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_The World's Great Sermons_
VOLUME IV
L. BEECHER TO BUSHNELL
THE
WORLD'S
GREAT
SERMONS
COMPILED BY
GRENVILLE KLEISER
Formerly of Yale Divinity School Faculty;
Author of "How to Speak
in Public," Etc.
With Assistance from Many of the Foremost
Living Preachers and Other Theologians
INTRODUCTION BY
LEWIS O. BRASTOW, D.D.
Professor Emeritus of Practical Theology
in Yale University
IN TEN VOLUMES
VOLUME IV L. BEECHER TO BUSHNELL
FUNK & WAGNALLS COMPANY
NEW YORK and LONDON
COPYRIGHT, 1908, BY
FUNK & WAGNALLS COMPANY
_Printed in the United States of America_
CONTENTS
VOLUME IV
LYMAN BEECHER (1775-1863). _Page_
The Government of God Desirable 1
CHANNING (1780-1842).
The Character of Christ 27
CHALMERS (1780-1847).
The Expulsive Power of a New Affection 53
ALEXANDER CAMPBELL (1788-1866).
The Missionary Cause 79
IRVING (1792-1834).
Preparation for Consulting the Oracles
of God 101
ARNOLD (1795-1842).
Alive in God 131
WAYLAND (1796-1865).
A Day in the Life of Jesus of Nazareth 145
VINET (1797-1847).
The Mysteries of Christianity 171
SUMMERFIELD (1798-1825).
The Heavenly Inheritance 189
NEWMAN (1801-1890).
God's Will the End of Life 207
BUSHNELL (1802-1876).
Unconscious Influence 233
LYMAN BEECHER
THE GOVERNMENT OF GOD DESIRABLE
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
LYMAN BEECHER was born in New Haven, Conn., in 1775. He graduated
from Yale in 1797, and in 1798 took charge of the Presbyterian
Church at Easthampton, Long Island. He first attracted attention
by his sermon on the death of Alexander Hamilton, and in 1810
became pastor of the Congregational Church at Litchfield, Conn. In
the course of a pastorate of 16 years, he preached a remarkable
series of sermons on temperance and became recognized as one of
the foremost pulpit orators of the country. In 1826 he went to
Boston as pastor of the Hanover Street Congregational Church. Six
years later he became president of the Lane Theological Seminary in
Ohio, an office he retained for twenty years. In 1852 he returned
to Boston and subsequently retired to the house of his son, Henry
Ward Beecher, where he died in 1863. His public utterances, whether
platform or pulpit, were carefully elaborated. They were delivered
extemporaneously and sparkled with wit, were convincing by their
logic, and conciliating by their shrewd common sense.
LYMAN BEECHER
1775-1863
THE GOVERNMENT OF GOD DESIRABLE
_Thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven_.--Matthew vi., 10.
In this passage we are instructed to pray that the world may be
governed, and not abandoned to the miseries of unrestrained sin;
that God Himself would govern, and not another; and that God would
administer the government of the world, in all respects, according
to His own pleasure. The passage is a formal surrender to God of
power and dominion over the earth, as entire as His dominion is in
His heaven. The petition, therefore, "Thy will be done," contains
the doctrine:
That it is greatly to be desired that God should govern the world,
and dispose of men, in all respects, entirely according to His own
pleasure.
The truth of this doctrine is so manifest, that it would seem to
rank itself in the number of self-evident propositions, incapable of
proof clearer than its own light, had not experience taught that, of
all truths, it is the most universally and bitterly controverted.
Plain as it is, it has occasioned more argument than any other
doctrine, and, by argument merely, has gained fewer proselytes; for
it is one of those controversies in which the heart decides wholly,
and argument, strong or feeble, is alike ineffectual.
This consideration would present, on the threshold, a hopeless
impediment to further progress, did we not know, also, that
arguments a thousand times repeated, and as often resisted, may
at length become mighty through God, to the casting down of
imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against
the knowledge of God. I shall, therefore, suggest several
considerations, to confirm this most obvious truth, that it is
desirable that God should govern the world entirely according to His
own good pleasure.
1. It is desirable that God should govern the world, and dispose of
all events, according to His pleasure, because He knows perfectly in
what manner it is best that the world should be governed.
The best way of disposing of men and their concerns is that which
will effectually illustrate the glory of God. The glory of God is
His benevolence, and His natural attributes for the manifestation
of it, and sun of the moral universe, the light and life of His
kingdom. All the blessedness of the intelligent creation arises,
and ever will arise, from the manifestation and apprehension of the
glory of God. It was to manifest this glory that the worlds were
created. It was that there might be creatures to behold and enjoy
God, that His dominions were peopled with intelligent beings. And
it is that His holy subjects may see and enjoy Him, that He upholds
and governs the universe. The entire importance of our world,
therefore, and of men and their concerns, is relative, and is great
or small only as we are made to illustrate the glory of God. How
this important end shall be most effectually accomplished none but
Himself is able to determine. He, only, knows how so to order things
as that the existence of every being, and every event, shall answer
the purpose of its creation, and from the rolling of a world to the
fall of a sparrow shall conspire to increase the exhibitions of the
divine character, and expand the joy of the holy universe.
An inferior intelligence at the helm of government might conceive
very desirable purposes of benevolence, and still be at a loss
as to the means most fit and effectual to accomplish them. But,
with God, there is no such deficiency. In Him, the knowledge which
discovered the end discovers also, with unerring wisdom, the most
appropriate means to bring it to pass. He is wise in heart; He hath
established the world by His wisdom and stretched out the heavens by
His discretion. And is He not wise enough to be intrusted with the
government of the world? Who, then, shall be His counsellor? Who
shall supply the deficiencies of His skill? Oh, the presumption of
vain man! and, oh! the depths both of the wisdom and knowledge of
God!
2. It is desirable that God should govern the world according to His
own pleasure, because He is entirely able to execute His purposes.
A wise politician perceives, often, both the end and the means; and
is still unable to bring to pass his counsels, because the means,
though wise, are beyond his control. But God is as able to execute
as He is to plan. Having chosen the end, and selected the means, his
counsels stand. He is the Lord God omnipotent. The whole universe
is a storehouse of means; and when He speaks every intelligence
and every atom flies to execute His pleasure. The omnipotence of
God, in giving efficacy to His government, inspires and perpetuates
the ecstasy of heaven. "And a voice came out from the throne,
saying, Praise our God. And I heard as it were the voice of a great
multitude, and as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of many
thunderings, saying Alleluia, the Lord God omnipotent reigneth."
What will that man do in heaven, who is afraid and reluctant to
commit to God the government of the earth? And what will become
of those who, unable to frustrate His counsels, murmur and rebel
against His providence?
3. It is desirable that God should govern the world according to His
pleasure, because the pleasure of God is always good.
The angels who kept not their first estate, and many wicked men,
have great knowledge, and skill, and power: and yet, on these
accounts, are only the more terrible; because they employ these
mighty faculties to do evil. And the government of God, were He a
being of malevolence, armed as He is with skill and power, would
justly fill the universe with dismay. But, as it is, brethren, "let
not your hearts be troubled." With God there is no perversion of
attributes. He is as good as He is wise and powerful. God is love!
Love is that glory of God which He has undertaken to express to His
intelligent creation in His works. The sole object of the government
of God, from beginning to end, is, to express His benevolence.
His eternal decrees, of which so many are afraid, are nothing
but the plan which God has devised to express His benevolence,
and to make His kingdom as vast and as blest as His own infinite
goodness desires. It was to show His glory--to express, in action,
His benevolence--that He created all the worlds that roll, and
rejoice, and speak His name, through the regions of space. It is to
accomplish the same blest design, that He upholds, and places under
law, every intelligent being, and directs every event, causing every
movement, in every world, to fall in, in its appointed time and
place, and to unite in promoting the grand result--the glory of God,
and the highest good of His kingdom. And is there a mortal, who,
from this great system of blest government, would wish this earth to
be an exception? What sort of beings must those be who are afraid of
a government administered by infinite benevolence, to express, so
far as it can be expressed, the infinite goodness of God? I repeat
the question,--What kind of characters must those be who feel as if
they had good reason to fear a government the sole object of which
is to express the immeasurable goodness of God?
4. It is greatly to be desired that God should govern the world
according to His pleasure, because it is His pleasure to rule as a
moral governor.
A moral government is a government exercised over free agents,
accountable beings; a government of laws, administered by motives.
The importance of such a government below is manifest from the
consideration, that it is in His moral government, chiefly, that the
glory of God is displayed.
The superintendence of an empty world, or a world of mere animals,
would not exhibit, at all, the moral character of God. The glory
of God, shining in His law, could never be made manifest, and the
brighter glory of God, as displayed in the gospel, must remain
forever hid; and all that happiness of which we are capable, as
moral beings, the joys of religion below, and the boundless joys of
heaven above, would be extinguished, in a moment, by the suspension
of the divine moral government.
Will any pretend that the Almighty cannot maintain a moral
government on earth, if He governs according to His own pleasure?
Can He wield the elements, and control, at His pleasure, every work
of His hands, but just the mind of man? Is the most noble work of
God--that which is the most worthy of attention, and in reference to
which all beside is upheld and governed--itself wholly unmanageable?
Has Omnipotence formed minds, which, the moment they are made,
escape from His hands, and defy the control of their Maker? Has the
Almighty erected a moral kingdom which He cannot govern without
destroying its moral nature? Can He only watch, and mend, and
rectify, the lawless wanderings of mind? Has He filled the earth
with untamed and untamable spirits, whose wickedness and rebellion
He can merely mitigate, but cannot control? Does He superintend a
world of madmen, full of darkness and disorder, cheered and blest by
no internal pervading government of His own? Are we bound to submit
to all events, as parts of the holy providence of God; and yet, is
there actually no hand of God controlling the movements of the moral
world? But if the Almighty can, and if he does, govern the earth as
a part of His moral kingdom, is there any method of government more
safe and wise than that which pleases God? Can there be a better
government? We may safely pray, then, "Thy will be done in earth as
it is in heaven," without fearing at all the loss of moral agency;
for all the glory of God, in His Law and Gospel, and all the eternal
manifestations of glory to principalities and powers in heavenly
places, depend wholly upon the fact, that men, though living under
the government of God, and controlled according to His pleasure, are
still entirely free, and accountable for all the deeds done in the
body. There could be no justice in punishment and no condescension,
no wisdom, no mercy, in the glorious gospel, did not the government
of God, though administered according to His pleasure, include and
insure the accountable agency of man.
Seeing, therefore, that all the glory of God, which He ever proposes
to manifest to the intelligent creation, is to be made known by
the Church, and is to shine in the face of Jesus Christ, and is to
depend upon the perfect consistency of the moral government of God
with human freedom, we have boundless assurance that, among His
absolute, immutable, eternal purposes, one, and a leading one, is,
so to govern the world according to His counsels, that, if men sin,
there shall be complete desert of punishment, and boundless mercy
in their redemption.
5. It is greatly to be desired that God should rule in the earth
according to His pleasure, because it is His pleasure to govern the
world in mercy, by Jesus Christ.
The government is in the hand of a Mediator, by whom God is
reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing their trespasses
to them that believe. Mercy is the bestowment of pardon upon the
sinful and undeserving. Now, mankind are so eminently sinful, that
no government but one administered in infinite mercy, could afford
the least consolation. Had any being but the God of mercy sat upon
the throne, or any will but His will prevailed, there would have
been no plan of redemption, and no purposes of election, to perplex
and alarm the wicked. There would have been but one decree, and
that would have been, destruction to the whole race of man. Are
any reluctant to be entirely in the hands of God? Are they afraid
to trust Him to dispose of soul and body, for time and eternity?
Let them surrender their mercies, then, and go out naked from that
government which feeds, protects and comforts them. Let them give
up their Bibles, and relinquish the means of grace, and the hopes
of glory, and descend and make their bed in hell, where they have
long since deserved to be, and where they long since would have
been, if God had not governed the world according to His own good
pleasure. If they would escape the evils which they fear from the
hand of God, let them abandon the blessings they receive from it,
and they will soon discover whether the absolute dominion of God,
and their dependence upon Him, be, in reality, a ground of murmuring
and alarm. Our only hope of heaven arises from being entirely in
the hands of God. Our destruction could not be made more certain
than it would be were we to be given up to our own disposal, or
to the disposal of any being but God. Would sinful mortals change
their own hearts? Could the combined universe, without God, change
the depraved affections of men? Surely, then, we have cause for
unceasing joy, that we are in the hands of God; seeing He is a
God of mercy, and has decreed to rule in mercy, and actually is
administering the government of the world in mercy, by Jesus Christ.
We have nothing to fear, from the entire dominion of God, which we
should not have cause equally to fear, as outcasts from the divine
government; but we have everything to hope, while He rules the earth
according to His most merciful pleasure. The Lord reigneth; let the
earth rejoice, let the multitude of the isles be glad. It is of the
Lord's mercies that we are not consumed, because His compassions
fail not.
6. It is greatly to be desired that God should dispose of mankind
according to His pleasure, because, if He does so, it is certain
that there will be no injustice done to anyone.
He will do no injustice to His holy kingdom by any whom He saves.
He will bring none to heaven who are not holy, and prepared for
heaven. He will bring none there in any way not consistent with His
perfections, and the best good of His kingdom; none in any way but
that prescribed in the gospel, the way of faith in Jesus Christ, of
repentance for sin, and of good works as the constituted fruit and
evidence of faith.
Earthly monarchs have their favorites, whom, if guilty of a
violation of the laws, they will often interpose to save, although
the welfare of the kingdom requires their punishment. But God has
no such favorites--He is no respecter of persons: He spared not the
angels: and upon the earth distinctions of intellect, or wealth, or
honor, will have no effect; he only that believeth shall be saved.
The great and the learned shall not be obtruded upon heaven without
holiness because they are great or learned; and the humble and
contrite shall not be excluded because they are poor, or ignorant,
or obscure. God has provided a way for all men to return to Him.
He has opened the door of their prison, and set open before them a
door of admission into the kingdom of His dear Son; and commanded
and entreated them to abandon their dreary abode, and come into
the glorious liberty of the sons of God. But all, with one consent,
refuse to comply. Each prefers his own loathsome dwelling to the
building of God, and chooses, stedfastly, the darkness of his own
dungeon, to the light of God's kingdom. But, as God has determined
that the redemption of His Son shall not be unavailing through human
obstinacy, so He hath chosen, in Christ, multitudes which no man
can number, that they should be holy and without blame before Him
in love. And in bringing these sons and daughters to glory, through
sanctification of the Spirit, and belief of the truth, He will
introduce not one whom all the inhabitants of heaven will not hail
joyfully, as the companion of their glory. And if God does in the
earth just as He pleases, He will make willing, and obedient, and
bring to heaven, just those persons who it was most desirable should
come. And He will bring just as many obstinate rebels to abandon
their prison, and enter cheerfully His kingdom, as infinite wisdom,
goodness, and mercy, see fit and desire. He will not mar His glory,
or the happiness of His kingdom, by bringing in too many, nor by
omitting to bring in enough. His redeemed kingdom, as to the number
and the persons who compose it, and the happiness included in it,
will be such as shall be wholly satisfactory to God, and to every
subject of His kingdom.
And if God governs according to His pleasure, He will do no
injustice to His impenitent enemies. He will send to misery no
harmless animals without souls--no mere machines--none who have
done, or even attempted to do, as well as they could. He will leave
to walk in their own way none who do not deserve to be left; and
punish none for walking in it who did not walk therein knowingly,
deliberately and with wilful obstinacy. He will give up to death
none who did not choose death, and choose it with as entire freedom
as Himself chooses holiness; and who did not deserve eternal
punishment as truly as Himself deserves eternal praise. He will
send to hell none who are not opposed to Him, and to holiness,
and to heaven; none who are not, by voluntary sin and rebellion,
unfitted for heaven, and fitted for destruction, as eminently as
saints are prepared for glory. He will consign to perdition no poor,
feeble, inoffensive beings, sacrificing one innocent creature to
increase the happiness of another. He will cause the punishment of
the wicked to illustrate His glory, and thus indirectly to promote
the happiness of heaven. But God will not illumine heaven with His
glory, and fill it with praise, by sacrificing helpless, unoffending
creatures to eternal torment; nor will He doom to hell one whom
He will not convince also, that he deserves to go thither. The
justice of God, in the condemnation of the impenitent, will be as
unquestionable, as His infinite mercy will be in the salvation of
the redeemed.
If the will of God is done on earth, among men, there will be no
more injustice done to the inhabitants of the earth than there is
done to the blessed in heaven. Was it ever known--did any ever
complain--was it ever conceived--that God was a tyrant, in heaven?
Why, then, should we question the justice of His government on
earth? Is He not the same God below as above? Are not all His
attributes equally employed? Does He not govern for the same end,
and will not His government below conspire to promote the same
joyful end as His government above?
7. It is greatly to be desired that God should govern the world
according to His pleasure, because His own infinite blessedness, as
well as the happiness of His kingdom, depends upon His working all
things according to the counsel of His own will.
Could the Almighty be prevented from expressing the benevolence
of His nature, according to His purposes, His present boundless
blessedness would become the pain of ungratified desire. God is
love, and His happiness consists in the exercise and expression
of it, according to His own eternal purpose, which He purposed in
Christ Jesus before the world began. It is therefore declared,
"The Lord hath made all things for himself;" that is, to express
and gratify His infinite benevolence. The moral excellence of God
does not consist in quiescent love, but in love active, bursting
forth, and abounding. Nor does the divine happiness arise from
the contemplation of idle perfections, but from perfections which
comprehend boundless capacity, and activity in doing good.
From what has been said, we may be led to contemplate with
satisfaction the infinite blessedness of God.
God is love! This is a disposition which, beyond all others, is
happy in its own nature. He is perfect in love; there is, therefore,
in His happiness no alloy. His love is infinite; and, of course,
His blessedness is unbounded. If the little holiness existing in
good men, though balanced by remaining sin, occasions, at times,
unutterable joy, how blessed must God be, who is perfectly and
infinitely holy! It is to be remembered, also, that the benevolence
of God is at all times perfectly gratified. The universe which God
has created and upholds, including what He has done, and what He
will yet do, will be brought into a condition which will satisfy His
infinite benevolence. The great plan of government which God has
chosen, and which His power and wisdom will execute, will embrace as
much good as in the nature of things is possible. He is not, like
erring man, straitened and perplexed, through lack of knowledge or
power. There is in His plan no defect, and in His execution no
failure. God, therefore, is infinitely happy in His holiness, and in
the expression of it which it pleases Him to make.
The revolt of angels, the fall of man, and the miseries of sin,
do not, for a moment, interrupt the blessedness of God. They
were not, to Him, unexpected events, starting up suddenly while
the watchman of Israel slumbered. They were foreseen by God as
clearly as any other events of His government, and have occasioned
neither perplexity nor dismay. With infinite complacency He beholds
still His unshaken counsels, and with almighty hand rolls on His
undisturbed decrees. Surrounded by unnumbered millions, created
by His hand, and upheld by His power, He shines forth, God over
all, blest for ever. What an object of joyful contemplation, then,
is the blessedness of God! It is infinite; His boundless capacity
is full. It is eternal; He is God blest forever. The happiness of
the created universe is but a drop--a drop to the mighty ocean of
divine enjoyment. How delightful the thought, that in God there is
such an immensity of joy, beyond the reach of vicissitude! When we
look around below, a melancholy sensation pervades the mind. What
miserable creatures! What a wretched world! But when, from this
scene of darkness and misery, we look up to the throne of God, and
behold Him, high above the darkness and miseries of sin, dwelling
in light inaccessible and full of glory, the prospect brightens. If
a few rebels, who refuse to love and participate in His munificence,
are groping in darkness on His footstool, God is light, and in Him
there is no darkness at all.
Those who are opposed to the decrees of God, and to His sovereignty,
as displayed in the salvation of sinners, are enemies of God.
They are unwilling that His will should be done in earth as it is
in heaven; for the decrees of God are nothing but His choice as
to the manner in which He will govern His own kingdom. He did not
enter upon His government to learn wisdom by experience. Before
they were yet formed, His vast dominion lay open to His view; and
before He took the reins of created empire, He saw in what manner it
became Him to govern. His ways are everlasting. Known unto God are
all His works from the beginning. To be opposed to the decrees of
God, therefore, is to be unwilling that God should have any choice
concerning the government of the world. And can those be willing
that God should govern the world entirely according to His pleasure
who object to His having any pleasure upon the subject? To object
to the choice of God, with respect to the management of the world,
because it is eternal, is to object to the existence of God. A God
of eternal knowledge, without an eternal will or choice, would be a
God without moral character.
To suppose that God did not know what events would exist in
His kingdom, is to divest Him of omniscience. To suppose that
He did know, and did not care,--had no choice, no purpose,--is
to blot out His benevolence, to nullify His wisdom and convert
His power into infinite indolence. To suppose that He did know,
and choose, and decree, and that events do not accord with His
purposes, is to suppose that God has made a world which He can
not govern; has undertaken a work too vast; has begun to build,
but is not able to finish. But to suppose that God did, from the
beginning, behold all things open and naked before Him, and that
He did choose, with unerring wisdom and infinite goodness, how to
govern His empire,--and yet at the same time, to employ heart,
and head, and tongue, in continual opposition to this great and
blessed truth,--is, most clearly, to cherish enmity to God and His
government.
To object to the choice of God because it is immutable, is to cavil
against that which constitutes its consummating excellence. Caprice
is a most alarming feature in a bad government; but in a government
absolutely perfect, none, surely, can object to its immutability,
but those, who, if able, would alter it for the worse.
To say that, if God always knew how to govern so as to display His
glory, and bless His kingdom, and always chooses thus to govern,
there can be, therefore, no accountable agency in the conduct of
His creatures, is to deny the possibility of a moral government,
to contradict the express testimony of God; and this, too, at the
expense of common sense, and the actual experience of every subject
of His moral government on earth.
From the character of God, and the nature of His government, as
explained in this discourse, may be inferred, the nature and
necessity of unconditional submission to God.
Unconditional submission is an entire surrender of the soul to
God, to be disposed of according to His pleasure,--occasioned by
confidence in His character as God.
There are many who would trust the Almighty to regulate the rolling
of worlds, and to rule in the armies of heaven, just as He pleases;
and devils they would consign to His disposal, without the least
hesitation; and their own nation, if they were sure that God would
dispose of it according to their pleasure; even their own temporal
concerns they would risk in the hands of God, could they know that
all things would work together for their good; their souls, also,
they would cheerfully trust to His disposal, for the world to come,
if God would stipulate, at all events, to make them happy.
And to what does all this amount? Truly, that they care much about
their own happiness, and their own will, but nothing at all about
the will of God, and the welfare of His kingdom. He may decree,
and execute His decrees, in heaven, and may turn its inhabitants
into machines, or uphold their freedom, as He pleases; and apostate
spirits are relinquished to their doom, whether just or unjust. It
is only when the government of God descends to particulars, and
draws near and enters their own selfish enclosures, and claims a
right to dispose of them, and extends its influence to the unseen
world, that selfishness and fear take the alarm. Has God determined
how to dispose of my soul? Ah! that alters the case. If He can,
consistently with freedom, govern angels, and devils, and nations,
how can He govern individuals? How can He dispose of me according to
His eternal purpose and I be free? Here reason, all-penetrating, and
all-comprehensive, becomes weak; the clouds begin to collect, and
the understanding, veiled by the darkness of the heart, can "find no
end, in wandering mazes lost."
But if God has purposes of mercy in reserve for the sinner, he is
convinced, at length, of his sin, and finds himself in an evil case.
He reforms, prays, weeps, resolves, and re-resolves, regardless
of the righteousness of Christ, and intent only to establish a
righteousness of his own. But, through all his windings, sin cleaves
to him, and the law, with its fearful curse, pursues him. Whither
shall he flee? What shall he do? A rebel heart, that will not bow,
fills him with despair. An angry God, who will not clear the guilty,
fills him with terror. His strength is gone, his resources fail,
his mouth is stopped. With restless anxiety, or wild amazement,
he surveys the gloomy prospect. At length, amidst the wanderings
of despair, the character of God meets his eye. It is new, it is
amiable, and full of glory. Forgetful of danger, he turns aside
to behold this great sight; and while he gazes, new affections
awake in his soul, inspiring new confidence in God, and in His
holy government. Now God appears qualified to govern, and now he
is willing that He should govern, and willing himself to be in the
hands of God, to be disposed of according to His pleasure. What is
the occasion of this change? Has the divine character changed? There
is no variableness with God. Did he, then, misapprehend the divine
character? Was all this glory visible before? Or has a revelation
of new truth been granted? There has been no new revelation. The
character now admitted is the same which just before appeared so
gloomy and terrible. What, then, has produced this alteration? Has
a vision of angels appeared, to announce that God is reconciled?
Has some sudden light burst upon him, in token of forgiveness? Has
Christ been seen upon the cross, beckoning the sinner to come
to Him? Has heaven been thrown open to his admiring eyes? Have
enrapturing sounds of music stolen upon the ear, to entrance the
soul? Has some text of Scripture been sent to whisper that his
sins are forgiven, tho no repentance, nor faith, nor love, has
dawned in his soul? And does he now submit, because God has given
him assurance of personal safety? None of these. Considerations of
personal safety are, at the time, out of the question. It is the
uncreated, essential excellence of God, shining in upon the heart,
which claims the attention, fixes the adoring eye, and fills the
soul with love, and peace, and joy; and the act of submission is
past, before the subject begins to reflect upon his altered views,
with dawning hope of personal redemption.
The change produced, then, is the effect of benevolence, raising
the affections of the soul from the world, and resting them upon
God. Holiness is now most ardently loved. This is seen to dwell in
God and His kingdom, and to be upheld and perfected by His moral
government. It is the treasure of the soul, and all the attributes
of God stand pledged to protect it. The solicitude, therefore, is
not merely, What will become of me? but, What, O Lord, will become
of Thy glory, and the glory of Thy kingdom? And in the character
of God, these inquiries are satisfactorily answered. If God be
glorified, and His kingdom upheld and made happy, the soul is
satisfied. There is nothing else to be anxious about; for individual
happiness is included in the general good, as the drop is included
in the ocean.
CHANNING
THE CHARACTER OF CHRIST
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
WILLIAM ELLERY CHANNING, the famous Unitarian divine, was born
at Newport, R. I., in 1780. He took his degree at Harvard in
1798, studied theology and was ordained pastor of the Federal
Street Church in Boston, 1803. He has been called the Apostle of
Unitarianism, because he was first among the orthodox divines of
New England to give Unitarianism a clear, dogmatic expression, as
he did in a sermon preached at the ordination of Jared Sparks, in
opposition to the current Calvinism of the day. But he hated the
controversy in which the publication of his views involved him and
professed in 1841, "I am little of a Unitarian and stand aloof
from all but those who strive and pray for clearer light." He had
made the acquaintance of Wordsworth and Coleridge on his visit to
England, and the latter justly described him as one who had "the
love of wisdom and the wisdom of love." He was a voluminous writer
on theological and literary subjects and what he wrote was vigorous,
of fastidious taste and fired with moral earnestness. He died in
1842.
CHANNING
1780-1842
THE CHARACTER OF CHRIST
_This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased_.--Matthew xvii.,
5.
The character of Christ may be studied for various purposes. It
is singularly fitted to call forth the heart, to awaken love,
admiration, and moral delight. As an example it has no rival. As
an evidence of His religion perhaps it yields to no other proof;
perhaps no other has so often conquered unbelief. It is chiefly to
this last view of it that I now ask your attention. The character
of Christ is a strong confirmation of the truth of His religion.
As such I would now place it before you. I shall not, however,
think only of confirming your faith; the very illustrations which I
shall adduce for this purpose will show the claims of Jesus to our
reverence, obedience, imitation, and fervent love.
The more we contemplate Christ's character as exhibited in the
gospel, the more we shall be impressed with its genuineness and
reality. It was plainly drawn from the life. The narratives of
the evangelists bear the marks of truth perhaps beyond all other
histories. They set before us the most extraordinary being who ever
appeared on earth, and yet they are as artless as the stories of
childhood. The authors do not think of themselves. They have plainly
but one aim, to show us their Master; and they manifest the deep
veneration which He inspired by leaving Him to reveal Himself, by
giving us His actions and sayings without comment, explanation, or
eulogy.
You see in these narratives no varnishing, no high coloring, no
attempts to make His actions striking or to bring out the beauties
of His character. We are never pointed to any circumstance as
illustrative of His greatness. The evangelists write with a calm
trust in His character, with a feeling that it needed no aid from
their hands, and with a deep veneration, as if comment or praise of
their own were not worthy to mingle with the recital of such a life.
It is the effect of our familiarity with the history of Jesus that
we are not struck by it as we ought to be. We read it before we are
capable of understanding its excellence. His stupendous works become
as familiar to us as the events of ordinary life, and His high
offices seem as much matters of course as the common relations which
men bear to each other.
On this account it is fit for the ministers of religion to do what
the evangelists did not attempt, to offer comments on Christ's
character, to bring out its features, to point men to its higher
beauties, to awaken their awe by unfolding its wonderful majesty.
Indeed, one of our most important functions as teachers is to
give freshness and vividness to truths which have become worn, I
had almost said tarnished, by long and familiar handling. We have
to fight with the power of habit. Through habit men look on this
glorious creation with insensibility, and are less moved by the
all-enlightening sun than by a show of fireworks. It is the duty of
a moral and religious teacher almost to create a new sense in men,
that they may learn in what a world of beauty and magnificence they
live. And so in regard to Christ's character; men become used to it
until they imagine that there is something more admirable in a great
man of their own day, a statesman or a conqueror, than in Him the
latchet of whose shoes statesmen and conquerors are not worthy to
unloose.
In this discourse I wish to show that the character of Christ, taken
as a whole, is one which could not have entered the thoughts of man,
could not have been imagined or feigned; that it bears every mark of
genuineness and truth; that it ought therefore to be acknowledged as
real and of divine origin.
It is all-important, my friends, if we would feel the force of this
argument, to transport ourselves to the times when Jesus lived. We
are very apt to think that He was moving about in such a city as
this, or among a people agreeing with ourselves in modes of thinking
and habits of life. But the truth is, he lived in a state of society
singularly remote from our own.
Of all the nations the Jewish was the most strongly marked. The Jew
hardly felt himself to belong to the human family. He was accustomed
to speak of himself as chosen by God, holy, clean; whilst the
Gentiles were sinners, dogs, polluted, unclean. His common dress,
the phylactery on his brow or arm, the hem of his garment, his food,
the ordinary circumstances of his life, as well as his temple, his
sacrifices, his ablutions, all held him up to himself as a peculiar
favorite of God, and all separated him from the rest of the world.
With other nations he could not eat or marry. They were unworthy
of his communion. Still, with all these notions of superiority he
saw himself conquered by those whom he despised. He was obliged to
wear the shackles of Rome, to see Roman legions in his territory, a
Roman guard near his temple, and a Roman tax-gatherer extorting, for
the support of an idolatrous government and an idolatrous worship,
what he regarded as due only to God. The hatred which burned in the
breast of the Jew toward his foreign oppressor perhaps never glowed
with equal intenseness in any other conquered state.
He had, however, his secret consolation. The time was near, the
prophetic age was at hand, when Judea was to break her chains and
rise from the dust. Her long-promised king and deliverer was near,
and was coming to wear the crown of universal empire. From Jerusalem
was to go forth His law, and all nations were to serve the chosen
people of God. To this conqueror the Jews indeed ascribed the office
of promoting religion; but the religion of Moses, corrupted into
an outward service, was to them the perfection of human nature.
They clung to its forms with the whole energy of their souls. To
the Mosaic institution they ascribed their distinction from all
other nations. It lay at the foundation of their hopes of dominion.
I believe no strength of prejudice ever equalled the intense
attachment of the Jew to his peculiar national religion. You may
judge of its power by the fact of its having been transmitted
through so many ages, amidst persecution and sufferings which would
have subdued any spirit but that of a Jew. You must bring these
things to your mind. You must place yourselves in the midst of this
singular people.
Among this singular people, burning with impatient expectation,
appeared Jesus of Nazareth. His first words were, "Repent, for
the kingdom of heaven is at hand." These words we hear with little
emotion; but to the Jews, who had been watching for this kingdom for
ages, and who were looking for its immediate manifestation, they
must have been awakening as an earthquake. Accordingly we find Jesus
thronged by multitudes which no building could contain. He repairs
to a mountain, as affording him advantages for addressing the crowd.
I see them surrounding Him with eager looks, and ready to drink in
every word from His lips. And what do I hear? Not one word of Judea,
of Rome, of freedom, of conquest, of the glories of God's chosen
people, and of the thronging of all nations to the temple on Mount
Zion.
Almost every word was a death-blow to the hopes and feelings
which glowed through the whole people, and were consecrated under
the name of religion. He speaks of the long-expected kingdom of
heaven; but speaks of it as a felicity promised to, and only to be
partaken of by, the humble and pure in heart. The righteousness of
the Pharisees, that which was deemed the perfection of religion,
and which the new deliverer was expected to spread far and wide,
He pronounces worthless, and declares the kingdom of heaven, or of
the Messiah, to be shut against all who do not cultivate a new,
spiritual, and disinterested virtue.
Instead of war and victory He commands His impatient hearers to
love, to forgive, to bless their enemies; and holds forth this
spirit of benignity, mercy, peace, as the special badge of the
people of the true Messiah. Instead of national interests and
glories, he commands them to seek first a spirit of impartial
charity and love, unconfined by the bounds of tribe or nation, and
proclaims this to be the happiness and honor of the reign for which
they hoped. Instead of this world's riches, which they expected
to flow from all lands into their own, He commands them to lay up
treasures in heaven, and directs them to an incorruptible, immortal
life, as the true end of their being.
Nor is this all. He does not merely offer himself as a spiritual
deliverer, as the founder of a new empire of inward piety and
universal charity; He closes with language announcing a more
mysterious office. "Many will say unto Me in that day, Lord,
Lord, have we not prophesied in Thy name, and in Thy name done
many wonderful works? And then will I profess unto them, I never
knew you; depart from Me, ye that work iniquity." Here I meet
the annunciation of a character as august as it must have been
startling. I hear Him foretelling a dominion to be exercised in the
future world. He begins to announce, what entered largely into His
future teaching, that His power was not bounded to this earth. These
words I better understand when I hear Him subsequently declaring
that, after a painful death, He was to rise again and ascend to
heaven, and there, in a state of preeminent power and glory, was to
be the advocate and judge of the human race.
Such are some of the views given by Jesus, of His character and
reign, in the Sermon on the Mount. Immediately afterwards I hear
another lesson from Him, bringing out some of these truths still
more strongly. A Roman centurion makes application to Him for the
cure of a servant whom he particularly valued; and on expressing,
in a strong manner, his conviction of the power of Jesus to heal at
a distance, Jesus, according to the historian, "marvelled, and said
to those that followed, Verily I say unto you, I have not found so
great faith in Israel; and I say unto you, that many shall come from
the east and west, and shall sit down with Abraham, and Isaac, and
Jacob in the kingdom of heaven; but the children of the kingdom"
(that is, the Jews) "shall be cast out."
Here all the hopes which the Jews had cherished of an exclusive or
peculiar possession of the Messiah's kingdom were crushed; and the
reception of the despised Gentile world to all His blessings, or, in
other words, the extension of His pure religion to the ends of the
earth, began to be proclaimed.
Here I pause for the present, and I ask you whether the character
of Jesus be not the most extraordinary in history, and wholly
inexplicable on human principles. Review the ground over which we
have gone. Recollect that He was born and grew up a Jew in the midst
of Jews, a people burning with one passion, and throwing their whole
souls into the expectation of a national and earthly deliverer.
He grew up among them in poverty, seclusion, and labors fitted to
contract His thoughts, purposes, and hopes; and yet we find Him
escaping every influence of education and society. We find Him as
untouched by the feelings which prevailed universally around Him,
which religion and patriotism concurred to consecrate, which the
mother breathed into the ear of the child, and which the teacher of
the synagog strengthened in the adult, as if He had been brought up
in another world. We find Him conceiving a sublime purpose, such
as had never dawned on sage or hero, and see Him possessed with a
consciousness of sustaining a relation to God and mankind, and of
being invested with powers in this world and the world to come, such
as had never entered the human mind. Whence now, I ask, came the
conception of this character?
Will any say it had its origin in imposture; that it was a
fabrication of a deceiver? I answer, the character claimed by Christ
excludes this supposition by its very nature. It was so remote
from all the ideas and anticipations of the times, so unfit to
awaken sympathy, so unattractive to the heathen, so exasperating
to the Jew, that it was the last to enter the mind of an impostor.
A deceiver of the dullest vision must have foreseen that it would
expose him to bitter scorn, abhorrence, and persecution, and that he
would be left to carry on his work alone, just as Jesus always stood
alone and could find not an individual to enter into His spirit and
design. What allurements an unprincipled, self-seeking man could
find to such an enterprise, no common ingenuity can discover.
I affirm next that the sublimity of the character claimed by
Christ forbids us to trace it to imposture. That a selfish,
designing, depraved mind could have formed the idea and purpose
of a work unparalleled in beneficence, in vastness, and in moral
grandeur, would certainly be a strange departure from the laws of
the human mind. I add, that if an impostor could have lighted on
the conception of so sublime and wonderful a work as that claimed
by Jesus, he could not, I say, he could not have thrown into his
personation of it the air of truth and reality. The part would have
been too high for him. He would have overacted it or fallen short
of it perpetually. His true character would have rebelled against
his assumed one. We should have seen something strained, forced,
artificial, awkward, showing that he was not in his true sphere. To
act up to a character so singular and grand, and one for which no
precedent could be found, seems to me utterly impossible for a man
who had not the true spirit of it, or who was only wearing it as a
mask.
Now, how stands the case with Jesus? Bred a Jewish peasant or
carpenter, He issues from obscurity, and claims for Himself a divine
office, a superhuman dignity, such as had not been imagined; and in
no instance does He fall below the character. The peasant, and still
more the Jew, wholly disappears.