Orthodoxy:

Its Truths And Errors

By

James Freeman Clarke

“Soleo enim in allena castra transire, non tanquam transfuga, sed tanquam explorator.”—Seneca, Epistolæ, 2.

“Fiat lux. Cupio refelli, ubi aberrarim; nihil majus, nihil aliud quam veritatem efflagito.”—Thomas Burnet, Arch. Phil.

Fourteenth Edition.

Boston:

American Unitarian Association.

1880.

Contents

[pg iii]

Preface.

The Protestant Reformation has its Principle and its Method. Its Principle is Salvation by Faith, not by Sacraments. Its Method is Private Judgment, not Church Authority. But private judgment generates authority; authority, first legitimate, that of knowledge, grows into the illegitimate authority of prescription, calling itself Orthodoxy. Then Private Judgment comes forth again to criticise and reform. It thus becomes the duty of each individual to judge the Church; and out of innumerable individual judgments the insight of the Church is kept living and progressive. We contribute one such private judgment; not, we trust, in conceit, but in the hope of provoking other minds to further examinations.

Chapter I. Introduction.

§ 1. Object and Character of this Book.

The peculiarity of the book now offered to the religious public by the government of the American Unitarian Association, is this—that it is an honest attempt to find and state the truth contained in the doctrines of their opponents. It is, perhaps, something new for an association established to defend certain theological opinions, and baptized with a special theological name, to publish a work intended to do justice to hostile theories. The too usual course of each sect has been, through all its organs, to attack, denounce, undervalue, and vilify the positions taken by its antagonists. This has been considered as only an honest zeal for truth. The consequence has been, that no department of literature has been so unchristian in its tone and temper as that of sectarian controversy. Political journals heap abuse on their opponents, in the interest of their party. But though more noisy than the theological partisans, they are by no means so cold, hard, [pg 002] or unrelenting. Party spirit, compared with sectarian spirit, seems rather mild.[1]

It is true that theologians do not now use in controversy the epithets which were formerly universal. We have grown more civil in our language than were our fathers. It is also true that we often meet with theological discussions conducted in a spirit of justice towards one's opponents.[2] But to say, “Fas est ab hoste doceri,” is a step as yet beyond the ability of most controversialists. To admit that your antagonist may have seen some truth not visible to yourself, and to read his work in this sense,—in order to learn, and not merely to confute,—is not yet common.

This we are about to undertake in the present treatise. We stand in the Unitarian position, but shall endeavor to see if there be not some truths in Orthodoxy which Unitarians have not yet adequately recognized. To use the language of our motto—we come “not as deserters, but as explorers” into the camp of Orthodoxy. We are satisfied with our Unitarian position, as a stand-point from which to survey that of others. And especially are we grateful to it, since it encourages us by all its traditions, by all its ideas [pg 003] and principles, to look after as well as before—to see if there be no truth behind us which we have dropped in our hasty advance, as well as truth beyond us to which we have not yet attained.

§ 2. Progress requires that we should look back as well as forward.

Such a study as this may be undertaken in the interest of true progress, as well as that of honest inquiry. For what so frequently checks progress, causes its advocates to falter, and produces what we call a reaction towards the old doctrines, as something shallow in the reform itself? Christians have relapsed into Judaism, Protestants into Romanism, Unitarians into Orthodoxy—because something true and good in the old system had dropped out of the new, and attracted the converts back to their old home. All true progress is expressed in the saying of Jesus, “I have not come to destroy, but to fulfil.” The old system cannot pass away until all its truths are fulfilled, by being taken up into the new system in a higher form. Judaism will not pass away till it is fulfilled in Christianity—the Roman Catholic Church will not pass away till it is fulfilled in Protestantism—Orthodoxy will not pass away till it is fulfilled by Rational Christianity. Judaism continues as a standing protest, on behalf of the unity of God, against Trinitarianism.

And yet we believe that, in the religious progress of the race, Christianity is an advance on Judaism, Protestant Christianity an advance on Roman Catholic Christianity, and Liberal and Rational Christianity an advance on Church Orthodoxy. But all such advances are subject to reaction and relapse. Reaction differs from relapse in this, that it is an oscillation, not a fall. Reaction is the backward swing of the wave, which will presently return, going farther forward than before. Relapse is the fall of the tide, which leaves the ships aground, and the beach uncovered. Reaction is going back to recover some substantial truth, left behind in a too hasty advance. Relapse is falling back into [pg 004] the old forms, an entire apostasy from the higher stand-point to the lower, from want of strength to maintain one's self in the advance.

The Epistle to the Hebrews deserves especial study by those who desire to understand the philosophy of intellectual and spiritual progress. It was written to counteract a tendency among the Jewish Christians to relapse into Judaism. These Christians missed the antiquity, the ceremony, the authority of the old ritual. Their state of mind resembled that of the extreme High Church party in the Church of England, who are usually called Puseyites. They were not apostates or renegades, but backsliders. They were always lamenting the inferiority of Christianity to Judaism, in the absence of a priesthood, festival, sacrifices. It hardly seemed to them a church at all. The Galatians, to whom Paul wrote, had actually gone over and accepted Jewish Christianity in the place of Christianity in its simplicity and purity. The Hebrews had not gone over, but were looking that way. Therefore the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews endeavors to show them that all which was really good in the Jewish priesthood, temple, ritual, was represented in Christianity in a higher form. It had been fulfilled in the New Covenant. Nothing real and good can pass away till it is fulfilled in something better. Thus the Roman Catholic Church stands, as a constant proof that Protestant Christianity yet lacks some important Christian element which Romanism possesses. Orthodoxy, confuted, as we suppose, over and over again, by the most logical arguments, stands firm, and goes forward.

Let us, then, reëxamine the positions of our antagonists—not now merely in order to find the weak places in their line of battle, but to discover the strong ones. Let us see if there be any essential, substantial truth in this venerable system, to which we have as yet not done justice. If there be, justice and progress will both be served by finding and declaring it.

We ask, What are the substantial truths, and what the formal errors, of Orthodoxy? But what do we mean by these terms?

§ 3. Orthodoxy as Right Belief.

By Orthodoxy in general is meant the right system of belief. This is the dictionary definition. But as the world and the Church differ as to which is the right system of belief—as there are a vast multitude of systems—and as all sects and parties, and all men, believe the system they themselves hold to be the right belief—Orthodoxy, in this sense of right belief, means nothing. In this sense there are as many orthodoxies as there are believers, for no two men, even in the same Church, think exactly alike. Unless, therefore, we have some further test, by which to find out which orthodoxy, among all these orthodoxies, is the true orthodoxy—we accomplish little by giving to any one system that name.

Here, for instance, in New England, we have a system of belief which goes by the name of Orthodoxy; which, however, is considered very heterodox out of New England. The man who is thought sound by Andover is considered very unsound by Princeton. The General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church, in 1837, cut off four synods, containing some forty thousand members, because they were supposed not to be sound in doctrinal belief. But these excommunicated synods formed a New School Presbyterian Church, having its own orthodoxy. Andover considers itself more orthodox than Cambridge; but the New School Presbyterians think themselves more orthodox than Andover—the Old School Presbyterians think themselves more orthodox than the New School. But the most orthodox Protestant is called a heretic by the Roman Catholics. The Roman Catholics, again, are called heretics by the Greek Church. So that orthodoxy, in this sense, seems an impossible thing—something which, if it exists, can never be certainly ascertained.

Whenever a body of believers assumes the name of Orthodox, intending thereby that they are right, and their opponents wrong, they evidently assume the very point in dispute. They commit the fallacy called in logic a petitio principii. They beg the question, instead of discussing it. They put will in the place of reason. They say, in the very title page of their book, in the first step of their argument, that their book is satisfactory and their argument conclusive. It would be more modest to wait till the discussion is concluded before they proceed thus to state what the conclusion is. This is an arrogance like that which the Church of Rome commits, in calling itself Catholic or Universal, while excluding more than half of Christendom from its communion.[3]

A political party does not offer such an affront to its opponents. It may name itself Democratic, Republican, Federal; it may call itself the Conservative party, or that of Reform. By these titles it indicates its leading idea—it signifies that it bears the standard of reform, or that it stands by the old institutions of the country. But no political party ever takes a name signifying that it is all right and its opponents all wrong. This assumption was left to religious sects, and to those who consider humility the foundation of all the virtues.

The term “Evangelical” is, perhaps, not as objectionable as Orthodox, though it carries with it a similar slur on those of other beliefs. It says, “We are they who believe the gospel of Christ; those who differ from us do not believe it.” It is like the assumption by some of the Corinthians of the exclusive name of Christians. “We are of Christ,” [pg 007] said they—meaning that the followers of Paul and Apollos were not so.

Probably the better part of those who take the name of Orthodox, or Evangelical, intend no such arrogance. All they want is some word by which to distinguish themselves from Unitarians, Universalists, &c. They might say, “We have as good a right to complain of your calling yourselves ‘Rational Christians’ or ‘Liberal Christians’—assuming thereby that others are not rational or liberal. You mean no such assumption, perhaps; neither do we when we call ourselves ‘Orthodox’ or ‘Evangelical.’ When we can find another term, better than these, by which to express the difference between us, we will use it. We do not intend by using these words to foreclose argument or to beg the question. We do not mean by Orthodoxy, right belief; but only a certain well-known form of doctrine.”

This is all well. Yet not quite well—since we have had occasion to notice the surprise and disgust felt by those who had called themselves “The Orthodox,” in finding themselves in a community where others had assumed that title, and refused to them any share in it. Therefore it is well to emphasize the declaration that Orthodoxy in the sense of “right belief” is an unmeaning expression, signifying nothing.

§ 4. Orthodoxy as the Doctrine of the Majority. Objections.

The majority, in any particular place, is apt to call itself orthodox, and to call its opponents heretics. But the majority in one place may be the minority in another. The majority in Massachusetts is the minority in Virginia. The majority in England is the minority in Rome or Constantinople. The Archbishop of Canterbury, the Primate of all England, gave Mr. Carzon a letter of introduction to the Patriarch of Constantinople, the head of the Greek Church. But the Patriarch had never heard of the Archbishop of Canterbury, and inquired, “Who is he?”

Nevertheless, it is a very common argument that such and such a doctrine, being held by the great majority of Christians, must necessarily be true. Thus it is said that since the great majority of Christians believe the doctrine of the Trinity, that doctrine must be true. “Is it possible,” it is said, “that the great majority of Christian believers should be now, and have been so long, left in error on such a fundamental doctrine as this?” Even so intelligent a man as Dr. Huntington seems to have been greatly influenced by this argument in becoming a Trinitarian. The same argument has carried many Protestants into the Roman Catholic Church. And, no doubt, there is a truth in the argument—a truth, indeed, which is implied all through the present work—that doctrines thus held by great multitudes during long periods cannot be wholly false. But it by no means proves them to be wholly true. Otherwise, truth would change as the majorities change. In one century the Arians had the majority; and Arianism, therefore, in that century would have been true. Moreover, most of those who adhere to a doctrine have not examined it, and do not have any defined opinion concerning it. They accept it, as it is taught them, without reflection. And again, most truths are, at first, in a minority of one. Christianity, in the first century, was in a very small minority. Protestantism, in the time of Luther, was all in the brain and heart of one man. To assume, therefore, that Orthodoxy, or the true belief, is that of the majority, is to forbid all progress, to denounce all new truth, and to resist the revelation and inspiration of God, until it has conquered for itself the support of the majority of mankind. According to this principle, as Christianity is still in a minority as compared with paganism, we ought all to become followers of Boodh. Such a view cannot bear a moment's serious examination. Every prophet, sage, martyr, and heroic champion of truth has spent his life and won the admiration and grateful love of the world [pg 009] by opposing the majority in behalf of some neglected or unpopular truth.

§ 5. Orthodoxy as the Oldest Doctrine. Objections.

Some people think that Orthodoxy means the oldest doctrine, and that if they can only find out what doctrine was believed by the Church in the first century, they shall have the true orthodox doctrine. But the early Church held some opinions which all now believe to be false. They believed, for instance, that Jesus was to return visibly, in that age, and set up his church in person, and reign in the world in outward form—a thing which did not take place. They therefore believed in the early church something which was not true—consequently what they believed cannot be a certain test of Orthodoxy.

The High Church party in the Church of England, in defending themselves against the Roman Catholic argument from antiquity, have appealed to a higher antiquity, and established themselves on the supposed faith of the first three centuries. But Isaac Taylor, in his “Ancient Christianity,” has sufficiently shown that during no period in those early centuries was anything like modern orthodoxy satisfactorily established.[4] The Church doctrine was developed gradually during a long period of debate and controversy. The Christology of the Church was elaborated amid the fierce conflicts of Arians and Athanasians, Monothelites and Monophysites, Nestorians and Eutychians. The anthropology of the Church was hammered and beaten into shape by the powerful arm of Augustine and his successors, on the anvils of the fifth century, amid the fiery disputes of Pelagians, Semi-Pelagians, and their opponents.

Many doctrines generally believed in the early church are [pg 010] universally rejected now. The doctrine of chiliasm, or the millennial reign of Christ on earth; the doctrine of the under world, or Hades, where all souls went after death; the doctrine of the atonement made by Christ to the devil,—such were some of the prevailing views held in the early ages of the Church. The oldest doctrine is not certainly the truest; or, as Theodore Parker once said to a priest in Rome, who told him that the primacy of Peter was asserted in the second century, “A lie is no better because it is an old one.”

§ 6. Orthodoxy as the Doctrine held by all.

But, it may be said, if Orthodoxy does not mean the absolutely right system of belief, nor the system held by the majority, nor the oldest doctrine of the Church, it may, nevertheless, mean the essential truths held in all Christian Churches, in all ages and times; in short, according to the ancient formula—that which has been believed always, by all persons, and everywhere—“quod semper, quod ab omnibus, quod ubique.”

In this sense no one would object to Orthodoxy. Only make your Catholicity large enough to include every one, and who would not be a Catholic? But this famous definition, if it be strictly taken, seems as much too large as the others are too narrow. If you only admit to be orthodox what all Christian persons have believed, then the Trinity ceases to be orthodox; for many, in all ages, have disbelieved it. Eternal punishment is not orthodox, for that, too, has often been denied in the Church. Sacraments are not orthodox, for the Quakers have rejected them. The resurrection is not orthodox, for there were some Christians in the Church at Corinth who said there was no resurrection of the dead.

§ 7. Orthodoxy, as a Formula, not to be found.

Any attempt, therefore, rigidly to define Orthodoxy, destroys it. Regarded as a precise statement, in a fixed or definite form, [pg 011] it is an impossibility. There is no such thing, and never has been. No creed ever made satisfied even the majority. How, indeed, can any statement proceeding from the human brain be an adequate and permanent expression of eternal truth? Even the apostle says, “I know in part, and I prophesy in part, but when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away.” The apostle declares that his sight of truth is only partial, and that everything partial is imperfect, and that everything imperfect must pass away; so that our present knowledge of truth is transient. “Whether there be knowledge, it shall pass away.” If the apostle Paul declared that he had not the power of making a perfect and permanent statement of truth, how can we believe that any one else can ever do it?

§ 8. Orthodoxy as Convictions underlying Opinions.

If, therefore, every doctrinal statement is changeable and changing; if the history of opinions shows the rise and fall of creeds,—one after the other becoming dominant, and then passing away; if no formula has ever gained the universal assent of Christendom; if the oldest creeds contained errors now universally rejected,—what then remains as Orthodoxy? We answer, no one statement, but something underlying all statements—no one system of theology, but certain convictions, perhaps, pervading all the ruling systems. Man's mind, capable of insight, sees with the inward eye the same great spiritual realities, just as with his outward eye he sees the same landscape, sky, ocean. According to the purity and force of his insight, and the depth of his experience, he sees the same truth. There is one truth, but many ways of stating it—one spirit, but many forms.

“The one remains, the many change and pass;

Heaven's light forever shines, earth's shadows fly.”

Are there any such great convictions underlying and informing all the creeds? I think there are. I think, for [pg 012] example, it has always been believed in the Church that in some sense man is a sinner, and in some sense Christ is a Saviour from sin; that Christianity is in some way a supernatural revelation of the divine will and love; that Scripture is somehow an inspired book, and has authority over our belief and life; that there is a Church, composed of disciples of Jesus, whose work in the world is to aid him in saving the lost and helping the fallen and wretched; that somehow man needs to be changed from his natural state into a higher state, and to begin a new life, in order to see God; that there is such a thing as heaven, and such a thing as hell; that those who love God and man belong to heaven, and that the selfish and sensual belong to hell. These ideas have been the essential ideas of the Church, and constitute the essence of its Orthodoxy.

Orthodoxy, then, is not any definite creed, or statement of truth. It is not of the letter, but of the spirit. The letter kills. Consequently those who cling to the letter of Orthodoxy kill its spirit. The greatest enemy of Orthodoxy is dead Orthodoxy. The old statements retained after their life is gone,—the old phrases made Shibboleths by which truth is to be forever tested,—these gradually make the whole system seem false to the advancing intellect of the human race. Then heresies come up, just as providential, and just as necessary, as Orthodoxy, to compel the Church to make restatements of the eternal truth. Heresies, in this sense, are as true as Orthodoxy, and make part, indeed, of a higher Orthodoxy.

By Orthodoxy, therefore, we do not mean the opinions held by any particular denomination in New England or elsewhere. We do not mean the opinions of New England Calvinists or of Southern Presbyterians; not the creed of Andover, of New Haven, or of Princeton: but we mean that great system of belief which gradually took form in the Christian Church, in the course of centuries, as its standard [pg 013] theology. The pivotal points of this system are sin and salvation. In it man appears as a sinner, and Christ as a Saviour. Man is saved by an inward change of heart, resulting in an outward change of life, and produced by the sight of the two facts of sin and salvation. The sight of his sin and its consequences leads him to repentance; the sight of salvation leads him to faith, hope, and love; and the sight of both results in regeneration, or a new life. This system also asserts the divinity of Christ, the triune nature of God, the divine decrees, the plenary inspiration of Scripture, eternal punishment, and eternal life.

§ 9. Substantial Truth and Formal Error in all great Doctrinal Systems.

Within the last twenty-five years, a new department of theological literature has arisen in Germany, which treats of the history of doctrines. The object of this is to trace the doctrinal opinions held in the Church in all ages. By this course of study, two facts are apparent—first, that the same great views have been substantially held by the majority of Christians in all ages; and, secondly, that the forms of doctrine have been very different. The truths themselves have been received by Christians, as their strength, their hope, and their joy, in all time; but the formal statement of these truths has been wrought out differently by individual intellects. The universal body of Christians has taken care of Christian truth; while the Church Fathers, or doctors, have held in their hands the task of defining it doctrinally for the intellect.

By substantial truth we mean this—that in all the great systems of opinion which have had a deep hold on the human mind, over broad spaces and through long periods, there is something suited to man's nature, and corresponding with the facts of the case. The mind of man was made for truth, and not for error. Error is transient: truth only is permanent. Men do not love error for its own sake, but for the sake of something with which it is connected. After a [pg 014] while, errors are eliminated, and the substance retained. The great, universal, abiding convictions of men must, therefore, contain truth. If it were not so, we might well despair; for, if the mind of the race could fall into unmixed error, the only remedy by which the heart can be cured, and the life redeemed from evil, would be taken away. But it is not so. God has made the mind for truth, as he has adapted the taste to its appropriate food. In the main, and in the long run, what men believe is the truth; and all catholic beliefs are valid beliefs. Opinions held by all men, everywhere and at all times, must be substantially true.

But error certainly exists, and always has existed. If the human mind is made for truth, how does it fall into error? There never has been any important question upon which men have not taken two sides; and, where they take two sides, one side must be in error. Sometimes these two parties are equally balanced, and that for long periods. With which has the truth been? Is God always with the majority? If so, we must at once renounce our Unitarian belief for the Trinity, as an immense majority of votes are given in its favor. But, then, we must also renounce Protestantism; for Protestantism has only eighty or ninety millions against a hundred and forty millions who are Catholics. And, still further, we must renounce Christianity in favor of Heathenism; since all the different Christian sects and churches united make up but three hundred millions, while the Buddhists alone probably exceed that number. Moreover, truth is always in a minority at first,—usually in a minority of one; and, if men ought to wait until it has a majority on its side before they accept it, it never will have a majority on its side.

These objections lead us to the only possible answer, which consists in distinguishing between the substance and the form. When we assert that all creeds, widely held and long retained, have truth, we mean substantial truth. We do not [pg 015] mean that they are true in their formal statement, which may be an erroneous statement, but that they are true as to their contents. The substance of the belief is the fact inwardly beheld by the mind; the form is the verbal statement which the mind makes of what it has seen. It has seen something real; but, when it attempts to describe what it has seen, it may easily commit errors. Thus there may be, in the same creed, substantial truth and formal error; and all great and widely-extended beliefs, as we assert, must contain substantial truth and formal error. Without substantial truth, there would be nothing in them to feed the mind, and they would not be retained; and, if they were not more or less erroneous in form, it would imply infallibility on the part of those who give them their form.

§ 10. Importance of this Distinction.

This distinction is one of immense importance; because, being properly apprehended, it would, by destroying dogmatism, destroy bigotry also. Dogmatism consists in assuming that the essence of truth lies in its formal statement. Correctly assuming that the life of the soul comes from the sight of truth, it falsely infers that the essence of truth is in the verbal formula. Consequently, this formula must necessarily seem of supreme importance, and the very salvation of the soul to depend on holding the correct opinion. With this conviction, one must and ought to be bigoted; he ought to cling to the minutest syllable of his creed as the drowning man clings to the floating plank. Holding this view, we cannot blame men for being bigoted: it is their duty to be bigoted. But, when the distinction is recognized, they will cling to the substance, knowing that the vital truth lies there. It is the sight of the fact which is the source of our life, and not the statement which we make, in words, as to what we have seen. Then the sight becomes the thing of immense importance; the creed in which it is expressed, of comparative unimportance.

This distinction would tend to bring the Church to a true unity—the unity of the spirit. All would strive for the same insight, all tolerate variety of expression. Instead of assenting outwardly to the same creed, every man ought, in fact, to make his own creed; and there should be as many different creeds as there are different men. Nor should my creed of to-day be the same as that of yesterday; for, instead of resting on a past experience, I should continually endeavor to obtain new sights of the one unchangeable truth. Seeing more of it to-day than I did yesterday, my yesterday's creed would seem inadequate, and I should wish to make a new one.

Substantial truth means the truth which we see—the inward sight, the radical experience. Formal truth is the verbal statement, and consists in accuracy of expression. And so of error. Substantial error means error in regard to the substance, and is necessarily inadequacy of inward experience. Strictly speaking, there cannot be substantial error; for error, in regard to the substance of truth, is purely negative. It is not-seeing. It is failing to perceive the truth, either from want of opportunity, weakness of vision, or neglect in looking. But formal error is not merely defect: it may also be mistake. We may misstate the truth, and say what is radically false. From this source come contradictions; and, where two statements are contradictory, both cannot be true. Falsehood, therefore, originates with the statement. The errors of insight are merely defects; but the errors of statement may be positive falsehoods.

This leads us to take a special view of theological controversies. In all great controversies, in the conflicts of ages, where the good and wise have stood opposed to each other, century after century, it is probable that there are truth and error on both sides.

Each side may hold some truth which the other has not [pg 017] seen. There is, therefore, also substantial error on both sides; for each may have failed to see some phase of truth which the other has recognized. But there may be formal error, or error of statement, even where there is substantial truth; for the truth may be overstated, or understated, or misstated, and a false expression given to a true observation.

What, then, is the duty of those who stand opposed to each other in these controversies—of Catholics and Protestants, Christians and Deists, Orthodox and Unitarians? They have plainly a twofold duty to themselves as well as to their opponents. They ought to increase their insight, and to improve their statements; to deepen and widen their hold of the substance; to correct and improve their expression of the form. The first is the work of religion; the second, that of theology.

The first is infinitely the most important, because the life of the soul depends on the sight of truth. This is its food, without which it will starve and die. But it is also important that it should improve its theology, because a correct theology is a help to insight, and a ground of mental communion.

§ 11. The Orthodox and Liberal Parties in New England.

The Liberal party in New England have carried on a theological controversy for some forty years with the Orthodox. This controversy was inevitable. Calvinism had neglected important truths which the human soul needed, and without which it would starve. Unitarianism came to assert and vindicate those truths. At first, it was inevitable that the statements on either side should be narrow and mutually exclusive. But, as a battle goes on, the position of the opposing armies changes. The points of attack and defence alter. Old positions are abandoned, and new ones occupied. Seldom does it happen to either army to sleep on the field of battle. Nor has it so happened to us. Neither the Unitarians nor the Trinitarians have gained a complete [pg 018] victory: each has taken some important position, and yielded some other. We have a book called “Concessions of Trinitarians:” another might be written containing the “Concessions of Unitarians.” Neither side has conceded, or ought to concede, any real truth of experience or of statement; but it is honorable to each to concede its own partial and inadequate statements.

We intend, in this volume, to endeavor, from our own point of view, to gain what sight we can of the radical, vital truth underlying each great Orthodox doctrine. At the same time, we shall freely criticise the forms, especially the more recent ones, in which Orthodox doctrines have been stated.

We assume, at the outset, that each doctrine does cover some truth of experience, some real solid fact, which is as important to us as to our opponents. We assume, that, though the doctrines may be false, there may be an experience behind them which is true. We have satisfied ourselves of the formal error of their statements. We consider it impossible for a sound Unitarian intellect to accept the Orthodox theology as a whole, without being untrue to itself; but there is no reason why we should not break this shell of doctrine, and find the vital truths which it contains. And if it be said, “Who made you a judge or a divider on these subjects?” we reply, that only by contributions from all quarters can a final judgment be reached. Meantime, it is the right and duty of every serious thinker to add his own opinion to the common stock; willing to be refuted when wrong,—glad, if right, to be helpful in any degree towards the ultimate result.

This is the object of the present work, which, though written by a Unitarian, and from a Unitarian stand-point, and though published by the American Unitarian Association, will, we trust, be sufficiently unsectarian.

Chapter II. The Principle And Idea Of Orthodoxy Stated And Examined.

§ 1. The Principle of Orthodoxy defined.

The principle of Orthodoxy is, that there is one true system of Christian doctrine, and that all others are false; that this system can be, and has been, so stated in words as to distinguish it from all the false systems or heresies; and that this true system of doctrine is the one which is now held, and always has been held, by the majority of Christians; and, finally, that the belief of this system is, as a rule, essential to salvation—so that those who may be saved, while not accepting it, will be saved (if at all) by way of exception, and not according to rule.

§ 2. Logical Genesis of the Principle of Orthodoxy.

The principle of Orthodoxy seems to have arisen, and to have maintained itself in the Church, in some such way as this. Jesus Christ, it is assumed, came to save the soul from sin and evil. He saves the soul by the word of truth. In order that this truth shall become saving truth, it must be believed, and so strongly believed as to have a practical influence on life and action. We are therefore saved by believing the truth taught by Christ. But in order to be believed, it must be expressed in some definite statement, or in what we call Christian doctrine. But truth is one, and therefore the doctrine which expresses it must also be one.

Therefore there must be one system of Christian doctrine, containing in itself the substance of Christian truth, and constituting the object of Christian faith. This system, though it may vary in its unessential parts, must in its essence be [pg 020] unchangeable. In proportion as any system of belief varies from it, such system is heterodox and dangerous, while this system alone is orthodox and safe.

Another form of this argument would be as follows: Christ came to reveal something to men. If revealed, it must be made known. If made known, it must be capable of being so expressed that there can be no reasonable doubt concerning it. Otherwise, Christianity would not be a revelation. But if expressed so as to enter the human mind, it must be expressed in human language. A verbal revelation, therefore, is essential for the purposes of Christianity. Such a revelation is nothing else than a system of doctrine, or that which can be systematized into doctrine. And this system must be one and the same from age to age, or it is not a permanent divine revelation, but only a transient human seeking for such a revelation.

§ 3. Orthodoxy assumed to be the Belief of the Majority.

The natural test of Orthodoxy is assumed to be the belief of the majority of Christians; for if Christianity be a revelation of truth, its essential contents must be easy to apprehend, and when apprehended, they must be generally accepted. The revelations of God in nature are seen and accepted by the human intellect, and so become matters of science. Orthodox science is that which the great majority of scientific men have accepted as such; and Orthodox Christianity, in like manner, must be that which the majority of Christian believers accept as such. Hence it is taken for granted, as regards Orthodox doctrine, that it meets the test, “Quod semper, quod ubique, quod ab omnibus.”

§ 4. Heterodoxy thus becomes sinful.

But if the essential truth of Christianity be thus plain, those who do not receive it must be either stupid or wilful. Its rejection argues a want of intellect or a bad heart. Heretics, therefore, ought logically to become to the Orthodox objects either of contempt or hatred. If they cannot see what is so plain, they [pg 021] must be intellectually imbecile. If they will not see it, they must be morally depraved. Therefore intelligent people who accept and teach heresies ought to be considered wicked people by logical Orthodox minds. Moreover, they are the most dangerous persons in the community, because, by denying that truth by which the soul is to be saved, they endanger not merely the temporal, but also the eternal, welfare of those whom they seduce. And if we have a right to abate a nuisance which only interferes with the earthly comfort and peace of society, how much more one which attacks its spiritual peace and eternal welfare! Have not the majority a right to protect themselves, their children, and society from that which they not merely believe, but know, to be evil? For Orthodoxy assumes to be not merely opinion, but knowledge. Hence Orthodoxy legitimates persecution.[5] Persecution is only the judicious repression of criminal attempts to pervert and injure society. Moreover, Orthodoxy, according to its principle, ought to discourage inquiry in relation to its own fundamental principles. For why continue to discuss and debate about that which is known? Progress consists in advancing from the known to the unknown. The unknown, and not the known, is the proper subject for inquiry. The system of Orthodoxy, therefore, according to its own principle, should be withdrawn from further examination. Intellectual advance requires us to take for granted something—to [pg 022] forget that which is behind in order to press forward to that which is before. The doctrines of Orthodoxy therefore, when once established, should afterwards be assumed, and need not be proved. We do not call a scientific man a bigot because he refuses to discuss fundamental principles. If Orthodoxy be science, why accuse it of bigotry when it follows the same course?

§ 5. The Doctrine of Essentials and Non-essentials leads to Rome.

If Orthodoxy consists in a statement of opinions the belief of which is essential to salvation, the question arises, Are all these opinions essential, or only a part? It is generally admitted that the great system called Orthodoxy contains some things not essential to salvation. How shall these be distinguished? Moreover, some variation of statement is judged allowable. No Orthodox creed is assumed to be inspired as to its language. The same essential truth may be expressed in different terms. How, then, are we to define the limits of expression so as to know what error of opinion is venial, and what vital? Orthodoxy assures us that our salvation depends on accepting its statements. In which particular form, then, must we accept them? In so important a matter as this, where salvation is assumed to depend on accepting the right form of doctrine, one surely ought to be able to know which the right form is. Now, the rule of Orthodoxy, as given above, is, that nothing is Orthodox, as essential doctrine, which has not been believed “always, everywhere, and by all.” But this raises an historical question, and one of no little difficulty. For since heresies have always existed, and some one has always been found somewhere to deny the most essential doctrines of Orthodoxy, the question is somewhat intricate who these “all” are who have never disbelieved the Orthodox system. It is plain that the majority of Christians have neither time nor ability for these investigations. The historical inquiry must be conducted for them by others. And here seems to come [pg 023] in the law of Church authority as against private judgment. And so the principle of Orthodoxy, carried out to its legitimate results, appears to land us at last in the Roman Catholic Church, to set aside the right of private judgment, and to justify intolerance and the forcible suppression of heresy. But as these results are not accepted by those who yet accept the principles of Orthodoxy, it is necessary to see if there is a fallacy anywhere in our course of thought, and at what precise point the fallacy has come in.

§ 6. Fallacy in this Orthodox Argument.

The fallacy in all this argument lies here—that faith is confounded with belief; knowledge with opinion; the sight of truth with its intellectual statement in the form of doctrine. Undoubtedly there is only one faith, but there may be many ways of stating it in the form of opinion. Moreover, no man, no church, no age, sees the whole of truth. Truth is multilateral, but men's minds are unilateral. They are mirrors which reflect, and that imperfectly, the side of the object which is towards them. Therefore even knowledge in any finite mind is partial, consequently imperfect; and consequently needs other knowledge to complete it.

This, apparently, is what the apostle Paul means (1 Cor. 13:8-12) in his statement concerning the relation between knowledge and love. Knowledge (Gnosis) “shall pass away.” The word here used is elsewhere translated by “destroyed,” “brought to nought,” “abolished,” “made of none effect.” “Knowledge” here probably refers to definite and systematic statements of real insights. It is something more than opinion, but something less than faith. Faith abides, but knowledge passes away. Faith abides, because it is a positive sight of truth. It is an experience of the soul, by which it opens itself in trust, and becomes receptive of spiritual influence. Faith, therefore, remains, and its results are permanent in the soul. They make the substance of our knowledge as regards the spiritual world. This substance [pg 024] becomes a part of the soul itself, and constitutes a basis of self-consciousness as real as is its experience of the external world. But Gnosis is this faith, translated by the intellect into systematic form. Such systems embody real experience, and are necessary for mental and moral progress. They are the bodies of thought. But all bodies must die, sooner or later; and so all systems of knowledge must pass away. The body, at first, helps the growth of thought, helps the growth of the soul; but afterwards it hinders it. The new wine must be put into new bottles. Therefore the apostle Paul, the great teacher of doctrinal theology in the Christian Church, distinctly recognizes here, that every system of doctrine, no matter how much truth it contains, is partial, and therefore transient. He makes no exception in favor even of inspired statements—he does not except his own. All bodies must die; all forms are fugitive; nothing continues but the substance of knowledge, which is faith; the inward sight of God's goodness producing that endless expectation which is called hope; and the large spiritual communion with God and his creatures, here called Agape, or love. The apostle speaks in the first person when he says that knowledge passes away—“We know in part, and we prophesy [or teach] in part.” He speaks for himself and his fellow-apostles.

We see, therefore, that the great master and head of Orthodoxy in the Church has himself declared every form of Orthodoxy to be transient.

We conclude, therefore, that the apostle Paul, in this famous passage, overturns the whole principle of verbal Orthodoxy. He takes away its foundation. Not denying the reality and permanence of religious experience, not denying the saving power of truth, he declares that no expressed system of truth is permanent. The basis of doctrinal Orthodoxy is the assumption that its own particular form of belief is essential to salvation. But the apostle declares that all forms are transient, and, therefore, none essential. All [pg 025] statement is a limitation, and the moment that we make a definition, we say something which is incomplete. When Paul says, “We know in part,” he says the same thing which is said by Kant, by Sir William Hamilton, by Auguste Comte, by Mr. Mansell, and most modern thinkers, when they declare the relativity of knowledge. All thinking is limitation. “To think,” says Sir William Hamilton, “is to condition.” We only know a thing, says this school, by its being different from something else. The school of Kant declares all knowledge to be phenomenal, and that all phenomenal knowledge consists of two parts—the part given by the thing, and the part added by the mind. Herbert Spencer (in “First Principles”) insists on the certainty of the existence of things in themselves, but also on their absolute and eternal unknowableness. According to John Stuart Mill, the same view of the unknowableness of Noumena is taken by M. Auguste Comte.

These modern philosophers, it will be seen, go much farther than Paul, and lay down positions which inaugurate a universal scepticism. According to them there is nothing certain and nothing fixed. Mr. Mansell virtually teaches us that we cannot know anything of God, duty, or immortality; and that faith means, taking for granted on some outward authority. To use a striking expression of President James Walker, “We are not to believe, but to make believe.” That is, we are not to believe with our intellect, but with our will. Or, in other words, we are to believe not what is true, but what is expedient. This he calls regulative truth, as opposed to speculative truth.

But this is by no means the doctrine of the apostle Paul. He teaches the certainty of substantive knowledge, but the fallibility of formal knowledge. He thus avoids the two extremes of dogmatism on the one side, and scepticism on the other. The substance of Gnosis, which is the sight of truth, is a reality, and, like all that is real, has its root in God, and [pg 026] shares his eternity. The form of Gnosis is subjective, relative, and transient. Everything which is seen is temporal; only that which is not seen is eternal. All that takes outward, visible form, comes under the law of change; the roots of our knowledge, fixed in God, are unchangeable.

§ 7. The three Tendencies in the Church.

The human soul, a unit, indivisible, and without parts, nevertheless acts in three directions—of will, affection, intellect. These are distinguishable, though not divisible. Every one knows the difference between an act; an emotion of anger, pity, sorrow, love; and a process of logic, or an intellectual argument. These are the three primary states of the mind, evidently distinct. It is impossible to mistake either for the other. I may direct my mind towards action, towards thought, or towards emotion. The first of these, action, is the most within my own power, depends chiefly on myself, lies nearest the will. Will passes instantaneously into action. I will to lift my arm, and it is done. On the other hand, feeling or emotion lies the farthest from this centre of will, depends least of all on my own choice, and in it I am most passive. But the sphere of intellect is intermediate. I am more free when I think than when I feel; less free than when I act. In the domain of will, I act upon external things; in the domain of feeling, I am acted upon by external things; in the domain of intellect, I neither act nor am acted upon, but I see them. In all thinking, in proportion as it is pure thought, both will and emotion are excluded. We are neither actors nor sufferers, but spectators. Things seen pass into our life through the intellect, and become sources of emotion and action. Love of truth causes us to desire to know it; this desire leads us to put our mind in the presence of truth, but when there, the functions of emotion and will cease, and all we have to do is to look.

Now, there have always been in the Church three parties, or at least three tendencies, in regard to the basis of religion. [pg 027] One of these makes the basis of the religious life to consist in thought, one posits it in feeling, the third in action. With one, the intellect must take the initiative; with the second, the heart; with the third, the will, or power of determination. The three parties in the Church, based on these three tendencies, may be characterized as the Orthodoxists, the Emotionalists, and the party of Works. The first says, “We are saved by faith;” the second says, “We are saved by love;” the third says, “We are saved by obedience.” The first assumes that the sight of truth must take the lead in all Christian experience; the second believes that love for goodness is the true basis in religion; the third maintains that the first thing to be done, in order to become a religious man, is to obey the law of duty. It is evidently very important to decide which of these answers is the true one. What are we to do first, if we wish to become Christian men or women? Are we to study, read, reflect, in order to know the truth? Are we to go to church and listen to sermons, join Bible classes and study the Scriptures, read compends of doctrine and books of Christian evidence? Or are we to seek for emotion, to pray for a change of heart, to put ourselves under exciting influences, to go where a revival is in progress, to attend protracted meetings, to be influenced through sympathy till we are filled full of emotions of anxiety, fear, remorse, followed by emotions of hope, trust, gratitude, pardon, peace, joy? Or are we to do neither of these things, but to begin by obedience, trying to do right in order to be right, beginning by the performance of the humblest duties, the nearest duties, letting fidelity in the least open the way to more? Shall we know the truth in order to love it and do it? Or shall we love the truth in order to see it and do it? Or shall we do right in order to know it and love it?

Large numbers in the Church have followed each of these three methods, and made each the basis of its action. One [pg 028] has said, “We are saved by works;” a second, “We are saved by faith;” a third, “We are saved by love.”

§ 8. The Party of Works.

Two tendencies have joined in teaching salvation by works, or, more strictly, in teaching the initiative of the will in religion. These are the Church-tendency and the Moral-tendency in Christianity. The Church party in Christianity teaches that the first duty towards a child is to make it a member of the Christian Church by baptism, and that the first duty of every baptized person is to obey the commands of the Church. The Church thus becomes a school, in which baptized persons are educated as Christians. The Church of Rome, and the High Church party in the Church of England and in the Episcopal Church of the United States, teach this doctrine of salvation by works. This system by no means dispenses with Christian belief or Christian feeling, but makes them both subordinate. The Church says to its faithful, We do not require you to believe or to feel, but to obey. If we said, “Believe,” or “Feel,” you might justly reply, “We cannot believe or feel when we choose, and you have therefore no right to ask us to do so.” Therefore the Church only demands obedience, which it is in the power of all to render. It, indeed, requires an assent to its creed, and forbids heresy. But this only means, “Receive the creed as true until you are able to see how it is true.” The Church also insists greatly on love, and its saints have been filled with the highest raptures of piety. But it never requires feeling. It says, “Use the means we put into your hands, and feeling will come. Pray, as we command you to do, whether you feel deeply or not. Feeling will come by and by.” Discipline, therefore, and not illumination, has been the method of the Church of Rome, and is also the method of all other Churches, so far as they are ecclesiastical Churches. All such Churches teach that by a faithful conformity to their ritual, methods, sacraments, services, discipline, the Christian life will surely [pg 029] come. The one thing needful and primary with them all is obedience, and the result of obedience is knowledge and love.

Essentially the same view is taken by the Ethical party, or Moralists, in Christianity. Their statement, also, of the foundation of religion is, that it lies in obedience. They differ only from the Church party as regards the authority to be obeyed. With them it is not the Church, but the Moral Law, as made known to men in revelation, or in the natural instincts of conscience. The foundation of all goodness and religion is right doing. This leads to right thinking and right feeling; or, when it does not lead to these, it is still sufficient, and is satisfactory to God. “What doth the Lord require of thee,” say they, “but to do justly, and love mercy, and walk humbly with thy God?” At this point the extremes meet, and the Roman Catholic Church, or the extreme right, offers its hand to the Liberal Christians, or the extreme left. This is the point of contact between the two, which sometimes, also, becomes a bridge by which proselytes pass either way, from one to the other. But the practical question is, Is this answer sound? Does the will lead the way in religion? Is obedience the first step to be taken at every point of the way? Is the initiative in the religious life always an action? Are we saved by works?

The objection to this view is, that a religious action, without a religious thought and a religious affection behind it, is not in any sense religious. It has in it nothing of the essence of religion. Religion, regarded merely as obedience to God, implies the knowledge of God. We must know God in order to obey him; we must know God in order to love him. Knowledge, therefore, must precede obedience, and not the contrary. Otherwise obedience is an empty form, having no religious character. Unless we see the truth and justice of obedience, we are only yielding to human persuasion, to human authority, and not to the authority of God. It may [pg 030] be well, or it may be ill, to yield to such human authority; but there is no religion in it, or only a religion of dead works.

§ 9. The Party of Emotion in Christianity.

There are those, and always have been those, who have placed the substance of religion in love, in which they have, perhaps, not been mistaken. But they have often taken another step, by degrading love into mere emotion. They have considered that feeling was the basis of religion; not thought, nor action. They too have texts to quote in support of their view. They say that “with the heart men believe unto righteousness;” that we must “be rooted and grounded in love;” that the first commandment is to “love God with all the heart.” As with them religious emotion constitutes the essence of religion, they make use of all means of producing it, and especially the excitement which comes from sympathy. The Methodist Church has, perhaps, gone farther than any other towards making this a principle. This great and noble body has done its vast work for Christianity by making prominent the love-principle in all its operations. If the Church party stands at one extreme, Methodism, in all its forms, stands at the other. The Roman Catholic Church sums up all the inspirations of the past, collects in its large repertoire all ancient liturgies, all saintly lives, all sacred customs, and so brings an imposing authority, a reverend antiquity, made up of the best history of man. Methodism drops the past, and finds God in the present—in present inspirations, in the newly-converted soul, born out of darkness into light, by the immediate coming of the Spirit of God. According to the Catholic Church the Christian life commences with an outward act,—that of baptism,—and is carried on by outward sacraments; according to Methodism, the Christian life begins with an inward emotional experience,—the spiritual new birth,—and is carried on by successive emotions of penitence, faith, hope, joy, and pious devotion. According to Catholicism, the one [pg 031] thing needful is the outward sacramental union with the Church; according to Methodism, the one thing needful is the inward emotional union with the Holy Spirit.

§ 10. The Faith Party in Religion.

If Churchism and Moralism place the essence of Christianity in action, and Emotionalism puts it in feeling, Orthodoxy places it in something intellectual, which it calls faith. All the sects of Christendom do, indeed, place faith at the root of the Christian life; but some make it essentially an intellectual act, others essentially affectionate, and others an act of will. Orthodoxy makes it, in substance, a sight of faith, or an act of looking at spiritual realities. Sometimes it is called a realizing sense of spiritual things. But, at all events, the sight of truth is considered the beginning and root of religion by the Orthodox party in the Church. We are saved by the word of truth; and the Saviour himself is called “the Word,”—belief in whom constitutes eternal life. Rationally, it is argued that the essential difference between the Christian and the unbeliever, or the unchristian, must lie in seeing Christ or not seeing him. The first step in the religious life always consists in looking at the truth.

§ 11. Truth in the Orthodox Idea.

Admitting, then, what all these systems and parties in the Church unite in asserting,—that an act of faith is always at the foundation of every Christian state and of all Christian experience,—we ask, Which is the most essential element in faith—will, intellect, or affection? Is an act of faith chiefly an act of the will, a determination, or is it a loving desire, or a state of knowledge, a looking at truth? Suppose we call it a state of love, for this reason, that in order to be good, the first thing requisite is to wish to be good. A longing for goodness, it may be said, must precede everything else. But what makes us long for goodness, if we do desire it? What shall produce that longing, if it does not exist? The only answer must be, The sight of truth. The sight of God's holiness and of [pg 032] God's tenderness, the sight of law and gospel, whatever shows us the beauty of goodness and the meanness of sin, must come first to awaken this desire. Or suppose it be said that the essential thing in faith is the active element, because it is submitting to God's law, trusting in his help, coming to the truth, opening the heart to the Holy Spirit,—all of which are determinations of the will. We must reply, True; but these determinations will never be taken unless we first see the will of God to which we submit, see the salvation of God on which we lean, know that there is a truth to which we may come, know that there is a Holy Spirit, in order to ask for it.

So that, on the whole, we may say that Orthodoxy is right in making the sight of truth the beginning of the Christian life, and the beginning of every Christian state, act, or experience. All human goodness is the reflection of God's goodness; it all has its source in the sight of a divine holiness, truth, beauty. This is the fundamental idea of Orthodoxy, and in this Orthodoxy is right.

It is no answer to this to say that man has an instinctive longing for goodness, which causes him to feel after God before he finds him. For what are these instincts themselves, as soon as they begin to act, but the voice of God speaking in the soul, showing it some glimpses of a divine truth? The longing in the soul must be aroused by the sight or knowledge of something better than that which one has or is. Consequently, we say again, that the sight of truth is that which saves the soul, and first creates in it a better life.

If we make Christianity to be essentially obedience, we make of it, at last, an oppressive form. If we consider it as essentially an emotional experience, we destroy its moral character; for emotion is both passive and blind, while the definition of morality is the freely choosing what we see to be right. Ecclesiasticism and Emotionalism both tend to demoralize Christianity. They remove from it the element of [pg 033] moral freedom in the interest either of Church authority or of mystical piety. Then Christianity must come anew, in the form of truth, to purify the air, and renew the moral life of society.

Protestantism arose in this way, to salt the corrupting Church. Ecclesiasticism, in its well-meant efforts at training men, by a complete discipline, to a perfect virtue, had suppressed the individual love of truth to such an extent, that religion had become a mere surface, without substance. Jesuitism abolished the distinction between things right and wrong in themselves, and made right to consist solely in the intention; that is, made it wholly subjective. The Lutheran reformation was the revival of the intellect in regard to religion—the demand for conviction instead of assent; for the sight of God in place of obedience to the Church. It repeated, with an emphasis adapted to the needs of the sixteenth century, the words of Jesus, “This is life eternal, to know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent.” In these words is the sufficient defence of Protestantism. It was the cry of the soul to know God, and not merely to assent to what the Church taught concerning him; it was the longing to know Christ, and not to repeat by rote the creeds of the first centuries, and the definitions of mediæval doctors in regard to him. In a subsequent chapter we shall consider the truth and error in the Protestant principle of justification by faith. Our purpose here is to show that the truth in Orthodoxy is identical with the truth in Protestantism. Both place, as the root of all religion, an individual personal sight of God and truth. To this, freedom of thought is an essential means. Right thinking involves free thinking. If to know the truth makes us free, freedom, again, is the condition of knowing the truth. Protestantism and Orthodoxy have often attempted to limit the application of this principle. Protestants, as well as Catholics, have persecuted heretics. But while Catholics, in doing [pg 034] this, have been faithful to their own idea, and have therefore made of persecution a system, Protestants have been vacillating and undecided persecutors. They have been drawn in opposite directions by antagonist principles. Fundamentally, Protestantism, as such, claims for all the rights of private judgment, and is, therefore, in its whole stress and influence, opposed to persecution, and in favor of religious liberty. It has conquered the Catholic Church on this point so far as to compel it to renounce the practice of persecution, if it has not relinquished the theory. During three centuries Protestantism has been, more and more, emancipating the human mind—making it the duty, and consequently the right, of every human being to see truth for himself. It has been drawn into inconsistencies by its belief in the saving power of certain doctrines, and the supreme importance of believing them. On one hand it has claimed, with a trumpet voice, the freedom of conscience and opinion for all, and then has cried out against those who freely came to opinions differing from its own.

But, notwithstanding these inconsistencies, Protestantism has steadily given freedom of spirit to mankind. And with the awakened and emancipated intellect all the elements of progress have shown themselves in Protestant lands. In 1517, when Luther nailed his theses to the church door, Italy, Spain, and Portugal were far in advance of Northern Europe in civilization. In commerce, art, and literature, Italy was the queen of Europe. In military force, extent of possessions, and unbounded wealth, Spain was the leading power of the world. The Portuguese mariners had ransacked every sea, and discovered new continents and islands in every zone. How insignificant, in comparison with these great nations, were England, Holland, and Germany! But England, Holland, and Germany became Protestant; Italy, Spain, and Portugal remained Catholic; while France and Austria adopted a half-way Catholicism.

The result has been, in the course of three centuries, a complete reversal of the position. The last have become first, and the first last. What now has become of the terrible power of Spain, the enterprise of Portugal, the art and literature of Italy? When the element of Protestantism was crushed out of these nations by the Inquisition, the principle of national progress was also destroyed. But the northern powers who accepted the Lutheran reform received with it the germs of progress. Holland, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Prussia, Saxony, England, and Scotland, have, by a steady progress in civilization, wealth, knowledge, and morality, conclusively demonstrated the impulse of progress contained in the Protestant idea.

So far, therefore, as this great experiment, continued during three hundred years, can prove anything, it proves the truth of the central idea of Protestantism and Orthodoxy, namely, that saving faith is essentially not emotional nor volitional, but intellectual.

§ 12. Error in the Orthodox Principle.

We are well aware of the reply which might be made, from the stand-point of Ecclesiasticism, to the historical argument just given. The Roman Catholic might answer thus: “We admit that the tree must be known by its fruits; but the tree of true Christianity is known by bearing the fruits of Christianity, not those of worldly civilization. Suppose that England is to-day richer than Italy, more powerful than Spain; is she better? Are there more piety and more morality in Protestant than in Catholic countries? In which communities do you find the most humility, simplicity, religious faith, reverence for religious institutions, fear of God? In which do you find most of sympathy, kindliness, good will from man to man? The fierce civilization of Protestantism is hard, cold, and cruel. It tramples under its feet the weak. It accumulates wealth and power; but are these Christianity? Is London or Rome the best model of a Christian city? Is [pg 036] it London, with its terrible contrasts of enormous wealth and naked want, its proud aristocracy and brutalized mob, its empty churches and illuminated gin-shops? or is it not rather Rome, poorer in material wealth and luxury, but rich in grace—Rome, with its odor of sanctity about it; its numerous churches, on which art has lavished her resources to make them worthy to be the temples of God—Rome, with its priests and monks; its religious houses, the centres of the great religious orders, whose missions have been known in the four quarters of the earth? Protestant countries may have a higher worldly civilization, more education and intelligence, more manufactures and commerce; but Catholic countries have more humility and reverence, a more habitual piety, more gentle manners. If Protestants have more knowledge, Catholics have more love.”

And we, though Protestants of the Protestants, must admit that there is some truth in this. The discipline of Romanism has repressed some amount of evil which the liberty of Protestant lands has allowed to appear. But repressed evil is none the less evil, and often works a greater inward corruption than when it is allowed to show itself as it is. We may also admit that while in Protestantism there is more of truth, and all the virtues which go therewith,—such as honesty, manliness, self-respect, conscientiousness,—in Catholic countries there is more of love, and all the virtues which follow it,—as kindly, genial manners, ready sympathy with suffering, a spirit of dependence and trust. Still, this does not prove that there is more real Christianity among Catholics; for love which does not grow out of the sight of truth is not genuine nor healthy. Its life is weak. Protestant Christianity is an immature fruit, harsh because not quite ripe. Catholic Christianity is a fruit over-ripe, and so rotten.

Therefore we still contend that Protestantism and Orthodoxy are right in making the free and independent sight of [pg 037] truth the root of all religion. But the mistake of Orthodoxy has been in confounding truth with doctrine—the sight of the thing with the theory about that sight. From hence come the hardness and coldness of Orthodoxy. Pure thought is always cold, and ought to be. The sight of spiritual things is truth and love in one; but when we begin to reflect on that sight, the love drops out, and the truth becomes cold.

The defect of the Orthodox principle, therefore, is the confusion of truth with belief. Out of this mistake come dogmatism, bigotry, and all their natural consequences. It is therefore well, before going farther, to explain more fully this distinction and its importance.

§ 13. Faith, Knowledge, Belief, Opinion.

Religion originates at every moment, from looking at truth. Now, there are four kinds of looking; faith, which is intuitive looking; knowledge, which is the intuition itself looked at by reflection, and so brought to consciousness; third, belief, which arranges the products of knowledge in systematic form, and makes them congruous with each other; and lastly comes opinion, which does not deal at all with things, but only with thoughts about things. By faith we see God; by knowledge we become conscious that we see God; by belief we arrange in order what we see; and by opinion we feel and grope among our thoughts, seeking what we may find of his works and ways. Every act of faith brings us into the presence of God himself, and makes us partakers of the divine nature. Thus faith is strictly and literally the substance of things hoped for, or the substance of hope.[6] Substance here has its etymological sense, and is the same word in Greek and English, meaning basis, foundation, support, or substruction. It is the inward experience by which we come in contact with invisible things, as perception is the experience by which we come in contact with visible things.

These steps of intellectual activity may be called by other names than these. What we (with Jacobi) call faith,[7] may be denominated “intuition” (with the transcendentalists), reason (with Coleridge), God-consciousness (with Schleiermacher), or anschauungs-vermögen (with Schelling and others). But, by whatever name we call this power, we say there is a power in man by which he can see spiritual facts, as with his earthly senses he can perceive sensible facts. If he has no such power, he is incapable of knowing God, but can only have an opinion that there is a God. But if he can know God, this knowledge rests on something back of reasoning or reflection; it must rest on an intuition or spiritual perception. And this, for our present purpose, we call faith. By means of it we know the spiritual world, just as we know the material world through sight, touch, and hearing. The senses are the organs by which we perceive material things; intuition, or faith, the organ by which we perceive spiritual things. He who denies the existence of such a power in man, falls necessarily into dogmatism on the one hand, or rationalism on the other. But as these words also take a very different sense on different lips, we explain ourselves by saying that he puts either a theory or an inference in the place of God. If orthodox, he puts a theory; if sceptical, an inference. Mr. Mansell does the first, Herbert Spencer the other. Neither of them believes that we can know God's existence. So dogmatism and scepticism join hands. All the consequences described in the beginning of this chapter follow as a matter of course when an opinion or theory is put in the place of truth. Then [pg 039] come the inflexible narrowness of bigotry, the hot zeal of the persecutor, the sectarian strife which has torn the Church in twain. The remedy and prevention for these are to recognize that the basis of religion is in faith, in a living sight of God, the soul, duty, immortality, which are always and forever the same.

The best definitions of faith, by theologians of all schools, include the notion of insight, will, and affection. It is an act of the soul by which it looks at truth. But this act implies a desire to see and know the truth. Now, such an act as this lies at the root of all our knowledge, both of the material and spiritual world. How do I know the outward world? The passive exercise of sensation would never give such knowledge. The sights which enter the passive eye, the sounds which fill the passive ear, the feelings which affect the passive sense, give no real knowledge of outward things. That comes, not from sensation merely, but from sensation changed into experience by a voluntary activity. We must not only see, but look; not only hear, but listen; not only feel, but touch, in order to know. Life, therefore, the constant synthesis of these three elements,—life which, in every act, at once thinks, feels, and does,—alone gives us knowledge. Divorce thought from affection and will, and let it act by itself, and it does not give knowledge; it only gives belief or opinion. Knowledge comes only from experience—and experience means communion. Communion with Nature by thought, desire, and action gives us the knowledge of Nature; communion with God by thought, desire, and act, gives us the knowledge of God. The organ by which we commune with God is faith; it includes the desire of knowing God, and the act of looking to him in order to know him.

Knowledge of God, of immortality, and of spiritual things does not come from any process of reasoning on the one hand, nor from any single intuition of reason. Just so we [pg 040] do not know the material world by a process of reasoning on the one hand, or any single sensible perception on the other. All knowledge comes from life; or, as the apostle John expresses it, “Life is the light of man.” We become acquainted with outward nature by living processes—by repeated acts of sight, hearing, touch, taste. So we become acquainted with the spiritual world by repeated spiritual acts; by repeated processes of faith; by continued steps of devotion, submission, obedience, trust, love, prayer. In this way we come to know God just as certainly, and just in the same way, as we know things visible or things audible.

But knowledge is not belief. Knowledge is the rooted conviction of the reality of certain facts or persons, derived from communing with those facts or persons. Belief is the intellectual assent to a proposition—a proposition formed by analytic and synthetic methods. We analyze our notion concerning any subject, and then arrange the results of this analysis in order, and deduce from them a proposition, a law. This we call our belief, or creed, concerning it. The substance of this belief is given us in life; the form of it comes from thinking or reasoning. But it is evident that such a belief differs in each individual according to his experience, and according to his habits of reasoning, and even according to his facility in expression. Moreover, knowledge and belief differ also in this, that knowledge places us in the presence of the reality, belief only in the presence of a proposition concerning it.

Thus John and James are friends. John knows James through a long intercourse. He is just as certain in regard to the essential character of James as he is about his own. But if he tries to express this knowledge of James in the form of belief, he may evidently express it badly. He may fail from a defective analysis, or from imperfect powers of language.

On the other hand John may not know James at all. He [pg 041] may never have seen him. But he has heard about him from a mutual friend, in whose judgment he trusts, or from several persons, and so he has formed a very decided belief in regard to James. He has a creed about him, though he has never known him.

In the same way those who know God truly and well, by the experience of obedience and prayer, may have a very erroneous belief concerning him. Those who do not know him at all, by any personal experience, may have a very correct belief concerning him. But which saves the soul? Which governs the life? Which affects the heart? Evidently not the belief, but the knowledge.

We are not saved by any belief whatsoever concerning God or Christ, concerning sin or salvation, concerning duty or destiny. Belief brings us into contact with the images of things, not the things themselves. Belief has no saving power. But knowledge has. “This is life eternal, to know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.”

It is therefore a great mistake when Orthodoxy or Rationalism reverses the axiom of John, and instead of saying, “Life is the light of man,” tells us that “Light is the life of man.” Knowledge comes from life. Belief comes from knowledge, and not the contrary.

The Principle of Orthodoxy, as stated at the commencement of this chapter (in [§ 1]), is, that there is one true system of Christian doctrine, and that all others are false. The Idea of Orthodoxy, as stated in [§ 10] of this chapter, is, that the soul is saved by the sight of truth. The idea of Orthodoxy is true—its principle is false. The sight of truth—that is, of the great spiritual realities—saves us, for only by that sight are we lifted above our feeble and imperfect selves, and enabled to partake of the nature of God. But while truth is ever one and the same, doctrine varies from age to age, varies from man to man. Each man's statement is [pg 042] limited by his position, his mode of thought, his power of speech. Nor can any council, assembly, conference, synod escape from similar limitations.

Let the distinction be once clearly recognized between truth as seen and truth as stated,—between knowledge and belief,—and we see the end of dogmatism, bigotry, intolerance, and superstition. We shall then see that religion is one thing and theology quite another, and that the test and evidence of a sound religious experience are not what a man says, but what he is. The sight of truth remains, as always, the source of our moral and spiritual life, but this sight of truth must pass into knowledge, by means of life, in order to renew the soul. Faith, or the act by which the soul, desirous of good, puts itself in the presence of truth, is always the beginning of each spiritual state. Knowledge, born of this faith, through repeated acts of conscience, love, obedience, prayer, is the next step, and that which fixes the truth in the soul. Belief comes afterwards, resulting from the knowledge thus obtained, analyzed, and arranged by the systematizing intellect. And theory, or opinion, goes forward, like the skirmishers before an army, examining the route and opening the way, but incapable of resisting any attack, or holding permanently any position.

Chapter III. The Orthodox Idea Of Natural And Revealed Religion; Or, Naturalism And Supernaturalism.

§ 1. Meaning of Natural and Supernatural.

Orthodox Christianity claims that Christianity is a supernatural revelation, consisting of truths revealed by God, not according to the method of nature, but outside of it. But not merely the orthodox, the heterodox too, Unitarians, Universalists, Quakers, Swedenborgians, all hold to Christianity as a supernatural faith. What do they mean by this, and why do they insist on it so strongly? This is our first question, and the next will be, “What do those who hold to naturalism mean by it, and why do they insist on their view?”

The distinction between the two seems to be this: The naturalists in theology assert that God comes to man through nature, and nature only; the supernaturalist declares that God comes to man, not only through nature, but also by other methods outside of nature, or above nature. There is no question between them as to natural religion. Both admit that; supernaturalists believe all that naturalists believe, only they believe something more.

But how is nature to be defined? What is meant by nature? Various definitions are given; but we wish for one now which shall really express the issue taken in this controversy. So we may define nature as law. All the nexus or web of existing substances and forces which are under law belong to nature. All that happens outside of these laws is either preternatural, unnatural, subternatural, or [pg 044] supernatural. If it is something outside of law, but not violating it, nor coming from a higher source, we call it preternatural; like magic, ghosts, sorcery, fairies, genii, and the like. What violates law is unnatural. What is so low down that it lies below law, as chaos before creation; or nebulous matter not yet beginning to obey the law of gravitation; or intelligences, like Mephistopheles or Satan, who have sunk so low in sin as to have lost the perception of right and wrong, is subternatural, below nature. What belongs to a religion above the laws of time and space, above the finite, is supernatural.

Thus brutes, and men like brutes, who are below the moral law, are subternatural as regards that law. We do not call it a sin in a tiger to kill a man, for he is below law as regards sin. He is below the moral law. Again, we can conceive of angels so high up as to be above the moral law, in part of its domain, not capable either of common virtue or of common sin, according to our standards of morality, though perhaps under some higher code of ethics. They are supernatural beings as regards that law—the moral law of this world. As regards some parts of the moral law, there are, no doubt, multitudes of human beings above it even in this world. There are many persons quite incapable of swearing, lying, stealing, getting drunk, flying into a passion, and to whom, therefore, it is no virtue to avoid these vices. They are simply above that part of the moral law. They are supernatural beings as respects that part of human character.

After these illustrations, we can see what is meant by supernaturalism. If there is anything in this world which comes from above the world, and not from the existing laws of being, that is supernatural.

§ 2. The Creation Supernatural.

In this sense, all but atheists must admit the supernatural. If, for example, you admit the creation of the world by God, that was a supernatural [pg 045] act; that did not come from the existing laws of the world, because it created those laws. All the order and beauty of the world, its variety and harmony, its infinite adaptation of part to part, and each to all,—these existed in God's mind before they existed in nature. They were supernatural, as ideas, before they appeared in nature as facts. And if, as most geologists suppose, the crust of the earth denotes a long series of creations, successive epochs, at the close of each of which new forms of vegetable and animal life appeared, then each of these was a new creation; that is, a new supernatural act of the Almighty.

The physical world, therefore, shows a power above itself. The natural testifies to the supernatural, the all to the over-all. The existing web of laws gives evidence of mind, outside of itself, above itself, arranging and governing it.

§ 3. The Question stated.

This being granted, the question between naturalism and supernaturalism is, whether this superintending mind, which came from above the world into it by acts of creation, when the world was made, has or has not come into it subsequently. We have a series of creations down to the time that man arrived on the earth. When he came, he was a supernatural being, and his coming a supernatural event. Unless we assume that he was developed, by existing laws, out of some ape, gorilla, or chimpanzee, his coming was supernatural. Now, did supernatural events cease then, and since that time has the world gone on of itself? or have there been subsequent incursions from a higher sphere—a new influx from above, from time to time, adding something new to nature? Naturalism says no; supernaturalism says yes.

§ 4. Argument of the Supernaturalist from successive Geologic Creations.

The supernaturalist says, God comes to us in both ways—through nature; that is, through the order of things already established; and also by new creative impulses, coming in, from time to time, from above. He [pg 046] contends that such a new creative impulse came into the world through Jesus Christ, adding a new substance and new forms to those already existing—a new life not before in the world, proceeding according to new laws. This new creation, as the Scriptures themselves term it, is Christianity. This is also said to be in analogy with the course of events. For, if there has been a series of creations before, bringing animals into the world, and higher forms of physical life,—if these have been created by new supernatural impulses coming in at intervals of hundreds of thousands of years,—why deny that another impulse may have come in four thousand years, or forty thousand years, after man was created, to add a new form of spiritual life to society?

In the world, as it was at first, there was not a living plant or animal; after thousands of years, or millions of years, there came into the broad seas of the lower Silurian epoch, some of the lowest kinds of animals and seaweeds, a few trilobites and mollusks, but no plants save fucoids. Next came, after a long time, a few cartilaginous fishes and corals. A long time passed—thousands of years rolled by: then came real fishes and land plants in what is called the Devonian period, or the old red sandstone. After a great while came the period to which belongs all the coal formation; and in that carboniferous epoch first appears a whole vegetable world of trees and plants, to the number of nine hundred and thirty-four species. Some insects arrived at this time, as beetles, crickets, and cockroaches, which are, therefore, much more venerable than man. More thousands of years go by: then the earth receives a new creation in the form of gigantic frogs, enormous reptiles, and strange fishes. But as yet no mammal has come—not a bird nor a quadruped has been seen on the earth. Then, after another long period, these appear, in what is called the tertiary period; until, at last, some remains of man are found, in the diluvium, or gravel. Geology thus, once thought to be atheistic, gives its testimony [pg 047] to a long series of supernatural facts; that is, to the successive creation, after long intervals, of entirely new genera and species of vegetables and animals. As you turn these great stone leaves of that majestic manuscript roll written by God's hand, which we call the earth, you and he has been writing new things on each page, new facts and laws, not on any former leaf. New types of life, not prepared for by any previous one,—by no slow evolution, but by a sudden step,—break in. On the previous rocky page is to be found not one of their species, genus, order, or even class, to point back to any possible progenitor. So that the globe itself says, from these eternal monuments of rock, “Behold the history of supernatural events written on me.” Each creation is higher than the last: finally man is created. But still from above, from outside the world, the creative life is ready to be poured in. Only the next creation is to be moral and spiritual, not physical. No new physical forms are now added, but a new moral life is poured into man, making him a new creation of God. “For if any man is in Christ, he is a new creature.” The analogy was so striking, that the apostles noticed it, and constantly speak of Christ as the medium of a new creation.

§ 5. Supernatural Argument from Human Freedom.

But there is another example of the supernatural element in the world. Dr. Bushnell, in his book called “Nature and the Supernatural,” contends that man is capable of supernatural acts; that, in fact, every really free act is, and must be, a supernatural act. To those who hold the doctrine of necessity, this is, of course, no argument. But they who believe, in the testimony of their own consciousness, that they are free beings; who feel that they are not dragged helplessly by the strongest motive, but can resist it or yield to it; who, therefore, feel themselves responsible for what they do, or omit to do, they can see that in a real sense they create new influences. Their actions are not results of [pg 048] previous causes, but are new causes, not before in the world. Some supernatural power dwells in man's will just as far as it is made free by reason and choice. Man stands between good and evil, right and wrong, truth and error, with the power of choosing either one or the other. If he chooses one, he sends a power into society, life, humanity, to help it forward; if the other, he sends in a power to hold it back. This power is not from man's nature, but from something in him outside his nature. When he acts from habit, impulse, passion, and not from choice, he is simply a natural being; when he acts from choice, he is not a natural being, but either a supernatural or a subternatural being, according as he chooses good or evil. When he chooses good, he rises above the natural man into the sphere of angels; when he chooses evil, he sinks below the natural man into the sphere of brutes or demons.

§ 6. Supernatural Events not necessarily Violations of Law.

Now, says the supernaturalist, if we have all this evidence to show that God not only acts through nature, by carrying on existing forces and laws, but also has repeatedly come into nature with new creations, not there before,—and if even man himself has a certain limited but strictly supernatural power, so as to be able to stand outside of the nexus of law, and act upon it,—why deny, as incredible, that God should have made a new moral creation in Christianity? should have created a new class, order, genus, and species of spiritual beings, not represented before by any existing congeners? And why question that what we call miracles—that is, physical interferences with natural laws—should have attended this sudden influx of spiritual life? We do not claim, says the judicious supernaturalist (like Dr. Bushnell, for example), that miracles are suspensions or violations of natural laws; but that they are the natural modification of the agency of such laws by a new and powerful influence. Of this, too, there is ample analogy in nature. The mineral kingdom, for example, is passively subject to mechanical and chemical [pg 049] laws, which are resisted and modified by plants and animals. A stone obeys passively the law of gravitation; a plant resists it, rises into the air in opposition to it. Such a proceeding on the part of a plant must seem to a stone a pure miracle. If a piece of granite should write a book of theology, it would probably say that the plant, in growing up, had violated or suspended a law of nature. But it has not. The force of gravitation has worked on according to its own law; it has been dragging the plant downward all the time, only the vital power in the plant has overcome its force, and modified the result. And, again, a tree, seeing a dog run to and fro, might call that a miracle. The tree, unable to move from its place, could not conceive of the possibility of voluntary motion. But no law of nature is violated; only a higher power comes in—the power of animal life.

To a dog, again, the proceedings of a man are strictly miraculous. To plant corn, reap it, thresh it, grind it, and bake bread out of it, is exactly as much a miracle to the dog, as the multiplication of loaves, or turning water into wine, by Christ, is a miracle to us. But no law of nature was violated in either case. Reason in the one case, some profounder spiritual power in the other, may have modified the usual operation of law, and produced these results.

The Orthodox supernaturalist therefore contends that the supernatural is a constant element of life. Higher natures are all supernatural to lower natures, but natural in themselves, because obedient to the laws of their own nature. Nature, without this supernatural element, is only a machine, of which God, standing outside, turns the handle. This is a low conception both of nature and of God. As Goethe says, in one of his immortal lyrics,—

“Not so, outside, doth the Creator linger,

Nor let the all of things run round his finger,

But moves its centre, not its outer rim;

Comes down to nature, draws it up to him;

Moving within, inspiring from above,

With currents ever new of light and love.”

§ 7. Life and History contain Supernatural Events.

And besides all this, says the supernaturalist, we have continued and constant evidences, in all history and in all human experience, of the existence of this supernatural element. Only a small minority of mankind have ever doubted it; and those are men so immersed in physical science, or so hampered by some logical manacles, or so steeped in purely worldly affairs, as to be incapable of seeing the supernatural facts which are recurrent evermore. Christianity itself has been an uninterrupted series of supernatural events. The physical miracles of Christ are nothing to the spiritual miracles which Christianity is always working. Bad men are made good, weak men strong, cowardly men brave, ignorant and foolish men wise, by a supernatural influence given in answer to prayer, poured down into hearts and minds which open themselves to receive it. The conversion of a bad man by the power of Christianity is a miracle. The power of faith, hope, love, which every Christian has experienced, coming into him, not through any operation of his nature, but simply poured into his soul from some higher sphere,—this makes all argument unnecessary to one who has had ever so little Christian experience.

This is the substance of Orthodox supernaturalism; and this seems to me to be its truth, separated from its errors.

The naturalism of the present time we conceive to be partly directed against a false supernaturalism, and partly to be a mistake arising from a too exclusive attention to the order of the universe, as expressed in law.

§ 8. The Error of Orthodox Supernaturalism.

Supernaturalism has generally disregarded God in nature, and only sees him in revelation. It has allowed a sort of natural religion, but only in the way of an argument to prove the existence of God by what he did a long time ago. But it has not gone habitually to nature to see God there, incarnate in sun, moon, and stars; incorporate in spring, [pg 051] summer, autumn, and winter; in day and night; in the human soul, reason, love, will. God has been all around us, never far from us; but theology has only been willing to see him in Jewish history, in sacred books, or on Sundays in church. Let us see him there all we can, but see him also in every rippling brook, in every tender flower, in all beauty, all sublimity, all arrangement and adaptation of this world. No wonder that naturalism should come to do what the Church has left undone—to find its God and Father in this great and wonderful world which he has made for us. The creed says, “God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost;” that is, God the Creator, seen in Nature and Providence; God the Redeemer, seen in Christianity; and God the Sanctifier, seen in every righteous and holy soul. But the Church has neglected its own creed, and omitted God the Creator, often also God the Sanctifier, and has only seen God in Christianity, in its history, its Church, its doctrines, its ceremonies.[8] Against this, naturalism comes as a great and needed protest, and calls us to see God also in nature and life.

Then the Church has been too apt to teach a miraculous revelation, in which the miracles are violations of law. But as God is confessedly the author of law, it has made the Deity violate his own laws; that is, has made him inconsistent, arbitrary, irregular, and wilful. Deep in the human mind God has himself rooted a firm faith in the immutability of law; so that when miracles are thus defined, naturalism justly objects to them.

§ 9. No Conflict between Naturalism and Supernaturalism.

But between true naturalism and true supernaturalism we do not think there need be any war. We know that there are many men so rooted in their faith in nature, that they cannot see anything outside of it, or beyond it. To them [pg 052] God is law, and law only. Even creation is repugnant to them, because they see that creation is really a supernatural thing. Hence come the theories of development; the “Vestiges of Creation;” the nebular hypothesis; the Darwinian theory of formation of species by natural selection; the notion of man coming out of an ape; pantheistic notions of a God so immersed in nature as to be not its intelligent guide, but only its unconscious soul; the whole universe proceeding according to an order which is just as much above God's knowledge as above ours. Now, the best geologists assure us that there is no evidence in support of the transmutation of species. Mr. Darwin's theory of the formation of species by natural selection is this: In the struggle for life, the strongest and best adapted animal lives, the rest die. This animal transmits to its offspring its own superior qualities; so a higher animal is gradually developed. For example, the giraffe was not made by God with a long neck in order that it might browse on the leaves of high trees. But when leaves were scarce, the animal who happened to have a neck a little longer than the rest was able to get leaves. So he lived, and the rest died. His children had longer necks by the law of hereditary transmission. So, in the course of ages, animals were gradually found with very long necks. Thus the walrus has a curved horn growing downwards from his lower jaw, by which he climbs on to the floating ice. We must not suppose, however, that God gave him the tusk for that purpose; but the walrus, or seal, who happened to have a little horny bone under his chin, could climb on the ice and get his food more easily, and so he lived, while the rest died; and his descendants in the course of a few hundreds of thousands of years came, by repeating this process, to have horns, and so this species of phoca arrived.

It is certainly possible to believe this theory. But in believing it we have to suppose two things; first, a happy [pg 053] accident, and then a law of transmission of hereditary qualities. Now, the theory substitutes this law of transmission and these happy accidents for the creative design. Is anything gained thereby? The domain of law is extended a little. But extend it as much as you will, you must at last come to something above law. Suppose these laws by which walrus and giraffe came, were all in the original nebula, so that no Creator has been needed since, and nothing supernatural—nature has done it all since. But who put the laws there to begin with? You have to take the supernatural at last, or else suppose an accident to begin with. Accidentally, all these wonderful laws happened to be in a particular nebula. He who shrinks from this supposition accepts the supernatural, all at once, at the beginning, instead of the supernatural all the way along, “What does he gain by it?” He gains merely this, that he puts the Creator out of sight; or rather, puts himself out of sight of the Creator. He worships the great god Development instead.

Equally satisfactory to the intellect, to say the least, and much more satisfactory to the best human instincts, is the view of God which sees him coming evermore into nature from above nature. This view says, “God is not only order, but also freedom. He is not only law, but also love. He is in the world as law and order, but he is above the world as thought and love; as Providence, as the heavenly Father. He comes to us to meet our exigencies, to inspire our doubting hearts, to lift us into life and light. He does not set a grand machine going, and then look on and see it work; but he is in the world, and with us always. The supernatural dwells by the side of the natural. Just as a wise and good father has rules and laws by which to govern his children—rewarding and punishing them as they obey or disobey; but besides that, does a thousand things for them, taking the initiative himself; so God governs us by law, but [pg 054] also often takes the initiative, giving us what we never asked for, and knew nothing of.”

§ 10. Further Errors of Orthodox Supernaturalism—Gulf between Christianity and all other Religions.

Orthodoxy has erred, as it would seem, in placing too great a gulf between Christianity and all other religions. Christianity is sufficiently distinguished from all other religions by being regarded as the perfect, and therefore universal, religion of mankind. It is to all preceding religions what man is to all previous races. These are separated from man by various indelible characters; yet they are his fellow-creatures, proceeding from the same creative mind, according to one creative plan. So the previous religions of our race—Fetichism, Brahmanism, Buddhism, the religion of Confucius, of Zoroaster, of Egypt, of Scandinavia, of Judea, of Greece and Rome—are distinguished from Christianity by indelible characters; but they, too, proceeded from the same creative mind, according to one creative plan. Christianity should regard these humanely, as its fellow-creatures. The other animals prepared man's way on the earth, and since man's arrival we have seen no subsequent creation. So the ethnic religions prepared the way for Christianity, and since Christianity came no new religion has appeared; for Mohammedanism is only a mélange drawn from the Old and New Testaments, and may therefore be considered as an outlying Christian sect. So, too, the gigantic abstractions of Gnosticism were hybrid systems, formed of the union between Oriental thought and Christian life. The analogy may be traced still farther. Man is the only animal who possesses the whole earth. Every other race has its habitat in some geographical centre, from which it may emigrate, indeed, to some extent, but where only it thrives. To man, only, the whole earth belongs. So the primitive religions are all ethnic; that is, religions of races. The religion of Confucius belongs to China, that of Brahmanism to India, that of [pg 055] Zoroaster to the Persians; the religion of Egypt is only for the Egyptians. Exceptions to this law (like that of Buddhism, for example) are only apparent. The rule is invariable. Christianity alone is a cosmic or universal religion. It only has passed the boundaries of race, so inflexible to all other religions. Born a Semitic religion, it soon took possession of the Indo-European races, converting Romans, Greeks, Teutons, Kelts, and Sclaves. It finds the African mind docile to its influence. Its missionaries have made believers from among the races of America, India, China, and the Pacific Islands. It is evidently destined to be the religion of humanity.

But, if so, why should it be put into antagonism with the religions which preceded it? These are also creations of God, not the work of man. Theologians have found multitudes of types of Christ in Jewish books and Jewish history. But they might also find types of Christianity in the so-called heathen religions. For as coming events cast their shadows before, so coming revelations are seen beforehand in shadowy preludes and homologons. The lofty spiritualism of the Brahmanical books, the moral devotion of the Zendavesta, the law of the soul's progress in Buddhism,—these are all types of what was to appear in a greater fulness and higher development in Christianity. First the natural, afterwards that which is spiritual. But these foregleams of Christian truth, irradiating the night-side of history, are all touching proofs that God never leaves himself without a witness in the world or in human hearts.

Instead, therefore, of placing an impassable gulf between Christianity and other human religions, we should consider these are preparations and stepping-stones to something higher. Nor will they pass away until Christianity has purified itself from the errors which still cling to it. Judaism was not to pass till it was fulfilled in Christianity; and [pg 056] neither will the other religions of the world pass away till they also are fulfilled in Christianity.

Now, the common teaching in our churches and religious books and newspapers tends to depreciate all natural religion in the interest of revealed religion. It is commonly said that the light of nature helps us a very little way in the knowledge of God. “Look at the heathen,” it is said; “see their religious ignorance, their awful superstitions, their degrading worship of idols, and their subjection to priestcraft. This is your boasted light of nature, and these are its results—the Fetichism of Africa, the devil-worship of the North American Indians, the cannibalism of the Feejee Islands, the human sacrifices of Mexico and of the ancient Phœnicia.” “Then,” it is continued, “look at the observations of the wisest intellects apart from revelation! How little they knew with certainty! Their views of the Deity varied from pantheism to idolatry; their views of immortality were wholly vague and indistinct; their ideas of duty confused and false.”

To which we might reply, “Is not the same thing true among Christians? Are there no superstitions among them? Were not witches hanged and burned during sixteen centuries in Christendom? If the heathen are ignorant, what multitudes in Catholic countries also do not read the Bible! How many are there even in Protestant churches who can give a reason for their belief? If the heathen worship degrades mankind because it is a superstition, with fear for its motive, how large a part of Christian preaching consists also of an appeal to terror! Is not the fear of everlasting torment in hell the motive power of much which is called Christianity? Consider Catholics eating their God: is that the worship of the Father in spirit and truth? Think of the religious wars, of the religious persecutions: did natural religion ever do anything as bad as this? We cry out against Nero, who covered Christians with pitch, and burned [pg 057] them as torches in the amphitheatre. But how many were thus tortured? Perhaps ten, perhaps twenty, or let us say a hundred. But, according to Llorente, the Holy Office of the Inquisition, in Spain, burned alive, under Torquemada, 8800: under Deza, 1669; under Ximenes, 2536; in all, from 1483 to 1498,—that is, in fifteen years,—it burned alive 31,912 persons for heresy, and subjected to rigorous pains and penalties 291,450 persons.”

It is not right to judge of any doctrine by the corrupt practices which have taken place under it, unless it can be shown that these are its legitimate fruits. We maintain that Christianity is not fairly responsible for these persecutions; but let us make the same allowance for the religions which prepared its way.

§ 11. Christianity considered unnatural, as well as supernatural by being made hostile to the Nature of Man.

If the nature of man be regarded as wholly evil, then Christianity is not merely a supernatural religion, but an unnatural one. This has been very commonly taught. Man's nature has been declared so totally corrupt and alien from all good, as to be radically opposite to the love of God and man. Christianity, therefore, comes, not to help him attain that which he is seeking after, but to change his whole purpose and aim—to give him a wholly new nature. This is the result of the doctrine of total depravity, so long taught in the Church as Orthodoxy. It has taught that all natural tendencies and desires in man were wholly evil, and to be rooted out. It has thus made Christianity unattractive, and has driven men away from it. But of this it is not necessary to speak here, as we shall discuss this doctrine and its influence hereafter.

Chapter IV. Truths And Errors As Regards Miracles.

§ 1. The Subject stated. Four Questions concerning Miracles.

In considering the truth and error in the Orthodox doctrine concerning miracles, we must, first, find out what this doctrine is; secondly, see what objections have been urged against it; and so, lastly, we may come to some conclusion as to where the truth or the error lies. There are, however, four distinct questions in regard to miracles, each of which may be considered separately. There is the philosophic question, or definition of a miracle, which asks, What is a miracle? Then there is the historical question, which asks, Did such facts actually occur? Next is the theological question, What are the value and weight of these facts in determining our Christian belief? And lastly comes the religious question, What are the spiritual meaning of miracles, and their influence on the heart and life?

§ 2. The Definition of a Miracle.

As the creeds give no authoritative definition of a miracle, we must examine individual statements, in order to get the Orthodox idea.

To answer the question, What is a miracle? is not as easy as it would seem, as will appear from considering the different definitions given by different authorities, taking first those of the dictionary.

Johnson. “Miracle. A wonder—something above human power. (In theology.) An effect above human or natural power, performed in attestation of some truth.”

Webster. “Miracle. (In theology.) An event or effect [pg 059] contrary to the established constitution and course of things, or a deviation from the known laws of nature; a supernatural event.”

Robinson's Bible Dictionary. “Miracle. A sign, wonder, prodigy. These terms are commonly used in Scripture to denote an action, event, or effect, superior (or contrary) to the general and established laws of nature. And they are given, not only to true miracles, wrought by saints or prophets sent by God, but also to the false miracles of impostors, and to wonders wrought by the wicked, by false prophets or by devils.” After giving examples of this from the Scriptures, Robinson adds, “Miracles and prodigies, therefore, are not always sure signs of the sanctity of those who perform them, nor proofs of the truth of the doctrine they deliver, nor certain testimonies of their divine mission.”

American Encyclopœdia. Miracle. “It is usually defined to be a deviation from the course of nature. But this definition seems to omit one of the elements of a miracle, viz., that it is an event produced by the interposition of an intelligent power for moral purposes; for, otherwise, we must consider every strange phenomenon, which our knowledge will not permit us to explain, as a miraculous event. A revelation is itself a miracle. If one claims to be a teacher from God, he asserts a miraculous communication with God; this communication, however, cannot be visible, and visible miracles may therefore be necessary to give credibility to his pretensions. The use, then, of a miraculous interposition in changing the usual course of nature is to prove the moral government of God, and to explain the character of it.”

Theodore Parker. “A miracle is one of three things.

“1. It is a transgression of all law which God has made; or,

“2. A transgression of all known laws, or obedience to a law which we may yet discover; or,

“3. A transgression of all law known or knowable by man, but yet in conformity with some law out of our reach.”

He says that a miracle, according to the first definition, is impossible; according to the second it is no miracle at all; but that there is no antecedent objection to a miracle according to the third hypothesis.

Pascal. “A miracle is an effect which exceeds the natural force of the means employed to bring it about.”

Hume. “A miracle is a violation of a law of nature.”

Dr. Thomas Brown. “A miracle is as little contrary to any law of nature as any other phenomenon. It is only an extraordinary event, the result of extraordinary circumstances; an effect that indicates a power of a higher order than those we are accustomed to trace in phenomena more familiar to us, but whose existence only the atheist denies. It is a new consequent of a new antecedent.”

Horne's Introduction to the New Testament. “A miracle defined is an effect or event different from the established constitution or course of things, or a sign obvious to the senses that God has interposed this power to control the established powers of nature (commonly termed the laws of nature), which effect or sign is wrought either by the immediate act, or by the assistance, or by the permission, of God, and accompanied with a previous notice or declaration that it is performed according to the purpose and by the power of God, for the proof or evidence of some particular doctrine, or in attestation of the authority or divine mission of some particular person.”—Vol. I. p. 203.

“Since, as we already have had occasion to observe, the proper effect of a miracle is clearly to mark the divine interposition, it must therefore have characters proper to indicate such interposition; and these criteria are six in number.

“1. It is required, then, in the first place, that a fact or event which is stated to be miraculous should have an important end, worthy of its author.

“2. It must be instantaneously and publicly performed.

“3. It must be sensible (that is, obvious to the senses) and [pg 061] easy to be observed; in other words, the fact or event must be such that the senses of mankind can clearly and fully judge of it.

“4. It must be independent of second causes.

“5. Not only public monuments must be kept up, but some outward actions must be constantly performed in memory of the fact thus publicly wrought.

“6. And such monuments must be set up, and such actions and observances be instituted, at the very time when those events took place, and afterwards be continued without interruption.”—Vol. I. p. 214 and 215.

From these examples we may see what different definitions have been given of miracles, and that the definition is not so easy a thing as one might at first suppose. All depends on the point of view which we take. If we look only at the outward fact, a miracle is a wonderful event, a portent, something out of the common course of nature, and unparalleled in common human experience. But if we look at it as regards the character of him who works the miracle, it then becomes a supernatural work, or a preternatural work, having a divine or a demoniac origin.

But, on the whole, the Orthodox doctrine of a miracle seems to be this—that it is a wonderful work, contrary to the laws of nature, wrought by the direct agency of God, in proof of the divine commission of him by whom it is done. The two essential points of the definition are, that a miracle is contrary to the laws of nature; and that it is the only logical proof of the divine authority of the miracle-worker. We call this the orthodox definition, although we must admit that no one in modern times has presented this view more forcibly and decidedly than the Unitarian Andrews Norton, and though many Orthodox men have taken a different view.

§ 3. The different Explanations of the Miracles of the Bible.

The four explanations of the miracles of the New Testament (to which we now confine ourselves) are these:—

I. The Natural Explanation.—According to this, the miraculous facts of the New Testament are to be explained as resulting from natural causes. They are on the plane of our common human life. They are such events as might easily happen anywhere at the present time. Christ himself was but a natural genius of a high order. His miracles were merely the natural results of his intellect and strength of will, or they were mistakes on the part of the observers and narrators, or myths which have grown up subsequently in the Church. Great ingenuity has been used in attempting to show how each miracle may be explained so as to be nothing very extraordinary, after all. But these explanations are often very forced. Some events which are at first sight seemingly miraculous, are often explained as natural events by the majority of commentators. Thus the account of the angel who went down into the pool and troubled the water is usually interpreted as a natural phenomenon, and no real miracle. Modern travellers have noticed that this pool of Bethesda is an intermittent spring, which may have possessed medicinal qualities.

The old-fashioned naturalism, however, has mostly gone by. Its explanations were too forced and unnatural to continue long. The more common account at present is that which assumes that the narrators were mistaken in the stories which they have given us. Mr. Parker thinks that there is not sufficient evidence of the miracles. If there were more he would believe them. He gives no explanation of their origin farther than this. But Strauss attempts an explanation based upon an unconscious action of the fancy and feelings on the part of the New Testament writers, causing them to create these incidents out of some trifling basis of fact or of history. Renan follows in the same general direction.

II. The Unnatural Explanation.—A miracle is a violation or a suspension of a law of nature.

This, until recently, has been the favorite view of miracles among theologians, and is the view of miracles against which the arguments of those who reject them have been chiefly directed.

The arguments in favor of this view are these:—

1. The miracles of the New Testament seem to be violations of laws of nature. For example: the turning water into wine; healing by a word or touch; stilling the tempest; feeding five thousand; walking on the sea; transfiguration; raising of Lazarus; Christ's own resurrection. The law of gravitation seems to have been suspended when he walked on the sea, &c.

2. Miracles are appealed to by Christ and his apostles in proof that God was with him. But, unless these miracles had suspended the laws of nature, they would not be proofs of this.

These are the two principal reasons for this view of miracles.

Objections.—On the other hand, it is objected,—

1. That apparent violations may not be real violations of the laws of nature. Examples: The Arab emir in “The Talisman” who was told that water sometimes became solid, so as to support a man on horseback; a steamboat sailing against wind and current; the telegraph; the daguerrotype. In all such cases the laws of nature are not violated or suspended, but new powers come in.

2. Christ appeals to the moral character of his miracles, and not merely to their supernatural character. They are miracles of benevolence.

3. If the proof of Christ's mission depends on this view of miracles, it can never be proved. We can never be sure that the event is a violation of a law of nature.

4. On this view the sceptic's objections to miracles are unanswerable.

So says Dr. Thomas Brown, in an article reprinted by Dr. Noyes, of Cambridge, in the “Theological Essays” published by the American Unitarian Association. He admits the principle of Hume's Essay on Miracles, but says that his error lies in the false definition of the miracle as a violation of the laws of nature. False, because,—

(a.) On the principle of continued uniformity of sequence our whole belief of causation, and consequently of the divine Being, is founded.

(b.) Gives an air of inconsistency, and almost of absurdity, to a miracle.

(c.) Laws of nature are not violated when a new antecedent is followed by a new consequent, but when, the antecedent being exactly the same, a different consequent is the result.

(d.) No testimony could prove such a miracle. Suppose testimony so strong that its falsehood would be an absolute miracle; then we should have to believe, in either case, that a law of nature has been violated. No ground of preference between them.

5. A miracle may be supernatural, or above nature, without being unnatural, or against nature.

6. The greatest church teachers have maintained that miracles were not against law or without law, but above common law. Hahn, after mentioning the view of a miracle as a suspension of law, and calling it one neither scriptural nor conceivable, proceeds to quote Augustine and other writers, who held that miracles were by no means opposed to law.[9]

III. The Preternatural View of Miracles.—This view admits the reality of the phenomena, but explains them as resulting from mysterious forces, which are neither divine on the one hand, nor human on the other, but which are outside of nature. This is the demoniacal view, or that which supposes that evil spirits, departed souls, or spirits neither good nor bad, surround the earth, and can be reached by magic, witchcraft, sorcery, magnetism, or what is now called Spiritualism. This theory supposes that the works of Jesus were performed by the aid of spiritual beings. The objections to this view are,—

1. If it is supposed, as it was by the Jews, that Jesus had the aid of evil spirits, the sufficient answer is, that his works were good works.

2. If it is argued that he performed his miracles by the aid of departed spirits who were good spirits, the answer is, that he himself never took this view, but always declared, “My Father, who dwelleth in me, he doeth the works.” Moreover, the whole character of the miracles of Jesus differs not only from everything ever done by magnetism or spiritualism, but from everything ever claimed to be done.

IV. The Supernatural View of Miracles.—This view asserts that the miracles were performed by higher forces, which came into this world from a higher world than this. It asserts that besides the forces which are at work regularly [pg 066] in the world, there are other forces outside of the world, which may from time to time come into it. We call them higher forces not only because they are more powerful than the forces before at work in the world, by overcoming which they produce the extraordinary outward phenomena, but because they always tend to elevate the world nearer to God. They are thus proved to come from a world which is nearer to God than this. The reasons in support of this view are, as before suggested.—

1. Geology teaches it. The rocks show not only an original creation of the world, but successive creations of vegetable and animal life.

2. The creation of the world teaches it. Creation was a miracle in this sense of the word.

3. There seems to be in the constitution of man a faculty provided for recognizing the supernatural element. Phrenologists call it the organ of marvellousness. Such a faculty would argue the existence of an appropriate object on which it might be exercised.

4. The whole life and character of Jesus were supernatural and miraculous in this sense. They cannot be satisfactorily explained as the result of anything existing in the world before.

§ 4. Criticism on these Different Views of Miracles.

In attempting to discover the truths and errors contained in these statements it is a great satisfaction to feel that our faith in Christ and Christianity is not depending on them. If we believed with those who consider miracles the only or the principal proof of Christianity, we could hardly hope to be candid and just in examining the arguments of those who deny the marvellous facts of the New Testament. There is no doubt that the number of religious and Christian men who have relinquished all belief in the marvellous part of the Bible has largely increased within a few years. At the present time there is a strong tendency to disbelieve and [pg 067] deny all miracles as incredible and impossible. Renan, in his “Life of Jesus,” says, “Miracles never happen except among people disposed to believe them. We banish miracles from history in the name of a constant experience. No miracle has, as yet, been proved.” Renan adds, that “if a commission of men of science should decide that a man had been raised from the dead he would believe it.” “Till then,” he says, “it is the duty of the historian not to admit a supernatural fact, but to find, if he can, what part credulity and imposition have had in it.” Accordingly, Renan writes his “Life of Jesus” in this sense, discarding most of the miracles, or explaining them away, and trying to put together into some kind of shape the fragments which remain. But Renan does not go far enough to satisfy some others. Gerritt Smith, for example, in a recent lecture which he has published, called “Be Natural,” says, “Jesus neither performed nor attempted to perform miracles. His wisdom and sincerity forbid the supposition. Am I an unbeliever in the historical Jesus because I hold him innocent of the absurdities which superstition and folly tax him with? No more than I should disbelieve in Shakespeare, by denying that he walked on the Avon, or changed its waters into wine. M. Renan ought to have made no account of these stories of miracles. He should have dropped them entirely, as did Rammohun Roy in his Hindoo translation of the New Testament. Let the credulous feed on these creations of superstition, but let men of sense turn away from them.”

The reason why so many intelligent men find it impossible to believe the miracles of the New Testament, while they find it very easy to believe the religious and moral teaching of Jesus is partly due to the spirit of the age. The intellect of this age is more and more scientific. Now, science is the knowledge of facts and laws. A miracle is opposed to all usual observation of facts, and is often called by theologians a violation of the laws of nature. It is not therefore strange [pg 068] that men imbued with the spirit of science should dislike the notion of miracles.

§ 5. Miracles no Proof of Christianity.

Now, we should have little objection, on purely theological grounds, to give up the miracles of the New Testament. Theologians have built up the proof of Christianity on miracles. They have declared them the chief evidence of Christianity. They have said, “A miracle is a violation of a law of nature. Now, no one but God can violate a law of nature. If Jesus violated a law of nature, it proved that God was with him. But that he did so we know from the New Testament. That it tells the truth we know, because it was written, by eye-witnesses, who could not have been mistaken, because they saw the miracles with their own eyes, and were not liars, because they laid down their lives in testimony of the truth of what they asserted.” Therefore, it is argued, “Christ worked miracles; therefore he had God's help and power; therefore he has God's authority to teach the religion of the New Testament.”

Now, for those who hold this view of Christianity, if they renounce miracles, it is evident that the foundation of faith is gone. No wonder, therefore, that they bitterly oppose all attacks of miracles. In defending miracles, they are fighting for their lives.

But we need not hold this view of the foundation of Christianity. Christianity does not rest necessarily on the physical miracles of Christ, but on his moral miracles, which no one has ever doubted, or can doubt. Christianity proceeded from Jesus, and was transmitted by him, not as a philosophy, but as a power, a life, which renewed the old world, and created a new dispensation. This is the great miracle. We do not really believe Christianity on the ground of miracles, but we believe miracles on the ground of Christianity.

Let us explain this. If miracles had been asserted to be wrought by God in order to prove the truth of a doctrine [pg 069] irrational, self-contradictory, odious to the conscience and to the heart,—to prove, for example, the justice of the Spanish Inquisition, the lawfulness of slavery, or that God loves some of his children and hates the rest,—then all the outward evidence in the world would not have convinced us that God had taught such a doctrine and confirmed it by miracles. If we had seen with our own eyes a dead man raised to life, or if M. Renan's committee of scientific men had testified that they had seen it, we should either say they were deceived, or we should say, with the Jews, “It is done by some devilish power, not by a divine power. It is not supernatural, it is preternatural.” But Christianity itself is the great miracle of human history. It is more marvellous than raising a dead man, for it was the resurrection of a dead world—of a dead humanity. Read Gibbon. He is an infidel writer, but he is a perfect historian. He shows you Christianity, as a living force, coming into history, pouring a tide of life into the decaying civilization of Rome, overflowing upon the German tribes, and changing their whole character, so as to make out of those savage warriors merciful and reverential soldiers, who knew how to pardon and how to spare. Now, there seems something quite as supernatural in this as in the coming of new trees and plants into the world in the carboniferous epoch, or the coming in of mammalia, a hundred thousand years or so after. It seems as if God came near the world, and touched it in Jesus Christ; for the power of one man was wholly inadequate to such results as followed his coming. I believe Christianity a divine religion, a religion from God, because it lifts the soul nearer to God—because it has lifted mankind nearer to God, and enabled men to believe God a friend—not a tyrant, not a stern king—but a father. Christianity is divine, because its truth and love are divine—because it purifies, consoles, and elevates human hearts; because the life of Jesus is, by the testimony of such men as Theodore Parker, Rousseau, [pg 070] and Renan, infinitely superior to all other lives ever lived in this world. Now, believing in Christianity and Christ on such grounds, we may look with much more deference and respect upon the stories of miracles which are intertwined in his life. We should not attend to them at all if we found them told about only common men; but told about Jesus, we are led to examine them more critically, and ask whether it is, or is not, possible for them to have been, in the main, real facts.

The Orthodox doctrine has been, and still is, that Christianity rests on miracles. Our view is, that miracles rest on Christianity. But we close this section with extracts from Luther, Channing, Trench, and Walker, to show that the view for which we contend is not without able supporters in all parts of the Church.

Martin Luther says,—

“People cry it up as a great miracle, that Christ made the blind see, the deaf hear, and the lepers clean; and it is true such works are miraculous signs; but Christ regards his influence on the soul as far more important than that on the body; for as the soul excels the body, so do the miracles wrought on the former excel those wrought on the latter....

“The miracles which Christ wrought on the body are small and almost childish, compared with the high and true miracles which he constantly performs in the Christian world by his divine, almighty power; for instance, that Christianity is preserved on the earth; that the word of God and faith in him can yet hold out; yea, that a Christian can survive on earth against the devil and all his angels; also against so many tyrants and factions; yea, against our own flesh and blood. The fact that the gospel remains and improves the human heart,—this is indeed to cast out the devil, and tread on serpents, and speak with tongues; for those visible miracles were merely signs for the ignorant, [pg 071] unbelieving crowd, and for those who were yet to be brought in; but for us, who know and believe, what need is there of them? For the heathen, indeed, Christ must needs give external signs, which they could see and take hold of; but Christians must needs have far higher signs, compared with which the former are earthly. It was necessary to bring over the ignorant with external miracles, and to throw out such apples and pears to them as children; but we, on the contrary, should boast of the great miracles which Christ daily performs in his church.”

In the “Christian Examiner,” Dr. James Walker says,—

“Christianity embodies a collection of moral and vital truths, and these truths, apart from all history or philosophy, constitute Christianity itself. Instead, therefore, of perplexing and confounding the young with what are called the evidences of Christianity, give them Christianity itself. Begin by giving them Christianity itself, as exhibited in the life and character of the Lord Jesus, as illustrated by his simple, beautiful and touching parables, and as it breathes through all his discourses. They will feel it to be true. Depend upon it, paradoxical as it may sound, children will be much more likely to believe Christianity without what are called the evidences, than with them; and the remark applies to some who are not children.

“Why talk to one about the argument from prophecy, or the argument from miracles, when these are the very points, and the only points, on which his mind, from some peculiarity in its original constitution, or from limited information, chiefly labors. Give him Christianity itself, by which we mean the body of moral and vital truths which constitute Christianity. Observe it when you will, you will find that the doubts and difficulties suggested by children relate almost exclusively to the history of Christianity, or to what are called the external evidences of Christianity, and not to the truth of Christianity itself. Give them Christianity itself: for if they believe in that, it [pg 072] is enough. Nothing can be more injudicious than to persist in urging the argument from miracles on a mind, that, from any cause, has thus become indifferent, and perhaps impatient of it. How idle to think to convince a person of Christianity by miracles, when it is these very miracles, and not Christianity, that he doubts! The instances, we suspect, are not rare, even of adults, who are first converted to Christianity itself, and afterwards, through the moral and spiritual change which Christianity induces, are brought to believe entirely and devoutly in its miraculous origin and history.”

Dr. Channing says,—

“There is another evidence of Christianity still more internal than any on which I have yet dwelt; an evidence to be felt rather than described, but not less real because founded on feeling. I refer to that conviction of the divine original of our religion which springs up and continually gains strength in those who apply it habitually to their tempers and lives, and who imbibe its spirit and hopes. In such men there is a consciousness of the adaptation of Christianity to their noblest faculties; a consciousness of its exalting and consoling influences, of its power to confer the true happiness of human nature, to give that peace which the world cannot give; which assures them that it is not of earthly origin, but a ray from the everlasting Light, a stream from the fountain of heavenly Wisdom and Love. This is the evidence which sustains the faith of thousands, who never read and cannot understand the learned books of Christian apologists, who want, perhaps, words to explain the ground of their belief, but whose faith is of adamantine firmness, who hold the gospel with a conviction more intimate and unwavering than mere arguments ever produced.”

And here is an extract from another writer:—

“Doubtless Christ's spiritual glory is in itself as distinguishing, and as plainly showing his divinity, as his outward glory, and a great deal more; for his spiritual glory [pg 073] is that wherein his divinity consists, and the outward glory of his transfiguration showed him to be divine only as it was a remarkable image or representation of that spiritual glory. Doubtless, therefore, he that has had a clear sight of the spiritual glory of Christ may say, ‘I have not followed cunningly devised fables, but have been an eye-witness of his majesty,’ upon as good grounds as the apostle, when he had respect to the outward glory of Christ that he had seen. A true sense of the divine excellency of the things of God's Word doth more directly and immediately convince of the truth of them; and that because the excellency of these things is so superlative. There is a beauty in them that is so divine and godlike, that is greatly and evidently distinguishing of them from things merely human, or that men are the authors and inventors of,—a glory that is so high and great, that when clearly seen, commands assent to their divinity and reality. The evidence which they who are spiritually enlightened have of the truth of the things of religion, is a kind of intuition and immediate evidence. They believe the doctrines of God's Word to be divine, because they see divinity in them. That is, they see a divine, and transcendent, and most evidently distinguishing glory in them; such a glory as, if clearly seen, does not leave room to doubt of their being of God, and not of men.”

Trench, also, denies that the miracle can have absolute authority, since Satanic powers may work evil too. This convinces us, he says, that miracles cannot be appealed to in proof of the doctrine or of the divine mission of him who brings it to pass. The doctrine must first commend itself to the conscience as being good; then the miracle shows it to be a new word from God. But when the mind and conscience reject the doctrine, the miracle must be rejected too. The great act of faith is to believe, in despite of all miracles, what God has revealed to the soul of the holy and the true; [pg 074] not to believe another gospel, though an angel from heaven should bring it. Instead of compelling assent, miracles are then rather warnings to us that we keep aloof; for they tell us not merely that lies are here, but that he who utters them is an instrument of Satan.

False miracles, or lying wonders, are distinguished from the true, not by the intellect, but by the moral sense, which finds in them something immoral, or ostentatious, or futile, leading to nothing. Origen says the miracles of Moses issued in a Jewish polity; those of our Lord in a Christian Church. But what fruits have the miracles of Apollonius or Æsculapius to show?

The miracles of Christ are redemptive. Modern writers of evidences make a dangerous omission when they fail to say that the doctrine is to try the miracle, as well as the miracle to seal the doctrine. To teach men to believe in Christ on no other grounds than his wonderful works is to pave the way of Antichrist. Those books of Christian evidences are utterly maimed and imperfect, fraught with the most perilous consequences, which reverence in the miracle only its power.[10]

§ 6. But Orthodoxy is right in maintaining their Reality as Historic Facts.

The first thing we notice about the miracles of Jesus is, that they are intertwined inextricably with the whole narrative. It is almost impossible to disentangle them, and to leave any solid historic residuum. There is a story in Goethe of a statue of iron and silver, with veins of gold. The flames licked out the gold veins of the colossus, and it remained standing a little while; but when at last the tenderest filaments had been licked out, the image crashed together, and fell in a shapeless, miserable heap. So when the tongue of criticism shall have eaten out the supernatural elements of the gospel narrative, the heroic figure will fall, [pg 075] as it has already in Renan's construction, into an amorphous mass of unhistoric rubbish.

Then we see that most of these miracles are miracles of healing, which have their analogues in many similar events scattered through history. Many such facts might be collected to show that there is in man a latent power of overcoming disease, in himself and others, by a great exertion of will. If in common men there is such a power, latent, and as yet undeveloped, why should it be an unnatural thing that one so full of a superhuman life as Jesus should be raised to a position where, by his very word or touch, he could cure disease, and that even at a distance?

We see such wonderful discoveries made every day of latent powers in nature, and secrets hidden till now from all men, that we do not know where to put limits to the possibility of the wonderful. To go into a telegraphic office in Boston, and speak to a man in New York or Washington, and have an answer in five minutes; to have your portrait painted in a moment by the rays of the sun,—such things as these would have seemed miracles to us a few years ago. To be able to tell what metals there are in the sun's atmosphere, and what not there; to say, “In the atmosphere of the sun there is silver, but not gold; there are iron, and antimony, and lead, and aluminum, but no copper nor zinc,”—does not this seem incredible? But we know that we can now tell just that.

When we read the Gospels, we find everything in them so simple, so unpretending, so little of an attempt at making out a consistent story, such a harmony in the character of the works attributed to Jesus (with one or two exceptions), that we are irresistibly inclined to say, “These stories must be simple facts. Delusion never spoke in this tone,—so clear, so luminous,—in language so honest and sincere.”

I do not deny that some mistakes or misapprehensions may have crept into the records. Occasionally we can see signs [pg 076] of something being mistaken for a miracle which was really not one. For example, the finding of a piece of money in the fish's mouth may have been the mistake of a proverbial expression, common among fishermen, and used by Matthew in his original Hebrew Gospel, but which the Greek translator, ignorant of the popular phrase, considered to be meant for a miracle.

The most natural supposition is, that a wonderful power dwelt in Jesus, which enabled him to heal the sick, cure the insane, and sometimes even bring back life to the dead. What do we know about death? The last breath has been drawn. The heart has ceased to beat, the lungs to move. We say, “He is dead.” But people have lain two or three days in this state, declared dead by the physicians, and then have come to life again by natural causes. A drowned man has all the marks of death; but after lying in this state half an hour, he is brought to life again. What, then, might not have been done by that supernatural power of life which, as history shows, dwelt in Jesus of Nazareth?

§ 7. Analogy with other Similar Events recorded in History.

It may very properly be asked whether miracles have occurred since the Bible record was closed; and if not, why not. Since we have regarded the miracles of the New Testament as no violations of law, but the coming in of higher laws or forces than those usually at work in the world, why may they not have taken place in our own time? If Christ's miracles differ only from other miracles in being higher and more perfect, what are the miracles of a lower class? Can we point out any events belonging to the same class of phenomena which have happened during the last thousand years?

In reply to this question, we will proceed to mention certain phenomena which seem to belong to the same order as the works of Jesus. The distinction between the miracles of Christ and all those portents will be pointed out hereafter.

In the “Atlantic Monthly” for February and March, 1864, there appeared an account (written, we believe, by R. Dale Owen), of the Convulsionists of St. Médard. The facts therein stated seem to contradict all the known laws of physiology. The lower side of miracles, namely, their apparent violation of physical laws, here appears as fully developed and as fully attested as the most careful sceptic could desire. If, therefore, any one objects to believing the miracles of Jesus on the ground that they seem to be violations of physical laws, we ask what they mean to do with these facts, so extraordinary, and yet so fully attested. If believed, there is no reason, based on the abnormal character of Christ's works, for rejecting those. But if disbelieved, it can be done only by setting aside all the ordinary rules of evidence, and all the laws of belief, in favor of a negative prepossession of a purely empirical character. Phenomena somewhat similar to these have occurred elsewhere, among Protestants as well as Catholics, during periods of great religious excitement. The beginnings of most religious systems—Methodism, Quakerism, &c.—have stories like these of supernatural influences. They have usually been disbelieved because their friends have claimed too much: they have claimed that such phenomena were divine attestations to the truth of the doctrine preached. What is proved by them is the simple fact that the soul of man is capable, under high excitement, of suspending, or rather overcoming, all common physiological laws. We have seen similar results follow often from such causes, only in ordinary ways. A sick person is made well in a moment by some moral influence; a weak and sickly mother will nurse a sick child, night after night, without rest or sleep, and keep well, where a strong man would break down. Mesmerism brings forward multitudes of like facts. There are, for example, the well-attested facts concerning the transfer of the senses: that people under the influence of animal magnetism can read [pg 078] with their forehead, the pit of their stomach, or the back of their head. We have seen a weak boy, some thirteen years old, when magnetized, lift a chair with three heavy men standing on it. Clairvoyance, or seeing things at a distance, though not so well proved, is confirmed by a vast number of facts. We come, then, to our final statement concerning miracles, which is this:—

I. There is in man a power, as yet undeveloped, and only occasionally seen in exceptional conditions, of overcoming the common laws of nature by force of will; and this is sometimes voluntary, and sometimes involuntary.

II. This phenomenon takes these forms:—

A. Power of the soul over the body (a.) to resist pain, as in the case of martyrs, who are burned alive without any appearance of suffering; (b.) to resist physical injury, as in the case of the Convulsionists; (c.) to dispense with the usual service of the senses, as in the case of the girl at Worcester Insane Asylum, Massachusetts, under the care of Dr. Woodward, who could read a book in a perfectly dark room and with bandaged eyes; (d.) to give a preternatural energy and strength to the body.

B. Preternatural knowledge—such cases as that narrated by Dr. Bushnell, of Yonnt, in California; or knowledge through dreams, waking presentiments; cases of foresight, or prophecy; of insight, or knowledge of what is passing in other minds; of clairvoyance, or knowledge of what is happening at a distance, of which multitudes of facts are narrated in such books as the “Seeress of Provorst,” Mrs. Crowe's “Night Side of Nature,” Robert Dale Owen's “Footfalls from the Boundary of the Unseen World,” which, after being sifted by a fair criticism, will leave a large residuum of irresolvable facts.

C. Higher than these is a preternatural elevation of the whole character, as in such cases as that of Joan of Arc, where a young girl, ignorant, a peasant, destitute of all common [pg 079] means of influencing any one, by the simple power of faith, because she believed herself inspired and commissioned, succeeded in gaining the command of the armies of France, and then of achieving a series of victories, equal, on the whole, as mere military exploits, to those of the first captains of the world.

In all these cases we see manifestations of a power in the soul over nature, body, men, and the laws of time and space. So we say, secondly,—

III. This power was possessed in the highest degree known in this world by Jesus of Nazareth, and it differed in him from these other cases in these points:—

1. It was always voluntary in its exercise, never involuntary. He was not possessed by it, he possessed it. He used it just when and where he chose to use it. It was always at his command; he never appears to have tried to work a miracle, and failed. So,—

2. It was in him constant, and not occasional. In other cases where the miraculous element appears, it seems to come and go; but to Jesus the spirit was not given by measure. He had it always.

3. This power in him was total, and not partial. It was therefore harmonious—in harmony with all his other qualities. He had power over diseases of the body, and also those of the soul. He knew what was in man, and what was in nature—in the present, and in the future. There was nothing ecstatic, enthusiastic, nothing of excitement, about him; but everything denoted a fulness, a pleroma, of this spiritual life.

4. The exercise of this power in Christ was always eminently moral, never wilful. The one or two seeming exceptions, as, for example, the cursing the fig tree, and the causing the evil spirits to go into the swine, ought to be explained in harmony with the vast majority of his actions, [pg 080] which always are guided by love, and justice, and a holy sense of what is true and good.

5thly, and lastly. The miracle power of Jesus reached a higher point of development than in any one else. The raising of the dead to life, and the mysterious power over nature indicated by the turning of water into wine, by the miracle of the loaves and fishes, calming the storm, if facts, are facts unparalleled in any other biography, but seem possible, however unintelligible, when considered as emanating from such a masterly and commanding spirit as that of Jesus.

And this finally brings us to the miracle of the resurrection, concerning which we will first quote from an article in a late number of the “Westminster Review,” to show the most recent ideas of the critical and negative school on this point.

§ 8. Miracle of the Resurrection. Sceptical Objections.

In an article in the “Westminster Review,” in “The Life of Christ, by Strauss,” occurs the following passage:—

“For of the two alternatives open to free inquiry, that if Jesus died he never reappeared, or if he reappeared he never died, Strauss considers the former not only preferable, but the only tenable one; for he cannot persuade himself that a feeble sufferer, who at first had scarcely strength to leave the tomb, and in the end succumbed to death, could have contrived to inspire his followers with the conviction that he was the Prince of life, the Conqueror of the grave. Strauss thus admits that faith in the supernatural revival of the buried Nazarene was undoubtedly the profession of the Christian Church, the unconditional antecedent without which Christianity could have had no existence. If, then, we refuse to assume the resurrection to be an historical fact, we have to explain the origin of the Church's belief in it. The solution which satisfies Strauss, and which seems to us also an adequate interpretation of the problem, is dependent [pg 081] on the two following positions: 1. The appearance of Jesus was literally an appearance, an hallucination, a psychological phenomenon. 2. It was also a sort of practical fallacy of confusion, a case of mistaken identity.

“But it will be said that this natural solution of the problem implies a foregone conclusion—the rejection of the Orthodox or supernatural solution. Of course it does; and accordingly Strauss has been accused of dogmatical or unphilosophical assumption. But the rejection of the theological solution is not the result of ignorant prejudice, but of enlightened investigation. Anti-supernaturalism is the final irreversible sentence of scientific philosophy, and the real dogmatist and hypothesis-maker is the theologian. That the world is governed by uniform laws is the first article in the creed of science, and to disbelieve whatever is at variance with those uniform laws, whatever contradicts a complete induction, is an imperative, intellectual duty. A particular miracle is credible to him alone who already believes in supernatural agency. Its credibility rests on an assumption—the existence of such agency. But our most comprehensive scientific experience has detected no such agency. There is no miracle in nature; there is no evidence of any miracle-working energy in nature; there is no fact in nature to justify the expectation of miracle. Rightly has it been said by an English savant and divine, that testimony is a second-hand assurance, a blind guide, that can avail nothing against reason; and that to have any evidence of a Deity working miracles, we must go out of nature and beyond reason.

“Strauss's prepossession, therefore, is justifiable. It is the prepossession of the rational theist, who does not believe in a God who changes his mind and improves with practice—the prentice maker of the world; it is the prepossession of the pantheist, in whose theory of the perfect government of an immanent God, miracle is an extravagance and absurdity; it is the prepossession of the philosophical naturalist, whose [pg 082] experience of the operations of nature recognizes no extra-mundane interventionalism.”

We have quoted this passage as containing the most distinct statement of an extreme anti-supernaturalism. Admitting the death of Jesus as a fact, it denies his resurrection as a fact, and that on doctrinal and theoretic grounds. Declaring anti-supernaturalism to be the final irreversible sentence of scientific philosophy, it assumes supernaturalism to be a denial that the world is governed by uniform laws. It assumes the resurrection of Christ to be at variance with those uniform laws. It denies the existence of any supernatural agency in the affairs of this world. It denies that there ever has been a miracle in nature, or any extra-mundane intervention in the history of nature or man.

This is what claims to be science, at the present time. We deny that it is science, and assert it to be pure dogmatism and theory, contradicted by numerous facts. It is pure theory to assume the resurrection of Jesus to be a violation of law. It is pure theory to define a miracle to be something opposed to law. It is pure theory to assume that the miraculous facts ascribed to Jesus in the Gospels must have been, if they occurred, violations of law. It is an assumption, contradicted by geology, that there is nothing in the experience of the naturalist of the operations of nature to show any extra-mundane intervention.

We have admitted, indeed, that these same assumptions have been made by Orthodox theology. Orthodox theologians have also assumed the miracles of Christ to be violations of the laws of nature. But some of the most distinguished theologians, in all ages of the Church, have not so defined them. And there is no reason why the man of science should deny the possibility of fact because an unscientific explanation has been given of that fact by others. This writer virtually says, “I will not believe that Christ appeared after his death, on any amount of testimony, because [pg 083] some persons have defined such appearances as being opposed to the laws of nature.” It is certainly true that we cannot fully believe in the reality of any phenomenon which seems to us to be a violation of law. It is also true that the reported facts concerning the appearances of Jesus seem like a violation of law. But the scientific course is neither to deny the facts, nor to explain them away, but to study them, in order to see whether, after all, they may not lead us to some new laws, before unknown.

The resurrection of Jesus deserves this study, since, according to the confession of science itself, the Christian Church rests upon that belief. Strauss admits that Christianity could not have existed without it. But, hastily assuming that the real appearance of Jesus himself would be a violation of a law of nature, he supposes this immense fact of Christendom to rest on an hallucination and a case of mistaken identity.

But perhaps, after all, the resurrection may have been an example of a universal law. Like other miracles, which are sporadic instances, in this world, of laws which may be the nature of other worlds, so the resurrection may have been as natural an event as any other in the life of Jesus. Perhaps it is a law of nature that all souls shall become disengaged from the earthly body on the third day after death. Perhaps they all rise in a spiritual body, substantial and real, but not usually perceptible by the senses. Perhaps, in the case of Jesus, that same superior command of miraculous force, which appeared during his life, enabled him to show himself easily and freely whenever he would. What became of the earthly body we do not know; it may have been removed by the priests or soldiers to prevent the disciples from getting possession of it. The body in which Christ appeared differed evidently from the earthly body in various ways. It came and went mysteriously; it was sometimes recognized, and sometimes not; and it ascended [pg 084] into the spiritual world instead of passing again to death and the grave. Perhaps, therefore, it may be a universal law that souls rise out of the material body into a higher state, clothed in another body, substantial and real, but not material. The essence of the resurrection is this: Resurrection is not coming to life again with the same body, but ascent into a higher life with a new body.

It may be said that all this is only a perhaps. Very well; it is only a perhaps, but that is all we want in order to refute the logic of the article just quoted. The scientific sceptic says, “I will not believe that Jesus was really seen after death, because that would be a violation of a law of nature.” We reply, “No, not necessarily. It might perhaps have been thus and so.” That will do; for if we can show that it is not necessarily a violation of a law of nature, we wholly remove the objection.

But we may go farther, and assert that such a supposition as we have made not only accords with the story in the Gospels, but also with the whole spirit of Christianity, and with all the analogies of nature. The resurrection of Jesus, so regarded, becomes the most natural thing in the world. If souls live after death, as even natural instinct teaches, they live somewhere. As by the analogy of nature we see an ascending scale of bodily existence up to man, whose body is superior to that of all other animals, because fitted for the very highest uses, so if man is to live hereafter and elsewhere, and not in this earthly body, analogy would anticipate that he should live in a body still, but in a higher form. If Jesus, therefore, rose in this higher body, and appeared to his disciples, it was to lift them above fear of death by showing that this corruptible must put on incorruption. So his resurrection was not merely coming to life again in the same body, but rising up into a higher body and a higher state, to show us how we are to be, to give us a [pg 085] glimpse of the hereafter, to bridge over the gulf between this life and that to come.

§ 9. Final Result of this Examination.

We have thus examined, as thoroughly as our limited space will allow, the questions at issue, on the subject of miracles, between the old Orthodox and recent heterodox views; and the result to which we have arrived may be thus stated:—

1. We may believe, on the testimony of history, that through Jesus of Nazareth there entered the world a great impulse of creative moral life, which has been, and is now, renewing society. This new impulse of life may be regarded as miraculous or supernatural.

2. We may believe, though perhaps less strongly, but still decidedly, that during the stay of Jesus on earth many extraordinary phenomena took place, such as the sudden healing of the sick, the raising of the dead to life, a display of miraculous insight and foresight, or knowledge of the present and the future, and some influence over organic and material life, and over the lifeless forces of nature. The precise limits of this we do not know, and need not pretend to define. We need not think it essential to fix the boundary. It may be interesting as speculation, but it is not important as religion.

3. For, in the third place, we may say that these miracles of Jesus have very little direct bearing on our religion. As they illustrate his character, they are valuable, and also as they help us to believe that the laws of nature are not stiff and rigid, like the movement of a machine, but that there is force above force, a vortex of living powers, in the universe, rising higher and higher towards the fountain of all force and life in God. All portents and wonders are useful, as they shake us out of the mechanical view of things, and show that even the outward, sensible world is full of spiritual power.

4. We may also believe the miracles of Jesus to be [pg 086] natural in this sense—that under the same conditions they could have been done by others, and that they are probably prophetic of a time in which they shall be done by others. Looked at as mere signs or portents, he himself discouraged any attention being paid to them. Looked at as logical proofs to convince an unbeliever, he never brought them forward. His object in miracles, as stated by Mr. Furness, was simply to express his character. Some, indeed, were symbolical, as the cursing of the fig tree. It is the custom in the East for teachers to speak in symbolic language.

Miracles were at first believed, on low grounds, as violations of law by a God outside of the world. Now they are disbelieved on scientific grounds. They may possibly be believed again on grounds of philosophy and historic evidence, not as portents, not as violations of law, not as the basis of a logical argument, but as the natural effluence and outcome of a soul like that of Jesus, into which a supernatural influx of light and life had descended. They are not more wonderful than nature; they are not so wonderful as the change of heart by which a bad man becomes a good man. But they will find their proper place as evidence how plastic the lower laws are to the influence of a higher life.

Chapter V. Orthodox Idea Of The Inspiration And Authority Of The Bible.

§ 1. Subject of this Chapter. Three Views concerning the Bible.

The subject of this chapter is the Orthodox idea concerning the inspiration and authority of the Bible. We shall consider the conflict of opinion between those who believe in the full inspiration of every word of Scripture, and those who treat it like a common book, and endeavor to see how far we ought to believe a fact or a doctrine, because it is asserted, or seems to be asserted, by some writer in the Bible.

Such questions are certainly of great importance to us all at the present time, when opinions on these subjects are unsettled, and few people know exactly what to believe. Especially in regard to the Old Testament, not many persons have any distinct notions. They do not know what is its inspiration or its authority; they do not know whether they are to believe the account of the creation and of the deluge in the book of Genesis, in opposition to the geologists, or believe the geologists, in opposition to Genesis. Certainly it is desirable, if we can, to have some clear and distinct opinions on these points.

And, first, in regard to Inspiration: there are three main and leading views of the inspiration of the Bible. There cannot be a fourth. There may be modifications of these, but nothing essentially different. These three views are,—

(a.) Plenary Inspiration.—That is, that everything in [pg 088] the Bible is the word of God. All the canonical books are inspired by God, so as to make them infallible guides to faith and practice. Every word which really belongs to these books is God's truth, and to be received without question as truth, no matter how much it may seem opposed to reason, to the facts of nature, to common sense, and common morality.

This is the Orthodox theory even at the present time. Any variation from this is considered a deviation into heresy. No doubt, in practice it is deviated from, by very Orthodox people; but all Protestant sects, claiming to be Orthodox, profess to hold to the plenary inspiration of the Bible.

(b.) The Rationalist or Naturalistic View of the Bible.—The Bible is not inspired at all, or at least in no way differing from any other book. Its authors were inspired, perhaps, just as Homer, or Thucydides, or Cicero were inspired, but not differently. It has no authority, therefore, over any other book, and is just as liable to be in error as any other. If you should bind in one volume the histories of Herodotus, Tacitus, Gibbon, and Mr. Bancroft, the poems of Horace, Hafiz, and Dante, and the letters of Cicero and Horace Walpole, this collection would have to the Naturalist just as much authority as the Bible.

(c.) The mediatorial view of the Bible, or the view which mediates between the others. This view endeavors to reconcile the others, by accepting the truths in each, and eliminating their errors or defects.

To this third division of opinions belong those of a large class, who are not prepared to accept either the first or the second. They cannot believe every word in the Bible to be the word of God, for they find things in it contradicting the evidence of history and the intuitions of reason, and also contradicting other teachings of the same book. They cannot see why, as Christians, they should believe everything in the Jewish Scriptures. As Christians, they go to the New Testament [pg 089] as a main source of faith and practice, but do not see why they should go to the Old Testament for Christian truth. On the other hand, they cannot look upon the Bible as a common book. They remember that it has been a light to the world for thousands of years, that it has been the means of awakening the human intellect and heart, of reforming society, and purifying life. Even in the Old Testament they find the noblest truth and the tenderest piety. The Bible has been the litany, prayer-book, inspirer, comforter of nations and centuries. They cannot and would not emancipate themselves from the traditions in which they were born, nor cut off history behind them. The Christian Church is their mother; she has taught them out of this book to know God, and out of this book to pray to him, and they cannot regard it without a certain prepossession.

To this third class I myself belong. I would not be unjust to the past or to the future. I would be loyal to truth, and not shut my eyes to what God reveals which is new; and I would not be unfaithful to what has already been taught me, or ungrateful for the love which has taught the world by the mouths of past prophets and apostles.

§ 2. The Difficulty. Antiquity of the World, and Age of Mankind.

Let us then see, first, what the problem before us is; and this can perhaps be best understood by means of an example.

The common opinion among Christians is, that the world was made four thousand and four years before Christ, and that all mankind are descended from Adam and Eve. These opinions are derived from the book of Genesis, which tells us that after God had made the world and other things in five days, on the sixth day he made man in his own image; and that, when the first man, Adam, was a hundred and thirty years old, he had a son, named Seth; and from Seth, according to Genesis, are descended, by a genealogy given in the fifth chapter of Genesis, Noah and his sons; and the ages [pg 090] being given from Adam down to Abraham, and from Abraham to Christ, the age of the world and the age of the human race have been computed.

As long as there was no reason for supposing any different period for the antiquity of the world, these numbers were quietly accepted. But various new facts have been noticed, and new sciences have arisen, within the past fifty years, which have thrown doubt upon this chronology. In the first place the great science of geology has examined the rocky leaves which envelop the surface of the earth, and has found written upon them proofs of an immense antiquity. It is found that the earth, instead of being created four thousand years ago, must have existed for myriads of years, in order to have given time for the changes which have taken place in its structure. This evidence was long doubted and resisted by theologians, as they supposed in the interest of Scripture; but the evidence was too strong to be denied, and no intelligent theologian, however Orthodox, now believes the world to have been made in six days, or to have been created only six thousand years ago. With some, the six days stand for immense periods of time; with others, the whole story is considered a vision, or a symbolical account of geological events; but no one takes it literally. This result has come from the overwhelming amount of evidence for the antiquity of the earth, derived mainly from the fossil rocks. Of these fossiliferous rocks there are over thirty distinct strata, lying superimposed, in a regular series, each filled with the remains of distinct varieties of animals or of plants. These rocks must each have been an immense period of time in being formed, for the shells which they contain, although very delicate, are unbroken, and could only be slowly deposited in the quiet depths of a great ocean. There are also evidences that after those strata were formed, violent and sudden upheavals took place, throwing them into new positions, then slow uprisings of the bottom of the sea, or slow [pg 091] subsidings of the land. At one time the northern parts of Europe and America were covered with ice. Great glaciers extended over the whole of Switzerland, and icebergs floated from the mountains of Berkshire in Massachusetts upon a sea which filled the valley of the Connecticut River, dropping erratic blocks of stone, taken from those mountains, in straight lines, parallel with each other, half way across the valley, where they still lie. Similar icebergs floated from Snowdon, in Wales, and Ben Lomond, in Scotland, over the submerged islands of Great Britain. At one time the whole surface of the earth, instead of being covered with icy glaciers, was filled with a hot, damp atmosphere, laden with carbonic gas, which no creature could breathe, but in which grew great forests of a strange tropical vegetation. Then came another period, in which all these forests were submerged and buried, and at last turned into coal. Long after this hot period had passed, and long after the cold, glacial period, which followed it, had departed, came a time when the elephant, the rhinoceros, and the hippopotamus covered the whole of Europe, and the mammoth roamed in North America. Such facts as these, incontestably established by the amplest evidence, have made it impossible for any reasonable man to believe that the earth was made in six days, or that it was made only six thousand years ago.

But this question being thus disposed of, other questions arise in their turn. Are all mankind descended from one pair, or from many? Has the human race existed on the earth only six thousand years, or during a longer period? Was the deluge of Noah a real event? and if so, was it universal or partial? Did the sun stand still at the command of Joshua? or is that only a poetic image taken from an ancient book of poems—the book of Jasher? Is there any truth in the story of the passage of the Red Sea by the Israelites? of the passage of the Jordan? of the walls of Jericho falling when the trumpets were blown? of the story [pg 092] of Samson? If we once begin to doubt and disbelieve the accounts in the Bible, where shall we stop? What rule shall we have by which to distinguish the true from the false? Is it safe to begin to question and deny? Is it not safer to accept the whole book as the word of God, and to let everything in it stand unexamined?

No! “It is never safe,” said Luther, “to do anything against the truth!” Truth alone is safe; and his soul only is safe who loves and honors truth more than human approbation—more than ease, comfort, or life. It is not safe to pretend to believe what we do not. And in this instance, half of the infidelity of the age and country has come from the teaching that everything in the Bible is the word of God. Sincere men have been disgusted when told they must believe things contrary to their common sense and reason.

Another question, which is now being investigated, is the age of mankind—the antiquity of the human race. The Bible gives the list of generations from Adam to Abraham; and the length of each, and other data, given in Scripture, make six thousand years for the life of man on this earth. Greek history only goes back some twenty-three hundred years; the Egyptian monuments go back fifteen hundred or two thousand years earlier—to 2000 B.C., or 3000 B.C. The “Vedas,” in India, may have been written 1500 B.C.; the “Kings,” in China, before that. But recently we have been carried back to a yet earlier period,—to a time when man existed on the earth, before any written monument or sculptured stone which now exists. Two different sources have been discovered within a few years,—one of them by philology, the other by geology.

It has been found that the languages spoken by Europeans, in their airy sounds, are more permanent monuments than granite or enduring brass. Stamped on these light, imponderable words are marks of a gray antiquity going back to times before Herodotus, before Moses and the book of Genesis, [pg 093] before the Vedas in India, before the Zendavesta in Persia. It has been proved, first, that nearly all the languages of Europe belong to one linguistic family, and therefore that those who speak them were originally of one race. These different languages—seven sister languages, daughters of a language now wholly gone—are the Sanscrit or ancient Hindoo, the Zend or ancient Persian, the Greek, the Latin, the Keltic, the German, and the Slavic languages. By a comparison of these, it has been found that originally there lived, east of the Caspian, a race of shepherds and hunters, calling themselves Aryan; that one branch descended into India at least five thousand years ago, and drove out the aboriginal inhabitants, a second branch went into Persia, a third into Italy, a fourth into Greece, a fifth vast immigration filled Northern Europe with the Kelts, a sixth with Scandinavians and Germans, and a seventh with the Slaves. But long ago as this immigration was,—before all history,—it found aboriginal inhabitants everywhere, whose descendants remain. The Lapps and Finns in Northern, Europe, the Basques in Spain, and Magyars in Hungary, are probably descended from this earlier European race. It is difficult to suppose mankind only six thousand years old, when we find such great movements taking place four or five thousand years ago.

But now come the geologists, and tell us that they find evidence of three different races existing in Europe in three distinct periods of civilization, some of which probably preceded the immigration of these Indo-European races. These three belong to what they call the Stone, the Bronze, and the Iron Age. In the gravel and drift, from ten to twenty feet below the surface, along with the bones of the elephant and the rhinoceros, and other animals long since extinct, are found hundreds of flint instruments, axes, arrow-heads, and tools, indicating that men lived in Europe in great numbers, contemporaries with these extinct animals. If this should [pg 094] be proved, we should then be brought to admit, with respect to the antiquity of man, what we have already admitted with regard to the antiquity of the world, that the account in Genesis is not to be understood as theologians have hitherto taught; that is, that we must not go to Genesis, but to philology and geology, for our knowledge of the most ancient history.

In this case, then, it will be evident that the old notion of a literal inspiration cannot be maintained. God certainly did not inspire men to teach anything about the creation which was adapted to mislead and deceive men for two thousand years. We shall be obliged to say, then, that Moses was not inspired to teach geology or history; that what he taught on these subjects he taught from such sources as were available to him, and that he was liable to error.

The old Orthodox theory of plenary inspiration has received very damaging blows from such scientific researches as these which we have been describing. The letter of the Bible seems, in such cases, to be at war with the facts of nature.

§ 3. Basis of the Orthodox Theory of Inspiration.

Why, then, should the Orthodox doctrine be so stoutly maintained? What are the reasons used in its defence? What its arguments? What is its basis? On what does it rest? Do the writers of the Bible say that they were inspired by God to write these books? Not at all. Do they claim infallibility? Nowhere. Do they lay down any doctrine of plenary, verbal, literal inspiration? No. We do not even know who wrote many of these books. We do not know who collected them, or why just these books were put into the collection, and no others. The Orthodox theory rests on few facts, but is mainly an assumption. It seemed necessary that there should be authority somewhere; and when Protestants rejected the authority of the Church, they took the Bible in [pg 095] its place. The doctrine of inspiration, therefore, was adopted as a basis for the authority of the Bible.

The principal reason given by those who believe in the plenary inspiration of the Bible, for holding to this doctrine, is the necessity of some authority. The argument is this: Unless every part of the Bible is believed to be fully inspired, some part of it may be believed to be erroneous; and if we admit error in any part, the Bible loses its authority, and we do not know what to believe. The doctrine of literal and plenary inspiration rests, therefore, in the last analysis, on no basis of fact, but on a purely a priori argument. Let us therefore examine this argument, and see what is its force.

Revelation, it is said, is a communication of truth with authority. It is truth shown to us by God, not truth reasoned out by man. Its value is, that we can rely upon it entirely, live by it, die by it, without doubt or hesitation. We do not want speculation, opinion, probability; we want certainty; otherwise religion ceases to be a power, and becomes a mere intellectual amusement.

The only religion, it is added, which is of any real value, is that which carries with it this authority. The outward world, with its influences and its temptations, is so strong, that we shall be swept away by it unless we can oppose to it some inward conviction as solid and real. Amid the temptations of the senses, the allurements of pleasure, the deceitfulness of riches, will it enable a man to hold fast to honesty, temperance, purity, generosity—to believe that in all probability these things are right, and that there is something to be said in favor of the opinion that God approves of them?

Will it help him, to think that unless the writer of the Gospel is mistaken, or his words mistranslated, Christ may have said that goodness leads to heaven, and sin to hell? No. We need authority in order to have certainty; and we need certainty in our convictions in order that they should influence us deeply and permanently.

This is the chief argument in favor of the plenary inspiration[11] of the Bible. We see it amounts to this—that it is very desirable, for practical purposes, that we should believe everything in the Bible to be true.[12]

In reply to this, we ought first to say, that the question in all these cases is not, What is desirable? but, What is true? We should begin by investigating the facts. We should ask, Does the Bible anywhere say of itself that it is inspired in this sense? Do any of the writers of the Bible declare themselves to be thus inspired, so that all that they say is absolutely true in every particular? Does Christ say that those who are to write the Gospels or the Epistles of the New Testament shall be thus guarded against every possible error? Or is there any evidence in the books themselves that the writers were thus protected? Do they never contradict each other or themselves? Do they never contradict facts of nature or facts of history?

Now, to all these questions, we are obliged to say, No. The Bible claims no such absolute inspiration for itself. It says that “holy men of old spake as they were moved by the Holy Spirit,” but it does not say that the Holy Spirit made them infallible. It says, “All Scripture is given by inspiration, [pg 097] and is profitable for doctrine,” but it does not say what are the limits of Scripture; and to be profitable or useful for doctrine is surely not the same thing as to have infallible authority over belief. Besides, if those who wrote certain Scriptures were infallibly inspired, those who collected the present books of the Old and New Testament, and made our canon, were not so inspired. Those who transcribed their autographic manuscripts were not inspired. The manuscripts of the Gospels and Epistles, written by their authors, have long since perished. There were no autograph collectors in ancient times. There was no such reverence then paid to the letter of religion, to cause the original manuscript of an apostle to be kept in a church as a sacred relic. We have plenty of pieces of wood claiming to be parts of the true cross, but not a manuscript claiming to be the original writing of an apostle. The earliest manuscript goes only to the fourth century, and that contains the Epistle of Barnabas. If, then, the writers of the New Testament were inspired, those who collected their writings were not inspired, and may have left out the right books, and put in the wrong ones. Those who copied their manuscripts were not inspired, and may have left out the right words, and put in wrong ones. Those who translated their manuscripts were not inspired, and may have made mistakes in their translating. So that, after all, the plenary inspiration of the apostles does not bestow that infallibility upon our English Bible which this theory demands in order to give it authority.

And yet we admit the importance of having some authority. Truth which does not come with authority is not truth; it is only speculation; it cannot influence life. Revelation and philosophy differ in this, that philosophy tells us what men think about God, revelation what God thinks about men. Revelation is the drawing aside of the veil which hides God, duty, immortality. It does not give us [pg 098] speculations about them, but shows us the things themselves.

If, therefore, we can show that the Bible can be authority without being plenarily inspired, very possibly Orthodoxy would no longer cling to this doctrine with such remarkable tenacity. This point of authority we shall consider in another section of this chapter, and so we will say no more about it now. We shall try to show, then, that the Bible may be, and is authority, without being inspired as regards every page and word, and that inspiration is one thing and infallibility another. At present we desire to see the truth there is in the Orthodox doctrine of inspiration.

§ 4. Inspiration in general, or Natural Inspiration.

There is a foundation for inspiration in human nature, a capacity for inspiration which all possess. Were it not so, Christian inspiration would be something unnatural, and not in the order of providence. Moreover, we commonly speak of the inspiration of the poet, the painter, the inventor, the man of genius. The man of genius is he who has more of this capacity for inspiration than other men. But all men have it in a greater or a less degree. All men have their hours or moments of inspiration. By these experiences of their own, they understand the larger inspirations of genius. If we distribute the thoughts we possess according to their source, we shall find that we have obtained them all, either from other persons, or by means of mental effort, or by inspiration. The largest part of our thoughts and opinions we have taken in ready made, and reproduced them just as we received them. We suppose ourselves thinking, when we utter them, but we are only remembering. A much smaller proportion of our thoughts we have obtained reflectively, by personal efforts of the active intellect. Another part are those which have come to us in some happy moments, when the inner eye was unclouded, and when we seem to see at a glance truth and beauty. These inspired moments [pg 099] give us the most solid knowledge we have. They are mental experiences, which are the master lights of all our being. They give direction and unity to all our other thoughts and opinions. They constitute mental originality. The peculiarity of inspiration, in this general sense, does not lie in the subjects of the thoughts, but in the manner of their coming. Ideas and thoughts of very different kinds may all be inspired thoughts. The poet, the artist, have their inspirations. But the scholar, the thinker, has his also. The man who invents a machine often has the idea come to him by an inspiration. The man who discovers a continent has seen it in idea before he sees it in reality. If Shakespeare was an inspired man, so was Newton, so was Columbus, so was Lord Bacon, so was Faust when he discovered printing, Watt when he improved the steam engine, and Daguerre when he found out photographic pictures; for, in all great discoveries and inventions, and in small ones too, the original idea is an inspiration, though it has to be worked out mechanically by hard thinking.

It will be seen, then, what we understand by inspiration, in this general sense. It is a mental sight, corresponding as nearly as anything can to physical sight. It seems, in the inspired moment, as if we looked into another world, and saw new truths and facts there. We do not bring them up out of our memory; we see them in all their own fresh life and reality. We do not think them out by an effort of the will; we stand still and see them. All that our will has to do with it is negative rather than positive. It is to keep off disturbing influences of memory and sense, to hold the mind still, attentive, receptive, and ready. If we believe in these inspirations, we can thus prepare the way for them, but nothing more. We can wait and look, till the vision is presented, and then we shall see it; but this is all. The man of genius is he who believes in these inspirations, and so looks for them. What he shall see will depend on what he [pg 100] looks for. The man whose taste is in the world of imagination looks for forms of poetic or artistic beauty, and so sees these. Every man looks for that which he is most interested in, whether he be metaphysician or mechanic. The world of ideal beauty and truth, which overhangs ours, has a thousand portals, and we can pass in through one or another, and see that which suits our various tastes and desires. Memory, reflection, and sight,—these are the three sources of our thoughts. The inspired man is a seer—he has insight and foresight; and these objects of mental sight are to him more real and certain than any others. But he is unable to prove their reality or justify them to the sceptic. And hence his fate is often that of Cassandra,—to be a true prophet, but not to be believed, until by and by the strength of his own conviction wins its way, and produces faith in others.

There are, therefore, two principal intellectual states of the mind—the one receptive, the other plastic; the one by which it takes in truth, the other by which it works it up into shape. By the one it obtains the substance of thought, by the other the form of thought. The one may be called the perceptive state, the other the reflective state. Thus, too, we see that the perceptive faculty may be exercised in two directions, outwardly and inwardly. It is the same intellectual faculty which, through the senses, looks at and perceives the outward material universe, and through the mind itself, the inward world of thought. It is this power of looking inward which gives us all that we call inspiration. We have, thus, outsight and insight.

There is, then, a universal inspiration, on which the special inspiration of the Old and New Testament rests. There are inspired men and uninspired men. There are inspired writings and uninspired writings. There is a general inspiration, out of which the particular inspiration of Bible writers grew. Universal inspiration is a genus, of which this is a [pg 101] species. We cannot understand the inspiration of the writers of the Bible till we understand this universal inspiration on which it rests. We can best explain the special inspiration of Scripture by first knowing the general inspirations of mankind.

Mr. Emerson, in one of his poems, called the “Problem,” describes this universal inspiration. He describes Phidias as being inspired to make his Jupiter, as well as the prophets to write their burdens. He says the architect that made St. Peter's was guided by some divine instinct in his heart—he wrought in a sad sincerity. He says we cannot tell how such buildings as the Parthenon and St. Peter's were built, any more than how the bird builds its nest; they were formed by a natural architecture; they grew as the grass grows; they came out of thought's interior sphere, just as the pine tree adds a myriad of new leaves to its old arms every year.

“The passive master lent his hand

To the vast soul that o'er him planned;

And the same power that reared the shrine

Bestrode the tribes that knelt within.”

§ 5. Christian or Supernatural Inspiration.

Having thus spoken of inspiration in general, we proceed to speak of Christian inspiration in particular.

Christian inspiration is the work of the Holy Spirit on the heart. It is that influence which came to the apostles, and to all Christians after Jesus had left the earth, to unite them inwardly with Christ, and to show them the true Christ. It is that of which Paul speaks, when he says, It pleased God to reveal his Son in me. All Christians were baptized with the Holy Ghost; had the spirit of Christ dwelling in them; were led by the spirit of God; received the spirit of adoption, which bore witness that they were the sons of God; which helped their infirmities; helped them to pray; enabled them to mortify the deeds of the body, and produced many gifts and graces. It is quite certain that all Christians [pg 102] were expected to partake of this Christian inspiration. This enabled them inwardly to see and know Christ—the true Christ. And only thus could they become truly his.

Now, the Christian inspiration, so necessary at first, is equally necessary now, for its object is, as it was then, to turn nominal Christians into living Christians; to turn historical Christianity into vital Christianity; to enable those who already know Christ after the flesh, also to know him after the spirit. What is it which we need for comfort, improvement, usefulness? We need a living, practical faith in God's truth and love. We need to see it as we now see the outward world. We believe in the inevitable retribution of God's laws. We need to see this; to see that selfishness is death, and generosity life; to see that humility is exaltation, and that pride is abasement. Having seen law, we need also to see grace, the reality of forgiveness, the reality of a Father's love. We need to see immortality and eternity, while we are yet surrounded with the world of sense and time; to see that the two worlds are not two, but one, all temporal things having their roots in spiritual things. This is what we need for comfort, for no hardship would seem hard while we were thus looking at the things which are eternal, and knowing that every light affliction works out an eternal weight of glory. This is what we need for improvement. For no efforts at improvement can accomplish that which this inward inspiration can do. It is a tide which bears us on. It takes from us the weight of years. It is the sap which rises into every branch, penetrates every twig, swells the buds, expands the leaves, opens the blossoms, ripens the fruit, and causes universal growth. And it is what we need for usefulness. For how mechanical and lifeless are efforts at usefulness which proceed merely from the sense of duty! How blessed are those which proceed from a heart filled with love and peace!

Christian inspiration, then, reveals inwardly the spirit of [pg 103] Christ, and so gives us a new heart, and makes of us new creatures. It is the most essential and vital part of Christianity, yet it is that part of Christianity which is the least known and prized. How many dogmatists there are fighting for doctrines; how many ceremonialists earnest about forms; how many conscientious Christians trying hard to do their duties;—to one spiritual Christian, whose Christianity consists in living in the spirit, that he may walk in the spirit!

One reason for this seems to be the prevalence of false views concerning the nature of Christian inspiration. It has been regarded as wholly different in its laws from other inspiration, as an arbitrary influence without laws or conditions. Now, in fact, the inspiration of the Christian, while it differs in its subject from that of the poet, rests on the same mental faculty, and has analogous conditions. The condition of the poet's inspiration is, that loving the outward beauty of the natural world, and faithfully studying its truth, he should then hold himself ready, in strong desire, to see, inwardly, ideal truth and ideal beauty. And so the Christian, believing in the outward Christ, and loving him, holds himself expectant of an inward revelation of that same Jesus in his glorified and higher influence. All inspiration has its conditions and laws. The poet's eye, in its fine frenzy, must look from heaven to earth, and from earth to heaven. His inward inspiration is in strict accordance with his outward occupation and his outward fidelity. Every man is inwardly inspired, according to the nature of his outward work. Shakespeare cannot discover America, nor Columbus write Hamlet. And it is only he who believes in Christ, and so endeavors to obey and serve him, who receives an inward sight of his essential spirit. Christian inspiration is not arbitrary, is not unnatural, is not limited. It is the life of Christ, flowing steadily and constantly into all hearts which [pg 104] are prepared for it, which long for it, and which hold themselves ready to receive it.

We are thus prepared to state more distinctly the difference between inspiration in general and Christian inspiration in particular.

(a.) These two inspirations resemble each other in resulting from the exercise of the same mental faculties, since the state of mind in both cases is not that of reflection, but perception; and the perception is inward perception. Newton fixes his mind steadily upon the confused mathematical thought within till it becomes clear. Milton fixes his mind upon the inward image of ideal truth and beauty till it grows so distinct that he can put it into corresponding words. Columbus meditates upon the thought of a Western Continent till it seems so plain to him that he is ready to set sail for it. And so Paul and John look steadily at the Christ formed within them till they see clearly what is Christ's thought concerning every question, every subject.

(b.) The two inspirations also are alike in this, that the truth seen is in both cases, as to its substance, given to us by God. For the truths seen by Newton, Milton, Descartes, and Columbus were not inventions of theirs, but divine realities shown to them by God.

(c.) In both cases the form of the truth seen comes from the exercise of the human faculties of each individual upon the substance thus given. For Paul and John, no less than Newton and Milton, worked up in their own minds the truth seen. This is evident from the fact, that, while their writings agree in contents and substance with each other, they differ from each other in form and style. Each writer of the New Testament has his own distinctly marked style, not only of expression, but also of thought.

(d.) They are alike also in combining truth of substance with fallibility of statement. The substance of every inspired man's thought is truth, because it is the reality shown to [pg 105] him by God. The form in which he expresses it varies more or less from this truth, because that comes from the exercise of his own finite faculties. Newton and Milton looked at God's truths, and uttered them as well as they were able. So did Paul and John. That these last were liable to err in matters of statement appears from the fact that they did err in some matters, as, for example, in regard to the speedy coming of Christ.

These being the resemblances between natural and supernatural inspiration, what are differences?

(a.) The first difference is in the kind of truths seen. The truths seen by Newton and Milton belong to the natural world, those seen by Paul and John to the supernatural world. The substance of the inspiration in the one case is nature, in the other case it is Christ. Intercourse with nature had fed the minds of Newton and Milton with the truth, forming the material upon which their inspiration could work. Intercourse with Christ, in the flesh and in the spirit, had filled the minds of Paul and John with the material on which their inspiration could be exercised. Christ had come to them outwardly and inwardly, and this was the substance of their inspiration.

(b.) The inspiration of Newton and Milton implies genius; that is, a special faculty in each individual. This possession of genius, or special faculty, is a condition sine qua non, of natural inspiration. It is solitary, it is individual. But the inspiration of the writers of the New Testament does not imply genius. Of the eight writers of the New Testament, only one, viz., Paul, appears to have been a man of natural genius. He was great by endowment, the others were made great by their inspiration. In the one case the uncommon man finds wonderful things in the common world; in the other case the uncommon world shows wonderful things to the common man.

(c.) Natural and supernatural inspiration differ also in [pg 106] their occasion. A miraculous event, namely, the coming of Christ inwardly to their souls on the day of Pentecost, was the occasion of the apostolic inspiration. This coming of the Holy Ghost was the second of the two supernatural events of Christianity, of which the other was the birth of Christ. The miraculous events in the life of Jesus may have been the natural results of the coming of such a being into the world. The miracles of Christ's life, including his resurrection, may have been natural to a supernatural being. They are the evidence of a break in the series of causation in the outward world. In like manner the inward coming of Christ to the hearts of his disciples in what is called the influence of the Holy Spirit, is another supernatural event, the natural result of which is the founding of the Church, the writing of the New Testament, and the newly created life in individual souls.

These two inspirations, therefore, differ in their substance, source, and method. The substance of one consists of truths of the natural order, the other of the supernatural order. The source of one is the world of nature, the source of the other is the inward Christ. And the method of the one is that of individual genius, which is solitary, while the method of the other is that of love or communion.

§ 6. Inspiration of the Scriptures, especially of the New Testament Scriptures.

We now pass on to ask, What is the inspiration of the New Testament, or of its writers?

The writers of the New Testament had no different inspiration from that of all other Christians. We nowhere hear of any one receiving an inspiration to enable him to write a Gospel or an Epistle. They distinctly repel the idea of any such special or distinct inspiration. “By one spirit we have all been baptized into one body, and have been all made to drink into one spirit.” Gifts are different, but the spirit is one and the same in all. But even among these diversities of gifts, nothing is said of any gift for writing [pg 107] Gospels or Epistles. Probably, therefore, the inspiration by which these were written was precisely the same as that by which they preached to the Gentiles or taught in the Church. It was an inward sight of Christ, an inward sight of his truth and love, which enabled them to speak and write with authority—the authority of those who saw what they said, and knew it to be true. “We speak what we know, and testify what we have seen.” Hence it is that we find in their writings so much substance, so much comprehensiveness, so much insight. They are in constant communion with an invisible world of truth. They describe what is before their eyes.

A book given by inspiration is not a book made perfect by miracle, but a book, the writer of which was in a state open to influences from a higher sphere. All books which the human race has accepted as inspired—Vedas, Koran, Zendavesta—are sacred scriptures; all that lasts is inspired. Perpetuity, not infallibility, is the sign of inspiration.

“The word unto the prophet spoken

Was writ on tables yet unbroken;

The word by seers or sibyls told

In groves of oak or fanes of gold

Still floats upon the morning wind,

Still whispers to the willing mind.

One accent of the Holy Ghost

The heedless world has never lost.”

The famous proof-text on this subject is that in the Second Epistle of Paul to Timothy: “All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, reproof, correction, and instruction in righteousness.” To what Scripture did Paul refer? Some say to the Jewish Scripture. Some say to the Jewish and Christian writings. But the Christian writings were not then all written, and were not collected into what we call the New Testament. The apostle does not limit himself to these. He says, “All Scripture is inspired”—not merely Jewish or Christian [pg 108] Scripture, but all sacred writing. All the writings of every age which are looked upon as Scripture, which men from age to age reverence and honor as such, were not of man's invention, not of man's device, but came from some irrepressible influence acting on the soul from within. The poet before quoted says truly,—

“Out from the heart of nature rolled

The burdens of the Bible old.

The litanies of nations came,

Like the volcano's tongue of flame,

Up from the burning cone below,

The canticles of love and woe.

The hand that rounded Peter's dome,

And groined the aisles of Christian Rome,

Wrought in a sad sincerity.

Himself from God he could not free;

He builded better than he knew;

The conscious stone to beauty grew.”

There is a truth in this—a profound truth. The Bible is not an exceptional book in this, that it has no parallels in nature to its method of production. It is true that Phidias was inspired to make his statue and to build the Parthenon.

“Such and so grew those holy piles,

While love and terror laid the tiles.

Earth proudly wears the Parthenon

As the best gem upon her zone,

And morning opes in haste her lids

To gaze upon the Pyramids;

O'er England's abbeys bends the sky

As on its friends with kindred eye;

For out of thought's interior sphere

These wonders rose to upper air.”

When Mr. Emerson and Theodore Parker compare in this way the Bible with the Vedas or the Parthenon, we often feel that it degrades the Bible, and takes away its special sanctity. But this is not necessarily the case. There may be a wide gulf between the inspiration of the Bible and that of the Vedas, or of Homer or Plato; and yet they may all belong to the same class of works. There [pg 109] is a wide gulf between man and the highest of the inferior animals; and yet we put man into the class Mammalia, along with oxen, whales, and cats, and into the same Order with apes and bats. We do not think that man is degraded by being thus classified. He occupies a distinct species in this order and class. So the New Testament and Old Testament constitute two distinct species, of which they are the sole representatives of one genus of inspired books; but that genus belongs to the same order as the Vedas, Edda, Zendavesta, and Koran, and that order belongs to the same class as the poems of Homer and Dante, the architecture of the Parthenon and the Strasburg Minster, the discovery of America by Columbus, and of the law of gravitation by Newton.

The class of works which we call inspired comprehends, as we have before said, all which come to man by a certain influx into his soul—not by looking out of himself, but by looking into himself. Sometimes we go and search and find thoughts; sometimes thoughts come and find us. “They flash upon our inner eye;” they haunt us, and pursue us, and take possession of us. So Columbus was haunted by the idea of a continent in the west; so Newton was haunted by his discovery long before he made it; so the “Paradise Lost” pursued Milton long before it was written. Every really great work must have in it more or less of this element which we call inspiration.

But while the great works of genius belong to the class of inspired works, we make a distinct order out of the great religious works which have been the sacred Scriptures of races of men. They evidently came from a higher inspiration than the works of science and the works of art. They have ruled men's souls for thousands of years. These, then, we place in an Order by themselves, and it is no discredit to the Bible to be ranked with the works of Confucius, which have [pg 110] kept the Chinese orderly, peaceful, industrious, and happy for almost twenty-six centuries.

But still, among these sacred books the Bible may be said to constitute a distinct genus, because it differs from all the rest in two ways—in teaching the holiness of God and the unity of God. The writer has been a careful reader of all these sacred books for twenty years; he has read them with respect; in no captious spirit; wishing to find in them all the truth he could. He has found in them much truth—much in accordance with Christianity. But he sees a wide difference between them all and the Bible. They are all profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for instruction; but they are not Holy Scriptures in the sense in which we ascribe that word to the Bible. The Old Testament, though having in it many harsh and hard features, belonging to the Jewish mind, has strains which rise into a higher region than anything in the Vedas or the Zendavesta. The Proverbs of Solomon are about on a level with the books of Confucius. But nowhere in all these Ethnic Scriptures are strains like some of the Psalms—like passages in Isaiah and Jeremiah. The laws of Menu are low compared with the Pentateuch.

But if the Old and New Testament make a genus by themselves, they divide again into two species. There is a specific difference between the New Testament and the Old. The New Testament inspiration is of a far deeper, higher, and broader character than the other. In fact, we ought, perhaps, to make a special order by itself from the New Testament writings. They are so full of life, light, and love—they are so strong yet so tender—so pure yet so free! They have no cant of piety, no formalism, but breathe throughout a heavenly atmosphere. Their inspiration is of the highest kind of all.

But what is this Holy Spirit? What does it teach? Scientific truth? No. Scientific truth has been taught the [pg 111] world by other channels. Bacon and Newton, La Place and Cuvier, Linnæus and De Candolle, have been inspired to teach science. Their knowledge came, not only by observation, not only by study, but by patiently opening their minds to receive impressions from above. Were the writers of the Bible inspired to teach history? We think not. There are histories of the Jews in the Bible, and they are likely to be as authentic, as histories, as are those of Herodotus and Livy, and other painstaking and sincere historians. But the special inspiration of the Bible does not appear in the historic books.

But are not all parts of the Bible equally inspired by this Holy Spirit? By no means. We can easily see that they are not. It is evident that there is nothing spiritually edifying in a large part of the history of the Old Testament—the account of Samson, the story of Gideon, large parts of the books of Judges and Chronicles, the Song of Solomon, the book of Esther. The book of Ecclesiastes is full, throughout, of a dark and terrible scepticism. Now, all these books are valuable, exceedingly so, as history, but not as proceeding from the Holy Spirit.

But it may be said, “If the history of the Bible is not inspired, it may be erroneous.” Certainly it may. We have seen that the account of creation in the book of Genesis is probably erroneous. It contains one great faith, luminous throughout—namely, that there is one God, Creator of all worlds and of mankind. But as to the order of creation,—the six days, the garden of Eden,—all we can say is, that there may be some way by which Moses could, in vision, have seen these things, represented in picture, as they happened long before. There may be such a kind of unveiling of the past before the inner eye of the soul. We do not deny it, for it is not wise to deny where we know nothing. But we can assert that Christianity does not require us to believe those chapters of Genesis to contain historic truth. [pg 112] It may be allegorical truth. It may be a parable, representing how every little child comes into an Eden of innocence, and is tempted by that wily serpent, the sophistical understanding, and is betrayed by desire, his Eve, and goes out of his garden of childhood, where all life proceeds spontaneously and by impulse, into a world of work and labor. If it be such an allegory as that, it teaches us quite as much as if it were history.

§ 7. Authority of the Scriptures.

We have seen that the Bible, though inspired, is not infallible. But, it is said, unless the Bible is infallible it has no authority. This we deny. Inspiration is not infallibility, but inspiration is authority. The inspired man is always an authority. Phidias and Michael Angelo are authorities in sculpture; Titian and Rafaelle are authorities in painting; Mozart and Beethoven in music; and Paul, John, Peter, in religion.

Authority without infallibility is the problem before us. It is evident that authority is desirable; it is equally evident that infallibility is impossible. Can there, therefore, be the one without the other? Can God reveal himself to man through a fallible medium? Can the writers of the New Testament be so inspired as to be able to communicate truth, and yet so inspired as not to be infallible? To all these questions we answer, Yes; and will try to show it to be so.

Suppose that you are going through a forest in company with others. You have lost your way. No one knows which way to go; dangers are around you—dangers from cold, hunger, wild beasts, enemies. If you go the wrong way, you may all perish; if you go the right way, you will reach your destination and be safe. Under these circumstances, one of the party climbs a tree, and when he has reached the top he cries out with joy, “I see the way we ought to go. We must go to the right. I see the ocean in that direction, and the spires of the city to which we are [pg 113] bound.” You all immediately go the way that he directs. He has become an authority to you. You follow his guidance implicitly, and put your lives into his hands, depending upon the truth of what he says. Why? Because he has been where you have not been, and has seen what you have not seen, and you believe him honest and true. He has no motive to deceive you. This is his authority.

But is it equivalent to infallibility? By no means. No one supposes him to be infallible. If, after following his direction for a while, you see no signs to show that you are in the right way, you begin to think that he may have been mistaken, and some one else climbs a tree to verify his judgment, or to correct it. But if, instead, signs begin to appear to show that you are in the right way, your faith in your guide is confirmed, and his authority is practically increased.

What gives a man authority as a guide, teacher, counsellor, is not our belief in his infallibility, but our belief in his knowledge; if we believe that he knows something we do not know, he becomes thereby an authority to us. If he has been where we have not been, and seen what we have not seen, he is an authority. A man who has just come from Europe or from California, who has been in the midst of a great battle, who has studied a subject which others have not studied, and made himself familiar with it, such a man is an authority to others. Observe men listening to him. All defer to him while he is speaking on this subject. He may be much more ignorant than they are in regard to other things, but, if he has had superior opportunities in regard to this subject, he is an authority. Yet they do not believe him infallible; for if, in the course of his conversation, he says anything which seems contradictory, incredible, absurd, they begin to withdraw their confidence, and may withdraw it wholly. But if, on the other hand, what he says is clear, [pg 114] consistent, solid with information, his authority is increased continually, and his bearers defer to him more and more.

Now, the authority of the writers of the New Testament is exactly of this kind. The authority of inspiration everywhere is of this kind. An inspired man is one who is believed to have been where we have not been, and to have seen what we have not seen.

In Cooper's novels there is a character whom he calls Leatherstocking, familiar with the woods, knowing all their signs, acquainted with the habits of bird, beast, and Indian. He guides the travellers through the wilderness, and, by his superior knowledge, saves them from the Indian ambush and the pursuing savage. They commit themselves implicitly to his guidance, trust their lives to him. Why? Because they confide in his knowledge of woodcraft and in his fidelity. As regards all matters pertaining to the forest, he is an authority; their teacher if they want information, their guide if they are ignorant of the way, their saviour in imminent peril from savage beasts and savage men. He is an authority to them, a perfect authority; for they confide in him entirely, without a shade of doubt. But no one thinks him infallible, nor supposes it necessary to believe him infallible, in order to trust him entirely.

Just so a ship on a lee shore, in the midst of a driving storm, throws up signal rockets or fires a gun for a pilot. A white sail emerges from the mist; it is the pilot-boat. A man climbs on board, and the captain gives to him the command of the ship. All his orders are obeyed implicitly. The ship, laden with a precious cargo and hundreds of lives, is confided to a rough-looking man whom no one ever saw before, who is to guide them through a narrow channel, where to vary a few fathoms to the right or left will be utter destruction. The pilot is invested with absolute authority as regards bringing the vessel into port.

When Columbus came back from his first voyage, and [pg 115] reported the discovery of America, was he not an authority? Did not men throng around him, to hear of what he had seen and done? Yet who believed him infallible. He who has been where I have not been, and seen what I have not seen, is an authority to me. If I believe him honest, and no impostor, then I learn from him, and depend on his testimony. Now, the writers of the New Testament have been where we have not been. They have ascended heights, and sounded depths in the spiritual world unknown to us. So they are authorities to us, provided we have enough of their spirit in us to enable us to see and know their inspiration. For, unless I have some musical spirit in me, I cannot discern the inspiration of Mozart; unless I have some mathematical spirit in me, I cannot discern the mathematical inspiration of Newton and Kepler. So the natural man (the man who has nothing in him corresponding to the Christian inspiration) cannot discern the things of the Spirit of God; for they are foolishness to him, for they are spiritually discerned or judged. He lives in external things, as babes do. The authority of the Spirit in the Bible is that it awakens and appeals to whatever spiritual element exists in our soul, and compels it to feel and admit its truth.

Jesus, it is said, in giving the Sermon on the Mount, taught as one having authority, and not as the Scribes. What was his authority, then? Not official authority, for he was not yet known to be the Christ, hardly yet known to be a prophet. Not merely the authority coming from an imposing manner; not an authoritative air, or tone, or manner, certainly. That was precisely the tone and manner which the Scribes did have in their teaching. But the authority is in the Sermon itself. Its truths are so wonderfully distinct and self-evident, they carry conviction with them. Jesus sees so plainly all that he says—there is no hesitation, no obscurity, no perhapses in his language. He is like one describing what is before his eyes, what he knows to be true because he [pg 116] sees it while he is saying it. It is, in short, the authority which always attends knowledge. He who knows anything, and can speak with certainty, carries conviction with him, though we do not suppose him to be infallible, nor is it thought necessary to believe him so, in order to give to him this authority.

By such examples, we see that in earthly matters of the very highest importance we ascribe authority without supposing infallibility. Now, if we analyze the source of this authority, we shall find that it comes, first, from the testimony of others, and, secondly, from our own experience. Leatherstocking comes recommended to the travellers as a skilful and faithful guide, and they trust him, at first, on the simple ground of that recommendation. But they do not trust him entirely or fully on that ground. They watch him while they trust him,—perhaps we ought rather to say, they try him, than that they trust him. But, after they have tried him day by day, week by week, and find him always skilful, always faithful, they come to place a more and more implicit trust in his guidance; he becomes more and more an authority.

So the pilot comes at first recommended only by his office. His office implies the testimony of those who ought to know that he is able to guide the vessel into the harbor. But if, besides this, there is some one on board who knows his ability and fidelity by previous experience, and says, “We are all safe now; this is the famous John Smith or William Brown, the best pilot in the harbor,” then everybody is ready to trust him more entirely.

Knowledge and fidelity, not infallibility, these make a man an authority to others in things pertaining to this life—knowledge and fidelity, evidenced to us, first by the testimony of others, and secondly by our own experience. Testimony leads us to try a man and trust him partially, trust [pg 117] him, but watch him. Add to this our own experience of his knowledge and fidelity, and we trust him wholly.

There are two worlds of knowledge—outward and inward. Knowledge of the outward world comes to us through the senses, by observation; knowledge of the inward world comes to us through the consciousness, by insight or inspiration. Every man's knowledge has come to him by both of these methods. The soul has a perceptive power with which it can look either way. It looks outward through the senses, and perceives an external world; it looks inward through the consciousness, and perceives an internal world. It looks outward, and perceives forms, hears sounds, becomes acquainted with external nature. It looks inward, and becomes acquainted with justice, holiness, love, freedom, duty, sin, immortality, the infinite, the eternal, God.

But just as it depends on various conditions as to what a man shall see through the senses in time and space, so it depends on other conditions as to what a man shall see beyond time and space in the spiritual world. The conditions in the first instance are, good perceptive organs, a genius for observation, educated powers for observation, knowledge of what to observe, and finally opportunities for observation, or being able to go where the things are which are to be seen. A blind man standing in front of the Parthenon would be no authority to us as to its architecture; neither would the most sharp-sighted person who should happen in be in America, instead of Greece. So an Indian, with the finest perceptive faculty, and standing directly in front of this majestic temple, would give a very poor account of it, from want of previous knowledge. He, only, would be an authority to us in regard to such a building, who should combine with good perceptive organs, and some knowledge of the subject, an opportunity for looking at it.

When we speak of inspiration, we mean, in regard to the inward world, exactly the same thing. We mean that a [pg 118] man has his spiritual organs in a healthy condition, that he has some knowledge of spiritual things, and that he has been placed by divine Providence where he is able to see them. Some men are lifted into a world of spiritual perception, when they see things not seen by other men. They become prophets, apostles, lawgivers to the human race. They are invested with authority. Men believe what they say, and do what they command, and put their souls into their hands, just as they trust their bodies to the guide of the pilot.

These are the inspired men—the men to whom revelations have been made. They have authority, because they have been where we have not been, and seen what we have not seen. But they have not infallibility, because, as the apostle says, they have this treasure in earthen vessels. This divine knowledge is contained in a finite, and therefore fallible mind. But we see by means of our former illustrations that to grant their fallibility does not detract at all from their authority.

And again, their authority is certified to us exactly as in the other instances. They come recommended by external testimony, and on the strength of that testimony we confide in them and try them. If we find that they are not able to teach us, they cease to be authorities to us. But if we find that they are full of truth, they become our guides and teachers, and their authority is more and more confirmed; that they are good and true guides, is evidenced by their being able to guide us. They lead us into deeper depths of truth and love. They become the teachers of their race. The centuries which pass add more and more weight to their authority. They inspire us, therefore they are themselves inspired. It is no more necessary, after this, to prove their inspiration, in the sense which I have given, than to prove that the sun shines.

One remarkable illustration of this process, by which the test of Scripture, as inspired, is that it should be profitable for doctrine, reproof, and instruction, is to be found in the Epistle [pg 119] of Barnabas. Barnabas introduced Paul to the apostles at Jerusalem, and is called, in the book of Acts, a good man, and full of the Holy Ghost. He was sent on a mission to Antioch by the apostles; afterwards was specially pointed out by the Holy Ghost to go with Paul on his mission. (Acts 13:2.) He is styled a prophet in this place, and we read that the Holy Spirit said, “Separate me Barnabas and Saul for the work whereunto I have called them.”

During this mission Barnabas seems to have been the more important of the two, for at Lystra the people called him Jupiter, and Paul Mercury. Barnabas and Paul appeared before the first council at Jerusalem; and the apostles, in their letter, say, “Our beloved Barnabas, and a man that has hazarded his life for the name of the Lord Jesus.” Now, this Barnabas, called an apostle in the book of Acts, companion of Paul, sent on a mission by the Holy Spirit, and commended by the apostles at Jerusalem, was believed by the early Church to have written an Epistle. It is quoted as his, seven times by Clement of Alexandria, in the second century, three times by Origen, and by other writers.

Accordingly, it was originally included in the New Testament, and for nearly four hundred years made a part of it. The oldest manuscript of the New Testament in the world, supposed to have been written in the fourth century, contains the Epistle of Barnabas; and one reason for believing the manuscript so old, is that it does contain it. This manuscript was found by the celebrated German critic Tischendorf, in 1859, in the convent of St. Catharine, at Mount Sinai. Why, then, is not this Epistle of Barnabas printed in our New Testament? Whoever reads it will easily see the reason. It is because it does not deserve to be there; it does not have the marks of a high inspiration; it is made up in a great degree of quotations from the Old Testament, of imitations of St. Paul, and of allegories. It evidently dropped out of the Bible by its own weight. It had every opportunity [pg 120] offered it to become a part of sacred Scripture; but being tried by Paul's test, it was found not to be profitable for doctrine, reproof, or anything else, and so the copyists saved their time, labor, and vellum by leaving it out. It was received on testimony, and discarded after experience. It had authority at first, because of its supposed author; it lost it afterwards, by means of its empty self.

This, then, is the authority of the writers of the Bible. It is the authority of inspired men—men who have been into spiritual regions where most men have not gone, and seen what most men have not seen. It is not infallibility. They are capable of mistakes and error. Their being in the Bible is only so far a proof that they are inspired, as it gives the testimony of the Church that it has found the proofs of inspiration in their writings. The Christian community has followed the apostolic direction, and tried the spirits whether they were of God or not, and has come to the conclusion that these New Testament writers have the marks of inspiration. For you will observe that the present code of the New Testament was gradually formed, and that not by the votes of councils or the decisions of bishops, but by the feelings of the Christian community. An inward instinct, and no external authority, presided over the collection of the Scriptures, gradually dropping out some books (like Barnabas, Hermas, and the Revelation of Peter), and taking in others.

So the Christian Church says to us, of the New Testament, “Here is a book concerning which we testify that the writings in it are profitable for doctrine; that its writers have superior knowledge in regard to spiritual things; that they are inspired men, who have been taken up into a region where most men have never gone, and seen what most men have never seen, and therefore know more than most of us about spiritual truth.”

But you may say, “If inspiration gives knowledge, and these writers are inspired, then they do more than believe or [pg 121] think what they say about God, duty, and immortality. They know; and if they know, does not that mean that they are infallible?” No, knowledge is not infallibility. It is true that inspiration gives knowledge, while speculation only gives opinion. This is the reason why inspired men speak with authority, and philosophers without it. But knowledge, though it gives authority, does not give infallibility.

A Frenchman knows the French language; still he may make mistakes in speaking it. The man from California knows that country, but he may be mistaken about it. Thus, if these writers are not infallible, they may make mistakes; and if so, how are we to distinguish between their truth and their error? This is a fair question: let us try to answer it.

Let us return to our former comparison of travellers and their guide. How are you to distinguish between your guide's knowledge and his errors?

Probably, when your guide begins to be uncertain as to the way, he will show his uncertainty in his behavior. He will become doubtful, hesitating, undecided; he will, by and by, supposing him honest, begin to express his uncertainty, and say, “I am not quite sure of this path.”

It is just so with inspired writers. While their inspiration runs in a full tide, they speak confidently; they are distinct in their statements.

Again, if your guide begins to speak of things outside of his province, he does not carry much authority. If Leatherstocking discusses Shakespeare, or the pilot begins to talk about politics, his opinions carry no weight except what is inherent to them.

So when the writers of the Bible, leaving themes of religion and morals, describe natural objects, as the leviathan or behemoth, we give no more credit to their descriptions than we should to those of any other writer of their day.

A question would arise here whether history was a subject of inspiration or not; that is, whether an inspired writer, [pg 122] when he comes to speak of historic facts, has any more authority than another. There may be some way by which past events might be presented by inspiration to the mind of one caught up by the spirit into another world. But the writers of the Old and New Testament are careless about dates and numbers, and do not seem to be made accurate by any special gift. I should, therefore, incline to the opinion that the historic books of the Bible have no authority except that of their reasonableness and conformity to what we might believe on other grounds. As fragments of history, coming from so remote a past, they are invaluable, when we treat them as simple, honest records of what was then believed or known.

Take, for instance, the story of the deluge, and compare it with similar stories in other mythologies. We find it so corroborated by these, that we may believe that there is a basis of reality in it.

§ 8. The Christian Prepossession.

It is a great thing to read a book with expectation instead of distrust. Expectation opens the mind to light, and makes it easy to see. Distrust closes it. If I have read Shakespeare till I feel sure of his poetic inspiration, then I read with expectation all he writes; I am looking for truth and beauty, and so I find it. If I had never read Shakespeare, nor heard of him, and Hamlet were put into my hand, I should probably be displeased with something or other, and throw it aside, and so lose the deepness and loveliness of that wonderful creation. How much we find in the words of Jesus and Paul, because we read them with expectation and hope! because we read them always looking for what is deep and high!

Nevertheless many persons recommend a contrary course. They say that we ought to forget all that has been told us about the Book, and read it as if we had never seen it before. But this method is neither practicable nor desirable. It is impossible to look at the Bible as though it were an unknown [pg 123] book; impossible to forget that it is the text book of Christianity; regarded as sacred by millions of our fellow-men; the source of spiritual and moral life to the world for the last fifteen hundred years; that our parents and friends have found in it strength for duty, comfort in trial, hope in the hour of death. You might as well tell the child who begins to study geography to forget that he lives in America, or when he studies the history of the United States, to forget that it is the history of his own land. Nor would it be desirable to study the New Testament thus. For it is this grand belief concerning it which makes us desire to study it at all. Were it not for this belief it might be occasionally read by a student in the interest of science, but never by the mass of the community. Faith in its divine origin and divine purpose, causes it to be read in families, schools, churches, to be used as a manual of prayer in the closet, and to grow familiar in every home. The Book is surrounded by a traditional halo of wonder, reverence, and hope, and this gives us motive and power with which to read it. If a cold criticism, a sceptical spirit, shall ever succeed in causing the New Testament to be regarded as a common book, on the natural plane of human thought, full of errors and imperfections, inspired only as Plato is inspired, then it will be read as Plato is read, that is, by one man in a million. It is not desirable to lose the reverence which causes us to expect extraordinary truth and good in certain books, men, and institutions; for so we lose the best motive power of the soul; so life becomes tame, the day empty, and events unmeaning.

It is, therefore, perfectly right for the Church to surround Christ and Christianity with this divine aureola of reverence and wonder, not exaggerating it, but neither understating it. For this wonder and reverence, when legitimate, is a great treasure of spiritual life, animating and elevating, which the Church possesses in order that it may communicate it. It [pg 124] is continually proclaiming its good news; constantly asserting that through Christ God has given it a divine peace; that in Christ there is a marvellous truth and beauty; and that the Gospels and Epistles, which contain his life and truth, have a strange power of raising us above ourselves, and bringing us into communion with an eternal world. When this is said, not by rote, or as a mere form, but from sincere conviction, the spirit of faith creates faith, and faith is the great motive which leads to action.

As it is the duty of the Church to excite our interest in the New Testament, by declaring its own love and respect for it, so it is right for the student of the New Testament to give a certain preliminary weight to this testimony of the Church in commencing his study. This is what we call the Christian prepossession. And it regards the New Testament exactly as when a friend whose judgment we respect earnestly recommends to us some book which he has read, and which has done him good. He recommends it to us as a good book, and he recommends it with enthusiasm. His enthusiasm produces in us a desire to become acquainted with the book, and a certain hope that we shall find in it what our friend has found. This hope leads on towards fruition, and is one of its conditions. It ought not, therefore, to be relinquished; but neither should it lead us to accept blindly everything which we are told. We must look with our own eyes, think with our own mind, feel with our own heart.

To wish to come to the study of the Bible without prepossession in its favor is, therefore, a foolish wish; for, without prepossession in its favor, we should have little motive for studying it at all. It is our faith in the Bible that leads us to read it; and faith here, as everywhere, is the motive power which reason has only to guide and restrain. Faith is the brave steed which carries us forward, full of fire and full of pride. Reason is the bridle by which [pg 125] he is guided, supported, and restrained. There is a story of a thief so skilful that he could steal a man's horse from under him without his knowing it, and so leave him holding the bridle in his hand, and supposing himself to be still on horseback. So are those deceived who think to live by reason without faith. The motive power of their life has been taken away from them, and they do not know it; they suppose that they can ride with a bridle and saddle, without a horse.

To read the New Testament to any purpose, we must, therefore, read with the faith that there is some great good to be got from it. But what is the true foundation of this faith? Is it legitimate, or is it an illusion? The basis of this faith is to be found in the fact that the Bible has done so much, and is doing so much, for the world—a fact which cannot be stated better than in these words of one who is not commonly supposed to have too high a reverence for the Bible:—

“This collection of books has taken such a hold on the world as no other. The literature of Greece, which goes up like incense from that land of temples and heroic deeds, has not half the influence of this book from a nation alike despised in ancient and modern times. It is read of a Sabbath in all the ten thousand pulpits of our land. In all the temples of Christendom is its voice lifted up week by week. The sun never sets on its gleaming page. It goes equally to the cottage of the plain man and the palace of the king. It is woven into the literature of the scholar, and colors the talk of the street. The bark of the merchant cannot sail the sea without it, no ship of war go to the conflict but the Bible is there. It enters men's closets; mingles in all the grief and cheerfulness of life. The affianced maiden prays God in Scripture for strength in her new duties; men are married by Scripture. The Bible attends them in their sickness; when the fever of the world is on them. The aching [pg 126] head finds a softer pillow when the Bible lies underneath. The mariner, escaping from shipwreck, clutches this first of his treasures, and keeps it sacred to God. It goes with the pedler in his crowded pack; cheers him at eventide, when he sits down dusty and fatigued; brightens the freshness of his morning face. It blesses us when we are born; gives names to half Christendom; rejoices with us; has sympathy for our mourning; tempers our grief to finer issues. It is the better part of our sermons. It lifts man above himself; our best of uttered prayers are in its storied speech, wherewith our fathers and the patriarchs prayed. The timid man, about awaking from this dream of life, looks through the glass of Scripture, and his eye grows bright; he does not fear to stand alone, to tread the way unknown and distant, to take the death-angel by the hand, and bid farewell to wife, and babes, and home. Men rest on this their dearest hopes. It tells them of God, and of his blessed Son; of earthly duties and of heavenly rest. Foolish men find it the source of Plato's wisdom, and the science of Newton, and the art of Raphael. Men who believe nothing else that is spiritual believe the Bible all through; without this they would not confess, say they, even that there was a God.”—Theodore Parker, Discourse of Religion.

A book which exercises this great influence over our fellow-men ought to be approached with reverence. It is for the same reason that we approach with faith and expectation the writings of Shakespeare and Milton. We read them expecting to find in them great truths, and this expectation enables us to find them. “Seek and ye shall find” is the law. How often we should have been disappointed and dissatisfied with such books, and have thrown them aside impatiently, had we not remembered the great universal testimony to their surpassing excellence!

This Christian prepossession is, however, only a general confidence that there is something exceedingly good in the [pg 127] New Testament; that it is a book containing in some way a divine revelation, in some way or other inspired, in some way likely to be a great help and comfort to our spiritual nature, and the best guide we can have for this life and towards the next. It is an expectation of all this, an expectation based on the testimony of mankind. So far it is a reasonable expectation. So far it is right and just to entertain it. It is the natural inheritance to which we were born, by being born Christians. To throw it away, or to try to throw it away, would be as though one should try to throw away the habits of civilization which he inherits by being born in a civilized community, and try to go back and start as a savage. It is neither more futile nor more foolish in the one case than in the other.

But, though this Christian prepossession is a perfectly legitimate one with which to begin, it is not a legitimate one in which to remain. It is our business, by the free action of our intellect, to change this general and vague expectation into a distinct opinion of one kind or another. Protestantism allows us to take our faith in the Bible from the Church, but not to take from the Church our opinions about the Bible. Faith may, and ought to be, received, but opinions are to be formed. An opinion or belief received from another man is his opinion, and not ours.

With regard to any other book this would be self-evident. For example, suppose that I have never read the play of Hamlet. I hear it universally spoken of as one of the greatest works of the human intellect. That naturally and properly creates in my mind the expectation of finding it so. It produces the general belief that it is a great work of genius. But suppose that, besides this general expectation, I should also accept from my neighbors their particular opinions concerning the play. I hear them say that it is more philosophical, but less dramatic, than Macbeth; that the character of Hamlet is overcharged with intellect, and [pg 128] the like. If, now, I adopt and repeat these opinions, without having read the play, it is evident that I am only a parrot or an echo. It is evident that they are not my opinions at all, and that they indeed interfere with my having any opinions. Fifty thousand echoes of a voice leave us only one voice and fifty thousand echoes.

This distinction between faith and opinion, which we have already spoken of, is of the utmost practical importance. We may add here that, for want of it, intellectual people try to go to the study of the Bible without faith in the Bible, and religious people think they must accept all their opinions from others, and take them in ready made. It is not absolutely essential to have opinions; but if we do have them, they ought to be our own. Faith must be received, opinions must be formed.

All persons, therefore, ought to form opinions for themselves about the New Testament. They may bring to the work a faith in the New Testament, as being in some sense or other a revelation, as being written in some way or other by inspired men, as being somehow or other a holy book, the legitimate source of spiritual life, moral goodness, and inward peace.

§ 9. Conclusion.

If the views given in this chapter are reasonable, we shall conclude that Orthodoxy is right in maintaining the supreme excellence and value of the Christian Scriptures, but wrong in claiming for them infallible accuracy. It is right in saying that they are written by inspired men, but wrong in considering this inspiration a guarantee against all possible error or mistake. It is right in calling the Bible “The Holy Scripture,” but wrong in denying to the scriptures of other religious some divine influx and some religious life. It is right in asking that the Bible be read with faith and expectation; wrong in demanding for it unreasoning, uncritical submission. Let reverence for its spirit and criticism of its letter go hand in hand; for [pg 129] reverence and criticism, faith and reason, docility to great masters and freedom in seeking for ourselves, are antagonist, indeed, but not contradictory. They are not hostile, but helpful, though acting in opposite directions—like the opposition of the thumb and fingers in the human hand, which makes of it such a wonderful servant of the thought. They belong to the group of sisterly powers which the Creator has placed in the human soul—varied, complex, like and unlike.

“Facies non omnibus una,

Nec diversa tamen, qualis decet esse sororum.”

[pg 130]

Chapter VI. Orthodox Idea Of Sin, As Depravity And As Guilt.

§ 1. The Question stated.

We now approach the orthodoxy of Orthodoxy—the system of sin and redemption, which constitutes its most essential character. The questions hitherto treated—the natural and supernatural, miracles, the Scriptures—belong to universal religion. On these points heretics and the Orthodox may agree. But the essence of heresy, in the eyes of an Orthodox man, is to vary from the standards of belief in regard to sin and salvation.

We commence with the subject of human sinfulness; in other words, with the character of man in relation to Orthodoxy. The theology of the East asked, “What is God?” and entered on its course from the specially theological side. It began with ontology, and proceeded to psychology. In this, Oriental theology followed in the path of Oriental philosophy. But Occidental theology, originating strictly with Augustine, followed the practical and experimental method of European thought, and, instead of asking, “What is God?” asked, instead, “What is man?”

We begin, therefore, with the great question, “What is man?” This is the radical question in practical, experimental theology, as the question, “What is God?” is the radical question in speculative theology. But we are now concerned in the theology of experience and of life. We are seeking for human wants. Knowing what man is, we can next ask what he needs.

§ 2. The four Moments or Characters of Evil. The Fall, Natural Depravity, Total Depravity, Inability.

Orthodoxy [pg 131] answers the question, “What is man?” by saying, “Man is a sinner;” and this answer has these four moments:—

1. Man was created at first righteous and good.

2. Man fell, in and with Adam, and became a sinner.

3. All now born are born totally corrupt and evil;—

4. And are utterly disabled to all good, so as not to have the power of repenting, or even of wishing to repent.

These four ideas are,—

First, that of The Fall, or Inherited Evil.

Second, of Natural Depravity.

Third, of Total Depravity.

Fourth, of Inability.

These points are fully stated in the following passage from the “Assembly's Confession of Faith,” chap. 6:—

“1. Our first parents, being seduced by the subtlety and temptation of Satan, sinned in eating the forbidden fruit. This their sin God was pleased, according to his wise and holy counsel, to permit; having purposed to order it to his own glory.

“2. By this sin they fell from their original righteousness, and communion with God; and so became dead in sin, and wholly defiled in all the faculties and parts of soul and body.

“3. They being the root of all mankind, the guilt of this sin was imputed, and the same death in sin, and corrupted nature, conveyed, to all their posterity, descending from them by ordinary generation.

“4. From this original corruption, whereby we are utterly indisposed, disabled, and made opposite to all good, and wholly inclined to all evil, do proceed all actual transgressions.

“5. This corruption of nature during this life doth remain in those that are regenerated; and although it be, through Christ, pardoned and mortified, yet both itself and all the motions thereof are truly and properly sin.

“6. Every sin, both original and actual, being a transgression [pg 132] of the righteous law of God, and contrary thereunto, doth in its own nature bring guilt upon the sinner, whereby he is bound over to the wrath of God and curse of the law, and so made subject to death, with all miseries, spiritual, temporal, and eternal.”[13]

We assume the “Assembly's Catechism” as almost the standard of Orthodoxy. It was prepared with the concurrence of the best minds in England, in an age when theological discussion had sharpened all wits in that direction. Thoroughly Calvinistic, it is also a wonderfully clear and precise statement of Calvinism. Framed after long controversies, it had the advantage of all the distinctions which are made only during controversy. It is a fortress made defensible [pg 133] at all points, because it has been attacked so often that all its weak places have been seen and marked. It is a masterpiece of statement.

Now, it is very easy, and what has often been done, to stand on the outside and show the actual error and logical absurdity of this creed; to show that men are not by nature totally depraved, and that, if they were, this would not be guilt; that, if they have no power to repent, they are not to blame for not repenting; and that God, as a God of justice even (to say nothing of mercy, of love, of a heavenly Father), cannot condemn and punish us for a depraved nature inherited from Adam.

It is easy to say all this. But it has often been said; and with what result? Unitarians have been, by such arguments, confirmed in their Unitarianism; but the Orthodox have not, by such arguments, been convinced of the falsity of their creed. Let us see, then, if we cannot find some truth in this system,—some vital, experimental truth,—for the sake of which the Orthodox cling to these immense and incredible inconsistencies. Let us take an inside view of Orthodoxy, and see why, being unreasonable, it yet commends itself to so many minds of the highest order of reason.

§ 3. Orthodox and Liberal View of Man, as morally diseased or otherwise.

Let us begin with the substance of Orthodoxy (neglecting, at present, its form), and say, in general, that it regards human nature as being in an abnormal or diseased condition. The first thing to be done with man, according to Calvinism, is to cure him. Many systems, differing from each other in name, agree in this—that they do not believe in any such diseased condition of man. According to them, he is not to be cured, but to be educated. The Church is not a hospital, but an academy. Man needs, mainly, instruction. His purposes, in the main, are right; but he errs as to what he has to do. What he requires is precept and example.

As Orthodoxy believes man to be diseased, its object is twofold, and the truths which it employs are of two kinds. First, it seeks to convince man that he really has a dangerous disease; and then to convince him, that, by using the right means, he can be cured. It therefore constantly dwells upon two classes of truths: first, those which reveal man's sinfulness and his ruined condition; and, secondly, those which reveal the plan of saving him from this condition—a plan which has been devised by the Almighty, and which is accomplished in Christianity. Orthodoxy dwells upon sin and salvation: these are its two pivotal doctrines.

On the other hand, all the systems which may be associated under the term “Liberal Christianity” regard man, not as in a state of disease, and needing medicine, but as in a state of health, needing diet, exercise, and favorable circumstances, in order that he may grow up a well-developed individual. It regards sin, not as a radical disease with which all are born, but as a temporary malady to which all are liable. It does not, therefore, mainly dwell on sin and salvation, but on duty and improvement. Man's nature it regards, not as radically evil, but as radically good; and even as divine, because made by God.

Here, then, in the doctrine of evil, lies the essential distinction between the two great schools of thought which have divided the Church. What is evil? and how is it to be regarded? This is, perhaps, the most radical question in Christian theology. Is evil positive, or only negative? Is it a reality, or only a form? What is it? Whence comes it? Until these questions are exhaustively discussed, there is little hope of union in theology.

§ 4. Sin as Disease.

We regard Orthodoxy as substantially right in its views of sin as being a deep and radical disease. Our Saviour says, “I came not to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance.” “The Son of man came to seek and to save that which is lost.”

But the question recurs, Is there only one kind of sin,—namely, voluntary and conscious transgression of God's law, originating with the individual himself, and in the moment of committing it, by means of his free will, which is its only seat? or is there sin which is a tendency in man's nature, something permanent, involuntary, of which he is not conscious, and which has its seat not merely in the will, but in the desires and affections. To this question Liberal Christianity has commonly said, “No,” and Orthodoxy has said, “Yes.”

And on this point I concur with Orthodoxy. Besides the sin which consists in free choice, and which is essentially transient, there is also the sin which consists in wrong desire, and which is essentially permanent, because it is a habit of the mind. If it were not so, there could be no such thing as a bad character, and no such thing as a vicious habit.

If we attempt to analyze evil, we shall find that it may be conveniently distributed into these divisions:—

1. Physical Evil.

(a.) Pain.
(b.) Weakness.
(c.) Physical disease.

2. Intellectual or Mental Evil.

(a.) Ignorance.
(b.) Error, or mistake.
(c.) Sophism, or falsehood.

3. Moral Evil. Disobedience to the Moral Law.

(a.) Ignorant and accidental, or transgression.
(b.) Habitual disobedience, or vice.
(c.) Wilful violation of human law; crime.
(d.) Diseased moral state, as selfishness, bad temper, &c.

4. Spiritual Evil.

(a.) Wilful alienation from God, or perverse choice.
(b.) Spiritual inability.

Now, we see that in all these divisions of evil,—physical, intellectual, moral, and spiritual,—it is found in the two forms of active and passive evil. In the latter form it is disease, and independent of the will.

Returning, then, to the Orthodox view of evil, which it is our business to examine, we find already that it has the advantage of the Liberal theology in recognizing this passive side of evil, which we may call disease. It is true that Orthodoxy has not yet succeeded in coming to any clearness on this question, and has not yet any firm, intellectual hold of the main points of its argument. Examples of this confusion are quite common. Not to go back to the Calvinistic and Arminian controversies, which were but a revival of the Augustinian and Pelagian dispute; not to recur even to the Hopkinsian and Edwardian discussions,—we have only to refer to the differences between new and old school theology in the Presbyterian Church; to the trial of Dr. Beecher; to the book of his son Edward; to the divergence of Andover from New Haven, and Princeton from Andover. Unsettled, because superficial, views of evil are at the roots of all these controversies.

§ 5. Doctrine of the Fall in Adam, and Natural Depravity. Their Truth and Error.

The first point of the doctrine of evil regards the Fall, including the doctrine of depravity.

Modern French philosophers have dwelt much on what they call the solidarity of the human race. By this they mean that two individuals are not independent of each other, like two trees standing side by side, but like two buds on the same tree or bough. There is a common life-sap flowing through them all. Let the life of the tree be attacked anywhere,—in [pg 137] its roots, its trunk, its limbs,—and all these individual buds feel it. Yet each bud has also a life of its own, and develops its own stalk, leaves, blossom, fruit. It can be taken from its own tree, and put into another tree, and grow. So it is with separate men grafted into the great tree of mankind. No one lives to himself, nor dies to himself. If one suffers, all suffer. The life of mankind, becoming diseased, pours disease into all individual men.

Now, is there not something in this doctrine to which our instincts assent? Do not we feel it true that we inherit not our own life merely, but that of our race? and is not this the essential truth in the doctrine of the fall?

It is true that we fell in Adam. It is also true that we fell in every act of sin, in every weakness and folly, of any subsequent child of Adam. We are all drawn downward by every sin; we are lifted upward, too, by every act of heroic virtue, not by example only, but also by that mysterious influence, that subtile contagion, finer than anything visible, ponderable, or tangible,—that effluence from eye, voice, tone, manner, which, according to the character which is behind, communicates an impulse of faith and courage, or an impulse of cowardice and untruth; which may be transmitted onward, forward, on every side, like the widening circles in a disturbed lake,—circles which meet and cross each other without disturbance, and whose influence may be strictly illimitable and infinite.

No doubt, sin began with the historical Adam—the first man who lived. “By one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin.” But still more true is it that we fell in the typical Adam—Adam who stands for innocent, ignorant human nature before temptation; truest of all, that we fall in Adam, because we are, each of us, at first an Adam.

We are all in the garden; we are at first placed in paradise; and each has in himself all the four dramatis personæ—Adam, Eve, the Serpent, and the Voice of God. Adam [pg 138] is the will, the power of choice, the masculine element, in man; Eve is the affection, the desire, the feminine element, in man; the Voice of God is the higher reason in the soul, through which infinite truth commands,—i.e., the higher law; and the Serpent, the lower reason in the soul, the cunning element, the sophistical understanding, which can put evil for good, and good for evil. The garden is our early innocence, where there is no struggle, no remorse, no anxiety; where goodness is not labor, but impulse. But, when we go out of the garden, we enter a life of trial, till we reach the higher paradise, the kingdom of heaven; and then joy and duty become one again. Then—

“Love is an unerring light,

And joy its own security.”

From paradise, through the world, to heaven; from Egypt, through the wilderness, to Canaan; from innocence, through temptation, sin, repentance, faith, to regeneration,—such is the progress of man.

To me, the belief that I fell in Adam is not an opinion fraught only with sadness. This tide of life which comes pouring through me comes from ten thousand ancestors. All their sorrows and joys, temptations and struggles, sins and virtues, have helped to make it what it is. I am a member of a great body. I am willing to be so—to bear the fortunes and misfortunes of my race.

It is true that I find evil tendencies in me, which I did not cause; but I know, that, for whatever part I am not the cause, I am not accountable. For this part of my life I do not dread the wrath, but rather claim the pity, of my God. My nature I find to be diseased—not well; needing cure, and not merely food and exercise. I can, therefore, the more easily believe that God has sent me a physician, and that I shall be cured by him. I can believe in a future emancipation from these tendencies to vanity, sensuality, [pg 139] indolence, anger, wilfulness, impatience, obstinacy—tendencies which are, in me, not crime, but disease; and I can see how to say with Paul, “Now, then, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me.”

If, now, we return to the consideration of the Orthodox doctrine of the fall, as set forth by the Westminster Assembly, we shall find it to be half true and half false. It states truly (chap. 6, § 1) that our first parents sinned, and also (§ 2) that by this sin they fell from their original righteousness; for this only means that the first conscious act of disobedience by man produced alienation from God, and degeneracy of nature. This was no arbitrary punishment, but the natural consequence. The creed also says truly (§ 3) that this corrupted nature was conveyed to all their posterity; for this only means, that, by the laws of descent, good and evil qualities are transmitted; which all wise observers of human nature knew to be the fact. It is also true (§ 5) that this corrupt nature does remain (to some extent at least), even in the regenerate, in this life.

So far, so true. Sin, as disease, began with the first man, in his first sin, and has been transmitted, by physical, moral, and spiritual influences, from him to us all.

But now we find complicated with these truths other statements, which we must need regard as falsehoods. Tried either by reason or Scripture, they are palpably untrue, and are very dangerous errors.

The first error of Orthodoxy is in declaring transmitted or inherited evil to be total. It declares that our first parents “were wholly defiled in all faculties and parts of soul and body,” and that we, in consequence, “are utterly indisposed, disabled, and made opposite to all good, and wholly inclined to all evil.” This statement is indefensible. But we shall consider this in another section on “Total Depravity,” and only allude to it now in passing.

Another error, however, and a very important one, is to [pg 140] attribute the guilt of Adam and Eve to their descendants. This is the famous doctrine of imputation, which is now rejected by all the leading schools of modern Orthodoxy. That we can be guilty of Adam's sin, either by imputation or in any other way, seems too absurd and immoral a statement to be now received.

But though many intelligent Orthodox teachers and believers do now reject the imputation of Adam's sin, they admit what is just as false and just as immoral a doctrine. They make us guilty for that part of sin which is depravity, as well as for that which is wilful.

Whatever, either of moral good or moral evil, proceeds from our nature, and not from our will, has no character of merit or demerit. The reason is evident, and is stated by the apostle Paul. We are only guilty for what we do ourselves, we are only meritorious for what we do ourselves: but what our nature does, we do not do. “Now, then, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me.”

Professor Shedd, late of Andover, some years ago published a very able essay in the “Christian Review,” the title of which was, “Sin a Nature, and that Nature Guilt.” This title is a sufficient refutation of the essay. A man could not utter a more palpable contradiction, if he said, “The sun solid, and that solid fluid,” or, “The earth black, and that black white.”[14]

There are two kinds of moral good and two kinds of moral evil, which are essentially different. The two kinds of moral good may be named moral virtue and moral beauty; the two kinds of moral evil may be named guilt and depravity. Now, so far as goodness proceeds from a beautiful nature, it is not virtuous, and so far as sin proceeds from a depraved nature, it is not guilty. We can conceive of an angelic nature with no capacity of virtue, because incapable of guilt.

We can also conceive of a nature so depraved as to be incapable of guilt, because incapable of virtue.

§ 6. Examination of Romans, 5:12-21.

The famous passage in Paul (Rom. 5:12-21), which is the direct scriptural foundation claimed for the doctrine of Adam's fall producing guilt in his posterity, is in reality a support of our view. The only other passage (1 Cor. 15:22) where Adam is referred to, declares that we all die in him, but by no means asserts that we sin in him.

The passage referred to runs thus (Rom. 5:12-18):—

Verse 12: “As by one man sin entered into the world,”—

(Paul here refers to the fact that sin began with the first man.)

“And death by sin;”—

(By means of the sin of one man, death entered.)

“And so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned.”

(Rather “death came upon all men, because all have sinned.” The Vulgate has here in quo, “in whom;” that is, in Adam. So Augustine. But even those who, like Olshausen, contend for Augustine's views, admit that ἐφ᾽ ῷ here is a conjunction, equivalent to because, and not a relative.)

The next five verses (13, 14, 15, 16, 17) constitute a parenthesis, and refer to an objection which is not stated. Some one might say, “How could all sin, from Adam to Moses, when there was no law till Moses? and you, Paul, have said (Rom. 4:15), that ‘where there is no law there is no transgression.’ ”

Paul replies that “sin is not imputed without law;” that is, as I think evident, it is not regarded as guilt. A man who sins ignorantly is not guilty; but he suffers the consequences of his sin, which are depravity of his nature, or moral death. “Sin is not imputed,” says Paul; “but death reigns.” Those who do not sin “after the similitude of Adam's transgression,”—that is, who do not violate a positive [pg 142] command,—nevertheless are depraved morally, and are dead spiritually. The Hottentots and Fejee Islanders violate no positive law given them by God, and consequently are not guilty of that; but because they violate (even ignorantly) the laws of their moral nature, they are depraved morally.

We see, then, that Paul distinctly recognizes the distinction made above between sin as guilt and sin as depravity.

He distinguishes between sin as sinfulness, or unconscious transgression (ἡ ἁμαρτία), and sin as conscious transgression of a known command (παράβασις).

The consequence of the first is death, or moral and spiritual depravity; the consequence of the second is condemnation, or a sense of guilt.

Sinfulness, bringing with it depravity (the general demoralization of human nature), began with Adam. All became involved in sinfulness, and consequently all partook of the depravity which belongs to it as its wages.

It should, however, be observed that it is not the purpose of Paul to teach anything about Adam. His intention is to teach something about Christ. He refers to Adam's case as something they all are acquainted with; he compares Christ's case with it both by contrast and resemblance. But his object is not to instruct us about Adam, but about Christ. He uses Adam as an example to enforce his doctrine about Christ. Through Christ, goodness and happiness were to come into the world. He illustrated this fact, and made it appear probable, by the fact which they already knew—that through Adam sin and death had entered the world. If it seemed strange, in an age in which men were so disunited, that one man should be the medium of communicating goodness to the whole human race, they might remember that Adam also had been the medium of introducing sin to the whole human race. If the Jews wondered that Christ should bring salvation to those who were not under the law, [pg 143] they might remember that Adam had brought death to those not under the law, and who did not sin as he did. If they doubted how Christ's goodness could help to make men righteous, they might remember that in some way Adam's transgression had helped to make men sinners. Yet, after all, the main fact which he states is in the twelfth verse, chapter five—“that by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin.” This amounts to saying that sin began with Adam. Then he adds, in the same verse, “that death has passed upon all men, because all have sinned.” He therefore distinctly declares that every man is punished for his own sin, and not for the sin of Adam.

In the other passage (1 Cor. 15:22), Paul says, “As in Adam all die, even so, in Christ, shall all be made alive.” He does not say here, either that “all sinned in Adam,” or that “all fell in Adam,” or that “all died in Adam.” It is the present tense, “all die in Adam.”

What he means by this, he explains himself afterwards. He tells us that as “souls” descended from Adam, we are liable to death; as spirits quickened by Christ, we are filled with spiritual and immortal life.

In the forty-fourth verse he gives the explanation. The body “is sown a natural body” (σῶμα ψυχικὸν)—literally a soul-body, a body vitalized by the soul. “It is raised a spiritual body”—literally spirit-body (σῶμα πνευματικὸν), a body vitalized by the spirit. “There is a soul-body, and there in a spirit-body.” “And so it is written, The first man, Adam, was made a living soul” (which is a quotation from Genesis 2:7—“and man became a living soul”), “but the last Adam,” says Paul (meaning Christ), “became a life-making spirit.” But, continues Paul, the soul-man (psychical man) comes first; the spiritual-man afterwards, according to a regular order. “The first man is of the earth, earthy; the second is the Lord from heaven.” And then he adds,—and this is the key to the whole passage,—“As we have borne the [pg 144] image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly.” The doctrine, then, is plainly this: that we have two natures—a soul-nature, which we derive from Adam, and share with all mankind, which nature is liable to weakness, sin, and death; and a spirit-nature, which we derive from God, which Christ comes to quicken and vitalize, and the life of which constitutes our true immortality.

The apostle Paul, therefore, does not by any means teach Calvinism. The Catechism says that “our first parents being the root of all mankind, the guilt of their sin was imputed to all their posterity.” But Paul says, “So death passed upon all men, because all have sinned.” The Catechism says that “this same death in sin, and corrupted nature, being conveyed to their posterity, makes us utterly indisposed and opposite to all good,” and that “from this original corruption do proceed all actual transgressions.”

But if this is so, there has been no such thing in the world as guilt since Adam fell. If all actual transgressions proceed from original corruption, and original corruption comes from the first transgression of Adam, it logically follows that there has been but one sin committed in the world since it was made, namely, the sin of Adam. All other sins have been pure misfortunes; his alone was guilt. His transgression alone came from a free choice; all others have come from an involuntary necessity of nature.

Nothing can be more certain from reason and Scripture than this—that transgressions which come from a corrupt nature are just so far done in us, and not done by us. This the apostle distinctly affirms when he says (7:17), “Now, then, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me.” No man is responsible for disease, when he has not brought that disease on himself, but inherited it from his ancestors. The disease may make him very odious, very disagreeable, but cannot make him blamable. Therefore, when Calvin says that hereditary depravity “renders us [pg 145] obnoxious to the divine wrath,” he utters an absurdity. This confusion of ideas runs through all Orthodox statements on the subject, and the only cure is, that we should learn how to make this distinction between natural evil and moral evil, or the evil which proceeds from a corrupt nature and the evil which comes from a free will.

If we were to sum up the doctrine of the apostle Paul on this subject, it would be thus:—

1. The first man, Adam, consisted, as we all consist, of nature and will. His nature consisted of innocent tendencies and appetites. None were excessive; all were well balanced. His nature inclined him no more to evil than to good, but each faculty was in proper poise. The first sin, therefore, could not have been a gross one; it was a simple transgression; but its effect was to introduce what the apostle calls death; that is, a diseased or corrupt nature. The process is this: With the first conscious and free transgression there arises a sense of guilt. This sense of guilt leads the soul away from God. Adam and Eve hide in the garden. Every act of sin tends to create a habit, and so destroys the moral equipoise. There hence arises a tendency towards evil, and from good; and this is called death, because it takes us away from God, who is the source of life.

2. A tendency towards evil is thus introduced into the world by the transgression of the first man. His descendants are now born with a nature which is not in equipoise, but which leans more towards evil than towards good. Their will remains free as before; but they cannot perform the same amount of good as before. These corrupt tendencies tempt to greater sin than the pure tendencies did, and, whenever yielded to, bring a greater amount of moral evil into the race.

3. Things, therefore, are thus growing worse continually; for every new act of sin makes it easier to sin again. And this tendency to death, or estrangement from God, must go [pg 146] on increasing, unless some antagonist principle can be communicated to the race. This is actually done by Jesus Christ. The principle of life which Christ introduces consists in reconciliation to God. Sin separates us from God, and therefore tends to death. Christ reconciles us to God, and so gives life. The way in which Christ reconciles us to God is by manifesting God's pardoning and saving love to the sinful soul. In his own life, but especially by his death, he communicates this pardoning love, and so produces the atonement. This is the central, Pauline view of the relation of Adam and Christ to the race. Adam introduces death into the world: Christ introduces life. He does not speak at all of imputation, or transfer of guilt; but he speaks of an actual communication of death and life. Adam and Christ both stand in actual, and not merely ideal, connection with the whole race of man. Adam is a living soul; Christ, a life-giving spirit. By inheritance, we receive a depraved life of the soul from Adam; by communion, we receive an eternal or spiritual life from Christ. And, in regard to both of these acts, the notion of blame or merit is entirely excluded. We are not to blame for our inherited depravity derived from Adam. We deserve no credit for the salvation which comes to us from Christ. The compensation for the misfortune of inherited evil is the free gift of divine goodness in Jesus.

We have thus considered the truth and the error contained in the Orthodox doctrine of the fall. The truth of it is in its assertion of a depravity of nature, to which we are liable in consequence of ancestral sins: the error is in imputing guilt to us in consequence of them.

§ 7. Orthodox View of Total Depravity and Inability.

In speaking of the fall of man, we necessarily anticipated somewhat the doctrine of total depravity. Still, we must say something further on this doctrine, because it is so important in the Church system: it is, indeed, at its foundation. Those who accept, in its strictness, the doctrine of total [pg 147] depravity cannot avoid any point of the severest Calvinism. Schleiermacher has shown, in his “Essay on Election,” that this latter doctrine necessarily follows the doctrine of total depravity; for, if man is wholly depraved, he has no power to do anything for his own conversion; therefore God must do it. And if some are converted, and not others, it must be because God chooses to convert some, and does not choose to convert others.

Let us look, then, at what Orthodoxy says of the extent of human depravity. In all the principal creeds, this is stated to be unlimited. Man's sin is total and entire. There is nothing good in him. The Westminster Confession and the Confession of the New England Congregational churches describe him as “dead in sin, and wholly defiled in all the faculties and parts of soul and body.” Other creeds use similar language.

In considering this theory, we are struck at first by the circumstance, that the Bible gives it very little support. The Bible continually speaks of man as a sinner; but there are very few texts which can, without straining, be made to seem to teach that he is totally depraved. Let us examine a few of them.

§ 8. Proof Texts.

1. A text often cited is Genesis 6:5,—the reason given for destroying the human race, in the time of Noah, by the deluge: “And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.” But this seems to be a description of the state of the world at that particular time, not of its character in all ages. It is not a description of man's natural condition, but of an extremely degenerate condition. If the state of the world here described was its natural state, it would rather be a reason for not having created the race at first; or, if it was a reason for destroying it, it would, at best, seem to be as strong a one against creating it again. If a man plants [pg 148] a tree in his garden, whose nature he knows is to produce a certain kind of fruit, it would seem hardly a good reason for cutting it down, that it produced that kind of fruit: certainly it would not be a good reason for cutting it down, and planting another of precisely the same kind in its place. The reason why the race of men was destroyed was, that it had degenerated. But there were some good even then; for in the ninth verse we are told that “Noah was a just man, and perfect in his generation, and walked with God.”

2. There is another passage, in the fourteenth Psalm which is quoted by Paul in Rom. 3: “There is none righteous; no, not one: there is none that understandeth, none that seeketh after God. They have all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable: there is none that doeth good; no, not one. There is no fear of God before their eyes.”

This passage is relied on to prove total depravity. But we may reply, that—

This also is a degenerate condition, not a natural one. It was a condition into which men had fallen, not one in which they were born. “They have all gone out of the way; they are together become unprofitable.” It does not, therefore, apply to men universally, but to men in those particular times.

It was not true of all, even at that particular time. It was not true of David himself, that he did not seek after God, or have the fear of God before his eyes; or else other passages in the same book are not true, in which he says the contrary. “O God! early will I seek thee: my soul thirsteth for thee; my flesh longeth for thee.” He also frequently speaks of and to those who fear the Lord, and says, “I am a companion to all those that fear thee.”

The “all” is not to be taken strictly. It means people generally at that time. Just so it is said, “There went out to him Jerusalem and all Judea, and all the region round [pg 149] about Jordan;” which does not imply that no one staid at home.

“But,” it may be said, “does not Paul teach that this is to be taken universally, when he quotes it, and adds, ‘Now we know that what the law saith, it saith to those under the law, that every mouth be stopped, and all the world guilty before God’ ”? We think he means to say, that, as this is said to Jews, it proves that Jews, as well as Gentiles, are very guilty. He is addressing the Jews, who boasted of their knowledge of the law. Chap. 2: “Behold, thou art called a Jew,” &c.

3. Jer. 17:9. “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked.”

If we suppose that we are to take this as an unlimited expression, and not merely a strong declaration of the wickedness of the Jews, it still does not prove total depravity of the nature, but merely that of the affections, or “the heart.” Man's nature has other things besides desire: it has conscience, reason, and will; and it does not follow that these are also depraved.

4. Rom. 8:7. “The carnal mind is enmity against God.”

This does not intend that the mind of man, in its natural state, is enmity, but in its carnal state; that is, when subject to fleshly desires. Nearly the same phrase is used in the verse before, and is translated, “To be carnally minded is death.”

5. There is one famous passage, however, which seems to say that God is angry with us on account of our nature. This is a passage very much quoted, and we hear it so often that it seems as if the Bible was full of such texts. It is in Eph. 2:3. “We were by nature children of wrath, even as others.” This is quoted to prove that God is angry with men for their natures, and hates them for being born evil—just as we may hate a snake, a scorpion, or spider, for its [pg 150] nature. But, as it happens, the very next verses show that this is impossible, unless God can be hating one of his creatures and loving it at the very same moment.

For, in the next verse Paul says that God loved us with a great love when we were dead in trespasses and sins, and children of wrath. It is therefore evident that “children of wrath” must mean something else. It may mean that men outside of Christianity—Jews and Gentiles—were afraid of God; living under a constant sense of his displeasure; that God seemed to them a terrible being, always disposed to punish them with severity. This was the fact. Jews and Gentiles were afraid of their gods, before Christ came, and so were “children of wrath.” Or it may mean that men are exposed to the consequences of sin; for, in Scripture language,—

“God's wrathful said to be, when he doth do

That without wrath which wrath doth force us to.”

Moreover, “nature,” in Scripture usage, does not necessarily mean, “as human beings.” It often intends external position, origin, and race. So (in Gal. 2:15) we read, “Jews by nature;” and so (in Rom. 2:27) “uncircumcision, which is by nature.”

The same word is used twice in James 3:7, and is translated kind. “Every kind of beasts, birds, serpents, things in the sea, is tamed of man-kind:” literally, “the whole animal race is tamed by the human race.”

If φυσις here meant “constitutional depravity,” the same word in Rom. 2:14 must mean constitutional goodness, where we are told that some “do by nature the things contained in the law.” So, too, we read of the olive tree, wild by nature, in Rom. 11:24.

“By nature,” here, plainly means the original condition, not the original constitution. Just so we say that wild animals are in a state of nature, and call savages the children of nature.

These five texts are the strongest in the Bible to support the doctrine of total depravity, and, as such, are constantly quoted. They have very little weight, and not one of them is from the words of Jesus.

On the other hand, there are many passages which seem to declare that there is something good in man in his unconverted or natural state, and that even in that state he may turn towards the light, and struggle against evil.

John 3:20, 21. “Every one that doeth truth cometh to the light.”

Matt. 26:41. “... The spirit is willing, the flesh is weak.”

Rom. 2:24. “Gentiles, who have not the law, do by nature the things contained in the law, and show the work of that law which is written in the heart.”

Acts 10:35. “In every nation, he that feareth God, and worketh righteousness, is accepted of him.”

But the passage most strikingly and thoroughly opposed to the doctrine of total depravity, is the description, in the seventh chapter of Romans, of the conflict between the law in the members and the law of the mind. Paul, speaking evidently from his own experience in his unconverted state, describes the condition of one morally depraved, who is trying to do right, but is prevented by evil habits which have become a part of himself. He describes this as moral death, but not guilt. He says, “It is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me.” He describes himself as morally impotent—wishing to do right, but unable to do it. He says he delights in the law of God after the inner man. The inmost is right, but outside of that are evil habits, in the body, which drag down the soul and enslave it. Paul therefore distinctly says that a man in such a condition is not himself a sinner, because he does not commit the sin. Thus he makes clear and strong the distinction we referred to above, between depravity and guilt—between natural evil and moral evil.

Paul teaches that man is not totally depraved, but that even in the carnal man there is a good principle, only that it is conquered by the evil. If the mind delights in the law of God, and the will to do right is present with us, we evidently are not totally depraved; but the total depravity, if anywhere, is in the flesh only, as Paul plainly says: “I know that in me (that is, in my flesh) dwelleth no good thing;” that is, the depravity is physical, not moral. But physical depravity is not guilt, but only disease.

§ 9. Truth in the Doctrine of Total Depravity.

Nevertheless there is a sense in which man may be said to be often totally sinful; but this is only in a total alienation of the will from God. It is not a total depravity, but a total alienation. There is a natural depravity, but it is not total. But the choice may be totally perverted, when it chooses darkness instead of light, evil instead of good.

Let us see what there is of this in man.

The gospel of Christ, as we understand it, undertakes to effect an entire change, a radical reformation, in human character. It proposes to reform the life by changing the heart, by giving new aims, new affections, new aspirations, new objects of love and pursuit. Jesus does not endeavor to alter and improve, a little here and a little there, on the outside of the character, to improve a little our modes of action in this and the other particular; but he alters the conduct and character by altering the fundamental ideas, and inspiring an inward life. This wonderful change, which takes place in the profoundest depth of our nature, under the influence of the Gospel,—this great event of life, which forms the turning-point of our being and history,—is called in the New Testament “the new birth,” “regeneration,” “to be born again,” “conversion,” “a new creation,” “to be born of God,” “to be baptized with the Holy Ghost and with fire,” “to put off the old man,” “to have Christ formed within us.” It is a very superficial view which explains [pg 153] away the meaning of all these profound expressions, and supposes that they only signify a little outward improvement and reformation. We need just such a change as is here described—a radical one, not a superficial one. All need it. Those who are the most pure in heart and most blameless in character (spotless children, as they seem to us, of a heavenly world) feel their own need of this change no less than do the profligate and openly vicious. Parents and friends say, “We have no fault to find with them.” They do not say they have no fault to find with themselves. They feel they have all kinds of fault to find with themselves, and nothing is so painful to them as this commendation. They say, “Outwardly we may seem innocent, but we feel an inward want that weighs on our heart like a frost.”

“This is a true saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.” It is because we are sinners that we need to experience this great change. We do not wish to exaggerate the amount of human sinfulness. Theologians have carried their attacks on human nature quite too far, and the result has often been that men have looked on sin as a sort of theological matter, which has nothing to do with actual life. They have cheerfully admitted that they were totally depraved by nature, and could not think or will a good thing, and then have thought no worse of themselves than before. We know that there is something good in man, something which God loves, some pure aspiration even in the natural heart, some throbs of generosity, some warnings of conscience, some pure love, some courageous virtue, in the humblest, the most depraved, the most abandoned. There are some flowers of sweetest perfume which spring up in the uncultivated soil of the natural heart on which God and his angels smile, for the seeds of those flowers God himself planted. We have seen harebells, graceful and lovely as the sweetest greenhouse plant, growing out of a sand-heap; and we have seen [pg 154] some disinterested, generous benevolence in the mind of a hardened profligate. It is not, therefore, because there is nothing good in man that he needs a change of heart, but because he is destitute of a deep-rooted and living goodness till this change has taken place.

Look at the actual sins of men. The majority of men, in a civilized community like ours, do not commit great crimes, or fall into flagrant vices, because they have little to attract them to such a course, and much to deter them from it. They are aiming at those objects which they need the countenance, aid, and good opinion of their fellow-men to obtain, to be glaringly vicious would make it impossible. Also, there is a certain amount of conscience which restrains them—the influence of good education and good habits which preserves a certain uprightness and purity of character. But is it a deep principle? If so, why do the vast majority of men allow themselves in many small violations of the same laws which they would not break on a large scale? They would not steal; yet they commit every day some slight acts not perfectly honest; they take advantage of others in little things. They would not lie; yet they exaggerate, and conceal part of the truth, and color their statements to produce an effect. They would not kill; but they are willing to injure one who has interfered with their interests. With these tendencies and feelings, why would they not, under different influences, commit greater crimes? How often do we feel, in talking with the criminal and abandoned, that, in their circumstances and with their temptations, we might have been as bad as they!

Does not all this show that there is a deep and hidden fountain of evil within our hearts which is restrained by external influences, by checks and barriers with which God has kindly surrounded us? and if these were taken away, it would break out into something far worse than now appears. How much there is of evil under the smooth surface [pg 155] of refined society! How many thoughts of sin pass to and fro in the heart while the countenance seems pure and calm! Who ever looked into the interior depths of our most moral community, and saw all the secret sins and pollutions which are hidden there? Every now and then there occurs in the midst of the most refined classes some startling revelation of long-concealed wickedness which makes men look each other in the face and draw a long breath, as though they should say, “Which of us will next fall?” So in the midst of a fruitful country, of lakes, and valleys, and vine-clad hills, the earth will sometimes open, and a river of melted lava pour forth, desolating all around. We hear of this with wonder, and do not think that right beneath our own feet, a few miles down, under these smooth fields and gentle plains, that same fiery ocean is rolling its red billows. God has laid his hand upon our heart, and restrains its lawless passions as he restrains the tornadoes, and earthquakes, and volcanic fires; else they might easily hurry us to swift destruction.

Still, if this were all, no radical change might be necessary. It might be enough that by effort, and self-discipline, and direction of the thoughts, we gradually overcome our evil habits and tendencies; but when we resolve to do so, and make the effort, we meet with an unexpected resistance. “The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.” “I find a law in my members warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin in my members.” The Church has long asserted the doctrine of an hereditary depravity; and we have seen that there is more truth in it than we have sometimes supposed. It is not total, but it is real. Besides the sins of our own committing, there are the sins which our ancestors have committed, which have made themselves part of our bone and flesh. We are not exactly balanced in our natural state; there is a preponderating tendency towards evil in one or another direction.

This forms too fearful an alliance with circumstances, the moment they become powerful to draw us away from good. A friend of ours, some years since, was making a trip up the Lakes, late in the season. As they entered Lake Huron from the River St. Clair in the noble steamer, the skies were serene, and she ploughed her way on towards the north, so that by night the land had sunk almost out of sight. But then the wind began to freshen, the sea rose, and as the night advanced, and the wind blew harder and harder, the boat strained and staggered along, occasionally struck hard by a heavier sea, till at last one of her wheels was carried away, and the fires were put out by the water. How long and anxious was that night! How many prayed then who never prayed before! When morning came, the boat was found to be drifting before the wind and waves, directly upon a rocky shore on the south-east side of the lake. There was no help in man; but a gracious Providence all at once caused the storm to lull, so that a fire could be built, and with one wheel the boat got into a harbor. Man seems a powerful being when he is surrounded by favorable circumstances, and is going with a fair wind and fair weather; but let the wind change, and his weakness becomes apparent. He who just now breasted the tide, is now drifting helplessly before it.

But there is a difficulty far worse than any we have mentioned. We might conquer the sin which most easily besets us, we might conquer our inherent evil tendencies, and outgrow them, if we really wished to do so; but the deepest of all evils is a want of love for God and for goodness. We know that we ought to love and obey God; but our heart is alienated from him. The great mass of men are living away from God. They are not conscious of his presence, though they know that he is near to them. Though they know that his eye is upon them, it does not restrain them from sin. Though they know that their heavenly Father and best Friend is close at hand, how seldom do they pray! how seldom look [pg 157] up with gratitude for all their mercies and joys! This shows a terrible estrangement of soul from God. The veil is on their hearts, not on their minds.

The question is sometimes asked, “whether sin is a positive or merely a negative evil.” Now, whatever may be the case with other kinds of sin, this alienation of the heart seems to us a very positive evil; for it is an antagonism, and resistance of goodness. If the supreme goodness of God does not attract us, does not excite our affection, does not irresistibly draw us to him, then it repels us; it makes the thought of his presence a restraint and burden; it makes us wish to go away from God. The goodness of God is so very positive a thing, that we cannot be indifferent to it; we cannot be neutral in regard to it. If we do not love it, it is disagreeable, and we are uncomfortable in the thought of it. Swedenborg relates that certain wicked persons were allowed to enter heaven on a certain occasion; but they immediately became almost lifeless, and, from the torment and pain in their head and body, prostrated themselves on the ground, and writhed like worms; but, being taken and carried into hell, became comparatively comfortable. What can be more terrible than the idea thus conveyed of our aversion to goodness, which makes heaven intolerable, and the presence of God insufferable torture! Can anything express, more than this, the need of a change of heart?

Jesus, we think, asserts a similar view when he says, “He that is not with me is against me.” “No man can serve two masters; for he will either love the first and hate the last, or love the last and hate the first.” He will not be indifferent to either, if their characters and commands are of an opposite kind.

We do not mean to say that we hate God; but we mean that there is something within us, while our hearts are not wholly his, which makes it unpleasant and burdensome to think of God and pray to him. We feel a certain repugnance to a [pg 158] familiar and happy intercourse with our heavenly Father. Our prayers, if we pray, are formal and cold; our hearts are hard, and their affections do not flow easily upward.

Now, if there be such a thing as a change of heart, which will make it a pleasure to pray, a joy to think of God; which will make it natural to us to approach him, and dwell on the thought of his goodness; which will enable us to see him in the majesty and sweetness of nature, in the rise of empires or the death of an infant, in the coming of Christ, and in every good thought which swells in our souls,—then it is evident that this is what we need. Let us dig deep, and build our house upon a rock.

We shall see in another section that there is such a change of heart as we have described. Jesus saves sinners by taking away the heart of stone, and giving a heart of flesh. He saw the whole depth and extent of the disease which he came to cure. There are some preachers who do not know how great an evil sin is, and would not know what to do for a penitent and anxious soul which really saw the greatness of its needs. Thus, when George Fox went to the rector of his church to ask advice for the distress of his soul, he was told to amuse himself and divert his mind. But Jesus saw all the extent of sin, and yet was ready to encourage and help the sinner. He knew that his remedy was equal to the emergency. The gospel of Christ can give to us love to God and love to man; can soften our hearts in humility, can enable us to fight with and conquer even the hereditary evil of our organization; can ultimately redeem us from all evil. This is the depravity we are to conquer; not of nature, but of will, and aim, and purpose.

§ 10. Ability and Inability.

One of the pivotal points in the Orthodox theory of evil is that of moral inability. Indeed, the doctrine of total depravity seems to be taught for the sake of this. Total depravity resolves itself, in the mind [pg 159] of the Orthodox teacher, into total inability, and means that man, unable to do right by any power in himself, must throw himself wholly and absolutely on the divine grace. The secret motive of the whole Orthodox doctrine of evil is to lead through a sense of sin to humility, and at last to dependence. Orthodoxy here becomes intelligible, so soon as we perceive that its purpose is not speculative, but practical. As religion consists so greatly in the sentiment of dependence, it is a leading purpose in the Orthodox system to produce this sense of dependence. That group of graces—reverence, humility, submission, trust, prayer—which lend such an ineffable charm to the moral nature, which purify and refine it to its inmost depths,—these spring almost wholly from the sense of dependence on a higher and better being than ourselves. These being absent, the elevating principle is wanting; the man cannot rise above himself. There may be truth, courage, conscience, purity, but they are all stoical and self-relying. It is only he who relies on a higher power, clings to a higher being, and draws his moral life from above, who can ascend. He who humbles himself, and he only, shall be exalted. But humility does not consist in looking down, but in looking up. It does not come from looking at our own meanness, but at something higher and better than ourselves. The sense of sin is only elevating when connected with the sight of a higher beauty and holiness.

It is, therefore, in order to produce a conviction of absolute dependence that Orthodoxy urges so strongly the doctrines of total depravity and total inability. A man will not pray, says the Orthodox system, till he feels himself helpless. He will not seek a Saviour so long as he hopes to save himself. He must see that he can do nothing more for himself; and then, for the first time, he exercises a real faith in God, and casts himself on the divine mercy.

Reasoning in this way, consciously or unconsciously, Orthodoxy [pg 160] has built up its doctrine of human inability, which we will proceed to state,—first, however, indicating the scriptural view of this subject.

Scripture teaches that man is able to choose the right, but not always able to perform it. He is free in his spirit, but bound by circumstances of position, and by bodily organization. He is free to choose, but not free to do. His freedom is in effort, not necessarily in accomplishment. He can always try; he cannot always effect what he tries.

Thus Jesus says (Matt. 26:41), “Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation; the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.” And so Paul says, in the passage on this subject before referred to (Rom. 7:18), “To will is present with me, but how to perform that which I will, I find not.”

Without attempting here to enter into the tormented question of fate and freedom, of necessity so irrefragably demonstrated by the logic of Edwards and others,—of free-will perpetually reasserted by the intuitive reason in the soul,—we may say this: Whether there be such a thing as metaphysical freedom or not, there is such a thing as moral freedom. In proportion as man sinks into the domain of nature, he is bound by irresistible laws. In proportion as he rises into the sphere of reason, justice, truth, love, he is emancipated, and can direct his own course. “Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” “If the Son, therefore, shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed.” (John 8:32, 36.) “Stand fast in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free.” (Gal. 5:1.) It is therefore true that only as we direct our course by eternal laws, we rise above the controlling influence of habit, prejudice, public opinion, inherited and original tendencies of the blood and brain. According to Paul (Rom. 6:16-22), man must be either the servant of sin or the servant of God. He must serve, willingly or unwillingly. He must be the degraded slave of desire and selfishness, or the willing, loyal [pg 161] subject of truth and right. Paradoxically enough, however, he only feels free in these two cases. For in these two states he is doing what he chooses to do. When he is blindly and willingly following his lower instincts he feels free. When he is rationally and freely choosing right, and doing it, he also feels free. But when half way between these two states, when his conscience is pulling one way and his desires drawing him the other, when he is choosing right and doing wrong, he feels himself a slave.

There are therefore these three conditions of the will, corresponding to the Pauline division of man into spirit, soul, and body (1 Tim. 5:23)—a view of man which was held throughout antiquity. The carnal man (σαρκικος) is one in whom the earthly appetites are supreme, and the soul, (ψυχη) and spirit (πνευμα) subordinate. The natural man (ψυχικος ανθρωπος, 1 Cor. 2:14) is one in whom the soul, or central principle, the finite will, is supreme. The spiritual man (πνευματικος, 1 Cor. 2:15) is he in whom the infinite principle, the sense of eternal truth and right, is supreme. In the first condition—that of the carnal man—one is the slave of sin, but without knowing it, because there is no wish to become anything different. In the second state—that of the natural man (or psychical man)—the soul chooses the good, but is drawn down by the evil. The law of the mind is warring against the law of the members, and the man is torn asunder by this conflict. He tries to do right, and does wrong. He now first feels himself a slave; yet he is in reality less a slave than before, for now he is endeavoring to escape. His will is emancipated, though his habits of conduct, his habits of thought, his habits of feeling, still bind him fast. In the third condition, that of the spiritual man, he has broken these chains. He not only wills to do right, but does it. His body shares in the new life of his soul. He now is made free by the truth and the spirit [pg 162] from the service of evil, and shares in “the glorious liberty of the children of God.”

In all these conditions the human being has some freedom, but differing in degree in each. In the lowest state he has freedom of action, for he does what he wishes to do; but he has not freedom of choice, for he does not choose at all. He acts not by intelligent choice, but by blind instinct, habit or custom. In the middle state he has freedom of choice, but not of action. He chooses the good, but performs the evil. This is the condition described by Ovid, and other profane writers, before Paul described it in the seventh chapter of Romans.[15] But in the highest state—a spiritual condition—he has both freedoms; he can both choose and perform. The carnal man seems to be free, but is most thoroughly enslaved of all. The psychical man seems to himself to be enslaved, but has begun to be free. The spiritual man both seems to be free and is so. The apparent freedom of the carnal man differs from the real freedom of the spiritual man in this—the spiritual man could do wrong if he chose to do so, but chooses to do right. But the carnal man could not do right if he should choose. A good man, if he chose to do so, might lie, and steal, and drink, and be profane; but a bad man could not, by choosing, become temperate, pure, truthful, and honest.

Scripture and experience give, therefore, the same account of human ability and inability. In the lowest state man is the servant of sense, and can neither will nor do right. In the higher condition he can will, but cannot perform; for his ideal aim is above his actual power. In the highest, or [pg 163] regenerate, state he can both will and do. Body, as well as soul, serve the spirit.

These are the truths which lie at the basis of the Orthodox doctrine of inability. But Orthodoxy, in its desire to awaken a sense of dependence, has pushed them to an unreasonable extreme. It asserts that man, in his natural state, before he is regenerated, has no power to will or to do right. It is evident, however, that all men have power to will and to do many right things. Even in the lowest condition, a man wills and does much that is right. Though the governing principle be the lowest one, he can yet perform many good actions. In the second condition also, the psychical man, though not able always to do right, often succeeds in doing so. And in this state the apostle declares that he does not do the evil, but “sin that dwells in him.” So long as his purpose is right, he is right.

§ 11. Orthodox Doctrine of Inability.

Let us see what Orthodoxy says of the inability of the unregenerate man. The Assembly's Confession declares (chap. 6, § 4), that by our corrupt nature “we are utterly indisposed, disabled, and made opposite to all good, and wholly inclined to all evil.” In chap. 9, § 3, it says that “man, by his fall into a state of sin, hath wholly lost all ability of will to any spiritual good accompanying salvation.”

This seems plain enough. It would justify the charge made by Dr. Cox, that there are those who teach that “a man has no ability to do his duty,”[16] and “that, where the means of grace are abundantly vouchsafed, a man can do nothing for, but can only counteract, his own salvation.” It would also seem to lay a fit foundation for that kind of Calvinistic preaching which, according to Professor Finney, of [pg 164] Oberlin (see “Revival Lectures”), virtually amounts to saying,

“You can, and you can't;

You shall, and you shan't;

You will, and you won't;

You'll be damned if you don't.”

These charges, it must be noticed, are brought against Calvinism, not by us, but by Presbyterian divines, themselves holding to this same Westminster Confession.

But let us look at some of the expositions given to this doctrine of inability by modern Orthodox authorities.

(a.) The Old School Presbyterians.—As stated by one of their own number (Professor Atwater, of Princeton College, Bibliotheca Sacra, January, 1864), they hold an inability “moral, sinful, and real,” “irremovable by the sinner's own power.” He sets aside the objection that we are not bound to do what we are unable to do, by saying that this applies to actions only, not to sinful dispositions. He illustrates this by saying that an irrepressible disposition to slander would be only so much more culpable. But in this he is evidently wrong. Such a habit has become a disease, and the unfortunate victim is no longer accountable for what he does.

(b.) The New School Presbyterians.—(Rev. George Duffield, in Bibliotheca Sacra, July, 1863.) Although Dr. Duffield objects to the language of the Old School Presbyterians in denying “free agency,” and regarding man “as destitute of ability as a block of marble,” he yet declares that the New School, as well as the Old, believe that in the unconverted state “man can do nothing morally good.” Still, he adds, men can accept the offers of salvation made by Jesus Christ. But he positively denies that “man, in his natural state, independent of the gospel and Spirit of Christ, has ability perfectly to obey all the commandments of God.” We suppose that most persons would agree with him in this statement.

(c.) The Old School in New England Theology.—(Bibliotheca [pg 165] Sacra, April, 1863. Article by Professor Lawrence, East Windsor, Connecticut.) This writer contends that human inability is moral, and not natural—a distinction much dwelt upon by the Hopkinsians, but rejected by the Old School Presbyterians. This system differs from the Arminian or Methodist view in insisting that man has power enough to sin, though not enough to obey.

(d.) Hopkinsianism.—(Bibliotheca Sacra, July, 1862.) The Hopkinsians profess to contend for free agency, in order to save responsibility. They adopt the ideas of Edwards on free agency. But freedom, with them, consists only in choice. Whatever we choose, we choose freely. The carnal man is as free in choosing evil as the spiritual man in choosing good. All real freedom in this system disappears in a juggle of words.

The result of this examination will show that the great body of the Orthodox, of all schools, continues to deny any real ability in the unregenerate man to do the will of God. They do not say that “man has no power to do his duty,” but that is the impression left by their teaching. The distinction between natural and moral inability is insufficient; for it is as absurd to say that a man is unable not to sin, when you only mean that he chooses to sin, as it would he to say, when invited to eat your dinner, “I am unable to eat,” meaning only that you were unwilling. Besides, if inability is moral, it is in the will, and not in the nature, and so is not natural depravity at all. It is also making God unjust to teach that he considers us guilty for a misfortune. If we derive a corrupted nature from Adam, that is our misfortune, and not our fault, and God owes us not anger, but pity. Instead of punishing us, he should compensate us for this disaster.

Therefore the unreason, the want of logic, and the absence of any just view of God, appear, more or less, throughout these statements. For where there is no ability, there can [pg 166] be no guilt. Just as soon as man ceases to have the power to do right, he ceases to have the power to do wrong. Inability and guilt, which are connected by all these creeds, logically exclude each other. If our nature is incapable of doing good, then it is incapable of committing sin. One or the other must be given up. Keep which you will, but you cannot keep both. We may be totally depraved by our nature; but then we cease to be sinners, and cease to be guilty. Or we may be going wholly wrong, and so be sinful, but then we have the power of going right.

This is the inconsistency in almost all Orthodox systems. By dwelling so much on human weakness, they destroy at last the sense of responsibility.

§ 12. Some further Features of Orthodox Theology concerning Human Sinfulness.

In the article in the Bibliotheca Sacra before referred to (April, 1863), by Edward A. Lawrence, D. D., Professor at East Windsor, Connecticut, on “The Old School in New England Theology,” the writer gives the following account of the doctrines of this body concerning sin:—

“God created man a holy being. He was not merely innocent, as not having committed sin, not merely pure, as not inheriting any derived evil, but was positively holy in his very being.” This, we suppose, must mean that he was inclined by nature to do right, rather than wrong. It was as natural for him to love God as for a fish to swim or a bird to fly. Nothing less than this, certainly, would deserve to be called “holiness of being.”

“The first man,” says Professor Lawrence, “was the federal head of this race, representatively and by covenant, as no other father has been or can be with his children.” This is illustrated by the fact of a legal corporation, whose members are responsible in law for the actions of their agent.

Professor Lawrence explains the belief of the Old School in the imputation of Adam's sin thus: It was not the personal [pg 167] guilt of Adam which was imputed to his descendants, but “certain disastrous consequences.” They, as well as he, became “subject to temporal and eternal death.” The next consequence of Adam's sin we must give in Professor Lawrence's own language, in order not to misrepresent him. “The first evil disposition which led to the evil choice was not only confirmed in him as an individual, but also as a quality of human nature, and it reappears, successively, in each one of them.” Imputation, therefore, means not the transfer of guilt, but of a corrupt nature. “It is not a sin to be born sinful; but the sin with which men are born is nevertheless sinful.” Then follows this statement: “We are strictly guilty only for our own sin; but the sinfulness with which we are born is as really ours as if it originated in our own act.”

This, again, is explained by defining guilt as liability to punishment on account of the acts of another, “as when the members of a corporation suffer from the ill management of its agent.” This he calls corporate guilt.

The Old School doctrine, according to this writer, concerning sin, makes it a state rather than an act. It is not merely the act of disobedience, but the wrong bias of the will, out of which the act proceeds. He thinks it wrong to call “sin a nature,” for neither the substance of the soul, nor its faculties, are sinful. The depravity of nature is not choice, so much as tendency which leads to choice. It is hereditary, being transmitted from father to son.

The old theology, therefore, predicates sinfulness of human nature; affirms sin to be a wrong state or bias of will; considers it to be hereditary; regards new-born infants as depraved, but thinks that those of them who die in infancy, before actual transgression, are renewed and saved by the blood of Christ; and considers temporal death as a part of the penalty of sin.

Upon this statement of the Old School doctrine, the following criticisms naturally occur:—

First. If original righteousness was holiness of nature, and not mere innocence; if it was a positive tendency to good, and not merely a state of indifference between good and evil; then, we ask, What produced the fall? What motive led to the commission of the first sin? If the nature of the first man was holy, there was nothing in it which could lead him to sin, and any external temptation addressed to such a nature must fall powerless before it. It would be like trying to tempt a fish to fly in the air, or like tempting a bird to go into the water. Even if the first man could have been induced by any deception or external influence to commit a wrong act, this would not be sinful, because there would be no sinful motive behind it. A wrong act proceeding from a holy nature is either an impossibility or a mere innocent mistake. Our first criticism, therefore, on the Old School doctrine of sin, is, that it makes Adam's fall an impossibility.

Second. As regards Adam's federal headship and the illustration of a corporation, we say, that the members of a corporation are not considered guilty in consequence of the acts of their agent, although they may suffer in consequence of these acts. If he commits forgery they may lose money thereby, but no one would think of calling them forgers. The sin of a parent may be visited upon his children to the third or fourth generation, but in their case it is neither punishment nor guilt, but only misfortune. When Professor Lawrence, therefore, says, that “we are guilty for the sinfulness with which we are born, because it is really ours,” he utters a moral absurdity, and strikes at the root of all moral distinctions. He says, “The sinfulness with which we are born is really ours;” but in what sense ours? Only as any congenital disease may be called ours. If a man is born with a tendency to consumption, blindness, lameness, he may say, “my lameness, my near-sightedness.” But no one would suppose that he meant thereby to hold himself responsible [pg 169] for them, or to consider himself guilty because of them. It is absurd to speak of “corporate guilt.” The corporate guilt, for example, of the stockholders of a bank, because of the crime of an absconding teller!

The natural objection to this illustration of a corporation is, that those who enter into a corporation do it by a free act, and make themselves voluntarily responsible. But we did not consent that Adam should be our agent. We did not agree that if Adam should commit a single act of disobedience we should be born totally depraved, and liable to everlasting torments in consequence. Professor Lawrence replies, that it would have been impossible for God to ask our consent, and therefore, apparently he supposes that God took for granted that we would consent. This seems to be no answer to the objection. If it was impossible for God to obtain our consent, before we were born, to incur this awful danger, he was not compelled to expose us to it. It is an insult to the justice of the Almighty to assume that he could have done so.

Third. Professor Lawrence does not think it correct to say that “sin is a nature.” But why not, if it be a universal and constant element, an original and permanent state of the soul? To say that human nature is sinful, but deny that sin is a nature, seems to be making a distinction without a difference. It is a disposition to sin born with the child. Now, say what we will, such a disposition to sin thus born with us is not guilt but misfortune. A just God will not hold us responsible for it, but will hold himself responsible to help us out of it. As a faithful Creator, he is bound to do so, and will do so.

It is common for theologians to deny all such assertions as these last. They hold it irreverent to say that God owes anything to his creatures. They accumulate responsibility upon man, but deny responsibility to God. But in doing this they take from the Almighty all moral character. Calvinism, especially, makes of the Deity infinite power and [pg 170] infinite will. But no blasphemy is worse than that which, though with the best intentions, virtually destroys the moral character of the Almighty, reducing him to an infinite will: that is, making of him an infinite tyrant. For the essence of tyranny is the union of power and will in a ruler, who recognizes no obligations towards his subjects.

The book of Job seems to have been written partly to refute this sort of Calvinism. The friends of Job were Calvinists in this sense. The sum of their argument was that, since God was all-powerful, therefore whatever he did must be right; and, since he punished Job, Job must be a sinner, and ought to confess his sin whether he saw it or not. This has been, in all ages, the substance of Calvinism—Jewish Calvinism, Mohammedan Calvinism, Christian Calvinism. It declares that we are bound to submit to God, not because he is good, but because he is powerful. But the answer of Job to his friends is a rebuke to the same spirit wherever shown. He asks them “if they will speak with unfairness for God,” and “speak deceitfully for him,” and “accept his person.” He declares that if he could find God he would go before his throne and defend his own cause. “Would he contend with me with his mighty power? No! he would have regard unto me.”

This is the sin of Calvinism, that it “accepts the person of the Almighty,” assuming that he has a right to do as he pleases with his creatures, and that they have no rights which he is bound to respect, except that of being punished. Thus it destroys the moral character of the Almighty.

Fourth. Professor Lawrence says, “It is the general belief of the Old School that those who die in infancy before actual transgression, are renewed and saved by the blood of Christ.”

The power of infancy is wonderful. It can even break down the logic of Calvinism. Wordsworth was right in calling the infant—

“Mighty prophet! Seer blest!

On whom those truths do rest

Which we are toiling all our lives to find.”

Every kind of theology, however savage and bitter it may be against adult sinners, sending them into an eternal hell without the least hesitation or remorse, hesitates and stammers when it comes to speak of little children. Even the idolatrous Jews, sacrificing their children to Moloch in the valley of Hinnom, beat drums to drown their cries, which they could not bear to hear. Both schools of theology, Old and New, hasten to say that infants are not to be damned. But why not, if they are born with a depraved nature, and die without being converted? Both the great schools of Presbyterian theology hold to the doctrine of the Assembly's Catechism, which declares (chap. 6, § 6), that “every sin, both original and actual, being a transgression of the righteous law of God, and contrary thereunto, doth, in its own nature, bring guilt upon the sinner, whereby he is bound over to the wrath of God.” Therefore the infant who dies before he has exercised repentance and faith in Christ, is under the wrath of God. Orthodoxy does not allow of repentance in the other life: how, then, can infants be saved according to Orthodoxy? Professor Lawrence can only reply, that it is a general belief that they will be saved. The Catechism declares, less decidedly, that “elect infants” will be saved. Dr. Whedon (Bibliotheca Sacra, April, 1862), on behalf of the Methodists, says, “That the dying infant is saved, and saved by the atonement, all agree.” But how he is saved, or what reason they have to think him saved, except their wish to believe it, no one can tell. Death, in fact, becomes to the infant a saving sacrament. As long as he lives he is believed unregenerate and unconverted. As soon as he dies he is considered ready for heaven. But he cannot be ready for heaven until he is regenerate; and after death there is no such thing as obtaining a new heart, and no [pg 172] opportunity for repentance. Logically, therefore, the infant is converted by the mere act of dying. We presume that no Orthodox theologians would assert this; and yet we really do not see how they can avoid the conclusion.

But why is it any worse for children to be damned in consequence of Adam's sin than for adults to be damned? Orthodoxy assures us that in consequence of Adam's sin we are born depraved. Dr. Duffield, stating and defending the doctrines of the New School Presbyterian Church (Bibliotheca Sacra, July, 1863), says that Adam subjected his posterity to such a loss that they are born without any righteousness, are exposed to the consequences of his transgression, and all become sinners as soon as they are capable of it. He quotes with approbation from a protest of the New School minority, in the General Assembly of 1837 (which he calls a document of great historic value), an assertion that “by reason of the sin of Adam, the race are treated as if they had sinned;” and from another document of the same school which says, that “we are all born with a tendency to sin, which makes it morally certain that we shall do so.” Now, we do not see why it is any worse to send infants to hell because of this depraved nature, than to send grown persons there who have sinned in consequence of possessing such a depraved nature. If it be said that adults have had an opportunity to repent, and have not accepted it, we reply, that to the mass of mankind no such opportunity is offered; that, where it is offered, no one has the power to accept it, except he be one of the elect; and that at all events, since infants are sure to be saved, and a very large proportion of adults are very likely to be lost, death in infancy is the most desirable thing possible. According to this doctrine, child-murder becomes almost a virtue.

The radical difficulty in all these theories consists in refusing to apply to God the same rules of justice which we apply to man. To do so implies no irreverence, but the highest [pg 173] reverence. There is nothing more honorable to the Almighty than to believe him to be actuated by the same great principles of right which he has written in our conscience and heart. Those laws of eternal justice, so deeply engraven on the fleshly tables of the heart, are a revelation of the character of God himself. If we think to honor him by rejecting these intuitions of the reason, and by substituting for this divine idea of a God of justice that of a being of arbitrary will, who is under no obligations to his creatures, we deeply dishonor the Almighty and fatally injure our own character. From this perverted view of God comes a cynical view of man. When we make will supreme in God, we legitimate all tyranny and contempt from man to man. Then comes the state of things described by Shakespeare:—

“Force should be right, or, rather, right and wrong

(Between whose endless jar justice resides)

Should lose their names, and so should justice too.

Then everything includes itself in power,

Power into will, will into appetite;

And appetite, a universal wolf,

So doubly seconded with will and power,

Must make perforce a universal prey,

And, last, eat up himself.”

Shakespeare, Troilus and Cressida.

[pg 174]

Chapter VII. Conversion And Regeneration.

§ 1. Orthodoxy recognizes only two Conditions in which Man can be found.

Orthodoxy knows only two states in which man can be found. Man is either in the natural state, and then he is totally depraved; or he is in the supernatural state, in which the chain of sin has been broken. He is either impenitent or penitent, either unregenerated or regenerate, unconverted or converted, a sinner or a saint.

There is no gradation, no shading off, no twilight between this midnight gloom and midday splendor. To the common eye, and in the judgment of their friends and neighbors, the people who enter a church seem of all degrees of goodness; and every one has good and bad qualities mixed up together in his character. But, as the Orthodox minister looks at them from the pulpit, they instantly fall into two classes, and become “my impenitent hearers,” and “my penitent hearers.”

Moreover, it is assumed that the distinction between these two classes is so marked and plain, that it can be recognized by any one who will. Orthodox people inquire, “Is he pious?” just as they would ask, “Is he married?”

Again, the change from one state to the other is assumed to be so distinct and marked, that he who runs can read. One may say to another, “Where were you converted?” just as they may say, “Where did you go to college?” “Where were you born?” said an English bishop to Summerfield, the Methodist preacher. “In Dublin and Liverpool,” he answered. “Were you born in two places?” said the bishop. [pg 175] “ ‘Art thou a master in Israel, and knowest not these things?’ ” replied Summerfield.

On the other hand, it is quite common among Liberal Christians to doubt the reality, or deny the importance, of such changes altogether. With them the Christian life consists, not in change, but in progress. In the Christian source, Orthodoxy lays the main stress on the commencement; Liberal Christianity, on the progress. The one wishes you to begin the journey, without seeming to care whether you go forward: the other urges you to go forward, without inquiring whether you have begun to go. According to one, Christianity is nothing but a crisis; according to the other, nothing but a development.

§ 2. Crisis and Development.

Is there any truth in this Orthodox view of man? anything essential, substantial, vital? And is there any formal error? If there is, what is it? Is Christianity crisis or development, or both?

Common sense and the analogies of common life must answer, “Both.” If Christianity is a life, it must begin with a birth; if a journey, it cannot be taken except we set out; if an education, we must determine to commence the education; if labor in God's vineyard, we must go into the vineyard, and begin. There are only two classes—those who are alive, and those who are not alive; those who are taking the journey, and those who have not yet set out; those who are studying, and those who have not yet begun to study; those who are at work for God, and those who are standing idle. The distinction into two classes seems, therefore, substantial and real. It does not follow, to be sure, that these two classes can be distinguished so easily by the eye of man; but they certainly can be by the eye of God. Nor does this primary distinction interfere with other distinctions and many degrees of difference—greater or less differences and degrees of progress, usefulness, goodness. Nor does it follow that those who are now on the right side [pg 176] may not change again to the wrong, and again to the right. There may be conversion, and re-conversion; but that, at any moment, every person must be either endeavoring to do right, or not so endeavoring, is evident. This view is confirmed by the New Testament: “No man can serve two masters.”

That in the religious life there should be both crisis and development, accords with the analogies of nature. The seed lies in the ground in a dormant state, perhaps for a long period. After a time comes a crisis; thrills of life vibrate through it; the germ is stirred; it sends its roots downward; its stalk pierces the mould, moving upward into light and air. After this great change, there comes a period of progress and development. The plant grows; its roots multiply; its stalk ascends, and divides into leaves. Then there comes a second crisis. The plant blossoms. In the course of a few hours, after weeks of growth, the bud bursts into beautiful petals, surrounding the delicate stamens and precious pistil. Then there comes a second long period of slow development. The petals fall, and the fruit slowly swells through many weeks of growth. At last there comes a day when the fruit is ripe. Yesterday it was not ripe; to-day it is. This is the third crisis. And so, in human life, long periods of development terminate in critical hours—the seeds of another long growth. So it is in other things; so also in religion.

§ 3. Nature of the Change.

The next position of Orthodoxy is, that man, in the second or regenerate state, is a new creature. It asserts the change to be entire and radical, and the difference immense. Not only the whole direction of the life is changed, but the motive power is different, and the spirit different. Instead of ambition, there is content; in the place of sensitive vanity, there comes humility; instead of anxiety, trust in God. The burden of sin is taken away; the sense of our unworthiness no longer torments us: [pg 177] for God has forgiven our sins. Duty no longer seems arduous and difficult; for there is joy in doing anything for the sake of God. The law is written in the heart. We are born into a new life, the principle of which is faith. “The life I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God.” This faith enables us to see God as he is, not as a stern King, or a distant Power, or an abstract Law, but as a Friend, Father, watchful Providence, surrounding Love, inflowing Life; Source from which we are always coming, and towards which we are always tending. This life of faith makes all things new. Old things have passed away, and the outward world is fresh as on the first morning of creation. Our inward and outward life are both new. We have new convictions, new affections, new aims, new hopes, new joys. Nature is new, life is new, the Bible is new, the future world is new. Such and so great is the change which Orthodoxy assumes as the result of conversion.

§ 4. Its Reality and Importance.

And the experience of the whole Church, the biographies of the saints in every denomination, assure us of the substantial truth of this description. Even in churches which are not Orthodox,—churches like our own, which insist more upon development than upon crisis,—observation verifies this description. Even those who do not expect such a change, nor believe in it, often come to it unexpectedly. In the course of each one's experience as a Christian minister, though he may never have insisted on the importance of sudden changes, and though he may be no revival preacher, he must have known numerous instances of those who seem to have passed from death to life in the course of a day or an hour. And is not this change, either sudden or gradual, that which makes Christianity a gospel? It is the good news, not of a future and distant heaven, but of a present heaven,—a heaven not outward, but inward; a present salvation from the power of sin; a present relief from the sense of guilt; a present joy [pg 178] and peace in believing; happiness in serving God; sympathy and good-will to man, instead of envy and uncharitableness; peace with God, with man, with ourselves, with our condition and circumstances.

That such a state is possible for every human being who desires it, is the good news which Christ brings; and the experience of ten thousand times ten thousand grateful hearts declares that it is a reality.

§ 5. Is it the Work of God, or of the Man himself? Orthodox Difficulty.

But now comes a difficulty in the Orthodox statement. Orthodoxy declares that this regenerate state is the result of faith, not of works; and that faith is the gift of God; and herein Orthodoxy follows the Scripture. Yet Orthodoxy calls upon us to repent and be converted, that our sins may be blotted out; and herein likewise Orthodoxy follows the Scripture. Is, then, conversion an experience, or is it an action? Is it something God gives, or something which he commands? Is it a duty to be done, or a gift to be received? Is it submission to his will, or joy in his love? a new life of obedience, or a new heart of faith? If it is submission, then we can all change our hearts at once, and make ourselves love God and love man. But who can love by an effort of the will? Yet, if the new life is a gift, then we have no power to procure it, and can only wait till God sees fit to send it; and how, then, can we be called upon to be converted?

Here is a difficulty which it seems to us Orthodoxy does not solve; and yet we think that a solution is to be found in a very simple distinction, which, like all other true and real distinctions, throws light on many other difficulties.

§ 6. Solved by the Distinction between Conversion and Regeneration.

The distinction of which we speak is between repentance or conversion on the one side, and regeneration or a new life on the other side. Repentance or conversion consists in renouncing all sin, and resolving to forsake it; [pg 179] in turning to God, with the purpose of submitting to his will and obeying his law. This conversion or repentance is an act proceeding from the will, and in obedience to the conscience. This is what God commands, and what we can and ought to do. Every conscientious person, every person who is endeavoring to do right and is ready to act up to his light, is a converted person. Every one who hates his sins, resists temptation, watches and prays against it, is a penitent person. This is the great, broad distinction between man and man. This divides all men into two classes—those who, in their will and purpose, are for God, truth, and right; and those who, because they are not for God, are really against him.

But, besides this broad distinction, there is another secondary distinction—a distinction among those who are conscientiously endeavoring to do God's will. Among the converted there are two classes—the regenerate and the unregenerate. A man may be converted, and not be regenerate; for a man may repent of his sin and turn towards God, and yet not have the life of love and joy which we have described.

He is under law, not under grace. He is struggling to do right, but is not borne forward on a joyful tide-wave of love.

§ 7. Men may be divided, religiously, into three Classes, not two.

If this be so, we may divide men into three classes, and not into two. The first class is of those who are neither converted nor regenerate; the second, who are converted, but not regenerate; the third, who are converted, and also regenerate. The first are like the prodigal in the parable,—living without God; the second, like the hired servants in the same story,—serving God for wages; the third are sons, serving from love, ever with their Father, and all that he has is theirs. The motive of the first class is selfish will, selfish pleasure; the motive of the second is duty; that of the third, love. The first are without law, the second under law, the third under grace. And so we might multiply [pg 180] distinctions. But is it not clear to common observation, that this threefold classification meets the facts of life better than the other? There are three degrees of character. There is the worldly man, who is just as good or bad as society around him leads him to be; whose virtues result merely from a happy organization, or fortunate influences, but who has no principle of goodness, no purpose of righteousness, no serious aim in life. Then there is the conscientious man, who means to live, and does live, by a standard of morality; who has a serious aim, but who is not yet deeply and joyfully religious; whose religion, at any rate, is hard work, not confiding, child-like faith. And then there is the Christian believer, who has begun to live from faith; who begins to feel a higher life pouring into his heart from on high; who has help and strength from above. From his heart the burden has been lifted, and he has become again as a little child. He knows how to pray the prayer of faith. He may not be so very much better than the other in outward character; but he has the principle within him which will make all things new, sooner or later.

The New Testament confirms this view of a threefold division. We saw, in our last chapter, that the apostle Paul, who considers human nature to consist of three elements,—spirit, soul, and body,—divides mankind into the carnal man, the natural (psychical or soulish) man, and the spiritual man. The carnal man is he in whom the bodily instincts and appetites are supreme. “He is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be.” The natural man is he in whom the soul is supreme: he is neither carnal on one side, nor spiritual on the other. “He cannot receive the things of the Spirit of God;” yet he is not in opposition and hostility to them, like the carnal man, whose mind is enmity against God.

Still more plainly does the apostle indicate the distinction when speaking of those who are without law, those who are [pg 181] under law, and those who are free from law and above it. The first state he describes in such words as these: “I was alive without the law once”—the glad, natural life and freedom before conscience is developed. But conscience does awake in all: “The commandment came, sin revived, and I died.” When man sees that he ought to serve God, yet continues to serve the flesh and the world, he is spoken of as dead in sin; for all the principle of progress ceases. But if he does endeavor to do right, then Paul speaks of him as under law, and on his way to a higher state. That higher state he speaks of as being “delivered from the law, to serve in newness of spirit, and not in oldness of letter.”

Thus we see that all religious experiences coincide. The experience of the apostle Paul is exactly the same, in its essentials, with that of every soul, however humble, that begins and goes forward in the Christian life.

If this distinction between conversion and regeneration be correct, it removes the difficulty in the Orthodox statement.

§ 8. Difference between Conversion and Regeneration.

Conversion is an act, regeneration an experience. “Turn ye, turn ye; for why will ye die?” is the command of the Old Testament. “Repent, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out;” “Repent, and be baptized, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost,” is the command of the New Testament. It is a duty to repent; but to become regenerate is not a duty: that is a gift, to be received afterwards. God commands conversion: he bestows regeneration. Submission is an act of our own: faith is the gift of God. A change of outward life and conduct we can accomplish ourselves; at least, we can endeavor to accomplish it; but the change of heart God himself will bestow.

Conversion, a turning round, is necessarily instantaneous: it is a change. But regeneration, or reception of divine Love, is a state, not sudden, but passing by gradations into a deeper and deeper life of faith and joy.

So, too, conversion may be repeated: we may often find that we have again turned round, and are going the wrong way. But the inflow of life, when begun, cannot be begun again. When God has touched the heart with his love, it is forever lifted by that divine experience beyond the region of mere law. We can never forget it. These are the:

“Truths which wake

To perish never;

Which neither listlessness nor mad endeavor,

Nor man nor boy,

Nor aught that is at enmity with joy,

Can utterly abolish or destroy.”

And herein lies the basis of the truth in the doctrine of the “perseverance of saints.”

§ 9. Unsatisfactory Attitude of the Orthodox Church.

We cannot but think the attitude of Orthodoxy towards this part of Christianity to be singularly unsatisfactory and inefficient. The work of the Church, all admit, is to convert the world to God, and so save it from the power and evil of sin. But if this is a work which the Church has to do, it ought surely to have some fixed method or rule by which to act. It should not be a matter of accident whether it can do its work or not. It should not be in doubt, every day, as to the success to come from its efforts. If its work is to make men Christians, it ought to know how to do it, be able to do it, and know when it is done. Such is the case with all other work. If a man is to build a house, he does not bring together his materials, hire his carpenters and masons, and, when all are on the ground, sit down with them, and wait for some emotion or interior change by which they will be enabled to go on and do their work. If we are mechanics, merchants, lawyers, physicians, teachers, we do not wait for a revival before we can properly fulfil our engagements. It is only in the work of converting the world to God—the greatest and most important of all—that such a strange system is adopted. We are told to put ourselves in the [pg 183] proper place, namely, the Church; collect our materials, that is, the means of grace; and then we are to wait until, somehow or other, we may be able to get religion. Religion is made a spasm, a struggle, an agony—not a regular work, not a steady growth. Everything about it is uncertain and tentative. No one knows when he will become a Christian, but hopes, some time or other, that he shall be made one. The common thought, produced by the common Orthodox system of preaching, was expressed once in a public meeting by Henry Clay. “I am not,” he said, “a Christian. I am sorry I am not. I wish I were. I hope that, some day, I shall be.” He did not mean by this to say that he was an unbeliever; but he had adopted the helpless, passive system by which he was taught that he had nothing to do but wait till some great change should take place in his soul.

Out of this way of thought comes the revival system, which is a curious blending of machinery and expectation, of adroit and careful management with reliance on some great inspiration. Crisis and development are to be expected, no doubt; but we do not set a trap to catch the Spring. It is ours to plant and to water, but it is God's to give the increase. That, therefore, should be left to him.

The revival system is Arminianism grafted on Calvinism. It is an attempt to unite the belief that man is wholly passive in conversion, and is not able to prepare himself thereunto, with the opposite doctrine that by a use of means he can become a Christian. It is an attempt to unite the Calvinistic article that God, when he chooses, calls those he has predestined to eternal life, with the attempt to make him choose our time and way. Such a system, disjointed at its centre, must necessarily work badly, and result in an alternation of feverish heats and aguish chills. To carry on the work of the Church by revivals is as unreasonable as it would be to carry on a school, or a cotton factory, by a revival system—alternations of violent study and work, followed by relapses into indolence and sloth.

The Church of Rome has a great advantage over Protestant Orthodoxy in this respect. It, too, admits revivals, and has its periods of extraordinary attention to religion. But there is this great difference. It does not depend on them for creating Christianity in the soul; it uses them only for increasing its warmth and power. In the Roman Church every baptized person is a Christian so long as he does not continue in mortal sin, but by the regular use of the sacraments preserves his Christian life. The essential work of the Church is done by its regular methods—by baptism, confession, and its ritual service. In the Church of Rome, all connected with it are Christians, and in the way of salvation. In Protestant Orthodox churches, if any of those born and brought up in it are Christians, it is, so far as they are concerned, a happy accident.

All this shows something wrong in the common theory of conversion. Every one in a Christian community who desires to be a Christian ought to be able to become one. Christianity is a gospel, because it opens the kingdom of heaven to all. The call of the Church at the beginning was to follow Christ. Any one who was willing to follow Christ was baptized at once, and became a Christian. No one waited till he should experience some remarkable interior change, or some influence of the Holy Ghost. The promise at first was, that whosoever became a Christian should receive the Holy Ghost afterwards. Spiritual influences were not the condition of Christianity, but the result of Christianity.

One bad consequence of the Orthodox idea is discouragement on the one side, and spiritual pride on the other. Those who are not converted are discouraged, and deprived of the comforts of Christian faith. Those who think they have been converted are satisfied with this past experience, and believe themselves Christians on the strength of it. Because some spiritual commotion took place in their souls at a certain time and place, they consider themselves children [pg 185] of God and heirs of his favor, though in their daily lives they may show little proof of practical Christianity. And the result of this, again, is a professed distrust, by the majority of sensible men, of such conversions. Men of the world do not find that professed Christians are better than themselves. Often, indeed, church members are not so just, honest, manly, or truthful as those who make no claim to religion. And the reason is simply this—that they have been taught to believe that the essence of Christianity does not consist in righteousness, but in certain religious experiences.

§ 10. The Essential Thing for Man is to repent and be converted; that is, to make it his Purpose to obey God in all Things.

As far as man is concerned, repentance is the one thing needful. But by repentance we do not mean sorrow or contrition, but simply turning round whenever we are going wrong, and beginning at once to go right. This is something in every man's power, and this makes him a Christian; this gives him a claim to all the promises and hopes of the gospel here and hereafter. It would seem that there need be no doubt as to the nature of repentance while the parable of the prodigal son stands in the Bible. That divine story gives us the whole theory of repentance and regeneration—repentance being that which comes from man, regeneration that which is given by God. When the prodigal son was aware of his sin and sorrow, and said, “I will arise, and go to my father;” and when he arose, and went to his father, and confessed his sin and need, then he had repented. It was simply going to his father with the purpose of obedience. And when the father received him, not with reproach, but with pardon and joy, then he was born again, introduced into a new life, into the peace, and love, and freedom of his own home.

“One thing is needful,” said Jesus; that is, to sit at the feet of the Master, to follow him, to become his disciple. [pg 186] That is all we have to do; then we are safe. We can trust God to do his part if we do ours. He will give us his Holy Spirit; he will give us a new heart; he will put his peace and strength into our souls. It is not necessary to be anxious, or to be inspecting our feelings to see if we are feeling right. All such introspection is unnecessary if we have faith in God and his promises. We are Christians just as long as we are obeying God and following Christ. When we find ourselves disobedient, selfish, going wrong, then the one thing needful is to repent and be converted. We are to come back to our duty.

The general impression in Orthodox churches, resulting from the preaching, is, that not much is gained by doing one's duty unless one is regenerate. Doing our duty does not make us Christians, does not save the soul; so, why be particular in doing more than others, or being better than others? Orthodox congregations believe in the new life, but not in obedience as its necessary antecedent.

Unitarians, on the other hand, believe in obedience, but have little faith in a higher life as attainable here. Hence a Unitarian congregation usually consists of intelligent, virtuous, well-meaning people, but destitute of enthusiasm, and with little confidence in the new birth or religious life.

Unitarians believe in obedience as the one thing needful; and in this they are right. But they are wrong in not expecting the influences which God is always ready to give, which change the heart, and fill it with a peace passing understanding, which make duties easy, which fill life with joy, and take the sting from death. The Orthodox believe in all these higher emotions and states of the soul, but unfortunately do not believe in obedience as the one thing needful. They think that some emotional transaction in the soul is the one thing needful.

§ 11. Regeneration is God's Work in the Soul. Examination of the Classical Passage, or conversation of Jesus with Nicodemus.

In the third chapter of John we have the conversation which has been made the basis of the doctrine of the new birth.

In this conversation of Jesus with Nicodemus we have the old argument, which is always being renewed, between the letter and the spirit, between knowledge and insight, between routine and genius, ceremony and inspiration, the past and the future, the goodness of habit and the holiness born out of the living vision of good. In fact this little dialogue may be considered as a renewal, on a higher plane, of the picture given us by Luke of the boy Jesus in the temple talking with the doctors.

The common doctrine of the Orthodox churches about this chapter is, that Jesus teaches here that no man can be a Christian or a good man unless he passes through some mysterious experience, usually sudden, of which he must be conscious, which gives him a certain definite series of very deep feelings. First, he must feel very deeply that he is a sinner; then that he cannot by any effort of his own become different; thirdly, that, unless God makes him different, he never can be saved; and, lastly, he must feel that God will change his heart, and save him. Having passed through this kind of experience, it is assumed that he is “born again;” that he is a Christian; that he is a new creature; that he has a new heart; that if he dies now he will go to heaven; whereas, if he had died before, he would have gone to hell. It is also Orthodox to believe that a man can do nothing himself to produce this change of heart, or facilitate it.

A very interesting book was published not long ago, written by Miss Catherine Beecher, in which she describes the sufferings caused in her own experience by this theory of regeneration. Her father fully believed in it, and thought it necessary to carry all his children through it somehow or other. Their conversions, to be sure, were not all quite in [pg 188] rule; especially that of Henry seems to have been a little abnormal, if we may trust an account given by himself in an article on the dissolution of the Bowdoin Street Church and congregation, Boston, of which his father was the first minister. The description is so suggestive that we will quote the passage:—

“If somebody will look in the old records of Hanover Street Church about 1829, they will find a name there of a boy about fifteen years old, who was brought into the Church on a sympathetic wave, and who well remembers how cold and almost paralyzed he felt while the committee questioned him about his ‘hope’ and ‘evidences,’ which upon review amounted to this—that the son of such a father ought to be a good and pious boy. Being tender-hearted and quick to respond to moral sympathy, he had been caught and inflamed in a school excitement, but was just getting over it when summoned to Boston to join the church! On the morning of the day, he went to church without seeing anything he looked at. He heard his name called from the pulpit among many others, and trembled; rose up with every emotion petrified; counted the spots on the carpet; looked piteously up at the cornice; heard the fans creak in the pews near him; felt thankful to a fly that lit on his face, as if something familiar at last had come to break an awful trance; heard faintly a reading of the articles of faith; wondered whether he should be struck dead for not feeling more—whether he should go to hell for touching the bread and wine that he did not dare to take nor to refuse; spent the morning service uncertain whether dreaming, or out of the body, or in a trance; and at last walked home crying, and wishing he knew what, now that he was a Christian, he should do, and how he was to do it. Ah, well; there is a world of things in children's minds that grown-up people do not imagine, though they, too, once were young!”

Now, if his state of mind, thus described, had been at [pg 189] that time exposed and told, it would not have been thought a very sound Orthodox experience. But in reality the boy was at that very time as good a Christian for a boy as he is now for a man. But Miss Beecher, in the book referred to, tells us that when one of her other brothers was striving in prayer for this change of heart, with groans and struggles, the house was like a tomb. The poor young man was in his chamber alone, and his groans and cries were heard through the whole house. All the other members of the family staid in their own rooms in silence, until at last, by some natural reaction of feeling, there came a sense of rest and peace to his mind, which they believed to be the new birth. She also describes the way in which Dr. Payson, of Portland, tortured his little daughter, three years old, by a torture as well meant, as conscientious, and more terrible than that of the Holy Inquisition. He told his little daughter that she hated God; that she must have a change of heart, but that she could not get it for herself; and that even her prayers, until she was converted, were only making her worse. The poor little girl denied that she hated God; she said she was sure she loved him. Then the misguided father brought up all her little childish faults as a proof that she hated God; for if she loved him she would never do wrong. And so, from three years of age till she was thirteen, this poor, infatuated parent tormented this little child by keeping her on this spiritual rack—all because of a false view of the passages concerning regeneration in the Bible. And when we think of the twenty thousand pulpits which to-day are teaching in this country this same sort of belief, it is evident that it is our duty to see what the Master really meant to teach us by this passage.

Nicodemus is the type of a class of men common in all times. We have seen Nicodemus very often. He is a good man whose goodness has no life in it. His goodness is a sort of an automaton—all machinery and no soul. He is [pg 190] so thoroughly right in all he does; everything about him is so proper; he is so perfectly en règle in his own eyes,—that we sometimes wish that he might be betrayed into some impropriety, commit some not too great folly, have some escapade of rash enthusiasm. You respect him so much, you wonder why you do not love him more. It is because he is not open to influence. His goodness is so rigid, his opinions so declared, his character so pronounced, that there is no crack anywhere by which God or man can reach him. He has a whole armor of opinions all round him, and you cannot get through it. He has narrowed himself, and shut himself in, so that he feels no influence of sympathy coming from the wide ocean of humanity around, no influence of love from the deep heaven of God above. He is a sort of good rhinoceros, with a skin so thick that nothing can pierce it.

Nicodemus was such a man, and he came to Jesus with all his opinions cut and dried, ready for an argument. He begins in a very formal and precise way. “Rabbi, we know thou art a teacher come from God, for no man can do these miracles that thou doest except God be with him.” He observes all proprieties; he calls Jesus Doctor,—“Rabbi,”—but takes good care not to call him Christ. He gives his reason for thinking Jesus a teacher come from God, namely, his miracles. Not his holiness, not his inspiration, not his supreme sweetness, not that he is a channel through which God's tenderness runs down into our hearts. No; he sees no such spiritual proof as this, but a merely logical one, expressed almost in the form of a syllogism. Major proposition—“No man can work miracles without God's help.” Minor proposition—“Jesus works miracles.” Conclusion—“Therefore Jesus has God's help.”

Now, what does Jesus reply? Evidently much of the conversation has been omitted. We have only the substance of it here. “You believe in the kingdom of heaven, Nicodemus.” “Certainly.” “How do you expect to know it when you see [pg 191] it?” “By some great outward signs; something which shall shake heaven and earth; the Messiah coming in the sky, with angels.” “Nicodemus, you cannot even see the kingdom when it is here, if you look for it so; you must be born again yourself; you must be changed, and become as a little child, in order to enter the kingdom.” We remember that Peter, who was probably not half as good as Nicodemus, an impulsive soul, was nevertheless enough of a little child, in openness of heart, to see that this was the kingdom of heaven,—this teaching and life of Jesus,—and that Jesus was the Messiah.

But Nicodemus says, “No. A Gentile, a heathen, ought, no doubt, to begin at the beginning, give up all his old opinions, and be born of water by being baptized. He should begin by a recantation. I suppose that is what you mean by being born again. But I ought not, for I am a Jew, grown up in the true knowledge of God, learned from Moses and the prophets. So I need not begin my life again.”

Jesus then replies, “The form is nothing. You must be born not only of water, but of the Spirit, in order to enter the kingdom of God. You need not only to wash off all your old opinions and conduct, as the Gentiles must do; but also you must be made a little child by laying your heart open to God's Spirit, and letting it lead your thoughts into new ways, your heart into new love, and your life into new action. You must be willing to follow me, not by night only, but in the day. If they turn you out of the Sanhedrim, you must not mind that; you must find your happiness in getting good and doing good; receiving God's love into your soul, and letting it go out again. You must give yourself up to this divine influence.”

Then Nicodemus says, “How can these things be?” He wishes to see the way, to have it all marked out; to have a creed with all its articles of belief fixed; a programme of what he is to do arranged. The spirit he does not quite [pg 192] understand. Give it to him in the letter, and he can do it. He wants a map of the operations of the Holy Spirit.

“Are you a teacher of Israel, and do not know this?” replies Jesus. “The whole Old Testament is full of this inspiration; full of the Spirit of God coming and going, in a thousand ways, and not by any special rule or method; going as the wind comes and goes in the sky, we do not know whence or how.” It is well that some things cannot be arranged beforehand—well that no almanac can tell if the wind to-morrow is to be east or west, north or south.

I sit in the sweet autumn woods. I see the squirrel leap from branch to branch. I hear the woodpecker tapping the trunk with sagacious beak, watching when the sound shall indicate that a worm has hidden himself below the bark. All else is calm and still. I look up and see the white clouds drifting through the deep ocean of blue above. Then there comes a sudden shiver through the tree-tops, a sprinkling of dry leaves on the grass, a whisper, a rush of air; and now every tree is swinging its branches in the breeze.

So is every one that is born of the Spirit! God comes to us all in these uncalculated, incalculable ways. He moves our conscience by the light of loyalty and fidelity in another soul. There comes through all the land a fresh breeze of justice and right, and all at once we feel that we ought to lead better lives, more manly, more true. There comes a revival of honesty, as well as of piety. Yesterday you did not care for it; now you do. God's holy air of truth and right is sweeping through the land. We all arise and say, “No matter what our fathers consented to; no matter what we have consented to in past times; we will have no more compromises with evil and sin, no more concessions to tyranny and cruelty.” When this spirit comes to a nation, or to a community, it is as much a revival sent by God, as the reformation of Luther, or the reformation of Wesley.

Jesus means to teach us here that the Spirit of God comes [pg 193] in a great many different ways, comes unexpected and unforeseen, comes unapparent as the invisible air. So came the reformation of Luther. Luther did not mean to make a reformation, or to build a new Church.[17]

All recollect the story of the Quaker, George Fox, how he went from Church to Church, and got no good, and at last opened his soul to God, and was led by the Spirit into new and strange thoughts and purposes, and became a reformer, and founder of a denomination, unintentionally. And so the Quaker movement came—the most radical reform which ever sprang up in the Christian Church. It abolished the ministry and sacraments, baptism, and the Lord's supper. It reformed the theology of Christendom, putting the inner light above the written words. It reformed life, opposing war, oaths, slavery, and fashion. And as it came, so is it passing away, having done its work. As the breeze dies softly, and the leaves cease to glitter in the sunlight, and the red leaf on the top-most twig, far up in the sky, leaves off its airy dance, and at last hangs motionless, so the wild air which stirred in the depths of all hearts dies away in silence, and old opinions and old customs resume their places, yet all purified and changed. Only those which were so wholly dead that the wind blew them entirely away, are gone forever.

So are the changes which come in human hearts, we know not whence or how. It is a great mistake in the Church to have a stereotyped experience, to which all must conform. Procrustes only lopped the limbs to suit the measure of his bed; but these rules and moulds for the spiritual life, cut down the new man, who is made by God's Spirit, to the earthly standard of some narrow stunted experience of other times. This it is “to grieve the Spirit,” and to “quench the Spirit.” [pg 194] For God's Spirit goes everywhere, and where it goes it produces the best evidence of Christianity in sweet, holy, Christian lives. It is the wind which blows where it will, which does not run on a railroad through the sky, or stop at any particular stations in the clouds, or go by any time-table. God's Spirit comes and goes not according to any rules of ours. The publicans and sinners have it, and show it, sometimes, instead of the Scribes and Pharisees. For so the apostle declares that there are “differences of operation, but the same Spirit.”

Sometimes you see a hard man, a man of the world, who has been fighting his way through life, till he has come to rely wholly on himself, and feels like some of those rocky reefs which stand out in the sea on our New England coast, and have borne the onset of a thousand storms. Yet at last he is softened. We see it, we feel it. There is a strange softness in his tone, a gentleness in his manner, a suspicion of moisture in his eye. The good God has been moving in his heart; perhaps it was by some trial or disappointment, or the loss of some curly-headed darling, who went up to heaven, and left the doors open behind, so that the joyful music which welcomed her came down to his ears and touched his soul.

When men see that, they say, “Well, there is something in religion, after all, if it can touch such a heart as his.”

Sometimes we see a Christian who is at first all conscience, all work. Religion means to him, doing his duty. He intends to be a Christian, and wishes others to be so. But it is a piece of hard work. His Christianity reminds one of the poor woman who thought it “a chore to live.” But after a while, we see a change—very gradual, but still very certain. He is beginning to get acquainted with the gospel side of Christianity. He learns to forgive himself his own sins, and so he can forgive others. His face begins to reflect more and more of heaven. It is the change which comes to [pg 195] the grapes in October. Perhaps you have some Catawba grapes on the south side of your house, and they grow very nicely all through the summer. They are good, large grapes well formed, good clusters, but very sour. But by and by there comes the final change; the juice grows sweet within the berry. There is but a very little difference in its appearance, but a very great change within.

When we see this alteration in a man, we say, “There is surely something in Christianity to produce such a change. Why, what a very sweet Christian he has grown to be!” It took all the summer and part of the fall to do the work; but no matter. God is not in a hurry. Some fruit ripens sooner, and some later; that is all.

I looked up from my table as I wrote these words, and saw from my window a tulip tree and a maple, each dressed in its royal robes of beauty—the gift of the declining year; the green leaves of the one touched with gold, and the other with its crimson and scarlet glories. They were full of sunlight, and made the whole landscape glad and gay. No Tyrian loom could rival the purple splendors and deep crimson of these trees. Why does God give all this varied beauty to the October woods, so that Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these oaks or maples? Is not this also to touch our hearts with a sense of his love? An autumn ride is also a means of grace; quite as much so, perhaps, as a tract or sermon. If we see God in nature, then nature may also be the source of a new birth to us.

“One impulse from the autumn wood

May teach us more of man,

Of moral evil and of good,

Than all the sages can.”

What I understand Jesus, then, to teach in this passage, is, that we must become as little children, in order to see heavenly things; that, like new-born babes, we must receive meekly the milk of the word of God; that spiritual influences [pg 196] are all around us, invisible—incalculable: that not by the regular outward means of religion alone, but by a thousand other ways, God comes to us. He means that we should believe in the presence and nearness of God's Spirit always; that we should open our hearts and minds to be led by it into truth and love. He meant the very opposite of what he has been made to mean. He did not mean that all souls must pass through one and the same religions experience, but that, as the wind blows a thousand ways, so God's Spirit comes to the heart by a thousand ways. So coming, it makes the hard heart tender, the rude will gentle, the selfish soul generous, gives the reckless a new sense of responsibility. Jesus means that we should not be discouraged because we find it hard to correct our faults, or to enter into God's love. God's Spirit comes to us when we cannot go to find it. God's love comes into our hearts when we long for it, look for it, wait for it.

Look up, then, poor trembling heart; look up, and see God near. Look up, hard heart, and feel the soft showers of divine grace coming down to make everything tender. Look up, and be made new creatures, become as little children, be born anew, every day, into a fresh inspiration, faith, and hope; and so enter every day the kingdom of heaven!

§ 12. Evidences of Regeneration.

The common Orthodox method is to require and expect evidence of the Christian change. As we have already said, a Christian is expected to know and to be able to tell when, where, and under what circumstances he entered into the new life.

But, perhaps, the preliminary question is, Ought we to have, and can we have, any evidence at all of the new life? And to this question many reply in the negative, and with very good reason.

The new life is a hidden life; a “life hid with Christ in God.” Its essence is love, and love is an inward sentiment, not an outward act. Conviction demands utterance; actions [pg 197] speak louder than words; but love is accustomed to hide itself away in the heart, and to be known only to its object, and that indirectly. Evidences of love! What should we think of asking of young people coming to be married, the evidences that they loved each other; obliging them to give an account of their experience; to say when, where, and how they began first to care for each other; and then, if the evidence was satisfactory, allowing them to be married! Why, then, ask of the soul wishing to be united with God and Christ in a Christian covenant, to tear open the folded bud of this tender affection, analyze it metaphysically, measure it mathematically, and cross-examine it as a witness suspected of falsehood is questioned by lawyers before a jury?

What do we know of this new life? what can we tell of it? Almost always it comes to us gradually and unconsciously. It is veiled in shadows, misty lights, and neutral tints. The second life comes like the first. The child is born, and knows not of the awful change from not being to being—the immense event of passage from unconscious existence to conscious life. For consciousness dawns slowly, imperceptibly. The infant is long immersed in outward things. Years pass before it becomes aware of the fact that it exists, before it begins to look in and see itself in the mirror of reflection. So, probably, will it also be, when we pass from this life into the next. We shall, perhaps, awaken very gradually, in the future life, to the knowledge that we are in another state. As the little child becomes quite at home in this world before he thinks to ask how he came here, so probably in the other world we shall become quite at home with the angels, before we shall begin to say, “I am in heaven.”

All the births of time partake of this quality. They do not reflect on themselves, are not surprised at themselves, but come as a matter of course. Years after, when the early heat of the new life has grown cold, the historians and [pg 198] biographers arrive to examine it in the crucible of their painful analysis, and to tell us how wonderful it is.

How can any man prove that he is alive? Why should he prove it? Let his life show itself, but not try to prove itself. Let its light shine, and those who see its good and joy will glorify the Father in heaven who has sent it.

The mistake here, as before, is in confounding conversion and regeneration.

Including in the terms “conversion” and “repentance” the whole activity of the will, the religious purpose, the aim of life, it is, no doubt, of the utmost importance to see, continually, what it is. “Know thyself” is a heaven-descended maxim, if we understand by it that we are to watch ourselves always, and see whither we are going. We need continually to know the direction of our life, whether it is to God or from him; whether it is upward or downward; whether we are following truth, and justice, and love, or following our own selfish desires and will. In this sense self-examination is both possible and necessary.

When the great ocean steamer is in the midst of the mighty Atlantic, it is necessary to watch continually its direction, and keep it always heading the right way. Day and night, therefore, the man stands sleepless at the helm, his eye always turning from the compass to the ship's head, with unfailing vigilance. But it is not thought necessary to inspect the interior of the boilers, or to examine the quality of the fire. If steam enough is made, and the wheels revolve, that is enough.

The new life into which we enter by the new birth has this one character—that it gives us for a motive, not fear, but hope; not law, but love; not constraint, but joy. Prayer is not a duty, but the spontaneous impulse of the child, to seek and find its father. Work is not drudgery but satisfaction, when the motive is to serve the great cause of Christ. The only real evidence, therefore, that we are born of God, is, that we [pg 199] have the fruits of the Spirit, love, joy, and peace. The tree is known by its fruits, and these are the appropriate fruits of the new life. When we find them, let us gladly receive them; but if we do not find them, let us at least be glad that if not yet new-born, we are, nevertheless, converted; if not sons, at least servants. We have the one thing needful when we have the right purpose; sooner or later, we shall also have the happy life. When we do right, we sow to the Spirit, and we shall, in due season, reap life everlasting.

As regards the evidence of the new life, too much stress, we think, has been laid on outward profession, ceremonies, religious language, religious acts. Because a man professes religion, it is no evidence that he is religious. Because he partakes of the Lord's supper, or prays openly, or speaks in the habitual religious language of his sect, it is no evidence of his religious life. Many persons are quite comforted if one who has led an immoral life says on his death-bed that he “trusts in the atoning blood of Christ.” But this may be a mere word.

All ceremonies and prayers are means, but none of them are evidence, of a state. The only evidences are the fruits of the Spirit. “The tree is known by its fruits.” “The fruits of the Spirit are love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance.”

Let us remember that though a man may be converted, and not as yet be regenerate, he cannot be regenerate unless he is converted; that is, there can be no true piety, no love, no faith, no spiritual religion, except there be a sincere and determined purpose of righteousness beneath it. There may be true morality without piety, but there cannot be a true piety without a true morality. The law must precede the gospel. Conscientiousness must go before love, to prepare its way. “That is not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural, and afterwards that which is spiritual.”

The first question, therefore, to ask ourselves, is not, “Do [pg 200] I love God?” but, “Do I obey God?” Every man's own soul, if sincere, can answer that question. “If our heart condemn us, God is greater than our heart.” “If our heart condemn us not, then have we confidence towards God.”

But if we are obeying God, then let us believe in a higher life which God has to bestow, and believing, seek for it. It is not earned, it is not a reward, it is not by works; but it is very nigh and close at hand; it is ready to be given to those who believe in it and look for it.

So, if the question be asked, “Is man active or passive in this process?” the answer is, that he is active in conversion, receptive in regeneration.

So in regard to faith and works. “We are justified by faith;” but justification is the sense of God's forgiving love which is received into an open heart. Justification is not salvation; it is only a step in that direction, and a preparation for it.

And now we ask, “Why is it, if this new life is a gift, do not all good men receive it?” The answer is, “There are conditions. All good men do not believe in it. Some believe that duty is every thing; that Christianity consists wholly in obedience. They know nothing higher, and therefore seek for nothing higher. Regeneration they hear of, but think it something mystical, miraculous, unnatural, and, to say the truth, not very attractive. If they believed in a life of love and trust, a life free from the burden of anxiety, they would surely desire it.”

Those also who believe in it do not always believe it is for themselves. They think it not meant for common people in the midst of common life, but for some special saintship. They do not believe in this divine life flowing into every heart and soul, high and low, wise and ignorant, be it only sincere, honest, and believing.

Yet it is like the life of nature, which in the abounding [pg 201] spring-time comes down from the skies, and flows not only into the majestic tree, swelling at once its myriad buds, but also into every seed, and root, and weed, awakening them all.

This is what we need for peace, for real progress, for present comfort, for future joy.

It is communion with God, it is receiving his love, it is accepting his forgiveness, and living day by day as his beloved children.

Chapter VIII. The Orthodox Idea Of The Son Of God.

§ 1. Orthodox Doctrine stated.

Having considered the Orthodox idea of man in his natural state, and of man in his supernatural state, we next pass to consider the Orthodox idea of Christ's person and of Christ's work. In this chapter we shall consider the Orthodox view of the person of Christ, and ask what is its substantial truth, and what its formal error.

The Orthodox opinion concerning Christ is thus stated in the Assembly's Confession of Faith: “The Son of God, the second person in the Trinity, being very and eternal God, of one substance and equal with the Father, did, when the fulness of time was come, take upon him man's nature, with all the essential properties and common infirmities thereof, yet without sin; so that two whole, perfect, and distinct natures—the Godhead and the Manhood—were inseparably joined together in one person, which person is very God and very Man.”

Christ, therefore, was perfectly God and perfectly man. The formula is, “two natures, but one person.” The Orthodox doctrine is not of God dwelling in a human body as its soul (which seems to be the view of Swedenborg), but it is of God united with a human soul and body as one person or one consciousness.

§ 2. This Doctrine gradually developed.

This idea of Christ, as we know, was gradually formed in the Christian Church, and did not become Orthodox until after many struggles. First came the question whether the Deity of Christ [pg 203] was equal or subordinate to that of the Father. Hardly had the Orthodox doctrine triumphed over that of subordination, against those who denied the equal Deity, than it was obliged to turn round and contend against those on the other side, who denied the humanity of Christ altogether. The Ebionites considered Jesus as a mere man. Theodotus, in the year 200, taught the same, with Artemon and Praxeas. In the next century the Arians and Sabellians opposed Orthodoxy from opposite sides,—the one confounding the persons of the Godhead, and the other dividing the substance. So for several centuries the pendulum of opinion swung from one side to the other before it rested in the golden mean of Orthodoxy.

The Nestorians separated the two natures of Christ, and maintained that his Divinity consisted only in the indwelling of God. But scarcely had Nestorius been banished for separating the two natures than Eutyches plunged into heresy on the other side, by confounding them together. This was the Monophysite heresy; and no sooner was this overthrown, and it was decided to be wrong to say that Christ had only one nature, than others began to contend that he had only one will. These were the Monothelites. But through all these controversies, the main doctrine of Orthodoxy continues to shine out luminous and distinct, asserting that Christ combines the fulness of Deity and the fulness of Humanity.

§ 3. Unitarian Objections.

As this view of the Deity of Christ has been stated, it seems, in its doctrinal form, contradictory to Scripture as well as to reason. That the infinite God, who fills the universe, and sustains it; present in the smallest insect; present in the most distant nebula, whose light just arriving at our eye has been a million of years on its journey,—that this infinite Being should have been born in Palestine, seems to confute itself by its very statement. Who took care of the universe when God was [pg 204] an infant in the arms of the Virgin Mary? Jesus was born, and died; but God cannot be born, and cannot die. Jesus suffered from hunger, fatigue, and pain; but God cannot suffer. Jesus was seen by human eyes, and touched by human hands; but no man hath seen God at any time. Jesus had a finite body; but God is Spirit. Jesus was tempted; but God cannot be tempted with evil. Jesus prayed; but God cannot pray. Jesus said, “My Father is greater than I;” but God has no one greater than himself. Jesus said, “I can of mine own self do nothing;” but God can of his own self do everything. Jesus said “that he came down from heaven not to do his own will;” but God always does his own will. Jesus said that there were some things he did not know; but God knows everything. He declared that all power was given to him in heaven and earth; but God's power cannot be given to him. Scripture, therefore, as well as common sense, seems to deny the Orthodox doctrine of the Deity of Christ.

The common Trinitarian answer to these texts is, that Christ is speaking in his human nature when he asserts these limitations. But this answer, as Dr. Bushnell has well shown, is no answer; for, as he says, “it not only does an affront to the plain language of Scripture, but virtually denies any real unity between the human and the divine.” Jesus does not say, “All power in heaven and earth is given to my human nature,” but “to me;” and when the Trinitarian himself declares that in Christ, with two natures, there is but one person, the question is concerning that one person, whether that is finite or infinite, absolute or dependent, omniscient or not so, omnipresent or not so, omnipotent or not so. The question does not concern his nature, but himself. The one person must be either finite or infinite: it cannot be both.

§ 4. Substantial Truth in this Doctrine.

But now we ask, What substantial truth underlies this formal error? What truth of life underlies this error of doctrine? [pg 205] Let us remember how empty the world was of God at the time of Christ's coming. The wisest men could speak thus with Pliny: “All religion is the offspring of necessity, weakness, and fear. What God is,—if in truth he be anything distinct from the world,—it is beyond the power of man's understanding to know.” All intelligent men agreed that if God existed he could not possibly take any interest in the affairs of the world or of individuals. Phariseeism on the one hand, and Sadduceeism on the other,—a religion hardened into forms, and an empty scepticism, cold and dead,—divided the world between them. But men cannot live without God, and be satisfied. They were feeling after him, if haply they might find him, who is not far from any one of us.

Then Christ came; and in all that he said and did, he spoke from the knowledge of God; he acted from the life of God. Here was one, then, at last, to whom God was not an opinion, but a reality; through whose life flowed the life of God in a steady current. We see that all sincere souls who came near Jesus received from him the same sight of God which he possessed; for faith in a living and present God is so congenial to the nature of man, that it carries conviction with it wherever it is not a mere opinion, but a state of the soul.

Those, therefore, who could find God nowhere else, found him in Christ. Those who saw him, saw the Father. As when through a window we behold the heavens, as when in a mirror we see an image of the sun, we do not speak of the window or the mirror, but say that we see the sun and the heavens, so those who looked at Christ said that they saw God.

The apostle said that God was in Christ; and this was wholly true. Christians afterwards said that Christ was God; and they thought they were only saying the same thing. They said that Christ had a divine nature as well as [pg 206] a human nature; and in this also there was no essential falsehood, for when we speak of our nature, we intend merely by it those elements of character which are original and permanent, which are not acquired, do not alter, and are never lost. God dwelt in the soul of Christ thus constantly, thus permanently. The Word thus “became flesh, and dwelt among us.” The word of the Lord came to the prophets, but it dwelt in Christ. He and his Father were one. The vital truth of all this was that men were now able to see God manifested in man as a living, present reality. “Here,” they said, “is God. We have found God. He is in Christ. We can see him there.”

Is it any wonder that men should have called Jesus God? that they should call him so still? In him truly “dwelt the fulness of the Godhead bodily;” and this indwelling Spirit expressed itself in what he said and what he did. When Jesus speaks, it is as if God speaks. When Jesus does anything, it is as if we saw God do it. It becomes to us an expression of the divine character. When Jesus says to the sinner, “Go and sin no more,” we see in this a manifestation not merely of his own compassion, but of God's forgiving love; and when he dies, although God cannot die, yet he dies according to the divine will, and thus expresses God's willingness to suffer for the redemption of the world.

§ 5. Formal Error of the Orthodox Statement.

When we look at Christ's Divinity from this point of view, the distinction between the Trinitarian and Unitarian seems almost to disappear. Still the question remains, Is it right to call him God? The distinction remains between saying, “God was in Christ,” and saying, “Christ was God.” In short, was the person of Christ human or divine? We agree with the Orthodox in saying that Christ had two natures—a divine nature and a human nature. We also maintain with them that he had one person. But the question comes, Was that one person divine or human, finite or infinite, dependent [pg 207] or absolute? The consciousness of the one person is a single consciousness. Christ could not at the same time have been conscious of knowing all things and of not knowing all things, of having all power and of not having it, of depending on God for all things and of not depending for anything. One of two things alone is possible. Either Christ was God united with a human soul, or he was a human soul united with God. When Christ uses the personal pronoun “I,” he must mean by that “I” either the finite man or the infinite God. I believe the Unitarian is right in saying that this personal pronoun “I” always refers to the finite being and consciousness, and not to the infinite Being. For example: “I am not alone, but I and the Father that sent me.” “I proceeded forth and came from God; neither came I of myself, but he sent me.” God cannot proceed from God; God cannot send God. Again: “If I honor myself, my honor is nothing; it is my Father that honoreth me.” This cannot mean, “If God honors God, his honor is nothing; but it is God that honors him.” It must mean that the human being, Christ, receives his honor from the divine Being. This view—that the person of Christ is human, but is intimately united and in perfect union with the indwelling God—makes all Scripture intelligible. Any other view is either unintelligible or contradictory. This view of the divine nature of Christ united with the human person, of God dwelling in the flesh, does not confound the mind like the common Trinitarian view, and yet has a value for the heart of paramount importance. If Christ is really a man like ourselves, made in all respects like his brethren, and yet is thus at one with God, thus full of God, it shows us that sin and separation from God are accidental things, and not anything necessary. If Jesus is truly a man, he redeems and exalts humanity. What he has been is a type of what all men may be. Thus the apostle Paul speaks when he says that all things were created in Christ, who is the beginning, [pg 208] the first-born from the dead, that he might go before us, or be our leader in all things; which is a much higher view than the common understanding of the passage, which merely supposes him to have been God's instrument in creating the physical universe. He is the image of the invisible God—the first-born of the whole creation. This creation is the new creation—that which is intended in Revelation (3:14), where Christ is spoken of as the Amen, the faithful and true Witness, the Beginning of the creation of God, and that which Paul means when he says that in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision is worth anything, “but the new creation.”

All such passages refer, as it seems to us, not to a past natural creation, but to a supernatural creation—a creation of life eternal, which, beginning in Christ, is to embrace the whole of humanity.

§ 6. Errors of Arianism and Naturalism.

And we cannot but think this doctrine far truer, as well as more Orthodox, than the Arianism which so long struggled in the Church for supremacy. That view which supposed that Christ was neither truly man nor truly God, but some high, preëxisting being between the two, appears to us to be the falsest and most unsatisfactory of all the doctrines concerning Christ's person. It separates him more entirely from our sympathies than either of the others. It destroys both his divinity and his humanity, and, by giving us something intermediate, gives us really nothing. It makes his apparent human life a delusion, his temptation unreal, his human sympathies and sorrows deceptive. We think, therefore, that the Church was right in rejecting the Arian doctrine.

We think it was also right in rejecting the Humanitarian doctrine, or that of mere Naturalism. Christ was something more than mere man,—something more than Moses and Elijah,—something more than a man of great religious genius. The peculiarity of Christ was, that he was chosen [pg 209] by God's wisdom, and prepared by God's providence, to be the typical man of the race,—the God-man, in whom the divine Spirit and human soul become one in a perfect union. He was, perhaps, placed, by an exceptional birth, where the first Adam stood,—rescued from inherited depravity, made in the image of God. Then the Spirit was given him without measure. The word of God dwelt in him, and did not merely come to him as a transient influence for a special purpose. Add to this a freely chosen aim of life, and a fidelity which was always about his Father's business, and aiming to finish the work which was given him to do, and we have a being in whom we can see either a manifestation of God or a manifestation of man. The Spirit in Christ was one with God; the soul and body were human.

Chapter IX. Justification By Faith.

§ 1. This Doctrine of Paul not obsolete.

That portion of the New Testament which speaks so earnestly of justification by faith is by many supposed to have become obsolete for all useful purposes at the present time. The doctrine that “we are justified by faith, and not by works,” it is supposed, was intended for the benefit of the Jews alone, and to amount to this—that admittance to the privileges of the gospel is to be obtained, not by practising the ceremonies and external ritual of the Jewish law, but by a simple belief in Jesus Christ. Accordingly, as no one nowadays endeavors to become a Christian by practising the Jewish ceremonies, we suppose that there is no present need of this doctrine; and when we come upon it in the Scripture, we turn over the pages in search of something more practical and profitable. As, in the book of Acts, we read, that, “when Paul was about to open his mouth, Gallio said unto the Jews, If it were a matter of wrong or wicked lewdness, O Jews, reason would that I should bear with you; but if it be a question of words and names, and of your law, look ye to it; for I will be no judge of such matters,” so we, when Paul is about to open his mouth to speak to us of this doctrine, think it a mere question of words and names, and of the Jewish law, and interrupt him to ask him for something practical. If he has anything to say to us of wrong-doing or wicked conduct, it would be reasonable to hear him; but we will be no judge of such matters as this.

There are also many persons, who, while they can understand [pg 211] the Gospels and enjoy them, find it difficult to understand and enjoy the writings of the apostle Paul. Among these writings, the most difficult is the Epistle to the Romans, and especially that part of it which treats of this doctrine of justification by faith. Anything which can be done to remove this difficulty will do good; for the writings of Paul are so intimately connected with the rest of the New Testament, that it is not easy to reject them, and yet to believe the rest. It can be done, no doubt; but it is done with difficulty. It is as if one part of the foundation of the house had given way: perhaps the house will not fall; but it has become unsafe. It is as if a part of the wall of a city had been battered down: the breach may be defensible from within; but it is also practicable from without. At all events, we miss the satisfaction of a complete faith, perfect and entire, round and full.

Besides, may there not be something important for us to know in this part of the New Testament? Are we quite sure we do not need these very doctrines, and that they will do us good?

We have said that it is sometimes thought that the questions discussed by Paul were only Jewish questions,—not human questions; that they belonged only to that time, not to all time. But, though the form which they assumed was temporary and local, there is reason to believe that the substance of the question is one belonging to human nature in every age; that it is the question of the spirit and the letter, the substance and the form, the root and the branches, the inside of religion and the outside. While contending against a particular Jewish error, the apostle unfolded principles by which similar errors may be opposed and refuted in every age.

At all events, it is a matter of fact, that there seldom has been in the Church any great religious movement which has not immediately gone back to the apostle Paul, and planted [pg 212] itself on his doctrine of justification by faith. This was the watchword of Luther, and the soul of the reformation. Luther and his companions armed themselves with this doctrine to contend against the great power of the Papacy and the Romish Church.

Let us, then, endeavor to see what we can of the truth there may be in this doctrine.

§ 2. Its Meaning and Importance.

And, first, let us see what the doctrine does not mean, and what it does mean.

To be justified by faith does not mean that we are to be saved by our opinions. To say that a man can be saved by holding certain opinions, instead of certain other opinions, is to say what is contradicted by all experience; for experience shows us that there are good men holding every variety of opinion, and bad men holding every variety of opinion. But God saves men by making them good: therefore men are not saved by their opinions. Let us suppose that men are to be saved by the opinion that Jesus is the Christ: then we ought to find that all men holding that opinion are on the way of salvation; that is, are becoming good men. But this is far from being the case. In fact, the connection between mere opinion of any kind, and goodness, is very distant and indirect. No doubt, in the long run, opinion affects character; but it is only in the long run that it does so. And, at all events, the doctrine of the New Testament is very distinct and decided, that men may hold very sound opinions, and yet not be in the way of salvation. The Scribes and Pharisees held very sound opinions; and Jesus told his disciples to do whatever they said, but not to imitate their works; for their doctrine was much better than their lives.

Nor does the apostle mean to say that one can be saved without morality. He certainly does not mean to undervalue goodness; for, in that case, he would contradict his own teachings, which uniformly declare, as all the rest of the Bible declares, that without holiness no man can see the [pg 213] Lord. It is certainly a very superficial view which is satisfied with supposing that an earnest man, as the apostle certainly was, devoting his life, as he certainly did, to the teaching of Christianity, with such a grand intellect as he certainly possessed, could assert with so much energy a doctrine plainly contradicting common sense, daily observation, the plain teachings of Jesus, and his own uniform doctrine elsewhere.

Some persons have a short method of getting over the difficulty by saying that Paul did not himself know what he meant. They assume that he was talking at random. It would be about as wise, when we open Newton's “Principia,” and cannot understand it, to say that Newton was talking at random; or, when we cannot understand Plato or some other profound metaphysician, to declare directly that he did not himself know what he was talking about. No doubt, this is the shortest and easiest way of getting out of such difficulties, but perhaps not the most modest, nor the most wise.

When an earnest man, a profound man, a man in the highest degree practical, a man who has done the greatest work for Christianity which has been done since its foundation, sums up his doctrine in a comprehensive maxim like this, it is, perhaps, wise to admit, at once, that he had a meaning, and probably an important one.

“No doubt he had a meaning,” it may be said; “but has he any meaning now? His formula meant something for the Jews; but does it mean anything for us? Is not this merely a Jewish question, with which we have nothing to do?”

This is another easy way of getting over difficulties. In reading the New Testament, when we come to a place where we are stopped by something which looks deep and is dark, we are often told, “That darkness is not depth: it is the shadow of a Jewish error which lies across the path.”

Have we not often felt dissatisfied, when, approaching some great saying of Christ and his apostles from which we hoped to gain new insight, we have been told, “That has [pg 214] nothing to do with us. The Jews had such and such an opinion, and this was meant to show them their mistake”? So the great and earnest words of the Bible, which we thought to be full of spirit and life, are found to be only fossil remains of old opinions, of opinions long since passed away—good for nothing but to be put into the museums of antiquaries, and paraded by scholastic pedants.

But, after all, take it on the lowest ground, were not the Jews men? Did they not, as a race, represent some element, common, in a less degree, to the rest of mankind? and therefore is there not in each of us something of that Jewish element? Are not we also sometimes Jews, therefore liable to Jewish errors, and needing to have them corrected? The Jews did not live in vain: their struggles, errors, hopes, were for the benefit of humanity. We were to learn something by their mistakes, and to be taught something by their experience.

Another way of treating such a passage is to translate it into some trivial, insignificant commonplace. Thus, we are told, our doctrine only means that “God does not approve a man merely for going through a routine of outward, formal ceremonies, but for a thoroughly religious life.” This explanation assumes that the apostle is here talking to simpletons, and that what he says is no more worth listening to by us than the prattle of a nurse to her infant.

There are, therefore, four ways of explaining this passage, none of which are satisfactory. These are, that Paul,—

1. Was teaching a self-evident absurdity;

2. Was teaching a self-evident truism;

3. Was teaching nothing, and only talking at random;

4. Was correcting a Jewish error, which only the Jews ever had, or are ever likely to have.

If these views are not satisfactory to us, the simplest way would seem to be, first, to endeavor to understand precisely what the Jewish error was, and then to see if there is anything like it in ourselves, and if there be anything which we [pg 215] can learn from this old argument which will be, not old, but new for our time and for all time, because a part of the tendencies of man. Let us translate these old terms—justification, faith, works—into their modern equivalents, and see what they mean for us at the present time.

We have shown that we may be mistaken in supposing this Orthodox doctrine of justification to be of merely local and temporary interest, having no permanent value. It is not likely that a man like Paul, of so large, so deep, so philosophic a mind, should have devoted himself so earnestly, and returned so fondly, to a theme involving no universal and eternal principles, whose interest was to perish with the hour. It is not probable that, in this small volume of writings of the new covenant,—this precious gift of God to the world in all ages and in every nation,—so large a portion should be devoted to a wholly temporary argument; and, more than all, it is a most remarkable fact, that whenever there arises a man uniting a deeper spirit of piety with a larger sense of liberty than other men,—a man commissioned by God to give a new religious impulse to his age, and to help Christianity to shake itself free from the cumbrous mass of human forms and traditions which have crushed it, and to go forth in its native grace and loveliness again,—some profound instinct should always lead him to this doctrine as to a weapon effectual for pulling down the strongholds of bigotry, scepticism, and spiritual death. Sir James Mackintosh somewhere says, that the great movement which shook Christendom to its centre, and did more to change and reform society than the political revolutions and wars of a thousand years, originated with an obscure Augustinian monk preaching the doctrine of justification by faith. This acute Scotchman saw, what all must see who read Luther's writings with any attention, that it was no accident, no temporal interest, which led him to lay such stress on this doctrine. It was the soul of his preaching, the essence of his doctrine, the secret of [pg 216] his strength, the life of his life. And so, when Wesley and the early Methodists were called upon to pour new religious life into the English Church, they fell back on this doctrine—this ancient sword of the Spirit. And so we may believe that it has a value for all ages; that it did not relate merely to Jewish usages, but is a principle of vital and everlasting application.

No doubt that if by faith we understand intellectual belief, or the assent to opinions, and if by works we understand true obedience, and by justification final salvation or actual goodness, there can scarcely be a greater absurdity than to say that a man is justified by faith, and not by works. To say that goodness, in the sight of God, consists in receiving certain opinions, rather than in true obedience, is a most unscriptural and irrational doctrine.

But none of the great reformers of whom I have spoken, and no profound theologians of any sect or school, have ever held the doctrines of justification by faith in this way. Neither Luther nor Wesley ever made faith synonymous with intellectual belief or opinion. “What is faith?” said Wesley. “Not an opinion, nor any number of opinions put together, be they ever so true. A string of opinions is no more Christian faith than a string of beads is Christian holiness. It is not an assent to any opinion, or any number of opinions. A man may assent to three or three and twenty creeds, he may assent to all the Old and New Testament, and yet have no Christian faith at all.”

But what is the true doctrine of justification by faith, as taught in the Scriptures, and as inspiring these great reformers? This is naturally our next inquiry.

§ 3. Need of Justification for the Conscience.

There is nothing in the nature of man more paradoxical than conscience. It is that which lifts him to God; and yet it is that which makes him capable of sin, and without which he could not be a sinner. It gives him the sense of right, but [pg 217] at the same time makes him conscious of wrong. It makes him capable of duty, but thereby also capable of disobedience. It shows us what we ought to do, without giving us the least strength wherewith to do it. It condemns us for not doing right, even when we have no power to do anything but what is wrong. It shows us a great ideal of goodness to which we ought to aspire, and discourages us by the very loftiness of the standard. It tells us in the same breath that we are sinners, and that we ought to be angels. It seems at the same time to elevate and degrade us. It elevates us by giving a great object to life, and making it serious and earnest; but it degrades us by making us constantly ashamed of ourselves, and keeping us in a perpetual state of humiliation. Now, one of the chief peculiarities of the conscience is, that beyond a certain point, the more we try to obey it, the less satisfaction we have. We know that this is not the usual theory. We are commonly told that the conscientious man is always contented and happy,—satisfied with himself, and at peace with God. But facts contradict this theory. The conscientious man is apt to be very much dissatisfied with himself,—much, more so than the man whose conscience is torpid and indifferent. There is comfort in faithful work; no doubt there is great content in the steady performance of regular duties; but here conscience is subordinate to work. It is work which gives contentment; but conscience, when thoroughly roused by the strong meat of a divine law, is the source of much self-dissatisfaction. How can it be otherwise? It shows us that we ought to love God and love man with all our heart, soul, mind, strength. Which of us does it? Do you? Do I? How large a part of our life have we given to the service of God? how large a part to the service of our neighbor? How often do we thank God for his goodness? How often do we pray to him? how often think of him? If we do not think of him, of course we do not love him.

Love makes us very thoughtful of another's wishes. When people love each other, they joy in thinking of each other; they treasure souvenirs of each other; they like to make each other presents of things they think will please; they steal an hour from daily cares or nightly rest to write letters to each other. Our heavenly Father's arms are around us all day,—his infinite bounty blessing us, his careful providence making for us home, friends, all; yet we do not think of him, or wish to do anything to please him.

Conscience tells us that our heart is hard and cold to our best Friend; and that is by no means a pleasant piece of information.

Moreover, it is evident that this condition of self-dissatisfaction is not a good one. Self-reproach may be a wholesome medicine, but it is a bad food. We cannot do our work while we are finding fault with ourselves. The man whose conscience is always tormenting him is in a morbid state. He is a spiritually sick man,—sick of too much medicine. What must be done? He is always looking at his sins, and that disqualifies him for doing his duties. What shall he do?

This question in its Jewish form is stated thus: How shall he be justified before God? If God can excuse him, he can excuse himself. How, then, can he know that God looks at him not as a sinner, but as a just man, so that he can look on himself not as a sinner, but as a just man? This is the problem. What are its solutions?

In the Jewish mind, the Jewish law had brought the conscience into an extremely irritable state. The same effect, in a less degree, is produced by the Catholic confessional.

§ 4. Reaction of Sin on the Soul.

Now, the consequences of sin are these: First, every act of sin brings after it natural evil consequences. It weakens the strength of the soul, it darkens the spiritual eye, it hardens the heart, it adds a new link to the chain of evil habit. By a result as inevitable as the law of gravitation, every act of sin pollutes, [pg 219] darkens, weakens the spiritual principle in man. “He who sows to the flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption.” We may call these results the external consequences of sin, because they change our spiritual relation and position in God's external universe. But there is another more awful and as inevitable consequence of sin. It alienates us from God himself. It turns our face from the Source of life and love. It makes us at war with him. It fills us with the sense of his displeasure, and burdens us with the consciousness of guilt. To escape the dreadful sense of his anger, we hide ourselves from him, as Adam did. It is a law of the human mind that we dread the sight of any one whom we have wronged, because it condemns us. Perhaps he may be perfectly willing to forgive us; perhaps he does not even know that we have wronged him; but we cannot bear to see him, notwithstanding. It was a profound feeling of this law which led an ancient historian to say, “He hated him because he had injured him.” Thus an active conscience, if it does not make a man better, will make him worse: to escape its torture he will plunge into new crimes. Some of the darkest crimes which stain the page of history may be traced to this source,—to the operation of a conscience strong enough to produce the sense of guilt, but not strong enough to produce the determination to reform. It is related that when the mother of Charles IX. of France and his uncles were urging the young king to consent to the execution of some of the principal Protestants to whom he was strongly attached, after a long resistance, when he at last gave way, it was with these remarkable words: “I consent, then, but only on one condition,—that you do not leave a Huguenot in France to reproach me with it.”[18] And hence the Bartholomew Massacre, which its authors had intended before only to include a few individuals. So sin takes occasion by the law, and the commandment ordained for life becomes death.

The same principle operates with respect to God. We have broken his law. We feel that he must be displeased with us; we therefore hide ourselves from him, turn away from him, avoid the thought of him, are alienated from him. This is the greatest evil of sin, and this we may call the inward consequence of sin, because it affects our inward relation to God rather than our outward relation to the universe.

And now, how are we to be reconciled to God? How are we to be freed from this sense of guilt which falls on us in his presence, and makes us fear and shun him?

§ 5. Different Methods of obtaining Forgiveness.

There are two ways in which, when we have injured our brother, and so have become estranged from him, we may become reconciled again, and freed from a sense of shame in his presence. One is by endeavoring to atone for the evil we have done by acts of kindness, by expressions of penitence. So at last we may feel that we have done him far more good than evil; and though he may not forgive us or be reconciled to us, we, on our part, may feel freed from any shame in his presence, and be reconciled to him. The other way is by his coming to us, and proving to us, by his conduct and words, that he is not estranged from us by our bad conduct; that he loves us as ever. So he will overcome our evil by his good, and reconcile us to him.

The pagan nations in all ages and lands have taken the first way of being reconciled to God. Oppressed by a guilty fear of their terrible idols, they have brought as gifts to their altars what they had most valuable; they have hung their gold, their jewels, in the temple; they have slain their cattle on the shrine. Still unable to pacify their trembling hearts, they have gone farther, and sought to prove the sincerity at least of their repentance by self-inflicted tortures, and by giving even their children's lives to the bloody power whom they worshipped. Hence sacrifices: they originated in the [pg 221] very same feeling which induces a man to give a present to one whom he has wronged, to appease him.

Pagan religions are founded, therefore, wholly on the first mode of reconciliation. The offending party comes to him whom he has injured, and does something to pacify him. But these religions never brought peace to the heart of the worshipper. After the wretched mother had dropped her infant into the burning arms of Moloch, she still had no evidence that his wrath was turned away.

In the religion of Moses, the first mode of reconciliation was united with the second. Pitying the weakness of man, the law allowed him to bring his sacrifice of birds or beasts or the fruits of the soil, and place it on God's altar as an expiation and atoning offering for his sin; and then, the suppliant, having faith in the permanent presence of God in the holy of holies, was received again to favor and assured of pardon. The Jew, who had broken any of the laws of Jehovah, knew exactly what to do in order to be reconciled to his national God and King. God had pointed out the way which he would accept. By certain acts of sacrifice and restitution, the Jew became once more worthy of living under the protecting care of Jehovah.

This mode of reconciliation under the law was far superior to that in pagan religions. It gave temporary peace to the conscience, though not permanent. It prevented the sinner from going farther from God, though it did not unite him with God in unbroken union. It kept the conscience awake, and prevented it from being hardened. It was a schoolmaster to bring the Jews to Christ. It was a preparation for a more excellent way. In the Epistle to the Hebrews, the writer declares that the law was but the shadow of that which was to come; that it could not, “by the sacrifices offered year by year, make the comers thereunto perfect; for then would they have ceased to have been offered, because the worshippers, once purged, would have had no more conscience [pg 222] of sin.” The sacrifice made no revelation of God's character and love, planted no root of piety in the heart: it relieved the conscience only for this once, only with respect to this one sin; and there its influence ended. And therefore was a new covenant necessary, and promised by the prophets, and looked forward to by holy men, when they should be reconciled not by works, but by faith.

We have seen that there are two modes by which alienation may be removed: first, by the offending party doing something to atone for his offence; second, by the injured one showing that he has forgiven the offence, and is ready to be reconciled without an atonement. The first mode is the way of reconciliation in pagan religions; the first and second are united in the Jewish religion; the second is the mode in the Christian religion.

§ 6. Method in Christianity.

In Christianity, in the gospel of grace, God offers pardon freely to those who are willing to accept it. He is ready now to receive those who are ready to come to him. It is only necessary to believe this in order to be reconciled. We are, therefore, reconciled by faith.

But we are said to be reconciled by the death and blood of Christ. How is this? We have seen the source of our alienation: it lay not in God, but in ourselves. God had not gone away from us; we went away from him. He had not ceased to love us; but by a terrible reaction from our sinfulness, we had ceased to believe in his love. “God's hand,” says the prophet (Isa. 59:2), “is not shortened, that he cannot save, nor is his ear grown dull, that he cannot hear; but your iniquities have separated you from your God, and your sins have hidden his face from you, that he doth not hear.” By an immutable law of our mind, God's wrath abides on us, and we cannot believe in his love. Here is the source of our alienation. Now, merely to be told that God is merciful does not wholly help the matter. True, [pg 223] we say, He is merciful, but not to us; we have sinned too long and deeply. Something must be done, then, to convince us that God is ready to forgive and receive us freely. The death of Christ is the fact which produces this conviction. The death of Christ, therefore, is not merely an emblem of God's love, but an act of God's love. It draws us to him. It changes our hearts. It melts our doubt, our distrust. It reveals to us our Father's love. The blood of Christ makes those who were afar off nigh. This all experience teaches as a matter of fact. It is the cross of Christ, borne by the simple missionary, preached by the devout Moravian, which, amid the ice of Greenland or beneath the burning sun of the tropic, reconciles the sinner to God.

And if one asks how the death of Christ does this, we will briefly indicate what we believe to be the way in which it operates. We look at Christ, and see the brightness of God's glory and express image of his person. We see a holiness pure and perfect, a character infinitely beautiful and lovely. We see how dear and near such a one must have been to God; and we hear God say, “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased;” and we hear him say of God, “My Father has not left me alone; for I do always the things which please him.”

And now we look at the world, and see it “lying in wickedness;” we see men trampling on God's law, polluting his image, cruelly oppressing each other, and boldly defying and mocking at the Almighty. What does he then? For the sake of these miserable, weak, and wretched sinners, who seem scarcely worth the saving, he sends his holy child among them; he sends this pure being to have his heart rent with the sight and knowledge of human sin; he sends him to be cruelly and shamefully killed by a death of agony, in order that we, sinful and miserable, may be reconciled. We say, in the view of all this, “He who spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us, how shall he not with him [pg 224] freely give us all things?” We say, “God commended his love towards us, in that, while we were sinners, Christ died for us.” “Herein is love; not that we loved God, but that he loved us.” Christ, “being lifted up, draws all men unto him.” Thus, in the midst of the gloom of that horrible scene on Calvary, when the power of darkness was at its height,—that crisis of the world, when human sin stood at the flood,—the heavens were opened, and a new ray of divine love poured into the world.

§ 7. Result.

Let us sum up, then, the doctrine of justification by faith, as we have now explained it.

1. Justification is not the doing away with all the consequences of sin, but only the consequence which consists in present alienation from God. It is objectively, as a divine act, what forgiveness is subjectively, as a human experience. It relates to present acceptance with God; it is not the cancelling of the results of our past sins on the character, nor is it the hope of future salvation. It relates to the present.

The following passages show that justification is equivalent to reconciliation or forgiveness. Rom. 5:8-10: “But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him. For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life.” Rom. 4:6-8: “David also describeth the blessedness of the man unto whom God imputeth righteousness without works; saying, Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven, and whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin.”

2. Faith is not mere intellectual belief or opinion; nor is it mere feeling, nor a mystical emotion in which we are wholly passive; but a sentiment, in which belief, feeling, and determination are blended together. The belief is that Christ is the Son of God; the feeling is trust and joy in the love of [pg 225] God seen in him; and the determination is to rely on him as a Mediator and Saviour.

That faith is not a mere intellectual belief, but involves also a feeling of trust, appears from such passages as these: “If thou believe in thy heart;” “An evil heart of unbelief.”

That faith is not a mere emotion, in which we are wholly passive, appears from such cases as those where men are exhorted to believe, as a thing in their own power.

3. Works, in this doctrine, include every effort to reconcile God by offering him anything in expiation of our sin, whether sacrifices, sacraments, the assent to creeds, the struggle after feelings and experiences, or reformation of character.

And the whole doctrine of justification by faith may be thus expressed:—

If you are burdened with a sense of unworthiness and guilt; if something seems to separate your heart from God; if you want confidence to come to him boldly in prayer,—do not try to remove this difficulty by any effort to do something different, or become something different; but simply look at Jesus in his sufferings and death, and see your heavenly Father calling you to him now to be forgiven. Go at once to God through Christ. Repose on that love that will cleanse you, that will save you; and nevermore doubt, even in your darkest hour, that your Father is ready to hear, to forgive, and bless you.

§ 8. Its History in the Church.

We have seen the origin, nature, and value of this doctrine. Let us now look at its history.

The apostolic Church was founded on the simple doctrine of faith in Christ. It was not founded on any theory or speculation about Christ, or about his plan of salvation, but on Christ himself as the Saviour. All that the first Christians professed was faith in Jesus as the Son of God. They had been reconciled to God by him; they were at peace with [pg 226] God; they were washed in the blood of the Lamb; and they were happy. A deep and wonderful joy brooded over the early church. A hurricane of persecution and war raged around them: within the Church, all was security and peace. How beautiful are the expressions by which the apostles describe the serenity and joy of the Church! “They ate their meat in gladness and singleness of heart, praising God, and having favor with all the people.” New converts “gladly received the word, and were baptized” by thousands, in the face of the bitterest persecution. “The multitude of them that believed were of one heart and one soul; neither said any of them, that aught of the things that he possessed was his own.” Whence came all this peace and union in the early Church? Was it because they had attained to such clear views of truth, and all held the same opinions? So far from it, some had not heard that there was a Holy Ghost; others did not believe in a resurrection of the dead; and many thought the whole Jewish ritual essential to salvation. Was it that they had become suddenly pure in heart, and holy in life, and freed from sin? So far from it, we find the apostles exhorting them against very great vices,—against murder, theft, and licentiousness,—and condemning them for having practised gross immoralities. It came from the simplicity of their faith. They looked to Jesus, and their faces were lightened. They saw the love of God in him; they felt it in their hearts; they reposed on it undoubtingly. In quietness and confidence was their strength. O, happy days! in which men's minds had not yet been harassed by thousands of vain controversies and empty verbal disputes; by questions, and strifes of words; by most profound theological discussions, ending in nothing but weariness; but were satisfied, that, if men would go to Christ, they would find truth. O, happy time! in which men had not learned to dissect their own hearts, and pry curiously into their feelings, and torture themselves by anxious efforts [pg 227] to feel right, and tormenting doubts as to whether their inward experiences were as they ought to be, but believed that all good feelings would come in their own time out of Christian faith. O, happy, golden hour! when love, and joy, and duty were all one; when men did not prescribe for themselves and others a task-work, an outward routine of duties; but had confidence, that, if they lived in the Spirit, they would also walk in the Spirit.

That hour of simple, child-like faith passed away. Its decay appeared in a return to the old mode of justification. Instead of simply relying on what God had done, men must do something themselves to atone for their sins; they must do penance, and have priests, and sacraments, and masses, and countless ceremonies to come between them and God; they must pile up a cumbrous fabric of religious and moral works, by which to climb up to God; until, at last, though the doctrine of justification by faith was never given up, it was made of none effect by the rubbish of human ceremonies heaped before it. And then came Luther, armed with the old doctrine, to sweep these all away, and call men back to the simple faith in the Saviour. The pure word of faith went forth through all lands, conquering and to conquer.

But there is a continual tendency to fall back again from faith upon works. Ever as the life of religion weakens, ever as the strength of holy confidence decays, men betake themselves to some outward forms or efforts. When they cease to lean on the love of God, they begin to lean on sacraments and ceremonies, on opinions and doctrines, on feelings and experiences, on morality and works of duty. Ever, as the cold winter of worldliness and sin causes the stream of holy faith to shrink back into its channel, the ice of forms accumulates along its shores; and then, as the inevitable consequence and sign of the decay of faith, we find the Church becoming anxious and troubled, confidence giving way to anxiety, cheerfulness to gloom, hope to fear. Everything [pg 228] terrifies the unbelieving Church; new opinions terrify it; new measures terrify it. It has ashes instead of beauty, mourning for joy, the spirit of heaviness instead of the garment of praise.

§ 9. Orthodox Errors, at the present Time, in Regard to Justification by Faith.

We have said that there is a constant tendency to fall back from faith to works of some kind or other. The important question comes, How is it with us now? Does this tendency show itself in our present churches? And the answer we am compelled to make is, that it does, certainly to some extent, and in all the churches. Orthodox churches have fallen away, more or less, from the doctrine of justification by faith. They have fallen back from the central point of Christianity, faith in Jesus, in different directions, and seek to be justified by a law,—some upon a law of belief, and others on a law of emotion.

Do not understand us as saying that any of the churches have denied, or that they do not constantly teach, the doctrine of justification by faith. This is not the point. The Romish Church never denied, nor ceased to teach, this doctrine; but she virtually abolished it, and made it of none effect by teaching other things also. Is not this, to some degree, the case now?

Are there not many Orthodox Christians, at the present time, who seek to make their peace with God, not by relying on Jesus himself, but on some theory with respect to his nature or person; not on his death, but on some speculation about his death,—some theory, scheme, or plan? Is it not the idea of many, that they are to be brought to God, not by faith in Jesus and his death, but by assenting to the correct doctrine about it? and accordingly they anxiously labor, and make it a work, to believe in the true theory, in order that they may be brought to God. We do not say that correct opinions on these points are unimportant; but we say that the faith in Christ which justifies us does not come from [pg 229] believing right opinions, but that right opinions come from the justifying faith. Are religious teachers now willing to do as Paul did, and say simply, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ”? or do they not rather find it necessary to say, “Believe this, that, and the other thing, about Jesus Christ”?

And again: is it not thought by Orthodox people, that, in order to be justified and have peace with God through Jesus Christ, it is necessary that a person should experience certain feelings, beginning with a sense of guilt, a fear of punishment, and passing into a state of hope and assurance? And, accordingly, men make it a work, and labor, to have these feelings in the precise order and manner, and, until they can experience these feelings, believe that they can have no access to God. As before, we do not mean that these feelings are unimportant, but only that we should not try to work ourselves up into certain feelings in order to be just before God. It is faith in Jesus which is the source, not the result, of piety as well as of holiness. It is faith in God's love to us which enables us to love him. The sense of pardon produces both the feeling of gratitude and of unworthiness. God does not forgive us because we have had the right feelings, but that we may have them. Those love much to whom much is forgiven; but to whom little is forgiven, the same love little.

Were we ever struck with the remarkable contrast between the conversions to God in the apostolic time and those which we hear of now? How much more simple they were! A man is riding in a chariot, reading his Bible, and trying in vain to comprehend it. An apostle comes, and explains to him the prophecy, and applies it to Jesus. Presently they come to water, and he says, “See, here is water;” he is baptized, and goes on his way rejoicing. We fear there are not many churches now who would receive that Ethiopian as a member, if he could give no further account of his religious experience than is recorded in the book of Acts.

But is it not, we say again, remarkable, that not only in this case, but in all the cases of conversion recorded and described in the Acts, there should be nothing of the descriptions which we read every week in our religious newspapers? In the case of the three thousand baptized on the day of Pentecost, we only read that they were cut to the heart; said, “What shall we do?” were told to repent and be baptized; joyfully received the word, and were baptized. Even the remarkable conversion of Paul was nothing like what we now have. How is this—that now we are not willing to trust to a simple act of faith in Jesus Christ, and in turning to God; but we have a scale and rule of religious experience—a work which all must go through in order to be justified?

And what is the result of thus substituting for justification by faith, justification by belief in opinions, and by processes of feeling? Look at the churches where this has been carried farthest, and see the result. Religion becomes gloomy, anxious, and austere; it ceases to breathe cheerfulness and joy around; the gentler graces die before it; fear treads fast in the footsteps of hope; a stiff formality introduces cant in the place of what is natural and artless; the heart is stretched on a rack of self-torturing doubts and anxieties. The biographies and private journals of many eminent saints show us how little happiness they had in their religion,—how they were tortured by spiritual doubts, perplexities, and anxieties. The reason is, that they rely on their own feelings, instead of relying on Christ.

And with the reliance placed on theory and opinion vanishes the union of the Church. There are five sects in this country, all holding to the Assembly's Catechism—a large and minute compendium of opinions,—and yet which often do not allow each other to commune at the Lord's table. The New School Presbyterians might permit the others to commune with them, but are themselves excluded. The Old [pg 231] School Presbyterians would commune with all but the New, but are not permitted. Nay, the Associate Reformed, the Covenanters, and the Seceders carry it so far as to discipline and excommunicate their members for what is called occasional hearing; i.e., attending worship at other churches than their own. There was in the State of Indiana an Old School preacher, and president of a college, who refused to allow a Unitarian to give a literary address which the students had asked him to give, and which he had gone to deliver, and, in defending himself for this, called him a “public propagator of infidelity;” and within a mile or two of his college there was a society of Seceders, or Covenanters, holding, like himself, the Assembly's Confession, who would excommunicate any of their members who should go to hear him preach.

There is, then, a tendency among the Orthodox to rely on their own opinion and their own feelings, rather than on Jesus Christ.

§ 10. Errors of Liberal Christians.

Liberal Christians have fallen into error of a different sort. They seek to be justified, not by opinion nor by feeling, but by action; by works of righteousness, honesty, charity; by the faithful performance of social duties; by an active obedience to the law of God. Looking at the Scriptures, and seeing in how many places we are plainly taught that we are to work out our own salvation; to be rewarded and punished according to our active goodness; to be judged by our works,—they say that a man is forgiven when he has corrected his fault, and not before; that repentance and reformation are the only means of atonement with God; that, if we wish to be forgiven, we must reform our conduct and change our character. Accordingly, they lay great stress on duty, and are continually exhorting men to the performance of their duties in order to be forgiven.

But there is a mistake here also, which arises from confounding [pg 232] two very different things; namely, justification and final salvation. We have seen that the consequences of sin are twofold—external and internal. The inward consequence of sin is separation from God; the external is the weakening and debasing of the soul. The first consequence is removed by faith; the second, by obedience. Every act of sin pollutes, darkens, and ruins the soul; every act of obedience strengthens, elevates, and saves it. Obedience, persevered in to the end, insures the salvation of the soul. But, in order that we may obey, we must first be justified; for what is to give us the strength and the heart to obey, except the pardoning love of God? It is this sense of reconciliation,—it is this spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, “Abba, Father,”—which gives us the power to obey. We do not obey God to be forgiven; but we are forgiven that we may obey. Have we read the Gospels, and have we forgotten all the instances in which Jesus said, “Thy sins are forgiven thee,” before there had been any change of conduct, or reform of character? and have we forgotten the memorable passage in which he explains to the captious Pharisee why he does this (Luke 7:36-50),—on the principle that the one to whom the most is forgiven will love the most?

To point out to men their duties, and tell them to do them, does not enable them to do them; but the sight of God's love in Jesus Christ does create in them new strength. That true follower of Jesus, the first of our Ministers at Large, Dr. Tuckerman, did not say to the poor victim of sin, that when he reformed his conduct, he would be his friend. No: like his Master, he showed himself his friend while he was yet a sinner, and so gave him hope and courage to break away from his sin. He has left on record one of the most touching instances of the power of love to melt down the impenitent heart, in the case of a convict whom he persisted in visiting, though he was perfectly hardened, and filled with bitterness and rage. He persisted in patient attempts to [pg 233] soften his heart, till he succeeded, by the irresistible power of love, in making him humble as a little child. Suppose he had sent him word, that if he repented, and showed the proper spirit, he would come and visit him. He had not so learned God or Christ. He knew that he must overcome evil with good. Exactly so does God overcome our evil with good.

To tell men to do their duties that they may be forgiven, is to tell them to do what they have no power to do. A confident reliance on God's love, and steadfast communion with him, are the only source of real improvement. When we feel these, we are one with God; when we can go to him confidently, as children to a father; when we can betake ourselves to his love in every emergency of life,—we have a source of real strength, and growth, and improvement within us. But, without this feeling of peace with God, the effort to do our duties only harasses and irritates our conscience: it produces weariness of heart, a constant feeling of unworthiness and failure, a constant sense of obligations and responsibilities which we do not and cannot fulfil. Duty is a weary task, a heavy burden; and our life is crushed down by constant anxiety and care. But if we begin right, and come to God first, and lean on his love, and rely on his promise, then we are filled with hope and joyful assurance, and failure does not dismay us, for we say, “God's truth is pledged for our success; and if, while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life.”

It may be objected that it is dangerous to religion to admit that we can be justified before we have believed certain important doctrines or experienced certain peculiar feelings. It may also be objected, on the other hand, that it is dangerous to morality to suppose that pardon can precede reformation. But the more we read the Scriptures, the more we look into our own heart, and the more we become acquainted with our [pg 234] fellow-men, the deeper is our conviction, that there is but one source of true piety and sound morality—a heart reconciled to God, and at peace with him. We do not undervalue correct belief, deep feeling, or active obedience; but we place them where they belong. They are the fruit of the tree, not the root of the tree. The root and source and beginning of all piety and holiness is simple faith in God through Christ. We must ask ourselves, therefore, first of all, “Are we reconciled to God, or are we not? Are we living in filial communion with him, or living without him in the world?” If unreconciled, we must not think to work ourselves up into a degree of goodness or pious feeling without God. There is no strength where there is no confidence, where there is nothing to lean on, where there is hollowness within. We ought to come at once to God. We ought to lift our hearts to him, not saying, “Who shall go up to heaven for us, to bring him to us? Who shall go over the sea for us?” For his word is very nigh, in our mouth and heart.

The above discussion will show what we consider to be the truths, and what the errors, in the Orthodox view of justification by faith.

Chapter X. Orthodox Idea Of The Atonement.

§ 1. Confusion in the Orthodox Statement.

The subject of this chapter is the Orthodox doctrine of the work of Christ, and especially of the atonement.

No doctrine of Orthodoxy is more difficult to state to the satisfaction of the Orthodox than this. The reason is, that there is no doctrine concerning which the Orthodox differ so much among themselves. There is no difficulty in stating the Orthodox doctrine of the Trinity; for this is the same, or nearly the same, in the symbols of all the Orthodox sects. The Roman Catholic doctrine of the Trinity is essentially the same with that of the Presbyterian, Lutheran, Methodist, and Episcopal Churches. But not so with the doctrine of Christ's reconciling and atoning work. This has taken every form in past history, and is altogether unsettled at the present time. Usually, many views are mingled together in modern Orthodoxy; and while all Orthodox teachers use the same language, speaking of the death of Christ as “atonement,” “expiation,” “vicarious sacrifice,” “sin-offering,” “substitution,” “satisfaction,” yet they connect with these words very different ideas. Such is the testimony of an eminent Orthodox divine, who speaks thus:—

“There is a general concurrence in the words vicarious, expiation, offering, substitute, and the like, but no agreement as to the manner in which they are to get their meaning. Sometimes the analogy of criminal law is taken; and then our sins are spoken of as being transferred to Christ, or he as having accepted them to bear their penalty. Sometimes [pg 236] the civil or commercial law furnishes the analogy; and then, our sins being taken as a debt, Christ offers himself as a ransom for us. Or the analogy of the ceremonial law is accepted; and then Christ is set forth as a propitiatory or expiatory offering to obtain remission of sins for us. Regarding Christ as suffering for us in one or another of these Scripture forms or figures taken as the literal dogmatic truth, we have as many distinct theories. Then, again, different as these figures are from each other, they will yet be used interchangeably, all in the sense of one or another of them. And then, again, to double the confusion yet once more, we have two sets of representations produced under each, accordingly as Christ is conceived to offer himself to Jehovah's justice, or as Jehovah is conceived himself to prepare the offering out of his own mercy.

“On the whole, I know of no definite and fixed point on which the Orthodox view, so called, may be said to hang, unless it be this, viz., that Christ suffers evil as evil, or in direct and simple substitution for evil that was to be suffered by us; so that God accepts one evil in place of the other, and, being satisfied in this manner, is able to justify or pardon.

“As to the measure of this evil, there are different opinions. Calvin maintained the truly horrible doctrine, that Christ descended into hell when crucified, and suffered the pains of the damned for three days. A very great number of the Christian teachers, even at this day, maintain that Christ suffered exactly as much pain as all the redeemed would have suffered under the penalties of eternal justice. But this penal view of Christ's death has been gradually giving way, till now, under its most modern, most mitigated, and least objectionable form, he is only said to have suffered under a law of expression.

“Thus God would have expressed a certain abhorrence of sin by the punishment of the world. Christ now suffers only [pg 237] as much pain as will express the same amount of abhorrence. And considering the dignity of the Sufferer, and his relations to the Father, there was no need of suffering the same, or even any proximate amount of pain, to make an expression of abhorrence to sin, that is, of justice, equal to that produced by the literal punishment of the race. Still, it will be seen to be a part of this more mitigated view, that Christ suffers evil as evil; which evil suffered is accepted as a compensative expression of God's indignation against sin. Accordingly, in the agony of Gethsemane, and when the Saviour exclaims in his passion, ‘My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?’ it will be taken for literal truth, that the frown of God, or divine justice, rested on his soul.

“It will probably be right, then, to distribute the views of those who are accepted now as Orthodox teachers, into two classes—one who consider the death of Christ as availing by what it is; the other, by force of what it expresses; the former holding it as a literal substitution of evil endured for evil that was to be endured; the latter holding it as an expression of abhorrence to sin, made, through the suffering of one, in place of the same expression that was to be made by the suffering of many.

“As regards the former class of representations, we may say, comprehensively, that they are capable, one and all, of no light in which they do not even offend some right moral sentiment of our being. Indeed, they raise up moral objections with such marvellous fecundity, that we can hardly state them as fast as they occur to us.”[19]

§ 2. Great Importance attributed to this Doctrine.