sults upon the
men, but on their systems, if legitimately carried out.


500
[April,
Thoughts on Theology.
Treatises, some of which are valuable contributions to nat-
ural science. Of Lord Brougham's theological writings
little need be said, and of the Oxford Tracts we shall
only say, that while we admire the piety displayed in them,
we do not wonder that their authors despair of theology,
and so fall back on dark ages; take authority for truth, and
not truth for authority. The impotence of the English
in this department is surely no marvel. It would take
even a giant a long time to hew down an oak with a
paver's maul, useful as that instrument may be in another
place. Few attempt theology, and fewer still succeed.
Men despair of the whole matter. While truth is before
them in all other departments, and research gives not
merely historical results to the antiquary, but positive con-
clusions to the diligent secker, here in the most important
of all the fields of human speculation, she is supposed to
be only behind us, and to have no future blessing to be-
stow. Thus theology, though both Queen and Mother of
all science, is left alone, unapproached, unseen, unhonored,
though worshipped by a few weak idolaters, with vain ob-
lation, and incense kindled afar off, while strong men
and the whole people have gone up on every hill-top, and
under every green tree, to sacrifice and do homage to the
Useful and the Agreeable. Any one, who reads the Eng-
lish theological journals, or other recent works on those
subjects, will see the truth of what we have said, and how
their scholars retreat to the time of the Reformation and
Revolution, and bring up the mighty dead, the Hookers,
the Taylors, the Cudworths, with their illustrious predeces-
sors and contemporaries, who with all their faults had a
spark of manly fire in their bosoms, which shone out in all
their works. It must be confessed, that theology in Eng-
land and America is in about the same state with astrono-
my in the time of Scotus Erigena.
Now theological problems change from age to age; the
reflective character of our age, the philosophical spirit
that marks our time, is raising questions in theology never
put before. If the “Divines" will not think of theologi-
cal subjects, nor meet the question, why others will. The
matter cannot be winked out of sight. Accordingly, unless
we are much deceived, the educated laymen have applied
good sense to theology, as the “Divines" have not dared


1842.]
501
Thoughts on Theology.
to do, at least in public, and reached conclusions far in
advance of the theology of the pulpit. It is a natural
consequence of the theological method, that the men wed-
ded to it should be farther from truth in divine things, than
men free from its shackles. It is not strange, then, for the
pulpit to be behind the pews. Yet it would be very sur-
prising if the professors of medicine, chemistry, and math-
ematics understood those mysteries more imperfectly than
laymen, who but thought of the matter incidentally, as it
were.
The history of theology shows an advance, at least, a
change in its great questions. They rise in one age and
are settled in the next, after some fierce disputing; for it
is a noticeable fact, that as religious wars, — so they are
called, - are of all others the most bloody, so theological
controversies are most distinguished for misunderstanding,
perversity, and abuse. We know not why, but such is the
fact. Now there are some great questions in theology that
come up in our time to be settled, which have not been
asked in the same spirit before. Among them are the fol-
lowing.
What relation does Christianity bear to the Absolute ?
What relation does Jesus of Nazareth bear to the human
race? What relation do the Scriptures of the Old and
New Testament bear to Christianity ?
The first is the vital question, and will perhaps be scarce
settled favorably to the Christianity of the Church. The sec-
ond also is a serious question, but one which the recent dis-
cussions of the Trinity will help to answer. The third is a
practical and historical question of great interest. In the
time of Paul the problem was to separate Religion from the
forms of the Mosaic ritual ; in Luther's day to separate it
from the forms of the Church ; in our age to separate it from
the letter of Scripture, and all personal authority, pretended
or real, and leave it to stand or fall by itself. There is noth-
ing to fear from Truth, or for Truth. But if these questions
be answered, as we think they must be, then a change will
come over the spirit of our theology, to which all former
changes therein were as nothing. But what is true will
stand; yes, will stand, though all present theologies perish.
We have complained of the position of theology in
England and America. Let us look a little into a single de-


502
[April,
Thoughts on Theology.
partment of it, and one most congenial to the English
mind, that of Ecclesiastical History ; here our literature is
most miserably deficient. Most English writers quote the
Fathers, as if any writer of the first six centuries was as good
authority for whatever relates to the primitive practice or
opinion, as Clement of Alexandria, or Justin Martyr.
Apart from the honorable and ancient name of Cave we
have scarce an original historian of the church in the Eng-
lish tongue, unless we except Mr. Campbell, whose little
work is candid and clear, and shows an acquaintance with
the sources, though sometimes it betrays too much of a
polemical spirit. England has produced three great histo-
rians within less than a century. Their works, though un-
equal, are classics; and their name and influence will not
soon pass away. To rank with them in Ecclesiastical his-
tory, we have Echhard, Milner, Waddington, Milman !
The French have at least, Du-Pin, Jillemont, and Fleury;
the Germans, Mosheim, Walch, Arnold, Semler, Schroeckh,
Gieseler, and Neander, not to mention others scarcely in-
ferior to any of these. In America little is to be expected
of our labors in this department. We have no libraries
that would enable us to verify the quotations in Gieseler;
none perhaps that contains all the important sources of
ecclesiastical history. Still all other departments of this
field are open to us, where a large library is fortunately not
needed.
Now in Germany theology is still studied by minds of
a superior order, and that with all the aid which Science
can offer in the nineteenth century. The mantle of the
prophet, ascending from France and England, and with it
a double portion of his spirit has fallen there. Theology
has but shifted her ground, not forsaken the Earth ; so, it is
said, there is always one phenix, and one alone, in the
world, although it is sometimes in the Arabian, sometimes
in the Persian Sky. In this country, we say it with thanks-
giving, theology is still pursued. Leibnitz used to boast
that his countrymen came late to philosophy. It seems
they found their account in entering the field after the mists
of morning had left the sky, and the barriers could be
seen, when the dew had vanished from the grass. They
have come through Philosophy to Theology still later ; for
the theology of the Germans before Semler's time, valuable


1842.]
503
Dorner's Christology.
·
as it is in every respect, is only related to the modern, as
our Scandinavian fathers, who worshipped Odin and Thor,
two thousand years ago, are related to us. Germany is said
to be the land of books. It is par eminence the land of theo-
logical books. To look over the Literatur Anzeiger, one
is filled with amazement and horror at the thought, that
somebody is to read each of the books, and many will at-
ago it was said “ of writing books there is no end.” What
- would the same man say could he look over the catalogue
of the last Leipsic fair ?
We do not wonder that the eyes of theologians are turned
attentively to Germany at this time, regarding it as the
new East out of which the star of Hope is to rise. Still
it is but a mixed result which we can expect; something
will no doubt be effected both of good and ill. It is the
part of mėn to welcome the former and ward off the latter.
But we will here close our somewhat desultory remarks, and
address ourselves to the work named at the head of this
article.
In any country but Germany, we think, this would be
reckoned a wonderful book; capable not only of making
the author's literary reputation, but of making an epoch in
the study of Ecclesiastical history, and of theology itself.
The work is remarkable in respect to both of these depart-
ments of thought. Since copies of it are rare in this
country, we have been induced to transfer to our pages
some of the author's most instructive thoughts and con-
clusions, and give the general scope of the book itself,
widely as it differs in many respects from our own view.
Its author is a Professor of Theology at one of the more
Orthodox Seminaries in Germany; and so far as we know
this is the only work he has given to the public in an inde-
pendent form.
In one of the prefaces, for the work has two, and an
introduction to boot, — the author says, that as Christianity
goes on developing itself, and as men get clearer notions
of what they contend about, all theological controversies
come to turn more and more upon the person of Christ, as
the point where all must be decided. With this discovery
much is gained, for the right decision depends, in some


504
April,
Dorner's Christology.
measure, on putting the question in a right way. It is easy
to see that all turns on this question, whether it is neces-
sary that there should be, and whether there actually has
been, such a Christ as is represented in the meaning,
though not always in the words of the Church. That is,
whether there must be and has been a being, in whom the
perfect union of the Divine and the Human has been made
manifest in history. Now if Philosophy can demonstrate
incontestably, that a Christ, in the above sense, is a notion
self-contradictory and therefore impossible, there can no
longer be any controversy between Philosophy and Theology.
Then the Christ and the Christian Church, - as such, —
have ceased to exist; or rather Philosophy has conquered
the whole department of Christian Theology, as it were,
from the enemy; for when the citadel is taken, the out-
works must surrender at discretion. On the other hand,
if it is shown that the notion of an historical, as well as
an ideal Christ, is a necessary notion, “and the speculative
construction of the person of Christ” is admitted, then
Philosophy and Theology, essentially and most intimately
set at one with each other, may continue their common
work in peace. Philosophy has not lost her independence,
but gained new strength. Now one party says, this is
done already, “the person of Christ is constructed specu-
latively;" while the other says, the lists are now to
be closed, inasmuch as it has been demonstrated that there
can be no Christ, who is alike historical and ideal.
Professor Dorner thinks both parties are wrong; that
" the speculative construction of the Christ" is not yet
completed. Or in other words, that it has not yet been
shown by speculative logic, that an entire and perfect in-
carnation of the Infinite, in the form of a perfect man,
is an eternal and absolute idea, and therefore necessary
to the salvation and completion of the human race; nor on
the other hand has the opposite been demonstrated. Faith
has been developed on one side, and Reason on the other,
but not united. Philosophy and Religion are only enamored
of one another, not wed, and the course of their true
love is anything but smooth. His object is to show what
has already passed between the two parties. Or, to speak
without a figure, to give the net result of all attempts to
explain by Reason or Faith, the idea of the Christ; to


1842.]
505
Dorner's Christology.
show what has been done, and what still remains to be
done in this matter. He thinks there is no great gulf
fixed between Faith and Reason; that if Christianity be
rational, that Reason itself has been unfolded and strength-
ened by Christianity, and may go on with no limit to her
course.
He adds, moreover, that if Christ be, as theologians af-
firm, the key to open the history of the world, as well as to
unloose all riddles, then it is not modesty, but arrogant
inactivity which will not learn to use this key, and disclose
all mysteries. He assumes two things in this inquiry, with
no attempt at proof, namely, first, that the idea of a God-
man, - a being who is at the same time perfect God and
perfect Man, — is the great feature of Christianity; that
this idea was made actual in Jesus of Nazareth : and again
that this idea of a God-man exists, though unconsciously,
in all religions; that it has been and must be the ideal of
life to be both human and divine; a man filled and in-
fluenced by the power of God. Soon as man turns to this
subject, it is seen that a holy and blessed life in God can
only be conceived of as the unity of the divine and human
life. Still farther, the ideal of a revelation of God con-
sists in this, that God reveals himself not merely in signs
and the phenomena of outward nature, which is blind and
dumb, and knows not him who knows it, but that He
should reveal Himself in the form of a being who is self-
conscious, and knows him as he is known by him. In the
infancy of thought, it was concluded no adequate repre-
sentation of God could be made in the form of a God-man;
for the Divine and Human were reckoned incompatible ele-
ments, or incommensurable quantities. God was consid-
ered an abstract essence of whom even BEING was to be
predicated only with modesty. In its theoretic result, this
differed little from Atheism ; for it was not the Infinite, but
an indefinite being, who revealed himself in the finite.
Now Christianity makes a different claim to the God-
man. It has been the constant faith of the Christian
Church, that in Jesus, the union of the Divine and Hu-
man was effected in a personal and peculiar manner. But
the objection was made early and is still repeated, that this
idea is not original in Christianity, since there were paral-
lel historical manifestations of God in the flesh, before Je-
VOL. II. — NO. IV.
64


506
(April,
Dorner's Christology.
sus. But if this objection were real, it is of no value. Its
time has gone by, since Christianity is regarded as a doc-
trine, and not merely an historical fact ; as the organiza-
tion of truth, which unites the scattered portions into one
whole, that they may lie more level to the comprehension
of men. But to settle this question, whether the idea is
original with Christianity, it becomes necessary to examine
the previous religions, and notice their essential agreeinent
or disagreement with this.
“In this posture of affairs, all contributions will be welcome
which serve to give a clearer notion of the ante-christian re-
ligions. So far as these contributions contain only the truth, it
is a matter of indifference, whether they are made with a desiga
hostile or favorable to Christianity. For the more perfectly we
survey the field of ante-christian religions in its whole compass,
the more clearly, on the one hand, do we perceive the prepara-
tion made for Christianity by previous religions, and its histori-
cal necessity; and, on the other hand, as we look back over
all the phenomena in this field, we see not less clearly the
same newness and originality of the Christian religion, which
has long been admitted by every sound, historical mind, as it looks
forward and sees its world-traversing and inexhaustible power,
Yes, we must say, that it is for the sake of proving the truth of
Christianity, and in particular of its all-supporting fundamental
idea, - the absolute incarnation of God in Christ, – that we
have abandoned the more limited stand-point which was sup-
ported by single peculiarities, such as inspiration, prophecy,
and the like; that taking our position in the more comprehen-
sive stand-point supported by the whole course of religious bis.
tory before Christ, we may thoroughly understand how the
whole ante-christian world strives towards Christ; how in him
the common riddle of all previous religions is solved, and how
in him, or still more particularly, in his fundamental idea, lies
the solution by which we can understand all these religions bet-
ter than they understood themselves. So long as all religions
are not understood in their essential relation to Christianity, as
negative or positive preparations for it, so long the historical
side thereof will swing in the air.” — pp. 3, 4.
He then goes on to inquire if it were possible this idea
of the God-man could proceed from any religion before
Christ, or was extant in his time. The Jews were hostile
to it, as appears from the various forms of Ebionitism em-
braced by the Jewish Christians. Besides, the doctrine, or
the fact, finds no adequate expression in Peter, or James,


1842.]
507
Dorner's Christology.
in Matthew, Mark, or Luke. Hence some have conjec-
tured it came from heathenisin, and the conjecture seems
at first corroborated by the fact, that it was not developed
in the Church until the Gentiles had come in, and the
apostles who lived in the midst of the heathens were the
men who taught this doctrine.* But this natural suspicion
is without foundation. Heathenism may be divided into
Eastern and Western. The Indian religion may be taken
as the type of one, the Greek of the other. But neither
separates God distinctly enough from the world. Both de-
serve to be called a worship of nature.t One proceeds
from the Divine in the objective world, the other from the
finite, and both seek the common end, the unity of the
Divine and Human. Hence in the East, the various in-
carnations of Krishna, in one of which he assumes the hu-
man form as the highest of all. Here the God descends
to earth and becomes a man. Again Vishnu actually be-
comes man. The idea of the God-man appears, as in
Christianity, in the condescension of God to the human
form. There is no doubt these notions were well known
in Alexandria in the time of Jesus. But the Christian idea
cannot be explained from this source, for the true unity of
the divine and human natures nowhere appears, therefore
the redemption of men by the Eastern religion is but mo-
mentary. The incarnate Deity does not draw men to him.
Besides, the Dualism of this system destroys its value and
influence. It ends at last in a sort of Quietism and Pan-
theism, which denies the existence of the world.
The Greek religion is the opposite of this. It deifies man,
instead of humanizing God. It admitted Polytheism, though
a belief in Fate still lingered there, as the last relic of prim-
itive Pantheism. It does not develop the ethical idea, but
confounds it with physical causes. It begins in part the
* The influence of heathenism on the opinions of the primitive Chris-
tians has never yet, it would seem, had justice done it by writers of ec-
clesiastical history. We see traces of it in the apochryphal Gospels and
Epistles, some of which are perhaps as ancient as the canonical writings.
In our view, the Divinity of Christ, and its numerous correlative doc-
trines come from this source.
1 This we think true of neither, except while the religion was in its
weak and incipient stages. In the Greek Religion there are three stages,
the Saturnian, Olympian, and Dionysian. Only the first is a worship of
nature.


508
[April,
Dorner's Christology.
opposite way from the Indian, but comes to the same con-
clusion at last, a denial of all but God, “the one divine
substance before which all the finite is an illusion.” * Be-
sides, our author finds the moral element is wanting in the
Greek religion. In this conclusion, however, we think him
too hasty ; certainly the moral element has its proper place
in such writers as Æschylus, Pindar, and Plato. It would
be difficult to find an author in ancient or modern times,
in whom justice is more amply done to the moral sense,
than in the latter.
However, Dr. Dorner thinks Parsism is an exception to
the general rule of ancient religions. Here the moral ele-
ment occurs in so perfect a form, that some will not reckon
it with the heathen religions. But this has not got above
the adoration of Nature, which defiles all the other heathen
forms of religion. Besides, the Dualism, which runs
through all the oriental systeins, allows no true union of the
Divine and Human. Accordingly the Parsee Christians
always had a strong tendency to Manichæism, and ran it
out into the notions of the Docetæ, and then found that in
Jesus there was no union of the two natures. According to
Parsism the Divine can never coalesce with the Human ; for
the Infinite Being, who is the cause of both Ormusd and
Ahriman, remains always immovable and at perfect rest.
It, however, admits a sort of Arian notion of a mediator
between him and us, and has a poor sort of a God-man in
the person of Sosioch, though some conjecture this is a more
modern notion they have taken from the Jews. Thus it
appears the central idea of Christianity could have pro-
ceeded from no heathen religion.
Could it come from the Hebrew system? Quite as little.
Of all the ancient religions, the Hebrew alone separates
God from the world, says our mistaken author, and recog.
nises the distinct personality of both God and man. This
solves the difficulty of heathenism. It dwells on the moral
* This wholesale way of disposing of centuries of philosophical inqui.
ry is quite as unsafe, as it were to take the middle-age philosophers, the
Mystics, the Sensualists of England and France, with the Transcenden.
talists of Germany, as the natural results and legitimate issue of the
Christian Religion.
See the attempt of Mr. Hennell, (lnquiry into the Divine Origin of
Christianity. London. 1839. I vol. 8vo. pp. 8-23,) to derive some of the
Christian ideas from the Essenes.


1842.]
509
Dorner's Christology.
union of man and God, and would have it go on and be-
come perfect, and, in the end, God write the law in the heart,
as in the beginning He wrote it on tables of stone.* But
in avoiding the adoration of Nature, the Jews took such a
view of the Deity, that it seemed impossible to them that
he should incarnate himself in man. All the revelations
of God in the Old Testament are not the remotest ap-
proach to an incarnation like that in Jesus. They made a
great chasm between God and man, which they attempted
to fill up with angels, and the like.f The descriptions of
Wisdom in Proverbs, the Apocrypha, and Philo, are not at
all like the Christian incarnation. The Alexandrian Jews
assimilated to the Greek system, and adopted the Platonic
view of the Logos, while the Palestine Jews, instead of
making their idea of the Messiah more lofty and pure, and
rendering it more intense, only gave it a more extensive
range, and thought of a political deliverer. Thus it ap-
pears the idea of a God-man could not come from any of
these sources, nor yet from any contemporary philosophy
or religion. It must therefore be original with Christianity
itself. It was impossible for a heathen or Hebrew to say
in the Christian sense, that a man was God, or the son of
God. But all former religions were only a præparatio
evangelica in the highest sense. This fact shows that
Christianity expresses what all religions sought to utter, and
combines in itself the truths of heathenism and Judaism."
,
“Judaism was great through the idea of the absolute, per.
sonal God; the greatest excellence of heathenism is the idea of
the most intimate nearness and residence of a divine life in a
free human form. But the idea of the personal existence of
God in Christ was both of them united together into a higher
unity. According to the heathen way of considering the mat-
ter, the divine, alone absolute and impersonal Being, who soars
above the gods, – if it is possible for him to reveal himself,
* If we understand the Hebrew Scriptures and St. Paul, they both
teach that He did write the law in the heart in the beginning, else the
law of stone were worthless.
Here also the author fails to notice the striking fact of the regular
progress of the theophanies of the Old Testament. 1. God appears
himself, in human form, and speaks and eats with man. 2. It is an an-
gel of God who appears. 3. He speaks only in visions, thoughts, and
the like, and his appearance is entirely subjective. We see the same
progress in all primitive religious nations.


510
(April,
Dorner's Christology.
must have first in Christ come to a personal consciousness, for
himself, which he had not before; but this would be the genera-
tion of a personal God, through the form of human life, and
therefore a human act. Judaism had for its foundation not an
obscure, impersonal being, a merely empty substance, but a
subject, a personality. But to such as admitted its form of
Monotheism, the incarnation of God seeined blasphemy. But
Christianity is the truth of both systems. In the personality of
Christ, it sees as well a man who is God, as a God who is man.
With the one it sees in Jesus, as well the truth of the Hellenic
Apotheosis of human nature, as with the other it sees the com-
plete condescension of God, which is the fundamental idea in
the East. But it required long and various warfare, before the
Christian principle went through the Greek and Jewish princi-
ple, and presented to the understanding its true form. We shall
see that even now its work is not completed." * -pp. 33, 34.
He next turns to consider the historical development
of this central idea, which Jesus brought to light in word
and life. This remained always enveloped in the Church,
but it was not developed, except gradually, and part by part.
Then he proceeds on the clever hypothesis, that all moral
and religious truth was potentially involved in the early
teachers, though not professed consciously, and actually
evolved by them; a maxim which may be applied equally
to all philosophers, of all schools, for every man involves
all truth, though only here and there a wise man evolves a
little thereof. Now the Church did not state all this doctrine
in good set speech, yet it knew intuitively how to separate
false from true doctrine, not as an individual good man
separates wrong from right, by means of conscience. This
is rather more true of the Church, than it is of particular
teachers, who have not been inventors of truth, but only
mouths which uttered the truth possessed by the
Church. However, amid conflicting opinions, where he
gets but intimations of the idea of a God-man, and amid
many doctrines taught consciously, he finds this tendency
to glorify Christ, even to deify him, which he regards as
a proof that the great central idea lay there. This also we
* We have given a pretty free version of portions of this extract, and
are not quite certain that in all cases we have taken the author's meaning.
† But these mouths of the Church seem smitten with the old spirit
of Babel, for their language was confounded, and they did not under-
stand one another's speech," nor always their own, we fancy.


1842.)
511
Dorner's Christology.
take to be a very great mistake, and think the tendency to
deify persons arose from several causes; such as the popu-
lar despair of man. The outward aspect of the world al-
lows us to form but a low opinion of man; the retrospect
is still worse. Besides some distrusted the inspiration which
God gives man on condition of holiness and purity. There-
fore, when any one rose up and far transcended the
achievements and expectations of mere vulgar souls, they
said he is not a man, but a god, at least the son of a god;
human nature is not capable of so much. Hence all the
heroes of times pretty ancient are either gods or the de-
scendants of gods, or at least miraculously inspired to do
their particular works. Then the polytheistic notions of
the new converts to Christianity favored this popular des-
pair by referring the most shining examples of goodness
and wisdom to the gods. Hence, for those who had be-
lieved that Hercules, Bacchus, and Devanisi were men, and
became gods by the special grace of the Supreme, it was
easy to elevate Jesus, and give him power over their for-
mer divinities, or even expel them, if this course were ne-
cessary. Now there are but two scales to this balance,
and what was added to the divinity of Jesus was taken
from his humanity, and so the power of man underrated.
Hence we always find, that as a party assigns Jesus a di-
vine, extra-human, or miraculous character, on the one
hand, just so far it degrades man, on the other, and takes
low views of human nature. The total depravity of man
and the total divinity of Jesus come out of the same logi-
cal root. To examine the history of the world, by strik-
ing the words and life of Jesus out of the series of natu-
ral and perfectly human actions, and then deciding as if
such actions had never been, seems to us quite as absurd
as it would be, in giving a description of Switzerland, to
strike out the Alps, and the lakes, and then say the coun-
try was level and dull, monotonous and dry. To us, the
popular notions of the character of Jesus “have taken
away our Lord, and we know not where they have laid
him." To our apprehension, Jesus was much greater than
the evangelists represent him. We would not measure
him by the conceptions formed by Jewish or heathen con-
verts, but by the long stream of light he shed on the first
three centuries after his death, and through them on all
time since.


512
Dorner's' Christology. [April,
But to return to our task. Dr. Dorner admits this idea
does not appear in the earliest Christian writings, which
we think is quite as inexplicable, taking his stand-point, as
it would be if Columbus, after the discovery of the new
continent, had founded a school of geographers, and no
one of his pupils had ever set down America in his map
of the world, or alluded to it, except by implication. But
as Christianity went on developing, it took some extra-
christian ideas from the other religions. Thus from Judaism
it took the notion of a primitive man, and a primitive
prophet; from heathenism, the doctrine of the Logos. These
two rival elements balanced each other, and gave a uni-
versal development to the new principle. Thus while
Christianity attacked its foes, it built up its own dogmat-
ics, not unlike the contemporaries of Ezra, who held the
sword in one hand, and the trowel in the other. He finds
three periods in the history of Christology. I. That of the
establishment of the doctrine, that there were two essential
elements in Jesus, the Divine and Human. II. Period of
the one-sided elevation of either the one or the other;
this has two epochs. 1. From the Council of Nice to the
Reformation ; period of the divine side. 2. From the Refor-
mation to Kant; period of the human side. III. Period of the
attempt to show both in him, and how they unite. We
must pass very hastily over the rest of the work; for after
we have thus minutely described his stand-point and some
of his general views, and have shown his method, the stu-
dent of history will see what his opinions must be of the
great teachers in the Church, whose doctrines are well
known.
To make the new doctrines of Christianity intelligible,
the first thing was to get an adequate expression, in theo-
logical dogmas, of the nature of Christ. On this question
the Christian world divides into two great parties; one
follows a Hebrew, the other a Greek tendency; one taking
the human, the other the divine side of Christ. Hence
come two independent Christologies, the one without the
divine, the other without the human nature in Jesus. These
are the Ebionites and the Docetæ. “Docetism, considered
in antithesis with Ebionitism, is a very powerful witness of
the deep and wonderful impression of its divinity, which
the new principle had made on mankind at its appearance;


1842.]
513
Dorner's Christology.
an impression which is by no means fully described by all
that Ebionitism could say of a new, great, and holy prophet
that had risen up. On the other hand, Ebionitism it-
self, in its lack of ideal tendency, is a powerful evidence
on the historical side of Christianity, by its rigid adhesion
to the human appearance of Christ, which the other de-
nied." - p. 36. Strange as it may seem, these two an-
tithetic systems ran into one another, and had both of
them this common ground, that God and man could not
be joined; for while the Ebionites said Jesus was a mere
man, the Christ remained a pure ideal not connected with
the body, a redemption was effected by God, and Jesus
was the symbol; while the Docetæ, denying the body
of Jesus had any objective reality, likewise left the Christ
a pure ideal, never incarnated. “Both were alike unsat-
isfactory to the Christian mind. Both left alike unsatis-
fied the necessity of finding in Christ the union of the
human and divine ; therefore this objection may be made
to both of them, which, from the nature of things, is the
most significant, namely, that man is not redeemed by
them, for God has not taken the human nature upon him-
self, and sanctified it by thus assuming it. The Church,
guided rather by an internal tact and necessity, than by
any perfect insight, could sketch no comprehensible figure
of Christ in definite lines. But by these two extreme doc-
trines it was advanced so far, that it became clearly con-
scious of the necessity, in general, of conceiving of the
Redeemer as divine and human at the same time.”—p. 39.
Various elements of this doctrine were expressed by the
various teachers, in the early ages. Thus, on the divine
side it was taught, first, by the Pseudo Clement, Paul of
Samosata, and Sabellius, that a higher power dwelt in
Christ; next by Hippolytus, that it was not merely a higher
power, but a hypostasis that dwelt in Christ. Tertullian,
Clement, and Dionysius of Alexandria, with Origen, con-
sidered this subordinate to the Father, though the latter
regarded it as eternally begotten. The next step was to
consider this hypostasis not merely subordinate, but eternal;
nor this only, but of the same essence with the Father.
This was developed in the controversy between Dionysius
of Rome and of Alexandria, between Athanasius and
Arius. At the same time the human side also was devel-
VOL. II. – NO. IV.
65


514
Dorner's Christology.
[April,
ogos supuri Christ actual humosition
oped. Clement and Origen maintained, in opposition to
the Gnostics, that Christ had an actual human body.
Then Apollinaris taught that Christ had a human soul
(yux'i), but the Logos supplied the place of a human
mind (rovs). But in opposition to him, Gregory of Nazi-
anzen taught that he had a human mind also. Thus the
elements of the Christ are " speculatively constructed” on
the human and divine side; but still all their elements were
not united into a human personal character, — for the
human nature of Christ was still regarded as impersonal.
But attempts were made also to unite these parts together,
and construct a whole person. This, however, led rather
to a mixture than an organic and consistent union; there-
fore the separateness and distinctness of the two natures
also required to be set forth. This was done very clearly.
The Council of Nice declared he was perfect God; that
of Chalcedon, that he was perfect man also, but did not
determine how the two natures were reconciled in the
same character. " The distinctive character of these two
natures" — we quote the words of Leo the Great — " was
not taken away by the union, but rather the peculiarity of
each nature is kept distinct, and runs together with the
other, into one Prosopon and one Hypostasis." * Next
* We give the Greek words Prosopon and Hypostasis, and not the
common terms derived from the Latin. The subtleties of this doctrine
can only be expressed in the Greek tongue. A Latin Christian could
believe in three persone and one substantia, for he had no better terms,
while the Greek Christian reckoned this heretical, if not atheistical, as
he believed in one essence and three substances. But to say three persons,
- TOC 7000wna — in the Godhead, was heresy in Greece, as to say
three substances, (tres substantiæ,) was heresy at Rome. Well says Au.
gustine, apologizing for the Latin language, “ dictum est tres persone,
non ut illud diceretur, sed ut non taceretur." - De Trinitate, lib. v. c. 9.
St. Augustine has some thoughts on this head, which may surprise
some of his followers at this day. " And we recognise in ourselves an
image of God, that is, of the Supreme Trinity, not indeed equal, nay,
far and widely different; not coőternal, and to express the whole more
briefly, not of the same substance with God; yet that, than which of
all things made by Him none in nature is nearer to God; which image
is yet to be perfected by re-formation, that it may be nearest in likeness
also. For we both are to know that we are to love to be this and to
know it. In these then, moreover, no falsehood resembling truth per.
plexes us." - Civ. Dei. Lib. xi. c. 26, as translated in Pusey's ed. of Au.
gustine's Confessions. London : 1840. 1 vol. 8vo. p. 283, note.
The late Dr. Emmons seems aware of the imperfection of language,
and its inability to express the idea of a Trinity. “ Indeed there is no
word, in any language, which can convey a precise idea of this incom-


1842.]
515
· Dorner's Christology.
follow the attempts to construct one person out of these two
natures. Some said there was one Will, others two Wills,
in the person of Christ. This was the quarrel of the
Monothelites and the Dyothelites. Others said the union
was effected by the loss of the attributes of the Human,
or Divine being; some supposing the one passed into and
so became the other, or that both coalesced in a tertium
quid, a Evveros quais. But it became orthodox to affirm that
each retained all its peculiar attributes, and so the two were
united. Now this doctrine may seem very wise, because
it is very puzzling ; but the same words may be applied to
other things. We have very little skill in showing up ab-
surdities, but can apply all this language to very different
matters, and it shall sound quite as well as before. Thus
we may take a Circle instead of the Father, and a Trian-
gle for the Son, and say the two natures were found in
one, the circle became a triangle, and yet lost none of its
circularity, while the triangle became a circle yet lost none
of its triangularity. The union of the two was perfect,
the distinctive character of each being preserved. They
corresponded point for point, area for area, centre for cen-
tre, circumference for circumference, yet was one still a
circle, the other a triangle. But both made up the circle-
triangle. The one was not inscribed, nor the other cir-
cumscribed. We would by no means deny the great fact,
which we think lies at the bottom of this notion of the
trinity, a fact, however, which it seems to conceal as often
as to express in our times, that the Deity diffuses and there-
fore incarnates himself more or less perfectly in human
beings, and especially in Jesus, the climax of human be-
ings, through whom “ proceed” the divine influences, which
also “ proceed” from the Father. Hence the doctrine of
the Holy Ghost. This truth, we think, is expressed in all
religions; in the incarnations of Vishnu ; the Polytheistic
notions of the Greeks; the angels, archangels, and ser-
aphs that make up the Amshaspand of the Persians, which
Daniel seems to imitate, and the author of the Apoca-
lypse to have in his eye.
prehensible distinction ; for it is not similar to any other distinction in
the minds of men, so that it is very immaterial whether we use the name
person, or any other name, or a circumlocution instead of a name, in
discoursing upon this subject." - Sermon iv. p. 87. Wrentham : 1800.


516
April,
Dorner's Christology.
But to return. These points fixed, the Catholic church
dwelt chiefly on the Divine in Christ, and continued to do
so till the Reformation, while the human side was repre-
sented by heretics and mystics, whom here we have not
space to name.
We now pass over some centuries, in which there was
little life and much death in the Church ;-times when the
rays of religious light, as they came through the darkness,
fell chiefly, it seems, on men whom the light rendered sus-
picious to the Church,—and come down to times after the
Reformation. After the great battles had been fought
through, and the Council of Trent held its sessions, and
the disturbances, incident to all great stirs of thought,
had passed over, and the oriental and one-sided view of
Christ's nature had been combatted, the human side of
of it comes out once more, into its due prominence. “ By
the long, one-sided contemplation of the Divine in Christ,
his person came to stand as somewhat absolutely superna-
tural, as the other side of and beyond human nature;
something perfectly inaccessible to the subjective thought,
while it is the greatest thing in Christianity to recognise our
brother in him.” With the Reformation there had come a
subjective tendency, which laid small stress on the old notions
of Christ, in which the objective divine nature had overlaid
and crushed the subjective and human nature in him. This
new subjective tendency is a distinctive feature of the Re-
formation. It shows itself in the doctrine of Justification
by Faith, and quite as powerfully in the altered form of
Christology. But here, too, we must tread with rapid feet,
and rest on only two of the numerous systems of this pe-
riod, one from the Reformers themselves, the other from a
Theosophist. The human nature is capable of divinity,
(humana natura divinitatis capax) said the early Protes-
tants; what Christ has first done, all may do afterwards.
Well said Martin Luther, strange as it may seem to mod-
ern Protestants who learn ecclesiastical history from the
“ Library of Useful Knowledge,'' “ Lo, Christ takes our
birth (that is, the sinfulness of human nature,) from us
unto himself, and sinks it in his birth, and gives us his, that
we thereby may become pure and new, as if it were our
own, so that every Christian may enjoy this birth of Christ
not less than if he also, like Jesus, were born bodily of the


1842.]
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Dorner's Christology.
Virgin Mary. Whoso disbelieves or doubts this, the same
is no Christian.” Again. “ This is the meaning of
Esaias, To us a child is born, to us a son is given. To us,
to us, to us is he born, and to us given. Therefore look
to it, that thou not only gettest out of the Evangel a fond-
ness for the history itself, but that thou makest this birth
thine own, and exchangest with bim, becomest free from
thy birth, and passest over to his, — then thou indeed
shalt sit in the lap of the Virgin Mary, and art her dear
child." This thought lay at the back-ground of the Re-
formation, which itself was but an imperfect exhibition of
that great principle. He, that will look, traces the action
of this same principle in that great revival of Religion, five
centuries before Christ, in the numerous mystical sects
from the first century to the reformation, in such writers as
Ruysbröck, Ilarphius, Meister, Eckhart, Suso, Tauler, the
St. Victors, and many others. Perhaps it appears best in
that little book, once well known in England under the ti-
tle Theologia Germana, and now studied in Germany and
called Deutsche Theologie; a book of which Luther says,
in the preface to his edition of it, in 1520, “ Next to the
Bible and St. Augustine, I have never met with a book,
from which I have learnt more what God, Christ, man,
and all things are. Read this little book who will, and
then say, whether our theology is old or new; for this little
book is not new.”
We give a few words from it, relating to the incarnation
of God, for the private ear of such as think all is new
which they never heard of before, and all naughty things
exist only in German. It says, man comes to a state of
union with God, “ when he feels and loves no longer this
or that, or his own sell, but only the eternal good, so like-
wise God loves not himself as himself, but as the eternal
good, and if there were somewhat better than God, the
God would love that. The same takes place in a divine
man, or one united with God, else he is not united with
him. This state existed in Christ in all its perfection,
else he would not be the Christ. If it were possible that a
man should be perfect and entire, in true obedience be as
the human nature of Christ was, that man would be one
with Christ, and would be by grace, what he was by nature.
Man in this state of obedience would be one with God,


518
Dorner's Christology.
[April,
for he would be not himself, but God's Own (Eigen) and
God himself would then alone become man. Christ is to
you not merely the Objective, isolated in his sublimity, but
we are all called to this, that God should become man in
us. He that believes in Christ believes that his (Christ's)
life is the noblest and best of all lives, and so far as the
life of Christ is man, so far also is Christ in him.” In this
book, — and its ideas are as old in this shape, as the time
of Dionysius the Areopagite, - the historical Christ is
only the primitive type, the divine idea of man, who ap-
pears only as a model for us, and we may be all that he
was, and we are Christians only in so far as we attain this.
It is only on this hypothesis, we take it, there can be a
Christology which does not abridge the nature of man.*
This same idea, — that all men are capable of just the
same kind and degree of union with God, which Jesus
attained to, — runs through all the following Christologies.
It appears in a modified form in Osiander and Schwenk-
feld, whom we shall only name.† But they all place the
historical below the internal Christ which is formed in the
heart, and here commences what Dr. Dorner calls the de-
generacy of the principle of the Reformers, though the
antithesis between nature and grace was still acknowledged
by the Protestants. But as our author thinks, the sub-
jective view received a one-sided development, especially
in Servetus and the Socinians, who differ, however, in this
at least, that while the former, in bis pantheistic way, al-
lows Christ to be, in part, uncreated (res increata) the lat-
* Dr. Baur, a very able Trinitarian writer and Professor at Tqbingen,
sums up the various Christological theories in this way. Reconciliation
must be regarded, either, (1) as a necessary process in the development of
the Deity himself, as he realizes the idea of his being, or (2) as an anal-
ogous and necessary process in the development of man, as he becomes re-
conciled with himself, the one is wholly objective, the other wholly sub-
jective, or (3) as the mediation of a tertium quid, which holds the
human and divine natures both, so involves both the above. In this
case reconciliation rests entirely on the historical fact, which must be
regarded as the necessary condition of reconciliation between God and
man, of course he, who takes this latter view, considers Jesus as a sacri-
fice for the sins of the world. See his Die Christliche Lehre von der
Versohnung in ihrer geschichtliche Entwickelung, &c. Tüb. 1633.
+ See Osiander's Confessio de unico Mediatore J. C. et Justificatione
fidei, 1551. His Epistola in qua confutantur, etc., 1549. See also
Schwenkfeld quæstiones von Erkentnis J. C. und seiner Glorien, 1561,
von der Speyse des elvigon Lebens, 1547. Schwenkfeld's Christology
agrees closely in many respects, with that of Swedenborg.


1842.
519
Dorner's Christology.
30. many more of the
ter considers him certainly a created being, to whom God
had imparted the divine attributes.
We pass over Theophrastus and Paracelsus, and give a few
extracts from Valentine Weigel's “ Güldene Griff.” With
him, man is an epitome of the whole world, - a favorite
notion with many mystics, — all his knowledge is self-
knowledge. « The eye, by which all things are seen, is
man himself, but only in reference to natural knowledge,
for in supernatural knowledge man himself is not the eye,
but God himself is both the light and the eye in us. Our
eye therefore must be passive, and not active. Yet God is
not foreign to men in whom he is the eye, but that passive
relation of man to him has this significance, that man is
the yielding instrument by which God becomes the seeing
eye." This Light in us, or the Word, is for him the true
Christ, and the historical God-man disappears entirely in the.
back-ground. The book whence all wisdom comes is
God's Word, a book written by the finger of God in the
heart of all men, though all cannot read it. Out of this
are all books written. This book of life, to which the Sa-
cred Scriptures are an external testimony, is the like-
ness of God in man, the Seed of God; the Light; the
Word; the Son ; Christ. This book lies concealed in the
heart; concealed in the flesh; concealed in the letter of
Scriptures. But if it were not in the heart, it could not be
found in the flesh and the Scripture. If this were not
preached within us, if it were not always within us, –
though in unbelief, — we could have nothing of it. A doc-
trine common enough with the fathers of the first three or
four centuries. If we had remained in Paradise, we should
never have needed the outward Word of Scripture, or
the historical incarnation of Jesus.* But expelled from
Paradise, and fallen through sin, it is needful that we be
born again of Christ, for we have lost the holy Flesh and
the Holy Ghost, and must recover both from Christ. Be-
* Quaint George Herbert has a similar thought. We quote from
memory.
" For sure when Adam did not know
To sin, or sin to smother,
He might to Heaven from Paradise go,
As from one room to another.'


520
[April,
Dorner's Christology.
cause we cannot read this inner book, God will alter our
spirit by Scriptures and Sermons. All books are only for
fallen men. Christ was necessary to the race, as the steel
to the stone, but his office is merely that of a Prophet and
Preacher of Righteousness, for God was incarnate in Abel,
Noah, Adam, and Abraham, as well as in Jesus, " and the
Lord from Heaven” exists potentially in all men; the ex-
ternal Christ, who was born of Mary, is an expressive and
visible model of the internal Christ. In a word, he makes
Christ the universal divine spirit, shed down into man,
though it lies buried and immovable in most men. But
whenever it comes to consciousness, and is lived out, there
is an incarnation of God.
These views were shared by many teachers, who modi-
fy them niore or less, of whom we need mention but a few
of the more prominent. Poiret, Henry More, Bishops
Fowler and Gastrell, Robert Fleming, Hussey, Bennet, and
Thomas Burnet, Goodwin, and Isaac Watts.*
This mystical view appears in Jacob Böhme, and through
him it passed on to Philosophy, for it is absurd to deny
that this surprising man has exerted an influence in sci-
ence as deep almost as in religion. German Philosophy
seems to be the daughter of Mysticism.
But we must make a long leap from Valentine Weigel
to Immanuel Kant, who has had an influence on Christolo-
gy that will never pass away. It came as a thunder-bolt
out of the sky, to strike down the phantoms of doubt, and
scatter the clouds of skepticism. Kant admits that in
practice, and the actual life of man, the moral law is sub-
ordinate to sensuality; this subordination he calls radical
evil. Then to perfect mankind, we need a radical resto-
ration, to restore the principles to their true order from which
they have been inverted; this restoration is possible on
three conditions. 1. By the idea of a race of men that
is well pleasing to God, in which each man would feel his
natural destination and perfectibility. It is the duty of
each to rise to this, believe it attainable, and trust its pow-
* See, who will, his three discourses won the Glory of Christ as
God-man," (Lond. 1746,) and Goodwin's book to which he refers,
“ Knowledge of God the Father and his Son J. C.” See also the
writings of Edward Irving, Cudworth's Sermon before the House of
Parliament, in the American ed. of his works. Vol. ii. p. 549, seq.


1842.]
521
Dorner's Christology.
er. This state may not be attained empirically, but by em-
bracing the principle well pleasing to God, and all the faults
in manifesting this principle vanish, when the whole course
is looked at. We should not be disturbed by fear lest the
new moral disposition be transient, for the form of good-
ness increases with the exercise of it. The past sins are
expiated only by suffering, or diminution of well-being in
the next stage of progress. 2. The foundation of a moral
commonwealth,* without this there will be confusion.
This is possible only on condition that it is religious also.
Thus this commonwealth is, at the same time, a church,
though only an ideal one ; for it can rest on nothing exter-
nal, but only on the “unconditional authority of Reason,
which contains in itself the moral idea." 3. This ideal
Church, to become real, must take a statutary form, for it
is an universal tendency of man to demand a sensual con-
firmation of the truth of Reason, and this renders it neces-
sary to take some outward means of introducing the true
rational religion, since without the hypothesis of a revela-
tion, man would have no confidence in Reason, though it
disclosed the same truths with Revelation, because it is so
difficult to convince men that pure morality is the only ser-
vice of God, while they seek to make it easier by some
superstitious service (Afterdienst.)
On these notions the following Christology is naturally
constructed. Man needs no outward aid for the purpose
of reconciliation, sanctification, or happiness; but the belief
in an outward revelation is needed for the basis of the
moral commonwealth. Christianity can allow this, as it
has a pure moral spirit. Here everything turns on the per-
son of its founder. He demands perfect virtue, and would
found a kingdom of God on the earth. It is indifferent to
practical religion, whether or not we are certain of his his-
torical existence, for historical existence adds no authority.
The historical is necessary only to give us an idea of a
man well pleasing to God, which we can only understand
by seeing it realized in a man, who preserves bis morality
under the most difficult circumstances. To get a concrete
* It is a saying of Pagan Plato in the Timæus, “ We shall never
have perfect men, until we can surround them with perfect circumstan-
ces," an idea the English Socialists are attempting to carry out in a very
one-sided manner.
VOL. II. — NO. IV.
66


22
[April,
Dorner's Christology.
knowledge of supersensual qualities, such as the idea of
the good, moral actions must be presented to us performed
in a human manner. This is only needed to awaken and
purify moral emotions that live in us. The historical ap-
pearance of a man without sin is possible ; but it is not
necessary to consider he is born supernaturally, even if the
impossibility of the latter is not absolutely demonstrable.
But since the archetype of a man well pleasing to God lies
in us in an incomprehensible manner, what need have we of
farther incomprehensibilities, since the exaltation of such
a saint above all the imperfections of human nature would
only offer an objection to his being a model for us, — since
it gives him not an achieved but an innate virtue, - for it
would make the distance between him and us so great,
that we should find in him no proof that we could ever
attain that ideal. Even if the great teacher does not com-
pletely correspond to the idea, he may yet speak of him-
self, as if the ideal of the good was bodily and truly rep-
resented in him, for he could speak of what his maxims
would make him. He must derive his whole strength from
reason. The value of his revelation consists only in lead-
ing to a conscious, voluntary morality, in the way of au-
thority. When this is done the statutary scaffolding may
fall. The time must come, when religion shall be freed
from all statutes, which rest only on history, and pure
Reason at last reign, and God be all in all. Wise men
must see that belief in the Son of God is only belief in
man himself; that the human race, so far as it is moral, is
the well pleasing Son of God. This idea of a perfect
man does not proceed from us, but from God, so we say
that He has condescended and taken human nature upon
himself. The Christ without and the Christ within us are not
two principles, but the same. But if we make a belief in the
historical manifestation of this idea of humanity in Christ
the necessary condition of salvation, then we have two
principles, an empiric and a rational one. The true God-
man is the archetype that lies in our reason, to which the
historical manifestation conforms.
This system has excellences and defects. By exalting
the idea of moral goodness, Kant led men to acknowledge
an absolute spiritual power, showing that this is the com-
mon ground between Philosophy and Christianity, and


1842.]
. 523
Dorner's Christology.
with this begins the reconciliation of the two.* He recog-
nised the Divine as something dwelling in man, and there-
fore filled up the chasm, as it were, between the two natures.
Again, he acknowledged no authority, so long as it was
merely outward and not legitimated in the soul, for he had
felt the slavery incident upon making the historical a dog-
ma. He saw the mind cannot be bound by anything
merely external, that has value only so far as it contains the
idea and makes it historical. But, on the other hand, he
exalts the subjective too high, and does not legitimate the
internal moral law, which Dr. Dorner thinks requires legiti-
mating, as much as the historical manifestation. His foun-
dation therefore is unstable until this is done. Besides he
is not consistent with himself; for while he ascribes absolute
power to this innate ideal of a perfect man, he leaves
nothing for the historical appearance of the God-man. He
makes his statutary form useless, if not injurious, and
makes a dualistic antithesis between Reason and God.
Still more is it inconsistent with Christianity, for it makes
morality the whole of religion, it cuts off all connexion
between the divine and human life, denying that influence
comes down from God upon man. He makes each man
his own redeemer, and allows no maturity of excellence,
but only a growth towards it. In respect to the past, pres-
ent, and future, it leavs men no comfort in their extremest.
need.
We pass next to the Christology of Schelling, leaping
over such thinkers as Röhr, Wegschieder, De Wette, Hase,
Hamann, Oetinger, Franz Baader, Novalis, Jacobi, and
Fichte.
The divine unity is always actualizing itself; the One is
constantly passing into the many; or in plain English, God
is eternally creative. God necessarily reveals himself in the
finite; to be comprehensible to us, He must take the limita-
tions of finite existence. But since He cannot be represented
in any finite form, the divine life is portrayed in a variety
of individuals ; in a copious history, each portion whereof
is a revelation of a particular side of the divine life. God
therefore appears in historical life as the finite, which is the
* Leibnitz made the attempt to effect the same thing, but in a manner
more mechanical and unsatisfactory.


524
[April,
Dorner's Christology.
necessary form of the revelation of Him. The finite is God
in his development, or the Son of God. All history, there-
fore, has a higher sense. The human does not exclude the
divine. Thus the idea of the incarnation of God is a prin-
ciple of philosophy; and since this is the essence of Christi-
anity, philosophy is reconciled with it. Nature herself
points forward to the Son of God, and has in him its final
cause. Now the theologians consider Christ as a single per-
son ; but, as an eternal idea alone can be made a dogma, so
their Christology is untenable as a dogma. Now the incar-
nation of God is from eternity. Christ is an eternal idea.
The divinity of Christianity cannot be proved in an empiri-
cal way, but only by contemplating the whole of history as
a divine act. The sacred history must be to us only a sub-
jective symbol, not an objective one, as such things were to
the Greeks, who thereby became subordinate to the finite,
and refused to see the infinite, except in that form. But as
Christianity goes immediately to the infinite, so the finite
becomes only an allegory of the infinite. The fundamental
idea of Christianity is eternal and universal, therefore it
cannot be constructed historically without the religious con-
struction of history. This idea existed before Christianity,
and is a proof of its necessity. Its existence is a prediction
of Christianity in a distant foreign country. The man
Christ is the climax of this incarnation, and also the begin-
ning of it; for all his followers are to be incarnations of
God, members of the same body to which he is the head.
God first becomes truly objective in him, for before him
none has revealed the infinite in such a manner. The old
world is the natural side of history. A new era, in which the
infinite world preponderates, could only be brought by the
truly infinite coming into the finite, not to deify it, but to
sacrifice it to God, and thereby effect a reconciliation ; that
is, by his death be showed that the Finite is nothing; but
the true existence, and life is only in the Infinite. The
eternal Son of God is the human race; created out of the
substance of the Father of all; appearing as a suffering di-
vinity, exposed to the horrors of time, reaching its highest
point in Christ; it closes the world of the finite and dis-
closes that of the infinite, as the sign of the spirit. With
this conclusion, the mythological veils in which Christ, as
the only God-man, has been arrayed, must fall off. The


1842.]
525
Dorner's Christology.
ever living spirit will clothe Christianity in new and perma-
nent forms. Speculation, not limited by the past, but com-
prehending distinction, as it stretches far on into time, has
prepared for the regeneration of esoteric Christianity, and
the proclamation of the absolute gospel. Viewed in this
light, Christianity is not regarded merely as doctrine or his-
tory, but as a progressive divine act; the history of Christ
is not merely an empirical and single, but an eternal history.
At the same time it finds its anti-type in the human race.
Christianity, therefore, is not merely one religious constitu-
tion among others, but the Religion; the true mode of
spiritual existence; the soul of history, which is incorporat-
ed in the human race, to organize it into one vast body,
whose head is Christ. Thus he would make us all brothers
of Christ, and show that the incarnation of God still goes
on to infinity, in the birth of the Son of God, until the
divine life takes to itself the whole human race; sanc-
tifies and penetrates all through it, and recognises it as
his body, of which Christ is the head; as his temple, of
which Christ is the corner-stone. We shall not dwell upon
the excellence of this view, nor point out its defects. The
few, who understand the mystical words of St. John, and the
many, who do not understand them, can do this for them-
selves.
Our remarks are already so far extended, that we must
omit the Christology of Hegel, though this, however, we do
with the less reluctance, as the last word of that system has
but just reached us; it comes with the conclusion of Strauss's
work on Dogmatics.* We regret to pass over the views of
Schleiermacher, which have had so deep an influence in
Germany, and among many of the more studious of our
Trinitarian brethren in this country. To most of our own
denomination only the Lemnian horrors of its faint echo
have come. We give Dr. Dorner's conclusion in his own
words. “Christology has now reached a field as full of an-
ticipations, as it is of decisions. But the anxiety, which here
takes possession of us, is a joyful one, and bears in itself
the tranquil and certain conviction, that, after a long night,
a beautiful dawn is nigh. A great course has been run
* Die Christliche Glaubenslehre, &c. Von Dr. D. F. Strauss. 2 vols.
8vo. 1840, 1841.


526
[April,
Dorner's Christology.
through, and the deep presentiments of the greatest minds of
the primitive times of Christianity begin to find their scientific
realization. After long toil of the human mind, the time
has at last come, when a rich harvest is to be reaped from
this dogma, while the union, already hastening, is effected
between the essential elements of Christology, which seem
the most hostile to each other. Previous Christologies have
chiefly presented these elements in their separation and op-
position to one another. Now, while we contemplate them
together in their living unity, which verifies their distinction
from one another, we see their historical confirmation and
necessity, and now, as Æthiopia and Arabia, according to
the prophet, were to present their homage to the Lord, so
must the middle ages, with their scholasticism and mod-
ern philosophy, the whole of history, as well of the ante-
christian religions, as that of the Christian dogma, -as-
semble about the One, (the Son of Man,) that they may lay
down their best gifts before him, who first enables them to
understand themselves ; while, on the other hand, he con-
fers on them the dignity of his own glorification, and allows
them to contribute to it, so that by their service, likewise, his
character shall pass into the consciousness of the human
race with an increasing brilliancy.".
Now, if we ask what are the merits and defects of the
work we have passed over, the answer is easy. It is a
valuable history of Christology; as such, it is rich with in-
struction and suggestion. A special history of this matter
was much needed. That this, in all historical respects,
answers the demands of the time, we are not competent to
decide. However, if it be imperfect as a history, it has yet
great historical merits. Its chief defects are of another kind.
Its main idea is this, that the true Christ is perfect God and
perfect man, and that Jesus of Nazareth is the true Christ.
Now he makes no attempt to prove either point; yet he
was bound, in the first instance, as a philosopher, to prove
his proposition; in the second, as an historian, to verify
his fact. He attempts neither. He has shown neither the
eternal necessity, nor the actual existence of a God-man.
Nay, he admits that only two writers in the New Testament
ever represent Jesus as the God-man. His admission is
fatal to his fact. He gives us the history of a dogma of the
church; but does not show it has any foundation to rest
on.


1842.]
527
Dorner's Christology.
We must apply to this book the words of Leibnitz, in his
letter to Burnet on the manner of establishing the Christian
religion.* “I have often remarked, as well in philosophy
as theology, and even in medicine, jurisprudence, and his-
tory, that we have many good books and good thoughts
scattered about here and there, but that we scarce ever come
to establishments. I call it an establishment, when at least
certain points are determined and fixed forever; when
certain theses are put beyond dispute, and thus ground is
gained where something may be built. It is properly the
method of mathematicians, who separate the certain from
the uncertain, the known from the unknown. In other
departments it is rarely followed, because we love to flatter
the ears by fine words, which make an agreeable mingling
of the certain and the uncertain. But it is a very transient
benefit that is thus conferred ; like music and the opera,
which leave scarce any trace in the mind, and give us no-
thing to repose on; so we are always turning round and
round, treating the same questions, in the same way, which
is problematic, and subject to a thousand exceptions.
Somebody once led M. Casaubon the elder into a hall of
the Sorbonne, and told him, The divines have disputed
here for more than three hundred years! He answered, And
what have they decided ? It is exactly what happens to us
in most of our studies." ...“I am confident that if we
will but use the abilities wherewith God and nature have
furnished us, we can remove many of the evils which now
oppress mankind, can establish the truth of religion, and
put an end to many controversies which divide men, and
cause so much evil to the human race, if we are willing to
think consecutively, and proceed as we ought. . . . I would
proceed in this way, and distinguish propositions into two
classes : 1. what could be absolutely demonstrated by a
metaphysical necessity, and in an incontestable way : 2.
what could be demonstrated morally ; that is, in a way
which gives what is called moral certainty, as we know there
is a China and a Peru, though we have never seen them.
... Theological truths and deductions therefrom are also
of two kinds. The first rest on definitions, axioms, and
* Opp. ed. Dutens., vol. vi., p. 243, sqq.


528
[April,
Herzliebste.
theorems, derived from true philosophy and natural theology;
the second rest in part on history and events, and in part
on the interpretation of texts, on the genuineness and di-
vinity of our sacred books, and even on ecclesiastical anti-
quity; in a word, on the sense of the texts.” And again :*
“ We must demonstrate rigorously the truth of natural reli-
gion, that is, the existence of a Being supremely powerful
and wise, and the immortality of the soul. These two
points solidly fixed, there is but one step more to take, – to
show, on the one hand, that God could never have left man
without a true religion, and on the other, that no known
religion can compare with the Christian. The necessity
of embracing it is a consequence of these two plain truths.
However, that the victory may be still more complete, and
the mouth of impiety be shut forever, I cannot forbear
hoping, that some man, skilled in history, the tongues, and
philosophy, in a word, filled with all sorts of erudition,
will exhibit all the harmony and beauty of the Christian
religion, and scatter forever the countless objections which
may be brought against its dogmas, its books, and its history.”
P
HERZLIEBSTE.
My love for thee hath grown as grow the flowers,
Earthly at first, fast rooted in the earth,
Yet, with the promise of a better birth,
Putting forth shoots of newly wakened powers,
Tender green hopes, dreams which no God makes ours;
And then the stalk, fitted life's frosts to bear,
To brave the wildest tempest's wildest art,
The immovable resolution of the heart
Ready and armed a world of ills to dare ;
And then the flower, fairest of things most fair,
The flower divine of love imperishable,
That seeth in thee the sum of things that are,
That hath no eye for aught mean or unstable,
But ever trustful, ever prayerful, feeleth
The mysteries the Holy Ghost revealeth.
• Epistola II. ad Spizelium. Opp. v. p. 344.


1842.)
529
Record of the Months.
RECORD OF THE MONTHS.
NEW WORKS.
The Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences, founded upon their
History. By the Rev. William WHEWELL, B. D., Fellow of
Trinity College, and Professor of Moral Philosophy in the Uni-
versity of Cambridge, Vice-President of the Geological Society
of London. London: 1840. 2 vols. 8vo.
This work contains the moral of the tale that was told in the
author's history of the inductive sciences. The author's aim is
great and noble — to give the philosophy of inductive science;
to inquire " what that organ or intellectual method is, by which
solid truth is to be extracted from the observation of nature.”
Of course the work must be critical in part, and positive in part.
It contains “ A criticism of the fallacies of the ultra-Lockian
school." The author does not stop at great names, nor hesitate
to dissent from Bacon, Cuvier, and even from Newton himself.
He now and then adopts Kant's reasoning, but differs widely
from him ; and while he acknowledges his great obligations to
Schelling, yet ventures to condemn some of his opinions. The
book is designed, in some measure, to take the place of Bacon's
Novum Organon. It is one of the boldest philosophical attempts
of the present century. The author measures himself against
the greatest of all the sons of science. Shall he stand or fall ?
The work opens with a preface containing one hundred and
thirteen aphorisms “respecting ideas," fifi y-six “concerning
science," and seventeen greater aphorisms, respecting the “ lan-
guage of science." The third aphorism, respecting ideas, will
show the school of philosophy to which Professor Whewell
belongs.
“The Alphabet, by means of which we interpret Phenomena,
consists of the Ideas existing in our own minds; for these give
to the phenomena that coherence and significance which is not
an object of sense.”
Again, Aphorisms vii. and viii.-" Ideas are not transformed,
but informed Sensations, for without ideas sensations have no
form."
“ The Sensations are the Objective, the Ideas the Subjective
part of every act of perception or knowledge.”
And Aphorism iv. concerning science." Facts are the mate-
rials of Science, but all Facts involve Ideas. Since, in observ-
ing Facts, we cannot exclude Ideas, we must, for the purposes
TOL. II. — NO. IV.
67


530
[April,
Record of the Months.
of science, take care that the Ideas are clear, and rigorously
applied.”
Aphorism xxxiv.-" The process of Induction may be resolv-
ed into three steps; the Selection of the Idea, the Construction
of the Conception, and the Determination of the Magnitudes."
These aphorisms occupy about a hundred valuable pages.
The author then comes to the real work, the “ Philosophy of
the Inductive Sciences.” This is divided into two parts: I. of
IDEAS; II. of KNOWLEDGE.
Part I. is distributed into ten books, treating of ideas in gene-
ral; the philosophy of the pure sciences; that of the mechani-
cal sciences; that of the secondary mechanical sciences; that
of the mechanico-chemical sciences; the philosophy of morpho-
logy; that of the classificatory sciences; of biology; and of pa-
laetiology.
Part II. is divided into three books, which treat of the con-
struction of science; of former opinions upon the nature of
knowledge, and the means of seeking it; and of methods em-
ployed in the formation of science.
The above hasty sketch shows what a wide field the author
enters upon and passes over. We hope in a subsequent number
of this Journal to follow him into details, and examine his
method; and trust soon to see an American reprint of the book,
for at present its price confines it to few hands.
II.
On the Foundation of Morals : four Sermons preached be-
fore the University of Cambridge. By the Rev. WILLIAM
WHEWELL, &c. 2d Edition. Cambridge and London, (no
date.) 8vo. pp. xi. and 76.
These four Sermons - which are very respectable discourses,
better suited to the pulpit than the press — are designed to re-
call men to the eternal foundation of our ideas of the good and
true, and to the absolute, and therefore immutable Morality,
which rests thereon. They are at war, in part, with the system
of Paley, of whom he thus speaks in the preface, p. v. “The
evils which arise from the countenance thus afforded to the
principles of Paley's system, (namely, by making his Moral Phi-
losophy the standard in the University,) are so great, as to make
it desirable for us to withdraw our sanction from his doctrines
without further delay, although I am not at present aware of
any system of ethics constructed on a sounder basis, which I
should recommend to the adoption of the University.” He refers
often to Butler, as the exponent of a system diametrically oppo
site to that of Paley, and refers chiefly to Butler's first three


1842.]
531
.
Record of the Months.
Sermons, on Human Nature; the fifth and sixth, on Compassion ; .
the eighth and ninth, on Resentment; the eleventh and twelfth,
on the Love of our Neighbor ; and the thirteenth and fourteenth,
on the Love of God, as expressing the sounder view of man's
moral nature, and duties which result therefrom. The substance
of the Sermons is this : God has written his law eternally on the
constitution of man; conscience is man's power to read that
law; duty is obedience to it. Of course it follows from such
premises and their implications, that man may obey completely,
and in that case, both in this world and the next, obtains the high-
est possible human welfare. But here the author's theology comes
in, and mars the work in some measure, and he concludes as
follows: “Conscience is His minister ; the law of the heart is
his writing; the demand for the obedience of thought and will
is his word, and yet how small a part is this of that vast dispen-
sation, by which the sting of death, which is sin, was plucked
out, and the strength of sin, which is the law, (the law of Moses,
however, not the law of God,] was tamed, and the victory was
won for us; and the conqueror, 'having spoiled principalities
and powers, made a show of them, triumphing openly,' and Death
and Sin, and the law of Moses, and the law of Nature, [the law
of God ?] all become only as figures belonging to the triumphal
procession." This is eloquent and full of pious feeling, but it is
rhetoric, not philosophy. The book well deserves reprinting with
us, and carries the reader back to the times of the “ Latitude
men about Cambridge," when there were giants in that Univer-
sity, and “immutable morality” was taught by men, wont to
"out-watch the bear
With thrice-great Hermes, or unsphere
The spirit of Plato;"
men who believed goodness and God were to be loved for their
own sake.
III.
Institutes of Ecclesiastical History, Ancient and Modern.
By John LAURENCE von Mosheim, D.D., Chancellor of the Uni-
versity of Göttingen. A new and literal translation from the
original Latin, with copious additional notes, original and select-
ed, by James Murdock, D.D; edited, with additions, by Henry
Soames, M.A., Rector of Stapleford Tawney, with Thoyden
Mount, Essex. London : 1841. 4 vols. Svo.
Here we have the able translation of Mosheim by our learned
and laborious countryman, endorsed by an English scholar, en-
riched with new additions, and printed in the most elegant style
of the times. We ought also to add, that Mr. Soames has dedi-


532
(April,
Record of the Months.
cated his offspring to “ Sir Edward Bowyer Smyth, of Hill Hall,
Essex, Baronet." Gentle reader, if thou knowest not Sir Ed-
ward, we will add for thy edification the remaining dedicatory
words ;-—" Whose religious habits, anxiety for the spiritual wel.
fare of all within his influence, due sense of obligation as an
ecclesiastical patron, and patrician liberality, cast a lustre upon
an ancient family, and display the value of an hereditary aristo-
cracy, this volume," &c., &c.
After the valuable labors of Dr. Murdock, the reader might
ask, What need of a new editor ? The answer is plain. In a
field so vast as that of ecclesiastical history, so filled with inquir-
ing spirits, some new treasure is yearly brought to light; soine
old forgotten jewel or medal, rough with inscriptions, is now
and then turned up by the trenchant spade of a scholar or anti-
quary. Accordingly, if a score of Dr. Murdocks had worked a
score of years upon the volume, there would still be work for new
editors. The history of local churches is never complete. Be-
sides, the world daily grows older, and new towers and chapels
are added to the church, or some turret topples over with slow
decay, and falls to the ground. The separation of what is old,
and the silent accretion of the new, always affords work for the
historian.
Mr. Soames has aimed not only to supply the desiderata, in-
cumbent upon him as editor, but also, as a gratuitous work, to
correct the " defects of orthography or expression," in Dr. Mur.
dock, and to appears before the world as a clergyman beneficed
in the Church of England, and he would be very sorry to act in
any degree as if his convictions did not coincide with his in.
terests." He has also added original matter relating to the
history of the English church,“ of itself sufficient to form an
octavo volume of moderate size.” “Thus unquestionably," says
he, vol. i. p. xi., “ the British Isles have at length, offered to their
notice, an ecclesiastical history, comprehensive though not su-
perficial, and arranged with special reference to their own use."
Mr. Soames distinguishes his own “original matter” from the
notes of his predecessor, by the mark (Ed.). However, we are
left in doubt where he corrected the orthography or expression of
Dr. Murdock. But we should account him peculiarly well fitted
for this task of correction, judging from some remarkable ex-
pressions of his own ; such as “If men would stop when their
leaders mean them," p. xx. ; “ after the Council of Trent had
sitten," p. xxxii; “ episcopalian protestants form attached citi-
zens in Ameria,” p. xxxiv, &c., &c., &c.
Let us now see what the new editor has added to the labors of
Mosheim, McClaine, and Murdock. 1. A preface to each of the
four volumes. That of the first fills thirty-four pages, and shows


1842.]
533
Record of the Months.
little historical learning or philosophical power on its writer's
part. Some of the conclusions he draws from ecclesiastical
history are sufficiently striking, however. He says, that “Re-
publican opinions did not originate among protestant bodies,
adhering to the ancient system of ecclesiastical discipline. They
arose among such as took divinity from the Calvinistic schools,"
&c. p. xxxiv. Again, “ From modern ecclesiastical history may
be learned the value of liturgies and other well guarded formu-
laries.” Ibid. He admits, that among those who eat the bread
of the English church, there have always been some" inclinable
to theology of a Socinian cast," to use his own felicitous ex-
pression ; but “the discipline and formularies of the church
quickly reduced such innovators to silence.”
2. Notes marked (Ed.). Dr. Murdock, with great labor, di.
gested all the most valuable literature of more recent date than
Mosheim, and subjoined it in his notes, which represented the
state of most questions in ecclesiastical history at the time
these notes were published. But since 1832, new works have
appeared; various monograms have been written, illustrating
particular points of the history of the church or its doctrine, and
he would do no small service to the scholar, who should digest
all the new contributions and add them to Mosheim's text. But
this is what Mr. Soames never dreams of attempting. He is not
familiar with the sources of ecclesiastical history, nor even with
the recent works drawn from these sources, or containing them.
The works to which he refers are Prideaux's Connexions ; Bur-
ton's attempt to ascertain the chronology, &c.; Burton's Bamp-
ton lectures ; his lectures on the ecclesiastical history, &c.;
Waterland's works; Bishop Kaye's Tertullian; his Justin Mar-
tyr; Potter's discourse of church government, and similar "autho-
rities.” He shows no acquaintance with the recent contributions
to ecclesiastical history, that have been written in Germany with-
in the last ten years. He only once mentions such a work.
Bulla Reformationis Pauli Papæ tertii ad historiam Concil.
Trid. Justineus, &c., illust. H. N. Clausen. Nauniæ, 1830.
However, he now and then mentions the works of Ranke and
Hürter, but makes little use of either. Prescott's Ferdinand
and Isabella was in his hands, but Gieseler's works he does not
appear to know,
We give the following note, as a fair specimen of the learning
and discrimination of Mr. Soames. “When Dr. Mosheim
wrote, the world had not seen those elaborate works on pagan
idolatry, which have since been produced by Bryant and Faber.
Those scholars have laboriously and ingeniously traced heathen
superstition to a common source, making it appear little else
than the canonization of those eight ancestors of the modern


534
[April,
Record of the Months.
world, whom God mercifully saved in the ark. The Hindoo
triad may, therefore, be taken as the three sons of Noah, called
in the West, Jupiter, Neptune, and Pluto. Friga is evidently
the same as Rhea. Let the pagan system, in every age and
country, be considered as one, and its prevalence may easily be
understood. It will stand forth as a corruption of the patriarchal
religion, strictly analogous to the Romish corruption of Chris-
tianity.” vol. i., pp. 16, 17. But a doctrine very different is
taught in a note in the former page, where he follows Cud.
worth's opinion of the nature of Polytheism. Similar inconsis-
tencies are not rare in his pages.
Some of his notes are childish, designed to guard against
mistakes which none but babes could fall into. Thus, vol. ii.,
p. 160, Mosheim speaks of John of Damascus in the text, and
regards him “as the Thomas and the Lombard of the Greeks,"
and we find appended thereto the following note: (Thomas
Aquinas and Peter Lombard. Ed.] Sometimes, however, his
corrections are valuable, though minute. He assures us Dr.
Murdock was wrong in calling a certain author a bishop, who
in fact was no bishop. Of course he takes his stand in a partisan
pulpit, and judges all things exclusively from that “bad emi-
nence," as if it were the absolute point of view. However, we
have now and then found a valuable hint in his notes, relative
to the history of the English church, and especially the bio-
graphy of English writers. He cautions his readers against the
prejudice both of Neal and his opponent, Bishop Madox; yet
seeins willing to excuse the violence of the latter.
3. Several original chapters. In vol. ii., pp. 67 – 72, he adds a
brief chapter on the conversion of England; pp. 399-415, a
longer chapter on the religious condition of the Anglo-Saxons.
Neither gives indications of much research, as we should judge.
There are many manuscript treasures in England, illustrating
ecclesiastical affairs, which we hope some clerical scholar will
disclose, ere long, to the public. Mr. Soames never goes beyond
what is printed, and sees but little which is print.
In vol. iii., pp. 171 - 248, we have three original chapters on the
Reformation in England and Scotland ; and p. 427 - 549, three
more on the church of England, Scotland, and Ireland. These
chapters contain some matters of importance, perhaps, not pre-
viously known to the general readers of ecclesiastical history.
He draws, however, from the most obvious sources.
In vol. iv., p. 277 - 315, is a valuable chapter on the church of
England, in the 17th century. A second is added, pp. 402-462,
a sketch of ecclesiastical affairs during the 18th century, relating
chiefly to England; and a third chapter, pp. 463-508, on the
“ ecclesiastical history of the earlier years of the 19th century."


1842.)
535
Record of the Months.
Both are hasty sketches. He has no conception of the
theological problem, which the Christian church is busied with
in this age.
4. Several brief chronological tables ; one at the end of each
volume, accompanied with notes; Vater's tables of Ecclesiasti-
cal History, fc., translated by Francis Cunningham; and an
alphabetical index at the end of the work. The latter is not so
full as Dr. Maclaine's, nor so complete as could be wished.
To sum up the merits and defects of Mr. Soames's edition, it
must be said, that he seems to have made no thorough and scien-
tific study of ecclesiastical history; that his notes are in general
trifling and of no value, except, for the most part, to refer to the
recent and meagre literature of the English church. We would,
however, make a single exception. The history of transubstan-
tiation he seems to have studied more thoroughly than any other
department of his subject. In respect to the history of the church
in England, Scotland, and Ireland, he has collected into a few
pages of easy access, what we must otherwise seek for in
several volumes. If he has not done all the duty of an editor,
we will take thankfully what he gives. His sketch of the eccle-
siastical history of the present century, though superficial, and
in some respects scarcely accurate, is yet a convenient statement
of some of the outward facts. We will only add, that Mr.
Soames is likewise the author of “ The Anglo-Saxon Church, its
History, Revenues, and General Character; ”of the Elizabethan
religious History; and of a “ Bampton Lecture," which we have
never seen nor heard of, except through his own references, and
the advertisements of booksellers.
IV.
German Anti-Supernaturalism. Six Lectures, on Strauss's
“ Life of Jesus," delivered at the Chapel in South Place, Fins-
bury. By Philip Harwood, &c. London. 1841. pp. viii. and 107.
Mr. Harwood's design, as he tells us in the preface,“ is to
stimulate inquiry into a subject, which he regards as of first-rate
importance on historical and moral speculation. Here, then, we
have a clergyman, yes, a Unitarian clergyman, favorably known
by a few stirring and pious sermons, setting forth, and in great
measure accepting, the results of Mr. Strauss ! He gives a
brief, but fair and able synopsis of the celebrated “Life of
Jesus," and adds a few observations of his own. For our own
part, we think Mr. Strauss is often mistaken; that he under-
rates the historical element, and sometimes comes hastily to his
conclusions, which, therefore, cannot be all maintained, though


536
[April
Record of the Months.
long ago we believed he was doing a signal service to Christi-
anity itself. Mr. Harwood, we think, accepts the conclusions of
his author more entirely than reasonably, and like him is blinded
by the myths, so that he does not always see the fact they cover
and conceal.
The book may be regarded as the forerunner of a theological
controversy, which, if once begun, will not be soon ended. It
requires no divination to forsee the final result. It will lead
thinking men to ask for the facts of the case, before they reason
about the facts. But is it well judged to give the results of a
book like Strauss's, without the process by which the results
were reached ? Some will reply, yes; others, no. But the
same thing is done in science and history; why not in historical
theology? Again, it will be asked, is it wise to bring the case at
once before the people? Some men love an historical answer, and
here it is. Greater questions have been brought quite as directly
before the people. In the day of Moses, the theological problem
was to separate religion and morality from the Fetichism and
Polytheism of Canaanites and Egyptians. What was his method ?
He said unto the people, Hear, oh Israel, the Lord your God is
One LORD. He left the bull, Apis, and the consecrated cats to
take care of themselves.
In the time of Christ, when the problem was to separate reli-
gion and morality from the Mosaic ritual, that world-stirring
Nazarene addresses himself to the people. He tells a woman,
“ The hour cometh when ye shall neither in this mountain, nor
yet at Jerusalem, worship the Father ; but the true worshippers
shall worship him in spirit and in truth." Is not salvation for
the sick? This question has long enough been known to schol.
ars, perhaps decided by scholars. It is the popular theology
that requires reformation ; and how shall this be effected, but by
appeal to the people? We apprehend no danger is to be feared,
at least no danger to religion and morality, nor to Christianity.
When the work is tried by fire, why should not the “wood,
hay, and stubble” be burned up, that the precious stones may
appear, and the foundation that is laid be discerned, that men
may build thereon the temple that abideth ever? The old never
passes away, till all the good of the thing gets transferred to the
new.
We give Mr. Harwood's conclusion in his own words.
“What are we to do with Christianity ? - that wonderful faith, which
has come so mysteriously into our world, and lived in it eighteen hun-
dred years already, with such a wealth and fulness of life and living
power; doing so much, and undoing so much; uprooting an old civili-
zation, and planting a new one upon its ruins; doing so much, and in so
many ways, both of good and evil; Christianity, the inspiration of the
philanthropist, and the stalking-horse of the tyrant ; the word of God in


1842.]
537
Record of the Months.
the heart of the reformer-prophet, and the lie on the lips of the bigot-
priest; the endurer and the inflicter of martyrdom for conscience-sake;
Christianity, with all its ideas, moralities, and spiritual forces, working
in countless ways, and through countless channels, upon literature, art,
philosophy, legislation, and all the other interests of our social and
moral being :- what are we to do with this great enduring, all-pervad-
ing spirit or power of Christianity, those of us who believe it to be
simply a growth of nature and the human heart, with no other divinity,
or divine authority, than its own truth, recognised by our own minds,
and no other divine right or sanction, than what we infer from what we
see of its nature and its history? What are we to do with Christianity ?
" Perhaps some will say, 'We have nothing to do with it, we have
already done away with it, by discarding its evidences in miracle: the
miracles being false, it is without evidence, it is a false thing altogether,
a dead thing, and we have nothing to do but bury it out of our sight,
without more words.' Hardly so, I think. Miracles do not make a re-
ligion, nor does the withdrawal of miracles unmake a religion. Miracles
are not religion, but only a particular sort of machinery, by which a par-
ticular form of religion may or may not, at a given time and place, get
room for itself in the world. The essence of a religion is never in its
miracles, true or false ; but in its ideas, its moralities, the phases of cha-
racter, the modes of intellectual and moral being, which it calls into exist-
ence. The Jewish religion is not in the plagues of Egypt and the thunders
of Sinai, but in the legislation, the ritual, and the morality of the Penta- .
teuch. The Christian religion is not in the changing of water into wine,
and feeding five thousand men at a cheap rate; not in violations of the
law of gravitation, or of any other law; but in the ideas that were the i
spirit and power of Christ's mind; in the spiritual impulses and influ-
ences that come from Christ's mind to our minds; in the moral inspira-
tion that breathes out from Christ's heart into our hearts. The essence
of a religion is in its ideas. Where else should it be? A religion is
true or false, according as these are true or false, in accordance or in
discordance with the ideal of human truth and good. It is not a ques-
tion of iniracles one way or the other. The presence of miracle could
never make a false religion true, nor can the absence of miracle ever
make a true religion false. The Christian religion may be a quite true
religion,- the religion of brotherhood and immortality, the religion of
the sermon on the mount, the religion of the good Samaritan, the reli-
gion of the well of Jacob and the lake of Galilee, the religion of the
workshop of Nazareth,— may be a true religion, the truest of religions,
though the whole of the miracles together come from the limbo of the
vanities. The question still remains, then,- miracles or no miracles.
What are we to do with Christianity?
" What are we to do with Christianity? What do we do with other
religions, other doctrines and moralities, other philosophies of life, man
and God? We simply accept them for what they are worth, as expo-
sitions, more or less authentic and complete, as a portion of spiritual
reality; as parts, sustaining more or less important relations to the
whole of humanity's realized and garnered mental wealth; as indicat-
ing, by the very fact that here they are, something in human capability,
tendency, and destination; as chapters in the volume of God's book ;
as expressions of moral ideas, utterances of moral wants. We thus ac-
cept them all, and we test the worth and amount of the truth that is in
VOL. II. — NO. IV.
68


538
(April,
Record of the Months.
each, by the joint standard of individual feeling, and of the world's ge-
neral experience; valuing each by the kind and degree of its influences,
by its proved capability or incapability of enduring, by the forms of
moral life which it expresses or creates. We accept each as true, ac-
cording to the extent to which it has proved itself true by its works.
We accept each and all for what they are severally worth, as emana-
tions, more or less direct and pure, froin that spirit of God in man, which
is the great eternal soul of our human world, the well-spring of all
our prophesyings, gospels, moralities, religions. And why not Christi-
anity ? — Christianity, the divinest of them all; which has worked longer
than most of them, worked the most variously, benigoly, and powerfully
of them all; which has done the most for human progress of them all,
and which, in its connexions with the moral civilization of those pations
'which stand at the head of the human race, and furnish the best speci-
mens of humanity in its best estate, may be taken as, on the whole, the
most significant phenomenon in the history of our world, our trustiest
and most intelligible expositor of what God is doing with our world.
“What shall we do, then, with Christianity ? Why, accept it as the
expression of truths, in human nature and human life, to which many
ages and many nations have testified that they are truths : accept it,
if not any longer as a creed having dogmatical truth, or as a history
having historical truth, yet as a poem fraught with truth of a higher
order than the dogmatic or historical — a poem, a divine parable: ac-
cept its ideal of human character and capability in that wonderful Man
of Nazareth, in whom so glorious a strength blends with so gentle s
repose,- Son of God and Son of Man, majestic as a prophet and meek
as a little child : accept its ideal of human destiny, in the history of that
Man of Nazareth, born of God (as we are all born of God, with two
natures in us — children we are, like him, of an invisible Father and a
visible Mother, God and Nature,) tempted in a wilderness, as we all
are tempted, and of the very same devil or devils, struggling, suffering,
triumphing, conquered by death, yet conquering over death: accept
this Christianity; accept its cross, the symbol of trial; its resurrection,
the symbol of history ; its millennium, or reign of saints, the symbol of
our new moral world, with right and love for its only law; its heaven,
the symbol of the blessedness which itself creates; its Father-God, the
symbol of the great, mysterious, all-upholding, all-inspiring power, in
which, and by which we live, move, and have our being. Accept Chris-
tianity, and these things in Christianity; that is, if we see them there.
If not, so be it; perhaps we may see them more clearly somewhere
else. There is no compulsion in the matter; no believing under pe-
nalties; no hell-fire. '
" What shall we do with Christianity? Nothing artificial, nothing
forced, nothing false; nothing that shall hinder the full, free develop-
ment of mental and moral individuality. Not make a yoke of bondage
of it: not make a labor-saving machine of it: not make a preceptive
morality of it, to supersede the morality of principle and spirit: not make
a creed-theology of it, to supersede thought and philosophy: not make
a hierarchical church of it, to supersede God's order of prophets and
seers : not make a poor, formal, lip-worship of it, to trammel the free-
dom of the worship, which is in truth only when it is in spirit: do po-
thing with it that shall narrow the sympathies, enslave the will, enfeeble
and sectarianize the intellect, impoverish the humanities, pervert or


1842.)
539
Republications.
hinder our growth up to the fulness of the measure of the stature of
perfect men.
" What shall we do with Christianity? Why, take its best principles,
and do battle, in the strength of them, against its worst perversions.
Take its law of love, its revelation of brotherhood and brotherly equa-
lity, its ideal of divine purpose and human destiny, its spirituality, its
simplicity; and combat, strong in these, with all the frauds, falsehoods,
conventionalisms, mummeries, quackeries, monopolies, tyrannies, sec-
tarianisms, pharisaisms, that are practised in its name, and sanctified
with its sanctions, the disgrace of churches, and the bane of states, –
that even make it a question, with not unthinking men, whether on the
whole Christianity has done more of good or of mischief in the world,
that make it no question at all, but that if Christ were to come again, he
would be crucified again by the Chief Priests.
“What shall we do with Christianity ? Why, if we can, improve
upon it; improve upon Paul's Christianity, as Paul improved upon
Peter's Christianity ; develop it further, more widely, and variously,
than it has ever been developed yet. Work out its great enduring
principles the full length to which they will go as principles, in their
varied applications to every department of human thought and life:
enshrine its eternal spirit in new forms of beneficence and beauty, as
the spirit of humanity itself rises to new heights, and tries its strength
in new modes of being and action: work out by the light, and with the
resources of our own day and generation, its grand idea of a kingdom
of heaven and of God: carry its justice, its freedom, and its faith into
our literature, our trade, our politics, and wherever else justice, freedom,
and faith can find, or make a place for themselves : do all we can with
this, and with every other genuine utterance of the spirit of humanity,
chat shall make us wiser, stronger, truer men, - bring us into nearer in-
telligence of the laws, and profounder sympathy with the spirit of the
great world of God."- pp. 105 - 107.
REPUBLICATIONS.
The year 1841 has been distinguished, with us, above any of
its predecessors, by the republication of valuable works, both
ancient and modern. Not only are the latest and poorest bubbles
blown in the old world re-blown in the new, but the heavy tomes,
over which Wisdom has grown pale, and the iron hand of Dili-
gence become weary in the composition, are also presented to
us. Not many years ago, if we remember rightly, a bookseller
asked the aid of the legislature of his Stale to enable him to
issue Mather's Magnalia, not daring to trust two octavos alone.
Among the valuable works, we would name The Works of
Lord Bolingbroke, 4 vols. 8vo., The Letters of Horace Walpole,


540
[April,
Republications.
4 vols. 8vo., Turner's History of the Anglo-Saxons, 2 vols. 8vo.,
Lingard's History of the Anglo-Saxon Church, 1 vol. 8vo., The
Speeches of Lord Brougham, 2 rols. 8vo., and the complete
Works of Lord Bacon, in 3 vols. royal 8vo. In these volumes, we
have all the works of Lord Bacon, arranged after the manner of
Basil Montague's edition, accompanied with his life of that phi.
losopher, and furnished with an index more convenient than
that in the English edition. Here we have the substance of
seventeen English octavo volumes, for about a fifth part of the
cost of the original edition, and in a very readable form. We
love to see elegant books, but not the less those of a plainer sort,
which can find their way to a farmer's fireside. We learn that
another edition of Bacon is in course of publication amongst us
in numbers, designed for still wider circulation. At some future
period, we hope to return to Mr. Montague's edition of Bacon,
and consider the merit and influence of the Baconian method in
philosophy.
Some other books we would notice more particularly.
I.
The History of Christianity, from the birth of Christ to the
abolition of Paganism in the Roman Empire. By the Rev. H.
H. Milman, &c., with an introduction by James Murdock, D.D.
New York : 1841. 1 vol. 8vo.
Here, the three elegant volumes of the original are compressed
into one, in the American reprint. The paper and type are
such as we usually receive from the press of the Messrs. Har-
per. The work is written with a good deal of fairness, but bears
few marks of that erudition, at once various, exact, and pro-
found, which we expect from an historian of the church, and
fewer still, it may be, of that grasp of mind, that philosophic
power, which comprehends and delineates the course and spirit
of an age; a grasp and a power which we may require of a writer,
who measures himself against the greatest historical and philo-
sophical problem of the world, — the rise, extension, develop-
ment, and destination of Christianity. Whoso attempts a history
of Christianity, enters upon a vast field, where the ground is
uncertain, and its limits not defined, perhaps scarce definable.
He must tell us, 1. what Christianity is in itself, and what is its
foundation; 2. when it was first made manifest in the world.
under what circumstances, and with what limitations ; 3. when,
and in whom it reached its highest point; and, 4. what has been
the course of its development, and what its influence, negatire
and positive, on the human race, how it has acted on men, and


1842.)
541
Republications.
how their prejudices, sensuality, superstition, and sin have react-
ed upon their notions of Christianity. These four problems, as we
take it, present themselves to the philosophic writer, who aims
to delineate the Christian idea and its historical development.
He must tell us whether Christianity be the Absolute religion,
or not the Absolute religion ; if the latter, what are its limita-
tions, considered in itself; if the former, what is the history of
its successive unfoldings, and of its application in the concrete.
Under what forms has it been contemplated, and what limita-
tions have men set to this perfect religion. If the author takes
the view, that Christianity is Absolute religion, then the whole
matter resolves itself into this query : What relation did the
concrete form of any time and place bear to this Absolute reli-
gion? or when the absolute religion was proclaimed, what anta-
gonists did it find, and how were they met ?
Various preliminary questions must be answered, no doubt.
For example: How do we get at the idea of absolute religion in
general ; how that of Christianity in particular ? To look at
the latter question, and see what it involves, Christianity is one
historical manifestation of religion amongst many other mani.
festations, which are more or less imperfect. We become ac-
quainted with it by means of historical witnesses, sacred and
profane. Then the question comes, are the witnesses competent
to testify in the premises ? Here comes the critical question. If
they are, and we find from their testimony that Christianity is
absolute religion, then the question comes, What were the forms
of religion it invented, how did they act upon one another, and
what was the result ?
The historian of Christianity must tell us what Christianity is.
This is the great point. If he fail here, he does not accomplish
his work. He may collect materials, but the history is not
written. Now, we think this is what Mr. Milman has not done;
of course, then, his work fails of its end. It is not a history of
Christianity; he has left out that, by an unlucky accident.
Mr. Milman's book is marked by fairness, in general; he
writes generally in a pleasant style, though he is sometimes
careless; he has a good deal of historical knowledge, though far
too little for the undertaking, as we think. But he does not
grapple with the subject like a strong man. He talks about it,
not of it. He is wanting in the philosophy of the matter.
When he comes to the details of historical inquiry, he states
some facts not previously known to the readers of ordinary ec-
clesiastical history. If his book be regarded as a whole, it is
an interesting work. Beyond this, we can allow it little merit,
either as an original performance, or considered as a compila-
tion from ancient or contemporary scholars. His learning is not


542
[April,
Republications.
wide, nor his philosophy deep. He belongs rather to the class of
historical dilettanti, – if it be not invidious to say so, - and not
in the ranks of genuine historians. The work might be entitled,
“ Historical Pencilings about Christianity, by an Amateur."
However, we welcome the book, and will gratefully accept it for
what it is not for what it is not. We rejoice in its republication,
spite of the shabby appearance the American edition makes;
and trust it may recall attention to this too much neglected field
of ecclesiastical history.
II.
The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.
By EDWARD GIBBON, Esq., with notes by the Rev. H. H. Mil-
man, &c. New York : 1841. 4 vols. 8vo.
This work is from the same press with the former, and the
paper and print are of the same character. This new edition
contains, in addition to the original work of Gibbon, 1. A pre.
face by Mr. Milman, which is valuable for its hints and sugges-
tions; 2. Notes from the same hand, with others selected from
M. Guizot, and M. Wenck, a German translator of a part of the
work. The notes of M. Wenck, which extend over only a very
small part of the history, are apparently the work of a scholar,
familiar with the sources of ancient story, and also with recent
historical essays. The notes of M. Guizot are more numerous,
and sometimes important. They are marked in general by a
certain scholarly aspect, but are not seldom deficient in liberality
of sentiment. We should say Guizot has the better head, and
Milman the better heart, for surely he is no bigot. But of Mr.
Milman's own contributions we must speak more at length.
He undertook the task of a new edition of Gibbon. This
problem, therefore, was before him, to render his original as
complete, in relation to all historical literature now extant, as it
was at Gibbon's time, in relation to the literature written before
his day. The editor is to make Gibbon's history a manual as
fit for the present day, as it was when first published for that
day. This is a serious work. I. The editor must expose his
author's errors, and correct his misstatements. This he has
often attempted, but rarely accomplished, and for this plain
reason, such a work would require at least the equal of Gibbon,
the learning of the scholar, the thought of the philosopher.
From Mr. Milman we must expect neither. Still, we are grate-
ful for what he has done. Now and then he corrects an error,
or points out an unfair remark, exposes a sarcasm, or refutes
a sneer. He always does it, if we remember well, in good


1842.]
543
Republications.
temper, and does not think it part of a Christian's duty to get
into a passion with an infidel.
II. We should demand of an editor a reference to all the im-
portant literature which assails or defends the text, and a digest
of it in the proper places ; a reference to all the valuable criti-
cisms inade in Gibbon's time, or subsequently. Gibbon himself,
in a very simple way, refers to all the most valuable literature
relating to the vast range of subjects that comes before him. He
gives an encyclopedia of critical information respecting Roman
affairs. But few works of importance escaped his eye, whether
they favored his opinions or opposed them. Now, Mr. Milman
rarely refers to any of the numerous works published in opposi-
tion to Gibbon. An account of those attacking his celebrated
xyth and xvith chapters — so numerous, so respectable are some,
and so insolent are others, - would be interesting and instruc-
tive in our day, when they are for the most part forgotten with
their authors.
III. The editor must connect all discoveries and conclusions
of subsequent historians, with the text, or incorporate them with
the notes, and thus make the work complete for our times. This
M. Guizot attempts, in some points, and not without success.
Mr. Milman now and then makes the attempt, but rarely suc-
ceeds. His notes in general, when compared with Gibbon's,
are weak and frivolous. We have collected some instances to
substantiate the assertion, but have not space for them at present.
But to recur to the first head, supplying the omissions, and cor-
recting the errors of his author, and cite a case in point,- Gib-
bon's great sin, it seems to us, in regard to his treatment of
Christianity, is this ; that while he omits no occasion to sneer at
the pretensions of the church, the wickedness, hypocrisy, and
superstition of its members, he continues to pass dry-shod over
the instances of Pagans becoming Christians, and living a divine
life of faith and works. These omissions it was incumbent on
the editor to supply, especially when the editor is a Christian,
and his author an infidel, and still more especially when the
editor is himself the historian of Christianity."
To sum up the matter in a few words between the historian
and his editor, Gibbon appears to us as a tall giant, with a de-
portment haughty and arrogant, a face secular even to profanity,
marked with coarse sensuality, but stamped with strong and mascu-
line sense, and lit up with keen and Aashing eyes, walking loftily
about in the ruins of a temple, with a huge flambeau in his
hand, smoking like a light-house. Where he treads, some walls
totter, and some columns fall. He applies his torch, now to the
face of a marble statue, makes its features appear in his plain
light, but leaves a smooch on the face; now he holds his torch


544
[April, 1842.
Republications.
at the entrance of some hidden crypt, supposed to be full of holiest
relics, and discloses the apparatus of debauchery and deceit;
he throws down venerated images, and treads them to dust; de-
lights to blacken what seems fair to the pious, and bring to light
what mortals hide with shame. Though he represent the out-
line of each object as it is, yet by dexterously shifting his light,
he makes their shadows take what forms he will. On the other
hand, Mr. Milman is a well-dressed page, who walks gracefully,
and at a respectable distance behind the giant; carries in a
silver case a little taper of wax; with a delicate mouchoir, at-
tempts to remove the smooch, but sometimes makes it worse ;
picks up the fragments of sacred stone, but cannot make them
live again; holds up his tiny light to discover the well wrought
finger of Jupiter thundering in the marble, but has not light
enough to give the awful face of the God, still less to change
the shadows of the giant's torch.
We are obliged to postpone notices of several works, that have
been sent us by their authors, to the next number of this publi-
cation.


THE METHOD OF NATURE.
AN
ORATION,
DELIVERED BEFORE THE
SOCIETY OF THE ADELPHI,
IN WATERVILLE COLLEGE, IN MAINE,
AUGUST 11, 1841.
BY
RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
BOSTON:
SAMUEL G. SIMPKINS.
1841,


Entered according to Act of Congress in the year 1841, by
SAMUEL G. SIMPKINS,
in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of Massachusetts.
BOSTON;
Printed by Isaac R. Butts,
No. 2 School Street


ORATION.
GENTLEMEN :
Let us exchange congratulations on
the enjoyments and the promises of this day and
this hour. A literary anniversary is a celebration of
the intellect, and so the inlet of a great force into
the assembly of the learned, and through them into
the world. The land we live in has no interest so
dear, if it knew its want, as the fit consecration of
days of reason and thought. Where there is no
vision, the people perish. The scholars are the
priests of that thought which establishes the founda-
tions of the earth. No matter what is their special
work or profession, they stand for the spiritual
interest of the world, and it is a common calamity if
they neglect their post in a country where the ma-
terial interest is so predominant as it is in America.
We hear something too much of the results of ma-
chinery, commerce, and the useful arts. We are a
puny and a fickle folk. Avarice, hesitation, and
following, are our diseases. The rapid wealth
which hundreds in the community acquire in trade,


or by the incessant expansions of our population
and arts, enchants the eyes of all the rest ; the luck
of one is the hope of thousands, and the proximity
of the bribe acts like the neighborhood of a gold
mine to impoverish the farm, the school, the church,
the house, and the very body and feature of man.
I do not wish to look with sour aspect at the in-
dustrious manufacturing village, or the mart of
commerce. I love the music of the water-wheel;
I value the railway ; I feel the pride which the sight
of a ship inspires; I look on trade and every me-
chanical craft as education also. But let me dis-
criminate what is precious herein. There is in each
of these works one act of invention, one intellectual
step, or short series of steps taken ; that act or step
is the spiritual act: all the rest is mere repetition of
the same a thousand times. And I will not be de-
ceived into admiring the routine of handicrafts and
mechanics, how splendid soever the result, any more
than I admire the routine of the scholars or clerical
class. That splendid results ensue from the labors
of stupid men, is the fruit of higher laws than their
will, and the routine is not to be praised for it. I
would not have the laborer sacrificed to the splendid
result, - I would not have the laborer sacrificed to
my convenience and pride, nor to that of a great
class of such as me. Let there be worse cotton
and better men. The weaver should not be bereaved
of that nobility which comes from the superiority to
his work, and the knowledge that the product or the
skill is a momentary end of no value, except so far


as it embodies his spiritual prerogatives. If I see
nothing to admire in the unit, shall I admire a mill-
ion units ? Men stand in awe of the city, but do
not honor any individual citizen; and are continu-
ally yielding to this dazzling result of numbers, that
which they would never yield to the solitary exam-
ple of any one.
Whilst, therefore, the multitude of men live to
degrade each other, and give currency to desponding
doctrines, the scholar must be a bringer of hope,
and must reinforce man against himself. I some-
times believe that our literary anniversaries will
presently assume a greater importance, as the eyes
of men open to their capabilities. Here, a new set
of distinctions, a new order of ideas, prevail. Here,
we set a bound to the respectability of wealth, and
a bound to the pretensions of the law and the
church. The bigot must cease to be a bigot to-day.
Into our charmed circle, power cannot enter; and
the sturdiest defender of existing institutions feels
the terrific inflammability of this air which condenses
heat in every corner that may restore to the ele-
ments the fabrics of ages. Nothing solid is secure;
everything tilts and rocks. Even the scholar is not
safe ; he too is searched and revised. Is his learn-
ing dead? Is he living in his memory ? The pow-
er of mind is not mortification, but life. But come
forth, thou curious child! hither, thou loving, all-
hoping poet! hither, thou tender, doubting heart,
who hast not yet found any place in the world's
market fit for thee; any wares which thou couldst


buy or sell, ---- so large is thy love and ambition, -
thine and not theirs is the hour. Smooth thy brow,
and hope and love on, for the kind heaven justifies
thee, and the whole world feels that thou only art in
the right.
We ought to celebrate this hour by expressions of
manly joy. Not thanks, not prayer seem quite the
highest or truest name for our communication with
the infinite, — but glad and conspiring reception, -
reception that becomes giving in its turn, as the re-
ceiver is only the All-Giver in part and in infancy.
I cannot, — nor can any man, — speak precisely of
things so sublime, but it seems to me, the wit of man,
his strength, his grace, his tendency, his art, is the
grace and the presence of God. It is beyond ex-
planation. When all is said and done, the rapt saint
is found the only logician. Not exhortation, not
argument becomes our lips, but pæans of joy and
praise. But not of adulation : we are too nearly
related in the deep of the mind to that we honor.
It is God in us which checks the language of petition
by a grander thought. In the bottom of the heart,
it is said ; "I am, and by me, O child! this fair
body and world of thine stands and grows. I am :
all things are mine: and all mine are thine.'
The festival of the intellect, and the return to its
source, cast a strong light on the always interesting
topics of Man and Nature. We are forcibly re-
minded of the old want. There is no man ; there
hath never been. The Intellect still asks that a man
may be born. The flame of life flickers feebly in


en a
human breasts. We demand of men a richness and
universality we do not find. Great men do not con-
tent us. It is their solitude, not their force, that
makes them conspicuous. There is somewhat in-
digent and tedious about them. They are poorly
tied to one thought. If they are prophets, they are
egotists; if polite and various, they are shallow.
How tardily men arrive at any thought! how tardily
they pass from it to another thought! The crystal
sphere of thought is as concentrical as the geological
structure of the globe. As all our soils and rocks
lie in strata, concentric strata, so do all men's think-
ings run laterally, never vertically. Here comes by
a great inquisitor with auger and plumb-line, and
will bore an Artesian well through all our conventions
and theories, and pierce to the core of things. But
as soon as he probes one crust, behold gimlet, plunib-
line, and philosopher, all take a lateral direction, in
spite of all resistance, as if some strong wind took
everything off its feet, and if you come month after
month to see what progress our reformer has made,
- not an inch has he pierced, — you still find him
with new words in the old place, floating about in
new parts of the same old vein or crust. The new
book says, • I will give you the key to nature,' and
we expect to go like a thunderbolt to the centre.
But the thunder is a surface phenomenon, makes a
skin-deep cut, and so does the sage. The wedge
turns out to be a rocket. Thus a man lasts but a
very little while, for his monomania becomes insup-
portably tedious in a few months. It is so with


every book and person : and yet - and yet — we
do not take up a new book, or meet a new man
without a pulse-beat of expectation. And this dis-
content with the poor and pinched result, this invin in-
cible hope of a more adequate interpreter, is the
sure prediction of his advent.
SO
In the absence of man we turn to nature, 3 thwhich
stands next. In the divine order, intellect is Pin wrimary:
nature, secondary: it is the memory of the on, . mind.
That which once existed in intellect as pure, ne law,
has now taken body as Nature. It existed alrecyzdy
in the mind in solution : now, it has been precipfi-
tated, and the bright sediment is the world. We can
never be quite strangers or inferiors in nature. We
are parties to its existence; it is flesh of our flesh,
and bone of our bone. But we no longer hold it
by the hand : we have lost our miraculous power:
our arm is no more as strong as the frost ; nor our
will equivalent to gravity and the elective attractions.
Yet we can use nature as a convenient standard,
and the meter of our rise and fall. It has this ad-
vantage as a witness, – it will not lie, it cannot be
debauched. When man curses, nature still testifies
to truth and love. We may, therefore, safely study
the mind in nature, because we cannot steadily gaze
on it in mind; as we explore the face of the sun in
a pool, when our eyes cannot brook his direct
splendors.
It seems to me, therefore, that it were some suit-
able pæan, if we should piously celebrate this hour
by exploring the method of nature. Let us see that,


as nearly as we can, and try how far it is transfera-
ble to the literary life. Every earnest glance we
give to the realities around us, with intent to learn,
proceeds from a holy impulse, and is really songs of
praise. What difference can it make whether it
take the shape of exhortation, or of passionate ex-
clamation, or of scientific statement? These are
forms merely. Through them we express, at last,
the fact, that God has done thus or thus.
In treating a subject so large, in which we must
necessarily appeal to the intuition, and aim much
more to suggest, than to describe, I know it is not
easy to speak with the precision attainable on topics
of less scope. I have no taste for partial statements:
they disgust me also. I do not wish in attempting
to paint a man, to decribe an air-fed, unimpassioned,
impossible ghost. My eyes and ears are revolted by
any neglect of the physical facts, the limitations of
man. And yet one who conceives the true order of
nature, and beholds the visible as proceeding from
the invisible, cannot state his thought, without seem-
ing to those who study the physical laws, to do them
some injustice. There is an intrinsic defect in the
organ. Language overstates. Statements of the
infinite are usually felt to be unjust to the finite, and
blasphemous. Empedocles undoubtedly spoke a
truth of thought, when he said, “I am God;' but
the moment it was out of his mouth, it became a lie
to the ear; and the world revenged itself for the
seeming arrogance, by the good story about his shoe.
How can I hope for better hap in my attempts to


10
enunciate spiritual facts ? Thus only ; as far as I
share the influx of truth, so far shall I be felt by
every true person to say what is just.
The method of nature: who could ever analyse
it? That rushing stream will not stop to be ob-
served. We can never surprise nature in a corner;
never find the end of a thread ; never tell where to
set the first stone. The bird hastes to lay her egg:
the egg hastens to be a bird. The wholeness we
admire in the order of the world, is the result of
infinite distribution. Its smoothness is the smooth-
ness of the pitch of the cataract. Its permanence
is a perpetual inchoation. Every natural fact is an
emanation, and that from which it emanates is an
emanation also, and from every emanation is a new
emanation. If anything could stand still, it would
be crushed and dissipated by the torrent it resisted,
and if it were a mind, would be crazed ; as insane
persons are those who hold fast to one thought, and
do not flow with the course of nature. Not the
cause, but an ever novel effect, nature descends al-
ways from above. It is unbroken obedience. The
beauty of these fair objects is imported into them
from a metaphysical and eternal spring. In all
animal and vegetable forms, the physiologist con-
cedes that no chemistry, no mechanics can account
for the facts, but a mysterious principle of life must
be assumed, which not only inhabits the organ, but
makes the organ.
How silent, how spacious, what room for all, yet
without place to insert an atom,- in graceful suc-


11
cession, in equal fulness, in balanced beauty, the
dance of the hours goes forward still. Like an odor
of incense, like a strain of music, like a sleep, it is
inexact and boundless. It will not be dissected,
nor unravelled, nor shown. Away profane philoso-
pher! seekest thou in nature the cause ? This re-
fers to that, and that to the next, and the next to the
third, and everything refers. Thou must ask in
another mood, thou must feel it and love it, thou
must behold it in a spirit as grand as that by which
it exists, ere thou canst know the law. Known it
will not be, but gladly beloved and enjoyed.
The simultaneous life throughout the whole body,
the equal serving of innumerable ends without the
least emphasis or preference to any, but the steady
degradation of each to the success of all, allows the
understanding no place to work. Nature can only
be conceived as existing to a universal and not to
a particular end, to a universe of ends, and not to
one,- a work of ecstasy, to be represented by a
circular movement, as intention might be signified
by a straight line of definite length. Each effect
strengthens every other. There is no revolt in all
the kingdoms from the commonweal: no detach-
ment of an individual. Hence the catholic charac-
ter which makes every leaf an exponent of the world.
When we behold the landscape in a poetic spirit, we
do not reckon individuals. Nature knows neither
palm nor oak, but only vegetable life, which sprouts
into forests, and festoons the globe with a garland of
grass and vines.


12
That no single end may be selected and nature
judged thereby, appears from this, that if man himself
be considered as the end, and it be assumed that the
final cause of the world is to make holy or wise
or beautiful men, we see that it has not succeeded.
Read alternately in natural and in civil history, a
treatise of astronomy, for example, with a volume
of French Memoires pour servir. When we have
spent our wonder in computing this wasteful hospi-
tality with which boon nature turns off new firma-
ments without end into her wide common, as fast as
the madrepores make coral,- suns and planets hos-
pitable to souls,- and then shorten the sight to look
into this court of Louis Quatorze, and see the game
that is played there, — duke and marshal, abbé and
madame,- a gambling table where each is laying
traps for the other, where the end is ever by some
lie or fetch to outwit your rival and ruin him with
this solemn fop in wig and stars — the king; one
can hardly help asking if this planet is a fair speci-
men of the so generous astronomy, and if so, wheth-
er the experiment have not failed, and whether it
be quite worth while to make more, and glut the inno-
cent space with so poor an article.
I think we feel not much otherwise if, instead of
beholding foolish nations, we take the great and wise
men, the eminent souls, and narrowly inspect their
biography. None of them seen by himself — and
his performance compared with his promise or idea,
will justify the cost of that enormous apparatus of
means by which this spotted and defective person
was at last procured.


13
To questions of this sort, nature replies, “I grow,
I grow. All is nascent, infant. When we are
dizzied with the arithmetic of the savant toiling to
compute the length of her line, the return of her
curve, we are steadied by the perception that a great
deal is doing; that all seems just begun; remote
aims are in active accomplishment. We can point
nowhere to anything final; but tendency appears on
all hands : planet, system, constellation, total nature
is growing like a field of maize in July; is becoming
somewhat else ; is in rapid metamorphosis. The
embryo does not more strive to be man than yon-
der burr of light we call a nebula tends to be a ring,
a comet, a globe, and parent of new stars. Why
should not then these messieurs of Versailles strut
and plot for tabourets and ribbons, for a season,
without prejudice to their faculty to run on better
errands by and by ?
But nature seems further to reply, I have ven-
tured so great a stake as my success, in no single
creature. I have not yet arrived at any end. The
gardener aims to produce a fine peach or pear, but
my aim is the health of the whole tree,- root, stem,
leaf, flower, and seed,— and by no means the pam-
pering of a monstrous pericarp at the expense of all
the other functions.
In short, the spirit and peculiarity of that impress-
ion nature makes on us, is this, that it does not exist
to any one or to any number of particular ends,
but to numberless and endless benefit, that there is
in it no private will, no rebel leaf or limb, but the.
Ve


whole is oppressed by one superincumbent tendency,
obeys that redundancy or excess of life which in
conscious beings we call ecstasy.
With this conception of the genius or method of
nature, let us go back to man. It is true, he pre-
tends to give account of himself to himself, but, at
the last, what has he to recite but the fact that there
is a Life not to be described or known otherwise
than by possession? What account can he give of
his essence more than so it was to be? The royal
reason, the Grace of God seems the only descrip-
tion of our multiform but ever identical fact.
There is virtue, there is genius, there is success, or
there is not. There is the incoming or the reced-
ing of God: that is all we can affirm; and we can
show neither how nor why. Self-accusation, re-
morse, and the didactic morals of self-denial and
strife with sin, is a view we are constrained by our
constitution to take of the fact seen from the plat-
form of action; but seen from the platform of in-
tellection, there is nothing for us but praise and
wonder.
The fact of facts is the termination of the world
in a man. This appears to be the last victory of
intelligence. The universal does not attract us
until housed in an individual. Who heeds the waste
abyss of possibility ? The ocean is everywhere the
same, but it has no character until seen with the
shore or the ship. Who would value any number
of miles of Atlantic brine bounded by lines of lati-
tude and longitude ? Confine it by granite rocks,


15
let it wash a shore where wise men dwell, and it is
filled with expression, and the point of greatest
interest is where the land and water meet. So must
we admire in man, the form of the formless, the
concentration of the vast, the house of reason, the
cave of memory. See the play of thoughts! what
nimble gigantic creatures are these! what saurians,
what palaiotheria shall be named with these agile
movers ? The great Pan of old, who was clothed
in a leopard skin to signify the beautiful variety of
things and the firmament, his coat of stars,— was but
the representative of thee; O rich and various Man !
thou palace of sight and sound, carrying in thy
senses the morning and the night and the unfathom-
able galaxy ; in thy brain, the geometry of the City
of God; in thy heart, the bower of love and the
realms of right and wrong. An individual man is a
fruit which it cost all the foregoing ages to form and
ripen. He is strong not to do, but to live ; not in
his arms, but in his heart; not as an agent, but as a
fact. The history of the genesis or the old mythol-
ogy repeats itself in the experience of every child.
He too is a demon or god thrown into a particular
chaos, where he strives ever to lead things from
disorder into order. Each individual soul is such, in
virtue of its being a power to translate the world
into some particular language of its own; if not
into a picture, a statue, or a dance, — why, then,
into a trade, an art, a science, a mode of living, a
conversation, a character, an influence. You admire
pictures, but it is as impossible for you to paint a


16
right picture as for grass to bear apples. But when
the genius comes, it makes fingers : it is pliancy,
and the power of transferring the affair in the street
into oils and colors. Raphael must be born, and
Salvator inust be born.
There is no attractiveness like that of a new man.
The sleepy nations are occupied with their political
routine. England, France and America read Par-
liamentary Debates, which no high genius now enliv-
ens; and nobody will read them who trusts his own
eye: only they who are deceived by the popular
repetition of distinguished names. But when Na-
poleon unrols his map, the eye is commanded by
original power. When Chatham leads the debate,
men may well listen, because they must listen. A
man, a personal ascendency is the only great phe-
nomenon. When nature has work to be done, she
creates a genius to do it. Follow the great man,
and you shall see what the world has at heart in
these ages. There is no omen like that.
But what strikes us in the fine genius is that which
belongs of right to every one. Let us speak plainly
and with no false humility. The humility which is
the ornament of man in the presence of the ideal
good and fair, is not to cloud his perception of that
energy which he is. A man should know himself
for a necessary actor. A link was wanting between
two craving parts of nature, and he was hurled into
being as the bridge over that yawning need, the
mediator betwixt two else unmarriageable facts.
His two parents held each of one of the wants, and


17
the union of foreign constitutions in him enables
him to do gladly and gracefully what the assembled
human race could not have sufficed to do. He
knows his own materials ; everywhere he applies
himself to his work; he cannot read, he cannot
think, he cannot look, but he unites the hitherto
separated strands into a perfect cord. What are
the thoughts we utter but the reason of our incar-
nation? To utter these thoughts we took flesh,
missionaries of the everlasting word which will be
spoken. Should not a man be sacred to himself and
to men? Is it for him to account himself cheap
and superfluous, or to linger by the wayside for op-
portunities? Did he not come into being because
something must be done which he and no other is
and does ? If only he sees, the world will be visible
enough. He need not study where to stand, nor to
put things in favorable lights ; in him is the light, from
him all things are to their centre illuminated. What
patron shall he ask for employment and reward ?
Hereto was he born, to deliver the thought of his
heart from the universe to the universe, to do an
office which nature could not forego, nor he be dis-
charged from rendering, and then immerge again
into the holy silence and eternity out of which as a
man he arose. God is rich, and many more men
than one he harbors in his bosom, biding their time
and the needs and the beauty of all. Is not this the
theory of every man's genius or faculty ? Why then
goest thou as some Boswell or listening worshipper
to this saint or to that? That is the only lese-ma-


18
recol
jesty. Here art thou with whom so long the universe
travailed in labor ; darest thou think meanly of thy-
self whom the stalwart Fate brought forth to unite
his ragged sides, to shoot the gulf, — to reconcile the
irreconcilable ?
Whilst a necessity so great caused the man to
exist, his health and erectness consist in the fidelity
with which he transmits influences from the vast and
universal to the point on which his genius can act.
The ends are momentary: they are vents for the
current of inward life which increases as it is spent.
A man's wisdom is to know that all ends are mo-
mentary, that the best end must instantly be super-
seded by a better. But there is a mischievous ten-
dency in him to transfer his thought from the life to
the ends, to quit his agency and rest in his acts :
the tool runs away with the workman, the human
with the divine. I conceive a man as always spok-
en to from behind, and unable to turn his head and
see the speaker. In all the millions who have heard
the voice, none ever saw the face. As children in
their play run behind each other, and seize one by
the ears and make him walk before them, so is the
spirit our unseen pilot. That well-known voice
speaks in all languages, governs all men, and none
ever caught a glimpse of its form. If the man will
exactly obey it, it will adopt him, so that he shall not
any longer separate it from himself in his thought,
he shall seem to be it, he shall be it. If he listen
with insatiable ears, richer and greater wisdom is
taught him, the sound swells to a ravishing music,


19
he is borne away as with a flood, he becomes careless
of his food and of his house, he is the fool of ideas,
and leads a heavenly life. But if his eye is set on
the things to be done, and not on the truth that is
still taught, and for the sake of which the things are
to be done, then the voice grows faint, and at last is
but a humming in his ears. His health and great-
ness consist in his being the channel through which
heaven flows to earth, in short, in the fulness in
which an ecstatical state takes place in him. It is
pitiful to be an artist when by forbearing to be artists
we might be vessels filled with the divine overflow-
ings, enriched by the circulations of omniscience
and omnipresence. Are there not moments in the
history of heaven when the human race was not
counted by individuals, but was only the Influenced,
was God in distribution, God rushing into multiform
benefit? It is sublime to receive, sublime to love,
but this lust of imparting as from us, this desire to
be loved, the wish to be recognized as individuals,
is finite, comes of a lower strain.
Shall I say, then, that, as far as we can trace the
natural history of the soul, its health consists in the
fulness of its reception, — call it piety, call it vene-
ration — in the fact, that enthusiasm is organized
therein. What is best in any work of art, but that
part which the work itself seems to require and do;
that which the man cannot do again, that which
flows from the hour and the occasion, like the elo-
quence of men in a tumultuous debate ? It was
always the theory of literature, that the word of a
W
ca


20
poet was authoritative and final. He was supposed
to be the mouth of a divine wisdom. We rather
envied his circumstance than his talent. We too
could have gladly prophesied standing in that place.
We so quote our Scriptures; and the Greeks so
quoted Homer, Theognis, Pindar, and the rest. If
the theory has receded out of modern criticism, it is
because we have not had poets. Whenever they
appear, they will redeem their own credit.
This ecstatical state seems to cause a regard to the
whole and not to the parts; to the cause and not to
the ends; to the tendency, and not to the act. It
respects genius and not talent ; hope, and not pos-
session : the anticipation of all things by the intellect,
and not the history itself; art, and not works of art;
poetry, and not experiment; virtue, and not duties.
There is no office or function of man but is rightly
discharged by this divine method, and nothing that
is not noxious to him if detached from its universal
relations. Is it his work in the world to study nature,
or the laws of the world? Let him beware of pro-
posing to himself any end. Is it for use ? nature is
debased, as if one looking at the ocean can remem-
ber only the price of fish. Or is it for pleasure ? he
is mocked: there is a certain infatuating air in woods
and mountains which draws on the idler to want
and misery. There is something social and intru-
sive in the nature of all things; they seek to pere-
trate and overpower, each the nature of every other
creature, and itself alone in all modes and throughout
space and spirit to prevail and possess. Every star


21
in heaven is discontented and insatiable. Gravita-
tion and chemistry cannot content them. Ever they
woo and court the eye of every beholder. Every
man who comes into the world they seek to fascinate
and possess, to pass into his mind, for they desire
to republish themselves in a more delicate world than
that they occupy. It is not enough that they are Jove,
Mars, Orion, and the North Star, in the gravitating
firmament; they would have such poets as Newton,
Herschel and Laplace, that they may re-exist and
re-appear in the finer world of rational souls, and fill
that realm with their fame. So is it with all immate-
rial objects. These beautiful basilisks set their brute,
glorious eyes on the eye of every child, and, if they
can, cause their nature to pass through his wonder-
ing eyes into him, and so all things are mixed.
Therefore man must be on his guard against this
cup of enchantments, and must look at nature with
a supernatural eye. By piety alone, by conversing
with the cause of nature, is he safe and commands
it. And because all knowledge is assimilation to
the object of knowledge, as the power or genius of
nature is ecstatic, so must its science or the descrip-
tion of it be. The poet must be a rhapsodist : his
inspiration a sort of bright casualty: his will in it
only the surrender of will to the Universal Power,
which will not be seen face to face, but must be
received and sympathetically known. It is remark-
able that we have out of the deeps of antiquity in
the oracles ascribed to the half fabulous Zoroaster, a
statement of this fact, which every lover and seeker


22
of truth will recognize. “It is not proper," said
Zoroaster, 6 to understand the Intelligible with vehe-
mence, but if you incline your mind, you will appre-
hend it: not too earnestly, but bringing a pure and
inquiring eye. You will not understand it as when
understanding some particular thing, but with the
flower of the mind. Things divine are not attain-
able by mortals who understand sensual things, but
only the light-armed arrive at the summit.”
And because ecstasy is the law and cause of na-
ture, therefore you cannot interpret it in too high
and deep a sense. Nature represents the best mean-
ing of the wisest man. Does the sunset landscape
seem to you the palace of Friendship, — those pur-
ple skies and lovely waters the amphitheatre dressed
and garnished only for the exchange of thought and
love of the purest souls? It is that. All the other
meanings which base men have put on it are con-
jectural and false. You cannot bathe twice in the
same river, said Heraclitus ; and I add, a man never
sees the same object twice : with his own enlargement
the object acquires new aspects.
Does not the same law hold for virtue? It is vi-
tiated by too much will. He who aims at progress,
should aim at an infinite, not at a special benefit.
The reforms whose fame now fills the land with
Temperance, Anti-Slavery, Non-Resistance, No
Government, Equal Labor, fair and generous as each
appears, are poor bitter things when prosecuted for
themselves as an end. To every reform, in pro-
portion to its energy, early disgusts are incident,
so that the disciple is surprised at the very hou"


23
of his first triumphs, with chagrins and sickness
and a general distrust : so that he shuns his associ-
ates, hates the enterprise which lately seemed so fair,
and meditates to cast himself into the arms of that
society and manner of life which he had newly aban-
doned with so much pride and hope. Is it that he
attached the value of virtue to some particular prac-
tices, as, the denial of certain appetites in certain
specified indulgences, and, afterward, allowing the
soul to depart, found himself still as wicked and as
far from happiness in that abstinence, as he had been
in the abuse? But the soul can be appeased not by
a deed but by a tendency. It is in a hope that she
feels her wings. You shall love rectitude and not
the disuse of money or the avoidance of trade : an
unimpeded mind, and not a monkish diet; sympathy
and usefulness, and not hoeing or coopering. Tell
me not how great your project is, or how pure, —
the civil liberation of the world, its conversion into
a christian church, the establishment of public edu-
cation, cleaner diet, a new division of labor and of
land, laws of love for laws of property ; - I say to
you plainly there is no end to which your practical
faculty can aim, so sacred or so large, that, if pur-
sued for itself, will not at last become carrion and
an offence to the nostril. The imaginative faculty
of the soul must be fed with objects immense and
eternal. Your end should be one inapprehensible to
the senses: then will it be a god always approached
- never touched ; always giving health. A man
adorns himself with prayer and love as an aim adorns


24
an action. What is strong but goodness, and what is
energetic but the presence of a brave man? The
doctrine in vegetable physiology of the presence, or
the general influence of any substance over and
above its chemical influence, as of an alkali or a liv-
ing plant, is more predicable of man. You need
not speak to me, I need not go where you are, that
you should exert magnetism on me. Be you only
whole and sufficient, and I shall feel you in every
part of my life and fortune, and I can as easily
dodge the gravitation of the globe as escape your
influence.
But there are other examples of this total and
supreme influence, besides Nature and the con-
science. From the poisonous tree, the world,"
say the Brahmins, “two species of fruit are pro-
duced, sweet as the waters of life, Love or the
society of beautiful souls, and Poetry, whose taste is
like the immortal juice of Vishnu.” What is Love,
and why is it the chief good, but because it is an
overpowering enthusiasm ? Never self-possessed or
prudent, it is all abandonment. Is it not a certain
admirable wisdom, preferable to all other advanta-
ges, and whereof all others are only secondaries and
indemnities, because this is that in which the indi-
vidual is no longer his own foolish master, but inhales
an odorous and celestial air, is wrapped round with
awe of the object, blending for the time that object
with the real and only good, and consults every omen
in nature with tremulous interest. When we speak
truly, - is not he only unhappy who is not in love?


25
his fancied freedom and self-rule – is it not so much
death? He who is in love is wise and is becoming
wiser, seeth newly every time he looks at the object
beloved, drawing from it with his eyes and his mind
those virtues which it possesses. Therefore if the
object be not itself a living and expanding soul, he
presently exhausts it. But the love remains in his
mind and the wisdom it brought him; and it craves
a new and higher object. And the reason why all
men honor love, is because it looks up and not down;
aspires and not despairs.
And what is Genius but finer love, a love imper-
sonal, a love of the flower and perfection of things,
and a desire to draw a new picture or copy of the
same? It looks to the cause and life : it proceeds
from within outward, whilst Talent goes from with-
out inward. Talent finds its models and methods
and ends in society, exists for exhibition, and goes to
the soul only for power to work. Genius is its own
end, and draws its means and the style of its archi-
tecture from within, going abroad only for audience
and spectator, as we adapt our voice and phrase to
the distance and character of the ear we speak to.
All your learning of all literatures would never ena-
ble you to anticipate one of its thoughts or expres-
sions, and yet each is natural and familiar as house-
hold words. Here about us coils forever the ancient
enigma, so old and so unutterable. Behold! there
is the sun, and the rain, and the rocks: the old sun,
the old stones. How easy were it to describe all
this fitly: yet no word can pass. Nature is a


26
mute, and man, her articulate speaking brother, lo!
he also is a mute. Yet when Genius arrives, its
speech is like a river, it has no straining to describe,
more than there is straining in nature to exist. When
thought is best, there is most of it. Genius sheds wis-
dom like perfume, and advertises us that it flows out
of a deeper source than the foregoing silence, that it
knows so deeply and speaks so musically because it
is itself a mutation of the thing it describes. It is
sun and moon and wave and fire in music, as astron-
omy is thought and harmony in masses of matter.
What is all history but the work of ideas, a record
of the incomputable energy which his infinite aspi-
rations infuse into man? Has any thing grand and
lasting been done ? — Who did it ? Plainly not any
man, but all men : it was the prevalence and inun-
dation of an idea. What brought the Pilgrims here?
One man says, civil liberty; and another, the desire
of founding a church; and a third discovers that the
motive force was plantation and trade. But if the
Puritans could rise from the dust, they could not an-
swer. It is to be seen in what they were, and not
in what they designed : it was the growth, the bud-
ding and expansion of the human race, and resem-
bled herein the sequent Revolution, which was not
begun in Concord, or Lexington, or Virginia, but was
the overflowing of the sense of natural right in every
clear and active spirit of the period. Is a man boast-
ful and knowing, and his own master ? —we turn from
him without hope ; but let him be filled with awe
and dread before the Vast and the Divine which uses


27
1:
him glad to be used, and our eye is riveted to the
chain of events. What a debt is ours to that old
religion which, in the childhood of most of us, still
dwelt like a sabbath morning in the country of New
England, teaching privation, self-denial and sorrow !
A man was born not for prosperity, but to suffer for
the benefit of others, like the noble rock-maple which
all around our villages bleeds for the service of man.
Not praise, not men's acceptance of our doing, but
the spirit's holy errand through us absorbed the
thought. How dignified was this! How all that is
called talents and success in our noisy capitals be-
comes buzz and din before this man-worthiness.
How our friendships and the complaisances we use,
shame us now! Shall we not quit our companions,
as if they were thieves and pot-companions, and
betake ourselves to some desert cliff of mount Ka-
tahdin, some unvisited recess in Moosehead Lake, to
bewail our innocency and to recover it, and with it
the power to communicate again with these sharers
of a more sacred idea ?
And what is to replace for us the piety of that
race? We cannot have theirs : it glides away from
us day by day, but we also can bask in the great
morning which rises forever out of the eastern sea,
and be ourselves the children of the light. I stand
here to say, Let us worship the mighty and tran-
scendant Soul. It is the office, I doubt not, of this
age to annul that adulterous divorce which the su-
perstition of many ages has effected between the
intellect and holiness. The lovers of goodness have


28
e
been one class, the students of wisdom another, as
if either could exist in any purity without the other.
Truth is always holy, holiness always wise. I will
that we keep terms with sin and a sinful literature
and society no longer, but live a life of discovery
and performance. Accept the intellect and it will
accept us. Be the lowly ministers of that pure om-
niscience, and deny it not before men. It will burn
up all profane literature, all base current opinions,
all the false powers of the world as in a moment of
time. I draw from nature the lesson of an intimate
divinity. Our health and reason as men needs our
respect to this fact against the heedlessness and
against the contradiction of society. The sanity of
man needs the poise of this immanent force. His
nobility needs the assurance of this inexhaustible
reserved power. How great soever have been its
bounties, they are a drop to the sea whence they flow.
If you say, the acceptance of the vision is also the
act of God: - 1 shall not seek to penetrate the
mystery, I admit the force of what you say. If
you ask, · How can any rules be given for the attain-
ment of gifts so sublime ?' — I shall only remark that
the solicitations of this spirit, as long as there is life,
are never forborne. Tenderly, tenderly, they woo
and court us from every object in nature, from every
fact in life, from every thought in the mind. The
one condition coupled with the gift of truth is its
use. That man shall be learned who reduceth his
learning to practice. Emanuel Swedenborg affirmed
that it was opened to him that the spirits who knew


29
truth in this life, but did it not, at death shall lose their
knowledge.” “If knowledge,” said Ali the Caliph,
“calleth unto practice, well; if not, it goeth away.”
The only way into nature is to enact our best insight.
Instantly we are higher poets and can speak a deeper
law. Do what you know, and perception is con-
verted into character, as islands and continents were
built by invisible infusories, or as these forest leaves
absorb light, electricity, and volatile gases, and the
gnarled oak to live a thousand years is the arrest
and fixation of the most volatile and etherial currents.
The doctrine of this Supreme Presence is a cry of
joy and exultation. Who shall dare think he has
come late into nature, or has missed anything excel-
lent in the past, who seeth the admirable stars of
possibility, and the yet untouched continent of hope
glittering with all its mountains in the vast West ?
I praise with wonder this great reality which seems
to drown all things in the deluge of its light.
What man seeing this, can lose it from his thoughts,
or entertain a meaner subject? The entrance of
this into his mind seems to be the birth of man.
We cannot describe the natural history of the soul,
but we know that it is divine. I cannot tell if these
wonderful qualities which house to-day in this mor-
tal frame, shall ever re-assemble in equal activity in
a similar frame, or whether they have before had a
natural history like that of this body you see before
you; but this one thing I know, that these qualities
did not now begin to exist, cannot be sick with my
sickness nor buried in any grave; but that they cir-


30
culate through the Universe : before the world was,
they were. Nothing can bar them out, or shut them
in, but they penetrate the ocean and land, space and
time, form and essence, and hold the key to univer-
sal nature. I draw from this faith courage and hope.
All things are known to the soul. It is not to be
surprised by any communication. Nothing can be
greater than it. Let those fear and those fawn who
will. The soul is in her native realm, and it is wider
than space, older than time, wide as hope, rich as
love. Pusillanimity and fear she refuses with a beau-
tiful scorn : they are not for her who putteth on her
coronation robes and goes out through universal
love to universal power.


DISCOURSE
ON THE
TRANSIENT'AND PERMANENT
In
Christianity;
PREACHED AT THE ORDINATION OF
MR. CHARLES C. SHACKFORD,
IN THE HAWES PLACE CHURCH IN BOSTON,
MAY 19, 1841.
By THEODORE PARKER,
MINISTER OF THE SECOND CHURCH IN ROXBURY.
BOSTON:
PRINTED FOR THE AUTHOR.
MDCCCXLI.


BOSTON:
PRINTED BY FREEMAN AND BOLLES,
WASHINGTON STREET.


This Discourse is now printed in consequence of some
incorrect rumors and printed statements respecting its
contents. I have made a few verbal alterations, changed
the order of a few sentences, omitted here and there a
few words which were only repetitions of former sen-
tences, and added a few paragraphs, which, though
written in the manuscript, were necessarily omitted in
consequence of the length of the discourse. But I have
changed nothing in the substance or doctrine, and have
made the alterations only to set the doctrine in a clearer
and stronger light. The diffuse and somewhat rhetorical
style, though less well adapted to reading than hearing,
I could not change without exciting a suspicion of false-
ness. With the above exceptions, the discourse is printed
just as it was delivered.
It is not necessary I should remark upon the article
relating to this discourse, signed by several clergymen,
and so industriously circulated by the religious journals.
The thing speaks for itself. Others likewise, I find, have
lifted up their heel against this discourse, or the rumor of
it. I was not so vain as to expect my humble atteinpts
to make a distinction between Religion and Theology,
or to deliver Christianity from Heathen and Jewish
notions — would be either acceptable or understood, by
all; nor yet am I so young as to be surprised at the cry
of “ Infidel and Blasphemer,” which has been succes-
sively raised against nearly all defenders of the Religion
of Jesus, from Origen to Ralph Cudworth.
West ROXBURY, June 17, 1841.





DISCOURSE..
LUKE XXI. 33.
HEAVEN AND EARTH SHALL PASS AWAY: BUT MY WORD SHALL
NOT PASS AWAY.
In this sentence we have a very clear indication
that Jesus of Nazareth believed the religion he
taught would be eternal, that the substance of it
would last forever. Yet there are some, who are
affrighted by the faintest rustle which a heretic
makes among the dry leaves of theology; they
tremble lest Christianity itself should perish without
hope. Ever and anon the cry is raised, " The
Philistines be upon us, and Christianity is in dan-
ger.” The least doubt respecting the popular the-
ology, or the existing machinery of the church ; the
least sign of distrust in the Religion of the Pulpit,
or the Religion of the Street, is by some good men
supposed to be at enmity with faith in Christ, and
capable of shaking Christianity itself. On the
other hand, a few bad men and a few pious men, it
is said, on both sides of the water, tell us the day


of Christianity is past. The latter-it is alleged —
would persuade us that, hereafter, Piety must take a
new form; the teachings of Jesus are to be passed
by; that Religion is to wing her way sublime,
above the flight of Christianity, far away, toward
heaven, as the fledged eaglet leaves forever the nest
which sheltered his callow youth. Let us, there-
ſore, devote a few moments to this subject, and
consider what is Transient in Christianity, and what
Permanent therein. The topic seems not inappro-
priate to the times in which we live, or the occasion
that calls us together.
Christ says, his Word shall never pass away,
Yet at first sight nothing seems more fleeting than
a word. It is an evanescent impulse of the most
fickle element. It leaves no track where it went
through the air. Yet to this, and this only, did
Jesus entrust the truth, wherewith he came laden,
to the earth ; truth for the salvation of the world.
He took no pains to perpetuate his thoughts; they
were poured forth where occasion found him an
audience,- by the side of the lake, or a well; in a
cottage, or the temple; in a fisher's boat, or the
synagogue of the Jews. He founds no institution
as a monument of his words. He appoints no
order of men to preserve his bright and glad revela-
tions. He only bids his friends give freely the
truth they had freely received. He did not even
write his words in a book. With a noble confi-


dence, the result of his abiding faith, he scattered
them, broad-cast, on the world, leaving the seed to
its own vitality. He knew, that what is of God
cannot fail, for God keeps his own. He sowed
his seed in the heart, and left it there, to be water-
ed and warmed by the dew and the sun which
heaven sends. He felt his words were for eternity.
So he trusted them to the uncertain air ; and for
eighteen hundred years that faithful element has
held them good, - distinct as when first warm from
his lips. Now they are translated into every human
speech, and murmured in all earth's thousand
tongues, from the pine forests of the North to the
palm groves of eastern Ind. They mingle, as it
were, with the roar of the populous city, and join
the chime of the desert sea. Of a Sabbath
morn they are repeated from church to church, from
isle to isle, and land to land, till the music goes
round the world. These words have become the
breath of the good, the hope of the wise, the joy of
the pious, - and that for many millions of hearts.
They are the prayers of our churches, our better
devotion by fireside and fieldside, the enchantment
of our hearts. It is these words, that still work
wonders, to which the first recorded miracles were
nothing in grandeur and utility. It is these which
build our temples and beautify our homes. They
raise our thoughts of sublimity, they purify our ideal
of purity, they hallow our prayer for truth and love.
They make beauteous and divine the life which


plain men lead. They give wings to our aspira-
tions. What charmers they are! Sorrow is lulled
at their bidding. They take the sting out of disease,
and rob adversity of his power to disappoint. They
give health and wings to the pious soul, broken-
hearted and shipwrecked in his voyage through life,
and encourage him to tempt the perilous way once
inore. They make all things ours: Christ our
brother; Time our servant; Death our ally and the
witness of our triumph. They reveal to us the pres-
ence of God, which else we might not have seen so
clearly, in the first wind-flower of spring; in the
falling of a sparrow; in the distress of a nation ; in
the sorrow or the rapture of a world. Silence the
voice of Christianity, and the world is well nigh
dumb, for gone is that sweet music which kept in
awe the rulers and the people ; which cheers the
poor widow in her lonely toil, and comes like light
through the windows of morning, to men who sit
stooping and feeble, with failing eyes and a hunger-
ing heart. It is gone—all gone; only the cold,
bleak world left before them.
Such is the life of these Words; such the empire
they have won for themselves over men's minds
since they were spoken first. In the mean time,
the words of great men and mighty, whose name
shook whole continents, though graven in metal and
stone, though stamped in institutions and defended
by whole tribes of priests and troops of followers
their words have gone to the ground, and the world
en
Ime


gives back no echo of their voice. Meanwhile the
great works also of old times, castle and tower and
town, their cities and their empires, have perished,
and left scarce a mark on the bosom of the earth to
show they once have been. The philosophy of the
wise, the art of the accomplished, the song of the
poet, the ritual of the priest, though honored as
divine in their day, have gone down, a prey to
oblivion. Silence has closed over them; only their
spectres now haunt the earth. A deluge of blood
has swept over the nations; a night of darkness,
more deep than the fabled darkness of Egypt, has
lowered down upon that flood, to destroy or to hide
what the deluge had spared. But through all this,
the words of Christianity have come down to us
from the lips of that Hebrew youth, gentle and beau-
tiful as the light of a star, not spent by their jour-
ney through time and through space. They have
built up a new civilization, which the wisest Gen-
tile never hoped for, which the most pious Hebrew
never foretold. Through centuries of wasting,
these words have flown on, like a dove in the
storm, and now wait to descend on hearts pure and
earnest, as the Father's spirit, we are told, came
down on his lowly Son. The old heavens and the
old earth are indeed passed away, but the Word
stands. Nothing shows clearer than this, how
fleeting is what man calls great; how lasting what
God pronounces true.
Looking at the Word of Jesus, at real Christian-


10
ity, the pure religion he taught, nothing appears
more fixed and certain. Its influence widens as
light extends; it deepens as the nations grow more
wise. But, looking at the history of what men call
Christianity, nothing seems more uncertain and
perishable. While true religion is always the same
thing, in each century and every land, in each man
that feels it, the Christianity of the Pulpit, which is
the religion taught; the Christianity of the People,
which is the religion that is accepted and lived out,
has never been the same thing in any two centuries
or lands, except only in name. The difference be-
tween what is called Christianity by the Unitarians
in our times, and that of some ages past, is greater
than the difference between Mahomet and the Mes-
siah. The difference at this day between opposing
classes of Christians; the difference between the
Christianity of some sects and that of Christ him-
self, is deeper and more vital than that between
Jesus and Plato, Pagan as we call him. The
Christianity of the seventh century has passed away.
We recognise only the ghost of Superstition in its
faded features, as it comes up at our call. It is one
of the things which has been, and can be no more,
for neither God nor the world goes back. Its ter-
rors do not frighten, nor its hopes allure us. We
rejoice that it has gone. But how do we know that
our Christianity shall not share the same fate? Is
there that difference between the nineteenth cen-
tury, and some seventeen that have gone before it,


11
since Jesus, to warrant the belief that our notion of
Christianity shall last forever? The stream of time
has already beat down Philosophies and Theologies,
Temple and Church, though never so old and re-
vered. How do we know there is not a perishing
element in what we call Christianity ? Jesus tells
us, his Word is the word of God, and so shall never
pass away. But who tells us, that our word shall
never pass away? that our notion of his Word shall
stand forever ?
Let us look at this matter a little more closely.
In actual Christianity, that is, in that portion of
Christianity which is preached and believed, there
seem to have been, ever since the time of its earthly
founder, two elements, the one transient, the other
permanent. The one is the thought, the folly, the
uncertain wisdom, the theological notions, the im-
piety of man ; the other the eternal truth of God.
These two bear perhaps the same relation to each
other that the phenomena of outward nature, such
as sunshine and cloud, growth, decay and reproduc-
tion, bear to the great law of nature, which under-
lies and supports them all. As in that case, more
attention is commonly paid to the particular phe-
nomena than to the general law, so in this case,
more is generally given to the transient in Christ-
ianity than to the permanent therein.
It must be confessed, though with sorrow, that
transient things form a great part of what is com-
monly taught as Religion. An undue place has


12
often been assigned to forms and doctrines, while
too little stress has been laid on the divine life of
the soul, love to God, and love to man. Religious
forms may be useful and beautiful. They are so,
whenever they speak to the soul, and answer a
want thereof. In our present state some forms are
perhaps necessary. But they are only the accident
of Christianity ; not its substance. They are the
robe, not the angel, who may take another robe,
quite as becoming and useful. One sect has many
forms; another none. Yet both may be equally
Christian, in spite of the redundance or the defi-
ciency. They are a part of the language in which
religion speaks, and exist, with few exceptions,
wherever man is found. In our calculating nation,
in our rationalizing sect, we have retained but two
of the rites so numerous in the early Christian
church, and even these we have attenuated to the
last degree, leaving them little more than a spectre
of the ancient form. Another age may continue or
forsake both ; may revive old forms, or invent new
ones to suit the altered circumstances of the times,
and yet be Christians quite as good as we, or our
fathers of the dark ages. Whether the Apostles de-
signed these rites to be perpetual, seems a question
which belongs to scholars and antiquarians, not to us,
as Christian men and women. So long as they sat-
isfy or help the pious heart, so long they are good.
Looking behind, or around us, we see that the
forms and rites of the Christians are quite as fluctu-


13
ating as those of the heathens ; from whom some
of them have been, not unwisely, adopted by the
earlier church.
Again, the doctrines that have been connected
with Christianity, and taught in its name, are quite
as changeable as the form. This also takes place
unavoidably. If observations be made upon Nature,
which must take place so long as man has senses and
understanding, there will be a philosophy of Nature,
and philosophical doctrines. These will differ as
the observations are just or inaccurate, and as the
deductions from observed facts are true or false.
Hence there will be different schools of natural phi-
losophy, so long as men have eyes and understand-
ings of different clearness and strength. And if men
observe and reflect upon Religion, which will be
done so long as man is a religious and reflective be-
ing, there must also be a philosophy of Religion, a
theology and theological doctrines. These will dif-
fer, as men have felt much or little of religion, as
they analyze their sentiments correctly or otherwise,
and as they have reasoned right or wrong. Now the
true system of Nature which exists in the outward
facts, whether discovered or not, is always the same
thing, though the philosophy of Nature, which men
invent, change every month, and be one thing at Lon-
don and the opposite at Berlin. Thus there is but
one system of Nature as it exists in fact, though
many theories of Nature, which exist in our imperfect
notions of that system, and by which we may ap-
proximate and at length reach it. Now there can be


14
lumero
but one Religion which is absolutely true, existing
in the facts of human nature, and the ideas of Infi-
nite God. That, whether acknowledged or not, is
always the same thing and never changes. So far
as a man has any real religion - either the principle
or the sentiment thereof — so far he has that, by
whatever name he may call it. For strictly speak-
ing there is but one kind of religion as there is but
one kind of love, though the manifestations of this
religion, in forms, doctrines and life, be never so di-
verse. It is through these, men approximate to the
true expression of this religion. Now while this
religion is one and always the same thing, there may
be numerous systems of theology or philosophies of re-
ligion. These with their creeds, confessions and col-
lections of doctrines, deduced by reasoning upon the
facts observed, may be baseless and false, either be-
cause the observation was too narrow in extent, or
otherwise defective in point of accuracy, or because
the reasoning was illogical and therefore the deduc-
tion spurious. Each of these three faults is conspi-
cuous in the systems of theology. Now the solar
system as it exists in fact is permanent, though the
notions of Thales and Ptolemy, of Copernicus and
Descartes about this system, prove transient, imper-
fect approximations to the true expression. So the
Christianity of Jesus is permanent, though what pass-
es for Christianity with Popes and catechisms, with
sects and churches, in the first century or in the
nineteenth century, prove transient also. Now it
has sometimes happened that a man took his philo-


15
10
sophy of Nature at second hand, and then attempt-
ed to make his observations conform to his theory,
and Nature ride in his panniers. Thus some philo-
sophers refused to look at the Moon through Galileo's
telescope, for, according to their theory of vision,
such an instrument would not aid the sight. Thus
their preconceived notions stood up between them
and Nature. Now it has often happened that men
took their theology thus at second hand, and distort-
ed the history of the world and man's nature be-
sides, to make Religion conform to their notions.
Their theology stood between them and God. Those
obstinate philosophers have disciples in no small
number.
What another has said of false systems of science,
will apply equally to theology:“ It is barren in effects,
fruitful in questions, slow and languid in its improve-
ment, exhibiting in its generality the counterfeit of
perfection, but ill filled up in its details, popular in
its choice, but suspected by its very promoters, and
therefore bolstered up and countenanced with arti-
fices. Even those who have been determined to
try for themselves, to add their support to learning,
and to enlarge its limits, have not dared entirely to
desert received opinions, nor to seek the spring-head
of things. But they think they have done a great
thing if they intersperse and contribute something
of their own; prudently considering, that by their as-
sent they can save their modesty, and by their con-
tributions, their liberty. Neither is there, nor ever
will be, an end or limit to these things. One snatches


16
at one thing, another is pleased with another;
there is no dry nor clear sight of any thing. Every
one plays the philosopher out of the small treasures
of his own fancy. The more sublime wits more
acutely and with better success; the duller with less
success but equal obstinacy, and, by the discipline of
some learned men, sciences are bounded within the
limits of some certain authors which they have set
down, imposing them upon old men and instilling
them into young. So that now, (as Tully cavilled
upon Cæsar's consulship) the star Lyra riseth by an
edict, and authority is taken for truth and not truth
for authority ; which kind of order and discipline is
very convenient for our present use, but banisheth
those which are better."
Any one who traces the history of what is called
Christianity, will see that nothing changes more from
age to age than the doctrines taught as Christian and
insisted on as essential to Christianity and personal
salvation. What is falsehood in one province passes
for truth in another. The heresy of one age is
the orthodox belief and 6 only infallible rule" of the
next. Now Arius, and now Athanasius is Lord of
the ascendant. Both were excommunicated in their
turn; each for affirming what the other denied. Men
are burned for professing what men are burned for
denying. For centuries the doctrines of the Chris-
tians were no better, to say the least, than those of
their contemporary pagans. The theological doc-
trines derived from our fathers, seem to have come
from Judaism, Heathenism, and the caprice of philo-


17
sophers, far more than they have come from the prin-
ciple and sentiment of Christianity. The doctrine of
the Trinity, the very Achilles of theological dogmas,
belongs to philosophy and not religion ; its subtleties
cannot even be expressed in our tongue. As old re-
ligions became superannuated and died out, they left
to the rising faith, as to a residuary legatee, their
forms and their doctrines; or rather, as the giant in
the fable left his poisoned garment to work the over-
throw of his conqueror. Many tenets that pass cur-
rent in our theology, seem to be the refuse of idol
temples ; the offscourings of Jewish and Heathen
cities, rather than the sands of virgin gold, which the
stream of Christianity has worn off from the rock of
ages, and brought in its bosom for us. It is wood,
hay and stubble, wherewith men have built on the
cornerstone Christ laid. What wonder the fabric is in
peril when tried by fire ? The stream of Christianity,
as men receive it, has caught a stain from every soil it
has filtered through, so that now it is not the pure
water from the well of Life, which is offered to our
lips, but streams troubled and polluted by man with
mire and dirt. If Paul and Jesus could read our
books of theological doctrines, would they accept as
their teaching, what inen have vented in their name?
Never till the letters of Paul had faded out of his
memory; never till the words of Jesus had been torn
out from the Book of Life. It is their notions
about Christianity, men have taught as the only liv-
ing word of God. They have piled their own rub-
bish against the temple of Truth where Piety comes
as me
I


18
up to worship; what wonder the pile seems unshape-
ly and like to fall ? But these theological doctrines
are fleeting as the leaves on the trees. They
" Are found
Now green in youth, now wither'd on the ground;
Another race the following spring supplies;
They fall successive and successive rise."
rs
Like the clouds of the sky, they are here to-day;
to-morrow, all swept off and vanished, while Chris-
tianity itself, like the heaven above, with its sun
and moon, and uncounted stars, is always over our
head, though the cloud sometimes debars us of the
needed light. It must of necessity be the case that
our reasonings, and therefore our theological doc-
trines, are imperfect and so, perishing. It is only.
gradually that we approach to the true system of
Nature by observation and reasoning, and work out
our philosophy and theology by the toil of the brain.
But mean time, if we are faithful, the great truths
of morality and religion, the deep sentiment of love
to man and love to God, are perceived intuitively,
and by instinct, as it were, though our theology be
imperfect and miserable. The theological notions
of Abraham, to take the story as it stands, were ex-
ceedingly gross, yet a greater than Abraham has told
us Abraham desired to see my day, saw it and
was glad. Since these notions are so fleeting, why
need we accept the commandment of men, as the
doctrine of God?


19
This transitoriness of doctrines appears, in many
instances, of which two may be selected for a
more attentive consideration. First, the doctrine
respecting the origin and authority of the Old and
New Testament. There has been a time when
men were burned for asserting doctrines of natural
philosophy, which rested on evidence the most in-
contestable, because those doctrines conflicted with
sentences in the Old Testament. Every word of
that Jewish record was regarded as miraculously
inspired and therefore as infallibly true. It was be-
lieved that the Christian religion itself rested there-
on, and must stand or fall with the immaculate He-
brew text. He was deemed no small sinner who
found mistakes in the manuscripts. On the author-
ity of the written Word, man was taught to believe
impossible legends, conflicting assertions; to take
fiction for fact; a dream for a miraculous revelation
of God; an oriental poem for a grave history of mi-
raculous events; a collection of amatory idyls for a
serious discourse “touching the mutual love of Christ
and the Church ; they have been taught to ac-
cept a picture sketched by some glowing eastern
imagination, never intended to be taken for a reality,
as a proof that the Infinite God spoke in human
words, appeared in the shape of a cloud, a flaming
bush, or a man who ate and drank, and vanished
into smoke; that he gave counsels to-day, and the op-
posite to-morrow; that he violated his own laws,
was angry, and was only dissuaded by a mortal man
from destroying at once a whole nation — millions
-


20
of men who rebelled against their leader in a mo-
ment of anguish. Questions in philosophy, ques-
tions in the Christian religion, have been settled by
an appeal to that book. The inspiration of its au-
thors has been assumed as infallible. Every fact in
the early Jewish history, has been taken as a type
of some analogous fact in Christian history. The
most distant events, even such as are still in the
arms of time, were supposed to be clearly foreseen
and foretold by pious Hebrews several centuries be-
fore Christ. It has been assumed at the outset,
with no shadow of evidence, that those writers held
a miraculous communication with God, such as he
has granted to no other man. What was originally
a presumption of bigoted Jews became an article
of faith, which Christians were burned for not be-
lieving. This has been for centuries the general
opinion of the Christian church, both Catholic and
Protestant, though the former never accepted the
Bible as the only source of religious truth. It has
been so. Still worse it is now the general opinion
of religious sects at this day. Hence the attempt,
which always fails, to reconcile the philosophy of
our times with the poems in Genesis writ a thou-
sand years before Christ; hence the attempt to con-
ceal the contradictions in the record itself. Matters
have come to such a pass that even now, he is deem-
ed an infidel, if not by implication an atheist, whose
reverence for the Most High forbids him to believe
that God commanded Abraham to sacrifice his son,
a thought at which the flesh creeps with horror ; to


21
believe it solely on the authority of an oriental story,
written down nobody knows when, or by whom, or
for what purpose : which may be a poem, but cannot
be the record of a fact unless God is the author of
confusion and a lie.
Now this idolatry of the Old Testament has not
always existed. Jesus says that none born of a wo-
man is greater than John the Baptist, yet the least
in the kingdom of heaven was greater than John.
Paul tells us the Law - the very crown of the old
Hebrew revelation- is a shadow of good things,
which have now come: only a schoolmaster to bring
us to Christ, and when faith has come, that we are no
longer under the schoolmaster: that it was a Law of
sin and death, for which we are made free by the
Law of the spirit of Life. Christian teachers them-
selves have differed so widely in their notion of the
doctrines and meaning of those books, that it makes
one weep to think of the follies deduced therefrom.
But modern Criticism is fast breaking to pieces this
idol which men have made out of the Scriptures.
It has shown that here are the most different works
thrown together. That their authors, wise as they
sometimes were; pious as we feel often their spirit
to have been, had only that inspiration which is com-
mon to other men equally pious and wise; that they
were by no means infallible ; but were mistaken in
facts or in reasoning ; uttered predictions which time
has not fulfilled; men who in some measure partook
of the darkness and limited notions of their age, and


22
sel
were not always above its mistakes or its corrup-
tions.
The history of opinions on the New Testament
is quite similar. It has been assumed at the outset,
it would seem with no sufficient reason, without the
smallest pretence on its writers' part, that all of its
authors were infallibly and miraculously inspired, so
that they could commit no error of doctrine or fact.
Men have been bid to close their eyes at the obvious
difference between Luke and John ; the serious dis-
agreement between Paul and Peter; to believe, on the
smallest evidence, accounts which shock the moral
sense and revolt the reason, and tend to place Jesus
in the same series with Hercules, and Apollonius
of Tyana ; accounts which Paul in the Epistles ne-
ver mentions, though he also had a vein of the mi-
raculous running quite through him. Men have
been told that all these things must be taken as part
of Christianity, and if they accepted the religion,
they must take all these accessories along with it;
that the living spirit could not be had without the
killing letter. All the books which caprice or acci-
dent had brought together, between the lids of the
Bible, were declared to be the infallible word of God,
the only certain rule of religious faith and practice.
Thus the Bible was made not a single channel, but
the only certain rule of religious faith and practice.
To disbelieve any of its statements, or even the
common interpretation put upon those statements by
the particular age or church in which the man be-
longed, was held to be infidelity if not atheism. In


23
the name of Him who forbid us to judge our bro-
ther, good men and pious men have applied these
terms to others, good and pious as themselves. That
state of things has by no means passed away. Men
who cry down the absurdities of Paganism in the
worst spirit of the French “ free-thinkers,” call
others infidels and atheists, who point out, though
reverently, other absurdities which men have piled
upon Christianity. So the world goes. An idol-
atrous regard for the imperfect scripture of God's
word is the apple of Atalanta, which defeats theolo-
gians running for the hand of divine truth.
But the current notions respecting the infallible
inspiration of the Bible have no foundation in the
Bible itself. Which Evangelist, which Apostle of
the New Testament, what Prophet or Psalmist of
the Old Testament, ever claims infallible authority
for himself or for others? Which of them does not in
his own writings show that he was finite and with
all his zeal and piety, possessed but a limited inspi-
ration, the bound whereof we can sometimes disco-
ver? Did Christ ever demand that men should as-
sent to the doctrines of the Old Testament, credit
its stories, and take its poems for histories, and be-
lieve equally two accounts that contradict one an-
other ? Has he ever told you that all the truths of
his religion, all the beauty of a Christian life should
be contained in the writings of those men, who,
even after his resurrection, expected him to be a
Jewish king; of men who were sometimes at vari-
ance with one another and misunderstood his divine


24
OS
teachings? Would not those modest writers them-
selves be confounded at the idolatry we pay them?
Opinions may change on these points, as they have
often changed — changed greatly and for the worse
since the days of Paul. They are changing now,
and we may hope for the better; for God makes
man's folly as well as his wrath to praise Him, and
continually brings good out of evil.
Another instance of the transitoriness of doc-
trines taught as Christian is found in those which
relate to the nature and authority of Christ. One
ancient party has told us, that he is the infinite
God; another, that he is both God and man; a
third, that he was a man, the son of Joseph and
Mary,- born as we are ; tempted like ourselves;
inspired, as we may be, if we will pay the price.
Each of the former parties believed its doctrine on
this head was infallibly true, and formed the very
substance of Christianity, and was one of the essen-
tial conditions of salvation, though scarce any two
distinguished teachers, of ancient or modern times,
agree in their expression of this truth.
Almost every sect that has ever been, makes-
Christianity rest on the personal authority of Jesus,
and not the immutable truth of the doctrines them-
selves, or the authority of God, who sent him into
the world. Yet it seems difficult to conceive any
reason why moral and religious truths should rest
for their support on the personal authority of their
revealer, any more than the truths of science on


25
that of him who makes them known first or most
clearly. It is hard to see why the great truths of
Christianity rest on the personal authority of Jesus,
more than the axioms of geometry rest on the per-
sonal authority of Euclid, or Archimedes. The au-
thority of Jesus, as of all teachers, one would natu-
rally think, must rest on the truth of his words, and
not their truth on his authority.
Opinions respecting the nature of Christianity
seem to be constantly changing. In the three first
centuries after Christ, it appears, great latitude of
speculation prevailed. Some said he was God,
with nothing of human nature, his body only an
illusion ; others, that he was man, with nothing of
the divine nature, his miraculous birth having no
foundation in fact. In a few centuries it was de-
creed by councils that he was God, thus honoring
the divine element; next, that he was man also,
thus admitting the human side. For some ages the
Catholic Church seems to have dwelt chiefly on the
divine nature that was in him, leaving the human ele-
ment to mystics and other heretical persons, whose
bodies served to flesh the swords of orthodox be-
lievers. The stream of Christianity has come to us
in two channels -- one within the Church, the other
without the Church - and it is not hazarding too
much to say, that since the fourth century the true
Christian life has been out of the established Church,
and not in it, but rather in the ranks of dissenters.
From the Reformation till the latter part of the last
century, we are told, the Protestant Church dwelt


26
any
chiefly on the human side of Christ, and since that
time many works have been written to show how the
two — perfect Deity and perfect manhood — were
united in his character. But, all this time, scarce
any two eminent teachers agree on these points,
however orthodox they may be called. What a
difference between the Christ of John Gerson and
John Calvin, — yet were both accepted teachers
and pious men. What a difference between the
Christ of the Unitarians, and the Methodists — yet
may men of both sects be true Christians and ac-
ceptable with God. What a difference between
the Christ of Matthew and John — yet both were
disciples, and their influence is wide as Christen-
dom and deep as the heart of man. But on this
there is not time to enlarge.
Now it seems clear, that the notion men form
about the origin and nature of the scriptures; re-
specting the nature and authority of Christ, have
nothing to do with Christianity except as its aids
or its adversaries; they are not the foundation of its
truths. These are theological questions, not reli-
gious questions. Their connection with Christianity
appears accidental; for if Jesus had taught at
Athens, and not at Jerusalem ; if he had wrought
no miracle, and none but the human nature had
ever been ascribed to him ; if the Old Testament
had forever perished at his birth, - Christianity
would still have been the Word of God; it would
have lost none of its truths. It would be just as
true, just as beautiful, just as lasting, as now it is ;
na


27
though we should have lost so many a blessed
word, and the work of Christianity itself would
have been, perhaps, a long time retarded.
To judge the future by the past, the former au-
thority of the Old Testament can never return. Its
present authority cannot stand. It must be taken
for what it is worth. The occasional folly and im-
piety of its authors pass for no more than their
value ; — while the religion, the wisdom, the love,
which make fragrant its leaves, will still speak to
the best hearts as hitherto, and in accents even
more divine, when Reason is allowed her rights.
The ancient belief in the infallible inspiration of
each sentence of the New Testament, is fast
changing ; very fast. One writer, not a skeptic,
but a Christian of unquestioned piety, sweeps off
the beginning of Matthew ; another, of a different
church and equally religious, the end of John.
Numerous critics strike off several epistles. The
Apocalypse itself is not spared, notwithstanding its
concluding curse. Who shall tell us the work of
retrenchment is to stop here ; that others will not
demonstrate, what some pious hearts have long felt,
that errors of doctrine and errors of fact may be
found in many parts of the law, here and there,
from the beginning of Matthew to the end of Acts!
We see how opinions have changed ever since the
apostles' time; and who shall assure us that they
were not sometimes mistaken in historical, as well
as doctrinal matters ; did not sometimes confound
the actual with the imaginary, and that the fancy of


28
these pious writers never stood in the place of their
recollection ?
But what if this should take place ? Is Christ-
ianity then to perish out of the heart of the nations,
and vanish from the memory of the world, like the
religions that were before Abraham. It must be
so, if it rest on a foundation which a scoffer may
shake, and a score of pious critics shake down.
But this is the foundation of a theology, not of
Christianity. That does not rest on the decision
of Councils. It is not to stand or fall with the in-
fallible inspiration of a few Jewish fishermen, who
have writ their names in characters of light all over
the world. It does not continue to stand through
the forbearance of some critic, who can cut when
he will the thread on which its life depends.
Christianity does not rest on the infallible authority
of the New Testament. It depends on this collec-
tion of books for the historical statement of its facts.
In this we do not require infallible inspiration on
the part of the writers, more than in the record of
other historical facts. To me it seems as presump-
tuous on the one hand for the believer to claim this
evidence for the truth of Christianity, as it is absurd
on the other hand, for the skeptic to demand such
evidence to support these historical statements.
I cannot see that it depends on the personal author-
ity of Jesus. He was the organ through which the
Infinite spoke. It is God that was manifested in
the flesh by him, on whom rests the truth which
Jesus brought to light and made clear and beautiful


29
in his life ; and if Christianity be true, it seems use-
less to look for any other authority to uphold it, as
for some one to support Almighty God. So if it
could be proved, — as it cannot, — in opposition to
the greatest amount of historical evidence ever
collected on any similar point, that the gospels
were the fabrication of designing and artful men,
that Jesus of Nazareth had never lived, still Christ-
ianity would stand firm, and fear no evil. None of
the doctrines of that religion would fall to the
ground, for if true, they stand by themselves. But
we should lose, -oh, irreparable loss !- the exam-
ple of that character, so beautiful, so divine, that no
human genius could have conceived it, as none,
after all the progress and refinement of eighteen
centuries, seems fully to have comprehended its
lustrous life. If Christianity were true, we should
still think it was so, not because its record was writ-
ten by infallible pens; nor because it was lived out
by an infallible teacher, — but that it is true, like the
axioms of geometry, because it is true, and is to be
tried by the oracle God places in the breast. If it
rest on the personal authority of Jesus alone, then
there is no certainty of its truth, if he were ever
mistaken in the smallest matter, as some Christians
· have thought he was, in predicting his second com-
ing.
These doctrines respecting the scriptures have
often changed, and are but fleeting. Yet men lay
much stress on them. Some cling to these notions
as if they were Christianity itself. It is about these


30
and similar points that theological battles are fought
from age to age. Men sometimes use worst the
choicest treasure which God bestows. This is
especially true of the use men make of the Bible.
Some men have regarded it as the heathen their
idol, or the savage his fetish. They have subor-
dinated Reason, Conscience, and Religion to this.
Thus have they lost half the treasure it bears in its
bosom. No doubt the time will come when its true
character shall be felt. Then it will be seen, that,
amid all the contradictions of the Old Testament;
its legends, so beautiful as fictions, so appalling as
facts; amid its predictions that have never been
fulfilled; amid the puerile conceptions of God,
which sometimes occur, and the cruel denunciations
that disfigure both Psalm and Prophecy, there is a
reverence for man's nature, a sublime trust in God,
and a depth of piety rarely felt in these cold mortal
hearts of ours. Then the devotion of its authors,
the loſtiness of their aim and the majesty of their life,
will appear doubly fair, and Prophet and Psalmist
will warm our hearts as never before. Their voice
will cheer the young and sanctify the gray-headed;
will charm us in the toil of life, and sweeten the
cup Death gives us when he comes to shake off this
mantle of flesh. Then will it be seen, that the
words of Jesus are the music of heaven, sung in an
earthly voice, and the echo of these words in John
and Paul owe their efficacy to their truth and their
depth, and to no accidental matter connected there-
with. Then can the Word, — which was in the be-


31
ginning and now is, -- find access to the innermost
heart of man, and speak there as now it seldom
speaks. Then shall the Bible, which is a whole
library of the deepest and most earnest thoughts and
feelings, and piety and love, ever recorded in human
speech, — be read oftener than ever before, not
with Superstition, but with Reason, Conscience,
and Faith fully active. Then shall it sustain men
bowed down with many sorrows; rebuke sin ; en-
courage virtue ; sow the world broad-cast and quick
with the seed of love, that man may reap a harvest
for life everlasting.
With all the obstacles men have thrown in its
path, how much has the Bible done for mankind.
No abuse has deprived us of all its blessings. You
trace its path across the world from the day of
Pentecost to this day. As a river springs up in
the heart of a sandy continent, having its father
in the skies and its birth-place in distant, unknown
mountains ; as the stream rolls on, enlarging itself,
making in that arid waste, a belt of verdure wher-
ever it turns its way; creating palm groves and
fertile plains, where the smoke of the cottager curls
up at even-tide, and noble cities send the gleam of
their splendor far into the sky;- such has been
the course of the Bible on the earth. Despite of
idolaters bowing to the dust before it, it has made
a deeper mark on the world than the rich and beau-
tiful literature of all the heathen. The first book
of the Old Testament tells man he is made in the
image of God; the first of the New Testament gives


32
men
us the motto, Be perfect as your Father in heaven.
Higher words were never spoken. How the truths
of the Bible have blest us. There is not a boy on
all the hills of New England ; not a girl born in the
filthiest cellar which disgraces a capital in Europe,
and cries to God against the barbarism of modern
civilization ; not a boy nor a girl all Christendom
through, but their lot is made better by that great
book.
Doubtless the time will come when men shall
see Christ also as he is. Well might he still say ;
“ Have I been so long with you, and yet hast thou
not known me.” No! we have made him an idol,
have bowed the knee before him, saying, “ Hail,
king of the Jews ;" called him “Lord, Lord ! "
but done not the things which he said. The his-
tory of the Christian world might well be summed
up in one word of the evangelist — 6 and there they
crucified him," for there has never been an age
when man did not crucify the Son of God afresh.
But if error prevail for a time and grow old in the
world, truth will triumph at the last, and then we
shall see the Son of God as he is. Lifted up he
shall draw all nations unto him. Then will man
understand the Word of Jesus, which shall not pass
away. Then shall we see and love the divine life
that he lived. How vast has his influence been.
How his spirit wrought in the hearts of the disci-
ples, rude, selfish, bigotted, as at first they were.
How it has wrought in the world. His words
judge the nations. The wisest son of man has not


measured their height. They speak to what is
deepest in profound men ; what is holiest in good
men ; what is divinest in religious men. They
kindle anew the flame of devotion in hearts long
cold. They are Spirit and Life. His truth was
not derived from Moses and Solomon; but the
light of God shone through him, not colored, not
bent aside. His life is the perpetual rebuke of all
time since. It condemns ancient civilization ; it
condemns modern civilization. Wise men we have
since had, and good men ; but this Galilean youth
strode before the world whole thousands of years,
so much of Divinity was in him. His words solve
the questions of this present age. In him the God-
like and the Human met and embraced, and a divine
Life was born. Measure him by the world's great-
est sons; -how poor they are. Try him by the best
of men, - how little and low they appear. Exalt
him as much as we may, we shall yet, perhaps,
come short of the mark. But still was he not our
brother; the son of man, as we are ; the Son of -
God, like ourselves ? His excellence, was it not --
human excellence ? His wisdom, love, piety,-sweet
and celestial as they were, — are they not what we
also may attain? In him, as in a mirror, we may
see the image of God, and go on from glory to
glory, till we are changed into the same image, led
by the spirit which enlightens the humble. View-
ed in this way, how beautiful is the life of Jesus.
Heaven has come down to earth, or, rather, earth
has become heaven. The Son of God, come of


34
OSS no
age, has taken possession of his birthright. The
brightest revelation is this, — of what is possible for
all men, if not now at least hereafter. How pure
is his spirit, and how encouraging its words.
« Lowly sufferer," he seems to say, “ see how I
bore the cross. Patient laborer, be strong; see how
I toiled for the unthankful and the merciless. Mis-
taken sinner, see of what thou art capable. Rise
up, and be blessed."
But if, as some early Christians began to do, you
take a heathen view, and make him a God, the Son
of God in a peculiar and exclusive sense— much of
the significance of his character is gone. His vir-
tue has no merit; his love no feeling ; his cross no
burden ; his agony no pain. His death is an illu-
sion; his resurrection but a show. For if he were
not a man, but a god, what are all these things;
what his words, his life, his excellence of achieve-
ment?— It is all nothing, weighed against the illim-
itable greatness of Him who created the worlds and
fills up all time and space! Then his resignation is
no lesson ; his life no model ; his death no triumph
to you or me, — who are not gods, but mortal men,
that know not what a day shall bring forth, and
walk by faith “ dim sounding on our perilous way.”
Alas, we have despaired of man, and so cut off his
brightest hope.
In respect of doctrines as well as forms we see
all is transitory. “Every where is instability and
insecurity.” Opinions have changed most, on points
deemed most vital. Could we bring up a Christian


35
teacher of any age, - from the sixth to the fourteenth
century for example, — though a teacher of undoubt-
ed soundness of faith, whose word filled the churches
of Christendom, clergymen would scarce allow
him to kneel at their altar, or sit down with them
at the Lord's table. His notions of Christianity
could not be expressed in our forms; nor could our
notions be made intelligible to his ears. The ques-
tions of his age, those on which Christianity was
thought to depend,-questions which perplexed and
divided the subtle doctors, -are no questions to us.
The quarrels which then drove wise men mad, now
only excite a smile or a tear, as we are disposed
to laugh or weep at the frailty of man. We have
other straws of our own to quarrel for. Their an-
cient books of devotion do not speak to us; their
theology is a vain word. To look back but a short
period, the theological speculations of our fathers
during the last two centuries; their s practical
divinity ;" even the sermons written by genius and
piety, are, with rare exceptions, found unreadable ;
such a change is there in the doctrines.
Now who shall tell us that the change is to stop
here? That this sect or that, or even all sects united,
have exhausted the river of life and received it all
in their canonized urns, so that we need draw no
more out of the eternal well, but get refreshment
nearer at hand? Who shall tell us that another age
will not smile at our doctrines, disputes and unchris-
tian quarrels about Christianity, and make wide the
mouth at men who walked brave in orthodox rai-
nea


36
ment, delighting to blacken the names of heretics,
and repeat again the old charge“ he hath blas-
phemed”? Who shall tell us they will not weep at
the folly of all such as fancied Truth shone only
into the contracted nook of their school, or sect, or
coterie ? Men of other times may look down equally
on the heresy-hunters, and men hunted for heresy,
and wonder at both. The men of all ages before
us, were quite as confident as we, that their opinion
was truth ; that their notion was Christianity and
the whole thereof. The men who lit the fires of
persecution from the first martyr to Christian bigotry
down to the last murder of the innocents, had no
doubt their opinion was divine. The contest about
transubstantiation, and the immaculate purity of the
Hebrew and Greek text of the scriptures, was waged
with a bitterness unequalled in these days. The
Protestant smiles at one, the Catholic at the other,
and men of sense wonder at both. It might teach
us all a lesson, at least, of forbearance. No doubt
an age will come, in which ours shall be reckoned
a period of darkness — like the sixth century — when
men groped for the wall but stumbled and fell, be-
cause they trusted a transient notion, not an eternal
truth ; an age when temples were full of idols, set
up by human folly ; an age in which Christian light
had scarce begun to shine into men's hearts. But
while this change goes on, while one generation of
opinions passes away, and another rises up, Chris-
tianity itself, that pure religion, which exists eternal
in the constitution of the soul and the mind of God,


37
is always the same. The Word that was before
Abraham, in the very beginning, will not change,
for that word is Truth. From this Jesus subtracted
nothing; to this he added nothing. But he came
to reveal it as the secret of God, that cunning men
could not understand, but which filled the souls of
men meek and lowly of heart. This truth we owe
to God; the revelation thereof to Jesus, our elder
brother, God's chosen son.
To turn away from the disputes of the Catholics
and the Protestants, of the Unitarian and the Trini.
tarian, of Old School and New School, and come to the
plain words of Jesus of Nazareth, Christianity is a
simple thing; very simple. It is absolute, pure moral-
ity; absolute, pure religion ; the love of man; the love
of God acting without let or hindrance. The only
creedit lays down, is the great truth which springs up
spontaneous in the holy heart— there is a God. Its
watchword is, be perfect as your Father in Heaven.
The only form it demands is a divine life ; doing the
best thing, in the best way, from the highest motives;
perfect obedience to the great law of God. Its sanc-
tion is the voice of God in your heart; the perpetual
presence of Him, who made us and the stars over our
head ; Christ and the Father abiding within us. All
this is very simple ; a little child can understand it;
very beautiful, the loftiest mind can find nothing so
lovely. Try it by Reason, Conscience and Faith —
things highest in man's nature — we see no redun-
dance, we feel no deficiency. Examine the parti-


38
cular duties it enjoins ; humility, reverence, sobriety,
gentleness, charity, forgiveness, fortitude, resigna-
tion, faith and active love; try the whole extent of
Christianity so well summed up in the command,
“ Thou shalt love the Lord thy God, with all thy
heart, and with all thy soul and with all thy mind
— thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself," and is
there any thing therein that can perish ? No, the
very opponents of Christianity have rarely found
fault with the teachings of Jesus. The end of
Christianity seems to be to make all men one with
God as Christ was one with Him ; to bring them to
such a state of obedience and goodness, that we shall
think divine thoughts and feel divine sentiments, and
so keep the law of God by living a life of truth and
love. Its means are Purity and Prayer; getting
strength from God and using it for our fellow men as
well as ourselves. It allows perfect freedom. It does
not demand all men to think alike, but to think up-
rightly, and get as near as possible at truth; not all
men to live alike, but to live holy and get as near as
possible to a life perfectly divine. Christ set up no
pillars of Hercules, beyond which men must not
sail the sea in quest of Truth. He says “I have
many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear
them now ... Greater works than these shall ye do."
Christianity lays no rude hand on the sacred pecu-
liarity of individual genius and character. But there
is no Christian sect which does not fetter a man. It
would make all men think alike, or smother their
conviction in silence. Were all men Quakers or


39
Catholics, Unitarians or Baptists, there would be
much less diversity of thought, character and life :
less of truth active in the world than now. But
Christianity gives us the largest liberty of the sons
of God, and were all men Christians, after the fashion
of Jesus, this variety would be a thousand times
greater than now, for Christianity is not a system of
doctrines, but rather a method of attaining oneness
with God. It demands, therefore, a good life of
piety within, of purity without, and gives the pro-
mise that whoso does God's will, shall know of God's
doctrine.
In an age of corruption as all ages are, Jesus stood
and looked up to God. There was nothing between
him and the Father of all; no old word, be it of
Moses or Esaias, of a living Rabbi or Sanhedrim of
Rabbis ; no sin or perverseness of the finite will. As
the result of this virgin purity of soul and perfect
obedience, the light of God shone down into the
very deeps of his soul, bringing all of the Godhead
which flesh can receive. He felt that God's word
was in him; that he was one with God. He told what
he saw — the Truth; he lived what he felt - a life
of Love. The truth he brought to light must have
been always the same before the eyes of all-seeing
God, nineteen centuries before Christ, or nineteen
centuries after him. A life supported by the principle
and quickened by the sentiment of religion, if true
to both, is always the same thing in Nazareth or New
England. Now that divine man received these
truths from God; was illumined more clearly by
man re


40
" the light that lighteneth every man”; com-
bined and involved all the truths of Religion and
Morality in his doctrine and made them manifest in
his life. Then his words and example passed into
the world, and can no more perish than the stars be
wiped out of the sky. The truths he taught; his
doctrines respecting man and God; the relation be-
tween man and man, and man and God, with the
duties that grow out of that relation, are always the
same and can never change till man ceases to be
man, and creation vanishes into nothing. No, forms
and opinions change and perish; but the Word of God
cannot fail. The form Religion takes, the doctrines
wherewith she is girded, can never be the same in
any two centuries or two men, for since the sum
of religious doctrines is both the result and the mea-
sure of a man's total growth in wisdom, virtue and
piety, and since men will always differ in these re-
spects, so religious doctrines and forms will always
differ, always be transient, as Christianity goes forth
and scatters the seed she bears in her hand. But
the Christianity holymen feel in the heart — the Christ
that is born within us, is always the same thing to
each soul that feels it. This differs only in degree
and not in kind, from age to age and man to man;
there is something in Christianity which no sect
from the “ Ebionites” to the “latter day saints” ever
entirely overlooked. This is that common Chris-
tianity, which burns in the hearts of pious men.
Real Christianity gives men new life. It is the
growth and perfect action of the Holy Spirit God
Su
eu


41
ev
puts into the sons of men. It makes us outgrow
any form, or any system of doctrines we have de-
vised, and approach still closer to the truth. It would
lead us to take what help we can find. It would
make the Bible our servant, not our master. It
would teach us to profit by the wisdom and piety of
David and Solomon, but not to sin their sins, nor
bow to their idols. It would make us revere the
holy words spoken by 6 godly men of old,” but
revere still more the word of God spoken through
conscience, reason and faith, as the holiest of all. It
would not make Christ the despot of the soul, but
the brother of all men. It would not tell us that
even he had exhausted the fulness of God so that
He could create none greater; for with him wall
things are possible," and neither Old Testament or
New Testament ever hints that creation exhausts the
creator. Still less would it tell us the wisdom, the
piety, the love, the manly excellence of Jesus was
the result of miraculous agency alone, but that it
was won like the excellence of humbler men, by
faithful obedience to Him who gave his Son such
ample heritage. It would point to him as our bro-
ther, who went before, like the good shepherd, to
charm us with the music of his words, and with the
beauty of his life to tempt us up the steeps of mor-
tal toil, within the gate of Heaven. It would have
us make the kingdom of God on earth, and enter
more fittingly the kingdom on high. It would lead
us from Christ in the heart, on which Paul laid
such stress, and work out our salvation by this. For


42
OU
it is not so much by the Christ who lived so blame-
less and beautiful eighteen centuries ago, that we
are saved directly, but by the Christ we form in our
hearts and live out in our daily life, that we save
ourselves, God working with us, both to will and
to do.
Compare the simpleness of Christianity, as Christ
sets it forth on the Mount, with what is sometimes
taught and accepted in that honored name, and what
a difference. One is of God; one is of man. There
is something in Christianity which sects have not
reached; something that will not be won, we fear,
by theological battles, or the quarrels of pious men,
still we may rejoice that Christ is preached in any
way. The Christianity of sects, of the pulpit, of
society, is ephemeral — a transitory fly. It will
pass off and be forgot. Some new form will take
its place, suited to the aspect of the changing times.
Each will represent something of truth. But no
one the whole. It seems the whole race of man is
needed to do justice to the whole of truth, as “ the
whole church, to preach the whole gospel.” Truth is
entrusted for the time to a perishable Ark of human
contrivance. Though often shipwrecked, she always
comes safe to land, and is not changed by her mishap.
That pure ideal Religion which Jesus saw on the
mount of his vision, and lived out, in the lowly life
of a Galilean peasant; which transforms his cross
into an emblem of all that is holiest on earth;
which makes sacred the ground he trod, and is
dearest to the best of men, most true to what is


43
truest in them, cannot pass away. Let men im-
prove never so far in civilization, or soar never so
high on the wings of religion and love, they can
never outgo the flight of truth and Christianity. It
will always be above them. It is as if we were to fly
towards a Star, which becomes larger and more
bright, the nearer we approach, till we enter and
are absorbed in its glory.
If we look carelessly on the ages that have gone
by, or only on the surfaces of things as they
come up before us, there is reason to fear; for
we confound the truth of God with the word of
man. So at a distance the cloud and the mountain
seem the same. When the drift changes with the
passing wind, an unpractised eye might fancy the
mountain iself was gone. But the mountain stands
to catch the clouds, to win the blessing they bear and
send it down to moisten the ſainting violet, to form
streams which gladden valley and meadow, and
sweep on at last to the sea in deep channels, laden
with fleets. Thus the forms of the church, the creeds
of the sects, the conflicting opinions of teachers,
float round the sides of the Christian mount, and
swell and toss, and rise and fall, and dart their light-
ning, and roll their thunder, but they neither make
nor mar the mount itself. Its lofty suminit far trans-
cends the tumult; knows nothing of the storm which
roars below; but burns with rosy light at evening
and at morn ; gleams in the splendors of the mid-
day sun ; sees his light when the long shadows creep
over plain and moorland, and all night long has its
ST


head in the Heavens, and is visited by troops of
stars which never set, nor veil their face to aught so
pure and high.
eve
Let then the Transient pass, fleet as it will, and
may God send us some new manifestation of the
Christian faith, that shall stir men's hearts as they
were never stirred; some new Word, which shall
teach us what we are, and renew us all in the
image of God; some better life, that shall fulfil the
Hebrew prophecy, and pour out the spirit of God
on young men and maidens, and old men and child-
ren; which shall realize the Word of Christ, and
give us the Comforter, who shall reveal all needed
things. There are Simeons enough in the cottages
and churches of New England, plain men and pious
women, who wait for the consolation, and would
die in gladness, if their expiring breath could stir
quicker the wings that bear him on. There are men
enough, sick and “ bowed down, in no wise able
to lift up themselves," who would be healed could
they kiss the hand of their Saviour, or touch but the
hem of his garment; men who look up and are not
fed because they ask bread from heaven and water
from the rock, not traditions or fancies, Jewish or
heathen, or new or old; men enough who, with
throbbing hearts, pray for the spirit of healing to
come upon the waters, which other than angels
have long kept in trouble ; men enough who have
lain long time sick of theology, nothing bettered
by many physicians, and are now dead, too dead to


45
bury their dead, who would come out of their graves
at the glad tidings. God send us a real religious
life, which shall pluck blindness out of the heart,
and make us better fathers, mothers, and children ;
a religious life, that shall go with us where we go,
and make every home the house of God, every act
acceptable as a prayer. We would work for this,
and pray for it, though we wept tears of blood
while we prayed.
S
1
Such, then, is the Transient, and such the Per-
manent in Christianity. What is of absolute value
never changes ; we may cling round it and grow
to it forever. No one can say his notions shall
stand. But we may all say, the Truth, as it is in
Jesus, shall never pass away. Yet there are always
some even religious men, who do not see the per-
manent element, so they rely on the fleeting ; and,
what is also an evil, condemn others for not doing
the same. They mistake a defence of the Truth
for an attack upon the Holy of Holies; the removal
of a theological error for the destruction of all
religion. Already men of the same sect eye one
another with suspicion, and lowering brows that in-
dicate a storm, and, like children who have fallen
out in their play, call hard names. Now, as always,
there is a collision between these two elements.
The question puts itself to each man, “Will you
cling to what is perishing, or embrace what is eter-
nal ?" This question each must answer for himself.
My friends, if you receive the notions about


46
Christianity which chance to be current in your
sect or church, solely because they are current, and
thus accept the commandment of men instead of
God's truth ; there will always be enough to com-
mend you for soundness of judgment, prudence, and
good sense ; enough to call you Christian for that
reason. But if this is all you rely upon, alas for
you. The ground will shake under your feet if you
attempt to walk uprightly and like men. You will
be afraid of every new opinion, lest it shake down
your church ; you will fear lest if a fox go up, he
will break down your stone wall.” The smallest
contradiction in the New Testament or Old Testa-
ment, the least disagreement between the Law
and the Gospel ; any mistake of the Apostles, will
weaken your faith. It shall be with you “as when
a hungry man dreameth, and behold he eateth, but
he awaketh and his soul is empty.”
If, on the other hand, you take the true Word of
God, and live out this, nothing shall harm you.
Men may mock, but their mouthfuls of wind shall
be blown back upon their own face. If the master
of the house were called Beelzebub, it matters little
· what name is given to the household. The name
Christian, given in mockery, will last till the world
go down. He that loves God and man, and lives
in accordance with that love, need not fear what
man can do to him. His Religion comes to him in
his hour of sadness, it lays its hand on him when he
has fallen among thieves, and raises him up, heals
and comforts him. If he is crucified, he shall rise
again.


47
My friends, you this day receive, with the
usual formalities, the man you have chosen to
speak to you on the highest of all themes, - what
concerns your life on earth; your life in heaven.
It is a work for which no talents, no prayerful dili-
gence, no piety, is too great. An office, that would
dignify angels, if worthily filled. If the eyes of
this man be bolden, that he cannot discern between
the perishing and the true, you will hold him guilt-
less of all sin in this ; but look for light where it
can be had; for his office will then be of no use to
you. But if he sees the Truth, and is scared by
worldly motives and will not tell it, alas for him.
If the watchman see the foe coming and blow not
the trumpet, the blood of the innocent is on him.
Your own conduct and character, the treatment
you offer this young man, will in some measure
influence him. The hearer affects the speaker.
There were some places where even Jesus “ did
not many mighty works, because of their unbelief."
Worldly motives — not seeming such — sometimes
deter good men from their duty. Gold and ease
have, before now, enervated noble minds. Daily
contact with men of low aims, takes down the ideal
of life, which a bright spirit casts out of itself.
Terror has sometimes palsied tongues that, before,
were eloquent as the voice of Persuasion. But
thereby Truth is not holden. She speaks in a
thousand tongues, and with a pen of iron graves
her sentence on the rock forever. You may pre-
rent the freedom of speech in this pulpit if you will.


48
You may hire you servants to preach as you bid ;
to spare your vices and flatter your follies; to pro-
phesy smooth things, and say, It is peace, when
there is no peace. Yet in so doing you weaken
and enthrall yourselves. And alas for that man who
consents to think one thing in his closet and preach
another in his pulpit. God shall judge bim in his
mercy, not man in his wrath. But over his study
and over his pulpit might be writ — EMPTINESS;
on his canonical robes, on his forehead and right
hand— DECEIT, DECEIT.
But, on the other hand, you may encourage your
brother to tell you the truth. Your affection will
then be precious to him; your prayers of great price.
Every evidence of your sympathy will go to baptize
him anew to Holiness and Truth. You will then
have his best words, his brightest thoughts, and his
most hearty prayers. He may grow old in your
service, blessing and blest. He will have
“ The sweetest, best of consolation,
The thought, that he has given,
To serve the cause of Heaven,
The freshness of his early inspiration."
Choose as you will choose; but weal or woe
depends upon your choice.














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