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DISCOURSES AND ESSAYS.

WILLIAM G. T. SHEDD

OF THE

UlTIVER

kilFOH^^

ANDOVER:

WARREN F. DRAPER.

BOSTON: GOULD AND LINCOLN.

NEW YORK: JOHN WILEY.
PUILADELPUIA: 8MITU, ENGLISU & CO.

1862.

Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1862, by

WARREN F. DRAPER.

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts,

■TKRZOTTPBD A K B PRINTED BT
W. F. DRAPKK, ANDOVER.

ADVERTISEMENT TO THE SECOND EDITION.

These Discourses and Essays were collected in a
volume in 1856, and have met with an encouraging
reception, considering the metaphysical character of
most of them. On issuing a new edition, the author
has availed himself of the opportunity to make some
corrections, and to add an Essay upon the Doctrine
of Atonement, which he has frequently been urged
to republish. That the volume may contribute to the
spread of just views in philosophy and theology, is
the sincere desire of the writer.

Andover, Mabcii 27, 1861.

(3)

CONTENTS.

PAGE.

THE METHOD, AND INFLUENCE, OF THEOLOGICAL STUDIES, 7

THE TRUE NATURE OF THE BEAUTIFUL, AND ITS RELA-
TION TO CULTURE, 53

THE CHARACTERISTICS, AND IMPORTANCE, OF A NATU-
RAL RHETORIC, 88

THE NATURE, AND INFLUENCE, OF THE HISTORIC SPIRIT, 113

THE RELATION OF LANGUAGE, AND STYLE, TO THOUGHT, l81

THE DOCTRINE OF ORIGINAL SIN, 218

THE DOCTRINE OF ATONEMENT, 272

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" There is one department of knowledge, wWeh like an ample palace
contains within itself mansions for every other knowledge ; which deep-
ens and extends the interest of every other, gives it new charms and
additional purpose ; the study of which, rightly and liberally pursued,
is beyond any other entertaining, beyond all others tends at once to
tranquillize and enliven, to keep the mind elevated and steadfast, the
heart humble and tender : it is biblical theology -^ the philosophy of reli-
gion, and the religion of philosophy." — Coleridge.

(6)

V^ OF THE ^

THE METHOD, AND INFLUENCE, OE
THEOLOGICAL STUDIES.

A DISCOURSE DELIVERED BEFORE THE LITERARY SOCIETIES OF THE
UNIVERSITY OF VERMONT, AUGUST 5, 1845.

Gentlemen of the Societies :

The subject to which I invite your attention is :
The method^ and influence^ of Theological Studies.

Theology more than any other science, suffers from
false views of its scope and contents. In the opinion of •
many, it is supposed to have little or no connection with
other sciences, and to exert but a very small and unim-
portant influence upon other departments of human
knowledge. Its contents are supposed to be summed
up in the truths of natural theology. It is thought to be
that isolated and lifeless science which looks merely at
the natural attributes of God and man, and which con-
sequently brings to view no higher relations, and no
deeper knowledge, than those of mere nature. Of course,
for such minds theology must be a very unimportant and
simple science, treating merely of those superficial qual-
ities which do not reach into the depths of God and man,
and of those merely secondary and temporal relation-

(7)

8 THE METHOD, AXD INFLUENCE,

ships that rest upon them. Said a member of the Direc-
tory appointed by France during its Revolution to re-
model Christianity, " I want a simple religion : one with
a couple of doctrines." Theology, as understood by
many, is the science of the French Director's religion.

But such is not the scope, or the character, of that
" sacred and inspired divinity " which Lord Bacon as-
serts to be " the sabbath and port of men's labors and
peregrinations." Nature ; the natural attributes of God
and man, and the natural laws and relations of creation ;
forms but a minor and insignificant part of its subject
matter. This lower region of being is but the suburb.
The metropolis and royal seat of theology is the svper-
natural world ; a region full of moral being, sustaining
most profound and solemn relations to reason and law.

Before proceeding, then, to speak of the true method
of theological study, and of its great and noble influ-
ences, it will be needful to discuss more at large the
real spirit and character of the science itself; and for this
somewhat abstract discussion, I bespeak your forbearing
and patient attention. It is needed in order to a clear ap-
prehension of the enlarging and elevating influence of the
science. Far am I from recommending to the educated
man, the pursuit of those seemingly religious studies
which never carry him out of the sphere of natural the-
ology, and which cannot awaken enthusiasm of feehng
or produce profundity of thought. I am pleading for
those really theological studies, which by means of their
supernatural element and character give nerve to the in-
tellect and life to the heart.

Theology is the science of the supernatural. That we
may obtain a clear knowledge of its essential character,
let us for a moment consider the distinction between the
natural and the supernatural.

OF THEOLOGICAL STUDIES. 9

That which makes these different from each other in
kind, so that the line which divides them divides the
universe into two distinct worlds, is this fact: — the
natural has no religious element in it, while the super-
natural is entirely composed of this element. There is
and there can be in mere nature nothing religious.
There is and there can be in that which is supernatural
nothing that is not religious.* When we have said this,
we have given the essential difference between the nat-
ural and supernatural.

The common notion that by the natural is meant the
material and visible, and by the supernatural, the imma-
terial and invisible, is false. Nature may be as invisible
and immaterial as is spirit. Who ever saw or ever will
see the natural forces of gravitation, electricity, and mag-
netism ? Who ever saw or ever will see that natural
principle of life, of which all outward and material na-
ture is but the manifestation ? Back of this world of
nature which we apprehend by the five senses, there is
an invisible world w^hich is nature still ; which is not su-
pernatural ; neither the object of supernatural science nor
of supernatural interests, because there is no moral ele-
ment in it. When we have stripped the world of its
materiality, and have dissolved all that is visible into
unseen forces and vital laws, we have not reached any
higher region than that of nature. We have not yet
entered the supernatural and religious world. He who
worships the vital principle or adores the force of gi-avity;
nay, he who has no higher emotions than those of the
natural religionist, which are called forth by the beauty

♦Religion is from rellgo: — natural laws have no religious, or binding
force, and in the sphere of nature there can be no such things as duty, guilt,
or praiseworthiness.

10 THE METHOD, AND INFLUENCE,

and glory of visible nature, or by the cloudy and mystic
awfulness of invisible nature, is as really an idolater, as
is the most debased heathen who bows down before a
visible and material idol. And that system of thought
which never rises into the world of moral or supernatural
reality, is as truly material (whatever may be its profes-
sions to the contrary), as is the most open and avowed
materialism.

It seems like stating truisms to make such statements as
these ; and yet some of the most seductive and far-reach-
ing errors in philosophy and theology have arisen from
the non-recognition, or the denial, of any thing highei
than invisible nature. Ideal Pantheism, a system receiv-
ed by minds of a really profound order, and which boast*
of its spirituality, results from the error in question.
Hence, although it admits of, and produces, a mystic
adoration and a vague dreamy awe, it is utterly incom-
patible with really spiritual feeling and truly moral
emotion.

But the reality, and nature, of the distinction between
the natural and supernatural, is still more clearly seen
by a contemplation of the Divine attributes ; partly be-
cause at this point the distinction itself is more marked
and plain, and partly because from this point the vital
errors in theological and philosophical science take their
start.

Although, at first sight, it may appear bold and irrev-
erent, yet a thorough investigation will show that it re-
sults in the only true fear and adoration of God, to say
that his natural attributes considered by themselves are
of no importance at all for a moral being. Taken by
themselves, they have no religious quality, and therefore,
as such, cannot be the ground of theological science or
religious feeling. Considered apart from his supernatural

OF THEOLOGICAL STUDIES. 11

attributes, what meaning have the omnipresence, the
omnipotence, and even the adaptive intelligence, of the
Deity, for me as a religious being ? Of what interest, is
the possessor of these merely natural attributes, to me as
a rational and moral being, until I know the supernat-
ural character and person which reside in them, and make
them the vehicle of their operations ? I may see the ex-
hibitions of Infinite Power in the heavens above me, and
on the earth around me ; I may detect the work of an
Infinite Intelligence in this world of matchless design
and order ; but what are these isolated quafities to me as
one who possesses moral reason and sustains supernatural
relations ? Let that Infinite Power thunder and flash
through the skies, and let that Infinite Intelligence clothe
the world in beauty and glory; these merely natural
attributes are nothing to me, in a religious point of view,
until I know who wields them, and what supernatural and
holy attributes make them their bearer and agent. Then
will I fear spiritually, and then will I adore morally.

This fundamental distinction between the natural and
the supernatural is of vital importance to theological sci-
ence. If not clearly seen and rigidly recognized in the-
ology, this science comes to be nothing more than an
investigation of the natural attributes of the Deity, and
treats merely of those relations of man to the Creator,
which the vilest reptile that crawls has in common with
him. For if we set aside the supernatural attributes of
God, man sustains only the same relations to him that
the brute does. He, in common with the brutes that per-
ish, is the creature of the Divine Power, and in common
with them is sustained by the Divine Intelligence ; that
attribute which causes merely natural wants to be sup-
.plied by their correlative objects. The mere superven-
tion of consciousness will make no difference between

12 THE METHOD, AND INFLUENCE,

mail and brute in relation to the Deity, unless conscious-
ness bring with it the knowledge of his higher snpernat-
tiral attributes. If we set aside his relations to the Wis-
dom, Holiness, Justice and Mercy of God, we find man
on a level with brute existence in all respects. He
comes into being, reaches his maturity, declines, and dies,
as they do, by the operation of the natural attributes of
the Creator manifesting themselves in natural laws, and
this is all that can be said of him in reference to his
Maker.

The more we contemplate the Divine Being, the more
clearly do we see that his supernatural are his constitut-
ing attributes ; the very Divinity of the Deity. If they
are denied, the Creator is immediately confounded with
the creature ; for his natural attributes, without his moral
ones, become the soul of the world, its blind, though
unerring principle of life. Or if they are misapprehend-
ed, and the difference between the two classes is sup-
posed to be only one of degree, and consequently that
there is no essential distinction between nature and
spirit, fatal errors will inevitably be the result. There
will be no sharply and firmly drawn line between the
natural and spiritual worlds, natural and spiritual laws,
and natural and spiritual relationships. A mere natural-
ism must run through theology, philosophy, science, lit-
erature and art, depriving each and all of them of their
noblest characteristics.

The reality and importance of this distinction be-
tween the natural and the supernatural, are to be seen
in a less abstract and more interesting manner in the ac-
tual life of men. Man is by creation a religious being ;
and even in his religion we discover his proneness to
deny or misapprehend the distinction in question. The
religion of the natural man is strictly natural religion. It

OF THEOLOGICAL STUDIES. , 13

refers solely to the natural attributes of God. There is
no man who is not pleasurably affected by the manifes-
tation of the Power and intelligent Design of the Deity,
as seen in the natural world ; and all men who have not
been taught experimentally, that there are higher attri-
butes than these, and a higher religion than this, are con-
tent with such religion. " As is the earthy, such are
they that are earthy." They are strictly natural men, and
seek that in God which corresponds to their character.
The spirit, or the supernatural part of man, has not yet
been renewed and vivified by a supernatural influence,
and therefore there is no search after the spiritual attri-
butes of God. The moment that the supernatural dawns
upon such men, and the moral attributes of God appear
in their awful and solemn relations to law, guilt, and
atonement, they are troubled ; and unless mercifully
prevented, descend into the low regions of nature, to
escape from a light and a purity which they cannot
endure.

It will be evident even from this brief discussion that
the distinction between the natural and the supernatural
is a valid and fundamental one ; that the natural world
is essentially different from the supernatural, and that
theology, as the science of the supernatural, possesses
a scope, contents, and influence, as vast and solemn as
the field of its inquiry.

And think for a moment what this field is ! It is not
the earth we tread upon, nor the heavens that are bent
over it, all beautiful and glorious as they are. It is not
that unseen world of living forces and active laws which
lies under the visible universe, giving it existence and
causing its manifold motions and changes. This is in-
deed a deeply mysterious realm, and is a step nearer the
Eternal than all that we see with the eye or touch with

14 THE METHOD, AND INFLUENCE,

the hand is ; but it is not the proper home of theological
inquiry.

Above the kingdoms of visible and invisible nature,
there is a world which is the residence of a personal God,
with supernatural attributes, and the seat of spiritual
ideas, laws, and relations. It is, to use the language of
Plato, " that super-heavenly place which no one of the
poets has hitherto worthily sung, or ever will," where right-
eousness itself, true wisdom and knowledge, are to be
seen in their very essence.* This is the proper field of
theological inquiry, and as the mind ranges through it, it
comes in sight of all that invests man's spirit with infi-
nite responsibilities, and renders human existence one of
awful interest.

But what is the proper method of theological studies ?

If what has been said relative to the two great king-
doms into which the universe is divided, be true, it is
plain that theological studies must commence in that
supernatural w^orld whose realities form its subject mat-
ter, and that the true method is to descend from spirit
to nature, in our investigations. The contrary process
has been in vogue for the last century and a half, and
the saying "from nature we ascend to nature's God,"
has come to be received as an axiom in theological
science.

If this assertion means anything, it means that by a
careful observation of all that we can apprehend by the
five senses, in space, we shall obtain a correct and full
knowledge of God. The spirit of the assertion is this :
Nature is first in the order of investigation, because
its teachings are more surely correct, and its proofs are

* Pbaedrus. Opera viii. p. 30. See the whole of the beautiful descrip-
tion of this iirepovpai/ios rSiros : a passage vivid 1}' reminding of 1 Cor. iL

OF THEOLOGICAL STUDIES. 15

more to be relied on, than those of the supernatural.
Let us test it by rigidly applying it to the investigation
of the being and character of God. What is there in
nature which teaches, or proves, the existence of the
Holiness of God ; or his Justice ; or his Mercy ? What
is there in the world in which we live as beings of nature
and sense, which necessarily compels us to assume the
personality of God ? It is true that we are taught by
all that exists in " the mighty world of eye and ear," that
there are power and adaptive intelligence somewhere^ but
whether they are seated in a self-conscious and personal
being, or are only the eternal procession of a blind and
unconscious life, we cannot know anything that nature
teaches. You see a movement in the natural world:
say the growth of a plant or the blowing of a flower.
What does that natural movement teach (considered
simply by itself, and with no reference to a higher
knowledge from another source,) and what have you a
right to infer from it ? Simply this : that there is a merely
natural power adequate to its production ; but whether
that power has any connefction with the moral character
of a spiritual person^ you cannot know from anything
you see in the natural phenomenon. Now extend this
through infinite space, and will the closest examination
of all the physical movements occurring in this vast do-
main, taken by itself, lead up to a personal and holy
God ? What is there in the law of gravity which has
the least tendency to lead to the recognition of the law
of holiness ? Is there any similarity between the two in
kind ? What can the motions of the sun and stars,
the unvarying return of the seasons, the bu-th, growth,
and death, of animated existence, taken by themselves,
teach regarding the supernatural attributes of God ?
Take away from man the knowledge of God which is

Id THE METHOD, AND INFLUENCE,

contained in the human spirit and in the written word,
and leave him to find his way up to a personal and spir-
itual Deity by the light of nature alone; and he will
grope in eternal darkness, if for no other reason, because
he cannot even get the idea of such a Being.

For the truth is, that between the two kingdoms of
nature and spirit a great gulf is fixed, and the passage
from one to the other is not by degrees, but by a leap ;
and this leap is not up, but down. There is one theory
which assumes that the universe is but the development
of one only substance ; and if this is a correct theory,
then it is true that we can " ascend from nature up to
nature's God." For all is continuous development, with
no chasm interv^ening, and the height may consequently
be reached from the bottom by a patient ascent. There
is another and the true theory, which rejects this doc-
trine of development, and substitutes in its place that of
creation, whereby nature is not an emanation, but springs
forth into existence for the first time, at the fiat of the
Creator, who is now distinct from the work of his hands.
Nature is now, in a certain sense, separate from God,
and instead of being able to prove his moral existence,
or to manifest his supernatural and constituting attri-
butes, requires a previous knowledge of the Creator,
from another source, in order to its own true apprehen-
sion.*

Now the true method of obtaining a correct knowledge
of an object, is to follow the method of its origin, and
therefore true theological science follows the footsteps of

* Whether the absolute is the ground or the cause is the question which
has ever divided philosophers. That it is the (/round but not the cause is
the assertion of Naturalism ; that it is the cause and not the ground is the
assertion of Theism. Jacobi. Von den Goit. Dingen. Werke. iii. 404, to-
gether with the references.

OF THEOLOGICAL STUDIES. 17

•

God. It starts with the assumption of his existence,
and the knowledge of his character derived from a higher
source than that of mere nature, that it may find in the
works of his hands the illustration of his aheady known
attributes, and the manifestation of his already be-
heved being. True theology descends from God to
nature, and rectifies and interprets all that it finds in this
complicated and perplexing domain, by what it knows
of its Maker from other and higher sources.

Take away from the human spirit that knowledge of
the moral attributes of God which it has from its consti-
tution, and from revelation, and compel it to deduce the
character of the Supreme Being from what it sees in
the natural world, and will it not inevitably become
skeptical ? As the thoughtful heathen looked abroad
over a world of pain and death, was he not forced reso-
lutely to reject the natural inference to be drawn from this
sight, and to cling with desperate faith to the dictum of a
voice speaking from another quarter, saying : " see what
thou mayest in nature apparently to the contrary, He is
Just ; He is Holy ; He is Good."

This false method of theological study proceeds from
a belief common to man, resulting partly from his cor-
ruption and partly from his present existence in a world
offense. It is the common belief of man that reality in
the strictest sense of the term is to be predicated of ma-
terial things, and in his ordinary thought and feeling, that
which is spiritual is unreal. The solid earth which the
" swain treads upon with his clouted shoon " has sub-
stantial existence, and its material objects are real, but
if we watch the common human feeUng regarding such
objects as the soul and God, we detect (not necessarily
a known and determined infidelity, but) an inabiUty to
make them as real and substantial as the . sun in the

18 THE METHOD, AND INFLUENCE,

~ m

heavens, or the earth under foot. Lord Bacon in de-
scribing the idols of the tribe ; the false notions which
are inherent in human nature ; says, that " man's sense
is falsely asserted to be the standard of things." * It is,
however, under the influence of the notion that it is,
that man goes to the investigation of truth, and espe-
cially of theological truth. Every thing is determined
by a material standard, and established from the position
of materialism. It is assumed that nature is more real
than spirit ; that its instructions and evidences are more
to be relied on than those of spirit ; and that from it, as
from the only sure foothold for investigation, we are to
make hurried and timid excursions into that dim undis-
covered realm of the supernatural which is airy and un-
real, and filled with airy and unreal objects.

This is a low and mean idol, and if the inquirer after
spiritual truth bows down to it he shall never enter the
holy of holies. Spirit is more real than matter, for God
is a spirit. Supernatural laws and relations are more
real than those of nature, for they shall exist when na-
ture, even to its elements, shall be melted with fervent
heat.

Why then should we, as did the pagan mythology,
make earth and the earth-born Atlas support the old ev-
erlasting heavens? They are self-supported and em-
bosom and illumine all things else. Why should we
attempt to rest spiritual science upon natmal science ;
the eternal upon the temporal ; the absolute upon the
empirical ; the certain upon the uncertain ? Is all that
is invisible unreal, and must a thing become the object
of the five senses, before we can be certain of its reality ?
Not to go out of the natural world ; by what in this do-

^ * Novum Organum, Aph. 41.

^^ OF THB ^^

OF THEOLOGICAL STUImBI IT 1 Y « XV 991 * •

main are we most vividly, impressed witi^^^€>^eption
of reality, and how is the notion of power awakened ?
Not by anything we see with the eye or touch with the
hand, but by the knowledge of that unseen force and law
which causes the motions of the heavens, and makes the
" crystal spheres ring out their silver chimes." Not by
an examination of the phenomena of the mineral, vege-
table, and animal kingdoms, but by the idea of that one
vast invisible life manifesting itself in them. Even here,
upon a thoughtful reflection, that which is unseen shows
itself to be the true reality. And to go up higher into
the sphere of human existence : where is the substantial
reality of man's being ? In that path which, in the ' an-
guage of Job, " no fowl knoweth, and which the vulture's
eye hath not seen." In that unseen world where human
thought ranges, where human feelings swell into a vast-
ness not to be contained by the great globe itself, and
where human affections soar away into eternity. No !
reality in the high sense of the term belongs to the invis-
ible, and in the very highest sense, to the invisible thinga
of the supernatural world. There is more of reality in
the feeblest finite spirit than in all the material universe,
for it will survive " the wreck of matter and the crash of
worlds." The supernatural is a firmer foundation upon
which to establish science than is the natural ; its data
are more certain, and its testimony mogre sure than those
of nature. None but an open ear, it is true, can hear the
voices and the dicta that come from this highest world,
but he who has once heard never again doubts regarding
them. He cannot doubt, if he would. He has heard the
tones, and they will continue to sound through his soul,
with louder and louder reverberations, through its whole
immortality.

Perhaps it will be objected that, granting spiritual

20 THE METHOD, AND INFLUENCE,

things to be the true realities, yet the mind cannot see
them except through a medium, and cannot be certain
of their existence except by means of deductions from a
palpable and tangible reality like that of the material
world. But is it so ? Does the spirit need a medium
through which to behold the idea and law of Right, for
example ; and must it build up a series of conclusions
based upon deductions drawn from the world of sense,
before it can be certain that there is any such reality ? —
Does not the human spirit see the idea of Right as
directly and plainly as the material eye sees the sun at
high noon ; and when it sees it, is it not as certain of its
existence as we are of that of the sun ? If man does not
see this spiritual entity, this supernatural idea, directly
and without a medium, he will never see it, and if it
does not of itself convey the evidence of its reality, it can
be drawm from no other quarter.

The same may be said of all spiritual entities what-
ever ; of all the objects of the supernatural world. The
rational spirit may and must behold them by direct intui-
tion in their own pure white light. It has the organ for
doing this. Not more certainly is the material eye
designed for the vision of the sun, than the rational spirit
is designed for the visioir of God. The former is ex-
pressly constructed to behold matter, and the latter is
just as expressly constructed to behold spirit. Nor let it
be supposed that the term " behold " is used literally in
reference to the act of the material eye, and merely
metaphorically in reference to the act of the spirit. The
term is no more the exclusive property of one organ than
of the other. Or if it is to belong to one exclusively let
us rather appropriate it to that organ which sees eternal
distinctions. If the term " sight " is ever metaphorical,

OF THEOLOGICAL STUDIES. 21

surely it is not so when applied to the vision of immuta-
ble truths and everlasting realities.

Man, both by nature and by the circumstances in
which he is placed, finds it difficult thus to contemplate
abstract ideal truth, and when it eludes his imperfect
vision he charges the difficulty upon the truth and not
upon himself. But for all this the ideal is real, and man
is capable of this abstract vision. Upon his ability to
free himself from the disturbing influences of sense, to be
independent of the physical senses in the investigation
of spiritual things, and to see them in their own light by
their correlative organ, depends his true knowledge of the
supernatural. It is on this ground that Plato asserts it
to be the true mark of a philosophic mind to desire to
die, because the mind is thereby withdrawn from the dis-
traction of sense, and in the spiritual world beholds the
Beautiful, the True, and the Good, in their essence. —
Hence with great force he represents those spirits which
have not been entirely freed from the crass and sensuous
nature of the body, as being afraid of the purely spiritual
world and its supernatural objects, and as returning into
the world of matter to wander as ghosts among tombs
and graves, loving thehr old material dwelling more than
the spirit-land.*

The knowledge which comes from a direct vision of
spiritual objects is sure, and needs no evidence of its
truth from a lower domain. He who has once in spirit
obtained a distinct sight of such realities as the Good,
the Beautiful, the True, and their contraries, will never
again be in doubt of their existence, or as to their natures.
These are entities which once seen compel an everlast-
ing belief. These are objects

* Phaedon, Opera I. pp. 115. 1 16, 139.

22 THE METHOD, AND INFLUENCE,

***** that wake

To perish never ;
Which neither listlessness nor mad endeavor,

Nor man nor boy,
Nor all that is at enmity with joy,
Can utterly abolish or destroy.

The true method then of theological studies is to com-
mence in and with the supernatural and to work outward
and downward to the natural. The theologian must
study his own spirit by the aid of the written word. He
will ever find the two in perfect harmony and mutually
confirming each other. The supernatural doctrines of
theology must be seen in their own light ; must bring
their own evidence with them, and theology must be a
self-supported science.

Whatever may be said in opposition to this method
by those who magnify natural theology to the injury of
spiritual religion, it has always been the method of in-
quiry employed by the profoundest and most accurate
theologians. Augustine lived at a period when natural
science was but little cultivated and advanced, but even
if he had possessed all the physical knowledge of the
present day, that inward experience with its throes,
agonies, and joys, so vividly portrayed in his " Confes-
sions," would still have kept his eye turned inward. The
power of Luther and Calvin lies in their realizing views
of supernatural objects seen by their own light; and
nothing but an absolutely abstract and direct beholding
of supernatural realities could have produced the calm
assurance and profound theology of that loftiest of human
spirits, John Howe.

But what has been the result of the contrary method ?
Have not those who (fommenced with the study of
natural theology, and who made this the foundation of
their inquiries into the nature and mutual relations of

OF THEOLOGICAL STUDIES. 2J

God and man, always remained on the spot where they
first stationed themselves ? Did they, by logically fol-
lowing their assumed method, ever rise above the sphere
of merely natural religion into that of supernatural, and
obtain just views either of the Infinite Spirit as personal
and therefore tri-une ; or of the Finite Spirit as free, re-
sponsible and guilty? Bid they ever acquire rational
views of holy and just law ; of law as strictly snpernatU'
ral ; and so of its relations to guilt and expiation ?

An undue study of natural science inevitably leads to
WTong theological opinions. Unless it be pursued in the
light which spirit casts upon nature, the student will
misapprehend both nature and spirit. Who can doubt
that if Priestley had devoted less time to the phenomena
of the natural world, and far more to those of the super-
natural ; less attention to physical, laws as seen in the
operations of acids and alkahes, and far more attention
to the operation of a spiritual law as revealed in a guilty
conscience ; he would have l§ft a theology far more
nearly conformed to the word of God and the structure
of the human spirit.

I have been thus particular in speaking of the super-
natural element in theological studies, for the purpose of
showing where their power lies, and whence their influ-
ence comes. I turn now to consider the influence of
these studies as they have been characterized, upon edu-
cation and the educated class in the state.

Genuine education is immediately concerned with the
essence of the mind itself, and its power and work appear
in the very substance of the understanding. It starts
into exercise deeper powers than the memory, and it does
more for the mind than merely to fill it. It enters rather
into its constituent and controlling principles; rouses
and develops them, and thus establishes a basis for the

24 THE METHOD, AND INFLUENCE,

mind's perpetual motion and progress. Whether there
be much or little acquired information is of small import-
ance, comparatively, if the mind has that which is the
secret of mental superiority ; the power of originating
knowledge upon a given subject for itself, and can fall
back upon its own native energies for information. That
process whereby a mind acquires the ability to fasten
itself with absorbing intensity upon any legitimate
object of human inquiry, and to originate profound
thought and clear conceptions regarding it, is education.

The truth of this assertion will be apparent if we bear
in mind that knowledge, in the high sense of the term,
is not the remembrance of facts, but the intuition of prin-
ciples. Facts are that through which principles manifest
themselves, and by which they are illustrated, but to take
them for the essence of knowledge is to mistake the
body for the soul. The true knowledge of nature, art,
philosophy, and religion, is an insight into their constitu-
ent principles, of which facts and phenomena are but the
raiment ; the " white and glistering " raiment in which
the essence is transfigured and through which it shines.

Now, principles are entities that do not exist either in
space or time. They cannot be apprehended by any
organ of sense, and therefore they are not in space. —
They cannot in a literal sense be said to be old or new.
Principles are eternal and therefore they are not in time.
Where then are they? In the intellectual world: — a
world that is not measured by space or limited by
periods of time, but which has, nevertheless, as real an
existence as this globe. In the world of mind, all those
principles which constitute knowledge are to be sought ^
for. They lie in the structure of mind, and therefore the
development of the mind is but the discovery of princi-
ples, and education is the origination of substantial

OF THEOLOGICAL STUDIES. 25

knowledge out of the very being who is to be educat-
ed.*

Thus, by this brief examination of the true nature of
knowledge, do we come round in a full circle to the spot
w^hence we started, and see that he alone is in the pro-
oess of true education who is continually looking within,
and by the gradual evolution of his own mind is continu-
ally unfolding those principles of knowledge that lie
imbedded in it. Such an one may not have amassed
great erudition, but he possesses a working intellect
which, unencumbered by amassed materials, overflows
all the more freely with original principles. We feel
that such a mind is educated, for its products, are alive
and communicate life. From a living impulse it origin-
ates a knowledge, regarding any particular subject to
which it directs itself, that commends itself to us as truth,
by its congeniality and affinity with our own mind, and
by its kindling influence upon it.

Accustomed, from the domination of a mental philos-
ophy which rejects tne doctrine of innate ideas, to con-
sider learning as something carried into the mind instead
of something drawn out of it, it sounds strangely to
speak of originatirtg knowledge. But who are the really
learned statesmen, philosophers, and divines ? Not those
who merely commit to memory the results of past inquiry,
but those in whom after deep reflection the principles of
government, philosophy, and religion, rise into sight, with
the freshness, inspiration, and splendor, of a new dis-
covery. In asserting however that learning is the
product of the mind itself, I mean that it is relatively so.

♦ This is Plato's meaning when he asserts that learning is recollection : —
the reminding of the human spirit of those great principles which are bom
with it, and which constitute its rationality. — Phsedou Opera I. p. 125,
ct seq. Cudworth's Im. Mor. Book iii, Chap. 3.
3

26 THE METHOD, AND INFLUENCE,

It is not asserted that every truly learned mind discovers
absolutely new principles, and consequently that the
future is to bring to light a great amount of knowledge
unknown to the past. Far from it. The sum of human
knowledge, with the exception of that part relating to
the domain of natural science, is undoubtedly complete,
and we are not to expect the discovery of any new fun-
damental principles in the sphere of the supernatural. —
But it is asserted with confidence that these old principles
must be discovered afresh for himself by every one who
would be truly educated. " He who has been born,"
says an eloquent writer, " has been a first man, and has
had the world lying around him as fresh and fair as it
lay before the eyes of Adam himself." In like manner,
he who has been created a rational spirit, has a world of
rational principles encircling him, which is as new and
undiscovered for him as it was for the first man. In the
hemisphere of his own self-reflection and self-conscious-
ness, the sun must rise for the first time, and the stars
must send down their very freshest influences, their very
first and purest gleam.

For education, in the eminent sense of the term, is
dynamic and not atomic. It does not lie in the mind
in the form of congregated atoms, but of living, salient,
energies. It is not therefore poured in from without, but
springs up from within. The power of pure thought is
education. Indeed the more we consider the nature of
mental education, the more clearly do we see that it con-
sists in the power of pure, practical reflection ; the ability
so to absorb the mind that it shall sink down into itself,
until it reaches those ultimate principles, bedded in its
essence, by which facts and all acquired and remembered
information are illuminated and vivified. It cannot be
that he who remembers the most, is the most thoroughly

OF THEOLOGICAL STUDIES. 27

educated man, or that the age which is in possession of
the greatest amount of books and recorded information,
is the most learned. No ! learning is the product of a
powerful mind, which, by self-reflection and absorption
in pure, practical thought, goes down into those depths
of the intellectual world, where, as in the world of matter,
the gems and gold, the seeds, and germs, and roots, are
to be found. It is related that Socrates could remain a
whole day utterly lost in profound reflection.* This was
the education in that age of no books, to which, through
his scholar Plato, himself educated in the same way, is
owing a system of philosophy, substantial with the very
essence of learning; a system which for insight into
ultimate principles is at the head of all human knowledge.
Such being the nature of education, it is evident that
theological studies are better fitted than any others, to
educe a rational mind. For they bring it into imme-
diate communication with those supernatural realities
and truths which are appropriate to it, and which possess
a strong power of development. There is in the human
mind a vast amount of latent energy forming the basis
for an endless progress, and this will lie latent and dor-
mant unless the forces of the supernatural world evolve
it. The world of nature unfolds merely the superficies
of man, leaving the hidden depths of his being unstirred,
and only when the windows of heaven are opened are
the fountains of this great deep broken up. For proof
of this assertion, consider the influence which the theolo-
gical doctrine of the soul's immortality exerts upon the
spirit. When man realizes that he is immortal he is
supernaturally roused. Depths are revealed in his being
which he did not dream of, down into which he looks
with solemn awe, and energies which had hitherto slum-

* Convivium. Platonis Opera vii. p. 278.

28 THE METHOD, AND INFLUENCE,

bered from his creation are now set into a play at which
he stands aghast. Never do the tides of that shoreless
ocean, the human soul, heave and swell as they do when
it feels w^hat the scripture calls " the power of an endless
life." The same remark holds true of all properly theo-
logical doctrines. An unequalled developing influence
rains down from this great constellation.

And the intellect as well as the heart of man feels the
influence. Hence that period in a man's life which is
marked by a realizing and practical apprehension of the
doctrines of spiritual religion is also marked by a great
increase of intellectual power. A manlier and more sub-
stantial cultivation begins, because the being has become
conscious of his high origin and the awfulness of his
destiny, and a stronger play of intellectual power is
evoked, because the stream of supernatural influence flows
through the whole man, and both head and heart feel its
vivification. The value of theological studies, in an
intellectual point of view, does not consist so much in
the amount of information as in the amount of energy
imparted by them. The doctrines of theology, like the
solar centres, are comparatively few in number, and while
the demand they make upon the memory is small, the
demand they make upon the power of reflection is
infinite and unending. For this reason, theological
studies are in the highest degree fitted to originate and
carry on a true education. There is an invigorating vir-
tue in them which sti-engthens while it unfolds the
mental powers, and therefore the more absorbing the
intensity with which the mind dwells upon them, the
more it is endued with power.

This truth is very plainly written in literary history.
If we would see that period when the mind of a nation
was most full of original power, we must contemplate

OF THEOLOGICAL STUDIES. 29

its theological age. We ever find that the national intel-
lect is most energetically educed in that period When the
attention of educated men is directed with great earnest-
ness to theological studies, while that period which is
characterized by a false study, of a general neglect, of
them, is one of very shallow education. Compare the
education of the English mind during the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries, with its education in the eigh-
teenth. The great difference between the two, is owing
to the serious and profound reflection upon strictly theo-
logical subjects that prevailed in the first period, and to
the absence of such reflection in the second. The former
was a theological age in the strict sense of the term ; a
period when the educated class felt very powerfully the
vigor proceeding from purely supernatural themes. The
latter was a period when, through the influence of a sys-
tem of philosophy which teaches that every thing must
be learned through the five senses, a mere naturalism
took the place of supernaturalism, and when, as a matter
of course, the mind of the literary class was not the sub-
ject of those developing and energizing influences which
proceed only from supernatural truths.

Again, that we may still more clearly see the vigorous
character imparted to education by purely theological
studies, let us consider two individuals who stand at the
head of two different classes of literary men, and afford
two different specimens of intellectual culture : — Lord
Chancellor Bacon and Lord Chancellor Brougham.

The education of Bacon is the result, in no small
degree, of the influence of the truths of supernatural
science. There was no naturalism in the age of Bacon ;
there was none in his culture ; and there is none in his
writings. He lived at a period when the English mind
was stirred very deeply by religious doctrines, and when

30 THE METHOD, AND INFLUENCE,

the truths of the supernatural world were very absorbing
topics o^ thought and discussion, not only for divines,
but for statesmen. We of this enhghtened nineteenth
century, are in the habit of calling those centuries (;f
reformation, dark, in comparison with our own ; but with
all the darkness on some subjects, it may be fearlessly
asserted that since the first two centuries of the history
of Christianity, there has never been a period when so
large a portion of the race have been so deeply and anx-
iously interested in the truths pertaining to another
world, as in those two centuries of reformation ; the
sixteenth and seventeenth. With all the lack of modern
improvements and civilization, there was everywhere a
firm belief in the supernatural, and a sacred reverence for
religion. Even the very keenness and acrimony of the
theological disputations of that period prove that men
believed, as they do not in an indifferent age, that reli-
gious doctrines are matters of vital interest.

Bacon lived in this age ; in its first years, and felt the
first and freshest influences of the great awakening. His
intellect felt them, and hence its masculine development
and vigor. The products of his intellect felt them, and
hence the solid substance, strong sinew, and warm blood,
of which they are made.

The education of Brougham has been obtained in a
very different age from that of Bacon : an age when the
faith and interest which the learned class once felt in the
realities of another world, have transferred themselves
to the realities of this. It has also been the result, in
no small degree, of the belief and the study of the
half-truths of natural theology. While then the recorded
learning of Bacon bears the stamp of originality, is
drenched and saturated with the choicest intellectual
spirit and energy, makes an e^och in literary history, and

OF THEOLOGICAL STUDIES. 31

sends forth through all time an enlivening power, the
recorded learning of Brougham is destitute of fresh life,
being the result of a diligent acquisition, and not of pro-
found contemplation, gives ofFlittle invigorating influence,
and cannot form a marked period in the history of lite-
rature.

Thus far we have considered the developing and ener-
gizing influence of theological studies ; but if we should
stop here, we should be very far from discovering their
full worth. There is a merely speculative development
and energy of the mind which is heaven-wide from genu-
ine education, and really prevents growth in true knowlr-
edge.

There have ever been, and, so long as man shall
continue to be a fallen spirit, there ever will be, two
kinds of thought. The one speculative, and hollow ; the
other practical and substantial. The one wasting itself
upon the factitious products of its own energy ; the other
expending itself upon those great realities which are
veritable, and have an existence independent of the finite
mind. The natural tendency of the intellect, when not
actuated by a rational and holy will, is to produce purely
speculative thought, and in this direction do we see all
intellect going which does not feel the influence of moral
and spiritual truth. The speculative reason is a wonder-
ful mechanism, and if kept within its proper domain, and
applied to its correlative objects, is an important instru-
ment in thQ attainment pf truth and culture, but if
suffered to pass over its appointed limits, and to occupy
itself with the investigation of subjects to which it is not
adapted, it brings in error rapidly and ad infinitum, pre-
venting the true progress and repose of the spirit. There
is no end to the manufactures of the speculative faculty,
or to the productive energy of its life, when once the pro-

'^2 THE METHOD, AND INFLUENCE,

cess of speculation is begun. N^^y, it is the express
doctrine of Fichte (the most intensely and purely specu-
lative intellect the world has yet seen) that the finite
mind having the principle of its own movement within
itself, by working in accordance with its own indwelling
laws, is able to create, and actually does create the grea
universe itself! The history of philosophy disclose
much of such speculative thought, and hence the dissat-
isfaction of philosophy with what it has hitherto done,
and its striving after a substantial and genuine knowl-
edge. Man as a moral being cannot be content with
these hollow speculations, for spirit as well as nature
abhors a vacuum. Thought must be filled up with sub-
stantial verity, and knowledge must become practical,
in order to the repose and true education of the mind.

Yet notwithstajiding the unsatisfying nature of specu-
lative thinking, an intellectual life and enthusiasm are
generated by it which invest it with a charming facina-
tion for the mind that is led on by a merely speculative
interest. What though the thinker is bewildered and
lost in the mazes of speculation ; he is bewildered and
lost in wonderful regions, the astounding nature of
whose objects represses, for a time, the feelings of doubt
and dissatisfaction. He is like the pilgrim lost in " the
gorgeous East," who is delightedly lost amid the luxuri-
ant entanglements and wild enchantments of the oriental
jungle, in this exciting world of speculation, the ener-
gies of the intellect are in full action, the thirst and
curiosily for knowledge are keen, and under the impulse
of these the thinker says with Jacobi ; " though I know
the insufficiency of my philosophizing, still I can only
philosophize right on." *

* Jacobi, quoted by Tholuck. Vermischte Schriften. ii. 427 ; and see a
similar remark by Kant, Kritik derreinen Yernunft. p. 196. The philoso-

OF THEOLOGICAL STUDIES. 33

It is possible to evoke intellectual energy so posverfully
and habitually that the action shall become organic, and
the intellect shall be instinctively busy with the ])roduc-
tion and reproduction of speculations ; and though the
thinker gets no repose of soul by it, yet he is so much
under the power of the intellectual appetite that he will
not cease to gratify it. There is no more mournful chap-
ter in the history of literary men than that which records
their unending speculative struggles ; their efforts to find
peace of mind and true education in the application of
merely speculative energy to the solution of the great
problems of moral existence. The process of speculation
continually becomes more and more impeded, as at every
advance still more mysterious problems come into sight,
not soluble by this method ; the over-tasked intellect at
length gives out, and its gifted possessor falls into the
abyss of unbelief like an archangel.

It is not enough therefore that the latent power of the
mind is developed merely ; it must be developed by some
substantial objects, and it must be expended upon some
veritable realities. In other words, the thought of man
must be called forth by the ideas and principles of the
supernatural world, and the mind of man must find
repose and education in moral truth.

pher, (says Chalybaus in the conclusion of his lecture upon Jacobi, Vorles-
UDgen p. 77.) as well as the poet, can say of himself: —

Ich hake diesen Drang vergebens auf,

Der 'J'ag und Nacht in meinem Busen wechselt,

Wenn ich nicht sinnen oder dit-hten soil,

So ist das Leben mir kein Leben melu!

Verbiete du dem Seidenwunn, zu spinncn —

Wenn er sich sclion dem Tode naher spiunt,

Das kiistlichste Geweb' entwickelt er

Aus seinem Innersten, und laszt nicht ab

Bis er in seinen Sarg sich eingeschlossen.

34 THE METHOD, AND INFLUENCE,

The reader of Plato is struck with the earnestness with
which this truly philosophic and educated mind insists
upon knowing that which really is, as the end of philoso-
phy. It matters not how consecutive and consistent
with itself a system of thought may be, if it has no cor-
respondent in the world of being, and does not find a
confirmation in the world of absolute reality. The form
may be distinct, and the proportions symmetrical, but
the thing is spectral and unsubstantial, and though it be
dignified with the name of philosophy, it is nevertheless
a pure figment. Though not the product of the fancy
but of a far higher faculty, a merely speculative philo-
sophical system is but a product ; a creation of the brain,
to which there is, objectively, nothing correspondent. As
an instance of such philosophizing, take the system of
Spinoza. No one can deny that as a merely speculative
unity, it is perfect, and perfectly satisfies the wants of
that part of the human understanding which looks for
nothing but a theoretical whole. All its parts are in
most perfect harmony with each other, and with the
whole. This system is conceived and executed in a
most systematic spirit, and if man had no moral reason
which seeks for something more than a merely specula-
tive unity, it would be for him the true theory of the
universe. But why is it not, and why cannot the hu-
man mind be content with it ? Because a rational spirit
cannot rest in it. There is in this system, great and
architectural as it is, no repose or home for a moral
being, and therefore it is not truth ; for absolute truth is
infallibly known by the absolute and everlasting satisfac-
tion it affords to the moral spirit.

Another great aim of education, therefore, is the calm
repose of the mind ; its settlement in indisputable truth.
This can proceed only from the study of the purely spir-

OF THEOLOGICAL STUDIES. 35

itual truths of theology, because such is their nature that
there can be no real dispute regarding them, whereas
merely speculative dogmas are susceptible of, and awak-
en, an endless ratiocination. There has always been, for
example, even among thoughtful men a keen dispute re-
garding some points in the mode of the Divine existence,
but none at all regarding the Divine character. The
doctrine of the subsistence of creatipn in the creator has
ever awakened honest disputations among sincere dis-
putants, but the doctrine that God is holy has never
been doubted by a conscientious thinker. This holds
true of all speculative and practical doctrines. Within
the sphere of theory and speculation there is room for
endless wanderings, and no foundation upon which the
spirit can stand still and firm. Within the sphere of
practice and morality there need be no doubt nor error,
and the sincere mind, by a direct vision of the truths of
this practical domain of knowledge, may enter at once
and forever into rest.

The influence of purely theological studies, in produc-
ing an education that ministers repose and harmony to
the mind, is great and valuable. The intellectual energy
is not awakened by abstractions, nor is it expended upon
them, but upon those supernatural realities which are the
appropriate objects of a rational contemplation, and which
completely satisfy the wants of an immortal being. For
that which imparts substantiality to thought, is religion,
and all reflection which dges not in the end refer to the
moral and supernatural relations of man, is worthless.
Though a fallen spirit, man still bears about with him the
great idea of his origin and destiny. This allows him
no real peace or satisfaction but in religious truth, and
there are moments, consequently, in the life of the edu-
cated man, when he feels with deep despondency the

86 THE METHOD, AND INFLUENCE,

need of the purer culture, and the more satisfactory re-
flection, of better studies. If any, short of strictly theo-
logical studies, can give repose of mind, they would have
given it to the poet Goethe. Yet that mind, singu-
larly symmetrical and singularly calm by nature, af-
ter ranging for half a century through all regions save
that strictly supernatural world of which we have spok-
en, and after obtaining what of culture and intellectual
satisfaction is to be found short of spiritual truths ; that
mind, so richly and variously gifted, at the close of its
existence on earth confessed that it had never experi-
enced a moment of genuine repose.

The German poet is not the only one whose educa-
tion did not contribute to repose and peace of mind.
The literary life has not hitherto been calm and satisfied.
From all times, and from all classes of educated minds,
there comes the mournful confession that " he that in-
creaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow," and that all
learning which does not go beyond the consciousness of
the natural man and have for its object the Good, the
True, and the Divine, cannot satisfy the demands of
man's ideal state. From Philosophy, from Poetry, and
from Art, is heard the acknowledgment that there is no
repose for the rational spirit but in moral truth. The
testimony that the whole creation gi'oaneth and travail-
eth in pain, together, is as loud and convincing from the
domain of letters, as it is from the cursed and thistle-
bearing ground. From the immortal longing and dis-
satisfaction of Plato, down to the wild and passionate
restlessness of Byron and Shelley, the evidence is deci-
sive that a spiritual and religious element must enter ^
into the education of man in order to inward harmony
and rest.

Time forbids gi longer discussion of this psirt of the

OP THEOLOGICAL STUDIES. 37

subject. It may be said as a result of the whole, that a
thorough study of theology as the science of the super-
natural, results in a profundity and harmony of educa-
tion which can be obtained in no other way, and if the
culture which cornes from poetry and fine literature gen-
erally be also mingled with it, a truly beautiful as well
as profound education will be the result of the alchemy.

I turn now to consider the influence of theological
studies upon Literature. And let me again remind you
that I am speaking of purely theological studies, as they
have been defined. There is an influence proceeding
from so-called theological studies, which deprives litera-
ture of its depth, power, beauty, and glory ; the quasi
religious influence of naturalism, of which the poetry of
Pope, the philosophy of Locke, the divinity of Priestley,
and the morality of Paley, are the legitimate and neces-
sary results.

The fact strikes us in the outset, that the noblest and
loftiest literature has always appeared in those periods
of a nation's existence, when its literary men were most
under the influence of theological science. Whether we
look at Pagan or Christian literature, we find this asser-
tion verified. The mythology and theology of Greece
exerted their greatest influence upon' Homer, the three
dramatists, and Plato ; and these are the great names in
Grecian literature. If Cicero is ever vigorous and origi-
nal he is in his ethical and theological writings. The
beautiful flower of Italian literature is the " unfathom-
able song" of the religious Dante. The beauty and
strength of English -literature are the fruit of those two
pre-eminently theological centuries: — the sixteenth and
seventeenth. The originality and life which for the last
century has given German literature the superiority over
other literatures of this period, must be referred mainly to

38 THE METHOD, AND INFLUENCE,

the tendency of the German mind toward theological truth.
And judging a priori^ we should conclude that such would
be the fact. We might safely expect that the human
mind would produce its most perfect results, when most
under the influences that come from its birth-place. We
might know beforehand, that truth and beauty would
flow most freely into the creations of man's mind, when
he himself is in most intimate communication with that
world where these qualities have their eternal fountain.

1. The first and best fruit of the influence of the-
ology upon literature is profundity. This characteristic
of the best literature of a nation is immediately noticed
by the scholar, so that its decrease or absence is, for him,
the chief sign of deterioration. In that glorious age of a
nation when the solemn spirit of religion informs every-
thing ; when, compared with after ages, the nation seems
to be very near the supernatural world in feeling and
sentiment ; when prophet, poet, and priest, are syno-
nymes ; then arises its most profound literature.

By a profound literatiire, is meant one that addresses
itself to the most profound faculties of the human soul.
The so-called poUte literature, is the lightest and most
unessential product of the human mind. It is the work
of the inferior part of the understanding, deriving little
life or vigor from its deepest powers, and having no im-
mediate connection with its highest cultivation. It
occupies the attention of man in his youthful days,
afibrding an ample field in which the fancy may rove
and revel, and starting some of the superficial life of the
intellect ; but in the mature and meditative part of his
existence, when the great questions relating to his origin
and destiny are raised, he leaves these gay and pleasant
studies for that more profound literature which comes
home to deeper faculties and wants.

OF THEOLOGICAL STUDIES. 39

A survey of literature generally, at once shows that,
but a very small portion of it is worthy to be called pro-
found. How very little of the vast amount which has
been composed by the literary class, addresses itself to
the primitive faculties of the human soul ! The greater
part merely stimulates curiosity, exercises the fancy, and
perhaps loads the memory. Another portion externally
polishes and adorns the mind. It is only a very small
portion, which by speaking to the Reason and the ra-
tional and creative Imagination, and rousing into full
play of life those profound powers, ministers .strength,
true beauty, and true culture to the soul.

Consider for a moment the character of the English
literature of the present day. I do not now refer to the
dregs and off-scourings which are doing so much to de-
bauch the English mind, but to the bloom and flower.
And I ask if it does anything more for the scholar than to
externally adorn and embellish his education ? Has it
the power to educate ? Does it have a strong tendency
to develop a historical, a philosophical, a poetical, or ar-
tistic capability if it lie in the student ? Must not a
more profound literature be called upon to do this, and
must not the scholar who would truly develop what is in
him, go back to- the study of Homer and Plato ; of
Dante ; of Shakspeare, Bacon, and Milton ? If he con-
tents himself with the study of the best current litera-
ture, will he do anything more than produce a refine-
ment destitute of life ; a culture without vigor ; and will
he himself in his best estate be anything more than an
intellectual voluptuary, utterly impotent and without
vivifying influence upon letters ?

There is then a profound portion of literature speaking
to the deeper part of man, from which he is to derive a
profound literary cultivation. A brief examination will

40 THE METHOD, AND INFLUENCE,

^show that its chief characteristics arise from its being
impregnated by theology ; not necessarily by the formal
doctrines of theology, but by its finer essence and spirit.
Theology, it has been said, is the science of the supernat-
ural and therefore of the strictly mysterious. The idea of
God, which constitutes and animates the science, is a
true mystery. But that which is truly mysterious is
truly profound, and deepens everything coming under its
influence. Indeed mystery, in the philosophical sense of
the term, is the author of all great qualities. Sublim-
ity, Profundity, Grandeur, Magnificence, Beauty, can-
not exist without it. Like night, it induces a high and
solemn mood, and is the parent and nurse of profound
and noble thought. That literature which is pervaded
by it, becomes deep-toned, and speaks with emphasis to
the deeper powers of man. Even when there is but an
imperfect permeation by this influence ; when mystery
is not fully apprehended, and the mind is not completely
under its power ; even when the Poet feels

" What he can ne'er express, yet cannot all conceal,"

there is a noble inspiration in his lines, which, with all
its vagueness, deepens the feelings and elevates the con-
ceptions. It is related of Fichte, that in very early child-
hood he would stand motionless for hours, gazing into
the distant ether.* As such he is a symbol of the soul
which is but imperfectly possessed by that mystery which
surrounds every rational being. Those vague yearn-
ings and obscure stirrings of the boy's spirit, as with
strained eye he strove to penetrate the dark depths
of infinite space, typify the workings of that soul which
in only an imperfect degree partakes of this " vision and

* Fichte'sLebcn.I. 7.

OF THEOLOGICAL STUDIES. 41

faculty divine." And as those motions in this youthful
spirit awaken interest in the observer, betokening as
they do no common mood and tendency, ^o even the
vague and shadowy musings of the mind which is but
feebly under the influence of mystery : — a Novalis, or a
Shelley, — are not without their interest and elevation.

But when a genius appears in the history of a nation's
literature, who sees the great import and feels the full
power of those true mysteries which are the subject mat-
ter of theological science, then creations appear which
exert an inspiring influence upon aU after ages, and by
their profundity and power betoken that they are com-
posed of no volatile essence, and produced by no super-
ficial mental energy. They are not to be comprehended
or admired at a glance, it is true, and therefore are not
the favorites of the falsely educated class, but ever
remain the peculiar property and delight of that inner
circle of literary men in whom culture reaches its height
of excellence.

It may appear strange to attribute the noblest charac-
teristics of literature to the mysteries of theology, but a
philosophical study of literature convincingly shows that
from this dark unsightly root grows "the bright con-
summate flower." It is the spirit of this solemn and
dark domain, which, by connecting literature with the
moral and mysterious world, and by giving it a direct
or indirect reference to the deepest and most serious
relations of the human spirit, renders it profound, and
raises it infinitely above the mass of common light liter-
ature.

2. This same influence of theology imparts that earn-
est and lofty purpose which resides in the best literature.
The chief reason why the largest portion of the produc-
tions of the literary class contributes nothing to true cul-

42 THE METHOD, AND INFLUENCE,

tivation, and is destitute of the highest excellence, is
the fact that it is not animated by a purpose. The
poet composes a poem with no specific and lofty inten-
tion in his eye, but merely to give vent to a series of per-
sonal states and feelings. He writes for his own relief
and gratification, not realizing, as Milton did, that " po-
etic abilities, wheresoever they be found, are the inspired
gift of God, rarely bestowed ; and are of power beside the
office of a pulpit^ to imbreed and cherish in a great peo-
ple the seeds of virtue and public civility," and should
be used for this noble purpose. The literary man gen-
erally, does not even dream that he is obligated to work
with a good and elevated object in his eye, but is
exempt from the universal law of creation, which obli-
gates every finite spirit to live and labor for truth and
God.

But sin always takes vengeance, and all literature
which is purposeless, and does not breathe an earnest
spirit, is destitute of the highest excellence. It will want
the solemnity, the enthusiasm, the glow, the grandeur,
and the depth, which proceeds only from a lofty and
serious intention in the mind of the author. And this
purpose can dwell only in the mind which is haunted by
the higher ideas and truths of supernaturalism. It is in
vain for the literary man to seek his inspiration in the
earthly, or the intellectual, world. He must derive it
from the heaven of heavens.

Both in heathen and in Christian literature, we find
the noblest productions to be but the embodiment of a
purpose ; and the purpose is always intimately connect-
ed with the moral world. The Iliad proposes to exhibit
the battle of heaven and earth, of gods and men, united
in defence of the rights of injured hospitality. This
proposition pervades the poem, and greatly contributes

OF THEOLOGICAL STUDIES. 43

to invest it with the highest attribiites of literature. The
Grecian drama is serious and awful with the spirit of
law and vengeance. Its high motive^ is to teach all those
solemn and fearful truths regarding justice and injustice
which constitute the law written on the heart, and are
the substance of the universally accusing and condemn-
ing conscience of man. Pagan though the Greek drama
be, yet when we consider the loftiness and fixedness of
its intention to bring before the mind all that it can know
of the supernatural short of revelation, we hesitate not to
say that it is immeasurably ahead of much of so-called
Christian literature, in its doctrine and influence, as
well as in its literary characteristics. As the scholar con-
templates the elevated moral character running through
this portion of Grecian literature, and contrasts it with
much of that which is called Christian in distinction from
heathen, he is led to take up that indignant exclamation
of Wordsworth uttered in another connection,

* * # * # * I'd rather be
A Pagan, suckled in a creed outworn.

Of all literary men who have written since the
promulgation of the Christian religion, Milton seems to
have most strongly felt the influences of theology, and
he more than all others was animated and strengthened
by a high moral aim. In his literary works he distinctly
and intentionally has in view the advancement of truth
and the glory of God. These were " his matins duly,
and his even-song." And to this noble purpose, as much
as to his magnificent intellectual powers, are owing the
profundity, loftiness, grandeur, truth, and beauty, which,
in the literary heavens make his works like his soul, " a
star that dwells apart."

"We live in an age when theology has become entirely

44 THE METHOD, AND INFLUENCE,

dissevered from literature, and when supernatural sci-
ence forms no part of the studies of the cultivated
class. There was a period when literary men devoted
the best of their time to the high themes of religion, and
when literature took a deep hue and tincture from theol-
ogy. There was a period when such a man as Bacon
wrote theological tracts and indited most solemn and
earnest prayers ; when such a man as Raleigh composed
devotional hymns ; when such a man as Spenser sung
of the virtues and the vices ; when such a man as Shaks-
peare expended the best .of his poetic and dramatic
power in exhibiting the working of the moral passions ;
and when such a man as Milton made the fall of the hu-
man soul the " great argument " of poetry. There was
a time when literature was in a very great degree im-
pregnated by theology. But that time has gone by, and
the productions of later ages show, by their ephemeral
and inefficient character, that they have not that truly
spiritual element which makes literature ever fresh and
invigorating. Whatever may be the embellishment, the
charm, and the fascination, of modern literature, for the
student in certain stages of his growth, it does not per-
manently rouse and enliven like the old. It may sat-
isfy the wants of the educated man for a time, but there
does come a period in the history of every mind that is
truly progressive in its character, when it will not satisfy,
and the student must " provide a manlier diet." The
mind when in the process of true unfolding cannot be
ultimately cheated. Wants, which in the first stages of
its development were dormant, while more shallow crav-
ings were being met by a weak aliment, eventually make
themselves felt, and send the subject of them after more
substantial food. The favorite authors of the earlier pe-
riods of education are thrown aside as the taste becomes

OF THEOLOGICAL STUDIES. 45

more severe, the sympathies more refined, and profounder
feelings are awakened; the circle diminishes, until the
scholar finally rests content with those few writers in
every literature, who speak to the deeper spirit, because
full of the vigor and power of the higher world.

The student while in the enjoyment of it may not dis-
tinctly know whence comes the charm and abiding spell
of the older literature ; but let him transfer himself into
periods of national existence when faith in the super-
natural had become unbelief, and when literary men had
lost the solemn and earnest spirit of their predecessors,
and he will know that religion is the life of literature, as
it is of all things else. He will discover that the absence
of an enlarging and elevating influence in letters, is to
be attributed to the absence of that theological element
with which the human mind, notwithstanding the corrup-
tion of the human spirit, has a quick and deep aflinity.

I have thus, gentlemen of the societies, spoken of the
true method of Theological Studies, and of their great
and noble influences upon education and literature. If
I have spoken with more of a theological tone than is
usually heard upon a literary festival like the present
occasion, I might excuse myself by simply saying, in the
language o^ Bacon, that every man is a debtor to his
profession. But I confess to a most sincere and earnest
desire of awakening in the minds of those who are soon
to become a part of the educated class of the land, an
interest and love for that noblest and most neglected of
the sciences : — theology. This science has come to be
the study of one profession alone, and of one that
unhappily includes but a very small portion of the edu-
cated class. And yet in the depth and breadth of its
relations, as well as in the importance of its matter, it is
the science of the sciences. God is the God of every

46 THE METHOD, AND INFLUENCE,

man, and the science which treats of Him and his ways
deeply concerns every man, and especially every one who
in any degree is raised above the common level, by the
opportunity and effort to cultivate himself. It is a great
error to suppose that theological studies should be the
exclusive pursuit of the clergy, and that the remainder
of the literary class in the state should feel none of the
enlargement and elevation of soul arising from them. —
When the idea of a perfect commonwealth shall be fully
realized — if it ever shall be on earth — theology will be
the light and life of all the culture and knowledge con-
tained in it. Its invigorating and purifying energy will
be diffused through the whole class of literary men, and
through them will be felt to the uttermost extremities of
the body politic. All other sciences will be illuminated
and vivified by it, and will then reach that point of per-
fection which has ever been in the eye of their most
genial and profound votaries.

For a knowledge of the aims of the most gifted and
enthusiastic students of science, discovers the need of the
influence of theology, in order to the perfection of science,
as well as of letters. That which makes Burke one of
the few great names in political science, is the solemn
and awful view he had of law as strictly supernatural in
its essence ; of law, in his own language, as " prior to all
our devices, and prior to all our contrivances, paramount
to all our ideas, and all our sensations, antecedent to our
very existence, by which we are knit and connected in
the eternal frame of the universe, out of which we cannot
stir." * It was his high aim therefore to render political
science religious in its character, and to found govern-
ment upon a sacrej and reverential sentiment towards
law, in the .breasts of the governed. Politics in his eye,

* Speech in the impeachment of Hastings. Works, iii, p. 327.

OF THEOLOGICAL STUDIES. 47

and government in his view, are essentially different
from the same things, as viewed by that large class of
political men who do not appear to dream, even, that
there is a supernatural world, or that there are supernat-
ural sanctions and supports to government. But the
speculative views regarding politics advanced by Burke
will never be practically realized among the nations, until
the influence of the high themes of spiritual theology is
felt among them, and political science will not be a
perfect scheme, until constructed in the light and by the
aid of theological doctrine. The sanction, the sacredness,
the authority, and the binding power, of law, as the
foundation of government and political science, for which
Burke plead so eloquently, come from the supernatural
world, and are not apprehensible except in the light of
that science which treats of that world. The fine visions
and lofty aspirations of Burke, relative to government
and political science, depend therefore upon the practical
and theoretical influence of theology for their full realiza-
tion.

Let me briefly refer to another instance, in which we
see that the high aims of a most profound and genial
student will be attained only under the influence of the
science of the supernatural. It has been the high endeavor
of Schelling to spiritualize natural science ; to strip
nature of its hard forms, and by piercing beneath the
material, to behold it as immaterial ideas, laws, and
forces.* This is not only a beautiful, but it is the true,
idea of nature and natural science. Schelling however
has failed to realize it in a perfect manner. However
great may be his merit in infusing life into this domain

* System des transcend. Idealismus, p. 5. For a full exhibition of this
method of nataral science, see Carus's Physiologic, Erster Theil.

48 THE METHOD, AND INFLUENCE,

of knowledge, and in overthrowing the mechanical view
of nature,' he has not constructed his system so as to
maintain a pure theism, and therefore when viewed
in connection with the true system of the universe, with
which every individual science must harmonize, its falsity,
in the great whole of knowledge, is apparent. And the
imperfeclion of this system is owing, first, to the absence
of a sharp and firm line of distinction between the natu-
ral and the supernatural, and secondly, to the want of
that protection from pantheism, which a truly profound
philosopher can find only in the purely supernatural doc-
trines of theology.

It is not true then that the theologian by profession is
alone concerned with theology. He who would obtain
correct views in political or natural science, as well as
he who would be a mind of power and depth in the
sphere of literature; in short, tlie student generally; has
a vital interest in the truths of supernatural science. —
And it is tliis conviction, gentlemen, which I would fix
and deepen in your minds. Your attention might have
been directed to some more popular theme ; to some one
of the aspects of polite literature, present or hoped for;
but I preferred to direct your thoughts to a range of
neglected but noble studies, confident that if any per-
manent interest should be thereby awakened in your
minds towards them, a substantial benefit would be con-
ferred upon you. I would then, not with the feigned
earnestness which too generally characterizes appeals
upon such an occasion as the present, but with all the
solemn earnestness of the Sabbath, urge you to the seri-
ous pursuit of theological studies. It matters not, which
may be the particular field in which you are to labor as
educated men ; the influence of these studies is elevating

OF THEOLOGICAL STUDIES. 49

and enlarging in any field, and upon all the public pro-
fessions.

If the Law is to be the special object of your future
study, your idea of human law will be purified and
corrected by your study of the divine law, and the genejal
spirit and bearing of your practice will be elevated by
those high studies which, more than any othe^, generate
high principles of action.

Should you enter the arena of Political life, the influ-
ence of these studies will be most salutary. In this
sphere, a man at the present day needs a double portion
of pure and lofty principle, and should anxiously place
himself under the most select influences. If the serious
political spirit of Washington, and Jay, and Madison, is
ever again to actuate our politics, it will be only through
the return of that reverence for law, as flowing from a
higher reality than the naturally corrupt will of man, and
that faith in government as having its ground and sanc-
tions in the supernatural and religious world, which
characterized them. If politics is ever to -cease to be a
game, and is ever again to be considered as one of the
solemn interests pertaining to human existence, it will be
only when our young men enter this field undei the
influence of studies, and a discipline, that purge away
low and sordid views, and induce a serious integrity and
a self-sacrificing patriotism.. If then you would sustain
a relation to the government of your country, honorable
to yourselves, and beneficial to it, imbue your minds and
baptize your views and opinions with the theological
spirit. Then you will be a statesman in the old and best
sense of the word ; not a mere oflice holder or seeker of
office; but one in whom the great idea of the state
resides and fives, and who by its indweUing power is fui/

50 THE METHOD, AND INFLUENCE,

of the patriotic sentiment, and inspired by the noble
spirit of allegiance to government and country.*

Finally, if you are to be one of the ministers and in-
terpreters of Nature, or one who devotes himself to the
cultivation of Fine Letters, the influence of these stud-
ies will be great and valuable. In the light of the super-
natural, )^u will best interpret nature, and under the
power of theology, you will be best enabled to contribute
a profound and lofty addition to literature.

No one who watches the signs of the times, and
especially the rapid and dangerous change now going
on in the public sentiment of our country relative to the
foundations of religion, government, and society, can
help feeling that under Providence, very much is depend-
ing upon the principles and spirit which the educated
young men take out with them into active life. Bacon,
long ago, said that the principles of the young men of a
nation decided its destiny, and the course of human
events since his day has verified his assertion. It is cer-
tainly true in its fullest sense of this nation and ita
young men. Unless an upbuilding and establishing in-
fluence proceeds from the educated class, the disorganiz-
ing elements which are already in a furious fermentation
in society will eventually dissolve all that is solid and
fixed in it ; and unless this class feel some stronger and
purer influence than that of this world ; unless it feels
the power of the objects and principles of the other
world ; it will hasten rather than counteract the coming
dissolution. Merely human culture, and merely natural

* Das Wort Staatsmann ist hier in dem Sinn des antiken voXiriKhs
genommen, und es soil dabei weniger daran gedacht werden, dasz einer
etwas bestiinmtes im Staat zu verrichten hat, was volligzufallig ist, als dasz
einer vorzugsweise in der Idee des Staats lebt. Schleiermacher. Reden.
p. 28.

or THB

OF THEOLOGICAL S:

science, cannot educe that moral weigm
cultivated class, without which the state cannot long
hold together. These must come from the general influ-
ence of theological science upon the minds of the edu-
cated ; from the infusion into culture of that reverence
for God, and that purifying insight into supernatural
truth, without which culture becomes skeptical and shal-
low, powerless for good and all-powerful for evil.

In closing, permit me to remind you that you need the
influence of these studies personally, without reference
to your relations to the world at large. You need them
in order to attain the true end of your own existence. How-
ever sedulously you may cultivate yourselves in other
respects, you will not be cultivated for eternity, without
the study and vital knowledge of theology. It has been
foreign to the main drift of my discourse, and to the
occasion, to speak of that deepest, that saving, knowl-
edge of supernatural religion which proceeds from being
taught by the Eternal Spirit. I have spoken only of the
general and common influence of the doctrines of purely
supernatural, in distinction from those of merely natural,
theology. They have a great power in themselves, apart
from their special vivification by the Divine Spirit,
This is worthy of being sought after, and to this I have
urged you. But if you would feel the full power of the-
ology ; if you would secure the freest, fairest, and holiest
development of your spirits ; if you would accomphsh the
very u1;most of which you are capable, for your country
and for man, in the sphere in which you shall be called
to labor ; if you would secure a strength which you will
soon find you need in the struggle into which you are
about to enter : — the struggle with the real world, and
the still fiercer struggle with your real selves ; then
Btudy theology experimentally. The discipline to which

52 METHOD, AND INFLUENCE, OF THEOLOGICAL STUDIES.

•

you have been subjected in the course of your training
in this University, so far as human influence can do so,
leads and urges you in this direction ; for it is the plan
and work of one of those elect and superior spirits (few
and rare in our earthly race) who have an instinctive
and irresistible tendency to the Supernatural.* This has
been the tendency of your training, and if you will only
surrender yourselves to this tendency, heightened and
made effectual by special divine influences, as it will be
for every scholar who seeks them with a solemn spirit,
you will fully realize the idea of a perfect education.

* The allusion is to the late President Marsh.

THE TRUE NATURE OF THE BEAUTIFUL,
AND ITS RELATION TO CULTURE.

A DISCOURSE DELIVERED BEFORE THE LITERARY SOCIETIES OF AMHERST
COLLEGE, AUGUST 13, 1851.

Gentlemen of the Literary Societies : —

Coming as I do in the most beautiful season of the
year, into the midst of some of the most beautiful scenery
on the continent, and from the midst of scenery differ-
ently but equally beautiful ; coming in mid-summer into
the valley of the River from the valley of the Lake ; you
will not be surprised that my subject has connections with
the environment in which I wrote and in which I speak.
Surrounded, both while thinking and while giving utter-
ance to my thoughts, by Beauty ; composing and speak-
ing in the midst of a material nature saturated and
suffused with this element ; it will not appear forced or
unnatural if I find in it, the theme of our reflections at
this hour.

It is not my purpose however to surrender myself, or
to lead others to surrender themselves, to the extreme
influence and impression of this quality, and to fall into
a vague and rhapsodic train of thought or feeling. On
the contrary my aim will be purely and perhaps intensely
practical, and I hope with the aid of your own after-
s' (53)

54 THE TRUE NATURE OF THE BEAUTIFUL,

thought to make the particular aspect of the general
subject of Aesthetics^ that will be exhibited, contribute
to scholarship, culture, and character.

The specific theme then, to which I would invite your
attention, is : The true theory and relative position of the
Beautiful^ with reference more particularly to culture and
to character. In investigating this subject, I think we
shall find it one for the times, and the class of men
addresiged. If I am not mistaken we shall find, in a false
theory of Beauty, and, as a consequence, in the false
position which it holds as a source and instrument of
culture, the root of some of the radical defects, and false
tendencies, of the educated class. For if this class need
any one thing more than another, it is a rational, sober,
and severe, estimate of the essential nature of the Beauti-
ful, and especially of the relation which it sustains to the
True and the Good. In our age there is danger that
culture will go the way that Grecian and Roman culture
went, and from the same cause ; an undue cultivation
of the aesthetic nature, to the neglect of the intellectual
and moral. There is always danger lest the most influ-
ential class in society, the literary and cultivated portion,
form and shape themselves by Beauty more than by
Truth, by Art more than by Philosophy and Religion.

If we accept the Platonic classification, all things in
the universe arrange themselves under these three terms ^.
the Beautiful, the True, and the Good. These three
ideas cover and include all that can possibly come before
the human mind as a worthy object of thought and
action. On them, as a foundation, the human mind has
built up its most permanent and grandest structures, and
with them, in some one or other of their manifold aspects
the human mind is constantly occupied. The idea of
the Good lies' at the bottom of all religion, and of all

AND ITS RELATION TO CULTURE. 55

inquiries connected with this chief concern of man. The
idea of the True lies at the bottom of all science, and of
the scientific tendency in individuals and nations. The
idea of the Beautiful underlies all those products and
agencies of the human soul that address the imagination ;
all art, and all literature in the stricter signification of the
term, as the antithesis of science. This classification,
the work of the most philosophic brain of antiquity, at
once so simple and so comprehensive, may therefore well
stand as the condensation and epitome of all thought,
and the key to all the varieties in human culture and
national character.

But what is the order in which these ideas stand ? —
Which is first and which is last in importance ? Which
is most necessary and absolute in its nature ? Which is
the substance, and which is the accident ? The answer
to these questions, the theory upon this point, according
as it shall be, is either vital or fatal. It will determine
the whole style and character of human culture, both
individual and national. If Beauty is placed first, in
speculation and in life, and Truth and Goodness are
regarded as subordinate, a corresponding style of educa-
tion will follow. If the True and the Good are recog-
nized as the substance, and the Beautiful as the property
and shadow, another and entirely difi'erent style will
result. Here, therefore, the inquirer stands at the point
of divergence between the two principal species of civili-
zation and culture of which human history is made up ;
that of luxury, enervation, decline, and fall, on the one
hand, and that of severity, strength, growth, and gran-
deur, on the other. At this point, also, he stands upon
the line which divides the lower from the higher forms
of literature ; the lower from the higher products of art
itself; the more shallow and erroneous, from the more

56 THE TRUE NATURE OF THE BEAUTIFUL,

profound and correct, systems of philosophy and religion.
Here is the summit-level and ridge whence the streams
flow due east and due west, never to mingle in a common
ocean. For if history teaches anything, it teaches that
according as a nation and a national mind starts from
the one or the other of these ideas, as a point of depar
ture and as the guiding thought in its career, will be its
style of development.

The true theory of Beauty subordinates it to the True
and the Good. Any estimate of it, that sets it above-
these two eternal and necessary ideas, is both incorrect
and unphilosophical. The closer we think, and the
nearer we get to the essence of these three conceptions,
the more clearly shall we perceive that while Truth and
Goodness appear more and more absolute and necessary,
Beauty, in comparison with them, appears more and more
relative and contingent. The human mind can never, in
its own thinking, annihilate the True and the Good, i. e.
it cannot conceive of their non-existence. It cannot
abstract them from the Divine nature and from the
created universe, and have anything substantial left. —
These must be.

* * * * ifMe.se fail,

The pillared firmament is rottenness
And earth's hase built on stubble.

But not so with Beauty. The mind can abstract it
from the nature of God, and if Truth and Goodness still
remain, there is still something august, something awe-
inspiring, something sublime, left. The mind can think
it away from the universe of God, but if that universe is
still filled with the manifestations of wisdom and excel-
lence, it is still worthy of its architect. It is indeed true
that Beauty has a real and immanent existence,both in the

AND ITS RELATION TO CULTURE. 57

being of God and in creation ; but the point we are
urging is, that it is there as subordinate to these moral
elements, and these higher ideas. It is indeed true that
from eternity to eternity Beauty is a quality in the nature
of the First Perfect and the First Fair, and from this foun-
tain has welled up and pom-ed over into the whole creation
of God like sunset into the hemisphere, but it has been,
only as the accompaniment and adornment of higher and
more august qualities. The Beautiful is not, as some
teach, either the True or the Good ; neither is it more
absolute and perfect than these. These are the substance,
the eternal essence, and it, in relation to them, is the acci-
dent. The Beautiful indeed inheres in the True and the
Good, and it forever accompanies them, even as light,
according to the fine saying of Plato, is the shadow of
God ; but it is not therefore to be regarded as the highest
of all ideas, or as the crowning element in the universe.

For where does Beauty reside ? Where is its seat ?
Always in the form, as distinguished from the substance.
When the human soul swells with the feeling, it is
impressed not by the truth and substantial reality of an
object, but by something that in comparison with this is
secondary and accidental. When, for example, the
sense for Beauty is completely filled and deluged by a
sun-set or a sun-rise, the essential meaning of this scene
is not necessarily in the soul. That which this scene is
for Science, its truth for the pure intellect, is most cer-
tainly n(^t in the mind ; for the poetic vision and the
scientific vision are contraries. And that which it is for
Religion may be, and too often is, alien to the soul ; for
this feeling for the Beauty that is in the sun-rise, is by
no means identical with the feeling for the Goodness that
is there. In every 'instance it is the form and not the
substance, it is the beauty and not the truth, that

58 THE TRUE NATURE OF THE BEAUTIFUL,

addresses the aesthetic nature, while in every instance it
is the substance and not the form, it is the true and not
the beautiful, that addresses the intellectual and moral
natures.

And why should it not be so ? If, as we have seen,
the Beautiful is a subordinate quality ; if it is only the
glittering garment of the universe ; to what part of man's
nature should it appeal, but to that luxury rather than
necessity of the human soul, the aesthetic sense. And
so it is. Over against that Beauty which the Creator
has poured with Javish, I had almost said indifferent,
hand, over his creation, he has set a portion of man's na-
ture, whose function it is to drink it in, and as He never
intended that this mere decoration of his works should
engross the soul to the exclusion of the wisdom and
goodness displayed in them, so He never intended that
the sense for the Beautiful should absorb and destroy
the sense for the True and the Good.

We shall see still more clearly the correctness of this
theory of the Beautiful, by considering for a moment the
nature and influence of that department which is based
upon this idea, viz : Fine Art. The aim and end of
Art is fine form, and nothing but fine form. I do not
forget that in every work of Art there is a truth at the
bottom, and that the power of a painting or a statue is
dependent upon the meaning everywhere present in it.
Still this significant thought at the base, this intellectual
expression in the product, is not that which constitutes it a
work of Art. It is the beauty of this thought, the fine
form of this idea, which is the end of Art, and which
renders its products different from those of Science. For
if Art were merely and purely an expression of truth, how
would it differ from Science, and why would not every
subject that had meaning in it be a fit one for the artist ?

AND ITS RELATION TO CULTURE. 59

Art, it is true, has a significance, and it is high and ideal
in proportion to the depth and fulness of the idea it em-
bodies, yet it differs from Science and Religion by em-
ploying both the True and the Good as means only. Its
own sole end is Beauty, to which it subordinates all
else. It embodies Truth and Virtue only that it may
exhibit the beauty in them, and addresses the intellect and
heart only that it may reach the imagination. After all
its connection with the substance. Art is still formal.
And this is no disparagement to it. It is no undervalu-
ation to draw sharp lines about a department of human
effort, and strip off what does not essentially belong to it.
Fine Art has its own proper and important vocation, and
Science and Religion have theirs, and each is honored by
being strictly defined, and rigorously confined to its own
aim, end, and limits.

Now such being the nature of Fine Art, considered as
a department of human effort ahd an instrument to be
employed in educating the human mind, what must be
its influence if left to itself ; if unbalanced and uncom-
pleted by other departments ? "What style of culture
wiU the idea of the Beautiful originate in the individual
and national mind, when severed from the ideas of the-
True and the Good ? The answer to this question is to be
found in history. One of the great historical races, in
the plan of Providence, received its training and develop-
ment under the excessive and exorbitant influence of
Beauty, and for a moment I invite your attention to an
examination of the results.

The Greek mind was eminently aesthetic, and the
Greek nature was controlled by a too strong and intense
tendency to the Beautiful. * If the human mind is truth-
ful and solemn anywhere, it is so within the sphere of re-
ligion ; but we may say of the Greek, as was said of one

60 THE TRUE NATURE OF THE BEAUTIFUL,

of the most genial of modern errorists by one o? the most
profound of modern thinkers, that he was more in love
with the beauty of religion than its truth. The Greek
religion was the worship of Beauty, and the whole life
of the people ; private and public, literary and political ;
was formed by this idea to an" extent and thoroughness
never witnessed before or since. But the Greek mind,
with all the charm and influence it has exerted upon the
modern mind, and will continue to exert till the last syl-
lable of recorded time, had one great and radical defect.
The True and the Holy did not interest it sufficiently.
These ideas did not mould it and form it from the cen-
tre. Hence the Greek nature was not a deep and sol-
emn one. It never felt, unless we except the heroic
period in its history ; a period that is hardly historic ; the
influence of that which is higher than Beauty, and which
has an affinity with a more profound part of the human
constitution than the aesthetic sense.

The truth is, that as the intellectual and moral nature
of man is his highest endowment, so the True and the
Good, as the highest ideas, are its proper correspondent.
When, therefore, as in the case of the Greek, a relatively in-
► ferior portion of the soul became superior, and a relatively
inferior idea became ultimate and engrossing, it was not
possible that the highest development of human nature
should take place, or the highest style of culture should
be originated. The influence which the Greek mind has
exerted upon the modern world, great as it has been, and
beneficial as it has been, has nevertheless not been of the
absolutely highest order, unless we set the aesthetic
above the intellectual and moral, Art before Science and
Religion, and the culture springing from the form above
that springing from the substance.

Far be it from me, on such an occasion and before

AND ITS RELATION TO CULTURE. 61

such an audience, to undervalue classical education. I
have not the slightest sympathy with that Jacobinism in
literature, which would throw aside the study of the an-
cient classics and shut out the modern mind from the
beauty, and symmetry, and cultivating influence, of
Greek and Roman letters. Still it should be remembered
that no single literature can do everything for the human
intellect. On the contrary, each and every literature that
is historic has one particular function to" perform. In
the education of the modern mind, classical literature
has its own peculiar office to discharge, and this is, to in-
fuse that beauty and symmetry which it possesses in so
high degree into modern thought ; to furnish a fine Form
for the modern Idea. For it must not for a moment be
supposed that the modern min^ is to go back to the
ancient for the substance of literature. The Chris-
tian world cannot go back into the Pagan world in
search for the True and the Good, but it ever must go
back there for the Beautiful. For the sphere of knowing,
and consequently of reflection and feeling, in which the
ancient mind moved, was narrow and contracted, com-
pared with the " ijafinite and sea-like arena " on which
the modern careers. Not that minds may not be
found irf the ancient world of equal depth, grasp, and
power, with any that have adorned modern literature,
but the materials on which they were compelled to labor
fell far short of that which is the subject of modern effort,
in depth, richness, and compass. The range of thought
and feeling, in which the ancient mind moved, in respect
to the great subjects pertaining to man's origin and des-
tiny, was "cabined, cribbed and confined," compared
with that vast expanse in which it is the privilege of
fhe modern to think and feel. The Christian Revela-
tion, while it imparted more determinateness and signifi-
6

62 THE TRUE NATURE OF THE BEAUTIFUL,

cance to those doctrines of natural religion upon which
Plato and Aristotle had reflected with such truthfulness
and profundity, at the same time lodged in the mind of
the modern world an amount of new truth, that widened
infinitely the field of human vision, and the scope of hu-
man reflection. We have but to compare Homer, Aes-
chylus, and Virgil, with Dante, Shakspeare, and Milton,
to see how immensely the range of the human mind was
augmented by a Divine Revelation. In these latter
instances, it moves in a region large enough for it,
and feels the influence of those "truths deep as the
centre " with which it is connected by origin and des-
tiny ; while in the former instances, though the vague
yearnings, and obscure anticipations, and unsatisfied
longings, evidence the •heaven-born nature of the human
spirit, yet they serve only to reveal still more clearly the
helplessness of its bondage, and the closeness of its con-
finement to this " bank and shoal of time." *

But although the Christian Religion so widened the
sphere of human thought and feeling, and so deepened
and spirituaUzed the processes of the human mind, and so
enriched it in the material for literature, it indirectly
diminished its artistic ability, and rendered it less able to
embody its conceptions. This very opulence in the ma-
terial, and this very elevation of the theme, embarrassed
the mind. For in proportion to the richness and intrin-
sic excellence of the thought, does the difficulty increase,

• Hence that nndcrtone of melancholy in the more serious portions of
classical literature, (as the Histories of Tacitus, and the Morals of Plu-
tarch) unrelieved by any notes of hope or triumph struck out by the knowl-
edge, and the prospect, of the final consummation. The gloom of Dante
Is far different from the gloom of Aeschylus; for while, like his, it springs
from the consciousness of the life-long conflict between good and evil, it is
illumined by the knowledge of the final issue. In the case of the Pagan,
the gloom U made thicker by the total ignorance of the great hereafter.

AND ITS RELATION TO CULTURE. 63

of putting it into a form worthy of it. The problem of
Art, in every instance, is to attain an exact correspond-
ence between the matter and the form ; to embody the
idea in just the right amount of material, so that the
idea shall not overflow and drown the form, nor the form
overlay and crush the idea. Hence, among other quali-
ties, "the cleanness^ the nicenesSj of a successful work of
Art. But this problem, it is plain, becomes more diffi-
cult, in proportion as the idea, or guiding thought, is
more profound or significant in its nature. For by rea-
son of its depth and expanse it becomes vastly more
comprehensive and pregnant, and less capable of being
brought within the limitation of Art, within the bounds
of a form. The nearer the subject-matter approaches
the infinite ; the more vast and unlimited the idea in the
mind ; the greater the difficulty of exhibiting it in the
finite shapings of Art.

Now the ancient mind had these advantages. In the
first place the material, the truth, upon which it labored,
was far more wieldy and compassable than that which
is presented to the modern mind, and in the second
place it was (especially in the instance of the Greek) a
much more artistic mind, in and of itself. The result,
consequently, was a far closer correspondence between
the substance and the form, and hence a much more
successful solution of the problem of Fine Art, than has
ever been attained by any other people.

The modern mind therefore, the Christian world, while
it cannot go back into the Pagan world for the substance
of literature, for the True and the Good, must ever go
back there for the form, for the Beautiful. And it was
precisely because the European mind, in the fifteenth
century, felt the need of this aesthetic element in culture,
which it was conscious of not possessing, that it betook

64 THE TRUE NATURE OF THE BEAUTIFUL,

itself to classical literature. At that period, when the
human mind was waking up from the dormancy of the
middle ages, and was beginning to feel the fresh im-
pulses of the Christian Religion, it was filled, to overflow-
ing, with ideas and principles, thoughts and feelings. Its
powers and energies were being almost preternaturally
roused by this influx of new truth, the natural tendency
of which is to stir the human soul, preconformed as it is
to its influence, to its inmost centre. But this season
of mental fermentation was no time for serene contem-
plation, and beautiful construction. The whole materiel
for a new literature was originated ; but originated in a
mind agitated to its lowest depths by the energy and
force that was pouring through it, and which for this
very reason was not master of itself, or of the material
with which it was laboring. Form ; rounded, symmetri-
cal, finished. Form; was needed for this Matter, and
hence the modern betook himself to the study of that lit-
erature preeminent above all others for its artistic per-
fection. The study of the serene and beautiful models
in which Grecian thought embodied itself, tamed the
wildly-working mind of the Goth, and imparted to it
that calm, artistic, formative, power by which the intel-
lectual chaos was to become cosmos.*

♦ It is indeed true, that in the higher forms of Greek literature there is a
remarkable depth and seriousness of sentiment which seems to militate
Against the position taken. Here the Beautiful is more in the back-ground,
and the True mainly in the foreground. But it should be remembered
that the real nature and tendency of the Greek appears far more in the
lighter forms of the literature, and especially in that wilderness of works of
Art that covered all Greece, than in the deep toned poetry of Homer and
Aeschylus, or the profound sentiment of Plato and Tliucydides. This por-
tion of Greek literature derived its tone and matter from that elder period ;
that heroic age; when the national mind was impressed, as tiie elder mind
always has been, more by the essential than the formal, more by Truth
than by Beauty.

AND ITS RELATION TO CULTURE. 65

But if the literature of the Greeks is predominantly
aesthetic, and performs this aesthetic function in the sys-
tem of modern education, the national character was
still more so. The student of Grecian history, especially
of the internal history of the Greeks, is struck with the
disparity between the national character and the na-
tional literature; between the products of the Greek
mind, or rather of a few choice Greek minds, and the
Greek himself. The more the student becomes acquaint-
ed with that extremely imaginative and extremely tasteful,
but too lively and too volatile, race of men, the more
does he wonder that so much depth and truth of senti-
ment should be found in the literature that sprang up
among them ; the more does he wonder that the native
bent and tendency of the national mind did not overrule,
and suppress, all these higher elements. It is only on
the supposition that the great men of Greece were above
their race, and breathed in a more solemn and medita-
tive atmosphere than that sunny air in which the Athe-
nian populace lived, that he can account for the remark-
able difference between the profound, severe, and moral,
spirit of the Greek tragedy, and the fickle, gay, and alto-
gether trifling, temper of the Ionic race.

Whatever this excessive tendency to the Beautiful
may have wrought out of the Greeks, in some respects,
it is certain that it contributed to the enervation and de-
struction of all strong character in the nation. That
Ionic race, instead of following indulgently and extrava-
gantly, as they did, their native bias, ought to have sub-
jected it to the most severe education and restraint.
Those two other ideas which dawned in such solemnity
and power upon the intellect of their greatest philoso-
pher, ought to have rained down influence upon them.
Those more serious and awe-inspiring objects of reflection,

66 THE TRUE NATURE OF THE BEAUTIFUL,

the True and the Good, ought to have dawned upon the
popular mind in a clearer light and with a more overcom-
ing power. How different, so far as all the grand and
heroic elements of national character are concerned, were
the Greeks of that golden age of ancient Art, the age of
Pericles, from the Romans of the days of Numa ! We
grant that there is but little outward beauty, in that
naked and austere period in Roman history, but there is
to be found in that character^ as it comes down to us in
the legends of Livy and has been reconstructed in the
pages of Niebuhr, the strongest, and soundest, and
grandest, and sublimest, nationality in the Pagan world.
And this was owing to the fact that the early Roman
was intellectual and moral, rather than aesthetic. I am
speaking, it will be remembered, of a Pagan character,
and my remarks must be taken in a comparative sense.
Bearing this in mind, we may say that the strength and
grandeur of the national character of the first Romans,
sprang from the fact that it was moulded and shaped main-
ly by the ideas of Truth and Virtue. The aesthetic nature
was repressed, and, if you please, almost entirely suppress-
ed, but the intellect and the moral sense were developed
all the more. Hence those high qualities in their na-
tional character ; courage, energy, firmness, probity, pat-
riotism, reverence for the gods and the oath ; qualities
that were hardly more visible in the ancient, than they
are in the modern, Greek.

And this brings us to the more distinct consideration
of what we suppose to be the influence of Fine Art,
when it becomes the leading department of eflbrt, and
the chief instrument and end of culture, for the individ-
ual or the nation. The effect of the Beautiful upon the
human soul, when unmixed, uncounteracted, and exorbi-
tant, is enervation. And this, from the very nature of

AND THE RELATION TO CULTURE. 6'!'

the element itself. "We have seen that it cannot be
placed upon an equality with the other two elements that
enter into the constitution of the universe. It cannot be
regarded as so substantial and so necessary in its nature,
as the True and the Holy. It is only the property and
decoration of that which is essential and absolute. It is
only the form. It consequently does not address the
highest faculties of the human soul, and if it did, could
not waken or generate power in them. When, therefore,
it is made to do the work of the higher ideas ; when it is
compelled to go beyond its own proper sphere, the aesthet-
ic nature, and to furnish aliment for the intellectual and
moral nature ; it is set at a work it can never do. The
intellect and moral sense demand their own appropriate
objects ; they require their correlatives, the True and the
Good ; they cry out for the substance and cannot be sat-
isfied with the form, however beautiful. When there-
fore Beauty is selected as the great idea, by which the
individual or national mind is to be moulded, the result
is of necessity mental enervation. The human intellect
cannot, any more than the human heart, be content with
mere form. Like the heart, it cries out, in its own way,
for the living God ; for Truth and Goodness, the most
essential qualities in the Divine nature ; for Wisdom and
Virtue, the most essential elements in the moral universe
He has made. And what is there in the very process of
Art itself, when it is isolated from the other and higher
departments of human effort, that goes to render man
more intellectual ? The very vocation of Art is to sen-
sualize ; using the term technically and in no bad sense.
Its processes, so far as they are merely artistic, are not
spiritualizing, but the contrary. The vocation of Art is
to bring down an idea of the human mind ; a purely in-
tellectual, purely immaterial, entity ; into the sphere of

68 THE TRUE NATURE OF THE BEAUTIFUL,

sense, and there materialize it into colors, and lines, and
outlines, and proportions, for the sense. The very, call-
ing of Art, as a department of effort, is to render sensu-
ous the spiritual. And the fact that it does this, in the
case of all high Art, in an ideal manner ; that in the gen-
uine product, the idea shines out everywhere through the
beautiful form ; does not conflict with the position. If,
therefore, in a general way and for the purpose of char-
acterizing the departments, we may say that in Science
and Religion the mental process is spiritualizing, we
may affirm that in Art the process is sensualizing. If in
the analysis and synthesis of the True and the Good, the
mind passes through an increasingly intellectual process,
in the embodiment of the merely Beautiful, it passes
through an exactly opposite one. If Philosophy and Re-
ligion tend to render the mind more intellectual, Fine Art
tends to render it more material and sensuous by fixing
the eye on the form.

Now such an influence as this upon the human mind
and character, if unbalanced and uncounteracted, is
enervating. There may be, and generally has been,
great outward refinement and a most luxurious ele-
gance thrown over the culture that originates under
such influences, but it is too generally at the expense of
strength and virtue and heroism of character. However
high the aims of the individual or the nation may have
been in the outset, history shows too plainly, that the
nerve was soon relaxed and the mind slackened all away,
at first, into a too luxurious, and finally, into a voluptu-
ous culture. When the Artist, by the very theory and
metaphysical nature of his vocation, is compelled to keep
his eye on Beauty, on Fine Form, on the sensuously
Agreeable, lie must be a strong and virtuous nature that
is not mastered by his calling. If he can preserve an

AND ITS RELATION TO CULTURE. 69

austere tone ; if he can even keep himself up on the high
ground of an abstract and ideal Art, and not sink into a
too ornate and licentious style ; we may be certain that
there was great moral stamina at bottom.

But speculation aside, let us appeal to history again.
What does the story of Art in modern times teach in
relation to the position that the unmixed, unbalanced,
effect of the Beautiful, is mental enervation ? The most
wonderful age of Art was that of Leo X. The long
slumber of the aesthetic nature of man, during the bar-
barism and warfare of those five centuries between the
dismemberment of the Roman empire and the establish-
ment of the principal nations and nationalities of modern
Europe, was broken by an outburst of Beauty and Beauti-
ful Art, as sudden, rapid, and powerful, as the bloom and
blossom of spring in the arctic zone. Such a multitude
of artists and such an opulence of artistic talent, will
probably never be witnessed again in one age or nation.
But did a grand, did even a respectable, national charac-
ter spring into existence along with this bloom of Art,
this shower of Beauty ? We know that there were other
influences at work, and among others a religious system
whose very nature it is to carnalize and stifle all that is
distinctively spiritual in the human soul ; but no one can
study the history of the period, without being convinced
that this excessive and all-absorbing tendency of the
general mind of Italy towards Beauty and Fine Art, con-
tributed greatly to the general enervation of soul. Most
certainly it did not work counter to it. Read the me-
moirs of a man like Benvenuto Cellini ; an inferior man
it is true, but an artist and reflecting the general features
of his time ; and see how utterly unfit both the individual
and national culture of that period was for any lofty,
high-minded, truly historic, achievement. The solemn

70 THE TRUE NATURE OF THE BEAUTIFUL,

truths of Religion, and the lofty truths of Philosophy,
exerted little or no influence upon that group of Italian
artists, so drunken with Beauty. They possessed little
of that intellectual severity which enters into every great
character; little of that strung muscle and hard nerve
which should support the intellect as well as the will. —
And therefore it is that we cannot ^id in the Italian his-
tory of those ages, any more than in the Italian character
of the present day, any of that high emprise and grand
achievement which crowds the history of the Teutonic
races, less art-loving, but more intellectual and moral. —
These races and their descendants have sometimes been
charged with a destitution of the aesthetic sense, and the
inferiority of their Art, compared with that of Italy, has
been cited as proof of their inferiority as a race of men ;
but it is enough to say in reply, that these Goths, educa-
ting themselves mainly by the ideas of the True and the
Good, have given origin to all the literatures, philosophies,
and systems of government and religion, that constitute
the crowning glory of the modern world. The Italian
intellect was enfeebled and exhausted by that unnatural
birth of Beauty upon Beauty. Ever since the fourteenth
century, it has been wandering about in that world of
fine forms, Uke Spenser's knight in the Bower of Bliss,
until all power of intellect is gone.

Every truly great and grand character, be it individual
or national, is more or less a severe one ; a character
which, comparatively, is more intellectual and moral,
than aesthetic* This position merits a moment's examin-

♦ According to the etymologry of the old Grnmmarians, favored by T)oe-
derlein, the severe im the ititen»ehj true. Docderlein i. 76, prseferendum cen-
•ei^vett. Gramm. ccntentiam qua severus counationem habeat cum verus
• ♦ ♦ ita ut se, ex more Or. a priv., intensivara vim contineat.
— FacdolaWs Lexicon in loc.

AND ITS RELATION TO CULTURE. 71

ation. And in the first place, look into political history
and see what traits lie at the bottom of all the best
periods in national development. Out of what type of
mind and style of life has the venerable, the heroic^ age
always sprung ? Are men enervate or are they austere,
are they aesthetic or are they intellectual and moral
in culture, during that period when the national virtue
is formed and the historic renown of the people is
acquired ?

The heroic age of Greece, as it comes down to us in
the Homeric poems, was a period of simplicity and strict-
ness. The Greeks of that early time were intellectual
men, moral men, compared with the Greeks of the days
of Alcibiades. Turn to the pages of Athenasus, and get
a view of the in-door life and every-day character of a
still later period in Grecian history, and then turn to the
corresponding picture of the heroic period contained in
the Odyssey, mark the difference in the impression made
upon you by each representation, and^know from your
own feelings, that all that is strong, and heroic, and
simple, and grand, in national character springs from a
severe mind and a predominantly moral culture, and all
that is feeble, and supine, and inefficient, and despicable, in
national character, springs from a luxurious mind and a
predominantly aesthetic culture.

And how stands the case with Rome ? Which is the
venerable period in her history ? Is it to be sought for
in the luxurious and (so far as Rome ever had it) the
aesthetic civilization of the empire, or in the intellectual
and moral civilization of the monarchy and republic?
All the strength and grandeur of the Roman character
and of the Roman nationality lies back of the third Punic
war. Nay, if Rome had been conquered by Carthage,
and had gone out of political existence, its real glory, its

72 THE TRUE NATURE OF THE BEAUTIFUL,

proper historic renown, would have been greater than it
is. If in the idea called up by the word Rome, there
were wanting, there could be eliminated, the physical
corruption and the luxurious but merely outward refine-
ment of the empire, and there were left only the severe
virtue, the sublime endurance, and the moral grandeur,
of the monarchy and republic, the idea would be more
sublime in history and more impressive in contemplation.
And whence originated that Sabine element, that tough
core, that hard kernel, in the Roman character, that lay
at the centre and kept Rome up, during her long agony
of intestine and external conflict? It had its origin
among the mountains, amid the great features of nature,
and it was purified by the privation and hardship of a
severe life in the forests of central Italy, on that spine of
the Ausonian peninsula, until it became as sound, sweet,
and hard, as the chestnuts of the Appenines upon which
it was fed. Intellectual and moral elements, and not an
aesthetic element, were the hardy root of all the political
power and prosperity of Rome.

There is no need, even if there were time, to cite-
instances corroborating the view presented, from modern
political history. The Puritanism of Old England and
of New England will readily suggest itself, to every one,
as the one eminently severe national character, with
which the power and glory of the English and Anglo-
American races, and the highest hopes of the modern
world, are vitally connected. It will be sufficient to
say, that the more profound is our acquaintance with
political history, the more clearly shall we see that
all that is powerful, and permanent, and impressive, in
the nations, nationalities, and governments of the
world, sprang directly or indirectly from a nature in
which the aesthetic was subordinate to the intellectual

AND ITS RELATION TO CULTURE. ^ 73

and moral, and for which the True and the Good were
more supreme ideas than the Beautiful.

Furthermore, the position taken holds true in the
sphere of literature also. The great works in every
instance are the productions of a severe strength; of
" the Herculeses and not the Adonises of literatute," to
use a phrase of Bacon. When the aesthetical prevails
over the intellectual and moral, the prime qualities, the
depth, the originality, and the power, die out of letters,
and the mediocrity that ensues is but poorly concealed
by the elegance and polish thrown,*over it. Even when
there is much genius^and much originality, an excess of
Art, a too deep suffusion of Beauty, a too fine flush of
color, is often the cause of a radical defect. Suppose
that the poetry of Spenser had more of that passion in it
which Milton mentions as the third of the three main
qualities of poetry ; suppose (without however wishing
to deny the great excellence of the Fairy Queen in regard
to intellectual and moral elements) that the proportion
of the aesthetic had been somewhat less, would it not
have been more powerful and higher poetry? Suppose
that the mind and the culture of Wieland and Goethe
had been vastly more under the influence of Truth, and
vastly less under that of Beauty; that the substance
instead of the form, had been the mould in which these
men were moulded and fitted as intellectual workmen ;
might not the first have come nearer to our Spenser, and
might not the latter have produced some works that
would perhaps begin to justify his ardent but ignorant
admirers in placing him in the same class with Shaks-
peare and Milton ; a position to which, as it is, he has
not the slightest claim ?

As a crowning and conclusive proof of the correctness
of the view presented, I will refer you to only one mind.

74 THE TRUE NATURE OF THE BEAUTIFUL,

I refer you to John Milton, one of those two minds which
tower high above all others in the sphere of modern lite-
rature. If there ever was a man in whom the aesthetic
was in complete subjection to the intellectual and moral,
without being in the least suppressed or mutilated by
them, that man was Milton. If there ever was a human
intellect so entirely master of itself, of such a severe type,
that all its processes seem to have been the pure issue of
discipline and law, it was the intellect of Milton. In
contemplating the grandeur of the products of his mind,
we are apt to lose sight of his mind itself, and of his
intellectual character. If we rightly consider it, the dis-
cipline to which he subjected himself, and the austere
style of intellect and of Art in Which it resulted, are as
worthy of the reverence and admiration of the scholar as
the Paradise Lost. We have unfortunately no minute
and detailed account of his every-day life, but from all
that we do know, and from aU that 'we can infer from
the lofty, colossal, culture and character in which he
comes down to us, it is safe to say that Milton must
have subjected his inteUect to a restraint, and rigid deal-
ing with its luxurious tendencies, as strict as that to
which Simon Stylites or St. Francis of Assisi subjected
their bodies. We can trace the process, the defecating
purifying process, that went on in his intellect, through
his entire productions. The longer he lived and the
more he composed, the severer became his taste, and the
more grandly and serenely beautiful became his works.
It is true that the theory of Art, and of culture, opposed
to that which we are recommending, may complain of
the occasional absence of Beauty, and may charge as a
fault an undue nakedness and austerity of form. But
one thing is certain and must be granted by the candid
critic, that whenever the element of Beauty is found in

AND ITS RELATION TO CULTURE. 75

IMilton, it is found in absolute purity. That severe
refining process, that test of light and of fire, to which all
his materials were subjected, left no residuum that was
not perfectly pure. And therefore it is, that throughout
universal literature, a more absolute Beauty and a more
delicate aerial grace, are not to be found than - appear in
the Comus and the fourth book of Paradise Lost.

But we are not anxious on this point of Beauty,
especially in connection with the name of Milton. Sub-
limity is a higher quality, and so are Strength and Gran-
deur ; and if Beauty does not come in the train., and as
the mere ornament, of these, it is not worth while to seek
it by itself and for its own sake. And much will be
gained when education, and culture, and authorship, shall
dare to take this high stand which Milton took ; shall
dare to pass by Beauty, in the start, and to aim at higher ■
elements and severer qualities, in the train, and as the
ornament of which, a real Beauty and an absolute Grace
shall follow of themselves.

Returning then to the intellectual character of Milton,
let me advise you to study that character until you ^e
that the strict, and philosophically severe, theory of the
Beautiful and of Art lies under the whole of it. Milton
had no affinities for excessive sensuous Beauty. He was
no voluptuary in any sense. So far as the sense was
concerned he was abstemious as an ascetic, and so far as
the soul was concerned he knew no such thing as luxury.
He devoted himself to poetry, an Art which, glorious as
it is, yet has tendencies that need counteraction, which
tempts to Arcadian and indulgent views of human life
and human character, and which, as literary history
shows, has too often been the medium through which
dreamy and uncontrolled natures have communicated
themselves to the world. But as a poet, he constructed

76 THE TRUE NATURE OF THE BEAUTIFUL,

with all the severity of Science and all the purity of
Religion. The poetic Art, as it appears in Milton, is
spiritual and spiritualizing.*

If this element of severity is entirely wanting in a
man ; if he is entirely destitute of austerity ; if his nature
is wholly and merely aesthetic, constantly melting and
dissolving in an atmosphere of Beauty; whatever else
may be attributed to him, strength and grandeur cannot
be. We do not deny that there is a sort of interest in
such natures, but we deny that it is of the highest sort.
If a "man is born with a beautiful soul, and it is his ten-
dency (to use a Shaksperean phrase) " to wallow in the
lily beds;" to revel in luxurious sensations, be they
wakened by material or immaterial Beauty ; unless he
subject his mind to the training of higher ideas, and of a
higher department than that of Fine Art, his career will
end in the total enervation of his being. This tendency
ought in every instance to be disciplined. The individ-
ual in whom it exists, ought to superinduce upon it a
strictness and austerity that will check its luxuriance,
and bring it within the limits of a severer and therefore
purer taste.

The least injurious and safest form which an undue
aesthetic tendency can take on, is a quick sense for the
Beautiful in nature. But even here, an unbalanced,
uneducated, tendency is enervating. That dreamy mood
of young poets, that dissolving of the soul in " the light
of setting suns, " must be educated and sobered by a
severe discipline of the head and heart, or no poetry will

* We may say of Milton, in reference to the severe ideal character of his
Art, as Fuseli has said of the same feature in Michael Angelo; "he is the
salt of Art." He saves it from its inherent tendency to corruption, by a
larger infusion of intellectual and moral elements, than exists in the average
prodactioDS of the department.

AND ITS RELATION TO CULTURE. 77

be produced that will go down through all ages. It is
not so much a deep tendency as a transient mood of the
soul, and needs the infusion of intellectual and moral
elements, in order that it may becom^ " the vision and
faculty divine." Turn to a great collection, like Chal-
mers' British Poets, and observe how large a portion of
this mass of poetry is destitute of the power of produ-
cing a permanent impression upon the human imagina-
tion ; how little out of this great bulk is selected to be
read by the successive generations of English students ;
how small a portion of it, compared with the whole
amount, is profoundly and genuinely poetic ; and at the
same time notice how very much of it was evidently
composed under the influence which the Beautiful in
nature exerts upon an undisciplined, and uneducated,
aesthetic sense, and you will have the strongest possible
proof of the enervating, enfeebling, influence of this .
quality when isolated from the intellectual and moral. —
The mind needed a severer culture, and a discipline
wrought out for it by higher ideas, that could use and
elaborate these obscure feelings, these dim dreams, this
blind sense, for the purposes of a higher and more genuine
Art. It is often said, we know, that science is" the death
of poetry ; that the study of the Kantean philosophy
injured the poetry of Schiller, and the study of all philo-
sophies the poetry of Coleridge ; that the charm, and
the glow, and the flush, and the fulness, and the luxuri-
ance, and the gorgeousness, were all destroyed by the
acid and blight of science. But we do not believe this.
These poets might have written more had their imagina-
tion not been passed through these severe processes of
the intellect, they might have been more fluent, but that
they would have written more that will have a lasting
poetic interest remains to be seen. Their Art is all the

78 THE TRUE NATURE OF THE BEAUTIFUL,

higher, for the check and restraint imposed upon their
poetic nature. And who will not say, to take a plain
example, that if the young soul of Keats could have been
corded with a stronger muscle, and overshaded with a
severer tone of feeling and sentiment ; that if a more
mascuUne culture could have been married with that
genuinely feminine soul ; a higher poetry and a still
purer Beauty would have been the offspring of this
hymeneal union ? *

And this brings us to the more positive side of the
subject. Thus far we have spoken in a negative way of
what the Beautiful is not, and of what it cannot do for
the human soul and human culture. We now affirm
that only on the theory which subordinates Beauty to
Truth can the highest style of Beauty itself be originated,
and that only when the department of Aesthetics is sub-
ordinate to those of Philosophy and Religion, does a
genuinely beautiful culture, either individual or national,
spring into existence. Without this check and subor-
dination, the aesthetic quality will destroy itself by
becoming excessive. The more staple elements that
must enter into and substantiate it, will all evaporate ;
as if the warm organic flesh should all turn into the fine
flush of the complexion ; as if the air and the light and
the foHage and the waters, all the material, all the solidity^
of a beautiful landscape, should vanish away into mere
crimson and vermilion. For, as we have already
observed, true Beauty in a work of Art, is conditioned
upon the presence in it of some intelHgible idea. There
must be some truth and some expression, in order to the
existence of the pure quaUty itself. Beauty cannot stand
alone. There must be a meaning underneath of which

♦ If the school of Tennyson needs any one thing, it is an austerer
culture.

AND ITS RELATION TO CULTURE. 79

it is the clothing. There must be an intellectual concep-
tion within the product, to which it can cling for sup-
port, and from which it derives all its growing, lasting,
highest, charm for a cultivated taste. Hence it is, that
as we go up the scale, Beauty actually becomes more
ideal, more and more intellectual and moral. It under-
goes a refining process, as it rises in grade. Whereby the
sensuous element, so predominant in the lower products
of Art^ is volatilized. There is more appeal to the soul
and less to the sense, as we go up from the more florid
and showy schools of painting, e. g., to the more severe
and spiritual. The same is true of the Beautiful in na-
ture. As we ascend from the inferior to the higher veg-
etation, we find not only a more delicate organization,
but a more delicate Beauty. The gaudy and coarse col-
oring gives place to more exquisite hues, in proportion
as mind ; in proportion as the presiding intelligence of the
Creator ; comes more palpably into view. In the words
of Milton, all things are

* * more refined, more spirituous, and pure,
As nearer to Him placed, or nearer tending,
Till body up to spirit work.

****** So from the root
Springs lighter the green stalk ; from thence the leaves
More aery ; last the bright consummate flower
Spirits odorous breathes ; flowers and their fruit,
Man's nourishment, by gradual scale sublimed
To vital spirits aspire, to animal,
To intellectual.*

AncT all things grow more highly beautiful as we keep
pace with this upward step in nature, until we pass over
into the distinctively spiritual sphere, and reach the

* Par. Lost. v. 475.

80 THE TRUE NATURE OF THE BEAUTIFUL,

crown and completion of all Beauty ; the beauty of char-
acter, or the "beauty of holiness." Observe that all
along this limitless line we find a growing severity ; that
is, an increase of the intellectual or moral element. Sen-
suous beauty is displaced, or rather absorbed and trans-
figured, by intellectual beauty ; the ideas of the True and
the Good more and more assert their supremacy, by em-
ploying the Beautiful as the mere medium through which
they become visible, 6ven as light, after traversing the
illimitable fields of ether without either color or form, on
coming into an atmosphere, into a medium, thickens in-
to a solid blue vault.

A reference to the actual history of Fine Art will also
verify the position here taken. As matter of fact, we
find this spiritualizing process ; this advance of the sub-
stance and this retreat of the form ; going on in every
school of Art that grew more purely and highly beautiful,
and in the soul of every artist who went up the scale of
artists. That school which did not grow more ideal,
invariably grew more sensuous and less beautiful, and
that artist who did not by study and discipline become
more severe and studied in style, invariably sunk down
into the lower grade. All the works of Art that go down
through succeeding ages with an ever-growing beauty as
well as an ever-towering sublimity ; all the great models
and master-pieces; owe their origin to a most severe
taste and a most spiritual idea. The study of the great
models in every department of Art, be it painting, or
sculpture, or poetry, will convince any one that the im-
agination, the artist's faculty, when originating its great-
est works imposes restraints upon itself; in reality is
severe with itself. If the artist allows his imagination to
revel amid all the possible forms that will throng, and
press, through this wonderfully luxuriant and productive

AND ITS RELATION TO CULTURE. 81

power ; if he suffers it to waste its energy in an idle play
with its thick-coming fancies ; if, in short, he does not
preserve it a rational imagination, and regulate it by the
deeper element and severer principle inherent in it, his
productions will necessarily be in the lower style. It
is for this reason that the artist betakes himself to study.
He would break up this revelry of a lawless, uneducated,
imagination. He would set limits to a vague and aim-
less energy. He would wield a productive talent that
lies lower down ; that works more calmly and grandly ;
more according to reason and a profounder Art. The
educating process, in the case of the artist, is intended to
repress a cloying luxuriance and to superinduce a beau-
tiful austerity ; to substitute an ideal for a material beau-
ty. Hence we see that the artist, as he grows in power
and high excellence, grows in strictness of theory and
severity of taste. His products are marked by a graver
beauty, and the presence of a purer ideal, as he goes up
the scale of artists.

As an example, we may cite the instance of Michael
Angelo. For grandeur, sublimity, and power of perma-
nent impression, he confessedly stands at the head of his
Art, and although in regard to beauty, Raphael may dis-
pute the palm with him, and by some may be thought his
superior, yet no one can deny that (as in the case of Mil-
ton) whenever this element does appear in " the mighty
Tuscan," it is of the most absolute and perfect species.*

* Winckelmann, looking from his pointof view, which was that of classic
Art merely, has expressed a disparaging opinion in regard to Angelo, so far
as the Beautiful is concerned, and seems to have laid the foundation for the
superficial and too general opinion, that in respect to this quality he was by
nature greatly inferior to llaphael. But the ahle editors of his works justly
call attention to the fact, that Winckelmann is wrong in judging of modern
Art in this servile way, and allude to a scarce and but little known poem
of Angelo's, in which a most delicate and feminine appreciation of beauty

82 THE TRUE NATURE OF THE BEAUTIFUL,

Yet all his productions are characterized by an austere
manner. The form is always subservient, and perhaps
sometimes somewhat sacrificed, to the idea. And, at
any rate, the man himself, compared with the Italian
artists generally, compared with Raphael especially, was
a spiritual man both in culture and character. We con-
fess that we look with a veneration bordering upon awe
upon that grand nature, severe, abstract, and ideal, in an
age that was totally sensuous in head and heart, and in
a profession whose most seductive and dangerous ten-
dency is to soften and enervate. By the force of a strong
heroic character, as well as a hard and persevering study
both of Art and of Nature, he counteracted that ten-
dency to a sensuous and a sensualizing beauty, which
we have noticed as the bane of Art, and in that nerve-
less age, so destitute of lofty virtue and stern heroism,
stands out Hke the Memnon's head on the dead level of

is apparent. " In this poem," say they, " the great Michael Angelo reveals ^
himself in a manner that appears striking and wonderful to such as have
known him only from his paintings and statues. Heartfelt admiration for
beauty, love too deep to be disclosed to its object, a gentle touching sadness
wakened by the sense of an existence that cannot satisfy an infinite affec-
tion, and a melancholy longing, growing out of this, for dissolution and
freedom from the bonds of earth, form the ground-tone of this warmlv-glow-
ing poem, in which Angelo gives an expression of the feminine element in
his great and mighty nature, that is all the more lovely from the fact that
the masculine principle is the prevailing and predominant one in his works
of Art." — Witickelmann^s Werke von Mei/er unci Schulze, iv. 43, and Anmerk.
p. 262.

Consonant with this are the following remarks of Lanzi. " We may here
observe that when Michael Angelo was so inclined, he could obtain distinc-
tion for those endowments in which others excelled. It is a vulgar error to
suppose that he had no idea of grace and beauty ; the Eve of the Sistine
Chapel turns to thank her Maker, on her creation, with an attitude so fine
and lovely, that it would do honor to Raphael "

History of Paintimj, {Roscoe's Trans.) i. 176. .

AND ITS RELATION TO CULTURE. 83

the Nile, grand and lonely, yet with " elysian beauty
and melancholy grace."

And, in this connection, I cannot refrain from calling
your attention to that greatest of American artists, who
is at once a proof and illustration of the truth of the gen-
ial theory advanced. No man will suspect Allston of
an underestimate of the Beautiful. In the whole cata-
logue of ancient and modern artists, there is not to be
found a single one in whose mind this element existed
in more unmixed and absolute purity : — beauty

* * * chaste as the icicle
That's cui'ded by the frost from purest snow,
And hangs on Dian's temple.

But this spirituality was the fruit not only of a pure
nature, but of a high theory. He recognized and felt the
supremacy of the True and the Good, over the Beautiful.
The reader of his lectures on Art, is struck with the re-
ligious carefulness with which he insists upon the supe-
rior claims of Truth over those of mere Art, and the
earnestness with which he seeks to elevate and spiritual-
ize the profession which he honored and loved, by making
it the organ and proclamation of Truth and Holiness.
By this, we think the fact can be explained that he pro-
duced so little, compared with the exhaustless fertility of
the Italian artists. His ideal was so high ; the Beautiful
was so spiritually beautiful for him ; that color and form
failed to embody his conceptions. His uniform refusal
to attempt the representation of Christ ; a far too com-
mon attempt in Italian A^t ; undoubtedly rested upon
this fact. It was not because his intensely spiritual
mind had a less adequate idea of the Divine-Man, than
that which floated before the Catholic imagination, but

84 THE TRUE NATURE OF THE BEAUTIFUL,

because there beamed upon his ethereal vision, a form
of such high and awful beauty as could not be put upon
a material canvas. It was because he saw so much
that he did so little.

But, Gentlemen, there is a still more practical and im-
portant side to this whole subject. The department of
Art sustains a relation to the growth and developme?!t
of the human mind, and human society. Like all other
departments of human effort, it should therefore be sub-
servient to the great moral end of human existence, and
if there were no other alternative, it would be better that
the aesthetic nature, and the whole department of Art,
and the whole wide realm of the Beautiful, should be
annihilated, than that they should continue to exist at
the expense of the intellectual and moral, of the True
and the Good. We are not at all driven to the alterna-
tive, if there be truth in the general theory that has been
presented, but if we were, we acknowledge boldly that we
would side with the Puritan iconoclast and dash into
atoms the Apollo Belvidere itself. Rather than that the
department of Art should annihilate Philosophy and Re-
ligion ; rather than that an enervate beauty should eat
out manly strength and severe virtue from character ;
rather than that a sensualizing process should be intro-
duced into the very heart of society, though it were as
beautiful as an opium dream ; we would see the element
struck out of existence, and man and the universe be left
as bald and bare as granite. We honor therefore, that
trait in our ancestors, (so often charged upon them as a
radical defect in nature, and so often tacitly admitted as
such even by some of their descendants), which made
them afraid of Fine Art ; afraid of music and painting
and sculpture and poetry. They dreaded the form, but
had no dread of the substance, and therefore were the most

AND ITS RELATION TO CULTURE. 85

philosophic of men. They dreaded the material, but had
no dread of the ideal, and therefore were the most intel-
lectual of men. They dreaded the sensuous, but had no
dread of the spiritual, and therefore were the most reli-
gious of men. The Puritan nature owed but little,
comparatively speaking, to aesthetic culture. It was not
drawn upon and drawn out, as some natures have been,
by Literature and Art, for in the plan of Providence its
mission was active rather than contemplative ; but we
do not hesitate to say, that the contents and genius were
there, and that even on the side of the imagination, that
nature, had it been unfolded in this direction, would
have left a school and a style of Art, using the term in
its widest acceptation, second to none. And as it is, we
see its legitimate tendency and influence in the poetry
of Milton. The Miltonic style of Art is essentially the
Puritan Art ; beautiful only as it is severe and grand ; the
Beautiful superinduced upon the True and the Holy.

Gentlemen : —

In the opening of my discourse, I alluded to the fact,
that the style of civilization and culture peculiar to the
individual or the nation, is determined by the theory,
which is consciously or unconsciously assumed, of the
nature and relative position of the Beautiful : and at the
close of it, I would call your attention to it agaiik My
aim is not iconoclastic. My aim, in all that I have said,
has been, not to destroy or in the least to disparage the
department of Aesthetics, but to establish and recommend
a high and strict and philosophic theory of it, for the pur-
pose of putting it in its right place in the encyclopaedia,
and thus of promoting its own true growth, and what is
of still more importance, the growth of the human mind.
Called upon to address scholars, I desire to do something
• 8

bo THE TRUE NATURE OF THE BEAUTIFUL,

that will contribute to high-toned culture, high-toned
thinking, and high-toned character. And I know of no
better way, on such an occasion as the present, than to
bring out distinctly before the youthful and recipient
student, a philosophic, severe, and lofty, theory in regard
to that whole department of Art, so fascinating to the
young mind and so liable to be employed to excess by it.
Depend upon it. Gentlemen, the older you grow and the
riper scholars you become, the more severe will be your
tastes and the more austere will be your literary sympa-
thies. You will come to see more and more clearly, that
neither music, nor painting, nor sculpture, nor architecture,
nor poetry, can properly be made the main instrument
of human development; that the human intellect and
heart demand ultimately a "manlier diet;" that you
must become powerful minds and powerful men, mainly
through the culture that comes from Science and Reli-
gion. You will never, indeed, lose your relish for the
Beautiful ; on the contrary, you will have a keener and a
nicer sense for it, and for all that is based upon it ; but
you will find a declining interest in its lower forms. —
Schools of Poetry and of Art that once pleased you, will
become insipid, and perhaps offensive, to your severer
taste, your more purged eye, your more rational imagina-
tion. There will be fewer and fewer works in the aes-
thetic* sphere that will throw a spell and work a charm,
while the deep and central truths of Philosophy and
Religion will draw, ever draw, your whole being to them-
selves, as the moon draws the sea.

And in this way, you will be fitted to do the proper
work of educated men in the midst of society. I have
alluded to the downward movement, the uniform decay,
of the ancient civilizations. History teaches one plain
and mournful lesson ; that man cannot safely be left to

AND ITS RELATION TO CULTURE. 87

his luxurious tendencies, be they of the sense or the soul.
There must be austerity somewhere. There must be a
strong head and a sound heart somewhere. And where
ought we to look for these but in the educated class ? In
whom, if not in these, ought we to find that theory of
education, that style of culture, and that tone of intellect,
which will right up society when it is sinking down into
luxury, or hold it where it is if it is already upright and
austere ? Educated men, amid the currents and in the
general drift of society, ought to discharge the function
of a warp and anchor. They, of all men, ought to be
characterized by strength. And especially do our own
age and country need this style of culture. Exposed as
the national mind is to a luxurious civilization ; as
imminently exposed as Nineveh or Rome ever were ; the
Beautiful is by no means the main idea by which it
should be educated and moulded. • As in the Prome-
theus, none but the demi-gods Strength and Force can
chain the Titan. Our task, gentlemen, as men of cul-
ture, and as men who are to determine the prevailing
type of culture, is both in theory and practice .to subject
the Form to the Substance ; to bring the Beautiful under
the problem of the True and the Good. Our task, as
descendants of an austere ancestry, as partakers in a
severe nationality, is to retain the strict, heroic, intellec-
tual, and religious, spirit of the Puritan and the Pilgrim,
in these forms of an advancing civilization. In order to
this ; in order that the sensuously and luxuriously Beauti-
ful may not be too much for us ; strength and reserve are
needed in the cultivated classes. They must be reticent
and, like the sculptor, chisel and re-chisel, until they cut
off and cut down to a simple and severe beauty, in. Art
and in Literature, in Religion and in Life.

THE CHARACTERISTICS, AND IMPORTANCE, OF
A NATURAL RHETORIC.

AN INAUGURAL DISCOURSE DELIVERED IN AUBURN THEOLOGICAL
SEMINARY, JUNE 16, 1852.

There is no greater or more striking contrast, than
exists between a thing that is alive, and a thing that is
dead ; between a product of nature, and a prodiict of
mechanism ; between a thing which has a principle
within it, and a " thing of shreds and patches." The
human mind notices this contrast between the various
objects that come before it, the quicker and the more
sharply, because it is itself a living thing, and because
its own operations are unifying, organizing, and vivify-
ing, in their nature. "We sometimes speak of the mech-
anism of the human understanding, and of a mechaniz-
ing process as going on within it. But this language is
metaphorical, and employed to denote the uniformity
and certainty of intellectual processes, rather than their
real nature. Man is a living soul, and there is no action
anywhere, or in anything, that is more truly and purely
vital, more entirely diverse from and hostile to the
mechanical and the dead, than the genuine action of the
human mind. Hence it is, that the mind notices this
contrary quality and characteristic in an object with thff
(88)

IMPORTANCE OF A NATURAL RHETORIC. 89
I

rapidity of instinct, and starts back from it with a sort
of organic recoil. Life detects death, and shrinks from
death, instantaneously. Nature abhors art and artifice,
as decidedly as, according to the old philosophy, it
abhors a vacuum.

This distinction between the natural and the artificial,
furnishes a clue to the difference which runs through all
the productions of man, and reveals the secret of their
excellence or then* defects. How often and how sponta-
neously do we sum up our whole admiration of a work
by saying, " it is natural," and our whole dislike by the
words, " it is artificial ? " The naturalness and life-like-
ness in the one case, are the spring of all that has pleased
us ; the formality and artifice in the other, are the source
of all that has repelled or disgusted us. Even when we
go no further in our criticism, this general statement of
conformity or oppugnancy to nature, seems to be a suffi-
cient criticism. And with good reason. For, if a pro-
duction has nature, has life in it, it has real and perma-
nent excellence. It has the germ and root of all
excellences. And if it has not nature or life in it ; if it
is a mechanical, or an artificial, or a formal thing; it has
the elements of all defects and all faults in it.

It will be noticed here, that we have used the term Art
in its more common and bad sense, of contrariety to
Nature, and not in that technical and best signification
of the word; which implies the oneness and unison of the
two. For, tryie Art, Fine Art, has Nature in it, and the
genuine artist, be he painter, or poet, or orator, is one
who paints, or sings, or speaks, with a natural freedom
and freshness. Hence it is, that we are impressed by the
great productions of Fine Art, in the same way that we
are by the works of Nature. A painting, warm from the
easel of Claude Lorraine, appeals to what is alive in us,

90 THE CHARACTERISTICS AND

in the same genial way that a vernal landscape does. — .
An oration from a clear brain, a beating heart, and a
glowing lip, produces effects analogous'to those of light,
jand fire, and the electric currents. In this way, a mys-
terious union is found to exist between outward nature,
and that inward nature in the soul of man which we call
genius ; and in this way we see that there is no essential
difference between Nature and Art*

But in the other and more common sense of the term
Art ; and the sense in which we shall employ it at this
time ; there is no such mystic union and unison between
it and Nature. It is its very contrary ; so much so, that
the one kills and, expels the other ; so much so, that, as
we have said, the one affords a universal test of the fault-
iness, and the other of the excellence, of the productions
of the human mind, in all departments of effort. For
the Natural is the true, while the Artificial is the false.
Truth is the inmost essence of that principle by which a
production of the human mind is so organized and vital-
ized, as to make a fresh and powerful impression. —
Whenever in any department of effort, the human mind
has reached verity, and is able to give a simple and sin-
cere expression to it, we find the product full of nature,
full of life, full of freshness, full of impression. This,

* Nature's own work it seemed, (nature taught art.)

Paradise Regained, ii. 295.

All nature is but art unknown to thee. • Popb.

Nature is the art of God. Sir Thomas Browne.

There is a nature in all artificial things, and again, an artifice in all com-
pounded natural tilings. Cudworth.

The art of seeing nature is in i^lity the great object of the studies of the
artist. Sir Joshua Reynolds.

. Art may, in troth, be called the human world. Allston.

For a pliilosophic statement of this theory see Kant's Urtheilskraft H 45»
46, and SchcUing's discourse upon the relation of Art to Nature.

IMPORTANCE OF A NATURAL RHETORIC. 91

and this ultimately, is the plain secret of the charm in
every work of genius and of power. In every instance,
the influence which sways the observer, or the hearer, or
the reader, is the influence of the veritable reality, of the
real and the simple truth. The Artificial, on the con-
trary, is the false. Examine any formal production what-
ever, and we shall be brought back in the end to a
pretence, to a falsehood. The mind of the author is not
filled with the truth, and yet he pretends to an utterance
of the truth. Its working is not genial and spontaneous
like that of nature, and yet he must give out that it is.
From the beginning to the end of the process, therefore,
an artificial production is essentially untrue, unreal, and
hence unnatural.

We have thus briefly directed attention to this very
common distinction between the Natural and the Artifi-
cial, and to the ground of it, for the purpose of introdu-
cing the general topic upon which we propose to speak
on this occasion : which is,

TJie Characteristics and importance of a Natural Rhe-
toric^ with special reference to the vmrk of the Preacher.

There is no branch of knowledge so liable to an artifi-
cial method, as that of Rhetoric. Strictly defined, it is,
indeed, as Milton calls it, an instrumental art, and hence,
from its very nature, its appropriate subject-matter is the
form of a discourse. While Philosophy, and History,
and Theology, are properly occupied with the substance
of human composition^ with truth itself and thought
itself ; to Rhetoric is left the humbler task of putting this
material into a form suited to it. Hence, it is evident,
that by the very nature and definition of Rhetoric, this
department of knowledge and of discipline is liable to
formalism and artificiaUty. While the mind is carried

92 , THE CHARACTERISTICS AND

by the solid, material, branches of education, further and
further into the very substance of truth itself; while His-
tory, and Philosophy, and Theology, by their very struc-
ture and contents, tend to deepen and strengthen the
mental processes ; Rhetoric, in common with the whole
department of Fine Art, seems to induce superficiality
and formaUty. And when a bad tendency seems to
receive aid from a legitimate department of human
knowledge, it is no wonder that it should gain ground
until it convert the whole department into its own nature.
Hence, as matter of fact, there is no branch of knowledge,
no part of a general system of education, so much infec-
ted, in all ages, with the merely formal, the merely
hollow, the merely artificial, and the totally lifeless, as
Rhetoric. The epigram which Ausonius wrote under
the portrait of the Rhetorician Rufus, might, with too
much truth, be applied to the Rhetorician generally :
Ipse rhetor, est imago imaginis.*
yhe need, therefore, of a Rhetoric that educates like
nature, and not artificially; a Rhetoric that organizes
and vitalizes the material that is made over to it for pur-
poses of form ; is apparent at first glance. Without such
a method of expression, the influence of the solid branches
of education themselves is neutralized. However full of
fresh and original thought the mind may be, if it has
been trained up to a mode of presenting it, that is in its
own nature artificial and destructive of life, the freshness
and originality will all disappear in the process of impart-
ing it to another mind. A Rh^ric that is conformed to
nature and to truth, is needed, therefore, in order that the
department itself may be co-ordinate with those higher
departments of knowledge in which the foundation of

* Ausonii Epig. li.

IMPORTANCE OF A NATURAL RHETORIC. 93

mental education is laid. "Without such a concurrence
with the material branches of education, such a merely-
formal and instrumental branch as that of Rhetoric, is
useless, and worse than useless. For it only diverts the
mind from the thought to the expression, without any
gain to the latter, and to the positive detriment of the
former.

1. Rhetoric, therefore, can be a truly educating and
influential department, only in proportion as it is organ-
izing in its fundamental character. In order to this, it
must be grounded first of all in logic, or the laws of
thinking, and so become not a mere collection of rules
for the structure and decoration of single sentences, but
a habit and process of the human mind. The Rhetori-
cian must make his first sacrifice to the austerer muses.
In an emblematic series by one . of the early Florentine
engravers. Rhetoric is represented by a female figure of
dignified and commanding deportment, with a helmet
surmounted by a regal crown on her head, and a naked
sword in her right hand. And so it should be. Soft-
ness, and grace, and beauty, must be supported by
strength and prowess ; the golden and jewelled crown
must be defended by the iron helmet, and the steel sword.
A rhetorical mind, therefore, in the best and proper sense
of the term, is at bottom a constructive mind ; a mind
capable of methodizing and organizing its acquisitions
and reflections into forms of symmetry, and strength, and
in a greater or less degree of beauty. It is a mind which,
in the effort to express^itself, begins from within and
works outward, and whose product is, for this reason,
characterized by the unity and thorough compactness of
a product of Nature. Such, for example, was the mind
of Demosthenes, and such a product is the Oration for
the Crown. The oratorical power of this great master is

94 THE CHARACTERISTICS AND

primarily a constructive talent ; an ability to methodize
and combine. Take away this deeply-running and rig-
orous force by which the various parts of the discourse,
the w^hole materiel of the plan and division, are compel-
led and compacted together, and this orator falls into the
same class with the Gorgiases and the false Rhetoricians
of all ages. Take away the organization of the Ora-
tion for the Crown, and a style and diction a hundred
fold more briQiant and gorgeous than that which now
clothes it, would not save it from the fate of the false
Rhetoric of all ages.

Such again, for example, was the mind of the Apostle
Paul, and such was the character of his Rhetoric. Those
short epistles, which like godliness are profitable for all
things, and ought to be as closely studied by the sermon-
izer as they are by the theologian, are as jointed and
linked in their parts as the human frame itself, and as
continuous in the flow of their trains of thought as the cur-
rent of a river. The mind of this great first preacher to the
Gentiles, this great first sermonizer to cultivated and scep-
tical Paganism, was also an organizing mind. How na-
turally does Christian doctrine, as it comes forth from
this intellect whose native characteristics were not de-
stroyed, but only heightened and purified, by inspira-
tion — how naturally and inevitably does Christian truth
take on forms that are fitly joined together, and com-
pacted by that which every joint supplieth ; statements
that are at once logic and rhetoric, and satisfy both the
reason and the feelings. For does not the profoundest
theologian study the Epistle to the Romans to find
ultimate and absolute statements in sacred science, and
does not the most unlettered Christian read and pray over
this same epistle, that his devotions may be kindled and
his heart made better ? Does not, to use the illustration

IMPORTANCE OF A NATURAL RHETORIC. 95

of the Christian Father, does not the lamb find a ford-
ing place and the elephant a swimming place in this
mighty unremitting stream ?

This thoroughness in the elaboration of the principal
ideas of a discourse, and this closeness in compacting
them into the unity of a plan, is, therefore, a prime qual-
ity in eloquence, and it is that which connects Rhetoric
with all the other departments of human knowledge, or
rather makes it the organ by and through which these
find a full and noble expression. For, contemplated
from this point of view, what is the orator but a man of
culture who is able to tell in round and full tones what
he knows ; and what is oratory but the art whereby the
acquisitions and reflections of the general human mind
are communicated to the present and the future. We
cannot, therefore, taking this view of the nature of Rhet-
oric as essentially organizing in its character, separate it
from the higher departments of History, or Philosophy,
or Theology, but must regard it as co-ordinate and con-
current with them. The rhetorical process is to go on in
education, along with these other processes of acquisi-
tion and information and reflection, so that the final
result shall be a mind not only disciplined inwardly but
manifested outwardly to other minds ; so that there shall
be not only an intellect full of thought, and a heart beat-
ing with feeling, and an imagination glowing with im-
agery, but a living expression of them all, in forms of
unity and simplicity and beauty and grandeur. In this
way Rhetoric really becomes, what it was once claimed
to be, the very crown and completion of all culture, and
the rhetorical discipline, the last accomplishment in the
process of education, when the man becomes prepared to
take the stand on the orator's bema before his fellow

96 THE CHARACTERISTICS AND

men, and dares to attempt a transfer of his consciousness
into them.

2. The second characteristic of a natural Rhetoric is
the amplifying power. If Rhetoric should stop with
the mere organizing of thought, it might be difficult
to distinguish it from logic. But this constructive
talent in the Rhetorician, is accompanied by another
ability which is more purely oratorical. We mean the
ability to dwell amply upon an idea until it has unfolded
all its folds, and lays off richly in broad full view. We
mean the ability to melt the hard solid ore with so tho-
rough and glowing a heat, that it will run and spread
like water. We mean the ability to enlarge and illus-
trate upon a condensed and cubic idea, until its contents
spread out into a wide expanse for the career of the im-
agination and the play of the feelings.

This union of an organizing with an amplifying
power, may be said to be the whole of Rhetoric. He
who should combine both in perfect proportions, would
be the ideal orator of Cicero. For while the former pow-
er presents truth in its clear and connected form for the
understanding, the latter transmutes it into its imagina-
tive and impassioned forms, and the product of these
two powers, when they are blended in one living energy,
is Eloquence. For Eloquence, according to the best
definition that has yet been given, is the union of Philo-
sophy and Poetry in order to a practical end.* When,
therefore, the logical organization is clothed upon with
the imaginative and impassioned amplification, there
arises " a combination and a form indeed ; " a mental pro-
duct adapted more than all others to move and influence
the human mind.

* Theremin's Rhetoric, Book i. Chapters iii., iv.

IMPORTANCE OF A NATURAL RHETORIC. 97

But we shall see still more clearly into the essential
characteristics of a Natural Rhetoric, by passing, as we
now do, after this brief analysis, to the second part of
our discourse, which proposes to treat of the worth and
importance of such a Rhetoric to the preacher.

1. And in the first place, a natural as distinguished
from an artificial Rhetoric, is of the highest worth to the
preacher because it i^ fruitful.

The preacher is one who, from the nature of his call-
ing, is obliged to originate a certain amount of thought
within a limited period of time, which is constantly and
uniformly recurring. One day in every seven, as regu-
larly as the motion of the globe brings it around, he is
compelled to address his fellow men upon the very highest
themes, in a manner and to an extent that will secure
their attention and interest. No profession, consequent-
ly, makes such a steady and unintermittent draught up-
on the resources of the mind as the clerical, and no man
so much needs the aid of a fertile and fruitful method of
discoursing as the Christian preacher. Besides this great
amount of thinking and composition that is required of
him, he is moreover shut up to a comparatively small
number of topics, and cannot derive that assistance from
variety of subjects, and novelty in circumstances, which
the secular orator avails himself of so readily. The
truths of Christianity are few ^nd simple, and though
they are richer and more inexhaustible than all others,
they furnish little that is novel or striking. The power
that is in them to interest and move men, must be educed
from their simple and solid substance, anjd not from their
great number or variety. The preacher may, it is true,
be able to maintain a sort of interest in his hearers by
the biographical, or geographical, or archaeological, or
historical, or literary, accompaniments of the Scriptures,

98 THE CHARACTERISTICS AND

but his permanent influence and power over them as a
preacher must come from his ability to develop clearly,
profoundly, and freshly, a few simple and unadorned
doctrines. Far be it from me to undervalue the impor-
tance of that training and study, by which we are intro-
duced into that elder and oriental world in which the
Bible had its origin, and with whose scenery, manners
and customs, and modes of living and thinking, it will
be connected to the end of time. No student of the
Scriptures, and especially no sacred orator, can make
himself too much at home in the gorgeous East ; too
familiar with that Hebrew spirit which colors like blood
the whole Bible, New Testament as well as Old Testa-
ment. But at the same time he should remember that
all this knowledge is only a means to an end ; that he
cannot as a preacher of the Word, rely upon this as the
last source whence he is to derive subject matter for his
thinking and discourse year after year, but must by it all
be carried down to deeper and more perennial fountains,
to the few infinite facts and the few infinite truths of
Christianity.

The need, therefore, of a Rhetorical method that is in
its own nature fertile and fruitful, is plain. And what
other ability can succeed but that organizing and ampli-
fying power, which we have seen to be the substance of
the Rhetoric of Nature as the contrary of Art. Through
the former of these, the preacher's mind is led into the
inmost structure and fabric of the individual doctrine,
and so of the whole Christian system ; and through the
latter he is enabled to unroll and display the endless
richness of the contents. It is safe to say, that a mind
which has once acquired this natural method of develop-
ing and presenting Christian truth, cannot be exhausted.
No matter how much drain may be made upon it, no

IMPORTANCE OF A NATURAL RHETORIC. 99

matter how often it may be called upon to preach the
"things new and old," it cannot be made dry. The
more it is drawn from, the more salient and bulging is
the fulness with which it wells up and pours over. For
this organic method is the key and the clue. He who is
master of it, he with whom it has become a mental hab-
it and process, will find the treasures of wisdom and
knowledge in the Scriptures opening readily and richly
to him. He will find his mind habitually in the vein.

2. And this brings us to a second characteristic of a
Natural Rhetoric, whereby it is of the greatest worth to
the preacher, viz., that it is a genial and 'invigorating
method. All the discipline of the human mind ought to
minister to its enjoyment and its strength. That is a
false method of discipline, by which the human mind is
made to work by an ungenial efibrt, much more by
spasms and convulsively. It was made to work like na-
ture itself, calmly, continuously, strongly, and happily.
When, therefore, we find a system of training, resulting
in a labored, anxious, intermittent, and irksome, activity,
we may be sure that something is wrong in it. The
fruits of all modes of discipline that conform to the na-
ture of the human mind and the nature of truth, are free-
dom, boldness, continuity, and pleasure, of execution.
In this connection weakness and tedium are faults ; sick-
ness is sin.

But the mental method for tvhich we are pleading,
while making the most severe and constant draft upon
the mental faculties, at the same time braces them and
inspires them with power. The mind of the orator, in
this slow organization and continuous amplification of
the materials with which it is laboring, is itself affected
by a reflex action. That truth, that divine truth, which
the preacher is endeavoring to throw out, that it may

100 THE CHARACTERISTICS AND

renovate and edify the soul of a fellow being, at the
same time strikes in, and invigorates his own mind, and
swells his own heart with joy.

This feature, this genial vigor, in what we have styled
a Natural Rhetoric, acquires additional importance when
we recur to the fact that has already been mentioned,
viz., that inasmuch as Rhetoric is a formal or instrumen-
tal department, its influence is liable to become, and too
often has become, debilitating to the human mind.
When this branch of discipline becomes artificial and
mechanical in its character, by being severed too much
from those profounder, and more solid, departments of
human knowledge from whose root and fatness it must
derive all its nourishment and circulating juices ; when
Rhetoric degenerates into a mere collection of rules for
the structure of sentences and the finish of diction ; no
studies or training will do more to diminish the resources
of the mind, and to benumb and kill the vitality of
the soul, than the Rhetorical. The eye is kept upon the
form merely, and no mind, individual or national, was
ever made strong or fertile by the contemplation of mere
form. The mind under such a tutorage works by rote,
instead of from an inward influence and an organic law.
In reality, its action is a surface-action, which only irri-
tates and tires out its powers. Perhaps the strongest ob-
jections that have been advanced against a Rhetorical
course of instruction, find their support and force here.
Men complain of the dryness, and the want of geniality,
of a professed Rhetorician. The common mind is not
satisfied with his studious artifice, and his measured
movements, but craves something more ; it craves a ro-
bust and hearty utterance, a hale and lifesome method.
Notice that it is not positively displeased with this pre-
cision and finish of the Rhetorician, but only with the

IMPORTANCE OF A NATURAL RHETORIC. 101

lack of a genial impulse under it. It is its sins of omis-
sion that have brought Rhetoric into disrepute.

But when the training, under consideration, results in a
genial and invigorating process, by which the profound-
est thinking and the best feeling of the soul are discharg-
ed to the utmost, and yet the mind feels the more buoy-
ant for it, and the stronger for it, all such objections van-
ish. There is, we are confident, there is a method of
disciplining the mind in the direction of Rhetoric, and
for the purposes of form and style, that does not in the
least diminish the vigor and the healthiness of its natural
processes. If there is not, then the department should
be annihilated. If there can be no Rhetorical training in
the schools, but such as is destructive of the freshness,
and originality, and geniality, of native impulses and
native utterances, then it were far better to leave the
mind to its unpruned and tangled luxuriance ; to let it
wander at its own sweet will, and bear with its tedious
windings and its endless eddies. Here and there, at
least, there would be an onward movement, and the in-
spiration of a forward motion. But it is not so. For,
says Shakspeare : —

There is an Art which * * * shares
With great creating Nature.

There is a close and elaborate discipline which is in har-
mony with the poetry, and the feeling, and the eloquence,
of the human soul, and which, therefore, may be employ-
ed to evoke and express it. There is a Rhetoric which,
when it has been wrought into the mind, and has be-
come a spontaneous method and an instinctive habit
with it, does not in the least impair the elasticity and
vigor of nature, because in the phrase of the same great

102 THE CHARACTERISTICS AND

poet and master of form from whom we have just quoted,
" It is an Art that Nature makes, or rather an Art which
itself is Nature." Such a Rhetoric may, indeed, be
defined to be an Art, or discipline, which enables man to
be natural ; an Art that simply develops the genuine and
hearty qualities of the man himself, of the mind itself. —
For the purpose of all discipline in this direction, is not
to impose upon the mind a style of thought and expres-
sion unnatural and alien to it, but simply to aid the mind
to be itself, and to show itself out in the most genuine
and sincere manner. The Rhetorical Art is to join on
upon the nature and constitution of the individual man,
so that what is given by creation, and what is acquired
by culture, shall be homogeneous, mutually aiding and
aided, reciprocally influencing and influenced. And let
not this mental veracity, this truthfulness to a man's
individuality and mental structure, be thought to be an
easy acquisition. It is really the last and highest accom-
plishment. It is a very difficult thing for a discourser to
be himself, genuinely and without afiectation. It is a
still more difficult thing for an orator, a man who has
come out before a listening and criticising auditory, to be
himself; genuinely, fearlessly and without mannerism,
communicating himself to his auditors precisely as he
really is. A simple and natural style, says Pascal, always
strikes us with a sort of surprise ; for while we are on the
lookout for an author, we find a man, while we are expect-
ing a formal art, we find a throbbing heart. This is
really the highest grade of culture, and the point toward
which it should always aim, viz : to bring Nature out by
means of art ; and Rhetorical discipline, instead of leav-
ing the pupil ten-fold more formal and artificial than it
found him, ought to send him out among men, the most

IMPORTANCE OF A NATURAL RHETORIC. 103

artless, the most hearty, and the most genuine, man of
them all.

Now of what untold worth is such a mental method
and habit to the preacher of the Word ! On this method,
literally and without a metaphor, the more he works the
stronger he becomes, the more he toils the happier he is.
He finds the invention and composition of discourse a
means of self-culture and of self-enjoyment. He finds
that that labor to which he has devoted his life, and to
which, perhaps, in the outset, he went with something of
a hireling's feeling, is no irksome task, but the source of
the noblest and most buoyant happiness. That steady
unintermittent drain upon his thought and his feeling,
which he feared would soon exsiccate his brain and leave
his heart dry as powder, he finds is only an outlet for the
ever accumulating waters !

This invigorating and genial influence of the Rhetori-
cal method now under consideration, furthermore, is of
special worth in the present state of the world. There
never was a time when the general mind was so impa-
tient of dulness as now. He who addresses audiences
at the present day must be vigorous and invigorating, or
he is nothing. Hence the temptation, which is too often
yielded to by the sacred orator, to leave the legitimate
field of Christian discourse and to range in that border
land which skirts it, or perhaps to pass into a region of
thought that is really profane and secular. The preacher
feels the need of saying something fresh, vigorous, and
genial, and not being able to discourse in this style upon
the old and standing themes of the Bible, he endeavors
to christianize those secular and temporal themes with
which the general mind is already too intensely occupied,
that he may find in them subjects for entertaining, and,
as he thinks, original discourse. But this course on the

104 THE CHARACTERISTICS AND

part of the Christian minister, must always end in the
decline of spiritual religion, both in his own heart and in
that of the Church. Nothing, in the long run, is truly-
edifying to the Christian man or the Christian Church,
that is not really feligious. Nothing can renovate and
sanctify the earthly mind, but that which is in its own
nature spiritual and supernatural. Not that which
resembles Christian truth, or which may be modified or
affected by Christian truth, can convict of sin and con-
vert to God, but only the substantial and real Christian
truth itself. Nothing but material fire can be relied upon
as a central sun, as a radiating centre.

The Christian preacher is thus shut up to the old and
uniform system of Christianity in an age when, more
than in any other, men are seeking for some new thing ;
when they are seeking and demanding stimulation, invig-
oration, animation, and impression. His only true
course, therefore, is to find the new in the old ; to become
so penetrated with the spirit of Christianity, that he shall
breathe it out from his own mind and heart, upon his
congregation, in as fresh and fiery a tongue of flame as
that which rested upon the disciples on the day of Pen-
tecost ; to enter so thoroughly into the genius and spirit
of the Christian system, that it shall exhibit itself, through
him, with an originality and newness kindred to that of
its first inspired preachers, and precisely like that which
characterizes the sermonizing of the Augustines and the
Bernards, the Luthers and the Calvins, the Leigh tons,
the Howes, and the Edwardses, of the Churqh. What
renders the sermons of these men so vivific and so invig-
orating to those who study them, and to the audiences
who heard them ? Not the variety or striking character
of the topics, but the thoroughness with which the truth
was conceived and elaborated in their minds. Not an

IMPORTANCE OF A NATURAL RHETORIC. 105

artificial Rhetoric, polishing and garnishing the outside
of a subject in which the inind has no interest, and into
the interior of which it has not penetrated ; but an organ-
izing Rhetoric, whereby the sermon shot up out of the
great Christian system, like a bud out of the side of a
great trunk or a great limb, part and particle of the great
whole ; an amplifying Rhetoric whereby the sermon was
the mere evolution of an involution, the swelKng, burst-
ing, leafing out, blossoming, and fructuation, of this bud.

3. And this brings us, in the third place, to the worth
of this Rhetorical method to the preacher, because it is
closely connected with his theological training and disci-
pline.

It is plain, from what has been said, that eloquent
preaching cannot originate without profound theological
knowledge. The eloquent preacher is simply the thorough
theologian who has now gone out of his study, and up
into ihe pulpit. In other words, eloquence in this as
well as in every other instance is founded in knowledge.
Cicero says that Socrates was wont to say that all men
are eloquent enough on subjects whereon they have
knowledge ; * a saying which re-appears in the common
and homely rule for eloquence, " Have something to say,
and then say it."

Hence a Rhetorical training which does not sustain
intimate relations to the general culture and discipline
of the pupil, is worthless. At no point does an artificial '
Rhetoric betray itself so quickly and so certainly as here.
We feel that it has nO intercommunication with the
character and acquisitions of the individual. It is a
foreign method, which he has adopted by a volition, and

* De Oratore, i. 14.

106 THE CHARACTERISTICS AND

not a spontaneous one which has sprung up out of his
character and culture, and is in perfect sympathy with it.
But the Rhetoric of nature has all the theological train-
ing of the preacher back of it as its support, beneath it as
its soil and nutriment. All that he has become by long
years of study and reflection, goes to maintain him as a
Rhetorician, so that his oratory is really the full and
powerful display of what he is and has become by vigor-
ous professional study. The Rhetoric is the man him-
self.

In this way, a showy and tawdry manner is inevitably
avoided, as it always should be, by the preacher. It can-
not be said of him, as it can be of too many, " He is a
mere Rhetorician." For this professional study, this
lofty and calm theological discipline, this solemn care of
human souls, this sacred professional character, will all
show themselves in his general style and manner, and
preclude every thing ostentatious or gaudy, much more
every thing scenic or theatrical. The form will corres-
pond to the matter. The matter being the most solemn
■and most weighty truth of God, the form will be the
most chastened, the most symmetrical, and the most
commanding, manner of man.

And in this way, again, the rhetorical training of the
preacher will exert a reflex influence upon his theologi-
cal training. A true sacred Rhetoric is a sort of practi-
cal theology, and is so styled in some nomenclatures. It
is a practical expansion and exhibition of a scientific
system for the purpose of influencing the popular mind.
When, therefore, it is well conceived and well handled, it
exerts a reflex influence upon theological science itself,
that is beneficial in the highest degree. It cannot, it is
true, change the nature and substance of the truth, but it
can bring it out into distinct consciousness. The effort

IMPORTANCE OF A NATURAL RHETORIC. 107

to popularize scientific knowledge, the endeavor to put
logic into the form of rhetoric, imparts a clearness to con-
ceptions, and a determination to opinions, that cannot
be attained in the closet of the mere speculatist. Not
until a man has endeavored to transfer his conceptions ;
not until he has pushed his way through the confusion
and misunderstandings of another man's mind, and has
tried to lodge his views in it ; does he know the full
significance and scope of even his own knowledge.

But especially is this action and re-action between
theology and sacred Rhetoric of the highest worth to the
preacher, because it results in a due mingling of the the-
oretic and the practical in his preaching. The desidera-
tum in a sermon is such an exact proportion between
doctrine and practice, such thorough fusion of these two
elements, that the discourse at once instructs and impels ;
and he who supplies this desideratum in his sermonizing,
is a powerful, influential, and eloquent, preacher. He
may lack many other minor things, but he has the main
thing ; and in time these other minor things shall all be
added unto him. In employing a Rhetoric that is at
once organizing and amplifying in its nature and influ-
ence, the theological discipline and culture of the preacher
are kept constantly growing and vigorous. Every sermon
that is composed on this method, sets the whole body of
his acquisitions into motion, and, like a bucket continu-
ally plunged down into a well and continually drawn up
full and dripping, aerates a mass that would otherwise
grow stagnant and putrid.

4. Fourthly and finally, the worth of a natural, as dis-
tinguished from an artificial. Rhetoric, is seen in the fact
that it is connected, most intimately, with the vital reli"
gion of the man and the preacher. For no Rhetoric can

108 THE CHARACTERISTICS AND

be organizing and vivifying, that is jiot itself organic and
alive. Only that which has in itself a living principle,
can communicate life. Only that which is itself vigor-
ous, can invigorate. The inmost essential principle,
therefore, of a Rhetoric that is to be employed in the ser-
vice of religion, must be this very religion itself: deep,
vital, piety in the soul of the sacred orator. Even the
pagan Cato, and the pagan Quinctilian after him, made
goodness, integrity and uprightness of character, the
foundation of eloquence in a secular sphere, and for se-
cular purposes. The orator, they said, is an upright
man, first of all an upright man^ who understands speak-
ing. How much more true then is it, that Christian
character is the font and origin of all Christian elo-
quence ; that the sacred orator is a holy man, first of all
a holy man, who understands speaking.

We shall not, surely, be suspected of wishing to un-
dervalue or disparage a department to which we propose
to consecrate our whole time and attention, and, there-
fore, we may with the more boldness say, that we have
always cheriohed a proper respect for that theory which
has been more in vogue in some other denominations
than in our own, that the preacher is to speak as the
spirit moves him. There is a great and solid truth at
the bottom of it, and though the theory unquestionably
does not need to be held up very particularly before an
uneducated ministry, we think there is comparatively lit-
tle danger in reminding the educated man, the man who
has been trained by the rules and maxims of a formal
and systematic discipline, that the spring of all his pow-
er, as a Christian preacher, is a living' spring-. It is well
for the sacred orator, who has passed through a long col-
legiate and professional training, and has been taught
sermonizing as an art, to be reminded that the living

IMPORTANCE OF A NATURAL RHETORIC. 109

principle, which is to render all this culture of use for
purposes of practical impression, is vital godliness ; that
he will be able to assimilate all this material of Christian
eloquence, only in proportion as he is a devout and holy-
man. Without this interior religious life in his soul, all
his resources of intellect, of memory, and of imagination,
will be unimpressive and ineffectual; the mere iron shields
and gold ornaments that crush the powerless Tarpeia.

For the first and indispensable thing in every instance
is power. Given an inward and living- power, and a
basis for motion, action, and impression, is given. In
every instance we come back to this ultimate point.
There is a theory among philosophers, that this hard,
material world, over which we stumble, and against
which we strike, is at bottom two forces or powers,
held in equilibrium ; that when we get back to the real-
ity of the hard and dull clod, upon which " the swain
treads with clouted shoon," we find it to be just as im-
material, just as mobile, just as nimble, and just as much
a living energy, as the soul of man itself. Whether this
be truth or not within the sphere of matter, one thing is
certain, that within the sphere of mind we are brought
back to forces, to fresh and living energies, in every in-
stance in which the human soul makes an eloquent im-
pression, or receives one. Examine an oration, secular
or sacred, that actually moved the minds of men, a
speech that obtained votes, or a sermon that, as we say,
saved souls, and you find the ultimate cause of this elo-
quence, so far as man is concerned, to be a vital power
in the orator. The same amount of instruction might
have been imparted, the same general style and diction
might have been employed in both cases, but if that elo-
quent power in the man had been wanting, there would

110 THE CHARACTERISTICS AND

have been no actuation of the hearer, and consequently
no eloquence.

It is, therefore a great and crowning excellence of the
Rhetorical method which we have been describing, that
its lowest and longest roots strike down into the Chris-
tian character itself. It does not propose or expect to
render the preacher eloquent without personal religion.
It tells him on the contrary, that although God is the
creator and sovereign of the human soul, and can there-
fore render the truth preached by an unregenerate man
and in the most unfeeling irreligious manner, effectual to
salvation, yet that the preacher .must expect to see men
moved by his discourses, only in proportion as he is him-
self a spiritually-minded, solemn, and devout man. Here
is the power^ and here is its hiding place, so far as the
finite agent is concerned. In that holy love of God and
of the human soul, which Christianity enjoins and pro-
duces ; in that religious affection of the soul which takes
its origin in the soul's regeneration ; the preacher is to
find the source of all his eloquence and impression as an
orator, just as much as of his usefulness and happiness
as a man and a Christian. Back to this last centre of
all, do we trace all that is genuine, and powerful, and
influential, in Pulpit Eloquence.

But by this is not meant merely that the preacher must
be a man of zealous and fervid emotions. There is a
species of eloquence, which springs out of easily excited
sensibilities, and which oftentimes produces a great sen-
sation in audiences of peculiar characteristics, and in
some particular moods. But this eloquence of the flesh
and the blood, without the brain ; this eloquence of the
animal, without the intellectual, spirits ; is very different
from that deep-toned, that solemn, that-commanding elo-
quence, which springs from the Ufe of God in the soul

IMPORTANCE OF A NATURAL RHETORIC. Ill

of man. We feel the difference, all men feel the differ-
ence, between the impression made by an ardent but su-
perficial emotion, and that made by a deep feeling ; by
the sustained, equable, and strong, pulsation of religious
affections, as distinguished from religious sensibilities.
When a man of the latter stamp feels, we know that he
feels upon good grounds and in reality; that this stir and
movement of the affections is central and all-pervading
in him ; that the eternal truth has taken hold of his emo-
tive nature, moving the whole of it, as the trees of the
wood are moved with the wind. It is this moral earnest-
ness of a man who habitually feels that religion is the
chief concern for mortals here below ; it is this profound
consciousness of the perfections of God and of the worth
of the human soul; which is the inmost principle of
sacred eloquence, the vis vivida vitce of the sacred orator.

^ have thus, as briefly as possible, exhibited the princi-
pal features of what is conceived to be a true method
in rhetorical instruction and discipline ; not because
they are new, or different from the views of the best
Rhetoricians of all ages, but merely to indicate the gen-
eral spirit in which I would hope, by the blessing of
God, to conduct the department of instruction commit-
ted to my care by the guardians of this Seminary. The
department of Sacred Rhetoric and Pastoral Theology is
one that, from the nature of the case, is not called upon
to impart very much positive information. Its function
is rather to induce an intellectual method, to form a
mental habit, to communicate a general spirit to the fu-
ture clergyman. It is, therefore, a department of grow-
ing importance in this country, and in the present state
of society and the Church. Perhaps the general tone
and temper of the clerical profession was never a matter

112 THE IMPORTANCE OF A NATURAL RHETORIC.

of more importance than now. The world, and this
country especially, is guided more and more by the gen-
eral tendencies of particular classes and professions. In
politics, a party or class, that really has a tendency, and
maintains it persistently for a length of time, is sure in
the end to draw large masses after it. In reforms, a
class that is pervaded by a distinctive spirit, which it
sedulously preserves and maintains, is sure of a wide in-
fluence, finally. In literature, or philosophy, or theology, a
school that has a marked and determined character of its
own, and keeps faith with it, will in the course of time
be rewarded for its self-consistency by an increase in
numbers and in power. In all these cases, and in all
other cases, the steady, continuous stream of a general
tendency sucks into its own volume all ^the float and
drift, and carries it along with it. And the eye of the
reflecting observer, a,«* it ranges over the ocean of Amer-
ican society, can see these currents and tendencies, as
plainly as the eye of the mariner sees the Gulf-stream.

How important, then, is any position which makes the
occupant to contribute to the formation of a general
spirit and temper, in so influential a class of men as the
clerical ! Well may such an one say. Who is sufficient
for this thing ? For myself, I should shrink altogether
from this toil, and this responsibility, did I not dare to
hope that the providence of that Being, who is the
sovereign controller of all tendencies and all movements
in the universe, has led me hither. In his strength would
I labor, and to Him would I reverently commend myself
and this institution.

THE NATURE, AND INFLUENCE, OF THE
HISTORIC SPIRIT.

AN INAUGURAL DISCOURSE DELIVERED IN ANDOYER THEOLOGICAL
SEMINARY, FEB. 15, 1854.

The purpose of an Inaugural Discourse is, to give a
correct and weighty impression of the importance of
some particular department of knowledge. Provided the
term be employed in the technical sense of Aristotle and
Quinctilian, the Inaugural is a demonstrative oration,
the aim of which is to justify the existence of a specific
professorship, and to magnify the specific discipline
which it imparts. It must, consequently, be the general
object of the present discourse to praise the department,
and recommend the study, of History.

As we enter upon the field which opens out before us,
we are bewildered by its immense expanse. The whole
hemisphere overwhelms the eye. The riches of the sub-
ject embarrass the discussion. For this science is the
most comprehensive of all departments of human knowl-
edge. In its unrestricted and broad signification, it in-
cludes all other branches of human inquiry. Everything
in existence has a history, though it may not have a phi-
losophy, or a poetry ; and, therefore, history covers and

10* (113)

114 THE NATURE, AND INFLUENCE, OF

pervades and enfolds all things as the atmosphere does
the globe. Its subject-matter is all that man has thought,
felt, and done, and the line of Schiller is true even if
taken in its literal sense : the final judgment is the his-
tory of the world.*

If it were desirable to bring the whole encyclopaedia of
human knowledge under a single term, certainly history
would be chosen ae the most comprehensive and elastic
of all. And if we consider the mental qualifications re-
quired for its production, the department whose nature
and claims we are considering, still upholds its superi-
ority, in regard to universality and comprehensiveness.
The historic talent is inclusive of all other talents. The
depth of the philosopher, the truthfulness and solemnity
of the theologian, the dramatic and imaginative power
of the poet, are all necessary to the perfect historian, and
would be found in him, at their height of excellence, did
such a being exist. For it has been truly said, that we
shall sooner see a perfect philosophy, or a perfect poem,
than a perfect history.

We shall, therefore, best succeed in imparting unity
to the discourse of an hour, and in making a single and,
therefore, stronger impression, by restraining that career
which the mind is tempted to make over the whole of
this ocean-like arena, and confining our attention to a
single theme.

It will be our purpose, then, to speak.

Firsts Of that peculiar spirit imparted to the mind of
an educated man, by historical studies, which may be
denominated the historic spirit ; and

Secondly^ Of its influence upon the theologian.

The historic spirit may be defined to be : the spirit of

♦ Resignation.

THE HISTORIC SPIRIT. J^ i^lil^

the race as distinguished from that of %e ^tidiyidu^l, and
of all time as distinguished fi*om that of

We here assume that the race is as much a~reality as
' the individual ; for this is not the time nor place, even if
the ability were possessed, to reopen and reargue that
great question which once divided the philosophic world
into two grand divisions. We assume the reality of
both ideas. We postulate the real and distinct, though
undivided, being of the common humanity and the par-
ticular individuality. We are unable, with the Nominal-
ist, to regard the former as the mere generalization of
the latter. The race is more than an aggregate of sepa-
rate individualities. History is more than a collection
of single biographies, as the national debt is more than
the sum of individual liabilities. Side by side, in one and
the same subject ; in every particular human person ; ex-
ist the common humanity with its universal instincts and
tendencies, and the individuality with its particular in-
terests and feelings. The two often come into conflict
with an earnestness, and at times in the epic of history
with a terrible grandeur, that indicates that neither of
them is an abstraction ; that both are solid with the sub-
stance of an actual being, and throb with the pulses of
an intense vitality.

The difference between history and biography involves
the distinct entity and reality of both the race and the
individual. Biography is the account of the peculiari-
ties of the single person disconnected from the species,
9nd is properly concerned only witli that which is char-
acteristic of him as an isolated individual. But that
which is national and philanthropic in his nature ; that
which* is social and political in his conduct and career ;
all that links him with his species and constitutes a part
of the development of man on the globe ; all this is his-

116 THE NATURE, AND INFLUENCE, OF

torical and not biographic. Speaking generally in or-
der to speak briefly, all that activity which springs up
out of the pure individualism of the person, makes up
the charm and entertainment of biography, and all that
activity which originates in the humanity of the person
furnishes the matter and the grandeur of history.

History, then, is the story of the race. It is the exhi-
bition of the common generic nature of man as this is
manifested in that great series of individuals which is
crowding on, one after another, like the waves of the sea,
through the ages and generations of time. The historic
muse omits and rejects everything in this march and
movement of human beings that is peculiar to them as
selfish units ; everything that has interest for the man,
but none for mankind ; and inscribes upon her tablet
only that which springs out of the common humanity,
and hence has interest for all men and all time.

History, therefore, is continuous in its nature. It is so
because its subject-matter is a continuity. This common
hutnan nature is in the process of continuous evolution,
and the wounded snake drags its slow length along down
the ages and generations. No single individual ; no single
age or generation ; no single nationality, however rich and
capacious ; shows the whole of man, and so puts a stop
to human development. The time will, indeed, come,
and the generation and the single man, will one day be,
in whom the entire exhibition will close. The number
of individuals in the human race is predetermined and
fixed by Him who sees the end from the beginning. But
until the end of the series comes, the development must
go on continuously, and the history of it, must be con-
tinuous also. It must be linked with all that has gone
before ; it must be linked with all that is yet to come.
As it requires the whole series of individuals, in order

THE HISTORIC SPIRIT.

117

to a complete manifestation of the species, so it requires
the whole series of ages and periods, in order to an
entire account of it.

But while history is thus continuous in its nature, par-
adoxical as it may appear, it is at the same time cmnplete
in its spirit. Observe that we are speaking of the ab-
stract and ideal character of the science ; of that quality
by which it differs from other branches of knowledge.
We are not speaking of any. one particular narrative that
has actually been composed, or of all put together. History
as actually written is not the account of a completed pro-
cess, because, as we have just said, the development is
still going on. Still, the tendency of the department is
to a conclusion. History looks to a winding up. We
may say of it, as Bacon says of unfulfilled prophecies :
" though not fulfilled punctually and at once, it hath a
springing and germinant accomplishment through many
ages." It contains and defines general tendencies ; it in-
timates, at every point of the line, a final consummation.
The historical processes that have actually taken place,
all point at, and join on upon, the future processes that
are to be homogeneous with them. That very con-
tinuity in the nature of this science, of which we have
spoken, results in this completeness, or tendency to a
conclusion, in its spirit. Like a growing plant, we know
what it will come to, though the growth is not ended.
For it is characteristic of an evolution, provided it is a
genuine one, that seize it when you will, and observe it
at any point you please, you virtually seize the whole ;
you observe it all. Each particular section of a develop-
ment, exhibits the qualities of the whole process, and the
organic part contemplated by itself throbs with the gen-
eral life. Hence it is that each particular history ; of a
nation, or an age, or a form of government, or a school

118 THE NATURE, AND INFLUENCE, OF

of philosophy, or a Christian doctrine ; when conceived
in the spirit of history, wears a finished aspect, and sounds
a full and fundamental tone. And hence the proverb :
man is the same in all ages, and history is the repetition
of the same lessons.

So universal and virtually complete in its spirit is this
science, that a distinguished modern philosopher has as-
serted that it may become a branch of a priori knowl-
edge, and that it actually does become such in propor-
tion as it becomes philosophic. Being the account, not
of a dislocation, but of a development, and this of one
race ; being the exhibition of the unfolding of one single
idea of the Divine mind ; the history of the world, he
contends, might be written beforehand by any mind that
is master of the idea lying at the bottom of it. The
whole course and career of the world, is predetermined
by its plan, and supposing thi^ to be known, the histo-
rian is more than " the prophet looking backward," as
Schlegel calls him ; he is the literal prophet. He does
not merely inferentially foretell, by looking back into the
past, but he sees the whole past and future simultaneously
present in the Divine idea of the world, of which by the
hypothesis he is perfectly possessed.

This philosopher believed in the possibility of such an
absolutely perfect and a priori history, because he taught
that the mind of man and the mind of God are one
universal mind, and that the entire knowledge of the one
may consequently be possessed by the other. While,
however, the philosopher erred fatally in supposing that
any being but God the Creator, can be thus perfectly
possessed of the organic idea of the world, or that man
can come into an approximate possession of it except as
it is revealed to him by the Supreme mind, in providence
and revelation, we must yet admit that the world is con-

THE HISTORIC SPIRIT. 119

structed according to such an idea or plan, and that for
this reason, coherence, completeness, and universality,
are the distinguishing characteristics of its development.
While, therefore, we deny that history as actually
written, or as it shall be, comes up to this absolute and
metaphysical perfection, it would be folly to deny that it
has made any approximation towards it, or that it will
make still more. So far as the account has been com-
posed under the guiding light of this divine idea, which
is manifesting itself in the affairs of men ; so far, in other
words, as it has been written in the light of providence
and revelation ; it has been composed with truth, and
depth, and power. Historians have been successful in
gathering the lessons and solving the problems of their
science in proportion as they have recognized a provi-
dential plan in the career of the world, and have had
some clear apprehension of it. The most successful par-
ticular narratives seem to be parts of a greater whole. —
They have an easy reference to general history ; evidently
belong to it ; evidently were written in its comprehensive
spirit and by its broad lights. So much does this science
abhor a scattering, isolating, and fragmentary, method of
treating the subject-matter belonging to it, that those
histories which have been composed without any historic
feeling; with no reference to the Divine plan and no
connection with the universe ; are the most dry and life-
less productions in literature. Disconnection, and the
absence of a unifying principle, are more marked, and
more painfully felt, in historical composition, than in any
other species of literature. Even when the account is
that of a brief period, or mere point, as it were, in univer-
sal space, the mind demands that it be rounded and
finished in itself; that it exhibit, in little, that same com-

120 THE NATURE, AND INFLUENCE, OF

plete and coherent process, which is going on more
grandly, on the wider arena of the world at large.

History, then, is the exhibition of the species. Its
lessons may be relied upon as the conclusions to which
the human race have come. In these historic lessons, the
narrowness of individual and local opinions has been
exchanged for the breadth and compass of public and
common sentiments. The errors to which the single
mind ; the isolated unit, as distinguished from the organic
unity ; is exposed, are corrected by the sceptical and criti-
cal processes of the general mind.

What, for illustration, is its teaching in regard to the
presence and relative proportions in a political constitu-
tion of the two opposite elements, permanence and pro-
gression? Will not the judgment, in -regard to this
vexed question, that is formed on historic grounds, be, to
say the least, safer and truer, than that formed upon the
scanty experience of an individual man ? Will not the
decision of one who has made up his mind after a
thoughtful study of the ancient tyrannies and republics
of Greece and Rome, of the republican states of Italy in
the middle ages, of the politics of Europe since the for-
mation pf its modern state-system, be nearer the real
truth than that of a pledged and zealous partisan, on either
side of the question ; than that of the ancient Cleon or
Coriolanus ; than that of the modern Rousseau or Filmer ?
And why will it be nearer the truth ? Not merely
because these men were earnest and zealous. Ardor
and zeal are well in their place. But because these
minds were individual and local ; because they were not
historic and general in views and opinions.

Take another illustration from the department of phi-
losophy. A great variety of theories have been projected
respecting the nature and operations of the human mind,

THE HISTORIC SPIRIT. 121

SO that it becomes difficult for the bewildered inquirer to
know which he shall adopt. But will he run the hazard
of fundamental error, if he assumes that that theory is
the truth, so far as truth has been reached in this domain,
which he finds substantially present in the philosophic
mind in all ages ? if he concludes that the historic phi-
losophy is the true philosophy ? And will it be safe for
the individual to set up in this department, or in the still
higher one of religion, doctrines which have either never
entered the human mind before, or, if they have, have
been only transient residents ?

The fact is, no one individual mind is capable of
accomplishing, alone and by itself, what the race is des-
tined to accomplish only in the slow revolution of its
cycle of existence. It is not by the thought of -any one
individual,, though he were as profound as Plato and as
intuitive as Shakspeare, that truth is to obtain an exhaus-
tive manifestation. The whole race is to try its power,
and, in the end, or rather at every point in the endless
career, is to acknowledge that the absolute is not yet
fully known ; that ihe knowledge of man is still at an
infinite distance from that of God. Much has been said,
and still is, of the spirit of the age ; and extravagant
expectations have been formed in regard to its insight
into truth and its power of applying it for the progress
of the species. But a single age is merely an individual
of larger growth. There is always something particular,
something local, something temporary, in every age, and
we must not look here for the generic and universal any
more than in the notions of the individual man. No age
is historic, in and by itself. Like the individual, it only
contributes its portion of investigation and opinion, to
the sum total of material which . is to undergo the test,
not of an age, but of the ages.

122 THE NATURE, AND INFLUENCE, OF

Considerations like these go to show, that there is in
that which is properly historic, nothing partial, nothing
defective, nothing one-sided. It is the individual which
has these characteristics ; and only in proportion as the
individual man becomes historic in his views, opinions
and impressions ; only as his culture takes on this large
and catholic spirit, does he become truly educated.- It is
the sentiment of mankind at large, it is the opinion of the
race, which is to be accepted as truth. When, therefore,
the mind of the student, in the course of its education, is
subjected to the full and legitimate influence of historical
studies, it is subjected to a rectifying influence. The
individual eye is purged, so that it sees through a crys-
talline medium. That darkening, distorting matter,
composing oftentimes the idiosyncracy rather than the
individuality of the intellect, is drained off".

Having thus briefly discussed the nature of the his-
toric spirit by a reference to the abstract nature of the
science itself, let us now seek to obtain a more concrete
and lively knowledge of it, by looking at some of its
actual influences upon the student. Let us specify some
of the characteristics of the historical mind.

I. In the first place, the historical mind is both reverent
and vigilant.

The study of all the past raises the intellect to a loftier
eminence than that occupied by the student of the present;
the man of the time. The vision of the latter is limited
by his own narrow horizon, while that of the former goes
round the globe. As a consequence, the historic mind is
impressed with the vastness of truth. It knows that it
is too vast to be all known by a single mind, or a single
age ; too immense *to be taken in at a single glance,
much less to be stated in a single proposition. Histori-
cal studies have, moreover, made it aware of the fact that

THE HISTORIC SPIRIT. 123

truth is modified by passing through a variety of minds ;
that each form taken by itself is imperfect, and that, in
some instances at least, all forms put together do not
constitute a perfect manifestation of the " daughter of
time." The posture and bearing of such a mind, there-
fore, towards all truth, be it human or divine, is at once
reverent and vigilant. It is seriously impressed by the
immensity of the field of knowledge, and at the same
time is adventurous and enterprising in ranging over it.
For it was when the human imagination was most
impressed by the vastness of the globe, that the spirit of
enterprise and adventure was most rife and successful.
Before the minds of Columbus and De Gama, before the
imagination of the Northmen and the early English
navigators, space stretched away westward and south-
ward like the spaces of astronomy, and was invested
with the awfuluess and grandeur of the spaces of the
Miltonic Pandaemonium. Yet this sense of space, this
mysterious consciousness of a vaster world, was the very
stimulation of the navigator; the direct cause of all
modern geographical discovery. The merely individual
mind, on the contrary, seeing but one form of truth, or,
at most, but one form at a time, is apt to take this
meagre exhibition for the full reality, and to suppose that
it has reached the summit of knowledge. It is self-satis-
fied and therefore irreverent. It is disposed to rest in
present acquisitions and therefore is neither vigilant nor
enterprising.

11. And this naturally suggests the second characteris-
tic of the historical mind : its productiveness and origi-
nality.

Such a mind is open to truth. The first condition to
the advancement of learning is fulfilled by it ; for it is
the fine remark of Bacon, that the kingdom of science,

124 THE NATURE, AND INFLUENCE, OF

like the kingdom of heaven, is open only to the child ;
only to the reverent, recipient, and docile, understanding.
Perhaps nothing contributes more to hinder the progress
of truth than self-satisfied ignorance of what the human
mind has already achieved. The age that isolates itself
from the rest of the race and settles down upon itself,
will accomplish but little towards the development of
man or of truth. The individual who neglects to make
himself acquainted with the history of men and of opin-
ions, though he may be an intense man within a very
narrow circumference, will make no real advance and no
new discoveries. Even the ardor and zealous energy,
often exhibited by such a mind, and, we may say, char-
acteristic of it, contribute rather to its growing ignorance,
than its growing enlightenment. For it is the ardor of a
mind exclusively occupied with its own peculiar notions.
Its zeal is begotten by individual peculiarities, and expen-
ded upon them. Having no humble sense of its own
limited ability, in comparison with the vastness of truth,
or even in comparison with the power of the universal
human mind, it closes itself against the great world of
the past, and, as a penalty for this, hears but few of the
deeper tones of the "many voiced present." In the
midst of colors it is blind ; in the midst of sounds it is
deaf.

That mind, on the contrary, which is imbued with the
enterprising spirit of history, contributes to the progress
of truth and knowledge among men, by entering into the
great process of inquiry and discovery which the race as
such has begun and is carrying on. It moves onward
with fellow-miuds, in the line of a preceding advance,
and consequently receives impulse from all the movement
and momentum of the past. It joins on upon the truth
which has actually been unfolded, and is thereby enabled

THE HISTORIC SPIRIT. 125

to make a positive and valuable addition to the existing
knowledge of the human race.

For the educated man, above all men, should see and
constantly remember, that progress in the intellectual
world, does not imply the discoYeryol truth, absolutely new;
of truth of which the human mind never had even
an intimation before, and which came into it by a mortal
leap, abrupt and startling, without antecedents and with-
out premonitions. This would be rather of the nature
of a Divine revelation than of a human discovery. A
revelation from God is different in kind from a discovery
of the human reason. It comes down from another
sphere, from another mind, than that of man ; and,
although it is conformed to the wants of the human race,
can by no means be regarded as a natural development
out of it ; as a merely historical process, like the origina-
tion of a new form of government, or a new school of
philosophy. A discovery of the human mind, on the
contrary, is to be regarded as the pure, spontaneous, pro-
duct of the human mind ; as one fold in its unfolding.

It follows, consequently, that progress in human knowl-
edge, progress in the development of human reason, does
not imply the origination of truth absolutely and in all
respects unknown before. The human mind has pre-
sentiments ; dim intimations ; which thicken all along
the track of human history like the hazy belt of the
galaxy among the clear, sparkling, mapped, stars. These
presentiments are a species and a grade of knowledge. —
They are not distinct and stated knowledge, it is true,
but they are by no means blank ignorance. The nebulae
are visible, though not yet resolved. Especially is this
true in regard to the mind of the race ; the general and
historic mind. How often, is the general mind restless
and uneasy with the dim anticipation of the future dis-

126 THE NATURE, AND INFLUENCE, OP

covery ? This unrest, with its involved longing, and its
potential knowledge, comes to its height, it is true, in
the mind of some one individual who is most in posses-
sion of the spirit of his time, and who is selected by-
Providence as the immediate instrument of the actual
and stated discovery. But such an one is only the
secondary cause of an effect, whose first cause lies lower
down and more abroad. There were Reformers before
the Reformation. Luther articulated himself upon a
process that had already begun in the Christian church,
and ministered to a want, and a very intelligent want
too, that was already in existence. Columbus shared in
the enterprising spirit of his time, and differed in degree,
and not in kind, from the bold navigators among whom
he was born and bred. That vision of the new world
from the shores of old Spain ; that presentiment of the
existence of another continent beyond the deep ; a pre-
sentiment so strong as almost to justify the poetic
extravagance of Schiller's sonnet,* in which he says, that
the boding mind of the mariner would have created a
continent, if there had been none in the trackless West
to meet his anticipation ; that prophetic sentiment, Co-
lumbus possessed, not as an isolated individual, but as a
man who had grown up with his age and into his age ;
whose teeming mind had been informed by the traditions
of history, and whose active imagination had been fired
by the strange narratives of anterior and contempora-
neous navigation.

Another proof of the position that the individual mind
owes much of its inventiveness and originality to its
ability to join on upon the invention and origination
already in existence, is found in the fact, that some of

* Columbus.

THE HISTORIC SPIRIT. 127

the most marked discoveries ' in science have occurred
simultaneously to different minds. The dispute between
the adherents of Newtoflf and Leibnitz respecting prior-
ity of discovery in the science of Fluxions, is hardly yet
settled ; but the candid mind on either side will acknowl-
edge that, be the mere matter of priority of detailed dis-
covery and publication as it may, neither of these great
minds was a servile plagiary. The Englishman, in re-
gard to the German, thought alone and by himself; and
the German, in regard to the Englishman, thought alone
and by himself. But both thought in the light of past
discoveries, and of all then existing mathematical knowl-
edge. Both were under the laws and impulse of the
general scientific mind, as that mind had manifested
itself historically in preceding discoveries, and was
now using them both as its organ of investigation and
medium of distinct announced discovery. The dispute
between the English and French chemists, respecting
the comparative merits of Black and Lavoisier, is still
kept up ; but here, too, candor must acknowledge that
both were original investigators, and that an earlier death
of either would not have prevented the discovery.

Now in both of these»instances the minds of individ-
uals had been set upon the trail of the new discovery by
history ; by a knowledge of the then present state and
wants of science. They had kept up with the develop-
ment of science ; they knew what had actually been
achieved ; they saw what was still needed. They felt
the wants of science, and these felt wants were dim an-
ticipations of the supply, and finally led to it. It was
because Newton' and Leibnitz both labored in a historical
line of direction, that they labored in the same line, and
came to the same result, each of and by himself. For
this historical basis for inquiry and discovery is common

128 THE NATURE, AND INFLUENCE, OF

to all. And as there is but one truth to be discovered,
and but one high and royal road to it, it is not surpris-
ing that often several minds should reach the goal sim-
ultaneously.

A striking instance of the productive power imparted
to the individual mind by its taking the central position
of history, is seen in the department of philosophy. In
this department it is simply impossible, for the individ-
ual thinker to make any advance unless he first make
himself acquainted with what the human mind has al-
ready accomplished in this sphere of investigation. With-
out some adequate knowledge of the course which phi-
losophic thought has already taken, the individual in-
quirer in this oceanic region is all afloat. He does not
even know where to begin, because he knows not where
others have left off; and the system of such a philoso-
pher, if it contain truth, is most commonly but the dry
repetition of some previous system. Originality and
true progress here, as elsewhere, are impossible without
history. Only when the individual has made his mind
historic by working his way into that great main current
of philosophic thought, which may be traced from Py-
thagoras to Plato and Aristotle, from Aristotle to the
Schoolmen, and from the Schoolmen to Bacon and
Kant, and moving onward with it up to the point where
the next stage of true progress and normal development
is to join on ; only when he has thus found the proper
point of departure in the present state of the science, is
he prepared to depart, and to move forward on the
straight but limitless line of philosophic inquiry. It is
for this reason that the speculative systems of Germany
exhibit such productiveness and originality. Whatever
opinion may be held respecting the correctness of the
Germanic mind in this department, no one can deny its

THE HISTORIC SPIRIT. 129

fertility. The Teutonic philosopher first prepares for the
appearance of his system, by a history of philosophy in
the past, and then aims to make his own system the
crown and completion of the entire historic process ; the
last link of the long chain. It is true that, in every in-
stance thus far in the movement of this philosophy, the
intended last link has only served as the support of an-
other and still other links, yet only in this way of historic
preparation could such a productive method of philoso-
phizing have been attained. Only from the position of
history, even though it be falsely conceived, can the spec-
ulative reason construct new and original systems.

A good illustration of the defectiveness which must
attach to a system of philosophy, when it is not conceiv-
ed and constructed in the light of the history of philoso-
phy, is &een in the so-called Scotch school. A candid
mind must admit that the spirit and general aim of this
system was sound and correct. It was a reaction against
the sensual school, especially as that system- had been
run out to its logical extreme in France. It recognized
and made much of first truths, and that faculty of the
mind which the ablest teacher of this school loosely de-
nominated Common Sense, and still more loosely defin-
ed, was unquestionably meant to be a power higher than
that which "judges according to sense." But it was not
an original system, in the sense of grasping with a
stronger and more scientific grasp than had ever been
done before, upon the standing problems of philosophy.
It is true that it addressed itself to the solution of the
old problems, in the main, in the right spirit and from a
deep interest in the truth, but it did not go low enough
down, and did not get near enough to the heart of
the difficulty, to constitute it an original and powerful
Bystem of speculation. Its greatest defect is the lack of

130 THE NATURE, AND INFLUENCE, OF

a scientific spirit, which is indicated in the fact that,
although it has exerted a wide influence upon the popu-
lar mind, it has exerted but Httle influence upon the phi-
losophic mind, either of Great Britain or the Continent.
And this defect is to be traced chiefly to the lack of
an extensive and profound knowledge of the history of
philosophic speculation. The individual mind, in this
instance, attempted a refutation of the acute arguments
of scepticism, without much knowledge of the previous
developments of the sceptical understanding and the
counter-statements of true philosophy. A comprehen-
sive and reproductive study of the ancient Grecian philo-
sophies, together with the more elaborate and profound
of the modern systems, would *have been a preparatory
discipline for the Scottish reason that would have armed
it with a far more scientific and original power. Its
aim, in the first place, would have been higher, because
its sense of the difficulty to be overcome would have
been far more just and adequate. With more knowledge
of what the human intellect had already accomplished,
both on the side of truth and of error, its reflection would
have been more profound ; its point of view more cen-
tral ; its distinctions and definitions more philosophical
and scientific ; and its refutations more conclusive and
unanswerable.*

* This deficiency in scientific character, in the Scotch philosophy, is felt
by its present and ab'est defender, Sir William Hamilton. More deeply
imbued with the spirit of the department than either Reid or Stewart was,
l)ecause of a wider and more thorough sciiolarship than either of them pos-
sessed, he has been laboring to give it what it lacks. But it is more than
doulMful whether any mind that denies the possibility of meta|ihysic-8 as
dislin^uisiied fion) psychology, will be able to do much towards imparting
a necesmry and scientific character either to philosophy generally, or to a
system wliich is popular rather than philosophic, in its foundations and su-
perstructure.

THE HISTORIC SPIRIT. 131

■ Thus we might examine all the departments of hu-
man knowledge, singly by themselves, and we should
find that, in regard to each of them, the individual mind
is made at once recipient and original by the preparatory
discipline of historical studies and the possession of the
historic spirit. Even in the domain of Literature and
Fine Art, the mind that keeps up with the progress of
the nation or the race ; the mind that is able to go along
with the great process of national or human development
in this department ; is the original and originant mind.
Although in Poetry and Fine Art, freshness and original-
ity seem to depend more upon the impulse of individual
genius and less upon the general movement of the na-
tional or the universal fnind, yet here, too, it is a fact,
that the founders of particular schools ; we mean schools
of eminent and historic merit ; have been men of exten-
sive study, and liberal, universal sympathies. The great
masters of the several schools of Italian Art, were dili-
gent students of the Antique, and had minds open to
truth and nature in all the schools that preceded them.
They, moreover, cherished a historic feeling%nd spirit, by
a most intimate and general intercourse with each other.
The earnest rivalry that prevailed, sprung up from a
close study of each other's productions. The view which
Cellini presents us of the relations of the Italian artists
to each other, and of the general spirit that prevailed
among them, shows that there was very little that was
bigoted and individual in those minds so remarkable for
originality and productiveness within their own sphere.

A very fine and instructive illustration of the truth we
are endeavoring to establish, is found in the department
of literature in the poet Wordsworth. This man was a
student He cultivated the poetic faculty within him as
sedulously as Newton cultivated the scientific genius

132 THE NATURE, AND INFLUENCE, OF

wdthin him. He retired up into the mountains, when he
had once determined to make poetry the aim of his lite-
rary life, and by the thoughtful perusal of the English
poets, as much as by his brooding contemplation of ex-
ternal nature, enlarged and strengthened his poetic power.
By familiarizing himself with the spirit and principle,
the inward history^ of English poetry, he became largely
imbued with the national spirit. And he was thorough
in this course of study. He not only devoted himself to
the works of the first English poets, the Chancers, Spen-
sers, Shakspeares and Miltons; but he patiently studied
the productions of the second class, so much neglected
by Englishmen, the Draytons, the Daniels, and the
Donnes. The works of these latter are not distinguished
for passion in sentiment or beauty in form, but they are
remarkable for that thoroughly English property, thought-
ful sterling sense. Wordsworth was undoubtedly at-
tracted to these poets, not merely because he believed,
with that most philosophic of English critics who was
his friend and contemporary, that good sense is the body
of poetry, bilf because he saw that an acquaintance with
them was necessary to a thorough knowledge of Eng-
lish poetry considered as a historic process of develop-
ment, as one phase of the English mind. For, although a
poem like the Polyolbion of Drayton can by no means
be put into the first class with the Faery Queen of
Spenser, it yet contains more of the English temper, and
exhibits more of the flesh and muscle of the native mind.
These writers Wordsworth had patiently studied, as is
indicated by that vein of strong sense which runs like a
muscular cord through the more light and airy texture
of his musings. It was because of this historical train-
ing as a poet, that Wordsworth's poetry breathes a far
loftier and ampler spirit than it would have done had it

THE HISTORIC SPIRIT. 133

been like that of Byron, for example, the product of an
intense, but ignorant and narrow, individualism. And
it was also because of this training, that Wordsworth,
while preserving as original an individuality, certainly, as
any writer of his time, acquired a mu^h more national
and universal poetic spirit than any of his contemporaries,
and was the most productive poet of his age.

The result, then, of the discussion of the subject un-
der this head is, that the individual mind acquires power
of discernment and power of statement only by enter-
ing into a process already going on ; into the great main
movement of the common human mind. In no way can
the educated man become genially recipient, and at the
same time richly producftive, but by a profound study of
the development which truth has already attained in the
history of man and the world.

III. The third characteristic of the historical mind is
its union of moderation and enthusiasm.

One of the most distinct and impressive teachings of
history is, that not every opinion which springs up and has
currency in a particular age, is true for all time. History
records the rrse and great popularity, for a while, of ma-
ny a theory which succeeding ages have consigned to
oblivion, and which has exerted no permanent influence
upon human progress. There always are, among the
opinions and theories prevalent in any particular period,
some, and perhaps many, that have not truth enough in
them to preserve them. And yet these may be the very
ones that seize upon the individual and local mind with
most violence and most immediate effect. Because they
are partial and narrow, they>for this reason grasp the
popular mind more fiercely and violently. Were they
broader and more universal in their character, their im-
mediate influence might be less visible, because it would

134 THE NATURE, AND INFLUENCE, OF

extend over a far wider surface, and go down to a much
lower depth. A blow upon a single point makes a deep
dint, but displaces very few particles of matter, while a
steady heavy pressure over the whole surface, changes
the position of every atom, with but little superficial
change.

The proper posture, therefore, of the individual mind,
and, especially, of the educated mind, towards the current
opinions of the age in which he lives, is, that of modera-
tion. The educated man should keep his mind equable,
and, in some degree, aloof from passing views and theo-
ries. He ought not to allow theories that have just come
into existence to seize upon his understanding with all
that assault and onset with which they take captive the
uneducated, and, especially, the unhistoric mind. Of
what use are the teachings of history if they do not serve
to render the mind prudently distrustful in regard to new-
born opinions, at the same time that they throw it wide
open and fill it with a strong confidence towards all that
has historically proved itself to be true ? Is it for the
cultivated man, the man of broad and general views, to
throw himself without reserve and with all his weight,
into what, for aught he yet knows, may be only a cross-
current and eddy, instead of the main stream of truth ?

Now it is only by the possession of a historic spirit
that the individual can keep himself sufficiently above
the course of things about him, to enable him to judge
correctly concerning them. Knowing what the human
mind has already accomplished in a particular direction,
in art or science, in philosophy or religion, he very soon
sees whether the particular movement of the time in any
one of these directions, will or will not coincide with' the
preceding movement and be concurrent with it. He
occupies a height, a vantage ground, by virtue of his

THE HISTORIC SPIRIT. 135

extensive historical knowledge, and he stands upon it,
not with the tremor and fervor of a partisan, but with
the calmness and insight of a judge. Suppose the activ-
ity of an age, or of an individual, manifests itself in the
production of a new theory in religion, of some new
statement of Christian doctrine, the mind that is well
versed in the history of the Christian church, and of
Christian doctrine, will very quickly see whether the
new joins on upon the old ; whether it is an advance in
the line of progress or a deviation from it. And his
attitude will be accordingly. He will not be led astray
with the multitude or even with the age. Through all
the fervor and zeal of the period, he will preserve a mod-
erate and temperate tone of mind ; committing himself
to current opinions no faster than he sees they will
amalgamate with the truth which the human mind has
already and confessedly discovered in past ages ; with
historic truth.

This moderation in adopting and maintaining current
opinions is an infallible characteristic of a true scholar,
of a ripe culture. And it is the fruit of that criticism and
scepticism which is generated by historical study. For
it is one of the effects of such studies to render the mind
critical and sceptical ; not, indeed, in respect to truth that
has stood the test of time, but to truth that has just made
its appearance. It would be untrue to say that the study
of history genders absolute doubt and unbelief in the
mind ; that it tends generally and by its very nature to
unsettle faith in the good and the true. This would be
the case if there were no truth in the science ; if it were
substantially the record of dissension and disagreement ;
if, above the din and uproar of discordant voices, one
clear and clarion-like voice did not make itself heard as
the voice of universal history. We are all familiar with

136 THE NATURE, AND INFLUENCE, OF

the story told of Raleigh, who is said to have destroyed
the unpublished half of his work, because of several
persons who professed to describe an occurrence in the
Tower Court, which he had also witnessed from his
prison window, each gave a different version of it, and
his own differed from theirs. But history is not thus
uncertain and unreliable. It teaches but one lesson. It
reveals but one truth. Down through the ages and
generations it traces one straight line, and in this one
line of direction lies truth, and out of it lies error. Its
record of the successes and triumphs of truth certainly
teaches a correct lesson, and its record of the successes
and triumphs of error is but the dark background from
which truth stands out in still more bold and impressive
reality. Whatever may be the case with particular
accounts by particular individuals, the main current of
this science runs in one direction, and its great lesson is
in favor of truth and righteousness.

Not, then, towards well-tried and well-established truth,
but towards apparent and newly-discovered truth, does
history engender criticism and scepticism. The past is
secure. That which has verified itself by the lapse of
time, and the course of experiment, and the sifting of
investigation, is commended as absolute and universal
truth to the individual mind, q.y\^ history bids it to
believe and doubt not. But that which is current merely ;
that which in the novelty and youth of its existence is
carrying all men away ; must stand trial, must be brought
to test, as all its predecessors have been. Towards the
opinions and theories of the present, so far as they vary
from those of the past, the historical mind is inquisitive,
and critical, and sceptical, not for the purpose, be it
remembered, of proving them to be false, but with the
generous hope of evincing them to be true. For the

THE HISTORIC SPIRIT. 137

scepticism of history is very different from scepticism in
religion. The latter is always in some way biassed and
interested. It springs out of a desire, conscious or uncon-
scious, to overthrow that which the general mind has
found to be true, and is resting in as truth. Scepticism
in religion has always been in the minority ; at war with
the received opinions of the race, and consequently with
all that is historic. There never was an individual scep-
tic, from Pyrrho to Strauss, who was not unhistorical ;
who did not take his stand outside of the great travelled
road of human opinion ; who did not try to disturb the
human race in the possession of opinions that had come
down from the beginning, besides having all the instincts
of reason to corroborate them. But the scepticism of
history has no desire to overthrow any opinion that has
verified itself in the course of ages, and been organically
assimilated, in the course of human development. All
such opinion and all such truth constitutes the very sub-
stance of the science itself ; its very vitality and charm
for the human tnind; and, therefore, can never be the
object of doubt or attack for genuine historic scepticism.
On the contrary, these sifting and critical methods have
no other end or aim but to make a real addition to the
existing stock of well-ascertained truth, and to prevent
any erroneous opinion or theory from going into this
sum-total, and thus receiving the sterling stamp and
endorsement. This criticism and scepticism is simply
for self-protection. These sceptical and sifting processes
are gone through with, to preserve an all-sided science
pure from the individual, the local, and the temporary,
and to keep it universal and absolute in its contents and
spirit.

Now it might seem at first glance, that this modera-
tion of mind towards current opinions would preclude all

12*

138 THE NATURE, AND INFLUENCE, OF

earnestness and enthusiasm in the educated man ; thai
the historic spirit must necessarily be cold and phlegma-
tic. It might seem that it would be impossible for siich
a mind to take an active and vigorous interest in the
age in which it lived, and that it would be out of its
element amid the stir and motion going on all around it.
This is substantially the objection which the half-educat-
ed disciple of the present brings against history and his-
torical views and opinions.

But this is a view that is false from defect ; from not
containing the whole truth. It arises from not taking
the full idea of the science into the mind. This idea,
like all strictly so-called ideas, contains two opposite?,
which, to the superficial glance, look like irreconcilable
contraries, but to a deeper and more adequate intuition,
are not only perfectly reconcilable, but are opposites in
whose conciliation consists the vitality and fertility of
the idea, and of the science founded upOn it. History,
as we have seen, is both continuous and complete ; and
continuity and completeness are opposite conceptions. —
It is, in the first place, the record of a development that
must unintermittently go on, and cannot cease, until the
final consummation. And it is, in the second place,
complete in its spirit, because at every point in the con-
tinuous process there are indications of the consumma-
tion ; tendencies to an ultimate end. No part of history
is irrelative. Even when it is but the account of a par-
ticular period, a small section of the great historic process,
it exhibits this complete and universal spirit by clinging
to what precedes and pointing to what succeeds ; by its
large discourse of reason looking before and after. But
the objector does not reconcile these opposites in his
own mind ; he does not take this comprehensive and full
view of the subject. "Whether he acknowledges it or not,

THE HISTORIC SPIRIT. 139

his view really is, that the many several ages of which
history takes cognizance, have no inward connection with
each other, nor any common tendency, and consequently
that the whole entire past, in relation to the present, is a
nonentity. It is gone, with all that it was and did, into
" the dark backward and abysm " of time, and the present
age, like every other, starts independent and alone upon
its particular mission. His view of history is atomic. —
On his theory, there is no such thing as either connected
evolution or explanatory termination, in the course of the
world. There is no human race, no common humanity,
to be manifested in the millions of individuals, and the
multitudes of ages and epochs. On this theory, there is
and can be nothing in the past, in which the present has
any vital interest; nothing in the past which has any
authority for the present ; nothing in the past which con-
stitutes the root of the present, and nothing in the present
which constitutes the germ of the future. History, on
this theory, has no principle ; no organization. It is a
mere catalogue of events ; a mere list of occurrences.

It is because the imperfectly educated disciple of the
present, really takes this view, that he asserts that his-
toric views and opinions are deadening in their influence
upon the mind, and that the historic spirit is a lifeless
spirit. If he believed in a living concatenation of events
and a vital propagation of influences, he would not say
that that which is truly historical, is virtually dead and
buried. If he believed that no one age, any more than
any one individual, contains the whole of human devel-
opment within itself, but is only one fold of the great
unfolding, he would suspect, at least, that there might be
elements in the past so assimilated and wrought into the
history of universal man that they are matters of living
interest for every present age. If he believed that truth

140 THE NATURE, AND INFLUENCE, OP

is reached only by the successive and consentaneous
endeavors of many individual minds, each making use
of all the labors of its predecessors, and each taking up
the standing problem where its predecessors had dropped
it ; if the too zealous disciple of the present believed that
truth is thus reached only by the efforts of the race ; of
the universal mind in distinction from the individual ; he
would find life all along the line of human history ; he
would see that in taking into his mind a historic view or
opinion he was lodging there the highest intensity of
mental life ; the very purest and densest reason of the
race.

Instead, therefore, of being cold, phlegmatical and life-
less, the historical mind is really the only truly living and
enthusiastic mind. It is the only mind that is in com-
munication. It is the only mind that is not isolated. —
And in the mental world, intercommunication is not
more necessary to a vital process, and isolation or break-
ing off is not more destructive of a vital process, than in
the world of nature. That zeal, begotten by the narrow
views of an individual, or a locality, or an age, which the
unhistorical mind exhibits, is an altogether different thing
from the enthusiasm of a spirit enlarged, educated, and
liberalized, by an acquaintance with all ages and opin-
ions. Enthusiasm springs out of the contemplation of a
whole ; zeal from the examination of a part. And there
is no surer test and sign of intellectual vitality than
enthusiasm ; that deep and sustained interest which is
grounded in the broad views and profound intuitions of
history.

But while the well-read student of history preserves a '
wise and cautious moderation, in the outset, towards
current opinions, yet, because of this genial and enthusi-
astic interest in the truth which the human mind has

THE HISTORIC SPIRIT. 141

actually and without dispute arrived at, he in the end
comes to take all the interest in the views and theories
of the present, which they really deserve. The historical
mind does no ultimate injustice. So far and so fast as
it finds that the new movement of the present age is a
natural continuation of the unfinished development of
the past, does he acknowledge it as a step in advance,
and receives the new element into his mind and into his
culture with all the enthusiasm and all the feeling with
which he adopts the great historic systems of antiquity.
In this way the historical mind is actually more truly
alive and interested even in relation to the present, than
the man of the present. It appreciates the real excel-
lence of the time more intelligently and profoundly, and
it certainly has a far more inspiriting view of the connec-
tion of this excellence with the excellence that has pre-
ceded it, and which is the root of it. How much more
inspiring and enlivening is that vision which sees the
progress of the present linked to that of all the past, and
contr'buting to make up that long line of development
extending through the whole career of the human species,
than that vision which sees but one thing at a time, and
does not even know that it has any living references, or
any organic connections whatever !

As an exemplification of the preceding remarks, con-
template for a moment the historian Niebuhr. His
was a genuinely historical mind. He conceived and con-
structed in Hie true spirit of history. He always viewed
events in the light of the organization by which they
were shaped and of which they were elementary parts.
He saw by a native sagacity, in which respect he never
had a superior, the idea lying at the bottom of a histori-
cal process ; such, for example, as the separate founda-
tion of the city of Rome ; the rise and formation of the

142 THE NATURE, AND INFLUENCE, OF

Roman population ; the growth and consolidation of the
plebeians ; and built up his account of it, out of it and
upon it. His written history thus corresponds with a
fresh and vital correspondence with the actual history ;*
with the living process itself. In this way he reproduced
human life in his pages, and the student is carried along
through the series with all the interest and charm of an
actor in it. So sagacious was his intuition that, although
two thousand years further off from them in time, he has
unquestionably so reconstructed the very facts of the
early history of Rome, as to bring them nearer the actual
matter of fact, than they appear in the legendary pages
of Livy. It was the habit of his mind, both by nature
and by an acquisition as minute as it was vast, to look
at human life as an indivisible process, and to connect
together all the ages, empires, civilizations, and literatures,
of the secular world by the bond of a common develop-
ment ; thus organizing the immense amount of material
contained in human history into a complete and symme-
trical whole.

But slow and sequacious as the movements of such an
organizing and thoroughly historic mind were, and must
be from the nature of the case, we do not hesitate to
affirm that the historian Niebuhr was one of the most
vividly alive ancl profoundly enthusiastic minds in all
literary history. He was not spared to complete his
great work as it lay in him to have done, and as he
would have done, immense as it was, had h^ lived to the
appointed age of man. He left it a fragment. He left
it a Torso which no man can complete. But from that
fragment has gushed, as from many living centres, all
the life and'power not only of Roman history, but of his-
tory generally, since his day. It gave an impulse to this
whole department which it still continues to feel, besides

THE HISTORIC SPIRIT. 143

reproducing itself in particular schools and particular in-
dividuals. It is the work which more than any other
one production, shaped the opinions of the most vigorous
and enthusiastic of English historians, the late Dr. Ar-
nold. And that serious spirit which we find in the sci-
ence itself since the days of Niebuhr, when compared
with the moral indifference characterizing it before his
day and to a great extent during his day, is to be traced
to his reverent recognition of a personal Deity in history,
and his deep belief in the freedom and accountability of
man.

But the man himself, as well as his works, was full of
life, and he showed it nowhere more plainly than in his
direct address to the minds of his pupils. " When he
spoke," says one of them, " it always appeared as if the
rapidity with which the thoughts occurred to him, ob-
structed his power of communicating them in regular
order or succession. Nearly all his sentences, therefore,
were anacoluths ; for, before having finished one, he be-
gan another, perpetually mixing up one thought with an-
other, without producing any one in its complete form.
This peculiarity was more particularly striking when he
was laboring under any mental excitement, which occur-
red the oftener, as, with his great sensitiveness, he felt
that warmth of interest in treating of the history of past
ages, which we are accustomed to witness only in dis-
cussions on the political affairs of our own time and
country." The writer, after speaking of the difficulty of
following him, owing to his rapid, and it should be ad-
ded, entirely extemporaneous delivery (for he spoke with-
out a scrap of paper before him), remarks, that " notwith-
standing this deficiency of Niebuhr as a lecturer, there
was an indescribable charm in the manner in which he
treated his subject ; the warmth of his feelings, the symr

144 THE NATURE, AND INFLUENCE, OF

pathy which he felt with the persons and things he was
speaking of, his strong conviction of the truth of what
he was saying, his earnestness, and, above all, the vivid-
ness with which he conceived and described the charac-
ters of the most prominent men, who were to him living
realities, with souls, feelings and passions like ourselves,
carried his hearers away, and produced effects which are
usually the results only of the most powerful oratory.*"

How different from all this is the impression which we
receive from the mind of one who, notwithstanding his
great defects, must yet thus far be regarded as the first of
English historians ; from the mind of Gibbon. After a
candid and full allowance of the ability of that mind and
the great value of the History of the Decline and Fall of
Rome, it must yet be said that it was not a vivid and
vital mind, nor is its product. The autobiography of
Gibbon, indeed, exhibits considerable native liveliness,
but the perusal of his history does not even suggest the
existence of such qualities as earnestness and enthusiasm.
One is disposed to conclude from the picture which he
gives of himself, that the historian had been endowed by
his Maker with a more than average share of mental
freshness and vitality, and most certainly if there had
been in exercise enough of this quality ; enough of the vis
vivida vitcc; to have vivified his immense well-selected and
well-arranged material, he would have approximated near-
er than he has to the ideal of historical composition. But
there was not, and, therefore, it is, that, throughout the
whole of this great work, there reigns, so far as the hu-
man and moral interest of history is concerned, so far
ds all its higher religious problems are concerned, an ut-
ter sluggishness, apathy, and lifelessness ; an apathy and

* Dr. Lconhard Schmitz. Preface to Vol. IV. of Niebulir's Rome.

0 THE HISTORIC SPIRIT. 145

lifelessness as deep, unvarying, and monotonous, as if the
foices of the period he described, the principles of decline
and decay, had passed over into his own understanding
and riiade it the theatre of their operations. We doubt
whether there is another work in any literature whatever,
possessing so many substantial excellences, and yet char-
acterized by such a total destitution of glowing inspira-
tion and earnest enthusiasm, as Ihe History of the De-
cline and Fall of the Roman Empire.

The explanation of this fact will corroborate the truth
of the position, that the genuinely historic mind is the only
truly living and enthusiastic mind. Though nominally
a historian. Gibbon was really utterly unhistorical in his
spirit. 'His religious scepticism, besides paralyzing what-
ever natural vigor and earnestness of conception may have
originally belonged to him, made it impossible for him to
regard the processes of human life as so many parts of one
grand plan of the world formed by one supreme presiding
mind. History for him, consequently, had no organization
and no moral significance. It was, therefore, strictly speak-
ing, no history at all for him ; no course of development
with a divine plan at the bottom of it and a divine pur-
pose at the termination of it. It was neither continuous in
its nature, nor complete in its spirit and tendency. Every-
thing that occurred in the world at large, or among a
particular people, was for his mind irreferent, discontinu-
ous, and sporadic. Not only did he fail to connect the
History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
with the general history of the race, or even with the
general history of Rome, by exhibiting it in its relation
to its antecedents and consequents, but he failed even to
detect the historic principle lying at the bottom of the
particular period itself. The great moral and political
causes of the decline and fsdl of the Roman empire, do
13

146 THE NATURE, AND INFLUENCE, OF %

not stand out in bold and striking relief from the im
mense erudition and imposing rhetoric of that work.
The reflecting reader, at the close of its perusal, feels the
need of something more than a scenic representation of
the period; something more than the pomp of a panora-
ma ; in order to a knowledge of the deep ground of all this
decUne and decay. He needs, in short, what Gibbon
does not furnish, more of the philosophy of that organic
decline, drawn from a profounder view of the nature
of man and of human life, united with a deeper insight
into the radical defect in the political constitution of the
Koman empire; into that germ of corruption which came
into existence immediately after the subjugation of the
Italian tribes was completed, and in which the entire
millennium of decline and decay lay coiled up.

We have thus far discussed the nature of the historic
spirit on general grounds. We have mentioned only
those general characteristics which are matters of inter-
est to every cultivated mind ; having reference chiefly to
secular history and general education. We have now to
speak of the importance of this spirit to the theologian,
and must, therefore, discuss its more special nature, with
a prevailing reference to Ecclesiastical History and Theo-
logical Education.

Before proceeding to the treatment of this part of the
subject, it seems necessary to direct attention, for a mo-
ment, to the distinguishing difference between Secular
and Church history.

Our Lord, in the most distinct manner, and repeatedly,
affirms that His kingdom is not of this world. Through-
out the Scriptures the church and the world are opposed
to each other as direct contraries, mutually exclusive and
expulsive of each other, so that " all that is in the world is
not of the Father, but is of the world." There are, therefore,

THE HISTORIC SPIRIT. 147

two kingdoms, two courses of development, two histo-
ries, in the universal history of man on the globe. There
is the account of the natural and spontaneous develop-
ment of human nature as left tg itself, guided only by
the dictates of finite reason and impelled by the determi-
nation of the free, but fallen, human will, and the im-
pulses of human passion. And there is the history of
that supernatural and gracious development of human
nature which has been begun and carried forward by
means of a revelation from the Divine Mind made effec-
tual by the direct efficiency of the Divine Spirit. The
fact of sin, and the fact of redemption, constitute the
substance of that great historic process which is involv-
ed in the origin, growth and final triumph of the Chris-
tian church. Had there been no fall of man, there would
have been but one stream of history. The spontaneou
development of the human race would have been normal
and perfect, and there would have been no such distinc-
tion between the church and world as is recognized in
Scripture. The race would not have been broken apart ;
one portion being left to a merely human and entirely
false development, and the other portion being renovated
and started upon a spiritual and heavenward career by
the electing love of God. But sin in this, as in all its
aspects, is dissension and dismemberment. The original
unity of the race, so far as a common religious character
and a common blessed destiny are concerned^ is destroyed,
and the two halves of one being, to borrow an illustra-
tion from the Platonic myth, are now and forever sepa-
rated. The original single stream of human history was
parted in the garden of Eden, and became into two
heads, which have flowed on, each in its own channel,
and will continue to do so, forevermore. For, although
the church is to encroach upon the world, in the future,

148 THE NATURE, AND INFLUENCE, OF

to an extent far surpassing anything that appears in the
present and the past, we know, from the very best au-
thority, that sin is to be an eternal fact in the universe
of God, and as such . must have its own awful and
isolated development ; its own awful and isolated history.

In passing, therefore, from secular to church history,
we pass from the domain of merely human and sinful,
to that of truly divine and holy, agencies. The subject-
matter becomes extraordinary. The basis of fact in the
career of the church is supernatural in both senses of the
word. From the expulsion from Eden down to the close
of miracles in the apostolic age, a positively miraculous
intervention of Divine power lies under the series of
events ; momentarily withdrawn and momentarily reap-
pearing, throughout the long line of Patriarchal, Jewish
and Apostolic history ; the very intermittency of the ac-
tion indicating, like an Icelandic Geyser, the reality and
constant proximity of the power. And if we pass from
external events to that inward change that was con-
stantly brought about in human character by which the
church was called out from the mass of men and made
to live and grow in the midst of an ignorant or a culti-
vated heathenism ; if we pass from the miraculous to the
simply spiritual manifestation of the Divine agency as it is
seen in the inward life of the church, we find that we are
in a far higher sphere than that of secular history. There
is now a positive intercommunication between the hu-
man and the Divine mind, and the development which
results constitutes a history far profounder, far purer and
holier, far more encouraging and glorious, than that of
the natural man and the secular world.

It is upon the fact of this direct and supernatural com-
munication of the Supreme mind to the human mind,
and this direct agency of the Divine Spirit upon the hu-

THE HISTORIC SPIRIT. 149

man soul, that we would take our stand as the point of
departure in the remainder of this discussion. In treat-
ing of secular history, we have regarded the unaided rea-
son of man as the source and origin of the development.
We do not find in the history of the world, as the Scrip-
tural antithesis of the church, any evidence of any spe-
cial and direct intercommunication between man and
God. We find only the ordinary workings of the hu-
man mind and such products as are confessedly within
its competence to originate. We can, indeed, se.e the
hand of an overruling Providence throughout this realm,
employed chiefly in restraining the wrath of man, but
through the whole long course of development we see no
signs or products of a supernatural and peculiar inter-
ference of God in the affairs of men. Empires rise and
fall ; arts and sciences bloom and decay ; the poet dreams
his dream of the ideal, and the philosopher develops
and tasks the utmost possibility of the finite reason ; and
still, so far as its highest interests are concerned, the con-
dition and history of the race remain substantially the
same. It is not until a communication is established
between the mind of man and the mind of God ; it is not
until the Creator comes down by miracle and by revela-
tion, by incarnation and by the Holy Ghost, that a new
order of ages and a new species of history begins.

The Scriptures, therefore, as the revelation of the
Eternal Mind, take the place of human reason within
the sphere of church history. The individual man sus-
tains the same relation to the Bible, in the sacred historic
process, that he does to natural reason in the secular.
The theologian expects to find in the history of the
church that same comprehensive and approximately
exhaustive development and realization of Scripture
truth, which the philosopher hopes to find of the finite

13*

150 THE NATURE, AND INFLUENCE, OF

reason in the secular history of the race. It follows, con-
sequently, that all that has been said of the influence of
historical studies upon the literary man, applies with full
force, when the distinguishing difference between secular
and sacred history has been taken into account, to the
education and culture of the theologian. The same
spirit will work with the same results in both depart-
ments of knowledge, and the theologian, like the literary
man, will become, in his own intellectual domain, both
reverent and vigilant ; both recipient and original ; both
deliberate and enthusiastic ; as his mind feels the influ-
ences that come off" from the history of the Christian
religion and the Christian church.

Without, therefore, going again over the ground which
we have travelled in the first part of the discourse, let us
leave the general influences and characteristics of the
historic spirit, and proceed to consider some of the most
important of its specific influences within the depart-
ment of theology and upon theological education. And,
that we may not be embarrassed by the attempt to make
use of all the materials that crowd in upon the mind on
all sides, and from all parts, of this encyclopaedic subject,
let us leave altogether untouched the external career of
the church, and keep chiefly in view that most interest-
ing and important branch of the department which is
denominated Doctrinal Church History.

I. In the first place, a historic spirit within the depart-
ment of theology promotes Scripturality.

We have already mentioned that the distinctive char-
acter of church history arises from the special presence
and agency of the Divine Mind in the world. Subtract
that presence, and that agency, and nothing is left but
the spontaneous development of the natural man ; noth-
ing is left but secular history. Divine revelation, using

THE HISTORIC SPIRIT. 151

the term in its widest signification, to denote the entire
communication of God to man in the economy of grace,
is the principle and germ of church history. That shap-
ing of human events, and that formation and moulding
of human character, which has resulted from the coven-
ant of redemption, is the substance of sacred history. The
church is the concrete and realized plan of redemption ;
and what is the plan of redemption but the sum-total of
revelations which have been made to man by the Jehovah
of the Old Testament and the Incarnate Word of the
New, the infallible record of which is unchangeably fixed
in the Scriptures? It follows, therefore, that the true
and full history of the church of God on earth will be
the Scriptures in the concrete. The plant is only the
unfolded germ.

There is, consequently, no surer way to fill systematic
theology with a Scriptural substance than to subject it
to the influence of historical studies. As the theologian
passes the several ages of the church in review, and
becomes acquainted with the results to which the general
mind of the church has come in interpreting the Scrip-
tures, he runs little hazard of error in regard to their real
teaching and contents. As in the domain of secular his-
tory we found that there was little danger of missing the
true teachings of human reason, if we collect them from
the continuous and self-defecating development of ages
and epochs, so in the domain of sacred history we shall
find that the real mind of the Spirit, the real teaching of
Scripture, comes out plainer and clearer in the general
growth and development of the Christian mind. Indeed
we may regard church history, so far as it is mental and
inward in its nature ; so far as it is the record of a mental
inquiry into the nature of Clnristianity and the contents
of the Bible ; as being as near to the infallibility of the

152 THE NATURE, AND INFLUENCE, OF

written revelation, as anything that is still imperfect and
fallible can be. The church is not infallible and never
can be ; but it is certainly not a very bold or dangerous
affirmation to say that the church, the entire body of
Christ, is wiser than any one of its members, and that
the whole series of ages and generations of believers
have penetrated more deeply into the substance of the
Christian religion and have come nearer to an approxi-
mate exhaustion of Scripture truth, than any single age
or single believer has.

So far, therefore, as a theological system contains his-
torical elements, it is likely to contain Scriptural elements.
So far as its statements of doctrine coincide with those
of the creeds and symbols in which the wise, the learned,
and the holy, of all ages have embodied the results of
their continuous and self-correcting study of the Scrip-
tures, so far it may be expected to coincide with the
substance of inspiration itself.

Again, there is no surer way to imbue the theologian
himself with a Scriptural spirit than to subject his mind
to the full influence of a course of study in the history of
the Christian religion and church. This is one of the
best means which the individual mind can employ to
reach the true end of a theological education ; which is
to get within the circle of inspired minds and see the
truth exactly as they saw it. We believe, as the church
has always believed, that the inspired writers were
qualified and authorized to speak upon the subject of
religion as no other human minds have been. They
were the subjects of an illumination clearer and brighter
than that of the purest Christian experience ; and of a
revelation that put them in possession of truths that are
absolutely beyond the ken of the wisest human mind. —
Within that inspired circle, therefore, there was a body

THE HISTORIC SPIRIT. 153

of knowledge intrinsically inaccessible to the human
mind ; beyond the reach of its subtlest investigation, or
its purest self-development. If those supernaturally taught
minds had been prevented from fixing their knowledge in
a written form ; or if the written revelation had perished
like the lost books of Livy; the human mind of the
nineteenth century would have known no more upon
moral and religious subjects, for substance, than the
human mind of a Plato or Aristotle knew twenty-two
centuries ago. For he must have an extravagant esti-
mate of the inherent capacities of the finite mind, who
supposes that the rolling round of two millenniums, or
of ten, would have witnessed in any one individual case,
a more central, or a more defecated, development of the
pure rationality of mere man than was witnessed in
Aristotle. And he must have a very ardent belief in the
omnipotence of the finite, who supposes, that, without
that communication of truth and of spirit ; of light and
of life ; which God in Christ has made to the race, ages
upon ages of merely spontaneous and secular history
would have produced a more beautiful development of
the human imagination than appears in the Grecian Art
and Literature, or a more profound development of the
human reason than appears in the Grecian Philosophy
and the Grecian Ethics.

The Scriptures have, accordingly, been the source of
religious knowledge and progress for the Christian, as
antithetic to the secular, mind, and will continue to be,
until they are superseded by some other and fuller reve-
lation in another mode of being than that of earth. It
has, consequently, been the aim and endeavor of the
church in all ages, to be Scriptural ; to work itself into
the very heart of the written revelation ; to stand upon
the very same point of view with the few inspired minds,

154 THE NATURE, AND INFLUENCE, OP

and see objects precisely as they saw them. But this,
though possible and a duty, is no easy task, as the whole
history of Christian doctrines shows. Truth in the Scrip-
tures is full and entire. The Scriptural idea is never
defective, but contains all the elements. Hence its very
perfection and completeness is an obstacle to its full
apprehension. It is difficult for the human mind to take
in the whole great thought. It is often exceedingly diffi-
cult for the human mind oppressed, first, by the vastness
and mystery of the revealed truth, and, secondly, by its
own singular tendency to one-sided and imperfect per-
ception, to gather the full idea from the artless and
unsystematized contents of Scripture, and then state it
in the imperfect language of man. The doctrine of the
Trinity, for example, is fully revealed in the Bible. All
the elements of that great mystery ; the whole truth res-
pecting the real triune nature of God, may be found in
that book. But the elements are uncombined and
unexpanded, and hence one source of the heresies respect-
ing this doctrine. Arius and Sabellius both appealed to
Scripture. Neither of them took the position of the
infidel. Each acknowledged the authority of the written
word, and endeavored to support his position from it. —
But in these instances the individual mind merely picked
up Scriptural elements as they lie scattered upon the
page and in the letter of Scripture, and, without com-
bining them with others that lie just as plainly upon the
very same pages, moulded them into a defective, and
therefore erroneous, statement. Heresy is individual
and not historic in its nature.

Now it is the characteristic of the general mind of the
church ; of the historic Christian mind ; that it reproduces
in its intuition, and in its statement, the complex and
complete Scriptural idea. So far as it has any intuition

THE HISTORIC SPIRIT. ' 155

at all, it sees all the sides ; so far as it makes any state-
ment at all, it brings into it all the fundamentals. By
this is not meant that even the mind of the church has
perfected the expansion of Scripture elements and made
the fullest possible statement of the doctrine of the
Trinity. There may, possibly, be a further exhaustion
of the contents of revelation in this direction. There
may, possibly, be a statement of this doctrine that will
be yet fuller; still closer up to the Scriptural matter;
than that one which the church has generally accepted
since the date of the Councils of Nice and Constanti-
nople. But there will never be a form of statement that
will flatly contradict this form, or that will add any new
fundamentals to it. All that is new and different must
be in the way of expansion and not of addition ; in the
way of development and not of denial. A closer study
of the teachings of Scripture, and a deeper reflection
upon them, may carry the theological mind further along
on the line, but will give it no diagonal or retrograde
movement. '

Now is it not perfectly plain that the close and
thorough study of this continuous and self-correcting
endeavor of the Christian church to enucleate the real
meaning of Scripture ; an endeavor which has been put
forth by the wisest, the most reverent, and the holiest,
minds in its history, tasking their own powers to the
utmost, and invoking and receiving Divine illumination,
during the whole of the process ; an endeavor which has
to a great extent formed and fixed the religious experi-
ence of ages and generations, by its results embodied in
the creeds and symbols of the church : a series of mental
constructions, which, even if we contemplate only their
human characteristics, their scientific coherence and sys-
tematic compactness, are more than worthy to be placed

156 THE NATURE, AND INFLUENCE, OF

side by side with the best dialectics of the secular mind ,
is it not perfectly plain, we say, that the close and tho-
rough study of such a strenuous endeavor, as this has
been, to reach the inmost heart and fibre of Scripture,
will tend irresistibly to render the theologian Scriptural
in head and in heart ? May we not expect that sufch a
student will be intensely Scriptural ? Will not this dis-
tinct and thorough knowledge of revelation be so wrought
into his mental texture that he will see and judge of
everything through this medium ? Will he not have so
thought in that same range and region in which his
inspired teachers thought, that doubt and perplexity in
regard to Divine revelation would be nearly as impossible
for him, as for Isaiah while under the Divine afflatus, or
for Paul when in the third heavens ? To borrow an
illustration from the kindred science of Law : if it is the
effect of the continued and thoughtful study of Law
Reports and Political Constitutions and Commentaries
upon Political Constitutions ; a body of literature which,
as it originates out of the organic idea of law, breathes
the purest spirit of the legal reason ; if it is the effect of
such study to render the individual mind legal and judi-
cial in its tone and temper, must it not be the effect of
the study of that body of symbolic literature which has
come slowly but consecutively into existence through the
endeavor of the theological mind to reach a perfect
understanding of Scripture, to render the individual mind
Scriptural in its tone and temper?

II. And this leads us to say, in the second place, that
a historic spirit in the theologian, induces a correct esti-
mate of Creeds and Systematic Theology. j

One of the most interesting features in the present
condition of the theological world is a revived interest in
the department of church history. This interest has been

THE HISTORIC SPIRIT. 157

slowly increasing for the last half century, and promises
to become a leading interest for some time to come. In
Germany, in America, and in England, scholars and
thinking men are turning their attention away, some-
what, from the purely secular history of mankind, to that
more solemn and momentous career which a part of the
human family have been running for nearly six thousand
years. They have become aware that the history of the
church of God is a peculiar movement that has been
silently going on in the heart of the race from the begin-
ning of time, and which, while it has not by any means
left the secular historic processes untouched and unaf-
fected, has yet kept on in its own solitary and sublime
line of direction. They are now disposed to look and
see how and where

* * the sacred river ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to the sunlit sea.

But it would be an error to suppose that this interest
has been awakened merely or mainly by the external his-
tory of the Christian Church. " The battles, sieges, for-
tunes it hath passed; "its conflicts wdth persecuting Pa-
ganism, Mohammedanism, and Romanism ; its influence
upon art, upon literature and science, upon society and
government ; these are not the charm which is now
drawing as by a spell the best thinking of Christendom
towards church history. It is not the secular and worldly
elements in this history into which the mind of the time
most desires to look. The great march of profane his-
tory brings to view a pomp and prodigality of such ele-
ments that has already dulled and satiated the tired sen-
sibilities. Thinking minds now desire to look into the
distinctively supernatural elements in this historic pro-

158 THE NATURE, AND INFLUENCE, OF

cess ; to see if it really has, as it claims to have, a direct
connection with the Creator of the race and the Author
of the human mind. It is for this reason that the revivgd
interest in this department of knowledge has shown it-
self most powerfully and influentially in investigating the
origin and nature of the doctrines of the church, as they
are found speculatively in creeds and symbols, and prac-
tically in the Christian consciousness. The mind of
Germany, for example, after ranging over the whole field
of cultivated heathenism, and sounding the lowest depths
of the finite reason, in a vain search for that absolute
truth in which alone the human soul can rest, has be-
taken itself to the domain of Christian revelation and
Christian history. Its interest in Greek and Roman cul-
ture, in Mediaeval Art, and in its own speculative sys-
tems, has given way to a deeper interest in the Christian
religion ; in some instances with a clear perception, in
others with a dim intimation, that, if the truth which the
human mind needs, is not to be found here, the last re-
source has failed ; and that then

The pillared firmament is rottenness
And earth's ba§e built on stubble.

This revived interest in church history, therefore, is in
reality a search after truth, rather than after a mere dra-
matic scene or spectacle. The mind of the time is anx-
ious to understand that revealed doctrinal system, which
it now sees, has, from the beginning, been the " rock " on
which the church of God has been founded, and the
" quarry " out of which it has been built. Knowing this,
it believes it will then have the key to the process.
Knowing this, it believes it will know the w^hole secret ;
the secret of that charmed life which has borne the church

THE HISTORIC SPIRIT. 159

of God through all the mutations and extinctions of sec-
ular history, and that unearthly life which in all ?iges has
secured to the believer a serene or an ecstatic passage
into the unknown and dreadful future.

Now this interest in a doctrinal system, which thus lies
at the bottom of this general interest in church history,
will be shared by the individual student. He, too, can-
not stop with the scene, the spectacle, the drama. He,
too, cannot stop with those characteristics which ecclesi-
astical history has in common with secular, but will pass
on to those which are distinctive and peculiar. For him,
too, the history of a single mind, like that of Augustine
or Anselm ; or of a single doctrine, like that of the
Atonement or of the Trinity; will have a charm and
fruitfulness not to be found in the entire rise of the
worldly Papacy, or in centuries of merely external and
earthly movement like the Crusades. The whole influ-
ence of his studies in this direction will be spiritual and
spiritualizing.

But, without enlarging upon the general nature of the
estimate which the historic spirit puts upon the internal
as compared with the external history of the church, let
us notice two particulars which fall under this head.

1. Notice, first, the interest awakened by historical
studies in the creeds and symbols of the Christian church
as containing' the Philosophy of Christianity.

We have spoken of the symbolic literature of the
Christian church as a growth out of Scripture soil ; as a
fruitage full of the flavor and juices of its germ. A
Christian creed is not the product of the individual, or the
general, human mind evolving out of itself those truths
of natural reason and natural religion which are connate
and inborn. It is not the self-development of the human
mind, but the development of Scripture matter. The

160 THE NATURE, AND INFLUENCE, OF

Christian mind, as we have seen, is occupied, from age
to age, with an endeavor to fathom the depths of Divine
revelation; to make the fullest possible expression and ex-
pansion of all the truths that have been communicated
from God to man. This endeavor necessarily assumes a
scientific form. The practical explanation, illustration, and
application, is going on continually in the popular repre-
sentations of the pulpit and the sermon, but this cannot
satisfy all the wants of the church. Simultaneously with
this there is a constant effort to obtain a still more scien-
tific apprehension of Scripture and make a still more full
and self-consistent statement of its contents. The Chris-
tian mind, as well as the secular, is scientific ; has a scien-
tific feeling, and scientific wants. A creed is as necessary
to a theologian, as a philosophical system is to the secu-
lar student.

It follows, therefore, that the philosophy, by which is
meant the rationality, of the Christian religion, is to be
found in these creeds and symbols. For reasonableness
and self-consistence are qualities not to be carried into
Christianity from without, as if they were not to be
found in it, but to be brought out from within, because
they belong to its intrinsic nature. The philosophy, that
is, the rational necessity, of the Christian religion, is not
an importation but an evolution. This religion is to be
taken just as it is given in the Scriptures ; just as it re-
appears in the close and systematic statement of the
creeds ; and its intrinsic truth and reasonableness evinced
by what it furnishes itself. For whoever shows the in-
ward necessity and reasonableness of a Doctrine of
Christianity does by the very act and fact show the har-
mony of philosophy and religion. Whoever takes a doc-
trine of Christianity and without anxiously troubling him-
self with the tenets of this or that particular philosophical

THE HISTORIC SPIRIT. 161

system, derives out of the very elements of the doctrine
and the very terms of the statement itself, a reasonableness
that irresistibly commends itself to the spontaneous rea-
son and instinctive judgment of universal man, by this
very process demonstrates the inward, central, unity of
faith and reason. Instead, therefore, of setting the two
sciences over against each other and endeavoring, by
modifications upon one or both sides, to bring about the
adjustment, the theologian should take the Christian sys-
tem precisely as it is given in Scripture, in all its com-
prehension, depth, and strictness, and without being
diverted by any side references to particular philosophi-
cal schools, simply exhibit the intrinsic truthfulness, ra-
tionality, and necessity, of the system. In this way he
establishes the position, that philosophy and revelation
are harmonious, in a manner that admits of no contra-
diction. The greater necessarily includes the less. When
the theologian has demonstrated the inward necessity of
Christianity, out of its own self-sufficient and indepen-
dent rationality, his demonstration is perfect. For rea-
son cannot be contrary to reason. A rational -necessity
anywhere, is a philosophical necessity everywhere.

The correctness of this method of finding and estab-
lishing the rationality of Christianity, is beginning to be
acknowledged in that country where the conflict between
reason and revelation has been hottest. It begins to be
seen that the harmony between philosophy and Chris-
tianity is not to be brought about, by first assuming that
the infallibility is on the side of the human reason ; and
that, too, as it appears in a single and particular philo-
sophical system ; and then insisting that all the adjust-
ment, conformity, and coalescence, shall be on the side
of the Divine revelation. It begins to be seen that phi-
losophy is in reality an abstract and universal term,

14*

162 THE NATURE, AND .'vFLCt.N'ji, Or

which, by its very etymology, denotes, not that it has
^Iready attained and now possesses the truth, but that it
is seeking for it.* It begins to be seen that both Aris-
totle and Bacon were right in calling it an organon ; an
instrument for getting at the truth, and neither the truth
itself nor even its containing source.f It begins to be
seen that philosophy is only another term for rationality,
and that to exhibit the philosophy of a department, like
religion, or history, or philosophy, or natural science, is
simply to exhibit the real and reasonable truth that is in
it. It begins to be seen, consequently, that each branch
of knowledge, each subject of investigation, must be treat-
ed genetically in order to be treated philosophically ;
must be allowed to furnish its own matter, make its own
statements, out of which, and not out of what may be
carried over into it from some other quarter, its accept-
ance or its rejection by the human mind should be de-
termined.

We are aware that the barrenness of those later systems
of speculative philosophy, with which the German mind
has been so intensely busied for the last fifty years, has
been one great means of bringing it back to this moderate
and true estimate of the nature and functions of philoso-
phy; but this revived interest in the history of Christianity

* The love of wisdom, implies a present seeking for it.

t Kant, says William Humboldt, did not so much teach philosophy, as how
to philosopliize. Correspondence with Schiller: Vorerinnerung.

It is the greatest merit of Schleiermacher that he saw and asserted the
independent and self subsistent position of Christian theology in relation to
philosophical systems. If he had sought the sources of this theology more
in the oljective revelation and less in the suljective Christian conscious-
ness, he would have accomplished more than he has towards evincing the
harmony of the two sciences, while his own system would have had more
agreement than it now has with the general theology of the Christian
thurch.

THE HISTORIC SPIRIT. 163

and profounder study of its symbols, has also contribut-
ed, greatly, to produce this disposition to let revealed
religion stand or fall upon its own merits. For this '
study has disclosed the fact that it has philosophical and
scientific merits of its own ; that, in the unsystematized
statements and simple but prolific teachings of the Bible,
there lies the substance of a system deeper and wider and
loftier than the whole department of philosophy, and
that this substance has actually been expanded and com
bined by the historic mind of the church into a series of
doctrines respecting the nature of God and man and the
universe with their mutual relations, with which the cor-
responding statements upon the same subjects, of the
Greek Theism or the German Pantheism cannot com-
pare for a moment. Probably nothing has done more to
exhibit the Christian system in its true nature and pro-
portions, and thereby to render it grand and venerable to
the modern scientific mind, than this history of its origin
and formation. As the scientific man studies the arti-
cles of a creed, which one of the most naturally scientific
minds of the race, aided by the wisdom of predecessors
and contemporaries, derived from the written revelation ;
as the rigorous and dialectic man follows Athanasius
down into those depths of the Divine nature, which yawn
like a gulf of darkness before the unaided human mind ;
if he finds nothing to love and adore, he finds something
to respect ; if he finds no food for his affections, he finds
some matter for his thoughts. Here, too, is science.
Here, too, is the profound intuition expressed in the
clear but inadequate conception ; the most thorough
unions, guarded against the slightest confusions ; analy-
sis and synthesis ; opposite conceptions reconciled in
their higher and original unities; in short, all the forms
of science, filled up in this instance as in no other, with

164 THE NATURE, AND INFLUENCE, OF

the truth of eternal necessary fact and eternal necessary
being.

And this same kind of influence, only in much greater
degree, is exerted by historical studies upon the mind of
the theologian. As he becomes better acquainted with
the history of Christian doctrines, he becomes more dis-
posed to find his philosophy of human nature and of the
Divine nature in them, rather than in human systems.
As he studies the development of that great doctrine, the
doctrine of sin, he becomes convinced, if he was not be-
fore, that the powers, and capacities, and possible des-
tiny, of the human soul, have received their most pro-
found examination within the sphere of Christian theol-
ogy. As he studies the history of that other great doc-
trine, the doctrine of the atonement, he sees plainly that
the ideas of law and justice and government, of guilt and
punishment and expiation ; ideas that are the life and
lifeblood of the Aristotelian ethics, the best and purest
ethical system which the human reason was able to con-
struct ; that these great parent ideas show truest, fullest,
largest, and clearest, by far, within the consciousness of
the Christian mind.

What surer method, therefore, of making his mind
grow into the philosophy of Christianity can the theolo-
gian employ, than the historic method ? In what better
way can he arm himself for the contest with ignorant or
with cultivated scepticism, than by getting possession,
through the reproductive study of dogmatic history, of
the exact contents of Scripture as expanded and system-
atized by the consentaneous and connected studies of
the Fathers, the Reformers, and the Divines, the Coun-
cils, the Synods, and the Assemblies, of the Church uni-
versal ?

2. Secondly, notice the interest awakened by histori-

THE HISTORIC SPIRIT.

165

cal studies in the creeds and symbols of the Christian
church as marks of development and progress in theol-
ogy-

If we have truly enunciated the idea of history, in the
first part of this discourse, it follows that all genuine de-
velopment is a historical development, and all true pro-
gress is a historical progress. For the true history of
anything is the account of its development according to
its true idea and necessary law. The history of a na-
tural object, like a crystal, for example, is the account of
its rigorously geometric collection and upbuilding about
a nucleus. Crystallization is a necessary process, for it is
a petrified geometry. The history of a tree is the ac-
count of its spontaneous and inevitable evolution out of
a germ. The process itself, in both of these instances, is
predetermined and fixed. The account of the process,
therefore, if it is exactly conformed to the actual matter
of fact, has a fixed and predetermined character also.
For, if nature herself goes forward in a straight and unde-
viating line, the history of nature must follow on after,
and tread in her very and exactest footsteps. Hence,
true legitimate history, of any kind, is neither arbitrary nor
capricious. It corresponds to real fact, and real fact is
the process of real nature. The matter and method of
nature, therefore, dictate the matter and method of the
history of nature.

And the same holds true, when we pass from history
in the sphere of nature, to history in the realm of mind
and spirit. The matter and method of a spiritual idea
dictate the matter and method of the unfolding, and, con-
sequently, of the history, of that idea. In the case nov/
under discussion, the real nature and inward structure of
Christianity determine what does, and what does not,
belong to its true historical development. The true his-

166 THE NATURE, AND INFLUENCE. OF

tory of Christianity, therefore, is the history of true Chris-
tianity.* The church historian is, indeed, obliged to take
into account the deviations from the true Scriptural idea,
because, unlike the naturalist, he is within the sphere of
freedom, and of false development, and because redemp-
tion itself is a mixed process of dying to sin and living
to righteousness. But he notices the deviations not for
the purpose, it should be carefully observed, of letting
them make up part of the true and normal history of
Scriptural Christianity. The church historian is obliged
to watch the rise and growth of heresies, not surely be-
cause they constitute an integrant part of the legitimate
development and true history of Scripture truth. The
account of a heresy has only a negative historical value.
All the positive and genuine history of Christian doc-
trine is to be made up out of that correct apprehension
and unfolding which Scripture has received from the
Catholic as antithetic to the Heretical mind. Tempo-
rary departures from the real nature of Scripture truth,
and deductions from it that are illegitimate, may pos-
sibly have contributed to a return to a deeper and clearer
knov/ledge of revelation on the part of some few minds,
and have unquestionably elicited a more full and com-
prehensive statement and defence of Christianity on the
part of others, and in this way the heresies that appear
all along the line of church history, throw light upon the

* The reader will notice the value of the qualifying adjective here. The
term history is used in two senses ; a general and a special. In the former
sense, it denotes all that occurred, right or wrong, normal or abnormal. In
the^latter sense, in which alone it is employed above, it denotes only that
which oiujht to occur. It is the proper function of the philosophic historian
of the Christian religion and church, to reduce the general to the special
history, by throwing out of the former all tliat is miscellaneous and hetero-
geneous, and retaining only that which accords with the supernatural law
and principle that constitutes the basis of sacred, as distinguished from sec-
ular, history.

THE HISTORIC SPIRIT. 167

true course of doctrinal development and help to bring
out the true history. But these heretical processes them-
selves, cannot be regarded as integrant and necessary
parts of the great historic process, any more than the dis-
eases of the human body can be regarded, equally with
the healthy processes of growth, as the normal develop-
ment of the organism. Nosology is not a chapter in
physiology.

It follows, consequently, that the true and proper his-
tory of Christianity will exhibit a true and proper theo-
logical progress. It will show that the Scripture germ
implanted by God, has been slowly but correctly unfold-
ing in the doctrine and science of the church. We can-
not grant that historical theology is anti-scriptural and
radically wrong ; that the Bible has had no true and le-
gitimate apprehension in the ages and generations of
believers. There has been, notwithstanding all the at-
tacks of infidelity from without, and controversies from
within, a substantial agreement, and a steady advance,
in understanding the written revelation. This is very
plainly to be seen in the history of doctrines, and from this
we may draw the most forcible proofs and illustrations.
Let any one compare the first with the latest Christian
creed, and he will see the development which the Scripture
mustard-seed has undergone. Let any one place the
Apostles' creed beside that of the Westminster Assem-
bly, and see what a vast expansion of revealed truth has
taken place. The former was all that the mind of the
church in that age of infancy was able to eliminate and
systematize out of the Scriptures ; and this simple state-
ment was sufficient to satisfy the imperfectly developed
scientific wants of the early church. The latter creed
was what the mind of the church was able to construct out
of the elements of the very same written revelation, afte^

168 THE NATURE, AND INFLUENCE, OF

fifteen hundred years of study and reflection upon them.
The "words," the doctrinal elements, of Scripture, are
" spirit and life," and hence, like all spirit and all life, are
capable of expansion. Upon them ihe historic Christian
mind, age after age, has expended its best reflection, and
now the result is an enlarged and systematized statement
such as the early church could not have made, and did
not need.

Compare, again, the statement of the doctrine of the
Trinity in the Apostles' creed with that in the Nicene
creed. The erroneous and defective statements of Arius
compelled the orthodox mind to a more profound reflec-
tion upon the matter of Scripture, and the result was a
creed in which the implication and potentiality of revela-
tion was so far explicated and evolved as to present a
distinct and unequivocal denial of the doctrine of a
created Son of God. But, besides this negative value,
this systematic construction of the Scripture doctrine of
the Trinity has a great positive worth. It opens before
the human mind the great abyss of the Divirfe nature ;
and, though it cannot impart to the finite intelligence
that absolutely full and perfect knowledge of the God-
head which only God himself can have, it yet furnishes
a form of apprehension which accords with the real
nature of God, and will, therefore, preserve the mind that
accepts it from both the Dualistic and the Pantheistic
ideas of the Supreme Being. Abstruse and dialectic as
that creed has appeared to some minds and some ages
in the Christian church; little connection as it has
seemed to them to have with so practical a matter as
vital religion ; it would not be difl[icult'to show that those
councils at Nice and Constantinople, did a work in the
years 325 and 381, of which the church universal will
feel the salutary efl*ect8 to the end of time, both in practi-

THE HISTORIC SPIRIT. 169

cal and scientific respects. For, if all right religious
feeling towards Jesus Christ is grounded in the ui? assail-
able conviction that he is truly and verily God ; " begot-
ten, not made, being of one substance with the Father ; "
then this creed laid down the systematic basis of all the
true worship and acceptable adoration which the church
universal have paid to the Redeemer of the world.* And
if a correct metaphysical conception of the Divine Being
is necessary in order to all right philosophizing upon
God and the universe, then this Christian doctrine of the
Trinity is the only statement that is adequate to the
wants of science, and the only one that can keep the
philosophic mind from the Pantheistic and Dualistic
deviation to which, when left to itself, it is so liable.

The importance of historical studies and the historic
spirit in an age of the world that more than any other
suffers from false notions regarding the nature of pro-

* By this is not meant that there can be no 'true worship until a creed
has been systenjatic-ally formed and laid down, but that all true worship is
grounded in a practical belief wliicli, when examined, is found to harmon-
ize exactly with the speculative results reached by the Christian Scientific
mind. So far as the preat body of believers is concerned, their'case is like
that of Hilary of Poictiers, who has left one of the best of the patristic
treatises upon the Trinity, but who, in his retired bishopric in Gaul, did
not hear of the Nicene creed until many years after its origin. He " found
in it that very same doctrine of the unity of essence in the Father and the
Son, which he had. before this, ascertained to be the true doctrine, from the
study of the Now Testament, and had received into his Christian experi-
ence, without being aware that the faith which he bore in his heart, had
been laid down in the form of a creed." — Torrey's Neander, ii. 396.

Consonant with this, Hagenbach, after speaking of the highly scientific
charactei* of the Syinl/olttm Quicuniqiie, its endeavor, namely, to express the
incffaltle by its series of affirmations and guarding negations, adds, that
" tucb formulae nevertheless have their edifying no less than their scientific
Bide, inasmuch as they testify to the struggle of the Christian mind after a
satisfactory expression of that which has its full truth only in the depths
of the believing heart and character." — Dogmengeschichte, third edition,
p. 249, note.

170 THE NATURE, AND INFLUENCE, OF

gress and development, cannot be exaggerated. But he
who is able to see in the creeds and symbols of the
Christian church so many steps of real progress ; he who
knows that outside of that line of symbolic literature
there is nothing but deviation from the real matter of
Scripture, will not be likely to be carried away with the
notion of a sudden and great improvement upon all that
has hitherto been accomplished in the department of
theology. He will know that, as all the past develop-
ment has been historic ; restatement shooting out of
pre statement ; the fuller creed bursting out of the nar-
rower ; the expanded treatise swelling forth growth-like
from the more slender; so all the present and future
development in theology must be historic also. He will
see, especially, that elements that have already been
examined and rejected by the Christian mind, as unscrip-
tural and foreign, can never again be rightfully intro-
duced into creeds and symbols ; that history cannot undo
history ; that the progress of the present and the future
must be homogeneous and kindred with the progress of
the past.

IH. In the third place, a historic spirit in the theolo-
gian protects him from false notions respecting the
nature of the visible church, and from a false church
feeling.

We can devote but a moment to this branch of the
discussion, unusually important just at this time.

We have seen that the most important part of the his-
tory of the church is its inward history. We have found
that the external history of Christianity derives all its
interest for a thoughtful mind from its connection with
that dispensation of truth and of spirit which lies beneath
it as its animating soul. The whole influence, conse-
quently, of genuine and comprehensive historical etudy

THE HISTORIC SPIRIT. 171

is to magnify the substance and subordinate the form ;
to exalt truth, doctrine, and life, over rites, ceremonies,
and polities.

It is undoubtedly true, that the study of ecclesiastical
hi^ry, in some minds, and in some branches of the
church, has strengthened a strong formalizing tendency,
and promoted ecclesiasticism. The Papacy has from
time immemorial appealed to tradition ; and those por-
tions of the Protestant church which have been least suc-
cessful in freeing themselves from the materialism of the
Papacy, have said much about the past history of "the
church. Hence, in some quarters in the Protestant
church, there are, and always have been, apprehensions
lest history should interfere with the great right of pri-
vate judgment, and put a stop to all legitimate progress.

But it only needs a comprehensive idea of the nature
of history to allay these apprehensions. It only needs to
be remembered that the history of Christianity is some-
thing more than the history of the Nicene period or of
the Scholastic age. It only needs to be recollected that
the history of Christianity denotes a course of develop-
ment from the beginning of the world down to the
present moment ; that it includes the whole of that
Divine economy which began with the first promise, and
which manifested itself first in the Patriarchal, next in
the Jewish, and finally in the Christian, church.* The

* Probably the most serious defect in the construction of the history of
Christianity by the school of Schleiermacher, springs from regarding the
incarnation as the beginning of church history. Even if this is not always
formally said, as it sometimes is, the notion itself moulds and forms the
whole account. The golden position of Augustine, Novum Testamentum in
Vetere latet, Vetits in Novo patet, is forgotten, and the Jewish religion, as it
came from God, is confounded with that corruption of it which we find in
Ji»e days of our Saviour, but against which the evangelical prophet Isaiah
nreighs as earnestly as the evangelical apostle Paul. " He is not a Jew^

172 THE NATURE, AND INFLUENCE, OP

influence of the study of this whole great process, espe-
cially if the eye is kept fastened upon the spiritual sub-
stance of it, is anything but formalizing and sectarian. —
If, therefore, a papistic and anti-catholic temper has
ever shown itself in connection with the study of eccl^i-
astical history, it was because the inward history was
neglected, and even the external history was studied in
sections only. He who selects a particular period merely,
and neglects all that has preceded and all that has fol-
lowed, will be liable to a sectarian view of the nature
and history of. the church of God. He who reproduces
within his mind the views and feelings of a single age
merely, will be individual and bigoted in his temper. —
He who confines his studies, for example, as so many

which is one outwardly, neither is that circumcision which is outward in
the flesh." Judaism is not Phariseeism. There is, therefore, no iinoard
and essential difference between true Judaism and true Christianity. The
former looked forward and the latter looks backward to the same central
Person and the same central Cross. The manifested Jehovah of the Old
Testament was the incarnate Word of the New. " The relifjjion," says
Edwards, " that the church of God has professed from the first founding of
the church after the fall to this time, has always been the same. Though
the dispensations have been altered, yet the religion which the church has
professed, has always, as to its essentials, been tlie same. The church of
God, from the beginning, has been one society. The Christian church
which has been since Christ's ascension, is manifestly the same society
continued, with the church that was before ("Christ came. The Christian
church is grafted on their root; they are built upon the same foundation. —
The revelation upon which both have depended, is essentially the same;
for, as the Christian church is built on the Holy Scriptures, so was the
Jewish church, though now the Scriptures be enlarged by the addition of
the New Testament ; but still it is essentially the same revelation with that
which was given in the Old Testament, only the subjects of Divine revela-
tion are now more clearly recorded in the New Testament than tiiey were
in the Old. But the sum and substance of both the Old Testament and
the New, is Christ and His redemption. The church of God has always
been on the foundation of Divine revelation, and always on those revela-
tions that were essentially the same, and which were summarily compre-
hended in the Holy Scriptures." — Edwards's Work of Kedempiion, i. 473.

THE HISTORIC SPIRIT. 173

have done, and are doing, to that period from Constan-
tine to Hildebrand, which witnessed the rise and forma-
tion of the Papacy ; and, especially, he, who in this
period studies merely the archaeology and the polity,
without the doctrines, the morality, and the life ; he,
who confines himself to those tracts of Augustine which
emphasize the idea of the church in opposition to ancient
radicals and disorganizers, but studiously avoids those
other and greater and more elaborate treatises of this
earnest spiritualist, which thunder the idea of the truth,
in opposition to all heretics and all formalists ; he, ,in
short, who goes to the study of ecclesiastical history with
a predetermined purpose, and carries into it an antece-
dent interpreting idea, derived from his denomination,
and not from Scripture, will undoubtedly become more
and more Romish and less and less historic.

Such a disposition as this, is directly crossed and mor-
tified by a comprehensive and philosophic conception of
history. Especially will the history of doctrines destroy
the belief in the infallibility, or paramount authority, of
any particular portion of the church universal. The eye
is now turned away from those external and imposing
features of the history which have such a natural effect
to carnalize the mind, to those simpler truths and interior
living principles, which have a natural effect to spiritual-
ize it. An interest in the theology of the church is very
different from an interest in the polity of the church. It
is a fact that as the one rises, the other declines ; and
there would be no surer method of destroying the formal-
ism that exists in some portions of the church, than to
compel their clergy to the continuous and close study of
the entire history of Christian doctrines.

IV. In the fourth place, a historic spirit in theologians
15*

174 THE NATURE, AND INFLUENCE, OF

promotes a profound and genial agreement on essential
pqints, and a genial disagreement on non-essentials.

It is plain that the study of church history tends to
establish and to magnify the distinction between real
orthodoxy and real heterodoxy. History is discriminating
and cannot be made to mingle the immiscible. In
regard, therefore, to the great main currents of truth and
of error, the historic mind is clear in its insight and
decided in its opinions. It knows that the Christian
religion has been both truly and falsely apprehended by
the human mind, and that, consequently, two lines of
belief can be traced down the ages and generations ; that
in only one of these two, is Scriptural Christianity to be
found.

But its wide and catholic survey, also enables the his-
toric mind to see as the unhistoric mind cannot, that the
line of orthodoxy is not a mathematical line. It has
some breadth. It is a path, upon which the church can
travel, and not merely a direction in which it can look.
It is a high and royal road, where Christian men may go
abreast ; may pass each other, and carry on the practical
business of a Christian life ; and not a mere hair-line
down which nought can go but the one-eyed sighting of
either speculative or provincial bigotry.

Hence historical studies banish both provincialism and
bigotry from a theological system, and. imbue it with
that practical and catholic spirit which renders it interest-
ing and influential through the whole church and world.
A system of theology may be true and yet not contain
the whole truth. It may have seized upon some funda-
mental positions, or cardinal doctrines, with a too violent
energy, and have given them an exorbitant expansion, to
the neglect of other equally fundamental truths. In this
case, historical knowledge is one of the best correctives.

THE HISTORIC SPIRIT. 175

A wider knowledge of the course of theological specula-
tion ; a more profound acquaintance with the origin and
formation of the leading systems of the church universal;
tends to produce that equilibrium of the parts and that
comprehensiveness of the whole, which are so apt to be
lacking in a provincial creed or system.

A similar liberalizing influence is exerted by the study
of church history upon the theologian himself. He sees
that men on the same side of the line which divides real
orthodoxy from real heterodoxy, have differed from each
other, and sometimes upon very important, though never
upon vital, points. The history of Christian doctrine
compels him to acknowledge that there is a theological
space, within which it is safe for the theological scientific
mind to expatiate and career ; that this is a liberty con-
ceded to the theologian by the unsystematized form in
which the written revelation has been given to man,
and a liberty, too, which, when it is not abused, greatly
promotes that clearer and fuller understanding of the
Scriptures, which we have seen the historic Christian
mind is continually striving after.

But this scientific liberality among theologians leads
directly to a more profound and genial agreement among
them upon all' practical and essential points. The liber-
ality of the historic mind is very far removed from that
mere indiflerentism which sometimes usurps this name.
There is a truth for which the disagreeing, and perhaps
(owing to imperfectly sanctified hearts) the bitterly disa-
greeing, theologians w^ould both be tied to one stake and
be burnt with one fire. There is a vital and necessary
doctrine for which, if it were assailed by a third parly, a
bitter unevangelic enemy, both of the contending ortho-
dox divines would fight under one and the same shield.
That truth which history shows has been the life of the

176 THE NATURE, AND INFLUENCE, OF

church and without which it must die ; that historic
truth, which is the heritage and the joy of the whole
family in heaven and on earth, is dear to both hearts
alike.

But what tends to make differing theologians agree,
profoundly and thoroughly, upon essential points, also
tends to make them differ generously and genially upon
non-essentials. Those who know that, after all, they are
one, in fundamental character, and in fundamental belief;
that, after all their disputing, they have but one Lord, one
faith and one baptism ; find it more difficult to maintain
a bitter tone and to employ an exasperated accent toward
each other. The common Christian consciousness wells
up from the lower depths of the soul, and, as in those deep
inland lakes which are fed from subterranean fountains,
the sweet waters neutralize and change those bitter or
brackish surface currents that have in them the taint of
the shores ; perhaps the washings of civilization.

While, therefore, a wide acquaintance with the varie-
ties of statement which appear in scientific orthodoxy,
does not in the least render the mind indifferent to that
essential truth which every man must believe or be lost
eternally, it at the same time induces a generous and
genial temper among differing theologians. The contro-
versies of the Christian church have unquestionably been
a benefit to systematic theology, and that mind must
have a very meagre idea of the comprehensiveness and
pregnancy of Divine revelation, who supposes that the
Christian mind could have derived out of it that great
system of doctrinal knowledge which is to outlive all the
constructions of the philosophic mind, without any sharp
controversy, or keen examination among theologians.
That structure did not and could not rise like Thebes, at
the mellifluous sound of Amphion's lute ; it did not rear

THE HISTORIC SPIRIT. 177

itself up like the Jewish temple without sound of ham-
mer, or axe, or any tool of iron. Slowly, and with diffi-
culty, was it upreared, by hard toil, amid opposition from
foes without and foes within, and through much earnest
mental conflict. And so will it continue to be reared and
beautified in the ages that are to come. We cannot alter
this course of things so long as the truth is infinite, and
the mind is finite and sees through a glass darkly.

What is needed, therefore, is a sweet and generous
temper in all parties as the work goes on. The theolo-
gian needs that great ability : the abilitij to differ genially.
It has been the misery and the disgrace of the church, that
too many theologians who have held the trulh, and have
held it, too, in its best forms, have held it, like the hea-
then, in unrighteousness ; have held it in narrowness and
bigotry. They have differed in a hard, dry, ungenial
way. They have forgotten that the rich man can afford
to be liberal ; that the strong man need not be constantly
anxious ; that a scientific and rigorous orthodoxy should
ever look out of a beaming, and not a sullen, eye.

Let us be thankful that some ages in the history of the
church furnish examples that cheer and instruct. Look
back at that most interesting period, the period of the
Reformation, and contemplate the profound agreement
upon essentials and the genial disagreement upon non-
essentials, that prevailed among the leaders then. Mar-
tin Luther and John Calvin were two theologians who
differed as greatly in mental structure, and in their spon-
taneous mode of contemplating and constructing doc-
trines, as is possible for two minds upon the same side
of the great controversy between orthodoxy and heresy.
No man will say that the differences between Lutheran-
ism and Calvinism are minor or unimportant. Probably
any one would say that, if those two men were able to

178 THE NATURE, AND INFLUENCE, OF

feel the common Christian fellowship ; to enjoy the com-
munion of saints ; and to realize with tenderness their
common relationship to the Head of the church ; there is
no reason why all men who are properly within the pale
of orthodoxy should not do the same.

Turn now to the letters of both of these men ; written
in the midst of that controversy which was going on be-
tween the two portions of the Reformed, and which re-
sulted, not, however, through the desire or the influence
of these two great men, but through the bitterness of
their adherents, in their division into two distinct church-
es ; and witness the common genial feeling that pre-
vailed. Hear Luther in his letter to Bucer sending his
cordial greeting to Calvin, whose books he has read with
singular pleasure : cum sing-ulari volvptate. Hear Calvin
declaring his willing and glad readiness .to subscribe to
the Augsburg Confession, interpreting it upon the sacra-
mental question as the Lutherans themselves author-
ized him to do.* Above all, turn to that burst, from Cal-
vin, of affectionate feeling towards Melanchthon, which
gives itself vent in the midst of one of his stern contro-
versial tracts, like the music of flutes silencing for a mo-
ment the clang of war-cymbals and the blare of the trum-
pet : " O Philip Melanchthon, to thee I address myself,
to thee who art now living in the presence of God with

* Henry's Life of Calvin, II. pp. 96, 99. It is interesting and instructive
to witness the lit>eral feeling of the scientific and rigorously orthodox Atha-
nasius towards the Semiarians themselves, whose statement of the doc-
trine of the Trinity he regarded to be inadequate. See the quotation from
Athanasius de Synodis, § 41, in Gicscler, Chap. II. § 83, and the reference to
Hilarius de Syiiodis, § 76. Says Augustine: " they who do not periina-
ci'iiisly defend their opinion, false and perverse though it be, especinlly
when it does not spring from the audacity of their own presumption, while
tliey seek the truth with cautious solicitude, and are prepared to correct
themselves when they have found it, are by no means to be ranked hmong
hereticB.-' — Epistle 43, Newman's Library Version.

THE HISTORIC SPIRIT. 179

Jesus Christ, and there awaitest us, till death shall unite
us in the enjoyment of Divine peace. A hundred times
hast thou said to me, when weary with so much labor
and oppressed with so many burdens, thou laidst thy
head upon my breast, ' God grant, God grant, that I
may now die!'"*

The theology of Richard Baxter differs from the theol-
ogy of Johji.Owen by some important modifications, and
each of these two types of Calvinism will probably per-
peti:|^te itself in the church to the end of time ; but the
confidence which both of these great men cherished to-
wards each other, should go along down with these sys-
tems through the ages and generations of time.

But what surer method can be employed to produce
and perpetuate this catholic and liberal feeling among
the various types and schools of orthodox theology, than
to impart to all of them the broad views of history ?
And what surer method than this can be taken to dimin-
ish the number and bring about more unity of opinion
in the department of systematic theology ? For it is one
great effect of history to coalesce and harmonize. It intro-
duces mutual modifications, by showing opponents that
their predecessors were nearer together than they them-
selves are, by tracing the now widely separated opinions
back to that point of departure where they were once
very near together ; and, above all, by causing all parties
to remember, what all are so liable to forget in the heat
of controversy, that all forms of orthodoxy took their first
origin in the Scriptures, and that, therefore, all theologi-
cal controversy should be carried on with a constant
reference to this one infallible standard, which can teach
but one infallible system.

* Henry's Life of Calvin, I. 839.

180 NATURE, AND INFLUENCE, OF THE HISTORIC SPIRIT.

I have thus considered the nature of the historic spirit
and its influence both upon the secular and theological
mind, in order to indicate my own deep sense of the im-
portance of the department in which I have been called
to give instruction by the guardians of this Institution.
The first instinctive feelings would have shrunk from the
weight of the great burden imposed, and the extent of
the very great field opened ; though in an institution
where the pleasant years of professional study w^ere all
spent; though in an ancient institution, made illustrious
and influential, through the land and the world, by the
labors of the venerated dead and the honored living.
But it does not become the individual to yield to his
individuality. The stream of Divine Providence, so sig-
nally conspicuous in the life of the church, and of its
members, is the stream upon which the difl[ident as well as
the confident must alike cast themselves. And he who
enters upon a new course of labor for the church of
God, with just views of the greatness and glory of the
kingdom and of the comparative unimportance of any
individual member, will be most likely to perform a work
that will best harmonize with the development and pro-
gress of the great whole.

THE RELATION OF LANGUAGE, AND STYLE,
TO THOUGHT.*

" It is a truth," (says Hartung in beginning his subtle
and profound work on the Greek Particles,) " as simple
as it is fruitful, that language is no arbitrary, artificial,
and gradual invention of the reflective understanding,
but a necessary and organic product of human nature, ap-
pearing contemporaneously with the activity of thought.
Speech is the correlate of thought ; both require and condi-
tion each other like body and soul, and are developed at
the same time and in the same degree, both in the case of
the individual and the nation. Words are the coinage of
conceptions freeing themselves from the dark chaos of
intimations and feelings, and gaming shape and clear-
ness. In so far as a man uses and is master of language,
has he also attained clearness of thought ; the developed
and spoken language of a people is its expressed intelli-
gence." f Consonant with this, William Humboldt re-
marks that " speech must be regarded as naturally inhe-
rent in man, for it is altogether inexplicable as a work
of his inventive understanding. We are none the bet-
ter for allowing thousands of years for its invention.

* Reprinted from the Bibliotheca Sacra \ Numbers XX. and XXXI.
t Partikeln Lehre, Bd. !.§§!, 2.

16 (181)

182 RELATION OF LANGUAGE TO THOUGHT.

There could be no invention of language unless its type
already existed in the human mind. Man is man onJy
by means of speech ; but in order to invent speech he
must be already man."

In these extracts it is asserted that language is an or-
ganic product of which thought is the organizing and
vitalizing principle. Writers upon language have gene-
rally acknowledged a connection of some sort between
thought and language, but they have not been unanimous
with respect to the nature of the connection. The com-
mon assertions that language is the "dress" of thought —
is the "vehicle" of thought — point to an outward arid
mechanical connection between the two : while the fine
remark of Wordsworth that " language is not so much
the dress of thought as its incarnation," and the frequent
comparison of the relation which they bear to each other,
with that which exists between the body and the soul,
indicate that a vital connection is believed to exist be-
tween language and thought.

The correctness of this latter doctrine becomes appa-
rent when it is considered that everything growing put
of human nature, in the process of its development and
meeting its felt wants, is of necessity living in its
essence, and cannot be regarded as a dead mechanical
contrivance. That language has such a natural and
spontaneous origin is evident from the fact, that history
gives no account of any language which was the direct
invention of any one man, or set of men, to supplv the
wants of a nation utterly destitute of the ability to ex-
press its thought. Individuals have bestowed an alpha-
bet, a written code of laws, useful mechanical inventions,
upon their countrymen, but no individual ever bestowed
a language. This has its origin in human nature, oi
rather in that constitutional necessity, under which hu

RELATION OF LANGUAGE TO THOUGHT. 183

man nature in common with all creation is placed by*
Him who sees the end from the beginning, which com-
pels the invisible to become visible, the formless to take
form, the intelligible to corporealize itself. That thought
is invisible and spiritual in essence, is granted by all sys-
tems of philosophy except the coarsest and most unphi-
losophic materialism. It is therefore subject to the uni-
versal law, and must become sensuous — must be com-
municated.

In the case of the primitive language, spoken by the
first human pair, we must conceive of it as a g;ift from the
Creator, perfectly correspondent, like all their other en-
dowments, to the wants of a living' soul. As in this first
instance the bodily form reached its height of being and
of beauty, not through the ordinary processes of genera-
tion, birth, and growth, but as an instantaneous creation ;
so too the form of thought, language, passed through no
stages of development (as some teach) from the inarticu-
late cry of the brute, to the articulate and intelligent
tones of cultivated man, but came into full and finished
existence simultaneously with the fiat that called the
full-formed soul and body into being. It would not
have been a perfect creation, had the first man stood
mute in mature manhood, and that too in his unfallen
state and amidst the beauty and glory of Eden. As the pos-
terity of the first man come into existence by a process,
and as both soul and body in their case undergo develop-
ment before reaching the points of bloom and maturity,
langulige also in their case is a slow and gradual forma-
tion. It begins with the dawn of reflective conscious-
ness, and unfolds itself as this becomes deeper and clear-
er. In the infancy of a nation it is exquisitely fitted for
the lyrical expression of those thoughts and feefings
which rise simple and sincere in the national mind and

184 RELATION OF LANGUAGE TO THOUGHT.

* heart, before philosophical reflection has rendered them
complex, or advancing civilization has dried up Iheir
freshness. As the period of fancy and feeling passes
by and that of reason and reflection comes in, language
becomes more rigid and precise in its structure, conforms
itself to the expression of profound thought, and history
and philosophy take the place of the ballad and the
chronicle.

Now the point to be observed here is, that this whole
process is spontaneous and natural; is a growth and
not a manufacture. Thought embodies itself, even as
the merely animal life becomes sensuous • and sensible
through its own tendency and activity. When investi-
gating language, therefore, we are really within the
sphere of life and living organization, and to attempt its
comprehension by means of mechanical principles would
be as absurd as to attempt to apprehend the phenomena
of the animal kingdom by the principles that regulate
the investigation of inorganic nature*. It is only by the
application of dynamical principles, of the doctrine of
life, that we can get a true view of language or be en-
abled to use it with power.

It is assumed then that thought is the life of language ;
and this too in no figurative sense of the word, but in its
strict scientific signification as denoting the principle
that organizes and vivifies the form in which it makes
its appearance. It is assumed that thought is as really
the living principle of language as the soul is the life of
the body, and the assumption verifies itself by the clear-
ness which it introduces into the investigation of the sub-
ject, and by the light which it flares into its darker and
more mysterious parts. That fusion^ for instance, of the
thoughts with the words, which renders the discourse of
the poet glowing and tremulous with -feeling and life,

RELATION OF LANGUAGE TO THOUGHT. 185

can be explained upon no other supposition than that
the immaterial entity born of beauty in the poet's mind
actually materializes itself, and thus enlivens the other-
wise lifeless syllables. Nothing but a vital connection
with the thoughts that breathe, can account for the
words that burn.

"We are not therefore to look upon language as having
intrinsic existence, separate from the thought which it
conveys, but as being external thought, expressed thought.
Words were not first invented, and then assigned to
conceptions as their arbitrary, and intrinsically, mean-
ingless signs ; mere indices, having no more inward con-
nection with the things indicated, than the algebraic
marks, -f- and — , have with the notions of increase and
diminution. In the order of nature, language follows
rather than precedes thought, and is subject to all its
modifications from its first rise in the consciousness of
the individual and the nation, up to that of the philoso-
pher and the philosophic age in a nation's history. Lan-
guage in essence is thought, is thought in an outward
form, and consequently cannot exist, or be the object of
reflection dissevered from the vital principle which sub-
stantiates it. The words of the most thoughtless man
do nevertheless contain some meaning, and words have
effect upon us only in proportion as they are filled with
thought.

And this fulness must not be conceived of as flowing
into empty moulds already prepared. It is a statement
of ^j^of the most profound investigators of physical life,
that the living power merely added to the dead organ is
not life;* i. e. that no intensity whatever of physical life

♦ Cams' Physiologie, Bd. 1. Vorrede. He denies the correctness of the
following formula upon which, he affirms, the mechanical school of physi-
ologists proceeds : todtes Organ -f- Kraft = Leben.

16-

186 RELATION OF LANGUAGE TO THOUGHT.

streamed upon and through a dead hand lying upon a
dissecting table can produce life in the form of the liv-
ing member. The living member cannot come into ex-
istence except as growing out of a living body, and the
living body cannot come into existence unless life, the
immaterial and invisible, harden into the materiality and
burst into the visibility of a minute seminal point which
teems and swells with the whole future organism ; a
point or dot of life from which as a centre, the radiation,
the organization, and the circulation may commence.
In like manner it is impossible, if it were conceivable,
to produce human language by the superinduction of
thought upon, or by the assignation of meaning to, a
mass of unmeaning sounds already in existence. When
a conception comes into the consciousness of one mind,
and seeks expression that it may enter the consciousness
of another mind, it must be conceived of as uttering it-
self in a word which is not taken at hap-hazard, and
which might have been any other arbitrary sound, but
which is prompted and formed, by the creative thought
struggling out of the world of mind, and making use of
the vocal organs in order to ent6r the world of sense.

We cannot, it is true, verify all this by reference to all
the words we are in the habit of using every day, be-
cause we are too far off from the period of their origin,
and because they are oftentimes combinations of simple
sounds that were originally formed by vocal organs dif-
fering from our own by marked peculiarities, yet the
simplicity and naturalness of the Greek of Homer, or
the English of Chaucer, which is no other than the affi-
nity of the language with the thought, the sympathy of
the sound with the sense, cause us to Jcel what in the
present state of philology most certainly cannot be proved
in the case of every single word, that primarily, in the

RELATION OF LANGUAGE TO THOUGHT. 187

root and heart, language is self-embodied thought. Yet
though it is impossible at present in the case of every
single word to verify the assumption upon which we
have gone, it is not difficult to do this in the case of that
portion of the language in which there is emphasis and
intensity of meaning. The verb, by which action and
suffering (which in the animal world is but a calmer and
more intense activity) are expressed, is a w^rd often and
evidently suited to the thought. Those nouns which are
names not of things but of acts and energies, are like-
wise exceedingly significant of the things signified. The
motions of the mouth, the position of the organs, and
the tension of the muscles of speech, in the utterance of
such words as shock, smite, writhe, slake, quench, are
produced by the force and energy and character of the
conceptions which these words communicate, just as the
prolonged relaxation of the organs and muscles in the
pronunciation of soothe, breathe, dream, calm, and the
like, results naturally from the nature of the thought of
which they are the vocal embodiment.

And this leads us to notice that this view of the origin
and nature of language acquires additional support from
considering that the vocal sound is the product of physi-
cal organs which are started into action and directed in
their motion by the soul itself.* Even the tones of the
animal are suited to the inward feeling by the particular
play of muscles and. organs of utterance. The feeling
of pleasure could not, so long as nature is herself, twist
these muscles and organs into the emission of the sharp
scream of physical agony, any more than it could light
up the eye with the glare and flash of rage.

Now if this is true in the low sphere of animal exist-

* See on this fcoint Wallia's English Grammar, and Hearne's Langtofts
Chronicle, Vol. 1 Preface.

188 RELATION OF LANGUAGE TO THOUGHT.

ence, it is -still more true in the sphere of intellectual and
moral existence. If life is true to itself in the lower, it
is true to itself in the higher realm of its manifestation.
When full of earnest thought and feeling the mind uses
the body at will, and the latter naturally and spontane-
ously subserves the former. As thought becomes more
and more earnest, and feeling more and more glowing,
the body bends and yields with increasing pliancy, down
to its minutest fibres and most delicate tissues, to the
working of the engaged mind ; the organs of speech be-
come jjjjp with the soul, and are swayed and wielded by
it. The word is, as it were, put into the mouth, by the
vehement and excited spirit.

When the mind is quickened, out of doubt,
The organs, though defunct and dead before,
Break up their drowsy grave and newly move
With casied slough and fresh legerity.*

As well might it be said that there is no vital and na-
tural connection between the feeling and the blush in
which it mantles, or the tear in which it finds vent, as
that the word — the '•^winged word''^ — has only an arbi-
trary and dead relation to the thought.

Again, it is generally conceded that there is an inher-
ent fitness of gesture, attitude and look, to the thought
or feeling conveyed by them ; but do attitude, gesture,
and look, sustain a more intimate relation to thought
and feeling than language does ; language, at once the
most universal as well as most particular in its applica-
tion, the most exhaustive and perfect, of all the media
of communication between mind and mind, between
heart and heart? The truth is, that all the media
through which thought becomes sensuous and communi-

* Henry IV. Act IV. Sc L

RELATION OF LANGUAGE TO THOUGHT. 189

cable are in greater or less degree, yet in some degree,
homogeneous and con-natural with thought itself. In other
words they all, in a greater or less degree, possess mani-
fest propriety.

It is to be borne in mind here, that the question is not
whether thought could not have embodied itself in other
forms than it has, whether other languages could not
have arisen, but whether the existing forms possess ad-
aptedness to the thought they convey. Life is not com-
pelled to manifest itself in one only form, or in one par-
ticular set of forms, in any of the kingdoms, but it is
compelled to make the form in which it does appear,
vital like itself. The forms, for aught that we know,
may be infinite in number, in which the invisible princi-
ple may become sensible, but the corpse is no one of
them.

Thought as the substance of discourse is logical, ne-
cessary, and immutable, in its nature, while language as
the form is variable. The language of a people is conti-
nually undergoing a change, so that those who speak it
in its later periods, (it very often happens,) would be
unintelligible to those who spoke it in its earlier ages.
Chaucer cannot be read by Englishmen of the present
day without a glossary.* Again, the languages of dif-
ferent nations differ from each other. There is great
variety in the changes of the verb to express the passive
form. The subject is sometimes included in the verb,
sometimes is prefixed, and sometimes is suffixed to it.
The Malay language assumes the plural instead of the

* Y«'t even in this ease, as Wordsworth truly remarks, " the affecting
parts are almost always expressed in laiiyuajre pure, and universally iiiiel-
li^ilile even to this diy." — Preface to Lyriail Ballads. The more intense
and vital the ihuught, the nearer the form approaches the essence, the more
nniversal does it become.

190 RELATION OF LANGUAGE TO THOUGHT.

singular as the basis of number, all nouns primarily de-
noting the plural. Some use the dual and some do not ;
some give gender and number to adjectives, and others
do not ; some have the article and some have not. And
yet all these dift'erent languages are equally embodiments
of thought, and of the same thought substantially. For
the human mind is everywhere, and at all times, subject
to the invariable laws of its own constitution, and that
logical, immutable, truth which stands over against it as
its correlative object, is developed in much the same way
among all nations in whom the intellect obtains a devel-
opment. The vital principle — logical, immutable, truth
in the form of human thought — is here seen embodying
itself in manifold forms, with freedom and originality,
and with an expressive suitableness in every instance.

That a foreign language does not seem expressive to
the stranger is no argument against the fundamental hy-
pothesis. It is expressive to the native-born, and be-
come so to the stranger in proportion as he acquires (not
a mere mechanical and book knowledge, but) a vital
and vernacular knowledge of it. And this expressive-
ness is not the result of custom. Apart from the in-
stinctive association of a- certain word with a certain
conception, there is an instinctive sense of its intrinsic
fitness to communicate the thought intended — of its ex-
pressiveness. For why should some words be more ex-
pressive than others, if they all equally depend upon the
law of association for their significance ? And why is a
certain portion of every language more positive, empha-
tic, and intense, than the remaining portions ? There is
in every language a class of words which are its life and
life-blood, a class to which the mind, in its fervor and
glow, instinctively betakes itself in order to free itself of
its thoughts in the most effective and satisfactory man-

RELATION OF LANGUAGE TO THOUGHT. 191

ner. But this is irreconcilable with the hypothesis that
all words are but lifeless signs, acquiring their significa-
tion and apparent suitableness from use and custom, and
all consequently being upon the same dead level with
respect to expressiveness.

Still another proof that the connection between lan-
guage and thought is organic, is found in the fact that
the relation between the two is evidently that of action
and reaction.

We have seen that language is the produce of thought ;
but this is not to be understood as though language were
a mere effect^ of which thought is the mere cause. The
mere effect cannot react upon the pure cause. It is
thrown off and away from its cause (as the cannon ball
is from the cannon), so that it stands insulated and in-
dependent with respect to its origin.

This is not the case with language. Originated by
thought, and undergoing modifications as thought is de-
veloped, it, in turn, exerts a reflex influence upon its ori-
ginating cause. In proportion as language is an exact
and sincere expression, does thought itself become exact
and sincere. The more appropriate and expressive the
language, the more correct will be the thought, and the
more expressive and powerful will be the direction which
thought takes.

But if language were a mechanical invention, no such
reaction as this could take place upon the inventor.
While connected with thought only by an arbitrary com-
pact on the part of those who made use of it, it would
be separated from thought by origin and by nature. Not
being a living and organic product, it could sustain to
thought only the external and lifeless relation of cause
and efiect, and consequently would remain one and the

192 RELATION OF LANGUAGE TO THOUGHT.

same amid all the life, motion, and modification, which
the immaterial principle might undergo.

Of course if such were the relation between the two,
it would be impossible to account for all that uncon-
scious but real change ever going on in a spoken lan-
guage, which we call growth and progress. Language
upon such an hypothesis would remain stationary in
substance, and at best could be altered only by aggrega-
tion from without. New words might be invented and
added to the number already in existence, but no change
could occur in the spirit of the language, if it may be
allowed to speak of spirit in such a connection.

Furthermore, if there is no vital relation between lan-
guage and thought, it would be absurd to speak of the
beneficial influence upon mental development (which is
but the development of thought) of the study of philo-
logy. If in strict literality the relation of language to
thought is that of the invention to the mind of the in-
ventor, then the study of this outward, and in itself life-
less instrument, would be of no worth in developing an
essence so intensely vital, so full of motion, and with
such an irrepressible tendency to development, as the
human mind.

It is however a truth and a fact that the study of a
well organized language is one of the very best means
of mental education. It brings the mind of the student
into communication with the whole mind of a nation,
and infuses into his culture its good and bad elements
— the whole genius and spirit of the people of whose
mind it is the evolution. In no way can the mind of
the individual be made to feel the power and influence
of the mind of the race, and thereby receive the greatest
possible enlargement and liberalizing, so well as by the

RELATION OF LANGUAGE TO THOUGHT. 193

philosophic study of language A rational method of
education makes use of this study as an indispensable
discipline, and selects for this purpose two languages
distinguished for the intimate relation which they sus-
tain to the particular forms of thought they respectively
express. For the Greek language is so fused and one
with Grecian thought, that it is living to this day, and
has been the source of life to literature ever since its
revival in the fifteenth century ; and the rigid but majes-
tic liatin is the exact embodiment of the organizing and
imperial ideas of Rome.

These languages exhibit the changes of thought in the
Greek and Roman mind. They take their form and
derive their spirit from the peculiarities of these nations.
Hence the strong and original influence which they ex-
ert upon the modern mind. If these languages really
contained no tincture of the intellect that made them
and made use of them, if they communicated none of
the spirit of antiquity^ they would indeed be " dead " lan-
guages for all purposes of mental enlivening and devel-
opment.

But it is not so. The Greek and Roman mind with
all that passed through it, whether it were thought or
feeling, whether it were individual or national, instead
of remaining in the sphere of consciousness merely, and
thus being kept from the ken of all after ages, projected
itself, as it were, into these fine languages, into these
noble forms, and not only became a Krrjfia 69 ael for man-
kind, but also a possession with whose characteristics
the possessor is in sympathy, and from which he derives
intellectual nourishment and strength.

A further proof that language has a living connection
with thought, is found in the fact that feeling and passion
suggest language.

194 RELATION OF LANGUAGE TO THOUGHT.

Feelingand^jjagsion^are the mQ§t^\dt3^LiifLsdlthe_acti-_
vities of the human soul, flowing as they do from the
heart, and that which is prompted by them may safely
be aflirmed to have life. That words the most expres-
sive and powerful fly from the lips of tlje impassioned
thinker is notorious. The man who is naturally of few
Words, becomes both fluent and appropriate in the use
of language, when his mind glows with his subject and
feeling is awakened.

But the use of language is the same in kind and cha-
racter with its origin. The processes through which
language passes from the beginning to the end of its
existence are all of the same nature. As in the wide
sphere of the universe, preservation is a constant crea-
tion, and the things that are, are sustained and perpe-
tuated on principles in accordance with the character
impressed upon them by the creative fiat, so in all the
narrower spheres of the finite, the use and development
are coincident and harmonious with the origin and na-
ture. We may therefore argue back from the use and
development to the origin and nature ; and when we find
that in all periods of its history human language is sug-
gested, and that too in its most expressive form, by feel-
ing and passion, we may infer that these had to-do in
its origin, and have left something of themselves in its
nature. For how could there be a point and surface of
communication between words and feeling, so that the
lattep-should start out the former in all the freshness of a
ne.w creation, if there were no interior connection be-
tween them. For language as it falls from the lips of
passion is tremulous with life — ^with the life of the soul
— and imparts the life of the soul to all who hear it.

K, then, in the actual every-day use of language, we
find it to be suggested by passion, and to be undergoing

RELATION OF LANGUAGE TO THOUGHT. 195

changes both in form and signification, without the
intervention of a formal compact on the part of men, it is
just to infer that no such compact called it into existence.
If, upon watching the progress and growth of a language,
we find it in continual flux and reflux, and detect every-
where in it, change and motion, without any consciously
directed effort to this end on the part of those who speak
it, it is safe to infer that the same unconscious spontane-
ousness characterized it in its beginning. Moreover, if
in every-day life we unconsciously, yet really, use
language not as a lifeless sign of our thought, but believe
that in employing it we are really expressing our mind,
and furthermore, if we never in any way agreed to use
the tongue which we drank in with our mother's milk,
but were born into it and grew up into its use, even as
we were born into and grew up under the intellectual and ^
moral constitution imposed upon human nature by its
Creator, we may safely conclude that language, too, is a
provision on the part of the author of our being, and
consequently is organic and alive.

Indeed, necessity of speech, like necessity of religion
and government and social existence, is laid upon man
by his constitution, and as in these latter instances what-
ever secondary arrangements may be made by circum-
stances, the primary basis and central form is fixed in
human nature, so in the case of language, whatever may
De the secondary modifications growing out of national
differences and peculiarities of vocal organs, the deep
ground and source of language is the human constitution
itself.

Frederick Schlegel, after quoting Schiller's lines :

Thy knowledge, thou sharest with superior spirits ;
Art, oh man ! thou hast alone,

196 RELATION OF LANGUAGE TO THOUGHT.

calls language " the general, all-embracing art of man."
This is truth. For language is embodiment — the em-
bodiment not indeed of one particular idea in a material
form, but of thought at large, in an immaterial yet sensi-
ble form. And the fact that the material used is sound
— the most ethereal of media — imparts to this "all
embracing art" a spirituality of character that raises it
above many of the fine arts, strictly so called. It is an
embodiment of the spiritual, yet not in the coarse ele-
ments of matter. When the spiritual passes from the
intelligible to the sensible world by means of art, there is
a coming down from the pure ether and element of
incorporeal beauty into the lower sphere of the defined
and sensuous. The pure abstract idea necessarily loses
something of its purity and abstractedness by becoming
embodied. By coming into appearance for the sense it
ceases to be in its inefi'able, original, highest state for the
reason — for the pure intelligence. Art, therefore, is
degradation — a stooping to the limitations and imper^-
fections of the material world of sense, and the feeling
awakened by the form, however full it may be of tlie idea,
is not equal in purity, depth, and elevation, to the direct
beholding of the idea itself in spirit and in truth.*

We may, therefore, add to the assertion of Schlegel,
and say, that language is also the highest art of man. —
With the exceptions of poetry and oratory, all the fine
arts are hampered in the full, free, expression of the idea
by the uncomplying material. Poetry and oratory, in

* It is interesting in this connection to notice that the Pui^tan, though
penerally charged with a barbarian ignorance of the worth of art, nevertbe-
lc88 in practice took the only strictly philosophic view of it. That stripping
flaying hatred of form, per sp, which he manifested, grew out of a (practi-
cally) intensely philosophic mind which clearly saw the true relation of tho
form to the idea — of the sensible to the spiritual.

RELATION OF LANGUAGE TO THOUGHT. 197

common with language, by employing the most ethereal
of media, approach as near as is possible for embodiments
to the natm-e of that which they embody, but the latter
is infinitely superior to the two former, by virtue of its
infinitely greater range, and power of exhaustive expres-
sion. Poetry and eloquence are confined' to the particu-
lar and individual, while language seeks to embody
thought in all its relations and transitions, and feeling in
all its manifoldness and depth. The sphere in which it
moves, and of which it seeks to give an outward manifes-
tation is the whole human consciousness, from its rise in
the individual, on through all its modifications in the
race. It seeks to give expression to an inward experi-
ence, that is " co-infinite with human life itself."

Viewed in this aspect, human language ceases to be
the insignificant and uninteresting phenomenon it is so
often represented to be, and appears in all its real mean-
ing and mystery. It is an organization^ as wonderful as
any in the realm of creation, built up by a necessary ten-
dency of human nature seeking to provide for its wants,
and constructed too, upon the principles of that universal
nature, which Sir Thomas Brown truly affirms to be
" the art of God." * Contemplate, for a moment, the
Gre^k language as the product of this tendency, and
necessity, to express his thought imposed upon man by
creation. This wonderful structure could not have been
put together by the cunning contrivance, and adopted by
the formal consent, of the nation, and it certainly was not
preserved and improved in this manner, f Its pliancy and
copiousness and precision and vitality and harmony,

♦ Die philosophische Bildung der Sprachen, die vorzuglich noch an den
urspriin^lichen sichtbar wird, ist ein wahrhaftes durch den Mcdianismus
des menscblichen Geistes gewirktes Wunder. — Schelling's vom Ich. u. s.
w. ^ 3.

17*

198 RELATION OF LANGUAGE TO THOUGHT.

whereby it is capable of expressing all forms of thought,
from the simplicity of Herodotus to the depth of Plato,
are qualities which the unaided and mechanizing under-
standing of man could not have produced. They grew
spontaneously, and gradually, out of the fundamental
characteristics of the Grecian mind, and are the natural
and pure expression of Grecian thought. Contemplate,
again, our own mother tongue as the product of this
same foundation for speech laid in human nature by its
constitution. Its native strength and energy and vivid-
ness, and its acquired copiousness and harmony, as
exhibited in the simple artlessness of Chaucer, and " the
stately and regal argument" of Milton, are what might
be expected to characterize the Latinized Saxon.

A creative power, deeper and more truly artistic than
the inventive understanding, produced these languages.
It was that plastic power, by which man creates form for
the formless, and which, whether it show itself univer-
sally in the production of a living language, or particu-
larly in the works of the poet or painter, is the crowning
power of humanity. In view of the wonderful harmo-
nies and symmetrical gradations of these languages, may

we not apply the language of Wordsworth :

•
Point not these mysteries to an art
Lodged above the starry pole,
Pure modulations flowing from the heart
Of Divine love, where wisdom, beauty, truth,
With order dwell, in endless youth. *

We should not, however, have a complete view of the
relation of language to thought, if we failed to notice
that in its best estate it is an imperfect expression. —
Philosophy ever labors under the difficulty of finding

* Power of Sound.

RELATION OF LANGUAGE TO THOUGHT. 199

terms by which to communicate its subtle and profound
discoveries, and there are feelings that are absolutely-
unutterable. Especially is this true of religious thought
and feeling. There is a limit within this profound
domain beyond which human speech cannot go, and the
hushed and breathless spirit must remain absorbed in the
awful intuition. Here, as throughout the whole world
of life, the principle obtains but an imperfect embodiment.
There is ever something more perfect and more glorious
beyond what appears. The intelligible world cannot be
entirely exhausted, and therefore it is the never-failing
source of substantial principle and creative life. In the
case before us, truth is entirely exhausted by no language
whatever. There are depths not yet penetrated by con-
sciousness, and who will say that even the consciousness
of such a thinker as Plato can have had a complete
expression, even through such a wonderful medium as
the Greek tongue ? The human mind is connected with
the Divine mind, and thereby with the whole abyss of
truth ; and hence the impossibility of completely sounding
even the human mind, or of giving complete utterance to
it ; and hence the possibility and the basis of an unend-
ing development for the mind and an unending growth
for language.

We are aware that the charge of obscurity may be
brought against the theory here presented, by an advo-
cate of the other theory of the origin and nature of
language. We have no disposition to deny the truth of
the charge, only adding that the obscurity, so far as it
perlains to the theory (in distinction from the presenta-
tion of the theory, for which the individual is responsible,)
is such as grows out of the very nature and depth and
absolute truth of the theory itself. We have gone upon
the supposition that human language, as a form, is

200 RELATION OF LANGUAGE TO THOUGHT.

neither hollow nor lifeless — that it has a living principle,
and that this principle is thought. Now life is and must
be mysterious ; and at no point more so than when it
begins to organize itself into a body. Furthermore, the
spontaneous, and to a great extent, unconscious processes
of life, are and must be mysterious. The method of
genius — one of the highest forms of life — in the pro-
duction of a Hamlet, or Paradise Lost, or the Trans-
figuration, has not yet been explained^ and the method
of human nature, by which it constructs for itself its
wonderful medium of communication — by which it
externalizes the whole irmer world of thought and feel-
ing— cannot be rendered plain like the working of a
well poised and smoothly running machine throwing off
its manufactures.

Simply asking then of him who would render all things
clear by rendering all things shallow, by whom^ when^
V7here^ and how^ the Greek language, for example, was
invented, and by what historical compact it came to be
the language of the nation, we would turn away to that
nobler, more exciting, and more rational theory, which
regards language to be " a necessary and organic product
of human nature, appearing contemporaneously and
parallel with the activity of thought." This theory of
the origin of language throws light over all departments
of the great subject of philology, finds its gradual and
unceasing verification as philological science advances
under a spur and impulse derived from this very theory,
and ends in that philosophical insight into language,
which, after all, is but the clear and full intuition of Its
mystery — of its life.

Having thus specified the general relation of language
to thought, we naturally turn to the uses and applications
of the theory itself. Its truth, value, and fruitfulness, are

RELATION OF STYLE TO THOUGHT. 201

nowhere more apparent than in the department of Rhe-
toric and Criticism. For this department takes special
cognizance of the more living and animated forms of
speech — of the glow of the poet, and the fire of the
orator. It also investigates all those peculiarities of con-
struction, and form, in human composition that spring out
of individual characteristics. It is, therefore, natural to
suppose that a theory of language which recognizes a
power in human thought to organize and vivify and
modify the forms in which it appears, will afford the best
light in w^hich to examine those forms; just as it is
natural to suppose that the commonly received theory
of physical life, will furnish a better light in which to
examine vegetable and animal productions, 1 han a theory
like that of Descartes, e. g. which maintains that the
forms and functions in the animal kingdom are the
result of a mechanical principle. Life itself is the best
light in which to contemplate living things.

We propose therefore in the remainder of this essay to
follow the same general method already pursued, and
examine the nature of style, by pointing out its relation'
to thought.

Style is the particular manner in which thought flows
out, in the case of the individual mind, and upon a par-
ticular subject. When, therefore, it has, as it always
should have, a free and spontaneous origin, it partakes
of the peculiarity both of the individual and of the topic
upon which he thinks. A genuine style, therefore, is the
free and pure expression of the individuality of the
thinker and the speciality of the subject of thought. —
Uniformity of style is consequently found in the produc-
tions of the same general cast of mind, applied to the
same general class of subjects, so that there is no dis-
tinguishable period in the history of a nation's literature,

202 RELATIOx\ OF STYLE TO THOUGHT.

but what exhibits a style of its own. The spirit of the
age appears in the general style of its literary composi-
tion, and the spirit of the individual — the tone of his
mind ^nowhere comes out more clearly than in his
manner of handling a subject. The gravej„lofty, and-
calm, style of the Elizabethan age is an exact representa-
tion of the spirit of its thinking men. The intellectual
temperament of the age of Queen Anne flows out in the
clear, but diffuse and nerveless, style of the essayists.

From this it is easy to see that style, like language,
has a spontaneous and natural origin, and a living con-
nection with thought. It is not a manner of composing,
arbitrarily or even designedly chosen, but rises of its own
accord, and in its own way^ in the general process of
mental development. The more unconscious its origin,
and the more strongly it partakes of the individuality of
the mind, the more genuine is style. Only let it be care-
fully observed in this connection, that a pure and sincere
expression of the individual peculiarity is intended. Af-
fectation of originality and studied effort after peculiarity
produce mannerism^ in distinction from that manner of
pure nature, which alone merits the name of style.

If this be true, it is evident that the union of all styles,
or of a portion of them, would not constitute a perfect
style. On the contrary, the excellence of style consists
in its having a bold and determined character of its
own — in its bearing the genuine image and superscrip-
tion of an individual mind at work upon a particular
subject. In a union of many different styles, there would
be nothing simple, bold, and individual. The union
would be a mixture, rather than a union, in which each
ingredient would be neutralized by all, and all by each,
leaving a residuum characterless, spiritless, and lifeless.
• Style, in proportion as it is genuine and excellent, is

RELATION OF STYLE TO THOUGHT. 203

sincere and artless. It is the free and unconscious ema-
nation of the individual nature. It alters as the individ-
,ual alters. In early life it is ardent and adorned; in
mature life it is calm and grave. In youth it is flushed
with fancy and feeling ; in manhood it is sobered by rea-
son and reflection. But in both periods it is the genu-
ine expression of the man. The gay manner of L' Alle-
gro and Comus is as truly natural and spontaneous, as
the grave and stately style of Paradise Regained and
Samson Agonistes. The individuality of a man like Mil-
ton passes through great varieties of culture and of mood,
and there is'seen a corresponding variety in the ways in
which it communicates itself; yet through this variety
there runs the unity of nature ; each sort of style is the
sincere and pure manner of the same individual taken in
a particular stage of his development.

No one style, therefore, can be said to be the best of
all absolutely, but only relatively. That is the best style
relatively to the individual, in which his particular cast
of thought best utters itself, and in which the peculiarity
of the individual has the fullest and freest play. That
may be called a good style generally, in which every
word tells — in which the language is full of thought,
and alive with thought, and so fresh and vigorous as to
seem to have been just created — while at the same time
the characteristics of the mind that is pouring out in this
particular manner, are all in every part, as the construct-
ing and vivifying principle.

The truth of tliis view of style is both confirmed and
illustiated by considering the unity in variety exhibited
by the human mind itself. The mind of man is one and
the same in its constitution and necessary laws, so that
the human race may be said to be possessed of one uni-
versal intelligence. In the language of one of the mosf

204 RELATION OF STYLE TO THOUGHT. .

elegant and philosophic of English critics,* " It is no un-
pleasing speculation to see how the same reason^ has at
all times prevailed : how there is one trutJ^ like one sun,
that has enlightened human intelligence through every
age, and saved it from the darkness of sophistry and
error." Upon this sameness of intelligence rest all abso-
lute statements, and all universal appeals. Over against
this universal human mind, as its coiTesponding object
and counterpart, stands truth, universal in its nature and
one and the same in its essence.

But besides this unity of the universal, there is the
variety of the individual, mind. Truth, consequently,
coming into consciousness in the form of thought in an
individual mind, undergoes* modifications. It is now
contemplated not as universal and abstract, but as con-
crete and in its practical relations. It is, moreover, seen,
not as an unity, but in its parts, and one side at a time.
Philosophical truth in Plato differs from philosophical
truth in Aristotle, by a very marked modification. Poet-
ical truth is one thing in Homer and another in Virgil.
Religious truth assumes a strikingly different form in
Paul and Luther, from that which it wears in John and
Melanchthon. And yet poetry, philosophy, and religion,
have each their universal principles — their one abstract
nature. Each, however, appears in the form imposed
upon it by the individual mind ; each wears that tinge
of the mind through which it has passed, which is de-
nominated style.

No m^n has yet appeared whose individuality was so
comprehensive and universal, and who was such a mas-
ter of form, that he exhausted the whole material of ^
poetry, or philosophy, or religion, and exhibited it in a style

* Harris. Preface to Hermes.

RELATION OF STYLE TO THOUGHT. 205

and form absolutely universal and final. Enough is ever
left of truth, even after the most comprehensive presenta-
tion, for another individuality to show it in still a new
and original form. For there is no limit to the manner
of contemplating infinite and universal truth. Provided
only there be a pecuharity — a particular type of the hu-
man mind — there will be a peculiarity of intuition, and
consequently of exhibition.

The most comprehensive and universal individual
mind was that of Shakspeare, and hence his productions
have less of style, of peculiar manner, than all other lite-
rary productions. Who can describe the style of Shak-
speare ? Who is aware of his style ? The style of Mil-
ton is apparent in every line, for he was one of the most
svi'generic of men. But the form which truth takes in
Shakspeare, is as comprehensive and universal as the
drama, as all mankind. This is owing to that Protean
power by which, for the purposes of dramatic art, he con-
verts himself into other men, takes their consciousness,
and thereby temporarily loses his own limited individual-
ity. But that Shakspeare was an individual, that a pecu-
liar type of humanity formed the basis of his person kl
being, and that he had a style of thought of his own, it
would be absurd to doubt. And had he attempted other
species of composition than the drama, (which by its
very nature requires that the individuality of the author
be sunk and lost entirely in the various characters,) had
he taken, like Milton, a particular theme ^s the " great
argument" for his poetic power, doubtless the maw, the
individual^ would have come into sight.*

* In corroboration of this, it may be remarked that we have far more
sense of the ivdividualify of Shal^speare, while perusing his poems and
8onnets,<thaD while studying bis dramas.

206 RELATION OF STYLE TO THOUGHT.

Style of expression thus springing out of the style of
thought, is therefore immediately connected with the
structure and character of the individual mind. It con-
sequently has an unconscious origin. On the basis laid
in the individual's characteristics, and by and through the
individual's mental growth, his manner of expression is
formed. There is a certain style which fits the individ-
ual— which, and no other, is his style. It is that man-
ner of presenting thought, into which he naturally falls,
when his mind is deeply absorbed in a subject, and when
he gives no heed to the form into which his thought is
running.

It is not to be inferred from this, that style has no con-
nection with culture. It has a most immediate and vital
connection with the individual's education. Not only all
that he is by nature, but all that he becomes by culture,
tends to form his style of thought and expression ; but,
be it observed, unconsciously to him. For an incessant
aim, a conscious, anxious effort to form a given style, is
the destruction of style. Under such an inspection and
oversight. Nature cannot work, even if the mind under
such circumstances, could absorb itself in the theme of
reflection. There must be no consciousness during the
time and process of composing, but of the subject. The
subject being all in all, for the thinker, the form into
which his thought runs, with all the modification and
coloring which it really, though unconsciously to him,
receives from his individualism, and from the whole past
of his education, is his style — his genuine and true mari-
ner.

The point to be observed here is, that style is the con-
sequent, so far as it is related to culture. For, the culture
itself takes its direction and character from the original
tendency of the individual, (for every one in the rtid ob-

RELATION OF STYLE TO THOUGHT. 207

fains a mental development coincident with his mental
bias,) and style is but ^^ unconscious manifestation of
this culture. Style — genuine style — can never be the
conscious antecedent of culture. It cannot be first
selected, and then the whole individuality of the mind,
and the whole course of education, be forced to contri-
bute to its realization. One cannot antecedently choose
the style of Burke, e. g. as that which he would have for
his own, and then deliberately realize his choice. It is
true that a mind sinfllar to that of Burke in its structure,
and in sympathy with him through a similarly fruitful
and opulent culture, would spontaneously form its style
upon, and with, his. But the process, in this case, would
not be a deliberate and conscious imitation, but an un-
conscious and genial reproduction. It would be the con-
sequent of nature and of culture, and not the antecedent.
The individual would not distinctly know that his was
the style of Burke, until it became apparent to others
that it actually was. •

Here, too, as in every sphere in which the living soul
of man works, do we find the genuine and beautiful pro-
duct originating freely, spontaneously, and unconscious-
ly. Freely, for it might have been a false and deformed
product, yet spontaneously and unconsciously, for it can-
not be the subject of reflection and matter of distinct
knowledge until after it has come into existence. By
the thronging stress and tendency of the human soul,
which is so created as to contain within itself the princi-
ple and direction of its own movement, is the product
originated, which then, and not till then, is the possible
and legitimate subject of consciousness, analysis, and
criticism. The style of a thinking mind is no exception
to this universal law. It is formed, when formed accord-
ing to nature — when formed as it was destined to be,

208 RELATION OF STYLE TO THOUGHT.

by that creative idea which prescribes the whole never-
ending development of the crqj^re — it is formed out
of what is laid in the individual constitution, and through
what is brought in by the individual culture, uncon-
sciously to the subject of the process, and yet freely, so
far as his nature and constitution are concerned.

If the view that has been taken of style, be correct, it
is evident, that in the formation of style, no attempt
should be made to change the fundamental character
imposed upon it by the individual constitution. The
type is fixed by nature, and no one should strive, by forc-
ing nature, to obtain a manner essentially alien and foreign
to him. The sort of style which belongs to the individual
by his intellectual constitution is to be taken as given.
The direction which all culture in this relation takes,
should proceed from this as a point of departure, and all
discipline and effort should end in an acquisition that is
homogeneous with this substantial ground of style. Or
still more accurately, the individuality itself is to be
deepened and made more capacious and distinct, by cul-
ture, and is then to be poured forth in that hearty uncon'
scions purity of manner which is its proper and genuine
style.

A nd this leads us to consider the true method of form-
ing and cultivating style.

If the general view that has been presented of the na-
ture both of language and style be correct, it is plain that
the mind itself, rather than the style itself, should receive
the formation and the cultivation. Both language and
style are but forms in which the human mind embodies
its thought, and therefore the mindy considered as the
originating power — as that which is to find an utter-
ance and expression — should be the chief object of cul-
ture, even in relation to style. A cultivated mind con-

RELATION OF STYLE TO THOUGHT. 209

tains within itself resources sufficient for all its purposes.
The direct cultivation of the mind, is the indirect culti-
vation of all that stands connected with it.

And this is eminently true of the formal, in distinction
from the material departmients of knowledge — of those
" organic (or instrumental) arts," as Milton calls them,
" which enable men to discourse and write perspicuously,
elegantly, and according to the fitted style of lofty, mean
or lowly." For inasmuch as these formal departments
of knowledge are not self-sufficient, but derive their sub-
stance from the material departments, it is plain that
they can be cultivated with power and success only
through the cultivation of these latter. Rhetoric, in or-
der to be anything more than an idle play with words
and figures of speech — in order to a substantial existence,
and an energetic power — must spring out of logic; and
logic again, in order to be something more than a dry
and useless permutation of the members of syllogisms,
must be grounded in the necessary laws of thought, and
so become but the inevitable and the living movement
of reason. Thus ar» we led in from the external to the
internal as the solid ground of action and origination,
and are made to see that the culture must begin here, in
every instance, and work out. All these arts and sci-
ences are the architecture of the rational and thinking
mind of man, and all changes in them, either in the way
of growth or decline, proceed from a change that has
first taken place in their originating ground. They are
in reality the index of the human mind, and show with
most delicate sensibility all that is passing, in this ever-
moving principle. What are the languages literatures,
laws, governments, and (with one exception) religions
of the globe but the history of the human mind — the
outstanding monument of what it has thought !

18'

210 RELATION OF STYLE TO THOUGHT.

It may be said with perfect truth, therefore, that the
formation and cultivation of the mind, is the true method
of forming and cultivating style. And there are two
qualities in mental culture which exert such a direct and
powerful influence upon style as to merit in this connec-
tion a particular and close examination. They are depth
and clearness.

(1) By depth of culture is meant that development of
the mind from its centre^ which enables it to exert its
very best power, and to accomplish the utmost of which
it is capable. The individual mind differs in respect to
innate capacity. Some men are created with a richer
and more powerful intellectual constitution than others.
But all are capable of a profound culture ; of a develop-
ment that shall bring out the entire contents and capacity
be they more or less. By going to the centre of the
mind — by setting into play those profounder faculties
which though differing in degree, are yet the same in
kind, in every man — a culture is attained that exerts a
most powerful andjeiccilent influence upon style. Such
mental education gives body to style. It furnishes the
material which is to fill the language and solidify the
discourse. The form in which a profoundly cultivated
mind expresses itself is never hollow ; the language
which it employs not being alone — mere words — is
never dead. It may, perhaps, be silent at times, for such
a mind is not necessarily fluent, but when it does speak,
the product has a marked character. The thought and
its expression form an identity ; are coined at one stroke.

P'or a deeply educated mind spontaneously seeks to
know truth in its reality, and to express it in its simplicity.
Unconsciously, because it is its nature to do so, it pene-
trates to the heart of a subject, and discourses upon it
with a simplicity and directness which precludes any

RELATION OF STYLE TO THOUGHT. 211

separation between the thought and the words in which
it is conveyed. The mind which has but a superficial
knowledge of the subject-matter of its discourse cannot
render the language it employs consuhstantial with its
thought. We feel that the words have been hunted up
by a vacant mind, instead of prompted by a full one. —
Thought and language stand apart, because thought has
not reached that degree of profundity, and that point of
clear intuition, and that height of energy, in conscious-
ness, at which it utters itself in language that is truly
one with itself, and alive with itself. Whenever a pro-
foundly cultivated mind directs itself to an object of
contemplation it becomes identical with it, while in the
act of contemplation. The distinction between the con-
templating subject, and the contemplated object, vanishes
for the time being ; the mind, as we say popularly, and
yet with strict philosophic truth, is hst in the theme, and
the theme during this temporary process, becomes but a
particular state of the mind. The object of contempla-
tion, which at first was before the mind is now in the
mind; that to which the mind came up as to a thing
objective and extant, has now been transmuted into the
very cgnsciousness of the mind itself, and is therefore the
mind itself, taken and held in this temporary process*
It follows, consequently, that the style in which this

* The doctrine of the identity of subject and object in the act of conscious-
ness is a true and safe one, it seems to us, only when stated with the limi-
tation above -, only when tlie identity is regarded as merely relative — as
existinj; only in, andduriny the act of consciousness. If, however, the identity
is retrarded as absolute and essential — if it he asserted that, apart from con-
sciousness and back of consciousness, the subject and oljeet. the mind and
the truth, are absolutely but one essence — then we see no difference between
the doctrine, and that «.f the '• 8ul)8fantia una et uniea " of Spinoza. The
identity in this case, notwithstanding the disclaimer of Sehelling, is same-
ness of substance, and there is but one substance in the universe. The

212 RELATION OF STYLE TO THOUGHT.

fusion of trtith with intellect flows out, must be as near
the perfection of form as it can be. The style of such a
mind is similar to the style of the Infinite mind, as it is
seen in nature. It is characterized by the simplicity and
freedom of nature itself Nor let this be regarded either
as irreverent or extravagant. We are confessedly within
the sphere of the finite and the created, and therefore are
at an infinite remove from Him " who is wonderful in
working," and yet there is something strongly resembling
the workings of creative power, in the operations of a
mind deeply absorbed in truth and full of the idea. As
the Divine idea becomes a phenomenon — manifests itself
in external nature — by its own movement and guidance,
it necessarily assumes the very perfection of manner. —
The great attributes of nature, the sublimity and beauty
of creation, arise from the oneness of the form with the
idea — the transfusion of mind into matter. In like
manner, though in an infinitely lower sphere and degree,
the human idea, profound, full, and clear in conscious-
ness, throws itself out into language, in a style, free,
simple, beautiful, and, it may be, sublime like nature
itself. And all this arises because thought does its own
perfect work — because truth arrived at in the conscious-
ness of the profound thinker is simply suffered to exercise
its own vitality, and to organize itself into existence. It
is not so much because the individual makes an effort to
embody the results of his meditation, as because these
results have their own way, and take their own form,
that the style of their appearance is so grand. It has
been asserted above, that style, in its most abstract defi-
nition, is the universal appearing in the particular. Ln

truth is, that subject and object are not, absolutely, one essence, but two ;
but become one temporarily, in the act of consciousness, by virtue of a
homogeneity rather than an absolute identity, of essence.

RELATION OF STYLE TO THOUGHT. 213

other words, it is the particular and peculiar manner in
which the individual mind conceives and expresses truth,
which is universal. Now it is only by and through depth
of mental cultivation, that truth, in its absolute reality
and in its vital energy, is reached at all. A superficial
education never reaches the heart of a subject — never
brings the mind into contact and fusion with the real
substance of the topic of discourse. Of course, a mind
thus superficially educated in reality has nothing to
express. It has not reached that depth of apprehension,
that central point where the solid and real truth lies, at
which, and only at which, it is qualified to discourse. —
It may, it is true, speak about the given topic, but before
it can speak it ow^, in a grand, impressive style, and in
discourse which, while it is weighty and solid, also dilates
and thrills and glows with the living verity, it must, by
deep thought, have effected that mental union with it of
which we have spoken.

A mind, on the contrary, that has received a central
development, and whose power of contemplation is
strong, instead of working at the surface, and about the
accidents, strikes down into the heart and essence, and
obtains an actual view of truth ; and under the impulse
imparted by it, and by the light radiated from it at all
points, simply represents it. In all this there is no effort
at expression — no endeavor at style — on the part of
the individual. He is but the medium of communication,
now that, by his own voluntary thought, the union
between his mind and truth has been brought about. —
All that he needs to do is, to absorb himself still more
profoundly in the great theme, and to let it use him as
its organ. It will flow through his individualism, and
take form and hue from it, as inevitably as the formless

214 RELATION OF STYLE TO THOUGHT.

and colorless light, acquires both form and color by com-
ing into the beautiful arch of the sky.

(2) By clearness, as an element in culture, is meant
such an education of the mind, as arms it with a pene-
trating and clear vision, so that it beholds objects in dis-
tinct outline. When united with depth of culture, this
element is of great worth, and diffuses through the pro-
ductions of the mind some of the most desirable quali-
ties. Depth, without clearness of intuition, is obscurity.
Though there may be substantial thinking, and real truth
may be reached by the mind, yet like the vXt] out of
which the material universe was formed, according to
the ancient philosophy, it needs to be irradiated by light,
before it becomes a defined, distinct, and beautiful form.
Indeed, without clearness of intuition, truth must remain
in the depths of the mind, and cannot be really express-
ed. The mind, without close and clear thinking, is but
a dark chaos of ideas, intimations, and feelings. It is
true, that in these is the substance of truth, for the hu-
man mind is, by its constitution, full of truth; yet these
its contents need to be elaborated. These undefined
ideas need to become clear conceptions ; these dark and
pregnant intimations need to be converted into substan-
tial verities ; and these swelling but vague feelings must
acquire definition and shape ; not merely that the con-
sciousness of ojie mind may be conveyed over into that
of another, but also in order to the mind's full under-
standing of itself.

And such culture manifests itself in the purity and
perspicuity of the style in which it conveys its thoughts.
Having a distinctly clear apprehension of truth, the mind
utters its conceptions with all that simplicity and perti-
nence of language which characterizes the narrative of

RELATION OF STYLE TO THOUGHT. 215

an honest eye-witness. Nothing intervenes between
thought and expression. The clear, direct, view, instan-
taneously becomes the clear, direct, statement. And
when the clear conception is thus united with the pro-
found intuition, thought assumes its most perfect form.
The form in which it appears, is full and round with
solid truth, and yet distinct and transparent. The im-
material principle is embodied in just the right amount
of matter; the former does not overflow, nor does the
latter overlay. The discourse exhibits the same oppo-
site and counterbalancing f^r^^^^nrijf" which we see in
the forms of nature — the simplicity and the richness, the
negligence and the niceness, the solid opacity and the
aerial transparence.*

* Shakspeare affords innumerable exemplifications of the characteristic
here spoken of. In the following passages notice the purity and cleanliness
of the style in which he exhibits his thought. As in a perfect embodiment
in nature, there is nothing ragged, or to be sloughed off :

* * * Chaste as the icicle
That's curded by the frost from purest snow,
And hangs on Dian's temple.

CoriolanitSf V. 3.

* * =* =»^ * This hand
As soft as dove's down, and as white as it;
Or Ethiopian's tooth, or the fann'd snow.
That's bolted by the northern blasts twice o'er.

Winter's Tale, IV. 3.

Or if that surly spirit, melancholy,

Had baked thy blood, and made it heavy, thick ;

Which else runs tickling up and down the veins.

King John, III. 3.

And I, of ladies most deject and wretched,
Tiiat sucked the honey of his music vows.
Now see that noble and most sovereign reason.
Like sweet bells jangled, out of tune, and harsh.

Hamlet, III. I.

216 RELATION OF STYLE TO THOUGHT.

It is rare to find such a union of the two main ele-
ments of culture, and consequently rare to find them in
(Style. A profoundly contemplative mind is often mystic
and vague in its discourse, because it has not come to a
clear, as well as profound, consciousness — because dis-
tinctness, has not gone along with depth, of apprehen-
sion. The discourse of such a mind is thoughtful and
suggestive it may be, but is lacking in that scientific,
logical, power which penetrates and illumines. It has
warmth and glow, it may be, but it is the warmth of the
stove (to use the comparison of another) — warmth with-
out light.

On the other hand it often happens that the culture
of the mind is clear but shallow. In this case nothing
but the merest and most obvious commonplace is utter-
ed, in a manner intelligible and plain enough to be sure,
but without force or weight, or even genuine fire, of
style. Shallow waters show a very clear bottom, and
but little intensity of light is needed in order to display
the pebbles and clean sand. That must be a " purest
ray serene " — a pencil of strongest light — ^which discloses
the black, rich, wreck-strown depths. For the clearness
of depth is very different from the clearness of shallow-
ness. The former is a positive quality. It is the posi-
tive and powerful irradiation of that which is solid and
dark, by that which is ethereal and light. The latter is
a negative quality. It is the mere absence of darkness,
because there is no substance to be dark — no body in
which (if we may be allowed the expression) darkness
can inhere. Nothing is more luminous than solid fire;
nothing is more flashy than an ignited void.

These two fundamental characteristics of mental cul-
ture, lie at the foundation of style. Even if the second-
ary qualities of style could exist, without the weightiness

RELATION OF STYLE TO THOUGHT. 217

and clearness of manner wliich spring from the union of
profound with distinct apprehension, they would exist in
vain. The ornament is worthless, if there is nothing to
sustain it. The bas-relief is valueless, without the slab
to support it. But these secondary qualities of style —
the beauty, and the elegance, and the harmony — derive
all their charm and power from springing out of the
pi^mary qualities, and in this way, ultimately, out of the
deep and clear culture of the mind itself — from being
the white flower of the black root.

Style, when having this mental and natural origin, is
to be put into the ^t class of fine forms. It is the
form of thought ; and, as a piece of art, is as worthy of
study and admiration, as those glorious material forms
which embody the ideas of Phidias, Michael Angelo,
and Raphael. It is the form in which the human mind
manifests its freest, purest, and most mysterious activity
— its thinking. There is nothing mechanical in its ori-
gin, or stale in its nature. It is plastic and fresh as the
immortal energy, of which it is the air and bearing.

THE DOCTRINE OF ORIGINAL SIN.

Die chrisdiche Lehre von der Sunder dargesteUt von Julius Miilhr,

We have placed the title of this work of Miiller at the
head of our article, not for the purpose of entering into
an analysis and criticism of it at this time, but rather, as
a strong and convenient shelter under which to labor
upon the much vexed and much vexing doctrine of Ori-
ginal Sin. We are the more inclined to connect our re-
flections upon this subject with this work, in even this
slight and external manner, first, because they coincide
substantially with what we suppose to be the general
theory presented in this thorough and thoroughly elabo-
rated treatise, though differing from it, as may be seen, on
the point of the nature of the connection of the individual
with Adam, and by such other modifications as would
naturally result from considering the subject from other
points of view, and with reference to questions current
among a theological public, differing very considerably
from that in the midst of which this work originated;
and, secondly, because it gives us countenance in the

♦ Reprinted from the Christian Review, Number LXVIL
[2181

THE DOCTRINE OF ORIGINAL SIN. 219

attempt to investigate the doctrine from a metaphysical,
and not merely psychological, position. For it is the
misfortune of the theology in vogue for the last hundred
years, as it seems to us, that sin has been contemplated
in its phenomenal aspects, rather than in its hidden
sources. The majority of treatises that have been writ-
ten upon this subject since the middle of the eighteenth
century, have been occupied principally with conscious^
and (technically so called) actual transgression ; while
sin, in the form of a nature, deeper than consciousness,
and the very fountain of all consciousness itself, on this
subject, has too generally been neglected. While, there-
fore, the psychology of sin has been diligently investi-
gated, and with as much success as could have been ex-
pected under the circumstances, the metaphysical side of
the doctrine has made little or no progress. If we turn to
the treatises of an elder day — to the doctrinal statements
on this subject of Augustine or Calvin, or Turretine, or
Owen, or the elder Edwards — we find the reverse to be
the fact. Here the essence of sin is regarded as a na-
ture, or state of the soul, which manifests itself in a con-
scious and actual transgression that derives all its ma-
lignity and guilt from this, its deeper source. With this
source itself — this metaphysical ground of the psycholo-
gical or conscious transgression — the profound intellect
and acute speculation of these men were chiefly occu-
pied, knowing that if all the contradiction and all the
mystery on this difficult doctrine, could be cleared up at
this point, the question would be settled once for all.
Instead, however, of advancing in the general line of ad-
vance, marked and deeply scored int6 all the best theo-
logy of the past, the theological mind for the last cen-
tury has stopped short, as it seems to us, and has con-
tented itself with investigating the mere superficies of

220 THE DOCTRINE OF ORIGINAL SIN.

the subject — ignoring, and in some instances denying,
the existence of its solid substance. Th'e effect of this
species of theologizing is every way deleterious. In the
first place, the problem itself can never be solved by this
method, any more than the mystery of life can be made
clearer by a mere examination of the leaves and blossoms
of a tree. The creed statement of the doctrine of origin-
al sin has made no advance since the statement made in
1643, by the Westminster Assembly. There has been
much acute and intense speculation upon the doctrine
since that time, — for mysterious as it is, and repulsive as
it is, to fallen human nature, it will ever charm like the
serpent's eye, — but we know of no distinct and strict
wording of the doctrine made since then, that contains a
fuller and clearer and less contradictory statement than
that of the Catechism. It is plain, that there will be no
" progress in Theology " by this route. In the second
place, this neglect of the sinful nature, and this fasten-
ing of the eye upon the sinful exercises only, is greatly
injurious to the interests of practical religion. The at-
tention of man is directed to the mere surface of his
character. His eye is not made to penetrate into what
he is, because he is constantly occupied with what he
does. The standard of character itself is lowered ; while,
as all church history shows, the grade of character act-
ually reached is far lower than that attained on another
theory and view of sin.

Finally, less unanimity among theologians is the na-
tural result of this neglect of the metaphysical side of
the doctrine of sin. We know that it is one of the most
popular of fallacies, that nothing is less settled than
metaphysics, — that the brain of a thorough-bred meta-
physician is as confused as his heart, according to Burke,
is hard. Still, in the face of the fallacy, we re-affirm

THE DOCTRINE OF ORIGINAL SIN. 221

that nothing but a return to the old ground occupied by
the combatants of an earlier day, will enable theologians
to range themselves into two, and only two, divisions,
instead of the present variety of " schools," whose name
is legion. The questions that arise, and the answers that
are compelled, by a metaphysical method, as distinguished
from a merely empirical one, locate the theologian, on one
side or the other of the line ; because, by this method,
terms are used in their strict signification, and the con-
ceptions denoted by them are distinct.

Suppose, for example, that the term " sinful," when ap-
plied to the nature of fallen man, instead of being
employed in the sense of " innocent," as it sometimes is
at the present day, had but the one uniform and constant
signification of " guilty," — would not all who hold and
teach the doctrine of a sinful nature see eye to eye on
that point ? Suppose again, that the word " imputation "
were employed to denote the charge of guilt upon the
absolutely guilty, and never an arbitrary charge of any
sort, — would not all who hold to the imputation of a
sinful nature be at one on this point ? And yet the loose
use of these and kindred terms, and the multiplication of
schools in theology thereby, can be prevented only by
that method of investigation which passes by all mani-
festations and phenomena, and having reached the
nature itself, asks — is it innocent, or is it culpable ? — is
this nature as justly and properly imputable, and so, as
worthy of punishment, in the case of the individual, as
of Adam, or is it not? Here the subject lies in a nut-
shell ; and while the " yea, yea," locates the theologian
on one side of the line first sharply drawn in the days of
Augustine, and the " nay, nay," locates him on the other
side, what is still better, this strict handling of terms

19*

222 THE DOCTRINE OF ORIGINAL SIN.

leads to a deeper and more satisfactory enucleation and
establishment of the truth itself.

For, if a'man affirm that the fallen nature is sin itself,
and not the mere occasion of sin ; is guilt itself, and not
the mere occasion of guilt; and also, that all this is as
true of the posterity of Adam as of the individual Adam
himself, he is not only bound to explain this on rational
grounds, but he is driven to the attempt to explain it by
the inevitable movement of his own mind. And this
was the case with the men whom we have mentioned.
They never shrank from affirming that the ultimate form
of sin is a nature, that this nature is guilt, and that the
wrath of God justly rests upon every individual of the
human race because of it. And when pressed with the
difficulties that beset this, and every other one of the
" deep things of God," by as acute and able opponents
as the world has ever seen, instead of relaxing the state-
ment, or betaking themselves to a loose and equivocal
use of words, they stuck to terms, and endeavored to
think through, and establish, on philosophical grounds, a
form of doctrine which they first and heartily adopted,
on experimental and Scriptural grounds. We do not
say that they completely solved the problem, but we
verily believe that they were in the way of its solution,
and that theological speculation must join on where they
left off, and move forward in their line of advance. No
one age, however wise and learned, can furnish a finished
Theology for all the ages to come ; but if we would
have substantial advance, each and every age must be in
communication with the wisdom and truth of the pre-
ceding, and form a piece of continuity with it.

Returning to this point of unanimity, consider for a
moment the variety of opinions among us in regard to

THE DOCTRINE OF ORIGINAL SIN. 223

this subject of a sinful nature. What divisions and con-
troversies exist among those who all alike profess to be
Calv,inists ! How little unanimity exists upon this doctri ne
among those who all alike repel the charge of Arminian-
isra ! One portion or school teach, that there is a cor-
rupt nature in man, but deny that it is really and strictly
sinful. Another portion or school teach, that there is a
nature in man to which the epithet " sinful " is properly
applied, who yet, when pressed with the inquiry — is it
crime^ and deserving of the wTath of God ? — shrink from
the right answer, and return an uncertain sound, of which
the substance is, that its contrariety to law, and not its
voluntariness, is the essence of sin. Again, there are
those who are prepared to fall back upon the ground of
the elder Calvinists, up to a certain point, but who
resolve the whole matter when pressed by their opponents,
into the arbitrary will and sovereignty of God, and depre-
cate all attempts to construct the doctrine on'grounds of
reason and philosophy. And finally, there are some who
are inclined not only to the doctrinal statement of Augus-
tine and Owen and the elder Edwards, but also to their
method of establishing and defending it, by means of the
doctrine of the real oneness of Adam and his posterity,
in the fall of the human soul. And yet Calvinism is one
in its nature and theory. Using this term to denote not
merely that particular scheme of Christian doctrine drawn
up by Calvin, but that doctrinal system which had its
origin in the controversy of Augustine with Pelagius,
and which received a further development through the
reformed theologians on the continent, and the puritan
divines of England; we may say that Calvinism teaches
but one thing in regard to the existence of a sinful nature
in fallen man, and but one thing in regard to the mean-
ing of the term sinful. During those ages of controversy

224 THE DOCTRINE OF ORIGINAL SIN.

— the 16th and 17th centuries — those who held the
doctrine of a sinful nature, and of a sinful nature that is
guilt, stood upon one side, and stood all together;, and
those who rejected this doctrine stood upon the other
side, and also stood all together.* The Christian church

* This is evident from the symbols of the three great divisions of the
modern Protestant church, viz: the Lutheran, the Keformed (Calvinistic),
and the Puritan.

Item docent. quod post lapsum Adae omnes homines, secundum naturara
propauaii, nascantur cum peccato. hoc est, sine metu Dei, sine fiducia erga
Deum, et cum concupiscentia, qnodque hie morbus, seu vitium oriyinis vere sit
peccatum, damnans et afferens tieternam mortem.

Damnant Pelagianos et alios, qui vitium originis negant esse peccatum.
Confessio Augustana, Articulus II.

Est peccatum originis corruptio totius naturae, et vitium hereditarium,
* * * * * efilquc tarn foedum atque execrabile coram Deo,ut ad univer-
si generis humani condemnationem snfficiat. Confessio Belgica, Articulus XV.

Peccatum originis, est vitium et depravatio naturae cuiuslihet hominis ex
Adamo naturaliter propagati, qua fit ut ab originali justitia quam longissime
distet, ad malum sua natura propendeat, et caro semj)er adversus spiritum
concupiscat. unde in unoquoque nascentium tram Dei atque damnationem meretur.
Articuli XXXIX, Articulus IX.

Qua transgressione. quae vulgo dicitur originale peccatum, prorsus defor-
mata est ilia Dei in homine imago, ipseque et ejus posteri natura facti sunt
iniinici Dei, mancipia Siitanae. et servi peccati, adeout mors aeterna hahuerit
et habitura est potentiam et dominium in omnes, qui non fuerunt, non sunt coe-
litus regeniti. Confessio Scoticana, III.

Peccatum omne cum originale tum actuale, quum justae Dei legis trans-
gressio sit eique contraria, peccatori suapte natura reatum infert, quo ad iram
Dei, ac mcdedictionem legis subeundam obligatur, adeoque redditur obnoxius morti
simrd et miseriis omnibus spiritualibus, tempoi-alibus, ac aeternis. Westmin-
ster Confessio fidei, Cap. VI. § 6.

Every sin, both original and actual, being a transgression of the righteous
law of God, and contrary thereunto, doth in its own nature bring guilt upon
the sinner, whereby he is bound over to the wrath of God, and curse of the
law, and so made subject to death, with all miseries spiritual, temporal, and
eternal, Boston Confession of Faith, Chapter VI.

Q. What are the effects of this first sin of man ? A. 1. Guilt ; whereby
they are bound to undergo due punishment for their fault. 2. Punishment;
which is the just wrath of God, with the effects of it upon them for the filth
of sin. Davenport's New Haven Catechism.

THE DOCTRINE OF ORIGINAL SIN. 225

was divided into two divisions, and no more. And this,
because the controversy was a thorough one, owing to
the profound view of sin taken by the disputants on the
Augustinian side; the metaphysical, rather than merely
psychological aspect of the doctrine being uppermost.

It is therefore in this connection that we rejoice at the
appearance, in this age, of a work like that of M'dller,
which recognizes a deeper source and form of sin than
particular and conscious choices, and invites the theolo-
gian to contemplate the origin and essential character of
that nature and state of the human soul, from which ail
conscious transgression proceeds. Whether it adopt all
the views of the author or not, we are confident the
reflecting mind that has made itself acquainted with the
history of the doctrine of original sin, will find no diffi-
culty in deciding on which side of the great controversy
this treatise is ; and furthermore, that it is on the whole
a substantial advance towards a complete philosophical
statement of the theological statement contained germ-
inally in the works of Augustine, and formally in all
the best symbols of the church.

In commencing the investigation of the doctrine of
original sin, we naturally start from one distinct and un-
ambiguous statement of Scripture ; and we know of no
one at once so plain and full as the affirmation of St.
Paul, that man is by nature a child of wrath. The doc-
ti'ine of a guilty nature in man is taught either by impli-
cation, or by an explicit detail, in other passages in
Paul's Epistles, in the Psalms of David, in the Epistles
of John, in the Prophecies of Isaiah and Jeremiah,
and in the teachings of Christ ; but perhaps no single
text of Scripture enounces the doctrine so briefly and
comprehensively as this. It makes specific mention of

226 THE DOCTRINE OF ORIGINAL SIN.

the two principal characteristics of human sinfulness:
(1-) its depth, and, by implication, its universality ; and
(2.) its guilt. After all that may be said upon this
boundless subject, in its various relations to man, to the
universe, and to God, the whole substance of the doc-
trine may be crowded into a very narrow compass.
When we have said, that man is by nature a child of
wrath — when we have said, that sin is a nature, and
that this nature is guilt — we have said in substance all
that can be said. The most exhaustive investigation of
the subject will not reveal any feature or element that is
not contained by implication in this brief statement.

The true method of investigating the doctrine is thus
prescribed by the terms in which it is stated in Scripture,
and we shall endeavor to follow it rigidly. We shall
endeavor to exhibit the Scriptural doctrine of original
sin, not by merely reciting a series of texts, and there
leaving the matter, but by seizing upon the most signifi-
cant and pregnant text of all, and rigorously developing
it. If we are not mistaken, the simple contents of this
one proposition of St. Paul, will unfold themselves by
close reflection into a detailed view, and a doctrinal
statement, that will be found to harmonize also with rea-
son and the Christian experience.

I. This passage of inspiration teaches, that sin is a
nature. " We were ^vaei — by nature — children of
wrath." The Greek word (pvaL^, like the Latin, natura,
always denotes something original and innate, in con-
tradistinction to something acquired by practice or habit.
Whenever we wish to represent an attribute or quality,
as residing in a subject in the most deep and total man-
ner possible, we say that it is in it by nature, or as
a nature ; and when in our investigations we are brought

THE DOCTRINE OF ORIGINAL SIN. 227

back to a nature, as a fundamental basis, we think we
have reached the bottom.*

When we search for the essence of human sinfuhiess,
we find it in the form of a nature in the man. Suppose we

* The word "nature" for some minds conveys only the meaning of " cre-
ated i5ubstance," so that to assert that sin is a nature, is tantamount, for
them, to the assertion that it is the substance or essence of man. This is
not its use in this essay. Sin is not substance but agency : it is not the es-
sence of the will but its action ; not the constitution of this faculty but its
motion. The term " nature," consequently, when applied to moral agency,
is equivalent to " natural disposition."

None were more careful to guard against the Manichaean doctrine, that
sin is substance, than those who have held the doctrine that man Ims a sin-
ful nature and that this nature is guilt. Augustine carefully distinguishes
between the work of the Creator and that of the creature. The work of
the former he often designates by the term natura. Employed in this sense
he denies that sin is nature, or belongs to the course and constitution of na-
ture. Omne autem vitium naturae vocet, ac per hoc contra naturam est. (De
Civ. Dei XII. 1). The entire argument in Chapter 6 of Book XII. of the
De Civitate Dei, endeavors to prove that moral evil is the pure self-motion
of the will of the creature.

Consonant with this, Calvin (Institutes B. II. C. I. § 11 ) remarks" We say,
therefore, that man is corrupted by a natural depravity, but which did not
originate from nature. We deny that it proceeded from nature, to signify
that it is rather an adventitious quality or accident, than a substantial prop-
erty originally innate. Yet we call it natural, that no* one may suppose it
to be contracted by each individual from corrupt habit." Again (Inst. B. I.
C. XIV. § 3) 'neither the depravity and wickedness of men and devils, nor
the sins which proceed from that source, are from mere nature, but from a
corruption of nature." Again (Inst. B. I. C. XV. § 1), " we must beware
lest, in precisely pointing out the natural evils of man, we seem to refer
them to the Author of nature." Again (Inst. B. I. C. XV. § I), " it would
redound to the dishonor of God, if nature could be proved to have had any
innate depravity at its formation."

The Formula Concordiae is careful to assert, in opposition to the doc-
trine of an extreme party in the Lutheran church, " peccatum originale
non esse ipsam hominis naturam^ aut essentiam, hoc est, ipsius hominis cor-
pus et animam, (quae hodie in nobisjetiam post lapsum sunt, manentque
Dei opus et creatura) sed malum illud originis esse aliquid in ipsa hominis
natura, corpore, anima, omnibusque viribus humanis." Ilase's Libri Sym-
bolici, p. 639.

228 THE DOCTRINE OF ORIGINAL SIN.

arrest the sinner in the outward act, and fix our attention
upon sin in this form, we are immediately compelled, by
the operation of our own mind, to let go of this outward
act, and to seek for the reality of his sin within him. The
outward act, we see in an instant, is but an effect of a
cause; and we instinctively turn our eye inward, and
fasten it upon the cause. The outward act of transgres-
sion drives us, by the very laws of thought, to the power
that produced it — to the particular vohtion that origin-
ated it. No mind that thinks at all upon sin can possi-
bly stop with the outward act. Its own rational reflec-
tion hurries it away, almost instantaneously, from the
blow of the murderer — from the momentary gleam of
the knife — to the volition within that strung the muscle,
and nerved the blow.

But the mind cannot stop here in its search for the
essential reality of sin. When we have reached the
sphere — ihe imvard sphere — of volitions, we have by
no means reached the ultimate ground and form of sin.
We may suppose, that because we have gone beyond
the outward act — because we are uowwithinihe man —
we have found sin in its last form. But we are mis-
taken. Closer thinking, and what is still better, a deeper
experience, will disclose to us a depth in our souls, lower
than that in which volitions occur, and a form of sin
in that depth, and to the bottom of it, very different from
the sin of single volitions.

The thinking mind which cannot stop with mere
efl'ects, but seeks for* first causes, and especially the heart
that knows its own pligue, cannot stop with that quite
superficial action of the will which manifests itself in a
volition. This ac;ion is too isolated — too intermit-
tent— and, in reality, loo feeble, to account for so steady
and uniform a state of character as human sinfulness.

THE DOCTRINE OF ORIGINAL SIN. 229

For these particular volitions, ending in particular out-
ward actions, the mind instinctively seeks a common
ground. For these innumerable volitions, occurring each
by itself and separately, the mind instinctively seeks one
single indivisible nature irom which they spring. When
the mind has got back to this point, it stops content, be-
cause it has reached a central point. When it has traced
all these outward acts and inward volitions to one com-
mon principle and source, it stops content, because it has
introduced unity into the subject of its investigation.
When the human mind has attained a view that is both
central and simple, it is satisfied.

It is not more certain, that we are compelled by the
laws of our minds to refer properties to a substance, than
that by the operation of the same laws, we are compel-
led to refer sinful volitions to a sinful disposition. When
we see exercises of the soul, we as instinctively refer
them to a natural character in that soul, as we refer the
the properties of a body to the substance of that body.
In both cases the human mind is seeking for unity and
simplicity in its perceptions. It cannot be content with
merely looking at these various properties of matter, this
impenetrability, this extension in space, this form, this
color, and stopping here. It wants unity of perception,
and simplicity of perception, and therefore it goes farther,
and refers all these properties to one simple substance,
of which they are the manifestation. In like manner,
the human mind cannot be content with merely looking
at all these exercises — these unnurribered volitions of the
soul. It craves unity and simplicity of perception here
too, and refers these innumerable, sinful volitions, to a
sinful nature in man, one and indivisible, of which they
are the manifestations.

Again : the argument from the Christian experience is
20

230 THE DOCTRINE OF ORIGINAL SIN.

as strong as that from the nature of the human mind, in
favor of the position that the ultimate form — the essen-
tial reality — of sin, is a nature. Although in the first
period of conviction of sin, the attention of the man may-
be directed mainly to actions and volitions; and although
this may be the case to a considerable extent, even in
the first stages of the Christian experience, it is yet safe
to say, that the Christian man is troubled through the
Christian life on earth, mainly, and permanently, by his
sinful nature. The reality of sin, for every man whose
experience is worth being taken as testimony, is not
in particular volitions of his 'will, but in its abiding
state — not in what he chooses to do now and then, but
in that unceasing, uninterrupted determination of self to
evil. This is the torment of his life — that below his
volitions to sin — below his resolutions to reform — even
below his deepest self-examination, and his most distinct
self-knowledge — below all the conscious exercises and
operations of his soul, there is a sinful hearty a dark
ground of moral evil.

We are aware of the mysteriousness which is thrown
over the subject of sin, by the assumption of a form of
sin which is deeper than consciousness. But we must
take things as we find them, whether they are mysterious
or not ; whether we can explain them or not. The con-
tents which we are to analyze are given to our hand, and
whether we succeed or not in the analysis, they have the
same fixed and real nature of their own. And, we may
add, the true way to arrive at the unfolding of a mys-
tery, is to recognize in the outset, the existence of all
that belongs to it. The true way to arrive at the suc-
cessful solution of a dark probfem, is to retain all the
terms of its statement. To throw out one or more of
the terms which properly belong to the problem, and in

THE DOCTRINE OF ORIGINAL SIN. 231

which its real nature is contained, because it seems to be
a ti'oublesome term to manage, is to utterly prevent the
solution ; and the attempt to unfold the deep mystery of
original sin, while rejecting in the outset an element that
is essential — the sin that is deeper than consciousness,
or the sinful nature, as distinguished from sinful voli-
tions — simply because it darkens a subject that is con-
fessedly mysterious, must inevitably be a failure.

Without troubling ourselves, therefore, at this point in
the investigation, about the mysteriousness of a sin of
which we are not conscious, because it is the basis and
explanation of consciousness, and therefore of necessity
below its range and plane, let us here and now settle the
fact, whether there is any such sin.

(1.) And, in the first place, is it not a fact, that in
regard to the matter of sin, we do refer all the conscious
processes of our souls to something back of these process-
es ? The materials that make up our consciousness as
sinners — the innumerable items of which it is compos-
ed— the thousands of wrong volitions, and the hundreds
of thousands of wrong emotions, and the millions of wrong
thoughts — do we not, as a matter of fact, refer them
all to some one thing, out of which they spring ? Can
we, and as matter of fact do we, continue to chase
these innumerable and constantly vanishing particulars,
dropping one as soon as we have reached the next suc-
ceeding, because the mind can grasp but one thing at a
time, and thus lose the mind in an endless series, instead
of collecting it in one act of contemplation and reflec-
tion ; or do we, with David, cease this attempt to num-
ber our iniquities, and having acknowledged that they
are more than the hairs of our head, (Ps. xl. 12,) with
him confess a one sin of heart and of nature at the bot-
tom of them all ? No man who has had any experience

232 THE DOCTRINE OF ORIGINAL SIN.

on this subject at all, will deny that such is the fact. —
Whatever his theory may be, every man does, in his
private reflections and secret confession to God, find a
form of sin within him which he regards as the fountain
and cause of all his particular and conscious transgres-
sions. He finds an original sin from which these partic-
ular wrong thoughts, emotions, and volitions, proceed.

(2.) And now, in the second place, is it not a fact, that
we are never conscious of this source itself of transgres-
sions, but only of what flows from it ? We are undeni-
ably conscious of these thoughts, these emotions, these
volitions — of these items which go to make up the sum
of our experience — of these various materials of con-
sciousness. But, are we, as matter of fact, ever conscious
of that principle of evil — that sinful nature^ to which, as
we have seen, we instinctively refer all our conscious
transgressions ? We have only to reflect a moment to
see that we are never conscious of this sinful nature itself,
but only of what proceeds from it. The evil principle to
which we refer all these manifestations of evil, remains
ever below the plane of consciousness. These manifes-
tations may, themselves, become more and more profound,
and may carry us down into deeper and deeper regions,
but we find the sinful nature ever below us ; as we go
down into the depths of our apostate souls, and know
still more and still more of the plague of our hearts, we
are all along, and at every lower point, obliged to assume
the existence of a yet deeper sin than our consciousness
has grasped. We never reach the bottom ; we never
come, in consciousness, to the lowest and ultimate form
of sin ; or, which is the same thing, we never see the
time when we have become conscious of all our sinful-
ness, and there are no further discoveries for us to make.
The prayer of David is the proper prayer for us to the

THE DOCTRINE OF ORIGINAL SIN. 233

day of our death : " Search me, O Lord, and try me, and
see what evil ways are within me; cleanse Thou me
from secret faults." A prayer, it may be remarked, that
is utterly unintelligible on the hypothesis that there is no
sin deeper than consciousness.

This sinful nature, as distinguished from the conscious
transgressions that proceed from it, is not a part of our
experience, but something which we infer from our expe-
rience, as the origin and explanation of it. It is the
metaphysical ground of the physical — i. e., psychological
— phenomena. We find within consciousness, an in-
numerable amount of particulars — an endless series of
wrong thoughts, emotions, and volitions — each occur-
ring by itself; and this is all we do or can find in con-
sciousness. And if we were confined merely to what we
are conscious of — if we were shut up to the series of our
experiences merely — we should never come to the knowl-
edge of a sinful nature. We should be compelled to stop
with the phenomenal merely. But when in reflection,
and for the purposes of science, we arrest all these pro-
cesses of consciousness — when we bring this ever-flow-
ing stream of conscious transgressions to a stand-still —
that we may look at them, and find the origin and first
cause of them, then we are obliged to assume a principle
below them all, to infer a nature back of them all. —
Thus, this sinful nature is an inference, an assumption, or,
to use a word borrowed from geometry, a postulate, which
the mind is obliged to grant, in order to find a key that
will unlock, and explain, its own experience.

" But granting," the objector may say, " granting that,
as matter of fact, we do infer and assume, from what we
find in our consciousness, the existence of a nature
deeper than consciousness, to which we refer the data of
experience, and by which we explain them, what evidence

20*

234 THE DOCTRINE OF ORIGINAL SIN.

is there, that there is in reality any such thing? By your
own confession, it is entirely beyond the sphere of human
consciousness ; and though it may be a convenient
a priori postulate, under which to group and generalize
the various particulars in our experience, what evidence
is there, that there is an actual correspondent to it in the
human soul ? " We answer ; The evidence in this case
is precisely the same with that which exists in the case
of any and every purely metaphysical truth. The evi-
dence cannot of course be derived from consciousness,
because we are seeking the ground and explanation of
consciousness itself; and therefore must be sought for in
that normal and necessary movement of our rational intellect^
by which we are compelled to the a priori assumption. —
We find ourselves necessitated, in every instance that we
attempt to find an adequate origin for our particular
transgressions, to assume the existence of a sinful nature,
and this rational necessity in the case, is the evidence that
we need. When we find that the mind is driven by the
very laws of thovg-ht to an a priori assumption, and that
it m invariably driven to it whenever it reflects at all upon
its experience, we have all the evidence that can be had
for a metaphysical truth — all the evidence that can
rationally be required, that the assumption corresponds
to the truth and reality in the case. Reason cannot
impose upon itself, and invariably teach a truth of know-
ing, that is no truth of being — a truth of logic and
science, that is no truth of fact ; and therefore it is, that
men will always believe that there is a substance in
which accidents inhere, and a nature from which mani-
festations proceed, though there is no evidence from con-
sciousness for either. The fact, that the human mind, in
the exercise of its sober reflection upon the data of con-
sciousness, is invariably and unavoidably compelled to a

THE DOCTRINE OF ORIGINAL SIN. 235

given assumption, is evidence that the assumption has
rational grounds, and corresponds to truth and reality. —
If it is not, then a lie has been built into the very struc-
ture of the human mind, and it is not to be trusted in
regard to any a priori truth. If, when following the laws
of thought, and trusting to the constitution imposed
upon it by the Creator, there is no certainty that the
assumptions which it is compelled to make, as the suifi-
cient ground and adequate explanation of its experimental
consciousness, correspond to the truth of things, the
human mind might as well stop thinking altogether.

And what shall we do in this connection with the
sense of guilt ? This sinful nature, as matter of fact, is
the source of remorse, and the cause of the most poignant
self-reproach in those whose senses have been exercised
to discern good and evil. Can we suppose that there is
a lie here too, and that pangs come into the human soul,
and exist there, with no valid reason for them, no real
ground for them to rest upon ? Can we suppose that all
the remorse and self-reproach that has resulted in the
souls of men, from a knowledge of their nature and
character^ and not merely of their particular acts, was
un-called for, because there is in reality no such nature ?
Can we suppose that He who looks on things precisely
as they are, knows that there is no just cause for this
mental distress in His creatures?

In addition to these arguments derived from the nature
of the human mind, and the sense of guilt, (which latter
point opens a wide and most interesting field of investi-
gation,) we may add, that the history of Christian doctrine
shows that the church has in all ages believed in a sinful
nature, as distinguished from conscious transgressions.
The soundest, and, as we believe, the profoundest symbols,
all teach the existence of a form of human sinfulness

236 THE DOCTRINE 'of ORIGINAL SIN.

running deeper than even the most thorough and search-
ing Christian experience — or, which is the same thing,
that the Divine Eye beholds a corruption in man, more
radical and more profound than has ever been seen by
the eye of man himself

II. Assuming, then, that the fact of a sinful nature
has been established, we pass to the second statement
of St. Paul, that man is by nature a child of wrath. "We
pass from his statement, that sin, in its ultimate form,
is a nature, to his statement, that this nature is ^uilt.
And we need not say, that in so doing, we are passing
over into the darkest and most dangerous district in the
whole domain of theological speculation. The recon-
dite nature of the subject, the difficulty of clearly ex-
pressing one's conceptions, even when they lie distinct
in one's own mind, the liability to push a point too far,
the failure to guard one's statements with sufficient care,
and many other causes that might be specified, conspire
to render this side of the doctrine of original sin one of
the most difficult of all topics of discussion. And be-
fore we venture out into this region, we wish to say
beforehand, that we should regret and dread above all
things, to advance any views on this important doctrine
that would conflict with the Christian's experience of
the plague of his heart — any views that would be in the
least degree prejudicial to that profound view of sin which
the soul does actually have when under the teaching and
influence of the Holy Spirit. We most heartily and re-
ligiously acknowledge, that here the Practical must have
preference to the Speculative ; and we would immediate-
ly give up any speculative view or theory of sin that we
might have formed, the moment that we saw that it
would go, or tend in the least, to disparage a thorough-
going statement of the doctrine in a creed, or to pro-

THE DOCTRINE OF ORIGINAL SIN. 237

mote an imperfect and shallow experience of it in the
heart.

The apostle teaches, that sinful man is a child of
wrath. Now, none but a guilty being can be the object
of the righteous and holy displeasure of God. The doc-
trine of the Divine Anger is tenable only on the sup-
position that the objects upon whom it expends itself
are really ill deserving — are really criminal. It becomes
necessary therefore to show, that that sinful nature of
man, on account of which he becomes a child of wrath,
and obnoxious to the Divine anger, is a guilty nature.
In doing this, we shall be led to discuss sin in its rela-
tion to the human Will, and to Adam, the first man.

(1.) In regard to the first point, the position taken is,
that this sinful nature is in the Will, and is the product
of the Will. We say that it is in the Will, in coiitra-
distinction to the physical nature of man. One state-
ment of the doctrine of original sin rhakes it to consist
in the depravation of man's sensuous nature merely. In
this case, the Will is conceived to be extraneous to this
corrupted nature, and merely the executor of it. Origin-
al sin, in this case, is not in the voluntary part of man,
but in the involuntary part of him ; and guilt cleaves to
him when the voluntary part executes the promptings of
the involuntary part; and guilt does not cleave to him
until this does take place. The adherents of this view
insist, (and properly too, if this statement is correct,)
that the term " sinful," in the sense of guilty or criminal,
cannot be applied to this depraved physical nature ' — to
this (so-called) original sin.

In opposition to this view, we affirm that original sin
does not consist in the depravation of man's sent*uous or
physical nature, but in the depravation of his Will itself.
The corruption Oi the physical nature of man is one of

238

THE DOCTRINE OF ORIGINAL SIN.

the consequences of original sin, but not original sin it-
self. This is a depravation of a far deeper and more
central faculty than that of sense — a corruption of the
voluntary power itself. It is because the human Will —
the governing' power in the soul — first fell away from
God, that the other faculties of man are in the condition
they are, that the affections are carnal, that the under-
standing is darkened, that' the physical nature is de-
praved ; and these effects of apostasy should never be
put in the place of their cause — of that corruption of the
Will which is the origin of them all.

But the examination of a single instance of the grati-
fication of a sensuous propensity, is enough to show
that sin lies elsewhere than in the physical nature. A
man, we will suppose, gratifies the sensuous craving for
strong drink. The sin in the case does not lie in this
craving of the sensuous nature, corrupted though it be.
The sin in the case lies further back, in the Will ; and,
be it observed, not solely in that particular volition of
the Will by which the act of drinking was performed,
but ultimately in that abiding state of the Will — that
selfishness, or selfish nature in the Will — which prompt-
ed and permitted the volition. Here, as in every in-
stance, we are led back to a sinful nature, as the essence
of sin; and this nature we find in the Will itself; we
find it to be a particular state of the Will itself.

But, besides saying that this sinful nature is in the
Will, we have said, furthermore, that it is the product of
the Will. By this we mean, that the efficient producing
author of this sinful nature is the Will itself; in other
words, that this nature is a self-willed, a self-determined
nature. Before proceeding further with this part of the
subject, we wish to premise a few remarks upon these
terms, " self-willed " and " self-determined."

THE DOCTRINE OF ORIGINAL SIN. 239

It is unfortunate for the cause of truth, and especially
for the scientific development of the doctrine of original
sin, that the term self-determination has been appropria-
ted by the Arminian School in Theology ; and still more
unfortunate, that the conception denoted by it has been,
and still is, such a defective and inadequate one. Both
Arminians and their modern opponents have understood,
and still do understand, by this term, an ability in the
Will, at any moment, to choose or refuse some particu-
lar thing. The Will accordingly, both for Arminians
and their opponents, is merely the faculty of single
choices — the faculty of particular volitions ; and self-de-
termination for both parties denotes the ability to put
forth a single volition, or not, at pleasure. The Will for
both parties is simply that faculty of particular choices,
by which we raise a hand or let it drop — a species of
voluntary power which the horse employs, in common
with man, when he chooses clover and refuses burdock.

This is the notion attached to the term self-determina-
tion in the treatise of Edwards — the ability, viz., to
resolve this way or that, at any moment, and under
all circumstances ; and if this is the only self-deter-
mination of which we can have any conception, then
Edwards was correct in denying the doctrine. So far
as his work combats this defective and inadequate no-
tion of self-determination — so far as it seeks to over-
throw the Arminian self-determination — it is one of great
value. From such a superficial view of thfe Will, as
being merely the faculty of single isolated volitions, and
from such an inadequate notion of self-determination, as
being merely the ability to choose or refuse a particular
thing, in a particular case, nothing but the most shallow
view both of sin and of regeneration could result. The
great merit of Edwards in this polemic treatise, it seems

240 THE DOCTRINE OF ORIGINAL SIN.

to US, consists more in his powerful and successful re-
sistance of a false theology, in connection with a thorough
view of ihe fallen and corrupt Will, than in his own posi-
tive statements concerning the ideal and original nature
of this faculty.*

In saying, therefore, that the sinful nature of man is
the product of his Will, we do not mean to teach, that
it has its origin in the Will considered as the faculty of
choices, or particular volitions. We no more.beHeve
that original sin was produced by a volition, than that it
can be destroyed by one. And if we can have no idea
of the Will except as such a faculty of single choices,
and no idea of voluntary action except such as we are
conscious of in our volitions and resolutions, then we
grant that the sinful nature must be referred to some
other producing cause than the human Will, and that
the epithets, " self-determined," and " self-originated,"
cannot be applied to it.

But it seems to us that we can have a fuller and more
adequate idea of the voluntary power in man than this
comes to. It seems to us that our idea of the human
Will is by no means exhausted of its contents, when we
have taken into view merely that ability which a man
has, to regulate his conduct in a particular instance. It
seems to us that we do believe in the existence of a con-
trolling power in the soul, that is far more central and
profound than the quite superficial faculty by which we
regulate the movement of our limbs outwardly, or' in-
wardly summon up our energies to the performance of
particular acts. It seems to us, that by the Will, is
meant a voluntary power that lies at the very centre of i
the soul, and whose movements consist, not so much in

* Edwards's work on "Tlie Affections," contains much that is of great
value for the construction of a philosophic theory of the Will.

THE DOCTRINE OF ORIGINAL SIN. 241

choosing or refusing, in reference to particular circum-
stances, as in determining the whole man with reference
to some great and ultimate end of living. The character-
istic of the Will proper, as distinguished from the voli-
tionary faculty, is determination of the whole being to an
ultimate end, rather than selection of means for attaining
that end in a particular case.* The difference between
the voluntary and the volitionary power — between the
Will proper and the faculty of choices — may be seen by
considering a particular instance of the exercise of the
latter. Suppose that a man chooses to indulge one of
his appetites in a particular instance — the appetite for
alcoholic stimulus, e. g. — and that he actually does gra-
tify it. In this instance, he puts forth one single voli-
tion, and performs one particular act. By an act of the
faculty of choices, of which he is distinctly conscious,
and over which he has arbitrary power, he drinks, and
gratifies his appetite. But why does he thus choose in
this particular instance ? In other words, is there not a
deeper ground for this single volition ? Is not this parti-
cular act of the choice determined by a far deeper and
pre-existing determination of his whole inward being to
self, as an ultimate end of living? And now, if the
Will should be widened out and deepened, so as to con-
tain this whole inward state of the man — this entire
tendency of the soul to self and sin — is it not plain that
it would be a very different power from that which put
forth the particular volition? Would not the Will, as
thus conceived, cover a far wider surface of the soul, and
reach down to a far deeper depth in it, than that faculty

♦ This distinction between the Will proper, and the faculty of choices, is
inarketl in Lacin by the two words, Voluntas and Arbitrium ; and in that one
of ilie modern tongues whose vocabulary for Philosophy is the richest of
all, by the two words, Wille and WUfkiifcr.

2^12 THE DOCTRINE OF ORIGINAL SIN.

of single choices which covers but a single point on the
surface;- and never goes below the surface ? — Would not
a faculty comprehensive enough to include the whole
man, and sufficiently deep and central to be the origin
and basis of a nature^ a character^ a permanent moral
state, be a very different faculty from that volitionary
power whose activity is merely on the surface, and whose
products are single resolutions, and transient volitions ?

Now, by the Will, we mean such a faculty. We
mean by it a voluntary power that lies at the very
foundation of the human soul, constituting its central,
active principle, containing the whole moral state, and
all the moral affections. We mean by it a voluntary
power that carries the whple inward being along with it
when it moves; a power, in short, which is the man
himself — the ego, the person.

It will be seen from this view, that the voluntary power
in man is the deepest and most central power within
him. We sometimes hear the human soul spoken of as
composed fundamentally of Intellect and of Feeling,
and only superficially of Will ; as if man were an Intel-
lect at bottom, or a Heart at bottom, and then a Will
were superinduced as the executive of these. But thi?
cannot be so, for man is a person, and the bottom of
personality is free Will. Man at bottom is a Will — a
self-determining creature — and his other faculties of
knowing and feeling are grafted into this stock and
root ; and hence he is responsible from centre to circum-
ference.*

* This more capacious idea of the Will is the most common one in
doctrinal history. "Voluntas est quippe in omnibus: imo omnes nihil
aliud quam voluntates sunt. Nam quid est cupiditas, et laetitia, nisi voluntas
in eorum consensionem qu» volumus ? Et quid est metus atque trisiitia,
nisi voluntas in dissensionem ab his quas nolumus." Aug. De civitate Dei,
Lib. XIV., Cap. VI.

THE DOCTRINE OF ORIGINAL SIN. 243

The Will, as thus defined, we affirm to be the respon-
sible and guilty author of the sinful nature. Inde^ed^ this
sinful nature is nothing more nor less than the state of the

" The Will is in the soul like the primum mobile in the heavens, that doth
carry all the inferior orbs away with its own motion. This is the whole of
a man ; a man is not what he knoweth. or what he remembereth, but what
he Willeth. The Will is the Queen sitting upon its throne, exercising its
dominion over the other parts of the soul. The Will is the proper seat of
all our sin ; and if there could be a summum malum as there is a summum
bonum, this would be in the Will." — Burgess. Original Sin. Part III.
chap. XIV. Sec. 1.

" In the Will, we are to conceive suitable and proportionate affections to
those we call passions in the sensitive part. Thus, in the Will, (as it is a
rational appetite,) there are love, joy, desire, fear, and hatred. * * *
So that the Will loveth, the Will rejoiceth, and the Will desireth," etc. —
Burgess. Part III. chap. IV. Sec. 2.

'• The heart in Scripture is variously used ; sometimes for the mind and
understanding; sometimes /or the Will; sometimes for the affections; some-
times for the conscience ; sometimes for the whole soul. Generally it de-
notes the whole soul of man, and all the faculties of it, not absolutely, hut
as they are one principle of moral operations, as they all concur in our doing
good cr eviV^ — Owen. Indwelling Sin. Chapter III.

"And then, likewise, there is a consequent averse or transverse posture in
the affections of the soul, whereof, indeed, the Will is the seat and subject; de-
sires, fears, hopes, delights, anger, sorrow, all transversed in a quite con-
trary course and being, to what they should be." — Howe's Oracles of God.
Sec. 25. Also compare pp. 1204, 1128, 891. New York Ed.
. ." As to spiritual duties or acts, or any good thing in the state or imma-
nent acts of tlie Will itself, or of the affections {ivhich are only certain modes
of the exercise of the Will), etc. — Edwards on the Will. Part III. Sec. 4.

'- The Will, and the nfFections of the soul, are not two faculties; tJie
affections are not essentially distinct from the Will, nor do they differ from the
meie actings of the Will, and inclination of the soul, but only in the liveliness
and sensibleness of exercise." — Edwards on the Affections. Works, III.
p. 3.

Edwards everywhere dichotomizes. For example, speaking of the differ-
ence between the knowledge of the natural man and that of the regenerate,
he remarks : '• In the former is exercised merely the speculative faculty, or
the understanding, strictly so called, or as spoken of in distinction from the
Will, or disposition of the soul. In the latter, the Will, or inclination, or heart,
is mainly concerned." — Reality of Spiritual Light. Works, IV. 442.

The terms "heart "and "will" are everywhere used as equivalents by
Calvin. See e. g. Institutes. Book II. Chap. III. Sec. 5-11.

244 THE DOCTRINE OF ORIGINAL SIN.

Will; nothing more nor less than its constant and total
determination to self^ as the ultimate end of living. This
voluntary power lying at the bottom of the soul, as its
elementary base, and carrying all the faculties and powers
of the man along with it, whenever it moves, and wher-
ever it goes, has turned away from God as an ultimate
end; and this self-direction — this permanent and entire
determination of itself — this state of the Will — is the
sinful nature of man.

Here then we have a depraved nature, and a depraved
nature that is guilt, because it is a self-originated nature.*
Here, then, is the child of wrath. Were this nature
created and put into man, as an intellectual nature, or as
a particular temperament, is put into him, by the Creator
of all things, it would not be a responsible and guilty
nature, nor would man be a child of wrath. But it does
not thus originate. It has its origin in the free and res-
ponsible use of that voluntary power which God has
created and placed in the human soul, as its most central,
most mysterious, and most hazardous endowment. It is
a self-determined nature — i. e., a nature originated in a
Will, and by a Will.-\

* To use a scholastic distinction — it is pcccatum originam, and not
merely originatum.

t The Will is the principle, the next seat and cause of obedience and
disobedience. Moral actions are unto us, or in ue, so far good or evil as
they partake of the consent of the Will. He spoke truth of old who said
*'Omne peccatum est adeo voluntarium, ut non sit peccatum nisi sit vol-
imtarium" — Owen, Indwelling Sin, Chapter XII.

"I mean hereby those first acts of the suul which are thus far involuntary
as that they have not the actual |i. e., delihcratcly conscious] consent of the
Will to them ; hat are voluntary, as fur os sin has its residence in the Will. I
know no greater burden in the life of a believer than these involuntary sur-
prisals of the soul ; involuntary, I say, as to the actual [i. e., deliberately
conscious] consent of the Will, but not so in respect of that coiTuption which is
in the Will, and is the principle of them,

Owen, Indwelling Sin, Chapter VI.

THE DOCTRINE OF ORIGINAL SIN. 245

It will be apparent, from what has been said, that we
regard the Arminian idea of the Will, and of self-deter-
mination, to be altogether inadequate to the pm-pose
intended by it. The motive of this school, we are charita-
ble enough to believe, was in many instances a good one.
It desired to vindicate the ways of God to man — to
make man responsible for his character — but it ended in
the annihilation of all sin except that of volitions ; of all
sin except what is technically called actual sin, because
its view of the Will was not profound enough. And as
we wish to bring out into as clear a light as possible the
difference between the Arminian self-determination, and
what we suppose to be the true doctrine, let us for a
moment exhibit the relation of both theories to " the
doctrine of inability," as it is familiarly styled.

According to the Arminian school, the Will is merely
the faculty of choices ; and its action consists solely in
volitions. Self-determination, consequently, is the ability
to put forth a volition. Now, as a volition is confessedly
under the arbitrary control of a man, it follows, that he
has the ability to put forth (so-called) holy or sinful
volitions at pleasure ; and inasmuch as no deeper action
of the Will than this volitionary action is recognized in
the scheme, it follows, that he has the ability to be holy
or sinful at pleasure. This is the " power to the con-
trary," which even sinful man has, although the more

Owen, in the above extract plainly distinguishes between voluntary and
volitionary action : between the immanent self-determination of the Voluntas^
and the deliberate and conscious (" actual") action of the Arbilrium. The
old writers often denominate the disposition or nature in the Will, activity.
Owen speaks of the Christian affections as the ^^ actings" of the soul ; e. g.,
" Cliristians are able to discern spiritual things, sweetly and genuinely to
act faith, love, submission to God, and that in a high and eminent manner."
(On Forgiveness Rule VI ). Edwards speaks of original sin as the "leading
act, or inclination."

246 THE DOCTRINE OF ORIGINAL SIN.

thoughtful portion of the school freely acknowledge that
it is never exercised, as matter of fact, except under the
co-operating influence of the Holy Spirit. This view of
the Will, and of self-determination, then, teaches theore-
tically, at all events, the doctrine of man's ability to
regenerate himself. There is no other action of the Will
than that of single volitions, and over these man has
arbitrary power.

But the true idea of the Will, and of self-determination,
while bringing man in guilty for his sinful nature and
conduct, forbids the attribution to him of a self-regenera-
ting power. According to the Arminian theory, all the
action of the Will consists of volitions, and one volition
being as much within the power of the man as another,
a succeeding volition can at any moment reverse and
undo the preceding. But, according to what we suppose
to be the true view of the Will, there is an action of this
voluntary power far deeper, and consequently far less
easily managed than that of single choices. We have
spoken of a deep and central action of the Will, which
consists in the determination and tendency of the whole
soul and of the soul as a whole, and which results in the
origination of an inclination, a disposition, a nature, in
distinction from a volition, or a resolution. We have
spoken of a movement in the voluntary power that carries
the whole inward being along with it. Now it is plain
that such a power as this — including so much, and run-
ning so deep — cannot, from the very nature of the case,
be such a facile and easily managed power^ as that by
which we resolve to do some particular thing in every
day life. While, therefore, we affirm that the Will, using
the term in the comprehensive sense in which we have
defined it, is a freely self-determined power, we deny,
that having once taken its direction, it can reverse its

THE DOCTRINE OF ORIGINAL SIN. 247

motion by a volition or resolution. ,If the Will were
only the faculty of choices or volitions, this might be the
case ; but thai deep under current, that central self-deter-
mination, that great main tendency of the Will to self
and sin as an ultimate end, cannot be reversed and over-
come by any power less profound and central, to say the
very least, than itself. Surface action cannot reverse and
overcome central action. And we have only to take the
Will as thus conceived, and steadily eye it in this free
process of self-determination, to see that there is no power
in this central tendency itself, from the very nature of the
case, by which the direction of its movement can be
altered. Take and hold the sinful Will of man, in this
steady, this inmost, this total determination of itself to
self as the ultimate end of its existence, and say how the
power that is to reverse all this process can possibly come
out of the Will, thus shut up, and entirely swalloived, in
the process* How is the process to destroy itself, and
turn into its own contrary ? How is Satan to cast out
Satan ? Having once set itself, with all its energy, in a
given direction, and towards 2i final end, the human Will
becomes a current that is unmanageable — a power too
strong for itself to turn back — not because of any com-

* The Will in the time of a lending act or inclination that is diverse from
or opposite to the command of God, and when actually under tlie influence
of it, IS not able to exert itself to the contrary, to make an alteration in order to
a compliance. The inclination is unable to change itself: and that for this
plain reason that it is unable to incline to chaiij^c itself. Present choice
cannot at present choose to be otherwise: for that would he at present to
choose somethintr diverse from what is at present chosen. If the will, all
thiii};s now considered, inclines or chooses to go that way, then it cannot
choose, all things now considercil, to go the oiher way, and so cannot
choose to he made to go the other way. To suppose that the mind is now
sincerely inclined to change itself to a different inclination, is to supjJbse
the mind is now truly inclined otherwise than it is now inclined.

Edwards on the Will, Part III. Section 4.

248 THE DOCTRINE OF ORIGINAL SIN.

pulsion or stress from without, be it observed, but simply
because of its own momentum and comprehensiveness —
simply because of the obstinate and all-engrossing energy
with which it is perversely going in the contrary direction.
For the whole Will is determined, if determined at all.
The flepravity is total Consequently, when a tendency
or determination, as distinguished from a volition, has
been taken, there is no" remainder of uncommitted power
in reserve, (as it were behind the existing determination
or tendency,) by which the present moral state of the
Will can be reversed. For this determination or per-
manent state of the Will, as we have observed again and
again, is something very different from a volition, which
does not carry the whole soul along with it, and which
therefore may be reversed by another volition back of it.
When a determination has occurred, and a nature has
been originated, the Will proper — the whole voluntary
power — is in for it; and hence, in the case of sin, the
bondage in the very seat of freedom — the absolute ina-
bility to be holy, springing out of, and identical with, the
total determination to be evil — which is a self-determi-
nation.*

* This non-returning character of the will, is noticed by that subtlest and
most spiritual of the Schoolmen, Anselm. Justo namque judicio Dei
decretum erat, et quasi chirographo confirmatum, ut homo, qui sponte
peccaverat, nee peccatum, nee poenam peccati, per se vitare posset ; est
enim spirkus (hy which Anselm here means voluntas) vadens, et non rediens;
et qui facit peccatum, servus est peccati.

Cur Deus Homo. Liber I. Cap. VII.

It may be briefly remarked here, that the whole controversy respecting
original Sin has turned upon the conception of voluntary action held by the
disputing parties. In the Latin anthropology, this was, simply and only,
the power of se//'-determination. That which is self-moved is voluntary, by
virtue of this Itare fact of sfZ/'-motion. Neither the presence nor tlie absence
of a power to the contrary, can destroy the existing fact that the will is
moving spontaneously and without external compulsion, and hence the

THE DOCTRINE OF ORIGINAL SIN. 249

It will be seen, that according to this theory, the free-
dom of the Will does not consist in the ability to origin-
ate a holy or sinful nature at any instant, and according
to the caprice of the individual. It does not consist in
the ability to deterriiine itself to good or evil, as an ulti-
mate end of existence, with the same facility and agility
with which single choices can be exercised. It does not
consist in an ability to jerk over from one moral state of
the will, into a contrary moral state^ at any moment, by
a violent or a resolute effort. The doctrine of the free-
dom of the Will does indeed require us to affirm Ihat the
Will is primarily and constantly self-xnov^d — that its
permanent tendency and character is not imposed upon
it, as the tendency of the brute is imposed upon it, by the
creative act; but the doctrine does not require us to
affirm, that when the Will has once freely formed its
character, and responsibly originated its nature, it can
then, ad libitum, or by any power then possessed by it,
form a contrary character, and originate an entirely con-
trary nature within itself. All that is to be claimed is,
that at the initial point in the history of the human Will,
a free and responsible start shall be taken, a self-deter-
mination shall begin and continue. It is not to be af-
firmed, for it contradicts the experience of every man
who has had any valuable experience upon this subject,
that there is power in the will to cross and re-cross from
a sinful to a holy state, and back again, at any moment —

power to the contrary did not enter as a sine qua non into the Latin idea of
mofHl Hfrency. It niij^ht be lost, and actually had been, and tlie will still
be a Sf-//'-determined faculty. In the Greek anthropolojry, on the contiary,
V(»luiifariiiess was /ndetcrmination. The will, whether fallen or uiifallen,
at all times and in all condwions, could either choose or refuse the same
object. But that it mij^ht do so, it must be itself in a state of equilibrium
or indiffereocy, and not actually committed or determined either one way or the
other.

250 THE DOCTRINE OF ORIGINAL SIN.

that the Will is in such an indifferent state in regard to
the two great ultimate ends of action — God and self —
that it stands affected in precisely the same way towards
both, and by a volition can choose either at pleasure.

(2.) The foregoing statement, it is hoped, will be suffi-
cient to exhibit, so far as the limits of an article will
allow, what is conceived to be the true idea of the Will,
and of self-determination, in distinction from the Armi-
nian view of them. We turn now to the relation of
original sin to Adam, the head and representative of the
race of mankind. There is not space to examine the
passages of Scripture which speak of the connection of
the individual with Adam. We shall assume, that such
a connection is plainly taught in Scripture, particularly
in the 5th chapter of Romans ; and at the same time
barely call attention to the fact, that the soundest creeds
of the Church, and that of the Westminster Assembly in
particular, have all recognized the connection. Our
object is to see if the views that have been presented will
not throw some light upon one of the darkest points in
speculative theology.

It will be recollected, that in the first part of this
article, it was shown that the deepest and ultimate form
of sin is below the sphere of consciousness — that we are
not conscious of the sinful nature, but only of what pro-
ceeds from it. It will also be remembered, that this
original sin, or sinful nature, has been traced to the Will
as its originating cause, and thereby found to be a guilty
nature. If, now, these two points have been made out,
it follows as a corollary, that there is an action of the
human Will deeper than the ordinary consciousness of
man reaches. If man is not conscious of his sinful
nature, and if, nevertheless, that nature is the product of
his Will — is the very state of the Will itself — it follows,

THE DOCTRINE OF ORIGINAL SIN. 251

that his "Will can put forth an action of which he is not
conscious. And if this be so, it furthermore follows, that
distinct consciousness is not an indispensable condition"
to the origin and existence of sin and guilt in the hu-
man soul.

"We are as well aware as any body, that a statement
like this seems to carry on the very face of it, not a mys-
tery merely, but an absurdity. At first sight, it seems to
be self-contradictory to affirm, that the responsible action
of a free moral agent can go on in utter unconsciousness
of the action — that the human Will can put forth its
most important action, (action the most criminal, and
the most tremendous in its consequences,) in a sphere
too deep for the agent to know what he is doing. On
the contrary, it seems to be plain as an axiom, that
knowledge must in every instance precede action — that
the Will cannot act without first distinctly knowing
what it is going to do. And accordingly, this is the po-
sition laid down in the beginning of all the current trea-
tises on the Will.

Now, without entering into any process of ratiocina-
tion to support a mere theory, we wish to raise a simple
question of fact. Is it, then, a fact, that man is conscious
of all the action of his will ? Is it a fact, that from the
commencement of his existence, on and down through
every moment of his existence, he is unintermittently self-
conscious of what he is all the while doing as a mora]
agent? Is it a fact, that the impenitent sinner — the
thoughtless sinner, as we so often call him in our sermons
— is aware every moment of what he is about ? No man
will pretend that such is the fact. Saying nothing in
regard to that deeper action of the Will, which we have
denominated its determination, no one will say that a
man is distinctly conscious of all his volitions even, of

252 THE DOCTRINE OF ORIGIN A.L SIN.

each and every one of the millions of choices which he
is exercising from the cradle to the grave. Even here, so
near the surface of the soul, and with reference to its
most palpable exercises, no one will be bold enough to
affirm a distinct consciousness in every instance. Voli-
tion after volition, choice after choice, is exercised by the
unawakened, unanxious sinner, with all the unconscious-
ness and mechanism, so to speak, with which the two
thousand volitions by which he lifts his legs two thou-
sand times in walking a single mile, are exercised.*

Take the first sinful man you meet, and say how much
of his daily existence goes on within the sphere of self-
consciousness. During how many moments of the day
is this moral agent aware of what he is doing, as a moral
agent ? Of how many of the volitions which he puts
forth in the attainment of his ends of living is he dis-
tinctly conscious ? How many of his emotions are exer-
cised in the clear fight of self-consciousness, so that he has
a distinct knowledge and sense of their moral character ?
Is it not safe to say, that whole days, it may be whole
weeks, and it may he whole months, pass in the fives of
many men, during which there is not a single instant of
distinct consciousness, in regard to the nature of the agen-
cies going on within their souls ? And wifi it do to say,
that aU this while there is no action of the Wifi ?

Thetruth is, we cannot lay aside pre-conceived opin-
ions, and look at the simple facts of the case, without
being compefied to the position, that there not only can
be, but there actuafiy is, action of the Wifi that is not

* That the action in this instance is voluntary, in the sense that the mus-
cles and iimhs are moved ultimately hy acts of the choice, is proved by the
fact, that the man <an stop walking. If it were strictly mechanical and in-
voluntary, the walker must go on like a clock until his ambulatory appara-
tus ran down.

THE DOCTRINE OF ORIGINAL SIN. 253

self-conscious action, and a vast amount of it. And this
too, whether the Will be regarded as the volition ary or
as the voluntary faculty. If we believe the Scripture
doctrine, that man is evil continually^ we must also be-
lieve, that the Will of man is in continual action — ab-
sorbed in an uninterrupted tendency and determijiation
to self. The motion — the KLv^aL<i, — is incessant. But
we know from observation, and as a matter of fact, that
man is not distinctly conscious of a thousandth part of
this process, which is nevertheless steadily going on,
whether he thinks of it or not, whether he is aware of it
or not. If, now, while affirming, as we must, that there is
no responsible action but action of the Will, we also affirm,
as we must not, that there is no action of the Will but
conscious action, we remove responsibility from the
gi-eater part of human life. Responsibility and criminal-
ity would, in this case, cleave only to that comparatively
infinitesimal part of a man's life during which he sinned
deliberately, and with the consciousness that* he was sin-
ning. Furthermore, it would follow, from this doctrine,
that the more entire the man's absorption in evil — the
more thoughtless and unconscious his life became in re-
gard to sin — the less responsible he would be ; the more
depraved, the less guilty.

But in this instance again, as in a former, whatever
may be our theory, we do practically acknowledge the
truth of the doctrine of the responsible action of the
human Will, even when there is, or has been, no distinct
consciousness of it. The great aim of every awakening
sermon that we preach, is to bring the sinner to the distinct
perception of what he w, and is doin^, as a free moral
agent. And observe, the aim of the sermon is not simply to
aid the memory of the sinner — to furnish him an invea-
22

254 THE DOCTRINE OF ORIGINAL SIN.

tory or catalogue of his past transgressions — but, in the
strict meaning of the expressive phrase, to bring' him to —
to bring- him to himself. The object of every awakening
sermon, and the end had in view by the Holy Spirit
when He sets it home, is to bring the sinner to a distinct
self-consciousness in regard to sin — to make him realize
the awful truth, that during his whole past life of thought-
lessness and unconsciousness of what he has been, and
been about, his Will has been active, and that from the
inmost centre to the outward circumference, this action
has been criminal ; and still more than this, to make him
realize, that now, at this very instant, his Will is set-
ting itself with a deep, and as yet to him, unconscious
determination towards evil, as an ultimate end of action.
The object of conviction, in short, is to impart to the
sinner a conscious knowledge of that sin, the major part
of which came into existence without his conscious
knowledge, but by no means without his Will.

We need only take a passage that frequently occurs
in the common Christian experience to see the truth of
the view here presented. How often the Christian finds
himself already in a train of thought, or of feeling, that
is contrary to the divine law. Notice that he did not go
into this train of thought or feeling deliberately, and with
a distinct consciousness of what he was doing. The
first he knows is, that he is already caught in the pro-
cess. Thought and feeling in this instance have been
unconsciously exercised in accordance with that central
and abiding determination of the Will towards self, of
which we have spoken; in other words, the Will has
been unconsciously putting forth its action, in and through
the powers of thought and feeling, as the self-reproach
and sense of guilt consequent upon such exercises of the

THE DOCTRINE OF ORIGINAL SIN.

255

soul, are proof positive.* The moment the Christian
man comes to distinct consciousness in regard to this ac-
tion that has been going on, " without his thinking of
it," (as we say in common parlance,) he acknowledges it
as criminal action, responsible action, action of the
Will. The fact that he was not thinking — that the
Will was acting unconsciously — subtracts nothing from
his sense of guilt in the case.

And if there is unconscious action of the Will in these
instances, which occur in the every-day experience of
the individual Christian, much more should we expect
to find unconscious action in the case of that deepest
and primal movement of the Will which is denominated
the Fall. If, in the instance of the development or un-
folding of sin, there is much of this unconscious volun-
tary action, much more should we expect to find it in
that instance when the profound basis itself, for this de-
velopment, was laid. If there is mystery in the stalk
above ground, much more must we expect to find it in
the dark long root under ground. The fall of the human
Will unquestionably occurs back of consciousness, and in
a region beyond the reach of it. Certainly no one of
the posterity of Adam was ever conscious of that act
whereby his Will fell from God ; and even with regard
to Adam himself, the remark of Augustine is true —
that he had already fallen before he ate the forbidden
fruit. This remark is strictly true, and characterized by
those two traits in which Augustine never had a supe-
rior— depth and penetration. The act of conscious
transgression in the case of Adam sprung from an evil

* It is evident that there may he thinking without thinking of tliinking,
as there mviy he actinj? without thinking of acting. In these instances thci'e
is both thought aud action without self-consciousness of either.

256 THE DOCTRINE OF ORIGINAL SIN.

nature that had already been unconsciously generated in
his Will. He would not have eaten of the tree, if he
had not in his soul already fallen from God.

We may, in this connection, add furthermore, that the
other great change which occurs in the human Will —
viz., its renovation by the Holy Spirit, and its determi-
nation to God as an ultimate end, consequent thereon —
also occurs below the sphere of consciousness. All ac-
knowledge that there is no consciousness of the regenerat-
ing act itself, but only of its consequences ; and yet even
the most careful theologian must acknowledge, that there
is action of the Will of some sort in this instance ; that
the renovating action is in the Will and in accordance
with its freedom, though by no means, as in the case of
sin, to be referred solely to the Will.

Enough has been said to show, that, unless we would
unclothe most of human existence of its responsibility,
we must assume the possibility and reality of an action
of the Will, which is unaccompanied by distinct con-
sciousness on the part of the individual man. And this
is eminently true of that deepest action of the Will,
by which a nature is generated, and a character is origi-
nated. That action of the human Will, which is denom-
inated its fall, which lies under the whole sinful history
and development of the individual man — which is
the ground and source of all his comscious transgres-
sion— is, without contradiction, unconscious action. The
moral consciousness of man, taken at its very rise, is the
consciousness of guilt — which fact shows that the re-
sponsible action, lying under it, as its just cause and
valid ground, has already occurred. If there is an?/ g-uilt
in falling from God, the human soul incurs tfiat guilt in
every instance, ivithout distinct consciousness of the process
by which it is brought about. If the. origination of a sinful

THE DOCTRINE OF ORIGINAL SIN. 257

nature — of an abiding wrong state of the Will — is a crim-
inal procedure on the part of the soul, and justly exposes
it to the Divine Anger, it is yet a procedure that occurs
unconsciously to the soul itself. And in saying this, we
are manufacturing no theory, but simply setting forth the
simple actual facts of the case. There isno avoiding the
conclusion, unless we are bold enough to affirm that only
that portion of a sinner's life is responsible and guilty,
during which he sins deliberately, and with the con-
sciou.-^ness that he is sinning.

We have called attention to this fact, that the human
Will can and does put forth its deepest action below the
sphere of consciousness, to prepare the way for the in-
vestigation of the connection of original sin, as found in
each individual, with the fall of Adam. If this hypo-
thesis of the unconscious action of the Will has been
established, the only serious objection will have been re-
moved, that can be made to what we suppose is the
Scriptural statement of the doctrine of the connec-
tion of the individual with Adam, contained in the West-
minster Assembly's Catechism. According to the form
of doctrine laid down by that body of profound and
learned divines, each individual of the human race is
supposed to have been in some way responsibly present
in Adam, and responsibly sharing in his apostasy from
God. The statement in the creed which they drew up,
is as follows : — " The covenant being made with Adam,
not only for himself but for his posterity, all mankind
descending from him by ordinary generation sinned in
him and fell vnth him in his first transgression." And
the two strongest texts which they cite in proof of the
truth of their creed, are these : " By one man's disobe-
dience, many were made sinners." (Rom. 5 : 19.) " In
Adam all die." (1 Cor. 15 : 22.)

22*

258 THE DOCTRINE OF ORIGINAL SIN.

Now it is to be remembered, that these men were
making distinct and scientific statements, and their lan-
guage, consequently, is not to be regarded as merely
metaphorical. It must, therefore, be understood in the
same way that scientific language is always to be un-
derstood— be taken in its literal meaning, unless a
palpable contradiction or absurdity is involved in so
doing. In this doctrinal and scientific statement, then,
it is affirmed, that all men "sinned in Adam, and fell
with Adam in his first transgression. This implies and
teaches that aU men were, in some sense, co-existent in
Adam, otherwise they could not have sinned in him. It
teaches that all men were, in some sense, co-agent in
Adam, otherwise they could not have fallen with him.
The mode of this co-existence and co-agency of the
whole human race in the first man, they do not, it is
true, attempt to set forth ; but their language distinctly
implies that they believed there was such a co-existence
and co-agency, whether it could be explained or not.
They regarded Adam not merely as an individual, but
as a common person ; as having a generic as well as in-
dividual character. They taught that he was substan-
tially the race of mankind, and that his whole posterity
existed in him. Consequently, whatever befell Adam,
befell the race. In Adam's fall, the race fell. And what
is to be particularly noted is, that they did not regard
the fall of Adam considered as an individual, as any
more guilty than the fall of each and every one of
his posterity, or that original sin was any the less guilt
in his posterity than it was in him. So far as responsi-
bility was concerned, Adam and his posterity were all
alike guilty of apostasy. They were all involved in a
common condemnation, because they were all alike con-
current in the fall. The race fell in Adam, and conse-

THE DOCTRINE OF ORIGINAL!

quently each individual of the race was in so

ous yet real manner, existent in this common parent of

aU.*

* This phraseology is not to be understood as implying that the indivi-
dual is ill the genus as a distinct individual. Adam, as the generic man,
was not a mere receptacle containing millions of separate individuals.
Tlie genus is not an aggregation, but a single, simple, essence. As such, it
is not yet characterized by individuality. It, however, becomes varied and
miuiifold by being individualized in its propagation, or development into a
series. The individual consequently (with the exception of the first pair,
who are immediately created, and are both individual and generic) is al-
ways the result of propagation, and not of creation. In the instance of
man, the creation proper is the origination of the generic species, which
species is individualized in its propagation under the preserving, and provi-
dential, (but not now creating,) agency of the Creator. The individual, as
such, is consequently only a subsequent modus existendi ; the first and ante-
cedent mode being the generic humanity, of which this subsequent serial
mode is only another aspect or manifestation. Had the members of the
series of human generations existed in their proper individuality in the pro-
genitor, there would have been no need of the subsequent process of indivi-
dualization, or propagation.

The doctrine of Traducianism is unquestionably more accordant with
that of original sin than that of Creationism, and the only reason why Au-
gustine, and others after him, hesitated wifli regard to its formal adoption,
was its supposed incompatibility with the doctrine of the soul's immaterial-
ity and immortality. If,' however, the distinction between creation and
development be clearly conceived and rigorously observed, it will be seen
that there is no danger of materialism in the doctrine of the soul's propaga-
tion. For development cannt)t change the essence of that which is being
developed. It must unfold that, and only that, which is given in creation.
Now, granting the creation of the generic man in his totality of soul and
body, it is plain that his mere indivitlualization by propagation must leave
both his physical and spiritual natures as it found them, so far as this dis-
tinction betA'een mind and matter is concerned. For matter cannot be
converted into mind by mere expansion, and neither can mind be changed
into matter by it. Both parts of man will, therefore, preserve their origin-
al created qualities and characteristics in this process of propagation, or in-
dividualizing of the generic, which is conducted, moreover, beneath the pre-
serving and providential agency of the Creator. That which is flesh will
be propagated as flesh, and that which is spirit will be propagated as spirit;
and this because mere propagation, or development, cannot change the kind
or essence. If, therefore, it is conceded that the crttUhfi^ or" man was com.

260 THE DOCTRINE OF ORIGINAL SIN.

It is on this ground that they taught that original sin
is real sin — is guilt. The sinful nature they held, could
be properly charged upon every child of Adam, as a na-
ture for which he, and not his Creator, was responsible,
and w^hich rendered him obnoxious to the eternal dis-
pleasure of God — even though, as in the case of infants
dying before the dawn of self-consciousness, this nature
should never have manifested itself in conscious trans-
gression. Every child of Adam fell from God, in Adam,
and together with Adam, and therefore is justly charge-
able with all that Adam is chargeable with, and precise-
ly on the same ground, viz., on the ground that his fall
was not necessitated, but self-determined. For the Will
of Adam was not the Will of a single isolated indivi-
dual merely : it was also, and besides this, the Will of
the human species — the human Will generically. If he
fell freely, so did his posterity — yet not one after an-
other, and each by himself, as the series of individuals,
in which the one seminal human nature manifests itself,
were born into the world, but all together and all at
once, in that first transgression, which stands a most
awful and awfully pregnant event at the beginning of
human history.

The aim of the Westminster sy^nbol accordingly, and,
it may be added, of all the creeds on the Augustinian
side of the controversy, was to combine two elements,
each having truth in it — to teach the fall of the human '
race as a unity, and, at the same time, recognize the ex-
istence, freedom, and guilt of the individual in the fall.
Accordingly they locate the individual in Adam, and

plete, involving the origination from non-entity of the entire humanity as a
synthesis uf matter and mind, flush and spirit, then it fuHows that mere
propagation, taking him up at tiiis point, cannot change the essence upon
either side of the complex being, but can only individualize it.

THE DOCTRINE OF ORIGINAL SIN. 261

make him, in some mysterious but real manner, a re-
sponsible partaker in Adam's sin — a guilty sharer, and,
in some solid sense of the word, vo-ag-ent in a common
apostasy. As proof of this assertion, we shall quote
from a few of the leading authors on this side of the
great controversy.

Augustine, although the first to philosophize upon this
difficult point, in order to bring it within the limits of a
doctrinal system, has, nevertheless, as it seems to us, not
been excelled by any of his successors in the profundity
and comprehensiveness of his views. He is explicit in
teaching the oneness of the human race in Adam, and
of the fall of Adam and his posterity in the first trans-
gression. In his work on the desert and remission of
sin, he says : " All men at that time sinned in Adam,
since, in his nature, all men were as yet that one man." *
And the sentiment is repeated still more distinctly in
that most elaborate of his treatises — De Civitate Dei ; a
work which was the fruit of mature reason, and ripe
Christian experience, and which, notwithstanding the
crudity of some of its speculations on subjects pertain-
ing to the sensuous nature of man, and to the physical
nature generally, is unrivalled for the depth and clear-
ness of its insight into all that is distinctively and pure-
ly spiritual. " We were all in that one man, since we
vjere all that one man, who lapsed into sin through that
woman, who was made from him previous to trans-
gression. The form in which vie were to live as individ-
uals had not been created and assig-ned to us, man by man,
but that seminal nature was in existence, from which we
were to be propagated."! In the words of Neander,

* In Adrtmo omnes tune pcccaveriint, qiiando in ejus natura adhuc omnes
ille uuus fuerunt.— De pec. mer. et rem. 111. 7.
t Omnes enim fuimus in illo uno, quando omnes fuimus ille unus, qui

262 THE DOCTRINE OF ORIGINAL SIN.

" Augustine, supposed not only that that bondage, under
the principle of sin, by which sin is its own punishment,
was transmitted by the progenitor of the human race to
his posterity ; but also that the first transgression, as an
act, was to be imputed to the whole human race — that
the guilt and the penalty were propagated from one to
all. This participation of all in Adam's transgression,
Augustine made clear to his own mind in this way :
Adam was the representative of the whole race, and
bore in himself the entire human nature and kind, in
germ, since it was from him that it unfolded itself. And
this theory would easily blend with Augustine's specula-
tive form of thought, as he had appropriated to himself
the Platonico- Aristotelian realism, in the doctrine of
general conceptions, and conceived of general conceptions
as the original types of the kind realized in individual
things" *

Calvin, though not so explicit as his predecessor Au-
gustine, or as some of his successors, in regard to the
precise nature of the individual's connection with Adam,
yet leaves no doubt in the mind of the reader that he be-
lieved in the original oneness of Adam and his posterity,
in the act of apostasy. He says : " It is certain that
Adam was not only the progenitor, but, as it were, the
root of mankind, and therefore all the race were necessa-
rily vitiated in his corruption." Again he says : " He
who pronounces that we were all dead in Adam, does also,
at the same time, plainly declare that we were implica-
ted in the guilt of his sin. For no condemnation could

per feminam lapsus est in peccatum, quae de illo facta est ante pcrcatum.
Nonihini erat noUis singillatim creata et distributa forma, in qua singrnli
viveremus: sed jam natura erat seminalis ex qua propagaremur. — De Civ.
Dei. XIII. 14.

* Torrey's Neander, II. 609.

THE DOCTRINE OF ORIGINAL SIN. 263

reach those who were perfectly clear from all charge of
iniquity," [as Adam's posterity would be, were each and
every man merely a distinct and isolated individual, ex-
isting entirely by himself.] Again he says : " No other
explanation, therefore, can be given of our being said to
be in Adam, than that his transgression not only procur-
ed misery and ruin for himself, but also precipitated our
nature into similar destruction ; and that not by his per-
sonal guilt as an individual, which pertains not to us,
but because he infected all his descendants with the cor-
ruption into which he had fallen."*

John Owen is more explicit still, and he unquestion-
ably reflects the views of the Westminster divines, to
say nothing of his general profundity and clearness on
all points of systematic theology^ In his treatise, enti-
tled " A Display of Arminianism,"f in connection with
some other answers to the objection that original sin is
not voluntary, and therefore cannot be sin in the sense of
guilt, he expressly afiirms that it is voluntary, in some
sense of that word — that it has the element of free self-
determination in it. " But, thirdly," he says, " in respect
to our wills, we are not thus innocent neither, for we all
sinned in Adam, as the apostle affirmeth. Now all sin is
voluntary, say the remonstrants, [the party whom Owen
was opposing, but whose statement in this case he was
willing to grant,] and therefore Adam's transgression
was our voluntary sin also, and that in divers respects ;
^/irst, in that his voluntary act is imputed to us as ours,
by reason of the covenant which was made with him in
our behalf; but because this consisting in an imputation,
must needs be extrinsical to us ; therefore, secondly <> we

* Institutes, Book II. Chapter 1. Allen's Trans,
t Works, V. 127. Russell's Ed.

264 THE DOCTRINE OF ORIGINAL SIN.

say that Adam, being the root and head of all human
kind, and we all branches from that root, all parts of that
body whereof he was the head, his will may be said to
be ours ; we were then all that one man, (omnes eramus
unus ille homo, Aug.,) we were all in him, and had no
other will but his; so that though that (viz., Adam's will)
be extrinsical unto us, considered as particular persons,
yet it (viz., Adam's will) is intrinsical, as we are all parts
of one common nature; as in him we sinned, so in him
we had a will of sinning." In a passage in his " Vindi-
cisB Evangehcae,"* he also says, "By Adam sin entered
into the world, so that all sinned in him, and are made
sinners thereby — so that also his sin is called the 'sin
of the world ;' in him all mankind sinned, and his sin is
imputed to them." f

* Works, VIII. p. 222. Russell's Ed.

t This same reasoning, from tlie l»asis of realism, is seen in John Tloliin-
son. the pastor of the Plymouth Pilgrims. In his " Defence of the doctrine
of the Synod of Dort." he answers the question. Did infants sin in Adam 1
— in tiie aftirnjative, on the ground thai they *• had hcing in Adam afier a
sort, namely, so far as they were in him If they had heing in Adam any
way, they iiad life also in him; for lotliing in Adam was dead, hut all
living; their hcing. therefore, so far as it was in hini, was a living heing."
Tliis ' i)cing.' Hoi)inson goes on to argue, was that of a rational existence
C(impo>cd of understanding and will.— Hoi>inaon's Works, I. 404 et seq.
Ccingregaiional IJoiird's Kd.

Lcigli, a graduate of Magdalen Hall, O.xford. piddishcd a system of divin-
ity in 1654, which has the im/>iiinutui of Etiniund Calamy. In it we find
the fcillowiiig :

"The first Adam represented all mankind, and the second all the elect,
Gorl mitjht ns ivt'lJ (frouiiff an irnpiitatiou on a nntural. ns on a Mystical, union.
Ointifis eramus unus ille homo. (Augustine) ; therefore the sin of that one man
is the sin «if us all.

" OhjedJon. This sin of Adam, heing hut one, could not defile the uni-
versal nature. Sorinus.

'' Ansircr. Adam ,had in him the whole nntnre of mankind, 1 Cor. 15:
47: hy one offence the whole nature of man was ddilcl. Horn. 5: 12. 17.

" (Jhjtction. Adam's sin was not voluntary in us, we never gave consent
to it.

" Answer. There is a two-fold will. 1. Voluntas naturae, the whole nature

THE DOCTRINE OF ORIGINAL SIN. 265

One more quotation shall suffice, in corroboration of
the view presented of the oneness of Adam and his pos-
terity, in respect both to the act and the guilt of apos-
tasy, and this shall be from Jonathan Edwards. In his
treatise upon original sin, after citing the passage, " By
one man sin entered into the world," he adds, " this pas-
sage implies that sin became universal in the world, and
not merely (which would be a trifling insignificant asser-
tion) that one man, who was made first, sinned first, be-

of man was represented in Adam, therefore the will of nature was sufficient
to convey the sin of nature. 2. Voluntas personae, hy every actual sin we
justify Adam's breach of covenant. Rom. .5 : 12, 19 seems clear for the im-
putation of Adam's sin. All were in Adam, and sinned in him, as, after
Augustine, Bcza doth interpret if 5 in Rom. 5 : 12; and so our last trans-
lators in the margent. And though it be rendered, ' for that all have sin-
ned,' by us, the Syriac, Erasmus, Vatablus, Calvin, and Piscatorius, yef must
it be so understood that all have sinned in Adam. For otherwise, it is not true
that all upon whom death hath passed have sinned, as namely infants newly born.
It is not said all are sinners, but, all have sinned, which imports an imputa-
tion of Adam's act unto his posterity.

" Some divines do not differ so much re as modo loquendi about this point.
They grant the imputation of Adam's sin to his posterity, in some sense,
so as that there is a communication of it with them, and the guilt is charg-
ed upon them, yet they deny the imputation of it to posterity as it was
Adams's personal sin. But it is not to be considered as Adam's personal
sin, but as the sin of all mankind, whose person Adam did then represent.
Adam's personal sin did infect the whole nature, and ever since the nature
hatii infected the personal actions." — Leigh's Body of Divinity, Book IV.
Chap. 1.

" The whole history of the first man evinces, that he was not looked upon
as an individual person, but that the whole human nature was considered
in him. For it was not said to our first parents only, Increase and multiply ;
by virtue of which words the propagation of the human race is still contin-
ued ; nor is it true of Adam only. It is not good that man should he alone ; nor
does that conjugal law concern him alone. Therefore shall a man leave his
father and his mother, and these two shall be one flesh ; which Christ still urges
(Mt. 19 : 5) ; nor did the penalty, which God threatened to Adam in case of
sin, aff'ect him alone. Dying thou shalt die ; but death passed upon all men, as
the Apostle observes. All which loudly proclaim, that Adam was here
considered aa the head of mankind." — Witsius on the Covenants, II. 14.

266 THE DOCTRINE OF ORIGINAL SIN.

fore other men sinned ; or that it did not so happen that
many men began to sin just together at the same mo-
ment." " The latter part of the verse" (he goes on to say)
* and death by sin, and so death passed upon all men,
for that all have sinned/ shows that in the eye of the
Judge of the world, in Adam's first sin all sinned ; not
only in some sort^ but all sinned so as to be exposed to
that death and final destruction, which is the proper wages
of sin J^* In another chapter of this treatise he combats the
objection made against the imputation of Adam's sin to
his posterity " that such imputation is unjust and un-
reasonable, inasmuch as Adam and his posterity are not
one and the same," (one of the principal objections to
the doctrine, and a fatal one, if it can maintained). He
combats it by denying the truth of the affirmation, that
Adam and his posterity are not one and the same, and
by establishing the contrary position by as profound and
truthful a course of speculation as ever emanated from his
mind. " I think," (he says) " it would go far towards
directing us to the more clear and distinct conceiving and
right stating of this affair, (of original sin,) were we
steadily to bear this in mind : that God, in each step of
his proceeding with Adam, in relation to the covenant
or constitution established with him, looked on his pos-
terity as being one with him. * * * Therefore, I am
humbly of opinion, that if any have supposed the chil-
dren of Adam to come into the world with a double
guilt : one, the guilt of Adam's sin ; another, the guilt
arising from their having a corrupt heart, they have not
so well conceived of the matter. The guilt a man has on
his soul at his first existence is one and simple, viz., the
guilt of the original apostasy, the guilt of the sin by

* The italics are Edwards's, and the italics of Edwards are always sig-
nificant.

THE DOCTRINE OF ORIGINAL SIN. 267

which the species first rebelled from God. * * The
first existing of a corrupt disposition in the hearts of
Adam's posterity is not to be looked upon as sin belong-
ing to them, distinct from their participation of Adam's
first sin: it is, as it were, the extended pollution of that sin,
through the whole tree, by virtue of the constituted union
of the branches with the root ; or the inherence of the sin
of that head of the species in the members, in the con-
sent and concurrence of the hearts of the members,
with the head in that first act." Edwards also quotes
with approbation the following from Stapfer : " It is ob-
jected against the imputation of Adam's sin, that we
never committed the same sin with Adam, neither in
number nor in kind. I answer, we should distinguish
here between the physical act itself, which Adam com-
mitted, and the morality of the action and consent to it.
If we have respect only to the external act, to be sure it
must be confessed that Adam's posterity did not put
forth their hands to the forbidden fruit : in which sense
that act of transgression, and that fall of Adam, cannot
be physically one with the sin of his posterity. But if
we consider the morality of the action, [i. e. the volun-
tary ground of it,] and what consent there is to it, it is
altogether to be maintained that his posterity committed
the same sin both in number and in kind, inasmuch as
they are to be looked upon as consenting to it : for where
there is a consent to a sin, there the same sin is commit-
ted. Seeing, therefore, that Adam, with all his poster-
ity, constitute but one moral person, and are united in
the same covenant, £tnd are transgressors of the same
law, they are also to be looked upon as having, in a
moral estimation, committed the same transgression of
the law both in manner and in kind." Edwards finally
remarks, that all the objections that can be brought

268 THE DOCTRINE OF ORIGINAL SIN.

against the doctrine of the imputation of Adam's sin to
his posterity, are summed up in this assumption and
assertion — viz., that Adam and his posterity are not
originally one, but are from first to last entirely distinct
and individual agents : this assumption he earnestly de-
nies, and enters into a long and subtle investigation, well
worthy any man's study, of what is meant by personal
identity, to show that there is no absurdity or contradic-
tion in the hypothesis, that, by the divine establishment
and constitution, all of Adam's posterity were, in some
real and important sense, in him and one with him.*

Any one who will take the pains to study the history
of the doctrine of original sin, and to trace its develop-
ment, will find that the more profound minds in the Chris-
tian church have ever sought to relieve the subject of
those difficulties which encompass it, by this doctrine of
the oneness of Adam with his posterity. A mystery
overhangs, and, perhaps, ever must overhang the nature
and possibility of this oneness ; but this mystery being
once waived, or put up with by the mind, the principal
difficulties that beset the doctrine of a sinful nature orig-
inated antecedently to all consciousness, and beginning
to manifest itself in the case of every individual with the
first dawn of self-consciousness, disappear. Granting
the possibility and the fact of the individual's fall in
Adam and with Adam, then it is easy to see how this
fall can be charged as guilt upon the individual, and the
sinful nature be truly and really a self-determined and
responsible nature, deserving and incurring the wrath of
God. Original sin, by this hypothesis, is seen to be the
work of the creature, and not the Creator, the chief pecu-
liarity in this case being, that it was originated by the

♦ Edwards on Original Sin. Part IV. Chap. 3.

THE DOCTRINE OF ORIGINAL SIN. 269

whole race, and for the whole race, not as it exists in the
historical series of its individual members^ hut as it existed
a seminal and common nature in the first man.

With regard to the possibility of such a co-existence
of Adam and his posterity, little can be said, although
the more the mind reflects upon the subject, the less sur-
prising does it seem. One thing is certain, that the
mysteriousness of the subject has not deterred the human
mind from receiving the doctrine. We see the clearest
and deepest minds of the church, men of unquestioned
intellectual power, and of profound insight into their own
hearts, drawn, as by a spell, to this hypothesis, as the
best theory by which to free the doctrine of original sin
from its principal difficulties : and this fact of itself con-
stitutes a strong ground for the belief that the truth lies
in this direction.

1. We would merely call attention, however, to the
fact, that the doctrine of the oneness and co-existence of
the race in the first man, by no means contradicts what
we know from physiology, but rather finds a corrobora-
tion from it. When the first individuals of a new species
are created out of nothing by the Creator of all things,
the species^ as well as these individuals, is created. The
remaining individuals of the species — the posterity of
the first pair — do not come into existence each by a
new fiat, like that which called the first into being, but
by a propagation. The primordial elements of all the
individuals of the series are created, when the first pair
of the species is created, and then are developed into a
series of individuals. Any catastrophe, therefore, any
radical change that befalls these first individuals, afiects
the whole species, and in precisely the same way. If
that science, whose business it is to investigate the nature
and mutual relations of the species and the individual,

23*

270 THE DOCTRINE OF ORIGINAL SIN.

and to give an account of the development of the crea-
tion of God, teaches anything, it teaches this.

2. The other principal objection — that the individual
was never conscious of this fall in Adam — has been
removed by what has been advanced in regard to the
possibility of a voluntary action that is deeper than con-
sciousness. If there can be, and actually is, action of
the human Will, unaccompanied by self-consciousness,
then it is not absurd or self-contradictory to affirm that
the Will of the whole species, generically including the
Will of every individual within it, fell in the first man.

The doctrine of original sin, then, as stated in the
Westminster Catechism taken in its strict and literal
acceptation, we deem to be in accordance with the
teaching of Scripture on this subject. Only put up with
the inexplicability of the oneness, and co-existence, of
Adam and his posterity — only grant this assumption,
which all the analogies in the world of physical nature,
and all the investigations of physiology, yet seem to cor-
roborate — and we can hold to a sinful nature, and a
sinful nature that is guilt. We know of no other theory
that does not in the end, either reduce sin to a minimum,
by recognizing no sin but that of single volitions, or else,
while asserting a sinful nature, does it at the expense of
human freedom and responsibility. And surely a theory
which removes the real and honest difficulties that cling
to one of the most vexed questions in theology, ought not
to be rejected merely on the ground of a mystery that
attaches to one of its parts. Manifest absurdity and self-
contradiction would be the only valid grounds for reject-
ing it ; and these, we think, cannot be fixed upon it.

In conclusion, we would say, that we cannot think,
with some, that such speculations into a difficult doctrine
like that of original sin, are valueless — that they merely

THE DOCTRINE OF ORIGINAL SIN.

271

baffle the mind and harden the heart. "We rise from this
investigation with a more profound belief than ever, in
the doctrine of the innate and total depravity of man —
of his bondage to evil, and his guilt in this bondage. It
is only when we turn away our eye from the particular
exhibitions of sin to that evil nature that lies under them
all, and lies under them all the while — it is only when
we turn away from what we do to what we are — that we
become filled with that deep sense of guilt, that profound
self-abasement, before the infinite purity of God, and that
utter self-despair, which alone fit us to be the subjects
of renewing and sanctifying grace. If the church and
the ministry of the present day need any one thing more
than another, it is profound views of sin ; and if the cur-
rent theology of the day is lacking in any one thing, it is
in that thorough-going, that truly philosophic, and, at the
same time, truly edifying theory of sin, which runs like a
strong muscular cord through all the soundest theology
of the church.

THE ATONEMENT, A SATISFACTION FOR THE
ETHICAL NATURE OF BOTH GOD AND MAN.*

It is a very important question whether, in the recon-
ciliation of man with God, the change of feeling and
relationship that confessedly occurs between the parties,
is solely upon the side of man, or whether that method
which proposes to bring about peace and harmony be-
tween the sinner and his Judge, contains a provision
that refers immediately to the being and ethical nature
of God. Is the Divine Essence absolutely passive, and
entirely unaffected by the propitiatory death of Christ,
and is all the movement and affection that occurs con-
fined to human nature ; or is there in the Godhead itself,
by virtue of its essential nature and quality, something
that requires a judicial satisfaction for sin, and which,
when satisfied, produces the specific sense of satisfaction,
or, to use a biblical term, of " propitiation," in the Deity
himself? In short, is the reconciliation of man with God
merely and wholly subjective, an occurrence in the
human soul but no real event and fact in the Divine
Mind ? Is the sinner merely reconciled to God, God
remaining precisely the same towards him that He is
irrespective of the work of Christ, and antecedent to his
appropriation of that work ; or docs God first, by and

* Kcprintcd from the Bil)liothcca Sacra, Oct. 1859.
(272)

THE DOCTRINE OF ATONEMENT. 273

through a judicial infliction of his own providing, and
his own enduring in the person of the Son, — Himself
the judge, Himself the priest. Himself the sacrifice, —
conciliate his own holy justice towards the guilty, and
thereby lay the foundation for the consciousness of recon-
ciliation in the penitent?*

The phraseology of scripture teaches, beyond a doubt,
that the transaction of reconciliation is not confined ex-
clusively to human nature. We are told, for example,
by the apostle John, that "Jesus Christ the righteous is
the propitiatio7i for our sins." f Propitiation is the strong
word employed to denote the real nature of Christ's
work by that mild and loving apostle whose intuition
of Christianity some biblical critics would array against
that of Paul, and in whose writings they profess to find
only the doctrine of spiritual life and sanctification, and
not that of expiation and justification. But this term
certainly implies two parties, — an offending and an

* That God, in the work of atonement, is both the first cause and last
end, or, in other words, at once the propitiating and the offended party, is
plainly taught in such texts as 2 Cor. v. 18, and Coloss. i. 20 : " God hath
reconciled us to Himself, by Jesus Christ. It pleased God ... by
Christ to reconcile all things to Himself, having made peace through the
blood of his cross." Augustine notices this fact in the following manner:
" How hast Thou loved us, for whom He that thought it no robbery to be
equal with Thee, was made subject even to the death of the cross. He alone,
free among the dead, having power to lay down His life, and power to take
it again ; for us, to Thee, bulk tnctor and victim, and therefore victor because
the victim ; for us, to Thee, both priest and sacrifice, and therefore priest
because the sacrifice." — Confessions, X. xliii. 69. The same thought is
expressed in a very dense and comprehensive form by John Wessel, one of
the forerunners of the Reformation : " Ipse dens, ipse sacerdos, ipse hostia,
pro se, de se. sibi satisfecit." — De causis incarnationis, c. 17. And Pascal
makes a similar remark in his fragmentary reflections : " Agnus occisus
est ab origine mundi. The judge himself is the sacrifice." — Thoughts,
London Ed. by Pcarcc, p. 255.

t 1 John ii. 2.

274 THE DOCTRINE OF ATONEMENT.

offended one. "A mediator," argues Paul, in his Epistle
to the Galatians, " is not a mediator of one ;" that is, in
order to mediation, there must be two persons between
whom to mediate. In like manner, propitiation implies
that one being has wakened the just displeasure of
another being, and that the latter needs to be placated
by some valid and satisfactory method. Propitiation,
therefore, — an idea that weaves the warp and weaves
the woof of the entire scriptures, — if it has any solid
signification, looks Godward.* God, and not man, is
the party primarily offended by sin. It is his nature
which requires the propitiatory sacrifice, and he him-
self provides it. " Since, in his crucifixion," says John
Howe, " Christ was a sacrifice, that is, was placatory and
reconciling, and since reconciliations are always mutual,
of both the contending parties to one another, it must
have the proper influence of a sacrifice immediately upon
hoth^ and as well mollify men's hearts towards God, as
procure that he should express favorable inclinations
towards themr f

Another very pointed scripture text, from which we

* This is very apparent when we analyze those words in different lan-
guages which bring to view the relation of sinful man to the Supreme Being,
The primary meaning always implies that the Deity is displacent, and it is
only the secondary signification that refers to the creature. The word iKia-
KOfiat, for example, in Homer, is always objective in its signification when
applied to the gods. 'Wda-Kea^ai ^e6u primarily means to appease God, to
produce a favorable feeling or affection in God, and then in a secondaiy
sense to reconcile oneself to him, to attain a peaceful feeling subjectively.
The Saxon bot (whence the modern boot) signifies a compensation paid to
an injured party, a redressing, recompense, amends, satisfaction, offering ;
then a remedy or cure, effected by such compensation ; and lastly, a repent-
ance, renervinri, restoring, wrought out by means of boot or satisfaction given.
In this way repentance is inseparable from atonement; and its genuineness
is evinced by the cordiality with which judicial satisfaction is rendered, if it
can be, or appropriated as rendered by a substitute, in case it cannot be.

t Living Temple, Pt. II. c. 5. (Vol. I. p. 81. New York Ed,).

THE DOCTRINE OF ATONEMENT. 275

cannot deduce anything but the doctrine of a real satis-
faction of the Divine Nature by the work of Christ, is
the declaration of Paul, that " if while we were yet [im-
penitent] sinners Christ died for us, much more, then,
being now justified by his blood we shall be saved from
ivrath through him."* Whose wrath is this, from which,
the apostle teaches, we are saved by the propitiatory
death of Christ ? Is it the wrath of man, and not the
wrath of God? Most certainly it is not from that selfish
and wicked passion in the human heart, which we most
commonly associate with the term anger, that we are
delivered by the blood of redemption. But may it not
be our own moral indignation merely, and not that of
our Creator and Judge, to which the apostle refers ?
May not the appeasing effect of Christ's blood of expia-
tion be confined to the human conscience solely, and
there be no actual pacification of any attribute or feeling
in the Deity ? But this is only a part of the truth. We
do, indeed, need to be saved from the terrible wrath and
remorse of our own consciences, as they bite back
(remordere) upon us after the commission of sin, — and
of this we shall speak in its place, — but we need, pri-
marily to be saved from the judicial displeasure of that
immaculate Spirit, in whose character and ethical
feeling towards sin the human conscience itself has its
eternal ground and authority, and of which it is the
most sensitive index and measure.

The natural teaching, then, of these and similar pas-
sages of scripture is, that the atoning sacrifice of the
God-man renders, ^^ propitious ^^ towards the trans-
gressor, that particular side of the Divine Nature, and
that one specific emotion of the living God, which other-

* Eomans, v. 8, 9.

276 THE DOCTRINE OF ATONEMENT.

wise and without it is displacent and unappeased.
This atonement is a satisfaction for the ethical nature
of God as well as nian. This propitiation sustains an
immediate relation to an attribute and quality in the
Divine Essence, and exerts a specific influence upon it.
By it God's holy justice and moral anger against sin
are conciliated to guilty man, that man's remorseful
conscience may, as a consequence of this pacification
in the Divine Essence, experience the peace that passeth
all understanding. It will therefore be the purpose of
this Essay to evince that the piacular work of the in-
carnate Deity sustains relations to both the nature of
God and the nature of man ; and more particularly to
show that the pacification of the human conscience
itself is possible only in case there has been an antece-
dent propitiation and satisfaction of that side of the
Divine INature which is the deep and eternal ground of
conscience.

Before commencing the discussion, we would in the
very outset guard against a misconception, which
almost uniformly arises in a certain class of minds, and
which is not only incompatible with any just under-
standing of the doctrine of atonement, but prevents
even a dispassionate and candid attention to it. When
it is asserted that "God requires to be propitiated," and
that " his wrath needs to be averted by a judicial inflic-
tion upon the sinner's substitute," the image imme-
diately arises before such minds of an enraged and
ugly demon, whose wrath is wrongs and who must be
pacified by some otJicr being than himself. Such minds
labor under a twofold error, of which they ought to be
disabused. Their first fatal misconception is, that the
Divine anger is selfish and vindictive, instead of just
and vindicative of law. And their second consists in

THE DOCTRINE OF ATONEMENT. 277

their assumption that the placation issues from some
other source than the offended One himself. Assuming,
as they do, that anger in God is illegitimate, the attribu-
tion of this emotion to him, of course undeifies him.
And assuming, still further, that wrath against the sin-
ner's sin cannot exist at the same instant with com-
passion towards the sinner's soul, they find no pity in
the Deity as thus defined. His sole emotion must be
that of wrath, because, as they imagine. He can have
but one feeling at a time, and therefore the creature who
has incurred God's displeasure must Jook elsewhere
than to God for the source of hope and peace.

Now this whole view overlooks the complex nature,
the infinite plenitude, of the Godhead. For at the very
instant when the immaculate holiness of God is burn-
ing with intensity, and reacting by an organic recoil
against sin,* the infinite pity of God is yearning with a
fathomless desire to save the transgressor from the effects
of this very displeasure. The emotion of anger against
sin is constitutional to the Deity, and is irrepressible at
the sight of sin. But this is entirely compatible with
the existence and exerci-se of another and opposite feel-
ing, at the very same moment, in reference, not indeed
to thx3 sin, but to the soul of the sinner.f Mercy and

* The inspired words thfit express the emotion of displaocncy m the
Divine Bcins,' .•ire startling from their energy and vividness. The primary
sen.siious meaning, or the visual image called up by them, illustrates this.
The verb cyt, employed in Ps. vii. 11, signifies to foam at the mouth; the
verb "-jj:; means to cut up, of break up, into pieces ; the verb r|2S signifies to
brt-atlie hard throurjh the distended nostrils ; etc. Does not the api)li('ation of
such words as these to the emotions of the Deity imply an inspiration that
includes phraseology as well as ideas ? Would an uninspired writer ven-
ture iij>on such diction in such a connection 1

t The two emotions of which we are speaking, arc clearly discriminated
from each other bv the fact that one of them is constitutional, and the other

278 THE DOCTRINE OF ATOx\EMENT.

truth meet together^ righteousness and peace kiss each
other, in the Divine Essence ; and it is a mutilated and
meagre conception of the Godhead that can grasp but
one of these opposites at once. Even within the nar-
row and imperfect sphere of human life there may be,
and were man holier, there often would be, the most
•holy and unselfish indignation at wrong doing, united
with the utmost readiness to suft'er and die if need be
for the eternal welfare of the wrong doer.

Such being the actual relation of indignation to com-

voluntary. The Divine -RTath [hpy)] 0eov, Rom. i. 18), issues from the
necessary antagonism between the pm'e essence of the Godhead, and moral
evil. It is, therefore, natural, organic, necessary, and eternal. The logical
idea of the Holy implies it. But the love of benevolence, or the Divine
compassion, issues from the voluntary disposition of God, — from his heart
and affections. It is good-ivill. It is, consequently, easy to see that the
existence of the constitutional emotion is perfectly compatible with that of
the voluntary, in one and the same being, and at one and the same moment ;
and, in God, from all eternity, since he is unchangeable. Says Augustine
(Traclatus in Joannem, 110) : "It is written, 'God commendeth his love
towards us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us ' (Rom. v.
8). He loved us, therefore, even when, in the exercise of enmity against
him, we were working iniquity. And yet it is said with perfect truth : ' Thou
hatest, 0 Lord, all workers of iniquity' (Ps. v. 5). Whci-efore, in a won-
derful and divine manner, he both hated and loved us at the same time. He
hated us, as being diflfercnt from what he had made us ; biit as our iniquity
had not entirely destroyed his work in us, he could at the same time, in
every one of us, hate what we had done and love what he had created. In
every instance it is truly said of God : * Thou hatest nothing which thou
ha.st made ; for never wouldest thou have made anything, if thou hadst
hated it* (Wisdom xi. 24)." Calvin, after quoting the above from Augus-
tine, remarks (Institutes II. xvi. 3) : " God, who is the perfection of n;:ht-
eonsness, cannot love iniquity, which he beholds in us all. We all, there-
fore, have in us that which deserves God's hatred. Wherefore, in respect
to our corrupt nature, and the succeeding depravity of our lives, we arc all
really offensive to God, guilty in his sight, and born to the damnation of hell.
But because the Lord will not lose in us that which is his own, he yet dis-
covers something that his goodness may love. For notwithstanding we are
sinners through our own fault, yet we are still his creatures ; notwithstand-
ing we have brought death upon ourselves, yet he had created us for life."

THE DOCTRINE OF ATONEMENT. 279

passion in. the Divine Essence, it is plain that it is God
himself that propitiates himself to the transgressor. In
the incarnate person of the Son, God voluntarily en-
dures the weight of his own judicial displeasure, in
order that the real criminal may be spared. The Divine
compassion itself bears the inflictions of the Divine in-
dignation, in the place of the transgressor.* That ethi-
cal emotion in the being of God, which from the nature
and necessity of the case is incensed against sin, God
himself placates by a personal self-sacrifice that inures
to the benefit of the creature. The " propitiation "
spoken of by the apostle John is, therefore, no oblation
ab extra, no device of a third party, or even of man
himself, to render God placable towards man. It is
wholly ab intra, a se//'-oblation upon the part of Deity
itself, by which to satisfy those immanent and eternal
imperatives of the Divine Nature which without it must
find their satisfaction in the punishment of the trans-
gressor, or else be outraged. Neither does the purpose
to employ this method of salvation, to provide this sat-
isfaction of ethical and judicial claims, originate outside
of the Divine Nature. God is inherently willing to
forgive ; and there is no proof of this so strong as the
fact, that he does not shrink from this amazing self-
sacrifice which forgiveness necessitates. The desire to
save his transgressing and guilty creature wells up and
overflows from the depths of his own compassionate

* In all these statements wc would l)c understood as making them in
hnrmony with, and subject to, all the limitations of the catholic doctrine
of the two natures in the one Person of Christ. The Divine Nature, in
itself, is impassible; but we liave scriptural warrant in Acts xx. 28, for say-
inj^ that God incarnate, or the God-Man, is passible, and sufl'ers and dies.
Hence, while there can be no transfer of predicates from one natiar. to the
other, the predicates of both natures ahke belong to the Person, and that
Person is God as well as man.

280 THE DOCTRINE OF ATONEMENT.

heart, and needs no soliciting or pronnpting. from with-
out. Side by side in the Godhead, then, there dwell
the impulse to punish and the desire to pardon ; but the
desire to pardon is realized in act, by carrying out the
impulse to punish, not indeed upon the person of the
criminal, but upon that of his substitute. And the sub-
stitute is the Punisher Himself! Side by side in the
Godhead there reside the emotion of moral wrath and
the feeling of pity ; but the feeling of pity is manifested,
not by denying, but by asserting, the entire legitimacy
of the emotion of moral wrath, and "propitiating" its
holy intensity by a sufficient oblation. And that obla-
tion is incarnate Deity Itself!

Viewed from this central point, and under this focal
light, how impossible it is not to recognize both love and
wrath in the Godhead,* and how impossible it is to
conceive of a schism in the Divine Being, and separate
his justice from his mercy. It is a real "propitiation"
of the Divine anger against sin that is effected, but it
is a propitiation that is effected by the Deity himself,
out of his own self-sacrificing and principled com-
passion.

Turning now to the discussion of the theme pro-
posed, the first step requires us to consider the relation
which the ethical nature of man sustains to the ethical
nature of God. For if both alike are to be satisfied by
one and the same atoning work of one and the same

* The inspired assertion that " God is a consuming fire" (Ilcb. xi. 29),
is just as cato;j:ori('al and unqualified as the inspired assertion that " God is
love " (1 John iv. 8), or the inspired assertion that " God is light " (1 Jolni
i. 5). Hence it is as inaccurate t5 resolve x;^ the ])ivine emotions into
love, as it would be to resolve them all into wrath. The truth is, that it is
the Divine Essence alone, and not any one particular attril)ute, that can bo
logically regarded as the unity in which all the characteristic qualities of
the Deity centre and inhere.

THE DOCTRINE OF ATONEMENT. 281

Person, the Lord Jesus Christ, it is plain that there
must be some common kindredness and sympathy
between them. What then is the actual relation that
exists between conscience in man and the attribute of
justice in God? Do they give differing judgments with
respect to the demerit of sin, and do they require difler-
ent methods of satisfaction for it ? Is the human con-
science clamorous for an atonement, while the Divine
Nature is wholly indifferent ? Or, does the judicial sen-
timent in the Deity demand the infliction of penalty
upon crime, while that of man is opposed to such an
infliction ? Is there, or is there not, an entire and per-
fect agreement between the finite faculty and the infi-
nite attribute, upon these points, so that in reference to
sin and guilt, what God requires, man's moral nature
also insists upon, and what an awakened conscience
craves, eternal Justice also demands ?

The moral reason, as containing for its substance and
inlay the moral law of God, and the conscience as the
faculty that testifies with respect to the harmony or the
hostility of the w^ill with this law, — this side of human
nature is a part of that " image and likeness of God,"
after which man was originally created. These faculties
have to do \Vith what is religious, ethical, eternal ; and,
notwithstanding the apostasy and corruption of man's
heart and will, they still constitute a point of connecrion
and communication between the being of man and the
being of God. The moral reason and conscience are
the intellectual media whereby, if we may so speak,
man and his Maker are put en rapport. When the
Eternal Judge addresses the creature upon the subject
of religion, upon the duties which he owes, and the
liabilities under which he stands, he speaks first of all,
not to his imagination, or his taste, or his hostile heart,
24*

282 THE DOCTRINE OF ATONEMENT.

or his perverse will, but to his moral sense and senti-
ment. When God begins the work of conviction, and
in order to this throws in an iiilluence from his own
holy and immaculate Essence, He first shoots a pang
through this part of man's complex being. This, like
Darien, is the isthmus of volcanic fire that both divides
and joins the oceans.

Here, then, if anywhere in the being of man, we are
to look for views of the Deity that correspond to his
real nature and- character. And here, in particular, we
are to find the true index of his judicial emotions to-
wards sin, and the clue to what his ethical nature and
feeling demands in order to its remission. We must
not ask the sinful heart, or the taste, or the mere under-
standing, what God thinks of sin, and wdiat is his feel-
ing respecting it. . Upon these points we must take
counsel of the conscience. For the God of the selfish
heart is the deity of s^itimentalism ; the God of the
imagination and the taste is the beautiful Grecian
Apollo ; the God of the understanding 'merely is the
cold and unemotional abstraction of the deist and the
pantheist; but the God of the conscience is the living
and holy God of Israel, — the God of punishments and
atonements. This ethical part of man's being, then,
has a closer affinity than any other part with the Divine
Essence, and consequently its phenomena, its pangs
and its pacification, have a more intimate connection
than those of any other of his pow^ers, with the pro-
cesses of the Eternal Mind. This is the finite contact-
ing point in man that corresponds with the infinite sur-
•face in God. The moral reason and conscience, thus
having their counterpart and antithesis in the Deity,
must, therefore, be regarded as indexes of him, and partic-
ularly of what goes on in his being in relation to human

* THE DOCTRINE OF ATONEMENT; 283

sin and guilt. The calm condenination of man's ethi-
cal nature, and the unselfish organic remorse of his con-
science, which are consequent upon his transgression
of law, are effluences from that Being whose eyes " de-
vour all iniquity." The righteous indignation into
w^hich the judicial part of the human soul is stirred by
sin, is the finite but homogeneous expression of that anger
against moral evil which burns with an eternal intensity
in the purity of the Divine Essence.

Hence it follows that a careful examination of what
we find in the workings of this part of the human con-
stitution, instead of deterring, will compel us to trans-
fer in the same species to God, what exists in man in
only a finite degree. In other words, the emotion of the
human conscience towards sin will be found to be the
same in kind with the emotion of God towards sin.
The analysis must, indeed, be very careful. We must
eliminate from the indignation of the moral sense all
elements of selfish passion that have become mixed
with it, owing lo that corruption of human nature which
prevents even as serious a power as conscience from
working with a perfectly normal action.* We must
clarify remorse until the residuum left is pure spiritual
WTath against pure wickedness. We must do our
utmost, under the illumination of divine truth and the
actuation of the Holy Spirit, to have conscience do its

* Trench remarks upon Eph. iv. 26, tliat " St. Paul is not, as so many
understand him, condescending to human infirmity, and saying: 'Your
anger shall not be imputed to you as a sin, if you put it away before night-
fall ; ' but rather, ' Be ye angry, yet in this anger of yours suffer no sinful
element to mingle ; ' there is tliat wliicli may cleave even to a righteous
anger, the irapopyia-jjiSs, the iiTitation, tlie exasperation, which must be dis-
missed at once; that so, being defecated of this impurer element which
mingled with it, that only which ought to remain, may I'emain." — S^no-
vijmesofN. T,^37.

284 THE DOCTRINE OF ATONEMENT.

perfect, unmixed work ; and then we need not shrink
from asserting, that this righteous displacency of the
moral sense, against the voluntary wickedness, is pre-
cisely the same emotion in specie with the wrath of God.*
It will aid us if at this point we direct attention to
the distinction between the human conscience and the
human heart; and particularly to the difference between
emotion in conscience and emotion in the heart.\ The
feelings and passions of the corrupt human heart we
cannot, in any form, attribute to God. Envy, pride,
malice, shame, selfish love, and selfish hatred, cannot
possibly exist in that pure and blessed Nature. Hence
it is that we are so apt to shrink from those portions
of scripture which clothe the Deity with indignant and

^ Hence the Divine injunction in Ps. xcvii. 18 : " Ye that love the Lord,
hate evil ; " and in Rom. xii. 9 : " Abhor that which is evil." This pure
and spiritual displacency towards moral evil, unmixed with any elements
of sinful and human passion, is one of the last accomplishments of the
Christian life. Hear the following low and sad refrain from the spirit of
the intensely earnest and ethical Master of Hugby, as^e muses under the
dark chestnut-trees, and beside the limpid waters, and beneath the cerulean
sky of Lake Como : " It is almost awful to look at the overwhelming
beauty around me, and then think of moral evil ; it seems as if heaven and
liell, instead of being separated by a great gulf from one another, were
absolutely on each other's confines, and indeed not far from every one of
us. Miglit the sense of moral evil be as strong in me as my delight in ex-
ternal beauty ; for in a deep sense of moral evil, more perhaps than in anything
else, abides a suvimi hioivledr/e of God! It is not so much to admire moral
good ; that we may do, and yet not be ourselves conformed to it ; but if we
really do abhor that which is evil, not the persons in whom evil resides, but
the evil that dwclleth in them, and much more manifestly and certainly to
our own knowledge, in our own hearts, — this is to have the feeling of God
and of Christ, and to have our spirit in sympathy with the spirit of God.
Alas ! how easy to see this and say it, — liow hard to do it and to feel it ! "
— Arnold's Life and CorrPS}K)ndence. Appendix D.

t For some further explanation, and illustration, of the important dis-
tinction b'jtween the mental and the moral, the constitutional and the volun-
tary, etc., t!ie writer would refer to his Lectures upon the Philosophy of His-
tory, pp. 65 — G'J.

THE DOCTRINE OF ATONEMENT. 285

condemnatory feelings, because this class of emotions
are those in and by which the depravity of the human
heart is most wont to display itself. But the emotion
of which we are speaking is not a passion of the human
heart. The heart of man loves sin ; but we are describ-
ing remorse^ which is the wrath of the conscience
against sin. We are delineating the operations and
processes of a very different part of the human consti-
tution from that which is the source and seat of earthly
passions and sinful emotions. We have passed beyond
the hot and passionate heart of man to the cool and
silent judicial centre of his being ; and here we find
feelings and processes of an altogetl^er different and
higher order. Indignation in conscience is a totally dif-
ferent emotion from indignation in the heart. A man's
moral displeasure at his own sin is an entirely different
mental exercise from his selfish displeasure towards his
neighbor. The former is an ethical and impartial emo-
tion, totally independent of the will and affections, and
called out involuntarily from the conscience by the mere
sheer contact between it and the heart's iniquity. Hence
a man never condemns himself for the existence of such
a species of displeasure within his breast. He may be
angry in this style and sin not.* The sun may go down
upon this kind of wrath. And yet it is not a virtue for
which he can take credit to himself; for it is no product
of his. It is not an emotion of his heart or his will,
but is simply an involuntary and irrepressible efflux
from his rational nature. He may only give glory to
his Creator for it, as the only relic left him, in his total

* " I further read : ' Be anfjrj/ and sin not.* And how was I moved, O
my God, wljo had now IcaoMjd to be angry at myself, for things past, that
I migljt not sin in time to come ! Yea to be justli/ angry." — Augustine's
Conftssions, IX. iv. 10.

286 THE DOCTRINE OP ATONEMENT.

alienation of heart and will from God, of .his primitive
and constitutional kindredness with the First Perfect
and the First Fair.

Again, this judicial emotion, this conscientious WFath
of which we are speaking, differs from the selfish and
partial emotions of the human heart, in that it is not
intrinsically an unhappy feeling. It does not, like the
latter, of necessity render the being in whom it exists
miserable. Envy, hatred, malice, shame, pride, are each
and all of them unhappy exercises in themselves, as
well as in their consequences. They cannot exist in
any being without mental suffering. But it is not
so w^ith the moral displeasure of the moral sense.
Whether this just and legitimate emotion be a tor-
ment or not, depends altogether upon the state of
the heart and will, upon the moral character. It is
indeed true that it causes unhappiness in a sinful being,
because in this instance the emotions of the heart
are in antagonism with the emotion of conscience ;
because the executive faculty is not in harmony
with the judicial faculty. But where there is no per-
sonal sin, both the wrath of conscience and the wrath
of God are as innocuous as fire upon asbestos. Hence
this very same emotion of moral indignation and abhor-
rence exists in an intense degree in the angels and the
seraphim, but is productive of no disquietude in them,
because there is nothing evil in their oivn character
upon which it can wreak its force. There is a perfect
harmony within them, between the emotions of the
heart and the judicial emotion, between the character
and the conscience. And, in like manner, this same
feeling of ethical displeasure exists in an infinite degree
in the being of God, wdthout disturbing, in the least,
the ineffable peace and blessedness of that pure nature

THE DOCTRL\E OF ATONEMENT. 287

which is the paradise and elysium of all who are con-
formed to it. For this judicial sentiment is a legitimate
one, and nothing that is legitimate can be intrinsically
miserable. And therefore it is that the saints and the
seraphim, as they look down from the crystal battle-
ments with holy abhorrence and indignation upon the
sorceries and murders and uncleanness of the fallen
Babylon, are not distressed by their emotion, but, on the
contrary, rejoice with a holy joy at the final triumph of
justice in the universe of God, and say, Alleluia, as the
smoke of that just torment rises up. for ever and ever.*
And therefore it is that God himself carries eternally, in
his own blessed nature, a righteous indignation against
^ moral evil, that is no source of disquietude to him,
because there is no moral evil in him, nor to the angels
and saints and seraphim, because there is none in them;
but only to those rebellious and wicked spirits into
whom it does fall like lightning from the sky.

For if the emotion of moral indignation were intrin-
sically one of unhappiness, then ihe existence of evil
would be the destruction of the Divine blessedness ;
because God " cannot look upon evil with allowance,"!

* "And after these things, I heard a gi*cat voice of much people in
licaven, saying, Alleluia : Salvation, and gloiy, and honor, and power unto
the Lord our God : for true and rUjhteous are his judgments, for he hath
j^jdged the great whore which did corrupt the earth with her fornication,
and hath avenged the blood of his servants at her hand. And again they
said. Alleluia : and her smoke rose vp forever and ever. And the four and
twenty elders, and the four beasts fell down, and woVshippcd God that sat
on the throne, saying, Ainen, Al/eluia." — Rev. xix. 1 — 4.

t "Thou art not a God that hath pleasure in wickedness. Thou hatcst
all workers of iniquity" (Ps. v. .5, 6). "God is angry with the wicked
every day" (Ps. vii. 11). " Who may stand in thy sight when otuc thou
art angry" (Ps, Ixxvi. 7). " AVho knoweth the power of thine anger?
Even according to thy fear so is thy wrath" (Ps. xc. 11). "lie that
belicveth not the Son, shall not sec life ; but the wrath of God abideth on
him" (John iii. 36).

288 THE DOCTRINE OF ATONEMENT.

and yet he is constantly looking upon it. But it is not
so. On the contrary, the Deity is blessed in his dis-
placency at that which is vile and hateful. For pleasure
is the coincidence between a feeling and its correlated
object. It implies intrinsic congruity and fitness. It
would therefore be unhappiness in any being to hate
what is lovely, or to love what is hateful ; to be pleased
with what is wrong, and displeased with what is right ;
because the proper coincidence between the emotion
and the object would not obtain. But when God, or
any being, hates What is hateful, and is angry at that
which mm^5 wrath, the true nature and fitness of things
is observed, and that inward harmony which is the sub-
stance of mental happiness is maintained. Anger and
hatred are almost indissolubly connected in our minds
with mental wretchedness, because we behold their ex-
ercise only in an abnormal and sinful sphere. In an
apostate world, as such, there is no proper and fitting
coincidence between emotions and their objects. A
sinner hates holiness,*which he ought to lOve ; and loves
sin, which he ought to hate. The anger of his heart is
not legitimate, but passionate and selfish. The love of
his heart is illicit ; and therefore, as it is styled in the
scripture, is mere lust or evil concupiscence (iTrt^vfiia).
In a sinful world, as such, all the true relations and cor-
relations are reversed. Love and hatred are expended
upon exactly the wrong objects. But when these emo-
tions are contemplated within the sphere of the Holy
and the Eternal ; when they are beheld in God, exer-
cised only upon their appropriate and deserving objects ;
when the wrath falls only upon the sin and uncleanness
of hell, and burns up nothing but filth in its pure celestial
flame; the emotion is not merely legitimate, but beau-
tiful with an august beauty, and is no source of pain

THE DOCTRINE OF ATONEMENT. 289

either to the Divine Mind or to any minds in sympathy
with it. It is only upon this .principle that we can
explain the blessedness of the Deity, in connection with
his omniscience and omnipresence. We know that sin
and the punishment of sin are ever before him. The
smoke of tormeht is perpetually rolling up in the pres-
ence of the Omnipresent. And yet he is supremely
blessed. But he can be so only because there is a just
and proper correlationship between his wrath and the
object upon which it falls; only because he condemns
that which is intrinsically damnable.* The least dis-
turbance of this coincidence, the slightest love for the
hateful, or hatred for the lovely, would indeed render
God a wretched being. But the perfect harmony of it
makes him " God over a//," hell as well as heaven,
" blessed forever." f Were this ethical feeling once to
be outraged by the final triumph of iniquity over right-
eousness ; were the smoke of torment to ascend eter-

* It is at this point that the metaphysical necessity of endless punish-
ment appears. For if sin be intrinsically damnable, it is intrinsically pun-
ishable. If then the question be asked : How long is it intrinsically dam-
nable and punishable ? there is but one answer. There is, in fact, no
logical mean between no punishment at all of sin as an intrinsic evil, and
an absolute, that is, an endless punishment of it.

t It is a standing objection of infidelity to the Biblical idea and repre-
sentation of the Deity, that it conflicts with the natural intuitions of the
human mind. It is asserted that the instinctive sentiments of the soul
repel the doctrine of anger against sin. The ethics of nature, say these
theorizcrs, are contrary to the ethics of scripture upon this point, and hence
mankind must make a choice between the two. But a careful study of the
most profound systems of natural religion does not corroborate this asser-
tion. Probably no mind, outside of the pale of Christianity, has made a
more discriminating and ti-utbful representation of the natural sentiments
of the human mind, than Aristotle. But this dispassionate thinker asserts
that " lie who feels anger on proper occasions, at proper persons, and in a
proper nmnner, and for a proper length of time, is an object of praise." —
Nicomachean EOdcs, Book IV. c. 5.

290 THE DOCTRINE OF ATONEMENT.

nally from pure and innocent spirits, and were the
revelry of joy to steam up everlastingly from the souls
of the vile and the worthless ; were the great relations
of right and wrong, sin and penalty, happiness and
misery, once to be reversed in the universe, and under the
government of God, then indeed this quick sense of
justice, and this holy indignation at sin, would be a grief
and a sorrow to its possessor. And therefore it is, that,
in all the Divine administration, and in the entire plan
of redemption, the utmost possible pains is taken to
justify, and legitimate, and satisfy this judicial senti-
ment, and to see that its demands are fully met.

There must be this correspondence between the judi-
cial nature of man and the judicial nature of God, or
religion is impossible. How can man even know what
is meant by justice in the Deity, if there is absolutely
nothing of the same species in his own rational consti-
tution, which if realized in his own character as it is in
that of God, would make him just as God is just ? How
can he know what is meant by moral perfection in God,
if in his own rational spirit there is absolutely no ideal
of moral excellence, which if realized in himself as it is
in the Creator, would make him excellent as he is excel-
lent ? Without some mental correspondent, to which
to appeal and commend themselves, the teachings of
revelation could not be apprehended. A body of knowl-
edge alone is not the whole ; there must be an inlet for
it, an organ of apprehension. But if there is no such
particular part of the human constitution as has been
described, and these calm judgments of the moral sense,
and this righteous displeasure of the conscience, are to
be put upon a level with the workings of the fancy and
imagination, or the selfish passions of the human heart,
then there is no point of contact and communication

THE DOCTRINE OF ATONEMENT. 291

between the nature of man and the being of God.
There is no part of his own complex being upon which
man may fall back, with the certainty of not being mis-
taken in judgments of ethics and religion. Both anchor
and anchoring-ground are gone, and he is afloat upon
the boundless, starless ocean of ignorance and scepti-
cism. Even if revelations are made, they cannot enter
his mind. There is no contacting surface through
which they can approach and take hold of his being.
They cannot be seen to be what they really are, the
absolute truth of God, because there is no eye with
which to see them.

Assuming, then, that there is this correspondence and
correlationship between the moral constitution of man
and the Divine Nature, we proceed, in the light of the
fact, to evince the doctrine, taught in the scripture texts
which we have cited, that the atonement of Christ is a
real satisfaction both on the part of God and man. The
death of incarnate Deity has always been regarded, by
those who have believed that the Deity became incar-
nate in Jesus Christ, as expiatory. As such, it relates
immediately to the attribute of justice in the Creator,
and to the faculty of conscience in the creature. And
the position taken here, is that it sustains the same rela-
tion to both. It satisfies that which would be dissatis-
fied both in God and man if the penalty of sin were
merely set aside and abolished by an act of wnll. It
placates an ethical feeling which is manifesting itself in
the form of remorse in the conscience of the trans-
gressor, only because it has first existed in the nature
of God in the form of a judicial displeasure towards
moral evil.

A fundamental attribute of Deity is justice. This
comes first into view, and continues in sight to the very

292 THE DOCTRINE OF ATONEMENT.

last, in all inquiries into the Divine Nature. No attri-
bute can be conceived of tliat is more ultimate and
central than this one. This is proved by the fact that
the operation of all the other Divine attributes, love
itself not excepted, is conditioned and limited by justice.
For whatever else God may be, or may not be, he must
be just. It is not optional with him to exercise this
attribute, or not to exercise it, as it is in the instance
of that class of attributes w^hich are antithetic to it.
We can say : " God may be merciful or not, as he
pleases ; " but we cannot say : " God may be just or not,
as he pleases." It cannot be asserted that God is inex-
orably obligated to show pity ; but it can be categori-
cally affirmed that God is inexorably obligated to do
justly.* For the characteristic of justice is necessary
exaction; while, if we may accommodate a Shaksperean
phrase, " the quality of mercy is not strainedJ^ Hence
the exercise of justice can be demonstrated upon
a priori grounds, while that of mercy is known only by
a declaration or promise upon the part of God. It is
for this reason that man can have no certainty that the

* Oicen (Dissertation on Divine Justice, Chap. II.), notices the self-con-
tradiction there is, in conceding that justice is an essential attribute in God,
and yet that it can be set aside by an act of arbitrary omnipotence, in the
following terms : " To me, these arguments are altogether astonishing,
viz. : ' That sin-punishing justice should be natural to God, and yet that
God, sin being supposed to exist, mai/ either exercise it, or not exercise it.'
They may also say, and with as much propriety, that truth is natural to
God, but upon a supposition that he were to converse with man, he mif/kt
either use it, or not ; or, that omnipotence is natural to God, hut upon a
supposition that he were inclined to do any work without (extra) himself,
that it were free to him to act omnipotently or not ; or, finally, that sin-punishing
justice is among the primary causes of the death of Christ, and that Christ
was set forth as a propitiation, to declare his righteousness, and yet that
that justice required not the punishment of sin. For if it should require it,
how is it possible that it should not necessarili/ require it, since God would
be unjust, if he should not inflict punishment.'^

THE DOCTRIxXE OF ATONEMENT. 293

Deity is a mercifal being, except as he obtains it from a
special revelation. When the thoughtful pagan looked
up into the pure heavens above him, or into the deep
recesses within him, he had no doubt that the Infinite
One is just, and a punisher of evil doing, because he
must be such. Hence he trembled; and hence he
offered a propitiatory sacrifice. But neither from the
heavens, nor from anything in his own moral constitu-
tion, could he obtain certainty in regard to the attribute
of mercy ; because there is nothing of a necessary na-
ture in the exercise of this attribute. God might or
might not be merciful to him. Man may dare to hope
that there is pity in the Deity ; but whether there actu-
ally is, he cannot know with certainty until the heavens
are opened, and a voice issues from the lips of the
Supreme himself, saying : " I will show mercy, and this
is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased." The
light of nature is sufficient for man's damnation ; but it
casts not a ray in the direction of his salvation. There
is ample evidence from natural religion that the Deity
is holy and impartial; but it is only from revealed re-
ligion that the human mind obtains its warrant for
believing in the Divine clemency. From the position
of natural ethics alone, man is merely condemned to
retribution ; and, as matter of fact, while standing only
upon this position, his conscience accuses him, and fills
him with fears and forebodings of judgment. Noth-
ing but a promise of forgiveness, from the mouth of
God, can remove these fears ; but a promise to pardon
is not a priori, and necessary, like a threatening to
punish.

The absolute and indefeasible nature of justice is
seen, again, by considering the nature of law. If we
regard the moral law as Ihe efllux of the Divine Nature,

25^"

294 THE DOCTRINE OF ATONEMENT.

and not, as in the Grotian theory, a positive statute
which may be relaxed in part, or wholly abrogated, by
the law-making power,* we find this same stark neces-
sity existing. The law is obligated to punish the trans-
gressor, as much as the transgressor is obligated to obey
the law. Human society, for instance, has claim upon
law for penalty, as really as law has claim upon human
society for obedience. Law has no option. Justice
has but one function. The necessity of penalty is as
great as the necessity of obligation. The law itself
is under law ; that is, it is under the necessity of its
own nature ; and therefore the only possible way
whereby a transgressor can escape the penalty of law,
is for a substitute to endure it for him. The language
of Milton respecting the transgressor is metaphysically
true :

* "All positive laws/' says Grotius (Defensio Fidei, Caput. III. p. 310,
£d. Amstelaedemi, 1679), " are relaxable. Those who fear that if we con-
cede this, we do an injury to God because we thereby represent him as mu-
table, are much deceived. For law is not something internal in God, or in the
will itself of God, but it is a particular effect or product of his will (voluntatis
quidam efFectus). But that the effects, or products of the Divine will are
mutable, is very certain. Moreover, in promulgating a positive law, which
he might wish to relax at some future time, God does not exhibit any
fickleness of will. For God seriously indicated that he desired that his law
should be valid, and obligatory ; while yet he reserved the right of relaxing it,
if he saw fit, because this right pertains to a positive law, from the very
nature of the case, and cannot be abdicated by the Deity. Nay more, the
Deity does not abdicate the right of even abrogating law altogether, as is
apparent from the instance of the ceremonial law." Grotius then proceeds
to apply this principle to the moral law, and the penalty accompanying
it, and though intending to counteract the Socinian theory, lays down posi-
tions which in the judgment of dogmatic historians logically lead to it. —
See Baumgarten — Crvsius (Dogmengeschichte, II. 274) ; Miinscher — Von
Colin — Neudccker (Dogmengeschichte, III. 508); i5aM;- ( Versohnungslehre,
414—435, — translated in Bibliothcca Sacra, IX, 259 — 272 1; BngenlKich,
(Dogmengeschichte, 3 Aufl. § 268) ; Ersch und Gruber's Enci/clopudie (Art.
Acceptilatio) ; Hengstenberg'a Kirchen-Zeitung for 1834.

THE DOCTRINE OF ATONEMENT. 295

" He, with all his posterit}', must die :
Die he, or justice must ; unless for him
Some other able, and as willing, pay
The rigid satisfaction, death for death."*

And the mercy of God consists in substituting Himself
incarnate for his creature^ for purposes of atonement.
Analyzed to its ultimate elements, God's pity towards
the soul of man is God's satisfying his own eternal
attribute of justice for it. It does not consist in out-
raging his own law, and the guilt-smitten conscience
itself, by simply snatching the criminal away from their
retributions, in the exercise of an unprincipled and an
unbridled almightiness, or in substituting a partial for a
complete atonement; but in enduring the full and
entire penal infliction by which both are satisfied-f

* Paradise Lost, III. 209—212.

t It was one of the objections of Socinus to the theory of plenary satis-
faction, that if God has received a full equivalent for the punishment due
to man, then he does not exercise any mercy in remitting his sin. But this
objection overlooks the fact that the equivalent is not furnished by man, but
by God. Were the atonement the creature's oblation to justice, Socinus's
objection would have force. But it is God, and not man, who satisfies
justice for the sinner. It is indeed a se//-satisfaction upon the part of God,
yet none the less a &e\^-sacrijice ; and self-sacrifice is confessedly the highest
form of love. The truth is, that this objection of Socinus begs the ques-
tion in dispute, by defining mercy in its own way. It assumes (as Socinus
expressly argues. Bib. Frat. Pol. I. 566 sq.) that the ideas of satisfaction
and mercy mutually exclude each other ; that mercy consists in relaxing
and waiving justice, and not in vicariously satisfi/ing it. From this premiss
it follows, of course, that where there is any satisfaction of justice there is
no mercy, and where there is any waiving of justice there is mercy. A
complete atonement, consequently, would exclude mercy altogether ; a par-
tial atonement would allow some room for mercy, in partially waiving legal
claims ; and no atonement at all would afford full play for the attrii)Ute,
by the entire nullification of all judicial demands. According to the catholic
view, on the contrary, the ideas of satisfaction and mercy are coml)ined
and harmonized in a vicarious atonement, or the assumption of penalty by
a competent person. If the sinner himself should suffer the penalty, there

296 THE DOCTRINE OP ATONEMENT.

Still another proof of the primary nature of justice
is found in the fact of human accountability. The
most distinguishing characteristic of man is evidence of
the most distinguishing characteristic of God ; and thus
the correspondence between the Divine and the human
meets us again. Man is not a link in the necessary chain
of material nature. He is by creation a free creature ;
capable of continuing holy as he was created, or of
turning to sin. Now, over against this freedom and re-
sponsibility on the part of man, there stands justice on
the part of God. This great divine attribute presup-
poses the hazardous human endowment of will^ and
holds the possessor of it accountable for its use or
abuse. Without such a cliaracteristic, man could not
stand in any sort of relationship to such solemn realities
as law and justice. There would be nothing in his con-
stitution that could feel the tremendous swing and
blow of penal infliction. For justice smites a trans-
gressor as one who has illegitimately assumed a centre
of his own, and who is wickedly standing upon that
centre, in hostility to the being and government of God.
In a certain sense, though not that which excludes the
permissive decree and the preventive power of the Su-
preme Being, justice supposes the sinner to be sustain-
ing something of the isolated and self-asserting relation
to God that the principle of evil in the system of dual-
ism sustains to the principle of good ; and when the
accountable self-will of a creature attempts to set itself
up as an independent and hostile agent in the doing

would be no vicariousncss in tlic suffering, and there would be the execu-
tion of justice merely, witliout any mercy. But when tlie incarnate Son
of God, as the sinner's substitute, endures the penalty due to sin, justice is
satisfied by the suffering; which is undergone ; and the Son of Gud, surely,
shows the height of compassion in undergoing it.

THE DOCTRLXE OF ATONEMENT. 297

of evil, it then feels the full force of the avenging,
vindicating stroke of law, as if it were a single dis-
connected atom, all alone and by itself, in the middle
of creation.

Any just view of sin as s^uilt^ as the product of will^
is, consequently, corroborative of the position that the
attribute of which we are speaking is an immanent and
necessary one in the Divine Nature. We might con-
ceive of the same amount of evil consequences as those
which flow from human transgression ; but if this latter
were not the real work and agency of a responsible
creature, Eternal Justice could take no cognizance of it.
Unless sin is crime., penalty has no more relation to it
than it has to the disease and corruption in the material
world about us ; and the fall of man could no more be
visited by the infliction of judicial suffering, than could
that process of decay which is continually going on in
the forests, by means of which a more luxuriant vege-
tation springs up, and a more glorious forest waves in
the breeze.

It has been a query among those who have spec-
ulated upon the nature of the Deity : What is the base
or substrate of His being? The inquiry has too often
been so answered as to bring in a subtle pantheism,
because there was more reference to the natural than
the ethical attributes of the Godhead. Whether the
question in such a reference can be answered by the
finite mind, we do not pretend to decide here ; but with
reference to God's moral constitution, with reference to
that congeries of ethical attributes which belongs to him
as a personal being, it is as certain as anything can be,
that the deep substrate and base of them all, is eternal
law and impartial justice. This pervades all the rest,
keeps them in equilibrium, and constitutes, as it were,

298 THE DOCTRINE OF ATONEMENT.

the very divinity of the Deity. And this view of the
primary nature of justice coincides with the convictions
of men in all ages. In all time, justice has been the
one particular divine attribute that has pressed most
heavily upon the human race. This always comes first
into man's mind, when the idea of the Deity over-
shadows him. He trembles when he remembers that
God is just; and he remembers this when he remem-
bers nothing else. Nor let it be objected that this is
owing to the fact that man is sinful, and that this qual-
ity in the Supreme Being would not be so prominent in
the mind of an unfallen creature who has nothing to
fear from it. The utterance of the pure burning sera-
phim is : Holy, Holy, Holy. That which comes first
into the minds of the spotless and unfearing worship-
pers in God's immediate presence, — they whose spirits,
in the phrase of Jeremy Taylor, "are becalmed, and
made even as the brow of Jesus, and smooth like the
heart of God," — is that particular characteristic in the
Divine Being, by virtue of which he has a right to sit
on the eternal throne ; that specific attribute upon which
the moral administration of the universe must be estab-
lished.

Now, if this be a correct statement of the necessary
nature and the capital position of Divine Justice, it is
plain that any plan or method that has to do with sin
and guilt, must have primary reference to it, and must
give plenary satisfaction to it as it exists in God himself.
Inasmuch as justice, and not mercy, is the limiting and
conditioning attribute, its demands must be acknowl-
edged and met in order that mercy may make even the
first advances towards the transgressor. Compassion
cannot, by mere arbitrary will and might, stride forward
to reach its own private ends, and trample down justice

THE DOCTRINE OF ATONEMENT. 299

by sheer force ; but must come forth, as she docs in the
bleeding Lamb of God, as the voluntary servant and
victim of Law, doing all its behests, and bearing all its
burdens, and enduring its sharp, inexorable pains, in t/te
place of {vice, vicarie) the helpless object whom ven-
geance sufFereth not to live. The cup must be put to
the lips of him who has volunteered to be the Atoner,
and he must drink it to the bottom, for the guilty trans-
gressor whose law-place he has taken. The God-man
having, out of his own free will and affection, become
the sinner's Substitute, must now receive a sinner's treat-
ment, and be "numbered with the transgressors" (Isa.
liii. 12). He cannot therefore escape the agony and
passion, the hour and the power of darkness. He may
give expression to his spontaneous shrinking from the
awful self-oblation, as the hour darkens and draws on,
in the utterance : " O my Father, if it be possible, let
this cup pass from me;" but having taken the place of
the guilty, it is not possible, and he must sweat the
bloody sweat, he must cry : " My God, my God, why
hast thou forsaken me?" that his voice may then ring
through the universe and down the ages : " It is finished,
— the atonement is made."*

For the Deity cannot, by an arbitrary and unprin-
cipled procedure, release the transgressor's Substitute
from the penal suffering, and inflict a wound upon that
holy judicial nature, which is vital in every part with

* " T\\Q justice of God is exceedingly glorified in this work. God is so
strictly and immutably just, that he would not spare his beloved Son when
he took upon him the guilt of men's sins, and was substituted in the room
of sinners. He would not abate him the least mite of that del)t which
justice demanded. Justice should take place, though it cost his infinitely
dear Son his precious blood ; and his enduring such extraordinary reproach,
and pain, and death in its most dreadful form." — Edwards's Works, IV.
140.

300 THE DOCTRINE OF ATONEMENT.

the breath of law and the life of justice. By reason of
an immanent necessity, he cannot disturb his own eter-
nal sense of righteousness and ethical tranquillity, by
doing damage to one whole side of his Godhead.

He has not. In the voluntary, the cordially offered,
sacrifice of the incarnate Son, the judicial nature of
God, which by a constitutional necessity requires the
punishment of sin, finds its righteous requirement fully
met. Plenary punishment is inflicted upon One who is
infinite, and therefore competent ; upon One who is
finite, and therefore passible ; upon One who is inno-
cent, and therefore can suffer for others ; upon One who
is voluntary, and therefore uncompelled. By this the-
anthropic oblation, the ethical feeling, the organic emo-
tion of displeasure in the Deity is, in the scripture
phrase, made "propitious" towards the guilty, because
it has been placated by it. Thus God is immutably
just while he justifies (Rom. iii. 26), and his mercy is,
in the last analysis, one with his truth and his law.

We turn, now, to the other half of the proposition
derived from the scripture texts that have been cited,
and proceed to show that the atonement of Christ
effects a real satisfaction upon the part of man. We
have seen that the propitiatory death of the God-man
meets the immanent ethical necessities of the Divine
Nature. We have now the easier task of evincing that
it meets the moral wants of human nature.

In discussing the fact of a divinely-established cor-
respondence between the judicial nature of man and
that of God, we have already observed that the attribute
of justice naturally selects this judicial part of man as
the inlet of approach to him. Eternal law has, in all
ages, poured itself down through the human conscience,
like a fountain through the channel it has worn for

THE DOCTRINE OF ATONEMENT. 301

itself, and in this instance like hot lava down a moun-
tain gorge. Hence by watching its workings within
this particular faculty, we are enabled to determine
what man's judicial nature requires, and also inciden-
tally to throw back some more light upon the relations
of the atonement to the Divine Nature. It is indeed
trae that Divine Justice manifests itself in other modes
than this. There are revelations of it in the written
word, and in the course of providence and human his-
tory. But we are endeavoring to establish the position
that the atonement has an internal necessity grounded
in the very moral being of man. It is necessary, there-
fore, to look at the principle of law in its vital and felt
manifestation within the soul of the criminal himself.
By the analysis of the contents of a remorseful con-
science, especially if it has been made unusually living
and poignant by the truth and Spirit of God, we may
discover much of the real quality of Eternal Justice.
As this august attribute acts and reacts within the
breast of man upon his violation of law, we may obtain
some clear and conscious knowledge of its nature and
operations ; and also of what the human conscience
itself demands, and with what it is satisfied.

The commission of sin is either attended or suc-
ceeded by the sensation of ^uilt^ — one of tlie most dis-
tinct and unique of all the sensations that emerge
within the horizon of self-consciousness. Provided con-
science does its unmixed work, the transgressor is con-
scious, not merely of unhappiness, which is a very low
form of feeling, but of criminality^ which is a very high
form. Nay, the more profound and thorough the ope-
ration of the moral faculty becomes, the more does the
sense of mere wretchedness retreat into the back-
ground, and the sense of ill-desert come forth into the

302 THE DOCTRINE OF ATONEMENT.

foreground of consciousness. It is possible for this
latter element to drive out, for a time, the particular
feeling of misery, and to absorb the mind in the sense
of horror and amazement at the past transgression.
The guilty, in the final day, are represented as calling
upon the rocks and the mountains to fall upon them,
as inviting new forms of suffering, in the vain hope
that the awful consciousness of crime may be drowned
thereby.

Now, seizing and holding the experience of the trans-
gressor at this point, let us examine it more closely.
Notice that this consciousness of guilt, pure and simple,
is wholly involuntary. It comes in upon the criminal,
not only without his will, but in spite of it. He would
keep it out, if he could. He would drive it out, if he
could. His experience at this stage, then, is the result
of no voluntary effort upon his part, but of the simple
reaction oflaiv, the most dispassionate and unselfish of
all realities, against its violator. In the conscience, that
part of the human constitution which we have seen to
be the proper seat and organ for such an operation, the
commandment is making itself felt again, not as at
first in the form of command, but of condemnation.
The free agent has responsibly disobeyed the holy,
just, and good statute, and is now feeling the tremen-
dous reaction of it in his own moral being. This re-
morse, or damnatory emotion, therefore, is the work of
God's law, and not of man's will. There is, conse-
quently, very little of the selfish and the earthly, but
much of the unearthly and the eternal, in the trans-
gressor's experience held at this point. He can take no
merit to himself, because it is of such an intensely
ethical and spiritual character, since the entire process,
so far as he is concerned, is involuntary and organic. It

THE DOCTRINE OF ATONEMENT. 303

is provided for in his judicial constitution, and as an
operation within himself it is to be regarded, not as the
working of his corrupt heart, but as the infliction of Di-
vine retribution and justice, in and through the judicial
faculty. Man can take no merit to himself because he
possesses a power that condemns evil, and distresses
therefor. For this is the workmanship of the Creator,
and it exists in hell as well as heaven. The workings
of conscience are as much beyond the control of the
will, are as truly organic, as those of the sympathetic
nerve, and therefore are worthy of neither praise nor
blame. Given conscience and sin, within one and the
same soul, and remorse must follow as a matter of
necessity. Hence remorse is never made the subject of
a command. Man is commanded to melt down in
godly sorrow, but never to be filled with remorse ; for
this is provided for in the moral constitution given by
Him who makes it the fiery chariot by which he him-
self rides into man's being, in majesty, to judgment.

Hence this sense of ill-desert, though its sensorium is
the human conscience, must be traced back for its first
cause, to a yet deeper ground, and a yet higher origin.
For if it were a fact, that remorse had nothing but a
human source, though that source were the highest and
most venerable of the human faculties, and the trans-
gressor should know it, he could overcome and suppress
it. Nothing that has a merely finite origin can be a
permanent source of misery; and if the victim of re-
morse could but be certain that the just and holy God
has had nothing to do with the origin of the distress
within him, he could ultimately expel it from his breast.
If he could be assured that the terrible emotion which
follows the commission of evil, though welling up from
the lowest springs of his own nature, yet has no con-

804 THE DOCTRINE OF ATONEMENT.

nection with the nether fountains of the Divine Essence,
he could put an end to his torment. For no man is
afraid of himself alone, and irrespective of his Maker
and Judge. That which renders a portion of our com-
mon and finite humanity terrible to us, is the fact, that
it is grounded in and supported by that which is more
than human. In the instance before us, the highest
part of the. human constitution supports itself by strik-
ing its deep roots into the holiness and justice of the
Godhead ; and therefore it is that conscience makes
cowards of us all, and its remorse is a feeling that is
invincible by the strongest finite will, and requires, in
order to its extinction, the blood of atonement.

We are, therefore, compelled back into the being and
character of God, for the ultimate origin of this sense
of guilt, and this "fearful looking-for of judgment and
fiery indignation." And why should we not be ? If
Justice is living and sensitive anywhere, it must be so
in its eternal seat and home. If law is jealous for its
own authority and maintenance anywhere, it must be in
that Being to whom all eyes in the universe are turned
with the inquiry : " Shall not the Judge of all the earth
do right?" What, therefore, conscience affirms, in the
transgressor's case, God affirms, and is the first to affirm.
What, therefore, conscience feels in respect to the sin-
ner's transgression, God feels, and is the first to feel.
What, therefore, conscience requires in order that it
may cease to punish the guilty spirit, God requires and
is the first to require. In fine, all that is requisite in
order to the satisfaction and pacification of conscience
towards the sinful soul in which it dwells, is also requi-
site in order to the satisfaction and " propitiation " of
God the Just ; and it is requisite in the former case only
because it is first requisite in the latter. The subjective

THE DOCTRINE OF ATONEMENT. 305

in man is shaped by the objective in God, and not the
objective in God by the subjective in man. The con-
sciousness of the conscience is the reflex of the con-
sciousness of God.

But what, now, does conscience require, in order that
it may become pacified with respect to past transgres-
sion ? We answer, simply and solely an atonement for
that past transgression ; simply and solely that just infllc'
tion which is due to guilt. That is a powerful, because
profoundly truthful, passage in Coleridge's play of "Re-
morse," in which the guilty and guilt-smitten Ordonio is
stabbed by Alhadra, the wife of the murdered Isidore.
As the steel drinks his own heart's blood, he utters the
one single w^ord ^^ Atonement I ^^ His self-accusing spirit,
which is wrung with its remorseful recollections, and
which the w^ann and hearty forgiveness of his injured
brother has not been able to soothe in the least, actually
feels its first gush of relief only as the avenging knife
enters, and crime meets penalty.* And how often, in
the annals of guilt, is this principle illustrated! The
criminal has wandered up and down the earth, vainly
seeking repose of conscience, but finds none until he
surrenders himself to the penalty of law. Those are
the only hopeful executions, in which the guilty goes to
his de?i\\i justifying the judicial sentence that condemns
him, and, as a completing act of the solemn mental
process, appropriating that yet more august and trans-
cendent expiation w^hich has been made for man by a
higher Being than man. A guilty conscience, when it

* liemorse, Act V. Scene 1. CoIer>'dr/e's Works, VIT. p. 401. — The
psychology of crime, or the analysis of the consciousness of pjuilt (Schuld-
bcwusztscyn), is a portion of mental philosophy that has been penerally
neglected. The only treatise specifically devoted to it, that we have met
■with, is the Criminal-Psychologie of Heinroth.

26*

306 THE DOCTRINE OF ATONEMENT.

has come to a clear consciousness, wants its guilt expi-
ated by the infliction of punishment. It feels that
strange unearthly thirst of which Christ speaks, and for
which he asserts that his blood of atonement is "drink
indeed^ It cannot be made peaceful except through
the medium of a judicial infliction; that is to say, of a
particular species of suffering that will expiate its guilt.
The mere offer of kindness, or good-humor, to remit the
sin without any regard to that eternal law of retribution
which is now distressing the soul by its righteous claim,
does not meet the ethical wants. The moral sense,
when in normal action, feels the necessitij that crime be
punished. Hence the human conscience is a faculty
that is unappeased, and gnaws like a blind worm, until
it hears of the Lamb, the Atonement^ of God, that
taketh away the guilt of the world. Hence, however
much the selfish heart may desire to escape at the
expense of right and justice, the impartial conscience
can do no such thing. Before this judicial faculty can
be pacified, crime must incur penalty, transgression
must receive an exact recompense of reward. When
this is done, there is entire pacification ; there is great
peace, such as death, and Satan the accuser, and the
day of judgment, and the bar of justice, and the final
doom, cannot disturb with a single ripple.

For the correlate to guilt is punishment; and nothing
but the correlate itself can perform the function of a
correlate. A liquid, for example, is the correlative to
thirst, and nothing that is not liquid, however nutritious,
and necessary to human life in other relations, it may
be, can be a substitute for it. There may be the " fat
kidneys of wheat," in superabundance, but if there be
not also the " brook in the way," the human body must
die of thirst. In like manner, a judicial infliction, or

•THE DOCTRINE OF ATONEMENT. 307

svffering for purposes of justice^ is the only means by
which culpability can be extinguished. Sanctification,
or holiness, in this reference, is powerless, because there
is nothing penal, nothing correlated to guilt, in it. The
Tridentine method of justification by sanctification, is
not an adaptation of means to ends. So far as the
guilt of an act, — in other words, its obligation to pun-
ishment,— is concerned, if the transgressor, or his ac-
cepted substitute,* has endured the infliction that is set

* Accepted by the law and lawgiver. The primal source of law has no
power to abolish penalty any more than to abolish law, but it has full power
to substitute penalty. In case of a substitution, however, it must be a strict
equivalent, and not a fictitious or nominal one. It would contravene the
attribute of justice, instead of satisfying it, should God, for instance, by an
arbitrary act of will, substitute the sacrifice of bulls and goats for the penalty
due to man; or if he should offset smy finite oblation against the infinite
demerit of moral evil. The inquiry whether the satisfaction of justice by
Christ's atonement was a strict and literal one, has a practical and not merely
theoretical importance. A guilt-smitten conscience is exceedingly timorous,
and hence, if there be room for doubting the strict adequacy of the judicial
provision that has been made for satisfying the claims of law, a perfect
peace, the " peace of God," is impossible. Hence the doctrine of a plen-
ary satisfaction by an infinite substitute is the only one that ministers to
evangelical repose. The dispute upon this point has sometimes, at least,
resulted from a confusion of ideas and terms. Strict equivalency has been
confounded with identity. The assertion that Christ's death is a literal
equivalent for the punishment due to mankind, has been supposed to be
the same as the assertion, that it is identical with it ; and a punishment
identical with that due to man would involve remorse, and endless dura-
tion. But identity of punishment is ruled out by the principle of suhsti-
ttttion or vicarionsness, — a principle that is conceded by all who hold the
doctrine of atonement. The penalty endured by Christ, therefore, must
be a substituted, and not an identical one. And the only question that re-
mains is, whether that which is to be substituted shall be of a strictli/ equal
value with that, the place of which it takes, or whether it may be of an in-
ferior value, — and it must be one or the other. When a loan of one hun-
dred dollars in silver is repaid by one hundred dollars in gold, there is a
substitution of one metal for another. It is not an identical payment; for
this would require the return of the very identical hundred pieces of silver,
the ipsissima pecunia, that had been loaned. But it is a strictli/ and literally

308 THE DOCTRINE OF ATONEMENT.

over against it, the law is satisfied, and the obligation
to punishment is discharged. And so far as guilt, or
obligation to punishment is concerned, until the affixed
penalty has been endured, by himself or his accepted
substitute, he is a guilty man, do what else he may..
Even if he should be renewed and sanctified by the
Spirit of God, this sanctification has in it nothing
expiatory^ or correlative to guilt, and therefore could not
remove his remorse. Food is good and necessary, but
it cannot slake thirst. Personal holiness is excellent
and indispensable, but it cannot perform the function
of atonement. Hence sanctification is wrought by
spiritual influences, but justification by expiating blood.
The former is the work of the third Person in the
Trinity ; the latter is that of the second. Hence, when
the convicted man is distressed because of what the
Psalmist denominates the ^'- iniquity of sin," its intrinsic
guilty quality, in distinction from its miserable conse-
quences, he craves expiation sometimes with a hunger
like that of famine. And hence his desperate endeavor
to atone for the past, until he discovers that it is impos-
sible. Then he cries with David : " Thou desirest not
sacrifice" — such atonement as I can render is inade-
quate — " else would I give iV * Taking him at this

equivalent payment. All claims arc cancelled by it. In like manner, when
the suffering and death of God incarnate is substituted for that of the crea-
ture, the satisfaction rendered to law is strictly plenary, though not identi-
cal with that which is exacted from the transgressor. It contains the ele-
ment of infinitude, which is the clement of value in the case, with even
greater precision than the satisfaction of the creature does ; because it is the
Buffering of a strictly infinite Pci-son in a finite time, while the latter is only
the suffering of a finite person in an endless but not strictly infinite time.
A strictly infinite duration would be without beginning, as well as witliout
end.

* The true and accurate rendering of Psalm li. 7, is not "purge me with
liyssop," but ''atone me (•:Su:n!^) with hyssop." David, in the poignancy

THE DOCTRINE OF ATONEMENT. 309

point in his experience, his desire is iox justification. He
wants, first of all, to be pardoned; and, be it observed,
to be pardoned upon those just and eternal principles that
will not give vmy in the great judicial emergencies of this
life and the life to come. Then he will commence the
good fight of faith. Then he will run in the way of
obedience w4th an exulting heart, because he is no
longer under condemnation. " Whom he justifies, them
he glorifies."

Such, it is conceived, is the general doctrine of atone-
ment, to be deduced from the sharp and pointed texts
of scripture cited in the outset of this discussion. The
Christian atonement possesses both an objective and a
subjective validity; it is a satisfaction for the ethical
nature of both God and man.

Having thus contemplated the inward and metaphys-
ical nature of that atoning work of incarnate Deity,
which is the most stupendous fact in the history of the
w^orld, and one upon which all its religious hopes and
welfare hang, we naturally turn, in conclusion, to the
more external and practical aspects of the great theme.
And the application of the doctrine will be found to be
all the more acceptable to the Christian heart, and pro-
fitable for Christian edification, if the principles and
theory from which it flows are profound and thorough.
The cup of cold water is all the more grateful to the
thirsty soul, if it has been drawn up from the deep
wells; and it is certain that divine truth gains, rather
than loses, in popular and practical efficiency, upon
both the mind and heart, if it be sought for in its purest
and most central sources. That view of the work of
Christ which represents it as meeting all the ethical

of his consciousness of guilt, prays, not for a cleansing merely but, for an
expiatory cleansing.

310 THE DOCTRINE OF ATONEMENT.

necessities of both the divine and Ihe human natures,
is well fitted to inspire belief and trust in it, and to
draw out the heart towards its Blessed Author.

1. One of the first and obvious inferences, then, from
the subject as it has been unfolded, is, that an atone-
ment for sin is no arbitrary requirement on the part of
God. If the positions taken in this discussion are cor-
rect, the doctrine of expiation contains a metaphysiqne,
and is defensible at the bar of philosophic reason.

One great obstacle to the reception of the evangelical
system lies in the fact, that very many are of opinion
that the scripture method of forgiving sin is needlessly
embarrassed by a sacrificial expiation. " Why should
not God," they ask, " forgive the creature of his foot-
stool in the same manner that an earthly father does his
child ? Why does he not, at once, and without any of
this apparatus of atonement, bid the erring one go his
way, with the assurance that the past is forgotten ? Is
not this expiation, even though made by the Deity him-
self, after all, a hinderance rather than an encourage-
ment to an approach to the eternal throne ? Is it not,
at least, something that is not strictly necessary, and
might have been dispensed with?" This lurking or
open doubt, with regard to the rationality and intrinsic
necessity of an atonement for sin, cuts the root of all
evangelical faith in a large class of men.

Indeed, it may be a question whether the preacher in
Christian lands has not a more difficult task to perform
for a certain class of minds, in reference to the doctrine
of Christ crucified, than the missionary in pagan lands
has; and whether Christian theology itself would not
have an easier labor than it now has, to vindicate the
ways of God to man, in the respect of which we are
speaking, if the Old-Ethnic, or what is far better, the

THE DOCTRTNK OF ATONKMKNT. 311

Old-Jewish ideas respecting guilt and retribution were
more current than they are in a certain class in nominal
Christendom. Taking a portion of men in the modern
civiUzed world as a sample, it would seem as if the
unregenerate Christian world does not possess such a
spontaneous and irrepressible conviction that guilt must
be punished, as did the old unsophisticated Pagan
world.* The system of bloody sacrifices, an emphatic
acknowledgment of this great truth, was almost univer-
sal among them ; and the doctrine that mere sorrow for
transgression is a sufficient ground for its forgiveness,
had little force. The Grecian Nemesis, or personifica-
tion of vindicative justice, was a divinity to whom even
Jove himself was subject. The ancient religious insti-
tutions and ceremonials, fanciful and irrational as they
were in most of their elements, yet distinctly recognized,
through their sacrificial cultus, the amenability of man
to law, and his culpability. Add to this, the workings
of natural conscience, and we have, even in the midst
of polytheism, quite a strong influence at work to keep
the pagan mind healthy and sound upon the relations
of guilt to justice. Men could not well deny the need

* The barbarians of Melita, when they saw the venomous beast hanj^-
ing upon the hand of Paul, said among themselves : " No doubt this man
is a murderer, whom though he hath escaped the sea, yet vengeance (Ai'/ctj)
suffereth not to live." Their ethical instinct was sound and healthy, though
their knowledge of the facts in the case was inaccurate. But when, in the
middle of the nineteenth century, and upon a spot where the edifices and
einl)lems of government cast their solemn shadows, a human being, in the
heat and fury of his heart, slays his foe to mutilation in the illegal redress
of his own wrongs, and the public conscience is found to be so debauched
that only one in one hundred of the resident population condemns the
deed, the comparison between Christendom and Paganism is humiliating.
SiK-h occurrences illustrate the difference between private revenge and
pid)lic justice, and prove that the only security which society has against
the former, is in the rigid and impartial execution of the latter.

^12 THE DOCTRINE OF ATONEMENT.

of sin -expiation before whose eyes the blood of the
piacular victim was constantly smoking, in accordance
with a custom that had come down from their ances-
tors, and which fell in so accordantly with the workings
of a remorseful conscience.

But a portion of the modern world have made use
of Christianity itself to undermine the very foundations
of Christianity. The Christian religion, by furnishing
that one great sacrifice and real atonement, to which all
other sacrifices look and point, has of course abolished
the system of external sacrifices, and now that class of
minds who live under its outward and civilizing influ-
ences without appropriating its inward and spiritual
blessings, reject the legal and judicial elements which it
contains, and deny the necessity of satisfying justice in
the plan of redemption. There is nothing in the reli-
gious rites and customs under which they live to elicit
the sense of guilt; and hence, from an inadequate
knowledge of their own consciences and a defective
apprehension of Christianity, they strenuously combat
that fundamental truth, " without the shedding of blood
there is no remission," upon which Christianity itself is
founded, and in reference to which alone it has any
worth or preciousness for a guilt-smitten soul.

The same tendency to underestimate the fact of
human criminality, and the value of the piacular pro-
vision for it in the gospel, is seen also in the individual.
How difficult it is to bring the person, for whose spirit-
ual interests we are anxious, to see himself in the light
of law and condemnation ! How we ourselves shrink
from the clear, solemn assertion of his culpability, and
turn aside to enlarge upon the unworthiness or the un-
happiness of his sin! When we make the attempt to
charge home guilt upon him, how lacking we are in

THE DOCTRINE OF ATONEMENT. 313

that tender solemnity, and earnest truthfulness of tone,
which make the impression ! And, even if we have
succeeded in wakening his conscience to a somewhat
normal action in this respect, how swiftly does he elude
the terrible but righteous feeling, which alone can pre-
pare him for the sprinkling of the blood of Jesus !

When we pass up into the Christian experience, we
discover the same fact in a different form and degree.
How difficult does the believer find it to obtain such a
clear and transparent conception of his own guiltiness,
that the atoning work of his Redeemer becomes all
luminous before his eyes, and he knows instantaneously
that he needs it, and that it is all he needs ! Usually,
this crystal clearness of vision is reserved for certain
critical moments in his religious history, when he must
have it or die. Usually it is the hour of affliction, or
sickness, or death, that affords this rare and unutterably
tranquillizing view of the guilty self and the dying
Lord. " We have the blood of Christ," said the dying
Schleiermacher, as, in his last moments, he began to
count up the grounds of his confidence on the brink of
the invisible world. Here was a mind uncommonly
contemplative and profound; that had made the spirit-
ual world its home, as it were, for many long years of
theological study and reflection ; that, in its tone and
temper, seemed to be prepared to pass over into the
supernatural realm without any misgivings or appre-
hensions ; that had mused long and speculated subtly
upon the nature of moral evil ; that had sounded the
depths of reason and revelation with no short plum-
met-line, — here was a man who, now that death had
actually come, and the responsible human will must
now encounter Holy Justice face to face, found that
nothing but the bloody the atonement^ of Jesus Christ

314 THE DOCTRINE OF ATONEMENT.

could calm the perturbations of hin planet-like spirit.
The errors and inadequate statements of his theological
system, which cluster mostly about this very doctrine
of expiation, are tacitly renounced in the implied con-
fession of guiltiness and need of atonement, contained
these few simple words : " We have the blood of
Christ."

It is related that bishop Butler, in his last days draw-
ing nearer to that dread tribunal where the highest and
the lowest must alike stand in judgment, trembled in
spirit, and turned this way and that for tranquillity of
conscience. One of his clergy, among other texts,
quoted to him the words : " The blood of Jesus Christ
cleanseth from all sin." A flash of peace and joy passed,
like the bland west wind, through his fevered con-
science, as he made answer : " I have read those words
a thousand times, but I never felt their meaning as
now." And who does not remember that the final hours
of the remarkably earnest, but too legal, life of the
great English Moralist were lighted up with a peace
that he had never been able to attain in the days of his
health, by the evangelism of a humble curate?

Such facts and phenomena as these, evince that it is
difficult for man to know sin as guilt, and thoroughly
to apprehend Christ as a Priest and a Sacrifice. But
one of the best correctives of this tendency to under-
estimate both guilt and expiation, is found in the clear
})erception that the two are neccsaarily related to each
other, and that consequently the death of the Redeemer
has nothing arbitrary in it. When one is convinced
ihat Christ '•'"mvst needs have suffered," he is relieved
from the doubts respecting the meaning and efficacy of
the atonement, and surrenders his conscience directly to
its pacifying influence and power. He that doubteth is

THE DOCTRINE OF ATONEMENT. 315

damned, in this respect also. The least shaking of be-
lief that this great gospel provision is absolutely neces-
sary, if sinners are to be saved ; the faintest querying
whether it may not, in the nature of things, have been
a superfluity ; so far as it tends at all, tends to dull the
edge of man's contrition, and destroy the keenness of
his sense of the Divine pity.

It has often been remarked, that the Passion of the
Redeemer performs two functions. It not merely re-
moves the sense of guilt, but it also elicits it. The
experience of the Moravian missionaries is frequently
cited to prove that a contemplation of the sufferings and
death of Christ sometimes accomplishes what the naked
exhibition of the law fails to accomplish, in bringing
men to a sense of their sinfulness. The stern com-
mandment had been applied to the hardened conscience
of the savage, and iron met iron. The pity of a dying,
atoning High Priest was shown, and the rock gushed
out water. And such, undoubtedly, is often the case in
the history of conversions. But shall we not find in
this instance, also, that the force and energy of the im-
pression made, results from a perception, more or less
clear, that this death of the Substitute was inexorably
necessary^ in order to the criminal's release ? The ope-
rations of the human mind are wonderfully swift, and
diflicult to follow or trace. Though the Esquimaux
passed through no long process of reasoning, \\<ifelt in
Ills conscience the unavoidableness of that mysterious
Passion of that mysterious Person, in case his own
wicked soul was to be spared the just inflictions of the
future. By a very rapid but perfectly legitimate con-
clusion, he inferred the magnitude of his guilt from the
greatness and necessity of the expiation. For suppose
the lurking query, to which we have alluded, had sprung

316 THE DOCTRINE OP ATONEMENT.

up ill his mind just at this moment, and instead of the
felt necessity of an atoning sacrifice, the faint querying
had arisen whether his sin were not venial without the
satisfaction of justice, would he have instantaneoysly
melted down in contrition ? So long as men are pos-
sessed with the feeling that the New Testament method
of salvation is an abitrary one, containing elements and
provisions that might have been different, or that are
superfluous, they will receive little or no moral impres-
sion from it. But when they see plainly, that in all its
parts and particles it refers directly to what is ethical in
both themselves and the Eternal Judge, and is necessi-
tated by the best portion of their own constitution, and
by the perfect nature of the Godhead, they will then
draw a very quick and accurate inference with respect
to the intrinsic nature of that transgression which has
introduced such a dire and stark necessity. When a
man realizes that the great and eternal God cannot
pardon his individual sins except through a passion that
wrings great drops of blood from every pore of incar-
nate Deity, he realizes what is involved in the trans-
gression of moral law.

2. A second obvious inference from the doctrine, that
the sacrifice of Christ is a satisfaction for both the Di-
vine and the human nature, is, that such an atonement
is thorough and complete. It leaves nothing unsatisfied,
or dissatisfied, either in God's holy nature or in man's
moral sense. The work is ample and reliable.

This is a feature of the utmost value and importance
in a scheme of Redemption. For no method will be
put to a more fiery trial, ultimately, than the gospel
method of salvation. It undergoes some severe tests
here in time. The dying-bed draped with the recollec-
tion of past sins and transgressions, the pangs of re-

THE DOCTRINE OF ATONEM^^^^^ « j^_^' ^^W^^

morse shooting through the conscience, and the fears
for the future undulating through the whole being, —
all this solemn experience before the soul shoots the
gulf between time and eternity, calls for a most " sover-
eign remedy." And we may be certain that the disclos-
ures and revelations that are to be made in the other
world, and particularly upon the day of judgment, will
subject the atoning work of the Redeemer to tests and
trials s.uch as no other work, and especially no "dead
work" of a moralist, can endure for an instant. The
energy of justice, and the energy of conscience, and the
power of memory, and the searchings of God the Holy
Ghost, will at that bar reach their height and combina-
tion ; and any provision that shall legitimately counter-
vail that energy, and enable the human soul to stand
tranquil under such revelations, and beneath such claims,
will be infinite and omnipotent indeed. But the be-
liever need never fear lest the work of the Eternal
Word, who was made flesh, the co-equal Son of the
Eternal Father, prove inadequate under even such
crucial tests. He needs only fear lest his feeble, waver-
ing faith grasp it too insecurely. If he does but set his
feet upon it, he will find it the Rock of Ages. All
judicial claims are 'cancelled, because the oblation to
justice is an infinite one. "There is no condemnation
to them which are in Christ Jesus."*

For we have seen that the very mercy of God, in the
last analysis, consists in the entire satisfaction of God's
justice by God himself, for the helpless criminal. What
method of Redemption can be conceived of, more per-
fectly sure and trustworthy than this ? " What com-

* Michael Anfrclo, that loftiest and most religious of artists, gives ex-
pression, in the following sonnet, to this natural shrinking of the soul ii)

27*

318 THE DOCTRINE OP ATONEMENT.

passion," says Anselm, " can equal the words of God
the Father addressed to the sinner condenrined to eter-
nal punishment, and having no means of redeeming
himself: 'Take my only-begotten Son, and make him
an offering for thyself;' or the words of the Son : ' Take
me and ransom thy soul?' For this is what both say,
when they invite and draw us to faith in the gospel.
And can anything be more just than for God to remit
all debt, when in this way he receives a satisfaction
greater than all the debt, provided only it be offered
with the right feeling?"* " The pardon of sin," says an
old English divine, "is not merely an act of mercy, but
also an act of justice in God." By this he means that
mercy and justice are concurrent in the gospel method
of Redemption, — mercy satisfies justice, and justice
acknowledges the satisfaction. " What abundant cause
of comfort," he adds, " may this be to all believers, that
God's justice as well as his mercy shall acquit them!
that that attribute of God, at the apprehension of which
they are wont to tremble, should interpose on their

view of the fiery judicial trial that awaits it, and also to the cheerful reas-
surance induced by the recollection of Christ's Passion :

*' Despite thy promises. O Lord, 't would seem
Too much to hope that even love like Thine
Can overlook my countless wanderings:
And yet Thy blood helps us to comprehend
That if Thy pangs for us were measureless,
No less beyond all measure is thy grace."

Harford's Life of Angela, II. 1G6.

ITow immensely deeper is the intuition of divine things, how immensely
clearer is the insight into the nature and mutual relations of God and man,
which is indicated by such a sonnet from the soul of him who poised the
dome of St. Peter's, and crowded the frescoes of the Sistine chaj)cl with
grandeur and beauty, than that of the modern brood of dilettanti, as ex-
pressed in much of the current literature, and the current art.
* Car Dens homo ? II. 20.

THE DOCTRINE OP ATONEMENT. 319

behalf, and plead for them ! And yet through the all-
sufficient expiation and atonement that Christ hath
made for our sins, this mystery is effected, and justice
itself brought over, from being a formidable adversary,
to be our party, and to plead for us. Therefore the
apostle tells us that God is faithful and just to forgive
us our sins."*

Consonant with this is the well-known language of
the elder Edwards : ** It is," he says, " so ordered now,
that the glory of the attribute of Divine justice requires
the salvation of those that believe. The justice of God
that [irrespective of the atonement] required man's
damnation, and seemed inconsistent with his salvation,
now [having respect to the atonement] as much re-
quires the salvation of those that believe in Christ [and
thereby appropriate the atonement], as ever before it
required their damnation. Salvation is an absolute
debt to the believer from God, so that he may in jus-
tice demand it on the ground of what his Surety has
done." t Do these last words sound rash ? But scruti-

♦ Bp. EzeTciel Hopkins's Exposition of the Lord's Prayer. Works, 1. 124.

t Woiks, IV. 150. New York Ed. For the soteriology of this eminent
writer, see his discourses on " Justification by Faith alone," "The wisdom
of God displayed in the wa'y of salvation," and " Satisfaction for sin."
Among his positions are the following : Justification frees from all obliga-
tion to eternal punishment (IV. 78, 104, 150). Christ's suffering is equiv-
alent to the eternal suffering of a finite creature (IV. 101, 551). Christ
experienced the wrath of God (IV. 182, 195). God's wrath is appeased by
the atonement (IV. 142). God cannot accept an atonement that falls short
of the full claims of justice (IV. 94). The voluntary substitute is, in this
capacity, under obligation to suffer the punishment due to the sinner (IV.
96, 137). Justice does not abate any of its claims in the plan of redemp-
tion (IV. 140, 552). Christ satisfied "revenging," or distributive, justice
(IV. 150, 189).

Snmuel Hopkins is equally explicit in maintaining the theory of a strict
satisfaction, as is evident from the following: "One important and neces-
sary part of the work of the Redeemer of man was to make atonement

320 THE DOCTRINE OF ATONEMENT.

nize them. " Salvation is an absolute debt to the
believer on the g-round of what his Surety lias done;^^ not
on the ground, therefore, of anything that the believer
has done. It is merely saying, that the soul which feels
its own desert of damnation, may plead the merit of
Christ with entire confidence that it cancels all legal
claims, and that there is nothing outstanding and un-

for their sins, by suffering in his own person the penalty or curse of the law,
under which, by transgression, they had fallen .... The sufferings of
Christ were, therefore, for sin, and consequently must be the evil which sin
deserves, and that to which the sinner was exposed, and which he must have
suffered had not Christ suffered it in his stead, or that which is equivalent.
.... The Mediator did not suffer precisely the same kind of pain, in all
respects, which the sinner suffers when the curse is executed on him. He did
not suffer that particular kind of pain which is the necessary attendant, or
natural consequence, of being a sinner, and which none but the sinner can
suffer. But this is only a circumstance of the punishment of sin, and not
of the essence of it. The tvhole penalti/ of the law may be suffered, and the evil
suffered may he as much, and as great, without suffering that particular soH of
pain. Therefore, Christ, though without sin, might suffer the whole penalty,
— that is, as much and as great evil as the lp,w denounces against transgres-
sion. The evil which sinners may suffer, on whom the penalty of the law
is inflicted, may, and doubtless will, differ in many circumstances, and not
be jjrecisely of the same kind in all respects, and yet each one of them
suffer the penalty of the same law .... The evil of the sufferings of
Christ, being, in the magnitude of it, commensurate with the dignity and
worth of his person, is equal to, is as great as, the evil which is threatened to
the transgressors of the law, and as great as the sinner describes ; yea, it is as
gi'eat as the endless sufferings of mankind .... The curse of the law
consists in the infinite evil, pain, and suffering which sin deserves. He who
suffers this for sin, suffers the curse of the law, is accursed, or made a
curse. Jesus Christ suffered this curse, the infinite natural evil in which the
penalty or the curse of the law consists ; and in suffering it for sinners, and in
their stead, was made a curse. This might be consistent with his having
the approbation of the Father, and his favor and love to the hij^hest degree.
The displeasure of God, wliich was the cause of his sufferings when he
voluntarily took, and stood in, the place of sinners, was displeasure with
sin and the sinner, and not with him who suffered, the state of the case be-
ing fully understood by the spectators .... It is evident from scripture,
that tlie law of God does admit of a substitute, both in obeying the prccejUs,
and suffering the penalty of it." — Hopkins's Works, I. pp. 321 — 341. Doc-
trinal Tract Socictv's Ed.

THE DOCTRINE OP ATONEMENT. 321

covered by that Divine atonement upon which it relies
for justification. It is simply asserting that God incar-
nate, the redeeming Deity, can demand, upon principles
of justice, the release of a soul that trusts solely in his
atoning death ; because by that death he has completely,
and not partially, satisfied eternal justice for it, and in
its stead.* They are the bold words of a very cautious

* It is needless to remark, that Edwards does not concede that the mere
atonement itself gives any and every man a claim ujwn God for the henejits
of the atonement, — as is sometimes argued by the advocates of universal
salvation. God is under no obligation to make an atonement for the sin of
the world ; and, after he has made one, he is at perfect liberty to apply it to
whom he pleases, or not to apply it at all. The atonement is his, and not
man's, and he may do what he will with his own. Hence, according to
Edwards, two distinct acts of sovereignty on the part of God are necessary
in order to a soul's salvation. The pi'oviding of an atonement in the first
place, is a sovereign act ; and then the application, or giving over, of the
atonement, when provided, to any particular elected sinner, is a second act
of sovereignty. The sufferings and death of Christ constitute the atone-
ment ; and even if not a single soul should appropriate it by the act of faitli,
it would be the same expiatory oblation still, though unapplied. Hence,
the second of these sovereign acts is as necessary as the first, in order to
salvation. But when both of these acts of sovereignty have taken place, —
Avhen the atonement hsis been made, and has actually been given over to
and accepted by an individual, — then, says Edwards, it is a matter of strict
justice that the penal claims of the law be not exacted from the believer,
because this would be to exact them twice ; once from Christ, and onco
from one to whom, by the supposition, Christ's satisfaction has actually
been made over by a sovereign act of God. For God to do this, would bo
to pour contempt upon his own atonement. It would be a confession that
his own provision is insufficient to satisfy the claims of law, and needs to bo
supplemented by an additional infliction upon the believer. It would bo
an acknowledgment that the atonement, when it comes to be actually tested
itj an individual instance, fails to satisfy the claims of justice, and therefore
is an entire failure. The sum of money which was given to the poor
debtor, with the expectation that it was large enough completely to liqui-
date his debt, is found to full short, and leaves him still in tlie debtor's
prison, from which he cannot come out " until ho has paid the uttermost
farthing."

That this is a correct representation of the views of Edwards is evident
from the following answer which he gives to the question : What does
God's sovereignty in the salvation of man imply ? — " God's sovereignty

322 THE DOCTRINE OF ATONEMENT.

and accurate thinker ; but are they any bolder than that
challenging jubilant shout of St. Paul : " Who is he
that conderneth ? It is Christ that died." As if, fling-
ing his voice out into all worlds, and all universes, he
asked : " What claims are those which the blood of the
Eternal Son of God has not been able to satisfy ? Is the
atonement of the great God Himself not equal to the
demands of his law ? Is the Deity feebler upon the side
of his expiation, than upon the side of his retribution ?"
It is a false humility, and not unmingled with a legal
spirit, that would prevent the believer from joining in
these bold and confident statements respecting the am-
plitude and completeness of the work of his atoning
Lord and God. He need be under no concern lest he
underestimate the attribute of justice, if he make this
hearty and salient evangelical feeling his own. He dis-
parages no attribute of God, when he magnifies and
makes his boast in the atonement of God. Christ was
equal to all he undertook ; and he undertook to satisfy
the claims of the Divine law for the sin of the world,
down to the least jot and tittle ; to pay the immense debt

in the salvation of men implies that God can cither bestow salvation on any
of the children of men, or refuse it, without any prcjudice to the glory of
any of his attributes, except where he has bfcn pleased to declare that he will or
will not bestow it. It cannot be said absolutely, as the case now stands, that
Grod can, without any prejudice to the honor of any of his attributes, bestow
salvation on any of the children of men, or refuse it, because concerning
pomc, God has been pleased to declare either that he will or that he will not
bestow salvation on them ; and thus to bind himself by his own promise.
And concerning some he has been pleased to declare that he never will be-
stow salvation upon them; viz., those wlio have committed the sin against
the Holy Ghost. Hence, as the case now stands, he is obliged ; he cannot
bestow salvation in one case, or refuse it in the other, without prejudice to
the honor of his truth. But God exercised Ills sovereignty in wakiufj these
declarations. God was not obliged to promise that he would save all who
believe in Christ ; nor was he obliged to declare that he who committed the
sin against the Holy Ghost should never be forgiven. But it pleased hint so
to declare." — Edwards's Works, IV. 530. N. Y. Ed.

THE DOCTRINE OF ATONEMENT. 323

to the uttermost farthing. "Think not," he says, "that
I am come to destroy the law or the prophers. I am
not come to destroy, but to fulfil. For verily I say
unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one
tittle shall in no wise pass from the law till all be ful-
filled." And the incarnate Deity did what he under-
took. He had a view of the extent and spirituality of
law, and of the demerit of sin, such as no finite mind
is capable of entertaining, and he knew whereof he
affirmed when, at the close of his life of sorrow and his
death of passion and agony, he bowed his head and
gave up the ghost, with the words, significant beyond all
conception : "7/5 is finished,, — the oblation is complete."
Jesus Christ, the God-Man, in the garden of Gethsem-
ane and on the middle cross of Calvary, had a con-
ception of the rigor of justice and the exaction of law,
such as no human or angelic mind can ever have in
equal degree ; and the believer may be certain that when
He invites him to rest his complete justification, and
the entire satisfaction of all judicial claims, before that
law, upon what He has wrought in reference to it, he is
not invited to a procedure that will be a disparagement,
or dishonor, either to law or to justice.

Man is not straitened in the atoning work of incar-
nate Deity. He is straitened in his own blind and un-
believing soul. He only needs to take a profound view
of justice, a profound view of sin, and a profound view
of God's atonement for it, to come out into a region of
peace, liberty, and joy unspeakable. Feeble views upon
any one of these subjects debilitate his Christianity.
He should distinctly see how sacred is the nature of
justice, and how indefeasible are its claims. He should
distinctly feel the full impression and energy of this
attribute. Then he should as distinctly see how com-

324 THE DOCTRIXK OF ATONEMENT.

plete and perfect is the liquidation of these holy claims,
by the death' of the incarnate Son of God, — that au-
gust Personage denominated by the prophet as " the
Wonderful, the Counsellor, the Mighty God, the Ever-
lasting Father, the Prince of Peace."

That very interesting mystic of the Middle Ages,
Henry Von Suso, enlarging in his poetic manner upon
the compassion of God tow^ards a sinful world, tells us
that the " blood of Christ is full of love and red as a
rose."* This roseate conception of the atonement is
not the one that will meet the necessities of man's con-
science, in the solemn hour of his mental anguish and
bis moral fear. There is love unutterable in that blood,
but it was wrung from a heart to which all merely sen-
timental affection was as alien as it is to the vengeance
of eternal fire. He only can appreciate and understand
that love of principle, that love of self-immolation, who
sympathizes thoroughly with that regard for the holiness
and justice of God, united with compassion for lost
souls, that led the Redeemer to undertake the full expia-
tion of human guilt.

Whoever is granted this clear crystalline vision of the
atonement, will die in peace, and pass through all the
unknown transport and terror of the day of doom with
serenity and joy. It ought to be the toil and study of
the believer to render his conceptions of the work of
Christ more vivid, simple, and vital. For whatever may
be the extent of his religious knowledge in other direc-
tions ; whatever may be the worth of his religious expe-
rience in other phases ; there is no knowledge and no
experience that will stand him in such stead, in those
moments that try the soul, as the experience of the pure
sense of guilt quenched by the pure blood of Christ.

* " Minncrichcn, roscnfarbcncn Blute."

WARREN F. DRAPER,

PUBLISIIEE AND BOOKSELLER,

ANDOVER, MASS.,

PUBLISHES AXB OFFERS FOR SALE THE FOLLOWING, WHICH WILL BE SENT
POST PAID ON RECEIPT OF THE SUaC NAMED,

GUERICKEl'S CHURCH HISTORY (Ancient Church; including the
P^irst Six Centuries). Translated by William G. T. Shedd, Brown Professor
in Andover Theological Seminary. 442 pp. 8vo. ^.25.

The establlsli«d credit of <juericke"'8 labors in the department of Ecclesiastical History, and the
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"We regard Professor Shed J's version as a happy specimen wf the tran^ndon, rather than a
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Among the most faithful, and yet the most independent, of the followers of Noander, may be
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(1)

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DISOOUKSES IlKD ESSAYS. By William G. T. Shbdd. 271 pp

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sense of the term, exegetical His results are worthy of all confidence. lie is more care-
ful than Tischendorf, slower and more steadily deliberate than Alford, and more patiently
laborious than any other living New Testament critic, with the exception, perhaps, of Tregel-
les."

" They [Eliicott's Commentaries] have set tlie first example, in this country, [England] of a
thorough and fearless examination of the grammatical and philological requirements of every
word of the sacred text. I do not know of anything superior to tliem, in their own particular
line, in Germany; and they add, what, alas! is so seldom found in that country, profound
reverence for the matter and subjects on which the author is laboring; nor is tlieir value
lessened by Mr. Eliicott's having confined himself for the most part to one department of a
commentator's work — the grammatical and philological." — Dean Alford.

" The critical part is devoted to the settling of the text, and this is admirably done, with a
labor, skill, and conscientiousness unsurpassed." — Bib. Sacra.

" We have never met with a learned commentary on any book of the New Testament so
nearly perfect in every respect as the ' Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians.' by Protl
Ellicott, of King's College, London, — learned, devout, and orthodox."— Iiide]W.ndent.

'• We would recommend all scholars of the original Scriptures who seek directness, luminous
brevity, the absence of every tiling irrelevant to strict grammatical inquiry, with a concise and
yet very complete view of tlie opinions of others, to possess themselves of Eliicott's Commen-
taries." — American I'resl/i/teriatu

HENDERSON" ON THE MINOR PROPHETS. THE BOOK
OF THE TWELVE MINOR PROrHETS. Translated from the Original
Hebrew. With a Commentary, Critical, Philological, and Exegetical. By
E. Henderson, D.D. With a Biographical Sketch of the Author, by E. P.
Barrows, Hitchcock Professor in Andover Theological Seminary. 8vo.
pp. 490. $ 3.00.

" This Commentary on the Minor Prophets, like that on the Prophecy of Isaiah, has been
highly and deservedly esteemed by professional scholars, and has been of great service to the
working ministry. We are happy to welcome it in an American edition, very neatly printed."
— Bib. Sacra.

"Clergymen and other students of the Bible will be glad to see this handsome American
edition of a work which has a standard reputation in its department, and which fills a place
that is filled, so far as we know, by no other single volume in the English language. Dr. Hen-
derson was a good Hebrew and Biblical scholar, aud in his Commentaries he is intelligent,
brief, and to the point." — BoMon Recorder.

"The American publisher issues this valuable work with the consent and approbation of the
author, obtained from himself before his death. It is published in substantial and elegant style,
clear white paper and beautiful type. The work is invaluable for its philological research and
critical acumen. The notes are learned, rcllnblo, and practical, and the volume dcservea a
place in every theological student's Whr&Tj ." — American I'rcfbvterian, etc.

" Of all his Commentaries none arc more popular than his Book of the Minor Prophets." —
Chrislian O'aerver.

" This is probably the best Commentary extant on the Minor Prophets. The work is worthy
of a place in the library of every scholar and every diligent and earnest reader of the Bible." —
Clirixtian Cfironicle.

" We have met with no so satisfactory a commentary on this part of the prophetic Scrip-
tures."—/KtttcA/;ta« «f A^/ccior.

Publications ofW.K Draper.

COMMENTAKY ON THE EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS. By

Moses Stuart, Jate Professor of Sacred Literature in the Theological

Seminary at Aiidover. Third Edition. Edited and revised by TKor. It. D.

C. RoBBiNS. 12mo. pp.544. $1.50.

"His Commentary on the Romans is the most elaborate of all liis -works. It has elicited more
discussion than any of his other exegetical volumes. It is the result of long continued, patient
thought. It expresses, in clear style, his maturest conclusions. It has the animating influence
of an original treatise, written on a novel plan, and under a sense of personal rcsponsiliility.
Bcgarding it in all its relations, its antecedents and consequents, we pronounce it the most
important Commentary which has appeared in this country on this Epistle."— 7?t6. Sacra.

'• We heartily commend this work to all students of the Bible. The production of one of the
first Biblical scholars of our age, on the most important of all the doctrinal books of the New
Testament, it deserves the careful study, not only of those who agree with Prof. Stuart in his
theological and exegetical principles, but of those who earnestly dissent from some of his
views in both respects." — Watchman and Rfflector.

"This contribution by Prof Stuart has justly taken a high place among the Commentaries
on the Epistle to the Komans, and, with his other works, will always be held in high estimation
by the student of the Sacred Scriptures." — iVeio York Observer.

COMMENTARY ON THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBRE^WS.

By Prof. M. Stuart. Third Edition. Edited and revised by Prof. K. D. C.

RoBBiNS. 12ino. pp. 575. $1.75.

" It is a rich treasure for the student of the original. As a commentator. Prof, Stuart was
especially arduous and faithful in following up the thought and displaying the connection of a
passage, and his work as a scholar will bear comparison with any that have since appeared on
either side of the Atlantic." — American Presbyterian.

" This Commentary is classical, both as to its literary and its theological merits. The edition
before us is very skilfully edited, by Professor Bobbins, and gives in full Dr. Stuart's text, with
additions bringing it down to the present day."— Eimcopal Recorder.

" We have always regarded this excellent Commentary as the happiest effort of the late
Andover Professor. It seems to us well-nigh to exhaust the subjects which the author compre-
hended in his plan." — Boston Recorder.

" It is from the mind and heart of an eminent Biblical scholar, whose labors in the cause of
•acred learning will not soon be forgotten." — CTiristian Observer.

COMMENTARY ON THE BOOK OP PROVERBS. By Prof.

M. Stuart. 12mo. pp.432. $1.25.

" This is the last work from the pen of Prof. Stuart. Both this Commentary and the one
preceding it, on Ecclesiastes, exhibit a mellowness of spirit which savors of the good man ripen-
ing for heaven; and the style is more condensed, and, in that respect, more agreeable, than in
some of the works which were written in the unabated freshness and exuberant vigor of his
mind. In learning and critical acumen they are equal to his former works. No English
reader, we venture to say, can elsewhere And so complete a philological exposition of these two
important books of the Old Testament." — iJi6. Sacra.

BTITART'S MISCELLANIES, pp. 3G9. 12mo. 75 cents.

Contents.- I. Letters to Dr. Channing on the Trinity. — II. Two Sermons on the Atone-
ment.—III. Sacramental Sermon on the Lamb of God. — IV. Dedication Sermon. — Real
Christianity. — V. Letter to Dr. Chauuing on Keligious Liberty. — VI. Supplementary Notes
and Postscripts.

STUART'S GREEK GRAMMAR OP THE NEW TESTA-
ME>iT DIALECT. Second Edition. Corrected and rewritten. 8vo. 551-37.

STUART'S HINTS ON THE INTERPRETATION OP PROPH-
ECY, pp. 14G. 12mo. 38 cents.

PRINCIPLES OP INTERPRETATION. Translated from the Latin
of J. A. Ernesti, and accompanied by Notes, with an Appendix containing
Extracts from 3Iorus, Beck, Keil, and Henderson. By M. Stuart. Eourth
Edition. 12mo. Half cloth, pp. 142. 60 cents.

STUART'S HEBREW CHRESTOMATHY. Designed as an Intro-
duction to a coiu-se of Hebrew Study. Third Edition, Svo. pp.231. 75 cents.

Publications ofW. F. Draper.

MESSIANIC PROPHECY AND THE LIEB OF CHRIST.
By Rev. W. S. Kennedy. 12mo. pp.484. $1.00.

" The plan of the author is to collect all the prophecies of the Old Testament referring to the
Messiah, with appropriate coinnients and reflections, and then to pursue the subject through
the New Testament in the life of Christ as he appeared among men. The r«ader will find the
results of Hengstenberg and Neauder here gathered up, and presented in a readable shape."—
The Presbyterian.

" This is a work of great comprehensiveness. Here, in the compass of less than five hundred
duodecimo pages, we have the Christology of the Old and New Testament Scriptures, some-
thing like a combination of the Christology of Hengstenberg aud Neander's Life of Christ. Of
course the fulness of these great works is not imitated, but the reader will find the results of
these and similar investigations carefully gathered up, and presented in a clear, readable shape.
The Life of Christ is based upon Robinson's Harmony of the Gospels." — ^niencan Presbyterian,

BCHAUPFLER'S MEDITATIONS ON" THE LAST DAYS OP

CHRIST. 12rao. pp.439. $1.00.

The first sixteen chapters of the book consist of Meditations on the last days of Christ,
preached in the midst of plague and death, by Rev. Mr. Schauffler, at Constantinople ; the second
part, of eight sermons on the 17th chapter of John, and is a practical exposition of that chapter.

BIBLE HISTORY OF PRAYER. By C. A. Goodrich. 12mo.

pp.384. $1.00.

The aim of this little volume is to embody an account of the delightful and successful inter-
course of believers with heaven for some four thousand years. The author has indulged ft
good deal in narrative, opening and explaining the circumstances which gave birth to the
several prayers.

MONOD'S DISCOURSES ON THE LIFE OF ST. PAUL.

Translated from the French, by Rev. J. H. Myers, D.D. 12mo. pp. 191.

75ct8.

" The aim of the author is to present an estimate of the character, labors, and writings of the
apostle Paul in the light of an example, and to apply the principles which actuated him, and
whicli he maintained, to Christians of the present day." — Boston Journal.

"These Discourses are distinguished for genuine eloquence, thorough research, and pro-
found thought, accompanied with a glowing, earnest spirit, adapting the lessons of the great
Apostle to the spiritual wants of men." — Cliristian Observer.

" The work is of rare merit. The author was one of the brightest lights of the French pulpit
In the present age, and his death was a source of great grief throughout the evangelical Prot-
estant world. As we read these Discourses, in which the preacher holds up the great Apostle
before his hearers, and urges them to take him as their example, we cannot but feel tliat there
is a real sympathy between the preacher and his subject that could only exist in virtue of a
work by the same Spirit of God upon natural temperaments and dispositions of mind strikingly
akin to each other." — N. C. Presbyterian.

" This little volume we regard as a very valuable addition to what may be called the ' Liter-
ature of the apostle Paul.' The number of books that have been composed upon St. Paul
Is one of the many proofs of his greatness, both by nature and grace. But, of them all, there
Is not a more vital and appreciating book than this of Monod. Original and suggestive thoughts
are continually struck out upon collateral subjects, while yet the principal aim of the work
Is never lost sight of. The account of the pliysique of the apostle, in its relations to eloquence
(p. 115, seq.), will interest the preacher. The translation is faithful and elegant ; reproducing,
in no ordinary degree, the finer and more intangible qualities in the style of a vivid aud com-
manding orator."— i,'i6. Sacra, 18G0.

CARLYLE'S LATTER-DAY PAMPHLETS. 12mo. pp.427. »1.00.
CoNTE.vTs. — The Present Time.— Mo<lel PHnons.— Downing Street. — The New Down-
ing Street — Stump Orator. — ParliamenU. — Hudson's Statue. -Jesuitism.

NEMESIS SACRA. A series of Inquiries, rhilosophical and Critical, into
the Scripture Doctrine of Retribution on Earth, pp. 550. 82.75.

"The design of this work is to show that God not only chastises his friends In love, but also
punishes them in anger, while on earth. This is attimpted to be shown partly fVom reason, but
chiefly from revelation. The argument from revelation consist* in detailing the history of
A(l.iin, Abraham, Lot, .Jacob and his sons. Moses, the Judges, F:II, David, Solomon, and otheri,
aud tracing the connection between their sufleringii and their uiiii." — /<i6. Saera, ltJj»,

Publications of W. F, Draper^ A^idover.

THEOLOGIA GERM A NIC A. Which setteth forth many fair lineaments
of Divine Truth, and saith very lofty and lovely things touching a Perfect Life.
Edited by Dr. Pfkiffer, from the only complete manuscript yet known.
Translated from the German by Susanna Winkworth. With a Preface by
the Rev. Charles Kingsley, Rector of Eversley ; and a Letter to the Trans-
lator, by the Chevalier Bunsen, D. D., D. C. L., etc. ; and an Introduction
by Prof. Calvin E. Stowe, D. D. 275 pp. 16mo. Cloth, $1.00 ; calf, 52.00.

This treatise was discovered by Luther, who first brought it into notice by an edition which
he published in 1516, of which he says : " And I will say, tliough it be boasting of myself, and
* I speak as a fool,' that, next to the Bible and St. Augustine, no book hath ever coine into my
hands whence I have learnt, or would wish to learn, more of what God and Christ, and man,
and all things, are."

" The times and the circumstances in which this most rich, thoughtful, and spiritually
quickening little treatise was produced, — the national and ecclesiastical tendencies and influ-
ences which invested its author, and which gave tone, direction, and pressure to his thoughts,
— are amply and well set forth in the preface by Miss Winkworth, and the letter of Bunsen.
The treatise itself is richly deserving of the eulogies upon it so emphatically and affectionately
uttered by Prof. Stowe and Mr. Kingsley, and, long before them, by Luther, who said that it
had profited him ' more than any other book, save only the Bible and the works of Augustine.'
Sin, as a universal disease and defilement of the nature of man ; Christ, as an indwelling life,
light, and heavenly power ; Holiness, as the utmost good for the soul ; and Heaven, as the
state or place of the consummation of this holiness, with the consequent vision of God, and
the inelFabie joy and peace,— these are the theme of the book. And it has the grand, and in
this day the so rare and almost singular merit, of having been prompted by a real and deep relig-
ious experience, and of having been written, not with outward assistance, but with the enthu-
siasm, the spiritual wisdom, and the immense inward freedom and energy, of a soul itself con-
scious of union with Christ, and exulting in the sense of being made, through him, * a partaker
of the Divine nature.'

" Those who have known the most of Christ will value most this " golden treatise." Those
whose experience of the divine truth has been deepest and most central will find the most in
it to instruct and to quicken tliem. To such it will be an invaluable volume worth thousands
upon thousands of modern scientific or hortatory essays upon " Religion made easy."

" It is printed by Mr. Draper, at the Andover press, in the old English style, with beautiful
carefulness and skill, and is sent, post paid, to all who remit him one dollar."— Independent.

•' Tlie work is at once a literary curiosity and a theological gem." — Puritan Recorder.

" This little volume, which is brought out in antique type, is, apart from its intrinsic value, a
curiosity of literature. It may be regarded Jis the harbinger of the Protestant Reformation." —
Evening Traveller.

THE CONFESSIONS OP ST. AUGTJSTIN-E. Edited, with an

Introduction, by Prof W. G. T. Shedd. $1.00. calf, S? 2.00.

"In this beautiful edition of Augustine's Confessions, published in the antique style, the
translation has been carefully revised by Prof. Shedd, of Andover, from a comparison with the
Latin text. His Introduction presents a fine analysis of Augustine's religious experience in its
bearing upon his theological system. Both the intellect and the heart of the modern preacher
maybe refreshed and stimulated by the frequent perusal of these confessions." — /nf7«';jem/en«.

" Prof. Shedd has earned our heartfelt thanks for this elegant edition of Augustine's Confes-
sions. The book is profitable for the Christian to study, and we would commend it as a daily
companion in the closet of the intelligent believer who desires to be taught the way to holiness
through communion of the Spirit, Prof. Shedd's Introduction is a masterly essay, which itself
is a volume for attentive reading. It ought to be read before the book is begun. Thorough,
searching, and discriminating beyond the facts it communicates, its instructions and hints are
suggestive and invaluable." — JV. Y. Observer.

" This is a beautiful edition of a precious work. The Confessions of Augustine are so honcRt,
that we easily become enthusiastic in their praise. The depth of )iis piety, the boldness of his
imagination, the profoundness of his genius, his extravagant conceptions, his very strainingand
stretching of philosophical and biblical statements, have all a certain charm which ensure* for
his works an enduring popularity."— iJift. Sacra, ISfiO, p. 671.

" We have long wanted to see just such an edition of Augustine's Confessions. The editor
has done a public service in introducing it ; and its typographical beauty is no small recom-
mendation of it" — Pre^terian, June 23, 1860.

Publications of W. F. Draper^ Andover.

WORKS OP JESSE APPLETOir, D. D., late President of Bowdoin
College, embracing his Course of Theological Lectures, his Academic Ad-
dresses, and a selection from his Sermons, with a Memoir of his Life and
Character. 2 Vols. 8vo. $3.00.

"They will ever form standard volumes in American Theological Literature."— i?i6^caZ
Rejwsitonj, 1837, p. 249.

AUGUSTINISM AND PELAGIANISM By G. F. Wiggers, D. D.
Translated from the German, by Tkofessob R. Emkrson, D.D. pp. 3S3.
8vo. $1.25.

CUD-WORTH'S TREATISE ON IMMUTABLE MORALITY.

8vo. pp. 143. 50 cents.

DR. DODDRIDGE'S LECTURES ON PREACHING. 15 cents.

SELECTIONS PROM GERMAN LITERATURE. By B. B. Ed-
wards and E. A. Tark. pp. 472. Svo. $2.00.

Contents. — I. Introduction by the Translators. — II. The Life, Character, and Style of the
Apostle Paul, by Prof. Tlioluck. — III. The Tragical Quality in tlie Friendship of David and
Jonathan, by Prof. Frederic Ko^^ter. — IV. Tlie Gifts of Prophecy and of Speaking with
Tongues in the Primitive Church, by Dr. L. J. Ruckert. — V. Sermons by Prof Tholuck. \.
The Relation of Christians to the Law; 2. Gentleness of Christ; 3. Fruitless Resolutions;
4. Earnest of Eternal Life; 5. The Penitent Thief; 6. The Presence of God with His Chil-
dren —VI. Sketch of Tlioluck's Life and Character, by Prof Park. — A'll. The Doctrine of
the Resurrection of the Dead, by Dr. L. J. Ruckert. — A'^III. The Resurrection of the Body, by
J. P Lange. — IX. The Litie of Plata, by W. G. Tennemann. — X. Sketcli of the Biographers
of Plato, and of the Commentators upon his Writings, by Prof. Edwards. — XL The Sinless
Character of Jesus Christ, by Dr. C. UUmanu.

GURNET ON THE SABBATH. With Introduction by Prof. Stfart.
12 cents.

"WRITINGS OP "W. B. HOMER. With a Memoir by Prof. Park.
]2mo. 80 cents.

PLUTARCHUS DE SERA NUMINIS VINDICTA. Plutarch on the
Delay of the Deity in the I'unishment of the Wicked. With Notes by H. B.
llACKETT, Professor of Biblical Literature in Kcwton Theological Institution.
l)p. 172. 12mo. 60 cents.

[See a review of this work in Bib. Sacra, p. 009, 1856.]

PUNCHARD'S VIEW OP CONGREGATIONALISM, its Principles
and Doctrines, the Testimony of Ecclesiastical History in its favor, its Prac-
tice and its advantages. With an Introductory Essay by 11. S. Stours, D. D.
Second edition. IGmo. pp. 331. 38 cents.

TYND ALE'S NEW TESTAMENT. The original edition, 152G, being
the first vernacular translation from the Greek. With a Memoir of his Life
and Writings. With Variations and Marginal Readings. 12ino. SLOO.
This is one of the most interesting books — wc say it wUIiout misgiving— ever Usucd from the

American press.— Z?i*. Repository 18-"7, p. 49o.

WINER'S CHALDEE GRAMMAR. Translated by Prof. II. B. Hack-

KIT. 8vo. $1 50.
WOODS ON INFANT BAPTISM. Second edition, pp. 222. 26 cents.

Publications of W. K Drainer.

WORKS OP LEONARD WOODS, D. D. 5 vols. 8vo. S 10.00.

Vols. I., II. and III., Lectures. — Vol. IV., LcUers and Essays. — Vol. V. Essays uud Ser-
tnuus. A new Edition, on superior paper.

JAHN'S BIBLICAL ARCH.ZE30L0a-Y. Translated, with Additions,
by l*iiOK. Thomas C Upham. 673 pp. 8vo. $1.75.

Tills is a standard work in its department. It is a very excellent book for Sabbath School
Teachers and advanced classes. There are probably none superior within the same compass.

VEWEMA'S INSTITUTES OP THEOLOGY. Translated by Rev..
A. W. Brown, Edinburgh. 632 pp. 8vo. Fine Edition. $ 1.60.

" It miist be admitted that Venoma had far more independence, both of thought and style,
than belonged to many of his contemporaries, Tlie perusal of Venema's treatise cannot fail,
■we think, to awaken a spirit of Biblical investigation, and to illustrate the importance of an
accurate and well-balanced theological system."— i?*. Sacra.

" We always feel strong in quoting this profoundly learned writer. In all that is substantial
in Oriental scholarship he was the equal of the modern Germans, while he was far before them
in what may be called Biblical unction, or the power of discerning profound ideas in the Scrip-
tures." — l'}-o/. Tayler Lewis,

HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT OP SPECULATIVE PHI-
LOSOPHY FROM KANT TO HEGEL. From the German of Dr. H. M.
Chalybaeus. With an Introductory Note by Sir William Hamilton.
pp.413. 12mo. $1.25.
" One of the best of the many Introductions which have been prepared to lead the inquirer to

a knowledge of tlte recent speculative philosopliy." — Bib. Sacra.

" Those who are in search of knowledge on this perplexed subject, without having time to

investigate the original sources for information, will receive great assistance from this careful,

tliorough, and perspicuous analysis." — .BiWicai Repertory, and Princeton Review.

VINET'S HISTORY OP FRENCH LITERATURE IN THE
EIGHTEENTH CENTURY, pp.523. 8vo. $1.75.

CODEX VATICANUS. H KAINH AIAGHKH. Novum Testamentum
Graece, ex autiquissimo Codice Vaticano edidit Angelus Maius, S. R. E.
Card. 8vo. $2.50.

Professor Tiscliendorf and Dr. Tregelles ascribe its date as early as to the middle of the
fourth century. It has generally been held to be the most venerable manuscript of the New
Testament. It has been guarded with great vigilance by the authorities of the Vatican. A
thorough collation, even, has never before been permitted, though often sought. The present
work is an exact reprint.

WRITINGS OP PROPESSOR B. B. EDWARDS. With a Memoir
by Tnop. Edwards A. Park. 2 vols. 12rao. $2.00.

These works consist of seven Sermons, sixteen Essays, Addresses and Lectures, and a
Memoir by Professor Park.

ERSKINE ON THE INTERNAL EVIDENCE POR THE

'J'PaJTH OF REVEALED RELIGION. Third American, from the Fifth

Edinburgh Edition, pp. 139. 16mo. 50 cts.

" The entire treatise cannot fail to commend the positions which it advocates to intelligent
and considerate minds. It is one of the best, perhaps the best, of all tlie discussions of this
momentous subject."— Congref/ationnfigt.

" This argument of Erskine for the Internal Evidence of the Truth of Revealed Religion, is
the most compact, natural, and convincing we have ever read from any author."— C/irin. Chrou.

" No man ought to consider himself as having studied tlioolngy unless he lias read, and pon-
dered, and read again, 'Erskine on the Internal Evidence.'" — /;K/<7;e)u/rM«.

THE ANGEL OVER THE RIGHT SHOULDER. P.y the author
of " Sunny Side." ISuio. pp. 29. 2!) cts.

Publications ofW. F. Draper,

DODERLEIWS HAND-BOOK OF LATIN" SYNONYMES.
Translated by Rev. H. II. Au^■OLD, B. A., with an Introduction by S. 11.
Taylor, LL. D. 2sew Edition, with au Index of Greek words. 16mo. pp.
267. 80 cents.

" The present hand-book of Doderlein is remarkable for the brevity, distinctness, perspicuity,
and appositeness of its definitions. It will riclily reward not merely the classical, but the gen-
eral student, for the labor he may devote to it. It is difficult to open the volume, even at random,

■without discovering some hint which may be useful to a theologian From the preceding

extracts, it will be seen that this hand-book is useful in elucidating many Greek as weU as Latia
synonymes." — Bib. Sacra.

" The little volume mentioned above, introduced to the American public by an eminent
Scholar and Teacher, Samuel H. Taylor, LL. D., is one of the best helps to the thorough appre-
ciation of the nice shades of meaning in Latin words that have met my eye. It deserves the
attention of teachers and learners, and will amply reward patient study." — J5. D. Saiiboi-n, late
Professor of Latin in Dartmouth College.

" The study of it will conduce much to thorough and accurate knowledge of the old Roman
tongue. To tlie present edition is appended an 'index of Greek words,' which embraces all
the Greek words contained in the Latin Synonymes, and affords valuable aid in the elucidatioa
of Greek Synonymes."— i?cw<o« Recorder.

POLITICAL ECONOMY. Designed as a Text-Book for Colleges. By
John Bascom, A. M., Professor in Williams College. 12mo. pp. 366.
§1.00.

"It goes over the whole ground in a logical order. The matter is perspicuously arranged
tinder distinct chapters and sections; it is a compendious exhibition of the principles of the
science without prolonged disquisitions on particular points, and it is printed in the style tor
which the Andover Press has long been deservedly celebrated." — 7*nnce<t»i Review.

" This work is one of value to the student. It treats of the relations and character of political
economy, its advantages as a study, and its history. Almost every subject in the range of the
science is here touched upon and examined in a manner calculated to interest and instruct the
reader." — Amherst Express.

" The book is worthy a careful study, both for the views it contains and as a mental training.
The author understands himself, and hHS evidently studied his sulyect well. The style in which
itis put forth also cf>mmeiids it to the reading community."— Evening Express.

" This is a valuable work upon a subject of much interest. Professor Bascom writes well,
and his book makes an excellent manual. His stand-point in the middle of the 19th century
gives it a character quite unlike that of the older works upon the subject." — iJosio/i Recorder.

BUSSELL'S PULPIT ELOCUTION. Comprising Remarks on the
Effect of Manner in public Discourse; the Elements of Elocution applied to
the Reading of the Scriptures, Hymns and Sermons; with Observations on
the Principles of Gesture; and a Selection of Exercises in Reading and
Speaking. With an Introduction by Prop. E. A. Park and RfiV. E. N.
Kirk. 413 pp. 12mo. Second Edition. $1.00.

" Mr. Russell is known as one of the masters of elocutionary science In the United State*.
He has labored long, skilfully, and successfully in that most interesting field, and has acquired
an honored name among the teachers and writers upon rhetoric. It is one of the most thorough
publications upon the subject, and is admirably addressed to the correction of the various
defects which diminish the influence of pulpit discourses. It is already an established authority
in many places." — Literary World.

HISTORICAL MANUAL OP THE SOUTH CHURCH IN AN-
DOVER, MASS. Compiled by Rev. Gkouge Mooau; with a portrait of
Rev. Samuel I'hillips, first Pa.*tor of the Church. 12mo. pp 200. 9 1.26.

" This manual has a value far beyond the promise made In its title-page. Henceforth, what-
ever may befall the records of the South Church In Andover, or even the Church it«elf,—
though both were blotted from the earth,— its history for a hundred and flf>y years is safe. And
In that history is embraced an amount of instruction rorely condensed Into so small a space.
The cntnlogue of members, numbering 2,177, indicates the date and manner of admission —
whether by profession or letter; the date and manner of removal — whether by death, dinnils-
sion, or excommunication; generally the age of the deceased, and. If female* who married
during their membership, the names of their husbands."— Coni/reaationai (^uarltrly.

Puhlications ofW,F. Draper^ A^iclover.

BIBLIOTHECA SACKA AND BIBLICAL REPOSITORY.

E. A. Takk and S. H. Taylor, Editors. Tublished at Andover on the first

of January, April, July and October.

Each number contains about 225 pages, making a volume of 900 pages yearly. This work is
larger, by more than 100 pages per volume than any other religious quarterly in the country.

This Review is edited by Prof. E. A. Park, of the Theological Seminary, and S. H. Taylor,
IAj. D., of Phillips Academy, Andover. Among its regular contributors, are eminent scholars
connected with various theological and collegiate institutions of the United States. Its pages
will be enriched by such contributions from Foreign Missionaries in the East as may illustrate
the Biblical Record ; and also by such essays from distinguished naturalists as may elucidate
the agreement between Science and Religion. It is the organ of no clique or party, but aims
to exhibit the broad scriptural views of truth, and to cherish a catholic spirit among the con-
flicting schools of evangelical divines.

" Questions of philosophy and the analysis of language, of Biblical and literary criticism, of
the constitution and Ufe of the Church of Christ, of practical morality and evangelical religion,
of biblical geography and the interpretation of prophecy, and the relation of Science to Religion,
together with ample literary intelligence, both foreign and domestic," — these make up the
matter of each number, and cannot fail to interest Christian Scholars, Clergymen and Laymen.

Term ».— $4.00 per annum. A discount of 25 per cent, will be made to those who pay
STRICTLY IX ADVANCE, and receive the numbers directly from the office of publication, post-
age UNPAID. "When supplied by agents, $3,50, in advance ; otherwise $4 00.

JPostasre. — The postage is five cents per number, or twenty cents per year, to any part
ofthe United States.

TESTIMONY OF THE PRESS.

The articles, treating of interesting themes useful to the general scholar as well as the theolo-
gian, fully sustam the very high character of this quarterly, which, restricted to no sect and
broad in its range of thought and instruction, has commended itself to the best minds in our
own and foreign lands. [Boston Courier.

This, as is well known, is the great religious Quarterly of New England, if not of the coun-
try, and is held in high estimation in England and Germany as the principal organ of biblical
and philological criticism in the English language.

This work as now conducted, deserves a large and generous patronage from clergymen of all
denominations. [Puritan Recorder.

No Parish is either poor or rich enough, to be able to do without its benefit to its pastor.
[Congregationalist.

INDEX TO THE BIBLIOTHECA SACRA AND BIBLICAL
IlEl'OSrrORY, Volumes 1 to 13 (from 1844 to 1856.) Containing an Index
of Subjects and Authors, a Topical Index, and a list of Scripture Texts. Pa-
per covers, $1.75; cloth, $2.00; half goat, $2.50,

BIBLICAL REPOSITORY, First Series, comprising the twelve volumes
ifom. the commencement of the work to 1838. The first four volumes contain
each four numbers ; the succeeding eight volumes, two numbers each. A few-
Bets only remain.

The Biblical Repository was commenced, at Andover, In 1831. The present Reries ofthe Bib-
liotlu-Ctt Sacra was commenced in 1844. The two periodicals were united in 1851. The volume
of the combined periodicals for the pre«ent year (18CI) is the forty-ninth of the Biblical Repos-
itory and the eighteenth of the Bibliotheca Sacra.

VIETV OF ANDOVER. A finely executed Litliographic Tiew of An-
dover, on a slieet 18 by 24 inches, exclusive ofthe margin.
The sheet contains a view of the Town from the west, and an enlarged delineation of the

Literary Institutions in the border. It will be sent by mail, post paid, on receipt of $1,25.

Publications ofW.F. Draper,

HYMNS AND CHOIRS: OR, THE MATTER AND THE MAN-
NER OF THE SERVICE OF SONG IN THE HOUSE OF THE LORD.
By Austin Phelps, and Edwards A. Park, Professors at Andover, and
Daniel L. Furbek, Pastor at Newton. 12mo. pp. 425. $ 1 00.

This volume describes the true design and character of Hymns; it comments on their rhetor-
ical structure and style; points out the proper method of uttering them in public worghip; and
the most important principles and rules for congregational singing.

"We have read the volume through, from the first line to the last, with an interest unabated,
and a conviction that has only continually increased of the justness and importance of the prin-
ciples it enunciates. The application of these principles in particular cases, whether of hymiia
or of tunes, ia a matter about which there may remain some differences of judgment, even after
80 eloquent and persuasive an argument as is here presented. But the general principles de-
veloped and urged, with a dignity of thought, a sweet and manly Christian sensibility, and
a comprehensive range of knowledge, that liave rarely been brought to bear at one time on such
a theme— as to these, there can be, it seems to us, but one opinion, among those who intelligently
apprehend and ponder them. They are valid and vital, and of vast consequence; and where-
soever tliey are thoroughly applied, in the services both of Praise and of Prayer, the worship
of our Congregational churches will be more rich, attractive, kindling, not only than it now is,
but than that of any church, however venerable, has ever been." — Independent.

THE DEBATE BETWEEN THE CHURCH AND SCIENCE;
or, The Ancient Hebraic Idea of the Six Days of Creation. With an Essay ou
the Literary Character of Tayler Lewis. 12mo. pp. 437. $ 1.25.

" We wish in this notice to state concisely our impressions of an important and remarkable

book The first impression which the volume has given us is of a certain chivalry and

nobleness The next is of a pervading modest;/ An impression equally strong

is that of reverence, Then of extraordinary pa<«e)iee both of thought and composition.

i^xac^ne.'is of reasoning is another undeniable feature of the volume The learn-
ing of the volume, though not paraded in any fulness of notes or references, is yet quite

sufficient for the purposes of the argument One more merit of the volume we mention,

its wonderful sugoestivenexs." — Aorth American Review.

" The work of the author before us is remarkable for much condensed, valuable thought on
nnmerous inquiries pertaining to the history of Creation." — Christian Mirror.

" The subject is one of much interest to the theologian, and if Professor Lewis has really
f^imished him with a weapon wherewith to assault the pretentious adversaries of the Mosaic
liistory, it should be accepted." — The rresbyterian.

SELECT SERMONS OP REV. WORTHINGTON SMITH. D. D.
With a Memoir of liis Life, by Rev. Joseph Tourey, D. D., Professor iu
Burlington College. 12mo. pp.380. 81-25.

" This is a memorial volume of Dr. Smith, late President of the Vermont University, and
was prepared at the request of many of his friends. An interesting Memoir of his Life, edited
by Rev. Joseph Torrey, D. D., Professor of Intellectual and Moral Philosophy, introduces the
Sermons. Dr. Smith was a native of Iladley, Mass., and was for many years ixisfor over a
religious society in St. Albans, Vermont. For six years he officiated as President of the Ver-
mont University at Burlington, which office he resigned in consequence of ill health, and died
a few months afterward. The Memoir is followed by sixteen Sermons on various subjects." —
Bo/iton Daily Adiertixer.

" This brief memoir from the pen of Prof. Torrey sets forth his marked peculiarities as a
man, a Christian, a preacher, and as the head of the University in a practical, useful, and very
readable manner. Valuable hints upon various questions of Congregational polity are thrown
out, in the course of the discussion, and much information of value to ministers it included in
the sketch of this prudent and useful man. Sixteen Sermons complete the volume, showing
Dr. Smitli'fl characteristics as a pulpit laborer."— I'he Congregationalist.

COMMENTARY ON ECCLESIASTES. By Moses Stttabt, ]ate
Professor of Sacred Literature iu the Theological Seminary at Andover.
Second Edition. Edited and revised by R. D. C. Robbins, Professor in Mid-
dlcbury College. 12rao. Nearly ready.

The Introduction discusses the general nature of the book; it« special design and mrlhod,
diction, authority, credit, and general history; ancient and modern versions, and commentaries.
The Comnieatory is strictly and minutely excgctical.

14 DAY USE

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