THE PRESENT OUTLOOK.
"No man can be assured of his own salvation, except he see the same
salvation in the same Saviour for all men, as well as for himself;
which is to love his neighbor as himself."--RICHARD COPPIN.[59]
That the errors connected with what has been deemed the Orthodoxy of
the past are passing away is undeniable. We have been noting this on
every page of this volume. The Christian pulpit and the religious and
secular press are bringing out new confirmations of it continually.
Take two indications; first, the emphatic utterances coming from the
Episcopal Church in England and America. It is Rev. Charles Kingsley
who writes: "I preach to you a Son of God who has declared everlasting
war against disease, ignorance, sin, death, and all which makes men
miserable. Those are his enemies, and he reigns and will reign, till
he has put all enemies under his feet, and there is nothing left in
God's universe but order and usefulness, health and beauty, knowledge
and virtue, in the day when God shall be all in all." It is Canon
Farrar at Westminster Abbey who is awaking deep interest in his
vigorous exposures of the hideousness of the old ideas of a wrathful
God who would punish some of his simple offspring hereafter "without
relief and without end." His volumes entitled "Eternal Hope" and
"Judgment and Mercy," are full of references to the opinions of others
in the past, who have opposed these errors,--although most of them are
not new to readers and students of Universalist literature,--and are
among the harbingers of that coming day when the absurdities which he
assails shall be numbered among the things that were. His admissions
of the force of the arguments of Universalist writers are such as will
awaken new inquiry in many directions, notwithstanding he takes
occasion to affirm of himself most distinctly, "But I am not a
Universalist." We can only say that, if he is not, he is doing no
small share of a work which will tend to make others avowers and
defenders of this faith. Others of the ministry in England, like the
late Dr. Maurice, Rev. Frederick Robertson, and Rev. Stopford Brooke,
have given their testimonies in behalf of these higher and clearer
views of Christian theology. In America, such men as Drs. Holland and
Phillips Brooks, are advocates of the improved theology, the
last-named explicitly affirming his faith in the final salvation of
all souls. Dr. Heber Newton, rector of the Anthon Memorial Episcopal
Church at New York, in his sermon on the death of the late Rev. Dr.
Chapin, said that--
"Dr. Chapin, knowing the feeling of the church against the new ism,
boldly became its preacher, for he recognized its great and noble
mission. That sin had its recompense, he never doubted, but his
doctrine of 'God is love,' was so eloquently preached that the
theologians reconsidered their doctrines of retribution. Even the
Episcopal Church, he says, in recently reviewing the articles,
struck out the one about eternal punishment. When Universalism began
its mission, religion so to speak, had become ossified and rigid,
and it was necessary, to meet the advanced thought of the age, that
some change be made in it. The force that wrought this change,
developed outside of the Orthodox Church, and it has been
instrumental in banishing much of the barbarism and cruelty of
expression which Christians borrowed from the Pagans."
The Presbyterian and Methodist Churches have had their experiences in
the agitation of these questions involving the acceptance or rejection
of the leading points of theology held by them in the past. But the
freest and boldest utterances on this subject seem to have come from
the Congregationalist Churches. Members of the Beecher family have
been quite conspicuous in their allusions to the old and abhorrent
doctrines of Calvinism; as for instance, Mrs. Stowe, in her
"Minister's Wooing" and "Old Town Folks;" her sister Catherine, in her
emphatic saying, that, as this theology is set forth, "there must be
an awful mistake somewhere;" Dr. Edward Beecher, in his "Conflict of
Ages" (a work ably reviewed by Rev. Moses Ballou); and Rev. Henry Ward
Beecher, who has just now affirmed that he will never more preach the
horrible doctrine of endless punishment. After repeating a statement
he had made, that the dogma of endless suffering is the cause of
increasing infidelity, Dr. Edward Beecher says, that "Universalism is
no longer restricted within denominational lines, but is now diffused
more widely than some suspect," that "the preaching of the doctrine is
largely neutralized by a latent Universalism within the walls of
evangelical churches," that some of the clergy "dare not investigate
the dogma (endless suffering) in an impartial, scientific method, lest
they bring themselves into conflict with the creed they are expected
to defend;" and closes thus: "Meanwhile the creed-doctrine of an
endless punishment is seldom discussed from the pulpit, and never
willingly heard by the pews." Significant indeed is the closing of his
volume on the "Scriptural Doctrine of Retribution:" "Even admitting
that the doctrine of eternal punishment is the word of God, it seems
to be forgotten that allegations may be attached to it that shall make
it to be not the word of God, but the greatest falsehood in the
Universe."
At the Congregationalist Convention in Boston in 1865 the difficult
problem came up to be solved, "how they could state what they
themselves had come to believe, without appearing to deny what the
fathers believed." Assembled at the old Burial Hill of the Pilgrims in
Plymouth, they affirmed their adherence to the "substance of the
Westminster and Saybrook Confessions of Faith." To clothe this
"substance" in verbal forms, making it a true statement of the old
theology of Puritanism, and at the same time a living thing of to-day,
would seem to be an undertaking resulting in as great a confusion of
tongues as in any instance recorded in the history of the past. To
keep intact the theology of the past in their churches is an
impossibility.
For, let us understand that the most thoughtful among the theologians
of nearly all the churches are now beginning to feel the force of the
question hitherto hushed down, as it has been boldly asked or even
whispered in the face of the theology of the past: What is the Divine
responsibility in the creation of man? It is the question asked by
Hosea Ballou, in his youth, of his father, a Baptist minister: "Would
it be an act of goodness on my part to create a human being,--had I
the power,--knowing that his existence would prove an endless curse to
him?" a question which the father was unable to answer, and which the
son did not press strongly upon him. This question, though familiar
enough to Universalists and long made a ground of argument concerning
human destiny, has usually been evaded by the supporters of the
popular theology, as beyond the reach of human reason. They have
regarded the inquiry as to the responsibility of God in the creation
of man as irreverent on the part of his feeble offspring. But the
question has been considered and earnestly examined, and the
discussion of it has elicited the most outspoken opinions as to the
result of the investigation.
Rev. W. W. Patton, D. D. of Howard University, has recently spoken
very definitely on this subject, although he acknowledges that it has
not been a legitimate one to be decided upon by the theologians of his
school. He affirms that the Divine reason like our own (we being made
in the Divine image) includes the eternal, unchangeable, and
imperative idea of right, the practical synonym of which is
love,--love being that which always, everywhere, and in all beings,
expresses the right or sums up duty. He reaches the conclusion that
God chooses love as the rule of his activity, that when he creates
rational sensitive beings, by that very fact he put himself
voluntarily into a relation which calls upon him to act upon the
principle of love, which gives them a right to expect that he will so
act.
It is an answer to the question of Abraham, "Shall not the judge of
all the earth do right?" and of Paul, "Is God unrighteous?" In
agreement with this reasoning of Dr. Patton, is that of Rev. John
Miller of Princeton, N. J., who just now affirms:--
"A deformed God is a great light gone out from any religion, and is
the chief ally of infidelity. God is not to be worshipped because he
is powerful, any more than Satan is; but because he is moral. If he
wrongs me in bringing me into being, he is no sovereign to me."[60]
In the same strain comes this testimony from Miss Elizabeth Stuart
Phelps, of Andover, in a late number of the "North American Review:"--
"The Bible meets us squarely upon the deepest and the highest
question which the finite intellect has the right to ask: What,
having made us at all, is God's moral attitude toward us? When he
thrust into space this quivering ball of pain and error, did he mean
well enough by it to justify the deed? Profounder than all our
philosophy, wiser than all our protest, comes the sublime and
solitary answer: 'He so loved the world that He gave his only Son.'
This magnificent reply, which theology has distorted out of its
grand and simple proportions, to which science has refused its
supreme reasonableness, the true human heart and the clear human
head have accepted. The contortions of faith and the malice of doubt
have almost equally united to shake the hold of this great
re-assurance upon the world. The world will have it in spite of
both. The world will have it, because it is the best it can get; and
by all the iron laws of common sense it will keep the best till God
or man can offer it something better."
Even so. Amen!
At the present time the orthodoxy of Andover Theological Institution
is assuming new and strange aspects. During the recent discussions
respecting the invitation to Dr. Newman Smyth to accept a
professorship at the institution, this avowal on the part of the
professors still in their places there is given to the public:--
"It cannot be denied that the doctrines of eternal punishment and of
the judgment have lost their proper place in the teachings of the
pulpit. That method alone can restore them to a reflective age which
refuses to put into them more than our Saviour left in them, and
which brings them into accord with the knowledge of divine truth
which the spirit of Christ is ever developing in his Church.
Christianity educates men to ever higher, broader, more truthful
conceptions of God. The questionings of to-day in Christian hearts
respecting the doctrine of eternal punishment are a consequence of
the elevating and spiritualizing power of the Gospel. The Church
should seek out positions that can be held. It should be in advance
of its enemies."
This change, it is affirmed by the Andover professors,--
"... is a natural development of principles which the New England
theology has especially cultivated. These principles have gained
their rights only by hard conflicts. At every stage the cry of
heresy has filled the air, but they have won the day. They have
banished the dogmas of guilt for Adam's sin, of infant damnation, of
passive regeneration, of the universal perdition of the heathen.
They have been attended all along by concessions,--concession of the
dogmas that all men sinned in Adam, that Adam was their federal
head, that the death of Christ was only for the elect; concession
that 'elect infants' who die in infancy include all such; that we
cannot fix the time when moral agency begins; that none who die
before this point is reached are excluded from salvation; and so on,
through ever-advancing modifications. The path of New England
theology is thus strewn with concessions,--concessions to _an
advancing knowledge of God's Word_, concessions _to truth_!"[61]
Very explicit language, surely. And yet, in direct conflict with it,
there is the fact that the Andover creed, to which all professors of
the institution must give their assent, involves the doctrines of the
Trinity and Vicarious Atonement; that "by nature every man is
personally depraved, destitute of holiness, alike opposed to God; and
that, previously to the renewing agency of the Divine Spirit, all his
moral actions are adverse to the character and glory of God; that,
being morally incapable of recovering the image of his Creator, which
was lost in Adam, every man is justly exposed to eternal damnation; so
that, except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God;
that God of his mere good pleasure, from all eternity, selected some
to everlasting life, and that he entered into a covenant of grace, to
deliver them out of this state of sin and misery by a Redeemer." Yes,
the Andover creed declares there is a final separation from the love
of God, which cannot wrest the erring soul from the grasp of death,
cannot bridge the grave, cannot descend into the depths and bring up
to life and light its own offspring. Christ himself may declare, "I
will draw all men unto me;" the Andover creed says, No! No salvation
for the soul that has entered death's dark realm. No matter that
Christ has the keys of hell, he cannot rescue! No matter that the time
has been foretold when "death and the grave shall be destroyed," when
"there shall be an end of sin," when pain shall no longer pierce and
tears no longer flow; in opposition to all this the Andover creed
tells us, as an essential part of Christian faith, as one of the
inspiring strains of the Gospel message, that "the wicked" whom Christ
came to save, "will awake to shame and everlasting contempt, and with
devils be plunged into the lake that burneth with fire and brimstone
for ever and ever."
How are these theological contradictions to be explained? Infidels are
sneering at this double-dealing; honest Christians are asking, "What
is to be the issue of this conflict? Why do not these religious
leaders state plainly where they stand, and what they would have the
churches accept and affirm as the truth of God?" The question has been
aptly asked, "Is the moral sense at Andover Institution paralyzed? The
situation is perfectly clear to every honest barber, shop-keeper, or
shoemaker, and it makes a hundred infidels where the 'Age of Reason'
makes one."[62] It is a matter for congratulation that the Christian
world has been moved, that its thought has been so largely modified,
and that it is our great honor "to stand at the centre, however men
may hesitate to acknowledge it, towards which these lines of influence
are tending."[63] But why, we must ask, are not these professed
friends of Christian truth in all the churches more in readiness to
acknowledge this indication, and plainly state what they think of it?
Why hesitate and stand in the shadow of their old errors, when it is
so clearly evident that they can be no longer successfully maintained,
and which do not represent their real opinions? Why not say outright,
"We were mistaken in accepting and teaching these doctrines of total
depravity, election, and reprobation, infant and endless damnation,
and have come to see that God is the Father of all men, and that in
all his dealings with his children he will act in strict conformity
with his paternal justice and love?" Are we to conclude that there is
with them the plague of a confused moral sense, which hinders the
honest and prompt avowal, on their part, of the truth of that Gospel
of Divine grace "that bringeth salvation to all men?"
To avoid the admission of the truth of Universalism, there are not a
few who seem disposed to tarry at the half-way ground of the doctrine
of the annihilation of the wicked, as though in these desperate cases
of sinfulness the saving resources of the Infinite love were
exhausted, and God could make no better disposition than this utter
destruction of those created in his own image, and capable of knowing,
serving, and enjoying him forever. Strange that God's children can so
limit his saving love and power! Is there any instance of sinfulness
that cannot be reached by that grace which so much more abounds than
any transgression of men?
Another conclusion which inquirers reach is that of the indefiniteness
in which this question of the ultimate results of the Divine
government is involved. As though, on a subject of such unspeakable
interest as this to every mortal, there could be indefiniteness in a
Revelation involving the truth of man's origin, duty, and destiny! Why
not indefiniteness in this Revelation as to the being of a God and his
attributes, as to man's whole duty, as to the objects of Christ's
mission, as to the immortal existence of _any_ souls? No! the eminent
Christian apostle will teach us all better, as he does in his lofty
assurance of the extent of God's claims on his children and his
paternal interest in them: "For I am persuaded that neither death nor
life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present,
nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature,
shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ
Jesus our Lord."[64] Everlasting thanks to heaven for the definiteness
respecting this great question, which the advocates of Christian
Universalism have constantly maintained. These hesitancies, haltings,
evasions, policies, will have their day, and through them and after
them the truth of the Gospel will find its open avowal and
vindication. Here is the prophecy, years since made by one of the
ablest and worthiest of Christian ministers. "Whoso readeth, let him
understand."
"A few generations more, and the system you have advocated will be
among the things that are only remembered. You will abandon it, but
by degrees; as the truth increases you will begin by first exploding
the old notion that infants are damned, and by avowing the salvation
of all who die in early life. Then you will proceed to reject so
much of your doctrine as to allow that a very small part of mankind,
here and there an individual, will be sent to hell. And continuing
the work, you will at length determine that even these will there
suffer no other pain than the remorse of conscience; next, that
their remorse will be no greater, in degree, than what is
experienced in this world. And finally you will give up the
remainder, first, in confidential whispers among yourselves, and
then, after the common people shall have generally led the way, you
will come out boldly, and preach God as the Father of all and the
Saviour of all."[65]
Many a one not now ready to acknowledge the claims of the faith of the
Universalist Church has this, mainly, as his reason for it, that it
has not been for centuries past the popular faith of the churches in
Christendom. There are great numbers of Christians who have in reality
no more plausible reason why they are not better acquainted and more
in love with this faith. Whenever they have heard it spoken of it has
been in such words as to lead them to regard it as a modern
innovation. Beyond this they have not looked. Convinced of this, they
have not desired to look farther. But they should. A faith making such
pretensions and appeals ought to be looked after. Men are not wise and
humane; they are not lovers of their race and its truest well-wishers
in the Christian sense; they are not in readiness to rejoice in view
of the widest and most thorough dispensation of Divine grace, in the
most extensive and effectual work of salvation through the "One Lord
Jesus Christ," while they regard with indifference the affirmation
which the Gospel makes of this very work with all souls. Is it true?
This ought to be the eager inquiry of everyone professing faith in the
significance of the second commandment, "Thou shalt love thy neighbor
as thyself." Where this love pervades the heart, will not that heart
seek every evidence that can be offered in proof of this most
desirable of all results, the reconciliation of all souls to the
Divine administration, the Divine love regenerating, uplifting, and
glorifying all God's offspring? We press these questions home, without
a word of apology, to every lover of Christ and the Christian cause.
If these hesitating ones of whom we speak would take up the
examination, they would find that some of the clearest and noblest
minds of the past have given their assent to this very faith, and that
the doctrines in opposition to it are not to be regarded as past
questioning when they have been sanctioned by generations involved in
as much mental and moral darkness as most of those which have preceded
us.
Christ came to teach positive truth, and his religion invites the
largest and freest inquiry as to its claims. And so this theology of
the past will be investigated. It is undergoing the process now in
minds and in the midst of institutions where this old conviction of
the superiority and sacredness of the past has been revered as it
never can be again. All the sects are more or less affected with this
contagion of inquiry. It will not be suppressed. To silence it for a
season is but allowing it to accumulate greater force with which it
shall again make itself manifest. Said a speaker, a few years since,
in a Methodist Conference in New York city:--
"What reason can be given for the difference in manifestation of
conviction of sin between our day and the times of our fathers?
Whereas we used to preach to sinners that an endless hell awaited
all who died in their sins, we now leave the fact almost wholly out
of sight. We say we believe that when men thus die they go to a
place of everlasting burnings, where the Almighty tortures them
alive as long as he the Almighty lives. If we believe this, why do
we not preach it now? Why do not our editors write about it, and our
bishops thunder it from their pulpits till the people tremble?"
A brother minister present took exception to these remarks. He thought
that the Christians made by what were termed the "reformed methods" of
the day are as abundant in good works, and their lives redound to the
glory of God full as much as was the case under the machinery of fifty
years ago. "We do not propose to go back on the operation of the Holy
Spirit to-day, because he acts now in ways different from those of
old." A sensible conclusion. The churches are growing,--growing out of
unreasonable doctrines which had their origin in the darkness of the
olden time, and which must vanish away as the full day of Christian
truth comes in to gladden the waiting world.
Christianity will stand all this controversy. It was made to. It is
not only the wisdom and the love, but the power of God, and that
endures and triumphs. It needs of itself no alteration. While it can
suit itself to all the shifting phases of human history, it is of
itself, like its author, "without variableness or shadow of turning."
It has the same fulness and adaptiveness now that it ever had. Says
Rev. Mr. Spurgeon:--
"Men in the days of Whitfield looked back to the days of Bunyan, and
men in the days of Bunyan wept because of the days of Wyckliffe,
Calvin, and Luther; and men then wept for the days of Augustine and
Chrysostom; men in those days wept for the days of the apostles; and
doubtless men in the apostles' days wept for the days of Jesus
Christ; and, no doubt, some in the days of Jesus Christ were so
blind as to wish to return to the days of prophecy, and thought more
of the days of Elijah than they did of the most glorious days of
Christ. Some men look more to the past than to the present. Rest
assured that Jesus Christ is the same that he was yesterday, and
will be the same forever."
Verily so; and what he is, it is our business in the present to
ascertain. How much of his fulness may we now be able to comprehend?
And so again we say, "the world moves," the church moves, the spirit
of the All-wise and Almighty is moving upon the heart of humanity. Man
advances. This is the Divine process. For long centuries there may be
but little, comparatively, accomplished; then a new activity will be
realized. We do not expect to go back to the Dark Ages again. The very
last half-century, as we have seen, has been more marked with progress
than any other before in the world's history. Our own nation has given
signal evidence of this. Our Declaration of Independence has an
increased luminousness at the present hour. That the next half-century
will have equal advancement, we are not sure; but all signs are
hopeful that there will be more growth, continued improvement. One
thing seems evident in reference to our own nation, which is, that the
religion of the Gospel is needed in it more than ever before, to meet
its increasing needs, and to give it strength of character and
permanent life. Truer words were never spoken than those by the orator
at the Yorktown Centenary celebration during the past year:--
"No advanced thought, no mystical philosophy, glittering
abstractions, no swelling phrases about freedom,--not even science,
with all its marvellous inventions and discoveries,--can help us
much in sustaining this republic. Still less can any Godless
theories of creation, or any infidel attempts to rule out the
Redeemer from his rightful supremacy in our hearts, afford us any
hope of security. In that way lies despair! Commonplace truths, old
familiar teachings, the ten commandments, the sermon on the mount,
the farewell address of Washington, honesty, virtue, patriotism,
universal education, are what the world most needs in these days,
and our own part of the world as much as any other part. Without
these we are lost. With these, and with the blessing of God, which
is sure to follow them, we may confidently look forward."[66]
If we are reading the signs of the present and the indications of the
future aright, we readily conclude that it is but early day yet in the
history of humanity,--we mean in its moral and spiritual history.
Gross darkness, fearful wrong, appalling sin yet afflict and demean
it. If we have the gain of the past to encourage us, if we would be
aids in the world's progress, the new instrumentalities of the present
which we possess must be used as though we had full faith in their
power, that is, in the Divine indications that are in them. If the
true millennium is yet afar off, it is advancing. So should we be, not
as children of the night, nor of any darkness of the past, but of the
Christian day, which has had its heavenly breaking, and whose rising
bids us to be risen also, and to be moving on! We are debtors to the
past, how great we can never fully realize. We are equally debtors to
the future. What can we now do for its largest blessing, its permanent
life?
Seeing that these errors, delusions, and wrongs of the past are to be
dissolved, what is the work of the Universalist Church now and in the
time to come? The answer is ready. It is to magnify its office, to
extend the spirit and life of its holy faith. It is false to its trust
if it fail to do this. It is to advance, "strong in the Lord, and in
the power of his might." To boast of its grand conceptions of truth,
its reasonable interpretations of the Bible, of its pre-eminence in
any way, and still to have no quickening power in the work it is
called to do, is not to seek advancement and success, but to court
disappointment and failure.
This highly-favored church, then, should offer to the acceptance of
the world,--
1. A positive faith. At this peculiarly transitional time in the
Christian Church history, great watchfulness and discrimination are
needed on the part of those who are regarded by the majority of the
churches as "liberal Christians," because this word "liberal" is often
quite vague in its meaning and covers very many phases of belief and
unbelief, scepticism, and credulity. A candid and able writer of the
Unitarian fraternity has just given to the public these very timely
and wholesome suggestions:--
"Liberal Christians will make a fatal mistake if they dream of
gaining strength and influence by statements so nebulous and so
universally inclusive that even those who deny all spiritualities
can ally themselves with them, and speak from their pulpits. If they
intend to form a debating club or a school of philosophy, they might
naturally and wisely pursue such a policy. But if they wish to form
a church, with a faith to offer to the world, and a positive and
definite work for a definite end, such a course is self-destructive."
"The effort of liberal Christianity should have been to strengthen
the things that remain. Instead of that, its work has tended too
much to minimize faith and to maximize doubt. Everything has become
the subject of dissection, almost nothing the object of enthusiasm
and trust. That religious body whose supreme function is criticism,
however skilful it may be in special work, will never be a
regenerating power in human society."[67]
Well said. And this leads us to speak directly and freely on the
subject of creeds as connected with all Christian churches, and
especially as involving the policy and duty of the so-called Liberal
churches. We know that at the present time many are cutting themselves
away from old creeds, such as have held them and their ancestors
before them; when there is more religious inquiry abroad than ever
before, and when it is becoming quite fashionable to speak lightly of
all creeds, and to intimate that, on the whole, the church and the
world may get along about as well without them as with them,--perhaps
much better without them. It is well, as this impatience of creeds is
increasing, "to think soberly," if possible, on the whole matter.
What is a creed? Let us "begin at the beginning,"--the dictionary.
Creed comes from the Latin _credo_, and signifies to believe. It is "a
summary of Christian belief, or of the articles of faith. Any
profession of that which is believed; a statement of the articles of
belief, as the _creeds_ of political parties." All religionists have
creeds of some kind; from the most liberal to the most exclusive of
them. Take the most radical "free religionist" you can find, and ask
him, immediately after you have heard him berating creeds and
adjudging all as bigots who would be bound by them, what he believes,
and as surely as he says anything, he will state to you _what_. And
this is his creed, whether he calls it so or not. He might as well
deny that he has a head by calling it something else, or by not
allowing it to have any name. A creed he has, if he believes anything.
The same of all men.
What, then, is the objection to creeds? Why, that the Church has been
full of bad creeds, narrow creeds, unreasonable creeds, contradictory
creeds, creeds dishonorable to God and to humanity. There is no doubt
of this; and the evil still abounds. But what then? Away with all
creeds? You cannot do it. A creed you will have, at last, after all
you have thought and said and done against having one. It is
inevitable.
Most of the creeds of the Church, for centuries past, have contained
doctrines revolting to the common sense and to the holiest affections
of mankind. The Church and the world are outgrowing them, and they
must be put away. There will be no rest nor peace for those who hold
and defend them until they are put away. But what more? Will there be
nothing instead of these falsehoods, in the forms of human creeds? Are
there no TRUTHS to take the place of them? Every reasonable mind
concludes that there are. Better views of God and man will be taken,
more reasonable and scriptural doctrines will be accepted, and these
will go to make up the new creeds. If these new creeds have errors in
them, then there will be new siftings in the controversies that will
be continued on the old apostolic principle, "Prove all things; hold
fast that which is good." Notice; _to be continually questioning_ is
not the great object of Christian investigation. There is something
_to be held fast_. It is that truth which will commend itself to every
man's conscience in the sight of God. This will constitute the
perfected Christian creed at last, just as surely as that "every knee
shall bow, and every tongue confess that Jesus is Lord, to the glory
of God the Father."
Because the churches have not yet the right creed is no reason why
they may not be seeking for it, and may not one day find and adopt it.
We do not mean, of course, that all minds can be alike, but that all
minds will unite in acknowledging certain truths, such as the Divine
Paternity, the Human Brotherhood, the necessity of personal holiness,
the divine and human mission of Jesus, the immortality, holiness, and
happiness of mankind. If these are truths, as we believe they are,
they will constitute a part, at least, of the Christian creeds of the
churches.
To what, then, does this sweeping denunciation of creeds amount? May
not much of it be of very questionable utility and soundness? We know
that good and wise men talk thus. But are good and great men, even,
always sure of being right in their statements and conclusions? One of
our distinguished public men, Mr. Wendell Phillips, said in his
discourse on "Christianity a battle, not a Dream," that the New
Testament was nothing but the New Testament, and that "nothing like a
creed could be tortured out of it,--nothing like Universalism,
Catholicism, or Unitarianism." We have as little faith in the
torturing process as he; but we utterly deny that a Universalist creed
cannot be clearly and undeniably found in the New Testament. We have
already stated a part of it. If the Fatherhood of God, the Brotherhood
of the race, the unceasing obligation of man to love God and his
fellow-creatures, the lordship and mission of Christ the Saviour of
the world, the immortality of all mankind, are not positive doctrines
of the New Testament, then no doctrines, no precepts, no principles
can be proved from it. This is the very question at issue between
Universalists and those who deny that their faith has its foundations
in the New Testament. We are ready to stand on this issue with all who
will meet us there as honest inquirers after truth.
A gifted and highly honored member of the fraternity of Friends took
occasion some time since to speak lightly of an attempt on their part
to "tinker a creed" for themselves. And why might they not do it? If
not satisfied with their present statement of faith they have a right
to search for that which will enable them to make a better one.
Tinkering! What are we all doing in our investigations and conclusions
but just this? Rather poor workmen, most of us; but here, in this
great workshop God has given us, we have a right to keep hammering and
welding away,--a right and a duty to see how perfect a piece of work
we may show as the result of our patient and persistent labor. Newton
deemed himself but a picker-up of pebbles, while the great ocean of
truth lay all unexplored before him. Our best searching will only give
us indications of that truth which is infinite. Yet this is no reason
why we should not be looking for it, and stating it when we think we
have found it. God will accept even our homeliest work, when honestly
done.
"When done beneath his laws,
Even servile labors shine."
So, in reason's name, do not let us be afraid of "tinkering" on
creeds, any more than we should be ashamed to be diggers, hammerers,
furnace-workers and explorers in the fields of science. Truth will
come of it all; truth that shall be worked into a good creed at last.
Universalists have a creed. Its articles, we believe, are reasonable
and uncontradictory, commending themselves to the clearest intellect
and to the holiest affections of mankind. Their principal creed or
"Confession" is a short one, yet remarkably comprehensive. It can be
and is enlarged, and in this form adopted in many of the churches. The
world asks what Universalists believe. They have been in existence as
a sect long enough to tell them; and ought to be in readiness to do
this. Yea, anxious to do it, because of their convictions of the need
of this truth in the understandings and hearts of men. Our Unitarian
neighbors have been much troubled with the fact that many of their own
people, especially their younger ones, have not known what Unitarians
believed,--what were the articles or doctrinal statements of their
creed. Just one thing, surely, that they and others ought to know. If
Universalists have had any defect of this kind, it should cease to be
with them, especially if they have definite convictions of Christian
doctrines such as the Divine Paternity, the Brotherhood of Man,
Christ, the Holy Spirit, Regeneration, Retribution, Forgiveness,
Atonement, Salvation, Immortality. If they have not definite
convictions respecting them, let them say so, honestly, as in the
hearing of all men. Otherwise, let them have a positive creed to state
and defend.
A positive creed, we say. For, to have a creed made up of statements
that are questionable in the minds of its defenders, is to have
anything but a New Testament--a truly Christian creed. The Apostles
had no such creed. Their creed reads thus: "To us there is one God,
the Father, of whom are all things, and we by Him.--Christ is made
unto us wisdom, righteousness, sanctification and redemption.--Now is
Christ risen, and become the first fruits of them that slept.--God
will have all men to be saved and to come unto the knowledge of the
truth. God shall be all in all." With them these were not questions
open for self-settlement in their minds, but truths of which they were
thoroughly convinced, and in the promulgation of which they were most
thoroughly in earnest. This is the Christian ministry now needed, not
a ministry made up of inquirers and sceptics mainly, who are "ever
learning and never able to come to a knowledge of the truth," but of
those who have settled convictions of what the truth of God is, and
who are in readiness to state and maintain a creed which they believe
to be every way in accordance with reason, with the Scriptures, and in
answer to the most earnest and anxious inquiries of the human soul.
"But creeds are binding," says one. Of course they are if we believe
them to be the truth, and are truthful ourselves in the acceptance and
use of them. But _how_ are creeds binding? Erroneous, evil creeds
bring the souls who hold them into bondage. We understand this. But
what about true and good creeds? It appears to us that these give
liberty, aye, the largest liberty. Jesus says, "Ye shall know the
truth, and the truth shall make you free." Who says, in the light of
this statement, that the truth of Christ adopted in a creed tends to
bondage? God's truth, dear reader, is binding on you, and on us all,
according to our convictions of it. What freedom do you desire? That
which will give you indulgence in perpetual scepticism, unsettlement
in regard to anything? Call you this liberty? We regard it as about
the worst of bondage; because we are thus in uncertainty; we have no
permanent habitation in God's love and life. We have, indeed, the poor
liberty of an outcast, but not that of "a child at home." This last is
a liberty which a creed embracing Christian truth will allow us. We
want no greater. It will help us in all our interpretations of God and
His works and ways in the universe which is open before us.
Two considerations, then, we may bear in mind; one is, that of the
reasonableness and propriety of Christian creeds. This indiscriminate
denunciation of them is not wise. It is one of the flurries of the
present age, but will not endure the long run of theological
investigation. Creeds may not all be written, but they will exist,
even with those who denounce them. The logic of fact and human
experience effectually settles this, so that a further superfluity of
breath on this subject does not seem to be really needed. A faith in
the unseen that is most in accordance with nature, human intuitions,
sound philosophy, and the Word of God, is the one after which all
souls may rightfully seek.
Next, of the Universalist creed, let us understand that it is not only
a theological affirmation, but a constant teacher of the most thorough
virtue,--a call to the purest, highest, and most heavenly life. The
Universalist Church needs nothing so much as to be vitalized by its
spirit; the world needs nothing more than this vitality for its
present salvation.
2. And this leads us to speak, briefly, of the true Christian life
which this Church should seek to commend to the world. Here is the
Apostle's direction which opens to us most clearly the practical
influence of the faith of the gospel: "For the grace of God that
bringeth salvation to all men hath appeared, teaching us that, denying
ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously,
and godly in this present world."[68] It is the indwelling heavenly
love, the love which Christianity is ever indicating and proving, that
will find its expression in the true Christian believer. It is the
practical interpretation of that text from John, "We love him because
he first loved us."[69] It is the faith with works, proving its
spiritual vitality. It is at war with sin and wrong; it comprehends
the scriptural statement, "The fear of the Lord is to hate evil." And
it realizes how evil is to be overcome and put away. It aims to live
here and now as it becomes the soul born of God to live, "soberly,
righteously, godly." What words more expressive of its life can be
given? They sum up the whole of the Christian life.
This religion which the Christian Gospel recommends is reverential and
worshipful. The flippant inquiry of atheism of olden or modern time,
"What is the Almighty that we should pray to him or serve him?" it
answers, rationally and emphatically, "The Lord he is God; serve him
with gladness; for he is good, his mercy is everlasting, and his truth
endureth to all generations." Worship is the natural utterance of the
true believer as he looks upward to the Father. Forms of worship are
means by which his adoration finds expression. Monotony, routine,
repetitions, drony formality, will not be in the offering, for the
reason that his whole soul is seeking God, and finds the enjoyment of
his holy presence and ineffable light.
This religion is affectional and emotional. It is intellect awakened
into love; it is sober thought seeking most earnest expression; it is
logic on fire. Those who have no taste for the emotional in religion
have only a partial conception of the most effective expression which
the Christian religion seeks, and in which it may properly and
profitably indulge. The needy, empty-souled, impulsive world-masses
are not to be reached and warmed, uplifted and inspired, by clearly
exact and well-stated and well-worked-out theological problems. The
multiplication table is true, and useful, but we do not look for any
spiritual inspiration in it. The religion that has most blessed the
world is a religion that appeals to and draws out the affections;
that, while it repudiates imprudent zeal and fanaticism, insists on
that earnestness which everywhere meets us in the New Testament
Gospels and apostolic records and epistles; which reaches men's hearts
and convinces them of their need of heavenly aid; awakens the question
asked by the converted soul, "Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?" and
realizes the significance of those apostolic declarations, "Be filled
with the spirit, speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and
spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your hearts unto God the
Lord; giving thanks always for all things unto the Father, in the name
of our Lord Jesus Christ." All this signifies living interest, fervor
of spirit, emotional, wakeful expression.
This religion is, moreover, eminently practical. It is not only ready
to say, "Lord, Lord!" but to do the Lord's work as well. It forecloses
this inconsiderate criticism sometimes heard, "Why all this wordy
demonstration and noise about religion? Good works are of a thousand
times more avail; the best religion is to do good." True, indeed, and
this is what Christianity is constantly teaching. No one taught it
more forcibly than Jesus himself. The parable of the Good Samaritan is
emphatic on this point, that the reputed unbeliever who did good was worthy
of more praise than the most punctilious professor of religion who was
deficient in the essentials of the Christian kingdom,--Justice, Mercy,
and Love. "What doth it profit, though a man say he have faith and
have not works? Can faith save him? For as the body without the spirit
is dead, so faith without works is dead also."[70] But good works do
not exclude these other manifestations of the true religion. "These
ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone."
3. Once more: this religion is reformatory and progressive.
Reformation and progress are words always indicative of the Christian
dispensation with man; the call to holiness and the response to it,
growth in God's grace, new achievements,--never resting in present
attainments, but ever striving with fresh inspiration for new
accomplishments in the heavenly course. Most religions (especially
under the Christian name) have some of these characteristics; but the
religion nearest to that which Christ taught and exemplified will have
them all. To secure the highest blessings of the Christian kingdom,
the churches must be based on the principles, and conform to the
requirements, of this kingdom. The Universalist Church must. Its true
prosperity has been and will be in accordance with its fidelity in
this particular. One of its earnest preachers of the present time has
truly said:--
"Opinions as faith will never serve to build up any Christian
character. There is not a saved soul in any paradise anywhere which
was ever saved by any opinion. It is only when opinions become
faith--become rooted forces of the soul--that they have any
effect."[71]
It should have the Christian missionary inspiration and action, should
open its eyes to the magnitude and glory of the missionary outlook
which no faith short of that of Christian Universalism presents to
every lover of this humanity now groaning in bondage, and waiting "for
the manifestation of the sons of God." It should rise to a new and
grander conception than has been realized by those who have borne to
souls in the darkness of heathenism the limited doctrines of human
wisdom. "Go ye INTO ALL THE WORLD, and preach the Gospel TO EVERY
CREATURE." To no other church in Christendom does this great text of
the ages speak more explicitly than to the Universalist. It has the
truth of the Human Brotherhood, which all the world should understand
and embrace, for which all heathendom is waiting, and to which in the
long run it will come if this favored church is true to its heavenly
calling. That it may be thus true, it is not to deceive itself with
any false ideas of the leavening process which is to go on in other
churches, while it is inclined to do the least and not the most to
keep the leaven in healthy and constant operation. When Rev. Otis A.
Skinner was canvassing New England to raise the first one hundred
thousand dollars for Tufts College, he was met with such suggestions
as this from certain ones who professed friendliness to the success of
his movements: "Is it really necessary to make this attempt to build a
new college? Why not keep quiet, and wait until the time comes when
Harvard College will fall into our hands?" Supposing such
short-sightedness and apathy had prevailed, where would Tufts College
with all its benefits have been to-day? Universalists should be about
their own church missionary business. It is theirs, and no others are
called upon to do it for them. Dr. Edward Beecher, in his "Records of
the Church in the Third Century,"--many of whose members were avowed
believers in the final reconciliation of all souls,--states that they
were among the most zealous and devoted Christians of that age in
personal piety and in active missionary labors. They sent out the
Gospel to the remotest shores of the then known world. Here is the
same world to be reached by the messengers of this very Gospel to-day.
"How shall they hear without a preacher? and how shall they preach
except they be sent?" No corner of the earth is exempt from the
benefits of this message; no means should be left unemployed to send
it forth. Are Universalists acquainted as they might be with the
missionary work that has been already done by the other churches
around them? Are they familiar with their reports and other
publications involving the missionary enterprise, showing what good
they have accomplished in opening the Christian Scriptures and aiding
a Christian civilization in other lands? Do they realize that if these
missionaries have propagated errors in theology, they have cleared the
way in part for a better dispensation of Divine Truth by the
translations of the Bible into other languages, which they have made?
These are important considerations, and Universalists will do well to
act upon them.
As the Lord liveth, the now "open questions" will one day be settled,
and settled on the side of the Divine Beneficence. The love of God in
Christ has come into the world, and will not go out of it until its
work is here done; love that is long-suffering, that rejoiceth not in
iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth; that beareth, believeth, hopeth,
and endureth all things, and that never faileth; love that will bring
the last lost one home, that will obliterate all the hells, and people
all the heavens in the universe.
[59] These significant words of an advocate of Universalism more than
two centuries ago are in striking agreement with those of an advanced
orthodox thinker of the present time. "It should never be forgotten
that in the Biblical philosophy of salvation the life of the
individual is bound up with the life of the whole, and reaches its
fulness and completion only in the liberty for which the whole
creation waits."--"The Orthodox Theology of To-day;" by Rev. Newman
Smyth, D. D.
[60] Article in the "Universalist Quarterly," for July, 1882, "The
Divine Responsibility," by Rev. C. W. Biddle.
[61] Published opinions of the Professors of Andover Theological
Seminary, April 10, 1882.
[62] "Christian Leader."
[63] Rev. A. A. Miner, D. D.
[64] Rom. viii. 38.
[65] Rev. Hosea Ballou, D. D. Reply to Dr. Hawes's Arguments against
Universalism. It was nearly a half-century ago that these words were
written. And now at this very time there comes this echo of them in
confirmation of the truth of the prophecy: "Little by little the pulpit
shrinks from the mediæval theology. Ministers first gloss it by new
interpretations, then they prudently hold it in suspense, then doubt it,
then cast it away." Rev. H. W. Beecher, in "North American Review,"
July, 1882.
[66] Oration of Hon. Robert C. Winthrop at Yorktown, Va., October 19,
1881.
[67] Rev. F. B. Hornbrooke, in Unitarian Review, August, 1882.
[68] Titus, ii. 11, 12.
[69] 1 John, iv. 19.
[70] James, ii. 14, 26.
[71] Rev. James Pullman, D. D.
University Press: John Wilson and Son, Cambridge.