Entered according
to Act of Congress, in the year 1858, by
CHARLES SCRIBNER.
In the Clerks Office of the District Court of the United States
for the Southern District of New York
R M. WOBBS STEREOTYPER, HARTFORD, CT
John F.Trow, Printer.
So beautiful is the character and history of Cyrus, the person here addressed, that many have doubted whether the sketch given by Xenophon was not intended as an idealizing, or merely romantic picture. And yet, there have been examples of as great beauty unfolded, here and there, in all the darkest recesses of the heathen world, and it accords entirely with the hypothesis of historic verity in the account given us of this remarkable man, that he is designated and named by our prophet, even before he is born, as a chosen foster-son of God. “I have surnamed thee,” he declares, “I have girded thee, though thou hast not known me.” And what should he be but a model of all princely beauty, of bravery, of justice, of impartial honor to the lowly, of greatness and true magnanimity in every form, when God has girded him, unseen, to be the minister of his own great and sovereign purposes to the nations of his time.
Something of the same kind will also be detected in the history
and personal consciousness of almost every great and remarkable character. Christ
himself testifies to the girding of the Almighty, when he says,—“To this end was
I born, and for this purpose came I into the world.” Abraham was girded for a particular
work and mission, in
That God has a definite life-plan for every human person, girding him, visibly or invisibly, for some exact thing, which it will be the true significance and glory of his life to have accomplished.
Many persons, I am well aware, never even think of any such thing.
They suppose that, for most men, life is a necessarily stale and common affair.
What it means for them they do not know, and they scarcely conceive that it means
any thing. They even complain, venting heavy
They not only show us explicitly, as we have seen, that God has a definite purpose in the lives of men already great, but they show us, how frequently, in the conditions of obscurity and depression, preparations of counsel going on, by which the commonest offices are to become the necessary first chapter of a great and powerful history. David among the sheep; Elisha following after the plough; Nehemiah bearing the cup; Hannah, who can say nothing less common than that she is the wife of Elkanah and a woman of a sorrowful spirit,—who, that looks on these humble people, at their humble post of service, and discovers, at last, how dear a purpose God was cherishing in them, can be justified in thinking that God has no particular plan for him, because he is not signalized by any kind of distinction?
Besides, what do the scriptures show us, but that God has a particular
care for every man, a personal interest in him and a sympathy with him and his trials,
watching for the uses of his one talent as attentively and kindly and approving
him as heartily, in the right employment of it, as if he had given him ten; and,
what is the giving out of the talents itself. but an exhibition of the fact that
God
They also make it the privilege of every man to live in the secret guidance of God; which is plainly nugatory, unless there is some chosen work, or sphere, into which he may be guided; for how shall God guide him, having nothing appointed or marked out for him to be guided into? no field opened for him, no course set down which is to be his wisdom?
God also professes in his Word to have purposes pre-arranged for all events; to govern by a plan which is from eternity even, and which, in some proper sense, comprehends every thing. And what is this but another way of conceiving that God has a definite place and plan adjusted for every human being? And, without such a plan, he could not even govern the world intelligently, or make a proper universe of the created system; for it becomes a universe only in the grand unity of reason, which includes it. Otherwise, it were only a jumble of fortuities, without counsel, end or law.
Turning, now, from the scriptures to the works of God, how constantly
are we met here by the fact, everywhere, visible, that ends and uses are the regulative
reasons of all existing things. This we discover often, when we are least able to
understand the speculative mystery of objects; for it is precisely the uses of things
that are most palpable. These uses are to God, no doubt, as to us, the significance
of his works. And they compose, taken together, a grand reciprocal system, in which
part answers actively to part, constructing thus an all-comprehensive and glorious
whole. And the system is, in fact, so perfect, that the loss or displacement of
any member would fatally derange the general
There is, then, I conclude, a definite and proper end, or issue,
for every man’s existence; an end, which, to the heart of God, is the good intended
for him, or for which he was intended; that which he is privileged to become,
But there is, I must add, a single, but very important and even
fearful qualification. Things all serve their uses, and never break out of their
place. They have no power to do it. Not so with us. We are able, as free beings,
to refuse the place and the duties God appoints; which, if we do then we sink into
something lower and less worthy of us. That highest and best condition for which
God designed us is no more possible. We are fallen out of it, and it can not be
wholly recovered. And yet, as that was the best thing possible for us in the reach
of God’s original
God has, then, I conclude, a definite life-plan set for every man; one that, being accepted and followed, will conduct him to the best and noblest end possible. No qualification of this doctrine is needed, save the fearful one just named; that we, by our perversity, so often refuse to take the place and do the work he gives us.
It follows, in the same way, that, as God, in fixing on our end
or use, will choose the best end or use possible, so
No room for a discouraged or depressed feeling, therefore, is
left you. Enough that you exist for a purpose high enough to give meaning to life,
and to support a genuine inspiration. If your sphere is outwardly humble, if it
even appears to be quite insignificant, God understands it better than you do, and
it is a part of his wisdom to bring out great sentiments in humble conditions, great
principles in works that are outwardly trivial, great characters under great adversities
and heavy loads of incumbrance. The tallest saints of God will often be those who
walk in the deepest obscurity, and are even despised or quite overlooked by man.
Let it be enough that God is in your history and that the plan of your biography
is his, the issue he has set for it is the highest and the best. Away, then, O man,
with thy feeble complaints and feverish despondencies. There is no place left for
this kind of nonsense. Let it fill thee with cheerfulness and exalted feeling, however
deep in obscurity your lot may be, that God is leading you on, girding you for a
work, preparing you to a good that is worthy of his Divine magnificence. If God
is really preparing us all to become that which is the very highest and best thing
possible
Nor is it any detraction from such a kind of life that the helm
of its guidance is, by the supposition, to be in God, and not in our own will and
wisdom. This, in fact, is its dignity: it is a kind of divine order, a creation
molded by the loving thoughts of God; in that view, to the man himself a continual
discovery, as it is unfolded, both of himself and God. A discovery of some kind
it must be to all; for, however resolutely or defiantly we undertake to accomplish
our own objects, and cut our own way through to a definite self-appointed future,
it will never be true, for one moment, that we are certain of this future, and will
almost always be true that we are met by changes and conditions unexpected. This,
in fact, is one of the common mitigations even of a selfish and self-directed life,
that its events come up out of the unknown and overtake the subject, as discoveries
he could not shun, or anticipate. Evil itself is far less evil, even to the worldly
man, that it comes by surprises. Were the scenes of necessary bitterness, wrong,
trial, disappointment, self-accusation, every such man has to pass through in his
life, distinctly set before him at the beginning, how forbidding generally, and
how dismal the prospect. We say, therefore, how frequently, “I could not have endured
these distasteful, painful years, these emptinesses, these trials and torments that
have rent me, one after another, if I had definitely known beforehand what kind
of lot was before me.” And yet, how poor a comfort is it to such pains and disasters
that they overtook the sufferer as surprises and sorrows not set down beforehand
in the self-appointed programme of life. How different, how inspiring and
But, the inquiry will be made, supposing all this to be true, in the manner stated, how can we ever get hold of this life-plan God has made for us, or find our way into it? Here, to many if not all, will be the main stress of doubt and practical suspense.
Observe, then, first of all, some negatives that are important and must be avoided. They are these:—
You will never come into God’s plan, if you study singularity;
for, if God has a design or plan for every man’s life, then it is exactly appropriate
to his nature; and, as every man’s nature is singular and peculiar to himself,—as
peculiar as his face or look,—then it follows that God will lead every man into
a singular, original and peculiar life, without any study of singularity on his
part. Let him seek to be just what God will have him, and the talents,
As little will he seek to copy the life of another. No man is ever called to be another. God has as many plans for men as he has men; and, therefore, he never requires them to measure their life exactly by any other life. We are not to require it of ourselves to have the precise feelings, or exercises, or do the works, or pass through the trials of other men; for God will handle us according to what we are, and not according to what other men are. And whoever undertakes to be exercised by any given fashion, or to be any given character, such as he knows or has read of, will find it impossible, even as it is to make himself another nature. God’s plan must hold and we must seek no other. To strain after something new and peculiar is fantastic and weak, and is also as nearly wicked as that kind of weakness can be. To be a copyist, working at the reproduction of a human model, is to have no faith in one’s significance, to judge that God means nothing in his particular life, but only in the life of some other man. Submitting himself, in this manner, to the fixed opinion that his life means nothing, and that nothing is left for him but to borrow or beg a life-plan from some other man, what can the copyist become but an affectation or a dull imposture.
In this view also, you are never to complain of your birth, your
training, your employments, your hardships; never to fancy that you could be something
if only you had a different lot and sphere assigned you. God understands
Another frequent mistake to be carefully avoided is that, while
you surrender and renounce all thought of making up a plan, or choosing out a plan,
for yourself, as one that you set by your own will, you also give up the hope or
expectation that God will set you in any scheme of life, where the whole course
of it will be known, or set down beforehand. If you go to him to be guided, he will
guide you; but he will not comfort your distrust, or half trust of him, by showing
you the chart of all his purposes concerning you. He will only show you into a way
where,
But we must not stop in negatives. How, then, or by what more positive directions can a man, who really desires to do it, come into the plan God lays for him, so as to live it and rationally believe that he does? You are on the point of choosing, it may be, this or that calling, wanting to know where duty lies and what the course God himself would have you take. Beginning at a point most remote, and where the generality of truth is widest,
Consider (1,) the character of God, and you will draw a large deduction from that; for, all that God designs for you will be in harmony with his character. He is a being infinitely good, just, true. Therefore, you are to know that he can not really seek any thing contrary to this in you. You may make yourselves contrary, in every attribute of character, to God; but he never made you to become any thing different from, or unworthy of, himself. A good being could not make another to be a bad being, as the proper issue and desired end of his existence; least of all could one infinitely good. A great many employments or callings are, by these first principles, forever cut off. No thought is permitted you, even for a moment, of any work or calling that does not represent the industry, justice, truth, beneficence, mercy of God.
(2.) Consider your relation to him as a creature. All created
wills have their natural center and rest in God’s will. In him they all come into
a play of harmony, and
(3.) You have a conscience, which is given to be an interpreter of his will and thus of your duty, and, in both, of what you are to become.
(4.) God’s law and his written Word are guides to present duty, which, if faithfully accepted, will help to set you in accordance with the mind of God and the plan he has laid for you. “I am a stranger in the earth,” said one, “hide not thy commandments from me;” knowing that God’s commandments would give him a clue to the true meaning and business of his life.
(5.) Be an observer of Providence; for God is showing you ever, by the way in which he leads you, whither he means to lead. Study your trials, your talents, the world’s wants, and stand ready to serve God now, in whatever he brings to your hand.
Again (6,) consult your friends, and especially those who are most in the teaching of God. They know your talents and personal qualifications better, in some respects, than you do yourself. Ask their judgment of you and of the spheres and works to which you are best adapted.
Once more (7,) go to God himself, and ask for the calling of God;
for, as certainly as he has a plan or calling for you, he will somehow guide you
into it. And this is the proper office and work of his Spirit. By this private teaching
he can show us, and will, into the very plan that
It is not to be supposed that you have followed me, in such a
subject as this, without encountering questions from within that are piercing. It
has put you on reflection; it has set you to the inquiry, what you have been doing
and becoming thus far in your course, and what you are hereafter to be? Ten, twenty,
fifty, seventy years ago, you came into this living world, an l began to breathe
this mortal air. The guardian angel that came to take charge
Do I hear thy soul confessing, with a suppressed sob within thee, that, up to this time, thou hast never sought God’s chosen plan at all. Hast thou, even to this hour, and during so many years, been following a way and a plan of thine own, regardless, hitherto, of all God’s purposes in thee? Well, if it be so, what hast thou gotten? How does thy plan work? Does it bring thee peace, content, dignity of aim and feeling, purity, rest; or, does it plunge thee into mires of disturbance, scorch thee in flames of passion, worry thee with cares, burden thee with bitter reflections, cross thee, disappoint, sadden, sour thee? And what are thy prospects? what is the issue to come? After thou hast worked out this hard plan of thine own, will it come to a good end? Hast thou courage now to go on and work it through?
Perhaps you may be entertaining yourself, for the time, with a
notion of your prosperity, counting yourself happy in past successes, and counting
on greater successes to come, Do you call it, then, success, that you are getting
on in a plan of your own? There can not be a greater delusion.
No matter which it be, prosperity or acknowledged defeat, the case is much the same in one as in the other, if you stand apart from God and his counsel. There is nothing good preparing for any man who will not live in God’s plan. If he goes a prospecting for himself, and will not apprehend that for which he is apprehended, it can not be to any good purpose.
And really, I know not any thing, my hearers, more sad and painful to think of, to a soul properly enlightened by reason and God’s truth, than so many years of Divine good squandered and lost; whole years, possibly many years, of that great and blessed biography which God designed for you, occupied by a frivolous and foolish invention of your own, substituted for the good counsel of God’s infinite wisdom and love. O, let the past suffice!
Young man, or woman, this is the day of hope to you, All your best opportunities are still before you. Now, too, you are laying your plans for the future. Why not lay them in God? Who has planned for you as wisely and faithfully as he? Let your life begin with him. Believe that you are girded by your God for a holy and great calling. Go to him and consecrate your life to him, knowing assuredly that he will lead you into just that life which is your highest honor and blessing.
And what shall I say to the older man, who is further
All men, living without God, are adventurers out upon God’s world, in neglect of him, to choose their own course. Hence the sorrowful, sad looking host they make. O, that I could show them whence their bitterness, their dryness, their unutterable sorrows, come. O, that I could silence, for one hour, the noisy tumult of their works, and get them to look in upon that better, higher life of fruitfulness and blessing to which their God has appointed them. Will they ever see it? Alas! I fear!
Friends of God, disciples of the Son of God, how inspiring and
magnificent the promise, or privilege that is offered here to you. Does it still
encounter only unbelief in your heart? does it seem to you impossible that you can
ever find your way into a path prepared for you by God, and be led along in it by
his mighty counsel. Let me tell you a secret. It requires a very close, well-kept
life to do this; a life in which the soul can have confidence always toward God;
a life which allows the Spirit always to abide and reign, driven away by no affront
of selfishness.
How sacred, how strong in its repose, how majestic, how nearly
divine is a life thus ordered! The simple thought of a life which is to be the unfolding,
in this manner, of a Divine plan, is too beautiful, too captivating, to suffer one
indifferent or heedless moment. Living in this manner, every turn of your experience
will be a discovery to you of God, every change a token of his Fatherly counsel.
Whatever obscurity, darkness, trial, suffering falls upon you; your defeats, losses,
injuries; your outward state, employment, relations; what seems hard, unaccountable,
severe, or, as nature might say, vexatious,—all these you will see are parts or
constitutive elements in God’s beautiful and good plan for you, and, as such, are
to be accepted with a
IT is something great in man, as the speaker, Elihu, conceives, that he is spirit, and, as being such, is capable of being inspired. For he is not, as some commentators appear to suppose, re-publishing here, the historical fact, that the Almighty breathed into man, at the first, a living understanding soul; but, speaking in the present tense, he magnifies man as being able to be inspired, because he is spirit, and God that he inspires him.
I undertake to enlist you here in a range of contemplation exceedingly remote from the apprehension of most persons in our time. So completely occupied are they with the humanitarian, world-ward relations of life, that the God-ward relations pass unheeded, and, for the most part, unrecognized. Or, if they sometimes think of such relations, it is only in the sense that we are responsible to God, as we are to any human government, for what we do as men, not in the sense that our very nature has itself a God-ward side, being related constitutionally to him, as plants are to the sun, or living bodies to the air they breathe. That we may duly apprehend a truth so far out of the way of our times, and yet so necessary to any fit conceptions of our nature and life, let me bespeak, on your part, even a voluntary and compelled attention.
My subject is, the spirit in man; or what is the same, the fact that we are, as being spirit, permeable and inspirable by the Almighty.
The word “spirit,” means literally, breath, and it is
applied to the soul, not merely because of its immateriality, but for the
additional reason that the Almighty can breathe himself into it and through it.
The word “inspiration,”
as here used, denotes this act of inbreathing, and it will serve the convenience
of my subject to use it in this meaning in my discourse; though it is not exactly
coincident with the more common meaning attached to it, when we speak of the inspiration
of the writers of Scripture. I certainly need not apologize for the use of a term,
in, at least, one of its Scripture meanings. I only notify you that any one is inspired,
as I shall here speak, who is breathed in, visited internally, and so, all infallibility
apart, raised in intelligence, guided in choice, convinced of sin, upheld in suffering,
empowered to victory. In this more general sense, Bezaleel was inspired when he
“was filled with the Spirit of God, in wisdom and in understanding, to devise cunning
works, to work in gold, and in silver, and in brass, and in cutting of stones, to
set them, and in carving of timber.” Any one is inspired, as we now speak, just
as far as he is raised internally, in thought, feeling, perception, or action, by
a Divine movement within. In the capacity of this, he is called an inspirable creature,
and has this for one of his highest distinctions. What higher distinction can he
have, than a capacity for God; to let in the Divine nature, to entertain the eternal
spirit witnessing with his spirit, to be gifted thus with understanding, ennobled
in impulse, raised in power, and this, without any retrenchment
Just as it is the distinction of a crystal, that it is transparent, able to let the light into and through its close flinty body, and be irradiated by it in the whole mass of its substance, without being at all more or less distinctly a crystal, so it is the grand distinction of humanity, that it is made permeable by the divine nature, prepared in that manner to receive and entemple the Infinite Spirit; to be energized by him and filled with his glory, in every faculty, feeling and power. Our accepted doctrine of the Holy Spirit really implies just this, that we are made capable of this interior presence of the divine nature; that, as matter is open to the free access and unimpeded passage of the electric flash, so is the soul open to the subtle motions of the Eternal Spirit, and ready, as it were, to be the vehicle of God’s thought and action; so of his character and joy.
As to the manner of this divine presence, or working, we, of course,
know nothing. We only know, reverting to comparisons just given, that, as matter
conducts electricity, so the human soul becomes a conductor of the divine will,
and sentiments. Or as we can not see how the crystal receives the light, or how,
being a perfectly opaque body in itself, it becomes luminous without the least change
in its own organization, so here we can understand that the human soul, or spirit,
is made capable of the divine spirit, without any loss of its own human individuality;
but, the manner of the fact is, in both cases, uninvestigable and mysterious. The
Scriptures use a great variety of figures to represent this truth, and gives us
a vivid practical sense of it but
Let us now consider what and how much it signifies that we are
spirit; capable, in this manner, of the divine concourse. In this point of view
it is, that we are raised most distinctly above all other forms of existence known
co us. When it is declared in the scripture, that the Spirit of God moved upon the
waters of chaos, it is not meant that he was inspiring chaos, but only that he was
acting creatively in it. So it is not understood, when all the host of heaven are
said to be created by the breath of the Almighty, that the stars are inspired creatures;
much less, that the brute animals are inspired, because they are
We sometimes undertake to magnify the dignity cf man by dwelling on the wonderful achievements of his intelligence. He creates and uses language, makes records oI the past, enacts laws, builds institutions, climbs the heavens, searching out their times and orbits, penetrates the secret affinities and counts the atoms of matter, bridges the sea by his inventions, commands the lightning itself to think his thoughts and run upon his errands in the ends of the world,—none but a stupendous creature, we suppose, and rightly, can be manifested in acts of intelligence like these. And yet, to be penetrated and lighted up from within by the mind of God, to have the understanding of things unseen by the inspiration of the Almighty, in one word, to be spirit, and have the consciousness even of God, as being irradiated and filled with his divine fullness; this, after all, is the distinction that makes any mere show of intelligence quite insignificant.
We sometimes dwell on the fact of the moral nature in man, conceiving
that in this, he is seen to be, most of all, exalted. And our impression is right,
if by the moral we understand, also, the spiritual and religious nature, as we often
do. But, in strict propriety, the moral nature is quite another and vastly inferior
thing, as respects the scale of its dignity. The spiritual is even as much higher
than the moral, as the moral is higher than the animal. To be a moral being is to
have a sense of duty and a power of choice that supports and justifies responsibility.
It is that in us which recognizes the supremacy of moral ideas or abstract notions,
and acknowledges their binding force, as laws or principles. Animals, for example,
have a certain power of intelligence, but they have no sense of duty, or law; that
is a point quite above their tier of
It is also in virtue of this distinction between a merely moral
nature and spirit, that redemption, or the restoration from evil is possible; for
that we are down, under evil, can not be denied. Were there no other way for us,
but to act on ourselves, and bring ourselves out of our disorder into the abstractions
of law and duty, our case were utterly hopeless. As certainly as sin exists, we
are in it forever.
Glance a moment also, at this point, on the origin and constituted
relation of our human nature, as spirit, with it? author and creator. In the original
scheme of existence, it was planned that man should be complete, and, as it were,
infinite in God, by reason of his continual participation of God. And this is the
true normal state of man. In which normal state he was to be a continually inspired
creature, conscious always of God as of himself, actuated by the divine character,
exalted by the divine beatitude. This, accordingly, is the true idea of the fall.
It is not that man fell away from certain moral notions, or laws, but it is that
he fell away from the personal inhabitation of God, lost inspiration, and so became
a dark, enslaved creature,—alienated, as the apostle says, from the life of of
God. Still, his capacity of inspiration is not absolutely
Observe also, in some particulars, what takes place in the human
soul, as an inspirable nature, when it is practically filled and operated by the
Spirit of God. It has now that higher Spirit witnessing with itself. “Witnessing
with,”—there is a glorious and blessed concomitancy in the subject, a kind of double
sense in which he takes note, both of God and of himself together, and is, at one
and the same moment, conscious of both. He is no longer a simple feather of humanity,
driven about by the fickle winds of this world’s changes, but, in the new sense
he has of a composite life, in which God Himself is a pre siding force, he is raised
into a glorious equilibrium above himself, and set in rest upon the rock of God’s
eternity. His strength is immovable; indeed he is, in a sense, impassible. All his
powers and talents are quickened to a
See how it is in examples; what a man is before the holy visitation,
and what he becomes in it. The man Enoch, walked in the deep mires of this world,
as little superior to them, or as little raised above them, as other men of his
ungodly times. But, when the testimony came that he pleased God, when the internal
witness of God’s love was unfolded in his consciousness, his affinities were changed,
even to such a degree that the earth could hold him down no longer. Joseph, as Joseph,
is the favored son of his father, distinguished by a certain natural grace, and
the wearing of a particular coat. But he begins to have dreams, and then a power
to interpret dreams, and God is with him in both, leading him on to a great and
splendid future, and finishing a glorious beauty in his character, so that even
we can see it as confidently as he knows it himself. Moses passes through the preparations
of the scholar, then becomes! a refugee tending sheep on the backside of Horeb;
a man scarcely more, to us, than if he had been kept, till this time, in his mother’s
basket among the rushes of the Nile. But the call overtakes him and the spirit now
of God’s own might enters into him. He becomes, at once, a prophet and a commander,
the Liberator and Leader and Law-giver of his people, and the founder, in that manner,
of a history that foreshadows, and even prepares a language for, the doctrines of
Christ and the great mystery of salvation to be revealed in Christ, after fifteen
centuries have passed away. Peter, again, the companion of Jesus and the hearer
of his word, knew less, in Fact, of Christ, and the real import of his mission,
than Moses was able to represent, or anticipate, in the forms of
But we do not really conceive the height of this subject, till
we bring into view the place it holds in the economy of the heavenly state. All
good angels and glorified men are distinguished by the fact that they are now filled
with a complete inspiration from the fullness of God. It is their spiritual perfection
that they are perfectly inspired, so that their whole action is in the divine impulse.
All sin, all defect and spiritual distemper are drunk up or lost in the divine perfection.
Their complete inspiration is their dignity, their strength, the spring of their
swiftness and joy; and the Alleluia of their adoring eternity—the Lord God Omnipotent
reigneth,—celebrates a reign not about them in things, nor in some third heaven
above, but in them, in the more magnificent heaven of their own exalted powers and
thoughts, and the glorified passions of their spirit. Inspiration is their heaven;
the Lord God giveth them light. All that we mean by the heavenly joy and perfection
is nothing but the restoration and the everlasting bloom of that high capacity for
God, in which our normal state began, and of which that first state was only the
germ, or prophecy. Man finds his paradise, when he is imparadised in God. It is
not that he is squared to certain
On the other hand, what is called hell, in the scripture, is a world of misery, constituted by the complete absence of God. It is outer darkness, because it is that night of the mind, which overtakes it when it strays from God and his light. To be severed eternally from God’s inspirations is enough, as we are constituted, to seal our complete misery. No matter whether it be that our capacity of inspiration is extinct, or whether it continues, gasping after the inspiring breath of God forever shut away. One is the misery of deformity and weakness; the other of exile and want. One is that of a soul halved in its capacity, which leaves the. other half unregulated and torn by disorders which it has no higher nature left to subordinate and quell; the other is that of a soul in full capacity, torn by disorders equally hopeless and struggling with immortal want beside.
I have endeavored, in this manner, to unfold, as I was able, the real import of the spirit in man, taken as a nature capable of receiving the inspiration of the Almighty. This, it can hardly be questioned, is the greatest of all distinctions,—superior to free will, to conscience, to reason, and to every other gift or faculty of human nature. An important light is shed by this great truth on many points that meet us in the facts of human life and religious experience.
1. It is a singular and somewhat curious confirmation of what
I have been saying, that poets and orators have
2. We discover in this subject what is the true ground and the
rational significance of the doctrine of the Holy Spirit, as advanced in the gospels.
It is not simply that sin has made a necessity for the divine nature to do something
new, but rather that sin had abolished something old, which needs to be restored.
The doctrine of the Holy Spirit is grounded in the primordial nature of all spiritual
beings. They are made, as we have said, to be divinely inhabited, made to live in
eternal inspiration. The doctrine of the Holy Spirit pertains to all created spirit
in all worlds, only with modifications adapted to their state. To be in the Spirit
is their normal condition, their conserving law, their light, and strength, and
glory. And therefore, when they sin, falling away from God’s Spirit, and dropping
into the darkness of mere self-hood, there can, of
3. We discover, in our subject, what significance there is in
the pride which looks on spiritual religion as a humiliation, or deems it even a
mortification not to be endured. A mortification for this tiny speck of mortality
not to stay by itself in its own littleness and frailty! A mortification to be brought
up into the sense of God’s own greatness! A mortification to be ennobled by the
Spirit of God, to have all our experience modulated and glorified by him! A mortification
to be in God’s wisdom, to be established in the confidence of his infinite majesty,
to think with him and from him, to move in the glorious order of his perfect mind,
and be the embodiment eternally of his impulse! O, how petty and weak this pride
how contemptible this contempt! And yet, to be a Christian, to be given up to the
Spirit of God and carefully offered to his holy guidance,—how many look on it as
a weakness, a loss of dignity, a thing which only the tamer and less manly souls
can descend to. I know not any thing else that exhibits the folly and conceit of
man like this pride. As if it were some loss or abatement to be set in a plane with
God, to have the inspiration of the Almighty, to receive a higher nature and life
in the Eternal Life and impulse of God. It is as if the world of matter were to
be ashamed of the sun, and shrink with inward mortification from the state of day!
What is God but our day, the sun of our eternity, the light of our light. Without
whom, as the light of our seeing, the universe of nature were a mere phosphorescence
of fate, unintelligent and cold, life a driblet of vanity, and eternity itself a
protracted and amplified nothingness. O, my friends, this pride you have against
religion will sometime be inverted, and you will be overwhelmed by the discovery
of its true merit. You
Finally, it remains to conduct you forward into that view of the
great future of Christianity on earth, in which much of the practical interest of
our subject lies. It is a great misfortune, as I view it, that we have brought down
the word inspiration to a use so narrow and technical; asserting it only of prophecy
and other scripture writings, and carefully excluding from it all participation,
by ourselves, in whatever sense it might be taken. We cut ourselves off, in this
manner, from any common terms with the anointed men of scripture and the scripture
times.
There is yet to be a revision of this whole subject. Not that
we are to assert or claim the same inspiration with the writers of scripture. God
has a particular kind of inspiration for every man, just according to what he is
and the uses he will make of him; for the tradesmen Bezaleel as truly as for Moses.
He will dignify every right calling by being joined to us in it; for there is nothing
given us to do, which he will not help us to do rightly and wisely, filling us with
a lofty and fortified consciousness of his presence with us in it. It is not for
us to say, beforehand,
I believe, furthermore, that there is going, finally, to be entered
into the world a more general, systematic and soundly intellectual conviction respecting
all these secret relations of souls to God. When we have been out into all the fields
of science, and gotten our opinion of the scientific order by which God works in
matter, and the laws immaterial by which all matter is swayed, I believe that we
shall turn round God-ward, to consider what our relations may be on that side; and
then we shall not only take up the doctrine of the Spirit and of holy inspiration,
looking no more, as now, after some mere casual, fitful, partially fantastic, visitations
of what we call the Spirit, but we shall discover in it the truth of a grand, universal,
intelligent, systematic, abiding inspiration, and the whole human race, lifted by
this discovery, will fall into this gift, knowing that in God is the only divine
privilege of existence. To be in this inspiration will be nothing extraordinary
now, any more than that men should be sober, which out of it they are not. Without
something like this breaking into the world’s mind, that kingdom which is righteousness,
and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost, and which it is promised shall finally fill
the earth, can, manifestly, never
And the sooner, brethren and friends, we begin to look for this the better. And what shall we do sooner than prepare ourselves for the grace that is offered. First, believe that you may have it, and may live in this abiding witness and participation of God’s Spirit. Sacrifice every thing cheerfully and calmly for this. Esteem it no forbid. ding sanctimony to be holy. Aspire to these majestic honors, by a life rationally set to do God’s will and purified to receive it. Live as with God; and, whatever be your calling, pray for the gift that will perfectly qualify you in it. Let his tabernacle so be set up in you, and be a witness for him, in that manner, of the day, when it shall be said, in the fullness of his universal light, the tabernacle of God is with men.
A MOST dark and dismal picture of humanity, it must be admitted; and yet it has two sides or aspects. In one view, it is’ the picture of weakness, wretchedness, shame and disgust; all which they discover in it who most sturdily resent the impeachment of it. In the other, it presents a being higher than even they can boast; a fearfully great being; great in his evil will, his demoniacal passions, his contempt of fear, the splendor of his degradation, and the magnificence of his woe.
It is this latter view of the picture to which, at the present time, I propose to call your attention, exhibiting,—
The dignity of man, as revealed by the ruin he makes in his fall and apostacy from God.
It has been the way of many, in our time, to magnify humanity,
or the dignity of human nature, by tracing its capabilities and the tokens it reveals
of a natural affinity with God and truth. They distinguish lovely instincts, powers
and properties allied to God, aspirations reaching
I am not required by my subject to settle the litigation between these two extremes; one of which makes the gospel unnecessary, because there is no depravation to restore; and the other of which makes it impossible, because there is nothing left to which any holy appeal can be made; but I undertake, in partial disregard of both, to show the essential greatness and dignity of man from the ruin itself which he becomes; confident of this, that in no other point of view, will he prove the spiritual sublimity of his nature so convincingly.
Nor is it any thing new, or a turn more ingenious than just, that
we undertake to raise our conceptions of human
The same is true, even more strikingly, of ancient cities. Though
described by historians, in terms of definite measurement, with their great structures
and defenses and the royal splendor of their courts, we form no sufficient conception
of their grandeur, till we look upon their
So it is with man. Our most veritable, though saddest, impressions of his greatness, as a creature, we shall derive from the magnificent ruin he displays. In that ruin we shall distinguish fallen powers, that lie as broken pillars on the ground; temples of beauty, whose scarred and shattered walls still indicate their ancient, original glory; summits covered with broken stones, infested by asps, where the palaces of high thought and great aspiration stood, and righteous courage went up to maintain the citadel of the mind,—all a ruin now, “archangel ruined.”
And exactly this, I conceive, is the legitimate impression of
the scripture representations of man, as apostate from duty and God. Thoughtfully
regarded, all exaggerations and contending theories apart, it is as if they were
showing us the original dignity of man, from the magnificence of the ruin in which
he lies. How sublime a creature must that be, call him either man or demon, who
is able to confront the Almighty and tear himself away from his throne. And, as
if to forbid our taking his deep misery and shame as tokens of contempt, imagining
that a creature so humiliated is inherently weak and low, the first men are shown
us living out a thousand years of lustful energy, and braving the Almighty in strong
defiance to the last. “The earth also is corrupt before God, and the earth is filled
with violence.” We look, as it were, upon a race of Titans, broken loose from order
But we come to the ruin as it is, and we look upon it
We look, first of all, upon the false religions of the world; pompous and costly rites transacted before crocodiles and onions; magnificent temples built over all monkeyish and monstrous creatures, carved by men’s hands; children offered up, by their mothers, in fire, or in water; kings offered on the altars, by their people, to propitiate a wooden image; gorgeous palaces and trappings of barbaric majesty, studded all over with beetles in gold, or precious stones, to serve as a protection against pestilences, poisons and accidents. I can not fill out a picture that so nearly fills the world. Doubtless it is a picture of ruin— yet of a ruin how visibly magnificent. For, how high a nature must that be, how intensely allied to what is divine, that it must prepare such pomps, incur such sacrifices, and can elevate such trifles of imposture to a place of reverence. If we say that, in all this, it is feeling after God if haply it may find him, which in one view is the truth, then how inextinguishable and grand are those religious instincts by which it is allied to the holy, the infinite, the eternal, but invisible one.
The wars of the world yield a similar impression. What opinion
should we have of the energy, ferocity and fearful passion of a race of animals,
could any such be found, who marshal themselves by the hundred thousand, marching
across kingdoms and deserts to fight, and strewing leagues of ground with a covering
of dead, before they yield the victory. One race there is that figure in these heroics
of war, in a small way, viz., the tiny race of ants; whom God has made a spectacle
to mock the glory and magnificence of human wars; lest, carried away by so
Consider again the persecutions of the good; fires for the saints
of all ages, dungeons for the friends of liberty and benefactors of their times,
poison for Socrates, a cross for Jesus Christ. What does it mean? What face shall
we put on this outstanding demonstration of the world? No other but this, that cursing
and bitterness, the poison even of asps, and more, is entered into the heart of
man. He hates with a diabolical hatred. Feeling “how awful goodness is,” the sight
of it rouses him to madness, and he will not stop till he has tasted blood. And
what a being is this that can be stung with so great madness, by the spectacle of
a good and holy life. The fiercest of animals are capable of no such devilish instigation;
because they are too low to be capable of goodness, or even of the thought, But
here is a creature who can not bear the reminder, even
The great characters of the world furnish another striking proof of the transcendent quality of human nature, by the dignity they are able to connect even with their littleness and meanness. On a small island of the southern Atlantic, is shut up a remarkable prisoner, wearing himself out there in a feeble mixture of peevishness and jealousy, solaced by no great thoughts and no heroic spirit; a kind of dotard before the time, killing and consuming himself by the intense littleness into which he has shrunk. And this is the great conqueror of the modern world, the man whose name is the greatest of modern names, or, some will say, of all names the human world has pronounced; a man, nevertheless, who carried his greatest victories and told his meanest lies in close proximity, a character as destitute of private magnanimity, as he was remarkable for the stupendous powers of his understanding and the more stupendous and imperial leadership of his will. How great a being must it be, that makes a point of so great dignity before the world, despite of so much that is really little and contemptible.
But he is not alone. The immortal Kepler, piloting science into the skies, and comprehending the vastness of heaven, for the first time, in the fixed embrace of definite thought, only proves the magnificence of man as a ruin, when you discover the strange ferment of irritability and “superstition wild,” in which his great thoughts are brewed and his mighty life dissolved.
So also Bacon proves the amazing wealth and grandeur of the human
soul only the more sublimely that,
“The greatest, wisest, meanest of mankind,”
pictures, only with a small excess of satire, the magnificence of ruin comprehended in the man.
Probably no one of mankind has raised himself to a higher pitch of renown by the superlative attributes of genius displayed in his writings, than the great English dramatist; flowering out, nevertheless, into such eminence of glory, on a compost of fustian, buffoonery and other vile stuff, which he so magnificently covers with splendor and irradiates with beauty, that disgust itself is lost in the vehemence of praise. And so we shall find, almost universally, that the greatness of the world’s great men, is proved by the inborn qualities that tower above the ruins of weakness and shame, in which they appear, and out of which, as solitary pillars and dismantled temples they rise.
But we must look more directly into the contents of human nature,
and the internal ruin by which they are displayed. And here you may notice, first
of all, the sublime vehemence of the passions. What a creature must that be, who,
out of mere hatred, or revenge, will deliberately take the life of a fellow man,
and then dispatch his own to avoid the ignominy of a public execution. Suppose there
might be found some tiger that, for the mere bitterness of his grudge against some
other whelp of his mother, springs upon him in his sleep and rends him in pieces,
and then
Consider again the wild mixtures of thought, displayed both in
the waking life and the dreams of mankind. How grand! how mean! how sudden the leap
from one to the
Notice, also, the significance of remorse. How great a creature must that be that, looking down upon itself from some high summit in itself, some throne of truth and judgment which no devastation of order can reach, withers in relentless condemnation of itself, gnaws and chastises itself in the sense of what it is! Call it a ruin, as it plainly is, there rises out of the desolated wreck of its former splendor, that which indicates and measures the sublimity of the original temple. The conscience stands erect, resisting all the ravages of violence and decay, and by this, we distinguish the temple of God that was; a soul divinely gifted, made to be the abode of his spirit, the vehicle of his power, the mirror of his glory. A creature of remorse is a divine creature of necessity, only it is the wreck of a divinity that was.
So again, you may conceive the greatness of man, by the ruin he makes, if you advert to the dissonance and obstinacy of his evil will. It is dissonant as being out of harmony with God and the world, and all beside in the soul itself; viz., the reason, the conscience, the wants, the hopes, and even the remembrances of the soul. How great a creature is it that, knowing God, can set itself off from God and resist him, can make itself a unit, separate from all beings beside, and maintain a persistent rebellion even against its own convictions, fears and aspirations. Like a Pharaoh it sits on its Egyptian throne, quailing in darkness, under the successive fears and judgments of life, relenting for the moment, then gathering itself up again to re-assert the obstinacy of its pride, and die, it may be, in its evil. What a power is this, capable of a dominion how sublime, a work and sphere how transcendent! If sin is weak, if it is mean, little, selfish and deformed, and we are ready to set humanity down as a low and paltry thing of nothing worth, how terrible and tragic in its evil grandeur does it appear, when we turn to look upon its defiance of God, and the desperate obstinacy of its warfare. Who, knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them. Or as we have it in the text,—There is no fear of God before their eyes. In one view there is fear enough, the soul is all its life long haunted by this fear, but there is a desperation of will that tramples fear and makes it as though it were not.
Consider once more the religious aspirations and capacities of
religious attraction that are garnered up, and still live in the ruins of humanity.
How plain it is, in all the
Regarding man, then, as immersed in evil, a being in disorder, a spiritual intelligence in a state of ruin, we derogate nothing from his dignity. Small conception has any one of the dignity of human nature, who conceives it only on the side of praise, or as set off by the figments of a merely natural virtue. As little could he apprehend the tragic sublimity of Hamlet, considered only as an amiable son ingenuously hurt by the insult done his father’s name and honor. The character is great, not here, but in its wildness and its tragic mystery; delicate and fierce, vindictive and cool, shrewd and terrible, a reasonable and a reasoning madness, more than we can solve, all that we can feel. And so it is that we discover the true majesty of human nature itself, in the tragic grandeur of its disorders, nowhere else. Nothing do we know of its measures, regarded in the smooth plausibilities and the respectable airs of good breeding, and worldly virtue. It is only as a lost being that man appears to be truly great. Judge him by the ruin he makes, wander among the shattered pillars and fallen towers of his majesty, behold the immortal and eternal vestiges, study his passions, thoughts, aspirations, woes; behold the destruction and misery that are in his ways,—destruction how sublime, misery how deep, clung to with how great pertinacity, and then say,—this is man, this is the dignity of human nature. It will kindle no pride in you, stimulate no pompous conceit, but it will reveal a terror, discover a shame, speak a true conviction, and, it may be, draw forth a tear.
Having reached this natural limit of our subject, let us pause a moment, and look about us on some of the practical issues to which it is related.
It is getting to be a great hcpe of our time, that society is
going to slide into something better, by a course of natural progress; by the advance
of education, by great public reforms, by courses of self-culture and philanthropic
practice We have a kind of new gospel that corresponds; a gospel which preaches
not so much a faith in God’s salvation as a faith in human nature; an attenuated
moralizing gospel that proposes development, not regeneration; showing men how to
grow better, how to cultivate their amiable instincts, how to be rational in their
own light and govern themselves by their own power. Sometimes it is given as the
true problem, how to reform the shape and re-construct the style of their heads,
and even this it is expected they will certainly be able to do! Alas that we are
taken, or can be, with so great folly. How plain it is that no such gospel meets
our want. What can it do for us but turn us away, more and more fatally, from that
gospel of the Son of God, which is our only hope. Man as a ruin, going after development,
and progress, and philanthropy, and social culture, and, by this fire-fly glimmer,
to make a day of glory! And this is the doctrine that proposes shortly to restore
society, to settle the passion, regenerate the affection, re-glorify the thought,
fill the aspiration of a desiring and disjointed world! As if any being but God
had power to grapple with these human disorders; as if man, or society, crazed and
maddened by the demoniacal frenzy of sin, were going to rebuild the state of order,
and re-construct the shattered harmony of nature, by such kind of desultory counsel
and unsteady application as it can manage to enforce in its own cause; going to
do this miracle by its science, its compacts, and self-executed reforms! As soon
will the desolations of
And this brings me to speak of another point, where the subject
unfolded carries an important application. The great difficulty with christianity
in our time is, that, as a fact, or salvation, it is too great for belief. After
all our supposed discoveries of dignity in human nature, we have commonly none but
the meanest opinion of man. How can we imagine or believe that any such history
as that of Jesus Christ is a fact, or that the infinite God has transacted any such
wonder for man? a being so far below his rational concern, or the range of his practical
sympathy. God manifest in the flesh! God in Christ reconciling the world unto himself!
the birth of the manger! the life of miracle! the incarnate dying! and the world
darkening ii, funeral grief around the mighty sufferer’s cross!—it is extravagant,
out of proportion, who can believe it? Any one, I answer, who has not lost the magnitude
of man. No work of God holds a juster proportion than this great mystery of godliness,
and if we did but understand the great mystery of ungodliness we should think so.
No man will ever have any difficulty in believing the work of Christ who has not
lost the measures of humanity. But
Once more, it is another and important use of the subject we have
here presented, that the magnitude and real importance of the soul are discovered
in it, as nowhere else. For it is not by any computations of reason, but in your
wild disorders, your suppressed affinities for God, the distempers and storms of
your passions, and the magnificent chaos of your immortality, that you will get
the truest opinion of your consequence to yourselves. Just that which makes you
most oblivious and blindest to your own significance, ought to make you most aware
of it and press you most earnestly to God. I know not how it is but the
O, thou Prince of Life! come in thy great salvation to these blinded and lost men, and lay thy piercing question to their ear,—What shall it profit a man to gain the whole world and lose his own soul? Breathe, O breathe on these majestic ruins, and rouse to life again, though it be but for one hour, the forgotten sense of their eternity, their lost eternity.
Even so, your lost eternity. The great salvation coming, then, is not too great; nought else, or less could suffice. For if there be any truth that can fitly appall you, live you with conviction, drive you home to God, dissolve you in tears of repentance, it is here, when you discover yourself and your terrible misdoings, in the ruins of your desolated majesty. In these awful and scarred vestiges, too, what type is given you of that other and final ruin, of which Christ so kindly and faithfully warned you, when, describing the house you are building on these treacherous sands, he showed the fatal storm beating vehemently against it, with only this one issue possible—And immediately it fell, and the ruin of that house was great.
THIS gentleman’s son that was, and is now a swine-herd, brings his meditation to a most natural and fit conclusion. His low occupation, and the husks on which he has been feeding to save his life, recall his father’s house, and the hired servants there that have bread enough and to spare, and, no longer able to contain himself, he cries, in bitter desolation, “I perish with hunger.” And so, in this story of the prodigal, Christ teaches all men their hunger, by means of that on which they feed, and the necessary baseness of their sin, by the lowness of the objects to which they descend for their life.
The swine, according to Jewish opinion, is an unclean animal, not to be eaten as food, and therefore is not raised, except by those idolaters and men of no religion, who live as outcasts in their country. Hence it is looked upon as the lowest and most abject of all occupations to be a swine herd. He is the disgust of all men, an unclean character, who is, among other men, what the swine is among other animals. He may not enter the temple, or even come near it.
By the husks on which the prodigal is said, in his hunger, to
have fed himself, we are not to understand exactly what is meant by the English
word husks, but a certain
The important thing to be noted, as regards my present object, is the prodigal’s hunger. About this central point, or fact, all the other incidents of the parable are gathered. And by this wretched figure of destitution, the Saviour of the world represents man under sin; he is one who forsakes the life of duty and religion, to go after earthly things. He is, therefore, reduced to the lowest condition of want, or spiritual hunger. His food is not the proper food of a man, but of a swine rather. A high-born creature, as being in God’s image, he descends to occupations that are unclean, and feeds his starving nature on that which belongs only to a reprobate, or unclean class of animals. In this lot of deep debasement and bitter privation, there is no language in which he may so naturally vent his misery as when he cries, “I perish with hunger.”
What I propose, then, for our meditation, is the truth here expressed, that a life separated from God is a life of bitter hunger, or even of spiritual starvation.
My object will be, not so much to prove this truth as to make it apparent, or visible, as a real fact, by means of appropriate illustrations. But, in order to this, it will be necessary.
I. To exhibit the true grounds of the fact stated; for, as we discover how and for what reasons the life of sin must be a life of hunger, we shall see the more readily and clearly the force of those illustrations, by which the fact is exhibited.
The great principle that underlies the whole subject and all the facts pertaining to it is, that the soul is a creature that wants food, in order to its satisfaction, as truly as the body. No principle is more certain, and yet there is none so generally overlooked, or hidden from the sight of men.
Of course it is not meant, when the soul is said to be a creature
wanting food, that it receives by a literal mastication, and has a palate to be
gratified in what it receives. I only mean to universalize the great truth that
pertains to all vital creatures and organs; viz., that they differ from all dead
substances, stones for example, in the fact that they subsist in a healthy state
of vital energy and development, by receiving, appropriating, or feeding upon something
out of themselves. Every tree and plant is, in this view, a feeding creature, and
grows by that which feeds it, that, viz., which it derives from the air and clouds,
from the soil and the changing influence of day and night. In this larger sense,
every organ of the body is a receptive and feeding organ. Sometimes it is fed by
other organs, which prepare and furnish to it the food that is needful for its growth
and subsistence. In this manner even the bones are feeding creatures. So the senses
are fed by the elements appropriate, the ear by sounds, the eye by the light. And
so true is this, that an eye shut up in total darkness, and probably an ear cut
off from all sound, will finally die, or become an exterminated sense; even as that
whole tribe of fishes, discovered in the cave, are found to
Hence it is that, in that most unnatural of all modes of punishment, regarded unaccountably with so great favor by many, the punishment I mean of absolute solitary confinement, a very large proportion of the prisoners become idiotic. Cut off from all the living sights and sounds, the faces of friends, the voices of social interchange, and the works and interests of life; shut away thus from all that enters into feeling, or quickens intelligence, or exercises judgment, or nerves the will to action, the soul has no longer any thing to feed upon, and, for want of food, it dies,—dies into blank idiocy.
Neither let this want of food in souls be regarded as a merely
philosophic truth, or discovery. It is a truth so natural to the feeling of mankind,
that it breaks into language every hour, and appears and re-appears in the scripture,
in so many forms, that I can not stay to enumerate half of them. Job brings it forward,
by a direct and simple comparison, when he says,—For the ear trieth words, as the
mouth tasteth meat,—where he means by the ear, you perceive, not the outward but
the inward ear of the understanding. So the Psalmist says,—My soul shall be satisfied,
as with marrow and fatness. And so also the prophet, beholding his apostate countrymen
dying for hunger and thirst in their sins, calls to them saying,—Ho,
True these are all figures of speech, transferred from the feeding of the body to that of the soul. But they are transferred because they have a fitness to be transferred. The analogy of the soul is so close to that of the body, that it speaks of its hunger, its food, its fullness, and growth, and fatness, under the images it derives from the body.
Hence you will observe that our blessed Lord appears to have always
the feeling, that he has come down into a realm of hungry, famishing souls. You
see this in the parable of the prodigal son, and that of the feast or supper. Hence
also that very remarkable discourse in the
Many, I believe, are not able to read this language,
Accordingly, it is the grand endeavor of the gospel to communicate
God to men. They have undertaken to live without him, and do not see that they are
starving in the bitterness of their experiment. It is not, as with bodily hunger,
where they have a sure instinct compelling them to seek their food, but they go
after the husks, and would fain be filled with these, not even so much as conceiving
what is their real want, or how it comes. For it is a remarkable fact that so few
men, living in the flesh, have any conception that God is the necessary supply and
nutriment of their spiritual nature, without which they famish and die. It has an
extravagant sound, when they hear it
Holding this view of the inherent relation between created souls and God as their nourishing principle, we pass—
II. To a consideration of the necessary hunger of a state of sin,
and the tokens by which it is indicated. A hungry herd of animals, waiting for the
time of their feeding, do
I can only point you to a few of these demonstrations. And a very impressive and remarkable one you have in this; viz., the common endeavor to make the body receive double, so as to satisfy both itself and the soul too with its pleasures. The effort is, how continually, to stimulate the body by delicacies, and condiments, and sparkling bowls, and licentious pleasures of all kinds, and so to make the body do double service. Hence too, the drunkenness, and high feasting, and other vices of excess. The animals have no such vices; because they have no hunger save simply that of the body; but man has a hunger also of the mind or soul, when separated from God by his sin, and therefore he must somehow try to pacify that. And he does it by a work of double feeding put upon the body. We call it sensuality. But the body asks not for it. The body is satisfied by simply that which allows it to grow and maintain its vigor. It is the unsatisfied, hungry mind that flies to the body for some stimulus of sensation, compelling it to devour so many more of the husks, or carobs, as will feed the hungry prodigal within. Thus it is that so many dissipated youth are seen plunging into pleasures of excess,—midnight feastings and surfeitings, debaucheries of lust and impiety; it is because they are hungry, because their soul, separated from God and the true bread of life in Him, aches for the hunger it suffers. And so it is the world over; men are hungry everywhere, and they compel the body to make a swine’s heaven for the comfort of the godlike soul.
Again we see the hunger of sin, by the immense number of drudges there are in the world. It makes little difference, generally, whether men are poor or rich. Some terrible hunger is upon them, and it drives them madly forward, through burdens, and sacrifices, and toils, that would be rank oppression put upon a slave. It is not simply that they are industrious—industry is a virtue—but they are drudges, instigated by such a passion of want that they are wholly unable to moderate their plans by any terms of reason.
You see too what indicates the uneasiness of this hunger, in the constant shifting of their plans and arrangements. Even the more constant, stable characters, such as hold most firmly to their pursuits, are yet seen to be uneasy in them; comforting their uneasiness by one change or an: other; a new kind of crop, a new partner, a new stand, a wheeling about of counters, or a change of shelves, or a different way of transportation, or another place of banking,—nothing is ever quite right, because they are too uneasy in their hunger to be quiet long in any thing.
Others show their hunger by their closeness; the very look of their face is hungry, the gripe of their hand is hungry, the answer of their charity is the answer of hunger, the prices they pay for service are the grudged allowance of a heart that is pinched by its own stringent destitution.
Observe again the quarrels of debt and credit, the false weights, the fraudulent charges, the habitual lies of false recommendation, the arts, stratagems, oppressions, of trade,—how hungry do they look.
Notice again how men contrive, in one way or another, to get,
if possible, some food of content for the soul that
There is no end to the diverse arts men practice, to get tome food for their soul, and to whatever course they turn themselves, you will see, as clearly as possible, that they are hungry. Nay, they say it themselves. What sad bewailings do you hear from them, calling the world ashes, wondering at the poverty of existence, fretting at the courses of Providence and blaming their harshness, raging profanely against God’s appointments, and venting their impatience with life, in curses on its emptiness. All this, you understand, is the hunger they are in. Feeding on carobs only, as they do, what shall we expect but to see them feed impatiently?
This also, you will notice as a striking evidence that, however
well they succeed in the providing of earthly things, they are never satisfied.
They say they are not, have it for a proverb that no man is, or can be. How can
they be satisfied with lands, or money, or honor, or any finite good, when their
hunger is infinite, reaching after God and the fullness of his infinite life,—God,
who is the object of their intelligence, their love, their hope, their worship;
the complement of their weakness, the crown of their glory, the sublimity of their
rest forever. Such kind of hunger manifestly could not be satisfied with any
Consider, for example, the vice of envy, and the general propenseness of men to be in it. There are very few per. sons, however generous in their dispositions, who are not sometimes bitten by this very subtle and bitter sin. And the root of this misery is hunger of soul. Envy is only a malignant, selfish hunger, casting its evil eye on the elevation or supposed happiness of others. The bitterness of ii is not simply that it really wants what others have, but that the soul, gnawed by a deep spiritual hunger which it thinks not of, is so profoundly embittered that every kind of good it looks upon rasps it with a feeling of torment, and rouses a degree of impatience and ill nature, out of all terms of reason. It is the feeling of a prodigal, or spendthrift who, after he has spent all, vents his ill nature on every body but himself, and hates the good possessed by others, because it is not his own. O, how many human souls are gnawed through and through, all their lives long, by this devilish hunger, envy.
Remorse differs from envy only in the fact that the soul here
turns upon itself, just as they say it is the principal distress of extreme bodily
hunger, that the organs of digestion begin themselves to be gnawed and digested,
ir place of the food on which the digestive power is accustomed to spend its energy.
Remorse, in the same way, is a moral hunger of the soul. It is the bitter wail of
a famished immortality. It is your conscience lashing your perverse will; your defrauded,
hungry love weeping its dry, pitchy tears on the desert your evil life has made
for it. It is your whole spiritual nature famished by sin
Or, if we speak of care, the corroding, weary, ever multiplying care, of which you are every day complaining, what again is this but your hunger. We like to speak, however, not of care, but, in the plural, of cares; for these, we imagine, are outside of us, in things, not in ourselves. But these cares are all in ourselves, and of ourselves, and not in things at all,—things are not cares; cares are only cravings of that immortal hunger which the swine’s food of earthly things can not satisfy. You say in them all. what shall I do, for I perish with hunger? You look up from the bitter husks or carobs, and say, I must have more and better; and these more and better things are your cares. The very word care meant, originally, want; and these cares are nothing but the wants of a hungry soul misnamed.
Sometimes, again, your feeling takes the turn of disgust. You
are disgusted with yourself and life, and all the employments and objects of your
pursuit, disgusted even with your pleasures. How insipid, and dry, and foolish they
appear. An air of distaste settles on all objects. They are all husks, acorns, food
for swine and not for men. Just so it is in the starvation of the body. It creates
a fever
I might speak also of your perpetual irritations, your fits of anger, your animosities, your jealousies, your gloomy hypochondriac fears. These all, at bottom, are the disturbances of hunger in the soul. How certainly is the child irritable when it is hungry. Even the placidity of infancy vanishes, when the body is ravening for food. So it is with man. He is irritable, flies to fits of passion, loses self-government, simply because the placid state of satisfaction is wanting in his higher nature. He is out of rest, because of his immortal hunger. Three-quarters of the ill nature of the world is caused by the fact, that the soul, without God, is empty, and so out of rest. We charge it, more often than justice requires, to some fault of temperament; but there is no temperament that would not be quieted and evened by the fullness of God.
Now the Spirit of God will sometimes show you, in an unwonted
manner, the secret of these troubles; for he is the interpreter of the soul’s hunger.
He comes to it whispering inwardly the awful secret of its pains,—“without God and
without hope in the world.” He reminds the
I will not pursue these illustrations further. Would that all
my hearers could but open their minds to the lesson they teach. I know almost no
subject, or truth, that will explain so many things in the uneasy demonstrations
of mankind; or that, to any thoughtful person, living without God, will resolve
so many mysteries concerning himself. Granting simply the fact that God is the want
of the soul, or created intelligence, what can it be, separated from God, but an
element of uneasiness and bitter disturbance? If the soul, as a vital and organic
nature, requires this divine food, or nutriment, to sustain it, and in this highest,
vastest want gets no supply; what else can you need to account for the unrest and
the otherwise inexplicable frustration of your experience? And yet how many of you,
goaded by this torment all your lives, do not understand it? You go after this or
that objective, circumstantial good, thrust on, as in some kind of madness, by the
terrible impulsion of your hungry immortality; confessing, all the time, that you
fail, even when, in form, you
O, ye prodigals, young and old, prodigals of all names and degrees; ye that have tasted the good word of God, and the powers of the world to come, and have fallen away; ye that have always lived in the minding of earthly things, how clear is it here that no swine’s food, no husks of money, pleasure, show, ambition, can feed you; that you have a divine part which none, or all of these dry carobs of sin can feed, which nothing can supply and satisfy but God himself?
And what should be a discovery more welcome than this. In what
are you more ennobled, than in the fact that you are related thus, inherently, to
God; having a nature so high, wants so deep and vast, that only he can feed them,
and not even he by any bestowment which does not include the bestowment of himself.
Would you willingly exterminate this want of your being, and so be rid eternally
of this hunger? That would be to cease from being a man and to become a worm; and
even that worm remembering what it was, would be a worm gnawing itself
IT is the grand distinction of Christianity, that by which it is separated from all philosophies and schemes of mere ethics, that it makes its appeal to faith and upon that, as a fundamental condition, rests the promise of salvation. It is called the word of faith, the disciples are distinguished as believers, and Christ is published as the Saviour of them that believe.
But precisely this, which is the boast of apostles, is the scandal and offense of men. Were the word any thing but a word of faith; a word of rhetoric, or of reason, or of absolute philosophy, or of ethics, or of grammar and lexicography, they could more easily accept it; but, finding it instead a word of faith, they reject and scorn it. As if there were some merit, or could be some dignity in faith! What is it but an arbitrary condition, imposed to humble our self-respect, or trample our proper intelligence? For what is there to value or praise, say they, in the mere belief of any thing? If we hold any truth by our reason, or by some act of perception, or by the showing of sufficient evidence, what need of holding it by faith? If we undertake to hold it without such evidence, what is our belief in it but a surrender of our proper intelligence?
This kind of logic, so common as even to be the cant of our times,
has all its plausibility in its own defect of
I select the particular passage, just cited, for my text, simply
because it sets us at the point where seeing and believing are brought together;
expecting to get some advantage, as regards the illustration of my subject, from
the mutual reference of one to the other, as held in such proximity. In this verse,
(the
Now the first thing we observe, for it stands on the face of the language, is that faith is not sight, but something different; so different that we may see and not believe. The next thing is that sight does not, in the scripture view, exclude faith, or supersede the necessity of it, as the common cavil supposes; for, after sight, faith is expected. And still, a third point is, that sight is supposed even to furnish a ground for faith, making it obligatory and, where it is not yielded, increasing the guilt of the subject; which appears, both in the complaint of one verse and the requirement of the other.
Thus much in regard to the particular case of the per Eons addressed;
for they were such as had themselves seen Christ, witnessed his miracles, heard
his teachings, and
Suppose then that you had lived as a contemporary in the days of Christ; that you had been privy to the dialogue between the angel and Mary, and also, to all the intercourse of Mary and Elizabeth; that you had heard the song of the angels at the nativity, and seen their shining forms in the sky; that you was entirely familiar with the youth of Jesus, was present at his baptism, saw him begin his ministry, heard all his discourses, witnessed all his miracles, stood by his cross in the hour of his passion: that you saw him, heard him, ate with him, touched him after his resurrection, and finally beheld his ascension from Olivet. You have had, in other words, a complete sense view of him, from his first breath onward. What now does all this signify to you?
Possibly much, possibly nothing. If received without any kind of faith, absolutely nothing; if with two kinds of faith which are universally practiced, it signifies the greatest fact of history; if with a third, equally rational and distinctively Christian, it signifies a new life in the soul, and eternal salvation.
Let us, in the first place, look at these two kinds of
We begin, then, with the case of sight, or perception by sight.
It has been, as some of you know, a great, or even principal question with our philosophers,
for the last hundred years, and these are commonly the people most ready to complain
of faith, how it is that we perceive objects? The question was raised by Berkeley’s
denial that we see them at all, which, though it convinced nobody, puzzled every
body. He said, for example, that the persons who saw Christ did not really see him,
they had only certain pictures cast in the back of the eye; which pictures, he maintained,
were mere subjective impressions, nothing more; that, by the supposition, spectators
are never at the objects, but only at the images, which are all, intellectually
speaking, they know any thing about. If they take it as a fact, that they see real
objects, they do it by a naked act of assumption, and, for aught that appears, impose
upon themselves. The question, accordingly, has been, not whether real objects are
perceived, for that is not often questioned now, but how we can imagine them to
be; how, in other words, it is that we bridge the gulf between sensations and their
objects; how it is that, having a tree-picture or a star-picture in the back of
the eye, we make it to be a tree, really existing on some distant hill, or a real
star, filling its measurable space many hundred millions of miles distant? Some
deny the possibility of any solution; reducing even sight itself and all that we
call
But there is another kind of faith, less subtle than this which
also is universally practiced, and admitted universally to be intelligent. It is
that kind of faith which, after sensation is passed, or perception is completed,
assigns truth to the things seen, and takes them to be sound historic verities.
Thus, after Christ had been seen in all the facts of his life, it became a distinct
question what to make of the facts; whether possibly there could have been some
conspiracy in the miracles; some collusion, or acting in the parts of Mary and her
son; some self-imposition, or hallucination that will account for his opinions of
himself and the remarkable pretensions he put forth; whether
We now come to the Christian, or third kind of faith, with some advantages already gained. Indeed, the argument against faith, as an offense to reason, or as being insignificant where there is evidence, and absurd where there is not, is already quite ended. We discover, in fact, two degrees or kinds of faith, going before and typifying and commending to our respect the higher faith that is to come after, as a faith of salvation. We discover, also, that we can not even do the commonest acts of intelligence without some kind of faith. First, we complete an act of perception only by a kind of sense-faith, moving from ourselves, and not from the objects perceived. Next, we pass on the historic verity, the moral genuineness of what we see, and our act of credit, so passed, is also a kind of faith moving from us, and is something over and above all the impressions we have received. A third faith remains that is just as intelligent and, in fact, is only more intelligent than the others, because it carries their results forward into the true uses.
This, distinctively, is the scripture faith the faith of salvation,
the believing unto life eternal. It begins just where the other and last named faith
ended. That decided the greatest fact of history, viz., that Christ actually
was
If a man comes to a banker with a letter of credit from some other banker, that letter may be read and seen to be a real letter. The signature also may be approved, and the credit of the drawing party honored by the other, as being wholly reliable. So far what is done is merely opinionative or notional, and there is no transactional faith. And yet there is a good preparation for this: just that is done which makes it intelligent. When the receiving party, therefore, accepts the letter and intrusts himself actually to the drawing party in so much money, there is the real act of faith, an act which answers to the operative, or transactional faith of a disciple.
Another and perhaps better illustration may be taken from the
patient or sick person, as related to his physician. He sends for a physician, just
because he has been led to
In the same manner Christian faith is the faith of a transaction. It is not the committing of one’s thought, in assent to any proposition, but the trusting of one’s being to a being, there to be rested, kept, guided, molded, governed and possessed forever.
In this faith many things are pre-supposed, many included; and, after it, many will follow.
Every thing is pre-supposed that makes the act intelligent and rational. That Christ actually lived and was what he declared himself to be. That he was no other than the incarnate Word of the Father. That he came into the world to recover and redeem it. That he is able to do it; able to forgive, regenerate, justify and set in eternal peace with God, and that all we see, in his passion, is a true revelation of God’s feeling to the world.
There was also a certain antecedent improbability of any such
holy visitation, or regenerative grace, which has to be liquidated or cleared, before
the supposed faith can be transacted. We live in a state under sin, where causes
are running against us, or running destructively in us. We have also a certain scientific
respect to causes, and expect them to continue. But Christ comes into the world,
as one not under the scheme of causes. He declares that he is not of the world,
but is from above. He undertakes to verify
But this will be less difficult, because we are urged by such a sense of bondage under sin, and have such loads of conscious want, brokenness and helplessness upon us. Besides, if we look again into our disorders, we find that they are themselves abnormal, disturbances only, by our sin, of the pure and orderly harmony of causes; so that Christ, in restoring us, does not break up, but only recomposes the true order of nature. Inasmuch, therefore, as our salvation, or deliverance from evil, implies a restoration, and not any breach of nature, the incredible thing appears to be already done by sin itself, and the credible, the restoration only, remains.
Having now all this previous matter cleared, we come to the transactional faith itself. We commit ourselves to the Lord Jesus, by an act of total and eternal trust, which is our faith. The act is intelligent, because it is intelligently prepared. It is not absurd, as being something more than evidence. It is not superseded by evidence. It is like the banker’s acceptance, and the patient’s taking of medicine, a transactional faith that follows evidence.
The matters included in this act, for of these we will
no speak, are the surrender of our mere self-care, the ceasing to live from our
own point of separated will, a complete admission of the mind of Christ, a consenting,
practically
Those things, which were just now named as pre-supposed matters, are all opinionative and prior to this which is the real faith, and this faith must go beyond all mere historic credences of opinion; it must include the actual surrender of the man to the Saviour. It must even include the eternity or finality of that surrender; for if it is made only as an experiment, and the design is only to try what the Saviour will do, then it is experiment, not faith. Any thing and every thing which is necessary to make the soul a total, final deposite of trust in the Lord Jesus, must be included in the faith, else it is not faith, and can not have the power of faith. It must be as if, henceforth, the subject saw his every thing in Christ, his righteousness, his whole character, his life-work and death. struggle, and the hope of his eternity.
How great is the transaction! and great results will follow, such as these:—
He will be as one possessed by Christ, created anew in
But the most remarkable, because to some the most unaccountable
and extravagant result of faith, is the creation of new evidence. The exercise of
faith is itself a proving of the matter, or the being trusted. It requires, in order
to make it intelligent, some evidence going before; and then more evidence will
follow, of still another kind. As in trying a physician, or trusting one’s life
to him, new evidence is obtained from the successful management of the disease,
so the soul that trusts itself to Christ knows him with a new kind of knowledge,
that is more immediate and clear, knows him as a friend revealed within, knows him
as the real power of God, even God in sacrifice. He that believeth hath the witness
in himself,—the proof of Jesus, in him, is made out and verified by trust. Every
thing in that text of scripture, that stumbles so many of our wise reasoners, is
verified to the letter:—Now faith is
And so truly intelligent is the process, that it answers exactly, in a higher plane, to the process of perception itself, already referred to. For when objects, that cast their picture in the eye, are accepted and trusted to as being more than pictures, solid realities, then, by that faith, is begun a kind of experiment. Taking, now, all these objects to be realities, we go into all the practical uses of life, handling them as if realities, and so, finding how they support all our uses and show themselves to be what we took them for, we say that we know them to be real, having found them by our trust. Exactly so, only in a much higher and nobler sense, it is that faith is the substance of things hoped for, and the evidence of things not seen. Is there any thing in this which scandalizes intelligence? I think not.
If now you have followed me, in these illustrations,
1. The mistake is here corrected of those, who are continually
assuming that the gospel is a theorem, a something to be thought out, and not a
new premise of fact communicated by God,—by men to be received in all the three-fold
gradations of faith. To mill out a scheme of free will and responsibility, to settle
metaphysically questions of ability and inability, to show the scheme of regeneration
as related to a theory of sin and not to the conscious fact, may all be very ingenious
and we may call it gospel; but it is scarcely more than a form of rationalism. Feeding
on such kind of notional and abstract wisdom, and not on Christ, the bread that
came down from heaven, we grow, at once, more ingenious in the head, and more shallow
in the heart, and, in just the compound ratio of both, more naturalistic and sceptical.
Loosing out our robustness, in this manner, and the earnestness of our spiritual
convictions, our ministry becomes, in just the same degree, more ambitious and mere
untransforming to the people, and the danger is that, finally, even the sense of
religion, as a gift of God, a divine light in the soul, resealed from faith to faith,
will quite die out and be lost. Our gospel will be nature, and our faith will be
reason, and the true Christ will be nothing,—all the grand,
2. We discover that the requirement of faith, as a condition of
salvation, is not arbitrary, as many appear to suppose, but is only a declaration
of the fact, before existing, that without faith there can be no deliverance from
sin. The precise difficulty with us in our sin is, that we can not make ourselves
good and happy by acting on ourselves. Faith, accordingly, is not required of us,
because Christ wants to humble us a little, as a kind of satisfaction for letting
go the penalty of our sins, but because we can not otherwise be cleared of them
at all. What we want is God, God whom we have lost; to be united being to being,
sinner to Saviour; thus to be quickened, raised up, and made again to partake, as
before sin, the divine nature. And, for just this reason, faith is required; for
we come into the power of God only as we trust ourselves to him. And here it is,
at this precise point, that our gospel excels all philosophies, proving most evidently
its divine origin. It sees the problem as it is, and shows, in the requirement of
faith as the condition of salvation, that it comprehends the whole reason of our
state. It has the sagacity to see that, plainly, there is no such thing as a raising
of man. without God; also that there is no God save as we find him by our trust,
and have him revealed within, by resting our eternity on him. And hence it is that
all those scripture forms of imputation spring up, as a necessary language of faith,
under the gospel. We come, in our trust, unto God, and the moment we so embrace
him, by committing our total being and eternity to him, we find every thing in us
transformed. There is life in us from God; a kind of Christ-consciousness is opened
in us
Such now, my friends is faith. It gives you God, fills you with God in immediate experimental knowledge, puts you in possession of all there is in him, and allows you to be invested with his character itself. Is such faith a burden, a hard and arbitrary requirement? Why, it is your only hope, your only possibility. Shall this most grand and blessed possibility be rejected? Sc far it has been, and you have even been able, it may be, in your lightness, to invent ingenious reasons against any such plan of salvation. God forbid that you do not some time take the penalty of having just that salvation, without faith to work out, which you so blindly approve!
3. We perceive, in our subject, that mere impressions can never
amount to faith. At this point, the unbelievers and all such as are waiting to have
convictions and spiritual impressions wrought in them that amount to faith, perfectly
Finally, it is very plain that what is now most wanted, in the
Christian world, is more faith. We too little respect faith, we dabble too much
in reason; fabricating gospels, where we ought to be receiving Christ; limiting
all faith, if we chance to allow of faith, by the measures of previous
We shall never recover the true apostolic energy and be indued
with power from on high, as the first disciples were—and this exactly is the prayer
in which the holiest most expectant and most longing souls on earth are waiting
now before God—till we recover the lost faith. As regards a higher sanctification,
which is, I trust, the cherished hope of us all, nothing is plainer than the impossibility
of it, except as we can yield to faith a higher honor and abide in it with a holier
confidence. Every man is sanctified according to his faith; for it is by this trusting
of himself to Christ that he becomes invested, exalted, irradiated, and finally
glorified in Christ. Be it unto you according to
That prayer, I believe, is yet to be heard. After we have gone through all the rounds of science, speculation, dialectic cavil, and wise unbelief, we shall do what they did not even in the apostolic times, we shall begin to settle conceptions of faith that will allow us, and all the ages to come, to stand fast in it and do it honor. And then God will pour himself into the church again, I know not in what gifts. Faith will then be no horseman out upon the plain, but will have a citadel manned and defended, whence no power of man can ever dislodge it again. Faith will be as much stronger now than science, as it is higher and more diffusive. And now the reign of God is established. Christ is now the creed, and the whole church of God is in it, fulfilling the work of faith with power.
THIS very peculiar expression, born again, is a phrase that was
generated historically in the political state, then taken up by Christ, and appropriated
figuratively to the spiritual use in which we find it. Thus foreigners, or Gentiles,
were regarded by the Jewish people as unclean. Therefore, if any Gentile man wanted
to become a Jewish citizen, he was baptized with water, in connection with other
appropriate ceremonies, and so, being cleansed, was admitted to be a true son of
Abraham. It was as if he had been born, a second time, of the stock of Abraham;
and becoming, in this manner, a native Jew, as related to the Jewish state, he was
said, in form of law, to be born again. Our term naturalization signifies
essentially the same thing; viz., that the subject is made to be a natural born
American, or, in the eye of the law, a native citizen. Finding this Jewish ceremony
on foot, and familiarly known, Christ takes advantage of it, (and the more naturally
that a person so regenerated was, by the supposition, entered, religiously, into
the covenant of Abraham,) as affording a good analogy, and a good form of expression,
to represent the naturalization of a soul in the kingdom of heaven. Regarding us,
in our common state under sin,
I propose, now, a deliberate examination of this great subject, hoping to present such a view of it as will command the respect of any thoughtful person, whatever may have been his previous difficulties and objections. My object will be to unfold the scripture doctrine, in a way to make it clear, not doubting that, when it is intelligibly shown, it will also prove itself to be soundly intelligent, and will so command our assent, as a proper truth of sal vation. I believe, also, that many minds are confused, to such a degree, m their notions of this subject, as must fatally hinder them, in their efforts to enter the gate which it opens.
I call your attention specially to three points:—
1. That Christ requires of all mankind, without distinction
II. The nature and definition of this change.
III. The manner in which it is, and is to be, effected.
I. That Christ requires of all some great and important change.
He does not, of course, require it of such as are already subjects of the change, and many are so even from their earliest years; having grown up into Christ by the preventing or anticipating grace of their nurture in the Lord; so that they can recollect no time, when Christ was not their love, and the currents of their inclination did not run toward his word and his cause. The case, however, of such is no real exception; and, besides this, there is even no semblance of exception. Intelligence, in fact, is not more necessary to our proper humanity, than the second birth of this humanity, as Christ speaks, to its salvation. Many can not believe, or admit any such doctrine. It savors of hardness, they imagine, or undue severity, and does not correspond with what they think they see, in the examples of natural character among men. There is too much amiability and integrity, too much of exactness and even of scrupulousness in duty, to allow any such sweeping requirement, or the supposition of any such universal necessity. How can it be said or imagined that so many moral, honorable, lovely, beneficent and habitually reverent persons need to. be radically and fundamentally changed in character, before they can be saved?
That, according to Christ, depends on the question whether “the
one thing” is really lacking in them or not. If it be, not even the fact that he
can look upon them
We can see too, for ourselves, that Christianity is based on the fact of this necessity. It is not any doctrine of development, or self-culture; no scheme of ethical practice, or social re-organization; but it is a salvation; a power moving on fallen humanity from above its level, to regenerate and so to save. The whole fabric is absurd therefore, unless there was something to be done in man and for him that required a supernatural intervention. We can see too, at a glance, that the style of the transaction is supernatural, from the incarnate appearing onward. Were it otherwise, were Christianity a merely natural and earthly product, then it were only a fungus growing out of the world, and, with all its high pretensions, could have nothing more to do for the world, than any other fungus for the heap on which it grows. The very name, Jesus, is a false pretense, unless he has something to do for the race, which the race can not do for itself; something regenerative and new-creative; something fitly called a salvation.
But how can we imagine, some of you will ask, that God is going
to stand upon any such definite and rigid terms with us? Is he not a more liberal
being and capable of doing better things? Since he is very good and very great,
and we are very weak and very much under the law of circumstances, is it not more
rational to suppose that he will find some way to save us, and that, if we do not
come into any such particular terms of life, it will be about as well? May we not
safely risk the consequences? It ought to be a sufficient answer to all such suggestions,
It ought also to be observed that all such kinds of argument are
a plea for looseness, which is not the manner of God. Contrary to this, we discover,
in all we know of him, that he is the exactest of beings; doing nothing without
fixed principles, and allowing nothing out of its true place and order. He weighs
every world of the sky, even to its last atom, and rolls it into an orbit exactly
suited to its uses and quantities. Nothing is smuggled out of place, or into place,
because it is well enough anywhere. If a retreating army wants to cross a frozen
river, the ice will not put off dissolving, but will run into the liquid state,
at i certain exact point of temperature. If a man wants to live, there is yet some
diseased speck of matter, it may be, in his brain, or heart, which no microscope
even could detect, and by that speck, or because of it, he will die at a certain
exact time; which time will not be delayed, for a day, simply because it is only
a speck. Is then character a matter that God will treat more loosely? will he decide
the great questions of order and place, dependent on it, by no exact terms or conditions?
If he undertakes to save, will he save as by accommodation, or by some fixed law?
If he undertakes to construct a beatific state, will he gather in a jumble of good
and bad, and call it heaven? How certainly will any expectation of heaven, based
on the looseness of God, and the confidence that he will stand for no very exact
terms, issue in dreadful disappointment.
Do we not also see as clearly, as possible, for ourselves, what signifies much; that some men, a very large class of men, are certainly not in a condition to enter the kingdom of God, or any happy and good state. They have no purity or sympathy with it. They are slaves of passion. They are cruel, tyrannical, brutal, and even disgusting to, decency; fearful, unbelieving, abominable. Who can think that these are ready to melt into a perfectly blessed and celestial society? But, if not these, then there must be a division, and where shall it fall? If a line must be drawn, it must be drawn somewhere, and what is on one side of that line will not be on the other; which is the same as to say that there must be exact terms of salvation if there are any.
Again, we know, we feel in our own consciousness, while living
in the mere life of nature, that we are not in a state to enjoy the felicities of
a purely religious and spotlessly sinless world. We turn from it with inward pain.
Our heart is not there. We want the joys of that state.; we feel a certain hunger,
at times, after God himself; and that hunger is to us an assured evidence that we
have him not. I do not undertake to press this argument further than it will bear.
I only say that we feel conscious of something uncongenial, in our state, toward
God and heaven. We seem to ourselves not to be in the kingdom of God, but without,
and can hardly imagine how we
It is also a very significant proof that some great change is needed in us that, when we give ourselves to some new purpose of amendment, or undertake to act up more exactly to the ideals of our mind, we are consciously legal in it, and do all by a kind of constraint. Something tells us that we are not spontaneous in what we do; that our currents do not run this way, but the contrary. A sad kind of heaven will be made by this sort of virtue! How dry it is, and if we call it service, how hard a service! What we want is liberty, to be in a kind of inspiration, to have our inclinations run the way of our duty, to be so deep in the spirit of it as to love it for its own sake. And this exactly is what is meant by the being born of God. It is having God revealed in the soul, moving in it as the grand impulse of life, so that duty is easy and, as it were, natural. Then we are in the kingdom, as being naturalized in it, or native born. Our regeneration makes us free in good. How manifest is it that, without this freedom, this newly generated inclination to good, all our supposed service is mockery, our seeming excellence destitute of sound reality.
There is then a change, a great spiritual change, required by Christianity as necessary to salvation, and we find abundant reason, in all that we know of ourselves and the world, to admit the necessity of some transformation quite as radical. In presence of a truth so momentous and serious, we now raise the question—
II. What is the nature of this change, how shall it be conceived?
To make the answer as clear as possible, let some things which only confuse the mind, and which often enter largely into the discussion, be excluded.
Thus a great deal of debate is had over the supposed instantaneousness of the change. But that is a matter of theory and not of necessary experience. If we call the change a change from bad in kind to good in kind, from a wrong principle of life to a right, the change will imply a beginning of what is good and right, and a gradual be. ginning of any thing would seem to be speculatively impossible. Still the change is, in that view, only an instantaneous beginning. But, however this may be in speculation, there is often, or even commonly, no consciousness of any such sudden transition. The subject often can not tell the hour, or the day; he only knows, it may be, looking back over hours or days, or even months, that he is a different man.
Some persons hold impressions of the change which suppose, or even require it to be gradual. This is an error quite as likely to confuse the mind; for then they set out, almost of course, to make it a change only of degrees, in the old plane of the natural character. The true practical method is to drop out all considerations and questions of time, and look at nothing but the simple fact of the change itself, whenever and however accomplished.
Much, again, is said in this matter of previous states and exercises—conviction, distress, tumult; then of light, peace, hope, bursting suddenly into the soul. Let no one attempt to realize any such description. Something of the kind may be common among the inductive causes, or the consequences of the change, but has nothing to do with its radical idea.
Excluding now all these points, which are practically immaterial and irrelevant, as regards a definite conception of the change, let us carefully observe, first of all, he w the scriptures speak of it, or what figure it makes in their representations; and more especially the fact that they never speak of it as being a change of degrees, an amendment of the life, an improvement or growing better in the plane of the old character. Contrary to this, they use bold, sweeping contrasts, and deal, as it were, in totalities. It is the being born again, or born over; as if it were a spiritual reproduction of the man. They describe him as one new created in Christ Jesus unto good works. Old things they declare to be passed away, behold all things are become new. It is passing from death to its opposite, life. It is dying with Christ, to walk with him in newness of life. That which is born of the flesh is declared to be flesh; and, in the same sense, that which is born of the Spirit to be spirit; as if a second nature, free to good, were inbreathed by the Divine Spirit, partaking his own quality.
It is called putting off the old man and putting on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness; as if there was even a substitution of one man for another in the change, a new divine man in the place of the old.
Again, it is called being transformed, and that by a renewing even of the mind, or intelligent principle.
Again, as if forever to exclude the idea of a mere growing better by care, and duty, and self improvement, an apostle says—Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost.
Now you understand that a change of this kind can be spoken of, or described, only in figures. Therefore none of these expressions are to be taken as literal truths. But the great question under them is this—is the change spoken of a change merely of degree, or is it a change of kind? is it simply the improving of principles already planted in the soul, or is it the passing into a new state under new principles, to be started into a life radically different from the former? I have not one doubt which of the two alter. natives to accept as the true answer. Had it been the matter in hand, in redeeming the world, simply to make us better in degree, it would have been the easiest thing in the world to say it. The gospel does not say it. On the contrary, it labors after terms in which to set forth a change of kind, of principle,—a grand anakainosis, renovation, new creation, spiritually speaking, of the man.
Nor is there any thing contrary to this, in those expressions
which require a process of growth and gradual advancement. For it is only potentially
that the new life is regarded as a complete or total renovation. As the child is
potentially a man, as the seed planted is potentially the full grown plant, so it
is with the regenerated life in Christ. It is a beginning, the implanting of a new
seed, and then we are to see, first the blade, then the ear, and after that the
full corn in the ear. All such conceptions of growth fall into place under the fact
that the new character begun is only begun, and that, while it is the root and spring
of a complete renovation, it must needs unfold itself and fill itself out into completeness,
by a process of holy living. On the other hand, there could be no growth if there
were not something planted, and it is everywhere assumed and taught that, until
the new man
Advancing now from this point, let us see if we can accurately conceive the interior nature of the change.
Every man is conscious of this; that when he acts in any particular manner of wrong doing, or sin, or neglect of God, there is something in the matter besides the mere act, or acts. There is a something back of the action which is the reason why it is done. In the mere act itself, there is, in fact, no character at all. In striking another, for example, the mere thrust of the arm, by the will, is the act; and, taken in that narrow mechanical sense, there is no wrong in it, more than there is in the motion that dispenses a charity. The wrong is back of the act, in some habit of soul, some disposition, some status of character, whence the action comes. Now this something, whatever it be, is the wrong of all wrong, the sin of all sin, and this must be changed—which change is the condition of salvation.
Sometimes this change is conceived to be a really organic change
in the subject. The strong expressions just referred to, in the scripture, are taken
literally, as if there was and must needs be, a literal re-creation of tie man.
The difficulty back of the wrong action is conceived to be the man himself, as a
mal-constructed and constitutionally evil being, who can never be less evil, till
something is taken out of him and replaced by a new insertion, which is, in fact,
a new creation, by the fiat of omnipotence. But this, it is plain, would be no proper
regeneration of the man, but the generation rather of another man in his place.
Personal identity would be overthrown. The
Sometimes, again, the change is conceived to be only a change of purpose, a change of what is called the governing purpose. You determined this morning, for example, to attend worship in this place. This determination, or purpose, being made, it in one view passed out of mind; you did not continue to say and repeat, “I will do it,” till you reached the place and took your seat; and yet it was virtually in you, governing all your thousand subordinate volitions, in rising, preparing, walking, choosing your way, and the like, down to that moment. Just so there is, it is said, a bad governing purpose of sin, or self-devotion, back of the whole life, making it what it is; and what christianity does or requires, is the change of that purpose; which being changed, a change is wrought in the whole life and character. And this, it is conceived, is to be born again. The change of the governing purpose is the regeneration of the man.
The illustration, somewhat popularly taken, has truth in it, and
it may be used in many cases with advantage. Still it is not exactly a bad governing
purpose that we find, when we look for the seat of our disorder, but a something
rather which we call a bad mind, state, or disposition. Having a certain quality
of freedom, this bad mind, state, or disposition, may be represented analogically
by a bad governing purpose, though it can not be identified with
Every man’s life, practically speaking, is shaped by his love. If it is a downward, earthly love, then his actions will be tinged by it, all his life will be as his reigning love This love, you perceive, is not a mere sentiment, or casual emotion, but is the man’s settled affinity; it is thal which is, to his character, what the magnetic force is to the needle, the power that adjusts all his aims and works, and practically determines the man. It only must b: either a downward love, or an upward love; for, being the last love and deepest of the man, there can not be two last and deepest, it must be one or the other. And then, as this love changes, it works a general revolution of the man.
Hence it is that so much is said of the heart in the gospel, and
of a change of the heart; for it is what proceeds out of the heart that defileth
the man. The meaning is, not that christianity proposes to give us a new organ of
Thus it is declared that God will write his laws in the hearts of men, which is saying that he will bring his laws info their love. In accordance also with this, it is declared that love is of God, and every one that loveth is born of God; that is, that every one that has the right love, the heavenly or divine love established in him, has the change on which salvation hangs.
I have brought you on thus far, in a simple and direct line of thought, to what may be called a scriptural and correct view of the change. And yet there is another and higher which is also scriptural, and which needs to be held in view, in order to a right understanding of our next point, the manner in which the change is effected.
Thus far, you will observe, I have looked directly at the subject
of the change, regarding only what transpires in him as a man. He is not re-created,
he is not simply changed in his governing purpose, he is changed in his ruling love.
Still he could not be so changed as a man in his own spirit, without and apart from
another change, of which this is only an incident. After all, the principal stress
of the change is not in himself, as viewed by himself, but in his personal relation
to God, a being external to himself. In his prior, unregenerate state as a sinner,
he was separated from God and centered in himself, living in himself and to himself.
And he was not made to live in this manner. He was made to live in God, to be conscious
of God, to know him by an immediate knowledge, to act by his divine impulse, in
a word, to be inspired by him. By this I mean not that he is to be inspired in
But whether we regard the change as a change in the soul’s ruling
love, or in the higher form of it here recognized, makes little difference; for,
in fact, neither of these two will be found separated from the other. If a man’s
ruling love is changed, he will, of course, be altered in
But let this one caution be observed. You are likely to be more attracted by the consequences of the change than by the change itself. But with the consequences you have nothing to do. God will take care of these. It may be that your mind will be so artificial, or so confused, as to miss the consequences for a time, after the reality is passed. But God will bring them out in his own good time, perhaps gradually, certainly in the way that is best for you. Let him do his own work, and be it yours to look after nothing but the new love. This brings me to speak, as I shall do in the briefest manner possible,—
III. Of the manner in which the change, already described, is to be effected.
To maintain that such a change can be manipulated, or officially passed, by a priest, in the rite of baptism, is no better than a solemn trifling with the subject. Indeed, so plain is this, that a sober argument, instituted to prove the contrary, is itself a half surrender of the truth. “Born of water and of the Spirit,” says our Lord, and the language is a Hebraism, which presents the water as the symbol and the Spirit as the power of the change.
Equally plain is it that the change is not to be effected, by
waiting for some new creating act of God, to be literally passed on the soul. Whoever
thinks to compliment the
As little is it to be accomplished by any mere willing, or change of purpose, apart from God. There must be a change. of purpose, a final, total, sweeping change of all purpose, but that of itself will not change the soul’s love, least of all will it be a birth of God into the soul. A man can as little drag himself up into a new reigning love, as he can drag a Judas into paradise. Or, if we say nothing of this, how can he execute a change, that consists in the revelation of God, by acting on himself? “Born of God,” remember, is the christian idea, not born of self-exercise; “created anew in Christ Jesus,” not self-created. You must get beyond your own mere will, else you will find, even though you strain your will to the utmost for a hundred years, that, while to will is present, you perform not. You can not lift this bondage, or break this chain, or burst open a way into freedom through this barrier, till you can say;—I thank God through Jesus Christ my Lord; for the law of the spirit of life hath made me free from the law of sin and death.
The question then recurs, how shall this change be effected? The
whole endeavor, I answer, on your part must be God-ward. In the first place, you
must give up every purpose. end, employment, hope, that conflicts with God and takes
you away from him. Hence what is said in so many forms of self-renunciation. Hence
the requirement to forsake all. It is on the ground that, in your life of sin, you
are altogether in self-love, centered in yourself, living for yourself, making a
god of your own objects and
But this negative work of self-clearing is not enough. There must
be a positive reaching after God, an offering up of the soul to him, that he may
come and dwell in it and consecrate it as his temple. For, as certainly as the light
will pour into an open window, just so certainly will God reveal himself in a mind
that is opened to his approach. Now this opening of the mind, this reaching after
God, is faith; and hence it is that so much is made of faith. For God is revealed
outwardly, in the incarnate life and death of Jesus, in order that he may present
himself in a manner level to our feeling, and quickening to our love, and so encourage
that faith by which he may come in, to re-establish his presence in us. For God,
who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to
give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God, in the face of Jesus Christ.
O, it is there that the true God shines—let him shine into our hearts! Jesus, if
we understand him, is the true manifestation of God, and he is manifested to be
the regenerating power of a new divine life. By his beautiful childhood, by his
loving acts and words, by his sorrowful death, God undertakes to impregnate our
dead hearts with his love, and so to establish himself eternally in us. What is
said of the Spirit is said of him, as being also the Spirit of Jesus. For, in highest
virtuality, they are one, even as Christ himself declares, when dis. coursing of
the promised Spirit,—“I will come to you,” “but ye see me.” Receive him, therefore,
as receiving Christ, and him as the accepted image of God, and this
Allow no artificial questions of before and after to detain you here, as debating whether Christ, or the Spirit, or the faith, or the new born love, must be first. Enough to know that, if your faith is conditioned by the Spirit, so is the victory of the Spirit conditioned by your faith; that here you have all these mercies streaming upon you, and that nothing effectual can be done, till your faith meets them and they are revealed in your faith. Enough to know that, if the faith is to be God’s work, it is also to be your act, and it can not be worked before it is acted. Let Christ also be your help in this acting of faith and this receiving of God, even as he set himself to give it in his conversation with Nicodemus; going directly on to speak of himself and the grace brought down to sinners in his person, declaring that, as Moses lifted up the brazen serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life. He brings the divine love down to this most wondrous attitude, the cross, that we may there drop out our sin, and receive into our faith the love, the God of love expressed. And therefore it is represented that Christ ever stands before the door and knocks for ad mission, with a promise that, if any. man open the door (which is faith,) he will come in and sup with him. Christianity is God descending to the door to get admission; this is the grand philosophy of the incarnation. God is just what you see him here, and he comes to be revealed in you as he is presented before you. Thus received, you are born again, born of God. A new love enters, God enters, and eternal life begins.
Shall he enter th us with you? How many of you are there that ought to hear this call. And no one of you is excluded. You may have come hither to-day with no such high intention. Still the call is to you. If you ask who? how many? when? all, I answer, all, and that to-day. Do you not see a glorious simplicity in this truth of regeneration! How beautiful is God in the light of it, how deep in love Christ Jesus and his cross, how close, in all this, comes the tenderness and winning grace of your God! No matter if you did not think of receiving him, are you going to reject him? Is it nothing to be so exalted, so divinely ennobled? Have you fallen so low that no such greatness can attract you?
Then be it so. Have it as confessed that, when you saw the true gate open, you would not enter. Go back to your sins. Plunge into your little cares, fall down to your base idols, creep along through the low affinities of your sin, make a covenant with hunger and thirst, and hide it from you, if you can, that you was made for God, made to live in the consciousness of Him, as a mind irradiated by His spirit, quickened by his life, cleared by His purity. But if you can not be attracted by this, let it be no wonder, call it no severity, that Christ has not opened heaven to you. No wonder is it to him, even if it be to you, and therefore he says, whispers it to you kindly, but faithfully, as you turn yourself away,—“Marvel not that I said unto you ye must be born again.
IN this parable, Christ is a shepherd, and his people are his flock. And two points, on which the beauty and significance of the parable principally turn, are referred to in the text, which might not be distinctly observed by one who is not acquainted with the peculiar manner of the eastern shepherds. They have, in the first place, a name for every sheep, and every sheep knows its name when it is called. And then the shepherd does not drive the flock, as we commonly speak, but he leads them, going before. To these two points, or to the instruction contained under these two analogies, I now propose to call your attention.
I. He calleth his own sheep by name. As we have names for dogs
and other animals, which they themselves know, so it was with the eastern shepherds
and their flocks. This fact is shown historically, by many references. It is to
this, for example, that Isaiah refers when he represents the Almighty Creator as
leading out the starry heavens,. like a shepherd leading his flock;—Lift up your
eyes and behold who hath created these things, that bringeth out their host by number;
he calleth them all by names. The shepherd in this view is not as one who keeps
a hive of bees, knowing well the hive, but never any particular
Under this analogy stands the tender and beautiful truth, that Christ holds a particular relation to individual persons; knows them, loves them, watches for them, leads them individually, even as if calling them by name.
In this respect, the parable is designed to counteract and correct,
what has in all ages been the common infirmity of Christian believers;—they believe
that God has a real care of the church and of all great bodies of saints, but how
difficult is it to imagine that he ever particularly notes, or personally recognizes
them. They know that God has a vast empire, and that the cares and counsels of his
love include immense numbers of minds, and they fall into the impression that he
must needs deal with them in the gross, or as noting only generals, just as they
would do themselves. They even take an air of philosophy in this opinion, asking
how we can imagine that so great a being takes a particular notice of, and holds
a particular and personal relation to, individual men. There could not be a greater
mistake, even as regards the matter of philosophy; for the relation God holds to
objects of knowledge is different, in all respects, from that which is held by us.
Our general terms, man, tree, insect, flower, are the names of particular. or single
specimens, extended, on the ground of a perceived similarity, to kinds or species.
They come, in this
And yet we could not wean ourselves of this folly, could not believe
that our God has a particular notice of us and a particular interest in our personal
history. And this was one of the great uses of the incarnation; it was to humanize
God, reducing him to a human personality, that we might believe in that particular
and personal love, in which he reigns from eternity. For Christ was visibly one
of us, and we see, in all his demonstrations, that he is attentive to every personal
want, woe, cry of the world. When a lone woman came up in a crowd to steal, as it
were, some healing power out of his person, or out of the hem of his garment, he
would not let her off in that impersonal, unrecognizing way; he compelled her to
show herself and to confess her name, and sent her away with his personal blessing.
He pours out, everywhere, a particular sympathy on every particular child of sorrow;
he even hunts up the youth he has before healed of his blindness, and opens to him,
persecuted as he is for being healed, the secrets of his glorious Messiahship. The
result, accordingly, of this incarnate history is that we are drawn to a different
opinion of God; we have seen that he can love as a man loves another, and that such
is the way of his love. He has tasted death we say, not for all men only,
Indeed, I might go on to show, from every particular work and
turn of this gospel, how intensely personal it is. What is communion that is not
communion with particular souls? Is it the communion or fellowship of God that he
reaches only great bodies of men? If he promises comfort or support, whom does he
comfort or support, when he touches no individual person? The promises to prayer—whom
does he hear, when he hears the prayer of nobody in particular, and for nothing
in particular? The work of the Holy Spirit in souls—what is it, in all its degrees
and modes; in their calling, their guidance, their sanctification; what can it be
imagined that he does which is not personal, the bestowment of a convincing, illuminating,
drawing, renovating grace, exactly tempered to, and by, the individual blessed;
a visiting of his intelligent person, at just the point of his particular want,
sin, sorrow, prejudice, so as to exactly meet his personality at that particular
time. We speak, indeed, of the Holy Spirit as falling on communities, or assemblies,
but we must not suppose that he touches the general body and no
So it is, in short, with every thing included in the gospel as a grace of salvation; every thing in the renewing, fashioning, guidance, discipline, sanctification, and final crowning of an heir of glory. His Saviour and Lord is over him and with him, as the good shepherd, calling him by name; so that he is finally saved, not as a man, or some one of mankind, led forth, by his Lord, in the general flock, but as the Master’s dear Simon, or James, or Alpheus, or Martha, whose name is so recorded in the Lamb’s book of life.
And, in this view, it is, I suppose, that the church, in baptizing her children, takes there, at the font, with a most beautiful and touching propriety, what she calls the “Christian name;” as if it were Christ’s own gift; a name bestowed by him, in which he recognizes the child’s discipleship, and which, as often as it is spoken, he is himself to recognize as the calling of his Master’s voice;—And he calleth his own sheep by name.
Consider now the—
II. Point of the text—he leadeth them out. It is not said, you
observe, that the shepherd driveth them out, for that was not the manner of shepherds,
but that he leadeth them, going before to call them after him. This, indeed,
What a beautiful image, or picture, to represent the attitude and personal relationship of Jesus among his followers;—That he does not drive them on before, as a herd of unwilling disciples, but goes before himself leading them into paths that he has trod, and dangers he has met, and sacrifices he has borne himself calling them after him and to be only followers. He leadeth them out.
If driving could do any good, he might well enough drive his flock
as a body, caring nothing for any one of them in particular; but, if he is going
to draw them after him, he must work upon their inclinations, draw them by their
personal favor to him, and must therefore know them personally, and call them to
follow, as it were, by name. Just the difference will be observed in this matter
that pertains between the eastern shepherds and those of the west, and north. No
sooner do we come upon this latter fashion of driving flocks a-field, than we see
the noting, knowing and calling of particular sheep disappear. When the driving
and thrusting on before becomes the manner, there is no need of getting any one
of them under a power of confidence and attraction, no need of noting them individually
at all. So, if driving were in place, Christ might well enough let fall the fires
of Sodom behind his flock
Here then is the beauty and glory of Christ, as a Redeemer and
Saviour of lost man, that he goes before, always before, and never behind his flock.
He begins with infancy, that he may show a grace for childhood. He is made under
the law, and carefully fulfills all righteousness there, that he may sanctify the
law to us, and make it honorable. He goes before us in the bearing of temptations,
that we may bear them after him, being tempted in all points like as we are, yet
without sin. He taught us forgiveness by forgiving himself his enemies. He went
before us in the loss of all things, that we might be able to follow, in the renouncing
of the world and its dominion. The works of love that he requires of us, in words,
are preceded and illustrated by real deeds of love, to which he gave up all his
mighty powers from day to day. He bore the cross himself that he commanded us to
take up and bear after him. Requiring us to hate even life for the gospel’s sake,
he went before us in dying for the gospel; suffering a death most bitter at the
hand of enemies exasperated only by his goodness, and that when, at a word; he might
have called to his aid whole legions of angels, and driven them out of the world.
And then he went before us in the bursting of the grave and the resurrection from
it; becoming, in his own person, the first fruits of them that slept. And, finally,
he ascended and passed within
And then we see what kindred spirit entered into the teachers that he gave to lead his flock. They were such as followed him in the regeneration; going up at last, according to his promise, to sit on thrones of glory with him. And it is remarkable that the apostles took it as incumbent on them always, in their Master’s law, to require nothing of others in which they were not forward themselves. Thus, when Paul says, once and again—I beseech you be ye followers of me; brethren, be followers together of me; it has a sound, taken as it may be taken, of conceit, or vanity; but, when we look upon him as a man who goes after Christ, in the ways of scorn and suffering patience; in labors more abundant, in stripes above measure, in prisons more frequent, in deaths oft, receiving more than once his forty stripes save one, beaten with rods and stoned out of cities, running the gauntlet through all sorts of perils, in weariness and painfulness, in watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness, accounted as the filth of the world and the offscouring of all things—when we see him tramping on heavily thus, bearing his Master’s dark flag of patience and loss. and calling others to follow, we only see that he has taken Christ’s own spirit and despises even to send the flock before him, where he does not lead himself.
Ah! we have seen things different from this; teachers
The uses and applications of this subject are many. The time allows me to name only a few that are most practical.
1. A great mistake, or false impression, held by most worldly
minds, and even by some who profess to be disciples, is here corrected; viz., the
mistake of regarding the christian life as a legal and constrained service. It is
as if the flock were driven by the shepherd, and not as if it were led by the shepherd’s
call going before. In this image, or figure, is beautifully represented the freedom
of the disciple. He is one who is led by a personal influence, one who hears the
voice and answers to the name by which he is called. He could not be thrust on,
as in a crowd, by mere force, or fear. Christ wants to lead men by their love, their
personal love to him, and the confidence of his
Brethren, are there some of you that hold this same impression
of the life of duty! If so, if you have no knowledge of this freedom in Christ,
the sign is a dark one for you. Perhaps it is not exactly the same impression that
you hold. It may be that you have it only in a degree, accordingly as you are over-legal
in your conceptions of duty, and rob yourself, in that manner, of its comforts,
Let your mistake be now corrected. See, in particular: that Christ is not behind
you but before, calling and drawing you on. He wants your faith, wants your love,
not a
2. We discover, in this subject, what to think of that large class
of disciples who aspire to be specially faithful, and hold a specially high-toned
manner of life, but are, after all, principally strenuous in putting others forward,
and laying burdens upon others. Christ, we have seen, goes before when he leads,
and so did his apostles, calling on the saints to follow. But there is a cheaper
way some have, in which they beguile even themselves. It is a kind of righteousness
with them that they have such stern principles of duty and sacrifice. How greatly
are they scandalized too by the self-indulgence, the parsimony, the show, the pleasures,
the vanities of others, who profess the christian name. And in all this they may
be sincere and not hypocritical. They only find it so much easier to be stiff in
their judgments, and self-renouncing in their words and exhortations, that they
slide over, only the more unwittingly, their own looseness and deficiency, in the
very things they insist on. How many preachers of Christ fall into just this snare:
pray for us, brethren, for our temptation is great. Christians of this class commonly
have it as a kind of merit, and how many christian ministers repeat the same thing,
that they never ask it of others to follow. them. God forbid that they should indulge
in any such
3. Consider, in this subject, what is true of any real disciple,
who is straying from Christ; viz., that his Holy Shepherd, folding the flock and
caring for it as a shepherd should, does not let him go, or take it only as a fact
that the flock is diminished by one, not caring by what one. He knows what one it
is, and, if the wanderer will listen, he may hear the shepherd calling his name.
The love of Christ, as we have seen, is personal and particular, and he watches
for his flock with a directly personal care. Do not imagine, then, if you consciously
begin to fall off,
Finally, consider the close understanding with Christ the ennobled confidence and dignity of a true discipleship. To be a disciple, is to have the revelation of Christ, and the secret witness of his love in the soul. It implies a most intimate and closely reciprocal state. According to the representation of the parable, the Holy Shepherd knows his own sheep with a particular knowledge, and calleth them by name; while they, on their part, know his voice and follow. A stranger will they not follow, but flee from him; for they know not the voice of strangers. And he also says himself,—I am the good shepherd and know my sheep, and am known of mine. O, this deep and blessed knowledge—the knowledge of Christ—to be in the secret witness of his love, to be in his guidance, to be strong in his support, to be led into the mind of God by him, and have our prayers shaped by his inward teaching; so to be set in God’s everlasting counsel, and be filled with the testimony that we please him, this, all this it is to know Christ’s voice. Happy are we, brethren, if the sense of this knowledge be in us.
And what can fill us with a loftier inspiration, or lift us into
a more sublime and blessed confidence, than this,—the fact what Christ, the Eternal
Shepherd, has a personal recognition of us, leading us on, by name, and calling
us to follow. No matter whether he call us into ways of gain or of suffering, of
honor or of scorn; it is all one, with such a leader before us. Nay, if we go down
to sound the depths of sorrow, and ennoble the pains of sacrifice, and perfume the
grave of ignominy, what are these but a more inspiring and more godlike call, since
he is now our leader even here. O, my brethren, here is our misery, that we think
to go above Christ, and find some cheaper way
THE argument is, let man be silent when God is dealing with him; for he can not fathom God’s inscrutable wisdom. Behold, God is great, and we know him not. God thundereth marvelously with his voice: great things doeth he which we can not comprehend. Dost thou know the wondrous works of him that is perfect in knowledge? Teach us what we shall say unto him; for we can not order our speech by reason of darkness. If a man speak, surely he shall be swallowed up.
Then follows the text, representing man’s life under the figure of a cloudy day. The sun is in the heavens, and there is always a bright light on the other side of the clouds; but only a dull, pale beam pierces through. Still, as the wind comes at length to the natural day of clouds, clearing them all away, and pouring in, from the whole firmament, a glorious and joyful light, so will a grand clearing come to the cloudy and dark day of life, and a full effulgence of light, from the throne of God, will irradiate all the objects of knowledge and experience.
Our reading of the text, you will observe, substitutes for cleansing,
clearing away, which is more intelligible. Perhaps, also, it is better to read “on
the clouds,” and not
I. We live under a cloud, and see God’s way only dim light.
II. God shines, at all times, with a bright light, above the cloud, and on the other side of it.
III. This cloud of obscuration is finally to be cleared away.
I. We live under a cloud, and see God’s way only by a dim light.
As beings of intelligence, we find ourselves hedged in by mystery on every side. All our seeming knowledge is skirted, close at hand, by dark confines of ignorance. However drunk with conceit we may be, however ready to judge every thing, we still comprehend almost nothing.
What then does it mean? Is God jealous of intelligence in us? Has he purposely drawn a cloud over his ways, to baffle the search of our understanding? Exactly contrary to this; he is a being who dwelleth in light, and calls as to walk in the light with him. He has set his works about us, to be a revelation to us always of his power and glory. His word he gives us, to be the expression of his will and character, and bring us into acquaintance with himself. His Spirit he gives us, to be a teacher and illuminator within. By all his providential works, he is training intelligence in us and making us capable of knowledge.
No view of the subject, therefore, can be true that accuses him.
The true account appears to be that the cloud, under which we are shut down, is
not heavier than it must be. How can a being infinite be understood, or comprehended,
Besides, we have only just begun to be; and a begun existence
is, by the supposition, one that has just begun to know, and has every thing to
learn. How then can we expect, in a few short years, to master the knowledge of
God and his universal kingdom? What can he be to such but a mystery? If we could
think him out, without any experience, as we do the truths of arithmetic and geometry,
we might get on faster and more easily. But God is not a mere thought of our own
brain, as these truths are, but a being in the world of substance, fact and event,
and all such knowledge has to be gotten slowly, through the rub of experience. We
open, after a few days, our infantile eyes and begin to look about, perceive, handle,
suffer, act and be acted on, and, proceeding in this manner, we gather in, by degrees,
our data and material of knowledge; and so, by trial, comparison, distinction, the
study of effects and wants, of rights and wrongs, of uses and abuses, we frame judgments
of things, and begin to pass our verdict on the matters we know. But how long will
it take us to penetrate, in this manner, the real significance of God’s dealings
with us and. the world, and pass a really illuminated judgment on them? And yet,
if we but love the right, as the first father did before his sin, God will be revealed
in us internally, as the object of our
But there is another fact less welcome that must not be forgot,
when we speak of the darkness that obscures our knowledge of God. There is not only
a necessary, but a guilty limitation upon us. And therefore we are not only obliged
to learn, but, as being under sin, are also in a temper that forbids learning, having
our mind disordered and clouded by evil. Hence, come our perplexities; for, as the
sun can not show distinctly what it is in the bottom of a muddy pool, so God can
never be distinctly revealed in the depths of a foul and earthly mind. To understand
a philosopher requires, they tell us, a philosopher; to understand patriotism, requires
a patriot; to understand purity,
The very activity of reason, which ought to beget knowledge, begets
only darkness now, artificial darkness. We begin a quarrel with limitation itself,
and so with God. le is not only hid behind thick walls of mystery, but he is dreaded
as a power unfriendly, suspected, doubted, repugnantly conceived. Whatever can not
be comprehended, and how very little can be, is construed as one construes an enemy,
or as an ill-natured child construes the authority of a faithful father. An evil
judgement taken up yesterday prepares another to-day, and this another tomorrow,
and so a vast complicated web of false judgments, in’ the name of reason, ia spread
over all the subjects of knowledge. We fall into a state thus of general confusion,
in which even the distinctions of knowledge are lost. Presenting our little mirror
to the clear light of God, we might have received true images of things, and gotten
by degrees a glorious wealth of knowledge, but we break the mirror, in the perversity
of our sin, and offer only the shivered fragments to the light; when, of course,
we see distinctly nothing. Then, probably enough, we begin to sympathize with ourselves
and justify the ignorance we are in, wondering, if there be a God, that he should
be so
Entering the field of supposed revelation, the difficulties are
increased in number, and the mysteries are piled higher than before. God is here
declared to be incarnate, in the person of Jesus Christ, and the whole history of
this wonderful person is made up of things logically incompatible. He is the eternal
son of God, and the son of Mary; he is Lord of all, and is born in a manger; stills
the sea by his word, and traveling on foot is weary; asks, who convinceth me of
sin? and prays like one wading through all the deepest evils of sin; dies like a
man and rises like a god, bursting the bars of death by his power. Even God himself
is no more simply God, but a threefold mystery that mocks all understanding,—Father,
Turning next to the creative works of God, we find the cloud also
upon these. The Lord by wisdom hath founded the earth, by understanding hath he
established the heavens, there is no searching of his understanding; why he created
the worlds when he did, and not before; what he could have been doing, or what enjoyment
having, previous to their creation; and, if all things are governed by inherent
laws, what more, as the universal governor, he can find any place to do since:—these
are questions, again, before which speculative reason reels in amazement. If the
baffled inquirer then drops out the search after God. as many do, and says,—I will
go down to nature, and it
But there is, at least, one subject that he must understand and
know even to its center; viz., himself. Is he not a self-conscious being, and how
can there be a cloud
Finding, therefore, God, nature, himself, overhung with this same
cloud, it is not wonderful that he suffers bitter afflictions and galls himself
against every corner of God’s purposes. Why is society a weight so oppressive on
the weak and the poor? If sin is such an evil, as it certainly is, why did the Creator,
being Almighty, suffer it? Indeed, there is almost nothing that meets us, between
our first breathing and our graves, that does not, to an evil mind, connect, in
one way or another, some perplexity, some accusing or questioning thought, some
inference that m painful, or perhaps atheistical. Can it be? Why should it be? How
can a good God let it be? If he means to have it otherwise, is he not defeated?
if defeated, is he God? If he has no plan, how can I trust him? if his plan will
suffer such things, how then can I trust him?—these are the questions that are continually
crowding upon us. The cloud is all the while over us. He hath made darkness his
pavilion and thick clouds of the skies. This man’s prosperity is dark; that man’s
adversity is dark. The persecutions of the good, the afflictions of the righteous,
the desolations of conquest, the fall of nations and their liberties, the extinction
of churches, the sufferings of innocence, the pains of animals, the removal by death
of genius and character just ripened to bless the world—there is no end to our dark
questions. There are times, too, when our own personal experience becomes enveloped
in darkness. We not only can not guess what it means, or what God will do with us
in it, but it wears a look contrary
Thus we live. Practically, much is known about God and his ways, all that we need to know; but, speculatively, or by the mere understanding, almost nothing, save that we can not know. The believing mind dwells in continual light; for, when God is revealed within, curious and perplexing questions are silent. But the mind that judges God, or demands a right to comprehend him before it believes, stumbles, complains, wrangles, and finds no issue to its labor. Still there is light, and we pass on now to show,—
II. That there is abundance of light on the other side of the cloud, and above it.
This we might readily infer, from the fact that so much of light
shines through. When the clouds overhead are utterly black, too black to be visible,
we understand that it is night, or that the sun is absent; but, when there is a
practical and sufficient light for our works, we know that the sun is behind them,
and we call it day. So it is when God spreadeth a cloud upon his throne. We could
not
The experience of every soul that turns to God is a convincing proof that there is light somewhere, and that which is bright and clear. Was it a man struggling with great afflictions, an injured man crushed by heavy wrongs; was it a man desolated and broken down by domestic sorrows; was it a rich man stripped by sore losses and calamities, was it a proud man blasted by slander; was it an atheist groping after curious knowledge and starving on the chaff of questions unresolved—be it one or another of these, for all alike were tormented in the same perplexities of the darkened understanding, every thing was dark and dry and empty; but when they come to Christ and believe in him, it is their common surprise to find how suddenly every thing becomes luminous. Speculatively, they understand nothing which before was hidden, and yet there is a wondrous glory shining on their path. God is revealed within, and God is light. The flaming circle of eternal day skirts the horizon of the mind. Their dark questions are forgot, or left behind. They are even become insignificant. Their dignity is gone, and the soul, basking in the blessed sunshine of God’s love, thinks it nothing, any more, if it could understand all mysteries. In all which it is made plain that, if we are under the cloud, there is yet a bright light above.
It will also be found, as another indication, that things which,
at some time, appeared to be dark,—afflictions, losses, trials, wrongs, defeated
prayers, and deeds of suffering patience yielding no fruit,—are very apt, afterward,
to change color and become visitations of mercy. And so where
Hence it is that the scriptures make so much of God’s character
as a light-giving power, and turn the figure about into so many forms. In God, they
say, is light and no darkness at all. According to John’s vision of the Lord—His
countenance was as the sun that shineth in his strength. The image of him given
by. another apostle is even more sublime,—Who only hath immortality dwelling in
light that no man can approach unto,—language, possibly, in which he had some reference
to his own conversion, a when light, above the brightness
of the sun, bursting upon him and shining round about him, seared his eye-balls
so
It is little therefore to say, and should never be a fact incredible, that however dark our lot may be, there is light enough on the other side of the cloud, in that pure empyrean where God dwells, to irradiate every darkness of the world; light enough to clear every difficult question, remove every ground of obscurity, conquer every atheistic suspicion, silence every hard judgment; light enough to satisfy, nay to ravish the mind forever. Even the darkest things God has explanations for, and it is only necessary to be let into his views and designs, as when we are made capable of being we certainly shall, to see a transcendent wisdom and beauty in them all. At present, we have no capacity broad enough to comprehend such a revelation. We see through a glass darkly, but we see what we can. When we can see more, there is more to be seen. On the other side of the cloud there is abundance of light. This brings me to say,—
III. That the cloud we arc under will finally break way aid be cleared.
On this point we have many distinct indications. Thus it coincides
with the general analogy of God’s works, to look for obscurity first, and light
afterward. According to the scripture account of the creation, there was, first,
a period of complete darkness; then a period of mist and
Our desire of knowledge, and the manner in which God manages to
inflame that desire, indicate the same thing. This desire he has planted naturally
in us, as hunger is natural in our bodies, or the want of light in our eyes. And
the eye is not a more certain indication that light is to be given, than our desire
to know divine things is that we shall be permitted to know them. And the evidence
is yet further increased, in the fact that the good have a stronger desire of this
knowledge than mere nature kindles. And if we say, with the scripture, that the
fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, doubtless the body of it is to
The scriptures also notify us of a grand assize, or judgment, when the merit of all his doings with us, as of our doings toward: him, will be revised, and it appears to be a demand of natural reason that some grand exposition of the kind should be made, that we may be let into the manner of his government far enough to do it honor. This will require him to take away the cloud, in regard to all that is darkest in our earthly state. Every perplexity must now be cleared, and the whole moral administration of God, as related to the soul, must be sufficiently explained. Sin, the fall, the pains and penalties and disabilities consequent, redemption, grace, the discipline of the righteous, the abandonment of the incorrigibly wicked—all these must now be understood. God has light enough to shed on all these things, and he will not conceal it. He will shine forth in glorious and transcendent brightness, unmasked by cloud, and all created minds, but the incorrigible outcasts and enemies of his government, will respond;—Alleluia, salvation, and glory, and honor, and power be unto the Lord our God; for just and true are his judgments.
Precisely what is to be the manner and measure of out knowledge,
in this fuller and more glorious revelation of the future, is not clear to us now,
for that is one of the dark things, or mysteries, of our present state. But the
language of scripture is remarkable.. It even declares that we shall see God as
he is; and the intensity of the expression is augmented, if possible, by the effects
attributed to the sight—we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. We
shall be so irradiated and penetrated, in other words, by his glory, as to be transformed
into a spiritual resemblance; partaking his purity, reflecting his beauty, ennobled
by his divinity. It is even declared that our knowledge of him shall be complete.
Now we know in part, then shall we know even as also we are known. To say that we
shall know God as he knows us, is certainly the strongest declaration possible,
and it is probably hyperbolical; for it would seem to be incredible that a finite
mind should at once, or even at any time in its eternity, comprehend the infinite,
as it is comprehended by the infinite. It is also more agreeable to suppose that
there will be an everlasting growth in knowledge, and that the bless ed minds will
be forever penetrating new depths of discovery, clearing up wider fields of obscurity,
attaining to a higher converse with God and a deeper insight of his works, and that
this breaking forth of light and beauty in them by degrees and upon search, will
both occupy their powers and feed their joy. Still, that there will be a great and
sudden clearing of God’s way, as we enter that world, and a real dispersion of all
the clouds that darken us here, is doubtless to be expected; for when our sin is
completely taken away, (as we know it then will be,) all our guilty blindness will
go with it, and that of itself will prepare a
In what manner we shall become acquainted with God’s mind, or the secrets of his interior life, whether through some manifestation by the Eternal Word, like the incarnate appearing of Jesus, or partly in some way more direct, we can not tell. But the divine nature and plan will be open, doubtless, in some way most appropriate, for our everlasting study and our everlasting progress in discovery. The whole system of his moral purposes and providential decrees, his penal distributions and redeeming works, will be accessible to us, and all the creatures and creations of his power offered to our acquaintance and free inspection. Our present difficulties and hard questions will soon be solved and passed by. Even the world itself, so difficult to penetrate, so clouded with mystery, will become a transparency to us, through which God’s light will pour as the sun through the open sky. John knew no better way of describing the perfectly luminous state of the blessed minds than to say,—and there shall be no night there, and they have no candle, neither light of the sun; for the Lord God giveth them light. They dwell thus in the eternal daylight of love and reason; for they are so let into the mind of God, and the glorious mysteries of his nature, that every thing is lighted up as they come to it even as the earth and its objects by the sun—The Lord God giveth them light.
In closing the review of such a subject as this, let us first
of all receive a lesson of modesty, and particularly such as are most wont to complain
of God, and boldest in their judgments against him. Which way soever we turn, in
How clear is it also, in this subject, that there is no place for complaint or repining under the sorrows and trials of life. There is nothing in what has befallen, or befalls you, my friends, which justifies impatience or peevishness. God is inscrutable, but not wrong. Remember, if the cloud is over you, that there is a bright light always on the other side; also, that the time is coming, either in his world or the next, when that cloud will be swept away and the fullness of God’s light and wisdom poured around you. Every thing which has befallen you, whatever sorrow your heart bleeds with, whatever pain you suffer, even though it be the pains of a passion like that which Jesus endured at the hands of his enemies—nothing is wanting, but to see the light that actually exists, waiting to be revealed, and you will be satisfied. If your life is dark, then walk by faith, and God is pledged to keep you as safe as if you could understand every thing. He that dwelleth in the secret place of the Most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty.
These things, however, I can say, with no propriety, to many.
No such comforts, or hopes belong to you that are living without God. You have nothing
to expect from the revelations of the future. The cloud that you complain of will
indeed be cleared away, and you will see that, in all your afflictions, severities,
and losses, God was dealing with you righteously and kindly. You will be satisfied
with God and with all that he has done for you, but alas you will not be satisfied
with yourself. That is more difficult, forever impossible! And I can conceive no
pang
Finally it accords with our subject to observe that, while the
inscrutability of God should keep us in modesty and stay our complaints against
him, it should never suppress, but rather sharpen our desire of knowledge. For the
more there is that is hidden, the more is to be discovered and known, if not to-day
then to-morrow, if not to-morrow, when the time God sets for it is come. To know,
is not to surmount God, as some would appear to imagine. Rightly viewed, all real
knowledge is but the knowledge of God. Knowledge is the fire of adoration, adoration
is the gate of knowledge. And when this gate of the soul is fully opened, as it
will be when the adoring grace is complete in our deliverance from all impurity,
what a revelation of knowledge must follow. Having now a desire of knowledge perfected
in us that is clear of all conceit, ambition, haste, impatience, the clouds under
which we lived in our sin are forever rolled away, and our adoring nature, transparent
to God as a window to the sun, is filled with his eternal light. No mysteries remain
but such as comfort us in the promise of a glorious employment. The light of the
moon is as the light of the sun, and the light of the sun sevenfold, and every object
of
Creature all grandeur, son of truth and light, Up from the dust, the last great day is bright,— Bright on the Holy Mountain round the throne, Bright where in borrowed light the far stars shone; Regions on regions far away they shine, ’Tis light ineffable! ’tis light divine! Immortal light and life forevermore!
There was a cloud, and there was a time when man saw not the brightness that shined upon it from above. That cloud is lifted, and God is clear in his own essential beauty and glory forever.
MANY persons read this parable of the talents, I believe, very much as if it related only to gifts external to the person; or, if to gifts that are personal, to such only as are called talents, in the lower and merely man-ward relations and uses of life; such as the understanding, reason, memory, imagination, feeling, and whatever powers are most concerned in discovery, management, address, and influence over others. But the Great Teacher’s meaning reaches higher than this, and comprehends more; viz., those talents, more especially, which go to exalt the subject in his God-ward relations. The main stress of his doctrine hinges, I conceive, on our responsibility, as regards the capacity of religion itself; for this, in highest pre-eminence, is the talent, the royal gift of man. The capacity of religion, taken as the highest trust God gives us, he is teaching his disciples may be fivefolded, tenfolded, indefinitely increased, as all other gifts are, by a proper use; or it may be neglected, hid, suppressed, and, being thus kept back, may finally be so reduced as to be even extirpated. This latter, the extirpation, or taking away; of the holy talent, is the fearful and admonitory close to which the parable is brought in my text. In pursuing the subject presented, two points will naturally engage our attention.
I. That the capacity for religion is a talent, the highest talent we have. And,—
II. That this capacity is one that, by total disuse and the overgrowth of others, is finally etirpated.
I. The capacity for religion is a talent, the highest talent we have. We mean by a talent, the capacity for doing, or becoming something; as for learning, speaking, trade, command. Our talents are as numerous, therefore, and various as the effects we may operate.
We have talents of the body too, and talents of the mind, or soul. Our talents of body are strength, endurance, grace, swiftness, beauty, and the like. Our mental or spiritual talents are more various, and, for the purpose we have now in hand, may be subdivided into such as belong, in part, to the natural life, and such as belong wholly to the religious and spiritual.
All those which can be used, or which come into play, in earthly subjects, and apart from God and religion, are natural, and those which relate immediately to God, and things unseen, as connected with God, are religious. In the former class, we may name intellect, judgment, reason, observation, abstraction, imagination, memory, feeling, affection, will, conscience, and all the moral sentiments. These all come into the uses and act a part in the activities of religion, but they have uses and activities in things earthly, where religion is wholly apart, or may be, and therefore we do not class them as religious talents. An atheist can remember, reason, hate, and even talk of duty; and therefore these several kinds of talent are not distinctively religious.
The religious talents compose the whole God-ward side of faculty in us. They are such especially as come into exercise in the matter of religious faith and experience, and nowhere else. They include, first, the want of God, which is, in fact, a receptivity for God. All wants are capacities of reception, and in this view are talents according to their measure. Low grades of being want low objects, but the want of man is God. And, as all great wants, in things inferior, such as knowledge, honor, power, belong only to great men, what shall we consider this want of God to be, but the highest possible endowment.
Nearly related to this talent of want is the talent of inspiration. By this we mean a capacity to be permeated, illuminated, guided, exalted, by God or the Spirit of God within, and yet so as not to be any the less completely ourselves. This is a high distinction, a glorious talent. No other kind of being known to us, in the works of God, whether animate or inanimate, has the capacity to admit, in this manner, and be visited by, the inspirations of God. It requires a nature gloriously akin to God in its mold, thus to let in his action, falling freely into chime with his freedom, and, in consciously self-acting power, receiving the impulsion of his eternal thought and character.
We have also another religious talent, or God-ward capacity, which
may be called the spiritual sense, or the power of divine apprehension. Some kind
of apprehensive, or perceptive power, belongs to every creature of life, as we may
see in the distinguishing touch of the sensitive plant, in the keen auditory and
scenting powers of many quadrupeds, in our own five senses, or, rising still higher,
in that piercing insight of mind which distinguishes the intellectual and scientific
verities of things. So also there
The capacity of religious love is another and distinct kind of talent. Other kinds of love are merely emotional, or humanly social, involving no principle of life, either good or bad, and no particular spiritual condition. Whereas this love of God, and of men as related to God, is a determining force, in respect to all character and all springs of action. We. have it only as we have a certain talent. or capacity of religious love; the capacity, that is, to let m or appropriate the love of God to us. Which if we do, it comes, not as some rill or ripple of our human love, changing nothing in us, but it pours in, as a tide, with mighty floods of joy and power, and sets the whole nature beating with it, as the shores give answer to the ocean roll and roar. Now the man acts out of love and from it. He chimes with all good freely; for his love is the spirit of all good. His activity is rest, and a lubricating power of joy gladdens all the works of duty and sacrifice.
The power of faith, also, is a religious talent, which is to religion
what the inductive or experimental power is to science. It is a power of knowing
God, or finding God by experiment. It is the power in human souls of falling on
God, and being recumbent on him in trust, so as to prove him out and find the answer
of his personality Reason can not do it, but faith can. It knows God, or may
These now are the talents of religion, the highest, noblest, closest to divinity, of all the powers we have. And yet how many never once think of them as having any special consequence, or even as being talents at all, just because, living in separation from God, they are never once allowed to come into use.
If then you will see, in the plainest manner, what is their true place and order in the soul, you shall find them, first of all, at the head of all its other powers, holding them subordinate. They are like the capital city of an empire, flowing down upon all the other cities, to regulate, animate, and, at the same time, appropriate them all. What we sometimes call the intellectual powers,—observation, abstraction, reason, memory, imagination,—submit themselves at once, when religion comes into the field, to be the servitors of religion. None of these faculties make use of the religious, but the religious use and appropriate them; in which we see, at a glance, their natural inferiority.
Next, you will see that all these other talents fall into a stunted
and partially disabled state, when they are not shone upon, kept in warmth, and
raised in grade, by the talents of religion. They sometimes grow intense in their
downward activity on mere things: witness the scientific activity of the French
people; but this scientific intensity only makes the tenuity, the affectations,
the sentimentalities substituted for love, the mock heroics of fame substituted
for the heroics of faith, the barrenness of great thought, the pruriency of conceit,
the more painfully evident.
How manifestly too are the subjects of the religious talents superior to those of the natural—even as the heaven is high above the earth. History, science, political judgments, poetry as a mere growth of nature, philosophy as a development of reason, belong to these. The others look on God, embrace the infinite in God, receive the love of God, experience God, let in the inspirations of God, discover worlds beyond the world, seize the fact of immortality, deal in salvation, aspire to ideal and divine perfection.
Again, it will be seen that all the greatest things, ever done in the world, have been done by the instigations and holy elevations of the religious capacity. We shall never have done hearing, I suppose, of Regulus and Curtius, and such like specimens of the Roman virtue, great in death; but the whole army of the martyrs, comprising thousands of women and even many small children, dying firmly in the refusal to deny the Lord Jesus, are a full match and more, by the legion, for the bravest of the Romans. What but the mighty mastership of religion has ever led a people up through civil wars and revolutions, into a regenerated order and liberty? What has planted colonies for a great history but religion? The most august and most beautiful structures of the world have been temples of religion; crystalizations, we may say, of worship. The noblest charities, the best fruits of learning, the richest discoveries, the best institutions of law and justice, every greatest thing the world has seen, represents, more or less directly the fruit. fulness and creativeness of the religious talents.
The real summit, therefore, of our humanity is here, a
II. To show that the religious talent, or capacity, is one that, by total disuse and the overgrowth of others, is finally extirpated.
Few men, living without God, are aware of any such possibility, and, still less, of the tremendous fact itself. That they are really reducing themselves in this manner to lower dimensions, shortening in their souls, making blank spaces of all the highest and divinest talents of their nature,—alas, they dream not of it; on the contrary, they imagine that they are getting above religion, growing too competent and wise to be longer subjected to its authority, or incommoded by its requirements. They do not see, or suspect that this very fact is evidence itself of a process more radical and fearful, even that which Christ himself is teaching in the parable. Are you willing, my friends, to allow the discovery of this process, this dying process, this extirpating process, which, in your neglect of God, is removing, by degrees, the very talent for religion, your highest and most sacred endowment.
Hear then, first of all, what is the teaching of the scripture.
That this is the precise point of the parable of the talents we have seen already.
“In close connection, also, Christ reiterates his favorite maxim,—To him that hath
shall be given, and from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he
hath. And here, also, the very point of meaning is, that neglected or abused talents
will be shortened more and more by continued neglect and abuse, and, at last, will
be virtually taken away or exterminated. What is said, in the scripture, of spiritual
blindness, or the loss of spiritual perception, will also occur to you. For this
people’s heart is waxed gross, says the Saviour, and their ears are dull of hearing,
and their eyes have they closed. What is this closing of the eye, this loss of sight,
but the judicial extirpation of sight? Even as he says in another place,—He hath
blinded their eyes and hardened their heart, that they should not see with their
eyes, nor understand with their heart. Hence, also, what is said, derogatively,
of the wisdom of the wise and the understanding of the prudent,—that conceit of
opinion, falsely called philosophy, which grows up in the neglect of God. The word
of God looks on it with pity, calls it folly and strong delusion, as if it were
a kind of disability that comes on the soul in the gradual loss, or extirpation
of its highest powers. What is it but the uplifting littleness of opinion, when
these highest powers are taken away? These babblings of opinion, speculation, reason,
are also presented in a more pathologic way, as a kind of cancerous activity in
the lower functions, that will finally devour all the higher powers of godliness
and love:—Shun profane and vain babblings, for they will increase unto more ungodliness,
and their word will eat as doth a canker
Now this general view of a necessary taking away, or spiritual extirpation, of which we are admonished by the scriptures under these various forms, is referrible, I conceive, to two great laws, or causes. It is due partly to the neglect of the higher talents of our religious nature, and partly to the overactivity or overgrowth of the other and subordinate talents.
1. To the neglect of the talents, or capacities of religion. All
living members, whether of body or mind, require use, or exercise. It is necessary
to their development, and, without it, they even die. Thus, if one of the arms be
kept in free use, from childhood onward, while the other is drawn up over the head
and made rigid there, by long and violent detention, a feat of religious austerity
which the idolaters of the East often practice, the free arm and shoulder will grow
to full size, and the other will gradually shrink and perish. So if one of the eyes
were permanently covered, so as never to see the light, the other would be likely
to grow more sharp and precise in its power, while this is losing its capacity and
becoming a discontinued organ, or inlet of perception. It is on the same principle
that the fishes which inhabit the underground river of a great western cave, while,
in form and species, they appear to correspond with others that swim in the surface
waters of the region adjacent, have yet the remarkable distinction of possessing
no eyes. Since there is no light in their underground element, the physical organism
instinctively changes type. It will not even
So it is with all mental and spiritual organs. Not used, they
gradually wither and die. The child, for example, that grows up in utter neglect
and without education, or any thing to develop its powers, grows dull, at last,
and brutish; and, by the time it is twenty or thirty years old, the powers it had
appear to be very much taken away. The man, thus abridged in faculty, can not learn
to read without the greatest difficulty. The hand can not be trained to grace, or
the eye to exactness. The very conscience, disused, as having any relation to God,
is blunted and stupefied. But, while we note this visible decay of the functions
specified, let it be observed that, here, in the case of the child, there is no
such thing as a complete disuse. The most uneducated man has a certain necessary
use of his common faculties of intelligence, and in some low sense, keeps them in
exercise. He can not take care of his body, can not provide for life, can not act
his part among men, without contrivance, thought, plan, memory, reason, all the
powers that distinguish him as an intelligent being. Hence these faculties never
can be wholly exterminated by disuse, however much reduced in scope and quality
they may be. But it is not so with the religious talents. In a worldly life they
are almost absolutely disused. They are kept under, suppressed, allowed no range,
or play. According to the parable, they are wrapped up in a napkin and hid. Refusing
to know God, to let your deep want receive him, to admit the holy permeations of
his spirit, to be flooded with his all, transforming love, to come into the secret
discerning and
2. By the operation of that immense overgrowth or overactivity which is kept up in the other powers. Thus it is that gardeners, when a tree is making wood too fast, understand that it will make no fruit; all the juices and nutritive fluids being carried off in the other direction, to make wood. And therefore, to hasten the growth of fruit, they head in the branches. So when trees are growing rapidly upward, as in a forest, that growth calls away the juices from the lower and lateral branches and leaves them to die. A healthy limb of our body, being checked by some disease, the other limbs or members call off the nutriment in their direction; when it begins to wither, and, at last, is virtually extirpated. Just so it is, when a child becomes preternaturally active in some particular faculty, under the stimulus of success or much applause; it turns out finally that the wonderful activity that made him a prodigy in figures, or in memory, unless early arrested, has sunk him to a rank as much below mediocrity in every thing else. His overgrowth in arithmetic, or in the memorizing powers, takes away the nutriment of all his other functions, and leaves him to a miserable inferiority.
Just so it is, again, when the pursuit of money grows
In the same way, a man who is brought up in mere conventionalities and taught to regard appearances as the only realities, loses out the sense of truth. He blushes at the least defect in his toilette, and lies to get away from an honest debt, without any trace of compunction, or shame for his baseness.
And so also the child, brought up as a thief, gets an infinite power of cunning and adroitness, and loses out just as much in the power of true perception.
In the same way, a race of men long occupied in ferocious wars grow sharp in the hearing, keen as the beasts of prey in pursuit, sensitively shy of death, when it can be avoided, and when it can not, equally stoical in regard to it; but, while these talents of blood are unfolding so remarkably, they lose out utterly the sense of order, the instinct of prudence and providence, all the sweet charities, all the finer powers of thought, and become a savage race. Having lost a full half of their nature and sunk below the possibility of progress, we, for that reason, call them savages.
By a little different process, the Christian monks were turned
to fiends of blood, without being savages. Exercised,
Now just this extirpating process, which you have seen operating here on so large a scale, is going on continually in the overactive worldliness of all men that are living without God. An extravagant activity of some kind is always stimulating their inferior and merely natural faculties, and extirpating the higher talents of religion. Occupied with schemes that are only world-ward and selfish, there is an egregiously intense activity in that direction, coupled with entire inaction in all the highest perceptions and noblest affinities of their godlike nature. To say that these latter will be finally taken away, or extirpated in this manner is to say nothing which permits a doubt. It can not be otherwise. All the laws of vital being, whether in body or mind, must be overturned to allow it to be otherwise. No man can live out a life of sin without also living out all the God-ward talent of his soul.
Let me come a degree nearer to you now, and lay the question side
by side with your experience. Is it wrong to assume that your religious sense was
proportionately much stronger and more active in childhood than it is now? Thus
onward, during your minority, you felt the reality of God and things unseen, as
you can not now, by year utmost effort. It is as if these worlds beyond the world
had faded away, or quite gone out. You have a great deal more knowledge than you
then had,—knowledge of
All this, my friends, which I gather out of your own experience,
is but a version practical of Christ’s own words—take therefore the talent from
him. It is being taken away rapidly, and the shreds of it will very soon be all
The thoughts that crowd upon us, standing before a subject like this, are practical and serious. And,—
1. How manifestly hideous the process going on in human souls,
under the power of sin. It is a process of real and fixed deformity. Who of us has
not seen it even with his eyes? The most beautiful natural character, in man or
woman, changes, how certainly, its type, when growing old in worldliness and the
neglect of religion. The grace perishes, the beautiful feeling dries away, the angles
grow hard, the sociality grows cold and formal, the temper irritable and peevish,
and the look wears a kind of half expression, as if something once in it were gone
out forever. It should be so, and so, in awful deed, it is for a whole side of the
nature, most noble and closest in affinity with God, has been taken away. On the
other hand, it will be seen that a thoroughly religious old person holds the proportions
of life, and even grows more mellow and attractive as life advances. Indeed, the
most beautiful
This deforming process too is a halving process, with all that are in it. It exterminates the noblest side of faculty in them and all the most affluent springs of their greatness it forever dries away. It murders the angel in us, and saves the drudge or the worm. The man that in left is but a partial being, a worker, a schemer, a creature of passion, thought, will, hunger, remorse, but no divine principle, no kinsman of Christ, or of God. And this is the fearful taking away of which our blessed Lord admonishes; a taking away of the gems and leaving the casket, a taking away of the great and leaving the little, a taking away of the godlike and celestial and a leaving of the sinner in his sin.
2. It follows, in the same manner, that there is no genuine culture,
no proper education, which does not include religion. Much, indeed, of what is called
education is only a power of deformity, a stimulus of overgrowth in the lower functions
of the spirit, as a creature of intelligence, which overlooks and leaves to wither,
causes to wither, all the metropolitan powers of a great mind and character. The
first light of mind is God, the only genuine heat is religion, imaginative insight
is kindled only by the fervors of holy truth, all noblest breadth and volume are
unfolded in the regal amplitude of God’s eternity and kingdom, all grandest energy
and force in the impulsions of duty and the inspirations of faith. All training,
separated from these, operates even a shortening of faculty, as truly as an increase.
It is a kind of gymnastic for the
3. Let no one comfort himself in the intense activity ol his mind
on the subject of religion. That is one of the things to be dreaded. To be always
thinking, debating, scheming, in reference to the great questions of religion, without
using any of the talents that belong more appropriately to God and the receiving
of God, is just the way to extirpate the talents most rapidly, and so to close up
the mind in spiritual darkness. And no man is more certainly dark to God than one
who is always at work upon his mystery, by the mere understanding. To be curious,
to speculate much, to be dinning always in argument, battle-dooring always in opinions
and dogmas, whether on the free side of rationalistic audacity, or the stiff side
of catechetic orthodoxy, makes little difference; all such activity is cancerous
and destructive to the real talents of religion. What you do with the understanding
never
4. Make as little of the hope that the Holy Spirit, will sometime open your closed or consciously closing faculties. It requires a talent, so to speak, for the Holy Spirit, to entertain or receive him. A rock can not receive the Holy Spirit. No more can a mind that has lost, or extinguished, the talent for inspiration. The Holy Spirit, glorious and joyful truth, does find a way into souls that are steeped in spiritual lethargy, does beget anew the sense of holy things that appeared to be faded almost away. But, when the very faculty that makes his working possible is quite closed up, or so nearly closed that no living receptivity is left for him to work in, when the soul has no fit room, or function, to receive his inspiring motions, more than a tree, half dead, to receive the quickening sap of the spring, or an ossified heart to let the life-power play its action, then, manifestly, nothing is to be hoped for longer from his quickening visitations. The soul was originally made to be dwelt in, actuated, filled with God, but finally this high talent is virtually extirpated; when, of course, there is nothing to hope for longer. It may not be so with you, and it also may.
5. The truth we are here bringing into view wears no look of promise,
in regard to the future condition of bad
But there is another hope, viz., that bad men will finally be
themselves extirpated and cease; that the life of sin will finally burn them quite
out, or cause them literally and totally to perish. But the difficulty here is that
no such tendency is visible. It is only seen that the talent for religion, which
is the higher and diviner side of the soul, is extirpated. The other parts are kept
in some kind of activity, and are sometimes even overgrown, by the stimulations
of worldly, or vicious impulse. If we some times look on a poor, imbruted mortal,-one
who walks, looks, speaks, not as a proper man but as the vestiges only of a man,—asking
in ourselves what is there left that is worth salvation?—as if there were nothing;—still
he lives and, what is more, some of his quantities, viz., his passions and appetites
and all his lowest affinities are even increased. His thoughts too run as rapidly
as they ever did, only they run low; his imaginations live, only they live in the
stye of his passions. It is not, then, annihilation that we see in him. Nothing
is really
Finally, how clear it is that the earliest time in religion is the best time. If there be any of my hearers that have lived many years, and have consciously not begun to live unto God, they have much to think of in a subject like this. How well do they know that God is further off than he was, and their spiritual apprehensions less distinct. They have felt the sentence—take therefore the talent from him—passing upon them in its power, for many years. And how much further will you go in this neglect of God, before the extirpation begun is fatally complete. My friends, there is not an hour to lose. Only with the greatest difficulty will you be able, now, to gather up yourself and open your closing gates to the entrance of God and his salvation.
Here too is the peculiar blessing and the hopeful advantage of
youth. The talents which older men lose out, by their worldly practice and neglect
of God, are fresh in them and free. Hence their common readiness to apprehend God
and the things of religion. It is not because they are green, or unripe, as many
think, but because they have a side of talent not yet eaten out by sinful practice;
because God is mirrored so clearly in the depths of their nature, and breathed so
freely into the recesses of their open life.
IN this slight touch or turn of history, is opened to iis if we scan it closely, one of the most serious and fruitful chapters of Christian doctrine. Thus it is that men are ever touching unconsciously the springs of motion in each other; thus it is that one man, without thought or intention, or even a consciousness of the fact, is ever leading some other after him. Little does Peter think, as he comes up where his doubting brother is looking into the sepulchre, and goes straight in, after his peculiar manner, that he is drawing in his brother apostle after him. As little does John think, when he loses his misgivings, and goes into the sepulchre after Peter, that he is following his brother. And just so, unawares to himself, is every man, the whole race through, laying hold of his fellow-man, to lead him where otherwise he would not go’ We overrun the boundaries of our personality—we flow together. A Peter leads a John, a John goes after a Peter, both of them unconscious of any influence exerted or received. And thus our life and conduct are ever propagating themselves, by a law of social contagion, throughout the circles and times in which we live.
There are, then, you will perceive, two sorts of influence belonging
to man; that which is active or voluntary, and that which is unconscious;—that which
we exert purposely
But there needs to be produced, at the same time, and partly for this object, a more thorough appreciation of the relative importance of that kind of influence, or beneficence which is insensibly exerted. The tremendous weight and efficacy of this, compared with the other, and the sacred responsibility laid upon us in regard to this, are felt in no such degree or proportion as they should be; and the consequent loss we suffer in character, as well as that which the Church suffers in beauty and strength, is incalculable. The more stress, too, needs to be laid on this subject of insensible influence, because it is insensible; because it is out of mind, and, when we seek to trace it, beyond a full discovery.
If the doubt occur to any of you, in the announcement of this
subject, whether we are properly responsible for an influence which we exert insensibly;
we are not, I reply, except so far as this influence flows directly from our character
and conduct. And this it does, even much
In the prosecution of my design, let me ask of you, first of all,
to expel the common prejudice that there can be nothing of consequence in unconscious
influences, because they make no report, and fall on the world unobserved. Histories
and biographies make little account of the power men exert insensibly over each
other. They
But you must not conclude that influences of this kind are insignificant, because they are unnoticed and noiseless. How is it in the natural world? Behind the mere show, the outward noise and stir of the world, nature always conceals her hand of control, and the laws by which she rules. Who ever saw with the eye, for example, or heard with the ear, the exertions of that tremendous astronomic force, which every moment holds the compact of the physical universe together? The lightning is, in fact, but a mere fire-fly spark in comparison; but, because it glares on the clouds, and thunders so terribly in the ear, and rives the tree or the lock where it falls, many will be ready to think that it is a vastly more potent agent than gravity.
The Bible calls the good man’s life a light, and it is the nature
of light to flow out spontaneously in all directions, and fill the world unconsciously
with its beams. So the Christian shines, it would say, not so much because he
I call your attention, next, to the twofold powers of effect and
expression by which man connects with his fellow man. If we distinguish man as a
creature of language, and thus qualified to communicate himself to others, there
Then if we go over to others, that is, to the subjects of influence,
we find every man endowed with two inlets of impression; the ear and the understanding
for the reception of speech, and the sympathetic powers, the sensibilities or affections,
for tinder to those sparks of emotion revealed by looks, tones, manners, and general
conduct. And these sympathetic powers, though not immediately rational, are yet
inlets, open on all sides, to the understanding and character. They have a certain
wonderful capacity to receive impressions, and catch the meaning of signs, and propagate
in us whatsoever falls into their passive molds, from others. The impressions they
receive do not come through verbal propositions, and are never received
The door of involuntary communication, I have said, is always
open. Of course we are communicating ourselves in this way, to others at every moment
of our intercourse or presence with them. But how very seldom, in comparison,
But there is yet another view of this double line of communication
which man has with his fellow-men, which is more general, and displays the import
of the truth yet more convincingly. It is by one of these modes of communication
that we are constituted members of voluntary society, and by the other, parts of
a general mass, or members of involuntary society. You are all, in a certain view,
individuals, and separate as persons from each other: you are also, in a certain
other view, parts of a common body, as truly as the parts of a stone. Thus if you
ask how it is that you and all men came, without your consent to exist in society,
to be within its power, to be under its laws, the answer is, that while you are
a man, you are also a fractional element of a larger and more comprehensive being,
called society—be it the family, the church, the state. In a certain department
of your nature, it is open; its sympathies and feelings are open. On this open side
you all adhere together, as parts of a larger nature, in which there is a common
circulation of want, impulse, and law. Being thus made common to each other voluntarily,
you become one mass, one consolidated social body, animated by one life. And observe
how far this involuntary communication and sympathy between the members of a state
or family is sovereign over their character. It always results in what we call the
national or family spirit; for there is a spirit peculiar to every state and family
in the
But these are general considerations, and more fit, perhaps, to give you a rational conception of the modes of influence and their relative power, than to verify that conception, or establish its truth. I now proceed to add, therefore, some miscellaneous proofs of a more particular nature.
And I mention, first of all, the instinct of imitation in children.
We begin our mortal experience, not with acts grounded in judgment or reason, or
with ideas received through language, but by simple imitation, and, under the guidance
of this, we lay our foundations. The child looks and listens, and whatsoever tone
of feeling or manner of
Still further on, respect for others takes the place of imitation.
We naturally desire the, approbation or good opinion of others. You see the strength
of this feeling in the article of fashion. How few persons have the nerve to resist
a fashion! We have fashions, too, in literature, and in worship, and in moral and
religious doctrine, almost equally powerful. How many will violate the best rules
of society, because it is the practice of their circle! How many reject Christ because
of friends or acquaintance,
Again, how well understood is it, that the most active feelings and impulses of mankind are contagious. How quick enthusiasm of any sort is to kindle, and how rapidly it catches from one to another, till a nation blazes in the flame! In the case of the crusades, you have an example where the personal enthusiasm of one man put all the states of Europe in motion. Fanaticism is almost equally contagious. Fear and superstition always infect the mind of the circle in which they are manifested. The spirit of war generally becomes an epidemic of madness, when once it has got possession of a few minds. The spirit of party is propagated in a similar manner. How any slight ope. ration in the market may spread, like a fire, if successful, till trade runs wild in a general infatuation, is well known. Now, in all these examples, the effect is produced, not by active endeavor to carry influence, but mostly by that insensible propagation which follows, when a flame of any kind is once kindled.
Is it also true, you may ask, that the religious spirit propagates
itself or tends to propagate itself in the same
It now remains to exhibit the very important fact, that where
the direct or active influence of men is supposed to be great, even this is due,
in a principal degree, to that insensible influence by which their arguments, reproofs,
and persuasions are secretly invigorated. It is not mere words which turn men; it
is the heart mounting, uncalled, into the expression of the features; it is the
eye illuminated by reason, the look beaming with goodness; it is the tone of the
voice, that instrument of the soul, which changes quality with such amazing facility,
and gives out in the soft, the tender, the tremulous, the firm, every shade of emotion
and character. And so much is there in this, that the
And here I must conduct you to a yet higher example, even that
of the Son of God, the light of the world. Men dislike to be swayed by direct, voluntary
influence. They are jealous of such control, and are therefore best approached by
conduct and feeling, and the authority of simple worth, which seem to make no purposed
onset. If goodness appears, they welcome its celestial smile; if heaven descends
to encircle them, they yield to its sweetness; if truth appears in the life, they
honor it with a secret homage; if personal majesty and glory appear, they bow with
reverence, and acknowledge with shame, their own vileness. Now it is on this side
of human nature that Christ visits us, preparing just that kind of influence which
the spirit of truth may wield with the most persuasive and subduing effect. It is
the grandeur of his character which constitutes the chief power of his ministry,
not his miracles or teachings apart from his character. Miracles were useful, at
the time, to arrest attention, and his doctrine is useful at all times as the highest
revelation of truth possible in speech; but the greatest truth of the gospel, not
withstanding, is Christ himself—a human body become the organ of the divine nature,
and revealing, under the conditions of an earthly life, the glory of God! Tile Scripture
writers have much to say, in this connection, of the image of God; and an image,
you know, is that which simply represents, not that which acts, or reasons, or persuades.
Now it is this image of God which makes tile center, the sun itself, of the gospel.
The journeyings,
I have protracted the argument on this subject beyond what I could have wished, but I can not dismiss it without suggesting a few thoughts necessary to its complete practical effect.
One very obvious and serious inference from it, and the first
which I will name, is, that it is impossible to live in
The true philosophy or method of doing good is also here explained.
It is, first of all and principally, to be good—to have a character that will of
itself communicate good. There must and will be active effort where there is goodness
of principle; but the latter we should hold to be the principal thing, the root
and life of all.. Whether it is a mistake more sad or more ridiculous, to make mere
stir synonymous with doing good, we need not inquire; enough, to be sure that one
who has taken up such a notion of doing good, is for that reason a nuisance to the
church. The Christian is called a light, not lightning. In order to act with effect
on others, he must walk in the Spirit, and thus become the image of goodness: he
must be so akin to God, and so filled with His dispositions, that he shall seem
to surround himself with a hallowed atmosphere. It is folly to endeavor to make
ourselves shine before we are luminous. If the sun without his beams should talk
to the planets, and argue with them till the final day, it would not make them shine;
there must be light in the sun itself, and then they will shine, of course. And
this, my brethren, is what God intends for you all. It is the great idea of his
gospel, and the work of his spirit, to make you lights in the world. His greatest
joy is to give you character, to beautify your example, to exalt your principles,
and make you each the depository of his own almighty grace. But in order to this,
some thing is necessary on your part-a full surrender of your mind to duty and to
God, and a perpetual desire of this spiritual intimacy; having this, having a participation
Our doctrine of unconscious and undesigning influence shows how
it is, also, that the preaching of Christ is often so unfruitful, and especially
in times of spiritual coldness. It is not because truth ceases to be truth, nor,
of necessity, because it is preached in a less vivid manner, but because there are
so many influences, preaching against the preacher. He is one, the people are many;
his attempt to convince and persuade is a voluntary influence; their lives, on the
other hand, and especially the lives of those who profess what is better, are so
many unconscious influences, ever streaming forth upon the people, and back and
forth between each other. He preaches the truth, and they, with one consent, are
preaching the truth down; and how can he prevail against so many, and by a kind
of influence so unequal? When the people of God are glowing with spiritual devotion
to Him, and love to men, the case is different; then they are all preaching with
the preacher, and making an atmosphere of warmth for his words to fall in; great
is the company of them that publish the truth, and proportionally great its power.
Shall I say more? Have you not already felt, my brethren, the application to which
I would bring you? We do not exonerate ourselves; we do not claim to be nearer to
God or holier than you; but ah! you know not how easy it is to make a winter about
us, or how cold it feels! Our endeavor is to preach the truth of Christ and his
cross as clearly and as forcibly as we can. Sometimes it has a visible effect, and
we are filled with joy; sometimes it has no effect, and then we struggle on, as
we must, but under great oppression. Have we none among you that preach against
us in your lives? If
WHEN the eastern traveler takes shelter from the scorching heat
of noon, or halts for the night, in some inn or caravansary, which is, for the time,
the house of his pilgrimage, he takes the sackbut or the lyre and sooths his rest
with a song-a song it may be of war, romance, or love. But the poet of Israel finds
his theme, we perceive, in the statutes of Jehovah—Thy statutes have been my songs
in the house of my pilgrimage. These have been my pastime, with these I have refreshed
my resting hours by the way, and cheered myself onward through the wearisome journey
and across the scorching deserts of life. Not songs of old tradition, not ballads
of war, or wine, or love, have supported me, but I have sung of God’s commandments,
and these have been the solace of my weary hours, the comfort of my rest. This
Multitudes of men, it is evident as it need be, have a very different
conception of this matter. Divine law, divine obligation, responsibility in any
form, authority under any conditions, they feel to be a real annoyance to life.
They want their own will and way. Why must they be hampered by these constant restrictions?
Why
In this controversy you have taken up with the Psalmist, he is very plainly right, and you as plainly wrong; as I shall now undertake to show, and as you, considering that God’s law is upon you and can by no means be escaped, ought most gladly to hear and discover. His doctrine, removing the poetry of the form, is this,—
That obligation to God is our privilege.
Some of you will fancy, it may be, at the outset, that the pilgrimage
he speaks of is made by the statutes; that the restrictions of obligations are so
hard and close, as to cut off, in fact, all the true pleasures of life, and reduce
it to a pilgrimage in its dryness; But this pilgrimage is made by no sense of restriction.
Every man, even the most licentious and reckless is a pilgrim; the atheist is a
pilgrim; such are only a more unhappy class of pilgrims, a reluctant class who are
driven across the deserts, cheerfully traversed by others, and by the fountains
where others quench their thirst. There is a perfect harmony between obligation
to God and all the sources of pleasure and happiness
There is another objection or false impression that needs to be noticed; viz., that the very enforcements of penalty and terror added to God’s law, to compel an acceptance of it or obedience to it, are a kind of concession that it is not a privilege, but a restriction or severity rather, which can not otherwise be carried. Is it then a fair inference, that human laws are severe and hard restrictions, and no true privilege, or blessing, because they are duly enforced by additions of penalty? It is only to malefactors and felons that they are so; and for these only, considered as being enforced by terrors, they are made. They are restrictions to the lawless and disobedient, never to the good. On the contrary, a right minded, loyal people, will value their laws and cherish them as the safeguard even of their liberty. Just so also, the righteous. man will have God’s statutes for his songs, in all the course of his pilgrimage.
Dismissing now these common impressions, let us go on to inquire
a little more definitely, how it would be with us, if we existed under no terms
of obligation; for if we are to settle it fairly, whether obligation is a privilege
or not. this manifestly is the mode in which the question should be stated. The
true alternative between obligation and no
In such a case, our external condition must obviously be as different as possible from what it is now.
In the first place, there could, of course, be no such thing as
criminal law for the defense of property, reputation and life; because the moral
distinctions in which criminal law is grounded, are all wanting. The laws against
theft and murder, for example, suppose the fact that these are understood already
and blamed as being wrongs—violations, that is, of moral obligation. And there is
no conceivable way of defining these crimes, and bringing them to judgment, except
by reference to notions, or distinctions already admitted. Murder, for example,
can not be defined as a mere killing, or in any external way; for no external sign
will hold without exception, Hence the law is obliged to define it as a killing
with malice aforethought—to go into the heart, that is, and distinguish it there,
as being done with a consciously criminal intent. The defenses of civil society,
therefore, must all be wanting, where there is no recognized obligation to God.
We are so far reduced to the condition of the quadruped races. Having, as they,
no moral and religious ideas, we can not legislate. Civil society is, in fact, impossible,
and all that is genial and peaceful, under the benign protection of the state, is
a good no longer attainable. If a man’s property is plundered, he knows it only
as a loss, not as a crime. If his children are murdered or sold into slavery, he
may be angry as a bear robbed of her
Again, what we call society, as far as there is any element of dignity or blessing in it, depends on these moral obligations. Without these it would be intercourse without friendship, truth, charity, or mercy. All that is warm and trustful and dear in society, rests in the keeping of these moral bonds.. Extinguish moral ideas and laws and these lovely virtues also die; for their life is upheld by the sense of duty and right. Where there is no law there is no sin, or guilt—as little is there any virtue. Of course there is nothing to praise, or confide in. Truth is not conceived. Friendship and love are things of convenience, determinable also by convenience. Chastity, without the moral idea, is a name as honorable as hunger, and as worthy to be kept. Purity and truth are accidents. Domestic faith and the tender affections that ennoble and bless the homes, are as reliable as the other caprices of unregulated impulse and passion. Without moral obligations, therefore, binding us to God, society is discontinued. Nothing that deserves the name is possible. Life, in fact, is wrong with. out a sense of wrong; society a proximity of distrust and fear, and the passions, unrestrained by duty, a hell of general torment, without any sense of blame to explain it.
But these are matters external to which I refer, just to
This claim of God’s authority, this bond of duty laid upon us,
is virtually the throne of God erected in the soul. It is sovereign, of course,
unaccommodating therefore, and may be felt as a sore annoyance. When violated, it
will scorch the bosom ever with pangs of remorse that are the most fiery and implacable
of all mental sufferings. But of this, there is no need; all such pains are avoidable
by due obedience. And then obligation to God becomes the spring instead of the most
dignified, fullest, healthiest joys any where attainable. The self-approving consciousness,
the consciousness of good—what can raise one to a loftier pitch of confidence and
blessing. It is with these obligations to God, just as it is with the physical laws.
These latter, violated by neglect, excess, or obstinacy, are our most relentless
enemies and persecutors; respected and deferred to, they become our most faithful
friends and helpers. Did any one ever judge, on this account, that they are only
hindrances and restraints on our happiness which were better to be discontinued?
Loosen then the grand attractions, and let the huge bulks of heaven fly as they
will. Make the stones soluble, at times, and the waters combustible, without any
change of conditions; let congelation be sometimes by fire, and liquefaction by
frost; let the water-fall sometimes mount upward into the air, and the smoke plunge
downward on the ground. Abolish all the stable restrictions of law, and let nature
loose,
Thus how much, for example, does it signify, as regards your comfort,
that this one matter, a matter so profoundly central too, in your experiences and
views of life, is fixed. Opinions, sentiments, hopes, fears, popularities, and to
these also you may add all the honors and gifts of fortune, are in a fluxile, shifting
state. There is no fixed element in any one of them. You live in them as you do
in the weather. Even the courses of your mind, and the shifting phases you pass
are a kind of internal weather that never settles, or becomes fixed. But in the
sacred fact of obligation you touch the immutable and lay hold, as it were, of the
eternities. At the very center of your being, there is a fixed element, and that
of a kind or degree essentially sovereign. And in that fact every thing pertaining
to your existence is changed. You are no more afloat or a-sea, in the endless phases
and variabilities just referred to, but a very large class of your judgments and
views of life and acknowledged principles are immovably settled. A standard is set
up in your thought, by which a great part of your questions are determined, and
about which your otherwise random thoughts may settle into order and law Few men
ever conceive what they owe to obligation here,
How good and sublime a gift, in this view, is the gift of law.
It comes down smiling from the skies and enters into souls, as the beginning and
throne of wisdom. Or using a different figure, we may say that man comes into being
bringing his law with him; a law as definite and stable as that of the firmament;
one that shall go with him, when consentingly accepted, and mark out the path of
his pilgrimage, binding all his otherwise random exercises of desire, fancy and
free will, to an orbit of goodness and truth. Every thing within him now is under
a determinating rule. His soul is held in a harmonious balance of powers, like the
heavenly worlds. Reason, feeling, passion, fancy, all work in together under the
great conserving law of obligation to God, and the soul is kept in recollection,
Consider, again, the truly fraternal relation between our obligations to God and what we call our liberty. Instead of restraining our liberty, they only show us, in fact, how to use our liberty, and how to air it, if I may so speak, in great and heroic actions. How insipid and foolish a thing were life, if there were nothing laid upon us to do. What is it, on the other hand, but the zest and glory of life, that something good and great, something really worthy to be done is laid upon us. It is not self-indulgence allowed, but victory achieved, that can make a fit happiness for man. Therefore we are set down here amid changes, perils, wrongs and miseries, where to save ourselves and serve our kind, all manner of great works are to be done. Besides, we practically admit the arrangement, much oftener than we think. Tell any young man, for example, who is just converted to Christ, of some great sacrifice he is called to make; as in preaching Christ to men, or going to preach him to the heathen; and that call, set forth as a sacrifice of all things, will work upon him more powerfully, by a hundred times, than it would, if you undertook to soften it by showing what respect he would gain, how comfortable he would be, and how much easier in this than in any other calling of life. We do not want any such caresses in the name of duty. To let go self-indulgence and try something stronger, is a call that draws us always, when our heart is up for duty; nay, even nature loves heroic impulse and oftentimes prefers the difficult.
It is well, therefore,—all the better that we are put upon the doing of what is not always agreeable to the flesh. And when God lays upon us the duties of self-command and self-sacrifice, when he calls us to act and to suffer heroically, how could he more effectually dignify or ennoble our liberty? Now we have our object and our errand, and we know that we can meet our losses, come as they will. Before every man and in all his duties there is something like a victory to be gained and he can say, as the soldier of duty;—Strike me my enemy, beat upon me O ye hail! Mine it is to fulfill God’s statutes, and therein I make you my servants.
Obligation to God also, imparts zest to life, by giving to our
actions a higher import and, when they are right, a more consciously elevated spirit.
The most serene, the most truly godlike enjoyment open to man, is, that which he
receives in the testimony that he pleases God and the moral self-approbation of
his own mind. When he regards his life as having a moral quality, over and above
what may be called its secular and economic import; as having to do with the holy
and true and good, and as being, in that highest view, a worthy and upright life;
then he feels a joy which, if it be human, partakes also of the divine. It is a
kind of joy too that connects in his mind with thoughts of his own personal perfection,
and this makes it even a sublime thing to live. In the mere prudential life of man
as an earthly creature, in his cares, doings, plans and pleasures, there is no respect
to any results of quality in the person, but only to what he may get, or suffer,
or be, in this life. The idea of personal perfection enters only with that of obligation
to God. There dawns the thought of a divine quality—the moral, the good, the
In this article of obligation to God, you are set also in immediate
relation to God himself; and, in a relation so high, every thing in you and about
you changes its import. The world is no more a mere physical frame—it exists rather
as a theatre of religion. God is in it, every where, training his creature unto
himself. He is clearly seen by the things that are made. The objects of science
take a moral import. Human history becomes Divine history,
How different thus, one from the other, is the world of Voltaire, and the world of Milton. They look, if you please, upon the same sun and consider the light together. They walk the same shore of the same ocean, they meditate of its vastness and listen to the chorus of its waters. They feel the gentleness of the dew, and the majesty of the storm. They ask what is the meaning of man’s history, what is birth, life, death; but how different all, are the things they look upon and the thoughts they cherish. One discovers only the clay world and its material beauties, flashes into shallow brilliancy and, weaving a song of surfaces, empties himself of all that he has felt or seen. But the other, back of all and through all visible things, has seen spirit and divinity. God is there, giving out himself to his children, and all the furniture of life, its objects, scenes and relations, take a religious meaning. A radiant glow and warmth pervade the world. The meanings are inexhaustible. Nothing is wearisome or dull, or mean; for nothing can be that is dignified by God’s presence and ordered by his care to serve a religious use.
It is also a great fact, as regards a due impression of obligation
to God, and of what is conferred in it, that it
On this subject, too, experimental proofs may be cited, such as
ought to leave no doubt and even no defect of impression. Would that I could refer
you each to his own experience; which I can not, because, by the supposition, I
am speaking to those that have had no such experience And yet there have been many
who, without any specially religious habit, have discovered still this truth, in
its regulative and otherwise beneficent influence on their life. A few years before
his death, the great statesman of New England, having a large party of friends dining
with him at Marshfield, was called on by one of the party, as they became seated
at the table, to specify what one thing he had met with in his life which had done
most for him, or contributed most effectually to the success of his personal history.
After a moment, he replied,—“The most fruitful and elevating influence I have ever
seemed to meet has been my impression of obligation to God.” Precisely in what manner
the benefit was supposed to accrue I am not informed; probably, however, as an influence
that raised the pitch of his mind, gave balance and clearness to his judgments,
and set him on a moral footing in his ideas and principles, such as certified his
consciousness as a
But there are higher and holier witnesses and a great cloud of
them, whose testimony ought to be more convincing. Thus, if you will but open the
word of God’s truth and listen to the songs that break out there, under God’s statutes;
if you will behold the good of past ages bending over God’s law, as the spring of
their sweetest enjoyments, crying each,—O, how love I thy law; if you will observe,
too, what enlargement and freedom of soul they find in their obedience, and how
they look upon the mere natural life of the flesh as bondage in comparison; if you
will see how they disarm all their trials and dangers by this same obedience; how
they come away to God from the scorching sands of their pilgrimage, as to the shadow
of a great rock, and refresh their fainting spirits by singing the statutes of the
Lord; if you will see what a character of courage, and patience, and self-sacrifice
they receive; how all great sentiments, such as carry their own dignity and blessing
with them, spring up in the rugged trials of duty and obedience to God; then, last
of all, if you will dare to break over the confines of mortality ascending
Arresting my argument here, to what, in conclusion, shall I more
fitly draw you than to that which is, in truth, the point established, viz., the
fact that it is only religion, the great bond of love and duty to God, that makes
our existence valuable or even tolerable. Without this, to live were only to graze.
We could not guess why we exist, or care to exist longer. If responsibility to God
is felt as a constraint, if it makes you uneasy and restive, better this than to
find no real import in any thing. If you chafe, it is still against the throne of
order, and there is some sense of meaning in that. If God’s will is heavy on you,
the protection it extends is not. If the circle of your motion is restricted, it
is only that the goodness of Jehovah is drawing itself more closely round you. If
you tremble, it is not because of the cold. If still you sigh over the emptiness
of your experience, it might be even more empty; for you do, at least, know that
every thing in life is now become great and momentous. You can not make it seem
either futile or insignificant. If you are only a transgressor, still the liveliest
thoughts and the mot thrilling truths that ever visit your mind are such as come
from
How convincing, how appalling a proof then is it, of some dire
disorder and depravation in mankind, that when obligation to God is the spring of
all that is dearest, noblest in thought, and most exalted in experience, we are
yet compelled to urge it on them, by so many entreaties, and even to force it on
their fears, by God’s threatened penalties. What does it mean, this strange, suicidal
aversion to God’s statutes; that which ought to be our song, endurable only as we
are held to it by terrors and penalties of fire? Nay, worse, if possible, you shall
even hear, not seldom, the men that say they love God’s statutes, and who therefore
ought to be singing on their way, complaining of their dearth and dryness, and the
necessary vanity of their experience. Let these latter see that the vanity they
complain of is the cheat of their own self-devotion, and the littleness of their
own empty heart. Let them pray God to enlarge their heart, and then they will run
the way of God’s commandments with true lightness and freedom. All this moping ends,
when the fire of duty kindles. As to the other and larger class, who are living,
confessedly, in no terms of obligation to God, let them see, first of all, what
they gain by it; how the load of life’s burden chafes them; how they are crushed,
crippled, wearied, confounded, when they try to get their songs out of this world
and the dust itself of their pilgrimage; then go to God, and set their life on the
footing of religion, or duty to God
Nothing is more certain or clear, than that human souls are made for law, and so for the abode of God. Without law therefore, without God, they must even freeze and die. Hence, even Christ himself, must needs establish and sanctify the law; for the deliverance and liberty he comes to bring are still to be sought only in obedience. Henceforth duty is the brother of liberty, and both rejoice in the common motherhood of law. And just here, my friends, is the secret of a great part of your misery and of the darkness that envelops your life. Without obligation you have no light, save what little may prick through your eyelids. Only he that keeps God’s commandments walks in the light. The moment you can make a very simple discovery, viz., that obligation to God is your privilege and is not imposed as a burden, your experience will teach you many things,—that duty is liberty, that repentance is a release from sorrow, that sacrifice is gain, that humility is dignity, that the truth from which you hide is a healing element that bathes your disordered life, and that even the penalties and terrors of God are the artillery only of protection to his realm.
Such and no other is the glad ministry of religion. Say not, when
we come to you tendering its gifts, as we do today, that you are not ready, that
you are not sufficiently racked by remorse and guilty conviction, that you have
spent, as yet, no sorrowing days or sleepless nights,—what can these do for you?
God wants none of these; he only wants you to accept him as your privilege. When
he calls you to repentance and new obedience, this is what he
CHRIST enters the world, bringing joy;—Good tidings of great joy, cry the angels, which shall be to all people. So now he leaves it, bestowing his gospel as a gift of joy,—These things have I spoken unto you, that my joy might remain in you and that your joy might be full. This testament of his joy he also renews in his parting prayer. And now come I to thee, and these things I speak in the world, that they might have my joy fulfilled in themselves. “Man of sorrows” though we call him, still he counts himself the man of joy.
Would that I could bring you into his meaning, when he thus speaks, and assist you to realize the unspeakable import which it has to him. It is an impression deeply rooted in the minds of men that the Christian life is a life of constraint, hardship, loss, penance, and comparative suffering; Christ, you perceive, has no such conception of it, and no such conception is true. Contrary, to this, I shall undertake to show that it is a life of true joy, the profoundest and only real joy attainable,—not a merely future joy, to be received hereafter, as the reward of a painful and sad life here, but a present, living, and completely full joy, unfolded in the soul of every man whose fidelity and constancy permit him to receive it.
To clear this truth and show it forth, in the proper light of evidence, it is necessary, first of all, to exhibit a mistake which clouds the judgments, almost or quite universally, of those who are not in the secret of the christian joy, as revealed to a religious experience. It is the mistake of not distinguishing between happiness and joy, or of sup. posing them to be really one and the same thing. It is the mistake, indeed, not merely of their judgment, but of their practice; for they all go after happiness without so much as a thought, more commonly, of any thing higher or better. Happiness, they assume, and in their practice say, is the real joy of existence, beyond which and different from which there is, in kind, no other.
Now there is even a distinction of kind between the two, a distinction
beautifully represented in the words them selves. Thus happiness, according to the
original use of the term, is that which happens, or comes to one by a
hap, that is, by an outward befalling, or favorable condition. Some good is
conceived, out of the soul, which comes to it as a happy visitation, stirring in
the receiver a pleasant excitement. It is what money yields, or will buy; dress,
equipage, fashion, luxuries of the table; or it is settlement in life, independence,
love, applause, admiration, honor, glory, or the more conventional and public benefits
of rank, political standing, victory, power. All these stir a delight in the soul,
which is not of the soul, or its quality, but from without. Hence they are looked
upon as happening to the soul and, in that sense, create happiness. We have another
word from the Latins, which very nearly corresponds with this from the Saxons; viz.,
fortune. For, whatever befell the soul, or came to it bringing it pleasure,
was considered to be its good chance, and was called fortunate.
But joy differs from this, as being of the soul itself, originating in its quality. And this appears in the original form of the word; which, instead of suggesting a hap, literally denotes a leap, or spring. Here again also the Latins had exult, which literally means a leaping forth. The radical idea then of joy is this; that the soul is in such order and beautiful harmony, has such springs of life opened in its own blessed virtues, that it pours forth a sovereign joy from within. The motion is outward and not toward, as we conceive it to be in happiness. It is not the bliss of condition, but of character. There is, in this, a well-spring of triumphant, sovereign good, and the soul is able thus to pour out rivers of joy into the deserts of outward experience. It has a light in its own luminous center, where God is, that gilds the darkest nights of external adversity, a music charming all the stormy discords of outward injury and pain into beats of rhythm, and melodies of peace.
I ought, perhaps, to say that the original distinction between
these two words, thus sharply defined, is not always regarded; I have traced the
distinction only for the convenience of my present subject, and not because the
words are always used, or must be, in this manner. In their secondary uses, words
are often applied more loosely, and so it has fallen out with these, which are used,
by the common class of writers indiscriminately, one for the other. Still it will
be seen that one of our English poets, Mr. Coleridge, distinguished always for the
exactness of his language,
Immediately after, without any thought of drawing the contrast, he speaks of his own folly, with regret, because he was caught by the temptations of fortune and now endures the bitter penalty.
The picture he draws for himself is the picture, alas! of the general folly of mankind. Their “fancy makes them dreams of happiness;” promising to bless them in what may be gathered “round” them in “fruits and foliage not their own;” that is, not of themselves but external. All good, they fancy, is in condition, not in character. They think of happiness, go after happiness, and have, also how generally, no thought of joy.
And yet we have many and various symbols of joy about us, from which we might well enough take the hint, as it would seem, of some possible felicity that is freer and higher in quality than the mere pleasures of fortune, or condition. The sportive children, too full of physical life to be able even to restrain their activity; the birds of the morning pouring out their music simply because it is in them, ought to suggest the possibility of some free, manly joy that is nobler than happiness. Precisely this too we have been permitted, thank God, to look upon, in the examples of goodness, and to hear in the report of history; for history is holding up her holy examples ever before us, showing us the saints of God singing out their joy together in caves and dens of the earth at dead of night, showing too the souls of her martyrs issuing, with a shout, from the fires that crisp their bodies.
Again, it is necessary, in order to a right conception of the meaning of christian joy, as now defined, that we discover how to dispose of certain facts, or incidents, which commonly produce a contrary impression.
Thus, when the Saviour bequeathes his joy to us, and prays to have it fulfilled in us, it will naturally be remembered that he lives a persecuted and abused life, that he passes through an agony to his death, and dies in a manner most of all ignominious and afflictive. Where then is the joy of which he speaks, or which he prays to have bestowed upon us? Are burdens, toils, sorrows, persecutions, crucifixions, joys?
To this I answer that they may, in one view, be such, and in his
case actually were. He was a truly afflicted being, a man of sorrows in the matter
of happiness; that is, in the outward condition, or befalling of his earthly
But it requires, you will say, the admission of serious and indeed
of painful thought in us to begin such a life, the solemn review of our character,
the discovery of our
It is not, I answer, in these things, taken simply by themselves. But receive an illustration: consider, a moment, what labors, cares, self-denials, restrictions of freedom, limitations of present pleasure, all men have to suffer in the way of what is called success; what application the scholar must undergo to win the distinctions of genius, what dangers and privations the hero must encounter to command the honors of victory. Are all these made unhappy because of the losses they are obliged to make? Are they not rather raised in feeling on this very account? If they all gained their precise point, or standing of success, by mere fortune, as by a ticket in some lottery, would the sacrifices and labors, thus avoided, be a clear saving, or addition to their happiness? Contrary to this, it would render their successes almost or quite barren of satisfaction.
But how is this? There are so many hard burdens and painful losses, or sacrifices, and yet they subtract nothing, we say, but rather add to the real amount of enjoyment, in the successes gained by endurance and industry! There appears to be something bordering on contradiction here how shall we solve it?
The solution is easy, viz., that the, sacrifice made is s sacrifice
of happiness, a sacrifice of ease pleasure, comfort of condition; and the gain made
is a gain of something more ennobling and more consciously akin to greatness, a
gain that partakes, as far as any outward success can, the nature of joy. The man
of industry and enterprise, the scholar, the statesman, the hero, says within himself
these are not gifts of fortune to me, they are my conquests; tokens of my patience,
economy, application, fortitude, integrity. In them his soul is elevated from within.
He has a higher consciousness, and a felicity, of course, that partakes, in some
remote degree, of the sublime nature of joy. It is not condition, or things about
him, making him happy, but it is the fire kindling within, the soul awaking to joy
as a creative and victorious energy; and, in this view, it is a faint realization,
on the footing of a mere worldly life, of the immense superiority of joy to happiness.
And it will be found, accordingly, as a matter of fact, that men, even worldly men,
despise and nauseate mere happiness, if we hold the word to its strictest and most
proper meaning. Using it more loosely, they fancy, and will say, that they are after
happiness. Still the instinct of a higher life is in them and they really despise
what they do not conquer. None but the tamest and most abject will sit down to be
nursed by fortune. All that have any real manhood we see cutting their way through
severities and toils, that promise achievement, or a sense of victory. In such a
truth, meeting your eyes on every hand, you may see how it is possible for the repentances,
sacrifices, self-denials, and labors of the christian life, to issue in joy. If
Christ requires you literally to renounce all happiness, all good of condition,
nothing is more clear
Or take an illustration, somewhat different, of the nature of these christian struggles and sacrifices. A great and noble spirit, some archangel or prince of the sky, who is highest in his mold of all the forms of created being, has somehow come under a conscious respect, we will suppose, to condition; fallen out of joy and become a lover of fortune or happiness. He finds that he is looking for good only in objects round him, and in things that imply no dignity of soul, or merit of quality in him; shows and equipages, liveries, social rank, things that please His appetite, or his lusts. He finds that he is living for these, and really makes nothing of any higher good; living as if there were no fountains of good to be opened within; or as if, being only a vegetable, there could be nothing for him better than just to feel what the rain, and sun, and soil of outward condition give him to feel. He blushes at the discovery, and drops his head. And, as he begins to weep, a thought of fire strikes out from his immortality, and he says,—No, it shall not be. God made me, not to be under and subject to things about me, or to ask my happiness at their hands. Rather was it for me to be above all creatures, as I was before them in order; having my joy in the greatness of my spirit, and the victorious freedom and fullness of my life. O, I hear the call of my God! I will arise and be what he commands me to be. These felicities of fortune shall tempt me and humble me no more. I cast them off, I renounce them forever!
In the execution, then, of such a purpose, you see him go to his
work. That he may clear himself of the dominion of things, he gives up all his outward
splendors of
Now, the question I have to ask is this,—when you look upon the sacrifices and struggles of this great being, his losses, repentances, self-mortifications, works and warfares, does it seem to you that he is growing miserable under them? Do you not see how his consciousness rises in elevation, as he clears himself of his humiliating bondage; how his soul finds springs of joy opening in herself, as the good of condition falls off and perishes; how every loss disencumbers him; how every toil, and fasting, and fight, as it clears him more of the notion or thought of happiness, lifts him into a joy as much more ennobled as it is more sovereign? Nay, you can hardly look on, as you see him fight his holy purpose through, without being kindled and exalted in feeling yourself by the sublimity of his warfare.
But, exactly this is the true conception of the sacrifices required in the christian life. They are all required to emancipate the soul and raise it above its servile dependence on condition. They are losses of mere happiness, and for just that reason they are preparations of joy.
Having disposed, in this manner, of what may seem to be facts
opposed, or adverse to the supposition that christian
And here we notice, first of all, the fact that, in a life of
selfishness and sin, there is a well-spring of misery, which is now taken away.
No matter what, or however fortunate, the external condition of an unbelieving,
evil mind, there is yet a disturbance, a bitterness, a sorrow within, too strong
to be mastered by any outward felicity. The whole internal nature is in a state
of discord. The understanding, conscience, will, affections, appetites, imaginations,
make a battle-field of the breast, and the unhappy subject is rasped, irritated,
bittered, filled with fear, shamed by self-reproaches, stung by guilty convictions,
gnawed by remorse, jealous, envious, hateful, lustful, discontented, fretful, living
always under a sky in which some kind of storm is raging. And this discord is the
misery, the hell of sin. O, if men had only some contrary experience of the heavenly
peace, how great this misery would seem. And yet they know it not, they even dare
to imagine, sometimes, that they are happy; just because their experience has brought
no contrasts, to reveal the torment they suffer. Still they break out notwithstanding,
now and then, with impatience, and vent their uneasiness in complaints that show
how poorly they get on. They even testify, in words, that life is a burden. It is
a burden, a much heavier and more galling burden than they know, and will be, even
though they have all gifts of fortune, all honors and applauses crowded upon them,
to make them happy. How much then does it signify, that Christ takes away this burden,
restores this discord. For Christ is the embodied harmony of God, and he that receives
him settles into harmony with him. My peace I
Besides there is a fact more positive,—the soul is such a nature that, no sooner is it set in peace with itself than it becomes an instrument in tune, a living instrument, discoursing heavenly music in its thoughts, and chanting melodies of bliss, even in its dreams. We may even say, apart from all declamation, for such is its nature, that when a soul is in this harmony, no fires of calamity, no pains of outward torment can, for one moment, break the sovereign spell of its joy. It will turn the fires to freshening gales, and the pains to sweet instigations of love and blessing.
Thus much we say, looking only at the soul’s nature, its necessary
distraction under the power of evil, its necessary blessedness in the harmony of
rectitude. But we must ascend to a plane that is higher, and consider, more directly,
what pertains to its religious nature. Little conception have we of its joy, or
capacities of joy, till we see it established in God. The christian soul is one
that has come unto God, and rested in the peace of God. It dares to call him Father,
without any sense of daring. It is in such confidence toward him, that it even partakes
His confidence in Himself. It is strong with his strength, having all its faculties
in a glorious play of energy. It endures hardness
There is also, in the christian type of character, as related
to God, a peculiarity which needs, in this connection, to be mentioned by itself.
It is a character, rooted in the divine love, and in that view is a sovereign bliss
welling up from within; able thus to triumph and sing, independent
Now it is precisely in this love, and nowhere else, that the followers of Christ have actually found so great joy. This is their light, the day-star dawning in their hearts, the renewing of their inward man, their joy of faith, the believing that makes them rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory. By this they become exceeding joyful in all their tribulations. They are raised above the world and conquer it, in the loss they make of it;—dying, and still able to live; chastened, but not killed; sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; poor, yet making many rich; having nothing, yet possessing all things. Their heart is enlarged in the divine love, and is become, in that manner, a fountain of essential, eternal, indestructible, and sovereign joy They realize, in a word, the very testament of Christ,—His joy is in them, and their joy is full.
Mark now some of the inspiring and quickening thoughts that crowd upon us in the subject reviewed. And—
1. Joy is for ail men. It does not depend on circumstance,
2. It is equally evident that the reason why they do not nave
it, is that they do not seek it where it is,—in the receiving of Christ and the
spirit of his life. They go after it in things without, not in character within;
they have all faith in fortune, none in character. So they build palaces, and accumulate
splendors about them, and keep s desert within. And then, since the desert within
can not be made to rejoice in the gewgaws and vanities without, they sigh, they
are very melancholy, the world is a hard world, vanity of vanities, all is vanity.
Let them cease this whimpering about the vanities and come to Christ; let them receive
his joy, and there is an end to the hunger. Take my yoke upon you and learn of me,
and ye shall find rest to your souls. There is nothing hard in what I require. When
I call you to renounce all and take up
3. It is here seen to be important that we hold some rational
and worthy conception of the heavenly felicity. How easy it is for the christian,
who has tasted the true joy of Christ, to let go the idea of joy and slide into
the pursuit only of happiness, or the good of condition. Worldly minds are in this
vein always; they more generally do not even conceive any thing different, and the
whole gravitation therefore of the world, both in its pursuits and opinions, is
in this direction. Heaven itself is thought of as a place, a condition, a kind of
paradise external, which has power to make every body happy. The question of universal
salvation turns on just this point, inquiring whether all souls will be got into
the happy place, not whether they will all break into eternity as carrying the eternal
joy with them. Stated in that manner, the question is even too absurd for debate.
I very much fear too that those teachers who propose religion to us as a problem
only of happiness, calling us to Christ that we may get the rewards of happiness,
the highest happiness. degrade our conceptions, and let us down below the truth.
When we speak of joy, we do not speak of something we are after, but of something
that will come to us, when we are after God and duty. It is a prize unbought, and
is freest, purest in its flow, when it comes unsought. No getting into heaven, as
a place, will compass it. You must
And this, my friends, is the glory of the heavenly state. If you have been thinking of heaven only, as a happy place, looking for it as the reward of some dull, lifeless service, arguing it for all men, as the place where God will show his goodness, by making blessed, loathsome and base souls, cheat yourselves no more by this folly. Consider only whether heaven be in you now. For heaven, as we have seen, is nothing but the joy of a perfectly harmonized being, filled with God and his love. The charter of it is,—He that overcometh shall inherit. It is the victorious energy of righteousness forever established in the soul, And this in us, pure and supreme, fulfills the glorious be quest of Christ our Lord,—that my joy might remain in you, and that your joy may be full. It remains,—it in full.
THERE are some texts of scripture that suffer a much harder lot than any of the martyrs, because their martyrdom is perpetual; and this I think is one of the number. Two classes appear to concur in destroying its dignity; viz., the class who deem it a matter of cant to make any thing of conversion, and the class who make religion itself a matter of cant, by seeing nothing in it but conversion.
My object, however, is not so much to balance these opposites,
or even to recover the passage of scripture that is lost between them; but it is
to clear the way of all christian experience, by showing what it does and how it
proceeds. There are many disciples of our time who, like the Ephesian disciples,
are to be warmly commended for their intended fidelity, and are yet greatly troubled
and depressed by what appears to be a real loss of ground in their piety. Christ
knows their works, approves their patience, commends their withdrawing always from
them that are evil; testifies for them that they have withstood false teachers,
with a wary and circumspect fidelity, made sacrifices, labored and not fainted;
and yet they are compelled to sigh over a certain subsidence of that pure sensibility
and that high inspiration, in which their disciples ship began. The clearness of
that hour is blurred, the
I. The relation of the first love, or the beginning of the christian discipleship, to the subsequent life.
II. The relation of the subsequent life, including its apparent losses, to the beginning.
What we call conversion is not a change distinctly traceable in
the experience of all disciples, though it is and must be a realized fact in all.
There are many that grew up out of their infancy, or childhood, in the grace of
Christ, and remember no time when they began to love him. Even such, however, will
commonly remember a time, when their love to God and divine things became a fact
so fresh, so newly conscious, as to raise a doubt, whether it was not then for the
first time kindled. In other cases there is no doubt of a beginning,—a real, conscious,
definitely remembered beginning; a new turning to God, a fresh-born christian love.
The conversion to Christ is
I. What now is the import of such a state, what its relation to the subsequent life and character?
It is not, I answer, what they assume, who conceive it to be only
a new thought taken up by the subject himself which he may as naturally drop the
next moment, or may go on to cultivate till it is perfected in a character. It is
more, a character begun, a divine fact accomplished, in which the subject is started
on a new career of regenerated liberty in good. I answer again that it is not any
such thing as they assume it to be, who take it as a completed gift, which only
needs to be held fast. It is less, far less
In this flowering state of beauty the soul discovers, and even has in its feeling the sense of perfection, and is thus awakened from within to the great ideal, in which its bliss is to be consummated. The perfection conceived too and set up as the mark of attainment, is something more than a form of grace to be hereafter realized. It is now realized, as far as it can be—the very citizenship of the soul is changed; it has gone over into a new world, and is entered there into new relations. But it has not made acquaintance there; it scarcely knows how it came in, or how to stay, and the whole problem of the life-struggle is, to become established in what has before been initiated.
There is a certain analogy between this state, paradisaically
beautiful, pure, and clean, and that external paradise in which our human history
began. What could be more lovely and blessed, what in a certain formal sense more
perfect than the upright, innocent, all-harmonious childhood
Still the probability that any one will continue in the clearness
and freshness of his first love to God, suffering no apparent loss, falling into
no. disturbance or state of self-accusing doubt, is not great. And where the love
is really not lost, it will commonly need to be conquered again,
A mere glance at the new-born state of love discovers how incomplete
and unreliable it is. Regarded in the mere form of feeling, it is all beauty and
life. A halo of innocence rests upon it, and it seems a fresh made creature, reeking
in the dews of its first morning. But how strange a creature is it to itself,—waking
to the discovery of its existence, bewildered by the mystery of existence. An angel
as it were in feeling, it is yet a child in self-understanding. The sacred and pure
feeling you may plainly see is environed by all manner of defects, weaknesses, and
half-conquered mischiefs, just ready to roll back upon it and stifle its life. The
really sublime feeling of rest and confidence into which it has come, you will see
is backed, a little way off, by causes of unrest, insufficiency, anxiousness and
fear. Questions numberless, scruples, fluctuating moods, bad thoughts, unmanageable
doubts, emotions spent that can not be restored by the will, novelty passing by
and the excitements of novelty vanishing with it,—there is a whole army of secret
invaders close at hand, and you may figure them all as peering in upon the soul,
from their places of ambush, ready to make their assault. And what is worst of all,
the confidence it has in the Spirit of God, and which, evenly held, would bear it
triumphantly through, is itself unpracticed, and is probably underlaid by a suppressed
feeling of panic, lest he should sometime take his leave capriciously. It certainly
would not be strange, if the disciple, beset by so many defects and so
The significance then of the first love as related to the subsequent life, is twofold. In the first place, it is the birth of a new, supernatural, and divine consciousness in the soul, in which it is raised to another plane, and begins to live as from a new point. And secondly, it is so much of a reality, or fact realized, that it initiates, in the subject, experimentally, a conception of that rest, that fullness, and peace, and joyous purity, in which it will be the bliss and greatness of his eternity to be established. In both respects, it is the beginning of the end; and yet, to carry the beginning over to the end, and give it there its due fulfillment, requires a large and varied trial of experience. The office and operation of this trial it now remains to exhibit as proposed.—
II. In a consideration of the subsequent life, as related to the
beginning, orfirst love. The real object of the subsequent life, as a struggle of
experience, is to produce in wisdom what is there begotten as a feeling, or a new
love; and thus to make a fixed state of that which was initiated only as a love.
It is to convert a heavenly impulse into a heavenly habit. It is to raise the christian
childhood into a christian manhood,—to make the first love a second or completed
love; or, what is the same, to fulfill the first
The paradise of first love is a germ, we may conceive, in the soul’s feeling of the paradise to be fulfilled in its wisdom. And when the heavenly in feeling becomes the heavenly in choice, thought, judgment, and habit, so that the whole nature consents and rests in it as a known state, then is it fulfilled or completed. Then is the ideal awakened by the first love become a fact or attainment. See now, briefly, in what manner the experimental life works this fulfillment.
At first the disciple knows, we shall see, very little of himself, and still less how to carry himself so as to meet the new state of divine consciousness, into which he is born. You may look upon him as literally a new, supernatural man, and just as a child has to learn the use of his own body, in handling, tasting, heaving, climbing, falling, running, so the new man learns, in the struggles of practical life, his own new nature,—how to work his thoughts, rule his passions, feed his wants, settle his choices, and clear his affections. Thus, at last, his whole nature becomes limber and quick to his love; so that the life he had in feeling, he can operate, express, fortify, and feed, At first, nothing co-operates in settled harmony with his new life; but, if he is faithful, he will learn how to make every thing in him work with it, and assist the edifying of his soul in love.
A great point with him is the learning how to maintain his new
supernatural relation of sonship and vital access to God. Conscious of any loss,
or apparent separation, he
In the same way, or by the same course of experience, he conceives
more and more perfectly what is the true idea of character. At first, character
is to him a mere feeling or impulse, a frame. Next, perhaps, it becomes a life of
work and self-denial. Next a principle, nothing but a matter of principle. Next
he conceives that it is something outwardly beautiful, a beautiful life. After a
while, he discovers that he has been trying to mold what is spiritual by his mere
natural taste, and forgotten the first love, as the animating life and divine principle
of beauty, And so he draws himself on, by degrees, through all the variant phases
of loss and self-criticism, to a more full and rounded conception of character,
returning at last to that which
A very great point to be gained, by the struggle of experience,
is to learn when one has a right to the state of confidence and rest. At first the
disciple measures himself wholly by his feeling. If feeling changes, as it will
and must at times, then he condemns himself, and condemning himself perhaps without
reason, he breaks his confidence toward God and stifles his peace. Then he is ready
to die to get back his confidence, but not knowing how he lost it, he knows not
where to find it. He had been at his business, and as that occupied his attention,
it took off also somewhat of his feeling: charging this to the account of sin, and
not to any want of experience in turning the mind so as to keep or recover its emotions,
he put his conscience against him where it ought to have been his helper, and fell
into the greater difficulty because he fell into mental confusion. Or perhaps he
had played with his children, or he had talked in society about things not religious,
in order to accommodate the circle he was in: this touched the delicate feeling
of his soul; and, as feeling does not reason or judge, the wound was taken for admitted
sin. On one occasion he did not give heed to some insignificant, or really absurd
scruple. On another he declined some duty which really was no duty, and was better
not to be done. In short, he was continually condemning
By a similar process he learns how to modulate and operate his
will. On one side his soul was in the divine love. On the other he had his will.
But, how to work his will so as perfectly to suit his love, he at first did not
know. He accordingly took his love into the care of his will; for assuredly he must
do all that is possible to keep it alive. He thus deranged all right order and health
within by his violent superintendence, battered down the joy he wished to keep,
and could not understand what he should do more; for, as yet, all he had done seemed
to be killing his love. He had not learned that love flows down only from God, who
is its object, and can not be manufactured within ourselves. But he discovers finally
that it was first kindled by losing, for the time, his will. Understanding now that
he is to lose his will in God’s will, and abandon himself wholly to God, to rest
in him and receive of his fullness; finding too that will is only a form of self-seeking,
His thinking power undergoes a similar discipline. At first, he doubted much, doubted whether he had a right to doubt, and whether he did doubt, and yet more how to get rid of his doubts. The clatter of his old, disordered, thinking nature began, ere long, to drown his love by the perpetual noise it made; old associations led in trains of evil suggestion, which, like armies of wrath, overran and desolated his soul. He attacked every one of them in turn and that kept him thinking of the base things he wanted to forget. He discovers, at length, that all he can do is to fill his capacity with something better,—his mind with truth, his heart with God and faith, his hands with duty, and all with the holy enthusiasm of christian hope; and then, since there is no room left for idle fancies and vain imaginations to enter, he is free, the torments of evil suggestion are shut away. The courses and currents of the soul are now cleared, and his thoughts, like couriers sent up through the empyrean, will return bringing visions of God and divine beauty to waken the pure first love and kindle its joyful flames.
At first he had a very perplexing war with his motives. He feared
that his motive was selfish, and then he feared
Thus far it is supposed, in all the illustrations given, that
the new love kindled by the Spirit has to maintain itself, in company with great
personal defects in the subject. These defects are a constant tendency in him to
defections that correspond. Whenever he yields to them, he suffers a loss which
is, in that case, a guilty or blameable loss. But he will sometimes be reduced or
let down, simply because, or principally because, he has too little skill or insight
to avoid it. And this reduction will sometimes go so far as to be a kind of subsidence
out of the supernatural into the natural state. He is confused and lost, and his
very love appears to be quite dead. God is hidden, as it were, behind a veil, and
can not be found. Duties kept up, as by the Ephesians, without liberty, yield no
You perceive, in this review, how every thing in the subsequent life of the disciple is designed of God to fulfill the first love. A great part of the struggle which we call experience, appears to operate exactly the ether way; to confuse and stifle the first fire of the spirit. Still the process of God is contrived to bring us round, at last, to the simple state which we embraced, in feeling, and help us to embrace it in wisdom. Then the first love fills the whole nature, and the divine beauty of the child is perfected in the divine beauty of a vigorous and victorious manhood The beginning is the beginning of the end, the end the child and fruit of the beginning.
I am well aware that some will be dissatisfied with a view of
the christian life that appears to anticipate so many turns and phases, and so much
of losing experience. They will think it better to take a key-note that is lower,
and start upon a level that can be maintained. Thus, if. we say nothing of a conversion,
or the high experience involved in that term, and commence a course of devout observances
and church formalities; or if, taking a different method, we set ourselves to a
careful and diligent self-culture, praying and worshipping as a part of the process,
and for the sake of the effect, noting our defects, chastening our passions, cherishing
our religious tastes and sentiments; then, in one or the other of these methods,
we may go steadily on, it will be imagined, clear of all fluctuations, maintaining
an even, respectable, and dignified piety. Yes, undoubtedly we may, and that for
the very reason that we have no first love to lose, no fervors to be abated, and,
in fact, no divine birth or experience at all. The piety commended is, in either
case, a kind of stalagmite piety, built
The fact then of a truly first love, the grand christian fact of a spiritual conversion or regeneration, is no way obscured by the losing experiences that so often follow. On the contrary, its evidence is rather augmented by these irregularities and seeming defections. And, if it be more than nothing, then it is, of all mortal experiences, the chief; a change mysterious, tremendous, luminous, joyful, fearful, every thing which a first contact of acquaintance with God can make it.
Where the transition to this state of divine consciousness, from
a merely self-conscious life under sin, is inartificially made, and distorted by
no mixtures of tumult from the subject’s own eagerness, it is, in the birth, a kind
of celestial state, like that of the glorified; clear, clean, peaceful, and full,
wanting nothing but what, for the time, it does not know it wants;—the settled confidence,
the practically instructed wisdom, the established and tried character, of the glorified.
And yet all the better is it, imparadised in this glory, this first love, this regenerative
life, this inward lifting of the soul’s order, that a prize so transcendent is still,
in a sense, to be won or fought out and gained as a victory. For life has now a
meaning, and its work is great; as great, in fact, in the humblest walks and affairs
as in the highest. And the more difficulties one has to encounter, within and without,
the more significant and the higher in inspiration his life will be. The very troubles
that others look on with pity, as if he had taken
This war too is one, my brethren, as I verily believe, that, in
all that is bitterest and most painful, may be effectually carried and ended without
waiting for the end of your life. The bitterness and painfulness are, in fact, nowhere,
except in the losing or apparently losing experiences of which I have been speaking,
and these may assuredly be surmounted. There is a standing above all sense of loss,
a peace of God that can not be shaken, a first love made second and final, into
which you may come soon, if you are faithful, and in which you may abide. The doctrine
of Wesley and his followers may be exaggerated, or partially misconceived; I think
it is. They appear to hold that there is a kind of second conversion, higher than
the first, which they imagine is complete sanctification. But it is, if I am right,
neither more nor less than the point of the first love reached again, with the advantage
of much wisdom or self-understanding brought back with it. The disciple is, for
that reason, stronger, wider in volume, more able to abide or stand fast. But, if
he is not strong enough, he will very certainly take another circuit, and perhaps
another. Enough that there is hope,—that there is a state of profound liberty, assurance,
and peace, which you may attain to, and in which you may abide. Indeed, the original
love itself was but a foretaste in feeling, of that which you may achieve in wisdom;
and you are to set that mark
If, then, you have now become entangled, discouraged, darkened,—if
you seem to have quite given over,—blame yourself, not in your infirmity, but only
in your sin. See, if possible, exactly what and where your blame is, and let your
repentances and confessions exactly cover it. Probably you did not fall consentingly,
but you seem to have been thrown by your own distracted, half illuminated mind.
You struggled hard, and with so great self-exertion, not unlikely, that you fell
out of faith, and were even floored by your struggles themselves. You fanned the
love so violently that you rather blew out than kindled the flame. The harder you
lifted, the deeper in mire you sunk. At last, you gave over with a sigh, and fell
back as one quite spent. And now, it may be that you even look upon the whole subject
of spiritual religion with a kind of dread. It wears a painful and distasteful look.
And yet there is one bright spot in the retrospect; viz., the gentle, ingenuous,
heavenly feeling, the peace, the cleanness, the fullness of heart, the liberty in
God and his love, the luminous, inward glory; and, if you could see nothing else
but this, how attractive the remembered blessedness would be; the more attractive
for the emptiness you have since experienced, and the general distaste of the world,
which so often afflicts you. Nay, with all the disrespect you may possibly put on
this former experience, it is precisely this and the opening of your higher nature
in it, that makes a great part of the distaste you now suffer toward the world.
What a call then have you in this joy
THIS hope, as the apostle is speaking, is a hope to be with Christ; and as Christ is, in highest verity, the manifestation of God who is infinite purity, it is a hope to be concomitant with purity, the purity of Christ and of God; which again is but a hope of being entered into, and perfectly answerable to, the purity of God. And then it follows, yet again, that every man that hath this hope in him will be purifying himself here on earth, even according to the purity of Christ with whom he hopes to be.
Accordingly the subject raised for our consideration is purity of soul, as the aim of spiritual redemption, and the legitimate issue of Christian experience. Let us see—
I. If we can form a fit conception of what purity is. Ii we refer to examples, it is the character of angels and of God—the simplicity, the unstained excellence, the undimmed radiance, the spotless beauty. Or it is God as represented here on earth, in the sinless and perfect life of Christ; his superiority to sense and passion and the opinions of the world, his simple devotion to truth, his unambitious goodness, his holy, harmless, undefiled life, as being with, yet separate from sinners.
If we go to analogy, purity is, in character, what transparency
Or if we describe purity by reference to contrasts, then it is a character opposite to all sin, and so to most of what we see in the corrupted character of mankind. It is innocent, just as man is not. It is incorrupt as opposed to passion, self-seeking, foul imaginations, base desires, enslaved affections, a bad conscience and turbid currents of thought. it is the innocence of infancy without the stain—that innocence matured into the spotless, positive and eternally established holiness of a responsible manhood. It is man lifted up out of the mires of sin, washed as a spirit into the clean white love and righteousness of his redeemer, and so purged of himself as to be man, without any thing of the sordid and defiled character of a sinner.
Or we may set forth the idea of purity, under a reference to the
modes of causes. In the natural world, as for example in the heavens, causes act
in a manner that is unconfused and regular. All things proceed according to their
law. Hence the purity of the firmament. In the world of causes, it is the scientific
ideal of purity that events transpire normally, according to the constitutive order
and original law of the creation. But as soon as a soul transgresses, it breaks
out of order, and its whole internal working becomes mixed, confused, tumultuous,
Or finally, we may describe purity absolutely as it is when viewed
in its own positive quality. And here it is chastity of soul, that state of the
spiritual nature in which it is seen to have no contacts, or affinities, but such
as fall within the circle of unforbidden joy and uncorrupted pleasure. It is unsensual,
superior to the dominion of passion, living in the pleasures of the mind and of
goodness, devoted in its virgin love, to the converse of truth only, and inaccessible
to evil. Absolute purity is untemptible, as in God. Adam therefore was never in
absolute purity. His purity was more negative than positive. He was innocent, he
had not sinned; but for want of an established positive purity, he was ready to
be tempted and open to temptation. But if he is now among the glorified, he is in
absolute purity because he is untemptible. Real chastity is that which can not know
temptation, and this is what we mean by absolute purity. It puts the soul as truly
asunder and apart from the reach of evil suggestion
In all these methods we make so many distinct approaches to the true idea of spiritual purity. Distant as the character is from any thing we know in this sad world of defilement and corrupted life, still it is the aim and purpose of Christian redemption, as I now proceed—
II. To show, to raise us up into the state of complete purity before God. The call of the word is,—Come now and let us reason together, saith the Lord, though your sins be as scarlet they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson they shall be as wool. And it is curious, to observe, when we read the scripture, what an apparatus of cleansing God appears to have set in array for the purification of souls;—sprinklings, washings, baptisms of water and, what are more searching and more terribly energetic purifiers, baptisms of fire; fierce meltings also as of silver in the refiner’s crucible; purifyings of the flesh and purgings of the conscience; lustrations of blood, even of Christ’s own blood; washings of the word, and washings of regeneration by the Holy Ghost. It would seem, on looking at the manifold array of cleansing elements, applications, gifts and sacraments, as if God had undertaken it as the great object and crowning mercy of his reign, to effect a solemn purgation of the world. We seem, as we read, to see him summoning up all angels and ministers of his will and instruments of his power, and sending them out in commission to cleanse the sin of the world, or even to wash the defiled planet itself into purity.
Or, if we observe more directly what is said concerning the particular
object of Christ’s mission as a work of
But a question rises here of great practical significance, viz., whether, by a due improvement of the means offered in Christ, or by any possible faith in him, it is given us to attain to a state which can fitly be called purity, or which is to itself a state consciously pure?
To this, I answer both yes and no. There may be a Christian purity
that is related to the soul as investiture, or as a condition superinduced, which
is not of it, or in it, as pertaining to its own quality, or to the cast of its
own habit. Christ, in other words, may be so completely put on that, the whole consciousness
may be of him, and all the motions of sins give way to the dominating efficacy of
his harmonious and perfect mind; when, at the same time, the subject viewed in himself,
or in the contents and modes of causes in his own personality, is disordered, broken,
mixed, chaotic, and widely distant still from real purity. The point may be illustrated
by a supposition. Let a man habitually narrow and mean in his dispositions, fall
into
Now Christ, in his glorious and divine purity, is that better
nature which has power, if we believe in him with a total all-subjecting faith,
to invest us with a complete consciousness of purity, to bring every thought into
captivity to his own incorruptible order and chastity. He is such a cause upon us,
when so received, that all our mixed modes of causes, will be subjected to the interior
chime of
The answer thus given to the question raised agrees at all points,
it will be seen, with the scripture, and particularly with what is taught by our
apostle in close connection with my text. On one side of it he writes,—If we say
that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us; for, however
deep we are in our union to Christ, or however completely we are invested in his
purity, we are not in ourselves restored, in the same degree, to the character of
it. We are in a kind of anticipative purity, which is becoming personal to us and
a fixed habit; we are living to be pure, as Christ is; but, regarded as apart from
him, the work is only initiated,—we still have sin, we are broken, disordered, and
corrupt. For, as long as we abide in Christ, our action is from him, not from our
own corrupt and broken nature; exactly as the apostle
The result, consequently, is that, being thus held up by the attachment to him of Christ’s affinities, he is growing like him,—pure as he is pure. The diseased qualities gendered in him, heretofore, are being gradually purged away. His passions are being tamed to order and refined to God’s pure dominion. His imaginations settle into the truth, and grow healthy and clear. The fashion of this world is not only broken, as it was in the first moment of God’s discovery to his heart, but the memories of it fade, the diseased longings are healed, so that all his old affinities, in this direction, will at last be extirpated. All the mixed causes involved in sin or spiritual impurity will fall into chime, and all the foul currents of evil suggestion be cleared to a transparent flow. The mind will grow regular and simple in its action, ceasing to be vexed, as it was, by noxious mixtures of fear, selfishness, doubt, and temptation. And so all the inbred corruptions of its bad state—that is, those which remain over as effects of sin, after sin as a voluntary life is forsaken—will be gradually purged away.
To illustrate how far it is possible for this purifying work to
go on in the present life, I will simply say that the very currents of thought,
as it is propagated in the mind, may become so purified that, when the will does
not interfere, and the mind is allowed, for an hour, to run in its own way, without
hindrance, one thing suggesting another as in revery, there may yet be no evil,
wicked, or foul suggestion thrust into it. Or in the state of sleep, where the
Still the body is dead because of sin. Disease, corruption, so far, at least, remain, and therefore it doth not yet appear what we shall be. Perfect, absolute purity it is hardly supposable may be realized here. Enough to know that there need be no limit to the process, while life remains, and that, when life ends, it may be gloriously approximated to the state of completeness.
Or perhaps some one of my audience may just here raise a doubt
from the other side,—whether absolute purity can ever be restored. Can the soul’s
chastity, once lost, ever be recovered? Having once sinned, can it ever become pure
in the absolute and perfect sense, as if it had not? Let no such doubt be harbored.
We must not be too much under the power of social impressions. If society pronounces
on the irredeemable loss of fallen chastity, society has no mercy; and pride, as
well as truth, enters into its relentless judgments. Be this as it may, God has
undertaken to redeem the fall of sin, and restore the soul to purity as a condition
of absolute holiness. Browned by
Having this view of Christ and his gospel, as the plan of God for restoring men to a complete spiritual purity; seeing that he invites us to this, gives us means and aids to realize this, and yields to them that truly desire it a hope so high as this, I proceed—
III. To inquire in what manner we may promote our advancement toward the state of purity, and finally have it in complete realization.
And, first of all, we must set our heart upon it. We must learn
to conceive the beauty, and glory, and the essential beatitude of a pure state.
We must see the degradation, realize the bitterness, confusion, disorder, instability,
and conflict of a mixed state, where all the causes of internal action are thrown
out of God’s original law. We must learn to conceive, on the other hand, and what
can
One of your early discoveries will be, that the way to attain
to purity of soul is, not to forsake the world and retire from it. This was the
error that originally carried men and women into remote deserts and caves, and finally
built up monasteries and instituted vows of single life, or
St. Francis de Sales had been able, in his knowledge of the cloistered
men and the cloistered life, to see how necessary it is for the soul to be aired
in the outward exposures of the world, and, if we do net stop to question the facts
of his illustrations, no one has spoken of this necessity with greater force and
beauty of conception. “Many persons believe,” he says, “that, as no beast dares
taste the seed of the herb Palma Christi, so no man ought to aspire to the palm
of Christian piety, as long as he lives in the bustle of temporal affairs. Now,
to such I shall prove that, as the mother-pearl fish lives in the sea without receiving
a drop of salt water; and as, toward the Chelidonian islands, springs of fresh water
may be found in the midst of the sea; and as the fire-fly passes through the flames,
without burning its wings; so a vigorous and resolute
Having this determined, that he who will purify himself as Christ is pure must live in the world, then one thing more is needed, viz., that we live in Christ, and seek to be as closely and intimately one with him as possible. And this includes more things than the time will suffer me to name.
First, a willingness wholly to cease from the old man, as corrupt, in order that a completely new man from Christ may be formed in you; for, if you will halve the sacrifice and retain what portion is safe or convenient of the old life of nature, it is no such thing as purity that you propose, nothing but a baptizing of mixture and defilement. I call it a new man that you want, after the scripture method, because the character is the man more truly than any thing else, and there is no purity but to be completely new. Therefore the old must as completely die,—which it will not, if we secretly nourish and cling to it.
Secondly, the life must be determined implicitly by the faith
of Christ. Purifying their hearts by faith, says an
Again, passing over many other particulars, I will simply draw
your minds a little closer to the text by observing, as included in the general
idea of living in Christ, a looking forward to him in his exalted state, and an
habitual converse with him there. He that hath this hope in him, says the text;—understanding
that the hope of being with Christ, and seeing him as he is, does of itself draw
the soul toward his purity. I say not that we are to be looking away to heaven,
as being disgusted with the world; much less to be praising heaven’s adorable purity
in high words of contrast, as if to excuse or atone for the lack of all purity here.
I only say that we are to be much in the meditation of Christ as glorified, surrounded
with the glorified; to let our mind be hallowed by its pure converse and the themes
in which it dwells; to live in the anticipation of what is most pure in the universe,
as being what we most love and long for in the universe; and so we are to be raised
by our longings, and purified with Christ by the hopes we rest upon his person.
This hope, this reaching
It only remains to just name—
IV. Some of the signs by which our growth in purity may be known. This I will do in the briefest manner possible, and conclude.
Fastidiousness then, I will first of all caution you, is not any evidence of purity, but the contrary. A fastidious character is one that shows, by excess of delicacy, a real defect and loss of it. It is too delicate to be practical, simply because it is practically indelicate and corrupt Hence, in religion, it is a great principle that, to the pure all things are pure. When any disciple, therefore, calls it purity to be shocked or repelled by the scripture names of sins, or the practical works of mercy needed in a world of shame and defilement, he reveals therein a bad imagination and a mind that is itself defiled. No, the true signs of purity are these:—
That we abide in the conscious light of God, while living in a world of defilement, and know him as a presence manifested in the soul. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. Purity sees God.
A good conscience signifies the same; for the conscience, like the eye, is troubled by any speck of defilement and wrong that falls into it.
A growing sensibility to sin signifies the same; for, if
If you are more able to be singular and think less of the opinions of men, not in a scornful way but in love, that again shows that the world’s law is losing its power over you, and your devotion to God is growing more single and true.
Do you find that passion is submitting itself to the gentle reign of God within you, losing its heat and fierceness, and becoming tamed under the sweet dominion of christian love? That again is the growth of purity.
The discovery that your imagination ceases to revel in images of wrong, revenge, and lust, becoming at once more quiet and more clear, conceiving God and Christ and unseen worlds of purity, with greater distinctness and sublimity, and roving, as by a divine instinct, among the eternal verities and transcendent glories of a perfect state, asking there to be employed and nowhere else with so great zest,—this also shows that a high and sacred affinity for what is pure is growing stronger and more clear within you.
So, again, if your feeling reaches after heaven, and your longings are thitherward, if you love and long for it because chiefly of its purity; loosened from this world not by your wearinesses and disgusts, which all men suffer, but by the positive affinities of your heart for what is best and purest above,—this also is a powerful token of growing purification.
Do you also find that your thoughts, when freest and most unrestrained, are yet growing simple, orderly, right, and true, interrupted less and less frequently by bad or wicked suggestion?—then you have in this a most convincing and conclusive proof, that you are being delivered of the mixtures and defilements of a corrupted nature.
Or, again, it is a yet more simple sign, and one that in eludes, in a manner, all others, if you find that you are deeper and deeper in the love of Christ. For, if Christ spreads himself over your being, and you begin to know nothing else and want nothing else; if you love him for his character, as the only perfect, and cleave to his sinless life, as the holiest, and loveliest, and grandest miracle of the earth; if words begin to faint when you speak of him, and all that can be said or thought looks cheap and low, compared with what he is; then it is most certain that you are growing in purity; for the growing enlargement of your apprehensions of Christ is the result of a growing purity, and will be also the cause of a purity more perfect still.
And now, my brethren, I have many things to say, but I only ask
whether you perceive, by signs like these, that you are growing pure? That you believe
yourselves to be disciples we know,—that is easy; but I ask you here seriously,
before God, whether you find that your religion has any purifying power? Is it a
baptism? Is it a finer’s fire? Does it move you to cry,—Create in me a clean heart,
O, God? True piety, brethren, is a power, and purity is the result;—a result, as
I have shown you, that may be indefinitely realized, even here on earth. Is it realized
in you by the signs I have named? You hope in Christ that you shall be with him,
and see him as he is. O, it is well, the most elevating hope, the most inspiring
and celestial thought, which ever fell into the soul of a mortal! I only ask if
you see in your life, in the practical bent of your works, that this hope has verity
enough in you to take hold of your springs of action, and bring you into a true
endeavor after Christ’s purity? What an opinion then will you be seen to have of
the soul when
But how little signifies this discourse of purity to very many of my hearers! I well understand the vacant, dreamy sound of such discourses before the conception of purity, and the sense of it gotten out of the want and out of Christ the supply, is opened to the soul. What is there so great in purity? who, that is untouched by God’s gracious quickening, cares enough for purity to give the word an earnest significance? It has, of course, no greatness to us, because the fact itself is a lost fact. We can not think it, because it is really gone out of the mind’s reach and knowledge. But, O, when once the heart feels a touch of its divinity, then a yearning is wakened, then the greatest and sublimest thing for a mortal is the unmixed life! a soul established in the eternal chastity of truth and goodness! O, God! who of this people shall ever know what it is? I can not tell them; thou alone canst breathe into them, and set in their living apprehension a truth so impossible for any mere words to express!
This only I can testify, as God has given me words, (and I pray God to show you their meaning,) that the heaven we are sent here to prepare, is a most pure world, open only to the pure;—And there shall, in nowise, enter into it any thing that defileth, neither whatsoever worketh abomination; or maketh a lie, but they that are written in the Lamb’s book of life.
A READINESS to do some great thing is not peculiar to Naaman the Syrian. There are many Christians who can never find a place large enough to do their duty. They must needs strain after great changes, and their works must utter themselves by a loud report. Any reform in society, short of a revolution, any improvement in character, less radical than that of conversion, is too faint a work, in their view, to be much valued. Nor is it merely ambition, but often it is a truly christian zeal, guarded by no sufficient views of the less imposing matters of life, which betrays men into such impressions. If there be any thing, in fact, wherein the views of God and the impressions of men are apt to be at total variance, it is in respect to the solemnity and importance of ordinary duties. The hurtfulness of mistake here, is of course very great. Trying always to do great things, to have extraordinary occasions every day, or to produce extraordinary changes, when small ones are quite as much needed, ends, of course, in defeat and dissipation. It produces a sort of religion in the gross, which is no religion in particular. My text leads me to speak—
Of the importance of living to God on common occasions and in small things.
He that is faithful in that which is least, says the Saviour, is faithful also in much; and he that is unjust in the least, is unjust also in much. This was a favorite sentiment with him. In his sermon on the mount, it was thus expressed—Whosoever, therefore, shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven; but whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven. And when he rebuked the Pharisees, in their tything of mint, anise, and cummin, he was careful to speak very guardedly—These things ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone. It will instruct us in prosecuting this subject—
1. To notice how little we know concerning the relative importance
of events and duties. We use the terms great and small in speaking
of actions, occasions, plans, and duties, only in reference to the mere outward
look and first impression. Some of the most latent agents and mean looking substances
in nature, are yet the most operative; but yet, when we speak of natural objects,
we call them great or small, not according to their operativeness, but according
to size, count, report, or show. So it comes to pass, when we are classing actions,
duties, or occasions, that we call a certain class great and another small, when
really the latter are many fold more important and influential than the former.
We may suppose, for illustration, two transactions in business, as different in
their nominal amount as a million of dollars and a single dollar. The former we
call a large transaction, the latter a small one.
We are generally ignorant of the real significance of events,
which we think we understand. Almost every person can recollect one or more instances,
where the whole after-current of his life was turned by some single word, or some
incident so trivial as scarcely to fix his notice at the time. On the other hand,
many great crises of danger, many high and stirring occasions, in which, at the
time, his total being was absorbed, have passed by, leaving no trace of effect on
his permanent interests, and are well nigh vanished from his memory. The conversation
of the stage-coach is often preparing results, which the solemn assembly and the
most imposing and eloquent rites will fail to produce. What countryman, knowing
the dairyman’s daughter, could have suspected that she was living to a mightier
purpose and result, than almost any person in the church of God, however eminent?
The outward of occasions and duties is, in fact, almost no index of their
2. It is to be observed, that even as the world judges, small things constitute almost the whole of life. The great days of the year, for example, are few, and when they come, they seldom bring any thing great to us. And the matter of all common days is made up of little things, or ordinary and stale transactions. Scarcely once in a year does any thing really remarkable befall us. If I were to begin and give an inventory of the things you do in any single day, your muscular motions, each of which is accomplished by a separate act of will, the objects you see, the words you utter, the contrivances you frame, your thoughts, passions, gratifications, and trials, many of you would not be able to hear it recited with sobriety. But three hundred and sixty-five such days make up a year, and a year is a twentieth, fiftieth, or seventieth part of your life. And thus, with the exception of some few striking passages, or great and critical occasions, perhaps not more than five or six in all, your life is made up of common, and as men are wont to judge, unimportant things. But yet, at the end, you have done up an amazing work, and fixed an amazing result. You stand at the bar of God, and look back on a life made up of small things—but yet a life, how momentous, for good or evil!
3. It very much exalts, as well as sanctions, the view I am advancing,
that God is so observant of small things. He upholds the sparrow’s wing, clothes
the lily with his own beautifying hand, and numbers the hairs of his children He
holds the balancings of the clouds. He maketh
The works of Christ are, if possible, a still brighter illustration
of the same truth. Notwithstanding the vast stretch and compass of the work of redemption,
it is a work of the most humble detail in its style of execution. The Saviour could
have preached a sermon on the mount every morning. Each night he could have stilled
the sea, before his astonished disciples, and shown the conscious waves lulling
into peace under his feet. He could have transfigured himself before Pilate and
the astonished multitudes of the temple. He could have made visible ascensions in
the noon of every day, and revealed his form standing in the sun, like the angel
of the apocalypse. But this was not his mind. The incidents of which his work is
principally made up, are, humanly speaking, very humble and unpretending. The most
faithful pastor in the world was never able, in any degree, to approach the Saviour,
in the lowliness of his manner and his attention to humble things. His teachings
were in retired places, and his illustrations drawn from ordinary affairs. If the
finger of faith touched him in the crowd, he knew the touch and distinguished also
the faith. He reproved the ambitious housewifery of an humble woman. After he had
healed a poor being, blind from his birth—a work transcending all but divine power—he
returned and sought him out, as the most humble Sabbath-school teacher might have
done; and when he had found him, cast out and persecuted by men, he taught him privately
the highest secrets of his Messiahship. When the world around hung darkened in sympathy
with his cross, and the earth was shaking with
4. It is a fact of history and of observation, that all efficient
men, while they have been men of comprehension, have also been men of detail. I
wish it were possible to produce as high an example of this two-fold character among
the servants of God and benevolence in these times, as we have in that fiery prodigy
of war and conquest, who, in the beginning of the present century, desolated Europe.
Napoleon was the most effective man in modern times—some will say of all times.
The secret of his character was, that while his plans were more vast, more various,
and, of course, more difficult than those of other men, he had the talent, at the
same time, to fill them up with perfect promptness and precision, in every particular
of execution. His vast and daring plans would have been visionary in any other man;
but with him every vision flew
5. It is to be observed, that there is more of real piety in adorning
one small than one great occasion. This may seem paradoxical, but what I intend
will be seen by one or two illustrations. I have spoken of the minuteness of God’s
works. When I regard the eternal God as engaged in polishing an atom, or elaborating
the functions of a mote invisible to the eye, what evidence do I there receive of
his desire to perfect his works! No gross and mighty world, however plausibly shaped,
would yield a hundredth part the intensity of evidence. An illustration from human
things will present a closer parallel. It is perfectly well understood, or if not,
it should be, that almost any husband would leap into the sea, or rush into a burning
edifice to rescue a perishing wife. But to anticipate the convenience or happiness
of a wife in some small matter
My brethren, this piety which is faithful in that which is least,
is really a more difficult piety than that which triumphs and glares on high occasions.
Our judgments are apt to be dazzled by a vain admiration of the more public attempts
and the more imposing manifestations of occasional zeal. It requires less piety,
I verily believe, to be a martyr for Christ, than it does to love a powerless enemy;
or to look upon the success of a rival without envy; or even to maintain a perfect
and guileless integrity in the common transactions of life. Precisely this, in fact,
is the lesson which history teaches. How many, alas! of those who have died in the
manner of martyrdom, manifestly sought that distinction, and brought it on themselves
6. The importance of living to God, in ordinary and small things,
is seen, in the fact that character, which is the end of religion, is in its very
nature a growth. Conversion is a great change; old things are passed away,
The wonderful fortunes of Joseph seem, at first, to have fallen
suddenly upon him, and altogether by a miracle. But a closer attention to his history
will show you that he rose only by a gradual progress, and by the natural power
of his virtues. The astonishing art he had of winning the confidence of others had,
after all, no magic in it save the magic of goodness; and God assisted him, only
as he assists other good men. The growth of his fortunes was the shadow only of
his growth in character. By his assiduity, he made every thing prosper; and by his
good faith, he won the confidence, first of Potiphar, then of the keeper of the
prison, then of Pharaoh himself. And so he grew
Peter, too, after he had flourished so vauntingly with his sword, entered on a growing and faithful life. From an ignorant fisherman, he became a skillful writer, a finished Christian, and a teacher of faithful living, in the common offices of life. He occupied his great apostleship in exhorting subjects to obey the ordinances of governors for the Lord’s sake; servants to be subject to their masters; wives to study such a carriage as would win their unbelieving husbands; and husbands to give honor to the wife, as being heirs together of the grace of life. But in a manner to comprehend every thing good, he said:—Giving all diligence (this is the true notion of Christian excellence)—giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue, to virtue knowledge, to knowledge temperance, to temperance patience, to patience godliness, to godliness brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness charity. The impression is unavoidable, that he now regarded religion, not as a sword fight, but as a growth of holy character, kept up by all diligence in the walks of life.
Every good example in the word of God, is an illustration of the same truth. To finish a character on a sudden, or by any but ordinary duties, carefully and piously done, by a mere religion of Sundays and birth-days, and revivals and contributions, and orthodoxies, and public reforms, is nowhere undertaken. They watered the plant in secret, trained it up at family altars, strengthened it in the exposures of business, till it became a beautiful and heavenly growth, and ready, with all its blooming fruit, to adorn the paradise of God.
It ought also to be noticed, under this head, that all the
These illustrations of the importance of living to God
1. Private Christians are here instructed in the true method of Christian progress and usefulness. It is a first truth with you all, I doubt not, brethren, that divine aid and intercourse are your only strength and reliance. You know, too well, the infirmity of your best purposes and endeavors. to hope for any thing but defeat, without the Spirit of God dwelling in you and superintending your warfare. In what manner you may secure this divine indwelling permanently is here made plain. It is not by attempts above your capacity, or by the invention of great and extraordinary occasions; but it is by living unto God daily. If you feel the necessity of making spiritual attainments, of growing in holiness; if you think as little of mere starts and explosions in religious zeal as they deserve, and as much of growths, habits, and purified affections as God does, you will have a delightful work to prosecute in the midst of all your ordinary cares and employments, and you will have the inward witness of divine communion ever vouchsafed you. The sins, by which God’s Spirit is ordinarily grieved, are the sins of small things—laxities in keeping the temper, slight neglects of duty, lightness, sharpness of dealing. If it is your habit to walk with God in the humblest occupations of your days, it is very nearly certain that you will be filled with the Spirit always.
If it be a question with you, how to overcome bad and pernicious
habits, the mode is here before you. The reason why those who are converted to Christ,
often make so
If the question be, in what manner you may grow in knowledge and intellectual strength, the answer is readily given. You can do it by no means save that of pertinacious, untiring application. No one becomes a Christian who can not by the cultivation of thought, and by acquiring a well-discriminated knowledge of the scriptures, make himself a gift of four fold, and perhaps even an hundred fold value to the church. This he can do by industry, by improving small opportunities, and, not least, by endeavoring to realize the principles and the beauty of Christ in all his daily conduct. In this point of view, religion is cultivation itself, and that of the noblest kind. And never does it truly justify its nature, except when it is seen elevating the mind, the manners, the whole moral dignity of the subject.
Why is it that a certain class of men, who never thrust themselves
on public observation, by any very signal acts, do yet attain to a very commanding
influence, and leave a deep and lasting impression on the world? They are the men
who thrive by constancy and by means of small advances, just as others do who thrive
in wealth. They live to God in the common doings of their daily life, as well
I often hear mentioned, by the Christians of our city, the name
of a certain godly man, who has been dead many years; and he is always spoken of
with so much respectfulness and affection, that I, a stranger of another generation,
feel his power, and the sound of his name refreshes me. That man was one who lived
to God in small things. I know this, not by any description which has thus set forth
his character, but from the very respect and homage with which he is named. Virtually,
he still lives among us, and the face of his goodness shines upon all our Christian
labors. And is it not a delightful aspect of the Christian faith, that it opens
so sure a prospect of doing good, on all who are in humble condition, or whose talents
are too feeble to act in the more public spheres of enterprise and duty? Such are
called to act by their simple goodness more than others are; and who has not felt
the possibility that such, when faithful, do actually discharge a calling, the more
exalted, because of its unmixed nature? If there were none of these unpretending
but beautiful examples, blooming in depression, sweetening affliction by their Christian
patience, adorning poverty by their high integrity, and dying in the Christian heroism
of faith,—if, I say, there were no such examples making their latent impressions
in the public mind, of the dignity and truth of the gospel, who shall prove that
our great men, who are supposed to accomplish so much by their eloquence, their
notable sacrifices and far-reaching plans, would not utterly fail in them? However
this may be, we have reason enough, all of us, for living to God in every sphere
of
2. Our subject enables us to offer some useful suggestions, concerning the manner in which churches may be made to prosper.
First of all, brethren, you will have a care to maintain your purity and your honor, by the exercise of a sound discipline. And here you will be faithful in that which is least. You will not wait until a crisis comes, or a flagrant case arises, where the hand of extermination is needed. That is often a very cruel discipline, rather than one of brotherly love. Nothing, of course, should be done in a meddlesome spirit; for this would be more mischievous than neglect. But small things will yet be watched, the first gentle declinings noted and faithfully but kindly reproved. Your church should be like a family, not waiting till the ruin of a member is complete and irremediable, but acting preventively. This would be a healthy discipline, and it is the only sort, I am persuaded, on which God will ever smile.
The same spirit of watchfulness and attention is necessary to all the solid interests of your church. It is not enough that you attempt to bless it occasionally by some act of generosity or some fit of exertion. Your brethren, suffering from injustice or evil report, must have your faithful sympathy; such as are struggling with adversity must have your aid; when it is possible, the more h amble and private exercises of your church must be attended.
The impression can not be too deeply fixed, that a church must
grow chiefly by its industry and the personal growth of its members. Some churches
seem to feel that,
One of the best securities for the growth and prosperity of a
church, is to be sought in a faithful exhibition of religion in families. Here is
a law of increase, which God has incorporated in his church, and by which he designs
to give it strength and encouragement. But why is it—I ask the question with grief
and pain—why is it that so many children, so many apprentices and servants are seen
to grow up, or to live many years in Christian families, without any regard, or
even respect for religion? It is because their parents, guardians, or masters have
that sort of piety which can flourish only like Peter’s sword, on great occasions.
Then, perhaps, they are exceedingly full of piety, and put forth many awkward efforts
to do good
I will not pursue this head farther. But feel assured of this,
brethren, that an every-day religion; one that loves the duties of our common walk;
one that makes an honest
THIS word after is a word of correspondence, and im. plies two subjects brought in comparison. That Christ has the power of an endless life in his own person is certainly true; but to say that he is made a priest after this power subjective in himself, is awkward even to a degree that violates the natural grammar of speech. The suggestion is different; viz., that the priesthood of Christ is graduated by the wants and measures of the human soul as the priesthood of the law was not; that the endless life in which he comes, matches and measures the endless life in mankind whose fall he is to restore; providing a salvation as strong as their sin, and as long or lasting as the run of their immortality. He is able thus to save unto the utter most. Powers of endless life though we be, falling principalities, wandering stars shooting downward in the precipitation of evil, he is able to bring us off, re-establish our dismantled eternities, and set us in the peace and confidence of an eternal righteousness.
I propose to exhibit the work of Christ in this high relation, which will lead me to consider—
I. The power of an endless life in man, what it is, and, as being under sin, requires.
II. What Christ, in his eternal priesthood, does to restore it.
1. The power of an endless life, what it is and requires. The greatness of our immortality, as commonly handled, is one of the dullest subjects, partly because it finds apprehension asleep in us, and partly because the strained computations entered into, and the words piled up as magnifiers, in a way of impressing the sense of its eternal duration, carry no impression, start no sense of magnitude in us. Even if we raise no doubt or objection, they do little more than drum us to sleep in our own nothingness. We exist here only in the germ, and it is much as if the life power in some seed, that, for example, of the great cedars of the west, were to begin a magnifying of its own importance to itself in the fact that it has so long a time to live; and finally, because of the tiny figure it makes, and because the forces it contains are as yet unrealized, to settle inertly down upon the feeling that, after all, it is only a seed, a dull, insignificant speck of matter, wanting to be a little greater than it can. Instead, then, of attempting to magnify the soul by any formal computation on the score of time or duration, let us simply take up and follow the hint that is given us in this brief expression, the power of an endless life.
It is a power, a power of life, a power of endless life.
The word translated power in the text, is the original of our
word dynamic, denoting a certain impetus, momentum, or causative force, which
is cumulative, growing stronger and more impelling as it goes. And this is the nature
of life or vital force universally,—it is a force cumulative as long as it continues.
It enters into matter as a building, organizing, lifting power, and knows not how
to stop till death stops it. We use the word grow to describe its action, and it
does not even know how to subsist without
Now these innumerable lives, animal and vegetable, at work upon
the world, creating and new-creating, and producing their immense transformations
of matter, are all immaterial forces or powers; related, in that manner, to souls,
which are only a highest class of powers. The human soul can not be more efficiently
described than by calling it the power of an endless life; and to it all these lower
immaterialities, at work in matter, look up as mute prophets, testifying, by the
magical sovereignty they wield in the processes and material transformations of
growth, to the possible forces embodied in that highest, noblest form of life. And
sometimes, since our spiritual nature, taken as a power of life, organizes nothing
material and external by which its action is made visible, God allows the inferior
lives in given examples, especially of the tree species, to have a small eternity
of growth, and lift their giant forms to the clouds, that we may stand lost in amazement
before the majesty of that silent power that works in life, when many centuries
only are given to be the lease of its activity. The work is slow, the cumulative
process silent,—viewed externally, nothing appears that we name force, and yet this
living creature called a tree, throbs internally in fullness of life, circulates
its juices, swells in volume, towers in majesty; till finally it gives to the very
word life a historic presence and sublimity. It begins with a mere seed or germ,
a tiny speck so inert and frail that we might even laugh at the bare suggestion
of power in such a look of nothingness; just as at our present point of dullness
and weakness, we can give no sound of
And yet these cumulative powers of vegetable life are only feeble types of that higher, fearfully vaster power, that pertains to the endless life of a soul—that power that known or unknown dwells in you and in me. What Abel now is, or Enoch, as an angel of God, in the volume of his endless life and the vast energies unfolded in his growth by the river of God, they may set you trying to guess, but can by no means help you adequately to conceive. The possible majesty to which any free intelligence of God may grow, in the endless increment of ages, is after all rather hinted than imaged in their merely vegetable grandeur.
Quickened by these analogies, let us pass directly to the soul or spiritual nature itself, as a power of endless growth or increment; for it is only in this way that we begin to conceive the real magnitude and majesty of the soul, and not by any mere computations based on its eternity or immortality.
What it means, in this higher and nobler sense, to be a power
of life, we are very commonly restrained from observing by two or three considerations
that require to be
Stripping aside now all these impediments, let us pass directly
into the soul’s history, and catch from what transpires in its first indications
the sign or promise of what it is to become. In its beginning it is a mere seed
of possibility. All the infant faculties are folded up, at first, and scarcely a
sign of power is visible in it. But a doom of growth is in it, and the hidden momentum
of an endless power is driving it on. And a falling body will not gather momentum
in its fall more naturally and certainly, than it will gather force, in the necessary
struggle of its endless life now begun. We may think little of the increase; it
is a matter of course, and why should we take note of it? But if no increase or
development appears, if the faculties all sleep as at the first, we take sad note
of that, and draw, how reluctantly, the conclusion that our child is an idiot and
not a proper man! And what a chasm is there between the idiot and the man; one a
being unprogressive a being who is not a power; the other a careering force started
on its way to eternity, a principle of might and majesty begun to be unfolded, and
to be progressively unfolded forever. Intelligence, reason, conscience, observation,
choice, memory, enthusiasm, all the fires of his inborn eternity are kindling to
a glow, and, looking on him as a force immortal, just beginning to reveal the symptoms
of what he shall be, we call him man. Only a few years ago he lay in his cradle,
a barely breathing principle of life, but in that life were gathered up, as in a
germ or seed, all these godlike powers that are now so conspicuous in the volume
of his personal growth. In a sense, all that is in him now was in him then, as the
power of an
And yet we have, in the power thus developed, nothing more than
a mere hint or initial sign of what is to be the real stature of his personality
in the process of his ever lasting development. We exist here only in the small.
that God may have us in a state of flexibility, and bend or fashion us, at the best
advantage, to the model of his own great life and character. And most of us, therefore,
have scarcely a conception of the exceeding weight of glory to be comprehended in
our existence. If we take, for example, the faculty of memory, how very obvious
is it that as we pass eternally on, we shall have more and more to remember, and
finally shall have gathered in more into this great storehouse of the soul, than
is now contained in
But we are not obliged to take our conclusion by inference. We can see for ourselves that the associations of the mind, which are a great part of its riches, must be increasing in number and variety forever, stimulating thought by multiplying its suggestives, and beautifying thought by weaving into it the colors of sentiment, endlessly varied.
The imagination is gathering in its images and kindling its eternal fires in the same manner. Having passed. through many trains of worlds, mixing with scenes, societies, orders of intelligence and powers of beatitude—just that which made the apostle in Patmos into a poet, by the visions of a single day—it is impossible that every soul should not finally become filled with a glorious and powerful imagery, and be waked to a wonderfully creative energy.
By the supposition it is another incident of this power of endless
life, that passing down the eternal galleries of fact and event, it must be forever
having new cognitions and accumulating new premises. By its own contacts it will,
at some future time, have touched even whole worlds and felt them through and made
premises of all there is in them. It will know God by experiences correspondently
enlarged, and itself by a consciousness correspondently illuminated. Having gathered
in, at last, such worlds of premise, it is difficult for us now to conceive
In the same manner, the executive energy of the will, the volume of the benevolent affections, and all the active powers, will be showing, more and more impressively, what it is to be a power of endless life. They that have been swift in doing God’s will and fulfilling his mighty errands, will acquire a marvelous address and energy in the use of their powers. They that have taken worlds into their love will have a love correspondently capacious, whereupon also it will be seen that their will is settled in firmness, and raised in majesty according to the vastness of impulse there is in the love behind it. They that have great thoughts, too, will be able to manage great causes, and they that are lubricated eternally in the joys that feed their activity, will never tire. What force, then, must be finally developed in what now appears to be the tenuous and fickle impulse, and the merely frictional activity of a human soul.
On this subject the scriptures indulge in no declamation, but
only speak in hints and start us off by questions, well understanding that the utmost
they can do is to waken in us the sense of a future scale of being unimaginable,
and beyond the compass of our definite thought. Here they drive us out in the almost
cold mathematical question,
But there is yet another side or element of meaning suggested
by this expression, which requires to be noted. It looks on the soul as a falling
power, a bad force, rushing downward into ruinous and final disorder. If we call
it a principality in its possible volume, it is a falling principality. It was this
which made the mighty priesthood of the Lord necessary. For the moment we look in
upon the soul’s great movement as a power, and find sin entered there, we perceive
that every thing is in disorder. It is like a mighty engine in which some pivot
or lever is broken, whirling and crashing and driving itself into a wreck.
And what shall we say of the result or end? Must the immortal
nature still increase in volume without limit, and so in the volume of its miseries;
or only in its miseries by the conscious depths of shame and weakness into which
it is falling? On this subject I know not what to say. We do see that bad minds,
in their evil life, gather force and expand in many, at least, of their capabilities,
on to a certain point or limit. As far as to that point or limit, they appear to
grow intense, powerful, and, as the world says, great. But they seem, at last, and
apart from the mere decay of years, to begin a diminishing process they grow jealous,
imperious, cruel, and so far weak They become little, in the girding of their own
stringent selfishness. They burn to a cinder in the heat of their own devilish passion.
And so, beginning as heroes and demigods, they many of them taper off into awfully
intense but still little men—intense at a mere point; which appears to be the conception
of a fiend. Is it so that the bitterness of hell is finally created? Is it toward
this pungent, acrid, awfully intensified, and talented littleness, that all souls
under sin are gravitating? However this may be, we can see for ourselves that the
disorders of sin, running loose in human souls, must be driving them downward into
everlasting and complete ruin, the wreck cf all that is mightiest and loftiest in
their immortality. One
II. What Christ, in his eternal priesthood, has done; or the fitness and practical necessity of it, as related to the stupendous exigency of our redemption.
The great impediment which the gospel of Christ encounters, in our world, that which most fatally hinders its reception, or embrace, is that it is too great a work. It transcends our belief, it wears a look of extravagance. We are beings too insignificant and low to engage any such interest on the part of God, or justify any such expenditure. The preparations made, and the parts acte., are not in the proportions of reason, and the very terms of the great salvation have, to our dull ears, a declamatory sound. How can we really think that the eternal God has set these more than epic machineries at work for such a creature as man?
My principal object, therefore, in the contemplations raised by
this topic, has been to start some conception of ourselves, in the power of an endless
life, that is more adequate. Mere immortality, or everlasting continuance, when
it is the continuance only of littleness or mediocrity, does not make a platform
or occasion high enough for this great mystery of the gospel. It is only when we
see in human souls, taken as germs of power, a future magnitude
Then it would shock us no more that visibly it is no mere man
that has arrived. Were he only a human teacher, reformer, philosopher, coming in
our human plane to lecture on our self-improvement as men, in the measures of men,
he would even be less credible than now. Nothing meets our want, in fact, but to
see the boundaries of nature and time break way to let in a being and a power visibly
not of this world. Let him be the Eternal Son of God and Word of the Father, descending
out of
No matter if the men that follow him and love him are, just for
the time, too slow to apprehend him. How could they see, with eyes holden, the divinity
that is hid under such a garb of poverty and patience? How could they
But the tragedy gathers to its last act, and fearful is to be the close. Never did the powers of eternity, or endless life in souls, reveal themselves so terribly before. But he came to break their force, and how so certainly as to let it break itself across his patience? By his miracles and reproofs, and quite as much by the unknown mystery of greatness in his character, the deepest depths of malice in immortal evil are now finally stirred; the world’s wild wrath is concentered on his person, and his soul is, for the hour, under an eclipse of sorrow; exceeding sorrowful even unto death. But the agony is shortly passed; he says, I am ready; and they take him, Son of God though he be, and Word of the Father, and Lord of glory, to a cross They nail him fast, and what a sign do they give, in that dire phrenzy, of the immortal depth of their passion! The sun refuses to look on the sight, and the frame of nature shudders! He dies! it is finished! The body that was taken for endurance and patience, has drunk up all the shafts of the world’s malice, and now rests in the tomb.
No! there is more. Lo! he is not here, but is risen
This, in brief historic outline, is the great salvation. And it
is not too great. It stands in glorious proportion with the work to be done. Nothing
else or less would suffice. It is a work supernatural transacted in the plane of
nature; and what but such a work could restore the broken order of the soul under
evil? It incarnates God in the world, and what but some such opening of the senses
to God or of God to the senses, could reinstate him in minds that have lost the
consciousness of him, and fallen off to live apart? What but this could enter him
again, as a power, into the world’s life and history? We are astonished by the revelation
of divine feeling; the expense of the sacrifice wears a look of extravagance. If
we are only the dull mediocrities we commonly take ourselves to be, it is quite
incredible. But if God, seeing through our possibilities into our real eternities,
comprehends, in the view, all we are to be or become, as powers of endless life,
is there not some probability that he discovers a good deal more in us than we do
in ourselves; enough to justify all
Inasmuch as our understanding has not yet reached our measures,
we plainly want a grace which only faith can receive; for it is the distinction
of faith that it can receive a medication it can not definitely trace, and admit
into the consciousness what it can not master in thought. Christ therefore comes
not as a problem given to our reason, but as a salvation offered to our faith. His
passion reaches a deeper point in us than we can definitely think, and his Eternal
Spirit is a healing priesthood for us, in the lowest and profoundest roots of our
great immortality, those which we have never seen ourselves. By our faith in him
too as a mystery, he comes into our guiltiness, at a point back of all speculative
comprehension, restoring that peace of innocence which is speculatively impossible;
for how in mere speculation can any thing done for our sin, annihilate the fact;
and without that, how take our guilt away? Still it goes! We know, as we embrace
him,
So, if we speak of our passions, our internal disorders, the wild, confused and even downward rush of our inthralled powers, he performs, in a mystery of love and the Spirit, what no teaching or example could. The manner we can trace by no effort of the understanding; we can only see that he is somehow able to come into the very germ principle of our life, and be a central, regulating, new-creating force in our disordered growth itself. And if we speak of righteousness, it is ours, when it is not ours; how can a being unrighteous be established in the sense of righteousness? Logically, or according to the sentence of our speculative reason, it is impossible. And yet, in Christ, we have it! We are consciously in it, as we are in him, and all we can say is, that it is the righteousness of God, by faith, unto all and upon all them that believe.
But I must draw my subject to a close. It is a common impression
with persons who hear, but do not accept, the calls of Christ and his salvation,
that they are required to be somewhat less in order to be Christian. They must be
diminished in quantity, taken down, shortened, made feeble and little, and then,
by the time they have let go their manhood, they will possibly come into the way
of salvation. They hear it declared that, in becoming little children, humble, meek,
poor in spirit; in ceasing from our will and reason; and in giving up ourselves,
our eagerness, revenge, and passion,—thus, and thus only, can we be accepted; but,
instead of taking all these as so many
A similar mistake is connected with their impressions of faith.
They are jealous of faith, as being only weakness. They blame the gospel, because
it requires faith, as a condition of salvation. And yet, as I have here abundantly
shown, it requires faith just because it is a salvation large enough to meet the
measures of the soul, as a power of
I should do you a wrong to close this subject without conducting
your minds forward to those anticipations of the future which it so naturally suggests.
You have all observed the remarkable interest which beings of other worlds are shown,
here and there in the scripture, to feel in the transactions of this. These, like
us, are powers of endless life, intelligences that have had a history parallel to
our own. Some of them, doubtless, have existed myriads of ages, and consequently
now are far on in the course of their development,—far enough on to have discerned
what existence is, and the amount of power and dignity there is in it. Hence their
interest in us, who as yet are only candidates, in their view, for a greatness yet
to be revealed. And the interest they show seems extravagant to us, just as the
gospel itself is, and for the same reasons. They break into the sky, when Christ
is born, chanting
And here is the point where our true future dawns upon us. It doth not yet appear what we shall be. We lie here in our nest, unfledged and weak, guessing dimly at our future, and scarce believing what even now appears. But the power is in us, and that power is to be finally revealed. And what a revelation will that be! Is it possible, you will ask in amazement, that you, a creature that was sunk in such dullness, and sold to such trivialities in your bondage to the world, were, all this time, related to God and the ancient orders of his kingdom, in a being so majestic!
How great a terror to some of you may that discovery be! I can
not say exactly how it will be with the bad minds, now given up finally to their
disorders. Powers of endless life they still must be; but how far shrank by that
stringent selfishness, how far burned away, as magnitudes, by that fierce combustion
of passion, I do not know. But, if they diminish in volume and shrink to a more
intensified power of littleness and fiendishness, eaten out, as regards all highest
volume, by the malice of evil and the undying worm of its regrets, it will not be
so with the
IT is with sins as with men or families, some have pedigree and
some have not; for there are kinds and modes of sin that have, in all ages, been
held in respect and embalmed with all the honors of history; and there are others
that never were and never can be raised above the level even of disgust. The noble
sins will, of course, be judged in a very different manner from the humble, baseborn
sins. The sins of fame, honor, place, power, bravery, genius, always in good repute,
will not seldom be admired and applauded. But the low-blooded sins of felony, and
vice, and base depravity are associated with brutality, and are universally held
in contempt. Whether the real demerit of the two classes of sin is measured by such
distinctions is more questionable. Such distinctions certainly had little weight
with Christ. He was even more severe upon the sins of learning, wealth, station,
and religious sanctimony, than upon the more plebeian, or more despised class of
sins. Indeed, he seems to look directly through all the fair conventionalities,
and to bring his judgment down upon come point more interior and deeper. He appears,
in general, to be thoroughly disgusted with all the
Hence the jealousy with which he was watched by the elders, and priests, and rulers; for every few days some Rabbi, Scribe, lawyer, or committee of such, was sent out to observe him, or question him, or draw him, if possible, into some kind of treason in his doctrine; because they feared his influence with the people, lest he might put himself at their head and raise a great revolution that would even subvert the present social order.
The cunning plot his enemies are working, in my text, is instigated by this kind of fear. He is teaching, it appears, a great multitude of people in the temple, when suddenly a company of Scribes and Pharisees are seen hustling in through the crowd, leading up a woman, to set her before him. She has been guilty, they say, of a base crime which the law of Moses punishes with public stoning and death, and they demand of him what shall be done with her? hoping that, out of the same perverse favor he is wont to show to low people, he will take the woman’s part, and so give them the desired opportunity to throw contempt on his character, and exasperate the popular superstition against him.
Christ, perceiving apparently their design, determines to put
them to confusion. He remains a long time silent, making no answer, and of course
none that can be taken hold of. They press him for a reply; still no reply is
Look upon them now, as they withdraw, and follow them with your eye, as probably Christ and the whole assembly did. Observe the mannerly order of their shame,—beginning at the eldest, even unto the last! See how carefully they keep the sacred rules of good breeding and deference to age, even in their sniveling defeat, and the chagrin of their baffled conspiracy, and you will begin to find how base a thing may take on airs of dignity, and how contemptible, in fact, these airs of dignity may be.
The subject thus presented is respectable sin, sin that takes
on the semblance of goodness and judges itself by the dignity
Just this, I think, has been the impression of you all, in the
remarkable scene referred to in my text. These plausible accusers, pressing in with
their victim in such airs of dignity, and retiring in such careful deference to
age as not to allow even a year’s difference to be disregarded, have yet been virtually
detected and foiled in a thoroughly wicked conspiracy. Had they been a gang of thieves,
their transaction would have been more base only in the name; for it was, in fact,
a kind of dramatic lie, deliberately planned, to snare an artless, worthy, and visibly
holy man. Accordingly, now that they are gone, driven out by the recoil of their
own base trick, the Saviour, without using any word of reproach, quietly proceeds
to bring out the scene just where their real character will be most impressively
displayed. He says to the woman, “Where are thine accusers? Hath no man condemned
thee?” “No man, Lord.” “Neither do I; go, sin no more.” Sinner that she was, not
even these sanctimonious conspirators could stand the challenge of their own sins
long enough to accuse her. And the result is, that we are left by Christ in the
impression, and that designedly, that on the whole, the woman, in her most shameful
sin, was really less of a sinner than they. Her, therefore, we pity. Them we denounce
and despise. How many things are we ready to imagine, that might soften our judgment
of her fall, if we only knew the secret of her sad history. Our
First of all, to clear the influence of a false or defective impression,
growing out of the fact, that we ourselves are persons that live so entirely in
the atmosphere of character and decency. Our range of life is so walled in by the
respectability of our associations, that what is on the other side of the wall is
very much a world unknown. Hence we have no such opinion or impression of sin, anywhere,
as we ought to have. It is with us all our life long and in all our associations;
much as it is with us here in our assembly for worship. The offensive and repulsive
forms of sin are almost never here, by so much as any one sign, or symptom. The
sin is here, and sin that wants salvation; but it is sin so thoroughly respectable
as to make it very nearly impossible to produce any just impression of its deformity.
Sitting here in this atmosphere of decency and order, how can you suffer any just
impression of the dreadful nature of that evil which, after all, wears a look so
plausible. If there came in with you, to mingle in your audience, a fair representation
only of the town; if you heard, in the porch, the profane oaths of the cellars and
hells of gambling; if you looked about with a cautious feeling, right and left,
in the seat, lest some one might rifle your dress, or pick your pocket; if the victims
of drink were seen reeling into the seats, here and there, and their hungry, shivering
children were crying at the door, for bread; if the diseased and loathsome relics
of vice, recognized sometimes as the sons and daughters of families once
Secondly, we need also to clear another false or defective impression,
growing out of the general tendency in mankind to identify sin with vice; and, of
course, to judge that whatever is clear of vice is clear also of sin; which, in
fact, is the same as to judge that whatever sin is respectable is no sin at all.
Or, sometimes, we identify sin with acts of wrong, or personal injury, such as deeds
of robbery, fraud, seduction, slander, and the like. In this view, again, whatever
sin is respectable enough to be clear of all such deeds of wrong is, of course,
no sin. Whereas, there may be great sin where there is no vice, bitter and deep
guiltiness before God where there is never one act of personal wrong or injury committed.
All vice, all wrong, presupposes sin, but sin may be the reigning principle of the
life, from childhood to the grave, and never produce one scar of vice, or blamable
injury to a fellow-being. Indeed we must go further, we must definitely say that
even virtue itself, as the term is commonly used, classes under sin, or has its
root in sin. Virtue, as men speak, is conduct approved irrespectively of any good
principle of conduct; and it is, for the most part, a goodness wholly negative,
consisting in the not doing, the abstaining, and keeping off
Consider now, thirdly, and make due account of the fact, that
respectable sin is not less guilty because it has a less revolting aspect. A feeling
is very generally indulged, even by such as are confessedly blamable for not being
in the christian life, that their blame or guilt is a thing of higher and finer
quality than it would be under the excesses and degrading vices many practice. They
measure their sin by their outward standing and conduct, whereas all sin is of the
same principle. The sin of one class is, in fact, the sin of the other, as respects
every thing but manner and degree. There are different kinds of vice, but only one
kind of sin; viz., the state of being without God, or cut of allegiance to God.
All evil and sin, as we just now saw, are of this same negative root; the want of
any holy principle; the state set off from God, and disempowered and degraded by
the separation. The respectable sin, therefore, shades into the unrespectable, not
as being different in kind, but only as twilight shades into the night. The evil
spirit, called sin, may be trained up to politeness,
There is a very great difference, I admit, between a courteous man and one who is ill-natured and insulting, between a generous man and a niggard, a pure and a lewd, a man who lives in thought and a man who lives in appetite, a great and wise operator in the market and a thief; and yet, taken as apart from all accidental modifications, or degrees, the sin-quality or principle is exactly the same in all. As in water face answereth to face, so one class of hearts to the other. The respectable and the disgusting are twin brothers; only you see in one how well he can be made to look, and in the other how both would look, if that which is in both were allowed to have its bent and work its own results unrestrained.
Again, fourthly, it is often true that what is looked upon as
respectable sin is really more base in spirit, or internal quality, than that which
is more and more universally despised. And yet this is not the judgment of those
who are most apt to rule the judgments of the world. The lies of high life, for
example, are the liberties asserted by power and respectable audacity. The lies
of commoners and humble persons are a fatal, irredeemable dishonor. The fashionable,
who spurns the obligation of an honest debt, is only asserting the right and title
of fashion; but the
It is obvious, fifthly, that what I am calling respectable sin
is commonly more inexcusable,—not always, but commonly. Sometimes the most depraved
and abandoned
I add a single consideration further; viz., that respectable sin
is more injurious, or a greater mischief, than the baser and more disgusting forms
of vicious abandonment. The latter create for us greater public burdens, in the
way of charity and taxation for the poor, and of judicial proceedings and punishments
for public malefactors. They annoy us more too by their miseries and the crimes
by which they disturb the security and peace of society. And vet it is really a
fair subject of doubt, whether, in a moral
It is scarcely possible, in closing this very serious subject, to name and duly set forth all the applications of which it is capable, or which it even presses on our attention.
With how little reason, for example, are Christian people, and
indeed all others, cowed by the mere name and standing of men, who are living still
under the power of sin, and resisting or neglecting still the grace of their salvation.
Doubtless it is well enough to look on them with respect, and treat them with a
just deference; but however high they may seem, allow them never to overtop your
pity. For what is the fair show they make, but a most sorrowful appeal to your compassions
and your prayers? How can a true Christian, one who is consciously ennobled by the
glorious heirship in which he is set, ever be intimidated, or awed, or kept back
in his approaches or his prayers, by respect to that which is only respectable sin?
Again, it is impossible in such a subject as this, no, to raise
the question of morality, what it is, and is worth, and where it will land us in
the great allotments of eternity. Morality, taken as apart from religion, is but
another name for decency in sin. It is just that negative species of virtue, which
consists in not doing what is scandalously depraved or wicked. But there is no heart
of holy principle in it, any more than there is in the worst of felonies. It is
the very same thing, as respects the denial of God, or the state of personal separation
from God, that distinguishes all the most reprobate forms of character. A correct,
outwardly virtuous man is the principle of sin well-dressed and respectably kept—nothing
more. And will that save you? You can, I am sure, be in no great danger of believing
that. A far greater danger is that the decent, outwardly respectable manner of your
sin will keep you from the discovery of its real nature, as a root of character
in you. If we undertake to set forth the inherent weakness and baseness of sin,
to open up the vile and disgustful qualities which make it, as the scriptures declare,
abominable and hateful to God, if we speak of its poisonous and bitter effects within,
and the inevitable and awful bondage it works in all the
If then we are right in this estimate of morality and the very
great dangers involved in it, how necessary is it, for a similar reason, that every
man out of Christ, not living in any vicious practice, should set himself to the
deliberate canvassing of his own moral state. Make a study of this subtle, cunningly
veiled character, the state of reputable sin, and study it long enough to fathom
its real import. Look into the secret motives and springs of your character; inspect
and study long enough to really perceive the strange, wild current of your thoughts;
detect the subtle canker in your feeling; comprehend the deep ferment of your lusts,
enmities, and passions; hunt down the selfish principle which instigates and misdirects
and turns off your whole life from God, setting all your aims on issues that reject
Him; ask, in a word, how this respectable sin appears, when viewed inwardly; how,
if unrestrained by pride, and the conventional rules of decency and character, it
would appear outwardly. Fathom the deep hunger of your soul, and listen to its inward
You have a motive also in making this inquest, that is even more
pressing than many of you will suspect. For no matter how respectable your sin is,
you never can tell where it will carry you—how long it will be respectable, or where
it will end. Enough to know that it is sin, and. that the principle of all sin is
one and the same. In its very germ you have, potentially, whatever is abhorrent,
abominable, disgusting; and when the fruit is ripe, no man can guess into what shape
of debasement and moral infamy, or public crime, it may finally bring him. If he
hears of a murder, like that of Webster, for example, he may be very confident that,
in his particular and particularly virtuous case of unreligious living, there is
no liability to any such result. And perhaps there is not. Perhaps the danger is
different. Avoiding what is bloody, he may fall into what is false or low—some damning
dishonesty or fraud, some violation of trust, some falsification of accounts, some
debauchery of lust or appetite, some brutality which makes his very name and person
a disgust. Sin works by no set methods. It has a way of ruin for every man, that
is original and proper only to himself. Suffice it to say that, as long as you are
in it and under its power, you can never tell what you are in danger of. This one
thing you may have as a truth eternally fixed, that respectable sin is, in principle,
the mother
Advancing now a stage, observe again that it is on just this view
of the world and of human character under sin, chat the whole superstructure of
Christianity is based Christ comes forth to the world as a lost world. He makes
no distinction of respectable and unrespectable as regards the common want of salvation.
Nay, it is plain from his searching rebukes laid on the heads of the priests, the
rulers, and others in high life, that he is sometimes moved with greatest abhorrence
by the sin of those who are most respectable and even sanctimonious. Hence the solemn
universality of his terms of salvation. Hence the declared impossibility of eternal
life to any, save by the same great radical change of character; a fact which he
testifies directly to Nicodemus, the conscientious inquirer after truth, the sober
and just senator, one of the very highest, noblest men in the nation,—Except a man
be born, again, he can not see the kingdom of God. He asks not how you appear, but
whether you are human. Nay, if you come to him, like the young ruler, clothed in
all such comely virtues that he is constrained to look on you
Have I now in my audience any forlorn one, like the woman of my text, any youth, or older person, who is consciously sinking into the toils of vice and beginning to taste its bitter humiliations; any that has consciously lost or begun to lose the condition of respect and reputable living; any that begins to scorn himself, or seems to be sinking under the pitiless scorn of the world’s judgments? To such an one I rejoice to say, in the name of Jesus Christ, that there is no scorn with him. He does not measure sin by our conventional and often false rules of judgment. The basest sin he was even wont to find, in many cases, under the finest covering of respect. He will judge you rightly, not harshly. If you have fallen, or begun to fall, he wants to raise you. He offers you his free sympathy and support, and, if others lay their look of contempt upon your soul, he invites you kindly, whispers love and courage, and if you are ready to receive him, waits also to say—Thou art mine, go, son; go, daughter; sin no more!
Brethren professed in the name and gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ,
it is him I follow, and not any want of
To dismiss this subject without some prospective reference, or
glance of forecast on the future, is impossible, however painful and appalling the
contemplations it will raise. When you go to stand before God, my friends, it will
not be your dress, or your house, or your titles, or your wealth, no, nor even your
virtues, however much commended here, that will give you a title of entrance among
the glorified. Respectable sin will not pass then and there as here., The honor,
the nobility of it is now gone by. The degrees, indeed, of sin are many, but the
kind is one, and that a poor, dejected, emptied form of shame and sorrow. How appalling
such a thought to any one who is capable of thought, and not absolutely brutalized
by his guilt. Furthermore, as sin is sin, everywhere and in all forms, the respectable
and the unrespectable, the same in principle, and when the appearances are different,
the same often in criminality, the world of future
THE cross and Christ crucified are the subject here in hand. Accordingly, when Christ is called the power of God, we are to understand Christ crucified; and then the problem is to conceive how Christ, dying in the weakness of mortality and exhibiting, just there, if we take him as the incarnate manifestation of God, the humblest tokens of passibility and frailty, is yet and there, as being the crucified, the power of God.
At our present point and without some preparation of thought, we can hardly state intelligibly, or with due force of assertion, the answer to such a question. The two elements appear to be incompatible, and we can only say that the power spoken of is, not the efficient, or physical, but the moral power of God; that namely of his feeling and character But as this will be no statement sufficiently clear to stand as the ruling proposition of a discourse, I will risk a departure from our custom and, instead of drawing my subject formally from my text, I will begin at a point external and draw, by stages, toward it; paying it, as I conceive, the greater honor, that I suppose it to be so rich and deep in its meaning, as to require and to reward the labor of a discourse, if simply we may apprehend the lesson it teaches.
Christ, then, the crucified, and so the power of God—this is our goal, let us see if we can reach it.
We take our point of departure at the question of passibility in God—is He a being passible, or impassible?
It would seem to follow from the infinitude of his creatively efficient power, and the immensity of his nature, that he is and must be impassible. There is, in fact, no power that is not in his hands. There are cases, it is true, where superiority in volume and physical force rather increases than diminishes passibility. Thus it is that man is subject to so great annoyance from the mere gnat, and the creature is able to inflict this inevitable suffering upon him, just because of his own atomic littleness. But there is no parallel in this for the relation of God to his creatures, or of theirs to Him; because they continue to exist only by His permission. Besides, He is spirit only, not a being that can be struck, or thrust upon, or any way violated by physical assault. What we call force, or physical power can not touch him. And even if it could, he is probably incapable of suffering from it, as truly as even space itself. Like space, like eternity, he is, in his own nature, as spirit, essentially impassible —impassible, that is, as related to force.
But the inquiry is not ended when we reach this point, it is only
begun. After all there must be some kind of passibleness in God, else there could
be no genuine character in him. If he could not be pained by any thing, could not
suffer any kind of wound, had no violable sympathy, he would be any thing but a
perfect character. A cast iron Deity could not command our love and reverence.
A very large share of all the virtues have, in fact, an element of passivity, or passibility in them, and without that element they could. not exist. Indeed the greatness and power of character, culminates in the right proportion and co-ordination of these passive elements. And just here it is, we shall see, that even God’s perfection culminates. He is great as being great in feeling.
We raise a distinction, as among ourselves, between what we call
the active and the passive virtues. Not that all virtues are not equally active,
in the sense of being voluntary, or free, but that in some of them we communicate,
and in some of them receive action. If I impart a charity, that is my active virtue;
if I receive an insult without revenging, or wishing to revenge it, that is my passive
virtue. All the wrong acts done us and also all the good are occasions of some appropriate,
proportionate and really great feeling, which is our passive virtue. And without
this passive virtue in its varieties, we should be only no-characters, dry logs
of wood instead of Christian men. Or, if we kept on acting still, we should be only
Now God must have these passive virtues as truly as men. They are the necessary soul of all greatness in him. How then shall we conceive him to have them and to have his sublime perfection culminate in them, when he is, in fact, impassible?
This brings us to the true point of our question. We discover, first, that God is and must be physically impassible. We discover, next, that he ought to feel appropriately to all kinds of action, and must have, in order to his real greatness in character, all the passive virtues. He must in one view be impassible and in some other, passible, infinitely passible. And how is this, where is. the solution?
It is here; that God, being physically impassible, impassible as relates to violating force, is yet morally passible. That is, he is a being whose very perfection it is, that he feels the moral significance of things, receives all actions according to their moral import, whether as done to himself, or by one created being to another. In this latter sense, he feels actions intensely according to the moral delicacy of his nature, deeply according to the depth of his nature. In this point of view, he is, just because he is perfect and infinite, infinitely passible. He has just that sense of things which infinite holiness must have, loves the tears of repentance in his child just as infinite mercy must, turns away from all wrong, as profoundly revolted by it, as his infinite, eternal chastity must be.
It will be seen, at once, that God can receive the sense of actions morally, in this manner, when they can not touch him as force or physically. He can feel ingratitude when he can not feel a blow. He can loathe impurity when he can not be injured by any assault. He can be sore displeased by the cruelty of man to his fellow, when he could not suffer the cruelty himself. He is pleased and gratified by acts of sacrifice, when he could not be comforted, or enriched by the ministries of benevolence. All acts affect him just according to their quality. A thermometer is not more exactly and delicately passive to heat, than he is to the merit and demerit of all actions. So, as regards what lies in character and pertains in that way to spirit, he is the most intensely passible of all beings, and has it for his merit that he is.
This, accordingly, is the representation given of him in the scriptures,
or, as it will more assist my subject to say, in the Old Testament scriptures. Thus
he is blessed, or said to be, in all the varieties of agreeable affection, according
to the merit and beauty of whatever is done that is right. He smelled a sweet savor,
we are told, in Noah’s sacrifice. He has pleasure in them that hope in his mercy.
He is affected with joy over his people, as a prophet represents, even to singing,
in the day of their restored peace. He is tender in his feeling to the obedient,
pitying them that fear him as a father pitieth his children. His very love is partly
passive; that is, it is a being affected with complacency by those who are in the
truth, and a being affected with compassion by the bitter and hard lot of those
under sin. On the other hand, by how many unpleasant varieties, or pains of feeling
does he profess to suffer, in his relation to scenes of human wrong, ingratitude
But these movings of disgust and abhorrence, all these sentiments
that put him in a just relation with evil, are painful. Simply to say that one is
displeased is to say that he is disagreeably affected; or merely to say that one
dislikes a character is to allege that he is unpleasantly affected by it. What then
shall we think of God, when all these varieties of displeasure and dislike must
as certainly be living experiences in him, as he is a holy and a
And what is this, some will ask, but to assume the unhappiness,
or, at least, the diminished happiness, of God. Is then God unhappy? Is he less
than infinitely blessed? Pressed by this difficulty, it has been the manner of many
teachers to fall back on the physical impassibility of God, imagining that there,
at that fixed point, the true solution must begin. God, they say, is impassible.
We are therefore to understand that, in all these scripture expressions, these abhorrings,
loathings, hatings, displeasures, angers, wearinesses, indignations, and the like,
the bible is only speaking of God after the manner of men. Yes, but, supposing it
to thus speak, what does it mean? Does it mean nothing? When it declares that God
abominates sin, does it mean that he has no feeling at all in respect to it? Does
it mean that he has a pleasant or pleased feeling? Neither; we mock the dignity
of scripture, nay we mock the beauty itself of God, when we turn away, in this manner,
all credit of right feeling and true rationality in Him. No, this is what we mean;
we mean, if we understand ourselves, that the figures in question, are transferred
from human uses and applied over to God; and that when so applied, they express
something true concerning God; viz., the great fact that God has the same kind of
displeased, disaffected, abhorrent and revolted feeling toward sin, as the purest
and holiest man has, only it is God’s feeling, in God’s measures, and according
to God’s purity, that his disgust is deep as the sea, that his
And so we come back on the difficulty, a hundred fold increased, and we ask again, how shall we save the infinite blessedness of God? By just dropping out our calculations of arithmetic, I answer, and looking at facts. It seems to be good arithmetic and logically inevitable that, if any subtraction is made from God’s infinite happiness, he can not be infinitely happy. No, it is not inevitable. On the contrary, he may even be the more blessed because of the subtraction, for to see that he feels rightly toward evil, despite of the pain suffered from it, to be conscious of long suffering and patience toward it, to know that he is pouring and ever has been the fullness of his love upon it, to be studying now, in conscious sacrifice, a saving mercy;—out of this springs up a joy deeper and more sovereign than the pain, and by a fixed law of holy compensation, the sea of his blessedness is kept continually full. All moral natures exist under this law of compensation; so that every being is made more blessed in all the passive virtues. To receive evil rightly is to master it, to be rightly pained by it is to be kept in sovereign joy. To suffer well is bliss and victory.
Probably no one ever thought of compassion as being any thing
less than a joy, a holy bliss of feeling. And yet it is co-passion. It suffers
with its objects, takes their burdens, struggles with their sorrows—all which is
pain, a loss of happiness. Still it is no loss, because there is another element
in the conscious greatness of the loss, and
Nor is this fact of compensation wholly confined to actions moral; a similar return keeps company with loss and is expected to do so in other matters. The hearer of a tragedy, for example, goes to be afflicted, to have his soul harrowed and torn, that in so deep excitement he may feel the depth of his nature, and be exalted in the powerful surging of its waves! He suffers a great subtraction, but no diminution.
We need not therefore be troubled or concerned for God’s happiness, because he feels toward evil, and with all his feeling, exactly as he should. That, if only we can drop the stupid computations of arithmetic and look into the living order of mind, or spirit, is the sublimity even of his blessedness, as it is the necessary grace of his perfection.
Thus far I have spoken of God’s passive virtue, principally as
concerned in feeling toward what is moral, just according to its quality; in being
affected pleasantly, or disagreeably according to the good, or evil of what he looks
upon. But there is a moral passivity in all perfect character that is vastly higher
than this and reaches farther; viz., a passivity of mercy, or sacrifice. In this,
a good, or perfect being not only feels toward good, or evil, according to what
it is, but willingly endures evil, or submits to its bad quality and action to make
it what it is not; to
Just here then, we begin to open upon the true meaning of my text—Christ the power of God. There is no so great power even among men, as this of which I now 3peak. It conquers evil by enduring evil. It takes the cage of its enemy and. lets him break his malignity across the enduring meekness of its violated love. Just here it is that evil becomes insupportable to itself. It can argue against every thing but suffering patience, this disarms it. Looking in the face of suffering patience it sinks exhausted. All its fire is spent.
In this view it is that Christ crucified is the power of God.
It is because he shows God in self-sacrifice, because he brings out and makes historical
in the world God’s passive virtue, which is, in fact, the culminating head of power
in his character. By this it is that he opens our human feeling, bad and blind as
it is, pouring himself into its deepest recesses and bathing it with his cleansing,
new-creating influence. There is even a kind of efficiency in it and
But how does it appear that any so great efficacy is added to
the known character of God, by the life and death of Christ? Was not every thing
shown us in his death explicitly revealed, or, in language, formally ascribed to
God, by the writers of the Old Testament? God, I have already shown, was certainly
represented there as being duly affected by all evil; that is, he was shown to be
affected according to its true nature; displeased, abhorrent, hurt, afflicted, offended
in purity, burdened with grief and compassion. But to have these things said, or
ascribed formally to God, is one thing, and a very different to have them lived
and acted historically in the world. Perfections that are set before us in mere
epithets have little
And if this be true respecting God’s mere passivities of sensibility
to right and wrong, how much truer is it, when we speak of him in sacrifice. No
su6h impression, or conception of God was ever drawn out, as a truth positive, from
any of the epithets we have cited. And what we call nature gives it no complexion
of evidence. Nature represents inexorable force, a God omnipotent, self-centered,
majestic, infinite and, as almost any one will judge, impassible. Such are the impressions
it gives and it encourages no other. We could almost as soon look for sacrifice
in a steam-engine as in nature. The only hint of possible relaxation we get from
it is that which we borrow from the delay of punishment; for this one thing is clear,
that justice here is not done, and therefore we may guess that other ideas enter
into God’s plans. So strongly opposite, therefore, is nature to any conception of
flexibility in God, that we are continually put away from Christianity by its suggestions.
So closely holden are we by its power, that God, as in sacrifice, appears
To know him thus, we therefore need the more. If the Old Testament gives us only verbal epithets concerning God, and nature sets us off from the conception of any real passivity in these, how necessary, original, powerful, is the God of sacrifice, he that endures evil and takes it as a burden to bear, when we see him struggling under the load. And if still we can not believe, if we reduce our God in speculation still to a dry, unmoving, negative perfection, which escapes suffering by feeling nothing as it is, only the more wonderful is the power that can be a power so great upon us, when obstructed by such unbelief. Still the fact is fact—the Christ has lived, his great and mighty passion has entered into the world, and we do get impressions from it, even when we are shutting its most central truth away. Somewhere still there is, (how often do we say it) a wondrous power hid in the cross! It penetrates our deepest nature; and when our notional wisdoms are, at some time, left behind, when we are merely holding the historic fact in practical trust unexplained, nothing meets our feeling so well as to call it the great mystery of godliness. We do it because we feel a somewhat in it more than we can reason out of it; because it penetrates and works in our deepest nature, with a wondrous incomprehensible efficacy.
But in all this we are supposing that Christ suffered and that
he is indeed the incarnate Word of God’s eternity—God manifest in the flesh. And
the suffering is, by the supposition, physical—a suffering under force. If then
God is in his very nature physically impassible, as we have
And, first of all, it is not asserted, when we assert the physical impassibility of God, that he can not suffer by consent, or self-subjection, but only that he can not be subjected involuntarily. We know nothing of the liberty possessed by the divine nature, to exist under assumed conditions, whenever there are any sufficient reasons for so doing. To deny that God has such kind of liberty in the Word, might even be a greater infringement of his power, than to maintain his natural passibility.
In the next place, we can clearly enough see that there is no difficulty in the passion of Christ which does not also exist in the incarnation itself. It is indeed the incarnation, or one of the included incidents. And the incarnation is, by the supposition, a fact abnormal, inconceivable, speculatively impossible. How can the infinite being, God, exist under finite conditions; how can the All-Present be localized; how (for that is only another form of the same question) can the impassible suffer? And yet it would be a most severe assumption to say that God can not, to express himself and forward his negotiation with sin, subject himself, in some way mysteriously qualified, to just these impossible conditions.
Be this all as it may, there are ways of knowing and perceiving
that are shorter, and, in many things, wiser than the processes of the head. In
this passion of Jesus, it must be enough that I look on the travail of a divine
feeling,
Here now, my friends, and at this point I close; here let us learn
to conceive more fitly the greatness of God. His greatness culminates in sacrifice.
He is great, because there is, a moral passivity so great in his perfections. All
which the cross of Jesus signifies was central, eternally, in his majestic character.
Nothing superlative is here displayed, nothing is done which adds so much as a trace
to God’s personal glories. All that is done is simply to
And here it is that our gospel comes to be so great a
And you, my brethren that have known this dawning of the Lord—what a certification have you, in this sacrifice, of God’s sympathy. How intensely personal is he to you. Go to him in your every trouble. Go to him most confidently in all the troubles of your inward shame, and the struggles even of your defeated hope. When tie loads of conscious sin are heaviest on you, and you seem even to be sinking in its mires, address him as the God of sacrifice. Have it also as your lesson, that you yourself will be most in power, when readiest in the enduring of evil that you will bear fruit and be strong, not by your force not by your address, not by your words, but only when you are with Christ in sacrifice. Strange that any one who has ever once felt the power of God in Christ, should, for so much as a moment, miss or fall out of this glorious truth. It comes of that delusion of our selfishness, which is, in fact, a second nature in us,—the seeing only weakness in patience, and loss in sacrifice. But if God’s own might and blessing are in it, so also are yours. Look for power, look for the fullness of joy where Christ himself reveals it. Take his cross, that same which he brought forth out of the bosom of God’s eternal perfections, and go back with him in it, to be glorified with him, in the hight of his beatitude.
WHEN Christ lays it thus upon his disciples, in that solitary and desert place, to feed five thousand men, he can not be ignorant of the utter impossibility that they should do it. And when they reply that they have only five loaves and two fishes, though the answer is plainly sufficient, he is nowise diverted from his course by it, but presses directly on in the new order that they make the people sit down by fifties in a company, and be ready for the proposed repast. Debating in themselves, probably, what can be the use of such a proceeding, when really there is no supply of food to be distributed, they still execute his order. And then when all is made ready, he calls for the five loaves and two fishes, and, having blessed them, begins to break, and says to them—Distribute. Marvelous loaves! broken, they are not diminished! distributed, they still remain! And so returning, again and again, to replenish their baskets, they continue the distribution, till the hungry multitude are all satisfied as in a full supply. In this manner the original command—Give ye them to eat—is executed to the letter. They have made the people sit down, they have brought the loaves, they have distributed, and he at every step has justified his order, by making their scanty stool as good as a full supply.
This narrative suggests and illustrates the following important principle—
That men are often, and properly, put under obligation to do that for which they have, in themselves, no present ability.
This principle I advance, not as questioning the truth that ability, being necessary to an act, is necessary to complete obligation toward the same, but as believing and designing to show that God has made provision, in very many things, for the coming in upon the subject of ability, as he goes forward to execute the duties incumbent on him. God requires no man to do, without ability to do; but he does not limit his requirement by the measures of previous or inherently contained ability. In many, or even in a majority of cases, the endowment of power is to come after the obligation, occurring step by step, as the exigences demand. Of what benefit is it that the subject have a complete ability in himself, provided he only has it where and when it is wanted? When, therefore, I maintain that men are often required to do that for which they have no present ability in themselves, I do it in the conviction that God has made provision, in many ways, for the enlargement of our means and powers so as to meet our emergencies. And he does this, we shall see, on a large scale, and by system,-does it in the natural life, and also in the works and experiences of the life of faith.
Thus, to begin at the very lowest point of the subject, it is
the nature of human strength and fortitude bodily to have an elastic measure, and
to be so let forth or extended as to meet the exigences that arise. Within certain
limits, for man is limited in every thing, the body gets the
There is yet another law pertaining to bodily capacity, which
is more remarkable, viz., that muscular strength and endurance are often suddenly
created or supplied by some great emergency for which they are wanted. What feats
of giant strength have been performed under the stimulus of danger, or some impulse
of humanity or affection. What sufferings have men supported in prisons, in deserts,
on the ocean, sustained by hope, or nerved by despair. When the occasion is passed,
and the man looks back upon the scene, how impossible does it seem that h1 should
ever have done or suffered such things! It is indeed impossible to do it now. But
then it was possible, in virtue of a great appointment of nature and providence,
by which the very occasions to be met shall so
So also it is the nature of courage to increase in the midst of perils and because of them, and courage is the strength of the heart. Often does the coward even become a hero by the accident of condition. How a man is able not seldom to proceed with firmness and heroic self-possession, when thrown amid difficult and perilous exposures or conflicts, who by no effort of courage could bring himself to engage in them, is well understood. Nor is it any thing strange for a woman, in some terrible and sudden crisis, to be nerved with firmness and dauntless self-possession,—then even to faint with terror when the crisis is past!
Intellectual force too has the same elastic quality, and measures
itself in the same way, by the exigences we are called to meet. Task it, and, for
that very reason, it grows efficient. Plunge it into darkness, and it makes a sphere
of light. It discovers its own force, by the exertion of force, measures its capacity
by the difficulties it has overcome, its appetite for labor by the labor it has
endured. So that here again, as in respect to the body, a man may have it laid upon
him to be forward in some greatest call of duty, when as yet he seems to have no
capacity for it; on the ground that his capacity will so be unfolded as to meet
the measures of his undertaking. How many persons who thought they had no ability
to teach a class of youth in the scriptures, have gotten their
Here too great occasions beget great powers, and prepare the man to astonishing, almost preternatural acts of mental energy. In great occasions, when a principle, or a kingdom, or some holy cause of heaven is at stake, an inspiration seizes him, that fires the imagination, swells the high emotions, exalts and glorifies the will, and sends the spirit of the living creatures into every wheel of the mind before inert and lifeless. Thus electrified and penetrated by the great necessity, it becomes etherial, rapid, clear, a fire of energy, a resistless power. What reasonings, what bursts of eloquence, what living words of flame, does it send forth to kindle and glow in the world’s history, for generations and ages to come.
The same also is true, quite as remarkably, of what we sometimes
call moral power. By this we mean the power of a life and a character, the power
of good and great purposes, that power which comes at length to reside in a man
distinguished in some course of estimable or great conduct. It is often this which
dignifies the great senator, so as to make even his common words, words of grave
wisdom, or perchance of high eloquence. It is this which. gives a power so mysterious
often to the preacher of Christ, such a power that even his presence in any place
will begin to disturb the conscience of many, even before they have heard him. No
other power of man compares with this, and there is no individual who may not be
measurably invested with it. Integrity, purity, goodness, success of any kind in
the humblest persons, or the lowest
And here again, also, it is to be noted that the power in question, this moral power, is often suddenly enlarged by the very occasions that call for it. Not seldom is it a fact that the very difficulty and grandeur of a design, which some heroic soul has undertaken to execute, exalts him, at once, to such a pre-eminence of moral power, that mankind are exalted with him, and inspired with energy and confidence by the contemplation of his magnificent spirit. How often indeed is a man a..e to carry a project, simply because he has made it so grand a project! He strikes, inspires, calls to his aid, by virtue of his great idea, his faith, his sublime confidence in truth, or justice, or duty.
It is only a part, or rather a generalization of the truths already
illustrated, that the great and successful men of history are commonly made by the
great occasions they fill. They are the men who had faith to meet such occasions,
and therefore the occasions marked them, called them to come and be what the successes
of their faith
I have dwelt thus at length on these illustrations that are offered
us in the natural life, simply because they will, for that reason, be most convincing
to many. You see, as a fact, that the ability we have to suffer and do and conquer,
This whole question of ability in man; of natural ability as opposed
to moral inability, or qualified by it; of gracious ability, as a substitute for
natural, or the equivalent of its restoration; is the discussion of a false issue,
which consequently never can be settled. For there is really no such thing and never
was, as an ability to holiness, or moral perfection, that is inherent. If we speak
of natural ability to good, a soul has no more natural ability to maintain the state
of perfect goodness, than a tree to grow without light, or heat, or moisture. Dependence
is the condition of all true holiness, even in sinless minds, if such there be.
They feed on what their God supplies, they are radiant with his light, they are
warm by his heat, they are blessed and exalted by the participation of his beatitude;
nay, his all-moving Spirit is the conserving and sustaining life of their perfections.
So if we speak of a gracious ability given to souls under sin, conceiving that it
is some common bestowment given to raise them up into a plane of freedom, or the
possibility of a new life, which gracious ability is a something inherent and precedent
to the obligations of repentance, that also is a pure fiction; no such ability is
given, and none is wanted. All such inventions are unnecessary; as also all the
supposed difficulties involved in the reconciling of responsibility and dependence,—they
are al1 superseded and forever passed by, the moment we discover and fully come
into the truth that all our powers and responsibilities are completed in and by
our conditions; or, what is the same, by God’s arrangements to bring in increments
of grace and impulse of all kinds, just when they are wanted. There is no difficulty
here which is not found in all those examples which have been already cited from
This, it will accordingly be found, is the Christian doctrine
everywhere. Christianity has no conception of any such thing as a holy virtue wrought
out and maintained by a responsible agent, acting from his own center, as a self-centered
and merely self-operative force,—holy virtue it conceives, even apart from sin,
to be the drinking out of God’s fullness, receiving and living in his deific impulse,
and having even its finiteness complemented by His infinite wisdom and majesty.
As little conception has it of something done to raise a fallen creature into some
inherent capacity, or ability to choose freely, that so he may be made responsible
for choice. It boldly, undisguisedly declares to every human being under sin, that
he has no complete power beforehand, as in reference to any thing really good. And
then it calls him to good, on the express condition always, that he is to have powers,
stimulants, increments, accruing as he wants them; that on these, or the promise
of them, he may rest his faith and so go forward. It says to the struggling and
misgiving penitent;—Let him take hold of my strength, that he may make peace with
me, and he shall make peace with me. It calls every man to earnest and hopeful endeavor,
by the consideration of an all-supporting grace that can not fail;—Work out salvation
with fear and trembling; for it if God that worketh in you. It shows the Christian
testifying
It might also be added that Christianity itself is a grand empowering
force in souls, and is designed to be,—that when we were without strength, Christ
died for us. For he came forth into the world groping in its darkness, as the brightness
of the Father’s glory, that the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the
face of his great life and passion, might shine into our hearts. As when the returning
sun of the spring warms out the torpid creatures, and sets them creeping forth,
re-vitalized and re-empowered with life, so this Sun of Righteousness quickens the
benumbed perceptions and imparts new warmth to the dead affections, placing us in
new conditions of power; where, as we more fully believe, and more faithfully work,
we are ever to find new increments
In this very simple manner all the great speculative difficulties and supposed mysteries of freedom and dependence are dispatched in the New Testament. And it is a remarkable fact that no Christian there is ever found to be in any speculative trouble on this subject. It is never even so much as a question of curious debate. They see nothing wanted there but just to go into their places and take their responsibilities, and let God bear them out by his conspiring help, as they certainly know that he will. Paul came directly down upon the discovery that he had ability to will, as a matter of choice, and yet could not find how to perform; but, instead of seeing any difficulty in such a condition, he only glories that in Christ and the Spirit he gets accruing helps that enable him both to will and to do. And just there, where he might have sunk himself in one of the abysses of theology, he begins, instead, to sing;—I thank God through Jesus Christ.
I will only add that all the simplest, most living, and most genuine
Christians of our own time are such as rest their souls, day by day, cn this confidence
and promise of accruing power, and make themselves responsible, not for what they
have in some inherent ability, but for what they can have, in their times of stress
and peril, and in the continual raising of their own personal quantity and power.
Let me express the hope, in closing this very important subject,
that a class of persons who generally compose a large body in every christian assembly,
will find their unhappy mistake corrected in it. I speak of such as make no beginning
in the christian life, just because they want ability and assurance and all evidence
given them beforehand. They would be quite ready to embark, if the voyage were as
good as over. They can not put themselves on God’s word, or trust him for any thing.
They must be strong before they get strength. They must have evidence of discipleship
before they dare to be disciples. They act upon no such principle in any of their
worldly adventures. Here they get power by using it, throw themselves upon the water
and learn to swim by swimming. Dismiss, I beseech you, one and all, and that forever,
this unpractical. this really unmanly timidity. Commit the keeping of your soul
to God, as to a faithful Creator. Believe that he is faithful, and love to trust
him for his faithfulness. The Moment you can let go your misgiving, spiritless habit,
But there is a more general use of this subject which demands our notice. There are two great errors which, though opposite to each other, are yet both corrected by the view I have been seeking to impress. The error viz. of those who think the demands of the religious life so limited and trivial as to require but little care and small sacrifices; and the error of those who look upon them as being so many and great that they are discouraged under them. The former class is the more numerous and generally the more worthless. They are worldly disciples who have much christian delight, as they think, in magnifying salvation by grace. God, they suppose, will not be very exact with them; for he is a gracious and long-suffering God, and does not expect much of man in the way of goodness or effect. They take a certain pleasure, for reasons more artful than they themselves suspect, in dwelling on the weakness of men and their deep dependence on God. This is their reverence they imagine, their humility; yes, it is even a very considerable part of their religion. Of course they undertake nothing, throw themselves upon no great work of duty. They-are so respectful to their human weakness that they measure their obligations by it, and really undertake nothing that makes them feel their weakness, or demands any gift of grace and power transcending it.
How different is the view of duty that God entertains for us, and everywhere asserts in the scriptures. In his sight we are all under obligation continually to undertake and do what is above our power, and to have this as the acknowledged rule of our life. He requires of us to be doing what we shall feel, to be carrying loads of duty and responsibility and sacrifice, under which, as men, we must tremble and faint; and so to be proving always that, to them that have no might, he increaseth strength. We are to undertake cheerfully and do with a ready mind all which, under his provisions of nature and grace, we may become able to do.
Feeble are we? Yea, without God we are nothing. But what, by faith,
every man may be, God requires him to be. This is the only Christian idea of duty.
Measure obligation by inherent ability! No, my brethren, christian obligation has
a very different measure. It is measured by the power that God will give us, measured
by the gifts and possible increments of faith. And what a reckoning will it be for
many of us, when Christ summons us to answer before him, under this law, not for
what we were, but for what we might have been. Then how many of us possibly, that
bore the name of Jesus, will find ourselves before God, as the mere residuary substances
of a dry and fruitless life; without volume, without strength, or any proper christian
manhood. The souls whom it was given us to lead to the Saviour are not there; the
religious societies we ought to have gathered, the temples of worship we ought to
have erected and left as monuments of our fidelity the charities we ought to have
founded and consecrated to the blessing of the coming ages;—all these good things
that we might have done, and which God was ready to
I named another error, that viz. of those who really think that
the way of duty is too hard for them, who faint because the demands of God appear
to be so high above their power. They forget, or overlook the provision God has
made to bring in increments of power, and support them, in what appears to be too
high for them. They hear the call,—give ye them to eat, and remember only their
five loaves and two fishes, and what are these among so many? They seem not to notice,
or, if they notice, not to believe, those words of promise by which God encourages
and supports the insufficiency of men. Thus, if any one, trying to make higher attainments
and achieve some higher standing in religion, is overwhelmed with the infirmity
There is almost no limit to the power that may be exerted by a single church in this or any other community. Fill your places, meet your opportunities, and despair of nothing. Shine as lights, because you are luminous; let the Spirit of Christ and of God be visible in you, because you are filled therewith; and you will begin to see what power is possible to weakness! Have faith, O, ye of little faith. Hear the good word of the Lord, when he says,—I have called thee by thy name, thou art mine. Fear not, O, thou worm, Jacob. Behold I will make thee a new sharp threshing instrument, having teeth; thou shalt thresh the mountains and beat them small, and shalt make the hills as chaff. Such are God’s promises. Let us believe them; which if we can heartily do, nothing is impossible.
WHAT any true poet will say is commonly most natural to be said and deepest in the truth; for his art is to be unrestrained by art, and to let the inspiration of his inmost, deepest life vent itself in song. And this exactly is the manner of our great Psalmist. We are not to understand that, in using the indicative form, he is merely reciting a historic fact, and telling us that he has not hic. God’s righteousness in his heart. His meaning is deeper; viz., to say that he could not do it, but must needs testify of the goodness, and sing of the sweetness, and exult in the joy, he had found in the salvation of God and the secret witness of his Spirit. Nay, he must even send his song into the temple, and call on all the great congregation of Israel to sing it with him, and raise it as a chorus of praise to the great Jehovah. What I propose, accordingly, at the present time, is to speak of—
The necessary openness of a holy experience; or, in other words, of the impossibility that the inward revelation of God in the soul should be shut up in it, and remain hid, or unacknowledged.
I shall have in view especially two classes of hearers that are widely distinguished one from the other; first, the class who hide the grace of God in their heart undesignedly, or by reason of some undue modesty; and secondly, the class who, pretending to have it, or consciously having it not, take a pleasure in throwing discredit on all the appropriate expressions of it, such as are made by the open testimony and formal profession of Christ before men.
The former class are certainly blamable in no such sense or
degree as the others. They are naturally timorous and self-distrustful persons,
it may be, and do not see that they are distrusting God rather than themselves.
They seem to themselves to have been truly renewed in the love of God, but they
have some doubts, and they make it appear to be wiser that they should not,
just now, testify their supposed new experience. It is better, they think; to
wait till they have had a long, secret trial of themselves, and learned whether
they can endure,—better, that is, to see whether they can keep alive the grace
under suppression; when it must be infallibly stifled and can not live, except
in the open field of duty and love and holy fellowship. They are not simple;
they are unnatural; what is in them, in their feeling, their secret hope, their
joy begun, they regulate and suppress. If they were placed in heaven itself,
they would not sing the first month, pretending that they had not tried their
voices, or perchance doubting whether it is quite modest in them to thank God
for his mercy, till they are more sure whether it is really to be sufficient
in them. There is a great deal of unbelief in their backwardness; a great deal
of self-consciousness ill their modesty; and sometimes a little will is cunningly
In opposition now to both these classes, and without assuming to measure and graduate the exact degree of their blame before God, I undertake to show that, where there is a true grace of experience in the heart, it ought to be, must, and will be manifest. And I bring to your notice—
1. The evident fact that a true inward experience, or discovery of God in the heart, is itself an impulse also of self-manifestation, as all love and gratitude are—wants to speak and declare itself, and will as naturally do it, when it is born, as a child will utter its first cry. And exactly this, as I just now said, is what David means; viz., that he had been obliged to speak, and was never able to shut up the fire burning in his spirit, from the first moment when it was kindled. He speaks as one who could not find how to suppress the joy that filled his heart, but must needs break loose in a testimony for God. And so it is in all cases the instinct of a new heart, in its experience of God, to acknowledge him. No one ever thinks it a matter of delicacy, or genuine modesty, to entirely suppress any reasonable joy; least of all, any fit testimony of gratitude toward a deliverer and for a deliverance. In such a case no one ever asks, what is the use? where is the propriety? for it is the simple instinct of his nature to speak, and he speaks.
Thus, if one of you had been rescued, in a shipwreck
2. The change implied in a true Christian experience, or the
revelation of God in the heart, is in its very nature the soul and root of an
outward change that is correspondent. The faith implanted is a faith that works
in appropriate demonstrations, and must as certainly work, as a living heart
must beat or pulsate. It is the righteousness of God revealed within, to be
henceforth the actuating spring and power of a righteous and devoted life. It
will inform the whole man. It will glow in the countenance. It will irradiate
the eye. It will speak from the tongue. It will modulate the very gait. It will
cuter into all the transactions of business, the domestic
3. If any one proposes beforehand, in his religious
4. It is not less clear, as I have already said incidentally,
and now say only more directly, that the grace of God in the heart, unmanifested
or kept secret, as many propose that it shall be, even for their whole life,
will be certainly stifled and extinguished. The thought itself is a mockery
of the Holy Spirit. The heart might as well be required to live and not beat,
as the new heart of love to hush itself and keep still in the bosom. Nothing
can live that is not permitted to show the signs of life. Even a tree, a solid,
massive oak, embracing the earth in roots equal to half its volume, and drawing
out of the rich soil its needed nutriment, will be stifled and yield up its
life, if it can not put on leaves at the extremities and grow. So let any, the
best and ripest Christian, if such a one could be induced to do it, (as most
assuredly he could not,) retire from all the acts and forbid himself all the
duties, by which he would manifest his love to God, and declare God’s love to
men, and -that love would very soon be so far smothered in his bosom, as to
leave no evidence there of its existence. Accordingly you will find that all
that class of persons, who take the turn described, give the most abundant proofs,
ere long, that God is not with them. How can he be with them, when they propose
even to be disciples in such a way that, if all others were to follow and be
like them, Christ would not have a church, or even one acknowledged friend or
follower on earth? Will he consent, by his Spirit, do you think, to uphold a
race of secret, unacknowledged followers, in this manner; followers who turn
their back to him, will not confess, will not even speak, or act the grace they
receive?
5. This is the express teaching of the gospel, which every
where and in every possible way calls out the souls renewed in Christ to live
an open life of sacrifice and duty, and to
witness a good confession.—Come and follow me, is the word of Jesus. Deny thyself,
take up thy cross, and follow me. If it is a lowly calling, if we can not descend
to it, then he says,—Blessed is he who is not offended in me. If our pride,
or the pride of our position, is too great, then he says,—Whosoever shall be
ashamed of me and of my words, of him shall the Son of man be ashamed, when
he shall come in his glory. To exclude any possible thought of a secret discipleship,
he says,—I have chosen you and ordained you, that ye should bring forth fruit,—I
have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you, and will persecute
you as it has persecuted me. In the same way his apostles call upon all that
love him to come out and be separate, to put on the whole armor of God and stand,
to fight openly the good fight, to endure hardness, to make a loss of all things
for his sake, to be his witnesses before men; leading always the way by their
own bold, faithful testimony. When you look, for example, on such a character
as Paul, it is even difficult to conceive how there can ever be any real communion
of spirit, in any future world, between him and one so opposite as to think
of living a secret, unavowed piety. Between that craven way of secrecy and mere
self-saving on one hand, and his great heart of love and labor on the other,
can any bond of sympathy
6. It deserves to be made a distinct point that there is no
shade of encouragement given to this notion of salvation by a secret piety,
in any of the scripture examples or teachings. If there is to be a large body
of the secret heirs of salvation, such as will greatly surprise the m ore open,
more pretentious friends of God, when they see the number, there ought to be
at least some examples in the scripture to encourage such an expectation. The
nearest approach to such encouragement any where given, is that which is afforded
by the case of the two senators, Joseph and Nicodemus. One of them we are told
was a disciple secretly, for fear of the Jews. And the other came to
Is it such examples that give encouragement to a secret piety? These two had certainly some notion of such a discipleship, but who will care to receive it from them? No, the real disciple is different; he is thought of as a man who stands for his Master, and is willing to die for his Master, Ye are the light of the world; and the light of the world is lighted up, of course, to shine. Men do not light a candle, he says, and put it under a bushel. Let your light so shine, that others, seeing your good works, may glorify your Father which is in heaven.
Drawing our subject now to a conclusion, we notice, first
of all, in a way of practical application, the very absurd pretense of those
who congratulate themselves on having so much of secret merit, which they even
count the more meritorious because they keep it secret. Some persons of a generally
correct life are put on this course by the flatteries of others, who love to
let down the honors of religion, and hold them up as a foil in doing it. Some
do it willfully and scornfully, hinting that people who make so great a noise
about religion would do well to be more modest, and that, if they were willing
to proclaim their own merits, perhaps they might make as good a show themselves.
And yet how many are there, if we may trust the world’s report, of these secret
saints!—not the least, but the greatest of all saints! It is very much as if
a nation, fighting for its liberties, had vast armies of secret patriots, who
did not believe in making so great a noise in the dust and carnage of the field,
but, since they are too
The real truth is, in respect to almost all these pretenders to a secret religion, that they are persons who know nothing of it. They are moralists, it may be, practicing at what they call a virtue by themselves, but they do nothing that brings them into any relationship with God. It is not the righteousness of God which they have hidden so carefully, but it is their own,—which, after all, is not hid. They never pray, they have no experience of God, they are as ignorant as the worst of men of any such thing as a divine joy in the heart. They do not break out and confess the Lord, simply because he is not in them. Nothing is in them but themselves, and they do confess themselves, they even boast themselves. Just as naturally would they boast and testify the love of God, if they felt its power. They really publish all the merit they have now, and, when religion dawns in their hearty they will as certainly declare the grace of God in that.
And this again brings us to notice the significance of the
profession of Christ, when, and why, and with what views, it should be made.
It should be made, because where there is any thing to be professed, it can
not but be made. If a man loves God he will take his part with God, just as
a citizen who loves his country will take the part of his country. He will draw
himself to all God’s friends and count them brothers, rejoicing with them in
the fellowship o’ the common love. He will set himself, in every manner, to
strengthen, comfort, edify, stimulate them in their fidelity and application
to good works. All this he will
This matter of professing Christ appears to be regarded by many as a kind of optional duty. Just as optional as it is for light to shine, or goodness to be good, or joy to sing, or gratitude to give thanks, or love to labor and sacrifice for its ends. No! my friends, there is no option here, save as all duties are optional and eternity hangs on the option we make. Let no one of you receive or allow a different thought. Expect to be open, outstanding witnesses for God, and rejoice to be. In ready and glorious option, take your part with such, and stifle indignantly any lurking thought of being a secret follower.
Following in the same train, we notice, again, what value
there may be in discoveries of christian experience, and the legitimate use
they may have in christian society. Some of the best and holiest impulses ever
given to -the cause of God in men’s hearts are given by testimonies of christian
experience. Like all other things, they are capable of abuse. They may run to
a really pitiful conceit, being not only misconceived by the subjects themselves,
but even made a gospel of and thrust forward, on occasions where they are out
of place and against all holy proprieties. Still there will be times, more or
less private, when the humblest and weakest disciples can speak of what God
has done for them, with the very best effect. Nor is there any thing so unpractical
and destitute of christian respect as the shyness of some fastidious people
in this matter. It never exists in a truly manly character, or in connection
with a full-toned, living godliness. That will be no such dainty affair. It
will speak out. It will declare what God has done, and show the method by which
he works. The new joy felt will be a new song in the mouth, and every new deliverance
will be fitly, gratefully confessed. There will be no shallow affectation of
delicacy shutting the lips and sealing them in a forced dumbness, as if the
righteousness of God had been taken by a deed of larceny. How often will two
disciples help and strengthen each other by showing, each the other, in what-way
God has led him, what his struggles have been, and where his victories. And,
if there should be three or four included, or possibly, and in fit cases, more,
a whole church, what is there to blame? They spake often, one to another, says
the prophet, and God hearkened and heard it. God listens for nothing so tenderly
as when his children help each
And now, last of all, let this
one thing be impressed: for every thing I have been saying leads to this, that
the true wisdom, in all these matters of holy experience, is to act naturally.
If you seem to yourself to have really passed from death unto life, and to have
come into God’s peace, interpose no affectations of modesty, no restrictions of
mock prudence, but in true natural modesty and a sound natural discretion,
testify the grace you have received. Take upon you promptly every duty, enter
the church, obey the command of Christ, in the confession of his name and the
public remembrance of his death. O, if we could get rid of so many affectations
in religion, and so many unnatural, artificial wisdoms, how many more real
Christians would there be, and these how much better and heartier. How many are
there in our
If any of you, either out of the church or in, have lost ground in these artificial and restrictive ways, come back at once to your losing point and consent to be natural, to act out whatever grace God will give you, and, when you are conscious of his love to you, or his new creating presence and peace in your heart, be as ready to trust your consciousness as you are the consciousness that you think, or doubt, or do any thing else. In a word, do not hide the righteousness of God in your heart, lest you make a tomb of your heart and bury it there. Go forward and act out naturally, testify freely, live openly, the grace that is in you.
Thus it was, I have already said, with the sturdy warriors of
the faith in the first ages of the church. They were men who took the grace in
them as a call. The love that broke into their hearts burned up all their false
modesty. Their humble position was exalted by the faith of Jesus, and they stood
forth in all the singularity of the
KINGDOM and patience! a very singular conjunction of terms to say the least; as if, in Jesus Christ, were made compatible, authority and suffering, the impassive throne of a monarch and the meek subjection of a cross, the reigning power of a prince and the mild endurance of a lamb. What more striking paradox. And yet in this you have exactly that which is the prime distinction of Christianity. It is a kingdom erected by patience. It reigns in virtue of submission. Its victory and dominion are the fruits of a most peculiar and singular endurance. I say the fruits of endurance, and by this I mean, not the reward, but the proper results or effects of endurance Christ reigns over human souls and in them, erecting there his spiritual kingdom, not by force of will exerted in any way, but through his most sublime passivity in yielding himself to the wrongs and the malice of his adversaries. And with him, in this most remarkable peculiarity; all disciples are called to be partakers; even as the apostle in his exile at Patmos writes,—I John, who also am your brother and companion in tribulation, and in the kingdom and patience of Jesus. I offer it accordingly to your consideration, as a kind of first principle in a good life, which it will be the object of my discourse to illustrate—
That the passive elements, or graces of the Christian life well maintained, are quite as efficient and fruitful as the active.
It is not my design, of course, to discourage, or restrain what are called active works in religion. Christ himself was active beyond almost any human example. All great and true servants of God have been men of industry, and of earnest and strenuous application to works of duty. I only design to exhibit what many are so apt to overlook or forget, the sublime efficacy of those virtues which be long to the receiving, suffering, patient side of character. They are such as meekness, gentleness, forbearance, forgiveness, the endurance of wrong without anger and resentment, contentment, quietness, peace, and unambitious love. These all belong to the more passive side of char acter and are included, or may be, in the general and comprehensive term patience. What I design is to show that these are never barren virtues, as some are apt to imagine, but are often the most efficient and most operative powers that a true Christian wields; inasmuch as they carry just that kind of influence, which other men are least apt and least able to resist.
We too commonly take up the impression that power
is measured by exertion; that we are effective because simply of what we do,
or the noise we make; consequently that, when we are not in exertion of some
kind, we are not accomplishing any thing; and that if we are too humble, or
poor, or infirm, to be engaged in great works and projects, there is really
nothing for us to do, and we are living to no purpose. This very gross and
wholly mistaken impression I wish to remove, by showing that a right passivity
is sometimes the greatest and most effective
First of all, that the passive and submissive
virtues are most of all remote from the exercise, or attainment of those who
are out of the Christian spirit and the life of faith. All men are able to be
active. Most men do exert themselves in works that are really useful. A vast
multitude of the race have excelled in forms of active power that are commonly
called virtuous, without any thought of religion. They have been great inventors,
discoverers, teachers, law-givers, risked their life, or willingly yielded it
up in the fields of war for the defense of their country, or the conquest of
liberty, worn out every energy of mind and body, in the advancement of great
human interests. Indeed it is commonly not difficult for men to be active or
even bravely so; but when you come to the passive or receiving side of life,
here they fail. To bear evil and wrong, to forgive, to suffer no resentment
under injury, to be gentle when nature burns with a fierce heat, and pride clamors
for redress, to restrain envy, to bear defeat with a firm and peaceful mind,
not to be vexed or fretted by cares, losses, or petty injuries, to abide in
contentment and serenity of spirit, when trouble and disappointment come—these,
are conquests, alas how difficult to most of us! Accordingly it will be seen
that a true Christian man is distinguished from other men, not so much by
his beneficent works, as by his patience. In this he most excels and rises highest
above the mere natural virtues of the world Just here it is that he is looked
upon as a peculiar and
Consider also
more distinctly the immense power of principle that is necessary to establish
the soul in these virtues of endurance and patience. Here is no place for ambition,
no stimulus of passion, such as makes even cowards brave in the field. Here
are no exploits to be carried, no applauses of the multitude to be won. The
disciple knowing that God forgives and waits, wants to be like him; knowing
that he has nothing himself to boast of but the shame of a sinner, wants to
be nothing, and prefers to suffer and crucify his resentments, and since God
would not contend with him, will not contend with those who do him injury. He
gets the power of his patience wholly from above. It is not human, it is divine.
Hence the impossibility of it even to great men. Napoleon, for example, had
the active powers in such vigor, that he made the whole civilized world shake
with dread. But when he came to the place where true greatness consisted only
in patience, that was too great for him. Just where any Christian woman would
have shone forth in the true radiance and sublimity of an all-victorious patience,
Notice again, yet more distinctly,
what will add a yet more conclusive evidence, how it is chiefly by this endurance
of evil, that Christ, as a Redeemer, prevails against the sin of the human heart
and subdues its enmity. Just
Again, it is important to notice that men, as being under sin, are set against all active efforts to turn them, or persuade them, but never against that which implies no effort; viz., the gentle virtues of patience. We are naturally jealous of control by any method which involves a fixed design to exert control over us: therefore we are always on our guard in this direction. But we are none the less open, at all times, to the power of silent worth, and the unpretending goodness of those virtues that are included in patience. If a man is seen to live in content, and keep a mind unruffled by vexation, under great calamities and irritating wrongs, we have no guard set against that, we almost like to be swayed by such a kind of power. Indeed we should not have a good opinion of ourselves, if we did not admire such an example and praise it. And in just this way it happens, that many a proud and willful soul will resist the most eloquent sermon, and will then be completely subdued and melted by the heavenly serenity and patience of a sick woman. For a similar reason, all the submissive forms of excellence have an immense advantage. They provoke no opposition, because they are not put forth for us, but for their own sake. They fix our admiration therefore, win our homage, and melt into our feeling. They move us the more, because they do not attempt to move us. They are silent, empty of all power but that which lies in their goodness, and for just that reason they are among the greatest powers that Christianity wields.
Once more it is important for every man, when he will cast the balance between
the powers of action and of passion or when he will discover the real
effectiveness of passive
Let us notice now in conclusion, some of the instructive and practical uses of the truth illustrated. And
1. It is here that Christianity makes issue with the
whole world on the question of human greatness. That is ever looked on by mankind
and spoken of as greatness, which displays some form of active power. The soldier
the statesman, the inventor, the orator, the reformer, the poet—all great thinkers
and doers, by whom, as mighty men and men of renown, great masses of people
or even nations are swayed in their opinions, or their history, or profoundly
moved, prepared to some higher future—are taken as examples of the most real
and highest form of greatness. It has never entered into human thought, unsanctified
by religion, that there is or can be any such thing as greatness in the mere
passive virtues, or in simply suffering well; least of all in suffering wrong
and evil with a forgiving, unresentful spirit. Christianity is here alone, holding
it forth as being, when required, the divinest, sublimest and most powerful
of all virtues to suffer well. Even the summits of deific excellence and glory
it reveals, by the endurance of enemies, and the bitter pangs of a cross accepted
for their good. It works out the recovery of transgressors by the transforming
power of sacrifice. And so it establishes a kingdom, which is itself the reign
of the patience of Jesus. The whole plan centers in this one principle, that
the suffering side of character has a power of its own, superior, in some respects,
to the most active endeavors. And in this it proves its originality by standing
quite alone. The Stoics appear to have had a dim apprehension that something
of this kind might be true, but the patience they inculcated was that of the
will and not the patience of love and trust. It was in fact, obstinacy, without
any consent to suffering at all, a will hardening itself into flint a sensibility
deadened
2. The office of the Christian
martyrs is here explained. We look back upon the long ages of woe, the martyr
ages of the church, and we behold a vast array of active genius and power, that
could not be permitted to spend itself in works of benefaction to the race,
but was consecrated of God to the more sacred and more fruitful grace of suffering.
The design was, it would seem, to prepare a Christly past, to show whole ages
of faith populated with men who were able, coming after their Master and bearing
his cross, to suffer with him and add their human testimony to his. And they
overcame by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony, and they
loved not their lives unto the death. And so it has been ordered that the church
of God shall know itself to be the child of suffering patience. The scholars,
the preachers, all the great and noted characters, who have served the church
by their labors, pass into shade, we think little of them, but the men of patience,
the holy martyrs, these we feel
3. We see in this subject, how it is that many persons are so abundantly
active ir. religion, with so little effect; while others who are not conspicuous
in action accomplish so much. The reason is, that one class trust mainly to
the virtues of action, while the others unite also the virtues of patience.
One class is brother and companion in the kingdom and works of Jesus, the other
in the kingdom and patience of Jesus. Accordingly there is something of the
same distinction between them, that there is between John the Baptist and the
Saviour, as regards the extent and the subduing, permanent quality of their
effects. Thus a man may be very active in warnings, exhortations, public prayers,
plans of beneficence, contributions of time and money, and it may seem, when
you look upon him, that he is going to produce immense effects by his life.
But suppose him to be very much of a stranger to the patient virtues of Christ—railing
at adversaries, blowing blasts of scorn upon those whom he wishes to reform
in their practices, impetuous, willful, irritable, hot,—how much good is that
man going to do by all his activity? What can he do but to irritate and vex and,
as far as he is concerned, render the very name of religion or possibly of
Christ himself, odious. Or suppose him to be a petulant neighbor, or a harsh and
passionate man to persons in his employ, resentful and retaliatory against those
who
On the other hand, have you never observed the immense power exerted
by many Christian men and women, whose lives are passed in comparative silence?
You know not how it is, they seem to be really doing little, and yet they are
felt by thousands. And the secret of this wonder is that they know how to suffer
well—they are in the patience of Jesus. They will not resent evil, or think
evil. They are not easily provoked. They are content with their lot, though
it be a lot of poverty and affliction. They will not be envious of others. When
they are wronged they remember Christ and forgive, when opposed and thwarted,
they endure and wait. They live in an element of composure and sweetness, and
can not be irritated and fretted by men, because they are so much with
4. The reason why we have so many crosses, trials, wrongs, and pains,
is here made evident. We have not one too many for the successful culture of
our faith. The great thing, and that which it is most of all difficult to produce
in us, is a participation of Christ’s forgiving gentleness and patience. This,
if we can learn it, is the most difficult and the most distinctively christian
of all attainments. Therefore we need a continual discipline of occasions; poverty,
sickness, bereavements, losses, treacheries, misrepresentations, oppressions,
persecutions; we can hardly have too many for our own good, if only we receive
them as our Saviour did his cross. It is by just these refining fires of trial
and suffering, that we are to be most advanced in that to which we aspire. The first thing that our Saviour set himself to, when he began his ministry,
was the inculcation of those traits that belong to the passive or patient side;
for these he well understood were most remote from us, highest above us, and
most of all cross to the impatient stormy spirit of sin within us. He opened
his mouth and taught them for his first lesson,—Blessed are the poor in spirit;
Blessed are the meek; Blessed are the peacemakers; Blessed are they that are
persecuted for righteousness sake; and afterward, in the same discourse,—Resist
not evil, whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other
also—Love your enemies, bless them
Therefore, I said we have not too many occasions given us for the
exercise of patience; which, is yet, more evident, when we consider the Christian
power of patience. How many are there who by reason of poverty, obscurity, infirmity
of mind, or body, can never hope to do much by action, and who often sigh at
the contemplation of their want of power to effect any thing. But it is given
to them as to all, to suffer; let them only suffer well and they will give a
testimony for God, which all who know them will deeply feel and profoundly respect.
It is not necessary for all men to be great in action. The greatest and sublimest
power is often simple patience; and for just that reason we need sometimes to
see its greatness alone, that we may embrace the solitary, single idea of such
greatness, and bring it into our hearts unconfused with all other kinds of power.
Whoever gives to the church of God such a contribution—the invalid, the cripple,
the neglected and forlorn woman-every such person yields a testimony for the
cross, that is second in value to no other. Let this be remembered and let it
be your joy, in every trial and grief and pain and wrong you suffer, that to
suffer
“They also serve, who only stand and wait.”
And here let me add is pre-eminently the office and power of woman. Her power is to be the power most especially of gentleness and patient endurance. An office so divine, let her joyfully accept and faithfully bear—adding sweetness to life in all its exasperating and bitter experiences, causing poverty to smile, cheering the hard lot of adversity, teaching pain the way of peace, abating hostilities and disarming injuries by the patience of her love. All the manifold conditions of human suffering and sorrow are many occasions given to woman, to prove the sublimity of true submission, and reveal the celestial power of passive goodness.
Finally, there is reason to suspect that men not religious, are commonly averted
from the Christian life, more by their dislike of the submissive and gentle
virtues, than by any distaste of sacrifice and active duty. They could enter
as companions into his kingdom, if only they could be excused from the patience.
Their life of sin is a life of will, or self-will; therefore a life centered
in themselves. They have undertaken to hew their own way; therefore to thrust
and push and fret themselves against obstructions, and resent oppositions, to
envy and hate and revenge themselves on enemies, is the luxury, in great part,
of their sin. They can admire and praise benevolence, truth, disinterestedness
of conduct, but to bear evil and love enemies and be patient—that is wholly
distant from the temper they are in. They are not without admiration for these
tle kinds of excellence, when displayed by God himself;
And yet how plain it is, my friends, that for the want of just these passive virtues, your character is all disorder and confusion. There can be nothing, as you have seen, of the highest, truest greatness in you, without the virtues of patience; you are not called to descend to these, but, if possible to ascend. Christ commands you to take up his cross and follow him, not that he may humble you, or lay some penance upon you, but that you may surrender the low self-will and the feeble pride of your sin, and ascend into the sublime patience of heavenly charity. You begin to reign, the moment you begin to suffer well. You are only degraded when you suffer, and groan, writhing under pains God lays upon you, in the manner of a slave. Renounce what is real degradation, and the pride that now detains you will not be left. Choose what will most exalt you, and these gentle virtues of the cross will be accepted first. And then it will not be left us to exhort you; for you will even claim it as your joy, to be brother and companion in the kingdom and patience of Jesus.
THERE is a reference here, it will be seen, to wine, or to the process by which it is prepared and finished. It is first expressed from the grape, when it is a thick, discolored fluid or juice. It is then fermented, passing through a process that separates the impurities, and settles them as lees at the bottom. Standing thus upon its lees or dregs in some large tun or vat, it is not further improved. A gross and coarse flavor remains, and the scent of the feculent matter stays by and becomes fastened, as it were, in tne body of the wine itself. To separate this, and so to soften or refine the quality, it is now decanted or drawn off into separate jars or skins. After a while it is done again, and then again; and so, being emptied from vessel to vessel, the last remains of the lees or sediment are finally cleared, the crude flavors are reduced, the scent itself is refined by ventilation, and the perfect character is finished.
So it has not been, the prophet says,
with Moab. He hath been at ease from the first, shaken by no great overturnings
or defeats, humbled and broken by no captivities, ventilated by no surprising
changes or adversities.
There has all along been a kind of mental reference, it will be seen, in his language, to the singular contrast between Moab and Israel, which here in these last words comes out. Israel, the covenanted people, have had no such easy and quiet sort of history. They have been wanderers, in a sense, all the while; shaken loose or unsettled every few years by some great change or adversity; by a state of slavery in Egypt, by a fifty years’ roving and fighting in the wilderness, by a time of dreadful anarchy under the Judges, by overthrows and judgments under the Kings, by a revolt and separation of the kingdom, then by a captivity, then by another; and so, while Moab, heaved and loosened by no such changes, has retained the scent of its old customs and abominations, Israel has become quite another people. The calves of Bethel were long ago renounced; the low superstitions, the coarse and sensual habit, all the idolatrous fashions and affinities which corrupted their religion, have been gradually fined away.
Similar contrasts might be instanced
among the states and nations of our own time; in China, for example, and
But my object is personal, not political or social, and the principle that underlies the text is one that may be universalized in its applications. It is this:
That we require to be unsettled in life by many changes and interruptions of adversity, in order to be most effectually loosened from our own evils, and prepared to the will and work of God.
We need, in other words, to be shaken out of our places and plans, agitated, emptied from vessel to vessel, else the flavors of our grossness and impurity remain. We can not be refined on our lees, or in any course of life that is uniformly prosperous and secure. My object will be to exhibit this truth and bring it into a just application to our own personal experience. Observe, then—
1. How God manages, on a large scale, in the common
matters of life, to keep us in a process of change and pre vent our lapsing
into a state of security such as we desire, No sooner do we begin to settle,
as we fancy, and become fixed, than some new turn arrives by which we are shaken
loose and sorely tossed. When the prophet declares that He will overturn, overturn,
overturn, he gives in that single word a general account of God’s polity in
all human
The very scheme of life appears to be itself a grand decanting process,
where change follows change, and all are emptied from vessel to vessel. Here
and there a man, like Moab, stands upon his lees, and commonly with the same
effect. Fire, flood, famine, sickness in all forms and guises, wait upon us,
seen or unseen, and we run the gauntlet through them, calling it life. And the
design appears to be to turn us hither and thither, allowing us no chance to
stagnate in any sort of benefit or security, Even the most successful, who seem,
in one view, to go straight on to their mark, get on after all, rather by a
But we must hasten to points more immediately religious, carrying with us, as we may, a lesson derived from these analogies. Observe, then—
2. That the radical evil of human character, as being under sin,
consists in a determination to have our own way, which determination must be
somehow reduced and extirpated. Hence the necessity that our experience be so
appointed as to shake us loose continually from our purpose, or from all security
and rest in it. Sin is but another name for self-direction. We cast off the
will of God in it, and set up for a way and for objects of our own. We lay off
plans to serve ourselves, and we mean to carry them straight through to their
result. Whatever crosses us, or turns us aside, or in any way forbids us to
do or succeed just as we like, becomes our annoyance. And these kinds of annoyance
are so many and subtle and various, that the very world seems to be contrived
to baffle us. In one view it is. It would not do for us, having east off the
will of God, and set up our own will, to let us get on smoothly and never feel
any friction or collision with the will cast off. Therefore God manages to turn
us about, beat us back, empty us from vessel to vessel, and make us feel that
our bad will is hedged about, after all, by his Almighty purposes. Sometimes
we seem to bend, sometimes to break. Be it one or the other, we lose a
It would not answer even for the Christian, who has meant to
surrender his will, and really wants to be perfected in the will of God, to
be made safe in his plans and kept in a continual train of successes. He wants
a reminder every hour; some defeat, surprise, adversity, peril; to be agitated,
mortified, beaten out of his courses, so that all remains of self-will in him
may be sifted out of him, and the very scent of his old perversity cleared.
O, if we could be excused from all these changes and somersets, and go on securely
in our projects, it would ruin the best of us. Life needs to be an element of
danger and agitation,—perilous, changeful, eventful; we need to have our evil
will met by the stronger will of God, in order to be kept advised, by our experience,
of the impossibility of that which our sin has undertaken. It would not even
do for us to be uniformly successful in our best meant and holiest works, our
prayers, our acts of sacrifice, our sacred enjoyments; for we should very soon
fall back into the subtle power of our self-will, and begin to imagine, in our
vanity, that we are doing something ourselves Even here we need to be defeated
and baffled, now and
3. Consider the fact that our evils are generally hidden from
us till they are discovered to us by some kind of trial or adversity. This is
less true of vicious and really iniquitous men; they see every hour with their
eyes what is in them, or at least they may, by the acts they do. Their profanities,
frauds, and lies, their deeds of impurity and violence, all that comes out of
them shows them to be defiled. Not so with a generally correct man, still less
so with a genuine, faithful Christian, endeavoring after greater sanctification
and a closer conformity to the will of God. Every such man, living a life outwardly
blameless, and desiring earnestly to grow in all true holiness, is, by the supposition,
correct outwardly, and therefore the evils that remain in his spirit are to
a great extent latent from himself. Sometimes, in a frame of high communion
with God, he imagines that he is much more nearly purified than he is. And
when he knows, from his poverty and spiritual dullness, that something is certainly
wrong in him, he will have great difficulty in detecting the precise point of
his infirmity. It is in him like some scent in the air, the source of which
is hidden and can not be traced. Perhaps he will never definitely trace it so
as to have it as a discovery, and yet God will manage, by the gusts of adversity
and change, to winnow it away, even though it be undiscovered. More commonly,
however, every such turn of adversity will bring out some particular fault in
him, which before was hid, and which he greatly needed to have discovered, and
he will be able to set himself to the very work of purification by a direct
4. It is another point of advantage in the changes
and surprises through which we are continually passing, that we are prepared,
in this manner, to the gracious and refining work of the spirit in us. When
we are allowed to stand still and are agitated by no changes, we become incrusted,
as it were, under our remaining faults or evils and shut up in them, as wine
in the vat where it is kept. And the Spirit of God is shut away, in this manner,
by the imperviousness of our settled habit. But when great changes or calamities
come, our crust is broken up, and the freshening breath of the Spirit fans the
open chamber of the soul, to purify it. Now the prayer, cleanse thou me from
secret faults, finds an answer which before was impossible. Providence,. in
this view, is an agitating power to break the incrustations of evil and let
the gales of the Spirit blow where they list in us. Under some great calamity
or sorrow, the loss of a child, the visitations of bodily pain, a failure in
business, the slanders of an enemy, a persecution for the truth or for righteousness’ sake, how tender and open to God does the soul become! Search me, O God, and
try me, and see if there be any evil way in me, is now the ingenuous prayer,
and the Spirit of God comes in to work the answer, finding every thing ready
for an effectual and thorough purgation. And so, by a double process, Providence
and the Spirit, both in unity, (for God is always one with himself,) we are
perfected in holiness and finished in the complete beauty of Christ, We could
never hope to have our secret evils cleared by any process of particular discovery
and sanctification, but God’s own Spirit can reach every most hidden fault,
and all the innumerable, undiscoverable vestiges of our depravity, doing all
things for us. And so, at last, even the scent of
5.
Too great quiet and security, long continued, are likely to allow the reaction
or the recovered power of our old sins and must not therefore be suffered. As
the wine standing on its dregs or lees contracts a taste from the lees, and
must therefore be decanted or drawn off, so as to have no contact longer with
their vile sedimentary matter, so we, in like manner, need to be separated from
every thing pertaining to the former life, to be broken up in our expectations
and loosened from the affinities of our former habit. In our conversion to God
we pass a crisis that, like fermentation, clears our transparency and makes
us apparently new; we are called new men in Christ Jesus; still the old man
is not wholly removed. It settles like dregs at the bottom, so to speak, of
our character, where t is, for the present, unseen. One might imagine, for the
time, that it is wholly taken away, and yet it is there, and is only the more
likely to infect us that it is not sufficiently mixed with our life to cloud
our present transparency. Our sanctification is not to be completed save by
separation from it. And therefore God, who is faithful to us, continues to sever
us, as completely as possible, from all association with the old life and condition;
breaks up our plans, compels a readjustment of our objects, empties us about
from vessel to vessel, that our taste may not remain. Otherwise the hidden sediment
of the old man will some. time flavor and corrupt the new even more than at
first. Suppose a man is converted as a politician—there is nothing wrong certainly
in being a politician—but how subtle is the power of those old habits and affinities
in which he
Once more, we are most certainly finished, when we are brought
closest to God, and we are never brought so near
And now let me suggest as in reference to all these illustrations,
how much more they would signify if it were a day with us of great public calamity,
a day, for example, of religious persecution, a day when fathers or sons are
hunted or dragged to prison, or when possibly we ourselves are expecting every
hour to be seized and arraigned for the faith of the gospel—and so to be witnesses
for it even by the sacrifice on our lives. O these times of persecution, what
Christians do they make! How little hold has this world, or its sins, of men
who have laid even their lives upon the altar! We complain how often, that in
these days of security and liberty, Christian piety grows thin and feeble, that
it loses tone, and appears even to want a character of reality. The difficulty
is that our opinions, our faith, our Christian life, cost us nothing, and the
church slides into the world because there is no broad
The applications of this subject are many and various.
First of all, it brings a lesson of admonition to the class of worldly men who are continually prospered in the things of this life. One may be continually prospered in some things when he is not in all. He may be uniformly successful in his business engagements and enterprises, for example, when, iii fact, he is tossed by many and sore disappointments, and shaken by intense agonies of heart. And, by these, he may be kept in that airing of right conviction, which is needed to winnow his bad tempers, and sober his confidence. Far otherwise will it be with you, if you prosper in every thing and are agitated by no kind of adversity. This is the blessing of Moab, and the danger is that, standing thus upon the lees from your youth, disturbed by no crosses, unsettled by no changes, you will finally become so fast-rooted in pride and forgetfulness of God as to miss every thing most dear in existence. Nothing could be more perilous for you than just that which you deem your happiness. Nor is any word of God more pointedly serious than this—Because they have no changes, therefore they fear not God. I commend it to your deepest and most thoughtful attention.
Others,
again, have been visited by many and great adversities, emptied about from vessel
to vessel all their lives long, still wondering what it means, while still they
adhere to their sins. There is, alas! no harder kind of life than this, a life
of continual discipline that really teaches nothing. Is it so with you, or is
it not? Scorched by all manner of adversities, are you still unpurified by the
fires you have passed through? Defeated, crossed, crushed, beaten out of every
plan, baffled in every project, shut away from every aspiration, blasted in
every object your soul has embraced,
Is it necessary, in the review of this subject, to remind
any genuine Christian what benefits he ought to receive in the trials and changes
through which he is called to pass? How many are there who are finally driven
out of every plan they have laid for their course of life. Their families
are dissolved and reconstructed. Their location is dis. lodged. Their business
ends in defeat. No kind of settlement is attempted which is not broken up
by some kind of change or adversity. And even where there is a measure of prosperity,
how many are the changes, losses, trials, surprises, and pains. Do you find,
my brother, that, when you are thus emptied about, dislodged, agitated, loosened,
you are purified? Or, does the bad flavor of your worldly habits, the scent
of your old ambition, or your earthly
But there is a use of this subject that has many times occurred
to you already, and to this, in conclusion, let us now come.
Meantime, was there nothing on your part, or in you
that required a similar discipline? Having seen your church almost uniformly
prosperous for a long course of years, and growing steadily up from a feeble
and small one, to a condition of strength, were there not many of you that were
losing a righteous concern for it, and beginning to leave it practically to
me, as if I could take care of it? ceasing in that manner from their trust in
God, by which they had before upheld me, and from those personal responsibilities
for it, which are the necessary condition of all earnestness in the christian
life? I should do wrong not to say that I have, many times, been so far oppressed
And the work he has begun,
I firmly believe that he will prosecute till his object is gained. If two years
of separation will not bring us to our places and correct our sin, he will go
further. He will finally command us apart and tear us loose from all our common
ties and expectations. For myself, I am anxious to learn the lesson he is teaching,
and I pray God that a similar purpose may enter into you. Let not this happy
return, which God has vouchsafed me, and the congratulations of the occasion,
drive away all the sober and searching truths God was trying to
WITH us of to-day, it is the commendation
of Jesus that he is so profoundly humbled, identified so affectingly with our
human state. But the power he had with the men of his time moved in exactly
the opposite direction, being the impression he made of his remoteness and separateness
from men, when he was, in fact, only a man, as they supposed, under all human
conditions. With us, it is the wonder that he is brought so low. With them, that
he could seem to rise so high; for they knew nothing, as yet, of his person
considered as the incarnate Word of the Father. This contrast, however, between
their position and ours is not as complete as may, at first, seem to us; for
that which makes their impression, makes, after all, a good part of ours. For
when we appeal thus to his humiliations under the flesh, and as a man of
sorrows, M really do not count on the flesh and the sorrows, as being the
Christly power, but only on what he brought into the world from above the world,
by the flesh and the sorrows,—he holiness, the deific love, the self-sacrificing greatness,
the everlasting beauty; in a word, all that most distinguishes him above mankind
and shows him most transcendently separate from sinners. Here is the great power
of Christianity—the immense importation it makes
What I propose, then, for my present subject, is,—The separateness of Jesus from men; the immense power it had and must ever have on their feeling and character.
I do not mean by this that Christ was separated as being at all withdrawn, but only that in drawing himself most closely to them, he was felt by them never as being an their level of life and character, but as being parted from them by an immense chasm of distance. He was born of a woman, grew up in the trade of a mechanic, was known as a Nazarene, stood a man before the eye, and yet he early began to raise impressions that separated him, and set him asunder inexplicably from the world he was in.
These impressions were not due, as I have said, to any distinct conceptions they had of him as being a higher nature incarnate; for not even his disciples took up any such definite conceptions of his nature, till after his death and ascension. It was guessed, indeed, that he might be Elias, or some one of the old prophets, but we are only v see, in such struggles of conjecture, how powerfully he has already impressed the sense of his distinction, or separateness of character; for such guesses or conjectures were even absurd, unless they were instigated by previous impressions of something very peculiar in his unearthly manner, requiring to be accounted for.
His miracles had undoubtedly something to do with the impression of his separateness from ordinary men, but a great many others, who were strictly human, have wrought miracles, without creating any such gulf between them and mankind as we discover here.
It is probably true also that the rumor of his being the Messiah, the great, long-expected prince and deliverer, had something to do in raising the impressions of men concerning him. But their views of the Messiah to come had prepared them to look only for some great hero and deliverer, and a kind of political millenium under his kingdom. There was nothing in their expectation that should separate him specially from mankind, as being a more than humanly superlative character.
Pursuing then our inquiry,
let us notice, in the first place, how the persons most remote and opposite,
even they that finally conspired his death, were impressed or affected by him.
They deny his Messiahship; they charge that only Beelzebub could help him do
his miracles; they are scandalized by his familiarity with publicans and sinners
and other low people; they arraign his doctrine as a heresy against many of
the most sacred laws of their religion; they charge him with the crime of breaking
their Sabbath, and even with excess in eating and drinking; and yet we can easily
see that there is growing up, in their minds, a most peculiar awe of his person.
And it appears to be excited more by his manners and doctrine and a certain
indescribable originality and sanctity in both, than by any thing else. His
townsmen the Nazarenes, for example, were taken with surprise, by his discourses
in the synagogue and elsewhere,
Beginning
with impressions like these, we can easily see that the public mind is gradually
becoming saturated with a kind of awe of his person; as if he might be some
higher, finer nature come into the world. This was the feeling that shook the
courage of the traders and money-changers in the temple and made them fly, in
such feeble panic before him. For the same reason it was that a band of officers
sent out at an early period, to arrest him, returned without having executed
their commission; for, they said,—Never man spake like this man. Such words of
clearness and repose and purity fell on them, as excited their imagination,
starting the conception apparently of one speaking out of eternity and worlds
unknown. He put them under such constraints of fear, in short, by his words
and manner, that they did not dare to arrest him. And just this kind of feeling
grew upon the people, as his ministry advanced, till it became a superstition
general; for it is the way of minds infected by any such tendencies, to make
ghosts of the fancy out of mere impressions of superior dignity, and even goodness.
Hence, so far from supposing that he could be captured as safely as a lamb,
and with less of resistance, they appear to have had a kind of suspicion that
he would strike blind, or annihilate the first man that touched him. Indeed
one reason why they wanted to get him in their power, apparently was, that he
was reported to have given out his determination to shake down the temple, and
they were even much concerned lest he might do it. Hence the problem with them
was, not how to arrest any common man, or sinner of mankind,
It is easy also to see that Pilate, even after his arrest,
is profoundly impressed with the sense of something superior, more wise, or
holy, or sacred, than he had seen before. The dignity of Christ’s answer, and
also of his manner had awakened visibly a kind of awe in his mind. It was as
if he had undertaken to question a king in deed; one superior in all majesty
to himself. Unaccountably to himself he grows superstitious, as if dealing with
some divinity, he knows not who, and he can not so much as give his mere negative
sentence of permission, pagan though he be, without washing his hands as religiously
as if he were some Pharisee, to be clear of the guilt of the
If now it should be objected here that the enemies of Jesus would never have dared to insult his person so brutally in his trial and crucifixion, if they had been really impressed, as we are supposing, with the wonderful sacredness and separateness of his character, it is enough to answer that exactly this is the manner of cowardice. Only yesterday these same men were in such awe of him that they trembled inwardly at the sound of his name; and now that they find him strangely in their power, submit. ting to them in the meekness of a lamb, they grow brave, pleased to find that they can be; and to make it sure, they multiply their blows and other indignities, in a manner of low and really ignominious triumph over him. But how soon does the true shame and bitterness of their sin return upon them. For when they saw the funeral weeds of nature’s sorrow hung over the sun, and felt the shuddering ague of the world, their spirit fell again. And all the people, says Luke, that came together to that sight, beholding the things that were done, smote their breasts and returned.
Turn now, secondly, to the disciples,
and observe how they were impressed or affected by the manner and spirit of
Jesus. And here the remarkable thing is, that they appear to be more and more
impressed with the distance
Thus we may take Peter as an example for all the others;
for, in the surname, Peter, that was early given him by his Master, and also
by the promise that on him, as the rock of its foundation, the church was to
be built, every thing was done to keep him assured and help him to maintain
a footing of confidence. How then was it, as he came into closer acquaintance
with his Master? At the first, when his brother Andrew conducted him to Jesus,
he felt much as his brother did the day before, when he and his friend, having
heard John’s remarkable apostrophe—Behold the Lamb of God—accosted him freely,
put themselves, as it were, upon him and spent, if we may judge, whole hours
in their private questioning. Peter’s exclamation, shortly after, at the miraculous
draught of fishes,—Depart from me O Lord, for I am a sinful man,
The same thing could be shown by other examples, but it must suffice to say that, while the miracles of Christ do not increase in grandeur with the advance of this ministry, his disciples are visibly growing all the while more and more impressed with the sense of distance between him and themselves, and of some unknown, transcendent mystery, by which he is separated, as another kind of being, from the world he is in. This, in part, is their blessing; for, as they are humbled in it, so they are raised by it, feel the birth of new affinities, rise to higher thoughts, and are wakened to a conscious struggle after God.
What now, thirdly, is the solution of this profound impression of separateness,
made by Christ on the world? That his miracles and the repute of his Messiahship
do not wholly account for it we have already observed. It may be imagined by
some that he produced this impression artificially by means of certain scenes
and observances designed to widen out the distance between him and the race;
for, how could he otherwise obtain that power over them which he was properly
entitled to have, by his own real eminence, unless he took some pains to set
them in attitudes in which his eminence might be felt: In other words, if he
is to have more than a man’s power, he must somehow be more than a man. Thus,
when he says to his mother,—Woman, what have I to do with thee, my hour is not
yet come? or when, being notified that his mother and brethren are standing
without waiting to see him, he asks,—Who then is my mother and who are my brethren?
it will be imagined that he is purposely suggesting his higher derivation and
his more transcendent affinities But, even if it were so, it must be understood
only that he
So, again, in the scene of the baptism and the vision of the dove descending upon him, introduced by the very strange outburst of prophetic utterance in John, when he sees the Saviour coming,—Behold the Lamb of God, that taketh away the sins of the world! it may be imagined that the design is to usher him into his ministry as a superior being. But what, in that view, shall we say of the great soul-struggle previous, called the temptation? It is not to be denied that the scene of the baptism connects impressions of some very exalted quality in the subject, and yet, if we bring in the temptation, and regard the transaction as a solemn inaugural of Christ’s great ministry,—God’s act of separation, his own act of assumption here passed,—there is nothing in it to set him off distinctly from men, save as he is set off by his character and his consecration to his work. Indeed, no one took up the impression from this inaugural scene that he was a being above the human order.
On a certain occasion he is transfigured, and Moses and
Elias appear as only secondary figures in the scene; by which it may be designed,
some will fancy, to widen out the chasm between himself and men, showing himself
to be the compeer and more,—even the Lord of angels aid glorified spirits. This
may have been the design, or rather it probably was; at least, so far as to
have that effect on the future ages; for it was important, we may believe, to
right impressions of his person, in the coming time, that his excellent glory
should some time have been discovered
But what shall we say of the really astounding assumptions put forth by Christ? Were they not designed as declarations, or assertions
of a superhuman order in his natural person? When he asks,—Who convinceth me
of sin? when he declares,—Ye are from beneath, I am from above,—I am the bread
that cometh down from heaven; when he dares to use the pronoun we, as relating
to him self and the Father,—We will come unto him, and make our abode with him;
when he speaks of the glory he had with the Father before the world was; when
he engages, himself, to send down the Holy Spirit after his ascension,—I will
send you another comforter; when he claims to be the judge of the world, and
speaks of holding the world’s throne; nay, when, to give his most ordinary and
familiar mole of doctrine, he says,—I am the way, the truth, and
The remarkable separation, therefore, of Christ from the sinners of mankind,
and the impression he awakened in them of that separation, was made, not by
scenes, nor by words of assertion, nor by any thing designed for that purpose,
but it grew out of his life and character,—his unworldliness, holiness, purity,
truth, love; the dignity of his feeling, the transcendent wisdom and grace of
his conduct. He was manifestly one that stood apart from the world, in his profoundest
human sympathy with it. He often spent his nights in solitary prayer, closeted
with God in the recesses of the mountains. He was plainly not under the world,
or any fashions of human opinion. He was able to be singular, without apparently
desiring it, and by the simple force of his superiority. Conventionalities had
no power over him, learning no authority with him. He borrowed nothing from
men. His very thoughts appeared to be coined in the mint of some wisdom higher
than human.
Accordingly what we see in his resurrection and ascension, and the scenes of intercourse between, is only a kind of final consummation, or complete rendering of what was already in men’s hearts. There it begins to come out that he is the King, even the Lord of Glory. Death can not hold him. The earth can not fasten him. The parting clouds receive him and let him through to his throne, not more truly but only more visibly separate than before, in that he is made higher than the heavens.
How great a thing now is it, my hearers, that such
a
Consider, again, as one of the points deducible from the truth we
have been considering, how little reason is given us, in the mission of Christ,
for the hope that God, who has such love to man, will not allow us to fail of
salvation, by reason of any mere defect, or neglect, of application to Christ.
What then does this peculiar separateness of Christ signify? Coming into the
world to save it, taking on him our nature that he may draw himself as close
to us as possible, what is growing all the while to be more and more felt in
men’s bosoms, but a sense of ever-widening, ever-deepening, and, in some sense,
incommunicable separateness from him? And this, you will observe, is the separateness,
not of condition, but of character. Nay, it grows out of his very love to us
in part, and his profound oneness with us; for it is a love so pure and gentle,
so patient, so disinterested, so self-sacrificing, that it parts him from us,
in the very act of embrace, and makes us
Consider also and
accurately distinguish, as here we may easily do, what is meant by holiness,
and what especially is its power, or the law of its power. Holiness is not what
we may do or become, in mere self-activity or self-culture, but it is the sense
of a separated quality, in one who lives on a footing of intimacy and oneness
with God. The original word, represented by our word holiness, means separation,
or separateness; the character of being drawn apart, or exalted, by being consecrated
to God and filled with inspiration from God. It supposes nothing unsocial, withdraws
no one from those living sympathies that gladden human life. On the contrary,
it quickens all most gentle and loving affinities and brings the subject just
as much closer in feeling to his fellow-man, as he is closer to God, and less
centralized in himself. But it changes the look or expression, raising, in that
manner,
But the great and principal lesson derivable from this subject is, that Christianity is a regenerative power upon the world, only as it comes into the world in a separated character, as a revelation, or sacred importation of holiness.
We have in these times, a very considerable
and quite pretentious class, who have made the discovery that Christ actually
eat with publicans and sinners! This fact indeed is their gospel. Christ they
say was social, drew himself to every human being, poured his heart into every
human joy and woe, lived in no ascetic manner as a being withdrawn from life.
And so it becomes a principal matter of duty with us, to meet all human conditions
in a human way and make ourselves acceptable to all. They do not observe that
Jesus brought in something into every scene of society and hospitality, which
showed a mind set off from all conformities. When he eat with publicans and
We have also a great many schemes of philanthropy started in these
days, that suppose a preparation of man, or society to be moved directly forward,
on its present plane, into some advanced, or nearly paradisaic state. The manner
is to address men at their present point, in their present motive, under their
present condition, with some hope of development, some scheme, truth, organization,
and so to bring them into some compact, or way of life that will discontinue
the present evils and make a happy state. As if there were any such feasibility
to good in man, that he can be put in felicity by mere invitation, or consent! Christ and Christianity think otherwise.
No, we want a salvation, which means
a grace brought into the world, that is not of it. When the real Saviour comes,
there will be great falling off, for the thoughts of many hearts will be revealed.
He will not be a popular Saviour. He that puts men in awe, as of some higher
spirit and more divine of which they know nothing; he that visits the world
to be unworldly in it, and draw men apart from it and break its terrible spell—he,
I say, will not be hailed with favor and applause. Indeed I very much fear that
many who assume even now to be his disciples, would not like him, if he were
to appear on earth. His unworldly manner, his profound singularity as a being
superior to sin, and to all human conventionalities, would offend them, and
drive them quite away. Who of us, here to-day, would really follow Jesus and
cleave to him, if he were now living among us? This brings me to speak of what
is now the great and
Neither let us be deceived in this matter, by our merely
notional wisdoms, or deliberative judgments, for it is not a matter to be decided
by any consideration of results—the question never is, what is really harmful
and so, wrong, but what will meet the living and free instinct of a life of
prayer and true godliness? I confess that when the question is raised, whether
certain common forms of society and amusement are to be indulged or disallowed,
the argument sometimes appears to preponderate on the side of indulgence. What
is more innocent?—must we take the morose
There is no greater mistake, as
regards the true manner of impression on the world, than that we impress it
as being homogeneous with it. If, in our dress we show the same extravagance,
if our amusements are theirs without a distinction, if we follow after their
shows, copy their manners, bury ourselves in their worldly objects, emulate
their fashions, what are we different from them? It seems quite plausible to
fancy the great honor we shall put on religion, when we are able to set it on
a footing with all most worldly things, and show that we can be Christians in
that plausible way. This we call a liberal piety. It is such as can excel in
all high tastes, and make up a figure
And this exactly is our communion with Jesus; we propose to be one with him in it. In it, we connect with a power transcendent, the Son of Man in glory, whose image we aspire to, and whose mission, as the Crucified on earth, was the revelation of the Father’s love and holiness. We ask to be separated with him and set apart to the same great life. Our communion is not on the level of our common humanity, but we rise in it; we scale the heavens where he sitteth at the right hand of God; we send our longings up and ask to have attachments knit to him; to be set in deepest, holiest, and most practical affinity with him; and so to live a life that is hid with Christ in God. In such a life, we become partakers of his holiness, and, in the separating grace of that, partakers also of his power.
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