tions and determinations of councUs, so much labor of
logic and scholastic learning, so many divinations of
mysticism, so many theories of ontology and transcend
ental philosophy, have ended in just no solution or doc
trine of the subject that can hope for general acceptance
¦ — there has yet resulted such a Hfting of the range and
such an expansion of the circle of thought concerning
God, as more than compensates the immense labor it has
cost. The very confusion we complain of is, in one view,

POSITION TAKEN. 123
but another name for fertiHty. And what we have thus
attained, we should never have begun to seek, had only
the simple Jewish conception of divine unity been given
us. We owe it aU to the amazing riddle thrown out to
the mind of the world, in the Christian trinity. And it
is one of the highest merits of the Christian expression
of God under a threefold personaHty, that it would not
allow the mind of the world to rest any longer in a con
ception so easy to thought and, in fact, so nearly finite ;
but compeUed a new toil of exploration, and thus con
ducted to? a new sense of the possibUities included in
God and the 'mystery of infinite being.
Now, the effort of the church has been and still is,
though not so intended, to stop exactly that which it has
been the merit of the Scripture trinity to be doing.
Could some science of the trinity, or of God's immanent
distribution, be perfected and, estabHshed in a fixed form
of dogma, so that nothing more would be left us but to
run over the logical terms and hear what they say, then
manifestly the labor of the world's mind would rest and
the process of fertiHty be ended. And not only so, not
only would God never be greater to thought, but there
would begin to be a wave of retrocession, a subsidence
of thought to a lower level. Since the dogma is, in that
case, an end of question, thought receives it without
question ; and then, having God by rote, He becomes to
mind as Hfeless as mind is lifeless to Him ; as much di
minished in volume, too, as thought is diminished in the
strain of its intensity. Accordingly, just that is wanted,
which the church has been trying, in all ages, to escape,
viz., to keep the trinity an open question forever, — pre-

124 ADVANTAGES OF
cisely where the scriptures leave itj-^o undertake no
science of God's interior nature and immanent properties,
but to hold the Sacred Three as instrumental verities,
the truest and most adequate expression of God's reality
possible ;' leaving room for thought to make its explora
tions and climb into the knowledge of God by such feet
ing after his mystery, as mystery will tempt, and freedom
suffer, and faith assist. Precisely this is the position
where my doctrine leaves us ; and, in this, it has its ad
vantage equaUy over modalism and orthodoxy, and all
ontological and transcendental theories. It meets, indeed,
the very candid and wise suggestion of Twesten, at the
close of his treatise, when he says :—
"It may easily become a consequence of such definite
doctrinal propositions that, while they guard against
error, they also restrain the free movements of mind and
estabHsh a dead uniformity, in place of a living-and mani
fold development ; and, on this account, those times in
which men were endeavoring to approach the truth in
different ways, though they may have been sometimes
by-ways and false ways, seem more attractive than those
in which they believed they had attained the goal and
must keep precisely to the leveled track. And if any
one now longs for a return of this earlier freedom and
mobility, in the belief that then the interest in our doc
trine would be far more fresh and living than it is with
the constant repetition of the same traditional forms of
speech ; if he beHeves that he must seek after, or has
found another mode of exhibiting it, which corresponds
as well or better with the scriptures and with Christian
experience; which is less exposed to misapprehensions;

POSITION TAKEN. 125
which is more free from doubt and objections ; which
insures more profound disclosures, or at any rate is more
simple ; shall we then put him off by merely holding up
in opposition the doctrine of the church ? This would
be to act neither in the spirit of our church, which never
puts the inferences and deductions of men on a line with
the words of scripture; nor in a truly philosophical
spirit, which can not give the same authority to that
which is the result only of our reflections, with that
which forms a part of our reHgious experience."' — (Bib.
Sac., VolJV, p. 66.)
Thirdly, it is a great advantage of this view, that it
gives the law of use, and shows exactly where to deposit
the mystery of the Divine Three, as offered to us in the
scriptures. Christ, the Son, is declared, in many ways or
distinct modes of assertion, to be God manifest under
human conditions, and even to have the very fullness or
pleroma of the Godhead dweUing in him bodily. The
trinity, also, is first brought to the knowledge of our race j
in immediate connection with this divine appearing or/
incarnation. Hence, almost of necessity, we look upon
the development of the Three as occurring under the
same conditions of manifestation, and as part of the same
general transaction. Meantime, considering what is im
plied in God's Infinity as the One, and what is impHed in
his revelation to men, as possible only through finite
forms and symbols, we clearly perceive, beforehand,
that when he is revealed, it wUl be under pluralities and
relative terms or conditions, answering to these which
meet us in the scripture Three. Here, then, is the law
of use, in which we are to be always comforted, — that in
11*

126 ADVANTAGES OF
the Three, freely accepted, we receive the One, and noth
ing contrary to the One. -, The highest reality and truth
of the Three is, that they manifest and are the One; and
whatever we receive, in the trinity set forth, that is not
a knowledge or impression of the One, is a residuum of
form and number that belongs to the medium and vehicle
of truth, and not to the truth itself.
But exactly what, in aU respects, belongs to the vehicle
and what to the truth, we do not undertake to affirm.
Here we come upon the proper domain of mystery, hav
ing^ a perfectly intelhgent knowledge prepared of its
locality and its confines. We are not simply overtaken
by darkness, or driven to a corner whence we can not
escape, save by caUing on Mystery to help us ; but we
meet her in the place of intelligence, and greet her as an
acquaintance. For we have seen beforehand that the re
lation of form to truth in every term of language is a
mystery quite insoluble, and now we only meet a par
ticular example of the same fact. We perceive, too,
beforehand, that the infinite, when revealed in the finite,
must be enveloped in mystery. , Besides, the nature of
God is different from ours, in such a sense that we mani
festly can not form the interior conception of God as the
One, and never can tell how much of threeness to refer
to the vehicle, in distinction from the reality signified.
The categories of the Infinite Mind are not matched by
the categories of thought in ours ; and therefore, when
we affirm God's oneness, we have no certainty how much
it includes, but only that all is included in one conscious
ness. It may be that, in certain respects, it would be
closer to the reality for us to affirm an interior threeness

POSITION TAKEN. 127
in God, than to say that he is a simple unity in our
strictly human sense, or the sense of our finite personality.
It certainly is more true for us, to take the Three as they
are offered, and let them throw us into a maze by their
cross relations ; and in that maze, if we are in it in faith,
longing only to be filled with God, we shall receive the
largest possible communication of Him, as a being who
can not be placed in the categories of our finite under
standing. We shall have Him thus dynamically, or in
virtual impression, when we can not make out a proper
intellectual conception of Him. Here, then, when we
come to' the question, what is vehicle and what is truth,
we neither affirm nor deny; but we say, here is the
place for mystery, and she meets us only where the place
for meeting is. We are not offended; we receive her
gladly; perceiving in her shaded face and lineaments
that, as she is the mother of Modesty, she is the sister
also of Truth.
But are there no disadvantages and dangers, it will be
asked, in the position taken, such as more than offset the
advantages ? Does it not open a gate of free entrance for
all those real heresies that corrupt Christian experience
and palsy the nerve of the gospel, yielding them coun
tenance and offering them a charter of immunity ? It
seems to me to be quite otherwise ; for while it brings
us to a resting-place in the simple expression of the scrip
ture formula, it does not, by any means, set us back at
the point where the heresies began to emerge. For it
happens that almost aU the heresies or misconstructions
referred to were gendered, by just that effort to compre
hend the interior mystery of God's nature, the necessary

128 ADVANTAGES OF
futility of which I have made it a point of so great con
sequence to admit.
How SabelHanism or modalism is avoided we have
already seen. In its ancient. original type, it did not
reaUy seize upon the true reason for the threefold form ;
and in the modern German type of the doctrine, as well
as in the ancient, it errs by excessive denial; not stop
ping within the limit of possible knowledge, but assum
ing to know what is not true of God's interior nature,
where it has no means of knowledge.
Arianism, the most improbable and unphUojophic of
all the great heresies, begins and ends in the attempt to
get up, apart from aU laws of thought, some probable or
possible conception of the trinity, as pertaining to the
interior metaphysical history of being. And the very
search on which it enters is anticipated by the simple
reeoUection, that a complete revelation of the Infinite One,
and especially the incarnate manifestation of his presence,
involves a pluraHty of terms, and probably of persons.
What need, then, of inquiring whether the Son, ad
mitted to be incarnate, is some highest imaginable, or
unimaginable creature ? — what place is left for the in
quiry? Unitarianism is not excluded, in so far as it ade
quately maintains the divine unity, and should not be.
Many of its arguments, taken as alleged against certain
forms of immanent trinity caUed orthodox, are admitted
and justified. None of the real absurdities against
which it has arrayed itself are aUowed to remain. And
,yet they are cleared, by a method that makes no breach
upon the scripture trinity, it has rejected or explained

POSITION TAKEN. 129
away ; a method which affirms the real use and sacred
importance of that trinity, and maintains|the essential di
vinity of the Son of God, as a conception necessary to
the vital energy of the gospel in its reconciling power.
Indeed, if it be true that multipHcity is involved in the
highest expression of God as the One, Unitarianism is
seen to be engaged in the same futile effort with ortho
doxy when it enters and attempts to clear the interior
mystery of the scripture Three, and so to have its root in
the same vicious assumption.
I shall speak of pantheism in another place, only ob
serving here that a faith in God's personality, as distinct
from the world, is adequately asserted only by means of
tri-personality ; and it does not appear to make any dif
ference, in this respect, whether it be by one view of tri-
personality or another, provided will and counsel and
supernatural working are involved in it. After all, there
is no real security any where that God wiU be held as a
person, save that a personal God is wanted. For if a
World-God only is wanted, as the animal wants only a
world to graze in, the mind will be as little likely to
raise itself to any thing above the world, waiting to re
turn its sympathies and feed its longings after friend
ship. Argument will be impotent where no such
longings exist.
Having exhibited, in this manner, the import and ad
vantages of the position I designed to maintain, it may
further assist you, if I notice briefly some of the construc
tions that have been given to expressions found in my
book, — as by the minority of your committee, and by

130 FALSE CONSTRUCTIONS
others who have been forward to complain of my heresies.
And I will say, in general, that most of the complaiaafei
have heard originate in a want of attention to the restrie-
tions and qualifications I gave, in the latter part of my
discourse. It would have been very inconvenient, in -a
crowded and condensed discourse, to append aU these
quahfiers to each and every turn of language that might
suffer an evU construction. I supposed it would be
enough to give them once, and that my hearer, or my
reader, would regard it as the proper function, of intelli
gence, to reproduce my view as a whole, under and sub
ject to my own qualifications ; and not to manufacture
another for me, out of my particular turns of expression,
apart from all qualifications. But, instead of this, I have
sometimes observed that a sentence is cut in two, and the
Hmitation of the end, which alone made it true to me, is
taken away. Sometimes, also, a bold stroke of inference
is added, making me assert exaetly what I deny, because
I deny the inference. And very generally, the qualifica
tions and disclaimers I added at the close, appear to have
been disregarded. Let me show you then, by a few ex
amples, how Httle thought I have had of asserting some
of the heresies imputed to me.
I spoke (p. 175) of " an instrumental trinity, or trinity
of three instrumental persons," as "the positive" ''result
to which my doctrine was brought. Hereupon it is set
down as my heresy, that I deny any thing in the nature
of an immanent trinity. And yet the very tenor of my
argument required me not to deny it, and I said ex
pressly, " there may be more in it than this," — adding
that, whenever any human theologian should become

REMOVED. 131
sufficiently master of God's interior psychological nature,
to declare his mystery, he would be able to tell us.
. I said (p. 177) " three simply as related to our finite
apprehension," which, it has been often charged, is an
express denial of any threeness of a more immanent or
inherent quality. Whereas I was only saying, as it wiU
be seen by a reference backward, that if we cease from
all denials and guesses, and speak in " a way more posi
tive," as of wW wq do kno™", tir^1 tir* TWg a.-ce
" imstrumentaUy three, — three [that-is]-simply-a
to^qnr finite apprphonoion." I am glad, however, to
admit that, while my language here need not, and,
against the plainest declarations elsewhere made, ought
not to have been misunderstood, it might have been
more guarded. '"•<-
So when I spoke of the Three (p. 137) as "the
dramatis personm of revelation," and of trinity as result
ing " of necessity from the revelation of God to man," or
the incarnation of the divine nature ; did I therefore, as
it has been often charged, deny that they are any thing
more than a dramatic show?
It has been charged as an offense that I speak of the
Word as being a pecuHar " capacity of self-expression in
God." The language is a denial, it is said, of the real
personality of the Son. I certainly supposed that every
Christian scholar was so far acquainted with the historic
doctrine of the Logos, as to know that so much is con
ceded, on aU hands, and that when I spoke in this way,
I was only referring to the faert thus conceded, that there
is, at the least, a something in the divine nature caUed
the Word, which is the fountain (whatever may be said

132 FALSE CONSTRUCTIONS
of personality) of all the forms of things, and, in that
sense, the medium of the creation of the worlds ; some
thing which is to the outward, in expression, what the
inward life* of God isBto his being— a Form of God, a
Mirror of Creative Imagination, in which he beholds
and through which he may body forth images of his
thought, or an "express image of his person." Pre
cisely this, too, you wiU see, in due time, was a con
stant mode of speaking under ancient Nicene ortho
doxy itself. Did I then deny the personality of the
Word, or Son, by accepting, for the time, this radical
idea common to all modes of conceiving the Logos,?
Assuming this as a first point, or root of genesis, did I
, not afterward find him invested with at least a necessary
form of personality ; speak of him/< as an agent, or logical
subject; and even vindicate the use" of the word person
(p. 174) as appHed to the Son ? Did I not expressly say
that I only refused to affirm his personality in a sense
that can not be investigated and never was defined ?
I objected (p. 112) to the argument by which Prof.
Stuart infers that, since a revelation of the One involves
plurality, there must be an " equivalent" threeness back
of the revelation to support its truth ; because, by a
vicious inversion, it sends a conclusion back to alter and
amend iis premise — and even to prove the insufficiency
of the argument by which it was itself produced. There
fore I deny, it is charged, the fact of any threeness back
'pf the revelation. I should think it might easily be seen
that I was objecting simply to a particular mode of
argument, which attempts to bridge the gulf between us
and God's interior mystery of being, by a mere sophism.

REMOVED. 133
I objected also (pp. 178-9) against the old scholastic
attempt, renewed by Neander, Twesten, and others
among the Germans, to find a triad in human conscious
ness, and by that to solve the trinity of Goii. I even
spoke of it with a degree of disrespect, as being a way to
lose one's "discretion ;" for I can not resist the impress
sion that it is one of those excesses of over-speculation,
which indicate a beginning of mental disease, and which
are the frequent infirmity of great scholars. When now
it is remembered that my position required me to contro
vert aU arguments which either prove or disprove an
immanent trinity, could I not be understood here also as
objecting simply to the argument ? Must I be taken as
denying any trinity an God's interior nature, because I
can not find a trinity as real in my own ?
You may perceive in these specifications, how the
principal charges of heresy against my doctrine of trinity
originated, and by what proofs they are sustained. So
little exercised are many in the relations of form to truth,
so httle apprised of the almost substantial consequence
of form, that when I propose to hold the scripture trinity
as an instrumental verity, it can not be imagined that I
mean any thing by it, as a trinity within the bounds of
intelHgence, because I do not affirm (and as Httle deny) a
trinity transcending intelHgence. And so great, if I may
judge, is their impatience with a doctrine that does not
fall within their theologic method, that the explanations
by which I sought to put them in my point of view, and
the guards I set to save my doctrine from, offense, are
either disregarded or peremptorily disallowed me. To
such I have only to say that, when they will condescend
12

134 PERSONALITY OF GOD.
to'Mlow me the possession of my own doctrine, guarded
by my own qualifications, they wiU be troubled by fewer
heresies. \
But we^aeed to go deeper into the question of trinity
itself than we have done in these explanations ; for the
sketch I gave in my discourse at New Haven can not be
rightly estimated, apart from the "reasons by which I was
determined in presenting it. I propose, therefore, not a
new discussion, but to take up a few single points in the
field of trinity and exhibit the scope of my heresy as
related to these.
I. The Personality of God. In aU efforts to form
an adequate conception of God as the Absolute Being,
there is a tendency to sink the personal, element, because
ourJU^a^gfi^person, being derived from ourselves, is-
|esse^itiaUy_finite-^nTiJi3d_KJ^nU Hence a struggle
after the infinite is so far a struggle to get away from
ourselves and the notion of personality derived from
ourselves.
[ To form a distinct and simply positive conception
of God is impossible. We can only approximate the
conception of Him. And we do it by a double pro
cess ; first positive, then negative. We take up certain
elements found in our own personal consciousness,
impute them to Goo!, and then, to save his infinity,
deny them again — not conceiving exactly how much
we mean by the denial, or what that Positive Infinite
is whose infinity requires the denial. Thus advert
ing to our own consciousness, we discover will as an
attribute of our personality, and this we ascribe, in the

personality of god. 135
positive, to God. But we recollect, as we do it, that
wUl, in us, is a power of new determination ; that is, of
determining something before undetermined. It is the
agent of a vohtion issued in time. Does God then put
forth new purposes, determine himself to new issues or
choices ? Np. God's purposes and issues of choice are
eternal, not of yesterday. Like his being itself, we must
conceive that they eternally were. He never puts forth
an act which before was undetermined, and therefore, in„
that sense, determines himself to nothing. And yet,
without deterniining the mind to something before unde
termined, we can not find, in ourselves, what an act of
will is — it is nothing. And thus, in the very act of
attributing wUl to God, as being an element found in our
own personaHty, we are seen taking back also, in order
to make out his infinity, just what we began to attribute.
We so far negative what we find in ourselves, that its
human characteristic seems to vanish.
So if we impute thought to God, drawing out another
conception from our own consciousness, we are still
obliged, on consideration, to add that God has no new
thoughts, or successions of thoughts, never brings into
mind something that before was out of mind, never
passes transitionaUy or by mental discourse [discursus]
from one thought to another; for, being infinite, all
thought must be in him at once and from eternity.
Which is about the same, again, as denying that he
thinks at aU.
So if we impute deHberation, reasoning, invention,
memory, emotion, to God, (God in Christ, pp. 138-9,)
we must yet add negatives to save his infinity, that seem

136 PERSONALITY IN GOD.
at* least formally to annihilate the very qualities
assigned to him. Even when we refer to God moral
ideas and ,;exceUences, in respect to which we have the
strongest conviction of a necessary coincidence in all
moral beings, we have there to interpose negations
scarcely less remarkable. Thus, if we impute truth to
him, what we mean by truth, in ourselves, is what we
attain to by right seeking and hold in propositions or
formal conceptions; but truth is in God as immediate
Hght from eternity, without search, in no formal connec
tions of subject and predicate, and no necessary clothing
of symbol. If we impute goodness, what we mean by
goodness in ourselves, is an attainment and a result of
exercise ; but the -goodness of God is original, prior to all
exercise, eternal and complete in its own nature.
What now shaU we do ? how shaU we conceive God ?
Eegarding him as the Absolute Being existing in him
self and affirmed before himself, the infinite I AM —
what conception shaU we frame of him ? One of two
things will be done — we shaU either not make these
negations, or we shaU make them.
If we do not make them, if we simply project elements
found in our own consciousness outward, and caU them
God, adding, perhaps, the simple epithets infinite, omnis
cient, and the Hke, as magnifiers, endeavoring thus a con
ception of God wholly positive, the result wUl be that
we have only a God subject to human categories ; per
sonal enough, doubtless, because he is of the genus
Man — easily represented and conceived, because he falls
within our human categories ; but, for just that reason,
no such person as meets, at all, the conditions of divine

PERSONALITY IN GOD. 137
existence.^ He is the God of Priestly, a merely human-
kh, comprehensible unity, sometimes caUed philosophic,
because it is just small enough to accommodate the petty
molds of our speculative understanding.
If the negatives just specified are added, then comes
almost certainly a different result, an impersonal God —
the sleeping Brama of the East, or the pantheistic IT of
the German schools. For, in ascribing so many nega
tives of conscious personaHty in ourselves, the mind faUs
off into the conception, or no-conception, of some grand
Abysm or Womb of Eternity, or to nAN, and the notion of
a Living God is lost. In this view, Braminism appears
to be a faithful proof of what the profoundest philosophic
study and deepest search of man can effect, in the effort to
conceive, in a merely speculative way, the Absolute Being.
Precisely here is opened to our discovery the real
value and power of the Christian trinity, as a super
natural revelation of God. To prevent our diminishing
the One and conceiving Him to be only a man with
magnifiers annexed, as in the feeble, undivine notion of
a philosophic unity, it presents a Three. To shut away,
at the same time, the second error — that which, to
escape the first, turns itself toward the doctrine of the
Bramins and conceives Him to be only a vast impersonal
abysm, or platitude ; or, with the modern pantheists, to
be the unconscious principle of an eternal Cosmos — it pre
sents three Persons. And so the Christian trinity, by
its two elements of number and personality, holds us to
a strain of thought afjgr God, both as transcending the
categories of our human understanding and as personal in
his relations and character.j

138 PERSONALITY OF GOD.
But just here rises the great question of Christian the
ology, viz., what shall be thought of the persons? Most
Christian teachers frankly confess that they do not under
stand the 'interior personaHty of the persons; and yet
they will press on the word, so as virtuaUy to insist that
there are three distinct agents asserted as existing in the
divine nature ; three persons having a personality that is
constituted under and within the same categories of will,
thought, emotion, and the Hke, by which our human
consciousness is distinguished. God is now three mag
nified men instead of one; but if such a trinity of finites,
acting in cross relations with each other, may suffice to
save the mind from lapsing into a conception of God as
one finite, which is a very little lower, the gain will be
more than balanced by the increased distraction of mind
thus produced. This conception of 'God is, in fact, the
most difficult that can be formed, and so far, at least, the
most inadequate.
Suppose, then, we take the persons as instrumental
persons and refuse to inquire farther ; persons who, by
acting and interacting in so many ways before us, ways,
too, so intensely and humanly personal, will avail in
this manner to fill our human molds of thought, and
touch us with senses of God in every part — thus to give
us a being out of our finite range of quality or personal
consciousness, and yet personal.
The case may be faintly illustrated in the following
manner. Conceive that a plane, or platitude, is a Hving
conscious being, — conscious, of course, of what it is or
what is in it, and of nothing more. It has no categories
of thought, save what belong to it as a plane. Given now

PERSONALITY OF GOD. 139
the problem, to make the plane know or conceive a
solid. By the supposition, weight, resistance, color, and
other Hke properties of solids, can not enter into the con
ception given. Nothing obviously can be done, but to
reveal or expose to the plane the inclosing planes of the
sohd ; or to inform it, which is the same thing, that a
solid is so many planes thus and thus related ; for it can
not be said that a soHd is matter contained or bounded
by the planes, because, by the supposition, the inquiring
plane has no idea of matter, and no power of conceiving
it. But now the instructed plane begins immediately to
arrange a speculative science of soHds, and lays it down as
a certain article of knowledge that so many planes are
themselves the essence, or essential properties of a solid.
Would it not be wiser in this plane to be more of a dis
ciple and less of a "^ philosopher ? to look intently on the
planes presented, take them as hints of some profound
reality in the solid which it can not definitely think ; and
then, since it can not receive into its one plane of inteUi-
gence the fuU conception of a soHd, be grateful that it is
able to get some very faint impression of this nobler kind
of being through so many surfaces ?
In precise keeping with this illustration, Luther de-,
clares that "Beason [as related to God] is like a line
which touches the whole sphere, but only at one point, and
does not grasp the whole." And then he answers not less
wisely than wittily for the trinity revealed to faith, by
saying: — "When logic objects to this doctrine, that it
does not square with its rules, we must say, ' Mulier taceat
in ecclesia.' " Just so (reverting to our comparison) when
a human soul meets the revelation of God, who, as the

140 PERSONALITY OF GOD.
Infinite* One, is certainly not within his plane of human
thought and conception, and finds Him represented by
three persons, which, as forms of thought and conception,
are within his plane, would it not be more adequate and
wiser to accept these persons rather as surfaces of the In
finite Person, boundaries and types of thought inclosing
the vast unknown of solid being, otherwise only a dark,
impersonal, unrepresentable abysm ? And then, if he con
tinues to say, chanting it ever as the doxoldgy of praise
and worship, ' Father, Son, and Holy Ghost,' professing
it as his faith that God is three persons and one sub
stance,' — is it better for him to say it holding them as
planes of description, or to settle it by wise deductions
of logic that the planes are the very interior matter and
chemistry of the substance ? I have said, " the former."
Our common orthodoxy answers, " the latter" — in which
it gives me an impression, I can not resist, of some very
defective, insufficient conception of God. c^£4Jwtarij»n-.,
•ism and..Qrthodoxyf1x>th^rofe6sing,^^
comprehensibleness of God, couldJuUy^admitsuch a
ti:utii,...and could positively -s©e-th&l„He is a being out of
our plane, and cognizable by us only through approaches
jjn that plane; this whole matter of trinity would imme
diately clear itself to them, as regards any real difficul
ties heretofore experienced by them or between them,
and become to both alike a most welcome and wondrous
discovery of God. They would not glue themselves to
the notion of God as person, whether one or three, con
ceiving the word person to hold just the meaning it carries
in our plane, or under the categories of .our human con
sciousness ; but they would accept the term in a sense

PERSONALITY OF GOD. 141
more tropical, as being a vehicle that imports into our
measures a somewhat that is above our measures ; a lens
that gathers some few rays of the Infinite Pleroma of
God, and brings them to a luminous center within our
finite apprehension and before our personal feehng. This
Infinite Pleroma, which, if they try to conceive it as such,,
thins away to a mere impersonal, unsocial platitude, be
comes, when revealed in a triad of persons, each to be
embraced in turn, or aU together, effectually personal and
possible to their love, while yet effectually infinite ; and
then, if so great a paradox troubles, at times, their specu
lative instinct, their experience wUl hear a voice an
swering out from under the cloud : " That ye might be
filled with aU the fullness of God."
Have we. not the secret jeason here, why.it. is some
times a relief to us to avoid the personal term ' God' and
speak in the neuter, calling him to oeion, or the ' God
head ;' the effort being, at such times, to escape a certain
sense of limitation in a word of personaHty ? Is it not
also a fact, and for the same reason, that, where trinity
is rejected and the single term ' God' is employed as neces
sary to a proper conception of the Divine Unity, the word
graduaUy loses volume and tone, and, by the time a single
generation has passed, begins to connect a sense of dis
appointment? The element of personaHty, which is a
formally finite conception, triumphs over the spiritual
dignity of the word, no longer supported by term's of an
tagonism, and it dwindles painfully in its competence.
And then it wUl not be strange, if the class of literary
freethinkers break out of their imprisonment and begin
to speak famUiarly of ' the Gods.' It is only to be hoped

142 UNITY OF GOD.
that, in what we look upon as the wUling perversity of
their genius, they will not repair their loss of a Trinity
by embracing a classic Pantheon.
II. The Unity of God. I began at this point, in
my view of the trinity given at New Haven, holding it
as a radical assumption which must not be violated, and
conceding that any doctrine of tri-personality, by which
the trinity and "simplicity," or "strict simpHcity" of
God is violated, must be false. The words " simplicity"
and " strict simplicity" were added to give emphasis to
the word "unity," which has become so nearly am
biguous, from the frequent looseness of its appHcation;
for it is affirmed as readily by those who assert a doc
trine of plain tritheism, as by the Unitarians themselves.
i My design was to assume and resolutely to hold the
" one substance" or real unity of God. I conceived him
as a properly individual being, ineH^deU^u^der^ong,
simr^ej^mjcjojosness. And my argument was that, being
one, or being thus assumed to be one, plurality of num
ber arid person wiU be involved in the process of his
revelation and the work by which he redeems the world.
At the same time, I carefully disclaimed any intention,
whether by affirmation or denial, to undertake the interior
psychology of the persons, only insisting, whatever else
may be true, that they be received as the One. Their
contents ; their relations to each other ; their root of con
nection, taken as external, with the one substance; their
precise mode of being the one substance, — all questions
pertaining to the interior of the divine mystery I refused
to investigate, as being, to us, impossible subjects.

UNITY OF GOD. 143
It may have seemed to some of you that, in assuming
.. the unity, in a manner so unqualified and peremptory, I
virtually assumed a knowledge concerning the interior
nature of God quite as impossible to be verified or in
vestigated. But I think you wiU find, on a closer in
spection of my doctrine, that I left room here for as
much of ambiguity, of uncertainty, as our necessary
ignorance requires.
I exphcitly rejected, and without scruple it is true, the
doctrine of three consciousnesses, wills, understandings,
and the Hke; not, however, because I assumed our
ability to know exactly what may or may not be con
tained in God's interior unity, but because it is impossi
ble for us to admit such a threeness of person, and retain
any real behef in the divine unity at aU. For if there
be to us any thing essentiaUy monadic and sole, it is the
being, or, if more than one, the beings, included under
and bounded severally by a personal consciousness.
I rejected, as peremptorily, the doctrine of three dis
tinct sets of attributes inhering in a common substance ;
partly because it involves the same difficulties, and partly
because it only aggravates the difficulties it thinks to re
move. For the sets of attributes are conceived, each and
all, to be persons and not mere fascicles, and the common
substance must be also as really a person, else it is only
a platform of clay; and then, when the four persons
begin to act — to send, go, think, suffer, descend, ascend,
and the Hke, which is the matter to be explained — how
wiU one set of attributes send another, or the person-
general send any one of its three extra sets of attributes,
without putting them on a distinct action that is not of,

144 UNITY OF GOD.
or possible, to the common substance ? This theory is
too clumsy and mechanical, and certainly toO inefficienij
to serve any useful purpose.
Did I then, or do I assume to know exactly what may
be included in God's interior, metaphysical unity, be
cause I venture to reject, with so Httle scruple, theories
manifestly impossible to us ? Contrary to this, you will
see that I rejected vrith as little scruple (pp. 176-8) the
only conception of divine unity that is properly compre
hensible within our molds of thought, and that for the
simple reason that it is so, viz., the Deistic and Sociriian
conception of a philosophic unity.
,. It will also be seen that, in refusing to determine how,
or at what point, the external three of revelation become
the interior one of being, or the one substance, I pro
fessed exactly as much ignorance of the unity as of the
threeness ; ignorance of one, at this point, being igno
rance also of the other ; for just as much more or less
essential and immanent as the persons are in the divine
nature, just as much less or more interiorly capable of
number is the unity of the divine nature. And no one
[certainly will imagine that, in affirming the unity and
strict simpHcity of the divine nature, I excluded every
gpssibUity or possible ground of number in it ; for aU
number has its ground, more or less immanently, there.
All distinctions of law, order, form, genus, famUy, have
their root in God — not in his wUl merely, but in the dis
tribution of his interior, eternal) necessary intelHgence.
What thoughtful soul, cleared of dullness toward what
is familiar, and turned in its pure longings every way to
search after God, has not sometime paused in a deep

UNITY OF GOD. 145
maze of bewilderment over the fact of bisexual existence
universally observed in the living world, imagining what
ground there may be, or not be, in God for such a distri
bution of organic Hfe ? It can not be said that there was
no ground for it, save in the act of wUl by which it was
appointed; for, in order to be wUled, it must first be
thought, and it could only be thought from eternity, the
thoughts of God being, in some sense, necessary and
coeval with his being. But if*a distribution of God's
visible 'work, so general and comprehensive, impHes no
correspondent distribution in his nature itself, we dis
cover how little it means, or may, to say that any thing
has a ground in God's nature, — how little, that is, in re
spect to the essential composition or distribution of his
nature. That there is some threefold ground in the divine na
ture, back of the Christian trinity, I was most careful not
to deny. I only denied what some, with a most blama-
ble presumption, have dared to affirm concerning it-
The unity of God is itself a great deep, not merely in the
fact that it supports a trinity, but quite as much in the
fact that all number is, in some sense, immanently
grounded in it. I accordingly suggested senses in which
there may be conceived to be a ground for the trinity,
back of revelation, in the divine nature itself.
First, there certainly is in the divine nature, as repre
sented in express revelation, a property, peculiarity, or
somewhat, called the " Word," (pp. 145-6.) The creation
itself was manifestly possible, only on the ground of an
originative power of Form, from which the created ob
jects and frames of order deriving their mold, may issue
13

146 UNITY OF GOD.
as a true Cosmos; representmg, as in a mirror, the
thoughts of their Author. And this Word, this Forma-,
tive Power, is the " Wisdom" that is said to have "been
with him in the beginning of his way before his works
of old," "brought forth" or begotten from within "when
there was no depth." This Word or Wisdom is next
declared to have come forth from " the bosom of the
Father" and declared Him to men ; living, in a personal
way, among men, as the incarnate Son of the Father.
Thus much we know concerning what is back of the
Christian or instrumental trinity, and exists immanently
in the divine nature itself. We only do not know exactly
how much of the personal form of the Son or Sonship,
as distinguished from the Word, is tropical and re-
ferrible to the incarnation or the revelation in time,
and how much to the essential nature of the Word, as
viewed in relation to the interior substance of the
Godhead. And this we can not know, for the simple
reason that the divine essence or the psychology, so to
speak, of the divine nature, is not within our plane of
understanding. Secondly, it is plain that, if we look at the trinity
simply as an " instrumental trinity," unable to determine
with certainty any thing more positive concerning it,
than that the One can be most fitly revealed to finite
beings in this way ; then, as it is in the very nature of
God to reveal himself, as truly as to create, or to be, so
, i there is, in this view, a ground of trinity certainly in the
nature of God as truly immanent as his being ; and he
must be known as Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, by all
Weated miiids forever (p. 113 and p. 177.) It is only not

UNITY OF GOD. 147
within our power, so far to penetrate the interior mys
tery of God, as to be sure whether his being most fitly
'revealed to finite beings in this way is required by truth
to himself, or by a necessary accommodation of himself
to them and to the symbolic and finite media by which
their apprehension is conditioned.
Thirdly, it costs me nothing in the way of opinion to
admit, as many are fond of doing, a " threefold distinc
tion" in the divine nature, back of the exterior instru
mental trinity, as its original ground. I say ' nothing in
the way of opinion ;' partly because the admission really
means nothing; and partly because it would, for that
reason, cost me some sacrifice of self-respect to shelter
myself under it. You wiU always observe that, when
this language is resorted to, it is done only as a way of
getting back in words what has been given up or lost in
the pressure of argument. It comes into view always
after the argument is over, and not as being any integral
part of it. Floored, as every honest man must be, in a
logical attempt upon the persons, the debater recovers
himself upon the " threefold distinction ;" conscious,
meanwhile, when asking of himself what or how much
he means by it, of resorting to his ear, in fault of any
meaning discoverable to his understanding. But this
recovery of soundness by words, after it has been lost in
argument, is too much like saving one's orthodoxy by a
codicil to his last wUl and testament.
But you may desire of me to answer another and
different question, viz., whether, letting go all* considera
tion of what may be involved in the process of revelation
or redemption, there are not three persons in the divine

148 UNITY OF GOD.
nature answering to, or equivalent to, the Father, Son,
and Holy Ghost of scripture ?
To this I answer, first, that possibly no one has a right
to require or to make any answer concerning the trinity
of God, as viewing it whoUy apart from what is incidental
to the matter of revelation. * For, if it should happen to
be true that the trinity is, in some more or less partial
sense, an incident of revelation, the answer would be so
far based in a false assumption. ^fBecondly, that I can
not be sufficiently sure of what is meant by the term
' equivalent' to be sure Jhat I answer the question in the
real meaning of the question. Dr. Emmons is able to
say with confidence that the names Father, Son, and
Holy Ghost " originate from the work of redemption,"
and before that "were unknown in heaven;" also, that
there was not "the same foundation" for the difference
to human view of the persons, as for the persons them
selves, between which there was " no original difference."
(Vol. IV., p. 109.) I am not able to carry my penetra
tion so far, and I do not know whether it is intended, in
the word ' equivalent,' to require an answer in regard to
matters so far transcending my plane of intelligence.
Thirdly, it is clear enough, that the terms " Father, Son,
and Holy Ghost," or the,persons thus denominated, are
conceptions essentially finite, being cast in molds derived
from our own personal consciousness. As such they are
localized above or below; descending and ascending;
moving in space;" sending and sent; suffering, deliber
ating, remembering, acting as logical subjects upon and
toward each other ; relative, all, in form to each other
and, as relative, finite. Then, without difficulty, I

UNITY OF GOD. 149
answer that there certainly are not, in the divine nature,
three finite persons, answering as finite equivalents
to the manifestly finite terms or conceptions, Father,
Son, and Holy Ghost.
Is it, then, the question, whether, removing the form-
element of the terms, which is finite, and speaking of
what is signified under and back of them apart from
form, there are not three infinites, equivalent or answer
ing to the characters of the terms ? To this I answer,
first, that there certainly are not three infinite beings
back of these terms, or any where else. And then,
secondly, that the question of equivalency is simply a
question of analogy or analogic correspondence. It is
the same as to ask whether, separating from rectitude the
form of a straight line, there is not something in it still
equivalent to a straight line ? Doubtless there is some
thing in it, or in our mode of thinking it, that answers
analogicaUy to a straight Hne, but nothing that is equiva
lent in any other sense. There is some relation, it can
not be denied, between moral rectitude as a notion enter
tained by us and a straight line, by reason of which one
is fitly represented by the other. But we can not inves
tigate or define that relation. So there is doubtless a
Hke relation between the divine nature, as though! or to
"be thought by us, and the terms Father, Son, and Holy
.Ghost ; only the relation is more absolutely inscrutable,
because the nature of God is itself inscrutable. Accord
ingly, when we undertake to separate the form-element
in, the scripture trinity, it is sufficiently plain that we
can not know how far we separate, or sink, or qualify,
the personalities represented by the terms ; which are
13*

150 MANNER AND NEEDS
themselves forms of conception derived from our out
ward state of life and experience.
I wish I could give a more categorical answer to a
question which many are accustomed to think of so
great consequence ; but really it does not seem to be my
fault, unless it be my fault that I am under human
limitations. I see no reason why I should strain my
imagination to compass that which I know can not be
compassed, and which it has baffled, all the attempts of
Christian men in all ages to conceive and describe. I
can only say that God unrevealed must be as different
from God revealed as truth from symbol, a nature trans
cending our plane of intelligence from a threefold
presence in iti Baxter endeavored to image .a threeness
in the divine nature by Light, Heat, and Motion, co
existing in the Sun ; an image that sinks personality
altogether. Others have occupied their fancy with other
images, all, perhaps, equally vain. Having none to offer
myself, I. have nothing left me but to be exercised in
simple pity, as a spectator of the" hard fate of so many
Christian men who have lost their simplicity ; who can
not but .speculate or dream, where they are called to
worship ; and since God is offered them in words and
finite forms, can not receive him as offered and rest their
souls in him, till they find exactly how the terms in
which he is offered are related to what is infinite and
inmost in his substance !
III. Manner of the Plurality. To discover a suf
ficient reason or economical necessity for the plurality or
threeness, by which God is represented in the Christian

OF THE PLURALITY. 151
Scriptures, it seems to me is not difficult ; however dim
cult it may be to discover that there is no other and
deeper reason back of it. Not even the spirit, character,
and powers of a man can be expressed in any other way
than by contrasts, or in terms of light and shade. We
require to see him as compared with other men, then as
compared with himself in diverse conditions and exigen
cies, that by one revelation what is tender and gentle,
by another what is great and heroic, may appear. In
the same way, all his distinctive qualities will be mani
fested; the soft, the strong, the good, the severe, the-
just, the true ; caution, courage, delicacy and breadth ;
his abiHty to grace humble scenes, to meet great storms
of adversity, to sustain the burdens of empire and bear
the helm of counsel in years of revolution. Passing
through these manifold terms of exercise, which are so
many modes of self-revelation, he will seem, at different
times, to be quite another being, so varied and repugnant
are his demonstrations. And yet he is the same, only
more completely revealed.
Can the Infinite God be revealed in a simpler manner
and with fewer antagonisms? Being infinite, and all
terms of expression finite, what shall we expect but an
array of contrasts more numerous, sometimes violent
even beyond the power of definite comprehension ?
And yet God, as the Absolute Being, has no external
occasions, exigencies, or objects of contrast ; for in him,
as the Absolute, all worlds and events, and even the
minds that are to know him, are, in' some proper sense,
included. He can be expressed therefore only by con
trasts of light prepared within himself, or the circle of

152 MANNER AND NEED
being that he fills.. He wUl give us to behold him, first,
as being in his works, the substanee of substances, and
power of powers, and cause of causes, aU things created
being taken as the vesture only of his person ; and then
He wUl set himself, in a figure, outside of his works and
over against them, doing his wUl upon them, to them,
and for them, just as if they had substance, power, cause,
out of himself; evincing his presence by restraint of
them, or bending them to his will — loosing the bands of
Orion and setting bars and doors for the sea. The
f representations of scripture, and the ways of nature and
IProvidence correspond, both revealing God by symbols
lithat are various and formally repugnant. We think
little of these contrarieties, because they are so very
familiar to us. Who ever stops to observe the contrasts
and formal contradictions, for example, of the foUowing
passage of scripture — who ever faUs to receive its power?
y-L" The God and Father of all, who is above all and
through all, and in you all." Here are three forms quite
incompatible as such, above, through, in, — how absurd !
If God is above us in position, how is he through us in
motion ? if through us in motion, how in us by resi
dence ? if in us by residence, how above us in position?
And' yet, in this triad of prepositions, all repugnant as
forms, God is set forth in the most vivid and powerful
manner to our thought. If we say that the terms are
finite in their sense, and ascribe to God what can be true
only of a finite being, (for to be above any thing, or in
motion through any thing, or habited in any thing,
belongs, in strict propriety, only to a finite being,) it is
true. If we say that all such assertions are, in some

OF THE PLURALITY. 153
view, fictitious, that is true. And yet, if we look upon
what is communicated or impressed concerning God,
they are most intensely true and sublime. This Httle
sentence we may take indeed as the figure of all things
done by God, to bring himself into knowledge. He is
ever passing through the finite relative world in this
manner — a God above the world, moving through the
world, in the world ; changing attitudes, acting upon hi3
own action, restrain! ng powers that are his own power,
calming whirlwinds that are his own wrath ; and so, in
ways that are manifold and formally repugnant, revealing
himself to men.
That something like a trinity was needed, under the
same general conditions, it is by no means difficult to
believe. Whether it be immanent and essential, in
some undiscovered indefinable sense of the terms, or not,
it does at least appear to be necessary as an external and
instrumental fact. It is remarkable, too, that orthodox
champions of the trinity, as distinguished as Athanasius
in ancient times, and Twesten in our own, regard the
very text just cited, as containing, in its three preposi
tions, an allusion or reference to what is deepest in the
matter of the trinity itself. Thus, Twesten says, " The
above is ascribed to the Father, the through to the Son,
and the in to the Holy Spirit." And Athanasius, as
quoted by him, says, "The Father does all things
through the Son, in the Holy Ghost, and thus the
unity of the Holy Triad is preserved, and thus, in the
church, is preached one God, who is over all, and
through all, and in all." — (Bib. Sac., No. II, pp. 45-6.)
Nor is this any so fanciful use of the text, if it be under-

154 MANNER AND NEED
stood that the three persons, externaUy set forth, are
needed under the same 'general law that requires the
three prepositions, viz., to fill out or complete our sense
of God. They represent the " one substance," or Abso
lute God to us, by means of a social relationship within
himself. But is he therefore not one substance ? Or is
he rather one more perfectly revealed? — revealed as one,
by means of antagonism and number ; revealed as person,
by three persons ; revealed as out of our finite categories,
by a threefold revelation in them ? What then is our
law of interpretation, but to receive the persons as
- instrumental persons, having their practical and, at pres
ent, only investigable import in the knowledge, they
give us of the one substance ? No one pretends, either
that they give us any knowledge of what is not in that
one substance, or of what is contrary to its oneness.
We shall not deny the immanence, in some possible
uninvestigable sense, of the persons. We can not even
deny the immanence of the above, through, and in; for,
possibly, they are even original spatial categories of the
Eternal Mind itself, — else how, it might be asked, came
they ever to be found in the terms of space or spatial re
lationship ? And yet we do not think it any great wis
dom to reason in this way. We only allow ourselves to
be assisted by scripture, in these terms of spatial antago
nism, to conceive more adequately the One God and his
relations of character and government toward us. And
then, having received our benefit in them, we are satis
fied. Just so we are to follow out all the varied actings
and interactings of the persons, and embracing them as
media of thought and of spiritual worship, in all their

OF THE PLURALITY. 155
manifold cross relations, to ascend, < as we are raised
thereby, into the fullness and blessedness of the One di
vine nature. All else in the persons we may leave to
the future, as we do alLvthe other mysteries of fonn and
event which encompass our Hfe. If then it shall be found
that the persons, and even all number and form and rela
tion are, in some most real and true sense, (which is far
from being incredible,) immanent in God's nature, it will
be as soon as the discovery can be made valuable.
If any test of this mode of interpretation is needed, let
it be applied, and it will be found to be the only one by
which all the antinomies of scripture relating to the three
persons can receive their natural use, or be so interpreted
as not to be explained away. They may be arranged in
eight classes.
1. The class of inequality ; the Father sending the Son
and the Spirit ; conceived relatively as holding the posi
tion of supernal eminence and authority; declared, in
that view, by the Son, to be greater than he, — repre
sentations, under countenance of which, the old theolo
gians were accustomed to caU the Father fans trinitatis.
2. The class of equality, demanding for the Son his
right to be honored as the Father ; quickening whom he
will, from Hfe in himself, even as the Father ; one with
the Father ; equal without robbery.
3. The class of concurrent action ; the Son doing what
soever he sees the Father do ; the grace of the Lord Jesus
Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the
Holy Ghost, flowing in a common stream of good.
4. The class which makes the persons subject and object,
acting terminatively upon or toward each other ; the Son

156 MANNER AND NEED
conceived by the,*Holy Ghost ; the Father owning the
Son at his baptism ; the Spirit descending visibly upon
him ; the Spirit given to him without measure ; Jesug
breathing and sending the HolyGhost ; the Father hear
ing the Son ; the Son glorifying the Father, ascending
to the Father.
5. The class representing each to be God ; worshiped
and accepted in the prerogatives of God.
6. The class representing all to be God, as in the bap
tismal formula.
7. The class which represents the persons, each to le
other and different from each ; the Father loving the Son
as other than Himself, giving the Spirit unto him without
measure ; the Son declaring that he does not his own will,
teaches not his own doctrine ; or, in a single utterance,
representing each and aU the persons to be other in their
mutual relationship ; " JwUl pray the Father and he shall
give you another comforter."
8. The class wherein each is represented, by cross
affirmations, to be each of the others.
As it is here that I am likely, if any where, to prove
heretical, I will offer some of the texts that compose this
eighth class, in a more deliberate manner.
Thus Christ declares that he is the Father. " He that
hath seen me hath seen the Father, how then sayest thou
show us the Father ?" This language is not to be under
stood, of course, as affirming that God, as invisible, is
seen by their eyes ; but only as declaring that the Father
is.virtuaUy manifest in him, so that, if he be taken as the
Father, in a way of personal identification, it will produce
no essential error.

OF THE PLURALITY. 157
Christ also declares that the real agent in his own
works is to be conceived as being the Father.' " The
Father that dweUeth in me, he doeth the works."
The Father and theASon are set forth together also, as
being the Spirit or Comforter. " We wilT come unto him
and make our abode with him." This is said in a con
nection where the gift of the Comforter is the subject of
discourse, and is, in fact, a version of the promise of the
Comforter. Christ also, in the same connection and only a few
verses before, had been promising himself as being, under
another version, the equivalent of the Comforter. " I
will not leave you comfortless, /will come to you ;" "but
ye see me ;" " at that day ye shall know that I am in the
Father, and ye in me, and I in you ;" " I wiU love him and
wiU manifest myself to him."
The Father is exhibited in the office of the Spirit.
" Sanctify them through thy truth." ' ' Except the Father
which hath sent me draw him."
Christ is acknowledged, again and again, as being the
Spirit — as when " the law of the Spirit of life in Christ
Jesus" is spoken of, in the eighth of the Bomans ; also
in the frequent interchange of the terms " Christ" and
" Spirit" which appears in the verses foUowing, an inter
change whoUy inadmissible, save on the ground that the
terms are, in some proper sense, convertible ; also in the
words, "the supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ," "the
Spirit of his Son ;" and most emphatically of all, in the
words of Peter, when he represents the ancient prophets as
inspired by Christ — " searching what or what manner of
time the Spirit of Christ, which was in them, did signify."
14

158 MANNER AND NEED
Christ is also represented as doing the renewing and
sanctifying works of the Spirit. " We are his workman
ship, created anew in Christ Jesus" — " born of him"—
" Christ liveth in me." ^
You perceive, in short, that the Three are as often de
clared, in scripture, each to be each, as each to be greater
or less, or each to be God, or all to be God, or aU to be
equal, or all concurrent, or all to be mutuaUy subject and
abject toward each other, or each to be other and different.
And thus it results from a simple classification of scrip
ture language, accepted in its own forms of conception,
previous to all constructive reasonings upon those forms,
whereby they may be reconciled with eaeh other, or set
in harmony with theologic standards^ that we have, at
least, eight classes of representation that are formally
contradictory and repugnant one with another ; sojjjtie
do the scriptures acknowledge any restraints of jsystem,
so little care have tneyTh the noble subhmity of their
freedom, to keep within the bounds of a nice logical con
sistency. That there is any real contradiction or incon
sistency between the classes exhibited, I do not intimate
or believe ; though it is obvious enough that the mere
speculatist, practicing on these classes of terms in a logical
way, can find nothing but absurdity in them. On the
contrary, it seems very plain to me, given the fact of a
true incarnation, that just such a„.<^le_.ijf^ntinpmy as
this will result of necessity; for the incarnate person,
who is God localized in space and a body only so far as
may serve a special purpose and work, and not absolutely
— therefore God in a sense and not God in a sense — will
be continually adjusting his position by contrarieties of

OF THE PLURALITY. 159
word and act that correspond with the violent conditions
he is under. Unable to conceive the interior mystery of
the incarnation itself, we of course can not open the secret
interior force and adjust the secret relation of the persons
and the contrarious representations under which they
appear ; but it is something to know that they are offered
more to our imagination than to our dialectic faculty ;
something also to know that the finite-infinite, sub
ject-supreme, earthly-divine, God-man, implied in the
simple idea of incarnation itself, must in word and act
appear to be inferior, equal, concurrent, subject, God, not
God, identical with and other than God the Supreme, or
God as inward power and Spirit.
Take now this eightfold compHcation of cross mean
ings, running into and against and over and under each
other, flowing round and round in eddies of free mo
bility, and let the question be, how shaU we receive
them, by what law settle their import ? The Unitarian
fixes upon the class No. I., as the central truth, and
requires all the other classes to fall in under that and
receive a construction that allows the ontological or
essential superiority of the Father, The New England
Trinitarian fixes, in the same way, upon the classes Nos.
H and VLI., and requires the other six to accept a con
struction that will logicaUy accord with the conception'
of three equal and distinct agents or substances.
But, not to speak of other difficulties encountered by
one or the other of these modes, they break down both,
and utterly fail upon the class No. VHI. The Unitarian
can do nothing with it, and the New England orthodox
teacher can do as Httle. If there be only one divine per-

160 MANNER AND NEED
son, viz. the Father; or three divine substances, the
Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, then to allow any such
•circular identification of persons as we here discover, is
scarcely possible. What can the Unitarian do with
Christ, a human person, associated with the Father under
the pronoun " We ;" or identified so often and in ways
so many with the Spirit, who is confessedly God himself?
How can the common Trinitarian admit that Christ is
the Father manifested ; the Father, the Spirit ; the Spirit,
Christ ; and Christ, the Spirit ; with any'better reason
than that John, James, and Peter, may each be each of the
others in the same way ?
Accordingly, this whole class of representations which
identify the persons, each with each, round the circle,
(more numerous and expHcit than almost any other^pf
the eight,) is thrust out of the general economy of trinity
as an intruder, and allowed no common footing with the
other seven classes of antinomies and cross views which
enter as elements or instrumental forces into the plan.
No identification of each with each is suffered, save in a
way so remote and so merely putative or logically infer
ential, that the power of the representation is lost.
When Christ says, " I will come to you," it means "I will
send a -third person, who, your theologians will be able
to show you, is constructively myself, because he acts for
me" ! So it is that theologic dogmatism, too narrow to
accept the full matter of the trinity offered in the scrip
ture, rejects what exceeds its petty logical measures ; sac
rificing, at once, the grand, self-balancing, living force of
the plan ; but none the less content with its meager wis
dom, since it has reduced the repugnances it found to

OF THE PLURALITY. 161
such a fine show of harmony ! Much as the ancient
Briton said of the Eoman conquerors, — " They make a
soHtude and caU it peace."
Meantime, exactly contrary to all such theologic wis
dom, the moment we consent to let this eightfold con
tradictious matter remain and receive it practically in its
true instrumental force, — a dialogue in the plane of our
human understanding, through which the Infinite, in
comprehensible One images to our thought his love and
quickening grace, and so bestows upon our faith what
passeth our understanding, — then. the reconcUiation is
already accomplished, and the hostUe terms coalesce in a
manner so easy and natural, that we are scarcely con
scious of their repugnance. I know no other method of
interpretation of which this can be said. We have
trinity, we have unity, we have no distraction, the reve
lation is full and easy, the mystery left welcome and
refreshing. But it wiU be said, I suppose, that the point assumed
in class No. VHT. is a plain undeniable heresy ; all or
thodox Christians, since the days of SabeUius, having
held it as a necessary article and test of orthodoxy
that the Father is not the Son, nor the Son the Spirit ;
whereas I am representing here that they are each as
truly each, as they are each other and different from
each. Yes, and nothing is more plain than that ortho
doxy ought, on its own showing, to have asserted both
in the same way. Thus, when Calvin says that he could
well enough give up every thing else, resting in the
simple confession by all of Father, Son, and HolyGhost,
one God; only requiring [as against the Sabellians]the
14*

162 MANNER AND NEED
addition that the Son is not the Father, nor the Spirit the
Son, but that they are distinguished by a pecuHar prop
erty," (Lib. I., Chap. 13, Sec. 5 ;) if we bring into view
another fundamental principle of his, that "the whole
essence or nature of God is in each of the persons," (Sec.
19;) it is seen, at once, that his 'pecuHar property' is a
property, not of essence or being, but simply of mode;
or, as he would say, of act, that is, of God's eternal
necessary act of generation ; and then how manifest is it
that, if the persons be other in respect of the peculiar
property, they are much more emphatically one and the
same, each with each, in virtue of their sameness of
essence or being. I do not say that in asserting this I
am orthodox ; I am not, neither is the scripture ; no, nor
orthodoxy itself in denying it ; for if it be true, as the
church doctrine has in all ages affirmed, that the whole
essence of God is in each of the persons, what can be
more evident than that each of the persons is and should
be constantly declared to be the same with each, — both
the same and other, just as the scriptures speak; the
same, because of the ' oneness of essence ;' other, because
of the ' peculiar property.' Indeed, this horror of Sa-
bellianism, that has kept the church, for so many ages,
asserting and re-asserting it as a test of orthodoxy that
the Father is not the Son nor the Son the Spirit, appears
in this view to have been a kind of theological distemper
of which it is difficult to speak with respect. And it is
precisely here that the doctrine of trinity has lost a fea
ture necessary to its' proper balance and soundness of
proportion. As there was needed an assertion of other
ness to exclude the shallow modalism of SabelHus ; so

OF THE PLURALITY. 163
there was needed an assertion of sameness to qualify and
make safe the otherness. But this being omitted, or even
punished as a fatal heresy, the persons being accepted as
other always and not the same each with each, the
tendency has been to look upon them as being abso
lutely and completely other, and then the balance of the
truth is gone, — they are each another God, or one of
several Gods.
Besides, the practical result is even worse, for the
class No. VHI. is even more necessary, if possible, to the
moral effect of the trinity than either of the others ; for
having gotten one term of the trinity, viz., the Son on
earth and within the range of our human brotherhood,
if then we can identify him fully with the Father above
in supernal dominion, and with the Holy Spirit the
Sanctifier, in our own secret bosom, by this revolving
wheel of thought or circular representation, we pass the
spirit of the garden and the cross into the sky, and
the power of the sky down into the tomb of Jesus so
that he can not be holden of death, and both again through
our own defiled nature, as a presence of all-sufficient
power and crucified Love ; and so, finding the Christ of
God above, and the God of Christ below, and the Spirit
of the Father and the Son every where, then the one
link of the trinity that we found in the flesh, becomes
the link of a revolving chain which is drawing us up
also into the sacred circle of the divine nature. Precisely
this is wanted to give full effect to the trinity. If it be
held as three persons, in rigid attitude, then, instead of
completing each of the persons in a character of real
divinity, by mutual interchange of position, they become

164 THE TRUTH OF
only partial finite characters, ^nd we are as much
engaged in choosing between them as in love. What
power is there to our feeling in the Spirit, the Sanctifier,
for example, when conceived to be the same as the
Christ of Gethsemane or the^cross, now present within !
How different is he to our thought from a mere inhabita
tion of divine efficiency or power ! But exactly this our
common orthodoxy wiU not suffer. This is heresy — the
bible beyond a question, but yet heresy. But it is such
a kind of heresy that the man whq has it in him,
receiving thereby of the fuUness of God, graee for grace;
beholding the throne in the cross and the cross also in the
throne, and finding in his own bosom all the glories of
divine majesty and the patient love of Calvary, blending
in holy confluence and breathing gales of love to lift
him to the skies — this is a kind of heresy for which he
will be quite willing to suffer. No fire wiU burn it
out of him. Consider now,
IV. The truth of what is expressed. Admitting
that three persons are instrumentaUy needed to express
God, wherein Hes the truth of the expression, it may be
asked, if there be not allowed or asserted three persons
in the nature of God, answering to the three of revela
tion? That depends, I reply, upon the object of the
revelation made. If it be to communicate a true onto-
logical solution of God's nature, that is, of his parts and
his organic structure, the threeness exhibited must, in
that case, have a correspondent threeness answering
somehow to it in God's inmost nature ; else it is no true
exhibition. If, on the other hand, the object of the

what is expressed. 165
revelation is to bring the one God into knowledge and
give us the most distinct and adequate impression pos
sible of his government, character and feeling, that we.
may be quickened and made partakers of the divine
nature ourselves, then it may be otherwise ; then-it.may
be that the threeness observed should be Jaken Jjistru^
mentaUy, as having its proper truth only when it is
taken in that manner. In other words, jt. -may Hp. tmn
thai, a. representative multiplicity is the necessary-means
of ^expressing unity of substance ; just, as fon&J-n£...e.r--
pressing the formless. And, in that case, no one can
say that number imports falsity ; for it is not the matter
in hand to set forth number, but, by means of number,
personality, infinity, and all that belongs to a character of,
infinite excellence. Thus, in the equation F. S. H.=G.,
there is no falsity simply because the threeness, on one
side, is declared to equal that which has no threeness,
on the other ; for the threeness avails only to express
quantity, and the equation is designed to hold only as
regards quantity, and not as affirming the equal number
of factors.
Besides, the objection I am removing lies with equal
force against the truth of the Old Testament, taken as a
revelation of God's unity. For it not only reveals one
ness, leaving the matter of threeness to be revealed after
ward, as some might imagine, but it so reveals the one
ness as to exclude any suspicion or thought of threeness ;
and so that every pious Jew, between Abraham and
Christ, would have insisted on a unity of person in the
God of their worship, opposed to every conception of
threeness ; and would have referred, without hesitation,

166 THE ETERNITY
to Moses and the prophets for his proofs. Was it then a
false revelation to which they trusted, because the nature
of God did not answer to the oneness revealed?
Or we may reply in a manner that carries some
appearance (though not so designed) of disproving the
threeness supposed, as pertaining, in any sense,."to the
interior nature of God. If a man were to hold a pro
tracted correspondence, by letter, with a stranger, that
correspondence would reveal feeling, judgment, reason,
passion, imagination, and aU the other natural properties
of the man; because the'contents of his person wfll both
yield, and dominate in, the matter of the correspondence,
and wiU thus appear in the revelation made by it.
Now the world of nature is to God's person what the
letter is to the man, and is it not remarkable that this
world of nature, looked upon, studied, and lived in for
four thousand years, had awakened no suspicion or
thought of a threefold nature in its author, (excepting,
perhaps, in the questionable instance of the Platonic
Trinity,) and has not, even to this day? If there were
any such constitutional metaphysical threeness in the
divine nature, is it credible that an expression of God, so
vast and manifold, would not have made even a con
spicuous show of it? I state no such conclusion. I
only set the argument against the objection. I state a
simple fact, for which I am not responsible, and leave
it to the objector to dispose of the fact. One thing only
is clear, that if the revelation of the New Testament is
| false, because the three divine pe^sjjns^ans^exixuiPJEaL
Ithrse^iejs^f^^rsOTi^kj.,^ then the
loneness of God's revelation in the Old Testament and in

OF THE PERSONS. 167
nature is false, because it gives no intimation of his

V. The eternity of the Persons. The eternity
of the Word as a distinction of the Divine nature is
certain, because it is revealed, and is even necessary to
the conception of God as a Creator. But exactly how fa,r
theJUstiaet personality of _the_Word, when regarded as
the Son, is referrible to the incarnation, or to the human
ly personal Hfe and history of Jesus in the flesh, it may
be difficult for us, at present, to decide. So also of the
Spirit, as regards the distinct personaHty of the concep
tion; though there can be no doubt of the essential
immanence and eternity, in God, of aU which belongs to
the idea of Spirit, viz., the eternal, necessary proceeding
of act and power. It does not seem to be generaUy
observed, as it should be, that personaHty ascribed to
infinite being, whether to God simply, or to the Father, J
Son, and Holy Ghost, is never a Hteral, but only an
analogical conception. It is a finite term borrowed from
our own consciousness, and is appHcable only in part, or
with many negatives annexed. Hence the difficulty of
maintaining that the Son and Holy Ghost wiU be as
precisely personal to our apprehension always or eter
nally as now in the Christian trinity, where they are
represented under figures that find their type in the
plane of a finite human personaHty. Even if there be
some unimaginable threeness in the divine nature, which
is immanent there, and is conceived and always to be
conceived under the three personal figures, Father, Son,
and Holy Ghost ; still our own exercise in the truth and

168 THE eternity
the wider opening of our minds to God wiU be clearing
more and more the limitations of personaHty in these
figures, and it may be that, in clearing these limitations,
our corrected impressions will be widely varied from
what they now are, as regards the matter of personaHty
itself, when ascribed to them. Just as our Unitarian
friends;, who are so greatly shocked by the absurdities
of a real incarnation, wiU discover that the term
'Father,' in which they so much deHghted, and so
abundantly used in their worship, was, after all, a con
ception as truly finite and a humanization every way
as difficult to reason, as the other — a finite-infinite as
absurd and contradictory, and involving, in the worship,
precisely the same charge of idolatry that is laid against
the worship of the Son, or the Word made flesh.
However, there is another view in which, apart from
all questions of immanent or interior personality, we
may nearly convince ourselves of the eternity of the
persons, as now made known to us in the process of
Christian revelation — only allowing for the corrections
just referred to. If the persons be regarded simply as
incidental to the process of revelation, (God in Christ,
p. 113,) yet since God is an eternally self-revealing being
in his very nature, we may well enough assume on that
ground, if no other, that he is always to be known, even
from eternity to eternity, as Father, Son, and Holy
Ghost ; that is, by a trinity of eternal generation, or a
trinity eternaUy being generated, in virtue of his self-
jeveahng activity. There can, at least, be no harm or
essential error in holding such a view of him in our ex
pectations of the future life ; for since this is the practical

OF THE PERSONS. 169
conception of God offered us by the Christian scripture,
we only conceive, in assigning perpetuity to it, that God
will eternaUy be God — which involves no presumption
on our pajt, unless we thrust ourselves into mysteries
beyond our compass and attempt to assert the eternity
of the persons in a sense more scientific and curious than
God has permitted us to verify. I feel no difficulty,
therefore, in speaking of the persons Father, Son, and]
Poly Ghost, as eternal. It can hardly be avoided, unless
we consent to starve our expectations of the future, by
forcing on them a conception of God wholly insufficient
to the uses of our present life. Let our hope be com
forted in that which feeds our faith. Let us rest in God
wife unquestioning trust, as being now and always
Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, suffering no scruple or
restraint, only leaving it to him to open the secret of his
interior structure, when we have power to receive it and
modesty to bear it.
I have touched, in this review, many of the principal
points in the question of trinity, and given you the
view that I hold of each as distinctly as I am able.
That you will be wholly satisfied with my representa
tions, trying them by the tests of our New England
orthodoxy, I do not expect, or wish. My design was to
make issue with this, and even to arraign it as a virtual
heresy. Pardon me if I speak plainly on this subject — duty
compels. I take no pleasure in disturbing the feeling
of my brethren ; but the struggles of experience have
opened to my view other disturbances, or even silent
15

170 NEW ENGLAND TRINITY
woes of feeHhg, which, as they have my sympathy and
have themselves furnished me to my duty, I must not
betray or fear to redress. Yes, I frankly own to you
that I accept no prevailing view of trinity now held in
New England. H I understand the sense of this doc
trine, now prevailing among us, (under and contrary to
some of our professed formulas,) I must dissent from it
I did so in my discourse at New Haven — I continue to
do it. I go before the Christian world and arraign its
adherents there, one and aU, to make answer for its truth.
I would not speak with disrespect of any opinion, or
supposed doctrine, earnestly held and dear to the faith
of my brethren ; but the truth is that what we call ortho
doxy on this subject, in New England, is whoUy unhis-
torical — a provincialism, a kind of theological patois,
quite peculiar to ourselves. Our religious fathers of the
past century were abundantly active thinkers, but they
were too little historic, in their theological studies, to
keep their circle of thought duly expanded, or even to
retain a full exercise and possession of the catholic doc
trine of Christianity. They grappled manfully enough
with a few speculative questions related to the will
and responsibility ; such as the fall and the existence
of evil, choice, special grace, regeneration, and decrees.
Here indeed they stuek fast, debating and still debating
at problems ever close at hand, and the matter of which
they need scarcely go out of themselves to find. And so
it has resulted, as it only could, that many great subjects
of revelation, which did not come within the range of their
speculative method, have been so much neglected, that
the proportion of the faith, not to say its purity, has

UNORTHODOX AND UNTRUE. 171
greatly suffered. Busied thus about their own meta
physical center, they feU into a raw logical habit, as
much more confident, as it was more incompetent, to
some of the highest subjects of revelation. They were
thinking out a gospel, and could not so weU receive one
offered to "their faith and their imaginative power —
phosphorescing bravely enough, but unable to stand in
the shining body of the sun and shine with it.
Hence it resulted, as one of the pernicious effects of
their too confined exercise and their incompetent theo
logic method, that the doctrine we are now discussing
fell out of its true historic balance, under their treatment,
and became, as received by us", a partial or merely
provincial conception. The original church doctrine of
trinity contained, as one of its elements, the principle of
the ' eternal generation' of the Son, and the ' eternal
procession' of the Holy Spirit. In virtue of this ele
ment, the ' One Substance' [i. e., essence] was conceived to
be eternally generating a trinity of persons, by its essen
tial activity ; and so the One Substance or essence was
conceived to stand as one, without any infringement of
unity ; because the persons were predicable of it as act,
not as essence.
But our New England logic, falling on the church
dogma of eternal generation, could not stay to find, by
an exercise of intellective insight, the possible truth hid
under its mistaken form, but immediately drew the fatal
inference that, if the Son was generated and the Spirit
sent, they must be inferior derived existences. What
then but nonsense, or scholastic jargon, are these terms
1 generation' and ' procession ?' Therefore we removed

172 NEW ENGLAND TRINITY
them, threw them away, forgot them. Then going on
to ply our logic on the matter of trinity, with a principal
term or element wanting, viz., that which alone made
the truth possible, we run ourselves at once into com-
pHcations of heresy much to be deplored, because they
are compHcations of real and very pernicious error.
Ceasing to conceive a trinity of act, we began to assert a
trinity of persons in the divine essence itself, which is
plain tritheism. Or, if we struggle often to get away
from this, it is ever in some method so confused and
mixed with crudity, as to show that we are really in
what we deny and know not how to escape it. And so
it turns out that, while I seem to have annihUated the
trinity, by asserting it in a form that contains, in fact,
the principle of eternal generation more modestly
conceived, it is really annihilated by our New England
orthodoxy, because of the denial and removal from it
of that alone which gave it balance and enabled it to
stand — just as a stool may stUl keep its position if aU the
legs are shortened, but topples down at once if one of
them is taken away. It results also, as it needs must,
that having slidden completely off the basis of historic
orthodoxy in this manner, and even lost the sense of it,
many are afflicted for my safely and are actually charg
ing me with a fundamental departure from the faith;
and for no other reason than because of the startHng
novelty of a doctrine which, in fact, is only a renovated
form of lost orthodoxy itself.
Having rejected the church doctrine of a trinity in act,
or by eternal generation, and set ourselves to find some
possible trinity in God as essence, consistent with the

UNORTHODOX AND UNTRUE. 173
unity of his essence, (which plainly is not possible,) the
whole doctrine of the subject has fallen into the greatest
confusion among us. Thus, the minority of your com
mittee have even alleged, as one of their principal
charges against me, what I think will some time be
classed among the curiosities of ecclesiastical history,
that I have asserted the homoouswn — " the strictest unity
and simpHcity of the divine nature." This they imagine
excludes any possible beHef in the trinity ! Our breth
ren of Fairfield, too, in the minute they sent to our
General Association at Salisbury, complained of it as a
heresy, that some are beginning to deny " three distinct
persons in the one divine essence" — where the particle ' in,'
it is true, may be explained to mean only 'pertaining to,'
(i. e., to the divine essence regarded as a necessarily
active principle,) and so to be consistent with proper
orthodoxy ; but which, taken in the New England sense
of the terms, as I have no doubt it was both meant and
understood, is simple heresy. Or you may take it as a
specimen of the unchurchly composts that have found a
quiet shelter in what we caU our orthodoxy, that an
influential church, whose pastor sits among you inves
tigating my supposed departure from the faith, asserts
for its article of trinity — " three natures and one per
son" ! Other words do indeed follow, in a kind of
jingle that seems to have some reference to the Nicene
doctrine, but are only the more absurd on that account.
Or, if it be suggested that all these examples of crudity
and confusion are so many casual aberrations and do not
represent the true state of doctrine among us, I reply
that our ablest preachers and theologic professors are
15*

174 NEW ENGLAND TRINITY
even accustomed to assert and maintain a trinity of
persons in the divine essence. More commonly they use
the word nature, by which they understand the same
thing. Others set forth a trinity of persons, in the
avowed sense of three distinct consciousnesses, wills, and
understandings. Others even dare to assert, and with
out offense, a social trinity ; a trinity of three distinct
spirits, the One of which is the unity only of a concilium,
or deliberative concord.
Such, in short, is the confusion into which we have
fallen that, if any person will now dare openly to assert
the proper and true unity of God, according to the ancient
doctrine of the church, he wUl very certainly awaken
suspicion and will probably encounter an accusation of
fatal heresy. On the other hand, I am quite sure it
would now be impossible to convict any teacher of
heresy, for any imaginable threeness he may venture to
assert ; so completely have we lost the true balance of
the doctrine. We are earnest for nothing but the Three ;
we have no apprehension of error save in denying the
Three. We practically hold the Three without the
" One Substance."
And the result is that every ingenuous young person
who happens, in his searches after truth, to be stumbled
by a view of the* trinity so repugnant to faith and
impossible to reason, has either to clear his way out into
the truth by himself, through years of sorest conflict and
groans of private mental war that God only does not
frown upon ; or else, in fault of any such persistency, to
settle back into the more facile embrace of a confirmed
and scornful infidelity.

UNORTHODOX AND UNTRUE. 175
I do then peremptorily refuse to justify myself, as
regards this matter of trinity, before any New England
standard. We have no standard, better than a residuary
tiitheistie compost, such as may be left us after we have
cast away that which alone made the old historic
doctrine of trinity possible. I know 'not whether you
design to make a standard for me of this decadent and
dilapidated orthodoxy of ours ; but if you do, then I
appeal to Caesar; I even undertake to arraign your
standard itself before the tribunal of history.
I do not undertake to say, or care to show, that the
doctrine of trinity I have asserted coincides exactly with
that which has been maintained in the church. I will
ony say that it classes with the church doctrine, while
/that of New England does not. The result of our com
parison wUl be this. New England, as we have seen,
asserts or tries to find a trinity of persons in the divine
essence, or substance, or nature. This the church doc
trine formally and peremptorily rejects as a fatal heresy ;
asserting, instead, a trinity grounded in the necessary
activity of God, a trinity eternally being developed by
God's necessary activity ; just as we, in virtue of our
vital, conscious nature, necessarily generate thought.
This trinity, grounded in God as act, (actus purissimus
was the phrase of the scholastics,) is sometimes set forth
under the conception of ' eternal generation and proces
sion.' Sometimes the persons are defined, as by Calvin,
to be ' relations ;' not such relations as may subsist
between substances, but such as one active, conscious
substance may have to itself; relations that may be
illustrated by a reference to the relation we have to our-

176 TRINITY OF
selves, when we think of ourselves. Sometimes they
are caUed persons ' in order ;' that is, order of internal
development ; not the order of distinct substances, which
are first, second, and third, as substances. Sometimes,
also, persons ' in mode,' or ' in form ;' not in the Sabellian
sense of a merely casual mode or form of appearance,
but in the generative sense of activity ; for the activity
of a substance is, in one view, a mode or form of the
substance. In so many different ways and others that
might be named, the proper church doctrine of trinity is
represented ; but they all agree, first, in not affirming
trinity of the divine essence or substance as such ; and,
secondly, in referring the trinity of scripture to the
essential activity of the divine nature. It is eternal,
because it pertains to the eternal necessary going on
of , the life or conscious spirit of God ; and, in that sense,
it is immanent. .
From this, which is the church doctrine, it will be seen
that my supposed heresy differs, simply in descending
from the a priori method and high transcendental key of
the former. It finds, with that, a trinity which is predi-
cable only of God as act ; but instead of beginning tran-
scendentally at a point within the active life of God, it
takes a humbler method, beginning at the consideration
of our media and powers of knowledge, and of the con
ditions under which Infinite Being and Spirit may be
revealed or expressed to us. Here it discovers, first, the
probable need of trinity, as an instrumental verity;
allowing us then to ascend, by the a posteriori method,
to a conviction of some necessary ground for this in the
divine nature back of it ; and, again, more timidly and

THE NICENE COUNCIL. 177
with larger reservations of modesty, to the conviction
that God, eternaUy self-reveahng in his nature, is, in that
sense, eternally and immanently three. It will also be
found that the general view I have given classes with the
church doctrine, in other subordinate particulars, where
the Newpmgland doctrine does not.
To go over the whole course of history pertaining to
the subject, in order to verify these representations, you
wiH see to be impossible. I propose, therefore, to fix on
three points or periods in the history most entitled to
consideration, and confine my comparison to these.
I. The Nicene Council. On a careful study of the
creed prepared by this council, as interpreted by the writ
ings of Athanasius in defense of it, I feel obliged to con
fess that I had not sufficiently conceived its import, or the
title it has to respect as a Christian document. And it
is a pleasant confirmation to me of the view I have given
of the trinity, that, whoUy disregarding, and, as I sup
posed, rejecting the Nicene doctrine ; discussing the sub
ject anew, under a different method, and without re
ference to any thing but the simple conditions of the sub
ject itself; I yet seem only to have reproduced, in a
different form, what is reaUy the substantial import of
that doctrine.
In the paradoxical matter of it, " God of God, Light
of Light, very God of very God," (and what bolder para
dox can be found,) a striking or even sublime Ulustra-
tion is given of what I ventured, so absurdly, or with
such blamable audacity, to affirm concerning the absolute
necessity of paradox and formal contradiction, in the ade-

178 TRINITY OF
quate expression or communication of God. What I
advanced, in eight pages of my discourse, at New Haven,
(pp. 137-45,) is here practically verified, I might almost
say condensed, into a single turn of language. So also it
wiH be found, on a close and properly historic inspection
of this document, that the scheme of trinity it affirms was
itself true to its authors, not so much as a rigid definition
(which they certainly wished it to be,) but had its mean
ing or verity more as a combination of symbols offered
to the imagination. Accordingly, since it has ceased
with many of our times, to be taken and interpreted in
that manner, they have also ceased to see in it any thing
better than a chronicle of absurdity. In which it suffers
the common fate of all formulas originally true; viz., that
when they are taken as logical definitions, and not any
longer as forms to be interpreted by insight, the lower
sense, into which they subside, is at once too insipid for
respect and too contradictory to be true.
The Nicene Creed, taking Athanasius for its inter
preter, assumes for its point of departure, and a point that
must not be moved, the unity and strict simplicity of
God. It hinges on the word homoousios, commonly
translated " one substance," or " same in substance."
And so rigidly is this held, that the Word, or Son, what
ever conception of his personality may be offered in the
scripture, is yet declared to be " proper to the substance
of the Father" and not another substance. Arius had
affirmed that the Son was "made" or " created" by the
Father; that he was "of the will" of the Father, existing
without or exteriqr to the Father. Against him it
affirms that he is " of the substance" of the Father, or, as

THE NICENE COUNCIL. 179
Athanasius declares again and again, (Library of the
Fathers, pp. 232-264,) "proper to the substance of
the Father" — not created, not of the will, not exterior.
Besides the phrase " one substance," he also employs
other forms of expression to signify the strict unity of
God. He declares that God is simple — "if God be
simple as he is." (p. 38.)
He protests against all conceptions of partition, or di
vision, as no more pertaining to God than to the simple
substance of tight itself, — " let us not imagine partitions
and divisions of the Godhead, let us preserve undivided
the oneness of nature and identity of light." (pp. 40-41.)
He rejects any. such conception of the unity of the per
sons, as consists in the consent or coincidence of so many
wiHs, and denies that the Son or Word is called the
image or likeness of the Father, because of any such
coincidence ; insisting that " the Powers, Authorities and
Thrones above us," would as truly be " One with the
Father, in that view, and as properly called God's Image
or Word." (p. 415.)
He affirms the strict monarchy of God against all con
ceptions of a threefold, co-presiding agency in govern
ment. Thus he quotes, in favor of the Council, the
authority of Dionysius of Eome. (pp. 45-6) : —
" Next I reasonably turn to those who divide and cut
into pieces and destroy that most sacred doctrine of the
Church of God, the Divine Monarchy ; making it contain
three powers and partitive subsistences and godheads
three. I am told that some among you who are cate-
ohists and teachers of the divine word take the lead in this
tenet, who are diametrically- opposed, so to speak, to Sa-

180 TRINITY OF
bellius' opinions ; for he blasphemously says that the Son
is the Father and the Father the Son ; but they, in some
sort, preach three Gods as dividing the Holy Unity into
three subsistences foreign to each other and utterly sepa
rate. For it must needs be that, with the God of the
Universe, the Divine Word is One; and the Holy
Ghost must repose and habitate in God ; and thus in
One, as in a summit, — I mean the God of the Universe, —
must the divine trinity be gathered up and brought to
gether." But if God be regarded in this manner as being rigidly
one simple substance, and the Son as only " proper to"
that substance, whence or by what process do the Council
make out a trinity ? They conceive, I answer, that the
Word is to the invisible, incomprehensible nature of God,
as Form to Substance ; and as being the Form of God
that he is the necessary Objective, in which God beholds,
and through which he outwardly communicates Himself.
As I offended by speaking of the Word as " the Form
of God" and a " power of self-representation in God," so
the terms " Image," " Face," "Form," "Truth," "Ex
pression," "Likeness," "Eadiance," "Light," "Wisdom,"
are constantly applied to him in the writings of Atha
nasius ; these being familiar and accepted terms, by which
he is understood as being that medium, or Medial Form
in the divine nature, by which it acts, and through which,
as its proper Word, it appears. Thus, to quote only a
single passage, he says : —
" The Son is the Image and Eadiance of the Father,
and Expression, and Truth. For if, where Light exists,
there be withal its Image, viz. Eadiance ; and a Subsist-

THE NICENE COUNCIL. 181
ence existing, there be of it the entire Expression ; and
a Father existing, there be his truth, viz. the Son," &c.
(p. 209.)
Accordingly, the Son is to the Father as expression to
substance5, and so he " is proper to the substance of the
Father," :triot another being. Or, as he states the argu
ment himself, (p. 40) — "if the Son is Word, Wisdom,
Image of the Father, Eadiance, he must, in aU reason, be
one in substance." The standing comparison by which,
on almost every page, he illustrates the relation of the
Son to the Father, is that of the radiance to the light.
Though he refers occasionally, for Ulustration, to the
reason [logos] as related to the spirit or soul. In the fol
lowing passage he employs both illustrations together :
" For we see that reason is ever, and is from him and
proper to his substance whose reason it is, and does not
admit a before and after. So we see, again, the radiance
from the sun [elsewhere the light] is proper to it, and
the sun's substance is not divided or impaired ; but its
substance is whole and its radiance perfect and whole,
yet without impairing the substance of Hght, but as a
true offspring from it. We understand, in like manner,
that the Son is begotten, not from without, but from the
Father; and while the Father remains whole, the ex
pression of His subsistence is ever, and preserves the
Father's Hkeness and unvarying Image ; so that he who
sees him, sees in him the Subsistence, too, of which he is
the Expression. And, from the operation of the Ex
pression, we understand the true Godhead of the Sub
sistence ; as the Savior himself teaches, when he says :
' The Father who dwelleth in me, He doeth the works
16

182 TRINITY OF
which I -do"— "I in the Father and the Father in me."
(pp. 326-7.)
We come now to the clause, "begotten not made,"
affirmed by the Council, and afterward called the doctrine
of " eternal generation." By this language, the Council,
as explained by Athanasius, mean nothing more than
what I have already reported, viz., that the Divine Word
is necessarily and eternaUy of or from the Father, as the
Eadiance is of the Light. Not that the Son is "begot
ten," as in the past tense ; but is ever and from eternity
being begotten. He pertains to, or is " proper to" the
going on, so to speak, of the divine nature, considered as
self-conscious and vital substance (actus purissimusf-*
much as the radiance is " proper to" the Hght in its flow,
and conterminous with it as regards the time of its flow.
Had they known the optical mystery of the prism, they
would, doubtless, have seized upon that as their best
illustration ; representing the trinity by the three primary
colors of the prism, the red, blue, and yellow; pertaining,
possibly, not to the substance, but to the inherent ac
tivity of the Hght and so indirectly to the substance.
Plainly their doctrine is not a doctrine of three sub
stances, or of three persons in any sense which imphes
three substantial agents or entities, such as we under
stand by the word person, when appHed in its ordinary
use to human subjects. CalHng the Son a person, or
hypostasis, he is such only as being in the Form of God,
or as Form related to Spirit, Word to Substance.
Their use of the word " begotten" I suppose to be a mis-
appHcation of the term as found in the scripture, where,
probably, it relates only to the miraculous conception

THE NICENE COUNCIL. 183
and the birth in time of the Son ; stUl the fact, intended
by it in the creed, is none the less worthy of belief be
cause it is misderived, viz., that the Divine Word is
necessarily of the Father and proper to His Substance ;
that considered as in act, or self-conscious Hfe, — creating,
governing, revealing, — He as naturally generates the
Word, or Son, as the active substance of the Hght gene
rates the three colors in a prism ; or as we, in our per
petual act of consciousness, generate the formal thoughts
by which we conceive and act out the expression of our
selves. The important and principal matter to be noted in the
Creed is this : That the eternal generation is not a matter
collateral to the conception of trinity, but fundamental to it.
Apart from this, which our New England teachers have
flatly rejected, and which the minority of your committee
expressly waived as a non-essential matter in the judg
ment to be formed of my heresies, — apart from this they
knew no trinity. This, with the kindred doctrine of the
"eternal procession," afterward developed, was their
trinity. The persons had their personaHty in these con
ceptions of eternal generation and eternal procession, and
apart from these they were nothing ; these were the per
sons, and it was a fact as clearly perceived by them, as it
ought to be by us, that three persons, or three co-existing
agents, taken as a first truth, afterward to be conceived
as one being, can by no possibiHty of thought be reduced
to any thing better than a concilium of Gods, — a verbal
and fictitious unity, affirmed as a cover to real and prac
tical tritheism.
If, now, the question be raised, how far my supposed

184 TRINITY OF
heresy agrees with the CouncU, I answer that it differs in
no respect that involves a real inconsistency; save that
I disown aU their supposed knowledge of God, when they
undertake, in their transcendental method, to go beyond
scripture and assert, in their own right, what is true, or
not true, concerning his internal modes of life and active
being. StiU they assert the simpHcity and strict unity
of God, deny a trinity in the divine essence, discover a
trinity grounded in act as distinct from essence, and draw
from the scripture the same conception of the Word or
Logos. As to their particular way of conceiving a trinity of
act, that is by eternal generation, I do not affirm it, be
cause I do not know it to be true ; but I begin with a
trinity generated in time, ascending from it, with a cer
tain measured confidence, to the conviction that the con
ditions and grounds out of which it is generated in time
are eternal, and that so it is itself eternal. Considered as
denying a trinity of essence and saving the strict unity
of God, by conceiving a trinity predicable only of God
as in act, the two schemes or doctrines coalesce in their
matter ; they only handle the matter which is common,
by different methods, and( work out their results under
different forms of language.
There may seem to be an important difference between
the doctrine I have stated and that of the CouncU, in re
gard to the term Father ; which they receive as denoting
the one original substance of the Divine Nature. I have
supposed, on the contrary, since it first appears contem
poraneously with the incarnation of the Word, and since
one " relative" in the flesh demands another and supernal

THE NICENE COUNCIL. 185
"relative" to be held in thought with it, as a means of
sustaining the mind from lapsing into idolatry, that the
term Father and the formal conception of fatherhood,
derived from the outward paternal relation, was then
taken up and applied to the Absolute Substance con
ceived as person residing above. But this affects in no
degree the scheme of trinity itself. It only touches the
particular question whether the name and personal figure
of fatherhood, as conceived on earth, is past, or prior in
use to the incarnation; not the question whether the
Word, as prior to the incarnation, is eternally of the di
vine substance now caUed Father, nor even the question
whether that substance may be said to be " ingenerate,"
which, to the old theologians, was an important element
of orthodoxy.
But the question wiU be raised, whether I do not radi
cally and fatally disagree with the Council in not affirm
ing the eternal Sonship ? To this I answer, first, that
the eternity of the Son, as a humanly personal concep
tion of the Word, does not seem to be affirmed in scrip
ture. Secondly, that, with the Council, I did affirm, on
the simple authority of scripture, the eternity of the
Word as proper to the One Substance. And, thirdly,
that the Council, as defended by Athanasius, do not
appear to have clearly asserted any thing more. I do
not find that he raises the question of the eternity of the
Son, as related to the eternity of the Word ; though he
does frequently speak of the eternal Sonship, as related
to the opinions of Arius, and argues for it upon the lan
guage of scripture. Whether he means to affirm that
Sonship as actual, or only potential in the Word, is
16*

186 TRINITY OF
perhaps an open question. He, at leasty quotes with
approbation the opinion of Constantine to this effect :—
"Nay, our most religious Emperor did, at the time, prove
in a speech that he [the Son] was in being, even accord
ing to' his divine generation, which is before all ages;
since even before he was generated in energy, he was in
virtue with the Father ingenerately ; the Father being
always Father, as King always and Savior always,
having aU things in virtue, and being always and in all
respects in the same way." (p. 65.) Even Bishop Bull,
too, affirms that, while this language is, in one view,
heretical, it becomes orthodox, if only it be understood
to affirm that " our Lord was caUed the Word from eter
nity, and the Son upon his descent to create the worlds ;"
i. e., in time. Moreover, I have spoken of the proba
bility that God is from eternity a creator and revealer of
Himself, and so is Hkely to have been and to be eternally
known as Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, (pp. 113 and
177 ;) and if I seem, in this softened manner of ex
pression, to be less confident and positive in regard to
the eternal Sonship, I can hardly think it a fault to suffer
some degree of modesty, in regard to what is inherently
possible, true, or necessary, concerning the interior life
of the divine nature.
By this careful examination of the Nicene Council,
which is the fountain of church doctrine as regards this
particular subject of trinity, you have discovered, I think,
that our New England doctrine has little to say of ortho
doxy ; having itself denied and cast away precisely that
on which the church doctrine hangs, viz., the eternal
generation and procession, and affirmed precisely that

THE REFORMERS. 187
which the church doctrine denies, viz., a threefold sub
stance, or three substances in the divine nature. And as
to myself, while I have as little care as possible to secure
a shelter under any form of orthodoxy, it is, I confess, a
most refreshing surprise to me to find that I can so
heartily approve/the general truth of what I supposed I
had rejected ; and that I can welcome, with a respect so
genuine, the fathers of a remote age, who had lost their
hold of our reverence, simply because we had lost our
hold of their meaning.
Descending the Hue of history, to find another point
for comparison, I invite your attention —
H. To the opinions of the Eeformation ; more
especially to those advanced by Calvin and his disciples
of the foUowing century.
What, then, is the trinity of Calvin ? He says : —
" This distinction [of the three] is so far from opposing
the most absolute simplicity and unity of the divine being,
that it affords a proof that the Son is one God with the
Father, because he has the same Spirit with him ; and
that the Spirit is not a different substance from the Father
and the Son, because he is the Spirit of the Father and
of the Son. For the whole nature is in each hypostasis, and
each has something pecuHar to himself. * * * These
distinctive appellations, says Augustine, denote their
reciprocal relations to each other and not the substance
itself, which is but one." — (Inst, Book I, Chap. XIII,
Sec. 19.)
Again, he says: — "But they deceive themselves, in
dreaming of three separate individuals, each of them

188 TRINITY OF
possessing a part of the divine essence. We teach,
according to the scriptures, that there is essentially one
God. * * * To comprehend the essence [homoou-
sion] in the distinction [of persons] were not an absurd
error, but a most gross impiety." — (Sec. 25.)
Here, as in the Nicene doctrine, we have the " strict
simplicity," the " one substance," the bold, unqualified
affirmation that the "whole nature is in each of the
persons," and a denial as peremptory that the persons
are distinct essences or " comprehend the essence." And
then, if we inquire what constitutes the persons, or how
they are conceived, we have the intimation that they
" denote reciprocal relations" — 'answering to what I said
of three " relatives" reveating the "Absolute One" — also,
the intimation that " the whole nature" becomes, in turn,
each of the persons by means of " some pecuHar prop
erty" — which can, of course, be only something in act;
for if the substance or nature be whole and, the same in
each, there can be nothing beside but act to make a
peculiar property. And this answers to a trinity by
generation. Accordingly he is emphatic on the terms
"relation" and "pecuHar property," as being fundamen
tal to his conception of the persons : — " Now I say that
each of the persons has a relation to the others, but is
distinguished from thein by a pecuHar property. We
use particularly the word relation or comparison here." —
(Sec. 6.)
Then he goes on, turning himself in changes of
expression, to bring out more fully the sense intended
by the word relation, representing the Divine Three as
resulting by self-dispensation, or by economy. " Neither

THE REFORMERS. 189
do I disapprove the definition of TertuUian, when rightly
understood, ' that there is a certain distribution or
economy which makes no change in the unity of the
essence.' " Afterward, he speaks of the three as being
three by " power" or by " mode," adhering still to the
conception of a threeness that Hes in act ; for the active
distinctions of a substance are in one view only the
modes of a substance. And here he quotes TertuUian
again : —
" He [TertuUian] unequivocaUy teaches that, whereas
there is one God, yet, by dispensation or economy there
is his Word ; that there is but one God in the unity of
the substance, but that the unity, by a mysterious dis
pensation, is disposed into a trinity ; that there are three ;
not in condition, but in degree ; not in substance, but in
form ; not in power, but in order." — (Sec. 28.)
There may be some difficulty in apprehending the
precise meaning of this language, but thus much at least
is clear, that Calvin finds no trinity in»the substance any
more than I do ; that he finds a trinity in act or
economy as I do ; and would certainly find, in the
present doctrine of New England, what, to name it for
himself, is not only an " absurd error, but a most gross
impiety." The foUowers of Calvin among the English Eeformers
substantially coincide with him. John Howe, in some
respects the ablest of them all, says : —
" And whereas the greatest quarrel is about person
aHty, there can be nothing more plain than that one and
the same man may sustain three persons ; the person of
a father, the person of a son, the person of a magistrate,

190 TRINITY OF
and the like. Many persons may be sustained by one
and the same man ; the notion of person, in the strict and
common sense, being only taken from the circumstances
of their state and condition who are spoken of, and not
as denoting this or that essence. And so to be a man
and this or that person is not aU one. The same man
may endure and may sustentare, may put on and may
bear several persons ; and so it is no repugnancy to
reason at all that i the same God may do so too. And
therefore this pretence of the irrationality or contradic-
tiousness of this doctrine doth itself want a pretence." —
(Howe's Complete Works, Lecture XV., pp. 1096-7.)
He seems, in this language, to assert a merely modal
trinity. He does, in fact, assert nothing more, unless it
be added, as doubtless he was ready to add, that the
'persons' argued for are eternal. And even then his
illustration will not make the persons, persons in the
sense of being different logical subjects, but only dif
ferent offices filled by the same subject — in which, it
will be said, I suppose, that he only failed in his illus
tration. Be this as it may, you will at least discover in
it how very remote he is from any thought of maintain
ing a trinity in the divine essence. His trinity, and that
of all his contemporaries holding the eternal generation,
is a trinity of act. This is their familiar way of speak
ing. Owen, in his treatise on the Person of Christ,
employs only the current language, when he says —
(Preface, p. xxxiv.) — " This eternal generation being a
necessary internal act of the divine nature in the person
of the Father."
Accordantly with this general idea, the Westminster

THE REFORMERS. 191
Assembly expressly define the personaHty of the per
sons, in that they are other than the One, as consisting
in the active distinctions of generation and procession,
and in nothing else. They do not refer to their own
personal consciousness and say that the divine Three are
distinct logical subjects, in the sense that they are them
selves — this they weU understand is a way to involve
the whole subject in confusion. They have no concep
tion at aU of the persons, save through precisely that
which we have cast away ; that which the minority of
your committee waive as unimportant, when charging
me with a denial of the persons ; that, again, which it is
a principal part of my crime to have restored, only in a
Httle different form, to the benefit of our dismembered
orthodoxy. Ques. " What are the personal properties of the three
persons in the Godhead ?
Ans. It is proper to the Father to beget the Son, and
to the Son to be begotten of the Father, and to the Holy
Ghost to proceed from the Father and the Son from all
eternity." — (Larger Catechism, Ques. 10.)
To cite a single example from the Fathers of New
England, that the contrast between our present tri-
theistic notions and such as belonged to the times of
proper orthodoxy may distinctly appear, I produce the
following from the "Profession of Faith," offered by
John Davenport, at the time of his settlement in
Boston : —
"In this Godhead are three distinct persons, co-eter
nal, co-equal and co-essential, being every one of tfiem one
and the same God; not three Gods, and therefore not

192 TRINITY OF
divided in essence, nature, or being ; but distinguished,
one from another, by their several and relative pecuHar
property ; the Father is none but of himself, the Sot is
begotten of the Father before all worlds, the Holy Ghost
proceedeth from the Father and the Son from all eter
nity." — (Profession, p. 2.)
' His trinity stands, you perceive, in>"imSnediate connec
tion with eternal generation and procession; because,
apart from these, he had no conception of trinity.
These are the distinctions of the persons, (otherwise
one and the same,) apart from which any affirmation of
trinity is absurd and false.
Now, if it should seem that person, as resolved into
mere generation and procession, is, for aught that
appears, person without personality, I certainly agree.
It is not my fault if their definition is insufficient. But
if they be understood to say simply that what we meet
in scripture, as a grammatically personal three, is refer-
rible to eternal generation and procession as its cause,
that is not impossible ; they only seem to travel a great
way and pass a very transcendental height in their
argument, to find a cause which could be found by a
much simpler method. However, it was something to
find, as they supposed, a necessary threefoldhess in the
essential activity of God, though it could yield them no
real conception of the personality of the resulting or
issuing three. And that it did not they themselves
understood. A deep mystery stUl lay on the person^,
and how to conceive them as logical subjects they
could not find. And since they could not, they defined
the persons simply by their cause, and there rested;

THE REFORMERS. 193
giving a proof of their wisdom in not defining, as
remarkable as we do of our want of it in daring to
define, the persons by a reference to our own personal
consciousness. They were not crude enough to say,
with Dr. Emmons, that we understand the persons as
well as we understand our own personality; for they
saw that, taking such a conception of the persons, the
divine unity is gone beyond recovery.
Perceiving, in this manner, how impossible it was to
penetrate the interior mystery of the persons, and of
the trinity as constituted by them, Baxter, with a noble
and truly characteristic frankness, conceded the futility
of attempting to hold or to enforce a theoretic trinity of
any kind, simply insisting that we receive the trinity as
a truth related to us, in the practical uses of the Hfe.
Thus, reprobating as a flimsy conceit the solution of the
scholastics, when they represent that " God's essential
self-living, self-knowing, and self-loving are the trinity
of persons," he says, (in a manner of irony, as against aU
solutions :)
"Perhaps we can do nothing better, but I beHeve
there is yet more in the mystery of the trinity, because
this is so intelligible. * * * What a person in the
trinity is, all the divines and school wits as good as
confess they know not. It is the trinity as related to us,
and operative in us, and therein notified that we must
necessarily beHeve — * * * even as it is not our
understanding of the essence of the sun, but our recep
tion of its communicated motion, light, and heat, that our
nature Hveth by."— (Pract. Works, Vol. IV, p. 75.)
How far this may be from the instrumental trinity I
17

194 MODERN OPINIONS,
have asserted, with so great offense to many I leave to
your judgment. I pass now,
HI. To THE ORTHODOX SENTIMENT OF THE PRESENT
DAY. And here, instead of a more discursive and
promiscuous reference, I prefer to single out two dis
tinguished and generally acknowledged examples of
orthodoxy, one among the Germans, and another from
our own country, and confine my comparison to these.
As an example of the German school of orthodoxy, I
fix on the exposition of Dr. Twesten, Theological Pro
fessor at Berlin; partly because it is accessible to all
American readers, and partly because of its very great
ability. The Professor's object is to vindicate the
Augsburg Confession, and it is "the first elaborate
attempt to uphold this doctrine in its orthodox form,"
• as Professor Smith, the accomplished translator, informs
us, that has been made in Germany since the rational
istic spirit beoame prevalent there. He also tehs us
that this exposition " awakened a new interest" in the
subject, and "is uniformly referred to, in the yet more
recent discussions, with respect, as an authority." His
exposition will be found in three successive numbers of
the " Bibliotheca Sacra," beginning with No. XI.
He assumes for his point of departure, as peremptorily
as I have done, " the absolute oneness of being in God."
And then the problem raised is this, whether " there be
not in the divine nature that which requires us to repre
sent it as consisting of several distinct subjects or persons
as well as attributes?" (No. XL, p. 501.) The question
turns, it will be perceived, on the word represent, and he

PROF. TWESTEN. 195
is oontinuaUy saying, as in the next sentence, " we are
obhged to conceive when fuUy expressed," " we are obli
ged," &e, as if looking for a trinity merely subjective.
Indeed, he even says on the same page : " They [the
attributes and persons] express the different relations in
which the infinite God stands to the finite ; or rather,
in which finite existences stand to God." Instead of
asking, in this manner, ' whether we must not repre
sent,' ' are not obliged to conceive,' I have taken a dif
ferent form of inquiry, asking whether God, regarding
the media of possible representation and our finite con
ditions, needs not so to represent Himself f This, it seems
to me, is a more legitimate question, though in many re
spects the same. Still he rests the doctrine, as every
Christian must, " on the assertions of scripture," (p. 506,)
and here even the appearance of diversity vanishes.
But having found the Christian fact, Father, Son, and
Holy Ghost, he goes on next to show that there is a sub
jective necessity for this fact as related to our " Christian
consciousness," — that is, to our want as sinners and our
practical experience as Christians, (pp. 509-515.) The
God of nature and the God of grace must hold different
relations to us and to each other; God must be seen
working under God, God toward God ; for we can not
fitly work our feeting, or have it fitly worked in the ex
perience of redemption, save as we " see a contrast be
tween him to whom the world was to be reconciled and
him who made the reconciliation;" in which he only
gives play, in a particular instance, to the general truth
or heresy I have asserted, that God can be fitly revealed
to human thought only through the medium of contrasts

196 MODERN OPINIONS,
and opposing representations. But then the question
rises, after the supposed " contrast" is found or appears,
what is the nature and scope of it? Is it that God is not
as really and completely one as if no such relation of con
trast between nature and grace had been discovered to
us? The answer of Dr. T. is, that God is in "both rela
tions the same being ;" only " we are obliged to form a
different conception of this same Being," &c. .(p. 510.) The
trinity, then, is a different conception of God, suited to
the plan of redemption and to our Christian experience
under that plan. And then, if it be required to fix the
limits, or define the precise nature of this difference or
this contrast, he admits the difficulty of doing it " with a
clearness corresponding to our inward sense of it ;" or so
that we must not finally rest it "on the simple declara
tions of the Holy Scriptures," (p. 512.) Suppose now he
had said, with me, instead, 'this contrast of God with
God, appearing in the trinity and the plan of redemption,
is at least an instrumental verity, which we are freely to
use, on scripture authority ; allowing it, as a conception,
to shape our consciousness and work our experience
under the plan ; but which we can no wise investigate as
regards its interior mystery and the relation of the per
sons to the one divine essence.' How far would he differ,
in this, from the result he states for himself; save that
he would more adequately give the positive import of the
trinity and more exactly fix the limits of knowledge con
cerning it ? True, he goes on to say that " every modal
istic view is excluded" by the scripture representations ;
but he only means the Sabellian modalistic, which differs
from his own, simply in affirming his " different concep-

PROF. TWESTEN. 197
tion" or mode, with the addition that the trinity is noth
ing but a different conception, — a doctrine which I have
as Httle asserted as he. And yet the doctrine of ' eternal
generation' itself makes the trinity a merely internal and
permanent mode of deity ; that of God as eternal act.
Looking, then, at the Christian trinity simply as a
resulting fact of revelation, — a fact that must needs ap- '
pear in the fit representation or expression of God to us,' — ¦
we are seen to arrive at a conception of it essentially one
and the same. The trinity of revelation, we both say, is
the one divine essence brought into our field of thought
and experience. But just here, while I am staying fast
by the position where we meet, refusing to leave it, Dr. T.
goes off upon a long theological excursion, and we seem
to be whoUy separated. However, at the very close of it,
he returns, I am happy to say, to suggest, as the result and
last fruit of his inquiry, as indeed of all inquiry, the pos
sible truth of a position where Sabellianism and ortho
doxy may, without difficulty, meet and adjust their differ
ences ; which position is the very one at which he left
me, advanced by the addition of a single sentence. Here,
then, at the end we meet again, coalescing in the same
final result.
Our long divergence between the two points of agree
ment happens in the foUowing manner : — The trinity we
found at the first point of agreement, was a trinity resting
in expression, or occurring under the laws of expression ;
which I insisted could as little be subjected to mere logic
as a poem or a painting, and the attempting of which,
logically or ontologically, would even be absurd. Or,
attempting to fence off logic by logic, I argued that,
17*

198 MODERN OPINIONS,
having assumed the absolute oneness of the divine
essence, and found a trinity resulting under the condi
tions of revelation or expression within our plane of con
sciousness, we manifestly can not reason out or logically
prove what has come to us only by the self-revelation of
God ; neither can we argue from the three of revelation
to a transcendental three back of it ; for, by the supposi
tion, the transcendental substance back of it is the One.
Therefore we are to accept the three as persons whose
proper comprehensible verity is that they most ade
quately reveal the One, and there to rest ;¦ — only it is
right for us to argue (this is the "single sentence" of ad
dition just referred to) that, since God is an eternally
active self-revealing being, he is likely to be eternally
acted or revealed in this manner.
But Dr. T., admitting the essentially "biblical foun
dation" of the doctrine, and not unaware of the many
"dangers of speculation" concerning it, is yet absolutely
detained by no considerations such as I have named.
Modestly, therefore, cautiously, half-protestingly, he
opens the gate of speculation (pp. 516-528) and enters,
leaving me behind. Here he finds a shadow, a notional
semblance, wherewith, as by a self-supporting web spun
from within himself, he bridges the gulf between an ex
ternal trinity, or trinity of expression, and the more
transcendental, or psychological and speculative trinity
of the church doctrine ; making good his passage over to
that side.
Thus, meditating on his own personal consciousness and
asking what is in it, or what it involves, he finds, inclu
ded in the necessary act of self-knowledge, three terms.

PROF. TWESTEN. 199
First, there is the subject, the / or self. Secondly, there
is the generated image or objective thought of the self, the
me. Thirdly, there is the reflective, unifying thought of the
self and the me as being one, which is, he imagines, a
.kind of common proceeding from the self and the me.
And why not a fourth term also, in the consciousness
that the unifying thought unifies ? and a fifth in the con
sciousness that we are thus conscious ? for it is the mys
tery of consciousness, logically handled, that it includes,
in every act, an infinite series. But this he omits to
notice, — three terms exhaust its import. Then, as God
is certainly a conscious being, is he not therefore always
generating, in Hke manner, a threefold relation within
himself? And then why not imagine that he is eter
naUy developed, in his necessary act of consciousness,
as three persons, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost ? The
self answers to the Father. The objective image or
thought of the self is the Word or Son. The unifying
thought is the Spirit, proceeding from the Father and
the Son.
But why, it is natural to ask, should God become three
persons, in virtue of his consciousness, more than we?
Is it not also a considerable stretch of deduction to make
out, in this way, that God's plan of redemption, of which
it is agreed the Christian trinity is, in some proper sense,
a part or incident, is yet nothing but a necessary develop
ment of his consciousness ! He admits (p. 520) that
there are objections to such a speculation, but thinks,
however, it has a degree of " value." Let us not be sur
prised, then, to find, by his frequent references to it
afterward, that it is, in fact, a kind of regulative con-

200 MODERN OPINIONS,
ception or general solvent, with him, for the chureh
theology of the whole subject.
Having got a footing, thus, for the speculative church
doctrine in the immanent activity of the divine nature,
he leads off in his long and toilsome 'excursion, away
-from the simple truth of revelation, where we found our
agreement ; and here I am not required to foUow him.
His account of the church doctrine, you will observe,
however, accords exactly with mine, — one divine essence
becoming a trinity, " by the absolutely immanent acts of
generation and procession," (No. XIII., p. 26 ;) and, as these
are rejected by the New England orthodoxy, having of
course no point of agreement with it. But the more
correct he is in his representation of the church doctrine,
the more sad is the evident faUure he makes at every
point, in his attempt to reduce it to a precise, logical, and
logically vindicable statement. Never, it seems to me,
was there so much of real ability and of apparently
scientific candor exhausted in a work, so uniformly impo
tent and fruitless. Ceasing to regard the persons instru-
mentally, as living powers of expression, and attempting
to conceive them by logical definitions of their interior
properties, they immediately lose even the semblance of
reality and become mere words or notions. A look of
imposture meets us at every turn of the argument. The
persons, defined so as to save the rigid unity of the sub
stance, (which is the problem,) must of course include
that substance in each ; and then, as distinct, they can, to
us, be only modes, in some sense, of that substance ; not
logical subjects having each a personal substance. They
are the one substance "conceived as" acting thus or thus,

PROF. TWESTEN. 201
or as " having a certain hypostatic character," (No. XII.,
p. 764,) — such persons as may be represented best by the
threefold terms of our human consciousness ; which are
as wide of all proper personality as the dreams of the
night, or even the stones of the field, (p. 766 ;) relations
and, in that sense, " modes" of the one divine essence ;
related to each other not as entities, (res et res,) but as I
am related to my self-comprehending thought ; distin
guished by a distinclio non realis, or a distinction only of
" reason ;" which, if it be called a real and objective dis
tinction, is yet a distinction pertaining only to the active
variations of a substance and not to any thing that can
make a properly logical subject, (p. 771.) And then, three
subjects being found, having no distinctive subjacencies ;
three persons, without personality ; the labor is to show
exactly how so many shadows of persons are logically
related to each other and the world ; and this will be the
theologic doctrine of the trinity. It is a dogmatic dia
logue between modes and relations, very difficult of course
to be maintained, and requiring an immense array of the
most abstruse distinctions, to keep the characters, who are
right and left and middle to the same substance, in reg
ular place and true theologic order !
But after the distinguished scholar and theologian has
waded long and wearily through this desert of sand,
proving nothing but the absolute futility of all attempts
to find a deeper reality in the persons, than that which is
apprehended by faith and a Christian experience, in their
instrumental use, he at last emerges, at a place where
possibly some green thing may grow, and here I meet
him again in a second point of agreement, — where, as he

202 MODERN OPINIONS,
himself admits, we attain to the last limit of thought in
regard to the whole subject. Having distinguished be
tween eternal generation and eternal procession* as inter
nal and immanent acts of the divine nature on the -one
side, and the sending both of Son and Spirit as acts in
time on the other, he now looks at their connection and
finds reason to judge, that one is analogous to and, at the
root, identical with the other. And so he concludes : —
" We may even say that the sending, thus viewed; is
the same relation as that expressed by generation and
procession ; only the former is this relation viewed in its
temporal aspect, the latter is the relation viewed as an
eternal act Thus is the conception of the sending the
bond between the internal and external characteristics of
the persons of the Trinity, the opera ad intra and extra,
and forms the fitting conclusion of the doctrine, since it
brings back the end to the beginning. * * Just here
may, perhaps, be the highest tension and the possibiHty
of an adjustment of the antagonism between the Ortho
dox and the Sabellian view of the Trinity." — (No. XIII,
pp. 51-2.)
Exactly so, and this " fitting conclusion of the doc
trine," (the more fit because it " brings back the end to
the beginning,") may as well be reached by a single sen
tence, as by traversing an immense desert of dogmatic
inanities. Say nothing at all of generation, procession,
sending, or of any distinctions of opera ad intra and extra
—for, in truth, there is no extra or exterior as pertaining
to God, save that we represent by that figure some of our
own thoughts concerning Him, — give up all logical at
tempts upon the persons ; give up, if you must, all the

PROF. TWESTEN. 203
church theology as concerned with the interior mystery
of their nature and relations ; and then say simply this :
God, the one divine substance, is revealed to me, in my
plane of finite inteUigence, formally, as three persons or
personal activities ; which, though I can not investigate,
I receive as media of thought and experience under Him ;
only judging that, since He is the Living God, an exter
nally active, self-revealing being in his very nature, he is
likely to be known as Father, Son, and Holy Ghost ; or
God, and Word, and Spirit ; or by some equivalent for
mula, forever and to all worlds.
Here you perceive that the result attained to is
grounded as reaUy in the essentiaUy active nature of
God, as it is in the doctrine of eternal generation ; and
the generation and the sending, never separated and of
course never to be theologically identified, are sunk in
the one idea of eternal self-revelation. And now the
terms of "adjustment" are simple and easy : let orthodoxy
bring back the end to the beginning, and leave the
immense theologic desert between to its proper solitude
and silence ; let SabeUianism, on the other part, dis
cover, behind the revelation of to-day, an eternally self-
reveaHng nature ; and, by that time, both are one — "the
conflict ceases." Only there is no " tension" or strain
whatever in the process, unless it be a strain to let go so
much of barren learning, caUed theology ; and so much
pride of hasty, over-confident denial. This, exactly, is
the heresy of my book. It ends at the same point with
the orthodoxy of Dr. Twesten , only rejecting as of no
account about all the properly theologic matter by which
he reaches that point.

204 MODERN OPINIONS.
And then his pious and beautiful tribute to the simple
trinity of the scriptures is just so much more appro
priate: — "We have indeed, as everywhere else, so here,
to wonder at the wisdom with which the scripture
imparts those truths which no understanding of the wise
can fathom, in a form which is intelligible even to the
unlearned ; since it presents the divine mysteries in that
aspect in which they are most adapted [instrumentally]
to our wants, so that we may rather experience their
power in the heart, than speak about them in lofty
words."— (No. XIII, p. 56.) ,
I have dwelt thus particularly on the comparison
between my heresy and the exposition of Dr. Twestea,
not because his opinions are a law either to you or to
me ; but because I hoped, by means of such a comparison,
to give you at once the position of one of the ripest
modern defenders of orthodoxy, and, more exactly than
in any other way, the real spirit and import of my own.
I proposed, also, to refer you to another modern
example, from our own country. And here I fix on the
article from the Princeton Eepertory, already referred
to in support of my views of language. It is an article
on the " Sonship of Christ," the orthodoxy of which, I
believe, has not been doubted. The object of the essay
is to substantiate the doctrine of ' eternal generation ;'
which, though I do not profess, yet if it be defined, as
here, to mean simply that there is some undiscoverable
" ground in the nature of the relation of the Father and
Son for the application of these relative terms," (Prince
ton Theological Essays, p. 33,) I see no reason to deny.

BIBLICAL REPERTORY. 205
Nor do I any more dissent from the article in its main
point, viz., that the name "Son of God" is given to
Christ "in reference to his divine nature," (p. 37.) I
only think that there is another question more difficult
to be determined, but which is not here discussed, viz.,
whether, admitting or holding fast the ' divine nature,'
there is not also a reference in the term Son to the
generation in time and the incarnate human state;
whether the phrase ' Son of God,' as far as it is a more
humanly personal conception than the terms ' Word,'
'Wisdom,' and the like, is not caused by & reference,
prophetically forward or historically baek^^oi, to the
miraculous conception and the human state <,x Sonship
in time. I suppose the writer would say that it is not.
I find no means of deciding that the analogy or figure
of filial relationship requires to be understood as
predicated eternally of the Son, and not, possibly, of the
Word or Wisdom as eternal, and of the Son as in time ;
— in which case, however, it would stUl be right to
affirm the eternity of the Sonship, because of the eternity
of the Wordship ; for the highest reality of the Son is,
of course, the divine nature, the Word, incarnate in him.
With the exception of this possible disagreement, I see
nothing in the essay to dissent from.
But I refer to this essay principally on account of its
introductory matter, (pp. 27-37,) which is far more
important than the argument itself, and reveals, in fact,
a more competent theological mastery of the high sub
jects in question. It opens with a complaint that so
little attention is paid to the proper limits of knowledge,
and that " human speculations" are so constantly mixed
18

206 MODERN OPINIONS.
up in theology with revealed "facts and principles."
And yet, whUe the " modes of conceiving the Christian
doctrines" are as various as they must be, when shaped
by so many "different minds in their different ages". and
subject to their different forms of philosophy, there is
stiU a remarkable agreement, the writer affirms, regard
ing the substantial matter of the Christian truth.-
" With regard to theology, the uniformity with which
the great cardinal doctrines of our faith have been
embraced, is not less remarkable than the diversity
which has prevailed in the mode of conceiving and
explaining them. The fact that there is one God, and
that the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost are this God ; that
there is such a distinction between the Father, Son, and
Holy Spirit as to lay a sufficient ground for the recip
rocal use of the personal pronouns, has been the faith of
the Christian Church, from first to last. And yet there
is probably no one doctrine contained in the scripture,
which has been so variously defined and explained as
this."— (P. 28.)
A very admirable statement of the essential scripture
doctrine of trinity, as it was practically held by the mass
of true beHevers in the first centuries of the church.
One God, sufficiently three to allow the reciprocal pro
nominal relations of grammar. Only do not suspect
that I had the terms of this statement in mind when I
sketched the foUowing language, cited from me in your
Eeport ; for I had not then seen it : — " I take the Three
in their threeness as distinct grammatic personalities ; as
they are practically employed in the bible ; acting and
interacting mutually toward each other, as the bible

BIBLICAL REPERTORY. 207
represents; only refusing to investigate their interior
mystery [that is, trying to keep within the ' limits of
knowledge' and not mix ' speculations' with ' facts and
principles'] — believing that, in such a use of them, I
receive, in the truest and fullest manner, the One God."
The writer of the essay goes on to say that originally,
when religion had not yet " passed from the heart to the
head," the trinity was received in a purely simple and
practical way, and created no difficulty; but that, as
soon as it began to be attempted theologically by the
head, it became the subject of endless contradictions and
disputes. And then he adds : — " It is much to be
lamented that so much animosity has been excited and
so much time and labor wasted on points of dispute,
which arose from the imperfection of human language,
or the weakness of the human mind. There has this
good effect, however, resulted from these controversies,
that the church has been driven from one unguarded
mode of expression to another, untU it has come back to
the simple statement of the Word of God, and consented
to leave the inexplicable unexplained." — (P. 28.)
If I differ at aU from this, I differ only in doubting
whether it is yet quite true, and doing what I can" to
make it so — which, if the result is so desirable, ought not
to be a crime. Indeed, I have done nothing else but to
show exactly why endless contrarieties and disputes must
result from the attempt to settle a theology of the sub
ject, or to handle it under logical conditions ; that a
revelation of the One involves a necessity of expression
under conditions of antinomy or repugnance, that are
insoluble by any logical treatment, and can lead to

208 MODERN OPINIONS.
nothing but absurdity, unless they are accepted and
used, according to their nature, as instruments of
expression. Therefore I said nothing but simply this*—
let us go ' back to the simple statement of the Word of
God and consent to leave the inexpHcable unexplained.'
This coincidence, too, is the more remarkable, when
it is observed that the writer of the essay notices the
very conditions of antinomy and formal repugnance
of which I spoke, and disallows all a priori and logical
arguments, on the basis of such formal repugnances.
He says : —
"If it be allowable to demand how the divine essence
can be communicated from the Father to the Son and
yet retained by the Father? the [orthodox] objector
must submit to a similar demand, how three distinct
persons can have the same numerical essence f how God
can be in heaven and on earth at the same time, and yet
not partly in one and partly in the other ? It is evident
that when we speak thus we use words nearly without
meaning; [he should say 'logical meaning;' for they
have meaning enough taken as instruments of use and
powers of expression;] human language is so Httle
adapted to the things of God, and our [logically
definable] knowledge is so limited, that we may be
said not to know what we say or whereof we affirm.
* * * We say that the Father and the Son have the
same numerical essence, and yet we say that the Son
became incarnate and the Father did not ; that is, that
the same numerical essence did and did not become
incarnate. Is it not something worse than useless for
us, to speculate so confidently on subjects at such an

BIBLICAL REPERTORY. 209
infinite remove above our conceptions, and to avail our
selves with so much confidence of the most dangerous of
aU arguments, the reductio ad absurdum, when applied to
subjects like the present ? We are, however, no advo
cates for the definition [of Sonship] under consideration ;
not because we consider the a priori arguments against
it just and conclusive, but because we can not find that
it is founded on the clear statements of the Word of God,
and because we regard it as one of the vain attempts to
bring down, by formulas and definitions, the infinite
mysteries of the Godhead, within the grasp of man's
finite inteUect."— (pp. 34 & 35-6.)
I am justified here, you observe, in about every
thing reaUy distinctive in the argument of my discourse
at New Haven ; only the writer seems to report an
excess of nothingness, in the meaning of language as
applied to it, which I was careful to avoid. I have only
to add that, when the writer sets himself to a deliberate
statement of what is essential to be held as regards the
trinity, I find nothing to dissent from in the terms of his
statement. His statement is this —
" What the nature of this relation [that of the Father
and Son] is, the scriptures have not revealed, and we
therefore can not undertake to decide. It will not be
denied that much evU has been produced by the attempt
to reduce to distinct formulas the general truths of the
Bible ; nor that many have been led to reject this, as
well as other doctrines of the Word of God, from the
difficulties with which they conceived the definitions of
them to be encumbered. Calvin long ago exclaimed : —
'I could even wish that the names [trinity, homoou-
18*

210 DIFFERENCE UNOBSERVABLE.
sion, person] were buried and forgot, if only this could
be the accepted faith jpf all : that Father, Son, and Holy
Spirit are one God ; with the addition merely [as against
the Sabellians] that the Son is not the Father, nor the
Spirit the Son, but that they are distinguished by a
peculiar property.', — (Inst. Lib. I., chap. 13, sec. 5.) It
might, with equal propriety, be desired that theologians
had contented themselves with asserting the bible fact on
this subject, without attempting to decide whether Christ
was the Son of God by emanation, communication of
essence, or merely by oneness of nature."- — (p. 33.)
A fine condensation of all my heresies; viz., the
impossibUity of investigating the persons ; the certain
mischiefs resulting from the attempt ; the practical
affirmation, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, one God ; the
negative against the SabeUians, a condition already
shown (p. 161-4) to be sufficiently met ; and then the fine
wide margin left for liberty to say, exactly what has
been the head of my offending, that Christ is the Son
" merely by oneness of nature" If now this critic is the
same that has lately been demanding my excision, it
may properly enough be said for him, I know, that such
is the progress he has made in the exercise of twenty
years ! How fortunate then that he was not cut off in
the green of his heresy, and the future Hctor of ortho
doxy stifled, by the church, in his growth. And who
can tell what advances I too may make, if only I am
spared. I wiU pursue the comparison no farther. The result
of it plainly is, that while I am seen to have departed
from the church doctrine in no manner that is irreeon-

WHEN PREACHED. 211
cilable, the orthodoxy of New England is found to be
only a very plain and palpable heresy. Would it not
be well to inquire (which is a matter, in my estimation,
of much greater consequence) whether it is not also as
palpably false?
One thing more, in conclusion, I think it is my duty
to suggest, and yours very seriously to consider, viz.,
that, however my doctrine of trinity may stand with the
formulas, no difference wiU be observed between the
practical ordinary language of preaching under it and
that which is used by you all ; and this I should
suppose to be a matter of a good deal more importance
than a mere abstractive coincidence in a few words and
syllables of theory. The only diversity that could ever
appear, iii preaching, would be, when a theoretic scheme,
or Objections to a theoretic scheme of the trinity are under
immediate discussion. Suppose, then, I were held up
by you as unsound in the faith, or excluded from fellow
ship on this account ; it would be simply and only be
cause I would not profess some kind of belief touching
the interior economy and structure of God. It would
not be that I am any the less truly a lover of the doc
trine of trinity as related to the life of religion and the
working of Christian experience ; but only that I would
not venture some opinion regarding the psychological
nature and history of the persons of the Trinity. You
would declare, in that manner, to the world, that it is
not enough to preach, pray, worship, climb up unto God
through an experience shaped in the molds of Trinity,
but that the principal matter is to receive it as a theorem.

THE WORK OF CHRIST.
It is no disappointment to me, however deeply I regret
the disturbance suffered by my brethren, that the doc
trine of Christ and his work, maintained in my discourse
at Cambridge, has encountered so many and severe cen
sures. I could only have been disappointed if the cen
sures had shown a better appearance of agreement among
themselves. Contrary to this, they are such for the most
part in their form, and such in their mutual disagreement,
as I expected, and they come in the manner I expected
them to come ; viz., by seizing on single turns of ex
pression, or single parts of the argument, and subjecting
them to the same logical method of inference and con
struction, which, heretofore, has been so hard a practice
on the terms of scripture themselves. The principal
source of difficulty has been that no sufficient pains have
been taken, to reproduce and conceive the view pre
sented as a whole ; adjusting the import, in part, of single
members and clauses in the argument, by their relation
to that whole. Perhaps it is impossible for me to repair
the defect; but I wish my brethren could beHeve me
when I say that, whUe their inferences are so abundantly
true and necessary to them, I admit scarcely one of them,
in the sense which makes it an offense, or a dangerous
error to themselves. On the contrary, I seem, in almost
every case, to hold, as earnestly as they, though under a

, MISCONCEPTIONS REMOVED. 213
different form or a different resolution of the subject, aU
which they suppose me to deny.}' The matter of their
gospel, separated from their logical or theological system,
is the matter of mine ; and the only reason why they do
not see it to be so themselves is that they have reduced
the matter to the tiny measures of their system ; so that
when it is set forth, apart from the measures, — not as ex
piation only, but as the Eternal Life that was with the
Father and was manifested unto us ; Christ the Wisdom
of God and the Power ; God in Christ reconciling the
world unto himself, — the quantities are so large and the
riches so various that the matter of their system appears
to be lost, they can not find it. And what, then, shall
they infer but heresy ? Much as if some child, or over-
simple person, were to judge that immense piles of coin,
at the mint, must be counterfeit, because he can not find
his particular dollar among them.
Perhaps it may soften a little the apprehensions that
some have suffered, if, before I enter on the new expo
sition I design to offer, I notice briefly a few of the
misconceptions that have been advanced as objections
against the doctrine of my discourse.
One very fruitful cause of alarm has been that the
negative and destructive part of my argument has been
supposed, in the view of others, to mean more and really
to destroy more, than it does in my own. Accustomed
to see the whole truth of the subject in the logical form
or points of formula against which I was reasoning,
(pp. 192-202,) they were not able, finding these all swept
away, to imagine that any thing was left. Whereas, in

214 MISCONCEPTIONS
my own view, I was only sweeping away the logical
matter of these representations, to assert again, with
greater force, all which constitutes the inmost and prop
erly evangeHc* substance of their beliefs, in the use of
them. When this negative part of my argument was
ended, the whole subject to them was ended ; while to
me it was only begun. Accordingly, you wiU find that
these negative reasonings are constantly set forth by
them, as being words spoken against the temple,' — con-
elusive heresies, which even make it a virtue to stop
their ears to aU that may be said afterward. Meantime,
I am going on myself, as just having come to the subject,
to " reclaim and restore" (p. 203) every thing that has
been cast away ; that is every thing but the points of
theory rejected. .But I go alone ; they do not follow me.
Or if they seem to follow, it is simply to find the offense
justified, and not to see it removed. Thus, where most
I required patience and, if I had needlessly offended, for
bearance and a gratuitous extension of candor, to appre
hend the real meaning of my doctrine ; or to discover
what it is that makes it true to myself, (true in the sense
of containing all they suppose to be rejected,) I seem to
have failed of a proper hearing altogether. Endeavoring
to set forth a view of Christ and his work that has1 its
reality and value in forms that carry effect through the
imagination and the heart, I have only wounded logic
for an auditor, and that not hearing, it would seem, but
only asking for redress. Accordingly, of all the nu
merous articles which I have', seen complaining of my
heresies in regard to this subject, I recollect not one that
has attempted any real and proper discussion of just

REMOVED. 215
those twenty pages of my book, (pp. 218-238,) on which
I most reHed to quiet the fears andfeatisfy the convictions
of my brethren. More generally they are not even no
ticed or alluded to, and it might even be supposed that,
by some accident of the press, they had been omitted.
It is not that these pages have not been read, if by read
ing is meant seeing the letters and syllables ; but it is
that they have been read in a way to see no meaning in
them. Or, if it be said that they have no meaning, it is
not because they do not recognize, in the fullest manner,
the necessity of a ground of justification, and show as
fully what that ground of justification is, — Christ our
righteousness, Christ sanctifying, by his death and sac
rifice, the violated law, and preparing, thus, a way of
pardon that makes it, not an act of license, but of justi
fication. If this had been aUowed and only some fault
found with the manner in which he is represented to
have executed his design, the ill fortune of these twenty
pages would have been less remarkable.
I know not whether it can now be of any use to add
that, in my course of argument, discarding first the lo
gical matter of so many confused theories, and then re
storing the whole subject in the simpler forms of practical
and scriptural expression, I seem only to have done, more
fully, what 'others have seen as truly the necessity of
doing, if we are to escape an innumerable brood of logical
perversities. Thus Dr. Griffin says, in, his work on the
Atonement : —
"There are certain figurative expressions in common
use in the church, partly derived from the scriptures and
partly of human invention, which are calculated to pre-

216 MISCONCEPTIONS
sent to the imagination, in a summary and striking man
ner, without the process of reasoning, the general influ
ence of Christ's mediation. This advantage gives them -(at
(at least a part' of them) a claim to be retained in our pray
ers and our popular discourses. But the difficulty is that
they have been introduced into logical discussions, with
a literal meaning; and as premises from which literal
conclusions are drawn. This has been one of the most
prolific sources of mistake. The expressions are such as
these : that Christ purchased the church, that he paM
their debt, that he is one with them, that their sins were
imputed to him, that he bore the curse of the law in their
stead, that he satisfied divine justice for them, that his
righteousness is imputed to them and that they are con
sidered righteous."— ^pp. 113-4.)
Excuse me if I suggest the possibility that, when you
have reduced this roll of figures to their true figurative
position, you will find yourselves confronted by about all
the heresies in which I have offended, and wiU have
about as little left of the logical matter I have rejected. If
Dr. Griffin, disallowing these figures, still retained other
figures as literal truths and centers of speculative system,
though every way as figurative as these, it is not my
fault that I have justified and executed his conviction
more faithfully than he did it himself. Neither should it
be any offense, if, instead of suggesting the possible pro
priety of retaining these figures in " prayer and popular
discourse," I insist on retaining them all as the Divine
Form and true doctrine of the Christian grace itself; for
it does not appear that Christ came to save theologians,
but to save the world ; and, therefore, what he is to the

REMOVED. 217
uses of prayer and popular discourse would seem to be
the real and true doctrine. The worst fault I can have
committed wUl, in this view, be that I have only shown
how the sinners of mankind may be saved by him, and
not how they may be saved scientifically.
Descending to the flotice of a few points of difficulty
Or censure that are more subordinate and particular,1 it is
often alleged as a fatal heresy that I reject the opinion
that Christ "suffers evil in direct substitution for the
evil, or penal suffering, that was due from us." (p. 194.)
Doubtless this may well enough be taken as a heresy, by
those who beHeve that Christ was literally punished for
our sins, or suffered penally on account of them. But
this is a doctrine openly discarded by most of the teach
ers of New England. They hold, instead, that God only
expresses in the sufferings of Christ what he would ex
press by our punishment, and that one expression is sub
stituted for the other as a ground of justification. And
exactly this is what I have asserted. The only difference
is that we do not exactly agree as to the mode in which
the expression is made. It is agreed between us that the
death of Christ is not penal, but demonstrative ; that God
wants no suffering to satisfy his resentments, but only
that, to save the integrity of his character and the au
thority of his government, he must needs declare his
righteousness in the remission of sins. When the ques
tion is, why must Christ suffer ? we take the answer of
Baxter in his " Family Catechism" — " To be an expiatory
sacrifice for sin. God thought it not meet, as he was the
just and holy Euler of the world, to forgive sin without
such a demonstration of his holiness and justice, as might
19

218 MISCONCEPTIONS
serve as well to the ends of his government, as if the
sinners had suffered themselves." (, vs *"
What now if I have denied that this " demonstration"
was made in a given way ; that is by penal suffering, or
by the expression of suffering, regarded as a laying on
upon Christ of the direct abhorrence of God to. sin?
Suppose I maintain that the suffering Hfe and death of
Christ avail to make an expression equally efficacious, to
the same end, by another method, (pp. 218-38,) is that
a fatal heresy ? Suppose I argue that there is no place
for laying abhorrence upon Christ, unless our sins (which
is impossible) are Hterally and really transferred to him
— that his person can not be abhorred, nor his character,
nor his place, nor his office, nor his work, nor any thing
else but simply our sin, which is not by any supposition
his ; agreeing, meantime, that, by " impHcation" or inefi-
rectly, he does express the abhorrence of God to sin as
profoundly as it is possible to be done even by punish
ment itself, (p. 237 and 272-3 ;) is this an abuse of my
Christian liberty, or a fatal departure from the faith ?
But I have said that the expression of God, which is
made in the sufferings of Christ, and which avails to our
justification, is real and efficacious only in virtue of the
fact that it is incidental, (pp. 201-2,) being what he
suffers not in the ostentation of suffering, or having that
as the direct object of his mission, but what he suffers in
his grand attempt to regenerate the world and re-establish
the lost union of souls with the divine nature. I have
also represented that every thing done by Christ, in pre
paring a way of justification for sinners, is done only as
the subordinate part or condition of a work that is more

REMOVED. 219
comprehensive, viz., the renovation or spiritual quicken
ing of lost men. But if, nevertheless, I affirm the indis
pensable necessity of this part or condition, subordinate
though it be ; if I say that, in order to make pardon a
want as well as to make it safe, it must be dispensed as
justification, or so dispensed as to cut off all appearance
of license and establish, before and upon all consciences,
the authority and sanctity and certain perpetuity of the
law violated by transgression, (pp. 219-272 ;) is it then
a breach upon the doctrine of justification that I affirm
its necessity for a double reason ? If it is necessary, first,
for the subordinate reason commonly asserted, and then,
secondly, to disturb the evU conscience of transgression
so as to prepare that spiritual quickening, which is the
comprehensive reason and last end of all, then it would
seem to be made quite as necessary under a double ne
cessity as under a single.
No, my offense here is simply this, that I make so
much more of Christ, than is sometimes made in our
meager theories and formulas, as to reflect dishonor on
them by the excess. Here, I think, is the bottom of
my offense. And it is a kind of offense which it is diffi
cult to soften by any kind of apology. I must violate
my faith as a disciple, my spiritual consciousness, all my
experience of Christ, every Christian feeling of my
bosom, even to think of mitigating the sharpness of my
offense by any words of explanation or concession. I
look into our treatises of theology, and they teU me that
these two elements constitute the gospel of our salvation.
First, that Christ has come between us and the judicial
desert of our sins, which they call distinctively the atone-

220 MISCONCEPTIONS
ment. Secon hat he has purchased the Holy Spirit
who, after p^^^^^has been made possible, is by 'his
secret efficiency to renew such as he will to salvation.
Connected with this, it is held as a theory by many
that human character, under sin, is wholly disabled, as
regards any quickening influence addressed to thought
and discovered in that way to feeting. No approach, in
this direction, of the divine love and patience, is means
to an end, they say, as regards the regeneration of the
soul; or can be of any avaU, save to exasperate the
maHgnity of sin. On one hand, then, we have a gate of
pardon opened by a legal provision ; on the other, the
Holy Spirit blowing where it listeth ; but there is no
Son of Man lifted up between, to draw us unto God, and
impregnate our faUen affections with the divine love.
The two dry factors above named constitute the gospel.
It is no gospel, but only a dull mechanical contrivance
of theology. Christ the wisdom of God and the
power ; Christ the manifested life ; Christ the image of ¦
the invisible God, who is to shine into our .hearts and
give the Hght of the knowledge of. the glory of God;
Christ lifted up to draw all men unto him ; Christ in
whom we are to be changed from glory to glory; God
manifest in the flesh; God in Christ reconciling the
world unto himself; is not here. Therefore, I say, this
is not the gospel ; it is only a speculative figment, cold
and dry, which scholastics have- schemed for us, in the
petty measures of the scientific understanding. Between
the two points here affirmed, justification on one side,
and the grace of the Spirit on the other-— that a mere
possibility, as it is commonly regarded ; this an inscru-

REMOVED. 221
table subjective agency — Christ the Living Word ap
pears and is Hfted up to be a gospel of power in the
world's feeHng. As a country Hes within its linear
boundaries, so he spreads out here as a vast realm of
sunlight and warmth, variegated prospect, streams of
living waters, and trees of heaHng. Here pre-eminently
is that Christ whom we preach — God with men ; God, in
his love and essential divinity, organicaUy united with
the human state, and become an active force in the out
ward history of the race ; God manifested to feeHng,
and breathed, as an atmosphere of life, into the world.
I look into the New Testament and I find fifty passages
that represent Christ as having come to 'regenerate,'
'quicken,' 'wash,' 'cleanse,' 'purify,' 'purge,' 'sanctify,'
' new create,' and set in God as ' branches in the vine,'
to one that speaks of him as a ground of mere judicial
acceptance. ' Some of these passages, which expressly
declare it as the end of his mission to regenerate holiness
in human character, I have cited ; (pp. 190-1 ;) and I
could have cited hundreds of corresponding passages, all
representing, in one way or another, that Christ came
to bring God's pure love and presence down to our
human feeHng, and hide the all regenerating leaven of
divinity in the ahenated and bitter history of the world.
Then, the Holy Spirit working as a subjective grace
within, to open inlets there for Christ lifted up as an
objective grace and power without, Christ is formed in
the soul, and it speaks out the new consciousness it
has of Hfe, saying, — Christ liveth in me. And so
we are washed, sanctified, justified in the name [or
power] of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God.
19*

222 MISCONCEPTIONS
This to me is the gospel, and I must preach it. If
you forbid me in doing it, then I must take my part
with Christ and not with you ; for when it comes to be a
matter of choice between Him and you, it shouH not be
difficult to prefer a whole Saviof without you, to a frac
tional theologic Savior with you. And yet there is no
such diversity between us, as may seem, in this alter
native* to be implied. This theologic Savior, after all, is
not the Savior that you preach. Some of you, I presume,
hold a view of Christ essentiaUy or practically one with
that which I have sketched — I should do you wrong to
hint that you do not — and you all preach in this manner
at times, whatever may be your theology. You preach
Christ as a power, the constraining love of Christ, the
cross as a cross of love and healing. You say, For
God so loved the world. You say, in Christ's name,
Come unto me. When you preach justification, it is
the 'justification of Hfe.' This is the power of your
preaching. Without this, whatever conviction of sin
you produce, you well understand, is only a dry and
sterile anguish. By this you dissolve the obstinacy,
melt the hardness, draw the reluctance, and fructify the
incapacity of sin. Even when you rejoice in the atone
ment, and preach it as the wisdom of God, it is not the
mere legal justification of theology that makes the
preaching fruitful ; but it is, in' great part, what you say
of Christ, one side of the mere theory — his mysterious
sacrifice, his love, the manner of his Hfe, the scene of his
passion — that has so great effect. So that if you can not
suffer my doctrine, I shall at least know that you preach
it, and shall only regret that you preach it against your

* REMOVED. 223
theology, when it would be so much better to make it
your theology itself.
Again, it seems to be imagined by many that, in the
interpretation I have given to the terms of the altar,
such as 'sacrifice,' 'propitiation,' 'ransom,' 'the bearing
of our sin,' and other substitutional forms of expression,
I have quite dissipated their meaning, or explained them
away. This certainly was not my design. I seem, on
the contrary, to have found a most real and powerful
meaning for them all ; a meaning of so great value that
they are endeared to me a hundred fold, and made to be
a hundred fold more sacred by means of it. I hope I
may be able, in another place, to bring some relief to
your anxieties on this subject. I only wish to say here
that a part of the difficulty experienced by many in my
representations, appears to be due to a want of exercise
in the matter of objective and subjective language, a
want which I can not whoUy supply ; and probably a
much greater part to the fact that such as are most
disturbed have reaUy no definite notion of what they
mean themselves, by the terms in question. I discover
this fact in private conversations continually. It is
objected, for example, that I deny the sacrifice of Christ.
Yes, I deny any thing and every thing of the outward
form of sacrifice in the death of Christ, and so does the
objector. Or, if not, he sees at a glance that he must.
Perhaps he has thought and been accustomed to say
that he holds the literal sacrifice of Christ. But the
moment his attention is held to the subject a little more
closely, he sees that he can not hold the Hteral, in the
sense of an outward, formal sacrifice. Then, admitting

224 MISCONCEPTIONS REMOVED.
this, the question rises, what does he hold ? A spirit
ual sacrifice certainly, one that is analogical to the out
ward sacrifice of the altar, and of which that is a type or
figure. So of aU the substitutional terms in question.
And then, pressing the subject to a settlement, he will
go to investigating aU these terms, in their outward
ritual form, to find what spiritual import and power
they, as figures, are best qualified to express; and he
wUl find that he is carried, by a regular and necessary
process, in just the direction I have taken. I will
venture, in short, to affirm that whoever of you wUl
undertake to settle precisely what he himself means by
the sacrifice of Christ, after rejecting the idea of a formal
outward sacrifice, wiU come to a result so nearly iden
tical with my supposed heresy, that he can not show the
difference. Nothing wUl prevent his doing it, unless it be
that he relapses, unconsciously and without knowing it,
into a construction of the word that reaUy identifies the
spiritual sense with the outward form ; instead of hold
ing the latter as a type anel figure only of the former,
separated from it, of course, as the sign from the
signified. For this is the most common and most
fruitful source of error in the use of words, that we first
deny their Hterality, and then, re-assuming what we have
denied, go on to make the figure the very essence and
measure of the truth.
I must therefore require it of you, first, and before
you blame the interpretation I have given, to settle
precisely what you mean yourselves by the terms in
question. Begin with a fixed denial of the outward
sacrifice and the literal bearing of our sins, and then,

FOUR VIEWS STATED. 225
holding fast your denial, settle, in the positive, what you
do mean. Then, and not tUl then, are you qualified to
pronounce on my error. And if this work requires a
year, or ten years of patient search and labor, as it has
cost me double that time, then adjourn your inquiry and
wait till the qualification is ready. For when ambiguity
takes the seat of judgment, attended by jealousy and
panic, her two powerful solicitors, there is no one who
can stand. Truth is no defense before such a tribunal.
Excuse these plain suggestions. I make them, not as
having any certain appHcation to you, but simply be
cause of what I discover, every day, in the private
intercourse of conversation. Meantime, having noticed,
in this manner, some of the particular topics of difficulty
in the doctrine of my book, I go on, from this point, to
open a new discussion of the whole subject.
Neglecting subordinate and less important distinctions,
four principal views or classes of view are asserted con
cerning Christ and his sacrifice ; that which regards it as
having effect on God, to procure release or pardon ;
that which regards it as having this effect on God, and
so, by the obHgation of endearment thus produced, an
effect on man or human character ; that which regards
it as operative wholly on man ; and that which regards
it as operative wholly on man, but, in order to this with
greater efficiency, as representatively operative on God.
The first may be caUed the objective view ; the second
the objective-subjective ; the third the subjective ; and
the fourth the subjective-objective. Let us glance at
these in their order; the object being to attain to a

226 OBJECTIVE VIEW.
distinct conception of the last, which is the view I have
asserted. I only premise that the terms objective and
subjective, employed in this connection by others, espe
cially by some of the German theologians, are not used
in a sense exactly coincident with that which I find it
necessary to give them, and therefore my intended
meaning in them must be derived from my own uses,
and not, to any great extent, from theirs.
I. The Objective. It is agreed by us all, that
Christ, by his mission to the race, or by his life and
death, has produced some effect ; and of course an effect
that falls somewhere, terminates on some object that
receives it. Then, if we ask where in the universe does
it fall, what object receives it, some teachers make
answer by saying that God receives it ; that it acts on
God, " satisfies God's justice, propitiates God, appeases
the wrath of God," and so procures terms of forgiveness
to sinners. This, rigidly affirmed and adhered to, is
what I have called the objective doctrine.
It is a view which many do certainly assert in. words,
and which many really think they hold ; a view which
I supposed to be holden self-understandingly, as you
will judge from some expressions in my book. But
I am led, on a closer examination, to doubt whether it is
actuaUy held by any, except by the half-discriminating
many, who rest in crude conceptions the real force and
limit of which they have never ascertained. They are
not the orthpdox professors or expounders of the doc
trine, but their over-literal disfeiples ; and the language
they employ is what Mr. Symington refers to, when he
speaks of " the misconceptions of friends," — friends, that

objective view. 227
is, who represent "the disposition of Jehovah to be
changed, by the Savior's sacrifice, from wrath to kind
ness ;" a mistake which is to be " viewed with unmingled
disapprobation and regret." — (Sym. Atone., p. 22.)
Accordingly you wiU find that, when the question is
raised, whether, after all, the atonement does not proceed
from the love of God instead of procuring that love ; or,
what is the same thing in a different form, whether God
is not essentially unchangeable in his dispositions ; all the
more capable investigators, such as Calvin, Baxter, and
Symington, are obliged to make some answer that vir
tually rejects the idea of an effect on God, by the suffer
ings and death of Christ, however strongly they may
seem to affirm it in other parts of the argument, when
this particular point is out of sight. I shall bring you
passages, in another place, from aU these writers, where,
having this point in view, they are seen to affirm the
very doctrine which constitutes my heresy ; passages
which distinctly declare that the effect of Christ's death
is immediately, in that sense wholly, on man, and only
mediately on God.
Meantime, if they argue for the atonement as " a satis
faction of the justice of God," they will say that they
speak in "the language of government not of passion."
(Sym. p, 27.) And they faU into an appearance of con
fusion, it will also be found, by not carefully and sharply
tracing the Hne or course of the effect wrought, and dis
tinguishing, in that manner, how it terminates in the
result of ^justification. Thus, if we take the mitigated
view more commonly held in New England, that which
regards the sufferings and death of Christ as affording an

228 objective view.
expression of the divine abhorrence to sin, equal to that
which would be made by the actual punishment of trans
gression, and so, as being substituted for that punishment ;
this scheme, you wUl see, supposes that the first effect is
wholly in men, or at least in the subjects ofigovernment
in this and other worlds, and not on God himself. For
what is " expression" but the correlate of impression,
measured by impression, nothing without impression.
Indeed, the true definition itself of expression is, that it
is that which communicates or impresses something.
Besides what, according to the supposition, is wanted, in
the way of government or justification, is to impress on
subjects that which will adequately preserve, in them, the
authority of law, when punishment is remitted. Accord
ingly the first, or immediate effect,' is wrought in men as
subjects, and then*mediately, through that, God is able to
hold a different governmental attitude to sinners, to for
give or justify.
Or take the less mitigated doctrine, that Christ actually
bears the penalty of transgression, and that so the justice
of God is executed on his person, as Tearing the sins of
the world. Then rises the question, what is penalty,
where Hes its value ? In the expression it makes of God
to his subjects certainly, not in the immediate satisfaction
it gives to himself. But here again expression to sub
jects is impression in subjects. It is made for impression
and in that has its end. The object of penalty, then, is
public impression, — no matter by whom it is suffered.
Whatever has value as punishment, has that value in
virtue of the impressions it yields. If Christ bears the
penalty, then Christ in bearing it, were there any thing

OBJECTIVE VIEW. 229
but absurdity in the thought, is to make the impression
of penalty on men or the subjects pf God ; and there, in
that first effect, is, in one view, the ground of justifica
tion; the precise heresy by which I have startled or
.offended so imany, when I say (p. 254) that " in one view
the ground of justification is subjectively prepared in us;
viz., in a state, or impression, or sense of the sacredness
of law, produced in us by Christ's Hfe and death."
It will also be made clear, by a much shorter method,
that the immediate, or first effect of Christ's work, can
not be on God ; for the simple reason that Christ in the
highest import of his person is God. For, take what
view we may of the three persons, he is not other than
God. Then, if we hold this point firmly and do not in-
termit our faith ; to .say that God, by acting on himself,
or by acting right and left in himself, satisfies his own
justice and works out the terms or even the awards of
government, whoUy within the circle of deity, without
passing out of that circle, wUl appear to every one to be
the ! simplest form of absurdity. But if Christ be re
garded as passing out of the circle of deity, to produce
an effect in subjects, then and so to enable the divine
government to open a new relation of pardon, in virtue
of that effect or impression, — a change that may be ob
jectively described as taking place in God, — the absurd
ity vanishes. It is not that God is changed, but only
that, having other conditions and possibilities before him
prepared in the impressions of men, he may dispense
other terms, or open other relations with the guUty,
without any infringement of governmental order.
I come, in this manner, to the conclusion that the ob-
20

230 OBJECTIVE-SUBJECTIVE VIEW.
jective view, in question, is not really held by competent
theologians of any school, however it may seem to be, in
much of the language they employ. Thus Mr. Syming
ton affirms (p. 25) that the atonement has a " bearing on
God," and even represents it to be " the office" itself of
Christ, " to appease the wrath of the high and lofty one
that inhabiteth eternity," (p. 163 ;) and yet his concessions
(p. 27) require us to understand his language, in such
forms of expression, as relating" only to the change of ad
ministration, accomplished in and through a mediate
effect or impression in subjects. He says, indeed, (p. 21,)
that the work of Christ is not " the cause of divine love,
mercy or grace, but the medium through which these per
fections of God find expression to guilty creatures." He
only does not see distinctly that "this expression, con
sidered as producing an impression in us or in subjects,
is also mediate as being the ground of that change of ad
ministration by which the guilty are forgiven.
II. The Objective-subjective ; that which regards
the work of Christ as having an effect'on God, to procure
release or pardon, and so, by the obligation of endear
ment produced, an effect on man or human character.
This view must fall, of course, with the other on which
it depends. Not that no such obligation of endearment
is produced, or that it has no effect. But as there is no
effect wrought in God, save one that is mediate and is
based in impressions made in men, (that being the only
real change that is wrought,) the true statement must be,
that God, having prepared a ground of justification by
impressions made in us, or in his subjects of this and

SUBJECTIVE VIEW. 231
other worlds, and so released our HabUities, has thus en
deared himself to our feeHng and become a renovating
power in our love. That is, God, by one subjective
effect, has obtained the power of another — by the sanctify
ing of his law in our impressions, has>*prepared the release
of our punishment and so has won a place in our love
and character. In this way the supposed secondary
effect, which is certainly real, is seen to result only from
another, equaUy subjective.
HI. The Subjective ; that which regards the work of
Christ as operative wholly on man. We have seen this
to be true already ; for if we take that form of doctrine
which comes nearest to affirming that the effect of
Christ's work is objective and is wrought in God ; viz.,
the doctrine that Christ actually bore the penalty of hu
man transgression in his sufferings and death ; even that,
when sounded to the bottom, supposes that the first effect
and the real change is wrought in us, or in subjects ;
having its value in the fact that it produces impressions
of the justice or righteousness of God and the integrity
and sanctity of his law, — the same which punishment
itself would have produced.
But this is a matter whoUy distinct from the concep
tions of those who, in later times, have asserted what is
called a subjective view of the work of Christ, as an
operative cause in the renewing of sinful character.
These latter think of nothing but simply of a regenera
tive movement on the world, and set their doctrine
against the other, raising a question of choice between
the two. Accordingly, it enters not into their account,

232 subjective view.
that any thing is done or need be to produce impressions
which fortify law and government in the administration
of pardon. Their doctrine is that Christ reconcUes us to
God, not that he reconcUes God to us ; and by the JatteT
and negative part, they suppose themselves to deny, or
drop out of place, every thing that looks for a compensa
tive or substitutional force, in the way of justification. Jus
tification is simply the making men just, — nothing more.
Contrary to this I am endeavoring, not to set one view
against the other, but to find a point where they coalesce
and become one. And I find the effect of Christ's work
to be as really subjective in one as in the other. I say
that Christ came to reconcUe us to God, and that this is
the whole account of his mission. And then that, in
order to this, it is necessary that pardon should be offered,
in a way to exclude every feeling of Hcense, and preserve
in us the deepest impression of the authority and sanctity
of law and the immutable justice of God. How else can
we be made to care for our sins, or to want any release
from their condemnation ; which is the first condition of a
regenerative movement? (pp. 219 and 272.) Andso, every
thing in the doctrine of Christ is brought down to the
one point of subjective impression, as related to the power
of spiritual obligation and the regeneration of souls in the
divine image. The work is one and simple, and the
term 'justification' covers the whole of it. We may dis
tinguish, in idea, the part which relates to a preservation
of the authority of law, from that which does not ; but
we must not separate them in fact. StUl it is aU im
pression, subjective impression, and the end is our recon
ciliation to God.

SUBJECTIVE VIEW. 233
To make the relation of my doctrine to the later doc
trine, commonly called subjective^ yet more explicit, it
may be well to bring this latter more distinctly into view
and state my exceptions to it.
The best example of it, familitr to our American
public, is that which is offered in the writings of Mr.
Coleridge. Christ, to him, is a power, — the wisdom of
God and the power. He is God manifest, God in Christ
reconciHng the world unto himself. His work has no
effect on God. Its whole effect and value is subjective.
It operates a change in the attitude of the divine only in
and through a change of character operated in us ; even
our spiritual renovation in goodness. In this view, many
of the most distinguished evangelical teachers of Ger
many, including Dr. Marsh and others of our own
country, substantially concur.
I should violate my most sacred convictions not to
profess that, in whatever is positive in these representa
tions, I also concur. I will go farther and say that, com
pared with our common theologic gospel, they are the
true gospel. They shock no moral sensibility. They
are Ml of divine warmth and power. They set the work
of Christ in a posture of intense sublimity. They meet
our deepest wants as sinners. They fill and transform
whatever heart wiU turn itself to receive them. When I
speak of them, I feel myself impelled to drop all thought
of personal issues, and speak of nothing else but simply to
entreat your earnest attention to this more vital and quick
ening view of the gospel ; bending your studies, and, with
your studies, centering your most earnest prayers on
Christ, as a gift of Life to men, — the incarnate Lord, ap-
20*

234 SUBJECTIVE VIEW.
proaching guilty souls on their human level, and suffering
them to break their enmity across his patience. You may
do some good, I know, by preaching a gospel that consists,
theoretically, in preparing the mere legal possibiHty of
release from punishment ; for there wiU commonly be a
power in the preaching that does not measure itself by
the meager theory of the preacher ; but you can never
preach Christ to men, till you preach him as the quick
ening power of God ; the way, the truth, and the life,
and, so, the Savior of the world. It is not preaching
Christ to preach about him as a Savior closeted in death
before some invisible throne of law, whose rigor he
softens by forensic transactions. He must be preached
as living and dying openly, with and before us ; preached
as a person, the manifested love, and beauty, and pa
tience of God — God with us, present to our sympathy, in
terms of human brotherhood.
But, while I avow this most hearty assent to the view
of Christ's work, which regards it as being designed to
operate wholly on men ; while I fail to discover any
positive error in it ; I feel bound, also, to acknowledge
that, in the form given it by Coleridge and his disci
ples, it has two very important defects which need to be
supplied. It fails, in the first place, to find any natural and
proper meaning for the objective terms of the altar. It
treats them in precisely the same way as it does the
figures of mere natural language appHed to him ; such,
for example, as, debt, payment, price, and the Hke, which
are casual only in their mode of occurrence. Whereas
the terms derived from the liturgical system of the altar '

subjective view. 235
are wholly artificial preparations, and the system itself is
declared to be appointed of God, to be a figure and form
and so a language, for the higher sacrifice and the nobler
remission of a new covenant, afterward to be given. It
is an outward religion of sense, prepared to be the mold
of an inward reHgion of spirit. But, in the view of Mr.
Coleridge, these termsj prepared by God, have no special
value and may even be disused. StiU there is nothing
for us to do, but to receive the historic matter of the in
carnation, and apply it subjectively as a curative med
icine to our own character. It holds the mind, thus, in
a state of vicious subjectivity, which very much hinders
the power of Christ as a grace offered to faith, in the
simple terms of the altar. And, for precisely this rea
son, the view is regarded by most Christians, as being
wholly remote from that which is the joy of all true
experience; or it is even looked upon by many, as a
doctrine that is cross to the plan of the gospel itself.
The other defect aUuded to is even more serious. It
makes nothing of justification, save in the sense that it
brings the soul out of sin into a state of faith and peace,
by a change of spiritual character. It lays no ground of
justification. The law, desecrated by sin, is not vindica
ted or set in authority, by any other manifestation of God's
righteousness, in place of that which punishment would
have yielded. To pardon, therefore, is merely to let go,
out of a spirit of divine clemency, apart from all care of
governmental order and authority. There is nothing left,
in this view, to maintain a sense of law, or keep a con
science alive in us. And so the result wiU be that,
having no care for our sins, no impression of them or

236 subjective view.
trouble on account of them, we shall be as indifferent
to mercy as to sin, and the whole work of Christ will
faU of its power.
In this view the doctrine of many Unitarians coincides;
as nearly as it is possible, in connection with the different
view they maintain of the person of Christ. I am well
aware of the disrespect, felt in this quarter, to any and
all speculations that suppose a necessity of some ground
of pardon, distinct from the mere paternity of God, and
I think I could easily account for it. The word 'justi
fication,' as distinct from pardon, is virtually disaUowed
or proscribed ; or, if it be retained in use, the meaning
aUowed to it differs in no degree from that of the word
' sanctification.' However much I could sympathize with
the repugnance they feel to many of the representations
associated with this word, I feel quite sure that the loss
they suffer, in rejecting it, is irreparable and great beyond
what they conceive. It is no real or sufficient gospel
to preach paternity to men. No sinner stops in his
sins, because God is a name for paternity. What cares
he for the paternity of God, until a voice of condemna
tion from God's holy inviolable law is heard ringing in
his soul to make paternity a need and call out the want,
in his bosom, of some grace that may save him from the
just demerit of his sin ? A first condition, therefore,
in the restoration of man, is that he be made to see the
iron substructure of eternal government jutting up
around him and hear it reverberating under his feet. And,
in order to this, pardon must come in a way of govern
mental order. It must be more than pardon — justifica
tion. It may not be necessary that something should be

subjective view. 237
done, to save or vindicate the honor and sanctity of the
law before the people of the Zodiac; but it must be
done before him. He must have impressions made in
him that answer to government, not merely to paternity ;
and he must see that no salvation is adequate, save that
which can open a passage through government, without
any breach upon its integrity and order. Without this,
aU that is said about paternity will cease, at length, to be
any thing better than a watery pathos, dissolving in its
own insipidity. The paternity, magnified and preached
as a gospel, wiU turn out, in the end, to be simple
nepotism. This, at least, is my conviction. The gospel of Christ
can not have its power without justification, in some real
and proper sense of the term, distinct from pardon on
one side, and sanctification on the other. And such,
most clearly, is the view of the scriptures ; which, if any
one disregards, or explains away, the penalty of impo
tence wiU assuredly foUow. More than once do they
write "righteousness" and "sanctification," "justify" and
" sanctify," in the same sentence ; not surely as repeti
tions of the same idea, but as somehow or in some degree
distinct and different one from the other. They not only
speak of Christ as the " manifested Life," but as " set
forth, also, to declare the righteousness of God, that God
may be just." AU the apostolic writings are full of this
distinction, and it is this which gives their representations
a sonorous and reverberative temperament of so great
energy. They make the work of God ring about the
conscience of their hearers. Preaching the remission
of sins that are past, they show the law standing in its

238 subjective-objective view,
sanctity, wedded fast to the unalterable righteousness of
God, and give, in that manner, out of the very Hfe and
death of Jesus himself, a proof most appalling, that.the
sins of the future, not forsaken, wUl meet their just and
sure reward.
Having noted these defects, in what is sometimes
called the subjective doctrine, we are brought to what I
undertook in my discourse at Cambridge to present as
the true doctrine.
IV. The Subjective-objective ; viz., that which re
gards the work of Christ as operative wholly on man ;
but in order to this, with greater effect, as representa
tively operative on God.
It differs from the objective as rejecting it and dis
covering, in fact, that no such doctrine is really held by
any competent -teacher; allowing, however, that such as
seem, in using the altar terms of scripture, to hold it, do,
after their manner carry something and, if they are not
too theoretic, much of the true force of the scripture
representations. It differs from the objective-subjective, in affirming
that the supposed subjective influence, or effect on char
acter, is not referrible to an effect wrought in God, by
which he is endeared to us, but, when properly investi
gated, to another subjective effect ; that is, to the fact that
God has wrought impressions in us, by the life, sufferings,
and death of Christ, answerable to the impressions that
would be made by the punishment of transgression. It
differs, also, from this, in regarding it as the principal
object of Christ's mission to operate on character, in the

HOW DIFFERENT. 239
direct way of communicating God to men, and not
merely in the circuitous way of endearment through
some supposed effect wrought in God.
It differs from the subjective, as admitting the general
and comprehensive truth affirmed in it, that Christ came
to reconcile us to God and not God to us ; but exposing
and supplying two important defects, showing in what
manner the terms of the altar may get their true import
and have their practical use; and how the release of
penalty is accomplished, so as to save the integrity of
government and the ends of pubHc justice. Let us now
see if this, which is the doctrine of my discourse at Cam
bridge, can be made inteHigible and verified as the
Christian doctrine.
It does not seem to have been observed by my ortho
dox friends, as it very well might have been, that my
discourse on the atonement was addressed to a Unitarian
audience. Many of the difficulties they find with my
doctrine originate, I am quite sure, in this oversight.
What I have caUed the subjective view of the atonement
was the only one in which I could hope to find sym
pathy, or any thing but repugnance in my audience.
And accordingly, as I did not wish to part company
with them at the beginning, this was presented first.
Then the endeavor was, from this as a basis or first truth,
commended to their patience and if possible their ac
ceptance, to pass over to the objective view, which con
tains the substance of our orthodox formula, and carry a
realization of that. Hence, in part, the aspect of un
reality or fiction of which some have complained. Had
I begun at the objective side and presented the whole

240 CHRIST A SACRIFICE,
subject in a reverse order, they might not have been sat
isfied, but I think they would have been much less dis
turbed. Let us try the effect by an experiment.
Christ appears in the world as represented historically
in the gospels. His miraculous birth, his life, teachings,
miracles, trial, death, resurrection, ascension, all take
place in the world of fact and become historic verities.
In these facts or verities, we have the whole matter of his
work. As viewed historically and by human eyes, his
work or life-matter is this, neither more nor less. Of
course there is nothing in the nature of sacrifice to be
spoken of, — in proper historic fact no sacrifice is trans
acted. There is no priest, no altar, no fire, no confession
of sin, no absolution passed, in the scene of the cruci
fixion. None of the spectators of the death of Christ
sees any such transaction, or has any the least suspicion
that what he looks upon is any thing different from a
judicial murder. It is no more Hkely to them that his
death will be represented as a sacrifice, than that the be
heading of John will be ; for, taken as in the world of
outward fact, it is no more a sacrifice than the beheading
of John.
But the mind of God beholds a force or meaning in
the transaction, which man does not, and which mere
human history does not and could not suspect. He be
holds a transaction here, that touches the inmost relations
of His own being and government to souls, and their re
lations under sin to Himself. He is prosecuting here, in
fact, a great fore-determined plan of redemption, — the
justification of sinners and their reconciliation to him:
self in newness of life.

IN WHAT MANNER. 241
To give us now the secret force of his plan, or to set
us in a condition to receive the grace intended, he takes
up the historic matter of Christ's life and death just, de
scribed, and offers it to us under a form that was not in
the facts themselves, taken simply as facts ; a form which,
asserted historically, would even be untrue ; but which,
taken as representing a certain mysterious interior force
in the facts, is profoundly true and real. He caUs the
death of Christ a sacrifice, an offering, a propitiation ; de
clares the remission of sins in his blood; represents him as
bearing the sins of mankind in a way of vicarious substitu
tion ; cans him the Lamb of God that taketh away the sins
of the world. And then he invites us to come and exer
cise faith in him, as being aU these, and so a complete
salvation. Now the question is, wherein lies the truth of this
altar-view of the Savior's death and what does it mean ?
And the answer is, first of all, that it is not, by the sup
position, a properly historic truth or truth of fact; for,
in that sense, there was no sacrifice. Christ was not
offered, according to the human view, as a sacrifice. He
was offered as a sacrifice, only in some such representa
tive, tropical, or mystic sense, as God alone could discern
the truth of; a sense affixed or ascribed, but not in the
historic form of the facts.
Asking stfll in what sense a sacrifice, we discover next
that he is in no such sense a sacrifice that he can not, as
weU and as truly, be called a high priest and a mercy-
seat (mistranslated in the word "propitiation," Eom. iii.,
25) and a vail of the temple, at the same time. And
here it is clear again, that taken as a spiritual sacrifice,
21

242 PROPITIATION.
he must not be so imprisoned by the figure, that the
other figures can not be appHed, with a spiritual signifi
cance, as freely as this. t
Thus far we go without obstruction ; but the question
stUl remains, what is the true interior meaning of the
altar forms or figures above named, as applied to the
Savior's death ? Obviously we can find no answer to
the inquiry, except as we faU back upon these forms of
the ancient ritual service, and take our gauge of them,
according to the meanings and associations in which they
are there invested.
This now I wUl do ; only, to avoid confusion, I will
select a single one of these altar terms and gather my
illustrations round that by itself. I take the figure of
propitiation. Thus, God is declared to have sent his
Son to be the propitiation for our sins. In what sense a
propitiation ? In such a sense, I answer, as a Hebrew,
accustomed to offer his propitiatory sacrifice for sin,
would find in the figure, taken as a figure; such a
sense, in other words, as the force of the analogy would
carry. What then is the feeling or thought he has,
when he comes to offer his propitiatory sacrifice upon
the altar? Comprehensively, it is this; that he is here
to propitiate God. His soul is burdened by his sin.
God is angry. He wants peace. He comes therefore
with his offering, to propitiate or reconcUe God, and
obtain absolution or the remission of his sins.
Tell him, then, that Christ is offered once for all, as a
propitiation for sin ; call upon him to come and beHeve
in Christ as being a sufficient and everlasting propitia
tion ; and he will conceive, accepting the form of his

PROPITIATION. 243
thought as being the truth itself, that Christ is said to
have propitiated God, or made him propitious to sinners ;
turned away God's wrath ; pacified him ; or perhaps
reconciled him.
This, taken as speculative theologic doctrine, would
be what I have called the objective view. It calls upon
a lost world to come and rest their salvation upon the
sacrifice of Jesus ; declaring that he has smoothed away
the righteous anger of God, brought in peace and par
don, and provided a free justification for us, by satisfy
ing, in our stead, the righteous demands of God against
us. But we go back now, once more, to the Hebrew at his
sacrifice and finding him engaged, as we just saw, to
propitiate God, we venture to ask him whether, after all,
it is God that wants propitiating, or himself that wants
reconciling to God ? If he be a man of the earlier ages
under the ritual, he is Hkely not to understand the
question. But if he be a worshiper of the later times,
the time, for example, of David and the prophets, when
the reflective habit is a little more unfolded, and piety is
growing more subjective, he wUl begin to revolve the
question internally, and wiU finally reply that he finds
the need of a sacrifice in himself, and the wants of his
own character as a sinner, and not in God. He will also
bring into view the fact that God is unchangeable.
' No, I do not suppose,' he wUl answer, ' that God wants
propitiating so much as I want changing in my spirit ;
for our David acknowledges in his hymns that God is
"not hungry" for "the flesh of bulls and goats," but
calls rather for the " thanksgivings" of the heart and the

244 PROPITIATION.
fulfillment of our " vows to the Most High." God also
bade our prophet Isaiah tell us that the multitude of
sacrifices is to no purpose, unless we cleanse our lives ;
that he is "full of burnt offerings and the fat of fed
beasts"' — "bring no more vain oblations, incense is an
abomination unto me." And he said, in like manner, to
our prophet Amos, "I hate, I despise your feast days;
though ye offer me burnt offerings and meat offerings,
I will not accept them. But let judgment run down as
waters, and righteousness as a mighty stream." Yes,
one thing is clear,' he wUl say on deHberation, 'that no
offering propitiates God, unless the heart goes with the
offering and ascends to God in the smoke of it.' And
when he has come to this, he will begin, most certainly,
to inquire whether it be not, after all, the very objeet of
the offering or sacrifice, to work a change in his own
spiritual dispositions, and bring him thus into a new
state of penitence and peace with God. And the
moment such a thought occurs to him, or dawns upon
his understanding, and he begins to see the objective
form of the rite as related to his subjective exercise, it
will be as if he were just coming to a distinct apprehen
sion of its nature and value. Solemnly enjoined upon
the nation by God, as the condition of the forgiveness
of sins, he will see that the observance is a most impres
sive public acknowledgment of God, admirably fitted
to produce and perpetuate, in the bosom of the whole
nation, the profoundest convictions of the sanctity of
God's law, and of spiritual obligation to his government.
Or, adverting to what is more immediately personal to
himself, he wUl see that in this rite of sacrifice — a rite

PROPITIATION. 245
of expense, an offering too of blood or the Hfe, which is
sacred, to God — he consecrates, in his own feeHng, the
violated law before which he comes to be absolved;
awakens in himself a sense of sin correspondently vivid,
coupled with a want of forgiveness equally pressing;
and that, so, when he comes with his offering to pro
pitiate God, he becomes, if he is sincere, and by aid of
his exercise, a different man. The reality of the pro
pitiation oonsists in the fact that he is brought into a
real and true peace with God. It is not that he is made
perfect as a comer thereunto, by observing it as a mere
ceremony ; but if he is in it in faith, as an exercise and
help to faith, it wUl cany results of a more inward
quality — a spiritual absolution, a state of spiritual peace
and reconciliation with God. The objective propitiation
will be executed by a state of inward conformity, love,
and confidence.
This then is the real force of the old rite of sacrifice.
If now it be declared, once more, that God hath sent his
Son to be a propitiation for the sins of the world, it will
be found, in Hke manner, that while the form of the
thought is objective, the real change is subjective — not a
change in God, but a change rather in the sinner him
self; so that when he comes to hang himself in faith
upon Christ as> his altar of peace, trusting in his blood
for the remission of sins, the faith he exercises, uniting
him, as it will, to the person and the spirit of his Savior,
will be found to have carried a total subjective change
and renovation of his life ; and the peace he looked for
will come through a reconciHation of his own disobe
dient and evil nature to God. And thus it wUl be
21*

246 PROPITIATION
evident that the declaration of Christ, as a propitiation
for the sins of the world, is one, at the root, with thte
declaration that God is in Christ reconciling the world
unto himself — all the altar texts one, at the root, with that
most specific declaration, which affirms that God hath
sent his Son to bless every one of us, by turning us
away from his iniquities. In a word, the objective view,
that which looks to the propitiating of God to sinners, is
seen to be one and the same, when sounded to the
bottom, with the subjective, that looks to the reconcUing
of sinners to God.
I say ' one and the same.' They are different in form,
different in power, and fulfill different uses; and yet
they issue at the same point where they get their prac
tical meaning and verity, viz.,in the subjective renova
tion of the sinner. If we look upon Christ in the simple
historic aspect of his Hfe, the Divine Word incarnate;
living thus in the flesh as an historic manifestation of
God ; teaching, doing mighty works, and suffering, to com
municate God and his character to men; there is un
doubtedly produced in us, by these facts, an inferior and
so far different impression from that which is produced,
when the interior sense, or mystical power, of these
facts, is embodied and offered to our faith in the forms
of the altar. When God represents the history under
these altar forms, an impression is made that is both
impossible and inconceivable under any other ; an im
pression that, transcends the mere speculative under
standing and the natural symbols of language ; and yet
such as to meet all the secret relations of a soul, under
sin, to God's mysterious rule and the transcendent

PROPITIATION. 247
methods and counsels of his government, as the eternal
king of the universe.
¦< StiU the grand issue is the same, whichever of the two
conceptions of propitiation we take, the representatively
objective, or the subjective; that which looks to a
pacification of God, or that which contemplates a change
in us. And it is sufficiently accurate to say that the
former, representatively taken, is the latter. It is not
said, as in the theologicaUy objective view just described
and discarded, that God is, literally speaking, appeased
by an effect wrought in him, which must (as in the
objective-subjective view) bring a great renovating
power to act upon our character; but it is said that
every thing is done direetly for our renovation, and to
set us in union with God; to accomplish which, with
the greatest certainty and effect, and to bring us into the
fittest and most transcendent relationship of peace with
his holy government, it is necessary that Christ, or the
given historic matter of his Hfe and death, should be set
before us in the objective mystic forms of the altar — an
offering, a sacrifice rendered up to God, a propitiation
for our sins. Also that the altar service was ordained
by God's special appointment, in part, to be a shadow or
type, in this manner, of the good things to come ; that
is, to furnish a form of art, or a mystic terminology, for
the realizing, in us, of impressions and a character,
exactly meeting the transcendent relations of a finite
transgressor to an infinite being and government — im
pressions, it wUl be seen, that none but mystic symbols,
or such as transcend our speculative understanding, can
fitly and sufficiently realize.

248 PROPITIATION
But where is the reaHty then, it may be asked, of this
representatively objective view? What soHdity has it?
What is it but a figment having no real substance or
value ? '
Precisely contrary to this, it is far more efficient and
more powerfully true and closer to our wants, than the
other. The most impotent, unreal, and inefficacious of
aU forms of thought, are commonly the subjective. We
are never inspired and kindled by any but objective
views of things, such as carry us clear of ourselves and
of all self-inspection ; and it even seems probable that,
in a perfect state of being, where every creature is to be
elevated by a full inspiration of life and strength from
God, aU thought and all truth wUl take the objective
vital form, as being most efficient, closest to nature, and
most really true.
Is it a mere fiction or unreaHty, when I say, object
ively, " it is dark," instead of saying, subjectively, " I
am dark," for this is the real fact, — " it is cold," instead
of " I am cold," — " it is sweet," instead of " I have a
sense of sweetness," — or that " death is our enemy," in
stead of " we disHke and dread our own act of dying," —
or that " time is swift," instead of " our internal states
and successions transpire rapidly," — or that " a certain
place is dangerous," instead of " we shall be apprehen
sive and, perhaps, receive actual detriment in the place"?
Language is full of these objective forms of thought,
which, though in one view they have no reality, are yet,
in another and more practical, the, most profoundly real
of aU. If we had none' but subjective language, we
should even die of inanity. No truth, we may almost

A SUBSTANTIAL TRUTH. 249
gay, is perfectly represented till it has found some ob
jective form.
Let us return, a moment now, to the objective altar-
form of propitiation, and try the reaHty of that repre
sentation, by comparison with another, which is famOiar
to us all. We speak of prevailing in prayer ; a phrase,
it will be observed, that corresponds almost exactly, as
regards the form of the thought, with propitiation.
The Hebrew came, with his offering, to render it up to
God and thus to propitiate God, or move him to be pro
pitious. We go to God in prayer to prevaU with him ;
that is, by our requests and importunities, to turn him,
or render him so propitious as to give us the particular
blessing we ask. The offering of the victim and the
offering of the prayer are both by divine ordinance or
appointment, and one as truly as the other ; and the form
of the thought, viz., to propitiate or attract the favor of
God, is nearly identical in both.
But the form of the thought in prayer, proposing thus
to prevail with God, — wherein lies its truth? Prayer
does not inform God of any thing, which he did not
know before. It does not make the object prayed for
any better than it was, or worthier of his attention. It
does not make God any better disposed than he was, or
more gracious ; indeed he is immutable. And yet there
are gifts bestowed, that otherwise would not have been
bestowed ; the suppHant prevails, or may, in his request.
How? on what principle? Simply on the ground that
he has been brought into such a state, by a subjective
change realized in himself, through or by means of his
exercise in the prayer, that his request may therefore be

250 PROPITIATION
granted. He has informed God of nothing, made him no
better, made his object no worthier of God; but he has
had such an exercise himself as God designed to give
him, and has come into such a state as God propgged to
secure, when he instituted the economy of prayer ; there
fore his prayer is granted. In form of thought, he has
been trying to prevail with God, and he says that he has
prevailed; and yet the precise point, where the success
of his prayer hinged, was on the subjective change or
prevailing realized in himself.
Neither let it be conceived that this is the same with
that half infidel view, which justifies prayer only on the
ground that it is a good self-magnetizing exercise. As far
from that as possible. On the contrary, it regards prayer
even as a cause among causes, and thinks it just as ab
surd that the particular cause, prayer, should be foUowed
by nothing as an effect, as that other causes should be.
It no more involves a change in God, than the effects
wrought by other causes ; for it is a part of God's immu
tability that all causes shall be foUowed by effects which,
to his infinite wisdom, are appropriate. And without the
causes they will not follow.
At the same time, it must be understood, that God in
stitutes prayer, not for the improvement of himself or his
government, but to benefit the suppHant and perfect the
unity of his kingdom. The design of it is to draw the sup
pHant closer to himself, teach him how to believe or ex
ercise faith, how to find acquaintance with God and make
realizations of God, by a method more immediate than by
any instruction at second hand ; so to confirm the soul
of the suppliant, in every thing good and pleasing.to

A SUBSTANTIAL TRUTH. 251
himself. It is also meant to teach him how to love the
objects prayed for, to enlarge and encourage that love.
It is also a plan, by which God weaves the good of all
nations and possibly of all ages together, first in love,
then in ties of mutual benefaction, as their prayers have
called down blessings upon others, who were friends or
enemies, neighbors or strangers in distant climes. These,
we may beHeve, are God's objects in the spiritual econ
omy of prayer, and the suppHants prevaU just accord
ingly as they prevail with themselves, or come into those
states which God proposed to encourage and perfect, by
means of the ordinance of prayer. These are the causes,
the answers the effects.
Then it is a mere fiction, one may say, to speak of pre
vailing with God at all. Since we do not make him
otherwise disposed, but only become otherwise disposed
ourselves, we only prevaU with ourselves. I answer in
reply, that although success in prayer hinges principally
on exercises and results wrought in the suppliant him
self, -and not on the turning of God, there is yet, by the
supposition, such a thing as success. Blessings, other
wise withheld, are yielded to the requests made, on con
ditions that are fulfiUed in the suppliant ; and so he does
prevaU as truly and reaUy as if he changed the mind of
God. And so, when we speak of propitiating God, the
subjective impressions and dispositions wrought in the
sacrificer, or the disciple, are themselves the ground or
condition of peace and divine manifestations in the soul,
otherwise not yielded. God is really become propitious,
only not by effects wrought in himself, but in his wor
shiper. Nor is it any mere fiction, when God is thus

252 PROPITIATION
said to be prevailed with or propitiated, but a most real
truth ; for it serves the real and true uses of the mind.
Thus, if it better serves the true uses of life to say " it is
dark," instead of saying. "I am dark;" or to speak of
time or death as objectively existing, when in fact they
are only subjective, then such forms of speech, though
not literally true .as forms, are yet the best instruments
of true uses, which is the only test of truth.
Besides there is an immense practical advantage, in
the objective form, as you may easily discover. For
suppose it were required of us to speak, not of prevailing
with God in prayer, because that is a fiction, but of pre
vailing rather with ourselves. The suppliant coming
now before God, with his mind introverted, and having
it as the form of his thought to prevail with himself, that
is, to draw himself into the very states of desire, depend
ence, purity and love, which God meant to secure by the
ordinance of prayer, — occupied in this mere subjective
way, he will, for that reason, accomplish nothing ; unless
it be to annihilate all simplicity in his feeHng, turn his
prayers into reflective and self-culturing efforts, and blend
so many artificial thoughts with his exercise, that he will
scarcely know whether he prays or not. And so, if we
insist that no man shall pray as if to prevail with God,
but only as if to prevail with himself, prayer will sink,
at once, into the worst abortion and poorest lie conceiv
able. The form of thought, in the exercise, must be out
ward, the draft of the mind must be objective — toward
God, to prevail with God, simple, unreflective, inartifi
cial, — and then the soul of the suppliant wiU itself he
harnessed into that precise state of wantf love and devo-

A SUBSTANTIAL TRUTH. 253
tion which is requisite, and is, in fact, the real matter to
be prevailed in. What, then, do we conclude, but that
speaking of prevaUmg with God, holding that objective
form of thought, is accepting no fiction or unreality, but
the most real and soHd rather of all representations, be
cause it is the only one that serves the real and true uses
of the soul.
Just so must we look upon the propitiatory offering
of the Hebrew worshiper. He comes to propitiate God,
and that, exactly, is the form of thought that wiU best
assist him in coming into the subjective state of recon-
cihation which is necessary, to find God propitious and
to be established in peace with him. Which being true,
this form of thought is no unreaHty or fiction ; for it is
that alone, by or through which the man will come into
the state of peace with God which he is after. Since the
subjective change of reconcUiation to God can no way be
effected so weU as to have the worshiper, in his offering,
trying, in humble sorrow and contrition, to propitiate
God, what farther proof is needed of the solid and prac
tical verity of such a form of thought ? Even though
God is not to be propitiated by a change in Himself, the
form of thought, taken as a type of action for the soul,
is still more true than any other ; just as it is more true
to say that the " sun rises," when it does not, than to say
" we are rolled up into the view of the sun," — because it
better meets the practical uses of Hfe.
The same is to be said when speaking of Christ as a
propitiation for sin, and of all the kindred forms and
figures of the altar. If the matter is to reconcUe us or
renew us in love, and not to reconcile God by a change
22

254 PROPITIATION
in him, still there is a most solid reaHty in these altar-
forms. Taken as objective to faith, they set us in just
that attitude in which the reconciling power of Christ
wiU be most efficacious ; just as we pray most effectually,
when our thought is to prevail with God, and not when
we think only of prevailing with ourselves.
And here, precisely, is the truly divine art of the
gospel plan. The Unitarian can not believe it. Christ,
he affirms, most truly, has come to reconcile us to God.
Then he concludes, most falsely, that propitiation and all
such Jewish figures as speak of reconciling God to us
only obscure the truth. Let them be dismissed. And
now there is nothing left him for a gospel, but to faU to
being reconcUed to God, or propitiated subjectively to
ward him, which is about the same kind of operation, as
regards success, that it would be if one were to think
only, in prayer, of prevailing with himself !
Meantime the speculative orthodox, those I mean who
really hold, or think they hold the first and second of the
four views, above stated, take up the objective forms of the
altar and begin to theorize upon them and build them
into what they call a scheme of atonement. Just as one
might take up the expression, " the sun rises," and work
it logically out into a Ptolemaic system of astronomy,
(when of course it becomes untrue,) so it is shown to the
school, by the most certain logic, how God, as the gov
ernor of the world, could not let go the just penalties
of sin without being propitiated, first, by some effect
wrought in himself. All the grand, life-giving objectiv
ities of the altar undergo a Hke theologic transformation,
every one to be emptied of its value ; and then, ceasing

A SUBSTANTIAL TRUTH. 255
to be a symbol for the support of faith and a contrite
spirit, to become, instead, not seldom, a stumbling-block
to reason and a hindrance even to the peace of the soul.
Avowing both errors, the true evangelism goes to
Christ, in perfect simpHcity, to believe in him as the
propitiation, the sin offering, the expiatory sacrifice, the
blood of remission ; taking these objective forms accord
ing to their most natural power and expression, to hang
itself on them as the altar of peace and forgiveness.
Self is forgotten. God is embraced as another name for
peace. And the soul, breathing out her contrition by
the altar against which her faith is leaning, feels a change
transpire within. She is free. In the name of Christ
she lives.
/^uo I then say that these objective altar-forms are more
affecting than the proper history itself of Christ's life
and person, more moving than the garden, more subduing
than the cross? By no means. They are not to be
viewed in contrast, or as raising a contrast between them,
but in unity, — the outward history as having its inward
force and import revealed or impressed in the terms of
the altar. These latter have, in fact, a double value,
taken as complementary to the other. First, they bring
out the high transcendent relations and the secret spirit
ual meaning of the history ; and secondly, they set us in a
position of mental objectivity, where, the garden and the
cross can better exert their power, than if we were look
ing to be moved or penetrated by them ; the position, viz.
of simple, unreflective, out-going trust, where no thought
turns to look after itself, but the whole being occupied
with trust, becomes unconscious to the change going on

256 OTHER TERMS OF THE ALTAR.
in itseh0 and therefore more completely open to the poweT,
by which that change is wrought ; more facUe, as respects
the relations to God and his government, into which it
is to be inserted.
Thus far my illustration has been hung upon the sin
gle term propitiation. I selected this, because it is the
one most boldly objective and would therefore assist me
to make the exposition more distinct than any otheT.
But the same process wUl resolve all the kindred terms
of the altar-service — ' offering,' 'sacrifice,' 'blood,' 'sprink
ling,' 'atonement,' 'ransom,' 'remission,' 'reconciliation.'
These all hang upon the altar and are used to signify
some particular reference, or complexion of thought, con
nected with the rites of the altar. The victim as pre
sented to God, is an offering. As consecrated to him and
lost to the owner, it is a sacrifice. Looked upon as a holy
or sacred substance in the offering, it is the blood, which
is the life, and so the sprinkling of consecration. Consid
ered as making amends for sin to the law, it is atonement,
in the sense of expiation ; a word not used in the scrip
ture. Begarded as conciliating God, it is propitiation.
As the procuring cause of release, it is ransom. As issu
ing in release itself, it is remission. And, as resulting
thus in mutual peace between God and the worshiper,
it is reconciliation. These terms, all lying about the same
center, and separated by no absolutely definite Hnes, are
clothed of course in common associations, and, to the
same extent, run together in their signification. Indeed
they are many of them one and the same word in the
original Hebrew, which, passing into the Greek of the

ATONEMENT. 257
Septuagint and the New Testament, and through these
into the Enghsh translation, is represented finally by so
many different words. This original Hebrew word sig
nifies^ Hterally, to cover ; the radical idea being that one
who comes to offer a victim, comes to cover his sin.
If now we take the word atonement in the sense of ex
piation, and put it through the same process that we have
traced in the word propitiation, we bring it to the same
result. The Hebrew worshiper comes to expiate, or
atone, or make amends for, his sins. As in propitiation
his thought was objectively occupied with propitiating
God, so here it is objectively occupied with giving him
that compensation that wiU make him propitious— expi
ating the sin that angers him. If now you ask him
whether he really supposes, that offering his animal
makes amends for his sins, your question may perplex
him, and, if he is a rude man, little exercised in tracing
distinctions, he may feel obHged to say that it does.
And yet, if you press him with the absurdity of suppos
ing that God has any use to make of the blood of bulls
and goats, such that he is wiHing to accept his victim in
commutation for his sins, he is Hkely to say — ' yes, but
there must be some right meaning in my transaction,
whether I can understand it or not, and, as God requires
it, I wiU do as he commands. Of this I am consciously
certain, at the least, that I consent, in my sacrifice, to the
law I have broken by my transgressions, that I feel how
good and holy it is, and that my sacrifice helps me feel it.
The law is never so sacred in its authority ; I never feel
its Obligation so much as when I come, in this expensive
22*

258 ATONEMENT.
way, to make amends for the violation I have done it.
And when my remission is pronounced, and I go home
to my tribe again, I go under an impression of the sacred
authority of my obligations to God greatly strengthened
by what I have done, — strengthened even more than
they would be if God stood upon his rigor, and would not
forgive.' Now in this you perceive, that while his form of
thought . is objective, proposing to expiate or make
amends for his sin, the real effect he describes is subject
ive ; viz. that he has come under a higher impression of
the sanctity of the law he has violated and a new purpose
of obedience to it. We ourselves speak in the same
manner, when, having offended another, we say that we
will go and make ' reparation,' or go and ' redress' the
injury. It may not be that we restore the amount of our
injury ; for the injury may be of a kind that allows no
recompense or restitution. We only mean that we will
go and put him in the right and ourselves in the wrong ;
which is all the case admits.
Accordingly, when this figure of atonement, or expia
tory sacrifice, passes into the New Testament and is there
applied to Christ, we are to understand, that whUe, in
form of thought, he expiates our sin before God by his
sufferings and death, the real force of the transaction,
thus objectively stated, is that he produces in us and the
world of mankind an impression that God is right, and
sin/ is wrong, and the law holy, and obedience just, that
will as much fortify the public authority of God, as if he
had stood inflexibly for punishment and, by no such ex
piation, sought to release it. Then, having this impres-

REMISSION. 259
sion secured, it may weU be released or remitted ; — only
it wiU be needful, on our part, that we embrace, in faith
and a spirit of true repentance, such as would gladly
make amends for the injury it has done, the sacrifice that
has been offered.
But remission again is another of the terms on our list.
And this too the Hebrew worshiper holds in a form of
thought whoUy objective. It is an absolution promised
on the part of God and pronounced by the priest. Ask
him now what effect or value this formal remission can
have? Perhaps it never occurred to him, before, that
his sin is a law of bad causation, a law of sin and death
in his soul. And, if so, he is likely to be perplexed
again, even worse than before. But he will gather up
himself, at last, and say, ' God promised to give me remis
sion, and clear me of my sin, and since he is faithful I
will trust him to make it, somehow, a reality in me.
Nay more, I found as I went away from the sacrifice,
that I was not under the power of sin as before ; I had a
better conscience, a freer spirit of obedience, a new desire
after God and purity of life. Therefore I believe that
my sin is somehow broken in its power, and that what I
experience within answers to the remission I sought.'
And so, again, of the remission offered in Jesus Christ.
Objective, in form of thought, it has its reality in an in
ternal absolution from the law of sin ; a regeneration of
the spirit in duty, love and purity. There is, therefore,
now no condemnation ; for the law of the spirit of life,
in Christ Jesus, hath made me free from the law of sin
and death.

260 CLEANSING.
Thus far, we have been seeing how the objective terms
of the altar have their reaHty and verity, in subjective
effects, wrought in the worshipers; which effects are
wrought only the more certainly, by means of the simpli
city of the objective representations employed. At the
same time, it is remarkable, a fact which I do not recol
lect to have seen mentioned, that the ritual itself was
still so arranged as to lead the thoughtful mind almost
certainly to a consideration of subjective effects accom-
pHshed or to be accomplished in the ritual service. This
is done by means of what is said of sacrifices, atonements,
sprinklings, and the Hke, as connected with cleansing,
or a state of cleanness. Thus it is declared — "For on
that day, shall the priest make an atonement for you, to
cleanse you, that ye may be clean from all your sins be
fore the Lord." And in this word clean, even if we say
that it means ceremonially clean, the mind is stiU carried
along, by a kind of necessary implication, in a line of
subjective thought, parallel to the objectivities of the
altar, and made to note effects of spiritual cleansing
wrought in itself, answering, as equivalents, to the out
ward cleansing of the altar. In a more reflective age of
the world, this kind of exercise would have been more
conspicuously manifest; and yet it is sufficiently so.
For so closely was the idea of purification, purgation,
cleansing, associated with sacrifice or atonement, that the
word cover, translated variously, as we have seen, but
more commonly, atonement, is used again and again to
signify purification. (Exod. xxix. 36 ; xxx. 10 ; Numb.
xxxv. 33 ; 1 Sam. iii. 14 ; Ezek. xliii. 20 and 26 ; Isaiah
vi. 7.) Thus, in the last case for example, the word

SUBJECTIVE. 261
cover, [atone,] is applied directly as denoting a subjective
purification of character, — " So this hath touched thy
lips, and thine iniquity is taken away, and thy sin is
purged." If now we ask how, or by what law of use, the word
cover [atone, expiate,] was transformed in meaning, so as
to signify a cleansing effect, purely spiritual and subject
ive ; the answer must be that in aU its uses, however
objective, it was so closely associated with a subjective
change or purification, that from one meaning it naturally
slid into the other. Or if it be true, as a writer in the
Princeton Essays, (Vol. H. p. 54,) affirms, that the original
meaning of the word translated atone, is not to cover, but
to cleanse, or purify ; then, we only see how the whole
scheme of the altar was connected, at the root, and by the
closest possible associations, with the notion of a subject
ive power. Besides it is remarkable, however this may
be, that notwithstanding the speciaUy unreflective, out
going habit of the Hebrews, we discover a tendency in
them, so early developed, to find some spiritually sub
jective sense, in all their most objective and even fleshly
rites. Thus it was that circumcision, associated with the
idea of cleanness, slid into a spiritual application. "And
the Lord thy God wUl circumcise thine heart and the
heart of thy seed to love the Lord thy God."
Having discovered, in this manner, how the objective
forms of the ancient ritual had their meaning and value
in subjective results or effects, we are ready, with double
evidence, to go into the New Testament and show that
all which is said of Christ as a sacrifice, and of his blood

262 THE CHRISTIAN USES
as connected with the remission of sins, is to be under
stood, in what I have called the subjective-objective
method. And, indeed, we can see this fact standing out, even to
our eye, in the very language employed concerning his
sacrifice. First, in the fact that both kinds of terms are
applied to Christ; who is represented, here, as having
offered himself to God ; and, here, as having come to .
reconcile us unto God. Secondly, in the fact that so
many representations, derived from the sacrifice of the
altar and applied to him, are yet applied in a way to
show that there is a subjective reference in them to our
purification ; as when it is written — " Who loved the
church and gave himself for it, [language of sacrifice,]
that he might sanctify and cleanse it, with the washing
of water, by the word" — " that washed us from our sins
in his blood" — " have washed their robes and made them
white in the blood of the Lamb" — " who gave himself
for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and
purify unto himself a peculiar people" — " when he had
himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of
the Majesty on high." Or, to give two passages that
present the subjective-objective view, both of the Old
Testament sacrifice and the spiritual sacrifice of Christ
together:— "For if the blood of bulls and goats and the
ashes of an heifer, sprinkling the unclean, sanctifieth to
the purifying of the flesh, how much more shall the blood
of Christ purge your conscience" — "And almost all
things are, by the law, purged with blood, and without
shedding of blood there is no remission ; it was therefore
necessary that the patterns of heavenly things [the Mo-

CORRESPOND. 263
saic] should be purified with these, but the heavenly
things themselves [the Christian] with better sacrifices
than these." In all this language, you perceive how
closely the ritual sacrifices are associated, in the Hebrew
mind, with the idea of a subjective lustral effect — no
matter whether it be the " purifying of the flesh" or the
spirit ; for even when they spoke and formaUy thought
only of purifying the flesh, there was yet associated, more
or less consciously, the sense of some lustral effect upon
the sins of the soul. And then the Christian doctrine
follows, representing Christ as the atoning sacrifice that
is to wash, or purge, or purify, the souls under sin.
As, in my discourse at Cambridge, I discarded the
common idea that the death of Christ was required to
fortify the righteousness of God in the forgiveness of sin
before other worlds, it may comfort the disturbed feeling of
some, if I add that the institution of priesthood and sacri
fice does appear, in certain intimations of scripture, to be
a transcendental and, possibly, in some qualified sense, a
universal institution. Undoubtedly Christ is Word of
the Father before aU worlds ; and, in that sense, a me
dium of knowledge and approach to the Father. And
as the principal idea of the priestly office is, that the
priest is medium, or mediator, between souls and God ;
the Word is thus the Eternal Priest of the universe
— a priest forever after the order of Melchisedek;
making eternal intercession [eternally intervening or
coming between] for us and all created minds. So he is
figured, standing before the Father, as the unseen spirit
ual Majesty, to open the way and be, as it were, their

264 THE ETERNAL, UNIVERSAL
advocate, to bring them near. In this view, he will
manage for all according to their state and necessity ; for
the sinless and pure, if such there be, as sinless ; for sin
ners as sinners ; though by us, under sin, the office of
the priest is commonly supposed to be inherently related
to sin ; because, in our case, it practically is and must be
But according to the more general conception, just sug
gested, the institution of a priesthood (including sacrifice
where sacrifice is wanted) has its transcendental ground
in the nature of God ; that is in the Word, as the form,
or visible glory of the Father. And this, perhaps, is
what is hinted to us in the " unchangeable priesthood ;"
" the example and shadow of heavenly things ;" " the
patterns of things seen in the heavens," or "in the
mount ;" " the high priest, who is a minister of the true
tabernacle, which the Lord pitched and not man." It is
not meant, of course, that outward sacrifices are offered
in the heavenly places ; but only that these taken as
outward, in connection with the outward priesthood, are
good as images ; bases of words ; correspondences, the
Swedenborgians would say; types, our fathers have
said ; or, better still than either, patterns, shadows of good
things to come, as the scriptures themselves declare. My
own conviction is that the institution of the altar, useful
of course to them that worship in its ritual, was princi
pally designed to prepare impressions and terms of lan
guage for "the good things to come," the "heavenly
things themselves, sometime to be manifested, in the
transcendent mystery of Christ, the Word made flesh.
They are patterns in the world of sense, artificially pre
pared, to represent and express the otherwise inconceiv-

PRIESTHOOD OF CHRIST. 265
able and supernatural work of Christ in the earth. Their
connection with Christ is not accidental, but, in some
sense, even before aU worlds. They are copies of a
tianseendent something in the heavens, or the Word of
the heavens ; to be as letter to spirit, and to be fulfilled
in due time by the heavenly things themselves, brought
down to earth, in the incarnation of the Word.
Holding this conception of the universal priesthood
of Christ, and of the altar service as related to its appro
priate manifestation among the sinners of mankind, we
get, perhaps, the true meaning of Christ, when he says — ¦
"other sheep I have, that are not of this fold ;" and of
Paul, when he says, " that he might reconcile all things
to himself, whether they be things in earth or things in
heaven," — " that, in the dispensation of the fullness of
times, he might gather together, in one, all things in
Christ, both which are in heaven and which are on
earth," — "far above all principaHty and power, and
might and dominion, and every name that is named, not
only in this world, but in that which is to come," — " and
gave him to be head over all things to the church, which
is his body, the fullness of him that filleth all in all."
In this language it may be conceded that we have the
large view set forth of Christ's universal and eternal
priesthood ; in which he becomes, in literal fact, head
over all things to the church, and the church a body
commensurate with the universal kingdom of God, " the
fullness of him that fiUeth aU in all ;" language that can
hardly be appHed to the fragmentary, feeble body, caUed
the church, in this world.
I have referred to this transcendent view of Christ
23

266 THE ETERNAL, UNIVERSAL
and his priesthood, simply to show you that, whUe I
discard the idea that his sacrifice, here, is made for effect
in other worlds, and not speciaUy on us, I am as far as
possible from admitting that low and shallow conceit
which supposes that sacrifices were human inventions,
and that when the language of sacrifice is appHed to--
Christ, it is merely an accidental and casual application
of figures, that might as well not have been used, and
ought, in reason, to be dispensed with. It is only a part
of the same view that Christ is an accident, and that
redemption is no real plan of God in the earth ; prepared
by no shadows, in the past, that connect with good
things to come, in the future.. Contrary to this, I am
readier to believe that the beginning connects with the
end, and the end with the beginning, and that, back of
all, the sublime superstructure rests on a foundation
wholly transcendent in the divine nature itself, — the
essential, eternal, universal, priesthood of the Word.
Accordingly, these altar terms, which I have been
trying to explain, are to be regarded as being essentially
sacred preparations. They are the Eternal and True
Form of the doctrine of Christ, and therefore must
neither be explained away, nor resolved into any specu
lative formula, that shall be virtuaUy substituted for
them. No such formula is possible, that is better than a
remote and scarcely significant approximation. We must
receive them all, objective and subjective, as they stand in
the scripture, and use them as an inward ritual,'designed
to work in the heart their own transcendent, life-giving
impressions. No man thinks it possible to give the
import of the ritual, in the Episcopal or Eomish service,

PRIESTHOOD OF CHRIST. 267
in a simple theoretic formula. As little can we invent
any article or formula that will give us a Christ, in the
terms of abstraction or logical system. If God was
obliged to incarnate his Son, and pass him through a
life and death, and prepare, by long ages of history, an
artificial and divine terminology to embody and repre
sent the grace of his priesthood, we certainly can not so
far outdo him, as to put forth a true Christ, in a single
sentence of theory.
There may be some one or two truths, concerning
him, which it is well enough to adopt as formulas of
confession ; only provided it be understood how remote
and partial they are — dull caricatures only of his great
work ; finger-points only of reference ; Hnes that repre
sent him only as the lines of some table of contents may
represent the poem that follows, in the book. And a
man might as weU feast himself on the table of contents
prefixed to an epic or a tragedy, as to preach any
formula, as being the true substance and equivalent of
the work of Christ. We must let the gospel have its
own terminology — offering, sacrifice, atonement, propi
tiation, lamb, blood, remission, cleansing; answered, all,
by the naturally descriptive words of fact and history —
Truth, Love, Sorrow, the manger, the garden, the cross,
the kingdom.
But I have said nothing, as yet, of the particular
doctrine of justification ; save that there is such a doc
trine, which is necessary to be maintained, and that,
whatever view of it may be asserted, the grounds of the
supposed justification wiU be resolvable, in the last

268 THE QUESTION OF
degree, into subjective impressions of the sanctity of the
law and the righteousness of God, produced in us by
the life and passion of Christ. The doctrine of Christ,
prepared in the terms of the altar service, has no strictly
historic connection with the doctrine of Christ, asserted
under the form of justification. The two doctrines,
distinct in form and the historic origin of their symbols,
are only coincident in their general substance. One is
priestly in its form and origin, the other stands in sym
bols derived from law and governmental order, and is
more nearly political and speculative in its form. One
is the doctrine of' Christ under patterns seen in the
mount. The other is the same doctrine set in forms
generated, more directly, by human thought and inquiry
under human law.
The particular question of justification appears to
have originated, as a speculative question, in the Jewish
schools. Thus, when Christ came, he found the Sad-
ducees, the Unitarians of the day, and the Pharisees,
who stood for Mosaic orthodoxy, debating the question :
on what ground shall a man be accepted, what is it
that makes a man just, or justifies him, before God ? A
genuine, proper question, that every human being must
encounter; only not always, perhaps, in the politico-
speculative form of the issue here stated. The Saddu-
cees maintained that a man is justified simply on the
ground of being just in fact ; that is, making to himself a
just and right character. The Pharisees, that a man is
justified, because of his keeping exactly all the com
mandments and ritual appointments, or fulfilling the
letter of the Mosaic law. Christ meets the questidBs as

JUSTIFICATION. 269
he finds it, and, since it is a question of so great import,
proposes the true answer. This appears to be his aim
in the parable of the Pharisee and the publican ; the
latter of whom he represents as a sinner, smiting on his
r breast and crying, ' God be merciful,' and so going down
to his house 1 justified.' Taking sides with neither party,
he propounds indeed, at the very beginning of his
ministry, a doctrine that rejects the opposing tenets of
both ; declaring that God has sent his Son into the world,
not to condemn, but to save the world — " He that beHev-
eth on him is not condemned" — or, what is the same, is
justified. This he said in immediate connection with
his discourse on regeneration, which he had just closed
by saying that the Son is to be Hfted up for healing or
spiritual transformation ; so that whosoever looks to him
and believeth in him should not perish, but have ever
lasting Hfe. The doctrine then is that faith in him is to
regenerate, or to be a subjectively regenerated life ; and so
is to subjectively justify, or remove condemnation. Let
us see if we can trace the method.
God, as governor of the world, presides in justice,
connecting evU with transgression ; vindicating thus his
own character, the integrity of his governmental order,
and the sanctity of his law. How then can he acquit or
justify the transgressor? How, in the incarnate mission
of Jesus Christ, has he done it ?
Here we are met, on either hand, by two distinct
schools, supposed to be even more radically opposite to
each other than the Pharisees and the Sadducees, who
yet agree in the common opinion, that whatever justice
23*

270 NOT TRUE THAT GOD
requires, God must somehow execute ; and that, since
every punishment threatened, or laid by God in the way
of transgression, is just, punishment must have its way
and can not be stayed, without a breach of God's honor
and the essential justice of his law.
Thus, on one side, or in the school of extreme specu
lative orthodoxy, represented by such writers as Mr.
Symington, it is held that, in order to relieve us of the
just penalty of transgression, God's justice must be exe
cuted and satisfied in some other way ; which is done
by Christ accepting and bearing the penalty in his own
person, our sins being imputed to him and assumed by
him for this object.
On the other, in the school of modern Unitarianism,
it is held that God can not deliver us of the just penalty
of our sins at all ; that we must bear it in the full and
exact measure of justice, and that our only hope is to
wear a passage through and get our deliverance, by the
patient process of exhaustion. The argument is, that as
God is just, his character requires him to do justice;
that he is immutable and can not reverse his decreed
penalties ; and especially that we are all under the pen
alty of justice now, in as far as we transgress ; the penalty
being executed in us by a necessary law of nature, which,
as God can not change it without a miracle, must pour its
currents upon us, till we become good enough to go clear,
under the same retributive law of cause and effect, which
grates in misery and bondage on our bad experience.
There is no possibility of a sudden remission, apprehended
by faith and sealed by a new spiritual birth. We must
begin to grow better, by a regular process of culture and

MUST EXECUTE PENALTY. 271
amendment, and we must go on tiU we run out the flow
of penal consequence and get the laws of retribution on
our side. If a man is dying, at the end of a criminal,
ungodly life, there is no hope for him, save that, in the
moment that remains between the lightning and the
thunder, he may possibly work a little merely incipient
improvement in his character. And then, dying under
the terms of justice, these terms will keep, him company,
as the only comfort of his passage and his only hope
beyond. The former doctrine I reject, because of the necessary
insignificance of any scheme, which represents God as
executing penalties on himself and realizing public
retribution for sin, by transactions within the circle of his
own divinity ; also because, if it could be significant, if
we could either undeify Christ, or throw the penal bur
dens of justice upon his humanity, taken separately
from his divinity, the willingness of God to accept the
woes of innocence, instead of the woes of guilt, would
only indicate the confusion or loss of all moral distinc
tions — a readiness to be satisfied with the stipulated
quantum of woe, and let justice perish by a double sacri
fice ; first by releasing the pains of guilt, and again by
receiving the pains of holiness.
The other doctrine I reject, first, because, in taking
away God's freedom to any virtue but justice, it takes
away the virtue also of that ; reducing Him to a Nemesis,
against whose fated and repulsive rigors all our warmest
conceptions of the divine beauty raise themselves in a
mutiny of unbelief; so that if we say we believe, we shall
only be found to have let down the precept of the law,

272 NOT TRUE THAT GOD
just enough to accommodate our faith in the forbidding
rigors of the penalty, — just enough to save God's pater
nity by the laxity of his principles, after it has been lost
by the judicial sternness of his retributions. Secondly,
because it wholly displaces the gospel, as a message of
good news from heaven; denying even the possibiHty
of pardon or remission, in any sense that gives it an
effective value. Nothing can be said of pardon, save that
it signifies a forgiving feeHng in God to the penitent. It
is that feeling, nothing more. He is under bonds to jus
tice not to bless himself, in executing the pardon or
making it effectual to the sinner, by any intervention
that disturbs the penaLcurrents of retribution.
It is ceittiiuy remarkable, that a scheme which de
lights in maintaining the paternity of God, as its emi
nent distinction, should yet resolve itself into a mere
Law of Betribution ; a law so inexpiable and unmitigable,
that God's pardons are as much restricted by it as the
wickedness of men. I see not why the paternity of faU-
ing bodies might not be affirmed, with as much reason,
and as good an appearance of gospel lenity. Only now
and then, however, is this doctrine set forth in its naked
rigor and carried fmUy out to its limit, as, with sublime
fidelity to logical consequence, it is done by Dr. Dewey,
in his very nearly shocking discourse on " Betribution."
Probably it is not apprehended, by many Unitarians, as
being a necessary part or condition of their system. And
yet I have never been able to see how, in rigorous con
struction, they have room for any thing else. Excluding
justification by faith, this law of retribution seems, in
fact, to be their gospel.

MUST EXECUTE PENALTY. 27S
Rejecting, in this manner, the fundamental assumption
that, in order to be just, God must execute the penalties
of justice, whether on Christ or on men, I take the
ground that Christianity is a plan by which God pro
poses to justify the guilty, without any proper execution
of penalty at all. I take the same ground here with Dr.
Griffin, who maintains that Christ, " so far from endur
ing our punishment, died to prevent our punishment."
(Atone., p. 152.) And, again, that what he has done
avails by "expression" solely, not by the "endurance of
misery as accepted in measure or kind." (p. 156.) Also,
that "justice is not satisfied" and " the law is not," but
only the "protector of law ;" where he adds — " Then men,
in expressing this truth in figurative language, said the
law was satisfied. At length, when a system was to be
supported, the figurative origin of the phrase was for
gotten, and the Hteral meaning was transmuted into
marble and erected, in the church, as a standard of ortho
doxy." (pp. 157-8.) Dr. Dwight also declares, to the
same effect, that the "sufferings of Christ were of no
value as mere sufferings," but only as in consideration of
the fact that they were undergone for a valuable end, and
borne fey a good mind, with the spirit of benevolence
and piety." (Serm. LIII.) Which is the same as to say
that their value lay in their expression.
Looking now for some ground of justification that Hes
in expression ; or, what is only a term answering to this,
in impression ; let us go back to first principles and trace
the process by which a ground of justification for sinners
is prepared in the mission of Christ.

274 justice
We recognize, at the root of all moral distinctions, two
distinct, simple ideas or principles ; first the idea or prin
ciple of justice ; and secondly that of beneficence trans
cending justice ; one a reciprocal idea, represented by
the word jus, which denotes fitness — that which answers
to desert ; the other an idea which regards simply the
inward disposition of the agent himself, his state of love,
and moves him, apart from aU terms of reciprocity, all
considerations of desert, to do good and extend favor,
wherever he can do it, or in love can find an opportunity.
Thus, if some distinguished resident of our city had,
last night, been murdered in his bed, our citizens would
be heard, this morning, instigating the pursuit and arrest
of the murderer and the public redress of the crime. ' Let
justice be done upon him, let him receive his desert,'
would be the universal cry. This is the judicial instinct
in our nature ; which, if we call it a vindictive, is so far
from being a criminal instinct that, without it, neither
law nor the protection of innocence would be possible.
If we suppose the criminal, in the next place, to be ar
rested, and if now the wife of the murdered man, despite
of her personal wrong, begins to study the comfort of the
guilty man's cell, sending in gifts that may soften the rigor
of his confinement, and addressing him in messages of
counsel and kindness that may win him to repentance ;
that is love, beneficenee, mercy — a virtue that transcends
aU considerations of reciprocity or desert, and indulges
itself in pure favor.
It is sometimes argued, as a truth of consequence, that
justice is only a form of benevolence. And as justice,
like all other virtues, such as truth, meekness and purity,

AND MERCY. 275
is a useful virtue, necessary to social happiness and
beauty, it can plausibly be inferred that perfect benevo
lence includes them all. Nay, it even includes sleep
and digestion, in the same manner. And yet it may not
be exactly true that we sleep and digest, for consciously
benevolent reasons. But the question is not how far we
can spread a word by our constructions, but whether,
even if the penalties of justice seem to be needed as de
fenses of the pubHc welfare, we may not still, in fact, be
moved to their execution, by another kind of virtue than
that which is occupied in the computation of beneficial
consequences; whether, just as we receive the truth
because it is true, not because of the beneficial conse
quences, we may not and do not execute justice.also be
cause it is just and for no other reason. Or, if we think
of beneficial consequences, as we naturally must, whether
stiU we are not backed by a different influence, viz., by
the judicial and avenging instinct called justice. Have
we not a respect to desert as well as to public effect ?
Undoubtedly we have, and if God were to maintain a
government of pure justice, it would have respect to
nothing else. He would set every thing upon a footing
of reciprocity, and the exceUence of his administration
would be, that he does to every man exactly as he de
serves ; observing always the inherently fit connection
(for that is the idea of justice) between right and reward,
between wrong and suffering.
Justice, then, is not a form of benevolence, but a virtue
ideally distinguished from it. It is the virtue of recipro
city. In commerce, it commands the giving to every
man his due; in rectoral administration, the giving to

276 justice
every subject what is fit or equal, a good match for his
desert. Bevenge is the perversion of justice, a spirit ar
rayed against wrong, not simply as wrong, but in a ma
levolent zeal to redress the selfish griefs of passion or
pride. But it does not follow, you will observe, that because
justice is a virtue under conditions of reciprocity^ there
is therefore no higher kind of virtue transcending reci
procity. If it be right, on terms of reciprocity, to give
every man what he deserves, it is a yet higher kind of
virtue, to be able, under patience, forbearance and com
passion, when it can be done safely, to give to men what
is better than they deserve. And this precisely is the
relation of justice and mercy. Justice gives what a man
deserves ; mercy what is better than he deserves. And
one forbids the other.
Apply now this distinction to the divine government.
God is himself a being of the highest virtue. Love is the
reigning spirit of his character and dispositions. To do
to men simply as they deserve is not a scale of adminis
tration that meets, or at all satisfies, his dispositions. He
can rest only in doing to all creatures what is better than
they deserve, even the best possible. But he must ac
commodate his administration to us as well as to him
self, to our wants as well as to his own dispositions.
And, in this view, he must make a beginning with us,
under the terms of law and j ustice. For we need, first of
all, to have the notion of law developed in us, by an expe
rience under law. And the law must be in the impera
tive, it must say do this ; and, to enforce the obligation
or command, a sanction that _ is _ appropriate must be

AND MERCY. 277
added. The sanction must be one that stands in terms
of justice. It would even be frivolous to say do this, in
the imperative, and add, as proper to the enforcement,
that he wiU otherwise do to the transgressor — better than
he deserves. Or, if we speak of law as revealed in the
conscience, and not in terms of outward commandment,
it must here connect with a certain fearful looking for
of evil, answering to the deserts of transgression. And,
in order to this, or to the enforcement of obligation in
this manner, the scale of nature and the laws of expe
rience must be so adjusted as to return evU for evil, and
answer, in groans of disorder, incapacity and misery, to
the wrongs of transgression. The scale of natural expe
rience must be arranged so as to make its appeal to us,
not through the disinterested motives of truth, beauty,
and goodness ; but through the interested motives of loss
and gain ; answering, on one hand, to the law of desert
or retributive justice ; and, on the other, to the fact that
we are creatures who require, at the beginning, a disci
pline of interest, and are capable of ascending to the
higher conception of disinterested motive, and the ideal
freedom of devotion or self-annihilation, only as we are
prepared to it, under the schoolmaster discipline. As
the experimental is first in order with us, and the ideal
comes after, the fomentations of advantage and loss, hope
and fear, must be first appHed.
Such is the condition of law ; and under the friction
of an experience thus ordered, we come into the full
sense of God's government, as a government of will and
authority, an established order which, if we resist, we
can not escape. We find that sin, attended always and
24

278 LAW AND GRACE.
scorched by the evils of a retributive experience, becomes
itself a law in the members; propagating sin as the pen
alty of sin, and with sin every sort of internal mischief,
dislocation, discord, bitterness, and bondage. By the
same retributive experience, the sense of desert and self-
condemnation is sharpened to a keen remorse, and a weU-
instructed certainty of greater evils to come. And so,
dying under law and justice, we are ready for another
kind of handling, that of love and mercy ; which, begin
ning at the point of loss and self-renouncing despair,
may raise us up into the disinterested, ideal' virtue of
love and devotion. The law is our schoolmaster to bring
us to Christ ; which, if it be said of the Mosaic law, is
said of it only as being the type of that first stage of dis
cipline, just described.
Here enters the divine movement called redemption'.
Not that God has concluded to be better than he at first
intended ; but that, having made us know ourselves and
sin, — for by the law is the knowledge of sin,' — we are now
able to receive better things. Therefore he brings into
action, as confronting the scheme of justice and recipro
city, a scheme of love and mercy which, in a certain
sense, contends against the retributive action of the
former ; and which, if we can suffer it, may deliver and
redeem us from its power. If we call the primary Or the
scheme of justice natural, the second or the scheme of
mercy, that which proposes to do by us better than we
deserve, is the supernatural. And as mercy rejoiceth
against judgment, these two powers are to be figured as
contesting over us and around us each to get possession
of our destiny. We only must not imagine that God is

NATURAL AND SUPERNATURAL. 279
divided against himself, or that he is working miracles
to overcome his own appointed laws ; for however dis
tinct in idea the two systems, the natural and the super
natural, may be to us, they are yet, in some higher view,
one system to Him. Indeed if we speak of them as con
testing, one against the other, they are yet, in another
view, co-workers,in preparing us to the one result which
is dearest to his goodness ; and we spend our Hves be
tween them, seeking our orbit under them, as the orbs
of heaven seek theirs, between the systematically con
testing forces by which they are swayed.
In this view, it results that what we caU our state of
probation, under sin, is neither a state of penalty, nor
the contrary ; but an anomalous and mixed state, a state
in which we are held between contesting powers. It
can not be said that the law is executing its penalties
upon us, or that Combe on the Constitution of Man con
tains the whole gospel of Hfe ; neither is it true that the
gospel of Christ's mercy has shut away the contact of
justice and retributive order. The waves of justice mee&,
the waves of mercy, controverting and quaHfying each
other ; mercy tempering the flow of justice and inter
spacing its distributions with the softer gifts of favor
and compassion ; justice applying its rugged fomenta
tions and shooting its pains into the complacent bosom
of prosperous and confident sin. And the design is, by
the mutual contact of these two powers, to give us the
benefit of both ; not to discontinue one and substitute/'
the other. '
Accordingly we see that whatever is undertaken or
done for our redemption, or by Christ as revealing and

280 GROUNDS OF
consummating the redemptive movement, nothing can be
so done as to break asunder and aboHsh the system of
law and justice ; for the joint action of both forces is
necessary and one as truly as the other. We need as
much to feel the sacred authority of law, and the conse
quent evil and iU desert of sin, as we do to be delivered
from the power and just condemnation of sin ; for with
out one, we shall be whoUy indifferent to and incapable
of the other. What is wanted, therefore, is that our de
liverance be wrought in some way that shaU compHment
the law and be a virtual justification before it. But in
order to this, it is not necessary, of course, that the pen
alty we are under should be exacted of Christ, or exe
cuted on Christ, because it is not executed on us. All
that is needed is that the future action of law and recip
rocal justice be made certain, in case the transgression is
continued ; and, if it is forsaken, that the pardon should
be yielded, under a provision so tempered as to save the
sanctity of law and the rectoral honor and authority of
God in its administration. In other words, some ex
pression of God requires to be made, that wUl as effectu
ally impress our mind with a sense of fear and ill-desert
in transgression, as the execution of penalty would do
under a system of pure justice. If Christ and the Holy
Spirit, one revealing the divine love and feeHng before
us, and the other breasting the currents of judicial conse
quence and misery within, rescue us, by their joint ac
tion, from the primal dispensation of law ; it needs to be
so done that God shall appear to honor that dispensation
and not to be arrayed in discontent against it — so done
that, instead of encouraging license in us, we shall rather

JUSTIFICATION. 281
feel the more deeply the exceeding sinfulness of our sin
and the certain destruction, in which, unrepented of, it
will end. If we say that justice must be satisfied, it is
not that justice as a mere subjective impulse or feeHng in
God must be; but only that the reciprocal system of
public law, the system of retributive order he adminis
ters, must be vindicated by some transaction or expression
that will as effectuaUy honor it in the conscience, verify
it to the fears, and sanctify it in the reverence of man
kind, as ff the penalties of justice were literally and
rigidly executed.
How this has been effected, in the life and death of
Christ, I endeavored to show, in the twenty pages of my
discourse at Cambridge, which seem to have been so gen
erally overlooked, (pp. 218-38 ;) and I think it can not be
necessary to go over the ground of the argument again.
Sufftee to say that, in the pages referred to, I specified
four methods by which he fortified the sanctity of law
and the judicial righteousness of God, in the impressions
of mankind. First, by the more rigorous and impressive
announcement of its penal retributions, in the future life.
Secondly, by his own transcendent obedience to its pre
cepts, and the exhibition of its sacred beauty in his cha
racter. Thirdly, by the expense and pains-taking of his
suffering Hfe and passion, viewed as undergone to re
establish it in us. Fourthly, in the article of his bloody
death, considered as counterpart to the uses of blood in
the ritual service ; where blood, as containing the life, is
regarded as a sacred element which, by its application,
consecrates, again, the Just Name and Law of the Being
2i*

282 GROUNDS OF
whose altar it sprinkles — removing, thus, the dishonors
of transgression and clothing in authority, before the
evU conscience of sin, the throne it has violated.
If the persons who have been so much offended by the
heresy of my doctrine of Christ, had given a Httle atten
tion to these twenty pages, and had seen that refusing to
be comforted in justice is not the same thing, as refusing
to be comforted in sin or sorrow, I think it would have
been as much to the advantage of their patience and
candor as of their comfort. Or, admitting that I am
wholly mistaken here, as to the manner in which Christ
made the requisite expression of God, or the requisite
impression in us, to constitute a ground of justification;
they might still comfort themselves in observing, that
the mistake involves no fatal heresy. For if I had denied
every thing which the wit of man has been able to devise,
concerning the matter in question, I should still be found
within the limits of accepted orthodoxy. Thus bishop
Butler says, and a hundred parallel authorities could be
cited : —
" How and in what particular way it [the sacrifice of
Christ] had this efficacy, there are not wanting persons
who have endeavored to explain ; but I do not find that
the scripture has explained it. We seem to be very
much in the dark concerning the manner in which the
ancients understood atonement to be made, i. e. pardon
to be obtained by sacrifices. And if the scripture has, as
surely it has, left this matter of the satisfaction of Christ
mysterious, left somewhat in it unrevealed, all conjec
tures about it must be, if not evidently absurd, yet at
least uncertain. The doctrine of the Gospel appears to

JUSTIFICATION. 283
be, not only that Christ taught the efficacy of repentance,
but rendered it of the efficacy of which it is by what he
did and suffered for us ; that he obtained for us the ben
efit of having our repentance accepted unto eternal life ;
not only that he revealed to sinners that they were in a
capacity of salvation, and how they might obtain it ; but
moreover that he put them into this capacity of salvation
by what he did and suffered for them ; put us into a
capacity of escaping future punishment and obtaining
future happiness. And it is our wisdom thankfully to
accept the benefit, by performing the conditions upon
which it is offered, on our part, without disputing how it
was procured on his." — (Analogy, p. 220.)
I hope it wiU not be charged as a heresy in me, that I
am not as negative in my view of the subject as bishop
Butler ; denying that the scriptures give us any light on
the question how it is that Christ " rendered repentance
of the efficacy of which it is, by what he did and suf
fered." Neither can it be a heresy, as regards the matter
of justification, if I state no such alternative between re
pentance unavailing, and "repentance accepted unto
eternal life ;" for, if I maintain that Christ makes repent
ance possible and a fact, and makes it efficacious in par
don or absolution, by one and'the same process, I do not
therefore deny the essential truth of justification, that he
makes it efficacious. I only affirm that he has " put us
in this capacity of salvation" and also in another at the
same time.
I am well aware that in the account I have made of
the sufferings of Christ, in the twenty pages referred to,
and in other representations of my book, I do not coin-

284 GROUNDS OF
oide with certain current impressions ; and if these be
held immovably, as beyond the possibility of correction
or qualification, what I have said must, so far, be
unsatisfactory. I could not wish it to be otherwise. I
assume the right, as I feel it to be my duty, to violate
these impressions. Only be it observed that, in doing
it, I still adhere, as firmly as others, to the necessity of a
ground of justification, prepared in the sufferings and
death of Christ.
Thus it appears that some have been offended by my
denial that the sufferings of Christ are accepted of God,
as a direct substitute, or a substitute in kind for our
sufferings. Drs. Griffin and Dwight, as you have seen,
do the same. Besides, I feel bound to say, yet more
emphatically than before, that this whole scheme of suf
fering in Christ, substituted direetly for penal suffering
in us, is a bare assumption, justified by no scripture
authority whatever. It stands connected always with
the representation that the victim in the ancient sacrifice
had its atoning power, in virtue of the suffering put upon
it ; a representation favored by no word of the ancient
Hebrew literature. On the contrary, the atoning power
of the victim stands connected rather with the pains, or
pains-taking expense of the owner himself, and it is
under a figure of correspondence with these that Christ
atones for sin. Accordingly we find, as a fact that is
absolutely decisive on the point in question, that atone
ments were ordered in money as well as in the sacrifice
of victims ; where, of course, the atoning power depends,
not on the suffering of the money, but on the expense
and loss incurred in it. " Then shall they give, every

JUSTIFICATION. 285
man, a ransom for his soul, half a shekel, after the
shekel of the sanctuary ; and then shalt thou take the
atonement money that it may be a memorial unto the
children of Israel before the Lord, to make an atonement
for your sins." It corresponds also that, in the ceremony
of the scape-goat, it is expressly required that the animal
shall not suffer, but " shall be presented alive before the
Lord, to make an atonement," and be " let go for a
scape-goat into the wilderness." You perceive, in both
these cases, as clearly as possible, that the notion of
atonement rested not on the sufferings of the victim at
all, but on the expense and loss and pains-taking con
fessions of the owner, who in this manner signified his
wish to make amends to God, for the desecration of law
and duty by his sin. And here it is that Christ, by his
suffering, fulfills the type of the sacrifice. It has its
value, not as being so much suffering, but as declaring
the righteousness of God in the remission of sins that
are past and, by what it declares or expresses, clothing
the desecrated law in eternal sanctity and honor.
If we choose to say that Christ came into membership
with us, under the corporate law of evil in the race, and
let the currents of penal causes roll over him in waves
of temptation and suffering ; showing thus how immov
ably fixed the laws of retribution are, in the fact that
they will not stay the qualified action they have in our
system, to spare even innocence when it comes in their
way ; there is nothing incredible in this, if only it be
said that Christ put himself in their way for some
benevolent end or reason, apart from the ostentation of
suffering, and that what he suffers is no way penal in

286 GROUNDS OF
the experience ; save that the currents of causes under
which he suffers are themselves penal, as related organ
ically to the sins of the race. The suffering, in this
view, avails by what it expresses, not as being simply
suffering.* The only objection to this view is that it
wears a look too artificial and philosophic, a look so
remote from the simple exercises and types of the sacri
ficial system, as to have the appearance of a modern
after-thought. And stiU it may be argued, with a
degree of plausibility, from certain uses by Paul of the
word law, as when he speaks of " the law of sin and
death," that such a conception was not too remote or
philosophic to be entertained by him.
Again, it has been a subject of complaint, and still
may be, that in the account I have made of the suffer
ings and death of Christy I do not represent them as
having their value in the expression made before the
open universe of worlds; but only in the impression
they produce in us of the righteousness of God and the
sanctity of his law. But I am not aware that the scrip
tures undertake to inform us of any effects wrought by
the death of Christ, in other worlds, or before the moral
universe of creatures. They do indeed speak, in a single
passage, of " the manifold wisdom of God, made known
by the church, to principalities and powers in heavenly
places." And there is no doubt that every thing discov
ered of God's proceedings, by holy minds, will be a
contribution of " wisdom" ; but this is a matter whoUy
* Something like this appears to be the representation of Dr. Porter, in
his able and timely sermon, at Litchfield. — (Nat. Preach., pp. 198-9.)

JUSTIFICATION. 287
distinct from the impression that Christ is transacting
here, as on a central stage of being, a scene of suffering
which is necessary to vindicate the honor of God, in the
forgiveness of sins, before his moral universe. The
scriptures have a sober and practical spirit. They would
not even have us to go up into heaven, or beyond the
sea, after God himself. They meet us close at hand to
tefl us what God is doing for us, unwilling to amuse a
vagrant and Hcentious fancy in our sin. If they some
times lead us up to trace the origin of things, in grounds
and patterns that are transcendental in the divine nature,
or the Eternal Word ; they are yet as Httle disposed as
possible to gratify our curiosity, by opening to us the
remote imphcations of causes acting, or events transpir
ing round us ; and above aU careful, and for the best of
reasons, not to make us metropoHtans, by showing us
that the transactions of our world are central, in their
efficacy and value, to the universal government of God.
It may please the vanity of theology to scheme a theory
of salvation, wrought on the earth and for it, magnificent
enough to comprehend the whole contour of being and
explain what effects are wrought by it on the peoples of
Orion or the Milky Way ; but ff I am a little jealous of
all such Hcentious assumptions and stretches of theory,
if they seem to exceed the measure of Christian modesty
and sobriety, and, in fact, to be only theologic figments,
that withdraw our minds from the more soHd and prac
tical conceptions of Christianity, as a plan of grace
wrought in our world and for it, and of course under
laws of effeet that pertain to humanity itself, J hope to
be excused. Or, if I offend in so doing, it can not be

288 JUSTIFICATION,
worse, or more remote from orthodoxy, than to deny,
with bishop Butler, the possibiHty of any authorized
conceptions whatever of the subject in question.
Let it now be granted that, in Christ, or in the
impressions made in us by his Hfe and death, answering
to the impressions that would be made by a vigorous
adherence to the terms of the primal system of reci
procity and justice, a sufficient ground of justification is
provided ; in other words, let it be granted that Christ,
in opening a second stage of government, which proposes
to take us away from our deserts and do by us better
than we deserve, has done it in such a way as not to
abrogate or weaken the authority of the first, and so
that both shall stand together, maintaining their joint
action upon us ; the next point is to conceive or settle
the true idea of justification as a result in actual experi
ence. And here, at the outset, we are met by the
distinction of an objective and subjective justification,
answering to the same distinction already traced in the
ritual conceptions of sacrifice and atonement. The term
justification, here, answers indeed to the term remission,
there, as nearly as a political or judicial symbol can, to a
priestly and ritual. And, as a mere objective remission
or formal absolution is nothing, unless it be executed
by a subjective dehverance from the power and penal
bondage of the sins remitted, so an objective formal
justification is reaUy nothing, save as there is executed,
in the soul, and its character, an inward and actual deliv
erance from the retributive causes by which it is cor
rupted and held in penal subjection. The objective,

SUBJECTIVE-OBJECTIVE. 289
forensic justification is nothing, in fact, but a mode of
conceiving the inward subjective dehverance. One is,
in real truth, the other; just as condemnation, passed
for sin, is a state of being, called the state of condemna
tion, or spiritual death.
Instead, therefore, of stating an alternative between
repentance, or a new birth in spiritual freedom, on one
side ; and forgiveness, or justification, on the other, after
the manner of bishop Butler in the extract just now
cited ; they are only to be taken as different conceptions
of the same thing. To dehver a soul from spiritual
death and bondage, and quicken it in freedom and new
- capacity is, so far, taking it away from its deserts, or
disappointing the claims of justice and retributive order.
And precisely here is the reason why it must be done,
in such a way as to cut off the appearance of abrogating
the law system, or destroying its authority ; for, in so far
as that system is reined back, in the suspense of punish
ment, and made to be a system of discipline more than
of proper penalty, and in so far as it is actually dis
placed, in the spiritual dehverance of the penitent, there
is an appearance of breach upon it, which needs to be
rebutted, by impressions from another source, that will
fortify and sanctify its authority. To renew and clear a
soul of death is to roU back justice from it, or the cur
rents of judicial causes in it, and, in that view, is a
grace dispensed against justice ; and the forensic justifi
cation many speak of and think of, regarding nothing
else, is yet only an objective conception of an inward
subjective change, which, on that account, is caUed
"justification of life." And here it wiU be found,
25

290 JUSTIFICATION,
accordingly, is the real issue between Christianity and
the gospel of naturalism held by some Unitarians. They
say that the laws of nature are laws of justice, and
justice must have its way, otherwise God would dis
honor and throw into confusion the very principles of
order, both in his moral and providential government.
Hence there can be no justification of Hfe, till the
retributive justice of desert and death is run out or
satisfied. We say, on the other hand, that God under
takes, in Christianity, to do by us better than we de
serve; that he introduces a scheme of supernatural
work and power, which is at once compHmentary to and
redemptive from the other ; and that both together are
the real system of God, a system which, in both the
parts, looks equally to one and the same result ; viz., the
training of moral and free beings, by a double experience,
to a state of established holiness and felicity ; a system
also which, however distinctly it may seem to be two to
us, is yet an orderly and complete whole to him, as
truly as the system of the firmament; a system, not
unlikely, that contains the final cause even of the firma
ment and settles its terms of order.
Thus we say, in the old theology, that there are two
covenants, the covenant of works — do this and live ; and
the covenant of grace — believe and live ; where the radi
cal idea, sounded to the bottom, is that the system of
God, as developed in Christianity, has two sides or de
partments ; related to each other as justice and mercy,
nature and j^race. And just here is the distinction of
evangelism, in all ages ; that, in Christ, there is a power
to roll back the currents of nature and justice, and dis-

SUBJECTIVE-OBJECTIVE. 291
pense a justification of Hfe that is relatively supernatural
— all this in one consistent plan that was laid before the
foundations of the world.
It may be important to add that, while we identify, in
this manner, objective justification and the justification
of life, which latter delivers the soul internally from the
judicial consequences of sin, it is not to be understood
that every thing done by Christ looks toward the produ
cing of impressions that substitute the impressions of pen
alty and so provide a ground of justification. The direct
aim of his work is to reconcUe us to God ; or, what is the
same, it is to communicate God to souls separated from
God, and to regenerate in them a new divine principle
of spiritual Hfe. In this view, his whole work terminates
in impressions ; and then, among these impressions, are
impressions that are substitutes for the impressions of
penalty and serve as compensations to the original order
of justice, — assisting also, at the same time, by the con
viction of sin they produce in us and the want they
create of grace and pardon, the operative force of those
other and more quickening impressions by which Christ
wiU execute his other and ultimate purpose, our recon
ciliation to God.
Or, if it be demanded how, in this view, justification
differs from sanctification, it differs, I answer, in the fact
that, in the term '-sanctification,' the mind is looking
simply toward the dehverance and restoration of char
acter; while in 'justification' it looks toward the deliv
erance of retributive evils and pains. The state of moral
incapacity and bondage we are in may be regarded,
either as a state of corruption, or as a state of retributive

292 JUSTIFICATION,
misery answering to our ill desert. The dehverance of
this is justification ; the deliverance of that is sanctifica- j
tion. One is the restoration of .confidence ; the other of
purity. The two are distinguishable in idea, but insepa
rable in fact. At bottom, they are one and the same
change, save that one regards this change as related to a
given measure of deserved penalty ; the other as related
to the measureless benefit of a grace that is only con
cerned to do by us better than we deserve, and discharge
the fullness of the divine love into our character and ex
perience. The contrast, commonly stated, between a
mere objective justification, and the sanctification of the
life, it may easily be seen is no real contrast ; for unless
the objective remission carries a subjective dehverance,
it is only a name for something, which has no reaHty in
experience ; a formula of prison delivery that leaves the
doors of the prison stiU shut. The true contrast is that
which lies between the deHvery executed in us, when
viewed in one light, and the same when viewed in
another; in one as related to the justice of God armed
against our sin, in the other to the boundless fullness of
God and the fruition of a divine experience. Or if it be
imagined, as another distinction, that justification is
already executed in the betiever, while sanctification is
not, the scriptures speak in a different manner, as if both
were executed'; representing Christ as being already
"made unto us righteousness and sanctification;" and
declaring in the boldness of their confidence, " but ye are
sanctified, but ye are justified, in the name of the Lord
Jesus." And this, exactly, is the natural and proper
language of Christian experience ; for as we are justified

SUBJECTIVE-OBJECTIVE. 293
by faith, so we are sanctified by faith ; and faith, in both
cases, takes the new state of freedom and Hfe, into which
it is initiated, as being already and before the time com
plete ; only embracing this confidence more decisively and
less faintly in one, because it relates backward to the
definite claims of justice ; whUe, in the other, it has a
forward reference to an elevation that is ^determinate
and without limit.
Kegarding justification, then, as having its reaHty in a
subjective dehverance from the judicial consequences of
sin, the question may be raised, whether we are to con
sider the objective and subjective conceptions of it as
standing in one order of relation, or in another and re
verse order. Aye we to conceive that God passes an
objective sentence of justification upon them that beHeve,
which is foUowed by an internal and experimental de
liverance; or that executing this dehverance, in and
through the faith of them that beHeve, we apprehend the
fact, or conceive it, in a way of objective representation
that supports our faith ? The former is the conception
of Tholuck and other distinguished theologians of Ger
many. Thus, in his Commentary on the Romans, (Chap.
v., 16,) he says, "the objective sentence, condemnation,
issues, subjectively, as misery ; and the '¦free gift,' justi
fication, issues or is manifested in perfect holiness, hence,
also, in bliss. In the interpretation of these statements,
we must take special care to discriminate between the
subjective and the objective. The expositors who seized,
exclusively, on one or the other view, hav§; never been
able to arrive at perfect perspicuity." I differ from this
representation, as far as I can see, only in saying that,
25*

294 JUSTIFICATION,
instead of conceiving the condemnation or the free gift
of justification to be passed objectively and then to issue
or be executed in subjective misery or bHss; we are
simply to conceive the misery or the bHss, executed in
us, under these objective forms, condemnation, or justi
fication ; seeing thus in God, or in the will of God, that
which has its reaHty in ourselves. This corresponds
with the universal analogy of the sacrifieial terms, ap.
plied to Christ and his work, and also with the language
of Paul concerning justification itself: "There is, there
fore, now no condemnation [objective] to them that are
in Christ Jesus ; for the law of the spirit of life [the sub
jective renovating power] in Christ Jesus, hath made me
free from the law of sin and death" [the penal bondage
of transgression.] Which is the same as to say, ' I am
not condemned of God any more, but justified before
him ; because I am internally delivered from the conse
quences of death that reigned, as by a law, within me.'
He does not say that he is justified, objectively, in the
" free gift," which issues* in deliverance ; but that he is
delivered and in that sees that he is justified. The differ
ence, however, is not important. It only seemed to be
proper, as I am using the terms ' objective' and ' sub
jective,' in a different manner from other evangelical
writers of the day, to state exactly where the difference
lies. If it should be said that the particular passage, Dr.
Tholuck is expounding, favors his mode of conceiving
the relations of the two classes of terms, I will not object.
Not unlikely the scriptures speak in both modes, as they
naturally would. I only think that, bringing into view
the great fact that we are always throwing subjective

SUBJECTIVE-OBJECTIVE. 295
truths into objective representations, and are scarcely
content, in any case, tUl we have done it ; also, the fact
that reHgion, standing as it does in faith, requires to have
its, outgoing, trustful exercise in objective forms of truth,
and would even die of suffocation, if it were shut up to
a mere reflective exercise, — considering this, I think we
are to expect that aU the most subjective truths wiU be
revealed, or set before us, in objective forms ; and that
just here, in the providing of a fit array of patterns for
the heavenly things and their objective representation,
the wondrous and divine art of revelation wUl be most
of aU displayed. Only let us not be so childish, when
speaking in the manner of Dr. Tholuck, as to imagine,
(which I am quite^certain he does not,) that God takes a
local seat of judgment, in some supernal region, and passes
sentences there of condemnation or deHvery, which he
afterward executes ; for the execution, considered as pro
ceeding from his wUl, is the sentence, — except that we
may need, in practice, to think of it under the former
and more objective mode of representation.
I have endeavored, in this manner, to exhibit the true
import of the work of Christ, as viewed under the po
litical symbol of justification ; and the result corresponds,
you perceive, as exactly as it could, under a different
kind of symbol, with the view developed under the
priestly terms of the altar, and particularly the terms
propitiation, atonement, and remission. In both, every
thing depends on subjective impressions ; in both, these
impressions are realized under and represented by ob
jective terms. A full and real meaning is given thus to

296 IN THE FINAL RESULT,
all the terms of scripture, and. no one class is permitted
to exclude, or devour the others. And yet they are aU
seen to coalesce, in a consistent and common result.
I have not dwelt in particular on the terms ransom and
redemption. The former is generaUy regarded as a figure
of purchase, or payment ; as when one is said to be ran
somed out of captivity. But this is doubtful. The same}
Greek word is used in the Septuagint, as a translation
of the sacrificial word COVER, commonly translated atone
ment. So of the word redemption, which is a translation
of a Greek word, radicaUy the same. In this view, they
are both words of the altar, and it wiU be found that, in
their actual uses in the New Testament, they are con
stantly interwoven with sacrificial terms and aUusions,
a fact which decisively proves that they are employed,
not as commercial, but as objective sacrificial figures.
Another class of expressions, commonly supposed to
be sacrificial in their origin, such as "being made a
curse for us," "bruised for our iniquities," " the chastise
ment of our peace was upon him," " with his stripes we
are healed," are manifestly not so, but show as clearly as
possible that they class with the word 'justification,' as
political or judicial figures. For it scarcely need be said
that there was no curse, or bruising, or chastisement, or
stripes, on the victim of the altar.
The expressions, " bearing our sins," and " being made
sin for us," are possibly ambiguous, and may be taken
either as ritual or judicial figures. In either case they
are good objective representations of the suffering mercy,
by which we are cleared of our sins, restored to peace
with God and spiritual Hfe.

EVANGELISM SAFE. 297
In the same manner, all the other forms of the scrip
ture faU into place and find their natural significance.
And the grand result discovered in aU is justification by
faith, without the deeds of the law, — the justification
OF LIFE. Or it is deliverance from the law of sin and
death, by the law of the spirit of life, in Christ Jesus.
Or it is the blood of the New Testament, which is shed
for many, for the remission of sins. Or it is God in
Christ, reconciHng the world unto himself. Be it one or
the other, I make no selection, for it is one and the same
in all.
If now you distrust me in these interpretations, or ex
positions of the principal figures of the scripture, which
resolve the objective terms, both of the altar and the
political state, by their subjective meaning, or the sub
jective experiences they represent ; one thing, at least, is
clear, and it ought to be a matter of some consequence to
you, that the practical result or issue of my heresy is a
plan of supernatural grace and salvation; containing
all that belongs distinctively to the operative scheme of
evangelism. It is a scheme that proposes to save us, out
of the terms of justice and desert. It undertakes to do
by us better than we deserve, and make us feel as deeply
the conviction of what we deserve, as if it held us rigidly
to that and that alone. It rests the hope of its efficacy,
not on any proclamation of lenity, or profession of pater
nity, but in the keeping on foot and preserving in joint
action two distinct schemes — call them testaments, cove
nants, systems, or whatever we please ; one that works
on our natural experience, apart from all consent, and by

298 IN THE FINAL RESULT, -
reason of a want of consent, becomes the letter thatflpfeff ,
eth ; and one that, working'on and through the consent
of faith, clears the subject of his judicial bondage and fall
under the other, and in that way giveth life^ If we call
one natural, the other is relatively supernatural, operating
by methods and powers not in the retributive order of
nature and justice. A beginning is made with us, in
terms of reciprocity and natural justice, which we can
not disallow and do instinctively acknowledge; reducing
us to a state of guilt and condemnation, which is the real
experimental*knowledge of sin ; and from this bad con
dition, as a basis, we are raised up in terms of grace and
favor, to a state of love and faith transcending our in
stinctive notions of justice and even our adequate concep
tion, in the mere life of nature — a state of liberty and
vital union with God. And so the purpose of God is
consummated, in our being made partakers, supernatu- ¦
rally, with Him, in that which is above the lower virtue
of desert and justice, — the spirit of love, in which he
does good to the evil, and which is the crowning honor
of his character and his kingdom. The two points that
• distinguish evangelism, as a plan of salvation, are held
as firmly, in this view, you perceive, as in any other —
God is just in justifying the ungodly ; and character,
based in faith and not in self-culture, is a fruit of grace
and a supernatural birth in the souL
Meantime Christ is seen, in all that he does, to be acting
as a power, a renovating and quiekening power — just as
he is constantly represented in the scriptures. All
results, whether of justification or sanctification, for they
are essentially implicated one with the other, he accom-

EVANGELISM SAFE. 299
plishes, by what he does in us, and not by something
dine upon God. And so*that large part, that almost
body itself of the Christian doctrine of grace, which has
fallen, so generally, out of place in the meager terms of
our speculative theology, is restored. It is not said that
Christ has opened a passage through the law, by some
action one side of us, and bought the Holy Spirit to
lead us through it ; and that this is the whole plan of
salvation — which, in fact, no preacher, though he affirm
it a hundred times a day, can really adhere to so as not
to break over it, in appeals that offer Christ to love and
feeling — but the doctrine is that Christ is wholly a power,
the wisdom of God and the power; a convincing, con
straining, justifying grace of love offered to thought
without, and operating formatively with the undistin-
guishable grace of the Spirit within ; so that when the
soul receives him and rests her faith in him, Christ is
formed within as the principle of eternal life and beatific
union with God. If this be heresy, it is yet the truth of
scripture, which if any man deny or can not preach, he
disallows the corner stone itself.
What I mean by the subjective-objective view of the
work of Christ, I think is now sufficiently plain. I feel
a degree of confidence too that the truth of my expo
sition is sufficiently supported, by its internal evidences
and the testimonies of scripture. But the question, I
suppose, wiU here be raised, whether my exposition is
consistent or not with historic orthodoxy ? Which, I
answer, first, is not a question of any very decisive con
sequence, either to me or to you, if only the doctrine be

300 HOW RELATED TO
true. But a better, because a more practical and prob
able answer is, that, in one %iew, it certainly is not
consistent with historic orthodoxy ; and that, in another,
less superficial and more really intelligent view, I have
the strongest conviction that it is. The antecedent im
probability that any doctrine of Christ, which is reaHy
novel in the matter, is true, I most readily admit. At
the same time, an exposition which holds no agreement
with the form of any preceding solution, or doctrine, or
theory, is none the less likely to be true, or even ortho
dox, on that account. For if, still, it is the manifest
issue of the previous attempts ; if they are clearly seen to
be only rudimental ; never to have come to any settled
and generally accepted or mature result of doctrine;
always to have been moving, in fact, toward the given
point, or issue stated ; then we are to judge that the
point, or issue stated is probably true ; and, in the sense
most profoundly respectful and most genuinely intelh
gent, orthodox also ; that is, consistent with the inmost
mind, or meaning of the church. And if this be ad^
mitted as the true notion of historic orthodoxy, then I
believe that the exposition I have given is orthodox —
otherwise it is not and I could not wish it to be.
It seems to be imagined, by many, that the doctrine
of the work of Christ became, long ages ago, a settled
and properly accepted church doctrine, like that of the
trinity after the Nicene Council. Contrary to this, the
principal questions pertaining to the subject, though
Often discussed by the doctors of the church, and re
solved by many different theories, do not appear to have
been formally undertaken by any Council, prior to the

HISTORIC ORTHODOXY. 301
Reformation; or to the Council of Trent, whose sitting
was occasioned by the Reformation. During the fifteen
centuries of the Christian era, preceding the advent of
Luther, the doctrine of Christ was passing through
phases jj| change so remarkable, beginning with errors
to us apparently so very strange and wUd, as to show,
most convincingly, the inherent difficulties of the sub
ject, and that probably a long time wfll yet be wanted,
to bring it to a clear maturity. Nothing is more un
likely than that now, in a day of agitation so intense,
and of external commotion so violent, it is going, sud
denly, to burst forth cleared of aU error, and become an
estabHshed, immutable form of orthodoxy — whether in
the studies of Wittemberg and Geneva, or in the labo
rious intrigues of Trent. »
In this view, it is important that I should indicate,
briefly, the course of the church history, or the history
of opinions, pertaining to the subject. Thus, in the
times immediately succeeding the apostles, it wUl be
found that the Christian teachers, such for example as
Clement of Rome, make use of language that well
accords with that of the apostles themselves. He says,
in the simple words of faith and the kingdom, — " Let
us look steadfastly to the blood of Christ, and see
how precious his blood is in the sight of God ; which,
being shed for our salvation, has obtained the grace of
repentance for aU the world." * * * " And we also
being caUed, by the same wiU in Christ Jesus, are not
justified by ourselves, neither by our own wisdom, or
knowledge, or piety, or the works which we have done
in the holiness of our hearts; but by that faith by
26

302 HOW RELATED TO
which God Almighty has justified all men, from the
beginning." — (1st Ep. Cor., chap. IV & XIV.)
But the time of speculative theology is now come, and
with this, a different picture and more melancholy is to
be exhibited. Here a single extract from Knapp's The
ology may be taken as giving a sufficiently accurate
account of the speculative doctrine of Christ, which pre
vailed, with only casual modifications, during the first
ten centuriesii or rather during the eight theologic cen
turies following the first two, prior to the proper exist
ence of theology. After describing the manner in which
the simple language of scripture, representing Christ's
death as a sacrifice, was familiarly used for the first two
centuries of the church, in a way of practical impression
apart from all theory ; he then exhibits speculative the
ology, making its beginning in the third century, and
issuing its first attempt in the following theory: —
" ' Ever after the fall, the Devil had the whole human
race in his power ; he ruled over men like a tyrant over
his vassals and employed them for his own purposes.'
Thus far they had the support of the bible. But here
they began to philosophize beyond what is written.
'From the captivity God might indeed have rescued
them, by the exercise of his omnipotence. But he was
restrained by his justice from doing this violence. He
therefore offered Satan a ransom, in consideration of
which he should release mankind. This ransom was the
death of Christ as a divine being. In accordance with
this theory, Origen interpreted the text, " He gave his
life a ransom for men," as denoting the ransom paid to
the Devil, not to God. Satan had consented to the com-

HISTORIC ORTHODOXY. 303
pact. But he wished fraudulently to retain Jesus, whom
he considered only as the best and most pious man,
under his own power, and so he slew this innocent being.
He was now, therefore, justly compeUed to liberate the
human race.'
This theory was first adopted by the Grecian church
and especiaUy by Origen, through whose influence
it became prevalent, and was adopted, at length, by
BasiHus, Gregory of Nyssa, Gregory of Nazianzen, Nes
torius and others. From the Greeks it was communi
cated to the Latins, among whom it was first distinctly
held by Ambrosius and afterward by Augustine, through
whose influence it was almost universal in the Latin
church. In this church, they endeavored to perfect the
theory. Satan, they added, was deceived in the trans
action; for, taking Jesus to be a mere man, and not
knowing that he was also the Son of God, he was hot able
to retain even him after he had slain him. And it was
necessary for Christ to assume a human body, in order
to deceive the DevU as fishes are caught by baits.
So prevalent was this theory in the Latin church,
before the twelfth century, that Abelard declares, —
li0mnes doctores nostri, post apostolos, in hoc conveniunt;"
and Bernhard of Clairvaux was so firmly persuaded of
its truth as to declare that Abelard, who held that the
devil never possessed, in a Hteral sense, such power as
was ascribed to him, ought rather to be chastised with
rods than reasoned with." — (Chris. Theo., Andov. Ed.,
Vol. II, pp. 625-6.)
This, I suppose it should be added, is the more pal
pable, superficial view of the doctrine of Christr that pre*

304 HOW RELATED TO
vaUed, during the period specified ;— the gift of Christ
was in form a ransom paid to the devil. Which, if it
be considered more deeply, will be seen to have covered
a real and important truth, nay, the grand truth itself of
the Christian salvation ; viz., that Jesus, by the ransom
of his death and sacrifice, brought us out from under the
subjective dominion of evil and set us free. Besides,
there were blended, here and there, with the view stated,
frequent references of thought to the positive efficacy of
the incarnation, as a means of imparting the divine
nature to men, and quickening them anew in the Divine
Life. Accordingly, a competent scholar is able to give
the following, as a true account of the real substance
of doctrine, or the operative faith, held under a form
so remote from our sympathy, during the period in
question. " The reconciliation of man to God, the incarnation
of God in Christ, and the union of the divine with the
human which is realized by it, were laid down as the
general principle, including all particular definitions,
which was ever and anon adopted by the theologians of
that age. Thus a view was formed of the atonement,
which we may term the mystical ; inasmuch as it is
founded on a general and comprehensive view of the
subject, rather than on philosophic definitions." — (Baur
in Hagenbach, Vol. I, p. 355.)
The next period in the history of the doctrine is intro
duced by Anselm, at the latter part of the eleventh cen
tury. Manichseism was now vanishing, and the reign
of demons over the world ceasing to be the important
article of faith it had been. Anselm, therefore, had

HISTORIC ORTHODOXY. 305
courage fo maintain that the death of Jesus was necessary
in reference to the hohriess of God, and not as in con
nection with the kingdom of Satan over men. And the
doctrine he asserted was much the same with that which
is now maintained, by many teachers of the Anglican
church and by here and there one among ourselves,
under the figure of debt ; a doctrine whose peculiarity
consists in adhering too closely to that figure, and hold
ing it in a manner too nearly Hteral.
Anselm was followed, in the thirteenth century by
Thomas Aquinas, who brought forward the terms of the
priesthood and the altar-service ; giving greater promi
nence, as he properly might, to these. But he pressed
on the article of suffering, with so great violence as to
maintain, by specific proofs, " that Christ endured in his
head, hands, and feet, all the sufferings which men have
to endure, in their reputation, worldly possessions, body,
and soul." — (Hagenbach, Vol. II, p. 43.)
Other teachers, between the Angelic Doctor and Lu
ther, presented modifications and partial contradictions,
both of his doctrine and that of Anselm. An evident
approach had been made toward some cathoHc appre
hension of the subject, and yet the astonishing darkness
that rested on the mind of Luther, before he came to his
grand discovery of justification by faith and found, in
that, his Christian liberty, shows how little was generaUy
understood at that time, even by the more intelligent
class of disciples, of the grand, life-giving doctrine of sal
vation by Christ. Now the Christian world is divided.
Protestantism, on one side, promulgating, even as a dis
covery, its doctrine of justification by faith ; and Roman-
26*

306 HOW RELATED TO
ism, for the first time, endeavoring, on the other, at the
Council of Trent, to settle the catholic doctrine of re
demption. Henceforth we are to have two orthodoxies ;
neither of which, however, will be rigidly adhered to, or "
conformed to, on either side. As Protestants, we have
no doubt that the true substance of doctrine is with us.
Still we do not suppose and never have supposed, that
the theory or theoretic form of the doctrine of atonement
by Jesus Christ, is finally ascertained and immovably
settled., On the contrary, it can be shown, beyond dis
pute, that our view of the subject here in New England
has been suffering a constant process of modification,
from one generation to another. We have renounced
the ideas of penal suffering, of imputation, of limited
atonement, and, in fact, have cast the whole subject in
molds of our own. Only one hundred and forty years
ago, our fathers, for example, were able to say of Christ,
as the true account of his sufferings and death, that " he
underwent the punishment due to us, which we should
have borne and suffered ; being made a curse for us, and
enduring most grievous torments immediately from God in
his soul" ! — (Sayb. Plat, Cong. Ord., p. 186.)
Who is there now of you here present that accepts
these words as the Christian truth, — who that does not
shudder even at the sound of them, when they are reci
ted ? And yet I am required by you, or at least by
the public, to answer whether the doctrine I have
been teaching accords with proper historic orthodoxy!
Which I answer, as I trust, with all becoming meekness,
when I say that I really think it does ; and also, with as
evident truth, that it certainly does not, unless there can

HISTORIC ORTHODOXY. 307
be found some deep and, as it were, unconscious, undis
covered meaning, underneath the mobilities and changes
of orthodoxy, which it fulfills and justifies.
And this, I think, will be easily made to appear. If
I had time and leisure, I would go into the doctrine of
justification by faith as maintained by Luther, and would
undertake to show that the precise operative truth of it,
that which made it true to him, is no other than the doc
trine I have stated ; however different it may at first view
appear. But I wUl only refer you, here, to the fact that
the famous words of Staupitz, which are said to have shed
such light on the distressed mind of Luther, and finally
to have led him out of his bondage into the liberty of
Christ, — words that were, in fact, the beginning, at once,
of his grand mission as a reformer, and of the justifica
tion of life in his heart, — these words, I say, hang all
their virtue on the assurance that God only waits to be
merciful ; that he is not estranged from us, but we averse
from him ; and that Christ, in his death and sacrifice,
came to assure us of this, and so to bring us unto God.
The very point of his counsel coincides with my sup
posed heresy, and just this heresy it was that Luther
himself wanted. He was not in trouble because he
wanted some theory of compensation for sin or punish
ment, but his trouble came of the fact that he was afraid
of God and could not find how to assure himself before
God, or how to make himself, what he evidently must
be, to be accepted of God. Staupitz, therefore, says : —
" Why do you distress yourself with these speculations
and high thoughts ? Look to the wounds of Jesus Christ,

30.8 VIRTUALLY COINCIDENT
to the blood which he has shed for you ; it is there you
will see the mercy of God. Instead of torturing your
self for your faults, cast yourself into the arms of the
Redeemer. Trust in him — in the righteousness of his
Hfe, in the expiatory sacrifice of his death. Do not
shrink from him. God is not against YOU ; it is you
WHO ARE ESTRANGED AND AVERSE FROM GOD. Listen
to the Son of God. He became man to assure you of the
divine favor." — (Luther's Works, Vol. II, Liepsic Ed.,
p. 264.)
These fragrantPwords of life, out of which, as a conse
crated parentage, sprang both the faith of Luther and his
doctrine, affirm precisely all that is most distinctive in
my supposed heresy ; that God is not to be concUiated
to us but we to him, and that Christ came, not Hterally
to appease his justice, but to " assure us of his favor."
But there are two points in regard to this matter of
, coincidence with historic orthodoxy, that I wish more
especially to make. And —
I. That the subjective-objective, or representatively
objective doctrine I have asserted, coincides with the
¦real truth of imputation ; justifying a qualified assent to
that doctrine ; requiring it in the practical uses of life ;
and containing, I suppose, all that has made it true to its
adherents ;— precisely that, neither more nor less. Thus
it will be found that, while the greater part of the New
England teachers reject this doctrine, which no one can
deny is a doctrine of the Reformation, and with Dr.
Emmons declare it even to be " absurd ;" I am actually
maintaining it, in a form that preserves whatever is vital

WITH IMPUTATION. 309
and practically valuable in it. Instead of allowing the
oft reiterated declaration, that there is no such thing as
imputation in the scriptures, they seem to me, on the
contrary, to be full of it. The whole objective side of the
scripture doctrine of Christ, — " bearing our sins," " made
sin for us," " having the iniquity of us aU laid upon
him," " wounded for our transgressions," " our ransom,"
"our righteousness," "righteousness imputed without
works," — in aU these objectivities, the mind is occupied
with notions of a putative, or imputed grace. Neither
are these barren fictions, but they have all a sound
reality and force ; and they are even necessary, in that
view, to the fuU power and easy working of the grace
of the gospel in us. When the confession of sins was
made upon the head of the goat, under the Mosaic ritual,
and he was driven into the wilderness, to signify their
being carried away, doubtless it was not true that the
goat became a sinner, or that any one sin was reaUy put
upon him ; and yet the rite had a real value and power ;
and the imputed, or putative transfer of the sin operated
just the result contemplated in the ceremony, namely,
the dehverance of the sin ; in which the imputation is
seen to have been a genuine instrumental truth. In like
manner, the imputation of our sins to Christ, and of his
righteousness to us, accepted by our faith, is a most ope
rative part and practical verity of the Christian doctrine,
and the scriptures of the New Testament, borrowing their
forms from the old, are full of it. And, what is more,
though we discard the doctrine of imputation in New
England, we are yet constantly using the language of it.
Undoubtedly the Reformers misconceived the repre-

310 VIRTUALLY COINCIDENT
sentations of scripture to which I refer, as the schoolmen,
before them, had done almost aU the objective figures
and free metaphors of the bible. It had been the manner
of theology, for long ages, to interpret Hebraistic figurefl
Academically, and turn them into Aristotelian dogmas.
Accordingly, when Luther declares that Christ, under the
burden pf^ the imputed sins of mankind, became " the
greatest transgressor, murderer, adulterer, thief, rebel and
blasphemer that ever was, or could be in aU the world,"
we shaU easily convince ourselves, after our first shudder
of feeling is over, that he is only venting his Christian
fire, under the exaggerations of his false method. We
shaU see him laying his sins, by a vehement confession^
on the scape goat of Moses, only doing it stUl as if it
were a scape goat of Aristotle. But when Dr. Crisp,
after an interval in which the vehement heat of Luther's
enthusiasm might be supposed to have cooled away in
the church, is found reiterating the same extravagance,
tempered in no respect, but rather exaggerated^ even
arguing, on systematic grounds, that imputation carries
a transfer of character ; for if God treats Christ as a sin
ner, it can be only that he treats him as he is ; then we
see it proved, both that logic can be more extravagant
than passion, and as much more blind. He says, (Ful
ler's Works, Vol. IV., p. 89 :) "Hast thou been an idol
ater, a blasphemer, a despiser of God's word, a profaner
of his name and ordinances, a thief, a liar, a drunkard;
if thou hast part in Christ, aU these transgressions of
thine become actually the transgressions of Christ, and
so cease to be thine; and thou ceasest to be a trans
gressor, from the time they were laid upon Christ, to the

WITH IMPUTATION. 311
last hour of thy Hfe. You are all that Christ was and
Christ is aU that you were." This would be abundantly
shocking, if it were not so pitiably feeble. But we see
in it, plainly enough, that the doctrine of imputation,
previously asserted and here pressed to its Hmit, con
tained some element radically false.
And the error appears to have been, that the scripture
phrases of imputation were taken, not as objective forms,
answering to and operative in subjective effects,. but as
affirmations of some real and judicial transfer. If we ask
precisely what it was that made their doctrine of impu
tation a truth, it was, I have no doubt, the feeHng they
had of a sacred power and experimental value, in the
objective phrases referred to ; they only did not settle oa
the right conception of these phrases ; and, as a conse
quence of this defect, blended false and confused im
pressions with their doctrine. And yet, as the disciple
and translator of a doctrine will sometimes state it, in his
simplicity, more exactly than his master ; and as we
often see, by some straw that a writer drops into the cur
rent of his language half unawares, what reveals the true
position he is in, more adequately and exactly than words
more carefully chosen ; it is worthy of notice that the
translator of Calvin, by an accidental quasi dropped in,
sets forth what appears to have been the truest notion of
imputation. He says, and it is a curious fact that another
translator drops in another quasi, at another place, in the
same section : " Our guUt and punishment, being as it
were transferred to him, they must cease to be imputed
to us." (Book II., Chap. XVI., Sec. 6.) This, precisely,
is the true idea of imputation. It is imputation as it were,

312 VIRTUALLY COINCIDENT
an objective, representative imputation, the reality of
which is an inward effect, or experience in ourselves.
Thus we look on Christ as loading himself with our evils
and bearing, as it were, our sins. We say, in simple
affirmation, that he bears our sins and that the chastise
ment of our peace is upon him. The real truth of feel
ing is that, by his suffering life and death, he has pro
duced sueh impressions, in us, of the authority of God
and the sanctity.iof his law, as would be produced by
terms of rigid justice executed against our sin ; all of
which is powerfully and effectively embodied in the con
ception that our sins are laid upon him, and that he bears
them, and so procures our release.
Or take the doctrine of imputed righteousness. Christ,
in the way just described, comes in place of a righteous
ness in ourselves ; and then we see, or, by faith, embrace
him as a righteousness imputed to us. And then, if we
ask what is the real truth, or Verity of this imputation,
it is that in holding it we are set in just the attitude of
mind, by which the grace and passion of Christ wiU most
effectually work, in our subjective experience, that re
versal of the law of sin and death, that deliverance of the
judicial consequences of sin, which is the basis of reaHty
in what is called justification. The Romish doctrine is
that Christ brings justification to sinners, by making
them just or righteous. The Protestant appears to be
that he does it, by his righteousness, imputed to them.
The true doctrine appears to be, neither exactly one nor
the other ; or rather to he both ; viz., that sinners are
made subjectively righteous by receiving Christ as an
objective or imputed righteousness, For, to make a sin-

WITH IMPUTATION. 313
ner righteous, it wiU be seen, involves a deliverance from
the judicial consequences of iU desert and sin ; which is
a disturbance of God's retributive order, and a rolling
back of causes that were vindicatory of the divine justice.
And then, if Christ is to be regarded and beHeved in as
doing this, the simplest and most effective form of the
behef wiU be that which receives him as an objective
righteousness, to be appropriated as ours. Calling him
' our righteousness' and resting in him as such, will in
volve, as in a single word, first, the confession of our just
condemnation ; secondly, the acknowledgment of all he
has done to compensate our dehverance from that con
demnation ; thirdly, the recognition of him as a regen
erative, supernatural power, by which he reverses the
currents of nature and raises us to a union with and par
ticipation of the divine nature ; and, fourthly, a con
tinual reference of mind to that perfect beauty and divine
righteousness, which compose the character of his person;
a character which, through the simple embrace of it in
love and trust, without any thought more reflective, wiU
be ever insinuating itself into the soul and assimilating
it to its object. By the wondrous art of the gospel, an
attitude so simple and receptive is prepared and all these
confluent streams of renovating influence are poured
upon it, in the one single phrase of imputation — " Christ
our righteousness." And this, precisely, is the apostolic
doctrine : " Even the righteousness of God, which is by
faith of Jesus Christ, unto all and upon aU them that
beHeve." It is a righteousness not unto, or standing
before aU, to be accounted theirs in judicial substitution,
as in the Protestant doctrine. Neither is it a righteous-
27

314 VIRTUALLY COINCIDENT
ness thought of simply as being upon all, in its trans
forming power, as in the Romish doctrine. But it is a
righteousness unto and upon aU ; upon as being unto,
unto that it may be upon ; transferred as being imputed,
imputed that it may be transferred.
The Romish doctrine is vicious, because it turns the
mind directly upon the subjective consideration of an
" inherent personal righteousness ; which withdraws it too
much from the attitude of simple objective faith in
Christ. If the disciple thinks he discovers the inherent
righteousness appearing within, then he is tempted to
put some faith in that, and as much less faith in Christ.
And then it is very nearly a matter of course that he
drops out the idea of faith altogether and begins to pile
up righteousnesses before God, in the shape of alms and
penances and servile austerities, that gender bondage and
not liberty. Besides, it is a proper subject of doubt,
whether any such thing as a rigidly inherent righteous
ness is ever to be thought of or can be, whether in man
or angel, — whether true righteousness, in created being,
is not really and essentially a derivate state, constituted
by the participation of God ; sustained by bim, as truly
as sight by the sun, and therefore as truly inconceivable
as inherent sight. Is it not the normal state of being
that the glory of the created shall be the glory, in them
and upon them, of the Uncreated, — aU to behold their
love in the love, their purity in the purity, their right
eousness in the righteousness of God ? In this view it
may even be a kind of schism against the unity of the
perfect state, to speak or think of a really inherent right
eousness. For, if God is the originative source of all

WITH IMPUTATION. 315
good, then created minds are to see aU good eternally in
him and have it by imputation.
The Protestant doctrine is defective, only as it thinks
to hold the imputation too rigidly and speculatively, as
being a transaction whoUy external to us, a something
put to our account in the books of judicial reckoning ;
not as preparing an attitude of faith and humble re
ceptivity, into which the whole Christ is to be entered
and be made unto the receiver, wisdom, righteousness,
sanctification, and redemption. This is the true attitude
of all Christian experience. It takes nothing to itself,
finds nothing in itself, but lives more and more suspen-
sively on God. Conscious of growth, it caUs the growth
experienced ' growth in grace ;' that is, a growth in re
ceptivity, a closer nearness to God, a more complete
derivativeness, not an inherent righteousness.
Romanism and Protestantism both apart, the true
Christian state, the state of Hfe and liberty, is that which
says, rChrist liveth in me,' and that is wrought or main
tained, by receiving Christ as our sacrifice of remission,
our ransom, our propitiation ; in one word, ' our right
eousness.' We are to fix the mind and rest the faith on
a righteousness that is objective and divine, and to con
sider every thing good in us to be that. Our life is to
be the issue and reigning power of that. It is to be an
other and divine life dwelHng in us, the ' Life of God in
the Soul of Man.' And, in order to this, we must be held
in the attitude of complete receptivity ; Hving and walk
ing, indeed, but only as another liveth and walketh in
us. We must hide our lost being, our will, our works,
our ends, and even our sins, in God, and rest our faith

816 FREQUENTLY ASSERTED
in his all sufficient righteousness. Our thought must
be justification by faith alone, a Hfe all derivative and
divine. In this view, I suppose I hold all which made the
doctrine of imputation a truth to Luther and Calvin, and
the other Reformers ; and, of course, that I am as much
nearer to their position than the teachers of New Eng
land generaUy, as they are more ready to deny and
reject every notion of imputation. Indeed I think it
could be shown that Calvin, for example, is continually
asserting a view of imputation that makes it, not a mere
objective judicial transfer of something to our account,
but a power in us, and is virtually coincident therefore
with the position I have asserted ; though it must be
admitted that he is often ambiguous in his forms of
statement, and uses forms of expression that seem to
be inconsistent, or contrary in their meaning. He says
that one is "justified by faith who, being excluded from
the righteousness of works, apprehends the righteousness
of Christ, invested in which, he appears, in the sight of God,
not as a sinner but as a righteous man." (Inst., book IH.,
chap, ii., sec. 2.) And again — "We do not contemplate
him at a distance out of ourselves, that his righteousness
may be imputed to us ; [i. e., in the judicial records of
God ;] but because we have put him on, and are in
grafted into his body, and because he hath deigned to
unite us unto himself ; therefore we glory in a participa
tion of his righteousness." (Sec. 10.) And again — "A
man is righteous, not in himself ; but because the right
eousness of Christ is communicated to him by imputation.
For the Lord so communicates his righteousness to us

BY ORTHODOX WRITERS. 317
that, with reference to the divine judgment, he transfuses
its virtue into us in a wonderful manner." (Sec. 23.) It
is very clear, in these and a hundred simUar passages,
that, whatever may be his theory of imputation, it does
not stand before him, as a mere judicial transaction out
of himself, but is felt to be a most experimental and
operative truth.
Thus much, in reference to the near coincidence of
my doctrine with the rejected orthodox doctrine of im
putation. What I have caUed the objective view I
suppose to be essentiaUy coincident with it, differing
only in the mode, by which the putative, or representa
tively objective forms of scripture are conceived to get
the meaning that constitutes the truth of the doctrine.*
H I undertake to show that writers of acknowledged
orthodoxy have so frequently recognized, in one way or
another, what I have called the subjective-objective doc
trine ef Christ, as to indicate their inward assent to it,
and that, when their own opinion is more fuUy developed,
this will be found to be the real mind of their ortho
doxy. Whenever the orthodox writers approach a
certain point in the doctrine of Christ, which, apart from
all satire, may be called the pons asinorum of the subject,
they ^uformly deHver the difficulty met, by a solution
* The doctrine of imputation, as contained in the Catechism, was voted
by the General Association of Connecticut, at their last meeting in Litch
field. I refused concurrence in the vote, in the distinct understanding, that
as regards my own position, I might probably affirm it with greater pro
priety than any other five persons present. But as the vote affirmed what
I supposed was universally known to be untrue, viz., that the churches and
ministers of the State hold the doctrine, I felt obliged to decline it.
27*

¦318 FREQUENTLY ASSERTED
that implies, in one way or another, all that is distinctive
in my supposed heresy. They probably forget their
solution after the difficulty is once passed, and go on to
maintain reasonings that have no proper harmony with
it. Their solution is given, in terms that have more the
appearance of a rudimental effort to seize what is not
distinctly apprehended, than of a settled, well-inves
tigated opinion. And, for just this reason, they yield a
more important support to the general doctrine I have
advanced. For, when we discover what the church is
after, in her tentative and rudimental essays, we are
more certain of the truth in finding what she wants,
than we can be in. her formed and set arguments for
what she has.
The point, to which I allude, may be variously stated.
Thus the question may rise how God, if he is immutable,
can be reconciled or propitiated by the sacrifice of his
Son ? Or the question may be, if God is the author of
the work of Christ, which all admit, whether it does not
show that God already loves us and, if so, what truth
can there be in the supposition that he is propitiated
toward us ? In one way or another, the difficulty of
supposing any pacification or change in God, or the need
of any, comes up and demands some kind of solution.
And the solution given will be found, in every case, to
turn upon the fact that such objective representations of
scripture are somehow needful, as the means of a sub
jective effect in us ; or that they have their truth in
subjective effects corresponding to and represented in
them. Not to multiply examples beyond what is necessary,

BY ORTHODOX WRITERS. 319
I begin with Calvin, who says — "And there is much
,ccmtained in the word 'propitiation'; for God, in a
certain ineffable manner, at the same time that he loved
us, was nevertheless angry with us, tiU he was reconciled
by the death of his Son." (Book U., chap, xvii., sec. 2.)
Where we see, in the phrase " certain ineffable manner,"
that he is conscious of a degree of doubt or mental
obscurity in regard to the point stated ; a concession that
is the more remarkable that, in the preceding chapter, he
had undertaken a formal solution of it. His solution is
the foUowing : —
" Such modes of expression [that God was angry, an
enemy, and the Hke] are accommodated to our capacity,
that we may better understand how miserable and
calamitous our condition is out of Christ. For if it were
not clearly expressed that we are obnoxious to the wrath
and vengeance of God and to eternal death, we should
not so fuUy discover how miserable we must be, without
the Divine mercy ; nor should we so highly estimate the
blessing of dehverance. For example, let any man be
addressed in the foUowing manner: 'If, whUe you
remained a sinner, God had hated and rejected you,
according to your demerits, horrible destruction would
have befallen you ; but because he hath voluntarily and
of his own gratuitous kindness retained you in his favor,
and not permitted you to be aHenated from him, he has
thus delivered you from their/danger;' he wiU be
afflicted and wiU, in some measure, perceive how much
he is indebted to the Divine mercy. But if, on the
contrary, he be told what the scripture teaches, ' that he
was aHenated from God by sin, an heir of wrath, obnox-

320 FREQUENTLY ASSERTED
ious to the punishment of eternal death, excluded from
aU hope of salvation, a total stranger to the divine
blessing, a slave to Satan, a captive under the yoke of
sin and, in a word, condemned to and already involved
in a horrible destruction ; that in this situation Christ
interposed as an intercessor ; that he has received and
suffered in his own person the punishment, which by
the righteous judgment of God, impended over aU
sinners ; that by his blood he has expiated those crimes
which rendered them odious to God ; that by this expia
tion God the Father has been satisfied and duly atoned ;
that by this intercessor his wrath has been appeased ;
that this is the foundation of peace between God and
men ; that this is the bond of his benevolence toward
them ;' wUl he not be the more affected by these things,
in proportion to the more correct and lively representa
tion of the depth of' calamity from which he has been
delivered?" — (Chap, xvi., sec. 2.)
Now it is not his view that, between these two ,meth-
ods of address, there is any real contrariety. He does
not say that the former is false. He only thinks it
would not be duly impressive, or is insufficiently true.
He says also of the latter, which answers to the objective
representations of scripture, — " Now this is expressed
according to the weakness of our capacity." That is, it
is a bold objective form of truth, answering to our want.
But, if true, where is the truth of it ?
And the answer he gives is substantially this ; that
God loved us as creatures, though he was angry at us as
sinners, and undertook to redeem us as sinners, because
he loved us as creatures. Not that he sent Christ into

BY ORTHODOX WRITERS. 321
the world to operate on him and reconcile him to us as
sinners. For he says that, as " there is an irreconcilable
opposition between righteousness and iniquity, He can
not receive us entirely as long as we remain sinners."
Accordingly, the reconciliation hinges, not on a change
in God, but on a reference to the fact just now exposed,
that the terms of objective propitiation are " accommo
dated to our capacity," with a view to some effect in
us, and really mean that God is reconciled, in the sense
that we are reconciled to him. And it is remarkable
that he quotes Augustine as saying exactly this, in the
very argument referred to.
" Therefore our reconeUiation to Him, by the death of
Christ, must not be understood as if he reconciled us
to God, that God might begin to love those whom he
had before hated ; but we are reconciled to him who already
loved us, but with whom we were at enmity, on account of
sins." — (Book II, chap, xvi., sec. 4.)
John Howe meets the same question in one of his
sermons, but declines the argument as being too difficult
for discussion in the pulpit. (Works, 952.) What his
answer would be, however, we may easily judge from the
fact that he even looks upon propitiation itself, the most
objective of aU the scripture terms, as a subjective power.
"This [propitiation] is the most proper and apt means
to work upon thy heart, to persuade thee to be recon
ciled to God. And, therefore, is the preaching of Christ
crucified, unto them that are caUed, the power of God
and the wisdom of God — the most powerful and wisest
method, and which God hath thought fittest to reconcile
souls unto himself." — (p. 953.)

322 FREQUENTLY ASSERTED
Baxter often comes up to the critical point, sometimes
from one side and sometimes from another, but always
in a way to sanction and fortify my supposed departures
from orthodoxy. Thus the objective word pardon is to
him only a virtual equivalent of the subjective term
sanctification. " The pardon," he says, " of sin consisteth
more in forgiving the poenam damni, the forfeiture and
loss of love and the spirit of love, than in remitting any
corporal pain of sense. And the restoring of love and
the spirit of love, and the perfecting hereof in heaven, is
the most eminent part of our executive pardon, justifica
tion, and adoption. Thus far sanctification is pardon
itself."— (Pract. Works, fol. Vol. Ill, p. 610.)
In his " Life of Faith" occurs the following remarkable
passage, which I quote at full length, because it takes
hold of the very question Calvin debated, with only
doubtful success, and because it gives a general ' out
line view of the whole work of Christ, coinciding in
so many particulars with the doctrine I have advanced.
The capitals, be it observed, are not mine but his : —
" The scriptures are much in declaring the reasons of
Christ's coming into the world — as to be a sacrifice for
sin ; to declare God's mercy and love to sinners ; to seek
and to save that which was lost ; to destroy the works
of the devil. Let this name or description of Christ be
engraven, as in capital letters, upon your minds,— The
ETERNAL WISDOM OF GOD INCARNATE, TO REVEAL AND
COMMUNICATE HIS WILL, HIS LOVE, HIS SPIRIT, TO SIN
FUL, MISERABLE MEN."
" Many, by mistaking the doctrine of Christ's inter
cession, do think of God the Father as one that is all

BY ORTHODOX WRITERS. 323
Wrath and Justice, and unwilhng, of himself, to be re
conciled unto man. And of the second person in the
trinity as more gracious and merciful, whose mediation
abateth the wrath of the Father and, with much ado,
maketh him willing to have mercy on us. Whereas it
is the Love of God, which is the original of our redemp
tion, and it was God's loving the world that provoked
him to give his Son to be their Redeemer. And " God
was in Christ, reconciHng the world unto himself, not
imputing their trespasses unto them." And, therefore,
we still read of Christ's " reconciling man to God," and
not the phrase of his " reconcUing God to man." Not
but that both are truly wrought by Christ's mediation,
(for the seripture frequently speaketh of God's hating the
workers of iniquity, and of his vindictive justice, and of
the propitiating and atonement which signifieth the same
thing.) But the reason is because the enmity began on
man's part and not on God's ; by man's forsaking God
and turning his love from him to the creature, and not
by God's forsaking man ; and the change of man's state
and heart toward God, by true reconciliation, will make
him again capable of peace with God ; and as soon as
man is made an object, fit for the complacency of God, it
can not be but that God wUl again take complacency in
him ; so that the real change must be only in man, and
then that relative or denominational change, which must
be in God, wUl thence immediately result."
" Some also there be, who gather from Christ's death,
that God desired the sufferings of Christ as pleasing to
him in itself; as ff he made a bargain with Christ to sell
so much mercy to man, for so much blood and pains of

324 FREQUENTLY ASSERTED
Christ ; and as if he so delighted in the blood of the in
nocent, that he would the willinglyer do good to us, if
he might first forsake and crucify Christ. But this is
to contradict Christ's business in the world, as if he who
came from heaven, to declare God's love, had come to
declare him to delight in doing hurt ; and as if he who
came to demonstrate God's justice, had come to show
that he had rather punish the innocent than the guilty."
—(Pract. Works, Vol. Ill, p. 564.)
Now, in what manner Baxter could have managed to
cover a greater number of my heresies, in the same
number of words, I really do not see. My fundamental
doctrine of Christ's work is the same. The double view
I have given of the scripture representations, the sub
jective and objective, is exactly answered by his real
change and his relative or denominational.
The language of Tholuck, already, cited, implies or
rather expresses, you have seen, a view of the subject
essentially one with that which I have advanced in my
supposed heresy.
Jenkyn, discussing the scripture terms propitiation^
reconciliation and others of the same kind, explains them
in the following manner : —
" When the aspects and effects of the divine dispensa
tions alter, the change is not in the infinite, eternal mind,
but in the state and relations of the offender toward the
divine government. * * When a change is produced
in the aspect of the divine administration, that is when
God is said to be propitiated or reconciled through the
atonement, * * the actual change is in the state of the
sinner." — (Atonement, pp. 57-8.)

BY ORTHODOX WRITERS. 325
Symington, who is to be regarded as an example of the
sturdy Scotch orthodoxy, crosses the bridge of difficulty
thus; — "And are we to suppose, on the authority of
scripture too, that the atonement does effect a change in
the immutable God? Far be the thought. What we
have affirmed is, that the texts in question seemingly
imply a change in God. We have not said that they
reaUy imply such a thing. To speak of a change in the
nature, or attributes, or will of God, is blasphemous and
absurd. But it is neither blasphemous nor absurd, to
speak of a change in the mode of the divine administra
tion. What the atonement effects is, not a change in
God the Lawgiver, but a change in the administration
of his government ; a change in the relation subsisting
between creatures and himself. Those whom he formerly
treated in a way which is fitly represented to us, by
anger, indignation, wrath, he in consequence of what
Christ has done, treats in a way that is fitly represented,
by love and complacency. But the change is not in
God ; it is in the creature, and in the relation in which
the creature stands toward God. By means of Christ's
death, man is brought out of a state of condemnation and
depravity, which God could not but regard with repug
nance, into a state of reconciHation and purity, which he
can not but look upon with complacency. Whatever
change the creature undergoes, God continues the same.
It were every whit as reasonable to describe the different
appearances which the earth assumes, by day and by
night, to a change in the solar luminary, rather than to
its own relative position, with regard to that luminary ;
as to ascribe the state of man, in consequence of Christ's'
28

326 FREQUENTLY ASSERTED
atonement, to a change in God rather than in man him
self."— (Atone., pp. 27-8.)
How exactly this " seeming" change in God, implied
in the propitiation of God, this change that is " in the
creature and not in God" — resembled to the apparent
rising of the sun, which yet is only the rolling of the
earth — how exactly this coincides with the subjective-
objective view of Christ, which I have advanced, it re
quires no words to show. And yet the solution disap
pears with the difficulty, and is not seen to enter itself
into the staple doctrine of the treatise, a moment farther.
If true, in the matter, nothing is more evident than that
it requires the whole doctrine of the subject to be set in
conformity with it. I can hardly imagine how it was
possible for a logical, systematizing writer, to produce a
book in defense of the definition or thesis, that the atone
ment "is that perfect satisfaction given to the law and
justice of God, by the sufferings and death of Jesus
Christ, on behalf of elect sinners of mankind, on account
of which they are delivered from condemnation," and not
perceive that the argument of the solution referred to,
is one that as truly covers the whole ground of the sub
ject as the definition itself; and so qualifies the terms
of the definition as to prove its utter insufficiency, its
color of virtual falsity, as a statement of Christian truth.
And yet, agreeing that the change, in propitiation, is
only a " seeming" truth, " a change in the creature not in
God," he still brings out a scheme of atonement so rigidly
exterior to us, consisting in a compensation to God's jus
tice so legal and commercial, that exactly all for whom it
has been paid must be absolved and saved, whether they

BY ORTHODOX WRITERS. 327
repent or not ; otherwise " the monstrous impossibUity
must be maintained, that the infallible Judge refuses to
remit the punishment of some, for whose offenses he has
received a fuU compensation" I— (p. 190.)
These references, I think, are sufficient to show, that I
am adequately borne out, by the arguments of the best
orthodox writers, whenever they are brought to face the
principal question, or main difficulty of the subject.
Neither let it be objected that it savors of presumption,
to suppose that we are able, in this manner, to go beyond
the great teachers of past ages and bring forth truths that
were laboring in their mind, as the deepest meaning of
their doctrine, but which still they only half conceived.
Contrary to this, it seems to me that we only do them
the greater honor, by showing, in this manner, that they
have btfen competent teachers and have set us forward in
our studies, by the impulse they have given and the
lights they have gathered round us. However this may
be, nothing is more improbable, or even preposterous,
than the impression suffered, I beHeve, by many, that
just at the particular moment of history called the Re
formation, the true infaUible doctrine of Christ was
opened to mankind. Exactly contrary to this, we form,
it seems to me, no right or properly intelligent concep
tion of Luther and Calvin, save as we see them rising out
of the mires of old superstition ; the painful legahties of
a religion of works, the careful ascetic scruples, the pen
ances of human atonement, the alms-givings that were to
pay God the debt of their sins and had no spring in love
to men, aU the huge pUings of merit which yet could
bring no real peace and liberty to the soul ; and, since

328 THE PRACTICAL
these are discovered to be certainly not the gospel, begin
ning their indignant, wrathful Protest against the whole
scheme, as a scheme of error and delusion. And when
they assert, in place of it, the great Christian truth of
Justification by Faith, we are not to suppose that they
have settled every thing concerning it; or that God,
for once, has given the world two seers who are not
prophets, but infallible professors of dogmatic theology.
Better is it to say, with Bobinson, that " God hath more
truth yet to break forth out of his holy word. The Lu
therans can not be driven to go beyond Luther. The
Calvinists stick where Calvin left tiiem. Both were
shining lights in their times, yet God hath not revealed
his whole will to them. For it is not possible that the
Christian world is so lately come out of such thick anti-
Christian darkness, and that full perfection of knowledge
should break forth at once." This, at least, is true PU-
grim orthodoxy, if it be no other.
I have said nothing, in this discussion, of the par
ticular impeachment of my doctrine advanced in the
minority report of your committee, simply because I
could not imagine it to be necessary. You have doubt
less observed the rather singular terms of their stand
ard.* It appears just so far to assert the doctrine of a
literal and penal satisfaction of the divine justice, and

* " To cancel the penal claims of condemning law, by voluntarily offering
his sufferings and death as a satisfaction therefor, and so to redeem every
believer from further exposure to these claims, was the end sought, and
intended, and achieved, by Christ, in the work of atonement." — (Minority
Report.)

RESULT. 229
so far to hint the doctrine of a limited atonement, as
may insure the sanction of extreme orthodoxy ; and
yet is so daintily worded as not to offend the mind of
New England, in its fixed rejection of both. Meantime
there is held, back of aU, a scheme which is neither this
nor that, but a scheme of debt and purchase, more
literal than Anselm ever conceived ; — a scheme advanced
by the member who drew this Beport, in a dissertation
read before this body a few years ago, and peremptorily
rejected by every member of the body ; nor by any one
more peremptorily, than by the other member of this
minority. This theory or scheme, preached also as a
sermon before other bodies of clergy, both before and
since my book was published, has, in every case, been
disapproved by the most competent judges ; as involv
ing, first, in the relations of the Father and the Son, a
very gross form of tritheism, and secondly, a scheme of
divine government, under Christ, that is formally and
really anomian. I can hardly suppose, therefore, that
you are going now to make it a test or standard of
orthodoxy against me. It is rather to be expected,
that you will take it as an illustration or example of the
manner, in which the general deluge of agreements
against my heresy has been raised. They have a
plausible show of negative unity against me, but no
positive unity among themselves.
I have only to add, in closing the discussion, what I
think must be sufficiently evident already, as the main
peculiarity of my exposition, that it proposes no single
formula as containing the whole truth of the subject, but

r k

330 THE PRACTICAL RESULT.
is chiefly occupied in showing how, or by what method
of use, we may receive the true meaning and power of
all the scripture language. This language is to stand,
accordingly, as being the best and only competent state
ment of the Christian doctrine, and is not to be substi
tuted by any words of man's wisdom, or by any form
ulas that are set in terms of academic and abstractive
theology. Finding a ready use, in this manner, for all
the terms of scripture, no peculiar style of preaching,
such as may properly disturb the peace, or offend the
honest convictions of our churches, can possibly result
from the exposition I have given. For, whatever form
ulas we hold as the true account of Christ and his work,
and however violent the wars we maintain to defend
them, it is remarkable that, in the earnest preaching of
Christ and salvation, we break over all terms of 'theory,
to preach a Savior crucified — our life, our sacrifice, our
righteousness, our peace, using all the scripture terms,
in much the same way that my doctrine requires. If
any peculiarity appears in preaching Christ from the
point of view here developed, it will be that he is
preached more generally and emphaticaUy as a Power ;
which never offends, and for which I think I can say
with truth, our people are longing with real want and
hunger. If it be a crime, that I have sought to moisten
the dryness they'' suffer, if I wish to give them a Httle
more of the true bread from heaven, than some of our
meager theories will yield them, and if this be taken by
you as a fatal heresy, I hope I may be able to accept
your judgment, with a degree of fortitude, answering to
the earnestness of my convictions.

CONCLUSION.
My argument or exposition is now closed. If it has
seemed to you, in the progress of it, that I act the advo
cate too quietly or remotely, giving you rather a treatise
on the topics in question, than maintaining a plea for
myself, I hope you will not ascribe it to an affected in
difference, in regard to the results of a personal nature
that are pending, in the investigation. It is due simply to
the confidence I have in my positions and in you — in my
positions, because I seem to have discovered, by experi
mental proofs, that nothing effective can be said against
them; and in you, because of the conviction I have
that, while you will do nothing out of favor to me, you
are not of a temperament to allow any external combi
nations or importunities, to invade the integrity of your
judgments, or disturb the balance of your own personal
convictions. On the contrary, if you find me set upon by
crowds of adversaries, I seem even to know that, instead
of yielding a facUe, extempore compliance to their
clamors, you will find a magnanimous Christian pleasure
in taking the part of courage, and facing whatever
odium it may cost, to protect the rights of truth and
maintain the honors of justice.
As to the possibility that I may be finally over
whelmed or submerged by these tides that are now
pouring upon me, I know not how it is, but I have never
had the fear of it for a moment. Perhaps it is that,

332 CONCLUSION.
having a most intense conviction that what I have said
is the truth of God and spoken at his caU, I am equally
sure that God will take care of it. Yiolence against the
truth is weakness. Numbers increase the weakness.
And the worst that can be done against it, by both vio
lence and numbers, is to fight it into power.
You have seen, as the result of my exposition, that
while the views I have pubHshed will lead, in their prac
tical adoption, to no such diversity in preaching, as can
properly disturb the peace and religious comfort of our
churches, they are also as remote as they need be, from
asserting any point that is dangerously heretical. The
sum indeed of my heresies may be stated thus : —
As regards the Person of Christ, I have simply chosen
to abstain from a certain inference, heretofore drawn, re
specting the interior composition or psychology of his
nature ; on the ground that, in a matter so essentially
abnormal as the incarnation, we are manifestly not
authorized in the raising of any such theoretic and con
structive inferences.
In regard to the Trinity, where my doctrine has been
more abundantly impeached or complained of than any
where else, it turns out, beyond a question, that I am
essentially orthodox and New England essentially heret
ical. I deviate from the most rigid and perfect ortho
doxy, only in seeking here, as before, to arrest the
speculative process at a certain definite point, which, by
the conditions of the subject, never was or can be legiti
mately transcended. .
As regards the atonement or work of Christ, I have

conclusion. 333
shown you that no doctrine pertaining to the subject has,
to this hour, been framed, that can be said to have been,
or to be the accepted faith of the Christian Church. The
nearest approach hitherto made is to be found in the
ancient, but now universally rejected, doctrine of a ran
som paid to the devU ; that having been held for a much
longer time, and by a more general consent, than any
other. If we take the doctrine of the Reformation for a
standard, it can be said, with much greater confidence,
that I harmonize with it, than it can be said of the
common faith of New England. For the latter dismisses,
under sentence of ' absurdity,' all those conceptions of
imputation, which figure so largely in the teachings of
the Reformers, and even constitute the staple of their
doctrine; while I, coinciding in the speculative ab
surdity of imputation, undertake also to show how these
objective conceptions get their proper validity, and enter,
even as necessary elements, into the practical economy of
the Christian life. And if you wUl interpret the words
of the Reformers, in the free and only partially theologic
sense they yielded to faith, translating their letter into
spirit, their Peripatetic gospel into a Christian ; or if
you will regard the inmost, but yet only half-developed
sense of their speculative doctrine itself, reaching always
and visibly after an issue not yet attained to, it will come
out as a result, that I am reaUy closer, by far, to their
doctrine and more properly in it, than my New England
brethren, who have gone the same length, in denial, and
shown no positive method of conformity, in place of
what they deny. — These, as near as may be, are my sins
against orthodoxy.

334 conclusion.
And yet, the only question worthy of your attention
appears to be that which asks what is true, not what is
orthodox ; and I consider it to be my Christian duty to
say distinctly that, while I have submitted these com
parisons in a way of deference to others, I must still rest
my vindication wholly on the ground that my doctrine
is. true ; or, more exactly still, the living truth itself of
God and salvation. For not even truth is a valid interest,
apart from salvation, or the uses of the soul. It is simply
in this view that I have undertaken these discussions.
In my endeavor to secure, for the great truths in ques
tion, a less dogmatic, more truly spiritual and believing
reception, I have thought little of the interests, whether
of sect, or of theory ; or, I wUl confess to you, even of
orthodoxy. My conviction is, that the lamentable defect
of Christian character and power which distinguishes the
piety of our times, is due to the fact that, in the place
of a living faith in Jesus Christ, we have substituted, to
a much greater extent than we know, a notional, aca
demic, professorial faith; and the views of my book
have their only interest to me, in the fact that they are
the remedy proper to our disease.
It can not fail, I think, to have been painfully im
pressed on you, as on all attentive readers of the New
Testament scriptures, that there is a remarkable contrast
between the Christian spirit and life in our times, and
that of the disciples of the apostolic age. It may not be
easy to draw the distinction, or to show precisely where
and what it is, and yet we feel it. Their faith is vital.
It fills the life, dominates practically in the character,

conclusion. 335
possesses the spirit of the men. We see that Christ is
being formed in them. They appear to be enveloped in
Christ. He is the new man put on ; they are created in
righteousness after him. They Hve, as it were, in dead-
ness to mere nature, a life that is hid with Christ in God.
We use the same language, or try to use it, but it fits
badly and does not appear to mean the same thing. It
seems, rather, as if the meaning had been sifted out of the
words and lost. Our faith, or what we call our faith,
wears a superficial, flashy, semi-abortive look. The
change it works in character appears to be only a gentle
and often scarcely distinguishable modification; not a
making aU things new, not a new spirit breathed, a new
fire kindled in the center of the soul itself. It is not so
much as if we had felt the contact, in Christ, of the
divine nature and been polarized anew by the divinity
participated, but more as if we had undertaken ourselves
to be Hke the divine, and do some divine or Christly
things, in our own wiU and way and, of course, in a
very feeble, un-transforming way.
And the main cause of this defect will be discovered,
I think, as already intimated, in the fact that we have
taken the great truths of reUgion out of the sphere of
faith, and subjected them to the dominion or disposal of
the natural judgment; substituting, in this manner, a
dogmatic and professorial Christianity, in place of the
divine teaching or doctrine that is caUed spirit and is to
be realized only by faith and an immediately divine expe
rience. What I intend by this will be seen more clearly,
perhaps, than in any other way, if we take a single
passage of scripture that contains the true apostolic idea

conclusion.
of the Christian truth and Hfe, and bring our modern
demonstrations into comparison with it. Thus we may
take, for example, the declaration of John — "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 bath taught you, ye shaU abide in
him." This anointing is the inward showing of Christ,
caUed a few verses previous the unction of the Holy
One ; coinciding entirely with the declaration of Christ
himself, when he says of the Comforter, " he shaU receive
of mine and show it unto you ;" also with the apostolic
doctrine of the " Spirit" or the " Spirit of Christ," in the
eighth chapter of the epistle to the Romans ; also with
his doctrine of " spiritual discernment," in the first epistle
to the Corinthians. The same idea is continually re
appearing in all the writings of the apostles. It is the
apostolic idea of faith and discipleship — just that also, as
we shall see, apart from aU censoriousness, that least dis
tinguishes and most faintly appears in the Christian
characteristics of our times.
Thus I think it will be found that, in the general, we
do not really admit or conceive the idea itself of this
inward unction or anointing- It is that a soul truly
given up to Christ, fiUed with the spirit of Christ, is
filled, in virtue of that fact, with a supernatural light ; in
other words, it is brought into such a close, interior union
with the will and spirit of God that it is acted by God,
filled with the consciousness of God and, by means of
this pure inward experience, lighted up to know the
meaning of things, and conform, with a divine facility,

conclusion. 337
to that which is truest and best in them. This is the
anointing that is received of Christ, which abideth in
the soul as a lamp of secret illumination ; which makes
it unnecessary that some man should be always teaching
the disciple, because the anointing itself teacheth all
things, and sheddeth its own divine light upon all expe
riences and duties. The idea was not that every disciple
was become infallible, or an inspired prophet and teacher,
but stiU that he had a kind of qualified inspiration. In
ceasing to be simply natural or living in his natural fac
ulties, and becoming spiritual, actuated and filled with
the Divine Spirit, he was conceived to be capable of dis
cernment in another method, which is called spiritual
discernment. And no truth was more real than this.
They Hved in it. God was so near in the anointing of
the Christly spirit, that they had an inward light and
teaching from him, that was immediate.
But we are grown shy of this kind of experience. We
think to be more phUosophical, and so we take up the
assumption that God is one side of a great gulf, and we
the other ; and that all we can know of him is by in
ferences drawn across the gulf, or notional considerations
brought over, and second hand truths imported ; which,
if our judgment or the judgment of our head approves,
then they are likely to have a good influence on us ! Our
religion is fed therefore by the light of notions, and not
to any extent by the immediate Ulumination of God in
the soul. We seem to imagine that Christianity has be
come a science, that it has been thought out, that preach
ing is lecturing in the science by competent professors,
and that Christian living is keeping to the scientific rules
29

338 conclusion.
and tests of what is called the doctrine. Or we are bibli
olaters instead of Christian believers ; assuming that God,
long ages ago, miraculously inspired men to teach the
truths of salvation, which we are to take into our natural
judgment and by that only to distinguish ; no kind of
inspiration or anointing being aUowed us, however
qualified, that we may be able to spiritually discern the
meaning and power of the Word.
And it is only a part of the same defect that we
only faintly beHeve in prayer. For we do not allow
the immediate experience of God, in a state of Divine
Consciousness. I say we do not — I only mean that we
feebly do it and doubtingly; that we live a kind of
second hand religion, a notional religion, which is distant
and dry, and knows God only as he breaks into our ex
perience, by his immediate Hght, despite of the many
fences we raise against him, by the wisdom of our heads.
Hence the insipid look of our discipleship. Hence the
innumerable sects into which we divide the body of
Christ. It is because we are so little in the spirit, and so
much in our heads ; or if we draw from the scriptures,
that we only draw by our heads. We kindle a fire and
compass ourselves about with sparks and walk in the
light of our fire and in the sparks that we have kindled,
and of course we become as many as our sparks are ; for
the one anointing that teacheth all things and is no lie,
we still suspect is, at bottom, an extravagance.
When Christ says, for example, " we will come unto
him and make our abode with him ;" "I will love him
and will manifest myself unto him ;" these, say the
teachers and interpreters whose guidance we accept, are

conclusion. 339
figures and have their only meaning in the fact that, if
we do right, if we walk by faith, we shall have a good
conscience and be encouraged to think or infer that God
loves us ! And so our very experience and character as
disciples are fed or supported by inferences only; as
Elijah's body was by ravens, at the brook Cherith. We
infer that God approves us and that is our assurance of
faith, our peace, our Christian experience ! That a state
of Divine Consciousness is the normal state of souls,
when sin is cast out, we do not seem to imagine. That
when a sinner truly dies to himself and comes into the
will of God, just there God is manifested in him, and
that the sacred joy he feels is a conscious knowing, or
discovery to him of God in his self-evidencing light, — ¦
this does not enter into our conception of a possible
Christian experience. The disciples of old time had
other impressions. They said, in their simplicity — the
anointing we have received abideth in us. They said —
Christ shaU be formed within us, and we will be new
creatures in Christ Jesus. They said — Christ liveth in
us — we are God's temple — we are not in the flesh, but
in the Spirit — we know God — -we have the witness in
ourselves. They said — the Spirit helpeth our infirmities,
so that our desires and groanings are shaped into pray
ers, which are according to the secret will of God. In
fact, they regarded their whole life as a divine experi
ence and a work of God. In which they are seen only
to have taken the incarnation in its full import; for
what does this sublime, transcendent mystery signify to
man, but simply this — the proposed and possible union
of the divine and the human ; which, in fact, is the

340 conclusion.
only true and significant remedy of sin. Hence the
tremendous power of Christianity, when it burst iuto
the world ; for it kindled a divine fire in the earth and
flashed through the blinded nations, as lightning in the
pight. It suddenly made men to be more than men,
'because it made them partakers of the divine nature —
in which they forgot, as it were, themselves, became
impassible to fear and suffering, and lived and acted,
before mankind, as if they were only vehicles of the
divine truth and love, — vehicles of the spirit and power
of Jesus. We seem unable to meet such impressions.
Instead of this immediate divine experience, which is
the glory, joy, sublimity of a true discipleship, we try to
manage a new life through notional influences, reasons,
motives, that are shadows of divinity in our head, and
not the living Christ in our heart. Hence the feeble,
unrenovated, undivine look of what we call our faith.
It is, after all, not so much faith as self- management,
self-excitement, self-culture, self-illumination.
Our inabUity also to make religion live, in connection
with the common duties and callings of the world, is
equally manifest and is referrible to the same cause.
We are not in the spirit of Christ, to be quickened ¦ and
governed and guided by Christ, in that which alone
makes his guidance a reality ; in the business, the society,
the pleasures and all the interests of life. We have not
that unction of the Holy One, that abideth in us and
teacheth us, or openeth to us the way of duty, in all
things. Therefore one of two things appears to be ne
cessary, either that we withdraw from the world alto
gether, to live a separate, ascetic life and so to keep our-

conclusion. 341
selves in safety ; or else, if we go into the world, that we
be whoUy buried and overwhelmed by the power of the
worldly spirit. The latter is the form our error com
monly takes, and how miserably evident it is on every
side. How large the mass of those who, assuming to be
disciples, are yet seen to Hve in a manner scarcely dif
ferent from the unbelievers. The Spirit of Christ is not
in them, you can not find it. They are selfish. They
live in their passions. Their object is the world. The
world is their anointing, which, in all things, they be
Heve and follow. Now there would be no difficulty
whatever in carrying a Christian spirit directly into the
world and making it live there and unfold itself, even
the more powerfully and proportionally, because of the
works and duties that engage us, if only the anointing of
Christ were in us. Going into it to be acted and ruled
by the indwelling grace of God or of Christ, then all its
works and calls meet us in harmony and become our
helpers. God then is aU in all — there is no world. ,
The power that reigns within reigns also without,
and all the exercise and discipline of Hfe, instead of
making the disciples weak, and worldly, and light,
and empty, as we see it do now, will only purify them,
make them more solid and firm and more heavenly
in their spirit.
The remarkable inconstancy, too, of religious faith and 4
character, in our times, indicates the want of just that
which abides and becomes a real renovating power. We
seem to see that the Christian spirit is a casual, transitory
spirit. We even expect it to be so and are content to
have it so. Let me be understood. I do not undertake
29*

342 CONCLUSION.
to say that the progress itself of the disciple may not re
quire, that he should pass through a succession of varied
states and exercises. But variety is one thing and incon
stancy is another. Life is always passing through
varieties, but never ceases. So when the spirit of Christ
enters into a soul and begins to be formed there, it is the
anointing that abides, it is Eternal Life itself. The soul
that believes is anchored by its faith and made fast in it.
It has forsaken all and, ceasing to be centered in itself, it
is centered in God. Hence, according to the ancient,
original conception of piety, it was to be a stable and
continuous state. The call was — " abide in me and I in
you." And the promise of the Comforter— -" he shall
abide with you forever." And the warning — " if a man
abide not in me he is cast forth as a branch." And,
accordingly, having this deep, inward union to God, it
used to be seen that it changed the Hfe and became a
sovereign, all transforming principle of good in the soul.
What then shall we understand, but that our casual,
flickering, going and returning* piety wants the real
anointing that abides, and is only a superficial and feebly
realized principle ?
It is only a necessary consequence of the same general
defect that we have so few Christly characters in our
times. It used to be seen that Christian experience
entered into men as a great and wonderfully invigorat
ing power. It made the disciples wear somewhat of the
look of their master. They were dead to themselves.
They lived in love. The cross was their glory. They
could endure hardness. They were simple and direct,
living by divine guidance as the anointing that was in

conclusion. 343
them taught them. But now that simple believing
method is gone. We are turned critics, in place of
earnest believers unto righteousness ; amateur disciples,
praising the heroes of the faith, whose faith we do not
foUow. The inward anointing and teaching of Christ,
that, which if we have, both shapes and feeds a character
. — no thanks to eriticism — how little of this do we see ;
how few really Christly men and women, on whom the
Christian spirit seems to have taken its genuine hold
and exerted its true ennobling power. The old Chris
tian athletse and giants of Christly fortitude are gone —
we have no heroes ; or if we have a few, we call them
enthusiasts, or fanatics, or by some evU name that puts
them out of our company.
Indeed we have a way of saying that the days of
heroism have gone by, and that no such fruits are any
longer to be expected — not once imagining, I fear, that
the days of heroism have gone by, rather because the
virtue itself is discontinued, than because the demand for
it is expired. It is very possible, I know, to profess
Christ, .in this age, and not be burned at the stake.
StiU it is now as true as ever that " all who wiU live
godly in Christ Jesus, shaU suffer persecution." Let
any disciple receive the true indweUing spirit of Jesus
and the unction of his life and passion, and he will find
that he has ways enough given him, in which to exercise
the grace of his passion. Or let any one set himself to
receive *all the beatitudes of Jesus but the last, and that
last will be laid upon him to receive, whether he will or
not. There is never an age that does not, somehow,
invite the heroic virtues of the faith and prepare a

344 CONCLUSION.
cross to be borne by the great Christly characters. We
have only lost the anointing that consecrates them.
Brethren, I am not censorious or severe in these
strictures. Their essential truth I think must be evi
dent to you all. And yet, with a form of piety so
Httle apostolic, we are engaged in undertakings, greater
by far, than the apostles or Christians of the apostolic
age, either knew or conceived. We have undertaken
the conversion of the world. It is very difficult, I
think, not to fear that so great a work is impossible,
with our present style of discipleship. It is too super
ficial, too little in the spirit of Jesus and his sacrifice.
I wish it were less clear that all our imposing and
magnificent plans for this object, are destined, ere long,
unless God breathes into us a more genuine faith and
a deeper experience, to go out in smoke and cease.
This, I believe, is the conviction that is growing upon
many sober minds, that are deepest in the interest of
these undertakings ; and the sooner this conviction is
admitted by us all, the better will it be for us. . -
In one view, these great combinations or combined
movements, in which we are now enlisted, are the most
respectable signs of our modern Christian life. And
yet, how easily may our piety degenerate under them,
into a mere corporate exercise ; a faith in means, and
machineries, and anniversary platforms ; a piety of con
tributions, given as the cheapest substitute for self-
renunciation, and the burdensome fideHty of a godly
and devout life. There was a real and true lifting of
the Christian spirit, I certainly believe, in connection

CONCLUSION. 345
with these enterprises, at the time of their inception.
Is there no reason to suspect a subsidence of that spirit,
in their continuance and progress ? The conductors of
them now begin to warn us, with a feeling of visible
concern, that we must either advance or retreat, and can
not hold a simply fixed position. They teU us, further
more, that we certainly can not advance, without a new
baptism of the Christian spirit. God has given us
successes, God opens ways by bis Providence and
beckons us forward ; but we are neither kindled by
successes, nor ready to foUow the divine intimations.
It is conceivable that God may employ these great
wheels of corporate movement, so as to exert in them
a more than apostohc power. But they wiU be lifted
up, only as the Hving creatures of faith are Hfted up
over against them, and the spirit of the Hving creatures
enters continually into them.
There is yet another danger here, which many do
not seem as yet to perceive. These very undertakings
involve a reconstruction of our whole Christian economy
and character, and especially the subsidence and final
discontinuance of the old dogmatic order. The dog
matic era closed at the moment when these undertakings
begun. Before, the organizing force was dogma; hence
forth it is work. Then the testing of souls, thus and
thus, and laying them up, as it were, for salvation, was
the principal idea; now we are more occupied with
results and less with abstractions. As a necessary con
sequence, we can not be as rigid as we were, even when
we hold the same opinions. We spread ourselves in
feeling, beyond the old Hnes that used to hem us in.

346 CONCLUSION.
We long to be one with those who have the same ends,
and feel it to be a principal point of unity that we are
co-workers, actuated by a common *zeal for the salvation
of man. And so, by a silent process of liquefaction, the
throne of dogmatism is visibly melting awjfy from under
it. In all that I have said respecting it, I have only
spoken out that sentence in words, which you all are
passing in your works. And the question is not, any
longer, whether dogmatism is to lose its authority and
cease ; but simply this, whether any thing is to be set
in its place, that will save us from a state of indifference
and dissipation that is frightful to contemplate ?
And just here it is, that I have found so great interest
in the views presented in my book. Seeing that the
transition must be made, and can not be arrested, or
rather that it is virtually made already, I consent to it,
and look about to find a new organific principle that
will impart a better vigor than we have lost, and con
dense our dissipation into a more genuine, broader
Christian Unity ; viz., the unity generated by faith,
or what is called, in scripture, the unity of the Spirit.
As we have undertaken- apostolic works, I suppose that
God will have us receive the apostolic spirit in the
apostolic liberty, and go to our works, endued with
power from on high. There is nothing peculiar in the
views I have presented, save that they better agree with
an age of beneficent activity, and the comprehensive or
catholic tendency, inseparably connected with it. I have
only not pushed the great Christian truths of the Incar
nate Person, the Trinity, and the Sacrifice of Christ, to
their last limit, in the terms of reason or theory. I

conclusion. 347
have only not said that we have reasoned out and know
aU that is inmost or most interior, in these deep mys
teries that He, between us and the infinite. I present
them as symbolic or instrumental truths, and not as
scholastic abstractions or results of theory. To raise a
defense against aU those extravagances which ignorant
and overheated enthusiasts are wont to indulge, in the
name of spiritual teaching, I endeavor to ascertain
exactly how much may be known of these truths by the
natural understanding ; and then allow them, for what
remains, to discover their virtue and yield their holy
anointing to faith. Accordingly, we are allowed never
to be in them, simply as yielding them the assent of the
head ; but only as having a present realization of their
power, in the state of fellowship with God they open in
our experience. We can easily agree, in the natural
understanding, to receive these truths in their symbolic
instrumental forms ; and then we can as easily meet in
their spiritual import, by being in the Spirit under them.
And this is Christian unity, apostolic, vital, practical,
energetic, — unity cemented in God ; and really I know
not where to look for any other.
It is simply in this practical, experimental view of the
truths in question that I have spoken, many times, in
these discussions, of our relations to the Unitarians. I
have done it, not as suggesting terms of ecclesiastical
adjustment; but because they have the same spiritual
interest in the truths discussed that we have, and because
it is under these truths, insufficiently conceived, that we
have suffered some common disasters. God forbid
that we should think to be as Jews and Samari-

348 conclusion.
tans, and look on that as the end of our Christian
duty. We have a common history, which is the his
tory, in a sense, of our nation itself. We are brethren
and kinsmen according to the flesh, and for such an
apostle was able, if it could do any good, even to wish
himself accursed from Christ. Having the same free
polity, in religion, derived from our fathers, it is greatly
to be desired, both for the fathers' sakes and our own,
that this free polity should be seen to have a self-remedial
principle in its freedom, and a power from God to
restore its own casual aberrations. I wish I were not
obliged to add, as I do with some mortification, that the
admirable dignity and candor exhibited, on their side,
in the strictures they have made upon my book, compel
a contrast with the violent and, it seems to me, rather
¦ _'¦ 'fa i i ¦,
extravagant severities indulged in our own, that too
Httle favors our supposed purity in the truth.
The case now, brethren, is before you. It is very pos
sible for you, I know, to have a different judgment of
what I have done, from that which I entertain myself.
But it can not be difficult for you to see, that whoever of
Christ's true friends and followers may undertake, in this
manner, to commend a less academic faith and open the
way to a higher and more transforming experience, will,
if they are right, have much of odium to encounter.
But if they consent to suffer gladly, if they take their
part, in this manner, with God and lay themselves
upon his altar, it is not your belief that He will reject
them, and as Httle to be imagined that they will be
rejected by you.

0043

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