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VOL. XII., No. 70.— JANUARY, 1871.

BEECHERISM AND ITS TENDENCIES.*

-' It was said by somebody of -Ecce timid brother, after recognizing what Homo, an anonymous book which- ~ he regards as the distinctive excel-

lences of each of " Our Seven Church- es " — that is, the Roman Catholic, the Presbyterian, the Protestant Episco- pal, the Methodist Episcopal, the Baptist, the Congregational, and the Liberal Christian — tells us very plainly that, abstractly considered, all churches are equally good or equally bad, and that the best church for a man is that in which he feels most at his ease, or which best satis- fies him, or suits his peculiar consti- tution and temperament. " When thus he has tried all churches within his reach," he says, " then let him come back to any one that may ss-em best for him, and ask for the lowest place among its members. As he enters and is enrolled, let him say to every one that asks : I cannot tell whether this is the best church in the world, still less whether it is the true church. Of one thing only am I certain, it is the best church y^r me. In it I am as contented as a partly ,rx--,- sanctified man can be this side of

Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1870, by Rev. I. T. Hecker^ in the Office of (? the Librarian of Congress, at Washington, D, C.

VOI~ XII. — 28

made some noise a few years ago, that it must have been written either by a man rising from rationalism to faith, or by a man falling from faith to rationalism. But, though it re- quires a nice eye to distinguish the twilight of the coming from that of the parting day, we hazard little in treating the twihght of these volumes as the evening not the morning cre- puscule, and in regarding the Beech- ers as deepening into the darkness of unbelief, not as opening into the light of faith. We must, therefore, as our rule, interpret in all doubtful cases their language in a rationalis- tic or naturalistic sense, and not in a Christian sense.

Mr. Thomas K. Beecher, who is more frank and outspoken than his cunninger, more cautious, and more

* 1. The Serjtions of Henry Ward Beecher in Plymouth Church. From verbatim reports by T. J. Ellinwood. First, Second, and Third Se- ries, from September. 1S69, to March, 1870. New York: J. B. Ford & Co. 1870. 3 vols. Svo.

2. Our Seven Churches. By Thomas K. Beech- er. The same. 1870. i6mo, pp. 167.

434

Bcecherism mid its Tendencies.

the general assembly of the first- born in heaven " [Our Seven Church- es, p. 142).

Yet this same writer had (p. S) pronounced the doctrine and ritual of the Catholic Church throughout the world excellent, and had espe- ■ cially commended her (pp. 9, 10) for her exclusiveness or denial of the pretensions of all other churches, and for maintaining that there is no sal- vation out of her communion ! This Beecher can swallow any number of contradictions without making a wry face ; for he seems to hold that what- ever seems to a man to be true is true for him, and tliat it matters not however false it may be if he esteem- eth it true and is contented with it. For him, seeming is as good as being. Poor man, he seems never to have heard, at least never to have heeded, what the Scripture saith, that " There is a way that seemeth to a man just, but the ends thereof lead to death " (Prov. xiv. 12). The fact probably is that he believes in nothing, unless perchance himself, and looks upon truth as a mere seeming, a pure illu- sion of the senses or the imagination, or as a purely subjective conviction without objective reality.

It perhaps would not be fair to judge brother Henry by the utter- ances of brother Tom, but the Beech- er family are singularly united, and all seem to regard brother Henry as their chief No one of the family, unless it be Edward, the eldest brother, is very likely to put forth any views decidedly different from his, or which he decidedly disap- proves. They all move in the same direction, though some of them may lag behind him while others may be in advance of him.

Although we have no difficulty in ascertaining for ourselves what Mr. Ward Beecher holds, so far as he holds anything, yet we do not

find it always easy to adduce de- cisive proofs that we rightly under- stand him. His language, apparently plain and direct, is singularly in- definite ; his statements are seldom clear and certain, and have a mar- vellous elasticity, and may at need be stretched so as to take in the highest and broadest Protestant or- thodoxy, or contracted so as to ex- clude everything but the most nar- row, meagre, and shallow rational- ism. They are an india-rubber band. You see clearly enough what he is driving at, but you cannot catch and hold him. His statements are so supple or so elastic that he can give them any meaning that may suit the exigencies of the moment. This comes, we presume, not from calculation or design, but from his loose manner of thinking, and from his total want of fixed and definite principles. His mind is uncertain, impetuous, and confused.

Beecherism, as we understand it, errs chiefly not in asserting what is absolutely false, but in mistiming or misapplying the truth, and in pre- senting a particular aspect of truth for the whole truth. Its leading thought is, as Freeman Clarke's, that Christianity is a life to be lived, not a doctrine or creed to be believed ; and being a life, it cannot be drawn out and presented in distinct and de- finite statements for the understand- ing. One is a Christian not because he believes this or that doctrine, but because he has come into personal relations or sympathy with Christ, and lives his life. Its error is in what it denies, not in what it asserts, - and its chief defect is in not telling who Christ is, what it is to come into personal relations with him, what is the way or means of coming into such relations, and in discarding or making no account of the activity of the intellect or understanding in

Beecherism mid its Tende^icics.

435

living the Christian Hfe. Undoubt- edly Christianity is a hfe to be hved, and we hve it only by coming into intimate relations individually with Christ himself, as the church holds, only by being literally joined to him, born of him by the Holy Ghost, and living his life in the regeneration, as in natural generation we are born of and live the life of Adam. But Beecherism means not this, and, in fact, has no conception of it. It sim- ply means that we must be personally in sympathy with Christ, and act from the stimulus of such sympathy. But this is no more than the boldest rationalism might say, for it implies no higher life than our Adamic life itself.

If by doctrine is meant only a view, theory, or " a philosophy " of truth, which is all that Beecherism can hold it to be, we agree that Christianity is not a doctrine to be believed ; but the creed is not a view or theory of truth, but the truth it- self. In believing it, it is the truth itself, not a view or theory of truth, that we beheve. Christ is the truth, as well as the way and the life, and he must be received by faith as well as by love ; for we not only cannot love what we do not intellectually apprehend, but Christ is supernatural, and can be apprehended only by faith and not by science. Christ is the Word — the Logos — made flesh, and his life must then be primarily the life of intelligence, and therefore we can enter upon it only by faith. Christian- ity is a religion for the intellect, whose object is truth, as well as a religion for the heart, or our appetitive nature, whose object is good. Beecherism overlooks this fact, and places Chris- tianity, religion, in love. Love, it says — and says truly, when by love is meant the supernatural virtue of cha- rity, caritas — is the end or perfection of the law; but it forgets that the

understanding must precede the love and present the object, or nothing i.« loved. What Beecherism calls love is simply a subjective want, a blind craving of the soul for what it has not and knows not. Even Plato, high as is the rank which he assigns to love or our appetitive nature, as St. Thomas caUs it, does not hold that love alone suffices. According to him, it is only on the two wings, intelligence and love, that the soul soars to the Empyrean, to " the First Good and the First Fair."

There is no love Avithout science, and the science must always precede the love and present its object. Our Lord even includes love in the sci- ence or knowledge, for he says, in ad- dressing his Father, " This is ever- lasting life, that they may kiioiu thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ Avhom thou hast sent " (St. John xvii. 3). All through the New Tes- tament love is connected with know- ledge or faith, and the knowledge of the truth is connected with salvation. " The truth shall make you free," " Veritas liberabit vos" says St. John. " God will have aU men to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth," says St. Paul, who also says to the Corinthians, " Brethren, do not become children in understand- ing, albeit in malice. be children, bu+ in understanding be perfect," or " be men " (i Cor. xiv. 20).

It is the grave fault of Protestant- ism itself, especially in our times, that it makes little or no account of intel- ligence. It is essentially unintellec- tual, illogical, and irrational, and its tendency is to place religion almost entirely in the emotions, sentiments, and affections, which are in them- selves blind and worthless, are even worse, if not enlightened and restrain- ed by truth iritellectually apprehend- ed by faith. When not so enlight- ened and restrained, they become

436

BcecJicrisiJi and its Tendencies.

fanaticism. Beecherism is even more un intellectual than the Protestantism of the Reformers themselves. It di- vorces our sympathetic nature from our intellectual nature, and would fain persuade us that it is our higher na- ture. This is bad psychology, and to its prevalence is due the inca- l)acity of Protestants to apprehend the higher and profounder truths of the spiritual order. The affections are either affections of the sensitive soul or affections of the rational soul. If affections of the rational soul, they are rational in their origin and prin- ciple, and impossible without intelli- gence. If affections of the sensitive soul, they have no moral or religious character, though they incline to sin; but are, when they escape the con- trol of reason, that very " flesh," or concupiscence, the Christian struggles against. Beecherism, in reality, makes the flesh our higher nature, and re- quires us to walk after the flesh, not after the spirit, as do and must all sys- tems that place religion in sympathy or love without intelligence. All the affections of our nature not enhghten- ed by inteUigence and informed by reason or faith are affections not of our higher but of our lower nature, and when strong or dominant become destructive passions.

Beecherism, in rejecting intelligence or in making light of all dogmatic Christianity or objective faith, and substituting a purely subjective faith, only follows the inevitable tendency of all Protestantism emancipated from the civil power ; for Protestantism recognizes no authority competent to enjoin dogmas, or to present or de- fine the object of faith. It can give for a creed only opinions. It could not, in abandoning the church, if left to itself, avoid in its free develop- ment eliminating from Christianity the entire creed, all dogmas, doc- trines, or statements, which are credi-

ble only when made on an infallible authority, which no Protestants have or can have. Protestantism is, there- fore, in its developments obliged ei- ther to become open, undisguised in- fidelity, or to resolve Christianity into a purely subjective religion — a religion consisting in and depending solely on our interior emotional, sentimental, or affectional nature, and incapable of intellectual or objective statement, and needing none. The tendency of all Protestantism must always be either to religious indifferentism or to religious fanaticism.

We do not find from the sermons before us that Beecherism, which is a new but not improved edition of Bushnellism endorsed by Mr. T. K. Beecher, explicitly denies the Chris- tian mysteries ; neither do we find that it explicitly recognizes them ; while it is not doubtful that the whole current of its thought excludes them. What are its views of God, and especially of the person and na- ture of our Lord, we are not distinct- ly told, but evidently it has no con- ception of the tri-personality of the one Divine Being, the personality of the Holy Ghost, or the two for ever distinct natures, the human and the divine, hypostatically united in the one divine person of Christ. As far as we can ascertain, it recognizes no distinction of person and nature, and is unaware of the fact that the Wofd, who is God, took to himself, in the Incarnation, human nature, and made it as really and as truly his own na- ture, without its ceasing to be hu- man nature, as my human nature joined to my personality is my na- ture. It would seem to hold that Christ is God or the divine nature clothed with a human body without a human soul, or, rather, that Christ is God humanly represented or per- sonated.

In a sermon on the " Consolations

Bcecherism a7id its Tendencies.

437

of the Sufferings of Christ," Mr. Ward Beecher seems to regard Christ, who was tempted and suffered in his di- vine nature, yet without sin, in all points as we are tempted and suffer, as suffering in his divine nature, and from that fact he argues that his sufferings were absolutely infinite. But he asks :

■' Can a Divine Being suffer? I should rather put the question, Can one be a Di- vine Being in such a world and over such a world as this, and not suffer? If we carve in our imagination a perfect God, with the idea that perfectness must be that which is relative to himself alone, that he must be perfect to himself in in- telligence, perfect to himself in moral character, perfect to himself in beaut}-, and in transcendent elevation above all those vicissitudes and troubles which arise from imperfection — if thus we make our God, and in no wzy give him roots in humanity, in no way lead him to have sympathy with infirmity, then we have not a perfect God. We have a carved selfishness embellished. We have a be- ing that cannot be Father to any thought that springs from the human heart. . . .

" A God that cannot suffer, and suffer in his Godship nature, can scarcely be pre- sented to the human soul, in all its weak- nesses and trials and wants, so that it shall be acceptable. We need a suffering God. It was the very ministration of Christ to develop that side of the Divine Being — the susceptibility of God to suffer through sympathy, as the instrument and channel of benevolence by which to res- •■.u« them that suffer through sin " ( Third Series, p. 38).

We had supposed that man has his roots in God, not God his roots in man, and that the ministration of Christ v/as to redeem, elevate, and perfect man, not to develop and per- fect or fulfil the Divine Being; but we had done so without consulting the Eeechers. If the Divine Being on any side needs, ever needed, or ever could need, to be developed, the Divine Being is not eternally perfect, is not perfect being in itself, or being

in its plenitude ; consequently, God is not eternally self-existent, indepen- dent, self sufficing being, as theolo- gians maintain, and therefore is not God, or, in other words, there is no God; and then nothing is or can be. We must in our charity suppose the preacher either says he knows not what, or that he does not mean what he says. It is not our business to rede the Beecher riddles ; but proba- bly, if it was, Bushnellism might help us. Dr. Bushnell, with a slight tinc- ture of Swedenborgianism, regards Christ not precisely as God or man, but as a scenic display, as the representation or personation under a human form and human rela- tions to our senses, feelings, sympa- thies, and imagination, of what the Divine Being really is, not in him- self, but in regard to man. But this, though it might explain, would not save Beecherism from the charge of making Christ an anthropomorphous representation of God, not God him- self, or the Word made flesh; nor from that of maintaining that God is passible in his divine nature, " his Godship nature." The Word or Son is indeed the express image of God and the brightness of his glory, yet in the divine not the human form; for the Word is God, and eternally, and it is only as made flesh that he has . a human form and human rela- tions ; but in this sense he is man, not a representation of God humanly related. No man who believes in the tri-personality of the Divine Be- ing, or in the hypostatic union of the two natures in the one Divine Per- son of the Word, could ever use the expressions we have quoted, or re- gard Christ as a scenic representation or personation of the Divine Being.

Beecherism undeniably anthropo- morphizes God, and regards him, as does Swedenborg, as the great or per- fect Man, or as man carried up to infi-

43 S

BeccJicrisin and its Tendencies.

nity. It supposes the attributes of God are the attributes of man infinitely magnified. This is what it means, we suppose, by saying God has his " roots in humanity." Being man infinitely developed and perfected, God knows and loves us by sympathy, and is able to share our joys and sorrows, and suffer in all the vicissitudes and troubles which spring from our im- perfections, for he has in himself, in its infinitude, all that we have or ex- perience in ourselves. This supposes that God is made in the image and likeness of man, not man in the image and likeness of God. The type and principle of man are indeed in God, and his works copy his divine essence, but not he them. God cannot suffer in his divine nature, for all suffering arises from imperfection, and he is per- fect being in its plenitude; therefore impassible, and necessarily, from the fulness of his own nature, eternally and infinitely blessed. He knows not us from his likeness to us, nor from an ex- perience like ours, but in himself, from his own perfect knowledge of himself, in whose essence is our type and prin- ciple, and whose own act is the cause of all we are, can do, or become. He knows us not by sympathy with us, for he is the adequate object of his own intelligence, and cannot depend on his creatures, or anything out of himself, for any knowledge or perfec- tion whatever. He knows and feels all we clo or suffer in himself, in his own essence and act creating and sustaining us. He loves us in him- self, and in the same act, because he has created us from his own super- abounding goodness, and because v/e live and move and have our being in him, not because he feels with us, as Beecherism would have us believe. No attribute of the di- vhie nature does or can depend for its exercise or perfection on us, or on anything exterior to or distinct from

his own Divine Being. Yet as we are his creatures, sustained by his creative act, and as that act is the free act of infinite goodness or love — caritas—X-iYS^ love in that act surrounds, pervades, our entire existence in a manner infinitely more tender and touching to us, and effects in us and for us infinitely more than the closest and most sympathetic human love or kindness. We are held in the very arm.s of infinite love, live and breache in infinite goodness, and v^^e are noth- ing without it.

God is perfect being in himself; consequently, always the adequate object of his own activity, whether of intelligence or love, as we are taught in the mystery of the Tri- nity. It is in liimself, in his own es- sence, in which is\ the type or prin- ciple of our existence, and whose decree or act is the cause of all we are, can be, do, or suffer, that he knows and loves us, has compassion on our infirmities, forgives us our sins, works out our salvation, and enables us to participate in his own beatitude, and, Avhen glorified, even in his own divine nature (2 Pet. i. 4). His love is won- derful, and past finding out ; it is too high, too broad, too tender, and its riches are too great for us to be able to comprehend it. To be able to comprehend it, we should need to be able to comprehend God himself, in his own infinite being ; for his very being is love and goodness, — Caritas est Dciis, as says tlie blessed apostle. No man knoweth the Father save the Son, Avho is in the bosom of the Fa- ther, and he to whom the Son shall reveal him. The error of Beecherism here, as well as of many other isms, is in assuming that the type of God and his attributes is in man, not the type of man in God, which anthropouior- phizes the Divine Being.

Yet it is perfectly allowable to say that God suffers and is tempted in all

Beecherisin and its Tendencies.

439

points as we are, though without sin, if we speak of Jesus Christ the Incarnate God. The Word or Son is God; the person of our Lord in the divine nature or being is strictly di- vine ; and as it is always the person that acts or suffers, whatever Christ does or suffers, God does or suffers ] for in Christ there is human nature, but no human person. But God can- not suffer in his divine nature, and hence, if our Lord had had only the one divine nature — which he always had and has in its fulness — he never could have suffered and died on the cross to redeem and save us. Beech- erism, which regards Christ as the representation of the Divine Being under a human form and to our hu- man sympathies and affections, denies the very possibility of his making any real atonement for man, for he has of his own no nature at all. He is not himself real being that suffers, but its representation or personation; and therefore his sufferings are represen- tative, as the sufferings and death re- presented on the stage. Hence, it transfers to the Divine Being, to God in his divine nature, who cannot suf- fer, whatever suffering is represented in the person and life of our Lord. But our Lord is not a representative being, but the Divine Being himself, and he does not personate the divine nature — he is it. He does not in the Incarnation part v/ith his divine na- ture, but takes human nature up into hypostatic or substantial union with his divine person. As the Divine Be- ing is one divine nature, being, or es- sence, in three persons, so is Christ one divine person in two natures. Being at once perfect God and perfect man, and having a human as well as a di- vine nature, he could be tempted as we are, could sympathize with us, share our sorrows, bear our griefs, be obedient to his Father, suffer, even die on the cross for us ; but in his hu-

man nature only, not in his divine nature. His sufferings could not be infinite in the sense Beecherism as- serts ; for the human nature even of God is finite ; but his sufferings and obedience have an infinite value, be- cause the sufferings and obedience of an infinite person.

Beecherism gives us no clear or satisfactory account of what our Lord is. All we can say is, that it does not treat his person as the Second Person of the Godhead nor as the Vv'ord made flesh ; but holds him, as far as we can get at its thought, as a representative person, as Bushnellism does, representing or personating God or the Divine Being, as we have said more than once, under a human form and in human relations. But it not only eliminates the Word or Son from the Godhead; it eliminates, also, the Third Person, by denying with certain ancient heretics the personality of the Holy Ghost. In the sermon on " The Holy Spirit," we read :

" The Divine Being is not merely a person, superlative, infinite, who sits en- shrined and, as it were, hidden in the centre of his vast domain. We are taught that there is an effluence of spirit-power, and that the Holy Spirit pervades the uni- verse. It is to the personality of God what the light and heat are to the sun itself. For, though the sun is in a definite sphere and position, and has its own globular mass, 3'et it is felt through myriads and myriads of leagues of space, and is there- fore present by its effects and power. And though God is not fj-cseiit \sic\ and heaven is the place where he dwells, yet the divine influence pervades the universe. [The divine influence wider than the Di- vine Being !] The mental power, the thought-power, the Spirit-power, impletes the rational universe" {Third Sc'rics, p. 87).

In this extract, personality and na- ture are not distinguished, and the personality of God is assumed to be one, as his being, nature, or essence

440

Beecherism and its Tendencies.

is one, which excludes both the Holy Ghost and the Son as persons from the Godhead. The Holy Ghost, in- stead of being represented as the Third Person of the ever-blessed Trinity, is denied to be a person at all, and de- fined to be simply an effluence or in- fluence of the one person of God ; or to be to the personality of God what the light and heat of the sun are to the sun itself An effluence, an ema- nation, or an influence is not a per- sonal distinction in the Divine Being, and Mr. Beecher evidently does not so regard it ; for he speaks of it as //, not as him^ and makes it not the ac- tor, but the effect of the person act- ing. Light and heat are not distinc- tions in the sun, as the Divine Persons are in the Divine Being; but are, in so far as not the sun itself, distinguish- able from it, as the effect is distin- guishable from the cause. The Di- vine Persons are distinguishable from one another, we grant, and we re- gard the Father as principle, the Son as medium, and the Holy Ghost as end ; but they are distinctions in God, not from God ; or distinctions in the Divine Being, not from it. Obvious- ly, then, whatever else Beecherism may accept of the Christian faith, it does not accept the Mystery of the ever-blessed Trinity, but really denies it. The Beechers, perhaps, are not theologians enough to know it, but the denial of the Trinity is the denial of God as living God, by reducing the Divine Being, with the old Elea- tics, to a dead and unproductive uni- ty, as do also all Unitarians as distin- guished from Trinitarians. He who denies the Trinity, if he knows what he does, denies God as much as does the avowed atheist. Unitarianism that excludes the tri-personality of God is really atheism, and the God it professes to recognize is only an ab- straction.

It is also evident that Beecherism

does not accept the mystery of the Incarnation, out of which grows the whole distinctively Christian order, without which man cannot fulfil his existence and attain the end or beati- tude for which he is created. It is impossible to assert the Incarnation when the three Persons of the ever- blessed Trinity are denied, for it sup- poses them and depends on them. Christ, according to Beecherism, is, as with Bushnellism and Swedenbor- gianism, not the Second Person or Word of God assuming human na- ture ; but the manifestation, persona- tion, or representation of the Divine Being under a human form and rela- tions, which is simply no Incarnation at all. Rejecting or not accepting the Incarnation, Beecherism loses Jesus Christ himself, and with him the whole teleological order, -which is founded by the Word made flesh, and without which creation cannot be ful- filled, and must remain for ever incipi- ent or incomplete, and fail of its final cause; man must then for ever remain below his destiny, craving beatitude but never gaining it — the doom or hell of the reprobate.

Beecherism is far from having pene- trated the depth of the Christian or- der, and understands little of the rela- tions and reasons of the Christian dispensation. It sees nothing of the profound truths brought to light by the Christian faith. It sees no rea- son w^hy St. Peter, speaking of the Lord Jesus Christ by inspiration of the Holy Ghost, could say : " There is no other name under heaven given to men whereby we must be saved " (Acts iv. 12). It conceives of no reason in the very order and nature of created things why it should be so. But how could man exist but by pro- ceeding from God through the divine act creating him ? and how could he fulfil his existence but by returning to God, without absorption in him. as

Beecherism and its Tendencies.

441

his final cause or supreme good ? How could he return without the te- leological order ? or how could there be a teleological order without Christ, or the Word made flesh ? Nothing is more shallow, more meagre, or more insignificant than the Beecher Christi- anity. It does well to depreciate the intellect, for there is nothing in it for the intellect to apprehend.

Nor less does Beecherism misap- prehend and misrepresent the Chris- tian doctrine of the new birth or regeneration. It attaches no mean- ing, as far as we have been able to perceive, to the palingenesia of which both our Lord and St. Paul speak. Our Lord says expressly (St. John iii. 3), " Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God." Beecherism, in very properly reject- ing the Methodistic process of " get- ting religion," and the Calvinistic pro- cess of " obtaining a hope," goes far- ther, and denies the necessity of rege- neration itself, and seems to suppose man can return to God without a teleological order, or being born into the teleological life. It assumes that every one is bom by natural genera- tion on the plane of his destiny, and may by proper training and education fulfil his existence, and attain beati- tude. Nothing more than the proper development and training of one's na- tural pov\^ers or faculties, it teaches, is necessary to make one an heir of the kingdom of God. This is the hobby of the feminine Beechers, and perhaps not less so of the masculine Beechers. But the full development and right training of our natural fa- culties do not raise us above the or- der of generation, and only enable us to attain at best a natural or a creat- ed beatitude, which is simply no be- atitude at all for a rational existence ; for it is finite, and nothing finite can satisfy the rational soul. The soul craves, hungers, and thirsts for an un-

bounded good, and demands an in- finite beatitude, the only beatitude there is or can "be for it.

But the only unbounded good, the only infinite beatitude, is God; for God alone is infinite. All that is not God is creature, and all that is creature is finite. God, then, is our final cause as well as our first cause. We proceed from God through creation develop- ed by generation, and we return to him through regeneration by grace as our supreme good. Yet God, alike as our first cause and as our last end, is supernatural, above na- ture, above everything created. The natural, that is, the creature, can- not in the nature of things be the medium of the supernatural. We must then have a supernatural medi- um of return to God as our last end or beatitude, or not return at all, but re- main for ever below our destiny, and for ever suffer the misery of an un- fulfilled existence. Faith teaches us that this medium is the man Christ Jesus, or the Word made flesh, the only mediator of God and men. Chris- tianity is simply Christ himself, and the means he institutes or provides through the Holy Ghost to enable us to rise to him, live his life, and return to God, our supreme good, who is our supreme good because he is the supreme good itself, and the only real good.

Christ cannot be our medium ex- cept as we are united to him and live his life. Live his life we cannot unless united to him, and united to him we cannot be unless born of him in the order of regeneration, as we are born of Adam in the order of gene- ration. Hence our Lord says, " Ex- cept a m.an be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God." We can no more live the teleological life of Christ without being born of him, than we can the initial Adamic life without being born of Adam. As

442

Bcccherism and its Tendmcics.

we had no faculties by the exercise of which we could attain to birth of Adam into the order of generation, so by no exercise or development of our natural powers can we be born of Christ in the order of regeneration. Or, as we could not generate our- selves, neither can we regenerate our- selves. We can of ourselves alone no more enter the teleological order than we could the initial order. This entrance into the teleological order St. Paul calls even a " new creation," and the one who has entered " a new creature," and we need not say that one cannot become a new creation or a new creature by development, education, or training.

Now, whatever Beecherism may pretend, it recognizes no new birth at all. It is necessary, it concedes, that the soul should come into per- sonal relations Avith Jesus Christ, and that vre should live his life, but Ave groAv into his life and live his life by love; and to be in personal relations with him means only to be in sympa- thy Avith him. Just begin to love Christ, it says, and then you Avill learn Avhat his life is, and Avill love him more and more, and groAv more and more into sympathy Avith him. But one might as Avell say to the child not yet born, or conceived even, " Just begin to live the life of Adam, and then you Avill be able by continued effort and per- severance to groAV to be a man," as to say to a man not born of Christ through the Holy Ghost, " Just begin to live the life of Christ, and you AAdllbe able to live it," or, "Just enter the teleological order, or kingdom of heaven, and you aa^U be in it." C'estle premier pas qui coiite. Once get into sympathy Avith Christ, and you are — in sympathy Avith him. All very true ; but hoAv take that first step ? How begin to live Avithout being born ? "Ex- cept a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom, of God." Beecherism

must require one to act before being born, or else it must deny the teleo- logical or Christian order altogether. Since it professes to be Christian, Beecherism cannot Avell overlook the action of the Holy Ghost in the Christian life; but it does not, through any action of the Holy Spirit Avhich it recognizes, get the new birth or regeneration. The Holy Ghost, Ave have seen, it resolves into a divine effluence, or the spirit-poAver of God, not a personal distinction in God, and this effluence only stimulates or excites our natural life.

" This divine and universal effluence," it says, " is the peculiar element in which the soul is destined to live, and find its inspiration and its true food. For al- though we find man first in this world, and he receives his first food here, be- cause he begins at a low point, yet as he develops and goes up step by step, higher faculties, requiring a higher kind of stimulus or food, are developed ; and he reaches manhood at that point in which he begins to act from the influen- ces that are divine and spiritual, and that flow directly from God. Up to that point he lives as an animal, and bej-ond that point as a man.

" This divine Spirit, or, if I may so say, the diffusive mind of God, which per- vades all the realms of intelligent beings, and which is the atmosphere the soul is to breathe, the medium of its light, the stimulus of its life, acts in the first place as a general excitement. It develops the whole nature of a man, by rousing it to life. We are familiar \viih the gradations of this excilemcnl."

These gradations are: i, Nctdous excitement, produced by physical stiinuli ; 2, Mesmeric excitement, pro- duced by the action of men on one another; 3, Esthetic excitement, Avhich gives rise to genius, art, and philosophy ; and, 4, The highest or diimie excitement. After describing these several degrees of excitement, produced by the divine effluence, it I)roceeds to ask and ansAver the ques- tion—

Beecherism and its T'cndencies.

443

" V\/'hat is the result of this supernatural divine stimulus upon man's nature? It seems to act on the sensuous and physi- cal nature only indirectly, by acting upon the higher life. It is, in general, an an^ak- cning of the faculties. It fires men. It develops their latent forces. We go all our life long with iron in the soil under our feet, and do not know that it is hid- den there ; and we go all our life long carrying gold in the mountains of our souls without knowing that it is there. We carry in us ranges of power that we know very little of.

" And the divine Spirit, in so far as it acts upon the human soul, or is permit- ted to awaken it, develops its latent forces. It carries forward a man's nature, open- ing in it, often, faculties which have been absolutely dormant. There are many men vv'ho have eyes that they have never opened, and that are capable of seeing truths which they never have seen. They are therefore called blind. And' they be- gin to see only when the divine Spirit acts upon their souls ; because there are certain faculties which will not act ex- cept when they are brought under the divine influence. Then it is that these faculties begin life, as it were" {Third Series, pp. S7-S9).

Thus far it is certain' that there is no new birth asserted; there is only an awakening into activity, under the stimulus of the divine effluence, of natural forces hitherto latent, or the higher faculties of the soul hitherto dormant, and which without it are not, perhaps cannot be, awakened, developed, or excited to act. This means that the soul rises to its high- er life, or the exercise of its higher faculties, only under the influence of supernatural stimulants, but not that it is translated from the natural order of life into the supernatural. The divine stimulants only develop what is already in the soul. These divine influences create or infuse nothing into the soul ; they only excite to ac- tivity what is latent or dormant in the soul, and therefore do not lift it into a higher order of life ; and it is only the soul living in the super-

natural order that can assimilate su- pernatural food or stimulants.

Yet Beecherism Avould seem, we ■ confess, to go a little farther. It continues :

" It is, however, still be3rond this that . . . the divine Spirit seems to act up- on the human mind, by imparting to it a fineness of susceptibility and moral sympa- thy, by which the soul is brought into immediate conscious and personal com- munion with God, and from which the most illustrious events in man's history are deduced " ijb. p. 89).

But, since the Beechers are on the downward track, this must be taken as an effort to explain away, while seeming to retain, the mystery of re- generation. All that is imparted — better say, produced — is a finer sensi- bility and a higher moral sympathy ; no new principle is imparted or in- fused into the soul that elevates it to the plane of the supernatural. It is only the highest degree of that gene- ral excitement, varying in degree, from the lov.^est point to the highest, which Beecherism defines the effect of the divine effluence on the soul to be. The true doctrine of the Holy Ghost, we are told on the same page, is " that it is the influence of the di- vine mind, of the whole being of God, as it were, sent down into the realm of rational creatures, hovering above them as a stimulating atmos- phere, and food for the soul ; and that when men rise into this atmos- phere, which is the nature of God diffused in the world, they come to a higher condition of faculties." Yes, when they lise into it. Always the same difficulty of the first step. When men have risen into this stimulating atmosphere, they can breathe it ; but how are they to rise into it ? Begin to love God a little, and you will be stimulated to love him more and more, till you love him perfectly. No doubt of it. But how begin ? The

444

Beccherisni and its Tendencies.

atmosphere of God is hovering above us, and Beecherism not only requires us, but assumes that we are able of ourselves, without the infusion of new life, and even without the stimulating atmosphere itself, to lift ourselves up to it, and henceforth to live and breathe in it, and assimilate it as food ■for the soul.

The illustrations prove it. On the same page again, it is said of the men who have risen to this atmos- phere, that " they find -whereas their heart was like a tree in the far north, which, although it could blos- som a little, could never ripen its fruit, because the summer is so short, now their heart is like that same tree carried down toward the equator, where it brings its fruit to ripeness." But here is implied only a change in the exterior conditions; the seminal principle, the principle of life and fecundity, w^as in the tree when in " the far north " not less than it was when " carried down toward the equator." Whatever " fineness of susceptibility and moral sympathy " the divine effluence in its action on the soul may impart, it certainly does not, on the Beecher theory, infuse into the soul or beget in it the principle of a new and higher hfe than our natural life, which is what is necessary in order to assert the new birth.

Beecherism is not, we presume, in- tentionally warring against the Chris- tian mystery of regeneration, for it is not likely that it knows anything about it. What moves it is hostility to the Methodistic and Evangelical cant about " experiencing religion," " getting religion," " obtaining hope," "being hopefully converted," in a sort of moral cataclysm, prior to which all one's acts, even one's prayers and offerings, are sins, hateful to God. The Beechers, brought up in the Evangehcal school, have become tho-

roughly disgusted with this feature of it, and have simply aimed to get rid of it, and to find a regular way by which the child can grow up as a Christian. Rejecting with all Pro- testants sacramental grace, infused virtues, and baptismal regeneration, they have had no alternative but either to accept the moral cataclysm produced by the immediate and irre- sistible inrushing of the Holy Ghost, as all Evangelicalism asserts, or else to maintain that our natural life, pro- perly developed and directed, grows of itself into the true life of Christ, and suffices to secure our beatitude. They do well to reject the Evangelical doctrine of conversion, but, knowing no other alternative, they in doing so bring Christ, the Holy Ghost, the Christian or teleological order of life, and man's beatitude, down to the order of natural generation, lose the palingenesia, and of course every- thing distinctively Christian.

Dr. Bellows, a well-known Unita- rian minister in this city, commenting not long since on a sermon by Henry Ward Beecher, said it was " as good Unitarianism as he wanted," and we do not think that, in saying so, he wronged either Beecherism or Unita- rianism. Certain it is that Beecher- ism rejects in substance, if not in so many words, the mystery of the ever- blessed Trinity or the tri-personality of God ; the mystery of the Word made flesh, or the Incarnation; the mystery of redemption ; the mystery of regeneration and of mediatorial or sacramental grace ; and what more could any Unitarian ask of it ? It would be easy to show that the Beech- ers make no account of the gratia Christie and assign to Christ no office in man's redemption, salvation, or be- atitude. The influence of the divine spirit that Beecherism asserts is su- pernatural only in the sense that the creative act of God producing us from

Beecherism and its Tendencies.

445

nothing is supernatural. It is the nature of God that pervades the world, and is only what theologians call the divine presence in all his works sustaining and developing them in the natural order, or the divine concurrence in every act of every one of them. It is supernatural, for God is supernatural, and all his acts and influences are supernatural, but creating no supernatural order of life. Nay, hardly so much as this ; for we are told that God is not everywhere present, and his influence or effluence, being inseparable from himself, can- not be more universal than his being or extend beyond it; and hence there may, if Beecherism is right, be exist- ences where God is not.

After this, it can hardly be neces- sary to descend to further details ; for, if Christianity be anything more than the order of genesis, or pure natural- ism, the Beechers have no Christian standing, even in simple human faith. They know nothing of mediatorial grace; and these sermons make as light of the sacrament of orders as their author, in the Astor House scandal, did of the sacrament of matrimony. The language of Scripture, however plain and express, has no authority for him. He admits that one has no authority to preach the Gospel unless he descends from the apostles, but holds that every one who is able to preach it with zeal and effect does descend from them. He has his orders and mission in the inward an- ointing of the Holy Ghost — in whom, by the way, he does not believe — al- though the Scripture teaches that it is through " the laying on of the hands of the presbytery " that one receives the power — that is, the Holy Ghost ; and the mission is given in a regular way, through those already ordained and authorized by our Lord himself to confer jurisdiction. Ward Beecher goes on the principle

that " the proof of the pudding is in the eating," but if the pudding hap- pens to be poisoned or unwholesome, the proof comes too late after the eating. Prudent persons would re- quire some guarantee before eating that the pudding is not poisoned or unwholesome, but is what it is said to be. Ward Beecher is no doubt a very respectable cook in his way, but we have yet to learn that the Plymouth congregation receives much spiritual nutriment from his cooking.

It may be a question whether they who die in sin, or under the penalty of sin, are or are not doomed to a hell of literal fire; there also may be questions raised as to the degree or intensity of the sufferings of the damn- ed, and perhaps as to the principle on which their sufferings are inflicted and are reconcilable with the infinite power and goodness of the Creator; but among intelligent believers in Christ as the mediator of God and man, and the founder and principle , of the teleological order, there can \/ be none as to the fact that the suffer- ing is and must be everlasting. Every one capable of suffering must suffer as long as he remains unperfected and below his destiny. The damned, vv^hatever else may be said of them, are those who have failed, through their own fault or that of their supe- riors, to fulfil their existence or attain their end, and thus are inchoate, in- complete, or unperfected existences, and therefore necessarily suffer all the miseries that spring from unsat- isfied or unfulfilled nature. As at death men pass from the world of time to eternity, in which there is no succession and no change, the damn- ed must necessarily remain for ever in the state in which they die, and, therefore, their suffering must be ever- lasting.

Yet Beecherism, without explicitly affirming universal salvation, decid-

446

Beecherisvi and its Tendencies.

edly doubts that the sufferings of the damned, if any damned there are, will be everlasting, as we may see in The Alinister's Wooing^ and in the De- fence of Lady Byron, by Mrs. Beech- er Stov/e, as well as from a recent sermon by Mr. Henry Ward Beech- er, if correctly reported; although a more logical conclusion from its premises would be the everlasting misery of all men, for it makes no provision for their redemption and return through Christ the mediator to God as their final cause or beati- tude. From some things we read, we infer that Beecherism inclines to spi- ritism, as it certainly does to mes- merism, which is only incipient or tentative spiritism, and it probably accepts in substance the doctrine of the spirits — the doctrine of devils ? — that there is very little change in passing from this world to the next, which, like this, is a world of time and change, in which the de- velopment begun here may be con- tinued, and the spirits rise or sink from circle to circle according to the progress they make or fail to make; but always free and able, if they choose, to better their condition, and enter higher and higher circles up to the highest. Lady Byron, who appears to have been a spiritist, and who regarded her husband. Lord By- ron, as the most execrable of men, still expected, if we may believe Mrs. Beecher StOAve, to meet him in the spirit-world wholly purified, and a beatified saint, standing near the throne of the Highest ! Great theo- logians and philosophers are the spirits.

Beecherism jumps astride every popular movement, or what appears to it likely to be a popular move- ment, of the day. It v/ent in for abolition, negro suffrage, and negro eligibility, and now goes in for negro equality, in all the relations of society.

female suffrage and eligibility, and reversing the laws of God, so as to make the woman the head of the man, not man the head of the wo- man. Henry Ward Beecher is at the head of the woman's rights move- ment, so earnestly defended by his lackey of the Independent. Beech- erism goes in also for liberty of di- vorce, and virtually for polygamy and concubinage or free love, and free religion, while it retains enough of its original Calvinistic spirit to re- quire the state to take charge of our private morals, and determine by sta- tute what we may or may not eat, drink, or wear, when we may go to bed or get up; that is, it would clothe the magistrate with authority to enforce with civil pains and penal- ties whatever it may for the moment hold to be for the interest of private and social morals, and to prohibit in like manner whatever it holds to be against them to-day, though it may hold the contrary to-morrow. The Beecher tendency is to throw oft' all dogmatic faith; to reject or to make no account of the Christian mysteries ; to remove all restraints on the emo- tions, affections, and passions; to place the essence of marriage not in the free consent of the contracting parties, but in the sentiment or passion of love, obligatory, and lawful even, only so long as the love lasts ; to regard all authority as tyrannical that would re- strain one from holding and utter- ing the most false, dangerous, and blasphemous theories ; and at the same time, in the true Calvinistic spirit, to demand that the magistrate shall re- press whatever it, in the exercise of its liberty, judges to be wrong, and en- force with the strong hand whatever it holds to-day to be enjoined by hu- manity, though directly contrary to what it held yesterday. It substi- tutes change for stability, passion for reason, opinion for faith, desire for

Beecherism and its Te^idencies.

447

hope, philanthropy for charity, fanati- cism for piety, humanity for God, and, in the end, demonism for humanity, since man, as he renounces God, in- evitably comes under the power of Satan.

That Beecherism has reached this extreme point we do not allege, but we think we have shown that this is the point to which it tends. But the Beechers are a representative family, and represent the spirit and tendency of their age and country. The spirit of the age moves and agitates them, the current of the modern unchristian civilization flows through them, and their heart feels and responds to every vibration of the popular heart. " They are of the world, and the world hear- eth them," and sustains them, let them do what they will. Mrs. Beech- er Stowe's Byronics, though assailed and refuted by the leading journals and periodicals of the Old World and the New, have not damaged her re- putation, and she, perhaps, is moi-e popular than ever. The world can- not spare its most faithful feminine representative. Henry Ward Beech- er survives the Astor House scandal without loss of prestige, and proves that the dominant sentiment of the American people makes as hght of the marriage bond as he did, and holds it is no more an offence against Christian morals for a man to marry another man's wife than he does. He only represented the popular sen- timent respecting marriage and di- vorce. He in fact gained credit, in- stead of losing it, by an act which shocked every man and woman who believes that marriage is sacred and inviolable, and that what God has joined together no human authority can sunder. Henry Ward Beecher is probably the most popular preach- er, as Mrs. Beecher Stowe is the most popular novelist, in the country. The Beecher family, we grant, are

a gifted family, but not more so than thousands of others. They have tal- ent, but not genius, and are not above mediocrity in learning, science, taste, or refinement. The sermons before us are marked by a certain rough ener- gy, or a certain degree of earnestness and directness, but they indicate a sad lack of theological erudition, of varied knowledge, breadth of view, and depth of thought. They rarely if ever rise above commonplace, never go beneath the surface, are loose, vague, indefinite in expression, unpolished, and not seldom even vulgar in style, and have only a stump-orator sort of eloquence. The Beecher popu- larity and influence cannot then be ascribed to the personal character or qualities of the Beecher family, and can be explained only by the fact that they are in harmony with the spirit of the Evangelical world and represent its dominant tendencies.

In the Beecher family, then, we may read the inevitable course and tendency of Evangelical Protestant- ism, whither it is going, and in what it must end at last. The Beechers never defend a decidedly unpopular cause ; they are incapable of being martyrs to either lost or incipient causes ; they never join a movement till they feel that it is destined to be popular; they were never knovm as abolitionists till it was clear that the success of abolition was only a ques- tion of time ; and we should not see Henry Ward Beecher at the head of the woman's rights movement if he did not see or beheve that it has sufficient vitality to succeed without him. Yet the Beechers are shrewd, and usually keep just a step in advance of the point the public has reached to-day, but which the signs of the times as- sure them the public will have reach- ed to-morrow ; so that they may al- ways appear as public leaders, and gain the credit of having declared them-

448

Beechcrism and its Tendencies.

selves, before success was known. We cannot, therefore, assume that the world they appear to lead is ac- tually up to the point where they stand, but we may feel very certain that where they stand is where the world they represent will stand to-morrow. They are a day, but only a day, ahead of their world.

The Beechers are Protestants of the Calvinistic stamp, and Calvinism, Evangelically developed, is the only living form of Protestantism. All other forms had for their organic prin- ciple the external authority of prin- ces, have borne their fruit, died, are dead, and should be buried ; but Calvinism had for its organic princi- ple the subjective nature of man, in the emotions, sentiments, and affections of the heart, and can change as they change, and live as long as they live. This is what the Abbe Martin has in his mind when he says, " Protestantism is imperishable." Calvinism can lose the support of the civil government, all objective faith, all distinctive doctrines, and still retain its identity, its vitality, and its power of development. Indeed, it has lost all that, and yet it survives in all its strength in what is called Evangelicalism, and which is confin- ed to no particular sect, but compre- hends or accepts all that is living in any or all the sects. It is the living, active, energizing Protestantism of the day; that which inspires all the grand philanthropic, moral and so- cial reform, missionary, educational, and the thousand-and-one other enter- prises in which the Protestant world engages with so much zeal, and for which it collects and spends so many millions annually ; that holds world's conventions, forms alliances of sect with sect, and leagues with social- ists, revolutionists, and avowed infi- dels to carry on its war to the death against the church of Christ and espe- cially against his infallible vicar. Evan-

gelicalism is bound to no creed, oblig- ed to defend no doctrine, is sufficient- ly elastic to take in every heresy and to sympathize with any and every movement that is not a movement in the direction of the church of God. It is, to borrow a figure from St. Au- gustine, the proud and gorgeous city of the world set over against the city of God, and which it attacks by storm and siege with all the world's forces and all the world's engines of destruc- tion. Whoso thinks it is not a for- midable power, or that it can be easi- ly vanquished, reckons without his host ; only God is mightier than it, and only God can defeat it, and bring it to naught.

We do not say that Evangelicalism has yet advanced — or descended, ra- ther— so far as to leave absolutely be- hind all objective doctrines ; it stiU clings to a fading reminiscence of them, and chooses to express its sub- jective religion in the language of faith, to put its new wine into its old bottles, or, however the emotions, sentiments, affections, passions may change, to call them by a Christian name. In this, Beecherism humors its fancy, and lures it on in its down- ward career. Any one of the mas- culine Beechers is as little of a Chris- tian as was Theodore Parker or Mar- garet Fuller, or as is Ralph Waldo Emerson or Ellingwood Abbot, John Weiss or O. B. Frothingham; but the Beecher holds from Evangelicalism, retains its spirit and much of its lan- guage, and, instead of breaking with it as the Unitarians did, he continues its legitimate development, and keeps up the family connection. He may keep just in advance of it, but he does not deviate from the line of its march. Unitarians are beginning to see their blunder, and are striving daily to re- pair it.

Beecherism is by no means the last word of Evangelicalism. It probably

Beecherism a?id its Tendencies.

449

does not itself understand that word, nor is it able to foretell what it will be. It represents the subjective or emo- tional side of Evangelicalism ; but Evangelicalism holds from Calvinism, and Calvinism, along with its subjec- tive principle, fully developed in the Beechers, asserts the theocratic prin- ciple— a true principle when not mis- apprehended or misapplied, or when represented and applied by the infal- lible church divinely commissioned to declare and apply the law of God, but a most dangerous, odious princi- ple when applied by an unauthorized body, like the early Calvinists in Gene- va, Scotland, and the New England colonies, as experience abundantly proves. As Calvinism develops and becomes Evangelicalism, humanity takes the place of God, and the theo- cratic principle becomes the anthro- pocratic principle, or the supremacy of humanity ; and of course the abso- lute right of Evangelicals, philanthro- pists, the representatives, or those who claim to be the representatives, of hu- manity, to govern mankind in all things spiritual and temporal — in prac- tice, of those who can best succeed in carrying the people with them, or, those vulgarly called demagogues. Evangelicalism is developing in a hu- manitarian direction, affects to be de- mocratic, and is in reality nothing but Jacobinism, socialism, Mazzinian- ism, with a long face, clad in a pious robe, and speaking in deep, guttural tones.

But this is not all. The Calvinis- tic spirit is not changed any more than the identity of Calvinism is lost by the changes in our emotional na- ture, by the transformation of the theocratic principle into the anthro- pocratic. It is always and every- where, in religion and politics, in so- ciety and the family, the spirit of des- potism. At first it said : " I represent God; do as I bid you, or die in your

VOL. XII. — 2g

rebellion against God." Now it says : " I represent humanity, and humani- ty is supreme ; I am the people ; the people are sovereign ; their will is the supreme law; therefore, obey my will, or die as the enemies of humanity." Let Evangelicalism once become do- minant in a republic, be the belief or spirit of the people, and it can easily and will establish the most odious civil and religious despotism, even while it imagines that it is laboring solely in the interests of humanity. It has cast off God and his law in the name of religion, reduced religion to the emotions, passions, and affections of human nature, in the name of piety. As every one of these is exclusive and despotic in its tendency, nothing is more simple than to cast off all liberty, justice, equity, in the name of God and humanity. All government holding from humanity or the people as its ul- timate principle, is and must be intoler- ant and tyrannical with all the intoler- ance and despotism of human passions or sentiments. The only possible security for any kind of liberty is in the subjection of the people, collec- iitively as well as individually — or man's emotional, affective, or passional na- ture— to the law of God, the very law of liberty, because the very law of justice and equality.

We may see what Evangelicalism would do by observing what Jacob- inism did in France. There it was supreme for a time, and its govern- ment is known in history as the Reign of Terror. Its spirit was, " Stranger, embrace me as your brother, or I will kill you." We see what it would do if it had full sway in what it attempts everywhere in the way of political, social, and moral reform. When it sees what it regards as an evil, public or private, it seeks by denunciation and a fanatical agitation to bring pub- lic opinion to bear against it, and then to get the legislature to pass a statute

450

Venite A dor emus !

against it and suppress it by the strong arm of power. Whatever it would si^:ppress, it seeks to make unpopular, and then to legislate it down. It ap- peals to public opinion, and popu- larity and unpopularity are -its mea- sure of right and wrong. It hates the church, and is doing all it can to form public opinion against her by decrying and calumniating her — to form a public opinion that Avill, in the very name of equality, deny her equal rights with the sects — and to enact laws for the suppression of the free- dom of her discipline and of her wor- ship as fast as it can be done pru- dently. We see it in the Evangelical hostility to our equal rights in the public schools, and its legislation on marriage and divorce. Its acts en- forcing negro equality, to legislate men into temperance, etc., are all signs of what it would do if it could. It would not legislate against the same things now or under the same pretence that Calvin did in Geneva, or our Puritan fathers did in the colo- nies of Massachusetts and Connecti-

cut, but it would legislate in the same spirit, and in a direction equally against all true liberty. It opposes the church because she opposes Ja- cobinism and exerts all her power in favor of stable government, wise and just laws ; and it encourages every- where the Jacobinicj-l revolution, as giving it the power to suppress all liberty but its liberty to enforce, by public opinion and civil pains and penalties, its own constantly shifting notions of the public good or the inte- rests of humanity.

The Unitarians, we have said, made a blunder in breaking with Evangeli- calism. Beecherism shows them how they may repair it, and assists them to do it. Only keep clear of explicit denials, preserve a few Evangelical phrases, profess to be in earnest for " heart-religion," which means no re- ligion at all, and peace is made, and Satan has his forces united against the Lord and his anointed, against both civil and religious liberty, and for the emancipation of society from the supremacy of the divine law.

VENITE ADOREMUS!

/

Dec. 25, A.c. I.

A LOWLY cave, in the hush of night, 'Neath the quiet gaze of the holy light Of the stars, with chant of angels bright, Welcomes Emmanuel.

Dec. 25, A.D. 1870.

A sinful heart, apart from men, Bowed humbly down, within the ken Of One, with sorrow's love, again Welcomes Emmanuel.

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— JOHANNES 16, 12—14.—

Dieses: die Synthese des Glauhens nach Eingang des dritten Jahrtausends, ist ein neuer, der nahende Pfingstmorgen in Vorschau, — zu Erweckung des Kamp/ea wider Verodung des Geistes,

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" CAN TWO WALK TOGETHER ? "

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minded men, and that we cannot afford to lose them. We have yet to learn that the Church of Christ does not exist by the wit or will of man, and does not depend for its life and its future on this individual or that, or on any school or sect. The one duty of every body of Christians is to^take its posi- tion, squarely and immovably, let who will, come or go. Its policy and its faith must not be shaped or directed with refer- ence to persons and parties. It must not give out, or think for a moment, that it lives by suffrage. It must live in God, in God's Christ. There must be the hiding of its power. Then will it have large increase, whatever men may say or do, But, to be true to our honest thought, we should say that the radical element in our denomination is our element of weakness. It is that which neutralizes all internal effort, and creates distrust and fear without. Its spirituality, if not its ability, is vastly overrated, as the extracts we have quoted sufficiently show. Its spirit and purposes have not been im- proved by those who have flattered it, in the vain hope to control it and make it a healthy part of the body. The bet- ter course would be to show it plainly its errors and offenses, and how much it needs the grace of God, while it should not be permitted, in its unchristian attitude, to dilute the faith, enfeeble the energies, and destroy the life of the denomina- tion.

The great question we are called upon to decide cannot be postponed. It is before us. Management and trick may crowd it out of one meeting, but it will come up in another. It must be met and settled. It will not do to^cry "Schism," " Bigotry," " Orthodoxy," " Bondage," or whatever else. We know that we are in a line with the fathers who have gone before us. We stand on the rock which is Christ. We feel that we are right, and we are in earnest. Finally, there are many who are saying, in the words of that venerated and lately departed saint of our communion. Rev. N. L. Frothing- ham, D.D., " If Liberal Christianity means only an unbounded license of speculation, — recognizing nothing as fixed, admit- ting any extremes of opinion as the fair results of its free principle, — my place is not there. Unto that assembly, O my soul, be not thou united."

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